Honey trap: US missile defense contractor sold secrets to the Chinese for sex

“Would you believe…”

It’s amazing how stupid we get when our hormones and feelings are involved: a 59 years old former Army officer, who now works on missile defense, has thrown his career, his honor, and his life away for a woman half his age… who also happened to be a Chinese spy.

“According to the affidavit, the national defense information that [Benjamin Pierce] Bishop passed to [the woman] included information relating to nuclear weapons; information on planned deployment of U.S. strategic nuclear systems; information on the ability of the United States to detect low- and medium-range ballistic missiles of foreign governments; and information on the deployment of U.S. early warning radar systems in the Pacific Rim,” the Justice Department announced yesterday.

The alleged leaks took place between May of 2011 and December 2012, according to DOJ, while the “romantic relationship” supposedly began in June 2011.

Interesting that this comes soon after the Obama administration reversed plans to end Bush-era missile-defense deployments.

Bishop faces up to 20 years for his treason; I think it’s a shame he’s not liable for hanging.

So-called “honey traps” are not at all uncommon in espionage, though I think the Soviets/Russians and other Communist agencies used them far more than we did or do. And men are not the only ones to fall for them: though it’s fiction, the excellent “The Americans” TV show on FX shows an FBI confidential secretary being seduced by an undercover KGB agent.

Stupidity is a universal constant.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Did an Iranian nuke facility go boom? I think so…

Seen over Fordow?

The key is found not in what governments are saying, so much, but in what they are doing, which in turn lends perspective to their words.

Background: A few days ago, a report appeared on World Net Daily that there had been a massive explosion at Fordow, one of Iran’s major nuclear facilities, where centrifuges enrich uranium to a level at which it could be used as a warhead on a missile. I ignored the story, largely because WND has as much credibility for news as Timothy Geithner does for economics.

Then again…

Lee Smith has weighed in on Israeli actions around the time of this possible event, and his analysis has me saying “Hmmm…”:

Over the weekend there was news of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet’s “intense” consultations. According to reports, Jerusalem has deployed two Iron Dome missile defense batteries to the north—one near the port city of Haifa, and another in the Galilee region—a move that Israeli spokesmen explain is only part of a regular, scheduled rotation all over the country. However, taken in tandem with Jerusalem’s public concerns that Bashar al-Assad’s beleaguered regime may itself use chemical weapons against Israel or transfer them to Hezbollah or that the arsenal may fall into the hands of Islamist rebels, the speculation is that the Iron Dome batteries have been moved to intercept Syrian missiles carrying chemical weapons.

However, there is no obvious reason why Assad is more likely to use or transfer those weapons now more than any other time during the last two years since the uprising began; or why the rebels are more likely now to appropriate them and divert resources from their existential war with the regime to tangle with Israel. Perhaps more to the point, the Iron Dome is not designed to intercept the kind of missiles that can carry chemical weapons payloads. The likelier scenario is that Israel is girding itself in the event that Hezbollah is called upon to retaliate for the Fordow operation, using the Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles that Iron Dome is designed to stop.

Add to this Iranian denials that anything happened (1), American doubts that anything happened (2), and the Israelis mostly keeping quiet (3), and the astute reader is left with one conclusion:

Something happened. Something big. And a good thing it is, too, for the Iranian leadership is far too dangerous to ever let have nuclear weapons.

And lest you think this is too big and too far away for the Israelis, bear in mind that they and we were also behind  Stuxnet.

As I like to say in situations like these: “Oh, those wacky Jews!” (4)

via Power Line

Footnotes:
(1) Of course they would. If you were them, would you admit your archenemy had just broken one of your favorite toys?
(2) Of course we would. Publicly. If we were involved, or if the Israelis warned us. If they didn’t involve us, which may be wise, then our doubts would serve to confuse Tehran.
(3) Of course they would. Not only does Israel rarely talk about intelligence operations, but, if this really happened, the last thing they want to do is rub Tehran’s nose in it and force them to retaliate.
(4) It’s the First Rule of Mideast Politics: “Do not [mess] with the Israelis!”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Israeli Intelligence to Obama: Quit stealing the credit!

Remember when I blew my stack over “someone” (*cough* White House *cough*) leaking classified information about the development of the Stuxnet virus, aimed at Iran’s nuclear weapons program, to the New York Times? It was evident that these and other leaks were being made to boost Obama’s reputation in a difficult reelection race.

Well, well. Surprise, surprise. It seems President Look-At-Me has been caught claiming credit that wasn’t his to claim:

In his book [NYT reporter David] Sanger argues that it was an American idea to attack Iranian nuclear installations with sophisticated and clandestine cyberspace warfare – planting viruses and worms in Iran’s computers.  According to the writer, the operation — code-named ”Olympic Games” — was initiated in 2007 by the Bush administration and sped up under President Obama. In an excerpt adapted from his book by the Times, Sanger wrote that only at a later stage were Israeli intelligence experts and computer wizards were brought in and joined forces.

The Israeli officials actually told me a different version. They said that it was Israeli intelligence that began, a few years earlier, a cyberspace campaign to damage and slow down Iran’s nuclear intentions. And only later they managed to convince the USA to consider a joint operation — which, at the time, was unheard of.

