Top secret documents leaked by a single airman stationed at an intelligence unit on Cape Cod have rattled the Pentagon, raising questions about the security of U.S.
I loved this column for its calm assessment of just exactly what The Airman revealed on Discord that was damaging. So unlike some of the breathless coverage out there. Lucien has a reservoir of context in his large brain when it comes to anything and everything military. A joy to read!
This stuff just makes me sad. It also reinforces a long held belief: this country is simply too big to function well. When you consider that 1.3 million people have a top security clearance, you can only think of the old saying about a secret: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
As I comment in reply to Ralph T., I've only recently begun to wonder myself if the U.S. may be too big to function. I think SCOTUS mischief piled on constitutional error is more to blame, however. If you missed the Politico piece I link to in my other comment, it's a rewarding read.
The better question is "Is the US military so desperate for IT/Cyber/Computer specialists that it is not doing a full background check before granting security clearances?
I was pleased to learn that the commanding officer and apparently his deputy at the 102 Intelligence Wing at Otis AFB were suspended, pending further investigation. It's not to much to ask that the responsible officers be fired, and if warranted, prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for dereliction of duty and gross negligence. That seems to be the only way to get the word out that we're serious about keeping secrets under wraps. I'd also be mandating every Intel agency's Inspector General to be initiating an internal review of security protocols to weed out Christian Nationalists from their ranks. Over the years, these types have infiltrates the military with the avowed intent to subvert it to their own peculiar idea of patriotism. We saw this happening in the Air Force in particular, where religious zealots made a nest for themselves.
Lt. Col. Mikey Weinstein runs it, fighting the military's religious nutjobs (and there are a lot of them, especially in the USAF). 85,000 members, most of whom identify as Christians.
Just as I supposed. Eighty-five thousand Jesus freaks, mostly in the Air Force. How'd that happen? I read a few years back that they have a lock on the Air Force Academy, unofficial, but nonetheless real.This is truly subversive. How are they getting away with this? Because this is a straight line to Jack Teixeira.
I guess when you're willing to believe the lies of others, you're also willing to believe your lies about yourself. A kid needing to look big. Apparently he was also prepping for committing a mass murder and had an arsenal. All while doing his absolute damnedest to be noticed and heard and stopped and helped.
How many more fools out there. Lost souls deep in these dungeons full of lies and fears.
And all those lies mixed in with the truths made this cultural world, including the one that shaped him.
We're a mess. The culture feels vapid and performative at best. Not much of a heartbeat. Soulless.
It's embarrassing and infuriating because we made it the way it is. We followed the shiny object and here we are well worse off for it.
The stupidest things, like there being a kid sized JR-15, is what we're fed, and swallow with barely a notice. "How weird." or "Oh boy" and we move on to the next weirdness and then inevitably, another atrocity directly due to the culture we have willingly created.
This crap is on us and I an entirely ashamed by it. Given the world on a platter as no other citizenry ever before and this is what we wrought. It's shameful.
I was going to leave, but not now. This country is perhaps the front line in what weirdly seems like a global choice between a common humane sense of responsibility or power and greed driven demagoguery.
I'm staying. I had a view down a long bar last night and was heartened to see a number of Bud Lights twinkling in the lights. It was nice. Warming. There are true souls out there. Brethren.
I feel much the same. I experience the very real good will you saw in your view down the bar, somewhere every day. I think it's stymied by systemic barriers like the electoral college, gerrymandering, Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United, etc. I was interested to read of Margo Howard's "long held belief: this country is simply too big to function well." The thought has crossed my mind only lately, and I have no idea what to do with it. Politico ran a fascinating piece by Colin Woodard the other day tracing the history of our nation's many divisions in terms of attitudes toward firearms: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/23/surprising-geography-of-gun-violence-00092413
He writes that the piece is based on his 2011 book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America," summarized here: https://nationhoodlab.org/a-balkanized-federation/
Many thanks for the links. I always figured it was the oysters that so attracted me to New Orleans, but the description of "New French" immigrant culture there certainly rings true. Interesting that one of the noted features of that culture is the welcoming attitude towards federal involvement, crooked as that path has been.
