THE GATES INHERITANCE, Part 1
The tortured world of US intelligence

Asia Times, has come out with with a very interesting and lengthy deep background on the US Intel establishment, and one of its leading lights, none other than our current post-Rummy SECDEF Gates:

Robert Gates has returned to Washington as secretary of defense with a quiet vengeance and with all the skills acquired in his rough-and-tumble years in the intelligence bureaucracy still intact. His laden resume, gathered over many decades, is evidence that Washington’s tortuous, often misguided foreign policies did not begin with the Bush administration, and will not end with it. In this three-part series, Roger Morris, formerly a senior staffer of the National Security Council, provides not just a portrait of the real Robert Gates, but a history of America’s global covert action and intervention.

Although this piece IS lengthy, it has a lot to show and tell about how we got to be where we are today. I’m not sure that I buy into the whole deal, but there’s enough substance there to bear some close thought.

This is only part I of 2 more to follow. The content does NOT fill the Chief with optimism concerning the conduct of US foreign policy. Maybe it really IS too late to work within the system any more, but I truly hope that’s an overly pessimistic assessment.

But still…what if it’s not?