The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies – Book Review
2 stars – Opens with a Lie, Goes Downhill from There
American Herald Tribune
5 June 2018
Graphic and full text below the fold.
Michael V. Hayden, The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies (Penguin, 2018), 304 pages, $16.72, ISBN-13: 978-0525558583.
This book (essay) is a double-spaced screed, not to be confused with the lengthier and more substantive but no less mendacious Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (Penguin, 2017)[1] in which the author told many lies as part of justifying the unjustifiable: mass warrantless surveillance on the US public and promiscuous rendition, torture, and drone assassinations, by the two agencies for which he served as director.[2]
This is not a book about intelligence but rather a prolonged essay whining about President Donald Trump not buying into the cult, the lies, the myths, the treason that is American secret intelligence today.[3]
This essay is a shameless hit piece on the President, with negative comments throughout the book:
QUOTE (26): “Today’s populist [President] is a ruthless Manhattan billionaire real estate developer, schooled in politics by Roy (‘hit back ten times harder”) Cohn, the uber-aggressive counsel for Joe McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt of the early 1050’s.”
It is quite pertinent to observe that it is now known that former President Barack Obama oversaw an interagency witchhunt and “spygate” against the Trump Campaign, with the active participation of NSA, CIA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and elements of the British government including Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In other words, everything that the author alleges in this book to be true – from Russian manipulation of the US election to the purity of intelligence under Obama, has since the publication of this book been demonstrated to be false. [4]
The essay is an intellectually and morally shallow rhetorical attempt that confuses the President’s disdain (and my own) for liars pretending to tell the truth, with a decline in appreciation for the absent truths that are not to be found in the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) or anything at all coming out of the secret US intelligence community that provides, in the words of General Tony Zinni, USMC, “at best” 4% of what a major commander needs (and nothing for everyone else).[5]
As an intelligence professional myself, with vastly broader experience than Mike Hayden outside the narrow confines of what he was spoon-fed by his staffs (who call him “Elmer Fudd”), I find this essay to be deceptive, hypocritical, and sanctimonious, in part because the author has no concept of what the term “intelligence” actually means (decision-support); no acknowledgement of the many information pathologies that he tolerated in betrayal of the public trust; and no visceral grasp of the Constitutional, philosophical, religious, and practical meaning of the word “truth.”[6]
Hayden is in absolute denial over the fact that he was the director of two agencies that are abject failures, that have committed treason against the public while both engaged in the surveillance and blackmailing of Members of Congress, while the first failed to process 99% of what it collected, and the second pioneered rendition and torture and mass murder by drone. Both agencies – the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – have come to epitomize, not the apogee of trusted fact-based expertise, but rather the nadir of intelligence lacking in integrity.
There are two “truth-teller” threads in this book apart from the demonstrable falseness of “the Russians did it” narrative combined with the denials about the secret world spying on the Trump campaign: lies about William Binney (my friend and colleague), and lies about false flag events.
William Binney, the former NSA Technical Leader and later Technical Director for Military and Geopolitical Analysis & Reporting (6,000 people), who reported NSA to the Inspectors General of both the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Department of Defense (DoD) for being far outside the rule of law and corrupt to boot, receives an astonishing three pages (205-207) in this essay. Binney is grossly misrepresented by Hayden who describes Binney as a “technician” who “had taken a technical difference within NSA and turned it into a moral crusade.” Evidently Binney is also excoriated in Hayden’s earlier book, which I did not bother to read knowing it would be full of lies.
Binney was not a “technician” he was the Technical Leader and then Technical Director (like a Chief Technical Officer) for the most important productive part of NSA, with a reputation for integrity and technical excellence vastly exceeding that of Hayden. It was not a “technical” difference as much as an existential confrontation between doing it right within the rule of law (Thin Thread[7]) versus doing it wrong, at great expense, with profound negative consequences for the Republic. It also bears mention that for all his criticisms of Binney, under Hayden the NSA turned everything Binney’s team had created for spying on the rest of the world, against US citizens, with a deliberate decision to go after all content, not just meta data, in gross violation of the Constitution and all applicable legislation.
