Ray McGovern

By Ray McGovern

 

The rubbish released yesterday by CNN about the blackmail material that the Russians supposedly have on President-elect Trump is not to be taken seriously.  The episode is, nonetheless, quite serious.

 

CIA Director John Brennan seems to have concluded that with his patron/president gone, he (Brennan) will be “thrown under the bus,” as smart people say – and do – in Washington.  If the Trump administration folks are as vindictive as Brennan fears (and he has given them lot to be vindictive about), there is much to blame Brennan for, including serious crimes.

 

It is possible to regard this latest outrage as a kind of prophylactic: If Trump goes after Brennan, the former CIA chief can try to make it appear to be retaliation for “the goods Brennan has on Trump — but (of course) cannot reveal in detail because of the sensitivity of ‘sources and methods’.”

 

One of our (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) regulars, former CIA operations officer Phil Giraldi, put it succinctly:

 

At first read, this has all the hallmarks of a clever fabrication, the sort of thing we at CIA used to do in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

What’s at Stake: CIA vs. Trump

 

Chuck Schumer said it all on Jan. 3, when he told Rachel Maddow, “He (Trump) is really dumb to do this.”

 

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) January 4, 2017

New Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia’s cyber activities.

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Big Stakes: And the Winner Will Be …

As far as Obama’s presidency is concerned, the winner has been Brennan – starting seven months before his patron became president.  In June 2008, when John Brennan joined the Obama Team, Obama quickly learned who the boss is in Washington.  Among other early signs, Sen. Obama immediately went back on his pledge to vote against legislation to hold the giant telecoms (and NSA leaders) harmless for gross violations of the 4^th amendment.  Here’s a link to what I wrote at the time: http://warisacrime.org/node/34526

VIPS’s considered view (out of hundreds of years of experience in intelligence, and with the input of the former Technical Director of NSA and some of his closest associates) is that the accusations that Russia was responsible for hacking the emails released by WikiLeaks on DNC and Podesta remain without persuasive evidence.  It’s hard to prove a negative, but, with all that Ed Snowden has released, we can – and have – come real close.  See: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-hacking-intelligence-20170105-story.html

And This Just In …

… from Annie Machon – former UK MI5 officer, whistleblower, who is thoroughly familiar with the shenanigans of MI6 …

“This farrago of nonsense makes the infamous Iraq weapons of mass destruction
report look positively professional in comparison.

“And if, in some parallel universe, these fabrications could conceivably
be true, the leaking to the US media of these alleged reports by a
so-called British MI6 “operative” would have blown the cover of
innumerable highly placed and valuable intelligence sources.

“Such sources are the crown jewels of intelligence work, so if these
reports have any basis in reality, I would expect heads to roll in both
MI6 and the CIA.”

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.  He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years.

Ray points out some of the falsehoods in the House Intelligence Committee’s report that defames Edward Snowden for exposing the kind of unconstitutional activities to which this supposed “oversight” committee had turned a blind eye.  The report analyzes Ed’s life and plumbs his possible motives, but misses the operative one – his oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution (including the 4^th Amendment) from ALL enemies foreign and domestic.  

(6 minutes)

 

Members of Congress, of course, take the same oath, but many of them don’t seem to remember that.  There is little sign that leaders of this House committee care much about the 4^th Amendment – or about several others, for that matter.  That goes especially for ranking member Adam Shiff, who sees a Russian under every email.  (See this, for example (reposted from below):

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson takes apart Adam Schiff, who is ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee – a Schiff without a port – or a rudder; a “ranking” captain reeking of Red Bait.

http://theduran.com/fox-news-tucker-carlson-demolishes-this-us-congressman-who-claims-that-tucker-carlson-is-now-under-the-control-of-putin/

December 7, 2016 (8 minutes)

(17 minutes)

 

The interview occurred on December 5, 2016, just a few weeks after the election and was shown on Pandora TV in mid-December (in English with Italian subtitles).  So it reflects Ray’s thinking less than a month after President-elect Trump won.  But we just discovered it on YouTube, and among the subjects Ray addresses are broad, systemic issues and some of the things that will confront Donald Trump when he takes office on January 20.

CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour lets it all hang out interviewing Russian foreign policy guru Fyodor Lukyanov:

http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/01/02/russia-intv-amanpour-fyodor-lukyanov.cnn/video/playlists/amanpour/

Segment from minute 0:20 to 0:44 shows Amanpour’s loaded-for-(Russian) bear first question:

 

“Let me first ask you, um, you know, Trump and his team is saying there is zero evidence [on Russia hacking], but do you think that even in Moscow people believe that the Obama administration would have slapped sanctions on Russia and that 17 of U.S. intelligence agencies believe that there IS evidence, isn’t the Russians, or the Kremlin believe there is zero evidence?” (sic)

 

Reminiscing on the behavior of the Fawning Corporate Media in asserting as flat-fact that lraq had weapons of mass destruction, I was reminded of the kind of questions (and exasperating grimace/gesticulation) with which my VIPS colleagues and I were greeted as the U.S. attacked Iraq, as in:  “Well, really!  If there is zero evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, do you believe the Bush administration would have invaded Iraq?  I mean, really?”  So here we go again.

