When Madness Rules

As a rule, I take anything from World Net Daily with a large dose of salt. They are not, to put it bluntly, very careful about checking out their facts. I read them for a combination of amusement and thought-poking concepts. So it was that while doing some looking into anecdotal information about SIOP, the highly-classified war plan for America’s nuclear arsenal, that I came across an article about the Reverend Curt Tomlin.

I am extremely reluctant to quote much from Tomlin, who may fairly be called an extremist and a conspiracist. I mention him now, because of something I noticed in a WND article from 1998, which got me thinking. And those thoughts trouble me.

First, about Tomlin. David Bresnahan, the WND writer who put together the story, focused on Tomlin for his information, so everything he claims is no stronger than the credentials of Curt Tomlin. And Mister Tomlin seems to think very highly of himself. First off, while he claims to be a minister now, Tomlin also claims – and I quote – to have been “called out of retirement three times and has served in the Navy, Air Force, and Army for a combined total of just over 24 years. He has also been hired by government contractors to assist in computer intelligence systems designed to improve security for military computer systems.”

Just how many people do you know, who have served in more than one branch of the services, much less three? But wait, there’s more. Tomlin also claims – personally – to be the single person who “designed and perfected the Pentagon's first war games computer system, the top secret "Single Integrated Operating Procedure." He claims to be a retired U.S. Army Major, who served during the JFK Administration as a Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy.

OK, for those playing along at home, SIOP is called the “Single Integrated Operational Plan”; you’d think someone with intimate knowledge of it could get the name right? And if you think a single individual designed, programmed, and perfected SIOP, well, let’s just say that notion is more than slightly distant from the facts. While it is true that “SIOP-ESI” clearance is above “Top Secret”, there are quite a few people who hold it, and the heart of SIOP comes from field officers who can explain why ‘X’ or ‘Y’ will or will not work; the notion that a single computer systems engineer who never held command rank would hold comprehensive knowledge of the database, let alone the decisioning, is laughable. I will be blunt – Curt Tomlin is lying, not a good trait for a man of the cloth.

Basically, that 1998 article in WND is your basic pack-o-lies, written as near as I can tell for the express purpose of smearing Bill Clinton, to make him look like a desperate and reckless fool, likely to kill innocent people just to make himself look good. Kind of like the tripe we can read in ‘Newsweek’ when they start trying to smear President Bush. What bothered me was this section. I quote from the article:

“Clinton had tried to become an international hero by destroying hundreds of terrorists being trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons plant in Sudan. Those two missile attacks were chosen through use of the SIOP computer to which Clinton has access, according to Tomlin.

“The computer predicted the result of the attacks would bring about the death of hundreds of terrorist forces and eliminate a chemical weapons factory. Someone intervened to change the results, according to an intelligence source who spoke only on condition of anonymity.”

Think about that for a moment. If this claim has any relation to reality whatsoever – and it may not – then President Clinton correctly targeted a major training base for Al Qaeda and a chemical weapons plant, and someone who did not want him to look good changed the targeting and tipped off the terrorists. Let that notion sink in for a moment.

Did that happen? Probably not. But the idea that someone in the Intelligence Community would not only disagree with the President of the United States, but actually work to prevent an American victory, is chilling. It is chilling because we have learned that some in the Intelligence Community deliberately leaked secrets to the press rather than obey their sworn oaths.

We have learned that high-level CIA officials allowed an enemy of the President special access for the specific purpose of attacking the President at a crucial time and on crucial issues.

We know that the CIA gets involved in U.S. political debates, picking a side when it serves personal or department advantages.

Whether one is a Republican or a Democrat, a Conservative or a Liberal, this should make you think.