CONTRA EL PINGALISMO CASTRISTA/
"Se que no existe el consuelo
que no existe
la anhelada tierrra de mis suenos
ni la desgarrada vision de nuestros heroes.
Pero
te seguimos buscando, patria,..." - Reinaldo Arenas
Cubadebate Por el Coronel ® Nelson Domínguez Morera (NOEL)
En el día de ayer a la edad de 77 años dejó de existir el Agente de Juegos Operativos de la Seguridad del Estado de Cuba Nicolás Alberto Sirgado Ros quien se mantuvo, bajo el pseudónimo de NERÓN para esos órganos, durante más de 10 años penetrando y burlando a la Agencia Central de Inteligencia de los EE.UU en sus acciones de subversión contra Cuba, quien lo consideraba un hombre de su más entera y absoluta confianza.
A tal extremo fue así, que en el año 1976 la eminencia gris de varios gobiernos norteamericanos Henry Kissinger, desempeñándose en el de Gerald Ford como su Secretario de Estado, le obsequió, (en un tercer país, donde siempre era atendido para salvaguardarlo), como reconocimiento a los servicios prestados y la supuesta lealtad mantenida al imperio, un reloj pulsera autografiado por el reverso que actualmente se conserva en la Sala de la Gloria Combativa del Departamento de Seguridad del Estado en Villa Marista.
Nicolás Sirgado nació en La Habana, el 10 de septiembre del 1935. Se inicio en las tareas revolucionaras ocupando diferentes cargos de responsabilidad en el Ministerio de Obras Publicas (después Ministerio de la Construcción), Ministerio de la Industria Ligera y Cubatabaco desempeñándose en los cargos de Director y Delegado provincial, respectivamente. También trabajó con en el viceministerio de la Enseñanza Tecnológica. Los órganos del DSE aprovecharon una sanción que le fue impuesta en el MICONS, en Pinar del Rio, para crearle una adecuada fachada y línea de conducta tomando en cuenta que aparentemente había sido sancionado de forma injusta en ese Ministerio, por lo que fue orientado a presentarse como un resentido, algunos elementos de su tradición familiar también contribuyeron a ello.
NERÓN fue el único Agente de Juegos Operativos cuya trascendental labor secreta para la Seguridad Cubana, decidió revelar, evidenciándola personalmente y de manera pública el Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro el 15 de Octubre de 1976, durante el luctuoso acto homenaje a las victimas del sabotaje en pleno vuelo frente a las costas de Barbados del avión de Cubana de Aviación por los sicarios del criminal Posada Carriles acontecido días antes, el 6 de ese mismo mes.
El Comandante despachaba periódica y personalmente con la jefatura del Ministerio del Interior en aquél entonces, cada uno de los distintos juegos operativos que se desarrollaban contra la CIA, orientando la estrategia a seguir, por tanto decidió escoger este al que denominábamos en el argot profesional Caso “ZORRO”, el más importante de la época y de los que fueran revelados (aunque en nuestros días, a no dudarlo, quedarán otros). El Caso, iniciado en 1966 cuando el DSE planifico realizar un juego operativo con vistas a penetrar la CIA. A través del mismo, el agente Zafiro para la CIA y Noel (en aquel entonces) para el DSE logro penetrar también el Departamento de Estado de los EEUU, conociendo los planes que se proponían para la eliminación física de nuestros dirigentes y los intereses de información que tenían alrededor de la ayuda internacionalista de nuestro país.
Por la significación y trascendencia del juego operativo ZORRO con el enemigo en que NERÓN se desenvolvía, era atendido y encauzado directamente por altos jefes de la Seguridad del momento como los después Generales Fabián Escalante (Roberto) y Eladio Sánchez o Coroneles como Osmel, Pablito (Coronel Pedro Luis Castillo), Manuel Martínez Guzmán (el gordo Jorge) entre otros. Para garantizar la compartimentación no solo fue ese pseudónimo el que se le asignara, sino que de acuerdo al oficial que lo atendía transitó, antes por el de NOEL para la Seguridad Cubana y el Agente ZAFIRO para la CIA.
Avizoramos entonces la intención de Fidel y raudos acercamos a Nerón, al escenario geográfico donde se produciría la denuncia, con la finalidad de mostrarlo al público en caso de que el Comandante lo decidiera. El lugar escogido fue primeramente el apartamento del sótano del edificio donde residía este escribidor en Paseo número 126 esquina Calzada en el Vedado. Tal fue la premura generada siguiendo la transmisión televisiva, que poco después nos fuimos raudos hacia la Plaza y sin percatarnos, hasta dejamos abierta la puerta del viejo refrigerador que motivó se le quemara su vetusta máquina y solo la emoción vivida posteriormente, permitió que mi entonces esposa, Doris, también oficial de la C.I. mitigara sus recriminaciones al respecto.
Aquélla Plaza de la Revolución José Martí en la Habana en ese 15 de Octubre, vibraba de emoción, odio hacia el enemigo y hasta caudales de lágrimas se vertían, cuando erguido y trascendente, como siempre, el líder de la Revolución expuso:
“El reclutamiento de ciudadanos y el empleo del territorio de otros países para realizar actos de esa naturaleza, son métodos típicos de la CIA”.
“Al principio teníamos dudas si la CIA había organizado directamente el sabotaje o lo elaboró cuidadosamente a través de sus organizaciones de cobertura integradas por contrarrevolucionarios cubanos; ahora nos inclinamos decididamente por la primera tesis. La CIA tuvo una participación directa en la destrucción del avión de Cubana en Barbados”.
“Tenemos la sospecha de que el Gobierno de Estados Unidos no ha renunciado a tales prácticas. El 9 de octubre, solo tres días después del criminal sabotaje de Barbados, fue interceptado un mensaje enviado por la CIA a un agente suyo en La Habana. Dicho mensaje, trasmitido desde el centro principal de la CIA en Langley, Virginia, dice textualmente, entre otras cosas: “Favor informar primera oportunidad cualquier dato respecto asistencia Fidel ceremonia primer aniversario independencia de Angola día 11 de noviembre. Caso afirmativo, tratar de averiguar itinerario completo visita Fidel otros países mismo viaje”.
“Otra instrucción de fecha anterior dice así:”
“¿Cuál es la reacción oficial y particular sobre ataques de bombas contra oficinas cubanas en el extranjero? ¿Qué van a hacer para evitarlas y prevenirlas? ¿De quién se sospecha como responsables? ¿Habrá represalias?”
“Esperamos que el Gobierno de Estados Unidos no se atreva a negar la veracidad de estas instrucciones de la oficina central de la CIA y otras muchas que en flagrantes actos de espionaje ha cursado a la misma persona. Poseemos la clave, las cifras y todas las pruebas de la autenticidad de estas comunicaciones”.
“En este caso concreto, el supuesto agente reclutado por la CIA, desde el primer instante y durante 10 años ha mantenido al Gobierno de Cuba detalladamente informado de todos sus contactos con la misma, los equipos y las instrucciones recibidas. La CIA suponía que el agente había logrado colocar un microtrasmisor electrónico moderno, que le fuera entregado por esta, nada menos que en el despacho del compañero Osmany Cienfuegos, Secretario del Comité Ejecutivo del Consejo de Ministros. De ahí la seguridad con que presumía recibir, con la debida antelación, la información pertinente sobre cualquier viaje del Primer Ministro de Cuba( entonces era FIDEL) al extranjero”.
