Bob Baer Interview

Peter Hitchens Recommends Eye in the Sky

for the questions it raises about droning - trailer

Some may say that it is "realistic" in so far as women have been promoted to such the rank of colonel and higher -- but I wouldn't pay money to watch this. Has the CIA resolved its issues with HUMINT in the Middle East?

Robert Baer: Torture, Drones, and Hollywood
Former CIA Agent Robert Baer on 'The Perfect Kill'

Daniel Gabriel on Bob Baer's New Book

A CIA Guide to Assassination
The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins, Robert B. Baer, Blue Rider Press, 352 pages

Zero Dark Thirty

Went to Winchester 21 on Saturday night, after having dinner with xiao Jimmy at Eastridge. It's been... maybe 10 years or more since I last sat in that theater. It wasn't so cold inside, but I was wearing a sweater and a coat over it, plus a hat. However, I don't know this is due to the project or to the reel they received, but the print seemed fuzzy and the resolution was not as good as something you'd see on a smaller screen over at AMC or nearby CinéArts.

I don't have much to say about the technical aspects of the movie, or the visual story-telling. Zero Dark Thirty seemed like it was done proficiently in those respects. But how can one's experience of the movie not be colored by his opinions about its truthfulness or the real-life events it claims to represent? How much artistic license taken in telling the story? I went to the movie more for the last half-hour, with its focus on ST6 and the mission to capture/kill Bin Laden, then the rest of it, which chronicled the efforts of the CIA to find him.

It is pro-American propaganda? We'll probably never know the true story or what really happened (or if we really killed OBL at that point in time). The movie is centered on a "tough" and persistent Uuhmerican female CIA agent, Maya (played by Jessica Chastain), who ultimately finds Osama Bin Laden. In the movie, there is some intra-agency conflict between Maya and the CIA station chief in Pakistan (played by Kyle Chandler). The station chief wants to allocate resources to preventing terror attacks in the U.S., and says that Bin Laden is not important. Maya says that he is still the one in charge. In their debate, there is no explicit mention of targeting Bin Laden because he was the chief mastermind behind 9/11, that this is a question of justice and punishing those who are responsible. Perhaps it is implied, but I thought it strange that it was omitted, as it would have been effective rhetorically. Maya appeals to their superiors at Langley, but it is not clear what priority was given to finding and killing Bin Laden by the CIA or the White House. The movie highlights the importance of HUMINT and how little of it we actually have for that region of the world. (See the book by Robert Baer for an explanation why.)

Might the movie rather be effective propaganda against Uhmerica? It depicts the torture of Muslims and the willingness of Americans to kill Muslims civilians in order to get at high-value targets. (Rf. Mya's comeback to the SEALs during their briefing that she preferred that a bomb be dropped on a house she knows is occupied by women and children over deploying a special ops team.) Moreover, the women seem to be in charge even if they are subordinates in name, and the men have no effective control over them, especially the ones at Langley, who seem whipped. If a man was petulant like that in the workplace, who would be able to tolerate his behavior or continue to respect him? But since Maya is a woman, she can get away with it. No doubt some will interpret her behavior as being of someone who is extremely dedicated and understandably upset that no action is being taken against OBL, even though his location has been ascertained. Her tantrums nonetheless strike me as being unprofessional and border on insubordination.

Indeed, the movie is not very successful in presenting the feminist case for women being in the CIA (even if they can be effective honey traps), despite the possible intention of the filmmakers. While Jessica Chastain can play the b*tch, on-screen she still seems like a vulnerable little girl who is trying to be a man in a man's world. Yet one cannot but help think that the movie makers are advocating that we put such women in charge.

Another example would be Jennifer Ehle's character, who is based on Jennifer Lynne Matthews. The movie seems to put the blame on her for the Camp Chapman attack. (In accordance with one of the official stories put forward by the CIA afterwards?) She is portrayed as an eager beaver seeking a lead to OBL's location and waving off proper security protocols in order for the meeting to go forward. So whose incompetence resulted in the success of the attack? The on-site supervisor? Or the superiors who failed to train their analysts as field operatives properly or placed results above safety?

If this is the reality of the CIA it is rather laughable - even more reason for our enemies to hold us in contempt. They may believe that we are superior not because of culture or character, but only because of technology, and even then our advantage is limited.

Would I recommend the movie? I am not sure why I would want to do so, but this is because I am skeptical of its accuracy. As a tribute to the men and women(?) who brought Osama Bin Laden "to justice"? As a engrossing procedural? I can't say that the portrayal of Operation Neptune Spear is worth the price of admission alone. Those who believe that the story is true may enjoy it more; no doubt there will be those who know very little and will leave the theater convinced that they've learned some real history.

James Howard Kunstler has a rather positive appraisal of the movie. Steve Sailer.

