When An Agency Gets Too Big For Its Britches

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was formed under President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. It was headed by William J. (“Wild Bill”) Donovan. It was a strategic part of the Allied war effort. In one instance, a group of agents stopped the German U-boats from sinking the oil tankers as they were leaving Venezuela to supply allied troops with oil. The agents found the person with the shortwave radio who was telling the U-Boats when the tankers were leaving port. The OSS was an important part of the war effort. The OSS was the root of what is now the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Unfortunately it does not seem as though the patriotism and devotion to America and its principles of government that was part of the OSS has carried over to the CIA.

On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit posted two articles about the latest videotapes released by investigative reporter James O’Keefe. The first article deals with the videotape, and the second article deals with the reaction to the videotape by some in Congress. Basically, the videotape is of a CIA operative saying that the CIA intentionally withheld information from President Trump during the Trump administration. The CIA has responded to the videotape by claiming the agent is lying. Based on the past behavior of the CIA, we can all draw our own conclusions. The actual video is included in both articles.

The first article reports:

Amjad (Amjad Fseisi, a project manager working in Cyber Operations for the CIA with top-secret security clearance) reveals to OMG’s Undercover American Swiper that intel agencies not only kept intelligence information from a sitting United States President and Commander-In-Chief, they also used FISA to spy on President Trump and his team and are still monitoring President Trump according to Amjad who says, “We monitor everything.” Amjad adds “we also have people that monitor his ex-wife. He likes to use burner phones” – information only an insider with access to highly sensitive information would state.

“We steal it [information]” and “We hack other countries just like that,” Amjad, who states he currently works on the CIA’s China Mission Center, explains how intel agencies obtain information. He also describes a broken intelligence system where “We don’t share information across agencies” because the CIA is “very reluctant” to share information with the “careless” NSA.

O’Keefe Media Group’s bombshell undercover footage supports earlier reports by investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that revealed how the American intelligence community illegally ran a spy operation against then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and illegally acquired intelligence that was later used to justify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (@FBI) official probe, “Crossfire Hurricane,” which in turn led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that ultimately did not find evidence of Russia collusion by the 2016 Trump campaign.

Contractors like Fseisi hold the duty to withhold sharing confidential or national security information. In denying his statements, Fseisi may have realized he could be held liable for violating internal agency provisions and federal laws like the Executive Agency ethics provisions, which restrict what he may share with others outside of his contracted-to agency. Additionally, any government worker or agency head who withheld information from a superior (i.e. President Trump) may violate: (a) obstruction of justice by deception (18 USC 1512); (b) conspiracy to obstruct (18 USC 371); and false statements (18 USC 1001). Agency regulations may also provide offenses related to insubordination, reflecting poorly on the agency in public, or misrepresentation or dishonesty.

The second article reports:

Conservative Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) isn’t wasting any time getting to the bottom of this very serious and disturbing story. Rep. Gaetz has already formally called on the Weaponization Subcommittee to IMMEDIATELY launch an investigation into the BOMBSHELL report by James O’Keefe’s OMG Media Group.

Amjad claims that the CIA withheld information because they considered President Trump a ‘Russian asset.’ That was not their decision to make. Have they considered the Chinese money flowing into the Biden family where there is NO product or service involved?

Forgetting Their Oath

According to chron.com:

The CIA oath reads: “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” Schooled CIA employees know that the Constitution also defines the role of federal employees: “To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.”

On Friday, David Strom posed the following question at Hot Air:

Did the CIA work to rig the 2020 election?

The article notes that there are many ways to rig an election–illegal voters, fraudulent ballots, faulty voting machines, etc., but there is also the matter of spreading disinformation.

The article reports:

I couldn’t say if the 2020 election was stolen–there certainly were irregularities as there always are in elections–because any vote changes or illegal ballots have to be in the right place in the right numbers, and no evidence has been accepted by courts indicating that enough illegal votes to change the results were cast.

But certainly, the election was rigged. Lots of illegal changes to election laws were made without legislative approval, Big Tech censored conservatives based on phony claims, and the media colluded with outside groups to distort the truth or deny facts.

Among the riggers was the CIA, apparently. Not just former CIA agents, about which we already knew, but the CIA as an organization.

At least that is what has been asserted by Judicial Watch, and the evidence on its face supports that conclusion. So Judicial Watch is suing the CIA to force them to divulge what ought to be public information about events near the end of the campaign.

Note the statement “no evidence has been accepted by courts.” This may be the Achilles Heel in the indictments against President Trump. He may force that evidence to be heard in court.

The article concludes:

It issue is that letter that gave cover to Joe Biden when the Hunter Biden laptop, where 50 former intelligence officials claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.”

However deceptive this letter was, in itself, it was perfectly legal and I would oppose censoring it once it was published. It was a low-down dirty trick and it worked, but low-down dirty tricks are generally legal. Of course, media outlets should not have taken their claims at face value in the middle of a campaign, but that is a separate issue.

However, the wrinkle is this: because of the high rank these officials had the CIA had to preapprove the publication of the letter, and the CIA almost certainly knew the laptop was real (as the FBI also did, having had it a year). Further, there is substantial evidence that the CIA helped recruit further signatories for the letter, which would be a definite no-no. The CIA isn’t even supposed to be involved domestically, and certainly shouldn’t get involved in political campaigns.

Did those in the CIA violate their Oath of Office?

When The Deep State Fights With Itself

One of the most troubling pieces of news to come out of Afghanistan recently was the fact that evidently America had turned over to the Taliban a list of all Americans in the country and all Afghans who had helped the Americans. I think most Americans question the wisdom of that decision. Not only is the decision seemingly unwise, it makes no sense. Actually, when you look at the agencies involved, it makes perfect sense.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today explaining the ‘teams’ and what is actually involved.

The article reports:

There are two puzzle pieces that help to make sense of the Politico report about “U.S. Officials” giving the Taliban a list of American and U.S. Afghan names to allow through the checkpoints. {GO DEEP 1 and GO DEEP 2}  However, if you don’t understand the two dueling power teams -each attempting to position- it doesn’t make sense.

Remember, the State Dept (DoS) and CIA are one team.  The White House and Pentagon are another team.

♦ TEAM One – The Department of State is aligned with the CIA.  Their media PR firms are CNN, CNNi and the Washington Post. Their ideology is favorable to the United Nations.  Their internal corruption is generally driven by relationship with foreign actors.  References: Hillary Clinton, Clinton Global Initiative, John McCain, Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood, Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, Cass Sunstein, Brookings Institute, Lawfare, China-centric, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Council on Foreign Relations.

♦ TEAM Two – The White House is aligned with the Pentagon (DoD) and National Security Council (NSC).  Their media PR firms are domestic in nature. New York Times, Politico, etc.  Their internal corruption is generally driven by domestic influence.  References: Barack Obama, George Bush, Wall St, Big Banks, Multinational Corporations, Defense Contractors, FBI (state police), Judicial Branch, and community activists writ large.

