OSIIS OPEN SOURCE INTERNET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
Russ Tice, former NSA intelligence officer and current Whistleblower, will be testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week. Apparently, the story Mr. Tice wants to tell, makes General Hayden’s phone surveillance program look like very small potatoes. Mr. Tice’s testimony will reveal further illegal activity overseen by General Michael Hayden which even NSA employees view as unlawful.
“I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.” According to Mr. Tice, what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg.
What in the world could Russ Tice be talking about?! To figure it out let us take a look at Russ Tice’s work at the NSA.
According to the Washington Times and numerous other sources, Mr. Tice worked on special access programs related to electronic intelligence gathering while working for the NSA and DIA, where he took part in space systems communications, non-communications signals, electronic warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems.
Special Access Programs or SAPs refer to Black Budgets or Black Operations, Black means that they are covert and hidden from everyone except the participants. Feasibly there would be no arena with a greater potential for abuse and misuse than Special Access Programs. Even now Congress and the Justice Department are being denied the ability to investigate these programs because they don’t have “clearance”.
To put it in CNN’s Jack Cafferty’s words a top secret government agency, the NSA, the largest of its kind in the world, is denying oversight or investigation by the American people because investigators lack clearance. To add a layer of irony to the Black Ops cake this travesty is occurring in America, the supposed bastion of Freedom and Democracy, which we are currently trying to export to Iraq.
It just gets scarier. The Black Ops that Mr. Tice was involved in related to electronic intelligence gathering via space systems communications, non-communications signals, electronic warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems. For greater insight as to the impact of these programs readers should review decades old FOIA authenticated programs such as MKULTRA, BLUEBIRD, COINTELPRO and ARTICHOKE. Radar based Telemetry involves the ability to see through walls without thermal imaging. Electronic Warfare is even scarier if we take a look at the science.
NSA Signals Intelligence Use of EMF Brain Stimulation
NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link (EBL). EMF Brain Stimulation has been in development since the MKUltra program of the early 1950's, which included neurological research into "radiation" (non-ionizing EMF) and bioelectric research and development. The resulting secret technology is categorized at the National Security Archives as "Radiation Intelligence," defined as "information from unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in the environment, not including radioactivity or nuclear detonation."Signals Intelligence implemented and kept this technology secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available information about this technology and withholds scientific research from the public. There are also international intelligence agency agreements to keep this technology secret.
The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that analyzes electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-generated brain mapping can continuously monitor all the electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of thousands of persons) for national security purposes. EMF Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by the military for Brain-to-computer link. (In military fighter aircraft, for example.)
For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity in the speech center of the brain can be translated into the subject's verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals to the brain's auditory cortex thus allowing audio communication direct to the brain (bypassing the ears). NSA operatives can use this to covertly debilitate subjects by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.
Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural Monitoring can map out electrical activity from the visual cortex of a subject's brain and show images from the subject's brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see what the surveillance subject's eyes are seeing. Visual memory can also be seen. RNM can send images direct to the visual cortex. bypassing the eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives can use this to surreptitiously put images in a surveillance subject's brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep for brain- programming purposes.
Individual citizens occasionally targeted for surveillance by independently operating NSA personnel.
NSA personnel can control the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the U.S. by using the NSA's domestic intelligence network and cover businesses. The operations independently run by them can sometimes go beyond the bounds of law. Long-term control and sabotage of tens of thousands of unwitting citizens by NSA operatives is likely to happen. NSA Domint has the ability to covertly assassinate U.S. citizens or run covert psychological control operations to cause subjects to be diagnosed with ill mental health.
National Security Agency Signals Intelligence Electronic Brain Link Technology.
NSA SigInt can remotely detect, identify and monitor a person's bioelectric fields. The NSA's Signals Intelligence has the proprietary ability to remotely and non-invasively monitor information in the human brain by digitally decoding the evoked potentials in the 30-50 hz,.5 milliwatt electro-magnetic emissions from the brain.Neuronal activity in the brain creates a shifting electrical pattern that has a shifting magnetic flux. This magnetic flux puts out a constant 30-50 hz, .5 milliwatt electromagnetic (EMF) wave. Contained in the electromagnetic emission from the brain are spikes and patterns called "evoked potentials. "Every thought, reaction, motor command, auditory event, and visual image in the brain has a corresponding "evoked potential" or set of "evoked potentials." The EMF emission from the brain can be decoded into the current thoughts, images and sounds in the subject's brain.
NSA SigInt uses EMF-transmitted Brain Stimulation as a communications system to transmit information (as well as nervous system messages) to intelligence agents and also to transmit to the brains of covert operations subjects (on a non-perceptible level). EMF Brain Stimulation works by sending a complexly coded and pulsed electromagnetic signal to trigger evoked potentials (events) in the brain, thereby forming sound and visual images in the brain's neural circuits. EMF Brain Stimulation can also change a person's brain-states and affect motor control. Two-way Electronic Brain-Link is done by remotely monitoring neural audio-visual information while transmitting sound to the auditory cortex (bypassing the ears) and transmitting faint images to the visual cortex (bypassing the optic nerves and eyes, the images appear as floating 2-D screens in the brain). Two-Way Electronic Brain Link has become the ultimate communications system for CIA/NSA personnel. Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM, remotely monitoring bioelectric information in the human brain) has become the ultimate surveillance system. It is used by a limited number of agents in the U.S. Intelligence Community. RNM requires decoding the resonance frequency of each specific brain area. That frequency is then modulated in order to impose information in That specific brain area. The frequency to which the various brain areas respond varies from 3 Hz to 50 Hz. Only NSA Signals Intelligence modulates signals in this frequency band.
An example of EMF Brain Stimulation: Brain Area Bioelectric Resonance Frequency Information Induced Through Modulation
Motor Control Cortex10 HZ
Motor Impulse Co-ordination
Auditory Cortex 15 HZ
Sound which bypasses the ears
Visual Cortex25 HZ
Images in the brain, bypassing the eyesSomatosensory Cortex09 HZ
Phantom Touch SenseThought Center20 HZ
Imposed Subconscious Thoughts.
This modulated information can be put into the brain at varying intensities from subliminal to perceptible.Each person's brain has a unique set of bioelectric resonance/entrainment frequencies. Sending audio information to a person's brain at the frequency of another person's auditory cortex would result in that audio information not being perceived.
Additionally, A 1994 congressional hearing reported that “nearly half a million Americans were subjected to some kind of cold war era tests,” often without being informed and without their consent. In addition, experimentation law is well grounded in constitutional and international law. It is an under-reported fact that two major reports on human rights and torture in the U.S. recently listed illegal radiation experiments. Many more facts are documented below. Therefore, human research subject protections should be a high priority and are just as significant as current issues of torture and illegal wiretapping.
It is time for America to wake up. It is time for America to protect its Whistleblowers who are our last line of defense against dictatorship and despotism. It is time for America to take responsibility for oversight of its tax dollars and elect leaders who will assume such responsibility now. Yes, the war on terrorism is important. It is even more important and fearful if the terrorism is from within and unknowingly funded by hard working American citizens. There is no “Special Access Program” beyond the oversight of political leaders elected by the people and for the people. If these political leaders jeopardize national security then that shall be handled in al court of law. But to tell America, to tell the American people, to tell the political leaders elected by the American people that America does not deserve to know what happening in the NSA’s dark, black rooms, with billions of dollars, behind closed doors, when we know that privilege has already been abused; that is the true definition of terrorism. That is the true definition of Communism and a Police State, no oversight. So fellow Americans, you may hem and haw in the face of truth but know that one day you will realize that your country has been usurped from the very principles upon which it was founded. Godspeed, Russ Tice, the Patriots are with you.
SOURCES
www.osiis.blogspot.com
http://www.iahf.com/nsa/20010214.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program
Congress daily
http://www.emhdf.com/nsact1947.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/12/more-unlawful-activity/
Washington Times
http://www.mindjustice.org/humprot2-06.htm
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
NSA Conducting Electronic Warfare on US Citizens?
According to Congress Daily, True American Patriot Russell Tice (see True American Patriot , April 5, 2006) will be speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week. Apparently, Mr. Tice will be discussing some of the illegal activities General Hayden, nominee for the head of the CIA, was involved in while heading the NSA. According to the Washington Times and numerous other sources, Mr. Tice worked on special access programs related to electronic intelligence gathering while working for the NSA and DIA, where he took part in space systems communications, non-communications signals, electronic warfare, satellite control, telemetry, sensors, and special capability systems.
Well, Holy Canoli and Jesus Christ on a Crutch, Electronic Warfare?! What the heck is that? Well let us take a look at the science.
NSA Signals Intelligence Use of EMF Brain Stimulation
NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link (EBL). EMF Brain Stimulation has been in development since the MKUltra program of the early 1950's, which included neurological research into "radiation" (non-ionizing EMF) and bioelectric research and development. The resulting secret technology is categorized at the National Security Archives as "Radiation Intelligence," defined as "information from unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in the environment, not including radioactivity or nuclear detonation."
Signals Intelligence implemented and kept this technology secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available information about this technology and withholds scientific research from the public. There are also international intelligence agency agreements to keep this technology secret.
The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that analyzes electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-generated brain mapping can continuously monitor all the electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of thousands of persons) for national security purposes. EMF Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by the military for Brain-to-computer link. (In military fighter aircraft, for example.)
For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity in the speech center of the brain can be translated into the subject's verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals to the brain's auditory cortex thus allowing audio communication direct to the brain (bypassing the ears). NSA operatives can use this to covertly debilitate subjects by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.
Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural Monitoring can map out electrical activity from the visual cortex of a subject's brain and show images from the subject's brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see what the surveillance subject's eyes are seeing. Visual memory can also be seen. RNM can send images direct to the visual cortex. bypassing the eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives can use this to surreptitiously put images in a surveillance subject's brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep for brain- programming purposes
Individual citizens occasionally targeted for surveillance by independently operating NSA personnel.
NSA personnel can control the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the U.S. by using the NSA's domestic intelligence network and cover businesses. The operations independently run by them can sometimes go beyond the bounds of law. Long-term control and sabotage of tens of thousands of unwitting citizens by NSA operatives is likely to happen. NSA Domint has the ability to covertly assassinate U.S. citizens or run covert psychological control operations to cause subjects to be diagnosed with ill mental health.
National Security Agency Signals Intelligence Electronic Brain Link Technology
NSA SigInt can remotely detect, identify and monitor a person's bioelectric fields.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence has the proprietary ability to remotely and non-invasively monitor information in the human brain by digitally decoding the evoked potentials in the 30-50 hz,.5 milliwatt electro-magnetic emissions from the brain.
Neuronal activity in the brain creates a shifting electrical pattern that has a shifting magnetic flux. This magnetic flux puts out a constant 30-50 hz, .5 milliwatt electromagnetic (EMF) wave. Contained in the electromagnetic emission from the brain are spikes and patterns called "evoked potentials."
Every thought, reaction, motor command, auditory event, and visual image in the brain has a corresponding "evoked potential" or set of "evoked potentials." The EMF emission from the brain can be decoded into the current thoughts, images and sounds in the subject's brain.
NSA SigInt uses EMF-transmitted Brain Stimulation as a communications system to transmit information (as well as nervous system messages) to intelligence agents and also to transmit to the brains of covert operations subjects (on a non-perceptible level).
EMF Brain Stimulation works by sending a complexly coded and pulsed electromagnetic signal to trigger evoked potentials (events) in the brain, thereby forming sound and visual images in the brain's neural circuits. EMF Brain Stimulation can also change a person's brain-states and affect motor control.
Two-way Electronic Brain-Link is done by remotely monitoring neural audio-visual information while transmitting sound to the auditory cortex (bypassing the ears) and transmitting faint images to the visual cortex (bypassing the optic nerves and eyes, the images appear as floating 2-D screens in the brain).
Two-Way Electronic Brain Link has become the ultimate communications system for CIA/NSA personnel. Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM, remotely monitoring bioelectric information in the human brain) has become the ultimate surveillance system. It is used by a limited number of agents in the U.S. Intelligence Community.
RNM requires decoding the resonance frequency of each specific brain area. That frequency is then modulated in order to impose information in That specific brain area. The frequency to which the various brain areas respond varies from 3 Hz to 50 Hz. Only NSA Signals Intelligence modulates signals in this frequency band.
An example of EMF Brain Stimulation:
Brain Area
Bioelectric ResonanceFrequency
Information InducedThrough Modulation
Motor Control Cortex
10 HZ
Motor Impulse Co-ordination
Auditory Cortex
15 HZ
Sound which bypasses the ears
Visual Cortex
25 HZ
Images in the brain, bypassing the eyes
Somatosensory Cortex
09 HZ
Phantom Touch Sense
Thought Center
20 HZ
Imposed Subconscious Thoughts
This modulated information can be put into the brain at varying intensities from subliminal to perceptible.
Each person's brain has a unique set of bioelectric resonance/entrainment frequencies. Sending audio information to a person's brain at the frequency of another person's auditory cortex would result in that audio information not being perceived.
WOW!! What must it be like for someone to endure or even expose something as insidious as electronic warfare. These Programs and the Billions (a GAO audit a few years ago revealed that the DOD had misplaced without explantion $1 Trillion) going to the DOD sound like they definitely need Monitoring. OSIIS doesn’t believe that the exposure of Electronic Warfare on US citizens will be good thing for General Hayden or the Bush administration.
Well, Holy Canoli and Jesus Christ on a Crutch, Electronic Warfare?! What the heck is that? Well let us take a look at the science.
NSA Signals Intelligence Use of EMF Brain Stimulation
NSA Signals Intelligence uses EMF Brain Stimulation for Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM) and Electronic Brain Link (EBL). EMF Brain Stimulation has been in development since the MKUltra program of the early 1950's, which included neurological research into "radiation" (non-ionizing EMF) and bioelectric research and development. The resulting secret technology is categorized at the National Security Archives as "Radiation Intelligence," defined as "information from unintentionally emanated electromagnetic waves in the environment, not including radioactivity or nuclear detonation."
Signals Intelligence implemented and kept this technology secret in the same manner as other electronic warfare programs of the U.S. government. The NSA monitors available information about this technology and withholds scientific research from the public. There are also international intelligence agency agreements to keep this technology secret.
The NSA has proprietary electronic equipment that analyzes electrical activity in humans from a distance. NSA computer-generated brain mapping can continuously monitor all the electrical activity in the brain continuously. The NSA records and decodes individual brain maps (of hundreds of thousands of persons) for national security purposes. EMF Brain Stimulation is also secretly used by the military for Brain-to-computer link. (In military fighter aircraft, for example.)
For electronic surveillance purposes electrical activity in the speech center of the brain can be translated into the subject's verbal thoughts. RNM can send encoded signals to the brain's auditory cortex thus allowing audio communication direct to the brain (bypassing the ears). NSA operatives can use this to covertly debilitate subjects by simulating auditory hallucinations characteristic of paranoid schizophrenia.
Without any contact with the subject, Remote Neural Monitoring can map out electrical activity from the visual cortex of a subject's brain and show images from the subject's brain on a video monitor. NSA operatives see what the surveillance subject's eyes are seeing. Visual memory can also be seen. RNM can send images direct to the visual cortex. bypassing the eyes and optic nerves. NSA operatives can use this to surreptitiously put images in a surveillance subject's brain while they are in R.E.M. sleep for brain- programming purposes
Individual citizens occasionally targeted for surveillance by independently operating NSA personnel.
NSA personnel can control the lives of hundreds of thousands of individuals in the U.S. by using the NSA's domestic intelligence network and cover businesses. The operations independently run by them can sometimes go beyond the bounds of law. Long-term control and sabotage of tens of thousands of unwitting citizens by NSA operatives is likely to happen. NSA Domint has the ability to covertly assassinate U.S. citizens or run covert psychological control operations to cause subjects to be diagnosed with ill mental health.
National Security Agency Signals Intelligence Electronic Brain Link Technology
NSA SigInt can remotely detect, identify and monitor a person's bioelectric fields.
The NSA's Signals Intelligence has the proprietary ability to remotely and non-invasively monitor information in the human brain by digitally decoding the evoked potentials in the 30-50 hz,.5 milliwatt electro-magnetic emissions from the brain.
Neuronal activity in the brain creates a shifting electrical pattern that has a shifting magnetic flux. This magnetic flux puts out a constant 30-50 hz, .5 milliwatt electromagnetic (EMF) wave. Contained in the electromagnetic emission from the brain are spikes and patterns called "evoked potentials."
Every thought, reaction, motor command, auditory event, and visual image in the brain has a corresponding "evoked potential" or set of "evoked potentials." The EMF emission from the brain can be decoded into the current thoughts, images and sounds in the subject's brain.
NSA SigInt uses EMF-transmitted Brain Stimulation as a communications system to transmit information (as well as nervous system messages) to intelligence agents and also to transmit to the brains of covert operations subjects (on a non-perceptible level).
EMF Brain Stimulation works by sending a complexly coded and pulsed electromagnetic signal to trigger evoked potentials (events) in the brain, thereby forming sound and visual images in the brain's neural circuits. EMF Brain Stimulation can also change a person's brain-states and affect motor control.
Two-way Electronic Brain-Link is done by remotely monitoring neural audio-visual information while transmitting sound to the auditory cortex (bypassing the ears) and transmitting faint images to the visual cortex (bypassing the optic nerves and eyes, the images appear as floating 2-D screens in the brain).
Two-Way Electronic Brain Link has become the ultimate communications system for CIA/NSA personnel. Remote Neural Monitoring (RNM, remotely monitoring bioelectric information in the human brain) has become the ultimate surveillance system. It is used by a limited number of agents in the U.S. Intelligence Community.
RNM requires decoding the resonance frequency of each specific brain area. That frequency is then modulated in order to impose information in That specific brain area. The frequency to which the various brain areas respond varies from 3 Hz to 50 Hz. Only NSA Signals Intelligence modulates signals in this frequency band.
An example of EMF Brain Stimulation:
Brain Area
Bioelectric ResonanceFrequency
Information InducedThrough Modulation
Motor Control Cortex
10 HZ
Motor Impulse Co-ordination
Auditory Cortex
15 HZ
Sound which bypasses the ears
Visual Cortex
25 HZ
Images in the brain, bypassing the eyes
Somatosensory Cortex
09 HZ
Phantom Touch Sense
Thought Center
20 HZ
Imposed Subconscious Thoughts
This modulated information can be put into the brain at varying intensities from subliminal to perceptible.
