For the record, I'm not suggesting that you have to like these kinds of political leaks, although I often do approve of unauthorized leaks. For example, I have yet to write anything condemning Wikileaks or classified operations (such as the NSA's then-illegal domestic surveillance) winding up in The New York Times.
I'm not a big believer in the idea that you can have a secret government in a democracy. I recognize that some things need to be classified, but those instances should be few and very far between. If the government can't proudly admit that it has done something, it should almost always avoid doing it.
Republicans were horrified when President Obama publicly acknowledged that the United States overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossedegh in 1953. Of course, any American who was interested already knew that the CIA had done it, and it did sort of shape the history of the region from that day forward, but it made the United States look bad.
And that's where one of the primary dangers of the classification culture lies. Did you know that, for just one example, the American government continues to classify documents from the First World War? I somehow doubt that there's any real danger of the Kaiser or the Austro-Hungarians using that information to the detriment of America's national security, but try convincing Washington of that. Not long before his retirement, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a seminal book on the tens of millions of documents that have been unnecessarily classified and the culture that breeds.
When something can be easily classified, you find that everything can be. In November of 2001, President Bush amended the Presidential Records Act with Executive Order 13233, which made access to records by historians (begininng with the Reagan Administration's) virtually impossible. 13233 extended the same protection to vice-presidential records, as well. In a directive to the US Archivist, Bush explained that he might "may claim a constitutionally based privilege" over the records. And Executive Orer 13233 was above and beyond the usual classification process.
Classification can also be a gateway to criminal behaviour by presidents. The aforementioned NSA program was clearly illegal under both the Foreign Surveillance Act of 1978 and the National Security Act of 1948. But it was classified, so there wasn't much anyone could do about it. Even referring the matter to the House Judicary Committee for impeachment proceedings could very well have constituted a federal crime.
Operation Stellar Wind almost created a constitutional crisis of another kind in 2004.
There were internal disputes within the Justice Department about the legality of the program, because data is collected for large numbers of people, not just the subjects of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants. In March 2004, the Justice Department under Attorney General John Ashcroft ruled that the program was illegal. The day after the ruling, Ashcroft became critically ill with acute pancreatitis. President Bush sent White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr. to Ashcroft's hospital bed, where Ashcroft lay semiconscious, to request that he sign a document reversing the Justice Department's ruling. However, Ashcroft was incapable of signing the document. Bush then reauthorized the operation, over formal Justice Department objections. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller, Acting Attorney General James Comey, and many prominent members of the Justice Department were prepared to resign over the matter. Valerie Caproni the FBI general counsel, said, "From my perspective, there was a very real likelihood of a collapse of government." Bush subsequently reversed the authorization.Simply put, the entire top echelon of American law enforcement could have resigned overnight and not been able to tell the public why. That would have made the Saturday Night Massacre seem mild in comparison and would have crippled the government in the middle of two wars.
You can even argue that Watergate itself was a result of extensive secrecy within the Executive Branch.
Most scholars believe that the scandal began with the leak of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg. But the memoirs of both President Nixon and his National Security Adviser, Henry Kissinger, show that Nixon wasn't concerned about it. Nixon had nothing to do with the Pentagon Papers, a classified study of the Vietnam War through the end of Lyndon Johnson's presidency. The material Ellsberg leaked, Nixon thought, would only embarrass his lifelong enemies in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
But Kissinger pointed out to Nixon that they were involved in sensitive and highly secret (so secret that even Vice President Agnew wasn't aware of them) negotiations that would lead to the "China opening." Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, according to Kissinger, wouldn't deal with an American president who couldn't keep his own secrets. It was only then that Nixon set in motion the events that would ultimately lead to his resignation of the presidency. He created the "plumbers unit" that famously broke into the Watergate, but only after a "black bag" job at the office of Ellsberg's Los Angeles phychatrist.
Granted, it should be noted that by the time the Pentagon Papers were leaked, Nixon and Kissinger were illegally wiretapping, through the good offices of J.Edgar Hoover, several journalists and members of Kissinger's own staff in relation to other leaks. No one was fired, let alone prosecuted, for those leaks, although they did greatly complicate Kissinger's own confirmation as Secretary of State.
Secrecy, classification and leaks are the way Washington does business and has for generations. You may not like it, but there's very little getting around it.
What I find problematic is the Republican Party's new-found obsession with integrity when it comes to national security-related information. And that's where the Special Operations Political Action Committee enters our discussion.
Even though the above video is the creation of fevered GOP hacks, I encourage you all to watch it, if for no other reason than it's hilarious. Former Navy SEAL, Ben Smith in particular might be the most transparent hack on the face of the earth.
Actually, sir, Obama did whack Osama bin Laden. You know how I know that? Because if the operation went sideways and a bunch of SEALs get killed instead, he alone would have been blamed for it. Ask Jimmy Carter how that works. So spare me the sanctimony, you prick.
