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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; CIA</title>
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		<title>Back in Saigon: The Senate Intelligence Committee Report</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/back-in-saigon-the-senate-intelligence-committee-report-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=back-in-saigon-the-senate-intelligence-committee-report-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:40:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nixon]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Torture]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247269</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Left revives an old tradition of besmirching the CIA in a time of crisis abroad. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/o-CIA-SYRIAN-REBELS-facebook.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247270" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/o-CIA-SYRIAN-REBELS-facebook-450x322.jpg" alt="A man crosses the Central Intelligence A" width="362" height="259" /></a>The Senate’s misleadingly dubbed “torture report,” an executive summary of which was released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, is a shameless and dangerous act of political grandstanding and moral preening. The investigative report of the CIA’s long-suspended interrogation program reflects nothing more than just how firmly the progressive mind is stuck in the old Vietnam War paradigm, their master narrative of American crime and left-wing righteousness. Once more, we see how reactionary is the ideology of the left, their minds unable to accommodate historical change, new ideas, or even coherent thinking.</p>
<p style="color: #313131;"><span style="color: #000000;">Jose Rodriguez, a 31-year veteran of the CIA who ran the interrogation program, has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/todays-cia-critics-once-urged-the-agency-to-do-anything-to-fight-al-qaeda/2014/12/05/ac418da2-7bda-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">detailed</span></a> the hypocrisy and untruths of the report. He reminds us that in the aftermath of 9/11, lawmakers demanded that the intelligence agencies do everything possible to stop another attack. Indeed, Feinstein in May 2002 told the <i>New York Times </i>that “</span><span style="color: #272727;">we have to do some things that historically we have not wanted to do to protect ourselves.” In her comments on the Report’s release, however, Feinstein referred to the Geneva Convention and said, </span>“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, (including what I just read) whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.” Twelve years later, the political advantages of moral preening have trumped the recognition that hard choices have to be made sometimes to fulfill the federal government’s highest duty, which is to keep the citizens safe.</p>
<p>Rodriguez also explodes the report’s canard that the enhanced interrogation techniques were not legally sanctioned. They were in fact reviewed in 2002 and 2005 by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and in 2009 were investigated by Eric Holder’s DOJ, which did not file charges. Rodriguez also debunks the claim that the CIA withheld information concerning their use from government officials. Rodriguez should know, since he was there when the CIA briefed Senator Feinstein and House Representative Nancy Pelosi on the techniques. And he exposes the lie that EITs did not yield vital information, an assessment also contradicted by ex-CIA chief Michael Hayden, who said of the charge that it “is so untrue” that it “actually defies human comprehension. We detained about 100 people, we had a Home Depot-like warehouse of information from those people.” Former CIA chiefs James Woolsey, Porter Goss, George Tenet, and, with shrewd equivocation, Leon Panetta, along with ex-Attorney General Mike Mukasey and current CIA chief John Brennan, have confirmed that EITs did provide valuable intelligence.</p>
<p>Yet the central fallacy of the report is that the EITs  “amount[ed] to torture,” as Feinstein announced on the report’s release. But government policy follows the law as written and established by Congress, not what “amounts” to the law in someone’s subjective estimation. Such sophistic language compromises the report’s description of EITs. The techniques cited––threats, sleep deprivation, “physical assault,” stripping detainees naked, putting them in “stress positions”––are all obviously frightening and painful. But they are not “torture” under U.S. law. Nor is waterboarding, Exhibit A in the left’s indictment of U.S. heinous behavior. That’s why Feinstein slyly says that EITs “amount” to torture rather than explicitly calling them torture, and why she cites international conventions on torture rather than the U.S. law.</p>
<p>Just consult the <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">statute</span></a> covering torture in the U.S. Code, which defines it as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control,” and further clarifies “severe mental pain or suffering” as “the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from . . . the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.” The key words are “intended” and “severe.” As Marc Thiessen concluded in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Courting-Disaster-America-Barack-Inviting/dp/1596986034/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1418248906&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=marc+thiessen"><span style="color: #0433ff;">analysis</span></a> of the EITs and their legality, “The fact is, <i>none</i> of the techniques used by the CIA meet the standard of torture in U.S. law. This is for two reasons: because the CIA interrogators did not <i>specifically intend</i> to inflict severe pain and suffering; second, because they did not <i>in fact</i> inflict severe pain and suffering.” And in 2009 Attorney General Eric Holder agreed, when he testified before Congress that waterboarding U.S. military personnel as part of their training was not torture: “It’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally.”</p>
<p>This simple legal reality is why Feinstein in her statement depends on imprecise adjectives like “visceral,” “ugly,” “brutal,” and “harsh”––to create a cloud of emotion that hides the fact that EITs were not illegal and were not torture. Furthermore, if Feinstein and other critics think this point is a sophistic evasion and that these techniques <i>are</i> torture, then they should call on Congress to change the law rather than rewriting history to suggest that the CIA did something illegal.</p>
<p style="color: #313131;"><span style="color: #000000;">But fact and reality are not as important as politics and the leftist melodrama of America’s historical crimes. Thus Feinstein said her report reveals behavior that is “</span>a stain on our values and on our history,” and Senator John McCain said they are violations of our “ideals.” So just how is attempting to keep America safe by interrogating terrorists according to the law, with doctors and psychologists present to monitor the terrorist’s well being, a “stain”? In the real world beyond our borders, genuine torture is used daily without the sort of legal limits or oversight imposed on our interrogators. And most of the time, the torture is not used to gain life-saving information, but to punish political enemies, terrorize political opponents, or just indulge sadistic cruelty. That is a real “stain.”</p>
<p style="color: #313131;">As for our “ideals,” such a low bar for indictment as waterboarding––which killed no one, and which several journalists volunteered to undergo––means, <span style="color: #000000;">as Max Boot has suggested, </span>that the Allied strategic bombing of Germany and Japan, which killed 650,000 to a million civilians with high explosives, nuclear bombs, and incendiaries, was an even grosser and more heinous “stain” on our “ideals” than sleep deprivation and scary threats. Where was the investigation of strategic bombing after World War II, or the pontifications on the Senate floor of how we Americans were “better” than such practices? Are we now just morally superior to those Americans who accepted the “awful arithmetic” and defeated 2 racist, brutal, totalitarian regimes? Or how about Obama’s droning to death over 3600 terrorists, including nearly 500 civilians, actions not subject to the legal review the EITs were? Dead terrorists are bad sources of intelligence of the sort gleaned by using EITs. Will we see a future investigation that condemns these drone executions as a “stain on our values and history” and “ideals”? It seems that “values” and “history” are defined by which party is in control of the government and stands to benefit politically by pointing out how they’ve been defiled.</p>
<p><span style="color: #313131;">But apart from politics, this report and its rollout </span>are just another act in the progressive melodrama of America’s sin and guilt for crimes committed when morally superior liberals aren’t running the show. And exhibit number 1 for progressives of a certain age is the Vietnam War. That’s why the conflict in Iraq was shoehorned into the Vietnam paradigm as soon as ambitious Democrats like Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and John Kerry, who had all voted for the war, began noticing the traction Howard Dean was gaining from opposing the war.</p>
<p>Thus the 1964 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Resolution"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Gulf of Tonkin</span></a> resolution authorizing the escalation of the war in Vietnam found its parallel in Bush’s alleged “lies” and “false intelligence” about Hussein’s WMDs (“Bush lied, millions died!”). The charge that Vietnam was benefitting the “military-industrial complex” and its lust for profits and resources was duplicated in allegations that the Halliburton Corporation and Dick Cheney were really after Iraq’s oil (“No blood for oil!”). Anti-war critics like I.F. Stone and the Berrigan brothers were reincarnated as the buffoonish Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky. The anti-war movement of the Vietnam era reappeared as International ANSWER, Code Pink, and various other outfits protesting the war in Iraq. Clichés like “escalation” and “quagmire” resurfaced in media commentary, and atrocities like My Lai were searched for in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.</p>
<p>And don’t forget the investigative assault on the CIA by Senator Frank Church’s committee following the 1975 North Vietnamese victory in Vietnam, a report that weakened the CIA and compromised its effectiveness in ways that helped pave the way for the 9/11 attacks. Now it finds a new iteration in the Senate Intelligence Committee report and the dishonest media coverage besmirching the CIA. The immediate result has been to endanger our agents and intelligence assets abroad.  It still waits to be seen how much damage will ensue to the morale and future practice of the brave men and women who try to keep us safe.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Feinstein&#8217;s Torture Charade &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=feinsteins-torture-charade-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247376</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the Democratic Senator chose to humiliate her country and endanger its citizens' lives. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247382" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein-450x244.jpg" alt="Former CIA Director Petraeus Testifies At Congressional Hearings On Benghazi Attack" width="291" height="158" /></a><strong>[</strong><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><strong>Subscribe</strong></a><strong> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>LIKE</strong></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><strong>Facebook.]</strong></a></p>
<p><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption">This week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was guest-hosted by <strong>Michael Finch</strong>, the president of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He was joined by <b>Morgan Brittany</b>, Conservative TV and Movie Star, <b>Nonie Darwish,</b> author of “The Devil We Don’t Know” and <b>Mell Flynn,</b> the president of Hollywood Congress of Republicans.</span></span><span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"></span></p>
<p>The <em>Gang</em> gathered to discuss <span id="fbPhotoSnowliftCaption" class="fbPhotosPhotoCaption" tabindex="0" data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="hasCaption"><strong>Feinstein&#8217;s Destructive Torture Charade</strong>, analyzing the reasons the Democratic Senator chose to humiliate her country and endanger its citizens&#8217; lives. </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DqDUXbeFDmk" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To watch previous <em>Glazov Gang</em> episodes, </strong><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><strong>Click Here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Senate CIA Report and Democratic Treachery</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/the-senate-cia-report-and-democratic-treachery/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-senate-cia-report-and-democratic-treachery</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Dec 2014 05:55:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247157</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Putting American lives on the line for a political payout.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247160" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/feinstein-432x350.png" alt="feinstein" width="315" height="255" /></a>On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released the 500-page executive summary of the report on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation of terrorist detainees. Democrats, the media and Republican Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are using it as an opportunity to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/cia-torture-report/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">hammer</span></a> the CIA and the Bush administration, while American embassies, military units and other U.S. interests are <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/us-prepares-security-risks-torture-report-080155482--politics.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">preparing</span></a> for possible reprisals. But adding further threats to Americans already in harm&#8217;s way matters not. Beleaguered congressional Democrats are desperate for a political boon and have turned to an old standby: sabotaging national security and sacrificing American lives.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Since their betrayal of the Iraq war, Democrats, particularly in the Senate, have panned the techniques used by the CIA to garner critical information in the days following 9/11 as “torture,” and have claimed that they yielded no useful intel. Though the use of these techniques was long known to Democrats — with virtual indifference toward them at the outset — many Democrats have since claimed they were unaware of what was occurring, which explains their lack of opposition to their government supposedly engaging in “torture.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Leading the way on the latter fabrication was then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Her ongoing denials regarding knowledge of the CIA&#8217;s waterboarding of terrorists were ultimately undone by Pelosi herself in 2009, when she finally <a href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/pelosi-cia-misled-congress-over-waterboarding/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">admitted</span></a> she had known about the program since 2003. Yet even as she admitted it, she continued to promote the “Bush lied, people died” lie, insisting that &#8220;the C.I.A. was misleading the Congress and at the same time the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Those would be the same weapons of mass destruction whose existence was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=3"><span style="color: #1255cc;">acknowledged</span></a> by the <i>New York Times</i> last October.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As for so-called torture, the report <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/world/senate-intelligence-committee-cia-torture-report.html?emc=edit_na_20141209&amp;nlid=23627335&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">cited</span></a> sleep deprivation, threatening subjects with death, “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration” described by the CIA&#8217;s chief of interrogations as a way to exert “total control over detainees,” and waterboarding, as in simulating near drowning. The report further stated that former CIA directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden hyped the value of those techniques in secret briefings with the White House and Congress.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein admitted that she “could understand the C.I.A.&#8217;s impulse to consider the use of every possible tool to gather intelligence and remove terrorists from the battlefield, and the C.I.A. was encouraged by political leaders and the public to do whatever it could to prevent another attack,” but that “such pressure, fear and expectation of further terrorist plots do not justify, temper or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organizations in the name of national security. The major lesson of this report is that regardless of the pressures and the need to act, the intelligence community’s actions must always reflect who we are as a nation, and adhere to our laws and standards.