Reminds me of the "winds" message that U.S. cryptologists got just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. It was juicy information, but apparently, it wouldn't have been enough to stop what was about to happen.
Matt D From United States of America, joined Nov 1999, 9502 posts, RR: 51 Reply 1, posted (10 years 11 months 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 880 times:
This doesn't seem any different than any other press release on this subject, which, when all of the fat is trimmed, usually read something like this:
There may or may not be a risk of an attack. We want you to continue leading your lives as you always do, but be on the constant lookout for suspicious activities which may or may not be interpreted as a potential terrorist attack. So therefore, you must be extremely careful and vigilant, even though we don;t want you to worry. But we're telling you this because we feel we owe it to you to get alarmed to the attack that may or may not happen sometime within the next 3 hours to the next 78 years.
In other words, our fine US of A "Intelligence" is as clueless as the rest of us.
Alpha 1 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (10 years 11 months 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 867 times:
That may be true, but when it comes from trackings that could indicate terrorist activity, it could be surmised that something was afoot. Like the "winds" message before Pearl Harbor, it's certainly not enough to tell WHAT was going to happen, but it's interesting to hear little tidbits that somehow filter out that let some experts know something might have been up.
I'm waiting for somoene to say "see, they know about the attacks". That's not why I posted this, though. I just find it interesting that this kind of information does appear before a lot of surpirse attacks. It shows the near-impossibility of trying to decypher the intentions of men known and unknown.
Alpha 1 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (10 years 11 months 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 835 times:
ROTFL. That was good Matt D!
VonRichtofen, just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor-I can't remember how far in advance, but it wasn't much, U.S. and British cryptologists thought they had received codes from the Japanese that might signal which way Japan's military might move. I can't remember the exact message, but, for example, if Japan were to attack the Soviet Union in 1941, a message like "East wind rain" would be sent; if an attack against British interestes were to take place, the message would have said something like "north wind gale", and against the U.S. "west wind clear". Something to that effect. They weren't 100% sure that's what it meant, but they had some ideas about it.
The message against the U.S. was apparently sent to Japanese embassies and intelligence services prior to Dec 7, 1941, but, as in this message that the U.S. got prior to 9/11, it did not disclose specific intention.
SAS23 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 7, posted (10 years 11 months 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 807 times:
Bear in mind that the CIA couldn't even predict the fall of communism (the most significant event of the 20th Century); the coup against Gorbachev; the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beiruit (though the Mossad was well aware of it - yet chose not to pass on a warning) and many other things. Their biggest problem is that they rely for to much on SigInt and ElInt (via NSA) backed up by analyists that have been proven to be unreliable - yet thanks to internal politics, they have retained the status quo - rather than HumInt and that's an issue that they have to address urgently.
In recent years, probably their best move has been Operation Blue, the recruitment of many LEOs as field officers. These people, trained to analyse evidence in a methodical manner, have been responsible for a number of significant successes, especially in the Balkans.
Alpha 1 From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 8, posted (10 years 11 months 6 days 6 hours ago) and read 766 times:
Their biggest problem is that they rely for to much on SigInt and ElInt (via NSA) backed up by analyists that have been proven to be unreliable - yet thanks to internal politics, they have retained the status quo - rather than HumInt and that's an issue that they have to address urgently.
Agreed. Humint was cut drastically in the 70's because some idiot politicians in Congress-on both sides of the aisle-thought it wasn't proper to spy on other nations-even though other nations were still spying on us. They gutted humint assets,and the U.S. intelligence services haven't recovered since. It's a priority now, as it always should have been, but it will take a decade for humint to be back to where it always should have been.
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