CIA Kidnapping

 

So that happened
--State and Main (2002)
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[Follow-on from last week's Italian kidnapping verdict (A Faceless Man).]

This could be a fictional Aurelio Zen kidnapping, but it is sadly not.  In a true crime scenario, U.S. Central Intelligence Agents snatched a believed "radical Egyptian Muslim cleric" off the streets of Milan in 2003.

An ex-CIA operative involved in the operation, Sabrina De Sousa, told her mother, “There was an incident in Italy. It involved what the Italians consider a crime.” Imagine the hubris or the denial to be able to be amazed that she was being charged with an actual crime. “It was kidnapping. Don’t worry. I am not a criminal” (Kidnapping Unravels Spy's Career.)

Perhaps De Sousa drank the tea, and thought calling the snatch a "rendition" rendered it legal and permissible. In fact, the Italian Supreme Court found 22 CIA officers guilty of aggravated kidnapping; they will probably never be rendered to Italy for the execution of their sentencing.

The Washington Post notes, "Unlike the other Americans caught up in the case, [De Sousa] refuses to retreat into anonymity." This ostensibly makes De Sousa appear righteous, but in fact her cover has been blown from here to Milan, so there is only personal gain to be had from talking.

The Post continues to get it wrong when it writes, "More than anything, De Sousa’s legal battles reveal the cascading personal toll on a CIA officer when a secret intelligence operation’s cover is blown."  No -- the problem is not the agent's cover being blown but rather the fact that she was involved in the commission of a crime.  Having your cover blown is not a felony.  Kidnapping is, and kidnapping done in the name of freedom and democracy is doubly damning, as it puts icing on a terrorist activity.

Describing the naturalized U.S. citizen who began working for the CIA in the 1990's, the Post writes, "DeSousa's) olive skin and fluency in Portuguese, French, Hindi, German and Italian enabled her to blend into crowds and easily take part in surveillance of suspects."  Suspect is a police term -- does the CIA do police work or intel?

Why would an intel agency investigate the cleric?  If he is engaged in terrorist activity and was "under investigation", should this not be a host nation legal and criminal concern?  The CIA  is an intel agency, not law enforcement.

We are supposed to be the Good Guys here.  Note that the kidnapped was an Egyptian cleric, not a Taliban, not a Saudi. When the CIA kidnaps, it is called "counter-terrorism"; when al Qaeda does the same it is "terrorism".

Next: Pt II of CIA Kidnapping

A Faceless Man

In war, as it is waged now, 
with the enormous losses on both sides,
both sides will lose.
It is a form of mutual suicide 
--General Douglas MacArthur 

Who is strong? 
One who turns an enemy 
into a friend  
--Avot de Rabbi Natan 
_______________________ 

The first court case successfully challenging the U.S. practice of rendition ended in September '12 with an Italian supreme court decision upholding the convictions of 23 Americans in the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian cleric in Milan. 

Milanese lead prosecutor Armando Spataro said, “It confirms that what happened was incompatible with democracy” (High Court in Italy Backs Convictions for Rendition.)  The money graph: 

"Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was abducted on Feb. 17, 2003, as he was walking to his mosque. Prosecutors said he had been taken to an American air base in Italy and flown to Germany and then on to Egypt, where Mr. Nasr says he was tortured. He has since been released." 

After all of the money, intelligence and effort expended by the United States, Nasr (Abu Omar) was acquitted by an Egyptian court following his rendition from the country, and he has since been released.  This shows the meaningless nature of kidnapping people based upon hearsay or the American fear of terrorism.  How many people like Nasr have been wrongfully kidnapped, both in our peak terrorism years and now? 

"Wrongfully kidnapped" ... Ranger is woefully bemused by his neologism.  Putting aside legal concerns, it is foolhardy to train agents on their prey while allowing them to ignore standards of democratic action.  Kidnapping is not the hallmark of a great nation, nor is assassination.  A nation may not claim to be democratic if it may kill a person who cannot be proven guilty in a court of law. 

