I’ve been meaning to comment on this story from Bill Gertz from last week. After reporting that the Israelis bitched about US reports of the Israeli strike on Russian made missiles shipped to Syria,

Israeli government officials voiced anger at U.S. press leaks traced to the Pentagon following the July 5 Israeli missile attack on the Syrian port of Latakia that destroyed a shipment of Russian-made anti-ship missiles, according to U.S. officials.
Senior Pentagon officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter who is currently visiting Israel, discussed the leaks during meetings with Israeli officials this week. The Israelis argued in private meetings and other exchanges that the disclosures could lead to Syrian counterattacks against Israel and should have been coordinated first with the Israeli government. [my emphasis]

It catalogs multiple people — both American and Israeli — talking about the intent of the gag and concerns about secrecy.

A U.S. official said signs of Israeli anger over the Latakia raid disclosures appeared in several Israel press outlets. One Israeli official was described as “furious” over the leak because the Pentagon did not coordinate its release of information first with Israel.

Other Israeli officials were quoted as saying that in the aftermath of the Yakhont missile strikes that ties between Israel and Syria had reached a new peak and that there are worries that tying Israel to the attack will prompt Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to retaliate soon or against a future Israeli attack. [my emphasis]

As far as I know, no one besides Gertz has reported on Israeli anger, in spite of the fact that the reports were published by notorious DOD mouthpieces. There’s Barbara Starr,

A series of explosions on July 5 at a critical Syrian port was the result of airstrikes by Israeli warplanes, according to multiple U.S. officials.

Regional media widely reported the predawn explosions at Latakia, but no one had officially claimed responsibility.

Three U.S. officials told CNN the target of the airstrikes were Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles that Israel believes posed a threat to its naval forces.

And Michael Gordon,

Israel carried out an air attack in Syria this month that targeted advanced antiship cruise missiles sold to the Syria government by Russia, American officials said Saturday.

The officials, who declined to be identified because they were discussing intelligence reports, said the attack occurred July 5 near Latakia, Syria’s principal port city. The target was a type of missile called the Yakhont, they said.

Mind you, the Israelis don’t claim to be pissed that the leaks occurred (in spite of claims that revealing it publicly will make it more likely someone — I’m not sure precisely who — will attack Israel. Just that they (allegedly) occurred without coordinating with the Israelis.

Compare this treatment with the efforts to mandate investigations of leaks last year that made it harder to gin up war against Iran.

And with reports that retired General Hoss Cartwright is being investigated for repeating stories about Israel’s purported role in letting StuxNet escape Iranian nuke facilities (a leak which, it should be said, added to an earlier Michael Gordon co-byline).

Funny. Just a few weeks before the Latakia leaks to noted stenographers, leaking about Israel could get even a top General investigated.

But when stenographers report similar stories, crickets.

Congratulations to the AP, which has caught up to the reporting I did a month ago on the way SOCOM purged their own systems of Osama bin Laden photos (and, apparently, records) and moved them to the CIA.

But it appears that this shell game involved more than just moving all these records to CIA. It appears CIA had to retroactively classify at least the photographs.

As you recall, Judicial Watch (as well as a bunch of other entities) had FOIAed any pictures of the raid. It its motion for summary judgment, JW made several complaints about the government’s FOIA response:

• The search, particularly at DOD, was inadequate.
• The government declarations didn’t adequately specify what was included in the pictures (I suspect this was done to hide trophy pictures not shown to Congress or, possibly, even the President).
• The government declarations don’t prove that all the photos could cause exceptionally grave harm.
• The description of the classification process was inadequate.

It is the last of these that is most interesting, given the apparent fact that DOD transfered all its photos to CIA (plus my suspicion that a lot of these are trophy photos, not official operational photos).

