CIA reform

Got Design has an intelligent post on the need for changes at the CIA to help it realize it's initial intent as an intelligence gathering agency: The Central Intelligence Agency was designed to be an organization that would collect information from a wide variety of sources and provide analytical support of the president's foreign policy objectives. In the absence of a firm presidential foreign policy objective (e.g., the Clinton Administration), the CIA should continue its mission of information collection. As for the conduct of clandestine operations, they should always be in support of policy and subject to the oversight of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. Make sure you read the rest, and since yours truly left a rather insightful comment, here are some of my views: You shouldn't feel like you're in the minority at all because the CIA does need a great deal of work to reverse damages done to it by years of political correctness that ironically started with the Carter administration. Information is apolitical, but like the MSM, the CIA's field agents who are bringing in the first hand data, have their information manipulated by countless bureaucrats who distort it's meaning and context for their own political gain. If only real life were more like a Tom Clancy novel, where intelligence gathering is taken seriously and the info gets direct from the field to the president with no interference. Not to be trite but one of my favorite movies, Sneakers, put it best: It's not who controls the guns, it's who controls the information. Oh so true. Take a look at the CIA's website. They put their mission very nicely: We are the eyes and ears of the nation and at times its hidden hand. We accomplish this mission by: Collecting intelligence that matters. Providing relevant, timely, and objective all-source analysis. Conducting covert action at the direction of the President to preempt threats or achieve United States policy objectives.