"Top Secret" Front Page News

Front Page Magazine ^ | Dec. 27, 2005 | Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu

[FairOpinion]

Suppose in the midst of the Second World War a media outlet like the New York Times stumbled on the ULTRA secret? Remember, that was the amazing code-breaking machine that Allied scientists invented to decipher the Nazis’ supposedly unbreakable codes? Suppose the newspaper published the secret for all to see, giving the Nazis the incredibly valuable information that the Allies were reading their highest classified transmissions. It would have been akin to giving Hitler information that would mean a longer war, more American and Allied soldiers lost, and more innocent lives sacrificed for the sake of selling more newspapers.

We’re about at that point today in our war with al-Qaeda and Islamofascist terrorists. A big part of the problem, as Frank Gaffney and his collaborative authors (full disclosure: I made a small contribution) explain in the new book War Footing, is that one of the greatest challenges facing America today is the inability – or denial – of a large number of Americans to face the fact that we are actually at war. Many on the Left actively deny existence of such a war. They speak and behave as if al-Qaeda were a criminal gang running wild. Worse, some justify these terrorists through confused multicultural babble and unabated moral equivalence. Therefore, we have devolved to the point that anyone can say or do anything regardless of how harmful to the security interests of the country and not be held accountable. Dan Rather gave sympathetic interviews to Saddam Hussein on the eve of war. Sean Penn visited Baghdad and said negative things about America’s treatment of the dictator. A covey of Anglican religious leaders expressed solidarity with Saddam and noted how popular he was with Iraqi people. Congressional members went to Iraq, were feted by Saddam then blamed America for the region’s ills while abroad. CNN’s Baghdad bureau faked news stories rather than risk expulsion.

Now the Times and other outlets are revealing top secret, highly classified counter-terrorist strategies and tactics, the exposure of which harms the national defense. This all fits under the so-called “people’s right to know.” Then these same critics turn things upside down and blame our leaders for carrying out these activities designed to keep the country safe and destroy our enemies. It is as if Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were attacked for violating Hitler’s civil rights by reading his dispatches.

The phony indignation is about a clandestine, highly productive operation intended to thwart another terrorist attack on America. The president authorized limited, tightly controlled electronic eavesdropping by the NSA on terrorist supporters’ calls overseas to terrorists. The president consulted frequently with the Congress. He reviewed the program every few months. This is done in order to prevent another attack and since we have not had an attack since 9/11, this limited program has been effective. In return, the opposition talks hysterically of impeachment.

Now that this program has been exposed, you can rest assured – just as Hitler would have instantly changed his codes had he known about ULTRA – bin Laden, Zawahari, and other terrorists have already changed their methods of communications, making intercepting their plans for future attacks that much more difficult. Suppose NSA analysts caught them talking about bringing a dirty bomb into the U.S.? Or perhaps how they could effectively distribute weaponized anthrax around the country? Are leftists really content to miss that intelligence information on the absurd hypothetical that some innocent grandmother’s cell phone privacy might have been violated?

The Founders did not draft the Constitution to be a suicide pact.

Meanwhile, the media breaks yet another classified story: the FBI and DHS have been monitoring mosques for signs of unusually high radioactive levels. This might tip us to the presence of a suitcase nuclear weapon. If you are a terrorist, might this disclosure not alert you to store radioactive weapons elsewhere?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate stays forever locked in a September 10th mindset. They foolishly argue more ludicrously about G-Men violating my library privileges, rather than about that library being blown up.

Senators, busy pandering to the environmental fanatics over ANWR, allow not just the Arabs but also our friend Hugo Chavez in Venezuela to can put the squeeze on us. If our esteemed leaders had been wise enough to act a decade ago, we could already be pulling a million barrels a day out of ANWR, enough oil to keep Ted Kennedy and John Kerry’s state free of Arab oil for 75 years. But in their minds not enough to “make a difference.”

While these self-appointed scolds feign concern over exaggerated threats to our “rights,” our enemies grow stronger, smarter, and deadlier – thanks, in large part, to the Left.

===

Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu has been an Army Green Beret lieutenant colonel, as well as a writer, popular speaker, business executive and farmer. His most recent book is Separated at Birth, about North and South Korea.

[FairOpinion]

Just the same way they had the Enron perp walks, we need some traitor perp walks as examples to others, with swift trials and 30-year jail sentences.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The phony indignation is about a clandestine, highly productive operation intended to thwart another terrorist attack on America. The president authorized limited, tightly controlled electronic eavesdropping by the NSA on terrorist supporters’ calls overseas to terrorists. The president consulted frequently with the Congress. He reviewed the program every few months. This is done in order to prevent another attack and since we have not had an attack since 9/11, this limited program has been effective. In return, the opposition talks hysterically of impeachment.

