Thursday, January 31, 2019

Trump at War With Our Intelligence Agencies (Again): His Same Old Same Old BS

Only source that Trump trusts & follows to a Trump T

If one delves as deeply as anyone into the area of intelligence and the various areas and parse data from their myriad sources (e.g., satellite imagery, communications intercepts, human, and open reports), and weave the findings of those 16 agencies into a carefully crafted report a lot comes clear: They are true professionals who stand firm and work hard for public safety and national security.

Sadly, Trump now as president, and thus the #1 sole customer for intelligence products, he again denounces the reports and agencies for putting out assessments he does not want to read or believe. In a recent tweet he classifies their latest as: “Extremely passive, and wrong!” (The exclamation point is Trump’s).

That tweet was on the same day that his top intelligence officials testified before Congress about a report that disputes Trump’s opinions on Iran, North Korea, Syria, and more.

I posted about this same subject earlier here – FYI.

Let’s be clear: U.S. intelligence agencies are far from infallible, they’ve been wrong many times in the past, and one of the distortions that the Age of Trump has spawned among the opposition is a romanticized worship of the wisdom and goodness of America’s spies.

But Trump’s latest Twitter jabs go beyond the pale. It would be one thing if he based his critique on conversations with outside experts, perusals of scholarly analysis, or events from his own experience. 

But of course, he talks with no such oracles, reads nothing worthwhile, and has accumulated no life lessons of any relevance here.

Trump, who pulled out the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord last year, calling it one of the worst deals ever made, fired back with two tweets in part:

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naïve when it comes to the dangers of Iran They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different… ….a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

Continue this fine article at the main link here from Slate.com.


My 2 cents: Let’s be clear shall we? Trump is a one-man show and he has been his whole adult life.


Thanks for stopping by.




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