I am not suggesting that Avril Haines, Joe Biden's Director of National Intelligence, is stupid. But I do believe, based on her performance at the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Reagan Library, that she is not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed. If she is telling Biden the nonsense that she was dishing to Andrea Mitchell, and Biden is believing it, then the Biden Administration and the American people are in for a rude awakening in the coming weeks.
Here is the video of some of her remarks:
What a maroon! Let's start with this headline from the NY Post based on Avril's delusional comments - Ukraine may have brighter future as Russia struggles to resupply fighting forces. What?!! Apparently Ms. Haines is so busy reading "intelligence" reports that she is unaware that it is Ukraine, not Russia, begging for more weapons and ammunition and most NATO countries are pleading poverty, with no more to send:
France has unofficially admitted that it is unable to provide Ukraine with more weapons due to dwindling stocks, but promised to continue helping Kiev in other ways, Politico has reported, citing an anonymous source."Off the record, the French admit they can't give more weapons to Ukraine due to the state of their own supplies," the outlet said in its Brussels Playbook briefing on Thursday. It added that Paris "hopes to make up for it with civilian aid."
It comes amid reports that most NATO members have also run out of weaponry to give to Ukraine.
Yeah, that is a sure fire recipe for success in fighting a war. Ukraine is like one of those self-proclaimed homeless people standing at an intersection with a sign begging for more armaments. France said, au contraire.
Haines also is unaware that Russia is in the process of sending more than 300,000 fresh troops to the frontlines at the very time that Ukraine is suffering catastrophic losses. You would think that the head of U.S. intelligence might have heard a word or two about that development.
Oh yeah. Almost forgot. Did you know that Russia is running out of precision missiles? Yep. That mantra is being repeated almost every week by wistful Western intelligence analysts and pundits. Putin and the Russians apparently did not get the word on that development and continue to shellack Ukraine's key power infrastructure every week.
I think Haines honestly believes that there is no way Russia can produce more missiles and rockets. That is not so much a reflection on her gullibility as it is an indictment of the pathetic state of U.S. intelligence. The CIA and the NSA apparently are unaware of the locations and products produced by Russia's defense industry.
Russia has several advantages over the United States in this regard. First, it is blessed with the natural resources, minerals and metals required to produce those weapons. Second, it has a better educated population that can perform the technical work required to build and test the weapons. And third (and most important), the Russian defense industry does not have to pay off greedy legislators to produce highly expensive, largely irrelevant defense projects; the recently announced B21 bomber (a really gargantuan white elephant) in order to give shareholders a nice return. Russia's defense industry, in contrast to the U.S. behemoth that now needs $800 billion a year to produce boondoggles, is dedicated to defending Russia and producing weapon systems, like the S400 air defense system, that actually perform well in combat.
Heard much about the "game changer" HIMARS lately? No. U.S. cannot produce enough of the rockets fired by that system to keep them viable in Ukraine.
I believe the U.S. intelligence capability is severely degraded from what it was 30 years ago. Yes, the Central Intelligence Agency still has CIA officers in the field trying to recruit foreigners to spy for us. In other words, supply us with the inside skinny about what is really going on inside a foreign government or military. Unfortunately, the CIA is a career bureaucracy and does not play a long game. What I mean by that, the CIA does not encourage nor incentivize officers to become genuine experts in dealing with a particular country. They move from job to job in order to secure a promotion. I know of one officer who was working in one of the former Soviet Republics (one of the "stans") in recent years and, because he did such a swell job there his next assignment was a country in north Africa. No time to become genuinely fluent in the language of either country.
Do you recall the story of Gary Berntsen? I consider Gary a friend and patriot. He wrote the book, Jawbreaker:
In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA's most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description.
Prior to 9-11, Gary had carried out intelligence activities in Afghanistan after the Soviets withdrew. So, you would think the CIA would want a Pashto speaker who knows Afghanistan to remain active in that region and cultivate sources and contacts. Nope. The CIA sent him instead to Uruguay, a Spanish speaking nation with a great beach at Punta Del Este (they say it is the place the Argentine men go to stare at the beautiful rear ends of the daughters of Uruguayan men). In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Gary's boss in Uruguay tried to block him from volunteering to go to Afghanistan. That was 22 years ago and things have not gotten any better.
The sad reality is that the United States has become addicted to gathering intelligence via foreign liaison services. That means we get our intel spoon fed to us by the Brits, the Germans, the Ukrainians and the Israelis, just to mention a few. Making matters worse - we actually believe the garbage that our allies feed us. If the CIA had any decent sources on the ground in Russia they would know that the Russian defense factories are working 24 - 7 and are churning out the precision missiles that people like Avril Haines keep hoping disappear. And they would acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is more popular in Russia than any political leader in the United States because Putin played a major role in transforming Russia from a genuine shithole in 1999 to a fully modern country.
I recommend you watch (if you have not already) Alexander Mercouris' latest commentary on these matters. Frankly, he would make a better Director of National Intelligence than Avril Haines and he could still do his Duran podcasts.