Nasr may not be lily white, but if he is guilty of a crime, then the American way is to bring him to trial.  Since when did it become legal protocol to kidnap and incarcerate a suspect, just because the authorities feel they do not have enough evidence to detain and try? Resorting to such extra legal tactics suggests moral bankruptcy and the strategic impotence of U.S. doctrine.  Does the Central Intelligence Agency have adult leadership, and does anyone in the ntaional Command Authority think beyond his nose?

How many people has the United States killed with cruise missiles who ought not have been, just as this man should not have been kidnapped.

Heads Will Roll

--Terror, Pavel Constantin (Romania)

If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation,
and if I should request a negotiation
from captivity they should consider that
a sign of duress
--Henry A. Kissinger

"Now, I give you fair warning," shouted the Queen,
stamping on the ground as she spoke;
"either you or your head must be off,
and that in about half no time! Take your choice!"
--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

I'm a prisoner of your love
enraptured by the beauty
I'm a prisoner of your love
enslaved by the passion
--Prisoner of Your Love,
Yngwie Malmsteen
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The police - investigations program Person of Interest recently featured a kidnapping scenario in which the victim was not blindfolded, yet perhaps intended for release, hence this comment on hooding in a capture scenario.

In criminal ventures, hoods and blindfolds are a good thing because this indicates the abducted has a chance of surviving the scenario. Criminals are inspired and motivated by financial gain, their primary goal. Criminals use violence to gain profit, and the achievement of the goal often obviates the need to murder the captive, who was a means to an end.

Terrorists do not use violence for simple profit in most scenarios, although they do rob banks and kidnap to finance their operations. Terrorists are usually (unless they are of the nihilistic stripe) in it for the long haul, so they must maximize the profit of each operation. When Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) robbed the Beirut Bank of the Middle East and made of with $400 million (1976), he achieved three goals: training, recruitment and financing.

However, unlike garden variety criminals, terrorists are more prone to violence for its own sake. These groups operate in a spectrum beyond criminality, and their operations are dictated primarily by dogma, with recruitment and financing merely being necessary adjutants to insure the group's longevity.

Unlike criminals, terrorists will keep a bag over your head to depersonalize the abductee so that when the time comes for execution, it is easier as the victim has been denied his humanity. This gesture makes the kill easier for the shooter.

It is strange but usually true (aside from the aberrations like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) that even terrorists find it hard to kill in an absolutely ruthless manner, like performing execution-style murders. This is a subtle yet valid concept. From the recent, "Mad, Bad, Sad: What's Really Happened to America's Soldiers",

"A couple of decades ago, Dave Grossman, a professor of psychology and former Army Ranger, wrote an eye-opening, bone-chilling book called On Killing. It begins with the premise that people have an inherent resistance to killing other people and goes on to examine how the military overcomes that inhibition."

So for criminals, blindfolding or bagging suggests the victim may survive, and the blinding is a means of preventing the criminal from being identified by the released victim. For terrorists, bagging is usually a means of depersonalization to make it easier for the executioner to kill the now-faceless victim.

So what does the United States do when it captures a suspected terrorist? We put his head in a bag.

What is the message?

Word Play

[War] is a highly planned
and cooperative form of theft
--The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski

Isn't it pretty to think so?
--The Sun Also Rises,
Ernest Hemingway
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Today we will look at some word games in the press, and who better to play with words than Ranger? These are games that buoy up the U.S.'s continued participation in the Middle East morass. These are words that stoke the fear engine.

First is the word kidnapping, as relates to the recent release of abducted Israeli soldier Galid Shalit. Numerous news sources reported that Shalit had been freed after being kidnapped five years ago by Hamas near the Gaza border (exs. here, here and here).

Shalit was a uniformed IDF soldier; he was therefore, captured. It seems a small semantical issue, but it is not. Societies depend upon legal precision. Actions on the battlefield are different in many ways from those conducted in the civilian world. We conflate the two worlds to our detriment, for we lose perspective and rationality.

