In Robert Baer’s book See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, he accounts his career in the CIA from the eighties to the late nighties. Through his time, Baer observes a particular relationship between U.S. intelligence agencies and their political masters. Specifically, Washington would direct intelligence resources for political purposes rather than that of gaining intelligence or combatting terrorism. Due to this, Baer through explicit accounts of meetings and conversations among other intelligence officials argues that political disinterest and even misuse of intelligence resources led to failures such as the 1993 TWC bombing, the 1998 U.S.S. Cole incident, and 9/11. As a result, through Baer’s exploits, U.S. intelligence agencies were hindered in its efforts to combat foreign threats due to intelligence operatives and managers either being limited in their capabilities or mismanaged to fulfill political promises rather than intelligence goals. …show more content…
This is further exacerbated by the fact that in a conversation with an ambassador, he was told to have provided a travelogue rather than actual intelligence info. In this respect, his superiors were perceived to have focused on frivolous matters rather than the actual work of intelligence. In this example, Baer helps convey a sense of dysfunction to hit home the fact that bureaucracy obstructed the work of intelligence. As a result, Baer and other intelligence officials are then perceived as hard-working individuals burdened by rigid and myopic
Guilford, CT: Dushkin/ McGraw-Hill, 1997. Chiatkin, Anton. A. Treason in America. Washington DC: Executive Intelligence. Review, a review of the book, Divine, Breen, Frederickson, and Williams. America Past and Present.
In past history, heroes come in many different facets of life. The military has produced many of these heroes. Chris Kyle a United States Navy SEAL was one of those heroes. Chris grew up in various locations in Texas. His father worked for AT&T as a manager and they moved around frequently. Chris loved to fight as he stated “Somewhere along the way, I started sticking up for younger kids who were being picked on. I felt I had to look out for them. It became my duty. Maybe it began because I was looking for an excuse to fight without getting in trouble” (American Sniper, Chris Kyle, 21).
Through history, the United States has participated in many significant events, such as the infamous Civil War, World War I and II, and the Cold War. In the same manner, the United States has been in many conflicts with the Middle East. For instance, the Gulf War where, we, the United States, liberated the Saudi Arabian country Kuwait from the dictator Saddam Hussein; however, he is in command of one of the most powerful armies in the globe (Operation). Even though this conflict only lasted for months, America had overcome a milestone. So many military personnel have participated in this conflict and all have different stories as well as perspectives. Whether the veteran was on the front line or working behind the scenes, everyone who contributed in Operation: Desert Storm made it successful. Despite the many deaths in this conflict, the lives that were sacrificed will be remembered forever.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
?Espionage.? 2000-2004. The War to End All Wars. Michael Duffy. Original Material. Primary Documents Online.
John Colvin was not an Ambassador, but he knew his operational environment inside and out. Colvin was an OSS agent during World War II and was deployed to Sarkhan. By the very nature of his profession he was required to understand his operational e...
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
Trauma can be defined as something that repeats itself. In The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, trauma recurs in soldiers for different reasons. However, although their reasons for trauma are different, the things they carried can symbolize all the emotions and pasts of these soldiers. One man may suffer trauma from looking through letters and photographs of an old lover, while another man could feel trauma just from memories of the past. The word “carried” is used repeatedly throughout The Things They Carried. Derived from the Latin word “quadrare,” meaning “suitable,” O’Brien uses the word “carried” not to simply state what the men were carrying, but to give us insight into each soldiers’ emotions and character, his past, and his present.
