Michael Flynn was fired from the Trump administration
following vague, somewhat concerning, leaks about a phone conversation he had
with the Russian ambassador. The intelligence community (IC) leaked this
conversation to damage President Trump, who had previously tweeted,
“Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to ‘leak’ into
the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?”
These are glimpses into
the soft civil war taking place between the IC and the democratically elected
president.
This fight should be
completely unsurprising. Kenneth Timmerman, in 2007, wrote a fabulous book
called Shadow
Warriors, which documented bureaucrats in the State Department
and CIA, i.e. shadow warriors, nakedly harming President Bush. What Timmerman
had the foresight to catalog years ago now serves as an explanatory backdrop to
what is happening between Trump and the IC.
When IC people attack
Flynn, it is not safe to take them at their word. They could be working for
political reasons -- or simply personal ambition. Timmerman provides many
recent historical examples which show them doing exactly this. The IC has
damaged their own credibility.
One example is the 2005
confirmation hearings for John Bolton as ambassador to the UN. The Democrats
blocked Bolton’s nomination due to a confrontation he had with a State
Department analyst, Christian Westermann. Democrats
claimed Bolton’s actions had
“grave and far-reaching implications for American credibility”.
What was Bolton’s
horrible deed? He had written a speech, “Beyond the Axis of Evil,” to
communicate the threats Americans faced from biological, chemical, and nuclear
weapons, from actors beyond North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. Bolton stated that
Cuba had a biological weapons program and shared data with other states.
Westermann, based on
the intelligence work of Ana Montes, went behind Bolton’s back to stop him. The
problem is that Ana Montes was convicted in 2002 of espionage for Cuba. She
avoided a death penalty by plea bargaining down to twenty-five years in jail.
Prior to conviction,
Ana had been the top analyst on Cuba for the entire American IC. After her
conviction, her disinformation remained in the system. Westermann was relying
on the work of a Cuban spy to subvert Bolton. In response, Bolton had a frank
conversation with Westermann.
In the confirmation
hearings, Democrats and Westermann had turned the whole issue around on Bolton.
Bolton was punished for speaking the truth about Cuba, and punished for
confronting a bureaucrat in the IC about carrying water for a Cuban spy.
Like Bolton, Flynn has
a reputation for calling stupid people out on stupid behavior. Maybe the IC
took out Flynn because they are true patriots who think he posed a risk to
America. Or maybe it’s because they didn’t like his political orientation and
policy goals. Maybe it’s simply because he was going to tell the truth and make
them look bad. One thing is certain, ascribing nefarious motivations to their
actions is not a conspiracy theory, as Timmerman has documented this type of
behavior.
The IC uses various
disinformation methods to achieve their nefarious goals. One example Timmerman
gives covers how CIA man Stephen Kappes hid important intelligence from the
American people.
Kappes was in the CIA
for over two decades so this is exactly the sort of “career IC” man one would
expect to be nonpolitical. As deputy director, he was the second most powerful
man in the CIA, so one would hope he would put patriotic love for America
first.
The Bush administration
had obtained media from an Arab television station which showed how the war had
been effective at stopping terrorists. Bush wanted to share the video with the
American people.
Timmerman writes what
Kappes response was, “You’ve got to tell them they can’t use that tape unless
they want to answer to me for getting one of my guys killed”. This would have
been a laudable reason for Kappes to stop the information from coming out. The
only problem was that Kappes was lying.
The CIA director and
Bush appointee Porter Goss first told Bush not to publish the tape, to protect
Kappes’s source. Then when Goss learned Kappes had lied, he went back to Bush
to explain what had happened and clear release of the tape.
Bush lost trust in
Goss. Only a couple of years later, in 2006, Goss was forced out of the CIA. Meanwhile,
Kappes served as number two at the CIA into 2010. One lie from Kappes had
served to hurt Republicans, prevent the truth from getting out to the public,
hurt Goss, destabilized the administration, and furthered his own career. What
a success! …for a shadow warrior.
Kappes’ deception
figures as a relatively simple one in Timmerman’s book, in this instance
anyway, as Kappes pops up fighting the shadow war numerous times.
Timmerman also recounts
the Valerie Plame affair, which shows how the CIA carries out sophisticated
psychological operations against America.
As readers will recall,
CIA agent Valerie Plame arranged for her husband, Joe Wilson, to go to Niger to
investigate whether Iraq was trying to buy uranium. Remarkably, Wilson was not
bound to a confidentiality agreement. After the Iraq War started, Wilson went
public bashing Bush. When Republicans defended themselves, Valerie Plame’s name
came out, and Republicans got scorched again for leaking the name of a CIA
agent
As then-senator Zell
Miller wrote, “The rules on agents are clear. They can't purposely distort
gathered intelligence, go public with secret information or use their position
or information to manipulate domestic elections or matters without risking
their job or jail. But their spouse can!”
Wilson’s public attack
on Bush wasn’t even truthful. Wilson focused on one piece of evidence, some
forged documents, to discredit the idea that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. He
completely bypassed the fact that an Iraqi delegation had gone to Niger in 1999
headed by Iraqi nuclear expert Wissam al-Zahawie. Wilson used a half-truth to
deceive.
This CIA operation has
permanently changed America. Many Americans now “know” that Bush lied. The
Republican brand was damaged forever. And efforts to employ violence in
self-defense against dictators working to procure uranium have been undercut.
What Trump is facing
from the IC is nothing new. It is simply Shadow Warriors Part Two. As Timmerman
has documented, a significant number of people in the IC, the shadow warriors,
have a history of subverting America and democratically elected presidents, for
political reasons. Anyone who says this is impossible is lying or ignorant of
history.
Given the IC’s rabid
lying attacks on Bush, there is no particular reason to believe them now. The
attacks on Trump must especially be taken with skepticism as they come from
anonymous sources, are vague, and merely hint at wrongdoing. Until the IC gives
hard evidence that Flynn or Trump are Russian agents, these attacks say more
about the IC than Trump. It suggests that certain shadow warriors perceive
Trump as a threat to their well-being, and that they don’t like Trump’s policy
stances. Never mind that he won the election in a free country.
One recurring theme in Shadow Warriors is that under the Bush
administration, the shadow warriors didn’t face consequences. Westermann was
not fired for spreading Cuban disinformation, nor for his political attempts to
harm Bolton. Kappes was not fired for lying to Goss. And Plame actually got
rich and famous.
Trump has approached
these situations entirely differently from Bush. He has called out the IC for
illegal subversive behavior in a direct and public manner.
There is a wonderful
thread on Reddit in the Donald Trump forum (because the generic politics
section of Reddit has banished Trump supporters), where users hypothesize that
Flynn and Trump lured the IC into leaking Flynn’s private conversation on
purpose, “In a single day, the deep state went from tinfoil hat conspiracy to
common public knowledge. Amazing.”
It is impossible to
know what Trump and Flynn’s intentions were, but these ideas are not so
far-fetched. Shadow warriors exist. And by baiting them into leaks which
self-expose, Trump would merely be using the same play that Plame and Wilson
used when they baited Republicans into outing her, only this time the shadow
warriors were the victim. Either way, Trump’s response to the IC has been
strong.
As Zell Miller realized
over a decade ago, “Something has to be done. We can't let the CIA become the
domestic dirty tricks shop, with Republican and Democratic agents each trying
to pull down their opposing presidents.” Kenneth Timmerman has gone to great
lengths to document these past abuses, which explain the current situation, and
predict the future. A man ignorant of shadow warriors is but a wounded lion,
staggering as the IC hyenas stalk from the shadows.
