Pine Gap insider: a trumpet-blower, not whistle-blower

October 30, 2011
Issue 

Inside Pine Gap: The Spy Who Came in from the Desert
By David Rosenberg
Hardie Grant Books, 2011
216 pages, $35 (pb)

David Rosenberg found 1960s television show Mission Impossible “irresistible” with its patriotic tales of high-tech US government spies thwarting the “bad guys”.

After an 18-year career as a US National Security Agency (NSA) electronic signals analyst at the CIA’s Pine Gap spy base in Australia’s remote interior, Rosenberg’s book, Inside Pine Gap, makes it clear that he has yet to grow up.

An electrical engineer, Rosenberg worked at Pine Gap in Alice Springs from 1990 to 2008. Pine Gap is the electronic eavesdropping, ground control base for US satellites collecting foreign signals intelligence.

Rosenberg describes his role as analysing the military capabilities of countries “that pose a threat” to the US and Australia.

Rosenberg is keen to “debunk the myths, rumours and concerns of protest organisations” by stressing that Pine Gap “does not kill babies or civilians” because it “isn’t capable of initiating either the launch or activation of any weapons”.

This is highly questionable. There is well-founded suspicion that Pine Gap has been used to target bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rosenberg himself reveals that Pine Gap was important for guiding GPS-navigated US weapons in Iraq by countering Iraq’s GPS-jammers.

Even if Rosenberg’s claim of Pine Gap having its hands off weapons triggers is true, however, the claim of Pine Gap being non-lethal is merely trivially true. The intelligence “eyes and ears” of a modern army are essential to its war-fighting capabilities.

Rosenberg spent much of his time locating enemy military and strategic targets, the better for US bombs to find them. Pine Gap, as Rosenberg also shows, locates downed US pilots, the better to return them to their job of killing.

Even though Rosenberg found the George W Bush administration’s reasons for attacking Iraq in 2003 to be groundless, he and the rest of the largely sceptical spies at Pine Gap continued to perform their patriotic duty ― to “save the lives of Americans and Australians engaged in military operations”.

In other words, supporting a horrendous war by “supporting the troops”.

The CIA doesn’t run its largest spy base outside the US to provide an economic stimulus package for Alice Springs or to run a humanitarian mission during wars.

Pine Gap exists to defend the military, political and economic interests of US capitalism and to help fight wars for these interests when deemed necessary.

The very premise of Rosenberg’s book ― that it has been approved by the NSW and the Australian government ― invalidates the book as a true account of Pine Gap. Rosenberg is not so much a whistle-blower as a trumpet-blower, loudly peddling myths useful to US governments and their spy agencies.

Rosenberg is also a huckster flogging the saccharine reassurances about Pine Gap that its Australian government hosts resort to so readily ― even though no Australian parliamentarian is allowed to enter the base.

In 1975, then-prime minister Gough Whitlam made noises about closing Pine Gap.

Subsequent prime ministers have not made the same mistake nor suffered the same fate as Whitlam ― an undemocratic sacking for, among other things, threatening the cosy world of the US military, their political masters and the US corporations they all serve.

Comments

No doubt my comment will not be published... but one can try. This is a one sided typical "hippie greenie" view of things. I prefer to look at thinks scientifically, and really don't know what to make of pine gap through all the lies, myths and fallacies written about it. At the end of the day if it is a "war aid" it is to protect soldiers, whether it is to kill or find, taking out an enemy that would kill our soldiers is still saving their lives!!! Finding downed pilots is just that, finding them so the enemy doesn't commit barbaric atrocities against them. We want them home to their families, not so they can keep on killing. Military personnel are not killers they are just the tool, the politicians are the ones that pull the political trigger, military personnel are just the ones on the ground and need to be kept safe. Rather than writing one sided crap, how about writing something constructive and providing evidence and facts, or perhaps you do not have a university education which would have taught you this in the very basics of how to write a paper or article!!!!
Simple really-Pine Gap is used by the Yanks.The Yanks are the main imperialist power in the world,invading countries willy nilly and lecturing on 'human rights and democracy'.Pine Gap should be CLOSED.As should all Ameican bases in all countries that do not lie inside the boundaries of the United States.The best way to keep our soldiers safe is to not send them on missions to foreign countries at the behest of the other imperial powers.You can't practice self defense by attacking and occupying other countries.
"Finding downed pilots is just that, finding them so the enemy doesn't commit barbaric atrocities against them." One sided you say? So launching a missile into a bunker full of women and children is not barbaric? Sounds like you work in the military? If you do, then you are a braver man than I, however your bravery is misdirected and a waste of human spirit and strength.
If you really think that politicians pull the strings your as above "Delusional" The public don't a sprinling of what goe's on behind or under shuttered bunkers. If you put your trust in all this secrecy as we do this farce of a modern health system, with its current suppression of anything that is useful you will pay the ultimate price at the end of the day. We are being poisoned at least since the 80's water, food, air we breathe. GM food wasn't developed to feed a hungry world, it was released in the early 80's & guess what, we still have hunger in the world. We could back then produce 1.5 more food than the world needed but the will to do it was never a goal of the real pyramid of power. GM was developed for it's lack of nutrition & human genome destruction, you do not implant the (E.Coli) gene into food crops for the benefit of human health. What was the rate of cancer 50 years ago?? Today its almost 1 in 2 is this just a coincidence or is it the POISON we are eating!!! People constantly look to the skies for aliens asking themselves the question (are we alone), when they are on this planet already with us & more importantly before us. They are in league with the rotten element that control us all. However our numbers are growing along with our awareness, this worries them thats why we are being depopulated to a more desirable level of slavery to suit their needs. Unless we pull away from this current system we live under we will never evolve to anywhere near our capability & ultimately will be extinct. The choice is ours unity & evolution of our species or extinction at the hands of these evil things that control us.
Well said , sadly many will not see but if you look you can find all the information u need to learn the truth, we are all a sale, when watching the corporate news ask yourself what am I being sold today, what war or vaccine, Australia is a corporation, all the states have abn numbers and the crown has been removed without referendum from wa, qld and Vic, politicians are there to keep the people busy while a new agenda is put in place, drink up your fluoride and gm food, it will keep you submissive and asleep. Just my 2 cents, check out anewearth.com.au , politicians on trial
How is it brave to mow down an unarmed group of civilians 1500 metres away from an Apache helicopter ?

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