First, Defendants fail to identify who classified the records. Director Bennett testifies as to who generally has the authority to classify information as TOP SCERET and who generally has the authority to delegate such authority. Bennett Decl. at ¶¶ 14-15. In addition, Director Bennett states that the “Director of the CIA has delegated original TOP SECRET classification authority to me. As an original classification authority, I am authorized to conduct classification reviews and to make original classification decisions.” Id. at ¶ 18. Yet, Director Bennett does not testify that he personally classified the records. Nor does he state that any other authorized official actually classified the records.  If an individual without the proper authority classified the records, Defendants have not complied with the procedural requirements of EO 13526.

Second, Director Bennett does not specifically testify as to when the 52 records were classified. Director Bennett only states that as of September 26, 2011, the 52 records are currently and properly classified. Yet, the day Director Bennett drafted and signed his declaration is inconsequential. The operative date as to whether the classification occurred according to proper procedures is the date of classification. As stated above, different procedures exist for records that were classified prior to or subsequent to the receipt of a FOIA request. Once a FOIA request has been received, a government agency can only classify material “if such classification meets the requirements of this order and is accomplished on a document-by-document basis with the personal participation or under the direction of the agency head, the deputy agency head, or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4 of this order.” EO 13526, § 1.7(d) (emphasis added). The raid and the creation of the records occurred on May 1, 2011. Bennett. Decl. at 4, n. 2. Plaintiff and others submitted FOIA requests for the records as early as May 2, 2011.5 As stated above, President Obama explained around 1:00 p.m. on May 4, 2011 that he had made the decision to not release post mortem photographs of bin Laden. In addition, then-Director Panetta stated on the evening of May 3, 2011 that at least some of the photographs would be released. In other words, as of the morning of May 4, 2011, no decision had been reached. Since Plaintiff sent its FOIA request on May 2, 201, it is more than likely that the records were classified after a FOIA request for the records was received. Yet, Defendants have not presented any evidence as to whether the 52 records were classified between their creation and the President’s comments, or after the President’s comments and prior to September 26, 2011. In addition, if the records were classified after a FOIA request was received, Defendants have failed to demonstrate that the 52 records were classified on a document-by-document basis. Also, as stated above, Defendants have not presented any evidence of who classified the records. Therefore, Defendants have also failed to demonstrate whether the records were classified with the personal participation or under the direction of the agency head, the deputy agency head, or the senior agency official designated under section 5.4 of this order. [my emphasis]

In response to this motion, CIA submitted a second declaration that still doesn’t explain how the photos first got classified (though it does provide additional evidence that it happened retroactively).

At the time of Mr. Bennett’s declaration, these records were marked “TOP SECRET” and were otherwise maintained in a manner that satisfied the procedural requirements of the Executive Order under the circumstances.1 Since then the CIA has, out of an abundance of caution, taken additional steps to ensure that each of these records contains all of the markings required by the Executive Order and its implementing directives, including information that reveals the identity of the person who applied derivative classification markings, citations to the relevant classification guidance and reasons for classification, and the applicable declassification instructions.

As for Plaintiff’s inquiry concerning the identity of the original classification authority (OCA), after the CIA received these records, they were derivatively classified in accordance with the guidance provided by the CIA’s designated “senior agency official,” as authorized by Part 2 of the Executive Order. The CIA official who provides this classification guidance — and is therefore the OCA for these records — is the CIA’s Director of Information Management  Services, who is the authorized OCA who has been designated to direct and administer the CIA’s program under which information is classified, safeguarded, and declassified. When Mr. Bennett, who is himself an OCA acting under the direction of the CIA Director, later reviewed each of these records for the purpose of this litigation, he reaffirmed that these prior classification determinations were correct and that the records continued to meet the criteria of the Order.

1 Contrary to Plaintiff’s suggestion, after their creation these extraordinarily sensitive images were always considered to be classified by the CIA and were consistently maintained in a manner appropriate for their classification level. [my emphasis]

After JW noted that if the photos were classified after their FOIA, they would have had to have been classified on a photo by photo basis by the Director of CIA, Deputy Director, or a Senior Agency Official in charge of classifications, the CIA responded by saying that, after the CIA got the photos (which by all appearances happened after the FOIA), they were derivatively classified in accordance with the SAO’s guidance.

