A version of this was published on line at the Sky Hi News, February 5, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion-muftic-trump-gives-intelligence-a-bad-name/
Aside from reports Donald Trump has a short
attention span and poor reading comprehension skills, there is another disturbing meaning to Trump's definition of
"intelligence". Those
who have tried to brief him, including his former secretary of state,
reportedly called him a “***moron “. There are recent reports by other
intelligence briefers who said he was "willfully ignorant" and he
exploded in anger when he was given information that contradicted his public
statements and agenda. Not only is he
ignoring and dismissing his own intelligence agencies' conclusions, he is
forging US foreign policy based on something other than rational use of any objective
real-world facts supplied by his own agency appointees. If our country survives
the next two years without a major foreign policy blunder, we can count
ourselves lucky.
He
has recently dismissed the conclusion presented in their annual report on
threats to national security to Congress by US intelligence heads that contradicted
his own assertions. No, Mr. President, ISIS is not dead; no, Iran is abiding by
their disarmament agreement, and, no, North Korea will not give up nuclear
capability because it is too basic to their regime's survival. The
"crisis" at the Southern border did not even register in their list of
top ten security threats. Trump called
the intelligence chiefs “naive”, he sent them "back to school”, and now he
termed in press remarks their findings are just opinions with which he can disagree,
as if these professionals were writing an op ed piece with an ideological
agenda. Thousands of agents risk their
lives to gather such facts and awesome technology provides even more
information. That gulf between Trump's words and the intelligence agencies' conclusions
is enough to make us wonder where he ever got some of his ideas. Could he be
listening to foreign intelligence service findings whispered in his ear
by even Russian President Vladimir Putin himself? He has had several one on one
secret meetings with him. After all, he has taken Putin's word over our own
services in public before. Last July in
Helsinki, Trump dissed US intelligence agency reports that Russia interfered in
the 2016 elections, and instead accepted Putin’s words of denial as the truth.
There are good reasons to suspect Trump has
been listening to Putin because the foreign policy he is conducting supports
Russia’s goals. Trump and Russia do not support US security policies that have
created peace and prosperity in Europe post-Soviet era. Trump's foreign policy
initiatives aid Russian actions to expand their influence and control to former
Soviet spheres of interest. Putin's
stealth invasion of Ukraine and his Crimea annexation resulted in the West
imposing punishing sanctions on Putin’s oligarch friends. Trump just lifted
sanctions on one oligarch, and would like to remove all sanctions, period.
While repeating Putin’s very words, Trump called NATO “obsolete” and he
threatens to pull out from NATO, a mutual defense treaty, which would clear the
way for Russia to try Ukraine /Crimea - like takeovers in the Baltics and
Balkans without triggering an automatic military response. US pulling out of
Syria would leave Russia with greater influence the Middle East. Trump’s recent pulling out of the IMF treaty
will allow Russia to develop their mid-range nuclear capability out in the
open. No IMF treaty? No sweating compliance or fearing punishment when or if
they have been outed and making this a much more dangerous world.
Trump's disdain for US intelligence services
has a history in the Iraq war and
faulty US intelligence verification that there were indeed weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq. There were at
that time no international inspectors on the ground in Iraq. Saddam cleverly
created the fiction he had the capability in order to deter future attackers.
The situation is very different in Iran. Thanks to the multinational Iran
nuclear deal, that country has been constantly monitored by inspectors on site
and shipments of nuclear material into Iran have been subject to inspection and
control. Trump pulled out of the
deal. Some fear Trump may be cooking up
a reason to invade Iran, egged on by hawkish advisers. Destroying the Iran nuclear deal would end those
inspections, but fortunately other signators continue the program without us.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/donald-trump-putin-helsinki-summit/index.html
