re: "A Traveler In The Foreign Service: You Say You Want a Revolution? We All Want To Change The World"

Dave Seminara at A Traveler In The Foreign Service offered some good advice to prospective FSOs.

Money quote(s):

"When I meet people who are interested in joining the State Department's Foreign Service, I always ask them why they're motivated to serve. Everyone has their own reasons, but one common motivation shared by many is a desire to help shape U.S. Foreign Policy. Many of these same people are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs and how we conduct ourselves on the global stage, and believe that by joining the Foreign Service, they can play some role in creating change.

There's no doubt that we all need to be informed and engaged on global issues so that we can vote for politicians who will support the type of approach to global affairs we favor. But I wouldn't recommend joining the Foreign Service if your primary goal is to influence how U.S. Foreign Policy is conducted. Those who think they're going to be creating policy are often disappointed and disillusioned when they realize that Foreign Service Officers (FSO's) are tasked with implementing policy, not creating it."

Yes, yes, YES!

Dave gets it, but then he was one of us not so long ago.

FSOs do not create U.S. foreign policy, we carry it out.

Military folks should understand this well enough; except at the very highest levels (and this is also true of FSOs), military personnel do not create defense policy or make strategy, they make it happen.

"FSO's are often called Foreign Policy foot soldiers. They receive marching orders and they carry them out. This doesn't mean that FSO's play no role in shaping policy at all. The insights provided by FSO's on the ground overseas via cables, memos, and in-person briefings can help influence decision-making in Washington."

There's nothing wrong or dishonorable with being a "foot soldier." And Dave correctly remarks on the considerable influence FSO reporting from overseas can have on decision-making back in D.C. CAA can attest to the remarkable respect that diplomatic reporting cables garner among intelligence analysts around the beltway; readers of wikileaks (CAA is not, can not, be one) may be able to back me up on that.

"(I)f you enter the Foreign Service thinking you're going to be calling the shots on how to shape the bilateral relationship with the country you're posted in, you're going to be disappointed. Even if you rise to the level of Ambassador, you're still going to need to seek approval from Washington before proceeding on all matters of substance.

The practicality of this reality is that passionate, idealistic, crusaders with very strong opinions don't always make the best diplomats. You're free to have your own opinions and the State Department has a formal "dissent" channel whereby FSO's can voice their objections to U.S. government policies, but as a representative of the United States government, you really have to keep your politics to yourself, particularly while serving abroad. Not all FSO's follow this rule but the most effective senior level diplomats do."

Please note that CAA is not a senior level diplomat.

Also note that CAA keeps his politics to himself at work, particularly when serving overseas.

"I'd estimate that a majority of FSO's lean Democratic, and given the fact that the George W. Bush administration was at times openly hostile towards the State Department, it should come as no surprise that there were plenty of dissenters in the Foreign Service during the W years. The war in Iraq and the subsequent mass diversion of human and material resources to our mega mission in Baghdad created lots of malcontents, but only a few, like Brady Kiesling, resigned on principle.

Kiesling and others followed their conscience, but I think that when you join the Foreign Service, you have to expect that you'll probably serve under Presidents you dislike who will implement policies you disagree with. If you're not the good soldier type who can live with that, the Foreign Service probably isn't a great career choice for you."

Like the military, you trust in the system (that you're an integral part of) to proceed in a lawful, Constitutional manner that reflects the will of the American people as embodied by their elected representatives.

It's a terrible system, no doubt, the worst possible one, of course, except for all the worse ones.

"The bottom line is that the Foreign Service is a highly structured, chain-of-command focused bureaucracy, not that unlike the military. If you're not capable of holding your nose and delivering a message you find personally repulsive, don't sign up."

5/2

re: "Occupying Wall Street And The Leftist National Security Threat"

Paul Hair at Big Peace drew some lessons from intelligence failures of at least three sorts.

Money quote(s):

"One sentence in that paragraph leaves open the possibility that the intelligence community (IC) did its job in the lead-up to the Russian-Georgian conflict, but the rest of the paragraph indicates that the IC failed. And while the War College paper does not reflect the official position of the Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. government, its conclusion that the IC failed in issuing an adequate warning sounds similar to other accusations of the IC failing (September 11, Iran, the Egyptian Revolution, etc.)."

Calling something an "intelligence failure" is a pretty broad-brush statement. Among the various definitions of "intelligence" is that of the intelligence process or cycle. Intelligence can be both both a thing, a product, or more generally the process and function by which such products are, er, produced.

So it's important to consider which parts of the intelligence process, or which agencies within the IC may have failed.

Was it a failure of collection? Did we just not look in the right places, talk to the right people, or notice the right trends?

Was it a failure of analysis? Did we have the raw information or reports and just not recognize their significance? Did we downplay what turned out to be predictive or "big-up" what was deceptive or irrelevent?