Both teams are highly political. However, the State Dept/CIA team consider themselves above political changes; essentially the deeper Deep State.

With the DoS/CIA aligned with CNN/WaPo, when the Pentagon needs to defend their specific interests in crisis management, they must go elsewhere, hence Politico.

The article notes:

So it’s fair to say the aggrieved party is the Pentagon in this scenario…. which aligns with Politico receiving the information from the military perspective.

Applying the dynamic of interests from the previous history between the teams, it would appear the State Dept. and CIA gave the Taliban the list.

Indeed, the quick dispatch of the problem of stranded Americans is a ‘toxically political’ priority issue for the State Department.  Additionally, the previous meeting between CIA Director William J Burns and the Taliban leadership now takes on a fulsome context.

It was a decision by the DoS and CIA to share the list and get the evacuation facilitated in the most expedient fashion possible. However, from a tactical perspective it put the Pentagon, charged with Kabul airport security, in a slightly compromised position.

Both teams were responsible for the Afghanistan mess. In the aftermath of the mess; and with the current situation in/around Kabul, each team is positioning to avoid scrutiny. Scrutiny on either team runs the risk of identifying massive corruption; so the objective is to push the spotlight onto the other team. State Dept. blames White House/Pentagon…. Pentagon/White House looking to avoid sunlight.

The Pentagon (arrows) is supposed to working in coordination with State (olive branch), but both institutions are corrupt regarding Afghanistan; so it’s a game of hot potato. If the executive office wasn’t corrupt, the eagle would be having whiplash; alas, the White House was/is an active participant. [So much for school civic ‘checks-n-balances’ eh?]

Externally, we are seeing the executive appointed heads of each faction battling for position on behalf of their institution. The media get to pick and choose which faction they will support. CNN will support the State Dept. ABC, CBS, NBC will lean slightly toward the White House/Pentagon.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The Conservative Treehouse has historically been proved accurate and quite a bit ahead of the curve.

Has Anyone Been Paying Attention To This?

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today quoting some recent remarks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The article includes a video of the remarks, but below is the transcript of the important points:

[Transcript at 01:45] […] “Last year, I received an invitation to an event that promised to be, quote, “an occasion for exclusive deal-making.” It said, quote, “the opportunities for mutually beneficial economic development between China and our individual states [are] tremendous,” end of quote.”

“Deal-making sounds like it might have come from President Trump, but the invitation was actually from a former governor.

I was being invited to the U.S.-China Governors’ Collaboration Summit.

It was an event co-hosted by the National Governors Association and something called the Chinese People’s Association For Friendship and Foreign Countries. Sounds pretty harmless.

What the invitation did not say is that the group – the group I just mentioned – is the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department.

Now, I was lucky. I was familiar with that organization from my time as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But it got me thinking.

How many of you made the link between that group and Chinese Communist Party officials?

What if you made a new friend while you were at that event?

What if your new friend asked you for introductions to other politically connected and powerful people?

What if your new friend offered to invest big money in your state, perhaps in your pension, in industries sensitive to our national security?

These aren’t hypotheticals. These scenarios are all too true, and they impact American foreign policy significantly.

Indeed, last year, a Chinese Government-backed think tank in Beijing produced a report that assessed all 50 of America’s governors on their attitudes towards China. They labeled each of you “friendly,” “hardline,” or “ambiguous.”

I’ll let you decide where you think you belong. Someone in China already has. Many of you, indeed, in that report are referenced by name.

So here’s the lesson: The lesson is that competition with China is not just a federal issue. It’s why I wanted to be here today, Governor Hogan. It’s happening in your states with consequences for our foreign policy, for the citizens that reside in your states, and indeed, for each of you.

And, in fact, whether you are viewed by the CCP as friendly or hardline, know that it’s working you, know that it’s working the team around you.

Competition with China is happening inside of your state, and it affects our capacity to perform America’s vital national security functions.” (Keep Reading)

The author of the article notes that he believes that President Trump and Secretary Pompeo have a list of the governors that are being influenced by China. That list may come in handy in the coming days of balancing the response to the coronavirus.

Respecting The Constitutional Rights Of Americans

Yesterday John HInderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article with the following headline, “Schiff Obtained Phone Records of Nunes, Journalist, Others.”

How in the world did Adam Schiff get access to those phone records?

The article notes:

The mainstream media is abuzz with stories about Nunes communication with “Rudy Giuliani during key aspects of his Ukraine pressure campaign.” Nunes was in touch with John Solomon around the times he published major articles. And on and on. The telephone records don’t include the actual conversations. They identify who was calling whom and how long they spoke.

Schiff has crossed the line of decency with this move. Once again, he has abused his power. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted that obtaining these records is a remarkable abuse of President Trump’s constitutional rights. I would argue that it’s an abuse of the constitutional rights of all of the above. These are KGB tactics.

Well, fair is fair. Republicans should obtain Schiff’s phone records, those of the so-called whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, and the colleague with whom he had a “bro-like” relationship, you know, Sean Misko, the one Schiff hired as an aide the day after the whistleblower’s complaint was submitted.

The repellent Adam Schiff has managed to reach a new level of depravity.

This is not something that should be happening in America. It is a total disregard for the constitutional rights of the people involved. However, this is not a new tactic by the political left.

In October 2014, I posted an article about Sharyl Attkisson. She was fired from CBS for her reporting on Operation Fast and Furious. As you remember, that was President Obama’s gun-running operation that was supposed to bring Americans to the point where they overturned the Second Amendment.

The article from rightwinggranny noted:

Attkisson says the source, who’s “connected to government three-letter agencies,” told her the computer was hacked into by “a sophisticated entity that used commercial, nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency.”

The breach was accomplished through an “otherwise innocuous e-mail” that Attkisson says she got in February 2012, then twice “redone” and “refreshed” through a satellite hookup and a Wi-Fi connection at a Ritz-Carlton hotel.

The spyware included programs that Attkisson says monitored her every keystroke and gave the snoops access to all her e-mails and the passwords to her financial accounts.

“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

It’s time to charge people with a crime when they violate the civil rights of an American citizen. I hope this will happen (but I am not optimistic).

That Was Then, This is Now

Fox News posted an article today stating that Gina Haspel has been confirmed as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She will be the first woman to head the agency.

That is fantastic news, but there is another side of the story. The Democrats and some Republicans opposed her nomination because of her role in black sites after 9/11. That is in marked contrast to the confirmation hearings for John Brennan in 2013 when he was President Obama’s choice to head the CIA.

At The Fox News Insider, Laura Ingraham reminds us:

Laura Ingraham said Thursday that both President Obama’s pick to lead the CIA and President Trump’s nominee either supported or worked under the policy of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Ingraham said that in 2013 at Obama nominee John Brennan’s confirmation hearing, 13 Republicans broke with their party to support his nomination, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

She said Brennan either supported or was involved in operations involving the techniques which some consider torture.

