cia

There’s another huge mess you’ve gotten us into… Watching Obama skillfully wending his way through the complexities of geo-politics and the exploding crisis in Egypt is enough to make any self-respecting skunk vomit. Barack Obama was caught out with his butt in the wind again.

This time he nearly missed a whole revolution. More to the point, though… I wrote in a previous article, when describing Obama’s government, that it didn’t work… the government I mean. The point being, of course, that the the government is a reflection of Obama himself, which is a virtual guarantee of failure. It’s a top down situation analogous to garbage in, garbage out.

Consider, please, the complete and utter failure of our intelligence regarding the entire middle eastern blowup. James Clapper, Leon Panetta and Janet Napolitano, whose claim just last week to the security of our northern and southern borders is an outright fabrication. Not just part of her ridiculous statement either. The whole thing was a lie. No one should be surprised.

Of the some 2,000 miles of our common border with the narco-state of Mexico, only some 600 miles are under anything more than nominal control. There are many border agents who would probably dispute some of those ‘controlled’ areas pretty strongly. As far as Clapper and Panetta are concerned, they clearly got their intelligence from MSNBC.

James Clapper is an embarrassment and needs to go. His statement about a ‘secular, non-violent’ Muslim Brotherhood made himself, and the entire American intelligence community, look like rank amateurs in front of the entire world. Why do these guys persist in making these stupid, shallow statements when they should know by now that the new media is going to expose them in a matter of minutes.

Panetta’s not much better… the CIA is rotten and needs to be expunged of a lot of rotting garbage. Once again, an intelligence agency that fits its reporting to the desires of the regime is no intelligence agency at all.

It was stunning and very instructive watching the Obama administration changing tracks every day, sometimes twice a day. The only amusing aspect of the whole event was watching the Lame Stream Media et al try desperately to make Obama look like anything but the bumbling chump he turned out to be. 2012 just can’t get here fast enough.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

If it weren’t so comi-tragic in these days of the constant threat of terrorist penetration of our vaunted ‘national security’ apparatus, it would make a great sit-com… or a third-ring, floppy-shoe, fright-wig clown act.

We have a Justice Department trying to be the CIA, FBI and  NSA all in one delightful package, under our intrepid and totally inept Attorney General Eric Holder. It’s one grandstand play after another, trying to set up MASSIVE show trials on American shores in order to give sterling individuals, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a year long showboat opportunity to spiel his vitriol in front of the cameras for all of this country’s avowed enemies to see.

Obama And Eric Holder

Now, Obama’s ever-dense administration has finally gotten the message from the American people that we don’t want these people tried in civil courts and we REALLY don’t want terrorists Mirandized so that they can clam up, holding vital information that conceivably could reveal attacks pending against US citizens and interests. The “Christmas Bomber” was only unsuccessful by accident and ineptitude, otherwise another 290 passengers and crew would be dead.

The CLOWN COLLEGE persists in dealing with the international war on terror as though it were some sort of municipal parking problem. There’s a huge credibility gap between what the Obama administration and his National Security Adviser and deputy have been telling us, and what our own good sense and powers of observation are telling us is the truth.

They just don’t get it. They keep underestimating and selling the American people short. They keep getting caught, but they keep going back to that well again and again. Sort of like Obama using George Bush as the ultimate evil facing his Presidency, when the real bogey man is Obama himself.

National Security Adviser General Jim Jones was made to look positively lame by Chris Wallace in a Fox News interview. When defending his deputy John Brennan’s asinine contention that because our American penal system has around a 50% recidivism rate,  a one-out-of-five rate of released or relocated terrorists returning to the battlefield to kill more Americans or innocents is somehow ‘not so bad’. I was all but speechless when I heard him say that. The thought that kept going through my mind was, “what the hell is this guy doing up there?”

Obama’s administration says an awful lot about him unfortunately. The CLOWN COLLEGE would be funny if the stakes were not so high.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Earlier this year,  U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder refused to prosecute members of the Black Panthers who dressed in paramilitary garb outside a Philadelphia polling place last November. The men were brandishing night sticks, pointing them at people, and making racial threats. In the first week of January, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms and racial slurs. In May, Holder's Justice Department, against the advice of it's own attorneys, dropped the lawsuit, even though the defendants made no response, meaning Justice would have won by default.

Then, on February 17, 2009,  Mr. Holder enlightened us regarding his opinion of the racial progress we have failed to make as a nation. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and we, I believe, continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards,” Holder said in remarks to his staff in honor of Black History Month. His comments appear on a transcript provided by the Justice Department.

Earlier in his career,  Holder played a critical role in the pardon of Marc Rich under former President Clinton. Rich was a commodities trader who was indicted in 1983 on 65 counts of tax evasion and other crimes. He fled to Switzerland prior to being prosecuted where he avoided extradition. He eventually arranged to be represented by Jack Quinn, formerly a Clinton White House counsel. Quinn went straight to Holder, then Clinton's deputy attorney general. According to Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, "Holder was not just an integral part of the pardon process, he provided the White House with cover by offering his go-ahead recommendation. No alarm seemed to sound for him. Not only had strings been pulled, but it was rare to pardon a fugitive -- someone who had avoided possible conviction by avoiding the inconvenience of a trial."

