Prescience, Conspiracy, and Intelligence

Too much of our public debates about wars are consumed with arguments over what was or could have been known, what actions were or could have been taken, and who or what is to fault. Among the downsides of this are excessive divisiveness that reduces our abilities to constructively appraise the present, unify, and choose more productive future courses.

This is not a new phenomenon. Such divisive debates occurred over Pearl Harbor, the onset of the Cold War, Vietnam, 9/11, and the latest war on Israel’s borders.

The educative benefit of such public debates is very important, not just for historians but for testing and expanding our understanding. However, the tenor of these debates has also sapped public confidence in leadership, often unjustifiably by retrospective rather than contemporary standards of evidence or what was actually known or at stake, and hampered unity at getting on with whatever the job is at hand.

An example: The Clinton and Bush administrations have been lambasted for errors in judgment and actions with regard to Iraq, largely due to poor intelligence. But, Israel certainly has better intelligence and capabilities with regard to Lebanon and Hezbollah compared to what the U.S. had about Iraq in 2003, and more experience in the terrain and modes of warfare appropriate, and still made many similar errors.

The problem is not so much intelligence but rather the uses, internal and external, that information is put. Policy misconceptions and weak will are more and more often to fault.

To consider weak policy or will absent the context of democratic societies, the proper and strong public impulse to be inner-directed must be prominent (compared to the purposeful external we-them distraction from internal horrors and ineptitude that is necessary to sustain dictatorial regimes) and the political context and constraints within which leaders must act.

To consider weak policy or will absent the context of other current events is to grievously misunderstand, and is a selectively misguiding path to present policy or actions, which also occur in the context of other current events.

Ultimately, conspiracies have been proven again and again to be false. Those who insist upon them do little or nothing to further public understanding or consensus, or more adept current or future policies.

Now, all this said, there are commonly accepted lessons that have been learned from prior wars: The U.S. involvement could and should have been undertaken sooner or with more force.

The U.S. remained militarily unprepared -- isolationist thinking being predominant -- for World War II in the face of the clear threats, needing a year and more after Pearl Harbor to come up to strength. The U.S. disarmed rapidly – as the home front desired -- in the face of clear Soviet intent to subjugate Eastern Europe, and was reactive to that and the invasion of Korea, the reality shock of that to many leading to pendulum swings of emotion. In 1964, the electorate clearly rejected the overwhelming force needed to be directed directly on Hanoi to rein in Hanoi, and only in 1972 were some of these measures taken but to speed exit negotiations. Border and internal security defenses may have avoided 9/11, but were contrary to prevailing thought and emotions about civil liberties and budget priorities, and we’ve been playing slow catchup since, even hindered by those who ignore the lessons. The Sharon initiative in Suez was clearly successful, but the understanding and will to be so bold and successful was clearly lacking among current leaders in Israel whose electorate more desired peaceful seperation.

We don’t need conspiracy theories to understand the repeated failures to understand. Conspiracy theories are a democracy’s version of we-them, serving more to divert attention from realities than to enlighten or reliably guide.