The author of the article, former Haaretz reporter Yossi Melman, also quotes these officials as saying they were reluctant to get involved because they realized the US is deep into its election season. But… come on. Melman would never have been told this information if someone high up didn’t want it to get out. The message is clear: “We did the hard work; stop being a schmuck!”

So now we know(1) not only the president is self-centered enough to leak classified information to make himself look good, but he has to exaggerate his role, too.

But, then again, this is a man who (or whose flunkies) thought it a good idea to insert himself into the official biographies of his recent predecessors, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

We should just roll our eyes, instead.

via Joel Pollak

Footnote:
(1) Sure, I recognize the Israelis could be telling their own fibs for their own purposes. Maybe. Given recent history of leaks all designed to make the boss look good, however, I’m inclined to credit Melman’s reporting more than the White House.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Yemen underwear-bomb plot: I was right

A few days ago, when writing about the revelation of a Al Qaeda plot to blow up a commercial flight with a new and improved underwear bomb and our penetration of said plot, I speculated as to why we were hearing about what should have been a top-secret operation:

With the economy in the crapper and the public mood so bad that even a convicted felon gives Obama a run for his money in a Democratic primary, Obama needs all the good news he can get.

You can bet on it: The One and his team couldn’t wait to brag about this. And all it cost was letting AQAP know just how much we had penetrated them.

I’m sorry to say I was right:

Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5.

The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport.

Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. “MI6 should be as angry as hell. This is something that the prime minister should raise with the president, if he has the balls. This is really tragic,” Scheur said.

He added: “Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing.”

He noted that the leak came on the heels of a series of disclosures over the last 10 days, beginning with a report that the CIA wanted to expand its drone attacks in Yemen, Barack Obama making a surprise trip to Afghanistan around the time of the Bin Laden anniversary and “then this inexplicable leak”.

The agent was apparently a Yemeni studying in Britain who was recruited by MI6 and spent over a year in Yemen covincing Al Qaeda that he was ready and willing to be a suicide bomber. When he got his hands on the bomb, he was spririted out of the country. Now Al Qaeda can be certain who the mole was; this guy is going to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, wondering when the revenge hit will strike.

And it’s bad enough that we blew our own secrets, but we compromised British and Saudi intelligence, too. As the article goes on to point out, the British may well think twice and then think again before sharing with us. The danger, of course, is not just a loss of trust between intelligence services that have a long tradition of close cooperation, but that, for failure to share information, we might miss a terrorist plot in the making and wind up with a lot of corpses and a lot of grieving families wondering how it could have happened.

All because either Obama himself or someone on his team wanted to make him look tough for his reelection campaign.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is not happy and he’s asking questions:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) blamed administration “chest-thumbing” for the leak of information over an intelligence operation which thwarted a plot to bomb an America-bound airliner.

“I think there was a little premature chest-thumbing,” said Rogers on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I’ve ordered a preliminary review. And I’ll tell you something, this has been a damaging leak. We shouldn’t underestimate what really happened here.”

(…)

Rogers was asked by host Bob Schieffer if he believed information about the operation was leaked to the press by administration officials “to take credit for it.”

“I said chest-thumping, but it clearly raises some serious questions that we are going to have to ask,” responded Rogers. “We do know that the CIA was trying to stop the story and we know that there was a scheduled White House or at least planned press conference on the particular event. Those two disparate positions lead one to believe that someone was at odds over how much they should or shouldn’t talk about it.

“It’s clear that the information was leaked. That information as presented at some point to the CIA,” added Rogers. “The CIA at that point tried to put the story back in the can for security reasons. People’s lives were at stake during this operation. And that’s where it gets a little murky, which is why I ordered the review. “

To top it all off, while the administration was apparently anxious to blab to all and sundry about the operation, they neglected to tell the ranking members of the Intelligence Committee, even though they’re required to do by statute. Probably shouldn’t be surprised, though; it’s not as if they’ve shown any respect for Congress’ oversight function in the past.

I’m tempted to quote again Bill Clinton on the amateurs in the White House, but that would be too flip. These amateurs aren’t just earnest bumblers; they’re doing real harm.

And it’s worrying.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The foiled bomb plot: great news, but…

On the one hand, this is great news: We infiltrated Al Qaeda’s Arabian subsidiary [AQAP] and kept a lot of people from being killed, while at the same time delivering flaming justice to one of the masterminds of the attack on the USS Cole:

The CIA takedown of an Al Qaeda plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner involved an international sting operation with a double agent tricking terrorists into handing over a prized possession: a new bomb purportedly designed to slip through airport security.

U.S. officials Tuesday described an operation in which Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, working closely with the CIA, used an informant to pose as a would-be suicide bomber. His job was to persuade Al Qaeda bomb makers in Yemen to give him the bomb.

After weeks operating undercover in Yemen, the double agent arranged to deliver the device and a trove of vital intelligence to U.S. and other authorities waiting in another country, officials said. He is now safely out of Yemen.