11 different nations. It makes total sense. It also dovetails forebodingly with my thoughts on how the hell we got here. When did it start to happen that we knew less and less of each other, when our family and community support groups started to fraction and shrink?
I landed on the GI Bill for WWII veterans. As good as it was for all involved, free college anywhere sent the GIs packing, most to only rarely if ever come home again. It pretty well shattered the generational foundation of the society. Up to then family didn't leave. If a member did, it was weird. Now we're at the point that they never stay. It's quite unexpected if they do.
Combine our very willing mobility with the very different regions and it looks like there has been a hyper sorting of the national population going on since the 50s that makes the differences even more pronounced. Probably not good.
Certainly interesting reading. It's got me craving oysters. :)
I'd like to read the book. Woodard tackles questions I've wondered about for years. Interesting, your speculation about the GI Bill's effects. In addition to formal education, It effectively extended the national civic education the draft started. I understood there were better excuses than oysters to settle in New Orleans. ;-)
"I understood there were better excuses than oysters to settle in New Orleans. ;-)"
Better excuses? I'm not sure that's true, although the music, unique in the world cuisine, and laissez-faire attitude are certainly major assets.
To an oyster aficionado though, sitting in the embrace of the oyster bar at Felix's or the Acme can be like a trip to Mecca. Plus there's an insider's trick to it that makes one feel they have reached the inner sanctum. :)
As Lucian writes, actionable Intel does have a very short shelf life, usually just hours. That was my Vietnam experience. Too soon, that intel becomes just "nice to know" information.
Reading about the torture of prisoners at Gitmo and CIA secret sites overseas, I just could not understand wtf actionable intel those stupid interrogators hoped to uncover. Interrogations involving torture of POWs captured years before! That is insanely stupid; just sadistic, shameful, psychopathic---yet no one has gone to prison for torturing or gross stupidity.
Nothing new here. John Walker was selling the Russians info on the location of our nuclear submarines for years before he was arrested and only because his wife ratted on him. The higher ups and people charged with keeping our secrets secret were blithely unaware of his actions and it seems that not much has changed since Walker got caught. There are just too many people handling all that vast array of information, too many openings and cracks for data to leak out of, and human nature being what it is, too many reasons or motivations to betray the trust to safeguard those secrets. Walker did it for money, Texeira did it to feed his ego and to impress his online audience…whose motive was more mercenary and dangerous? What’s to stop future Walkers and Texeiras? Not much, really…
I have canceled the subscription of one of the commenters on this column, "Anger Loses" because of his pro-Putin stance on the war Ukraine is fighting against Russian aggression. Here is a sampling of how he described the reason the war is going on: "Media was lying prior to the invasion taking place. The whole reasoning for it in the first place was false. Putin stated in the plainest , most honest , no-script , no-bullshit delivery I've ever seen, his detailed reasoning which all went all the way back to WW2 and took almost 2 hours." Here is another juicy excerpt: "This debate hinges on the credibility of Putin's testimony, and if we had a panel of impartial body language experts who could review it , the matter of who's narrative is more accurate would be settled and we probably wouldn't hear from you for a while... which would make society a little bit more peaceful for the time being." So this guy thinks "impartial body language experts" could set us straight about how honest and wonder Putin is. Here he goes again, in the final comment you'll read from him: Also obvious and corroborated after the fact is the dishonesty throughout western media in an attempt to create an anti-russian , pro-ukraine narrative which has been dishonest in it's reporting to make Russia and Putin out to be the enemies. This means you can't trust what they've been telling you about "atrocities" and "war crimes".... it's just information warfare." So the photos of dead bodies and mass graves at Bucha that formed some of the basis for charges at The Hague against Putin for crimes against humanity were just "information warfare." This creepy little right-wing troll will no longer have the privilege of commenting on my columns or replying to readers' comments. He's gone.
