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  • Meet Professor Juan Cole, Consultant to the CIA

    Meet Professor Juan Cole, Consultant to the CIA

    “Democracy Now?”
    by JOHN WALSH

    JuanColeJuan Cole is a brand name that is no longer trusted.  And that has been the case for some time for the Professor from Michigan.  After warning of the “difficulties” with the Iraq War, Cole swung over to ply it with burning kisses on the day of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  His fervor was not based on Saddam Hussein’s fictional possession of weapons of mass destruction but on the virtues of “humanitarian imperialism.”

    Thus on March 19, 2003, as the imperial invasion commenced, Cole enthused on his blog: “I remain (Emphasis mine.) convinced that, for all the concerns one might have about the aftermath, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides.” Now, with over 1 million Iraqis dead, 4 million displaced and the country’s infrastructure destroyed, might Cole still echo Madeline Albright that the price was “worth it”?  Cole has called the Afghan War “the right war at the right time” and has emerged as a cheerleader for Obama’s unconstitutional war on Libya and for Obama himself.

    Cole claims to be a man of the left and he appears with painful frequency on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now as the reigning “expert” on the war on Libya.  This is deeply troubling – on at least two counts. First, can one be a member of the “left” and also an advocate for the brutal intervention by the Great Western Powers in the affairs of a small, relatively poor country?  Apparently so, at least in Democracy Now’sversion of the “left.”  Second, it appears that Cole’s essential function these days is to convince wavering progressives that the war on Libya has been  fine and dandy.  But how can such damaged goods as Cole credibly perform this marketing mission so vital to Obama’s war?

    Miraculously, Cole got just the rehabilitation he needed to continue with this vital propaganda function when it was disclosed by the New York Times on June 15 that he was the object of a White House inquiry way back in 2005 in Bush time.   The source and reason for this leak and the publication of it by the NYT at this time, so many years later, should be of great interest, but they are unknown.   Within a week of the Timespiece Cole was accorded a hero’s welcome on Democracy Now, as he appeared with retired CIA agent Glenn Carle who had served 23 years in the clandestine services of the CIA in part as an “interrogator.” Carl had just retired from the CIA at the time of the White House request and was at the time employed at the National Intelligence Council, which authors the National Intelligence Estimate.

    It hit this listener like a ton of bricks when it was disclosed in Goodman’s interview that Cole was a long time “consultant” for the CIA, the National Intelligence Council and other agencies.  Here is what nearly caused me to keel over when I heard it (From the Democracy Nowtranscript.):

    AMY GOODMAN: So, did you know Professor Cole or know of him at the time you were asked? And can you go on from there? What happened when you said you wouldn’t do this? And who was it who demanded this information from you, said that you should get information?

    GLENN CARLE: Well, I did know Professor Cole. He was one of a large number of experts of diverse views that the National Intelligence Council and my office and the CIA respectively consult with to challenge our assumptions and understand the trends and issues on our various portfolios. So I knew him that way. And it was sensible, in that sense, that the White House turned to my office to inquire about him, because we were the ones, at least one of the ones—I don’t know all of Mr. Cole’s work—who had consulted with him. (Emphases mine.)

    That seems like strange toil for a man of the “left.”  But were the consultations long drawn out and the association with the CIA a deep one?   It would appear so.  Again from the transcript:

    AMY GOODMAN: Well, the way James Risen (the NYT reporter) writes it, he says, “Mr. Carle said [that] sometime that year, he was approached by his supervisor, David Low, about Professor Cole. [Mr.] Low and [Mr.] Carle have starkly different recollections of what happened. According to Mr. Carle, [Mr.] Low returned from a White House meeting one day and inquired who Juan Cole was, making clear [that] he wanted [Mr.] Carle to gather information on him. Mr. Carle recalled [his] boss saying, ‘The White House wants to get him.’”

    GLENN CARLE: Well, that’s substantially correct. The one nuance, perhaps, I would point out is there’s a difference between collecting information actively, going out and running an operation, say, to find out things about Mr. Cole, or providing information known through interactions.  (Emphasis mine.)  I would characterize it more as the latter.

    And later in the interview Carle continues:

    On the whole, Professor Cole and I are in agreement. The distinction I make is it wasn’t publicly known information that was requested; it was information that officers knew of a personal nature about Professor Cole, which is much more disturbing.There was no direct request that I’m aware, in the two instances of which I have knowledge, for the officers actively to seek and obtain, to conduct—for me to go out and follow Professor Cole. But if I knew lifestyle questions or so on, to pass those along. (Emphasis mine.)That’s how I—which is totally unacceptable.

