NSA Partly Responsible For Latest Cyber Attack? OF Course!

"The N.S.A. Needs to take a leadership role....to address the plague that they've unleashed." - NY Times, today

Simpletons often see a temporary divergence from endorsing an agency, Bureau or person as a "contradiction" which probably harkens back to the old saw "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". So because I may have endorsed the NSA as part of the intel community that has exposed Russian hacking in the 2016 election, some may wonder why I'd now want to "attack" the NSA. But this is more in the way of a citizen's "pull yourself up!" mandate than attack.

I am referring, of course, to how the agency enabled and allowed a nasty worm to get loose some five years ago which has since been repurposed by "bad guys"  to attack our nation and others.  The guise is under a "ransomware" mode when the net user's computer turns into a 'brick'  unless he or she coughs up 300 Bitcoin bucks. So yeah, the NSA now bears responsibility - at least partial - for yesterday's global "Petya" attack, as it did last month's "Wannacry" attack. The most recent has one-upped the Wannacry attack in that no "kill switch" has yet been found."


Most would probably not recall the 60 Minutes episode from March 4, 2012, which sheds light on the current attacks.

In that episode, Gen. Michael Hayden (formerly of the NSA) was heard to say:

"We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction, and in this case, physical destruction in someone else's critical infrastructure. This was a good idea, alright? But I also admit this was a really big idea too. The rest of the world is looking at this and saying, 'Clearly someone has legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable international conduct.' The whole world is watching."

Following on, there appeared Sean McGurk - former head of cyber defense at The Department of Homeland Security, in charge of protecting critical infrastructure in the U.S. - who addressed Hayden's more or less glib patter:

"You can download the actual source code of Stuxnet now and you can repurpose it and repackage it and then, you know, point it back towards wherever it came from."

CBS' Steve Kroft then remarked: "Sounds a little bit like Pandora's box." To which McGurk responded, "Yes!"

McGurk added:

"They opened up the box. They demonstrated the capability. They showed the ability and the desire to do so. And it's not something that can be put back."

Kroft then pressed the issue, asking:

"If somebody in the government had come to you and said, "Look, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think?" What would you have told them?"

To which McGurk didn't hesitate in responding:

"I would have strongly cautioned them against it because of the unintended consequences of releasing such a code."

Kroft then surmised that one such "unintended consequence" is that this same code might be "re-purposed" and used against us. Perhaps against nuclear power plants or the power grid. Again, McGurk responded:"Yes", labeling the possible retributive cyber attack worm, "Son of Stuxnet".

But this was no laughing matter, certainly not five years ago and not now after obvious repurposed cyber attacks using NSA "exploits" have transpired.  As I noted in a post from 5 years ago:

"Because of the hubristic, belligerent and arrogant actions of an enclave of pointy-headed computer geeks at the Puzzle Palace, we're likely all in jeopardy (as we were with the Wall St. quants with the financial meltdown). These sort of reckless actions do not bode well, and although their creators and the guilty agency might argue they were done with the "best intentions" , i.e. to slow down Iranian processing of nuclear fuel, we know the road to Hell is paved with them."

In the case of Stuxnet, its malicious trail commenced in June of 2010, when it was first detected and isolated by a tiny company in Belarus after one of its clients in Iran complained about a software glitch. Subsequently, reports filtered in that Iran's centrifuges were somehow compromised, though they didn't let on that they were aware of the real culprits which I suspected at the time was the NSA, whose cryptological-computer-savvy 'fingerprints' were all over it.

Barely a month later, the FLAME virus was unleashed wreaking some havoc but not as much as Petya did yesterday with its ransomware attack.

An AP Report ('Digital Virus has Nations on Alert') noted at the time:

"Unlike a bullet or a missile fired at an enemy, a cyberweapon that spreads across the internet might circle back to infect computers it was never supposed to target. It's one of the unusual challenges facing the programmers who build such weapons."

According to the same AP report, Russian digital security provider Kaspersky Lab - which first identified the virus - stated that Flame's complexity and functionality 'exceeded those of all other cyber menaces know to date'"

Those words were enough to convince me that, like the Stuxnet worm, FLAME is a creature of the geeks at NSA.  Thus the AP report's ending "Yet FLAME's author remains unknown because there is no information in the code of the virus that would link it to a particular country" merely confirmed its place and source of origin.

In yesterday's manifestation of the latest virus reincarnation (as the 'Petya' ransomware), the origin appeared to be in the Ukraine, where officials reported the country's power grid as well as banks and government offices were affected.    Subsequently, Russia's Rosneft oil company also reported falling victim - but avoided major damage owing to a quick response - as did Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk.  According to Anders Rosendahl, a spokesman for the shipping group:

"We're talking about a cyber attack. It has affected all branches of our business, at home and abroad."

The cyber attack rapidly snowballed into a world wide crisis, which also affected U.S. companies, as well as a hospital in Pennsylvania where surgeries had to be cancelled because the computers were down.

The worst aspect of this latest attack? It was "self spreading". That is, it possessed the capability to spread across networks without any human interactions. Such self-propagating software is called by the name "worms" because of the similarity to the way worm infestation diseases spread.  This is exactly the character of the original Stuxnet.

Let's bear in mind in the wake of the recent attacks that both Wannacry and Petya have managed to spread rapidly using break in tools originally created by the National Security Agency. Also, these tools were recently released to the Web. So yes, the NSA bears more than a little responsibility to try to get the cyber plague "evil genie" back into the "bottle."