He was asked whether and subsequently confirmed that interrogation techniques used on detainees “provided information that was useful [in]… the ultimate operation to go after Bin Laden.”

At the same time, Ingraham said Democrats, except for Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are signaling their opposition to Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee.

The opposition to Gina Haspel was strictly political on the part of the Democrats. I have no idea what the motives of the Republicans who played along were. Brennan was in a supervisory role when the questionable activities took place–Gina Haspel was not a supervisor.

I am glad to see this lady confirmed–she has served her country honorably.

A Democrat Senator Who Is Obviously Aware Of The Polls

The Daily Caller posted an article today about some recent statements by Virginia Senator Mark Warner. Senator Warner is the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The article reports:

The top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence acknowledged in a recent interview that contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russians could be “a set of coincidences” rather than collusion.

“I’m reserving my final judgement until we’ve seen all the witnesses we need to see, and we’ve gotten all the facts. So I’m going to hold off,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview with The New Yorker’s David Remnick when asked whether he believes that Trump associates conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election.

…“I’m anxious for this to come to a conclusion,” Warner said of the investigation, adding that he is “hopeful” that the committee will be able to release sections of its final report every 30 to 45 days.

The committee plans to release four separate reports about various aspects of its investigation. The first, which dealt with election security, was released earlier this week.

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has already released a report on its own Russia investigation. The report said that investigators found no evidence of collusion.

On Thursday, May 10, CNN posted the following:

Note that Democrat approval of the Mueller investigation has also dropped (as well as Republican approval). Independent approval has increased, but is still below 50 percent. I hate to be cynical here, but I believe that Senator Warner is simply responding to what his internal polls are telling him–Americans are beginning to realize that Mueller’s investigation was a sham from the beginning. I suspect you will hear more Democrats become reluctant to accuse President Trump of anything as his popularity ratings soar. It is going to be an interesting summer–for many reasons.

 

When Republicans Do Stupid Things

It is quite likely that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will not approve the nomination of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. The Democrats on the Committee asked Pompeo questions about gay rights and his beliefs on marriage. Since Mike Pompeo holds what used to be very acceptable traditional views on marriage, the Democrats on the Committee have chosen to vote against his confirmation as Secretary of State. This has nothing to do with Mike Pompeo’s qualifications, it is a political stunt that illustrates the Democratic Party’s move to the extreme left. There didn’t used to be a religious litmus test to hold a Cabinet position, but according to the present crop of Democrats, there is. Unfortunately some Republicans have also decided to vote against Mike Pompeo.–Rand Paul is voting against him because he supported the war in Iraq. So did a lot of other people. Just for the record, on October 14, 2014, The New York Times posted an article stating that there were WMD’s in Iraq.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today that explains that the Democrat’s efforts to block the nomination of Mike Pompeo may be unsuccessful due to a few Democrats that represent states that voted for President Trump. You can read the details of all this in The Washington Examiner, but there is another part of this story I would like to focus on.

The site biography.com lists a few of Mike Pompeo’s qualifications:

Michael Richard Pompeo was born on December 30, 1963, in Orange, California, to parents Wayne and Dorothy. He grew up in Santa Ana and attended Los Amigos High School in Fountain Valley, where he was a member of the varsity basketball team.

Pompeo enrolled at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating first in his class with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986. He followed with five years of active duty in the U.S. Army, serving as a cavalry officer in East Germany and rising to the rank of captain.

Accepted to Harvard Law School, Pompeo became editor of the Harvard Law Review and earned his J.D. in 1994.

…Pompeo began his civilian career at the Williams & Connolly law firm in Washington, D.C., where he mainly worked in tax litigation. He moved to his mother’s home state of Kansas in 1996 and co-founded Thayer Aerospace, which expanded to more than 400 employees within a decade. Pompeo then became president of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturing, distribution and service company.

The man is definitely qualified and deserves to be confirmed. A no vote on this nomination is simply a political stunt, and those voting no need to be voted out of office.

This Is Actually No Big Deal

Rex Tillerson has been fired as Secretary of State. He will be replaced by Mike Pompeo. This is not really news to those who pay close attention. Pat Robertson (who hosts the 700 Club produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network) predicted yesterday that Tillerson would be gone today. Why? Because Trump and Tillerson disagreed on too many major issues–Iran, the Paris climate treaty, and North Korea. Tillerson is not a man who is used to operating under someone else’s leadership when he dioes not agree with that leadership, and Trump is not used to having people undermining his policies when they are supposed to be supporting them. The change is probably good for everyone involved.

Mike Pompeo is a good choice to succeed Rex Tillerson. He graduated first in his class at West Point and went on the Harvard to get his law degree. He worked in the business world and served in Congress before becoming head of the CIA. It is believed that his worldview is much more compatible with President Trump than was Tillerson’s.

Two qualities of a good executive are the ability to be flexible and the ability to change direction when needed. The current shuffle in the White House is a good example of both. Although I am not sure I agree with exactly how the change was handled, it was a necessary change and needed to be done quickly. Now hopefully the President and at least some of the State Department can move in the same direction.

Washington Agencies Are Totally Out Of Control

The Daily Caller posted an article today about a New York federal court case involving the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The twisted logic being used by the CIA in the case is simply amazing.

The article reports:

Intelligence officials can selectively release classified information to trusted journalists while withholding the same information from other citizens who request it through open records laws, CIA lawyers argued Wednesday.

That is simply an amazing statement. If the journalists receive the information, isn’t the public also entitled to see it?

The article states:

The case stems from lawsuit against the CIA by New York-based independent journalist Adam Johnson, who had used FOIA to obtain emails between the agency’s public information office and selected reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and The New York Times. The emails the CIA provided to Johnson were redacted, leading him to question why he was not allowed to see the same information that had been given to uncleared reporters.

Johnson challenged the redaction in court, arguing that the CIA, once it has selectively disclosed information to uncleared reporters, cannot claim the same information is protected by a FOIA exemption.

…“In this case, CIA voluntarily disclosed to outsiders information that it had a perfect right to keep private,” she wrote. “There is absolutely no statutory provision that authorizes limited disclosure of otherwise classified information to anyone, including ‘trusted reporters,’ for any purpose, including the protection of CIA sources and methods that might otherwise be outed.

MacMahon also said it didn’t matter if the journalists in question published the information they received, only if the CIA waived its right to deny the information.

As President Trump continues to drain the swamp, hopefully one of the things his administration will look at is the practice of classifying information that Washington agencies don’t want the public to see for reasons other than national security. It is amazing how much material has come to light recently that was classified only for political reasons–it revealed nefarious activities on the part of the government.

Keeping The Public Unaware

The November 13th issue of the Weekly Standard will feature an article by Stephen F. Hayes illustrating how important information was kept from the American public for political gain.