Related:
Zero Dark Thirty: Torturing the Facts by Marjorie Cohn
How 'Zero Dark Thirty' Reminds Americans How Much They Love Torture
Torture in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty
Former CIA officer Robert Baer offers an alternative to the White House story on bin Laden's death. (mp3)
Revealed: CIA agents envious of glamorous Hollywood treatment of Jessica Chastain's real-life relentless Bin Laden tracker 'Maya'
Peter Bergen and Robert Baer: Zero Dark Thirty Torture Controversy
FLASHBACK: Former CIA Operative: “Of Course Bin Laden is Dead” - Robert Baer: When Will Obama Give Up the Bin Laden Ghost Hunt?
What Awaits John Brennan at the CIA
ABC: Operation Neptune Spear
Zero Dark Thirty — Some Truth, Some Fiction

WATCH: Jennifer Ehle On 'Zero Dark Thirty's' Women 

Before the movie I strolled through Santana Row - what do the patrons there have to offer, besides their youthfulness? One perhaps should not begrudge those who are out enjoying a Saturday night with their intimates and friends, but one could do without the display of wealth and ease. Where else do the local singles go? There was some live music at El Jardin - in Spanish, and the audience was quite enthusiastic. Local Anglos? Or affluent visitors from Ibero-America? A reflection in some ways of the soon-to-be majority for the city of San Jose. The local young SWPLs care very little for traditional Anglo culture.

Items of Interest, 9 March, 2010

Ryan Grant, The Growth and Decline of the Roman Economy

Permaculture: Changing The World From Your Neighbourhood

The Triple Aught Design store in San Francisco. I'm going to visit it one day.

7 Foods So Unsafe Farmers Won’t Eat Them

Man vs. Wild: Top 20 Gross Eats


The Baers' Love Story: A Covert Affair: When CIA Agents Fall In Love

Fabius Maximus, Why the middle class is dying

From 2009: Robert Baer and Victor Davis Hanson on Iran

Uncommon Knowledge: Robert Baer and Victor Davis Hanson

GQ: A Dagger to the CIA, by Robert Baer

Welmer focuses on one aspect of the story in particular: Affirmative Action CIA Agent gets Herself and Others Blown Up.

Unlearning the CIA By CHRISTOPHER KETCHAM
The Education of Bob Baer

When Hollywood came calling after the success of “See No Evil” and Syriana went into production in 2004, Baer snagged a cameo role, playing an FBI agent. He had one line, demanding George Clooney give up his “passports” – in the plural – and he kept flubbing it. There are a lot of ex-CIA officers who tell me they’ve laughed at the Syriana version of the CIA, among them Bob Baer.

His future plans?

Baer’s dissenting voice is small in the scrum of interests in Washington. That’s why he’s in Silverton. He suggests the CIA transfer its headquarters to the mountains, to live in the hard cold winter and get a grip on reality, lose some fat. I get the impression he no longer believes in US power as currently configured. Perhaps he has come full circle from traveling the world with his mom. He tells me he might run for county sheriff and that his first official act is that he will “no longer enforce federal laws.” He tells me, “We're a country of isolationists. We don't do empires. So we come home. Build the perfect electric car, give away solar panels, retool the assholes on Wall Street to build public transportation.” He’s got his new daughter Khyber to take care of, and his wife Dayna. He has a new pair of skis. As we walked into the mountains, snow started falling. The peaks would soon be covered, and the valley. Baer could go skiing.

Robert Baer on the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi

Sunday Mail: CIA spook says Megrahi was freed before appeal humiliated justice system

(via Rod Dreher)

Robert Baer's most recent book

I have not really been paying attention to what he's been up to for a while, so I just learned that he had recently published another book late last year: The Devil We Know. Those who are ignorant of Iran (and especially of the limited role of the president, in comparison with the Supreme Ayatollah, who controls the military) should probably read the book, instead of getting bad information from Faux News, "right-wing" radio, and (neo-)conservative pundits.

Author Spotlight


Google Video: Robert Baer: The Devil We Know
Ex-CIA Operative Discusses 'The Devil We Know' : NPR
Ex-C.I.A. Robert Baer: The Devil We Know at CSPANJunkie

His recent talk at the Commonwealth Club of California:

Robert Baer [03-24-09]
Complete [1:06:02]

I watched part of it on KGO Plus Friday afternoon. Some notes: Baer supports UN Security Council Resolution 242, and believes that this is the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He also acknowledges the reality of peak oil, but thinks we should be looking at alternative fuels (instead of simplifying). A choice quote: "We're really bad at empire."

From last year: FORA.tv - Robert Baer: Iran's Grip On America's Future
Interesting: Alex Jones Interviews Robert Baer

WeAreChangeLA debriefs CIA Case Officer Robert ...

Robert Baer, Washington Is Risking War with Pakistan

Robert Baer, Playing the Iraq Oil Card

Friday, May. 09, 2008

Playing the Iraq Oil Card

By Robert Baer

If anyone had any doubt that Iraq was a lot about oil, they shouldn't after the recent Capitol Hill appearance by our ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker. In a closed House hearing, Crocker put the fear of god in Congress. His message: If we leave Iraq, Iraq will destabilize the Gulf, and a destabilized Gulf equals unstable oil prices.