“En este caso concreto, el supuesto agente de la CIA, desde el primer momento y durante diez años ha mantenido al Gobierno de Cuba detalladamente informado de todos sus contactos con la misma, los equipos y las instrucciones recibidas…”
“Dada la importancia de este hecho y su valor esclarecedor sobre la conducta y las actividades de la CIA, hemos considerado la conveniencia de hacerlo público aunque ello implica el sacrificio de una fuente valiosa de información…”
Esto constituyó un resarcimiento, no solo para los familiares conmocionados por la irreparable pérdida sino para toda la inmensa multitud congregada en la Plaza que rugió de emoción y aplausos ante la vigorosa respuesta acaecida al enemigo imperialista con aquella imperecedera y presagiosa frase de Fidel también en aquel día: … “Cuando un pueblo enérgico y viril llora,..la injusticia tiembla”
Y efectivamente, la injusticia tembló y se hizo realidad, el imperialismo se estremeció hasta sus cimientos, la omnipoderosa CIA fue brutalmente burlada y vilipendiada por vez primera de manera pública y tan trascendental, aunque sin escarmiento, porque casi diez años después en Junio de 1989 otra vez quedaría en entredicho mundial con una nueva denuncia de nuestro país al evidenciar el trabajo de penetración de 27 Agentes dobles cubanos que también la penetraron hasta sus raíces, burlándose de su supuesta profesionalidad, eficiencia e inefabilidad, la que quedó registrada para la historia en el serial televisivo LA CIA CONTRA CUBA.
El trabajo anónimo y secreto que hombres como NERON (después ascendido al grado de Tte. Coronel como se muestra en los créditos de la serie televisiva de hoy, TRAS LA HUELLA) y los 27, presagiaron, que se ha mantenido continuidad histórica hasta nuestros días con las más recientes resultantes del enfrentamiento contra grupusculeros y otros aliados asalariados del enemigo, que han sido revelados y divulgados, lo que nos puede llevar a la conclusión de que muchos otros se mantienen y mantendrán, para garantía del proceso revolucionario de Cuba y otras partes del mundo, en estas importantes e incógnitas misiones.
Nota de Cubadebate: La trayectoria de Nicolás Sirgado como agente infiltrado sirvió para nutrir el argumento de la serie En silencio ha tenido que ser, transmitida por la televisión cubana en los años 80.
WASHINGTON -- El gobierno cubano intenta atraer inversión extranjera de manera urgente e incrementar su acceso a divisas duras y crédito externo a raíz de la muerte del presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez, dijo el martes un alto funcionario estadounidense.
El director de Inteligencia Nacional James Clapper señaló en su comparecencia escrita ante el comité de inteligencia de la cámara baja que una prioridad para el gobierno de Raúl Castro es "garantizar que la reforma económica no incremente la presión para una apertura política o mayores derechos individuales".
"Con la muerte de su principal benefactor Hugo Chávez, los líderes cubanos están tratando urgentemente de atraer socios con inversión extranjera e incrementar su acceso a divisas duras y crédito externo", agregó.
Las medidas económicas adoptadas recientemente por el gobierno de la isla, tales como expandir las iniciativas privadas y permitir la venta de vehículos e inmuebles son "populares pero no han producido mucho crecimiento", señaló el experto.
Clapper agregó que la fuerte represión de protestas pacíficas y un incremento en los arrestos de corta duración indican que "los cambios económicos no estarán atados a cambios políticos".
En cuanto a la reciente reforma migratoria adoptada en Cuba, Clapper indicó que sólo ha producido un "incremento modesto de visas estadounidenses" y que los países de la región tampoco han detectado un incremento en los ingresos de ciudadanos cubanos.
Clapper no aportó detalles sobre los esfuerzos de La Habana de apertrecharse ante la desaparición física de Chávez, quien durante sus 14 años en el poder brindó una cuantiosa asistencia económica a Cuba.
Sobre Venezuela, Clapper definió al presidente encargado Nicolás Maduro como "un viejo aliado de Chávez que casi con certeza continuará las políticas socialistas de Chávez".
Maduro se medirá el 14 de abril con el opositor Henrique Capriles en comicios generales en los que se elegirá al sucesor de Chávez, quien falleció la semana pasada.
Clapper indicó que el próximo gobierno deberá "enfrentar las consecuencias de un entorno empresarial muy deteriorado y crecientes desbalances macroeconómicos" y que las "obligaciones de deuda consumirán una proporción creciente de los ingresos petroleros, aún si los precios del crudo permanecen altos".
En cuanto a su vecino del sur, Clapper dijo que muchos estados mexicanos "probablemente no cumplan con la fecha límite de implementación en 2016" de la reforma judicial iniciada por las autoridades mexicanas en 2008.
El presidente mexicano Enrique Peña Nieto "heredó una situación de seguridad compleja marcada por la confrontación entre el Estado y los carteles de la droga", escribió.
Clapper indicó que las tendencias actuales en el tráfico de drogas podrían "debilitar aún más" la seguridad ciudadana en América Central, que ya presenta una de las mayores tasas de homicidios en el planeta y cuyas instituciones "corruptas y débiles promueven entornos permisivos para actividades criminales, limitan libertades democráticas, alientan la corrupción sistémica y retrasan la recuperación".
Según Clapper, el estancamiento económico, las altas tasas de crímenes violentos, la impunidad y las maniobras de partidos gobernantes para consolidar poder al manipular instituciones democráticas son los principales retos que enfrentan las naciones del Hemisferio Occidental.
Otros funcionarios que asistieron a la audiencia fueron el director de la CIA John Brennan; el director del FBI Robert Mueller, el director de la Agencia de Inteligencia de Defensa, teniente general Michael Flynn; el director del Centro Nacional Antiterrorista Matthew Olsen; y el subsecretario de Estado para Investigación e Inteligencia Philip Goldberg.
Read more here: http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2013/03/12/1429005/eeuu-cuba-busca-urgente-inversion.html#storylink=cpy
Newly confirmed Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan took his oath in a swearing ceremony that was highly unusual. Brennan was not sworn in on a Bible. He was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on a “first draft” of the Constitution, which does not contain the Bill of Rights.
The first draft included notations from George Washington. While this might sound historic and patriotic. It is anything but that.
So what is a “first draft” of the Constitution? According to Empty Wheel:
That means, when Brennan vowed to protect and defend the Constitution, he was swearing on one that did not include the First, Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments — or any of the other Amendments now included in our Constitution. The Bill of Rights did not become part of our Constitution until 1791, 4 years after the Constitution that Brennan took his oath on.
I really don’t mean to be an a*****e about this. But these vows always carry a great deal of symbolism. And whether he meant to invoke this symbolism or not, the moment at which Brennan took over the CIA happened to exclude (in symbolic form, though presumably not legally) the key limits on governmental power that protect American citizens.
Hours after CIA Director John Brennan took the oath of office – behind closed doors, far away from the press, perhaps befitting his status as America’s top spy – the White House took pains to emphasize the symbolism of the ceremony.
“There’s one piece of this that I wanted to note for you,” spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters gathered for their daily briefing. “Director Brennan was sworn in with his hand on an original draft of the Constitution that had George Washington’s personal handwriting and annotations on it, dating from 1787.”
Earnest said Brennan had asked for a document from the National Archives that would demonstrate the U.S. is a nation of laws.
“Director Brennan told the president that he made the request to the archives because he wanted to reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law as he took the oath of office as director of the CIA,” Earnest said.
The Bible has been used because as the oath is taken it calls the God of the Bible to witness against the person taking the oath. This nonsense of swearing in on the Constitution, even the one that we hold to now as was done by Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), or the Koran is utterly un-American and has not been historically done. The symbolism is clear: according to Brennan and the Obama administration, they will not swear to uphold American citizen’s rights or State’s rights, for that matter, in so cavalierly performing this mockery of an oath.
If you think this is unimportant, perhaps you weren’t paying attention when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) was filibustering. I suggest you educate yourself a bit on that here.
One
of the FBI’s former top experts on Islam has announced that President
Obama’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan,
converted to Islam years ago in Saudi Arabia.
As WND has reported,
former FBI Islam expert John Guandolo has long warned that the federal
government is being infiltrated by members of the radical Muslim
Brotherhood. But Guandolo now warns that by appointing Brennan to CIA
director, Obama has not only chosen a man “naïve” to these
infiltrations, but also picked a candidate who is himself a Muslim.
“Mr. Brennan did convert to Islam when he served in an official
capacity on the behalf of the United States in Saudi Arabia,” Guandolo
told interviewer and radio host Tom Trento.
“That fact alone is not what is most disturbing,” Guandolo continued.
