I've been reading the books listed on the sidebar on this blog. In the past couple of weeks, I have finished reading four of them: Legacy of Ashes, God and God, Marching Toward Hell, and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State. A few minutes ago I posted a review of Legacy of Ashes. Soon, probably within the next few days, I'll post reviews of the other three books.
The next group I'm reading consists of Against All Enemies, The Dark Side, and War and Decision.
If you were to read one or more of these books in the next couple of weeks, we could have some fine discussions here. For one thing, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State is a fascinating little book, and it is little. At 189 pages in all, it's an easy read, but there are intriguing ideas on every page. God and Gold is another book that is just rich with new and interesting concepts and connections. In God and Gold, Walter Russell Mead pulls together all sorts of political, economic, social and religious ideas to explain the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon people for the past 400 years.
If you've read something really good lately, feel free to contact me about posting a review on this blog.
Glenn A Knight
In my study
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Legacy of Ashes - A Review
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday, 2007. xvii + 702 pages. Acknowledgments. Notes. Index. $27.95.
Legacy of Ashes purports to be a definitive history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in the Truman administration, to the subordination of the Director of Central Intelligence to the new national intelligence director. I’m not sure how “definitive” a history can be when a considerable amount of the evidence is still classified, but Weiner has certainly done a lot of work, interviewed many knowledgeable people, read a lot, and used the results of a quite remarkable oral history project.
This is a long book, arranged by presidential administration, in the manner in which, as Josephine Tey noted, English history is arranged by reign. There are 500 pages of exposition, 150 or more pages of notes, and an extensive index. It gives the reader the impression of having learned a great deal about the history of the agency, and even of have gotten the “inside story.” Since, however, the story of the CIA is the story of people who tended to lie rather easily, it’s hard to know how much credence to place in the insiders’ versions of things.
What is clear is that the CIA’s career followed an arc of sorts. It started with disaster and incompetence, when the covert operations boys got into the business of dropping anti-communist warriors into China, North Korea, and part of the Soviet Union. These teams of saboteurs and guerrillas were quickly swept up by the local authorities, even when these had not been tipped off in advance. There are some sad stories here, but the real theme is that the CIA early on developed a certain routine in which it persisted for its entire career, and which was of little use to the United States.
First, the CIA was never very good at the intelligence business. For a variety of reasons – the proclivities of its leadership, its recruiting methods, the desires of its customers – the CIA always emphasized covert operations at the expense of intelligence gathering and analysis. We have been told for years that humint was starved for money, while the military poured billions into satellites and listening devices, but reading Weiner’s book I had the impression that while the CIA never had the analytic capabilities it needed, it probably had as much as it wanted. The CIA did not have the language skills for its job, and it did not develop them. The CIA relied on foreign intelligence services for most of its information, including relying almost completely on the Israelis for intelligence on the Middle East. The Agency never developed a good system for filtering and refining information.
Second, fascinated by covert ops, the Agency not only failed to develop intelligence for its customers, it didn’t do very well by itself. Operations were often undertaken without either a serious intelligence objective or the information needed to give them any chance of success. Moreover, the CIA would get carried away with itself and create very destructive situations. On several occasions, from Hungary in 1956 to Iraq in 1991, the Agency encouraged local populations to rise against their tyrannical masters, and then watched helplessly as those foolish enough to listen to them were slaughtered.
Third, the CIA lied to its bosses, it lied to its agents, it lied to Congress, it lied to itself. This may have been especially true of Allan Dulles and Dick Bissell, but everyone was suppressing some piece of information. There were several internal reports which might actually have helped the CIA to find a useful role and an effective modus vivendi, if the various directors hadn’t carefully filed them away to be forgotten.
The CIA rose from its distressing beginnings to a peak under Richard Helms. It is notable that the CIA was probably at its best when it had Helms and William Colby, both career intelligence men, in the Director’s job. The end of Vietnam, the revelations in the mid-70s under the Church and Pike committees, the decline into such irrelevance that, at the time this book was written, all of the key players were either military or State Department veterans – not career Agency people. And, with 9/11, having proven once more that it didn’t know who was threatening the United States, what they might do, or when they might do it, the agency revealed its irrelevance.
