Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have remained largely silent on the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our national security and trying to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets. Americans have to decide now. and time for a good reflection on the ethics, morality, and principles of those who profess ignorance now for political expedience
A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA's "High Value Terrorist Program," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers. But they all checked out for bathroom breaks, like Al Gore, when the waterboarding was discussed. All that iced tea and all that
Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience. 'zactly so!
Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:
-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.
-- We understood what the CIA was doing.
-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.
-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.
-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.
I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately -- to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security adviser -- and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have. because they are spineless weasels with absolutely no interest in national security complications to their political advancement *spit*
Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being made for tents from the Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the same: a hollowed-out service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear that in the years to come this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends the pendulum swinging back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous show: President Obama.
Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been done. It is certainly not trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is being held to it. After the events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken to its foundation. even among the backstabbers that went after W at every turn?
We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability to maintain secrecy as a reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.
The suggestion that we are safer now because information about interrogation techniques is in the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by which we operate. The terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic of placing explosives high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply no comparison between our professionalism and their brutality.
Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury. "Name, rank and serial number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably, the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking risks, our intelligence officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.
The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We can sit on our hands or we can become engaged to improve global human conditions. The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good intelligence. Trading security for partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.
Thewriter, a Republican, was director of the CIA from September 2004 to May 2006 and was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 to 2004.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/25/2009 16:39 ||
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IN the middle of Karachi stands the concrete shell of a 30-storey building. This is the structure of the Hyatt Regency hotel started in the mid-seventies, and which has remained a building site since work was abandoned in 1977.
In a sense, this hulk is a metaphor for Pakistan: a state launched with much fanfare, enthusiasm and good intentions, but which can neither be completed nor pulled down.
Any state has a number of prerequisites to function effectively: settled borders; an accord on the measure of autonomy to be exercised by the federating units; the official language; and a broad consensus on the nature and direction of the state. Another element relates to national identity. Finally, any modern state must establish its monopoly on the use and means of violence.
As an artificially created entity, Pakistan was required to define and establish these parameters. Unfortunately, it failed to do so, largely because of the long delay in forging a consensus on the constitution, and partly because of the frequent military interventions that repeatedly eroded respect for the constitution and the rule of law. Poorly educated military dictators with no sense of history attempted to come up with half-baked concepts that have laid waste to the institutions we inherited from the British.
An early problem the new state faced was the issue of borders that were left undefined by the departing colonial power. Pakistani rulers have struggled with this question, opting for military confrontation instead of dialogue and discourse. It is true that our neighbours have not been very helpful in settling the matter. Pakistani militarists have driven our foreign and defence policies, arming to repel real and perceived dangers from abroad, while creating a Frankensteins monster that now threatens to devour us.
As a result of this single-issue agenda, money that should have been spent on education and health was diverted into the insatiable black hole of bloated military budgets. As our population has increased without check, millions of young people remain uneducated and unemployed. Filling the educational vacuum are the thousands of madressahs, many financed by Saudi Arabia, that do not equip students for careers in the modern world. There is thus a fertile breeding ground for the Taliban and their fellow extremists to recruit foot soldiers from.
The last six decades have amply demonstrated the difficulty inherent in building a national identity based solely on religion. Talk to any conservative Pakistani today, and he will assert that as Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, the Sharia should be the law of the land. It would be futile to point out that Jinnah visualised a secular state in which all Pakistanis would be equal citizens. This lofty vision would be scant comfort to the Sikh families who have had to flee their homes in the tribal areas because demands for jaziah, the old Muslim tax on non-Muslims, were made by de facto Taliban rulers.
In order to justify the partition of the subcontinent, rulers have resorted to bewildering mental contortions. Many have tried to move our roots to the Middle East from our true origins in South Asia. This confusion is reflected in school textbooks and the media. Thus, we have young people unsure of their past, and unable or unwilling to claim their rich cultural patrimony.
The insecurity caused by the wrenching experience of Partition has seen military and civilian rulers looking to the West for military and economic assistance. For years, these anti-Communist alliances made us feel stronger than we actually were. But they also isolated us, and when the balance of power began to shift against us, the army built up a force of extremists to further its agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir. These are the militants who threaten our very survival today.
Instead of fighting them, the ruling elites continue their double game of playing footsie with the Taliban, while laying claim to billions in western aid. But the jihadis cannot be defeated with money alone: political will and a broad consensus backed by military might are needed. So far, there are few signs of any of this happening. While the Taliban walk into Buner and Dir after their uncontested victory in Swat, the army continues its policy of studied indifference, while the politicians play their power games.
The divisions in the ranks of Pakistani society over this threat are visible in the media. In a sense, this is the inevitable product of decades of brainwashing about the nature of the Pakistani state. Many people are confused about the issues underlying this crisis: having been told that Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, they are now being asked to accept that the real enemy is not Hindu India, but fanatics who want to impose their stone-age rule in the name of Islam.
Such contradictions cannot be easily resolved, especially in a deeply conservative society where illiteracy is rampant. When simple, poorly educated soldiers are warned by mullahs that they will not be accorded a Muslim burial if they fall fighting the Taliban, it is understandable that they should be reluctant to go into combat. Generations of army officers have been indoctrinated at military academies into believing that India is the real enemy. It is hard for them to face reality, and reorient our defence to the west.
Since Zia began promoting Wahabi madressahs across Pakistan in the eighties, we have faced bitter sectarian strife. Anti-Shia militias have been in the forefront of the jihad in Afghanistan and Kashmir, acquiring arms, training and large amounts of money in the process. These forces are now formally allied with the Taliban, and have presented their erstwhile handlers in our intelligence services with the difficult task of keeping them on our side, while simultaneously appearing to fight them.
In the long wish list prepared by the army for the Pentagons consideration, night-vision goggles are high in our priorities. Well-informed friends in Peshawar tell me that this equipment is on sale in the local arms bazaar, having been looted from US and Nato convoys. But if our army doesnt want to buy the locally available goggles, could I ask them to consider fighting during the day, at least?
When you next drive past the looming shell of the Hyatt Regency, spare a thought for what might have been.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/25/2009 16:03 ||
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By Maj Gen Kulwant Singh, Dr John Hagelin and Dr David Leffler
We respectfully take issue with Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani's assertion that "Pakistan is a strong country with ... invincible defence and nobody can cast an evil eye on it." ("Nuclear assets in safe hands: PM Gilani," Associated Press of Pakistan). Today, the only means to ensure true national security and total national invincibility is to be a nation without enemies. Military strategists everywhere acknowledge that conventional means of defence are powerless to protect the nation against modern destructive technologies: weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons, long-range push-button electronic missile technologies, or terrorism. No conventional military or technological defence strategy can safeguard the nation from these offensive technologies.
#1
Quite the long advert for Trancendental Meditation. Still, TM in the AM and the PM would keep the Paksters out of mischief. Except for it being un-Islamic and all.
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