I read a lot of comments calling for the CIA and FBI to be abolished. That’s all well and good, but just a few questions.
Who are you going to get to find the next Osama bin Laden? Or for that matter who will gather the intelligence needed to thwart dozens of terrorist attacks since 9/11/01 that the Agency was able to do? Or who you going to get to put themselves in danger to gather the evidence that the Soviets were cheating on a major nuclear agreement? Who you going to get to provide senior decision-makers with intelligence about the intentions of foreign leaders and adversaries. Who are you going to get to provide you with actionable intelligence on imminent terrorist threats using WMDs, so our Special Operators can prevent it, as the Agency has done? To name just a few important questions you need to answer before disbanding the CIA.
Has the Agency ever done some stupid stuff, made mistakes over the years? Absolutely, and they’ve been held accountable. The Agency’s successes far outnumber mistakes or any blatant misconduct (misconduct which is normally committed by political appointees and other high level bureaucrats and some currying favor, not the front line people putting their rear-ends on the line every day). You never hear about the successes, if you did they wouldn’t be a success. But they are numerous.
Intelligence work isn’t a science, it’s an art. Rarely is intelligence collected that tells us the where, when, what, and how. it provides ‘indications’, ‘probabilities’, ‘trends’, and often times ‘best guesses’.
Is the Agency guilty of everything they’ve been accused of? Absolutely not, not even close. Ever heard the term “disinformation”? It’s something our enemies are very adept at. Plant a story implying Agency misconduct and just let it grow wings! The ‘mainstream media’ is bad enough, but with the advent of social media “a lie can travel around the world before the truth can put on its shoes”. There are hundreds of podcasters and websites out there now (anyone can do it), who haven’t a clue what they’re talking about, but they claim some expertise they don’t have, and they spew out garbage from supposed “reliable sources”, “someone in the know” (none that are ever identified). Unfortunately people pass it around without having a clue if it’s true or not. If it fits their own preconceived notions, they hit the ‘share’ button, it’s easier than investigating to find out the accuracy.
The Agency is an easy target, since by virtue of what it does much of what it does has to be kept secret. If the American public knew everything the Agency was doing, so would our enemies. We wouldn’t have a very effective intelligence capability if everybody in the world knew what the Agency was doing to try to protect America.
How about the FBI? You want to abolish the FBI then answer me this. Who you going to get to investigate and arrest pedophile and human trafficking rings operating in the U.S., like my friend Bob did, and his son is doing right now? Who you going to get to catch Russian, Chinese, North Korean, Iranian spies (and others), and the American turncoats who are working with them? Who you going to get to identify and arrest multinational gangs infiltrating the U.S.? Who you going to get to investigate the countless other federal crimes impacting Americans daily lives? Who you going to get to find and arrest the D.C. sniper, as my friend Tim helped to do? Who you going to get to investigate terrorist cells operating inside this country? Tell me, I’ll wait.
Has the FBI done some stupid stuff over the years? Absolutely. But the good they have done on behalf of the American people far outweighs what misconduct has been done by mostly senior officials, and brown-nosers.
Does the Intelligence Community, which the CIA and FBI belong to need a major overhaul and housecleaning? Absolutely. But throwing out the tens of thousands of highly trained, experienced professionals in a hissy fit isn’t the answer.
I remember the ‘purge’ of experienced Agency Case Officers that happened when Jimmy Carter hired a naval admiral, Stansfield Turner as his CIA director. A man with no intelligence experience who believed that America’s intelligence needs could be met with all of our high tech capabilities. (High tech satellites can’t tell you what a foreign leader is thinking or intending. Only human intelligence professionals can do that.) I remind people that Afghanistan was invaded by Russia, and Iran took our embassy hostage, just to name a couple of things that happened during the Carter years
‘The’ CIA and ‘the’ FBI do nothing, individuals within those organizations do things. Both good (mostly) and bad. Neither organization is inherently bad. They both are full of patriotic Americans doing the hard work in the trenches to keep this country safe.
Hopefully there will be constructive changes made in the future. But if you’re determined to dismantle and abolish both organizations, then answer the questions I posed above. Otherwise put a sock in it, you don’t know what you’re talking about.