[ASA Vet]

The bottom line is that our intelligence services do not, and never have protected America.

What say you MI types?

[Salvavida]

I can name three operations off the top of head where Americans and American interests were protected, and i didn't have to think. Then there are the sustained programs.........

There is a valid need for intelligence reform (there always is), but to posit intelligence services don't protect Americans comes from someone who has no professional experience in the area.

[GreyFriar]

I take it as a slanderous attack on all of us who served honorably in military intelligence billets. I have nothing but disdain for the poster’s comment.

[silverleaf]

I say they definitely used to - but the revealed corruption and rot at the agencys’ tops make it impossible to trust what they are now.

Ditto for our formerly revered allies like Great Britain. Their intel has been revealed as political agenda... They now seem like Total tools. And not friends of the US. Ditto with...others.

The appointment of a psycho like Brennan to head CIA should have never ever ever occurred. But it did. That is one dangerous SOB

Fish rot from the head down.
Hopefully Trump has patriots and loyal people advising him but the drivel that spews from the State Department and so-called “UN Ambassador” make me doubtful.

[ManHunter]

Intelligence is an art, not a science. There is no proof formula for intel, i.e., SIGINT+HUMINT+ELINT+GEOINT+Tac Intel does not necessarily equal Ground Truth. Too many variables in each of those disciplines and too much dependence on secondary and tertiary indicators for reliable I&W.

A basic truism of intelligence is that our failures always receive top billing, whereas our successes are rarely known and that will never change.

[wbarmy]

The bottom line is that our intelligence services do not, and never have protected America.

The person has no idea what the real intelligence agents have been doing because we do not kiss and tell. When someone starts writing the books and getting air time, it means they really were not capable and feel the need to justify themselves. The real agents do their jobs, target the bad guys, and shut the heck up.

[PIF]

He has no idea what he is talking about ... perhaps he is too young to know or never was in any real position to know anything, except what others told him or he read like this pice here; a piece(from the comments) display a total lack of any knowledge about the intel community, rather a hate fest stirred up by a bad actor or by malevolent media types.

[trebb]

Never is a word that may be a bit too strong....the Intel services are certainly overcrowded with a lot of folks who ain’t patriots and likely never will be but there must be a few cases where they proved useful.

[jagusafr]

Not the bottom line at all, but a significant disappointment. I grew up among, and served with, many who take security extremely seriously.

[realcleanguy]

So, I was stationed in Hawaii and assigned to the 372nd ASA. The 2nd Ops platoon were doing a routine test of their equipment and picked up something strange. They traced it to the Honolulu Harbor. The went to the supply depot at Kapalama and “targeted” the Russian oceanography ship that was in the harbor. Turns out it was really a spy ship. Crazy shit. Discovered by accident. So MI groups do protect the USA. You just don’t see it in the news