Ghost radar!

I'm sick of writing NSA stories and you're sick of reading them. So right now, I'd like to talk about something that happened as I was walking home from breakfast at Mickey D's.

I heard a small boy sobbing and crying for aid: "Can somebody help me?" He stood just outside of his quaint row house.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"My Mommy and Daddy aren't home and I can't go back in," he said.

"Why not?"

"There's a GHOST!" he cried.

"How do you know there's a ghost?" I asked.

"I was down in the basement and I heard it walking. Real loud. And it was on the radar."

"Radar...?" I asked.

"Ghost radar! iPhone!" He started crying again. I later learned that there is an iPhone app called Ghost Radar, which allegedly identifies paranormal activity in any given location.

I informed him that a lot of people don't believe that ghosts exist.

What really concerned me was the idea of a very young child being home alone. I questioned him as to where his mother and father worked.

At that point, a young lady -- of adult age, or nearly so -- popped out of the front door. She identified herself as the boy's sister. Naturally, I was gratified to learn that the youngster had not been left by himself.

I told her that her younger brother had become convinced of the presence of a ghost in the basement.

"No way," she said. "I sleep in that basement every night. No ghosts."

"Were you walking around on the floor above the basement just now?" I asked.

"I guess. Maybe."

A small dog escaped the front door. The boy -- no longer weeping or upset -- merrily went chasing after it.

Does this anecdote have a point? Well, not a political point -- although if you are imaginative enough to discover a political angle, you will have my deep respect.

But perhaps we can draw a practical lesson from this tale. Parents, please be careful as to which apps you let your child use without supervision. And if you do allow a kid to play with your "ghost radar," make sure the youngster understands the concept of the false positive.

So tell me: Has anyone ever had success using the Ghost Radar app?

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Anything you say can and will be used against you

You'd have to be dense as concrete not to understand the unsettling implications of this NYT story...

The N.S.A. is not just intercepting the communications of Americans who are in direct contact with foreigners targeted overseas, a practice that government officials have openly acknowledged. It is also casting a far wider net for people who cite information linked to those foreigners, like a little used e-mail address, according to a senior intelligence official.

Inadvertently, this piece confirms what some of us have been saying for years: The NSA scoops up everything -- and by "everything" I mean everything -- but doesn't consider the email/phone call transcript to be truly "intercepted" until human eyes have seen the words. Human eyes will see those words only after the machines have data-mined the text for key phrases.

As a moment's thought will tell you, that technology can be used against you, against me, against anyone. It's the ultimate form of political control.

Of course, we are assured that right now, the targets are -- allegedly -- terrorists. Just terrorists. Nothing else. At least, so claims the New York Times; we shall soon see that the "target field" is actually rather wider.

We have only the word of our NSA and FBI overseers that they will not use this technology against political opponents.

Ah -- but if the spooks do find damning material against political opponents, how would anyone know? Our controllers have became very adept at the arcane art of using the NSA's eavesdropping against you while disguising the origins of that data.

Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The tactic is called "parallel construction"...

According to documents and interviews, agents use a procedure they call "parallel construction" to recreate the investigative trail, stating in affidavits or in court, for example, that an investigation began with a traffic infraction rather than an SOD tip.

The IRS document offers further detail on the parallel construction program.

"Special Operations Division has the ability to collect, collate, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate information and intelligence derived from worldwide multi-agency sources, including classified projects," the IRS document says. "SOD converts extremely sensitive information into usable leads and tips which are then passed to the field offices for real-time enforcement activity against major international drug trafficking organizations."

The 2005 IRS document focuses on SOD tips that are classified and notes that the Justice Department "closely guards the information provided by SOD with strict oversight." While the IRS document says that SOD information may only be used for drug investigations, DEA officials said the SOD role has recently expanded to organized crime and money laundering.

SOD (discussed in an earlier post) gets its intel from the NSA. So we now know that the tactics described by the NYT are not relegated entirely to the war against terrorists.

According to the document, IRS agents are directed to use the tips to find new, "independent" evidence: "Usable information regarding these leads must be developed from such independent sources as investigative files, subscriber and toll requests, physical surveillance, wire intercepts, and confidential source information. Information obtained from SOD in response to a search or query request cannot be used directly in any investigation (i.e. cannot be used in affidavits, court proceedings or maintained in investigative files)."

The IRS document makes no reference to SOD's sources of information, which include a large DEA telephone and Internet database.

Are you sure that these tactics will never be used against political opponents? Recall the Bush years, when the "no-fly" lists were used to harass left-wing critics of the administration...

The propaganda! It burns! I've cited The Moderate Voice from time to time. Previously, I've never really had much problem with (or interest in) that site. But this shows how thoroughly the anti-Snowden propaganda blitz has penetrated the national consciousness.

The topic is the National Review's recent -- and uncharacteristically reasonable -- call to give Snowden immunity in exchange for testimony. The MV response:

Second, Snowden’s megalomania means that Snowden would be unlikely to accept any such offer. He views himself as a transcendent global figure, allying with a host of authoritarian regimes and anarchist groups against the United States generally. He appears to believe that he is at the heart of a global conspiracy, that the CIA is out to kill him, and that his disclosures caused the CIA to threaten to assassinate the entire families of any congressional representatives who voted against an anti-NSA bill. Why would Snowden’s massively inflated self-image deflate from a grant of immunity?

What nonsense. Megalomania? Is this guy kidding? Did that soft-spoken fellow in those interviews seem very megalomaniacal to you?

Snowden’s media handler Greenwald would also probably object. Snowden’s testimony to Congress would cut off the one thing that Greenwald values most: exclusive ownership of the spotlight. Indeed, evidence is mounting that Greenwald groomed Snowden as a sock puppet for his anti-NSA crusade long before Snowden decamped for Hong Kong and Russia.

Now this is paranoia of the lowest form. Are we really supposed to believe these baseless accusations that evil journalists are plotting to "turn" those who toil within the spook empire? I would expect this sort of idiocy from Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, but not from any site labeled "The Moderate Voice."

Needless to say, there's no evidence for any of this nonsense. A hundred years from now, Greenwald will be remembered as one of the few remaining real journalists. And Snowden will be known as one of the few willing to sacrifice a life of ease in order to pursue the dictates of conscience.

Always remember the words of Malcolm X:

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

"I've had enough of someone else's propaganda. I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."

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America is under the SOD (and other NSA stories)

Y'know, I really really really REALLY would prefer to address any topic other than the NSA right now. But that topic is Not So Avoidable.

Yemen. We've just learned that the Big Plot uncovered by those stalwart lads and lasses at NSA involved an Al Qaeda scheme to take over Yemen.

Yemeni government spokesman Rajeh Badi said the plot involved blowing up oil pipelines and taking control of certain cities - including two ports in the south, one of which accounts for the bulk of Yemen's oil exports and is where a number of foreign workers are employed.

Sources have told BBC Newsnight that the US is preparing special operations forces for possible strike operations against al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Although the US has previously sent special forces to train counter-terrorist units, there are now suggestions that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), may be preparing units for strike operations, the sources said.

All very exciting. And, I suspect, all very fictional.

Faraway Yemen is a great place to set your Wag-the-Dog yarn. Who can double-check?

Congress. NSA defenders say that everything they do has congressional approval and oversight. To the contrary...

On MSNBC on Wednesday night, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct) was asked by host Chris Hayes: "How much are you learning about what the government that you are charged with overseeing and holding accountable is doing from the newspaper and how much of this do you know?" The Senator's reply:

The revelations about the magnitude, the scope and scale of these surveillances, the metadata and the invasive actions surveillance of social media Web sites were indeed revelations to me."

But it is not merely that members of Congress are unaware of the very existence of these programs, let alone their capabilities. Beyond that, members who seek out basic information - including about NSA programs they are required to vote on and FISA court (FISC) rulings on the legality of those programs - find that they are unable to obtain it.

Denial of access for members of Congress to basic information about the NSA and the FISC appears to be common. Justin Amash, the GOP representative who, along with Democratic Rep. John Conyers, co-sponsored the amendment to ban the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' phone records, told CNN on July 31: "I, as a member of Congress, can't get access to the court opinions. I have to beg for access, and I'm denied it if I - if I make that request."

What about the intel committees?

