Taliban’s Secret Weapon in Afghanistan – Intelligence “Moles”?

Everyone is recruiting spies in Kabul. Western security forces have almost certainly been penetrated. The primary foreign intelligence services are from Iran, China, Russia, Pakistan and the Taliban, and their targets are U.S. and NATO diplomats, along with military, civilian and contractor employees. Wars have been lost due to poor intelligence, due to turncoat spies and due to turncoat public officials (i.e., those who have turned away from the truth). The U.S. Government is breeding all of these conditions.

It is unlikely that the recent U.S. and NATO setbacks in the war and the Taliban successes could have occurred without enemy “moles” within the Western forces. An eventual history of this Afghan war will likely highlight the successful espionage efforts of the Taliban and its allies within Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency (ISI).

The year 2013 began with pronouncements from the Pentagon and the U.S. Department of State that President Obama’s 2009 “surge” had been a success, that the Taliban were on the run and that the Afghan Government would be able to take full control of the country in 2014. Today, just ten months later, the Taliban are surging, and knowledgeable, independent analysts are predicting the collapse of the Afghan Government in 2014.

The sudden and stunning unraveling of the West’s Afghan war must have causes that are not being publicly discussed. A likely cause is the growing effectiveness of the espionage efforts of the pro-Taliban intelligence services.

Last month the Taliban staged their most successful attack of the war when they penetrated deep into joint base Camp Leatherneck/Camp Bastion and destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of attack aircraft and facilities. The first questions that investigators should have had are, “How did they penetrate the base?” and “Did they have inside help from traitors?”

Similar questions should have been raised from the September 11/12, 2012, al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. “How did the terrorists know that the U.S. Ambassador was in residence?” “How did they know where his private bedroom was?” “How is it that his Bureau of Diplomatic Security team happened to “lose” the Ambassador during the incident? The evidence in Benghazi and in Kandahar suggests Taliban and al-Qaeda moles within the U.S. Department of State and within NATO / ISAF.

The conditions in the West in general and within the U.S. Government in particular are ideal for foreign recruitment. The Western economies are in shambles, therefore money and debts are mounting concerns. Due to drone strikes, Koran burnings, continued support for Central Asian and Persian Gulf despots, and increasing civilian casualties and corruption, the U.S. and Western efforts have lost their ethical luster. This makes it easier for turncoats to justify their treachery to themselves. The final condition is that the U.S. and the West are losing across the board. They are losing in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Egypt, in Libya, in Mali and in a host of other countries. Rats tend to flee a sinking ship (or in this case a fleet of sinking ships); so do traitors.

As usual, there is no transparency within the Obama Administration. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice is perfectly willing to call a planned terrorist attack a spontaneous mob action. Today within the U.S. Government there is no shame in making a false statement. Domestic politics in the United States is more important to senior officials than the truth. Turncoat public officials (those who have turned away from the truth) are able to somehow rationalize away their false statements just as turncoat “moles” are able to rationalize their espionage. Under this theory, Ambassador Rice would make the perfect counter-espionage chief because she understands the mind of the turncoat.

There is a cancer growing within Washington, D.C. It infects not just within the Obama Administration, but also within the Congress and the news media. Making a false official statement is a federal crime pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §1001. Ambassador Rice should be under criminal prosecution but alas, America is a land with two sets of laws, one for the rich and influential, and one for the rest of the population.

The CIA’s drone strikes continue in Pakistan even though they violate international law. The U.S. continues to spend billions each week in Afghanistan while the U.S. poverty rate continues to rise. Federal bureaucrats spend lavish amounts of taxpayer funds on parties and conferences while Americans stand on unemployment lines. The President of the United States and First Lady have time for Hollywood talk shows but none for soup lines and homeless shelters or to attend any of the funerals of America’s war dead.

Then there is a secret but growing scandal within the U.S. Department of Agriculture over Farm Bill aid being criminally misallocated to friends and family of USDA officials and to wealthy agri-businesses connected to the Democratic Party. At present this scandal is limited to USDA programs in the Northeast United States, but the evidence suggests a nationwide problem. These diversions deplete USDA’s grant funds. That leaves small farms and honest farmers to fend for themselves. This case has been briefed to Secretary Tom Vilsack’s Chief of Staff Krysta Harden and to Ramona Romero, the USDA’s General Counsel, but they have refused to act, as has Jack Smith the Chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. The U.S. Department of Justice has sealed the pending Federal court case until January 10, 2013. The goal is to push all scandals out past the November election and leave them to the next Administration to prosecute.

This current cancer and ethical malaise will only accelerate U.S. intelligence failures and enhance foreign recruitment efforts. Rudderless and drifting ships can be pushed into dangerous waters.