Burn CIA and FBI to the ground? Start over?

IMO there is a lot of evidence of incompetence and malfeasance in the leadership of the 17 agencies of the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  A partial list of failures and misdeeds:

1.  They failed to predict the collapse of the USSR.  There was a lot of scholarship on the subject before the event and individual analysts were sure that the end was approaching for the Soviet government but the agencies refused to believe that such a thing could happen.  Why?  The IC accepted the insistence of the elected government of the US that history would continue in a straight line forever with concomitant profits for industry.

2.  They failed to predict 9/11. This failure was not "failing to connect  the dots."  It was largely a failure to run clandestine HUMINT collection operations well enough to know what al-Qa'ida was up to in detail.  This was not an impossible task.  The IC was offered the means of penetration of the group and refused to take the risk of disclosure with subsequent damage to executives careers even though it was well understood how dangerous AQ was after the East Africa bombings.

3. They failed to infiltrate Al-Qa'ida before 9/11.  Once again, this was not an impossible task. I could tell you how, but ...

4. The FBI has repeatedly participated in DoJ efforts to "frame" persons charged in federal courts.  They helped DoJ prosecutors do that to Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.  To my certain and personal knowledge from my work as a consultant to the federal courts and an expert witness in national security cases the FBI/DoJ have repeatedly withheld evidence from the discovery process in which security cleared defense attorneys were due this knowledge,  I have seen the FBI bribe witnesses to testify against defendants on what amounted to a contingency basis, i.e., no conviction, no fee.

5.  And then there is the current murky situation concerning the leaders of the IC; Brennan, Clapper etc., and the leaders of the FBI.  IMO it is clear that whatever they did exactly, they aligned themselves against Candidate/President elect Trump.

There are many, many more examples but time and space available here must limit my recitation of these issues.

Tell me, pilgrims, why should we put up with such nonsense?  Why should we pay the leaders of these agencies for the privilege of  having them abuse us? We are  free men and women. Let us send these swine to their just deserts in a world where they have to work hard for whatever money they earn.

TTG and I are agreed that the very first thing to do is strip CIA of whatever role they still have in the world of Covert Action.  CA includes all measures short of war but more violent than diplomacy that are taken to implement legal US foreign policy.  The CIA should not have this mission, one they have shared with the armed forces since 9/11.  CIA's present mission is to serve as the main US Clandestine Service, backed up by the military.  In this role they are supposed to recruit foreigners to spy for us but also to run a large part of CA.   It is obvious to anyone who has watched them try to do that over many decades that they simply lack the skills needed.  Watching them try, is like watching a monkey try to f---k a football.  In their efforts to comply with this mission the civilian leadership of CIA hire people who once were soldiers but who sought other employment and they also borrow junior soldiers from Army Special Forces.  Why not cut out the "middle man" in the process and have the military run CA?

An argument can be made that the FBI, the spawn of J. Edgar Hoover's peculiar brain (he amassed dossiers on US politicians in order to control them) and the CIA an artifact of the Cold War (which ALWAYS had too much power) should simply be torn down as institutions and replaced with other government bodies more reflective of our collective nation values.

The country needs a police agency that obeys the law.  The country needs a small agency to conduct strategic level penetrations of important foreign threats.

Should existing structures like the US Marshal's Service and/or DIA be given the missions of the CIA and FBI or should altogether new groups be constructed with better controls inflicted on them?

I look forward to the discussion.   pl

Comments

[Babak Makkinejad]

Col. Lang:

The list would not be complete without the failure to anticipate the Fall of the Shah of Iran.

[Diana C]

I think that the time is ripe for some overhaul of government agencies, and your suggestion seems a good one to me, who really know nothing about "intelligence" and "investigations."

What I do know is that this sort of overhaul of the American education stystem began a while back with parents in the forefront--working hard for the right to home school, establish their own charter schools or private schools. School boards began early to take their marching orders from the teachers' organizations, which in turn began early to hoodwink the parents. The so-called "education" departments in colleges and universities should be eliminated, and teachers should be granted licenses based on their knowledge of the subjects in the grade levels they are licensed to teach.

But, I am digressing from your topic. I give the example of what is wrong in education only to suggest that this time in the history of our nation is ripe for a general housecleaning.

And, like him or cringe at him, Trump was elected because many people also realized that the Augean Stables of D.C. need a good hosing down.

[Factotum]

Well over a decade and half ago our local Committee on Foreign Relations (parent company Council on Foreign Relations CFT) had a guest speaker on this exact topic -what are we getting from the millions (billions?) spent on our IC community.

