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03/03/07  For Your Information: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellipedia

12/07/06 Regarding the Iraq Study Group aka  How Best to Surrender Without Telling Anybody Group, up real close.  Click, and take a hard look yourself.  Analysis by the Mountain Observer currently a work in progress.  JES                                               

11/01/06  Now as it turns out, in chasing Osama bin Laden, perhaps we have not been chasing the real guy, but a decoy so to speak.  A new theory is beginning to emerge within the intelligence community that, perhaps, the real guy is one Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aka KSM, aka Mukhtar, currently in detention somewhere as a guest of U.S. intelligence assets.  KSM is a member of al Qaeda, but this was not always so.  As Mukhtar, he is described as the real mastermind behind the 09/11 attacks, as well as a number of the now well documented al Qaeda attacks throughout the '90's.   He was captured 03/01/03 in Pakistan.  The link-up with al Qaeda seems to have occurred when Osama bin Laden fled to Afghanistan from the Sudan, as a matter of mutual interests.  To more fully understand the significance and importance of KSM, it is necessary to reach back before the al Qaeda link.   KSM is a tribal product of Baluchistan, a non existent nation much in the mold of Kurdistan, more familiar to the West as a challenge looming over the horizon.  While there is reason to believe we could do business with a Kurdistan, such is not the case with a Baluchistan.  To make a long story short, a very extended tribal family of whom KSM is a part, was responsible for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, some of whom are now in jail.   There is much, much more to all of this, but I'll get to it later.  Meanwhile, for your information, Baluchistan touches Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it is the Iranian connection that arouses interest because of some apparent cooperation between the Baluchistani's and Saddam Hussein during the Iraqi-Iranian war.  Much more to follow, including the real objectives and motives of what we have come to know as IslamicFacism.  JES

09/28/06  The difficulty with a Senate almost evenly divided along partisan lines, in the more subtle sense of Liberal v. Conservative, is the power of individual Senators, drunk with self-importance, to disrupt what is in the interest of the polity, especially dangerous in times of war.  Dressed in apparently principled, but frequently self-serving rhetoric, and perhaps even believing it themselves, certain Senators seem not to be able to resist the temptation to stand on the tracks of history.  So it is that a Senate, forced by a similarly puffed up Supreme Court decision to extend beyond recognition Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, is charged with the duty of fabricating a band-aid fix to the Court's transgression.  Enter John McCain, and two wannabes, offering specious arguments irrelevant and counter-productive to the issue at hand.  The issue at hand is the ability of American intelligence operatives to question and obtain information from captured terrorists without themselves being subject to prosecution by either the so-called International Court or Senator Dick Durbin and friends.

Finally, after weeks of political grandstanding, and an explanation by the President that in the face of an unsatisfactory product from Congress the relevant programs would grind to a halt, the Senate caves, having been thrown a couple of fish to ease the hurt.  Operations at Guantanamo will continue in a fashion already much too comfortable for the guests.  JES

05/27/06   Excellent.   Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden gets the Senate's green light as CIA director.  JES

05/11/06  The National Security Agency is checking your phone calls.  Folks, hate to tell you this, but this was old news 4 years ago; grow up.  Armed with banks of super computers, calls are automatically scanned for key buzz words, phrases and connection patterns as in looking for the needle in the haystack.   Technology makes this possible, and for the security of this nation, you best thank your lucky stars that this is so.  The current Congressional posturing on the matter is disingenuous in the extreme.  Everyone in Washington with a scintilla of awareness has known about this all along.  This Fall, vote for real Americans.   JES

05/07/06  Time for further change at the CIA, decades overdue.  Short time Director, Porter J. Goss, announced his resignation this past Friday, as the inside civilian (read Liberal/Leftist) resistance to another way of thinking continues to fight a guerilla war against reformers.   Porter Goss was a civilian outsider, brought in to fix things by President Bush, and who apparently has not had the horsepower to deal as effectively, as will be necessary, with the embedded resistance.   Next up comes an old hand at these issues who knows his way around the swamp: Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden.  This has got Democrats and the Left really spooked because here is a man who apparently understands the game from the inside.  The cry will be that civilians are out of the intelligence business and that the military has taken over, which says much about what the Left really thinks of the military.  The Left's real problem, however, is not civilian v. military, but Liberal v. Conservative, a focus adjustment on data analysis that will shift the product away from John Kerry style international kiss-ass and cover up,  and more toward a priority on actual American national security.   A CIA less concerned about hurting other peoples feelings and more concerned about hard nosed reality is long over-due.  This likely will include the need to engage in some grubby operations that need not be discussed.  An observer needs to understand all this to make sense of the debate about to ensue with the President's nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden.   The screaming and hollering you will hear, originating from within the CIA, is evidence that progress is being made against the problem.  The same problem is also resident, to a lesser degree, in the Department of Defense (check the political pedigree of all those complaining Generals).   Then, of course, we have that enormous edifice of occasional Americans, the Department of State.  However a President has to start somewhere, and even if he is five years late, certain of the President's failures are finally forcing him to act.   JES

