While Julian Assange is the person with the rock star persona, Bradley Manning is the true center of this documentary. It was Manning who leaked information to WikiLeaks and who now faces trial for doing so. Army Pfc. Manning is portrayed in the film as a confused and somewhat naïve officer, a person who has […]
Here are the week’s must read articles: “Good Leak, Bad Leak” By Uri Friedman Foreign Policy A brief but informative look at the various leaks during the Obama administration and their political and legal implications. “Understanding Cyberspace is Key to Defending It” By Robert O’Harrow Jr. Washington Post In the aftermath of Stuxnet and its […]
June 6, 2012. Four months after the post below went online, the MSM (NYT, CBS, New York Post, Fox) is reporting that Representative Darrelll Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating DOJ’s gunrunning scheme, Fast and Furious, claims the wiretap applications submitted during the course of the operation prove that DOJ officials at the highest levels knew ATF agents were bending, ignoring, and violating US law to move more than 2000 combat-ready weapons across the US border into Mexico. None of the weapons carried tracing devices, and ATF whistleblowers who pressed superiors about the need to have some sort of interdiction strategy in place that would allow them to recover the weapons before they could be used to murder innocent people (Brian Terry) were told to stand down or find another job.
Whether Issa’s latest revelation will revive the official investigation into a government scheme to supply Mexican gangs with weapons that could be traced back to recent sales by US gundealers along the SW border, a move that even the most skeptical mind has trouble believing was designed to do anything but shore up the argument for stricter gun control in the US, is yet to be seen.
Attorney General Eric Holder has told the press that Issa’s Committee is on a ‘witch hunt’ meant to target high-ranking ‘African-Americans’ within the Administration, officials Holder identified more explicitly by adding ‘like me, and the President,’ and it is unlikely the GOP House Leader John Boehner is eager to divert pre-election media coverage from Romney’s singleminded focus on the economy–even though Fast and Furious, with its parallels to Iran-Contra, might well result in the prosecution of admininstration officials for contempt, obstruction of justice, perjury, and multiple violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA). Think Ollie North.
In case today’s (June 6th) reports about the importance of wiretap applications linked to Fast and Furious still leave you confused, there’s a repost of my earlier analysis below. Of special interest should be the photocopy of the memo requesting approval for a wiretap signed by Lanny Breuer in March 2010. A DOJ spokesperson says Breuer never scrutized the details, that they were never spelled out to the Head of DOJ’s Criminal Division.
Hmmm…..
Let’s talk wire taps, investigative tools popularized by every cop and criminal show that’s crossed our television screens.
Well, it turns out that ATF agents involved in the gun walking scheme known as Fast and Furious made numerous applications over a significant period of time for the issuance of court orders authorizing wire taps.
Bad news for top cops at DOJ. Like Willy Sutton, who said he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is,” members of the House Oversight Committee have told DOJ they want those wire tap applications because they know that’s where the evidence is–in detailed descriptions of investigative techniques and signatures they believe will point to the involvement of senior DOJ officials.
It’s called a ‘murder-for-hire’ sting, a standard law enforcement ploy designed to help the criminal find the very worst in his nature and act on it. But sting operations come with their own risks as well as rewards—and attorneys know that ‘entrapment’ can be a strong defense. . .
Informants are like sharks, scouring the underworld for opportunities and targets the feds can use as springboards to career-making cases. It’s the informant’s job to find two sticks (agent and opportunity), to rub them together vigorously, and to blow gently on the sparks of criminal enterprise.
Think about this as well….the ‘downpayment’ for the ‘hit,’ the100k wired to the US undercover bank account is enough to trigger a case for conspiracy, but it still doesn’t prove that the Iranian government was driving the bus. To do that, US authorities must establish a link between the owner of the account in the UAE — or the owner/s of an account held by an international financial institution with correspondent branches/banks around the world — and the government of Iran.
This is a critical point–one that could defuse the Obama Administration’s claim that ‘senior officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government’ were tied to the assassination plot and challenge the call of senior US officials for alterations to current foreign policy, in the US and abroad, toward Iran. If US authorities cannot prove that this was something more than a plot formulated by a small group of non-state actors, the President, the Secretary of State, DEA and the FBI have some explaining to do. . .