Experts are analyzing the device at the FBI’s bomb laboratory at Quantico, Va., to determine whether it could evade current security systems. Officials said it appears to have a more advanced triggering device than that of the so-called underwear bomb that fizzled instead of exploding aboard a packed passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

U.S. officials said President Obama was informed of the bomb in early April and was assured that it did not pose a threat to the public. Officials emphasized that the terrorists had not chosen a target or purchased air tickets, and that the plot to blow up an airliner never reached the operational stage.

And, according to the Washington Post:

The most recent strike killed an alleged operations planner wanted in connection with the attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen in 2000. U.S. officials said that Fahd al-Quso was probably involved in directing the plot but that the drone strike was ordered because of his larger role in AQAP.

So, latest underwear bomb plot foiled, double-agent safe, we got our hands on Al Qaeda’s latest toys, and a terrorist murderer brave jihadi got the payback he so richly deserved. What’s not to like, right?

Well, there’s what’s on that other hand…

Don’t get me wrong; this is great news, and the CIA and Saudi intelligence service deserve pats on the back. But…

Why are we hearing about this at all??

One of the greatest secrets you can have in intelligence work –especially when dealing with a deadly enemy– is that you’ve compromised their security. That you’ve cracked their codes, found their safe houses, planted a bug in their meetings, slipped a mole deep inside… so many things. You want them kept secret because you can exploit the advantage again and again, disrupting and demoralizing your enemy because they can’t figure out how you’re always one step ahead. These are secrets you go to your grave with, because, once blown, they’re useless.

So, I ask again: Why are we being told this? The LA Times article provides a hint:

U.S. intelligence officials had planned to keep the bomb sting secret, a senior official said, but the Associated Press learned of the operation last week. The AP delayed posting the story at the request of the Obama administration, but then broke the news Monday.

“When the AP got it and started talking about it, it caused all kinds of problems with the operation,” said a U.S. official who would not be quoted by name discussing the classified operation. “The investigation never went to its full conclusion.”

AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news agency held off publishing until U.S. officials told the AP that security concerns were allayed.

“We were told on Monday that the operation was complete and that the White House was planning to announce it Tuesday,” he said.

So we have two different stories. In one, the AP learns about the operation and, with security compromised, the government felt it might as well tell, since the information was going to come out, anyway. It’s a common story.

In the other, AP waited, found out the administration was going to open up on Tuesday, and so decided to get its story out, first.

Call me a cynic, but the second seems much more plausible. Remember that this is the same administration that, after killing bin Laden, didn’t want to be seen “spiking the ball.” Now, a year later and with a difficult reelection campaign underway, the president and his minions are running around doing the  “Gutsy Call” end-zone dance like a NFL rookie scoring his first touchdown. With the economy in the crapper and the public mood so bad that even a convicted felon gives Obama a run for his money in a Democratic primary, Obama needs all the good news he can get.

You can bet on it: The One and his team couldn’t wait to brag about this. And all it cost was letting AQAP know just how much we had penetrated them.

Final thought: What was the “opportunity cost” of this latest bit of chest-thumping? Are there any more of these newest bombs out there? Other plots in the offing? How much are we now not going to learn of because AQAP will surely change their security measures?

Sometimes, silence really is golden.

PS: And lest we forget, they’re still trying to kill us.

LINKS: More from Hot Air.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

How we tracked Awlaki

At Big Peace, the Investigative Project on Terrorism (1) provides the inside story of how we tracked down Al Qaeda’s rising star, Anwar al-Awlaki:

Awlaki lived in the southern Yemen province of Shabwa, an area beyond the reach of Yemen’s military and central government. Much of Yemen is like the Wild West, with no central governing authority. The numerous tribes settle disputes among themselves. Awlaki came from the Awalik tribe.

Intelligence gathered last year from Yemeni authorities and from debriefings with several American converts who returned to the United States after training with Awlaki, helped narrow Awlaki’s location to a 100 square mile area. He moved at night, often in convoys of armored SUVs in order to prevent U.S. drones and surveillance from determining which vehicle he was in. But the drones, which have advanced in the ability to recognize faces on the ground, hovered above the area where Awlaki was believed to be. Electronic intelligence – including telephone intercepts –also were used, although Awlaki was said to be careful in limiting his use of electronic communication, aware that he could be tracked that way.

In the past several months, American drone operators were confident they had identified Awlaki as he moved from among a series of underground bunkers. An initial drone missile targeting him was fired at an al-Qaida training camp but missed him.

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agents collected as much personal data about Awlaki as they could from his extended family living in western countries. For example, he had an ex-wife living in Ireland that no one knew about until a close relative living in the United States identified the family tree for agents in early January. The relative proved to be a goldmine of information about Awlaki’s siblings, parents, wives, and children.

Intelligence officials learned about the American relative in January through other Yemeni expatriates living here who knew her. She agreed to cooperate and provided extensive information about close relatives living either with him, elsewhere in Yemen, or in different parts of the world. Telephone numbers belonging to a close relative living in Yemen’s capital Sanaa that the American relative provided to U.S. intelligence officials proved the most critical.

