Know all ye by these presents that Annie Machon is hereby honored with the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of her courage in shining light into dark places.
“If you see something, say something.” Long before that saying came into vogue, Annie Machon took its essence to heart.
MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency, recognized how bright, enterprising, and unflappable Annie was and recruited her as soon as she completed her studies at Cambridge.
The good old boys in MI5 apparently thought she would have a malleable conscience, as well — such that she would have no qualms about secret monitoring of the very government officials overseeing MI5 itself, for example.
Annie would not be quiet about this secret abuse. Her partner, David Shayler, an MI5 colleague and — like Annie — a person of integrity and respect for law, became aware of an MI6 plan to assassinate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
They decided to blow the whistle and fled to France. (Many years later, a woman of high station but more flexible integrity openly gloated over Gaddafi’s brutal assassination.)
After three years on the lam, hiding mostly in France, they returned to the UK, where Annie was arrested (but never charged with a crime). The powers-that-be, however, chose to make an example of Shayler (not unlike what they are now doing to Julian Assange).
Shayler’s whistleblowing case dragged on for seven years, during which he did a brief stint in the infamous high-security prison where Julian Assange still rots (having been denied bail, yet again). A strong mitigation plea by Annie helped reduce Shayler’s remaining prison time. All in all, though, what he was forced to endure took a hard toll on him.
More broadly, the issues that surfaced around whistleblowing at the time remain largely the same two decades later. Annie Machon has been a very prominent and strong supporter of Julian. She has also been a much admired mentor to less experienced women and men as they seek to become better informed on issues of integrity and courage, and take Annie up on her offer to “help them meet interesting people”, as she puts it.
We would be remiss today were we not to call to mind the courageous example of our first two awardees, Coleen Rowley (FBI) and Katharine Gun (GCHQ), who took great risks in exposing malfeasance and in trying to head off the attack on Iraq. And, as Julian Assange did when he won this award, we again honor his treasured source, Chelsea Manning, for her continuing courage and scarcely believable integrity.
Ed Snowden, our Sam Adams awardee in 2013, noted that we tend to ignore some degree of evil in our daily life, but, as Ed put it, “We also have a breaking point and when people find that, they act.”
Annie is still acting, as one can see as this World Ethical Data Forum unfolds.
Presented this 17th day of March at the World Ethical Data Forum by admirers of the example set by the late CIA analyst, Sam Adams.
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Former CIA analyst giving Tacoma talk to tout Iran Nuclear Deal
Highlights:
Analyst contends Iran nuclear agreement slows a march to war
Notes assessments that say Iran halted work on nuclear weapons
Traveled with the late Tacoma peace activist, the Rev. Bill Bichsel
As a former CIA analyst turned anti-war activist, Elizabeth Murray found much to like in news last summer when the Obama administration struck a deal to monitor Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions that have crippled that country’s economy.
To her, the deal pushed back what at times looked like an inevitable armed conflict among Iran, Israel and the United States.
But not everyone sees the world as Murray does.
The Iran agreement has been a lightning rod for months with conservative leaders in America and Israel casting it as bad deal that will not prevent Iran making a nuclear weapon.
Murray, 55, on Monday (Nov. 9) plans to share her thoughts on why the deal is a good one at a forum in University Place moderated by one of the Puget Sound region’s leading Middle East experts, professor Steve Niva of The Evergreen State College.
Murray spent 27 years in the CIA mostly working as a Middle East analyst and now works with the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, the Poulsbo-based anti-nuclear organization.
Iraq lessons learned: intelligence
(by Graeme Dobel, The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Initiative)
John Howard didn’t have too much support from Australian intelligence in deciding to go to war against Iraq.
The Prime Minister got just enough cover from the Office of National Assessments to meet political needs. Beyond politics, though—as a basis for war—the Oz intelligence supporting war was thin stuff.
So thin, in fact, it was wrong. Iraq didn’t pose a threat because it didn’t have the Weapons of Mass Destruction that was the casus belli used by the US, Britain and Australia.
Intelligence is the starting point for this lessons learned exercise, as discussed in the previous column.
Two documents give the details: the Iraq report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence at the end of 2003 (in those days formally titled Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD) and then Philip Flood’s Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies in 2004.
The Intelligence Committee found the Defence Intelligence Organisation was sceptical throughout about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction; on the other hand, the Office of National Assessments (inside the PM’s Department) hardened its line as Howard marched closer to invasion.
