Well, will wonders never cease. A New York Times editorial slamming the intelligence community for their shameless exploitation of the Paris terrorists attacks. I read it with my mouth wide open. Usually the “newspaper of record” acts as a stenographer for the CIA and other arms of the intelligence community, but not this time.
The editorial is well worth the read..www.nytimes.com/… They rake the CIA director over the coals for his predictable response to the attacks
“It is a wretched and yet predictable ritual after each terrorist attack: Certain politicians and government officials waste no time in exploiting the tragedy for their own ends. the remarks on Monday by CIA director John Brennan, took that to a new and disgraceful low.
Speaking less than three days after coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris killed 129 and injured several more, Mr. Brennan complained about a lot of hand- wringing in the government’s role in the effort to try and uncover these terrorists.
You see, if that pesky government would just get out of the way and let them collect as much information as they want they could put an end to these doggone terrorist attacks! Except, well , that just isn’t the case. As the NYT editorial goes on to point out…
“In fact, indiscriminate bulk date sweeps have not been useful. In the more than two years since the NSA’s data collection programs have become known to the public, the intelligence community has failed to show that the phone program has thwarted a terrorist attack. Yet for years intelligence officials and members of congress have repeatedly mislead the American public by claiming that it was effective.
The editorial goes on to point out that most of the terrorists were well known to French and Belgium intelligence officials in fact several of the men lived within a hundred yards of the police station! So apparently the intelligence is pretty good, it is the acting on the information that seems to be the hard part.
Most of us already knew that of course, but the fact that now the New York Times knows it, well that was the shocking part.