Two Strikes for Clapper

A look at who is looking out for us... with Mike Walker, Colonel USMC (retired) 

All, 

Our Director of National Intelligence is becoming more and more unintelligible.  On 10 February 2011 he argued too long that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is "largely secular."  First, we will ignore the obvious connection, as Director Clapper apparently did, that the word "Muslim" in Muslim Brotherhood stressed the importance of a sincere faith in God but instead implied some self-serving hyperbole or archaic leftover on the part of the good Egyptian brothers.

Even given that shallow excuse, how could James Clapper speak with such certain ignorance in a public hearing?  For if what Director Clapper averred is to be believed then the words "largely" and "secular" have no meaning. 

Here are a few quotes from the Muslim Brotherhood's Official English website (http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=813): 

"Ever since the Egyptian people in is (sic) majority, along with other African and Asian peoples, embraced Islam in the deep-seated conviction that it is a true religion revealed to a true Prophet by the lord of Mankind, Islam has fully and totally arranged the life and all activities of those peoples. The two basic sources of Islam are the Glorious Qur"an and the Sunnah which is both a theoretical explanation and a practical application of the Glorious Qur"an."

Gee, is that a "largely secular" statement, Mr. Clapper?  If so, how about this quote:

"The call of the Muslim Brotherhood was based on two key pillars:

1-The introduction of the Islamic Shari`ah as the basis controlling the affairs of state and society. 
2-Work to achieve unification among the Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating them from foreign imperialism."

Still largely secular, James?  How about this:

"As for the first pillar, about 97% of the Egyptian people are Muslims, the majority of the Egyptian people are Muslims, the majority of whom perform the rites of worship enjoined by Islam. They abide by the Islamic ethics and apply to themselves to most of the rules whose enforcement does not require any government intervention or license. But legislation, the judiciary and economic and social dealings are founded on non-Islamic bases, thus creating a state of alienation between the people’s creed, on the one side, and their forms of activity which are governed by rules that contradicted their creed, on the other. The lack of any connection between the policies of the authorities in power and the legislations, on the one hand, and the Islamic Shari`ah on the other, led to the emergence of many social, economic, and political practices that are invalid under the Islamic shari`ah. It was incumbent on the Muslim Brotherhood in such a situation to adopt a system for sound Islamic education and the spreading of Islamic principles and ethics as well as the education of the Muslim individual, family, and society into commitment to Islamic ethics and principles."

Gee, that reads like a "largely secular" government is the problem and an exclusively "non-secular" form of government is the solution for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Director Clapper needs to do more than "clarify" his words. The crisis in Egypt is of great import to the United States.  Our intelligence community, led by Director Clapper, has the responsibility to accurately present the facts to the American people.   Mr. Clapper failed miserably in that regard during his remarks to Congress on the Muslim Brotherhood. 

There is an old rule in the intelligence business; if you lose your credibility then you lose everything.  Director Clapper was profoundly wrong in a matter of urgent national importance.  "Clarifying" is disingenuous and a disservice. 

OK, so we should be easy on the good fellow, right?  No.  Perhaps you recall this previous "Clapper fiasco" as recounted during CNN's 22 December 2010 Situation Room broadcast:

"BLITZER: But if the structure of America's intelligence (inaudible) organization is at the center of the new controversy. The national director of intelligence James Clapper in an interview this week that was televised, he was asked about a terror-related arrest in Britain which had occurred 12 hours earlier. The news was all over the TV networks, but Clapper had no idea. How could that be? CNN's Brian Todd is digging deeper for us tonight. Brian? 

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is being called a simple glitch by Clapper's staff and not reflective of his work as DNI, but that glitch led the man who leads 16 intelligence agencies to be very embarrassed in front of network TV cameras. 

