New Wikileak: CIA Admits US Exports Terror
Wikileaks has posted a single new document–a CIA Red Cell report contemplating what would (will?) happen if other countries begin to see the US as an exporter of terrorism. The document admits several cases where the US has exported terror–such as the widely known but downplayed fact that David Headley had a role in the Mumbai bombing.
In November 2008, Pakistani-American David Headley conducted surveillance in support of the Lashkar-i-Tayyiba (LT) attack in Mumbai, India that killed more than 160 people. LT induced him to change his name from Daood Gilani to David Headley to facilitate his movement between the US, Pakistan, and India.
More amusing is that CIA classifies as “secret” the fact that Irish-Americans provided the bulk of funding for the IRA.
Some Irish-Americans have long provided financial and material support for violent efforts to compel the United Kingdom to relinquish control of Northern Ireland. In the 1880s, Irish-American members of Clan na Gael dynamited Britain’s Scotland Yard, Parliament, and the Tower of London, and detonated bombs at several stations in the London underground.In the twentieth century, Irish-Americans provided most of the financial support sent to the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The US-based Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID), founded in the late 1960s, provided the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) with money that was frequently used for arms purchases. Only after repeated high-level British requests and then London’s support for our bombing of Libya in the 1980s did the US Government crack down on Irish-American support for the IRA. (S//NF)
Note, though, the CIA ignores state-sanctioned terrorism, such as with St. Ronnie’s tampering in Nicaragua.
After acknowledging that Americans may export terrorism overseas, the document envisions what would happen as other countries ask for reciprocity on the US’ sovereignty-infringing counterterrorism policies.
- Foreign regimes could request information on US citizens they deem to be terrorists or terrorist supporters, or even request the rendition of US citizens. US failure to cooperate could result in those governments refusing to allow the US to extract terrorist suspects from their soil, straining alliances and bilateral relations.
- In extreme cases, US refusal to cooperate with foreign government requests for extradition might lead some governments to consider secretly extracting US citizens suspected of foreign terrorism from US soil. Foreign intelligence operations on US soil to neutralize or even assassinate individuals in the US deemed to be a threat are not without precedent. Before the US entered World War II, British intelligence carried out information operations against prominent US citizens deemed to be isolationists or sympathetic to the Nazis. Some historians who have examined relevant archives even suspect that British intelligence officers assassinated Nazi agents on US soil. (S//NF)
[snip]
- If foreign regimes believe the US position on rendition is too one-sided, favoring the US, but not them, they could obstruct US efforts to detain terrorism suspects. For example, in 2005 Italy issued criminal arrest warrants for US agents involved in the abduction of an Egyptian cleric and his rendition to Egypt. The proliferation of such cases would not only challenge US bilateral relations with other countries but also damage global counterterrorism efforts.
- If foreign leaders see the US refusing to provide intelligence on American terrorism suspects or to allow witnesses to testify in their courts, they might respond by denying the same to the US. In 2005 9/11 suspect Abdelghani Mzoudi was acquitted by a German court because the US refused to allow Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a suspected ringleader of the 9/11 plot who was in US custody, to testify. More such instances could impede actions to lock up terrorists, whether in the US or abroad, or result in the release of suspects. (S//NF)
So, to sum up, in this common sense document that passes for the CIA thinking outside of the box, the CIA admits that the US is not all that different from other countries in exporting terrorism, and acknowledges that our hypocrisy on international law and reciprocity might lead to less cooperation on counterterrorism in the future.
Where do I sign up to produce this kind of milquetoast analysis?
You ask: “Where do I sign up to produce this kind of milquetoast analysis?”
I hav that infermashen rite heer.
But I kant tell you.
Itz seekret.
This is NOFORN??
There are more revealing and deeper plowing blog posts written every day, right here among other places. The Red Cell Report has all the weight and substance of a Chuck Todd political analysis.
Note, only SOME of this is NOFORN. Like the secret IRA stuff. And the news that Brits tried to kill Americans in WWII. The rest is, well, toilet reading.
True. But it means more on CIA stationary than it does coming from a DFH blogger.
Boxturtle (Imagine what would happen if the DOJ issued any of your gitmo posts on their stationary)
NOFORN (Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals/Governments/Non-US Citizens) implies the CIA has no problem with US citizens being told.
I doubt that is ever true.
It’s like reading Alan Simpson’s takes on SocSec -the cognitive dissonance required to believe this shit (not to mention the amorality required to implement it) is breathtaking.
And these people think they’re our superiors.
I think we can now officially ask, “How does the CIA think Peter King (R-NY) is like David Headley?”
Milquetoast is good. I was searching for just such a term. Terminally conventional/stupid/bourgeois … that was the best I could come up with.
“Pretty lame” comes to mind.
Oddly, in this case I think the CIA is correct on every point. If anything, they don’t go far enough.
Boxturtle (Bet the first time the WH saw this was on Wiki. Bad thoughts get buried)
“Flaccid”? I always like flaccid.
