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 |  "Putting on the Game Face" |
  This blog is a doorway into the mind of Percy Goodfellow. Don't be shocked at the lost boys of Namby-Pamby Land and the women they cavort with. Watch as his caricatures blunder about the space between audacious hope and the wake-up calls of tomorrow. Behold their scrawl on the CRT, like graffitti on a subway wall. Examine it through your own lens...Step up my friends, and separate the pepper from the rat poop. Welcome to my abode...the armpit of yesterday, the blinking of an eye and a plank to the edge of Eternity. Note: This blog is my journal. I've no interest in persuading anyone to adopt my views. What I write is whatever happens to interest me when I start pounding the keys. |
| Chapter 2, The Dark Side, p. 16 “In 1995 the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) took over all clandestine human intelligence-collection assignments from the Army’s General Defense Intelligence Program.” “It was a hostile take over… Thousands of billets were transferred.” The skills brought over “…were radically different from those required to count Soviet missiles…” To the establishment the new influx of personnel, “…were seen as Knuckle Draggers who shouldn’t be in the intellectual mecca that was the DIA.” “Guys like me who came out of the Army (LTC Shaffer)… were the least popular. The leaders (DIA) didn’t like clandestine HUMINT.” I quoted these lines to show the deep division that came about following the expansion. An organization having a traditionally signals monitoring focus was suddenly told to get into the HUMINT business as well. If you remember after 911 it was discovered that this capability had all but dried up. Suddenly it was realized more HUMINT in DOD was needed, to supplement our signals intercept capability. What little that existed was moved. It resulted in a radical and painful change in culture at DIA. 911 showed that stove piped intelligence gathering led to information not being shared between agencies. Agencies competed with each other and the fear of sharing information and someone else getting the credit, was the mindset of the cultures. As a consequence Intelligence agencies played their assets close to the vest. It was an pulling teeth getting them to cooperate and it wasn’t happening, even after 911. The revelation that the DIA knew about Mohammed Atta prior to 911 was a corncob of “I told you so” shoved right up the DIA’s butt. In the face of overwhelming evidence they remain in denial to this day. However, there was a whole lot more to the problem going on. Post 911 it was discovered that the Military was being run by lawyers. Commanders, who had risen to positions beyond their competence and understanding, began hiding more and more behind their legal staffs, in a world that opened to a strategic vista beyond their aptitude and understanding. Many who had made their reputations at the tactical and operational levels of command were hopelessly in over their heads. At CENTCOM, there came an early opportunity to kill Mullah Omar with a drone strike. A lawyer stood it down. The SECDEF and President were livid and the commander got to spend time cooling his heels at the ranch in Texas. However, the extent to which lawyers were running things was only beginning to surface. |
| I recall hearing during Vietnam that there was a sniper operating outside Tan Son Nhut Air Base that every day, like clockwork, would fire off several rounds. Efforts to find this crafty fellow were unsuccessful and finally Air Force security forces quite trying. When I asked why, I was told, “We were afraid if we killed him his replacement might be a better shot.” This is a cute story of questionable validity but it makes a profound point. Why would anyone want to kill a tier three operative? At this point allow me to make a distinction about the tier system I often refer to and the tier system used in the book Operation Dark Heart. They are similar but different. In Afghanistan there was an office responsible, “…for the coordination and prosecution of killing or capturing High Value Targets or Tier 1 targets---like Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mullah Omar, and others like them. The office was also responsible for Tier 2 Targets such as their lieutenants and action guys.” By my definition a Tier one target is an intellect who can conjure excellence from the air space and manufacture “Best” from inside or outside the box showing talent, creativity and genius for the task. A tier two target is someone who can grasp, understand and appreciate what the tier one intellect is trying to say and accomplish. By my definition a tier 1 or 2 operator is not defined by his or her rank or place on an organizational chart, but rather by their facility for knowing best and getting others to do it. It is my contention that tier 3 operators should be left undisturbed to maintain the status quo or muck up the organizations they belong to. While Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were charismatic I am not sure I would place them in the category of a Tier 1 operator. Ayman al-Zawahiri definitely belongs there. The only way to really know who these top operators are is to see them in action. Use a football analogy. A coach or player in the “Franchise” category is Tier 1. A player who is a “Game Changer” a “Go to guy” or an emotional leader is Tier 2. Even though the level of talent is world class on a professional football team, everybody else is tier 3. So why is this important? This is important because we need to be as careful who we target as those we want to leave in place. Every time we kill a leader with a drone strike the effectiveness of that capability is diminished. It’s like pesticide use on a farm field. The bugs build up immunity and it takes more and more to get the job done. Plus, it’s like the Tan Son Nhut Sniper. Why kill an idiot when he might be replaced by a serious contender? |
Many book smart people eventually are told, “It isn’t what you know that’s important but how you use it.” Many managers who aspire to be leaders eventually get told; it isn’t just figuring out what’s best that’s important but getting others to do it. We know that the DIA knew that Mohamed Atta was a terrorist associated with the Brooklyn Cell, a year before 911. We know that lawyers at SOCOM prevented the sharing of that information with the FBI. We know the FBI knew about Tamerian Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon Bombings. Unfortunately knowing isn’t always enough. That knowledge must be recognized by a tier two intellect with the ability to translate it into something useful. Since the days I was a rifle platoon leader in the 25th Infantry Division the lament of combat leaders has always been, things that were known, that might have made a difference, never got translated, passed down and used in a timely manner. Tony Shaffer has at least a tier two mind. Dr. Christopher Lehman, former special assistant to President Regan on the National Security Counsel called him, “…the real Jack Bauer--- but with an intellect.” Doug Stanton, author of Horse Soldiers, called him someone “… with the instincts of a thriller writer and the knowledge and perspective of a professional insider.” The DOD IG called LTC Shaffer “… a marginally qualified intelligence officer.” A superior once quipped, Tony, "...If you weren’t our best intelligence officer, I’d have you fired.” So there it is, make up your own mind. This is what Tony has to say about himself: “…All too often the most important operations (HUMINT) … were viewed by career bureaucrats as too dangerous for their careers---or dead ends…” that could stereotype your career and… limit your potential to become a senior executive.” “I took risks.” “Some people loved me, … some hated me. It’s still that way. There was really no middle ground. Some people liked the fact that I could go and find a way to get things done in very complex situations.” “My unit’ mission (Stratus Ivy) within the context of a much larger operation known as Able Danger…” was dealing with “…significant information on individuals being trained in the terrorist camps--- and, more importantly, their potential targets.” “We were making progress--- and had a pathway to--- when things were shut down; a decision that was terribly flawed…” It is an interesting footnote that for someone who was “marginally qualified” DOD spent a considerable sum buying up all the copies of Tony's book they could lay their hands on. |
