The "loyalty" issue today at State and the CIA

As Joe Conason observes, "At the C.I.A. as in the State Department, partisan politics is in command. Experience to date suggests that the consequences will be grave." (Politics prevails again in Rice's appointment WorkingforChange.com 11/17/04.

Steve Clemons' posts on intelligence and diplomatic organization-change issues for 11/16 and 11/17 at his blog The Washington Note have raised some important points. For instance: Dems Need to Be Careful of Knee-Jerk CIA-Hugging 11/17/04.  In this one he cautions critics of the Bush administration to remember that every organization has its own bureacratic imperatives (self-preservation, budget, prestige, etc.) and to remember that those elements also come into play in some of the leaks we're reading about the changes at the CIA.

This online interview session by former CIA analyst Mel Goodman also cautions us to think about the perspective of those leaving the CIA in evaluating their comments:  CIA Resignations and Intelligence Reform Washington Post 11/15/04.

I've read [Michael] Scheuer's Imperial Hubris and I don't find him credible. He was probably the wrong person to head the bin Laden station (the Alex station) and it was probably wrong to place an analytical person in an operational slot. Scheuer displays an obsessive approach toward the problem of Islamic fundamentalism...and his recommendatins in his book would place US interests in real jeopardy throughout the Islamic world. He appears to know a great deal about al Qaeda, but he appears to know very little about the limitations of military power in dealing with insurgencies.

Goodman in the context is talking about Scheuer's perspective on the CIA personnel changes.   As he says in this quote, Scheuer is very knowledgable about Al Qaeda. What struck me about this statement was that it fit with the impression that I had in reading Imperial Hubris.  The analytical part of the book - which is most of it - seemed very solid. It was consonant with some of the better material I had read on the topic of Islamic fundamentalism and Al Qaeda, and seemed to be very carefully put together.  (I quoted Scheuer in this earlier post.)

But his foreign policy recommendations often seemed much less carfully thought out.  I got the impression that he was really immersed in the particular field of the jihadist movement, but actually had fairly limited acquaintance with other aspects of US foreign policy.

This post of Steve Clemons about the possibility of John Bolton becoming Condi, Condi's chief deputy at State were also notable: Wanted: Neocon Secret Decoder Ring -- They Are Clearly on the March 11/17/04.

That post in particular made me reflect that in recent months when we've heard talk about McCarthyism, it tended to focus on the aspect of war fans demonizing ordinary citizens who criticized Bush's policies.  But one of the most lasting and consequential effects of the whole postwar Red Scare that we have come to refer to in short as "McCarthyism" was the fact that it deprived the State Department of many of the people who were most knowledgable about China and Southeast Asia.

During that period, a number of more senior officials as well as lower-level experts were forced out or chose to leave government because of the atmosphere.  Some of the most famous cases involved people who had had the misfortune to be correct in their assessments in the 1940s about the corruption and weakness of Chiang Kai-Shek's government.  This was perceived retroactively as having been suspiciously sympathetic to Mao Zedong and his Communist movement.

The resulting lack of expertise about Asian affairs cost the US dearly in the Vietnam War.  There's no guarantee, of course, that with better expert advice that policymakers would have made superior decisions.  But they would have at least had the chance to use information that was based on more solid understanding and analysis of the area and the individual leaders whose motives and intentions they were judging.

In those days, questionable "loyalty" meant questionable loyalty to the United States.  It sounds like whatwe're seeing under way right now at both State and the CIA is a purge of officials based on loyalty to George W. Bush.

Sid Blumenthal also weighs in on the topic: Bush's night of the long knives Salon 11/17/04.

The dictation of a political line has conquered policymaking. Since the United States emerged as a world power, the executive, because of immense responsibilities and powers, has relied upon impartial information and analysis from its departments and agencies. But vindictiveness against the institutions of government based on expertise, evidence and experience is clearing the way for the intellectual standards and cooked conclusions of right-wing think tanks and those appointees who emerge from them.

In this strange Soviet Washington, a system of bureaucratic fear and one-party allegiance has been created in which only loyalists are rewarded. Rice stands as the model. One can never be too loyal. And the loyalists compete to outdo each other. Dissonant information is seen as motivated to injure the president -- disloyalty bordering on treason. Success is defined as support for the political line, failure as departure from the line. An atmosphere of personal vendetta and an incentive system for suppressing realities prevail. This is not an administration; it does not administer -- it is a regime.

For an administration that already is far too susceptible to the perils of groupthink, this is a high-risk development.  And the price the country pays for it could extend far beyond January 2009.