Was it a failure of dissemination? Did the right intelligence just not get into the right hands? Were vital intelligence products "stove-piped" or "fire-walled" from getting to the analysts, commanders, policy-makers, or elected officials who needed them?

"So let’s accept the premise that the IC has repeatedly failed in recent years. Let’s forget that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—the head of the IC—states in its “National Intelligence: A Consumer’s Guide,” that intelligence cannot predict the future (Adobe page 11; actual page 19). Let’s also forget that we here at home cannot accurately predict who will or will not run for president, even as we have firsthand, easy, non-life-threatening access on a scale that invades the personal lives of the people whose minds we are trying to predict. Instead, let’s just accept the criticism that the IC should have predicted or warned of the threats and revolutions that have occurred in recent years. And in doing so, let us also apply this same standard of responsibility to our domestic watchdogs (law enforcement agencies, politicians, news media, talk show hosts, and political pundits) that should be monitoring homeland safety and security."

Too true. Real-life intelligence analysis is not predictive. It can, carefully, do a certain amount of forecasting, such as by analysis of alternative futures or outcomes. But that's not quite the same thing.

"(W)e have a growing group of people who overtly say that they want a revolution that overthrows our government. And as more powerful and wealthy figures and organizations back them, they now have the finances, resources, and means to act on their overtly stated desires. (See also what Daniel W. Drezner writes at Foreign Policy.)

So if the IC has been wrong during the past few years for not issuing sufficient predictions or warnings of the disasters and revolutions in other countries of the world, then surely the watchdogs of our nation must be held accountable for their continuing failure to issue adequate warning of just how dangerous the left is, and for their failure to take necessary investigative actions."

There's an old saying in Liberal/Progressive circles, to the effect that "there are no enemies on the Left." And to this day, many elected officials from the Democratic Party, as well as the unelected officials of our mainstream media, continue to act as if this were true.

It's not.

"We say that those who are violent and a threat are peaceful protestors or those with legitimate grievances because we cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge them as the barbarians that they truly are. Meanwhile, we demonize and persecute those who follow the law because we know we can get away with it—we know they won’t actually act like we accuse them of acting"

If there are certain "protected classes" based upon ethnicity, politics, or lifestyle, then the converse of there being certain groups upon whom it is always "open season" is also true.

After all, it's not the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that gets their followers to strap themselves into suicide vests, beheads those who disagree, or promotes honor killings of teenagers or estranged wives.

"Or we deem Islam the Religion of Peace even as we demonize those opposed to the worldwide jihad as “Islamophobic” and “dangerous extremists.” And, of course, we deem those occupying Wall Street and other cities as people who are justifiably angry and thirsting for democracy even as we continue vilifying Tea Partiers and conservatives as violent and a threat to society."

10/11

re: "More Consulting"

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") gave props to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).


Money quote(s):


"(S)peaking of INR (the speaker...keep up), I encourage you to get briefings with them. Too often, folks forget INR, and they are a font of knowledge. They can tailor a briefing to your clearance level, and let me tell you they are all awesome. You will only find experts of their calliber in the finest universities. And check out INR/OPN too. They do media analysis and polling in our countries. They will have some great unclassified info for you. I had two INR briefings today in addition to the Fulbrighter talk, one with the analyst and one with the analyst from OPN, and they were great.You will be better prepared for having done it."

Despite rumors to the contrary, all diplomats are not spies, nor are all U.S. diplomats secretly CIA agents. Not true. The U.S. diplomatic community is, by and large, distinct from America's intelligence community; that is, with two caveats and one exception-by-overlap.

Caveat 1: Diplomatic reporting is available for inclusion in all-source analysis just like all other sorts of reporting, such as open-source (i.e., press & media, books, &tc.), military, and actual intelligence collection products of whatever sort.

Caveat 2: Diplomats are also consumers of intelligence products. They'd be stupid not to be.

The exception, or overlap, between the diplomatic and intelligence communities is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research or INR. INR is the part of the State Dept. that's an actual part of the IC. While relatively small (as is DOS itself), INR has some very good analysts working for it and they have, within the overall IC, a reputation for "punching above their weight class." That's a good thing.


7/21

WP - In Afghanistan’s Garmser district, praise for a U.S. official’s tireless work

Please see Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Washington Post article.

Money quote(s):

"Carter Malkasian, who had been the State Department’s representative in Garmser until last month, is perhaps the only foreign official in the country to have been so widely embraced as a sahib, an Urdu salutation once used to address British colonial officials that Afghans now employ as a term of honor and respect.

