Intelligence Meltdown
No other nation on earth spends more money on intelligence agencies than the United States. The Department of Homeland Security and its related departments boast a budget of $80 billion; which is more than what Russia spends on its entire military.
The current state of our intelligence gathering can only be described as total chaos. The CIA is riddled with people who constantly leak information for economic or political gain. The Russians and Chinese have broken into most key databases. (The personal information of 40 million people was stolen under Obama’s watch.)
Today, a foreign national has virtually signed his own death warrant whenever he provides secret information to the U.S. The New York Times recently reported that our spying operations in China have been systematically dismantled by the killing or imprisoning of more than a dozen sources. It will now take us decades to restore confidence in the CIA.
Beijing is obviously proud of its intelligence triumph. China’s Global Times, gave a “Thank you comrades” reply to the NYT article when it said in an editorial that, if the report was true, it was a victory for China. The paper stated:
“If this article is telling the truth, we would like to applaud China’s anti-espionage activities. Not only was the CIA’s spy network dismantled, but Washington had no idea what happened and which part of the spy network had gone wrong.”
Some people think that a mole within the CIA has betrayed the United States. Others believe that the Chinese hacked the covert system used to communicate with its foreign sources. Our spy agencies have so many problems we may never know what went wrong.
Our allies are quickly learning that we cannot be trusted with any amount of sensitive information. After the Islamic terrorist bombing in Manchester, the American media leaked the number of dead, the name of the bomber, and the country he last visited. The UK’s home secretary rebuked the U.S. for leaking information that was vital to the ongoing investigation.
The liberal media is a huge part of the problem. The press is hypocritical about the leaking of classified information. The Washington Post condemned President Trump for divulging secrets to the Russia, while at the same time it cited Israel as a source of information about ISIS trying to use laptops to smuggle bombs onto airplanes.
Where in the Constitution or U.S. law did the press get the right to reveal state secrets which every U.S. citizen is duty bound to protect? If during the World War II era we had the same problem with intelligence leaks as we have today, all the papers on the eve of D-Day would have screamed, “We’re Going Ashore at Normandy.”
The damage from faulty intelligence is not always easy to spot. It’s not until we realize that China’s new stealth fighter looks a lot like ours that it becomes clear that our secrets are leaking out.
The quickest way to fix our intelligence problem is to severely punish anyone who is found to have shared classified information. If a dozen people get the electric chair or life in prison, the leaks will quickly dry up.
The only thing positive about these agencies is that they produce such a large amount of information that the Russians and Chinese have to spend vast amounts of time sorting through this data to find something useful.
I see little chance of reform coming to the intelligence services. Just like the military industrial complex, a government agency only grows in size. But the intelligence industrial complex is more dangerous because it will come after our liberties.
The National Security Agency under former President Barack Hussein Obama routinely violated the rights of Americans. Thanks to some of the leaked top-secret documents, some of the most serious constitutional abuses by the U.S. intelligence community are only now being revealed.
By the time our intelligence agencies straighten out their problems, these same agencies will likely be used to aid the Antichrist in creating his one world police state. The good news for all believers is that we will soon be in a place that is beyond Big Brother’s reach.
”For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1 Thess. 4:16-18).
–Todd
Trump and the Wall
There is another wall much more critical, in my view, than the one the new president promised to build during his campaign.
President Donald J. Trump reportedly asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to let him approach the Western Wall unaccompanied. Whether a signal to the world that he, representing America the lone superpower, was showing support for Israel, or whether Mr. Trump just wanted a moment alone at this most solemn place, the gesture was profound–and touching.
He was the first president of the United States to visit the so-called Wailing Wall while in office. A number of presidents either before they became such or after they had held the office have visited the site. But, never had a current president done so.
The action was profound in geopolitical, diplomatic terms. This visit, most observers of that world seem to believe, indicated the president’s–thus America’s–support of Israel as rightful heir to the wall and to the Temple Mount. This is because the visit to the wall was made as part of the president’s official trip to Israel.
Whether that’s the case or Trump handled it in that way for other reasons, the effect was dramatic. The optics of the gesture, as the news-speak types like to say, presented a picture of a president who was in charge and who was making a statement. The Temple Mount is a subject of great contention and Trump seemed to be saying it is Israel’s, based upon biblical history.
The statement might be one open to conjecture as to what it means, but that Donald J. Trump is fully in charge of the presidency of the United States of America was made unmistakably clear.
The entire trip, for the moment at least, trampled underfoot the American mainstream news conglomerate’s incessant portrayal of Trump as a dunce who doesn’t belong in the office. A picture, as is said, is worth a thousand words–or, in the case of the hate-filled news conglomerate–millions of words.
But, even that’s not the real importance of this president visiting the wall. It’s not that he, by doing so, negated a lot of the negative press he has gotten and will, guaranteed, get in the future. It’s the recognition of Israel as a special people that is all-important, here. Even if Trump didn’t say it in direct verbiage, he gave validation that Israel is the modern incarnation–the same people–as in ancient, biblical times.
Unspoken is the truth represented by the president’s action. The Jews are still God’s chosen people.
I heard President Trump come close to saying as much during his touching remarks at the Jewish Holocaust Museum on Tuesday of the past week. His affirmation that America was bonded to Israel as friend and ally could not have been given more strongly. Netanyahu’s words in response were emotional with gratitude and relief that Israel and America had again consummated the relationship that was established in 1948 at Israel’s rebirth into modernity.
I’m aware that any attempt at man-made peace involving Israel and its enemy neighbors has prophetic implications that bode evil for the Jewish people and nation. I am reminded of that by daily email received as of late. These often state that Trump’s and his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s involvement in the peace process puts them in unsavory company, prophetically speaking.
While it is certainly true that there will come, according to God’s infallible Word, a peace that will bring about holocaust far worse than that of the Nazi era, I think it not evil to work at lessening hostilities that have raged for millennia. I agree that Mr. Trump and his point man, the young Mr. Kushner, should not engage in trying to arrange peace based upon the international community’s demand that Israel, the occupier, as the diplomats put it, give up God-given land.
However, any interim step of lessening hostilities between now and the time when the man of sin makes that death-dealing “peace” seems to me not necessarily evil. That is, if it doesn’t require Israel to give up land or make other anti-God accessions as part of any such interim agreement.
My own thinking is that there will be no such agreement concluded until the Antichrist steps onto the scene sometime following the Church leaving the planet. But, the process of making such peace is already in progress, and some constituent parts of that final, deadly contract could be negotiated sooner rather than later. America certainly should not be a part of any such negotiation, again, if there are elements within any such document forcing Israel to go against God’s directives for that people and nation.
At this point, the president’s main thrust seems to me to be getting Israel and less hostile Muslim nations, such as Saudi, to come together to eliminate radical Islamic terrorism. That is a peace effort of sorts. I’ve found nothing wicked about it so far. But, let’s keep watching…
These are strange times, and the times do not yet shed light on exactly what the president’s visit to the Middle East and to the Western Wall portends for the near future. However, Mr. Trump gave the Jewish state America’s blessings on this trip and that is good news–for the moment, at least.
Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12: 1-3)
–Terry