Let's review. The sun setting on the greenback. The deficit rising. The Red/Blue Americas in a state of ideological divorce.

In the Middle East, horror upon disaster upon nightmare. Iraqi supply lines increasingly compromised. Vague fantasies of post election stability...more likely a prelude to further crises. Military equipment degrading faster than replacements/repairs can be provided. Armed services failing to meet recruiting goals and having to stop-loss those who have served their time.

World alliances reforming to counterbalance the Unilateralist US. Meanwhile, the failed yet strangely triumphant NeoCons banging the drums of war against Syria and Iran, while Bushistas cook up tales of Social Security Crisis whose only cure can be to...borrow another couple of "tril", while elected representatives and the media bend over, narcissus-like in their self absorption.

Then we read about Boykin, who's "dark side" Jesus will kick your God's ass any day of the week. He and his ilk are busy drawing up plans to implement faith based (Feith based?) intelligence, or what passes for such, in their "crusade" against Muslims cum Satan.

It is all starting to seem surreal, like coming to the realization that one is in the kind of cheap Hollywood disaster film most of us would not bother watching. The American house is well and truly on fire.

Before WWII and before the CIA, the US used to send officers to posts in foreign countries to learn language culture, etc. During WWII the US had numerous officers that had spent time, in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and even personally knew the Japanese officers they were fighting against. The officers formed a core of US intelligence during WWII that was valuable to understanding Japanese intentions, breaking code, etc. Many of the important intelligence breakthroughs during WWII in the Pacific came from the Pacific theater and not from Washington or the centralized intelligence that was forming in Washington. It is important that we understand our enemies and our friends. We are making a huge mistake by ignoring the advice of those with the best understanding of the regions in the Middle East we are now occupying. We are fighting and governing in Iraq with people in charge of Iraq that have had little experience. There are even reports of the US occupation command being denied permission to hire key State Department individuals with a lot of knowledge about Iraq. Getting the State Department to leak or speak out would produce some very interesting stories.

I've always thought that Boykins' religious beliefs interfered with his ability to pursue the duties of a man in his postion. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this dude is a prime candidate for one of those liberal PC 'diversity training' sessions.

The Times article is fairly vague about what the "fighting for intelligence" initiative amounts to. But it sounds like some pretty nasty business. the impression I receive is that the military wants to get its hand in some real cloak and dagger stuff, combining the soldier and clandestine agent in one man or team, with rules of engagement that allow them to use lethal means to obtain information from low level gun runners, bag men, messengers etc. and then use that info to work their way up the food chain. I was struck by this paragraph:

If you're a shooter, go do that job," said the former intelligence official, who has opposed efforts by the Pentagon to expand its intelligence-gathering role. "But don't put the shooter in a pinstripe suit and send him to Beirut to chase bad guys.

Does the military want to send soldiers on out of uniform undercover missions?

When going to Las Vegas, I suggest you stay at the Bellagio. That's where Wolfowitz stays. And he doesn't go for the Cirque du Soliel.

Bakho is on the mark with respect to the importance of language-and-area qualified professionals for the military, for the diplomatic corps and for the intelligence services.

I would pick one small nit, however, with his assertion that “During WWII the US had numerous officers that had spent time, in Japan, were fluent in Japanese and even personally knew the Japanese officers they were fighting against.”.

My father was one of these – a highly experienced Far-East intelligence hand, proficient in Japanese who served as a Naval intelligence officer throughout the war, reporting (when communications permitted) back to JIC-POA in Admiral Nimiz’ HQ at Camp Smith in Pearl Harbor. These Japanese qualified officers were not numerous at the outset.

Indeed, at the outset of the war there were fewer than ten US military officers who were proficient in Japanese. The early intake into the Pacific intelligence operations was subsequently augmented with the sons of Amerian missionaries who had grown up in Japan- this added another dozen or so to the ranks.

The Navy then set up an intensive Japanese language program in Boulder Colorado which produced considerable numbers of Japanese speaing officers for the second half of WWII. By the time of the occupation, the Navy’s Boulder graduates were able to staff MacArthur’s vice-regal interim government in considerable depth.

The Army and Marine Corps also set up Japanese language schools, but these were of the short-course variety, oriented to tactical language requirements in combat, that did not add much to the capacity for sophisticated intel analysis.