Its members typically receive much larger contributions from the defense and surveillance industries than non-Committee members. And the two Committee Chairs - Democrat Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and Republican Mike Rogers in the House - are two of the most steadfast NSA loyalists in Congress. The senior Democrat on the House Committee is ardent NSA defender Dutch Ruppersberger, whose district not only includes NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, but who is also himself the second-largest recipient of defense/intelligence industry cash.

Moreover, even when members of the Intelligence Committee learn of what they believe to be serious abuses by the NSA, they are barred by law from informing the public.

Dutch -- who is also my congressman -- is a Democrat, and has a "good" voting record (from a blue-state perspective) on most issues. This dichotomy is what makes his NSAttitude so annoying.

It's simple: We long ago reached the point where we no longer run the spooks. The spooks run us.

Snowden. Speaking of dichotomies, we have a doozie when it comes to everyone's favorite whistleblower. The official spookland spokespersons have, at various times, said that Snowden never had access to the programs he has revealed...

First up, we've got intelligence officials claiming that Snowden didn't get the really deep dark secrets of the NSA:

U.S. intelligence now believes Edward Snowden did not gain access to the "crown jewels" of National Security Agency programs that secretly intercept and monitor conversations around the world, CNN has learned.

Note that comes from CNN reporter Barbara Starr who is well known for basically spreading the NSA official line so much that she's been called "the Pentagon spokesperson who works for CNN." However, just a day later, another site published a quote from General Bob Kehler, who "oversees cyber warfare" and is "sort of" NSA chief Keith Alexander's boss, claiming something quite different:

He referred to the type of information Snowden released as ”the deepest of the deep secrets.”

So... he didn't get access to the "crown jewels" but has already released "the deepest of the deep secrets"? How does that work?

You can't claim a man is the new Benedict Arnold while simultaneously dismissing him as unimportant. It's got to be one or the other. Propagandists should follow the KYSS principle -- Keep Your Stories Straight!

Speaking of double-dealing... Why is it okay for the Obama administration to reveal the details of (allegedly) intercepted Al Qaeda emails? I mean, doesn't that get into a Snowden-esque "sources and methods" area?

Toss out your V mask: Ed Snowden is the new Guy Fawkes.

How to use your secret info: This story from a couple of days ago notes the main problem facing our spook overlords. Since we have not yet entered the era of open technofascism, the feds face what we might call a "Coventry" dilemma: How do you use the information you've obtained without revealing the methods by which you obtained it?

If you're a fan of the BBC's Sherlock series, you know the story about how Churchill allegedly let the Nazis bomb Coventry because preventing the raid would have revealed that he had obtained an Enigma machine. Although that story is questionable (much of it derives from a fantasy writer named William Stephenson), the basic idea illustrates one of the major problems that all intelligence officials have faced. If, for example, you use information from an agent planted within an enemy government, you may not be able to act on that information without exposing your source.

In the current situation, the spooks have access to your every email and telephone conversation, but they don't want to broadcast that fact in any official way. In a sense, the Coventry problem is the only thing keeping you safe right now. Until the day comes when your masters decide to drop all pretense of democracy, you must be granted the illusion of privacy.

So what happens when FBI agents want to build a case based on data that they can't let the world know they know? Retuers gives us a few clues...

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.

So...you might say that America is under the SOD. The unit is located "in Virginia." Reuters won't say where in Virginia, apparently at SOD's request -- national security and all that -- so I will happily give you the bits that Reuters left out. The Special Operations Division is located at 14560 Avion Parkway, Chantilly, VA 20151, a stone's throw away from the National Air and Space Museum (not the one on the Mall, but the really cool Udvar-Hazy center where they keep the space shuttle Discovery). Phone number: 703-488-4200. SOD is run by a fellow named Joseph Keefe. If you know where to look online, you may be able to find the address and phone number for a Joseph Keefe living in Chantilly. If you stop by, say "Hi" to Joey and tell him that Cannon sends his love.

Back to our Reuters story...

But two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily.

A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.

Well, that's one solution to the Coventry problem.

Remember the TOR spyware? In our previous installment, we said that it was an FBI thing. Some white-hat hackers did a little digging and found that it transmits info to an IP address owned and operated by the NSA. Go here and scroll down.

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News

Everyone is talking about Jeff Bezo's purchase of the Washington Post. I don't think this decision will be as "culturally cataclysmic" as some say, since it continues the hoary tradition of a CIA link to the Post.

Bezos and the CIA? Yes. They started working together last year. Maybe earlier. Bezos and the CIA's investment arm have sunk a lot of money in a quantum computer called DWave which will make it easier for the NSA to break encryption systems.

(Seems like every story these days is related to the NSA...)

Of course, the intelligence connection is hardly surprising to anyone who knows the backgrounds of Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee -- or, for that matter, Bob Woodward. I would be surprised if there weren't an intelligence connection to Bezos.

Bezos is generally considered a liberal, but I'm guessing this means (as it usually means) "liberal on social issues." By now, we all know what to expect from a liberal-on-social-issues megacapitalist: Gay marriage? All for it! A decent minimum wage and single-payer health insurance? Er...let me get back to you on that. Meanwhile, here's a copy of "Atlas Shrugged" for you to read!

An immodest proposal. Bezos famously has said that printed newspapers will disappear within twenty years, and that most readers will refuse to pay for internet news. So how to fund journalism?

I propose that we use the BBC as a model. A modest annual tax on internet service providers can be distributed equally among internet newspapers, enabling them to hire more staff and do more overseas and investigative reporting. Of course, there will be endless wrangling over what constitutes a "newspaper" on the internet -- blogs, obviously, are out -- and also over what constitutes objective reportage. But if everyone understood that an obviously skewed news publisher would lose its subsidy, there would be an incentive to provide unbiased coverage.

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Ending privacy? There's an app for that!

I may have mentioned this before, but: You know that when folding money gets old, it is sent to an official location for disposal, right? Well, do you know how the aged bills get where they need to go?

The mail.

You probably thought that armored cars might come into the picture, but they don't. An armored car tells crooks where the money is. A long time ago, the government discovered that old money travels safer when "hidden in plain sight" within the postal system.

Computers are like that. If you try to hide your IP address by using TOR or some other proxy system, you are telling Uncle: "Hey, Uncle -- looky here! Secret stuff! I'm doing secret stuff that I don't want you to know about!" Using TOR is, in this sense, like driving an armored car.

The fiends who dote on kiddie porn have long relied on TOR. Some of them recently learned all about the principle described above. The folks at the FBI (and SAIC, it seems) have come up with a spyware called CIPAV which is designed to crack the anonymity provided by TOR.

Court documents and FBI files released under the FOIA have described the CIPAV as software the FBI can deliver through a browser exploit to gather information from the target’s machine and send it to an FBI server in Virginia. The FBI has been using the CIPAV since 2002 against hackers, online sexual predators, extortionists, and others, primarily to identify suspects who are disguising their location using proxy servers or anonymity services, like Tor.

The code has been used sparingly in the past, which kept it from leaking out and being analyzed or added to anti-virus databases.

The broad Freedom Hosting deployment of the malware coincides with the arrest of Eric Eoin Marques in Ireland on Thursday on an U.S. extradition request. The Irish Independent reports that Marques is wanted for distributing child pornography in a federal case filed in Maryland, and quotes an FBI special agent describing Marques as “the largest facilitator of child porn on the planet.”

I put the words "and others" in boldface for a reason.

The problem with CIPAV and cognate technologies should be obvious: If we allow the feds to use spyware against people we hate -- like child pornographers -- we inevitably allow its use against...others. If you read the Wired article at the other end of the link above, you'll come across a comment from a right-wing reader which deserves to be noted here:

Terrorists, drug dealers, child porn scum & Tea Party members are the current "enemies" of the FBI, etc. How easy would it be to expand that list to "anyone who gives $ to the political opponents of the current (liberal or conservative) administration"?

I may not agree with this guy's conservative political stance, and I hardly believe that the Tea Party has been treated as an "enemy." (The baggers certainly are having an easier time of it than did members of the Communist Party in the old days.) Nevertheless, the principle expressed here is sound.