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The hypocrisy is breathtaking. While the Left wrings its collective hands about “torture,” they remain silent to Barack Obama’s <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">drone program</span></a>. One that has not only killed terrorists, but America citizens, Samir Khan, and Anwar al-Awlaki. Both men were traitors, but they were executed without the due process the Left supposedly reveres so much in the case of terrorist detainees. So was Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, as well as innocents who were victims of collateral damage. No one was reported to have been killed by the Bush administration&#8217;s enhanced interrogation techniques, yet somehow Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney are routinely <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Bush+Cheney+war+criminals&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8"><span style="color: #1255cc;">referred</span></a> to as “war criminals” while Obama largely gets a pass.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The <i>Washington Post’s</i> Bill Gerson cuts right through the double-standard, noting intelligence personnel now being excoriated received the same “direction and protection,” consisting of presidential approval, congressional briefing, lawfulness determined by the U.S. Attorney General and target value determined by the CIA Director as those currently participating in the drone program. &#8220;Some may argue a subtle moral distinction between harshly interrogating a terrorist and blowing his limbs apart,” Gerson writes. &#8220;But international human rights groups and legal authorities generally look down on both. The main difference? One is Obama’s favorite program. A few years from now, a new president and new congressional leaders may take a different view.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">This double standard puts the lie to Democrats’ seriousness toward the claim that the Bush administration engaged in “torture,” illegality and human rights abuses in its mission to thwart terrorist attacks against the homeland. In truth, the campaign against tough interrogation is a political cudgel that Democrats have employed to bludgeon their political enemies, no matter the national security cost. It amounts to nothing less than a revisionist effort to turn those entrusted with protecting the country in the immediate aftermath of the worst domestic attack in American history into pariahs, even as the war remains ongoing. As Gerson so rightly notes, the report’s release is an act of &#8220;exceptional congressional recklessness” engineered by Feinstein, whose &#8220;legacy is a massive dump of intelligence details useful to the enemy in a time of war.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Our allies are equally appalled. ”Foreign leaders have approached the government and said, &#8216;You do this, this will cause violence and deaths,&#8221;&#8217; <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/08/house-intelligence-chairman-rogers-report-will-spur-attacks/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">warned</span></a> Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. &#8220;Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged such concerns, but insisted the administration &#8220;strongly supports the release of this declassified summary of the report.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">No doubt. The release neatly coincided with ObamaCare mega-consultant Jonathan Gruber’s Congressional <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/politics/gruber-hearing/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">testimony</span></a> regarding his contempt for the American public, and the deception employed to get the ACA passed. Thus, the administration has once again employed a bait and switch effort to distract the public, despite the fact that distraction imperils Americans and our allies.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">CIA veteran Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., who ran the enhanced interrogation program, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/todays-cia-critics-once-urged-the-agency-to-do-anything-to-fight-al-qaeda/2014/12/05/ac418da2-7bda-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">destroys</span></a> the contention that Democrats were out of the loop, and that the enhanced interrogation techniques yielded no useful information. &#8220;The leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees and of both parties in Congress were briefed on the program more than 40 times between 2002 and 2009,” he reveals, noting those same lawmakers &#8220;urged us to do everything possible to prevent another attack on our soil.” He was equally forthright about the intel that was garnered. &#8220;After extraordinary CIA efforts, aided by information obtained through the enhanced-interrogation program, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the 9/11 attacks, was captured in Pakistan,&#8221; he explains.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">He is especially critical of “hypocritical&#8221; Democrats. He cites Feinstein&#8217;s 2002 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/weekinreview/all-fronts-getting-more-than-one-step-ahead-of-an-attack.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">assertion</span></a> that &#8220;we have to do some things that historically we have not wanted to do to protect ourselves,” as well as an <a href="http://votesmart.org/public-statement/15557/cnn-late-edition-with-wolf-blitzer#.VIdvyifFm3d"><span style="color: #1255cc;">interview</span></a> between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WVA), then the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. In response to Blitzer’s question about whether Khalid Sheik Mohammed might be turned over to friendly countries with no restrictions on torture, the Senator admitted it was possible. “I wouldn’t take anything off the table where he is concerned, because this is the man who has killed hundreds and hundreds of Americans over the last 10 years,” he replied.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rodriguez then adds a dose of devastating perspective to the mix. &#8220;If Feinstein, Rockefeller and other politicians were saying such things in print and on national TV, imagine what they were saying to us in private….Our reward, a decade later, is to hear some of these same politicians expressing outrage for what was done and, even worse, mischaracterizing the actions taken and understating the successes achieved,” he states.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Current and former CIA leaders <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/defense/226465-spies-push-back-on-senate-report"><span style="color: #1255cc;">bitterly contested</span></a> the report. Bush-era CIA Director George Tenet labeled it &#8220;biased, inaccurate, and destructive,” adding that it &#8220;does damage to U.S. national security, to the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency, and most of all to the truth.” CIA Director John Brennan said the agency made mistakes, but insisted &#8220;the record does not support the study’s inference that the agency systematically and intentionally misled each of these audiences on the effectiveness of the program.” A <a href="http://ciasavedlives.com/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">website</span></a> launched by a number of intelligence officials blasted the report:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;"><i>The recently released Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Majority report on the CIA&#8217;s Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation Program is marred by errors of facts and interpretation and is completely at odds with the reality that the leaders and officers of the Central Intelligence Agency lived through. It represents the single worst example of Congressional oversight in our many years of government service.</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Cheney also remains <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/us/politics/white-house-and-gop-clash-over-torture-report.html?emc=edit_th_20141209&amp;nl=todaysheadlines&amp;nlid=62431058&amp;_r=1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">resolute</span></a> about the necessity and legality of the program. “What I keep hearing out there is they portray this as a rogue operation, and the agency was way out of bounds and then they lied about it,” he said in a telephone interview with the <i>New York Times</i>. “I think that’s all a bunch of hooey. The program was authorized. The agency did not want to proceed without authorization, and it was also reviewed legally by the Justice Department before they undertook the program.” Cheney also had nothing but praise for those who participated. “As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized,” he added.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The alternative viewpoint? &#8220;Showing respect even for ones enemies. Trying to understand and in so far as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view,” <a href="http://www.ijreview.com/2014/12/212850-hillary-remarks-beat-enemies-may-just-killed-chances-presidency/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">said</span></a> Secretary of State and likely presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Americans have a choice to make between competing worldviews. The wrong choice will have deadly consequences.</p>
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		<title>Valerie Plame and Obama&#8217;s Double Standard on Outing CIA Personnel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/valerie-plame-and-obamas-double-standard-on-outing-cia-personnel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=valerie-plame-and-obamas-double-standard-on-outing-cia-personnel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/valerie-plame-and-obamas-double-standard-on-outing-cia-personnel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 26 May 2014 14:43:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226287</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unlike Valerie Plame, the CIA Station Chief in Afghanistan is at actual risk.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/s-jarrett-large.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-226288" alt="s-jarrett-large" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/s-jarrett-large.jpg" width="400" height="271" /></a></p>
<p>Hoping to distract Americans from his death panels for veterans, Obama made a Bush style visit to Afghanistan and managed to cause even more harm to national security by outing the CIA Station Chief there.</p>
<p>The Democrats did their best to turn Valerie Plame into a martyr even though the only danger that the leftist faced was fewer invitations to cocktail parties. That didn&#8217;t stop Hollywood liberals from churning out a movie about her complete with action scenes.</p>
<p>Will the same standard hold for whoever outdated the CIA Station Chief in Afghanistan? Unlikely. <a href="http://freebeacon.com/national-security/top-cia-officer-in-afghanistan-mistakenly-named-by-white-house/">The official narrative is that it was an accident</a>. But if you believe that it&#8217;s an accident, then you also have to believe in the complete and total incompetence of Obama Inc. when it comes to security issues.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a case to be made for that, but considering the deep-seated resentment of the country in the upper echelons of this administration, it was more likely deliberate.</p>
<p>Unlike Valerie Plame making her cocktail party tour, the CIA Station Chief in Afghanistan is at actual risk.</p>
<blockquote><p>The newspaper said the official, identified as “Chief of Station” in Kabul, was named as being among those at a briefing with Obama during the president’s trip to Bagram Air Base near the Afghan capital.</p>
<p>The list of names was sent by email to reporters traveling with Obama on his surprise Afghanistan visit and included in a “pool report” shared with correspondents and others not on the trip.</p>
<p>The Post said the White House issued a revised list deleting the CIA official’s name after it recognized the mistake.</p>
<p>The newspaper said its White House bureau chief, Scott Wilson, who was on the trip, copied the original list from the email provided by White House press officials and included it in a report sent to a distribution list with over 6,000 recipients.</p></blockquote>
<p>Is anyone going to be fired for it? Forget about it. There&#8217;s no accountability built into the system. They&#8217;ll just blame the military and hand over a scapegoat if the heat gets too hot.</p>
<blockquote><p>A year prior, Obama was also part of a call for congressional investigations into the Bush administration’s biggest leak — the revealing of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity.</p>
<p>Obama joined a 2005 letter with 24 Democrats led by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who had just been defeated in the 2004 presidential election, urging the Republican-led Congress to undertake its own investigation into the Plame scandal.</p>
<p>President Bush had appointed a special counsel in the Plame case in 2003, which ultimately resulted in the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama obviously doesn&#8217;t do independent investigations. Too many of his people would end up in jail beginning with his own Atty General.</p>
<p>In the letter signed by Obama, it asked for, &#8220;The public revelation of Ms. Plame&#8217;s identity, whether it amounts to a crime or an irresponsible breach of security protocol that doesn&#8217;t meet the standard of criminal conduct, almost certainly compromised her intelligence networks and may have compromised the safety and welfare of anyone who had worked with her overseas.  As a group of respected former intelligence officials wrote in 2004: &#8220;Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.&#8221;</p>
<p>Valerie Plame, more of a socialite than an agent, was never in danger, despite Obama&#8217;s posturing. But his visit, itself a pathetic attempt at distracting the country from his administration&#8217;s death panels for veterans, did out a major CIA figure who is in danger.</p>
<p>Is Obama going to accept an investigation? He never does.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Now I&#39;m a socialite? Is that better than a socialist? Valerie Plame and Obama’s Double Standard on Outing CIA Officer <a href="http://t.co/zUdzgAGQgM">http://t.co/zUdzgAGQgM</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Valerie Plame Wilson (@ValeriePlame) <a href="https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/statuses/471315010048630785">May 27, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
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		<title>CIA Deputy Director Removed &#8220;Islamic&#8221; from Benghazi Talking Points to Avoid Offending Muslims</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/cia-deputy-director-removed-islamic-from-benghazi-talking-points-to-avoid-offending-muslims/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cia-deputy-director-removed-islamic-from-benghazi-talking-points-to-avoid-offending-muslims</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/cia-deputy-director-removed-islamic-from-benghazi-talking-points-to-avoid-offending-muslims/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 Apr 2014 13:19:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=222909</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You don't want to offend Muslims in talking points about a Muslim act of terror. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ObamaBenghazi.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-203840" alt="ObamaBenghazi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ObamaBenghazi-450x283.jpg" width="450" height="283" /></a></p>
<p>You obviously <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/04/03/cia-chief-i-removed-islamic-islamic-extremists-benghazi-talking-points-appease-muslims">don&#8217;t want to offend Muslims in talking points</a> about a Muslim act of terror. Next thing you know, they&#8217;ll break into one of your diplomatic missions and kill your ambassador.</p>
<blockquote><p>Former acting CIA Director Mike Morell testified to the House Intelligence Committee that he is the one who changed the Benghazi talking points.</p>
<p>Morell testified today that a group of intelligence officers from the Office of Congressional Affairs, and CIA public affairs, removed a reference to al Qaeda from the talking points given to Congress.</p>
<p>Congressman: Just want to clarify, how does the term Al Qaeda…how would that disclose classified sources? Number 1 and then secondly, OK if we can get there, you also took out Islamic extremist… (Cross talk)</p>
<p>Morrell: I did not take out extremists, I took out the word Islamic in front of extremist and I took it out for two reasons. Most importantly I took out because we were dealing with protests and demonstrations across much of the Muslim world as a result of the video and the last thing I wanted to do was to was to do anything to further inflame those passions and so that’s why I took the word Islamic out. It was a risk judgment. The second reason I took it out was-What other kind of extremists are there in Libya?</p></blockquote>
<p>That last observation is amusingly politically incorrect. <a href="http://www.sharylattkisson.com/morell-testifies-on-benghazi-talking-points-4-2-14.html">Whistleblowing ex-CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson</a> has a wider summary of the testimony.</p>
<blockquote><p>The controversy took place against the backdrop of a Presidential election campaign in which President Obama had claimed al Qaeda was on the run. At today’s hearing, Morell stated that the C.I.A. believed then, and that he still believes, “some of the attackers” were “affiliated with al Qaeda.” That information, too, was edited out of the talking points but Morell said he was not responsible for that word change.</p>