Hmmm. Flaccid is very good.
But if you don’t mind, I’m not gonna change milquetoast. Cause while I’m not above getting paid to write milquetoast, I’m not interested in flaccid, not at any price.
Oh, yes, I agree — I didn’t mean that I like the experience. I just like the word. It gives us a chance to snicker at the boys sometimes. It makes them shift uncomfortably.
For yer “No Sh*t Sherlock” file:
WikiLeaks founder cleared of sex allegations
LINK.
Take that, CIA. Julian Assange: not flaccid. (Ok, I’ll behave now.)
Easy there mama!
Heh heh.
I’m sorry, Dr. Wheeler, but after examining your credentials and samples of your analytical work, I regret to inform you that you are overqualified for this position. Sadly, I am unable to offer you the position for which you are qualified, because General Clapper refuses to relinquish it.
Sincerely,
Director, Human Resources
CIA
This statement is quite amusing. Headley was working with the Al Qaeda in Pakistan affiliate, which is also controlled by ISI. Headley was allowed to train with LeT in 2002. There are a couple of missing years after he returned. But Headley was a DEA agent for years. He worked for some sort of travel agency which obtained Visas for Pakistanis to work in the USA. Is that a convenient front or what?
Headley did “arouse” suspicion with the FBI who “discovered” he was scouting targets in India a month before Mumbai. Then after the Mumbai attack, which was planned by ISI, India was denied access to Headley. His trial was merely a coverup. Patrick Fitzgerald helped with the coverup. All US aid to Pakistan goes to the ISI, who are paid by the US as they sponsor the Taliban, LeT, and Al Qaeda terrorism.
“What If Foreigners See the United States as an “Exporter of Terrorism”? But the “intelligence community” has such contempt for US citizens, they do not ask what our own citizens think of exporting terror.
George Little, CIA spokesman’s statement:
“These sorts of analytic products are clearly identified as coming from the Agency’s Red Cell and are designed simply to provoke thought and present different points of view.”
More Stryker soldiers charged in plot to kill Afghan civilians
“Seven more soldiers from a Washington state-based Stryker brigade have been changed in connection with a conspiracy to kill Afghan civilians.”
LINK.
It’s giving me a headache. Source of headache, in figuring out the logic:
I think the really interesting part of this “analysis” is what is dancing around, touched on briefly but backhandedly in hte reference to the Italian criminal arrest warrants.
Obviously, from an administration (this is from Feb of this year, right?) that is queing Americans (and Germans with the wrong name, and Canadians who drank coffee in the wrong place, and London chefs whose souffles fall and young children with the wrong parents, etc.) for overseas assassination isn’t really all that concerned that Americans suspected of terrorism won’t get a fair shake overseas if we appear to be an “exporter” of terror.
They try to set up the premise as being – golly, if you have guys like Headley ou there, then those kind of guys might make foreign govs want to have us export/render them over
But that’s not really what they are pushing in the paper. As the reference to BIAs makes more clear, what they are really worried about is what happens when it is US CIA operatives or intel assets (the part they skip on Headley, but certainly an issue for someone like a Prince as well)who start to fall into the terrorist category vis a vis foreign regime, especially guys who end up on Interpol lists.
They’ve got beefs on two different fronts. First, will countries keep extending immunity to US non-uniformed illegal combatant intel assets and mercenaries who wander around the world spreading depravity in their wake as a PART OF EXECUTIVE BRANCH POLICY, given all the high profile “mistakes” by the US (for example, the pressure is on Macedonia now over the el-Masri snatch for torture) and given the basic illegality of such agreements (see, for example, they way they didn’t work in the Italian prosecution); Second, will our torture assassains be a cheerful and helpful kidnapping children and disappearing wives and setting up long term torture experiments, etc. without that protection.
IMO, at least, the tap dance centers on this lead in to the bullet point on the Italian warrants/convictions.
On its own, this paragraph doesn’t make a lot of sense. BIAs are NOT an alternative to the ICC and can’t realistically be framed in that way and have little to nothing to do with making sure American terrorist suspects are handled by American courts (which is what they seem to want to pretend this is about – the “what if” a country wants a US terrorist like Headley.
Their concern is not really about a foreign country coming and wanting cooperation on extraditions/rendtions of a US citizen terrorist. Their concern is about a foreign country wanting cooperation on extradition/renditions of US intel assets who did illegal things in that country. Guys like the CIA agents under the Italian warrants, the CIA and pilots in the Spanish and German cases, etc. Those are guys who were sold that they were able to kidnap, kill and torture in foreign countries with impunity bc we had BIAs in place that would prevent that country from taking actions against them or turning them over to the ICC.