Some bottle. Any bottle.  And then, think - really hard  and long - before unleashing the next cyber weapon that could boomerang back on the rest of us.

Trump's 'Founder of Isis' Nonsense Shows He's Unqualified To Be President

Anyone who's viewed any of Hitler's mass rally speeches would have seen how the German dictator was devoid of any capacity for irony or sarcasm. The speeches, laced with hate, were direct, straight on attacks aimed at targets of the Fuhrer's will. It could be the German press one day, Marxist- Socialists another, or Jews another.

Donald J. Trump's speech style is much the same: a loose cannon with no degree of temperance, judgment or subtlety - far less capacity for irony or sarcasm. Simply, he doesn't know what the words mean. Hence, for Trump to now back track on his insane comment that "Obama is the founder of ISIS'  - saying it was "sarcasm" - would be about like claiming Barry Goldwater's infamous remark: "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" was intended as sarcasm.

No, it isn't. Sarcasm would be a comment along the lines of: "Jeez, did you see that attack Obama made on ISIS yesterday? There must have been over a thousand of those little buggers killed."  Thus, it fulfills the basic definition of irony used in the context of imparting contempt.  Also, you don't get to repeat it over and over like Trump did. You get one shot in your main speech and that's it.

But when Trump elaborates when asked and even adds: "Obama created the terror group ISIS" he's already stepped off into whackadoodle land, to the same extent so-called global warming critics assert it is  a "global conspiracy to create alarm".

For example, on the conservative Hugh Hewitt radio talk show yesterday, Hewitt said to Trump who was on the line:

"I know what you mean. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace."

And Trump retorted:

"No, I meant he is the founder of ISIS, I do! He's the most valuable player, I give him the most valuable player award. I give her too, by the way, Hillary Clinton."

Game over, sarcasm excuse blown to hell. Busted! Including the nonsensical defense by some right-tards that "if Trump said it was raining cats and dogs would you believe it?:  Errr, no,  only that  HE believes it,  especially if he repeats himself over and over on a nationally syndicated radio show!

As if to try to help Trump out of his self-created shit can, Hewitt then interjected:

"But he's not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He's trying to kill them"

Trump never even tried to take the lifeline offered:

"I don't care. He was the founder. The way he got out of Iraq - that was the founding of ISIS"

When Trump did backtrack, invoking specific policies as "evidence" he went off the beam further, showing himself devoid of historical knowledge as well as irony. He said:

"We should have never been in Iraq, we were going to destabilize the Middle East.

But after Bush Jr. launched the ill-advised invasion in March, 2003,  Trump was all for it, stating in one call in interview:

"It looks like a tremendous success from a military standpoint."

But by 2007, Trump's feelings had changed and he was calling for U.S. troops to come home. He said in one CNN interview:

"You know how they get out, they get out! Just declare victory and leave!"

But Obama did just that, carrying out the 'Status of Forces' Agreement struck by Bush Jr. in 2008, which mandated U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

So, if anything, Trump should be on his hands and knees licking Obama's wingtips for doing exactly what Trump wanted at least for the past nine years. And if anyone could be blamed for the rise of ISIS it was Gee Dumbya for barging into a secular Iraq in the first place - setting the stage for factional battles between Shia and Sunni - the latter spawning ISIS.

Trump's loose lips don't stop there and we already beheld his reckless remark in a NC speech about "the second amendment people"  purportedly solving the problem of a Hillary presidency. The Secret Service, according to an MSNBC report, was so ruffled they actually filed the comment for future reference - say in case some unhinged Trumpkin takes it literally and acts out. "Free speech"? No, reckless speech that has the potential to trigger violence.

The there was Trump's remark after being asked about Military Commissions  trying American citizens at Guantanamo and being placed in its detention camp. He told an interviewer:

"Well, I know they want to try them (American citizens who commit terrorist acts) in our regular court systems and I don't like that at all.  I would say they could be tried there."

But Trump seems not to know, or doesn't care, that the Constitution guarantees U.S. citizens a trial in a court of law, not before a military tribunal out of country. Those in doubt may wish to check the Sixth Amendment to the Bill of Rights, where we read:

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."

Trump's reckless statements show he clearly isn't fit to be commander -in-chief of this country, especially given foreign governments regularly monitor every syllable spoken or physical gesture made as a sign telegraphing intent. Might Trump deliver the wrong signal to someone who then takes it as a prompt to act? Possibly. The point is, as former NSA Director Michael Hayden put it, we can't take that chance.

By any and all legal means then, Trump must not become President of the United States,

At the same time don't interpret that to mean we glorify Hillary to the extent of not criticizing  her or overlooking her own numerous faults. We cannot allow a malignant fear of Trump (who is doomed to lose in a landslide) to curtail honest scrutiny and critiques of Clinton. Also, once she ascends to highest office  we need to hold her feet to the fire. Mainly we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded by careless use of labels.. The degree to which many idiot liberals are actually calling her "progressive" is actually enough to make a true progressive puke. She is no progressive, get that through your heads.  I don't give a damn how many times she uses the tautology that a "progressive is one who makes progress". This is meaningless marketing-PR jabber, the type of piffle used by a corporate Democrat for marketing to ideological lame brains who don't know any better.

