As a case in point, take the recent and ongoing uprisings in so many Middle East nations. Thankfully, these are not terrorist events -- indeed, quite the contrary; rulers such as Mubarak and Qaddafi are themselves perpetrators of state- sponsored terrorism. But that is absolutely no excuse for our so-called intelligence agencies, like the CIA, the National Security Council, and those other shadier operations with hidden budgets, to miss the mark so broadly and egregiously. The truth is that no American security agency, including the intelligence arm of our State Department, foresaw Middle Eastern trends.
Yet, those same uprisings, which became revolutions and are far from over, were posted on the Internet. They were trumpeted on Twitter, focused on Facebook, and emailed all over the world -- but not seen by those here at home charged with watching such events. Our vaunted intelligence agencies were not just asleep at the switch -- they failed to even find that switch. Wikileaks could probably have done a much better job than America did in tracking what was really happening in the Mideast -- and done that job without much in the way of resources.
There is a Pennsylvania Dutch saying which applies: We get too soon old and too late smart! If America does not, very soon, get much smarter in ways of promoting our safety and security, and really coping with terrorism, some Americans, sadly, may not live to get much older. Who needs to watch the U.S. watchers? We all do.
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