Today, the Navy does the least well amongst the US services at maintaining this kind of in-depth language-and-area capacity and the Army does it best.

The Army’s FAO program (Foreign Area Officer) trains mid-career officers for a full year in the language, then sends them off to Military Staff College in a friendly country in the region (whenever possible, so that they build lifelong professional military relationships with local officers.

This is followed by six to nine months of free roaming around the region in Mufti to gain a close sense of the texture of the area.

FAOs follow this up with stints as defense attaches (DAOs) in the regions.

DAOs are functionally intelligence officers reporting to DIA, although they also function as military diplomats and are the lifeblood of what the DoD call “Mil-Mil” relationships.
****JohnStuart

~~~~~~~~snip~~~~~~~~~~

"To all of those who argued that the neocons had no place to go because the messy war in Iraq would constrain them and their future choices, let me remind you that Boykin seems to be thriving in his job. Douglas Feith has his. Wolfowitz seems to be holding on just fine.

The Pentagon's mission and budgetary creep is out of hand."

~~~~~~~~end snip~~~~~~~~~~~

Is it at all possible that what happened to the USSR in Afghanistan could happen to the USA in Iraq?

Specifically: Bankruptcy and then the Balkanization of the country?

The USSR, pre-1989, had their true believers--their Boykinevskies, if you well.
It led them to extinguish themselves in a torrid no-win war. And thus, they self-swept themselves into the dust bin of history.

We can't, of course, divine the future. And to hypothesize that what happened to the USSR might happen to the USA seems like a hyper-absurdity. Such a plight couldn't possibly take flight, right?

And yet... who foresaw the unraveling of the USSR?

Could it be then, like now, only a slim minority of folks are atune enough to foresee the unraveling of a country?

So here and now I am boasting a prediction:

The USA is defunct. It is riddled with debt--both personal and governmental. It is splitting apart at the seams--where 48% of the population wouldn't spit on the President if he was on fire, and 52% would use their tongues, if need be, to extinguish the flames. We are in a crisis of mounumental proportions. And quite simple there is no exit. As the current path is totally unsustainable, I foresee nothing less than the destruction of America.

Just as Afghanistan was a last gasp of the USSR to reestablish forward progress, so too Iraq is fast proving itself to be the graveyard of the American experiment.

A recent poll showed that a slim majority of Americans are willing to cede to Bush the right to keep troops in Iraq until democracy is established.

One can only wonder how they would have answered if the poll had asked them: Would you also have been willing to keep troops in Vietnam indefintely until democracy is established?

I suspect the same slim majority would have assented.

In other words what I am saying here is that in the lifespan of countries and cultures there comes a time when an entity just decides it is done living in its current form. And so it kills itself.

America is committing suicide--willfully and wrathfully. Let the Boykinization of the country commence--nothing can be done to stop the rending.

Did THIS take me back!!!

I was in what was then the Federal Republic of Germany in the 60's when action was taken against Gen. Walker for violating direct orders to cease attempting to indoctrinate his command using his "Blue Book". You can read about him and his fellow "ultra-rightists" as they were called in this 1962 article.
http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/apr1962/v19-1-article1.htm

He was re-called to the U.S. and ultimately "took early retirement". He is now deceased.

GENERAL BOYKIN ON FIGHTING CRUSADE FOR INTELLIGENCE

"To the Hebrew Congregation in Newport Rhode Island.

. . . It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my Administration, and fervent wishes for my felicity. May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy."

The above was written not by GENERAL Washington in 1790 to a congregation, and this is sort of tame compared to some comments he has written.

Would you characterize General Washington as a "bible-belting general" . . . "also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform" etc? Why Steve does the first four paragraphs of your comments about this intelligence issue deal with your obsession about religiosity rather than discussing intelligence? One might guess (correctly or incorrectly?) that you are intollerant of religion, since this seems to be the core of your dislike of the Generals' policy?

Hm. It seems to me that the fight for intelligence is over and intelligence lost.

Re language training and the Army -- please. They may be the best of the military language programs, but that's like saying that when it comes to neurosurgery, mechanics who work on Maseratis are better than those who work on John Deere tractors. Military language training programs all suffer from the same syndrome as No Child Left Behind. The contracted instruction operations make sure that people pass the test at the end.

