Monthly Archives: November 2014

Two Steps Backwards on CIA Torture

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November 21, 2014–I was wrong. I wrote that the Obama administration, having used the existence of the Senate intelligence committee report to tell United Nations monitors that the U.S. is meeting its treaty obligations to investigate violations of statutes against inhumane treatment, was now moving to release the report. Instead that argument, tabled recently at an international conference in Geneva, now appears to have been primarily rhetorical. Today’s news is that the White House is collaborating with the CIA to suppress the Senate report. The cynicism exhibited here is breathtaking. A nation argues that accountability has been achieved by means of an investigative report that finds violations and is therefore suppressed. (I have no doubt that had the investigators found the CIA to be without blame this report would long since have been released, even publicized.)

Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, last reported here as traveling to California to meet the Senate committee’s chair, Diane Feinstein, should no longer be viewed as clearing last minute details before a release. Rather that visit now appears to have been a gambit to get the legislators to make further concessions on what their report can say. McDonough failed–and has now resorted to meeting with a larger group of Senate committee members in a bid to outflank Feinstein. He failed there too.

The Obama White House and the Senate intelligence committee are now at an impasse. This has several implications. Most critical, having now certified to an international body that the Senate investigation meets U.S. obligations for accountability, then suppressing the report, Mr. Obama considerably increases his stake in this poker game.

John Brennan’s remark of some months ago that the agency’s interest lies in ensuring an “objective” account of its activities is as cynical as Denis McDonough’s White House antics. There should be no doubt the CIA’s main interest in deleting pseudonyms for its officers from the report has nothing to do with exposure to attacks by terrorists. It is to insulate them from indictment before the International Criminal Court. The CIA has already had a narrow brush with disaster in Germany where U.S. spooks have come near to criminal charges, and in Italy a CIA snatch crew and its helpers were not only indicted, but convicted for war-on-terror activities (they have now run out of appeals). In Poland, those who collaborated with the CIA on the black prisons are being prosecuted. The (in)action on CIA declassification of the Senate torture report is not about after-the-fact criticism of the Bush administration, the real issue is that the activities of American spies have strayed so far from accepted practices that they are no longer acceptable to our international partners.

By going out on a limb to protect the agency President Obama buys responsibility for the coverup. That is way more dangerous for this nation than to let the denizens of Langley take the licks for their excesses. In particular because letting CIA off the hook means diluting our alliances with intelligence partners–and even the CIA admits (as a rationale for not releasing information elsewhere) those alliances are critical to its performance.

We are at the point where “intelligence effectiveness” requires releasing this investigative report.

From the White House point of view, it is equally distressing that chief of staff McDonough’s intransigence now threatens to trigger a seismic shift in the customs that have prevailed for congressional oversight of the intelligence agencies. The Senate committee has all along had the power to release this document unilaterally, as noted in this space a couple of times previously. It has been a customary practice–but is not a statutory requirement–for the congressional bodies to permit the CIA (or other agencies) to vet and redact committee documents. Senators are now actually talking about unilateral release. If that happens the secrecy mavens at Langley, the DNI and everywhere else in the intelligence community will lose a major tool they have traditionally used to cloak their daggers. Fearful Leader Clapper, the DNI, must be quaking in his boots! Stay tuned.

Mr. Clapper Goes to Pyongyang

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November 10, 2014–If there is a senior U.S. official in need of some good PR–other than President Barack Obama, of course– that person would be General James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). So, unlike when Clapper denied under Senate questioning that hundreds of millions of citizens are being spied upon by the NSA, last week when the opportunity arose for a good photo op Clapper was right on the case. Even better, the occasion was a quintessential feel-good moment–when American citizens are being released from hard labor in a hostile land and Clapper can be seen to be rescuing them.

Kenneth Bae, held by the North Koreans for two years, has been in declining health, in and out of hospitals. The Koreans alleged he’d planned a “religious coup d’état”–a novel way to characterize Christian evangelical proselytizing. Matthew Todd Miller reportedly sought to defect. He entered North Korea this past spring, destroyed his visa, and reportedly sought asylum. The North Koreans prosecuted him instead–and sentenced Miller to hard labor for “unruly behavior.”  Pyongyang’s release of the two Americans comes on top of another liberation last month. It’s an odd sort of charm offensive the Koreans are up to, but they have done it before. Lately the state of that nation–and even the status of its dictator, Kim Jong-un–have been uncertain, and Kim may need all the help he can get.

North Korea is an enigmatic nation. Its leaders have received basketball stars as potentates, politicians as government emissaries, and senior diplomats as the equivalent of heads of state. The seizure of foreign nationals as bargaining chips, and the presentation of visits from foreign officials as tokens of international esteem, seem to have become standard devices in Pyongyang’s tool box–as have missile tests and preparations for nuclear explosions.

But don’t ask the CIA! North Korea has been a “denied area” in the agency’s jargon, a place into which it is impossible to insert spies, recruit enemy agents, or obtain much information at all. At the moment the spooks have not even decided whether Mr. Kim is still alive, much less the status of his power in Pyongyang, or whether North Korea has a weaponized nuclear warhead for its latest-generation missiles.

The Obama White House portrayed General Clapper as having gone to listen to what the North Koreans would like to say to us. He is a senior enough official to satisfy Pyongyang that Washington is serious about dealing with them, and he can be depended upon to relay North Korea’s messages to Washington. If Clapper’s quick visit last weekend encouraged Kim Jong-un out of hiding, the CIA may even get an intelligence windfall out of this operation.

On the other hand, Fearful Leader Clapper can be expected to retail North Korean developments in the most alarming light possible. Back in mid-October, at a conference held at the University of Texas, Clapper was virtually taking a victory lap on the war on terror–underlining observations in this space previously about the extent to which the real terrorism threat has receded. But that means the DNI and CIA need a new threat to help fill their rice bowls. which can help shield U.S. intelligence budgets from the chopping block during the months ahead. And the photo-0p rescuing Americans from a despotic regime shows General Clapper in an active, positive role. I, for one, would be more comfortable with a DNI who was less political.

Gamers’ Corner : Set Europe Ablaze Bibliography

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November 6, 2014–Just a head’s up! We have now posted a product which lists the various histories consulted in the course of designing the game Set Europe Ablaze and compiling the historical articles that appear with it. Not everyone will be interested in the bibliography, but for anyone who wants to look into Resistance to the German occupation of Western Europe in World War II, the history of the Special Operations Executive, and the French and American (OSS) special services that matched it, this listing furnishes a useful compilation of the sources. This product can be found in the “Downloadable” section of the website. It is a premium content item.