Asymmetrical Information

Don't blame us, we have been telling you about Chalabai for a long time now. Glad to see the rest of you are getting up to speed. It really helps if you don't take Rummy, Dummy, and Cheney at face value on Iraq.

But why would you want to get rid of Chalabi if he's feeding you good info?

The premise is that Chalabi didn't tell Iran anything. They just suspected that the communications channels were compromised, so they tested that theory by sending a false message about Chalabi. That way, they could get rid of Chalabi if the channels were compromised.

I don't buy the premise though. It would be an awfully big waste of an opportunity to spread disinformation by Iran. Occam's Razor says the Iranian guy was a bonehead.

The most common use of a comprimised communication system would be to send misinformation that you want passed along to an enemy. In Iran's case they could then watch to see what kind of reactions they get from the US to determine if the communications were comprimised. This kind of operation can be invaluable, and is the only "bonus" that a country gets from having a communication system comprimised. For them to just throw it away suggests to me that this was indeed just a bonehead move on the part of the Iranian Baghdad chief. On the other hand I'm kind of surprised that the US leaked the fact that they knew that the communications channel was comprimised. At the very least seeing what kind of misinformation an adversary wants you to have can tell you interesting things about their intent

It sounds for all the world to me like someone in the intelligence community in the US was going all out to convince everyone that Chalabi couldn't be trusted. Which he can't if the intelligence situation turns out to be true.

Well, there was this paragraph:

The Iranians sent what American intelligence regarded as a test message, which mentioned a cache of weapons inside Iraq, believing that if the code had been broken, United States military forces would be quickly dispatched to the specified site. But there was no such action.

The question is, if we passed the initial test, at what point was the entire operation considered compromised?

Ok, how's this for a possibility - suppose we didn't crack the codes, but have other intelligence indicating that Chalabi was selling us out. By letting a 'drunken intelligence officer' tell Chalabi we had the codes, wouldn't this allow us to (1) discredit Chalabi, who we know to be working against us (2) force Iran to change its codes, possibly to something we can crack (3) allow us to discover who Chalabi's Iranian contact was?

IG:

Or we have some method of monitoring their transmissions besides actually cracking the codes (eg, wiretaps or bugs before encryption)...

I don't find it at all unbelievable that the Iranian station chief to have used the supposedly compromised channel for his report--he simply didn't believe Chalabi's claim. The history of intelligence operations supplies plenty of very similar situations. During World War 2, the Chicago Tribune broke the story of how Naval Intelligence had known in advace of the Japanese plans to attack Midway, thereby facilitating the American victory. Despite the story, the Japanese refused to believe that their communications had been compromised. Likewise, the Germans ignored plenty of evidence that the Enigma system was compromised.

Contrary to popular belief, most spy fiction, and the frantic spinning of borderline-psychotic righty "intellectuals," intelligence operatives are not omnicompetent or infallible. They are just as capable as anyone of seeing what they want to see and denying what they don't want to believe.

Just playing at spy fiction, wouldn't you have a special message that says "the code is broken?"

After all, that's a message you need to send immediately. So send "the yellow dog is barking," or something, and don't worry if it gets decrypted.

"Time" reports this week that in April the NSA prepared a report for a White House meeting entitled "Marginalizing Chalabi", 7 pages, single-spaced, setting out options.

Thereafter, Chalabi's house and offices are very publicly raided amidst allegations of robbery, embezzlement, kidnapping and the like. Pretty marginalizing.

Now he is accused of passing the top secret information that the U.S. has broken the Iranian code and is intercepting Iranian communications. This top secret information was supposedly leaked to Chalabi by an un-named drunk American. Leaking such information is a criminal offense, subject to the death penalty.

Chalabi's tells the Iranian spy that he is disclosing this information to the Iranians because he does not want the Iranians to put his information into their usual code as the U.S. would learn that he is giving information to Iran.

Chalabi gives this information to the top Iranian spy chief in Baghdad, who, using the compromised code, cables Tehran that Chalabi has told him the code is broken. In this cable, said top spy refers to Chalabi, quite a valuable source, by name. This cable, which is intercepted by the U.S., has the highest possible U.S. security rating (See War and Piece 6/3/4). The contents of this cable are thereupon leaked by a U.S. operative to the U.S. press. Leaking such top secret, intercepted data is a criminal offense, subject to a possible death penalty.

This is a preposterous scenario, but it certainly does tend to marginalize Chalabi.

