LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic
Individuals Not Ideologies
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Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan (Updated)
Update (January 12): In response to criticism (in the Comments) by a US military historian, I’ve posted a review of Avatar here at MBP, on January 11.
Update (January 12): Since this piece is so topical and sensitive, I´m taking the liberty of adding links to it, so that readers can do further reading on their own.Original Post:
“Douglas Valentine, author of the recently released account of the DEA, “The Strength of the Pack,” contributes this piece to The Mind Body Politic:
Disrupting the Accommodation: The CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan
Why?
“Why?” The grieving family members ask. “Why did the terrorists kill our loved ones?”
The hardnosed colleagues of the four fallen CIA officers (Lila: One Jordanian intelligence officer and seven CIA officers, according to the Wall Street Journal) comfort the wives and children (and one husband). They shake off their sorrow, huddle together by the graves, and vow vengeance. They bathe themselves in their seething anger like it was the blood of the lamb.
“Why? The American public and its officials ask. Why? The media repeats, adding in shock and awe, “Don’t the terrorists know that you can’t kill CIA officers?”
Why, everyone wonders, did a Jordanian suicide bomber target the CIA, knowing that the wrath of the biggest, baddest, bloodthirstiest Gang on Planet Earth is going to start dropping bombs and slitting throats until its lust for death and suffering is satisfied?
Over the course of its sixty year reign of terror, in which it has overthrown countless governments, started countless wars costing countless lives, and otherwise subverted and sabotaged friends and foes alike, the CIA has lost less than 100 officers. (Lila: This BBC report cites a Washington Post article that gives 90 as the number of CIA “employees” - it doesn´t say officers - who have “died in service” since the CIA´s inception in 1947)
On a good day, one CIA drone, and one CIA hit team, kills 100 innocent women and children, and nobody bats an eye.
(Lila: Pakistan´s Dawn reported on Jan 2 that in 2009 44 drone strikes had killed five key Al Qaeda/Taliban leaders and over 700 civilians, giving a kill rate of about 140 civilians to each intended target. That means each drone killed less than twenty people, on average. I’m not sure if a drone has actually killed a hundred people, even on a good day, but possibly a hit team has. However, a suicide bomber did kill nearly a hundred people on January 1, in South Waziristan, according to this AP report.)
Why would the terrorists suddenly deviate from the norm – the sacred accommodation – and throw the whole game into chaos?
Why?OK, I’ll Tell You Why
There is a phenomenon called “The Universal Brotherhood of Officers.” It exists in the twilight zone between imagination and in reality, in the fog of war. It is why officers are separated from enlisted men in POW camps and given better treatment. It is why officers of opposing armies have more in common with one another than they have with their own enlisted men.
Officers are trained to think of their subordinate ranks as canon fodder. Their troops are expendable. They know when they send a unit up a hill, some will be killed. That is why they do not fraternize with thee lower ranks. This class distinction exists across the world, and is the basis of the sacred accommodation. No slobs need apply.
It is why the Bush Family flew the Bin Laden Family, and other Saudi Royals, out of the United States in the days after 9-11.
(Lila: AFP reported on March 28, 2005 that US government records released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative Judicial Watch showed that in the days after 9-11 the FBI had actively organized the departure of dozens of Saudi nationals on chartered flights. Agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families, while several others were allowed to leave without being questioned, although, allegedly, 15 out of 19 of the 9-11 hijackers were Saudi. A comprehensive list of the various claims about the departures can be found at Source Watch).
If anyone was a case officer to the 9-11 bombers, or had knowledge about the bombers or any follow-up plots, it was these “protected” people.
CIA officers are at the pinnacle of the Universal Brotherhood. They are the Protected Few, blessed with false identities and bodyguards, flying in jet planes, living in villas, eating fancy food and enjoying state of the art technology. CIA officers tell army generals what to do.They direct Congressional committees. They assassinate heads of state and innocent children equally, with impunity, with indifference.
In Afghanistan they manage the drug trade from their hammocks in the shade.They know the Taliban tax the farmers growing the opium, and they know that Karzai’s warlords convert the opium into heroin and fly it to the Russian mob. They are amused by the antics of earnest DEA agents, who, in their ignorant patriotic bliss, cannot believe such an accommodation exists.
CIA officers are trained to exist in this moral netherworld of protected drug dealers, for the simple reasons that the CIA in every conflict has a paramount need to keep secure communication channels open to the enemy. This is CIA 101. The CIA, as part of its mandate, is authorized to negotiate with the enemy, but it can only do so as long as the channel is secure and deniable.
No proof will ever exist, so the American public can be deceived.
Take Iran Contra, when Reagan vowed never to negotiate with terrorists, then a team to Tehran to sell missiles to thee Iranians and use the money to buy guns for the drug dealing Contras. There’s stated and unstated policy – and the CIA is always pursuing the unstated, which is why it relies so heavily on its patriotic and witless assets in the mainstream media.
In Afghanistan the accommodation is the environment that allows the CIA to have a secure channel to the Taliban to negotiate on simple matters like prisoner exchanges.
The exchange of British journalist Peter Moore for an Iraqi “insurgent” in CIA custody was an example of how the accommodation works in Iraq. Moore was held by a Shia group allegedly allied to Iran, and his freedom depended entirely on the CIA reaching an accommodation with America’s enemies in the Iraq resistance. The details of such prisoner exchanges are never revealed, but involve secret negotiations by the CIA and the resistance over issues of strategic importance to both sides.
The accommodation is the intellectual environment which provides a space for any eventual reconciliation. There are always preliminary negotiations for a reconciliation or ceasefire, and in every modern conflict that’s the CIA’s job.
And the Afghanis want reconciliation. Apart from the US and CIA, Karzai and his clique at every level have filial relations with the Taliban.
