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On the Unintelligent Uses of Intelligence PDF Print E-mail
Written by Chris Floyd   
Friday, 02 October 2009 16:15

I urge you most strenuously to repair immediately to Arthur Silber's site, and there set yourself to school on the dangerously unintelligent uses of "intelligence" – not only by ever-deceitful regimes and their sycophantic courtiers, but also, most grievously, by staunch opponents of the imperial system as well: "Fools for Empire (II): The Inescapable Pervasiveness of the Ruling Class Paradigm."

The essay is eloquent, cogent, deeply informed, insightful – and important. In addition to his own unique insights, Silber mines wisdom from such trenchant observers as Chalmers Johnson, Ray McGovern, Barbara Tuchman and Gabriel Kolko to give the lie to the corrosive belief that any output from the "intelligence" agencies can or should be relied upon – and the accompanying lie that our leaders and their spies possess super-secret knowledge which we peons must defer to. As Silber notes, the historical facts demonstrate overwhelmingly and irrefutably that "intelligence" always has been – and, more importantly, cannot avoid being – manipulated, incompetent, corrupted and wrong. Thus his observation:

This is why I maintain that you must always argue the policy, and that you must never argue about the intelligence. To the extent you argue the intelligence, you are doing the ruling class's bidding. They can change the intelligence quickly enough when they think doing so is necessary, as they have done in the past and as they will again. If you grant the legitimacy and accuracy of intelligence assessments on even one occasion, and if you utilize those assessments in making your own arguments, you're making your own work that much harder, and your future arguments will be far less convincing than they would be otherwise.


But a brief excerpt risks doing the post an injustice. You should head over there now, and read the whole thing.

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Scott Busfield said:

0
 Some Logical Conclusions?
I owe you a debt of gratitude for introducing me to Arthur Silbur, an individual whose writings convey a deep understanding of moral issues coming from a vantage point rarely taken by others. His latest piece is yet another example of a superb intellect. I would, however, like to take his closing statement – suggesting that a better question than wondering whether or not Iran is attempting to construct a nuclear weapon might be asking what our policy should be if and when Iran actually has weapons of mass destruction – and take it to the next level. Would it not be in the best interests of peace and nuclear non-proliferation if Iran was given a dozen or so nuclear weapons?

The argument would go like this:

History has shown that it isn’t nuclear weapons themselves which appear to be an immediate danger to human civilization but rather that a nuclear imbalance between rival powers seems to present the real threat to peace. History’s only use of atomic bombs, for example, was by the first country to possess nuclear weapons; used on a defenseless enemy actively seeking acceptable terms of surrender. With no military reason (a blockade on the Home Islands would have quickly and inevitably bring about Imperial Japan’s collapse even if its military rulers had wanted to continue) it has been hypothesized the real intent behind the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the murder of some quarter of a million souls was merely to send a pointed message to the Soviet Union; a marking of territory if you will. Unfortunately for the United States the rapid ascension of the USSR to a full nuclear power forestalled any attempt to take advantage from their monopoly on the ability to utterly destroy. As competing powers at the time France, Britain and China quickly followed suit, thus restoring the balance of power which had existed prior to WWII.

When India illegally acquired nuclear weapons after a series of wars with Pakistan Pakistan was forced to develop its own illegal nuclear arsenal. Likewise North Korea has the “Bomb” because of its deep military inferiority to South Korea, and that ignores the fact that the United States posture towards North Korea makes their inferiority several orders of magnitude worse. Nuclear power was and remains North Korea’s only means to achieve some sort of military parity with this very real threat to itself. Again in both instances nuclear weapons have been used to ultimately restore military balance to state rivalries. And it needs to be emphasized the doctrine of mutually assured destruction has successfully prevented another detonation of a nuclear weapon since WWII.

