by Ion Mihai Pacepa
Prevention: The Primary Goal, Neglected by Obama’s Foreign Policy
October 22nd, 2012 - 9:50 am
Last year, Interpol Secretary General Robert K. Noble also reminded the world that prevention was the most important task in the field of terrorism:
As we honor the memories of those who perished 10 years ago, it is time to ask ourselves if we have done all that we can to prevent another 9/11 or other serious attack. A great deal has been done to make us all safer, but far too little to make sure that we are safe from the global terror and criminal threat.
This 75-year-old policy aimed at preventing terrorism has changed dramatically under the Obama administration. On May 4, 2011, even the Washington Post documented that the administration was dismantling the policies for preventing terrorism on U.S. soil:
In normal times, the officials who uncovered the intelligence that led us to Osama bin Laden would get a medal. In the Obama administration, they have been given subpoenas.
The Washington Post article, titled “Obama owes thanks, and an apology, to CIA interrogators,” further stated:
On his second day in office Obama shut down the CIA’s high-value interrogation program. His Justice Department then reopened criminal investigations into the conduct of CIA interrogators — inquiries that had been closed years before by career prosecutors who concluded that there were no crimes to prosecute. In a speech at the National Archives, Obama eviscerated the men and women of the CIA, accusing them of “torture” and declaring that their work “did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts — they undermined them.”
The bankrupt government of Italy was the first to take advantage of the Obama administration’s war against the CIA. On September 2012, in what seemed to be an attempt to distract public attention from its economic troubles, Italy’s high court ruled that 23 CIA operatives and one U.S. Air Force officer should serve jail terms in Italy. The Italian government decided to enforce that decision. Their crime? They allegedly “kidnapped” Egyptian terrorist cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr from a Milan street in 2003.
The CIA is our first line of defense against terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and it should not be used to improve the stature of ambitious political figures. There are many ways a foreign intelligence service can lose trust, but there is nothing more devastating for it than hearing it is distrusted by its own country’s government and political leaders. Who will risk his life to confide secrets to it after that?
I know personally how difficult it is for high-ranking enemy officials to be persuaded to place their lives in the hands of an intelligence organization publicly distrusted by its own government. In 1975 I decided to defect to the CIA. As head of Romania’s foreign intelligence service, I was quite well-informed on all the counterpart services in the West, but none came even close to the CIA. I firmly trusted that organization, and I admired the efficiency of its secret war against the Soviet empire.
When I was ready to break with Communism, however, I got hit in the face by the Senate’s Church Commission reports. Frank Church, an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, had tried to restore his political stature by publicly bashing the CIA. After two years of so-called investigation, he published fourteen reports (50,000 pages of which have since been declassified) portraying the CIA as a criminal organization that cannot be trusted.
Thereupon, a cable sent to Bucharest from KGB chief Yuri Andropov triumphantly prophesied: “The CIA’s tyranny is over.” Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu popped a bottle of champagne. A couple of months later I had dinner with Janos Kadar, the ruler of Hungary, who had been the first chief of its Communist intelligence service; he raised his glass of pálinka with a toast: “To the CIA’s funeral!”
The reports of the Church Commissions froze me in place, for a while. If the U.S. government did not trust its own CIA, why should I? It took me two more years to rebuild my trust in the CIA.
October 22nd, 2012 - 9:50 am
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One of the obstacles you mention (people’s naive aversion to violence i.e. strategic strikes on brazen foes like Qadafi) is constantly reinforced by the destructive, venomous media. Can you imagine the scathing critique that Romney will get if/when he is in the white house and has to use force to protect American interests or in the name of security? They’ll surely put everything through the double-guessing lens of their hostile assumptions. If there’s one thing in this world that drives me nuts, its weak-kneed leftists who become indignant when force is used judiciously. While I’m not a neo-con either, history is replete with examples where killing was necessary. Our future era will probably have no shortage of them.
“Can you imagine the scathing critique that Romney will get..[if he] has to use force to protect American…security?”
They dont have to wait for that.
The scathing Media rebuke Romney will face is already “in the can”.
Its the Zimmerman/Martin Trial.
The case against Zimmerman is so weak, he will most likely walk, which Ironically, is PRECISELY what the Media needs to undermine a (now likely) Romney Administration as early as possible.
It is The Passion Play the Media cannot help themselves from scripting….
The Acquittal of Trevons “murderer” will be treated with the same “shock of injustice” as the “un-election” of Obama. It will receive a full-throated hysterical display of outrage, an outrage conveniently and cleverly used to veil their ideological attacks against Romney, for daring to defeat their Dear Leader.
The Jury verdict will supply the appropriate election metaphor.
How can this be? We all KNEW what motivated this Racist, didn’t we?
What dark dawn of intolerance and division have we descended to, after such Hope for Justice?
Oh, the agony in our deeply flawed and guilty land.
Yes its “the Law”. It’s the imperfect, sometimes counter-intuitive, anti-justice system we’re “stuck with”.
