The Dilemma for Intelligence Agencies
Crooke notes that U.S. intelligence had raised doubts as to the Syrian government’s responsibility for the release of poison gas.
The American mass media nevertheless immediately blamed Damascus for an attack using chemical weapons. Trump, also immediately, believed the mass media. He is, after all, increasingly known as the Fox TV president. Taking his cue from the media, he paid insufficient heed to his own intelligence agencies’ doubts. As a result, as Crooke puts it, “the Tomahawks flew.”
All of this led Crooke to ask “whether Western intelligence agencies still retain an ability to speak-out to power.”
