“We write with a sense of urgency suggesting
you avoid doubling down on catastrophe,” VIPS tells Donald Trump in its latest
memo to the president.
January 3, 2020
MEMORANDUM
FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Doubling
Down Into Another “March of Folly”?
The
drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem
Soleimani evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in
June 1914, which led to World War I. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei was quick to warn of “severe revenge.” That Iran will retaliate at a
time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And escalation into World
War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the multitude
of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and
in nearby waters.
What
your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been
isolated. Quite the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched
its first joint naval exercises with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in
an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the region.
Cui
Bono?
It is
time to call a spade a spade. The country expecting to benefit most from
hostilities between Iran and the U.S. is Israel (with Saudi Arabia in second
place). As you no doubt are aware, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is
fighting for his political life. He continues to await from you the kind of
gift that keeps giving. Likewise, it appears that you, your son-in-law, and
other myopic pro-Israel advisers are as susceptible to the influence of Israeli
prime ministers as was former President George W. Bush. Some commentators are
citing your taking personal responsibility for providing Iran with a casus belli as unfathomable. Looking back just a
decade or so, we see a readily distinguishable pattern.
Former
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon payed a huge role in getting George W. Bush
to destroy Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Usually taciturn, Gen. Brent Scowcroft,
national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush,
warned in August 2002 that “U.S. action against Iraq … could turn the whole region
into a cauldron.” Bush paid no heed, prompting Scowcroft to explain in Oct.
2004 to The Financial Times that former Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush “mesmerized”; that Sharon has him
“wrapped around his little finger.” (Scowcroft was promptly relieved of his
duties as chair of the prestigious President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board.)
In Sept. 2002, well before
the attack on Iraq, Philip Zelikow, who was Executive Secretary of the 9/11
Commission, stated publicly in a moment of unusual candor, “The ‘real threat’
from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The unstated threat was the
threat against Israel.” Zelikow did not explain how Iraq (or Iran), with zero
nuclear weapons, would not be deterred from attacking Israel, which had a
couple of hundred such weapons.
Zombie
Generals
When a docile,
Peter-principle, “we-are-still-winning-in-Afghanistan” U.S. military leadership
sends more troops (mostly from a poverty draft) to be wounded and killed in
hostilities with Iran, Americans are likely, this time, to look beneath the
equally docile media for answers as to why. Was it for Netanyahu and the
oppressive regime in Israel? Many Americans will wake up, and serious backlash
is likely.
Events might bring a rise in
the kind of anti-Semitism already responsible for domestic terrorist attacks.
And when bodybags arrive from abroad, there may be for families and for
thinking Americans, a limit to how much longer the pro-Israel mainstream media
will be able to pull the wool over their eyes.
Those
who may prefer to think that Gen. Scowcroft got up on the wrong side of the bed
on Oct. 13, 2004, the day he gave the interview to The Financial Times may profit from words straight
from Netanyahu’s mouth. On Aug. 3, 2010, in a formal VIPS Memorandum for
your predecessor, we provided some “Netanyahu in his own
words.” We include an excerpt here for historical context:
“Netanyahu’s
Calculations
Netanyahu believes he holds
the high cards, largely because of the strong support he enjoys in our Congress
and our strongly pro-Israel media. He reads your [Obama’s] reluctance even to
mention controversial bilateral issues publicly during his recent visit as
affirmation that he is in the catbird seat in the relationship.
During election years in the
U.S. (including mid-terms), Israeli leaders are particularly confident of the
power they and the Likud Lobby enjoy on the American political scene.
Netanyahu’s attitude comes
through in a video taped nine years ago and shown on Israeli TV, in which he
bragged about how he deceived President Clinton into believing he (Netanyahu)
was helping implement the Oslo accords when he was actually destroying them.
The
tape displays a contemptuous attitude toward — and
wonderment at — an America so easily influenced by Israel. Netanyahu
says:
“America is something that
can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. … They won’t get in our way
… Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd.”
Israeli columnist Gideon Levy
wrote that the video shows Netanyahu to be “a con artist … who thinks that
Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes,”
adding that such behavior “does not change over the years.”
Recommendation
We
ended VIPS’ first Memorandum For the President (George W. Bush) with this critique of Secretary of
State Colin Powell’s address at the UN earlier that day:
“No one has a corner on the
truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is “irrefutable or
undeniable” [as Powell claimed his was]. But after watching Secretary Powell
today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the
discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for
which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended
consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”
We
are all in a liminal moment. We write with a sense of urgency suggesting
you avoid doubling down on catastrophe.
For
the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:
William
Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical &
Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall
Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and Division Director, State
Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)
Daniel
Ellsberg, (Associate VIPS)
Graham
Fuller, former vice-chairman, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Robert
Furukawa, Capt, Civil Engineer Corps, USN-R, (ret.)
Philip
Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike
Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer,
Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence
Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew
Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer,
Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Michael
S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for
Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
John
Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior
Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen
Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of
Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Edward
Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist and Technical Director
(ret.)
Ray
McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA
presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth
Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East
& CIA political analyst (ret.)
Todd
E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Scott
Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen
Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal
Counsel (ret.)
Sarah
Wilton, Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense
Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Robert
Wing, former U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer
(Associate VIPS)
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