The problem they are addressing, but by talking around it, isn’t what happens if homegrown loons use their US citizenship to facilitate their ability to take place in terrorist activity. That’s the front, but the real purpose is to raise the issue of what happens when our Intel assets operating under BIAs do so many bad things that they can’t stay easily under cover. What do we do to our ability for the CIA/DEA/JSOC etc.(and esp with the overlay of SOFA for the military guys if there are bases in the country) to operate with immunity in grabbing “bad guys” when we allow them to act like terrorists themselves, over and over.
For example, like the weird (on its own) conflation of the BIAs and ICC (saying the BIAs to let American intel run amok in a country is “instead” of the US joining the ICC when quit clearly it is bc they don’t want those intel assets to be subject to the ICC and as they explain the BIAs are to “ensure [not insure? hmmm] immunity of US nationals from ICC prosecution”); the Italian warrants refernces don’t make sense on their own either.
They start off sayign that if foreign regimes believe the US position on rendition is too one sided, they could “obstruct” US efforts to detain terrorism suspects, and then try to lay out the Italian trials as an example of such “obstruction,” but Italy wasn’t in a one-sided rendition argument with the US. Italy didn’t try CIA operatives to “obstruct” us bc we wouldn’t play ball with an Italian request for rendition of terrorists. Italy tried the CIA operatives bc they were – under Italian law – the terrorists.
What they really want to do is provoke the “notinwriting” discussion about the fact that BIAs are not really worth the paper they are written on in most places and definitely are not worth that paper in any place where, unlike the US, the prosecutors are not wholly owned by the Executive branch.
This ties tangentially to the little problem Obama is having now in Columbia. He thinks that just because he and Bush can engage in any kind of illegal depravity without anyone in the States lifting a finger over it – that this must certainly be how things work in other, “lesser” nations as well. The paper is trying to provoke some discussions that the CIA operatives involved in all this stuff may be depraved torturers, but they aren’t all idiots and they are beginning to see that BIAs are not really going to protect them when they engage in terrorist activity on behalf of the US gov overseas.
IMO, FWIW, and maybe I’m reading in what shouldn’t be read in.
I disagree on this point, Mary, at least to a degree. While BIAs serve several purposes, John Bolton pushed them on every country he had any leverage with, as a counter to the ICC. That’s *precisely* how they were framed and sold. “We don’t need the ICC; we can set up agreements with everyone bilaterally.”
From The American NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court:
As I peruse the list of countries that have concluded BIAs with the US, I notice the omission from the list of Italy. Also France, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Portugal, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands . . .
I don’t think we are really getting at the same point, but I’ll see if I can reframe.
BIAs are not an alternative to the ICC, they are a way to avoid the ICC that does not require any alternative court proceeding; that do not require any proceeding at all; that actually provide immunity from proceedings.
Bolton did sell the BIAs, but not as being an alternative to the ICC, instead as being a for the US to avoid having to worry about its diplomats, CIA
torturersagents, Kissingers travelling around, etc. being seized for turnover to the ICC. But they were never a matter of “we don’t NEED the ICC BECAUSE we have BIAs” but were always more a matter of how to get out of any kind of judicial review at all of actions by Americans engaging in terrorism or crimes in other countries from having to be accountable in ANY court.In essence, the BIA (a lot like the rationale for a SOFA and text therein) says “goodness gosh golly, the USA is a great place and they would never have prosecutors sitting in the Execs pocket and refusing to prosecute, so as long as they sign this doc saying that they INTEND to investigate and where they think it is appropriate they MAY prosecute (or not) we’re going to just assume they’ll do the right thing – after all, it’s not like they’d say *sure, we tortured and killed people, but let’s just look forward and not do anything*”
IOW, a BIA does not set up a required judicial alternative of any kind. It lets the US personnel covered by it off the hook with the country where the activity took place and with the ICC based on a recitation that the US expresses an intent to stay on top of things.
From your link, here’s a pdf of a form for/of BIA
http://www.amicc.org/docs/98template.pdf
What “alternative” does a BIA provide where the Executive branch has ordered the crimes be committed and where the Executive branch owns its prosecutors and doesn’t have them investigate or prosecute as a matter of policy and in contradiction to the statement of intent in the BIA?
A) It provides no alternative (no court is noted, no investigation required).
B) That’s the real issue that these guys want someone to start talking about IMO.
Bc you are talking about actions for which the Exec has pre-determined it will not investigate or prosecute – contra to its statement of intent in the BIAs. You even have Obama publically and constantly making that expression of non-intent. He’s not going to look back.
That makes for a problem. And a more-so problem when you have a much less formal, non-BIA, Exec to Exec, intel officer to intell officer, Tenet to Syrian torturers, etc. kind of agreement to look the other way. The kind that Bush no doubt had with Berlusconi before the Italian snatch.
fwiw, ymmv
Interesting list. We’re not on it either. I guess that’s because our courts are kind of persnickety about these things, and occasionally people in Parliament wake up. I can assure the White House and the CIA, though, that if our current PM saw a chance to let either a rendition of just about any of us or a violation of our sovereignty by one of your spooks sneak past the courts, he would leap at that chance, tugging his forelock all the way.