04/24/06  Breaking story.  Treason, or so it might appear.    The CIA dismisses Mary O. McCarthy, a highly placed intelligence officer.   Perhaps the infection of decades in various security sensitive federal agencies is about to burst.  The Mountain Observer prays for the soul of an old B-25 tail gunner  who we believe was right all along.  The names have not changed to protect the guilty.   JES  

03/18/06  The vast trove of captured files from Saddam's Iraq are now being released by direction of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to the internet.   Go to http://www.dni.gov/release_letter_20060316.html  Keep trying; it's very busy, and will be for months.  The warehouses in Baghdad and Dubai are stuffed, and the government finally had to admit that at the pace they were going (best guess, only 5% processed) it would take them years.  The new policy, totally unprecedented, is to ask for public help in translation and analysis.   Thank you Sen. Rick Santorum R-PA and House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-MI for pursuing this matter with Mr. Negroponte.  Part of the government's problem has been finding reliable people who understand Arabic.   JES

01/11/06  Well, so now the rat has come out from under the rock, too self invested to let the opportunity of publicity escape.  One Russell Tice, burrowed deep in the National Security Agency, admits to being the leaker to the New York Times on matters concerning our intelligence war against IslamicFacism, foreign and domestic.   It seems his security clearance was revoked last May, and cut off from his sources, perhaps he was concerned that his train ride into the sunset would foreclose his golden opportunity to preen before the cameras.   A review of his comments to ABC News reveals that the NSA was actually doing its job quite well, which is basically the substance of his complaint.  "The mentality [at the NSA] was we need to get these guys, [al Qaeda types] and we're going to do whatever it takes to get them".   Well, golly gee wizz, let's hear it for the NSA!   Now let us watch the New York Times and ABC News try to sell Mr. Tice as a hero to Red State America.  Similarly situated elsewhere in the world, Tice, at this point, would have found himself pushing up daisies, but in this country we put a priority on the civil rights of citizens, even traitors.   JES

12/17/05  The Patriot Act expires on December 31.   Yesterday the Senate stumbled, and voted re-authorization down.  As an American Nationalist Conservative, I share the concerns of those honestly troubled about the future of freedom for American citizens, as originally understood.  I have made that abundantly clear throughout the history of the Mountain Observer, including previous references to the Patriot Act.  So I do not question the motivations of those who are honestly troubled by the implications of the Patriot Act for the future of freedom in this country.  I share those concerns.   What I question is their judgment in the context of the current situation that we, as a nation, face with respect to the challenge of IslamicFacism.  The Patriot Act is not about George W. Bush.  It is about the defense of this nation.   Earlier this past week I had been led to believe that a compromise had been worked out on certain key details (12/11/05 below) which collectively made great sense to me, originating with the premise that, as a matter of fact, the President does need these tools to responsibly discharge his duty to defend this nation.  We need to face up to a real priority of immediacy, partially a price to be paid for a sometimes willful disregard for reality over, at least, the last 15 years.  To not re-authorize the Patriot Act immediately is on the same level of irresponsibility as our national inability, shared by both national parties, to get control of our borders and immigration.  In fact it is largely due to our border and immigration problems that the Patriot Act provisions have become necessary.  Don't be fooled by Democrats or Liberal Republicans mouthing concern about the Constitution; they don't give a flip about it as evidenced by the rubber interpretations of their judges over too many decades.  This nation needs to wake up, or the winds of hell will sooner or later be upon us.  JES

12/19/05  For those of you actually interested in the President's legal authority regarding domestic intelligence, you might begin by roaming around http://www.llrx.com/features/military.htm.  But like myself, you will need to hire competent legal council to actually understand it.  JES

