The guy is a terrorist--go grab his ass

Those words were once spoken by noted climate scientist and vice president Al Gore.  He offered the blunt assessment to Bill Clinton and his advisors huddling over how to handle a foreign terrorist.  In doing so he admitted it was a violation of international law.  But the guy's a terrorist!   

Strange how after the biggest terrorist attack in American history we actually DID go grab a terrorist's ass, in Italy.   But the CIA officers who did it were all later convicted of crimes by outraged Italian prosecutors.  One of the officers, Sabrina de Souza,  has found herself in a position of being extradited back to Rome to perhaps face serving jail time.  She made the mistake of leaving the States. 

And the Obama administration seems OK with that.  

Without knowing all the intricate details of this case, on the surface it sure seems weird that we would trade 5 hardcore Taliban terrorist commanders for an Army deserter, then allow the Italians to roast a CIA officer who herself was also on the global battlefield defending the West against radical Islamists like this cretin.   But it's an outrage a day anymore.  

Double Standard on Leaking? Yeah.

Everybody is correctly pointing out that General David Petraeus seems to be getting off easy for leaking classified info to his mistress while the administration has been the toughest ever on other leakers, such as ex CIA officer John Kiriakou. 

But what about Leon Panetta?  He was also DCIA and he was also accused of releasing classified information --not to someone else with a security clearance who didn't use the information -- but to the filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty who did.  Has anything happened to him? 

Or what about "Obama's favorite general", James Hoss Cartwright, who was implicated in the leak of the Stuxnet virus story to the New York Times several years ago prior to the 2012 elections?  Last word was he had been hammered hard by having his security clearance taken away back in 2013, but no status updates from Eric Holder on that investigation lately.

Both of those leaks made the administration look good.  So just sayin.  

As to General Petraeus, Sharyl Attkisson still has some unanswered questions.  Guess they will remain so. 

Petraeus did what?

This Fox News story on Benghazi is perplexing.  Catherine Herridge, who has done yeoman's work on the story from day one, is reporting that certain House members are claiming CIA Director David Petraeus sold them a bill of goods in closed testimony in the days immediately after the attack..

Newly declassified testimony shows at least five Republican lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee suggested former CIA Director David Petraeus provided bad information, or even misled them, after the 2012 Benghazi attack when he blamed an obscure Internet video and downplayed the significance of mortar attacks that night.

Very interesting. Why?  Because the previous narrative was that Petraeus was speaking truth to power in front of Congress on the matter.   Not only that, but the highly contested "CIA talking points" formulated ahead of UN Ambassador Rice's TV blitz on the Sunday talk shows indicated some displeasure from the Director because...

Petraeus was, according to Hayes, shocked to see references to “al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists” etc. mysteriously gone from the rewritten talking points. Which we already knew, kinda sorta, based on what Peter King revealed about Petraeus’s closed-doors testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last November.

Now suddenly we find out Peter King is saying he thinks the general was deceiving them?  And Mike Rogers is saying he wasn't straight with them, the same Mike Rogers who was the first to say it was a planned attack not a response to a You Tube clip?  Somewhere along the way the same guy decided it wasn't worth pursuing anymore and authored a dismissive report he knew the left-media would seize to make the GOP look like a pack of nutty conspiracists. 

Meanwhile it's still a mystery as to why General Petraeus suddenly disappeared into the ether following his initial involvement.  Maybe it has something to do with his subsequent shameful departure from CIA as the president won reelection.  Somehow his Deputy Mike Morell took over as the face of the event after the first week, the same guy who told Congress he didn't know who changed the talking points after he'd changed them.  He subsequently bailed out and landed a cushy consulting job with ex-Hillary staffers.

As Sharyl Attkisson asked in her book, it's logical to ask whether Petraeus was compromised at the time due to the investigation into his extra-marital affair.  As of 9/11/12, it appears the FBI knew about the affair, as did Eric Holder (former congressman Eric Cantor was informed by an FBI agent in October). Who else knew during the week after the attack?  Maybe Trey Gowdy will stumble across something, if they let him.

While we wait it's worth pointing out that the State Department was weirdly mum when asked about this report the other day (emphasis added):

Abd al-Baset Azzouz, the alleged leader of al-Qaida in Libya accused of involvement in the 2012 murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, was captured in Turkey, according to media reports. A Turkish daily reported that Azzouz, an al-Qaida operative who allegedly headed the terrorist organization's Libya branch, and was involved in the murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens in a raid on the embassy in 2012, was arrested two weeks ago and extradited to the U.S.

Damn!  Well, there's some disagreement on where he was taken, but why would the administration miss an opportunity to trumpet the capture of another Benghazi suspect?  Hmm, could it be this..

The suspect, also known as Abdulbasit Azuz, was designated a "global terrorist" in September by the U.S. State Department. The department said in a notice that Azzouz "committed or poses a significant risk of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States." British media outlets have reported that he oversaw hundreds of al-Qaida recruits at a training camp in eastern Libya. Eastern Libya is a nexus of training grounds for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), which splintered from al-Qaida, according to David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command.

As stated over and over on this blog--ISIS (AQI) fighters were involved in Benghazi at the same time we were aiding them to fight Assad in Syria, before they got out control and started lopping off heads.  So it's a little inconvenient to admit that this recent capture was sent to Libya in 2011 to start an AQ cell, which turned into an attack on our embassy.  But yeah, for the most part this Benghazi stuff is just a phony scandal that has been officially dismissed by the Rogers report. We must get back to the national conversation on race, which became important after the mid-terms. 

Clinton to Berger on bin Laden

Gotta watch the stuff trickling out of the Bubba R Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.  On a Friday doc dump the library released a handwritten note from the first black president to Sandy 'socks' Berger, his national security advisor at the time, expressing doubt about some intelligence on bin Laden.

The note was written several months after Clinton bombed some tents in Khost Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in the Sudan (1998), which prompted charges he was 'wagging the dog' to remove attention from Monicagate. 

For those who've forgotten, Clinton bombed the plant based on CIA evidence of traces of EMPTA in the ground outside the plant, a substance related to the processing of VX nerve gas.  What most of the mainstream press reports are conveniently ignoring is that the Clinton crew thought Saddam's WMD scientists were involved in helping bin Laden produce this chemical.

So here's the note:

What does it suggest?  And why were they unafraid to release it?  At the same time, they were afraid to release any part of the internal communications between Berger and colleagues Dan Benjamin and Richard Clarke in response--national security.

Well, since Clinton was referencing a NY Times article in 1999 it's useful to understand what Times writer Tim Weiner was saying:

The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been made by the Government about Mr. bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials concede that their knowledge of him is sketchy. ''We can't say for sure what was going on'' with him from 1991 to 1996 -- most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.

His Affluence Seems Overstated Present and former American officials and former business associates of Mr. bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million fortune that the American Government says he possesses. ''Clearly, his money's running out,'' said Frank Anderson, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern contacts.

Larry Johnson, the State Department deputy counterterrorism director from 1988 to 1993, said Administration officials had ''tended to make Osama bin Laden sort of a Superman in Muslim garb -- he's 10 feet tall, he's everywhere, he knows everything, he's got lots of money and he can't be challenged.''

Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's war in Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had ''created a North Star'' in Mr. bin Laden. ''He is public enemy No. 1,'' Mr. Bearden said. ''We've got a $5 million reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what evidence, linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade, perhaps.''

In other words, anonymous CIA and Justice people were telling the Times the legal case against UBL wasn't solid while former high profile intelligence people were downplaying his role.  At the same time Vince Cannistraro, another former intel guy, was telling ABC News that bin Laden might be teaming up with Saddam, while also allegedly telling lawyer Stephen Jones of Oklahoma City bombing fame that the government didn't want any foreign suspects in that case.  Richard Clarke, who was part of the communication with Berger on this event, once famously said UBL might 'boogie to Baghdad' if they missed getting him in Afghanistan.  No wonder Slick was confused.

The key phrase is obviously, "..the CIA sure overstated its case to me..".  So what 'case' does he suspect was being overstated?  This was after a PDB in December 1998 warning of al Qaeda hijacking an airplane to secure the release of members of the 1993 WTC attack and after the embassy attacks, so it's not like terrorism itself was being overstated, just the role of the players involved.