Bush Bashers have no sense of perspective

Every bit of news that comes out for some reason, liberals would like to and try to link it back to George Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney. Like Eamon for instance.

For a sense of perspective.....
On Iraq :
1) Iraq is not having mass graves filled anymore.
2) Iraq is having hospitals built and eletricity is more plentiful and stable than before
3) Iraq has a different picture concerning schools.
4) Iraq has it's problems but the reporting on the war is completely different than in WWII. When on ONE day 700+ soldiers were killed in WWII (on a practice session before D-Day) the reporters and those without a sense of perspective in this country didn't make the same noise as they do today.
On the economy :
1) Approximately 49% of the reason why I moved away from liberalism in 1991 towards conservatism in a dramatic way is because the left simply isn't capable or willing to understand economics. There are a few exceptions like Zell Miller but one may consider him to the right and not the left.
2) If you watch C-SPAN for any considerable time like I do, read articles from people on the left and right you'll tend to see who articulates messages well and who exhibits an understanding of economics.
3) You'll see numerous time on C-SPan or from article writers on the left really weird assertions such as a) the Bush tax cut caused the recession b) Bush has lost America jobs c) the Bush tax cut is hurting the poor or taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich. etc. etc.
4) Let's go over some truths-----------
a)Reducing tax rates for all people who earn income in effect allows people to keep more of the money they earn and instead of giving that money (whatever amount) to the government can spend it on whatever they'd like or even save it. If the person spends the money, it DOES increase economic activity because it's additional money spent in the private sector that would less likely have been spent. When money is spent goods and/or services are purchased which means companies benefit. When companies benefit that means they can either hire more people or not lay off as many as they were going to or keep the same amount of employees when they were going to fire some. Which ever scenario.... The economy was helped.
b)Besides the people that the Executive Branch of the government can hire (which is 1% of the total federal budget outlay) there isn't much a president can do to actually hire people or fire people. The president can only "propose" policy changes. The congress can then "create" legislation. The president can then "sign" the legislation. If the legislation was a tax cut as George Bush "proposed" then that would be beneficial to the economy. Either the recession wouldn't be as deep. The recession would end or the economic activity would grow to the point of a positive growth depending on the "positive" legislation signed. If it was "positive" legislation then why would economic illiterate people keep trying to insist that Bush "lost" jobs when clearly the jobs were lost because of a recession that wasn't "caused" by Bush.
c)The timing of the recession. Bush came into office Jan 2001. In April of 2000 the first big hit on the stock market happened. In October of 2000 there was 2 things another big hit on the stock market and economic indicators all showed the recession. This was one month before Bush was elected. Bush after election was campaigning around the country to urge people to urge their legislatures in Congress to pass the "proposed" tax cuts. It was done but in a wierd way. The only tax cuts that were in effect the first year were the "bottom rung" of income earners. The higher income earners had to wait for future years. Then on September 11th when we were struck by the terrorists the recession worsened.
d)When the government takes less from income earners by a matter of percentage, it doesn't mean that the government will have less in future years. Reason: If there are 100 million people employed and earning income at the rate of $50,000 (5 trillion of earnings) and the government is taxing them at 15%, that would mean the goverment is taking in $750 Billion in revenue. If the government cuts tax rates from 15% to 13%, the economy is benefited as described above. If the economy benefits so that companies are able to give more raises and hire people the equation could be that there are 105 million people earning $55,000. Given that math problem the government would have 750,750,000,000 in revenue which would be MORE than before. NOT TO MENTION there would be 5 million people less needing some sort of government handout and therefore less goverment expenditures needed.

Sure the math was made simple but I was explaining a concept that Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton, NY Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Gray Davis, etc, etc either aren't capable of grasping or don't want to grasp as they certainly do not utter words even closely resembling that they do understand the concept.

JFK did understand the concept. It is why he was a tax cutter. Reagan understood (He had his degree in economics), and Bush understands. I don't believe any liberal who does not understand how this country economically works should be in office. Of course there are other issues that I have to weigh in. But Kerry's message and Bush's message on Iraq draws me closer to Bush and pushes me from Kerry.

On all other issues that people try to attack Bush on, people use the same tactics of distortion, misunderstanding, and smearing and, not UNDERSTANDING to justify their hatred of Bush and spread their brand of propoganda.