Folks around the world noticing that the U.S./Israel keep demanding do as we say not as we do. Not working
Foreign intelligence operations on US soil to neutralize or even assassinate individuals in the US deemed to be a threat are not without precedent.
Wonder why they reached back to the British attempts on U.S.-based suspected Nazis, when the Letelier killing is so recent.
Maybe bc there are still living CIA/ex-Gov guys who assisted with, looked the other way for, etc. that effort. ;)
But this was supposed to be a secret report.
Also, as much as was said in the report about the WWII-era matters —things suspected and the like— has certainly been generally known about at least that one Condor action (and others in Europe) almost from the beginning.
Secret or not, they knew it was going to get distribution of some kind, however limited. IMO they are guys who have very hardline boundaries on what they do and don’t put in print.
@55 – that’s beyond creepy.
@63 – nice comment.
I had exactly the same thought. The Chilean DINA assassinated a former Chilean diplomat in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976. There is plenty of reason to suspect that the White House and CIA were complicit in this, or knew of it. However, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive believes there was no conspiracy, and it was a “cruel coincidence” the assassination took place five days after Kissinger issued “a September 16, 1976 State Department cable… [and] told his assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs, Harry Shlaudeman, to cancel a formal demarche to the Uruguayan government, protesting the assassinations and other activities of Operation Condor. The cable was followed four days later by instructions from Shlaudeman to numerous South American U.S. embassies to forego any protests regarding Condor policy, offering the excuse that Condor appeared to be inactive.” (See my story covering this here at FDL/The Seminal last April.)
The U.S. exportation of terrorism is far greater than that of any other non-state organization, like Al Qaeda. Both Operation Condor and Operation Gladio, both with organizational assistance, if not instigation by the United States, have been involved in numerous incidents of terrorism and assassination abroad.
See also this EW article, picking up from some work Jeremy Scahill has done, on illegal targeting of “militants” in Latin America and elsewhere, piggy-backing on supposed authorizations to pursue Al Qaeda.
The Wikileaks posting of the CIA “Red Cell” document is amusing in its understatement, but also has a piquancy when you consider the rumors that the U.S. might seek to assassinate Julian Assange of Wikileaks because of exposure of material that embarrasses the United States. (Not a CT theory; Jane Hamsher posted the story, a transcript of an interview with Dylan Ratigan.)
Actually, the interview is of Daniel Ellsberg by Dylan Ratigan. Sorry for the confusion.
I’m sure his ‘suicide’ is being arranged.
Quite. (How’s that for a piquant response to a post with lots of material to sort through —getaway day for me tomorrow so I’m distracted.)
But really, if the point of the CIA discussion was to show both precedent for this kind of cross-border operation, and some of the spillpaths they might follow, then whether or not one believes any part of the USGov deliberately conspired in the events, then any of them would be far more redolent of the desired associations than something that happened when Granny was a lass.
(Assuming that these really were cross-border, which I for one do assume based on everything I’ve seen and read about them. Maybe a style manual somewhere could use an update.)
File under Laugh/Cry
Huffpo has up, as “breaking news” the fact that Mehlman has now said he’s gay.
Also this story about a Muslim cabbie being brutally stabbed by a twentysomething who asked the driver if he was Muslim, then told him to “consider this a checkpoint” as he stabbed him. They say the stabbing suspect, Enright, had volunteered in Afghanistan, but later they explain what that meant:
re: Ken Mehlman’s gayness
ARRRRRRGH!
Running the 2004 campaign with gays as a wedge issue, how’d that work out for you Kenny? Felling good about that?
The fact that we’d see you at Results-The Gym DC regularly (a gym primarily populated by gay clients on Capitol Hill) – were you “working out” in the hot tub?
And that large mirrored gym in your tiny little rowhouse on Capitol Hill, a few blocks from the Senate Page dorm, ever have any overnight guests?
Are your former colleagues really “okay” with that? All those folks you posed with in Tennesse, Alabama, etc, your party’s base, are they “okay” with that? Is Karl “okay” with that?
Really Kenny, you disgust me. Not for who you are, but for what you did. And the lies.
(/another sorry chapter closed about Bushco)
they all loved jeff
gannonguckertLet’s not forget that Karl Rove “handpicked” Ken Mehlman to run the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign after Kenny labored under Karl for many years at the White House.
There is no way that opposition research “master” Rove didn’t know Kenny’s dispensation.
So, act now. Order your 2004 commemorative photos with Ken Mehlman appearing at the Bush-Cheney fundraiser. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Really.
http://www.reflectionsorders.com/view_event.asp?EVENTID=4928
So, yeah, the Bushies ARE okay with that.