Reporters are assuming he meant CIA was overstating the importance of bin Laden but it's valid to wonder whether Clinton might have been asking a broader question--if UBL is not the 'north star' the CIA claims, who is?   It's hard to imagine how one New York Times article could prompt doubt about terrorism in general, Clinton seemed to be confused on the role of one guy in the nexus--bin Laden.

And that goes directly to the response, which was completely redacted. Keep in mind Clarke and Benjamin have never come off the intelligence that led them to recommend bombing al-Shifa and few if any in the press have grilled them about it.  Returning to Tom Joscelyn's link above..

"The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al-Shifa. There were three different structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there. Some of the Clinton people seem to forget that they did make the Iraqi connection."

So Clinton was questioning the CIA's assessment of UBL, at least in private, while his own team was indicting UBL and making links between him and Saddam Hussein.  As late as 1999. 

Yet when Clinton gave Fox an interview in 2006 (where he wagged his finger at Chris Matthews), he seemed to be saying he did more than anyone to stop bin Laden:

CLINTON: All I'm saying is, you falsely accused me of giving aid and comfort to bin Laden because of what happened in Somalia. No one knew Al Qaeda existed then. And ...

WALLACE: But did they know in 1996 when he declared war on the U.S.? Did they know in 1998 ...

CLINTON: Absolutely, they did.

WALLACE: ... when he bombed the two embassies?

CLINTON: And who talked about ...

WALLACE: Did they know in 2000 when he hit the Cole?

CLINTON: What did I do? What did I do? I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still president, we'd have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him.

Now, I've never criticized President Bush, and I don't think this is useful. But you know we do have a government that thinks Afghanistan is only one-seventh as important as Iraq.

Pretty feisty, but he admits his counterterrorism team knew about the threat from bin Laden in 1996, three years prior to the note.  Evidently he was still wavering in 1999.

But in the same interview he also told Wallace that neither the CIA nor FBI would 'cerfify' that UBL was behind the attacks, which supports the wishy-washy narrative and provides him some cover despite the CIA setting up a special office in 1996 to track UBL headed by Michael Scheuer (who has been very critical of the Clinton team on apprehending or killing bin Laden in the late 90s).  

It also ignores the aforementioned indictment of UBL in 1998 (mentioning a tie to Iraq then updated to remove ties) and KSM.  Yet here's Slick still questioning the CIA's assessment of UBL's role in global terror in 1999.  Strange.

Could it impact Hillary! 2016?  Only if anyone asks.  Clintonistas might reply that it shows Bill was solidly focused on terrorism but wasn't sure about the intelligence on UBL due to some wishy-washyness at the CIA. Here's a comedic example of how an international news site handled it:

In one file referencing bin Laden, Clinton urgently asked his top national security aide whether the CIA overstated the involvement of the terrorist leader in the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Yes that's it, an 'urgent' Clinton was seeking 'extra' information in his quest for the terror leader. By the way, the indictment was in 1998 as indicated above in this post, not after April 1999 as in the story.  Now here's a biased domestic site:

...

Wait, there's very little coverage in the mainstream press other than a stock AP story.   Which by the way is the one quoted above in the international news site.  The Washington Post ran that stock AP story.  The New York Times, itself mentioned in the release, ran an in-house version of the story that said less than AP.  Did the AP intentionally report the indictment as after the note?   Moving it makes it appear Slick was more engaged or even indicted UBL based on the redacted reply from Berger.  Reality makes him look confused and less engaged.  Josh Gerstein explains as well.   

Aides, if anyone asks, may also argue the note explains his cruise missile flop in 1998, ie, it wasn't wagging the dog, it was the CIA overstating the case--or in other words, he was wondering if he was on the right target or whether someone else was running the terror show.   Those goofballs at CIA!   They could then claim that the response from Berger to Clinton, which nobody in public is allowed to see but they know, but can only summarize in general, was that no, the CIA did not overstate the status of UBL, he was still the top dog.  And Clinton, with his question answered, strapped on his cape and pressed forward in his relentless war against bin Laden, unlike Bush who "ignored" his own August 2001 PDB (heavily covered by the press for some reason) that led to 9/11.  They always have a ready answer that satisfies the baby bird press.

Perhaps more interesting than all the finger pointing and blame shifting is the reminder in the 1999 Times story of anniversaries.  The African embassy bombings of 1998 occurred exactly 8 years to the day after US forces entered Saudi Arabia to begin Operation Desert Shield to protect that country from Saddam's forces in Kuwait.  Add to that, in February 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed on the anniversary of the day celebrated in Kuwait as 'liberation day' (2/26/91) from Saddam's forces, and September 11, 1990 was the day when president George HW Bush first called for a "New World Order" in a speech declaring that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait would not stand.  Even this past week the shoot-down of MH17 occurred on the 18th anniversary of TWA800, although the CIA said there was "not a missile" involved in that one. Terrorists do love their anniversaries.   And yes, this post is too long. Nobody cares anymore. 

So who outed the Kabul Chief of Station?

How long does an investigation of such a thing take?  After all, they know who did it.  Any garden variety IT guy could determine such a thing in no time. So what's going to happen to that person?  What's the accountability?  Was it possibly intentional?  Valerie Plame is outraged and wants to know!  

Terrorism Update

It's terrible that scores of mostly Christian girls have been abducted by Islamic crackpots in Nigeria.  That's what head-choppers do--remember Beslan?  These are the same 'extremists' who attacked a mall in Nairobi last year and killed scores of innocents.  They attacked a church early in the year but drew little outrage from political corners here.  

Now we're all supposed to be outraged.  The First Lady is holding a sign with a hashtag, looking glum.  But wasn't it also terrible when the Islamic government in Sudan allowed the killing, raping and violation of human rights of non-Arabs in Darfur.  By the way, where is George Clooney on this now?   Were there White House hashtags on Darfur? 

Those with keen memories may remember when 3 Americans were killed by elements of AQIM in Algeria last year for the crime of working at a gas plant.  Of course it was tragic when 4 Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 but wanting anything more on that story now qualifies a person as a conspiracy loon following a phony scandal.  Maybe Obama will come on his broadcast Saturday holding a sign with hashtag phony scandal. 

What about the past actions of Joseph Kony?  Horrible.  Definitely.  

So all of the above brings up a question-- exactly what is Obama's policy on terrorism anymore?  What triggers a response and what triggers silence or even cover-ups or outrage?  

Well, he's sent troops to Africa--not to officially search and destroy AQ--but to look for Kony.  We have a drone base or two there, but they seem to be pretty quiet.  Now the Obama folks are prepared to send help of some description to find these girls, this after the Clinton State Department once resisted calling the terrorists terrorists.   The killers of 7 Americans in northern Africa remain at large but they are being pursued by FBI gumshoes, not troops. 

Meanwhile, AQ factions are fighting and committing atrocities in Syria and Iraq but that's a no go zone.  Other terrorists are holing up in Yemen and are shot at by drones every other week.  We're apparently bugging out of Afghanistan at the end of the year, although it's hard to know because any press reports from the front lines of the GWoT are rare.  Reports of discussions with the Taliban come up every now and then.


So what are we doing?   Is the plan to aimlessly fire at moles when they pop up, as long as the moles are isolated and may not cause collateral problems, or is there an overall strategy in play?  We've been told the prez is one of the smartest men to ever hold office, so maybe it's just hard for mortals to understand.  It certainly looks like the overarching strategy is ruled more by politics than anything else, but that would surely be a racist thought.  

Intel Wars

With focus on the Malaysian aircraft disappearance, Ukraine, and Obama trying to do comedy on some Hollywood pinhead's internet channel, this story hasn't gotten the legs it would have otherwise.  But the press has sure noticed it..

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) stunning accusation that the CIA spied on her panel plunged the president into a controversy over the separation of powers that threatens to become a major headache for his administration. The White House did its best to steer clear of the storm on Tuesday, but Obama could soon be forced to take sides.

What the heck is going on?   Well, it's complicated.

The Senate has been working on an intel report that will presumably show the CIA took torture to heart during the Bush years but the outcome was mostly fun with no results.  It didn't lead to bin Laden or anyone else.  Therefore, Bush should be impeached or sent to the Hague or something.

Not surprisingly the Republican Senators on the committee don't agree.  That's all standard stuff and really won't get much traction with the American public because 1) it's business as usual in Washington, and 2) everybody that went to see "Zero Dark Thirty" knows we roughed up some jihadies.

