U.S., Allies Launch Missile Attack On Syria In Retaliation For Using Chemical Weapons On Civilians

Dave Boyer and Dan Boylan at the Washington Times offers a piece on the American and allies’ attack on Syria.

The U.S. launched missile strikes on Syria Friday night in coordination with Britain and France in retaliation for Syria’s chemical-weapons attack on civilians last weekend.

President Trump announced the attack in a live televised statement from the White House, saying he had ordered “precision strikes.”

“A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now underway,” Mr. Trump said.

The strikes came around 9 p.m. in Washington, 4 a.m. Saturday in Damascus, and targeted three Syrian military installations involved with the use of chemical weapons.

It was the second strike ordered by Mr. Trump in the past year against the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad to deter his regime’s use of chemical weapons.

Mr. Trump said the military strikes are a response to Syria’s “significant escalation in a pattern of chemical-weapons use” culminating in last weekend’s atrocity in Douma, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus, that killed dozens of civilians. He suggested the allied military action is open-ended.

 “The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong determent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons,” the president said. “Establishing a deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States. We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents.”

Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at 10 p.m. that the first wave of attacks had ended, and no further strikes were contemplated for the moment.

“Right now this is a one-time shot,” Mr. Mattis said. “Right now, we have no additional attacks planned.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/13/us-allies-launch-missile-attack-syria/ 

Gina Haspel, Trump’s CIA Pick, Backed By Top Former U.S. Intelligence Officials

Dan Boylan at the Washington Times offers a piece on the former senior U.S. Government officials who support Gina Haspel, the CIA director nominee.

More than 50 former senior U.S. government officials from across the political spectrum have united to endorse President Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, a veteran of the clandestine agency and its current deputy director.

Three former directors of national intelligence and six former CIA directors were among the 53 that signed a letter sent Monday to the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is expected to soon hold her confirmation hearing.

“Ms. Haspel’s qualifications to be CIA director match or exceed those of most candidates put forward in the agency’s 70-year history,” the former officials said, adding that they expressed their “strong support” for her candidacy.

If confirmed, the Kentucky native would be the first-ever woman to lead the agency.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/9/trumps-cia-pick-backed-former-intel-officials/ 

The Punji Trap: Luke Hunt On Pham Xuan An, The Vietnam Spy

Dan Boylan at the Washington Times offers a Q&A with Luke Hunt, author of The Punji Trap – Pham Xuan An: The Spy Who Didn’t Love Us.

Luke Hunt, award-winning Australian war reporter and frequent Washington Times stringer, is the author of “The Punji Trap — Pham Xuan An: The Spy Who Didn’t Love Us,” the story of a North Vietnamese operative whose hidden hand shaped the way America saw the Tet Offensive which began 50 years ago Tuesday. The charismatic Pham Xuan An served as a correspondent for Time Magazine and Reuters — and the North’s super spy in Saigon.

Mr. Hunt spoke to The Times just ahead of the American publication of “The Punji Trap.” What follows is an edited Q&A:

Question: “The Punji Trap” was a long time in the making. Why?

Answer: It took almost 30 years for a number of reasons. During my childhood, I became fascinated with Vietnam as the war played out on television and a family friend died there, which really left its mark. While at university in the 1980s, I wrote an undergrad thesis on An way back when his role was still a secret. I then managed to interview him several times and realized there was certainly a book in him, but he insisted that much of the material was “off the record” until after his death, which was in 2006.

Q: How did An pull off one of the 20th century’s most successful covert propaganda efforts?