As for roaming free in-country to get to know the culture, that seems to be a bit of a pipe-dream, too. Probably the real results of such 'programs' are the growing private security operations in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, manned by ex-US military and police.

Maybe the Pentagon realizes, that every dollar the intelligence czar reallocates has 80% chance of being a Pentagon dollar.

By entangling intelligence and combat operations, it will be more difficult to reallocate intelligence dollars without damaging combat budget. And it will increase the value of spending your intel dollar at the Pentagon, because you get the combat operational expertise for free!

To me, this looks more like corporate marketing than right-extremist neoconnery. Shop smart, shop P-Mart!

Like Freedom Fighter, I fail to see what this has to do with Boykin's religious nuttiness.

I'd like to remind Freedom Fighter though, that religious tolerance works both ways. Boykin's belief in God is fine, his belief that Muslims worship a false idol is not. I think Steve may be intolerant of Boykin's religious intolerance.

Aunt Deb has good insights into many things, but she is wide of the mark on military language training. In reality DoD language programs run the full gamut.

The two Defense Language Institutes (EC and WC, East Coast in Washington and West Coast in Monterey) are world class. Indeed many of the methodologies used at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute and at the CIA's language school were developed and perfected at the DLIs. The Military, however, also runs a wide range of short-course programs of diminishing quality.

Almost all of the linguists who process telecom and radio intercepts at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade are graduates of the DLIs.
Many of the State Department interpreters who accompany the President and the Secretary of State for discussions with foreign governments built their skills at DLI.

There are at least three reasons why the DLIs are such strong institutions: 1) money - the DoD can afford to build and maintain expensive staffs that combine numerous linguistics PhDs and very professional native speakers 2) the huge recruitment base - the military administers a very sophisticated test instrument[the MLAT] to identify language learning potential in the ranks and then coopts those with the top scores into language training 3) total control over the student's time-- when the military puts a soldier into the intensive 53 week Mandarin Chinese course they own her/him 24/7. They can give new meaning to the words "total immersion" and "intensive".

Those who do well in the 53 week courses in critical languages are often selected for another 53 weeks at small super-advanced training centers in places like Taiwan. Belive me, 106 weeks of professional full-time instruction in classes as small as 5 students does the job.

So, Aunt Deb, the workaday short-duration language "familiarization" courses given to troops with ordinary assignments are indeed less than spectacular, but the language training for those whom the DoD wants to bring up to high levels of proficiency are strikingly effective.
***JohnStuart

Dan K asks "Does the military want to send soldiers on out of uniform undercover missions?"

Not only "wants to", but "already does so". This proposal to expand that dimension of military intelligence is causing the girls and boys in the Directorate of Operations in Langley to tear out their hair.

Clandestine humint operations are extraordinarily delicate and require extraordinary training and skills.

The Army's agent training at Fort Huachuca is a pale shadow of the agent training at the Agency's Camp Perry. The Agency takes the products of its much better school and develops them carefully in the field for several years before letting them fly far from the nest. The military sends its relatively raw products out into the ops world when they are still fledglings.

In the past the military humint ops were contained to a relatively limited arena. What the pros at Langley are terrified of is that, under the new mandate, these inexperience operators will profoundly muddy the waters for everybody else.

Add to this the unfortunate tendency for the DIA to treat tidbits of raw intelligence as through they were fully processed and evaluated intelligence and the chances for serious mistakes at the policy level are compounded.

I appreciate that many readers of Steve's blog don't like the intel community in any of its aspects. But, trust me, you'll like this new aspect even less.

This is a seriously misguided policy idea with the potential for profoundly negative long term consequences.
****John Stuart

I would like to hear some comments from those of you readers are true historians of the fall of the Third Reich. It appears to me there are many parallels. Most importantly is the consolidation of power in the Executive branch. Congress and the Judiciary are decreasingly effective agents of social control.
Early in his rise to power Hitler appointed a Minister of Propaganda. The Bushists control of the media is already doing far better than Hitler in that respect.
We need to remember that "Gott Mit Uns" was the rallying cry of the Third Reich, and those words were printed on their coins. Germany was a very Christian nation.
The polarization of the populace is another obvious parralel. While the majority opinion in Germany was controlled by the media and by indoctrinizing white youth, opposition was focused primarily in the Universities (including theological schools) who were quickly labelled as enemies of the state.
One final note: it is amazing how quickly it all happened.

