Posts with the tag CIA

BULLETS SENT TO THE PRESIDENT via WHITE HOUSE WEB SITE (14Nov2009)

David W. Kent — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Get out of Afghanistan, pass meaningful healthcare and if it fails, move on.

Regulate financial industries. Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs.

Stop building unwanted bridges and schools in Afghanistan. We need them at home.

The terrorist are not warriors. They have no army to blow up. We give them creditability calling their gang an army.

The FBI and CIA can chase them. Use the law to prosecute them, jails to hold them and the electric chair to kill them.

Stop spending our precious resources outside of the country and spend it at home.

Don't become "Bushed!"

Stand by the progressives, discipline the blue dogs and bring bills to the floor. If they don't pass it is OUR job (not yours alone) to fix it.

Oh, most important to you. You're not only slipping in the polls, you are losing your base. I love ya, but sometimes action is better than wimpy results!!

Stop enjoying yourself soo.... much. We are living hard lives and are trying to get through tough times.

Where is the "OLD" Barack? Bring him back and if bills go up or down, we will at least have a great time trying.

Good Luck, I am still in your camp for now. I don't think I can afford to give any more money. At least not until things change.

Diario español critica política de Obama hacia Latinoamérica

Dr. Von Dereck — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:11:49 EDT

Madrid, 17 Ago. ABN.- El diario español Público criticó este lunes en duros términos la política aplicada hacia América Latina por el gobierno estadounidense de Barack Obama, en su medio año de administración.

Al hacer un balance de la gestión de Obama en política exterior, el matutino madrileño concluye que el primer mandatario estadounidense mantiene las mismas relaciones con Latinoamérica desarrolladas por su antecesor, George W. Bush.

Recuerda que cuatro meses después de la V Cumbre de las Américas de Trinidad y Tobago, el gobernante no modificó ni un ápice la estrategia hacia la región, como prometió en aquella ocasión.

Obama aseguró entonces que los hechos demostrarían la nueva era de relaciones entre su país y América Latina, una época en la que la potencia norteña no trataría de dictar los términos, como había ocurrido en anteriores administraciones, subraya Público, reseñado por la agencia de noticias Prensa Latina.

En su extenso artículo, titulado Las palabras y los hechos de Obama en Latinoamérica, el importante diario admite que en este medio año de presidencia demócrata, el mandatario estadounidense tiene ante sí demasiados frentes abiertos.

Entre ellos cita la lucha contra la crisis económica, la reforma sanitaria, el cambio energético hacia un modelo más ecológico y una política exterior que transcurre por otros meridianos del planeta.

Sin embargo, a juicio de Antonio Lafuente, autor de la nota, ninguno de esos problemas justifica que Obama ni siquiera haya cambiado embajadores en el continente, donde mayoritariamente mantiene a diplomáticos nombrados por Bush.

El exceso de trabajo es el argumento esgrimido para delegar su política hacia el área en su secretaria de Estado, Hillary Clinton, quien mantiene buenas relaciones con representantes de los antiguos intereses en Latinoamérica, destaca Lafuente.

Esos eventos explican que, tras afirmar que América Latina dejaría de ser su histórico patio trasero, Washington mantiene los intereses nacionales de antaño a través de una “diplomacia suave”, dijo a Público un experto del Institute for Policy Studies.

Entre esos intereses figura la conclusión de los tratados de libre comercio pendientes de firmar en la región (Panamá y Colombia), tal y como declaró el representante de Comercio estadounidense, Ron Kir, tras la Cumbre de las Américas.

Para el analista del citado instituto, esa tesis contradice las promesas de campaña de Obama de volver a negociar esos pactos, con el objetivo de que sirvieran a las necesidades de los pueblos y no a los estrechos intereses de las corporaciones.

El propio experto aseveró a Público que la Casa Blanca, a través de Hillary Clinton, retomó tanto la agenda de seguridad como la política comercial de Bush, mediante una iniciativa conocida como Caminos para la Prosperidad en las Américas.

Ese denominado Plan B de la fallida Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas pretende continuar con las reglas que rigen la economía liberal y socavar proyectos regionales alternativos como el ALBA y la UNASUR, denuncia el informante.

Para Lafuente, quizás los dos mejores termómetros con los que medir la política exterior de Obama en el continente son Honduras y Colombia.

En el primero, único país centroamericano en el que Washington tiene una base, Obama ha sido criticado por no respaldar con hechos su rechazo verbal al golpe de Estado contra el mandatario constitucional Manuel Zelaya.

Parece confundir el venerable e históricamente ajeno a Estados Unidos principio de no intervención, con la obligación y el derecho que tiene de cortar lazos comerciales, económicos y políticos con un Gobierno que él mismo reconoce como golpista, agrega.

En el caso de Colombia parece contradecirse, pues si no quiere ser el policía de la región no debería desembarcar allí, donde instalará siete bases militares, una decisión que levantó protestas y gran preocupación en toda la región, señala.

Para rematar, Lafuente manifiesta que otro termómetro útil para medir la política de Washington es Cuba, que sufre hace más de cinco décadas un férreo bloqueo económico y comercial por parte de la potencia norteña.

Obama apenas abolió algunas restricciones, una acción que tan sólo ha supuesto un retorno a la estrategia de William Clinton, concluye.

Must watch Documentary Flow - For Love of Water Directed by Irena Salina

Peter from Carrollton, TX — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:38:18 EDT

Must watch Documentary Flow - For Love of Water Directed by Irena Salina “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” –W.H.Auden

Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis.

Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world’s dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question “CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?”

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround. (Excerpt from main website)

Please visit the official website for more information:
http://www.flowthefilm.com

Click the Fullscreen Button for a larger version.

http://politicalpete.com/forum/index.php

http://politicalpete.com/

Dick Cheney and Torture - Torture is an International and US Crime

Unknown user — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:41:41 EDT

Torture is an international and US crime.

Does the United States want to be or look like the street thug, an international bully, or an international criminal to alienate allies, used for propaganda to recruit terrorists and increase terrorism?

Does the Unites States stand for Justice, with the justification to go after international criminals where ever they hide, with the support of allies and the international community?