India’s illegal acquisition of nuclear weapons in an attempt to gain advantage over its rival, however, was also the cause of the instability, instability only removed when Pakistan was able to trump the nuclear card with its own illegal stockpile. Israel’s nuclear arsenal – developed with the duel intent of militarily dominating the region and to gain some security against the possibility of its protector the United States turning against it – has, like India’s actions, upset the natural equilibrium in the region’s power equation. Militarily speaking there’s no doubt the only way Iran can achieve certain immunity from attack is by developing a creditable nuclear counter response. Israel and United State’s statements and actions to date reflect this mind set. Since history seems to suggest that wars don’t occur between nuclear powers is it not logical to suggest providing Iran with suitable nuclear warheads would prevent a disastrous new war breaking out? That a declared intent by the U.N. to provide nuclear weapons to any country threatened by a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (either from development of nuclear weapons or saber rattling by a country with a pre-existing nuclear weapons capability) would effectively deter non-treaty weapons development as well as curb deployment? Just thinking.
 
October 02, 2009
Votes: +0

C Quil said:

0
 Unintelligence
Bravo, Mr. Silber!

On the unintelligent use of genuine intelligence, Rory Stewart of the Harvard Kennedy school was interviewed recently by Bill Moyers and described how the White House uses advice it solicits from people with genuine knowledge of a situation or country, in his case, Afghanistan.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour...ript1.html

They listen politely, but in the end, of course, basically the policy decision is made. What they would like is little advice on some small bit. I mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: it's as though they come to you and they say, "We're planning to drive our car off a cliff. Do we wear a seatbelt or not?" And we say, "Don't drive your car off the cliff." And they say, "No, no, no. That decision's already made. The question is should we wear our seatbelts?" And you say, "Why by all means wear a seatbelt." And they say, "Okay, we consulted with policy expert, Rory Stewart," et cetera.


They don't want to learn anything. They just want to be able to say they asked somebody.
 
October 02, 2009 | url
Votes: +0

Yankee 30 said:

0
 ...
Scott,

Perhaps a more prudent and sane response would be in favor of universal divestment of nuclear weapons.

For me, the crux of Mr. Silber's message is always about the pathology of the individual, and by proxy, the group, or the ruling class. Anyone who wants to dominate another has to be psychologically flawed and is thus incapable of exercising any kind of healthy jurisdiction over anyone or anything.

Policy must be prudent and wise and must ALWAYS move away from pathology.

It's nice that Arthur is back...reminding us of our fallacies and encouraging our potential.














 
October 02, 2009
Votes: +0

Scott Busfield said:

0
 If Only Prudent and Sane Could be Involved In the World's Calculations
Yankee30:

I don't think we can squeeze the Nuclear Genie back into the bottle - without nuclear weapons the large and wealthy countries would then expand their reach through conventional means (i.e. "God favors the bigger battalion"). The answer to that would be the smaller country resurrecting its nuclear weapons. Which would cause the other countries to resurrect theirs. Unfortunately all roads military lead down to these damned things. They will only disappear when war itself becomes socially unacceptable and not possible. Today there are too many who believe, rightly I dare say, that they can profit from war or the threat of one.
 
October 02, 2009
Votes: +1

chicago dyke said:

0
 even the word
"intelligence" is a silly joke. there's nothing intelligent about spending what we do on an agency that produces so little value for the taxpayer and costs so much.

from inception, the 'intelligence' community has been more about creating and covering up horror, than neutrally providing reality-based information for the creation of policy. really, the only thing that's changed in modern 'intelligence' circles is the openness with which they are greedy. the old guard had more class, man. but the dick-waving, willfully ignorant globe trotting cowboy mentality is mostly the same. injuns! nippers! towelheads! yeehaw!

i have nothing but contempt for 'intelligence' agencies here. they are filled with kleptocrats and crackpots, esp at the upper echelons. i like the example of the previous poster: they've already made up their minds, expertise is treated like a prop in the Kabuki play most of it is. scratch the surface of most "intelligence operations" and you'll find someone stealing taxpayer money and fucking up something abroad. that hasn't changed since the inanity of the Spy vs. Spy days of the cold war.
 
October 04, 2009 | url
Votes: +2

Scott Busfield said:

0
 But There's A Problem Which Has to be Overcome ...
Unfortunately the last President who announced he would "dismantle" the CIA was JFK.
 
October 04, 2009
Votes: +1

Ovid said:

John Flyger
 I heart arthur silber
Arthur Silber is wise. I wish he were healthier than Dick Cheney.

