Jan 15 2006
Dana Priest, WaPo’s Tinfoil Hat Conspiracist
Dana Priest of the Washington Post was the person who helped leaked the story about the CIA’s supposed secret prisons in Europe being used to house and transit terrorists captured all over the world. She is now a confirmed member of the BDS crowd, peddling her wild speculations about black helicopters and Bush’s efforts to take over the world.
The broad-based effort, known within the agency by the initials GST, is compartmentalized into dozens of highly classified individual programs, details of which are known mainly to those directly involved.
GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al-Qaida suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe.
Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world .
The woman has been talking to those nuts like the VIPS, and has succumbed to their propaganda campaign:
The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War.
It has expanded in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.
Sounds like she’s had a sit down with Conyers as well. The women has bought into the wild rationalizations as to why we are at war after the 9-11 attacks (as if the attacks mean nothing.
Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view, the revelations have prompted protests and official investigations in countries that work with the United States, as well as condemnation by international human rights activists and criticism by members of Congress.
Still, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, according to current and former officials. These sources say Bush’s personal commitment to maintaining the GST program and his belief in its legality have been key to resisting any pressure to change course.
“In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action,” said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004. “But this president, who is breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations.”
Surveillance and capture of the enemy and interrogation during war! What nerve!
These people are nuts. These people believe we participated in 9-11 so we could control the world, and therefore all of this has nothing to do with potential terrorists attacks – those don’t exist.
The administration contends it is still acting in self-defense after the Sept. 11 attacks, that the battlefield is worldwide and that everything it has approved is consistent with the demands made by Congress on Sept. 14, 2001, when it passed a resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons (the president) determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.”
The interpretation undergirds the administration’s determination not to waver under public protest or the threat of legislative action.
…
The top-secret presidential finding Bush signed six days after the Sept. 11 attacks empowered the intelligence agencies in a way not seen since World War II, and it ordered them to create what would become the GST program.
This sounds suspiciously like this kind of story:
In studying the truth about the 9/11 attacks, I have uncovered very horrifying and disturbing facts. Most Americans do not accept these as facts. They, along with the media, call us “conspiracy theorists” and label us as left-wing, liberal, and most of all, unAmerican. There are many anomalies that lead one to theorize, but there are far more facts about 9/11 that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was complicity in the 9/11 attacks by our own government and the Bush administration.
In a very disturbing and revealing book called “The New Pearl Harbor,” author and theologian David Ray Griffin brilliantly provides evidence of involvement in the 9/11 attacks by high levels of our government and their success in extinguishing any real investigations or answering tough questions.
Dana Priest is one step away from being in this crowd.
Back to her article. Priest then goes on to try and reinforce her view of an administration out of control, because we are targeting Osama Bin Laden and others for death:
The CIA set about to put in place an intelligence-gathering network that relies heavily on foreign security services and their deeper knowledge of local terrorism groups. With billions of dollars appropriated each year by Congress, the CIA has established joint counterterrorism intelligence centers in more than two dozen countries, and it has enlisted at least eight countries, including several in Eastern Europe, to allow secret prisons on their soil.
Working behind the scenes, the CIA has gained approval from foreign governments to whisk suspected terrorists off streets or out of police custody into a clandestine prison system that includes the CIA’s black sites and facilities run by intelligence agencies in other countries.
The presidential finding also permitted the CIA to create paramilitary teams to hunt and kill designated individuals anywhere in the world, according to a dozen current and former intelligence officials and congressional and executive branch sources.
Yeah? So? Ms. Priest seems to ignorant of the old saying ‘war is hell’. In this war of hidden and shadowy group not specifically or overtly tied to or representing any government, the military option is a bit cumbersome to use. But in war, you play to win. The Jihadists are at war with us – they declare that themselves. That is the meaning of ‘jihad’. While we give them every opportunity to stop themselves, they are willing to die to kill us.
So if Priest thinks it worries us which agency is flying the predator drone and firing the missile, the Air Force or the CIA, she is kidding herself. All that counts is that the missile has the stars and stripes on it and it is a message from us back to the Jihadists!
