"Sure, we have a right to intelligence gathering. But we need 'Intelligent' people interpreting it!" A quip from the 10 Term Congressman & OB/GYN running for the republican presidential nomination. His name is Dr. Ron Paul. It was in response to a question from what I like to call "Limited Forums" that was aired this year along with 7 other canidates on stage. The question was about a statement that Dr. Paul had made regarding abolishing the CIA (Amoung the long list of things he'd like to abolish from the Federal Level) His statement captures, in a humourous sense a very important facet in national defense; Intelligence Gathering and Sharing.
Currently, we have numerous agencies that are in the business of intelligence gathering (CIA, FBI, NSA, Military, etc..). They have scrict policies, red tape, andsupervisory endorsements (And the constant avoiding Legal Litigation)that are required to gather and share anything with anyone, even within their own. This can make it seem like the goverment is "indept". Our Constitution madates the federal goverment to provide national defense; we do this via a military, would the military be best prepared if it couldn't get intelligence in a timely manner? Or, get accurate intelligence? Do you think bureaucracies can contribute to this?
http://www.srmason-sj.org/council/journal/feb00/poteat.htmlShows us just how important intelligence gathering was. Our first president was a Spy Master. Would our nation exist if we didn't have effective intelligence gathering? The answer should be easy to come up with.
Ofcourse we want to make sure that any domestic intelligence gathering is done legally (Bill of Rights > Patriot Act) but /wo good oversight, do you think it can be done? Can oversight even exist if it has to monitor 20+ agencies? Would you want the people 'working' in the angency to do it or an independant source?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siegeis an example of the negative effect of agencies that don't share data.
So what does Ron Paul want to do exactly? Well he hasn't out right said exactly anything to the fine point details but he has given us an idea; Decrease the bureaucracy and leave it primarily to the Military.
Decreasing the amount of independant agencies would make sharing more effcient and accurate (I say accurate because there would be less incentive to rush things together to get it to other agencies). Not to mention, the President as Commander-in-Cheif, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Generals can provide policy for oversight and address legal issues rather than trying to fight a civilian agency that acts somewhat independant.
Imagine, what would every Sept 11 be likeif we had better intelligence practices back 2001? Not to say Intelligence was the sole fault, people's votes in Congress have to be accounted for. Executive speeches have to be accounted for. At least, there was 1 man (Out of a few) who understood back then, and still does today.
Well, I hope I provided an accurate assement on Dr. Paul's issue regarding the intelligence community reform. Cheers!
©2007 Jase, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2007
Last modified: Saturday, December 15, 2007
The views expressed in this article are those of Jase only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Jase is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Mick Russom
Date: 2007-12-13 04:09:01
Ron Paul is the greatest candidate I've ever seen. Consistent for 30 years. No flip flops. We are done with WAR, we want a real currency, we want peace, we want the welfare-state for the military industrial complex to END, we want to fix America and stop policing the world and to stop the authoritarian oppression here NOW.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2007-12-13 07:54:02
Welcome to the Nolan Chart, Jase!
Posted By: Nathan
Date: 2007-12-13 17:32:50
People really need to hear this. Although I support him, this was one thing that really caused concern for me about Ron Paul. He needs to reword what he is saying from "abolish the CIA and the FBI" to "combine and streamline the CIA and FBI within the military to allow for increased national defense / homeland security".
The problem is that people think that if we stop "fighting the terrorists over there" we would at least need to beef up our efforts here instead of bring them to an end as people may see Paul proposing.