One factor, which Weiner develops very well, was the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union, the Soviet “target,” as I heard it referred to, gave the CIA a mission. The Agency never penetrated the USSR, and it failed to protect itself against it, but the existence of the Soviet Union gave the CIA a focus, a guiding principle, something concrete to work on. At one point, when Robert Gates was running the agency under George Bush, he “compiled a to-do list for the new world, completed it in February, and presented it to Congress on April 2, 1992. The final draft included 176 threats, from climate change to cybercrime.” In other words, the CIA had no clear and self-evident mission, and it needed someone to give it one.
There are some people who would say that the CIA’s problem is not how to come up with a mission – counter-terrorism, say – to replace the all-consuming struggle against world Communism. The problem is how to get out of Cold War modes of thinking, how to learn to deal with non-state actors, and how to get out of crisis mode and into a mode of permanent operations. For many years, the Foreign Service has provided diplomatic services to the nation, in minor countries as well as great, keeping an eye on small American interests as well as the global threats and opportunities. Foreign Service Officers learn the languages they need to learn, they go where they’re told to go, and, in the course of a career, they generally gain the skills they need to operate at senior levels of government. The military has a similar system, and similar expertise. The CIA never developed that sort of combination of structure and esprit. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem was that it was established to battle the enemy at Armageddon, not to live in the world as it is.
Legacy of Ashes purports to be a definitive history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its founding in the Truman administration, to the subordination of the Director of Central Intelligence to the new national intelligence director. I’m not sure how “definitive” a history can be when a considerable amount of the evidence is still classified, but Weiner has certainly done a lot of work, interviewed many knowledgeable people, read a lot, and used the results of a quite remarkable oral history project.
This is a long book, arranged by presidential administration, in the manner in which, as Josephine Tey noted, English history is arranged by reign. There are 500 pages of exposition, 150 or more pages of notes, and an extensive index. It gives the reader the impression of having learned a great deal about the history of the agency, and even of have gotten the “inside story.” Since, however, the story of the CIA is the story of people who tended to lie rather easily, it’s hard to know how much credence to place in the insiders’ versions of things.
What is clear is that the CIA’s career followed an arc of sorts. It started with disaster and incompetence, when the covert operations boys got into the business of dropping anti-communist warriors into China, North Korea, and part of the Soviet Union. These teams of saboteurs and guerrillas were quickly swept up by the local authorities, even when these had not been tipped off in advance. There are some sad stories here, but the real theme is that the CIA early on developed a certain routine in which it persisted for its entire career, and which was of little use to the United States.
First, the CIA was never very good at the intelligence business. For a variety of reasons – the proclivities of its leadership, its recruiting methods, the desires of its customers – the CIA always emphasized covert operations at the expense of intelligence gathering and analysis. We have been told for years that humint was starved for money, while the military poured billions into satellites and listening devices, but reading Weiner’s book I had the impression that while the CIA never had the analytic capabilities it needed, it probably had as much as it wanted. The CIA did not have the language skills for its job, and it did not develop them. The CIA relied on foreign intelligence services for most of its information, including relying almost completely on the Israelis for intelligence on the Middle East. The Agency never developed a good system for filtering and refining information.
Second, fascinated by covert ops, the Agency not only failed to develop intelligence for its customers, it didn’t do very well by itself. Operations were often undertaken without either a serious intelligence objective or the information needed to give them any chance of success. Moreover, the CIA would get carried away with itself and create very destructive situations. On several occasions, from Hungary in 1956 to Iraq in 1991, the Agency encouraged local populations to rise against their tyrannical masters, and then watched helplessly as those foolish enough to listen to them were slaughtered.
