Nsa Can Absolve Itself With Ukrainian Crisis.

Although it has become commonplace to attack the overreaching actions of the National Security Agency (NSA), it now has an opportunity to absolve itself by accurately analyzing theUkrainian Crisis. With calls for a new Cold War, and as has happened in the past, the secretive and incongruent organization can prevent anotherU.S. armed intervention and military disaster from occurring. By utilizing its "outward" observations, and by objectively analyzing and disseminating intelligence estimates regarding Russia's involvement in the Ukraine, the NSA can also regain its original purpose and footing. It can begin pursuing a path of trust and credibility with the American people.

One example of the NSA's utmost performance was in April of 1969 when a North Korean MIG fighter shot down a U.S. navy aircraft. Since it was collecting information in international airspace ninety miles off theKorean coast, President Richard Nixon and top advisors called for an immediate retaliatory attack. In fact, they jumped to the conclusion that the shoot-down was Kim II Sung's birthday present: the loss of thirty-oneAmerican lives might have been intended by the MIG pilot as a macabre birthday present. Though the White House had already decided that the shoot-down was a cold and calculated act of deliberate provocation by the North Korean regime, the NSA proved otherwise.(1)

From intercepted North Korean communications and truthfully analyzed reports, the NSA concluded that the shoot-down was a command-and-control error involving a single plane. Reports also showed that even though North Korean leaders might appear to be ruthless, they had always been extremely careful to avoid an international provocation. According to the NSA, it would have been very much out of their pattern to commit such an outrageous and aggressive act. Furthermore, there was no evidence that the North Korean government had approved of the attack. Admirably, the NSA dissuaded Nixon from an immediate and disastrous armed attack.

The NSA attempted to prevent more blowback when the West Berlin's La Belle Discotheque was bombed. President Ronald Reagan and thePentagon instantly came forward with a massive seaborne attack ofLibya, one that looked much like the D-Day invasion. The NSA argued that there was little in common between Libya's Qaddafi and Hitler's Nazism. Still, the White House misconstrued intelligence reports, making a propaganda blitz on the airwaves for the invasion. The NSA argued against it, knowing it would be disastrous. Reagan objected and was limited to personally picking targets to attack from the air. As civilian areas were bombed, only a few objectives were met. (3)

In several other scenarios, the NSA had to combat the faulty notions of certain presidents in order to avert major military confrontations, even all-out war. Some presidents either ignored or completely dismissed the NSA's accurate intelligence reports in favor of their own mistaken perceptions. Some threatened to cut NSA funding if they did not reinforce the White House's views. From Nixon's conviction that a vast Communist conspiracy was behind the campus revolts, to President George W. Bush's feeble argument that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the NSA challenged the biases and misguided convictions of executive power, ones that often led to disastrous consequences.(2)

After the attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941, an event U.S. military analysts failed to anticipate, NSA and SIGNT agencies later concluded that the failure to break Japanese codes was due solely to a lack of cryptanalysts and resources. Reports also showed that even though there had been many references to the attack, a shortsighted president showing little interest in Japanese naval signals added to the debacle. Since then, a concerted effort to collect a plethora of relevant international communications has aided and protected the U.S. and its citizens. But over the decades, the NSA has lost its credibility and trust, partly due to the executive's abusive powers and hysterical public.

This mass hysteria developed during the Cold War as reactionaries constantly propagated, even started to believe in, their alarmist declarations about the Soviet Union. The NSA was often pressured into either suppressing or changing their intelligence assessments and military analyses. Rival "collectors" and "rogue collection groups" were given preeminence over the NSA, mainly because they supported the biases of some presidents and political agendas of certain political parties. Will the NSA work to regain its original purpose of honestly coordinating, directing, and performing highly specialized intelligence activities in support of U.S. government activities?

The NSA and its two billion dollar electronic compound in Utah-TotalInformation Awareness Project-has lost its way by developing a vast "inward" looking complex shrouded in secrecy and deception. But with the Ukrainian Crisis, it can begin to absolve itself by looking "outward," by accurately assessing Russia's purposeful intervention. It is also important for the NSA to remember that "support" does not mean agreeing with the Executive or Pentagon, but accurately informing them with truthful political and military intelligence reports, and assisting them in making sound decisions. Hawkish leaders and politicians, not the American People, are the real enemies of the State.

In doing all of this, it can possibly even prevent more disastrous military interventions and military occupations, that have also been the true enemies of the U.S. and Americans.