Gamer’s Corner: Goodbye to John Hill

January 13, 2015–During the late 1970s and early 80s, when we were all pushing the envelope for simulation authenticity, designer John Hill had a theory he called “design for effect.” That didn’t sit very well with me after I saw a Korean War game of his, with Chinese communist forces portrayed at the “army” and “group army” level, and then those armies being able to infiltrate across United Nations lines–because, after all, any Korea game had to have an infiltration capability on the communist side.

At one of the game shows I ran into John and we had it out. Amicably enough, John made it clear he was sticking to his guns. Then we went off to get a burger and a soda. Hill’s most famous game–justifiably so–Squad Leader had its “Berserk” units (because in “most” tactical situations somebody goes crazy). And so on.

I loved Squad Leader. And therein lay the charm–John Hill was a firm believer in playability. Whether it was Johnny Reb Civil War miniatures (John’s Civil War rebel cap became a fixture for quite a while), October War games, or his first sally that I knew about, a Vietnam game called Battle for Hue, you got a John Hill game and you knew you’d have fun.

I think it was the initial Origins where I first met John. He was riding a wave from his Hue game and I also had a Vietnam design out there, my SPI wargame Year of the Rat. We joked about the two Johns at Johns Hopkins University. Quite a few other times we spent time over a table, broke bread, or walked together down the aisle at a game show, oohing and aah-ing the new titles and speculating why this or that feature had been done a certain way. Other times I’d be cruising the general gaming area–I love watching the miniatures players go at it–and John would be there wailing away.

Gaming has lost a good man, and I, a good friend.

More on Secrecy as a Disease

January 13, 2015–I’d wanted to post about the fantasy horrors being invoked around the “Charlie Hebdo” terrorist incident–the dangers foreseen here have indeed come to pass–but new developments on the secrecy front oblige me to turn that way first. We’ll get back to the “terrorist cell” in another post.

If you’ve spent much time reading this space you’ll know that I have frequently decried egregious government secrecy. You may be aware of some of the specific discussions that have appeared here. I have two of them in mind today. General James Clapper, our Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is on the hook for both of them.

The first is my posting just before last Christmas, presenting evidence showing that the CIA had deliberately used secrecy restrictions to influence a political debate, moving declassification requests from its people implicated in the torture report ahead of the line of supplicants while holding up the release of the actual Senate intelligence committee investigative report. That, of course, was so the agency officers in trouble could craft a defense with their own website containing formerly secret documents. I posted a selection from these documents (available as a product called “Bush Torture Documents”in the Downloadable section of this website) to illustrate how far the CIA declassifiers were ready to go for their own.

Now, it turns out that while all this was happening, the DNI’s Inspector General was assessing DNI and agency performance on excessive secrecy, as he is required to do under a 2010 law. The latest of these assessments was issued in December 2014, as the very events above were occurring. The Inspector General found “no instances” in which “classification was used to conceal violation of law, inefficiency, or administrative error; prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency; restrain competition; or prevent or delay release of information not requiring protection in the interest of national security.” Really? So what was the torture report caper anyway?

What planet do these people live on? Do they seriously expect the public to believe what they say when they openly flout all regulatory mechanisms?

Next up is the disturbing–and seriously misguided, idea of making our own spy agency officials the enemy. This is the so-called “insider threat.” No doubt inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations, the insider threat has been conjured up to make the whistleblower the enemy, rather than people like the CIA torturers, who actually engaged in illegal activities. Fearful Clapper and his minions, the other spy chieftains, used their appearance on Capitol Hill for the annual national security threat survey last year to decry this insider threat.

Back in May and June (“America’s Terrified Spooks,” May 9, 2014; “U.S. Intelligence Tied Up in Knots,” June 8, 2014) I wrote about these matters, and discussed how they sap morale at the agencies as well as criminalizing–if properly implemented–the activity agency officials themselves engage in when they leak information to reporters.

Over the weekend we had a delicious illustration of exactly how ridiculous all this is. It was revealed that the Department of Justice has, for several months, been sitting on recommendations from the FBI that it should seek a criminal indictment against former CIA director David Petraeus. As it turns out–and as rumored at the time of his resignation from the agency following revelation of his affair with Army officer and biographer Paula Broadwell–Petraeus had given her secret documents which ended up on her computer. Diane Feinstein, the outgoing chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee promptly spoke up to say the offense should be ignored–Petraeus had suffered enough already. The message appears to have gotten through. Washington sources appear to be saying it is extremely unlikely Petraeus will be charged for leaking classified information.

(I happen to agree with the idea, in general, that regulations had gone too far in casting General Petraeus as a bad guy. I said so back in November 2012 in a piece in the “Outlook” section of the Washington Post.)

But what we have here is another specific demonstration of the double standard. Just as CIA declassifiers favored their friends with a shower of secret memos while throwing the regulation book at Senate investigators; here, Justice Department authorities want to excuse David Petraeus for letting out secret information while they seek maximum penalties for Edward Snowden.

You can’t have it both ways. Either jail Petraeus or forget about indicting Snowden. Otherwise the mishmash of regulations on secrecy, the lack of consistency in enforcement, and the haphazard application of the provisions that do exist make a mockery of the whole idea that there is a “system.”

Charlie Hebdo– Sad

January 7, 2015–Breaking news this morning that several gunmen attacked the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo colors the day. At last report eleven had been killed and others wounded. Reportedly the attackers were three men, disguised in ski masks, seeking to avenge what they regard as cartoons lampooning Muslim apostle Mohammed. President Francois Hollande rushes to the scene. President Barack Obama promises any American help that seems desirable.

The stories that will be written about this incident have yet to be inked but already you can see the hacks aligning themselves to play the buttons of the American people. Another push on the hysteria button is just around the corner. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham successively tweets that U.S. intelligence capabilities to detect something like this have atrophied, and  the security forces to stop it don’t exist. No doubt Fearful Clapper and others will be stepping up right behind Graham.

Don’t believe it, either claim. U.S. intelligence capabilities have atrophied because we can’t torture? That’s silly. As CIA never tires of telling us, with only a few exceptions all their torture was done by 2003 and, anyway, their later attempts to preserve a standby capability and legal authorization were over with by 2007-2008. Since that time the CIA and/or FBI have busted up an alleged Times Square plot, a Subway plot, the underwear bomber plot, the copy machine bomb plot, a Portland plot, and others.

Equally to the point, American leaders and CIA torturers may or may not get a pass on the outrages they have already inflicted, but, if today the Charlie Hebdo or any other incident leads the Americans to re-institute CIA torture, at that point you can be certain that Americans–past offenders probably included–will face future war crimes charges.

As for security capabilities taken separately, by some measures the United States is the most over-policed nation on the globe. Indeed the story of recent months here is one of minorities and other populations rejecting overbearing police intimidation and violence. American police need more training, more stringent regulation, less incentive to violate civil rights, and certainly less military equipment and armament.

Again and again–in the Fort Hood massacre, in the Navy Yard shootings, in other incidents here and abroad–the attackers’ delicate psychological mechanisms break down, converting long alleged grievances into immediate perceived causes for action. My bet is the Charlie Hebdo murders will end up in this category too. “Detecting” longstanding personal grievances is not a legitimate intelligence function. Where detection occurs it is by coincidence. No amount of apparatus will establish a reliable standing capability to detect personal grievances. Nor do police need more SWAT teams. Far more security would be gained by making it impossible to obtain assault rifles and other automatic weapons.