Each person's brain has a unique set of bioelectric resonance/entrainment frequencies. Sending audio information to a person's brain at the frequency of another person's auditory cortex would result in that audio information not being perceived.
WOW!! What must it be like for someone to endure or even expose something as insidious as electronic warfare. These Programs and the Billions (a GAO audit a few years ago revealed that the DOD had misplaced without explantion $1 Trillion) going to the DOD sound like they definitely need Monitoring. OSIIS doesn’t believe that the exposure of Electronic Warfare on US citizens will be good thing for General Hayden or the Bush administration.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Hold On!
OSIIS – OPEN SOURCE INTERNET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
FORECASTS AND PREDICTIONS
General Hayden, will get scorched by flamethrower-like questions in his nomination hearings. This will happen because the CIA, State, and Congress realize that this is their last opportunity to preserve any modicum of power or respect in the Pentagon’s ever expanding power grab since 9/11. Disgruntled DOD employees and Republican’s up for re-election will also contribute to this forthcoming spit-roasting.
The policies and antics of the Bush administration may have brought together one of the most formidable, intelligent, diverse and powerful underground coalitions in politics. Based on the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” philosophy, a lot of new friendships have been made.
Those previous two paragraphs were written last night, May 10, 2006. The NSA can verify that if they have been monitoring the network. Rather than publish them at the time, OSIIS decided to wait. The patience has born fruit.
As forecasted, on the April 27, 2006 OSIIS blog BLOOD IN THE WATER, the NSA domestic spying controversy has reignited and exploded on to the scene. In the same blog, OSIIS followers should take note of the other forecasts. President Bush will be removed from office. The purging of corrupt officials will be deep. This is as it should be, especially, if one considers the fact that such a significant number of administration officials are linked to the old Iran/Contra scandal. It is more then ironic that members of the same administration ready to declare war on Iran were eagerly engaged in selling them illegal arms two decades ago. This time will be a little different. Suffice it to say the guilty will not be practicing politics in the future nor will they be Fox News Correspondents.
BREAKING NEWS: JOHN MURTHA PREDICTS PUBLIC OPINION WILL FORCE THE US TO PULL OUT OF IRAQ BY 2007. As you will notice in the blog titled, Rough Day for Rummy as the Pentagon Don Drinks Rum Punch, 5/4/06, Murtha’s name is mentioned first after the question, “Who is going to step up next?”. The OSIIS crystal ball is really shining these days. Now, back to the domestic spying issue.
Neither Tony Snow nor Josh Bolten can help the President get ahead of this one. Many of the Republicans running up to defend the President are running right into a trap. OSIIS believes that the current whistleblowing is well timed and well coordinated. Future revelations in the NSA spying case will lop the head off of anyone that’s already committed to defending the domestic spying program. OSIIS believes that the revolt goes deep into the heart of the NSA. Specifics are reserved for OSIIS clientele. At some point all OSIIS analysis will be reserved for clientele. This is another forecast that will come true.
The bottom line is that there is alot more then domestic spying going on. Much of it is labeled “training”, “experimental” or “Special Access Programs”. Certain members within the intelligence community are deeply vested in the appropriations of these programs. These members understand the devastating repercussions to themselves if these programs are ever scrutinized. Certain other members are disgusted by these programs. The reality of the situation is that there is no finger big enough to plug the whole in this dam. Its not a hole in a dam. It’s a damn big hole.
Issues to ponder: Since the NSA is part of the DOD what responsibility does Don Rumsfeld have in this domestic spying.
If the NSA domestic spying program was authorized pre-9/11 then that means the program was a failure. An unchallenged, unauthorized, unexamined failure and an expensive one to taxpayers wallets, pocketbooks and civil rights.
These are just a couple of challenging questions to come.
True American Patriot: Jack Cafferty for his reference to Arlen Specter on today’s Cafferty files. Everyone needs friends like that. A pat on the back to Jack, a True American Patriot.
FORECASTS AND PREDICTIONS
General Hayden, will get scorched by flamethrower-like questions in his nomination hearings. This will happen because the CIA, State, and Congress realize that this is their last opportunity to preserve any modicum of power or respect in the Pentagon’s ever expanding power grab since 9/11. Disgruntled DOD employees and Republican’s up for re-election will also contribute to this forthcoming spit-roasting.
The policies and antics of the Bush administration may have brought together one of the most formidable, intelligent, diverse and powerful underground coalitions in politics. Based on the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” philosophy, a lot of new friendships have been made.
Those previous two paragraphs were written last night, May 10, 2006. The NSA can verify that if they have been monitoring the network. Rather than publish them at the time, OSIIS decided to wait. The patience has born fruit.
As forecasted, on the April 27, 2006 OSIIS blog BLOOD IN THE WATER, the NSA domestic spying controversy has reignited and exploded on to the scene. In the same blog, OSIIS followers should take note of the other forecasts. President Bush will be removed from office. The purging of corrupt officials will be deep. This is as it should be, especially, if one considers the fact that such a significant number of administration officials are linked to the old Iran/Contra scandal. It is more then ironic that members of the same administration ready to declare war on Iran were eagerly engaged in selling them illegal arms two decades ago. This time will be a little different. Suffice it to say the guilty will not be practicing politics in the future nor will they be Fox News Correspondents.
BREAKING NEWS: JOHN MURTHA PREDICTS PUBLIC OPINION WILL FORCE THE US TO PULL OUT OF IRAQ BY 2007. As you will notice in the blog titled, Rough Day for Rummy as the Pentagon Don Drinks Rum Punch, 5/4/06, Murtha’s name is mentioned first after the question, “Who is going to step up next?”. The OSIIS crystal ball is really shining these days. Now, back to the domestic spying issue.
Neither Tony Snow nor Josh Bolten can help the President get ahead of this one. Many of the Republicans running up to defend the President are running right into a trap. OSIIS believes that the current whistleblowing is well timed and well coordinated. Future revelations in the NSA spying case will lop the head off of anyone that’s already committed to defending the domestic spying program. OSIIS believes that the revolt goes deep into the heart of the NSA. Specifics are reserved for OSIIS clientele. At some point all OSIIS analysis will be reserved for clientele. This is another forecast that will come true.
The bottom line is that there is alot more then domestic spying going on. Much of it is labeled “training”, “experimental” or “Special Access Programs”. Certain members within the intelligence community are deeply vested in the appropriations of these programs. These members understand the devastating repercussions to themselves if these programs are ever scrutinized. Certain other members are disgusted by these programs. The reality of the situation is that there is no finger big enough to plug the whole in this dam. Its not a hole in a dam. It’s a damn big hole.
Issues to ponder: Since the NSA is part of the DOD what responsibility does Don Rumsfeld have in this domestic spying.
If the NSA domestic spying program was authorized pre-9/11 then that means the program was a failure. An unchallenged, unauthorized, unexamined failure and an expensive one to taxpayers wallets, pocketbooks and civil rights.
These are just a couple of challenging questions to come.
True American Patriot: Jack Cafferty for his reference to Arlen Specter on today’s Cafferty files. Everyone needs friends like that. A pat on the back to Jack, a True American Patriot.
Friday, May 05, 2006
New Damage
Porter Goss resigns. In what must be a record for short term tenure, Porter Goss hits the road. It looks like New Damage. Was P. Goss singing; "Its new damage done. The wreck is going down. Get out before you drown."
Bush is spilling the party line about accepting Goss's resignation. Goss is talking about having enjoyed his service. The reality is that Bush looks miffed and mystified. Porter Goss looks very uncomfortable and tense. Interesting, how quickly Bush accepted the resignation of his own nominee. McGovern speaks Goss resigns. This thing is churning like butter. McGovern, supporter of Patriotic Whistleblowers. Porter Goss, designated CIA leak stopper. Score one for the Patriots and let the music play.
Bush is spilling the party line about accepting Goss's resignation. Goss is talking about having enjoyed his service. The reality is that Bush looks miffed and mystified. Porter Goss looks very uncomfortable and tense. Interesting, how quickly Bush accepted the resignation of his own nominee. McGovern speaks Goss resigns. This thing is churning like butter. McGovern, supporter of Patriotic Whistleblowers. Porter Goss, designated CIA leak stopper. Score one for the Patriots and let the music play.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Rough Day for Rummy as the Pentagon Don Drinks Rum Punch
OSIIS - OPEN SOURCE INTERNET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
Ray McGovern delivered a first round knockout to dandy don rumsfeld at a recent speech. Don got softened up by three protesters, 2 women and 1 man before Ray Ray got to him. Then Ray Ray did what no one does these days. He spoke truth to power. When he did; the power folded like origami. It is rather hard to battle the truth.
Ray did his research and called Rumsfeld on his quotes about WMD and Zarqawi in Iraq. There was alot of stuttering and alot of confusion for the SecDef. Mostly, there is alot of tape on CNN of the Don directly contradicting himself and there should be. The unfortunate thing is that CNN and other media outlets have had these and many other contradictions under their nose and on tape for years. Former CIA agents and Generals are doing the presses job. Thank God, somebody is.
"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson
Ray McGovern, a retired 27 year veteran for the Central Intelligence Agency, is a True American Patriot (TAP). Having briefed Kissinger, Reagan, Bush I, and other notables; Ray McGovern's challenge to Rumsfeld was based on truth not politics.
It makes me proud to be an American when I see people like Ray McGovern. The fact that Ray McGovern performed high level analysis for the CIA reflects positively on the Agency. Chalk one up for CIA Vets and the retired Generals. Who is going to step up next? Will there be another Murtha? Someone inside the Pentagon? The DIA? NSA? State? Maybe even, God forbid, the press might break some of its' own news. One thing is for sure. For every person that speaks out there are five silent ones that feel the same way. Surely, some of those Patriots are working silently from within. In the dark where they have always been and feel most comfortable. Salutations to those True American Patriots working behind the scenes. It will be because of True American Patriots that these walls of greed, deceit, filth and lies that weaken America's national security will fall.
ps. Has anyone seen the Genius Mastermind that engineered an attack on the Pentagon?
Ray McGovern delivered a first round knockout to dandy don rumsfeld at a recent speech. Don got softened up by three protesters, 2 women and 1 man before Ray Ray got to him. Then Ray Ray did what no one does these days. He spoke truth to power. When he did; the power folded like origami. It is rather hard to battle the truth.
Ray did his research and called Rumsfeld on his quotes about WMD and Zarqawi in Iraq. There was alot of stuttering and alot of confusion for the SecDef. Mostly, there is alot of tape on CNN of the Don directly contradicting himself and there should be. The unfortunate thing is that CNN and other media outlets have had these and many other contradictions under their nose and on tape for years. Former CIA agents and Generals are doing the presses job. Thank God, somebody is.
"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson
Ray McGovern, a retired 27 year veteran for the Central Intelligence Agency, is a True American Patriot (TAP). Having briefed Kissinger, Reagan, Bush I, and other notables; Ray McGovern's challenge to Rumsfeld was based on truth not politics.
It makes me proud to be an American when I see people like Ray McGovern. The fact that Ray McGovern performed high level analysis for the CIA reflects positively on the Agency. Chalk one up for CIA Vets and the retired Generals. Who is going to step up next? Will there be another Murtha? Someone inside the Pentagon? The DIA? NSA? State? Maybe even, God forbid, the press might break some of its' own news. One thing is for sure. For every person that speaks out there are five silent ones that feel the same way. Surely, some of those Patriots are working silently from within. In the dark where they have always been and feel most comfortable. Salutations to those True American Patriots working behind the scenes. It will be because of True American Patriots that these walls of greed, deceit, filth and lies that weaken America's national security will fall.
ps. Has anyone seen the Genius Mastermind that engineered an attack on the Pentagon?
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
The State of State
OSIIS – Open Source Internet Intelligence Service
The United States Department of State, affectionately known as State, has been long held by some as the crème de la crème of intellectual thought and Jeffersonian democracy. It is viewed by others as the last entrenched repository of Washington’s left wing radicals. The fact of the matter is State has been neither of those as of late. The transition at State has been a deep and troubling one. It has been most disturbing to long-term employees who like to think or give subject matter careful consideration. So much of the current scandal and controversy in American politics are only a few degrees of separation from the goings on at State. Joe Wilson, uranium in Niger, CIA leak, the War in Iraq; these and so many others involve the sweeping revolution and battle with which the State Department is currently engaged.
Is there truly a battle, a revolution, a revolt happening in Foggy Bottom? Check out this article, http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13814730.htm.
According to this Knight Ridder article, the Department of State has been undergoing a political cleansing. This cleansing has resulted in the replacing of career experts by Pentagon and White House political operatives. Apparently, loyalty to George Bush and Condoleeza Rice has replaced expertise and intelligence on the subject matter at hand.
The end of the article notes the following achievements by State after the Bush administration coup de tat.
The Bush administration's arms control policies began with a refusal to submit a global treaty to ban underground nuclear-test blasts indefinitely for Senate ratification.
The administration withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and blocked international efforts to conclude a pact on verifying compliance with a global biological-weapons ban.
The administration also rejected a mechanism for verifying that the United States and Russia are adhering to a 2002 accord to cut deployed nuclear warheads, has embraced new uses for nuclear arms and is spending billions modernizing and improving the U.S. arsenal.
It certainly doesn’t inspire the warm fuzzies. Why is America blocking an international pact that verifies compliance with a global biological-weapons ban? You would think that such verifications would provide valuable information; especially since we went into Iraq because of such WMD. Not to mention the face masks our soldiers had to wear in the desert.
Furthermore, this culling of common sense is being executed by the same gentlemen; Frederick Fleitz and Robert Joseph, involved in the Valerie Plame leak and other sordid State Department fiascos such as the “uranium in Niger”.
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406J.shtml.)
A dozen State Department officials drafted a dissent letter to W. Robert Pearson, Director of Human Resources and Director General of the Foreign Service about this unprecedented shake-up. If the dissenters had done their background they would have known not to waste their time.
W. Robert Pearson is a relic from back in the Iran-Contra days when he was Deputy Executive Secretary on Reagan’s National Security Council. Even back then he was trying to avoid the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:BavvoBwM0QQJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/
20/162520/783+nswrp+pearson&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10
Once again liberal compassion bit itself in the behind. W. Robert Pearson stayed on and stayed employed through both Democratic and Republican administrations. H e stayed on long enough to become Ambassador to Turkey where he compared the Armenian genocide to UFO sightings, not quite the diplomatic things to say about the murder and execution of over 1.5 million people.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
How he went from that to Director of Human Resources is perhaps the biggest mystery.
Nevertheless, the resistance at State continues as the latest Country Report on Terror lists Iraq as a training ground for terrorists, Colin Powell recollects his unheeded advice to President Bush and perhaps the final piece de’ resistance; the collateral explosion of the CIA leak case and NSA domestic spying. As some anonymous State Department employees, both present and former, maybe thinking; it is almost payback time.
The United States Department of State, affectionately known as State, has been long held by some as the crème de la crème of intellectual thought and Jeffersonian democracy. It is viewed by others as the last entrenched repository of Washington’s left wing radicals. The fact of the matter is State has been neither of those as of late. The transition at State has been a deep and troubling one. It has been most disturbing to long-term employees who like to think or give subject matter careful consideration. So much of the current scandal and controversy in American politics are only a few degrees of separation from the goings on at State. Joe Wilson, uranium in Niger, CIA leak, the War in Iraq; these and so many others involve the sweeping revolution and battle with which the State Department is currently engaged.
Is there truly a battle, a revolution, a revolt happening in Foggy Bottom? Check out this article, http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13814730.htm.
According to this Knight Ridder article, the Department of State has been undergoing a political cleansing. This cleansing has resulted in the replacing of career experts by Pentagon and White House political operatives. Apparently, loyalty to George Bush and Condoleeza Rice has replaced expertise and intelligence on the subject matter at hand.
The end of the article notes the following achievements by State after the Bush administration coup de tat.
The Bush administration's arms control policies began with a refusal to submit a global treaty to ban underground nuclear-test blasts indefinitely for Senate ratification.
The administration withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and blocked international efforts to conclude a pact on verifying compliance with a global biological-weapons ban.
The administration also rejected a mechanism for verifying that the United States and Russia are adhering to a 2002 accord to cut deployed nuclear warheads, has embraced new uses for nuclear arms and is spending billions modernizing and improving the U.S. arsenal.
It certainly doesn’t inspire the warm fuzzies. Why is America blocking an international pact that verifies compliance with a global biological-weapons ban? You would think that such verifications would provide valuable information; especially since we went into Iraq because of such WMD. Not to mention the face masks our soldiers had to wear in the desert.
Furthermore, this culling of common sense is being executed by the same gentlemen; Frederick Fleitz and Robert Joseph, involved in the Valerie Plame leak and other sordid State Department fiascos such as the “uranium in Niger”.
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022406J.shtml.)
A dozen State Department officials drafted a dissent letter to W. Robert Pearson, Director of Human Resources and Director General of the Foreign Service about this unprecedented shake-up. If the dissenters had done their background they would have known not to waste their time.
W. Robert Pearson is a relic from back in the Iran-Contra days when he was Deputy Executive Secretary on Reagan’s National Security Council. Even back then he was trying to avoid the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:BavvoBwM0QQJ:www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/
20/162520/783+nswrp+pearson&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10
Once again liberal compassion bit itself in the behind. W. Robert Pearson stayed on and stayed employed through both Democratic and Republican administrations. H e stayed on long enough to become Ambassador to Turkey where he compared the Armenian genocide to UFO sightings, not quite the diplomatic things to say about the murder and execution of over 1.5 million people.
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/
How he went from that to Director of Human Resources is perhaps the biggest mystery.
Nevertheless, the resistance at State continues as the latest Country Report on Terror lists Iraq as a training ground for terrorists, Colin Powell recollects his unheeded advice to President Bush and perhaps the final piece de’ resistance; the collateral explosion of the CIA leak case and NSA domestic spying. As some anonymous State Department employees, both present and former, maybe thinking; it is almost payback time.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
BLOOD IN THE WATER
OSIIS - OPEN SOURCE INTERNET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE
The feeding frenzy will begin shortly. The Bush White House is not far away from a precipitous fall. Previously immune to any attack of the facts and content with “trust me I’m the president” declarations; the Bush administration is finding itself besieged from all sides. To put it in laymen’s turns, “You can only do so much dirt before you have to take a bath.”