The adoration stems from his unfailing politeness (he greeted people in the traditional Pashtun way, holding their hands for several minutes as a series of welcomes and praises to God were delivered), his willingness to take risks (he often traveled around in a police pickup instead of in an American armored vehicle with a squad of Marines), and his command of Pashto, the language of southern Afghanistan (he conversed fluently, engaging in rapid-fire exchanges with gray-bearded elders).

Afghan officials and U.S. commanders credit Malkasian with playing a critical role in the transformation of Garmser from one of the country’s most violent, Taliban-infested districts to a place so quiet that some Marines wish they had more chances to fire their weapons.

He was dispatched to this farming community in southern Afghanistan to provide political advice to U.S. troops, mentor the fledgling Afghan government and supervise reconstruction projects, all of which military leaders deem essential to their efforts to stabilize the country. The rail-thin 36-year-old was uncommonly effective, in large part because he was willing to forge his own job description, even if it meant bucking the State Department’s rules.

Seeing his role more as a proconsul than adviser, he single-handedly cajoled influential tribal leaders and mullahs to return to the district, correctly betting that it would lead others to follow. He won the trust of skeptical residents through countless meetings and roadside conversations, persuading them to reject the insurgency and support their government. And he provided vital institutional memory in a mission that has generally forced Afghans to build fresh relationships with new waves of Americans each year.

He also shaped the Marine campaign here in a way no civilian has in other parts of the country. He served as a counselor to each of the battalion commanders, influencing decisions about when to use force, and helping them calibrate it with a political engagement strategy. He built such credibility with the Marines — the result of spending so much time in Garmser — that if he urged a different course of action, they almost always complied."

Carter Sahib was different (see below) from the average State PRT or other embedded advisor in that he'd already had significant experience working these issues in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He didn't just pop out of a box; he was both educated, developed, and (essentially) groomed into this role. Which takes none of the credit away from his accomplishments; it merely points the way for how to get more of this.

"Malkasian was among a surge of civilians sent to increase the State Department’s presence in Afghanistan, which now stands at about 1,150 people. Many of them, including Malkasian, are temporary hires, not career diplomats.

But he was not like most others selected by State and the U.S. Agency for International Development — and that was a big reason he was regarded as so effective by the military and the Afghans. He asked to work in the field, not stay at the comfortable embassy compound in Kabul, which features a bar, a swimming pool and two-bedroom apartments with kitchens. He lived in a trailer on a dusty forward operating base, and his meals consisted of whatever fare was being served to the grunts, if he wasn’t eating goat with Afghans.

Because he was not vying for a cushy embassy posting in Europe as a reward for the privations of the gravel-strewn base, he did not feel compelled to toe the State Department’s line on war policy, which further endeared him to the Marines.."

People working "at the comfortable embassy compound in Kabul" have jobs in that embassy or that require they be based in or around Kabul. Of course, if you're going to do PRT or other field work outside of Kabul, then that's where you'll actually be most effectively based.

"What really set him apart, however, was his willingness to stay at the district level for two consecutive years — very few State personnel have done that — and his tendency to flout the department’s strict security rules, which mandate a near-zero tolerance for risk, as opposed to the military acceptance of some danger in pursuit of a mission’s objectives. Malkasian regularly ventured around the district with the police chief, placing his security in the hands of rifle-toting Afghans — a potential firing offense if his bosses in Kabul ever knew."

This (tour length) is a personnel/manning issue. In order to get a reliable supply of volunteers for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, the Department uses (among other incentives) a guaranteed "linked onward assignment." So if you were to decide, sometime during your twelve month assignment in country, that you'd really rather stay another year, for whatever reason, then someone else would have to be found to fill that (presumably desirable) next job, which would then become unobtainable to you for another three years.

Bear in mind that even the military tries to keep its combat zone assignments at (usually) no more than a year (sometimes extending them to 18 months).

"(H)e joined the Center for Naval Analysis, a military-affiliated think tank in Alexandria that offered the opportunity to visit U.S. forces in the field. That led to an assignment in Kuwait as the Iraq war was commencing, and then a year-long posting with the Marines in Anbar province starting in 2004. The job involved conducting research projects for Marine commanders into the performance of the Iraqi army and the outcome of various U.S. battalion-level operations.

He returned to Iraq for another tour in 2006, and the following year, he spent five months on a provincial reconstruction team in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. That assignment was about not research, but action. He got to engage directly with Afghans and work with fellow Americans in solving problems. He resolved to return.

The opportunity arose in 2009 as more U.S. troops were deployed to southern Afghanistan."

As I noted above, Carter Sahib didn't just pop up out of a box. He had conflict-related postgraduate education, prior combat zone experience, and prior Afghanistan experience. Outside the military and/or intelligence community, is anybody growing professionals like this?


8/13

h/t Dave Carson (FB)

re: "International Relations Graduate School Pros and Cons"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") offered advice to international relations students.