The interesting thing here is the setup. CIA DCIA (Director) John Brennan was a Langley overseer of the 'torture' program during the Bush years. He punched out of the CIA around 2006 to became the head of a security firm called "The Analysis Corporation", which was later embroiled in a scandal over passport access during the 2008 elections. One of Brennan's employees was apparently reprimanded for accessing Obama's passport records (something that clown Keith Olbermann compared to Watergate as the story broke, only to find out shortly thereafter that Hillary's and McCain's records were also accessed). The story quickly dropped to the bottom of the ocean floor, where things go to rest.  

At the time Brennan was acting as a security adviser to Senator Obama.  He had donated the max to the campaign.  Then Obama won. He nominated Brennan for DCIA but the nutroots went nuts because of his 'torture' background at CIA. So Brennan removed his name from contention and Obama made him some kind of a security czar.  Brennan kept a low profile except for a few notable instances, in particular the Christmas 2009 underwear bomber case (he claimed the case was 'unique'), the UBL takedown (he told the press UBL was killed in a firefight) and the package bomb fiasco (where the identity of a Brit-Saudi asset embedded in AQAP was blown, some blaming Brennan).  

This propelled him to be nominated to DCIA again after Obama won in 2012, where he was confirmed.  But during his confirmation hearings Democratic Senators asked a lot of questions about the torture program, to which Brennan said he would work with the Senate in their investigation. 

To that end, the CIA developed some kind of secure access room at Langley for Senate staffers to visually access the documents compiled on 'the program'.  To confuse matters, former DCIA Panetta started an internal report when he was there to allow CIA staffers to keep track of what was being provided to Congress.

Now comes the rub. Senate staffers working in the access room somehow found a way to access some documents that weren't supposed to be there.  They claimed they were worried about them disappearing because some other docs had, so they found a way to grab them, print them, and scurry them off to their bosses in the Senate.  According to those in the know the documents contained scribblings by CIA personnel that agreed with Senate Democrats on the idea of torture fail (Feinstein yesterday suggested those documents might have been put there by 'whistleblowers').
 
Over time the CIA came to understand that somebody had something they weren't allowed to have, and sent some IT geeks into the access room to scan the PCs whereupon they found evidence of the theft. So the CIA general counsel (chief lawyer) sent a referral to the Justice Dept (Eric Holder) over the unauthorized access.  To make things even more fun, according to the WaPo this lawyer oversaw parts of the program. 

Anyway.... that criminal referral over the doc theft lead to Diane Feinstein's outburst on the Senate floor yesterday.  Starting to get the gist of this child's play now?  But where does Obama come in, you say?

That's even more fun.  Brennan is basically "Obama's man".  He was the loyal adviser to the campaign who went on to help answer some difficult questions during the first term, and was rewarded with DCIA for the second.  Now the president is in the middle of a squabble between high-ranking Democrats in the Senate (his allies) and "his man" at the CIA.  What to do?   Send out Jay Carney to stonewall, of course!

But that can't last forever because the president himself may be involved in this intrigue, as pointed out in this rather disgusting display of journalist intimidation by Carney to a young female Politico reporter at yesterday's briefing.  C-SPANs clipping process isn't working so you'll have to advance to 47:44 to view.  Also, you might want to check out Chuck Todd's exchange beginning at 32:19.   




So why is this happening?  Didn't the president's Justice Department decline to prosecute anyone at CIA for what the president called torture?  Didn't the president himself say we need to look forward, not backwards?  Yes.  Meaning this is all politics.  Well, except the part about whether the administration told the Senate to remove the documents, which would seem to pit Brennan against the president and Senate Dems. 

If the president takes Brennan's side he'll tick off his allies in the Senate and in effect throw cold water on the highly political torture report that Democrats no doubt want to use as another cudgel against the GOP ahead of the mid-terms, a report that our forward looking president wants to declassify despite hiring an overseer of the torture program as CIA chief. 

If he throws Brennan under the bus well, Brennan is a career CIA man.  He knows a few things. He might be able to do some "damage" on his way to that figurative spot under the bus.  Maybe that's part of why Brennan was chosen as security adviser then DCIA in the first place, as kind of insurance policy to keep the CIA at bay.  Maybe in year six that's no longer necessary.  Maybe we'll see.  Maybe we won't.

National Journal piece on "the next Bin Laden"

Michael Hirsh from National Journal has a long report about small wars terrorist Abu Musab al-Suri, otherwise known as Setmariam Nasar, or the "Red Headed Terrorist". Hirsh wonders aloud if al-Suri is 'the next bin Laden'. The column is worth some analysis.

First, on al-Suri's whereabouts.  Reports surfaced in the early days of the Syrian civil war that Bashar Assad had released him as sort of a punishment to the west.  Hirsh finds some problems with that:

Yet even the senior diplomatic, intelligence, and defense officials who run the U.S. government's "Rewards for Justice" program, which offers money for tips leading to top terrorists, are unsure whether al-Suri is at large: A State Department official told National Journal this week that defense and intelligence agencies are still discussing whether to put him back on the wanted list.

Interesting, most assumed he was on the loose.  But hold on a sec, how can the State Dept talk to the NJ about deliberations regarding putting al-Suri on the list--a guy who some say might be the next UBL--but won't comment to Fox or AP on whether they've even deliberated over placing any of the Benghazi suspects on the list?  Then come back later and say they are actually on the list but in stealth mode due to 'sensitivities' with the investigation?  Bin Laden was pretty sensitive.  Perhaps it has to do with Nasar himself--maybe he moved to Libya or has been directing arms flows into Syria from elsewhere.  Oh to be a fly on the wall of the secret interrogation of Abu Anas al-Libi.  

Anyway, Hirsh sets up al-Suri as an ideological foe of UBL, saying Binny was "deeply opposed" to his ideas of small guerrilla jihad (UBL wanted spectacular attacks). Yet in the same article Hirsh admits that al-Suri's perfect attack would end in the use of WMDs, which sounds pretty darned spectacular, even if on a small scale.   We know UBL was not opposed to the use of WMD nor is the current Numero Uno, who tried to get an anthrax program launched in the years before 9/11.

Interestingly enough, al-Suri was never a member of AQ and did not pledge allegiance to the big guy. He was involved in the radical arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and allegedly took part in the 1982 uprising against Bashar Assad's father in Syria, which was reportedly crushed by using chemical weapons.  He then fled Syria and went, well, somewhere..

He then joined the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood organisation in exile, receiving training at their bases and safe houses in Iraq and Jordan.

The idea he was in Iraq is somewhat controversial for obvious reasons, since it brings in the possibility that Saddam knew about it and looked the other way. Saddam certainly wasn't BFF with the Assads despite their shared Ba'athist philosophy for many reasons, the most obvious being their Iranian connections. Would it be surprising to learn that Iraq approved of the Syrian Brotherhood's 'safe houses' in their country?  It's not like they hadn't been dabbling in the affairs of Lebanon during the time of the uprising.  And all were Sunnis.  Enemy of my enemy stuff. 

But OK, al-Suri is the new breed of international terrorist, favoring Boston bombing or Kenya Mall style attacks. How can these be stopped? 

And the consensus of senior defense and intelligence officials in the U.S. government is that NSA surveillance may well be the only thing that can stop the next terrorist from blowing apart innocent Americans, as happened in Boston last April. "Al-Qaida is far more a problem a dozen years after 9/11 than it was back then," Arquilla says.

Interesting, considering that neither the Boston or Nairobi attacks were smoked out by the NSA trolling.  Continuing, Hirsh quotes former NSA Director Hayden on the cause-effect of Congressional or constitutional interference in data trolling:

Says Michael Hayden: "People have to understand these actions [against the NSA] will have consequences." He adds that the U.S. intelligence community believes that it is mostly on top of the "big, complicated, multiple-actor, slow-moving plot [like 9/11]. But [the terrorists] are not doing that now. They're into much lower-in-threshold things. Which again demand very good intelligence, very comprehensive intelligence" that casts as wide a net as possible around the world.

But if they are on top of the big 9/11 plots then it seems anything smaller done by the terrorists, like Boston, should be 'manageable' and handled with law enforcement.  Do we want to throw our liberty out the window to possibly thwart small attacks?  Speaking of which:

Obama administration officials say they know about the mushrooming new threat and insist they did not mislead the American public by claiming success against core al-Qaida.

