Everybody lies sometime or other. Sometimes it’s necessary–it may save a life–and sometimes it’s humane–to ease the anxiety of a sick or wounded person, for example. Machiavelli noted that, in romance, lying is not only part of the game, but even admirable. And lying is part of politics and statecraft, to the point where “what else could he/she say?” is understood by all adults. But it should still be avoided. I remember when a senior figure in Washington (I think it was Moynihan but I can’t swear to it) remarked that “there are two kinds of liars, those who lie because it’s necessary and those who lie because it’s in their nature to lie…”
There’s a third category, the worst of all: those who lie to advance a personal ambition or, in government, a personal or corporate agenda. You wouldn’t believe how often high officials lie to their superiors because they fear the policy consequences of the truth. That includes very high ranking officials, as Bob Woodward demonstrated in his recent book; he has at least three examples of high officials deliberately withholding evidence of Iranian complicity in attacks against Americans in Iraq. Why? Because the evidence documented acts of war by Iran against the United States, and they “knew” the president would react strongly, which they didn’t want.
Scott Johnson recently wrote about one such case in the Weekly Standard. It’s the story of a very big lie, the lie according to which Yasser Arafat was not involved in the ghastly murders of two American diplomats and a Belgian colleague in Sudan in the early seventies. It was a blatant lie, and it’s been repeated by American spokesmen for more than thirty years. Indeed, it was repeated very recently to Scott Johnson by a State Department official–whom he names in the Weekly Standard article–with great conviction and more than a tinge of contempt at Scott’s nerve for continuing to ask about it.
Unlucky! State Department historians published the proof that we had known, right from the beginning, that Arafat had personally authorized the murders. Everyone from Kissinger to the present has either been lied to or has wittingly repeated the old lie.
Why? For two reasons. First, because CIA had made a deal with the PLO, or rather CIA had appeased the PLO. CIA agreed to provide the Palestinian terrorists with intelligence, in exchange for a PLO promise not to kill American diplomats. Second, because Kissinger and the other master strategists of the Nixon Administration wanted to advance a “peace process,” and they had to have PLO compliance for that to have any hope of success, and the American public would never support it if they knew Arafat had ordered the assassination of our diplomats.
Bob Baer, a longtime CIA case officer in the Middle East, had a similar experience. He had lost close friends in the bombing of the American Embassy in Beirut in the early eighties, and every time he tried to find out who had killed them, he ran into a stone wall. He was constantly told that we just did not know. But he persisted, just as Scott Johnson did, and he too arrived at the truth: the bombing of the Embassy had been an act of war by the Iranian regime, using Palestinian terrorists to carry out the actual suicide mission. He too found that “we” had known about it all along, but the truth had been suppressed for two decades.
Why? Because those who controlled the information didn’t want the top policy maker–Ronald Reagan–to know it, since they “knew” he would not let it pass, and they didn’t want trouble with Iran.
I, too, had a similar experience. I helped organize meetings in Rome in December, 2001, with Pentagon Iran experts and knowledgeable Iranians. They provided information about Iranian killers in Afghanistan, whose mission was to kill American soldiers. The information was accurate, and the would-be killers did not accomplish their mission (I hope they were killed, but I am not privy to that information). Shortly thereafter, Secretary of State Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, with the agreement of Director of Central Intelligence Tenet, demanded that all such contacts be terminated. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld gave orders that no Pentagon employee speak to “Iranians” (which prompted one Iranian-American official to ask if conversations with parents were included in the order).
Why? Because they did not want trouble with Iran, and they “knew” that if President Bush had that information, he would not let it pass.
We have now had further examples of this sort of lie. We now know that top American officials have known all along that Iran has been waging war on us in Iraq, but this information has been suppressed.
Why? Because they, too did not want trouble with Iran. Military leaders did not want a two-front war (even though it should have been obvious, even before the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, that we were engaged in a regional war, whatever our wishes were), and the spooks and diplomats convinced themselves that we could cut a deal with the mullahs.
Lots of lying, as you see, but the biggest lie of all is the lie the liars told themselves: the monstrous lie that we can arrive at peace with our enemies without first defeating them.
