Buttressed perhaps by the oft demonstrated perspicacity of you, gentle readers, who continue to grace me with your presence, I have dared to consider myself a man of at least average intelligence. But try though I might there are things that I nevertheless have a problem trying to grok. When, for example, confronted with evidence that allies of ours narrowly avoid a disaster that might have – that was clearly intended to have – claimed hundreds of lives, there are those who would airily wish it all away.
There is no threat from terrorism, they will say. Neither you, nor any of you, is any kind of danger. Things you hear to the contrary are designed only to frighten you. Step away from the window. There is nothing there to see. Go back to sleep.
The most famous Pollyanna to lately fill this role is one Larry C. Johnson. He is an often quoted “veteran CIA agent,” which makes him an authority, of course.
But you must be careful when you quote a CIA agent, it can be a real mine field. Depending on the context, they are either evil men who sought to poison Castro, strangle legitimate, popular resistance movements in Latin America, incompetents who missed all the signs that Saddam Hussein was massing across the Kuwaiti border for an assault, undercover keystone cops clueless about Indian and Pakistan nukes, hapless bureaucrats caught flat-footed on the topic of terrorists seizing airliners for fatal rendezvous with skyscrapers or toadying nincompoops who totally pooched the evidence on WMD, thereby allowing Bu$hitler to lead us into Iraq for oil, or something. Or if not these things, they are brave public servants speaking truth to power and getting all screwed over for it.
It’s all about whose ox is being gored, you see. Sometimes it helps to have a scorecard.
Johnson it was anyway who famously declared back in July of 2001 – some two months before Islamist terror attacks claimed 3000 innocent lives in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, at a time when all the clandestine world was aflame with rumors of “something wicked” this way coming – that it was all a bunch of stuff and nonsense:
“Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.
“None of these beliefs are based in fact. … While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.”
Less confident men would have taken such an inauspicious, broadly broadcast and poorly timed pronouncement as an opportunity to retire for a brief interval from the public view, but Johnson is not one such as they. For his courage he is much applauded in those quarters wherein acknowledging the possibility of a terrorist threat of any stature anywhere is apparently tantamount to agitating for a third term for George W. Bush hisself.
This is madness.
It is well within the realm of sensible debate to say that our current prosecution of the war on terror is counter-productive, or that the benefits are not proportional to the costs and that our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are only fueling a simmering hatred against the West. It is possible to debate the point as to whether the kind of butchery on offer in London and Glasgow – lamentable though it might be – is on entirely too small a scale to be permitted to fundamentally affect our civilization, that two or three hundred deaths at a time might be the price we have to pay for the libertine excesses that our society tolerates – dance clubs at 2AM, for God’s sake – in the name of greater freedom for the rest of us.
I would argue those points on merits, even while conceding that they are at least defensible.
But to witness a plot unravel – a plot that was deadly serious according to the on-scene experts, and which resulted in an allied state led by a labor government to go to its highest level of defensive readiness – but then wish it all away because it ill comports with a pre-existing and partisan world view in which all the world’s problems can solved by blaming it on Bu$h for another 18 months because that suits the dominant narrative… this?
This, I cannot grok.
Update: Reading this afterwards, it appears clear to me that I could be interpreted as being overly harsh on the good folks at Langley – I added this in comments:
I probably came off as being too hard on our CIA friends. They’re mostly great people trying their best to do an almost impossible job – connect the dots, when the dots rarely have a pattern at all, and increasingly we’re drowning in dots.
My larger issue had to do with people who can simultaneously hold the point of view that the CIA is either evil incarnate in a corporate sense, or angels fallen from heaven as individuals, so long as the interpretation suits their own policy preferences. It’s absurd.
Johnson and the Kos kids are idiots. I’ve got news for Mr. Johnson; I too have seen a propane tank explode, and they do have enough power to tear through a car a mess people up.