He also at that time presented a compelling list of intelligence failures, and questioned the value of this operation's continued existence. Wish I could recall who the speaker was, other than being surprised such clearly "anti-government" position was being presented under the auspices of the CFR.

[JP Billen]

Would you have DIA do the snooping on foreign political and commercial venues. There is some crossover, but the CIA is much better suited for those tasks IMHO.

By the way, where did you find the Iron Felix stamp? It was a good thing for Stalin that Dzerzhinsky was long dead when the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed. And did Dzerzhinsky really die of a heart attack, he was fairly young - 48 or 49?

[turcopolier]

jpbillen

You think CIA has more sophisticated case officers? I do not. A division within DIA that would specialize in that could be created. IMO you don't know anything about the quality of personnel involved. A lot of CIA case officers I have known were former military case officers and the rest tended to be spoiled self indulgent people who could not be trusted to act like adults. The average commissioned officer military case officer is better educated than the average CIA type.

[Eric Newhill]

Sir,
It seems like we've reached a juncture where burning these agencies to the ground is necessary. You'd greatly expand the US Marshall's investigative abilities and pass the CIA's mission over to the military. Fine. However, you've still got the DoJ involved with the Marshalls and you've got people like Vindman in the military and you've got people like Clinton and Kerry at State, etc. Why wouldn't the Marshalls and military, in time, become as corrupt and incompetent as the FBI and CIA?

Then there's the lack of congressional and executive oversight (or worse, mal-direction) that has allowed a lot of the corruption and incompetence to flourish. Our elected reps are, for the most part, very shabby people.

So I'm not optimistic about the longer term impact, but yeah, burn them down as an object lesson for the time being.

[turcopolier]

Eric Newhill

yes, over time the same disease that besets all mature bureaucracies would emerge. periodic reformations are necessary. Make a suggestion.

[jonst]

I am being only slightly sarcastic, I wonder if they are more likely to "burn the people down and start over"?

[Diana C]

I did a quick search; and not being a trained investigator and not being near a good research library, I learned that the CIA is actually a year younger than I am. For some reason, I had thought it had been around a much longer time.

I also learned that there had been one failed Article One challenge in regard to its funding. That is interesting, but I wonder why it wasn't challenged further.

It appears that being relatively a "young" agency--like the one I would like to have eliminated, the Dept. of Education--Congress could do a lot to make changes or could eliminate it or possibly reinvent it to try to eliminate the types of problems that have arisen. That could happen only if the CIA itself was not in charge of the process. It would seem one change would be to the top so a loyalty to a past Presidential Administration could not hamper the Incoming Administration. Surely, a check on agents' political activities should be included.

But then, that would mean having a functioning Congress.

Another question is whether the FBI should be overhauled at the same time in some way to keep the likes of another Hoover or Comey from rising to the top. How to eliminate Party politics is a real problem since it seems so mired in the Swamp--at least at the top levels. (The fact that the FBI office nearest the Florida High School where that horrific shooting happened did not react to a report sent to it in regard to videos being posed by that young killer indicates to me a problem that needs to be investigated still.)

But, sadly, the problem involving the Media is one that the government has no control over, and it shouldn't. How do we go back to training reporters and editors to return to the journalism standards I made my journalism students follow, by testing them on the text book they also had to read.

My biggest worry is that nothing will change at all.

[Chibi David]

Hello coming from down under what is happening in The USA and most of the leaders etc look like they are from another dimension in other words your reality as expressed by nearly all of your leaders, media, film and entertainment are totally weird. Colony Australia is no better.
The article states the obvious but having lost your sanity how to become sane again is the question.
I do not accept that 9.11 was done by Al-Qa'ida. The third building in itself is enough to raise tricky questions, the insurance scam, the dancing Mossad agents, the Saudis having a magic carpet departure etc etc.
Going back to the main subject i think that The system will fall over by itself.

[JerseyJeffersonian]

Mr. Jefferson looked for revolutions every 20 years; not necessarily violent, but comprehensive so that citizens' rights were reinstated against the rot. Deep State no like.

[Dave Schuler]

You could start your bill of particulars a lot earlier than 1991. The CIA systematically overstated the capabilities of the Soviet Union over a period of 40 years. That had serious policy implications which reach right down to the present day. Then there were the Bay of Pigs failure and Aldrich Ames.

[turcopolier]

Dave Schuler

Yes. I tried to be restrained.

[Chibi David]

It is said that Greed is the root of all evil.
Uncontrolled capitalism is Greed.
Your Congress and Senate are bought by money, To become elected to any government position usually goes to the highest bidder.
Board members get rich by share buybacks that drain the blood from your companies enriching a few shareholders on the way. One only needs to use Boeing as example once a great innovator and engineering company now it is like a sleigh of hands.
So of course all levels of government are corrupted
Hollywood and the media controlled by a few extremely wealthy who's agenda certainly does not support America or the American people.
So to talk about your changing your letter agencies is to try to fix the symptoms not the cause.