| In WW2 planes flew over Germany streaming aluminum strips to clutter the radar. This same approach is used in the information war for much the same purpose. The idea is that with more distractions, time and distance, Benghazi will fade and become just another one of those issues never fully explained. This incident involving Snowdon is a case in point. Whether it is intentional or not the result is a misdirection play. After listening carefully to everything Mr. Snowdon says I can only yawn. Perhaps he knows things he has yet to reveal that might raise a few eyebrows but for now he has shown knowledge of only two things. First is how telephone records can be used to identify suspects in a terrorist network. Second, that the NSA has a capability to enter someone’s computer and read and write things on the CRT. With regard to capability number 1, it's been around forever. Let me quote some passages from the book Operation Dark Heart, chapter 10 Improvised raid, page 119. “Can you come over to my office and take a look at it?” “The phone had been captured off a bad guy killed in Khowst.” (Afganistan) “It was a blue Nokia, fairly typical for the era, but contained some sort of code that wouldn’t let us unlock it…. We get a signal but I can’t even make a call.” “…I think it’s part of an older GSM system run by the Afghanistan Telephone and Telegraph Company.” “That’s where I think we would find the help to break into this phone. Plus, … we might be able to download 100 percent of the entire country’s phone infrastructure---all of the technical data and all of the phone numbers in the system. That would include the database containing the names and addresses of the phone users.” The chapter continues to describe a successful mission to enter the Telephone Company and secure the information they were seeking. While the timeline for this operation is not clear it took place after February on Shaffer’s return tour. This would have been about ten years ago. At that point it is clear that using telephone billing records to help identify terror networks was a well established process. Regarding revelation number 2, five years ago I was having trouble with my internet connection and I was asked to let a distant technician, enter my computer, diagnose and fix the problem. I sat at my desk and watched him move from screen to screen and change values. Is revealing this capability a compromise to National Security? Get real! What is happening with the continuing scandals is that the public is paying less attention to what happened in Libya. This is unfortunate because most of what has followed, except perhaps the IRS fiasco, spun off events that took place that infamous night. There is more hinted at and revealed in the book, Operation Dark Heart, than Snowdon could ever begin to compromise. The DIA in their petty treatment of LTC Shaffer, unwittingly allowed the camel’s nose under the tent. If a reader looks carefully at what is not redacted, it is possible to envision revelations that are potentially many times more damaging. |
| If the IRS scandal had taken place at the State Department the results would have hushed up and Mr. George, the IG reassigned to Timbuktu. If the same scandal had taken place at the Defense Intelligence Agency, Mr. George’s past would have been put under a magnifying glass, something manufactured, his security clearance revoked and he would have been placed on terminal leave. Since he was at the Internal Revenue Service and his supervisors were slow on the uptake, nobody realized where the audit was going until it was too late to escape the bombshell. Thus, as a consequence of inept management and "poor customer service," the American People learned that the corporate power of a government office was being used for political purposes. What I expect to come out of further inquiry is that a second level operative at the White House was orchestrating the names provided by the IRS and sending them to other federal agencies so they could pile on. How else does one explain OSHA, Treasury, and FBI agents that followed in the footsteps of the IRS once a list of applicants was compiled? The whole idea seems dumb in retrospect but to a fool, trying to make a name, it must have made sense. Think about it, a network of obstructers imbedded with political appointees at the heart of government agencies. What good is granting favors if there’s no payback? Why not use the power of the incumbent party for political purposes in true Chicago fashion? Have the IRS develop the “Enemies List” and the White House coordinate the piling on by other agencies? Is that not an idea that would make Mayor proud? Perhaps all federal agencies are not rife with political influence and cronyism, like the IRS. Perhaps other agencies have managers who can still distinguish right from wrong, but how does the average citizen really know? What we do know is that if it happened at the IRS it could happen anywhere in government. What we do know is that Mr. George is the exception rather than the rule and without his determination to investigate allegations of wrongdoing the IRS scandal might never have come to light. Earlier my question was, “What makes IRS political appointees and zealots different from those who operate at the security agencies. We know that the DIA used their IG to gather questionable dirt on LTC Shaffer, have his security clearance revoked and ultimately fired. Is the climate of morality any different at the DIA, CIA or NSA? Are they immune from a political appointee inserting a cell into their organization and using it to manipulate assets for political purposes? DUH! Of course they’re not immune and moreover, they have one important tool the IRS lacked. It’s called a security blanket to hide under. All they have to say is “sorry;” the incident is associated with a security program vital to the National Interest and the matter is under investigation. And guess what? They’d be telling the truth and that’s the last you’d ever hear of it. While the classified assets used by the NSA deserve their classification, the abusers can hide in the cracks and operate with impunity. |
| In journalism today there is rule that nothing should be written that is not based directly upon fact. Journalists are warned that if they write something based upon supposition, assumption, or speculation that such material is unacceptable and those that choose to do so can expect their reputations to be tarnished and their work subject to ridicule. The dreaded pronouncement, "This is all conjecture" is used to imply that a story is not directly grounded in factual material. Thus, it is an exercise in fancy and something not to be taken seriously. In science there are two ways of getting at the truth. The first way is the direct way, gathering facts through research and experiment and reaching the conclusions that necessarily follow. However there is another way for getting at a concealed truth. This is through the back door, using assumptions. Journalism avoids this approach like the plague for some reason even though science uses it all the time. For science it is perfectly acceptable to form a hypothesis based upon the facts and assumptions that surround a problem. When an explanation is found that fits those known and assumed facts it's OK to go with a working hypothesis and see where such thinking is going to lead. As long as the assumptions are clearly set forth and believed to be true it is acceptable to use them in writing a credible scientific paper. Scientists realize that to get to the truth it is often necessary to use a straw man containing constraint equations to help frame the solution window. Why reporters feel averse to using this powerful tool escapes me. Assumption: Definition: A fact, believed to be true that has yet to happen, be proven or uncovered. It is not a cynical presumption that makes asses out of you and me."  