I don’t think that Bush has cramped my style, but some terrorists have. It is intimidating to be threatened with physical harm for what you write. This is happening a lot to Charlie Brennan of the Rocky Mountain News because he has been investigating Ward Churchill and Colorado AIM.
Ward Churchill has claimed that FBI-backed killers murdered 432 Indians, but if you tell what Churchill is up to, watch out! His lawyers will threaten you and his minions on the Internet will come after you.
Terrorists are bullying people and killing them, and not just in far-away countries. We have terrorists in America who are not even Islamists.
If you really dig into what some people are up to, you find that out what intimidation is real fast.
And if you were to tell the newspaper reporters about the threats, they won’t pay any attention. They think the terrorists are just “activists.” Or maybe they are afraid to get sued by the terrorists with lawyers for writing what is really going on, so they close their eyes. It is easier and safer to criticize the government, which can’t sue your paper.
Reporters who really are defending the liberties of Americans by tracking the terrorists have a good chance of being threatened or even ending up like Richard Pearl, with their throats cut. All the rest are just shooting off their mouths against a safe target–Bush and the terrorists’ victims, the American people.
These idiot reporters are too cowardly to track terrorists, so they are tracking President Bush, who has been keeping us safe.
Really, these reporters who only spy on Bush and turn a blind eye to the terrorists are the terrorists’ collaborators.
They don’t go undercover and investigate what the terrorists are up to; they just spy on Bush for the terrorists.
“In the past, presidents set up buffers to distance themselves from covert action,†said A. John Radsan, assistant general counsel at the CIA from 2002 to 2004. “But this president, who is breaking down the boundaries between covert action and conventional war, seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations.â€
You know, this suits me just fine. But why is this jerk shooting his mouth off?
About the drones and missiles in Pakistan hunting for Al Zawahiri that hit innocent villagers—
It is possible that the houses were bombed by planes called in by special forces on the ground, not by a CIA drone.
There are reports that non-Pakistani foreigners were there and that some bodies were removed right after the bombing and taken away.
“One Pakistani official, speaking anonymously, told The Observer that hours before the strike some unidentified guests had arrived at one home and that some bodies had been removed quickly after the attack. This was denied by villagers.”
According to the above source, there may have been special forces soldiers on the ground directing the fire. If this is the case, they would have been in a position to know exactly who was in the house. If this is the case, the special forces may have also removed the bodies (of terrorists?) that were reportedly removed immediately.
“several eyewitnesses spoke of seeing planes and illuminating flares over the village, which if true would indicate the use of missiles from planes guided in by special forces teams on the ground rather than CIA-operated drones.”
Perhaps the story about a CIA drone is not correct.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,16937,1686918,00.html
Here is what Al Jazeera says:
“ABC News quoted Pakistani military sources as saying that five of those killed were “high-level” al-Qaida figures.”
“Up to 11 extremists were believed to be among the dead, according to unidentified Pakistani officials quoted in news reports.”
“As well as the 18 villagers killed, five other bodies were thought to have been removed after the attack and Pakistani agents were uncertain where they had been taken, said the first intelligence source, who declined to be identified.
One Damadola resident said three or four foreigners had come from Afghanistan for Eid. Another said he had seen bodies of at least two people who seemed to have been outsiders.
“Where these bodies have gone, I don’t know,” he said.” http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3BB59B7D-28A6-4B96-B220-63B5C4005B9D.htm
Some reports are that Al Zawahiri was invited for dinner but sent aids.
http://www.wesh.com/nationalnews/6117255/detail.html
Damadola, Pakistan
“Pakistani intelligence officials say Ayman al-Zawahri didn’t show up in a border village where he had been invited to mark an Islamic holiday.
They say he sent some aides instead, and investigators are now trying to see if they were among at least 17 people killed in a predawn airstrike on the village.”
“Musharraf…warns [that] giving safe haven to terrorists will only mean more trouble.”
Al Jazeera writes:
“[L]ocal officials in the Bajaur district, which was hit by the U.S. missiles, said 18 civilians had been killed, including six children, senior Pakistani officials said that the death toll was higher, and that at least 11 fighters, seven Arabs and four Pakistanis from Punjab Province, were killed in the attack even of the dead were Arab fighters.” http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=10452
AJ–
The conspiracy theorist writes:
“In a very disturbing and revealing book called “The New Pearl Harbor,†author and theologian David Ray Griffin brilliantly provides evidence of involvement in the 9/11 attacks by high levels of our government …”
I agree it is crazy to blame the government and President Bush for 9-11, but I did read that Robert Hanssen gave updates of a computer program to the Russians and the Russians gave this to Al Qaeda.