No matter how powerful the CIA is, it can’t overcome that. Ed Brady, an Army officer detailed to the CIA and assigned to the Phoenix Directorate in Saigon in 1967 and 1968, explains how the accommodation worked in Vietnam.
While Brady and his Vietnamese counterpart Colonel Tan were lunching at a restaurant in Dalat, Tan pointed at a woman eating noodle soup and drinking Vietnamese coffee at the table next to them. He told Brady that she was the Viet Cong province chief’s wife. Brady, of course, wanted to grab her and use her for bait.
Coolly, Colonel Tan said to him: “You don’t understand. You don’t live the way we live. You don’t have any family here. You’re going to go home when this operation is over. You don’t think like you’re going to live here forever. But I have a home and a family and kids that go to school. I have a wife that has to go to market…. And you want me to go kill his wife? You want me to set a trap for him and kill him when he comes in to see his wife? If we do that, what are they going to do to our wives?”
“The VC didn’t run targeted operations against them either,” Brady explains. “There were set rules that you played by. If you went out and conducted a military operation and you chased them down fair and square in the jungle and you had a fight, that was okay. If they ambushed you on the way back from a military operation, that was fair. But to conduct these clandestine police operations and really get at the heart of things, that was kind of immoral to them. That was not cricket. And the Vietnamese were very, very leery of upsetting that.”
(Lila: See Valentine’s, “The Phoenix Program,” available online at American Buddha).
Obama’s Dirty War in Afghanistan relies largely on such clandestine CIA operations, in which wives and children are used as bait to trap husbands – or are killed as a way of punishing men in the resistance.
The CIA plays the same role in Afghanistan that the Gestapo played in the cities and the Einsatzgruppen performed in the countryside for the Nazis in World War Two – killing and terrorizing the urban resistance and partisan bands.Its unstated object is to rip apart working and middle class families and thus the whole fabric of Afghan society, until the Afghan people accept American domination, through its suppletif ruling class.(1)
And this is why the CIA was targeted.
The CIA is utterly predictable. It will invoke the “100-1 Rule” used by the Gestapo and Einsatzgruppen and go on a killing spree until its vengeance is satisfied. At the end of the day, the Afghan people will only hate the Americans more. This makes the CIA happy, on the premise that terror will make the people submit. But in Afghanistan it spells protracted war, and as in Vietnam, eventual defeat.
(Lila: Valentine has written here about the 100-1 rule before. Mark Mazower in “Hitler’s Empire” writes that the German military killed 73 Belarussians for each German killed)
1) It also has a ‘foreign intelligence” mission of pursuing the Taliban’s supporters in Pakistan, Iran and other neighboring countries.
My Comment:This is shocking stuff to people accustomed to thinking of the CIA as essentially good, with corrupt elements in it. I confess that I’ve thought so until very recently. But in the last two years I’ve come to see that enough of the outfit operates so far outside any ethical or legal boundary that one begins to question the need for any of it to exist.
Some people, no doubt, will find this an extreme position. How, they might ask, can we abandon espionage and covert ops when other countries also spy, albeit on a much smaller scale and with far less danger to the world (eg. RAW in India).
It’s a good question.
And it’s the same question posed by the issue of disarmament, nuclear and other wise.
Who goes first? And how do we trust others to follow?I have no easy answers.
But my sense is that the greatest of the world powers today is still the US, or, if you prefer, the Anglosphere - since whatever its economic state, the US is still the most powerful state, militarily. Without the US and the Anglosphere cutting back on weaponry and espionage , no other state will ever be prevailed upon to follow. They will, correctly, see any demand that they do so as imperial hypocrisy. They will argue that their own espionage is essentially defense against empire.
And there is no good rebuttal to that.
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Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spells Defeat In Afghanistan | LILA … | Afghanistan News said...
1[...] Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spells Defeat In Afghanistan | LILA … Share and [...]
01/5/10 7:20 AM | Comment Link
Taylor said...
2Great “article” and perfect timing, a friend and I have been discussing the CIA, it’s tactics, it’s scope, etc. A dangerous outfit. I always wonder how people in the CIA can even trust each other enough to work together, seems like everyone would constantly be playing mindgames and testing one another, etc.
Any good resources in terms of anecdote-type books you know of for further reading?
01/5/10 8:36 AM | Comment Link
Lila said...
3Taylor -
Doug just came out with a new book the past fall, which I will link here,
I urge you to check out his other books at his website, especially his second book, The Phoenix Program, which Professor Alfred W. McCoy describes as “the definitive account” of the CIA’s most secret and deadly covert operation of the Vietnam War;and his two books on the drug war, which is intimately related to the history of the CIA:
1) The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America’s War on Drugs, published by Verso in May 2004. Strength has received the Choice Academic Excellence Award and will be published in Russia this year.
2) The Strength of the Pack: The Politics, Personalities and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped the DEA, was published by TrineDay in October 2009.
01/5/10 9:00 AM | Comment Link
Philip Tufano said...
4You show no respect or understanding of anything the CIA does. You are obviously not American, but rather either French, Canadian or a member of the Taliban who happens to be able to write in English.
Your lack of any understanding stems from the fact that you have obviously never served in any conflict, committed to any cause greater than your own personal pursuits and you show an extreme ignorance for what the agency does or its operations.
Your disrespect for the good people of the CIA who have been killed in the line of duty and who put their lives on the line every day is obvious. Stay safe behind your computer while people who you ridicule and despise fight the battles that allow you the freedom to write the crap you know nothing about.
01/5/10 10:06 AM | Comment Link
Lila said...
5Hi -
Maybe you should read the piece with the same care that the author took to write it.
1. The post is from Doug Valentine.
He is a native born American, a white male whose father was captured during WWII by the Japanese and underwent a terrible imprisonment. That was his son’s inspiration to write about intelligence and the Phoenix program.