<p>“I did not take al Qaeda from the talking points,” Morell said. When asked who did, he answered, “The group of officers from our office of Congressional affairs and our office of public affairs.” Previously, government officials had vehemently denied that any public affairs officials made any edits to the talking points.</p></blockquote>
<p>So the buck keeps being passed around.</p>
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		<title>Senators Accuse Hillary Clinton&#8217;s CIA Ally of Lying About Benghazi Under Oath</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/senators-accuse-hillary-clintons-cia-ally-of-lying-about-benghazi-under-oath/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=senators-accuse-hillary-clintons-cia-ally-of-lying-about-benghazi-under-oath</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/senators-accuse-hillary-clintons-cia-ally-of-lying-about-benghazi-under-oath/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Feb 2014 15:47:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219408</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["I’ve always thought Mike was a straight-up guy."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hillary5.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-192228" alt="hillary5" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/hillary5.jpg" width="413" height="270" /></a></p>
<p>This has been brewing for a while. CIA Deputy Director Morell had been fingered as <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2014/02/11/mike-morell-man-middle-benghazi-talking-points-scandal/">the man who altered the Benghazi t</a>alking points.</p>
<blockquote><p>Morell produced what became essentially the final version of the talking points, removing references to known terrorist groups and identifying a non-existing demonstration as the cause. Outrageously, the official talking points contradicted the known facts.</p></blockquote>
<p>Morell&#8217;s <a href="http://freebeacon.com/herridge-fmr-cia-director-morell-may-have-altered-benghazi-talking-points-to-benefit-obama-admin/">transition from the CIA to a firm connected to Hillary Clinton </a>didn&#8217;t help matters any.</p>
<blockquote><p>Some speculate Morell may have higher political ambitions considering his employment at Beacon Global Strategies, a government relations firm founded by close Hillary Clinton confidante Philippe I. Reines.</p></blockquote>
<p>Reines was Hillary&#8217;s image man, senior advisor and spokesman and very much involved in covering up what happened in Benghazi. Reines became infamous w<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/hillary-clinton-aide-tells-reporter-to-fuck-off">hen he cursed out a BuzzFeed correspondent</a> who was asking questions about Ambassador Stevens&#8217; diary.</p>
<p>Beacon is all Hillaried up. Its other co-founder and managing director, Andrew Shapiro, was Hillary&#8217;s Senior Advisor.</p>
<p>Now Senators are accusing <a href="http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/lawmakers-cia-2-lied-us-about-benghazi_782724.html">Morell of having lied to them over</a> and over again.</p>
<blockquote><p>The allegations of misconduct are serious. In the “additional views” portion of the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report, six Republican members  accuse Morell of lying in sworn testimony to Congress. Several Republican senators tell The Weekly Standard that Morell misled them in one-on-one or small-group meetings about the talking points. Morell—now counselor to Beacon Global Strategies, a consultancy close to Hillary Clinton—did not respond to a request for comment.</p>
<p>Three aspects of the controversy are drawing particular interest: (1) Morell’s obfuscation of his central role in rewriting the talking points, (2) Morell’s contention that the FBI rewrote the talking points, and (3) Morell’s false claim that the talking points were provided to the White House merely as a heads-up and not for coordination.</p>
<p>In private meetings with lawmakers, on Capitol Hill and at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Morell denied that he had played any significant role in writing or revising the talking points.</p>
<p>The first question of the meeting was simple: “Who changed the talking points?” Morell responded, telling the senators that the FBI had made the revisions. “He told us that the FBI made the changes because they were the ones on the ground talking to people, and they didn’t want to jeopardize their investigation.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the most serious charge against Morell comes in the “Additional Views” section of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on Benghazi. The authors, six Republican senators who sit on that panel, report for the first time that in his testimony on November 15, 2012, Morell “emphatically stated” that the talking points were provided to the White House “for their awareness, not for their coordination.”</p>
<p>That is not true, according to the 100 pages of emails between administration and intelligence officials released last May. In fact, in one of the emails that began the flurry of communication among top officials, a CIA spokesman tells a White House spokesman that the talking points are being provided to the White House “for coordination.” That email, sent on September 14 from the chief of media relations at the CIA to the White House’s National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, reads: “You should be seeing some ‘White Paper’ talking points from us this afternoon for coordination.” Ben Rhodes, a top foreign policy and national security adviser to President Obama, was copied on the email. So from the very beginning, top White House officials were involved in coordinating the discussion of what would go into the talking points, with heavy input from senior officials at the State Department and the intelligence community.</p>
<p>In June, Morell resigned. Soon he joined the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies, cofounded by four men: Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff to Leon Panetta, who was secretary of defense during the Benghazi attacks; Michael Allen, former staff director of the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, which helped investigate Benghazi; Andrew Shapiro, former assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs; and Philippe Reines, recently described by New York magazine as Hillary Clinton’s “most visible spokesman and the guardian of her public persona.”</p>
<p>Senator Chambliss notes that before leaving government, Morell “ultimately did own up to the fact that he made the changes. But,” he adds, “if he’d have said that early on, it would have solved a lot of problems and answered a lot of questions.”</p>
<p>“I went back and reviewed some of his testimony the other day and he’s gotten himself in a real box,” says Senator Saxby Chambliss, the highest-ranking Republican on the committee. “It’s really strange. I’ve always thought Mike was a straight-up guy, gave us good briefings—factual, straightforward. I mean, this has really been strange the last few weeks—all this now being uncovered.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But as Morell&#8217;s real boss likes to say, &#8220;What difference does it make anyway?&#8221;</p>
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		<title>The Pollard Myth</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-pollard-myth/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-pollard-myth</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-pollard-myth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Dec 2013 18:55:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jonathan Pollard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pollard]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213855</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The USSR had penetrated the United States at a much higher level]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Jonathan-Pollard.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-80615" alt="Jonathan-Pollard" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Jonathan-Pollard-300x249.jpg" width="300" height="249" /></a></p>
<p>No single espionage case has managed to become as controversial as the Pollard case. Espionage cases involving the USSR and China have flown under the radar by comparison. And a lot of the reason has to do with the myths circulating around the case.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.israpundit.com/archives/63592579">Myths that were fed for various reasons</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>After more than 25 years of speculation, documents released last week to the National Security Archives at George Washington University provide us, for the first time, with many of the details of the espionage activities that have made Pollard one of the most controversial figures in the history of the U.S. intelligence community.</p>
<p>What the documents, particularly the CIA’s 1987 damage assessment of Pollard, show is that both Pollard’s detractors and supporters possess vastly distorted views of him. But it is the narrative put forth by those who insisted that Pollard was the most treacherous U.S. spy since Benedict Arnold that has caused real damage to the fabric of this country—more damage, in fact, than Jonathan Pollard ever did.</p>
<p>Contrary to the widespread belief, the CIA report reveals that Pollard did not procure secrets about the United States—nor did Israel ask him to. The intelligence he provided his Israeli handlers consisted of the information that the United States had acquired concerning Arab and other Middle Eastern states. This information may not change the minds of long-time detractors, but it vindicates those who have argued that Pollard, having already served a punishment that fit his crime, should be released.</p></blockquote>
<p>Whatever one may think of the spy game, the accusations otherwise never made any sense.</p>
<p>Israel was hungry for information about enemy capabilities. It didn&#8217;t need any American secrets and the various claims, such as that Israel, which was in a proxy war with the USSR, was passing American secrets to Moscow, were even more ridiculous.</p>
<blockquote><p>Israel “did not request or receive intelligence concerning some of the most sensitive US national-security resources,” Pollard told his CIA investigators. “The Israelis never expressed interest in US military activities, plans, capabilities, or equipment. Likewise, they did not ask for intelligence on US communications per se.” The fact that Pollard did not collect intelligence against his native country is reflected in the June 4, 1986, indictment handed down by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Pollard was charged with violating Title 18 United States Code, section 794(a), gathering or delivering defense information to aid a foreign government. This federal law “makes it a crime to deliver defense information to a foreign government ‘with intent or reason to believe’ that the information is to be used in one of two ways: ‘to the injury of the United States,’ or, alternatively, ‘to the advantage of a foreign nation.’ ”</p>
<p>Presumably recognizing that Israel is an ally and not an enemy, the indictment specifies only the second part of the statute, charging Pollard with delivering “information and documents relating to the national defense of the United States, having intent and reason to believe that the same would be used to the advantage of ISRAEL.”</p>
<p>“The indictment is scrupulous,” I was told by Angelo Codevilla, who has followed the Pollard case since serving as a senior staff member for the Senate intelligence committee from 1978 to 1985. Codevilla argues that the swarm of accusations against Pollard over the years is implausible on the face of it. “Pollard was an analyst. He is alleged to have given away information to which no analyst had any access,” he said. “All of what has been said about what he did, including the secret memorandum that Caspar Weinberger wrote to the court in order to influence the judge’s sentence, is nonsense.”</p></blockquote>
<p>There are two lines of thought about why the Pollard myth had to be created and spread.</p>
<p>1. To maintain a wedge with Israel</p>
<p>2. To cover up the activity of existing Soviet spies including Aldrich Ames</p>
<p>The former theory is plausible enough. But the second theory is far more intriguing. Pollard was blamed at times for acts of espionage being committed by Soviet spies yet to be caught. But if that&#8217;s the case, then the USSR had penetrated the United States at a much higher level and was able to use the Pollard case to kill two birds with one stone, driving a wedge between Israel and the US, while covering up its own espionage.</p>
<blockquote><p>Codevilla suggests that even Weinberger’s memo may have been the end result of bureaucratic bluster. “All of this started in 1981 when Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak,” he said. “The CIA was aghast that the Israelis had done this, because they thought they had a good thing going with Saddam Hussein.” Even as the senators on the intelligence committee, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Scoop Jackson, all celebrated the Israeli strike, the CIA was incensed.</p>
<p>“Bobby Ray Inman [then deputy director of the CIA] came into the Senate committee stomping up and down, and said he was going to cut off the satellite intelligence they fed Israel,” Codevilla recalled. “What Pollard did was to ignore these restrictions—which he had no right to do—and continued to supply Israel with the information. His sin was more against U.S. policy than U.S. security. The reason for the animus against him was that he subverted U.S. policy.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Violating the policy of unelected officials is generally more of a crime than violating laws made by elected officials. But why has the Pollard case continued to be a focal point long after the fall of the USSR?</p>
<blockquote><p>Indeed, as James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA under the Clinton Administration, noted to me, Pollard is serving time comparable to Ames and Hanssen’s. But unlike those two Soviet spies, said Woolsey, “Pollard did not get anybody killed and was not spying for an enemy. We’ve had South Korea, the Philippines, and Greece, all friendly countries, spy on us. We caught them and they served time, which has turned out to be a very few years, or much less time than Pollard has already served.”</p></blockquote>
<p>But South Korea, Greece, etc don&#8217;t get obsessed with imprisoned spies the way that Israel has with Pollard. Israel made Pollard into a bargaining chip that can only be redeemed once. Which means that his release is unlikely to happen as long as the peace process drags on.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a lesson here that Israel keeps failing to learn. Emotional vulnerability is more strategically dangerous than any other kind.</p>
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		<title>Reds in Guatemala: 1954 Revisited</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/spyridon-mitsotakis/reds-in-guatemala-1954-revisited/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reds-in-guatemala-1954-revisited</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/spyridon-mitsotakis/reds-in-guatemala-1954-revisited/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Dec 2013 05:10:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Spyridon Mitsotakis]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[communist threat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guatemala]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jacobo Arbenz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Socialism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=213789</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Remembering a real communist threat.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div dir="ltr">
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/guet.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-213793" alt="guet" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/guet.jpg" width="265" height="265" /></a>Rich Cohen’s <a href="http://www.expat-chronicles.com/2012/10/sam-zemurray-fish-ate-whale-rich-cohen-review/" target="_blank">biography</a> of Sam Zemurray, the legendary businessman who built the United Fruit Company into a regional king-making empire, is, to be blunt, phenomenal. To learn the story of how one man who sold bananas played a decisive role in such a world-changing event as the founding of Israel is well worth <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1250033314/pjmedia-20" target="_blank">the cheap price of this paperback</a> – and that is only one of the fascinating stories presented.</p>
<p>There is, however, one major flaw. It is his treatment of Jacobo Arbenz, the Guatemalan ruler overthrown in 1954 by rebels supported by the CIA. Here, for example, is what Cohen says of the idea of Arbenz as a Communist menace:</p>
<blockquote><p>Never mind that Arbenz claimed no allegiance to the Communist Party; never mind that Arbenz cited Franklin Roosevelt as among his heroes; never mind that many of the Arbenz policies that United Fruit found so offensive were patterned on the New Deal – the signs were evident for those who knew where to look.</p></blockquote>
<p>That last line, by the way, is meant as ridicule for those Americans who looked on Arbenz as a threat. But, ironically, it’s true – and the signs become more and more evident as time goes on.</p>
<p>A few years ago, the release of files from the FBI’s most successful counterintelligence operation of the Cold War confirmed what has been known for a long time, but has been taboo in academic and intellectual circles ever since the rise of the so-called anti-anti-Communist “New Historians.” The files from the operation code-named “Operation SOLO” confirm that the regime of Jacobo Arbenz was indeed Communist-aligned and that it was dependent on and heavily influenced by the Stalinist Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (PGT, which is what the Guatemalan Communist Party called itself).</p>