Recently released U.S. State Department cables from Wikileaks show that the Chinese government exerts strict control over journalists. Domestic Chinese journalists are particularly under tight restrictions. In terms of foreign news organizations, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Liu Jianchao said during a late-night press conference in November 2008 that Chinese nationals can only work […]
…evidence that the US did in fact sign such an agreement with Mexico, authorizing ATF, in cooperation with Mexican authorities, to implement the gun-walking ‘sting’ that provided Mexican gunman with killing tools used to fire on and murder US agents would corroborate the intent and involvement, at the highest levels, of ATF officials, of the Attorney General (either Holder or his representatives would have had to sign off on the operation), and of the President of the United States—who, as Holder’s supervisor, must be held accountable for the decisions and actions of his subordinates.
It would be difficult, as well, to believe that Eric Holder would have undertaken such a risky endeavor, such a politically sensitive gamble, without a discussion having occurred between Holder and Obama before the implementation of the ATF operation. The stakes, in terms of US-Mexico relations, would have just been too high.
Has former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrossian been personally profiting from the Iranian narcotics trade? This is the conclusion that some people are drawing from a Wikileaks release on the Norwegian news site Aftenposten. The cable can be viewed here, and the story has gotten circulation on Armenian web sites, including PanArmenian.net, whose editors wrote the […]
Speculation in Baku was rife last week over the temporary closing on Monday of the Israeli embassy. Many news sources such as the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat theorized that the reason for the closing of the embassy was security-related. In any case, the embassy was apparently closed for “technical reasons” and re-opened. The Israeli Foreign […]
This just in: Matt Bryza was confirmed today (December 29) as the new US ambassador to Azerbaijan. About time. This was a “recess appointment” by the White House, necessitated by a “hold” placed on Bryza by California Senator Barbara Boxer and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, both Democrats responding to strenuous criticism of Bryza from […]
The fact that government outrage continues to provide the international media with grist for its insatiable mill is one of the great ironies in this scenario: perturbed at the site’s revelation of embarrassing diplomatic discussions and fumblings–tales only mildly interesting to the average reader–government officials are now in the process of creating a better, and far more spectacular story over First Amendment rights and the ‘treasonable’ activities of a Dutch citizen accused of committing “sex by surprise” (in Sweden?).
Even worse, the official call from some quarters for draconian regulation of the internet has given Russia (which suggests nominating Assange for the Nobel Peace Prize) and China, a human-rights violator of mammoth proportion, opportunities to ‘prove’ to an already hostile world that when Washington suddenly finds itself looking out through wall-to-wall glass, this nation of stone-throwers is no better than anyplace else.
Welcome to 21st Century Diplomacy, State Department. WikiLeaks’ massive cache of over a quarter million sensitive State Department cables is a bleak reminder that everything in in our Brave New World is ones and zeros- and ones and zeros are easily copied. Back when Daniel Ellsberg stole the Pentagon Papers, he had to spend long, […]
The latest Wikileaks revelations are too extensive for any single person to have yet sifted through, and they pertain to so many aspects of foreign policy that it is difficult to know where to focus. Here are some of the highlights related to corruption. In the category of “I knew just as much simply by […]
Last week began with a bang as Wikileaks snuck out its latest offering of classified government cables and documents causing a stir in diplomatic circles. The leaked documents provide a glimpse into the U.S. State Department’s dealings with and impressions of various countries and global leaders. While the veracity of these documents will continue to […]
The WikiLeaks cables so far contain no bomb-shell revelations but are valuable in providing greater texture to Washington’s policy in South Asia and in illuminating the unsolvable conundrums that bear on U.S. and Indian relations with Pakistan.
Wikileaks has successfully created an online forum that publicizes normally secretive communications. Its most recent attacks on the U.S. government and military have brought widespread condemnation from officials, diplomats, and civilian experts. It remains to be seen whether this public shaming will create more transparent government or just encourage diplomats to be increasingly secretive. But […]