I had been promising to write this one for about six months so I suppose it’s time to deliver. It’s about intelligence so you can safely assume it’s not about George W. Bush.
There’s an interesting and highly secret place - so secret that even I know where it is. It’s located in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, cheek-by-jowl with the CIA’s Counter-Terrorism Center and the Pentagoon’s Joint Intelligence Task Force-Combating Terroism Center. It’s name is the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) which opened in 2005 and churns out a singular product. Using HUMINT sources from the CIA, SIGINT from the NSA, info from the FBI and colour swatches from Homeland Security, it produces a daily briefing known as the Threat Matrix that is sent to the White House plus the heads of other national intelligence agencies. It also compiles lists of known and suspected terrorists and creates the briefing books for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and also the White House. Its control room was designed (I shit thee not) by Walt Disney Imagineering, a company usually in the business of designing theme parks. Yay! We’re going to Three Flags Over Intel! Don’t forget to pick up a Secret Decoder Ring!
The thing here is not simply that there’s yet another intelligence entity cranking out reams of paper, but the preponderance of people who work for it and others who don’t work for the government, but for private corporations. The intelligence community has been largely outsourced.
NCTC’s terrorist database, for instance, is maintained by The Analysis Corporation (TAC) which is run by a Mr. John O. Brennan out of Fairfax, Virginia. A former chief of staff for the CIA, he is one of thousands who have left the government intelligence community to return to it as private contractors for a hell of a lot more money. TAC has also spread the wealth around, subcontracting the collection of the database to CAIC International who also provided contract interrogators for Abu Ghraib in Iraq. That’s right - Bush and Cheney even outsourced torture…

In the intelligence community, we’re talking big bucks. Here’s what it costs each year to run sixteen different agencies:

The National Intelligence Program (NIP) gets about 80% of the overall intel budget. This breaks down to $8 billion for the National Reconnaissance Office, another $8 billion for the National Security Agency, around $3 billion for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, $6 billion for the CIA, $1.5 billion for the FBI, $60 million for the Treasury Department, another $60 million for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and a paltry $12 million for Homeland Security.

Then, we’ve got the Joint Military Program (MIP) which sucks up around $3.5 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and roughly $2 billion for the Defense Intelligence Agency. The aforementioned NSA, NRO and NGA are also cross-referenced, for budgetary purposes, as combat support agencies and also receive money from MIP.

Finally, there are the military intelligence units for the Army, ($6 billion) Navy, ($4 billion) Air Force, ($8 billion) and Marines. ($2 billion - always on the shitty end of the funding stick are the Marines…)

So, that’s approximately $60 billion large a year (based on 2007 budget figures) that is absorbed by Spooks R Us, and we can’t even begin to estimate the full extent of off-book Black Budget expenditures. In point of fact, we can only look at the above figures as estimates themselves even though they’ve been ascribed monetary values because the actual amounts in the budget are often left blank and marked as Classified. For instance, a report by GlobalSecurity.org points to the CIA’s appropriations which are hidden in a section of the Air Force’s budget figures described as “other procurement aircraft.”

The bulk of the privatization of the intelligence community has been farmed out to around 100 companies. To give you an idea of how this impacts the budgets of the agencies in question, here are a few figures. Since the 9-11 attacks, the CIA has been spending roughly 50 to 60% of its annual budget on for-profit corporate contractors. The CIA now employs more private contractors than its entire full-time employees of 17,500. The NSA grew its private contractor base from 144 in 2001 to 5,400 by 2006. Approximately 35% of the staff of the Defense Intelligence Agency are private contractors. The Counterintelligence Field Activity agency of the Pentagon’s staff is 70% private hires. But the highest proportion of corporate contractors work in the National Reconnaissance Office which maintains the US’s photo reconnaissance and electronic surveillance satellites. The corporate share of the NRO’s pie is an amazing (or appalling) 95%.

It was thought least 50% of all monies spent on intelligence gathering and analysis in the US goes to outsourced corporate entities. But information that inadvertently came available in 2007 now puts that figure at 70%. Big Brother is also Big Biz.

The inherent problem here is not simply because we have “green carders” (the colour of security badges worn by non-government employees) getting access to highly sensitive, often critical intelligence data. These people are vetted very thoroughly. (or at least one might hope they are) The problem is that in many cases, you not only have private contractors being managed by other private contractors, you often have government employees being managed by private contractors. You also have these private contractors writing the draft budgets for government agencies, and writing the Statements of Work that describe and define the jobs that they themselves carry out for the government. In other words, private contractors are often becoming policy makers for the government agencies that hire them.

