Why recent moves promoting Mike Pompeo to head up Department of State, and Gina Haspel taking over at CIA, point to the generals consolidating power for a man in the shadow of Donald Trump, Mike Pence. These promotions are element of contest between vying factions where the generals are winning. We begin with the promotion of torturer Haspel at CIA, to arrive at understanding of where this is presently pointed in a convoluted series of contested maneuvers from behind the curtain. First, some information warfare background.
A good analogy for a ‘limited hangout’ is a tax cheat. Information is the wealth one hides, in the ‘limited hangout context’ of declaring ‘yeah, I have wealth’ for the fact there is no denying the obvious but a great deal of this wealth is deliberately kept concealed. The main difference between the Central Intelligence Agency and the tax cheat is, if you’re Gina Haspel hiding a wealth of incriminating information, you’ll enjoy ‘sovereign immunity’ from disclosure of that wealth of criminality in the so-called ‘justice’ system; whereas if you’re Paul Manafort who’d laundered income to conceal it and then been dumb enough to invite scrutiny by becoming a high profile personality associated with Trump, there is no legal mechanism to save your butt short of a presidential pardon, meanwhile yourself & concealed wealth can be ‘hung out to dry.’
Building on the tax cheat analogy per the American neoliberal democracy, little different to the income of the individual or corporation must be declared to the Income Revenue Service, the acts of our institutions must be declared to the citizen via congressional oversight; but we should know our ‘public servants’ have a history of cheating.
Example given, when it was Dick Cheney concealing his Central Intelligence Agency run murder program (hit squads) with instruction to CIA not to inform Congress, and Obama’s “Look forward, not back” excusing Cheney’s extra-judicial murder program and much more (when considering the related renditions program), from investigative scrutiny and prosecution. Cheney and Obama are major corporate ‘tax cheats’ in a quid pro quo relationship; we know multiple millions (billions?) were expended pursuing grossly criminal acts by the intelligence agencies but the taxpayer footing the bill is kept in the dark except in the case of a ‘limited hangout’ divulging ‘just enough’ information to satisfy some Orwellian ‘new speak’ sense of ‘accountability’ (but certainly not justice.) Such a ‘limited hangout’ is the Feinstein ‘torture report.’
What the Feinstein Report Doesn’t Tell Us
The 1st thing is, how many actual renditions took place. Recalling certain ‘allied’ intelligence agencies are looking after #1, there is a ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging over the CIA renditions report in the form of MOSSAD ‘assets’ Reprieve (a British ‘human rights’ NGO) and The Guardian. We’ll come back to this aspect, but first:
To now, Reprieve (in a project endorsed by The Guardian) has identified 11,000 flights by known CIA renditions aircraft. How many of those flights were to ‘outsourced’ torture? (sites other than CIA run ‘black sites’.) Related to this, Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan had been up to his armpits in the Bush torture program:
MARGARET WARNER: “So is it — are you saying both in two ways — both in getting terrorists off the streets and also in the interrogation?
JOHN BRENNAN: “Yes. The rendition is the practice or the process of rendering somebody from one place to another place. It is moving them and the U.S. Government will frequently facilitate that movement from one country to another. . . .
“Also I think it’s rather arrogant to think we’re the only country that respects human rights. I think that we have a lot of assurances from these countries that we hand over terrorists to that they will, in fact, respect human rights”
“And there are different ways to gain those assurances. But also let’s say an individual goes to Egypt because they’re an Egyptian citizen and the Egyptians then have a longer history in terms of dealing with them, and they have family members and others that they can bring in, in fact, to be part of the whole interrogation process”
Do you suppose Brennan’s cynically referring to this statement in a Human Rights Watch report?
“…[Egyptian] techniques include threats to inflict torture or sexual abuse on detainees’ female family members, including wives, threats to arrest family members, exposure to screams…’
How absolutely unwise of Brennan to use the Egypt example in the cause of renditions to outsourced torture he supported, because his CIA proxy interrogator (torture darling) in Egypt at the time was Omar Sulieman:
“Shortly after 9/11, Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, was captured by Pakistani security forces and, under US pressure, tortured by Pakistanis. He was then rendered (with an Australian diplomats watching) by CIA operatives to Egypt, a not uncommon practice. In Egypt, Habib merited Suleiman’s personal attention. As related by Richard Neville, based on Habib’s memoir:
Habib was interrogated by the country’s Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman…. Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda. As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion. Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks.