Only in the world of Obama can AQ be "mushrooming" as they run off to the horizon clinging to the end of their ropes.  But these are the same guys who said if you like you policy you could keep your policy, period.  Right now a blue ribbon panel is discussing the NSA collection methods (the preferred method of kicking a scandal down the road) and will probably report back around Christmas Eve that the NSA collection program is pretty awesome and should be increased.  Meanwhile,

Obama administration officials hope many of these new jihadist groups will remain mostly engaged in local fights, as against the Syrian regime. And that if they do attack U.S. interests at home or abroad, they are expected to focus on small-scale terrorist acts, like the Marathon bombings.

That's why Obama says the United States should stop calling the conflict with radical Islamists a "war" and view it instead as it was seen pre-9/11, as an inevitable, but manageable, law-enforcement problem.

Following that logic?  AQ is decimated but mushrooming, so we should treat them the same as liquor store robbers but we must use a nationwide dragnet against the population to stop this.  Does the NSA get involved in trolling the phone lines of future liquor store robbers?  After all, four people might die in the holdup or an ensuing high speed chase.  And God forbid Obama ever have to consider using drones or bombers to stop AQ terrorists in Iraq, who appear to be free to operate without fear of retribution as long as they focus on Syria.

Of course this is not like liquor store robberies at all, it's still a GWoT run by fanatics who aren't afraid to die and who want to create as many mass casualties as possible.  Liberals have always wanted it both ways--Kerry ran on the law enforcement approach in 2004--because a global war/threat must be addressed with all our assets, including far-flung military resources, which drains tax monies from their domestic spending agendas amidst a 17.5 trillion dollar debt.  Can't very well decrease the military spending in favor of food stamps if Setmariam Suri bin Laden is waiting around the corner to release chemicals on Times Square or a Navy ship or one of our embassies.

It's clear from reading the piece it's a veiled defense of the current NSA surveillance program. Not everyone is automatically opposed to such methods to defend the nation, by the way.  Some believed president Bush when he said the program was designed to track terrorists making phone calls to people in the United States and vice versa.  That turned out to be a lie--it was much larger.  The irony is that Hirsh hobnobbed in the same liberal circle of those who thought Bush's program was unconstitutional yet now seems to be defending an even larger program during Obama because national security.  That old fear of overreach is much more nuanced now..

Yes, there is ample reason to think the NSA has overreached in recent years—as even Secretary of State John Kerry has conceded—by prowling for diplomatic and economic information from rival and even friendly powers rather than focusing narrowly on counterterrorism. German Chancellor Merkel's cell phone and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's conversations may be a SIGINT bridge too far, causing unnecessary disruption of diplomatic relations and global stability for meager intelligence returns.

Spying on external targets is the mission of the NSA. Funny how that now represents the "bridge too far" when during the previous administration the far bridge was merely listening to the phone calls of people who might be dialing up the likes of an al-Suri.  Here's the closing comment:

But the very real danger now is that, in seeking to prevent the NSA from conducting such operations in the future, Congress may throw out the baby with the bathwater. And the world of omnipresent terror that Abu Musab al-Suri wants to create could become a far more perilous one for Americans.

Actually some are concerned that the "baby" is actually the founding document, or as some liberals once claimed Bush called it, that 'GD piece of paper'.

Look, if we could trust the NSA to just collect phone call records of Americans, available for review if a warrant were issued with requisite probable cause--based only on their legal snooping of foreign persons--that may be acceptable to some degree. We are still threatened.  And if they are correct about al-Suri, we are threatened with terrible weapons, even if on a smaller scale.

But as the Snowden leaks point out it's too easy for the protectors to go too far.  Who watches the watchers?  If we lose the country we lose the war.  If indeed the jihadist threat has been minimized to the local scale, within the capabilities of law enforcement, then perhaps it's time for the constitutional scholar-in-chief to have an adult conversation with Americans to discuss the cost of protecting our liberties.  But if the trans-national threat is still as bad as it was on 9/10/01--or even close--then maybe that conversation should be about the trade-off of giving away some liberty to gain a little temporary security.  

Yeah, sounds naive.  We can't really handle brutal honesty. 

That Place in Eastern Libya Again

Watching with an interested eye to see what becomes of Lara Logan and her Benghazi story, especially the whereabouts of Dylan Davies. The Daily Beast has more information on the man that anonymous administration sources basically called a liar:

In the message, which was sent on Friday morning to Simon & Schuster vice president Jennifer Robinson, Davies said someone had threatened to harm his family if he continued to defend his account of events in Benghazi to the media. The email was obtained by The Daily Beast.

Now, it wasn't speculated in the article but this "they are threatening my family" story could well be the perfect BS escape narrative for a man who lied to sell a book.  It appears he sent the message shortly before the book was pulled but after CBS did their initial mea culpa on their Morning Show, so that timing is very interesting, especially since he claims the first threat arrived on November 3rd (CBS didn't run their apology until the 8th).

Then again, with this Benghazi story would it really be shocking to find out it's true?  At the same time, if it's true it should be totally shocking.  Think about it.  Perhaps 60 Minutes will investigate.  

And thankfully the Beast finally mentioned the 302 forms.  They are the first prominent outlet to do so, which brings into play the fact that somewhere written evidence likely exists to either prove or disprove Davies story but for some reason they didn't feel compelled to leak it.  Everybody seemed to buy it anyway.

Meanwhile, the State Department has now admitted they actually put the Benghazi suspects on their Rewards for Justice program, offering up to 10 million dollars for info leading to their capture.  Thing is, they do not appear anywhere on the website.  In other words, they are offering an unpublicized reward.  Here's the AP's Matt Lee:

A State Department official familiar with the letter sent to Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, by Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield acknowledged that it's unusual not to publicize offers of rewards, but said investigators have other ways of making sure the information is known "as needed." In the course of the probe, investigators have made it known to individuals that cash is available for those coming forward with actionable information.

Emphasis added to point out what appears to be a double secret RFJ program.  Good grief, they had bin Laden on the site, what could be so sensitive?   It only makes things look worse.

By the way, Matt Lee is the AP's primary State Dept reporter. For several weeks he's been sitting in the State Dept press room while a junior Fox reporter hectors the State spokeswomen about why the Benghazi suspects weren't put on RFJ only to be stonewalled, as Lee mentions in the last paragraph.  He has joined in a time or two to get clarification or chide State for a lack of transparency.  Nobody else in the room will take that ball and run with it except Lee a few times, which the Dept has deftly exploited over the last year to tamp down inquires.

So, going forward it will be interesting to see if 1) Davies ever shows up anywhere, 2) what becomes of the information gathered this week as the House interviewed five CIA officers involved in the firefight, and 3) whether the rest of the media will join in the story again despite the Logan embarrassment and in light of the glow fading from the presidential halo.

Obama Renders Foreign Terrorist to Secret Interrogation Chamber

The capture of Anas al-Libi was heralded over the weekend as a good "get" (it is!) but few talked about the obvious political problems inherent in such an operation (few being the same media talking heads who grilled Bush about such things).    

For instance, it appears a Delta Force team, with assistance from CIA and FBI (we are not sure which boots were actually on the ground in Libya), snatched this guy off the streets where he was apparently living free and easy like Al Bundy.   The administration is being tight-lipped other than heralding an eventual transfer to a cell in Manhattan where he will get appropriate (non Bush) justice, ignoring all inconvenient details in between because, national security.

There are still rumors and leaks though, and some suggest al-Libi is on a Navy ship somewhere in the Med discussing his life with a HIG team.  No word on when he will be Mirandized and sent to New York, but as some have said it probably won't be as long as that guy Warsame, who was also captured in Africa several years ago and then spent a considerable amount of time on a ship in the Red Sea discussing things (strictly following the Army Field Manual, of course).  To their credit the Firedogs were biotching about this, showing that some liberals practice intellectual honesty.   OK, the Paulnuts are consistent as well. 

This guy Anas is a bigger fish though, fetching a cool 5 million on the Rewards for Justice list, so it will be harder to hide the process this time, which probably means he'll be in the Big Apple soon.  No word on whether anyone is claiming the 5 mil reward. 

