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READ: Karen Kwiatkowski Delivers Speech After Receiving 17th Annual Sam Adams Award
To tell the truth is simple, honorable, and good for the health of the republic. The fact that it drives the security apparatus and the government crazy is just icing on the cake
Dec 08, 2018
Here is Karen Kwiatowski's acceptance speech for the 2018 Sam Adams Award at a ceremony in Washington on Saturday night, preceded by the citation, that was read by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Citation: Karen Kwiatkowski
Know all ye by these presents that Karen Kwiatkowski is hereby honored with the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of her courage in shining light into dark places.
"If you see something, say something," we so often hear. Karen Kwiatkowski took that saying to heart.
She saw her Pentagon superiors acting as eager accomplices to the Cheney/Bush administration's deceit in launching a war of aggression on Iraq. And she said something--and helped Knight Ridder reporters Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay see beneath the official lies and get the sordid story right before the war.
Karen's courage brings to mind the clarion call of Rabbi Abraham Heschel against the perpetrators of an earlier war--Vietnam. "Few are guilty," he said, "but all are responsible. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself." Karen would not be indifferent to evil.
Ed Snowden, Sam Adams awardee in 2013, noted that we tend to ignore some degree of evil in our daily life, but, as Ed put it, "We also have a breaking point and when people find that, they act." As did Karen. As did 16 of Karen's predecessors honored with this award.
With all the gloom and doom enveloping us, we tend to wonder whether people with the conscience and courage of Ed or Karen still exist in and outside our national security establishment. Our country is in dire need of new patriots of this kind.
Meanwhile, we call to mind the courageous example not only of Karen and Ed, but also of Coleen Rowley and Elizabeth Gun, our first two awardees, who took great risks in trying to head off the attack on Iraq. And we again honor Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange who is now isolated in what the U.N. has called "arbitrary detention," for exposing the war crimes resulting from that war.
Karen Kwiatkowski has made her own unique contribution to this company of conscience and courage, and Sam Adams Associates are pleased to honor her.
Presented this 8th day of December 2018 in Washington by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.
'Thoughts on the Sam Adams Award': Remarks by Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatowski
I am honored beyond belief to be the 2018 recipient of the Sam Adams Award, and I thank Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, Warren Strobel, and Jonathan Landay of Knight Ridder during the run up to the second invasion of Iraq, and Rob Reiner for putting together a great movie that was so consistently truthful, that for me, it looked almost like a documentary. I want to also thank the late David Hackworth, a man I never met who published my first anonymous essays from the Pentagon, and of course, Lew Rockwell, who has published so many of my essays examining and trying to understand our government and our offensive policies over the past 15 years.
It is in our country's interest--as security professionals, as intelligence professionals, as soldiers and citizens, as writers and newsmakers--to be sensitive to the lawlessness, the immorality, and the wrongdoing of the bureaucracies and the leaders of the organizations we are a part of.
There have been many American patriots and truth-tellers who have received the honor you have given me tonight--and I am going to name them here because I stand in awe of all of them:
Coleen Rowley of the FBI; Katharine Gun of British Intelligence; Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; Craig Murray, former U.K. ambassador to Uzbekistan; Sam Provance, former U.S. Army Sgt; Maj. Frank Grevil of Danish Army Intelligence; Larry Wilkerson, Col., U.S. Army (ret.), former chief of staff to Colin Powell at State; Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks: Thomas Drake, of NSA; Jesselyn Radack, formerly of Dept. of Justice and now National Security Director of Government Accountability Project; Thomas Fingar, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and Director, National Intelligence Council, and Edward Snowden, former contractor for the National Security Agency; Chelsea Manning, U.S. Army Private who exposed (via WikiLeaks) key information on Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as State Department activities; and to retired National Security Agency official William Binney, who challenged decisions to ignore the Fourth Amendment in the government's massive--and wasteful--collection of electronic data.
Again, I am very humbled and almost speechless tonight.
But not entirely speechless. My backstory is pretty well-known to most people here, and to anyone who was interested in understanding U.S. war policy in the early 2000s. I had a small role to play, in concert with a number of other truth-tellers in media and in the national security bureaucracy. For every one of us, there were probably 20 to 50 people working beside us and around us, who understood a lot about what was happening, and who probably got a funny feeling about being in an organization where we all swore to uphold the Constitution, but in fact were engaged in promulgating lies of both omission and commission, mistruths and misdirection, aimed not at our enemies abroad but against the American people. We were lying, with the help of a compliant and war-supportive media, to patriots young and old. Millions of Americans were eager to enlist, to fight, to sacrifice their life and health--for a made-up government fairy tale.
A sense of unease, I believe, was shared by many, many people who never blew a whistle, and never said a word. To their credit, some of these people passively resisted within their organizations, and tried to set things straight where they could. Some of these people simply called their assignments guy and got orders out of the Pentagon, others were removed if they resisted too much. There is always a cost when you seriously question the directions or actions of the bureaucracy that employs you.
It is in our country's interest--as security professionals, as intelligence professionals, as soldiers and citizens, as writers and newsmakers--to be sensitive to the lawlessness, the immorality, and the wrongdoing of the bureaucracies and the leaders of the organizations we are a part of. That is the first thing we must cultivate and encourage--a sensitivity to and an awareness of something as simple as right and wrong. This is fundamental. From knowing right and wrong, we move to the factor that motivates so many whistleblowers, something that we all share as human beings, and that is an idea of justice.
The truth-tellers who have been honored with Sam Adams Award, and thousands of others we may not be aware of around the world, share a concept of justice. For those who try to correct our U.S. government, particularly in its initiation and exercise of war, state-sanctioned murder, and physical devastation of whole societies, we as American have tools that many others around the world don't have. We have a Constitution that many of us swore to uphold. Americans tend to have a good grounding in the fundamentals of right and wrong, derived from religion or tradition, or both. We live in something that calls itself a republic, and it is a fine form of government, with a solid set of rules.
But how do we get from a certain moral discomfort, from seeing something going on around us that is wrong, to trying to do something about it? How do we decide if we want to leave the room, turn our backs, put our head down, or instead take some sort of action that will put us on a collision course with very powerful people? What if we, as truth-tellers, are like blind men describing an elephant--we see only one part of a larger story? How do we decide that our faith in our leadership is misplaced, and that more is at stake then just our jobs?
When you look at the experiences of people who made the dangerous and difficult decision to act, like Daniel Ellsberg, and Sam Adams, and Sibel Edwards, Jesselyn Raddick, Colleen Rowley, Thomas Drake, Ed Snowden, Julian Assange, and many others, you realize that speaking up and doing the right thing had a primary impact. That impact wasn't improved transparency, a more informed democracy, a more aware and alert citizenry, and better government decisions by our elected leaders. Those were all secondary impacts, and in many cases tenuous, as the improved level of national understanding seems to last for less than a single generation. No, the primary impact was the unimaginable wrath of the state aimed at the life, livelihood, reputation, family, character, and credibility of the truth-teller. In several cases, this included physical and psychological abuse, prison time, gag orders, and even more devious programs. The rage of the state against these truth-tellers is not impulsive and short-lived--it is a forever project funded by tax dollars, and fueled by very profitable agendas.
Knowing all of this, can we really expect to see a healthy and growing flow of truth tellers, whistleblowers, and simply bold honest people speaking out about government lies?
I think we can, and I am optimistic about the possibilities of better government through honest, bold, and forthright people working in and around this government.
To start with, as I mentioned, we as government employees and uniformed service-members need to have a solid sense of right and wrong. We need to cultivate a sense of justice. In a wonderful way, our younger generations are well prepared for this, at least in terms of cultivating a sense of justice. The young people we see portrayed, often disparagingly, as young socialists may not completely understand the nature of government or the state, but they do cherish ideas of justice.
The more of us--specifically those working with and inside the U.S. government today--who tell the truth, the less likely that government embarrassment will result in harm to a whistleblower, and the less likely in the long run that we will see whistleblowers as we tend to see them today.
We also need people in government service who are sensitive to what is going on in their organizations, and how people are feeling and behaving around them. It is not coincidence that many of the people who have been honored by this award are women, who may be paying closer attention to the mood and morality of their organizations. There's a country song that has a line in it about "Old men talking about the weather, and old women talking about old men." We need both in our organizations, to be in tune with what is happening, and who is leading us.
We need people in government service who are willing to walk away from a job, and to say or even broadcast why they are leaving, without worrying about the next job, without worrying about being blacklisted, without worrying that they can't make their next house payment or college tuition payment, or the alimony or child support payment. We need people in government who travel light, so to speak, and do their job because they love what they are doing and what it stands for. This grounding and lack of rigid self-identification with their employing bureaucracy is extremely important. Thanks to technology and societal evolution, the younger generations of Americans are very likely to walk away from a job that they believe to be immoral, to act to correct what they see as wrong or unjust, and incidentally, are less likely to own a home, and more likely to define themselves by what they believe and stand for, not where they work, and how many promotions they had planned for themselves in that organization.
But even with our younger generations coming into government service--with a good sense of justice, a strong sense of self, and a willingness to speak openly about what they believe and know--there is risk when someone questions the collective government story.
There is risk in the act of challenging authority and one's peer group, risk of being wrong and suffering loss of credibility. There is the rational and real risk of incurring the rage of the state, and being jailed, harmed, ruined and even killed on the whispers of an incensed or threatened agency.
There is another risk that we really don't talk about much. I think most concerning for many people is the risk that you are actually right, that you have discovered something damning and dark in your country, in your government, in your organization. Once this happens, if it happens, your life is irreversibly changed, and nothing is ever going to be the same. Understanding how your government actually works, in particular how it works to create and provoke war and murder, how it works to extract the wealth of the nation and use this blessing to commit Constitutional crimes and untold evil, in your name--for many this understanding is not a gift, but a curse. I estimate at least 10 percent of our country, 20-30 million Americans, many of them veterans the U.S. Empire's global adventures in the past 50 years, feel this curse, and many of them deal with it by turning away from the dark side of Washington D.C., and not talking, writing, or speaking about what they know.
If anyone has followed the case of former Marine Sergeant Brandon Raub a few years ago, you realize that the government keeps a close and paranoid eye on what veterans are doing and saying. Given how things work today, they may be wise to turn away silently from the truth they know.
I think this is why it is often hard for us to demand more truth-tellers come forward, especially in the defense and security and intelligence arena, when we should be shouting it from the rooftops.
Some years ago, I did an online radio program where I would interview interesting people, like Ray McGovern and Sam Provance and Sibel Edmonds, among many others. One person, in our conversation, expressed surprise that I was a short (formerly) brown haired woman, when he thought I would be a tall blonde. I was reminded of this when watching Shock and Awe, because Rob Reiner and the writers did not know who I was, and they portrayed me as a tall light-haired woman, a modern day Viking of sorts. Notwithstanding that this is a popular and attractive stereotype, I think there is something to be learned here. We want to believe that anyone who stands up to authority, who knows his or her own mind, who is willing to enter into a battle of wills with the state, and to take a risk is somehow taller, stronger, bolder, and braver than the rest of us.
But it isn't true. There is something remarkably childlike and simple in being honest, in observing without fear what is happening around you, and reporting this to the person who pays the bills. In the case of the national security arena, the bill payer is the American people. To tell the truth is simple, honorable, and good for the health of the republic. The fact that it drives the security apparatus and the government crazy is just icing on the cake. Granted, we all need jobs, and our mental health, and we don't want to be imprisoned, tortured, or killed. But the more of us--specifically those working with and inside the U.S. government today--who tell the truth, the less likely that government embarrassment will result in harm to a whistleblower, and the less likely in the long run that we will see whistleblowers as we tend to see them today. In a world of that values honesty, they would be receiving the public commendation of a proud Congress, a grateful media and President, and a contented population.