CIA doesn’t say whether that official reviewed the photos individually or not. Nor does it explain who wrote “TOP SECRET” on them, without adding all the other required classification markers.

And note how the CIA claims these photos “were always considered to be classified” by them — but not necessarily by SOCOM, which originally had the photos. But they don’t even claim they were always considered to be Top Secret.

Now, it’s likely that the actual documents pertaining to the OBL raid (if SOCOM had any) were treated somewhat more regularly. At the very least, it’s less likely the SEALs who participated in the raid would have trophy documents!

But as far as the photos are concerned, it appears that the shell game included not just the purging of the documents from SOCOM’s servers and transferring them to CIA, but also in retroactive classification — which may or may not have complied with regulations — after they got to CIA.

As we await the next installment from Edward Snowden’s White Bronco chase around the globe, it’s worth remembering our attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and the Boston Marathon attack (and subsequent whitewashing about how closely Russia is cooperating) are not the only things underlying US-Russian relations.

Russia is still very angry about our assertion of jurisdiction to entrap Viktor Bout for selling arms to FARC.

Indeed, Preet Bharara is among the US officials that Russia sanctioned in retaliation for the Magnitsky list, along with such leading lights of American law as John Yoo and David Addington.

Jeralyn lays out Russian frustrations over our manufactured jurisdiction with two of their citizens here.

Bout’s story (background here)is even worse. He was the victim of a DEAsting in Thailand. The U.S. fought tooth and nail to extradite him and lost. The U.S. appealed (and likely pulled some strings, if the Wikileaks cables are any indication, and lo and behold, The higher court in Thailand approved his extradition. He spent a miserable two years at MCC in New York, was convicted and sentenced to 35 years which he is serving at theUSP in Marion, IL., one of our SuperMax prisons. The U.S. claims he’s a “Lord of War” and seller of arms. He never sold arms here. What’s it our business? Why have a prisoner transfer treaty if you aren’t going to use it? Did anyone ask the American taxpayers if they want to pay $40,000 a year times 30 years to warehouse Bout in a high security prison when Russia’s willing to take him?

You don’t have to like what Bout did (which is not much more destabilizing than what Erik Prince has done) to understand that when the US claims jurisdiction over anyone in the world, even if they do nothing to harm the US directly, is going to piss off other countries.

Eventually, those countries may have an opportunity to express their frustration about it.

Well, hello there Clarisse. As I look at the crack of light filtering in through the drawn Elvis curtains of my hotel room, it appears to be morning. We had fun last night. The first picture is of, from left to right, Col. Morris Davis, Marcy and Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Also present, but sadly out of the frame, were Jim White and our longtime friend and fearless roving reporter Rosalind.
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Next picture is of Jim’s beer choice. He ordered an “Ass Kicker Beer” and, as you can see was, in a stroke of bar server genius, served an “Ass Kisser”. True story!
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Lastly, the third picture is of a rather unfortunate drink I ordered. I got the happy hour special. I don’t know what the hell it was, but it was NOT what I had in mind. Jeebus.
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As Afghanistan careens toward presidential elections next April and the end of authorized NATO presence in Afghanistan at the end of next year, we are beginning to see jockeying for position among the same set of militia strongmen who never have been forced to face consequences for the war crimes they committed the last two times Afghanistan was without a government.

Perhaps the most notorious of these war criminals is Rashid Dostum, who is accused of killing up to two thousand prisoners who surrendered as Kabul fell to US forces. Here is McClatchy in 2008 describing Dostum removing evidence of his war crimes:

Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who’d surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.

When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum’s headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum’s militiamen had fired into the metal containers.

Dostum’s men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.

Earlier this year, bulldozers returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity to sites unknown. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e-Leili desert.

/snip/

Now, Mutaqi said, “You can see only a hole. In the area around it you can find a few bones or some clothes. The site is gone . . . as for evidence, there is nothing.”

