Jack doesn't like the author's attitude, but he agrees that politics and weasely bureaucrats are in the way.
Posted on 05/07/2007 4:37:17 AM PDT by Clive
I'm a fan of 24, but counterterrorism intelligence gathering is never like we see on the popular Global television series in which Kiefer Sutherland, as super agent Jack Bauer, has real-time satellite surveillance of suspects downloaded to his smart phone, while computer analysts back at headquarters find just the right clue at just the right time to back up Bauer's, um, "aggressive" field interrogations and thwart the baddies in the nick of time.
Think of counterintelligence as more like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Or 10,000-piece.
Inside the jumbled pile of lookalike pieces are a handful with distinguishable images or shapes -- the tip of a wing, an iris, a leaf, a corner, an edge. By itself, each is meaningless. Only if enough other pieces can be found, over time, will a fragment of an image emerge --maybe -- that given the right analysis might just lead to real clue.
I have always thought the IRA's communique following its unsuccessful attempt to blow up Margaret Thatcher in Brighton in 1984 should be hung on a banner at every intelligence agency in the Western world: Remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.
It is by their failures that intelligence agencies are judged, because their failures are visible. Most of their successes are secret and result from hard work, patience, cunning, fortune and the occasional tip rather than bravado, technological wizardry and Bond-ian derring-do.
I am loath, ever, to criticize intelligence organizations for failing to stop this or that terror attack. Concrete evidence of an impending strike almost never falls into a spy agency's lap.
Following testimony this week at the Air India inquiry in Ottawa that the airline warned the RCMP a bomb attack on its planes was imminent, a group of us at the National Post debated whether the Mounties or the then newly minted Canadian Security Intelligence Service should have done more to prevent the worst terror attack in Canadian history -- and before 9/11, one of the worst in the Western world.
One colleague e-mailed that "just about every single blockbuster terrorist attack came with warning signs. In the 9/11 case, there were plenty of memos going around in summer 2001 warning of airplane attacks, and two of the hijackers entered the United States despite being on a CIA watch list." He added "news this week from Britain also shows that the Brits were on to at least a few of the 7/7 bombers, and then let them slip away."
But hindsight's 20/20. These "warning signs," I maintain, are easy to pick out after the fact only because we know to look for them. Like the recognizable pieces to my jigsaw puzzle above, they are easy to see once we know the whole picture.
What does it prove that there were some snowflakes of warning about airliner attacks in the pre-9/11 blizzard of threats that almost certainly also included car bombs, suicide bombs, truck-borne fertilizer bombs, etc. that never materialized?
There is no doubt that in a Jack Bauer world -- with unlimited budgets, no human rights restrictions on investigation techniques, no legislative oversight committees and plenty of talented script writers -- someone would have seen all of the disparate intel about Arab men attending flying schools in Arizona and Minnesota or getting pulled over for drunk driving in Florida, put two and 137,634 together and prevented the destruction of 3,000 innocent lives.
Or a year in advance, they would have recognized the erratic behaviour of some British Pakistani Muslims as the precursors of the 7/7 attacks on London's Tubes and buses and kept tailing them.
But in the post-Watergate era when most Western nations curtailed their security agencies' ability to spy domestically, and the post-Cold War era when it was thought intelligence budgets could safely be slashed, and the post microchip era when it was determined that listening posts and supercomputers could replace field agents -- coupled with the eternal handicap of human fallibility -- mistakes were made, and will be made again.
Still, even with all these caveats, the Air India failure was different. While later testimony may yet exonerate the RCMP and CSIS, the concrete evidence presented this week is quite damning. Several times within the three weeks leading up to the June, 1985, attacks, the Mounties and CSIS were told strikes were imminent; not only that, but how and by whom: "by Sikh extremists by placing time delay devices in the aircraft or registered baggage."
This was not a few random pieces in a giant pile or a couple of snowflakes in a blizzard. It was half the puzzle or a snowball to the face, and it was missed.
And it was a tragic shame for which blame should be apportioned.
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I’ve NEVER seen Jack or any of his cohorts (1) sleep or (2) charge his cell phone.
You mean you actually have to use a bathroom???????
I guess that is why the show is considered “entertainment”...
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
While I don’t disagree with the article overall, and realize that Jack Bauer is as much a comic book fantasy character as Batman....
Maybe the world would be a lot safer if we did have a couple hundred Jack Bauers working for our CIA, Homeland Security etc.
Guys (and gals) capable of acting rather than writing reports; people who care more about saving innocent lives than they do about career advancement and political correctness.
Of course such people would be useless without a government leadership that would back them up rather than throwing them to to the prosecutorial ...I started to say wolves, but that isn’t accurate... hyenas in our so-called Justice system.
Jack doesn't like the author's attitude, but he agrees that politics and weasely bureaucrats are in the way.
I see an increasing number of News Jackals, err, Reporters, who, when describing a real life event they are covering, describe it as "just like a scene from ____"
( Whatever their favorite movie or TV show is )
..or go pee pee.
He must do it like the rest of us, during commercials.
He doesn't need to. The show takes place in a single 24-hour time period. Anyone can stay awake that long if you have to, and most newer cell phones will give you more than a day on a charge (unless you are on it for 10 or 12 hours straight).
Next thing you're going to tell me is that Spiderman isn't real. Sheesh!
Maybe it SHOULD be.
Jack at makes us believe that there is someone competent in charge when we know the reality is otherwise.
I’d call him.
I heard that GM's Hummer division is going to release a "Jack Bauer Edition."
The only downside is that the steering wheel doesn't work. The thing just goes wherever it wants.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
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“Guys (and gals) capable of acting rather than writing reports; people who care more about saving innocent lives than they do about career advancement and political correctness.”
What makes you think there aren’t?
Why is someone making a living telling us that Jack Bauer is a SHOW and not a documentary?
My wife and I are catching up on 24 by buying and watching the previous seasons. In the first episode of season 2, Jack shoots a government witness and then wants a hacksaw to saw his head off, in order to worm his way into a crime gang. A good line he uses as the other CTU agent watches with shock and disgust - you bureaucrats are all the same. You want results but are unwilling to get your hands dirty.
Good one! 8-)
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