CIA - Central Intelligence Agency

Khaidji — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:03:29 EDT

Recently there was a statement that suggested that the CIA lied to the Congress of the United States of America. This has met with much discussion and even appeals for Nancy Pelosi having been the person accusing the CIA, to resign. Maybe I’m mistake but is this, the same CIA that operates under a cloak of deception. That has employees who lie to their families about actual being an agent. Isn’t it also the CIA that supplied information to the last administration into a pointless war?

CIA-Central Intelligence Agency

Can’t Include All the Constant Inappropriate Alibis

Everybody knows the Agency is built on deception and lies

Nancy didn’t know her husband of 10 years

To be Collaborating In Assignations, not like what he appears

Ronald Comes Into Airports and with the greatest of ease

Arranges to pass through without examination for disease

Like a Conceal Identity Arranged this special pass

I Can’t Imagine Allowing some Contaminations In, Alas

No one should have the kind of clout

To keep Compromising It All as they travel about

Effectively transferring disease like the Swine Flu

Let this epidemic become pandemic by the stupidity they do

Like my friend who Covertly Indulges Adultery

Incorporates his Creative Inventive Aliases for infidelity

Government’s Clandestine Indecent Actions in guise of work

Evil man calling himself patriotic but I call him a jerk

Night and day he goes about in his double life

Cold Ignorant Asinine fool who lies to his wife

Every one working there or at least the majority

Are working in a Corrupted Intolerant Agency

Government people trained to deceive with lovers glances

Every one of them Coming Into Acute circumstances

Never Could I Agree to a job that requires such deceptions

Change I Accepted and now most Countries Imagine Americans

You Can Install A more truthful Central Intelligence Agency

To: Newt Gingrich

Thomas S. Kelly — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:49:36 EDT

I fail to understand why the Bushies and the Neocons want to take down the whole of the CIA just so they can put another notch in the proverbial belt when they have finished having had their way with the American Public and Nancy Pelosi (D - CA). I believe this is this un-American and below even an aspiring politician such as Newt Gingrich.

Hey Newt, citizen-to-citizen I believe you’re a loser who should shut-up and do something meaningful with your time off rather than continue to hurt this Country and its citizens and the elected officials who serve them.

Like Father – Like Daughter

Tom Awtry — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:22:05 EDT

I to would like to see Donald Rumsfelt, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet face charges, but first I want to see how our current administration handles this black mark on our country’s history, without outside interference. Basically, whose going to align themselves on whose side.

Think about it for a moment – Here’s Dick Cheney with every opportunity he can get a hold of, to voice his displeasure with any and all of Obama’s policies with the media; what other former Vice Presidents has done that? Not a one!

Now his daughter is getting into the act:

Liz Cheney Defends Father ‘Dick Cheney’ Torture Legacy/Policies

So Why, easy, to confuse along with attempting to defuse the issue at hand, his own personal involvement with authorizing torture.

Rice, Cheney Approved Waterboarding
Associated Press

The Director of Central Intelligence in the spring of 2003 sought a reaffirmation of the legality of the interrogation methods. Cheney, Rice, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales were among those at a meeting where it was decided that the policies would continue. Rumsfeld and Powell weren’t.

Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:

Europe Back Off and Stay Out

Tom Awtry — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:07:43 EDT

Nuremberg Trials

America, as all countries today, is undergoing a vast amount of change; however there exists a hopefully small number of individuals within our country who in essence mistakenly subscribe to the notion “the Bush doctrine on terror” was correct and righteous, which includes the use of torture to obtain supposed Intel information.

I believe our President is taking the right steps, as he promised during his campaign to “right the wrongs” of our country’s past eight years of injustice regarding our treatment of combative detainees. First by releasing the Bush Administration’s memos condoning torture (listed here and here also here), which he followed up by insuring his release would not produce a witch hunt (as some want) by traveling to CIA’s Headquarters and assuring employees individual prosecution would not be presumed and finally, most importantly turned the entire matter over to our Justice Department and directly to Eric Holder, the Attorney General.

On this past Wednesday (22 Apr 09) an article in the Washington Post, authored by Craig Whitlock, of Washington Post’s Foreign Service Department and entitled: “European Nations May Investigate Bush Officials Over Prisoner Treatment” confirms my beliefs by the following excerpt:

On Tuesday, Obama for the first time raised the possibility of creating a bipartisan commission to examine the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism suspects. He also said he would leave it up to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to determine whether to prosecute senior officials who approved waterboarding and other tactics.

This was further confirmed in a statement published by the American Civil Liberties Union, entitled: “Attorney General Holder Says He Will “Follow The Law” And Investigate Torture” where the following excerpt stated:

Attorney General Eric Holder said today that the Justice Department will “follow the law wherever it takes us” in investigating the U.S. officials behind the CIA torture policies under the Bush administration.

Europe, you have every obligation and right to legally pursue whatever action you feel is appropriate, but please let our present administration do what they can to correct these past “wrongs”; in our way of first and let America reestablish itself under the “Rule of Law”.

A.G. Holder: Investigate Torture

The people who authorized Bush’s torture program shouldn’t get off scot-free. It’s time for Attorney General Holder to appoint an independent special prosecutor.

Update 23 Apr 09:

Clinton Questions Cheney’s Credibility: “I Don’t Consider Him A Particularly Reliable Source Of Information”
Huffington Post | Nicholas Graham

The sensitive topic of the release of the torture memos came to the forefront when Republican Rep. Dana Rohrbacker asked Clinton if she agreed with Dick Cheney’s request that documents ostensibly showing the efficacy of the torture programs should be declassified. Clinton ultimately replied that she believes “we ought to get to the bottom of this entire matter” and that it “is in the best interest of our country” to do so, but not before she took a shot at Cheney’s credibility, saying “I don’t consider him to be a particularly reliable source of information.”

Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:

Stephen Views the News April 21, 2009

Stephen from Elkins Park, PA — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:04:01 EDT

Stephen Views the News April 21, 2009

http://stephenviewsthenews.blogspot.com/

Tea and Torture on a Spring Day

* The prestidigitation of the political right – There was much ado about very little with last week’s tax day Tea-Bagging protests about taxes and an assortment of sometimes hate-filled accusations. Although it was billed as a populist movement of significant proportions it was neither populist nor populous.

