Clapper’s Last Strike: Telling the Libyan Rebels They’ll Lose
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper doesn’t seem to understand that when a high-level official speaks in public, he isn’t just talking to the person addressing him or the American public. He’s talking to the world. And the message he just sent to Libya is that the U.S. believes Gaddafi will win and the rebels will lose. Senator Lindsey Graham is right. This should be Clapper’s last strike.
His morale-smashing statement came on the same day that the rebels were forced out of Ras Lanuf after losing Zawiya. It was also the same day that NATO rejected a no-fly zone at the behest of the U.S. and Germany and the alliance decided not to get involved militarily without UN authorization, setting the stage for further delays that may very well prove fatal to the rebels’ fight. Clapper’s remark could only be justified if it was an attempt to make the case for Western action. Instead, the message of the day was that the U.S. does not believe the rebels can win without help and they shouldn’t expect any.
This was not a closed-door testimony or classified intelligence assessment. The rebels usually dismiss the confident rhetoric of Gaddafi and his loyalists but as his son, Saif al-Islam, was saying, “victory is in sight,” he had the director of national intelligence agreeing with him. Now, every time the regime boasts, both sides will be reminded of who the U.S. believes will win. This is greatly damaging to the anti-Gaddafi cause and the image of the U.S., as this will be seen as a betrayal of the freedom fighters the West claims it wishes well. Even those who oppose military intervention should be dismayed at the undermining of the Libyan opposition.
There were loud calls for Clapper’s resignation after his outrageous description of the Muslim Brotherhood as “largely secular” last month, but a key point was missed. Attention focused on the factual inaccuracies of his description of the Brotherhood as a “very heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has described al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam.” It seemed that no one focused on the motive behind the falsities: To downplay the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Clapper’s goal was to paint the Islamist group as moderate by comparing it to al-Qaeda and saying it is decentralized with many different points of view. It was around the same time that President Obama said there are “strains of their ideology that are against the U.S.,” a gross understatement of what the group is all about. This should raise questions about who is advising the Obama administration about the Brotherhood, but it’s clear that the top intelligence official is among those that view the group as mostly benign.
It does not appear that Clapper has learned from his mistakes. He said he was misunderstood and that he meant the Brotherhood works through the secular Egyptian political system. He did not, however, say why the group does that. He either does not know that the Muslim Brotherhood views this as a means to achieving sharia-based governance or doesn’t want the American public to know.
His clarification did not address the other worrisome parts of his description. He did not address the fact that while the Brotherhood has denounced al-Qaeda and has “eschewed violence” in Egypt, it supports violent jihad in Muslim lands against infidel forces and Hamas is one of its branches. He did not clarify his false statement that the Brotherhood’s affiliates have “no overarching agenda.” The Brotherhood’s own documents describe their U.S. operations as “a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging its miserable house.’” Are we really supposed to believe that the Brotherhood in America is committed to extremism but the Brotherhood in Egypt is not?
I am sorry, but Clapper is right to speak out. The Libyans now fighting madman Gaddafi´s mercenaries are not so dumb that they think they can win against a superior military force. That´s why they are calling for a no-fly zone and military aid from the international community. Clapper could have added that Gaddafi wins, unless the US and NATO start taking real action instead of words.
http://newnostradamusofthenorth.blogspot.com/2011/03/us-top-intelligent-official-gaddafi.html
It’s just too bad it seems that, when this guy’s birth certificate was produced, an L was placed where an R should have been in his last name.
Can you imagine what it was like on the first day of school.. Clapper, James and the teacher snickers and the other kids smirk with their hands over their mouths. Then, how many times the other kids would substitute the R for the L and all the other kids would laugh… he had to be an over-achiever to keep that name. Now, he should leave the NSC and go to roto-rooter for his next game.
This guy really, really, needs to find a new day job. Even if his intelligence assessments are correct, he still should have enough sense not to say anything like this in public. And if the Congressmen want blunt information, they should do it in private and not in front of the press. Clapper should already know this without people like us having to tell him, so if he’s still this dense then he really needs to be fired. To me, his biggest mistake was calling the Muslim Brotherhood a “secular” organization. Maybe he can find a new job selling men’s suits.
The Director is right those poor souls don’t stand a chance they will be slaughtered just like the Cuban patriots at the Bay of Pigs Invasion thinking the US would give them air cover. There will be no help to we give military aid to dictators not rebels……..Dictators can give multi million dollar lucrative arms contract the rebels don’t have squat let them die like rats… Money talks …..Dictators control resources , rebels have an ideal, and that puts no money in our pockets, let them be slaughered just like the Iranian opposition, or the soon Saudies to be freedom fighters, we will support your desires for freedom with lip service, but the buck stops there, your on your own…….
In 1949, the commencement address for the graduating class at West Point was delivered by an official who stated that the Truman Administration did not consider the Korean Peninsula an area of “vital American interest”. On 25 June 1950, Communist North Korean forces crossed the border with the South, with Communist Chinese support, beginning the Korean War.
Actions have consequences. And so do the statements of American officials. Even or especially if they think that nobody else notices what they say.
clear ether
eon
Yes, I think now that Gaddafi has heard Clapper’s statements he will start attacking the rebels. Wait, no that and your comment make no sense. The action has already been taking, he just gave an assessment of what will happen if the US does not intervene. I guess he should have lied to the senate.
