On Wednesday, September 12, Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates spoke before a packed audience at the Philadelphia Convention Center at the 58th annual ASIS International seminar and exposition. Gates provided former members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Secret Service, and military, as well as members of corporate America with insight and analysis of threats to American interests around the world – in relation to Afghanistan, Iran, and China – and also detailed how he expanded the role of the Secretary of Defense in to domestic politics, and how, with Janet Napolitano, he authorized the NSA to assume jurisdiction over domestic surveillance.
ASIS 2012
The address on Wednesday was the third keynote address of ASIS 2012, a gathering of up to 25,000 security professionals organized by ASIS International, founded in 1955. In addition to keynote addresses by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Muhammed El Baradei, and Robert Gates, the ASIS 2012 conference in Philadelphia included a sales expo with over 700 security companies, and over 250 educational workshops for security professionals.
One of the over 700 companies present at the expo was G4S, the world’s largest private security firm (and third largest private employer). G4S, which operates in over 135 countries, drew scrutiny over the summer after reneging on a contract with the city of London at the Olympic games. The company also has contracts with the government of Israel, whereby they profit from Israel’s policies of segregation and torture of Palestinians.
Other firms present at the expo included Nice Securities, which provides surveillance equipment to the outlandishly racist police department of Mariposa County, Arizona; and the Applied Science Foundation for Homeland Security, a facility in Long Island, New York, fostering collaboration between the Transportation Security Administration, the Secret Service, the FBI, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, and private security firms.
The educational workshops demonstrated the scale of the US surveillance program, and the degree of collaboration between private companies, private security, and government authorities. These workshops included “Using Social Networking Sites, Search Engines, and Web 2.0 to Screen Applicants,” and “Trends in Law Enforcement and Private Security Partnerships,” just for example.
Another workshop, “Civil Disturbances: Trends, Tactics, and Mitigation for Private Security” was led by MSA Security, the private security firm which was in charge of surveillance of Occupy Wall Street in New York City. Yet another, “Africa – Open for Business” was led by an employee of the World Bank, an employee of the Department of Defense, and two members of private security firms. The workshop sought to illuminate business opportunities in Africa for those in private security.
Robert Gates on Afghanistan
Robert Gates joined the CIA as an officer in 1968, and moved his way through the agency to become CIA Director from 1991 – 93. He then served as Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011 in the White House administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
As someone who has dedicated his career to the covert operations of the CIA, Gates expressed continued commitment to the necessity of unofficial and nonmilitary operatives in the service of American military and intelligence. This position is evidenced by the current US strategy in Afghanistan, which Gates drafted and began implementing two and a half years ago, to train an Afghan security force of 100,000 soldiers by 2014 in addition to private security, and a Mining Protection Unit. On Wednesday, Gates said that with this program, he believes that “we finally got the strategy right” in Afghanistan.
On Iran
Gates provided insight into the possibility of a war with Iran. First, Gates described his meeting in 1979 with then-National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Iranian officials in Algiers, in which, following the Iranian revolution, he and Brzezinski refused to give the Shah to the Iranians, as he was being treated in the United States.
Then Gates testified as to why the Iranians may want a nuclear weapon, saying that they “see themselves surrounded by nuclear-armed countries,” and have witnessed the way in which the US military has removed Saddam Hussein, in Iraq, and Muammar Gaddafi, in Libya, from power. By contrast, the US “has been far more cautious dealing with the North Korean regime.”
Further, Gates said the Israelis “feel themselves on a shorter timeline than the US with respect to military action” because of the “geography and history” of Israel, and the rhetoric of the Iranian regime. He stated that, “some elements of the Israeli government.. have been making noises about a potential military strike.. possibly before the US presidential election in an effort to box US President Obama in to supporting it,” naming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barack in particular. Yet, “the Israeli military, however formidable, does not have the capacity to destroy all of the buried nuclear facilities at such a long range,” as “the Iranians have dispersed their nuclear program to multiple sites, many of them in urban areas, many of them deep underground.” Then Gates said, “let there be no doubt – an Israeli attack would be seen in the region and in the Muslim world more broadly as being sanctioned and underwritten by the United States, with the same consequences that would attach to a direct American attack.”