Are Kenny and Philip C. Berg still dating?
http://www.linkedin.com/in/philberg
mehlman seems to be the only person who didn’t know mehlman was gay
and that stupid fucker who stabbed the cabbie has his picture posted on TPM
he don’t look so happy
Looks like a Jonah Goldberg wannabe.
Wait! What?!?
In more new blockbuster revelations coming soon, CIA Red Cell Report says
oh great
now any liberal can just wave the magic declassification wand and give away our biggest secrets
It’s easy for us libruls, all it takes is having functional neurons ;-)
you would have to pass an IQ test first
if you have a three digit IQ, you don’t get the job
sorry ew, you ain’t dumb enough to produce the kind of mindless gibberish it takes to handle a job like this
anybody want to bet that this turns out badly
conservatives to read the US Constitution
and I’ll double the bet if they have to hire some people who actually know how to read
David Dayen has the best response to that:
“They have to read it aloud so they can figure out what parts they’d like to repeal.”
See @8: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/08/25/the-roundup-190/
Gotta watch their pointer fingers moving along the line, see what size the font is, whether there are pronunciation helpers for words longer than one syllable, whether there are audio feeds in their ears in case they get stuck.
Most impt gotta see which parts they leave out.
fatster nailed it in his link
it’s gonna be a Constitutional sing-along
A bouncing ball should help get through all the syllables in those big words the Founders used, too.
I was wondering if it was going to be the real one or the one they’d like to have.
I am sure whatever genius thought “export” was a good word choice in this matter is packing up stuff as we speak.
Seriously, is the CIA only now recognizing that the United States has historically been unable or unwilling to properly rein in emigres, diasporas, and meddling American citizens who seek to play revolutionary or kingmaker? This has been a problem that State Department and FBI have actively been dealing with since the 1960s, at least regarding the former Yugoslavia. Nothing in this analysis is shocking or the least bit unfamiliar to anyone in the relevant fields. A good bit of this Red Cell report is in my thesis.
exporting terror is as American as apple pie
Aaron Burr
Sam Houston
William Walker
John Fremont
two things have changed
we don’t call these assholes “filibusters” any more
and some stupid asshole in the CIA admitted that the US Government is responsible for this shit
Cheney would be a good start.
EW,
Exactly what I thought when I saw this earlier today.
Here’s a very good interview on wikileaks earlier release.
What a complete joke. Of course the U.S. exports terrorism, but it has nothing to do with the subject of this ridiculous memo. More: http://lefti.blogspot.com/2010/08/latest-wikileak-cia-red-herring.html
Short version: biggest exporter of terrorism from U.S. is U.S. foreign policy, aka the U.S. military.
And the second bite on that cherry was Blair becoming Bush’s poodle.
Being a Hibernian, I never would give money to NORAID. The theme was the money supported the families. I just though it freed up moneys elsewhere for other purposes.
The posts here are so interesting. But, I tend to disagree with the general tone of CIA as without purpose. I know I am going out on a limb here…
If the CIA is to have any purpose it is to investigate terrorism, and one hopes, to gather info on it that can be used to dilute any violence. That said, the CIA as torturer, surveillier of Americans, death squad supervisor, gun runner to dictators, and corrupt tax sponge is a cause for shutting it all down.
Of course this assumes that the CIA would investigate the real covert shock troops of American fascism: the KKK and their morphing into the Christian nuts (a la The Family by Jeff Sharlett) who are out there right now cutting deals for Jesus and Raytheon in our name.
But that has as much chance as a NORAID member who doesn’t know how to sing drunk (like I was doing last night at that cool jazz club on 2nd by Central in Little Tokyo!)!
Ramadan at Guantánamo: Nightly force-
feedings
At Guantánamo during Ramadan, the guards strap hunger striker detainees into the force-feeding chair at night.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/24/1788938/ramadan-at-guantanamo-bay-includes.html
The government actually believes they are being sensitive, that they are respecting Ramadan by only force-feeding at night.
No one ever said the maniacs in control of the military, especially at Guantanamo, don’t have an sense of (sick) irony.
Yep.
“the CIA ignores state-sanctioned terrorism”
Indeed. This is, perhaps, the single biggest intelligence failure of the 21st century. ALL terrorism is state-sponsored.
Al Qaeda wasn’t set up by guys with beards–even rich guys with beards. It was controlled and bankrolled by the Saudi monarchy, with the help of Pakistan ‘s ISI and our own CIA. To become what it became, it needed things private citizens just canot get. It had to have state power: state-of-the-art, shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles, 20-mm antiaircraft guns, encrypted satellite communications gear, unlimited money, and huge numbers of rifles, mortars and rockets. Without this state backing, Soviet state power–in the form of helicopter gunships, attack aircraft, and highly trained airborne troops–would have annihilated the assorted Arabs, Chechens, Turkmen, and other assorted foreigners that made up Al Qaeda and the native mujahedin would have hunted them down themselves.