[Dave Schuler]

Turning to the FBI, why should the agency exist at all? We got along fine for more than a century without it. It didn't serve its present "elite" role until 1982 and it has been a notable failure in that regard, as demonstrated by your list.

Presently, there are more than 30 different armed law enforcement agencies in the federal government--everything from the Marshalls Service to Fish & Wildlife. At best the FBI is redundant.

[Factotum]

Diana -re:Dept of Education Here is my theory.

From their website:..... "This expansion (of the DOE) continued in the 1970s with national efforts to help racial minorities, women, people with disabilities and non-English speaking students gain equal access to education. In October 1979, Congress passed the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88). Created by combining offices from several federal agencies, the Department began operations in May 1980."....

SCOTUS ruled in 1982 mandatory free K-12 for illegals put a huge burden primarily on border states since public education was a state or local cost. Now they had to also provide free K-12 for the new floods of illegals coming across our borders in the 1980's.

Since it was beyond the local ability to pay for all this now free education for illegals, and becasue some powers that be somewhere thought illegal immigration was a good thing, the federal government had to step in and provide federal education funding to supplement these now mandated over-impacted states. Hence the growth of the federal DOE.

All of this was great for the teachers unions, particularly in states where all teachers were forced to join the teachers unions to even get a job, which led to the massive increases in the teacher union political war chests. The irony being these teachers unions who are working against us and our children's education were getting funded by our own tax dollars since this was all public funding.

We grew a federal funding monster and a magnet for illegals all at the same time. No coincidence SCOTUS ruling, the growth of the DOE and the teachers unions and the severe decline in the quality of K-12 education all happened at the same time.

1980's forward.This decline was particularly severe in California as the numbers of "english learners" in our K-12 schools dramatically increased to now well over 60%, while our student outcome scores dropped into the bottom 5% nationwide.

[Terence Gore]

"Why not cut out the "middle man" in the process and have the military run CA?"

I know things seem out of control here on the left coast...

[Harlan Easley]

How can they be cleaned out when the whole government appears infiltrated with individuals disloyal to the Constitution. And the hypocrites say this

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

turcopolier said...
"No. Neocons seek world domination under their rule. The US is just a tool for them."

As far as I can see they hate National Borders as you have stated. I wouldn't be surprised at this point that the massive illegal immigration was allowed to happen in order to destroy the fabric of society in the United States with the eventual goal of a North American Union. The EU is definitely the model for a "Republic" of World Governments which will only be a mask or veil for a tyranny much as it is today. But much much worse is planned in my opinion.

It is time individuals start deciding which Father they will follow. The "God" of this World known as Death or the God of Life. That's the way it was put to me. And that's the way it will be put to the inhabitants of Planet Earth. We will either have a Kingdom of Hell or a Kingdom of Heaven. No more straddling the fence.

I will never betray him again. And look forward to meeting the Bastard on the Battlefield.

[Vegetius]

Yes, those agencies have to be dis-established. This is a minimum. But I don't think you can just burn down the CIA and the FBI and keep it contained. No one really knows what the ka-boom looks like on the end of that fuse.

But to maintain the current arrangement while restoring public trust you would have to set up something similar to the de-Nazification process and it would have to be public. It would have to extend through the federal bureaucracy, possibly into some state agencies and large municipal police departments, as well as collaborating agents like the Fed, investment banks, media corporations, resident aliens from countries like Russia and China and Saudi Arabia and Israel, intimidation rackets like the ADL, etc.

This means a complete undoing of the power arrangements in this hemisphere and I think the chances of that happening peacefully is probably around twenty percent.

But whatever happens, if you're under 40 you want this to happen right away.

If you're over 60 you want this to happen some time in the future after you're dead.

If you're 40 t0 60 you don't know whether to sh1t or go blind.

[The Twisted Genius]

JP Billen, I can also attest that a military case officer has far more experience and education than most CIA case officers. In 1988 both military and CIA case officers were trained at the "farm." Our courses were separate, but in the same building. Both classes were shown a slide contrasting the age, experience, education and linguistic abilities of each class of students. The CIA students were predominantly young, inexperience, just out of college type. The military students had far more life, world and military experience. Two CIA students who had prior military experience were admonished by their instructors for hanging out with us.