When a giant explosion ripped through Alfred P. Murrah federal building April 19,1995, killing 168 and wounding hundreds, the United States of America jumped to a conclusion we would all learn to regret. The initial response to the devastation was all focused of middle-eastern terrorists. “The West is under attack,”(Posner 89), reported the USA Today. Every news and television station had the latest expert on the middle east telling the nation that we were victims of jihad, holy war. It only took a few quick days to realize that we were wrong and the problem, the terrorist, was strictly domestic. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Because America jumped to conclusions then, America was later blind to see the impending attack of 9/11. The responsibility, however, is not to be placed on the America people. The public couldn’t stand to hear any talk of terrorism, so in turn the White House irresponsibly took a similar attitude. They concentrated on high public opinion and issues that were relevant to Americans everyday. The government didn’t want to deal with another public blunder like the one in Oklahoma City. A former FBI analyst recalls, “when I went to headquarters (Washington, D.C.) later that year no one was interested in hearing anything about Arab money connections unless it had something to do with funding domestic groups. We stumbled so badly on pinpointing the Middle East right off the bat on the Murrah bombing. No one wanted to get caught like that again,”(Posner 90). The result saw changes in the counter terrorism efforts; under funding, under manning, poor cooperation between agencies, half-hearted and incompetent agency official appointees and the list goes on. All of these decisions, made at the hands of the faint-hearted, opened the doors wide open, and practically begged for a terrorist attack. So who’s fault is it? The public’s for being
The attack toward the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 shocked the world. Many people died, and the scar still remains in people's hearts. Was this whole thing predictable? No, but it could have been avoided says Robert Baer in his book, See No Evil. This book is a memoir of a man who joined the CIA to satisfy his curiosity he had toward what was happening in the world, and became to realize the problems the CIA faced and the never told inside story he encountered.
The New York Times Bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... And Young was authored by Lt. General Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway. In November 1965, Lt. Colonel Harold Moore commanded the 1st Battalion, 7th cavalry at the Ia Drang Valley-one of the bloodiest battles of Vietnam. He eventually retired from the Army in 1977 after thirty-two years of service. After his military career, Lieutenant General Moore resided as executive vice president for four years at a Colorado ski resort before founding a computer software company. Harold Moore currently lives in Auburn, Alabama and Crested Butte, Colorado.
... Sept. 11th, 2001, terrorist attack on theWorld Trade Center and the unreliability of U.S. intelligence onWeapons of mass Destruction in Iraq have been a focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. in 2004 particularly in the context of the 9/11 Commision , the continuing armed resistance against U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the widely perceived need for systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency. On July 9th, 2004 the Senate report of Pre-war Intelligenceon Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committe stated that the CIA described the danger presented by Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq in an unreasonable way, largely unsupported by the available intelligence. In a briefing held Sept 15th, 2001 George Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix, a "top-secret" document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The actions, underway or being recommended, would range from "routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks". The plans, if carried out, "would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history".
According to Donavan (1986) policy looks to intelligence for a logic of evidence, and analysis, looks for policy to serve. Despite the common goal of advancing national security interest, the relations between producers and consumers of intelligence assessments are not naturally harmonious. According to The Politicization of Intelligence History (2006), there are fewer accusations which carry more weight within the intelligence community than claims that the analysis and reporting of intelligence have been influenced by political considerations. The process and pressures by which political influence effected the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) estimates, the Soviet Union military capabilities and the Vietnam military predictions will be discussed, in order to emphasis the safeguards needed to successfully manage the relationship between intelligence providers and consumers.
"RUN!!" I heard a fellow soldier screaming as I looked around. "RUN!" I started to take off but I was too late. I am an American soldier and I just got my leg blown off by a grenade. As I lay here crying, yelling out in pain, I think about why I am even here. The president thought that Saddam Hussein MIGHT have had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), so he sent me here to die. After we searched and found that Hussein did not have any WMDs, what did President Bush decide to do? Send more troops (SIRS).
When I was seventeen I nervously traveled about 350 miles from my sleepy little home town of Freedom, Wyoming to the relatively enormous city of Boise, Idaho to go to the Military Entrance Processing Station. This wasn 't the first time I had been this far from home by myself, but it was the first time I was making adult decisions without my parents involvement. When it came time for me to choose my job in the army the counselors presented me with a long list that I qualified for. I got tired of scrolling and reading so I chose the first job that I actually understood. I returned home and excitedly told my parents that I would be an infantry soldier. My dad 's response to this might be considered a little less than heart warming “You dumb ass. Why didn 't you choose