Miscellaneous Feedback on Representative Jane Harman

[genxminimalist at yahoo.com]

       ëIím sorry I canít fix your brakes this week, but donít worry 
because I made your horn
        louder.í î

The analogy is too simplistic and defeats the purpose of being 
intelligibly and lucidly critical if certain concrete and specific 
measures taken by the Bush Administration are to be completely 
invalidated and negated.

       For as long as I have been in Congress, the intelligence 
committees have been
       islands of sanity.

Too hyperbolic to have lasting credibility.  I mean, maybe in her 
experience, I suppose.  But historically, intel committees have been 
laden with contentiousness over time.

       As Scoop Jackson used to say, "In matters of national security, 
the best politics is
       no politics."

In the ideal world, of course.  But policies and ideologies are ran by humans.

      [Re Iran, Iraq and North Korea debacles]  These are serious 
failures, and they have
      occurred when Democrats and Republicans were on watch.

Good point.

        Libya - where I just visited - could be a real success story 
and intelligence played a
        key role in persuading Libya to dismantle its WMD programs.

I don't know, but my gut tells me that Representative Harman should 
be more sceptical about Libya and not be as optimistic as she sounds. 
Or she shouldn't be so open about her optimism.  I just don't think 
that it's a good idea.

       I know this isn't easy. I know we'll never be perfect. But we 
won't succeed with small
       fixes. In the parlance of reality TV: This is a case where a 
single Botox injection
       won't help. Our intelligence community needs an extreme makeover.

I think that this whole paragraph sounds a bit cheeky, frankly, 
especially the last sentence.

       We count on the intelligence community to be truth-tellers, no matter how
       inconvenient that truth may be for policymakers.

It sounds good on paper, but it's pretty idealistic and naive, I 
think.  And I'm setting aside as much of my personal feelings as I 
can while I'm evaluating this.  Personally, I'd probably be as 
emotional and colourful.

       David Kay likened the Intelligence Community's reliance on 
inspectors to being
       addicted to crack cocaine...

Another gratuitous analogy, which I think, are bound to help people 
tune out her message in the long run, I'm afraid.  I think that the 
Representative should stick to appealing to people's reason and their 
rationale.

       Someone once said that our past failures are like the rays of 
the setting sun behind
       us. If we stare into them, they will blind us. But if we turn 
around and face the
       future, those past failures will light our path forward.

I'm sorry, but I think that this analogy is just goofy.

Clinically
Carina Flores

Intelligence Forum (http://www.intelforum.org) is sponsored by Intelligence
and National Security, a Frank Cass journal (http://www.frankcass.com/jnls/ins.htm)