Strengthen Intelligence by Cutting Bureaucracy

Rube Goldberg Alarm

“Homeland Security . . . it’s a monstrous type of bureaucracy. It was supposed to be streamlining our security and it’s unmanageable.”—Ron Paul, 2007 presidential debates

Ron Paul will streamline intelligence into a “lean and mean” intelligence machine.

Clinton-Bush wasted resources before 9/11, and wasted even more after 9/11.

The intelligence services before 9/11 were a sprawling mess that ignored information on the planned terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center while wasting FBI resources on ridiculous items such as landlord-tenant disputes.

Adding the additional Homeland Security bureaucracy on top of the existing mess immediately after the 9/11 attacks was as stupid as trying to create an independent Air Force right after Pearl Harbor would have been (thankfully, the Air Force did not separate from the Army until 1947, 2 years after WWII was safely over).

• The post-9/11 musical chairs game is still not over, $200 billion later.
• The entire US Army costs only about $100 billion per year for the last few years.
• $200 billion could have paid for the entire US Army for 2 years, or TRIPLED the US Army in 1 year.

Instead, Homeland Security has made America the laughing stock of the world with color-coded days, duct-tape shopping lists, $300,000 of anti-terrorism money spent on air-conditioned garbage trucks in Newark NJ, the Hurricane Katrina FEMA emergency-response debacle DESPITE advance knowledge of that threat, and a new federal law that has Americans TRAINING WITH STUFFED ANIMALS.

CIA/FBI continue absurd misuse of intelligence assets:

• The CIA Counterterrorist Center shut down its dedicated (codename "Alec Station") Osama bin Laden hunting unit in mid-2006.
• The FBI has just renewed the 1971 Dan "D. B." Cooper skyjacking case, with a dedicated agent, Larry Carr (who was only 4 years old when it happened), its own website, and a plan to employ hydrologists and "the latest technology" to crack the decades-old, NON-VIOLENT Cooper case while Osama bin Laden remains free.
• Update 3/11/08: Does the FBI Spitzer-prostitute wiretapping case mean that "The Global War on Terror" (TM) is over and all the terrorists have been captured?

Apparently, the FBI is not that concerned about domestic terrorist sleeper cells after all.

White House, Pentagon, and Homeland Security Unconcerned about Repeated Bombings of New York City since 9/11

New York City has been bombed at least 3 times after 9/11 but Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino "said that there was no initial sign of any link to terrorism" (Reuters).

Thank goodness, these were just regular, everyday bombings and not the bad, terrorist kind of bombings.

"We're treating it as if it were an incident of vandalism."-- Army spokesman Paul Boyce, Pentagon, on the 2008 bombing of an Army recruitment station in NYC ("Small explosion hits New York's Times Square" By Emily Chasan and Walker Simon, Reuters, 3/6/08 )

• Bomb the US Army in the heart of America's Big Apple and the Pentagon puts it on par with throwing toilet paper in trees on Halloween's Mischief Night.
• Surrender your income and your Constitutional rights in a fool's bargain "to be safe" while the government simply redefines bombings of American cities as "not terrorism."

Does that mean al Qaeda in Iraq's bombings are not terrorism but merely vandalism?

Contrary to popular belief, as early as 2002, Bush seems bored with the initial reason for invading Afghanistan, argues that the al Qaeda terrorists are not that threatening any more, and he is not that interested in catching Osama bin Laden:

“I just don’t spend that much time on him, to really be honest with you.”-- George W. Bush, on NOT trying to catch Osama bin Laden, 2002 press conference

How effective are all the new surveillance powers and the billions of dollars spent on security in "The Global War on Terror" (TM)?

Australian "Chasers" TV comedy show drives an Osama bin Laden double straight through security checkpoints to within minutes of Bush's hotel at the 2007 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, Australia:

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."-- Published by Benjamin Franklin, An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania, 1759

"Driven by fear, we have succumbed to the age-old temptation to sacrifice liberty on the pretense of obtaining security. Love of security, unfortunately, all too often vanquishes love of liberty. ... In time we will realize there is little chance our security will be enhanced or our liberties protected."-- Ron Paul, US House of Representatives speech, "What If (It was all a Big Mistake)?," 1/26/05

It is Ron Paul who wants to stay focused on stopping and catching terrorists--but to do it the smart, Constitutional way:

“I know there’s radicals there and I know they will attack us.”--Ron Paul, CNN interview, 1/6/08

"Why do I believe these are such important questions? Because the #1 function of the federal government-- to provide for national security-- has been severely undermined."-- Ron Paul, US House of Representatives speech, "What If (It was all a Big Mistake)?," 1/26/05

US intelligence needs to streamline back to basics.

The United States a century ago already was a world power with a global empire before the FBI, CIA, etc. even existed, so those organizations obviously are not necessary for the United States to be a world power.

The original Constitution provided for all the intelligence services that we need:

• Public information, much good intelligence is from open-source (non-secret) materials such as media reports, university studies, or government reports. The problem is not access but properly analyzing the wealth of easily available information.
• Military intelligence, which today would specialize in National Technical Means (NTM) such as spy satellites and air-land-sea reconnaissance and electronic surveillance.
• State Department, which is a natural source of Human Intelligence (HUMINT), both official through other governments and unofficial from embassy staffs mixing with locals.
• State police and militia (now National Guard under Governor's orders), counter-espionage and disaster response within the states of the United States, in cooperation with federal information.

Anything more just gets in the way or causes blowback from failed interventions abroad.

Captain Ron Paul sensibly knows that we best achieve US national security when the "foreign intelligence" services actually do foreign intelligence.