Glen, "Gott Mit Uns" was actually the rallying cry of Wilhelmine Germany. It was emblazoned on the beltbuckles of German soldiers in WW I and on the German coinage that bore the face of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

It is true that Hitler's Dritte Reich carried over the Gott Mit Uns slogan, but they were not the creators.
***JohnStuart

Having one large centralized intelligence bureau may be a mistake. Intelligence is only useful if it is in the hands of the officers that can act on that intelligence. 911 intelligence failures were primarily in not having the information about al Qaeda and putting the agencies and airport security on alert. In contrast, the millenium bombing was foiled because border agents were put on alert and intercepted a bomber entering WA from Canada.

Historically, intelligence has been imbedded in military units. In WWII, Nimitz stationed intelligence officers with carrier groups to pick up information from Japanese radio traffic. Sometimes local units can be correct when the central units are wildly wrong. Probably the best example of this is the intelligence before the Battle for Midway. Pearl knew weeks in advance that the Japanese were planning an invasion of Midway, while Washington did not believe the intelligence. Nimitz had to convince Washington that they were wrong. Fortunately, Nimitz won that intelligence battle but then had to live with internal feuding between his own intelligence unit and Washington for the remainder of the war.

Knowledge is power and that is always a problem with intelligence and politics. Those that are trying to carve out a political empire can harm the country by preventing intelligence and knowledge from reaching those who need it to act. 911 is often compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor. On December 6, Washington knew that the Japanese were planning an attack on December 7. Washington was certain that the attack would be on the British or the Phillippines and did not bother alerting the army or the navy in Pearl of the impending attack. The alert that Washington did send Pearl arrived too late after the attack had already begun.

JohnStuart- Thanks for your informative reply to my post. The chief intelligence officer for Nimitz had been sent to Japan by a Navy program, was fluent in Japanese and knew several of the Japanese Admirals. Admittedly, the number of officers participating in the program was small, but the Navy then was much smaller. MacArthur was a horse's ass, but he had spent significant time in the Philippines and was familiar with the Japanese. Contrast that with Iraq when General Jay Garner was forced to fire his Iraq expert, Tom Warrick.

Bakho,
you have the dynamics of the Navy's Pacific intelligence turf battles just right. Chet was a sly fox who knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. He sometimes withheld intel from the War Department to increase his freedom of action.

And you are right that Midway was a a true intel triumph. The right info, the right big picture Admiralship (Chet), and the right admirals at sea(Ray Spruance and Bull Halsey).

It was critical to have broken a critical Japanese naval code (IJN 25), but lesser sea fighters would not have pulled off Midway - even with the cypher advantage.

Centralizing intel, as the War Office tried to do in WWII, continued (and continues) to be a problem for the USG.

When I was a military intel guy for four years in the Indochina war I was always frustrated that my product travelled back to CINCPAC and the Pentagon for vetting and repackaging by people who had almost no sense of context. When it reappeared and was shared with commanders in-theater it was often mangled and occasionally turned altogether inside-out.

Those years have left me with sympathy for Nimitz' struggles with washington and admiration for his ability to outfox Washington when it counted.
****JohnStuart

"no sense of context" is so on-target, JohnStuart. And that certainly won't be improving anytime soon.

I've been trying to understand the fundamentalist movement that has spawned people like Boykin and those who voted for Bush based on "moral values". Part of this has involved reading the "Left Behind" series that seems to be central to those on the fundamentalist fringe with whom I have discussed politics and religion.

The more I read the series from my personal perspective the more I see a Boykin as the Fortunato to Bush's Carpathia.

I have to wonder if a significant portion of those who actually voted for Bush did so in the belief that they were ushering in the "end times" they seem to be longing for. Beyond the obvious concern about some nutjob pushing the nuclear button down to "light the way for God", I wonder about economic consequences from those who borrow on the assumption that the world will end soon and they won't have to repay debt.

Since you're in Vegas, "common sense" would dictate a trip to the Hard Rock and at least one venture to the Haufbrauhaus across the way. The Palms is a great trendy new venue too. Once you've done the off-strip fun, I'd start at Mandalay Bay and then work my way north until either your wallet, legs or liver give out.

But then, I live here so haven't been "on" the strip in a couple of years. Must make room for the visitors and we ARE indeed happy to have you in town.