Bill Binney and Ray have authored timely op-ed in tomorrow’s Baltimore Sun, just now posted on line.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-hacking-intelligence-20170105-story.html

 

NSA needs to be asked, Where’s the beef?  NSA’s multimillion-dollar vacuum cleaner would have sucked up the data to prove it, were it a hack.

 

National Intelligence Director James Clapper confessed four years ago to lying under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee, admitting that he had provided testimony that was “clearly erroneous.”  And he has even more serious blots on his record – in facilitating fraudulent intelligence before the Iraq war, for example.  Yet he remains just the kind of guy Senators and Congressmen like to fawn over – and believe.  Unbelievable.

 

Tomorrow (Friday) we shall see what President-elect Trump thinks of Clapper’s dog-and-pony show.

Ray discusses the evidence-free drivel spread around by the NY Times and Washington Post – reminiscent of “flat-fact” reporting on the weapons of mass destruction 14 years ago.

 

January 4, 2017 (6 minutes)

https://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/what-obamas-expulsion-of-russian-diploma

January 3, 2017 (18 minutes)

No Guts Obama ran only the rhetoric.

By Ray McGovern, Jan. 3, 2016

Obama’s Deadly Afghan Acquiescence

And the thousand dead GIs? What come to mind are the desperate words of Linda, Willy Loman’s wife in “Death of a Salesman”:

 

“He’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”

 

[NOTE: The above is an improved version of the Ray’s draft posted immediately below.]

 Occasionally a New York Times writer like Mark Landler will be permitted to step up to the plate and write a sensible article about President “NGO” and how he caved in to folks he lacked the political courage to cross. Landler’s Jan. 1 article shows, among other things, how NGO’s bowing to heavyweights like Petraeus, Gates, and H. Clinton ended up getting thousands of people killed and prolonging the fool’s-errand Afghan war.

 

The pity, of course, is that Landler’s piece, “The Afghan War and the Evolution of Obama,” comes eight years too late.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/01/world/asia/obama-afghanistan-war.html?emc=edit_th_20170102&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=69540701

There is a lot of numbness out there today about how we let ourselves be had by NGO.  There are many attempts to blame bad decisions on Afghanistan on his benighted advisers.  Benighted, indeed.  But you know where the buck is supposed to stop.  And VIPS et al. spared no effort to get through to NGO.

It would be entirely understandable if some of you will not want to risk being further depressed.  Others, however, may wish to have your memories freshened by recalling the efforts of Ray and his colleagues to warn NGO before he let himself be conned into doubling down on the Afghan folly.  They may wish to skim through the re-runs (linked below) of early warnings in March 2009 and January 2010, together with some retrospective comments.

1-

“Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President

July 24, 2016

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/07/24/welcome-to-vietnam-mr-president-2/

From the Archive: With still no end in sight for the Afghan War, President Obama can’t say he wasn’t warned. Barely two months into his presidency in 2009, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern welcomed Obama to his own Vietnam quagmire.

By Ray McGovern (Originally published March 28, 2009).”

Included in that piece was this quote from Gen. Douglas MacArthur:

“Equally relevant to Obama’s fateful early decision on Afghanistan, Gen. Douglas MacArthur told another young President in April 1961: “’Anyone wanting to commit American ground forces to the mainland of Asia should have his head examined.’”

 

Could it be that the fellow we used to call windsock-Bobby Gates still reads articles by his old Soviet Foreign Policy Branch Chief.  Hard to tell.  But here’s what he later told aspiring officers at West Point.

 

“Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa ‘should have his head examined,’ as General [Douglas] MacArthur so delicately put it.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2011/0226/Gates-s-warning-Avoid-land-war-in-Asia-Middle-East-and-Africa

The “Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President” article of March 28, 2009 added:

When JFK’s top military advisers, critical of the President’s reluctance to go against that advice, virtually called him a traitor  — for pursuing a negotiated solution to the fighting in Laos, for example — Kennedy would tell them to convince Gen. MacArthur first, and then come back to him. (Alas, there seems to be no comparable Gen. MacArthur today.)

2-

Obama Ignores Key Afghan Warning

February 7, 2014

https://consortiumnews.com/2014/02/07/obama-ignores-key-afghan-warning/

“From the Archive:  As the 12-year Afghan War grinds to what many Americans see as failure, ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other hawks won’t admit their counterinsurgency “surge” in 2009 was a waste of lives and money or that U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry was right when he warned President Obama, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern wrote in 2010.  (Originally published Jan. 27, 2010)”

Excerpt:

“I imagine that in years to come, Eikenberry will proudly show his cables to his grandchildren. Or maybe he won’t, out of fear that one of them might ask why he didn’t have the guts to quit and let the rest of the country know what he thought of this latest March of Folly.”