Now, Mr. Holder has indicated he plans to investigate members of the Central Intelligence Agency regarding coercive interrogation techniques, namely water-boarding, against terror suspects. At the end of August, he announced his plan to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct the investigations, over the public protests of Leon Panetta, Obama's head of the C.I.A. In fact, President Obama himself has said his desire was not to look back but to move forward. The fact that crucial information was obtained, preventing American deaths and aiding in thedefeat of Al-Queda, seems to have become irrelevant. Besides, this investigation has already been done once by the Justice Department, and with one exception, there was nothing to prosecute.

So, our U.S. Attorney General refuses to prosecute clear and obvious voter intimidation, even when the case is pre-won. He apparently has no issue with tax evasion and fugitives from justice, and believes we are a nation of cowards, racially speaking. But he is eager to investigate the American patriots who obtained critical information from terrorists who want nothing more than to kill Americans and to destroy our way of  life. How does this make us safer? How does this further the pursuit of justice?

Is there anybody in this administration that doesn't think Americans are the bad guys?

 How's that hope and change working out for you?

by  Lance Thompson

“It is the nature of an intelligence service that it must receive encouragement and support from the government of the day; if the government lacks interest in or expert understanding for its intelligence service, not even the best service will succeed in overcoming external prejudices against it.” These are the words of Reinhard Gehlen, chief of the German federal intelligence service , the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst), in 1971, in his excellent memoir, “The Service.” (English edition: World Publishing, New York, 1972). Gehlen brought invaluable intelligence assets to the United States regarding Russia after World War II, and founded the BND which continues its important work to this day.

Gehlen’s wisdom is alarmingly relevant today, as the American foreign intelligence service, the CIA, is battered by politically motivated attacks by Democrats and the Obama administration. The CIA, whose mission is to inform our leaders about the capabilities and intentions of our adversaries and allies, has always been a favorite target of liberals. But in recent weeks, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of deceiving her when she was caught lying about briefings she received concerning interrogation techniques. When Pelosi’s false claims were exposed, she chose to denigrate the CIA rather than admit her deliberate deception.

Now, we learn that the House Intelligence Committee is investigating Democrat charges that former Vice President Cheney ordered the CIA not to inform Congress of a secret CIA plan to target al Qaeda terrorist leaders. This charge, of course, ignores the fact that the CIA reports directly to the President, is not under the command of the Vice President, and that both houses of Congress have independent intelligence committees who oversee the CIA.

Since the charge involves actions that took place years ago, under an administration that is no longer in power, it is evident that this is not a matter of urgency. Thus, it is obvious that this issue was chosen for other reasons–primarily to embarrass the previous administration. For such an exposure to be effective, the previous administration must be shown to have done something wrong.

The CIA is an intelligence agency, and many of its activities are effective only if kept secret. Therefore, the secrecy of the plans in question is not in itself questionable. Whether the vice president wanted greater secrecy or not is irrelevant–he did not have the authority or ability to demand what information the CIA revealed to congressional intelligence committees.

Therefore, the Democrats who want so badly to bring this investigation to light must believe that the plan itself–killing al Qaeda terrorist leaders–is wrong. They must believe that if Americans knew that the previous administration was studying ways of destroying our enemies who murdered thousands of Americans and were devising ways to murder thousands more, then it would bring shame and opprobrium upon that administration.

The Obama administration seeks closer ties to terrorist-sponsoring governments in Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. They seek to extend the Constitutional rights of American citizens to terrorists who will sacrifice themselves in our destruction. The Obama state department won’t even call the war on terror the war on terror, or even call terrorists terrorists. So it is quite possible that Democrats believe that a plan to kill terrorists is not only contrary to current policy, but legally and morally wrong. So wrong, in fact, that if the American people discovered that the previous administration was planning such acts, that they would be filled with indignation and revulsion.

The Democrats, then, must believe that the oaths sworn by their president and congressmen to defend the United States are not only non-binding, but that any action or decision made to augment that defense is a transgression. Thus, the Bush administration, with its war on terror, its detention and prosecution of terrorists, and its covert efforts to expose and prevent further terrorists attacks, has been caught doing something that the American people won’t stand for. The Democrats believe that standing against the war on terror is the morally superior position, and using the CIA as a scapegoat is a politically smart strategy.

With this view, the majority party has succeeded in undercutting our efforts to counter the terrorist threat. In the few short months of the Obama administration, America has gone from the great arsenal of democracy to the great apologist for terrorism and the great enabler of tyranny. The Democrats believe this is what Americans want. Whether you agree or disagree, there is one place to let your voice be heard–the ballot box next year.

I do not understand the politics of the latest CIA inspired hatefest on Capital Hill.  Certaintly it looks like the Ds are seeking to get payback for the Pelosi fiasco early this year.  But if I was a Republican on the side of this issue, I would do some polling to verify what seems intuitive -- namely that if there is one thing that the American people want the CIA to do it is to seek out and kill Al Qaida leaders around the world. I suspect that this issue will gain little traction in places outside of the beltway where process stories have a hard time gaining traction.  However, from a political perspective, I would think R's would want  to take advantage of this issue  by highligting it outside the beltway and presenting a picture of what they would like the CIA to do -- again identifying, capturing and/or killing AQ leadership around the world.  At the very least make the Ds go onto the defense on this issue. Over at Volokh conspiracy, Kenneth Anderson has this to say about the whole matter.