A fact that is being concealed by a government is fair game for an assumption. Assumptions based upon known facts that surround a problem that is unresolved, can help determine the missing truth. If a government attempts to cover up something and places it under a veil of secrecy then assumptions are necessary to help figure out what is going on. The problem with assumptions is that reporters often use them when the facts are readily at hand and with a little work and digging they can use the known truth even though it might require some sweat equity. This is why the direct approach, using only verifiable fact, is the preferred mode and almost exclusively used as the basis for journalistic work. If you read my blog you will note that I use facts where they are available and assumptions where they help ferret out the truth. I begin with the known facts and when these are not enough use assumptions to help frame and narrow the solution window. This forms a hypothesis to see if the assumed facts fit the situation at hand. Naturally those who have something to cover up, will rile at such an approach and disparage its use. However, if it helps smoke out the truth it is in my view a valid tool for use in investigative journalism. So, based upon the facts that surround the situation of what happened that night at Benghazi I have concluded the following. Something bad happened that goes well beyond the scope of what the American people are being told. That the situation involves more than the death of four (4) Americans and poor security. That something happened in the Situation Room of the White house when the President could not be contacted and during the period he was "Disengaged," protocols were set in motion, the alert status spiraled upward and the safety of all Americans was placed in jeopardy. The known facts before and afterwards support that such a scenario took place. Indeed the Benghazi cover-up has completely changed the mindset of the current administration regarding leaks. Here to for they used them to further a political agenda. Here is how it works. The Chief executive makes it clear what the outcome is of something he would like to have happen. There are three ways this gets translated. It can be done at his direction, with a wink of the eye or by overzealous subordinates looking for ways to please the boss. This is the culture that developed prior to Benghazi. Suddenly, in the aftermath of what happened, the leak policy, that was being winked at, got a whole lot more serious when what happened had to be concealed at all costs. So we see all the power of the government suddenly being brought to bear in shutting down the hemorrhage of classified information. When it furthered the interests of the Administration it was OK but now that it threatened the cover-up it was something that had to stop. So what we see next is the seizure of phone records at the AP, (The leak agency of choice) Rosen's phone records being confiscated, Sheryl Atkins computer being hacked, the FBI involvement and the NSA monitoring capability coming to light; all this resulting from the leak prevention effort. I find it incredible that anyone that knows anything about how the National Command Authority works in time of crisis could over look what would happen if the President dropped off the radar for a period of five or more hours as a national crisis spun up in Libya. "Disengaged." That is a euphemism for AWOL at a time the Country was in bad need of a President. |
| The Benghazi Cover up is huge. That’s where everything began to unravel for the Current Administration. Some high-speed talent stepped in to manage the fiasco and has done an amazing job keeping a lid on things. It goes without saying that those responsible are not part of the Chicago “Brain Trust.” I do not question the motives of the Cover Up team. This country is bigger than any single individual. What is being concealed is what happened in the situation room of the White House and Pentagon. Some well intentioned, military and civilians have concluded that the truth cannot be brought to light. Why not? Two reasons spring to mind. First, because the current administration has three years left on its watch and regardless of what anyone might think of our Chief Executive, he has an important role to play in keeping this country safe. So others have reluctantly stepped in to prop him up. Second, it could well be that an unprogrammed readiness test identified deficiencies that have yet to be corrected. If you read the book “The Amateur” you will understand better how bad things are. It is a chilling inditement on a man in hopelessly over his head and out of touch with the world around him. I think the country needs to know what happened the night of Benghazi. Clearly there are intelligent and honorable men and women, who don’t share my view. The logs would tell some of what happened and the rest of the story could be gleaned from witnesses. So who are those witnesses? That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Not only do they remain unnamed but have been cowered into silence. That part of the cover up has worked remarkably well, however, there is the ever present threat of a leak, a tool abused by the administration as an instrument of policy that has gotten out of control. The greatest concern of the cover up team now is making sure what happened does not leak out to the press. The huge gap in the whereabouts of the president during the critical period of “Disengagement,” when he talked to the SECDEF and hours later to the Secretary of State are totally unaccounted for. At this point the central focus of the cover up is Leak Control. Indeed that has been the case for some time. Plugging leaks is the linkage between Benghazi, the Rosen telephone records, the AP telephone records and the the NSA telephone monitoring activities. You can add to the list the most recent hacking of Sheryl Atkinson’s computer at CBS. Remember? She is the only member of the sympathetic press to speak out on Benghazi? Somewhere in a room off the beaten path a question is being asked, “Hmmm, who would a potential leaker seek out to tell the American People the truth being secreted away? Would it be Rosen, the Associated Press or Sheryl Atkinson? The common thread is self-evident and the zeal to plug leaks shows the seriousness of what took place that night of infamy. It is driving the train and the tentacles are spreading and bringing to light all manner of revelations that otherwise might never have seen the light of day. Yesterday I saw President Putin and President Obama seated next to one another at the G8 Summit. The oppressiveness of the tension between the two showed in their body language with unmistakable clarity. If anybody would know what happened that night I suspect it is the Soviet Leader and you can bet he wasn’t “Disengaged.” It was something massive in scope and the consequence goes well beyond sending small arms to Syria. And now our chief executive wants a unilateral reduction in our nuclear arsenal. Fancy that. |
| (Anybody remember Get Smart ?) I watch VEEP sometimes and the parody on politics is amusing. What is happening with the scandals in Washington would be equally amusing if it weren’t so serious. Something happened in the White House situation room the night of Benghazi when the president was “Disengaged” for over 5 hours. The only way it could have been covered up is with the complicity of the National Command Authority. Somewhere between fifty and one hundred DOD workers and a handful of political appointees know what took place and they aren’t talking. The reason the “Cone of Silence” has been imposed is for the right reasons as well as the wrong. The right reasons are that something happened that had far reaching implications and consequences to National Security. The wrong reasons are that what happened was pretty bad and if the cat gets out of the bag it will probably sound the death knell to the current administration. The problem with the classification system is that it protects both legitimate programs and the mistakes and abuse of those who manage them. As long as the American People have trust in government they are protected on the one hand but on the other are kept in the dark about all the wrongdoing going on. There should be checks and balances but the more we learn from the scandals the clearer it becomes that these are either not in place or dysfunctional. The need for some form of classification in special cases, only insures the tool will be used to also cover a myriad of ineptitude, and selfish interests. It’s said that during WW2, workers brought into the Ultra project were seated at a table where the briefer prefaced his opening remarks by placing a loaded pistol