We--average Americans--are increasingly controlled, spied on, monitored, tracked, threatened, boxed in, and shut down by tools that were first used and tested on some contrived wartime enemy.
I'm not a Pollyanna, and I'm worried about the role the U.S. government is playing at home and abroad. The kind of devastation that the U.S. tolerates, supports and initiates around the world--Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, of course Yemen comes to mind, the horrendous situation that Julian Assange is still facing as we speak--is not limited to "overseas." The industrial warfare state is as dangerous to Americans as it is to Iraqis, Syrians, and Yemenis. The arts of the warfare state are already being practiced here, against Americans. We--average Americans--are increasingly controlled, spied on, monitored, tracked, threatened, boxed in, and shut down by tools that were first used and tested on some contrived wartime enemy.
You don't need me to tell you this, it's in every newspaper every day, on every page. It is our modern reality. Truth and transparency are its only antidote, and truth and transparency needs all of us. To live in a society, to be a citizen, to love your country -- you cannot sleepwalk through it.
People who value wisdom, people who value common sense, people who value justice and people who believe that being woke is a good thing--congratulations! You are the majority! You are alive, you are in charge of this country, and you can choose. America is worth preserving, healing, and saving - and if she is to be saved we will do it by first learning the difference between the truth and a lie, and then speaking the truth loudly, boldly, to anyone who will listen, over and over and over again.
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VIPS to Trump: Intel on Iran Could be Catastrophic
As drums beat again for war — this time on Iran—-the VIPS’ warning is again being disregarded as it was before the Iraq debacle and this time VIPS fear the consequences will be CATASTROPHIC
Aug 01, 2018
August 1, 2018
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Intelligence on Iran Fails the Smell Test
Mr. President:
As the George W. Bush administration revved up to attack Iraq 15 years ago, we could see no compelling reason for war. We decided, though, to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the chance he had been sandbagged by Vice President Dick Cheney and others. We chose to allow for the possibility that he actually believed the "intelligence" that Colin Powell presented to the UN as providing "irrefutable and undeniable" proof of WMD in Iraq and a "sinister nexus" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.
To us in VIPS it was clear, however, that the "intelligence" Powell adduced was bogus. Thus, that same afternoon (Feb. 5, 2003) we prepared and sent to President Bush a Memorandum like this one, urging him to seek counsel beyond the "circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."
We take no satisfaction at having been correct -- though disregarded -- in predicting the political and humanitarian disaster in Iraq.
We take no satisfaction at having been correct -- though disregarded -- in predicting the political and humanitarian disaster in Iraq. Most Americans have been told the intelligence was "mistaken." It was not; it was out-and-out fraud, in which, sadly, some of our former colleagues took part.
Five years after Powell's speech, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee minced few words in announcing the main bipartisan finding of a five-year investigation. He said: "In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."
Iran Now in Gunsight
As drums beat again for a military attack -- this time on Iran, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and other experienced, objective analysts are, by all appearances, being disregarded again. And, this time, we fear the consequences will be all-caps CATASTROPHIC -- in comparison with the catastrophe of Iraq.
In memoranda to you over the past year and a half we have pointed out that (1) Iran's current support for international terrorism is far short of what it was decades ago; and (2) that you are being played by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claims about Iran' they are based on intelligence exposed as fraudulent several years ago. Tellingly, Netanyahu waited for your new national security adviser to be in place for three weeks before performing his April 30 slide show alleging that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program. On the chance that our analysis of Netanyahu's show-and-tell failed to reach you, please know that the Israeli prime minister was recycling information from proven forgeries, which we reported in a Memorandum to you early last spring.
If our Memorandum of May 7 fell through some cracks in the West Wing, here are its main findings:
The evidence displayed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30 in what he called his "Iranian atomic archive" showed blatant signs of fabrication.
The evidence displayed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on April 30 in what he called his "Iranian atomic archive" showed blatant signs of fabrication. That evidence is linked to documents presented by the Bush Administration more than a decade earlier as "proof" of a covert Iran nuclear weapons program. Those documents were clearly fabricated, as well.
In our May 7, 2018 Memorandum we also asserted: "We can prove that the actual documents originally came not from Iran but from Israel. Moreover, the documents were never authenticated by the CIA or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."
Iran: Almost Targeted in 2008
There was a close brush with war with Iran a decade ago. Bush and Cheney, in close consultation with Israel, were planning to attack Iran in 2008, their last year in office. Fortunately, an honest National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007 concluded that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003, and that key judgment was made public. Abruptly, that NIE stuck an iron rod into the wheels of the juggernaut then speeding downhill to war.
The key judgment that Iran had stopped work on a nuclear weapon was the result of the painstakingly deliberative process that was customarily used, back in the day, to produce an NIE. After that process -- which took a full year -- the Nov. 2007 NIE was was approved unanimously by all U.S. intelligence agencies.
(In other words, it was decidedly NOT a rump "assessment" like the one cobbled together in a couple of weeks by "handpicked" analysts from three selected, agenda-laden agencies regarding Russian meddling. We refer, of course, to the evidence-impoverished and deceptively labeled "Intelligence Community Assessment" that the directors of theFBI, CIA, and NSA gave you on January 6, 2017. The Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department intelligence bureau were among the other 13 agencies excluded from that "Intelligence Community Assessment.")
As for the Bush/Cheney plans for attacking Iran in 2008, President George W. Bush, in his autobiography, Decision Points, recorded his chagrin at what he called the NIE's "eye-popping" intelligence finding debunking the conventional wisdom that Iran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon. Bush added plaintively, "How could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?"
Mr. President, we do not know whether a fresh National Intelligence Estimate has been produced on Iran and nuclear weapons -- or, if one has been produced, whether it is as honest as the NIE of Nov. 2007, which helped prevent the launch of another unnecessary war the following year. We stand on our record. In sum, if you believe that there is credible evidence that Iran has an active secret nuclear weapons program, we believe you have been misled. And if you base decisions on misleading "intelligence" on Iran, the inevitable result will be a great deal worse than the Bush/Cheney debacle in Iraq.
For the Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Sen. Richard H. Black, 13th District of Virginia; Colonel US Army (ret.); former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, Pentagon (associate VIPS)
Kathleen Christison, Senior Analyst on Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter-terrorism officer
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, Wing Commander, RAAF (ret.); Intelligence Officer & ex-Master SERE Instructor
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, Capt., USMC (ret.); former Senior Estimates Officer, National Intelligence Council
Ray McGovern, former US Army Infantry/Intelligence Officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Gareth Porter, author/journalist (associate VIPS)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq)
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Trump Urged to Seek Evidence Before Attacking Syria
In this memo to the White House, the Veteran Intelligence Professions for Sanity urge President Trump to get the evidence first before deciding to strike Syria.
Apr 13, 2018
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Evidence Required for Military Decision on Syria
Mr. President,
We the undersigned Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity join a number of other credible experts including former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford (this recent interview on BBC Radio Scotland), former UN weapons inspectors and former military officers who are strongly recommending that you obtain and review actual evidence from the site of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, before ordering any military action. VIPS has previously reported credible evidence indicating that anti-government forces in Syria have themselves produced and used toxic chemical agents.
Contradictory indications exist given that the video and images of victims in the locations purportedly affected by chemical weapons came from rebel-affiliated entities known as the "Douma Revolution" and the "White Helmets" while Russian military units which later got physical access to the supposed sites and Syrian Red Crescent personnel working in the area reportedly found no indication of a chemical weapon attack.
A major question for us, as former intelligence officers with some knowledge of the operational use of misinformation and false flag actions, is what motive would the Syrian government have for making a chemical weapons attack on its own civilian population, especially at a time when it has growing popular support and is having increased military success. Why would it risk Western ire?
Rebel fighters and their families were already being evacuated to Turkish occupied Jarabulus by air-conditioned bus. As described in more detail by Scott Ritter (here), only Salafist fighters from the "Army of Islam" (Jaish al-Islam) had refused to surrender at the time of the supposed attacks.
One must therefore consider the possibility that the supposed chlorine gas attack at Douma may have been a carefully constructed propaganda fraud. Such a fraud would have as its purpose the elicitation of precisely the kind of political pressure that now has you contemplating military action. In other words, Mr. President, this may be a bid to mousetrap you into a war that neither you nor your fellow Americans want nor need.
More expert opinion and investigation needs to be applied like that voiced by former U.N. weapons inspector in Syria, Ake Sellstrom, (translated from original Swedish):
The attack may have come from Assad's regime, but you may as well have other explanations. Toxic substances can be dispersed in many ways, for example through explosions or smoke.
- There are many poisonous substances in circulation during the battle.
If the UN were to investigate the attack, it is not enough to see recordings or hear testimony, says Sellstrom.
It is essential that the United States have complete and compelling evidence before taking any decisive action. We therefore strongly recommend that you await the findings of the OPCW team which is now on its way to Douma to investigate at the actual site of the alleged attack. A competent, objective group of experts needs to conduct a thorough on-the-ground investigation and collect evidence that will either implicate the Government of Syria or exonerate it.
We have, as you have noted, been down this road before with the Iraq WMD debacle in 2003. Let us not repeat this mistake. By launching a war in Syria, we will be entering a military and political morass involving Iran and Russia that could have fatal consequences for the entire planet, especially if any of the parties feel compelled to resort to nuclear weapons.
The American people neither want nor need another military intervention in the Middle East. History tells us that any initiative centered on the use of armed force to compel acceptable behavior will not be containable and will only propagate more violence. Please do not drain the US Treasury for a war that could lead to catastrophic and unprecedented loss of life and endanger the security of Americans everywhere.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Kathleen Christison, Senior Analyst on Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
Michael S. Kearns, Captain,Wing Commander, RAAF (ret.); Intelligence Officer & ex-Master SERE Instructor
John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, USA (ret) (associate VIPS)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also Foreign Service Officer who resigned in opposition to the US war on Iraq
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Trump Should Withdraw Nomination of Gina Haspel
From what is already known of her leading role in CIA torture 16 years ago, she has disqualified herself.
Mar 26, 2018
Two dozen former U.S. intelligence officers urge President Trump to rescind Gina Haspel's nomination to lead the CIA, citing torture that she oversaw while supervising a black site prison, as well as her role in destroying evidence.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Request to Withdraw Nomination of Gina Haspel
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With respect, we veteran intelligence officers from CIA and other agencies urge you to withdraw the nomination of Gina Haspel for CIA director. From what is already known of her leading role in CIA torture 16 years ago, she has disqualified herself.
In 2002 Haspel supervised the first CIA "black site" for interrogation, where cruel and bizarre forms of torture were applied to suspected terrorists. And when the existence of 92 videotapes of those torture sessions was revealed, Haspel signed a cable ordering their destruction, against the advice of legal counsel at CIA and the White House.
Does Torture 'Work?'
We are confident that if you set aside some time to read the unredacted portions of the Senate Intelligence Committee report of 2014 on the torture ordered and supervised by Haspel and other CIA managers, you will change your mind about her nomination. The five-year Senate investigation was based primarily on original CIA cables and other sensitive documents.
In addition to revealing clear violations of the UN Convention Against Torture, the Senate investigation shows that claims by senior CIA officials that torture is effective are far from true. The US Army -- in which many of us have served -- has been aware of the ineffectiveness of torture for decades.