“His conversion to Islam was the culmination of a counterintelligence
operation against him to recruit him. The fact that foreign intelligence
service operatives recruited Mr. Brennan when he was in a very
sensitive and senior U.S. government position in a foreign country means
that he either a traitor … [or] he has the inability to discern and
understand how to walk in those kinds of environments, which makes him
completely unfit to the be the director of Central Intelligence.”
Brennan did indeed serve as CIA station chief in Riyadh in the 1990s
and today holds the official title of Deputy National Security Advisor
for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. On Jan. 7, Obama nominated
Brennan as the next director of the CIA, though he has yet to be
confirmed.
“Are you kidding me?” Trento balked at Guandolo’s allegations. “The head of the CIA is a Muslim? For real? … Are you sure?”
“Yes I am,” Guandolo asserted. “The facts of the matter are confirmed
by U.S. government officials who were also in Saudi Arabia at the time
that John Brennan was serving there and have direct knowledge. These are
men who work in very trusted positions, they were direct witnesses to
his growing relationship with the individuals who worked for the Saudi
government and others and they witnessed his conversion to Islam.”
A former Marine and combat veteran, Guandolo worked for eight years
in the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division as a “subject matter expert” in
the Muslim Brotherhood and the global spread of Islamism. Guandolo
boasts he created the Bureau’s first counterterrorism training/education
program and twice received United States Attorney’s Awards for
investigative intelligence.
“My contention is that [Brennan] is wholly unfit for government
service in any national security capacity, and that would specifically
make him unfit to be the director of Central Intelligence,” Guandolo
told Trento.
Guandolo then broke down a three-part argument against Brennan’s confirmation.
“The first is he has interwoven his life professionally and
personally with individuals that we know are terrorists,” Guandolo
asserted. “He has overseen and approved and encouraged others to bring
known leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood into the government in
positions to advise the U.S. government on counterterrorism strategy as
well as the overall ‘war on terror.’”
Second, Guandolo asserted, Brennan has “proven through his own
comments publicly that he is clueless and grossly ignorant of Al-Qaida’s
strategy.
“Third and finally, which some would say is most disturbing, is Mr.
Brennan did convert to Islam,” Guandolo said, but stressed, “I think the
[larger] news is that that conversion is the culmination of the work of
people in Saudi Arabia who worked for the Saudi Government – and that
makes John Brennan just naïve, foolish, dangerously ignorant and totally
unfit for this position.
“That in and of itself, again, shouldn’t be shocking to people,”
Guandolo continued. “Mr. Brennan, they have the clip where he
specifically says during a public address … he said during that speech
that he has learned and gets his understanding and his ‘worldview’ in
large part from Islam. It shouldn’t be a large leap to imagine he’s
converted to Islam.”
America’s top spy needs to be a steely-eyed realist, sensitive to emerging threats and keen about our foes’ intent to deceive us.
Unfortunately, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, has shown a tendency to fall for the bait from radical Islamists. Globally, he repeatedly expressed a hope that “moderates” within Iran and its terror proxy Hizballah would steer their respective constituencies away from terrorism.
Domestically, he claims that radical Islam does not pose its own, unique threat to American security. He has helped strip language about “radical Islam,” “jihad,” and similar terms from government vernacular, choosing instead to refer to “violent extremism” in an attempt to deny terrorists religious credibility. When it comes to jihad, he stubbornly maintains the word does not belong in conversations about terror, no matter what terrorists themselves say.
Likewise, he also yielded to demands from American Islamists to purge law enforcement and intelligence training material of the terms “jihad” and “radical Islam.”
Despite these positions, some American Islamists still oppose Brennan’s nomination because he is considered the architect of the drone program which has killed scores of al-Qaida terrorists.
That should tell him something. But there is little in Brennan’s record to indicate he’ll learn from the experience.
Brennan Promotes Iran-Hizballah Outreach
Brennan’s complacency regarding the jihad threat was made clear in May 2010, when he expressed a desire to encourage “moderate elements” of Hizballah, which is a State Department-designated terrorist organization.
“There is certainly the elements of Hizballah that are truly a concern to us what they're doing. And what we need to do is to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements,” a Reuters report quoted Brennan saying.
He did not explain where such elements could be found, how they could be identified, or what separated them from the Hizballah “extremists.”
That was just the latest in a series of similar statements Brennan has made about Hizballah, the group which ranks second only to al-Qaida in killing Americans in terrorist attacks. The Iranian-founded and funded group “started out as purely a terrorist organization back in the early '80s and has evolved significantly over time,” Brennan said in an Aug. 6, 2009 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “And now it has members of parliament, in the cabinet; there are lawyers, doctors, others who are part of the Hezbollah organization.
“However, within Hezbollah, there's still a terrorist core. And hopefully those elements within the Shia community in Lebanon and within Hezbollah at large -- they're going to continue to look at that extremist terrorist core as being something that is anathema to what, in fact, they're trying to accomplish in terms of their aspirations about being part of the political process in Lebanon. And so, quite frankly, I'm pleased to see that a lot of Hezbollah individuals are in fact renouncing that type of terrorism and violence and are trying to participate in the political process in a very legitimate fashion.”
In a paper published a year earlier, Brennan called on U.S. officials to “cease public Iran-bashing,” and recommended that the U.S. “tolerate, and even… encourage, greater assimilation of Hizballah into Lebanon’s political system, a process that is subject to Iranian influence.”
This political involvement is a far cry from Hizballah’s genesis as solely a terrorist organization dedicated to murder, kidnapping, and violence. Not coincidentally, the evolution of Hizballah into a fully vested player in the Lebanese political system has been accompanied by a marked reduction in terrorist attacks carried out by the organization.
The best hope for maintaining this trend and for reducing the influence of violent extremists within the organization – as well as the influence of extremist Iranian officials who view Hizballah primarily as a pawn of Tehran – is to increase Hizballah's stake in Lebanon’s struggling democratic processes.
The record since then could not be further from Brennan’s idealistic hopes. Four Hizballah members have been indicted by an international tribunal in connection with the 2005 car-bomb assassination of Lebanon’s President Rafiq Hariri. Hizballah has helped Iran send fighters and advisers into Syria to try to aid dictator Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless assault on his own people. A new report finds Hizballah, working with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is responsible for a wave of terrorist plots throughout the world. Any move away from violence may have been a strategic lull aimed at avoiding being “caught in the crosshairs of Washington’s ‘war on terror.’”
That lull appears to be over, the report finds.
Brennan’s analysis also was refuted by a senior Hizballah leader. Engaging in Lebanese parliamentary politics does not make Hizballah moderate and Hizballah politicians are still part of the mother ship.
“The same leadership that directs the parliamentary and government work also leads jihad actions,” Naim Qassem, a deputy to Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah, told the Los Angeles Times.
The retired Israeli Brigadier General Shimon Shapira observed: “Hizbullah’s own analysis of itself contradicts what Brennan has been writing and stating in recent years.
“Today, saying that Hizbullah has moderate elements that have moved away from terrorism can lead the political echelons in the West to ignore how Hizbullah is serving its Iranian sponsors by directly threatening Israel’s civilian population. On May 20, 2010, Hizbullah military sources boasted to the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai that Israel will be bombarded with 15 tons of explosives a day if a future war breaks out. Hizbullah clearly does not care about the implications of its military build-up for the people of Lebanon, because it only seeks to serve the interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
In his 2008 paper, Brennan also advocated direct engagement with Iran despite its well-earned reputation as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. He minimized the threat of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and blamed American rhetoric as “brash labeling” for hardening Tehran’s position toward the United States. Brennan’s recommendations assumed Iranian interest in backing away from terrorism and a nuclear bomb.
A presidential envoy – Brennan suggested Colin Powell – would allow the United States to persuade Iran to behave more responsibly and peacefully and rein in its terrorist proxies, Brennan wrote.
“Initially, Washington should press Iranian officials to cease their vitriolic anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric and to condemn publicly acts of violence that clearly are terrorism. Iran can also take some more tangible steps. For example, Iranian financial and military support to Hezbollah gives Tehran significant leverage over its Lebanese ally, and Iran has the ability to direct Hezbollah to refrain from carrying out any attacks against civilian targets, such as settlements in northern Israel,” he wrote.