on the table and threatened with death, anyone who disclosed the program. That might sound a bit melodramatic but the secret stayed well kept for a long time. If you saw the pictures of the huge NSA facility being built in Utah you must have thought “Oh my goodness gracious!” As public trust and confidence deteriorates, citizens already wary of government become even more distrustful. This distrust leads to the exposure of some real, honest to goodness, secret programs that deserve all the protection they can get. However when people see the IRS abuses and how public power is being used for political purposes they think, “If it could happen at the IRS it could happen anywhere in government. What makes IRS political appointees and workers any different from those working at NSA? So they want to know more about what big brother is doing and in the process programs that deserved their security classification are revealed instead of being allowed to percolate quietly and do the job they were designed to do. In watching the head of the NSA give testimony I got the impression that he's SCARED that things are becoming unraveled and something really important is on the verge of being revealed. I’m not talking about telephone records being used to compile suspect lists of Terrorists. For heavens sake, to bill customers it is necessary to know where a call originated, where it terminated, the duration and when it occurred. It happens that this same information can be used to uncover a terrorist network. DUH! Since telephone billing data is in the public domain what is the big deal? In the words of a well know public figure, “Who Cares?” What started at Benghazi, followed by the IRS scandal, followed by the phone record seizures and finally the NSA ULTRA project being built in Utah has had a chilling cumulative effect on citizens, who are usually half asleep. “What’s going on here?” they wonder, “Hmmmm are matters afoot I need to pay some attention to?” “Of course not,” their Government replies. “Let sleeping dogs lie.” “Can what I don’t know hurt me?” “Trust us.” Some say it’s lack of trust and trust is certainly a big part of it. But even more is the decline in morality encouraged by an intellectual elite that assails Christianity and sees God as a fairy tale. What do they know that most of the rest of us don't? My response is before you destroy the single institution responsible for teaching a higher sense of morality you need to have something better to replace it with. If everybody behaved only at the low threshold of the law this country would be even more dismal than it often is. As I read Shaffer’s book it reminds me that many in positions of power are threatened by a higher morality that dares shine the divine light into their dark corner of the universe. |
| Winning the battle and losing the War As I read Anthony Shaffer’s book Operation Dark Heart I’m reminded of Macbeth’s famous soliloquy. Allow me to paraphrase it. Espionage is a world of walking shadows, playing to an empty theater, who strut and fret their hour upon the stage and then are heard no more. It’s a tale told by idiots, searching blindly for truth, trying to introduce revelation to the cold shoulder of reality. It all goes back to Hesiod who once said words to the effect, there are three types of minds. In the top tier are those who can conjure excellence from the world around them. (A rare quality). In tier 2 are those who can recognize it when they see it. (More common but not overly abundant.) In tier 3 are the “Monkey See, Monkey Dos.” Bureaucracies are largely run by tier 3 intellects, who love the power but lack the ability to use it effectively. I know, I know, reading Shaffer’s book is hardly a fair and balanced assessment. The reader sees a world through the lens of someone with a slanted and embittered point of view. Yet much of what he says resonates and I can see how his attitude towards many of his superiors got him in trouble. He got labeled a rogue and his career ended abruptly. If you look at why his security clearance was revoked it's easy to see the petty politics and how young talent 'oft gets eaten by jealous, self-serving bureaucrats. In a nutshell he gave unsolicited testimony to The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. In the testimony he revealed that a project he was working on, Able Danger, had identified Mohamed Atta prior to 911. This outraged his bosses at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who used their IG to put his career under a magnifying glass, gather some trivial "Shortcomings" and use it to get Shaffer fired. So you might ask, who was LTC Anthony Shaffer? I recommend you read his book. For all the man’s warts he got things done and was able to take intelligence from NSA, CIA, DIA and tactical intelligence sources and provide timely and accurate information to combat forces in Afghanistan. This enabled field commanders to beat back the Taliban by focusing limited combat power at decisive points on the battlefield. His was a unique talent with an ability that those who came before him and followed were unable to match. His methods, attitude, and unwillingness to suffer fools, led to tactical success, but so antagonized his superiors that they marginalized his accomplishments, and disposed of him in a characteristic and shadowy manner. |
| Moral Self Discipline In organizations there are those with ambition who are driven to achieve the highest positions of leadership. This is a double-edged sword. We all know about the “Peter Principle” that people on this quest often tend to get promoted beyond their “Level of Competence.” What this means is that any organization has a tactical, operational and strategic level of operations, the scope of which is tied to the size of the activity. Each of these levels requires a different skill set of talent and aptitude. Thus people who do well at the tactical level get promoted to the operational level where they might or might not be well suited. Those who excel at the operational level get promoted to the strategic level where the same holds true. (Hold that thought). The standards by which an organization operates are rules, regulations, laws and morality. Human beings can be all over this continuum given the conditions and their stage in life. Ideally when someone faces a point in their career where they don the mantel of highest responsibility they have not just demonstrated a technical competence in the three areas, but also have retained some appreciation of the “Jesus Standard.” Keep in mind that the “Do onto others” standard is way above the law that is actually a pretty low standard and rules and regulations carry even less weight. In most cases everything below these represents a minimal standard below which the organization will not suffer its members to perform. Now it is a sad fact that a person’s sense of morality deteriorates with time. For some reason wielding corporate power has a corrosive effect on a person’s sense of righteousness. It is the norm that leaders love the heady drought of self importance which can obscure and make cynical that lofty pie in the sky standard they learned in bible school. They begin to see themselves as above the rules and the humility that insulates from becoming too full of ourselves and believing all the nonsense subordinates heap on (and leaders love to hear), slowly brings them down the scale of human decency until they get to the low rung of the law. Whenever you hear a bureaucrat, military or civilian say, “I was operating within the regulations and breaking no law, this means that they are at best skating on the margin and at worst having intercourse with the “Dark Lord.” As a famous EX president, I still admire, once said, "I never had SEX with that woman." Human nature being what it is, the Office of the Inspector General was created early in our Nation’s history. The purpose is to give a high level leader a tool to identify those who have lost the bubble and are operating without much of a moral compass. In positions of power, leaders in this category can get an organization in big trouble. Since it is necessary to find these high level leaders who are putting the organization at risk and find them before they do serious harm, the IG looks into their activities and reports findings to the Commander, in the military, or the Director, in the case of an civilian agency. It is then that the chief executive has an opportunity to remove these individuals who are either in over their heads or are exercising poor judgment... for which they think they can escape scrutiny or are above accountability. In the News and the Book I read yesterday, I see three IGs operating and it is interesting to note the outcomes of their work. Over at the DIA we see an IG who was used to gather dirt in order to fire a whistle blower. At the State Department we see an investigation halted prematurely when it looked like the findings would uncover a fair haired ambassador involved in immoral activities. Finally at the IRS we see an IG who actually (sort of) accomplished his mission, albeit very slowly and using an audit instead of an investigation. Each of these cases shows that the effectiveness of the IG tool depends on both the moral fiber of the IG and the use or abuse of the Director. |