The article reminds us that when Osama Bin Laden was killed, the seal team involved collected a lot of computer information about terrorism.

The article reports:

In the heady days immediately after the May 2 Abbottabad raid, President Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, had described the intelligence haul brought back from Pakistan by the Navy SEALs and CIA operatives as extensive enough to fill a “small college library.” A senior military intelligence official who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on May 7, 2011, said: “As a result of the raid, we’ve acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.”

Yet:

On the penultimate day of the Obama administration, less than 24 hours before the president would vacate the White House, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a press release meant to put to rest what had been a pesky issue for his office. “Closing the Book on Bin Laden: Intelligence Community Releases Final Abbottabad Documents,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) announced. “Today marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year effort to declassify several hundred documents recovered in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound in May 2011.” Accompanying the press release were 49 documents captured during the raid, bringing the total number of documents made public to 571.

A small college library with 571 documents would be pretty pathetic. So what happened?

This is how the limited amount of information was used during the 2012 presidential campaign:

In the spring of 2012, with the Republican presidential primaries nearing an end and shortly before the first anniversary of the successful raid on bin Laden’s compound, Obama’s National Security Council hand-picked 17 documents to be provided to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point for analysis. (Obama’s NSC would later hold back two of those documents. One of them, laying out the deep ties between the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda leadership, would complicate Obama administration efforts to launch negotiations with the Taliban, according to an explanation the NSC’s Doug Lute offered to West Point.) The West Point documents were shared with Obama-friendly journalists. Their conclusion was the only one possible, given the documents they were provided: At the time of his death, Osama bin Laden was frustrated and isolated, a relatively powerless leader of a dying organization. In the summer and fall of 2012, Obama would use this theme as the main national security rationale for his reelection: Al Qaeda was alternately “on the run” or “decimated” or “on the path to defeat.”

“Thanks to the service and sacrifice of our brave men and women in uniform, the war in Iraq is over. The war in Afghanistan is winding down. Al Qaeda has been decimated. Osama bin Laden is dead,” Obama said in Green Bay, Wis., on November 1, five days before his reelection.

The story continues:

No more. On Wednesday, November 1, CIA director Mike Pompeo announced the release of “nearly 470,000 additional files” from the Abbottabad raid. From 571 to 470,000: The “most transparent administration in history,” you might say, has just been trumped, by nearly three orders of magnitude.

Some of the information might have caused a problem with the Iran nuclear deal:

Bin Laden had described Iran as the “main artery” for al Qaeda in one of the previously released letters recovered in Abbottabad. The details on Iran’s support for al Qaeda, some of them buried until now, led to terrorist designations by the Treasury Department and even caused some intelligence analysts to revisit the assumption that the Shiite radicals in Iran wouldn’t back the Sunni al Qaeda. In a 2011 interview, David S. Cohen, a senior Treasury Department official who went on to become deputy director of the CIA, described the intelligence, which detailed a network of financial support for al Qaeda that operated out of Iran: “There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al Qaeda to allow this network to operate,” Cohen said. “There’s no dispute in the intelligence community on this.” Iran was providing a “core pipeline” of support that included safe haven for al Qaeda members and the facilitation of travel and the flow of money and weapons.

…The CIA release of the additional 470,000 documents includes a 19-page report on al Qaeda’s relationship with Iran authored by an unidentified al Qaeda operative. The author lays out some tensions between al Qaeda and Iran but makes clear those differences don’t preclude cooperation. The document reports that the Iranian regime was giving its “Saudi brothers” in al Qaeda “everything they needed.” This included safe haven in Iran, the facilitation of travel for senior al Qaeda operatives, and “money, arms,” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.”

Among other conclusions I can draw from this information, it might be time to revisit the Iran deal keeping Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda in mind.

Interesting Information From An Unlikely Source

Wikipedia defines the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) as a British intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the British government and armed forces.This group played an interesting role in the 2016 presidential election in America. The American Spectator reported today on some aspects of that involvement. The article at The American Spectator refers back to an article in the U.K Guardian on April 13th. The perspective on the story in the two articles is very different, but both stories have valid points.

The article at the U.K. Guardian reports:

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.

…Instead both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016.

One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.

The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.

“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’

I would like to point out that with all this electronic surveillance and all this investigating, there has not been one concrete, proven charge of the Trump campaign working with Russia to impact the election. I would also like to point out that the people in charge of this electronic surveillance in America (the Obama Administration) had a sincere interest in making sure Donald Trump was not elected President.

The article at The American Spectator has a different perspective:

An article in the Guardian last week provides more confirmation that John Brennan was the American progenitor of political espionage aimed at defeating Donald Trump. One side did collude with foreign powers to tip the election — Hillary’s.

Seeking to retain his position as CIA director under Hillary, Brennan teamed up with British spies and Estonian spies to cripple Trump’s candidacy. He used their phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-agency investigation into Trump, which led the FBI to probe a computer server connected to Trump Tower and gave cover to Susan Rice, among other Hillary supporters, to spy on Trump and his people.

John Brennan’s CIA operated like a branch office of the Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of this bogus investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting maximum political damage on Trump. An official in the intelligence community tells TAS that Brennan’s retinue of political radicals didn’t even bother to hide their activism, decorating offices with “Hillary for president cups” and other campaign paraphernalia.

A supporter of the American Communist Party at the height of the Cold War, Brennan brought into the CIA a raft of subversives and gave them plum positions from which to gather and leak political espionage on Trump. He bastardized standards so that these left-wing activists could burrow in and take career positions. Under the patina of that phony professionalism, they could then present their politicized judgments as “non-partisan.”

The article at The American Spectator concludes:

Were the media not so completely in the tank for Obama and Hillary, all of this political mischief would make for a compelling 2016 version of All the President’s Men. Instead, the public gets a steady stream of Orwellian propaganda about the sudden propriety of political espionage. The headline writers at Pravda couldn’t improve on this week’s official lie, tweeted out by the Maggie Habermans: “Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong, Say Both Dem and Republican House Aides.”

Liberals pompously quote the saying — “the bigger the lie, the more it will be believed” — even as their media enshrine it. Historians will look back on 2016 and marvel at the audacity of its big lie: whispers of an imaginary Trump-Russia collusion that wafted up from the fever swamps of a real collusion between John Brennan and foreign powers seeking Trump’s defeat.

I am convinced that collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia does not exist. I am also convinced that the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Russia should be much more scrutinized than it is.

As I reported here in December 2016:

Let’s look at some of the history between Hillary Clinton and the Russians. in April 2015, Breitbart.com reported that the chairman of the Russian Nuclear Agency-controlled Uranium One funneled $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. This was followed by the Uranium One deal that allowed the Russians to acquire control of one-fifth of America’s uranium. So the mainstream media is trying to tell me that Russia would rather do business with Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. You can bribe Hillary Clinton. I’m not sure you can bribe Donald Trump.