The event was repeatedly promoted by FOX News. While some consider FOX News a news station what it has demonstrated over the last 10 years is that it is the public relations arm of the Republican Party. FOX silence was telling on the subject of federal spending during the years that Bush and Republicans blew through the Clinton budget surplus and proceeded to build huge deficits. Who were the other movers and shakers behind Tea-Bagging?

Americans for Prosperity – a right wing think tank funded by billionaire David Koch. Koch Industries was fined $35 million dollars in 2000 for oil spills resulting from eroded and broken pipelines. “During the 1990s, the firm's faulty pipelines were responsible for more than 300 oil spills in five states, prompting a penalty of $35 million. In 1996, a flawed pipeline caused an explosion outside of Dallas in which two teenagers were killed. In a lawsuit related to the deaths, a trial court returned a judgment of $376.69 million against the company. Now there is a populist face to put on your tea bag tag.

The Independence Institute – This very conservative think tank is funded by the Coors Foundation’s Castle Rock Foundation both of whom advocate for the wealthy interests and their privileged needs. Just because they supply beer to the masses does not mean they are interested in the masses beyond the purchase of the next six-pack.

FreedomWorks – An organization that supports and promotes the interests of lobbyist Dick Armey. Those interests include Bristol-Myers Squibb, the insurance industry, and oil interests. Armey opposes health reform that would cut into the profits of branded drugs, works for deregulated life insurance reform and supports the status quo reliance on fossil fuels. Not to go unnoticed, none of these issues are in the interests of the American people.

The funders of the Tea-Bagging movement are to populism what the Republican Party was to the religious right. It is the illusion of representing the interests of a broad segment of the citizenry while in fact representing the interests of a select few. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had the appropriate response to the Tea-Bagging magical mystery tour. “The president, he stressed, had just recently passed a ‘tax cut that covers the most people in the history of this country’…The president promised significant tax relief for working families of this country, and in the first month of the administration delivered that to the American people.”

What are the facts concerning U.S. tax policy? A report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Federal Tax Burdens for Most Near Their Lowest Levels in Decades” concludes: Overall Federal Tax Burdens Are Low by Historical Standards; Federal Individual Income Tax Burdens Have Fallen Significantly; and Tax Burdens Have Dropped Most Sharply for the Highest-Income Households. I would suggest that this is what the Tea-Bagging rallies were about. It involved the wealthiest of society protecting their privileged tax concessions which they manipulated through congress in recent decades. And the sly shysters at FOX carried their water. What is being touted as a grassroots movement is little more than an assroots movement ensconced in deception and illusion.

John Perr at Crooks and Liars compiled a list of 10 Republican Tax Day Lies. They are listed below and the link provides fuller explanations:

1. President Obama will raise taxes on small businesses.

2. The estate tax devastates small businesses and family farms.

3. 40% of Americans pay no taxes.

4. Tax cuts always increase revenue.

5. The GOP is the party of fiscal discipline.

6. Ronald Reagan was the greatest tax cutter of all time.

7. FDR caused the Great Depression, or at least made it worse.

8. Obama's cap-and-trade plan will cost each American family $3,100 a year.

9. Obama's tax proposals will undermine charitable giving.

10. The rich pay too much in taxes already.

* The Torture Memos –Obama’s release of Bush’s Justice Department torture memos showed courage and at the same time focused attention once again on some of the moral and legal issues these memos engender. It required courage to go against the national security community, some of his advisors and the bulk of the political right. These memos broke laws and their release exposes the shrewd but amoral reasoning used by the Bush appointees who concocted these “justifications.” And make no mistake! U.S. laws and international laws were broken, as pointed out by constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. How many times in the last two decades have we heard conservatives lecture about the rule of law, at least until the law is an inconvenient truth? Our laws, including international treaties, exist apart from political party or political perspective. They exist regardless of issue or circumstance.

My ambiguity about the CIA interrogators empowered by these memos uncomfortably surfaced when Obama said that CIA operatives would not be prosecuted for committing torture. This is a difficult subject to embrace from either side. From one standpoint if one thought that they were following the law they should be free of prosecution. And yet, the Nuremburg trials concluded that this was not a satisfactory defense. This is not an attempt to equate the widespread inhuman acts of the Nazi regime against innocent and defenseless people to what occurred at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and secret prison sites. It is a question of where one draws the line. It is my strong feeling that the line must not be subject to situational ethics. It is also a matter that these operatives were burdened with directives that stemmed from the Bush administration’s strained attempts to circumvent the law. It is interesting that when Obama said that CIA personnel involved in these interrogations would not be prosecuted there was no mention of a pass for the people that designed and authorized these programs. Perhaps there will be consequences but in either case we are at least addressing this difficult and challenging subject. Democracy and morality are not always easy and the fact that we question our actions in an open forum only adds gravitas to the proud claims we proclaim as a nation.

* Quotes of the Week:

~ Richard Armitage, second in command at the State Department under George W. Bush, said in an interview (about the torture of detainees), "I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign,"

~ “The image of the United States of America throughout the world (committing torture) is a recruiting tool for Islamic extremists.” John McCain 4/20/09

* “The healthy man does not torture others - generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers”Carl Gustav Jung (1875 – 1961) Swiss psychiatrist

Atas Nama HAM, Salah Alamat Jika Obama Disalahkan Soal Teknik Integorasi Tangani Terorisme Yang Membuat Nilai Hukum & HAM Seakan “Tetanus” Di Era Bush

Mega Simarmata — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 07:41:10 EDT

DIMUAT DI WWW.KATAKAMI.COM & WWW.REDAKSIKATAKAMI.WORDPRESS.COM

Jakarta 18 April 2009 (KATAKAMI) Kadang-kadang, ada manusia yang sulit untuk membaca tanda-tanda perubahan zaman yang arahnya sudah begitu positif dan sangat pantas dihargai.

Radio BBC London memberitakan tentang diumbarnya rasa kecewa kelompok HAM tertentu kepada Presiden AS Barack Obama yang dinilai enggan mengadili agen-agen rahasia Dinas Intelijen AS (CIA) karena menggunakan teknik integorasi yang kejam sepanjang era kepemimpinan Presiden BUSH.

Kita simak dulu berita selengkapnya dari Radio BBC London :

16 April, 2009 - Published 20:58 GMT

Obama membuat kecewa

Kelompok hak asasi manusia di Amerika Serikat menyatakan kecewa bahwa agen CIA tidak akan diadili dalam soal teknik interogasi di masa Bush.