In fact, I’ve heard from reliable sources (a cousin who spent a year in Mosul with the Army running patrols and who by the way just got home last week) that one of the new favorite weapons of the terrorists in Iraq are propane canisters of the sort used in firing the backyard grill.
Jim C
No comment.
Good one FbL!!
The Brits are still in the “Phony War” stage. They’ll need another Dunkirk to make them cowboy up. Not to worry, it’s just around the corner.
Our domestic braying asses are the price we pay for not having crucified the SANE freeze idiots, and the bonifide traitors at the end of the cold war. They have lived to piss & moan another day.
Like that Kipling dude said, “The fool’s finger wobbles back to the fire.”
The ignorance just astounds me! I picture these people with their eyes closed, fingers in their ears and humming, lest they be distracted from their crusade by a stray fact. I’m so very disappointed and ashamed that my countrymen keep going lower & lower and getting dumber! They embarrass and frighten me, especially those who think they’re leaders. They’re certainly not mine.
We can only wait and watch until the country catches us. Knowing that Germany was rearming and the Japanese were fortifying the outer Pacific Islands was not actionable information in 1937. In 1942, well, different story.
The growing threat will be faced. We are choosing right now not to fight while victory would be easy. I continue to hope that action will be taken while victory is still possible.
To quote Winston Churchill: ?
We can only wait and watch until the country catches us. Knowing that Germany was rearming and the Japanese were fortifying the outer Pacific Islands was not actionable information in 1937. In 1942, well, different story.
The growing threat will be faced. We are choosing right now not to fight while victory would be easy. I continue to hope that action will be taken while victory is still possible.
To quote Winston Churchill: “If you will not fight when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”
Mr. Johnson’s “expertise” notwithstanding, it appears that the intent was a fuel-air explosive.
These are fairly powerful, and have been around for a long time.
Here’s a demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9xCgNdZPKk
“You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves,” speaks to values that I’m not certain still exist among the ranks of the crowd who’ve their head in the sands. The very thought of fighting, actual fighting, is anathema to them. They’ll fight in court and they’ll write letters and march in the streets and otherwise complain loudly, like a spoiled child that doesn’t get his way, but fight? Risk life and limb? I’m not certain that group would fight for their own lives, let alone those of others.
– Max
[quote]This is madness.[/quote]
No. This is LIBERAL AMERICA.
…
Had to. And I never even saw the damn movie.
It would have been better in the long run if these bombs did go off. Not for the would be victims obviously. But the longer Europe can maintain the illusion that “we won’t get hit, just a fluke” the more victims it’s going to need to rouse the dogs of war*. And the more vicious it’s response is gonna be.
*Europe has rich and long history of bloodshed, a continuing peace existed only for the last 50 years. It takes significantly longer than that to make a really peaceful people.
Most CIA folks I’ve met, albeit pre-911, are for the most part simply geeks at the management/analyst level. Only 4 years actually with the CIA? Hell, a LTJG has more experience in his occupation and we all know the breadth and experience JGs have! LOL. This Johnson seems to fall into that category..however a man has to make a living I reckon..Kos & Oberman- geez.
What is really beyond irony is that a whole lot of people (Sheeple) honesty believe these “problems” of terrorism will go away once G.W. is out of office and we cut n’run from Iraq/Afghanistan. Hate to say it but I am beginning to view this disease as un-American and that ain’t good…
b2
I probably came off as being too hard on our CIA friends. They’re mostly great people trying their best to do an almost impossible job – connect the dots, when the dots rarely have a pattern at all, and increasingly we’re drowning in dots.
My larger issue had to do with people who can simultaneously hold the point of view that the CIA is either evil incarnate in a corporate sense, or angels fallen from heaven as individuals, so long as the interpretation suits their own policy preferences. It’s absurd.
These people also believe that Bush masterminded 9/11 so perfectly that… no one knows about it [Ha, them talking about doesn't count ?] and yet is unable to tie his own shoes.
