Ray Nowosielski - The Watchdogs Didn’t Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror

Copyright 2018 by John Duffy & Ray Nowosielski

Foreword Copyright 2017 by David Talbot

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2136-4

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2137-1

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

By David Talbot

The world is burning, and yet the firelight illuminates the way out. The times are dire, even catastrophic. Nonetheless we can sense a grand awakening, a growing realization all around the globe that people have the power, to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools in the prophetic words of Patti Smith.

But in order to rouse ourselves from the nightmares that hold us in their grip, we need to know more about the forces that bedevil us, the structures of power that profit from humanitys exploitation and from that of the earth. Thats the impetus behind Hot Books, a series that seeks to expose the dark operations of power and to light the way forward.

Skyhorse publisher Tony Lyons and I started Hot Books in 2015 because we believe that books can make a difference. Since then the Hot Books series has shined a light on the cruel reign of racism and police violence in Baltimore (D. Watkinss The Beast Side ); the poisoning of US soldiers by their own environmentally reckless commanding officers (Joseph Hickmans The Burn Pits ); the urgent need to hold US officials accountable for their criminal actions during the war on terror (Rachel Gordons American Nuremberg ); the covert manipulation of the media by intelligence agencies (Nicholas Schous Spooked ); the rise of a rape culture on campus (Kirby Dick and Amy Zierings The Hunting Ground ); the insidious demonizing of Muslims in the media and Washington (Arsalan Iftikhars Scapegoats ); the crackdown on whistleblowers who know the governments dirty secrets (Mark Hertsgaards Bravehearts ); the disastrous policies of the liberal elite that led to the triumph of Trump (Chris Hedgess Unspeakable ); the American wastelands that gave rise to this dark reign (Alexander Zaitchiks The Gilded Rage ); the energy titans and their political servants who are threatening human survival (Dick Russells Horsemen of the Apocalypse ); the utilization of authoritarian tactics by Donald Trump that threaten to erode American democracy (Brian Klaass The Despots Apprentice ); the capture, torture, and detention of the first high-value target captured by the CIA after 9/11 (Joseph Hickman and John Kiriakous The Convenient Terrorist ); the deportation of American veterans (J. Malcolm Garcias Without a Country ); and the ways in which our elections have failed, and continue to fail, their billing as model democracy (Steven Rosenfelds Democracy Betrayed ). And the series continues, going where few publishers dare.

Hot Books are more condensed than standard-length books. Theyre packed with provocative information and points of view that mainstream publishers usually shy from. Hot Books are meant not just to stir readers thinking, but to stir trouble.

Hot Books authors follow the blazing path of such legendary muckrakers and troublemakers as Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jessica Mitford, I. F. Stone, and Seymour Hersh. The magazines and newspapers that once provided a forum for this deep and dangerous journalism have shrunk in number and available resources. Hot Books aims to fill this crucial gap.

American journalism has become increasingly digitized and commodified. If the news isnt fake, its usually shallow. But theres a growing hunger for information that is both credible and undiluted by corporate filters.

A publishing series with this intensity cannot keep burning in a vacuum. Hot Books needs a culture of equally passionate readers. Please spread the word about these titlesencourage your bookstores to carry them, post comments about them in online stores and forums, persuade your book clubs, schools, political groups and community organizations to read them and invite the authors to speak.

Its time to go beyond packaged news and propaganda. Its time for Hot Books journalism without borders.

DEDICATION & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work you hold in your hands was never intended to be a book. It is the result of an intermittent investigation conducted over ten years by the authors, with a lot of help. In its current form, it began as an article undertaken with Emanuel Stoakes, inspired by an interview conducted by Jon Gold. Stoakes insisted we pitch it to David Talbot, who said yes when many others have said no, recommending us to Tony Lyons at Skyhorse Publishing, who green-lit it as a book. Stoakes was actively involved in the writing of the first half of the first draft. We conducted a number of interviews with Stoakes, and he provided to us a couple he did on his own. Rory OConnor also conducted several interviews with us, as he has also been investigating this topic for many years. We thank these four people from the bottom of our hearts.

This book would not exist but for the unearthing of important information by many incredible journalists. In particular, we walk a path first paved by Lawrence Wright, James Bamford, and Kevin Fenton, as well as Ali Soufan and Daniel Freedman with their own prior books, The Looming Tower , The Shadow Factory , Disconnecting the Dots , and The Black Banners , respectively. We also follow the tracks laid by Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman in their Associated Press article At the CIA, Mistakes by Officers Are Often Overlooked. The first to open the door, if largely overlooked, were Michael Isikoff, Joe Trento, and Robert Schopmeyer. We would also like to acknowledge the journalism of Tyler Bass, David Fanning, Siobhan Gorman, Stephen Grey, Seymour Hersh, Douglas Jehl, Michael Kirk, Jason Leopold, Eric Lichtenblau, Jane Mayer, Mark Mazzetti, Friedrich Moser, Dana Priest, James Risen, Brian Ross, Jeremy Scahill, Philip Shenon, Ken Silverstein, Jeff Stein, Shannon Tyler, Joby Warrick, Tim Weiner, Bob Woodward, Amrit Singh and the Open Society Foundations, and those at Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Much of the research for this book relied as a starting point on HistoryCommons.org, which acts as a kind of cheat sheet used by many national security journalists with too little acknowledgment. It is a website often struggling for funding. Its founder and sole maintainer remains Derek Mitchell, and the timelines built by Paul Thompson and later Kevin Fenton were instrumental.

There is a short list of people who came to our aid in the ways they had available to them during the scary moments in 2011 that are detailed in , as well as those who enthusiastically supported the initial work when we didnt have many people behind us. We will forever be indebted to Sean Adl-Tabatabai, Larisa Alexandrovna, Jim Babka, Bill Bergman, Sheri Bernson, Kristina Borjesson, Patty Cassazza, Paul Church, Peter Collins, John Cook, Sibel Edmonds, Monica Gabrielle, Alex Gibney, Glenn Greenwald, Gary Griffin, Kevin Gosztola, Kyle Hence, Scott Horton, Ben Johnson, Mindy Kleinberg, Barbara Kopple, Scott Malone, Abby Martin, Robbie Martin, Betsy Metz, Ray McGovern, Michael Micklow, Jeff Morley, Alexa OBrien, Erik Potter, Martina Radwan, Michael Ratner, Reifs, Jon Roberts, Coleen Rowley, Damian Salimeno, Danny Schechter, Anthony Summers, Patrick Thrasher, Lorie Van Auken, Marcy Wheeler, Ben Wizner, John Young, and the aforementioned Fenton, Gold, Leopold, Mayer, OConnor, and Thompson.