It’s also an issue of transparency. Scott Amey, the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight stated “We have billions of dollars in spending going out that has little or no oversight. (by Congress) There is also the fact that budgetary information about all the US’s intelligence agencies is now available to private corporate contractors who can then use that information to lobby members of Congress on those very budget items. And, of course, it’s axiomatic that the more intelligence work is outsourced, the less effective any Congressional oversight will become. And when as that happens, so, as they say, does s__t. In 2006, Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking bribes from the San Diego defense contractor MZM. For $2 million Randy used his influence on the House Appropriations and Intelligence Committees to kick tens of millions of dollars worth of defense contracts for the CIA and the Pentagon’s CIFA to MZM.

And, naturally, in order to perpetuate or increase their employment and to develop and sell new intelligence-gathering and military equipment, it’s not inconceivable that corporate employees of these agencies might not skew data to suggest a disproportionate danger in threats that are relatively minor or don’t exist at all. After all, that was the entire MO of the Bush administration from 9-12 to the end of it’s reign of terror. Does anyone believe that there is a slight possibility, in having such a large outsourced corporate workforce in the intelligence community, that some may find it profitable to drum up more work for their mother company?

I remember, years ago, someone saying to me “Welcome to the world of strategic analysis where we program weapons that don’t work to meet threats that don’t exist.” And that person worked for the government.

The more the Bush administration outsourced the intelligence communities, the more it cost, the less Congress had any control over it and the less you knew about it. Personally, I believe that some outsourcing is necessary simply due to the technologies involved and the volume of data many of these agencies require that they honestly can’t collect by themselves. But for some agencies to be outsource to corporations to the tune of 70 to 95% is not only absurd, it’s dangerous. Health care for profit. Mercenary armies operating beyond the scope of law in theatres of war. The outsourcing of interrogators. Where does it end? When do we say that corporate profit does not outweigh the security of a nation?

Just a note to anyone who might subscribe to the services of Verizon Wireless: this is what your monthly bill is subsidizing.

Verizon is one of the sponsors for a Labour Day weekend rally by Friends of America, a pro-coal, anti-environmentalist organization. Two of the main “entertainers” will be Sean Hannity and Ted Nugent. A group called Credo Action contacted Verizon to ask why they would be supporting such a reactionary event:

“Before we launched our campaign, Credo Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of the pro-coal “Friends of America” rally. Becky Bond, our political director, sent a cordial follow-up to Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:”

“This is how our response is going over with the activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where the e-mails are coming from.” James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless.

Verizon had previously co-sponsored an event put on by Massey Energy, the biggest violator of the Clean Air Act in history.

So Verizon is now sponsoring an event of climate-change deniers and corporate hacks, giving over the emcee microphone to the Prince of Sleaze Journalism, Sean Hannity, and a talentless douchebag with serious manhood issues, Ted Nugent, whose eloquence once gave us this statement of superb post-Proustian prose:

“Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. … Hey, Hillary - you might want to ride one of these (machine guns) into the sunset, you worthless bitch!”

Ah, the lyric quality, the almost Haiku-like economy of words. I’m sure it sounded even better in the original German. He then retired to the bathroom to masturbate with the latest copy of Guns and Ammo.

If any of you use Verizon Wireless, I suggest that now is the time to exercise your option. If you support such actions and the withering contempt for those who have the temerity to disagree with their corporate stance on the environment and apparent love of diseminators of lies and hate, then, by all means, keep your service. If, on the other hand, you have a healthy regard for the air you breath and rate your integrity above that of Inannity and his ilk, I would ask you to cancel their service, find another provider and inform them of your reason for dropping them like a poison toad.

It seems that Sarah Palin had some rather different previous opinions on ‘death panels.’

In 2008, then Governor Palin declared April 16th “Healthcare Decisions Day” to “raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for end of life care.” To wit: (or in her case, twit…)

“WHEREAS Healthcare Decisions Day is designed to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions related to end-of-life care and medical decision-making whenever patients are unable to speak for themselves and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important health care directives…

NOW THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 16th, 2008 as: Healthcare Decisions Day in Alaska, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.”

Run! Move to New Jersey! Palin’s going to kill your grandmothers!

Of the over 50 companies that have either requested that their ads be taken off Glenn Becks’ news commentary show or removed their ads from Fox News entirely, one of the latest is Clorox. Gosh! How’s Glenn gonna keep his white sheet and hood sparkling clean?