Hayden, who in this book pushes the Deep State narrative that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which is a lie, is evidently also upset with Binney for telling Fox News, utilizing Binney’s technical knowledge that is vastly superior to Hayden’s, that the volume of data received by Julian Assange and Wikileaks could not have been moved through a simple electronic penetration. Later of course we have Julian Assange and former British Ambassador Craig Murray saying publicly they did not get anything from the Russians and in fact got it from an insider, but such pesky facts are not to be found in this essay by Hayden.[8]
It merits comment that Wikipedia, part of #GoogleGestapo[9] controlled by the Deep State[10] and the Zionists, labels Binney’s refutation of the Russian interference narrative as “fringe theory.”[11] The fact is that both mainstream media and social media are censored and manipulated, and those who challenge the official narrative are marginalized (as has happened to me for forty years) or digitally assassinated (Mike Adams of Natural News, many others).[12] The Russians did not interfere with the election – the only actual interference with the election was done by Hillary Clinton when she stole thirteen primaries from Bernie Sanders, with his active complicity after the fact.[13] That fraud was prevented in the general election, one of the reasons President Trump was “accidentally” elected.[14]
The second truth-teller in this book is Hayden’s facile promulgation of false statements about known false flag events. Two in particular stand out: the Syrian gas attack, which was a false flag event intended to force the introduction of US troops into Syria on behalf of Zionist Israel;[15] and Sandy Hook, a very well-documented false flag attack that was the first of many false flags ordered up by the Obama Administration to advance a police state and promote a gun control and gun confiscation agenda.[16]
It merits comment that Amazon, part of #GoogleGestapo as controlled by the Deep State and the Zionists, banned the seminal book on Sandy Hook by former Marine Corps officer and PhD James Fetzer and Mike Palecek (Editors), Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It Was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control (Moon Rock Books, 2015).[17] Subsequent to the book’s publication even more evidence has emerged, and many (not all) follow-on shootings, such as the Orlando and San Bernardino shootings, have been proven to be false flag gun-control agenda events – people do die, but they are patsies.
In passing, despite Hayden’s parroting the Deep State narrative about the Russians being all over US social media and Russia Today (itself a mediocre news enterprise) being very active in highlighting US short-falls, Hayden appears to be completely oblivious of the fact that President Trump is not only on the money with respect to the fake news mainstream media, but also rightfully concerned about what I have labeled #GoogleGestapo: the Zionist-controlled social media ecology that includes Amazon (banning books, including one on Sandy Hook), Facebook, Google, MeetUp, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), both agents of foreign and subversive powers, are the common censors in America, as “trusted flaggers.” Publish truths they don’t like and you will be digitally assassinated, as has happened in the recent YouTube purge of conservative channels.[18]
Mike Hayden is a blow-hard who should never have made it past Colonel and should now be banned from ever again speaking in public on pain of losing his pension after a court-martial. He is a posturing pimp for the Deep State that he denies exists, while demonstrating with every word that he is beholden to Deep State handlers such as Bob Gates and Eliot Cohen, and more than happy to advance known lies.
IMAGE CREDIT: Collage by Robert Steele.
DOC (6 Pages): Review Hayden Assault on Intelligence 1.5
Notes
[1] Michael V. Hayden, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror (Penguin, 2017).
[2] I am one of the few CIA clandestine case officers to have signed both letters against torture, the first to Senator John McCain and including as a signator Admiral Stansfield Turner, himself a former Director of the CIA. My views on torture and assassination by drone are provided in Robert Steele, “Book Reviews: Rebuttal-Lies Presented as Truth; BROKEN – The Truth as Fiction,” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 18, Number 2, 2016, pp. 163-166; and Robert Steele, “Review Essay: UNHINGED: drone assassination – American suicide,” Intelligence and National Security, 33/1, March 2017, pp. 145-150.
[3] Put quite simply, Hayden is mis-representing the nature and capability and value of the US secret intelligence community, in this book (essay) and every public presentation that he gives. He is joined in that endeavor by other Deep State servants such as James R. Clapper, whose book Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence (Viking, 2018) I review separately. I am reminded of an earlier book of lies by George Tenet, Porter Goss, Mike Hayden, John McLaughlin, Philip Mudd, and Jose Rodriguez, Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of its Detention and Interrogation (Naval Institute Press, 2015) as reviewed in Robert Steele, “Book Reviews: Rebutttal-Lies Presented as Truth; BROKEN – The Truth as Fiction,” Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, Volume 18, Number 2, 2016, pp. 163-166. These people lie with impunity and are quite certain they can continue to prosper as servants of the Deep State while continuing to lie to the public with impunity. I have 300 reviews of non-fiction books on intelligence offered free online, and over 2,500 non-fiction reviews across 98 non-fiction categories, also free online. I have written many books of my own, two with forewords from past chairmen of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and have many articles, lectures, monographs, and a few official testimonies including to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) on excessive and misrepresentative secrecy. All of the latter can be found free online at my personal website, http://robertdavidsteele.com. In contrast to Mike Hayden, I think for a living, do not lie, and serve the public.