The relative knew that Awlaki called that number. The National Security Agency (NSA) quickly was able to triangulate the phone numbers and determine almost exactly where Awlaki was when he called the Sanaa number. The American relative also provided information on other Awlaki relatives who apparently had direct contact with Awlaki, either through email or other electronic means. That knowledge helped track other communication and confirm Awlaki’s whereabouts.

I’m not surprised the ex-wife was willing to talk, given this deeply spiritual man’s preferred hobbies.

It really is a fascinating story: once they had a good idea of the area Awlaki was hiding in, they flooded the skies with drones and kept watching. We also had informants on the ground posing as his students. (2) Finally they got word he was moving in a convoy during the day from one bunker to another. The CIA had passed on earlier shots before, out of fear of too many civilian casualties, but this one looked good and so…

Bye-bye, Anwar. (3)

I draw a few lessons from this:

• I’ve read elsewhere that the investigative work was carried out by the same group that tracked down bin Laden. These guys are good.
• If you make a name for yourself among jihadists and you take us on, we will find you and you will either take a bullet to the head or go boom. Our choice, not yours.
• If you’re going to live the life of a terrorist on the run, stop calling family! On second thought, scratch that. Make all the calls you want.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Footnotes:
(1) The IPT is Steve Emerson‘s outfit. They do great work.
(2) In other words, we have spies in their midst. Your first thought may be to ask why we’re revealing this, but consider: whether fact or disinformation, it plays with AQAP’s minds and throws a heaping helping of doubt and suspicion into their internal operations. Whom can they trust, even among their “brothers?”
(3) Bite me, Glenn Greenwald. (Among others.)

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Missed opportunities: tapping the Taliban’s lines before 9/11

Here’s a bombshell from late last week that was lost in all the brouhaha over the debt agreement and S&P’s downgrade of US debt. In the last years of the Clinton administration and the early months of Bush’s, we had a golden chance to tap Afghanistan’s cell-phone networks, probably including their communications with their al Qaeda guests, because we would have built it for them:

Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose reveals for the first time that in 1999 the Taliban had granted license to an American company, Afghan Wireless Communications, to construct a cell-phone, and, Internet system in Afghanistan. Had the secret deal, named Operation Foxden, been completed, the U.S. would have had complete access to al-Qaeda and Taliban calls and e-mails in a matter of months. “The capability we would have had would have been very good,” a former N.S.A. official tells Rose. “Had this network been built with the technology that existed in 2000, it would have been a priceless intelligence asset.” But, as Rose reports, “at the critical moment, the Clinton administration put the project on hold, while rival U.S. agencies—the F.B.I., the N.S.A., and the C.I.A.—bickered over who should control it.” This “was one tool we could have put in Afghanistan that could have made a difference,” says a former C.I.A. official. “Why didn’t we put it in? 

Click through for the rather “colorful” answer.

The upshot is that a businessman who both had excellent relations with the Taliban and was an FBI source had secured a contract to build a wireless network for Afghanistan, and with the components added by US intelligence, we would have had unparalleled access to their cellular and satellite calls, with the operations run out of Fort Meade. Sweet, right? With this kind of access, we might well have leaned about 9/11 in time to stop it.

So what went wrong?

As the article makes clear, the program fell victim to both inter- and intra-agency bureaucratic chest-thumping, including an effort to squeeze out the British (Some British investors were involved, and they presumably had MI-6 backing.) because everyone was fighting over who would control it.

On top of that, the Clinton administration had issued an executive order prohibiting Americans from doing business in Afghanistan, a development that affected the FBI “asset” who had signed the contract. I find it mind-boggling that, as far as I can tell, Clinton a) apparently had no idea of a major intelligence operation against our avowed enemies and that b) no one went to him to argue or could convince him that a quiet exception needed to be made in this case.

Seriously. Did no one tell the President of the United States? 

This reminds me of the various bureaucratic frictions so amply documented in the 9/11 commission’s report, including the infamous Gorelick wall against intelligence sharing. Hidebound bureaucracy was one of our weakest links leading up to 9/11, and this news is another big example.

via Eli Lake

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Did the Obama administration deliberately wreck an Israeli intel operation?

Israeli journalist Caroline Glick thinks they did:

Since last week’s announcement by the State Department that it was sanctioning the Israeli firm Ofer Brothers’ Shipping for reportedly violating US law by trading with Iran, there has been a deluge of news reports alleging that the Ofer Brother’s ships were used by the Mossad and perhaps the IDF to infiltrate and exfiltrate agents into and out of Iran.

There are number of troubling aspects to the story. First, it strikes me as odd that the announcement about the sanctions was made by the State Department. If I am not mistaken, these decisions and announcements are usually made by the Treasury Department. Why would the State Department have taken the unusual step of announcing the sanctions and take the step against an Israeli shipping company?

Second, it strikes me as odd that former Mossad chief Meir Dagan felt compelled to issue an impassioned defense of the Ofer Brothers Shipping company. Dagan is in the midst of an unprecedented, arguably illegal and certainly unseemly campaign to delegitimize Prime Minister Binyamin Netayahu. It seems strange that, in the midst of this offensive, Dagan would divert his attention to the Ofer Brothers Shipping woes. He must have been deeply shocked by the US move to do so.

