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CIA vet addresses media sensationalism with Front Range GOP club | A LOOK BACK

By 02/08/2025 | updated 10 months ago

Thirty-Five Years Ago This Week: “In 1988, there were 900 terrorist incidents and 400 deaths internationally,” said 22-year CIA veteran Lawrence Sulc. But “psychological terror is out of proportion with reality because of media hype of terrorist incidents,” he added.

After retiring from the CIA in 1975, Sulc joined Accuracy in Media, a non-profit organization dedicated to investigating complaints about the media and exposing “misdeeds” to the public and concerned officials.

Sulc told the Arapahoe County Republican Party Men’s Club that while terrorism was an immediate concern to Americans, so too was the handling of incidents by the media. The near panic the media instilled in American tourists, Sulc argued, was economically damaging and needlessly panic instilling as terrorists “exercise little discrimination” in who they attack and, therefore, “anyone and everyone could be a target.”

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Therefore, “the key to fighting terrorism is through increasing and improving the use of central intelligence,” Sulc said, “and not by inflating the fear of terrorism among the nation’s citizens.”

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Central Intelligence was also being used to not only dismantle the support networks that provided transportation, weapons, passports, and safe houses but also disrupt the influence of countries like the USSR.

“If the USSR stopped promoting terrorism tomorrow,” Sulc said, “the momentum it has established would continue terrorism for years. We must decide if we have the will to act against terrorism.”

Fifteen Years Ago: “At first people say, ‘What are you talking about: climate change and national security?’” said Navy veteran of 24 years Rick Hegdall. “And then people understand. If we buy fuel from unstable areas, the cost of that fuel is more than we pay at the pump.”

Hegdall spoke to The Colorado Statesman during the Veterans for American Power National Tour stop in Denver. Sponsored by Operation Free, the two-month nationwide tour held events in major cities to discuss the United States’ dependence on foreign oil and how continuing to purchase that oil would lead to funding of terrorist organizations and destabilizing climate change.

Most of the veterans on the tour had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and offered poignant first-hand accounts of their harrowing wartime service. The veterans claimed it was vital that the US government invest in green jobs, not only for the strong economic benefits.

“Our military is being used, our treasury and most importantly lives are at stake, keeping the oil flowing to us,” said Hegdall. “Green jobs will never be outsourced.”

Rep. Joe Rice, D-Littleton, himself an Iraq War Veteran, stressed the need for clean energy so energy policy would not enter into the discussion when deciding whether or not to go to war.

“Our dependence on foreign oil is in our decision cycle concerning national security and international relations, particularly when we deal with countries in the Middle East,” said Rice. “What we would like to be able to do is get energy out of that decision cycle. We may still have moral obligations or other security interests in the Middle East, but we can at least take energy out of the equation.”

Operation Free volunteer Robin Eckstein served in Iraq in 2003 as a truck driver. Eckstein recounted driving from Bagdad Airport to various outposts around the country to deliver water and fuel. The daily drive, Eckstein said, was under constant risk of IEDs and sniper fire.

“If we could have made just one less trip a week when delivering fuel, we could have been that much safer,” Eckstein said. “A more fuel-efficient army is a safer one.”

Senate President Brandon Shaffer, D-Longmont, praised the unflagging work of Veterans for American Power.

“There is great synergy between what we’re doing under the dome and what these veterans are doing out on the road.”

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels, including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.

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