At their best, they’re Charlie Wilson, and those who’ve carried the torch lighted by Wild Bill Donovan forward. At their worst, they’re Valerie Plame, who stole every cent that was directly deposited into her bank account. Every bureaucracy needs a James Jesus Angleton, if for no other reason than to purge the useless MFCS’s.
We who have our eyes open and see what is happening and can connect the large dots (maybe not all the smaller ones), can understand what we are facing and who our enemies really are. It comes from reading more than Kos and NYT and listening to more than the big 3 or CNN. It comes from reading a wide variety of sources, sources we trust because they are written by people like us, military, former military, realistic and idealogically honest people. People who are truth-tellers — and you can tell the truth-tellers from the wishful-thinkers and rationalizers.
I had a very bad experience this weekend. Someone I thought was a rational and good friend has changed. He’s wearing an Obama for President t-shirt now, which means to me no more joking with him about politics at all. We had a BBQ with them last night and he told Husband that we are living in a fascist state. He also said that he wished “they” knew who were “doing” the IEDs so “they could throw a party for them.” Husband shut him down politely with, “Hey, this isn’t the place and I don’t do politics, so that’s enough.”
It upset Husband enough to tell me and another mutual friend on the way home what he’d said. I’m glad I didn’t hear him — I’m sure I would no longer be friends with any of them, him, his wife or our mutual friend. I would have been in his face with disgust dripping from my tongue. “How DARE you wish my son-in-law in the Army and deploying this fall DEAD! How DARE you wish your son, who used to be in the Navy DEAD! How DARE you wish my husband who used to fly planes in the Navy DEAD! Let me buy you a plane ticket to some really fascist country and see what you can say and not end up in jail and begging for OUR help, some place like Libya, Iran, CHINA!”
I don’t know what’s going on with this friend, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be more than polite to him again. It brings me to tears to have someone I KNOW do this, not just the Kossaks or Troofers or Code Pink or those outside my immediate world I don’t really know, but someone I thought a friend.
Then I watch the news and see the footage of the flaming car and wonder if he’s cheering inside, instead of crying and having his guts twist with worry for “where next?” and “will I know them?” like I feel.
I just don’t understand how he can be so blind … and not want to see, either.
(Sorry for the rant, but this is really painful.)
P-3W, I think your comment would do well as a post over on “The Flight Deck.” May I put it up over there for you? Or, you could go sign up over there…
Not for nothing, but:
While out riding yesterday here in “Doity Joisey”, I saw a poster on the back of a bus that proclaimed that Newark’s teachers get an “F” because it costs the district $750,000 for each ordinary high school diploma awarded. (It was a new poster because it hadn’t been spray-painted yet)
I too feel like a stranger in my own land. The country I was born and raised in has slipped away while I wasn’t looking.
I’m getting very close to “Three score and ten”, so what-the-hell.
Take a deep breath and relax P3, but keep his name handy. We’ll be making a list later.
The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this, and every country but his own; I’ve got a little list, twill none of them be missed.
P-3W,
The good news: it is as good as can be.
The bad news: it will get much worse.
With 70% of the eligible men (can I still use that word?) unfit for service, the chances are that your neighbors are either parents or children who are fat, drunk, stupid or evil.
Marcus Tullius Cicero: “A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.”
[...] wrote on the subject of those who are so blinded by politics that they cannot see the terrorist threat in front of them, and comenter “P-3W” [...]
P3W: I can relate in so many ways. As I mentioned about a week ago, a close friend betrayed a basic tenet of our friendship – since we always knew we were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, we agreed to NEVER discuss politics. Then she promptly betrayed that agreement. She’s no longer a friend; unfortunately I do have to interact with her on a professional level, which so far I’ve been able to do strictly thru email.
I know how painful it is to have someone you thought you knew – and trust – turn on you like that and in such a bold manner. Our circumstances are of course different, but in the end they are the same.