    It would seem then that the interaction between the CIA operatives and Cole was long standing and sufficiently intimate that the CIA spooks could be expected to know things about Cole’s lifestyle and personal life.  It is not that anyone should give two figs about Cole’s personal life which is more than likely is every bit as boring as he claims.  But his relationship with the CIA is of interest since he is an unreconstructed hawk.  What was remarkable to me at the time is that Goodman did not pick up on any of this. Did she know before of Cole’s connections?  Was not this the wrong man to have as a “frequent guest,” in Goodman’s words, on the situation in the Middle East?

    This is not to claim that Cole is on a mission for the CIA to convince the left to support the imperial wars, most notably at the moment the war on Libya.  Nor is this a claim that the revelation about the White House seeking information on Cole was a contrived psyops effort to rehabilitate Cole so that he could continue such a mission.  That cannot be claimed, because there is as yet no evidence for it.  But information flows two ways in any consultation, and it is even possible that Cole was being loaded with war-friendly information in hopes he would transmit it.

    Cole is anxious to promote himself as a man of the left as he spins out his rationale for the war on Libya.  At one point he says to Goodman (3/29), “We are people of the left. We care about the ordinary people. We care about workers.”  It is strange that a man who claims such views dismisses as irrelevant the progress that has come to the people of Libya under Gaddafi, dictator or not.  (Indeed what brought Gaddafi down was not that he was a dictator but that he was not our dictator.)  In fact Libya has the highest score of all African countries on the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) and with Tunisia and Morocco the second highest level of literacy.  The HDI is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide.

    Whither the Left on the Question of Intervention?

    None of this is all too surprising given Cole’s status as a “humanitarian” hawk.  But it is outrageous that he is so often called on by Democracy Now for his opinion.  One of his appearances there was in a debate on the unconstitutional war in Libya, with CounterPunch’s estimable Vijay Prashad taking the antiwar side and Cole prowar.  It would seem strange for the left to have to debate the worth of an imperial intervention.  Certainly if one goes back to the days of the Vietnam War there were teach-ins to inform the public of the lies of the U.S. government and the truth about what was going on in Vietnam.  But let us give Democracy Now the benefit of the doubt and say that the debate was some sort of consciousness raising effort.  Why later on invite as a frequent guest a man who was the pro-war voice in the debate?  That is a strange choice indeed.

    This writer does not get to listen to Democracy Now every day.  But I have not heard a full-throated denunciation of the war on Libya from host or guests.  Certainly according to a search on the DN web site, Cynthia McKinney did not appear as a guest nor Ramsey Clark after their courageous fact finding tour to Libya.  There was only one all out denunciation of the war – on the day when the guests were Rev. Jesse Jackson and Vincent Harding who was King’s speechwriter on the famous speech “Beyond Vietnam” in 1967 in which King condemned the U.S. war on Vietnam.  Jackson and the wise and keenly intelligent Harding were there not to discuss Libya but to discuss the MLK Jr. monument.  Nonetheless Jackson and Harding made clear that they did not like the U.S. war in Libya one bit, nor the militarism it entails.

    If one reads CounterPunch.org, Antiwar.com or The American Conservative, one knows that one is reading those who are anti-interventionist on the basis of principle.  With Democracy Now and kindred progressive outlets, it’s all too clear where a big chunk of the so-called “left” stands, especially since the advent of Obama.   In his superb little book Humanitarian Imperialism Jean Bricmont criticizes much of the left for falling prey to advocacy of wars, supposedly based on good intentions.  And Alexander Cockburn has often pointed out that  many progressives are actually quite fond of “humanitarian” interventionism.   Both here and in Europe this fondness seems to be especially true of Obama’s latest war, the war on Libya .  It is little wonder that the “progressives” are losing their antiwar following to Ron Paul and the Libertarians who are consistent and principled on the issue of anti-interventionism.

    Democracy Now, quo vadis?  Wherever you are heading, you would do well to travel without Juan Cole and his friends.

    John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com After wading through Cole’s loose prose and dubious logic to write this essay, the author suspects that the rejection of Cole by the Yale faculty was the result of considerations that had little to do with neocon Bush/Cheney operatives.

    www.counterpunch.org,

  • CIA shifts focus to killing targets

    CIA shifts focus to killing targets

    By Greg Miller and Julie Tate

    Behind a nondescript door at CIA headquarters, the agency has assembled a new counterterrorism unit whose job is to find al-Qaeda targets in Yemen. A corresponding commotion has been underway in the Arabian Peninsula, where construction workers have been laying out a secret new runway for CIA drones.

