I don’t understand what all the fuss is about PFC. Manning’s release of tens of thousands of classified documents. He’s only doing what politicians and their bureaucratic appointees have been doing for decades. Politicization of intelligence has always been a problem. The blowing up of the USS Maine starting the Spanish-AmericanWar was thought to be orchestrated by an empire-minded administration. FDR was accused of it after Pearl Harbor.
But political manipulation of intelligence hit a sinister low immediately after the Clintons moved into the White House. Hillary Clinton ordered staff and appointees to not cooperate with the in-house FBI agent responsible for vetting them prior to being granted access to classified information. After serving under a previous (and cooperating) administration, he was shortly ordered out of the White House entirely. That blew open the hen house door for the fox. It continued with Bush and Cheney “pick-and-choose” information to support their myopic mania for invading Afghanistan and Iraq – over 5,000 killed. And it continues with the current administration –the “most open” of any administrations”- with the Arab Spring and Benghazi/Turkey/Syria. – 4 killed in Benghazi and 1 imprisoned in Pakistan.
Perhaps Manning was mocking the military’s mania for classifying everything…..then acting as if nothing is classified. Was Manning poking his finger in the eye of a chain of command who daily views Information Security (INFOSEC) as a nuisance until they are caught violating it? Ask any CI agent who the biggest violators of operational security are during “dumpster dives” …commanders. Ask any deployed counterintelligence agent (whose mission is force protection – not espionage) how often they have protested “uncleared” host nation nationals attending classified briefings only to be given a wink and a nod from the chain of command at the highest levels. The worst example of this was the Afghan major embedded into the SOF operations center. After attending a pre-mission brief for a raid to capture a High Value Individual (HVI) he made a private cell phone call. The surprise raid suddenly was not. The team urgently requested close air support from two A-10s on station above to cover their exfil. The watch officer who denied the air support was – you guessed it- that same Afghan major. He knew most of that team were the ones who killed Osama bin Ladin. They all died in the ensuing helicopter crash from unsuppressed ground fire.
Only the military would send out a carefully crafted directive ordering military personnel with secret and top secret security clearances to not read classified information after it has been posted on the “Open Source” World Wide Web.
Contradictions aside, Manning’s leaks did result in the death of at least one formerly classified source. A popular radical, Islamic cleric in Pakistan was killed by a car bomb when it was discovered he had secretly been cooperating with the CIA (Google).
Manning was trained at Ft. Huachuca as a 35F All-Source Intelligence Analyst. He won’t be the only graduate headlining the news. A few years ago I presented my unclassified Counterinsurgency course to a class of the same students. I described historical origins and motivations. I contrasted the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights with the Communist Manifesto. During a break I asked two students why they were glaring and shaking their heads. “My parents [both college professors] were born communists and raised communists. I was born and raised a communist. I disagree with everything you said” the young female student said. I asked if she had read “Destructive Generation” by a recanted American communist. Of course not. I reported this to the local detachment of the 902nd whose mission is, again, force protection.
The agent listened politely then said something I never thought I’d live to hear: “Being a member of the communist party is not grounds for denial of a security clearance.” I asked “What about the oath at the bottom of the 26-page questionnaire –above one’s signature- ‘I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the communist party or any other organization that advocates the violent overthrow of the United States government.’? He told me that paragraph was no longer included on the background investigation. Had he had read the Oath of Membership in the American Communist Party? [“…..I pledge myself to rally the masses to defend the Soviet Union, the land of victorious Socialism. I pledge myself to remain at all times a vigilant and firm defender of the Leninist line of the Party, the only line that insures the triumph of Soviet Power in the United States. …”] He had not. Disgusted, I walked out. “If you think Manning is bad, wait until these communists graduate the “School of Excellence.” And they did.