The US has done absolutely nothing to see that Dostum faces prosecution for his crimes. In fact, with the recent disclosure of “bags o’ cash” going directly from the CIA to Hamid Karzai, the word is that as Afghanistan’s Chief of Staff of the Army, Dostum is recieving up to $100,000 per month under the program.

Today, we learn that Dostum is running roughshod again. The scene of the crime is once again Sherberghan. It appears that Dostum’s militia has engaged in gunfire with the provincial governor’s security detail. Adding to the confusion surrounding this event is that the provincial governor is a member of the same political party Dostum founded. Further, it appears that Dostum’s militia is also accused of firing on the National Security Directorate.

Radio Free Europe has this description of today’s events:

The governor of Afghanistan’s northern Jowzjan Province says his house has been attacked by ethnic Uzbek commander Abdul Rashid Dostum’s militia.

Governor Mohammad Alem Saee told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that several attackers were injured on June 17 when his bodyguards returned fire.

Saee said Dostum’s militia also attacked the National Security Directorate’s provincial office.

We learn from Khaama Press that although Dostum and Sahi belong to the same political party, they have been feuding:

According to reports the armed men of former Warlord and founder of National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan Party Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum on Monday attacked the Jowzjan provincial compound.

/snip/

Mohammad Aalim Sahi was a member of the National Islamic Movement Party of Afghanistan, however severe disputes were reported between him and Gen. Dostum recently.

According to reports Mohammad Aalim Sahi also has close relations with Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Stars and Stripes sees this development as signalling that Afghanistan faces a very uncertain future:

In what may be a worrying sign for the future of Afghanistan, militiamen loyal to the Afghan National Army chief of staff and the bodyguards of a provincial governor exchanged fire on Monday for 20 minutes in the north of the nation, officials said.

Mohammad Alam Sayee, the governor of Jowzjan province, was returning to his compound in the provincial capital Sherberghan, when armed men affiliated with Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum moved in on the facility, Sayee’s spokesman, Mohammad Yama Jamili said.

/snip/

After Sayee took refuge in his compound, tensions escalated and the two sides fired on each other, though no one was injured, according Jamili.

Jowzjan police chief Abdul Aziz Ghairat confirmed that he received a report that Dostum’s men had surrounded the governor’s compound, but said the firefight ended by the time his officers arrived at the scene.

This is not the first time that Dostum has feuded with a prominent figure of the political party he founded. Back in February, a member of the party became so upset with Dostum that he threatened to expose Dostum’s war crimes (even though we already know about them):

The former leader of Hezb-e-Junbish Millie Islami — National Islamic Movement party of Afghanistan warned to disclose the war crimes of the party’s founder and former warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum if he does not prevent his interference in the party.

However a spokesman for the National Islamic Movement party of Afghanistan denied the allegations by Syed Noorullah Sadat and said Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum does not misuse from his military position to interfere in party’s internal affairs.

Syed Noorullah Sadat accused Gen. Dostum for interfering in National Islamic Movement Party fo Afghanistan and warned that he will disclose the war crimes committed by him.

It would appear that Dostum is taking steps to solidify his power ahead of the coming transitions. What could possibly go wrong with a known war criminal expanding his power base?

Let me start this post by saying I think it is absolutely appropriate for Eric Holder to have recused himself from the UndieBomb 2.0 investigation, in part because — as someone read into the UndieBomb 2.0 operation, he was interviewed by the FBI (though so was James Cole, who is now in charge of the investigation), and he turned over his own phone contacts to the FBI — but also because top Administration officials like John Brennan at least should be under close scrutiny in this investigation.

Nor do I think, in his recusal, Eric Holder did anything in bad faith. I have zero reason to believe Holder is tampering with this investigation, in any way shape or form.

But Jeebus, Holder is doing this entire recusal thing wrong.

That’s true, first of all, because with a rabid Congress (at the time he recused from the investigation and now) accusing him of wrongly delegating this investigation to Ronald Machen in an investigation that could net incredibly powerful people as suspects, Holder did not write his recusal — or a delegation of authority of Attorney General powers — to James Cole, who is overseeing the investigation.

