CLOAK & DAGGER CULTURE MAKING A MOCKERY OF NATIONAL SECURITY?

As I noted last week, the rise of the militarists after 9/11 has created a new environment in Washington.

Today, military hawks manipulate military budgets in a way that's not financially prudent for our nation. Worse, they have a tendency to classify everything that crosses their desks as "top secret". Consider the following, which even the experts acknowledge creates redundancy and overkill.

* We have over 10,000 counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence locations across the country.
* We have over 850,000 intelligence personnel with "top secret" access.
* We also produce over 50,000 intelligence reports (no doubt all "top secret") every year.

In a few words, Washington is in the process of developing a cloak and dagger culture that pretty much makes a mockery of top secret clearance.

Helping us understand this is Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert.

In one of his most incisive and lucid clips, Stephen Colbert makes it clear that the war crazies are starting to make a joke of security and what gets classified. Colbert uses the recent WikiLeaks release of 92,000 Afghan War related documents to help us understand that, in reality, "there's no new broad revelations" in the document dump, and that the government is pretty much classifying stuff that we already know about. More specifically ...

* Civilians have been killed by U.S. forces.
* Pakistan helps al Qaeda.
* Afghanistan is a tough place to wage war.

Watch the Colbert clip. It's pretty funny. His "ObviLeaks" reference is classic.

- Mark

BLOWBACK & THE SORROWS OF EMPIRE ... IN REAL TIME

In a series of books that began with Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, Chalmers Johnson warns us about the political and military challenges that would face America at the beginning of the 21st century.

Writing before 9/11, Johnson argued that the United States needed to begin the process of disengaging from many of its global commitments, or we would begin to face serious repercussions around the world - both militarily and financially.

Then 9/11 happened.

After 9/11 Johnson came out with The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, where he describes the full entrenchment of the militarists throughout the U.S. government.

The real problem is not that these militarists are military hawks, pushing for more weapon programs. They have always been around. Instead, Johnson argues, the problem is their hyped up post-9/11 influence, and their new found ability to manipulate military budgets, while classifying everything that crosses their desks as "top secret". At the end of the day, American democracy - and the promises of transparency - suffer.

Finally, Johnson came out with Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006).

In it Johnson writes about militarism, imperial hubris, national security secrecy, secret armies, and executive arrogance that have worked to undermine the promises of the Constitution. He compares the U.S. to ancient Rome and asks why we don't (or haven't yet) learned the lessons of history.

I bring the Johnson Trilogy up because of this Washington Post article.

Drawing on information provided by Washington insiders, including a few "Super Users" who have access to the most sensitive security briefings, the Washington Post's initial report provides a stunning look at how out of control our America's militarism has become. According to the Post article, one Super User recounted how, for his initial briefing, he was escorted into a tiny, dark room, seated at a small table and told he couldn't take notes. Program after program began flashing on a screen, until he finally yelled ''Stop!" in frustration.

He simply couldn't take it all in. "I wasn't remembering any of it," he said. Among the findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counter terrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the U.S.

* Nearly 1 1/2 times the number of people who live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In the D.C. metropolitan area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since 9/11. They occupy the equivalent of three Pentagons.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the exact same work, creating redundancy and waste.

* 50,000 intelligence reports are issued each year--amongst 1,000 a week--that even senior officials admit cannot possibly be digested.

Whether we're facing, as Chalmers Johnson argued, the last days of the Republic, is yet to be determined. But one thing is clear. Rather than streamlining our defense priorities 9/11 has only served to privatize security, put it's users on steroids, while vastly expanding our military budgets.

How bad has it gotten? According to CIA Director Leon Panetta, the levels of spending since 9/11 are not sustainable. "Particularly with these deficits, we're going to hit the wall ..." Yet, no one can say that we're safer today than we were before 9/11. Still, the national security crazies say we need to spend more. Great.

Chalmers Johnson's discussions on blowback, secrecy & militarism, and the last days of the American Republic all seem to be wrapped up in the Post's series this week. Be sure to read it. The Washington Post will be running these articles throughout the week.

Stay tuned.

- Mark

UPDATE: Click here for additional figures, and discussion.