12/17/05  The Patriot Act expires on December 31.   Yesterday the Senate stumbled, and voted re-authorization down.  As an American Nationalist Conservative, I share the concerns of those honestly troubled about the future of freedom for American citizens, as originally understood.  I have made that abundantly clear throughout the history of the Mountain Observer, including previous references to the Patriot Act.  So I do not question the motivations of those who are honestly troubled by the implications of the Patriot Act for the future of freedom in this country.  I share those concerns.   What I question is their judgment in the context of the current situation that we, as a nation, face with respect to the challenge of IslamicFacism.  The Patriot Act is not about George W. Bush.  It is about the defense of this nation.   Earlier this past week I had been led to believe that a compromise had been worked out on certain key details (12/11/05 below) which collectively made great sense to me, originating with the premise that, as a matter of fact, the President does need these tools to responsibly discharge his duty to defend this nation.  We need to face up to a real priority of immediacy, partially a price to be paid for a sometimes willful disregard for reality over, at least, the last 15 years.  To not re-authorize the Patriot Act immediately is on the same level of irresponsibility as our national inability, shared by both national parties, to get control of our borders and immigration.  In fact it is largely due to our border and immigration problems that the Patriot Act provisions have become necessary.  Don't be fooled by Democrats or Liberal Republicans mouthing concern about the Constitution; they don't give a flip about it as evidenced by the rubber interpretations of their judges over too many decades.  This nation needs to wake up, or the winds of hell will sooner or later be upon us.  JES

12/11/05  The tentative agreement between the Senate and the House on renewal of the Patriot Act is actually fairly sensible.  Certain minor adjustments have been made that improve Constitutional protections as well as clarify certain procedural guidelines for security enforcement.  If these provisions are passed intact, the Mountain Observer endorses the product.  JES

11/17/05  Old Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward throws his friends on the Left under the bus and destroys Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s case against Vice president Richard Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr.   Personal ambition, or belated contrition, whatever the case may be, makes great theater.  The circles of rage on the Left against Bush (and don't be fooled- all Conservatives) will now be kicked to a still higher level.  Those of good character will stand tall; weenies will jump ship.  Thank you Vice president Richard Cheney.   In any event, Woodward's disclosures allow us to ask questions about the motivations of Patrick J. Fitzgerald's course of investigation.  The fundamental question was whether or not Valerie Plame was covert, or not, at the time of the incidents in question.  Did the Special prosecutor ever think to pick up the phone and call the CIA?  The answer is that she was not, according to the law, (ask Victoria Toensing, author of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act) one of the worst kept secrets in DC for years.  But that's too simple, and would have spoiled the opportunity for, I repeat, great theater.  JES

10/29/05  Regarding the CIA leak investigation into possible violations of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act.  Vice president Richard Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. was indicted yesterday, on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements with respect to the investigation.  None of these charges allege violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act itself, but rather, violation of other federal law designed to trip up potential witnesses with their own words in the course of an investigation, ala Martha Stuart.  If found guilty. Mr. Libby’s real error will have been not to employ the “memory loss” strategy used so successfully by O J Billyboy and Hillary Rodham.  The Mountain Observer does not defend Mr. Libby, if wrong doing under the law can be proven to have occurred.  What concerns the Mountain Observer is the long term effect on recruiting good people for sensitive positions in the future, knowing the liability of exposing themselves to genuine memory loss regarding past events.   (What, exactly, did you say to your wife 2 years ago, date, time and place?, etc, etc).   The “he said, she said” conundrum is being criminalized, and subject to political fishing expeditions under the skirts of the law.  It seems to be another manifestation of the criminalization of thought that the Mountain Observer pointedly discusses in the original Mission Statement of this website.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s problem is that he can’t herd cats.  By his own admission, he cannot determine any violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act by anyone in the absence of the ability to determine who really said what to whom and when.  So what he has done here is to elevate the temperature on a target of interest, hoping to get some birds to sing louder, while correctly pointing out to the hyenas on the Left that it is an error to presume any guilt on anyone’s part regarding the issue of violations of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act.  There is a long list of documented facts that point the finger right straight back at the CIA, as an organization, on this entire matter.  As for the prosecutor’s efforts, again go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html   JES

11/10/05   Regarding my comments 11/09/05 concerning the need for a new Special prosecutor on intelligence leaks.  Perhaps his attention should be focused on Congress itself, and the consequences of acts of sabotage against the relevant Agencies and Departments, harboring their own fifth column provocateurs.  JES

11/09/05   Let us see:  Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. was indicted 10/28, not for any violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act, but for lying to investigators regarding dates, times and places, and among the savvy attention is re-focused on Valerie Plame, her ubiquitous husband and the CIA.  Days later (could it be a coincidence?), another leak surfaces from the CIA concerning detention centers for terrorists in out of the way places (I hope this is true, but that is not the point here).  Months ago the Mountain Observer raised the point, several times, about political dysfunction in the CIA, the State Department and the FBI, meaning agencies out-of-control and off on their own agendas.  This is not a new development under George W. Bush, but a malignancy the has been building for decades.  By all means, a Special prosecutor is called for, this time pointed in the Left direction.   His charter should also include the Department of Defense (Able Danger) and relevant congressional staffs, past and present.   JES