See also:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/11/hate-trump-still-hold-clinton-accountable

Excerpt:

"Clinton should be pushed relentlessly by the left on her economic policies and history, for starters. While she made fun of Trump on the stump for having “a dozen or so economic advisers he just named: hedge fund guys, billionaire guys, six guys named Steve, apparently,” she is living in a glass house funded by Goldman Sachs and should be throwing no stones. We’ll see whether she does in the big economic policy speech she is due to give on Thursday.

Let’s not act like Clinton is a dove when it comes to matters of life and death.

She has embraced the endorsement of neocon John Negroponte and is even reportedly courting the endorsement of Henry Kissinger. As secretary of state, Clinton controversially supported not designating the 2009 ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya as a coup , even though he was woken up by armed soldiers and forced onto a plane and out of his country in his pajamas. She has since defended her role in that situation."

Hillary E-Mail Reveals Her Neocon Ambitions to Launch Syrian War

Hillary the hawk sounds off with dozens of flags behind her.


Two things I detest about American politics in the new warmonger era are: 1) The need to brandish dozens of flags to try to project a super patriot image at every major speech venue, and 2) the use of identity politics to brainwash followers into  blind support. (In the latter case using race or gender as the primary basis to drive support. In Hillary's case the sounding board is "the first woman president".)

With reference to (1), in a speech last month at a San Diego Naval base Hillary went all out super patriot with flag brandishing to show she would out-Trump Trump in terms of national security. This already sent my warmonger alarms going, before she even commenced her bellicose speech on what we need to do in order to further police the planet. And, in the next instant, I thought how much her speech differed from JFK's Pax Americana address at American University on June 10, 1963. In that address Kennedy had since dropped the cold warrior pose that got him into office, and warned that America cannot be the cop of the world resorting always to American weapons of war and imposing a "Pax Americana". See e.g. the most notable parts of his speech here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RclaV_3_eOA

Kennedy's wakeup call likely came during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962 when the world came within a hair's breadth of World War III - and had a lesser mortal been in charge - we likely wouldn't be having this conversation now. But Kennedy had the steel cojones to face down Gen.  Curtis Lemay and the Joint Chiefs who were humping and pumping for a bombing and invasion of Cuba. A move we only learned later (from former Secretary Robert McNamara, in his documentary 'The Fog of War') would have triggered the launch of more than 90 Soviet IRBMs already in Cuba and with single megaton warheads.

Leaders like Kennedy, of course, only come around about once every several generations and likely never will again, after his assassination in November, 1963. The Zapruder film is now likely replayed for every incoming President to remind him (or her, say in the case of HRC) of what happens to those who believe they're bigger than the shadow government (also called "the deep state" - see link .at end.)

However, it is safe to believe that Hillary doesn't have to worry too much about offending that deep state. This is given it is all about national security, especially as the deep state was the likeliest source of Kennedy's demise after he signed NSAM-263 to pull out of Vietnam by 1965.

As evidence of Hillary being all in for more military engagement we have  the Clinton email  recently released from April, 2012. This clearly reflected the thinking of the then-Secretary of State and her inner circle about one year into the Syrian civil war.  It likely still does, which probably makes the national security establishment much more comfy with her than Donald Trump. (As former NSA Director Michael Hayden opined on a CBS Morning spot a week ago).  It is safe to say, on reading this email,  that it constitutes a putative blueprint for what "Madame Secretary" would seek to do as commander-in-chief. Especially in view of her saber -rattling AIPAC speech, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/03/as-predicted-hillary-panders-to-aipac.html

Note in particular, Clinton's  words:

"The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad."

Seriously? And you think the Russians will just sit by, smile and allow you to do that? (As you think they'd allow you to implement 'no fly' zones)  You have to be kidding. Again, this is what Bernie referred to in the debates as lack of judgment.

But she goes on, writing (resonant with her AIPAC speech):

"Negotiations to limit Iran’s nuclear program will not solve Israel’s security dilemma. Nor will they stop Iran from improving the crucial part of any nuclear weapons program — the capability to enrich uranium."

Again, seriously? Yes, and totally controverting the opinions of many nuclear experts.  As Joe Cirincione , nuclear compliance specialist and President of 'Ploughshares Fund',  put it a year ago in an MSNBC segment:

"This is a way to stop Iran from getting the bomb. without going to war. It has its risks, but those pale compared to the alternatives."

Indeed. He then elaborated on the parameters, to which most critics are oblivious when they yelp that Iranians are too "wily" and have "every incentive to cheat". (Implying the IAEA isn't up to the job of inspection).

"This is not based on trust, this is not based on good intentions. It's not based on the technologies we've used in Iraq, for example. This is 21st century technology, state of the art, fiber optics seals, cameras, sensors, audits, inventories allowing 24/7 inspections in all the declared facilities and the right to inspect suspect facilities including the military sites so much in dispute. One might possibly evade one layer of these inspections but the chances of evading all are quite remote . We can track every aspect of Iran's  production and with those inspections there's no expiration date."

The top nuclear physicists also agree this is the case, but one wonders if Hillary even reads what they've said. Perhaps not as I can't imagine her a fan of Physics Today.

Then, to further undermine our confidence we read:

"Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. For Israeli leaders, the real threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is not the prospect of an insane Iranian leader launching an unprovoked Iranian nuclear attack on Israel that would lead to the annihilation of both countries. What Israeli military leaders really worry about — but cannot talk about — is losing their nuclear monopoly. …

“Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly. Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted."