By the way, Doug is a good friend and I’m honored to know he respects my work.
But maybe he’s not a good enough American for you.
I didn’t say the entire CIA was corrupt. I said that substantial parts of it are involved in things that are both illegal and unethical and that the entire area of secret intelligence should be dismantled, whether in the US or elsewhere.
I stand by that hundred percent.
2. I’m sure there are many decent people who work for the CIA in regular intelligence and analysis. The post is not about them. It’s about covert ops that are frankly diabolical in character.
3. The principal government I’m afraid of is the US gvt, which is bristling with nuclear weapons.
4. I doubt those weapons do anything to protect me or anyone else. They mainly protect the financial racketeers who just looted the entire world. Exactly what did the CIA do to prevent that?
Nothing. It abetted it.
A glance at my blog will tell you that most of the world would have got better intelligence about what was going on in the past five years if they had read my writing, which costs nothing, rather than read the reams of expensive disinformation, misinformation, and redundant information, produced at great cost to the tax payer, mainly for the benefit of the self-same financial elites.
5. I’ve volunteered all my life and I’ve spent the last five years on my own dime writing articles which do me no good in any way.
Or maybe I should have been flipping houses, or gypping insurance companies, or committing frauds of every other kind, in between jackbooting over the face of the earth with fresh- faced innocence, proclaiming myself the hand of God.
6. I’m a US citizen and have been so for 20 years. Married an American, educated in America, owned property in America, ran a business in America.. I’m a human being and I write as a human being. I don’t notice anyone demanding that Americans butter up Indians or Chinese when they invest in their stock markets….or buy their products or services..
I saw plenty of cheating, looting, and hustling for the past few decades, on the backs of the savings and hard work of people all over the world, from which Americans profit without even knowing it.
7. I pointed out that RAW and other foreign intelligence agencies should also be disbanded.
8. Criticizing the US doesn’t mean you support the Taliban. But the Taliban, whatever its sins and crimes isn’t sitting on a pile of nuclear weapons and it wasn’t the Taliban that voted the country into bankruptcy on behalf of fat cats.
01/5/10 12:21 PM | Comment Link
Clark said...
6As usual, well said Lila.
A rose is still a rose, eh?
But soon they will get ducks that bark and then things will really get confusing.
01/5/10 4:38 PM | Comment Link
Caryl Johnston said...
7Good reply to that idiot, Philip Tufano.
01/6/10 12:49 AM | Comment Link
Theon Lyreal said...
8CIA is a branch of Mossad. It works for the Rothschilds. It has become self-financing through the drug trade. That is actually the reason that certain drugs were made ‘illegal’ in the first place - so that the gangster’s intelligence and assassination services could take over the trade. They use US bases around the world as heroin distribution centers.
01/6/10 12:58 AM | Comment Link
TrueEarth said...
9Write on!
Stating the simple truth in black and white using the pen instead of a sword: it is impossible to do that these days without sounding like you are a stark, raving mental case.
Because the truth about the CIA and the US Government - a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street - and the utterly corrupt military and financial empire that is weeks away from total collapse - is what is so insane.
When ‘reality’ most closely resembles the nightmares of a lunatic - then it becomes impossible to speak truth without sounding like a nutcase!
Unfortunately, Mr. Valentine is doing nothing more than telling the plain truth about what this country has become.
01/6/10 1:18 AM | Comment Link
JoJo said...
10Notice media always put the fear into Americans–the KGB and Putin director KGB but never related,in bad lite to Old man Bush in charge of CIA.
I have to disagree with the author, United States of Israel is Kaa-Put.The CIA has an unlimited, unaccountable budget for the public to question. USi-It’s broke :^/
Watch this 60 minute video.Before it’s removed for the tenth time :^/
http://www.brasschecktv.com:80/page/705.html
01/6/10 1:31 AM | Comment Link
Campbell said...
11N i c e rebuttal
01/6/10 1:31 AM | Comment Link
Ranger said...
12Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and secrecy covers up atrocity. Any American that believes the federal government is a force for good is too stupid to vote. Washington has morphed into Soviet Moscow and Hitler’s Berlin. As long as the Social Security checks keep coming the game goes on.
01/6/10 2:06 AM | Comment Link
John said...
13Great piece Doug;
I had always wondered how the CIA operates in foreign territory. Now I know why our U.S. drones indiscriminately slaughter innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I’ve known we are trying to geo-politically shape the area and get the gas pipeline run. I am still unsure how the Taliban fully plays into all this.
I understand fully we are hated because we are over there. It points to greedy MIC fascists trying to rule the world. No matter what anyone else thinks; I still believe in the Philosophy of Liberty and the U.S. Constitution.
01/6/10 2:14 AM | Comment Link
angryinadk said...
14Don’t listen to Phil. The real name for someone like Him is “Troll”. Now go find a bridge to hide under. Good article. The CIA needs to be abolished before they finish ruining our name as a country.
01/6/10 2:17 AM | Comment Link
Mouser said...
15The CIA is not all bad, but they have already destroyed their name as a group by deliberately helping Mossad to carry out the 9/11 attacks where 3,000 civilians from the US and around the world (except israel) were murdered as an inside job for pre-planned geopolitical gain.
Mouser
01/6/10 2:33 AM | Comment Link
2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World - White News Now Forums said...
16[...] [...]
01/6/10 2:42 AM | Comment Link
Lokis said...
17Perhaps it is time to huddle together in prayer and hope our warrior President and his staff continue the war on terror and freedom without so much criticism. When the Iranians - Iragis and Taliban conspired together to attack and destroy America what did they expect. Cannot they live in peace like the Israelis? Let us hope the efforts of Obama echo the success of Bush/Cheney and make this effort even half as successful as the war on drugs. Let us move on - 911 is not even 10 years old and we still have many things to do to punish the guilty.