Money quote(s):

"If you want to go into the Foreign Service, Intelligence community, or the Pentagon, a PhD is desirable but probably not worth the tradeoff in delayed earnings and entry into the workforce." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Mr. Joyner excerpted a passage than explains that in greater detail.

There are plenty of Ph.D folks who do enter the Foreign Service; there's certainly no bar to it, but the point about delayed earnings impacting lifetime earnings is valid enough. IIRC, entering FSOs with Ph.Ds come in at pay grade (actually "class") FS-04, the highest of the three entry level pay grades. Which is nice, but since they're ineligible for promotion to FS-03 until they complete their probationary period (approx. 3-5 years) and receive their permanent "commissioning and tenure," their less-credentialed entering classmates will have caught up with them (due to administrative time-in-grade promotions) by the time any of them can enter the mid-grade FSO ranks.*

" Presidential Management Fellowship. The PMF is the Golden Ticket in government service, shooting you all the way to the GS-13 level in a very short period and opening the path to the Senior Executive/Intelligence/Foreign Service as a relative kid. By comparison, it took David Petraeus 11 years to make lieutenant colonel (GS-13 equivalent) and 26 years to make brigadier general (the lowest SES equivalent). And he’s a West Pointer with a Princeton PhD!

Even without the PMF, a public policy masters will get you in the door and give you both the training and credentials to enable you to move up through the ranks expeditiously. Theoretically, the government doesn’t really care where you went to school–a degree from University of Phoenix is as good as one from Harvard to the personnel department. But a good brand name will matter later in your career.

Many government types actually manage to get a PhD in mid-career. (It’s especially common for military officers, since the Pentagon has a relationship with a handful of schools, most notably Princeton, that allows them to rush people through the program in a mere three years.) This comes with the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school.

Additionally, government service provides another route to being a think tanker or even a professor. While several of us at the director level at the think tank where I work have PhDs, most have MAs and very valuable experience at senior levels of government–ambassadors, assistant secretaries, National Security Council staffers, and such. And many of the elite universities around the country will hire people with that sort of experience as professors (especially in the public policy schools). The war colleges and other professional military education schools vastly prefer them to career academics." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

For those entering the Foreign Service without a masters degree, once you get to the mid-grade ranks there are opportunities for long-term training assignments outside of the Department, even outside of the federal government. They have the advantage, as Mr. Joyner correctly notes, of "the twin benefits of the degree being paid for and being paid while in school." You just can't beat a scholarship like that.

(For those suspecting that this is a boondoggle at the taxpayer's expense, I would counter that students in this sort of program are already in government service, so the advantages to the government of providing professional development to its career officers is that the benefits of having a better professionally-developed officer start paying off as soon as the student returns to the Department.)

_____

While no particular formal educational credential is required to be selected as a probationary FSO, far and away the vast majority (99 percent?) of newly-hired FSO have an undergraduate degree when they are hired.

Without a university-level (or better) education, the chances of successfully completing the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) aren't all that good.

The Foreign Service is something of a meritocratic mandarinate that way. It's not prejudice so much as the level of intellectual preparation that it requires. In fact, my sense is that the majority of entering FSOs have graduate (or equivalent) degrees. Its hiring process is extremely competitive and that level of academic preparation gives FS candidates a distinct edge.

The same goes for professional work experience as well, including military service. There are some things that very few schools teach, after all, but can nonetheless be learned by the willing.

(I should mention that there is a Veterans Preference factored into the selection process, which is why, like in the Civil Service, prior military and naval folks are more highly represented in the Foreign Service than in the general population.)

"The better your credentials and contacts, the better. Going to Harvard or Stanford or Chicago simply gives you more options than going to a less prestigious institution because it stands out on a resume. Additionally, as Farley notes, some schools do a much better job than others of providing institutional support in networking and finding jobs. And, of course, having spent your 20s working for the Deputy Secretary of Defense or the Ambassador to the United Kingdom is going to open more doors than having spent them in an archive somewhere working on a giant book few will ever read." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Quite a few FSOs went to big "name" schools, but frankly the largest cohort seems to come into the Foreign Service with graduate (or undergraduate) degrees from Foggy Bottom's neighboring George Washington University (GWU) campus. It's an excellent school whose proximity apparently facilitates recruitment.

Vanishingly few come from elite "name" programs such as Georgetown University's (GU) Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service or Harvard's Kennedy School. Instead, I've met quite a few Tufts and Thunderbird graduates in the Foreign Service.

_____

* - FS pay grades or "classes" work differently from civil service ("General Schedule" ("GS") pay grades in that the lower the FS number, the higher the rank. That is, the higher the number, the lower the rank. Something like that.

