He Said That? 2/20/15

From Henry A. Crumpton, who led the CIA’s Afghanistan campaign from 2001-02 and retired in 2007, “America’s Eroding Antiterror Intelligence,” The Wall Street Journal, 2/20/15:

…The leaders are more experienced, more strategic and more ruthless. For example, enemy commanders are moving to fill political vacuums in the weak nation-states of Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mali, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Egypt’s Sinai. Witness how ISIS commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi usurped local power from the brutal and corrupt Syrian and Iraqi regimes.

Further inhibiting US intelligence: The global network of allies so necessary for the U.S. to penetrate, analyze and destroy terrorist networks has eroded. In Libya and Yeman, both racked by civil war, the U.S. has abandoned its embassies. While some stalwart allies remain, many have lost faith in U.S. leadership. The perception of U.S. weakness and lack of strategic direction dissuades allies from policy and intelligence cooperation.

The traitor Edward Snowden and his accomplices exposed National Security Agency operations, providing the enemy with a huge advantage in deceiving and denying U.S. signals-intelligence collection. These publicized top-secret operations, some ill-considered, undercut the thrust of both foreign allies and U.S. private-sector partners.

Telecommunications, software, hardware and social-media firms have reduced their cooperation with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement—while boosting encryption against the U.S. government, FBI Director James Comey publicly criticized Apple and Google for their lack of support, warning: ‘There will come a day when it will matter a great deal to the lives of people…that we will be able to gain access.” Even before 9/11, a large percentage of actionable counterterrorism leads came from signals intelligence. This collection is now more difficult than ever.

Where to begin on this one? To make this easier, SLL has reprinted this quote below, with SLL commentary where appropriate.

…The leaders are more experienced, more strategic and more ruthless. For example, enemy commanders are moving to fill political vacuums in the weak nation-states of Syria [Syria would be stronger if we hadn’t tried to overthrow its ruler,] Nigeria, Pakistan, Mali, Libya [Libya would be stronger if we hadn’t joined the effort to overthrow Qaddafi, see Clinton’s War, The Carnage In Libya Is On You, Hillary, SLL, 2/4/15]  Iraq [that’s an odd thing to say about the puppet government we installed], Yemen, Somalia and Egypt’s Sinai. Witness how ISIS [ISIS is a direct offshoot of the rebel groups in Syria we aided in our attempt to overthrow its ruler] commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi usurped local power from the brutal and corrupt Syrian and Iraqi [that’s an odd thing to say about the puppet government we installed] regimes.

Further inhibiting US intelligence: The global network of allies so necessary for the U.S. to penetrate, analyze and destroy terrorist networks has eroded [because members of that global network found out you were spying on them]. In Libya and Yemen, both racked by civil war[that US intervention helped cause], the U.S. has abandoned its embassies. While some stalwart allies remain, many have lost faith in U.S. leadership [and US integrity, their faith in which vanished after they found out they were being spied on]. The perception of U.S. weakness and lack of strategic direction dissuades allies from policy and intelligence cooperation.

The traitor Edward Snowden and his accomplices exposed National Security Agency operations, providing the enemy with a huge advantage in deceiving and denying U.S. signals-intelligence collection [and the US public with confirmation that the government was spying on them, and knew virtually every detail of their lives]. These publicized top-secret operations, some ill-considered [this admission that some of the top-secret operations were “ill-considered” would never have been made had not that “traitor” Snowden revealed them], undercut the thrust of both foreign allies and U.S. private-sector partners.

Telecommunications, software, hardware and social-media firms have reduced their cooperation with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement—while boosting encryption against the U.S. government [after the tech companies started losing contracts and customers both here and abroad when it became apparent that they were being used by the U.S. government], FBI Director James Comey publicly criticized Apple and Google for their lack of support, warning: ‘There will come a day when it will matter a great deal to the lives of people…that we will be able to gain access.” [it matters a great deal to millions of people right now the amount of access the government already has to their lives] Even before 9/11, a large percentage of actionable counterterrorism leads came from signals intelligence. This collection is now more difficult than ever. [Good!!]