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terpfan1980

Join Date 08/2004

+13

President fails to secure documents, lets Sandy Berger steal

I see that one of the good Doctors has beaten me to the punch in this topic, but I wanted to add a few comments without clouding the original comments that Dr. Guy had in his article here.

I would say I'm surprised at what happened in the Sandy Berger case, but if I did, I'd be lieing.

I am also not surprised that the persistent whiners among us, those that constantly belittle everything that President Bush does or says have sat on their hands and not made a peep about Sandy Berger and the damage that he may have done to our national security.

It could be argued that the damage that Sandy Berger did to our national security in losing these documents is nothing compared to the damage that he and his compatriots in the Clinton Administration did back before President Bush took office. I'm sure that there are those among us that would try to argue the point, but certainly the policies of Clinton / Gore set us on the path to the policies that have been required under Bush to combat Al Qaeda and the like.

Above, I mention that what happened with Sandy Berger didn't surprise me. That is up to, and including the weak penalty that Berger faces. You see, in my past military history, dealing with a command that was so top heavy with officers (we used to joke about the place being a literal brass mine) I had run into just the same sort of problems. We had, in my time, officers that took classified materials home in their briefcase, to let secretaries in their civilian jobs word process raw materials and drafts into final reports. Of course the secretaries had no clearances, and the documents and materials were never supposed to leave the secured areas of the command.

In our case, our entire unit was treated to several educational sessions on how to deal with classified materials, and the enlisted personnel were made responsible for literally baby-sitting the officers who had demonstrated their complete incompetence in that area (and several others, including a complete inability to deal with their assigned side-arms, up to and including firing the weapons, cleaning and assembling/disassembling the weaponry. Never mind that 95% of the enlisteds could break down a weapon and reassemble it within 2 minutes, the same percentage of the officers couldn't do the same thing even if they had 2 hours. Several of them literally destroyed weapons when they tried to meet such required tasks and goals). The officer that caused the entire problem, and his friends? Just a little slap on the wrist. No suspension of his security clearance. No fine. Really nothing but the threat that if the problem occured again, there would be a note added to a personnel file. That for a full-bird Colonel, already well on the way to retirement, with little hope of ever seeing the star. So, again, not much of a punishment.

Some readers look at me as I take up verbal arms against some individuals on these forums as if I am on a one man crusade against those individuals, and they may wonder why I am motivated in this area. Well, the Sandy Berger case just reminds me again of why. Because I have personally seen these "accomplished" and "learned" individuals of high authority work with reckless disregard for the care of the materials they are working with. Be it because they just don't care, or because they are purposefully doing it -- as I suspect was really the case with Berger -- they have done damage to our security because of their actions or inactions, and knowing this burns my butt.

National Security -- hell, Security in general -- is everyone's job. We are only as secure as the weakest link in the chain. In this case, we had an intentionally weak link go back and try to alter the history to show that his bosses were less responsible than evidence might otherwise show.

Heck, just typing this, I'm tempted to go back and enter another reply in a certain COL's thread about border security. One in which I'd ask who the hell was guarding the borders, and why they shouldn't be tossed in jail for failing to do so, back when Muhammad Atta and friends enterred the country and took their pilot lessons, well before President Bush really became responsible for any of those problems. Of course we already know that the COL would just ignore that issue and claim he's not responsible for it anyway, as he did his part by voting against Bush. Too bad the COL failed miserably, like many of his compatriots, in their efforts to vote against Bush, meaning yet again, I could say I blame Gene.

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Great Article!!

The biggest threat to our national security is complacency. From troops who aren't aware of what's going on around them, to officers who use their rank instead of their brains and civilians who think, "it can't happen here".

Complacency is how the attacks of 9/11 were accomplished, how Sandy Berger was able to "misplace" classified documents in his socks, and how we got away with most of what we did while playing the Opposing Force (OPFOR) against other military units.

