Ethics

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, When the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could not prevent the September 11, 2001 attacks, many have asked whether more could be done. But the real reason why The Agency was blind to the signs a diversity problem, writes Matthew Syed .

the failure of the CIA and spot The Warning signs of the 9/11 plot has become one of The Most hotly contested topics in the history of the secret services There were commissions, reviews, internal investigations, and more.

On The One side are those who say that the CIA missed obvious warning signs. On The Other hand, those who argue that it is notoriously difficult to identity threats in advance, and that the CIA did everything, what could you reasonably are.

But what if both sides are wrong? What if the real reason why the CIA was able to recognize the plot is difficult, as both sides clearly? And what if this is a problem that extends over Intelligence , quietly, thousands of organizations, governments, and teams suffer today?

While many of the requests focused on the specific judgments in the hectic build-up to 9/11, some took a step back to examine the internal structure of the CIA itself, and in particular, its recruitment policy. On one level, this state of the art. Potential analysts have been through a battery of psychological, medical and other tests. And there's No Doubt , you have hired exceptional people.

"The two most important tests were a SA-style-to examine, test, examine a candidate, The Intelligence and psychological profiles, their mental state," says a CIA veteran. "The tests are filtered out anyone who was not stellar, on both tests. In the year I applied, they accepted a candidate for every 20,000 applicants. When the CIA talked about the setting The Best , you were bang on The Money . "

And yet, most of these recruits will also happen to look very similar to male, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant Americans .

This is a common phenomenon in the recruitment, sometimes referred to as "homophily": people tend to be people who think (and often look like themselves) to set. It's the validation of being surrounded by people who each other together, the perspectives and beliefs. In fact, brain scans suggest that, if The Other mirrors Our Own thoughts back to us, it stimulates The Pleasure centers of our brain.

In their study, the CIA, the write-Intelligence experts Milo Jones and Philip silver tooth: "The First consistent attribute of the CIA, of the identity and culture from 1947 to 2001, the homogeneity of the staff in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, and class background (relative to the rest of America and The World as a whole). "

An inspector-general's study on hiring, found that in 1964, a branch of the CIA, The Office of National Estimates," had no blacks, Jews or women professionals, and only a few Catholics".

By 1967, The Report said, there were less than 20 African Americans around 12,000-clerical CIA employees, and The Agency manages The Practice of not hiring minorities from the 1960s through the 1980s. And until 1975, the US Intelligence community continued to "open, barred The Employment of homosexuals".

Talk of his experience of the CIA in the 1980s, an insider wrote that the recruitment process "led to new officers, which looked very similar to the people you hired - and-white, mostly Anglo-Saxon; middle and upper class; Liberal Arts college graduates". There are only a few women and "some ethnic groups also gave to the recent European background".

"in other words, it is not so much the diversity as it was among those who had helped create the CIA. "

diversity was bruised more after the end of the Cold War . A former officer of operations, said that the CIA had a "white-as-rice-culture".

In the months before 9/11, The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, commented: "since its inception, the" Intelligence Community [was] staffed with white male Protestant elite, not only because that was The Class in performance, but because the elite saw itself as the guarantor and protector of American values and Ethics . "

the headquarters of The CIA in Langley, Virginia, Why is this homogeneity a role? If the setting of a relay team, don't you want only the fastest runners? Why would it be important if they are the same color, gender, social class, etc.?

But this logic is sound, while for simple tasks like running, it works also for complex tasks such as Intelligence . Why? Because if a problem is complex, no single person has all the answers. We all have blind spots, gaps in our understanding.

This in turn means that, if you bring a group of people with similar perspectives and backgrounds, they share the same blind spots. And this means that far from the challenge and addressing these blind spots, you are increasingly likely.

perspective blindness refers to the fact that we are often blind to Our Own blind spots. Our modes of thinking are so natural that we hardly notice how they filter our perception of reality.

The Journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge describes a time when you had to work the cycle: "An inconvenient truth dawned on me, as I lugged my bike up and down stairs: the majority of Public Transport is not easily accessible... I had to transport My Own wheels, I would never have this problem noted. I was blind to the fact that this lack of accessibility impact on hundreds of people. "

This example does not necessarily mean that all stations should be equipped with ramps or lifts. But it shows that we can only carry out a meaningful analysis of whether the costs and benefits are perceived. This hinges on the diversity of perspective. People who can help us to see Our Own blind spots, and we can help to see your.

Osama Bin Laden from his Declaration of war on the United States from a Cave In Tora Bora in February 1996. Pictures showed A Man with a beard down to his chest. He wore a cloth under combat fatigues.

which he unleashed Today, given what we Now know about the horrors, the Declaration looks more threatening. But an insider in the U.S. Intelligence service said the CIA "could not believe that this high level of Saudi with a beard, crouching around a campfire, and could be a threat to the United States of America".

To a Critical Mass of analysts, then, Bin Laden looked primitive and not a serious threat. Richard Holbrooke , a high-ranking official under President Clinton, put it this way: "How can A Man in a cave-the communication to The World 's leading communications society?"

Another said: "you could. just do not square with the idea that resources in the search for more information about Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the guy lived in a cave To them, he is The Essence of backwardness. "

Now consider how someone would have more familiar to be perceived with Islam, the same pictures.

Osama Bin Laden wore cloth, not because he is primitive in intellect or technology, but because he modeled himself on The Prophet . He fasted on The Days of the fasting of The Prophet . His poses and attitudes, seemed so backward, to a Western audience, were the ones that writes the Islamic tradition, The Most Holy of his prophets.

Lawrence Wright in his Pulitzer Prize -winning book about 9/11, Bin Laden orchestrated his support to the "call of the images that were deeply meaningful to many Muslims, but is virtually invisible to those who were not familiar with The Faith ."

Jones writes: "The beard and the camp-fire anecdote reflects a larger pattern in which non-Muslim Americans , even The Most experienced consumer of Intelligence - an underestimated Al-Qaeda-cultural reasons. "

As for The Cave , this deeper symbolism. Like almost every Muslim, Mohammad sought refuge in a cave after fleeing his pursuers in Mecca. A Muslim, a cave is sacred. Islamic art overflows with images of stalactites.

Osama Bin Laden modeled his exile, to Tora Bora, and his hijrah, and used The Cave as a propaganda. As one Muslim scholar put it this way: "Bin Laden was not primitive, he was strategic. He knew, to stir up How To handle the imagery of the Qur'an those who later martyred in the attacks of 9/11. "

analysts were also deceived by the fact that Bin Laden issued often expressed in poetry. White, middle-class analysts, seemed to be the eccentric, the strengthening of the idea of a "primitive Mullahs in a cave". For Muslims, however, the poetry has a different meaning. It is sacred. The Taliban routine Express terms in poetry.

The CIA investigation into the allegations, with a skewed frame of reference. As Jones and silver teeth put it this way: "The poetry itself was not only in The Foreign language of Arabic; it comes from a conceptual universe light-years from Langley".

More about Bin Laden and 9/11The al-Qaeda code name for the plot, The Big wedding was. In the ideology of suicide bombing, The Day of the Martyr-death, also his Wedding Day , where he is greeted by virgins in heaven.

An internal report in 2015 was the worst.

diversity, taliban, september 11 attacks, long reads, united states, cia

Source of news: bbc.com