    When the missiles start falling, it will mark another expansion of the paramilitary mission of the CIA.

    In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the agency has undergone a fundamental transformation. Although the CIA continues to gather intelligence and furnish analysis on a vast array of subjects, its focus and resources are increasingly centered on the cold counterterrorism objective of finding targets to capture or kill.

    The shift has been gradual enough that its magnitude can be difficult to grasp. Drone strikes that once seemed impossibly futuristic are so routine that they rarely attract public attention unless a high-ranking al-Qaeda figure is killed.

    But framed against the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks — as well as the arrival next week of retired Gen. David H. Petraeus as the CIA’s director — the extent of the agency’s reorientation comes into sharper view:

    ●The drone program has killed more than 2,000 militants and civilians since 2001, a staggering figure for an agency that has a long history of supporting proxy forces in bloody conflicts but rarely pulled the trigger on its own.

    ●The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, which had 300 employees on the day of the attacks, now exceeds al-Qaeda’s core membership around the globe. With about 2,000 on its staff, the CTC accounts for 10 percent of the agency’s workforce, has designated officers in almost every significant overseas post and controls the CIA’s expanding fleet of drones.

    ●Even the agency’s analytic branch, which traditionally existed to provide insights to policymakers, has been enlisted in the hunt. About 20 percent of CIA analysts are now “targeters” scanning data for individuals to recruit, arrest or place in the cross­hairs of a drone. The skill is in such demand that the CIA made targeting a designated career track five years ago, meaning analysts can collect raises and promotions without having to leave the targeting field.

    Critics, including some in the U.S. intelligence community, contend that the CIA’s embrace of “kinetic” operations, as they are known, has diverted the agency from its traditional espionage mission and undermined its ability to make sense of global developments such as the Arab Spring.

    Human rights groups go further, saying the CIA now functions as a military force beyond the accountability that the United States has historically demanded of its armed services. The CIA doesn’t officially acknowledge the drone program, let alone provide public explanation about who shoots and who dies, and by what rules.

    “We’re seeing the CIA turn into more of a paramilitary organization without the oversight and accountability that we traditionally expect of the military,” said Hina Shamsi, the director of the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

    CIA officials defend all aspects of the agency’s counterterrorism efforts and argue that the agency’s attention to other subjects has not been diminished. Fran Moore, head of the CIA’s analytic branch, said intelligence work on a vast range of issues, including weapons proliferation and energy resources, has been expanded and improved.

    “The vast majority of analysts would not identify themselves as supporting military objectives,” Moore said in an interview at CIA headquarters. Counterterrorism “is clearly a significant, growing and vibrant part of our mission. But it’s not the defining mission.”

    CIA2Agency within an agency

    Nevertheless, those directly involved in building the agency’s lethal capacity say the changes to the CIA since Sept. 11 are so profound that they sometimes marvel at the result. One former senior U.S. intelligence official described the agency’s paramilitary transformation as “nothing short of a wonderment.”

    “You’ve taken an agency that was chugging along and turned it into one hell of a killing machine,” said the former official, who, like many people interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. Blanching at his choice of words, he quickly offered a revision: “Instead, say ‘one hell of an operational tool.’ ”

    The engine of that machine is the CTC, an entity that has accumulated influence, authority and resources to such a degree that it resembles an agency within an agency.

    The center swelled to 1,200 employees in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and nearly doubled in size since then.

    The CTC occupies a sprawling footprint at the CIA campus in Langley, including the first floor of what is known as the “new headquarters” building. The chief of the center is an undercover officer known for his brusque manner, cigarette habit and tireless commitment to the job.

    A CIA veteran said he asked the CTC chief about the pace of strikes against al-Qaeda last year and got a typically profane reply: “We are killing these sons of bitches faster than they can grow them now.”

    The headquarters for that hunt is on a separate floor in a CTC unit known as the Pakistan-Afghanistan Department, referred to internally as PAD. Within the past year, the agency has created an equivalent department for Yemen and Somalia in the hope that it can replicate the impact of PAD.

    Inside the PAD entrance is a photographic tribute to the seven CIA employees who were killed by a suicide bomber in December 2009 at a remote base in the Afghan city of Khost. Two were former targeters who had worked in the CTC.