General John Kimmons, head of Army Intelligence, drove home that point on September 6, 2006 -- approximately an hour before President George W. Bush publicly extolled the virtues of torture methods that became known as "enhanced interrogation techniques." Gen. Kimmons stated: "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years -- hard years -- tell us that."
We believe that Defense Secretary James Mattis' lack of enthusiasm for torture reflects lessons drawn from the historical experience of the Marine Corps, as well. Not to mention the twin reality that torture brutalizes the brutalizer, and that US use of torture puts our own troops in serious jeopardy when captured. Moreover, there is no more effective recruitment tool than torture to attract more terrorists.
International and Domestic Law
Please also be aware that many signatories to the UN Convention Against Torture take seriously their obligations under the principle of "universal jurisdiction," which applies when those who authorize or practice torture are not brought to justice by authorities in their home countries.
George W. Bush experienced a precarious brush with this reality in 2011, when he had to abruptly cancel a visit to Geneva, Switzerland, after discovering that plans were in place to arrest him as soon as he stepped onto Swiss soil. [See "America's Stay-at-Home Ex-President"] The widely respected European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights already has made no secret of its intention to proceed quickly against Haspel, should she set foot in Europe.
We believe that CIA's activities and general focus have become severely unbalanced, with the lion's share of funding and energy going to the paramilitary-prone operational side -- where the potential for human rights abuses is not given sufficient consideration.
That trend has gone on steroids in more recent decades, and it is a safe bet that Gina Haspel would accelerate it. We would also observe that if most of the talent and funding goes to CIA paramilitary operations, then the by-products will necessarily include a tendency to engage in politically motivated -- and therefore shabby -- analysis. That means that senior policymakers like you will be poorly informed, particularly with respect to complex world issues -- including biased perspectives on Russia and its newly re-elected president, Vladimir Putin.
* * *
We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) are extremely concerned at the possibility that Gina Haspel might become the next Director of the CIA. Haspel actually supervised a CIA "black site" codenamed "Cat's Eye" in Thailand where a number of suspected terrorists were tortured. She subsequently collaborated in destroying all 92 videotapes of the torture sessions, effectively covering up what were likely serious war crimes.
There should be no question about the illegality of torture. It has been universally condemned and banned by both the Geneva Conventions and United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the Senate in 1994.
The UN Convention defines torture "as any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession..." and makes clear that "no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
The Convention's Article 2 requires signatories to take effective measures to prevent torture in any territory under their jurisdiction. The complete prohibition of torture is absolute. Under international law, officials cannot receive immunity in cases involving torture and governments that have signed the Convention are obligated to bring torturers to justice. US domestic law was brought in line with the Convention once the US became a signatory and ratified it.
In the wake of the Abu Ghraib revelations, torture, to include its variations that have been euphemistically described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EIT), is now explicitly banned by the US military in its training manuals. A number of soldiers were tried and imprisoned in the wake of Abu Ghraib, although the "upper ranks" -- in civilian as well as military spheres -- who approved torture managed to escape serious consequences.
Some in the Pentagon clearly took seriously allegations of torture and were willing to file criminal charges against those involved, though Department of Defense leadership never saw fit to assume responsibility for having set up a policy environment that quite clearly condoned EIT.
There is also another significant historical and legal precedent that demonstrates that the United States government has by its own actions agreed that what is today being called "enhanced interrogation" is a war crime. In 1946-1948, Japanese officers who tortured Allied soldiers -- including what is now referred to as waterboarding -- were tried at the Tokyo post-war tribunals for that crime, found guilty, and executed.
Heinous
More recently, the meticulously documented unclassified 528 page Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report on the CIA's secret Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program is remarkable for its candor. That five-year investigation was based on original CIA cables and other documents.
In blunt language, the Senate report describes the horrors of the black site secret prisons and the efforts that were made to get terrorist suspects to talk. It demonstrates that the interrogations were brutal -- worse than anyone had been led to believe -- and also that they did not produce any information that might not have been developed otherwise or, in many cases, any actionable intelligence whatsoever. The full classified text of the report -- which names names of the actual torture perpetrators redacted in the summary -- runs to almost 7,000 pages.
Moreover, coercive interrogation frequently produced misleading or fabricated intelligence that wasted resources by having to be meticulously checked before being used. This conclusion was also arrived at by former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan -- who deplored CIA methods -- as well as by a review conducted by CIA's then-Inspector General (IG), John Helgerson, in 2004. The "Helgerson Report" condemned both CIA leadership and Langley's on-the-ground management of questionable programs driven by "analytical assessments that were unsupported by credible intelligence" -- programs which quickly became abusive.
It is our collective judgment that the loathsome physical abuses that included beatings, repeated waterboardings and anal violations referred to as "rectal feeding" -- as well as physical threats to family members -- cannot be whitewashed with the convenient euphemism of "enhanced interrogation." All of those are acts of torture -- plain and simple.
And while there are undoubtedly many good moral arguments against torture, there are practical considerations as well. Despite what the media would have Americans believe, torture does not work.
We recall the unambiguous remarks of then-commander of Army intelligence, Gen. John Kimmons, who held a Pentagon press conference on Sept. 6, 2006 -- the same day President George W. Bush announced what he called "an alternative set of procedures" for interrogation (which later morphed into the term "enhanced interrogation techniques"). Anticipating that Bush would claim the EITS to be necessary and effective, Gen. Kimmons told the media: "No good intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years -- hard years --tells us that."
Colin Powell Mousetrapped by 'Intelligence' From Torture
Worse still, intelligence officials have used information, which they knew was gained from torture, to mislead the most senior US officials on issues of war and peace. One of the signatories below was eyewitness to how CIA Director George Tenet persuaded Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the UN of a "sinister nexus" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Tenet did not tell Powell that this "intelligence" came from a source, Abu Yahya al-Libi, who had been "rendered" to, and waterboarded by, Egyptian intelligence. The Defense Intelligence Agency had deemed this intelligence unreliable, but Tenet chose to ignore DIA and never informed Powell. Al-Libi recanted less than a year later, admitting that he fabricated the story about Saddam and al-Qaeda in order to stop his torture.
Moreover, when you wink at torture, you motivate enemies of the United States to do the same to captured US soldiers, diplomats and travelers while also providing a propaganda bonanza for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Indeed, the only reason why CIA torturers have not been tried and sentenced to prison for the damage they have done to the nation is that an intimidated President Barack Obama -- who once proclaimed that "nobody is above the law" -- balked at allowing the judicial process to run its course, thereby whitewashing the Bush Administration's many crimes related to the so-called "global war on terror." Obama attempted to justify his inaction as looking forward rather than backward, but it is more likely that he feared opening up a Pandora's Box of shameful government secrets that no doubt would have emerged.
Promoting Haspel in spite of her tainted record would send a message to both intelligence and military personnel that embracing practices like torture -- indisputably a war crime -- can be a path to promotion.
Haspel's involvement with torture began when she accepted the assignment to go to Thailand -- which she could have turned down -- to run the "black site" where the interrogations were being conducted. She was, at the time, the deputy in CIA's Counter Terrorism Center (CTC), working for Jose Rodriguez.
She was in charge of the secret Thailand base in late 2002 while Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and possibly more suspects were being tortured in a process that included slamming victims' heads against walls, subjecting them to painful stress positions, regularly depriving them of sleep, confining them to small, coffin-like boxes, and waterboarding.
The "confinement boxes" were of two types; one was coffin-sized, and the other was smaller and less than waist-high. Both had strong claustrophobic effects. A prisoner would be forced into the smaller box as an extreme form of stress positioning, creating excruciating pain. To maximize psychological distress and exploit phobias, insects were sometimes placed in the pitch-black "coffin" alongside the victim.
Destroying the Evidence
In 2005, after returning to CIA headquarters at Langley, she acted on instructions from Rodriguez and drafted the order to destroy the 92 videotapes that had been made of the interrogations. It has been reported that she was a "strong advocate" for the destruction. This was contrary to instructions provided by CIA Counsel John Rizzo and the White House. Thus, her act may have constituted destruction of evidence -- a felony.
Jose Rodriguez was investigated for destruction of evidence by a Special Prosecutor who eventually ruled against charging him. An aide to CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo later revealed Rodriguez's rationale for shredding the tapes, writing in an email that "the heat from destroying [them] is nothing compared with what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain - he [Rodriguez] said that they would make us look terrible; it would be devastating to us." Gina Haspel ensured that these tapes -- important, damning evidence of US government torture -- would never see the light of day.
Haspel's defenders claim that she was not the creator of the torture program and only served as a willing executor of a government initiative that she believed to be legal. That may be true as no one has access to the CTC documents that might prove otherwise. Nevertheless, it does not provide her a free pass under international law, where it is generally referred to as the "Nuremberg Defense" -- a thoroughly discredited "defense" that harkens back to the era of Nazi atrocities and those who attempted to justify them by claiming perpetrators were "just following orders."
'Nuremberg Defense' Didn't Work at Nuremberg
Several former CIA leaders have supported her, saying that she was "implementing the legal orders of the president," but many of them may be concerned about their own reputations or questionable decisions they may have made in the name of the "war on terror." And the UN's International Law Commission says something quite different in its codification of the legal options surrounding torture, writing that "the fact that a person acted pursuant to an order of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."
It is also claimed that Gina Haspel was working for the CIA Chief of Station (COS) in Bangkok and acting under the COS's orders, but those of us who have worked in and led CIA bases would dispute that that type of tight control was common, particularly since in this case, she was reporting directly to the Counterterrorism Center at Langley. Haspel would have been the boss and would have had independence in the field in executing directives from CIA Headquarters and the Counterterrorism Center -- some of which she herself had a hand in drafting.
If Haspel is confirmed and wishes to travel abroad, she may have to restrict herself to countries not party to the UN Convention Against Torture because of her widely known involvement in the "black site" in Thailand. The 42 countries that have signed and ratified the Convention include the US and most of its allies. All take on a legal obligation to enforce the prohibition against torture, based on the principle of "universal jurisdiction," when necessary. In other words, they are empowered to act when the accused's home country refuses to do so.
Not Too Late to Do the Right Thing
If you do not withdraw the nomination of Gina Haspel and she is confirmed, this will cast a moral stain on the vast numbers of patriotic and ethically upright Americans who serve their country in the field of national security. It will also be a continuation of the steady erosion of human rights standards and rule of law post-9/11.
Apparent widespread support for torture among the US public -- enabled largely by the false message of Hollywood, the media and the Cheney family that it "works" -- is deplorable. It might have been headed off by the prosecutions of Haspel, Rodriguez and others by former President Obama, together with graphic exposure of the evidence. You have an opportunity to reverse this wrong.
Withdrawing Haspel's nomination now would be a step in the right direction. Confirming her as Director of CIA would signal that Washington embraces what then-Vice President Dick Cheney referred to as the "dark side." Regrettably, torture was once part of US policy. Indeed, one of this Memorandum's signatories spent nearly two years in federal prison because he revealed that. But torture cannot be relied upon to yield accurate intelligence. It remains an internationally condemned malignancy that must be excised, never to return.
* * *
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, member of 2005 American Psychological Association task force evaluating the role of psychologists in U.S. intelligence and military interrogations of detainees (associate VIPS)
William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA's Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)
Richard H. Black, Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
George Hunsinger, Professor, Princeton Theological Seminary; Founder, National Religious Campaign Against Torture (associate VIPS)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.), Intelligence Officer & ex-Master SERE Instructor
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., USAF (ret.)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist, ret.