FBI Filegate was a far more intrusive, far more obviously illegal violation of the privacy of American citizens than anything alledged against the Bush Administration. Yet thos who condemn Bush for investigating terrorists allowed President Clinton to announce that Craig Livingstone "was fired" (note the passive voice) without demanding that Clinton at least assign responsibility for the hiring (and thus, of the firing) of Livingstone.

Imagine President Bush evading responsibility for hiring a perpetrator of hundreds of felonies like that! Imagine Bush getting away with not even prosecuting him!!

[kcvl]

Best Selling Book on Amazon.com, Do As I Say (Not As I Do), Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, by Peter Schweizer.


If you go to the chapter on Ted Kennedy, read past the Kennedy family trust set up by Grandpa Joe in Fiji to avoid taxes on the Chicago Merchandise Mart (p. 80-81). Then read past the Kennedy opposition to the US Army Corp. of Engineers’ approved Cape (Cod) Wind Project to harvest free alternative energy and end The Cape’s coal pollution and related health problems, a project also opposed by other liberal residents Walter Cronkite and historian David McCullough....


Kennedys own some oil companies themselves: Arctic oil, despite the name, drilling in Texas and Oklahoma. Kenoil and Mokeen Oil. In 1985, Kennedy converted these two companies to Royalty Trusts, thus avoiding paying any corporate taxes, “windfall” or otherwise (see p. 92 of Do As I Say (Not As I Do)). The Kennedys also have oil deposits in Louisiana, as well as mineral rights on properties in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi.....


Much of the land was accumulated by convincing poor rural black farmers to give away their “mineral rights,” not knowing what it meant. The Kennedys set the operation up as a Royalty Trust to avoid paying income and corporate taxes on the profits. Family members including Ted Kennedy, environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Joe Kennedy, Jr. receive checks every year.


Sen. Kennedy has $500 million in trusts based in Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and the bulk of it in Fiji. The Kennedy oil company operating in five states, once called Kenn Oil, is now named The Arctic Oil Royalty Trust. George Soros "holds the bulk of his billions in tax-free overseas accounts."

[FairOpinion]

I just found another great article, that is a "must read":

All the news that's fit to ignore
Dec 26, 2005
by Michael Barone


http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/michaelbarone/2005/12/26/180370.html

What the Times didn't bother telling its readers is that this practice is far from new and is entirely legal. Instead, the unspoken subtext of the story was that this was likely an illegal and certainly a very scary invasion of Americans' rights.

Let's put the issue very simply. The president has the power as commander in chief under the Constitution to intercept and monitor the communications of America's enemies. Indeed, it would be a very weird interpretation of the Constitution to say that the commander in chief could order U.S. forces to kill America's enemies but not to wiretap -- or, more likely these days, electronically intercept -- their communications. Presidents have asserted and exercised this power repeatedly and consistently over the last quarter-century.


The Constitution, Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote, should not be interpreted in a way that makes it "a suicide pact." The notion that terrorists' privacy must be respected when they place a cell-phone call to someone in the United States is in the nature of a suicide pact. The Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures in the United States should not be stretched into a ban on interceptions of communications from America's enemies abroad.

[camas]

and Sir Winston Churchill said one piece of SI was worth either 1000 or 10000 lives i for get

[Ax]

SIGINT troopers: the tip of the spear.

[kcvl]

OT -


Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, a Democrat, accepted two free trips. One was from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. to Taiwan and back to the United States via Los Angeles between Jan. 4 and Jan. 7, 2004. Kennedy's office said the Chinese International Cooperation Association reimbursed him $3,400 for transportation on that trip, $930 for lodging and $370 for meals.

Kennedy's office said the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society reimbursed him $156 for lodging at the group's annual conference in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 25 and 26. Kennedy's office said he traveled to the conference on a plane chartered by the health-care group. His office set the value of the ride at $11,243.49.

Rep. James R. Langevin, a Democrat, took a trip to Taiwan from Dec. 1 to 4 last year, paid for by the Chinese International Economic Association. Langevin's office said he was reimbursed $3,500 for travel, $970 for lodging and $370 for meals.

snip

Republican Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee, while reporting no free trips or outside income in 1994, gave a glimpse at his family holdings through the annual disclosure,

snip

Chafee's 2004 report again confirms what he first revealed after he was appointed to the Senate in 1999: his family estate is much larger than that of his late father, by virtue of his marriage to the former Stephanie B. Danforth.

Chafee's report shows that, counting the trusts of Stephanie Chafee and their children, his family fortune exceeds $61 million. But because of the quirks of the disclosure system, the report tells little about the estate's value.

