Deep State Dynamics

On the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attack, the nation recalled those who perished, and the heroic efforts of police and firefighters on that terrible day. Lost from memory was the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency to prevent that attack, the worst on the USA since 1941.

On September 11, 2001, “we learned that the Pentagon had been attacked and that a plane had crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,” wrote former CIA director John Brennan in Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad. At the time, Brennan was chief of staff to CIA director George Tenet, who called for the CIA building to be evacuated. Jump ahead to September 11, 2012.

Al Qaeda terrorists chose the 9/11 anniversary to attack U.S. facilities in Benghazi, killing ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. The CIA construed the attack as part of a demonstration, “in reaction to an obscure film made in the United States that many Muslims believed insulted the Prophet Muhammad.”

That is the judgment of Mike Morell, in The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism—From al Qa’ida to ISIS. Morell served as the CIA’s Permanent Deputy Director and twice as “acting” CIA director, without confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Morell admits that he “excised” material “to protect the Central Intelligence Agency,” which is not the same as protecting the people. Jump ahead to early 2020.

The government’s first voice on COVID was Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who, in a series of telebriefings out of the public eye, set forth everything Dr. Anthony Fauci would later proclaim. The “novel coronavirus” emerged from a “market” in Wuhan, and there was no immunity. The new virus would spread across the country, so businesses and schools would have to be shut down, and so on.

The government never revealed that Dr. Messonnier’s briefings were scripted by a “communications team” including Dr. Anne Schuchat, who twice served as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) without confirmation by the U,S, Senate.

Doctors Schuchat and Messonnier were veterans of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, a legion of “disease detectives” tasked to prevent viruses from arriving in the USA. With COVID the EIS obviously failed, and the Centers for Disease Control “and prevention” never explained that failure to the American people. Doctors Schuchat and Messonnier both suddenly retired in May, 2021. Jump ahead to 2023.

Joe Biden’s choice for labor secretary was Julie Su, who as a labor official in California, looked the other way at more than $30 billion in unemployment fraud. Convicts and fraudsters got unemployment checks, but not all the legitimate workers who truly needed the money. Su was also a supporter of California Assembly Bill 5, a veritable declaration against the independence of workers, from truck drivers all the way to freelance writers, editors, and musicians.

The Senate never confirmed Su as labor secretary, but a ruling by the “Government Accountability Office” allowed Su to continue as “acting” secretary. This prolonged incompetence, canceled accountability, and confirmed the dynamic now in place.

Funded by taxpayers, federal bureaucracies are unaccountable and impossible to shut down, regardless of performance.  President Trump once sought to “drain the swamp” but now seems more occupied with renaming lakes and building massive ballrooms.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, a government bureaucrat since 1968, and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, was never once confirmed by the Senate. Joe Biden pardoned Fauci but not doctors Schuchat and Messonnier. So far, Congress has not subpoenaed them to testify on CDC and EIS failure. None of this implies that Senate confirmation guarantees quality performance.

In July 1997, the Senate approved George Tenet as CIA director. On his watch, the CIA had no clue about the 9/11 attack, but Tenet continued as director until 2004. No word whether any CIA bosses were disciplined, demoted, or dismissed over 9/11, but as Brennan noted, the agency’s secret budget was “significantly increased.”

The 9/11 failure led the government to create yet another bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS, CIA, and FBI all failed to prevent terrorist attacks at Fort Hood (2009), the Boston Marathon (2013), San Bernardino (2015), and Orlando in 2016, all with massive loss of innocent life. A ballpark figure for the bureaucrats who lost their jobs would be zero. With terrorism, white-coat supremacy, and independence of the workers, it’s all about memory against forgetting.