The Libyan Gets A Look At Hell

Abu Laith al-Libi, "The Libyan," a senior al-Qaeda operative who tried to kill President Cheney in Afghanistan a year ago, became a charred, dismembered victim of superior US technology today.

A CIA Predator drone piloted via video controls a thousand miles away fired a missile into a passle of Taliban and al-Qaeda scum, killing 12, including al-Libi..

As it happens, the 12 were hanging out in Pakistan, in the Waziristan tribal area next to Pakistan. That makes the hit an even better tactical strike, since it lets the enemy know there are no safe havens, and it sends Musharaff a much-needed message that if he can't take care of Waziristan, we will.

Next up: drones over Iran. Even more cool.

AP quotes Eric Rosenbach, a terror expert at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School:

"Al-Libi has been waging jihad for more than 10 years and it will be a blow to both al-Qaida and the Taliban, but not in a way that will lead to the downfall of those organizations."

Blows are good, even if not fatal. They mean we have good intelligence in the al-Qaeda's backyards and we have the capability and will to act on that intelligence, even at the expense of another nation's sovereignty.

The attack must have dispirited and demoralized al-Qaeda greatly, so I hope there are more to come, and soon. Name the enemy (which the Dems can't do), attack the enemy and kill the enemy using technology that boggles their minds. Dispirit and demoralize them some more.

Can we do it again tomorrow?

An American Hero Behind The CIA Tape Scandal

At the middle of the tempest over the destroyed CIA tapes of interrogation of global jihad leaders is Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., a man I feel I've come to know in recent weeks.

That's because I've been listening to George Criles' Charlie Wilson's War in my car and Rodriguez sounds like a brother in arms to Gust Avrakotos, the rough Greek kid with loads of street smarts from Pennsylvania who, despite himself, rose in the CIA's Clandestine Services until he became the leader of the CIA's war against the Russians in Afghanistan.

In a profile of Rodriguez by Mark Mazzetti in today's NYT, I see the same cloth being cut:

Mr. Rodriguez, who was born in Puerto Rico, spent much of his C.I.A. career working in Latin America, including in Mexico, and ascended in the 1990s to lead the agency’s Latin America division.

He is regarded both by admirers and detractors as blunt, effusive and fiercely loyal to his staff and friends. In 1997 he was removed from his position after he interceded on behalf of a friend who was arrested in the Dominican Republic, trying to get the Dominican government to drop the charges. A report by the C.I.A.’s inspector general criticized Mr. Rodriguez for a “remarkable lack of judgment.”

Despite the reprimand, Mr. Rodriguez continued to ascend through the agency. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was appointed chief of staff of the Counterterrorist Center, which nearly overnight had ballooned to a staff of nearly 1,700 from 400.

Interestingly, Silvestre Reyes (D-Tx), chair of the House Intelligence Committee and therefore the leader of any upcoming investigation into the matter, is a Rodriguez fan. Says the NYT:

At a conference in El Paso in mid-August, Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, heaped praise on a man whose exploits, he joked, had been the inspiration for the television show “24.”

From fast cars to fine wines, Mr. Reyes said, the appetites of the man, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., are the stuff of legend. Then turning serious, Mr. Reyes hailed Mr. Rodriguez’s three decades of undercover work for the Central Intelligence Agency, where he recently stepped down as head of its clandestine service, and called Mr. Rodriguez an “American hero.”

Reyes will now control the interrogation of this American hero.

The mindset of Rodriguez is impossible for we outsiders to gauge. We can assume much: That he would defend the agency, that he would be a man of honor who would bend but not break rules, that he would put the safety of America far ahead of the rights of the people his program were interrogating, and certainly ahead of himself.

As such, he could easily see an honorable career consumed by the Great American Scapegoat Quest.

Reyes issued a statement, "I'm not looking for scapegoats."

I'm sure Rodriguez is savvy enough after decades in the Clandestine Services to not find much comfort in that statement.

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

CIA Stupidity Jeopardizes War Effort

I can see why the CIA would make tapes of the Abu Zubaydah interrogations in which "severe interrogation techniques" were used -- but for cryin' out loud, how stupid of them to hold onto them for three years, disclose them, and then destroy them!