The lesson learned in the contrast between the articles in The American Spectator and the U.K. Guardian is that the media can twist a story in any direction it chooses. It is up to the readers to do the research into the background of the story.

 

 

The Nightmare The Opponents Of The Patriot Act Saw Coming

It would be nice to believe that we are a nation led by honorable men. In the past that has occasionally been true and I am sure that it will occasionally be true in the future. I am hoping it is true in the present. However, our Founding Fathers understood that we would not always be led by honorable men and set up the U.S. Constitution accordingly. The power was supposed to rest with the people–not with the government. The government was supposed to be responsive to the wishes of the people and accountable to the people. The framework was beautiful. Had we paid closer attention to following it, we would be in a very different place. I am particularly concerned about recent violations of the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Patriot Act allowed for the collection of electronic data unprecedented in American history. The idea behind it was to prevent terrorist attacks. Some Congressmen warned that the act could be used to violate the rights of average Americans. Evidently they were right.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted a story about electronic surveillance under the Obama Administration. Evidently that surveillance went far beyond what was necessary or legitimate.

The article reports:

Barack Obama‘s CIA Director John O. Brennan targeted Trump supporters for enhanced surveillance, intelligence sources confirm to GotNews’ Charles C. Johnson.

The surveillance took place between Trump’s election on November 8 and the inauguration in January, according to White House and House intelligence sources.

The focus was on General Mike Flynn, billionaire Erik Prince, and Fox News host Sean Hannity — all of whom had close ties to Trump before and after the November election and had helped the future president with managing his new diplomatic responsibilities.

Hannity was targeted because of his perceived ties to Julian Assange, say our intelligence sources. Hannity was reportedly unmasked by Susan Rice at Brennan’s behest thanks to his close relationship with Trump and Julian Assange.

Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a former CIA covert asset, has long criticized the CIA’s bloat and incompetence, including the Brennan-run CIA drone program’s failure to properly target terrorists rather than Afghan civilians. Prince has repeatedly called for restructuring the CIA and argued against Brennan’s tenure.

This is a violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of these citizens. At the very least, lawsuits are in order. More appropriately, people who authorized or participated in this need to lose their jobs and possible go to prison. In the Watergate Scandal, which is peanuts compared to this, people went to prison. That would also be appropriate here.

 

 

Some Thoughts On The Recent CIA Leaks

Sometimes the best perspective comes from someone who has been there. There are a lot of diverse opinions on the information recently leaked by Wikileaks about CIA techniques. Some media have focused on the invasion into the privacy of Americans, and other media has focused on the damage the leaks do to American national security.

On Thursday, Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst, posted an article with his observations about the leaks. The article is posted at the Center for Security Policy website.

These are the points he makes in the article:

  • Why did CIA have a cyber warfare office at all?   I noted in this December 2016 NRO article that there are cyber warfare offices in four separate intelligence agencies.  I suspect this is because different intelligence agencies all wanted to cash in on funding opportunities on a high profile topic.   Such overlap is getting worse and make U.S. intelligence more bureaucratic and less efficient.
  • The new leaker was probably hired as a result of CIA Director Brennan’s decision to lower standards for CIA hiring because he wanted to create a more diverse CIA workforce and Brennan rushed to staff his new cyber office.  I wrote about this in Investor’s Business Daily in 2015.   It also reportedly has been difficult for the U.S. government to find personnel to staff cyber offices who can meet the Agency’s usual security requirements.   This probably is why Edward Snowden was hired despite his lack of a college degree and how he was able to increase his access to classified material and move between intelligence agencies despite his poor performance.
  • Did CIA learn nothing from the Snowden leaks on the urgency to compartment information on sensitive intelligence sources and methods?  How could another disgruntled intelligence officer have been able to access and leak such a huge number of such documents?

This is another area where President Trump needs to drain the swamp and create a more efficient and secure place to keep America‘s secret operations. We will always have a need for the CIA, but we definitely need to be more careful in hiring practices and access to information.

 

Why We Need To Support Trump As President

Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air today about an event that somehow has escaped the major media. Sabrina De Sousa is a former CIA agent caught up in the legal fight in Europe over the US’ controversial “extraordinary rendition” program.

Newsweek provides a summary of the case:

De Sousa, who was freed Tuesday from a Portuguese prison where she was awaiting extradition to Italy, has always maintained her innocence in the case, which was the subject of a sensational 2009 trial. She and 25 other Americans, all but one CIA employees, were convicted in absentia for their roles in snatching an Egyptian cleric off a Milan street and transporting him to Cairo. Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known more widely as Abu Omar, says he was repeatedly tortured while under interrogation there. He was released in 2007 and convicted of terrorism charges in absentia by an Italian court in December 2013.

De Sousa, the subject of an international arrest warrant since her conviction, was detained as she tried to transit the Lisbon airport from the U.S. en route to visit her mother in India in October 2015. (De Sousa was born in the former Portuguese enclave of Goa.) She was freed shortly afterward but ordered to stay in Portugal pending a decision on her extradition. …

As is often the case involving the CIA, the U.S. government had nothing to say about De Sousa’s reprieve this week. The CIA has consistently refused to comment on the case. A State Department spokesman referred Newsweek to the White House for comment, but officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Yet Pete Hoekstra, a former Republican representative and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who took up De Sousa’s cause, claims she would not have been released “without extraordinary help from the Trump administration.” Hoekstra told Newsweek he began lobbying officials in the Donald Trump campaign, and later the transition, to do something about the former officer’s predicament. He had a number of friends in the national security apparatus from his time on the House Intelligence Committee—people like Michael Flynn, the recently departed White House national security adviser, fellow former Representative Mike Pompeo, now director of the CIA, and former Senator Dan Coats, the new director of national intelligence. And it didn’t hurt that he had chaired Trump’s Michigan campaign.

Ms. De Sousa tweeted the following:

The Trump Administration prevented a patriotic American (she held dual citizenship in the United States and in Portugal) from being imprisoned for doing her job.

The article also includes a rather sad side note:

De Sousa, 61, a dual U.S. and Portuguese citizen who lives in Lisbon, said she is elated by the last-minute decision, although she feels it came three months too late: Her mother, Julia De Sousa, died in early December at the age of 90. De Sousa couldn’t be with her.

“The sad thing is, I really wanted this to be resolved awhile ago so I could turn to her and say ‘It’s done,’” De Sousa said in a Skype interview on Wednesday. “People don’t seem to realize how a conviction impacts you and your normal daily life. I couldn’t see my family.”

The Obama Administration had a checkered record of how they treated Americans who had worked for America overseas. Hopefully, this story is an indication that the Trump Administration will not abandon people who have faithfully done their jobs.

Why Voters Don’t Trust The Media

Does anyone really believe that the Russians would have preferred the election of Donald Trump for President over the election of Hillary Clinton?

