Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Cheney 'Authorized' Libby to Leak Classified Information
By Murray Waas, National Journal
Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.
Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein's purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
As we say on the Internet, LOL. Atrios notes it's slightly hypocritical. Another CIA official has come out of the woodwork to accuse the Bush Administration of cherrypicking Iraq intelligence – and guess what, Robert Novak hated him too! Paul R. Pillar, thanks for being a patriot. We need guys like you. WaPo: "Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq":
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
"It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote.
......Pillar was identified in a column by Robert D. Novak as having prepared the assessment and having given a speech critical of Bush's Iraq policy at a private dinner in California. The column fed the White House's view that the CIA was in effect working against the Bush administration, and that Pillar was part of that. A columnist in the Washington Times in October 2004 called him "a longstanding intellectual opponent of the policy options chosen by President Bush to fight terrorism."
Add these two bits together, and boom, there you go, they smoked Valerie Plame in an attempt to protect all their fake intelligence and swat at the CIA. But why the hell do I bother repeating myself for the 124,639th time?
Fair and Balanced Editing of Applause: Fox "Memory Hole" News edited out anti-Bush applause at the Coretta Scott King funeral, then Morty Kondracke said that the audience obviously didn't like the partisanship. Now that's a reality distortion field. MSNBC was caught in a Harry Reid-Abramoff headline changing dodge. More on yesterday's Reid smear below.
<woozy> What's going on everyone? After my wisdom teeth were yanked, I have been popping Vicodin like candy for the last couple days, but everything seems to be going pretty well so far. No dry sockets yet. I had never been under general anesthesia before, so I was a little nervous because it can supposedly kill you. But it was plainly awesome to wake up with all my wisdom teeth yanked, loaded up with drogas.
Hilarious stuff from Mordred. Well done. </woozy>
ADVISE is the New Total Information Awareness: Yes, this "Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement" program will know your favorite soda and pornography. Of course they will be totally responsible when drunk on Ultimate Power. CSM: "US plans massive data sweep: Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far?" More here.
The CounterTerrorism Blog looks good. They are skeptical of Bush's latest West Coast marquee terrorist conspiracy. So a good place to start.
Israeli Shin Bet director says Israel 'may rue Saddam overthrow' to young Israeli settlers: You can't make this shit up:
The head of Israel's domestic security agency, Shin Bet, has said his country may come to regret the overthrow of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Yuval Diskin said a strong dictatorship would be preferable to the present "chaos" in Iraq, in a speech to teenage Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
He also said the Israeli security services and judiciary treated Arabs and Jewish suspects differently.
.....His speech to the students at the Eli settlement as they prepared for military service was secretly recorded and broadcast on Israeli TV.
When asked about the growing destabilisation of Iraq, Mr Diskin said Israel might come to rue its decision to support the US-led invasion in 2003. "When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said. "I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam."
This goes into my theory that Shin Bet directors are actually quite sane, and are in fact opposed to neo-con bullshit because they can understand that widespread chaos is not really in Israel's interests at all. 1995-2000 Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon was not the only one to speak against this garbage. Also, from the New Yorker, a cynical old Israeli intelligence operator who wasn't surprised that about HAMAS' victory and rising fundamentalism all over the place. Just wait until this gets to Syria and Jordan.
Cryptome.org spills secrets: Cryptome is a totally sweet site and I'd like to throw out a few goodies. One: the somewhat suppressed Official CIA History of the Bay of Pigs Operation. Plausible Deniability. The introduction on Cryptome's front page, and the official history is here. Two: all kinds of weird stuff like this list of MI6 officers that has attracted the attention of FBI Counterintelligence.
Three: famed national security writer James Bamford writes about his involvement with the NSA lawsuit. Talks about Nixon's illegal Operation Minaret, which sounds pretty similar to things these days. Four: Also consider the Pentagon's declassified "Information Operations Roadmap" they published:
We Must Fight the Net. DoD is building an information-centric force. Networks are increasingly the operational center of gravity, and the Department must be prepared to "fight the net." [1 line redacted.] but be fully prepare to ensure critical warfighting network functionality and to [1 line redacted].
.....In particular, PSYOP must be refocused on adversary decision-making, planning well in advance for aggressive behavior modification during times of conflict. PSYOP products must be based on in-depth knowledge of the audience's decision~making processes and the factors influencing his decisions, produced rapidly at the highest quality standards, and powerfully disseminated directly to targeted audiences throughout the area of operations.
....We Must Improve Network and Electro-Magnetic Attack Capability. To prevail in an information-centric fight, it is increasingly important that our forces dominate the electromagnetic spectrum with attack capabilities.
I'll drink to that. Actually, I think I'll drink a lot to that. Five: Cryptome.cn publishes information censored by the Chinese government, as well. This is really what the Internet is all about.
OSS.Net: Way too cryptic: "Commercial Open Source Intelligence, Risk Mitigation, and Security for the Seven Tribes. Global, New Craft, Tribal & Sub-State, in 29 Languages with Integrated IT and Underlying Geospatial." Whatever that means, I want to get a job there.