If Israel and the United States do not attack Iran, Gates said, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel and Europe, and “ignite a nuclear arms race” in the Middle East. He did not mention the nuclear weapons program of Israel.
Gates said that the current set of sanctions imposed by the United Nations are “our best chance going forward” to pressure the Iranian leadership to abandon any aspirations for a nuclear weapons program, and that “we must make it clear to the.. Israeli government that they do not have a blank check to take actions which could do grave harm to American vital interests and security in that region.”
On China
In relation to China, Gates said, “The only source of legitimacy for the governing elite [of China] is a steadily improving standard of living that requires nine to ten percent annual GDP growth, and the creation of at least twenty million new jobs every year,” and that “the credibility of the Chinese government and the quiescence of the Chinese people depends on sustaining an economic performance that is fundamentally unsustainable.”
In light of these conditions, Gates said, there is growing nationalism and xenophobia in China, and “[t]hey’re becoming more and more aggressive in pursuing China’s interests and defending exaggerated territorial claims.”
Further, “[w]e can expect more belligerence over the months to come as China looks to an immensely important generational transfer of power,” as “no aspiring leader would want to look weak when it comes to defending China’s interests.” Gates notes that China is investing trillions of dollars in foreign cash reserves in new military capabilities and technologies – “anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-satellite weapons, electronic warfare assets” – “which could alter the balance of military power in the Pacific, which has for all practical purposes been an American lake for our navy since the end of World War II.”
On cyber security and NSA expansion
An integral part of the ASIS 2012 conference was (ISC)2 – a concurrent seminar focusing on cyber security. Noting the capabilities of computer viruses such as STUXNET and the “Love bug” to have drastic consequences, Gates stressed the importance of cyber security. He goes on, “One of the keys to any military success going forward is ensuring that information crucial to operations reaches the widest appropriate audience. I know this is one of the challenges [which] the military and industry face working together, namely how to provide the maximum possible protections and information assurance without undermining one of the traditional strengths of the American way of war – just to push data and decision-making down to the lowest possible level of authority – and to do so without a repeat of the Wikileaks fiasco.”
Then Gates described the decision for the NSA – “a military support agency” – to have jurisdiction over surveillance programs in the United States. Citing “very limited assets, capability, and experience” at the Department of Homeland Security,” Gates said that it “isn’t plausible” “to fashion a brand new, ACLU-approved homeland version of the NSA for domestic surveillance and cyber security;” thus, through a memorandum of understanding drafted by Gates and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in the summer of 2010, the NSA support for DHS was approved by President Obama.
As an integral part of the passage and implementation of this surveillance program, Gates noted that, as Secretary of Defense, he established a “good rapport between [himself] and first Secretary Rice and Secretary Clinton,” whereas for most of his public life the two positions – Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State – neither spoke with one another nor collaborated.
Conclusion
The scale of the ASIS conference in Philadelphia was breathtaking, yet equally disturbing was the lack of press coverage, and subsequent lack of public awareness and scrutiny. The conference brought together corporate leaders with government officials for open and honest sharing and collaboration. ASIS has almost 300 chapters world-wide, with at least half of those based in the United States. They are coordinating five similar conferences over the next year in Hong Kong, Dubai, New York, Chicago, and Gothenburg, Sweden. It is my hope that, by bringing to light and understanding what ASIS members and their partners are doing, we can begin to scrutinize the military-industrial, prison-industrial, and agricultural-industrial complex. The repercussions of their work are damning for the general public.
Thanks for posting this, highly intelligent and informative!
Franz Stangl ran Treblinka and once said of his prisoners
“They were so weak; they allowed everything to happen, to be done to them. They were people with whom there was no common ground, no possibility of communication — that is how contempt is born. I could never understand how they could just give in as they did.”
The Zionist Sparta arose as a direct response to that.
But they can’t understand why Iran wants to resist Israeli/US hegemony.
It is all nuts.
Thank you.
Now one needs to update the Wikipedia – use of NSA for domestic surveillance is not mentioned.
Graber is a “feminist” community organizer? Man I thought that kind of servile self-debasement went out of style 30 years ago.
Excuse me, Carowhat?