| Does any of this sound familiar? I am reading a book called Operation Dark Heart. I found it on the bargain table at Walmart, marked down to $5.97. It was full of redactions like a censored letter from WW2. It takes the reader into Anthony Shaffer’s world as intelligence operative from 911 to the War in Afghanistan. Most books of this type spend the first third of the pages showing the operative in training. To me that is boring as I have some idea for the nature of the training that special operations candidates go through. I was more interested in the HUMINT to get a sense for what is going on in this generation of Intel and special operations. While the techniques were still classified and the author tried to steer clear of classified matters, the book was full of redacted words, sentences and paragraphs. Still the reader could get a good sense for the character of the author and the context in which he worked. There was even some insight into an affair he had with a female sergeant in Afghanistan. Shaffer did not exactly fit the profile of what one would expect from someone gathering intelligence and integrating it into combat operations. The DIA CIA, and Army G2 have different assets and stove-piped systems and are not always inclined to sharing information. To his credit LTC Shaffer was in a position and able to use these diverse assets and integrate them in a way that provided timely and useful intelligence in support of tactical combat operations. Most in the Army loved him but everyone else seemed to have a bone to pick and the book showed his constant struggle to make the system work among players who did not always share his agenda and approach to applying intelligence gathering to the needs of forces on the ground. His detractors considered him a “loose cannon” and tolerated his outside the box thinking because he was successful. As the book progressed it was easy to see that he was on a collision course with his superiors. He portrays many as bureaucratic, career aspiring and incompetent, others as quailing process followers, and still others as hoarders of information. Some of those in the Army he admires and when this is the case he is loyal and supportive and to the rest he shows an ambivalence and willingness to work around to achieve the goals he sees as necessary to win the war in Afghanistan. The straw that gets him in serious hot water is when he gives testimony to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and reveals a top secret project called Able Danger where DIA, SOCOM and LIWA identified Mohamed Atta prior to 911. DIA did not want it known that Atta was on their radar prior to the attack. Does this sound like the FBI knowing about Tamerian Tsarnaev before the Boston Marathon Bombing? The FBI ‘fessed up early but DIA had tried to cover their tracks and hide it under the rug. By agreeing to give testimony (Shaffer was not compelled to provide), that would do nothing to change 911, except create embarrassment, he became a liability to the top leadership who used the IG and some trivial charges to revoke his security clearance and eventually have him fired. His experience is not a testimonial to the career prospects of a whistle-blower. |
| Communications 104 The story is that Genghis Kahn once told two of his generals… “You take the Western Route, You take the Eastern Route and I’ll descend from the North. See you in Bagdad in three years. (Or Words to that effect) This demonstrated his decentralized approach to getting things done which was necessary because there wasn’t enough forage to sustain his entire army along a single route. (Hold that thought) When the computer was first invented they were a bunch of huge main frames in the basement of some activity. However, it wasn’t long before some of that computational capability was placed in the terminals and voila, the desktop was born and more than any other device this catapulted the world into the informational age. We started out thinking, “Hive” and evolved into thinking “Distributed Data Base.” Life uses a distributed database and if you look at the life model, with the exception of certain insects, the distributed approach is the preferred mode. (Hold that thought) During the Crusades a person could walk into a Knights Templar office in London, deposit a sum of gold or silver and be given a piece of parchment that could be redeemed anywhere in the world, where the Templers had an office. No doubt this draft contained the following essential elements of information. The amount, the bearer, where the draft originated, where it was to be cashed, the date, a means of authentication, and a place for endorsing. (Hold that thought) Up until the Civil war, wars were managed in essentially the same way as they were in the times of Genghis Kahn. Communications between armies was minimal and accomplished by couriers on horseback or some other transportation means. (Hold that thought) The overall commander expressed his intent on a scrap of paper and subordinate commanders filled in the details. A man on a horse covering a long distance is a tenuous link as the Pony Express Riders could attest and the invention of the telegraph was a huge improvement. What had once taken weeks could now be done almost instantly. Essential data elements could be passed over wires giving merchants and governments real time communications. Then came the telephone and Teletype and that was the era into which I was born. I got to be part of the technology of the IBM Selectric Typewriter (Where the power and prestige of a secretary was measured in the assortment of her balls), to the stand-alone word processor, to the desktop, cell phone, modems, and the World Wide Web. However, one thing didn’t change. Communications were still that tenuous and vulnerable step in the process between the minds of the sender, and receiver. A man on a horse was still the most secure, followed by a telephone line and in a distant last, by communications that were sent over the airways. Now I know you are holding a lot of thoughts but here is the connection. Real time communications are not necessary to get a message from a sender and a receiver. There are usually a handful of data elements that are contained on a single line arranged into something called a “Record.” A page easily contains fifty records. If an entity doesn’t want the contents of these records compromised the most secure way is by courier. This approach lends itself to a distributed way of doing things and receives the endorsement of the “Life Model.” Anyone involved in a criminal or terrorist activity is well served by keeping this in mind. The key word is “Life.” |