With oil bumping pushing past $120 a barrel, you can bet you could hear a pin drop in the room. But what exactly was he talking about? Iraqi Shi'a militias invading Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, burning their oil fields, driving the price of gasoline up to $10 a gallon and us into a depression? Crocker wouldn't elaborate on his vague warnings, preferring to leave it at a sense of dread.

There was a time when we could count on Saudi Arabia to make up a shortfall in oil when something like Iraq came up. During the Gulf War Saudi Arabia boosted its production by 3.1 million barrels a day to make up for the 5.1 million barrels a day of Kuwaiti and Iraqi production that was taken off markets. Oil prices rose relatively little.

Today, Saudi Arabia either refuses or can't increase its production. The peak oil Cassandras are convinced the Saudis can't. Saudi Arabia's mega fields like Ghawar are depleted, they say. And we'd better get used to gasoline at $4 a gallon and up.

But Crocker wasn't all bad news. He said that if we were to stabilize Iraq, and attract investors to the oil sector, Iraq could become the largest producer in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Crocker didn't put it in terms this baldly, but he might as well have said: We keep an army in Iraq, and we go back to the days of cheap oil. Anyone can afford to drive an SUV if they want one.

Crocker assured Congress that we are making progress. The Iraqi government retook the port of Basra that week, Iraq's main export terminal. And now that the government is in full control of Iraq's oil infrastructure things will get better.

What Crocker didn't talk about was Iran — and its plans for Iraq's oil. Months before retaking Basra, the Iraqi government started talks with Iran about running an oil pipeline to Abadan, Iran's main export terminal. Iran also has said that it will have a say in Iraq's mega field Majnun, which may contain 30 billion barrels of oil — a rival to Saudi Arabia's larger field. I suspect, though, if he'd been asked about Iran, Crocker would have said it is simply one more reason we should stay in Iraq, to keep Iran at bay.

Crocker could be right. We have no idea what is on the mind of the populist Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. If Sadr were allowed control of the Basra oil terminal, would he shut down Iraq's oil exports? Shell Kuwaiti fields?

Nobody really knows, which is just what the Bush Administration is counting on. They got us into this mess in the first place by preying on people's fears, and now they are continuing to do so. And $10 a gallon for gasoline is his equivalent of an economic WMD.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.

via EB

Robert Baer, Why the CIA Is Airing Its Dirty Laundry

Why the CIA Is Airing Its Dirty Laundry
Monday, Jun. 25, 2007 By ROBERT BAER

The CIA is about to publish its "book of skeletons," as former director Bill Colby called the CIA's history of abuses. Coups, assassinations, kidnappings, domestic spying, break-ins, illegal telephone taps — all of it past works, and mostly dribbled out in the press over the last 30 years.

So while I wouldn't count on any major revelations, CIA Director Michael Hayden's declassifying this stuff is news, and good news at that. Hayden's plan is not only to draw a line under the past but make a point to this and future White Houses: Politicize intelligence and you'll find your name on the front page of the newspaper.

The CIA never had any business tapping the telephone of columnist Jack Anderson, reading Jane Fonda's mail, or tailing a Washington Post reporter. If there had been evidence of someone breaking the law, it was the FBI's problem. And if the FBI didn't have enough authority to open an investigation, then a President can always go to Congress and ask for stricter laws. Britain's Official Secrets Act, for instance, has kept Britain's secrets off the front pages of its newspapers. Any journalist who knowingly publishes a secret goes to jail. Harsh, but better than making the CIA break the law.

Another way the White House used the CIA to skirt the law has been to secretly order it to assassinate foreign leaders. For a start, we don't do assassinations well. As Colby told President Ford in 1975, "We have run operations to assassinate foreign leaders. We have never succeeded." If the White House has a problem with a foreign leader, it has other legal recourses, from sanctions to war.

Not all the CIA's failures can be laid at the White House's front door. But Colby's book of skeletons tells a story of a CIA misused, ordered to do things it can't and shouldn't be doing. And all at an enormous waste of CIA resources and credibility. If the White House were less worried about threats inside Washington's Beltway and more about ones outside our borders, the CIA and the rest of us would be a lot better off.

Which brings us to today. A day doesn't pass that I don't get a call from someone who asks me what really happened on 9/11. My initial reaction is, Read the 9/11 Commission report — Osama bin Laden did it. But then again, we hear more and more that key evidence in the 9/11 Commission Report is based on abusive interrogation tactics. We have no idea whether the 9/11 suspects were telling the truth or telling someone else's truth to please their interrogators. I hope Hayden puts a line under this one too, although no doubt he's going to have to wait until the next Administration.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is TIME.com's intelligence columnist and the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down.

Official CIA press release:

CIA Releases Two Collections of Historical Documents
June 26, 2007


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released two sets of previously classified historical documents.

“The CIA fully understands that it has an obligation to protect the nation’s secrets, but it also has a responsibility to be as open as possible,” said CIA Director Michael V. Hayden. “I’ve often spoken about our social contract with the American people, and the declassification of historical documents is an important part of that effort.”

The first collection, which some call the “Family Jewels,” consists of almost 700 pages and was compiled in 1973 under Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger, who asked CIA employees to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency’s charter.

