Well, of course it’s terrorism. Investigators have shown up and have begun to ask questions of the locals — have there been strangers in the area recently? Maybe Chechens? Or some other terrorists from the North Caucasus region?

I have no doubt that it’s terrorism, and would not be surprised in the least if it turns out to be tied to Grozny or Russia’s own internal Muslim conflict. Basayev may be dead, but the conflict rages on, the issues remain unresolved.

And it will be interesting, in these next couple of days, to see how the US responds to Russian cries about the threat she faces from Muslim terrorists. Sometimes, Russia and others like the US see eye to eye on the subject, but not always. I wonder how it will play out this time.

This was the view of my world, an hour before the start of 30 June. Dark, quite, not much moon. Alone. Many people, I suspect, fear darkness because of the great unknown. I have come to embrace it, for all the potential it holds. It’s fitting, then, that this was my image heading into 30 June.

In 2003, I spent the dark hours listening, watching. If I found you, I probably tried to kill you. Depending on how you view things, I was probably either a great guy, or the harbinger of death. I usually vote for the former.

But like then, I have been quietly waiting for the arrival of 30 June, waiting through the nights, listening, looking. Waiting, since the US and Iraq signed the security agreement which said that US forces would be out of the cities, villages, and localities by 30 June. Or maybe on 30 June. Whatever.

Out of the cities. It such a simple thing, that is really so very complicated.

The US, I fear, is very worried about not just security in Iraq, but all of the folks and groups here who really, really, really hate America. In the grand scheme of things, that’s probably less than 1 billionth of the total population of Iraq, but when you line them up, shoulder to shoulder, or AK47 to AK47, car bomb to car bomb, it’s a bunch of folks. And US forces have been in the cities, because that’s where they are, and they’ve been in the cities because that’s where we have been.

Some, but not all, of those same people also hate 1. the government of Iraq, 2. the Iraqi military, 3. the Iraqi police, 4. other Iraqis, and / or 5. something else about the Iraq of today. If the US were to actually get out of the cities, what would this do to the Iraqis themselves?

Together, these form something of a Jungian struggle — protect ourselves, but protect them, too.

But for the Iraqis, I think this all has been so much simpler. US, get the hell out of the cities, and in due time, get the hell out of Iraq. Love ya, love what you’ve done for us, but it’s time for you to be going. Ready or not, the Iraqis seems committed — socially, politically, and every other way you can think of — to taking care of themselves, their way.

Not long after we got here, we started to throw around the phrase by, with and through. I am unsure how many of us here really understood what our leaders meant when the started to use this phrase, but I think I picked up on it pretty early on. Instead of waking up and deciding what we needed to do that day, we needed to start waking up in the morning and asking the Iraqis what they wanted to do today, and if there was anything they needed us to do to help.

If others didn’t pick up on that back then, they’re seeing it today. Because that is the really of today. There is very, very little that US forces can or even want to do unilaterally — or, entirely on our own.

In four words, Iraq belongs to Iraq.

And I’m just here for the comic relief. I saw something in the paper the other day, saying that in this new era, post 30 June, information was going to be key. Information, and how it’s used in cooperation between the two countries. I firmly believe this — and not just because I’m an information guy. And it’s not just information about what the bad guys are doing — it’s information about repair parts, about new training techniques, about best practices, or ideas for new or unexpected problems. It’s about waking up in the morning, and sharing information about what to do today.

It’s exciting. In many ways, it may seem to observes that I’m still sitting in the dark of the night, watching, listening, taking it all in. Which is fair, I suppose. But this is their deal now, completely. If I can help, I will, If they need me, I hope they’ll ask. I will work as hard as if I was about to send my own soldiers out into harms way, because in many ways that has not changed — it’s just that the first guy going in the door is probably going to be an Iraqi, not an American. So be it, and good for them. I hope we help, not hinder. Iraq stands on the brink of such amazing potential, I hope they are able to realize all that they can be.

A few pieces have been in the press recently. I am not going to try and sum them up, but am going to recommend going and making the time to read them.

Read this, then this, and then this. Below, there’s a letter from the Director of National Intelligence — so yes, this is kind of serious stuff going on.

Don’t be the one, twenty years from now, who remembers that there was talk of interrogation and torture. Be the one who read up on it, developed and informed opinion, and who can talk about what it means to you and how you view the US.

Need more information? Here’s the Taguba Report entry on Wikipedia, and info on Abu Zubaydah and KSM.