They do the broad brush tactic of saying "stem cell research, abortion, homosexual marriage" etc. without actually understanding or articulating truthfully what Bush has done on these issues. Bush has acted moderately on these issues and cannot be smeared otherwise. Conservatives disagree with how Bush has acted on almost everyone of these issues.
Stem Cell Research Bush actually proposed the federal government spend money on the remaining stock piles of stem cells instead of what the conservatives wanted which was for the private sector to be the only spender of money on stem cell research.
Amnesty for illegalsConservatives disagree with Bush on this issue more than any other issue especially after 9/11. We need to protect ourselves from terrorists which means we need to control our borders FIRST. We haven't done that and contrary to that we would actually be allowing illegal immigrants to be rewarded with whatever worker program or amnesty program or drivers license program we can award them. This country allows more legal immigrants than all other countries combined. Why must we allow illegal immigrants as well.

More to come in other posts......

Actually Pat, in response to your cut and paste comments, you could say the same thing about John Kerry. Both sides are trying to paint decisions that have legitimate reasons as being unreasonable. Such as the I voted for it before I voted against it debacle and other "flip-flops." In a lot of the cases sited as flip-flops the bills were amended between votes. Which means that he was voting for essentially different versions of the same bill with different outcomes. It doesn't sound so unreasonable if you say that.

Not that I'm going to vote for Kerry, but I'm sure not going to vote for Bush. Maybe I'll vote for Nader, or the Libertarian guy.

On a side note, I used to kind of respect this blog as having a more independent streak, that's one of the reasons I check it. But recently it seems too be either defense of the Bush administration or attacking Kerry. What's up with that Jane? Where's the Libertarian guy? I don't want to hear about Coke vs Pepsi. I like beer, and maybe a nice joint.

Typical of liberals Jay to attack others.... I typed every letter in the post for the first time (didn't cut/copy and paste)

Explains to everyone this.....

How could you line up in your mind that you might vote for the 2 polar opposites?
Nader is a very big government, lots of regulation, lots of tax kind of guy.

Libertarians are 20% of the goverment (80% cut), less regulation, let the corporations AND individuals have more freedom kind of people. Everyone agrees that if someone hurts someone else then they have to be found liable. Libertarians do not believe in letting coporations hurt others intentionally or through neglect but they are the polar opposite of the Naderites.

I tend to agree with Libertarians more than not. I would be very happy if the choice was between conservatives and libertarians. Unfortunately the choice seems to come down to extreme leftists and conservatives who in today's world are positioned as moderates but are called extreme right wingers by the media

That's not just my opinion Jay. It's the opinion of many conservatives who have seen Bush try to split the middle on all of these decisions only to be called extreme right wing.

Where's the sense of perspective and reality? And I would sure like to hear YOUR sense of perspective on the Nader and Libertarian thing.

And one more thing. I type a nice big post on the ISSUES, with history and perspective and economics lesson and you are upset because it's coke vs. pepsi. What? You knew all that I typed already? It was something you knew? Or it's just not interesting to you if it's a message from the right (conservative/libertarian)

I seem to recall that there was unease voiced about Chalabi's chumminess with Iran many months ago, if not longer.

Didn't bookmark any of the discussions, but I'm sure others will be able to point out relevant posts.

I apologize for mischaracterizing your post.

In my point of view the people who make up the bulk of the population of the United States have completely lost control of the government and don't even seem to realize it. The debate between the Republicans and Democrats seems to be mostly over which corporate donors are going to get the biggest government handouts. The Democrats want to give handouts to the lawyers, the Republicans want to give handouts to the petroleum industries. Neither really serves the interest of the people of the US.

Nader is for reducing corporate handouts. On the other hand he is for increasing handouts that go directly to the people, which I don't think helps over the long term, but can be a short term benefit in extreme cases. Libertarians are also for reducing corporate handouts. Both Libertarians and Nader are both wary of the police state that the US has turned into under the War on Some Drugs. That is a political issue that the Demopublicans consider to be too hot to address.

My problem with both of the major parties is that I see the Constitution being torn apart by a donkey and an elephant. Back when the Republicans were Federalists (IE when they didn't control the federal government) I agreed with them on issues relating to states rights. They showed me that their stand was not a stand of principle but a stand of convenience. I will not vote for Bush because I believe in the idea that the workings of government should be open and honest. John Kerry is a douche bag and unlike some people I don't think I can vote for him.

I think that on issues important to me Nader and the Libertarians are closer together then you might think. Besides, if either one got elected there would be total gridlock in Washington which may be the best thing I can hope for.

Comments are Closed.