01/6/10 2:44 AM | Comment Link
Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan « F*ck Politics said...
18[...] Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan Published January 6, 2010 Articles Leave a Comment Disrupting the Accommodation: [...]
01/6/10 2:54 AM | Comment Link
mb4 said...
19Thanks to everyone who posted.
If a friend is taking a dangerous drug and harming everyone when he’s on it and if he has no recollection of his violent sprees afterward, but wonders why more and more people are avoiding him, calling him a menace, or attacking him back, would it be the act of an enemy or of a friend to tell him what he’s upto on one of his breaks from reality?
The analogy is limited, of course, because the US in not one thing and the actions of the government are not that of the people. But since the government acts in the name of the people, unfortunately, it’s a useful one to make at times..
01/6/10 2:55 AM | Comment Link
William Borgstrom said...
20WOW–Better writing and comments than I have read in some time. I’ll be back for more. Thank you
01/6/10 2:59 AM | Comment Link
Bill In Ohio said...
21‘If my sons did not want wars there would be none.’
- Gutle Schnaper, Mayer Amschel Rothschilds wife.
01/6/10 3:57 AM | Comment Link
Lippy said...
22Tufano should read William Blum’s “Killing Hope”. It details US Military and CIA interventions since WWII
01/6/10 4:18 AM | Comment Link
Mike said...
23A more concise version of the CIA’s antics can be found (uses Blum as a reference):
“The CIA’s Greatest Hits” by Mark Zepezauer
available used on Amazon or at your library.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/CIA_GreatestHits.html
01/6/10 5:36 AM | Comment Link
dirty said...
24oops, here’s the link
http://www.wmur.com/news/19406840/detail.html
judging by the comments, this guy has quite the “following”…;)
01/6/10 6:08 AM | Comment Link
The Progressive Mind » MEDIA CONTROL (LOE) | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic said...
25[...] Language of Empire (December, 2005), which incorporates these articles in Chapter 8, was sent out to reviewers (including The Nation, Democracy Now, The Washington Post, and others). The Post asked for it, after I’d sent them an op-ed on renditions, read it but never reviewed it, although one of their reporters was at the time working on the renditions story. [...]
01/6/10 6:41 AM | Comment Link
The Progressive Mind » Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic said...
26[...] Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic. January 6th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment | [...]
01/6/10 6:43 AM | Comment Link
Publius said...
27Clandestine operations often wag the dog. And since clandestine agencies are like a Mafia, there is a clannish nature to their structure. So when the clandestine organization is penetrated by a rival clandestine entity, public policy becomes a bit tangled. Yes then it is spy vs. spy with may the best spy win.
01/6/10 11:06 AM | Comment Link
Mr. Charlie said...
28There are no innocents in this war. They are all Muslim scum deserving of death. If you spare the child, their primitive code of honor will compel him to seek revenge when he is grown. Therefore you kill them all. Then they can go to paradise and be with their Moon God and their 72 virgins. Death to Islam! Long Live America!
01/6/10 11:06 AM | Comment Link
Lila said...
29Mr. Charlie -
That mindset will spell the end of the planet.
There are extremists everywhere and no one defends their ambitions, but wanting revenge for the killing of your child isn’t a “primitive code of honor” - it’s a normal human reaction.
Why, I even know people who want to kill, even without that provocation.
I wonder what you’d call them?
I call them insane.
And I see them in power.
01/6/10 11:58 AM | Comment Link
DrReaper said...
30The CIA had a role in 9/11 when they grounded the U.S. fighter planes.
01/6/10 2:14 PM | Comment Link
Kisses said...
31Yes this article is one of the great articles ever i have read……
01/6/10 7:26 PM | Comment Link
da01 said...
32This explains a lot about the CIA, but I still don’t get how people like Ray McGovern and Philip Giraldi survive there for several decades without being shot for their honesty and integrity.
Congrats on getting this on the AntiWar.com Spotlight. This would also be a great discussion topic for AntiWar Radio
01/6/10 7:53 PM | Comment Link
Dawud beale said...
33I’m a native british citzen who converted to islam, just so we’re clear, your saying I should be murdered along with my 1bn+ co religionists because of our evil desire to murder people? Perhaps you can see the hypocracy in such a claim.
Honestly speaking, we just want to be left alone by the west. Why oh why does america meddle so much with the middle east? You support the catastrophe that is israel and continually aid them to massacre arabs and then are surprised that people don’t like america.
If islam invaded america, took a piece of land, gave it to a people and continied to fuel them with weaponry you’d accept this as good behaviour?
And each time the locals resist and kill a person, if we killed 1000 people in retaliation you’d say fair gaMe?
People do not care about ethics or right and wrong, all they care about is hating whoever the media brainwashes them to hate. What is the point of giving power to the people if the people are being mind controlled. Democracy + media = media controlled country and it surprises me that nnoone sees this fatal flaw in your so called democracy.
We do not want your ‘freedoms’ or your democracy or modernization, we want to be left alone in peace.
You know when someone tries to help an old lady carry bags but she doesn’t want help and then the bags split open and he bends down to picl it up and head butts the old lady, that is the kind of ‘help’ america is offering islam. Leave us in peace.
The cia were soldiers in an occupied country. Kinda feels like nazis complaining when members of the ss were killed by the resistance.
Its like, ‘if you don’t like it then stop invading our country’.
To suggest any muslim state is a military threat to the us is a joke.
Why don’t you just withdraw your forces and leave the middleeast alone.
Have you ever heard of ‘islamic terrorism’ in venezuela? Do you wonder why?
01/7/10 12:28 AM | Comment Link
Lila said...
34HI David –
Yes, the media is the problem.
Most of them - not all - are simply cheerleaders, and even the others are more concerned about being in the right club and couch their disagreement with foreign policy so gently it’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
It’s too bad.