History again proved Brennan’s assumption wrong. While there is still talk of direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program, four years of tempered rhetoric and invitations for negotiation have done nothing to slow Iran’s march toward the bomb.
Brennan Lets Radical Islamists Dictate Policy
During his time as a White House adviser, Brennan displayed a disturbing tendency to engage with Islamist groups which often are hostile to American anti-terrorism policies at home and abroad. Those meetings confer legitimacy upon the groups as representatives of all Muslim Americans, despite research indicating that the community is far too diverse to have anyone represent its concerns.
Organized by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the talk became an outlet for Brennan’s argument that terrorists benefit from being identified by religious terms, including “jihadist.” In doing so, Brennan waded into theological revisionism by denying the Quranic foundation exists, even though jihadists routinely cite chapter and verse.
“As Muslims you have seen a small fringe of fanatics who cloak themselves in religion, try to distort your faith, though they are clearly ignorant of the most fundamental teachings of Islam. Instead of creating, they destroy – bombing mosques, schools and hospitals. They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children,” Brennan said. “We're trying to be very careful and precise in our use of language, because I think the language we use and the images we project really do have resonance. It's the reason why I don't use the term jihadist to refer to terrorists. It gives them the religious legitimacy they so desperately seek, but I ain't gonna give it to them.”
Like his positions on Iran and Hizballah, Brennan’s views about using religious references like “jihad” have been uttered repeatedly and consistently. “President Obama [does not] see this challenge as a fight against jihadists. Describing terrorists in this way, using the legitimate term ‘jihad,’ which means to purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal, risks giving these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek but in no way deserve,” Brennan said in an Aug. 6, 2009 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
“Nor do we describe our enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenant of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children,” Brennan said.
Brennan’s interpretation of jihad stands in stark contrast with how the term has been consistently understood, especially by the intellectual founders of the global Islamist movement.
Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, whose ideas have influenced all subsequent Islamic extremists including Hamas and Al-Qaida, rejected the definition of jihad that Brennan suggests is correct.
In a pamphlet titled “Jihad,” al-Banna wrote: “Many Muslims today mistakenly believe that fighting the enemy is jihad asghar (a lesser jihad) and that fighting one's ego is jihad akbar (a greater jihad). The following narration [athar] is quoted as proof: ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad to embark on the greater jihad.’ They said: ‘What is the greater jihad?’ He said: ‘The jihad of the heart, or the jihad against one's ego. This narration is used by some to lessen the importance of fighting, to discourage any preparation for combat, and to deter any offering of jihad in Allah's way. This narration is not a saheeh (sound) tradition…”
Sayyid Qutb, al-Banna’s successor in defining Islamist thought, clearly endorsed the idea of violent jihad, suggesting that it should not be fought merely in a defensive manner.
“Anyone who understands this particular character of this religion will also understand the place of Jihaad bis saif (striving through fighting), which is to clear the way for striving through preaching in the application of the Islamic movement. He will understand that Islam is not a 'defensive movement' in the narrow sense which today is technically called a 'defensive war.' This narrow meaning is ascribed to it by those who are under the pressure of circumstances and are defeated by the wily attacks of the orientalists, who distort the concept of Islamic Jihaad,” Qutb wrote in his book Milestones. “It was a movement to wipe out tyranny and to introduce true freedom to mankind, using resources according to the actual human situation, and it had definite stages, for each of which it utilized new methods.”
Even Brennan’s NYU host advocated violent jihad. A December 1986 article appearing in ISNA’s official magazine Islamic Horizons notes that “jihad of the sword is the actual taking up of arms against the evil situation with the intention of changing it,” that “anyone killed in jihad is rewarded with Paradise,” and that “a believer who participates in jihad is superior to a believer who does not.”
Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the senior Muslim Brotherhood imam who the Obama administration reportedly has used in its negotiations with the Taliban, connects jihad with fighting in his book Fiqh of Jihad. In it, he says that Muslims may engage in violent jihad in the event Muslim lands are threatened by or occupied by non-Muslims as he contends is the case with Israel.
These Brotherhood treatises are relevant because Brennan’s host, ISNA, was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in the United States, some of whom remain active with the organization. And, although it denied any Brotherhood connection in 2007, exhibits in evidence in a Hamas-support trial show ISNA’s “intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.” In addition, the federal judge in the case found “ample evidence” connecting ISNA to Muslim Brotherhood operations known as the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine and Hamas.
ISNA has sought to publicly moderate its image, yet it has kept radicals such as Jamal Badawi on its board of directors and granted a 2008 community-service award to Jamal Barzinji, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood in America, as well as a former ISNA board member.
Badawi has defended violent jihad including suicide bombings and has suggested that Islam is superior to secular democracy. Barzinji was named in a federal affidavit as being closely associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
At the NYU event, Brennan was introduced by then-ISNA President Ingrid Mattson, who made Qutb’s writings required reading in a course she taught. Mattson has advocated against using terms like “Islamic terrorism” since the earliest days after 9/11. During his speech, Brennan praised Mattson as “an academic whose research continues the rich tradition of Islamic scholarship and as the President of the Islamic Society of North America, where you have been a voice for the tolerance and diversity that defines Islam.”
Brennan met privately around the time of the NYU speech with another advocate of ignoring the Islamic motivation driving many terrorists. Both Salam al-Marayati and his organization, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) have long records of defending suspected terrorists and terror supporters and of arguing the terrorist threat in America is exaggerated.
During a 2005 ISNA conference, al-Marayati blasted the idea that Muslims would be used as informants to thwart possible terrorist plots. "Counter-terrorism and counter-violence should be defined by us. We should define how an effective counter-terrorism policy should be pursued in this country,” he said. “So, number one, we reject any effort, notion, suggestion that Muslims should start spying on one another."
The White House invited al-Marayati to attend the NYU speech despite his prior comments suggesting Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, condemning the FBI’s use of informants in counter-terror investigations, and his argument that Hizballah engages in “legitimate resistance.”
After the meeting, MPAC claimed credit for the administration’s policy of sugar-coating terrorist motives. “Mr. Brennan made two important points in his address that signified the importance of MPAC’s government engagement over the last 15 years in Washington,” an MPAC statement said. Among them, “He rejected the label of ‘jihadist’ to describe terrorists, because it legitimates violent extremism with religious validation, a point MPAC made in its 2003 policy paper on counterterrorism.”
Terrorists Disagree
While Brennan and his associates like Mattson and al-Marayati may wish to disconnect terrorism from religion, this strategy has proven meaningless among those who plot attacks against Americans. Many describe acting out of a belief that America is at war with Islam. Asserting that religious motivation doesn’t exist does nothing to lessen the threat.
When Army Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo’s mother asked her son what would drive him to plot a bombing and shooting attack on a restaurant that serves personnel at Fort Hood, Tex., his answer was succinct.
Similarly, would-be bombers Faisal Shahzad and Farooque Ahmed justified their attempts to blow people up in New York and Washington as part of a war, a jihad, they felt compelled to join.
"This time it's the war against people who believe in the book of Allah and follow the commandments, so this is a war against Allah," Shahzad said at his October 2010 sentencing for trying to detonate a car-bomb in Times Square. "So let's see how you can defeat your Creator, which you can never do. Therefore, the defeat of U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future, inshallah [God willing], which will only give rise to much awaited Muslim caliphate, which is the only true world order."
Ahmed, who scouted subway stations along the Washington, D.C. Metro line in hopes of aiding a bombing plot, acted in response to "an incessant message that is delivered by radical followers of Islam," his lawyer said at Ahmed’s April 2011 sentencing, "that one cannot be true to the faith unless they take action, including violent action, most especially violent action… that is a message that can unfortunately take root in individuals who feel like if they don't do something, that they literally will not find salvation under their faith."
Brennan grew prickly when challenged on this view of jihad. The Washington Times editorial board pressed him about the role of armed jihad in history during an Aug. 23, 2010 interview. After acknowledging that history – “Absolutely it has” happened – Brennan tried to deflect the question, saying “I’m not going to go into this sort of history discussion here.”