Tabs on John Bolton: Check BoltonWatch at the TPMCafe. All right. Clemons is on point here too.
The latest smear on Harry Reid doesn't really have anything behind it: Trying to tie him to the Abramoff mess, but there's no there there.
Another reason to slash PBS funding: Evidence of a "hoax" & "cabal": on NOW with David Brancaccio, they did an excellent job explaining the shady mysteries of Iraq pre-war intelligence and interviewing Lawrence Wilkerson. Brancaccio was gutsy and far more accurate than any cable news garbage. It was a great primer to Intel-gate for the un-initiated. It must make Bush's skin crawl to realize that government cash is being used to shatter their grand tale:
DAVID BRANCACCIO: We've been talking grand policy. The then director of the CIA, George Tenet, Vice President Cheney's deputy Libby, told you that the intelligence that was the basis of going to war was rock solid. Given what you now know, how does that make you feel?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: It makes me feel terrible. I've said in other places that it was-- constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life.
I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel? Thirty-one years in the United States Army and I more or less end my career with that kind of a blot on my record? That's not a very comforting thing.
DAVID BRANCACCIO: A hoax? That's quite a word.
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, let's face it, it was. It was not a hoax that the Secretary [Powell] in any way was complicit in. In fact he did his best-- I watched him work. Two AM in the morning on the DCI and the Deputy DCI, John McLaughlin.
And to try and hone the presentation down to what was, in the DCI's own words, a slam dunk. Firm. Iron clad. We threw many things out. We threw the script that Scooter Libby had given the-- Secretary of State. Forty-eight page script on WMD. We threw that out the first day.
And we turned to the National Intelligence estimate as part of the recommendation of George Tenent and my agreement with. But even that turned out to be, in its substantive parts-- that is stockpiles of chemicals, biologicals and production capability that was hot and so forth, and an active nuclear program. The three most essential parts of that presentation turned out to be absolutely false.......
DAVID BRANCACCIO: ....You've said that Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld somehow managed to hijack the intelligence decision making process. You called it a cabal. And said that it was done in a way that makes you think it was more akin to something you'd see in a dictatorship rather than a democracy. Now those are strong words. Why a cabal?
LAWRENCE WILKERSON: Well, the two decisions that I had the most profound insights into and which I have spoken to are the decision to depart from the Geneva Conventions and to depart from international law with regard to treatment of detainees by the Armed Forces in particular. But by the entire US establishment, now including the CIA and contractors in general.
And the post-invasion Iraq-- planning, which was as inept and incompetent as any planning I've witnessed in some 30-plus years in public service. Those two decisions were clearly-- made in the statutory process, the legal process, in one way and made underneath that process in another way. And that's what I've labeled secret and cabal-like.
Nice.
War is a Racket: I found Major General Smedley Butler's classic Anti-war, anti-imperialist screed, War is a Racket, on the Veterans for Peace website. (interestingly, Butler also testified about a secret fascist conspiracy to overthrow FDR). This was his classic statement, which was not part of War is a Racket:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.
Nothing Works: It is really funny that the White House set up this grand website, expectmore.gov, to provide an evaluation of all the federal government's programs. Among the list of programs that are apparently busted (via first-draft.com):
Dept of Defense-- Military Defense Communications Infrastructure
Dept of Homeland Security Border Patrol
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Aids to Navigation
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Drug Interdiction
Dept of Homeland Security Coast Guard: Search and Rescue
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Air Cargo Security Programs
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Aviation Regulation and Enforcement
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Baggage Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Federal Air Marshal Service
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Flight Crew Training
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Passenger Screening Technology
Dept of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration: Screener Workforce
Federal Election Commission Federal Election Laws - Compliance and Enforcement
Office of Natl Drug Control Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
Department of Energy National Nuclear Infrastructure
To make a long story short via AmericaBlog: Wash Times: 1) Bush is spying on American-American phone calls IN THE US; 2) Known Al Qaeda agents are running free inside US; 3) Spy program useless. Der WaPo says:
"Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls under authority from President Bush have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects after hearing nothing pertinent to a terrorist threat, according to accounts from current and former government officials and private-sector sources with knowledge of the technologies in use ... Fewer than 10 U.S. citizens or residents a year, according to an authoritative account, have aroused enough suspicion during warrantless eavesdropping to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well. That step still requires a warrant from a federal judge, for which the government must supply evidence of probable cause."
And by the way, FISA Court really streamlined after 9/11 so why no warrants? Gonzales: NSA may tap 'ordinary' Americans' e-mail.
BitTorrent evolves to avoid packet shaping: Internet service providers are apparently starting to try to filter down BitTorrent. So the BT developers are implementing encryption so they can't see Torrent traffic. leet.
Nazi mysteries: Some of the weird esoteric stuff within Nazism. Includes really disturbing stuff about Nazi research scientists and their "Holy Grail" style hunts for items of folklore and mystic significance... Somehow our cartoonish enemies these days just can't quite measure up to the Teutonic standard.
Funny t-shirts. Will they never end?
Posted by HongPong at February 10, 2006 12:45 AM