(…)

The third reason this is so shocking is that the timing of the announcement cannot be viewed as coincidental. The rare State Department announcement came just after Netanyahu wiped the floor with Obama in the Congress and as the Republicans are wisely using Obama’s hatred of Israel and his love for anti-American political forces in the region as a campaign issue for 2012.  It is hard not to reach the conclusion that the announcement was deliberately released at this juncture to weaken US public support for Israel.

In other words, in a fit of pique because Netanyahu dared to stand up for his country’s interests (1), Obama (2) burned an important Israeli intelligence asset, one valuable to our security, too, given our interests in foiling the mullah’s plans to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.

If Glick is right, this is an absolutely appalling exercise in self-defeating pettiness on the part of the Obama administration. There is no greater nor more urgent issue facing American national security than keeping a bunch of religious fanatics who want to bring about the Shiite apocalypse from getting their hands on nukes. This matter is so serious that, in my opinion, Tehran’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons justifies war.

But, instead, we pimp-slap our closest allies in the region, the people who probably planted the Stuxnet virus that slowed down Iran’s program and who likely have assets in place we would need in a showdown. As Glick asks, how on Earth are the Israelis supposed to trust us after something like this?

All because Obama made a fool of himself and Netanyahu wouldn’t back down.

I really hope Glick is wrong about this, because it otherwise says some dark and scary things about the maturity and seriousness of the people running our foreign policy in a very dangerous world.

And I sure hope 2013 sees the adults back in charge.

(1) Evidently an alien concept to certain presidents.

(2) Because you know he either originated this or approved the idea. This wouldn’t happen without him.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Anthony Weiner: serious question

Okay, yesterday I was laughing, but something occurred to me this morning: Congressman “I’m a big deal” Weiner sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That committee includes the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, the jurisdiction of which is:

National energy policy generally; Fossil energy, renewable energy resources and synthetic fuels, energy conservation, energy information; Energy regulation and utilization; Utility issues and regulation of nuclear facilities; Interstate energy compacts; Nuclear energy; The Clean Air Act and air emissions; and, All laws, programs, and government activities affecting such matters.

(Emphases added)

Weiner does not sit on that subcommittee. But, since the full committee’s purview includes areas considered by the subcommittee, that means Representative Weiner almost certainly has a “top secret” security clearance so he can be properly informed when considering issues dealing with our nuclear power plants, not just technological secrets but also their physical security in an age of mass terrorism.

Think about that.

Anthony Weiner has just shown the world how irresponsible and careless he is. Forgetting for a moment his apparent inclinations toward infidelity, his childish “sexting” makes him vulnerable to blackmail (1). The Soviets used to do it all the time, and you can bet our enemies would be happy to do it today:

“So, Tony. What’s it going to be? Do we get details of the security at San Onofre, or does your wife get to see those other pictures, the ones that you thought were safe, when she opens tomorrow’s ‘Post?’”

Sure, the dialogue is corny, but the situation is potentially quite real.

So, let me ask: Is there any reason why this juvenile dope shouldn’t lose his security clearance and be consigned to the Committee on the House Cafeteria?

(1) Anyone willing to bet that this is the first time he’s done this, and there aren’t more photos out there? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Will someone please unleash Stuxnet on Wikileaks?

Thanks to the sanctimonious, self-righteous hacker-children of Wikileaks, we now have possible answer to why the Obama administration has been so gentle, even pusillanimous, toward the popular revolt against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad: We’ve been secretly backing the opposition:

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say scores of people have been killed by Assad’s security forces since the demonstrations began March 18; Syria has blamed the violence on “armed gangs.”

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

And not just that shortsighted, naive rapprochement would be at risk. There’s a reason programs like these are kept secret: their revelation could not only wreck the operation, but also get people killed.

The US has very good reasons for supporting the Syrian opposition, far stronger and more relevant that whatever rationale was used to justify the attack on Libya: Syria is a terrorist sponsor that has the blood of Americans, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Israelis on its hands. During the insurgency in Iraq, it actively supported jihadists and Baathist remnants in their guerrilla war against the Coalition and the new Iraqi state. It is a key client and ally of Iran, our deadly enemy, which itself is in pursuit of nuclear weapons  and has promised to use them.  Taking down the Assad regime would would greatly weaken Iran’s hand in the region.

For these and many other reasons, we have a strong national interest in seeing regime change in Damascus, and I’m glad to see the Obama administration continued Bush’s efforts to support and aid the opposition.

But that may all come crashing down now at the cost of many brave Syrian lives.

So, why’d you do it, Wikileaks? Not getting enough media attention lately? Or are you so lost in a childish moral equivalence that you think you’re helping poor little third-world Syria against the evil capitalist bully? Don’t hurt yourself patting yourself on the back and don’t worry about the Syrians now exposed to torture and death just so you could be big-shots again.

I’d call you “jackasses,” but I’d have to find a mule to apologize to.

And I wasn’t kidding in the subject: if someone could devise a virus to foul up the Iranian nuclear program, surely something similar could be cooked up to fry the servers hosting Wikileaks. They’re clearly acting as enemies of the US and her allies, now.