He cut the interview short and walked out after the editorial board pressed the point, asking Brennan to distinguish between those historical armed jihads and al-Qaida’s current jihad.
Brennan further displayed his eagerness to kowtow to Islamist demands in the fall of 2011. After a small number of materials in FBI training manuals and libraries were found to be excessively negative in describing Islam as a religion and Muslims as a people, Islamist groups demanded a purge of anything they considered offensive.
An Oct. 19, 2011 letter to Brennan written by Muslim Advocates Executive Director Farhana Khera and signed by 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations demanded that Brennan create “an interagency task force, led by the White House,” that would, among other things, review all counterterror trainers, so as to purge those that the Muslim organizations, which included many with Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood ties, found unacceptable. The task force would also “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials”; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training”; and more to ensure that only the message about Islam and jihad preferred by the signatories would get through to intelligence and law enforcement agents.
Brennan readily agreed, promising in a November 3, 2011 response to Khera written on White House stationery obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, that such an interagency task force was indeed “necessary,” and agreeing to purge training programs of all materials that the Muslim groups found objectionable.
To this day, officials have declined to identify those with whom they consulted in identifying the material to be removed. During an April 2012 talk at the New York Police Department, Brennan refused to answer when asked specifically whether Muslim Advocates was among those consulted.
“Now I’m not going to, you know, take on any individuals or claim or charge on this. But I just want to underscore that at least from the national government perspective and all my discussions with Commissioner Kelly and others, there is a real interest in trying to make sure that all of the different communities of different religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, political affiliations, have an opportunity to express themselves, so that we are able to do this,” he said. “When we talk about, you mentioned about, you know, Muslim Advocates… obviously al-Qaeda, which is, purports to be an Islamic organization, is anything but; it’s a murderous organization. They certainly misrepresent what they stand for. But we need to make sure that we’re able to talk with the Muslim community here in the United States. The Muslim community is as much a part of the United States as any other community of any religious background. The Muslim community is part of the solution on terrorism, not part of the problem. We need to make sure that we have all the expertise, the representation and the perspective, so that we can bring it to bear.”
But in his letter to Khera, Brennan acquiesced to virtually every demand.
“We share your sense of concern over these recent unfortunate incidents, and are moving forward to ensure problems are addressed with a keen sense of urgency,” he wrote. “They do not reflect the vision that the President has put forward, nor do they represent the kind of approach that builds the partnerships that are necessary to counter violent extremism, and to protect our young people and our homeland. American’s greatest strength is its values, and we are committed to pursuing policies and approaches that draw strength from our values and our people irrespective of their race, religion or ethnic background.
"While much work remains, I am confident that concrete actions are being taken to address the valid concerns you raised. Thank you again for your letter and for your leadership in addressing an isue that is crticial to ensuring the security of the United States.”
Denies Religious Dogma Entices Terrorists
In addition to purging training material at the behest of Islamist groups, Brennan’s theories about what drives people to plot terrorist acts betrays a further desire to conceal religious dogma. Economic conditions, more than religious beliefs, account for the draw of al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, he has said.
“This includes those upstream factors – the political and economic causes and conditions that help to fuel hatred and violence, including loss of faith in political systems to improve daily life and the vulnerability of young minds to predators like gangs and terrorist recruiters,” Brennan said during his NYU speech. “And while poverty and lack of opportunity do not cause terrorism, it is obvious that the lack of education, of basic human services and hope for the future make vulnerable populations more susceptible to ideologies of violence and death.”
That may be true in some cases. But numerous examples expose this as a misguided stereotype. And terrorist leaders – those who recruit terrorist operatives – hail from professional classes. Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician. So was Palestinian Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shikaki. Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook has a master’s degree and pursued a PhD. Would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad had a steady job and a decent wage. Many of the 9/11 hijackers were middle class or affluent. The Times of London observed in an April 3, 2005 article that a large percentage of 500 al-Qaida members had discovered that an overwhelming percentage came from middle class or affluent backgrounds.
Scholar Daniel Pipes reached a similar conclusion in a Winter 2002 article examining militants held in Egyptian jails.
“What is true of Egypt holds equally true elsewhere: Like fascism and Marxism-Leninism in their heydays, militant Islam attracts highly competent, motivated and ambitious individuals. Far from being the laggards of society, they are its leaders,” Pipes wrote.
INTERPOL similarly warned in a Sept. 21, 2010 press release that the proliferation of extremist websites showed that al-Qaida recruiters were deliberately targeting middle-class youth.
“Speaking at the two-day International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) summit (21-22 September) in Paris… INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said that terrorist recruiters exploited the web to their full advantage as they targeted young, middle class vulnerable individuals who were usually not ‘on the radar of law enforcement,’” the INTERPOL press release said.
Al-Qaida publications such as Inspire magazine, along with its other media, make it clear that its followers are driven by religious zeal rather than by economics. Its slick, glossy production and the content of its articles appealed to educated people with access to at least some money. "How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" is a notorious example.
Fawwaz bin Muhammad Al-Nashami, leader of the jihadists who killed 22 people in a 1994 attack on Americans in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, invoked Islam’s prophet: “We are Mujahideen, and we want the Americans. We have not come to aim a weapon at the Muslims, but to purge the Arabian Peninsula, according to the will of our Prophet Muhammad, of the infidels and the polytheists who are killing our brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq. “
John Brennan’s recipe for fighting terror seems to cast these motivations aside. That’s the mindset poised to direct American intelligence gathering for the next four years.
The top two officials at the Department of Defense said Thursday they supported a proposal made at one point by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus to arm Syrian rebels, something the Obama administration has so far resisted.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said in testimony to a Senate committee that they backed a proposal last summer to provide weapons to the Syrian opposition fighters. U.S. officials tell CNN’s Elise Labott that the White House knocked down the proposal.
Appearing at a hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the two defense officials were asked by Arizona Senator John McCain, the leading Republican proponent of a more aggressive backing of Syrian rebels, if they supported the idea of arming the opposition.
“We do,” answered Panetta.
“We did,” answered Dempsey.
Panetta and Dempsey did not get a chance to explain the response as Senator McCain moved on to another topic.
The administration has resisted arming the rebels citing concerns about the infiltration of extremists groups who would possibly use those weapons against other targets. For now the administration has provided millions in humanitarian aid. The CIA has also sent agents to vet the opposition group to try to better understand its composition.
But last December, the U.S. designated a key Syrian rebel group, the al-Nusra Front, as a terrorist entity. U.S. officials argued it was a necessary step that will not weaken the ability of other rebels to combat the Syrian military.
President Barack Obama spoke of the hesitation of getting more involved in Syria in an interview last month with CBS News.
“Syria is a classic example of where our involvement, we want to make sure that not only does it enhance U.S. security, but also that it is doing right by the people of Syria and neighbors like Israel that are going to be profoundly affected by it. And – and so it’s true sometimes that we don’t just shoot from the hip.”
Senator McCain used the answer by Panetta and Dempsey to urge the president to consider the plan, saying in a statement released to the press ““the time to act is long overdue, but it is not too late.”
“The crisis in Syria represents a graphic failure of American leadership. I urge the President to heed the advice of his former and current national security leaders and immediately take the necessary steps, along with our friends and allies, that could hasten the end of the conflict in Syria,” McCain said in the statement.
Senators from both parties may be on a collision course with the White House over its top national security nominations, because of concerns over the Obama administration's drone program.
A bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to President Obama Monday asking for "any and all legal opinions" that describe the basis for the authority to "deliberately kill American citizens."
The questions come in advance of CIA director nominee John Brennan's confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee. Several of the authors of the drone letter sit on that committee. Obama's nominee for Defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, also had his confirmation hearing last week.
The letter Monday made a blunt threat suggesting that withholding information on drones could imperil those nominations.
"The executive branch's cooperation on this matter will help avoid an unnecessary confrontation that could affect the Senate's consideration of nominees for national security positions," the senators wrote.
As the letter was released, one Justice Department document surfaced in news reports describing the administration's drone-attack authority.
As first reported Monday night by NBC News, the memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior Al Qaeda leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans -- even if there is no intelligence pointing to an active plot against America.