And democracy it’s not..it’s mobocracy.
Lila
01/7/10 12:57 AM | Comment Link
Ex-CIA, now a Franciscan said...
35Here’s all you need to know about Tufano: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/philip-tufano/11/51b/215 an ex-CIA creep(?) who can’t even get his resume straight. AFIO is not Assoc. For Intell. Officers, it’s Assoc of Former Intel Offs. Except for the gratuitous and untrue references to the Gestapo, which was quite tiny and rarely if ever got involved w/ foreign nationals in German-occupied areas, Valentine’s take on the corruption of the CIA under Zionist mgmt rings true. I quit BECAUSE I could never trust my superiors and coworkers. Flash back to 1982 Pakistan where you had some CIA working to help the mujahideen fighting the Red Army, while a whole other group of CIA were there to “undo” what we were doing to keep a sick stalemate going and to prevent another Islamic republic from emerging (after Iran) … and also to keep BCCI and the CIA’s opium trade humming along. Why don’t silly Americans ask the question “Why is occupied Afghanistan now producing 93% of the world’s opium, when the “Taliban” had basically eliminated production in 2000-01, and we have the spy-satellite technology to identify and take out vast acreage in Afgh. if we were inclined to?” Welcome to Forever War, folks. Fortunately these wars are steadily bankrupting us.
01/7/10 1:04 AM | Comment Link
wakeupcall said...
36“But my sense is that the greatest of the world powers today is still the US, or, if you prefer, the Anglosphere - since whatever its economic state, the US is still the most powerful state, militarily. ”
Are you on dope????
Russia and China have the nukes to wipe out not just the Anglosphere of yours but world mutual destruction, idiot!
01/7/10 1:23 AM | Comment Link
wakeupcall said...
37If Russian and Chinese soldiers are killed by your anglosphere army, they are not going to sit down feeling sorry. They are going to wipe out your troops wherever you have killed their troops in what we called ‘mutual destruction’ by detonating the nuclear bombs in the battlefield where your troops are.
In this nuclear age of nuclear powers, there is no such thing like military superiority, idiot!
There is no difference between dying the conventional way or the nuclear way! It all means death.
If my troops are killed by anglosphere troops, I will nuke them as well. It is a fair game.
01/7/10 1:31 AM | Comment Link
mb4 said...
38A recent article by Philip Tufano on career possibilities at the CIA, says a lot - it’s the one career that is booming…and will continue to boom as long as the war on terror continues.
Cui bono indeed.
http://usajobtoday.net/careers-at-the-cia/#more-342
QUOTE:
“With the economy in the toilet and with many large and small companies imposing a hiring freeze until there is a better understanding on what the economic future holds for them, there seems to be little opportunity for young people just finishing college; that is unless they are considering a career with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). From personal experience (I served with the CIA for seven years) it is a great place to work and one of the most exciting careers one could wish for. The downside is the difficultly of living a ‘normal’ life if you are posted overseas, not seeing family and friends much and having to perform tasks that you might not totally be comfortable with. The rewards of serving your country and meeting interesting and extremely intelligent people outweighed the negatives for me.
The almost ten year old ‘war on terror’ has meant a boom for some US Government agencies, such as the CIA. The need for a diversity of people with many different types of skills is in great demand at CIA and many young people may be overlooking the opportunities available to them in the government employment sector”
01/7/10 1:37 AM | Comment Link
Theophilus said...
39During the last world war the leader of the French Resistance General de Gaulle sent a message to the Germans informing them that he quite understood that they did not like being ambushed and shot by his men but that there was a simple solution “All you have to do is go back to Germany”.
01/7/10 1:40 AM | Comment Link
Nike said...
40Speaking of cheerleading the CIA, the entire American ‘media’ is presently doing everything in its corporate power to recast those dead CIA spooks as heroes, one of them a mom, the others decicated FATHERS, all of them committed to keeping America - and especially the children of America - safe. As the author pointed out, not a single word from the ‘media’regarding the hundreds of men, women and chidren slaughtered by air strikes ordered by these same officers. Not a word regarding the possibility that they were some of the same guys running the CIA’s torture chambers, etc. Just heroes. LMAO, what a ‘media.’
God Bless America.
01/7/10 1:49 AM | Comment Link
Lila said...
41Hi Wake Up Call -
I’ve studied national security for a while now.
1. Yes, Russia has nukes…but if we really cared about them, we ‘d be engaged with them in containing their dispersal, rather than playing dangerous games provoking them and inciting various factional elements that since the collapse of the Soviet Union have come into possession of those nukes. In fact, anyone who cared about nuclear terrorism would never have egged on the collapse of the soviet union in the way it happened, just out of fear that those weapons would become dispersed to unknown elements.
2. China’s nuclear capacity is substantially less.
The US, UK, and Israel (which I consider the anglosphere)are easily more powerful than the rest in military terms and in nuclear terms.
France has peaceful nukes that are easily convertible to weapons. Canada and Australia and New Zealand, despite criticism of the US, contributed aid or troops to the Iraq war. So did some of the other US’s western and Arab satellites. That’s a quite formidable arsenal of nuclear power and political clout.
3. Aggressors always use defense as their excuse. Hitler screamed about being a victim too..
4. What you refer to incoherently, MAD (mutually assured destruction) was a viable if highly immoral argument for stability when the world was bipolar in a roughly symmetrical way…
It doesn’t hold anymore.
Power is now dispersed more widely, more unequally..more dangerously in my opinion and the old way of thinking is untenable
01/7/10 2:06 AM | Comment Link
Doug Valentine: CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan « The Angle of Repose said...
42[...] Doug Valentine has written an exceptional piece here. [...]
01/7/10 4:04 AM | Comment Link
Pedro Bio said...
