DARPA Scheme Still Stinks
Even After Being Laid To Rest

By Bill Finucane

At the start of the famous Sixties, when he was about to relinquish his powers as American president, Dwight David Eisenhower warned the American people to beware the military-industrial complex. It had begun to coalesce in an unhealthy manner during his two terms, and it showed signs of wielding massive influence in the future, Ike warned.

Now, nearly half a century later, the military-industrial complex thrives.

We’ve grown accustomed to it.

Even Ike, commanding general of all Allied forces in World War II and the president who unleashed the CIA to support a policy of propping up any government anywhere, whether it was autocratic, fascistic or totalitarian, so long as it was anti-Communist, would undoubtedly have cringed at the idea of Americans betting on the death of perceived enemies, but such a bizarre proposal was given an airing recently.

It was, if nothing else, a testament to how insidious the military-industrial complex is now, and how perverse it’s intellectual processes have become in the years since Ike’s conscience drove him to warn the nation about what had in fact been created on his watch.

It was to be called the Policy Analysis Market.

Joining to launch it were the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and two private companies: a firm called Net Exchange which deals in technology; and The Economist magazine’s Economist Intelligence Unit.

This ill-conceived program would have put on the futures market a whole new commodity. Death.

More specifically, it would have created a means by which Americans could bet on death in the Middle East. If you wanted to bet a certain amount that Yasser Arafat, the Palestine leader, was to be assassinated, you put your money on it and possibly a date or series of dates. If you disagreed with the stated bet, you could buy back the Yasser Arafat bet.

Futures, betting a certain action will or will not happen, was all it was; it was that simple. Only the things people were to bet on were other people’s lives. Contracts would be available. You could buy one on civil stability, economic robustness, military muscle and the United States involvement in economic or military spheres in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Already it sounds like a fiction, but it was put into mainstream discussion only months ago, and the Bush Administration gave it credence by its silence. Luckily, a couple of Democratic congressmen squashed this abomination before it gained any momentum, or became a larger embarrassment to the nation.

Incredibly, there was to be one wager item relating to the possibility of a North Korean missile attack. That betting category was pulled just before the program was unveiled.

But who could possibly have thought this would be an idea that Americans would consider or possibly approve?

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been around for a while, and wasn’t known for such bizarre projects; DARPA, for example, was instrumental at developing the Internet.

More recently, however, DARPA has been the target of critics. As well it should be, since its Terrorism Information Awareness program is a privacy concern. And by some remarkable intertwining of convenience, politics and old boy networking, it is none other than retired Admiral John Poindexter who leads the Terrorism Information Awareness program.

As a vice president of Syntek Technologies, a government contractor, Poindexter has long been associated with DARPA in developing a surveillance device called Genoa, which a Google search describes as "a surveillance device that's a combination cutting-edge search engine, sophisticated information harvesting program, and a ‘peer-to-peer’ file sharing system.  Kind of a military-grade Google/Napster for use in instant analysis of electronic data."

Poindexter gained fame working with Col. Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal, and when last seen in the national public eye, was on the wrong side of justice and the court system.

Poindexter was National Security Adviser under Ronald Reagan, but he was convicted of conspiracy, lying to Congress, defrauding the government, and destroying Iran Contra evidence during that scandal. So now, instead of being either behind bars or in retirement disgrace, he emerges from a planning section of the Pentagon with a new idea, but like his old ideas from the Iran Contra days, this new idea also lowers American standards and besmirches the nation’s reputation.

Now Mr. Poindexter emerges as the architect of a plan to create a betting pool of death called the Policy Analysis Market.

DARPA had planned to sell 1,000 contracts at a first offering, with an expectation that they would be sold by this month of October, and would expand to a total of 10,000 by Jan. 10^th, 2004. Pentagon brokers (or salespeople) were poised to start the market rolling in August, but that’s when the trouble began.

Two Democrats blew the whistle on the plan, and once it came to light in front of the nation, it was, thankfully, foredoomed. The two Democrats were Senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Roy Wyden of Oregon.

"The idea of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and it’s grotesque," said Wyden.

Dorgan added, "Can you imagine if another country set up a betting parlor so that people could go in … and bet on the assassination of an American political figure, or the overthrow of this institution or that institution?"

Americans would be outraged.

Oh the Poindexter’s of our nation might claim it’s just a ruse to flush out terrorists, but the power of money to push politics directly seems to have been overlooked. The focus seemed to be on finding a means to an end, regardless of morality or right and wrong; just employ large amount of money and see what turns up. The very idea is chilling.

According to the DARPA web site, government agencies would not have been allowed to bet on assassinations, terrorist acts, or coups around the globe, and, as contradictory as this seems, the identities of the bettors would be secret. The general idea seems to have been that by watching the betting, projections could be drawn as to where actions might take place, and in what time frames.

Even if that result were possible from the program, the horrors that this concept could bring one can only guess. Say I am Osama bin Laden, trying to figure on where and when to attack Baltimore or Baghdad or whatever city I please. All I need to do is lay down some "cleansed" money – passing it through laundering agents – and I win big money. Oh Muslim terrorists will die, surely. But terrorists want to die, very much.

Like the Kamikaze pilots of Japan in World War II, death is the way to salvation. The more victims the better, they believe. The crucial thing to be accomplished is to get my terrorist acts committed; and if I make a pile of Western money in the process, I’ve mocked my enemies as I slayed them.

Moreover, if I want to, I can fool the West by betting large amounts of cash in exactly the wrong place. America could station divisions in Afghanistan and I could launch my attack in Los Angeles. The scenarios are mind-boggling. I could swing United States forces thinly around the word and attack whatever site suited me. Of course there would probably be thousands of "innocents" betting on mayhem and murder throughout the world as well, and these bettors would have to be evaluated and discounted if the pentagon ‘brains’ were to sort out patterns of any value.

Let’s say you loved Israel but knew plans of a bombing in Tel Aviv, what would you do?

Or if you knew there was going be a coup in Iran next week and you were part of the conspiracy, wouldn’t it be wise to lay as much money as possible on the coup?

And how realistic would it have been to assume that the Pentagon and its planners would not try to determine who bet on what? Of course the government would try to identify people, since the premise seems to be to use money as a lure in the hope of unraveling terrorist activities or political conspiracies, or both. But what is most remarkable is that adults in apparent positions of true authority dreamed up this child-like fantasy; clearly Admiral Poindexter is as irresponsible today as he was nearly twenty years ago.

What is most surprising is that the plan got as far as it did. That is the truly frightening part.

After this incredible plan was aired, Democratic Leader Tom Dashle of North Dakota described it as a "plan to trade in death."

Even Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist asked Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Armed Services Chairman John Warner, R-Va., to ensure this futures market was never funded. Of course the Congress does not get to know what happens to a large part of its military budget because it is classified. If the military wants, it can hide millions, so who knows where this plan may wind up.

That’s why Senators Wyden and Dorgan should not let this drop, but should instead muster up some support for an investigation. Yet someone other than admirals and generals has to conduct it. But what is even more important than naming names and firing the misguided people that did the DARPA work, such an investigation’s primary focus should be to create a review process of new programs and the concepts that drive their creation.