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Valerie Plame, former operations officer, CIA (associate VIPS)
Diane Roark, Republican Professional Staff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 1985-2002 (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Greg Thielmann, former Director, Office of Strategic, Political, and Military Affairs, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department; Former staff member, Senate Intelligence Committee
Peter Van Buren, US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also Foreign Service Officer who resigned in opposition to the US war on Iraq
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Another Hatchet Job on Snowden
The hatchet jobs against NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden keep on coming with a new book whose author says he applied James Angleton’s counterintelligence techniques to Snowden, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Mar 05, 2017
In depicting National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden as a Russian spy, author Edward Jay Epstein acknowledges his debt to the CIA's famously paranoid counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, who specialized in counterintuitive thinking that surely smeared more honest CIA officers than it snared actual spies.
At a recent book signing at the Hoover Institute in Washington, D.C., for How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft, Epstein proudly announced that he learned the tricks of the counterintelligence trade from the now-deceased Angleton.
But Angleton, like other counterintelligence sleuths, assumed the carte-blanche right to smother a slender fact with weighty assumptions and then weave upon them a hefty garment of allegations, speculation and imagination fitting with the occupational predisposition to detect a spy.
Over the decades, it's conceivable that this "methodology" may have caught a spy or two (although Angleton is perhaps best known for missing the notorious Soviet spy Kim Philby). But creating a counterfactual, evidence-free scenario seems an irresponsible way to write about Edward Snowden, a whistleblower responsible for the most consequential intelligence leak in U.S. history.
In his new book, Epstein spins his intricate web to prove Snowden's supposed treachery around the fact that after leaking secrets to Western journalists in Hong Kong, Snowden wound up in Russia. The well-known reality is that Snowden never intended to get stuck in Russia but was stranded there when the U.S. government blocked his path to South America. Yet, however clear the record regarding how and why Snowden found asylum there, Epstein sees a more sinister logic.
As a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and a private citizen who has befriended many government whistleblowers, I happen to have known Angleton and currently know Snowden (whom I count among my friends).
I recall in 1974, when CIA Director William Colby finally fired Angleton, audible sighs of relief rippled through spydom. Angleton had ruined the careers - and sometimes the lives - of many conscientious CIA officers. When, finally, Angleton was not in position to do any more damage, many of my contemporaries recounted personal examples of how misguided and harmful Angleton's periodic witch hunts had been.
Like Angleton, Epstein also has a tendency to see spies where they aren't, including asserting that Lee Harvey Oswald was a Soviet spy, a claim that finds zero support in the KGB records now available. That proclivity is also evident in Epstein's new book.
Before the book signing at the Hoover Institute, a New York Times review and Pulitzer Prize winner Barton Gellman had thoroughly panned Epstein's book, and more recently New York Times journalist Charlie Savage picked it apart. Their indictments suffice; I feel no need to again recite Epstein's errors of fact and analysis.
Squeezing in a Question
But I did squeeze a question in at the Hoover book event. Epstein's interviewer, Ben Witte of Brookings, had served up a few innings-worth of softball pitches but allowed no questions from the audience. However, when Epstein claimed that his best source on Snowden's perfidy was Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Epstein proceeded to quote - incorrectly - to the effect that Snowden had met with Russian officials in Hong Kong. I spoke out, saying, "Putin did not say that."
Shock hit the audience at my impertinence, and Witte's eyes scoured the back of the room apparently looking for Security. But the ever-genteel Epstein saved the day by admitting that I was right and that he had misspoken.
After the Witte-Epstein dialogue, the audience was allowed to approach Epstein for conversation. I introduced myself and noted that I had joined other former intelligence officers in visiting Snowden in Moscow.
"Oh, yes, I remember your name," Epstein said, prompting me to ask why he did not seek to interview me for the book. "Yes, I should have contacted you," he said with a smile.
At the time I was unaware of the curious limits Epstein had put on his outreach. Besides those of us who had met with Snowden in Moscow, Epstein "should have contacted" Sarah Harrison, who stayed by Snowden's side during his five weeks at Moscow's Sheremetevo Airport and then for a few additional months; Julian Assange, who pulled out all the stops to facilitate Snowden's sudden and safe departure from Hong Kong; NSA whistleblowers William Binney, Kirk Wiebe and Ed Loomis; and Diane Roark, House Intelligence Committee senior aide who had the NSA account for several years.
Epstein's book shows that - while ignoring people who know Snowden or have had painful experiences trying to expose NSA wrongdoing by going through the "proper channels" - he conducted many interviews with people who consider Snowden, as well as Putin, the devil incarnate.
There is also the issue of how much actual "damage" Snowden's disclosures caused. According to former NSA Technical Director William Binney, it is fair to say that the extent of the NSA's vacuuming up of bulk data on Americans and people around the world was a surprise, first and foremost, to Americans whose eyes were opened (as Snowden intended); that U.S. adversaries were generally aware of NSA's capabilities; and that damage to sources and methods typically has been exaggerated by those interested in overstating it.
Alarmist Complaints
Here there are shades of the alarmist complaints about the supposed damage caused by the disclosures about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.
After Defense Secretary Robert Gates had joined other senior officials in lamenting the "grave damage" from Manning's revelations, Gates was asked by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin to put it in writing. Gates came back with an honest report: Early claims of damage had been, in Gates's words, "significantly overwrought."
Bill Binney and his colleagues tell me the same is probably true of the hyperbole used to portray the damage from the Snowden disclosures.
Yet, balancing whatever that "damage" was is the significance of Snowden's argument that the warrantless bulk surveillance of Americans was illegal under the Constitution and created the risk of a future leader imposing a "turnkey tyranny" on the United States because of all the embarrassing and incriminating information that would be collected on American citizens.
There is now no doubt that Snowden's constitutional concerns were well-founded and it is not hard to imagine how an unscrupulous politician might make effective use of people's personal secrets or their unguarded comments.
But it is easier to discredit Snowden by simply portraying him as a Russian spy. After all, we are now deep in a New McCarthyism that accompanies the New Cold War. Any contact with Russians - no matter how unintentional in Snowden's case - is regarded as somehow disqualifying.
So, that is the tack that Epstein took. However, the evidence isn't there.
Chris Inglis, who was NSA's Deputy Director when Snowden made the disclosures and who headed the initial NSA investigation, said about Snowden a year ago: "I don't think he was in the employ of the Chinese or the Russians. I don't see any evidence that would indicate that."
Epstein - like so many others - also shows a basic lack of understanding of the important, graduated scale of values that Ed Snowden and other whistleblowers take with utmost seriousness. At one point, Epstein glibly says of Snowden, "In signing this [nondisclosure] document, he swore an oath not to divulge any of this information."
But that's not correct. The only oath that we, as military or other government officials swear is: "To support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."
Ethicists describe such an oath as a "supervening value," far more serious than a promise like that embedded in the contract one signs in agreeing not to disclose classified information that could be harmful to U.S. national security. In other words, what do you do when your oath conflicts with the contract language, which one has the priority?
Snowden's Choice
Are promises important? Of course they are. But in the moral sphere, oaths supersede promises. NSA was playing fast and loose with the Constitution's Fourth Amendment (and arguably with the First and the Fifth as well) with warrantless surveillance. Snowden chose not to break his oath to the Constitution. Nor would he remain silent when others broke theirs.
Watching what happened to fellow whistleblowers - like Thomas Drake - who tried to "go through channels," Snowden knew that he had to "get out of Dodge" to have any hope of remaining at liberty long enough to complete his mission. He decided to run the huge risk involved in defending the Constitution against incipient "turnkey tyranny."
That may be difficult for Epstein and many cynical observers to believe, but without any evidence to the contrary, Snowden hardly deserves to be treated like the CIA officers who faced character assassination from Epstein's paranoid mentor, Angleton.
I first met Snowden in early October 2013 when I was a member of the first delegation of Americans to visit him as a political exile in Russia. Four of us, all members of Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, officially presented him with our annual award for integrity.
My three colleagues, each of them an earlier awardee, were whistleblowers Coleen Rowley, Thomas Drake, and Jesselyn Raddack (ex-FBI, -NSA, -Department of Justice, respectively). After the award ceremony we spent seven hours relaxing and comparing notes with Snowden. And a year later, I had a long lunch with him in Moscow.
For my colleagues and me, this unassuming, courageous young man, known to us only by what he had said and done over the previous three months, proved to be the precisely the patriotic whistleblower we thought he was. His courage and motivation were altogether believable to Rowley, Drake and Raddack, for each of them had taken similar risks in blowing the whistle on U.S. government misconduct.
This is simply to say that all four of us seasoned professionals had a unique opportunity to take the measure of Snowden up close and personal. It is a truly a pity that author Epstein did not do the same.
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Another Demand for Russian 'Hacking' Proof
More than 20 U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans are calling on President Obama to release the evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign – or admit that the proof is lacking
Jan 17, 2017
MEMORANDUM FOR: President Barack Obama
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, a pall hangs over his upcoming presidency amid an unprecedentedly concerted campaign to delegitimize it. Unconfirmed accusations continue to swirl alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized "Russian hacking" that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House.
As President for a few more days, you have the power to demand concrete evidence of a link between the Russians and WikiLeaks, which published the bulk of the information in question. Lacking that evidence, the American people should be told that there is no fire under the smoke and mirrors of recent weeks.
We urge you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence that takes us beyond the unsubstantiated, "we-assess" judgments by the intelligence agencies. Otherwise, we - as well as other skeptical Americans - will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those - like Mr. Trump - who wish to deal constructively with them.
Remember the Maine?
Alleged Russian interference has been labeled "an act of war" and Mr. Trump a "traitor." But the "intelligence" served up to support those charges does not pass the smell test. Your press conference on Wednesday will give you a chance to respond more persuasively to NBC's Peter Alexander's challenge at the last one (on Dec. 16) "to show the proof [and], as they say, put your money where your mouth is and declassify some of the intelligence. ..."
You told Alexander you were reluctant to "compromise sources and methods." We can understand that concern better than most Americans. We would remind you, though, that at critical junctures in the past, your predecessors made judicious decisions to give higher priority to buttressing the credibility of U.S. intelligence-based policy than to protecting sources and methods. With the Kremlin widely accused by politicians and pundits of "an act of war," this is the kind of textbook case in which you might seriously consider taking special pains to substantiate serious allegations with hard intelligence - if there is any.
During the Cuban missile crisis, for instance, President Kennedy ordered us to show highly classified photos of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and on ships en route, even though this blew sensitive detail regarding the imagery intelligence capabilities of the cameras on our U-2 aircraft.
President Ronald Reagan's reaction to the Libyan terrorist bombing of La Belle Disco in Berlin on April 5, 1986, that killed two and injured 79 other U.S. servicemen is another case in point. We had intercepted a Libyan message that morning: "At 1:30 in the morning one of the acts was carried out with success, without leaving a trace behind." (We should add here that NSA's dragnet SIGINT capability 30 years later renders it virtually impossible to avoid "leaving a trace behind" once a message is put on the network.)
President Reagan ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb Col. Muammar Qaddafi's palace compound to smithereens, killing several civilians. Amid widespread international consternation and demands for proof that Libya was responsible for the Berlin attack, President Reagan ordered us to make public the encrypted Libyan message, thereby sacrificing a collection/decryption capability unknown to the Libyans - until then.