Child pornographers are scum. But software designed to end privacy for scum may also be used against non-scum. And if you think you have nothing to hide -- well, one day you may live a more interesting life. One day you may decide that the government has gone too far, has changed too much, has strayed from our founding principles -- has ceased to be a true democracy. You may decide that the time has come to restore what was lost.

But you won't be able to do so. Uncle will always be one step ahead of you, watching everything you do.

And remember: If Uncle can access your system, then he can also plant things on it -- after all, he knows your passwords. Uncle can even insert items into your twitter feed or use your email account to send contraband.

Contraband like child porn.

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Egypt

Pro-Morsi Egyptians blame Obama for supporting the coup against Morsi. Anti-Morsi Egyptians blame Obama for supporting Morsi.

Barack Obama has become a blank slate upon which one may write any story one chooses.

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New spook stuff

You've probably seen all the headlines about the very, very serious Al Qaeda threat that those brave folks at the NSA have uncovered. See, for example, here...

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, revealed on Sunday that the National Security Agency's controversial surveillance programs uncovered information about current terrorist threats to the United States.

"These programs are controversial, we understand that," Chambliss said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "But they are also very important... If we did not have these programs, then we simply would not be able to listen in on the bad guys."

Subtle. Real subtle.

Of course, you don't get to run an intel committee unless the spooks already have you in their collective pocket.

Also see here:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said Sunday that the terror threats, which forced the U.S. to close 22 embassies and consulates Sunday, further verify why the NSA surveillance programs need to be kept in place.

"The NSA program is proving its worth yet again," he said on "State of the Union."

"To the members of Congress who want to reform the NSA program, great," he told Candy Crowley, CNN's chief political correspondent. "If you want to gut it, you make us much less safe, and you're putting our nation at risk. We need to have policies in place that can deal with the threats that exist, and they are real, and they are growing."

Subtle. Real subtle.

Do we need any further evidence? This whole thing is bullshit. Just look at the timing, for chrissakes: In recent days, we've seen the rise of an unprecedented left/right (or liberal/libertarian) coalition against NSA abuses. And suddenly...this.

If anything "goes boom" in the Middle East, my initial suspicions will point to a little-known terrorist called Mohammed Al-FortMeadi. Here's my message to Keithy-poo, the head of No Such Agency: Nobody with a three-digit IQ is gonna buy this crap, General. It's all just too effing convenient, and your mouthpieces are too effing obvious.

Lindsay's on a roll:

Graham, who’s on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said this was the appropriate action, compared with actions before last year’s terror attack against a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

“The threats were real there. The reporting was real. And we basically dropped the ball,” he said. “We've learned from Benghazi, thank God, and the administration is doing this right.”

Yeah. About Benghazi... The right has been crowing, in recent days, that the recent revelation that there were (gasp!) CIA operatives in the Benghazi consulate proves everything they've ever said about what happened there. What nonsense.

First: There are CIA guys crawling all over every U.S. embassy and consulate on the planet. Everyone knows this. It's hardly a surprise.

Second: Just because Benghazi got into the news headlines (via Jake Tapper of ABC) doesn't mean that the far right's inane theories -- which received an airing in the presidential debates -- ever had any merit.

If you will recall, the big complaint then was that the Obama administration had tried to blame the attack on a spontaneous demonstration by locals outraged by the Innocence of Muslims movie (a SpookWays Presentation). In fact, Obama had labeled the attack an "act of terror" early on. On the day of the attack, administration officials told newsmen that evidence indicated that the attackers were well-equipped and had "some level of advanced planning." Yes, outraged locals did launch a demonstration; their protest offered cover to the militants.

In the real world, that's how it all went down. But the far-rightists said otherwise, over and over and over and over. They maintained their "party line" on Benghazi in total defiance of the emerging facts. Why? Because they wanted their doltish followers to think that Obama was protecting the terrorists. And why would Obama protect the terrorists? Because, in their fevered imaginations, Obama himself is a secret Mooooooo-zlim.

Needless to say, this charge was, and is, ludicrous.

That ludicrous charge has no relationship -- none, nada, zippo -- to anything that Jake Tapper wrote about. Tapper discovered that CIA operatives in Libya have been polygraphed repeatedly to determine whether anyone has blabbed about what the CIA was getting up to.

"Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that," said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.

In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

"If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it's called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they're looking for something, or they're on a fishing expedition. But it's absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly," said Baer.

I've thought from the beginning that the right's focus on Benghazi -- an obsession continually in search of a justification -- had its origin point in a leak from a right-wing American intelligence operative.

Here's my suggested scenario: A leaker told the right-wing press that the CIA was doing something really important and really secret at the Benghazi consulate. A plan then formed around that small nugget of information. If the CIA had a super-secret project going on at that consulate, the administration would have to hide it. And once the administration went into "hide the shit" mode, the right-wing propagandists could pretend that the shit being hidden was...well, whatever nonsensical thing their feverish minds could come up with. Benghazi became a screen onto which one could project all sorts of fantasies. As in: "Obama's working with the terrorists because he's a Mooooooooo-zlim!"

So the polygraphs were almost certainly instituted to find out who acted as a mole for the Murdochian hordes. But we're still left with an obvious question: Just what was the CIA up to in that consulate?

Tapper:

In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk.

Then suddenly, there was silence.

"Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you're subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you're forced to come before Congress. Now that's all changed," said Wolf.

Lawmakers also want to know about the weapons in Libya, and what happened to them.

Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.

It is clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in Benghazi, one was the State Department, and the other was the CIA.

The State Department told CNN in an e-mail that it was only helping the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed "damaged, aged or too unsafe retain," and that it was not involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries.

But the State Department also clearly told CNN, they "can't speak for any other agencies."

The CIA would not comment on whether it was involved in the transfer of any weapons.

So the signs point to an arms shipment to the Syrian rebels. Which raises one point that seems staggeringly obvious -- so staggeringly obvious that no-one has bothered to mention it: Why would jihadist groups in Libya want to disrupt those shipments?

Think about it. If arms were indeed being transferred from Libya to Syria, they almost certainly went to Al Nusrah, because that group has been the real muscle in the fight to topple Assad of Syria. Nusrah is very jihad-oriented, and very nasty. (They killed a priest not long ago.) Compared to them, the guys in Ansar al Shariah -- the militant group which (probably) attacked the embassy in Benghazi -- are a bunch of daisy-sniffers.

Instead of burning down the consulate, the Ansar al Shariah militants should have offered to help.

As near as I can tell, the only writer who has noticed this issue is right-wing blogger John Hinderaker...

It seems unlikely that the CIA mission prompted the attack: we now know that the Syrian rebels consist in substantial part of al Qaeda elements, and if arms were sent from Libya to Syria, al Qaeda probably wound up with some of them. So why would al Qaeda want to interrupt the CIA mission via an attack on the American compound in Benghazi?

I hate to link to a guy who has Brietbart on his blogroll, but the man has a point. He's also honest enough to admit that, at the time, many right-wingers supported arming the Syrian rebels. (Many still do.)

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Old spook stuff

A few readers have asked me to drop the other shoe. An earlier post mentioned the late former CIA Director Richard Helms, and I hinted that I knew a cute story about him. Time to tell it.

In 1993, PBS broadcast a rather infamous Frontline special on Lee Harvey Oswald. I say "infamous" not just because the show favored the lone nut scenario -- no surprise there -- but because, during production, certain spooked-up pseudo-journalists associated with the show (I'm thinking particularly of a guy named Gus) privately told JFK researchers that the program would establish, once and for all, that LHO had worked for the CIA. This lie bought a lot of cooperation which otherwise might not have been forthcoming.

The program featured an interview with Helms, perhaps the cagiest and shiftiest of the CIA chieftains. Oliver Stone's Nixon originally contained a deleted scene in which the whites of Helms' eyes suddenly go black. The scene should have stayed in the movie, because its poetic truth is undeniable.

Former Army Intelligence officer John Newman, author of a supremely important work called Oswald and the CIA, also appeared on that Frontline special. After his scenes were shot, he remained on the set while Richard Helms took his turn in front of the cameras.

Before we proceed with this story, you must understand one thing: Over the years, the CIA has always maintained that no-one from the Agency -- indeed, no-one from the entire government -- had debriefed Lee Harvey Oswald after the supposed defector returned to the United States. During the interview, Helms repeated this story.