Para pegiat menyambut baik keputusan Gedung Putih menerbitkan rincian teknik interogasi yang sekarang sudah dilarang oleh Presiden Barack Obama.

Namun kelompok hak asasi mengatakan keputusan untuk tidak mengadili para agen itu merupakan kegagalan menegakkan hukum di negara tersebut.

Yang lainnya membela dengan mengatakan integorasi itu telah membuat Amerika Serikat lebih aman.

Mantan ketua CIA, Michael Hayden, yang menjalankan badan tersebut di bawah kepemimpinan Bush mengatakan langkah Gedung Putih ini akan mengganggu tugas-tugas intelejen, dan membuat badan asing enggan berbagi informasi dengan CIA.

Penerbitan laporan

Sebelumnya, Amerika Serikat menerbitkan empat memo rahasia yang merinci alasan hukum untuk cara interogasi CIA yang dilakukan pada masa Bush.

Para pengkritik program interogasi itu mengatakan cara yang digunakan itu sama dengan penyiksaan.

Presiden Barack Obama juga menerbitkan satu pernyataan yang menjamin bahwa tidak ada staf CIA yang akan dihukum karena perbuatan mereka dalam program interogasi itu.

Sebagian orang di CIA menghendaki agar sejumlah bagian memo itu tidak dipublikasikan, khawatir kalau-kalau penerbitan secara penuh akan memicu gugatan hukum terhadap para agen rahasia, kata laporan itu.

Penerbitan memo-memo itu berasal dari permintaan kelompok pembela hak sipil American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Teknik kejam

Tiga di antara dokumen tersebut dtulis pada bulan Mei 2005 oleh orang yang waktu itu menjabat kepala Kantor Penasihat Hukum Departemen Kehakiman, Stephen G. Bradbury.

Mereka memberikan dukungan legal untuk penggunaan kombinasi berbagai teknik pemaksaan, dan menyimpulkan bahwa cara yang dipakai CIA tidak “kejam, tak manusiawi, atau melecehkan” berdasarkan hukum internasional.

Obama, adalah pemimpin yang konsisten pada janjinya. Ini yang harusnya sangat cepat disadari, dikenali, dirasakan dan diakui oleh rakyat AS sendiri. Walaupun bergabung dalam sebuah wadah kelompok pembela hak sipil sekalipun, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) harus adil dan cerdas dalam “membaca” bagaimana karakter kepemimpinan yang membanggakan dari Obama.

Memang betul bahwa berbagai tindak penyiksaan yang terjadi sepanjang masa pemerintahan Presiden Bush terkait penanganan terorisme, sangat amat memalukan bagi AS.

Itulah sebabnya, Obama menjanjikan bahwa jika ia terpilih sebagai Presiden AS maka yang pertama akan dilakukannya adalah menutup kamp tahanan Guantanamo di Kuba.

Dan apa yang terjadi ?

Persis di hari pertama Obama bekerja secara resmi di Gedung Putih sebagai Presiden AS yang ke-44, memo pertama yang ditanda-tanganinya adalah keputusan untuk menutup Penjara Guantanamo dengan kebijakan bahwa penutupan itu secara resmi akan dilakukan paling lambat satu tahun setelah keputusan itu ditanda-tangani. Artinya, Penjara Guantanamo akan ditutup pada bulan Januari 2010.

Kami menuliskan hal ini secara khusus lewat tulisan berjudul “Misteri Angka Satu Presiden Obama Yang Antiklimaks”.

Mengapa kami sebut antiklimaks ?

Ya sebab masa satu tahun itu termasuk sangat lama untuk dinantikan oleh para tahanan yang ada di Penjara Guantanamo, jika patut dapat diduga penjara itu hanyalah kedok untuk melakukan berbagai tindakan penyiksaan kepada warga negara asing yang ditangkapi seenaknya saja dan ditahan disana hanya untuk disiksa. Tidak ada proses hukum yang diberikan dan tidak ada juga akses apapun yang diberikan kepada negara yang menjadi tanah kelahiran atau tempat asal para tahanan disana.

Sehingga, keputusan untuk menutup setahun ke depan rasanya terlalu lama. Mengapa bukan menutupnya sebulan setelah Presiden Obama menanda-tangani keputusan itu ?

Bayangkan kalau dalam sehari saja, semua tahanan disana tetap mendapatkan penyiksaan fisik. Maka, mereka harus sangat tabah dan kuat sekuat-kuatnya untuk tetap disiksa selama 364 hari berturut-turut. Alangkah lamanya penderitaan itu.

Iya kalau misalnya mereka memang bersalah. Tapi bagaimana kalau mereka samasekali tidak bersalah ? Hak apa yang mau dikedepankan untuk menjadi pembenaran bahwa agen-agen rahasia CIA dan seluruh petugas disana bisa menyiksa warga negara orang lain “seenak udel-nya sendiri” ?

Tetapi, fokus utama yang harus dicermati disini adalah Presiden Obama menepati janjinya untuk menutup penjara itu.

Entah itu sebulan atau setahun kemudian, tetapi state policy atau kebijakan negara (AS) sudah dikeluarkan dan tak bisa ditarik lagi.

Presiden Obama tak berhenti sampai disitu. Ia membuka kepada publik tentang adanya memo-memo rahasia yang membenarkan dan menjadi landasan bagi agen-agen rahasia CIA melakukan teknik integorasi dengan cara penyiksaan fisik yang begitu kejam.

Secara politik, patut dapat diduga kebijakan pemerintahan Presiden Obama membuka rahasia era Bush kepada publik terkait kekejaman teknik interogasi itu bisa dipandang sebagai sebuah sign atau tanda kepada Bush dan jajarannya bahwa mereka punya banya kelemahan dan kekurangan yang bersifat fatal sekali.

Secara politik, patut dapat diduga Presiden Obama bermaksud untuk meminta perhatian dari seluruh perangkat yang bertugas dibawah pemerintahan Bush agar jangan coba-coba untuk membuat lebih banyak permasalahan yang merepotkan AS (terutama pemerintahan Obama sendiri).