The administration seems to blush when asked whether al-Libi was 'rendered'--they are saying it was a military operation and he's being held and interrogated under the AUMF under US law and laws of war, so it wasn't like a Bushitler extraordinary rendition because, Obama.  And how dare anyone even ask the question! 

That's odd in contrast to the way they handle questions about Benghazi.  The State Department and White House will refer everyone to the Department of Justice/FBI for any details on how justice is being pursued, as if Ansar al-Sharia is a faction of the New Black Panthers.  When asking questions to the FBI reporters are greeted with no details because, ongoing criminal investigation. 

So with four dead Americans and a bonafide terrorist attack they keep everything rooted in the FBI; for a suspected terrorist who might not even have been operating these past few years they send in Delta Force and use the AUMF to justify stowing him away on a ship before Mirandizing him and sending him to the klink with his assigned public defender.  Because transparency.

And don't try to figure out what happens when al-Libi claims he was 'tortured' on the Navy ship or secret black site, wherever he is, before being transferred back to the FBI in New York. The answer to that question is Bush.    

Meanwhile, aside from this embarrassment, which was clearly Boehner's fault, the administration made a curious move today, designating the Muhammad Jamal group in Egypt a recognized terrorist group. Anyone associated with the EIJ should have been deemed terrorists long ago.  Not mentioned was their possible involvement in the Benghazi attack, something Thomas Joscelyn mentions here.  Hmm, maybe the administration is about to unleash those FBI agents and roll out some justice against someone other than the Mohammed filmmaker.   Just don't ask any questions about it because shut up.   

 

News about real Terrorists

No, not the extremists Obama and Reid have been blabbering about for weeks, real terrorists.  Our real enemy.  The CIA and FBI have apparently captured Anas al-Liby, who's been a permanent fixture on the Rewards for Justice site since the 90s.

Al-Liby was captured in broad daylight in Tripoli, indicating just how stable and secure that country is after Obama liberated it.  No GTMO for him, he will of course be flown back to New York for a civilian trial.  No word on whether the "HIG" team has or will interrogate him.  

Here's a blurb..

Abu Anas, 49, was born in Tripoli and is believed to have joined Bin Laden’s organization as early as the early 1990s, when it was based in Sudan. He later moved to Britain, where he had been granted political asylum. United States prosecutors in New York charged him in a 2000 indictment with helping to conduct “visual and photographic surveillance” of the United States Embassy in Nairobi in 1993 and again in 1995.

In the indictment, prosecutors said Abu Anas had discussed with another senior Qaeda figure the idea of attacking an American target in retaliation for the United States peacekeeping operation in Somalia.

He was a wanted fish and it's good we finally got him, although he wasn't a top level fish (he was among a list of 41 wanted terrorists worth 5 million for capture).  Oddly, CNN ran a story on him on September 27, claiming that he had been seen on the streets of Tripoli yet he seemed oblivious to the possibility he might get nabbed.  CNN seems to get wind of all kinds of terrorists in Libya before anyone else, although this one wasn't associated with Benghazi.  As to when he was nabbed, the Times story does not say but the CBS report claims it was today.

The bigger takeaway is Libya itself.   If indeed he was grabbed today then this dude was just walking around in the capital for weeks after being fingered by the western media, apparently oblivious to the threat. So who's running that show now anyway?   The media dropped their reporting on Libya as soon as Gaddafi was gone, and only sporadically report about the violence in Iraq after Obama ended the war.  The same will happen when we leave Afghanistan next year.  Obama has now redefined the terrorist enemy as John Boehner and the Tea Party, meanwhile the real war on terror rages on. 

As to the al-Shishkebob raid in Somalia, the SEALS might have gotten a ring leader, although the military is keeping very quiet about it so far. Interesting timing--they just released some unseen footage of the Blackhawk Down raid in Mogadishu yesterday.  Getting one guy might be satisfying but we sent lots of assets into Somalia back in 2008 in concert with Kenya and Ethiopia ground forces--now both those countries have suffered reprisal attacks.

MORE  10/6/13

Here's our apparent co-president John Kerry explaining the justice process, which apparently involves some hope-filled unicorns:

..."continue to try to bring people to justice in an appropriate way with hopes that ultimately these kinds of activities against everybody in the world will stop."

So much for AQ being decimated. And appropriate as in what? Rendition? Because it sure seems like this was a rendition. Here's CNN:

The Libyan interim government called the U.S. capture a kidnapping and has requested an explanation from Washington about the raid, the country's state news agency reported Sunday. Libya emphasized its citizens should be tried in Libya if they are facing charges, LANA reported.

That could be posturing--there was a lot of posturing by foreign governments back when Bush did rendition after 9/11, when it was evil.  Now it's cool again, as it was in the 90s when Clinton did it.  Here's a political perspective from a congressman:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House intelligence committee, called Ruqai’s capture “a major blow against the remnants of al-Qaida’s core.” The lawmaker said Ruqai was “thought to be in Libya to help set up new cells and recruit new members.”

Will they please stop with this 'AQ core' nonsense? AQ is AQ. They say AQ Core to get them off the hook from having to deal with AQ affiliates in Iraq and Iran and those fighting with the rebels in Syria. It's stupid and political.

Still wondering about interrogation. Here's the NY Times:

American officials said they would be questioning Abu Anas for several weeks. But they did not dispute that New York, where an indictment is pending against him, was most likely his ultimate destination. 

OK, but here's a comment from the Fox News piece:

Sources told Fox News that Libi will be read his rights by an elite FBI unit that was sent out for that purpose. US officials say that the Justice Department plans to prosecute him in a U.S. court.

Since the FBI was on scene does that mean he's been read his rights already?  They must not suspect anything imminent. Or maybe they do, but they want to be "appropriate". 

Investigation Update

***Long post, executive summary below!***

Ron Machen, the US Attorney who became famous for pulling 40 AP phone lines in the investigation of the Yemeni spy leak while also going after Fox's James Rosen in a North Korean leak by classifying him as a "co-conspirator", has announced a bust in the Yemen leak case:

Donald Sachtleben, a 55-year-old from Carmel, Ind., was an FBI agent for 25 years and worked on major cases, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the hunt for the Unabomber. According to paperwork filed in federal court, Sachtleben provided the national security information to the AP just nine days before he was arrested on the child porn charges, in a separate investigation.

Here's the charge sheet. Notice there is only a disclosure to the AP reporter on the existence of a bomb, which occurred via telephone on May 2, 2012.  He did not give up the existence of an agent on the 'inside', nor did the AP story, which first appeared on May 7 (after being cleared by the Obama administration after a five day delay, likely to allow us to drone al-Quso, one of the wanted USS Cole bombers).  Eric Holder has called this leak one of the worst ever in the history of the United States, which begs the question of why this man is getting more time for child porn than for leaking such a dangerous secret.

To set some backstory,  once the AP story was published John Brennan, at the time an intelligence advisor to the president, called a telecon for a bunch of talking head generals and former spies to coordinate messaging before they went on TV to discuss the AP story. Why?  Because he claims that they had to push back on the idea that the AP story made earlier stories saying there were no credible threats of any attacks during the one year anniversary of the bin Laden takedown look like fables, so they had to push back.

Here's Brennan explaining it during his confirmation hearing:



While it's true the Obama folks were not talking about credible threats they were talking about possible threats--mainly due to the reemergence of AQAP bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri. Here's one such story that appeared on April 29th, 2012, before the leak:

While the intelligence community sees no credible or specific threat related to the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, counterterrorism officials remain anxious about the Yemen group plotting attacks and aren't taking any chances.

Even Brennan himself had been building up the threat from AQAP in the weeks prior.  While it's feasible to think that once the story got out it might make Brennan and his boss look like liars the bottom line is whether that political hit was worse than losing a valued asset inside the terror group.

In other words, the leak was bad (and it didn't come from an Obama insider as speculated) but the decision to burn the agent DID come from the Obama administration.  Senator Coats even asked Brennan if divulging that information, ie, we have inside control, itself amounted to a leak, to which Brennan replied that it's not a leak if it has been declassified (which means POTUS wanted it out there).

But there's potentially more to this story.
 