The chair shuffling of Karl Rove was predicted (see “Texas Hold'em: Andy Card is Dealt, Is Rove on the River?”) and as predicted it was window dressing. What is more important is that White House knows it is in trouble. The staff shuffling in itself is a potent indicator of such knowledge. Remember, we are dealing with a President that told us he had the right to spy on Americans and interpret the Bill of Rights as he sees fit. This is the same President that threw the country into war and stuffed the Patriot Act down America’s throat. For what seemed like too incredibly long of a time this President was the Teflon Don, a Supreme Potentate that handed his decisions down to the bewildered citizenship. Well, you can take that whole visual and flip it on its head because, politically speaking, the current administration has created so many enemies they will be lucky to escape resignation and/or impeachment before the end of President Bush’s final term. It may get so bad that, in hindsight, Russ Feingold’s motion to censure could turn out to be the gift horse that was looked in the mouth. Because, the fact of the matter is there is no shuffling, dodging or hiding from Iraq.
Our American men and women in uniform are falling, bleeding and dying every week. They are coming home in body bags, pieces or to the VA for rehab and prosthetics. This is a reality that the Bush administration can’t hide from. More importantly, the soldiers, the Generals couldn’t hide from this reality anymore. It is their boys and girls, their men and women they are sending into harms way and it was no longer acceptable. The Generals speaking out was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Perhaps, they began to wonder, like many civilians, how America was going to export Democracy by torturing Iraqi’s. Whatever they thought, their voices were heard and now, as the White House plays musical chairs, the war in Iraq goes on. Even if Rumsfeld does resign the war in Iraq goes on. It goes on with out a plan. It goes on without a mission. It goes on with a sage like “uh-duh….we got to get a government in there”. That is quite the far cry from Mission Accomplished. Meanwhile, sons and daughters of Democrats and Republicans continue to die everyday. For those neocon hand puppets who denounce any challenging discussion of the war by saying its unpatriotic and hurts our troops; I dare you to go tell any member of the 82nd Airborne that they are unpatriotic and hurting their brothers and sisters in uniform. I bet you end up on your keister. Such accusations might be better directed toward the multi-billion dollar oil profiteers and half billion dollar CEO’s.
The Bush White House has run over too many people and made too many enemies. The shortlist is a long list. It ranges from unemployed victims of outsourcing to intelligence agents compromised by name dropping, from public servants who believe in free speech to federal agents who don’t want privacy breeched, FISA judge resignations, corporate accounting orchestrations, judicially elected President’s, homeless Katrina residents, manipulated voter scrolls, voting machines by Diebold. The list of egregious, possibly illegal, acts by this administration is endless and surely the most extensive of any presidency. One really wonders how President Clinton’s “sexual relations” got such incredible media attention at the time.
All things considered, OSIIS is predicting that the current administration will be brought down in scandal and the purging will be deep. So, investigative journalists get your pens ready because careers are about to be made. Republicans are best advised to put as much distance between themselves and the administration as possible. Wavering Democrats be careful not to lose a limb during the forthcoming carnivorous carnival. This one is going to be ugly. I know it. A little bird told me so.
Lastly, keep your eye on the NSA “spying on Americans” issue. When that whole package gets unwrapped…how best to put it? You have heard the expression who watches the Watcher. Well, what about who listens to the Listener and what happens when they have tapes?
The feeding frenzy will begin shortly. The Bush White House is not far away from a precipitous fall. Previously immune to any attack of the facts and content with “trust me I’m the president” declarations; the Bush administration is finding itself besieged from all sides. To put it in laymen’s turns, “You can only do so much dirt before you have to take a bath.”
The chair shuffling of Karl Rove was predicted (see “Texas Hold'em: Andy Card is Dealt, Is Rove on the River?”) and as predicted it was window dressing. What is more important is that White House knows it is in trouble. The staff shuffling in itself is a potent indicator of such knowledge. Remember, we are dealing with a President that told us he had the right to spy on Americans and interpret the Bill of Rights as he sees fit. This is the same President that threw the country into war and stuffed the Patriot Act down America’s throat. For what seemed like too incredibly long of a time this President was the Teflon Don, a Supreme Potentate that handed his decisions down to the bewildered citizenship. Well, you can take that whole visual and flip it on its head because, politically speaking, the current administration has created so many enemies they will be lucky to escape resignation and/or impeachment before the end of President Bush’s final term. It may get so bad that, in hindsight, Russ Feingold’s motion to censure could turn out to be the gift horse that was looked in the mouth. Because, the fact of the matter is there is no shuffling, dodging or hiding from Iraq.
Our American men and women in uniform are falling, bleeding and dying every week. They are coming home in body bags, pieces or to the VA for rehab and prosthetics. This is a reality that the Bush administration can’t hide from. More importantly, the soldiers, the Generals couldn’t hide from this reality anymore. It is their boys and girls, their men and women they are sending into harms way and it was no longer acceptable. The Generals speaking out was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Perhaps, they began to wonder, like many civilians, how America was going to export Democracy by torturing Iraqi’s. Whatever they thought, their voices were heard and now, as the White House plays musical chairs, the war in Iraq goes on. Even if Rumsfeld does resign the war in Iraq goes on. It goes on with out a plan. It goes on without a mission. It goes on with a sage like “uh-duh….we got to get a government in there”. That is quite the far cry from Mission Accomplished. Meanwhile, sons and daughters of Democrats and Republicans continue to die everyday. For those neocon hand puppets who denounce any challenging discussion of the war by saying its unpatriotic and hurts our troops; I dare you to go tell any member of the 82nd Airborne that they are unpatriotic and hurting their brothers and sisters in uniform. I bet you end up on your keister. Such accusations might be better directed toward the multi-billion dollar oil profiteers and half billion dollar CEO’s.
The Bush White House has run over too many people and made too many enemies. The shortlist is a long list. It ranges from unemployed victims of outsourcing to intelligence agents compromised by name dropping, from public servants who believe in free speech to federal agents who don’t want privacy breeched, FISA judge resignations, corporate accounting orchestrations, judicially elected President’s, homeless Katrina residents, manipulated voter scrolls, voting machines by Diebold. The list of egregious, possibly illegal, acts by this administration is endless and surely the most extensive of any presidency. One really wonders how President Clinton’s “sexual relations” got such incredible media attention at the time.
All things considered, OSIIS is predicting that the current administration will be brought down in scandal and the purging will be deep. So, investigative journalists get your pens ready because careers are about to be made. Republicans are best advised to put as much distance between themselves and the administration as possible. Wavering Democrats be careful not to lose a limb during the forthcoming carnivorous carnival. This one is going to be ugly. I know it. A little bird told me so.
Lastly, keep your eye on the NSA “spying on Americans” issue. When that whole package gets unwrapped…how best to put it? You have heard the expression who watches the Watcher. Well, what about who listens to the Listener and what happens when they have tapes?
Friday, April 21, 2006
Apples in Seattle
OSIIS Open Source Internet Intelligence Service
Hu Jintao’s historic visit to the United States had many interesting aspects to it. To begin with he visited Bill Gates before President Bush. Thus arranging his itinerary was a very clear statement. There are a lot of ways to put it but, bluntly stated, Jintao’s message was, “Mr. Bush, I respect the power you wield, but I do not respect you.”
The Chinese are Masters of saying all while saying nothing. The head of the world’s largest country in the world, the President of the world’s fastest growing economy, Hu Jintao, steps into America, the most powerful nation in the world and has Apples in Seattle before he drops in on the President of the United States.
How long, how much time was required just between logistics and security, not to mention dinner menus, to coordinate this visit. More importantly, this incredible amount of time and attention revolved around Mr. Gates. Thus we have another message from China via Mr. Hu Jintao. The message is, we respect and like Mr. Gates. We place a high value on him because of his business excellence, excellent product and his willingness to help us utilize it. We are showing our appreciation by giving Mr. Gates Company $1 Billion. We are showing our appreciation by cracking down on illegal copies of Mr. Gates products. (This action is worth more than $1 Billion).
It sounds like Bill and Hu had a wonderful time. They even dropped in on a children’s Kung Fu Club to watch practice. Hu’s facial expressions and body language while visiting with Mr. Gates seemed positive and upbeat for the most part. The only grimace I noticed was when Mr. Hu was receiving those who had come to greet him. The shot was taken so that Mr. Jintao’s face was visible. It captured the rear view of an old, short, gray haired man, in need of a haircut, approaching Mr. Jintao to shake his hand. The old man held Hu’s hand for way to long and you could see the Grimace on Mr. Jintao’s face as he realized what and/or who he was dealing with. It was like Hu joyously chomped into a delicious Washington apple and hit a nasty little worm.
OSIIS did not research much of the Boeing visit. Suffice it to say it’s a huge business deal for Boeing involving 20-30 planes and billions of dollars. Apparently, Hu put on the Boeing hat. It must be love. Surely, Mr. Jintao and China are interested in Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
Saving the worst for last Mr. Jintao met with Mr. Bush in D.C. At least he didn’t have to go to Crawford where the pistols, boots, Stetson and chainsaw could be laying around. Not to mention, he would risk getting pepper shots from Dick. By the way, Guinea Fowl, which was the First Course in Bill and Hu’s Seattle meal, is raised side by side with Quail in Central Texas. Mr. Jintao was definitely more tense and restrained around President Bush. He was focused on staying on message. His message was that
“China and the United States share extensive, common strategic interests and there is a broad prospect for the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. A good China-U.S. relationship is of strategic significance to the maintenance and promotion of peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world at large.
Hu Jintao’s historic visit to the United States had many interesting aspects to it. To begin with he visited Bill Gates before President Bush. Thus arranging his itinerary was a very clear statement. There are a lot of ways to put it but, bluntly stated, Jintao’s message was, “Mr. Bush, I respect the power you wield, but I do not respect you.”
The Chinese are Masters of saying all while saying nothing. The head of the world’s largest country in the world, the President of the world’s fastest growing economy, Hu Jintao, steps into America, the most powerful nation in the world and has Apples in Seattle before he drops in on the President of the United States.
How long, how much time was required just between logistics and security, not to mention dinner menus, to coordinate this visit. More importantly, this incredible amount of time and attention revolved around Mr. Gates. Thus we have another message from China via Mr. Hu Jintao. The message is, we respect and like Mr. Gates. We place a high value on him because of his business excellence, excellent product and his willingness to help us utilize it. We are showing our appreciation by giving Mr. Gates Company $1 Billion. We are showing our appreciation by cracking down on illegal copies of Mr. Gates products. (This action is worth more than $1 Billion).
It sounds like Bill and Hu had a wonderful time. They even dropped in on a children’s Kung Fu Club to watch practice. Hu’s facial expressions and body language while visiting with Mr. Gates seemed positive and upbeat for the most part. The only grimace I noticed was when Mr. Hu was receiving those who had come to greet him. The shot was taken so that Mr. Jintao’s face was visible. It captured the rear view of an old, short, gray haired man, in need of a haircut, approaching Mr. Jintao to shake his hand. The old man held Hu’s hand for way to long and you could see the Grimace on Mr. Jintao’s face as he realized what and/or who he was dealing with. It was like Hu joyously chomped into a delicious Washington apple and hit a nasty little worm.
OSIIS did not research much of the Boeing visit. Suffice it to say it’s a huge business deal for Boeing involving 20-30 planes and billions of dollars. Apparently, Hu put on the Boeing hat. It must be love. Surely, Mr. Jintao and China are interested in Boeing Integrated Defense Systems.
Saving the worst for last Mr. Jintao met with Mr. Bush in D.C. At least he didn’t have to go to Crawford where the pistols, boots, Stetson and chainsaw could be laying around. Not to mention, he would risk getting pepper shots from Dick. By the way, Guinea Fowl, which was the First Course in Bill and Hu’s Seattle meal, is raised side by side with Quail in Central Texas. Mr. Jintao was definitely more tense and restrained around President Bush. He was focused on staying on message. His message was that
“China and the United States share extensive, common strategic interests and there is a broad prospect for the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. A good China-U.S. relationship is of strategic significance to the maintenance and promotion of peace, stability and development in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world at large.
We both agreed to view and address the bilateral relationship from a strategic and long-term perspective, and we both agreed to comprehensively move forward the constructive and cooperative China-U.S. relationship in the 21st century, to the benefits of the Chinese and American people, and people around the world.”
Those words were drier, more neutral and factual then similar statements China has made about their Russian relationship. Those statements regarding Russia are more emotional and momentum building. For example is this 2003 Statement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs regarding Chinese-Russian relations.
“China-Russia friendly relations and cooperation of good neighborliness and mutual benefit have not only been completely inherited, but also gathered momentum. President Hu Jintao and President Putin attach great importance to the development of bilateral relations.”
There are more examples of China’s international relationships contained in the Euro-Asian Alliance report, Part 1, Shifts in the Global Balance of Power. This report shall be available soon, free of charge, at this website in the very near future.
Mr. Hu almost let the cat out of the bag when he was asked; when would China become a democracy with free elections?
HU: I don't know — what do you mean by a democracy? What I can tell you is that we've always believed in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernization, which means that ever since China's reform and opening up in the late 1970s, China, on the one hand, has vigorously promoted economic reform, and on the other, China has also been actively, properly and appropriately moving forward the political restructuring process, and we have always been expanding the democracy and freedoms for the Chinese citizens.
In the future, we will, in the light of China's own national conditions and the will of the Chinese people, continue to move ahead the political restructuring and to develop a socialist democracy, and we will further expand the orderly participation of the Chinese citizens in political affairs so that the Chinese citizens will be in a better position to exercise their democratic rights in terms of democratic supervision, democratic management and democratic decision-making.
When Hu said, “I don’t know --- what do you mean by democracy?” It was as if he was at first infuriated, then realized he was talking to a child and then remembered it was a very dangerous child. In Mr. Jintao’s mind an America so imperialist, so violent and so reviled around the world is no gold standard for democracy. The way Mr. Jintao put it was that democracy is central to his countries modernization and the government has always been expanding the democracy and freedoms for the Chinese citizens. They have even named this democracy. It’s called a Social Democracy. A prime example of a Social Democracy would be Sweden. Hoodathunkit? Looks like our media and Chinese experts need to update their thoughts on China’s political designs. Maybe, after seeing a baby democracy get aborted in Russia and a glorified Democracy go Frankenstein in America, the Chinese decided to give democracy more careful consideration.
All in all President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States of America was very interesting to say the least. For further analysis on this or any other political event, situation or scenario contact OSIIS. Open Source Internet Intelligence Service.
Monday, April 17, 2006
The Risks of Attacking Iran
OSIIS Open Source Internet Intelligence Service
All current Democratic movements in the Middle East and Iran would be setback.
There would be an increase in vulnerabilities, casualties and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There would be increased polarization between the US and the rest of the world.
Muslims worldwide would be antagonized.
The number of terrorist attacks against Americans and American Assets worldwide would increase.
The US debt/deficit would be exponentially compounded.
The dollar would be weakened.
US vulnerability to domestic attacks would increase.
US international relations and diplomatic activities would be irreparably damaged.
Other countries would cohesively focus on defensive multilateral responses to US hegemony.
The United States will lose some of its current allies due to internal pressure in their home states.
The likelihood of internal civil unrest/civil war will increase dramatically.
Attacking the United States, it’s assets and interests, at home and abroad, will become a more viable option as our forces face increased engagements and deployments.
The chaotic environment created by a US conflict with Iran will generate long-term upside profitability for oil and oil related interests.
The U.S. Department of Defense will solidify its claims on ever increasing budgetary allocations and expenditures.
Other notable opinions:
Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke also joined the fray, arguing armed conflict with Iran could backfire and prove even more damaging to US interests than the war with Iraq.
'Strike on Iran to trigger global terror'
Iran would retaliate with a wave of global terror if its nuclear facilities are attacked by the West, British newspaper Sunday Times reports. American experts estimate Muslim republic will strike American targets in U.S., around the world in response to such attack.
Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation’s nuclear sites are attacked, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported. The paper quoted Iranian officials who stated that 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.
The Times has obtained a tape recording of Dr. Hassan Abbasi, head of the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, in which he says in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified: “We are ready to attack American a
All current Democratic movements in the Middle East and Iran would be setback.
There would be an increase in vulnerabilities, casualties and chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There would be increased polarization between the US and the rest of the world.
Muslims worldwide would be antagonized.
The number of terrorist attacks against Americans and American Assets worldwide would increase.
The US debt/deficit would be exponentially compounded.
The dollar would be weakened.
US vulnerability to domestic attacks would increase.
US international relations and diplomatic activities would be irreparably damaged.
Other countries would cohesively focus on defensive multilateral responses to US hegemony.
The United States will lose some of its current allies due to internal pressure in their home states.
The likelihood of internal civil unrest/civil war will increase dramatically.
Attacking the United States, it’s assets and interests, at home and abroad, will become a more viable option as our forces face increased engagements and deployments.
The chaotic environment created by a US conflict with Iran will generate long-term upside profitability for oil and oil related interests.
The U.S. Department of Defense will solidify its claims on ever increasing budgetary allocations and expenditures.
Other notable opinions:
Former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke also joined the fray, arguing armed conflict with Iran could backfire and prove even more damaging to US interests than the war with Iraq.
'Strike on Iran to trigger global terror'
Iran would retaliate with a wave of global terror if its nuclear facilities are attacked by the West, British newspaper Sunday Times reports. American experts estimate Muslim republic will strike American targets in U.S., around the world in response to such attack.
Iran has formed battalions of suicide bombers to strike at British and American targets if the nation’s nuclear sites are attacked, British newspaper The Sunday Times reported. The paper quoted Iranian officials who stated that 40,000 trained suicide bombers are ready for action.
The Times has obtained a tape recording of Dr. Hassan Abbasi, head of the Center for Doctrinal Strategic Studies in the Revolutionary Guards, in which he says in a speech that 29 western targets had been identified: “We are ready to attack American a
Friday, April 14, 2006
Lay It On The Line
Mene, Mene, Tekel, Tekel, the writing is on the wall. The kingdom is at hand. Call it cause and effect, the principle of rhythm or just plain common sense. The truth has become obvious; America’s sense of self has descended into the greatest threat to Empire. That is a deluded sense of self. We are speaking about a sense of delusion so grandiose that it has become taboo to even speak about mistakes and/ or much needed corrections.
Recently W has been witnessed speaking the “M” word, i.e mistake. While certainly an admission; both he and the Honorable Condoleeza Rice have refused, thus far, to reveal what the foreign policy mistakes have been. While it is all too easy to focus on Katrina, NSA spying, Jack Abramoff, Scooter, Larry Franklin, Russian moles, 911 and etc., etc., etc. Let us get to the cut and dried aspects of America’s current reality.