Unclassified

Director of National Intelligence
Washington, DC 20511

Apr 16 2009

Dear Colleagues:

Today is a difficult one for those of us who serve the country in its intelligence services. An article on the front page of The New York Times claims that the National Security Agency has been collecting information that violates the privacy and civil liberties of American citizens. The release of documents from the Department of Justice?s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) spells out in detail harsh interrogation techniques used by CIA officers on suspected al Qaida terrorists.

As the leader of the Intelligence Community, I am trying to put these issues into perspective. We cannot undo the events of the past; we must understand them and turn this understanding to advantage as we move into the future.

It is important to remember the context of these past events. All of us remember the horror of 9/11. For months afterwards we did not have a clear understanding of the enemy we were dealing with, and our every effort focused on preventing further attacks that would kill more Americans. It was during these months that the CIA was struggling to obtain critical information from captured al Qaida leaders, and requested permission to use harsher interrogation methods. The OLC memos make clear that senior legal officials judged the harsher methods to be legal, and that senior policymakers authorized their use. High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country. As the OLC memos demonstrate, from 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended, the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Execute Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques.

Those methods, read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, appear graphic and disturbing. As the President has made clear, and as both CIA Director Panetta and I have stated, we will not use those techniques in the future. I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.

Even in 2009 there are organizations plotting to kill Americans using terror tactics, and although the memories of 9/11 are becoming distant, we in the intelligence services must stop them. One of our most effective tools in discovering groups planning to attack us are their communications, and it is the job of the NSA to intercept them. The NSA does this vital work under legislation that was passed by the Congress. The NSA actions are subject to oversight by my office and by the Justice Department under court-approved safeguards; when the intercepts are conducted against Americans, it is with individual court orders. Under these authorities the officers of the National Security Agency collect large amounts of international telecommunications, and under strict rules review and analyze some of them. These intercepts have played a vital role in many successes we have had in thwarting terrorist attacks since 9/11. On occasion, NSA has made mistakes and intercepted the wrong communications. The numbers of these mistakes are very small in terms of our overall collection efforts, but each one is investigated, Congress and the courts notified, corrective measures taken, and improvements are put in place to prevent reoccurrences.

As a young Navy officer during the Vietnam years, I experienced public scorn for those of us who served in the Armed Forces during an unpopular war. Challenging and debating the wisdom and policies linked to wars and warfighting is important and legitimate; however, disrespect for those who have serve honorably within legal guidelines is not. I remember well the pain of those of us who served our country even when the policies we were carrying out were unpopular or could be second-guessed.

We in the Intelligence Community should not be subjected to similar pain. Let the debate focus on the law and our national security. Let us be thankful that we have public servants who seek to do the difficult work of protecting our country under the explicit assurance that their actions are both necessary and legal.

There will almost certainly be more media articles about the actions of intelligence agencies in the past, and as we do our vital work of protecting the country we will make mistakes that will also be reported. What we must do is make it absolutely clear to the American people that our ethos is to act legally, in as transparent a manner as we can, and in a way that they would be proud of if we could tell them the full story.

It is my job, and the job of our national leaders, to ensure that the work done by the Intelligence Community is appreciated and supported. You can be assured the President knows this and is supporting us. It is your responsibility to continue the difficult, often dangerous and vital work you are doing every day.

Sincerely,
//Original Signed//
Dennis C. Blair

Unclassified

America had no plan for handling POW?s when WWII started, and spent the war refining the tactics, techniques and procedures necessary. The US had signed the 1929 Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field, also known as the Third Geneva Convention, and was legally bound to abide by its provisions for the POW?s. Under this Third Geneva Convention, prisoners are:

? To be quickly removed from the battlefield, and their status reported;

? Afforded conditions similar to those used by soldiers of the state holding them, to include comparable food and living quarters;

? Provided health and religious support;

? Transported when healthy, and told the details of their move;

? Allowed to correspond;

? Held under the detaining powers own military code;

? To be repatriated when seriously sick or injured.


The US signed the convention in 1932, but was unprepared to treat prisoners in accordance with it when WWII started. The US was rapidly building combat units, in order to join the war and support Britain and the Soviets, and did little initially to build units or organizations to handle POW?s. The US was also not ready for the sheer volume of prisoners of war that it detained in WWI. By mid-1943, the US held over 240,000 German POW?s alone, and by May 1945, the US held over 425,000 POW?s in the almost 500 POW camps it operated in the United States. In June of 1945, the US, UK and France held a combined 7.5 million POW?s.