In 1974, the CIA provided the documents to Congress. They were exhaustively reviewed by the Presidentially appointed Rockefeller Commission and by the Church and Pike Committees in Congress. Parts of the collection were released to the public in subsequent years.

The release of this collection answers a Freedom of Information Act request from 1992. In the past year, the Agency has made a concerted effort to close out its old cases under the law. Since October 2006 alone, the Agency has reduced the number of FOIA cases older than 5 years old by more than half.

The second collection, the CAESAR-POLO-ESAU papers, consists of 147 documents and 11,000 pages of analysis from 1953 to 1973. The CAESAR and POLO papers studied Soviet and Chinese leadership hierarchies, respectively, and the ESAU papers were developed by analysts to inform CIA assessments on Sino-Soviet relations.

The documents are available online at http://www.foia.cia.gov/.

index — Central Intelligence Agency
CIA FOIA - Overview
CIA Airs Decades of Dirty Laundry
Foreign Policy: Seven Questions: The CIA Airs Its Dirty Laundry
CIA to Air Decades of Its Dirty Laundry - washingtonpost.com
The CIA's Family Jewels

Blowback

Robert Baer, More Bad Intelligence on Iran and Iraq

Thursday, May. 24, 2007
More Bad Intelligence on Iran and Iraq
By Robert Baer
You would think by now the Bush Administration would have drained the well of bad intelligence on Iraq and Iran. Apparently not.

This week the White House made a big show of declassifying intelligence alleging that in 2005 al-Qaeda considered using Iraq as a base to launch terrorist attacks on the United States. The White House didn't bother to mask the reason for the disclosure — to put pressure on the Democrats to stop trying to impose a date for a withdrawal from Iraq. Meanwhile, ABC News reported that the White House recently ordered the CIA to destabilize the Iranian regime.

Both cases show how the Administration is still trying to manipulate intelligence to further its strategic goals. ABC says that Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams is behind the covert action against Iran, which reportedly stems from a "nonlethal presidential finding" signed by Bush to launch a plan that "includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and international financial transactions." But the CIA has consistently told this White House it can't do anything about the mullahs in Tehran short of strangling the country economically, in particular cutting off finished fuel products. That could take years, which is too long for the Bush Administration. (Both the White House and CIA refused to comment to ABC about the report.)

It's no surprise that Abrams would be behind this. But of all people he should know better. Abrams was a key player in the Iran-contra fiasco, which was rooted in lousy intelligence. In case you have forgotten, a handful of confidence men convinced the Reagan NSC, along with Abrams, that they were talking to moderate Iranians, who, properly nurtured, would supposedly change the character of the Iranian regime. It was a lie; the NSC was dealing with the most radical, hostile faction in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the same group holding our hostages in Lebanon.

Once again, neo-cons are urging the U.S. to take advantage of Iraq's long border with Iran and finally do something about the Iranian regime. I even got a call not long after the invasion from a neo-con asking if I wanted to go to Iraq to handle the Mujahideen-e-Khlaq, an Iranian dissident group on the State Department's terrorist list. The mission was supposedly to collect intelligence on Iranian nuclear facilities. (I declined, and I don't know where it went from there.) And I still keep hearing rumblings that Elliot Abrams is pressuring our Arab allies and Pakistan to fund and arm Jundallah, a fundamentalist Sunni Iranian Ballouch group, to attack the Iranian government — in other words, an off-the-books covert action. But neither the MEK nor Jundallah has the wherewithal to change the regime in Tehran.

As for the intelligence on al-Qaeda and Iraq, it's even flimsier. The captured Qaeda member who provided it, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, may have been tortured, either by Pakistan, by the CIA or at Guantanamo. Even if we accept the White House's euphemism for torture — "enhanced interrogation" techniques — what Libbi has to say about Qaeda can't be trusted, let alone drive U.S. policy.

Never mind that no one can decide what exact role Libbi played in Qaeda, or whether he was even in a position to know bin Laden's plans. He was never on the FBI Most Wanted list (as most Qaeda leaders on whom we have sufficient evidence are). Abu Faraj al-Libbi isn't even his real name (al-Libbi means "the Libyan" in Arabic). Abu Faraj al-Libbi is often confused with Ibn Shaykh al-Libbi, who was captured shortly after 9/11 and reportedly recanted his confession about Saddam having a pre-9/11 connection to al-Qaeda, saying it was coerced. Abu Faraj was also initially confused with Anas al-Liby, who was supposedly involved in the 1998 East Africa bombings and is on the Most Wanted list. Confused? Well, that's just the way the White House likes it.

Another problem with Abu Faraj al-Libbi's confession is that it doesn't make sense. Qaeda knows as well as anyone that Iraq, where the U.S. military could knock down your door at any moment, would be one of the worst places in the world from which to launch or plan a terrorist attack on the United States. The Administration knows that America is much more vulnerable in Europe. A Qaeda terrorist with a European passport can come into this country under the visa waiver program, virtually without scrutiny.