Before I go further, I should state my opinion on the bin Laden operation. When Barack Obama said during the 2008 campaign that he would go into Pakistan to get him, I joined Hillary Clinton, John McCain and, yes, even Mitt Romney in thinking it was a fantastically bad idea. I still think it was a bad idea because we may not know the real consequences of it for several more years. The Pakistanis are unpredictable folks, and they're pretty much going to be running the show in Afghanistan after the rest of us get out. Humiliating the ISI may yet have consequences that outweigh the benefit of putting a plug into bin Laden's noggin. And President Obama will be held to account for those consequences, as well.
First, almost every accusation that OPSEC PAC makes has been carefully disassembled by Peter Bergen, who knows more about al-Qaeda than almost anyone else on the planet.
Second, Obama might not have had to announce the bin Laden attack if the SEALs didn't crash their own secret helicopter. Does anyone think that the Pakistanis would have kept that secret for them after a foreign military invaded one of their heavily populated cities? Really?
Third, Republicans sure react differently about retired military speaking out against their civilian masters depending on which civilian masters are being spoken out against.
The Night of the Generals was as instructive as anything possibly could be. In 2006, a number of retired senior military and policy advisors publicly called for the resignation (or firing) of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the growing debacle in Iraq. These were incredibly serious people with centuries of experience between them. Some were close personal friends and ideological allies of Rumsfeld himself. Nobody in the OPSEC PAC rises to the level of rank or experience as those who participated in the "Generals' revolt" of 2006.
Practically every Republican house organ compared what the generals were doing as something akin to treason, "preening" for the "Leftist press" and the "defeatist" mainstream media. Of course, as soon as President Bush did fire Rumsfeld, those criticisms went down the memory hole.
At this point, I should bring in some more history.
For example, we know that President Bush very selectively declassified the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate to further the case for removing Saddam Hussein. The declassification was selective in that it gave the impression that America's intelligence community was unanimous in its assessement that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Left out of the declassification was the fact that the intelligence branches of the Air Force and the Department of Energy dissented. The community also had a much lower level of confidence in the findings than the administration presented them as having.
Then there was the deliberate leak of Valarie Plame's identity as a CIA operative. We now know that the intial leak came from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who admitted the leak immediately to investigators. But there's hardly a journalist alive who would run a story like that with only a single source. Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff (and Counsellor to the President) Scooter Libby and Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff - and political consigliere - Karl Rove helpfully confirmed the Armitage leak. In Libby's case, it was confirmed to several reporters, including Tim Russert and Matthew Cooper.
Upon Libby's conviction in relation to the Plame leak, President Bush committed what I consider to be a disgraceful act in commuting his sentence, which most Republicans applauded. But even that wasn't enough. In the closing days of the administration, Vice President Cheney, again supported by innumerable Republican partisans, repeatedly asked the President to pardon Libby outright.
While we're on the topic of the selective outrage over national security leaks, there's a story just today that highlights it.
The author of a recently announced insider account of the raid that killed Usama bin Laden has been identified to Fox News as a 36-year-old former Navy SEAL Team 6 member from Alaska who also played a role in the high-profile rescue of an American captain kidnapped by Somali pirates.
The book, "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden," is set to hit shelves on Sept 11. It is penned under the pseudonym "Mark Owen," according to the publisher, but multiple sources told Fox News his name is in fact Matt Bissonnette, 36, of Wrangell, Alaska. Bissonnette could be exposing himself to legal trouble, as the Pentagon has not vetted the account.
Because the bin Laden raid was actually a CIA operation that was carried out by the SEALs, not sending the manuscript of "No Easy Day" to Langley for security review may (or may not, the structure of the hit makes it legally questionable) a federal crime.
The tell-all book also has apparently upset a large population of former and current SEAL members who worry about releasing information that could compromise future missions. One Navy SEAL told Fox News, "How do we tell our guys to stay quiet when this guy won't?" Other SEALs are expressing anger, with some going so far as to call him a "traitor."
But you know what else is a crime? Knowingly revealing the name of someone who participated in two classified operations, which "multiple sources" did and Fox News ran with. Moreover, they very helpfully told the extremists who might want to exact revenge, where he lives.
Of course this, like other national security leaks that don't help the GOP politically, is registering very low on the Republican Outrage Meter. Why, I'll bet that Sean Hannity doesn't devote 1.100th ofthe time to the leak of Matt Bissonnette's name as he did to ball-washing OPSEC PAC and their retarded theories of how life really works.
And that's why these people can't be taken seriously. Fox News, along with innumerable blogging morons, can't throw around classified names while still presenting themselves as Patriotic Protectors of National Security.
Well, I guess that you can. but you expose yourself as being nothing better than what you accuse Barack Obama of being: a partisan glory hound that holds the fortune of his own party above that of the national security of the United States.
In the end, OPSEC PAC and it's birther leader, should be viewed for what it is: a ridiculous (if well-financed and connected) Republican joke.
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