-Caveat Lector- from alt.politics.org.cia ----- As always, Caveat Lector. Om K ----- <A HREF="aol://5863:126/alt.politics.org.cia:42503">Essay re CIA and NATO</A> ----- Subject: Essay re CIA and NATO From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kirby Urner) Date: Mon, Apr 5, 1999 12:45 PM Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Those who have at least an elementary understanding of the spy business know that it depends on cultivating informants in foreign countries willing to share information with a government not their own. These informants sort themselves into roughly two categories: ideological and remunerative, although this is more a spectrum, as any one informant is likely a mix. The informant motivated by ideology is predisposed to fight at home against a dominant paradigm which she or he believes is inimical to the long term interests of his or her group (ethnic or otherwise), whereas the remuner- ative informant is in it for the money, not especially interested in "politics" or the grand sweep of history world view kind of stuff. During the height of the Cold War, we saw a lot more ideological spying going on. During the Vietnam Era, the Communist networks were very successful in infiltrating the student bodies of USA universities and providing technical assistance. A lot of the more vocal student protests during the Vietnam War were directly attributable to the work of Russian case officers, who understood the USA very well, and how to motivate its more vulnerable members to fight against what to them appeared an alien ideology (Establishmentarianism). Many of you may recall CIA recruiters were banned from universities around the country, even bodily thrown off campus, as the KGB succeeded in making serious inroads, raising the political costs to Nixon-Kissinger of their policies in Indochina. As the Cold War abated, we found more remunerative agents cropping up, selling vast amounts of paper (in most cases) out from under the USA national security apparatus, putting these documents in the hands of case officers overseas (e.g. Russian, Israeli). The depolarization along ideological lines had turned the spy business away from the rhetoric of high-sounding principles, and moved it into an economic warfare mode, subsisting on a diet of real politik and, in the USA's case, a desire to maintain the status quo, with the USA the apparent victor of the Cold War and last/only superpower aboard Spaceship Earth. With the demise of ideological spying went the degradation of the quality of the intelligence. People with no inward gyroscope, other than the desire to "strike it rich", have a very poor sense of relevance, as they have no strongly polarized lense through which to view the prospectively sellable documents. With the end of the Cold War came a flood of essentially worthless memos and papers, mostly classified scenarios detailing the war game simulations of others, actings out of worst case emergency plans of this kind or that. Any number of invasions, coupled with martial law at home and an accelerated drafting of youth into the armed services, have been documented in detail and trickled through the spy networks from one side to the other. Nowadays, the Russians are fully apprised of USA war plans and vice versa. The business of concocting these things and selling them for remuneration has become a cottage industry in its own right. Against this backdrop, those few remaining ideologically motivated informants have an edge, as their brand of intelligence is in short supply and stands out in stark contrast to the run of the mill remunerative stuff, which is plentiful and cheap. The ideologues sympathetic to the USA are those few who still buy its rhetoric, fashioned during the Cold War, about freedom and justice for all at the global level, a high standard of living for all owing to the miracle of free market capitalism. Those who still buy this line, and consider their own local regime a parasitical backwater of bug-ridden thinking (at best) or an oppressive killer of innocents (at worst), know exactly what documents will have the greatest relevance to CIA case officers with experience in subverting such regimes. With military adventures such as the current one against ethnic cleansing operations, undertaken by NATO, it's very important for the spy agencies to redouble their efforts to keep their networks from degrading further, meaning the ideological informants must be allowed to glimpse enough of the inner workings of the USA's secret elite to maintain their trust, even while being bombed into the stone age by a less elite or intelligent military school of thought, which has no real appreciation for the intelligence business. For this reason, the CIA is willing to provide NATO with advice regarding the humanitarian fiasco, but is loathe to supplement the military effort directly. The CIA has friends in the Pentagon who share the grave reservations expressed by the Joint Chiefs regarding the advisability of following Madeline Albright's advice re the Balkans. So when the CIA refrains from participating in the military targeting directly, the Pentagon doesn't protest. It understands that reconnecting with ideological informants overseas depends on the CIA remaining aloof from the NATO war effort. This is their war, not ours. Once the bombing stops, and the refugee situation has been adequately addressed (as it has not been to date, much of the CIA's best advice having gone unheeded), those working on behalf of freedom and democracy in the Balkans will not have become so completely alienated from their case officers they will hence forth only work for Russian professionals (or increasingly the Chinese). Although the Russians do a fairly good job, had a lot to do with bringing the Vietnam War to an end, the USA has every intention of remaining a player, so that its familiar brand names continue to be household words around the world. Given the Cold War is over, Russian and USA objectives coincide a lot more than they used to, so losing a lot of informants to the Russians would not be the calamity this used to be (indeed, it would be great of the Russians would take a bigger share of the remuneratives, who tend to not be worth their asking price -- some employes being little more than remuneratives themselves, even though with fairly high GS status and generous tax-funded benefits). If the USA loses all its ideological informants in the Balkans, then this will signal a loss of USA credibility in general, at the ideological level. That would indicate a serious loss of inroads and a very difficult road ahead for keeping USA economic interests from being sidelined by those with better networks. For this reason, the CIA is doing its best to keep its Russian informants upbeat about the USA's ideological push, as distinct from the military campaign being waged by NATO, which cannot be sustained indefinitely and must eventually be contextualized by some "end game" strategy. The Russians have a big stake in creating a lasting peace in the region, independently of this NATO effort, so it turns out that the CIA and the Russians have a lot in common in this picture, and sharing quality information has been relatively easy, either through open source placements (of articles, media spots), or through secret drops (in the case of humint informants