People are scared to speak, talk, discuss, or evaluate the prospects and/or aspects of America’s place in the world. This is especially so, if these thoughts are divergent from the boss mans perspective. What we are talking about is the most basic precept of America and what makes it unique, the Freedom of Speech. Once again, we have to rely upon those who have been willing to pay the ultimate price. I am talking about the soldiers and officers of America’s Armed Services.
Soldiers are trained to follow orders and protect the Constitution of the United States. The Chain of Command is damn near inviolable. Therefore, for an officer of high rank to publicly oppose the decision making process of the Sec Def and the CINC, they must feel that the soul of America and its’ Constitution are facing a serious threat. When these soldiers and Generals begin speaking out, we need to be very concerned. This is because the Generals have seen and experienced it all, including; the politics, the big picture and the body bags.
Furthermore, when a General of the 82nd Airborne speaks out; you best believe I am all ears. This is especially so, when this particular General led the elite 82nd Airborne Division during its mission in Iraq. We are no longer talking about radical, elitist, left- wing, liberal, politicians spewing rhetoric. What we are talking about now is boots on the ground soldiers that have been sniffing blood and sand. The soldiers in the 82nd don’t have time to whine or bitch or cry. They are all about Mission Accomplished and if they are speaking out or protesting, you best believe there is something interfering with their mission.
Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Centcom Chief Anthony Zinni, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, you are all heroes and your dedication to the United States of America is deeply appreciated and respected by this civilian. All of you have taken a risk and put your legacies on the line because of your love for America. Whether it all goes FUBAR or repairs itself you will be known as the ones who uttered the call for change for yourselves, for America and for your soldiers. That is why you are True American Patriots.
Note: The Open Source Internet Intelligence Service plans to continue publishing.
Recently W has been witnessed speaking the “M” word, i.e mistake. While certainly an admission; both he and the Honorable Condoleeza Rice have refused, thus far, to reveal what the foreign policy mistakes have been. While it is all too easy to focus on Katrina, NSA spying, Jack Abramoff, Scooter, Larry Franklin, Russian moles, 911 and etc., etc., etc. Let us get to the cut and dried aspects of America’s current reality.
People are scared to speak, talk, discuss, or evaluate the prospects and/or aspects of America’s place in the world. This is especially so, if these thoughts are divergent from the boss mans perspective. What we are talking about is the most basic precept of America and what makes it unique, the Freedom of Speech. Once again, we have to rely upon those who have been willing to pay the ultimate price. I am talking about the soldiers and officers of America’s Armed Services.
Soldiers are trained to follow orders and protect the Constitution of the United States. The Chain of Command is damn near inviolable. Therefore, for an officer of high rank to publicly oppose the decision making process of the Sec Def and the CINC, they must feel that the soul of America and its’ Constitution are facing a serious threat. When these soldiers and Generals begin speaking out, we need to be very concerned. This is because the Generals have seen and experienced it all, including; the politics, the big picture and the body bags.
Furthermore, when a General of the 82nd Airborne speaks out; you best believe I am all ears. This is especially so, when this particular General led the elite 82nd Airborne Division during its mission in Iraq. We are no longer talking about radical, elitist, left- wing, liberal, politicians spewing rhetoric. What we are talking about now is boots on the ground soldiers that have been sniffing blood and sand. The soldiers in the 82nd don’t have time to whine or bitch or cry. They are all about Mission Accomplished and if they are speaking out or protesting, you best believe there is something interfering with their mission.
Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Centcom Chief Anthony Zinni, Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, you are all heroes and your dedication to the United States of America is deeply appreciated and respected by this civilian. All of you have taken a risk and put your legacies on the line because of your love for America. Whether it all goes FUBAR or repairs itself you will be known as the ones who uttered the call for change for yourselves, for America and for your soldiers. That is why you are True American Patriots.
Note: The Open Source Internet Intelligence Service plans to continue publishing.
Monday, April 10, 2006
From the Sources Mouth
Straight From the Sources Mouth
Over the past 90 days; I have had the fortune to speak with active American soldiers currently stationed in Iraq. Two of these soldiers are Sergeants in the US Army who said that I could use their names but I have decided against doing so. These soldiers love America and are dedicated to their country and the Constitution. The following are some of their thoughts, feelings and observations on America’s current occupation of Iraq.
There is a loss of a sense of mission versus the early stages of the war.
There are Battalions doing nothing but collecting a paycheck.
There are officers driving around in lots of new hummers. Not the armored kind but the H2.
Many Generals and other Top Brass just fly in to spend a day or so in Iraq.
They believe that the US will definitely be going into N. Korea and Iran.
They believe it is overly-optimistic to think we are going to change a country whose culture is thousands of years old.
They believe that we should get out of Iraq.
They believe we will have to be in Iraq for at least 10 years to make any lasting changes.
One of the soldiers said, “We can’t even keep Mexicans from coming into the US illegally. How are we going to keep insurgents from coming into Iran from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.”
They say the insurgents are smart. They understand the restrictions of the Geneva Convention applied to the US military. Because of this they are taking shots at our men and women in uniform everyday while our soldiers are forced to sit on their hands.
They have witnessed massive amounts of private sector involvement in Iraq.
All in all; it is not a pretty picture. Come to your own conclusions from the aforementioned statements but it looks to me like the ugliest scenarios are yet to come.
Over the past 90 days; I have had the fortune to speak with active American soldiers currently stationed in Iraq. Two of these soldiers are Sergeants in the US Army who said that I could use their names but I have decided against doing so. These soldiers love America and are dedicated to their country and the Constitution. The following are some of their thoughts, feelings and observations on America’s current occupation of Iraq.
There is a loss of a sense of mission versus the early stages of the war.
There are Battalions doing nothing but collecting a paycheck.
There are officers driving around in lots of new hummers. Not the armored kind but the H2.
Many Generals and other Top Brass just fly in to spend a day or so in Iraq.
They believe that the US will definitely be going into N. Korea and Iran.
They believe it is overly-optimistic to think we are going to change a country whose culture is thousands of years old.
They believe that we should get out of Iraq.
They believe we will have to be in Iraq for at least 10 years to make any lasting changes.
One of the soldiers said, “We can’t even keep Mexicans from coming into the US illegally. How are we going to keep insurgents from coming into Iran from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.”
They say the insurgents are smart. They understand the restrictions of the Geneva Convention applied to the US military. Because of this they are taking shots at our men and women in uniform everyday while our soldiers are forced to sit on their hands.
They have witnessed massive amounts of private sector involvement in Iraq.
All in all; it is not a pretty picture. Come to your own conclusions from the aforementioned statements but it looks to me like the ugliest scenarios are yet to come.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
True American Patriots
True American Patriots
In these days, of the U.S.’s deteriorating democracy, it has become politically expedient to wrap one’s self in the flag. Unfortunately, for America, this flag wrapping exercise is all too often camouflage for the greedy insiders. These greedy insiders believe in the Constitution, Democracy, Bill of Rights and Patriotism to the degree that it allows them to grow their bank accounts and hide their past. When it comes down to a choice between their wallets or America, their wallets always win.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have the true patriots. History will regard these people as heroes. They have put their lives and careers on the line. They have put the health, well-being and security of their country above all else. They are subject to scrutiny, surveillance, harassment and derision in addition to financial challenges.
It would be hard to find an arena more challenging then the Intelligence community for true Patriots to take a stand. Employees in the Intelligence community know all to well the risks entailed in standing up for the truth, i.e. blowing the whistle. Isolation, intimidation and psychological abuse are all par for the course. These patriots become pariahs and have to defend themselves against organizations with unlimited resources at their disposal. Having been “chopped up” my self; I know how excruciating the process can be. That being said I would like to salute the following heroes.
Sybil Edmonds, Russ Tice and the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
In these days, of the U.S.’s deteriorating democracy, it has become politically expedient to wrap one’s self in the flag. Unfortunately, for America, this flag wrapping exercise is all too often camouflage for the greedy insiders. These greedy insiders believe in the Constitution, Democracy, Bill of Rights and Patriotism to the degree that it allows them to grow their bank accounts and hide their past. When it comes down to a choice between their wallets or America, their wallets always win.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have the true patriots. History will regard these people as heroes. They have put their lives and careers on the line. They have put the health, well-being and security of their country above all else. They are subject to scrutiny, surveillance, harassment and derision in addition to financial challenges.
It would be hard to find an arena more challenging then the Intelligence community for true Patriots to take a stand. Employees in the Intelligence community know all to well the risks entailed in standing up for the truth, i.e. blowing the whistle. Isolation, intimidation and psychological abuse are all par for the course. These patriots become pariahs and have to defend themselves against organizations with unlimited resources at their disposal. Having been “chopped up” my self; I know how excruciating the process can be. That being said I would like to salute the following heroes.
Sybil Edmonds, Russ Tice and the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
http://www.nswbc.org/index.htm
Both Sybil Edmonds and Russ Tice’s stories are incredible they have demonstrated true heroism and courage in their dedication to the United States of America’s National Security and they have done it at no small cost to them selves. America is a better place because of them. Thank you, Sybil and Russ for your service.
All of our True American Patriots need our support. If any readers know of other True American Patriots, deserving recognition and support, feel free to mention them in the comment area.
Both Sybil Edmonds and Russ Tice’s stories are incredible they have demonstrated true heroism and courage in their dedication to the United States of America’s National Security and they have done it at no small cost to them selves. America is a better place because of them. Thank you, Sybil and Russ for your service.
All of our True American Patriots need our support. If any readers know of other True American Patriots, deserving recognition and support, feel free to mention them in the comment area.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Enjoyable Quotes
“Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.” Dhammapada, Twin Verses, Verses 1-2
Saturday, April 01, 2006
CHILL ON JILL
CHILL ON JILL
Why is the media obsessed with what Jill Carroll said while she was being held hostage. If any of them were held hostage they would have done as much or more. Either that or they would have been found laying in the streets of Baghdad, most likely in two different places. It was a matter of use your head or lose your head. Jill, god bless the girl, decided to keep hers. For those unthinking who wonder what Jill was thinking; I refer you to Ellen Knickmeyer of The Washington Post,…”think about what they would do for three months with machine guns held to their heads”. I say let them watch the beheading video that might enhance their perspective.
Jill Carroll made it through a hurricane storm and lived to tell about it. Let’s congratulate that sharp American girl for her wits and courage not disparage her for being alive. All things considered; it’s nonsensical to pick on Jill Carroll for her words, not to mention the fact that, we are a free country where vigorous inspirational debate is encouraged. We don’t want to be like a bunch of Saddam Hussein’s with our heads in the clouds sucking up the words of Yes-men, while we lose the war. Democracy, Freedom and Civil Rights are the reason the U.S. is in Iraq. Right? So let us take care of Jill Carroll and welcome her home. That is the Christian thing to do and since she works at the Christian Science Monitor it might be appropriate.
Perhaps there is important information to be attained (read debriefing) but something tells me Jill Carroll is not the Manchurian candidate. It won’t help the War On Terror if Jill Carroll looks worse going through the political meat grinder back home at USA incorporated, then she did while being held hostage by some head chopping Al-Qaeda cell. That may raise a few eyebrows. Jill has already gotten the cover off her head and is smiling for the cameras. Cut her some slack and you’ll get a bigger smile. Jill Carroll is a smiler. That’s why she made it out alive.
Why is the media obsessed with what Jill Carroll said while she was being held hostage. If any of them were held hostage they would have done as much or more. Either that or they would have been found laying in the streets of Baghdad, most likely in two different places. It was a matter of use your head or lose your head. Jill, god bless the girl, decided to keep hers. For those unthinking who wonder what Jill was thinking; I refer you to Ellen Knickmeyer of The Washington Post,…”think about what they would do for three months with machine guns held to their heads”. I say let them watch the beheading video that might enhance their perspective.
Jill Carroll made it through a hurricane storm and lived to tell about it. Let’s congratulate that sharp American girl for her wits and courage not disparage her for being alive. All things considered; it’s nonsensical to pick on Jill Carroll for her words, not to mention the fact that, we are a free country where vigorous inspirational debate is encouraged. We don’t want to be like a bunch of Saddam Hussein’s with our heads in the clouds sucking up the words of Yes-men, while we lose the war. Democracy, Freedom and Civil Rights are the reason the U.S. is in Iraq. Right? So let us take care of Jill Carroll and welcome her home. That is the Christian thing to do and since she works at the Christian Science Monitor it might be appropriate.
Perhaps there is important information to be attained (read debriefing) but something tells me Jill Carroll is not the Manchurian candidate. It won’t help the War On Terror if Jill Carroll looks worse going through the political meat grinder back home at USA incorporated, then she did while being held hostage by some head chopping Al-Qaeda cell. That may raise a few eyebrows. Jill has already gotten the cover off her head and is smiling for the cameras. Cut her some slack and you’ll get a bigger smile. Jill Carroll is a smiler. That’s why she made it out alive.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Texas Hold'em: Andy Card is Dealt, Is Rove on the River?
Texas Hold-Em: Andy Card is Dealt, Is Rove on The River?
Is an exit from the White House the final tactic of master strategist Karl Rove?
Karl Rove is the only hi-profile White House insider whose resignation would garner attention equal to or surpassing that of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. Rove’s resignation would boost Bush’s poll numbers, satiate hungry Democrats and preserve the President’s legacy by holding onto his VP and SecDef.
The New York Daily News and Washington Post report Rove and Card as significant participants in the (WHIG’s) White House Iraq Groups marketing of the Iraq War. Think “mushroom clouds.” Reportedly, Rove received some stern criticism from Bush on this marketing and was fighting for his life. Being that the war is the biggest thorn in Bush’s side; a Rove resignation could boost Bush immediately. Wunderkind that he may be, Rove doesn’t have the old time Washington insider status like Cheney or Rumsfeld.
Rove doesn’t get hurt in the resignation. He is gracefully moving aside to allow the new chief of staff impediment free latitude. Additionally, Rove doesn’t need any titles to do what he does best. Being out of sight may actually be a boon for him. Most importantly, if the Bush administration was given a heads up that the Valerie Plame investigation would soon be knocking on Rove’s door then he would have to go anyway. A resignation of the Deputy Chief of Staff following that of the Chief of Staff may be the most palatable and graceful exit available in such circumstances.
Mr. Rove is a genius. Is it possible that after handing in his resignation Karl Rove could watch the President extract himself from a heavy chunk of the Iraq mess and the entire Plame affair? What would Mr. Rove say in such a situation? Probably, “We did it again. By George, we did it again.”
Is an exit from the White House the final tactic of master strategist Karl Rove?
Karl Rove is the only hi-profile White House insider whose resignation would garner attention equal to or surpassing that of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. Rove’s resignation would boost Bush’s poll numbers, satiate hungry Democrats and preserve the President’s legacy by holding onto his VP and SecDef.
The New York Daily News and Washington Post report Rove and Card as significant participants in the (WHIG’s) White House Iraq Groups marketing of the Iraq War. Think “mushroom clouds.” Reportedly, Rove received some stern criticism from Bush on this marketing and was fighting for his life. Being that the war is the biggest thorn in Bush’s side; a Rove resignation could boost Bush immediately. Wunderkind that he may be, Rove doesn’t have the old time Washington insider status like Cheney or Rumsfeld.
Rove doesn’t get hurt in the resignation. He is gracefully moving aside to allow the new chief of staff impediment free latitude. Additionally, Rove doesn’t need any titles to do what he does best. Being out of sight may actually be a boon for him. Most importantly, if the Bush administration was given a heads up that the Valerie Plame investigation would soon be knocking on Rove’s door then he would have to go anyway. A resignation of the Deputy Chief of Staff following that of the Chief of Staff may be the most palatable and graceful exit available in such circumstances.
Mr. Rove is a genius. Is it possible that after handing in his resignation Karl Rove could watch the President extract himself from a heavy chunk of the Iraq mess and the entire Plame affair? What would Mr. Rove say in such a situation? Probably, “We did it again. By George, we did it again.”
Sunday, March 26, 2006
THOSE WERE THE DAYS!!
Those Were The Days
Remember the good old days, before President Bush’s election was decided in Florida, where his brother Jeb was the governor. (http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html)
That was before a handful of jihaddi Top Gun pilots eluded and evaded the entirety of America’s military and intelligence apparatus. (http://www.venusproject.com/911/911Painful_Questions.html)
The good old days were before nearly 3000 loyal and dedicated men and women of the armed services were greeted by death rather than roses as the administration had promised. (http://icasualties.org/oif/)
It was before “mission accomplished” and playing dress up like a navy pilot. Those were the days. (Click here for mission accomplished link.)
In the good old days when American’s weren’t getting their heads sawed off on the internet. Warning: You may want to skip this. It is a gruesome reminder of the growing hatred. (Beheading link for adults only)
The good old days were before the trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the record setting budget deficit.
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/quagmire/#us
Back in the good old days our Vice-President didn’t blast his best friends (symbolic?) in the face with a shotgun.
(http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2006%2F02%2F17%2Fsee-a-sneak-peak-from-ton_n_15887.html)
Nor did he give a speech at AIPAC less 2 months after they had been implicated in an Israeli spy ring working through the Pentagon.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-1.html
Do you remember those days before The Patriot Act and The Department of Homeland Security stood by and watched our ports be sold to foreign governments. But hey, Israel said Dubai Ports World was okay with them. Gee, thanks Israel, how about we just give you the original copies of The Constitution and Bill of Rights and you can spruce’em up a for us a little bit since you know, so well, what’s best for United States. (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011)
The good old days were before Jack Abramoff and his links to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff) Mohammed Atta, Osama Bin Laden and the entire American political process.
Yeah boy, the good old days were something else. Back then all you had to worry about was a little fellatio in the oval office between two consenting adults. The Most Unfortunate thing is that there is only one party to blame. Yep, that’s right, it’s the Democrats. Every single Democratic Senator lay down like a Bunny Ranch Bordello Babe when the Congressional Black Caucus tried to oppose George’s election. Al Gore ridiculed them as they fought for him and America. Where was the vaunted Democratic leadership like Kennedy and Leiberman. Of course John Kerry lost the next election. He didn’t even have the will to vote against Bush in the first election
http://www.freespeeches.net/pages/movies/F911/F911_02.php
Now Al Gore’s running around, profusely sweating and screaming like a lunatic. Sorry, Al. It’s too little too late. You missed the moment for strength.
The good old days are gone. No longer can you tell the wolf from the sheep or which shell the pea lies under. So save your energy regarding the supposed opposition between Democrat and Republican. In the next election, whoever is supposed to be elected will be elected.