When the cameras stopped, Newman stepped forward and asked: ""Mr. Director, what would be so bad about the CIA interviewing Oswald on his return from Russia? I mean, isn't that what they were supposed to do? Doesn't it therefore look bad if you say you didn't?"

Helms thought it over, and somewhere beneath those all-ebony eyes, a lightbulb went on. He said: "You're right."

And then he told the director that he wanted to re-film part of the interview. This time, he would say that the CIA did debrief Oswald!

The director decided not to roll the cameras again. Too bad. I would have loved to see the two versions of that statement spliced together. Such a comparison not only would have proved the CIA's willingness to lie in the JFK case, it would have told Americans how to react whenever the spook leadership (I'm thinking particularly of a guy named Keith) says: "Hey, you can trust us...!"

The question arises: Why wouldn't the CIA debrief Oswald?

Turns out, they did. We know this from a guy named Don Deneselya, who had worked as a translator for CIA in 1962. Deneselya told Professor Joan Mellen that, to his certain knowledge, Oswald was indeed a fake defector, working for the CIA all along. Upon his return, LHO was interviewed by one Andy Anderson, who reported directly to Robert Crowley, who was very close to...

...wait for it...

...Jim Angleton. The ultra-paranoid Angleton, ostensibly the head of counterintelligence, ran a CIA-within-the-CIA. He was (as that guy in Inception might have put it) a man of some radical notions. For one thing, Angleton denied the reality of the split between China and the USSR. For another thing, he concluded that British PM Harold Wilson and Swedish PM Olaf Palme were Soviet agents.

Some of you may be familiar with what happened to those two guys. Wilson was the victim of an epic smear campaign; Palme was murdered. 

Angleton drank a lot (and by "a lot," I mean a lot) and he had private motives for his many resentments. A dangerous man to hold such power.

I believe that Angelton masterminded the hit against JFK. This review of Newman's book gives some of my reasons. Basically, we have much evidence indicating that Angleton ran LHO all along. The whole "Oswald in Mexico" excursion has Angleton's fingerprints all over it.

I don't think that Oswald ever actually went to Mexico. His wife denied it. J. Edgar Hoover privately said LHO had been impersonated. Oswald was seen in Texas at a time when he was supposedly traveling south. The "Oswald" photographed and recorded by CIA operatives in Mexico looked and sounded nothing like the real guy.

The CIA station chief in Mexico, Win Scott, had tapes of the psuedo-Oswald stashed in his safe. When Scott died in 1971, a high-ranking CIA officer -- in such a rush that he forgot his passport -- flew down to Mexico to grab the contents of that safe. The name of that officer was...

...wait for it...

...James Jesus Angleton.

He had a history of such burglaries. There was the time when his "mole" in French intelligence, Philippe di Vosjoli, helped him break into the French embassy. (Alfred Hitchock's worst movie, Topaz, gives a ludicrously false accounting of the Angleton/di Vosjoli relationship.) Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post, reported that Angleton broke into Mary Pinchot Meyer's pad after she had been murdered. (Meyer, the estranged wife of CIA man Cord Meyer, reportedly had an affair with Kennedy.)

But my favorite tale of Angletonian burglary involves J. Edgar Hoover's blackmail files.

Cool story, that. I'll tell you all about it on some other Sunday.

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Has Uncle Sam partnered up with Al Qaeda?

According to the NYT, a message from Al Qaeda is the reason why so many embassies went on alert:

The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday.

As I suspected would happen, we're seeing stories designed to emphasize the wonderful, heroic efforts of our noble NSA eavesdroppers, thereby justifying the great anti-Snowden campaign.

Remember the heightened terrorist "threat level" alerts throughout the 2004 campaign? Remember how those orange alerts completely disappeared after the election? Same shit.

Back to the current story:

It is unusual for the United States to come across discussions among senior Qaeda operatives about operational planning — through informants, intercepted e-mails or eavesdropping on cellphone calls. So when the high-level intercepts were collected and analyzed this week, senior officials at the C.I.A., State Department and White House immediately seized on their significance. Members of Congress have been provided classified briefings on the matter, officials said Friday.

“This was a lot more than the usual chatter,” said one senior American official who had been briefed on the information but would not provide details.

Odd. Very odd. Any number of previous stories have established that the jihadis know full well that their communications are not secure. Even before 9/11, as you will recall, Al Qaeda referred to the great event as a "big wedding." Are we to believe that now -- after the Snowden revelations have everyone on the whole freakin' planet talking about the NSA -- the jihadis have suddenly turned as chatty as a bunch of teenaged girls on the phone? No caution, no euphemisms, no nothin'?

Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.

Looks like I'm not alone in my cynicism.

Y'know why I'm so cynical? Because there is increasing evidence that -- at least in certain parts of the world, on certain occasions -- the US has partnered up with Al Qaeda, or at least with whatever is left of Al Qaeda.

Take Syria, for example. Despite all of the planted bullshit stories that have attempted to divert us from the truth, the world knows that the actual muscle behind the U.S.-backed Syrian rebellion is an Al Qaeda-related group called the Al-Nusrah Front. You may recall this piece from the London Telegraph:

The group is well funded – probably through established global jihadist networks – in comparison to moderates. Meanwhile pro-democracy rebel group commanders say money from foreign governments has all but dried up because of fears over radical Islamists.

The funding did not come from "established jihadist networks," unless you want to interpret that phrase in a very ironic way. The Obama administration has been backing the Syrian rebellion, in which Al Nusah has been both the most effective force and something of a public-relations nightmare.

And now we learn that the same pattern has re-asserted itself in Afghanistan. The following comes from Bloomberg:

Supporters of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan have been getting U.S. military contracts, and American officials are citing “due process rights” as a reason not to cancel the agreements, according to an independent agency monitoring spending.

The U.S. Army Suspension and Debarment Office has declined to act in 43 such cases, John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, said today in a letter accompanying a quarterly report to Congress.

“I am deeply troubled that the U.S. military can pursue, attack, and even kill terrorists and their supporters, but that some in the U.S. government believe we cannot prevent these same people from receiving a government contract,” Sopko said.

Regarding the 43 cases of contractors with militant connections, Sopko said the Army should “enforce the rule of common sense” in its suspension and debarment program. “They may be enemies of the United States but that is not enough to keep them from getting government contracts,” according to the agency’s report.

George Wright, another Army spokesman, said by e-mail that cutting off the contracts based only on information from Sopko’s office “would fail to meet due-process requirements and would likely be deemed arbitrary if challenged in court.”

Sopko said the Army “appears to believe that suspension or debarment of these individuals and companies would be a violation of their due-process rights if based on classified information” or on Commerce Department reports.

Well, at least the government is willing to protect someone's rights.

Maybe the granting of those contracts was linked to a request for a little favor...

"If you want the money, Mustapha, fine -- but you have to do something for us in return. Next time you're on the phone with your buddies, say something about a plan to blow up an American embassy. An embassy in -- oh, I dunno. Cairo. Jordan. Something like that. Speak very clearly. Not too fast. Our transcription software is still a little buggy..."

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Spooky times

Too bad I have to dash off and do some errands today, because much is happening. Quickly:

1. A terror threat linked to Al Qaeda has shut down embassies around the Middle East.

A terror threat prompted the State Department on Thursday to direct its embassies in key Middle East nations, including Egypt and Israel, to close on Sunday with the possibility they could remain idle longer.

A U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly on the matter called the threat "credible and serious."

It was "directed at American targets overseas," but may not be confined to main diplomatic facilities, the official said.

I'm not sure how much a threat Al Qaeda actually poses these days. There are those who will tell you that Al Qaeda is no longer, like, a thing, or at least not a large thing, not as large as it once was. At any rate, this Wag-the-Doggish business certainly seems awfully well-timed, coming as it does on the heels of the Snowden affair.

Speaking of which...

2. Michael Hayden, former DCI, has expressed a "hang 'em high" attitude toward Snowden.

Mr. Hayden said he does not endorse some forms of exemplary punishment, “what the French call ‘for the encouragement of others.’”

But if hackers “have this attachment to transparency, perhaps the intelligence community is not where they should be,” he said, adding that the government needs to use the Snowden case to show that it is “serious.”