Now, Holder claims not to remember whether he memorialized his recusal in past cases, including the John Edwards investigation — the most high profile case in which he has recused. And though George Holding, who conducted that investigation and now represents the Raleigh, NC, area in Congress, was in the room, I’m not sure they clarified whether he had written anything down there, either. Holder was, however, very clear about what authorities he delegated to Patrick Fitzgerald when he investigated the John Adams Society, which led to the prosecution of John Kiriakou, having sent 3 letters (1, 2, 3) memorializing the limits of Fitz’ authority.

I think part of the problem is that Holder didn’t really appoint special counsels to investigate this matter, even while he made a big deal of appointing the people who — US Attorney for DC Ronald Machen’s appointment rather then US Attorney for Eastern District of VA Neil MacBride aside — would have been investigating it anyway. Dumb. Congress was screaming for some kind of formality, and Holder didn’t establish that formality.

And then there’s the journalist-subpoenaing precedent of the Plame investigation where Fitz several times got letters clarifying his authority. The first of those reads,

By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U. S .C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 508, I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department’s investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee’s identity, and I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.

This came in handy later in the investigation when Libby’s lawyers challenged Fitz’ authority.

Then, Holder’s recusal hasn’t been very strict. Most troublingly, Eric Holder reviewed the letter James Cole sent to the AP (though Holder saw a draft which, according to his press conference, included things like details on the specific scope of the subpoena that don’t appear in the final letter). NPR’s Carrie Johnson asked him about this.

Johnson: Is that normal practice when you’re recused from a case?

Holder: No, I just wanted to see the le–I saw I mean I saw saw the draft letter this morning. And I just wanted to have an opportunity to see what it looked like so I’d have at least some sense of the case in case there were things in the letter that I could talk about with the press.

Reviewing this letter — particularly before changes got made to it!! (changes which appear to have deprived the AP of full notice of the call record grab) — simply isn’t appropriate for someone recused from the case!

Again, I’m not suggesting malice here.

But the AP has already — rightly, in my opinion — challenged whether DOJ complied with its own guidelines on media subpoenas. In particular, AP complained that they had not been given notice and an opportunity to cooperate. That’s one of the guidelines that requires AG involvement.

Negotiations with the affected member of the news media shall be pursued in all cases in which a subpoena for the telephone toll records of any member of the news media is contemplated where the responsible Assistant Attorney General determines that such negotiations would not pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation in connection with which the records are sought. Such determination shall be reviewed by the Attorney General when considering a subpoena authorized under paragraph (e) of this section.

Yet the guy who signed this subpoena and with it signed off on the claim that alerting AP to the subpoena would do grave damage to the investigation  — James Cole — apparently has no piece of paper giving him authority to sign it.

If DOJ ultimately decides to charge the AP’s sources, if that person has the kind of legal representation DC bigwigs often have, I fully expect them to challenge every bit of their prosecution. After all, by subpoenaing the AP, Cole claimed that DOJ could not get the information from any other source. So if AP’s sources are indicted, they can rest assured that their prosecution went through this bottleneck of an Acting AG who had no paperwork to prove he had the authority to sign off on the claims he was making to get information he was certifying was absolutely necessary to find them. And from this subpoena forward, everything else will be fruit of a tainted AG, at least if you’ve got fancy lawyers.

Dumb.

One last thing. Also in today’s hearing, Holder admitted that it probably would have been a good idea to write down this recusal thing in public. Which, if they do ever charge AP’s sources and if said sources have the resources to make this obvious challenge, they’ll cite in court to document that even the guy who delegated this authority thinks it would be smarter if he did so in writing.

Seriously, this entire recusal process has been an own goal. As I said, I don’t think DOJ is pulling anything fishy. But the entire point of recusing is to ensure there’s proof nothing fishy happened. And in this case, DOJ has anything but.

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It’s that time of year: when Mr. EW and I celebrate St. Pattys, his birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday (and, this year, our friend Catie’s birthday, too).