Lalu, kalau sekarang Presiden Obama yang dinilai mengecewakan karena “state policy” yang dikeluarkan tidak mencakup proses hukum terhadap seluruh agen rahasia CIA yang melakukan penyiksaan itu, hal ini justru menjadi tanda tanya besar.

Lho, mengapa Obama yang dipersalahkan ?

Dengan menilai bahwa Obama mengecewakan karena tidak memerintahkan agar para agen rahasia CIA diadili, maka penilaian ini yang justru keliru dan perlu diluruskan.

Obama tidak mengecewakan siapapun, entah itu rakyat AS atau publik dunia.

Pasti ada sesuatu yang sifatnya sangat mendasar sehingga ditempuh kebijakan yang formatnya memberikan nuansa yang sangat “win-win solution”.

Proses peradilan yang dituntutkan kepada para agen rahasia CIA itu, tak mungkin hanya dilakukan kepada para agen rahasia tersebut. Tetapi harus terus bergulir sampai ke tingkat atas.

Bahkan, sampai kepada orang per orang yang menuliskan memo-memo rahasia berisi landasan atau menjadi pegangan bagi “aparat dibawah” untuk melaksanakan apa yang diperintahkan oleh atasan.

Bukan tak mungkin, proses peradilan itu bisa menembus ke Pejabat Gedung Putih semasa pemerintahan Presiden Bush.

Hingga puncaknya, justru patut dapat diduga bisa menjadi bumerang yang menempatkan Mantan Presiden Bush sebagai tersangka (juga).

Yang menjadi akar permasalahan terkait penyiksaan-penyiksaan kepada para tahanan di Penjara Guantanamo itu, sekarang sudah diredam, dikendalikan, ditekan dan dihilangkan oleh Presiden Obama.

Pelan-pelan, penjara Guantanamo akan ditutup.

Pelan-pelan, sambil menunggu proses penutupan itu maka seluruh landasan atau pegangan tertulis yang menjadi alat pembenaran terjadinya penyiksaan-penyiksaan kepada para tahanan sudah dicabut oleh Presiden Obama.

Para tahanan yang memang bisa dikembalikan ke negara asalnya masing-masing, sudah mulai dkembalikan. Lalu sisanya, dialihkan ke beberapa negara yang memang bersedia menampung para tahanan Guantanamo.

Kadang-kadang, tudingan yang asbun atau asal bunyi saja tetapi mengatas-namakan Hak Azasi Manusia (HAM), justru mengundang rasa prihatin dari publik dunia.

Apakah terlalu sulit untuk kelompok HAM tersebut untuk memberikan waktu dan kesempatan kepada Presiden mereka sendiri untuk membenahi betapa morat-maritnya penanganan terorisme sepanjang masa pemerintahan Presiden Bush ?

Jangan karena membawa isu HAM, maka dianggap sah-sah saja menuding Presiden Obama begini dan begitu dalam konotasi negatif.

Apa yang telah dilakukan oleh Presiden Obama selama 3 bulan pertama masa kekuasaannya ini terkait penanganan terorisme, sudah sangat baik sekali dan patut dihargai oleh siapapun.

Obama memberikan atmosfir yang kondusif dalam hal penanganan terorisme. Ia tak mau lagi secara bombastis mengumbang motto PERANG MELAWAN TEROR.

Obama tak mau lagi, atas nama PERANG MELAWAN TEROR maka AS memamerkan arogansi kekuasaan dan terus bertindak sewenang-wenang. Dan tindakan sewenang-wenang itu, patut dapat diduga ditiru juga oleh segelintir orang yang selama ini dilatih dan diberi kemudahan dalam segala peningkatan kemampuan diri masing-masing dalam hal penanganan terorisme di di negara-negara tertentu.

Ya bayangkan saja, sepanjang Bush berkuasa (pasca serangan teroris 11 September 2001 di AS), begitu atraktif dan agresif sekali terjadi peledakan-peledakan bom di beberapa negara.

Termasuk di Indonesia.

Waduh, seperti langganan saja. Periode 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 dan 2005 Indonesia terus mendapatkan serangan peledakan bom dalam kategori HIGH EXPLOSIVE.

Katanya sudah pada dilatih oleh AS dalam menangani terorisme, yang terjadi masalah semakin merajalelanya tindak pidana terorisme itu di Indonesia.

Yang mau dikatakan disini adalah Presiden Obama bukan cuma sekedar wacana dalam kaitan pemulihan metode penanganan teror yang sempat menjadi sangat menyimpang pada era pemerintahan Presiden Bush.

Ada “action” atau tindakan nyata dari Presiden Obama yang benar-benar sangat mengagumkan. Dia lakukan sesuatu sesuai dengan otoritas dan kewenangan yang dapat digunakannya sebagai seorang Kepala Negara.

Bagaimana mungkin, agen-agen rahasia CIA itu dapat diseret ke muka hukum jika ternyata pada kenyataannya ada surat tertulis yang keluar dari GEDUNG PUTIH berisi perintah resmi untuk menginterogasi para tahanan terorisme lewat metode yang kejam tadi ?

Para agen rahasia CIA itu tidak melakukan perbuatan yang menyimpang dari perintah atasan. Ya, mereka tidak melakukan yang disebut sebagai in sub ordiansi.

Kalau para agen rahasia CIA itu dituntut dan diseret misalnya ke muka hukum, maka patut dapat diduga para agen rahasia ini bisa berbalik menuntut jika ternyata tugas-tugas yang sudah mereka laksanakan dianggap sebagai perbuatan melawan hukum.

Lain halnya, kalau misalnya ada petugas yang berinisatif menyiksa sendiri para tahanan itu. Tetapi yang terjadi disini adalah kebalikannya. Ada perintah resmi dari Gedung Putih, lewat memo-memo rahasia yang dibongkar dan dibuka oleh Pemerintahan Presiden Obama.

Jadi, salah besar kalau dikatakan bahwa Presiden Obama sangat mengecewakan kelompok pembela hal sipil (ACLU) tadi.

Kami tidak sependapat.

Presiden Obama sudah melakukan hal yang benar dan terpuji. Ia justru harus didukung untuk terus melakukan PERBUAHAN atau CHANGE sehingga AS dapat menjadi negara adidaya yang sangat mengagumkan.

