MILITARY

The Failures Of US Intelligent Agencies

<p><em>The failures of US<&sol;em><br &sol;>&NewLine;<strong><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;openlife&period;ng&sol;">OpenLife Nigeria<&sol;a><&sol;strong> reports that as the United States of America enthuses &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have control of the airport now&comma;” arising from the attendant shame from <strong>the<&sol;strong> failures in Afghanistan&comma; analysts are of the view that the declaration sounds like one of the oldest tricks in the Washington book&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Over the past days&comma; Afghanistan imploded and the government has collapsed&period; A bunch of radical extremists&comma; terrorists&comma; ideologues and tribal warlords&comma; known as the Taliban&comma; are now in charge&period; They have taken over the Presidential palace and the entire country&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In the 1990s&comma; they were in charge of the country&period; The people of Afghanistan have just been taken back to the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;punchng&period;com&sol;">20th Century<&sol;a>&period; That country has turned full cycle to the age of fundamentalism&comma; the oppression of women&comma; disdain for education and abuse of human rights&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Its President&comma; Ashraf Ghani abandoned the Presidential Palace and fled towards the direction of Tajikistan&period; The Vice President went in another direction&period; Security agents including the police and the military dropped their weapons and fled too&period; Ordinary citizens headed towards every available border to become refugees in neighbouring countries&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to the estimation of keen observers&comma; whenever a big foreign-policy venture goes bad&comma; sooner or later political leaders and other national security agencies declare an intelligence failure&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;In the case of the debacle in Kabul&comma; US spy agencies are being accused of failing to predict the collapse of the Afghan government and army and the speed of the Taliban victory&period; Blaming the covert community is a favorite tactic since by definition it can’t talk back&semi; there are no daily briefings at the CIA HQ over in Virginia&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On its face&comma; the current crisis could join the list of cataclysmic global events that US spies missed — like the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fact that Saddam Hussein definitely didn’t have WMDs before the Iraq War&period; But it’s far from clear that the botched US evacuation from Afghanistan can be laid solely at the feet of US intelligence agencies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>We don’t yet know exactly what US intelligence agencies told President Joe Biden&comma; but it is obvious the US never had sufficient troops in the country to perform the orderly exit of US diplomats&comma; citizens and Afghan interpreters in the event Kabul fell&period; That is a policy decision&period; Even if the US misjudged the speed at which the Afghan state imploded&comma; you don’t have to be a master spy to twig what might happen when the US began to leave after 20 years of propping the government up&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Another reason why politicians get away with blaming spies in these situations is public confusion on what intelligence actually is&period; Intelligence analysts operating on input from agents in the field&comma; communications intercepts and other material try to create the best possible picture of trends and circumstances that are not openly available&period; It’s not an exact science&period; There is a reason why intelligence reports sent to the President are called estimates&period; Some come with assessments by various spy agencies that rate the community’s confidence in their conclusions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It’s the job of political leaders to evaluate intelligence&comma; test it against their own analyses&comma; conversations&comma; views and experience&comma; and consider different scenarios that might unfold if the spies have got it wrong&period; All too often&comma; as with Iraq&comma; the White House cherry-picks information that supports its own predetermined political goals&comma; like in the Simon &amp&semi; Garfunkel song when &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest&period;”<br &sol;>&NewLine;The United States which had been involved in the politics of Afghanistan since 1999 is also on the run out of the country&comma; as it shuts down its embassy in Kabul&comma; burning down-sensitive documents&comma; and rushing to airlift its citizens out of Afghanistan&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The British&comma; and NATO soldiers who had both supported the US in Afghanistan&comma; are also on the run&period; It is unfolding chaos and tragedy&comma; the exact end of which no one knows&comma; and that is precisely what makes all of this a sad day for the rest of the world&period; The fate of the people of Afghanistan hangs in the balance&period; Their future is uncertain&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;The crisis in Afghanistan speaks to the failure of American diplomacy and specifically of US foreign policy&period; Diplomatic relations between the United States and Afghanistan dates back to 1935&period; In the course of that relationship&comma; the United States was responsible for setting up in that axis&comma; a bunch of extremists known as the Mujahideen as part of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and China&comma; two countries with which Afghanistan shares borders&period; The Mujahideen would later become the Taliban&period; They gained control of Afghanistan&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;If America thought it was exporting its Western-style democracy to Afghanistan&comma; a majorly Muslim country with strong ethnic cleavages&comma; and that the people would adopt American ideology&comma; it was grossly mistaken&period; The Muslims of Afghanistan were not willing to abandon their religious and ideological beliefs&comma; and many resented the Western way of life&period; It did not take long before Afghanistan became the home of religious fanaticism and the headquarters of Al Qaeda&period; Matters later took a turn for the worse when the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1267 which created the al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee and classified both groups as terrorist groups with sanctions over their funding&comma; travel&comma; and activities&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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