<p>Operation SOLO, as <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/08/03/the-fbi-releases-the-operation-solo-files-showing-us-more-truth-about-american-communism/" target="_blank">described</a> by the great Cold War historian Ronald Radosh,</p>
<blockquote><p>“referred to the secret recruitment of two bitter ex-Communists, Morris and Jack Childs. The Bureau urged them to rejoin the Party, and work within its ranks to feed information to them. Before long, Morris Childs became what in effect was the CP’s Secretary of State, traveling around the world to meet top Communist leaders, including those of both the Soviet Union and China. From his perch, he passed on to the U.S. Government all he learned first hand from Moscow’s top leaders.”</p></blockquote>
<p>On March 17, 1959, a report (see <a href="http://vault.fbi.gov/solo/solo-part-06-of/view" target="_blank">here</a>, starting on page 124) was sent to FBI Director J. Edger Hoover recounting “a meeting” – attended by Morris Childs – “between Communist Party-USA delegates to the 21st Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and delegates from the Guatemalan Party of Labor, which is the Communist Party of Guatemala”, which “occurred on February 15, 1959, in Moscow, Russia.”</p>
<p>Childs reports that Peter Alvarez, described as the Secretary of the Central Committee of PGT, “said that first of all the bourgeoisie of Guatemala betrayed the cause of democracy. This was illustrated by the betrayal of the army and by the hesitancy and vacillations of the petty bourgeosie around former President ARBANZ (ph), who resigned as President. He said that the Communist Party did not agree with the resignation of ARBANZ. For a long time, ARBANZ was friendly to the Communist Party and its allies. ARBANZ is presently in Uruguay and is still friendly to the Communist Party.” (Spelling and emphasis in the original document)</p>
<p>The Orwellian, Stalinist language in Alvarez’s arguments is impeccable. The PGT’s definition of and dedication to “democracy” can be determined later on in the document when Alvarez proudly states that Communist Party supported the Soviet Union’s brutal suppression of the Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956. A lot has been made of assertion that Jocobo Arbenz was “democratically elected” in 1951 – often overlooking the fact that his opponent was assassinated shortly before the election by a man driving a car belonging to Arbenz’s wife (the late E. Howard Hunt, the CIA spymaster who oversaw the Agency’s operation in Guatemala, <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2004/10/scavenger_hunt.single.html" target="_blank">said</a> of the relation between Arbenz and his wife that “his wife was by far the smarter of the two and sort of told him what to do. She was a convinced communist.”). The assassin himself latter became Arbenz’s private secretary and then head of agrarian reform until the 1954 uprising.</p>
<p>The nature of the Arbenz regime was later exposed by some of the reds themselves. Historian Piero Gleijeses interviewed Arbenz’s widow and high-ranking members of the Guatemalan Communist Party who admitted that Communists influence reached the Guatemalan government at all levels. Carlos Manuel Pellecer, a former top official of the Arbenz government and a former leader of the Guatemalan Communist Party, detailed this relationship further in his memoir <i>Arbenz y Yo</i>. And in 2010,<i>Granma</i>, the official newspaper of Communist Cuba, published an interview  with Rodolfo Romero, a Nicaraguan and founding member of the Stalinist Sandinista National Liberation Front who were among the many Communists who “came knocking on the door of this Central American country [Guatemala]“.</p>
<p>When asked “How did a young Nicaraguan come to lead a communist brigade in Guatemala?” He responded [decoded in brackets]:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The objective of the Nicaraguan exiles [communists] was to train ourselves for overthrowing Somoza, while at the same time contributing to the just democracies [Stalinist dictatorships] of other peoples. … Immediately I made contact with the communist forces in this country [Guatemala]; I even took part in the founding Congress of its party.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Romero told another fascinating story:</p>
<blockquote><p>“It was June 24, 1954 and Guatemala City had just been terribly bombed. Che [Guaverra] arrived at the house of the Augusto César Sandino youth brigade, of which I was the leader, with a letter from a Chilean communist. He asked for Edelberto Torres, another Nicaraguan exile and the son of an eminent anti-Somoza fighter. As Edelberto was in a meeting of the Party, I asked him to come in and wait. … Without much ceremony, because in wartime everything is pressured, I gave him a Czech carbine from the guard going off duty who, incidentally, was not Guatemalan, but the Cuban Jorge Risquet Valdés. ‘And how does one handle this?’ he exclaimed…”.</p></blockquote>
<p>So, in the middle of Guatemala City, an Argentine Communist shows up at a safe house guarded by a Cuban Communist to give a letter from a Chilean Communist to a Nicaraguan Communist and is handed a weapon from Communist Czechoslovakia and is instructed by another Nicaraguan Communist on how to use it – and we are supposed to believe the United States was lying when they said:</p>
<blockquote><p>“From their European base the Communist leaders moved rapidly to build up the military power of their agents in Guatemala. In May a large shipment of arms moved from behind the Iron Curtain into Guatemala. The shipment was sought to be secreted by false manifests and false clearances. Its ostensible destination was changed three times while en route. At the same time, the agents of international communism in Guatemala intensified efforts to penetrate and subvert the neighboring Central American States. They attempted political assassinations and political strikes. They used consular agents for political warfare.” (Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Radio and Television Address of June 30, 1954)</p></blockquote>
<p>If I had to guess, I’d say the United States was more concerned with what was just described than it was with fruit companies (in fact, the United Fruit Company’s monopoly was broken up with new anti-trust laws shortly after the 1954 uprising). It’s sad that the academic well was so poisoned that we could be brought to believe the opposite.</p>
<p>Despite this flaw, however, I recommend Mr. Cohen’s book to anyone interested in great history and great storytelling. And be ready to explain the odd book cover if you start getting funny looks.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
</div>
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		<title>Director Clapper Warns CIA Agents will Switch Sides Over Government Shutdown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/director-clapper-warns-cia-agents-will-switch-sides-over-government-shutdown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=director-clapper-warns-cia-agents-will-switch-sides-over-government-shutdown</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/director-clapper-warns-cia-agents-will-switch-sides-over-government-shutdown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2013 14:31:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA Director James Clapper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government shutdown]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=206075</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Could Russia or Iran exploit the Washington budget impasse to recruit American spies?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/spy-vs-spy1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-206077" alt="spy-vs-spy1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/spy-vs-spy1.jpg" width="424" height="260" /></a></p>
<p>I believe it was Allen Dulles who said that James Bond had no loyalties. That if the liquor and women were better in Moscow, he would have been across the border in a shot.</p>
<p>Apparently Director of National Intelligence James Clapper <a href="http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/217004.php">thinks that American intelligence agents are no better </a>and will defect <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/02/intel-chief-us-spies-might-defect-over-budget-impasse/#">because of a delay getting their paychecks.</a> If that&#8217;s true, then maybe after Edward Snowden, currently enjoying Moscow hospitality, it&#8217;s time to seriously reevaluate who is working for us.</p>
<blockquote><p>Could Russia or Iran exploit the Washington budget impasse to recruit American spies? Director of National Intelligence James Clapper seems to think so.</p>
<p>Taking the warnings about the impact of the partial government shutdown to new levels, Clapper suggested Wednesday during a Senate hearing that cash-strapped spies might be tempted to switch national loyalties.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence services to recruit,&#8221; Clapper said, citing the &#8220;financial challenges&#8221; facing intelligence employees from both the current stand-off and furloughs driven by the sequester. He said roughly 70 percent of civilians doing intelligence work have been furloughed.</p>
<p>&#8220;The danger here of course (is) that this will accumulate over time. The damage will be insidious. So each day that goes by, the jeopardy increases,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Clapper, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he&#8217;s &#8220;never seen anything like this,&#8221; and that the damage from the partial suspension of government services, on top of the sequester, will &#8220;seriously&#8221; damage national security.</p></blockquote>
<p>The sequester was Obama&#8217;s doing. So Clapper can talk to his boss about that. And why would any worker deemed non-essential have access to enough intelligence to be a security risk. For that matter, why are 70 percent of civilian intelligence workers deemed non-essential?</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe that 70 percent of the intelligence community is being furloughed and we&#8217;re still being able to meet our national security responsibilities,&#8221; Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said.</p></blockquote>
<p>Me either. In more ways than one.</p>
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		<title>Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas Aggressively Trying to Infiltrate the CIA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-hezbollah-and-hamas-aggressively-trying-to-infiltrate-the-cia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=al-qaeda-hezbollah-and-hamas-aggressively-trying-to-infiltrate-the-cia</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/al-qaeda-hezbollah-and-hamas-aggressively-trying-to-infiltrate-the-cia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Sep 2013 21:24:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hezbollah]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=202924</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CIA officials uncovered thousands of applicants, roughly one in five of a subset, with “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-202925" alt="3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3-450x293.jpg" width="450" height="293" /></a></p>
<p>Why not? The CIA has <a href="http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/cia-launches-muslim-recruitment-drive/">been aggressively trying to recruit Muslims</a>. A sizable percentage of the young college grads with a background in international affairs studies that they would like are politically active and usually Muslim Students Association members, which is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/09/1-in-5-flagged-cia-applicants-have-ties-to-hezbollah-hamas-and-al-qaeda/">We know the number that were flagged</a>. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/2/cia-finds-1-5-job-applicants-hail-hamas-hezbollah-/">How many went unflagged</a>?</p>
<blockquote><p>An estimated one-fifth of a subset of all applicants for Central Intelligence Agency positions had significant ties to the terror groups Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, a newly released document from NSA leaker Edward Snowden’s collection revealed Monday.</p>
<p>Terrorist groups worked hard to infiltrate America’s top security agencies. CIA officials uncovered thousands of applicants, roughly one in five of a subset, with “significant terrorist and/or hostile intelligence connections,” the document states</p>
<p>The specifics of those ties were not revealed, but the groups most often cited as attempting to infiltrate the U.S. intelligence network were al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.</p></blockquote>
<p>Al Qaeda would probably have a harder time making it in. But I imagine there are any number of people affiliated with Hamas or Hezbollah on the payroll by now.</p>
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		<title>Benghazi and the Al Qaeda Resurgence</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/benghazi-and-the-al-qaeda-resurgence/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-and-the-al-qaeda-resurgence</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/benghazi-and-the-al-qaeda-resurgence/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Aug 2013 04:31:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CNN]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cover-up]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[operatives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199361</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the deadly attack was foreshadowing.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/benghazi-terrorists1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199362" alt="Mideast Libya Militant Backlash" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/benghazi-terrorists1-450x318.jpg" width="315" height="223" /></a>According to sources <a href="http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/?on.cnn=1">talking</a> to CNN, &#8220;including those with deep inside knowledge of the agency&#8217;s workings,&#8221; 35 CIA agents were on the ground in Benghazi the night ambassador Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and diplomat Sean Smith, were killed in a terrorist attack. As a result, the agency is making an &#8220;unprecedented attempt&#8221; to keep what they were doing there a secret. &#8220;You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation,&#8221; revealed one of those sources.</p>
<p>That pressure apparently includes subjecting agents who were on the ground to &#8220;frequent, even monthly&#8221; polygraph tests to see if they&#8217;ve been talking to either Congress or the media. Former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer puts the number of tests in perspective. &#8220;Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it&#8217;s called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they&#8217;re looking for something, or they&#8217;re on a fishing expedition. But it&#8217;s absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>Another source described the frequency of testing as pure intimidation, noting that any unauthorized leak could cost someone his career. The source further noted that intimidation was not limited to the individual leaker. &#8220;You don&#8217;t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well,&#8221; the source warned.</p>
<p>The CNN story broke last Thursday. Later that evening, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) took it one step further. In an <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/02/rep-gowdy-claims-govt-creating-aliases-for-benghazi-survivors/">exchange</a> with Greta Van Susteren, Gowdy alleged the Obama administration is &#8220;creating aliases&#8221; for the Benghazi survivors, as well as &#8220;dispersing them&#8221; across the nation in an effort to keep them from talking. &#8220;So you stop and think what things are most calculated to get at the truth? Talk to people with first-hand knowledge. What creates the appearance or perhaps the reality of a cover-up? Not letting us talk to people who have the most amount of information, dispersing them throughout the country and changing their names,&#8221; Gowdy claimed. Susteren agreed, noting that she had also made efforts to interview the survivors, but was unable to do so &#8220;because the administration is doing everything it can to hide them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Gowdy is not the first congressman to make such claims. On December 12, 2012, Congressman Jason Chaffetz <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/12/Chaffetz-Benghazi-State-Dept">told</a> Breitbart News he had been &#8220;thwarted&#8221; by the State Department from seeing any of the Benghazi survivors, and the following March he also <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/06/lawmakers-demand-access-to-survivors-injured-in-benghazi-attack/">alleged</a> that one of the survivors who had been hospitalized had his “name changed” on the hospital records to prevent identification.</p>
<p>It was at this juncture that Fox News learned that seven of the survivors had been injured bad enough to warrant hospitalization, one of whom reportedly underwent a partial leg amputation, and another who suffered from smoke inhalation and a possible brain injury. Fox further noted that while some of the survivors work in &#8220;clandestine services&#8221; and don&#8217;t want to be identified, they still wonder why they haven&#8217;t been called into closed hearings to testify about the attack.</p>
<p>CNN&#8217;s source also put the number of wounded at seven, some seriously, even as it remains unknown how many of them were CIA. (It is important to note that the references to &#8220;Benghazi survivors&#8221; include both those from the State Department and the CIA, and that both agencies have been involved in keeping them from away from Congress and the public.)</p>