For instance, was this lone wolf contractor AP's only source or did they cross check his info with other sources before going to get confirmation from the White House? From the charge sheet, here's an explanation of what the reporter did after hearing from Mr. Sachtleben about a bomb in custody:

Approximately two and-a-half hours later, Reporter A and another reporter from Reporter A's news organization contacted multiple United States Government officials and said that they knew the following facts:

So there were two reporters (Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman).  The charge sheet only mentions 'Reporter A' communicating with Sachtelben.  AP told someone at the White House they knew there was a bomb and FBI was analyzing it, but didn't know for sure whether it came from AQAP or not.  Interestingly enough, in an earlier conversation with Sachtleben (April 30) Reporter A speculated in a text message that the FBI might have a bomb. This would be BEFORE Mr. Sachtleben had confirmed one:

...SACHTLEBEN and Reporter A exchanged text messages about al-Asiri and Reporter A's speculation about the FBI's recovery of a surgically implanted body bomb (also known as a "cavity bomb").

It goes on to say it wasn't the bomb recovered from the airplane plot and uses paragraph 7 to suggest that ABC's World News Tonight had set up the mention of cavity bombs, leading readers to believe that's where Reporter A got his curiosity, but this begs the question of why the AP reporter would be asking about a "recovered" bomb, which was not mentioned by ABC.  Had Reporter A been talking with other people and hearing things, then trying to get Sachtleben to confirm?

Indeed, the text message string shows the initial question asked about a recovered cavity bomb, followed by a vague comic reply by Sachtleben, then "not totally sure though" back from the AP guy. One normally doesn't say 'not totally sure' unless they've already heard something.

Yes, it could be a way to fish for information by making it appear he'd heard something, but Mr. Sachtelben surely doesn't seem to know as he says he thinks a 10am news conference by the FBI might be about the bomb.  When the press conference turned out to be about the Occupy Wall St bridge terrorists in Cleveland Sachtleben texts back that he 'got that one wrong' but that there still might be something up and he would get back.  So it sounds like he was trying to be a good source and confirm what the AP reporter had asked.  His trip to the FBI lab was previously scheduled, so he wasn't going there on an intel mission. 
   
Since no reputable reporter would go to press with only one source it's unlikely they would take a sole-sourced story to the White House for confirmation.  The White House could simply deny it.  The text says after Sachtleben got off the phone the two AP reporters were calling around to administration and/or government officials, telling them what they knew.  Or were they trying to get confirmation?  The charge sheet makes it sound like they were telling the White House they knew something and were going to report. Consider this line from the AP story eventually released:

The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought a plane ticket when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It's not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said President Barack Obama learned about the plot in April and was assured the device posed no threat to the public.

Funny, the charge sheet says the bomb plot was 'disrupted', with the bomb for a 'US bound airliner'. But notice the rest--the White House added information to their story via a spokeswoman.  And when you tell reporters the bomb was 'no threat to the public' and that the 'CIA stepped in' and got it without any further clarification that only leads to more questions, questions the administration knew would still need to be answered.  One might ask whether the White House added the information when initially confronted or later.

We're left to wonder whether the AP had other sources, whether anyone in the White House saw fit to add to the AP's story and if so, when, and whether the asset really needed to be burned.  The irony here is that Machen later dragnetted the AP's phone lines without notification, which smacks of punishment.  Yes, right, nobody will care about any of it.

MORE  9/24/13

The indispensable Tom Maguire looks at the story and sees a few more questions:

So in the world being presented by the Justice Department and the Times, government officials became aware of an important leak when reporters began calling on May 2 2012 but only tracked the initial leak back to Schachtleben a year later.

But in the world I have been reading about lately the NSA has pretty much real-time access to all sorts of phone record metadata. So in a slightly different world from the one described by the Times, worried intelligence officials found out almost immediately who the AP reporter had recently spoken with that might have compromised the Yemen probe (which involved British and Saudi intelligence in an operation that was ongoing as of May 2, so the US leak was a potential international embarrassment).

And the next day the improbable kiddie porn raid shuts the guy up. Seriously - a guy with 25 years with the FBI was trading kiddie porn under the crafty account of "pedodave69@yahoo.com"? Hide in plain sight has been done.

In other words, the NSA could have potentially known immediately whose phone line connected with Apuzzo or Goldman at AP, perhaps by later in the day of May 2 when it became known the bomb story had been leaked, but since it was a domestic call they couldn't admit they knew.  The charge sheet makes it clear they got the electronic data off Sachtleben's computer (ie, it didn't come from the NSA).  That leaves the question of why it took so long to finally bust the guy, but obvious answers might be 'the election' or 'had to make it look good', or 'we had to enact punishment on the AP for going to press before we could make the announcement on May 8'.  But other possibilities are possible.  

In early reports Mr. Sachtleben seems overly contrite and apologetic for his crimes. That may be heartfelt, let's hope so, but with all the coincidences and questions left dangling it may be something else.  Again, will anyone care?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY  9/24/13

This is a long and wordy post that contains a lot of material that must be followed closely, so for those with little time or patience here's an executive summary:

The FBI had the computer and phone of the AP leaker a week after he leaked.  They had the PC due to a separate investigation into child porn, but they only looked for child porn on the PC, not national security leaks.  They are diligent.   Then it took one year to plod along and do the interviews and tap the AP phone lines--not that it was any kind of punishment for releasing their story before the White House could take credit, mind you--and realize the Mr. Sachtleben on the records was the same one they were trying to bust for child porn, an investigation that had apparently been put on hold for some strange reason.

So they busted him, but he didn't leak about the 'inside control' of the Yemeni AQ cell, John Brennan did.  But Brennan didn't leak because according to him that information--that we had inside control--was not classified.  The only way it wouldn't be of course is if the president had declassified it so they could tell the media.  So it was.  Now they are perp-walking Mr. Sachtleben as closing the case, yet we don't know if there were others the AP used to confirm their story or whether it was appropriate for the AQ insider story to be leaked, burning a spy, just to explain some talking points.

MORE  9/24/13

Here's the Politico's story, which contains this interesting segment:

”The phone records were necessary to identifying [Sachtleben] as the suspect,” said a federal law enforcement official. However, the official acknowledged that the FBI already had in its possession evidence linking him to the leak. Investigators in the separate child porn probe had his computer, which contained classified information.

But they didn’t search it for national security secrets because that wasn’t relevant to that inquiry, the official said. Only after the AP phone records pointed to Sachtleben as a suspect in the leak was the computer checked for classified information, setting in motion the leak charges, the official added.

This begs a couple of general questions. First, the above states that it was the AP call logs, which they claim occurred early in 2013, that nailed Mr. Sachtleben.  But the above quote says, "However, the official acknowledged that the FBI already had in its possession evidence linking him to the leak." That seems to go against what other outlets are reporting, such as the Guardian:

The justice department said in a statement that its pursuit of Sachtleben was made easier by the child pornography investigation, but that Sachtleben was not identified as a suspect in the leaks case until after investigators had analysed the AP phone records and compared them with other evidence in their possession.

So what was this other evidence they had? The computer?  Are they saying they didn't know what they had until they clandestinely studied the call logs?  Strange way of framing it, unless there are technical things we don't know about.

Also, when they are looking over a PC for something like child porn how do they avoid seeing things like pictures of grandma, financial statements, passwords and bank statements and copies of national security information? Once an agent has seen them can he somehow un-see them?  Or does it become a whisper to the boss--hey check this and they go out and get admissible evidence in a standard fashion?  

Anyway, here's a final thought on this from the Emptywheel.

FINAL FINAL THOUGHT  9/25/13

Here's a story of Sachteben's initial arrest in May 2012 for child porn.  Notice the potential time he was facing:

If convicted, Donald Sachtleben could face 20 years in prison on the distribution charge and 10 years for possession.

So he was facing 30 years on the child porn by itself, with a serious espionage charge on top of that, but will be serving only 11?  Sounds like a pretty good plea deal.

Taliban Number Two to be Freed

Here was the news back in 2010, as Obama was surging in Afghanistan (the good war on the front lines of the GWoT):

His capture could cripple the Taliban’s military operations, at least in the short term, said Bruce O. Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer who last spring led the Obama administration’s Afghanistan and Pakistan policy review.

And of course it was a big deal for Obama, who had yet to gutsily capture bin Laden.  Here's how then Senator--now Sec of State--Kerry put it..