I am told that we have discovered truly explosive information about the Iranian role in Iraq in the recent raids in Baghdad and Irbil, the raids that led to the arrest of high officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. I believe we are all entitled to that information. To be sure, some of it may be “actionable intelligence,” which must be kept secret–even from the New York Times–until we have acted on it. But the American people are entitled to know the big picture, which is the one some of us have been painting for many years: Iran is waging war on us, killing our soldiers, slaughtering Iraqis, enabling Hizbollah in Lebanon, empowering Hamas and Islamic Jihad in their war against Israel.
The American people cannot properly judge our performance in this war unless they know its true dimensions. The president must provide us with that basic truth.
Faster, Please.
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Vince Festa:Michael, I also voiced concern that Bush needs to illuminate the strategic linkages between our headline-saturated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our esoteric, decades-old conflict with Iran and Russia.
And the sooner, the better.
Jan 21, 2007 - 10:52 pm MarcH:ML,
Would you care to comment further on the methods utilized in these recent policy battles by groups in the U.S. government who could be referred to as the “Iran appeasement advocates”?
I refer specifically to the Franklin/AIPAC investigation and prosecution. Based on coverage in the media, it hasn’t always seemed to me that the case and prosecution were managed in a neutral and professional way as a relatively minor FCI matter.
ML:
I think the best thing I’ve read on the Franklin case was done last week in the NY Sun by Eli Lake. And Joel Mowbray did a good comparison of the Franklin and Sandy Burglar prosecutions.
Franklin was certainly guilty of improperly handling classified material; he brought classified documents home to work on them. And he may have verbally revealed some secret or other, all apparently having to do with internal policy debates concerning Iran.
The mishandling matter is, alas, relatively common in this town, and it has always been dealt with administratively: various punishments are doled out, from suspension of clearances to cancellation of bonuses etc. I do not know any other case that was handled this way.
I just don’t know the facts on what he is supposed to have said.
On AIPAC, I and every other journalist I know are terribly concerned, because it seems the government intends to argue that private citizens are obliged to maintain secrecy of any classified information they may receive, even though they have never sworn an oath to do so–as government employees have–and even though that would apparently mean that journalists, for example, could not ever report classified information.
We’ll see how it plays out. If it does.
Jan 21, 2007 - 11:06 pm Frieda:There must be Iranian agents everywhere in the system, how else can you justify so people wanting to lie. Just amazing!
Do we need another McCarthy to purge every one of them? I hope we had one.
Jan 21, 2007 - 11:43 pm Dan:“Faster, Please” was language appropriate to an earlier time in this President’s tenure. But no longer.
It’s time to use language FAR MORE appropriate to the times, to the challenges, to the war.
And most importantly, FAR MORE appropriate to the ethos of this administration.
In short Professor Ledeen, you’re dealing with a pack of blockheads at the White House. So while a rapier may have been judicious earlier, nothing short of a bludgeon upside the head will do now.
Their foreheads are thick with bone and ego.
Your language needs to be calculated to penetrate.
You need to get their attention, and you, {and the rest of us as well…} are running out of time.
Take a look at Bush’s face in his public appearances. It’s oozing weakness, it’s coming from his very soul. We’re going to see two full years of Presidential drift, passivity and diplomatic crawling to the Europeans, the Chinese, the Russians and the UN.
The damage this administration is going to do to this country, to the West, over the next two years will beggar description.
If he doesn’t snap out it, and there is NO indication that he will, he WILL GO DOWN as worse than Carter.
And that’s a fact.
He’s blowing up the GOP.
He’s blowing up the resolve of the country to pursue victory.
He’s blowing up his own Bush doctrine.
He’s blowing up our last chance to stop the satanic mullahs getting their evil hands around weapons of supreme death.
And that’s just a cursory overview.
I’ve no longer any faith in this man’s ability to illuminate anything under the sun. He’s a verbal cripple. And even if he had the inclination to educate the American people about the mullahs, about Iran, about their agenda, even if he had the will, he would lack the means. We’ve turned him off. It’s as Peggy Noonan said last summer. He’s a known quantity. He doesn’t educate in his speeches as Reagan used to. His speeches consist of him telling us “where his heart is,” or “what’s on his heart.”
He’s a Rockefeller Republican so far out of his depth right now that’s it scary, scary for him, scary for us.
Jan 22, 2007 - 2:14 am mommadona:Why can’t you and your kind get real jobs?
Why are you always on the government payroll as corporate welfare queens?
And, finally, “Who’s yer ‘Daddy’”?
I have never seen such a pathetic generation of Machiavellian wannabes using taxpayer dollars for their own ideological power trips.
And, I’M a Goldwater Republican.