<p>Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), whose district includes the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, noted that shortly after the attack he was contacted by people closely tied to CIA operatives and other contractors who wanted to step forward. &#8220;Initially they were not afraid to come forward,&#8221; said Wolf. &#8220;They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you&#8217;re subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you&#8217;re forced to come before Congress. Now that&#8217;s all changed,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>In a House floor speech on July 18, Wolf <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/18/Wolf-Confirms-Benghazi-Survivors-Gagged-By-Non-Disclosure-Agreements">revealed</a> one of those changes. &#8220;According to trusted sources that have contacted my office, many if not all of the survivors of the Benghazi attacks along with others at the Department of Defense, the CIA have been asked or directed to sign additional non-disclosure agreements about their involvement in the Benghazi attacks,” he claimed. “Some of these new NDAs, as they call them, I have been told were signed as recently as this summer.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wolf has made several requests to establish a select committee and probe conducted by intelligence committee investigators to find out what went on. Around <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/312539-conservatives-seek-to-put-pressure-on-boehner-with-60-foot-long-benghazi-petition">160 Republicans</a> have signed on to Wolf&#8217;s request. Last week, eight Republicans also <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/31/politics/benghazi-investigation-suspect">signed</a> a letter written by Chaffetz to FBI Director James Comey, requesting that he brief Congress within 30 days, because the administration&#8217;s investigation into the attacks has been &#8220;simply unacceptable.&#8221; The group wants to know why no suspects have been captured or killed.</p>
<p>Chaffetz was especially incensed by the reality that CNN was able to interview Ahmed Abu Khattala, the Benghazi leader of Ansar al-Sharia. Khattala admitted being at the compound the night of the attack, but said during the interview that he has yet to be contacted by the FBI, despite the fact that he is a &#8220;person of interest,&#8221; according to officials. &#8220;How come the FBI isn&#8217;t doing this and yet CNN is?&#8221; Chaffetz wondered aloud to reporters.</p>
<p>Why the Obama administration is stonewalling this investigation in general remains the key question. It has long been speculated that the State Department and the CIA were involved in an international version of Fast and Furious, moving surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels. Three days after the Benghazi attack, British newspaper <i>The Times</i> <a href="http://sana.sy/eng/22/2012/09/14/441552.htm">reported</a> that a Libyan ship &#8220;carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria…has docked in Turkey.&#8221; In an email sent to CNN, the State Department claimed all it was doing in Libya was helping the post-Gadaffi government get rid of weapons that had were &#8220;damaged, aged or too unsafe retain,&#8221; and were not involved in any weapons transfer.</p>
<p>But the State Department also told the network they &#8220;can&#8217;t speak for any other agencies.&#8221; This <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/08/01/CNN-s-Jake-Tapper-Reminds-of-When-Sen-Rand-Paul-Quizzed-Hillary-About-Benghazi-Gun-Running">corroborates</a> testimony offered by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a Senate hearing on the subject in January. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) asked Clinton if the CIA was running guns, and if she could explain what a CIA annex was doing in Benghazi in the first place. Clinton told Paul he would have to ask &#8220;the agency running the annex.&#8221; At the time, Paul was <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/01/29/1508331/paul-benghazi-conspiracy-again/">ridiculed</a> as a conspiracy theorist for asking the question.</p>
<p>Times have changed, a reality amplified by the fact that the CIA refused to comment when asked by CNN about the weapons transfer allegation.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, CIA spokesman Dean Boyd insisted in a statement that the CIA has been forthcoming with Congress. &#8220;The CIA has worked closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi,&#8221; the statement said. &#8220;CIA employees are always free to speak to Congress if they want. The CIA enabled all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress. We are not aware of any CIA employee who has experienced retaliation, including any non-routine security procedures, or who has been prevented from sharing a concern with Congress about the Benghazi incident.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wolf wasn&#8217;t buying it. He believes the frequent polygraph tests are a &#8220;form of coverup,&#8221; and that the &#8220;American people are feeling the same way.&#8221; His solution is simple. &#8220;We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn&#8217;t any national security issue involved with regards to that,&#8221; he explained.</p>
<p>Remarkably, Wolf and company are being <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/terrorism/312539-conservatives-seek-to-put-pressure-on-boehner-with-60-foot-long-benghazi-petition">stymied</a> by House Speaker John Boehner, who, along with ally Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), has left Wolf&#8217;s resolution languishing in the Rules Committee since January. Boehner and other GOP leaders contend the current investigation, consisting of four &#8220;heavily involved committees,&#8221; according to Boehner, is sufficient. Conservative Republicans are pressuring Boehner to change his mind and create a select committee.</p>
<p>Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has taken it one step further. On July 27, he <a href="http://stockman2014.com/articles/stockman-to-file-discharge-petition-on-benghazi-coverup-see-more-at-http-stockman2014-com-articles-stockman-to-file-discharge-petition-on-benghazi-coverup-sthash-7e3hcria-dpuf">filed</a> a &#8220;discharge petition&#8221; that would get around the scheduling process for bills, currently controlled by Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), and force GOP leadership to allow a House vote. &#8220;If I can get 218 Congressional Republicans to back me, a majority of the House, we will break through the D.C. stonewall and there will finally be a vote on creating the Select Committee to investigate Benghazi,&#8221; Stockman wrote at his website. He also explained his rationale for doing so. &#8220;You see, Congress just canceled a hearing in which we were supposed to hear from Benghazi survivors,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Why? Because someone in a Democrat office leaked the names of the witnesses, who were then targeted for intimidation.&#8221;</p>
<p>One thing is certain here. The positions of CIA spokesman Dean Boyd and the statements by CNN&#8217;s CIA sources <i>cannot</i> be reconciled. Someone is lying. The Obama administration has already demonstrated it was more than willing to orchestrate the lie about the Benghazi attack being catalyzed by an Internet video, even as the president continues to insist this scandal, as well as others plaguing his administration, are &#8220;phony.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is critical to remember why Obama and company thought it was necessary to lie. The Benghazi attack occurred during the homestretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, during which the president <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-touts-al-qaeda-s-demise-32-times-benghazi-attack-0">assured</a> us on several occasions that al Qaeda was &#8220;on the run,&#8221; &#8220;decimated,&#8221; and &#8220;on the path to defeat.&#8221;</p>
<p>The past month alone revealed the staggering level of deceit those statements encapsulated. Al Qaeda has been linked to, or coordinated, a series of prison breaks, <a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/22/19615653-al-qaeda-prison-break-hundreds-of-militants-flee-iraqs-notorious-abu-ghraib-jail?lite">freeing</a> more than 500 hardcore terrorists from Abu Ghraib and Taji in Iraq, nearly 250 <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEU1yi8wdQL8ROZ0qbjSsUNsGNyg?docId=CNG.6b375fd4ee32ade624d2dec67308e17f.2c1&amp;hl=en">more</a> from the prison in the town of Dera Ismail Khan in Paistan, and 1,100 in Benghazi.</p>
<p>Interpol has issued a global security alert to nine nations as a result. That warning followed an <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-embassies-in-mideast-north-africa-prepare-to-close-over-security-threat/2013/08/03/ae972ba8-fc6e-11e2-9bde-7ddaa186b751_story.html?hpid=z5">announcement</a> by the Obama administration that American embassies located in the Middle East and North Africa would be closed yesterday, due to “a potential threat occurring in, or emanating from, the Arabian Peninsula.” It is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57596882/source-terrorists-behind-embassy-threat-in-place/">based</a> on &#8220;specific credible information,&#8221; and the team tasked with carrying it out is “already in place.&#8221; Furthermore, the Department of Homeland Security is <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-officials-boosting-security-efforts-inside-us-homeland/story?id=19862174">boosting</a> domestic security efforts as well.</p>
<p>All this in response to a decimated, on-the-run terrorist organization? A comprehensive, Watergate-style investigation of what occurred in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 can&#8217;t happen soon enough.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Benghazigate: CIA Whistleblowers Warned, &#8220;You Don&#8217;t Jeopardize Yourself, You Jeopardize Your Family as Well&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazigate-cia-whistleblowers-warned-you-dont-jeopardize-yourself-you-jeopardize-your-family-as-well/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazigate-cia-whistleblowers-warned-you-dont-jeopardize-yourself-you-jeopardize-your-family-as-well</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/benghazigate-cia-whistleblowers-warned-you-dont-jeopardize-yourself-you-jeopardize-your-family-as-well/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Aug 2013 22:25:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazigate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CNN]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199096</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[CIA operatives in Libya have been subjected to frequent polygraph examinations to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/benghazi-obama.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-182598" alt="benghazi obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/benghazi-obama.jpg" width="370" height="277" /></a></p>
<p>Can <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/08/benghazi-cover-up-by-the-cia.php">someone remind me again what the difference</a> between Barack Obama and Whitey Bulger is? <a href="http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/?hpt=hp_t2">This is the Chicago Way and the Chicago Way </a>blends politics and organized crime into one souffle of corruption, fanatical left-wing politics and cheap thuggery.</p>
<blockquote><p>CNN has uncovered exclusive new information about what is allegedly happening at the CIA, in the wake of the deadly Benghazi terror attack.</p>
<p>Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in the assault by armed militants last September 11 in eastern Libya.</p>
<p>Sources now tell CNN dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.</p>
<p>CNN has learned the CIA is involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy agency’s Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.</p>
<p>Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.</p>
<p>The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.</p>
<p>It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.</p>
<p>In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, &#8220;You don&#8217;t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another says, &#8220;You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>This is a big story and<a href="http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/"> there&#8217;s lots more at the link</a>. It&#8217;s amazing that this is coming out of CNN. But Jake Tapper at CNN and Sharyl Attkisson at CBS are probably the last best hope for mainstream media journalism.</p>
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		<title>50 Shades Of CIA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/50-shades-of-cia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=50-shades-of-cia</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/oleg-atbashian/50-shades-of-cia/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jun 2013 04:20:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Oleg Atbashian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Avril Danica Haines]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[director]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[erotic fiction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[White House]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Why reading erotic fiction out loud is now the top qualification for being a deputy CIA director. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/cia.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-194516" alt="cia" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/cia-450x299.jpg" width="270" height="179" /></a>President Obama, already known to his staff as a &#8220;<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/09/10/Firestorm-Obama-Misses-Over-Half-His-Intelligence-Briefings-WH-Calls-Report-Hilarious" target="_blank">sophisticated&#8221; and &#8220;voracious&#8221; consumer of intelligence reports</a>, has just found a way to enhance his intelligence briefing experience even further, by choosing <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/avril-danica-haines" target="_blank">Avril Danica Haines</a>, whose resume includes <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/13/new-cia-2-pick-used-to-read-anne-rice-aloud-at-her-bookstore-s-erotica-night.html" target="_blank">reading erotic fiction out loud</a> to paying customers, as a new deputy CIA director.</p>
<p>Twenty years ago, after dropping out of a graduate program in physics, Haines co-owned a Baltimore book store, which featured regular &#8220;Erotica Nights&#8221; with readings of erotic prose over dinner (couples $30, singles $17). Apparently, the expertise she obtained in the process later qualified her to perform as a lawyer in the White House Counsel’s office in charge of the CIA&#8217;s undercover actions, now followed by the number-two position at the top spy agency, where she will be composing and reading provocative stories of crime and passion to the president directly.</p>
<p>This job was previously performed by <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/12/cia-deputy-director-morell-resigns/" target="_blank">Michael &#8220;Benghazi&#8221; Morell</a>, who resigned in disgrace after he was outed as the author of the scandalously indecent talking points on the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.</p>
<p>Avril Haines is likely to be a more competent replacement, given her know-how in motivating dirty old men <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/10/executive-branch-porn-problem/" target="_blank">working in the Pentagon, ICE, Missile Defense Agency, TSA, Secret Service, and State Department</a>, to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/29/workers-porn-surfing-rampant-federal-agency/" target="_blank">take their minds off internet porn</a> and actually interact with a live woman who has intimate knowledge of undercover operations, probing deeply together into the matter at hand. As an added bonus, President Obama is expected never again to miss <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-leadership/post/is-it-okay-for-president-obama-to-skip-some-daily-intelligence-briefings-share-your-thoughts/2012/09/11/4474e59c-fc26-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_blog.html" target="_blank">66 percent of daily intelligence meetings</a>.</p>
<p>Liberal policies have always been based on raw, knee-jerk emotions, best summed up in the title of a 1968 tune, &#8220;If it feels good, you know it can&#8217;t be wrong.&#8221; Taking the feel-good principle to a whole new level, this administration&#8217;s behavior has long resembled adventures of a sexually liberated woman in touch with her inner flower child; it stands to reason that they would eventually hire one. Expect more exciting foreign policy adventures driven by erotic sensations in response to international crises.</p>
<p>If the <a href="http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2013/06/18/syria-and-egypt-cant-be-fixed/" target="_blank">aftermath of the Arab Spring</a> is generating butterflies in the stomach, you know it can&#8217;t be wrong. In contrast, supporting the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/05/07/mass-exodus-christians-from-muslim-world/" target="_blank">persecuted Christians in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world</a> is a proven turnoff. But let&#8217;s try <a href="http://sago.com/2013/06/21/obama-to-send-u-s-troops-to-egypt-to-suppress-riots-against-muslim-brotherhood-regime/" target="_blank">sending U.S. troops to help suppress the opposition to Egypt&#8217;s Islamists regime</a> and see if causes a salacious tingling sensation. It does &#8211; let&#8217;s send even more troops! Let&#8217;s <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20130622-us-military-presence-jordan-expands-1000-troops" target="_blank">send troops to Jordan</a> too. And let&#8217;s <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/13/us-confirms-chemical-weapons-syria/2420763/" target="_blank">give arms to Islamic fundamentalists in Syria</a>. Yes! It feels so good, it hurts!                        <wbr /></p>
