In case you do not realize it, we are in the midst of World War III.
A faction with the common goal of destroying freedom and democracy attacked the United States over two years ago.
The world rallied and the good came together in an effort to fend off terrorists.
In World War II, Germany invaded Poland and again the moral nations stood as one, but this time to defeat the evil of Nazism.
The only difference between these two paralleling events is that in World War II, the major actors were sovereign states, the allies against the Axis.
In the current world war, the major actors are also states.
However, another group has taken the role of the Axis. Non-governmental organizations such as al Qaeda or the Palestine Liberation Front are the new enemy.
The world’s states are largely banded together in a move to purge the world of terror. A few “bad apples” have taken sides with the terrorists and they are slowly being wiped off the face of the earth.
For the most part, however, the new war is not full of large troops movements and tanks. Afghanistan and Iraq are small conflicts compared to the destruction of World War II.
The true manner in which World War III is being fought is in the ability of the world’s intelligence capabilities. Since this is the case, we are losing the war as of right now.
Recently, the United Nations, the United States and about every nation on the planet strongly believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Taking the intelligence given to him from agencies such as the CIA, President George W. Bush sent troops into Iraq to find out.
After more than 500 dead soldiers and billions of dollars later the world has found that Iraq had no such cache of weapons.
This does not mean the war was not a worthy war; it was, but for different reasons than weapons of mass destruction.
The true concern then is why the intelligence was wrong and how can it be fixed.
The CIA and other intelligence agencies failed us for two reasons. First, they fell into a sense of complacency after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end to the Cold War.
Second, a series of reforms by the Clinton administration cut one-third of the intelligence communities’ informants and over 60 percent of human sources, according to Robert Baer, a former CIA operative in the Middle East.
Our ability to spy and detect danger with pinpoint accuracy was destroyed through the cuts to the CIA’s jugular by Clinton.
The fault does not lie solely with the Clinton administration. The problems run along both sides of the political spectrum.
President Bush made no serious attempt upon taking office to realize the importance of the intelligence community.
This list could go on forever, all the way back to presidents Reagan and Carter.
Times could be changing as politicians slowly realize the importance for a strong and permanent CIA and other intelligence apparatuses in the world war on terror.
The commission on pre-war intelligence that Bush is to set up should be a first step in the bipartisan restructure, rebuilding and strengthening of the intelligence community.
Our ability as a nation to attack the enemy before they attack us depends entirely on the capability to use intelligence effectively.
Charlie Swanson is a freshman business administration major. He can be reached at [email protected].