    Beyond that marker is a warren of cubicles and offices. On the walls are maps marked with the locations of CIA bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as whiteboards with lists of pending operations and code names of spies. Every paid informant is given a unique “crypt” that starts with a two-letter digraph designating spies who are paid sources of the CTC.

    PAD serves as the anchor of an operational triangle that stretches from South Asia to the American Southwest. The CIA has about 30 Predator and Reaper drones, all flown by Air Force pilots from a U.S. military base in a state that The Post has agreed, at the request of agency officials, not to name. The intelligence that guides their “orbits” flows in from a constellation of CIA bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    More here >> www.washingtonpost.com, 2 September 2011

  • CENSORED: The Black Banners

    CENSORED: The Black Banners

    The Black BannersOne former FBI agent is finding out firsthand that freedom of speech isn’t something guaranteed to every American. Colleagues at the CIA are keeping him from printing some of his own personal accounts in an upcoming book about the 9/11 attacks.

    In his upcoming book “The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al Qaeda,” Ali H. Soufan wants to write that the Central Intelligence Agency could have had a chance at keeping the September 11 terror attacks from happening. Soufan says that the CIA knew about two of the hijackers involved in the al-Qaeda plot, and while that information might have been of great interest to the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency withheld the crucial information.

    Specifically, Soufan says that the CIA had detailed information on 9/11 hijacker Abu Zubaydah as early as January 2000 but neglected to act on it.

    Also in his memoirs, Soufan writes detailed accounts of CIA interrogations tactics that he saw brutally executed firsthand by agents, which he were unnecessary and counterproductive. The agency is asking the author to remove the pronouns “I” and “me” from that chapter as if to discredit his personal accounts from specific incidents.

    Unfortunately, Soufan’s stories might never make it to print if the CIA has their say. The former agent says that he is being told to take out key parts from his tales, and he believes it isn’t because of a national security scare, but because the CIA doesn’t want to be reflected poorly to the public.

    As if that was even possible!

    In a report released yesterday by The New York Times, Soufan’s attorneys that they received word that the CIA could end up “embarrassed” by the author’s allegations. Soufan responded to the Times that it is “ridiculous” that they are redacting so much material from his book, but that he will rally to have the information published in further editions.

    Much of the material found in Soufan’s book has been available online and in print in the decade since 9/11, but the CIA says that doesn’t mean he can go ahead and talk about it. “Just because something is in the public domain doesn’t mean it’s been officially released or declassified by the U.S. government,” CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said in a statement.

    Upon originally sending a proof of the 600-page manuscript to the Bureau, Soufan was told to prove that dozens of names listed in the document were not classified. He opted simply to substitute aliases for many of the names, but meanwhile the CIA sent the FBI a copy. Their response? Nearly 200 pages of suggested cuts.

    With a deadline approaching, Soufan’s “The Black Banners” will hit the printing press this week, with the first edition using all of the cuts demanded by the FBI.

    , 26 August 2011

  • Libya: A classic CIA destabilization campaign

    Libya: A classic CIA destabilization campaign

    LibyaIn the 1980s the CIA and Mossad led a campaign to destabilise Libya which mirrors what has just happened in 2011:

    “The details of the plan were sketchy, but it seemed to be a classic CIA destabilization campaign. One element was a “disinformation” program designed to embarrass Kaddafi and his government. Another was the creation of a “counter government” to challenge his claim to national leadership. A third — potentially the most risky — was an escalating paramilitary campaign, probably by disaffected Libyan nationals, to blow up bridges, conduct small-scale guerrilla operations and demonstrate that Kaddafi was opposed by an indigenous political force.”

    –Newsweek, 3 August 1981

    30 years ago… Sound familiar?


     

  • CIA bilgi verdi, iki kişi yakalandı

    CIA bilgi verdi, iki kişi yakalandı

    CIA, 7 Mayıs tarihli istihbarat notunda PKK’nın hedefinin uçaklar olduğunu bildirdi.

    CIA bilgi verdi, iki kişi yakalandı

    f16 cia

    Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü İstihbarat Dairesi Başkanlığı’nın PKK’nın F-16 pilotlarına yönelik eylem hazırlığıyla ilgili raporuna benzer bir raporun CIA tarafından da hazırlandığı ortaya çıktı. Raporda, PKK’nın mıknatıslı plastik patlayıcı düzeneklerini pilotların araçlarının altına yapıştırarak Irak kamplarının bombalanmasına misilleme yapmayı amaçladığı belirtiliyor. CIA’in istihbarat paylaşımı doğrultusunda Cizre’de bir kişi yurtdışından kaçak yollarla getirdiği mıknatısla araç altına yapışma ve telefon düzeneği özellikli yaklaşık 1 kilo ağırlığında A-4 tipi plastik patlayıcıyla yakalandı.