<p>Political scientists may actually have an opportunity here to build an objective geopolitical scale by quantifying amorous body responses to international stimuli, ranging from Palestine&#8217;s aphrodisiac to Israel&#8217;s buzzkill. All other international entities, organizations, and movements can be arranged between these two extremes in the order of titillating magnitude: the ultimate liberal method of determining foreign policy, building alliances, and making permanent decisions based on fleeting emotions.</p>
<p>At a time when America is being screwed by just about every tyrannical, fundamentalist, and plutocratic international gangbanger, from China to Russia to the Middle East to Latin America, the appointment of an erotic aficionado to lead the nation&#8217;s top intelligence agency is quite symptomatic: if we can&#8217;t fight back, the next best thing is to get professional advice on how to lie back and enjoy the experience. Soft music and candlelight are optional.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>John Brennan: From Mecca to Washington</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/john-brennan-from-mecca-to-washington/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=john-brennan-from-mecca-to-washington</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/john-brennan-from-mecca-to-washington/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:54:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Brennan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Convert]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muslim]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=178049</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Is Obama's CIA nominee a secret Muslim?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/john-brennan-from-mecca-to-washington/brennan-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-178052"><img class="size-medium wp-image-178052 alignleft" title="brennan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/brennan1-270x350.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="350" /></a><strong>Editor’s note: The graphic on the left is created by our IllustWriter <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">Bosch Fawstin</a>. Visit his site <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>In 1853, the British explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton visited Mecca. Since Mecca was and is off limits to non-Muslims on pain of death, Burton passed himself off as a Muslim by undergoing circumcision and disguising himself as a Pashtun. “Nothing could save a European detected by the populace, or one who after pilgrimage declared himself an unbeliever,” Burton wrote.</p>
<p>Three hundred and fifty years earlier, the Italian adventurer Ludovico di Varthema became the first non-Muslim to enter Mecca since the Muslim conquest. Ludovico had enlisted as a mercenary and succeeded in passing as a Mamluk, one of the white slave soldiers of the Sultanate, who had been converted to Islam.  Ludovico was eventually caught out as a Christian, but escaped after a love affair with one of the Sultan’s wives.</p>
<p>Other Christians had visited Mecca, but always disguised as Muslims. The British cabin boy Joseph Pitts, captured by Muslim slavers and forcibly converted to Islam, visited Mecca, before managing to return home and return to his religion. Similar accounts were told by other European Christian slaves.</p>
<p>In 1979, hundreds of Islamists using weapons smuggled in a coffin seized the Grand Mosque of Mecca. The Saudi military, commanded by the sons of important men, rather than by competent men, proved absolutely hopeless in fighting them. So instead they turned to the French.</p>
<p>The French commandos of GIGN were expert at dealing with terrorist crises, but they were not Muslim and so could not be allowed into Mecca. The solution was simple. The Frenchmen underwent a rapid conversion to Islam and the siege of the Great Mosque commenced. The conversion did not take hold, but the principle remained. An infidel could not enter Mecca, even to save the House of Saud.</p>
<p>During his time as the CIA Station Chief in Saudi Arabia, John Brennan spoke of marveling “at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims by making that pilgrimage.”  If Brennan did indeed visit Mecca during the Hajj, then he could have only done it by converting to Islam, like John Pitts, or pretending to have done so, like the GIGN commandos.</p>
<p>John Guandolo, a former FBI agent and Islam expert, has alleged that the conversion took place during Brennan’s time in Saudi Arabia. And he also alleges that this conversion has been confirmed by other American officials who were in Saudi Arabia at the time. These allegations are especially explosive as Brennan has moved up through the ranks to become Obama’s nominee to head the CIA.</p>
<p>Guandolo’s allegation goes beyond the question of religion. Rather he alleges that the conversion was part of an espionage recruitment process.  In an interview with Tom Trento of The United West, he said, “Mr. Brennan did convert to Islam when he served in a senior official capacity in Saudi Arabia. His conversion to Islam was the culmination of a counter-intelligence operation against him to recruit him.”</p>
<p>The Soviet Union recruited spies by convincing them of the virtues of Communism. Saudi Arabia might well recruit its infidel agents by convincing them of the worth of Islam. There is of course no way to know what is in Brennan’s heart. But while we may not know what Brennan believes, as John Guandolo has pointed out, we do know what he has done.</p>
<p>Brennan’s supposed conversion to Islam was only the third of two other points that the former FBI agent argued make him unfit for duty. The first is that Brennan has developed links with the Muslim Brotherhood and that he has brought “known leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood into the government in positions to advise the US Government on counterterrorism strategy as well as the overall quote unquote War on Terror.” And the second is that Brennan reduces the War on Terror to Al Qaeda.</p>
<p>While Brennan did not innovate either of these two approaches, if he was indeed recruited by the Saudis, then they may be more than mere cluelessness. It’s not unusual for military and intelligence officials to visit Saudi Arabia and then leave it repeating the classic Saudi talking points about Islam as a stabilizing influence on the region and Israel as a destabilizing influence.</p>
<p>There are countless generals and diplomats who robotically insist that Bin Laden must not be referred to as a Muslim to diminish his influence and that the Muslim Brotherhood and other political Islamists are the only hope for countering the violent Islamism of Al Qaeda. The fundamental question is whether such disinformation is spread out of ignorance, or out of knowledge.</p>
<p>That is the final question that Guandolo raises about John Brennan. “The fact that foreign intelligence service operatives recruited Mr. Brennan when he was in a very sensitive and senior US Government position in a foreign country means that he is either a traitor, which I’m not saying, but that’s one of the options, and he did this all unwillingly and unknowingly ,or he did this unwittingly, which means that he is naive and does not have the ability to discern, to understand how to walk in those environments, which makes him completely unfit to be the Director of Central Intelligence.”</p>
<p>What is problematic in a general or a senator is even more troubling in the Director of the CIA. Military men are expected to be somewhat direct and take things as they are. But the director of an intelligence agency is expected to see threats where no one else does, to test the waters and look past the obvious. And if he cannot do that, then he is simply not qualified. And that is the larger point that John Guandolo makes.</p>
<p>Whether or not Brennan had a moment of submission on the road to Mecca or whether he is simply acting as a useful idiot for the people who perpetrated the attacks of September 11, he is not qualified to be the point man in the War on Terror. As the military side of the war draws to a close with a defeat in Afghanistan, the Central Intelligence Agency will take on a greater degree of importance in the fight against Islamic terrorism.</p>
<p>During the Cold War, the CIA was often infiltrated by the KGB, nullifying America’s intelligence capabilities in the Cold War. It would be a terrible shame if history repeated itself with Islam in the War on Terror.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Brennan’s Testimony and Waterboarding Misinformation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/brennans-testimony-and-waterboarding-misinformation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=brennans-testimony-and-waterboarding-misinformation</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Feb 2013 04:48:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=177094</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Leftists fume over CIA chief nominee’s acknowledgement of the usefulness of enhanced interrogation. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-thornton/brennans-testimony-and-waterboarding-misinformation/john-brennan_2473362b/" rel="attachment wp-att-177189"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177189" title="John-Brennan_2473362b" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/John-Brennan_2473362b.jpg" alt="" width="287" height="232" /></a>The Senate Intelligence Committee last week grilled Obama’s pick to head the CIA, John Brennan, on all sorts of issues. Democrats worked him over about the CIA’s interrogation, detention, and droning of terrorist suspects, while Republicans were concerned about leaks of classified information. But the real story was not just Brennan’s answers––which were in fact problematic, and perhaps duplicitous––but also the Senators’ choice of topics, some of which reflect the delusional thinking that for over a decade has hampered the war against jihadism. One of the most harmful has been the proscribing of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” especially waterboarding, from which the CIA learned valuable intelligence, because it is “torture.”</p>
<p>Liberals are put out with Brennan because of his involvement in those interrogation techniques, and so have made it an issue in the Committee hearings. The emotion and angst over waterboarding, at a fever pitch during the Bush years, have been roused again by the movie about killing Bin Laden, <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>, which suggested that useful intelligence was gleaned by waterboarding a terrorist. In 2009 Senate opponents of waterboarding commissioned a “study” that takes 6000 pages to reach the pre-ordained conclusion that waterboarding is immoral and ineffective. An executive summary was released in time for Brennan’s hearing, which became another opportunity to perpetuate the misinformation and hysteria that surround this topic by parsing his words and actions on the subject.</p>
<p>Since Democrats (and Republican John McCain) continue to insist that waterboarding is “torture” and “doesn’t work,” then, they couldn’t have been happy with Brennan’s 2007 interview in which he said,</p>
<blockquote><p>“There [has] been a lot of information that has come out from these interrogation procedures that the agency has in fact used against the real hardcore terrorists. It has saved lives. And let’s not forget, these are hardened terrorists who have been responsible for 9/11, who have shown no remorse at all for the deaths of 3,000 innocents.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Yet Brennan also said that waterboarding should be “prohibited” because it was “inconsistent with American values.” Ever the bureaucratic operator, Brennan was covering both flanks. But while the first statement was true, the second was mere pandering to the incoherent thinking on waterboarding that put Brennan on the hot seat.</p>
<p>But the real issue ignored in all this renewed handwringing over waterboarding is that it is not torture under American law. The <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sec_18_00002340----000-.html">statute</a> covering torture in the U.S. Code defines it as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control,” and further clarifies “severe mental pain or suffering” as “the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from . . . the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.” The key words are “intended,” “severe,” and “prolonged.” As John Yoo writes in his indispensable <a href="http://www.amazon.com/War-Other-Means-Insiders-Account/dp/0871139456/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305150537&amp;sr=8-1">book</a> on the subject, in passing this legislation “Congress unquestionably intended its prohibition on torture to be narrow, much narrower than many popular understandings of the word. The alleged torturer must have acted with ‘specific intent,’ the highest level of criminal intent known to the law . . . . If severe physical or mental pain or suffering results, but was unintentional, or unanticipated, it would not be torture.”</p>
<p>However, the law left vague what “severe” means. So in 2002, the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice clarified the meaning by looking at other uses of similar language in U.S. law. “The only other place” Yoo writes, “where similar words appear is in a law defining health benefits for emergency medical conditions, which are defined as severe symptoms, including ‘severe pain’ where an individual’s health is placed ‘in serious jeopardy,’ ‘serious impairment to bodily functions,’ or ‘serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.’” So too with the use of the word “prolonged” in regards to “mental harm.” By including this language, “Congress prohibited the causing of posttraumatic stress disorder or chronic depression,” but not the “temporary strain” of a tough interrogation.</p>
<p>This analysis led to the definition of torture in the 2002 legal opinion smeared as “torture memos”: “physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death. For purely mental pain or suffering to amount to torture (under U.S. law), it must result in significant psychological harm of significant duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years.” By this analysis of the law, the enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, are neither “torture” nor “illegal.”</p>
<p>And Attorney General Eric Holder agreed in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2009. Since tens of thousand of American service members were waterboarded during their SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) training, Holder was asked why this training wasn’t torture and hence illegal. <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31882&amp;page=1#c1">Holder correctly replied</a>, “It’s not torture in the legal sense because you’re not doing it with the intention of harming these people physically or mentally.” This same logic perforce applies to the CIA interrogators, whose intent was to gather intelligence in order to defend us from terrorist attacks. The lack of intent to harm permanently on the part of the interrogators is confirmed by the carefully calibrated limitations imposed on the techniques, as well as the presence of physicians and psychologists to monitor the proceedings and insure that the subject didn’t suffer permanent physical or mental damage. As national security analyst Marc Thiessen writes in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Courting-Disaster-America-Barack-Inviting/dp/1596986034/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1305150609&amp;sr=1-1"><em>Courting Disaster</em></a>, “<em>none</em> of the techniques used by the CIA meet the standard of torture in U.S. law. This is for two reasons: first, because the CIA’s interrogators did not <em>specifically intend</em> to inflict severe pain and suffering; and second because they did not <em>in fact</em> inflict severe pain and suffering.”</p>
<p>As for the effectiveness of waterboarding in generating intelligence, former CIA directors Michael Hayden, George Tenet, and Leon Panetta, along with the CIA Inspector General’s report on enhanced interrogation techniques, have said waterboarding and other now proscribed techniques produced valuable information. In his memoirs George Tenet wrote about the interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed––the mastermind of 9/11 who claims to have personally decapitated <em>Wall Street Journal</em> reporter Daniel Pearl. According to Tenet, “From our interrogation of KSM and other senior al-Qa’ida members and our examination of documents found on them, we learned many things––not just tactical information leading to the next capture. For example, more than twenty plots had been put in motion by al-Qa’ida against U.S. infrastructure targets . . . . All these plots were in various stages of planning when we captured or killed the pre-9/11 al-Qa’ida leaders behind them.”</p>
<p>Despite that success, on coming into office Obama issued Executive Order 13491, forbidding the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. A few months later he ordered––over the protests of 6 CIA directors, including Leon Panetta, and 8 field operatives––the Department of Justice to release the internal memos that in the process of establishing the legality of the techniques described them in detail, thus providing valuable information to the enemy on how to overcome them. Having neutralized proven interrogation techniques, now Obama simply drones terrorists to death rather than trying to capture them in order to gather information with all those other techniques that critics of waterboarding claim are equally effective.</p>