10/29/05  Regarding the CIA leak investigation into possible violations of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act.  Vice president Richard Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. was indicted yesterday, on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements with respect to the investigation.  None of these charges allege violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act itself, but rather, violation of other federal law designed to trip up potential witnesses with their own words in the course of an investigation, ala Martha Stuart.  If found guilty. Mr. Libby’s real error will have been not to employ the “memory loss” strategy used so successfully by O J Billyboy and Hillary Rodham.  The Mountain Observer does not defend Mr. Libby, if wrong doing under the law can be proven to have occurred.  What concerns the Mountain Observer is the long term effect on recruiting good people for sensitive positions in the future, knowing the liability of exposing themselves to genuine memory loss regarding past events.   (What, exactly, did you say to your wife 2 years ago, date, time and place?, etc, etc).   The “he said, she said” conundrum is being criminalized, and subject to political fishing expeditions under the skirts of the law.  It seems to be another manifestation of the criminalization of thought that the Mountain Observer pointedly discusses in the original Mission Statement of this website.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s problem is that he can’t herd cats.  By his own admission, he cannot determine any violation of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act by anyone in the absence of the ability to determine who really said what to whom and when.  So what he has done here is to elevate the temperature on a target of interest, hoping to get some birds to sing louder, while correctly pointing out to the hyenas on the Left that it is an error to presume any guilt on anyone’s part regarding the issue of violations of the Intelligence Identity Protection Act.  There is a long list of documented facts that point the finger right straight back at the CIA, as an organization, on this entire matter.  As for the prosecutor’s efforts, again go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html   JES

10/21/05  Regarding the matter of CIA leaks and possible improper White House involvement, DOJ Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has just launched a special website, apparently for the purpose of rumor control.  While the Mountain Observer certainly has thoughts on the matter, information on what is actually going on is in short supply.  Right or wrong, what Fitzgerald actually winds up doing is what is important.  One hopes he is able to do his job well.   Go to http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html  .      JES

09/09/05  Yesterday, as Democrats, the Press and Travis County Persecutor Ronnie Earle continue to chase after Tom Delay, former National Security Advisor, (to OJ Billyboy) Samuel R. Burglar was fined $50,000 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson, in addition to other penalties and loss of clearance for 3 years.  This, of course, for routinely squirreling away classified documents in his pants and socks, apparently for review in anticipation of the need to defend his ex-boss.  Watch for possible developing connections to issues being raised in the Able Danger affair before Congress.  JES

08/19/05  We watch with fascination the unfolding story of Able Danger, and the rapidly shifting positions of various members of the 09/11 Commission.   As I pointed out a year ago, the 09/11 Commission could never have been expected to function to its public charter under the political stresses of an election year.  However, our national security was, and still is, the real issue, and the facts will necessarily surface eventually.  We will be re-visiting the Able Danger issue from time to time as the Mountain Observer can come to be convinced of the details.  At this point I would not advise betting on the quality of the OJ Billyboy Legacy.  JES

08/19/05  We watch with fascination the unfolding story of Able Danger, and the rapidly shifting positions of various members of the 09/11 Commission.   As I pointed out a year ago, the 09/11 Commission could never have been expected to function to its public charter under the political stresses of an election year.  However, our national security was, and still is, the real issue, and the facts will necessarily surface eventually.  We will be re-visiting the Able Danger issue from time to time as the Mountain Observer can come to be convinced of the details.  At this point I would not advise betting on the quality of the OJ Billyboy Legacy.  JES

05/16/05  Very shortly, headlines will re-appear concerning renewal of the Patriot Act, and much demagoguery will ensue from predictable sources, attempting to mis-lead the ill-informed about what's really at issue.  To make a long story short, The Mountain Observer supports the renewal of the Act, as is, including the retention of its sunset provisions.  JES

03/31/05  During the course of last year's election campaign Congress, and the press, engaged in much political showboating over intelligence failures, which had less to do with discovery and more to do with invention in support of narrow political agendas.    I pointed out at the time that the President had appointed an Independent Intelligence Commission to report  in March 2005, after the election and allowing more time for a more professional investigation.   It has been apparent for some time that there were failures, but we really need to understand what happed, which is what this Commission was really all about.   That report was released this morning.  JES 

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