Mike McConnell @ JHU

Admiral Mike McConnell was appointed as the Director of National Intelligence this past February. He came to Hopkins today to have a question and answer session. For such a high-profile figure in Government, the event was all it was expected to be. There was the very flat political line-giving typical of talks by those involved in politics, there was sidestepping questions deftly, there was a bleeding heart liberal doing his best to make the government-man eat crow, and there was also bland questions from the student populous.

Some points (paraphrased):

• Despite McConnell's insistence that this particular paraphrased point wasn't the case, he "agrees that water-boarding is justified in some situations and that it's a useful means to gather information." (The quote is the best approximation of Prof. Davis' sum up of McConnell on water-boarding.)
• McConnell wants to overhaul how the Intelligence department recruits college graduates- make it more efficient (take much less time).
• It doesn't matter that the intelligence community never predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union- "all that matters is that we won." (Quote is his.) Intelligence, nor President Regan, had little to do with the Soviet collapse- it was capitalism that should be responsible for the USSR's collapse.
• Iran is not a threat for nuclear weapons because, although it is developing fissionable material for civil purposes, it has abandoned its development of delivery weapons.
  
• The above point was a declassified key judgment in the National Intelligence Estimate- these, the declassified key judgments, will no longer be made in future NIEs.
  
• Al Qaeda's goal is to create a pan-Arabic state and uses terrorism to force Europe and the United States out from the reigons that would comprise this pan-Arab state.

There are a bunch of things he said that I obviously disagree with or beg to differ. The most interesting point to me is the last one I noted. He went on record (the event was being taped by CNN) on saying that Al Qaeda's goal was to force the US and Europe out of a potential pan-Arab state. If this truly is the government stance on Al Qaeda's motive, then there's a really quick fix to the insecurity caused by terrorism on US soil.

If Al Qaeda's trying to force the United States out of the Middle East, why not comply? They have said numerous times that that's what they wanted. They've also said that if we comply, then they'll leave us alone. Why not just leave the Middle East and ignore it like we've ignored Cuba for the last 50 years?

Aren't there problems with just leaving the Middle East high and dry, you ask? Yes, most of it includes how we're going to meet our needs for energy without dealing with the Middle East for oil. But we forget that there are alternative energy sources that are already available. Making the entire country adapt to these new changes (like buying more plug in hybrids, more renewable resources for electricity, taking advantage of ethanol from organic waste, and generally moving completely away from oil) is the hardest part logistically. But with gas prices heading towards 4 bucks a gallon and the cost of oil being at an all time high, wouldn't the cost be a moot point? If the peak oil hypothesis is true (which it seems to be) we're going to have to make these changes either way.

Now truth-be-told, I don't think this is the correct thing to do. As the sole superpower of the world, the United States maintains a measure of unspoken responsibility in regards to international affairs, especially within the Middle East. What I think should happen is another editorial for another day. But just there mere admission of that last point- I don't understand why more people aren't making the argument I've just made.