Let’s look at some of the history between Hillary Clinton and the Russians. in April 2015, Breitbart.com reported that the chairman of the Russian Nuclear Agency-controlled Uranium One funneled $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. This was followed by the Uranium One deal that allowed the Russians to acquire control of one-fifth of America’s uranium. So the mainstream media is trying to tell me that Russia would rather do business with Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. You can bribe Hillary Clinton. I’m not sure you can bribe Donald Trump.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted a story today about the news that Russia interfered in the American election. He sums it up very well:

It is certainly the most overblown story in a long time. The casual reader of newspaper headlines might well believe that the Russian government hacked into voting machines, or something of the sort, to influence the presidential election. But that is not the case. If you read the Washington Post story, they are merely talking about the well-known hacks of Democratic National Committee and John Podesta emails. The only news here is that someone at the CIA thinks the Russian government carried out the operation and did so in order to help Donald Trump win the election.

…The Post’s sources are some combination of Democratic senators and Obama administration officials, conveying their impressions of what what unnamed representatives of the CIA told a bipartisan group of senators in a recent briefing. Someday, persuasive evidence supporting the Post’s headline may emerge, but it certainly hasn’t so far.

Another attempt by the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media to delegitimize the election of Donald Trump. I guess the intelligence community is actually part of the swamp that needs to be drained. It really is time for this to stop. Donald Trump was elected. It’s time to move on. Have the Democrats and the media forgotten that we all live in the same country?

Fifteen Years Later (Originally posted September 10, 2016)

This article was originally posted on September 10, 2016. Has anything changed?

This is the fifteenth anniversary of the day before 9/11. It is the anniversary of a day when Americans were going about their business—getting children ready to start school, beginning to put away summer clothes and get out fall clothes, and doing fall housekeeping. It was not in any way a noteworthy day. However, there were Americans who understood the threat hanging over us. Unfortunately, those Americans did not have the ability to wake up either our government or the American people.

John O’Neill was one of the people who understood the threat. In 1995 John O’Neill was appointed chief of the FBI’s counterterrorism section. When he arrived at FBI headquarters initially, he stayed there for three days. O’Neill was not very diplomatic, but he got things done. He also had the ability to tie loose ends together to see what was coming. Early on in his career, O’Neill became very interested in the activities of Osama Bin Laden to the point where his colleagues began to question his judgement [The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright Page 237 (paperback)]. He retired from the FBI early in 2001 to become chief of security at the World Trade Center. I have heard stories of the evacuation drills he led at the World Trade Center that probably saved many people’s lives on 9/11. John O’Neill understood that the terrorists would try to destroy the World Trade Center again. He was right. Unfortunately, due to personalities in the FBI, he was no longer in a position to connect the dots and possibly avoid the attack on the Trade Center.

So where are we today? What have we learned and what have we done about it? One of the best sources on the failure of the Obama Administration to deal with terrorism is the book Catastrophic Failure by Stephen Coughlin. In that book, Mr. Coughlin details the Obama Administrations inability to understand the root of the threat; and therefore, its inability to counter the threat. I strongly suggest you read the book, but I will try to summarize the main points here.

In October 2011, elements of the American Muslim Brotherhood wrote the White House demanding an embargo or discontinuation of information and materials relating to Islamic-based terrorism. The letter was addressed to John Brennan, who at the time was Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.  Days later John Brennan agreed to create a task force to address the problem by removing personnel and products that the Muslim Brotherhood deemed “biased, false, and highly offensive.” This move in effect allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to control the information given to the people charged with stopping the terrorism initiated by groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. At this point, the 9/11 reports and other actual historic documents were altered to make them compliant with the new paradigm. (I thought only the Russians rewrote history.)

Just a note—Stephen Coughlin is no longer briefing the Pentagon and our law enforcement communities. His briefings were not in compliance with the standards the Muslim Brotherhood placed on such briefings and were no longer permitted. That fact along should give all of us pause.

There are some real questions as to whom President Obama listens to on matters of terrorism. Those same questions apply to Hillary Clinton. Would you have put someone with family ties to Hitler in an advisory role to Franklin Roosevelt during World War II? I realize you can’t choose your family, but would the FBI hire a secretary whose father was a Mafia Don to work in their domestic crime bureau?

There is substantial evidence that the upper levels of our government have been compromised by the Muslim Brotherhood. One of the most reliable sources for this information is The Center for Security Policy. There are many resources available on their website.

So as we look back on this time fifteen years ago, we need to realize that we are still in danger and that the danger we face is getting more serious. The attacks in Europe (reported and unreported) should awaken us to the dangers of allowing refugees into America without proper vetting and the dangers of allowing immigrants who have no intention of assimilating into American culture to set up enclaves within our country.

Unless we want to experience a terror attack far worse than 9/11, Americans need to inform themselves about the enemy we are facing. It is obvious that the government is not going to inform us or take care of us.

An Interesting Note On The Latest Attack On Donald Trump

Fred Fleitz is a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, former Chief of Staff to Ambassador John Bolton, and a former Senior Staff member of the House Intelligence Committee. He is currently a Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs with the Center for Security Policy. He posted an article at the Center for Security Policy on Friday about the rise of ISIS and the discussion of ISIS in the current political campaign.

He reminds us of the facts in the discussion, many of which have been overlooked in the news media:

Trump is making the point that irresponsible policies by Obama and Clinton led to the resumption of sectarian violence in Iraq which allowed Al-Qaeda in Iraq to rise from the ashes and morph into ISIS.  I believe Trump is exactly right.  The Obama/Clinton decision not to leave behind a small contingent of U.S. troops in Iraq after 2010 and the power vacuum created by the administration’s failure to lead in the Middle East is why ISIS exists and why it has become a global threat.

In my view, Obama’s and Clinton’s incompetence are undoubtedly responsible for the birth of ISIS.

The mainstream media does not want to talk about this.  It knows ISIS did not exist when President Obama entered office.  It also knows that ISIS grew from zero affiliates in 2009 to 43 affiliates today in 18 countries.

CNN this morning is jumping on a tweet Trump sent yesterday clarifying that his claim about Obama and Clinton being the founder and co-founder of ISIS was sarcasm.  This makes me wonder how dumb CNN thinks the American people are – they obviously knew this.

One can argue that a presidential candidate shouldn’t be using sarcasm on such a dire national security issue, but by doing so Trump forced the mainstream media to talk about a subject it was purposely avoiding and encouraged Americans to think about whether Obama/Clinton policies are responsible for the birth of ISIS.

Maybe Donald Trump has a better understanding of foreign affairs and the news media than his Democratic and press critics realize.

This is the side of the story you probably won’t hear in the mainstream media.

 

 

When America Does Not Lead, Strange Things Happen

On Wednesday, Clare Lopez at the Center for Security Policy posted an article about some of the emerging alliances in the Middle East. Unfortunately, some Middle East countries, feeling that America will no longer stand with them against the Muslim Brotherhood are beginning to align with Russia. Other countries are moving toward other options.

