Intelligence Agencies


Dec 20, 2016
By: Jerry A. Goodson
In: Society

CIA, FBI, NSA, DHS... those are just a few of the alphabet intelligence agencies we hear about reporting to the President of the United States.  But who works for us?  What happens when they get it wrong?

Despite not having owned a television since 2010, I often get accused of getting all my information from Fox News.  The fact is, I didn't watch Fox News back when I had a television.  Rather, I rely on intelligence from a think tank that even the U.S. government contracts instead of the mainstream media.

President-elect has come under quite bit of scrutiny for seemingly everything about his winning the presidential election.  He's still a month away from inauguration, and his administration has already been predicted to fail in the most apocalyptic manner possible.  The majority of his cabinet picks aren't political veterans, they're wealthy business men and women... all of whom have had their character or their competency attacked in a highly vicious manner.  Ultimately, it's all done in an attempt to project failure on Trump's administration before it even starts.

A major attack on Trump is for his skipping out on daily intelligence briefings.  

"I get it when I need it." Trump explained to Fox News's Chris Wallace.  "I'm, like, a smart person.  I don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years."

It's been no secret President-elect Donald Trump has been at odds with the national intelligence community... particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  Overviews of intelligence reports generated by the CIA that have been given to the media suggest Trump won the election due to interference from Russia.  

From Politico.com:
"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," the Trump transition team said in a statement late Friday. "The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and "Make America Great Again.'"
...
Trump's refusal to accept the assessments has caused waves in the intelligence community, where many were already worried about the level of trust the president will have in them.

The national intelligence community has many alphabet agencies with intelligence analysts.  During the campaign, Hillary Clinton often referred to the "seventeen intelligence agencies" that shared a consensus that supported her claims that the Russian government, even Vladimir Putin himself, ordered the DNC be hacked to disrupt the elections and ultimately give Trump the White House.

The Domestic Cold War

It was only recently I discovered the current state of this country.  We are in a domestic cold war.  There is a definitive racial, social, and political gap that widens with each passing day.  That war is fueled by information and misinformation by the domestic intelligence agencies known as the media.

"We are in a domestic cold war, and social media is our battleground."

We don't have the government alphabet agencies.  We have the likes of FOX, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.  We no longer have "journalists," but rather "news analysts."  See the correlation to the US intelligence community?  

We are in a domestic cold war, and social media is our battleground.  My ability to articulate the state of our union came about after two marked events.  First, I had a disagreement with a friend over Dan Rather calling for activist journalism in a social media post.  Second, I studied a Venn Diagram another friend had made over media bias and journalistic quality.

I staunchly disagreed with his call for that as a journalist.  Journalists have one job, and one job only: report the news.  That doesn't include injecting opinion in the news, it is to report the news... objectively.  

Media Venn Diagram

Media Bias Venn DiagramUndisclosed Source

I don't agree with all of the assessments of the news sources contained in this diagram, but I didn't create the product, either.  It's a good product that paints a mostly accurate idea of media bias and journalistic quality.  

When looking at various news articles shared by people on social media, it gives a good idea on where in they stand in the domestic cold war.  

Domestic Cold War Combatants

While the media serves as domestic cold war intelligence, you can't truly have a war without a military.  The left and the right, each, have theirs.  A few times in recent history, they have deployed.

Recently, Right Army Deployments (RADs) include the standoff at Bundy Ranch in Arizona and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff in Oregon.  Left Army Deployments (LADs) include #OccupyWallstreet, several #BlackLivesMatter marches, protests, and riots, and most recently, protests staged in various state capitol buildings throughout the country during the electoral college vote.

 What happens when intelligence agencies get it wrong?

Two examples of US intelligence agency blunders led to the deaths of over three thousand people in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq that lasted over ten years.  

Domestic intelligence agencies (the media) erroneously reported Michael Brown had his hands raised in surrender when Officer Darren Wilson killed him.  #BlackLivesMatter protesters destroyed Ferguson, Missouri over the reports.

Parting Shots:

People on the extreme left love their country just as much as the people on the extreme right... they just have different ideas of what their country is or what it should be.

The likes of "media" such as Breitbart, The Blaze, OccupyDemocrats, and AddictingInfo don't exist to report the news.  Rather, they exist to incite unrest and further divide this country until the RADs and LADs are against each other and not the government.

Now that the domestic cold war has been defined, it became a lot easier to put Dan Rather on an even keel with Alex Jones.  Their credence as journalists are about the same.



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