The General/Ambassador

Eikenberry is an interesting case study showing, among other things, that lack of guts on the part of a commander-in-chief can be contagious.  A retired Lt. General and then Obama’s ambassador in Kabul, Eikenberry knew more about Afghanistan than Petraeus, McChrystal, Gates, and H. Clinton (the entire Gang of Four) put together, and sent back to Washington some very important, sensible advice.  We do not know whether H. Clinton forwarded it on to her boss.  Nor do we know whether Eikenberry exercised his ambassadorial prerogative to contact the President directly.  Apparently, he preferred to avoid putting important noses out of joint.  My guess is that he opted instead to tell his story through leaks to the New York Times.

Eikenberry had served three years in Afghanistan over the course of two separate tours of duty. During 2002-2003 he was responsible for rebuilding Afghan security forces. He then served 18 months (2005-2007) as commander of all US forces stationed in the country.  Surely, he could see the toll in killed and wounded that would inevitably result from the follow being urged on NGO by the Gang of Four.

In any case, Eikenberry’s leaked cables show that he felt strongly about it.  He also saw the handwriting on the wall indicating that Obama was about to let himself be sandbagged by the Gang of Four and its clever use of the media.  So he sent two SECRET NODIS (“NODIS” MEANS No Dissemination) cables to H. Clinton, his boss (and a charter member of the Gang of Four), fully aware that she might not share them with her boss, NGO.  Did Eikenberry ever think of resigning loudly on principle?  Apparently not.

What did he choose to do when he was overruled?  He trod up to Congress and fully supported the feckless surge of troops launched out of NGO’s cowardice/stupidity in bowing to the Gang of Four.  It may never have occurred to him to blow the whistle.  For many a graduate of West Point, its motto seems to get garbled as one pins on star after star in climbing the ladder of success.  The motto is, after all, “Duty, Honor, Country (not Career, not President, not Sinecure Retirement – but Country!).

Or perhaps blowing the whistle did occur to Eikenberry.  But he would have been well aware that, if you challenge the Establishment in a serious way, you seldom end up with a cushy job like running a Research Center at Stanford.  Presumably, Eikenberry takes some gratification in the fact that he turns out to have been correct, as shown by his cables from Kabul, and relishes the applause of his academic colleagues.  As suggested above, it may have been he himself who leaked the cables to the NY Times with that future purpose in the back of his mind – something in the nature of a “modified limited hangout.”

that is, to agree with Obama favorite, CIA Director John Brennan on the “Russian hacking.”  See comment and link below for Jeh Johnson’s stated approach to moral decisions like drone-killing – and, presumably, lying.)

Glenn Greenwald Slams Democrats for Attacks on Anyone Skeptical of CIA Russia Assessment

December 19, 2016 (five minutes)

 

On April 5, 2015, Jeh Johnson told 60 Minutes host Leslie Stahl of his relief over not being Catholic (like his wife), because then he “would have to go to confession” for some of the things he had approved under pressure with a knee-jerk yes.  They were discussing target-killing American citizens by drone without due process.

 

Well, Whew! again, for Jeh.  For, while drone-killing Americans is grist for confession, so is lying – whether about “Russian hacking,” or other important things.  Worse still, his Catholic wife might remind him that confession is not as easy as it looks; that it has as much to do with future as past behavior; that for his sins to be forgiven, he would have to promise to stop taking part not only in killing, but in lying as well.

 

The quaint phrase we Catholics use to describe what is required is a “firm purpose of amendment.”  (My lawyer friends are the first to point out that this may be the main reason why, reportedly, there are so few lawyers, Catholic or not, in heaven.)

 

On the chance readers might think this not a fair representation of Jeh Johnson’s approach, we paste in part of his dialogue with Lesley Stahl, plus the link to the 60 Minutes segment:

 

from “Homeland Security” which aired on April 5, 2015:

 

Lesley Stahl: The homegrown [terrorist] movement … was largely inspired by this man, an American turned terrorist in Yemen, named Anwar al-Awlaki. He was killed by a drone strike like this one, one of many Johnson green-lighted when he was general counsel at the Pentagon.

Jeh Johnson: If it was a strike off what we call the hot battlefield — in other words, outside of Iraq and Afghanistan — by the military then I would have to give the legal sign-off first. And so I did that.

Lesley Stahl: At one point, you had to decide whether it was OK to kill an American, al-Awlaki.

Jeh Johnson: In any use of targeted lethal force, we’d have to conclude that it was consistent with domestic law and international law.

Lesley Stahl: Did you say it [drone killing] was not legal many times?

Jeh Johnson: Occasionally I would have to conclude that the legal authority was not there. And quickly found out that it was actually easier to say yes than it was to say no.

Lesley Stahl: Why was it easier to say yes?

Jeh Johnson: Very often when we’re asked to approve the use of targeted lethal force, it can only be in a matter of minutes.

Lesley Stahl: Right–

Jeh Johnson: And so there’s a lot of momentum to that. So to say no is like stepping in front of a 90-car freight train.

Lesley Stahl: The first time you said yes, you have said that you were very uncomfortable.

Jeh Johnson: How could somebody be comfortable with authorizing legally the use of lethal force? My view is if you become comfortable with it, then you should get out of the job.

Lesley Stahl: What you actually said was, “If I were Catholic, I would have to go to confession.”

Jeh Johnson: Yes. …

(Emphasis added)

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeland-security-jeh-johnson-60-minutes-lesley-stahl/