Lars- posted:

From Jane's Security--

Our Israeli sources claim to see Mughniyeh’s signature on the wreckage in New York and Washington. How to counter this kind of terrorism? "To fight these bastards you don’t need a military attack," said an experienced Israeli commando officer. "You only need to adopt Israel’s assassination policy."

Then, a while later, back here at home, Senator Frank Church (deceased) hauled the whole thing out in front of the public, which advocated gutting the CIA for it all. The few CIA types that survived that were rounded up and shot later, during the Carter administration, by Stansfield Turner. What resulted was the very same totally neutered and clueless CIA we had prior to the WTC attack.

Bush now advocates the use of "Covert operations that no one will ever see or hear about." Great. I'm all for it. Beat's the hell out of sending 1,000,000 green kids to some remote hellhole just to die, as they surely will. But who wants to end up in that "Unmarked mass grave of past covert ops (CIA, military spec-ops, "Phoenix Project") dudes"? Any volunteers?

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 21, 2001

Answers

Sorry, missed my whole first paragraph. It should read:

We did that in Viet Nam. It was called the Phoenix Project. It worked great, too, until the RVN politico's started putting their [blameless]political opponents names into the hat, then those of their mother-in-laws, and then their son's-in laws, and then their neighbor who's dog was shitting on their lawn, etc, etc...

Then, a while later, back here at home, Senator Frank Church (deceased) hauled the whole thing out in front of the public, which advocated gutting the CIA for it all. The few CIA types that survived that were rounded up and shot later, during the Carter administration, by Stansfield Turner. What resulted was the very same clueless CIA we had prior to the WTC attack.

Bush now advocates the use of "Covert operations no one will ever see or hear about." Great. I'm all for it. Beat's the hell out of sending 1,000,000 green kids to some remote hellhole just to die, as they surely will. But who wants to end up in that "Unmarked mass grave of past covert ops (CIA, military spec-ops, "Phoenix Project") dudes"? Any volunteers?

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 21, 2001.

Israel is pointing out these lessons? What makes them the masters of counter-espionage- I didn't exactly see the much-vaunted Mossad spit out warnings prior to the events.

-- JustCallMeJimbo (Who@Are.You), September 21, 2001.

Of course they don't. They prevent them before they happen, is why. Mosad has been doing that since day one. Yes...I think we should (and to hear Bush's speech last night I'd say HAVE)come to the same conclusion: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Assasination may be an expedient necessity, these days. What I worry about, as I've said in other posts, is accountability. Today one of the administration's spokesman told a member of the press, who asked "What proof do we have it was bin Laden?" "We are not going to tell the press (she spoke up and corrected him and said "The PEOPLE" - and he said "Nor the PEOPLE") what we are going to do, that would just reveal our hand to the terrorists." She's right. He's right. They are both right. What do we do to monitor covert (assasination) counter-terrorist activities by our government? It's one of those between a rock and a hard place things.

-- Zzzzz (asleep@the.wheel), September 21, 2001.

Sen Frank Church (D-Idaho) eviscerated CIA on-the-ground (covert ops) in the 70s by requiring the CIA to testify to the Intelligence Committee as to what they were up to. Which sounds fine, as far as it goes. Trouble is, you can't keep a secret in DC (which is why I don't buy into most conspiracy theories), and so the subsequent CIA testimonies to the Committee was readily leaked and some CIA agents (and their families) whose cover was blown as well as some foreign sources were murdered. Since then, we have had feeble on-the-ground CIA capability and foreign sources are understandably reluctant to assist us because they don't trust us to protect their identities.

It has been estimated that it will take 10 years to re-establish CIA covert capabilities.

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 21, 2001.

Actually, the Mossad told the CIA and the FBI last month that there was a credible threat of a major terrorist event taking place on U.S. soil. Our guys chose to ignore the warning.

"The Telegraph has learnt that two senior experts with Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service, were sent to Washington in August to alert the CIA and FBI to the existence of a cell of as many of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation.

'They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement,' said a senior Israeli security official."

LINK

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), September 23, 2001.