 

Israel losing its "nuclear monopoly"? Are you kidding me? Israel,  according to the best NSA-CIA estimates,  has over 250 nuclear warheads. This includes enough megatonnage to reduce the entire Middle East to radioactive ash. No one else in the region- other than Pakistan (at 140) - has any. This monopoly, one could argue, is in fact a huge contributor to destabilizing the region because other nations - like Syria and Iran - surely realize they can be incinerated with virtually no warning at all. All it would take is one U.S. President hyped up and ready to unleash "warranted military action" - say by invoking an excuse like "Israel's security".

JFK, in 1963, fretted about Israel developing a nuclear capability which is why he wanted to dispense inspectors to its Dimona nuclear plant- which then P.M. David Ben-Gurion had insisted was just for "peaceful" purposes.  But it turned out (via back channel intel) Dimona had been processing high grade nuclear materials.

The extant public records released as part of the JFK Records Act and other FOIA requests show clearly that Kennedy was unswerving in his hostility to a nuclear -armed Israel. Having only months earlier seen how precipitously close the world came to nuclear war initiated by Cuban IRBMs - he likely was averse to remotely repeating the experiment with Israel as the U.S. proxy (as opposed to Cuba being the Soviet proxy).

And while many of the background Dimona files are buried as deeply as the CIA's Joannides' files, we do know from the documents track that one American company - The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation of Pittsburgh, was instrumental in procuring enriched uranium for the Israelis' atomic weapons project.

By the time American inspectors finally arrived at Dimona, Ben-Gurion had pulled a move variously described as nuclear 'three card monte' and atomic 'hide and seek'. In effect, all the inspectors found was a plant dedicated to cheap nuclear power as opposed to atom bombs, as 'Daddy David' originally proclaimed to the young American President. But.....since we know Israel compiled over 200 atomic bombs (ranging from 10 kt to 1 mt) in the intervening years, we know this was a ruse.

The danger of a Syrian war led by Hillary and the neocons should not be lost on anyone. While Trump would definitely be an absolute disaster, a nuclear holocaust initiated by aggressive U.S. actions against Syria and Russia would be even worse.

Hillary's April, 2012 email and her San Diego hawk speech prefigures further American violence on the global stage - now in Syria- which we don't need and can't afford. On this Independence Day, a better move is to consider the words of an Army Iraq War vet  (Roy Scranton) writing in the Sunday NY Times (Review, p. 7):

"Perhaps this Fourth of July...instead of celebrating American violence, we might celebrate our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the ideals those documents invoke of an educated citizenry deciding its fate not through war but through civil disagreement. Instead of honoring our troops, whose chief virtues are obedience and aggressiveness, we could honor our great dissenters and conscientious objectors. And instead of blowing things up, maybe we could try building something."


See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/david-swanson/67928/the-democratic-war-platform


And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/67956/13-ways-of-looking-at-the-deep-state


And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/ted-rall/67946/hillary-cheated

Do NOT Believe the Lying CIA Torture Apologists!

The lying swine Cheney - ought to have been hung by now.

"If you are in favor of the torture, fine. But I am begging you, spare me any sermons about the law ever, ever again." - Chris Hayes, last night on MSNBC

After the aborted Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, John F. Kennedy loudly proclaimed that he wanted to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the four winds."  If he had expeditiously gone through with that intent, we'd likely not now be having to digest a revolting summary report of CIA tortures - debasing our nation, our claimed aspirations, our claim to being a "nation of laws" and exceptional in the world.  Kennedy's mistake was in trying to rope in the CIA incrementally, using 17 proposed oversight rules and creating an alter-agency - the DIA or Defense Intelligence Agency. The spooks got onto him and well, the rest is history.

Most of the day yesterday, the CIA  - as per its wont, and as they did 40 years earlier with "Operation Mockingbird" - trotted out their lying PR flunkies to try to tell the American people that what was done in our name wasn't torture. But they were exposed for the fucking liars and tools they are, as on Rachel Maddow's show last night - using historical documents as well as the actual report.

This was good because as numerous moral philosophers have observed, all that is often needed to commit mass moral outrage is to alter the language. This tends to alter thought so the weak -minded will succumb as the amoral employ euphemisms to try to justify what is a moral outrage. And so the Nazi scum referred to "cleansing" when they herded Jews into the gas chambers,  just as now these miscreant apologists are adopting the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" to try to make us believe what they did was A-ok. No it wasn't. And anyone who buys into this crap- including into former CIA Director George Tenet's denial of euphemism-  is guilty of normalizing the torture that these rats seek to justify retrospectively. They then arguably aren't any better than the perpetrators. Such is the case with that screeching harpy and former BushCo operative, Nicolle Wallace - who almost climaxed-  yapping about why we "need"  CIA torture the other day. Maybe she's into torture porn too! Who knows?

Not so with Norah O'Donnell who surely got it this morning on CBS Early Show when scumbag and tool Mike Morell was being interviewed. While the weasel and liar Morell tried to claim that what his men did "wasn't torture", Norah,  to her credit- wasn't having any of it. She said:

"I don't understand how waterboarding someone one hundred eighty three times isn't torture. I don't understand how giving forced enemas isn't torture."

The monkey Morell actually replied with a straight face that on "pouring over' the program he was even more convinced that it "was effective in getting information that stopped plots that would have killed Americans".  Which is arrant horse pockey.