If the Bush Administration continues to feed the American people the same dog's breakfast of bad intelligence, we'll be in Iraq until Bush leaves office. And while we're at it, just maybe in a war with Iran.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East and Time.com's intelligence columnist, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down

Robert Baer on Iran, 2006

Interview with Former CIA Case Officer Robert Baer
Former CIA Case Officer Robert Baer on attacking Iran, oil at $300 a barrel and dealing with the smartest crazy man in the world.
—


Q: President Bush said today that the ball is now in Iran's court, how do you think the Iranian government will react?

A: The Iranians believe they are winning in Iraq. They now see themselves as an equal with the Unites States in the region. They now have no reason to agree to preconditions imposed by the United States. Iran's Ahmedinajad sees this as a unique opportunity for Shia domination in the Gulf. He does not intend to give up this chance. It's also a classic situation where he thinks that he can use an external enemy to solve problems he faces within Iran, like problems with Sunni Iranians and disenchanted students, and a divided leadership.

Q. Were you surprised by Secretary Rice's announcement yesterday to change US policy and do you think it will work?

A. My new book "Blow The House" down is loosely based on Ahmedinajad. Those of us who have followed his career know he is a person who has in the past and will again take on the US. He's a formidable opponent. In order to employ military force against him we definitely will need the assent of the international community, especially Russia and China, who right now do not want war. In fact, the Bush Administration would prefer economic sanctions doing the job.

Q. Will sanctions work?

A. Probably not. If we understand Ahmedinajad, he welcomes a confrontation. He is feeling supremely confident he could win it. He wants to right Shiite grievances that go back hundreds of years.

Q. What do you think will happen next?

A. Look, the Israelis are coming to us and saying that they are vulnerable. Iran can hit Israel with a Shahab missile -- one day armed with a nuclear warhead -- and destroy Tel Aviv. The Israelis are saying that they will take care of Iran if the US does not. This would be worse than an international coalition taking care of the problem. I don't know for sure what Bush will do. But there are many smart people in DC who say that armed conflict is inevitable. As for the Arab states, they are saying the current Iranian regime has to be decapitated. An Arab head of state told me last week that Ahmedinajad has directly threatened to destroy Arab governments' oil supply and facilities in retaliation for a U.S. strike.

Q. This all sounds too bad to be true& you agree with Sy Hersh then that an attack on Iran is quite possible?

A. If we destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities in the Elburz mountains, Iran will disrupt oil supply in the Gulf. The US will then be face with oil as high as $300 a barrel, will need to send a lot more troops in the region, including into Iraq. This is a nightmare scenario yes, but it's not that far fetched. Again, Ahmedinajad would prefer to get what he wants without a conflict but if he can't he's ready for one. Some think he would even prefer war to peace. The same goes for Bush. In spite of the certain blowback, he does not intend to appease Iran. It's a situation almost like 1914 -- no one will come out of this undamaged. Yes I do think Sy Hersh is right.

Q. It sounds like you are saying the US wants peace and Iran wants war.

A. Look at it this way: Iran wants to be recognized as a pre eminent power, and wants the US out of the way -- out of the Middle East. It wants the destruction of Israel. These are demands of course the U.S will never accept. There's this logic of war that worries me. I worry about Ahmedinejad's sanity. When Ahmedinajad denies the holocaust its more than propaganda. He is an apocalyptic Shiite who believes in a final bloody, struggle the way some evangelical Christians do.

Q. Where is the hope then?

A. The only hope is in that the Iranian clerics will make Ahmedinajad stand down, maybe some saner political forces will take over.

Q. Can the US help facilitate regime change in Iran?

A. I cannot put a percentage on it. I'm not sure what's happening in the street in that country. And I am skeptical about how much any of the experts on Iran know what is really going on there. Ahmedinajad came out of nowhere, at least for most experts. Also, neither the experts nor the US government know precisely how much control Ahmedinajad really has over Iran. They do know that his power base in the south of the country is very strong. Through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps he can rely on an almost parallel government.

In effect, we are as blind in Iran as we were in Iraq.

Q. This all sounds very bad for the U.S.

A. It is. Very few foresaw we'd end up in this situation after invading Iraq. Although we should have seen that by putting the Shiites in charge of the Iraqi government we would rekindle Shiite chauvinism. Anyhow, the Shiites have never been as dominant in the region as they are now.

Q. Do you think the US would alienate itself even more from the so-called Muslim world if it attacked Iran?

A. Sunni look at the attack on Iraq as an attack on Sunni Islam. The Shiites would look at an attack on Iran as an attack on all Shiites -- in effect we would be at war with all Muslims. The skeptics say Ahmedinajad is blufffing, he cannot influence the Arab street But what if Ahmedinajad is right?

Q. If the US removed Ahmedinajad do you think there would be a power vacuum of the sort we saw in Iraq after Saddam?

A. There could be civil war in Iran, but it's the same problems as with Iraq, we just don't know. In Iraq the Neocons said that they could push Iraq down a democratic path but they didn't. They gave us a civil war instead. America does not have anybody in Iran to tell us the situation on the ground, besides a few journalists going on and out. It's a black hole.

appearance on Hardball with Christ Matthews

Robert Baer on the war

via Lew Rockwell Blog.