It was just an 'effort to go after the Taliban wherever they are'.   No comment on whether it was done for leverage on some kind of a deal, which now appears to be the case.   As to the speculation it would help find bin Laden, well, no--we were told a woman in the CIA, played by Jessica Chastain in a movie, led to the capture.   Besides, the official story is that the Pakistanis knew nothing about UBL living in their backyard, so if Baradar provided info on UBL it had to be wrong or the entire narrative about the raid becomes false. 

Now today:

"In order to further facilitate the Afghan reconciliation process, the detained Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, would be released tomorrow," the Foreign office spokesman said in the statement.

Hopefully Sgt Bowe Bergdahl will be part of some of these upcoming reconciliations, that is, if we are now bargaining with terrorists.

Benghazi Firings

Here's the New York Times headline of December 19, 2012 regarding punishment for bureaucrats fingered in the Bengahzi attack:

4 Are Out at State Dept. After Scathing Report on Benghazi Attack

"4 are out". Most would assume "out" to mean fired.  But the Times worded it craftily in the body of their report:

Four State Department officials were removed from their posts on Wednesday after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that was attacked on Sept. 11, leading to the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

So "out" meant "removed from their posts", which technically does not mean fired. A few weeks later the New York Post clarified this in a story that was condemned by some on the left:

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned. The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.

When asked about it during her testimony in January Hillary was fairly forceful in suggesting the four should actually be fired:

“First, all four individuals have been removed from their jobs,” Clinton began. “Secondly, they have been placed on administrative leave. Thirdly, Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen highlighted the reason why this has been so complicated. Under federal statute and regulations, unsatisfactory leadership is not grounds for finding a breach of duty.”

“Fourth, I have submitted legislation to this committee and to the Senate committee to fix this problem so future ARBs (Accountability Review Board) will not face this situation. Because I agree with you, there ought to be more leeway given to the ARBs.”

But that was then.  Fast forward to this evening and an announcement from John Kerry:

Secretary of State John Kerry has determined that the four State Department officials placed on administrative leave by Hillary Clinton after the terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi do not deserve any formal disciplinary action and has asked them to come back to work at the State Department starting Tuesday.

Kerry said he made the determination based on findings of the ARB, which was precisely what Hillary had used to 'fire' them.

The funny thing is, Kerry is right. No lower level staffers deserved to lose their jobs over Benghazi, or even be sent home with pay. If there was going to be any ass-kicking it should have been a top leadership level. By blaming these four people the administration was trying to get people to think it was some kind of bureaucratic failure they were taking care of, instead of a planned terrorist attack on 9/11.

Now, nearly one year from that attack (and the misinformation dumped on the public explaining it)--and after closing 22 embassies based on an AQ threat just recently--there's no reason to pretend that what happened was a reaction to a video or even bureaucratic incompetence.  The stonewalling has shifted solely to what the CIA was doing there, which is a question that could take decades to answer. 

Although these non-firings really didn't factor into the 2012 presidential election, other than the president continually pointing to 'the ARB review' so he could avoid talking about it, something eventually had to be done when the final report came out.  So they 'fired' the bureaucrats.   Oddly enough, Kerry's reinstatement of these people could be taken as a slap at Hillary.  If he did it unilaterally it might even send a signal of his interest in challenging Hillary16! for the nod, which could cause her some headaches.  But the chances are he's just hoping few will notice.  

On the Run, to Somewhere

Today is the president's birthday. What better present than an intercepted threat leading to a rather unusual global travel warning and the closing of 22 diplomatic posts, eh?  OK, we know for the Delegator-in-Chief it's really partying or playing 36 holes.   

But alright, we have a threat.  It's tempting to question it because there's certainly plenty to question.  

First of all, John Kerry just told the Pakistanis only days ago that the drone program in their territories will end 'very very soon' because AQ is only a shadow of its former self.  Everyone remembers Joe Biden telling America that UBL was dead and GM was alive. So c'mon, it's gotta be political theater designed to diminish Snowden's (and Putin's) PR victory or divert from the phony scandals©, one of which seems to have popped back up again.  Or in liberal-speak, Bush throwing up the yellow light warning before an election.    

Apparently sensing this, terrorism expert Peter Bergen rushed to the rescue of his favorite administration by pointing out the symbolism of the day to Muslims and why it might be a more advantageous day to commit suicide for the cause than say Christmas.  But hold on, that doesn't square with the 'all is well' narrative coming from the White House. Politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths all the time--which side is the least untruthful here?    

Because after all, threats still exist.  The administration likes to parse AQ into sections, referring to 'core AQ' in making pronouncements about how many they've sent to Allah as opposed to the relatively untouched AQIM.  But it hardly matters. UBL was taken out but as Hasan Turabi predicted a long time ago, killing bin Laden will just create thousands more.  Just look at Rewards for Justice site and notice the length of the list.

In doing so you'll see there are still some blue chip players on the field for team AQ Core, including Zawahiri, his old EIJ mate Saif al-Adel, Adnan Shukrijumah (Jafar the pilot), Abderraouf Jdey, Anas al-Liby, Yasin al-Suri (AQ's man in Tehran) and the "red-headed terrorist", Abu Musab al-Suri (allegedly released by Bashar Assad in retaliation for our taking sides).  Al-Suri is credited with the idea of small cells operating on their own much like what was seen with the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston. 

Aside from the core folks there are many offshoots and sympathizers. Abu Du'a is the leader of ISIS, the combination of AQ in Iraq + Al Nusra Front (remember, we were supposed to be fighting AQ wherever they exist--except Iraq, which apparently remains dumb).  Of course there is Mullah Omar of the Afghan Taliban, whose Pakistani brothers recently sent several squadrons to fight in Syria, the Haqqanis in AfPak, and AQ's man in North Africa, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, another zombie warrior wanted in the attack on the BP gas plant earlier this year in his home country of Algeria that killed three Americans.

There is also al-Shabbab in Somalia.  Few Americans realize we were involved in a hot war in Somalia a few years ago using Ethiopian ground forces, who basically fought to a draw with the terrorists (while doing nothing for their reputation in the region, leading some to suspect the crash of one of their passenger planes leaving Beirut shortly thereafter was something more than an accident).

The left likes to think of Iraq as completely separated from Islamists but we still haven't caught people like Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, Saddam's former right hand henchman and still number one on the Iraqi version of RFJ, who has been tied to many insurgent groups since Baghdad fell (and the violence has been horrific over the past few months).  Another Iraqi, Abdul Yasin (one of the bomb mixers of the 1993 World Trade Center attack) is still unaccounted for and it remains uncertain as to his relationship with Ramzi Yousef and Saddam. 

Another terrorist operating from Iraq was legacy bomb-maker Abu Ibrahim, leader of the 1980s "15 May Organization" terror group who planted a bomb on Pan Am flight 830 killing a Japanese teenager.  He's on the RFJ list.  His bomb might have killed everyone on board had the device been more potent--it did blow a hole through the floor and create a bulge in the fuselage but cockpit crewmembers Roy Hawk and James O'Halloran landed the plane safely.  The guy who planted the bomb, Mohammed Rashed, was recently released from US lockup after apparently cooperating over something (presumably we still want Ibrahim despite his advanced age, 70s).

Side note, Rashed was married to Christine Pinter.  She was connected to the German Marxist revolutionary group Badaar-Meinhof Gang and the two met while Rashed was at one of their compounds for training.  They later became the "Red Army Faction" but quickly disappeared after the fall of the Berlin wall.  Feel free to connect the dots.     

There are even a few Shia terrorists still wanted for attacks on aviation in the 80s, such as for TWA 847, one of whom was released by Germany several years ago.  Perhaps Mohammed Ali Hammadi was instrumental in providing information to nail one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world few had ever heard of, Imad Mughniyah, Hammadi's partner in crime in the 847 hijacking, in return for his early release.  Or perhaps not--he's still on the RFJ list (unless that was part of the bargain to maintain street cred).  Hard to know.

Right now our government seems to consider the AQ in the Arabian Peninsula gang to be the most dangerous faction operating.  Their players on the RFJ list are led by...wait, there appear to be no AQAP players on the list.  Weird.  Their leader is one Nasser al Wahayshi, a former secretary to UBL and lately reported to have been promoted to AQ Number Two, which means he's about to die.  One of the main players was Said al Shihri, who we've already sent to Allah although his brothers have only recently admitted it.  Another local leader was removed a few days ago during a recently heightened level of drone activity.   Of course Anwar al-Awlaqi and his teenage son were involved with these guys. 

