
50 Spies Say ISIS Intelligence Was Cooked - uptown
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html
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deciplex
> _Yet a growing group of intelligence analysts persisted with their
> complaints. For some, who have served at CENTCOM for more than a decade,
> scars remained from the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, when poorly written
> intelligence reports suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when
> it did not, formed the basis of the George W. Bush administration’s case for
> war._

I'm reminded of the quote from Karl Rove dismissing the "reality-based
community" as subordinate and inferior to "history's actors" which shape
reality according to their whims. Of course the mindset goes back a lot
further than that, and more than the American government is guilty of it, but
in the US intelligence community it seems to have gotten a real shot in the
arm during the Bush administration. Unfortunately, like many other terrible
precedents set during that Presidency, our current President has done little
to reverse it.

If we've really gotten to the point where anyone in Washington can question
whether "solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality" as
though there is even a debate to be had there, without being laughed out of
the city, then the real mystery of American government is how it manages to
function as well as it does. This is a meme that needs to be rooted out and
thoroughly destroyed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-
based_community](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality-based_community)

~~~
cryoshon
I mean, we have Trump taking a serious shot at the presidency.

America hasn't been a reality-based community for quite a while. Remember how
after 9/11 people were buying gas masks? Remember how before Y2K people were
buying guns? Remember how in 2008 they were telling us the economy would be
just fine as it melted down?

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nikdaheratik
Another case of "Meet the New Boss..." as far as intelligence goes. OTOH, the
article lists no names, gives no details about specific alterations, etc.
Which makes it more gossip than actual journalism, IMO.