Remember the good old days, before President Bush’s election was decided in Florida, where his brother Jeb was the governor. (http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html)
That was before a handful of jihaddi Top Gun pilots eluded and evaded the entirety of America’s military and intelligence apparatus. (http://www.venusproject.com/911/911Painful_Questions.html)
The good old days were before nearly 3000 loyal and dedicated men and women of the armed services were greeted by death rather than roses as the administration had promised. (http://icasualties.org/oif/)
It was before “mission accomplished” and playing dress up like a navy pilot. Those were the days. (Click here for mission accomplished link.)
In the good old days when American’s weren’t getting their heads sawed off on the internet. Warning: You may want to skip this. It is a gruesome reminder of the growing hatred. (Beheading link for adults only)
The good old days were before the trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the record setting budget deficit.
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/quagmire/#us
Back in the good old days our Vice-President didn’t blast his best friends (symbolic?) in the face with a shotgun.
(http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2006%2F02%2F17%2Fsee-a-sneak-peak-from-ton_n_15887.html)
Nor did he give a speech at AIPAC less 2 months after they had been implicated in an Israeli spy ring working through the Pentagon.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060307-1.html
Do you remember those days before The Patriot Act and The Department of Homeland Security stood by and watched our ports be sold to foreign governments. But hey, Israel said Dubai Ports World was okay with them. Gee, thanks Israel, how about we just give you the original copies of The Constitution and Bill of Rights and you can spruce’em up a for us a little bit since you know, so well, what’s best for United States. (http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011)
The good old days were before Jack Abramoff and his links to (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff) Mohammed Atta, Osama Bin Laden and the entire American political process.
Yeah boy, the good old days were something else. Back then all you had to worry about was a little fellatio in the oval office between two consenting adults. The Most Unfortunate thing is that there is only one party to blame. Yep, that’s right, it’s the Democrats. Every single Democratic Senator lay down like a Bunny Ranch Bordello Babe when the Congressional Black Caucus tried to oppose George’s election. Al Gore ridiculed them as they fought for him and America. Where was the vaunted Democratic leadership like Kennedy and Leiberman. Of course John Kerry lost the next election. He didn’t even have the will to vote against Bush in the first election
http://www.freespeeches.net/pages/movies/F911/F911_02.php
Now Al Gore’s running around, profusely sweating and screaming like a lunatic. Sorry, Al. It’s too little too late. You missed the moment for strength.
The good old days are gone. No longer can you tell the wolf from the sheep or which shell the pea lies under. So save your energy regarding the supposed opposition between Democrat and Republican. In the next election, whoever is supposed to be elected will be elected.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
The Genesis
Saturday, March 26, 2006
Bill of Rights
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants. -Ben Franklin
At the very top of the scale of moral values [the intellectuals] place the possession of concrete advantages, of material power and the means by which they are procured; and they hold up to scorn the pursuit of truly spiritual advantages, of non-practical or disinterested values.
What constitutes, in Plato’s words, the “good life”?
As Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." George Orwell, Animal Farm
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
-- Abraham Lincoln, November 21, 1864
3 January 2006
From: State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, James Risen, published 3 January 2006, pp. 42-60.
Hayden wanted the American public to know that the NSA was abiding the rules.
"Could there be abuses? Of course, there could, but I am here looking you and the American people in the eye and saying there are not," Hayden told CNN. "After Church and Pike, on this question, the ball and strike count on the agency is no balls and two strikes," Hayden added. "We don't take any pitches that are close to the strike zone. We are very, very careful. We can't go back to the American people with, 'Oh, well, we're sorry for this one, too.' We don't get close to the Fourth Amendment.
Hayden gave speeches. He went on television, and he talked to newspaper reporters and to authors writing books about the agency. He even hosted off-the-record dinners for the press at his horne at Fort Meade. A key element of Hayden's case was his argument that the NSA was struggling to cope with the rapid pace of change in an age of information overload, a new world of cell phones and Black-Berries and Internet telephone calls. The NSA was collecting more communications than anyone could ever listen to; even its supercomputers, with artificial-intelligence software, had trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff. Downplaying the NSA's capabilities, Hayden liked to say that the NSA was once an information-age organization in the industrial age, and now it was an information-age organization in the information age. It was losing its competitive edge. Commercially available communications technology was catching up. Hayden's implicit message was that the NSA was too archaic, maybe even too incompetent, to spy on America. Hayden didn't say that the NSA was a toothless giant, but he certainly wanted everyone to believe that the NSA was not to be feared.
"Despite what you've seen on television, our agency doesn't do alien autopsies, track the location of your automobile by satellite, nor do we have a squad of assassins," Hayden said reassuringly in a speech at American University in Washington in 2000. "The best 1 can hope for now is to wipe away some of the mystique surrounding the National Security Agency."
But that was Michael Hayden before 9/11.
Since the attacks, the NSA, with Hayden at the helm until 2005, has been transformed by the Bush administration, in ways that Hayden and other administration officials don't want to talk about. In fact, for the first time since the Watergate-era abuses, the NSA is spying on Americans again, and on a large scale.
The Bush administration has swept aside nearly thirty years of rules and regulations and has secretly brought the NSA back into the business of domestic espionage. The NSA is now eavesdropping on as many as five hundred people in the United States at any given time and it potentially has access to the phone calls and e-mails of millions more. It does this without court-approved search warrants and with little independent oversight.
President Bush has secretly authorized the NSA to monitor and eavesdrop on large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States to search for potential evidence of terrorist activity, without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection. Under a secret presidential order signed in early 2002, only months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush has given the NSA the ability to conduct surveillance on communications inside the United States. The secret decision by the president has opened up America's domestic telecommunications network to the NSA in unprecedented and deeply troubling new ways, and represents a radical shift in the accepted policies and practices of the modern U.S. intelligence community.
The NSA is now tapping into the heart of the nation's telephone network through direct access to key telecommunications switches that carry many of America's daily phone calls and e-mail messages. Several government officials who know about the NSA operation have come forward to talk about it because they are deeply troubled by it, and they believe that by keeping silent they would become complicit in it. They strongly believe that the president's secret order is in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches, and some of them believe that an investigation should be launched into the way the Bush administration has turned the intelligence community's most powerful tools against the American people.
One government lawyer who is aware of the NSA domestic surveillance operation told reporter Eric Lichtblau that the very few people at the Justice Department who are aware of its existence simply refer to it as "the Program." It may be the largest domestic spying operation since the 1960s, larger than anything conducted by the FBI or CIA inside the United States since the Vietnam War.
In order to overturn the system established by FISA in 1978, and bring the NSA back into domestic wiretaps without court approval, administration lawyers have issued a series of secret legal opinions, similar to those written in support of the harsh interrogation tactics used on detainees captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration legal opinions that supported the use of harsh interrogation techniques on al Qaeda detainees have, of course, proven controversial, drawing complaints from allies, objections from civil liberties advocates, and court challenges. The administration faced its first serious legal rebuke in June 2004 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the administration's effort to hold "enemy combatants" without a hearing. The court warned that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."
The same could be said about the Program. Yet the NSA domestic spying operation has remained secret, and so the legal opinions and other documents related to the NSA program are still classified.
The administration apparently has several legal opinions to support the NSA operation, written by lawyers at the White House, the CIA, the NSA, and the Justice Department. They all rely heavily on a broad interpretation of Article Two of the Constitution, which grants power to the president as commander in chief of the armed forces. Relying largely on those constitutional powers, Congress passed a resolution just days after the September 11 attacks granting the president the authority to wage a global war on terrorism, and Bush administration lawyers later decided that the war resolution provided the legal basis they needed to support the NSA operation to eavesdrop on American citizens.
While the Bush administration has never publicly discussed the NSA operation, the Justice Department did hint at the administration's thinking on domestic spying in a little-noticed legal brief in an unrelated court case in 2002. That brief said that "the Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority." The search for foreign "agents" has led the NSA to peer into domestic streams of data.
Debate within the government about the moral and legal issues involved in the NSA operation has been extremely limited because only a handful of high-ranking government officials are aware of the existence of the eavesdropping program. "It was a closed program," said one very senior administration official. "People normally in the chain didn't have access to it."
At the Justice Department, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of the few people informed, and he then brought in a small, select group of like-minded conservative lawyers to help craft some of the legal opinions to buttress the Program. They may have been some of the same lawyers involved in the legal opinions supporting the harsh interrogation techniques.
The NSA eavesdropping operation has been hidden inside a "special access program," a level of secrecy reserved for the government's most sensitive covert operations. "This is the biggest secret I know about," said one official who was deeply troubled by what he knew.
Bush administration officials justify the presidential order by arguing that existing rules curbing the domestic powers of the NSA and CIA impeded the United States in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks. They say that the NSA domestic spying operation is critical to the global war on terrorism, although they offer few specifics. They have not explained why any terrorist would be so naive as to assume that his electronic communication was impossible to intercept.
The small handful of experts on national security law within the government who know about the NSA program say they believe it has made a mockery of the public debate over the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act of 2001 has been widely criticized for giving the government too much power to engage in secret searches and to spy on suspects, and even some Republicans chafed at the idea of giving the government still more surveillance powers under an extended and expanded version. The Patriot Act has increased the ability of the nation's intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to monitor conversations and Internet traffic by terrorist suspects with the approval of the special FISA court. But it still requires the FBI to obtain search warrants from the FISA court each time it wants to eavesdrop on a telephone conversation, e-mail message, or other form of communication within the United States. In order to obtain a warrant from the FISA court, the FBI must present evidence to show that the target is linked to a terrorist organization or other foreign agent or power. Even then, the FBI has, in comparison with the NSA, relatively limited technological resources and doesn't have the ability to monitor huge telecommunications networks. It lacks NSA's banks of supercomputers at Fort Meade, believed to be home to the greatest concentration of computing power in the world.
The Patriot Act has given no new powers to the NSA. The Bush administration purposely did not seek congressional approval for the NSA operation, apparently because the White House recognized that it would be too controversial and would almost certainly be rejected. "There is nothing explicit in the Patriot Act for NSA," said one former congressional aide who was involved in the drafting of the Patriot Act, but who was unaware of the NSA operation. "Their surveillance is supposed to be directed outside the United States."
It is now clear that the White House went through the motions of the public debate over the Patriot Act, all the while knowing that the intelligence community was secretly conducting a far more aggressive domestic surveillance campaign. "This goes way beyond the Patriot Act," said one former official familiar with the NSA operation.
President Bush's secret order has given the NSA the freedom to employ extremely powerful computerized search programs -- originally intended to scan foreign communications -- in order to scrutinize large volumes of American communications. It is difficult to know the precise size of the NSA operation, but one indication of its large scale is the fact that administration officials say that one reason they decided not to seek court-approved search warrants for the NSA operation was that the volume of telephone calls and e-mails being monitored was so big that it would be impossible to get speedy court approval for all of them. It is certainly true that when the FISA court was created, Congress never envisioned that the NSA would be involved in a massive eavesdropping operation inside the United States. No one in the 1970s could have predicted the enormous growth of telecommunications traffic in the United States, or the degree to which Americans would become addicted to digital, electronic communications. Today, industry experts estimate that approximately 9 trillion e-mails are sent in the United States each year. Americans make nearly a billion cell phone calls and well over a billion land line calls each day.
NSA's technical prowess, coupled with its long-standing relationships with the nation's major telecommunications companies, has made it easy for the agency to eavesdrop on large numbers of people in the United States without their knowledge. Following President Bush's order, U.S. intelligence officials secretly arranged with top officials of major telecommunications companies to gain access to large telecommunications switches carrying the bulk of America's phone calls. The NSA also gained access to the vast majority of American e-mail traffic that flows through the U.S. telecommunications system. The identities of the companies involved have been kept secret. Unknown to most Americans, the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters.
The main rationale behind the Program, officials said, was that existing rules curbing the domestic powers of the NSA and CIA had left gaps in the ability of the United States to detect and prevent terrorist attacks. They say that one such gap had opened up because many purely international communications -- telephone calls and e-mail messages from the Middle East to Asia, for example -- end up going through telecommunications switches that are physically based in the United States. As a result, the rules that limit domestic intelligence gathering by the NSA have meant that such international calls could not be monitored, since they were transiting the United States. Some phone calls and e-mail traffic among terrorists operating overseas were being missed by American counterterrorism investigators.
The new presidential order has given the NSA direct access to those U.S.-based telecommunications switches through "back doors." Under the authority of the presidential order, a small group of officials at NSA now monitors telecommunications activity through these domestic switches, searching for terrorism-related intelligence.
To understand how the Bush administration is spying on the American people, it is important to know a few basics about the U.S. telecommunications network. The telephone network today is digital and computerized, but is still built around a switching system that routes calls from city to city, or country to country, as efficiently and quickly as possible.
In addition to handling telephone calls from, say, Los Angeles to New York, the switches also act as gateways into and out of the United States for international telecommunications. A large volume of purely international telephone calls -- calls that do not begin or end in America -- also now travel through switches based in the United States. Telephone calls from Asia to Europe, for example, may go through the United States-based switches. This so-called transit traffic has dramatically increased in recent years as the telephone network has become increasingly globalized. Computerized systems determine the most efficient routes for digital "packets" of electronic communications depending on the speed and congestion on the networks, not necessarily on the shortest line between two points. Such random global route selection means that the switches carrying calls from Cleveland to Chicago, for example, may also be carrying calls from Islamabad to Jakarta. In fact, it is now difficult to tell where the domestic telephone system ends and the international network begins.
In the years before 911, the NSA apparently recognized that the remarkable growth in transit traffic was becoming a major issue that had never been addressed by FISA or the other 1970s-era rules and regulations governing the U.S. intelligence community. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches that were physically on American soil, eavesdropping on those calls might be a violation of the regulations and laws restricting the NSA from spying inside the United States.
But transit traffic also presented a major opportunity. If the NSA could gain access to the American switches, it could easily monitor millions of foreign telephone calls, and do so much more consistently and effectively than it could overseas, where it had to rely on spy satellites and listening stations to try to vacuum up telecommunications signals as they bounced through the air. Of course, that would mean NSA would also have direct access to the domestic telephone network as well.
Any debate within the NSA about the legalities of monitoring transit traffic became moot after 9/11. President Bush was determined to sweep away the peacetime rules that had curbed the activities of the U.S. intelligence community since the 1970s, and he readily agreed to give the NSA broad new powers. The Bush administration's answer has been to place the NSA right into the middle of the American communications bloodstream by giving the agency the secret "trapdoors" into the switching system. One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the NSA said that the United States government has recently been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international communications traffic that is routed through American-based switches. It appears that at least one motive for doing so may be to bring more international calls under NSA scrutiny.
According to government officials, some of the most critical switches are in the New York area, a key intersection between the domestic and international telecommunications networks. Switching facilities in the region feed out to telecommunications cables that dive into the Atlantic Ocean bound for Europe and beyond. The NSA now apparently has access into those switches, allowing it to monitor telecommunications traffic as it enters and exits the United States.
In addition, the NSA has the ability to conduct surveillance on the e-mail of virtually any American it chooses to target. One of the secrets of the Internet is that its infrastructure is dominated by the United States, and that much of the world's e-mail traffic, at one time or another, flows through telecommunications networks that are physically on American soil. E-mail between Germany and Italy, for example, or Pakistan and Yemen, is often routed through America. The secret presidential order has given the NSA the freedom to peruse that international e-mail traffic -- along with the e-mail of millions of Americans.
In the Program, the NSA is eavesdropping both on transit traffic -- calls from one foreign location to another that are routed through the United States by international telecommunications systems -- and on telephone calls and e-mail between people inside the United States and others overseas. Officials who defend the Program claim that the NSA tries to minimize the amount of purely domestic telephone and Internet traffic among American citizens that it monitors, to avoid violating the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. But there is virtually no independent oversight of NSA's use of its new power. With its direct access to the U.S. telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses.
NSA also claims that it is eavesdropping only on people suspected of having links to terrorism, but there is no way to confirm exactly who in the United States is being monitored by the agency. According to officials familiar with the NSA operation, it was launched in 2002 after the CIA began to capture high-ranking al Qaeda operatives overseas. At the time of their capture, the CIA also seized their computers, cell phones, and personal phone directories and flew them to the United States for examination.
As the al Qaeda operatives began to fall into American hands, their seized laptops, cell phones, and directories led to the discovery of telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of people with whom they had communicated all around the world. The CIA turned those names, addresses, and numbers over to the NSA, which then began monitoring those numbers, as well as the numbers of anyone in contact with them, and so on outward in an expanding network of phone numbers and Internet addresses, both in the United States and overseas.
In the Program, the NSA determines, on its own, which telephone numbers and e-mail addresses to monitor. The NSA doesn't have to get approval from the White House, the Justice Department, or anyone else in the Bush administration before it begins eavesdropping on a specific phone line inside the United States. Instead, it has set up its own internal checklist to determine whether there is "probable cause" to begin surveillance. The Bush administration argues that the NSA checklist substitutes for the determination of probable cause in a court of law, but neither federal prosecutors nor other Justice Department attorneys even review the case of a suspect before the NSA begins to listen to his or her phone lines. Occasionally, top Justice Department officials audit the NSA program, but the NSA unilaterally decides on whom to spy. Bush's executive order gives the NSA broad latitude to decide what might constitute a suspicious phone number or e-mail address.
The existence of the Program has been kept so secret that senior Bush administration officials have gone to great lengths to hide the origins of the intelligence it gathers. When the NSA finds potentially useful intelligence in the U.S.-based telecommunications switches, it is "laundered" before it is widely distributed to case officers at the CIA or special agents of the FBI, officials said. Reports are said not to identify that the intelligence came from intercepts of U.S.-based telecommunications.
Bush administration officials offer conflicting information about whether intelligence gathered from the warrantless wiretaps is being used in criminal cases inside the United States. One senior administration official insisted that it never has been used in a criminal trial, but other top officials argued that the eavesdropping program has proved valuable in domestic terrorism investigations. Actually, both statements may be true. It appears that the NSA wiretaps are being used to identify suspects in the United States. But because the intelligence based on the warrantless wiretaps would almost certainly not be admissible in an American court, it is possible that the Bush administration is not attempting to take those cases to trial. Several high-profile terrorism-related cases since 9/11 have ended in plea bargains and out-of-court settlements; few have actually gone to trial. One reason for that legal strategy may be that the administration is fearful of getting caught conducting illegal surveillance operations.