He discusses the administration's evidence for the Iraq-Al Qaeda connection... When the administration first came out with this justification, I defended it as much as I could, in order to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. And also to rebut those who would assume that they would know more than the administration, based on their liberal sources, various columnists and websites. I would refer to the Weekly Standard, since it was one of the biggest defenders of the connection. (And of course they would knock the WS down as being unreliable and partisan.)

Does loyalty require that I defend the administration, when I do not have evidence that it is lying? Or should I doubt their case, even if I do not have anything to back up my doubt?

Even now I don't think my question of whether hostilities can be resumed if the terms of a cease-fire agreement are violated, or if just war theory needs to applied afresh, hasn't been answered, but I suspect that ceasefires that last too long may become some sort of de facto peace settlement.

I don't know if the war was unjust as a response to those violations; but I didn't think it was prudent either, since to undertake nation-building when one does not have the capacity to do so is folly. (Hence, for that reason the war fails to meet the criteria for just war, and it fails on other accounts as well...)

U.S. Department of Defense Official Website; the report (from FAS.org); Curtis Bowman: Declassified Pentagon Report on Iraq and Al-Qaeda; Pentagon report debunks prewar Iraq-Al Qaeda connection ...

Robert Baer, Who is Stealing Iraq's Oil?

Who Is Stealing Iraq's Oil?
Robert Baer, TIME Magazine

via EB

Reminder: Two experts on the efficacy of torture

Eric Haney:

Q: What do you make of the torture debate? Cheney ...

A: (Interrupting) That's Cheney's pursuit. The only reason anyone tortures is because they like to do it. It's about vengeance, it's about revenge, or it's about cover-up. You don't gain intelligence that way. Everyone in the world knows that. It's worse than small-minded, and look what it does.

I've argued this on Bill O'Reilly and other Fox News shows. I ask, who would you want to pay to be a torturer? Do you want someone that the American public pays to torture? He's an employee of yours. It's worse than ridiculous. It's criminal; it's utterly criminal. This administration has been masters of diverting attention away from real issues and debating the silly. Debating what constitutes torture: Mistreatment of helpless people in your power is torture, period. And (I'm saying this as) a man who has been involved in the most pointed of our activities. I know it, and all of my mates know it. You don't do it. It's an act of cowardice. I hear apologists for torture say, "Well, they do it to us." Which is a ludicrous argument. ... The Saddam Husseins of the world are not our teachers. Christ almighty, we wrote a Constitution saying what's legal and what we believed in. Now we're going to throw it away.

source

And Robert Baer:

The Israelis, Baer said, have learned that they can gain valuable information by establishing personal relationships with the inmates and gaining their trust.

"They found that torture, abusive tactics, made things overall worse for them politically," Baer said. "The Israelis are friendly with their prisoners. They play cards with them and allow them to contact their families. They are getting in their minds to determine what makes up a suicide bomber."

source

THE PRAGMATIC CASE AGAINST TORTURE....

old news: CorpWatch : US: Pentagon Spends Billions to Outsource Torture

United States: Trade in Torture

On Robert Baer: I was a cowboy for the CIA - Salon; "Baeriana: a chat with Robert Baer" by Ken Silverstein (Harper's ...; see also this previous post

Robert Baer comments

From: "It's Not Syria's Problem Anymore," by Robert Baer

Original source

Appointment In Damascus

In March I asked an old friend what he though would happen in Lebanon. 'It's not Syria's problem anymore,' he told me. 'We gave Lebanon to Iran.'

By Robert Baer

Aug. 14, 2006 issue - In March I ran into an old friend in Damascus, a Syrian businessman close to President Bashar al-Assad. I asked him what he thought would happen in Lebanon. "It's not Syria's problem anymore," he told me. "You threw us out. We gave Lebanon to Iran."

I never thought forcing Syria out of Lebanon had been a good idea. The Lebanese government left in charge was weaker than the one that had been powerless to stop the civil war in 1975. Brutal as its rule had been, it was Syria that put an end to that war with the 1989 Taif accord. Syria kept Hizbullah in check, limiting its parliamentary representation in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections. With the Syrian Army gone, I feared, Lebanon would again become a divided and dangerous country.

To be sure, Damascus is hardly a benign influence. It arms Hizbullah and harbors violent Palestinian groups. Still, when Syria controlled Lebanon, Damascus was the closest thing America had to a return address for Hizbullah's terrorists. This was never clearer than during the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847. When passengers were about to be executed on the tarmac of Beirut International Airport, President Ronald Reagan appealed to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who ordered his commanders in Lebanon to gas up their tanks and prepare to crush the militia. Hizbullah released the hostages.

There were other occasions. In 1987, after Hizbullah kidnapped ABC correspondent Charles Glass within sight of a Syrian checkpoint, the Syrian Army pulled Hizbullah members out of their cars and beat them. Glass was soon free. When the group kidnapped two U.N. employees in 1988, along with others, Assad threatened to arrest Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a cleric close to Hizbullah, and hang him. Hizbullah quickly let the captives go. In July 1982, a Lebanese Christian militia kidnapped the Iranian chargé d'affaires, two other Iranian diplomats and a Leba-nese journalist. In hopes of an exchange, Iran's Republican Guards arranged to kidnap David Dodge, the acting president of the American University of Beirut, and smuggle him across the border to Syria and thence to Tehran. Washington protested to Assad, who was furious. Unless Iranian authorities freed Dodge, he told Tehran, Syria would expel the Republican Guards from Lebanon. Needless to say, Dodge soon arrived unharmed in Damascus.