So outrageous that he's only now been exposed! The NSA is able to spy on us with impunity, but seemingly incapable of knowing about a character like Teixeira?
"Events move so quickly when bullets, artillery rounds and rockets are flying on a battlefield that an hour on the front lines is like living through a day in real life. A day in a war is equivalent to a week back home, and surviving a week under fire is like living through an epoch." - a rattling revelation and reminder
This, I think, is the most salient information that came from your close of the Salon column: “That kind of information cannot be stolen and leaked by the likes of an airman first class in Massachusetts. Knowing such intelligence about your enemy is the way you win a war.” And there we are, the little twerp show-off is truly a piss-ant!
The question still not asked nor answered is where was his chain of command? Is no one in that chain responsible for his actions, for oversight and knowledge of his actions? Who has the ultimate responsibility for the handling of classified documents at a location? Focusing only on the actions of an individual overlooks the systemic failures.
Because my contract with Salon, which pays me (unlike my several thousand free subscribers on Substack...not you and the others on this comment thread) won't allow me to reprint my entire Salon column in my Substack. They will allow me to excerpt it and link to the Salon story. It's a deal I made contractually for the money I'm paid by Salon once every two weeks. The Salon column also exposes my writing far more widely than Substack does, so it pulls in new subscribers...most of the free...but some of them paid. It's worth the hassle of having to link to the column on Salon.
I loved this column for its calm assessment of just exactly what The Airman revealed on Discord that was damaging. So unlike some of the breathless coverage out there. Lucien has a reservoir of context in his large brain when it comes to anything and everything military. A joy to read!
Thanks Lorraine. I knew all those days in uniform would come in handy someday, and they did.
This stuff just makes me sad. It also reinforces a long held belief: this country is simply too big to function well. When you consider that 1.3 million people have a top security clearance, you can only think of the old saying about a secret: "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
As I comment in reply to Ralph T., I've only recently begun to wonder myself if the U.S. may be too big to function. I think SCOTUS mischief piled on constitutional error is more to blame, however. If you missed the Politico piece I link to in my other comment, it's a rewarding read.
The better question is "Is the US military so desperate for IT/Cyber/Computer specialists that it is not doing a full background check before granting security clearances?
And this punk was certainly no incipient Bill Gate or Steve Jobs!
I was pleased to learn that the commanding officer and apparently his deputy at the 102 Intelligence Wing at Otis AFB were suspended, pending further investigation. It's not to much to ask that the responsible officers be fired, and if warranted, prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for dereliction of duty and gross negligence. That seems to be the only way to get the word out that we're serious about keeping secrets under wraps. I'd also be mandating every Intel agency's Inspector General to be initiating an internal review of security protocols to weed out Christian Nationalists from their ranks. Over the years, these types have infiltrates the military with the avowed intent to subvert it to their own peculiar idea of patriotism. We saw this happening in the Air Force in particular, where religious zealots made a nest for themselves.
Join the Military Religious Freedom Foundation!
Lt. Col. Mikey Weinstein runs it, fighting the military's religious nutjobs (and there are a lot of them, especially in the USAF). 85,000 members, most of whom identify as Christians.
Just as I supposed. Eighty-five thousand Jesus freaks, mostly in the Air Force. How'd that happen? I read a few years back that they have a lock on the Air Force Academy, unofficial, but nonetheless real.This is truly subversive. How are they getting away with this? Because this is a straight line to Jack Teixeira.
I guess I phrased this poorly. The MRFF strongly supports the separation of Church and State. It has 85,000 members, including me.
Good organization. What they've done to put a leash on the religious right at the Air Force Academy alone is worth joining.
I guess when you're willing to believe the lies of others, you're also willing to believe your lies about yourself. A kid needing to look big. Apparently he was also prepping for committing a mass murder and had an arsenal. All while doing his absolute damnedest to be noticed and heard and stopped and helped.
How many more fools out there. Lost souls deep in these dungeons full of lies and fears.
And all those lies mixed in with the truths made this cultural world, including the one that shaped him.