43If to be part of the CIA means to be intelligent and successful ( and to meet fantastically intelligente people), then, please, send me to the mental ward…
01/7/10 4:33 AM | Comment Link
BlissMeister said...
44Children,
Have you not learned the truth yet? The CIA is and has always been an arm of Wall Street. The only purpose for the CIA is to insure the profits of the ruling class. The never have, and never will, care one bit about Americans or any other people. They are scum of the highest order. So, please stop your uninformed chatter about the CIA working for high purposes, but having some bad apples. Bullshit!
01/7/10 5:50 AM | Comment Link
Rob said...
45The true military superpowers when it comes to winning wars, land changing hands ect are guerrilla fighters. Guerrillas own warfare and have for many years. The US military can’t fight it’s way out of a guerrilla paper bag and has not won a guerrilla war in 108 years (the Philippine Insurrection of 1902).The CIA by extension has also been defeated in these wars. I am not near as impressed with the capability of the CIA as the writer of this article. The CIA has not defeated any of our guerrilla foes, they are far too weak and their intelligence does not compare to that of the “natives”. The best book written on guerrilla warfare is War In The Shadows The Guerrilla In History by Robert B. Asprey.
01/7/10 9:52 AM | Comment Link
mb4 said...
46Read William Lind on this..
he argues that the US is fighting 3rd and 4th gen opponent with 2nd gen tactics
01/7/10 9:54 AM | Comment Link
GreginOz said...
47Boo Hoo
CIA KIA?
OMG LOL
SNAFU WTF?
USA DOA
OK?
Rawhide.
01/7/10 5:38 PM | Comment Link
Pemulway said...
48The CIA killings do not spell defeat.
Defeat was ensured when Americans cheered their “noble” military off to war, as revenge for 9/11. An event the CIA and FBI knew too well was on the cards, but were too stupid to stop, just like the recent xmas day bombing attempt.
Anybody with half a brain and a cursory look at history knows only too well that anyone can win a war in Afghanistan but winning the peace is impossible. The home team have nowhere to go and will fight occupation for as long as it takes - they have had much practice and are very patient.
Of course the powers that be didn’t give a shit about revenge like the mums and dads; their concerns were with foreign policy, PNAC and global domination. As such a second war in Iraq was sold to the public and once again the American people cheered their “heros” off to war.
I can’t help but wonder how all those Americans who cheered their way to war feel now?
Is revenge sweet?
Are you any safer?
Are you any wealthier?
Unfortunately the CIA has become nothing more than another compromised government agency wandering around in a fog of lies and deceit. They are part of a very big problem, not the solution.
Your current president promised change you can believe in, and then betrayed you. Sadly for Americans the die is now cast; all that is left now is more of the same; more war, more debt, more poverty and infinite tears.
Poor fellow America.
01/7/10 6:51 PM | Comment Link
Mihail said...
49The Jewish people as a whole will become its own Messiah. It will attain world dominion by the dissolution of other races, by the abolition of frontiers, the annihilation of monarchy and by the establishment of a world republic in which the Jews will everywhere exercise the privilege of citizenship.
In this New World Order the children of Israel will furnish all the leaders without encountering opposition. The Governments of the different peoples forming the world republic will fall without difficulty into the hands of the Jews. It will then be possible for the Jewish rulers to abolish private property and everywhere to make use of the resources of the state. Thus will the promise of the Talmud be fulfilled, in which is said that when the Messianic time is come, the Jews will have all the property of the whole world in their hands.”
— Baruch Levy, Letter to Karl Marx, ‘La Revue de Paris’, p.574, June 1, 1928
01/10/10 9:50 AM | Comment Link
Robert Sholly and Bill Wright said...
50As in most of these things, there are a few kernels of truth around which fantasy is then woven…the idea that families are killed to cause anguish to an insurgent is ludicrous…that just frees the insurgent from any concerns about his family and creates more fanaticism on his part…it is a loss of leverage…regardless of the morals of the action…the other claims by Mr. Valentine are just as heinous as the incidents they attempt to portray…
Having worked and lived in Afghanistan on several occasions over a number of years, I can say that the US strategy is NOT to rip apart Afghan society…that is an impossibility and would be doomed to failure from the outset…regardless of Mr. Valentine’s opinions, US strategies may be flawed at times, but they are certainly not outright stupid.
CIA people are human beings just like the rest of us…they just go through a different kind of training and have to live in a different world…they are not the blood thirsty, all-knowing, all omnipotent scoundrels that Mr. Valentine portrays…more often than not, they live and travel in very mean circumstances and they certainly don’t tell the Department of Defense what to do except on rare occasions with the highest authority possible backing them up.
And before we forget it…I can only assume that Mr. Valentine in his article is speaking primarily of field officers, not the hundreds of men and women who man the home front in the research and analysis directorates as well as many of those in the operations directorate who provide the support. The CIA is NOT just the person in the field who is living in a cave, or in a camel tent…eating goat or camel with hair still on the piece of meat, who suffers the same cold and altitude as his hosts, who may or may not decide to throw him to the Taliban as a good will offering…sometimes this field guy may make it into a Forward Operating Base or Bagram Air Base and get his first hot shower in months. He often can’t wait to get back into the field because he can no longer sleep on a soft bunk, there are too many people around, there are too many lights on at night and if he has a beard he is immediately noticed by too many people who wonder who he is and why he is allowed to have facial hair in a close-knit community of shaven and clean personnel. He can’t stand the idle chit chat and anticipates getting back into the field even though he knows that his diarrhea is going to act up again and his headaches are going to continue until he gets altitude acclimated again. Tell me again about the jet planes, villas and fancy food, Mr. Valentine.