But that doesnt make it “right”
Trevon, the cherubic 12 year old child, is the “good” Obama they pushed…Harvard, Social Justice, Nobel Prize…Zimmerman is Romney, elected (acquitted) only by racist defamation and discredit of that sweet and beautiful boy…..
Zimmeromney Inc. called him a thug and a hoodlum (Socialist, radical)…A irresponsible tax and spender (suspended from school, pot-head) and succeeded in convincing a “predominantly white” jury (country) to turn away from Real Justice (re-elect Obama) and vote strictly along racial/class lines for the White Guy who, in their darkest of hearts, they would feel safer having walk streets of their neighborhoods.
Rather like “The Homeless”, who never quite existed by name or caricature prior to Reagan, the Media will hang the likely acquittal of This Trial around Romneys neck, crafting the analogy between these “Momentous, Tragic National Events” into the National Consciousness, as the Face and the Character of a Romney Presidency.
Mark my words.
Trevon is Obama. Romney is Zimmerman.
And “the Verdict” will be unforgiveable
That narrative will be further fueled by the actions Romney will have to take to stop the likely riots in the aftermath of an Obama loss and a Zimmerman not guilty verdict. Unlike Obama, Romney would probably authorize force to restore order if asked by governors. Remember the media thinks the correct way to treat these things is with kid gloves like the British did during their riots. In the aftermath of deaths caused by riots triggered by the zimmerman case, the people over at MSNBC caught doctoring the video to whip up the issue in the first place need to be held accountable. (wishful thinking I know)
Yup,
It will be a replay of Rodney King…
Because the Rodney King beating itself, AND The Aftermath, was all “our” fault, remember?
This time The Media will link the simmering discontent from the “loss of Obama” (to an “out of touch” lily white Romney?) when the Zimmerman acquittal comes in.
They will naturally “understand” (read: manipulate/inflame/encourage) the reaction to this overwhelming “one-two punch” that the poor and (oh, so recently!) dispossessed have suffered.
Obama defeated? Zimmerman free?
Oh, Guilty America, when will we ever learn?
A nice, neat little package of hate and innuendo to put around Romneys neck.
It’s a TEXTBOOK narrative for these bastards.
Stories have already been written against Zimmeromney Evil Incorporated.
They, like Madame Crowley in the debate, are waiting for just the right moment to Assault him with “The Connection”.
The riots, if they occur, will be on Obama’s watch. The real question is how far will he go-or not-to stem an insurrection. And much more importantly, where will the “forces of law and order” stand?
Not on Obamas watch…
At least according to the Self-Appointed Narrativists who declare what is “the truth”..
No, the Riots will occur after the Zimmerman acquittal, which will be early in Romneys Presidency.
It will set the “mood” and the “tone” of the time as only the Leftist Press can measure the pulse of the nation, and connect the (obvious to their agenda) dots of cause and effect:
The Obama defeat will be “legal”, but morally it will be treated as an “obvious mistake”
They will apply the same emotional dynamics to the Zimmerman Acquittal. A jury verdict that’s wrong, just like that election where so many people voted the “wrong” way….The both of them together will be “too much to bear” for the historically oppressed, who are now suffering under the dark prospects of a White Romney Regime, and have no other way of expressing their despair.
The Meme is already in place, the stories are already written….
The linkage, symbolism….its a done deal.
They are Professional Propagandists. This is WHAT THEY DO.
Even with Alternative Media telling the truth about their lies, we still only manage to get 51% support for a Decent Responsible American Candidate over this out and out Communist Radical, poor Mr. Zimmerman is still on trial for his life, and nobody yet questions Al Sharptons credentials to pontificate on a major news program.
They are quite powerful and will gleefully sabotage the Romney Presidency with an intensity that will make what George Bush went through look like adulation.
Romney murdered their Trevon, and got away with it.
Its their JOB to make him pay.
Just you wait and see.
Perhaps our future President could be helped by a wise and experienced analyst “who has the guts to (name) the problem”.
Michael Ledeen does.
A Radical/Islamist-in-Chief, who is allergic to truth telling and scrubs any reference of Islam with terror, surely isn’t fit to lead a pack of dogs or cats, let alone the free world.
Having ordered the deletion of Islamic terror from DOD, DOJ, and Homeland Security, who in heavens name is he preventing terror from, perhaps the Tea Party? Alas, he ordered his surrogates to label right wing patriots as potential terror threats!
And the fact that he is a product of a red/green alliance makes him doubly dangerous to the U.S., as well as the rest of the west.
To wit, the morphing of his socialist/Marxist/communist roots with his Islamic background is the explosion playing out before a horrified world, and due to his non-preventive policies – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/10/05/if-it-looks-like-a-socialistmarxistcommunist-plan-it-is-peekingpeeling-back-into-obamas-looking-glass-his-surrogates-too-their-bomblets-waiting-to-explode-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
The League of Nations is defunct, its successor the UN is a dead institution still talking with little to show for being brain dead. Since the future is indeterminate, prevention will always fail at some point, especially when one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Seems to me the primary goal is to win, everything else is just conversation.
