Tweet
ABC’s Jake Tapper is reporting (h/t Spencer) that President Obama has accepted the resignation of Adm. Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence.
For several weeks President Obama has been holding serious conversations about whether to ask Blair to step down and has interviewed candidates to replace him. After a discussion this afternoon between the president and Blair in the Oval Office about the best way forward, Blair offered to resign and the president said he would accept, sources told ABC News.
Multiple administration sources tell ABC News that Blair’s tenure internally has been a rocky one.
On the heels of a number of intelligence failures involving the Fort Hood shooter, failed Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab, and questions about failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, it was no longer clear that Blair — tasked with coordinating the 16 intelligence agencies and ensuring that they cooperate and share information – still had the full and complete confidence of the president, sources say.
I expect Spencer Ackerman and other national security experts will explain what this means and whether Tapper has it right, but on the face of it, you have to wonder what Administration people are thinking.
Does the White House honestly believe that you can rain dozens of predator-guided missiles on villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan, presumably to kill Taliban fighters, but with near indifference to whether innocent people would be killed, and still pretend that would not increase the number of people wanting to retaliate in the US?
And does anyone seriously believe that any DNI, no matter how effective, or any security measures, no matter how invasive of civil liberties, can indefinitely protect US citizens?
If there is a credible, coherent strategy to reduce the number of people trying to kill Americans, other than killing everyone around those we suspect or fear, I haven’t seen it. You’d think that would be the first priority of a DNI and those to whom he/she reports.
18 Comments
If there is a credible, coherent strategy to reduce the number of people trying to kill Americans, other than killing everyone around those we suspect or fear, I haven’t seen it.
You left out locking people up and throwing away the key for those who aren’t killed. That’s their strategy.
mods???????
Law Enforcement is now taken over by the spies. The “wall” of Jamie Gorelick allows the false narratives about Al Qaeda and protects the Al Qaeda double agents. Military Commissions take over real Court Trials. The spies wanted to torture Abdulmutallab to get their false confessions. But the FBI got there first and found out their was a Saudi Arabian bombmaker. The spies always protect the Saudi Oil Sheikhs. Blair made the mistake of criticizing the President of the United States. The spies think they run the world. They do.
No and no.
So, he interviews candidates to replace Blair while Blair is still DNI.
Who did he hire?
The Conqueror Worm?
Obama – The Man Who Stares At Scapegoats
Excellent!
This is not a intelligence failure.
Dennis Blair is another inept paranoid functionary (paranoia and a lack of human interaction are requirements for jobs in the “intelligence” service).
The “intelligence” services worldwide are made up largely of very dumb people who simply enjoy being destructive and making things unnecessarily complicated.
What they need to do is place a extra large snickers bar as head of DNI and await it’s orders. Since it would give no orders and DO NOTHING, it would make a better director.
Duh.
What in thee carnation are you a talking about Eunice?
Obama starts massive US Air-Sea-Marine build-up opposite Iran.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report a decision by the Obama administration to boost US military strength in the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in the short term with an extra air and naval strike forces and 6,000 Marine and sea combatants. Carrier Strike Group 10, headed by the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, sails out of the US Navy base at Norfolk, Virginia Friday, May 21.
Our military sources have learned that the USS Truman is just the first element of the new buildup of US resources around Iran. It will take place over the next three months, reaching peak level in late July and early August. By then, the Pentagon plans to have at least 4 or 5 US aircraft carriers visible from Iranian shores.
Another four US warships will be making their way to the region to join the USS Truman and its Strike Group. They are the guided-missile cruiser USS Normandy and guided missile destroyers USS Winston S. Churchill, USS Oscar Austin and USS Ross.
http://www.debka.com/article/8794/
Thanks, fn. Very grim news indeed.
Meanwhile, along with the blowback from the Predator drone zones, the Israelis continue to expand their presence in the West Bank, by continuing to allow settlers to destroy Palestinian agricultural land, by using your money and mine to expand the settlers’ road systems, and by preparing to stop the convoy of aid vessels now underway toward Gaza, all of which is in violation of international law.
In report after report after report, our enabling of this comes out as one of the main reasons, if not the top reason for attacks upon our “homeland” or imperialist external infrastructure.
Duh…
More and more, FDL becomes the mirror of the Daily Standard.
I’m going to have to take that article with a grain of salt.
Carrier Battle Groups take up a lot of room. Besides the carriers themselves that’s @ 40-60 other surface and submarine combatants… they don’t like being squeezed into itty bitty places like the Persian Gulf. On top of that, with 11 carriers total, I doubt we would send that number to one theater.
Intelligence services are made up of dumb people who are given a great deal of money and access to sceince.
The access to science creates the illusion that they have some kind of expertise. The CiA is reportedly made up of a disproportionate number of Mormons and other ….rural types.
THe History of the CIA is a history of innane, violent, absurd and self destructive adventures that in almost all cases backfire. Just look at Central and South America and their installation of dictatorships there, the support and arming of the Taliban to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan and now entering Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.
It’s insane.
The Secret Police of the Government have been spying on dissidents since always. During the 60′s and COINTELPRO and Operation Chaos, it was not just spying. It was getting people fired from jobs, it was encouraging and creating violence against anti-war protesters, it was political suppression of the “left”. It is the same now, except worse.
The Global War On Terror is just a phony excuse for a police state.
To put things in perspective, I think it’s worth reassesing exactly what is the greatest danger to Americans. What’s gonna get more of us killed?
Will it be predator drones or predator loans?
Both have the same Wallstreet-Washington source and both are a menace to humanity.
BTW, Bank of America is projecting a 600% increase in its already large number of monthly foreclosures.
IMO, we need to get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan… leave those folks alone. We’ve got an entire class of folks in Washington and on Wallstreet that need new homes…. in jail. Yes Obama, that includes you!