RELATED: This isn’t the first time Wikileaks has exposed a covert American ally working to end a brutal dictatorship. And they may well have Afghan blood on their hands, too.

via Legal Insurrection

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Stuxnet a joint US-Israel project…

…started by Bush, and accelerated by Obama. Well done to both men, and to our Israeli partners!

I love it when we do cool stuff like this:

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal.

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”

Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.

Be sure to read the whole thing; it’s a fascinating story. One item straight out of science-fiction: the virus was designed to record what normal operations looked like, then play it back so Iranian scientists would think everything was fine while Stuxnet was quietly wrecking their centrifuges. Genius!

Of course, there’s a dark lining to every silver cloud… or something. What we and the Israelis have done to the Iranians could be done to us by a hostile power. (Hello? China?) Let’s hope the DoD and the rest of the government are taking computer security seriously. At least, let’s not make it so easy for the next Bradley Manning, okay?

That downer aside… Ain’t this cool?

RELATED: At Blue Crab Boulevard, Gaius thinks Stuxnet was way overbuilt and wonders what other capabilities it’s hiding.

Zimbabwe: real harm done by WikiLeaks

There are thankfully few genuine hell-holes among the nations of the Earth. One of them is, of course, North Korea. Among the others, Zimbabwe has to be among the worst. After years of horrific misrule that has turned what was once the breadbasket of southern Africa into a Dystopia of starvation and fear, some hope arrived in 2009 when the government of dictator Robert Mugabe was forced to enter a coalition government with Morgan Tsvangirai, a democratic reformer. It was just a glimmer, but it nonetheless held out the possibility of restoring democratic government to Zimbabwe, fixing its trashed economy, and healing its brutalized people.

That is, until WikiLeaks revealed to the world (and Robert Mugabe) the details of a meeting between Tsvangirai and a US/European delegation about sanctions placed on Zimbabwe to encourage reform and Mugabe’s resistance to them:

To overcome this, [Tsvangirai] said that the sanctions on Zimbabwe “must be kept in place” to induce Mugabe into giving up some political power. The prime minister openly admitted the incongruity between his private support for the sanctions and his public statements in opposition. If his political adversaries knew Tsvangirai secretly supported the sanctions, deeply unpopular with Zimbabweans, they would have a powerful weapon to attack and discredit the democratic reformer.

Later that day, the U.S. embassy in Zimbabwe dutifully reported the details of the meeting to Washington in a confidential U.S. State Department diplomatic cable. And slightly less than one year later, WikiLeaks released it to the world.

The reaction in Zimbabwe was swift. Zimbabwe’s Mugabe-appointed attorney general announced he was investigating the Prime Minister on treason charges based exclusively on the contents of the leaked cable. While it’s unlikely Tsvangirai could be convicted on the contents of the cable alone, the political damage has already been done. The cable provides Mugabe the opportunity to portray Tsvangirai as an agent of foreign governments working against the people of Zimbabwe. Furthermore, it could provide Mugabe with the pretense to abandon the coalition government that allowed Tsvangirai to become prime minister in 2009.

Emphasis added. Read the whole thing.

Dear Julian Assange, his craven creature Bradley Manning, and all you who work for WikiLeaks: you in your self-righteous, sanctimonious arrogance may well have cost Morgan Tsvangirai his life. You have certainly badly damaged the cause of democratic reform in a land that desperately needs it.

May you all go to prison, and may you rot there for the rest of your pathetic lives.

via Legal Insurrection

RELATED: Other posts on Zimbabwe.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Stuxnet: Better than a Tom Clancy novel

Because it’s real, and it apparently set the Iranian nuclear program (a.k.a., “Toys for Psycho Tots”) back two whole years:

The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program’s code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

“It will take two years for Iran to get back on track,” Langer said in a telephone interview from his office in Hamburg, Germany. “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”

Langer spoke to the Post amid news reports that the virus was still infecting Iran’s computer systems at its main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and its reactor at Bushehr.

Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, said that Iran had suspended work at its nuclear-field production facilities, likely a result of the Stuxnet virus.

According to Langer, Iran’s best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most “advanced and aggressive malware in history.” But, he said, even once all of the computers were thrown out, Iran would have to ensure that computers used by outside contractors were also clean of Stuxnet.

All without a shot being fired. And the only way to safely restart would be to trash all those expensive computers (and any portable drives)? Glorious. The article speculates that a unit of the Israel Defence Forces was behind this; I doubt the full truth will ever really come out, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn this was a joint effort by several concerned nations. On the other hand, the Israelis are creative and daring enough that this could be their work, all by themselves. And, as a friend once explained to me the First Rule of Mideast Politics:

Do not [mess] with the Israelis!

Regardless, whoever you are, well done!

via Allahpundit

UPDATE: Or was it the Chinese? Plausible, but I have a hard time believing they’d show this card when it would be more valuable to them to save to use against… us.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Quote of the day: Sarah Palin on the Wikileaks fiasco

Palin. Nightstick. Boom:

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It’s of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

We are at war. American soldiers are in Afghanistan fighting to protect our freedoms. They are serious about keeping America safe. It would be great if they could count on their government being equally serious about that vital task.