The government has a number of ways to cover up the NSA's role in the domestic surveillance of people inside the United States. In some instances, the government seeks FISA court approval for wiretaps on individuals who have already been secretly subjected to warrantless eavesdropping by the NSA.
The Bush administration justifies that procedure by saying that the government obtains search warrants if it wants to eavesdrop on the purely domestic telephone calls -- between two phones inside the United States -- of the individuals under surveillance through the NSA program. Since the NSA is supposed to focus on international "transit traffic" and telephone calls and e-mail messages between someone in the United States and someone overseas, government officials say that they seek FISA warrants when they decide to go further to monitor all of the communications of an individual suspect.
But that process of obtaining a search warrant is clearly tainted.
The Bush administration is obtaining FISA court approval for wiretaps at least in part on the basis of information gathered from the earlier warrantless eavesdropping. The government is apparently following that practice with increasing frequency; by the estimate of two lawyers, some 10 percent to 20 percent of the search warrants issued by the secret FISA court now grow out of information generated by the NSA's domestic surveillance program.
Bush administration officials say that the NSA is using the Program to conduct surveillance on the telephone and e-mail communications of about seven thousand people overseas. They also acknowledge that the NSA is targeting the communications of about five hundred people inside the United States. Each one of those individuals is likely to make several phone calls and send several e-mails each day, which could mean that the NSA is eavesdropping on thousands of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other communications inside the United States on a daily basis. Over time, the NSA has certainly eavesdropped on millions of telephone calls and e-mail messages on American soil.
The expansion of NSA's role from spying on foreigners to conducting domestic surveillance has implications that are sure to provoke objections from civil liberties advocates. Even some senior officials within the administration have raised questions about the Program's legality. Government officials who were aware of the surveillance program "just assumed that something illegal was going on," said one Justice Department official. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on."
Some senior Bush administration officials learned the outlines of the NSA operation but were never officially briefed and were stunned that the White House and Justice Department would approve the domestic spying. "This is really a sea change," said a former senior law enforcement official who questioned both its legal and public-policy aspects. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."
After President Bush signed the secret order authorizing the NSA eavesdropping operation, the Bush administration quietly notified the chief judge on the secret FISA court that approves national security wiretaps. That judge was then-U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a genial, rotund Texan and a Republican. The administration didn't ask for his approval, and he didn't stand in the way when the government decided not to seek search warrants for the NSA program.
The NSA operation was scaled back, at least briefly, in the spring of2004 when the federal judge who succeeded Lamberth as chief of the FISA court raised questions about how the NSA program was being used to generate intelligence. The concerns raised by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly clearly rattled the Bush administration. One official said he believed that the Program was effectively halted for about three weeks. Other top administration officials suggested that they abandoned some of the most aggressive techniques used in the NSA surveillance operation after the judge complained.
Some congressional leaders have been notified about the Program, but only in extraordinarily secret fashion and only in ways that guarantee they feel constrained from raising objections to it. Even when one lawmaker did secretly raise concerns, he was ignored by the White House. In 2002, soon after the NSA operation began, top congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office and were briefed about it by Cheney, Hayden, and then-CIA director George Tenet. The congressional leaders, including Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida and Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, at the time the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively, were not permitted to bring staff members to the meeting and were told not to discuss the matter with anyone else. It was difficult for the congressional leaders to ask any questions about the Program, because they were unable to ask their staff to do any research or oversight of the NSA operation. The congressional leaders apparently knew only what Cheney and other top administration officials told them about the Program.
Later, after new lawmakers took over the intelligence committees, only one congressional leader, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat of West Virginia, raised any concerns with the White House. After he was first briefed on the matter in early 2003, Senator Rockefeller wrote a letter to Cheney saying that he was troubled by the NSA operation and its potential for the abuse of the civil liberties of American citizens.
Rockefeller told the White House in advance that he was planning to write the letter raising objections. In response, he was told by administration officials that he had to write the letter himself. Rockefeller followed the directions and handed over the letter, but there is no evidence that he ever received a response from Cheney.
The few other Democrats who have been briefed on the operation have fallen into line with the White House, perhaps intimidated by the broad public support for tough counterterrorism measures following 9/11. But at least one other senior Democrat who was briefed later regretted accepting the administration's decision to launch the operation and realized that the White House had trapped the congressional leaders. By giving the lawmakers secret briefings with no staff present and then demanding that they never discuss the matter with anyone, the congressional leaders were paralyzed. As time wore on, it became increasingly difficult for Democrats to protest the operation, since the White House could argue that they had been receiving briefings for years and had barely complained.
One government lawyer said he went to a congressional official in 2004 to reveal what he knew about the NSA eavesdropping operation because he believed that it was unconstitutional. But nothing happened as a result of his congressional contacts. He did not know that congressional leaders had already been notified.
Apart from the very small number of senior senators and congressmen who have been briefed by the White House on the NSA program, most members of Congress believe that FISA ended, once and for all, the right of the government to conduct secret wiretaps inside the United States without search warrants or court approval. Some experts in national security law say that past presidents have periodically -- and very quietly -- asserted that despite FISA, they reserved the right to order warrantless wiretaps in the United States under extreme circumstances for national security purposes. But that never became an issue with Congress in the past, because until now, no president has ever actually exercised that authority since FISA became law.
The legal opinions supporting the NSA operation followed secret deliberations over expanding the NSA's role. For example, just days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, John Yoo, a Justice Department lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote an internal memorandum that argued that the government might use "electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses." Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks, he wrote, "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."
But that was not an argument that the Bush administration wanted to test openly in Congress. Seeking congressional approval was viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition from civil liberties groups. In order to support the White House decision not to seek new legislation to support the NSA operation, administration lawyers secretly argued that new laws were unnecessary because the post-9/11 congressional resolution on the war on terror provided ample authorization.
In the end, the administration's justifications for the NSA domestic surveillance operation fail to explain adequately why it would not be possible to conduct surveillance of terrorist suspects with courtapproved search warrants under the FISA rules. Several government officials said they have not had any trouble obtaining search warrants for wiretaps from the FISA court since the September 11 attacks. The number of warrants approved by the court doubled between 2001 and 2003, when more than 1,700 foreign intelligence warrants were executed, according to the Justice Department. The government has also not had any difficulty in keeping those courtapproved wiretaps secret. In the most sensitive cases, the wiretap requests can be handled under such tight security that knowledge of them is restricted to the highest levels of the executive branch on a need-to-know basis.
During the public debate over the Patriot Act, Bush administration officials noted reassuringly that the legislation would not expand the powers of the NSA, as if to underscore their argument that privacy concerns over the Patriot Act were being exaggerated by critics of the legislation. Even Yoo made the point, in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that the Patriot Act's critics had a cartoonish view of the law. "Civil libertarians would have us believe that the Patriot Act allows CIA and NSA agents to roam freely through the country detaining anyone they please," Yoo wrote. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
One of the most worrisome aspects of the NSA's move into domestic surveillance is that it appears to be part of a broader series of policies and procedures put in place by the Bush administration that threaten to erode civil liberties in the United States. Across the administration, many questionable actions taken in the heat of the moment after the September 11attacks have quietly become more permanent, lowering the bar on what is acceptable when it comes to the government's ability to intrude into the personal lives of average Americans. For example, in 2002 the U.S. military expanded its role inside the country with the creation of the new Northern Command, the first military command in recent history that is designed to protect the U.S. homeland. The creation of Northern Command has already raised the specter of military intelligence agents operating on U.S. soil, permanently developing new links with local law enforcement agencies, particularly those near large military bases. Few objections have been raised.
Since the Program was instituted, Hayden has been rewarded by President Bush. In 2005, Hayden was named deputy director of national intelligence, making him the top lieutenant to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, the top intelligence post created by the post-9/11 intelligence reforms. During his Senate confirmation hearings for his new position, Hayden was never asked publicly about the NSA's covert domestic intelligence program.
In private, he has been defensive about his role in domestic spying. Hayden has said that the operations being conducted by NSA are "legal, appropriate, and effective" as part of the war on terrorism. He has little else to say, other than that the matter is "intensely operational." The Program was still active in late 2005, several officials said.
The following report was written by me in 2003. It's predecessor "The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power" would have been included were I able to retrieve it.
“The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power”, makes the case for a cooperative effort between France, Germany, Russia and China, “to create a rival power center capable of opposing the execution of detrimental foreign policy by the United States”. The greatest threat of such a cooperative alliance is the possibility of its expansion throughout the globe and utilization of covert terror operations to achieve its objectives. This threat concept is called GUTRUSH or Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony. The likelihood of a GUTRUSH initiative is strong when consideration is given to the expanding political, economic and military relationships of the Euro-Asian Alliance members with countries that pose potential nuclear and/or terror threats to U.S. interests. Only ignorance and hubris could allow anyone to believe that countries many years older than the U.S. would not resort to cooperative terror operations if world opinion, international law and U.N. resolutions did not protect their interests. In many parts of the world, the U.S. is viewed as a deaf bully, unwilling to hear or listen to any other countries opinion. This fact and the perception that the U.S. unfairly supports Israel through a biased and prejudiced foreign policy gives America’s enemies more than one thing in common, more than one motive in common and forces them to be creative in their responses to U.S. hegemony.
Concerning the EU, the CIA’s, 2003, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction, states the following. “Iran continued to successfully procure dual use goods and materials from Europe. In addition, several Western European countries remained willing to negotiate Advanced Conventional Weapons sales to Libya, India, Pakistan and other countries to preserve their domestic defense industries. North Korea approached Western European entities to obtain acquisitions for its uranium enrichment program.” This information makes it quite evident that Europe does not share the United States “axis of evil” philosophy.
EU members certainly consider their Islamic population and geographic proximity to Islamic countries. According to former career CIA agent, Robert Baer, in his book, “See No Evil”; “It didn’t take a sophisticated intelligence organization to figure out that Europe, our traditional ally in the war against bad guys, had become a hothouse of Islamic fundamentalism”. Spain and Turkey have already suffered significant terror attacks for their support of the US‘s war in Iraq. It is reasonable to believe other European countries have given these potentials careful consideration.
We have also seen the terrorists express their appreciation for a European policy of non-intervention in the US led war in Iraq. A blatant display of such appreciation occurred when terrorist released their hostages after learning that they were French. In the meantime, American hostages continue to be beheaded with rapidity. In these base physical actions the implied understanding between Europe and the terrorists is one of cooperation. The following facts also make a strong case for the likelihood of European involvement in Operation GUTRUSH. Much of the planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Europe. If nothing else this indicates a level of comfort that violently anti-American terrorists feel in the European environment. No terrorist attacks have occurred in France or Germany since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This indicates that the terrorists believe any possible statement they could make in these countries is not worth jeopardizing the current relationship, whatever that relationship may be. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks took place a French author published a number one bestseller that stated the Pentagon was hit by a missile and not an airplane. The implication is that America purposely struck its own Department of Defense for political purposes. That such an accusation reached bestseller status indicates that its theme was popular and/or was intended to be so. The challenges in US-French relations since 2001 are well documented.
We can imagine that the French are throwing temper tantrums like misbehaving children whose greatest threat is to our eardrums or we can believe that the French, who have survived two World Wars and heavy attacks by foreign troops on their own soil, have made contingency plans. If the latter is true, then GUTRUSH, a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony, may be considered a viable option by the French and other EU members for protecting their interests. Once we understand how our former allies could feel pushed far enough into a corner to participate in a GUTRUSH it is that much easier to envision participation by Russia and China. The key to a effective GUTRUSH is that world powers like the EU, Russia and China, who have already voiced their displeasure, discontent, and desire to limit US hegemony, begin proactively enhancing the economic, political and military apparatus of second tier or perimeter nation states outside the Alliance.
In the CIA’s, 2003, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the CIA expresses continuing concern about Chinese nuclear cooperation with Iran and Pakistan. China has offered significant assistance to Pakistan and Iran on ballistic missile related projects. Thanks to Chinese assistance Pakistan has moved toward domestic serial production of Short Range and Medium Range solid propellant ballistic missiles. Chinese entity ballistic missile related assistance helped Iran move toward it’s goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles. In addition, firms in China provided dual-use missile-related items, raw material, and/or assistance to several other countries of proliferation concern-such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. Chinese firms are still providing dual-use chemical weapons related equipment and technology to Iran, as well as, Advanced Conventional Weapons to Pakistan and Iran.
According to the Secretary of Defense’s, 2003, “Annual Report on the Military Power of The People’s Republic of China”, Beijing apparently believes that the US poses a significant long-term challenge. China’s leaders have asserted that the US seeks to maintain a dominant geostrategic position by containing the growth of Chinese power, ultimately “dividing” and “Westernizing” China, and preventing a resurgence of Russian power. Beijing has interpreted the strengthened US-Japan security alliance, increased US presence in the Asia-Pacific region-including Central Asia—and efforts to expand NATO as manifestations of Washington’s strategy. While seeking a stable relationship with Washington, Beijing will continue to seek opportunities to diminish US regional influence.
The PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army) strategy places a strong emphasis on surprise. Their writings indicate a number of methodologies that could enhance the success of surprise, including strategic and operational deception, electronic warfare, and wearing down or desensitizing and opponents’ political and military leadership. At least one objective would be to reduce indications and warning of military action. For there to be no indications via satellite or humint would require that the PLA does not move. Subsidizing covert terror attacks through jihaddi organization would allow for that while providing the ultimate surprise.
Most interesting in this Department of Defense report are the following sentences. “Beijing apparently believes that the US poses a significant long-term challenge. China’s leaders have asserted that the US seeks to maintain a dominant geostrategic position by containing the growth of Chinese power, ultimately “dividing” and “Westernizing” China, and preventing a resurgence of Russian power.” What’s interesting in this analysis, if accurate, is that it states clearly that China and Russia have the same geostrategic national security interests.
To prevent the resurgence of Russian power the US is determined to divide and Westernize China. That is another way of stating what the Chinese believe regarding US policy and strategy in the region. The word “divide” is a direct assault on what China considers the most essential condition for its national survival and development…”national unity”. That makes the US the number one security threat and concern of Chinese policymakers and intelligence heads. The US may want to ask itself the following question and carefully consider the answer. What are the implications of Chinese and Russian participation in a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony (GUTRUSH) if China places its own sovereignty and stability second to “national unity” under a Marxist/Maoist government?
This brings us to the final and perhaps most important nation in the Euro-Asian Alliance’s push into a GUTRUSH, Russia. Many in US intelligence understand the formidability of the KGB far better than the author. With that in mind it is quite doubtful that KGB spy Vladimir Putin reflects fondly upon his Soviet Republic’s Cold War losses as he decides upon Russian foreign policy. As documented in “The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power”, the result of a 2003 meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov resulted in the following statements out of China’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Regarding President Hu Jintao and President Putin,
“They emphasized that whatever changes the international situation may undergo, China and Russia will give priority to bilateral relations in their respective foreign policies and their policy of deepening and developing bilateral strategic coordination in various fields will remain intact, and that the mechanism of high level contacts and the cooperation between the two countries will continue to be intensified.”
Foreign Ministry Comrades Ivanov and Jintao agree on many things including “the Iraqi issue, North Korea nuclear issue and other international issues.”
Whatever Vladimir Putin is thinking in regards to the Old Cold War, the United States and the future of Russia, China is on board. Not only is China on board diplomatically and politically but there is a few billion dollars in Chinese currency getting on board every year for Russian military training and hardware.
As we continue delving into the concept of GUTRUSH and analyzing the thoughts, feelings, actions and statements of the Euro-Asian Alliance it becomes apparent that the concept may already have moved into reality. The most likely brain center for GUTRUSH would be in Russia. China’s foreign policy appears to be one of deception, especially the appearance of amicability for purposes of economic gain. The EU is an ally of the US through NATO and other institutions, thus making it to risky a location to support the GUTRUSH brain center. Russia, on the other hand, has had a head start since it has been going head to head with the US for decades. One captured Russian spy said that the dissolution of the USSR was actually a KGB operation. It would be interesting to know exactly what he meant.
According to the CIA’s Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russia is an active player. Russia has assisted Iran in building the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. In relation to ballistic missile related goods and technical know how Russia has supplied Iran, India and China. Russian entities remain a key source of equipment, chemicals and expertise for countries of concern with active Chemical and Biological Weapons programs. Russia continues to be a major supplier of conventional arms. As of November 2000 Russian officials stated that they saw Iran as potentially being Russia’s third largest conventional weapons customer behind China and India. Other customers are Libya and Sudan.
A pattern has definitely developed. The Euro-Asian Alliance of the EU, Russia and China has been established. The relationships between all of the Alliance members are far superior to any alliance member’s relations with the US. The Alliance members have all experienced financial losses as a result of US unilateral action in Iraq. The Alliance members are all supporting Iran and North Korea both of which happen to be the two remaining countries in the US’s “axis of evil”. This support includes the procurement and development of Weapons of Mass Destruction. In essence, the Euro-Asian Alliance members are doing everything in their power to support countries that the US has identified as a proliferation and/or terrorist threat. The only thing the Alliance hasn’t done is make the following announcement.
“We the Euro-Asian Alliance will begin actively and directly supporting terrorist operations against the United States of America. We will begin by providing covert financing and operational strategy to terrorist attacks on the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will then begin covertly attacking US assets throughout the Middle East and Eurasian continent. These attacks will certainly occur on Alliance members’ soil primarily impacting US interests while causing minimal collateral damage to Alliance members. This collateral damage will be small enough so as not to impact Alliance infrastructure, yet large enough to exacerbate anti-US sentiment. Initially these attacks will be carried out only through jihaddis whom the alliance will support through a multi-layered splinter cell structure. The actual executors of the attacks will have no inkling of Alliance support. Then on a selective basis attacks on US interests will be carried out by elite members of Alliance intelligence organizations within the framework and footprint of a typical jihaddi operation. As the US begins to find itself reeling to and fro from vast number of attacks on its international interests the Alliance will begin initiating Operation Nightmare Scenario (ONS) on US soil.”
The Euro-Asian Alliance may not have spoken these words and perhaps they have not even considered the thought. Nevertheless, the potential for a GUTRUSH cannot be ignored. This is especially so considering that a GUTRUSH may appear to be the most effective method for the Euro-Asian Alliance to achieve its goals while maintaining plausible deniability. These goals would be to see the United States consumed by conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Such consumption would allow Alliance members to pursue their goals with less opposition from the US. The ultimate goals of the Euro-Asian Alliance are a unified, militarily modernized EU capable of opposing unilateral US policy, a resurgent Russia, a united China, and strong nuclear powered neighbors in Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan. These are just a few of the Alliance’s possible interests. A covert GUTRUSH could mutate into a push to get the US out of the Eurasian continent. This could further mutate into attacks on US interests in Canada, North and South America as the GUTRUSH expands. Ultimately, in Operation Nightmare Scenario (ONS), the EAA GUTRUSH will begin using the powers of space, the Galileo Satellite Network and the internet, as well as diplomatic pouches and NATO intelligence to achieve its goals.