We're a mess. The culture feels vapid and performative at best. Not much of a heartbeat. Soulless.
It's embarrassing and infuriating because we made it the way it is. We followed the shiny object and here we are well worse off for it.
The stupidest things, like there being a kid sized JR-15, is what we're fed, and swallow with barely a notice. "How weird." or "Oh boy" and we move on to the next weirdness and then inevitably, another atrocity directly due to the culture we have willingly created.
This crap is on us and I an entirely ashamed by it. Given the world on a platter as no other citizenry ever before and this is what we wrought. It's shameful.
I was going to leave, but not now. This country is perhaps the front line in what weirdly seems like a global choice between a common humane sense of responsibility or power and greed driven demagoguery.
I'm staying. I had a view down a long bar last night and was heartened to see a number of Bud Lights twinkling in the lights. It was nice. Warming. There are true souls out there. Brethren.
I feel much the same. I experience the very real good will you saw in your view down the bar, somewhere every day. I think it's stymied by systemic barriers like the electoral college, gerrymandering, Buckley v. Valeo, Citizens United, etc. I was interested to read of Margo Howard's "long held belief: this country is simply too big to function well." The thought has crossed my mind only lately, and I have no idea what to do with it. Politico ran a fascinating piece by Colin Woodard the other day tracing the history of our nation's many divisions in terms of attitudes toward firearms: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/04/23/surprising-geography-of-gun-violence-00092413
He writes that the piece is based on his 2011 book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America," summarized here: https://nationhoodlab.org/a-balkanized-federation/
Many thanks for the links. I always figured it was the oysters that so attracted me to New Orleans, but the description of "New French" immigrant culture there certainly rings true. Interesting that one of the noted features of that culture is the welcoming attitude towards federal involvement, crooked as that path has been.
11 different nations. It makes total sense. It also dovetails forebodingly with my thoughts on how the hell we got here. When did it start to happen that we knew less and less of each other, when our family and community support groups started to fraction and shrink?
I landed on the GI Bill for WWII veterans. As good as it was for all involved, free college anywhere sent the GIs packing, most to only rarely if ever come home again. It pretty well shattered the generational foundation of the society. Up to then family didn't leave. If a member did, it was weird. Now we're at the point that they never stay. It's quite unexpected if they do.
Combine our very willing mobility with the very different regions and it looks like there has been a hyper sorting of the national population going on since the 50s that makes the differences even more pronounced. Probably not good.
Certainly interesting reading. It's got me craving oysters. :)
R
I'd like to read the book. Woodard tackles questions I've wondered about for years. Interesting, your speculation about the GI Bill's effects. In addition to formal education, It effectively extended the national civic education the draft started. I understood there were better excuses than oysters to settle in New Orleans. ;-)
"I understood there were better excuses than oysters to settle in New Orleans. ;-)"
Better excuses? I'm not sure that's true, although the music, unique in the world cuisine, and laissez-faire attitude are certainly major assets.
To an oyster aficionado though, sitting in the embrace of the oyster bar at Felix's or the Acme can be like a trip to Mecca. Plus there's an insider's trick to it that makes one feel they have reached the inner sanctum. :)
As Lucian writes, actionable Intel does have a very short shelf life, usually just hours. That was my Vietnam experience. Too soon, that intel becomes just "nice to know" information.
Reading about the torture of prisoners at Gitmo and CIA secret sites overseas, I just could not understand wtf actionable intel those stupid interrogators hoped to uncover. Interrogations involving torture of POWs captured years before! That is insanely stupid; just sadistic, shameful, psychopathic---yet no one has gone to prison for torturing or gross stupidity.
They need to hang this little terrorist Trumpanzee...and go after the big-wigs like tRump, Jared Kushner, the Mercers, and Eric Prince. . .