I wonder about commenter Busfield's idea that we should just give Iran nuclear weapons. It reminds me of a little known piece of our own atomic history. The information is shadowy, but it can be seen if you use a little of that "intelligence capability" we all possess that Arthur Silbur alluded to.

Anyone with any sense realizes that the power to destroy the planet is just not the kind of power that human beings should have. Einstein, Szilard, and the other scientists probably would have known better than to recommend development of an atomic bomb had Hitler not looked so strong in 1939, when Einstein sent his letter to Roosevelt urging nuclear research and development. And, sure enough, once it was clear that Hitler would be defeated, Einstein and Szilard in particular tried to put the genie back in the bottle, but by then FDR had lost some of his vigor, and the generals and admirals kept close watch over the old magician to make sure he didn't let his internationalist and humanitarian views undermine the national interest, as seen through their martial eyes. For years some on the right, among them one Major Jordan, claimed that FDR had supplied the Soviets with nuclear secrets during our wartime alliance. That was denied, of course, but then strangely enough FDR's son James published a novel in 1980, near the end of his own life, in which his father and he were the central characters, and in which under FDR's direction he provided atomic secrets to the Russians for reasons that sound remarkably like FDR's actual views--that secrets about weapons cannot be kept and the possession of any secret weapon leads inevitably to war and arms races. The "novel" by James Roosevelt is named "A Family Matter" and can be purchased for next to a nickel online. I recommend reading it as a coded message to posterity sent by a son in honor of his father and in keeping with his father's wishes, at a time when decades of dangerous nuclear brinksmanship was about to resume with the newly inaugurated Reagan administration.

Perhaps FDR tried to save us from what has become our history, but was then just a dangerous future. That is certainly what FDR's enemies thought he was up to. FDR's excessively left-leaning vice president, Henry Wallace, was driven from the ticket in 44 by open blackmail via an OSS-connected Republican physician's threat (Dr. Frank Lahey) to break confidentiality and disclose that FDR was far too ill to survive his term. (see A Conspiracy of Silence by Dr. Harry Goldsmith and you can read the actual threatening letter Dr. Lahey wrote, in flagrant breach of his obligations as a treating physician). That was orchestrated to put a more acceptable and maleable number two on the ticket, one Harry Truman, and of course it succeeded. Then, FDR's death within a few months of the election was predicted by the "intelligence" agencies and service departments before it occurred, such is their acumen and foresight in such matters. At the time of his death in April, FDR was greatly at odds not only with Churchill and the Brits about colonial issues, but the OSS, Joint Chiefs and all the services about the future of the entire post-war world. (See e.g. Allies and Adversaries by Stoler). And whatever the cause of his death (no autopsy, of course), FDR's death was necessary to prevent a world of friendly relations with emerging communist and socialist countries all over the world. Stalin demanded an autopsy of FDR's body, with his usual tact, and he accused Churchill's spies of poisoning FDR, but to no avail.

So instead of a New Deal for the whole world and international control of atomic weapons, we got Truman, Atcheson, and the Cold War, which was plenty hot in Korea and then Vietnam. Of course, Atcheson drummed up a one-sided plan to theoretically put all atomic weapons under eventual international control, provided we could keep ours more or less as long as we liked and no one else could develop any in the meantime, and we slapped Bernard Baruch's name on the plan because he had a nice reputation. But we never made any serious effort to put nuclear technology under international control in any neutral way, and the result was just what James Roosevelt would have us believe FDR hoped to avoid--an arms race with constant close calls with Armageddon.

More than sixty five years later, we're still going strong.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: -1

Scott Busfield said:

0
 I Didn't Know That!
I've never really studied FDR, especially his views on foreign policy, but I think I'm going to now. As I recall FDR was in reasonably good health up until the Tehran conference where he had stomach problems and from then on his health noticeably deteriorated. After a quick Google I also discovered that FDR's medical files have been missing since his death. Interesting.

One of the great mysteries of FDR was his decision to run for a fourth term being as sick as he was. Could Ovid's comments provide some insight into the possible motivation behind his wanting to remain in office?
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: +0

Sean O'Neil said:

0
 ...
Ovid, I don't mean to attack you personally here, but I have to say that I don't understand the fond romantic memory of FDR. He was a plutocrat, a corporatist, just like Obama, just like Dubya Bush. The "new deal" rewarded his family friends, made them rich.

