Is MI-6 not an efficient spy agency? Despite their best efforts they could not prevent the vast majority of IRA attacks in Britain in the 70s, 80s and early 90s and despite IRA having the ‘decency’ to tell the government and various agencies where the bomb(s) had been planted 15-30 minutes before carrying out each atrocity.
No intelligence agency however efficient can guarantee fool-proof security against all terrorist attacks. You can only minimize the risk of attacks. Most of us take things for granted and do not appreciate what a difficult and wonderful job these agencies do and how many attacks are foiled by their efforts. Without these agencies more innocents w’d die for sure from Taliban (and other) terror every few weeks to months…(if not thousands) hundreds more atleast w’d die..
As for your point about Swat operation, I could not agree more. We bungled the whole thing for sure and should have gone in much earlier than we did…we gave mullah Fazullah and his henchmen too much dheel.