Gail King then asked Morell to respond to the issue of morality- never mind the dubious authorizations from the Bush Justice Dept. which we now know were fabricated out of whole cloth - as Maddow showed - and I will get to. Morell responded it is "the central question" but then added this is what we "should be debating as a society - was this right or was this wrong?". Uh no! We don't need any debate because it was patently wrong! Morally evil! Never mind the claimed ends  - a first moral principle is that the ends NEVER justifies the means. I don't care if 10,000 might have been killed you don't use these abhorrent methods to obtain  suspect info. (Which is never reliable given the extreme methods used when the tortured will cop to anything under duress - as records show occurred!)

Even the CIA's 1989 Report to the then Senate Intelligence Committee flatly observed:

"Inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will result in false answers."

So Morell asking if this was really wrong is like asking if  herding Jews into gas chambers was wrong. Yes it emphatically was!  I mean, good God, the Senate report even documented CIA officers choking and vomiting as well as crying and some having to leave the scene of some of the tortures. This only occurs, my friends, when one's moral conscience so recoils at actions that a sense of revulsion overtakes the person. Most humans possess this moral sense, but clearly most of the CIA's torturing fiends didn't. Many howled with laughter when the "rectal feedings" they delivered caused the person to crap all over themselves as they hung upside down!

These rat vermin were even afraid to broach what they were doing to Colin Powell because they thought he'd "blow his top". Well, yes he would because though he's a military man he's also a moral man and would recognize evil if he saw or heard of it!

I ask, when considering what these CIA monsters did, to think of your own loved ones in those torture scenes - which I will examine shortly.

Rachel Maddow merits many kudos for her segment on the history of CIA torture including the creation of its first torture manual in July, 1963. Most savvy researchers of the JFK era and the conspiracy to kill him agree Kennedy was unaware of the manual, and would have really "smashed the CIA" if he knew of it but was already overwhelmed with fighting off their attempts to undermine him -including his implementing curbs on their covert actions. (Kennedy was also likely unaware of the ZR/Rifle assassination program, and especially the Staff D CIA connections which would be used later to turn it against him).

Maddow's piece showed how the CIA manual was used to torture former KGB man Yuri Nosenko who defected to the U.S. in late 1963. During his debriefing he evidently gave the spooks cause to subject him to assorted "enhanced measures" - but officially called torture at the time, including: sleep deprivation, being forced to stay nude for long periods at a time, pummeling and punching -including his kidneys, sleeping on stone floors and being fed a ghastly gruel.

The spooks didn't believe his debrief that Lee Harvey Oswald was of zero or minor import to the KGB.  (Sadly, Maddow again muddied her otherwise impeccable reporting by recirculating the canard that "the other thing that happened right before he (Nosenko) got there was the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The man who killed President Kennedy was Lee Harvey Oswald". Uh no he wasn't,  Rachel, and you need to clean up your act to confer more gravitas on your historical reporting).

Maddow went on to claim:  "Lee Harvey Oswald had spent time in the Soviet Union before killing President Kennedy" which is again, only partly true, part lie. He spent time in the Soviet Union - most likely as a CIA contract agent, according to his CIA CI/SIG files- before returning to the U.S. in 1962 when - interestingly - he was removed from the FBI's Watch List.

Nosenko was one of the KGB agents who interviewed Oswald, and claimed Oswald was unfit for any kind of spy work. Of course, as later released records showed, this story didn't jibe with what the CIA wanted at the time - which was to paint Oswald as a Soviet agent out to kill Kennedy- which could then be used to justify aggression- against Russia as well as Cuba. (Peter Dale Scott has uncovered most of this and interested readers can find more details in my  two October, 2013 posts on the pre-assassination framing of Oswald.)

Anyway, what Maddow did get right is that Nosenko was locked up in 1964, at Camp Peary, given no sensory stimulus whatsoever - except for a light kept on in his room 24/7. He was given nothing to read, and given purposefully revolting food. When he did have human contact it was to abuse him - described by one author (Tim Weiner, 'Legacy of Ashes') as "the same treatment his fellow Russians received in the Gulag."

In 1967, he was released to some unknown location in the south when the spooks realized he really was a defector.  And only when he was 81 years old, in 2008, did another lying CIA worm -Michael Hayden - come to apologize to him - likely because he knew the shit would hit the fan with the next election: either a former Constitutional lawyer elected, or a former prisoner of war who himself underwent torture.

As Maddow points out, the CIA in the wake of the wrongful torture of Nosenko realized that they couldn't afford to make such costly mistakes again. There followed, in 1978, a formal study of what went wrong with the conclusion that "the agency's handling of the Nosenko case was an abomination"

The CIA then got rid of the interrogation manual and as Maddow put it:

"Not because it's not tempting to use fear, and degradation and solitary confinement to try to get information out of people- when you're sure they're lying to you, and you're sure its a very dangerous situation and the country is very upset.and stressed out about it's safety. Not that it isn't tempting, it's tempting, But it doesn't work. It's a bad idea. We tried it and it's a bad idea."

Maddow further notes that despite the initial rejection there remained those CIA personnel who still wanted to be able to use torture from time to time, including one who "dug up the old manual" in 1983. The manual was then used in the 1980s (during the Reagan era)  in Latin America. In Honduras as well as Guatemala hundreds of thousands were tortured by the methods in the manual. The methods came to also be associated with those from "death squads" in those countries, as well as in Nicaragua.