You can find this article on google, but it is a cache. I think if I paste in the link, it will mess up the post.
“Maybe, just maybe, some people in government did some bad things a number of years ago that were inherited by successive government hands who couldn’t give up the secrets. Consider this: Robert P. Hanssen, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and master of computer and counterintelligence operations, sold the former Soviet Union and its successor, Russia, the crown jewels of U.S. computer security and intelligence protections.
News reports, first by Jerry Seper at the Washington Times on June 14 and then by Carl Cameron at Fox cable on Oct. 17, revealed that Hanssen told debriefers he sold the Russians the manuals to sophisticated computer software called PROMIS that the FBI kept upgrading. This was then sold, reportedly for around $2 million, to agents of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network of thugs, thieves, fanatics and criminal masterminds…”
[Paul M. Rodriguez Insight. “The Last Word.” 10-19-01]
I wonder if that is true, or if this is some breathless story? I read a series of stories like this from Rodriguez and a few others, but these are pretty vague.
Here’s an interesting piece of information that ties the PROMIS software with BCCI and our favorite maker of “The Wall”, Jamie Gorelick. If we look back at the BCCI scandal, we will also find a Senator that was`looking for an issue to claim as his own since up until this point, he had done nothing. Apparently, it can be said that he still had done nothing since, John Kerry, it seems was handed the issue on BCCI on a silver platter. The NSA/CIA had bugged BCCI software they sold to them which gave them access to all of their transactions. Kerry even published a book about the whole the BCCI investigation and to this day, highlights his investigation as a strong point of his career.
U.S.A.: Inslaw Down But BCCI In
Intelligence Newsletter October 20, 1994
SECTION: OPERATIONS; No. 250
LENGTH: 454 words
HEADLINE: U.S.A.: Inslaw Down But BCCI In
BODY:
The bill calling for an investigation of Inslaw’s PROMIS software allegedly stolen by the Reagan administration for a major international intelligence operation recently “avoided enactment” in the House of Representatives. But at the same time, the affair has been tied directly to the use of the BCCI by American intelligence services. The BCCI, which was used extensively by terrorist organizations, drug traffickers and governments unfriendly to the U.S., was heavily penetrated by the CIA during the Reagan years. According to a National Security Council source contacted by Intelligence Newsletter, the BCCI was among the first banks on whose computers bugged PROMIS software was installed. If this is true, it would mean that the CIA had information on all BCCI transactions and probably also on all BCCI electronic communications from about 1983 on.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the BCCI and Inslaw also intersect at the top of the Clinton administration Justice Department. Jamie Gorelick, deputy attorney general and chief operating officer at Justice, is largely responsible for the 27 September report saying essentially that the Inslaw affair doesn’t exist (I.N. n. 249). Previously she represented Clark Clifford and Robert Altman, the pair who ran Washington’s First American Bank when it was illegally owned by BCCI.
I.N.- The bill, H.R. 4862, was to be enacted by a special congressional maneuver which was defeated by what appears to have been heavy lobbying by Attorney General Janet Reno, former Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese and allegedly Ronald Reagan himself. Nonetheless, staunch conservative Republican Senator Orin Hatch, disgusted by government dishonesty, quietly introduced an amendment to the Process Patent Applications bill similar to H.R. 4862 which was passed by the Senate on 6 October. When Congress reconvenes in a few weeks to vote on GATT, H.R. 4862 is expected to be recalled for a full House vote, at which time its supporters hope they can get it passed.
LOAD-DATE: October 21, 1994
SBD
Dear SBD–
What is this Intelligence Newsletter?
This is a very interesting article–you have no idea how interesting–but how do I know if it the truth or a partisan smear?
This subject is extremely complicated and way over my head. I know I can be tricked so I don’t believe anything too fast.
Even though I am a Republican, I don’t believe that the Democrats or all bad or that the Republicans are all good.