Get ready for more – this is going to be such a contentious election season that I think many friendships for many of us may be lost. I hope I’m wrong…
Kris, I hope you’re wrong, too, about the upcoming election season, but I believe it’s going to be a nasty one.
I think what hurts the most is this friend was liberal-leaning, but would listen and say calm. He’s past that now into loon-dom and refuses to acknowledge any other point of view.
As I said, I’m very grateful that he didn’t say anything to me last night. Husband handled him so well, that I missed the whole thing when I was helping in the kitchen, and it stayed a closed subject the rest of the evening.
Thanks, all, for listening to me. I appreciate the kind words, too. Typically, I’m the most conservative person in any group I’m in, so I am aware of disagreements and agreeing to disagree. But this is the first time I’ve run into Bush Derangement Syndrome up front and personal. It’s stunned me and really rocked my view of my little world.
Growing up is so hard, don’cha know?
BDS is just another symptom of the entropy of our culture. Lenin would have called them “useful idiots”.
If you want corn, you must plant corn. The last 100+ years of U.S. culture has sown wind.
As you crest the top of a roller coaster and start down the steep decline, the descent is slow at first. Most of the coaster is still ascending behind you. Once the center of gravity passes the peak things change rapidly.
Then the ride gets interesting.
I admire your husband’s restraint, P-3W, but this”: “We had a BBQ with them last night and he told Husband that we are living in a fascist state.”
Hehe…so rich…during a barbecue, no less…you might recommend your bumper-sticker wearing friend read up on cognitive dissociation theory.
Not sure what is worse –losing friends with BDS who are convinced that if we just BELIEVED in world peace it would naturally happen all by itself –and I have lost several.
Or watching them be butchered by the wolves who will naturally take advantage of their naive self-centered vanity.
I can’t control the first and am only a tiny cog in the wheel of effort trying to prevent the second.
The wolves I can actually understand. Evil isn’t rocket science. But the foolishness of my neighbors baffles and saddens me. Adults they may be, but grownups they aren’t.
Yeats was right:
“Those whom I fight I do not hate,
Those whom I guard I do not love”
But still we guard them anyway
P3W: I think your friend and mine should get together and launch themselves off the planet. They sound like the same type of person.
I found in my situation that it was better to just walk away before I said something I would truly regret. You can’t reason with these people – they see only their side and anyone who doesn’t see things the way they do is stupid, illiterate and uneducated. It’s impossible to carry on any sort of reasonable conversation or debate with them. So it’s best not to engage them at all.
Taking the high road can really suck though – when there are so many witty things one could say, and so many sources one could quote to support one’s position, while the “others” look on in shock and dread as intelligence is actually observed.
BE AFRAID EVERYONE! THE TERRORISTS ARE JEALOUS OF YOUR FREEDOM (they’re not really just p.o.’d because we keep killing hundreds of thousands of their family members while displacing millions more from their homes who get in the way of our agenda)! THEY WANT TO TAKE IT AWAY! GIVE UP YOUR CIVIL LIBERTIES FOR THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY! BE AFRAID! BE VERY, VERY AFRAID! AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Our forefathers gave up the safety and security of being under British rule for freedom and people like you want to take it all away for the feeling of safety. And you call yourselves patriots. What a world.
Fortunately you have some friends here who agree with you and back up your unsubstantiated and emotionally charged opinions with their unsubstantiated and emotionally charged opinions.
Ah, safety in numbers.
Sorry, Lex. The troll me followed from Fuzzy’s place.
Oh, pay it no never mind.
Hey, I did *not* want W for President, and I voted for him twice. (I live in FL and know how the Electoral College works) I still think he was prolly the smaller curculio. I hate Neo-Jacobins.
Let’s just be cold-blooded and consider our national interest in dealing with foreigners, mkay?
Where is a real Democrat like Jackson or Cleveland, now that we need them?
[...] Step away from the window – Neptunus Lex – The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy. [...]