You and your ilk have done more damage to this government and to our communities than any “terrorist” organization could hope to accomplish is such a short amount of time.
You are bound by your words.
Never Again.
ML:
Well, mommadona, sorry to say you’ve exposed yourself as a dolt. I don’t have any income from the government. Zero. Overtaxed and underpaid, but entirely in the private sector.
Jan 22, 2007 - 4:42 am Azda Andish:Iran’s ambassador to Iraq declared that the foreign minister of Iraq, Mr Zibari, has assured him that the captured Iranians in Arbil will be freed soon.
Jan 22, 2007 - 7:07 am MarcH:US is not declaring their names and if they have really been involved in terrorist actions.I must believe they have been involved in terrorist actions but I am suspicious that the US is not giving the details because they want to let them go just as what they did with the other Iranian senior inteeligent guys a few weeks ago.
The LIE you beautifully mentioned as well as self-deception in all related high-ranking officials in the US is going on. Alas!
ML,
Thank you for your observations.
1. Your final comment, (”We’ll see how it plays out. If it does”.) was interesting. Do you think there is a possibility that the government would dismiss the AIPAC indictment? That would be very rare. On the other hand, per the recent Lake article, Franklin did not seem to be entirely cooperative with the government at his recent sentencing hearing.
2. I thought that the strangest thing about this matter is that, even though it became public via a leak to CBS and a story broadcast just before the 2004 Republican convention, there was apparently no immediate government investigation of the leak. In fact there was no investigation of the leak until the AIPAC trial judge ordered one. Of course, my view is only based on news stories and there could be other activity behind the scenes. But, it does seem as if the matter was used and leaked to intimidate those who might have advocated a stronger position re: Iran.
Jan 22, 2007 - 8:29 am JasonP:Appeasement never works. It doesn’t work better when you are unconscious of your concessions to the enemy. Iran has only become emboldened. With close to 30 years of attacks and no response, why should they stop now?
Their operatives in South Lebanon and through out Iraq have nothing to worry about. We held back Israel from defeating the enemy in Lebanon. We are fighting Iran but refuse to face the fact. Iraq isn’t the problem; it’s Iran and Saudi Arabia. We evade the former and support the latter.
Isn’t any wonder the jihadis movement grows by leaps and bounds? Is it any wonder why they see us as a paper tiger?
Jan 22, 2007 - 10:10 am Brian:Michael, I think your assessment is much too nice to the administration. Iran’s support of the killing of American soldiers in Iraq has been in the news for a long time. The fact that the administration has been incurious about this fact and has shown no interest in documenting it, highlighting it and presenting it to the American people tells me that the disregard of the issue comes from the top.
The President is not being protected from information by his underlings. It is the policy of this administration to actively downplay Iran’s war with us out of a fear that if Americans (at least before the last election) had known how many soldiers were killed with Iranian complicity they would have demanded a war against Iran. This administration does not want that.
Having succeeded so well in smothering Iran’s acts of war against the US for the past few years, this debilitated administration could not take military action against Iran, even if it wanted to.
Most awful of all is the fact that this administration has come full circle back to the Clinton Administration of 1998. When the Tony Snow, the Sec. of State and Gen. Pace said that the US will not strike within Iranian territory to stop Iranian support for killing American troops it was identical to Bill Clinton’s pronouncement during the Kosovo/Serbia war that the US would not use any ground troops. What sorts of idiots would tell their opponent that they are not prepared to take whatever legitimate action they can to achieve their objective?
Honestly, based on the weak and foolish governing the baby-boomer generation has displayed so far - I am beginning to think we need a constitutional amendment banning that generation from holding any more public offices. If you are a part of that generation Michael, I’m sorry.
ML:
Well I agree with all of that, although people and events constantly surprise me, and you never know what tomorrow may bring.
I have never been able to pass the physical for the Boomer Generation; I am too old and my feet are too flat.
Jan 22, 2007 - 12:12 pm gs:Commenter Dan has expressed my attitude.
If he doesn’t snap out it, and there is NO indication that he will, he WILL GO DOWN as worse than Carter.
…
I’ve no longer any faith in this man’s ability to illuminate anything under the sun. He’s a verbal cripple. And even if he had the inclination to educate the American people about the mullahs, about Iran, about their agenda, even if he had the will, he would lack the means. We’ve turned him off.
Spot on. As soon as I hear Bush’s voice, I reflexively change the channel.
