>>>SNIP
>>>
>>>>But more importantly, while I'll concede a lot of bad judgments in resource allocation - I think the "reconstruction" of Iraq was a disaster from day one and I am not sure Afghanistan should have been about anything but blowing Tora Bora to hell when we knew he was there and going home - it is important to note the stuff that doesn't hit the headlines is where the important stuff gets done.
>>>
>>>This is the sad truth as we both know. Don't you wish you could go back to being a part of the ignorant mass who only had the information available via the media (or worse yet, youtube home constructed videos of propaganda with no reliable sources)? Life was so much simpler then...
>>
>>Seeing the elephant - or at least touching one little part of it - doesn't really tell you what it's all about, but it does give you an appreciation for the complexity of life outside of "media" scrutiny.
>>
>>I guess in one way i am reassured, because I do know the people who deal with all that for a living are not cartoon characters in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, but are, for the most part, some very smart, very hard-working people who believe in what they are doing and whose motives are at least as noble as the self-aggrandizing media people who think they are performing a public service by "exposing" their activities (and usually getting it wrong or missing the context entirely)
>>
>>Fortunately, despite cultural tropes saying otherwise, there is still a distinction between celebrity and power.
>
>A timely new site put up by the Washington Post: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/

I had read that this morning. An example of a headline in search of a story. Agecy's dealing with security and terrorism up - 20% since 9/11 - is that surprising (it is to me - I would have thought way more)

Gates says "Wow this is all really complex and of unprecedented size" - this is news?

Co-ordination is difficult? Well, duh.

Reports go unread? Too much data to analyze? This is news? Not to anyone who gave it any thought since 1947.

This is a story built on the scraps of bureaucrats feeding information for their own ends. I just can't get excited about anything I read in the Washington Post about the intelligence community - knowing what I know about the Virginia Graham, Ben Bradlee days and of Bob Woodward and ONI. Fun to read, but only if you read between the lines.