[4] Cf. Mongoose, “Obama White House Coordinated the John Brennan False Flag Attack on Trump Campaign — British Were Totally Complicit in This Act of Treason,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 3 June 2018, citing Cassandra Fairbanks, “TGP EXCLUSIVE: Former Intelligence Officers Find ‘Indisputable Evidence’ U.S. Intel Leaders Were Linked to British in Spygate Scandal,” The Gateway Pundit, 1 June 2018; and Owl, “Not One But SEVEN to TEN Spies Against Trump from Corrupt DOJ/FBI,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 25 May 2018, citing Jim Hoft, “THE LIST: At Least 6 and Potentially 7 Known and Suspected Intelligence Informants Accused of Spying on Trump Campaign,” The Gateway Pundit, 24 May 2018.
[5] (General) Tony Zinni, “Graphic: Tony Zinni on 4% ‘At Best’,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 7 December 2010, first cited in Robert Steele, “Open Source Intelligence,” in Loch Johnson (ed.), Strategic Intelligence: The Intelligence Cycle (Praeger, 2007), Chapter 6, pp. 96-122. Just two of my recent articles destroy the credibility of those “leaders” of the US secret intelligence community who claim relevance and utility they simply do not offer: Robert Steele, “On Defense Intelligence: Seven Strikes,” CounterPunch, July 2, 2014, and “Intelligence for the President–AND Everyone Else,” CounterPunch, March 1, 2009.
[6] I cannot make up for the deficiencies in Mike Hayden’s thinking and writing in one review. Here let me just offer three entry points into my own work, the third one being a collection of technical writings. Robert Steele, “The Evolving Craft of Intelligence,” in Robert Dover, Michael Goodman, and Claudia Hillebrand (Eds.). Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies, Oxford, UK: Routledge, 31 July 2013; Robert Steele, “Healing the Self & Healing the World: The Open Source Way,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 2 September 2017 no longer available where previously published in Defence and Intelligence Norway, 13 September 2017; and Robert Steele, “Core Works for Those New to My Work,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 4 March 2018. On the matter of truth, there is no finer work than that of John Caputo, TRUTH: Philosophy in Transit (Penguin Global, 2014). A summary review is free online. See also John Caputo with Sarah Westall, “Truth: Shocking, Traumatic, Paradigms & Frameworks Plus List of Reviews,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 14 November 2017.
[7] William Binney, “Thin Thread – Signals Intelligence within the Rule of Law,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 3 March 2018, integrating full text of Diane Rourk, “Thin Thread,” White Paper, May 2002.
[8] To Amazon’s credit, it has not interfered with my Trump Revolution Series offered within Kindle, which includes Robert Steele, The Soft Coup Collapses – Blackmail Revealed – What Next?: CIA was bluffing, produced no evidence – Russians did not “hack” the election. Is this the beginning of the end of the Deep State in the USA? (Trump Revolution Book 6), Amazon Kindle, 7 January, 2017, also free online. See also the earlier free online post with 22 updates that names over 30 specific individuals including President Barack Obama (before the Deep State told him what to say) who refuted claims that the Russians “hacked” the election: Robert Steele, “US IC Allegations Against Russians Are Crap — Our Own Traitors, Not the Russians, Are the Real Enemy, Fake Evidence & Fake News – UPDATE 22,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 30 December 2016.
[9] When Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and I launched #UNRIG, a non-profit educational campaign to promote electoral reform, we made it clear that our goal to was to eliminate “pay to play” legislation and the influence of foreign powers on the US Government (USG) starting with that of Israel. We were ruthlessly attacked six ways in ninety days, I outline the architecture of the structure that attacked us – pointing to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as the central element, in Robert Steele, “How The Deep State Controls Social Media and Digitally Assassinates Critics: #GoogleGestapo – Censorship & Crowd-Stalking Made Easy,” American Herald Tribune, 7 November 2017. Amazon has been added since then because they are banning some, not all, books, reviewers, and individual reviews that challenge the Deep State narrative.