It means that totalitarian regimes’ will do whatever they want if they can be sure that democracies with the power to stop them don’t care what they do. Pre facto, ipso facto, or ex post facto.
The correct answer is to keep them guessing, or tell them “no” and back it up.
Unless, of course, you really don’t care- or just like dictators. With Truman, it was a case of an official opening his mouth when he should have kept it shut. In this case, it may be that The One just likes dictators.
clear ether
eon
Clapper just echo’s the incompetence of the entire Obama Regime; Nothing new here.
Obama’s been describing and displaying his incompetence for years, and he chooses people that will toe the line, and support his life long incapability.
Later today, we’ll get the full explanation from his talking sock puppet, Jay Carney.
Japans got destruction; The United States has waste.
There is very little incompetence in the Obama administration.
Treason, yes. Incompetence, no.
There’s a giganatic level of treason and incompetence in the Obama administration. Double edged sword – fueled by the media. Disgusting.
Mark V;
Try reading National Review Online, American Thinker, and Real Clear Politics. This is not my own original line of thought. “Incompetence” comes up in most of the commentaries, these days.
Treasonous? Not until proven ‘guilty’. And never with a ‘treasonous’ media and Congress.
I beg to differ with Rayn Mauro’s argument. In this day and age most the world knows better than to believe/trust/buy a US officials words. They look to his actions. This is why Obama is such a clown. He talks, talks, talks, but doesn’t act until the moment is past. No wonder the world doesn’t buy us anymore.
There is a side to this that no one is considering. Certainly Clapper is an incompetent and no one can dispute a trained, well armed, disciplined army can defeat an ill-disciplined, rag tag force. But if the incompetent says they cannot win maybe it means they have a chance. That is certainly the case with news media pundits; I became assured of eventual victory in Iraq after they all predicted inevitable defeat.
they probably will lose
and China & Russia are our biggest threats
at least the guy is telling it like it is compared to most people in Washington
although his comments about the Muslim Brotherhood was asinine
He’s fallen and he can’t get up.
No fan of Clapper here, who really has said some stupid things. However, this is not one of them. In the first place, he was answering a question from a senator. What was he supposed to do, lie? In the second place, since when should we be so concerned with these insurgent forces and their “morale?” We have no evidence that they have any interest in “freedom” as the term is generally understood in the West, and there is no evidence that if they should prevail, they would be any less hostile to us than Quaddafi has been. The fact is, we really have no dog in these internecine fights.
Dump Clapper if you want, I really don’t care, but at least base it on his dubious opinions and not an occasion of telling an inconvenient truth.
Earlier in the testimony Clapper actually stated that Russia, and then China, posed the mortal threat to this country. I like his candor. I think ultimately that our enemies would find it a Lot harder to operate with this kind of false legitimacy that journalists invent for them if our politicians just told us what everyone can see. Clapper’s basically saying, “No, the rebels are just a bunch of guys with machine guns and rpgs and maybe some mortars and they’re hanging around the main towns to the east. They can’t withstand an assault by professional military backed by billions of dollars and the” – dare I say it – “Shanghai Coopreration Organization.” The headlines bear it out.
“It does not appear that Clapper has learned from his mistakes.”
Either you’re being very generous or you think he’s really stupid.
In March 1940 a French staff officer did what today is called a “red team” assessment of German intentions. His conclusion was that they would attack through the Ardennes, take 50 hours to reach the Meuse and cross on the third day. Instead of repositioning mobile reserves to meet the possible threat his superiors buried the assessment because it would “ruin morale.” In the end he was off by a few hours. This is tone of Clapper’s critics.
Yes, but, really, would anyone give much credence to our intelligence agencies for getting anything right? As reported by Mark Steyn:
“In the new budget, there’s a request from the CIA for an emergency appropriation of $513.7 million. Great! A mere half-billion. That’s enough for 10,000 cowboy-poetry festivals. So what’s it for? Toppling Kim Jong-Il? Taking out the Iranian nuclear program?
Er, no. It’s an emergency payment to stop the CIA pension fund from going bankrupt next year with unfunded liabilities of $6.4 billion. The CIA failed to foresee the collapse of the Iron Curtain until it happened. It failed to spot that Pakistan was going nuclear until it happened. But, when the world’s most bounteously endowed intelligence agency fails to spot that its own pension fund is going bankrupt until it happens, I wouldn’t bet the future on anyone in the United States government having much of a clue about what is or isn’t “in China’s interest.”
Might I add Clapper’s interest?
It sure isn’t his CIA pension because Clapper never worked for the CIA. He is a retired Air Force General, former DIA and NGA director and he was Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence before he took the DNI job. When he was first asked to take the job he turned it down. He reconsidered because they couldn’t find anybody else who wanted to be the DNI.
The National intelligence chief as the revolutioners` inspirer? You say he could be silent but I think he whishes to prevent America from getting in trouble before the absolute Gaddafi`s forces superiority.Liberal democrats react as the old regimental horse at the trampet sound on the magic word “democracy”. Who knows anything about Bedouin democracy?