Cobb

thank you so much, for putting it out there. People don't get that war against terror is all about information. Dean thinks we can say we got x informatin from x person on march 13 2004 so we did this.

For the war on terror to be successfully waged there has to be disinformation. The point is anyone not in the know, and ideally the enemy with 1/2 the know wont be able to tell.

The nes reports are all about these five buildings. Doesn't mean at the same time there isn't a quiet alert on all chemical plants.

It amazes me how people think they can watch CNN and think they know everything.

This is why people don't understand how bad Berger stealing documents is.

HF/DF (High Frequenct Direction Finding, I believe) was more the precursor to ELINT (ELectronic INTelligence) than RADAR. Whereas RADAR is an active detection system (send out electromagnetic radiation and listen for an echo), HF/DF is actually more akin to some types of SONAR, in that it is a passive system (just listenting for others' electromagnetic signals). The Germans knew we could intercept their transmissions but what they didn't know was that we had developed a way to determine from which direction the transmissions came. As a result, we could plot the bearings to the same transmission from multiple HF/DF stations and determine the exact location of the transmitting ship by looking at the intersection point. This was what lead to the destruction of the German U-Boat fleet.

Like you said, though, an essential element of the successful exploitation of this technological advantage was in keeping its existence secret. So many who shout so loudly about "the peoples' right to know" would still find the idea of playing face-up poker ridiculous without grasping the obvious analogies. Sources and methods are always, in the long-run, more important to protect than the actual intelligence itself.

Couple of points:

1. Berger didn't steal any documents. He didn't even COPY any documents. It hasn't been reported, but you should check it out.

2. The problem with much of this is that it is unfortunately non-falsifiable. We have to take it on faith that the government agents responsible for classifying terrorist threats and reporting them to the citizenry are actually doing so accoring to a master plan. I am not willing to do that largely because statements about terrorist threats have coincided with a variety of sticky political issues. And the notion (that appears to be based on fact) that the administration is actively persuading governments to time terrorist arrests with domestic political events doesn't make it any better.

I don't have a strong opinion on the Berger affair but I do agree that we ultimately have to take intelligence tactics on faith.

I agree in general that terrorism is best fought with information rather than military armaments. After all, the true enemy is an belief system or group of ideas.

But the terrorist alert system as a willful disinformation campaign by the U.S. government? I'm not so sure. For one, the alert system makes no political statement whereas terrorists -- whoever they may be -- are always attempting a political statement.

I suppose the heightened alert status might communicate to terrorists we've infiltrated their apparatus, but again this looks to be a centralized, or 'big-box' solution to a de-centralized opponent. Suffice to say such a warning probably deters the conventional assault. However, the actual tactic of some terrorist groups -- and I would include al Queda -- might very well be the spreading of mis- and/or disinformation for indirectly precipitating an internal economic crises in America, as trojan virus of sorts.

Nice piece. The only trouble is, you have no idea if it's true or not.

Well, I got a big unexpected surprise today when General Tommy Franks revealed what he called 'The Turkish Deception'.

ilove yours