At last in 1988 a new CIA report declared again: "Physical abuse or other degrading treatment was rejected not only because it was wrong but it has historically been proven to be ineffective."

Maddow then put up on the screen a portion of a memo released in November, 2001 right after the 9/11 attacks. It reads:

" A policy decision must be made with regard to U.S. use of torture."

Note the word used: torture - NOT "enhanced interrogation".

The sentence was written by CIA lawyers in the office of the CIA General Counsel. So much then for the horse shit that what was presented in the Senate report wasn't torture!

Maddow notes the CIA didn't have prisoners in custody at the time, but was only thinking prospectively - e.g. "ahead" - to what  the agency could do if and when prisoners came into their hands. They then batted it around how they could justify it, including:

"CIA could argue torture was necessary"

This was the CIA now, early 2001 - likely under pressure from the criminal Bushies- cooking up a new policy to justify torture though they rejected it earlier. Again, this was no accusation that others made about them it was what THEY called it themselves - TORTURE!  And to this end, the need for psyops as part of the operations, two psychologists were recruited: Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell. (Which showed the spooks firmly believed psychology wasn't entirely useless!). This pair developed the manual to help captured U.S. troops survive torture from enemies, then extracted the tortures those troops might face to use on U.S. "enemies".

And what kind of tortures are we talking about when these fiends finally got their hands on prisoners (up to 26% of whom they (CIA) didn't even know why they were being held, or what they had done)? Chris Hayes elaborated some of it on his own 'ALL IN' show:

- Threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee and also to cut her throat

- Abu Zubaydah lost his left eye while in CIA custody - from being gouged out slowly.

-Two detainees were shackled in stress positions after their bones were broken (this was also often used by the Inquisition on apostates)

- One CIA officer played Russian roulette with a detainee

- Another held a gun and power drill to the detainee's head threatening to let his brains leak out

- Five detainees were subjected to rectal rehydration - a  method also used by the Gestapo to try to wrest information, as my friend Kurt Braun told me. In this method of torture massive amounts of fluid -water are pumped into the colon until the victim feels as if his innards will burst open. The pain is agonizing  - and most people would be vaguely aware of what that is like if they allowed themselves to be fully awake during a colonoscopy (the difference being that gas is pumped into the colon in the latter case)

- Rectal feeding - wherein a blenderized mix of humus, pasta and pureed raisins are forced into the rectum causing an exploding sensation in the bowels. Anyone who's ever had a barium enema  - and the agony produced for even five minutes holding it - would be aware of this one.

Another asshole, who forced a detainee to sit naked on a bare floor in a freezing room for 24 hours and who later died of hypothermia, was given a $2,500 award for his "superior work". In another case, the top torture director was an immature goofus, lacking solid experience, putting the lie to Michael Hayden's malarkey the interrogators were all "well trained". No they were not!

The program was also subject to incompetence, including one case where two victims were subject to sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation and later found out to be CIA assets!

Can we say delirious assholes here? Yes we can! And yet these pieces of refuse want to try to justify what they did as preserving freedom or preventing another 9/11. Sadly, a majority of dopey, dumbass Americans agree (in recent polls) which confirms my suspicions too many are zombies who are unable to put themselves in the position of others.. Next time these yahoos get a colonoscopy I want them to do it with no sedation  - then imagine something ten times worse being done to them - and tell me they are pro torture! Damned fools and hypocrites!

Don't believe it! These are filth and maggots acting under their own arrogant, inhuman banner and have no connection to the rest of us who are sane and moral. Their own people performing these atrocities were often brought to the point of such revulsion they cried, choked and vomited. So don't ever tell me these vermin were doing the "right thing".

If true justice reigned all would be hung by the neck, as well as the Bushie assholes who contrived to let them get away with it by fiddle-fucking with the laws and interpretations thereof. Hell, if it were up to me I'd let Colin Powell be the presiding judge. Line 'em all up, including the 3 former directors spewing justifications in yesterday's WSJ piece, and hang 'em en masse or one at a time. I don't give a shit which.

But we can't let this sorry episode ever be normalized or come back to haunt us again. Strangely, or maybe not, the only person on the Right that seems to get it is John McCain. But maybe that's because he once experienced torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. He said on the Senate floor yesterday:

"I know from personal experience, that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that the use of torture compromises that which most distinguished us from our enemies. Our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights which are protected by international conventions- the United States not only joined but for the most part authored. "

Well said. Let us also bear in mind above all, that declaring torture of any kind off limits means when our own personnel are captured they will be less likely to be exposed to it. It therefore redounds to our benefit to take the higher moral ground rather than take the lower ground of rats and vermin - including defending it after the fact.

See also more proof we are not a nation of laws:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/10/torture_reports_big_bombshell_how_a_glaring_double_standard_was_exposed/

Richard Haas and Michael Hayden - Two Nitwits Who Don't Get It

President Obama made almost the exact right call yesterday in terms of  announcing the troop drawdown in Afghanistan - leaving 10,000 by the end of the year (I believe it ought to be ZERO), half that number by 2015 and all out by 2016. As Obama put it, almost echoing the words of JFK in Sept. 1963 on Vietnam, ultimately it is their country and they have to use their own forces to defend it - the U.S. can't be the cop of the world.

Bingo!