FSOs enter at either FS-06, -05, or -04. Over the last decade or so, these have been variously called Junior Officer ("JO"), Entry Level Officer (ELO), and First-And-Second-Tour (FAST) officer ranks. They're equivalent to Civil Service GS-8, -9, and -10 or to the Army's "company grade" officer ranks of Second Lieutenant (O-1), First Lieutenant (O-2), and Captain (O-3).

Mid-grade FSO ranks are FS-03, -02, and -01. They are the equivalent of military "field grade" commissioned officer ranks (i.e., major/lieutenant commander/O-4, lieutenant colonel/commander/O-5, and colonel/captain/O-6) or Civil Service GS-13, -14, and -15.

Above FS-01 are several Senior Foreign Service (SFS) ranks with names like Counselor (OC), Minister-Counselor (MC) and Career-Minister (CM) equivalent to the Civil Service's "Senior Executive Service" (SFS) or to military/naval "general officer" (GO) or "flag" ranks (i.e., admirals).

There's also the SFS rank of "Career Ambassador" (CA) which, while a great honor and quite a rare cap to a FS career, doesn't actually come with a pay bump beyond what is earned by a Career-Minister.

8/11

re: "Fred Fleitz: Leftist Legacy of Bad Intel Estimate on Iran"

Secure Freedom Radio at Big Peace hosted an interesting guest.

Money quote(s):

"(F)ormer CIA Intelligence Officer Fred Fleitz shares his concerns with the U.S. Intelligence community’s scandalous refusal to “make an honest call” on the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Fleitz explains the biased nature of U.S. Intelligence’s 2007 assessment that concluded Iran halted its program in 2003, even as experts have widely concluded the existence of an active program."

From the outside, it's hard to conclude anything but that this NIE's conclusion was politically-motivated.

re: "A Foolish Consistency"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") takes us into some "inside baseball" at the high end of the intelligence community.

Money quote(s):

"For years, intelligence agencies at home and abroad have watched the nuclear program in Iran with growing concern. In 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided to policy makers by the intelligence community deprecated that threat, saying that Iran had stopped work on its weaponization program in 2003. There were concerns at the time that the NIE had been deliberately shaded by members of the IC to forestall a rumored attack on Iranian nuclear sites by the George W. Bush administration in its waning years."

This was hardly the first NIE whose conclusions seemed policy- (or politics) rather than intelligence-driven, but it's one of the more prominent ones.

"(A) veteran CIA analyst critical of the agency’s 2011 NIE says that the agency has prevented him from revealing the names of outside analysts who reviewed the draft"

Why is that important?

Outside analysts such as academics, think-tankers, and former intelligence officials are used as a form of outside validation. Publicizing those names makes them accountable for that validation.

"Critics have long claimed, with little supporting evidence, that the Bush administration deliberately politicized intelligence in order to justify the Iraq war. At worse, the intelligence community in 2002 was guilty of “confirmation bias”: Told to look for evidence of an Iraqi WMD program, analysts found what they were looking for in the tangled mess of pre-war all-source data and disregarded what didn’t fit the picture. It was a costly, if understandable mistake. Using outside analysts to endorse a position on Iranian nuclear weapons which is clearly at odds with the evidence, and who have evident biases of their own may be just as costly, if not more so."

It's nice to read something outside the specialist literature that touches on the problems of cognitive bias in intelligence analysis. Confirmation bias isn't something you set out to have, although it's something you maybe could have perhaps avoided.

re: "The Lawfulness of Killing Bin Laden"

Butch Bracknell at Small Wars Journal ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field") lays out the legalities of schwacking UBL.

Money quote(s):

"Much has been made of the recent revelations that Osama bin Laden was unarmed at the moment he was killed by U.S. special operations forces in close quarters battle. Let us put this issue to rest with dispatch, once and for all: Killing bin Laden was not an extrajudicial execution, a murder, or a war crime. It was a combat engagement lawful under U.S. and international legal authority – full stop."

Mr. Bracknell takes some care explaining the self-defense and jus in bello rationales before continuing:

"Osama bin Laden was an enemy combatant – again, full stop. His status as a virtual enemy of the United States is grounded on several factors: his declaration of war (fatwa) by Al Qaeda, of which he was the nominal chief, against the United States; the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) of September 18, 2001 (Public Law 107-40); and, most likely, declaration of a state of hostilities (essentially, a state of “war”) by the President against an opposing belligerent: Al Qaeda, its footsoldiers, and its leaders. The qualifier “most likely” indicates that if the President has, in fact, declared Al Qaeda to be a hostile, belligerent force, the designation probably would be classified and non-public. It is also superfluous, as Congress supplied the necessary authority in the AUMF to make combat actions against Al Qaeda lawful. They described a category of combatants who may be targeted by U.S. forces, and Osama bin Laden fell squarely into that category more precisely than any other person in the world. Targeting bin Laden was based on bin Laden simply being bin Laden: his conduct as he stared down the wrong end of an MP-5 was immaterial.

