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The deadly strike into Israel by the terror group Hamas on Oct. 7 represents a monumental failure of Israeli intelligence. But it is neither the first such mistake by governments in the modern world, nor will it be the last.
Governments are by their very nature fallible institutions. Whether dictatorship, monarchy, or democracy, all are composed of human beings and ultimately subject to the range of prejudices, egos, and preconceived notions that sooner or later push individuals to misjudge situations and make bad choices.
Warning signs had been clearly visible for many months before Hamas terrorists burst into Israel on Oct. 7. Israeli intelligence services, however, failed to see the evidence for what it was – concrete preparation for a multi-faceted terrorist strike into Israel.
Perhaps Mossad and IDF leaders were blinded to the evidence before them because they believed themselves invulnerable based on past successes. Perhaps it simply illustrates the more typical shortcomings of government intelligence services, with competing bureaucracies stovepiping their resources and intelligence so that key data is not shared on a timely basis.
Regardless of why this major failure of intelligence occurred, Israel joins a lengthy list of sometimes catastrophic intelligence blunders that have befallen nations from East to West since the advent of modern intelligence gathering capabilities in the 1940s.
One of the first and deadliest such blunders was by Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin in June 1941, when he adamantly refused to believe numerous reports, including from American intelligence services, that Hitler was readying a massive attack against Russia from the west. While Stalin’s Red Army eventually beat back the Nazi invasion, his refusal to believe accurate, pre-attack intelligence warnings cost millions of civilian and military casualties.
Later in 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caught the Americans by surprise, despite numerous and reliable intelligence reports that the Imperial Japanese military was planning a sneak attack. Bureaucratic and inter-service rivalries, however, prevented coordinated and timely analyses.
Despite America’s eventual victory in the Pacific, that early intelligence failure cost thousands of American lives and severely limited the availability of heavy surface ships for our Navy in the early stages of the ensuing conflict.
The creation of the CIA in the immediate aftermath of WWII failed to prevent recurrent problems of intelligence agency hubris and egocentric leadership. These issues led to the Bay of Pigs debacle in 1961, and several years later manifested themselves in the failure to heed intelligence warnings of an imminent and multi-front attack by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong during the Tet holiday in early 1968.
Five years later, in Oct. 1973, reliable intelligence was provided by our CIA to Israeli services that Egyptian and Syrian forces were poised to attack Israel on two fronts during the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday. Israel, however, believing its adversaries knew its defensive forces to be sufficiently strong to repeal any attacks, refused to take steps based on that intelligence and were caught unprepared.
The list of failures by intelligence services to render coordinated and timely analysis of evidence, or the refusal of policymakers to believe or act on it, is long — the failure to foresee the fall of the pro-U.S. Shah of Iran to extremist Muslim forces in 1979, the failure to predict the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that same year, the final collapse of the seemingly mighty Soviet Union in 1991, and most notably, our failure to piece together intelligence that very well could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks.
Even domestic law enforcement can fall victim to misevaluation of evidence or locking onto false predictive models. Police investigating the 2002 “D.C. Sniper” shootings fixated on a lead that a “white panel truck” was the vehicle being used by the deadly snipers. Ignoring evidence not fitting that narrative needlessly prolonged the string of murders.
Any solution to such recurrent missteps must, at a minimum, include three basic ingredients — 1) consistently good, apolitical intelligence that is gathered, analyzed, and presented to policy makers, who then 2) make national security decisions based on that product, and 3) are not punished politically for doing so.
Sadly, only rarely have we enjoyed administrations exhibiting that combination.
“Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad” may have worked for Meatloaf in his 1977 hit song, but in the real world defending against terrorists and other deadly adversaries, there is nothing good about such an equation.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
In the 1972 made-for-TV movie Between Time and Timbuktu, the protagonist is transported to a world in which no one person is permitted to be superior in any way to any other person – physically or mentally. Individuals who happen to be physically stronger or more agile than others are forced to carry weights on their shoulders – “handicappers” – so they are not able to out-perform their weaker fellow citizens.
Now, a half century after author Kurt Vonnegut’s make-believe but prescient production, the federal government is punishing companies for hiring employees who are stronger and more athletic than others.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has become Uncle Sam’s handicapper enforcement arm.
One case at hand pits the EEOC, currently chaired by Democrat Charlotte Burrows, against a California moving company. The unforgivable legal sin committed by Meathead Movers that has led EEOC to file a lawsuit against it, is to hire movers who are strong and agile – precisely the qualities that would have forced such employees to don the handicappers envisioned by Vonnegut in Between Time and Timbuktu.
The primary difference between the handicappers in the 1972 movie and those now the object of the EEOC’s lawsuit against Meathead Movers, is that in the fictional account, the handicappers are physical weights, while the 2023 handicappers are statutory. The punishment sought by the EEOC against the moving company is, of course, monetary.
The EEOC initially demanded that Meathead Movers pay $15 million to settle the case – an offer the company refused. Notwithstanding the agency’s oh-so-generous subsequent offer of $5 million to withdraw its threatened action against the company, Meathead Movers declined, which precipitated the EEOC’s September lawsuit.
While most discrimination actions by EEOC are initiated via complaint filed by an employee or applicant for employment, in this case the Commission deemed the “discouragement bias” (yes, that is a real term now employed by the EEOC) inherent in the moving company’s ads seeking to hire strong, agile, and energetic individuals, to be so egregiously discriminatory that the company was targeted without any individual alleging discrimination or bias.
At a time long ago and in a land far away (say, the United States a half century ago), it would seem not only lawful but entirely reasonable for a moving company to hire individuals who exhibit the physical and mental traits necessary for the demanding work of lifting heavy loads and transporting them quickly from home or office to truck and back. No longer.
In the eyes of President Biden’s EEOC nannies, Meathead Movers’ ads impermissibly “discourage” older individuals from applying for such jobs. The fact that nothing in the company’s ads or hiring practices indicated a preference for age – only that individuals were strong, agile, and motivated – could not save it from lengthy and costly litigation.
The AARP, which formerly was known as the American Association of Retired Persons but now goes simply by the acronym “AARP,” has applauded the EEOC’s action against Meathead Movers, blasting the company for using inappropriate “stereotypes.”
Sadly, this most recent idiotic move by Uncle Sam’s nanny watchdogs at the EEOC is by no means the only example of the federal government and various state regulatory agencies working to hobble hiring practices in ways that lower or altogether remove reasonable standards for employment.
The U.S. Air Force three years ago lowered the standards for pilots because the previous requirements were deemed to limit the number of female pilots. Not to be outdone, the Army in 2022 reduced its physical fitness standards in order to bring more women and older persons into its ranks.
New York City and other state and local governments have decided that employers cannot turn away applicants because they are obese.
Even firefighting, among the most physically demanding jobs of all, is falling victim to the drive for lowered standards in order to hire a preferred class of persons, in the case of Connecticut, more women firefighters.
Restricting the ability of companies and government agencies to establish meaningful, performance-based hiring and employment standards may delight DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) zealots like the EEOC’s Charlotte Burrows. However, for those who rely on such standards as are now seen as unlawful for companies serving the public, or for government agencies protecting our country from enemies abroad or from disasters here at home, such extreme nanny-ism can be debilitating, even deadly.
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.
©2022 Liberty Guard, Inc. All rights reserved.
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