“That treatment wasn’t enough for Suleiman, so:
To loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib – and he did, with a vicious karate kick.
“After Suleiman’s men extracted Habib’s confession, he was transferred back to US custody, where he eventually was imprisoned at Guantanamo. His “confession” was then used as evidence in his Guantanamo trial”
Moving forward, how many of the 11,000 flights by known CIA renditions aircraft were made to simply ‘disappear’ people? A British case opened a glimpse into this aspect; the investigation in Britain of the CIA’s rendition of Binyam Mohamed (who was outsourced to torture where his testicles had been brutalized) turned up a MI6 manual instruction to British intelligence officers not to become involved with any CIA rendition where the objective was to kill the target. In the MI6 manual chapter produced for the British court, it is clear the manual instruction’s overall context is intended to keep the British officers clean of and British jurisdiction clear of (and by extension, Her Majesty’s government) certain specified crimes in relation to CIA actions in violation of international law:
“Is it clear that detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation?”
It would appear the British are not squeamish about cooperating with CIA in relation to deliveries to torture, rather they are of the ‘if we didn’t see it, it didn’t happen’ philosophy. Where it appears they had drawn a line is in relation to ‘disappearing’ people to die. This inference can be drawn following the preceding MI6 manual language, because everything else in the chapter produced from the MI6 manual for the court is about what the officers would be required to report under British obligations to humanitarian law, if observed; all known CIA renditions practices such as hooding, beating and ‘torture’ (read water-boarding) in relation to any agencies MI6 works in ‘liaison’ with (read CIA.)
With the MI6 manual providing the first hard documentary evidence from allied intelligence there is a concern over renditions to ‘disappear’ people, specifying killing in context of working with the Americans, it follows the Americans involved with renditions should be given a strict scrutiny in regards not only to torture, this is already well documented, but renditions as interim step to targeted killings or ‘disappearing’ kidnapped people. This brings up ‘the ships‘ …
“U.S. PRISON SHIPS: On June 2, 2008 UK’s Guardian reported, “The US has admitted that the Bataan and Peleliu were used as prison ships between December 2001 and January 2002”. According to Reprieve, the U.S. may have used 17 ships as “floating prisons” since 2001. Detainees are interrogated on ships and may be rendered to other, undisclosed locations. Reprieve expressed concern over the time the U.S.S. Ashland spent off Somalia in early 2007. According to The Guardian, “At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were ‘disappeared’ to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantanamo Bay. Reprieve believes prisoners may have also been held for interrogation on the USS Ashland and other ships in the Gulf of Aden during this time.”
…leading to the ‘ghost’ prisons & prisoners and Diego Garcia:
“The [ghost] prison’s existence was also confirmed by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who produced a detailed report on “extraordinary rendition” for the Council of Europe in June 2007 (PDF) and by Manfred Novak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, in March this year. Having spoken to senior CIA officers during his research, Marty told the European Parliament, “We have received concurring confirmations that United States agencies have used Diego Garcia, which is the international legal responsibility of the UK, in the ‘processing’ of high-value detainees,” and Manfred Novak explained to the Observer that “he had received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.” The penultimate piece of the jigsaw puzzle came in May [2008], when El Pais broke the story that “ghost prisoner” Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, whose current whereabouts are unknown, was imprisoned on the island in 2005, shortly after his capture in Pakistan — although the English-speaking press failed to notice
“Despite these previous disclosures, yesterday’s [2008] article, by Adam Zagorin, is particularly striking because of the high-level nature of the source, and his admission that “the CIA officer surprised attendees by volunteering the information, apparently to demonstrate that the agency was doing its best to obtain valuable intelligence.” In addition, the source noted that “the U.S. may also have kept prisoners on ships within Diego Garcia’s territorial waters, a contention the U.S. has long denied”
Considering the ages old folk proverb ‘leopards don’t shed their spots’, taken together with the history of CIA propping up regimes infamous for ‘disappearing’ people (juntas of Argentina, Brazil & Chile, examples given), the preceding material indicates a tremendous potential for blackmail. Into this potential ‘blackmail soup’ we can add The Guardian NEVER does friendly business with, or promotes, any entity at odds with Israel; bringing up the 11,000 known renditions aircraft flights and Reprieve practically having its hand fondly held by the Guardian when it comes to reporting on CIA renditions. What it would seem we have here is Reprieve’s a ‘limited hangout with potential’ or, that is to say if it favored Israel, it’s possible MOSSAD could arrange to feed Reprieve a ‘leak’ of renditions related documents tomorrow, naming numerous ‘ghost’ prisoners that were ‘disappeared’ and can never be accounted for, and The Guardian would publish the material in a heartbeat. Example would be the removal of David Petraeus (Paula Broadwell is the cover story) as head of CIA via a Guardian/BBC collaboration, to now absent in USA media:
“A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic reveals how retired US colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played a key role in training and overseeing US-funded special police commandos who ran a network of torture centres in Iraq. Another special forces veteran, Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had been sent into Iraq to organise the Iraqi security services”
Why did Petraeus have to go? For the simple reason of religious conviction:
- Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
- Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
- Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or “biblical law,” should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.