| Communications 103 At the end of Phase 1 the analyst would have compiled a list of say one hundred numbers of Persons of Interest (POI). If these POIs reside overseas then there is no constraint on proceeding into phase 2, active listening. Intelligence agencies are free to listen in on the emissions of non-Americans. Now this is an interesting point because if NSA is cooperating with a foreign government there might be a reciprocal workaround between the two. For example the British carry the US workload and the US might do the same for them. This would allow for the workaround of various laws that protect citizen’s privacy rights. Both countries could shrug and say they have no control of the espionage activities of the other. Clearly this would be a convenient arrangement for two partners with a mutual trust in one another. I will call this the unconstrained listening mode (UCM) and since I believe this is pervasive will use this capability unless saying otherwise. So we have an analyst now with one hundred telephone numbers and they want to get a better sense for what is being discussed than the data elements routinely captured by a private carrier system. To do this the technique would be a bit different for satellite carriers as opposed to cable carriers. Again I will be assuming satellite carriers, even though the two switch into each other with transparent ease. In developing countries however, the advantage to cell phones and satellite based systems is that they require little to no developed telecommunications infrastructure. Electronic intelligence gathering means have been used for a long time and grown ever more sophisticated. In spy movies there is the ever-present van listening around the corner and a receiver planted in lamp. The operatives drink coffee and listen for the occasional conversation that might be of interest. Then there is the old bug in the phone trick everyone is familiar with. In addition was the telephone companies growing ability to track perverts making harassing phone calls to customers. Then we see criminals make a phone call from a public telephone booth short so the call can’t be tracked. This is old technology. During the drug wars against the cartels in South America the US used airborne trackers with CB like scanners to locate, track and monitor drug dealers and thereby seriously disrupt the cartels. This same approach was no doubt used to good effect in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorists love to use cell phones and apparently don’t realize that they are the bane of their existence. Any Terrorist organization that allows an emitter of any kind into their midst is asking for trouble. It is like waving a red flag in the electromagnetic spectrum. One of the things that have made it easier to get away with cell phones in urban areas is the huge amount of calls that are being propagated. For example in a major city the sheer volume makes it difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, however, if you have a telephone number it greatly simplifies the process. With a telephone number it is possible to have a light flash on a monitor every time a call is made. From here it is a simple matter to monitor a call and using a voice-translating program listen in and glean the gist of the conversation. If the conversation identifies a new POI there are now two telephone numbers to investigate. What gets the analyst to salivating however is when the call goes out of country. I’ll be talking conceptually about that later in the week. |
| Communications 102 Having bored you with the five links required to effect a communication let me focus on the transmission link. That is where the communication enters the airspace and is most vulnerable to interception. Once it is emitted it becomes a candidate for eves-dropping. According to an EX NSA chief the reason for the huge data or Mega data base was to connect the link between a known suspect who transmits a communication and someone who receives it. By having on hand, a universe of communications (everything transmitted in the last year) data it is possible to take a cell phone used by a terrorist and compile a list of everybody that phone talked to in the last year. In that list are a series of data records which contain sender#, receiver#, tower nodes, times, call duration and perhaps more. The extent of a data record will depend on what the telephone companies are collecting as data elements. It could be they have a copy of verbal texts, e-mail texts, graphics transmissions and texting messages. If they have these you can add them to the data record I have shown above. I doubt that the telephone companies have this extended information but we know they compile the data records shown in the above paragraph. Thus having this meta-data base allows the NSA to glean from a history file an organizational profile showing the networks of who is calling whom. In the old days tracing could only be done when the call was viable but now it is possible, long after the caller has hung up. Obviously having a tool that can access the totality of a historical data-base requires a huge facility and cooperation from the commercial service providers. However there are limits to what can be provided. Like I said I doubt the service providers collect the content of the calls except maybe text type messages, or graphics and even these I would be skeptical about. Still having reams of telephone records showing everybody the phone called in the last year gives an intelligence analyst a gold mine of material. Perhaps most importantly it provides new names and telephone numbers that can be further analyzed and developed. Before long it becomes clear who the network of conspirators (terrorists) includes. Next it is necessary to find out what is being discussed. Now what is being revealed is that this phase, identifying the network, is necessary before proceeding on to phase two which is determining what the network is discussing. It would be in phase 2 that the focus would narrow into determining the detail of the actual conversations, e-mails, text messages and graphic transmissions. This phase is where a warrant would be required and offers a clear line of demarcation from phase one. In this a citizen is left to wonder just how much is the telephone company collecting vs what the enforcement agencies are going to have to further develop in phase 2. One of the things I haven’t discussed is data mining, which is using search engines to gather the mountain of information that is available on the World Wide WEB. |
| A communication requires five components. These are two processors, a transmitter, a receiver and a connecting link. When I talk to my wife there is a communication. The transmitter is my voice. My lungs force air across vocal chords creating a unique series of vibrations that enters the air and is received by my wife’s ears. On either end is a brain that acts as the processor, originating the message and decoding messages from others. What seems like a simple process is actually one of great complexity. It requires a brain to conceive the message, a voice box to encrypt it into vibrations, an airspace over which to pass, ears to decode it and a receiving brain to process it into the intended meaningful information. Now indulge me if you will while I use the human model to explain what the NSA is trying to accomplish. Consider first that technology has yet to figure out how to access what your brain is thinking. That is something you control as an individual and if you choose not to divulge it thoughts are your unique and personal property. That is unless your society makes recourse to torture, a subject beyond the scope of this discussion. So If you think about it a message passing between two individuals can only be intercepted if it is captured on the transmission link. Historically eves-dropping is where espionage has focused much of its energies. With the advent of modern technology it is possible not to just evesdrop but to also read thoughts that have been encoded by electronic media. Think about it. The human voice has limitations of about a hundred yards at best and once the vibrations fade they are lost in a vast ocean of air. Consider however that messages that are passed by electronic means are capable of covering vast distances, can be texted or captured on recording devices. Not only can these be vibrations but also graphic images. We know our televisions, listen in that other appliances in our daily life capture information. The point I want to make is that no longer is it simply the verbal link in a voice communication that must be safeguarded but also a digital link that is becoming more and more commonly used. I think it was during WW2 that the West really got into communications warfare. One of the earliest and best examples was the nigh time British air war over Germany. All manner of radar and measures and countermeasures were developed as amazing new technologies were conjured virtually out of the air. Now we find that the NSA is expanding its capability for electreonic monitoring and taking it to a still new level. In order to appreciate where the bar currently is, one must appreciate where it has been evolving since WW2. Obviously the telephone is a good place to start. Wiretaps used by law enforcement agencies that require a warrant signed by a judge are well understood. Then came the advent of the Citizen’s Band (CB) radio and soon everyone had to have a mobile receiver in their car and truck… “Ten-Four.” On the heels of this new technology came the scanner that allowed nosey citizens to listen in on what was happening in the neighborhood regarding law enforcement and emergency vehicles. The army took this scanner technology and tied it to cell phone monitoring in the Drug War in South America. Then came the worldwide proliferation of cell phones that expanded until almost everyone below the age of fifty had one. So where exactly are we now. I’ll talk more about that tomorrow. |