Jadi, janganlah ada yang asbun menuding bahwa seolah-olah Obama mengecewakan dan tidak memahami duduk persoalan.

Pahami dong duduk persoalannya. Sadari apa yang menjadi esensi dari kebijakan-kebijakan AS.

Presiden Obama , kini seakan menjadi sebuah alunan melodi yang terdengar indah di telinga siapa saja di belahan dunia ini, saat dengan kesungguhannya Obama membenahi apapun juga yang selama ini memang kurang baik atau tidak pantas untuk menjadi bagian dari sistem pemerintahan sebuah bangsa yang terhormat bernama AMERIKA SERIKAT.

Meredam dan memerangi terorisme, bukan dengan cara mengobarkan secara lebih parah mata api perlawanan dari pelaku-pelaku terorisme itu sendiri atau orang-orang tertentu yang berkedok sebagai “teroris” padahal justru berniat untuk “cari makan” atau menggali harta karun yang bisa dikeruh dari rusaknya nilai-nilai peradaban manusia akibat dihajar oleh kekejaman terorisme.

Tak benar jika disebut Obama mengecewakan.

Yang benar adalah Presiden Obama sudah melakukan sesuatu yang benar seturut dengan kebijakan negara yang kini dipimpinnya, agar kebijakan itu tidak menimbulkan guncangan stabilitas (terutama didalam negara mereka sendiri).

Ke depan diharapkan, Presiden Obama sungguh serius untuk mengendalikan sebuah perangkat didalam sistem pemerintahannya agar jangan lagi ada keputusan, kebijakan atau tindakan yang menyalahi ketentuan hukum atau aturan yang berlaku dalam hal penanganan terorisme.

Juga diharapkan, agar Presiden Obama sungguh serius untuk menggunting secara cepat kesengajaan pihak tertentu di berbagai negara asing yang sengaja mengeruk keuntungan dari kocek anggaran AS selama bertahun-tahun terakhir ini atas nama penanganan terorisme.

Singkirkan dan hindari semua benalu-benalu yang cara hidupnya sudah menggerogoti AS dan negara yang menjadi basis gerakan oknum aparat di INDONESIA misalnya, yang patut dapat diduga menjadikan isu terorisme sebagai komoditi dagangan dan ladang emas yang mendapatkan seribu satu macam keuntungan.

Dukung Obama dalam membenahi semua penyimpangan dan ketimpangan terkait penanganan terorisme.

Dengan semua respek yang kita punya maka ketegasan dan keberanian Presiden Obama untuk melakukan pembenahan yang bersifat menyeluruh itu sangat pantas untuk dihargai dan didukung sepanjang masa pemerintahan Obama.

You are the best, Mr President !

(MS)

MEGA SIMARMATA

Editor In Chief Of WWW.KATAKAMI.COM

http://www.redaksikatakami.wordpress.com

http://www.theblogkatakami.wordpress.com

Going Beyond the Limits Surveillance

Tom Awtry — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:21:21 EDT

Admittedly before 911 we were open to terrorists and we’ve paid dearly for our lacks and arrogant mistakes in many ways; loss of life of those involved in the twin towers attack, individual freedoms, increased taxes, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and international embarrassment on the Bush’s administration policies regarding torture to name a few.

However, we keep reading and hearing, for the past five years, how we’re “winning” the “War on Terror”, and reading an article such as this posted in the New York Times, entitled “N.S.A.’s Intercepts Exceed Limits Set by Congress”, authored by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen is disturbing to me.

I was taught and agree with the fact; we live in a country governed by the “Rule of Law”, which to me implies our laws were authored for one sole purpose and to prosecute those who break this intended law. Not to use the congressional passed legislation to uncover personal information concerning individuals for storage in a National Database and used for unknown purposes.

Here are a few excerpts from the Post article which I feel are significant:

The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews.
Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional.
The Justice Department, in response to inquiries from The New York Times, acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday night that there had been problems with the N.S.A. surveillance operation, but said they had been resolved.
The questions may not be settled yet. Intelligence officials say they are still examining the scope of the N.S.A. practices, and Congressional investigators say they hope to determine if any violations of Americans’ privacy occurred. It is not clear to what extent the agency may have actively listened in on conversations or read e-mail messages of Americans without proper court authority, rather than simply obtained access to them
After a contentious three-year debate that was set off by the disclosure in 2005 of the program of wiretapping without warrants that President George W. Bush approved after the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress gave the N.S.A. broad new authority to collect, without court-approved warrants, vast streams of international phone and e-mail traffic as it passed through American telecommunications gateways. The targets of the eavesdropping had to be “reasonably believed” to be outside the United States. Under the new legislation, however, the N.S.A. still needed court approval to monitor the purely domestic communications of Americans who came under suspicion.
One official said that led the agency to inadvertently “target” groups of Americans and collect their domestic communications without proper court authority. Officials are still trying to determine how many violations may have occurred.
Notified of the problems by the N.S.A., officials with both the House and Senate intelligence committees said they had concerns that the agency had ignored civil liberties safeguards built into last year’s wiretapping law. “We have received notice of a serious issue involving the N.S.A., and we’ve begun inquiries into it,” a Congressional staff member said.
And in one previously undisclosed episode, the N.S.A. tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant, an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Following is a video I produced during President Obama’s Presidential campaign, which I feel outlines the problems associated with the FISA legislation:

Senators Obama, Clinton, McCain - The Patriot Act

As one can surmise it is my personal feelings that in the coming November election we will be voting for Senators Obama, Clinton or McCain to be our next President. Also, it is my sincere hope that this newly elected president will restore many of the personal liberties, we as citizens of America have given up over the past eight years.

One example of surrendering our liberty, and for me the most important, is our Patriot Act. If I resided or visited a country outside the United States, and this country was on our country’s “watch” list, as being hostile to America; then I would fully support our current Patriot Act, has authored. But, me visiting a “friendly” country, to our nation and electronically communicating to my family, friends or work from this country, then I deem this an uncalled and unjustified surveillance an invasion of my privacy.

Over the past six months I have attempted to follow all the candidates closely through their web sites, televised debates (via the Internet wire services) and YouTube; but really do not have a clear understanding of their feelings on this issue. I am not expecting any direct response from any of these three aforementioned candidates, but would like clarification stated within their respective web sites’.

