Testifying to the Senate Intel Committee, NCC director Nick Rasmussen said the collapse of the Yemeni government took the US intelligence community completely by surprise, and that they figured the Yemeni military would be able to hold the capital.
Rasmussen likened the Houthi takeover to the ISIS gains in Iraq “on a somewhat smaller scale,” but said that the situation in Yemen is now a “complete disaster.”
The similarity in both cases seems to have been that the US dramatically overestimated the capabilities of the military that they were heavy subsidizing, and assumed they would fight to the last man for an unpopular government of dubious democratic pedigree.
In both cases, the US was wrong, though the Houthis are starkly different from ISIS, and seem to be eager to enforce some actual democratic reforms, which only is a “complete disaster” to the Obama Administration because they’ve been reliant on the imprimatur of military dictators in Yemen to back their drone war.
Yea and 9/11 took the US by surprise, and the lack of WMD in Iraq was an intelligence failure. That Arab Spring was a complete surprise (I spite of all the evidence that it was planned). The rise of ISIS was a complete surprise you see, and the fall of Yemen is also a complete surprise.
What's the solution then? Oh, we need to shovel an additional Trillion or two toward the intelligence community.
When things do not appear it make sense, perhaps they do make sense, but just in some other way?
American are really really REALLY Dumb!
"US intelligence community taken by surprise,"
next to:
"Bears sh*t in woods"
"Pope actually catholic"
"Sky is actually blue"
etc.
Clearly, this is not a comforting situation regarding the Ukraine situation.
A laboring-class government — How long can it stay in power?
As evidenced by the corporate owned mainstream media having kittens over the Yemen laboring-class winning their right to freedom, on the battlefield of Civil War where it counts, surely the corporate rich are most upset. As they know that only when the greed driven upper half of society hoards all the wealth are the rich able to have full control of government.
For even though our Empire is the richest nation the world has ever known, with more then enough wealth to give a ten times larger population a well fed and prosperous life, all of our kids in the lower half of society suffer want and over 20% suffer hunger.
Surely, pure greed is our problem and it’s going to take a good religion to save the world from our greed.
Another one bites the dust! No media play about our folly
of death, destruction, and greed.
Nonsense.
Why the hell are we paying 16 INTEL agencies $85B a year? These guys couldn't stop the Boston Marathon bombing after Russian INTEL told them to keep an eye on these little MFers.