I want to know the truth, not just the party line.
Sometimes politicians also do bad things because they are gullible and targeted by very clever people. If they had better information, they might act differently.
And some are crooks.
From everything I have read, the PROMIS software was sold to the Department of Justice by a company named Inslaw. PROMIS stands for Promis stands for Prosecutor’s Management Information System and was an open source project in the beginning. The owner was a former NSA employee. He created the Enhanced PROMIS version of the software that the Justice Department refused to pay for which put Inslaw into chapter 11 bankruptcy. The DOJ tried to force Inslaw into chapter 7 so that it could by the software at the trustee sale. The reason they wanted the software was because the CIA and NSA configured the software to bug any VAX computer system it was installed on essentially opening a back door.
They would have gotten away with it a lot easier if it wasn’t for the former Nixon Attorney General Elliott Richardson who was known as being a stand up guy for resigning when Nixon ordered him to fire the Watergate Independant Council. He brought the credibility required to keep the story alive to this day.
Mr. Richardson was blocked by people he thought had integrity and found his task of exposing the truth his duty. The reason the government was so against the investigation was apparently the fact that the software was being used at the World Bank and it is claimed the PROMIS is the NSA software being used to track the communication we have been hearing so much about in the NYT lately.
The story gets worse and worse until you begin to think that you are reading a Tom Clancy novel. There are even reports that back in 1996, all of those Senators retired because someone with access to PROMIS traced their money stashed away in foreign banks. It also has ties to the CIA drug smuggling Arkansas scandal in Mena, AK.
Here’s the info on The Intelligence Newsletter
Since it was founded in 1981, Indigo Publications continues to excel in seeking out and publishing hard-to-find confidential news for a specialized readership. As an independent concern with no ties to either government or political movements, Indigo Publications can guarantee news that is fresh, objective and carefully-researched. Indigo pays its costs entirely out of its subscriptions since it neither runs advertising nor enjoy subsidies. As a result, articles on the two webs, Intelligence Online and Africa Intelligence, are paid by users at similar rates to those of the hard-copy edition. However, key-word searches and the creation of user profiles, are free of charge, enabling subscribers to buy only the articles which really meet their needs.
SBD
Now that I think about it, maybe Kerry did play a bigger role in the BCCI scandal than I originally thought. Was Kerry put in charge of the BCCI investigation to make protect Washington from the fallout that the information would bring to light? It makes sense when you consider his other big investigation into the POW/MIA.
WOW,
SBD
This Inslaw scandal is pretty old. It would seem that eveyone would have new computers and software by now. I sure hope the NSA isn’t using really old software to spy on terrorists.
I have read some articles about this, but the sources seem to be distorting the story with a partisan spin.
Your 1994 story is one of the more credible-sounding ones because it mentions people in both parties.
I wonder if the FBI has ever officially said anything about Hanssen and the FBI. Some stories say he gave the KGB manuals for the PROMIS but some others suggest that he gave them the program.
And then Al Qaeda got it.
I am always skeptical when a writer has unidentified “sources,” especially from an intelligence agency.
There is a book called “Return of the Buffalo” by a minister named Ambrose I Lane. This book is about Indian gambling, but it mentions Inslaw a little bit. I think there were some allegations that the Promis software was changed or something at the Cabazon Indian reservation. There were a lot of allegations about what supposedly went on there–weapons, etc.
I haven’t read the entire book, but it seems to poo-poo the idea that the government did anything wrong. The book also lays a big “guilt trip” on the reader for past injustices to Indians. The point of this seems to be to make readers think that anything the Indians do is fine because of past injustices. That makes me think the writer is biased. He wants to use my guilt against me.
The author says that a guy claimed he was framed on drug charges because of what he told about Inslaw. I am skeptical of that. But this writer didn’t convince me of his impartial expertise, either.
Whatever the case, I was looking at this because of the Abramoff scandal and its connection to Indian gaming.
In such a complicated matter it is impossible for the average citizen to get to the truth.
Usually a little bit of information comes out and then the whole business goes away from the public view.
When people start writing about the CIA running drugs, I get very skeptical. I just don’t believe that is how the people in our government operate, except perhaps for an occasional bad apple.