<p>That’s the real story behind the Committee’s interrogation of Brennan: partisan self-interest, emotional delusion, and sloppy thinking have taken from the hands of those charged with keeping us safe a tool that proved its usefulness in acquiring information critical for preventing attacks. That mistake is more important than whether John Brennan can flip-flop his way to getting himself confirmed as CIA director.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Jihad-Denialist Nominated to Head CIA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/jihad-denialist-nominated-to-head-cia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jihad-denialist-nominated-to-head-cia</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 04:50:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=172592</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's delusional view of Islamic terror finds an apt figurehead in John Brennan.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/jihad-denialist-nominated-to-head-cia/bren-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-172602"><img class=" wp-image-172602 alignleft" title="bren" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/bren-450x312.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="218" /></a>President Obama&#8217;s determination to keep his Middle East outreach agenda alive, no matter how at odds with reality, continues. Yesterday, John Brennan, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/obama-to-nominate-john-brennan-to-head-cia-85824.html?hp=t1">nominated</a> to head the CIA, replacing scandal-scarred David Petraeus. “John knows what our national security demands,” Obama announced.</p>
<blockquote><p>“John has an invaluable perspective on the forces, the history, the culture, the politics, economics, the desire for human dignity driving so much of the changes in today’s world&#8230;He knows the risks that our intelligence professionals face every day.”</p></blockquote>
<p>At best, the 25-year CIA veteran&#8217;s record is a mixed bag. At worst, he becomes another link in the administration&#8217;s efforts to normalize relations with Islamic terrorists.</p>
<p>Brennan was considered to run the CIA after the president was elected for the first time in 2008. But he <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/25/obama-white-house-cia-brennan">withdrew</a> his name from consideration after critics derided his support for the Bush administration&#8217;s enhanced interrogation techniques, a charge he denied. &#8220;It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding,&#8221; Brennan wrote at the time.</p>
<p>In 2009, Brennan came under fire again, as the result of the colossal intelligence failure that allowed terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, during which he attempted to detonate an underwear bomb. Abdulmutallab was able to board the fight despite several red flags, including <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-officials-investigating-abdulmutallab-boarded-flight-253-missed-red-flags-surface-article-1.457102">intercepted</a> conversations between Abdulmutallab and American terror cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a British visa rejection, and a warning from his own father, who went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, where he told officials of receiving a letter in which his son talked about &#8220;sacrificing himself.&#8221;</p>
<p>After <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32765.html">calls</a> for his resignation, Brennan <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/02/wh-some-critics-serving-the-goals-of-al-qaeda/">responded</a> to the criticism in a <em>USA Today</em> editorial. &#8220;Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill.&#8221; One suspects those on board Flight 253 might disagree. Yet Brennan doubled down, and insisted on treating Abdulmutallab as a criminal, rather than an enemy combatant, contending that it is &#8220;naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical,&#8221; Brennan contended.</p>
<p>Brennan further cemented his soft-on-terror credentials only days later in a February 13, 2010 <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0210/Brennan_unruffled_talks_terror_at_NYU.html">speech</a> at New York University law school&#8217;s Islamic Center. In front of  a largely Muslim audience, he called for trying 9/11 terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court. &#8220;We are trying to push this forward as best we can, but we also need non-obstruction from certain forces in our government,&#8221; he contended. &#8220;There are stiff winds delaying us from bringing this man to justice.&#8221; Those stiff winds came from the Obama administration itself, which <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101102834.html">rejected</a> a guilty plea from KSM in 2008, in order to try him in civilian court.</p>
<p>During the same speech, Brennan endorsed the administration&#8217;s determination to delete words like &#8220;jihadist&#8221; and &#8220;war on terror&#8221; from its lexicon. “They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing&#8211;absolutely nothing&#8211;holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children,” Brennan insisted. “We are not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of war will.&#8221; In another telling moment, Brennan&#8217;s first <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/27/counterterror-adviser-defends-jihad-legitimate-tenet-islam/">referred</a> to Jerusalem as al-Quds, which is its Arabic name. &#8220;In all my travels the city I have come to love most is al-Quds, Jerusalem, where three great faiths come together,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>During the question and answer period, Brennan contended that a 20 percent recidivism rate for terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay prison &#8220;isn&#8217;t that bad&#8221; when compared to the American penal system. &#8220;People sometimes use that figure, 20 percent, say &#8216;Oh my goodness, one out of five detainees returned to some type of extremist activity,&#8217;&#8221; Brennan said. &#8220;You know, the American penal system, the recidivism rate is up to something about 50 percent or so, as far as return to crime. Twenty percent isn&#8217;t that bad.&#8221; That Brennan could compare one-in-five hardcore terrorists returning to the task of waging war against the West with regular criminals of all kinds, demonstrates either a monumental level of naiveté, or a disingenuousness bordering on delusion.</p>
<p>In another speech given in May 2010 at the Nixon Center, Brennan <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/11/terrorists-are-the-real-victims/">upped</a> the ante yet again, asserting that that &#8220;violent extremists” are victims of “political, economic and social forces.” Reuters <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/05/19/us-lebanon-usa-hezbollah-idUSTRE64I0UM20100519?type=politicsNews">reveals</a> additional comments Brennan made, following his return from Lebanon:</p>
<p>&#8220;Hezbollah is a very interesting organization,&#8221; Brennan told a Washington conference, citing its evolution from &#8220;purely a terrorist organization&#8221; to a militia to an organization that now has members within the parliament and the cabinet. &#8220;There is certainly the elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern to us what they&#8217;re doing. And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements,&#8221; Brennan said.&#8221;</p>
<p>Again, one might be forgiven for wondering what constitutes a &#8220;moderate&#8221; in an organization that has <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/start/data_collections/tops/terrorist_organization_profile.asp?id=3101">carried</a> out a series of worldwide terror attacks over the course of decades, yearns for Israel&#8217;s annihilation and, prior to 9/11, was <a href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59366/daniel-byman/should-hezbollah-be-next">responsible</a> for killing more Americans than any other terrorist organization in the world.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Brennan&#8217;s infatuation with outreach is not limited to Hezbollah. In 2010, columnist Patrick Poole <a href="http://cdn.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2010/09/27/FBI-Escorts-Known-Hamas-Operative-Through-Top-Secret-National-Counterterrorism-Center-as--Outreach--to-Muslim-Community">revealed</a> that Hamas operative Kifah Mustapha was given a guided tour of the &#8220;National Counterterrorism Center and other secure government facilities, including the FBI&#8217;s training center at Quantico.&#8221; Mustapha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land foundation case, during which his colleagues were convicted of funding Hamas, yet another U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Center for Security Policy chief Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/29/national-security-hawks-brennans-resignation/">demanded</a> Brennan&#8217;s resignation as a result. &#8220;The FBI gave a guided tour of one of our most sensitive counter-terrorism facilities to a known Hamas operative,&#8221; Gaffney said. &#8220;It is clear that the cluelessness fostered by Mr. Brennan is causing an empowering of the wrong sorts of Muslims in America and endangering the American people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Brennan penchant for revealing America&#8217;s secrets continued in 2012. When the United States thwarted another would-be underwear bomber last May, Brennan inadvertently <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-usa-security-plot-spin-idUSBRE84H0OZ20120518">revealed</a> we had a double-agent working on the case when he briefed former counter-terrorism advisors who subsequently got work as TV commentators. He told them that the bomber was never a threat because America had &#8220;inside control&#8221; of the situation. The former advisors reached the inexorable conclusion shortly thereafter. May was also the month Judicial Watch finally <a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/13421/">obtained</a> documents, via a Freedom of Information Act, from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA,) revealing that Brennan and Defense Department officials disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers the identity of the SEAL Team Six operator and commander involved in taking out Osama Bin Laden. A transcript of a meeting held July 14, 2011, reveals that &#8220;documents seemingly reference John O. Brennan, Chief Counterterrorism Advisor to President Obama and Denis McDonough, who serves as President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor.&#8221;</p>
<p>“These documents, which took nine months and a federal lawsuit to disgorge from the Obama administration, show that politically-connected film makers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is both ironic and hypocritical that the Obama administration stonewalled Judicial Watch’s pursuit of the bin Laden death photos, citing national security concerns, yet seemed willing to share intimate details regarding the raid to help Hollywood filmmakers release a movie ‘perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost’ to the Obama campaign.”</p>
<p>All of the above suggests that John Brennan is, at the least, an extremely dubious pick to head the CIA. But a story by Associated Press columnist Kimberly Dozier entitled, &#8220;Who Will US Drones Target? Who Will Decide?&#8221; <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/content/who-will-drones-target-who-us-will-decide">paints</a> an even more disturbing picture of Brennan, who she contends has &#8220;seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets. The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House,&#8221; she writes. She further noted that while some intelligence officials are comfortable with the new process, others expressed concern about &#8220;how easy it has become to kill someone.&#8221;</p>
<p>PJ Media&#8217;s Patrick Poole puts it more directly: &#8220;John Brennan is the man under whom President Obama has consolidated the unprecedented power of assassination. He directly controls and oversees all aspects of the program that had been previously divided between the Pentagon, the CIA, and other officials,&#8221; he writes.</p>
<p>A soft-on-terror approach, combined with an appetite for unprecedented powers, makes John Brennan a perfect fit for a president with the same proclivities. So does a dubious mixture of incompetence and arrogance. It remains to be seen whether the Senate thinks such qualities work for the nation as a whole. Since the Senate is controlled by Democrats, one suspects that Brennan&#8217;s confirmation will be little more than a formality.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Was Petraeus Sacrificed for Obama?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General David Petraeus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[scandal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=164963</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The knives were out for the general for quite some time. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/was-petraeus-sacrificed-for-obama/general-petraeus/" rel="attachment wp-att-164975"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-164975" title="general-petraeus" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/general-petraeus-419x350.jpg" alt="" width="293" height="245" /></a>As the scandal regarding the Obama administration’s deadly bungling in Benghazi, Libya, begins to heat up, suddenly CIA director David Petraeus is out, felled by his own sex scandal.</p>
<p>Complicating matters further, Ronald Kessler <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/petraeus-affair-fbi-investigation/2012/11/11/id/463697/">reports</a> at Newsmax that “Senior FBI officials suppressed disclosure of the highly sensitive case, apparently to avoid embarrassment to Obama during his re-election campaign.”</p>
<p>Congressman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that the details of the Petraeus situation that have been reported by the media so far don’t make sense. “It seems this [investigation] has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they’re saying the FBI did not realize until Election Day that Gen. Petraeus was involved. It just doesn’t add up,” said King.</p>
<p>According to the administration, the Petraeus resignation makes the ex-CIA chief unavailable to testify in Congress this week about what the administration knew and when it knew it. Acting CIA director Michael Morrell is now expected to testify Thursday before the House and Senate intelligence committees behind closed doors.</p>
<p>Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee’s panel on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/11/10/Rep-Gowdy-Either-Petraeus-Will-Come-and-Testify-to-Congress-Or-He-Will-Be-Subpoenaed">said</a> Petraeus’s resignation ultimately won’t prevent Congress from compelling his testimony.</p>
<p>“The fact that he’s resigned and had an affair has nothing to do with whether he will be subpoenaed to Congress. I hope we don’t have to subpoena a four star general and a former CIA director. I would hope he would come voluntarily but if he won’t he will be subpoenaed … But there is no way we can get to the bottom of Benghazi without David Petraeus.”</p>
<p>The knives have apparently been out for Petraeus for a while. In a story that may have been planted by the Obama White House, Fox News reported earlier this month that the CIA did almost nothing while the consulate was in flames. Anonymous officials also <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/petraeus-benghazi/">told</a> the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> that the CIA failed to provide adequate security at the mission. The CIA replied that its personnel were involved in repelling the attack.</p>
<p>Petraeus is the highly respected Army general who commanded the successful “surge” that helped to turn around the war in Iraq. As the nation searches for answers about the Sept. 11 atrocities in Benghazi, this war hero has been made to fall on his sword, conveniently disposed of to protect the president.</p>
<p>Leftists won’t lose sleep over Petraeus’s ouster because they already despise him. MoveOn published a full-page ad in the <em>New York Times</em> in 2007 accusing the then-general of “cooking the books for the White House” to justify President George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. The ad labeled Petraeus “General Betray Us.” The message <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297498,00.html">prompted</a> an unusual official rebuke from the U.S. Senate, which voted 72 to 25 to condemn the offensive ad. To no one’s surprise, then-Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden missed the vote.</p>
<p>It was reported last week that the married Petraeus had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and suddenly Democrats, whose party stands for abortion-on-demand and free condoms, are outraged. (There is also talk that Petraeus may have been involved with another woman not his wife.) As Robert Spencer <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/robert-spencer/the-convenient-resignation-of-general-petraeus/">noted</a>, Obama and his party care nothing about sexual improprieties. In fact it can be argued that among his fellow Democrats such behaviors can be resume-builders. (See Bill Clinton, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy, Eliot Spitzer, and recently, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/01/women-sen-bob-menendez-paid-us-for-sex-in-the-dominican-republic/">Bob Menendez</a>.)</p>
<p>Newly awakened to the importance of national security, Democrats are worried that as a philanderer Petraeus may have been open to blackmail, something that never concerned them when womanizers Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy, occupied the Oval Office.</p>
