Former CIA Director Counter-Terrorism: Tulsi Gabbard is Well-Qualified to be Director of National Intelligence and Rein in the Incompetent and Malign "Intelligence" Community

This is a big endorsement for Gabbard. Bernie Hudson is as qualified a judge as anyone, and he's writing in National Review, to let other institutions-aligned people know that Gabbard is worthy.

The United States has increasingly become a low-trust society, where diminished confidence in the effectiveness and integrity of our institutions is widespread and bipartisan. This now extends to the American national security and intelligence sectors, where that loss of trust is problematic for a country with enduring global responsibilities and interests.

For a vocal portion of the elite national security establishment, however, the remedy for that skepticism is not to entertain that its critics may have a point, but to demand reflexive obedience to an outdated consensus that may no longer be fit for purpose.

This erosion of institutional trust has been fueled, in part, by some of the spectacularly wrong calls the U.S. intelligence community has made over recent years. Its assessment that there was an active weapons of mass destruction program in Saddam Hussein's Iraq set in motion two decades of regional instability. Its prediction that the removal of Libya's Qaddafi would improve regional stability resulted in years of civil war in that country and a torrent of refugees to Europe. Its assessment that the Afghan government could sustain itself once American bayonets departed fell apart when that government collapsed within a long weekend.

These failures have had real, lasting effects on the security and credibility of the United States, as it seems to have effectively pioneered militarism without victory. Compounding this is a sense by many Americans that the security services are immune from consequences when systemic failures occur.

There has also been an unwelcome trend where some of the residual prestige and expertise the security services possess has been repurposed to disparage domestic political figures. These included, but were not limited to, public accusations that a sitting U.S. president was the agent of a hostile, foreign power. This flimsy accusation occupied the nation's attention for years before ending with a whimper. Still, a substantial, partisan remnant of millions of believers in this baseless accusation remains.

These events convinced just as many others on the opposite side of the partisan divide that the same intelligence community that protected the country in the years after 9/11 had perhaps begun to apply to the American people the tactics it had learned against our enemies overseas.

Given all this, restoring the American people's broad faith in the intelligence community is an urgent task. They need to believe that those entrusted with the vast powers of the national security apparatus will perform their duties in a nonpartisan way that prioritizes constitutional rights, meaningful accountability, and democratic safeguards.

Changing these trends will be hard, and that effort must begin at the top. It is vital the director of national intelligence (DNI), who leads the intelligence community, be someone with high integrity, sound judgment, and a clear understanding of the commander in chief's intentions. It would also go a long way toward reestablishing credibility with Americans if the next director were someone with a significant, bipartisan background.

Tulsi Gabbard fits these criteria. She has the right experience, temperament, and professional integrity to restore faith in America's intelligence community.

While Tulsi Gabbard is accused of being a Syrian spy, we're seeing Cultural Enrichment levels not seen since the Visigoths sacked Rome.

I know that American citizens are allowed to own guns, but... are these even citizens?

When police searched the home of two Students for Justice in Palestine leaders, a pair of sisters at George Mason University, their allies painted a sympathetic picture.

The students were targeted, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), for engaging in "anti-genocide events on campus." The Intercept reported that police found "antique firearms" registered to the students' brother and brought gun-related charges as a result of his family's "pro-Palestine activism."

Excluded from those descriptions was the crime the sisters are suspected of committing. A group of student radicals defaced George Mason's student center in August, spray painting messages that warned of a "student intifada." In its coverage of the incident, the Washington Post wrote that "activists spray-painted words on Wilkins Plaza outside the university's Johnson Center."

Those activists caused thousands of dollars in damage, a felony in the state of Virginia, and police suspect the SJP leaders, sisters Jena and Noor Chanaa, led the group of vandals. Weeks after the incident, in November, a county judge granted a warrant--which is under seal until February, according to a Fairfax County court representative--allowing police to seize electronics from the Chanaa family home.

When officers entered the Chanaa family home, they found firearms--modern weapons, not antiques--as well as scores of ammunition and foreign passports, all of which sat in plain view, according to court documents obtained by the Free Beacon and sources familiar with the investigation.

They also found pro-terror materials, including Hamas and Hezbollah flags and signs that read "death to America" and "death to Jews," according to court documents and sources familiar.

Police seized the weapons under Virginia's red flag law, arguing that Mohammad Chanaa, the students' brother and a George Mason alumnus, was "linked to destruction of property in connection with a large group of people with like-minded rhetoric" and posed a danger to others given his possession of "terroristic" materials.

...

CAIR has denounced the "draconian measures used by law enforcement authorities" to "silence or intimidate those who seek to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza." A faculty group at George Mason, meanwhile, released a statement expressing "deep concern about the apparent targeting of two George Mason students for their advocacy for Palestinian human rights."

...

George Mason did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Fairfax County commonwealth attorney's office, Laura Birnbaum, confirmed that officers found guns, ammunition, and pro-terror materials during their search and declined to comment further.

The Chanaa family attorney, Abdel-Rahman Hamed, did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement provided to the Washington Post, Hamed said the case marks "yet another example of the police state targeting American Muslims without cause." An "about" section on his LinkedIn page states, "I deny, defy, and defeat Zionists, antisemites, and White Supremacists."

posted by Ace at 05:30 PM

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