As senior CIA veteran Milton Bearden has put it, there are occasions when more damage is done by "protecting" sources and methods than by revealing them.
Where's the Beef?
We find the New York Times- and Washington Post-led media Blitz against Trump and Putin truly extraordinary, despite our long experience with intelligence/media related issues. On Jan. 6, the day after your top intelligence officials published what we found to be an embarrassingly shoddy report purporting to prove Russian hacking in support of Trump's candidacy, the Times banner headline across all six columns on page 1 read: "PUTIN LED SCHEME TO AID TRUMP, REPORT SAYS."
The lead article began: "President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia directed a vast cyberattack aimed at denying Hillary Clinton the presidency and installing Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office, the nation's top intelligence agencies said in an extraordinary report they delivered on Friday to Mr. Trump." Eschewing all subtlety, the Times added that the revelations in "this damning report ... undermined the legitimacy" of the President-elect, and "made the case that Mr. Trump was the favored candidate of Mr. Putin."
On page A10, however, Times investigative reporter Scott Shane pointed out: "What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies' claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission."
Shane continued, "Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to 'trust us.' There is no discussion of the forensics used to recognize the handiwork of known hacking groups, no mention of intercepted communications between the Kremlin and the hackers, no hint of spies reporting from inside Moscow's propaganda machinery."
Shane added that the intelligence report "offers an obvious reason for leaving out the details, declaring that including 'the precise bases for its assessments' would 'reveal sensitive sources and methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.'"
Shane added a quote from former National Security Agency lawyer Susan Hennessey: "The unclassified report is underwhelming at best. There is essentially no new information for those who have been paying attention." Ms. Hennessey served as an attorney in NSA's Office of General Counsel and is now a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law.
Everyone Hacks
There is a lot of ambiguity - whether calculated or not - about "Russian hacking." "Everyone knows that everyone hacks," says everyone: Russia hacks; China hacks; every nation that can hacks. So do individuals of various nationalities. This is not the question.
You said at your press conference on Dec. 16 "the intelligence that I have seen gives me great confidence in their [U.S. intelligence agencies'] assessment that the Russians carried out this hack." "Which hack?" you were asked. "The hack of the DNC and the hack of John Podesta," you answered.
Earlier during the press conference you alluded to the fact that "the information was in the hands of WikiLeaks." The key question is how the material from "Russian hacking" got to WikiLeaks, because it was WikiLeaks that published the DNC and Podesta emails.
Our VIPS colleague William Binney, who was Technical Director of NSA and created many of the collection systems still in use, assures us that NSA's "cast-iron" coverage - particularly surrounding Julian Assange and other people associated with WikiLeaks - would almost certainly have yielded a record of any electronic transfer from Russia to WikiLeaks. Binney has used some of the highly classified slides released by Edward Snowden to demonstrate precisely how NSA accomplishes this using trace mechanisms embedded throughout the network.
NSA Must Come Clean
We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks. If NSA can produce such evidence, you may wish to order whatever declassification may be needed and then release the evidence. This would go a long way toward allaying suspicions that no evidence exists. If NSA cannot give you that information - and quickly - this would probably mean it does not have any.
In all candor, the checkered record of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for trustworthiness makes us much less confident that anyone should take it on faith that he is more "trustworthy than the Russians," as you suggested on Dec. 16. You will probably recall that Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013, about NSA dragnet activities; later apologizing for testimony he admitted had been "clearly erroneous." In our Memorandum for you on Dec. 11, 2013, we cited chapter and verse as to why Clapper should have been fired for saying things he knew to be "clearly erroneous."
In that Memorandum, we endorsed the demand by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that Clapper be removed. "Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it," said Sensenbrenner in an interview with The Hill. "The only way laws are effective is if they're enforced."
Actually, we have had trouble understanding why, almost four years after he deliberately misled the Senate, Clapper remains Director of National Intelligence - overseeing the entire intelligence community.
Hacks or Leaks?
Not mentioned until now is our conclusion that leaks are the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures in question - not hacking. Leaks normally leave no electronic trace. William Binney has been emphasizing this for several months and suggesting strongly that the disclosures were from a leaker with physical access to the information - not a hacker with only remote access.
This, of course, makes it even harder to pin the blame on President Putin, or anyone else. And we suspect that this explains why NSA demurred when asked to join the CIA and FBI in expressing "high confidence" in this key judgment of the report put out under Clapper's auspices on Jan. 6, yielding this curious formulation:
"We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence." (Emphasis, and lack of emphasis, in original)
In addition, former U.K. Ambassador Craig Murray has said publicly he has first-hand information on the provenance of the leaks, and has expressed surprise that no one from the New York Times or the Washington Post has tried to get in touch with him. We would be interested in knowing whether anyone from your administration, including the intelligence community, has made any effort to contact Ambassador Murray.
What to Do
President-elect Trump said a few days ago that his team will have a "full report on hacking within 90 days." Whatever the findings of the Trump team turn out to be, they will no doubt be greeted with due skepticism, since Mr. Trump is in no way a disinterested party.
You, on the other hand, enjoy far more credibility - AND power - for the next few days. And we assume you would not wish to hobble your successor with charges that cannot withstand close scrutiny. We suggest you order the chiefs of the NSA, FBI and CIA to the White House and ask them to lay all their cards on the table. They need to show you why you should continue to place credence in what, a month ago, you described as "uniform intelligence assessments" about Russian hacking.
At that point, if the intelligence heads have credible evidence, you have the option of ordering it released - even at the risk of damage to sources and methods. For what it may be worth, we will not be shocked if it turns out that they can do no better than the evidence-deprived assessments they have served up in recent weeks. In that case, we would urge you, in all fairness, to let the American people in on the dearth of convincing evidence before you leave office.
As you will have gathered by now, we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the "intelligence" evidence in 2002-2003 - expressed then with comparable flat-fact "certitude" - of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Obama's Legacy
Mr. President, there is much talk in your final days in office about your legacy. Will part of that legacy be that you stood by while flames of illegitimacy rose willy-nilly around your successor? Or will you use your power to reveal the information - or the fact that there are merely unsupported allegations - that would enable us to deal with them responsibly?
In the immediate wake of the holiday on which we mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it seems appropriate to make reference to his legacy, calling to mind the graphic words in his "Letter From the Birmingham City Jail," with which he reminds us of our common duty to expose lies and injustice:
"Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official, ret.
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
Brady Kiesling, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, ret. (Associate VIPS),
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat
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Obama Warned to Defuse Tensions with Russia, Avert Wider War in Syria
Veterans of the intelligence community call on president to defuse growing tensions with Russia over Syria by reining in the demonization of President Putin and asserting White House civilian control over the Pentagon
Oct 03, 2016
ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: PREVENTING STILL WORSE IN SYRIA
We write to alert you, as we did President George W. Bush, six weeks before the attack on Iraq, that the consequences of limiting your circle of advisers to a small, relatively inexperienced coterie with a dubious record for wisdom can prove disastrous.* Our concern this time regards Syria.
We are hoping that your President's Daily Brief tomorrow will give appropriate attention to Saturday's warning by Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova: "If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region."
Speaking on Russian TV, she warned of those whose "logic is 'why do we need diplomacy' ... when there is power ... and methods of resolving a problem by power. We already know this logic; there is nothing new about it. It usually ends with one thing - full-scale war."
We are also hoping that this is not the first you have heard of this - no doubt officially approved - statement. If on Sundays you rely on the "mainstream" press, you may well have missed it. In the Washington Post, an abridged report of Zakharova's remarks (nothing about "full-scare war") was buried in the last paragraph of an 11-paragraph article titled "Hospital in Aleppo is hit again by bombs." Sunday's New York Times totally ignored the Foreign Ministry spokesperson's statements.
In our view, it would be a huge mistake to allow your national security advisers to follow the example of the Post and Times in minimizing the importance of Zakharova's remarks.
Events over the past several weeks have led Russian officials to distrust Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who parses his words carefully, has publicly expressed that distrust. Some Russian officials suspect that Kerry has been playing a double game; others believe that, however much he may strive for progress through diplomacy, he cannot deliver on his commitments because the Pentagon undercuts him every time. We believe that this lack of trust is a challenge that must be overcome and that, at this point, only you can accomplish this.
It should not be attributed to paranoia on the Russians' part that they suspect the Sept. 17 U.S. and Australian air attacks on Syrian army troops that killed 62 and wounded 100 was no "mistake," but rather a deliberate attempt to scuttle the partial cease-fire Kerry and Lavrov had agreed on - with your approval and that of President Putin - that took effect just five days earlier.
In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov deal. We can assume that what Lavrov has told his boss in private is close to his uncharacteristically blunt words on Russian NTV on Sept. 26:
"My good friend John Kerry ... is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin), apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief."
Lavrov's words are not mere rhetoric. He also criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, "after the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. ... It is difficult to work with such partners. ..."
Policy differences between the White House and the Pentagon are rarely as openly expressed as they are now over policy on Syria. We suggest you get hold of a new book to be released this week titled The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War by master historian H. W. Brands. It includes testimony, earlier redacted, that sheds light on why President Truman dismissed WWII hero Gen. Douglas MacArthur from command of U.N. forces in Korea in April 1951. One early reviewer notes that "Brands's narrative makes us wonder about challenges of military versus civilian leadership we still face today." You may find this new book more relevant at this point in time than the Team of Rivals.
The door to further negotiations remains ajar. In recent days, officials of the Russian foreign and defense ministries, as well as President Putin's spokesman, have carefully avoided shutting that door, and we find it a good sign that Secretary Kerry has been on the phone with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And the Russians have also emphasized Moscow's continued willingness to honor previous agreements on Syria.
In the Kremlin's view, Russia has far more skin in the game than the U.S. does. Thousands of Russian dissident terrorists have found their way to Syria, where they obtain weapons, funding, and practical experience in waging violent insurgency. There is understandable worry on Moscow's part over the threat they will pose when they come back home. In addition, President Putin can be assumed to be under the same kind of pressure you face from the military to order it to try to clean out the mess in Syria "once and for all," regardless how dim the prospects for a military solution are for either side in Syria.
We are aware that many in Congress and the "mainstream" media are now calling on you to up the ante and respond - overtly or covertly or both - with more violence in Syria. Shades of the "Washington Playbook," about which you spoke derisively in interviews with the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg earlier this year. We take some encouragement in your acknowledgment to Goldberg that the "playbook" can be "a trap that can lead to bad decisions" - not to mention doing "stupid stuff."
Goldberg wrote that you felt the Pentagon had "jammed" you on the troop surge for Afghanistan seven years ago and that the same thing almost happened three years ago on Syria, before President Putin persuaded Syria to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction. It seems that the kind of approach that worked then should be tried now, as well - particularly if you are starting to feel jammed once again.
Incidentally, it would be helpful toward that end if you had one of your staffers tell the "mainstream" media to tone down it puerile, nasty - and for the most part unjustified and certainly unhelpful - personal vilification of President Putin.
Renewing direct dialogue with President Putin might well offer the best chance to ensure an end, finally, to unwanted "jamming." We believe John Kerry is correct in emphasizing how frightfully complicated the disarray in Syria is amid the various vying interests and factions. At the same time, he has already done much of the necessary spadework and has found Lavrov for the most part, a helpful partner.
Still, in view of lingering Russian - and not only Russian - skepticism regarding the strength of your support for your secretary of state, we believe that discussions at the highest level would be the best way to prevent hotheads on either side from risking the kind of armed confrontation that nobody should want.
