What is Covert Action?

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Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:04:40 -0700 (PDT)

What is Covert Action?

 

 

 

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article10356.htm

 

What is Covert Action?

 

By J.V. Grady

 

09/21/05 " ICH " -- -- Intelligence services generally are organized

into the following major functional areas:

 

· Intelligence Collection

 

· Analysis

 

· Counterintelligence

 

· Covert Action

 

Intelligence Collection is the collection of Intelligence information,

secret or otherwise, through spying, interrogation, satellites, etc.

If the information is collected through spying or interrogation, it is

known as HUMINT (human intelligence). If it is collected through

technical means such as electronic eavesdropping or satellites, it is

known as TECHINT (technical intelligence). Open-source Intelligence

(OSINT) is information gathered from non-secret, public sources.

 

Intelligence Analysis is the assessment of collected raw intelligence

and the processing of it into usable intelligence product that can be

used to guide policy and operations.

 

Counterintelligence has as its mission the prevention of a foreign

intelligence service from obtaining intelligence information from

one's own country. In a preventative role, it ensures the employment

of security practices to safeguard information. In a more active

role, it conducts operations against enemy intelligence services; in

other words, it spies on the spies. Such action is often referred to

as spycatching.

 

Perhaps the most interesting and sinister field in Intelligence is

Covert Action (also referred to as Clandestine Operations, Black Ops,

and Black Operations). Some do not consider Covert Action as being

part of the traditional Intelligence mission, and they therefore

believe that it should be treated independently and even organized

within a separate organization. Others feel that, because it often

interrelates with Intelligence Operations and Counterintelligence

Operations, it should continue to remain within the same ruling

organization or apparatus.

 

There are many types of Covert Action operations, not all of them

violent. For example, if a government wishes to influence the

politics of another country's government, the government may secretly

fund an opposition party in that country in order to influence that

country's elections. Another method is to employ foreign newspaper

reporters to write articles that give the version of events, the

propaganda, that you want people to believe, even if it is the

furthest thing from the truth. Or perhaps the owners or editors of a

newspaper or media service can be bought or won over to allow articles

or news stories created by the Intelligence organization for

propaganda purposes to be planted in the newspaper or media service.

A slant can then be given to influence public perceptions. For

example, mercenaries can be referred to as " contractors " , thus making

people believe that casualties among the mercenaries are innocent

civilian construction workers who were unjustly victimized.

 

The main thing about Covert Action is that it must be deniable. There

is a term called " plausible deniability " . When a government

authorizes a covert action operation, the operation must be done in

such a way that the government can claim that it knows nothing about

it; in other words, the operation must not be attributable to the

government that authorized it.

 

Covert Action operations are often Disinformation Operations, which

are conducted in such a way as to discredit the opposition or the

enemy. This is done, for example, by doing a violent action, such as

a bombing, but making it look like the forces of another country or

group did it. Such operations are sometimes called False-Flag

Operations, meaning that the operation is conducted to make it look

like it was done by people serving under another flag, preferably the

enemy's flag. If the operation succeeds as designed, people will

blame the action on the wrong party (the enemy). Thus, public opinion

will be won over to the side that actually did the killing. Such

false-flag, covert action operations are often referred to as Dirty

Tricks.

 

The British regularly employed Covert Action operations in Ireland,

with the result that it is likely that the IRA often took the blame

for violent actions with which they had no involvement, although they

were hardly innocent players in the general mayhem. Many people

suspect that the Northern Irish bank robbery that occurred some time

back was actually a British Covert Action operation designed to make

the IRA take the blame, so that people would believe that the IRA was

not honouring the Good Friday Agreement. Incidentally, most of the

British Northern Irish bank notes taken were worthless old notes, so

they were no skin off anyone's teeth.

 

The policy in Iraq is to keep the country destabilized and on the

verge of civil war to show that it cannot govern itself and that it

therefore requires the continued presence of American and British

forces. The man accused of being behind much of the bombing going on

there is Al-Zarqawi, a man known to be dead for some time now. Also,

because he is (or, rather, was) a Sunni, bombings against the Shi'ia

population, if blamed on him and the Sunni insurgents, can keep the

pot of civil war simmering, thus giving further justification to

keeping American and British forces there.

 

Most recently, two British Covert Operations specialists were captured

in Basra, in Southern Iraq. They were disguised as Arabs and were

carrying bomb-making materials. When Iraqi police tried to apprehend

them, the two covert action operatives resisted arrest and killed two

policemen. They were eventually caught and held in jail. After the

British military learned that they had been captured, it sent tanks

into Basra to forcibly free the two men. An enraged mob attacked the

tanks with petrol bombs, and people around the world saw British

soldiers jumping out of a flaming tank and being stoned. The reaction

was one of sympathy for the British soldiers. Few stopped to wonder

what was behind the anger and the assault. Most were sympathetic

towards the " poor " British soldiers, who were perceived as being

unjustly victimized.

 

So, who is behind many of the bombings against the Shi'ia and Sunni

populations? It is quite possible, even probable, that many of them

are being carried out by American, British, and even Israeli Covert

Action operatives.

 

So, when you watch the news, think more deeply about what you're

seeing; and when you read your newspapers, try reading between the

lines or wonder about the source or the writer behind the article.

Has the article been planted? Is the writer in the pay of an

intelligence service?

J.V. Grady <scara9mouche is a former member of US Military

Intelligence