The 16-page document says that delaying action against individuals continually planning to kill Americans would create an unacceptably high risk. It adds that the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its associated forces demands a broader concept of when a person continually planning terror attacks presents an imminent threat.
It's unclear whether that will satisfy lawmakers' concerns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said in a statement Tuesday that the document was already provided to the committee last year.
"The committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions by the Department of Justice that provide details not outlined in this particular white paper," she said. Feinstein was not among the senators who signed the letter to Obama Monday.
Under Obama, the U.S. drone program has ramped up dramatically. It has become one of the most important tools in the administration's counterterrorism campaign -- particularly in Pakistan, but also in the expanding fronts of the war against Al Qaeda and its affiliates. The senators' questions follow a 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed two Americans -- Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.
While Awlaki was considered a powerful terror operative for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, he was never charged. In their letter Monday, the senators said they believe there are "circumstances" where a U.S. president can use "lethal force" against Americans who "choose to take up arms" against their country, "just as President Lincoln had the authority to direct Union troops to fire upon Confederate forces during the Civil War."
But they said "it is vitally important" for Congress and the public to understand how the administration interprets the limits on that power. They complained that the administration has ignored prior requests for legal opinions from the Justice Department.
Brennan, a vocal supporter of the drone program and other controversial counterterrorism tools dating back to the George W. Bush administration, is facing a level of criticism from Democrats that no other Obama nominee has encountered. Eight Democrats and three Republicans penned the letter to Obama Monday. One of them, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has previously pressed Brennan on the drone issue.
Another, Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said last week he was "deeply disappointed" coming out of a meeting with Brennan. He claimed the White House counterterrorism adviser was "unprepared" to discuss a recent report on the CIA detention and interrogation program.
Once
Congress gives the green light, the national security team for Barack
Obama’s second term will have three new names at the top: John Kerry at
State, Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Brennan at CIA.
Kerry
and Hagel are both Vietnam veterans turned Senators, both supportive of
a strong, modern military but skeptical of large, open-ended military
missions, sort of in the Colin Powell mode. Brennan is a career spy
whose focus since the 1990s has been counterterrorism.
Only
Kerry has much of a record on Latin America. In the 1980s, he was a
leading opponent of the Reagan administration’s aid to abusive
militaries, and to the Nicaraguan contra rebels, in Central America. He has also been a frequent critic of U.S. policy toward Cuba. In 2000, Senator Kerry shifted gears and supported a military aid package, President Clinton’s initial appropriation for Plan Colombia, though he later signed at least one letter criticizing Colombia’s human rights performance.
As David Sanger notes in today’s New York Times, all three nominees share a preference for a “light footprint” in the U.S. military’s activities abroad. Brennan, Sanger notes,
devised
the “light footprint” strategy of limiting American interventions,
whenever possible, to drones, cyberattacks and Special Operations
forces. All are advocates of those low-cost, low-American-casualty
tools, and all have sounded dismissive of attempts to send thousands of
troops to rewire foreign nations as wasteful and ill-conceived.
With
the notable exception of the 2009 Afghan “surge,” frequent but
low-profile military and intelligence operations have been a hallmark of
the Obama administration so far. With the ongoing drawdown from
Afghanistan ahead of a planned 2014 pullout, the “light footprint”
approach is going to accelerate.
How will this affect Latin America? Probably four ways, in declining order of importance:
More Special Forces deployments to the region.
President Obama and his new appointees share a fondness for Special
Operations Forces: elite, highly trained, mobile military units used for
non-traditional, often clandestine missions ranging from hostage
rescues to hunting down wanted individuals to intelligence-gathering and
“defense diplomacy.” Special Forces are likely to see their numbers
increase despite upcoming defense budget cuts, and as the Afghanistan
drawdown proceeds, there will be even more of them available to carry
out missions in Latin America. Last year, the New York Timesnoted,
Adm. William McRaven of the Special Operations Command was “pushing
hard” to “expand their presence in regions where they have not operated
in large numbers for the past decade, especially in Asia, Africa and
Latin America.”
This
doesn’t necessarily mean that Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, and other JSOC
units will be carrying out clandestine mayhem in places like Venezuela
and Cuba. (And if it does, we’re unlikely to find out about it.) But a
recent conversation with a Defense Department official confirms that, in
the next few years, we are likely to witness an increase in Special
Forces training missions in the region. More teams will be in
countries throughout the Americas teaching courses as part of Mobile
Training Teams (MTTs), and organizing exercises, some of them through
the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program.
Such
deployments fulfill more than just training missions, though. They
allow Special Forces units to familiarize themselves with the terrain,
culture, and key officers in countries where they might someday have to
operate. And they allow U.S. personnel to gather intelligence on their
host countries, whether through active snooping or passive observation.
A greater intelligence community presence
is another likely consequence of a “light footprint” in Latin America.
We can only speculate, but it is reasonable to expect fewer CIA assets
in Afghanistan to mean more personnel focused elsewhere, including Latin
America. Even more significant may be an increase in the presence of
the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Defense Department’s spy
agency. As the Washington Postreported
in December, the DIA expects to roughly double the number of
clandestine operatives it deploys worldwide over the next few years.
Greater use of drones and robotics.
The Obama administration has expanded the CIA and Defense Department
use of armed unmanned aircraft to hunt down suspected terrorist targets.
Brennan, the new CIA director, is known
for being intimately involved this practice, which is extremely
controversial because of reports that the drone program may have killed
hundreds of innocent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.
In
Latin America, a few U.S. defense officials have confirmed to us
recently, the U.S. military is not using weaponized drones, though it is
employing some surveillance drones to detect suspect trafficking
activity, particularly (but not only) above international waters. All
officials have insisted that U.S. drones are not used extensively in the
region, as they are costly to operate. However, as assets are drawn
down from Afghanistan and as costs continue to drop rapidly, it is
reasonable to expect the Obama administration to use them more
frequently in the Americas.
The
U.S. effort, however, may pale in comparison to Latin American
countries’ own drone programs. Several countries — Colombia, Venezuela,
and especially Brazil
— are developing their own programs, and several more are buying
drones, especially from Israel. While none of these drones are
reportedly weaponized and there have been no reports of unauthorized
cross-border drone flights, the increased affordability of drones, and
the lack of norms governing their use, promises to pose a big challenge
for Latin America within the next 5-10 years. (We will have a post on
this topic shortly.)
More emphasis on cyber-security. As today’s New York Times
piece noted, cyber-warfare is an interest of all three of the Obama
administration’s nominees. While it is unclear how this will play out in
U.S. national security policy toward the Americas, it is reasonable to
expect more resources devoted to cracking open, and even sabotaging, the
computer networks of countries or organizations that the U.S.
government views as a threat. (For more on cyber-security in the
hemisphere, see the work of James Bosworth at Bloggings by Boz.)
NEW YORK – John Brennan, the Obama counter-terrorism adviser
nominated this week to head the CIA, played a controversial role in what
many suspect was an effort to sanitize Obama’s passport records.
On March 21, 2008, amid Obama’s first presidential campaign, two
unnamed contract employees for the State Department were fired and a
third was disciplined for breaching the passport file of Democratic
presidential candidate and then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Breaking the story, the Washington Times on March 20, 2008,
noted that all three had used their authorized computer network access
to look up and read Obama’s records within the State Department consular
affairs section that “possesses and stores passport information.”
Contacted by the newspaper, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
attributed the violations to non-political motivations, stressing that
the three individuals involved “did not appear to be seeking information
on behalf of any political candidate or party.”
“As far as we can tell, in each of the three cases, it was imprudent curiosity,” McCormack told the Washington Times.
The spokesman did not disclose exactly how the State Department came to that conclusion.
By the next day, the story had changed.
The New York Times reported March 21, 2008,
that the security breach had involved unauthorized searches of the
passport records not just of Sen. Obama but also of then-presidential
contenders Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
Again, the New York Times attributed the breaches to “garden-variety
snooping by idle employees” that was “not politically motivated.”
Like the Washington Times, the New York Times gave no explanation to
back up its assertion that the breaches were attributable to
non-political malfeasance.