Mexico has recently decriminalized the personal possession of drugs. You are allowed 5 marijuana joints, a half-gram of coke and also small quantities of LSD (15 mics potency) and also heroin and methamphetamine. This measure is cited to be a method of fighting the drug wars, but in reality appears to be a way of reducing bureaucratic spending since only 12 to 15 percent of those who were arrested for possession were ever convicted. In all likelihood, it will reduce the take-home pay of your average police officer since he won’t be able to shake down tourists for possession. US Congressmen were asked to comment on the possibility of decriminalization of marijuana but most were too drunk from four-martini lunches paid for by the taxpayer.

Dick Cheney recently accused the Obama administration of politicizing the Justice Department by “allow(ing) the Justice Department to investigate and possibly prosecute CIA personnel. Actually, it was Attorney General Eric Holder who is sanctioning a special prosecutor which President Obama opposed. The fact is that the investigation will be focused on the use of torture as an interrogation technique which the Bush administration sanctioned. It is incumbent on the AG to investigate illegalities, especially when there is persuasive evidence that the law has been broken which is exactly the case here. Could it just possibly be that the Big Dick is breaking a sweat over the possiblity that an in-depth investigation into the authorization of illegal interrogation techniques might - just might, mind you - lead back to him?
Nahhh… the Vice President would never break the law…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Chris Wallace talked about President Obama’s “Assisted Suicide Death Book” on Faux News. Interestingly enough, apart from totally misrepresenting the subject, he neglected to mention that the document was a guidebook on living wills that was written during the Bush administration. Jed Lewison had this to say about Wallace’s comments:

“There is nothing surprising about the Fox propaganda machine peddling outrageous lies, but Chris Wallace’s fabrication is one of the most despicable, reprehensible falsehoods Fox has ever put on the air. It’s bad enough that Wallace lied through his teeth, but the fact that he chose to exploit our nations veterans for his dirty political game tells us all we need to know about his integrity - or his lack thereof.”

His father, the legendary Mike Wallace was asked whether he was proud of his son, but his reply was unfortunately unintelligible owing to the fact that he was repeatedly slamming his head against the wall.

And in the “Are You F__king Kidding Me?” department, Rush Limbaugh, a man never at a loss for words, albeit small ones, is apparently running in fear of his genitalia, such as it is. On August 25th, wattles a quiver and multiple chins flying in all directions, he bloviated the following:
“It is President Obama who wants to mandate circumcision…. And that means if we need to save our penises from anybody, it’s Obama.”
I think he may have a point here. After all, Limbaugh is one of America’s biggest pricks.
Limbaugh is also congratulating himself for predicting Senator Kennedy’s death. I dare say that when Rush shuffles off this earthly coil, his funeral will attract millions, if for no other reason than to assure themselves that this human enema-bag is actually, finally dead.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that Glenn Beck is in dire need of a vacation. Might I suggest the planet Earth…
Here’s an example of his latest fare. On his TV show on August 27, he dragged out his little blackboard upon which were inscribed the words “Obama, Left, International, Graft, Acorn, Revolutionaries, Hidden Agenda.” He then wrote the first letters of each, giving “OLIGARH” which he pronounces “oligarch.” He then proudly proclaimed that there was one letter missing, and that was “Why” which he added to the jumble of letters he’d produced to create “OLIGARHY.” He then went off on a rant that I missed owing to the fact that my higher brain functions were temporarily shut down by the stunning imbecility of it all.
Glenn, you microcephalic, “OLIGARHY” is not a word! Well … actually it is … to a Fox News viewer.
Of course it doesn’t end here. Beck later claimed that President Obama is fashioning his own personal army, or as Beck put it, his own S.S. From where? Americorps, which Beck claims just got over half a trillon dollars in funding, thus putting it in the same league as the Pentagon.
In the Real World, Americorps just got less than $2 billion ($90 million under Obama’s requested sum) for their fiscal 2010 funding. What Beck appears to be speaking of is the proposed $5.7 billion (not trillion) National Service Bill that is being proposed for Americorps up to the year 2017. He also suggested that blacks from ACORN would be incorporated into this private army.
He then went on to explain Obama’s plan to inject all white people with melanin to turn them all brown, his secret agenda to divert 75 cents out of each tax dollar into the NAACP, that his health care death panels will mandate involuntary euthanesia of all Republicans and the fact that he has his own TV and radio show and has published several books is proof that he’s being oppressed and his freedom of speech taken from him. He then held a slice of onion under each eye until he teared up.