How could 9/11 be orchestrated by private citizens working on their own? Crossing national borders is not all that easy, no matter what the Tea Buggers think. Doing so with weapons and cash is harder still. If you are opposed by security forces on both side of the frontier, as purely private-venture terrorists would be, the process is harder still. To succeed, you need documents, especially passports–not easy to forge. You need advance teams, reconnaissance, intelligence. You need access to diplomatic bags, so that you can smuggle in material too dangerous to have on uyou. You need bank accounts, pre-arranged safe houses, and cash–lots of it.
Successfully and unobtrusivbely adapting is really hard for a foreigner in an unfamiliar country, especially if he is on a tight schedule. So training is essential. Even then, given the stresses involved, you need experienced handlers who are already in-country and able to handle the administrative tasks, the communications, and the security and counter-surveillance tasks.
The difficulties of the above are such that the Mumbai murderers didn’t even attempt a border crossing and didn’t try to set up safe houses. They located, tracked, and hijacked a ship on the high seas, murdering the crew. Then they landed on the beach, fully armed, like marines, and went straight to work. Simple, effective–but not something private citizens could pull off. They needed and clearly had a Navy behind them. They needed weapons training, navigation training, etc. Even then, once the killing started, the killers needed direction from ISI headquareters via cell phone.
State terrorism is nothing new. Deniable, ostensibly private state-sponsored terrorism isn’t either. It was mainstay of Imperial Russian policy in the 19th century (see Joseph Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” and “Under Western Eyes”–novels, but written by one who knew what he was talking about). In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, terrorism was the core military doctrine of Germany’s widely admired general staff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrecklichkeit). It is only now, in the 21st century that we are willing to blind ourselves to it.
Why? Because the terrorist states own us, or at least own our politicians and “security” agencies. The Nicaraguan operation that you mention was, like the anti-Soviet Afghan fiasco, financed covertly by the Saudi intelligence service, so that Reagan could carry on after Congress thought it had cut him off. We paid for Al Qaeda ourselves. so is it any wonder that Bush’s first action following 9/11 was to let the Saudi’s fly all of their nationals–including all of those advance people and safe-house managers–out of the country unchecked? And attacked Iraq of all places? I think not.
All excellent points.
Those are two great political novels, highly recommended.
As for state-sponsored terrorism, do not forget the example of Operation Gladio, the most important of the very little known examples of this form of state politics by terror.
“Foreign intelligence operations on US soil to neutralize or even assassinate individuals in the US deemed to be a threat are not without precedent. Before the US entered World War II, British intelligence carried out information operations against prominent US citizens deemed to be isolationists or sympathetic to the Nazis. Some historians who have examined relevant archives even suspect that British intelligence officers assassinated Nazi agents on US soil. (S//NF)”
I have been following a number of threads of this over the past ten to fifteen years, and there are some most interesting revelations that have come out of the old OSS and British Intelligence shared with OSS files that were released under orders from Bill Clinton in about 1994. As a result of the Clinton release, the British have also decided to release previously withheld materials. Thus far, historical scholars have written up various bits and pieces — but from what I can see, eventually someone will need to do a major re-write of the period 1938 at least through 1942 — and maybe all of WWII, in order to properly account for much of the new information, and inferances that can be drawn from it, providing quite a new view of the early World War II period. Hopefully this can also be done with a number of other national archives becoming available, because parts of the story only become clear if you have third and forth party details. (specifically, I am thinking of French, Irish, Polish, Danish, Swedish, and perhaps Vatican Archives.) Likewise — since in the 1930’s the US had no real intelligence system, other than FDR’s privately constructed effort led by Vincent Astor, and the not so professional work done by J. Edgar Hoover via the FBI, whatever remains of those records also need to be worked thoroughly.
But here is what we more or less know now. Father Coughlin’s anti-British and anti-Semetic radio campaign was largely financed by German Intelligence, with the money passed through Irish, Canadian, and Vatican channels. There were at least three serious efforts to shut it down, the final one succeeding in early 1942 when Hoover threatened the Archdiocese of Detroit with “trading with the enemy” prosecution. At least one of the channels was set up with the assistance of Joe Kennedy when he was Ambassador to GB — and used his close trusting relationship with both Ireland’s government and the Vatican — but it was German money and agency that was the actual sponsor. The intent was to decrease confidence in FDR who was very pro-Anglo in any conflict between GB and Germany, and avoid an anglo-american alliance. My own guess is that knowing about Joe Kennedy’s role in all this was part of the reason Eleanor Roosevelt had such difficulty eventually endorsing Jack Kennedy in 1960.
Another fascinating story has to do with the German financing of Wendel Wilkie’s campaign in 1940. Most of the money for this came through the American First organization — and similar parallel organizations, but it has German origins. It was one hell of a misreading of US Politics on the part of the German sponsors, because Wilkie’s backers in Republican Circles were just as pro-Anglo as FDR, just a little more culturally associated with American Banking and Finance than FDR (who was hated by that gang). There were a number of isolationist Republican members of Congress who also received German originated funds through the same channels. British Intelligence (some of it run from Canada) had a good picture of these operations in 1940, found ways to share some of the information with Hoover, and with FDR. FDR never used the information in a public way, but it clearly was used to attempt to control idolationist political activists, including Wilkie who cut some of his supporters out of his inner circle as a result of the intelligence. There are many threads to this story.