As the number of POW?s held by the US rapidly increased during WWII, the US tried different approaches to handling them. Interagency efforts failed, and the administration quickly gave the burden to the military. But early in 1942 and 1943, the US focus was building combat units, not guarding prisoners; POW camps became dumping grounds for failed leaders, which only exasperated the problems associated with implementing the requirements of the Geneva Convention. This changed in 1943 and 1944, as American Army finalized its techniques and procedures for handling POW?s.

By war?s end, the American POW camps in the US had become a proven asset to their communities. The Third Geneva Convention allows for the use of prisoners as laborers, under certain provisions, and small communities across the US benefited from this. From logging to harvesting the crops, the prisoners helped sustain the American economy and indirectly support the war effort, largely through the efforts of the effective and efficient procedures established by the US Army.

Things, though, changed with the defeat of Nazi Germany. General Dwight Eisenhower, Military Governor of the U.S. Occupation Zone in Germany, designated newly detained civilians and soldier as Disarmed Enemy Forces, and applied the label to personnel already in US custody in Germany as POW?s. In doing so, Eisenhower did not have to afford these personnel the same provisions accorded POW?s under the 1929 Third Geneva Convention. The convention would have required the release of POW?s to their parent nation upon the completion of hostilities, and would have afforded them the above specified protections and treatment as POW?s, neither of which Eisenhower did for the Disarmed Enemy Forces. Eisenhower argued that, with the collapse of the Third Reich, there was no parent country to which the POW?s could be returned. Some one million Disarmed Enemy Forces were kept in Rheinwiesenlager (Rhine meadow camps), the official name for the Prisoner of War Temporary Enclosures (PWTE) that were little more than open fields. Others were put to work in hard labor, to include clearing minefields.

Additionally, US forces captured a number of German soldiers in China after the German surrender but before the Japanese surrender. The US military transported these personnel to Germany, and subjected them to a trial by a military commission, for violating the laws of war. The trials and detainees were held outside of the United States. In Johnson v. Eisentr?ger, 21 of these prisoners sued the US Government, claiming their treatment violated US law. The US Supreme Court, in hearing the case, concluded that it had no jurisdiction over the case, as the prisoners, captured in China and transported to Germany, had never been on US soil. The Court ruled that ?the Constitution does not confer a right of personal security or an immunity from military trial and punishment upon an alien enemy engaged in the hostile service of a government at war with the United States.? The US military could continue its practice of trial by military commission outside the legal framework of the international treaty, Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field.

The United States thus looked to the Johnson v. Eisentr?ger extrajudicial process in 2001, when American began its Global War on Terrorism. The Bush administration viewed the developing conflict with Al Qaeda and, to a lesser extent, the Taliban as itself being an extrajudicial battle, given that Al Qaeda is an organization and not a state, and that the Taliban government in Afghanistan was not recognized as being valid or sovereign. The White House identified their fight as unconventional warfare, and expected to rely heavily on Special Forces, the use of intelligence, and covert action.

Specifically, the US Administration sought to exclude the use of the term Prisoner of War and the status it brings to those detained. White House lawyers coined the term Enemy Combatant, much like Eisenhower user Disarmed Enemy Forces. Doing so specifically allowed the US administration to treat detainees in a manner not prescribed by the Third Geneva Convention, since Enemy Combatant, like Disarmed Enemy Forces, is not used in the language of the Convention.

Enemy Combatants would not need to be quickly evacuated from the battlefield, or afforded care or living conditions comparable to those of US or coalition soldiers. Enemy Combatants could be subjected to interrogation methods beyond those permitted under the Third Geneva Convention and, in keeping with its ?The gloves are off? approach to the conflict, the US Administration would be free to do as it deemed necessary to win its conflict. By not granting them POW status, though, the US could not fall back on its examples from WWII, in establishing low-risk, low security camps around the United States to handle the detainees until the conflict ends. Those rules established by the Third Geneva Convention, and those techniques and procedures learned the hard way in WWII, became inapplicable with the creation of the extrajudicial term Enemy Combatant.