DICK CHENEY ... A LIAR AND A COWARD

In yesterday's program I made it clear, once again, that former VP Dick Cheney is a liar and a coward. Cheny's five deferments during the Vietnam War and his constant whining about being scared are proof of his cowardice. I should have carried the discussion through to chronicle Dick Cheney's lies and distortions, but we were running out of time. I'm fixing that now.

In this McClatchy News article ("Cheney's speech ignored some inconvenient truths") Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel outline ten lies that Dick Cheney made during his "national security" presentation. Here's their take on one of them:

[Cheney] quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21, however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

More specifically, Cheney was trying to conflate torture with saving lives from imminent attack by saying that the current Director of National Intelligence (who oversees the CIA, the FBI, and the other 14 intelligence gathering agencies we have) agrees with him on the effectiveness of torture.

Landay and Strobel point out that Cheney ignored that a "top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any 'specific imminent attacks' ... ". Cheney also ignored that in December FBI Director Robert Mueller told Vanity Fair magazine that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

There's more lies and distortions so I encourage you to read the Landay and Strobel piece. Why anyone would want to listen to this coward is beyond me. I also encourage you to read Frank Rich's, "Who Is to Blame for the Next Attack." Rich makes it abundantly clear that it won't be President Obama.

- Mark

ON STRIKING IRAN ...

Last year America’s preeminent intelligence agency – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence – issued its National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (“Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities”) which determined that “Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” in the fall of 2003. Still the Bush administration is bent on making it clear that a military strike against Iran is still possible before the end of President Bush’s second term.

This is important because it means that the reported use of nuclear weapons against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities also remains possible. While there are several very good, and technical reasons, to fear this scenario this interactive clip from the Union of Concerned Scientists explains several of the potential pitfalls of using nuclear weapons (i.e. nuclear bunker busters) to attack Iran. The clip is really worth watching.

- Mark

WAR WITH IRAN STILL ON THE TABLE?

President Bush’s critics appear to be gloating over the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). The NIE tells us that President Bush’s war mongering over Iran’s nuclear program has little merit. But the "We-told-you-so" celebrations may be premature. Don't be surprised if President Bush, like "Bush Propaganda Network" FOX News (FOX News: “Bush Calls on Iran to 'Come Clean' on Nuclear Activities”) chooses to ignore the NIE because it doesn’t tell him what he wants to hear.

This won’t be the first time President Bush has ignored a NIE (NIEs are summaries of intelligence gathered by all 16 intelligence agencies in the country). After 9/11 President Bush's team turned a blind eye to the NIE they had on hand because it wasn’t useful. Specifically, the NIE assessment at the time stated “Iraq did not appear to have reconstituted its nuclear weapons program.” This is not good enough when you want war with Iraq.
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To fix the NIE assessment problem the Bush administration ordered up another NIE. But this time he had his team on hand to help “craft” and influence the report. It all started with a December 2001 NIE that stated “Recent Iraq procurements, however, suggest possible preparation for renewed uranium enrichment program.” And just like that, the Iraq war pendulum began to swing the other way for the intelligence community.

The December 2001 NIE helped pave the way for the subsequent October 2002 NIE report – "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction" – which claimed “Baghdad began reconstituting its nuclear program shortly after the departure of the UNSCOM inspectors in December 1998.” Apart from paving the way for war with Iraq, the October 2002 NIE became famous inside the CIA as the "Whore of Babylon" because it explicitly endorsed Dick Cheney's "Saddam has resumed efforts to acquire ..." rhetoric.

In an effort to keep the grand lie going, and to keep experts from calling the Oct. 2002 NIE what it was – i.e. highly politicized and undependable “intelligence” – the Bush administration had a pliant republican-controlled senate stonewall intelligence hearings (led by Senate Intelligence Chair, R-Pat Roberts). Then they tried to discredit and intimidate anyone who told the truth about the Oct. 2002 NIE and other administration claims. This helps explain why the Bush administration went after Ambassador Joseph Wilson and CIA Operative Valerie Plame. Wilson's trip to Niger and his op-ed in the NY Times (“What I Didn’t Find in Africa”) told the world that the Bush administration was offering little more than a "pack of lies" on the Iraq-Niger “yellowcake” story.

There’s more. But the moral of the story is President Bush has a history of dismissing what he does not like to hear and acting on things impetuously (because he trusts his “gut”). While we can hope that common sense prevails, don’t be surprised if this NIE report does not deter President Bush from war mongering on Iran in the future.