Seems that everyone who bothers to comment on "left"-leaning blogs has a pet Democrat hero from history. Younger (40s, 50s, 60s in age) folks are fond of JFK. Older folks, and/or historians, seem to be fond of FDR. And I'm always left wondering, why?

Y'all can have both those clowns. I'm aiming for a much better America, one that doesn't make noble the enrichment of family friends under the guise of helping all Americans.

I"m also not sure how anyone ruling as POTUS for 12 years is good for America. On that point alone FDR was obviously power-mad and serving people other than the poor and underprivileged. Anti-democratic!!!

I suppose the blame on this romanticism may lay in the way American public schools lionize certain past Presidents. I remember my HS teachers praising JFK and FDR as if they were demi-gods of democracy. I'm sorry to say I don't see them that way. If that's the best we can do in America, that's weak. Very weak.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: +0

John Flyger said:

John Flyger
 ...
Sean O'Neil

I don't mean to attack you personally either, but to compare FDR to W is so the stupidest thing I've heard this year, and I'm counting the teabaggers. You can think whatever you want--lord knows it's all the rage--but you should give facts a chance even if they get in the way of randomly splashing contempt around. FDR was indeed a patrician with some attitudes typical of his class, including some prejudices, but in other ways he was exceptional. Based on what you wrote, I doubt you know what the four freedoms were, what the New Deal was about, know that he was hated by Wall Street and the elite, have heard of the Business Plot, or have any familiarity with a host of other things that you really should know.

Scott Busfield

The third term was more controversial than the fourth, and don't be so sure that FDR's health was as bad in 1944 as it has subsequently been said to be. It's certainly not beyond medical science to raise someone's blood pressure, especially when the leading treating specialist HATED the patient, and not everyone close to FDR thought he was so sick anyway. As for why FDR ran, he had to run in 1944 for the same reason that the military and the whole elite no longer wanted him around: He would have had far more influence on the kind of peace that followed the war than anyone else on earth. He wanted to do what Wilson had failed to do. He was of great use to the military in winning the war and rallying the country behind it, but neither the elites, Wall Street, the GOP, nor the military wanted him to dictate the terms of the peace. History repeated itself, imagine that.

FDR probably had a harder time deciding on the third term, because so much was uncertain in early 1940. It was still an open question whether England and Germany would make peace, and if they didn't powerful forces in the US, namely on Wall Street, had come to favor US participation in the war. A war was best fought under FDR, and he had an interest in that too so that the ensuing peace would create the kind of world he favored, basically a New Deal for the world. And of course the British were heavily involved in manipulating everything, right down to the Gallup polls. A fine book to read on the British covert effort to get the US into WWII, in league with Wall Street interests, is Desperate Deception by Thomas Mahl. Even that old codger Gore Vidal really liked that book. If the Nazis hadn't proved to be so horrific, we'd have reason to get upset about the whole thing, and Gore Vidal for one thinks we should anyway. Maybe so.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: -1

Sean O'Neil said:

Sean O'Neil
 what the hell is your problem, "John Flyger"???
Well, "John Flyger," you sure do like to lie about me and my post. I'll thank you to be more honest next time, and do this:

1) note that I compared GWB and FDR on corporatism. I didn't say they were the same man, not as you've suggested I said.

2) note that I'm not a republican or a "teabagger," so the rest of your comment about my politics is dead wrong.

3) note that you have no clue what I know about history, so the guesses at what you think I don't know, they're wrong too.

4) note that you are spinning facts to lionize your hero FDR.

please get a better grasp of reality, preferably from a non-partisan, non-lionizing perspective. thank you.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: +0

Sean O'Neil said:

Sean O'Neil
 ...
Wall Street "hated" FDR like they "hate" Obama.

Jesus, the delusions of people! They have their heroes, they aren't gonna let facts change the fantastic image they've created in their minds!

