A More Disturbing Matter

Posted By Grim • [September 12, 2012] We've got a bit of a problem, if this is right: we're being out-competed in the intelligence market.

Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, whose special operations unit was ordered by Libya's authorities to meet an eight-man force at Benghazi airport, said that after his men and the U.S. squad had found the American survivors who had evacuated the blazing consulate, the ostensibly secret location in an isolated villa came under an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage.

"I really believe that this attack was planned," he said, adding to suggestions by other Libyan officials that at least some of the hostility towards the Americans was the work of experienced combatants. "The accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any regular revolutionaries."

Yeah, well, I was mortared every morning during parts of 2007, and those bastards hardly hit anything in spite of having the ability to get people on the base to do BDA. But the CIA didn't see it coming.

No surprise, if you've been in that game lately.  They're behind the ball, and not just here.  Risk aversion is a normal condition for a large bureaucracy, but a deadly one for anyone in this particular business.

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A More Disturbing Matter

We've got a bit of a problem, if this is right: we're being out-competed in the intelligence market.

Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, whose special operations unit was ordered by Libya's authorities to meet an eight-man force at Benghazi airport, said that after his men and the U.S. squad had found the American survivors who had evacuated the blazing consulate, the ostensibly secret location in an isolated villa came under an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage.

"I really believe that this attack was planned," he said, adding to suggestions by other Libyan officials that at least some of the hostility towards the Americans was the work of experienced combatants. "The accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any regular revolutionaries."

Yeah, well, I was mortared every morning during parts of 2007, and those bastards hardly hit anything in spite of having the ability to get people on the base to do BDA. But the CIA didn't see it coming.

No surprise, if you've been in that game lately.  They're behind the ball, and not just here.  Risk aversion is a normal condition for a large bureaucracy, but a deadly one for anyone in this particular business.

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