This alone should be enough to disqualify Panetta

[Tigermike 4,266]

N/T

[Tigermike 4,266]

"Sandy" Berger, endorses Panetta

link

Maybe Sandy will teach him how to smuggle top secret documents.

[RunInRed 19,658]

What's your beef with Panetta -- he's not an inside CIA guy?

[otterinbham 0]

What's your beef with Panetta -- he's not an inside CIA guy?

See, I don't think you need to be an intelligence guy to run the CIA. I think you need to have superior organizational skills and political savvy. The first George Bush was CIA director, after all.

As far as Berger/Panetta goes, I'm sure Berger is trying to climb back into good graces, and sucking up to Panetta is one way to do it. However, stuffing classified documents down one's pants and sneaking out of the archives isn't exactly forgotten by anybody.

[RunInRed 19,658]

I can think of a few inside guys that were promoted to CIA Director who turned out to be miserable failures. Most recently, Tenet.

I posted this in another thread but it belongs here as well just for clarification of what the CIA Director actually does and what his power really is:

The Executive Branch, the National Security Council—including the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense—provides guidance and direction for national foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities. In Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, closely monitor the Agency’s reporting and programs. The CIA is not a policy-making organization; it advises policymakers on matters of foreign intelligence, and it conducts covert actions only at the direction of the President.

[autigeremt 7,549]

What's your beef with Panetta -- he's not an inside CIA guy?

My beef is this!

You don't hire someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of such a sensitive depertment. Organization is crucial to anyone who leads....but they better have experience in the field before running the show.

Like I said before, you don't hire the tennis coach to run the football team. The tennis coach may have excellent organizational skills, but if he/she doesn't know the X's and O's, then failure will set in. This isn't a company here. It's the CIA!

Of course, if you don't care about the safety and security of the U.S. and you just want a guy who can keep the paperwork in order, he's the guy.

[AFTiger 282]

Leon Panetta will be a terrible hire, perhaps the worst since Adm Stansfield Turner under the Carter regime.

Given his experience with the totally corrupt Clinton regime and his leadership of left wing propoganda organizations such as Media Matters, I wonder who will he spy on, America's enemies or Obama's opponents.

[Tigermike 4,266]

What's your beef with Panetta -- he's not an inside CIA guy?

This explains it.

AN AWFUL PICK

O OPTS TO POLITICIZE INTELLIGENCE

Ralph Peters

Last updated: 12:51 am

January 7, 2009

Posted: 12:36 am

January 7, 2009

WOULD you ask your accountant to perform brain surgery on your child? That's the closest analogy I can find to the choice of Democratic Party hack Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

Earth to President-elect Obama: Intelligence is serious. And infernally complicated. When we politicize it - as we have for 16 years - we get 9/11. Or, yes, Iraq.

The extreme left, to which Panetta's nomination panders, howled that Bush and Cheney corrupted the intelligence system. Well, I worked in the intel world in the mid 1990s and saw how the Clinton team undermined the system's integrity.

Al Qaeda a serious threat? The Clinton White House didn't want to hear it. Clinton was the pioneer in corrupting intelligence. Bush was just a follow-on homesteader.

Now we've fallen so low that left-wing cadres can applaud the nomination of a CIA chief whose sole qualification is that he's a party loyalist, untainted by experience.

The director's job at the CIA isn't a party favor. This is potentially a matter of life and death for thousands of Americans. But the choice of Panetta tells us all that Barack Obama doesn't take intelligence seriously.

Mark my words: It'll bite him in the butt.

After the military, the intel community is the most complex arm of government. You can't do on-the-job training at the top. While a CIA boss needn't be a career intelligence professional, he or she does need a deep familiarity with the purposes, capabilities, limitations and intricacies of intelligence.

Oh, and you'd better understand the intelligence bureaucracy.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who was blindsided - and appalled - by the Obama mafia's choice, has the essential knowledge of how the system works. She, or a similar expert, should have gotten this nod. But the president-elect wanted a clean-slate yes-man, not a person of knowledge and integrity.

We're witnessing the initial costs of Obama's career-long lack of interest in foreign policy, the military and intelligence. He doesn't think the top job at the CIA's important and just wants political cover on that flank. (Guess we got Panetta because Caroline Kennedy has another engagement.)

Forget a "team of rivals." Obama's creating a campaign staff for 2012.