Still, the New York Times report indicated then-Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice had spent Friday morning calling all three presidential
candidates and that she had told Obama that she was sorry for the
violation.
“I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked into my passport file,” Rice said.
The newspaper quoted Obama as saying he appreciated the apology but
that he expected the passport situation “to be investigated diligently
and openly.”
According to the New York Times report, Obama’s tone of concern was obvious.
“One of the things that the American people count on in their
interactions with any level of government is that if they have to
disclose personal information, that is going to stay personal and stay
private,” Obama told reporters. “And when you have not just one, but a
series of attempts to tap into people’s personal records, that’s a
problem, not just for me, but for how our government is functioning.”
The New York Times noted that the files examined likely contained
sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers,
addresses and dates of birth, as well as passport applications and other
biographical information that would pertain to U.S. citizenship. Only
at the end of the article did the New York Times note that State
Department spokesman McCormack had emphasized the most egregious
violation appeared to have been made against Obama.
Obama was the only one of the three presidential candidates involved
who had his passport file breached on three separate occasions. The
first occurred Jan. 9, 2008, followed by separate violations Feb. 21 and
March 14, 2008. Moreover, all three of the offending employees had
breached Obama’s files, while each of the passport files of McCain and
Clinton had been breached only once.
The Brennan connection
The New York Times noted the two offending State Department contract
employees who were fired had worked for Stanley Inc., a company based in
Arlington, Va., while the reprimanded worker continued to be employed
by the Analysis Corporation of McLean, Va.
The newspaper gave no background on either corporation, other than to
note that Stanley Inc. did “computer work for the government.”
At that time, Stanley Inc. was a 3,500-person technology firm that
had just won a $570-million contract to provide computer-related
passport services to the State Department.
Analysis Corporation was headed by Brennan, a former CIA agent who
was then serving as an adviser on intelligence and foreign policy to
Sen. Obama’s presidential campaign.
After Obama’s inauguration, Brennan joined the White House as
assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for
homeland security and counter-terrorism.
By March 22, 2008, the Washington Times reported
that the State Department investigation had focused on the contract
worker for the Analysis Corporation, because he was the only one of the
three involved in breaching the passport records of both Obama and
McCain, the two presidential candidates whose eligibility as “natural
born” citizens under Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution were in
question.
Keeping with the theme that the motive for the passport breach was
attributable to mischief, the three State Department contract employees
received relatively light penalties for their offenses – two were fired
and one was reprimanded.
Although at the time the State Department promised a full-scale investigation, the public was kept in the dark.
In July 2008, the State Department’s Office of Inspector General
issued a 104-page investigative report on the passport breach incidents,
stamped “Sensitive But Unclassified.” The report was so heavily
redacted, it was virtually useless to the public. Scores of passages
were blacked out entirely, including one sequence of 29 consecutive
pages that were each obliterated by a solid black box that made it
impossible even to determine paragraph structures.
Investigative reporter Kenneth Timmerman said
a well-placed but unnamed source told him that the real point of the
passport breach incidents was to cauterize the Obama file, removing from
it any information that could prove damaging to his eligibility to be
president.
According to the theory, the breaches of McCain’s and Clinton’s files
were done for misdirection purposes, to create confusion and to suggest
the motives of the perpetrators were attributable entirely to innocent
curiosity.
Another thief enters the case
Within a few days, a new witness surfaced unexpectedly, providing
evidence that breaching passport files was an offense being perpetrated
by State Department officials on a massive and everyday basis.
The case centered on Leiutenant Quarles Harris Jr., age 24. Harris,
who spelled his named differently than the officer rank, was a petty
drug dealer and identity-theft criminal who never served in the military
or in any police or fire department.
On March 25, 2008, at approximately 9:30 p.m., Officer William A.
Smith Jr. of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department’s Narcotics Special
Investigation Division stopped an oncoming vehicle that had tinted
windows he believed were in violation of the D.C. Tinted Window Act of
1994.
After stopping the vehicle, Smith found the driver, Harris, and his
female passenger had been smoking marijuana. Harris had stuffed in his
jacket pocket a large clear zip-lock bag containing 13 smaller clear
zip-lock bags, each filled with marijuana.
The affidavit of criminal complaint filed by Smith with the U.S. District Court
specified that in the search of the vehicle, the officers found 19
different credit cards with names different from Harris and his female
passenger. Also discovered were eight State Department passport
applications, also in names different from Harris and his female
passenger.
The officers further discovered four of the names on the passport
applications matched the names on the credit cards. A check with
American Express while Harris was still on the scene of the traffic stop
indicated that some of the American Express cards in his possession,
but not in his name, had recently been used and that American Express
had placed a “fraud alert” on the cards.
Smith brought Harris to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Sixth District,
where agents of the U.S. Secret Service, the State Department and the
U.S. Postal Service questioned him. Harris’ involvement in passport
application theft clearly made him no ordinary petty criminal.
According to the criminal complaint filed by Smith, Harris admitted
under questioning that he obtained the passport information from an
unnamed co-conspirator working at the State Department. The complaint
said the passport applications were used to obtain credit cards in the
names of the passport applicants.
Another unnamed co-conspirator working at the U.S. Postal Service
intercepted the issued credit cards before they were delivered to the
residences of the persons named on the cards.
What was clear from Harris’ statements was that breaching passport
records at the State Department had developed into major criminal
activity conducted on a continuing basis by State Department employees
with access to the State Department’s Passport Information Electronic
Records System, commonly known by the acronym PIERS.
What also was clear was that Harris had information related to the
State Department employees who had breached Obama’s passport records and
that he was cooperating with government officials.
Despite the objection of the prosecutors, the judge at his
arraignment released Harris the next day on personal recognizance. He
was ordered to return to court for a hearing in June 2008.
Key witness murdered
However, Harris did not live to attend the court hearing.
On April 18, 2008, he was found murdered in Washington, D.C., by a
single bullet to the head in what appeared to be a drive-by shooting.
The Washington Times reported April 19, 2008,
that a “key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen
from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District
church” at close range, around 11 p.m., in the 2800 block of 12th Street
NE, according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Harris, who the Washington Times described as “cooperating with
federal investigators,” was found slumped dead at the steering wheel of
his car in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in the
northeast section of D.C., according to Commander Michael Anzallo, the
head of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Criminal Investigations
Division.
A police officer patrolling the neighborhood at the time of Harris’
death heard gunshots and ran to the scene, only to find Harris dead
inside his car. The Metropolitan Police admitted a “shot spotter” device
had been used to locate Harris in the shooting, although police
officials declined to say whether his death was a direct result of his
cooperation with federal investigators.
There is no evidence that today links Harris’ crimes or murder with
the breach of Obama’s passport records by State Department contract
employees.
At first glance, Harris could be dismissed as a foot-soldier selling
marijuana and peddling credit cards fraudulently obtained via
passport-related identity theft.
Yet there is more to the story than petty criminal activity.
Obviously, Harris got himself in way over his head when he decided to
work with the State Department officials accessing PIERS to obtain
passport records without authorization.
Equally obvious was that by being willing to cooperate with police,
Harris risked becoming a threat to his accomplices and co-conspirators
within the State Department.
ABC news affiliate WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., reported Cleopatria
Harris, the mother of Leiutenant Quarles Harris, believed her son was
murdered to keep him from cooperating with the federal investigation
into the passport-record breach. She told the TV station her son was in
court three days before his murder.
“He felt like he was going to do jail time. He was willing to do jail
time,” she said, indicating that she believed news reports that her son
had been arrested and was cooperating with the police were the reason
he was killed. “Yes I do. think it had a hell of a lot to do with it.
[The story] made my son appear to be a snitch.”
Similarly, the Washington Post reported Cleopatria Harris was “absolutely sure” her son was killed because of his involvement in the passport-credit card scam.
Harris’ mother refused to believe her son’s murder was an act of
violence unrelated to the passport scheme. Instead, she contended he was
killed because he was an important witness regarding a State Department
breach of passport records.