Third, the CIA lied to its bosses, it lied to its agents, it lied to Congress, it lied to itself. This may have been especially true of Allan Dulles and Dick Bissell, but everyone was suppressing some piece of information. There were several internal reports which might actually have helped the CIA to find a useful role and an effective modus vivendi, if the various directors hadn’t carefully filed them away to be forgotten.
The CIA rose from its distressing beginnings to a peak under Richard Helms. It is notable that the CIA was probably at its best when it had Helms and William Colby, both career intelligence men, in the Director’s job. The end of Vietnam, the revelations in the mid-70s under the Church and Pike committees, the decline into such irrelevance that, at the time this book was written, all of the key players were either military or State Department veterans – not career Agency people. And, with 9/11, having proven once more that it didn’t know who was threatening the United States, what they might do, or when they might do it, the agency revealed its irrelevance.
One factor, which Weiner develops very well, was the end of the Cold War. The Soviet Union, the Soviet “target,” as I heard it referred to, gave the CIA a mission. The Agency never penetrated the USSR, and it failed to protect itself against it, but the existence of the Soviet Union gave the CIA a focus, a guiding principle, something concrete to work on. At one point, when Robert Gates was running the agency under George Bush, he “compiled a to-do list for the new world, completed it in February, and presented it to Congress on April 2, 1992. The final draft included 176 threats, from climate change to cybercrime.” In other words, the CIA had no clear and self-evident mission, and it needed someone to give it one.
There are some people who would say that the CIA’s problem is not how to come up with a mission – counter-terrorism, say – to replace the all-consuming struggle against world Communism. The problem is how to get out of Cold War modes of thinking, how to learn to deal with non-state actors, and how to get out of crisis mode and into a mode of permanent operations. For many years, the Foreign Service has provided diplomatic services to the nation, in minor countries as well as great, keeping an eye on small American interests as well as the global threats and opportunities. Foreign Service Officers learn the languages they need to learn, they go where they’re told to go, and, in the course of a career, they generally gain the skills they need to operate at senior levels of government. The military has a similar system, and similar expertise. The CIA never developed that sort of combination of structure and esprit. Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem was that it was established to battle the enemy at Armageddon, not to live in the world as it is.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Torture Debate - Summarized
John Dickerson has a nice way of summarizing major issues by presenting the major arguments on both sides. He calls it "Debate-o-matic." Here's the example from Friday, April 24, on the torture issue: This Week in Torture. Once you decide which side you're on, you can use some of these arguments on your opponents. Or, in another scenario, you can picture yourself using these arguments on your friends, and see how you like the image.
If You, Too, Have Never Heard of Jay Bybee
In the attached article from Slate.com, published on April 24, Frank Bowman argues that the Congress of the United States may not be able to impeach Judge Jay Bybee from his seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Mr. Bowman's article is rather well written and cogently argued, but my first question was: Who the Hell is Jay Bybee?
It turns out the Judge Bybee was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department for some years, and was, therefore, responsible for, if he did not actually write, some of the infamous "torture memos." A man who is in favor of torture should not, some argue, be in charge of the administration of justice. It would make a lot of people feel a whole lot better to punish someone for advocating torture.
However, Mr. Bowman makes a good case that you can only impeach a Federal judge for misconduct on the bench. So, unless Mr. Bybee is caught taking bribes, or starts assigning cases only to lawyers with whom he has an arrangement, he may spend the rest of his life hearing cases in San Francisco.
Actually, considering just how conservative Mr. Bybee must be, having been assigned to the famous 9th Circuit may be punishment enough. Just think how badly he's going to feel when he has to rule that gay married couples are entitled to the same tax deductions as their heterosexual counterparts.
It turns out the Judge Bybee was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department for some years, and was, therefore, responsible for, if he did not actually write, some of the infamous "torture memos." A man who is in favor of torture should not, some argue, be in charge of the administration of justice. It would make a lot of people feel a whole lot better to punish someone for advocating torture.
However, Mr. Bowman makes a good case that you can only impeach a Federal judge for misconduct on the bench. So, unless Mr. Bybee is caught taking bribes, or starts assigning cases only to lawyers with whom he has an arrangement, he may spend the rest of his life hearing cases in San Francisco.