Think that has some heads exploding in the White House?

You betcha.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Tehran bombings target nuclear scientists?

Gee, who could be behind this?

Two separate explosions killed a nuclear scientist and injured another in the Iranian capital Monday morning, official news outlets reported.

Both scholars’ wives and a driver were also injured in the attacks, according to the news agencies. The slain scientist, Majid Shahriari, was a member of the nuclear engineering team at the Shahid Behesti university in Tehran, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA.

(…)

The assassins, riding motorcycles, tossed bombs at — or attached them to — vehicles of the two Shahid Behesti University professors as they drove with their spouses en route to work between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m..

“A Pulsar motorbike drove close to Dr. Shahriari’s car and stuck a bomb on his car which after a few seconds exploded,” Tehran police chief Hossein Sajednia was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

The article also mentions another Iranian nuclear scientist assassinated last January.

But, who’s ordering the hits?

Let’s consider: Iran, an aggressive and terroristic nation, is developing nuclear weapons, which no one in their right mind wants them to have. They have repeatedly threatened to drop those weapons on a certain small country nearby, the government of which lives by the motto “Never again” and has been known to deal harshly with enemies who threaten its people.

I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

Via Instapundit.

LINKS: Gateway Pundit has video. Also Hot Air.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan

From The Long War Journal:

Taliban suicide assault team repelled at Kandahar Airfield

A Taliban suicide assault team was repelled while trying to breach the perimeter at Kandahar Airfield, one of NATO’s largest bases in Afghanistan.

A team of six heavily armed Taliban fighters, two of whom were wearing suicide vested, were stopped by Coalition troops outside the main gate at Kandahar Airfield, the largest logistics NATO hub in the Afghan south. More than 10,000 Coalition soldiers and contractors are based at the airfield.

“Six suicide bombers penetrated into the Kandahar airport,” a statement released by the provincial administration read, according to Xinhua. “Two of them blew themselves up and the four others were killed by security forces.“

Other than that, the operation was another glorious victory for the mujaheddin and Islam. Their 72 white raisins await them.

More ominously, Afghans who helped the Coalition against the medieval psychotics and barbarians Taliban are already starting to pay the price for Julian Assange’s narcissism:

Late last week, just four days after the documents were published [by WikiLeaks], death threats began arriving at the homes of key tribal elders in southern Afghanistan. And over the weekend one tribal elder, Khalifa Abdullah, who the Taliban believed had been in close contact with the Americans, was taken from his home in Monar village, in Kandahar province’s embattled Arghandab district, and executed by insurgent gunmen … The frightening combination of the Taliban spokesman’s threat, Abdullah’s death, and the spate of letters has sparked a panic among many Afghans who have worked closely with coalition forces in the past, according to a senior Taliban intelligence officer who declined to be named for security reasons … The Taliban officer claimed that the group’s English-language media department continues to actively examine the WikiLeaks material and intends to draw up lists of collaborators in each province, to add to the hit lists of local insurgent commanders.

If there is a Hell, Assange belongs in it*. And I wouldn’t mind too much if a Predator drone opened the door there for him.

*(As does the traitor who fed him the documents.)

Color me shocked: Feds to prosecute NSA staffer

I’ll be honest, the government always says it’s going to hunt down people who leak classified material, but for them to actually follow through is almost unheard of. And for the Justice Department under Eric Holder to do this? Satan’s donning a parka even now:

A senior executive with the National Security Agency faces 10 felony charges of leaking classified information to a national newspaper in 2006 and 2007, the Justice Department announced Thursday morning. Thomas A. Drake, 52, allegedly exchanged hundreds of e-mails with an unnamed reporter in a national newspaper that published stories about Bush administration intelligence policies between February 2006 and November 2007.

The article doesn’t specify that these leaks had to do with counterterrorism efforts, but I’ll bet that’s it. Leaks from bureaucrats opposed to Bush administration policies in Iraq and the Long War overall have done tremendous damage, such as revealing the NSA terrorist communications intercept program and Treasury’s secret program to track terrorist finances. Guys like Drake, assuming he’s guilty, deserve to have the book thrown at them; they sanctimoniously put their own egos ahead of their duty to the nation in time of war.

I never thought I’d write this, but, good for Eric Holder.

(via NRO)

LINK: More at Hot Air.

UPDATE: I take back my praise for AG Holder. According to Power Line, Drake was not the one who revealed the terrorist surveillance program. Instead, he’s accused of embarrassing NSA management. Glad to see Justice has its priorities straight.

UPDATE II: Background from journalist Eli Lake.

Sarkozy: “Obama is insane!”

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory, I seem to recall President-elect Obama promising to restore our relations with the rest of the world. Somehow, I don’t think it’s indicative of an improvement when the French President says Obama is insane:

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today authored by France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) and recently “obtained” by the FSB shockingly quotes French President Nicolas Sarkozy … as stating that President Barack Obama is “a  dangerous[ly] aliéné”, which translates into his, Obama, being a “mad lunatic”, or in the American vernacular, “insane”.