The former director of both the NSA and CIA said it is “very appropriate” for the U.S. government to pursue Mr. Snowden relentlessly and make his fate an issue in its bilateral relations with any nation that harbors him.

In other words, Hayden DOES endorse exemplary punishment. He reminds me of the 1920s Klan member who said "I don't endorse lynching, but..."

By the way, the above link takes you to a Moonie Times piece. Guess I should have warned you about that. The article opens with a truly delicious bit:

When retired Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden headed the CIA, one question vexed him so much that he set up a special working group of his private-sector advisory board to help him answer it: “Will America be able to conduct espionage in the future, inside a political culture that every day demands more and more transparency in every facet of national life?”

Mr. Hayden said the working group, headed by former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, “came back with the answer, more or less: ‘We’re not sure.’”

Yeah. As if that's the problem with today's U.S.: Too much transparency.

Good old Mikey. He always did know how to make me laugh. In the real world, of course, our spook infrastructure is about as transparent as concrete.

By the way -- wasn't Mikey the one who called in Booz-Hamilton to do work for the NSA...?

So let's put item one and item two together into one cohesive narrative. The Spookland chieftains are attending a hackers' conference in Vegas, where they hope to do some recruiting. Of course, the hackers are asking those chieftains to justify Spookland's Orwellian ways, because anyone who has looked deeply into the matter (as have most of those hackers in Vegas) can tell you that the NSA's cyber-totalitarianism hasn't even foiled any actual terror plots.

And so now, today, on cue, we have some really scary news headlines about...

I don't really need to finish that thought, do I?

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Snowden's out! Plus: XKeyscore

He has been granted a year in Russia.

I'd like to think that my letter to the Minister of Justice had something to do with this turn of events, but it didn't.

What does it say about what this country has come to, if we have reached the point where an American spy agency employee goes the Russia for asylum -- and he claims potential political persecution if he goes back to the U.S. -- and most Americans approve of his actions?

What does it say about America that the man's father, a gung-ho pro-America type, tells reporters that he's glad his son isn't coming home?

“If he comes back to the United States, he is going to be treated horribly,” Lon Snowden said. “He is going to be thrown into a hole. He is not going to be allowed to speak.”

Meanwhile, the latest Glenn Greenwald piece on the NSA talks about something called XKeyscore, which scoops up everything you do on the internet, including emails.

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Remember when so many people scoffed at Snowden's claim that he could wiretap anyone, even as he sat at his desk?

US officials vehemently denied this specific claim. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said of Snowden's assertion: "He's lying. It's impossible for him to do what he was saying he could do."

But training materials for XKeyscore detail how analysts can use it and other systems to mine enormous agency databases by filling in a simple on-screen form giving only a broad justification for the search. The request is not reviewed by a court or any NSA personnel before it is processed.

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.

Analysts can also use XKeyscore and other NSA systems to obtain ongoing "real-time" interception of an individual's internet activity.

Things get particularly hair-raising when we look at the legal justification. FISA? We don't need no stinkin' FISA!

Under US law, the NSA is required to obtain an individualized Fisa warrant only if the target of their surveillance is a 'US person', though no such warrant is required for intercepting the communications of Americans with foreign targets.

Does this mean that if you chat with someone overseas, or your chat is routed through a foreign server, or you visit a foreign website, the NSA gets to log everything? I can't see how anyone's internet activity can stay 100 percent domestic for very long.

But it gets worse...

But XKeyscore provides the technological capability, if not the legal authority, to target even US persons for extensive electronic surveillance without a warrant provided that some identifying information, such as their email or IP address, is known to the analyst.

Even if the NSA claims that they will not use XKeyscore technology on American citizens without a warrant, we have to take them at their word. Yet the head of the NSA, Keith Alexander, has been caught lying to Congress (although he explained away his lies via the usual slippery rationalizations). So how we can we trust the NSA?

There is no oversight. Congress is obviously clueless -- and the congressfolk themselves are open to blackmail.

Think about it: The NSA would not build a system capable of real time interception of your internet activity unless it was going to do just that.

Incidentally, Keith -- we might as well be on a first-name basis with him, since he knows all of us so well -- spoke to the big hackers conference in Vegas, and braved a great deal of heckling. The following exchange seems straight out of Stephen Colbert...

"Our nation takes stopping terrorism as one of the most important things," he said, standing in short sleeves with a slide on the screen behind him showing a timeline and the number of foiled plots.

"Freedom!" one man shouted from the middle of the standing-room crowd.
View gallery."

"Exactly. And with that, when you think about it, how do we do that? Because we stand for freedom," Alexander said.

"Bulls--t," the heckler said.

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Manning found guilty on most charges, but not of "aiding the enemy"

From CNN:

Wikileaks on Tuesday said the conviction of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning sets "a dangerous precedent and (is) an example of national security extremism."

"It is a short sighted judgment that can not be tolerated and must be reversed," the group said in a statement. "It can never be that conveying true information to the public is 'espionage'."

I like that phrase -- "national security extremism." Even so, I can see how publicizing secret information might count as espionage in certain instances. For example: If a German sympathizer had found out the date for D-Day and transmitted that information to the general public ahead of time, thereby spoiling Allied plans, that might be construed as espionage, and as aiding the enemy

But I don't think that what Manning did belongs in that category.

A military judge has found Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of the largest leak of classified information in U.S. history, not guilty of aiding the enemy -- a charge that would have carried a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Manning was also found not guilty of unauthorized possession of information relating to national defense.

He was found guilty of most of the remaining charges against him, with the judge, Col. Denise Lind, accepting only two of the guilty pleas he had made previously to lesser charges. Those two were possession of a video that was marked classified and that he exceeded authority by obtaining a State Department cable.

Though those two counts carry a maximum sentence of two years, the rest of the charges that Manning was found guilty of could lead to a maximum sentence of 136 years in prison.

Norman Solomon's response deserves note:

Days ago, in closing argument, the prosecutor at Fort Meade thundered: "He was not a whistleblower; he was a traitor."

But a "traitor" to what? To the United States... only if the United States is to be a warfare state, where we "cannot make informed decisions as a public." Only if we obey orders to separate ourselves from the humanity of others. Only if authoritative, numbing myths are to trump empathy and hide painful truth.

Just so. It is obvious that Manning released the video not out of hatred or jealousy but empathy, and that any attempt to ascribe baser motive is strained. Just as obviously, the United States government came down hard on the guy not because releasing that video harmed our security, but because that video embarrassed the military. One might even draw a parallel to the Dreyfuss case.

As Amnesty International said:

“The government’s priorities are upside down. The US government has refused to investigate credible allegations of torture and other crimes under international law despite overwhelming evidence.

“Yet they decided to prosecute Manning who it seems was trying to do the right thing – reveal credible evidence of unlawful behaviour by the government. You investigate and prosecute those who destroy the credibility of the government by engaging in acts such as torture which are prohibited under the US Constitution and in international law.

“The government’s pursuit of the ‘aiding the enemy’ charge was a serious overreach of the law, not least because there was no credible evidence of Manning’s intent to harm the USA by releasing classified information to WikiLeaks.

“Since the attacks of September 11, we have seen the US government use the issue of national security to defend a whole range of actions that are unlawful under international and domestic law.

“It’s hard not to draw the conclusion that Manning’s trial was about sending a message: the US government will come after you, no holds barred, if you’re thinking of revealing evidence of its unlawful behaviour.”

Brad Friedman has published some interesting "tweets of reaction":

Ali Abunimah @AliAbunimah

Undeniable fact is that if #BradleyManning had illegally tortured people for the CIA, Obama would’ve protected him from trial. End of story.

Cenk Uygur ✔ @cenkuygur

Does anyone really believe that if Bradley Manning had committed war crimes instead of exposing them that he would be in bigger trouble?

Cenk Uygur ✔ @cenkuygur

What punishment did the commander in charge of Abu Ghraib torture get? $8,000 fine.

It's hard to believe that in 2008, the Barack Obama campaign issued these words:

We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government.

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A new low in religious hypocrisy

Slate has published a story about the brouhaha surrounding a book I've not yet read: Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

I caught Aslan on The Daily Show and disagreed with his take on Jesus. Aslan obviously thinks that Jesus sympathized with the anti-Roman revolutionary movement; I think otherwise.