| If the IRS Scandal has a silver lining it is Russell George, the Inspector General. I’m amazed he had the courage to do his job and tell the truth. I wonder why nobody has asked him the names of those who tried getting him to back off. The thing however, to keep in mind about an IG, is that they serve at the pleasure of the director. Thus anyone below the agency chief is subject to his or her scrutiny. How far Mr. George was allowed to go suggests that the IRS might not be rotten to the core but just stinky enough to make everyone hold their noses. The same does not seem to be the case about the State Department. There it is being reported that IG Investigations were brought to an abrupt halt once or twice a year. When the findings looked like they were going to be too embarrassing to the Department, “Somebody” with the power to do so, pulled the plug. I hope you see the difference. If Mr. George had worked as the State Department IG, his report would have never seen the light of day. There would have been no scandal. So while the checks and balances of the IRS worked with agonizing slowness, those at the State Department were essentially nonexistent. People died as a direct consequence of the State Department seeing the world, as they wanted to think it was rather than what it really is. Of all the Government Agencies the State Department is riddled with liberal bias that runs so deep nothing short of abolishing the Agency will ever effectively redeem it. Blaming the fiasco at Benghazi on a demonstration that got out of hand is what happens when the card castle of wishful thinking faces a serious breath of reality. Why was the CIA writing the talking points to begin with? The reason was that nobody believes the State Department and they needed somebody with credibility to explain what was really going on. So they got the CIA involved and then when the truth contradicted their fanciful worldview they wanted to delete, edit and weasel word. Those talking points speak volumes for how the top political leadership at Department of State thinks. What started out as an accurate one-page assessment ended up an emaciated paragraph that conveyed nothing but Bullshit! Then we have Susan Rice trying to hide behind that bald scrap. The CIA gave the Whitehouse and State Department exactly what they asked for… the framework for a lie that blew up in their faces. Then they tried escaping in a cloud of smoke by pinning it all on the CIA. “Wasn’t our fault,” said the White House and State Department in response. "It was all the result of faulty intelligence." So now we have a new National Security Advisor. At best she’s stupid and at worst a moral idiot. What you can gather from the mean is that she’s loyal. In a world orchestrate by Chicago Politics, there’s no substitute for that. |
| Today I heard on TV a former NSA chief explain how all the telephone and e-mail records are being used. The way he explains it is the only way they use the huge database is if they get a cellphone from a known terrorist and trace the calls back to the United States. He said having the big database is necessary in order to search for all the potential terrorist sympathizers he/she might have been calling over long periods of time. My question is what makes NSA employees any different from those at the IRS? All government agencies are run by Political Appointees. If the Chicago politicians liked the information those “Rogue IRS Employees” provided they are going to love the potential the NSA has to offer. Say a Republican contributor shows on his tax return that he made a $1000 dollar contribution to a Republican Candidate. We know these agencies talk to and coordinate with each other from the piling on that took place revealed by the current IRS scandal. (Once the information was gleaned it wasn't just IRS agents that did the harassing, it was OSHA, Treasury and FBI agents jumping on the band wagon.) This contributor has a name and address. How hard is it to get from there to a cell phone number? Then how hard is it to get to records of all the cell phone calls made in the past six months. And then how hard is it to zero in on the actual conversations that took place? We are kidding ourselves if we think the potential for abuse is any different at the NSA than it is at the IRS. The more safeguards and oversight in place the greater the lengths political operatives will go to abuse it. I think the threat to our civil liberties far outweighs an occasional terrorist that might be swept up in the dragnet. Indeed, even if they are, so what? The FBI had the name of the Boston Marathon bomber and what did they do with the information? The sent an agent out to interview him. The bomber denied any involvement…. DUH! That seems to have been the extent of the Investigation prior to all those innocent people getting maimed and killed. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) knew about Mohammed Atta before 911. What did they do with it? Nothing. Every year thousands of people die on our highways. Still driving gives us freedom through mobility. We accept the risk for the freedom an automobile gives us. I question if the disease of terrorism warrants the cure of expanded government and electronic surveillance into our personal lives. I doubt it is really worth the cost and the potential intrusion. I doubt that it is worth risking the abuses that are being demonstrated and that the government seems incapable of resisting. When there is a terrorist incident what we discover (after a whole lot of digging and arm twisting) is how incompetent these government agencies often are. Think about how colossally stupid the IRS harassment was? Even Mitt Romney doubts it had much of an influence on the election. It was stupid because the longer it went on the more certain it became that those responsible would be caught. To the perpetrators it wasn’t stupid because it was wrong; it was only "outrageous" that they got exposed and held up to ridicule in the court of public opinion. Getting caught should have been the self-evident outcome from the beginning… right up there with robbing a convenience store. During the Revolutionary War, one of the Bills of Rights was written as a consequence of British soldiers conducting dragnets from house to house. Does doing the same thing with phone or computer records make the practice any less intrusive? Do you trust Big Government to control the growing power they seek, when the evidence is they lack the will to resist the political temptations offered by what they already have? |
