C-Span 9:12a.m. "WAR FIGHTER" term and then STEPHEN CAMBONE on!

[LittleApple81]

Armed Services Committee - "War Fighter" term used when referring to the military is making me so worried... this, just like "homeland" security, sounds really fascist.

And they repeat it over and over....
When was this term coined? Why are they using it over and over????

[Joanne98]

1. They're trying to sneak MERCENARIES in the language back-door

Don't let them do it. For-hire killers are EVIL. PERIOD.

[LittleApple81]

2. Cambone now on. This is evil incarnate. n/t

[seemslikeadream]

3. Stephen Cambone

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact
The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Rumsfeld, during appearances last week before Congress to testify about Abu Ghraib, was precluded by law from explicitly mentioning highly secret matters in an unclassified session. But he conveyed the message that he was telling the public all that he knew about the story. He said, “Any suggestion that there is not a full, deep awareness of what has happened, and the damage it has done, I think, would be a misunderstanding.” The senior C.I.A. official, asked about Rumsfeld’s testimony and that of Stephen Cambone, his Under-Secretary for Intelligence, said, “Some people think you can bullshit anyone.”

<snip>

One Pentagon official who was deeply involved in the program was Stephen Cambone, who was named Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence in March, 2003. The office was new; it was created as part of Rumsfeld’s reorganization of the Pentagon. Cambone was unpopular among military and civilian intelligence bureaucrats in the Pentagon, essentially because he had little experience in running intelligence programs, though in 1998 he had served as staff director for a committee, headed by Rumsfeld, that warned of an emerging ballistic-missile threat to the United States. He was known instead for his closeness to Rumsfeld. “Remember Henry II—‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?’” the senior C.I.A. official said to me, with a laugh, last week. “Whatever Rumsfeld whimsically says, Cambone will do ten times that much.”

Cambone was a strong advocate for war against Iraq. He shared Rumsfeld’s disdain for the analysis and assessments proffered by the C.I.A., viewing them as too cautious, and chafed, as did Rumsfeld, at the C.I.A.’s inability, before the Iraq war, to state conclusively that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction. Cambone’s military assistant, Army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, was also controversial. Last fall, he generated unwanted headlines after it was reported that, in a speech at an Oregon church, he equated the Muslim world with Satan

my interest
Idema role: rogue or U.S. agent?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x737677

[LittleApple81]

5. I see him, listen to him, want to hide under my bed or go marching

with pots and pans in front of the Capitol in Washington. Why do we have criminals like this in our government.

[seemslikeadream]

10. Who is Stephen Cambone?

by Peter Ogden
July 20, 2004

The release of the 9/11 Commission report this week Who is Stephen Cambone?

The release of the 9/11 Commission report this week ? and the recent release of the Senate report on intelligence ? are at last providing a clearer picture of the flaws in our system of gathering intelligence. And as the use of intelligence by the Bush administration in the run-up to 9/11 comes under increased scrutiny, we are also learning a great deal about the people behind its collection, interpretation, and dissemination.

A name that we have not frequently heard mentioned, however, is Stephen Cambone. As the nation's first ever undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Cambone wields vast power within the intelligence community; yet, his only qualifications for the post are a fierce loyalty to Donald Rumsfeld and an unshakeable right wing ideology.

The position of undersecretary of defense for intelligence is the newest senior Defense Department position, and its establishment fundamentally alters the structure of the intelligence community as a whole. Devised by Donald Rumsfeld, it places all of the Pentagon's formerly independent intelligence units ? the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, each of the armed services' intelligence divisions, and others ? under the auspices of a single official.

Though without operational authority per se, the undersecretary ? or defense intelligence czar, as the position is known ? wields tremendous power though his mandate to set the intelligence-gathering agenda and oversee budget allocation. According to a memo circulated by Paul Wolfowitz in May, 2003, the OUSD - I will "provide oversight and policy guidance for all DoD intelligence activities? provide policy oversight for all the intelligence organizations within DoD."

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=124725

Thanks DoYouEverWonder for the link

[bemildred]

4. "Warfighter" is jargon, been around a long time.

I think "soldier" is just too pedestrian or something for some
of the military wonk types.

[LittleApple81]

6. No, this is more insidious. They are using this exclusively in this

hearing, both yesterday and tomorrow. I think that the other poster in this thread is right: THEY WANT TO INCLUDE THE MERCENARIES introducing them through a "back door" and sanctioning this by the using of War-fighter.

[bemildred]

7. I'm just telling you the term has been around a long time,

Used it this way. Not defending these half-wits or their agenda.
Take a valium or something.

[ljm2002]

11. "Take a valium or something."

Are you serious? Geeze. Maybe you should take a Prozac or something.

Anyway -- the original poster has an excellent point. These people use language carefully. It's good to pay attention. No doubt, if they are using the term "war fighter" in place of "soldier", they are doing so for a reason.

Including mercenaries in the discussion seems to me a likely reason for it.

[bemildred]

13. Yeah, what do I know?

Just becuase I've heard the term used for decades,
that doesn't mean they didn't just make it up in a plot
to pretend mercenaries are soldiers or something.

[ljm2002]

17. Sorry -- not trying to pick a fight

But I have to say, I've not heard the term "warfighters" before. And I think the poster who pointed it out found it odd, as do I. Maybe it has been a term used before in some circles, but I can't say that I've heard it used before. So if it's heard in televised hearings and some of us go "huh?", maybe it doesn't hurt to apply a little analysis.

OTOH, you are right about one thing: not all terms are loaded or calculated; "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

[bemildred]

18. No problem.

I was trying to provide some perspective from my personal knowledge.
I assure you no serious military wonk would use anything else.
It jarred me a bit the first time I heard it too. When there are
wargames they are called "warfighting exercises" and so on.