As noted in an earlier post, my interpretation of the "Jerusalem is doomed" passages in the Gospels differs from the views held by most academics. I think that those passages constitute nothing more -- and nothing less -- than a wise reading of the political situation: Jesus could smell rebellion in the air, and he could guess how that rebellion would end. His "foreknowledge" had nothing to do with ESP and everything to do with common sense. (Josephus seems to have had the same "foreknowledge," although he briefly joined the rebellion anyways.) If Alsan's theory is right, why would Jesus sympathize with a revolution that he knew could only end badly for Israel?

Aslan probably considers the "Jerusalem is doomed" passages to be material added by later writers. And that's the problem with most modern New Testament scholarship: It's possible to create any Jesus you want. The trick is simple: You read the Gospels, you pick out a few bits that you like, you say "These parts are true" -- and then you dismiss everything else as spurious.

This approach has some validity, or at least inevitability, since the Gospels do, in fact, present true (or true-ish) material encrusted with barnacles of fiction. Most modern scholars would, for example, agree with my presumption that the crucifixion accounts have a strong historical basis, while the nativity stories are far more questionable.

But how do you distinguish the rock from the barnacles? Alas, too many scholars pick and choose their "truths" based on their pet theories -- and that's where the problems set in. Thus, James Tabor, in The Jesus Dynasty, takes very seriously the (conflicting) "ancestry of Jesus" lists in Luke and Matthew -- even though Luke's list goes all the way back to Adam! Most other scholars consider those lists dubious; personally, I think they're downright ridiculous. Yet they fit Tabor's pet theory, so he treats the silly things as...well, as Gospel.

As noted above, I haven't read Aslan's book yet, but I fully expect him to play a game similar to Tabor's. That said, such books can be very interesting. You don't have to agree with a work to get something out of it.

Although guys like Ehrman, Crossan and Tabor tend to annoy the religious right, the reaction against Aslan has been very different. Aslan is despised in a way those three are not. Why? Because he is a Muslim. At least, he comes from a Muslim background; I don't know if he is devout.

Right now, the Islamophobes are doubling down on their bigotry. And they are using Aslan as their whipping boy.

Here's how Slate tells the story:

It’s got plenty of competition but this may just be the single most cringe-worthy, embarrassing interview broadcast on Fox News. At least in recent memory. Fox News anchor Lauren Green had religious scholar Reza Aslan on her show Friday to talk about Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, his book that has been stirring up some online controversy recently. And right off the bat, Green gets to what is important: “You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?” Aslan seemed a little flabbergasted: “Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim.”

But Green just wouldn’t let it go: “It still begs the question though, why would you be interested in the founder of Christianity?” Aslan then starts talking to Green slowly, as if she were a child: “Because it’s my job as an academic. I am a professor of religion, including the New Testament. That’s what I do for a living, actually.” But Green insisted, accusing him of failing to “disclose” that he’s a Muslim and at one point asking him about a stupefying claim on whether a Muslim writing a book on Jesus isn’t sort of like a Democrat writing a book on former president Ronald Reagan.

Aslan has become the target of anti-muslim rhetoric this past week as he’s made numerous media appearances to publicize his book. Author and pastor John Dickerson harshly criticized media outlets on FoxNews.com, saying reporters “have failed to mention [Aslan] is a devout Muslim.” In a piece for WorldNetDaily, Pamela Geller writes that “jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.” Many who share these views have taken to Amazon to give the book one-star reviews. Aslan “is a Muslim and not a historian,” reads one of the one-star reviews.

As if Muslims cannot be historians...!

Tellingly, these bigots never dare to address the question of whether Jews may write about Jesus. Many Jews have done so, and they have often had some important and interesting things to say. Maimonides wrote about Jesus in the 12th century. Some of you may know the famous story of Nahmanides and the great dispute in Barcelona. Here's a modern Jew who writes about Jesus -- and in the process, he praises Aslan's book.

Moreover, if the risible Pamela Geller really thinks that no Muslim scholar should write about Jesus, then shouldn't the restrictions also work the other way? Do scholars who hail from a Jewish or Christian heritage have the right to write about Muhammed?

Of course they do. Anyone from any background may write on any topic that he or she considers intriguing. Granted, what you write won't be of much value to others if you refuse to do your homework, or if you lack the talent for original thought.

A year ago, I read a book called Did Muhammed Exist? by Robert Spencer. At the time, I didn't know who Spencer is. I later discovered that he's a Greek Melkite Christian and an anti-jihadist firebrand who often works with Pamela Geller. As you know, I don't like Geller, and thus I'm not likely to admire anyone who pals around with her.

Nevertheless, his book is a fascinating read. Perhaps perversely, I came away from it convinced of Muhammed's historicity -- even though, as with Jesus, barnacles of fiction formed around the facts. Spencer deserves credit for arguing fairly: He gives the reader enough evidence to walk away with a conclusion differing from the one he intends.

For a while now, I've toyed with the notion of writing a Sunday post comparing Spencer's work with that of popular dimwits like "Archaya X" who argue for the nonexistence of Jesus. We've discussed the "mythicist" issue in a previous post. As Bart Ehrman notes in his excellent recent book on the topic, virtually all New Testament scholars (most of whom are agnostics or atheists or not-conventionally-religious) concede the existence of Jesus. Yet "evangelical atheists" of the Richard Dawkins school seem to be under the impression that the "myth" theory represents the scholarly consensus, even though the opposite is true.

Most of the people who think this way are young, arrogant ninnies who would rather poke out their own eyes than read a book with footnotes.

So why do these young, arrogant ninnies want to believe that Jesus was a completely mythical personage? Because -- to put it bluntly -- they've got a bug up their asses about Christianity, and because these smirky twerps like to think that they're smarter than other people. For most of these kids, fundamentalist Protestant Christianity is the only variant they know, and I can certainly understand why they've learned to dislike it. For them, the "myth" theory fulfills a psychological need. It's their way of exacting revenge.

Spencer, I think, has similar motives. He hates Islam passionately, so he has a psychological need to strike it at the core. But unlike the smirky young twerps who dote on Archaya X and the Zeitgeist pseudodocumentary, Spencer is willing to do actual research. Thus, his work is far easier to recommend.

As noted above, I wasn't persuaded by his argument, well-mounted as it is. We know from the history of recently-born religions -- and by "recently," I mean the past two centuries, for which we have good records -- that religions do not make themselves. Religions have founders. Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard were demonstrably real people. Even though their followers have tried to affix "barnacles of fiction" to their histories, those barnacles cannot erase the fact that a new faith always has a father. (Can you name an exception? Even the cargo cults trace back to an historical figure named Tuka.) Such has been the pattern during the past two centuries; such, I believe, was the pattern in antiquity.

Now, I told you all of the above mainly to introduce you to Spencer and his book. My purpose is to ask an obvious question: If Spencer can write about Muhammed, why can't Aslan write about Jesus? Fair is fair.

Believe it or not, instead of avoiding the comparison to Spencer, Geller -- who positively luxuriates in hypocrisy -- is very quick to mention the guy, even as she trashes Aslan:

Robert Spencer is a writer without peer and a nonpareil scholar, the author of 12 books on Islam, jihad and related topics, including two New York Times bestsellers. Yet “Did Muhammad Exist?” was ignored and dismissed by the intelligentsia, the media elite and subversive academia.

Juxtapose that to the recent adulation heaped upon the Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan for his new book. Aslan is an advisory board member of the National Iranian American Council, which has been recently exposed in court as a lobbying group for the Iranian regime. He has smeared and lied about Spencer and me on national television, and responded to Spencer’s reasoned rebuttals with homophobic abuse worthy of a seventh-grader...

Of course, nothing Aslan said resembles homophobia.

You should ask yourself, how did we get here? How can a reasonable, educated and pre-eminent scholar like Robert Spencer be relegated to the very fringe (if that) of the literary world, while jihadist operatives like the vicious Reza Aslan are carried on the shoulders of the media and intelligentsia like a football hero at the end of an impossibly fought game.