As an aside, Frank Church is exhibit “A” for why the 17th amendment is an abomination. Once senators became directly elected, they immediately went about establishing a seniority system that make some senators more equal than others. The result was the likes of Church, a flaming communist sympathizer, from the very conservative (at the time) state of Idaho.
Agreed. The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed. No other Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has done more to undermine our freedom protected by the U.S. Constitution.
I’ve met Mr. Pacepa in person. He’s a tremendously honest man, and a hero to both our country and to Romania. I have seen the effects first-hand of a president who doesn’t trust his intelligence agencies. For me, it was Jimmy Carter. I see many of the same traits in Barrack Husein Obama that Jimmy Carter displayed toward the intelligence agencies under his presidency. We can only hope that November will bring us what we desperately need — a president that understands the need for a strong intelligence service, and who is willing to trust them to do their job.
Couldn’t agree more, I’ve read Mr. Pacepa’s book in my early twenties, having been born and raised in communist Romania, I can attest that this perspective is rightfully correct. Thank You. It is sad that the average person is not intersted in the safety of our nation and its citizens. I’m hoping that November 7th we’ll wake up with a brighter future awaiting this wonderfully blessed nation. God Bless The United States of America and God Bless our troops.
hi
It’s just past 5PM at the East Coast; where’s that “October surprise” promised us by Ms. Allred?
Or is it supposed to be 5PM Left Coast time we all should be anxiously awaiting for, holding our breath?
What a moron this Ms. Bullred, oh pardon me…Allred.
Huzzah Mr. Pacepa! Identifying how we can PREVENT terrorist activities should be paramount. A pity such a review was not forthcoming after more than 3000 Americans were killed on 9-11, but we have the chance to get it right now with four Americans dead in Libya. Sunlight is indeed the best disinfectant.
Put your faith in the CIA, no oversight required. That seems to get pretty close to the unaccountable totalitarianism Mr. Pacepa allegedly fled.
Obama is heading to the UN next as leader of the world. In the long-run he is not, by a long-shot, finished bringing “righteous” correction and raparations to bear on behalf of the crowds of the-loud and the porch-sitters. In the Land of the Porch-Sitters the One with the most inflammed hemorroid shall be King.
The Secretary General of the UN cannot be from any of the Security Council members.
So, no, Obama can never become UN Secretary General.
But what if he were to suddenly declare himself Kenyan by birth once out of office?
Prevention………isnt that how Obama “prevents” unemployment numbers—by simply moving them to a non-existent category?
Prevention of terrorism—just as with the Fort Worth “terrorist”–the Obama Regime prevents terrorism by never calling it terrorism
Mr. Pacepa, you speak for all of us whose families have endured Communist oppression.
Can you PLEASE start getting out more ? So people can get EDUCATED by hearing what you have to say ?
It is not taught in schools.
I appreciate your comments Mr Pacepa and look forward to reading your commentaries and readers contributions. I recall when I was in High School and reading that Lenin, when he was in in full bloom, referred to American Communists and sympathizers in NYC (Bella Abzug et al) as either useless or useful idiots (I am not sure which) right after they were picketing the British Embassy hailing Nazi Germany when Hitler and Stalin signed their non agression pact on word from the cominterm in Moscow. Their legacy still lurks!
As always a well written, well researched article. I enjoy reading your commentaries. I find it very unfortunate that the press in the United States still believes socialist propaganda no matter who generates it, be it Stalin, Mao, or Obama and his advisors.
Thank you, your knowlege and insight is very refreshing.
Photos of U.S. and Afghan Troops Patrolling Poppy Fields June 29, 2012
http://publicintelligence.net/us-afghan-patrolling-poppy-fields-2012/
Thank you, Mr. Pacepa for continuing to enlighten us to the historical patterns that cause such destruction to our nation. Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that Church used the investigation as a platform to further his presidential ambitions. This was not a trivial matter at that time because when the leaks began to trickle, it ultimately lead to the murder of CIA Station Chief in Athens, Richard Welch in 1975.
Almost 40 years later, the leftist radical thinking that permeates our government continues to disempower our intelligence agencies. Can we ever forget when President Clinton showed such disinterest in intelligence that he didn’t meet with his CIA Director for two years after the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993? Or, his feeble response to Sudan about their offer to capture and deliver Osama Bin Laden? Look where that got us.
There have been exceptions, but leftist thinking regarding national security in the Democratic party has undermined, mismanaged and eviscerated our intelligence capabilities. Partisan politics does not make this nation safer, nor does a liberal, leftist ideology. A shrewd, tough-minded Commander in Chief, who recognizes the threat against this nation is a good start in emboldening our first line of defense, which is our intelligence.