“Intelligence” as Guessing
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Oh, for time travel to go back and revise actions.
Since four days ago even I could tell they were being rolled over, they’re probably mangling the predictions, like usual.
Assuming that they weren’t doing the also popular “make things up and attribute it to the Unnamed Sources” game.
Since I have personally had this discussion with my then office when I was still in military intel, and our best case was 30 days, I call bullshit.
This post should have been combined with the one of Biden declaring there’s no way the talisman will take things over.
I have a friend who lived as a freelance correspondent journalist in Kabul for 6 years (much to the dismay of her father who wondered why she picked Afghanistan
of all places to freelance!)…I recall in catch-ups with her telling me she loved it there…loved the people…She returned in 2018 for many reasons, one which was because it was becoming increasingly unsafe to stay living and working there as a foreigner. That’s over 3 years ago now…
See Reuel Marc Gerecht on his experience in the employ of the CIA. They promote people, per Gerecht, on the basis of the number of ‘sources’ they ‘develop’, without posing the question of whether the sources ever tell the agency anything useful. This is the agency which hired and promoted (often repeatedly) the likes of Philip Agee, Frank Snepp, Aldrich Ames, Michael Scheuer, John Brennan, and Philip Giraldi.
https://twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/1426896604464877570
Clueless or mendacious, who can say?
Mr. Milley was promoted to Colonel in 2003 and to Brigadier in 2007. Cannot help but note that commentary on the Spencer Rapone affair identified a breakdown in discipline at West Point under the supervision of officials who arrived at their jobs some time around 2004 / 05. The military was already being used as a toy theatre for social experimentation during the Clinton years (recall the complaints about DACOWITS ca. 2001). It appears there was some sort of institutional and cultural unraveling which began during the 1st Bush administration.
Maybe the last time US intel, like the US Fed, got anything right was 1913?
During the Sepoy Mutiny, British B/G John Nicholson, who deployed Pathans and Sikhs as light cavalry and scouts against the Sepoys in and around Delhi, said Afghans were, “the most vicious and blood thirsty race in existence.” He was legendary for such acts, an observer noted, “He was the very incarnation of violence.” He was a great swordsman and rider. He failed likely because he did not work or hold sessions with his Pathans and Sikhs on CRT and white privilege. He was KIA in the fighting.
I imagine that it was a case of the intelligence apparatus telling higherups, both in the military and political branches (Trump/Biden adms), what they wanted to hear: common in many organizations, disastrous in the military/political context.