See if you can catch the big problem in this next bit:

Clearly, Robert could have entitled his book “Pedophile,” because we know that Muhammad’s favorite wife was taken at the age of 6 and that their “marriage” was consummated when the Muslim prophet was 54 and she was 9. Spencer could also have called his book “Annihilator,” because we know that Muhammad slaughtered an entire Jewish tribe, the Banu Qurayza, by beheading. Surely Spencer exercised restraint in not entitling his book “Bloody Warmonger.” Any of these would have been the equivalent of Aslan’s title “Zealot.”

In other words, Pam Geller is stipulating the existence of Muhammed -- thereby contradicting Spencer's thesis. A nonexistent person cannot also be a real-world annihilator. Geller is so caught up in the throes of rage-gasm that she cannot see her contradiction!

By the way: In the first century, the word zealot meant "rebel," not "fanatic." The title of Aslan's book is not an insult; it refers to a theory of Jesus' political motive. Even though I consider that theory wrongheaded, we should note that the same idea has been voiced by many others; it may be considered one of the standard "theories of Jesus." 

If you have seen Aslan's teevee appearances, you're probably asking the same question I'm asking: Geller wants us to think that guy is a jihadi? She must be kidding!

Aslan is a scholar, not an Islamic polemicist. The view of Jesus he has presented (at least on television) conflicts with the view of Jesus one finds in the Koran.

Islam's holy book does not present Jesus as a zealot. Muslims have traditionally regarded Jesus as a great religious prophet, not as a political figure. If Aslan sees Jesus as an insurrectionist, he contradicts the standard Islamic view.

I very strongly doubt that Aslan accepts the beloved (by Muslims) tale of the Virgin Mary and the palm tree. The Koran also says that Jesus started talking shortly after birth; I suspect that Aslan would say that this tale contains, at best, only a poetic truth.

Most importantly: The Daily Show interview gave me the clear impression that Aslan thinks Jesus was, in fact, crucified. The reality of the crucifixion seems to be the crux of this scholar's argument. He thus contradicts the Koran's strange teaching that Jesus was not crucified (a view probably inspired by certain Gnostic sects). 

One should study one's enemies. How can Geller hate Islam so deeply if she doesn't even know the Islamic view of Jesus? How can she argue that Aslan is a Muslim propagandist -- or even a "jihadi" -- when he presents a "theory of Jesus" which (as far as I can tell) has no relation to anything in the Koran? Either Geller is ignorant of these matters, or she is captiously exploiting the ignorance of her readers.

Remember also: Spencer’s book was accurately and forthrightly entitled, “Did Muhammad Exist?” It’s a legitimate question, even though on the BBC recently an interviewer tried to badger Spencer into admitting that there was something wrong, and offensive to Muslims, with even investigating this historical question.

I haven't seen the interview (and would appreciate a link to it, if it's on the net), but I doubt that any BBC interviewer would argue for limiting scholarship. I understand that the BBC itself has, at least glancingly, addressed the historicity question in a documentary about Mohammed.

By the way: One cannot fairly argue that Spencer's book was ignored if the BBC interviewed him.

Geller's outrageous double standard should be obvious: If Spencer has every right to argue that Muhammed is mythical -- and indeed he does -- then Aslan has every right to argue that Jesus was an anti-Roman rebel. Although I don't agree with either proposition, I think that there's a bit more evidence for Aslan's view than for Spencer's.

Some people mainline heroin. Some people mainline hate. Pam Geller has injected a lot of the latter into her veins -- but lately, her drug of choice seems to be hypocrisy.

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That's one dangerous piece of geography

This comes a piece (one of those "list" articles) on allegedly haunted movie shoots. Concerning The Omen:

An animal handler was eaten alive by lions and a set location bombed the IRA.

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Control

1. More on Holder. Although I have received no response from the Russian Ministry of Justice, I am happy to report that A.G. Eric Holder's remarkable letter is getting the kind of attention it deserves. Bill Black:

The idea that the Attorney General of the United States of America would send such a letter to the representative of a foreign government, particularly Russia under the leadership of a former KGB official, was so preposterous that I thought the first news report I read about Attorney General Holder’s letter concerning Edward Snowden was satire. The joke, however, was on me. The Obama and Bush administrations have so disgraced the reputation of the United States’ criminal justice system that we are forced to promise KGB alums that we will not torture our own citizens if Russia extradites them for prosecution.

To be fair, Konovalov has no KGB history that I know of. He's only 44. And a religious fellow never would have gotten into the old KGB.

Holder phrased his explanation in a manner that suggests he was trying to be clever: “Torture is unlawful in the United States.” “Gitmo,” of course, is not “in the United States.” The locations of the many secret prisons the U.S. established in other nations were chosen so that we could torture suspects. The infamous historical parallel for this is that it was unlawful to hold slaves in England – but England could dominate the Atlantic slave trade and hold millions of slaves in the Caribbean islands because slavery was unlawful only “in” England under English law.

More subtly, note that Holder says that torture is “unlawful” – not “illegal.” An act that is merely “unlawful” cannot be prosecuted as a crime. It may provide the basis for a civil suit. An “illegal” act can be prosecuted.

2. Cruise control. Some people still scoff at the notion that Michael Hastings' car (or your car) could be controlled by outside forces. Here's a BBC story in which two DARPA experts demonstrate how the job can be done by laptop.

They filmed themselves in the back of one of the vehicles steering it left and right, activating the brakes and showing the fuel gauge drop to zero, all while the vehicle was under driver control and in motion.
cable used in hack The cable used to connect the devices to the ECUs via the diagnostics port.

A spokesman for Toyota told the BBC that because the hardware had to be physically connected inside the car, he did not consider it to be "hacking".

"Altered control can only be made when the device is connected. After it is disconnected the car functions normally," he said.

"We don't consider that to be 'hacking' in the sense of creating unexpected behaviour, because the device must be connected - ie the control system of the car physically altered.

"The presence of a laptop or other device connected to the OBD [on board diagnostics] II port would be apparent."

The need for an OBD connection does seem to be the difficult part. Still, our spooks are an imaginative and resourceful lot.

I imagine that once a bad guy has slim-jimmed his way into the vehicle, it's simply a matter of slipping a small transmitter into the OBD. Such an alteration might well go unnoticed. This transmitter could send a wireless signal to another device hidden elsewhere. Would you notice if a 7-inch tablet were secreted under your seat?

Also see here.

3. And now...PLANES! A GPS flaw can allow "terrorists" to control a plane or a ship. (Notice how the idea of a spook doing such a thing is unmentionable.)

‘We injected our spoofing signals into its GPS antennas and we’re basically able to control its navigation system with our spoofing signals,’ Todd Humphreys of UT told the news station.

(There are certain conspiracy theorists, fixated on a certain event in 2001, who are now salivating at the chance to get their collective foot into this blog's door. NOT A CHANCE.)

4. Hate control. If you are a connoisseur of fake news, savor this. Normally, Fox wouldn't publish the ravings of a lunatic behind bars -- the lunatic, in this case, being former Army shrink Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood shooter. Normally, the government wouldn't allow said ravings to be recorded.

Conclusion: This whole thing is a set-up designed to rally the Islamophobic right. Check it out:

“My complicity was on behalf of a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land," the 42-year-old Army psychiatrist said.”

"...The supreme law of the land..." This sentiment ties right in with the delusions of our own Christian loonies, who desperately want to believe that Muslims are scheming to establish "the caliphate" in the United States. In reality, not even Osama Bin Laden ever expressed such a desire.

Frankly, I never paid much attention to the Fort Hood shooting -- until now. Perhaps I was wrong to take the news stories about that event at face value, because it sure seems as though Hasan is reading from a script. This guy ain't talking like a real jihadi. He's talking the way a jihadi talks in the imagination of your average Southern Baptist ninny who gets all his news from Fox. He's a jihadi from central casting.

(Sort of like LHO on communism, by way of Kerry Thornley.)

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Open letter to Alexander Konovalov, Russia's Minister of Justice

(This is the text of a letter I have sent via email to the Russian Ministry of Justice. Google provided the Russian translation. If some of the references seem obscure to you, you should know that Mr. Konovalov once considered a life at the Russian monastery on Mount Athos. The "inheritance and garden" quotation -- paraphrased below -- derives from the rich lore surrounding that place, which the Orthodox consider holy. If you want to send a letter of your own, the address is pr@minjust.ru.)