Words like "kidnapping" are fear words. Not that Sgt. Galit did not suffer his share of fear, but his plight is unique to his circumstance. People are generally not kidnapped off the street in the U.S. by Muslim terrorists, but using the incorrect term joins it in the flow of scare terms, becoming yet another justification for U.S. involvement in wars in the Middle East.

Next is the assertion by many that the recently exposed wild Iranian assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to the United States amounted to an Act of War, Reuel Marc Gerecht in the Wall Street Journal among them (Iran's Act of War). Along with this false conclusion is the illogical presumption that the U.S. must respond in kind.

Reuel also sees the U.S. withdrawal (as planned by George W. Bush) to be "clearly a sign that Washington no longer has the desire to maintain hegemony in the Middle East." Where is it stated that the U.S. is to maintain hegemony in the Middle East?

• This plot (if true) is criminal, and not and act of war. Assassination is a crime

• Why MUST the U.S. respond in kind?
  

• If we respond we are being reactive, and letting them influence our behavior; reaction is the behavior of a loser. We set the tempo of operations, not them.

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, says it's "time for the U.S. to speak to this regime in the language it understands -- force" (Speak Softly... And Fight Back). He claims the Iranians are racing to build a nuclear weapon, but he has no facts to substantiate his fear-mongering. He calls the foiled plot "an engraved invitation" to use force.

However, even if Iran were trying to build a nuclear weapon, how does this become a U.S. rather than a U.N. concern? Kristol & Co. fail to see the hypocrisy in their allegations of Iranian force when the U.S. has such a violent history; do they forget that the U.S. occupied Iran during World War II? Iran has not attempted to occupy the U.S. lately, as far as we know.

Kristol's tough-talking conclusion voices the dream of so many:

The next speech we need to hear from the Obama administration should announce that, after 30 years, we have gone on the offensive against this murderous regime. And the speech after that can celebrate the fall of the regime, and offer American help to the democrats building a free and peaceful Iran.

Sorry, but the U.S. missed it's last chance to declare war when the Iranian Embassy was taken over in 1979. That may stick in the craw, but you can't go back in time. Ah, what a nice dream -- to go back and help the Iranian peaceniks. Just like in Iraq, we guess.

When will we ever learn?

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Kidnapped

I have seen wicked men and fools,
a great many of both;
and I believe they both get paid in the end;
but the fools first
--Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stvenson

Birds do it, bees do it --
even educated fleas do it
--Let's Fall in Love, Cole Porter
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It seems everyone's hopping on the kidnapping bandwagon these days. Italy convicted 22 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency agents in absentia back in '09 for the abduction of a Muslim Cleric. That snatch-and-grab was done as part of the U.S. extraordinary rendition program, but it seems al Qaeda is now increasingly kidnapping for ransom to fill dwindling coffers (Al-Qaeda Kidnapping to Raise Cash).

Kidnapping has always been a top source of revenue for funding terrorist organization operations, the income supplementing that obtained from bank robberies and all the other criminal activities which provide group support. No news flash here.

So what is the significance al Qaeda's ramping up its kidnapping activities? The news indicates that their normal cash cows are out to pasture and the Osama bin Laden no longer is (was) a big draw for their supporters. They are losing the support of the passive and active membership (which makes these groups viable) and so must utilize crime to finance their existence.

This implies that the new al Qaeda leadership will need to run more criminal operations as fundraisers. Such activities are a last resort for terrorists when funds become scarce. Criminal behavior is not associated with the crusader mentality, and such crimes are easier for police to infiltrate and neutralize than are traditional ideological terrorist organizational behavior. With criminals you just follow the money and everything drops into place.

This increased criminal activity is good news for intel and police agencies as this degrades the terrorist's strategic stance in lieu of tactical criminality, which are simply survival operations. As always, good police and intel work to counter criminal actions is the best avenue to neutralize terror organizations.

If the hijackers of 9-11-01 had to kidnap or rob banks to finance their plans ... you get the idea.