Posted on 05/16/2006 3:16:35 AM PDT by IrishMike
If you thought about it for more than five seconds, it was enough to make you scream. Here was Gen. Michael Hayden, either brave enough or naïve enough to take on the thankless job of heading the CIA, and every newspaper in the country was carrying headlines wondering if a military man should be heading the agency. The question of military subordination to civilian authority is a perennial issue — and one that I personally wrestled with 20 years ago, playing a modest role in crafting the Goldwater-Nichols Act that reformed the Pentagon command structure. But the Hayden controversy wasn't about some general on horseback lording it over subservient civilians. This was about class divisions in a nation at war. Think I'm kidding? Just listen to the condescending, eyeglasses-down-the-nose tut-tutting of the New York Times: "It seems ill-advised to put an Air Force general at the helm of the CIA, a civilian agency."
If their tone sounds vaguely familiar, that's probably because it is. Just imagine if the Times editorial had said, "It seems ill-advised to put a black or Hispanic as head of the CIA, there in suburban Virginia where so many white people work."
(Excerpt) Read more at mysanantonio.com ...
Even an outsider can look at the CIA and understand the problems: that reorganization doesn't automatically lead to transformation, that aging intelligence officers with master's degrees in Soviet studies need to be eased out and that the dominant agency culture of whining, second-guessing and world-class leaking needs to be expunged.
It still isn't clear if a "systems guy" can overhaul an organization whose stock in trade is human intelligence — spies if you're speaking Texan. But coming up on five years after 9-11, the agency needs either a transformation guru like Hayden or else a Marine drill sergeant, if that's what it takes.
If he is successful, better get ready for even more outraged screaming. The Times can even be forgiven — though not too much — for simply parroting the anti-military lines picked up from various members of Congress. All should have known better — and have recognized that the preferred refuges of whining, second-guessing bureaucrats are their protectors on Capitol Hill.
One of those protectors even said last week that Hayden was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe so, but possibly this same test should also be applied to Congress during a transformation process that includes not just Hayden and his new charges at CIA but each and every one of us — that one in November they call an election.>
There isn't a conservative in the world that the liberals would accept as head of the CIA.
Which is kind of strange since the liberals used to hate the Agency, and you'd think they'd want the Agency shook down to prevent "unilateral" activities by CIA insiders from taking "policy" into their own hands.
Of course, now it is their "insiders" they're protecting, and their "unilateral" activities to undermine a Republican. So, now they love the CIA.
The entire CIA needs to be fired and replaced.
No, I'm not crazy. They're obviously NOT doing their jobs.
Admiral Stanfield Turner
It is only a controversy because it is NOT A STINKING SLIMY DEMOCRATIC SCUMBALL APPOINTING HIM.
I believe General Michael Hayden is a ClinTOON appointee the NSA.
When I used to listen to MSNBC- I always liked Allard- he's very bright, witty and had great historical perspective.
Thanks for posting his article- his points are well taken.
Hayden needs to dissolve the CIA and replace it with a different acronym. Ship across the real talent from the current CIA, and move the "higher echelons" of the CIA to the DMV
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