I'm guessing there isn't even a man named "John Flyger," at the rate he's lying.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: +0

FDR Lionizer said:

John Flyger
 ...
Sean O'neil

I wouldn't expect someone as obviously intelligent as you to just trust what I say. You can read if you want, or you can do whatever it is that you do instead that is working so well.
 
October 05, 2009
Votes: +0

Sean O'Neil said:

Sean O'Neil
 ...
More snark, instead of proof? Swell! And you suggest, imply, that I'm relying on unreliable information?

How about this one, Mr Fictitious With Many Names?

The Myth of Roosevelt
Another weakness is Moore’s presentation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who at times comes across as the hero of the film. FDR appears as the champion of working people, supporting their struggles to unionize and fight for a decent living in the 1930s. Moore claims that had FDR lived a few more years, history would have been different, with the enactment of a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to living wage jobs, health care, housing, education, and more, as FDR outlined in a 1944 speech.

Yet reality is far different from the popular mythology of the New Deal and this “great man theory of history.” It was not thanks to FDR’s leadership that workers achieved all the gains they made in the 1930s, from stronger unions to Social Security and unemployment relief. It was because they broke the law and defied court injunctions, local police, “citizens’” militias, and National Guard troops with sit-down strikes, mass pickets, general strikes, demonstrations of the unemployed for relief, and more.

One would never know from Moore’s film that, as labor historian Art Preis writes, under FDR “more company unions had been organized, more workers killed, wounded and jailed, more troops called out against strikers … than under any president in memory” (Labor’s Giant Step, 47). It was only under massive pressure from below, and the fear that workers would go even farther and threaten the entire capitalist system, that FDR and the political establishment made concessions.


I don't suppose it would ever be apparent to you, Mr Fictional Name, that your legend was cribbed directly from Michael Moore's recent movie, instead of from reality. No, that wouldn't occur to you, would it?

No.

http://www.socialistalternativ...hp?id=1169
 
October 06, 2009
Votes: +0

supra shoes said:

0
 ...
I suppose the blame on this romanticism may lay in the way American public schools lionize certain past Presidents. I remember my HS teachers praising JFK and FDR as if they were demi-gods of democracy. I'm sorry to say I don't see them that way. If that's the best we can do in America, that's weak. Very weak.
 
October 06, 2009 | url
Votes: +1

Snark said:

John Flyger
 ...
Sean O'neill

I didn't say anything about FDR and the labor movement in the 30s, or Michael Moore's film, or socialism, or any of that. If you don't want to know anything about what I did say, don't read the sources. You're free to not read and not know whatever you don't want to, including everything. The sky is the limit for you there.

As for your apparent wish to have an unfocused, free-flowing, low-level argument amounting to snark warfare, based on block quotes from partisan tracts, as much fun as it would be, I'll pass.

I haven't seen Moore's film yet, but it sounds great to me based on other sources. Maybe the guy who wrote that review you block quoted really was ignorant enough to believe that FDR was on the side of fascist gangs that were beating up workers. Or maybe he just doesn't like anything that looks to him like "the great man theory of history," because that would contradict his view of historical materialism and undermine the political struggle for socialism. Beats me. But it sounds to me like he have shared your desire to make FDR just another a capitalist stooge. That train he and you are riding goes different places, so I'm not exactly sure where you are trying to go, but the end of the line is stupidity, so make sure you don't miss your stop.
 
October 06, 2009
Votes: +0

Sean O'Neil said:

Sean O'Neil
 ...
once again, Mr Polynomial is advancing unarmed into a battle of wits, and trying to re-state my posts in a manner that suits him... lies, and accusations of anger, madness, etc.

What a child.
 
October 07, 2009
Votes: +0

Ovid said:

John Flyger
 ...
Sean O'neil:

Too late, you missed it.
 
October 09, 2009
Votes: +0

Ovid said:

John Flyger
 ...
'the "counterinsurgency doctrine" so beloved by the Pentagon and eagerly embraced by Barack Obama.'

That 'eagerly embraced' statement is certainly hard to square with the Pentagon's annoyance and Cheney's charge of dithering. Its inaccuracy suggests either deliberate inaccuracy or judgment clouded by emotion, but either way it isn't good.
 
October 25, 2009
Votes: +0

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