| At the highest levels, the US Military has always been “Politicized.” Read the oath that all military personnel take. “…I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of those appointed over me...” The President is enabled by a political party in getting elected and it should come as no surprise that the Military is inclined, for the right reasons as well as the wrong, to the politics of the Commander in Chief. Duh! This holds true for Republican Presidents in the past and for the Democrat who currently enjoys the office of Chief Executive. The President appoints the Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff and other key Officers to their posts. If that isn’t political I don’t know what is. Anybody who thinks promotion to the grade of General Officer (GO) isn’t political is uninformed. The board based selection process used to select officers up to the grade of O6 (Colonel/Admiral/Commodore) becomes one of patronage beyond that. Every officer in uniform, who has been around awhile, understands and accepts the way the selection process works. There is no question that criteria of objectivity yield to the good old boy network for selection into the GO fraternity. From here it is an easy step to accept the influence of political patronage and the effect that has on the process. Like the Phoenix it takes on a new life after each change of Administration. It is not necessarily bad or unfair. It is however, a waste of time discussing it. The Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of staff and other key military appointments are as political in nature as the appointment of cabinet officials to head Governmental Agencies. The chief difference is that senior military officers carry a reputation of special trust and confidence that their civilian counterparts do not always enjoy. They keep their job only for as long as the Chief Executive suffers them to serve. The commander in chief can change Senior Officers at the top levels of command and influence with the ease of formals coming off on Prom night. Most often a senior officer is asked to “Retire” quietly. When this happens it is the result of one of several things. These tend to include, sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, mission failure, or “Running off at the Mouth.” In the fog of what happened the night Benghazi took place one can only speculate on the sudden retirement of prominent General Officers. It happened, and amid the shroud of secrecy one is left to speculate why. It is my suspicion that it is one of the latter two. It could be that there were some harsh exchanges between commanders in Europe and Africa with the White House Situation room as our Ambassador and three Americans were left to die. Then again it could have been that they were sanctioned when milestones relating to an alert posture of their commands were not met. This was an alert posture that spun out of control as a National Crises unfolded, complicated perhaps by a disengaged President. Take your pick. These retirements and Benghazi are probably not coincidental. |
| Evolution Last Sunday I got burned while using my outdoor wood stove to get rid of storm debris. It was painful but not life threatening and the healing process should soon restore me to my old self. I can only say that we need to pay attention to the many dangerous things we do each day and never get called to account for. This most recent lesson certainly drove that point home. This morning as I sat doing reviews for my class, the Exploratory Writing Workshop I got to thinking about how bio organisms reproduce and the role that sex plays in the process. I predict that as the whole process becomes better understood it will be found that there is a synthesis mechanism at work choosing between the two data streams of DNA that are provided by the male and female donors. I suspect it will be like two tapes being read concurrently and the new organism will take the best of both. In some cases there will be breaks in the data and the donor that is not compromised will be the one chosen for the legacy stream. This got me to thinking about diversity among the donors and how this would widen the range of selectivity as the synthesis program chunks away down the telephone books of genome data that go into creating an organism. It is easy to see by thinking in this way why incest or cloning is not the optimal solution to a replication process. One of my Grandsons is interested in Robotics. He is on a team at his High School that builds them and enters competitions throughout the state of Georgia. If I were young again this would excite my interest and capture my imagination. Wouldn’t it be cool to make a robot that could replicate itself? Note that I don’t say “Create Itself.” We were built by something that existed in a dimension where chemicals became the building blocks of life. It must have been a small place because we can barely see the runes even with the most sophisticated of microscopes. Our “forefathers” (If you will) made life from the materials they had on hand. We are doing the same thing with the robotic devices we are evolving to assist in our everyday lives and that have taken us to Mars. We currently see these “Life Forms” in an extremely remedial state of development but already we can see them following the “Life Model” from whence we evolved. Our robotic life forms will be of an electro-mechanical nature since these are the materials we have the most access to and understand best how to make. The point I want to make is that there is no real “Creation” taking place here. If is simply an evolutionary process that goes back to a time and place that is “Unknowable.” Life is a synthesis of dark elements and the thermonuclear light of the stars. At different states in its evolution it has no doubt taken many different forms that were fostered as a consequence of many different links in its expression and development. We need to think less about the seminal source and more about figuring out how to produce a life form as complex and marvelous as the one we inhabit as the miraculous consequence of our birth. |
| In my opinion Benghazi is potentially the most damaging of the scandals facing the White House. The rest pale by comparison. If the American people ever find out what possibly happened that night it will send a shudder the length of our National Fabric. We know the facts are being withheld but why? It isn’t really that hard to figure out. Ask yourself what would happen in the Situation Room in a developing national crisis when the President can't be located. The answer is obvious enough. Protocols would be set in motion and there would be a mad scramble to find the Vice President. In addition the alert status would be elevated and while this could be concealed from the American People you can bet it wasn't lost on the Soviets. What happened when out of the blue the alert status got bumped up? Did actions take place that were spontaneous and unprogrammed?. Did we have a surprise test of our Strategic Readiness Posture that was generated without warning? It would be interesting to know how long it took our potential enemies to respond. I bet they were really surprised. Think about it. Suddenly Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers lifted off from their bases looking for safe airspace. I bet that sent a real chill to Moscow. How long was it before President Putin got on the hot line and inquired what was going on. And what did we tell him….? “Ah we can’t find the President.” Duh! I don’t think so. If there was ever an opportunity for a preemptive strike it was when the Commander in Chief was “Disengaged.” My guess is that the National Command Authority was paralyzed and the machinery came grinding to a halt. Think what the reaction was when the Soviets elevated their alert posture in response? We are told Benghazi was a sideshow and I can believe that. The real show could have been center stage, in the Situation Room as the scramble began to exercise the back-up plan. No doubt some will claim this is conjecture and in part it is. How can someone long retired, who never worked in National Security, on a farm in Central Wisconsin, have the slightest clue what happened? The answer is that the clues are everywhere. First is the cover-up. It isn’t just the White House clamping the lid down it’s the National Command Authority. For the “Good of the American People,” a cover up could be justified to conceal both a complete lack of readiness and how close the world came to a spiraling worst-case scenario. Look at the aftermath and read the tealeaves. Generals in Europe and Africa were quietly asked to retire. A major shake-up took place at Minot AFB. Could it be our readiness posture at major world wide commands was caught flat footed, that the land-based missiles took long to become operational? Why top leaders in the White House and the State Department were not questioned in the initial report and why follow up inquiries are now being done behind closed doors. Now the President’s National Security Advisor has quietly stepped down. The clues are everywhere and “Mums” the word. It could well have been a bad night for this great country and I doubt we will ever know the full scope of what happened. I suspect the truth of it belongs right up there with “The Missiles of October.” |
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Love it! Especially the safety measures for us homo sapiens...