The video, produced by the ACLU and distributed by iTV presents our two governmental agencies that facilitate the usage of the Patriot Act and how it is implemented to monitor our electronic communications.

Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:

Torturing Democracy – The Film

Tom Awtry — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:33:33 EDT

Film and video documentaries are beginning to roll out regarding the Bush years of echoing continuous threats to our livelihoods if we didn’t adhere, allow and fellow our vice assistant leader Dick Cheney and his chief adviser on torture assistant Mr. John Yoo, (John can recalled here and here to refresh your memories).

The latest and most popular is entitled “Torturing Democracy” and has been awarded the RFK Journalism Award, where the awards committee calls the film “The definitive broadcast account of a deeply troubling chapter in recent American history”.

National Security Archive Update, April 14, 2009:

Washington, DC - Today, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that “Torturing Democracy” has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for domestic television and is a finalist for the grand prize. Produced and written by eight-time Emmy winner and National Security Archive fellow Sherry Jones, the RFK Center called the documentary film on the Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies “the definitive broadcast account of a deeply troubling chapter in recent American history.”

From the RFK Center’s Web site:

“Domestic Television Winner: “Torturing Democracy”, Sherry Jones, Washington Media Associates: Meticulous reporting unravels the inside story of how torture was adopted by the U.S. government as official policy in the aftermath of 9/11. With exclusive interviews, explosive documents and rare archival footage, the documentary has been called the definitive broadcast account of a deeply troubling chapter in recent American history.”
The entire film can be viewed at the companion Web site, www.torturingdemocracy.org, along with key documents, a detailed timeline, the full annotated transcript of the show, and lengthy transcripts of major interviews carried out for the film. Hosted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, the Web site will ultimately include a complete “Torture Archive” of primary sources.

Please consider giving the website a visit and reviewing this timely and informative film, it’s definitely worth a “watch”.

Prior to the just released nine memos of Bush Administration regarding torture, the following seven highly censored documents were released in the fall of 2008. All furnished documents are in pdf format:

Memo from John Yoo to Tim Flanigan - September 25 2001

Memo John Yoo to William Haynes - January 9, 2002

Letter from John Yoo to Alberto Gonzales - August 1 2002

Action Memo to Secretary Rumsfeld - November 27 2002

Memo from Alberto Gonzales to President Bush - January 25 2002

Colin Powell Memo to Alberto Gonzales - January 26 2002

Memo from Jay Bybee to Alberto Gonzales - February 7 2002

The following uploaded documents were just released by the Justice Department on the 16 of April 09:

Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 USC - 4001-a to Military Detention of United States Citizens 06-27-2002

Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States 10-23-2001at-terrorist-activities-within-the-united-states-10-23-2001

Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty 11-15-2001

Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the -Purpose- Standard for Searches 09-25-2001gence-surveillance-act-to-change-the-purpose-standard-for-searches-09-25-2001

Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention 06-08-2002

Memorandum Regarding October 23 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities 10-06-2008

Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11 2001 - 01-15-2009

Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act 04-08-2002

Memorandum Regarding the President’s Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations 03-13-2002

Update 16 Apr 09:

Richard Armitage On Torture: I Should Have Resigned From Bush Administration (Video)
Ryan Grim | HuffPost Reporting From DC

Richard Armitage, the second in command at the State Department under President Bush, told Al Jazeera English in an interview to be aired Thursday that had he known then what he knows now about the torture of detainees, the right thing to do would have been to resign.

“I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would’ve had the courage to resign,” Armitage said in an interview, according to a transcript provided to the Huffington Post.

Armitage: ‘Maybe I should have quit’

Richard Armitage, the former US Deputy Secretary of State, tells Avi Lewis on Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines why he should have resigned from the Bush administration over its lack of respect for the Geneva conventions.

From Fault Lines, a new show on Al Jazeera English hosted by Avi Lewis and Josh Rushing.

The first episode examines the Obama administration’s emerging policies on detention, rendition and torture.

Will Obama Block Release of Key Bush-era Torture Memos?

Huffington Post | Jeremy Scahill

On several occasions, Obama has invoked the “state secrets” doctrine, including to argue that a lawsuit filed against the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping should be thrown out.

Updates 16 & 17 April:

Statement of President Barack Obama on Release of OLC Memos
The White House | Office of the Press Secretary

The Department of Justice will today release certain memos issued by the Office of Legal Counsel between 2002 and 2005 as part of an ongoing court case. These memos speak to techniques that were used in the interrogation of terrorism suspects during that period, and their release is required by the rule of law.

Obama To Release CIA Interrogation Memos, Defends State Secrets
TIME | Posted by michaelscherer

The big news is that at any moment now, the world should know the contents of the once-secret memos that governed President Bush’s harsh interrogation program. The smaller news is that President Obama is further embracing his invocation of “states secrets” to attempt to derail lawsuits over the potentially illegal acts of the Bush Administration. According to a just-released statement.

CIA Off The Hook For Past Waterboarding
from CBSNews.com

The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted, senior administration officials told The Associated Press.

Obama: Memo release a weighty decision
from Politico by Josh Gerstein,Mike Allen

Obama consulted officials from the Justice Department, the CIA, the director of National Intelligence and the DHS.

Obama consulted widely on memos
from Politico by Mike Allen

Axelrod says Obama considered it “a weighty decision.”

Annals of Torture: End Of The Story?
from CBSNews.com

It was a great day for Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, and Jay Bybee. Those ignominious men and dozens more learned that they would be spared from prosecution either here in the United States, where they formulated our odious torture policies.

Update 18 Apr 09:

Harsh Interrogation Tactics Revealed in Torture Memos
from ABC News: Home Page

Memos detail use of insects, confinement boxes and waterboards under Bush.

Ex-CIA Chiefs Slowed Torture Memos Release
from Huffington Post | PAMELA HESS | April 17, 2009 04:48 PM EST

The Obama administration’s release of classified Bush-era memos on harsh CIA interrogations was delayed for nearly a month in part because of strenuous objections from four former intelligence directors.