who need their identities protected). The State Department will have its own headaches patching together global diplomatic networks willing to continue to work directly and overtly with Albright and company, but that's really not the CIA's problem. The CIA hasn't burned its bridges so completely and will be better positioned to reconnect its networks and keep the USA moving in a positive direction once all the bombing has stopped. Or at least this is the hope. Every day the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate is damaging to the West in general (which has always professed high regard for human life). And NATO's inarticulate fumbling and ever-shifting rationale is akin to quicksand. A lot of military careers are ending in a real quagmire over on the NATO side of the fence. The CIA is standing by with a life line, hoping the floundering military-minded will come to their senses and take their cues more from the USA Joint Chiefs and less from Clinton's advisory team, which has made bungling and incompetence one of its chief hallmarks -- Nixon-Kissinger was only a little worse (plus the CIA was a lot weaker back then, so the crooks in the White House had a freer hand). Kirby Russia Desk ===== Subject: Re: Essay re CIA and NATO From: "Edward Combs Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, Apr 5, 1999 1:53 PM Message-id: <7ebbc4$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I believe that Urner works for the CIA. He has their fear of "paper-mills" . IMHO.. a case officer has more control over a spy(agent) that is doing it for money. In fact there was a Green classified document out from a "think-tank" that went into this subject in some depth(it named one country that tended to spy out of friendship and how hard it was to control this type of agent). The other ranting he went into has no place in an agency of the US government. ................. ===== Subject: Re: Essay re CIA and NATO From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kirby Urner) Date: Mon, Apr 5, 1999 6:33 PM Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Edward Combs Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >The other ranting he went into has no place in an agency of the US >government. Ah, but THIS is the internet. Cyberspace is a great place to keep from being swallowed up in a vast and sprawling bureaucracy. Anyway, I'm not in living in DC -- different rules apply. Kirby ===== Subject: Re: Essay re CIA and NATO From: "David M. Birdsey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, Apr 5, 1999 10:15 PM Message-id: <7ec7vm$3a0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Kirby Urner wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>... >Ah, but THIS is the internet. Cyberspace is a great place ```````````````````````````````````` >to keep from being swallowed up in a vast and sprawling >bureaucracy. Anyway, I'm not in living in DC -- different >rules apply. This is not a crticism of either poster in this thread, though one might say off topic (even for this group). There was an episode of the Simpsons on the other night, in which Bart et al were protesting against a curfew. Lisa suggested that with the dirt the kids had on their respective parents, they could get them to lift the ban on being out after 6:00pm. Lisa said "Let's spread it on the Internet," and Bart countered "I've got a better idea. Let's spread it were people's opinions actually matter . . ." ===== Subject: Re: Essay re CIA and NATO From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kirby Urner) Date: Mon, Apr 5, 1999 10:50 PM Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "David M. Birdsey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >This is not a crticism of either poster in this thread, though one might say >off topic (even for this group). There was an episode of the Simpsons on >the other night, in which Bart et al were protesting against a curfew. Lisa >suggested that with the dirt the kids had on their respective parents, they >could get them to lift the ban on being out after 6:00pm. Lisa said "Let's >spread it on the Internet," and Bart countered "I've got a better idea. >Let's spread it were people's opinions actually matter . . ." > Cute. Glad you mentioned cartoons -- an invaluable short cut to getting the message across. Look for Stephan Hawking in an upcoming Simpsons by the way. Last time he came to the US, the highpoint for him was getting to participate in the script reading, starring as himself (computer synthesized voice, as you know). My colleague Terry was involved in arranging the jet service which kept him on schedule. More on the importance of cartoons and cartooning below... Kirby ===== Subject: Re: Essay re CIA and NATO From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kirby Urner) Date: Tue, Apr 6, 1999 8:13 PM Message-id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Druid days) wrote: >>know that it depends on cultivating informants in >>foreign countries willing to share information with a >>government not their own. > > You should have titled that, "What people can do in their nations to vanish >during the night and be found dead the next day." It's the fools path chasing >a rainbow with no pot of gold at the end. >*************************** > Câinii latrã, caravana trece. It's a dangerous and difficult business, I agree. I don't recommend it to people. Much easier is an open society wherein informed dissent is not punished, views get freely bandied about, because managers are not so insecure and afraid to have people second guess and question. The USA at least has its ideals in the right place, but of course actual government officers don't always live up to them. Typically our freedoms get abrogated through the manufacture of some "crisis" in which dissent (along with other civil liberties) must be "suspended" -- then it turns out the "crises" just keep coming, and before long, the dissenters are outlaw rebels or even terrorists. This is a pattern we see over and over. It's not always the case, however, that a crisis is deliberately created by government officers. A lack of food, water, shelter may be imposed from without, or come about through natural disaster. In such situations, "civil liberties" begin to seem like a luxury that no one has time to exercise, even if they're defined on paper. The best way to foster open societies is to keep plenty of attention focussed on basic infrastructure issues. To talk about "encouraging democracy" at the political level, but without offering any solutions as to how basic survival needs will be met, is to simply expel hot air. This world would be a much safer place if more media time were devoted to solving the "refugee crisis" at a more global level than just focusing on the Balkans. Let's talk more about the situation on the Korean peninsula for example, before it becomes the next "crisis" to which an extremely inappropriate "military solution" is proposed. That's my two cents. So long as politicians think hot air will work with voters, oppressive regimes, dissenters, and intelligence agencies making connections to subversive elements in other societies, will continue to be an inevitable pattern of human relationships at the global level. Kirby ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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