You, Too, Can and Should Be an "Intelligence Analyst"

[seemslikeadream]

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/


My title is not intended to be at all humorous. It is meant to convey a critically important truth, one that most Americans, almost all politicians, and the overwhelming majority of political commentators (bloggers and otherwise) still do not understand to this day.

Ray McGovern has written an article about our inexorable progress toward military confrontation with Iran. For reasons I've explained, I am not concerned with discussing that aspect of his commentary here, although I recommend you read his entire piece. But a few of McGovern's other points deserve emphasis and further discussion.

I remind you that McGovern worked as a CIA analyst. Toward the beginning of his article, he writes:
The craft of CIA analysis was designed to be an all-source operation, meaning that we analysts were responsible - and held accountable - for assimilating information from all sources and coming to judgments on what it all meant. We used data of various kinds, from the most sophisticated technical collection platforms, to spies, to - not least - open media.

Here I must reveal a trade secret and risk puncturing the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media. It helps to have been trained - as my contemporaries and I had the good fortune to be trained - by past masters of the discipline of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, anyone with a high school education can do it. It is not rocket science.
I genuinely do not intend to insult any reader by noting the following: you may think you understand what McGovern says here, but the fact is, you almost certainly do not. It took me a few years and a lot of reading and thinking to understand these issues myself.

I return once again to what I regard as the classic formulation of the most critical point, one that I excerpted in "How the Foreign Policy Consensus Protects Itself." At the conclusion of that essay, you will find links to many other articles I've written on the subject of intelligence, and the ways in which it is misunderstood and misused. Here is Barbara Tuchman, in The March of Folly, writing about the catastrophe of Vietnam:




Beating Louder on Iran Bush's War Drums
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1644075

[saltpoint]

1. I'm sure it's exciting work and all, but half the time I can't even find my

car keys.

Also, there's likely an age cut-off limit. And besides, I wouldn't work for anybody who hadn't heard of Duke Ellington.

[bobthedrummer]

2. Many DUers do that regardless of what it's called-and here's a compilation

cross-post that is self-evident proof of that fact.

"Information warfare ammo-dump #2" (6-13-2007)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1104149

Even though much of the information in those archived/current threads can be used for INDICTMENTS AND IMPEACHMENT it hasn't. TIME IS UP.

IMPEACH CHENEY FIRST.