(Reducing the leaves and field debris of fall. Photo courtesy Farmette Report.)

I woke thinking of the soil before first light. The tomatoes and sweet basil that came from the garden next door were on my mind, and I am resolved to plant my own the next growing season down here in rustic peaceful Culpeper. I was researching tractors and thinking about zucchini after I had cleared the email queue that got lost in the moveable feast last night.

That was a dinner that that started in the Russian garden at the farm next door once their imposing pile of field debris had been either mulched or rendered to glowing ash.

The smell of burning brought back the autumns of a long time ago, when we burned our leaves. They still do in the country.

As the light came up the trucks and trailers began to rumble down Cedar Grove Road toward Summerduck Run Farm. I assume something is happening down there, or at the major event complex further on toward the Zachery Taylor Highway.

I will have to investigate that further, and if there is some opportunity to see the women mount their steeds and go eventing. Maybe I can do that after a jaunt into town to sample some egg casserole and a mug of Dead Man’s Reach coffee at the Raven Nest coffee house in the historic district of Culpeper.

The birds took flight to get their insect breakfast outside as the sun’s first rays turned the dew to silver.

Before I could gather my keys and head out to the Panzer, I read a pal’s analysis of the shoddy response to the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

Most of the irascible old farts who used to be in the business knew what it was from the beginning, literally from “first heard” on the attack. It was too organized and too comprehensive to have been an impromptu affair, we thought. Moreover, it was on the anniversary of the most visible and damaging acts of war against America. This is not rocket science. There is much noise in the news of the day, but if there were ever dots to be connected, these were easy.

It was apparent to the most casual observers, including CNN, that the attack in Benghazi was coordinated and timed with precision. I wrote as much that morning when we first heard, not to contradict the painfully inept US Ambassador to the United Nations Ms Rice too hard.

(Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (AFP Photo by Chip Somodevilla)

Poor Director of National Intelligence Clapper. I have worked for him and respect him enormously. He is a decent man and a hard working one. He is a long-serving servant of the people of the nation he loves, in and out of uniform. His testimony on the nature of the intelligence failure absolved anyone else of responsibility for not preventing the deaths of four brave Americans.

There is some controversy about who is either responsible or not responsible for the failure to prevent or respond to the clear an unambiguous threat, but a large portion of it is the misperception of what it is that the Director of National Intelligence does for a living.

A little history might help. When Jim Clapper took over DIA he made a hard and perfectly rational choice about what he would do with him time in the office. He confronted a classic choice: he could either direct the Agency or personally attempt to be the Intelligence Officer to the Joint Staff, the living front man for the thousands of analysts supporting him.

You can either manage the analysts, or you can be the most senior of them. There is far too much to do to accomplish both.

We have seen that model work both ways. As DCI, many of the men at Langley left the management of the Community to the DDCI, and management of the CIA to the ExDir and DExDir, while they attended to the Main Customer, the President and the NSC.

Mike McConnell made himself the face of the IC to the President as DNI. Others who have served in that strange bloated office where not qualified to do so, and did not try so hard.

That is why manager Clapper’s mea culpa rings so false. He hasn’t ever claimed to be the voice of the Community, just the guy responsible for it. I seem to recall that this is not the first time the DNI appeared out of the loop- but of course he was, and the Other Government Agency’s custodians in the persons of Mike Hayden and Leon Panetta were just fine with that.

I do not think it is vanity speaking in that a crew of Naval Intelligence folks- old school- would be more correct and timely than anything in this strange new community structure, reinforced with overhead and turf. We were pretty good at caring about the truth, and if there was a sword to be fallen on, it was done in the moment, after consultation with people who could understand the truth when it was painfully self-evident and not captive to a greater good.

We had only one “good.” Which was actionable intelligence to locate and destroy the enemy, if directed. That would have been a comforting first step after the murder of a pretty damn good Ambassador.

I was gratified that the citizens of Benghazi later went after the al Qaida-affiliated militias responsible for the murders. It was an act of rational self-defense.

I just wish it had been the United States of America that took care of evening the score for our lost diplomats and contract patriots. And do it later that day, or early the next.

At first light.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com