It was General Petreaus had pushed to a point the USA military’s…
“85 percent of our leadership were active in dynamic Bible study”
…became a problem for MOSSAD, that is, dominionists not only believe in a ‘Greater Israel’, they also believe in literal Armageddon, in which case the Jewish state would certainly be destroyed, have a listen to the USA’s #1 authority on dominionism in the American military…
“You’re telling me 28 to 34 percent of our military want 7 billion people to die” [believe in literal Armageddon] … “The simple answer is affirmative”
…noting the officer corps are a much higher (up to 85%) concentration of dominionism persuasion.
A sample of known dominionists surrounding Trump in the so-called ‘national security’ apparatus would include ‘the generals’ McMaster, Kelly and Mattis, all aligned with known dominionist Mike Pence, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and now Mike Pompeo at Department of State:
“We make sure that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is truly the only solution for our world” -Mike Pompeo
Insofar as the CIA Pompeo will continue to heavily influence as head of its Siamese twin Department of State, and the intelligence community generally:
“In the intelligence community, we see supervisors wanting to hold Bible studies during duty hours” -Mikey Weinstein
Complicating any attempt at injecting rationality into this scene of necrotic fundamentalism that has been aptly named the American “Christian Taliban” by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is, superstitious Slovenian villager Melania Trump repeatedly importing scores of priests and pastors to the White House for purpose of exorcism and laying hands on ‘the donald.’
Now, to the recent ‘you’re fired’ to Tillerson, resulting in the promotions of Pompeo and Haspel.
“Bloody Gina” appointed to head up the CIA isn’t just a message of ‘anything goes’ but is much more than this, it’s a deliberate side-show setting up media distraction; it is a form of information warfare. This is because, whether Gina Haspel is confirmed to run the CIA or not, nothing changes at CIA leadership where Haspel has been the hands on grunt, as deputy director, for over a year. And it is over this past year the CIA policies described earlier in this article, will have been put in place again, never mind anything Haspel has to say in her confirmation hearing; the woman is a practitioner of narcissistic cruelty, a foot-soldier-sadist in the tradition of dominionist Dick Cheney. It is this last, immediate preceding, or Cheney legacy, should concern us above all.
Prior to the unexpected/unforeseen election of Donald Trump, the Israeli alliance with the American religious right had been a Faustian balancing act; Netanyahu and his ilk politically exploited the Christian right and its belief in a ‘Greater Israel’ but this alliance with a community that holds that ‘Greater Israel’, once established, will necessarily be destroyed, had always been tempered by neoliberals in positions of power, whether the likes of Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, John Brennan or a whole host of other people supporting the arch-criminal Hillary Clinton, notably Soros. During the time of Bush/Cheney it could be argued Jewish neocons, as viciously aggressive as they are, helped the neoliberals keep the total insanity of these Christian Zionists in check. Corporate neocolonizing (Manifest Destiny 2.0 is where neocons, dominionists and neoliberals are indistinguishable) of the world is one thing, provoking World War Three is another thing altogether. Nearly all of this ‘restraint’ is now tossed out the window, never previously has the White House seen such a near absolute consolidation of power in the hands of theologically driven advocates of total world war.
Previous means of MOSSAD and Shin Bet checking the power of extremists in the ‘Greater Israel’ cause (when politicians weren’t listening), whether Shin Bet presently seeing off the messianic ultra-orthodox allied Bibi with corruption charges, or MOSSAD with news waiting in the wings of American press for the fact of David Petraeus had been directly responsible for torture camps and death squads in Iraq, or possibly Reprieve suddenly inheriting a largesse of information concerning the Cheney era abuses, up to and including numerous cases of ‘disappeared’ via renditions, to send off Gina Haspel, are likely useless in the present circumstance. There’s not enough time. Some context, per Natanyahu’s former MOSSAD chief:
“As Dagan sees it, Netanyahu is incapable of leading Israel and has failed on all fronts. Israel has never been so strong militarily, he argues, yet had such weak political leaders. While he worked together with Netanyahu, Dagan says that the prime minister never informed him of any concrete political or military objectives. It is only when it comes to Iran that Netanyahu has an opinion — and a goal. In order to achieve this goal, Dagan accuses Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of trying to silence all criticism. The two politicians want to make this decision without involving the rest of the government, Dagan contends. And he views this way of doing things as legally problematic.
