CIA Tapes? Watergate, Part Deux? Or 9/11 Smoking Gun?
Kathryn A. Graham
A writer I respect deeply has said for many years that intelligence
services are incompatible with freedom. I must reluctantly and
cautiously disagree with him - but he has a lot of good sense on his
side, and it wasn't a conclusion I came to easily or lightly.
The only political party label that is inclusive of my own political
beliefs is libertarian, but I fall into a very specific subset of
libertarians. I define myself as a "rational anarchist." Unfortunately
few understand that term correctly these days, and we have our media to
thank for that. "Anarchist" is not a synonym of "nihilist," as today's
media would have you believe. Instead, "anarchist" is the literal
antonym of "monarchist," meaning "without king." I do believe firmly in
the rule of law, a law that is just and equally applied to all. I
merely do not believe that human government is a good thing. The
"rational" part of the term I prefer to use simply means that I am
forced to recognize that some compromise is necessary, and that no one
has yet come up with a better alternative to human government for
enforcing said rule of law. That said, please keep our compromises small!
I feel exactly the same way about our intelligence services. The
necessity for the gathering of intelligence in a large and often hostile
world is a complete no-brainer. A competent intelligence service is
utterly necessary for us to retain our freedom and our way of life.
Without such an intelligence service, any other country that does
maintain a competent intelligence service would more than delighted to
have us for breakfast. I am not going to get into a comparison of the
different kinds of intelligence gathering here. I want to concentrate
on one type in particular, called "HUMINT," or the gathering of
intelligence using clandestine human agents, many of whom work and risk
everything in some of the darkest corners of the world.
HUMINT is essential to obtaining and analyzing intelligence to our
national security. I do not dispute that for a moment. However, there
is a major problem with HUMINT. To protect the lives and effectiveness
of our agents, their existence, identities and activities must all
remain a closely protected secret.
A few years ago, a U.S. special envoy to Nigeria dared to question our
rationale for starting a war in Iraq. In retaliation, the White House
ordered that his wife's identity - a long term covert CIA agent - be
released to the media. This brave lady's career was instantly
destroyed, and her life and the lives of the agents who worked for her
were placed in serious jeopardy as a result. This was high treason on a
level that is terrifying, especially since the orders came from our own
White House. The ultimate irony is that she was specifically
responsible for gathering information concerning the existence and
location of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Did her
"outing" damage our national security? You bet it did, and for many
years to come! A network of the sort that she had painstakingly created
takes many years to become effective.
On the other side of the question, the secrecy surrounding the
activities of our HUMINT agents and their agencies makes a level of
corruption possible that is equally terrifying. And that is why our
intelligence services are - and will always remain - a potential enemy
to freedom. In fact, if what I suspect is true, this very secrecy
underlies the reasons why we are facing the worst threat to our freedoms
in the history of the United States. The only possible solution that I
have been able to work out is constant, genuine, thorough and effective
oversight by our elected legislators, but that carries grave dangers of
its own. An elected representative is not necessarily one that has - or
even should have - a security clearance.
It's a thorny problem indeed, and I do not have a solution. I would be
interested in hearing yours.
With this background in mind, I have been following the coverage of the
destroyed CIA interrogation tapes with a great deal more than idle interest.
On one side of the issue, the former head of our National Clandestine
Service, Jose Rodriguez, was in a terrible corner. He was ultimately
responsible for the lives of the agents under his direction, and he was
forced to protect their identities. A lot of people feel that this was
is merely an "excuse" for the destruction of the tapes by his order. I
do not. I believe the outing of Ms. Plame was still raw and on his
mind. I don't believe he could have done anything else. The immediate
protection of the lives of his people was his first imperative, and he
did what he had to do. His agents had been following the directives of
the White House in their interrogation methods, as appalling as we all
find those, and they were captured on tape performing illegal, immoral
and disgusting acts. I don't think highly of anyone that would carry
out an order to torture, but I do not believe they should suffer the
same penalties as the individual who gave the order either. Nor do I
believe their lives should be seriously endangered because they followed
their orders. Like the military, these men and women are largely young
and dedicated patriots. They do not yet have the experience or the
cynicism to question blatantly immoral orders.
That said, I believe Rodriguez received very high level orders to
destroy those tapes, and the reasons for that should be thoroughly
explored. Further, I believe that he was sufficiently angered by the
entire fiasco that he is now willing to talk to Congress about who
actually gave the destruction order. We may learn a great deal from
that also. By all accounts, Rodriguez is an honorable man, and his
testimony before Congress on January 16th is something to which we
should all pay close attention.
There are a couple of reasons why the order to destroy the tapes
undoubtedly came from the White House.
First, torture is strictly and absolutely against U.S. and international
law. Mukasey was able to state before Congress that he "didn't know" if
waterboarding constituted torture, but you can bet he could not have
maintained such a fiction with scenes of waterboarding in front of him -
or in front of Congress. Bush recently stated before the television
cameras that "The U.S. does not torture." It would be embarrassing
indeed to such an administration to have smoking gun proof that we do
indeed torture given to Congress - or worse, to the American people. I
guarantee that enough people feel strongly enough about this issue that
sooner or later, those films would most definitely have been leaked.
With the Internet and YouTube at the world's disposal, they would have
been widely viewed in a mere matter of hours. Putting the toothpaste
back into the tube would not have been an option.
Second, and more importantly, had those films ever been released to
Congress - or to the 9/11 Commission - it would have been obvious to a
brain dead moron that those poor bastards would have confessed to raping
their 96-year-old grandmothers to make the torture stop. Since their
confessions, elicited under torture, are the primary evidence that the
government and media "myth" of what happened on 9/11 might actually have
some validity, the whole house of cards would have come tumbling down
instantly.
The logical conclusion to my thought here is that if you truly want to
know who was behind 9/11, look closely at who gave Rodriguez the order
to destroy those tapes. Subsequently, look closely at who would have
given the White House messenger his marching orders, because there will
be at least one cutout between the White House representative and the
offices of the President or the Vice President. Plausible deniability
is the name of the game.
Don't let them give us another Libby scapegoat. Look for the real
perpetrators of the worst crime against United States citizens in our
history. No matter what we find under that rock, the American people
need and deserve to know the truth.
As for torture, the morning I saw the Abu Ghraib photos was the very
first time in my life that I was deeply and bitterly ashamed to be both
an American and a military veteran.