We were Counting on Cheney

Folks,

Here is an article covering VP Cheney’s recent expedition to the central Asian
states to seek
oil. the article says, among other things:

“Administration sources said Mr. Cheney has run into significant difficulties as
he has found
that many of the potential suppliers have become committed to China.”

and

“Mr. Cheney also was informed of the contracts China has already signed with
Central Asian
republics.”

Now, Cheney had to leave his “undisclosed location” to find this out?

http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Cheney_2.htm

Related to this is something I saw on CSPAN, in which Ohio Sen. DeWine was
questioning the
nominee to be the next CIA director. Apparently DeWine has a hobby horse in
advocating the
spy agencies employ NOC’s (“non-official cover”) as spies.

In general spies have “official cover”, that is they are 2nd secretary to the
trade attache or
some other low level embassy cover, in which they make contacts and try to
recruit spies
from the other side, meeting at diplomatic functions, etc. As DeWine complains,
and as you
can imagine, and certainly as events have proven, these people are not very
effective, given
our spies missed the Tet offensive, the fall of the Soviet block, and 9-11 to
name a few. The
advantage is if these spies get caught, they have diplomatic immunity, so they
just get the
boot back to USA. Apparently our spies were unaware the Chinese have already
tied up
central Asian oil, something anyone in the oil business already knows.

Heretofore, occasionally, the CIA has used “non-official cover” spies, a good
example is
Valery Plame, who was touted as an “energy analyst” while “secretly” working for
the CIA.
Well, with that cover she might as well tattoo “spy” on her forehead. The
danger for NOC’s, is
without a diplomatic passport, she can be arrested, and there is nothing USA can
do.

While in Hong Kong I dined with a USA federal law enforcement officer stationed
in stationed
overseas, and he shared a practical problem: He is obliged, on station, to
travel using his
diplomatic passport. Since the USA hassles Chinese diplomats entering USA, the
Chinese
reciprocate. He can get into China for a personal visit on his diplomatic
passport, but it just
ain’t worth the effort. He dare not go in on his personal passport. He himself
is not a spy (a
“cop” would be pretty lousy cover for a spy) but personal awareness of
conditions is rather
important to him. I gave him what I could offer, for what it is worth.

What DeWine wants is to end this nonsense. What he wants is for USA to move to
NOC’s,
spies with “non-official cover”. Non official cover would be someone posing as
an academic
scholar, something any college economic professor could do. Or perhaps a
visiting musician.
But the best at this are business folk, who in the course of their work spy for
Uncle Sam. I do
not doubt there will be people who “respond to the call” and spy while working.

I don’t like this change. Up to now, USA spies were rather obvious, and when
not, don’t
worry, FBI agents and CIA agents will gladly sell to our enemies lists of our
spies. For
thousands of dollars. Or now in the Plame affair, republicans have introduced
outing spies
for cheap political advantage.

If we get to NOC’s, then all USA business folk will be suspect when doing
business overseas.
This will add a layer of tedium as we wait to be vetted, or are followed, or
whatever happens
as foreigners respond to a change in USA tactics. As usual, big business will
get subsidies for
this new cost, and some small businesses will break under the new cost.

Intelligence work was once the province of private enterprise, but along with
everything else,
within the last 80 years or so, governments arrogated this private activity unto
themselves.
And like everything else the government does, they make a hash of it. But
because they
make a hash of it, we come full circle, where now the government wants private
business to
spy on the rest of the world.

How about this: we eliminate all USA spy agencies, cut the size of government
and taxes
concomitantly, and let the hundreds of thousands of international traders,
acting accordingly
on what they learn privately, and thus guide what collectively happens, which
naturally,
overall, will be good. No spies, no torture, no arrests, no murders, no
layabouts, retired on
the government payroll, mucking up the good business people do all day long.

What we have now is Hero Dick Cheney goes to central asia to save USA because of
his oil
contacts. Why are we depending on one man? In spite of his position, he is
unaware of what
is going on in central asia. (Privately I suspect he was set-up, but either
way, playing such
games at such stakes could never occur in private business).

What we have now, is a very few driving the many by the leverage of govt power.
The
disaster of the Iraq war is as much a failure of intelligence as it was
inevitable. There is a
better way, and we are getting farther away from it.

John

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