The agency's excuse, that the tapes were destroyed to protect the safety of the undercover interrogators -- doesn't pass the laugh test. Everything related to CIA undercover operatives could jeopardize their safety -- just ask Valerie Plame, right? -- so why destroy just these tapes?

And if the security of the agents really were a concern, the CIA had three years between when the tapes were made in 2002 and destroyed in 2005 to have their experts effectively mask any chance of a visual or audio identification of the interrogators.

But they destroyed them, and now you're getting comments like this:

What defines [a banana] republic? How about an executive that ignores the rule of law, commits war-crimes and then destroys the actual evidence?

Because the tapes were destroyed, the writer (Andrew Sullivan) is free to pole-vault to whatever conclusions he wants, including that the tapes showed behavior by the CIA that constitutes a war crime. Who's to rebut him?

The accounts, including Sullivan's, use the phrase "severe interrogation techniques," not torture. But that's a phrase with no limitations and no boundaries. Playing Greenday at full volume for hours is a severe interrogation technique, as is giving the prisoner a taste of his own genitals. It's a phrase laden with emotion but bereft of meaning.

The CIA may have been able to give it meaning, but its credibility on the matter is in the toilet. When I train my clients for media interviews, rule number one is always "Don't lie." Now I fully expect the CIA to lie, as in, "No I'm not an agent," and "Of course we don't have a clandestine operation in Outer Ubrokeitstan." God bless 'em for doing it to protect our country.

But lying to an intelligence oversight committee is just plain stupid, and it opens the CIA up to Kennedyesque scrutiny at a time it doesn't need more Libs with curious definitions of torture eyeballing its techniques.

Heads should roll ... figuratively, of course. Otherwise, it would be a war crime.

Who Tortured Iran's Sharafi?

BBC is happy to bring us this news: Jalal Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose have signs of injury on them. A Red Cross official saw the marks, we're told.

Sharafi (on the left in this BBC photo) is the Iranian diplomat who was abducted in Iraq and alleges the CIA tortured him "day and night." The CIA, as I'm sure you already know, says they had nothing to do with the Sharafi affair and did not torture him.

Gosh, who are we to believe?

Well, according to the Beeb, the Iranians! BBC tells us of the injuries, they tell us Sharafi said he was captured by "Iraqi agents operating under the supervision of the CIA," and that he was then tortured by the CIA -- "night and day" -- about Iranian involvement in Iraq.

We're told of Iranian government opinion, what's been shown and said on Iranian TV and what an Iranian doctor wrote in his report. (If you want to read more about the way the Iranians present the case, check out this Fars News report form Tehran.)

On the other side of the story, BBC dutifully quotes a White House spokesperson and an unnamed CIA official. They make up the last three paragraphs of the story -- that's how the media routinely telegraphs that it is dismissive of a source.

Well, before we jump on the Beeb bandwagon, two questions:

Who abducted Sharafi? Certainly it could have been agents of the Iraqi government working in concert with the CIA -- but doesn't it make much more sense that he was kidnappped by Sunni militia who are pretty darn inflamed about Iran supplying Shi'a militia with weapons that are used to kill Sunnis?

Given the propensity of the militia to use torture, I'd see them as more likely to be the whip and drill wielders than the CIA -- which, if it does use tough techniques, is far too sophisticated to leave drill holes on feet. C'mon.

The Sunni militia scenario is so much simpler than the requisite convoluted conspiracy of Iraqi and US agents, with all the necessary covering up and risk-taking. And I'd believe the Sunni theory all the more as I wait and wait and wait for Sharafi to give any single detail that confirms his CIA story.

The other question: What's Sharafi been up to since he's been back? Are we to simply dismiss the thought that the Iranian government, which routinely tortures and executes those who anger it, didn't torture Sharafi themselves?

Think about it. They want to know what he told and who he told it to, and they want to make sure Sharafi understands that getting captured does not sit well with the Mullahs. Plus, by inflicting some torure themselves, they put on Sharafi's body "evidence" that he was tortured in Iraq.

None of the reports I've seen talk about the age of the wounds.

I'll admit the latter scenario is a bit out of a spy novel, but who would discount the Iranian government's ability to behave badly? Not I.

But maybe BBC.