Therefore, we strongly recommend that you invite President Putin to meet with you in a mutually convenient place, in order to try to sort things out and prevent still worse for the people of Syria.
In the wake of the carnage of World War II, Winston Churchill made an observation that is equally applicable to our 21st Century: "To jaw, jaw, jaw, is better than to war, war, war."
* In a Memorandum to President Bush criticizing Colin Powell's address to the UN earlier on February 5, 2003, VIPS ended with these words: "After watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion ... beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Fred Costello, Former Russian Linguist, USAF
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C. Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Todd Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA, (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat
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US Media Ignores CIA Cover-up on Torture
A group of U.S. intelligence veterans chastises the mainstream U.S. media for virtually ignoring a British newspaper’s account of the gripping inside story on how the CIA tried to block the U.S. Senate’s torture investigation.
Sep 16, 2016
MEMORANDUM FOR: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: U.S. Media Mum On How Your Committee Faced Down Both CIA and Obama
We write to thank you for your unwavering support for your extraordinarily courageous and tenacious staff in (1) investigating CIA torture under the Bush/Cheney administration and (2) resisting CIA/White House attempts under the Obama administration to cover up heinous torture crimes like waterboarding.
We confess to having been shocked at the torture detailed in the version of the executive summary your Committee released on December 9, 2014. We found ourselves wondering what additional behavior could have been deemed so repugnant that the White House and CIA insisted it be redacted; and if the entire 6,700-page investigation - with whatever redaction might be truly necessary - would ever see the light of day. We think you could take steps now to make it less likely that the full report be deep-sixed, and we will make some suggestions below toward that end.
With well over 400 years of intelligence experience under our collective belt, we wondered how you managed to get the investigation finished and the executive summary up and out (though redacted). We now know the backstory - thanks to the unstinting courage of the committee's principal investigator Daniel Jones, who has been interviewed by Spencer Ackerman, an investigative reporter for The (UK) Guardian newspaper. The titanic struggle depicted by Ackerman reads like a crime novel; sadly, the four-part series is nonfiction:
I. "Senate investigator breaks silence about CIA's 'failed coverup' of torture report"
II. "Inside the fight to reveal the CIA's torture secrets"
III. " 'A constitutional crisis': the CIA turns on the Senate"
IV. "No looking back: the CIA torture report's aftermath"
Ackerman's reporting on Jones's tenacity in facing down the gorilla CIA makes abundantly clear how richly deserved was the encomium you gave Jones when he left the committee staff in December 2015.
You noted, "Without his indefatigable work on the Intelligence Committee staff, the Senate report on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program would not have been completed, nor would its 525-page executive summary have been released to the public."
It seems equal praise might well be due to any Snowden-like patriot/whistleblower who "inadvertently" included the "Panetta Review" in the reams of material given your committee by the CIA.
Remarkably, a full week after The Guardian carried Ackerman's revelations, none has been picked up by U.S. "mainstream" newspapers. Not the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post - not even The Hill.
(As for alternative media, Charles P. Pierce's timely piece for Esquire whetted his readers' appetite for the gripping detail of the Guardian series, explaining that it would be "unfair both to Ackerman's diligence and Jones's courage" to try to summarize even just the first installment. "Read the whole damn thing," Pierce advises.)
And so, the culprits who should be hanging their heads in shame are out and about, with some still collecting book royalties and some blithely working for this or that candidate for president. As if nothing happened. Sadly, given the soporific state of our mainstream media - particularly on sensitive issues like these - their silence is nothing new, although it does seem to have gotten even worse in recent years.
"The public is entitled to the entire story about the CIA torture program and its lies to Congress, the White House, and to us."
The late William Colby, CIA director from 1973 to 1976, has been quoted as saying: "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." Whether or not Colby was quoted correctly, the experience of the past several decades suggests it is largely true. Better sourced is a quote from William Casey, CIA director from 1981 to 1987: "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
In these circumstances, we know from sad experience that there is no way any of us can get on any of the Sunday talk shows, for example - despite our enviable record for getting it right. Nor does it seem likely that any of the "mainstream" media will invite you to discuss the highly instructive revelations in The Guardian. We respectfully suggest that you take the initiative to obtain media exposure for this very important story.
One additional request: As you and your investigators know better than anyone, it is essential to safeguard the integrity not only of the unredacted executive summary but also of the entire 6,700-page committee report on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
And, again, you are aware that as soon as Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, took the gavel from you, he took steps seemingly aimed at ensuring that the full report never sees the light of day. Could you ask him why, as soon as he became chair, he asked the executive branch to transfer their copies to the Senate Intelligence Committee?
Many interpreted that as an ill-disguised attempt to thwart holding accountable those responsible for the abuses. Moreover, if the report cannot be reviewed by those who might be asked to participate in activities like torture in the future, how is it even possible for anyone to learn from the prior unfortunate experience?
The public is entitled to the entire story about the CIA torture program and its lies to Congress, the White House, and to us. Any attempt to bury the fullest investigation of the torture program - an investigation that provides an example of Congressional oversight at its best - would undermine the democratic accountability that is supposed to be provided by the separation of powers.
"We believe you will agree that more needs to be done to replant the moral moorings of honesty that must anchor the intelligence profession to which we have given so many years."
Furthermore, as you were quoted in the Guardian series, the agency searches "may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function . . ."
Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, was exactly on point: "You either have oversight and separation of powers with the checks and balances that come with that, or you don't. It's amazing that, once again, no one at the CIA was held accountable." Consequently, the issue now is not only the cover-up of torture by the CIA but - at least equally important - the "unbridled agency that spied on Americans (including Senate Intelligence Committee staffers) as eagerly as they spied on foreign adversaries," as the Guardian described it in referring to the Church Committee investigation in the 1970s.
Does American democracy deserve any less than an intense investigation of the CIA's obstruction of the democratic process in the 2000s?
The Guardian revelations make it still more difficult for the kind of excuses made by those who can hardly pretend to be disinterested observers - former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, for example - who wrote Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee's Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program, published on September 9, 2015. We published our own (VIPS) critique of "Rebuttal" five days later. And before the final vote on John Brennan's nomination to become CIA director, we tried to warn you not to trust him.
We believe you will agree that more needs to be done to replant the moral moorings of honesty that must anchor the intelligence profession to which we have given so many years. And we think that one step in that direction would be for you to seize this new opportunity to give prominence to the edifying story of how your committee and its staffers stepped up so effectively to their responsibilities in investigating and exposing the very sad and delicate chapter of CIA torture.
The play-by-play provided by the Guardian series, with its appropriate focus on the top investigator Daniel Jones, has created an opportunity we hope will not be squandered; a chance to tell a truly uplifting story sure to encourage others to behave in similarly exemplary manner.
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, member of 2005 American Psychological Association task force evaluating the role of psychologists in U.S. intelligence and military interrogations of detainees (associate VIPS)
Eugene DeFriest Betit, Ph. D., DIA, US Army (ret.)
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Valerie Plame Wilson, former CIA Operations Officer
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)
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Merkel Urged to Temper NATO's Belligerence
U.S. intelligence veterans are calling on German Chancellor Merkel to bring a needed dose of realism and restraint to the upcoming NATO conference, which risks escalating the dangerous new Cold War with Russia.
Jul 06, 2016
MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS
SUBJECT: NATO Summit in Warsaw
REFERENCE: Our Memorandum to You, August 30, 2014
We longtime U.S. intelligence officers again wish to convey our concerns and cautions directly to you prior to a critically important NATO summit - the meeting that begins on July 8 in Warsaw. We were gratified to learn that our referenced memorandum reached you and your advisers before the NATO summit in Wales, and that others too learned of our initiative via the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which published a full report on our memorandum on Sept. 4, the day that summit began.
Wales to Warsaw
The Warsaw summit is likely to be at least as important as the last one in Wales and is likely to have even more far-reaching consequences. We find troubling - if not surprising - NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statement at a pre-summit press event on July 4 that NATO members will agree to "further enhance NATOs military presence in the eastern part of the alliance," adding that the alliance will see its "biggest reinforcement since the Cold War."
The likelihood of a military clash in the air or at sea - accidental or intentional - has grown sharply, the more so since, as we explain below, President Obama's control over top U.S./NATO generals, some of whom like to play cowboy, is tenuous. Accordingly we encourage you, as we did before the last NATO summit, to urge your NATO colleagues to bring a "degree of judicious skepticism" to the table at Warsaw - especially with regard to the perceived threat from Russia.
Many of us have spent decades studying Moscow's foreign policy. We shake our heads in disbelief when we see Western leaders seemingly oblivious to what it means to the Russians to witness exercises on a scale not seen since Hitler's armies launched "Unternehmen Barbarossa" 75 years ago, leaving 25 million Soviet citizens dead. In our view, it is irresponsibly foolish to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not take countermeasures - at a time and place of his own choosing.
Putin does not have the option of trying to reassure his generals that what they hear and see from NATO is mere rhetoric and posturing. He is already facing increased pressure to react in an unmistakably forceful way. In sum, Russia is bound to react strongly to what it regards as the unwarranted provocation of large military exercises along its western borders, including in Ukraine.
Before things get still worse, seasoned NATO leaders need to demonstrate a clear preference for statesmanship and give-and-take diplomacy over saber-rattling. Otherwise, some kind of military clash with Russia is likely, with the ever-present danger of escalation to a nuclear exchange.
Extremely worrisome is the fact that many second-generation NATO leaders seem blithely unaware - or even dismissive - of that looming possibility. Demagoguery like that coming from former Polish President Lech Walesa, who brags that he would "shoot" at Russian jets that buzz U.S. destroyers assuredly are not at all helpful. Walesa's tone, however, does reflect the macho attitude prevailing today in Poland and some other NATO newcomers.
We believe Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was correct to point out that military posturing on Russia's borders will bring less regional security. We applaud his admonition that, "We are well advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation."
A Need For Candor
Speaking of "pretexts to renew an old confrontation," we believe the time has come to acknowledge that the marked increase in East-West tensions over the past two years originally stemmed from the Western-sponsored coup d'etat in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and Russia's reaction in annexing Crimea.
Although we have a cumulative total of hundreds of years of experience in intelligence, we had never before seen planning for a coup d'etat exposed weeks in advance - and then carried out anyway. Few seem to remember that in early February 2014, YouTube published a recording of an intercepted conversation between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, during which "Yats" (for Arseniy Yatsenyuk) was identified as Washington's choice to become the new prime minister of the coup government in Kiev.
This unique set of circumstances prompted widely respected analyst George Friedman, president of the think tank STRATFOR, to label the Putsch in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, "really the most blatant coup in history."
If one listens only to Western politicians and the corporate media, however, their version of recent history in Eastern Europe begins on Feb. 23, 2014. A particularly blatant example of this came on June 30, when U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute spoke at a pre-summit press briefing:
"beginning in 2014 and still to this day, we're moving into a new period in NATO's long history. Why do I say that? Here's the evidence I cite. So the first thing that happened in 2014 that marks this change is a newly aggressive, newly assertive Russia under Vladimir Putin. So in late February, early March of 2014, the seizing, the occupying of Crimea followed quickly by the illegal political annexation of Crimea. ... Well, any notion of strategic partnership came to an abrupt halt in the first months of 2014." (Emphasis added)
In view of the coup d'etat and post-coup instability in Ukraine, what Ambassador Lute goes on to say about NATO's professed desire for stability in Ukraine comes across as disingenuous. Far more important, it puts Russia on notice that - in the U.S. view, at least - meddling on the "periphery" between NATO and Russia will continue.
