Dumbing down Intel

NY Post ^ | July 20, 2010 | Ralph Peters

[Scanian]

The fundamental problem with our national intelligence system is that it assumes that quantity can substitute for quality. The result is a vast, expensive network that's far less than the sum of its parts.

It's as if the Yankees, stung by a string of losing seasons, avoided seeking out talented ballplayers in favor of hiring a thousand Little Leaguers (at major-league salaries).

This week, The Washington Post has done something of a service with a series of articles, "Top Secret America," chronicling the lack of accountability in our intelligence community. The analysis is a bit superficial, but diligent reporting drives home The point that we're just not getting our money's worth.

[rbg81]

The effective management of information is a very tough thing to get right. Its very hard to get the right information to the righ decision maker in the right form at the right time. The problem is compounded when you have a lot of conflicting information. Napoleon was a genius in terms of processing and understanding military information. And he also ran France at the same time (while pursuing his campaigns). Unfortunately, a leader like him only comes along once every thousand years or so.

It also illustrates why top down, centralized planning of the economy won’t work. Even if you have a truely brilliant person running the economy, there is no way you can get them the information they need in time to make the right decisions. Things are too fluid and distributed. “Wasteful”, redundant capitalism will win every time because you have able people making quick decisions as conditions change. [Actually, this is the same principle behind Blitzkreig] Sure many (if not most) will fail, but a few will succeed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

[sauropod]

read

[ThunderSleeps]

The Washington Post has done something of a service with a series of articles, "Top Secret America," chronicling the lack of accountability in our intelligence community.

"...something of a service..." - yes, for the enemies of America. It seems the Washington Post, with circulation numbers plummeting, has decided to go for sensationalism. See http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/a-graphic-history-of-newspaper-circulation-over-the-last-two-decades

The Post has decided to try saving its own skin, no matter who or how many people it puts at risk doing it. {expletive} - you Post! As far as I'm concerned, the Post can't die soon enough. The Post and the reporter can claim that they are merely acting as a "watchdog" looking out for our interests and holding the government accountable. {snicker, where were the MSM when they should've been vetting obama? oh, that's right, helping him.}

However, if being a "watchdog" was their real goal they could've made their point with facts and figures without creating a one-stop-shopping service for foreign intelligence officers. Does China, or Russia already know everything in the article(s)? Probably, almost certainly. However there are lots of other, smaller, less-capable entities out there that wish us harm. As the article points out, we have become reliant on intelligence services - that is one major "force multiplier" that helps our Military do more with less. Well, the Post just helped out all those marginal groups by doing their legwork for them. Now they know who, what, and where to attack to seriously damage our intel community, damage our Military's abilities, and by extension America as a whole. Nice job Post, hope you are {explitive}-proud of yourself.

I believe every single red-blooded American that hasn't already should immediately cancel any subscription they have to the post. Similarly no-one should buy one off the news-stand, and any/all American based companies should immediately pull their advertising from the Post. (print and online) We need to shut down this foreign intelligence service.