Of course, he's reeling from the shrill rage of the Moveon.org crowd over his nomination of grown-ups to be his national-security adviser, director of national intelligence, administrator of veterans' affairs and, yes, secretary of state. (By the way, how could Hillary be dumb enough to accept a job where success is impossible?)

Panetta's appointment is a sop to the hard left, a signal that intelligence will be emasculated for the next four - or eight - years.

Think morale's been bad at the CIA? Just wait.

Conservatives played into this scenario by insisting that any CIA analysis that didn't match the Bush administration's positions perfectly amounted to an attack on the White House. Well, sorry. The intelligence community's job isn't to make anybody feel good - its core mission is to provide nonpartisan analysis to our leaders.

To be a qualified D-CIA, a man or woman needs a sophisticated grasp of three things: The intel system, foreign-policy challenges and the Pentagon (which owns most of our intelligence personnel and hardware). Panetta has no background - none - in any of these areas. He was never interested.

If you handed Leon Panetta a blank map of Asia, I'd bet my life he couldn't plot Baghdad, Kabul or Beijing within 500 miles of their actual locations. (Maybe he can see China from his California think tank?)

This shameless hack appointment is the first action by the incoming administration that seriously worries me. Get intelligence wrong and you get dead Americans.

Ralph Peters was a career intelligence officer in the US Army.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01072009/posto...pick_148973.htm

[autigeremt 7,549]

Leon Panetta will be a terrible hire, perhaps the worst since Adm Stansfield Turner under the Carter regime.

Given his experience with the totally corrupt Clinton regime and his leadership of left wing propoganda organizations such as Media Matters, I wonder who will he spy on, America's enemies or Obama's opponents.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

[RunInRed 19,658]

Leon Panetta will be a terrible hire, perhaps the worst since Adm Stansfield Turner under the Carter regime.

Given his experience with the totally corrupt Clinton regime and his leadership of left wing propoganda organizations such as Media Matters, I wonder who will he spy on, America's enemies or Obama's opponents.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

Not saying I'm head over heels about this pick, but at the same time, I'm not as overly concerned as some for the reasons I've previously stated. But I do find the Media Matters/propoganda information to be interesting -- especially since he has had a stellar reputation and fairly well thought of by both parties over the last two decades. Maybe AFTiger or some one could expand (link) on his "propoganda leadership".

Again, a lot of Republicans are questioning the selection b/c he does not come from CIA cloth but not for the reasons you listed above...

O'REILLY: OK, real quick, Leon Panetta good guy, smart guy, patriot, CIA chief?

GINGRICH: Leon Panetta is a very smart man. He should not be the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. We need intelligence professional.

http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/Arti...17/Default.aspx

[CCTAU 3,879]

Leon Panetta will be a terrible hire, perhaps the worst since Adm Stansfield Turner under the Carter regime.

Given his experience with the totally corrupt Clinton regime and his leadership of left wing propoganda organizations such as Media Matters, I wonder who will he spy on, America's enemies or Obama's opponents.

DING DING DING! We have a winner!

Not saying I'm head over heels about this pick, but at the same time, I'm not as overly concerned as some for the reasons I've previously stated. But I do find the Media Matters/propoganda information to be interesting -- especially since he has had a stellar reputation and fairly well thought of by both parties over the last two decades. Maybe AFTiger or some one could expand (link) on his "propoganda leadership".

Again, a lot of Republicans are questioning the selection b/c he does not come from CIA cloth but not for the reasons you listed above...

O'REILLY: OK, real quick, Leon Panetta good guy, smart guy, patriot, CIA chief?

GINGRICH: Leon Panetta is a very smart man. He should not be the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. We need intelligence professional.

http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/Arti...17/Default.aspx

You shouldn't be overly concerned. Every time a dim appointee runs the CIA, the damage is never felt until a republican president takes office. Then the lax BS that has built up over time bites the country in the ass.

Clinton had the CIA so watered down that we had no idea what was going on in the world. But yet it now seems it was GWB's fault for not tapping into his crystal ball. The CIA should be our most aggressive entity. It is the only way we as a nation (our leaders) know what is truly happening in the world.

To be like Clintax and think all is well in the world and we just don't need as much CIA is the dumbest thing a president can do.

WE ALWAYS NEED COVERT INFORMATION.

Even more so now that the dims cannot fathom that we are truly at war.

So to put a guy like this in charge is not a bright thing to do.

[RunInRed 19,658]

CCT - I respect your opinion. But just curious if you knew which Adminstration ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on bin Laden in 1998? And then in 1999, which Adminstration directed the CIA to secretly train and equipp approximately 60 commandos from the Pakistani intelligence agency to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden? Which Administration dismissed Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and the Clinton team's transition letter warning as paranoia?

