Some Brain Trust
Since there's a break in the action until Crimea's Referendum vote to officially rejoin Russia this coming Sunday, I thought it might be helpful to address an ancillary issue that may have contributed to Barack Obama's ill fated option selections in handling the collapse of Ukraine.
When U.S. Presidents engages the international community to promote and enforce American values, foreign policy and global interest, they're relying heavily on advisors and intelligence gathering entities to keep them up to speed, in the loop and fully prepared. When that advise and intel is faulty, it is the President, the U.S. military, the nation's taxpayers and innocent victims who ultimately pay the price.
Failing America's Chief Executive Officers miserably for decades now, every United States President since Ronald Reagan has been misled, misinformed and or misdirected by over budgeted and under performing intelligence agencies, with an equally incompetent staff of national security advisors. To think Barack Obama ever had a chance to effectively match wits with a highly skilled adversary like Vladimir Putin, while depending on his current crew of "thinkers", would be laughable were the situation not so gravely pathetic.
The faceless "professionals" who supposedly work tirelessly in service to the country, may come and go without notice, but the results of their ineptitude lives on for all the world to see. It is because of the checkered history and dubious record of those charged with keeping American Presidents thoroughly informed and wisely advised is why the United States keep getting it wrong.
A brief stroll down memory lane will clearly illustrate the some of the catastrophic failures of American intelligence that's led U.S. Presidents into to ill fated conflicts, costing trillions and loss of lives numbering in the millions.
In 1990, the CIA failed to predict Saddam Hussein's troops would overrun Kuwait. In 1991, the CIA failed to predict the fall of the Soviet Union. In 2001, the CIA and the rest of the U.S. intel's ABCs failed to connect the dots before 9/11. In 2003 the United States went to war in Iraq looking for WMD's the intelligence agencies knew were not there, but those advising then President George W. Bush, let him loose on the world without a clue.
If you count the local angles, it only gets worse:
The attempted car bombing of Times Square on May 1, 2010, was a planned terrorist attack which was only foiled because two street vendors discovered a car bomb and alerted the cops to the threat after witnessing smoke coming from a vehicle. All the billions NYPD gets for intelligence to thwart such events, it could not foresee Faisal Shahzad's motives until he'd already lit the fuse. Even when the Russians gave the U.S. a free heads up on the Boston Marathon Bomber, nobody was able to connect the dots until legless bodies were flapping around on the ground writhing in agony.
Over the next few weeks, President Obama will wrestle needlessly over a conflict not of his own making and completely out of his control. If Obama was the recipient of timely and actionable intelligence as well as smart council he'd have like taken a less confrontational position in Syria and would likely have avoided getting involved with Ukraine altogether. With a minimal loss of life and zero national interest at stake, one could say engaging Putin in his backyard was an act of lunacy.
Hence, I've been convinced it is because Barack Obama's intelligence advisors failed to forecast events and his security advisors failed to comprehend them, that led his administration down the rabbit hole in Ukraine.
Bottom line: While it is true, the buck should alway stop with the Commander in Chief, no President can be expected to successfully lead when supported by a bunch of lames. Sloppy and incoherent intelligence always leads to sloppy and incoherent advise and both, always lead to sloppy and incoherent outcomes. My advise to President Obama would be to fire his sloppy and incoherent advisors.