The View From 1776

A Washington Times editorial recaps the ways in which President Obama has created a climate of CYA caution in our intelligence services.  Since the president’s inauguration, the smart thing for intelligence agents has been to keep their heads down, do only and exactly what they are told to do, and avoid any initiatives to ferret out threats to our national security.  The president, acting through Attorney General Holder, has made it clear that CIA agents’ approved actions can later be deemed criminal conduct.

Obama’s actions followed the pattern established by liberal-progressive, Democrat/Socialist Senator Frank Church in the mid-1970s, with predictably the same results. 

The Church Committee did its best after President Nixon’s Watergate scandal to eviscerate our nation’s intelligence services.  Senator Church started from the typical liberal-progressive perspective that our foreign enemies would not be our enemies if we were nice and friendly, if we shared our wealth with them.  Their attitude was that the persons to be punished and whose careers were to be wrecked were CIA or FBI agents who had taken risks to uncover and to thwart lethal threats to the security of the United States.

As the 9/11 commission reported, destruction of the World Trade Towers and part of the Pentagon was a consequence of Senator Church’s neutering of our intelligence service capabilities.  If there is to be a repeat of 9/11, it will be the result of act two of the Church Committee under President Obama.