Actually, considering just how conservative Mr. Bybee must be, having been assigned to the famous 9th Circuit may be punishment enough. Just think how badly he's going to feel when he has to rule that gay married couples are entitled to the same tax deductions as their heterosexual counterparts.
Like Fingernails on a Slate Blackboard
Slate.com has run a number of pieces lately bearing on the torture scandal. In the last paragraph of Today's Papers Richard Cohen of the Washington Post comes out four-square against torture. In Cohen's opinion, and mine, the efficacy of torture isn't relevant to the question. Torture is wrong and it shouldn't be used.
I have often been struck by the extreme examples proposed by advocates of torture. You know the sort of thing. Suppose a terrorist group (or a Communist cell, or agents of a foreign country, or aliens from another planet) has hidden a nuclear device in Madison Square Garden (or Yankee Stadium, or downtown Chicago), and we have captured a member of the group. In order to prevent thousands and thousands of deaths, wouldn't we use any means we could?
Well, maybe, and then again, maybe not. One of my problems with this scenario is that, in my opinion, if we knew enough about our captive to the sure that he was a member of the group, and to be really sure that he knew where the device was hidden, we wouldn't need any additional information from him. If we knew that much, we'd know where the group had hidden the bomb. (See, in order to have all that information, we'd have to have someone planted in the group.)
Moreover, having this captive where we could get out the old alligator clips and the crank-operated generator wouldn't change anything. We'd still have to try to evacuate New York or Chicago or wherever it was, because we couldn't be sure of obtaining enough information before the kaboom.
Anyway, I think it's just better all around not to mess with exceptions and gray areas. Torture is wrong. Torture is prohibited by law. Federal agents, military members, intelligence operatives, and Vice-Presidents are all subject to that law. Through Today's Papers you can find a link to Cohen's entire article.
Dahlia Lithwick also takes an absolutist position on torture. She is appalled that the debate has come down to whether or not torture works. It ought to be about whether it is wrong. And we know it is. I think it's a little much to say that we are all torturers, but we do seem to have become a little blase about the matter. One of my side questions is whether we'd be less insensitive if the people being tortured were nice-looking Americans.
More, much more, later.
I have often been struck by the extreme examples proposed by advocates of torture. You know the sort of thing. Suppose a terrorist group (or a Communist cell, or agents of a foreign country, or aliens from another planet) has hidden a nuclear device in Madison Square Garden (or Yankee Stadium, or downtown Chicago), and we have captured a member of the group. In order to prevent thousands and thousands of deaths, wouldn't we use any means we could?
Well, maybe, and then again, maybe not. One of my problems with this scenario is that, in my opinion, if we knew enough about our captive to the sure that he was a member of the group, and to be really sure that he knew where the device was hidden, we wouldn't need any additional information from him. If we knew that much, we'd know where the group had hidden the bomb. (See, in order to have all that information, we'd have to have someone planted in the group.)
Moreover, having this captive where we could get out the old alligator clips and the crank-operated generator wouldn't change anything. We'd still have to try to evacuate New York or Chicago or wherever it was, because we couldn't be sure of obtaining enough information before the kaboom.
Anyway, I think it's just better all around not to mess with exceptions and gray areas. Torture is wrong. Torture is prohibited by law. Federal agents, military members, intelligence operatives, and Vice-Presidents are all subject to that law. Through Today's Papers you can find a link to Cohen's entire article.
Dahlia Lithwick also takes an absolutist position on torture. She is appalled that the debate has come down to whether or not torture works. It ought to be about whether it is wrong. And we know it is. I think it's a little much to say that we are all torturers, but we do seem to have become a little blase about the matter. One of my side questions is whether we'd be less insensitive if the people being tortured were nice-looking Americans.
More, much more, later.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Enjoying the Local Music Scene
Last night, Helen and I attended the season finale of the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs. It was a delightful concert.