[LittleApple81]

12. English is not my native language. Therefore, I am more atuned to

differences in meaning. Valium won't change that. And taking valium seems to have been the problem with most of the American population who have allowed this administration to steal power and run away with our rights, our environment, our reputation, our health, our humanity.

[Joanne98]

8. I don't know if I'm right but.........

they have been desperate to find a new label for them. the corporate armies are one of Rummy's top projects. don't take a Valium. Your intuition is dead on. :)

[seemslikeadream]

9. Jonathan K. Idema -- Heather Anderson -- Stephen Cambone

Jonathan K. Idema -- Heather Anderson -- Stephen Cambone


Accused torturers claim Pentagon support

The Americans didn't testify. But Idema said afterward that the abuse allegations were invented. He also said he was in regular phone and e-mail contact with Pentagon officials "at the highest level".

Speaking to reporters crowding round the dock, Idema named a Pentagon official who allegedly asked the group to go "under contract" - an offer they refused.

"The American authorities absolutely condoned what we did. They absolutely supported what we did," he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/22/1090464788...

Idema named a Pentagon official

An interview with Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence
http://www.defenselink.mil/usdi/camboneinterview.html

Stephen A. Cambone
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Steven_A._...

Anderson works for Cambone

Lawmakers lash out at security clearance backlog
It is the Pentagon's policy to hire contractors to relieve the security clearance backlog, according to Heather Anderson, the acting director of security for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. She said Defense officials were concerned about hiring federal investigators and then having too many staffers on hand when the backlog was reduced.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0504/050604d1.htm

The Department must have an affiliation with a private citizen before processing them for a personnel security clearance. For employees of DoD contractors, that relationship is established through the execution of a DoD Security Agreement, which is made a part of the contract with the company. Once the company has executed this agreement and is cleared, the company may process current employees or consultants for a background investigation if their duties will require access to classified information.

Approximately 85% of industry applicants are issued an interim clearance. For example, of the 152,059 requests for investigation from industry during FY03, approximately 85% of them were issued an interim clearance. An interim SECRET clearance authorizes access to SECRET information and most contractor employees can perform some functions with access to SECRET information, even if they ultimately require access to information of a higher level.

http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/DOD%20-%20Anderso...


OUTSOURCING WAR CRIMES
SAN DIEGO--It was late fall 2001, and the U.S. conquest of Afghanistan was nearly complete. A passel of foreign war correspondents milled about the lobby of the Hotel Tajikistan, waiting for the Tajik foreign ministry to issue permission papers we needed to pass the checkpoints between Dushanbe and the Afghan border, so we could go on to cover the siege of Kunduz. I popped into the Soviet-vintage hotel's business center to check my email. That's when I met Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema, the former Special Forces soldier charged on July 5 along with two other Americans for kidnapping and torturing Afghans as part of an unauthorized, vigilante anti-Taliban operation run out of a private home in Kabul.

"U.S. citizen Jonathan K. Idema has allegedly represented himself as an American government and/or military official," the U.S. military said in a statement. "The public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him."

That's their current story, anyway.

Agents of the National Security Directorate, Afghanistan's new intelligence agency, say they found eight starved Afghan detainees--three of them hanging by their feet--in Idema's rented house in central Kabul, along with a few AK-47 rifles and blood-soaked clothes. None of Idema's prisoners were working against the Karzai regime, so the NSD plans to release them. Idema, say officials, was probably hoping to torture his victims into telling him the location of Osama bin Laden so he could collect a $25 million bounty.

Idema was nice at first, chatting me up with jittery intensity as he alternately identified himself as belonging to--or, more accurately, implying identification with--the CIA and U.S. Special Forces. Griping about a Pentagon ban against supplying Northern Alliance forces with medical supplies, Idema slipped me a computer disc containing photos of gruesome wounds that had gone untreated because of the inhumane policy. He asked me to pitch a piece on the subject to my editors at The Village Voice, but with a caveat: "Don't publish those photos before talking to me first." I promised that I wouldn't. "If you do," he added, "you will die in great pain." He went on at length about the special shadowy brotherhood of Green Berets past and present, and described how anyone who crossed them would be marked for death. I would never have broken my pledge, but I didn't need a story that badly. I soon left for Afghanistan; so, eventually, did Idema.

Jack Idema, reportedly retired from the Special Forces in 1992, fought alongside the Northern Alliance in 2001. He had enough money to buy goods and services at inflated war zone prices, not to mention references in the U.S. military--and a lot of chutzpah.

Beginning in Afghanistan and now in Iraq, the Bush Administration has assigned jobs previously carried out by the traditional uniformed military to private contractors, covert intelligence officers and retired commandos. The idea is "plausible deniability"; should a character like Idema go too far, the government disavows his crimes as the acts of a renegade. Only Idema and the Pentagon will ever know the truth about his status.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&nci...

original thread for broken links
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x737677#741679

[LittleApple81]

14. Cambone is assuming that because Bush* said NO CABINET position

for the intelligence "Czar" (a position that, by they way, I don't understand... they should modify the present bureaucracy instead of adding another layer to the cake) THAT MEANS THAT'S THAT! I thought that the congress would have to approve the final version of the reforms, including that position. Am I wrong?

[LittleApple81]

15. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) is really good at questioning. n/t

[LittleApple81]

16. Why should the DoD intelligence be separate from the centralized

entity recommended by the commission? she pointed out that when she went to Iraq and asked them questions about how many Iraqis had died, the DoD could not give her an answer (between 500 and 20,000 is not a good range...). Implication: the DoD is no good or they won't answer questions. Good deal, Ms. Sanchez.