We had a spouses weekend where our spouses were briefed on what we would be doing for a living. SWMBO was shocked. She stood up and gave the CIA base chief and his staff an earful. In SF I became accustomed to practicing stringent OPSEC and kept a lot of details of my job from SWMBO. My advisor, a crusty old warrant officer, told me it was about time those people learned what the rest of the world thought of them. SWMBO is one smart, opinionated woman.

[turcopolier]

TTG

"SWMBO was shocked. She stood up and gave the CIA base chief and his staff an earful." Shocked? What did she say?

[Petrel]

Sometimes analysis of long serving success may reveal how the nation might proceed. A case in point -- Morris, Jack and Benjamin Childs and their wives. Morris who?

Morris and Jack Childs were early graduates of a 1920 Soviet spy school. They returned to the US and operated in the Illinois area with some success, especially during the Depression years. Morris developed a heart condition during WWII and was abandoned by the Communist Party of America. His brothers dropped extraneous activity and focused their time and resources on helping him.

Then . . . the FBI came calling. At government expense Morris was moved to the Mayo Clinic and Jack was instructed to solicit assistance from Party Chapters all across the US. The money received was minimal, but donors were enthusiastically thanked.

By 1950, Morris had risen to the #2 position in the Communist Party of America, which involved his visiting Russia for a month at a time, several times every year to discuss budget and operations. As a communist graduate of the "heroic" age, he became a discreet father figure for everyone in the Politburo. (All his fellow graduates had been eliminated during the Stalin years.) His friends in Moscow learned that their confidences and expressed annoyances were sympathetically discussed, but never shared with rivals. Ultimately, the Kremlin asked him to visit Mao in Peking, Castro in Havana to smooth over disputes -- Morris was the go-to friend to the Politburo.

A word about Jack and Benjamin. They established a mail-order business selling white shoes and clothes to nurses, called "Women in White," as a cover for the income Morris enjoyed as an invalid. Periodically, Jack would visit New York to order clothing and collect Soviet funds, using time-consuming Soviet methods to detect whether he was being followed.

The FBI never revealed anything about the Childs. In fact, many of Morris' FBI handlers in Chicago were never promoted from modest GS 11 and 12 positions. The very valuable intelligence delivered by Morris was disguised by the FBI handlers in "think essays," or as electronic intercepts.

By 1977, Morris was visibly failing. He made one last trip to Moscow and Andropov organized a magnificent dinner for hundreds in the Kremlin. On his return to Chicago, an unknown moving company assisted the family to relocate to Florida amid numerous well wishing farewells. Somehow, communication with the Childs in Florida ceased -- perhaps Morris had died.

For a fascinating read: Operation Solo: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, by John Daniel Barron.

[turcopolier]

Chibi David

Are you the same Australian who used to brag here that his uncle liked to shoot at American airplanes during WW2? Come visit here and I will explain my point of view with regard to people who bitch a lot but who have no power or responsibilities in the world.

[Factotum]

Uncontrolled capitalism is nothing more than a willing buyer meeting a willing seller. Both are mutually greedy - one wants a high price; one wants a low price. Nothing has changed. Maybe you are talking about class envy, Chibi.

[The Twisted Genius]

As Colonel Lang said, the first step is to transfer all covert action to DoD. That's where it belongs. The CIA grabbed onto that as it became their raison d'être with their "capture, kill" mantra after 9/11 and it has only gotten worse since then. The majority of their paramilitary officers are former SF soldiers and Rangers. We might as well hire these former soldiers back into DIA and JSOC similar to the Military Intelligence Civilian Excepted Career Program long used by the Army and DIA for HUMINT officers. Hell, we've already used civilian HUMINTers in special mission units. I was one of them.

The CIA is largely into liaison and Embassy operations, the cocktail party circuit. The Army and, later, the DIA relied mainly on rather scruffy and low level commercial cover operations. In my opinion, it takes a lot more skill to develop and run HUMINT operations using a scruffy, nobody cover than than as an Embassy official. We, the military, can do both well. I don't know if the same can be said of most CIA officers. Although, I have to admit the CIA does a much better job at developing cover support mechanisms. Maybe that's a niche for them. Having said that, there are more than enough intelligence requirements to keep two HUMINT organizations fully employed. Let DIA support DoD's requirements and let a CIA without CA or paramilitary capabilities support DoS, Commerce Department, and DOE requirements. CIA is always trying to hog military support. Stay in your lane!

I agree with Eric Newhill in that much of the FBI's problems lie with the DOJ and the court system. Our adversarial system either seeks a conviction or seeks to avoid a conviction. Truth and justice take a backseat to these goals. Maybe there should be separation of law enforcement and counter-intelligence. I'm not sure how that would work yet, but that whole Homeland Security mess ought to be included in our bonfire of the Agencies.