Anyways, I say all this not advocate that Clinton did nothing wrong or to say that Bush did every thing wrong but to point out that it's probably not as black or white/democrat or republican as you have articulated.

[CCTAU 3,879]

CCT - I respect your opinion. But just curious if you knew which Adminstration ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on bin Laden in 1998? And then in 1999, which Adminstration directed the CIA to secretly train and equipp approximately 60 commandos from the Pakistani intelligence agency to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden? Which Administration dismissed Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and the Clinton team's transition letter warning as paranoia?

Anyways, I say all this not advocate that Clinton did nothing wrong or to say that Bush did every thing wrong but to point out that it's probably not as black or white/democrat or republican as you have articulated.

It's not those few things that you can point to that put us into a bad situation. It was the policy of cutting back defense due to the false belief that we were living in a peaceful world that did us in. With the cutbacks in defense came cutbacks in intelligence. By the time 9/11 happened, we had the fewest number of soldiers and assets on the ground in many years. A nation the size of ours cannot afford to cutback on defense or intelligence assets. A smaller nation such as the UK can because they always have us to back them up. We have no backup.

So Clintax's overall policy of cutting security spending did more to cause the Iraq war than any other act. With the proper assets in place, we would have known how to approach the situation more with a scalpel rather than a club. Will we learn form that? Or will the ONE see things like Clintax? Mismangae the CIA and see how bad world security gets.

[arnaldoabru 11]

CCT - I respect your opinion. But just curious if you knew which Adminstration ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on bin Laden in 1998? And then in 1999, which Adminstration directed the CIA to secretly train and equipp approximately 60 commandos from the Pakistani intelligence agency to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden? Which Administration dismissed Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and the Clinton team's transition letter warning as paranoia?

Anyways, I say all this not advocate that Clinton did nothing wrong or to say that Bush did every thing wrong but to point out that it's probably not as black or white/democrat or republican as you have articulated.

Which administration had him surronded at Tora Bora and wouldn't pull the trigger?

[TigerHeat 9]

CCT - I respect your opinion. But just curious if you knew which Adminstration ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on bin Laden in 1998? ineffectually fired missiles with a warning they were coming, and the overuse of the cruise missile to the point where we RAN OUT and publicized that factAnd then in 1999, which Adminstration directed the CIA to secretly train and equipp approximately 60 commandos from the Pakistani intelligence agency to enter Afghanistan for the purpose of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden? ISI commandos to "kill" OBL? ludicrous. they were on his side before Bush played hardball with Pervez. Which Administration dismissed Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and the Clinton team's transition letter warning as paranoia? wow. please cite this.

Anyways, I say all this not advocate that Clinton did nothing wrong or to say that Bush did every thing wrong but to point out that it's probably not as black or white/democrat or republican as you have articulated.

You're right. It's much clearer than that. Clinton raped the military (increased ops tempo, slashes to budgets for spare parts and training). We couldn't even deploy helicopters to the Balkans because of the spare parts problems. We ran out of Tomahawks because Clinton used them for everything so no soldiers would die in combat. Clinton weakened the CIA just as the new messiah will.

Don't worry....we'll come back and clean the mess up again in a few years to the sounds of more shrill screams from the left.

[RunInRed 19,658]

Wow, so much for rank partisanship being replaced by reason after the election.

Which Administration dismissed Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and the Clinton team's transition letter warning as paranoia? wow. please cite this.

Richard Clarke wrote about the transition extensively in his book Against All Enemies but what I was referring to was his letter to Rice on January, 25, 2001 where he warned "Al-Qaeda cells are inside US and are ‘Major Threat’."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?p...A8734-2002Jan19

There was also the infamous PDB from August 6, 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Det...o_Strike_in_U.S.

Anyways, Bush is King terror warrior, Clinton raped our Defense. Got it.

[autigeremt 7,549]

But just curious if you knew which Adminstration ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on bin Laden in 1998?

Did that strike pay off????? NOT! Empty tents in a desert in the middle of the night=tipped off.

Now.....As a member of the Armed Forces on active duty during the first Clinton term, I can tell you that President Clinton began to erode the morale and the troop strength beyond repair. We are still behind because of it today.]

Obama has hinted at a draft as a part of his "job stimulus" package. I doubt it will ever happen, but maybe he could really shock me with a push for it. I'm all for that!