The Ethics of Espionage CHAPTER 2 (original) (raw)

That the American IC retains any identity of a functioning intelligence organization at all, is because of the integrity of career intelligence officers who evaded the blades of the Halloween Massacre '79, the subsequent doldrums of demoralizing management over the years, and perhaps the guidance of some providence. It is not just local sport to decry the number of failures (that are known) of CIA, the example of failed intelligence episodes lay open for the world to see. Today, it is not just Iran where American intelligence is falling short, however. A complete indictment of the US intelligence record must include the failure to adequately predict and prepare for a host of international transpirations – the postwar anarchy in Iraq, the election of Islamists in Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt. To that list we must add the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan; the extent of Pyongyang's WMD capabilities; the existence of the A.Q. Khan nuclear cartel; the rise of anti-American populist socialism in South America; and the rapidity of China's military modernization. The picture that emerges is one of an intelligence apparatus that is derelict in its duty and harassed by its own bureaucracies.1 The present day US IC is an institution ill-suited to meet the challenges of the 21 st century. It took less than a generation to turn a machinery that expertly collected, analyzed, and evaluated information as updated product for POTUS, to find itself to be a mulling-about dystopia.