Summing up the issue? Or prelude to an investigation?

There has been many books written after the congressional hearings into the "intel failure" that lead to the Iraq war. I see a trend; no matter what the fact: CIA is the dumping spot of the politicians. There is one thing to be learned here beyond the allegations and that is that intelligence is not a craft, science, or a programme but instead an art of politics.

I think the "facts be damned" and that it is the general rule that you stick your finger in the air, get a sense of which way the wind is blowing, and then create a product that reflects that concensus.

I often posted about the book by Hoffer the The True Believer. In that book there is a segment about the "after effects" of mass movements. In essence the identifying trend of a mass movement is that it is repudiated and the organizers of the movement "consumed" to use Hoffers words by the movement.

Why is that important? It is that society has a genetic drive to make sense of these events. And in history we do so. This whole issue is like a live-time unfolding Hoffer mass movement. And the fallout is still unknown.

It is a opportunity for education if one has the capacity to view it objectively.