The reality is that there is nothing with so devastating a potential to US National Security as a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony (GUTRUSH). Therefore, it demands serious consideration.
Recent developments including news about Russian moles in Centcom providing military intelligence to Saddam Hussein may confirm some of the theories contained in this 2003 report.
Bill of Rights
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants. -Ben Franklin
At the very top of the scale of moral values [the intellectuals] place the possession of concrete advantages, of material power and the means by which they are procured; and they hold up to scorn the pursuit of truly spiritual advantages, of non-practical or disinterested values.
What constitutes, in Plato’s words, the “good life”?
As Gandhi said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." George Orwell, Animal Farm
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
-- Abraham Lincoln, November 21, 1864
3 January 2006
From: State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, James Risen, published 3 January 2006, pp. 42-60.
Hayden wanted the American public to know that the NSA was abiding the rules.
"Could there be abuses? Of course, there could, but I am here looking you and the American people in the eye and saying there are not," Hayden told CNN. "After Church and Pike, on this question, the ball and strike count on the agency is no balls and two strikes," Hayden added. "We don't take any pitches that are close to the strike zone. We are very, very careful. We can't go back to the American people with, 'Oh, well, we're sorry for this one, too.' We don't get close to the Fourth Amendment.
Hayden gave speeches. He went on television, and he talked to newspaper reporters and to authors writing books about the agency. He even hosted off-the-record dinners for the press at his horne at Fort Meade. A key element of Hayden's case was his argument that the NSA was struggling to cope with the rapid pace of change in an age of information overload, a new world of cell phones and Black-Berries and Internet telephone calls. The NSA was collecting more communications than anyone could ever listen to; even its supercomputers, with artificial-intelligence software, had trouble sorting the wheat from the chaff. Downplaying the NSA's capabilities, Hayden liked to say that the NSA was once an information-age organization in the industrial age, and now it was an information-age organization in the information age. It was losing its competitive edge. Commercially available communications technology was catching up. Hayden's implicit message was that the NSA was too archaic, maybe even too incompetent, to spy on America. Hayden didn't say that the NSA was a toothless giant, but he certainly wanted everyone to believe that the NSA was not to be feared.
"Despite what you've seen on television, our agency doesn't do alien autopsies, track the location of your automobile by satellite, nor do we have a squad of assassins," Hayden said reassuringly in a speech at American University in Washington in 2000. "The best 1 can hope for now is to wipe away some of the mystique surrounding the National Security Agency."
But that was Michael Hayden before 9/11.
Since the attacks, the NSA, with Hayden at the helm until 2005, has been transformed by the Bush administration, in ways that Hayden and other administration officials don't want to talk about. In fact, for the first time since the Watergate-era abuses, the NSA is spying on Americans again, and on a large scale.
The Bush administration has swept aside nearly thirty years of rules and regulations and has secretly brought the NSA back into the business of domestic espionage. The NSA is now eavesdropping on as many as five hundred people in the United States at any given time and it potentially has access to the phone calls and e-mails of millions more. It does this without court-approved search warrants and with little independent oversight.
President Bush has secretly authorized the NSA to monitor and eavesdrop on large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States to search for potential evidence of terrorist activity, without search warrants or any new laws that would permit such domestic intelligence collection. Under a secret presidential order signed in early 2002, only months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush has given the NSA the ability to conduct surveillance on communications inside the United States. The secret decision by the president has opened up America's domestic telecommunications network to the NSA in unprecedented and deeply troubling new ways, and represents a radical shift in the accepted policies and practices of the modern U.S. intelligence community.
The NSA is now tapping into the heart of the nation's telephone network through direct access to key telecommunications switches that carry many of America's daily phone calls and e-mail messages. Several government officials who know about the NSA operation have come forward to talk about it because they are deeply troubled by it, and they believe that by keeping silent they would become complicit in it. They strongly believe that the president's secret order is in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches, and some of them believe that an investigation should be launched into the way the Bush administration has turned the intelligence community's most powerful tools against the American people.
One government lawyer who is aware of the NSA domestic surveillance operation told reporter Eric Lichtblau that the very few people at the Justice Department who are aware of its existence simply refer to it as "the Program." It may be the largest domestic spying operation since the 1960s, larger than anything conducted by the FBI or CIA inside the United States since the Vietnam War.
In order to overturn the system established by FISA in 1978, and bring the NSA back into domestic wiretaps without court approval, administration lawyers have issued a series of secret legal opinions, similar to those written in support of the harsh interrogation tactics used on detainees captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration legal opinions that supported the use of harsh interrogation techniques on al Qaeda detainees have, of course, proven controversial, drawing complaints from allies, objections from civil liberties advocates, and court challenges. The administration faced its first serious legal rebuke in June 2004 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the administration's effort to hold "enemy combatants" without a hearing. The court warned that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."
The same could be said about the Program. Yet the NSA domestic spying operation has remained secret, and so the legal opinions and other documents related to the NSA program are still classified.
The administration apparently has several legal opinions to support the NSA operation, written by lawyers at the White House, the CIA, the NSA, and the Justice Department. They all rely heavily on a broad interpretation of Article Two of the Constitution, which grants power to the president as commander in chief of the armed forces. Relying largely on those constitutional powers, Congress passed a resolution just days after the September 11 attacks granting the president the authority to wage a global war on terrorism, and Bush administration lawyers later decided that the war resolution provided the legal basis they needed to support the NSA operation to eavesdrop on American citizens.
While the Bush administration has never publicly discussed the NSA operation, the Justice Department did hint at the administration's thinking on domestic spying in a little-noticed legal brief in an unrelated court case in 2002. That brief said that "the Constitution vests in the president inherent authority to conduct warrantless intelligence surveillance (electronic or otherwise) of foreign powers or their agents, and Congress cannot by statute extinguish that constitutional authority." The search for foreign "agents" has led the NSA to peer into domestic streams of data.
Debate within the government about the moral and legal issues involved in the NSA operation has been extremely limited because only a handful of high-ranking government officials are aware of the existence of the eavesdropping program. "It was a closed program," said one very senior administration official. "People normally in the chain didn't have access to it."
At the Justice Department, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of the few people informed, and he then brought in a small, select group of like-minded conservative lawyers to help craft some of the legal opinions to buttress the Program. They may have been some of the same lawyers involved in the legal opinions supporting the harsh interrogation techniques.
The NSA eavesdropping operation has been hidden inside a "special access program," a level of secrecy reserved for the government's most sensitive covert operations. "This is the biggest secret I know about," said one official who was deeply troubled by what he knew.
Bush administration officials justify the presidential order by arguing that existing rules curbing the domestic powers of the NSA and CIA impeded the United States in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks. They say that the NSA domestic spying operation is critical to the global war on terrorism, although they offer few specifics. They have not explained why any terrorist would be so naive as to assume that his electronic communication was impossible to intercept.
The small handful of experts on national security law within the government who know about the NSA program say they believe it has made a mockery of the public debate over the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act of 2001 has been widely criticized for giving the government too much power to engage in secret searches and to spy on suspects, and even some Republicans chafed at the idea of giving the government still more surveillance powers under an extended and expanded version. The Patriot Act has increased the ability of the nation's intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to monitor conversations and Internet traffic by terrorist suspects with the approval of the special FISA court. But it still requires the FBI to obtain search warrants from the FISA court each time it wants to eavesdrop on a telephone conversation, e-mail message, or other form of communication within the United States. In order to obtain a warrant from the FISA court, the FBI must present evidence to show that the target is linked to a terrorist organization or other foreign agent or power. Even then, the FBI has, in comparison with the NSA, relatively limited technological resources and doesn't have the ability to monitor huge telecommunications networks. It lacks NSA's banks of supercomputers at Fort Meade, believed to be home to the greatest concentration of computing power in the world.
The Patriot Act has given no new powers to the NSA. The Bush administration purposely did not seek congressional approval for the NSA operation, apparently because the White House recognized that it would be too controversial and would almost certainly be rejected. "There is nothing explicit in the Patriot Act for NSA," said one former congressional aide who was involved in the drafting of the Patriot Act, but who was unaware of the NSA operation. "Their surveillance is supposed to be directed outside the United States."
It is now clear that the White House went through the motions of the public debate over the Patriot Act, all the while knowing that the intelligence community was secretly conducting a far more aggressive domestic surveillance campaign. "This goes way beyond the Patriot Act," said one former official familiar with the NSA operation.
President Bush's secret order has given the NSA the freedom to employ extremely powerful computerized search programs -- originally intended to scan foreign communications -- in order to scrutinize large volumes of American communications. It is difficult to know the precise size of the NSA operation, but one indication of its large scale is the fact that administration officials say that one reason they decided not to seek court-approved search warrants for the NSA operation was that the volume of telephone calls and e-mails being monitored was so big that it would be impossible to get speedy court approval for all of them. It is certainly true that when the FISA court was created, Congress never envisioned that the NSA would be involved in a massive eavesdropping operation inside the United States. No one in the 1970s could have predicted the enormous growth of telecommunications traffic in the United States, or the degree to which Americans would become addicted to digital, electronic communications. Today, industry experts estimate that approximately 9 trillion e-mails are sent in the United States each year. Americans make nearly a billion cell phone calls and well over a billion land line calls each day.
NSA's technical prowess, coupled with its long-standing relationships with the nation's major telecommunications companies, has made it easy for the agency to eavesdrop on large numbers of people in the United States without their knowledge. Following President Bush's order, U.S. intelligence officials secretly arranged with top officials of major telecommunications companies to gain access to large telecommunications switches carrying the bulk of America's phone calls. The NSA also gained access to the vast majority of American e-mail traffic that flows through the U.S. telecommunications system. The identities of the companies involved have been kept secret. Unknown to most Americans, the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters.
The main rationale behind the Program, officials said, was that existing rules curbing the domestic powers of the NSA and CIA had left gaps in the ability of the United States to detect and prevent terrorist attacks. They say that one such gap had opened up because many purely international communications -- telephone calls and e-mail messages from the Middle East to Asia, for example -- end up going through telecommunications switches that are physically based in the United States. As a result, the rules that limit domestic intelligence gathering by the NSA have meant that such international calls could not be monitored, since they were transiting the United States. Some phone calls and e-mail traffic among terrorists operating overseas were being missed by American counterterrorism investigators.
The new presidential order has given the NSA direct access to those U.S.-based telecommunications switches through "back doors." Under the authority of the presidential order, a small group of officials at NSA now monitors telecommunications activity through these domestic switches, searching for terrorism-related intelligence.
To understand how the Bush administration is spying on the American people, it is important to know a few basics about the U.S. telecommunications network. The telephone network today is digital and computerized, but is still built around a switching system that routes calls from city to city, or country to country, as efficiently and quickly as possible.
In addition to handling telephone calls from, say, Los Angeles to New York, the switches also act as gateways into and out of the United States for international telecommunications. A large volume of purely international telephone calls -- calls that do not begin or end in America -- also now travel through switches based in the United States. Telephone calls from Asia to Europe, for example, may go through the United States-based switches. This so-called transit traffic has dramatically increased in recent years as the telephone network has become increasingly globalized. Computerized systems determine the most efficient routes for digital "packets" of electronic communications depending on the speed and congestion on the networks, not necessarily on the shortest line between two points. Such random global route selection means that the switches carrying calls from Cleveland to Chicago, for example, may also be carrying calls from Islamabad to Jakarta. In fact, it is now difficult to tell where the domestic telephone system ends and the international network begins.
In the years before 911, the NSA apparently recognized that the remarkable growth in transit traffic was becoming a major issue that had never been addressed by FISA or the other 1970s-era rules and regulations governing the U.S. intelligence community. Now that foreign calls were being routed through switches that were physically on American soil, eavesdropping on those calls might be a violation of the regulations and laws restricting the NSA from spying inside the United States.
But transit traffic also presented a major opportunity. If the NSA could gain access to the American switches, it could easily monitor millions of foreign telephone calls, and do so much more consistently and effectively than it could overseas, where it had to rely on spy satellites and listening stations to try to vacuum up telecommunications signals as they bounced through the air. Of course, that would mean NSA would also have direct access to the domestic telephone network as well.
Any debate within the NSA about the legalities of monitoring transit traffic became moot after 9/11. President Bush was determined to sweep away the peacetime rules that had curbed the activities of the U.S. intelligence community since the 1970s, and he readily agreed to give the NSA broad new powers. The Bush administration's answer has been to place the NSA right into the middle of the American communications bloodstream by giving the agency the secret "trapdoors" into the switching system. One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the NSA said that the United States government has recently been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international communications traffic that is routed through American-based switches. It appears that at least one motive for doing so may be to bring more international calls under NSA scrutiny.
According to government officials, some of the most critical switches are in the New York area, a key intersection between the domestic and international telecommunications networks. Switching facilities in the region feed out to telecommunications cables that dive into the Atlantic Ocean bound for Europe and beyond. The NSA now apparently has access into those switches, allowing it to monitor telecommunications traffic as it enters and exits the United States.
In addition, the NSA has the ability to conduct surveillance on the e-mail of virtually any American it chooses to target. One of the secrets of the Internet is that its infrastructure is dominated by the United States, and that much of the world's e-mail traffic, at one time or another, flows through telecommunications networks that are physically on American soil. E-mail between Germany and Italy, for example, or Pakistan and Yemen, is often routed through America. The secret presidential order has given the NSA the freedom to peruse that international e-mail traffic -- along with the e-mail of millions of Americans.
In the Program, the NSA is eavesdropping both on transit traffic -- calls from one foreign location to another that are routed through the United States by international telecommunications systems -- and on telephone calls and e-mail between people inside the United States and others overseas. Officials who defend the Program claim that the NSA tries to minimize the amount of purely domestic telephone and Internet traffic among American citizens that it monitors, to avoid violating the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. But there is virtually no independent oversight of NSA's use of its new power. With its direct access to the U.S. telecommunications system, there seems to be no physical or logistical obstacle to prevent the NSA from eavesdropping on anyone in the United States that it chooses.
NSA also claims that it is eavesdropping only on people suspected of having links to terrorism, but there is no way to confirm exactly who in the United States is being monitored by the agency. According to officials familiar with the NSA operation, it was launched in 2002 after the CIA began to capture high-ranking al Qaeda operatives overseas. At the time of their capture, the CIA also seized their computers, cell phones, and personal phone directories and flew them to the United States for examination.
As the al Qaeda operatives began to fall into American hands, their seized laptops, cell phones, and directories led to the discovery of telephone numbers and e-mail addresses of people with whom they had communicated all around the world. The CIA turned those names, addresses, and numbers over to the NSA, which then began monitoring those numbers, as well as the numbers of anyone in contact with them, and so on outward in an expanding network of phone numbers and Internet addresses, both in the United States and overseas.
In the Program, the NSA determines, on its own, which telephone numbers and e-mail addresses to monitor. The NSA doesn't have to get approval from the White House, the Justice Department, or anyone else in the Bush administration before it begins eavesdropping on a specific phone line inside the United States. Instead, it has set up its own internal checklist to determine whether there is "probable cause" to begin surveillance. The Bush administration argues that the NSA checklist substitutes for the determination of probable cause in a court of law, but neither federal prosecutors nor other Justice Department attorneys even review the case of a suspect before the NSA begins to listen to his or her phone lines. Occasionally, top Justice Department officials audit the NSA program, but the NSA unilaterally decides on whom to spy. Bush's executive order gives the NSA broad latitude to decide what might constitute a suspicious phone number or e-mail address.
The existence of the Program has been kept so secret that senior Bush administration officials have gone to great lengths to hide the origins of the intelligence it gathers. When the NSA finds potentially useful intelligence in the U.S.-based telecommunications switches, it is "laundered" before it is widely distributed to case officers at the CIA or special agents of the FBI, officials said. Reports are said not to identify that the intelligence came from intercepts of U.S.-based telecommunications.
Bush administration officials offer conflicting information about whether intelligence gathered from the warrantless wiretaps is being used in criminal cases inside the United States. One senior administration official insisted that it never has been used in a criminal trial, but other top officials argued that the eavesdropping program has proved valuable in domestic terrorism investigations. Actually, both statements may be true. It appears that the NSA wiretaps are being used to identify suspects in the United States. But because the intelligence based on the warrantless wiretaps would almost certainly not be admissible in an American court, it is possible that the Bush administration is not attempting to take those cases to trial. Several high-profile terrorism-related cases since 9/11 have ended in plea bargains and out-of-court settlements; few have actually gone to trial. One reason for that legal strategy may be that the administration is fearful of getting caught conducting illegal surveillance operations.
The government has a number of ways to cover up the NSA's role in the domestic surveillance of people inside the United States. In some instances, the government seeks FISA court approval for wiretaps on individuals who have already been secretly subjected to warrantless eavesdropping by the NSA.
The Bush administration justifies that procedure by saying that the government obtains search warrants if it wants to eavesdrop on the purely domestic telephone calls -- between two phones inside the United States -- of the individuals under surveillance through the NSA program. Since the NSA is supposed to focus on international "transit traffic" and telephone calls and e-mail messages between someone in the United States and someone overseas, government officials say that they seek FISA warrants when they decide to go further to monitor all of the communications of an individual suspect.
But that process of obtaining a search warrant is clearly tainted.
The Bush administration is obtaining FISA court approval for wiretaps at least in part on the basis of information gathered from the earlier warrantless eavesdropping. The government is apparently following that practice with increasing frequency; by the estimate of two lawyers, some 10 percent to 20 percent of the search warrants issued by the secret FISA court now grow out of information generated by the NSA's domestic surveillance program.
Bush administration officials say that the NSA is using the Program to conduct surveillance on the telephone and e-mail communications of about seven thousand people overseas. They also acknowledge that the NSA is targeting the communications of about five hundred people inside the United States. Each one of those individuals is likely to make several phone calls and send several e-mails each day, which could mean that the NSA is eavesdropping on thousands of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other communications inside the United States on a daily basis. Over time, the NSA has certainly eavesdropped on millions of telephone calls and e-mail messages on American soil.