The article reports:

At the annual gathering of Iranians outside of Paris, France on 9 July 2016, where some 100,000 showed up to express support for regime change in Tehran, one of the guest speakers dropped a bombshell announcement. Even before he took the podium, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al-Saud, appearing in the distinctive gold-edged dark cloak and white keffiyeh headdress of the Saudi royal family, of which he is a senior member, drew commentary and lots of second looks. The Prince is the founder of the King Faisal Foundation, and chairman of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and served from 1977-2001 as director general of Al-Mukhabarat Al-A’amah, Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, resigning the position on 1 September 2001, some ten days before the attacks of 9/11.

He took the podium late in the afternoon program on 9 July and, after a discourse on the shared Islamic history of the Middle East, launched into an attack on Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose 1979 revolution changed the course of history not just in Iran, but throughout the world. His next statement sent a shock wave through the assembly: Bin Faisal pledged support to the Iranian NCRI opposition and to its President-elect Maryam Rajavi personally. Given bin Faisal’s senior position in the Saudi royal family and his long career in positions of key responsibility in the Kingdom, it can only be understood that he spoke for the Riyadh government. The hall erupted in cheers and thunderous applause.

The Saudi’s understand the dangers of the Ayatollahs obtaining a nuclear weapon. They have also recently moved closer to Israel in a desire to contain the ambitions of the current Iranian government.

The article further explains:

The NCRI and its key affiliate, the Mujahedeen-e Kahlq (MEK), were on the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list until 2012, having been placed there at the express request of Iranian president Khatami. Iranian university students formed the MEK in the 1960s to oppose the Shah’s rule. The MEK participated in the Khomeini Revolution but then was forced into exile when Khomeini turned on his own allies and obliterated any hopes for democratic reform. Granted protection by the U.S. under the 4th Geneva Convention in 2004, remnants of the MEK opposition have been stranded in Iraq, first at Camp Ashraf and now in Camp Liberty near Baghdad since U.S. forces left Iraq. Completely disarmed and defenseless, the 2,000 or so remaining residents of Camp Liberty, who are desperately seeking resettlement, come under periodic deadly attack by Iraqi forces under Iranian Qods Force direction. The most recent rocket attack on July 4th, 2016 set much of the camp ablaze and devastated the Iranians’ unprotected mobile homes. The MEK/NCRI fought their terrorist designations in the courts in both Europe and the U.S., finally winning removal in 2012. The NCRI’s national headquarters are now located in downtown Washington, DC, from where they work intensively with Congress, the media, and U.S. society to urge regime change and a genuinely liberal democratic platform for Iran.

Unfortunately, in 2009 when Iran had a genuine opportunity for a democratic government, President Obama chose to ignore the green revolution. The President was more interested in reaching a nuclear deal with a government that routinely preaches, “Death to America” than helping the Iranian people find freedom. America has become an enemy of freedom rather than a beacon of light in a dark world.

From The Military Times

Yesterday The Military Times posted a story about D-Day. I would like to share some of that story so that people who may not have studied that day and what it meant can appreciate what the young men involved did on that day.

The story reports:

Seventy-two years ago, on June 6, 1944, Allied troops waded ashore on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe. The night before, on June 5, American airborne forces had landed on the western flank of the invasion area near Sainte-Mère-Église, while British airborne forces secured the eastern flank and Pegasus Bridge. They jumped out of C-47 Dakota transport planes, through darkness and into glory. Some arrived by glider. Pvt. John Steele of the 82nd Airborne landed on the steeple of the church at Sainte-Mère-Église. He managed to survive by playing dead.

…On Utah Beach — all of the landing sites had code names — 56-year-old Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the oldest son of former President Teddy Roosevelt) landed about a mile from his intended target. When asked whether to re-embark the 4th Infantry Division, he simply said, “We’ll start the war from right here!”

…Eisenhower planned the invasion from his offices at 20 Grosvenor Square in London. Number 1 Grosvenor Square was the wartime location of the American embassy. Averell Harriman presided over lend-lease aid from 3 Grosvenor Square, helping to fund our wartime Allies. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services), forerunner of the CIA, had its offices at 70 Grosvenor Square. Small wonder that this neighborhood was known as Little America at the time. Some wags even referred to Grosvenor Square as Eisenhowerplatz.

Imagine if an operation like the Normandy landing were to occur today in 2016. In the age of social media, interactive polls would ask: “Which beach do you prefer, Normandy or Pas de Calais?” Could all the members of the 101st Screaming Eagles, painted in Indian war paint with Mohawk haircuts, be counted upon not to post their pictures on Facebook? That seems doubtful.

…This June 6, raise a glass and toast the heroism of all those young men who fought to liberate America’s oldest ally from Nazi occupation. Without their service and sacrifice, our world would be a darker place. General Patton may have summed it up best when he said, “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”

DDay2016My father was one of the men who landed on Utah beach. I can’t image what those men went through. I only hope that somehow as America is faced with the Islamization that has happened in most of Europe we will find the same courage that America had in 1944.

The Truth Eventually Comes Out

The Weekly Standard website posted a preview of a January 18th article about the attack  on Benghazi. The article is about the movie 13 Hours, which will appear in theaters on January 15th. The movie was directed by Michael Bay. The movie opens with the quote, “This is a true story.” The movie then details the story of the attack on Benghazi as told largely through the eyes of CIA contractor Jack Silva, played brilliantly by a bearded and newly bemuscled John Krasinski, best known for his role as the affable and sarcastic Jim Halpert on The Office, and four other CIA contractors—Mark “Oz” Geist, John “Tig” Tiegen, Kris “Tanto” Paronto, and “Boon.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The media has not reported the full story of Benghazi, and Michael Bay has decided to tell that story.

The article includes many of the details of the attack as well as a few conclusions:

The film documents the contractors’ concerns about security before the assault on September 11, 2012, making clear that the attack was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a long series of hostilities directed at Western targets. Even before the events of that day, viewers are led to understand the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe. The February 17th Martyrs Brigade, a Libyan militia the State Department engaged and ostensibly the good guys, is filled with shady characters, some of whom seem to know well in advance the plans of the jihadists who attack the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex. Hours before the attack begins, members of the local police force are observed conducting surveillance on the compound. Throughout the hours of fighting at both sites, when the Americans trying to repel the attacks see large groups of dark-skinned, heavily armed men show up to the battle, they cannot determine whether the new arrivals are there to help them or kill them.

…Two dominant themes emerge from the film: 1) In the chaos of post-Qaddafi Libya it was impossible to distinguish between good guys and bad guys. And, for that reason and others, 2) the U.S. government isn’t very effective in its efforts to create order out of the inevitable instability that results from removing dictators.

The article concludes:

Whatever its impact, 13 Hours is a powerful film that is well worth seeing. From beginning to end, it forcefully rejects the sanitized, no-fault version of Benghazi. In scene after powerful scene, it assigns blame: to policymakers in Washington who naïvely overestimated our ability to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in post-Qaddafi Libya; to Washington bureaucrats who paid little attention to repeated warnings about the security of U.S. facilities in Benghazi; to CIA officials more concerned with career advancement and positive performance reviews than saving lives.