Every major theater commander has a senior CIA member on his staff to coordinate activities…but that does not mean this person tells the general what to do…most CIA intelligence operations are coordinated by the CIA Station Chief of the country involved, but this person is still merely an adjunct to the Ambassador’s or State Department’s Representative staff…obviously Mr. Valentine has some left-wing liberal issues and is a conspiracy theorist of the highest water…it is possible he has been rejected for employment by the CIA, has been insulted by some member of the CIA for his views or merely wants to pander his views to the widest audience possible and earn money and his 15 minutes of notoriety…
While the CIA has had its downers, it actually does a good job of protecting the US and its citizens. You always hear about the failures, but seldom about the successes…that is the nature of the job.
And the parts about military officers being trained to think of their men as merely cannon fodder to be killed? and that is why the “class” separation? Wow! You are a piece of work Mr. Valentine. Not only do you have NO inkling of our military traditions, training and mind-sets, you seem to go out of your way to show the world how little you do know…
Mr. Valentine…Your article is a crock and a major disservice to people who try to keep you safe, out of harm’s way and still provide you the safety in which to write your calumnious drivel!
Robert Sholly
————-
(Bill) Rarely do I try and project my viewpoint on the material I send. I recognize that there are multiple viewpoints among my readers and that no one has a grip to ultimate truth. Therefore, I try and post information that covers all sides of an issue.
I personally believe the following rebuttal is more nearly the truth than Valentine’s misguided and ill-informed rant. I have personally known several CIA personnel and they certainly do not fit this model. I think it ironic that they are demeaned and criticized when convenient for political ends but when our lack of good intelligence proves deadly, as in our decision to invade Iraq, prior cuts in our intelligence service are never mentioned. During the “good” war, millions of innocent people were killed by carpet bombing and total warfare. Today, extreme measures are taken to protect innocent civilians. If for no other reason, to not provoke the type of reaction mentioned below. Shamefully, our enemy uses civilians for protection for just that reason.
Having been to Afghanistan myself, I can personally testify that we are not hated by the population generally. Mostly just by those who would do us harm or are ill-informed as to our motives.
Bill
01/10/10 1:14 PM | Comment Link
Lila said...
51Hi Robert Sholly -
Thanks for your response.
As you’re a US military historian, I take your criticism very seriously and will ask Doug to respond here as well.
But for my part, let me just point out a couple of things:
1. I’ve already mentioned in a previous comment that this account of the CIA is not intended to asperse people who work at desk jobs in research and analysis.
2. It’s not intended to describe the behavior of every field officer or agent.
But it is, nonetheless, an account of how black ops undermine the rationale and legitimacy of the whole agency.
I’d appreciate knowing which parts of what Valentine has written is inaccurate, so he can correct them.
01/10/10 1:34 PM | Comment Link
Pemulway said...
52“…US strategies may be flawed at times, but they are certainly not outright stupid.”
In view of the consequences of the war on terror I find it very easy to agree with the above. US strategies are certainly not outright stupid - in many cases they are criminal and insane. This opinion is certainly not unique.
You’ll be hard pressed finding an Asian who didn’t welcome westerners, or anyone else into their country - as visitors - who show them the respect they deserve. Killing (accidently or not)their kids doesn’t work. Sadly many Americans (especially kids in the military) know shit about about foreign cultures and customs, but heaps about violent videos and pornography.
“It is not wise for the Christian white
To hustle the Asian brown;
For the Christian riles
And the Asian smiles
And weareth the Christian down.
At the end of the fight
Lies a tombstone white
With the name of the late deceased;
And the epitaph drear,
A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East.”
Kipling
“While the CIA has had its downers, it actually does a good job of protecting the US and its citizens.”
Prove it.
9/11?
The recent xmas day attempted bombing of an airline where a passenger saved the day?
And let’s not forget Operation Ajax, Bay of Pigs, Operation Northwoods, Office of Special Plans and the list goes on and on.
Sadly, as stated in my earlier post the CIA has been compromised by foreign policy and the oligarchs who formulate same; of course there are many in the agency who are loyal and sincere but a fish rots from the head down and those sincere agents become nothing more than unwitting pawns in a much larger game.
America would be doing the world a favour if it packed up and went home - sooner or later they will have to, as predicted by Sun Tsu.
And there’s the rub; while the Eagle grows weak from prolonged wars and corrupt financial (house of cards)capitalsim, the Dragon grows strong by going about business like the natural born capitalists it is.
The Eagle spends its money (borrowed from the Dragon) on bombs and bullets, which enriches the oligarchs, while the plebs lose their homes. And the Dragon makes stuff to sell which also enriches the oligarchs but the people move into their new homes - at least some of the wealth is shared - not so in the US.
The Dragon has already defeated the Eagle - without firing a single shot - Sun Tzu would be nodding.
Of course there are some who think that the Eagle could take out the Dragon with ease, but they are delusional for the Dragon is well prepared and if push came to shove my money is on the Dragon, that now has the capacity to make an invasion and occupation of China impossible (no more Opium Wars - in China)), that now has the capability to sink the Eagle’s naval carriers in minutes or days and totally destroy the Eagle’s economy.
All the Eagle has is WMD and knows well that if used against the Dragon would unlease the unthinkable.
Sadly the Eagle has been playing the wrong game, and now there is no turning back until the Eagle hits rock bottom and resumes paying a more peaceful and business like game - just like the Dragon.
It’s only a matter of time.
01/10/10 3:03 PM | Comment Link
The Demonic Style: Douglas Valentine On Military Historians, Avatars, and the CIA | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic said...
53[...] Valentine sent me this film review to publish, in response to criticism of his earlier piece at this blog on the CIA by a US military [...]
01/11/10 12:36 PM | Comment Link
Tom said...
54Thank you for the comedy, I haven’t laughed this hard in a while. Mr. Valentine’s description of the average CIA field agent as a real-life 007 but evil (ordering generals around, living in a villa, murdering women and children on a whim) had me in stitches. It’s a good thing Mr. Valentine doesn’t have any ideological bent whatsoever.