Once designated a hostile enemy combatant, there are only two ways a combatant can be exempted from lawful targeting: by manifesting a clear and unequivocal intent to surrender, and by becoming wounded or otherwise incapacitated and incapable of resistance (hors d’combat). There is no evidence bin Laden was wounded prior to administration of the lethal force which ended his life. Moreover, U.S. forces engaged in armed conflict are under no obligation to give an enemy combatant a chance to surrender; the enemy combatant must practically force his surrender on the U.S. force by manifesting it clearly, timely, and in a manner which enables U.S. forces to discontinue the use of lethal force. At this instant, a shield of legal protection descends around him, and U.S. forces are obligated to treat him humanely and consistent with the laws of armed conflict pertaining to detainees. Until the shield is present, triggered by manifest surrender, it is absent. Without the shield that only he could initiate through his surrenderous conduct, bin Laden remained a legitimate target and was treated so by the assaulting U.S. force.

Bin Laden’s death was a triumph for the American intelligence community and the armed forces and provides, at long last, some solace to the victims of 9/11 and Al Qaeda’s other terroristic acts. His death will likely prove to be a strategic gain, and it eliminates a continuing threat to Americans at home and her citizens and forces abroad. It also was completely sanctioned under U.S. and international law."

Bottom line: it was a righteous shoot.

re: "Quick Takes, June 02, 2011"

Mike M. at Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") makes a fairly damning assessment.

Money quote(s):

"ITEM: AG Eric Holder continues to investigate CIA personnel, who, acting on the specific advise of the Department of Justice, protected American lives during the Bush Administration. John Hindearaker at PowerLine (here) suggests that the only reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Obama is at war with America’s intelligence community. I agree. See if you do."

re: "It's A Combined Team Effort"

Digger at Life After Jerusalem ("The musings of a Two-Spirit American Indian, Public Diplomacy-coned Foreign Service Officer") shares an instance of giving credit where credit's due.

re: "Four tasks for Petraeus to fix the CIA"

Paul Miller at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") provides some thoughtful advice.

Money quote(s):

"Petraeus is not just smart: he is capable of challenging groupthink, which is exactly what the CIA needs. If Petraeus is ready to rewrite the book on intelligence the way he did, not just for counterinsurgency doctrine, but for the Army's culture as a whole, he could do wonders for the CIA."

"Let me say right off that I do not think the intelligence community is hopelessly broken, it does provide an irreplaceable service to policymakers and I have the highest respect for the folks I worked with during seven years at the CIA. But I do not think the taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck."

Some suggestions:

"The Directorate of Intelligence (DI) has the capability of being a leading foreign affairs think tank in the world. Instead, it has largely limited itself to being a massive, overpriced, secretive magazine staff for a readership of one, pouring most of its resources in to the President's Daily Brief (PDB). Analysts live under a maze of restrictions that bar them from public activities, ostensibly to protect their objectivity and credibility. The restrictions are silly. Instead of enhancing their credibility, the restrictions just isolate them and make contact with other experts in their field difficult, awkward, and sporadic.

Analysts can and should be open and regular participants in the world of academia, think tanks, and conferences, encouraged to publish and speak on their areas of expertise. Their writing may actually have a larger impact if they focus less on the PDB and more on the broader foreign policy establishment, which is where policy is shaped in broad outline before it makes it to the President. Petraeus might even experiment with having the DI publish a regular, unclassified product. It's not like we keep our classified documents secret anyway."

Having gained a little familiarity with our analytical profession in the course of my own professional journey, these suggestions make sense to me. Keeping our analysts apart from the larger streams of thought will only make their analyses more and more detached from reality.

re: "Static, One-Dimensional Analysis 1; Dynamic, Multi-Dimensional Analysis 0"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") gives credit where it's due.

Money quote(s):

"Since the intelligence community is so rarely congratulated when they get something right, it's worth pointing out that had they been wrong, we would not be conducting combat operations in Libya right now. But their order-of-battle analysis, sadly, proved all too accurate. Readers, if you will, join me in a quiet golf clap for the men and women at Langley, Fort Meade and Bolling AFB."

re: "Mubarak was wrong, and so were we"

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government ("Notes From The Loyal Opposition") dissects in the aftermath.

