Month: December 2012

I have gotten so many letters about our campaign to fight the smear campaign against Chuck Hagel that I can’t possibly respond to them individually, and so I’m taking to the Antiwar.com blog to answer and to give our readers and supporters an update.

 It is now Day Two and a half of the petition drive, and as of this very moment we are up to 1,165 signatures. For the past twenty-four hours or so, I’ve been visiting the web sites of various news organizations, cutting and pasting my message in the comments section of each and every article on the Hagel controversy, and it goes something like this:

“Defeat the smear campaign: sign the White House petition in support of Chuck Hagel” – after which I post the link.

 I’ve been surprised – and pleased – to notice, in my virtual travels, that someone has preceded me, and posted that very message or a similar one before I could get there. My strenuous – some might say over-strenuous – twittering on this subject may have been responsible for some of that, and I want to take this opportunity to urge you to help me out here.

 It’s actually not as boring as it sounds: life in the comments section, as you may know, can be interesting. Just reading these numerous comments on the Hagel controversy has been very enlightening – and instructive. For example, if you go to neocon columnist Jennifer Rubin’s page on the Washington Post web site, and look at the comments appended to her anti-Hagel tirades, they are a virtual tsunami of disdain directed at the author. Commenter after commenter ridicules her transparent “arguments” that always seem to be based on the operative principle of “Is it good for Israel?” What’s good for America never seems to enter the occasion. That comments section has no doubt been a rich source of petition signatures.

 The inside-the-Beltway types and their lobbyist friends have enforced a foreign policy orthodoxy that Hagel, in many ways, defies: that’s why they’re out to not only nix his nomination but to destroy him. The people, however, are with Hagel, and against the Lobby – and our job is to mobilize them, and educate them in the process.

 Nearly all the responses I have seen to our campaign, coming from our supporters, have been … well, supportive. In the hours after we emailed our appeal, it was kind of thrilling to watch the numbers on the counter take a qualitative leap forward. So far, we have more than doubled the number I originally managed to garner on my own, and the signatures are still coming in.

 The problem is, we need them to keep coming – and at a much faster rate. Which is why I’m here, now, hectoring you. Please help me out: I need people to troll the internet, looking for likely places to publicize this important campaign. If you have a web site, you might want to post it there: if you have a Twitter account, please tweet the link to your “followers.”

 I don’t want to go on about this, but I have to say I did this on impulse. As the neocons let loose their mudslide of smears, amid growing speculation the President might cave, a jolt of pure anger catapulted me back into my office chair, after a long work day, and compelled me to go to the White House petition site. Quite aside from his views, the sight of a man of such obvious personal integrity being pilloried in a disgusting orgy of baseless slander was just too much for me to bear. I had to do something.

 Well, I have to go back to what is now my job: trolling the internet and pasting my message with accompanying link: see you there.

FBI Wades Into Obama’s Commutation Process

The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel recently forced the CIA to release additional content from its 1987 Jonathan Pollard espionage damage assessment report (PDF). The National Security Archive – which appealed this declassification case to ISCAP – and many establishment media outlets characterize the partially released contents as something of an exoneration of the "cooperative" Pollard, whom the CIA debriefed under polygraph. They applaud the "good faith" of Pollard’s Israeli handlers who are said to have largely tasked the theft of classified U.S. documents that were of immediate and exclusive use defending Israel – but unfairly withheld by America despite intelligence sharing agreements. If this framing were true, it would make the ISCAP release extremely timely as the Obama administration moves into the final stages of Pollard’s for request for executive clemency. However, an examination of the still-heavily-redacted CIA report against other recently declassified files about the activities of other assets handled by Israeli spymaster Rafael Eitan – reveal is not quite the "get out of jail free" card so many claim. Other documents now in the declassification pipeline may further erode the benign portrayal of Pollard’s activities – though not necessarily in time to prevent his early release.

Although CIA’s damage assessment claims Pollard’s handlers "concentrated on providing Israel with US intelligence on the military forces and equipment of Arab and Islamic states and on Soviet military forces, equipment and technology" many such bullet points and assertions are followed by other large censored sections that leave readers wondering what other tasking was documented by the CIA. It may be that the blanked-out sections refer to other American assets run by Rafael Eitan – an Israeli spymaster who has probably done more damage to United states than any other Middle Eastern spy – that were better situated to deliver the goods. Pollard is far from Israel’s only successful spy. Eitan himself visited the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in 1968, a facility that "lost" more weapons-grade uranium than any other nuclear fuel processor in the US. Eitan would have likely relied on NUMEC president Zalman Shapiro and other helpful American colleagues for advanced hydrogen bomb designs and other assistance in the early 1970s. Eitan’s involvement in obtaining source code of the PROMIS intelligence case management program, a system compromised with secret back doors that was to be installed at the Justice Department and various foreign intelligence services, would have been a good source for "dirt" the CIA report claims Eitan wanted but that Pollard’s more sensible handlers vetoed. Continue reading “Partially Declassified CIA Assessment Does Not Exonerate Jonathan Pollard”

According to a recent Congressional Research Service report (via Secrecy News), the Obama administration’s working policy is that US officials can disclose classified information (to reporters, and others) so long as it suits the needs of the government.