Я не знаю русского языка. Пожалуйста, передайте это письмо Александр Владимирович Коновалов, министр юстиции. Я надеюсь, что кто-то в министерстве может перевести это письмо должным образом. Я буду включать компьютерный перевод, который может быть неисправен.

His Excellency Alexander Vladimirovich Konovalov
Minister of Justice
The Russian Federation
14 Zhitnaya Ulitsa
Moscow 119991

Dear Mr. Minister,

I am an American political writer. I cannot claim to be an important writer, although I do have an audience. I am writing to you to plead on behalf of Edward Snowden, the former employee of our National Security Agency who has asked for your country to provide asylum.

Please help him. Edward Snowden is a man "seeking his inheritance and his garden, his haven of salvation for those seeking to be saved." In his case, the great land of Russia may provide the haven he seeks.

Four days ago, you received a letter from Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States. He assured you that "Mr. Snowden will not be tortured. Torture is unlawful in the United States."

That fact that an Attorney General feels a need to make such a statement indicates how far my country has declined. The United States of America has become infamous for the practice of torture. Although I love my country, I have seen it become far less civilized than it was when I was born.

Holder insulted you by telling you such an obvious falsehood. He also insulted both Russia and the United States of America.

I can disprove Holder's statement by mentioning one name: Yuri Nosenko. I'm sure you know the name. Americans and Russians may always disagree about what he did, but no-one can deny that CIA operatives imprisoned Nosenko without trial. They tortured him continually over the course of five years.

The example of Nosenko, by itself, proves Holder a liar. But I can cite more recent examples.

As I write, Private Bradley Manning is facing trial after years of confinement. Both Amnesty International and Juan E. Mendez, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, have confirmed that he received extremely inhumane treatment, including sleep deprivation, forced nudity and solitary confinement.

John Walker Lindh, accused of various terrorism-related offenses, was tortured harshly and repeatedly. His confession was obtained under duress. He entered into a plea bargain arrangement, the terms of which specify that he is not to discuss the torture he underwent. The fact that the U.S. government made such an arrangement constitutes a confession that the government does, in fact, conduct torture.

Jose Padilla was tortured while imprisoned. He underwent sleep deprivation, shackling, unbreathable fumes and enforced stress positions. He was forced to take LSD and other drugs.

The Bush administration admitted that it tortured Mohammed al-Qahtani. Charges against him were dropped because evidence had been obtained via torture.

The world knows about the torture undergone by other prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The world saw the photographic evidence proving that Americans conducted torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The world knows that the CIA has tortured prisoners at "black sites" around the world.

The world knows that the conditions in many American prisons are unnecessarily harsh and dehumanizing.

I have no doubt that many of the individuals mentioned above committed serious crimes. Unfortunately, many of my fellow Americans have forgotten that the laws against torture must apply to all prisoners, even to the ones accused of terrorism.

Bradley Manning's only real crime was releasing to the public a classified video that showed an atrocious act committed by the American military. This video, in my opinion, should not have been labeled "secret" in the first place.

Edward Snowden did not compromise the security of the United States. He strengthened it, by telling the American public that the United States has implemented a horrifying system of mass surveillance -- a system which contradicts the fourth amendment of our Constitution.

Saint Silouan the Athonite is said to have possessed the power to know the most secret thoughts of anyone who met him. Only a holy man should have such an ability. It is a blasphemy and a horror for my country's National Security Agency to attempt to learn all the secrets of all the world's inhabitants.

Perhaps Mr. Snowden was trying to make this very point.

I've always admired Russian culture and the Russian people. I hope you can give Edward Snowden a new home in your country.

Joseph Cannon
Editor of the website "Cannonfire"
http:cannonfire.blogspot.com
Maryland, United States of America


Его Превосходительство Александр Владимирович Коновалов
Министр юстиции
Русская Федерация
14 улица Житная
119991, г. Москва

Уважаемый господин министр,

Я американский политический писатель. Я не могу утверждать, что важным писателем, хотя у меня есть аудитория. Я пишу Вам, чтобы просить от имени Эдварда Сноудена, бывший сотрудник нашего Агентства национальной безопасности, который попросил для своей страны предоставить убежище.

Пожалуйста, помогите ему. Эдвард Сноудена это человек "ищет свое наследство и его сад, его гаванью спасения для тех, кто хочет спастись". В его случае, великая земля Россия может предоставить убежище он стремится.

Четыре дня назад вы получили письмо от Эрик Холдер, генеральный прокурор Соединенных Штатов. Он заверил, что "г-н Сноуден не будут пытать. Пыток является незаконным в США."

Тот факт, что генеральный прокурор чувствует необходимость сделать такое заявление, указывает, как далеко моей стране снизилась. Соединенных Штатов Америки стал позорный для практики пыток. Хотя я люблю свою страну, я видел это гораздо менее цивилизованным, чем это было, когда я родился.

Держатель оскорбил вас, говорю вам, такая очевидная ложь. Кроме того, он оскорбил и Россия, и Соединенные Штаты Америки.

Я могу опровергнуть заявления Держателя, упоминая одно имя: Юрий Носенко. Я уверен, что вы знаете имя. Американцы и русские всегда расходятся во мнениях относительно того, что он сделал, но никто не может отрицать, что сотрудники ЦРУ Носенко тюрьму без суда и следствия. Они пытали его постоянно в течение пяти лет.

Примером Носенко, сам по себе, доказывает Держатель лжецом. Я могу назвать недавних примеров.

Как я писал, частный Брэдли Мэннинг предстает перед судом после нескольких лет заключения. Оба Amnesty International и Хуан Э. Мендес Специальный докладчик ООН по вопросу о пытках, подтвердили, что он получил крайне бесчеловечное обращение, включая лишение сна, принудительный наготы и одиночной камере.

Джон Уокер Линд, обвиняемых в различных, связанных с терроризмом преступлений, пытали жестко и неоднократно. Его признание было получено под давлением. Он заключил сделку о признании вины расположение, условия, которые указывают, что он не обсуждать пытки он прошел. Тот факт, что правительство США сделали такое устройство представляет собой признание того, что делает правительство, по сути, проводят пытки.

Хосе Падилья был подвергнут пыткам, находясь в заключении. Он прошел лишение сна, кандалов, непригодным для дыхания паров и насильственные позиций стресса. Он был вынужден принять ЛСД и другие наркотики.

Администрация Буша признала, что пытали Мохаммед аль-Катани. Обвинения против него были сняты, потому что доказательства были получены с помощью пыток.

Весь мир знает о пытках претерпела со стороны других заключенных в Гуантанамо.

Мир увидел фотографические доказательства того, что американцы проводили пытки в тюрьме Абу-Грейб в Ираке.

Мир знает, что ЦРУ пытать заключенных в «черных дырах» по всему миру.

Мир знает, что условия во многих американских тюрьмах излишне жесткой и бесчеловечной.

Я не сомневаюсь, что многие из упомянутых выше лиц совершивших тяжкие преступления. К сожалению, многие из моих коллег-американцев забыли, что законы против пыток должен применяются ко всем заключенным, даже на те, обвиняемых в терроризме.

Брэдли Мэннинга только реальные преступления предании огласке объявление видео, которое показали гнусное действие, совершенное американскими военными. Это видео, на мой взгляд, не должны были помечены "секретно", в первую очередь.

Эдвард Сноудена не поставить под угрозу безопасность Соединенных Штатов. Он укрепил ее, рассказывая американской общественности, что Соединенные Штаты осуществили ужасающая система массовых охранные системы - системы, которая противоречит четвертой поправки к нашей Конституции.

Преподобного Силуана Афонского, как говорят, обладал властью, чтобы узнать самые сокровенные мысли каждого, кто встречался с ним. Только святой человек должен иметь такую ​​возможность. Это кощунство и ужасом для Агентства национальной безопасности моей страны, чтобы попытаться узнать все секреты всех жителей планеты.

Возможно, г-н Сноуден пытался сделать этот самый момент.

Я всегда восхищался русской культуры и русского народа. Я надеюсь, что вы можете дать Эдварду Сноудена нового дома в вашей стране.

Джозеф Кэннон
Редактор сайта "Cannonfire"
http:cannonfire.blogspot.com
Мэриленд, Соединенные Штаты Америки

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