Money quote(s):

"(A)lmost everyone, including bloggers like me, managed to get it wrong:

The Intelligence community. The beleaguered IC was already reeling from White House criticism about failing to predict events unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt. (This criticism is a bit unfair since I bet there were some warnings -- given the volume of intelligence products and the way they are written, virtually everything has been predicted as "possible." Moreover, it is clear that those with vastly better intelligence and sources on Egypt than anything the IC ever could hope to amass, the Mubarak regime itself, were also surprised by the flow of events.) Then came the gaffe by Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the "largely secular" Muslim Brotherhood, a statement his staff was obliged to walk back later in the day. And the topper was CIA Director Panetta's admission that his forward-leaning prediction yesterday about Mubarak's departure was based not on intelligence analysis but on television reports. This is an almost textbook case of the CNN effect."

re: "Failure of Analysis "

George Smiley at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") gives, as always, an educated assessment.

Money quote(s):

"The United States maintains close ties with both the Egyptian military and its intelligence services. In fact, the nation's recently-appointed vice-president, Omar Sulieman, has been described as "the CIA's man in Cairo," a reference to his lengthy tenure as head of Egyptian intelligence and close ties to his American counterparts.

In other words, Egypt is not a country where the U.S. intelligence community is without sources."

"(I)f that weren't bad enough, our Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, had his own howler on the same day. In his own testimony before Congress, General Clapper said the Muslim Brotherhood "is largely secular;" has "eschewed violence," and is "pursuing social ends."

By days end, Mr. Clapper was walking back those remarks. True, the Brotherhood operates hospitals and social programs in Egypt, but there is ample evidence that many of its factions are active participants in terrorism and still want to wipe Israel off the map. Needless to say, Clapper's comments raised a lot of eyebrows in Washington--and beyond.

But this goes beyond two senior spooks making laughably bad calls on a critical subject. Most individuals in the positions held by Mr. Panetta and Mr. Clapper are very guarded in their comments, knowing the potential impact of their words. And, in virtually all cases, there public remarks reflects the intelligence community's assessment of a particular situation.

So, in that sense, the observations of the CIA Director and the DNI (likely) reflected the consensus of our intelligence community."

&

"(R)emember: the former Air Force General isn't paid to study terror groups in depth; his assignment is to run the nation's intel bureaucracy. His remarks on the Muslim Brotherhood reflect the "consensus" of the intelligence community, i.e., all those well-educated analysts whose sole job is to attain expertise on the Brotherhood, Al Qaida, or other other Muslim terror groups.

If the "smart guys" in the spook world believe the Muslim Brotherhood is morphing into a mainstream political group, we are in trouble."

re: "Dumbest thing said yet about Muslim Brotherhood"

Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") doesn't mince words.

Money quote(s):

"That is so incandescently stupid that he and everyone who vetted or helped prepare his remarks should be fired, preferably out of cannons and not the circus kind. How the Hell are we supposed to make any coherent policy when our DNI is so monumnetally ill-informed that he makes Biden look wise. Every single statement he has made about the Mo Bros is not just wrong, but completely ass-backwards. I weep for our complete lack of anything even vaguely resembling a competent intelligence apparatus."

(I would invite the reader to read something I wrote about this here.)

When discussing Egypt's MB, what it is, what it does, remember this:

"(T)he MB (like Hamas, like Hezbollah) uses the disfunction or disinterest of the legal government and authorities wherever they are to buy legitimacy by providing social services. In other words, they go secular and they do so in a very deliberate, very public way. It's not fake, the medical or social safety net they erect is quite real, and in an environment (such as Egypt) where the overtly political and violent aims of the MB are quite ruthlessly quashed, this sort of thing is much less likely to get one a date with the security ministries interrogators."

re: "There's Willful Blindness, and Then There's Willful Stupidity"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("a web-leading source of real-time conservative opinion") puts a smackdown on the DNI.

Quote(s):

"James Clapper, the head of intelligence for the United States of America, has explained to Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular.” It further has “eschewed violence,” decries al-Qaeda as a “perversion of Islam,” and really just wants “social ends” and “a betterment of the political order in Egypt.”"

&

"If this is what $40 billion–plus buys you, maybe Representative Ryan can make up the rest of that $100 billion by eliminating the intelligence community."

I don't happen to know the DNI personally, but a lot folks in the IC whom I do know speak of him with respect.

I haven't read the whole testimony, but one thing I can tell you is that what someone from the IC briefs an open meeting with the media present is not what he or she briefs behind closed doors where everyone inside has the appropriate security clearance. Unclassified briefings are, necessarily, somewhat dumbed-down, and they are so for very good reasons. Such reasons as not exposing the crown jewels of your best sources or means of collection, &tc., so as to make your source's lives shorter and riskier or to make it easier for an adversary to fool or evade your intelligence capabilities.

(The reader may recall, or is invited to discover, why it is that Osama Bin Ladin no longer uses a cellular or satellite telephone.)