We’ll be doing it, for the next 5 days or so, in KY’s Red River Gorge — sandstone like you’d expect to find in the Southwest, but with rhododendrons growing everywhere instead of saguaros.

Then we’ll be heading on a Bourbon and ham pilgrimage. We’re not Bourbon drinkers, so include your advice in comments!

Thing is, while Red River Gorge is beautiful, it also is one of the places in the US that still has godawful Intertoobz and wireless connectivity. Blame Mitch McConnell for screwing his constituents, I guess.

So I’ll probably be mostly absent from these parts until Wednesday and only somewhat present until whenever we decide to return home to Beer Mecca from Bourbon Mecca.

Sadlly, bmaz (and Jim and Rayne) will have to make do with whatever leftovers are in the likker cabinet until I can stock it with Bourbon again. I’m sure he’ll make do!

Okay denizens of The Wheelhouse, there is such a thing as “Twitter Fight Club”. And the first rule of Twitter Fight Club is talk about Twitter Fight Club and vote for Marcy “Emptywheel” Wheeler. The second rule is don’t forget the first rule.

It is a fun game that has been done once a year for two or three years now; you will recognize many of the names involved, many you will not. It is a bracketed competition like the NCAA basketball tournament. Fill out a full bracket for a chance at glory and prizes, or simply vote on one game (Hint: Emptywheel’s portion).

Here is the page you need for voting and further information.

First round voting closes at midnight tonight. Assuming the headmistress here gets through to the second round (she should) you should then check back at TFC and help lead her to victory in further rounds! Let’s win one for the Wheeler!

One of Brennan’s answers to Additional Prehearing questions I didn’t gloss the other day is this one:

Question 8: What are your views on what some have described as the increased “militarization” of the CIA mission following September 11, 2001 attacks?

In my view, the CIA is the Nation’s premier “intelligence” agency, and needs to remain so. While CIA needs to maintain a paramilitary capability to be able to carry out covert action as directed by the President, the CIA should not be used, in my view, to carry out traditional military activities.

[snip]

Do you envision the CIA becoming more or less “militarized” in its mission, should you be confirmed?

The evolution of foreign threats will determine how the CIA adjusts its intelligence activities in the future. If I were to become the Director, I would plan to carry out CIA’s crucial missions, including collecting foreign intelligence, providing all-source analysis, conducting robust counterintelligence, and carrying out covert actions as directed by the President. If confirmed, I would not be the Director of a CIA that carries out missions that should be carried out by the U.S. military.

Brennan brought up the issue again in response to a question (which was prefaced by a totally inappropriate bid to his Jesuit training) from Barbara Mikulski.

At the beginning of her questioning, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) noted dryly that she had been “jerked around” by every CIA director she’d known as a legislator, with the exception of Leon Panetta. Brennan assured her “truthfulness is a value that was inculcated in me in my home in New Jersey.” But when Mikulski brought up about the CIA’s increasing role in paramilitary operations, describing that as “mission creep” and asking whether Brennan would steer the Agency back towards its more traditional intelligence-gathering role, Brennan said only that he would “take a look at the allocation of that mission,” before saying that the CIA “should not be involved in traditional military activities.” But Mikulski was talking about paramilitary activities such as drone strikes. No one actually accused the CIA of engaging in “traditional military activities.”

Clearly, Brennan is making a distinction between paramilitary actions he insists (contrary to the many claims he’d get out of the business) are a central part of CIA’s mandate and traditional military operations.

To some degree, he seems to be saying he will not abide by putting himself in the chain-of-command to give a JSOC op a legally pretty face.

But I couldn’t help thinking about Brennan’s answers as I read this WaPo article. While the article never comes out and says it, what it describes is Obama’s decision — taken at precisely the moment when Petraeus ousted, ostensibly for a consensual affair — to abandon an approach put in place by the retired general.

President Obama is unlikely to shift his stance against the expansion of a U.S. role in Syria’s civil war, despite a death toll topping 60,000 and acknowledgment that key members of his national security staff favored a plan first proposed in June to arm the Syrian rebels.