I did not understand why we invaded secular Iraq when the enemy was religious fascism, but gave the matter the benefit of the doubt. Then Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” strut on the aircraft carrier gave me the suspicion that here was a man who had no idea of what he had set in motion.
I will not actively oppose this wartime commander-in-chief’s “efforts” and I wish General Petraeus well, but Bush no longer has my confidence and I will not defend him. My past support has yielded an arrogantly botched war, open borders, and Great Society: The Sequel.
During the Vietnam war, the enemy relied on sanctuaries in North Vietnam and Cambodia; Bush was in the military at the time. If he was not told about what the Iranians did after we occupied Iraq, it is because he did not want to know.
I hope that events prove me wrong, but what I hope and what I expect are two distinct things.
Jan 22, 2007 - 12:17 pm Frieda:Blast in Mashhad last night…this is the second explosion within that area…and the same area where UFO;s have been reported by the regime’s media puppets…is Iran covering up something? I am sure they are, but what is it?
Jan 22, 2007 - 2:00 pm David P:Perhaps it’s better not to say what’s on the horizon, that may just scare people, like your average American. I can assure you this nation would not respond fondly to another Bush explanation about the need to open a new front in the “war on terror”. He spent up his creditability at home and realizes that destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities is too important a mission to risk open debate, like we had before the Iraq war. The possibility of a massive public condemnation is too great & would be counter productive in the end. Those in the loop who know, understand that some things are better left unsaid until everything is in position. The recent & steady build up of special US forces in the region makes it almost too obvious that an attack on Iran is imminent.
Jan 22, 2007 - 9:03 pm narciso:First of all. ’secular’ Iraq, had become increasingly Salafi Islamist
Jan 22, 2007 - 9:26 pm M. Simon:at least since 1991; after the declaration of the Mother of all
Battles. There was a big reunion
of said Islamists in Baghdad, 1994.
This was around the time that Farouk
al Hijazi, Mukharabat spymaster was
tending feelers to the likes of Bin
Laden (first reported by Julian Borgner of the Guardian,the
“Smirking Chimp” web-opinionator.
I know the recent congressional
intelligence report, took Hijazi’s
denials at face value; but what does
on expect him to say. Regarding Operation Nahr al Bas “Cold Harbor”
in Khartroum, the reality was quite
opposite, Arafat’s Force 17 security
chief, and head of the supposedly
rogue “Black September” Organization, Ali Hassan Salameh,
had brokered an agreement with the
CIA’s Robert Ames, to provide intel
to the Americans. This was contemporaneous with the planning
for the massacre at Conollystrasse,
otherwise known as the Munich Olympics (Many of these details are
were depicted in David Ignatius’s
roman a clef Agents of Influence,
substitute Salameh for Ramlawi, Ames
for Tom Rogers.)Salameh did provide
some information, he was well connected, but it did not save Cleo
Noel, George Moore, or Ambassador
Melody and DAvid Weiring, and his
driver, in Beirut, not long after.
Interestingly this last event, was
attributed to Habash PfLP, the same
outfit identified in the Mitrokhin
files, as being tied to KGB kidnap
plot of CIA officials, in that period. Despite the relatively
meager results, This pattern was
replicated in the late 90s, with the training arrangement that Tenet struck with Arafat’s security chiefs Dahlan and Jibril, which
formed the heart of the Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigade at the time of the
Second Intifada.
It looks like America is moving against Iran.
Evidently Bush has finally got the word.
Jan 22, 2007 - 10:26 pm Dominique R. Poirier:To tackle about this subject as you do is too rare an initiative for not to heartily approve it. However, although I couldn’t but agree about all examples you have presented in that post, I feel compelled to send this comment relating to a peculiar case you didn’t mention.
It happened, and still continues to happen from time to time in our history, that this kind of lies meets the unexpected outcome of helping a given enemy to conquer one’s country, rather than to protect it.
To be precise, this case applies when a given country (I name “a”) is desperately (or fiercely) fighting an underground and cold war against another powerful one (I name “b”). In a laudable order to avoid the dire consequences of a direct confrontation the intelligence apparatus of “a” flatly denies or “ignore” all mischief done by “b” against its interests and/or on its soil (exactly as you explain us). Therefore, such attitude implies that the whole population and a sizeable part of the ruling elite of the countries “a,” and “b” as well, are totally unaware or has little understanding of what is going on “underground”. As seen from outside what some use to name the “real world” diplomatic and economic relations between “a” and “b” appear to continue on a relatively normal basis.