That being said, the MB (like Hamas, like Hezbollah) uses the disfunction or disinterest of the legal government and authorities wherever they are to buy legitimacy by providing social services. In other words, they go secular and they do so in a very deliberate, very public way. It's not fake, the medical or social safety net they erect is quite real, and in an environment (such as Egypt) where the overtly political and violent aims of the MB are quite ruthlessly quashed, this sort of thing is much less likely to get one a date with the security ministries interrogators.

With that in mind, it may be that reporting on the DNI's testimony is a little slanted, a little incomplete, and that maybe all that shocked reaction on the part of committee members was just the slightest, teensiest bit stage-managed.

(Not that there's ever any stagecraft and drama practiced in the public eye on Capitol Hill. Perish the thought.)

re: "An Intelligence Failure In The Middle East?"

Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") critiques the inevitable casting about for a fall guy.

Money quote(s):

"(M)any in Washington are expressing disappointment that the U.S. intelligence community seemingly missed the warning signs"

You mean, like Tunesia's "Jasmine Revolution"? Or like the fact that Mubarak was almost 82?

" I’ve got to agree with Ed Morrissey that there’s really very little to this criticism, and it looks to me like we’re seeing people in power stake out their positions for a “Who Lost Egypt?” debate should that come to pass"

It's right there! Right where it's always been! It was never ours to begin with!

"(D)ocuments from the Wikileaks diplomatic cables dump show that the U.S. has been concerned for years about the question of who would succeed Hosni Mubarak, and that we spend the last several years providing behind the scenes support to dissident groups in Egypt"

I can neither confirm nor deny (even if I knew, which I don't) whether this last is true, especially since FSOs (and others) have been directly ordered not to access Wikileaks.

"(O)n some level, the idea that the intelligence community missed anything here is simply absurd."

Remember: no policy failures, only intelligence failures. Or, alternatively, diplomatic failures.

&

"Anyone in Washington who says they didn’t see this coming is either lying or they weren’t paying attention to the world around them."

WT - EDITORIAL: PMOI's place on the terrorist watch list. People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran should be cleared.

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Times

EDITORIAL: PMOI's place on the terrorist watch list


People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran should be cleared


By THE WASHINGTON TIMES


Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hears the case of People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran v. United States Department of State. The State Department says the PMOI is a terrorist organization. The PMOI says the United States is falling for Iranian propaganda.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"The PMOI was founded in 1963 as a violent anti-Shah movement. It supported the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, who returned the favor by executing the group's leaders."

"The group renounced violence in 2001, and it has not engaged in terrorism since. A U.S. Intelligence Community Terrorist Threat Assessment acknowledged that there "has not been a confirmed terrorist attack by [the PMOI] since the organization surrendered to Coalition forces in 2003."

The PMOI has assisted the United States in Iraq by warning Coalition troops against planned attacks by Iraqi insurgents. The PMOI also has provided critical information on Iran's secret nuclear program, such as the first reports of hidden facilities at Qom and Natanz."

"Removing the PMOI from the list of foreign terrorist organizations is one of the few issues on which both parties in Congress agree."

"\The United Kingdom and European Union have removed the group from their terror lists, which has created a disconnect with America's allies that complicates policy-making. The political rationale that put the PMOI on the U.S. terror list also has changed. The Clinton administration tagged the PMOI as terrorists in October 1997 as a means of reaching out to Iran's newly elected moderate leader Mohammad Khatami."

"America's terror list has become an enabler for Iran's state terrorism."

&

"Taking the PMOI off the terror list acknowledges that the group has put violence behind them, creates a credible incentive for other terror groups that might desire to reform their ways, and removes a tool from the hands of a theocratic regime bent on terrorizing its own people."

WT - Grassley calls for more visa screeners. GOP senator writes to Clinton.

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Times

Grassley calls for more visa screeners


GOP senator writes to Clinton


By Nicholas Kralev

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A senior Republican senator urged Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday to drastically increase the number of specialized units at U.S. embassies around the world that screen visa applicants for security concerns, including ties to terrorists or other criminal groups.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"In a letter to Mrs. Clinton, Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa decried the slow pace of setting up visa-security units — only at 14 of more than 220 U.S. missions abroad so far - and blamed the State Department for putting "roadblocks" to efforts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to boost its presence at several consulates."

"Congress directed DHS when it was established in 2002 to create the units in question to help State Department consular officers abroad in screening visa applicants."

"After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., there were calls in Congress for the State Department to be stripped of its visa-issuing responsibilities, but the secretary of state at the time, Colin L. Powell, managed to keep that function in his agency. The visa-security units were created as a compromise."

"State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley confirmed Monday that there are 14 visa-security units in 12 countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Egypt and Venezuela, but he rejected Mr. Grassley's accusations."

&


continued

"While some critics blame the State Department, which has full authority to cancel visas without permission from other agencies, others say the intelligence community should have recommended revocation based on information it had — but the State Department did not."