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TODD: If you were watching CNN or any other news network on Monday, you may have known about this -- the arrests of 12 men in Britain allegedly plotting a terror attack. You may have known about it, but on Monday afternoon, several hours after the arrests, the U.S. director of national intelligence did not know when asked during an ABC interview. 

DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: London -- how serious is it? Any implication that it was coming here, any of the things that they have seen were coming here? Director Clapper? 

BRENNAN: The arrests of the 12 by the British this morning... 

(CROSSTALK)

BRENNAN: And this is something that the British informed us about early this morning. 

TODD: White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan quickly jumped in, but ABC's Diane Sawyer later came back to Clapper, who oversees 16 intelligence agencies. 

SAWYER: I was a little surprised you didn't know about London, Director Clapper. 

JAMES CLAPPER, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Well, I'm sorry. I didn't. 

TODD: The DNI's office called Sawyer's first question confusing and ambiguous. Brennan said before that interview, Clapper had been working on developments on the Korean peninsula and the START treaty.

BRENNAN: Should he have been briefed by his staff on those arrests? Yes. And I know there was breathless attention by the media about these arrests, and it was constantly on the news networks. I'm glad that Jim Clapper is not sitting in front of the TV 24 hours a day and monitoring what comes out of the media. 

TODD (on camera): What do you make of that comment? Backspin?

OK, here's where we are at, Clapper Strike 1 is dismissed as a "glitch."

Clapper Strike 2 is dismissed as just needing "clarification."

Are we going to wait around until Strike 3 before we realize the wrong guy is in the job?

Right now, I have more faith in the "clapper light switch" than DNI James Clapper. The sales pitch "clap on-clap off" is somewhat credible while Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is not.  He seems to be operating more on a mindset of "wishful thinking" than an analysis of  the cold hard facts.  That is the path to disaster.

Semper Fi,

Mike

Helen Whalen-Cohen's piece "Say What?"from Town hall…

It's like something out of "1984."

In George Orwell's dystopia, "thought police" monitored citizens to make sure that they didn't disparage The Party. In today's world, college students all over the country face restrictions on speech in the form of "speech codes." These dicta include harassment policies, "free speech zones," "tolerance" policies and outright bans on "hate speech." The aim of these policies is noble -- to prevent discord and foster respect on campus -- but in the culture of political correctness run amok, such proscriptions often eclipse students' rights to express themselves freely.

Speech codes are regulations prohibiting speech that is otherwise protected by the First Amendment. They are prevalent -- and pernicious -- on college campuses.

How are student bodies affected by this wave of political correctness? Is it helping campuses maintain civility or causing deeper harm?

Speech restrictions no longer have to be issued from on high. After being immersed in a culture that values political correctness over First Amendment rights for long enough, students are learning to censor each other with two words: "I'm offended."

Greg Lukianoff calls it "unlearning liberty." As the president of FIRE, he has watched students trend away from discussion and towards policing one another. In an interview with the website Spiked, he points out that students are learning to let offense trump discussion, ending conversation: "There's a very predictable result, which is that if you allow the ultimate trump card against free speech to be a claim that 選'm offended,' then people learn very quickly to say they are offended." As Lukianoff notes, students learn to call on campus administration to quiet voices that they would rather not hear. What role will they expect the government to play in their lives after graduation?

Indeed, many students advocate speech codes today, a product of learning that they have a right not to be offended and that that right can be violated by someone else's thoughts. Campus policies such as "Stop Bias" are adding fuel to the fire. It asks students to find and report instances of bias anonymously (including bias surrounding "actual or perceived" marital status). The school's website even encourages students to report political differences as a form of bias, saying that Barack Obama or Sarah Palin can be listed as the "victims." This is not an example from Stalinist Russia, but Syracuse University. Such programs are ostensibly meant to create a safe space for discussion. But will encouraging students to police each other accomplish that goal?

Programs like these teach that the right response to offense is not debate, but censorship, and that it is appropriate to turn to university administrators to remedy the supposed harm. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me -- until I get to college.