Flying Blind – Another Intelligence Failure In Syria

Flying blind – “to be doing something without having any experience of doing it before or without having important information about what you are doing.”

Assad has fled Damascus. Syria has fallen to Islamic extremists backed by Turkey. What is coming will be another Islamic Caliphate and a bloodbath. The Kurds will be the first target of the new radical state that is emerging.

And, we received effectively no warning this was going to happen.

Turkey is a NATO ally. We are lashed up with the Turkish armed forces and intelligence agencies across the board. We have a significant military and intelligence presence in Iraq, next door to Syria. We have hundreds of troops and intelligence personnel inside Syria itself.

We were blindsided nonetheless.

The President of South Korea just staged what amounts to an abortive coup in which he tried to impose martial law. The nation was plunged into chaos. The ripple effects are still being felt.

We received no warning.

South Korea is a close ally and has been for 75 years. We have tens of thousands of military personnel there. We are in close contact with the South Korean government and its intelligence agencies all day every day.

We found out about the imposition of martial law by the South Korean President when he announced it to the world.

These gross intelligence failures are not aberrations. They are the new norm. We hear a lot about the involvement of American intelligence agencies like the CIA in American domestic politics. We should. The Intelligence Community should not be within ten miles of our political process.

We hear a lot less about another massive problem. Our intelligence agencies have lost their edge. They are no longer capable of doing their jobs. They have become bloated, overly bureaucratic edifices that generate process, suck up billions of dollars, and put very, very few points on the board.

What I hear from individuals inside the CIA is shocking. Operations have virtually ground to a halt. Sources are almost non-existent. Chiefs of Station are chosen based on their adherence to the new dogma of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, not operational accomplishment. Managers and leaders are terrified of taking action against officers who do not produce for fear of being accused of violating someone’s rights or disturbing their “work life balance”.

An outfit that used to be a brutal meritocracy in which only mission accomplishment mattered has devolved into a soft, inert mass incapable of doing its job. The danger this poses to the republic can hardly be overemphasized.

The Biden administration is the worst in American history. What it has done in terms of national security is almost incomprehensible. All across the globe alliances we built over the span of a century are in tatters. Enemies are emboldened. Weapons of mass destruction are proliferating. Our own defense establishment is degraded and unable to even begin to handle the multitude of threats that have emerged.

Russia is threatening nuclear war. It has declared formally that it considers itself to already be at war with the West.

The Chinese are on the march all across East Asia. Their preparations for actions inside the United States including the takedown of our critical infrastructure are intensifying by the day. Their threats against Taiwan are escalating rapidly.

The Iranians either already have nuclear weapons or are about to acquire them. The entire Middle East is going up in flames. What is already a regional war is spiraling out of control.

Iranian assassination teams are active on U.S. soil and Tehran has formally declared its intention to assassinate U.S. officials involved in the killing of General Soleimani.

Our borders are wide open. Every terrorist group on the planet has been given carte blanche to move operatives, weapons, and explosives onto our soil.

We desperately need intelligence on these and a multitude of other threats. We need to be able to see what is coming and to take steps to protect the nation. We do not have that intelligence and we show no signs of taking steps to acquire it.

Our Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines is the former owner of a bookstore in Baltimore that specialized in readings of erotic novels. She is in charge of our Intelligence Community because of her personal connection to Joe Biden. She has never worked in the field of intelligence in any capacity. She knows nothing about the business nor has she shown any inclination to learn.

Haines is not unique. She is representative. Our intelligence agencies are now run by people who have no idea what they are doing and do not care. Results are immaterial.

Donald Trump will be sitting down in the Oval Office in roughly six weeks. As he and his staff assemble their team they need to face squarely the magnitude of the problem we face. The American intelligence community no longer has the capacity to do its job, and we are all in grave peril as a result.

In an increasingly dangerous world, we are flying blind. We just saw another intelligence failure in Syria. It will not be the last.