As I say, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it was the Syrians who kept the lid on Lebanon. So the idea of Damascus's handing its Lebanon portfolio to Tehran sounded like trouble. What happens next, I asked my Syrian contact. He shrugged, then dropped a bombshell. During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Damascus in January, he claimed, the Iranian president had met a shadowy figure in the terrorist world named Imad Mughniyah, the man widely suspected of kidnapping Dodge and killing U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem during the TWA hijacking, among other bloody episodes.

I'd heard this story before. The Mossad was big on it, but I've never quite believed it. The point is that my source did. Essentially, he was telling me he feared that Lebanon was spinning out of control—with dangerous consequences for everyone, including his own country. Freed from Syria's restraint, Hizbullah might soon be hijacking planes and kidnapping people again. If backed by Iranian radicals, it could go even further.

At the time I didn't imagine the full-scale war that has since erupted. But in retrospect, it's hardly surprising. Western diplomats may now seek a ceasefire and send in international peacekeepers. Israel may create an ethnically clean "buffer zone" along its northern border. But does anyone really believe the violence will stop? Will Iran prove a better safety valve than Syria? Not likely.

When the last Syrian tank rattled across the border last year, Syria fell back on a policy of trying to seal itself off from the chaos it could see building around it in Iraq and Lebanon. Bashar al-Assad especially fears the sort of crisis his father confronted in February 1982, when an insurrection backed by the Muslim Brotherhood broke out in Hamah. Assad senior contained it by flattening the town with heavy artillery. Combing through the rubble, the Syrians were astonished to find that the rebels' weapons had come from Lebanon. With no strong central government, it had become a failed state, an open arms bazaar and a haven for terrorists the world over. Today Syria sees history repeating itself, only worse.

Baer, a former CIA officer, is author of "Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude."

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

From Washington ProFile:

In your book “See No Evil,” you write about a number of contacts you made with members of the Russian military during your time spent in Tajikistan. In the 90’s, do you believe it would have been beneficial for the U.S. intelligence community to work closer with the Russians? Would it have made a difference in rooting out dangerous terrorist organizations in Central Asia, for example?
Baer: Well, no, not really, because the Russians, first of all, don’t understand American politics. They don’t understand that Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest supporters of Chechnya, the whole resistance there. So it doesn’t matter who was in the Kremlin – whether it was Yeltsin, or Putin or Gorbachev – they looked and said, ‘now wait a minute, here’s America’s best ally in the Middle East and yet they are funding the Chechen resistance.’ And they knew that our interests didn’t coincide. The United States only cared about Saudi oil, getting it cheaply, and drawing on Saudi Arabia for money, and the Russians said that’s not exactly fighting terrorism.

Is there any residual Cold War effect going on?
Baer: The Russians pay much more attention to national security because they don’t have private interest groups that take over foreign policy. You look at the pro-Israeli lobby in this country, whether it’s evangelical Christian or Zionist, and the Russians don’t understand that, how a minority group can hijack a foreign policy. And they are very mistrustful. The Russians are very mistrustful about what’s happening in Syria today, because we are doing everything to unseat a secular regime, which ultimately will affect everybody’s interests in the Middle East. The Russians don’t understand why we attacked Iraq, where we unseated a secular regime, and essentially turned it over to fundamentalists…They don’t get it. Although there are some Russians that do, but in general, it’s an irrational foreign policy, so you could never have a close alliance between the Russians and the Americans.

Do you think that since 9/11 there has been any closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russian intelligence communities at all?
Baer: Oh sure. But they have different interests. Remember that during my days in the CIA, the CIA had nothing to offer on Chechnya. And that is a driving interest of Russia. So there’s not that much really to exchange. And the Russians don’t really care about Saudi Arabian royal family…

What about the Uzbek Islamic Organization…
Baer: The CIA doesn’t know anything about it. What are you going to trade the Russian government with? If they arrested some Uzbeks… I simply don’t know what’s happened since 9/11. You’ve got a coincidence of interests in some places, but… When I was in Tajikistan, the Russians just found it implausible that we knew next to nothing about the Arab fundamentalists in Afghanistan. Their attitude was: ‘look, they’re coming through Pakistan, that’s your ally, you guys sent them there in 1979, you paved the way for the crazies to come into Afghanistan to fight us, and now this is 1992 and they’re causing a civil war in Tajikistan, what do you mean you don’t know who they are?’ They don’t realize that there’s this sort of laissez-faire that the CIA carries out in intelligence. I mean, it’s true; I kept on asking questions when I was in Tajikistan: ‘what’s happening? Who is sending the rebels across the border and killing Russians?’ They weren’t our friends. And we got the answer: ‘we don’t know.’