The British ran a massive operation among American Journalists and Media personnel. They also ran counterintelligence operations against persons who wrote for the ethnic and religious press, with particular emphasis on German, Irish, and Lutheran and Catholic writers and publications. They paid much more attention than is usually understood to mid-west ethnics and religious groups that tended toward pro-German or Isolationist politics. If you consider that beginning in the fall of 1939 the Brits could read German intelligence traffic, via Ultra, it is clear they used such intelligence to identify American Journalists with any connection to Germany (real or German Wishfulthinking), and they used that to destroy such journalists for their own reasons. US would not know about Ultra till after Pearl Harbor. I see no evidence in what I’ve looked at of “wet jobs” but blackmail was pretty common.
“…but blackmail was pretty common.”
America has been blackmailed for decades. It is just becoming clearer each day. It is called “black gold extortion.” Without potential energy, liberty is reduced significantly in America and “We the People” are in a state of leveraged economic servitude to these interests who use our “blood and treasure” to perpetuate our servitude an instilled dependence to their corporate commodities monopolies.
The CIA does export terror. Ask a dead Nun and Jesuit Priest in Nicaragua? Ask an Iranian whose family members disappeared at the hands of Savak? Ask an Iraqi who lost everything in an occupation predicated on a lie? Ask a Afghan Tribal Nomad whose family has been murdered because of language barriers. Ask an American gutted by corporate scum-buggery enabled by corrupt politicians and corporate money…. Like slave-owners. Yes, blackmail American style…………
“The CIA does export terror. Ask a dead Nun and Jesuit Priest in Nicaragua? Ask an Iranian whose family members disappeared at the hands of Savak? Ask an Iraqi who lost everything in an occupation predicated on a lie? Ask a Afghan Tribal Nomad whose family has been murdered because of language barriers. Ask an American gutted by corporate scum-buggery enabled by corrupt politicians and corporate money…. Like slave-owners. Yes, blackmail American style…………”
Please understand that my comment was with reference to the copied Bullet Point in EW’s Post regarding British/German intelligence during the pre and early World War II period, and concerned stories that can be fleshed out now due to the Clinton ordered release in 1994 of the remaining OSS and British Shared with OSS files of that period. I have been following the work of historians on those archives ever since — largely because I have a pretty good background on the politics of the 1930’s, from the perspective of how FDR played the political game. The more historians work those newly available archives, and compare and contrast what they find with existing versions of what may have transpired, the closer we get to solid inferrances about how things really worked in a period that interests us. As regards the pre and early WWII period, there was no CIA. The US did not have an intelligence service. Congress would not fund one. Congress so micromanaged FDR on intelligence, that they designated in the Budget how many Hollograph cards he could purchase — those punch cards being the then current technology for using card sort machines for finding frequencies and associations useful in codebreaking. Naval Intelligence and Army Signal Corps were the codebreakers, and they lived on rationed punch cards until after Pearl Harbor. It was only after Pearl Harbor that FDR found it politically possible to upgrade the work of Wild Bill Donovan to an agency level, and OSS emerged. Because FDR could not get Congressional Support for an Intelligence Service, he knit one together from among wealthy well-traveled men in his own social circle, and it was led by his Hyde Park neighbor, Vincent Astor. Astor organized wealthy men of his acquaintence to travel the world in the 30’s (sometimes on his yacht), they made contacts with business,industrial and financial figures world wide, and handed over to FDR information regarding level of commitment to Fascist leaders, various fascist-linked national goals and the like. From such rather crude and unprofessional assessments, FDR had to try to figure out policy. (It is probably also one key way the managers of great wealth got a toe hold on US Intelligence — if congress won’t give you the funds to send professional observers on travel missions, relying on those who can pay their own way does give them a mite of ownership you know.)
The other arm of US Intelligence in the pre and early WWII period was in the hands of Hoover and the FBI. Hoover absolutely refused to work “just for information” — he only paid attention to matters if he believed he could make a case for prosecution. Thus what he did vis a vis intelligence gathering or efforts to influence US policy had to meet the standard of a possible criminal case — which caused him to miss a good deal, and be uninterested in a good deal more activity by both the Brits and the Germans in the late 30’s and up till Pearl Harbor. Add that to his huge blind spot vis a vis organized crime (which probably, from about 1939 had the goods on Hoover and Tolson’s homosexual relationship), and you have a way of understanding how various parts of the mafia inserted themselves into US Intelligence in their own interests. FBI looked the other way as they moved in. Hoover was very conflict adverse when it came to the mafia. This helps us understand how goon squad Mafia style methods and culture got imported into OSS and some operations of FBI in pre war and WWII era, with consequences later on.