Speaking of Yemen, the above-mentioned Baathist thug Izzat al-Duri was rumored to have been staying there several times over the years...

Considering I’ve been saying that al Douri was in Yemen since 2006, I’m not surprised. The Iraqi Baathists in Yemen are a significant factor in both the Sa’ada Wars and the insurgency in Iraq. Their presence also underpins the Yemeni regime’s relationship with Syria. Further, the Baathists and al Qaeda were colluding in Yemen to transit fighters to Iraq, with the support of the Yemeni state. Saddam and Saleh were very close as were their top leaderships.

Bold to indicate yet another inconvenient link if true, but who really knows the truth?  The story was written when Saleh was still in power so if he had any dealings with Syria it would have likely been with Assad, which doesn't make sense considering the loyalties.  Saleh counted Uncle Saddam as his mentor and invited a lot of former Baath IIS personnel to Yemen in the aftermath of the war, some of which might have been working with the CIA in the war against jihad, which means it's possible to believe ole Izzat could actually be a US asset (explaining why he hasn't been captured).

Then again the Iranians say some spectacular things about al-Duri and his possible Syrian connections related to WMDs (which would also explain why he's never been caught), even throwing in a mention of the ex-KGB president of Russia.  Problem is their statements tend to be riddled with BS.  Or just complete and total BS.  The Yemeni connection to al-Duri may also be BS.  Actually, about the only thing that is known for sure about the GWoT is that there's a fog of BS surrounding it. 

Meanwhile the most famous AQAP member remains master bombmaker Ibrahim al Asiri, responsible for the underwear and package bombs along with an anal cavity version and maybe others.  He was the guy the Yemeni spy was targeting last year when the AP revealed the busted bomb plot.  This led US officials to admit the activity while possibly blowing the cover of the agent, which resulted in a leak investigation that eventually resulted in a phony scandal© of 40 AP phone lines being logged by the FBI out of the Capitol, for which no one has yet been indicted. Some think Asiri may be the de facto leader of AQAP right now but whatever the case it appears his group is vowing to take down commercial aircraft, making them pretty dangerous considering the Detroit flight and the cargo package bombs.

But wait, all the above is known.  How does it relate to now?

Recall the last time a prominent AQ leader was taken out.  In 2012, not too long before the 9/11 anniversary, Abu Yaha al-Liby was droned, which triggered a call-to-arms pronouncement by Zawahiri only days before 9/11 along with a similar call from AQAP.  What followed was the attack on Benghazi by a protest crowd angered over a B movie trailer terrorist group and black flags of jihad being raised over several other embassies in the region.  After announcing that the FBI was investigating so they couldn't say too much, the administration shortly blamed everything on the filmmaker and threw him in jail.  AQ was on the run and GM was alive and so forth.

Fast forward to now.  Ramadan is ending with some kind of special Night of the Long Knives or something; Zawahiri is again hitting the airwaves with his explanation of the removal of Morsi (ours and the Joos' fault); and AQAP is making threats over the loss of Al Shihri.   So somehow we've managed to piss off Zawahiri and the Brotherhood, AQAP, and even General al-Sissi (who is anything but--he led the military in taking out both Mubarak and Morsi).  Anyway, we all know how peaceful the Islamists are when they get their robes in a bunch.   Rumors say the epicenter of the threat is somewhere near Cairo. Our ambassador is probably number one on some of the "AQ hit lists". 

Among other reasons for concern are the mass jailbreaks over the past month in Libya, Iraq and Pakistan. Interpol is involved, which seems fruitless, but it shows the urgency.  Meanwhile everything is happening just as someone other than Fox News has reported about Benghazi.  The last time this happened Jay Carney called a special double-secret background briefing with the suddenly hostile White House press corpse and within hours the IRS released their phony scandal©, giving the press and Issa something else to chew on.
Recall the sickness that befell Hillary when she had to testify about it.  Hope she's feeling better.

All of which could lead to the suspicion they are doing it again, throwing a net over Benghazi with another more dramatic story.  But while that scenario fits rather nicely into a desperate political cover-up it also fits nicely into an effort to salvage a darker issue involving weapons we don't want the head-choppers to have and the protection of names and sources of those doing the work of the Sheepdog.  

Indeed the press has long reported that CIA contractors were in Benghazi to vacuum up Gaddafi's arsenal of surface-to-air missiles.  If it were to be discovered the CIA had been running arms to Syria from Libya through Turkey then certainly it would make the president look like a big fat liar over the 'red line' stuff.  But do Republicans really want to poke this nest?  In the 90s they focused on Monicagate and charged the president with wagging the dog for shooting cruise missiles at bin Laden, who was quietly gaining strength.  How can the public know for sure the WMDs used by Assad's forces--already confirmed by Obama--have not been captured by some of the 'rebels' fighting there?  Are we depending exclusively on Assad or was that entire story bogus as well?

Those still reading to this point are probably begging for a point. OK, the takeaway is that while it's tempting to believe the president is just throwing up a yellow terror alert to divert from phony scandals© or Snowden or the limp economy or the train wreck known as Obamacare there are still a lot of people who want to kill us in spectacular fashion.  In other words, the world still hates us despite Bush being retired.

But we are not reminded of this fact very often.  The administration has been trying to take a page out of Clinton's 90s playbook by pretending such threats are being reduced or something far away.  They know we crave more important stories like George Zimmerman getting a speeding ticket, A-Rod's suspension or any variety of 50 Shades of Gray salaciousness.  The real enemy combatants are known as Creepy Ass Tea Party Crackers, who are trying to derail hopenchange and send America back to Jim Crow days, a fight that only Eric Holder is courageous enough to fight.

[A quick sidebar---the Snowden revelations, along with Rosen and the AP, have put a dagger in the notion the left (aside from Glenn Greenwald) really ever cared about Bush trashing civil liberties. Call it a teachable moment of sorts.]   

But ok, ok, the point.  The point is don't pass the terror alert off as total BS.  There might be some opportunism thrown in as to the timing but by overtly coming out with these warnings has forced the administration to risk blowing the AQ fairy tales they've carefully crafted, which go into downgrading the military and bringing troops home from Afghanistan (nation-building at home, etc).   They simply cannot afford to have anymore black flags flying over our embassies or anymore murdered ambassadors.

MORE  8/5/13

Since the world still seems to be intact the questions are now rolling in, followed by helpful government experts providing answers.  Here's CBS News:

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri and Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), were discussing "something big," sources say. It's rare for veteran al Qaeda leaders to break operational security by openly discussing possible plots, and the interception stunned U.S. officials.

Sources confirm for CBS News that the intercepted electronic conversation occurred between the top leadership of core Al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan and the head of Yemen based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Nassir al-Wuhayshi. One source said that the tone of the conversation was serious and had a sense of urgency, reports CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton.

The source said the sense of the directive from al Qaeda leadership was pushing for AQAP to move forward with an attack. The source said that the urging was to have the attack coincide with the conclusion of Ramadan and to ensure that it was a "big" attack.

Of course we couldn't tell if they were winking or had their fingers crossed.   Surely they knew we were listening.  The question anyone with a brain has to ask is why would Zawahiri give up his own location by using a traceable phone?  Are we on the verge of snagging him--this being the prelude, or is he suicidal?

If that's all there is it just ain't James Bond enough to pass the smell test.  On the other hand, this scary scenario seems a little more reasonable.   Now, if time passes and the only thing that happens is a push for more NSA spying and a deeper trashing of our Fourth Amendment rights at the airport then maybe the conspiracy theories will get some legs.

FINAL THOUGHT  8/5/13

I can't get past the revelation that they actually admitted to pinpointing Zawahiri's call location when grabbing this intel.  Obviously they've burned the line they spoke on so both players have to be wondering whether they should be running or not.   Which brings to mind a thought--are we about to open a can on Yemen?  As the AP reporter mentioned at the State Dept briefing today, the threat can't be very 'specific' if it includes 19 countries.   Maybe they are being closed before something happens--something we do.   

OK, ONE MORE  8/5/13

Apparently it's not too unsafe for McCain and Graham to travel to the epicenter of the threat--they arrive in Egypt tonight. 

Meanwhile, it was noticeable today that most questions to the White House were about the massive terror threat and not how Putey Poot stuck his finger in our eye last week.   Again, the further this goes on without anything happening the more it's going to look like a political op.