AQ, NIE, and our IC

NY Times reporting on the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) this weekend was comical, but the Times article, and today's subsequent release of the NIE summary exposed two common weaknesses in the intelligence community (IC):  1) its pervasive left-leaning leadership, and 2) its consistently weak counterterrorism analytical capabilities.  Of the two, I am more concerned about #2, than #1.  Old lefties retire and fade away, but generation after generation of weak analytical capabilities will guarantee more American deaths in the future.

First, the intelligence community is run for the most part by career government employees, some of whom identify closely with the counterculture movements of the 60s/70s.   Many are leftists, some are hard left.  Now I knew a lot of good, hard working lefty analysts, but I also worked with senior IC employees who openly expressed their hatred for the President.  Outward disdain for President Bush wasn't uncommon.  It wouldn't take much for a few to leak their spin of the NIE to the NYT.   As a matter of fact, I would expect these kinds of leaks for every national election until the activist analysts retire (and then they'll write books). 

Second, it exposes how very weak much of the analytical thinking is throughout the IC.  As Michelle Malkin says of the NIE, it's a "historically ignorant view of jihad more suited for the moonbat Left than our premier intelligence agencies."   The part of the NIE that caught her attention, also caught mine:

Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement:  (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq "jihad;" (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims - all of which jihadists exploit. 

This is the influence of academic subject matter experts on our strategic thinking.  It's the grievance-based analysis so pervasive in "post-colonial" theory.  It has no basis in the jihad "sciences " that occupy the lives of Al Qaeda's ideologues and strategists.  It offers no insight into our enemy's broad historical view.  It makes no allowances for radical dawah (proselytizing) efforts, or the Islamization of education.  It makes no mention of ongoing centers of jihad (outside of Iraq).  It could be that these factors are discusses in more detail within the body of the NIE.  I hope so.  If not, we're looking at a new generation of analysts trained to think in "root causes" fallacies and who know nothing of the enemy.

The original NYT article was necessary, because it exposes the utter cluelessness of the senior intelligence officials who leaked the information in the first place.  It was leaked for political reasons (as many leaks are) in an attempt to influence the elections, and it displays for the American people how partisan the IC has become.  It also shows the leakers' ignorance of the current media landscape.  They are unaware of the center-right media's influence as a counterweight to the MSM.  This may appear naive to blog readers, but for the most part I'm describing senior officials whose only daily exposure to "open source" information is the hard copy of the NY Times and Washington Post, and NPR's Morning Edition during the drive in to work. It's a comfortable, suburban, highly educated bubble of awareness that partly influences analytical judgment.

Just think about it, if they're that clueless about American elections, why should the President (or the American people) trust their analytical judgment on any other country?