According to Lute, one of the "key themes" at Warsaw will be: "What do we do about the periphery." Lute explains: "Here we talk about projecting stability. So we don't have an obligation to defend states beyond NATO's territory, but we realize it's in our interest to make them as stable as possible."
We suggest that it is past time for Western leaders to admit that there is not one scintilla of evidence of any Russian plan to annex Crimea before the coup in Kiev and the coup leaders began talking about Ukraine joining NATO. If senior NATO leaders continue to be unable or unwilling to distinguish between cause and effect, increasing tension is inevitable with potentially disastrous results - all of them unnecessary and avoidable, in our view.
Ukraine: Still Festering
In our August 2014 memorandum, we suggested that you be "appropriately suspicious of charges made by the U.S. State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine." Actually, the gravity of the situation was considerably worse than we realized at the time.
We now know that U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, who was Supreme NATO Commander until two months ago, was pressing hard for confrontation with Russia and the anti-coup separatists in eastern Ukraine. This comes through clearly in Breedlove's recently disclosed emails, which now confirm what we believed in 2014; namely, that everyone needed to examine closely Breedlove's exaggerated claims, many of them based on fuzzy photos and other highly dubious "intelligence."
Lobbying for approval to wage a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, Breedlove was highly critical of President Barack Obama's policy, which Breedlove disparaged as simply: "Do not get me into a war." (As though this were some kind of cowardly order!)
The emails show that behind Obama's back, Breedlove kept trying to "leverage, cajole, convince or coerce the U.S. to react" to Russia. One of Breedlove's email correspondents wrote back to him: "Given Obama's instruction to you not to start a war, this may be a tough sell," but this did not stop Breedlove from trying.
In 2015, as your own intelligence analysts were able to tell you, Breedlove went beyond hyperbole to outright fabrication with claims that "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of the most sophisticated air defense weapons, and battalions of artillery" had been sent to eastern Ukraine.
These were the kinds of faux claims Breedlove used in attempts to enlist help from the senior military and Congress in getting Obama to supply weapons to Ukrainian armed forces.
Lest we seem to be singling out Gen. Breedlove, his predecessor as Supreme NATO Commander, Adm. James Stavridis, was hardly provided good example. A year after the U.S. led some NATO countries in a Blitz of aircraft and missile strikes against Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, Stavridis and former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder wrote in Foreign Affairs: "NATO's operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention."
The operation was just the opposite, of course. The chaos now reigning in Libya, with hundreds of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, offers abundant proof that your government's decision to keep Germany at arms-length from that "model intervention" was a wise one.
While it is somewhat awkward for us to offer such candid comments on the character and caliber of the most senior U.S. generals and admirals - including those, like Ambassador Lute, who end up getting appointed to senior political positions at NATO - such a critique is unavoidable. The important reality to which we draw your attention pertains not only to their qualifications, but also to their dismissive attitude toward President Obama.
We observed in our Aug. 30, 2014 memorandum that President Obama "has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration." That this includes senior military leaders can be seen in Obama's failure to remove Gen. Breedlove, who - in addition to his intense maneuvering behind Obama's back - made little effort to hide his open disdain for the cautious approach of his commander in chief toward the possibility of armed confrontation in volatile places like Ukraine.
An Appropriate "Nein!"
One factor encouraging us to write to you again is your proven record of insistence on tenacious diplomacy rather than saber rattling and provocation. We noted, for example, that at a press conference with President Obama in Washington on Feb. 9, 2015, you personally experienced Breedlove-type pressure for sending lethal weaponry to Ukraine - the kind of pressure still being applied to Obama himself. You stuck to your guns, so to speak, when the first designated questioner noted that the U.S. was considering providing lethal weapons to Ukraine and that your view was "very different."
"I have given you my opinion on the export of arms," was your unequivocal answer. Nor did you diverge from your insistent preference for diplomacy over arms, as you replied to a final, plaintive question: "Mrs. Merkel, ... diplomacy, as you said yourself, has not brought much progress. Can you understand the impatience of the Americans when they say we ought to now deliver weapons?"
We believe your resolute "nein" to providing weapons to Ukraine was a key factor in scuttling that ill-conceived idea last year. And, as you know far better than we, your clearly expressed stance helped bring about a ceasefire that, however imperfect, was infinitely better than the escalation of fighting that would have inevitably resulted from sending weapons to Kiev's government forces.
You stuck to your position, even though it put you in opposition to nearly all political, military, and media voices in the U.S., which were expressing disdain for diplomacy and preference instead for war.
It is inevitable that there will be more proposals to send weapons to the Kiev government, particularly in view of the continued hostilities in eastern Ukraine. We hope that unbiased scrutiny can be given to which parties are responsible for blocking full implementation of the Minsk accords that you, Foreign Minister Steinmeier, and your French and Russian counterparts have worked hard to offer as a plan for peace in Ukraine.
Secretary of State John Kerry is visiting Kiev on July 7, a day before the Warsaw summit opens. He might be asked to share his impressions on the stormy political events in Ukraine over the past few months.
In our view, things have gone from bad to worse there, with Andriy Parubiy now speaker of the Ukrainian parliament. Parubiy is one of the most conspicuous leaders of Ukrainian ultra-nationalist, and outright neo-Nazi, movements. In 1991 he founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine, together with Oleh Tyahnybok, another February 2014 coup plotter, who now leads the extreme right Svoboda party
The name of Parubiy's Social-National Party was chosen to identify it with Hitler's National Socialist Party. Its of?cial symbol is the somewhat modi?ed Wolf's Hook (Wolfsangel), used by the SS. Both parties blame Russia for the ills besetting Ukraine.
Parubiy as Parliament Speaker makes a mockery of NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg's insistence that NATO has resolved to make sure that a law-abiding Kiev is "committed to democracy."
On Monday, Parubiy stated on TV, "I have not supported the Minsk agreements from the very start," adding that Moscow's "plans on Ukraine may be stopped only by force and international sanctions."
Also on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Ukraine has not made any new effort to facilitate implementation of the Minsk accords that call for a ceasefire, weapons withdrawal, local elections in eastern Ukraine, and constitutional reform.
Doing the Possible in Poland
Instead of muscle flexing and saber rattling, it would likely be more constructive if NATO leaders held a serious discussion regarding Kiev's recalcitrance on the Minsk accords. An open discussion would mean avoiding the usual knee-jerk, wholesale identification with Ukraine's long list of real and imagined grievances against Russia.
U.S. Ambassador Lute might be asked if knows anyone with the kind of influence with Kiev that it would take to break the logjam and move events toward implementation of the peace agreements so painstakingly worked out at Minsk.
Another worthwhile endeavor would be to establish a NATO working group to respond to Russia's suggestion to devise organizational and technical measures to prevent close encounters or clashes of aircraft over the Baltic Sea.
Lastly, it would be highly constructive if NATO would take responsibility for assessing the fundamental factors behind the hideous outbreak of the terrorist acts that took so many lives over recent days in Istanbul, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Baghdad. In this context, as well as in central Europe, violence begets violence. It should not be beyond the capability of NATO to undertake a fresh, hard look at why terrorism continues to increase, and to attempt to come up with new, more imaginative, less violent ways to address the issues that ultimately fuel the curse of terrorism.
NOTE: As is our custom, we are sending the White House a copy of this memorandum. We would like you to know, however, that we rarely receive any acknowledgement that our memoranda get through to President Obama - or that the he pays them any heed if they do reach his desk. We suspect that the wide generation gap between his relatively young advisers and the longtime collective experience that we in VIPS bring to the table may, in part, account for this. Therefore, if you find our thoughts informative - perhaps even provocative - we suggest that, when you see the President on Friday in Warsaw, you urge the President to obtain and read his copy.
For the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
William Binney, former Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps. former United States Senator from Alaska
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry C Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer, Political Counselor, Embassy Athens, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Torin Nelson, Former HUMINT Officer, U.S. Department of the Army
Todd Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former Maj., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat
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How Hillary Clinton Ignores Peace
Despite neocon-instigated chaos and bloodshed across the Mideast (and now into Europe), Hillary Clinton continues to advocate more “regime change” wars with almost no fear from a marginalized anti-war movement
Jul 02, 2016
In Campaign 2016, the American people have shown little stomach for more foreign wars. The Republican candidates who advocated neoconservative warmongering crashed and burned, losing to Donald Trump who sold himself to GOP voters as the anti-neocon, daring even to trash George W. Bush's Iraq War to an aghast field of Republican rivals.
Sen. Bernie Sanders went even further, daring to mildly criticize Israel's repression of Palestinians, yet still ran a surprisingly strong race against the hawkish former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And, if Libertarian and Green anti-imperial candidates are counted in general election polls along with Trump, the trio makes up a majority of voters (54 percent in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll).
Only Hillary Clinton is carrying the neocon banner proudly in the general election, advocating a U.S. "regime change" invasion of Syria - dressed up as "no-fly zones" and "safe zones" - while she also cheers on more hostilities toward nuclear-armed Russia.
Only Hillary Clinton (who comes in at 39 percent) is carrying the neocon banner proudly in the general election, advocating a U.S. "regime change" invasion of Syria - dressed up as "no-fly zones" and "safe zones" - while she also cheers on more hostilities toward nuclear-armed Russia.
In Russia, the neocons dream about their ultimate "regime change," dragging Vladimir Putin from the Kremlin and seeing him butchered much as happened to Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, their grisly deaths representing two of the "highlights" of neocon domination of U.S. foreign policy in recent decades.
But very few of Clinton's backers seem to support her because they want more neocon-style imperialism abroad. They usually express their desire to see a woman president ("it's her turn") or praise her pragmatic approach to domestic issues ("she can get things done").
While some followers like the fact that she has traveled the world and has dealt with many leaders as First Lady, U.S. Senator and Secretary of State, that doesn't mean these Democrats like that she voted for the Iraq War, pushed President Obama into the Libyan disaster, and wants to escalate the costly and dangerous new Cold War with Russia.
Indeed, if there were an effective peace movement in the United States - along the lines of the 1960s civil rights movement - many Clinton supporters might join the peace leaders in demanding face-to-face meetings with her and threaten to withhold their backing if she doesn't repudiate her neoconservative war policies.
That no such peace movement exists reflects the failure of anti-war advocates to penetrate the world of practical politics the way that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did in working with President Lyndon Johnson to end racial segregation. But that's not really the fault of peace advocates since they have been shut out of the mainstream media to a far greater degree than the civil rights movement was in the 1960s.
Like the South's Segregationist Media
To extend the comparison, it's as if today's New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC were behaving like the dominant white Southern newspapers of the 1960s, turning their collective backs toward those who favored racial integration.
Just like the white Southern press tried to pretend the civil rights movement wasn't happening, today's U.S. mainstream media ignores voices opposed to America's imperial wars, no matter how credentialed those citizens are. Consider, for instance, how the major media won't publish anything from the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group that reflects the views of such international figures as Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
Today's mainstream "debates" are limited to slight deviations between Official Washington's dominant neocons and their understudies, the "liberal interventionists," who only differ regarding which excuses to use in justifying an invasion of Syria.
Ironically, as much as U.S. officialdom and its mainstream media castigate RT and other Russian news outlets as "propaganda" fronts, RT and the like are playing the role that the Northern press did during the civil rights era by carrying important stories about U.S. peace protests while the NYT, WPost, CNN and MSNBC behave like the South's segregationist media did in the 1960s, dismissing or ignoring the dissent. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com's "When Silencing Dissent Isn't News."]