01/11/10 7:56 PM | Comment Link
jkru said...
55I remember my late father, a decorated war hero Captain of bronze and silver stars, and I, draft eligeable, watching the “nightly” VietNam war news on tv 1970. I remember him slamming Vodka trying not to fall apart as the daily death toll was announced. I asked him why are we there? He told me to get the encyclopedia (no computers then) and look up Major General Smedley Butler.
When you read books like “confessions of an economic hitman” or “compromised” you begin to understand how the corporate gov’t works.
The cia is dirty. The majority of cia workers aren’t. They’re blinded by a naive patriotism and actually believe in their work.
It’s ironic that having all the secret intelligence they are deceived as well.
01/12/10 2:22 AM | Comment Link
Pemulway said...
56CIA’s Vulnerability Is Congenital
The above article can be read at the American Spectator:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/11/cias-vulnerability-is-congenit
“The destruction of the CIA’s Forward Operating Base Chapman on December 30 by an Afghan suicide bomber who had been a trusted informant was surprising only because it had not happened sooner. Bringing bombs to intelligence officers is infinitely easier than getting them to accept misleading information. But hostile intelligence services have foisted such information onto CIA ever since its inception, easily. Just so, it seems that the Chapman bomber, Hammam al Balali, had long been providing CIA with the information it used to direct drone strikes against what CIA was led to believe were America’s enemies. That may explain why, after each strike, the U.S. government would claim success against terrorists while Afghans and Pakistanis would claim that innocents had died. In short, before CIA officers got themselves killed by letting Mr. al Balali bring them a bomb, they caused wider harm by letting him and his friends help pick America’s targets. CIA will rush to protect itself against physical attack, but will resist protecting the rest of us against its own incompetence….”
It’s worth reading.
01/12/10 9:45 PM | Comment Link
Lydia Clark said...
57Phillip Tufano is a true scum bag, who SEXUALLY ASSAULTED a dear friend of mine.
See for yourself….
http://www.wmur.com/news/19406840/detail.html
01/13/10 3:25 AM | Comment Link
mb4 said...
58Wow! Sorry to hear that.
The people you meet on these blogs.
Unbelievable.
01/13/10 4:11 AM | Comment Link
Disrupting the Accommodation: The CIA Killings Spell Defeat In Afghanistan | Illuminati Conspiracy Archive Blog said...
59[...] Full story [...]
01/13/10 11:34 AM | Comment Link
Pemulway said...
60If Philip Tufano is an example of CIA “intelligence” (and behaviour), then no wonder America is neck deep in poo.
Philip Tufano should be in jail. If he isn’t in jail, why not?
01/13/10 5:40 PM | Comment Link
LC said...
61Here is another article this scum bag posted…
http://www.booksie.com/war_and_military/article/philip_tufano/the-cias-mission-to-protect-americans-claims-the-lives-of-seven-officers-in-afghanistan
check out the “tag” words he chose to identify himself by, on the lower far left of the page..
Tags
Love, Romance, Death, Poetry, Life, Poem, Pain, Fantasy, Sad, Hate, Sex, Hope, Horror, Hurt, Fiction, God, Dark, War, Sadness, Heart, Humor, Family, Depression, Friendship, Loss.
01/14/10 4:14 AM | Comment Link
The Easter Bunny… | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic said...
62[...] in my opinion. And morally dangerous. It inevitably corrupts its practitioners, in the same way intelligence agencies that employ black ops are [...]
01/21/10 6:40 AM | Comment Link
A Time-line Of KGB Operations Against The US | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic said...
63[...] week, I blogged Douglas Valentine on the secret history of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, a long history that involved revolutions, coups, torture, assassinations, and subversion. Today, [...]
01/22/10 5:13 AM | Comment Link
Franciscan A Dope said...
64Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO)
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Forget the CSI (Container Security Initiative) very soon we’ll receive some ugly surprises, the immediate solution is to ban from all US…
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By Giorgio H. Balestrieri
02/20/10 6:38 PM | Comment Link
JUST said...
65Mr VALENTINE,
Your article is written in good faith, and basically right. But what lacks are a few well documented US TERRORISM against the Afghans, justified under the pretext of “WAR ON TERROR”, which turns out to be a WAR OF TERROR. There are well documented cases of US MILITARY wanton killings of Afghan civilians for “self-defence” or outright revenge. Even the PUPPET Kabul régime condemned such US killings, in the face of popular demonstrations. The most notorious of them being drone attacks on Afghan villages on the Pakistani side of the frontier. As the CIA does most of the “intelligence gathering” for such attacks, the CIA is a proxy terrorist organisation, linked to the PENTAGONE.
The ludicrous claim that the Afghans welcome the US TERRORIST FORCE as “liberators” is what we already read about GERMAN “liberators” of the UKRAINE, the AMERICAN “liberators” of South Vietnam, the ISRAELI “liberators” of South Lebanon, the RUSSIAN “liberators” of Chechnya, etc. This is the usual justification offered in all criminal agressions against foreign peoples.
03/25/10 8:14 AM | Comment Link
James said...
66Dear Lila, you write that Doug Valentine’s “father was captured during WWII by the Japanese.”
In fact there is overwhelming weight of evidence to disprove that Valentine Snr. ever was a Prisoner of War. See the reader comments on the Amazon review of Doug’s book “Hotel Tacloban”.
08/13/10 3:46 AM | Comment Link
mb4 said...
67Hi James
I’ll check it out. A random comment by someone who doesn’t sign his real name doesn’t amount to much.
Valentine has done exposes of some very controversial things. I’m not surprised that people might try and trash him or his family.
Goes with the territory.
Knowing him, I doubt it’s true, but I’ll check it out.
Thanks for stopping by.
Lila
08/13/10 10:06 AM | Comment Link