Nothing new here. John Walker was selling the Russians info on the location of our nuclear submarines for years before he was arrested and only because his wife ratted on him. The higher ups and people charged with keeping our secrets secret were blithely unaware of his actions and it seems that not much has changed since Walker got caught. There are just too many people handling all that vast array of information, too many openings and cracks for data to leak out of, and human nature being what it is, too many reasons or motivations to betray the trust to safeguard those secrets. Walker did it for money, Texeira did it to feed his ego and to impress his online audience…whose motive was more mercenary and dangerous? What’s to stop future Walkers and Texeiras? Not much, really…
I have canceled the subscription of one of the commenters on this column, "Anger Loses" because of his pro-Putin stance on the war Ukraine is fighting against Russian aggression. Here is a sampling of how he described the reason the war is going on: "Media was lying prior to the invasion taking place. The whole reasoning for it in the first place was false. Putin stated in the plainest , most honest , no-script , no-bullshit delivery I've ever seen, his detailed reasoning which all went all the way back to WW2 and took almost 2 hours." Here is another juicy excerpt: "This debate hinges on the credibility of Putin's testimony, and if we had a panel of impartial body language experts who could review it , the matter of who's narrative is more accurate would be settled and we probably wouldn't hear from you for a while... which would make society a little bit more peaceful for the time being." So this guy thinks "impartial body language experts" could set us straight about how honest and wonder Putin is. Here he goes again, in the final comment you'll read from him: Also obvious and corroborated after the fact is the dishonesty throughout western media in an attempt to create an anti-russian , pro-ukraine narrative which has been dishonest in it's reporting to make Russia and Putin out to be the enemies. This means you can't trust what they've been telling you about "atrocities" and "war crimes".... it's just information warfare." So the photos of dead bodies and mass graves at Bucha that formed some of the basis for charges at The Hague against Putin for crimes against humanity were just "information warfare." This creepy little right-wing troll will no longer have the privilege of commenting on my columns or replying to readers' comments. He's gone.
We (and Ukraine) dodged a bullet on this leak. May not be so lucky next time.
I wonder if anyone in the Pentagon/CIA/NSA/etc. thought about seeding classified documents with fake Intel. Or perhaps that already happened.
In any event, I hope they make an example of young Jack T. If this isn't treason, it's treason-adjacent, and deserves a commensurate penalty.
So outrageous that he's only now been exposed! The NSA is able to spy on us with impunity, but seemingly incapable of knowing about a character like Teixeira?
"Events move so quickly when bullets, artillery rounds and rockets are flying on a battlefield that an hour on the front lines is like living through a day in real life. A day in a war is equivalent to a week back home, and surviving a week under fire is like living through an epoch." - a rattling revelation and reminder
This, I think, is the most salient information that came from your close of the Salon column: “That kind of information cannot be stolen and leaked by the likes of an airman first class in Massachusetts. Knowing such intelligence about your enemy is the way you win a war.” And there we are, the little twerp show-off is truly a piss-ant!
The question still not asked nor answered is where was his chain of command? Is no one in that chain responsible for his actions, for oversight and knowledge of his actions? Who has the ultimate responsibility for the handling of classified documents at a location? Focusing only on the actions of an individual overlooks the systemic failures.
Oh Well another day in the daily human murderous conduct. Besides two wars per year, today Houston, Texas just experienced another mass killing.
Thanks Lucian for the update. Pretty much described what i suspected about the Airman to begin with. A Whistleblower he is not.
Kinda like the Amarana Letters.
Time to Free Assange and pardon Reality Winner.
I'm wondering why the entire article wasn't here.
Because my contract with Salon, which pays me (unlike my several thousand free subscribers on Substack...not you and the others on this comment thread) won't allow me to reprint my entire Salon column in my Substack. They will allow me to excerpt it and link to the Salon story. It's a deal I made contractually for the money I'm paid by Salon once every two weeks. The Salon column also exposes my writing far more widely than Substack does, so it pulls in new subscribers...most of the free...but some of them paid. It's worth the hassle of having to link to the column on Salon.
I do not get why people can’t pay a mere $5 a month, unless they simply can’t.
Thanks for the explanation. I figured there was a good reason. I didn't like Salon for all the advertising.