U.S. officials said that the issue was shelved in October after an extended “red team” analysis by the CIA concluded that the limited-range weaponry the administration was comfortable providing would not have “tipped the scales” for the opposition.

Syrian opposition forces already had sufficient quantities of light weaponry from other outside sources and raids of government depots, the analysis determined. The question of providing shoulder-launched missiles to shoot down government aircraft, officials said, was never considered.

It remained unclear whether senior officials who backed the plan, first proposed during the summer by then-CIA director David H. Petraeus, were comfortable with President Obama’s decision not to move ahead with it.

The article makes it clear the driving force behind this decision is a desire to avoid providing weapons that could be used against Israel or even the US.

In the case of the mobile surface-to-air missiles, called MANPADS, one official said, “We wouldn’t even consider it, because God forbid they would be used against an Israeli aircraft.”

[snip]

White House press secretary Jay Carney stressed the administration’s caution Friday. “We have had to be very careful,” he said. “We don’t want any weapons to fall into the wrong hands and potentially further endanger the Syrian people, our ally Israel or the United States. We also need to make sure that any support we are providing actually makes a difference in pressuring [Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad.”

[snip]

Clinton stressed caution about sending arms that could fall into the wrong hands. [brackets original]

And yet, in spite of the fact it makes clear that the decision to abandon the approach of arming the rebels occurred the month after arms the US provided rebels in Libya were used — by militants in Libya with ties to the militants in Syria — to kill our Ambassador there, the article doesn’t mention Libya once. 

I’m not saying CIA’s barely-hidden support for rebels in Syria amounts to a traditional military role. Nor am I saying I buy that Brennan’s comment disavows traditional military actions, provided CIA’s role in them are obscured better than they have been.

But I am mindful of David Petraeus’ explanations to Kathleen MacFarland about why a general like him would want to move over to CIA.

As Petraeus tries to explain to a rather thick Kathleen MacFarland why he thinks the CIA Director job would be “a quite significantly meaningful position,” he talks about the Libya intervention. He starts that discussion by predicting that CIA will run much of what we do in Libya (remember, this conversation took place on April 16, 2011, just after the US ostensibly turned the Libyan war over to NATO, but six months before Qaddafi was killed).

Petraeus: Well, look, I mean, I can do math and reason, as well. But an awful lot of what we do in the future — believe it or not in Libya, right now, perhaps . . .

Q: Yeah.

Petraeus: . . . is what that organization can do.

David Petraeus wanted the CIA job because that’s where he could “do” what he had claimed to “do” in Iraq and was failing to “do” in Afghanistan. The next place to win glory, the shores of Tripoli.

A pity he fucked that up, eh?

I mean, while everyone swears up and down that the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with Petraeus’ departure, because his departure coincided with the assessment of what happened in Benghazi, it has elicited an assessment of Benghazi in conjunction with Petraeus’ two earlier “victories.” That comparison suggests that in fact, the glorious General may have failed three times at the important work of training local militias.

Moreover, while CIA appears to still own the next “do”–Syria–the fuck-ups in Benghazi now serve as an excuse to put DOD in charge of CIA’s job.

It took an Army General like Petraeus fucking up military ops with the CIA to convince the Obama Administration to get out of that business.

But, as Hillary is quoted in the article saying, the decision on Syria has actually not yet been made.

Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald and Peter Finn in the Washington Post recount a very strange sequence of events during yesterday’s proceedings in the Guantanamo military commission that is attempting once again to “try” the group of five prisoners that includes Khalid Sheik Mohammed for their conspiracy in bringing about the 9/11 attacks. As Rosenberg recounts, the judge was enraged when a portion of the proceedings was censored by someone outside the courtroom. The judge appeared to have no knowledge beforehand that anyone besides himself or his security officer could control the censoring process:

Someone else besides the judge and security officer sitting inside the maximum-security court here can impose censorship on what the public can see and hear at the Sept. 11 trial, it was disclosed Monday

The role of an outside censor became clear when the audio turned to white noise during a discussion of a motion about the CIA’s black sites.