The CRS report, written by legislative attorney Jennifer K. Elsea, continues:  “Nothing in the order provides explicit authority to release classified information that exists apart from the authority to declassify, but it is possible that such discretionary authority is recognized to release information outside the community of authorized holders without formally declassifying it.”  Indeed, this appears to be an accurate characterization of actual practice.

In any case, “there is little to stop agency heads and other high-ranking officials from releasing classified information to persons without a security clearance when it is seen as suiting government needs.”  Again, an accurate description– particularly since “the Attorney General has prosecutorial discretion to choose which leaks to prosecute.”

If ever there were a clearer indication that the classification process is not about protecting the safety of Americans, but rather about protecting the government from unwelcome facts…

In the context of Obama’s war on transparency – his crackdown on whistleblowers and attacks on legitimate journalism as national security threats are now infamous – the CRS report is quite revealing. Last month, Obama started implementing new standards for cracking down on whistleblowers – or, as officials sometimes call them, unauthorized leaks.

You see, it’s not the unauthorized leaks – which are apparently illegal – that Obama doesn’t like. It’s when those leaks make his administration look bad, or negligent, or criminal.

The most relevant example is the practice of constantly bragging about killing “terrorists” in the drone war, while turning around and claiming they can’t be subject to any public scrutiny on the technically classified program.

In an environment of successive whistleblowers, the Obama administration has driven the conduct of the Executive Branch underground. Consider that the government spent more than $11 billion dollars in 2011 just on keeping secrets from the American public (compared with $4.7 billion in 2001).

There is a radical trend towards over-classification. Document reviews conducted by Information Security Oversight Office in 2009 discovered violations of classification rules in 65% of the documents examined, with several agencies posting error rates of more than 90%. According to the ISOO, the government made a record 76,795,945 classification decisions in 2010, an increase of more than 40% from 2009.

“To me it illustrates the most important problem — namely that we are classifying far too much information,” Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News told the New York Times recently. “The credibility of the classification system is collapsing under the weight of bogus secrets.”

The Israel lobby’s smear campaign against Chuck Hagel is an absolute outrage: they are hurling every mudball they can get their hands on at him, and of course the main charge is “anti-Semitism” – because he wont’ kowtow to the Lobby and proudly declares that, while he supports Israel, “I’m a United States senator. I’m not an Israeli senator.”

To ordinary Americans, of course, such a sentiment is called patriotism: to the Lobby, it’s high treason. Welcome to Bizarro World!

I was on Twitter last night, and I was sickened to see that the “buzz” is that because the evil Washington Post has come out editorially against Hagel, his nomination is supposedly doomed. I thought to myself: Really? Is the editorial page editor of the WaPo, a notorious neocon, really going to dictate the future of American foreign policy? Do these people really have that kind of power – or do we, the people, have the power?

I decided to put this question to the test. So I posted a White House petition on the White House petition web site supporting Hagel’s nomination and urging the administration to fight for him.

We have until January 18, 2013, to get 25,000 signatures – on which occasion the White House will have to respond in some manner.

This is important. If the War Party gets away with this vicious campaign of character assassination, then they can get away with anything. The American people want out of Afghanistan, just like they want out of Iraq – and they overwhelmingly oppose war with Iran, which the War Party is pushing like hell. Hagel opposes their war plans: he has opposed the murderous sanctions on Iran, and has advocated diplomacy over military action. He has consistently and bravely stood up to the Israel lobby, and refused to sign on to their numerous “open letters” urging the administration to kowtow to Tel Aviv.

No, the Washington Post editorial board doesn’t have the last word when it comes to the vital issue of war and peace – not if you speak out and let your voice be heard. Yes, we can have an effect – but only if you act now.

One month – 25,000 signatures. It’s doable – so let’s do it.

Please go here to sign the petition.

 

Although no one seems to be able to initiate a change, there is widespread acknowledgement that US-backed drug war policies in Mexico have worsened the security situation, enabled human rights abuses by the government, and has not put a dent in the drug market. Washington Post:

A top official in Mexico’s new government on Monday harshly criticized the country’s U.S.-backed attack on drug cartel leaders for causing violence to surge, even as the incoming team offered an alternate security strategy largely devoid of details.

Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong opened a meeting of the National Security Council saying that under the strategy of former President Felipe Calderon, who left office Dec. 1, “financial resources dedicated to security have more than doubled but unfortunately crime has increased.”