Like the Rheinwiesenlagers, the Disarmed Enemy Forces, and the 21 soldiers from Johnson v. Eisentr?ger, the US Administration actively sought to keep these Enemy Combatants from transiting US soil, specifically in keeping with the Supreme Court findings in Johnson v. Eisentr?ger. While the US has had some success in detaining personnel at Guantanamo Base, Cuba, it has had few other choices for locations for detention facilities for the Enemy Combatants, given the international acceptance of the Third Geneva Convention. Many of these individuals are being detained in Iraq and Afghanistan, on the very battlefields where they have been detained, or later subjected to rendition, their return to the security services of their home nation.

The Bush Administration misunderstood the American history of POW?s and detainees, and thus has mismanaged detainee operations during the GWOT. The US administration failed to capitalize on its own lessons learning from during and after WWII, by not declaring those detained today to be POW?s and by not being able to process these thousands of modern detainees in the same manner as had been the POW?s of WWII or the 21 Germans detained in China.

Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armies in the Field, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 21 October 1950 (http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/q_genev1.htm).

Johnson v. Eisentr?ger, 339 U.S. 763 (1950) (http://www.law.uchicago.edu/tribunals/docs/jve.pdf).

Johnson v. Eisentrager Talking Points – Background for Current Cases, U.S. Federal Courts (http://www.uscourts.gov/outreach/topics/habeastalk_johnsoneisentrager.htm).

Joint Investigation Into September 11th: Fifth Public Hearing, Cofer Black, Joint House/Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing, 26 September 2002 (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602black.html).

Medical Department, United States Army Preventive Medicine in World War II, Volume IX, Special Fields, Prepared and published under the direction of Lieutenant General LEONARD D. HEAT0N The Surgeon General, United States Army Editor in Chief, Colonel ROBERT S. ANDERSON, MC, USA Editor for Preventive Medicine, EBBE CURTIS HOFF, Ph D, M D Assistant Editor, PHEBE M. HOFF, M.A., Office of the Surgeon General, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, 1969 (http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/EPWs/EPWs.htm).

Testimony, George Tenet, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 6 February 2002 (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/020602tenet.html).

Trouble in Germany, Time Magazine, 22 October 1945 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,778431-1,00.html).

Was Ike Responsible for the Deaths of Hundreds of Thousands of German POW’s? Pro and Con, James Bacque and Ernest Fisher, Jr., History News Network, George Mason University, 17 February 2003 (http://hnn.us/articles/1266.html).

World War II Prisoners of War in Georgia: Camp Gordon?s POWs, Kathy Roe Coker, Command Historian Office, US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, Augusta, GA 1994.

They just changed. Go see Eagle Eye.

It is the best film I have seen this summer. Seriously. Is it playing at the IMAX near you? OMG, go see that!

I will be the first to say that I always have issues with big brother / super spy / surveillance / espionage films. Always. They always just bug the snot out of me with the little things.

Fine. Check your reality at the door. You’ll have to — it’s not perfect, not in the least bit.

But wow, this movie packs a punch. It is damn near non-stop on-the-go action, and it’s awesome.

OK, in a nutshell (and without giving too much away), Shia LaBeouf (he of Transformers fame) plays Jerry, a somewhat loser. Nice enough guy, but not really going anywhere, as indicated by his steady work at Copy Cabana as a Copy Associate. Yeah, he’s that good. He comes home from another stellar day at Copy Cabana, to find his crappy apartment filled with guns, high tech military gear, and other oddities, like ammonium nitrate.

And his life just goes to hell.

The phone rings. It’s a woman. He’s been activated.

Which is fine. So has Rachel (Michelle Monaghan as the ultimate girl next door). And while legal threats keep Jerry movie, Rachel is motivated by concerns for the safety of her son. Yes, the mysterious lady on the phone will go to those lengths to control people, to do her bidding.

Our two heroes are being driven in this frantic pace, towards what might be heroism or terrorism — there’s just no way to tell. But the two of them are sure put through the ringer in the fast paced, hell on wheels race to find out.

And to be honest, I didn’t figure it out until almost the very end — pretty much just a hair before I think the audience is suppose to figure it out. I had an inkling, but to be honest, the fast pace and awesome storyline kept my mind on what was happening, not big picture “what if” kinds of things. And that doesn’t happen enough in movies these days.

Great performance by these two. Billy Bob Thorton plays the main FBI guy trailing them, and he does a fantastic job, too. He gets the best punch lines an delivers them just right — he’s enough of a smart ass to still be believable as an FBI guy. Michael Chiklis, who you’ll recognize (I hope) from either the Fantastic 4 movies or from TV (The Shield of The Commish), plays the SecDef with just the right spin. Granted, he’s no Donald Rumsfeld, but he is very, very good in this. Not Oscar worthy (no one in this really is), but he adds a lot to the depth of the characters and the feasibility of the tale.

