The new National
Intelligence Strategy of the United States:
Towards an even more dangerous international
security apparatus
On Wednesday, October 27, 2005, the new National Intelligence Strategy of
the United States was released by the Director of National Intelligence, terrorist and war
criminal John Negroponte. (download the full document is here, see the official press
release here).
The document?s foreword, written by Negroponte, immediately
states that the Strategy is based on the "new concept of ?national intelligence?
codified by the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act passed by Congress in 2004", its origins
in the "tragedy of September 11, 2001", and President George W. Bush?s National
Security Strategy of the United States".
In other words, the Strategy is a strengthening and
solidification of the existing Homeland/National Security apparatus into a more
centralized structure (with more power and control in the hands of the Executive
Branch), consolidating multiple agencies, including the CIA. The objectives are
unchanged, based on the original 9/11/ "war on terrorism" construct, and further
inspired ("codified") by the 9/11
Commission whitewash and other more recent variations on 9/11-pretext
"anti-terrorism".
Brimming with Orwellian language and bureaucrat-speak, the
Strategy promises a lot of the same "war on terrorism"---and what is not the
same is worse.
The Strategy?s "mission objectives" are:
1. Defeat "terrorists" at home and abroad by disarming their
operational capabilities and seizing the initiative from them by promoting the
growth of freedom and democracy. [note the emphasis on "at home"?LC]
2. Prevent and counter the spread of WMDs.
3. Bolster growth of democracy. This includes the "support of
diplomatic and military efforts (including pre-and post-conflict) where
intervention is necessary".
4. Develop innovative ways to penetrate and analyze the most
difficult targets [the unnamed "targets" are characterized as "tough adversaries
that know a great deal about our intelligence system"?LC]
5. Anticipate developments of "strategic concern".
In an analysis of the new Strategy by the Washington
Post's Walter Pincus, the renewed emphasis on "bolstering democracies in
foreign country" and working with/through foreign intelligence services are new,
according to two former senior intelligence officers queried by Pincus. But
given the fact that "soft power" intelligence and covert operations are as old
as the "tradecraft" itself.
In the same vein, the establishment of "new and strengthened
relationships with foreign intelligence services, according to Pincus, "appears
to conflict with goals recently set by CIA Director Porter Goss, who told his
agency he wants to increase unilateral human intelligence collection and reduce
reliance on foreign liason relationships." The truth, in contrast to Pincus?
suggestion, is that beefed up unilateral and foreign human intelligence are not
(and never have been) mutually exclusive.
What the new Strategy does suggest is that the bellicose
"go-it-alone" approach of the scandal-ridden Bush administration has become a
political liability, which has forced a renewed emphasis on less overt/more
subtle methods of intervention, more reliance on foreign agencies, fronts and
proxies, and better plausible deniability. This is nothing new. It is an
opportunistic return to "classic" methods.
This adjustment in style does not change or derail the "mission
objectives" that have been in place since 9/11. If anything, it heralds an even
more dangerous, slicker, and more potent international police apparatus, bigger
than ever, led by a master of terrorism in Negroponte.
Elsewhere, the Strategy lays out ten goals, or "enterprise
objectives", focusing on the restructuring of the national intelligence
bureaucracy. The recommendations include the steps pushed by the corrupt and
fraudulent 9/11
Commission whitewash (also see this
analysis). The Strategy also (in laughably self-conscience wordage) calls
for "human source collection with the highest traditions of professionalism and
intellectual prowess".
If successfully executed, the elimination of inter-agency
conflict could result in an international clandestine force of unprecedented
reach and depth.
One of the most pernicious aspects of the Strategy is the
official sanction of something that has been in the works throughout 2005: the
unleashing of the National Clandestine
Service, headed by CIA Director Porter Goss.
A deepening of the national security apparatus into every
corner of the nation is made explicit, under the enterprise objective of
"expanding reporting of information and intelligence value from state, local
and tribal law enforcement entities and private sector stakeholders". The
United States, already a police state, will now be officially and thoroughly
infested down to the local level.
The new Intelligence Strategy is the same old clandestine
machine
The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States changes
nothing about what matters. The National Security/Homeland Security machine
remains an abomination, deadly and criminal from the CIA?s founding in 1947 to
the present.
We need only refer back to the 1972 expose of the CIA, The
CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, by (CIA veteran) Victor Marchetti and John
D. Marks. Quoting from this heavily redacted classic to remind ourselves what
this apparatus is about:
"It engages in espionage and counter-espionage, in propaganda
and disinformation (the deliberate circulation of false information), in
psychological warfare and paramilitary activities. It penetrates and manipulates
private institutions, and creates its own organizations (called "proprietaries")
when necessary. It recruits officials to carry out its most unsavory tasks. It
does whatever is required to achieve its goals, without any consideration of the
ethics involved or the moral consequences of its actions."
"The ?clandestine mentality? is a mind-set that thrives on
secrecy and deception. It encourages professional amorality?the belief that
righteous goals can be achieved through the use of unprincipled and normally
unacceptable means."
"Deeply embedded within the clandestine mentality is the belief
that human ethics and social laws have no bearing on covert operations or their
practitioners. The intelligence profession, because of lofty ?national security?
goals, is free from all moral restrictions."
"The extreme secrecy in which the CIA works increases the
chances that a President will call it into action. He does not have to justify
the agency?s activities to Congress, the press, or the American people, so,
barring premature disclosure there is no institutional force within the United
States to stop him from doing what he wants."
And absolute power continues to corrupt absolutely.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20051029&articleId=1167
