It isn't always easy to distinguish between real sloppiness and intentional "sloppiness." For sure it's a mistake to chalk up all anomalies to intentional aspects of a transparent MO. That said, it sure appears like the priority of some key terrorist attacks/assassinations is not the concealment of complicity by unnamed perps. It's confusing because it runs counter to all conventional understanding of criminality and because so much effort is expended to cover up the crime.
Naomi Wolf made an interesting comment which relates to this concept:
I have a section in the book about how lies in a fascist shift serve a different purpose than they do in a democracy. In a democracy, people lie to deceive. In a fascist shift, lies serve to disorient. Lies in the service of a fascist shift make it hard for citizens to trust their own judgment about what's real and what's not. Once citizens don't know what's real and what's not real, they are profoundly disempowered. The Bush administration seems to have learned that lesson, and they regularly name things the opposite. And there's a long historical precedent for making people feel that there is no such thing as truth.
Naomi Wolf's Call to Patriots -- Today's Echoes of Goebbels, and the Fragility of Liberty
This tracks with the infamous quote told to Suskind:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
Vince Salandria on the MO of the Kennedy assassination:
I'm afraid we were misled. All the critics, myself included, were misled very early. I see that now. We spent too much time and effort microanalyzing the details of the assassination when all the time it was obvious, it was blatantly obvious that it was a conspiracy. Don't you think that the men who killed Kennedy had the means to do it in the most sophisticated and subtle way? They chose not to. Instead, they picked the shooting gallery that was Dealey Plaza and did it in the most barbarous and openly arrogant manner. The cover story was transparent and designed not to hold, to fall apart at the slightest scrutiny. The forces that killed Kennedy wanted the message clear: 'We are in control and no one - not the President, nor Congress, nor any elected official - no one can do anything about it.' It was a message to the people that their Government was powerless. And the people eventually got the message. Consider what has happened since the Kennedy assassination. People see government today as unresponsive to their needs, yet the budget and power of the military and intelligence establishment have increased tremendously.
Salandria speaking to Gaeton Fonzi
The propaganda, fearmongering and authoritarianism work in concert to confuse and intimidate the public:
1) Double standards are considered ok simply because it is implied that powerful people should not be held accountable.
2) Secrecy and obstruction of justice are ok simply because it is implied that powerful officials are acting in good faith despite the lack of evidence to support such a conclusion. For example CIA, NSA and FBI withholding of information about al Qaeda operatives inside the US. They tried but the FBI computer systems were too outdated. Not enough funding. Too many civil liberty related restrictions.
Where was the good faith:
NSA:
a) Hayden was involved in pre-9/11 warrantless surveillance programs.
b) Hayden failed to use FISA. Evidently his excuse was concern about civil liberties. This of course makes no sense at all because FISA was created to adress civil liberty concerns and the pre-9/11 warrantless surveillance programs were obviously in gross violation of civil liberties.
c) 3) The NSA failed to inform the CIA and FBI even though they asked to be told about Yemen hub communications.
d) After 9/11, Hayden kept his job while helping to further implement warrantless surveillance programs. He later received promotions to DDNI and CIA Director. As CIA Director he opposed the declassification of the CIA IG 9/11 report (the full report is still classified) claiming it would “consume time and attention revisiting ground that is already well plowed” and distract the CIA from the WoT. He also supported the torture program and launched an investigation of CIA IG Helgerson.
CIA:
a) Rossini and Miller (FBI agents assigned to Alec Station) were ordered to withhold from the FBI the fact that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were coming to the US.
b) Alec Station officials obstructed the Cole investigation.
c) Tenet kept his job. Rich B. (chief of Alec Station at the time) was promoted to chief of the reopened Kabul station in 12/01). Their answer to 9/11 was to implement a torture program.
FBI:
a) The RFU and UBLU obstructed al Qaeda investigations.
b) AFAIK, no agents were disciplined.
3) Citizens who object to illegal policies are often considered out of line simply because they have the gall to question the actions of powerful officials. When publicly stated goals are not achieved we are told the reason is due to incompetence. For example we were told the goal in Iraq was a thriving democracy. The reason this didn't happen? The architects were arrogant and/or incompetent (i.e. poor planning).