A: Americans were always interested in beating themselves up about the lies that came from the White House, but never the lies that came from the North Vietnamese, who told three major fictions. One: [North Vietnamese leader] Ho Chi Minh convinced the world that the conflict was a national war of liberation — but really the ethnic Viets were trying to colonize the entire Southeast Asian peninsula. Two: An convinced the world that the Tet Offensive was a victory for the Communists, which militarily it was not. Three: The North pledged not invade the South, but they did in 1975 and have spoon-fed communism to the population every day since.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/29/the-punji-trap-explores-pham-xuan-ans-impact-on-vi/ 

You can also read my Crime Beat column on An, the Vietnam spy, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2009/07/vietnam-spy-who-betrayed-us-part-one.html 

How Obama Manipulated Sensitive Secret Intelligence For Political Gain

Guy Taylor and Dan Boylan at the Washington Times offers a piece on the Obama administration’s manipulation of classified information for political gain.

They wanted him dead.

For years, a clandestine U.S. intelligence team had tracked a man they knew was high in the leadership of al Qaeda — an operative some believed had a hand in plotting the gruesome 2009 suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers.

Their pursuit was personal, and by early 2014, according to a source directly involved in the operation, the agency had the target under tight drone surveillance. “We literally had a bead on this guy’s head and just needed authorization from Washington to pull the trigger,” said the source.

Then something unexpected happened. While agents waited for the green light, the al Qaeda operative’s name, as well as information about the CIA’s classified surveillance and plan to kill him in Pakistan, suddenly appeared in the U.S. press.

Abdullah al-Shami, it turned out, was an American citizen, and President Obama and his national security advisers were torn over whether the benefits of killing him would outweigh the political and civil liberties backlash that was sure to follow.

In interviews with several current and former officials, the al-Shami case was cited as an example of what critics say was the Obama White House’s troublesome tendency to mishandle some of the nation’s most delicate intelligence — especially regarding the Middle East — by leaking classified information in an attempt to sway public opinion on sensitive matters.

By the end of Mr. Obama’s second term, according to sources who spoke anonymously with The Washington Times, the practices of leaking, ignoring and twisting intelligence for political gain were ingrained in how the administration conducted national security policy.

Those criticisms have resurfaced in the debate over whether overall intelligence fumbling by the Obama White House in its final months may have amplified the damage wrought by suspected Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election last year.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/21/barack-obama-used-classified-intelligence-leaks-po/ 

Michael Vickers Honored By The OSS Society

Dan Boylan at the Washington Times offers a piece on Michael Vickers (seen in the above photo), former U.S. Army Special Forces enlisted man and officer, CIA officer and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, receiving the OSS Society’s Donovan Award

At the height of the Cold War, CIA agent Michael Vickers’ guerrilla war training included preparing to parachute into enemy territory with a small nuclear weapon strapped to his leg.

In the 1980s, he equipped rebel fighters in the Afghan mountains with stinger missiles to shoot down Russian helicopters. A decade later he helped dismantle al Qaeda and played a major role in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

On Saturday night, all Mr. Vickers had to do was raise a martini glass.

He also held back a few tears, as the nation’s most prestigious association of clandestine services — The OSS Society — gathered to honor his distinguished career in addition to remembering thousands of their comrades who died in service to America.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a World War II espionage unit, gave birth to America’s modern intelligence community and in its heyday deployed more than 13,000 operatives, a third of them women, including Hollywood actress Marlene Dietrich and chef Julia Child — in addition to four future CIA directors.

Considered Washington’s most secretive black tie affair, Saturday night’s OSS gala blended survivors of the unit sharing living history about death-defying missions, sobering moments about sacrifice at war and a raucous celebration of triumph and survival — replete with accompanying toasts.

Mr. Vickers won the society’s highest honor, the Donovan Award, named for OSS founder Gen. William “Wild Bill” Donovan (seen in the above photo) — joining past recipients, including the Earl Mountbatten of Myanmar, the astronauts of Apollo 11, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President George H.W. Bush and multiple CIA directors.

The brains behind launching the OSS, Gen. Donovan is a legendary figure not only to the American intelligence community but among spies the world around. He nicknamed the unit “the glorious amateurs” and often described OSS personnel as performing “some of the bravest acts of the war.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/22/michael-vickers-onored-by-the-office-of-strategic-/