A great teacher never strives to explain his vision. He simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.
There is a very real and critical danger that unrestrained public discussion of cryptologic matters will seriously damage the ability of this government to conduct signals intelligence and the ability of this government to carry out its mission of protecting national security information from hostile exploitation.
As best I can tell there was no advance warning of the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993, which was the first significant foreign terrorist activity in the U.S. No tip-offs that it was coming.
Iraq is not about oil.
Myself, I don't think you will ever get security in the Mideast until you have what on the surface appears to be fair to both sides. You have to have leaders committed to peace, on both sides. One side can't impose a solution.
If the intelligence we send forward support the views that the administration has, it is welcome and we are told what a great job it is. And if the intelligence that gos forward don't support the views of the policymakers, it is instantly condemned.
Society has recognized over time that certain kinds of scientific inquiry can endanger society as a whole and has applied either directly, or through scientific/ethical constraints, restrictions on the kind and amount of research that can be done in those areas.
You want to keep intelligence separate from policy.
And Oliver North was really a good soldier, up to the last moment, shoving memos into the shredder and defending the policy to the end.