So, yeah. Seriously, go see this. Best movie I have seen all summer. Go see it on IMAX if you can. This and Iron Man are the two movies of the summer worth buying on DVD / Blu-Ray.

Don’t mock me.

This movie is like mashed potatoes for me. It’s total comfort food. See if you can follow along:

It’s got John Landis directing. Same guy who directed Blues Brothers. Ditto for Animal House. The list keeps on going from there. The script for this is great, and Landis does a great job bringing it to life.

It’s got Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase working as a team. And Spies Like Us was made back in ’85, back when they were at the height of their game. They are top performers in this. It’s not laugh-so-hard-you-can’t-breath kind of funny; it’s on par with Stripes.

Add to that the timeframe for this film, and you’ve got magic. It’s classic 80′s cold war, Reagan war mongering. It’s chock full of Soviet fears, Star Wars, and intelligence blunders.

Oh, and Donna Dixon. Hubba, Hubba.

The gist of this story is that the US military / secret cabal has a new space-based laser weapon system that they want to actually test. The plan is to insert two teams — one real, one decoys — into the Soviet Union to grab hold of and launch a nuclear missile at America. The American secret squirrel guys can then test their new toy, save the day, and validate their new toy.

Aykroyd and Chase get sent to Intelligence Operative Training, which is like Satan’s Basic Training program. They get subjected to the worst things the military would ever do to someone — like dragging them behind a boat, radical vertical impact simulation, and putting them in sire resistant suits and hitting them with flamethrowers. Watch this.

The whole thing is filled with one-liners and awesome quotes that, twenty plus years later, still show up in my vernacular. Boys, it’s be a shame to have to kill you now.

There’s a ton of military humor in this that cracks me up, but it’s the intelligence / espionage humor that gets me every time. The humor ranges from the bungling spy jokes, to jokes just about the intelligence profession on the whole. All of that comes out as Aykroyd and Chase make their way through training, on into Pakistan, and across the border into the Soviet Union. I love the collect phone call from Pakistan. Watch this — it’s a classic.

Along the way, they learn the truth — they’re the decoys. They run into the other team – the one with Donna Dixon on it. In coming to terms with their being the decoys, and in seeing Dixon’s partner killed, they realize that they must see the mission through, even if no one expects them to be able to succeed.

The long and the short of it is that they make it into the Soviet Union, they take control of the launcher, and they launch the missile. They realize the seriousness of what they have done, and they jury-rig a way to recall the missile and abort its flight. The secret cabal and American military nuts are exposed, they save the day, and they get the girls.

I saw this in the theater, and I have bought it on DVD a few times – it makes for a great gift. I watch this movie at least once a year, and I use some of these quotes — “Doctor. Doctor. Doctor!” — waaaaaay too often. I love looking for the cameo performances — Frank Oz, BB King, and the like.

And I love Donna Dixon. Hubba hubba.

Russia and the Republic of Georgia are at war.

I realize that, for most of America, this is not a big deal. For me, this is news, with a capital N.

For Russia, this is a win-win situation.

Russia wins in exerting influence over South Ossetia when it comes at the expense of the Republic of Georgia. Russia comes out on top be re-exerting its control over what had been Soviet territories, and what is now territory in a pro-Western, US-leaning country like Georgia.

Russia wins because they can use this as justification for rolling in massive amounts of troops. and not just into South Ossetia, but also in Abkhazia, another break-away region in Georgia.

They win, because they might be able to influence the oil coming out of Azerbaijan en route to Turkey or the oil ports on the Georgia’s Black Sea ports, by right or by might.

And what can Georgia do? Call for US assistance? US troops? Repel the Russians themselves?

They’re going to bleed. They’re going to take as much of a beating as the Russians choose to give them. And there’s not a damn thing else they can do.

The Russians in South Ossetia win. More support, more autonomy, more business with Russia will only improve their lives. They aren’t viable as a state, but they can gain here with some more autonomy and more support from Mother Russia.

And Abkhazia will gain, the same way.

Russia wins. South Ossetia wins. Abkhazia wins.

Georgia loses. America is going to lose. And other western countries will lose, if the oil flow is disrupted or the price goes up.

This, by the way, is worth watching.