[10] Recently, reacting to a totally erroneous statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, I published a well-documented article, Robert Steele, “CIA and the Deep State: Mike Pompeo is Totally Wrong – and Politico Totally Worthless,” American Herald Tribune, 2 June 2018 also available in Amazon Kindle form. The single most important book on the Deep State is Peter Dale Scott, The American Deep State: Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for U.S. Democracy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). A summary review is free online. The literature is extensive, including my own Robert Steele, “Dealing with America – and the Deep State,” Russian International Affairs Council, 5 February 2018 and Robert Steele with Joseph Ford Cotto, “Interview: Ex-spy Robert David Steele explains why the deep state is entrenched in American life.” San Francisco Review of Books, 31 May 31 2017 as well as many other interviews (those that survived the YouTube purge of conservative channels) easily viewed at Steele on Deep State @ YouTube. I especially recommend my three minutes speaking to Rolling Thunder in front of the Lincoln Memorial: Robert David Steele – #UNRIG Washington DC Rolling Thunder, There Is A Deep State & False Flags (Victurus Libertas, YouTube, 4:39), 27 May 2018. Anyone who denies the existence of the Deep State and its Shadow Government is either deeply ignorant or deeply compromised.
[11] Editors, “William Binney (intelligence official),” Wikipedia, undated, accessed 4 June 2018.
[12] Cf. Robert Steele, “#GoogleGestapo: Censorship & Surveillance (Including Amazon, Facebook, Google, MeetUp, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia) – UPDATE 6,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 24 October 2017 Updated 14 May 2018.
[13] Supra note 8 but see especially “Graphic: How Hillary Clinton Stole the Democratic Nomination from Bernie Sanders — and Did Not Legally Win the Popular Vote,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 16 November 2016 and Mongoose, “Hillary Clinton Electoral Fraud Confirmed by Stanford University — Bernie Sanders Won…,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 7 August 2016, citing Sean Adl-Tabatabal, “Stanford University Confirms Democratic Election Fraud,” YourNewsWire, 16 June 2016.
[14] Robert Steele, Donald Trump, The Accidental President, Under Siege! (Trump Revolution Book 5), Amazon Kindle, 11 November 2016.
[15] There have been multiple false flag sarin gas attacks in the Syrian context, all of them funded by Israel and/or Saudi Arabia. It is important to note that Israel is skilled at “faking out” the good people of NSA with their “talking rocks” that simulate traffic which NSA mistakes for real. Robert Steele, The Syrian Missile Attack – Theatrics & House Cleaning?: McCain, Brennan, McMaster Behind False Flags? Funded by Israel & Saudi Arabia? (Trump Revolution Book 10). Amazon Kindle, 11 April, 2017 also free online; see also Mongoose, “How Israel Fakes Out NSA with Signal Rocks that Simulate Syrian Army Transmissions About Sarin Gas UPDATE 2 NSA Incompetence,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 14 April 2017 and Tyler Durden, “Caught On Camera: Israel Targets Civilians With A Chemical Weapon Drone,” Zero Hedge, 24 March 2018.
[16] I ran a false flag operation for the CIA. They are as real as the Deep State and the use of fake news to manipulate public perceptions and get away with murder and looting of the public treasury at scale. My single most popular Kindle is Robert Steele, False Flag Attacks: A Tool of the Deep State (Trump Revolution Book 12). Amazon Kindle, 8 June 2017. The elements – and much more – can be found free online via False Flag @ Phi Beta Iota. See also Supra note 10.
[17] James Fetzer and Mike Palecek (Editors), Nobody Died at Sandy Hook: It Was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control (Moon Rock Books, 2015). The book is offered free online. See also Sandy Hook @ Phi Beta Iota.
[18] Cf. ZeroPointNow, “YouTube's New ADL Thought Police Punish Conservatives While Giving The Far-Left A Pass,” Zero Hedge, 3 August 2017, and Yoda, “Mike Adams of Natural News on How Zionist-Controlled Social Media Enterprises Seek Extermination of Conservative and Alternative Voices,” Phi Beta Iota Public Intelligence Blog, 26 May 2018, pointing to Mike Adams, “Tech giants seek complete EXTERMINATION of all conservatives,” Natural News on Vimeo, 21 May 2018.