The Committee commented on a sudden variation in September 2002, ‘in the nature and tone’ of ONA’s view on Iraq’s WMD:
‘It is so sudden a change in judgement that it appears ONA, at least unconsciously, might have been responding to ‘policy running strong’.’ And by that stage, John Howard was indeed running strong with George W. Bush.
On Iraq’s WMD, Philip Flood lamented ‘a failure rigorously to challenge preconceptions or assumptions about the Iraqi regime’s intentions…there is little evidence that systematic and contestable challenging was applied in a sustained way to analysts’ starting assumptions.’
How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk
By Patrick G. Eddington
…. Eight years after Mr. Meshal’s rendition, his case ended up before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The questions hanging over the proceeding were: can the United States government allow, or even facilitate, the rendition of an American citizen to another country for interrogation? And can United States officials themselves conduct rendition and interrogations of American citizens, including threats of torture, on foreign soil?
According to a decision handed down last week, the answers appear to be yes. If this decision stands, it will mean that an American citizen overseas who is unlawfully targeted by the United States government for rendition, interrogation and detention with the help of a local government will have no form of redress in the courts. (more…)
Tell Us Why We’re At War in Iraq Again, Mr. President
By Peter Van Buren
October 31, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – When I was a kid, three presidents told us we had to fight in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, because if we didn’t fight them over there, we’d have to fight them on the beaches of California. We believed. It was a lie.
I was a teenager during the Cold War, and several presidents told us we needed to create massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, garrison the world, invade Cuba, fight in odd little places and use the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators, or the Russians would destroy us. We believed. It was a lie.
When I was in college our president told us that we needed to fight in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua or the Sandinistas would come to the United States. He told us Managua was closer to Washington DC than LA was. He told us we needed to fight in Lebanon, Grenada and Libya to protect ourselves. We believed. It was a lie.
Tell Us Why We’re At War in Iraq Again, Mr. President (by Peter Van Buren)
October 31, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – When I was a kid, three presidents told us we had to fight in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, because if we didn’t fight them over there, we’d have to fight them on the beaches of California. We believed. It was a lie.
I was a teenager during the Cold War, and several presidents told us we needed to create massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons, garrison the world, invade Cuba, fight in odd little places and use the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with dictators, or the Russians would destroy us. We believed. It was a lie.
When I was in college our president told us that we needed to fight in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua or the Sandinistas would come to the United States. He told us Managua was closer to Washington DC than LA was. He told us we needed to fight in Lebanon, Grenada and Libya to protect ourselves. We believed. It was a lie.
When I was a little older our president told us how evil Saddam Hussein was, how his soldiers bayoneted babies in Kuwait. He told us Saddam was a threat to America. He told us we needed to invade Panama to oust a dictator to protect America. We believed. It was a lie.
The next president told us we had to fight terrorists in Somalia, as well as bomb Iraq, to protect ourselves. We believed. It was a lie.
The one after him told us that because a group of Saudis from a group loosely tied to Afghanistan attacked us on 9/11, we needed to occupy that country and destroy the Taliban, who had not attacked us, for our own safety. The Taliban are still there. But we believed. It was a lie.
After that we were told that Saddam Hussein threatened every one of us with weapons of mass destruction, that the smoking gun would be a mushroom cloud, that Saddam was in league with al Qaeda. We believed. It was a lie.
In 2011 the president and his secretary of state told us we needed regime change in Libya, to protect us from an evil dictator. We believed. It was a lie.
In August 2014 the same president told us we needed to intervene again in Iraq, on a humanitarian mission to save the Yazidis. No boots on the ground, a simple act of humanness that only the United States could conduct, and then leave. We believed. It was a lie.
Now we are told by that same president that Americans will again fight on the ground in Iraq, and Syria, and that Americans have and will die. He says that this is necessary to protect us, because if we do not defeat Islamic State over there, they will come here, to what we now call without shame or irony The Homeland.
We want to believe, Mr. President. We want to know it is not a lie.
So please address us, explain why what you are doing in Iraq is different than everything listed above. Tell us why we should believe you — this time — because history says you lie.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran of the State Department, spent a year in Iraq. Following his book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, the Department of State began proceedings against him. Through the efforts of the Government Accountability Project and the ACLU, Van Buren instead retired from the State Department on his own terms. http://wemeantwell.com/blog/