US Intelligence | Imamother

SixOfWands

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 5:26 pm

CIA Director Gina Haspel and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, recently testified before Congress about outstanding national security threats.

In his opening statement, Coats said North Korea is “unlikely” to “completely give up” its nuclear weapons, as its Communist leaders ultimately view the nukes as “critical to regime survival.” Trump repeatedly contradicts this, praising Kim Jung Un (stating, for example, that he looks forward "to meeting with Chairman Kim who realizes so well that North Korea possesses great economic potential!” and that it began scrapping its nuclear stockpiles, which has been repeatedly contradicted by U.S. intelligence and media reports showing North Korea is still developing nuclear weapons at secret locations).

Haspel has said that ISIS is “still dangerous,” and that it still commands "thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria.” Trump claims that ISIS has been “defeated.”

And of course, famously, he questioned his own intelligence agencies' assessment of Russian election interference, choosing to believe Putin instead.

Quote:

"I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. Dan Coats [the director of national intelligence] came to me and some others, they said they think it's Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it's not Russia. I will say this: I don't see any reason why it would be."

Curious how those on the right view these disagreements between Trump and his intelligence agencies. Do you think that Trump knows better than the CIA and NI Directors? Do you think that his willingness to reject their intelligence reports makes the US safer or more dangerous?

Fox

Wed, Jan 30 2019, 7:14 pm

SixOfWands wrote:

I think Trump and the intelligence infrastructure are in completely different businesses.

Trump's job is to cajole, wheedle, flatter, threaten, and use carrots and sticks to get results that are beneficial for the U.S.

I recently heard an analysis from a former business associate that said that Trump's primary skill is not really negotiation, but rather, that he is able to intuitively recognize his adversaries' weaknesses. I suspect that's very accurate.

He is also acutely aware of the audience for whom he is performing.

When Trump says what a great guy Kim Jung Un is -- that's not meant for us. We already know that he's far from a great guy. Rather, it's meant for the translators in North Korea who are dutifully sending reports to Kim every day. And everything we know about Kim suggests that he might indeed be susceptible to Trump's flattery and the avuncular role he adopts in dealing with Kim.

So Trump praising Kim in no way contradicts whatever intelligence sources are saying. His job is to flatter and/or bully Kim into reducing nuclear testing and provocation as much as possible. Their job is to report and assess what's going on.

Same with Putin. "Of course you didn't do anything wrong, Vladimir! Those silly reporters! Oh, did we kill 500 of your mercernaries in Syria? Gosh! Oh, and have you met our Ambassador to Germany? C'mere Ric! Seriously, Vladimir, you're gonna love this guy!"

Now, Putin seems a great deal smarter than Kim and is less likely to fall for obvious flattery. So I think Putin knows when he's being played. But that's the nature of weaknesses; even when we're smart enough to know our weaknesses, we can only compensate haphazardly.

I am personally fascinated by the analysts and commentators who are constantly monitoring military activities, social media, business news, and actual government action (and inaction) -- and then laying out the connections between all of them.

The problem is that there aren't too many people out there who have enough knowledge in all of those arenas to add up 2 + 2. If you told me that, say, a certain type of plane has been landing and taking off more frequently from a particular military base, I'd just shrug and say, "Um, okay."

Thomas Wictor, Saul Montes-Bradley, and Heshmat Alavi are all people I follow, but I'd love to find more.

Btw, I'm not claiming that Trump is playing some sort of 8D chess game. I think the former business associate was correct: he intuitively picks up on peoples' weaknesses and stress points. While I wouldn't want someone with that skill around the house, I'm delighted if he can use it to, say, scale back China's ambitions.