But, meanwhile, this policy of lying of omission constitutes for “b” an obvious and even excellent opportunity not only to carry on its influence against “a,” but encourages “b” to give an increase to its underground activities which, in this case, are essentially made up of political activism and agitprop, espionage, sabotage, and other, say, active measures.
Finally, some day, the sad predictable outcome ineluctably happens. Political parties backed and financed by “b” win legally the election in “a,” and “a” fall definitively under “b” influence.
All along, and until the game is over, neither the population nor the bulk of the elite of “a” have been informed of what was going on and for this very reason those people are totally unaware that the future of the country in which they grew up and for which they expressed a sincere patriotism until then is become the property of another country for which they never felt any empathy at all.
From the last election on, and after some years went by since this last event, all they were able to notice is that deep and unwelcome and unexplainable changes occurred in their beloved country, as if the new ruling elite were deliberately acting against the national interest.
For the new ruling elite found, after all, no valuable reason not to continue on lying of omission, at least for the sake of maintaining social stability. As a result, where a popular resistance against the occupant was expected to occur and grow up in such a case, there is nothing but a general passive attitude of submission, obedience, and despair in some instance.
A striking historical example of how such submission and obedience shows up can be found in some enlightening accounts of WWII events written by famous people such as William Stephenson, or Robert Murphy. In those books we learn, for example, that most French officials (although they were perfectly aware of what was going on in this case) deliberately chosen to continue obeying with greater zeal to the new French authority previously set in place by the foreign occupant. As demonstration of this zeal one can expect when such case occurs I deliver to you and to your readers, in substance, the following testimony of a French Jew who, during a recent TV interview exclaimed “oh, we were much less afraid of the Germans than of the French police!”
That why I reached the conclusion that political lies, when not properly handled by responsible persons and carefully used, is something that may lead toward unexpected, if not dire, consequences.
Best regards.
Jan 23, 2007 - 5:11 am David Smithson:It’s all coming to a boiling point very soon. You have bogus polls that are going to scare some Bush supporters in Congress. 2008 has already begun. The AP is making it crystal clear that they are notaccountable to anybody beyond themselves and will continue to undermine the war effort with their propaganda. And the President still refuses to confront Iran so he is losing support on the Right with each passing day.
Jan 23, 2007 - 5:37 am Pierre Legrand:It’s pretty much over. Time to bring home some of our brave troops for a breather. Establish bases outside Baghdad and watch. Let hell break out in the ME. This round is over.
How long would America have supported Roosevelt if our troops invaded France and studiously ignored Germany for years?
When America is made safe from terrorist attacks it saves the forty percent who live to undermine it.
We are going to into full retreat mode until they, once again and with us all, start falling from the sky.
Or looking up at it and dying. That seems to be what it takes to move forward.
I did not understand why we invaded secular Iraq when the enemy was religious fascism, but gave the matter the benefit of the doubt. Then Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” strut on the aircraft carrier gave me the suspicion that here was a man who had no idea of what he had set in motion.
We invaded Iraq because they have been attacking us steadily for years. It was simply time to take the war to them. I have an article on that very subject being featured today in the PJ Media Scroll.
Iraq has nothing to do with terror…
Jan 23, 2007 - 2:53 pm Pierre Legrand:Furthermore Michael I hold the American people responsible. And that should give us all a great deal of anxiety since we can change politicians but if the people of the United States lose their nerves we are done.
President Bush should be held responsible for not driving home the facts that Saddam was linked to attacks on the United States. But these facts are availible to anyone interested in finding them.
Jan 23, 2007 - 3:01 pm Charles_in_Texas:I agree with Michael. Some of the comments seem to be on TOTALLY DIFFERENT subjects. I see nothing rational in the post by “mamadonna”. It makes no sense of any kind.
Jan 24, 2007 - 10:46 am Willy:I’ve no longer any faith in this man’s ability to illuminate anything under the sun. He’s a verbal cripple.”
Most Pols since Dec07/41 have been verbal cripples in that they rarely have told the truth. This Prez just isn’t willing substitute with rose petals.
Defense doesn’t have an answer. Intelligence doesn’t have an answer. The best we can do is give the military the best means available to protect.
The Pols are just candidates for the Hall of Mirrors.
Jan 24, 2007 - 11:05 am