For one thing, the Chamber Orchestra performs in local churches - Saturday night at the Church at Broadmoor (UCC) and Sunday afternoons at First Christian downtown. The Church at Broadmoor is a wonderful building, whose multiple levels make the most of the hillside side overlooking a small lake. The sanctuary is all glowing wood and reassuring fieldstone, to which the huge beams of the ceiling form a striking counterpoint. The center of the ceiling is offset, so the right and left sections rise to the ridgeline at different angles. I think part of the idea is to convey the idea that one is sheltered by the legs of a cross.
Anyway, the concert opened with Mendelssohn's overture to Ruy Blas. This was one of the pieces neither of us had heard before, and it has all the elements of a good classical overture - drama, variety, pace, beautiful harmonics. (I've sometimes thought that the real function of the overture is to make sure that all the instruments are in tune, because a good one will tell you if they are not.)
Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D completed the first half. The soloist is a young violinist who was raised in Colorado, and has been in the first violin section of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic for the past two seasons. This was the one familiar piece on the program, at least as far as Helen and I were concerned, and it was very well played. Ms. Cedeno-Suarez had a few intonation problems, but her performance really engaged the work.
The second half of the program consisted of two choral pieces by Gabriel Faure. The first was the haunting Cantique Jean Racine, sung by a very young ensemble from the Colorado Children's Chorale. This is a setting of Racine's adaptation of an old hymn. I think this was the high point of the entire evening. Faure's Requiem followed, sung by a somewhat older chorus, with some passages going to an adult baritone. This was very well done. It is a quiet piece, in keeping with the theme of seeking rest for the souls of the departed.
Altogether, this was a fine end to a good season. We bought our season tickets for next year at the concert, and we don't know why we waited until 2008 to enjoy the pleasures of this very competent small ensemble.
For one thing, the Chamber Orchestra performs in local churches - Saturday night at the Church at Broadmoor (UCC) and Sunday afternoons at First Christian downtown. The Church at Broadmoor is a wonderful building, whose multiple levels make the most of the hillside side overlooking a small lake. The sanctuary is all glowing wood and reassuring fieldstone, to which the huge beams of the ceiling form a striking counterpoint. The center of the ceiling is offset, so the right and left sections rise to the ridgeline at different angles. I think part of the idea is to convey the idea that one is sheltered by the legs of a cross.
Anyway, the concert opened with Mendelssohn's overture to Ruy Blas. This was one of the pieces neither of us had heard before, and it has all the elements of a good classical overture - drama, variety, pace, beautiful harmonics. (I've sometimes thought that the real function of the overture is to make sure that all the instruments are in tune, because a good one will tell you if they are not.)
Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D completed the first half. The soloist is a young violinist who was raised in Colorado, and has been in the first violin section of the Colorado Springs Philharmonic for the past two seasons. This was the one familiar piece on the program, at least as far as Helen and I were concerned, and it was very well played. Ms. Cedeno-Suarez had a few intonation problems, but her performance really engaged the work.
The second half of the program consisted of two choral pieces by Gabriel Faure. The first was the haunting Cantique Jean Racine, sung by a very young ensemble from the Colorado Children's Chorale. This is a setting of Racine's adaptation of an old hymn. I think this was the high point of the entire evening. Faure's Requiem followed, sung by a somewhat older chorus, with some passages going to an adult baritone. This was very well done. It is a quiet piece, in keeping with the theme of seeking rest for the souls of the departed.
Altogether, this was a fine end to a good season. We bought our season tickets for next year at the concert, and we don't know why we waited until 2008 to enjoy the pleasures of this very competent small ensemble.
Conservatives Unsure About A Truth Commission
This cute little article by Jenifer Rubin assumes that the Bush administration would be vindicated by a detailed examination of what the payoff was from harsh interrogation. But I note that one of her examples is Jose Padilla, whose plot was disrupted as soon as he was arrested in Chicago, before he was subjected to years of unlawful imprisonment and harsh interrogation. Oh well, read it and see what you think.
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