Actually, that looked like fun. Let’s use the Glenn Beck method. Let’s see … we’re write Arrogant, Smarmy, Shabby, Hypocritical, Onerous, Ludicrous, and Evil. Now let’s take the first letters and … voila! ASSHOLE!
By gosh, the Beck method works after all.

Hypocrisy Alert! It is now alleged (including by George W. Bush himself) that he volunteered to go to Viet Nam in 1970, but was turned down.
Bush, who took the Pilot’s Aptitude Test at Westover AFB in Massachuscetts, scored a 25% (average scores being in the 70’s) and 50% on navigator aptitude but still managed to get in. He also checked the box for overseas service as “do not volunteer.”
He eventually became a pilot, flying F-102s and 104s with the Texas Air National Guard. (TANG) In an interview, Bush once stated “Had my unit been called up, I’d have gone … to Viet Nam. I was prepared to go.”
All well and good to say so, Georgie, but at the time - 1970 - the Air Guard was decomissioning the F 102s and 104s. And apart from that, the minimum qualification for a TANG pilot to get sent to ‘Nam was 1000 air hours, which you didn’t have anything near.
Dubya also lost his flight status in ‘72 when he failed to show up for a flight physical. (The air war continued until 1975) Brigadier General David L. McGinnis, former aide to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, had this to say about that:

“Failure to take your flight physical is like failure to show up for duty. It’s an obligation you can’t blow off.”

In point of fact, it is a violation of contract since, as a pilot in the Guard, you are obligated to remain on flight status for five years after completion of training which Bush accomplished in 1969.

Major General Paul A. Weaver Jr, former Pentagon director of the Air National Guard also had a comment:

“There is no excuse for that. Aviators just don’t miss their flight physicals.”

So, we can see that while Bush may have been making all the right macho noises about going to Viet Nam, he did so secure in the knowledge that it would never happen. In fact, in ‘72, he positively ensured that it wouldn’t.
Hoot, Hoot! The ChickenHawk Express is now leaving for Coke Town! Would all Right Wing hypocrites, please board!

In the “History? We don’ need no stinkin’ history” department, Pat Buchanan stated on MSNBC that Hitler wasn’t seeking an empire and merely had the benign interests of German unification at heart.

“Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939 he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral nations, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace would mean war with France, and that meant war with Britain whose empire he had admired and whom he had always sought as an ally. As of March, 1939, he didn’t even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?”
Well, I’d say that he didn’t invade Russia until he created a border to it by conquering Poland first. However, history doesn’t seem to be Pat’s long suit. I suppose next he’ll be claiming that the Holocaust wasn’t a Nazi operation to exterminate the Jews, but 6 million unrelated murders by disaffected members of the Wehrmacht and the S.S. We all know it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the reputation of a fine, upstanding organization.

Speaking of Nazis, the good people at Free Republic are making runny lumps in their GWG’s over President Obama’s upcoming direct address to schools around the nation via the Internet which, according to Servicewire.org, is to stress “the importance of persisting and succeeding in school.” The people of Free Chicken Little don’t see it that way. As one person stated on their forum, “He’s recruiting his army, his Hitler Youth Brigade!”
A blogger at AmericanElephant.com wrote: “It’s easier to indoctrinate a six year-old than fight a 26 year-old or being challenged by a 46 year-old in the voting booth.”
Actually, it’s very easy when challenged by a 46 year-old, especially if, like the two examples above, they have the brains of a six year-old.
It was never explained why Obama would need a civilian army when he’s the commander-in-chief of the US armed forces. Oh, wait - that would be a logical question. Sorry…..

And finally, Dan Savage appeared recently on Keith Olberman’s show and finally said what I and many others have been thinking for a long time. To wit:

“I really do think that the Michelle Bachmans of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and consciously or subconsciously - I’m just going to say it - trying to get the President killed. That’s why they’re setting this up as a kill or be killed argument. He’s going to kill your grandma, pull the plug on grandma, death panels that little children have to go in front of. This kind of rhetoric, this paranoid style of the religious right from, you know, Birchers to Birthers usually doesn’t end well and we somebody’s got to put the brakes on it. Unfortunately for the Republican party, there are no adults left in the room. There are only the Michelle Bachmans, the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs running the show.”

Rupert Murdoch is trying to get the President assassinated. Heh - I just report … you decide.