For example, Stephanie Chafee's principal blind trust is valued at "over $1,000,000." Because the trust is his wife's, Chafee is not obliged to fix its worth more specifically. But in his first such report several years ago, Chafee valued this trust of Stephanie Chafee at more than $50 million -- still accurate today, Chafee spokesman Stephen Hourahan confirmed.

snip


Kennedy also lists among his assets a holding worth between $50,001 and $100,000 in Arctic Royalty Limited, which owns oil and gas royalty interests. Kennedy reports having earned between $15,001 and $50,000 last year from Arctic.


http://tinyurl.com/7oj4d

[stylin19a]

Great info and background. What sleezes.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Hypocrisy is a understatement is describing this

[CIDKauf]

Its certainly a said state of affairs...so do you believe that they are THAT dumb, or do they REALLY know who they REALLY are in that regard?

[Mr. Rational]

Treason = hanging. I would not batt an eye. None of this 30 years and out in 10 nonsense.

We have troops under fire.

Watch Bush's numbers continue to go UP as media complains that he is playing hardball with terrorists. Even manyof the Moonbats get it.

[emiller]

Oh sure, these people are traitors, no doubt about it. In the good old days (and not that long ago), they would have been tried and shot. United we stand, divided we turn into Mexico.

[grey_whiskers]

the Chicago Tribune reported that U.S. naval intelligence knew the Japanese navy's plans, strength, and dispositions prior to the battle

Not to defend the Tribune, but could spies or moles have accounted for that knowledge (in principle) just as effectively?

Cheers!

...and Merry Christmas!

[devolve]

[XtreMarine]

The LtCol is absolutely correct. Americans must wake up and understand that in this turbulent world the President, whether it Mr. Bush or whomever, must take aggressive action to counter the methods and means used by those who will do harm to our country and stop it dead in its tracks. I do mean dead is the only way we can be sure nothing happens ie Sept 11th.

Do we want another catastrophic event on American soil?

I take pride in going to Iraq and Afghanistan and killing them over there instead of turning our backyards into war zones.

[JackOfVA]

Here's another example ... where ships were actually sunk because of careless Congressman and press.

"A serious breach of security may have helped the Japanese anti-submarine forces. In June 1943, Congressman Andrew Jackson May, a sixty-eight-year-old member of the House Military Affairs Committee returning from a war zone junket, gave a press interview during which he said, in effect, Don't worry about our submariners; the Japanese are setting their depth charges too shallow. Incredibly, the press associations sent this story over their wires, and many newspapers, including one in Honolulu, thoughtlessly published it.

"Lockwood and his staff were appalled--and furious--at this stupid revelation. Lockwood wrote Admiral Edwards in acid words, "I hear ... Congressman May ... said the Jap depth charges ... are not set deep enough. ... He would be pleased to know the Japs set'em deeper now." And after the war, Lockwood wrote, 'I consider that indiscretion cost us ten submarines and 800 officers and men.'"

"Silent Victory" - Clay Blair. Vol.1 pg 397


Jack

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Not to defend the Tribune, but could spies or moles have accounted for that knowledge [that U.S. naval intelligence knew the Japanese navy's plans, strength, and dispositions prior to the battle] just as effectively?

Yes, of course - and IIRC the US did try to subtly promote that cover story. But it is so valuable to have your enemy be lax on signal intelligence that the idea that you are "reading his mail" must be minimized by all means possible.

E.g., the British had a policy of never overtly acting on Ultra - there always had to be a cover story for whatever they did. If Ultra told them a German convoy was headed toward Rommel's supply port, they were not to simply send out the bombers - they were first to "accidentally" find the convoy with a recon flight, and only then send the bombers after it. In extremis, they got permission to violate that rule once - and then they promoted the story that a spy had tipped them off. But you just don't want to do that every day.

Again, the British had turned all the agents Germany had sent to England and were using them to send disinformation back to Germany. If a V-1 hit to the north of London, the double agents were ordered to indicate that it had landed to the south, in order to induce the Germans to "correct" their aim. But at the same time they were inducing the Germans to aim in a particular direction, the British refused to allow their agents to evacuate their own families from the area they were spoofing the Germans toward. To avoid the possibility of the Germans' getting wind of it.

You want to say nothing at all about sigint, one way or another. So it's a delicate situation when a newspaper insists on bringing the topic to the fore.

[Travis McGee]

Wall. Cigarettes. Blindfolds.

(We're going to need a LONG wall.)

[Calpernia]

bookmark

[UglyinLA]

So where is the outrage?? Where are the Republican leaders?? They should be screaming from the tops of their lungs for an investigation. So where are they, these meek and mild Republicans?

The Rats are having a field day with their side of the story. the NSA secrets exposed, Able Danger/911 commission whitewash, the Plame farce, the oil for food scam, etc, etc.

IMHO, this current group of Republican leaders SUCK !!