But the militarists and their sycophants don't get that, and don't want it. This morning on MSNBC ('Morning Joe'),  Richard Haas called it "policy by calendar". Well, uh duh - yuh think! Ultimately, not so much "by calendar" but the understanding by Obama that this country doesn't have the infinite resources to keep troops all over the damned planet forever (we currently have 4,417 bases worldwide at a cost of nearly $1 trillion annually).  In a low- tax nation, that refuses to even pay for the two wars of choice instigated over 10 yrs. ago,  how does this make sense? It doesn't.

The fact is we simply can't afford nation building as Haas wants us to keep doing, nor does he have a clue of the ongoing costs. Maybe he needs to look more closely at how the VA can't even care for the mass of existing vets, because of the lack of resources, money to fund doctors, staff - and then he wants many more thousands to remain in harm's way? And who will ensure they get the care they need when they return maimed or with PTSD?

Gen, Michael Hayden (Ret.) is also not much better as he chimed in this morning on the same program arguing that the number remaining is "at the low end of what should be" and compared Obama's Afghan drawdown plan to leaving zero troops behind in Iraq (forgetting that Iraq was an illegal war to begin with and we had no business barging in there.)

Hayden complained - as pertaining to Iraq:  "You don't have the Americans as a dampening effect. You can't guarantee that the worst won't happen."

Well, maybe it will! But again - we can't control the world, or what happens in every nation - nor should we try to! We can't control what happens in the Central African Republic with hundreds of thousands already slaughtered there - but then we never ever considered barging in. Why Iraq and not the Central African Republic? Well because there are no oil fields in the latter!

Hayden's argument that Obama is about to make the same mistake in Afghanistan as in Iraq is just plain bollocks and balderdash on its face. His premise is that we will have to leave a troop presence there, come hell or high water. The other nitwit, Haas, agreed -  asserting that troops "ought to be left in  place so long as conditions merit."

So long as conditions merit? Hello! Conditions will always merit because the Taliban isn't going away any more than the Viet Cong were going away in 'Nam. You can't just try to control an entire nation in perpetuity when our own is falling apart at the seams. Hence, Haas'  blather about staying on to provide security and "nation building" is plain nuts. No sane person is going to take you seriously about "nation building" when your own country is coming apart and you've manifestly shown you can't even nation build at home!

MSNBC's Willie Geist actually asked Haas if he was really prepared to "keep troops in Afghanistan in perpetuity", given if they're even left there until 2016 it will have been 15 years which "ought to be long enough" and "besides I don't think at any point we leave it will ever be a perfect place".

Haas, moron that he is, actually replied "As long as it made sense. We've kept troops in Korea now for 60 years and Americans are comfortable with that."

But no intelligent American should be comfortable with that because it means accepting a diversion of badly needed resources away from domestic needs to outposts that have no direct impact on our own security - no matter what the hyper-militarists claim. For perspective, South Korea now has all the wherewithal it needs to fend off any North Korean attack, so we are effectively redundant.

"Oh but wait, if South Korea needs us we have to wade in".

No, because then China will weigh in and we're in no more shape to take on China than we are Russia no matter what pissants like McCain or John Bolton claim. We have to leave the Koreas to resolve their issues just like we have to leave Ukraine to resolve its, and Europe to resolve its -  hence the need to get U.S. bases out of Germany that have been there since the end of WWII. As my German friend Reinhardt put it: "We Germans no longer need American babysitters!"

People need to grasp that the military overstretch we see is directly connected to economic misfortune and regression at home. The terribly low minimum wage, the massive student debt, the growing inequality, the VA's inability to care for vets are all tied to our overwhelming military presence around the world consuming precious resources - and basically, something has to give. If we aren't prepared to cut back our yen for empire, we will see ever more suffering at home....and even....as author David Cay Johnston put it in a recent salon.com interview, civil distress so severe it might even incite a revolution  that will be "the bloodiest the world has ever seen".

(See: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/22/bloodiest_thing_the_world_has_seen_david_cay_johnston_on_inequalitys_looming_disaster/

Is this what we really want? To go the way of Rome? If not, we better get control of the military bullshitters and their lackeys soon....very soon...and put this nation back on its own path to nation building for the future instead of squandering blood and treasure trying to be the cop of the world.

The Stupidity of STUXNET

Anyone who watched the first segment of '60 Minutes' last night, would have been treated to the news (kept seemingly well concealed hitherto) of one of the most malicious pieces of software ever conceived - a worm called "Stuxnet". According to the 60 Minutes' piece, the noisome behavior of this worm eventually drew the attention of Liam O Murchu, an operations manager for Symantec, one of the largest antivirus companies in the world. As he noted in the interview:

"As soon as we saw it, we knew it was something completely different. And red flags started to go up straightaway."

Those red flags included the way this worm specifically singled out computing command and control operations protocols to take over sophisticated robotic -run systems and divert them subtly toward perdition - to the extent no one running any plant operations (mainly at Iran's nuclear processing plants) would be any the wiser. Thus the worm could carry on its destruction undetected.