In reaction to this weeks events, MSNBC has this article:
UK Seen as a weak link by the US

Reappraisal of Syriana

Official site for the film

"Does the movie have something to do with Syria?" explanation of the name

Stephen Gaghan and Robert Baer:


Perhaps the reappraisal should wait until I re-watch the movie, but enough time has passed from the first viewing and I still remember the basic plot details. Is the movie a classic? I'm not sure--in 15 or 20 years I think it will seem outdated, if only because we may have a better sense of American entanglements in the Middle East by then, and the real role and influence oil companies have had.

I still think some movies could be made based on the actual life of Robert Baer. I believe originally the movie was going to be a straight adaptation of his book, but they decided to write a new script, and invent a character, Bob Barnes. Is Mr. Baer an opportunist, capitalizing on his experiences? A shameless self-promoter? An empty talking-head passing himself off as an expert on the Middle East, though one with a fascinating background? Or is he something more than that? (Similar charges have been made of those who have served the country, David Hackworth, Eric Haney...) I think that if it would have been possible for him to remain at the CIA while maintaining his integrity, he would have done so. When a man devotes his life to serving his country and he is prevented from doing so by the agency or military of which he is a part, one can only imagine the sadness he must feel.

What has the impact of the movie been? Virtually none, as far as I can tell. It didn't really enter into mainstream conversation among Americans. While reform of the CIA and the intelligence community remains a pressing concern, it is not clear to me if the 9/11 Commission, the changes that have been implemented and the various political appointments have amounted to any good. As it is, I don't think I would want to enter into Federal service. Unfortunately the movie, unlike the book See No Evil, did not really focus on the need of the CIA for reform, though it did show how politicized it was. One suspects that the agency's betrayal of Barnes reflects how officers and agents of a certain generation at the CIA perceived the changes within the agency during the 90s.

Instead, the movie focused on... oil. While Americans are aware that gas prices are going up and oil is coming from elsewhere, whom do they blame for the increase? The oil companies. Certainly not themselves. Just yesterday there was a story on NBC Nightly News about BP knowing for a while that they were having problems with corrision of their pipes in Alaska, and that it could have been mitigated had they not cut down on preventative measures in order to save on costs.

Does our dependency on oil influence our political decision-making and foreign policy? Undoubtedly. Could we really decide differently? Not if all of us agree with Vice President Dick Cheney in maintaining that "the American way of life is non-negotiable." This is what the movie attempts to portray, how all of the small cogs inside industry and government are caught up in something bigger than they can comprehend, and there is no easy solution to their difficulties. (Some have complained that the movie does not offer an easy solution--one wonders if they are being simpletons and completely missed the point of the movie.)

How are Muslim terrorist organizations weaved into the story of Syriana? Does the movie respect religious motivation, or does it attempt to reduce it to economics? While the movie does make the point that such groups can find recruits among those who have no economic opportunities, at the same time it portrays the recruiter as having sincere religious beliefs. It is not clear to me if those whom he recruits have an "authentic" conversion, or if they are merely seeking a way to lash out against their perceived oppressors.

Americans today remain as oblivious as before about Peak Oil and its potential consequences. Problems with infrastructure and conflict in oil-producing regions have obscured the basic assertion of Peak Oil messengers--there is a finite amount of oil on this planet, and sooner (or later) production will peak. If production peaks, while demand continues to increase (along with our dependency), leading to a point of no return for our economic arrangements, then the consequences will be dire. People don't realize that they depend on oil for more than fueling their cars and heating their homes.

At least Rep. Roscoe Bartlett is trying to do something about peak oil within Congress. (Interviews with Rep. Bartlett: audio files, transcripts)

That said, if one has to watch movies, Syriana is a movie worth watching (at least?) once. But it would be better use of time for people to read about Peak Oil and to see what they can do to forestall its consequences on their own lives. Maybe it will be not much, if they act in isolation. But if they realize this, perhaps they can meet and discuss with others and try to come up with an actionable plan for their local communities.

Books by Robert Baer:
See No Evil
Sleeping with the Devil
Blow the House Down (novel)

"The Fall of the House of Saud"
"Dangerous Liasons"

Interviews with Robert Baer:
Buzzflash; Frontline; BBC3; FrontPage; npr; Atlantic; CHUD (he discusses the movie); Harpers; Hoover; Foreign Correspondent; BBC; Washington ProFile; PBS interview; CNN transcript; Lateline; On the Media (020202, 060702); Bob Rivers; BORR; GreenCine;
; Public Ed Center; Eyeonbooks;

short bio

on intelligence reform and the CIA: Foreign Policy Association, How the CIA can be fixed;
Wanted: Spies Like Us; wmassociation; Hoover Institution: "I Spy"; "Flying Blind with the CIA"

chatroom transcript; another

Articles:
Durango Herald; Telegraph; Former Intelligence Officials Take To the Novel To Tell Their Stories; Intelligence Reform? Patience; Spy World; Top Former CIA Agent Condemns New Terror War; Salon; NRO; Online Journal; "Washington vs. Havana"

An analysis of current intelligence reform
a blogger's opinion