But perhaps the strongest indictment made by 13 Hours is an unspoken one. The film itself is an implicit but devastating critique of the American media that refused to report this story in this way, an establishment media that left to Hollywood the responsibility of telling these important truths.

The days of the mainstream media smothering the truth and filtering information have been numbered since the inception of alternative media. Now it looks as if there are some in Hollywood who also see the need to tell the truth.

When Those In Charge Choose To Look The Other Way

Mishandling classified material is a serious crime in government circles. There are severe penalties for infractions. However, it seems like the current administration is taking a vacation from enforcing those rules (other than when the rules involve General Petraeus).

Catherine Herridge has posted a story on Fox News today about documents found on Hillary Clinton’s private server. The story reports that the intelligence community has re-affirmed that two emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server were classified “top secret” when they arrived on the server.

The article reports:

The agencies that owned and originated that intelligence – the CIA and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or NGA – reviewed the emails to determine how they should be properly stored, as the State Department took issue with their highly classified nature. The subject matter of the messages is widely reported to be the movement of North Korean missiles and a drone strike. A top secret designation requires the highest level of security, and can include the use of an approved safe.

The sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, told Fox News that while the emails were indeed “top secret” when they hit Clinton’s server, one of them remains “top secret” to this day — and must be handled at the highest security level. The second email is still considered classified but at the lower “secret” level because more information is publicly available about the event.

The findings have been transmitted to the State Department, which continues to challenge the intelligence community’s conclusions about the classification of all the emails. But the department has no authority to change the classification since it did not originate the information.

It is time to elect and appoint people to government positions who will put America’s best interests ahead of either political party. Hillary Clinton’s private server was a serious breach of protocol that put sensitive information in the hands of people who are not friendly to America. A private server is much easier for hackers to breech than a government server with layers of security. Putting classified information on a private server was illegal and needs to be handled in a legal matter. I seriously wonder if anyone in the current administration is willing to do that. As of now we do not have equal justice under the law, one of America’s founding principles. That is a serious problem both in this case and in the future.

It’s Those Pesky Emails Again

The problem is those pesky emails again–only they are not Hillary’s. Catherine Herridge at Fox News is reporting today that at least two emails were sent to analysts at U.S. Central Command requesting that they ease off negative assessments about the Islamic State threat.

The article reports:

Those emails, among others, are now in the possession of the Pentagon inspector general. The IG’s probe is expanding into whether intelligence assessments were changed to give a more positive picture of the anti-ISIS campaign.

The former Pentagon official said there were “multiple assessments” from military intelligence and the CIA regarding the “rapid rise” of ISIS in Iraq and North Africa in the year leading up to the group’s territory grab in 2014.

Similar intelligence was included in the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB – the intelligence community’s most authoritative product — during the same time period. Yet the official, who was part of the White House discussions, said the administration kept “kicking the can down the road.” The official said there was no discussion of the military involvement needed to make a difference.

The IG probe started earlier this year amid complaints that information was changed to make ISIS look more degraded than it really was.

National security is not a game–nor is it a political issue–it is an issue that impacts all Americans. I would be somewhat sympathetic if I thought information was sanitized to prevent creating a panic, but I am not sympathetic at all to information being sanitized for political purposes. The investigation needs to proceed without being compromised by interference by the White House or those in the Obama Administration.

Are We Really That Stupid?

It was really nice of Vladimir Putin to offer to help out President Obama in the effort to stabilize Syria. The problem may be that both men have very different ideas as to what constitutes a stable Syria.

On September 29th, Yahoo News reported the following statement by President Obama:

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad must go if the Islamic State group is to be defeated, as he rallied world leaders to revitalize the coalition campaign against the jihadists.

…”In Syria (…) defeating ISIL requires, I believe, a new leader,” Obama told the gathering, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

I agree with President Obama that ISIS (the term ISIL President Obama is using denies the existence of Israel) must be defeated. However, if Bashar al-Assad is deposed, do we have any assurance that what replaces him will be either a stable government or a humanitarian government? Are we creating another Libya?

Meanwhile, Russia has agreed to help us defeat ISIS. They have moved some serious weaponry into Syria supposedly for that purpose. It is a really interesting move when you consider that Russia’s goal in Syria is diametrically opposed to our goal in Syria. Bashar al-Assad is an ally of Iran. Russia is an ally of Iran. Russia does not want Bashar al-Assad deposed–they would very much like to keep him in power. Under the guise of helping defeat ISIS, Russia has been able to move serious weaponry into Syria that might coincidentally be used to defeat the enemies of Bashar al-Assad. Unfortunately, the enemies of Bashar al-Assad are the troops we are training and supporting.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports:

Russia has targeted Syrian rebel groups backed by the Central Intelligence Agency in a string of airstrikes running for days, leading the U.S. to conclude that it is an intentional effort by Moscow, American officials said.

The assessment, which is shared by commanders on the ground, has deepened U.S. anger at Moscow and sparked a debate within the administration over how the U.S. can come to the aid of its proxy forces without getting sucked deeper into a proxy war that President Barack Obama says he doesn’t want. The White House has so far been noncommittal about coming to the aid of CIA-backed rebels, wary of taking steps that could trigger a broader conflict.

Vladimir Putin has again successfully eaten President Obama’s lunch.

Those Pesky E-Mails

Fox News posted an article today about emails from Hillary Clinton that have now surfaced that have been withheld from the Congressional Committees investigating Benghazi.

The article reports:

New documents released by a federal court show President Obama called then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the 2012 Benghazi attack — but the contents are being withheld by the State Department

It had previously been disclosed that Clinton and Obama spoke the night of the terror attacks. But the documents offer additional information about the timing of the call — after the initial attack on the U.S. consulate, but before the second wave where mortars hit the nearby CIA annex and killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. 

The contents of the call, however, are being withheld, not because the information is classified but because the administration claims they represent internal deliberations about the 2012 terror assault. 

The claim comes as Clinton also faces accusations that she withheld Benghazi-related emails from her private server in the trove of emails handed over to the State Department. 

The article points out that the email in question was discovered as the result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Judicial Watch.

The article also reports the political agenda involved in characterizing the attack at Benghazi as a result of a video:

Other emails from Judicial Watch lawsuits have, separately, shown Rhodes (Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes) played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her Sunday show appearances that weekend where she blamed protests over the Internet video

In that Sept. 14 email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the video, without distinguishing whether the Benghazi attack was different from protests elsewhere in the region. 

The email lists the following two goals, among others: 

“To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” 

“To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”

Thank God for Judicial Watch. It is unfortunate that most Americans will remain totally unaware of any of this and many who are aware will not care about the integrity of a major Presidential candidate.