In the case of Stuxnet, its malicious trail commenced in June of 2010, when it was first detected and isolated by a tiny company in Belarus after one of its clients in Iran complained about a software glitch. Subsequently, reports filtered in that Iran's centrifuges were somehow compromised, though they didn't let on that they were aware of the real culprits (which I suspect was the NSA, whose cryptological-computer-savvy 'fingerprints' are all over this. )

Meanwhile, also featured on the 60 Minutes' piece was Retired General Michael Hayden, a former head of the National Security Agency. As he talked about the damage inflicted by the worm he damned near gloated with self-satisfaction as he babbled:

"We have entered into a new phase of conflict in which we use a cyberweapon to create physical destruction, and in this case, physical destruction in someone else's critical infrastructure. This was a good idea, alright? But I also admit this was a really big idea too. The rest of the world is looking at this and saying, 'Clearly someone has legitimated this kind of activity as acceptable international conduct.' The whole world is watching."

Indeed, but WAS IT a "good idea" to bring this genie out of the bottle and introduce it to the world? Especially when the initiator -attacker nation - obviously the hubristic U.S. - believes itself beyond the range of retribution? This is the question that must be asked, especially when we have a creaky power grid that just barely functions efficiently in periods of high demand - such as this summer promises to be, what with global warming continuing its ramping up!

Evidently, Sean McGurk - former head of cyber defense at The Department of Homeland Security, in charge of protecting critical infrastructure in the U.S. - doesn't believe so. WHen interviewed last night, he pointed out (alarmingly):

"You can download the actual source code of Stuxnet now and you can repurpose it and repackage it and then, you know, point it back towards wherever it came from."

CBS' Steve Kroft then remarked: "Sounds a little bit like Pandora's box." To which McGurk responded, "Yes!"

McGurk added:

"They opened up the box. They demonstrated the capability. They showed the ability and the desire to do so. And it's not something that can be put back."

Kroft then pressed the issue, asking:

"If somebody in the government had come to you and said, "Look, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think?" What would you have told them?"

To which McGurk didn't hesitate in responding:

"I would have strongly cautioned them against it because of the unintended consequences of releasing such a code."

Kroft then surmised that one such "unintended consequence" is that this same code might be "re-purposed" and used against us. Perhaps against nuclear power plants or the power grid. Again, McGurk responded:"Yes", labeling the possible retributive cyber attack worm, "Son of Stuxnet".

But this is no laughing matter! Because of the hubristic, belligerent and arrogant actions of an enclave of pointy-headed computer geeks at the Puzzle Palace, we're likely all in jeaopardy (as we were with the Wall St. quants inventing insane credit derivatives using the Gaussian Copula formula before the financial meltdown). These sort of reckless actions do not bode well, and although their creators and the guilty agency might argue they were done with the "best intentions" , i.e. to slow down Iranian processing of nuclear fuel, we know the road to Hell is paved with them.

More than 15 years ago such malicious and aggressive cyber-actions were forecast by author Winn Schwartau in his book: 'Information Warfare:Chaos on the Electronic Superhighway', 1995, Thunder's Mouth Press. As Schwartau noted ( p. 297):

"At the pinnacle of the Information Army is what the military calls C3I: Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (some military planners now call it C4I, adding computers into the equation) - and what business calls 'the board of directors.' This is where strategic plans are made and directives for tactical support are calculated."

Schwartau also noted that "all money comes through C3I" (or C4I as the case may be), and much may emerge from "black budgets" or off the books funded operations to retain maximal security. Such levels of security are not as typical with the CIA or DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) but they are with the grandaddy of spookhood, the NSA, which oversees all others. (Two of the best exposes of this bunch based at Ft. Meade, MD and their methods appeared in James Bamford's book, Body of Secrets (2001), and the Baltimore Sun series: 'No Such Agency: America's Fortress of Spies', by Scott Shane and Tom Bowman, Dec. 3-15, 1995)

The different echelons of information warrior, in the Class III (global) arena include(op. cit. 298-311):

- 'Communications or C-group' - responsibility for all communications, networking aspects, including encryption schemes. They may even "use the Global Network to achieve anonymity and privacy". Also "to make interception and traffic analysis of their activities much more
difficult, convoluted routing of communications paths all over the country and the world will require C-group to be multinational."

- 'Mappers' - as the name implies, those who chart cyberspace, showing how all the connections occur - and the critical points - for future targeting of attacks.

- 'Crackers' - use special software tools to decipher passwords, or break encryption schemes, say trhereby allowing a "worm" or virus to penetrate firewalls.

- 'Sniffers' - e.g. 'sniff' out passwords using sophisticated programs, or install 'taps' to eavesdrop or monitor selected targets.

- 'Readers' - Monitor emanations from computer screens/monitors using Van Eck radiation detectors. A person can park in a specially outfitted truck (often made to look like the local phone service) and 'read' everything on your monitor screen from up to a half mile away.

- Software Development group - "duplicate field conditions reported by a mapper or cracker and then develop a reliable means to compromise it".

- 'Moles' "deploy malicious software, garner confidential information from the target, or provide valuable inside information to C3I (or C4I)."

- Analysts - as the name implies, responsible for sifting through the vast reams of information made available and separating 'signal' from 'noise'. These eggheads would've been able to assess the extent of damage inflicted by Stuxnet to the Iranian centrifuges.

- 'Public Relations Group' -will feed information to the press on a selective basis."

Readers interested in seeing the '60 Minutes' segment can find it here:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7400904n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

Sadly, this reckless and pre-emptive cyber attack, obviously initiated by our country (despite all the cloak and dagger BS), may well pave the way for a much less secure world affecting all of us. Let us hope if the Russians, Chinese or anyone else - run of the mill terrorists - mount their own attacks using "Son of Stuxnet" or an even worse variant, we are prepared and it doesn't lead to mass chaos!