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Funny how that works, the whole "ignore sandy berger" stole classified document thing, then pleads guilty and gets off,

If sandy was a bushie the left would be calling for a lynching, I can see them all now, gathering spears, torches, old pitch forks, mob ruled, thirsting for blood.

they are all HIPPO CRYPTS.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

Because I have personally seen these "accomplished" and "learned" individuals of high authority work with reckless disregard for the care of the materials they are working with. Be it because they just don't care, or because they are purposefully doing it -- as I suspect was really the case with Berger -- they have done damage to our security because of their actions or inactions, and knowing this burns my butt.

there's no question it was a stupid thing for him to do (especially since he accomplished nothing but to get his ass in trouble); there are, reportedly, nearly identical versions of the documents he destroyed. but i take your point. i'd like to think you're equally upset about someone in the whitehouse vengefully revealing the name of a cia operative...and someone else not putting any effort into putting that person in jail.

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i'd like to think you're equally upset about someone in the whitehouse vengefully revealing the name of a cia operative...and someone else not putting any effort into putting that person in jail.

I can't say I'm happy about what happened to Valerie Plame, no matter what sort of political aspirations or leanings her dirt-bag of a husband may have had.

That said, I'm not at all sure of whose loose lips let lose the information on her, up to, and possibly including herself or himself. Like others in similar positions in the past, it wouldn't surprise me at all if much of her secret wasn't given away by her own hand, much like the lazy, or incompetent individuals I mention above that never bothered to really make sure they were being careful with sensitive information they were trusted to handle.

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i'd like to think you're equally upset about someone in the whitehouse vengefully revealing the name of a cia operative...and someone else not putting any effort into putting that person in jail.

Except she was not a CIA Operative, she was an Analyst. If you weed through the MSM hype, you find out that Wilson outed her, and since she was not an operative, there is no law that was broken. But nice try to deflect attention away from Sandy Burglar. I would not have expected less.

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If you weed through the MSM hype, you find out that Wilson outed her, and since she was not an operative, there is no law that was broken.

That's sort of what I allude to above. It seems from my reading of things that this very well is probably what happened. Wilson most likely, or Plame herself almost seemed as if they were running around trumpeting to the world (almost the way some say I've tried to point out about a certain COL on these blogs and forums has) their importance because of their title and positions. Some people in these positions seem to derive some twisted sense of power being in their position and just aren't careful about keeping their information confidential and remembering that the world doesn't have a need to know.

In most cases the less information you provide the better, but in the world of academia and many times in business the opposite is assumed and practiced. People are always trying to out-impress everyone, and they toss around titles and complete biographies without thought that they may be giving people far too much information.

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kingbee

Join Date 04/2004

+42

since she was not an operative, there is no law that was broken. But nice try to deflect attention away from Sandy Burglar. I would not have expected less.

bummer you didnt feel motivated enuff to offer your testimony to that effect on behalf of miller and cooper. if only the government were as informed as you, think of the money and time it coulda saved.

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When the MSM gets on its 'unbiased' right wing crusaders horse, there is no stopping it until they have blood.

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Daiwa

Join Date 07/2001

+351

Berger simply stole & destroyed classified documents, with clear intent (you don't accidentally "drop" documents in your socks & not notice). Whether he acted on his own or was encouraged by others, I don't know, but there was information he wanted to be sure never saw the light of day. Implying that it's no big deal since there are "nearly identical" versions of the documents still in existence is ludicrous. How could we know "how nearly" identical they are without having the originals? This whole affair is disgusting and scary at the same time. How can we have any respect for our system of justice when a thief and destroyer of classified documents walks with barely a slap on the wrist and Martha Stewart spends 5 months in jail? Did you notice that he gets his security clearance back in 3 years? WTF?

Cheers,
Daiwa

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Did you notice that he gets his security clearance back in 3 years? WTF?

They figure that would be when Hillary is in the Whitehouse. Typical of the Sleeze brigade. Sacrafice your pawns so your Queen can survive.

BTW: Thanks Terpfan for the attibution. Mine was a rant. Yours is thorough and insightful.

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