If it weren't for today's biased and imbalanced U.S. media, there would be daily, front-page, primetime, network news attention to the dangers of perpetual war and a critical examination of Hillary Clinton's role in wasting trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
There would surely be a serious and thorough debate about the wisdom of Clinton's continued hunger for an expanded war in Syria. Yet, today's mainstream "debates" are limited to slight deviations between Official Washington's dominant neocons and their understudies, the "liberal interventionists," who only differ regarding which excuses to use in justifying an invasion of Syria.
Both the neocons and the liberal hawks favor airstrikes to kill young Syrian soldiers who have been at the forefront of a nasty war to stop Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and the Islamic State from seizing and holding Syrian territory. Yet, both the neocons and the liberal hawks favor a bigger U.S. military intervention against the Syrian army but dress up the rationale for the invasion differently, either as neocon "democracy promotion" or liberal-hawk "humanitarian war."
A Revealing Email
Publicly, Hillary Clinton has toyed with both the democracy and humanitarian arguments but one of her official emails - released by the State Department - explains that the underlying reason for the Syrian "regime change" war was the Israeli government's desire to remove Syria as the link in the supply chain between Iran and Israel's foe, Lebanon's Hezbollah.
Though undated and unsigned, the Clinton email reflected the then-Secretary of State's thinking as of late April 2012 (when it appears to have been sent), about one year into the Syrian civil war. The email explains the need for "regime change" in Damascus as important to Israel, which wanted to blunt Iranian regional influence and protect Israel's "nuclear monopoly," which is acknowledged quite frankly although Israel's status as a rogue nuclear state is still considered a state secret by the U.S. government.
"The best way to help Israel deal with Iran's growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad," Clinton's email states, brushing aside President Obama's (eventually successful) negotiations to restrict Iran's nuclear program.
"Negotiations to limit Iran's nuclear program will not solve Israel's security dilemma," the Clinton email says. "Nor will they stop Iran from improving the crucial part of any nuclear weapons program -- the capability to enrich uranium. At best, the talks between the world's major powers and Iran that began in Istanbul this April and will continue in Baghdad in May will enable Israel to postpone by a few months a decision whether to launch an attack on Iran that could provoke a major Mideast war."
All the "humanitarian" talk about "safe zones" and other excuses for Syrian "regime change" was only the camouflage for Clinton's desire to protect Israel's "nuclear monopoly" and the freedom to mount what Israel has called "trimming the grass" operations, periodically mowing down Arabs in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere.
The email explains: "Iran's nuclear program and Syria's civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about -- but cannot talk about -- is losing their nuclear monopoly. ...
"The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today. If Iran were to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapons state, Tehran would find it much easier to call on its allies in Syria and Hezbollah to strike Israel, knowing that its nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to Israel responding against Iran itself."
Israel's Strategic Goal
In other words, all the "humanitarian" talk about "safe zones" and other excuses for Syrian "regime change" was only the camouflage for Clinton's desire to protect Israel's "nuclear monopoly" and the freedom to mount what Israel has called "trimming the grass" operations, periodically mowing down Arabs in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere.
Removing the Assad regime in Damascus - with its heavy Alawite (a branch of Shia Islam) influence - was therefore an Israeli strategic goal to weaken the power of Shia-ruled Iran and to cut the supply lines to Lebanon's Hezbollah, another Shia movement.
That is why Washington's Sunni-led regional allies - Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - have aided Sunni jihadists, including from Al Qaeda and the Islamic State which regard Shiites as "apostates" to be slaughtered. The Sunni jihadists are considered the most effective and fanatical enemies of Shia Islam, thus serving a purpose in seeking to destroy Iranian regional influence, in part, by ousting Syria's Alawite-led government.
"Back to Syria," the email continues. "It is the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel's security -- not through a direct attack, which in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel has never occurred, but through its proxies in Lebanon, like Hezbollah, that are sustained, armed and trained by Iran via Syria.
"The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel's leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests. Speaking on CNN's Amanpour show last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak argued that 'the toppling down of Assad will be a major blow to the radical axis, major blow to Iran. ... It's the only kind of outpost of the Iranian influence in the Arab world ... and it will weaken dramatically both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.'
"Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel's security, it would also ease Israel's understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly. Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted.
"Right now, it is the combination of Iran's strategic alliance with Syria and the steady progress in Iran's nuclear enrichment program that has led Israeli leaders to contemplate a surprise attack -- if necessary over the objections of Washington.
"With Assad gone, and Iran no longer able to threaten Israel through its, proxies, it is possible that the United States and Israel can agree on red lines for when Iran's program has crossed an unacceptable threshold. In short, the White House can ease the tension that has developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria."
Grisly Warnings
So, based on the logic expressed in the email, Clinton's goal of "regime change" in Syria was driven in large part by Israel's perception of its strategic interests, and she was ready to do to Assad and possibly his family what was done to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein - and to members of their families - to kill or imprison them.
Clinton's goal of "regime change" in Syria was driven in large part by Israel's perception of its strategic interests, and she was ready to do to Assad and possibly his family what was done to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and Iraq's Saddam Hussein - and to members of their families - to kill or imprison them.
Recall that on Oct. 20, 2011, when Gaddafi was captured, sodomized with a knife and then murdered, Secretary Clinton gleefully declared, "We came, we saw, he died," and clapped her hands. The email about Syria was written six months later.
In regards to Assad submitting to U.S. and Israeli "regime change" desires, Clinton's spring 2012 email said, "With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad's mind."
At the time, Clinton was still basking in the presumed glory of the Libyan "regime change."
" Libya was an easier case," the email explained. "But other than the laudable purpose of saving Libyan civilians from likely attacks by Qaddafi's regime, the Libyan operation had no long-lasting consequences for the region. Syria is harder." Note that Clinton's propagandistic wartime claims about Gaddafi's "genocide" had faded, in the email, to "likely attacks" (although during Campaign 2016, she has again elevated Gaddafi to "genocidal.")
The email continues: "But success in Syria would be a transformative event for the Middle East. Not only would another ruthless dictator succumb to mass opposition on the streets, but the region would be changed for the better as Iran would no longer have a foothold in the Middle East from which to threaten Israel and undermine stability in the region."
Clinton's email also recognized that the U.S. role in Syria would have to be even more significant than it was in Libya: "Unlike in Libya, a successful intervention in Syria would require substantial diplomatic and military leadership from the United States. Washington should start by expressing its willingness to work with regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces. ...
"Then, using territory in Turkey and possibly Jordan, U.S. diplomats and Pentagon officials can start strengthening the opposition. It will take time. But the rebellion is going to go on for a long time, with or without U.S. involvement."
Helping the Terrorists
By 2012, those Turkish-Saudi-Qatari-backed rebels already included Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and "Al Qaeda in Iraq," which would soon spin off into the Islamic State.
The email continues: "The second step is to develop international support for a coalition air operation. Russia will never support such a mission, so there is no point operating through the UN Security Council. Some argue that U.S. involvement risks a wider war with Russia. But the Kosovo example shows otherwise.
"In that case, Russia had genuine ethnic and political ties to the Serbs, which don't exist between Russia and Syria, and even then Russia did little more than complain. Russian officials have already acknowledged they won't stand in the way if intervention comes.
"Arming the Syrian rebels and using western air power to ground Syrian helicopters and airplanes is a low-cost high payoff approach. As long as Washington's political leaders stay firm that no U.S. ground troops will be deployed, as they did in both Kosovo and Libya, the costs to the United States will be limited.
"Victory may not come quickly or easily, but it will come. And the payoff will be substantial. Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East. ...
"For Israel, the rationale for a bolt from the blue attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be eased. And a new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on the frozen peace talks with Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles. ...
"With the veil of fear lifted from the Syrian people, they seem determine to fight for their freedom. America can and should help them -- and by doing so help Israel and help reduce the risk of a wider war."
Although some mainstream commentary on Clinton's email has insisted that her war plans for Syria were not implemented, they actually were, to a significant degree. Although President Obama was a reluctant warrior regarding Syria, he did adopt Clinton's plan for training and arming rebel forces in Turkey and Jordan to fight in Syria.
Although the supposed "moderate" rebels never materialized as a significant fighting force, the assistance from the United States and its Mideast allies, including Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, fueled a bloody civil war driven by Sunni jihadists, led by the Islamic State, Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and Nusra's close ally, Ahrar al-Sham.
Armed with sophisticated weapons such as U.S.-manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles, the Islamist forces achieved dramatic gains in early 2015, including the Islamic State's capture and partial destruction of the ancient ruins of Palmyra. Only Russia's decision to support the Syrian military with air power turned the tide of the war in fall 2015, including the liberation of Palmyra this spring.
Beheading the Apostates
If Clinton's larger scheme of orchestrating Syrian "regime change" were to succeed, the likely outcome would be horrific, with the powerful Islamist groups as the almost certain winners, benefiting from Clinton's proposed aerial devastation of the Syrian military, which would be conducted under the "humanitarian" cover of creating "safe zones" and "no-fly zones."
If there were any doubts that Clinton is a committed neocon (or "liberal interventionist" since there is very little real difference between the two), she dashed them once she seized firm control of the Democratic presidential nominating race this spring.
With Al Qaeda's Nusra Front or the Islamic State marching into Damascus, the situation for Syria would be cataclysmic, even worse than now. Millions of Syrians - Alawites, Shiites, Christians, secularists and other "infidels" - would have to flee the beheading swords of the terror groups and would pour into Europe in greater numbers. That might well force a full-scale U.S. and European invasion of Syria with the bloody outcome probably similar to the disastrous Iraq War.
But Clinton and her neocon/liberal-hawk advisers never seem to anticipate events not turning out as they dream them up.
Since Clinton's April 2012 email, the situation in Libya deteriorated, too. On Sept. 11, 2012, Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. personnel. Later, the U.S. and other Western embassies in Tripoli were abandoned as Libya descended into a failed state with the Islamic State seizing territory and carrying out its characteristic brutality, such as the beheadings of Coptic Christians.
Despite these bloody setbacks, Clinton's views apparently have changed little. During the 2016 presidential campaign, she has announced her intention to follow Israel's strategic lead in the region, vowing to take the relationship to "the next level." She still views the chaos in Libya through rose-colored glasses and can't wait to broaden the U.S. invasion of Syria into "no-fly zones" and "safe zones," again ignoring the risks of a violent clash with Russian forces.
If there were any doubts that Clinton is a committed neocon (or "liberal interventionist" since there is very little real difference between the two), she dashed them once she seized firm control of the Democratic presidential nominating race this spring.
With her dominance in unelected "superdelegates" giving her an insurmountable lead over Sanders, Clinton expressed her obeisance to Israel in a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and in her last debate against Sanders. She was pivoting to what the mainstream media calls "the center," signaling to neocon Republicans that she should be their choice for president. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon."]
In a normal world, Clinton's reiteration of her plans for invading Syria should have sparked a firestorm of controversy and debate - since her ideas are completely illegal under international and U.S. law as well as operationally dangerous - but her statements passed largely unnoticed since Official Washington's foreign-policy establishment and mainstream media are so firmly in the neocon camp.
Despite 15 years of "perpetual war," no effective anti-war movement has emerged in the West and - to the degree that prominent citizens do object - their serious arguments of dissent are rarely allowed inside the major media. As the world staggers toward what could be a nuclear abyss, the silence is deafening.
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