To date, the D.C. Metropolitan Police have no suspects in the still
unsolved murder of Leiutenant Quarles Harris Jr. Nor has the State
Department ever revealed publicly what was discovered in the breach of
Obama’s passport records. The three individuals involved in the breach
have never come forward in public to tell what they found.
Tapper reported that, according to the Obama campaign, Obama visited
Pakistan in 1981, the year he transferred from Occidental College to
Columbia University, and that he had visited his mother and sister Maya
in Indonesia on the same trip.
Why was Obama disclosing now, for the first time, that he had traveled to Pakistan with his roommates from Occidental College?
Did Obama use an Indonesian passport to travel to Indonesia and
Pakistan in 1981, and was he concerned the breach of his passport
records might end up disclosing such information, if true?
The attempt to preempt such a disclosure might explain the timing of
Obama’s decision to suddenly reveal, at least to the friends assembled
for the fundraiser, the previously undisclosed trip to Indonesia and
Pakistan.
“I traveled to Pakistan when I was in college,” Obama is heard saying
on the poor-quality audiotape that survives from the San Francisco
fundraiser. “I knew what Sunni and Shia was [sic] before I joined the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
¨Saturno jugando con sus hijos¨/ Pedro Pablo Oliva
Seguidores
Carta desde la carcel de Fidel Castro Ruz
“…después de todo, para mí la cárcel es un buen descanso, que sólo tiene de malo el que es obligatorio. Leo mucho y estudio mucho. Parece increíble, las horas pasan como si fuesen minutos y yo, que soy de temperamento intranquilo, me paso el día leyendo, apenas sin moverme para nada. La correspondencia llega normalmente…”
“…Como soy cocinero, de vez en cuando me entretengo preparando algún pisto. Hace poco me mandó mi hermana desde Oriente un pequeño jamón y preparé un bisté con jalea de guayaba. También preparo spaghettis de vez en cuando, de distintas formas, inventadas todas por mí; o bien tortilla de queso. ¡Ah! ¡Qué bien me quedan! por supuesto, que el repertorio no se queda ahí. Cuelo también café que me queda muy sabroso”. “…En cuanto a fumar, en estos días pasados he estado rico: una caja de tabacos H. Upman del doctor Miró Cardona, dos cajas muy buenas de mi hermano Ramón….”. “Me voy a cenar: spaghettis con calamares, bombones italianos de postre, café acabadito de colar y después un H. Upman #4. ¿No me envidias?”. “…Me cuidan, me cuidan un poquito entre todos. No le hacen caso a uno, siempre estoy peleando para que no me manden nada. Cuando cojo el sol por la mañana en shorts y siento el aire de mar, me parece que estoy en una playa… ¡Me van a hacer creer que estoy de vacaciones! ¿Qué diría Carlos Marx de semejantes revolucionarios?”.
Quotes
¨La patria es dicha de todos, y dolor de todos, y cielo para todos, y no feudo ni capellanía de nadie¨ - Marti
"No temas ni a la prision, ni a la pobreza, ni a la muerte. Teme al miedo" - Giacomo Leopardi
¨Por eso es muy importante, Vicky, hijo mío, que recuerdes siempre para qué sirve la cabeza: para atravesar paredes¨– Halvar de Flake[El vikingo]
"Como no me he preocupado de nacer, no me preocupo de morir"- Lorca
"Al final, no os preguntarán qué habéis sabido, sino qué habéis hecho" - Jean de Gerson
"Si queremos que todo siga como está, es necesario que todo cambie" - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
"Todo hombre paga su grandeza con muchas pequeñeces, su victoria con muchas derrotas, su riqueza con múltiples quiebras" - Giovanni Papini
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans" - John Lennon
"Habla bajo, lleva siempre un gran palo y llegarás lejos" - Proverbio Africano
"No hay medicina para el miedo"-Proverbio escoces "El supremo arte de la guerra es doblegar al enemigo sin luchar" -Sun Tzu
"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother" - Albert Einstein
"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office" - H. L. Menken
"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" -Elie Wiesel
"Stay hungry, stay foolish" - Steve Jobs
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert , in five years ther'ed be a shortage of sand" - Milton Friedman
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less" - Vaclav Havel
"No se puede controlar el resultado, pero si lo que uno haga para alcanzarlo" - Vitor Belfort [MMA Fighter]
Liborio
A la puerta de la gloria está San Pedro sentado y ve llegar a su lado a un hombre de cierta historia. No consigue hacer memoria y le pregunta con celo: ¿Quién eras allá en el suelo? Era Liborio mi nombre. Has sufrido mucho, hombre, entra, te has ganado el cielo.
Para Raul Castro
Cuba ocupa el penultimo lugar en el mundo en libertad economica solo superada por Corea del Norte.
Cuba ocupa el lugar 147 entre 153 paises evaluados en "Democracia, Mercado y Transparencia 2007"
Cuando vinieron a buscar a los comunistas, Callé: yo no soy comunista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los sindicalistas, Callé: yo no soy sindicalista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los judíos, Callé: yo no soy judío. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los católicos, Callé: yo no soy “tan católico”. Cuando vinieron a buscarme a mí, Callé: no había quien me escuchara.
Un sitio donde los hechos y sus huellas nos conmueven o cautivan
CUBA LLORA Y EL MUNDO Y NOSOTROS NO ESCUCHAMOS
Donde esta el Mundo, donde los Democratas, donde los Liberales? El pueblo de Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan los Green, los Socialdemocratas, los Ricos y los Pobres, los Con Voz y Sin Voz? Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan el Jet Set, los Reyes y Principes, Patricios y Plebeyos? Cuba desesperada clama por solidaridad. Donde Bob Dylan, donde Martin Luther King, donde Hollywood y sus estrellas? Donde la Middle Class democrata y conservadora, o acaso tambien liberal a ratos? Y Gandhi? Y el Dios de Todos? Donde los Santos y Virgenes; los Dioses de Cristianos, Protestantes, Musulmanes, Budistas, Testigos de Jehova y Adventistas del Septimo Dia. Donde estan Ochun y todas las deidades del Panteon Yoruba que no acuden a nuestro llanto? Donde Juan Pablo II que no exige mas que Cuba se abra al Mundo y que el Mundo se abra a Cuba? Que hacen ahora mismo Alberto de Monaco y el Principe Felipe que no los escuchamos? Donde Madonna, donde Angelina Jolie y sus adoptados around de world; o nos hara falta un Brando erguido en un Oscar por Cuba? Donde Sean Penn? Donde esta la Aristocracia Obrera y los Obreros menos Aristocraticos, donde los Working Class que no estan junto a un pueblo que lanquidece, sufre y llora por la ignominia? Que hacen ahora mismo Zapatero y Rajoy que no los escuchamos, y Harper y Dion, e Hillary y Obama; donde McCain que no los escuchamos? Y los muertos? Y los que estan muriendo? Y los que van a morir? Y los que se lanzan desesperados al mar? Donde estan el minero cantabrico o el pescador de percebes gijonese? Los Canarios donde estan? A los africanos no los oimos, y a los australianos con su acento de hombres duros tampoco. Y aquellos chinos milenarios de Canton que fundaron raices eternas en la Isla? Y que de la Queen Elizabeth y los Lords y Gentlemen? Que hace ahora mismo el combativo Principe Harry que no lo escuchamos? Donde los Rockefellers? Donde los Duponts? Donde Kate Moss? Donde el Presidente de la ONU? Y Solana donde esta? Y los Generales y Doctores? Y los Lam y los Fabelo, y los Sivio y los Fito Paez? Y que de Canseco y Miñoso? Y de los veteranos de Bahia de Cochinos y de los balseros y de los recien llegados? Y Carlos Otero y Susana Perez? Y el Bola, y Pancho Cespedes? Y YO y TU? Y todos nosotros que estamos aqui y alla rumiando frustaciones y resquemores, envidias y sinsabores; autoelogios y nostalgias, en tanto Louis Michel comulga con Perez Roque mientras Biscet y una NACION lanquidecen? Donde Maceo, donde Marti; donde aquel Villena con su carga para matar bribones? Cuba llora y clama y el Mundo NO ESCUCHA!!!