    Kaçakçılar kullanılacak

    İstihbarat Daire Başkanlığı’nın bu yöndeki raporuna benzer bir raporu CIA’in de hazırladığı ortaya çıktı. PKK konusunda Türkiye’yle stratejik işbirliği yürüten CIA’den 7 Mayıs 2011 tarihinde gelen istihbarat bilgilerinde, Hava Kuvvetleri’ne ait Diyarbakır Ana Jet Üssü’nde görev yapan pilotların kullandığı araçların örgütün yeni hedefleri arasında olduğu yazıyor. PKK’nın mıknatıslı plastik patlayıcı düzeneklerini pilotların araçlarının altına yapıştırarak Irak kamplarının bombalanmasına misilleme yapmayı amaçladığı belirtiliyor. Raporda ayrıca PKK’nın bu patlayıcıların güvenlik güçlerince tespitini zorlaştırmak için de bölgedeki kaçakçıları kullanmayı planladığı belirtilerek, “Türkiye’ye kaçakçıların kontrolünde girişi yapılan bombalar ise içerde başka bir kurye aracılığıyla eylem yapılacak yere ulaştırılacak” deniliyor.

    İki kişi gözaltında

    Bu istihbarat bilgileri doğrultusunda önceki gün güvenlik güçleri Şırnak’ın ilçesi Cizre’de kaçakçı C.İ’yi yurtdışından kaçak yollarla getirdiği mıknatısla araç altına yapışma ve telefon düzeneği özellikli yaklaşık 1 kilo ağırlığında A-4 tipi plastik patlayıcıyla yakaladı. C.İ’nin sorgusu sonucunda patlayıcıyı ondan teslim alıp Diyarbakır’da F-16 pilotlarına eylem yapacağı iddia edilen L.Y.’ye ulaşıldı. L.Y de gözaltına alındı.

    ‘İstihbarat raporunu ilk Radikal yazdı’

    Radikal, geçen cumartesi günü PKK’nın F-16 pilotlarına eylem planladığı yönündeki istihbaratı haberleştirmiş ve İstihbarat Daire Başkanlığı’nın raporundaki, “(…) militanlar araçların altına kolayca yerleştirilebilen mıknatıslı bombalarla polis ekipleri ve savaş uçağı pilotlarının özel araçlarını patlatmayı tasarladıkları yönünde duyumlar alınmıştır” ifadelerine yer vermişti.

    PKK, seçim konvoylarını Anfo tipi bombayla vuracak

    PKK’nın 12 Haziran’da yapılacak seçimler için düzenlenecek mitingler ve seçim konvoylarını vurma hazırlığı yaptığını belirleyen Emniyet Genel Müdürlüğü, örgütün hayalet bomba olarak adlandırılan ‘Anfo’ tipi bomba kullanacağı bilgisine ulaştı. İstihbarat Daire Başkanlığı’nın 81 il emniyet müdürlüğüne gönderdiği raporda PKK’nın dedektörlerin belirleyemediği Anfo bombaları frekans bozucu cihazlardan etkilenmediği için tercih ettiği belirtiliyor. Raporda PKK’nın mitinglerle seçim konvoylarının güzergâhlarına Anfo tipi bomba yerleştireceği yazıyor. Anfo tipi bomba, ‘hayalet bomba’ olarak biliniyor. Amonyumnitrat ve fuel oil karışıklı patlayıcıyı köpekler fark edemiyor. Bomba düzenekleri frekans karıştırıcı cihazlardan etkilenmediği için patlatmak için lazerli uzaktan kumanda kullanılıyor. İSTANBUL/RADİKAL

    via CIA bilgi verdi, iki kişi yakalandı / Türkiye / Radikal İnternet.

  • CIA director Leon Panetta made top-secret trip to Turkey

    CIA director Leon Panetta made top-secret trip to Turkey

    By JPOST.COM STAFF

    04/26/2011 16:38

     

    Leon Panetta, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, made a highly confidential visit to Ankara in late March to discuss the unfolding situation in the Arab world.

    During classified conversations with Turkish officials, Panetta and his staff called the riots in Libya a “crisis,” and the rising sentiment against Syrian President Bashar Assad was referred to as being at “a critical threshold.”

    via CIA director Leon Panetta made top-secret trip to Turkey.