“Indeed, Dagan says, this is why he and Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from 2007 to 2011, were removed from their positions during the first months of this year, and why Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was not allowed to succeed him as head of the Mossad. Instead, they were replaced by individuals who reportedly have less critical views on attacking Iran and at least lack enough experience to take a firm stance against such a move.
“Dagan calls this a plot, a clandestine putsch by the politicians against the intelligence agencies. “Diskin, Ashkenazi and I succeeded in blocking all dangerous adventures,” he says, adding that now there is no one left to stand in their way.
“This version is supported by many former military officers, intelligence officials and politicians who defend Dagan and strike similar tones. “Listen to them, in every field,” says Tzipi Livni, the parliamentary opposition leader and head of the centrist Kadima party. Open criticism used to be rare in Israel, but that is no longer the case.
“Danny Yatom and Efraim Halevy, both former Mossad chiefs, say that Dagan is right to speak up — and that he apparently has good reasons for doing so. “The public should hear his opinion on Iran,” Yatom says. Those who know Dagan — and, particularly, generals and former colleagues — confirm he means what he says. They say he is neither interested in launching a political career nor seeking any benefit”
To put this preceding in perspective, it was the neoliberal Obama (believe it or not, with the help of ‘dubya’ warning Netanyahu not to take advantage of Bush Jr’s ‘lame duck’ days in office, to Cheney’s deep disappointment) stopped Bibi attacking Iran via the agreement Congress has effectively since scrapped. As a wag recently put it to me concerning Trump ousting Hillary in this planet’s greatest contest between world class criminals “so, we were better off in the frying pan, after all.”
Recalling former MOSSAD chief Dagan’s stating “Diskin, Ashkenazi and I succeeded in blocking all dangerous adventures” but these type personalities having been swept aside from the top (at least) of Israel’s security apparatus, the question arises over who in the AIPAC from the Jewish side can arrest their American Christian Zionist (dominionist) partners or if it is even possible at this point; where the Israeli lobby had screwed up and we all are faced with what they are responsible for: President Trump partnered with and surrounded by, one might say in the custody of, people willing to take the existential threat beyond all previous threshold or to a deliberate all out war with Russia. Every Trump firing at the national security level, to now, has seen replacements consolidating the dominionist position and increased the threat of civilization ending event. If it is true Israel could not exercise impunity without support of the Americans, it is equally true these American dominionists could never have come to power without decades support of Israel via AIPAC.
That it had been neoliberals who’d attempted to derail the election of Trump with their ‘Steele Dossier’ caper and ‘the Russians did it DNC hack’ information warfare against the American people, have seen their game co-opted, and are now trapped and can’t back out, would be funny if it weren’t for the larger implication. If Shiva is ‘god’, perhaps there is some meaning in all of this, beyond a sense of humor at a cosmic level.
A Criminal Magic Act
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President –Section Four, 25th Amendment to the USA Constitution
The months long rumor Pompeo would replace Tillerson at Department of State proved correct. More recently, rumor has it Trump is taking aim at the generals, beginning with National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and intending to fire White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly as well. Meanwhile, General James Mattis, at Department of Defense, has been allowing the Pentagon to provoke Russia in both word and deed.
Donald Trump, who has already been, against his better instinct, coerced and/or manipulated into hostile relationship with Russia, may be the only thing standing between America’s dominionists and World War Three. Will he cave in altogether to the dominionists? No one knows. Will the generals engineer a war with Russia and hand it to Trump as a fait accompli? Certainly it’s possible. Will Mike Pence wait to hear his generals told ‘You’re fired!’ and see them go away? Don’t bet on it.
This is not the America that went quiet and mourned when JFK was assassinated by a cabal of businessmen aligned with Allen Dulles. Mike Pence, who has openly stated Dick Cheney is his role model, is no Lyndon Johnson. By comparison, the evil of Pence is compounded to a power of ten. What’s going on isn’t rocket science but it is a trap.
Ronald Thomas West 