Calderon’s policy to deploy Mexican troops and federal police officers – forces that are trained by the United States – only increased the violence, which has left more than 50,000 dead since about 2006.  “George W. Bush backed Calderón’s militarization with a $1.8 billion package of helicopters, police training, and intelligence cooperation,” wrote The New Yorker’s Steve Coll recently. “Obama has continued the program” and “has reportedly sent drones to help Mexico track cartel leaders and traffickers.”

Human Rights Watch back in November of last year released a report providing evidence that Mexico’s security forces participated in “more than 170 cases of torture, 39 ‘disappearances,’ and 24 extrajudicial killings since Calderón took office in December 2006.” And these are just what they could confirm.

“Instead of reducing violence, Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’ has resulted in a dramatic increase in killings, torture, and other appalling abuses by security forces, which only make the climate of lawlessness and fear worse in many parts of the country,” said José Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch.

Despite the open criticisms, it seems unlikely that the new Mexican government will succeed in significantly altering the status quo.

The United States has been pushing a militaristic approach to the drug war for a long time. Other countries –  Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, etc. – are suffering from a similar dilemma thanks to US pressure and the refusal to budge on a failed policy.

In Foreign Affairs, Michael Bröning makes an impressively weak case for directly arming the Syrian rebels. He acknowledges the unfortunate fact that aid and weapons from Arab Gulf states have “primarily reached the more extreme groups,” but claims that the new National Coalition Opposition, which President Obama and more than 90 countries have officially recognized, “changes the conflict’s parameters.” He argues that “Arming and financing the National Coalition could strengthen the more moderate opposition forces in Syria.”

…the facts on the ground have increasingly overrun the standard arguments against supporting anti-Assad forces, and the case for arming the rebels grows stronger by the month.

Critics of a more active support for the opposition have long bemoaned the lack of a coherent opposition body that could bring together the various political and military opponents of the regime. But now, the newly established Syrian National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which was founded with U.S. assistance in Qatar in November, has done just that.

Actually, it hasn’t. The Coalition is supposed to be made up of Syrian dissidents and opposition groups from across the spectrum. But it is largely another exile group without strong roots inside the country. There little evidence the Syrian people accept it. But there is strong evidence it has been vehemently rejected by the armed rebel groups fighting the Assad regime. And the fact that it was formed as a US initiative grants it even less legitimacy. After all, as Bröning readily admits, arming the rebels would be meant to “accelerate the end of the Assad regime” for the sake of “Syrian and Western interests” (a redundancy to imperialists).

Bröning acknowledges the aid and weapons already being sent to Syria’s rebels by Arab Gulf states have largely gone to extremist jihadists, some of whom have ties to al-Qaeda. What he doesn’t say is that this occurred despite the CIA’s efforts to facilitate the delivery of these arms towards moderate groups. Going back at least six months, intelligence officials have been telling the press (Washington Post, Los Angeles Times) that the truth is that the US had little control over who received the assistance.

Nor does Bröning explain what is to happen if and when the Assad regime does fall. He argues that fully committed Western support would make moderate elements of the Syrian opposition stronger than the extremists. That is unconvincing. But even if it were true, we’d still have a situation where rebel group was pitted against rebel group and an ongoing proxy war would be likely to result. Furthermore, all the rebels have proven capable of is fighting, not state building, social services, and post-conflict reconstruction. The opposition, despite the hopes and dreams of people like Bröning, is still very fractured and many of these groups would imitate the Libyan rebels and refuse to cede local control and, importantly, their weapons.

The overwhelming fact is that the interventionist policies in Syria are worsening the conflict. UN rights chief Navi Pillay has repeatedly condemned the continued flow of weapons from foreign powers to both sides in the Syrian conflict. “The ongoing provision of arms to the Syrian government and to its opponents feeds additional violence,” she said. “Any further militarization of the conflict must be avoided at all costs.”

And supporting rebel groups in civil wars has a terrible record throughout history. As usual, the rosy picture of the future painted by self-assured interventionists never materializes. A recent study out of Brandeis University concluded “the distillation of historical experience with civil war and insurgency, along with a sober reckoning of conditions on the ground in Syria, make clear” that arming the rebels is “likely to amplify the harm that it seeks to eliminate by prolonging a hurting stalemate.”

Update: To further illustrate sectarian and messy choosing one side over the other can get, today brings news of Syrian rebels battling with pro-Assad Palestinian groups.

Clashes between Syrian rebels and an armed Palestinian group loyal to President Bashar Assad raged inside a Damascus refugee camp Tuesday, as the Syrian military deployed tanks outside, activists said.

…as the civil war deepened, most Palestinians backed the rebels, while some groups — such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command — have been fighting on the government side.

Update II: Beyond the predictable risks and contradictions with getting even more involved in this fight, there is then the practical issue (with heavy moral weight) of what I’ve previously called the fatal conceit of policymakers in Washington thinking they have the knowledge and ability to engineer a particular outcome from this chaotic mess.