According to this report, Sarkozy was “appalled” at Obama’s “vision” of what the World should be under his “guidance” and “amazed” at the American Presidents unwillingness to listen to either “reason” or “logic”.  Sarkozy’s meeting where these impressions of Obama were formed took place nearly a fortnight ago at the White House in Washington D.C., and upon his leaving he “scolded” Obama and the US for not listening closely enough to what the rest of the World has to say.

Bear in mind that Sarkozy, while I have a great deal of respect for him (as opposed to his corrupt predecessor), is not the most unbiased source when it comes to Obama. In fact, he seems to crave the President’s attention. And yet, he has in the past scolded Obama for failing to deal with reality, which, you have to admit, can be a sign of a deranged mind. So perhaps multiple experiences have lead him to this conclusion. At the very least, the French President seems to be following roughly the same line of thought as the Hollywood writer.

So, has our President’s little choo-choo gone chugging around the bend? Is he a fruitcake with extra nuts? Should we pad Oval Office?

Nah. As I said before, I think he’s a callow egotist who needs to grow up. He can do (and is doing) enough damage just being that. He doesn’t need to be insane, and calling him that only serves to weaken the legitimate criticism he so richly deserves.

AFTERTHOUGHT: And did the Russians really steal that report, or did the French “let” it be stolen?

(via JammieWearingFool)

UPDATE: To clarify a point made in the comments, the source newspaper seems more than a bit … questionable, to be nice about it. I should have made that more clear, rather than assume people would get it from the post. Next time, I’ll put it in bright, red letters: quotation here is for illustrative purposes and does not necessarily imply endorsement. The thrust of the piece merely reminded me of earlier Sarkozy-Obama frictions (see links) and questions about the President and personality disorders. (See other link.)

All the secrets that are fit to print

Sometimes, one has to wonder just whose side the New York Times is on:

Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants

Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

Why don’t you send the Taliban photos of the field operatives and their travel schedules, too?

For the record, if someone* is using off-the-record funding to ID and then kill Taliban and al Qaeda targets … good!

*(Like, oh, the US Government because certain big-mouthed newspapers that richly deserve to go out of business blew the cover of earlier covert ops?)

Nitwits.

(via The Jawa Report)

Pelosi: three lies, you’re out?

This is getting laughable. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Leftist Fantasyland) has changed her story on what she knew about harsh interrogation techniques -including waterboarding- and when she knew it again:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned in early 2003 that the Bush administration was waterboarding terror detainees but didn’t protest directly out of respect for “appropriate” legislative channels, a person familiar with the situation said Monday.

That’s excuse version number three. Ace can give you numbers one and two, along with a preview of the likely fourth. And Allahpundit utterly shreds the "I wanted to respect proper channels" lie by listing all the things she could have done, were she truly concerned about Abu Zubaydah’s health.

Late in the article is buried another gem:

An aide to former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) took issue Monday with the entry for a Feb. 4, 2003, briefing in which a Rockefeller staffer was reportedly told “how the water board was used.”

“We are not in a position to vouch for the accuracy of the document,” a Rockefeller spokeswoman said. He “has repeatedly stated he was not told critical information that would have cast significant doubt on the program’s legality and effectiveness.”

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time Pelosi was briefed, told The Washington Post’s PlumLine blog that he wasn’t told of waterboarding then, either — despite a Sept. 27, 2002, briefing entry indicating he was given details of Zubaydah’s interrogation.

“I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them,” said Graham, adding: “Something as unexpected and dramatic as that would be the kind of thing that you would normally expect to recall even years later.”

"I cannot vouch…" "I do not recollect…" Jeez, guys, I watched the Watergate live hearings back in ’73, and I can tell you Haldeman, Dean, and Ehrlichman were a lot better liars. Now you’re trying to tell us that the CIA six to seven years ago falsified documents to show Democrats knew all about the interrogation techniques being used? The same intelligence agency large segments of which were cooperating with Democrats to undermine Bush Administration policy? To what end? To screw the agenda of a liberal Democrat president??

Yeah, right.

Let’s face it. You guys knew all about what was going on and you approved; some of you wanted more.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

But then you and the administration thought you could make political hay out of this, whip up the mob against the Republicans and channel that anger into passage of your agenda: you wanted a witch hunt to cement your hold on power.

But instead you’ve discovered you opened Pandora’s Box, and you can’t close it. The Republicans are fighting back — they know what’s in the documents. And the CIA, which you tried to use as a whipping post, will be all too happy to make them available. They won’t go down alone.

You stupid, stupid fools. You initially did the right thing when you backed the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, but then you put your party’s political interest ahead of the nation’s — and look where it’s got you. All you’ve done is again show the American people and the world at large that Democrats cannot be trusted with national security. You can bet your bottom dollar that a lot of people who backed you in 2006 and 2008 are wondering what they bought into.

By 2010 and 2012, I bet they won’t be wondering anymore.

RELATED: Obama, Pelosi make enemies at the CIA. Sheer genius!

 

Technorati tags: intelligence, Nancy Pelosi, waterboarding, Abu Zubaydah, lies, briefings, Bob Graham