Painting anything with a broad brush — such as CIA is Terror Export R Us kind of thinking makes it very difficult to engage in intelligent discourse on otherwise complex matters.
I think it is very sloppy history to make broad statements about dead nuns or African Tribesmen and the like, when you don’t have available much in the way of actual evidence regarding CIA (or in fact any other intelligence outfit’s) involvement in a particular set of events.
This rates a diary, Sara.
Other shady and inimical actors, who just happen to be foreign. (Anne McClintock surveys the world of BP coverups.)
Get your day back on track with a little “Stardust” from Willie Nelson, or someone.
That was just wonderful, pd, except it has left me so mellow that I doubt I’ll be doing any more work today.
Not sure where to put this…
Israel has ties everywhere and they are working currently hard on Bulgeria…..
Interesting interview and little gems spread throughout…
This was one…
‘We are one of the top five investors in this country. You don’t see it in the statistics because most of our companies are registered in Poland, in Czech Republic, in Holland, in Britain, everywhere. But we have easily invested here EUR 1.5 B.
Most of the investments are in the field of real estate and construction. We are talking about shopping malls, logistic parks, business parks, and of course residential property.
But there are recently Israeli companies entering the hi-tech field in Bulgaria, establishing ventures here, and also some very serious companies that are interested in becoming involved in future infrastructure projects in Bulgaria.
For that matter, we will have a visit of our minister for national infrastructure with a very big delegation at the end of October.’
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=119337
ot
will the report about how much damage the Bush administrations intentional outing of Plame had on U.S. National Security ever be released? Was there such an investigation?
And, apparently David Harris from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) is getting an award (busy) over there as well..
(.. Bulgaria has an image problem? … Is it going to get one?
‘Harris said that the US Jewish community has the capacity and is committed to helping Bulgaria “fully and in every single respect” for the full recovery of its international image.’)
‘David Harris, head of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) will receive on Tuesday the Madara Horseman order First Class from Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov during an official ceremony.’
The executive director of the American Jewish Committee met Monday with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikolay Mladenov, as well as the chair of the Organization of the Jews in Bulgaria Maxim Benvenisti and the director of the Federation of Zionists in Bulgaria Victor Melamed.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=119447
Mountains, mole hills, which can it be?
This is not good, and in some ways, not unexpected. Better not to do any of this stuff.
But, not at all comparable to Iran financing and arming terror groups like Hizbollah and Hamas with thousands of rockets and other arms.
Typical kind of tactic to have the bad guy who lies, cheats and steels all day every day try to justify and distract by pointing out a few times the patrolman forgot to leave a tip for a deserving waiter. Trying to make the point “everyone’s bad.”
As dishonest as his other activities, but some fall for it.
What we do is exactly analogous to Iran financing and arming.
On a far, far smaller scale. The intent behind the two is different.
One side offers freedoms of many types to the millions, the other offers chains and oppression to anyone who disagrees–and maybe a stone or two.
Despite the various CIA micro plots over the years and all the complaining, the freedom within the US has increased greatly. With the new Walker ruling, likely to increase greatly yet again.
In Iran, freedom has dwindled and anyone under their influence has had freedom dwindle.
The two are not even close to the same or analogous.
You are right, Iran is on a much smaller scale than the arming and ginning up of war the US does; they are completel pikers compared to us.
Over at “Race for Iran” Hillary and Flynt Mann Leverett ripping through the bull being repeated about Iran. One of the post over there where Flynt debated Reuel Marc Gerecht
Another canard. Same old line run by dictators all the time.
But, the inescapable fact is that those dictators always push in the direction of less freedom. They have to think of some way to justify themselves and their actions. If they can make you look more at the US than them, you won’t pay as much attention to what they are doing.
The US always, over the long run, pushes for more freedom and delivers it. Either that, or the progressive line that we are much more free now than in the “good old days” of the 50’s, promoted by the partial black and white and partial color film with Toby McGuire (whose name I can’t remember), has been nothing but baloney.
That’s the HUGE difference between the US and Iran or any of the other similar regimes.
If the “bad’ moves resulted in less freedom (if you do this you’ll only destroy our freedom, or so the line goes), I might see the point.
Better less bad actions than more, but much better more freedom than no bad actions and less.
The outpoint is that you think it isn’t possible for the world to sink back into a dark ages. I’m sure the people in Rome thought that too. But, if Iran had it’s way, you’d be there. Today.
If teh best argument is that America is more free than Iran – then the US is in sorry shape indeed.
Do you mean before are after the Savak?
Definitely post-Savak. The new Iranian SS has brand new ideological credentials, and are armed with new technological aids. And they don’t report to the big international oil companies any more.
Bob in AZ [Some of my drivers used to be “questioned” by the Savak about what those crazy Americans were really doing.]