Trump vs. intelligence agencies

[lpetrich]

Donald Trump Rejects Intelligence Briefing Facts | Time

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments.

Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called “willful ignorance” when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.

Agreeing with other descriptions of his conduct as Chief Executive. With this sort of behavior, he deserves to have the 25th Amendment invoked on him.

What is most troubling, say these officials and others in government and on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on the episodes, are Trump’s angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or beliefs he holds. Two intelligence officers even reported that they have been warned to avoid giving the President intelligence assessments that contradict stances he has taken in public.

If that is how he runs his businesses, then it is not surprising that he has had several bankruptcies.

 

[Bronzeage]

Russian operatives have the President's ear and are feeding him the information he believes. The end goal is to alienate and isolate the United States from the rest of the world.

This follows two separate narratives. The first is the "America is not the world's policeman" which says that what happens in other places does not matter. The second is "Victory is our", which says our job is done and we don't need to be there any more.

Both paint the US as unreliable and weak in the face of world affairs.

 

[lpetrich]

Russian operatives have the President's ear and are feeding him the information he believes. The end goal is to alienate and isolate the United States from the rest of the world.

Has anyone been caught doing that? I'd like to see some actual evidence of that.

George Bush II was much like him, but wasn't as bad as him.

After a briefing in preparation for a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, for example, the subject turned to the British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia. The island is home to an important airbase and a U.S. Naval Support Facility that are central to America’s ability to project power in the region, including in the war in Afghanistan.

The President, officials familiar with the briefing said, asked two questions: Are the people nice, and are the beaches good?

 

[starwater]

The title of this thread is an oxymoron.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Or to Trump, a dopey cow.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The reason this is important (imo of course) is that ONLY someone who had to hide their activities or otherwise provide a pre-emptive cover story or argument against out entire Intelligence community would do what Trump etal have done.

Iow, the very fact that he continuously tries to discredit our Intel community is precisely because he is guilty and knew that they would be onto him and what he had done (and continues to do) in service of Putin. That is the only explanation for any such behavior.

 

[lpetrich]

US allies may hold back sharing secrets for fear Trump will leak them to Putin: Ex-CIA agent, from this Washington Post op-ed.

“Many have already taken note of Trump’s cavalier attitude toward sensitive information, as well as his apparent failure to understand the basic rules of intelligence sharing,” he writes. “Recall when our president shared sensitive intelligence obtained from one of our foreign partners with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for example.”

...
“I would be deeply surprised if many of our best intelligence allies were not already holding back information they would normally pass to their U.S. counterparts, for fear Trump might not be able to keep a secret,” he writes. “Their concerns might even be darker when they consider the possibility that our president has reportedly discussed sensitive matters with Russian President Vladimir Putin behind closed doors with no record of the conversation.”

It's remarkable that other Republican politicians have been so willing to put up with him.

 

[Ford]

I read an article over the weekend from a former UN weapons inspector (Scott Ritter, writing for The American Conservative) that made the case that - among other things - some US intelligence agencies were not to be trusted (the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example) and that Trump was right to distrust them.

And yes, US intelligence agencies have been less than perfect. It almost started to make sense, but then went off the rails when it praised Trump for simply being right about this rather simple fact:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trump-is-right-the-intelligence-community-needs-to-go-back-to-school/

Ritter correctly points out that many of these folks were in the Bush II administration, and that they're assessments should be taken with a grain of salt, but seemingly ignores the fact that Trump is woefully uninformed. He doesn't disagree with them because he has better intel or a better analysis of their intel. He disagrees with them because they disagree with him. He thinks he's right based on a paucity of information, and when they pointed out he was wrong, his ego got in the way of whatever little knowledge he has.

 

[Bronzeage]

Russian operatives have the President's ear and are feeding him the information he believes. The end goal is to alienate and isolate the United States from the rest of the world.

Has anyone been caught doing that? I'd like to see some actual evidence of that.

George Bush II was much like him, but wasn't as bad as him.

After a briefing in preparation for a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, for example, the subject turned to the British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia. The island is home to an important airbase and a U.S. Naval Support Facility that are central to America’s ability to project power in the region, including in the war in Afghanistan.

The President, officials familiar with the briefing said, asked two questions: Are the people nice, and are the beaches good?

Call it a working hypothesis which explains all observable data. If not the Russian operative hypothesis, then Trump himself is a Russian operative.

 

[barbos]

Trump a Russian operative would be insult to Russian intelligence, and it's not easy to insult them, cause they do have some idiots.

 

[couch_sloth]

I read an article over the weekend from a former UN weapons inspector (Scott Ritter, writing for The American Conservative) that made the case that - among other things - some US intelligence agencies were not to be trusted (the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example) and that Trump was right to distrust them.....

I thought the CIA analysts, just prior to the gulf war, were pressured by Cheney to change their reports? IOW. Some of their ‘errors’ were caused by the Bush administration.

 

[repoman]

Are many of the intelligence chiefs and or their staff part of the military industrial complex revolving door?

Lots of MIC people are on the cable news shows war mongering.

Also, remember how all of these contractors try to have their products made and assembled in as many states as possible to instill fear into congressmen for cancelling wasteful projects.

 

[laughing dog]

The OP is too verbose by one word.

 

[repoman]

I read an article over the weekend from a former UN weapons inspector (Scott Ritter, writing for The American Conservative) that made the case that - among other things - some US intelligence agencies were not to be trusted (the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example) and that Trump was right to distrust them.....

I thought the CIA analysts, just prior to the gulf war, were pressured by Cheney to change their reports? IOW. Some of their ‘errors’ were caused by the Bush administration.

Talk about revolving door.

 

[Patooka]

I read an article over the weekend from a former UN weapons inspector (Scott Ritter, writing for The American Conservative) that made the case that - among other things - some US intelligence agencies were not to be trusted (the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example) and that Trump was right to distrust them.....

I thought the CIA analysts, just prior to the gulf war, were pressured by Cheney to change their reports? IOW. Some of their ‘errors’ were caused by the Bush administration.

It was called the Office of Special Plans and it was created by Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. If those names sound familiar it is because they were all members of the Invade Iraq at all Cost Club. And I'd be pretty uncomfortable with anything Scott Ritter asserts about Iraq. His book Frontier Justice shows he harbours a lot of resentment and animosity towards the Iraq war, he's too emotionally involved.

 

[barbos]

I read an article over the weekend from a former UN weapons inspector (Scott Ritter, writing for The American Conservative) that made the case that - among other things - some US intelligence agencies were not to be trusted (the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq War, for example) and that Trump was right to distrust them.....

I thought the CIA analysts, just prior to the gulf war, were pressured by Cheney to change their reports? IOW. Some of their ‘errors’ were caused by the Bush administration.

It was called the Office of Special Plans and it was created by Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld. If those names sound familiar it is because they were all members of the Invade Iraq at all Cost Club. And I'd be pretty uncomfortable with anything Scott Ritter asserts about Iraq. His book Frontier Justice shows he harbours a lot of resentment and animosity towards the Iraq war, he's too emotionally involved.

Are you implying that that we should not blindly trust US intelligence?

 

[Patooka]

Are you implying that that we should not blindly trust US intelligence?

Yes. I'm also saying when people people blindly dismiss intelligence simply because it doesn't fit into their world view, they're being fucking morons. It's not mutually exclusive.

 

[barbos]

Are you implying that that we should not blindly trust US intelligence?

Yes. I'm also saying when people people blindly dismiss intelligence simply because it doesn't fit into their world view, they're being fucking morons. It's not mutually exclusive.

Oh, US intelligence is certainly guilty of that as well