<p>Those who study history and the grim statecraft of scapegoating must find it difficult to take Petraeus’s explanation seriously. Doomed Roman officials would take a warm bath and slit their wrists, often after a farewell party, before peacefully drifting off to Elysium. In the old Soviet Union, an out-of-favor intelligence chief would be found dead of an apparent heart attack, or shipped off to remotest Siberia to enjoy an early retirement, but in America a sex scandal will suffice as a cover story.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the State Department continues its stonewalling operation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined an invitation to testify in Congress this week. Instead she’ll jet off to Australia.</p>
<p>House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is unhappy with the State Department for refusing to hand over information that she demanded.</p>
<p>“While I understand that investigations by the FBI and the State Department’s own Accountability Review Board are ongoing, it is imperative that this Committee, having direct oversight responsibility, be kept informed every step of the way of developments in the matter,” Ros-Lehtinen wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Clinton.</p>
<p>Few observers take the department’s Accountability Review Board that is supposed to investigate Benghazi seriously. It is headed by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering whom critics deride as a pro-Islamist tool of Islamofascist Iran who doesn’t take the terrorist threat to America seriously.</p>
<p>Now that President Obama is safely past the electoral finish line, he is free to focus on eliminating any remaining obstacles that threaten his project to “fundamentally transform” the United States.</p>
<p>While official Washington and the mainstream media are entranced by the Petraeus sex saga, playing with it like a kitten plays with a ball of yarn, the Obama administration’s cover-up regarding the Sept. 11 massacre at Benghazi, Libya, that claimed four American lives, including the life of Ambassador Chris Stevens, continues.</p>
<p>Evidence has already <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/obama-white-house-knew-al-qaeda-ally-hit-benghazi/">established</a> that two hours after the deadly assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama White House knew the operation had been orchestrated by Muslim terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda. Instead of trying to solve the problem, President Obama hopped onto Air Force One on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 and escaped to Las Vegas for a campaign fundraiser. U.S. forces that could have come to the rescue sat idle an hour’s flying time away awaiting an order to deploy that never came.</p>
<p>Benghazi could be Obama’s Watergate, a potentially presidency-ending scandal far worse than anything President Nixon ever did. Nixon, who almost certainly would have been impeached had he not resigned, involved himself after the fact in covering up a bungled and otherwise inconsequential break-in at the opposition party’s headquarters. Obama almost certainly knew what was happening on the ground in Libya as it was happening and yet he did nothing, preferring instead to fly off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas, a city he otherwise mocks. And if Obama didn’t know, that in itself is an indictment.</p>
<p>Nixon got involved in a scandal that would have, but for his association, faded away to become a mere footnote in history. Nixon did something and it was relatively trifling; Obama did nothing and his omission cost American lives, including the life of a sitting U.S. ambassador.</p>
<p>There are so many other improprieties that could topple or at least weaken President Obama in his second term. There is Eric Holder’s Fast and Furious Mexican gun-walking scandal, a Reichstag fire calculated to foment anti-gun hysteria; the failure to defend U.S. borders; the refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA); and the ongoing abuse of executive orders and recess appointments.</p>
<p>This is only a partial list.</p>
<p>During President Obama’s second term, the list is bound to grow.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Hollywood Revs Up Propaganda Machine For Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/hollywood-revs-up-propaganda-machine-for-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hollywood-revs-up-propaganda-machine-for-obama</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/hollywood-revs-up-propaganda-machine-for-obama/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Aug 2012 04:51:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WWII]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=139325</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It’s World War II again -- but this time the Republicans are the enemy.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/holly1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-139330" title="holly" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/holly1.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="216" /></a>In the years after September 11, 2001, conservatives bemoaned the fact that Hollywood seemed completely uninterested in helping spur Americans to action against a brutal terrorist enemy bent on the destruction of the West. Conservatives hearkened back to World War II, and wondered where our Frank Capras, our Jimmy Stewarts, our Hollywood patriots were.  Why did Hollywood not go to war?</p>
<p>Answer: they were just waiting for Barack Obama to become president.</p>
<p>As it turns out, Hollywood didn’t give a fig about Islamic terrorism until a liberal could enter office. Until Obama grabbed the White House, Americans were treated to goodies like <em>Green Zone</em> and <em>In the Valley of Elah</em> and <em>Syriana</em>, suggesting that America was a force for evil in the world, and that  America’s jihadi enemies were at least partially justified in their anger at the United States.</p>
<p>But since President Obama took office, Hollywood seems to have turned a corner. All of a sudden, they <em>hate</em> Islamic terrorism. And the Obama administration is overjoyed.</p>
<p>And why not? They know that Hollywood is the best propaganda tool available – they have seen Obama’s image lovingly crafted by the likes of Tom Hanks and Davis Guggenheim – and now they can’t wait to see the results of that propaganda mastery on the big screen.</p>
<p>Which is why the Obama administration is granting unprecedented access to filmmakers to make a film about Obama’s killing of Osama Bin Laden.</p>
<p>For months, conservatives suggested that the Obama administration’s cozy relationship with Hollywood was endangering American security on this issue. Why, after all, should America’s security secrets be leaked to the Tinseltown lefties <em>just in time </em>for Obama’s re-election campaign? Wasn’t this problematic? Didn’t it create risks for teams still in the field?</p>
<p>And for months, the Obama administration made noises suggesting that Hollywood had barely received any sort of special access. Sure, they admitted, screenwriter Mark Boal had talked with White House officials, and director Kathryn Bigelow got to see ‘the Vault,” where CIA officials showed her a model of the Bin Laden compound. “We don’t have a partnership” with Boal and Bigelow, insisted Admiral William McRaven. But Defense Department Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Douglas Wilson said, “We need to be careful here so we don’t open the media floodgates on this.” The Obama administration didn’t want the public to know, in other words,  about their level of cooperation with a clearly political film.</p>
<p>And so, apparently, they hid it.</p>
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		<title>Covert Mission Thwarts Al-Qaeda</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/a-timely-reminder-from-al-qaeda/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-timely-reminder-from-al-qaeda</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/a-timely-reminder-from-al-qaeda/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 May 2012 04:56:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Airplane]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[counter terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yemen]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131469</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What the successful counterterrorism operations tells us about the war on terror. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/img_606X341_0805-panetta-usa-bomb-plot-al-qaeda.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131500" title="img_606X341_0805-panetta-usa-bomb-plot-al-qaeda" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/img_606X341_0805-panetta-usa-bomb-plot-al-qaeda.gif" alt="" width="375" height="244" /></a>On Monday it was revealed that the CIA had <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_AIRLINE_PLOT?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2012-05-07-18-39-31">thwarted</a> a new al-Qaeda-sponsored terror plot hatched in Yemen. The scheme was brought down by a man said to have been a mole for the CIA and Saudi intelligence. After infiltrating the Yemeni cell, the agent enlisted in a suicide mission designed to bring down a U.S.-bound airliner, but turned over his equipment and intelligence once the plan was set in motion. The success of the counterterrorism mission &#8212; a story full of intrigue, double agents and high-stakes deception &#8212; is a testament to the prowess of U.S. defense capabilities, to be sure. Yet, the event also serves as a grim reminder that recent declarations by Obama surrogates suggesting that the war on terror is &#8220;over&#8221; have been overstated, to say the least.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, John Brennan, President Barack Obama&#8217;s counterterrorism adviser, contended that the discovery of the plot indicates that al-Qaeda remains a threat to the United States a year after Bin Laden&#8217;s death. Keep in mind, however, that Mr. Brennan himself <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/white-house-war-terrorism-over/?feat=home_headlines">revealed</a> in 2009 that the terms “war on terrorism,&#8221; “jihadists” and “global war” were no longer acceptable within the Obama White House. At the time, he did concede that we were still &#8220;at war with al-Qaida,&#8221; yet he insisted that using the three above terms gave the terrorist organization unwarranted legitimacy, and further implied that America is at war with all of Islam.</p>
<p>The &#8220;we&#8217;re only at war with al-Qaeda&#8221; motif was <a href="http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/04/can-obama-safely-embrace-islam.php">amplified</a> by an unnamed &#8220;senior State Department official&#8221; in a <em>National Journal </em>article written by Michael Hirsh in April 2012. &#8220;The war on terror is over,&#8221; said the official. &#8220;Now that we have killed most of al Qaida, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.&#8221;</p>
<p>Despite the ridiculous assertion by Hirsh that, if Osama bin Laden were still alive, he &#8220;would see a U.S. administration that, having killed most of bin Laden’s confederates, is now ready to move into a post-al-Qaeda era and engage with Islamist politicians as long as they renounce violence and terrorism,&#8221; al-Qaeda remains a potent force. Yemen, Pakistan Nigeria and Somalia <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304723304577369780858510366.html?mod=rss_opinion_main">represent</a> relatively new and fertile feeding grounds for the terrorist organization &#8212; unless one wishes to engage in another round of semantic obscurantism. Such obscurantism attempts to ignore the reality that groups such as Pakistan&#8217;s Lashkar-e-Taiba, Nigeria&#8217;s Boko Haram, and Somalia&#8217;s al Shabaab espouse the very same jihadist ambitions as al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Furthermore, leaders of these affiliates have sworn &#8220;bayat,&#8221; or loyalty, to current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, even as they offer him funding and fighters. The <em>Wall Street Journal&#8217;s</em> Seth Jones offers the ultimate reality check: &#8220;None of these organizations existed a decade ago,&#8221; he writes.</p>
<p>Hirsh&#8217;s other contention, that the so-called Arab Spring &#8220;opened up new channels of expression, supplying for the first time in decades an alternative to violent jihad&#8221; is also undone. Documents taken from Bin Laden&#8217;s compound and reviewed by <em>Washington Post</em> columnist David Ignatius <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-osama-bin-laden-is-winning-even-in-death/2012/04/27/gIQAtTMFmT_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions">reveal</a> that Bin Laden was seeking a way to &#8220;reattach al-Qaeda to the Muslim mainstream.&#8221; Ignatius re-iterates the success al-Qaeda has enjoyed in Yemen, but he notes that Egypt&#8217;s Salafist party, &#8220;which like al-Qaeda traces its roots to the Islamist theorist Sayyid Qutb, has 13 seats in the new Egyptian parliament.&#8221; He refers to such political successes as &#8220;electoral bin Ladenism.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Naming Names</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/naming-names/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=naming-names</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/naming-names/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Mar 2012 04:20:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CIA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[names]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political Correctness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Widlanski]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=125502</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Terror expert Michael Widlanski points to the western elites who are leaving us vulnerable to the jihadi threat. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/battle.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125997" title="battle" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/battle.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="638" /></a><strong>[Editor&#8217;s note: To listen to Dr. Michael Widlanski on The Jamie Glazov Show, <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/03/14/the-jamie-glazov-show">click here</a>.]</strong></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Michael Widlanski<strong>, </strong>a specialist in Arab politics and communication whose doctorate dealt with the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a former reporter, correspondent, and editor, respectively, at <em>The New York Times</em>, <em>The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta Constitution</em>, and <em>The Jerusalem Post</em>. He has also served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem. He is the author of the new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Our-Minds-Western-Elites/dp/1451659032/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1331446619&amp;sr=1-1"><em>Battle for Our Minds: Western Elites and the Terror Threat.</em></a></p>
<p><strong>FP</strong>: Dr. Michael Widlanski, welcome to Frontpage Interview. What inspired you to write this book?</p>
<p><strong>Widlanski: </strong>Terror is the chosen weapon of war for the 21st century. And it is primarily a battle of the mind. Do the terrorists  gain control of our head, or do we get into theirs?</p>
<p>The average citizen does not have the time to master Arabic, Farsi, or Islamic culture. The average Joe and Jane must rely on the gatekeepers of our minds—our media, our academia and our government-intelligence agencies.  These public intellectuals should be our “best and our brightest,” but instead they became our worst and our dimmest. They sold us a politically correct and factually inaccurate ideology of idiocy, a doctrine of willful ignorance.</p>
<p>I have seen our supposedly best minds in academia, media and government &#8220;intel&#8221; actually aid terrorists by sins of omission and commission. And I felt it was time to call them out on it.</p>
<p><strong>FP</strong>: What is the main argument of the book and who and what are its main targets?</p>
<p><strong>Widlanski: </strong> The book talks about general performance, but it also gets “close and personal.”  It examines the record of the leaders of our elites in media, academia and government—Columbia and Georgetown, The New York Times and CNN, the CIA, the FBI and the presidents. And also in other countries, too.</p>
<p>There are three elites that are responsible&#8211;the university community and its Middle East Studies programs that were hijacked by doctrines of political correctness and anti-American, anti-Western and anti-Israeli ideologies led by Edward Said, Noam Chomsky and John Esposito. These universities then produced generations of largely know-nothing media pundits and government intelligence officials who do not know the difference between Hamas and hummus.</p>
<p>We have to understand the methods and ideologies of the newest generations of terrorists, most of whom are Arab-Islamic terrorists. I have been an active student of the phenomenon inside several Arab countries and Israel as a reporter, soldier, Arab affairs expert, security official and now as a father of three soldiers.</p>
<p><strong>FP</strong>: You say some pretty tough things about some important people and organizations. Please name them for our readers.</p>
<p><strong>Widlanski</strong>: From Professor Edward Said of Columbia to John Esposito of Georgetown, from Eason Jordan, Christiane Amanpour, Robert Wiener and Peter Arnett of CNN to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd of the Times, and from George Tenet to Michael Scheuer at CIA.  The list is of course much longer.  Many of them have minimized, ignored and even concealed the problem, and occasionally fronted for terrorists. This is intolerable. My book names names, but it also offers policy solutions.</p>
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