The expansion of NSA's role from spying on foreigners to conducting domestic surveillance has implications that are sure to provoke objections from civil liberties advocates. Even some senior officials within the administration have raised questions about the Program's legality. Government officials who were aware of the surveillance program "just assumed that something illegal was going on," said one Justice Department official. "People just looked the other way because they didn't want to know what was going on."
Some senior Bush administration officials learned the outlines of the NSA operation but were never officially briefed and were stunned that the White House and Justice Department would approve the domestic spying. "This is really a sea change," said a former senior law enforcement official who questioned both its legal and public-policy aspects. "It's almost a mainstay of this country that the NSA only does foreign searches."
After President Bush signed the secret order authorizing the NSA eavesdropping operation, the Bush administration quietly notified the chief judge on the secret FISA court that approves national security wiretaps. That judge was then-U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a genial, rotund Texan and a Republican. The administration didn't ask for his approval, and he didn't stand in the way when the government decided not to seek search warrants for the NSA program.
The NSA operation was scaled back, at least briefly, in the spring of2004 when the federal judge who succeeded Lamberth as chief of the FISA court raised questions about how the NSA program was being used to generate intelligence. The concerns raised by District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly clearly rattled the Bush administration. One official said he believed that the Program was effectively halted for about three weeks. Other top administration officials suggested that they abandoned some of the most aggressive techniques used in the NSA surveillance operation after the judge complained.
Some congressional leaders have been notified about the Program, but only in extraordinarily secret fashion and only in ways that guarantee they feel constrained from raising objections to it. Even when one lawmaker did secretly raise concerns, he was ignored by the White House. In 2002, soon after the NSA operation began, top congressional leaders from both political parties were brought to Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office and were briefed about it by Cheney, Hayden, and then-CIA director George Tenet. The congressional leaders, including Democratic Senator Bob Graham of Florida and Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, at the time the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, respectively, were not permitted to bring staff members to the meeting and were told not to discuss the matter with anyone else. It was difficult for the congressional leaders to ask any questions about the Program, because they were unable to ask their staff to do any research or oversight of the NSA operation. The congressional leaders apparently knew only what Cheney and other top administration officials told them about the Program.
Later, after new lawmakers took over the intelligence committees, only one congressional leader, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat of West Virginia, raised any concerns with the White House. After he was first briefed on the matter in early 2003, Senator Rockefeller wrote a letter to Cheney saying that he was troubled by the NSA operation and its potential for the abuse of the civil liberties of American citizens.
Rockefeller told the White House in advance that he was planning to write the letter raising objections. In response, he was told by administration officials that he had to write the letter himself. Rockefeller followed the directions and handed over the letter, but there is no evidence that he ever received a response from Cheney.
The few other Democrats who have been briefed on the operation have fallen into line with the White House, perhaps intimidated by the broad public support for tough counterterrorism measures following 9/11. But at least one other senior Democrat who was briefed later regretted accepting the administration's decision to launch the operation and realized that the White House had trapped the congressional leaders. By giving the lawmakers secret briefings with no staff present and then demanding that they never discuss the matter with anyone, the congressional leaders were paralyzed. As time wore on, it became increasingly difficult for Democrats to protest the operation, since the White House could argue that they had been receiving briefings for years and had barely complained.
One government lawyer said he went to a congressional official in 2004 to reveal what he knew about the NSA eavesdropping operation because he believed that it was unconstitutional. But nothing happened as a result of his congressional contacts. He did not know that congressional leaders had already been notified.
Apart from the very small number of senior senators and congressmen who have been briefed by the White House on the NSA program, most members of Congress believe that FISA ended, once and for all, the right of the government to conduct secret wiretaps inside the United States without search warrants or court approval. Some experts in national security law say that past presidents have periodically -- and very quietly -- asserted that despite FISA, they reserved the right to order warrantless wiretaps in the United States under extreme circumstances for national security purposes. But that never became an issue with Congress in the past, because until now, no president has ever actually exercised that authority since FISA became law.
The legal opinions supporting the NSA operation followed secret deliberations over expanding the NSA's role. For example, just days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, John Yoo, a Justice Department lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote an internal memorandum that argued that the government might use "electronic surveillance techniques and equipment that are more powerful and sophisticated than those available to law enforcement agencies in order to intercept telephonic communications and observe the movement of persons but without obtaining warrants for such uses." Yoo noted that while such actions could raise constitutional issues, in the face of devastating terrorist attacks, he wrote, "the government may be justified in taking measures which in less troubled conditions could be seen as infringements of individual liberties."
But that was not an argument that the Bush administration wanted to test openly in Congress. Seeking congressional approval was viewed as politically risky because the proposal would be certain to face intense opposition from civil liberties groups. In order to support the White House decision not to seek new legislation to support the NSA operation, administration lawyers secretly argued that new laws were unnecessary because the post-9/11 congressional resolution on the war on terror provided ample authorization.
In the end, the administration's justifications for the NSA domestic surveillance operation fail to explain adequately why it would not be possible to conduct surveillance of terrorist suspects with courtapproved search warrants under the FISA rules. Several government officials said they have not had any trouble obtaining search warrants for wiretaps from the FISA court since the September 11 attacks. The number of warrants approved by the court doubled between 2001 and 2003, when more than 1,700 foreign intelligence warrants were executed, according to the Justice Department. The government has also not had any difficulty in keeping those courtapproved wiretaps secret. In the most sensitive cases, the wiretap requests can be handled under such tight security that knowledge of them is restricted to the highest levels of the executive branch on a need-to-know basis.
During the public debate over the Patriot Act, Bush administration officials noted reassuringly that the legislation would not expand the powers of the NSA, as if to underscore their argument that privacy concerns over the Patriot Act were being exaggerated by critics of the legislation. Even Yoo made the point, in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that the Patriot Act's critics had a cartoonish view of the law. "Civil libertarians would have us believe that the Patriot Act allows CIA and NSA agents to roam freely through the country detaining anyone they please," Yoo wrote. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
One of the most worrisome aspects of the NSA's move into domestic surveillance is that it appears to be part of a broader series of policies and procedures put in place by the Bush administration that threaten to erode civil liberties in the United States. Across the administration, many questionable actions taken in the heat of the moment after the September 11attacks have quietly become more permanent, lowering the bar on what is acceptable when it comes to the government's ability to intrude into the personal lives of average Americans. For example, in 2002 the U.S. military expanded its role inside the country with the creation of the new Northern Command, the first military command in recent history that is designed to protect the U.S. homeland. The creation of Northern Command has already raised the specter of military intelligence agents operating on U.S. soil, permanently developing new links with local law enforcement agencies, particularly those near large military bases. Few objections have been raised.
Since the Program was instituted, Hayden has been rewarded by President Bush. In 2005, Hayden was named deputy director of national intelligence, making him the top lieutenant to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, the top intelligence post created by the post-9/11 intelligence reforms. During his Senate confirmation hearings for his new position, Hayden was never asked publicly about the NSA's covert domestic intelligence program.
In private, he has been defensive about his role in domestic spying. Hayden has said that the operations being conducted by NSA are "legal, appropriate, and effective" as part of the war on terrorism. He has little else to say, other than that the matter is "intensely operational." The Program was still active in late 2005, several officials said.
The following report was written by me in 2003. It's predecessor "The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power" would have been included were I able to retrieve it.
“The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power”, makes the case for a cooperative effort between France, Germany, Russia and China, “to create a rival power center capable of opposing the execution of detrimental foreign policy by the United States”. The greatest threat of such a cooperative alliance is the possibility of its expansion throughout the globe and utilization of covert terror operations to achieve its objectives. This threat concept is called GUTRUSH or Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony. The likelihood of a GUTRUSH initiative is strong when consideration is given to the expanding political, economic and military relationships of the Euro-Asian Alliance members with countries that pose potential nuclear and/or terror threats to U.S. interests. Only ignorance and hubris could allow anyone to believe that countries many years older than the U.S. would not resort to cooperative terror operations if world opinion, international law and U.N. resolutions did not protect their interests. In many parts of the world, the U.S. is viewed as a deaf bully, unwilling to hear or listen to any other countries opinion. This fact and the perception that the U.S. unfairly supports Israel through a biased and prejudiced foreign policy gives America’s enemies more than one thing in common, more than one motive in common and forces them to be creative in their responses to U.S. hegemony.
Concerning the EU, the CIA’s, 2003, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction, states the following. “Iran continued to successfully procure dual use goods and materials from Europe. In addition, several Western European countries remained willing to negotiate Advanced Conventional Weapons sales to Libya, India, Pakistan and other countries to preserve their domestic defense industries. North Korea approached Western European entities to obtain acquisitions for its uranium enrichment program.” This information makes it quite evident that Europe does not share the United States “axis of evil” philosophy.
EU members certainly consider their Islamic population and geographic proximity to Islamic countries. According to former career CIA agent, Robert Baer, in his book, “See No Evil”; “It didn’t take a sophisticated intelligence organization to figure out that Europe, our traditional ally in the war against bad guys, had become a hothouse of Islamic fundamentalism”. Spain and Turkey have already suffered significant terror attacks for their support of the US‘s war in Iraq. It is reasonable to believe other European countries have given these potentials careful consideration.
We have also seen the terrorists express their appreciation for a European policy of non-intervention in the US led war in Iraq. A blatant display of such appreciation occurred when terrorist released their hostages after learning that they were French. In the meantime, American hostages continue to be beheaded with rapidity. In these base physical actions the implied understanding between Europe and the terrorists is one of cooperation. The following facts also make a strong case for the likelihood of European involvement in Operation GUTRUSH. Much of the planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Europe. If nothing else this indicates a level of comfort that violently anti-American terrorists feel in the European environment. No terrorist attacks have occurred in France or Germany since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This indicates that the terrorists believe any possible statement they could make in these countries is not worth jeopardizing the current relationship, whatever that relationship may be. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks took place a French author published a number one bestseller that stated the Pentagon was hit by a missile and not an airplane. The implication is that America purposely struck its own Department of Defense for political purposes. That such an accusation reached bestseller status indicates that its theme was popular and/or was intended to be so. The challenges in US-French relations since 2001 are well documented.
We can imagine that the French are throwing temper tantrums like misbehaving children whose greatest threat is to our eardrums or we can believe that the French, who have survived two World Wars and heavy attacks by foreign troops on their own soil, have made contingency plans. If the latter is true, then GUTRUSH, a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony, may be considered a viable option by the French and other EU members for protecting their interests. Once we understand how our former allies could feel pushed far enough into a corner to participate in a GUTRUSH it is that much easier to envision participation by Russia and China. The key to a effective GUTRUSH is that world powers like the EU, Russia and China, who have already voiced their displeasure, discontent, and desire to limit US hegemony, begin proactively enhancing the economic, political and military apparatus of second tier or perimeter nation states outside the Alliance.
In the CIA’s, 2003, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the CIA expresses continuing concern about Chinese nuclear cooperation with Iran and Pakistan. China has offered significant assistance to Pakistan and Iran on ballistic missile related projects. Thanks to Chinese assistance Pakistan has moved toward domestic serial production of Short Range and Medium Range solid propellant ballistic missiles. Chinese entity ballistic missile related assistance helped Iran move toward it’s goal of becoming self-sufficient in the production of ballistic missiles. In addition, firms in China provided dual-use missile-related items, raw material, and/or assistance to several other countries of proliferation concern-such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. Chinese firms are still providing dual-use chemical weapons related equipment and technology to Iran, as well as, Advanced Conventional Weapons to Pakistan and Iran.
According to the Secretary of Defense’s, 2003, “Annual Report on the Military Power of The People’s Republic of China”, Beijing apparently believes that the US poses a significant long-term challenge. China’s leaders have asserted that the US seeks to maintain a dominant geostrategic position by containing the growth of Chinese power, ultimately “dividing” and “Westernizing” China, and preventing a resurgence of Russian power. Beijing has interpreted the strengthened US-Japan security alliance, increased US presence in the Asia-Pacific region-including Central Asia—and efforts to expand NATO as manifestations of Washington’s strategy. While seeking a stable relationship with Washington, Beijing will continue to seek opportunities to diminish US regional influence.
The PLA’s (People’s Liberation Army) strategy places a strong emphasis on surprise. Their writings indicate a number of methodologies that could enhance the success of surprise, including strategic and operational deception, electronic warfare, and wearing down or desensitizing and opponents’ political and military leadership. At least one objective would be to reduce indications and warning of military action. For there to be no indications via satellite or humint would require that the PLA does not move. Subsidizing covert terror attacks through jihaddi organization would allow for that while providing the ultimate surprise.
Most interesting in this Department of Defense report are the following sentences. “Beijing apparently believes that the US poses a significant long-term challenge. China’s leaders have asserted that the US seeks to maintain a dominant geostrategic position by containing the growth of Chinese power, ultimately “dividing” and “Westernizing” China, and preventing a resurgence of Russian power.” What’s interesting in this analysis, if accurate, is that it states clearly that China and Russia have the same geostrategic national security interests.
To prevent the resurgence of Russian power the US is determined to divide and Westernize China. That is another way of stating what the Chinese believe regarding US policy and strategy in the region. The word “divide” is a direct assault on what China considers the most essential condition for its national survival and development…”national unity”. That makes the US the number one security threat and concern of Chinese policymakers and intelligence heads. The US may want to ask itself the following question and carefully consider the answer. What are the implications of Chinese and Russian participation in a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony (GUTRUSH) if China places its own sovereignty and stability second to “national unity” under a Marxist/Maoist government?
This brings us to the final and perhaps most important nation in the Euro-Asian Alliance’s push into a GUTRUSH, Russia. Many in US intelligence understand the formidability of the KGB far better than the author. With that in mind it is quite doubtful that KGB spy Vladimir Putin reflects fondly upon his Soviet Republic’s Cold War losses as he decides upon Russian foreign policy. As documented in “The Euro-Asian Alliance: Shifts in the Global Balance of Power”, the result of a 2003 meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov resulted in the following statements out of China’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Regarding President Hu Jintao and President Putin,
“They emphasized that whatever changes the international situation may undergo, China and Russia will give priority to bilateral relations in their respective foreign policies and their policy of deepening and developing bilateral strategic coordination in various fields will remain intact, and that the mechanism of high level contacts and the cooperation between the two countries will continue to be intensified.”
Foreign Ministry Comrades Ivanov and Jintao agree on many things including “the Iraqi issue, North Korea nuclear issue and other international issues.”
Whatever Vladimir Putin is thinking in regards to the Old Cold War, the United States and the future of Russia, China is on board. Not only is China on board diplomatically and politically but there is a few billion dollars in Chinese currency getting on board every year for Russian military training and hardware.
As we continue delving into the concept of GUTRUSH and analyzing the thoughts, feelings, actions and statements of the Euro-Asian Alliance it becomes apparent that the concept may already have moved into reality. The most likely brain center for GUTRUSH would be in Russia. China’s foreign policy appears to be one of deception, especially the appearance of amicability for purposes of economic gain. The EU is an ally of the US through NATO and other institutions, thus making it to risky a location to support the GUTRUSH brain center. Russia, on the other hand, has had a head start since it has been going head to head with the US for decades. One captured Russian spy said that the dissolution of the USSR was actually a KGB operation. It would be interesting to know exactly what he meant.
According to the CIA’s Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction, Russia is an active player. Russia has assisted Iran in building the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. In relation to ballistic missile related goods and technical know how Russia has supplied Iran, India and China. Russian entities remain a key source of equipment, chemicals and expertise for countries of concern with active Chemical and Biological Weapons programs. Russia continues to be a major supplier of conventional arms. As of November 2000 Russian officials stated that they saw Iran as potentially being Russia’s third largest conventional weapons customer behind China and India. Other customers are Libya and Sudan.
A pattern has definitely developed. The Euro-Asian Alliance of the EU, Russia and China has been established. The relationships between all of the Alliance members are far superior to any alliance member’s relations with the US. The Alliance members have all experienced financial losses as a result of US unilateral action in Iraq. The Alliance members are all supporting Iran and North Korea both of which happen to be the two remaining countries in the US’s “axis of evil”. This support includes the procurement and development of Weapons of Mass Destruction. In essence, the Euro-Asian Alliance members are doing everything in their power to support countries that the US has identified as a proliferation and/or terrorist threat. The only thing the Alliance hasn’t done is make the following announcement.
“We the Euro-Asian Alliance will begin actively and directly supporting terrorist operations against the United States of America. We will begin by providing covert financing and operational strategy to terrorist attacks on the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will then begin covertly attacking US assets throughout the Middle East and Eurasian continent. These attacks will certainly occur on Alliance members’ soil primarily impacting US interests while causing minimal collateral damage to Alliance members. This collateral damage will be small enough so as not to impact Alliance infrastructure, yet large enough to exacerbate anti-US sentiment. Initially these attacks will be carried out only through jihaddis whom the alliance will support through a multi-layered splinter cell structure. The actual executors of the attacks will have no inkling of Alliance support. Then on a selective basis attacks on US interests will be carried out by elite members of Alliance intelligence organizations within the framework and footprint of a typical jihaddi operation. As the US begins to find itself reeling to and fro from vast number of attacks on its international interests the Alliance will begin initiating Operation Nightmare Scenario (ONS) on US soil.”
The Euro-Asian Alliance may not have spoken these words and perhaps they have not even considered the thought. Nevertheless, the potential for a GUTRUSH cannot be ignored. This is especially so considering that a GUTRUSH may appear to be the most effective method for the Euro-Asian Alliance to achieve its goals while maintaining plausible deniability. These goals would be to see the United States consumed by conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Such consumption would allow Alliance members to pursue their goals with less opposition from the US. The ultimate goals of the Euro-Asian Alliance are a unified, militarily modernized EU capable of opposing unilateral US policy, a resurgent Russia, a united China, and strong nuclear powered neighbors in Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan. These are just a few of the Alliance’s possible interests. A covert GUTRUSH could mutate into a push to get the US out of the Eurasian continent. This could further mutate into attacks on US interests in Canada, North and South America as the GUTRUSH expands. Ultimately, in Operation Nightmare Scenario (ONS), the EAA GUTRUSH will begin using the powers of space, the Galileo Satellite Network and the internet, as well as diplomatic pouches and NATO intelligence to achieve its goals.
The reality is that there is nothing with so devastating a potential to US National Security as a Globally United Terror Response to United States Hegemony (GUTRUSH). Therefore, it demands serious consideration.
Recent developments including news about Russian moles in Centcom providing military intelligence to Saddam Hussein may confirm some of the theories contained in this 2003 report.
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