Wait, What! VFW agrees with Threat Assessment

(Bob Ouellette) The problem is that this assessment will cause every citizen to be distrustfull of our returning veterans and destroy the support for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. So am I to beleive the assessment of DHS then we have 25 million right wing extremenists in the United States. I doubt it. As members of the American Legion we vow to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, just as every serviceman or woman also pledges when they enlisted or are sworn in.

The VFW basically agreed with DHS ..... DHS Report Was a Threat Assessment, Not AccusationWashington, D.C., April 15, 2009- The leader of the nation's largest combat veterans' organization said a leaked government document that mentions disgruntled military veterans as potential security threats should have been worded differently, but he takes no issue with the document's purpose: to assess possible threats to the safety and security of the United States."A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility," said Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. and its Auxiliaries. http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.newsDtl&did=4992

The following (as edited) comes from a highly placed US Army intelligence officer on what is intelligence.

A common problem with so-called “intelligence” is believing that someone reporting something makes it true. That’s called “single source reporting.” The VFW states that the DNS report is just an “assessment.” Intelligence that is worth its salt means when you assess something there must be multiple reports alluding to a trend. A trend is what is being sought. In this case, there is no trend indicating that returning service people are allying themselves with rightwing extremist groups. There is one documented case since the 1990s, and that is McVeigh. So, in the absence of a conclusive trend, we have no “assessment.” Therefore, what we are left with is an opinion. It may be one person’s opinion or it may be a dozen people’s opinion, we don’t know because no evidence is cited in this report. That’s why ground commanders who deal with intelligence always question the multiple sources of their information to ensure accuracy, which provides what is called “ground truth,” which, in turn, provides them with “situational awareness,” that they can depend on. That’s why ground commanders, whose decisions often determine whether people live or die, are very careful to avoid making decisions based on “single sources,” opinions or undocumented “facts.” This is what happens when people do not understand their doctrine and policies and take people for their word and not do the required research and analysis.