Confusion ensued. A military escort advised reporters that the episode was a glitch, a technical error. A few minutes later, the public was once again allowed to listen into the proceedings and Army Col. James Pohl, the judge, made clear that neither he nor his security officer was responsible for the censorship episode.

“If some external body is turning the commission off based on their own views of what things ought to be, with no reasonable explanation,” the judge announced, “then we are going to have a little meeting about who turns that light on or off.”

Finn described the event as the action of an “invisible hand”:

Who controls what the public and reporters can see and hear at the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Is there an invisible hand, unknown to even the military judge, that can switch off audio and video feeds?

Finn gives more details of the proceedings as the button was pushed:

David Nevin, one of Mohammed’s civilian attorneys, was discussing a defense motion to preserve any evidence from the secret overseas prisons where the defendants were held by the CIA. The motion had been declassified, but Nevin had barely gotten a sentence out when the audio feed to the media centers on base and at Fort Meade was smothered in white noise. Then the video of the courtroom was cut.

When the feeds were restored several minutes later, Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, seemed perplexed as to not only why Nevin was censored but by whom. Pohl said he did not cut off the feed, and it did not appear that the court security officer who sits beside him did, either.

Rosenberg informs us that the judge was very upset:

But to court observer Phyllis Rodriguez, the judge appeared “furious” and “livid” when he realized that that outsiders had their finger on the censorship switch of his courtroom.

“It’s a ‘whoa moment’ for the court,” said Human Rights Watch observer Laura Pitter. “Even the judge doesn’t know that someone else has control over the censorship button?”

Both articles point to DOJ attorney Joanna Baltes offering to explain to Pohl in secret session how the censorship came about and it appears that Pohl intends to disclose who pushed the button if, as Finn states, “what happened could be explained in public”.

The event also upset the attorneys. As Finn reports, it prompted further concerns:

Nevin and other defense attorneys said they wanted to know whether there was some mysterious entity monitoring the proceedings — and whether that entity might be listening to communications between the lawyers and their clients.

Just who is responsible for this censoring? And, as Nevin speculates, is this same “invisible hand” also an “invisible ear” listening to his discussions with his clients?

This episode is yet another example of the folly of not trying these defendants in federal court. The military commission rules are an ever-changing mess where nobody, now apparently including the presiding judge, knows what is appropriate and what is not or even who determines what constitutes secret information. In a federal court, there never is a question that the judge controls all aspects of the proceedings.

Iran’s PressTV was highly entertained by the episode, citing both the “invisible hand” phrase and putting “open” into scare quotes in their lede paragraph about the session and its unexpected censoring:

During defense arguments in an “open” session of the US military trial of Guantanamo inmates, an ‘invisible hand’ suddenly cut off the audio-visual feed to the media, even mystifying the military judge.

It would appear that PressTV was laughing uncontrollably over this, as they attributed quotes from Finn’s Washington Post article to the New York Times, which, at the time of this writing, has not reported on the event.

At any rate, I will provide an update if an explanation from Pohl is forthcoming. That is, if I’m not too busy laughing at the irony of Iran being able to ridicule the US about censorship less than 24 hours after arresting a number of journalists for “consorting with hostile foreign news media”.

Update: The short answer to the question in the headline appears to be “no”. From tweets by Carol Rosenberg “Pohl on who controls button: “We’re getting to a line here of what’s public and what’s security. … I’m not sure what witnesses to call.”” and “Judge Pohl made clear that whoever hit the censorship button yesterday should not have, but did not clarify or describe who did it.” and also “#KSM attorney Nevin is asking for “courtesy” of understanding who’s listening in on hearings. Private talks between lawyer and client too.”

Update 2: More tweets from Carol Rosenberg lift the veil just a bit: “Now the Justice Dept secrecy expert, Joanna Baltes, has given judge and defense lawyers a piece of paper that says OCA reviews the feed.” and “OCA= Original Classification Authority, as in for example the CIA on interrogation techniques and black site program.”