Expedience and the Torture Amnesty
from Huffington Post | David Bromwich | Professor of Literature at Yale

President Obama’s statement on releasing the Bush-era torture memos is a curious and depressing document, but it bears the marks of having been revised with care by the president himself. He takes the occasion to assure the country that a dark age has passed. At the same time he assures the agents of that darkness that they will be exempt from prosecution. The statement betrays an odd mixture of frankness and caution; the appearance of resolution, with a good deal of actual equivocation; a wish to channel the conspicuous truth to one’s own cause without revealing a disadvantageous quantity of truth.

Bush Torture Memos: Commercial Diets Used As Justification
Sam Stein | Huffingtonpost.com

In an effort to rationalize the use of dietary manipulation on detainees, Bush administration officials turned to Slim Fast and Jenny Craig.

In a footnote to a May 10, 2005, memorandum from the Office of Legal Council, the Bush attorney general’s office argued that restricting the caloric intake of terrorist suspects to 1000 calories a day was medically safe because people in the United States were dieting along those lines voluntarily.

U.N. Official: No Pass For Torturers
from CBSNews.com

President Barack Obama’s decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used questionable interrogation practices violates international law, the U.N.’s top torture investigator said.

Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:

Letter from Protógenes Queiroz to President Obama (english-français)

Ricardo Peres — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:50:27 EST

Dear President Barack Obama -

As it is widely recognized, your election to the highest office of the USA reaffirms and strengthens the fight for democracy and justice waged by honorable citizens in nations around the world. We believe that there is, in fact, a struggle in progress that goes beyond the ocean dealing with the welfare of the whole human community. It is in this spirit that we are sending this communication to your attention.

Brazil is living moments of fragility, as the evidence of corruption schemes that threaten the sovereignty of our country is currently being assessed in the USA. We therefore need your support. We know, after all, that international crime organizations have no interest in the public value of nations, but only in its decimation, which perpetuates the scourge and suffering of hundreds of millions of human beings in all nations.

The Brazilian fight against corruption has become more intensified in recent months as the Federal Police Satyagraha operations have evidenced to the Brazilian people the involvement of all three powers of the republic in corruption schemes. This became public with the seizure and conviction of banker-gangster Daniel Dantas, the financial agent of numerous frauds and criminal acts done in the past 15 years in conjunction with the highest government representatives of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches.

As the result of this deplorable picture, the powers of the Brazilian republic have acted in ways that are patently arbitrary and undemocratic in order to obstruct due processes of law and order, thus betraying the interests of 190 million Brazilian citizens by favoring criminals that have been already convicted by the laws of the country.

The fact is that 2 billion dollars have already been seized with the help of foreign governments – from a total of U$ 16 billion embezzled by banker-gangster Daniel Dantas – which shows the veracity of the crime and also proves that the fight indeed goes beyond the oceans. Even so and despite having been arrested twice, sentenced to ten years in jail and to pay a fine of R$ 12 million for trying to bribe a federal police officer, the convicted banker-gangster responds the verdict in liberty after two consecutives writs of Habeas Corpus were issued in contradiction with the whole history of judgment and dockets of the Brazilian Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, it is not only the judiciary that is on the payroll of banker-gangster Daniel Dantas. The president of the republic, Lula, just put los amigos to take control over the Brazilian Intelligence System (Sisbin) with a decree on February 19, 2009, to obstruct proceedings concerning the sovereignty of the nation – indeed, a move not far from the Patriot Act that cost the USA a setback which you can measure better than anyone. In this case, 11 autonomous entities, including the Brazilian armed forces, formed a council that coordinated Sisbin. This council has now been replaced by a committee of six individuals, friends of Lula, all with a highly questionable ethical legacy.

It is public knowledge that the information from the Satiagraha investigation containing evidence of the mentioned above crimes are in 12 hard disks found inside a hollow wall in the residence of the banker-gangster, which are currently in the hands of the CIA in the USA in order to be analyzed and reveal the schemes of corruption in Brazil that echoes in your own country. It is not difficult to imagine the reasons why such evidence was taken away from Brazil when we consider the seriousness of the crimes committed and the power of the criminals involved, including representatives of the international financial system, some already well known to the American public.

Like you, Senator Russ Feingold and millions of honorable men and women in your country, the vast majority of Brazilians believe that the law applies to all equally, otherwise democracy becomes a fraud and we put at risk the future of freedom and citizenship in the world. We must fight together for justice and transparency, day and night, so that corrupt forces are not imposed over the forces of good. That is why we firmly believe that there can be no postponement of the justice claimed by the Brazilian people in the face of the moral crisis that plagues the country.

Finally, we are fighting for justice TODAY. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Justice delayed is justice denied." So, we appreciate your vigilance and support to ensure that the processes of data evaluation and dissemination contained in the 12 hard disks in possession of the CIA are not obstructed. We want only the truth; for we know that the truth is sufficient to guarantee the sovereignty of our people.

God bless you, your family, the American people and all their initiatives aiming at the social improvement of mankind.

Sincerely,

Protógenes Queiroz
www.protogenescontraacorrupcao.ning.com

--------------------------
(Français)

Cher Monsieur le Président des États-Unis Barack Obama,

Comme il est largement reconnu, votre élection à la présidence des États-Unis réaffirme et renforce la lutte pour la démocratie et la justice menée par les citoyens de bien dans toutes les nations à travers du monde. Nous pensons qu'il existe, effectivement, “une lutte en marche qui va au-delà de l'océan” pour le bien-être de l'ensemble de l’humanité et il est dans cet esprit-là que nous vous envoyons cette lettre.

Le Brésil vit aujourd’hui un moment d’épreuve de sa démocratie et les documents concernant les schémas de corruption qui menacent sa souveraineté sont en cours d'évaluation aux États-Unis. Ceci dit, nous avons besoin de votre soutien. Nous savons tous que les organisations criminelles internationaux n’ont aucun compromis avec les valeurs républicaines des nations, mais seulement avec leur destruction afin de perpétuer le fléau et les souffrances de centaines de millions d'êtres humains dans tous les pays.

Au Brésil, la lutte contre la corruption est devenue de plus en plus intensifiée au cours de ces derniers mois, au fur et à mesure que l'opération Satiagraha menée par des agents de la Police Nationale (Polícia Federal Brésilienne) a devoilé pour les brésiliens que les trois Pouvoirs de la République sont impliqués dans des schémas de corruption. Fait qui est devenu publique dès la prison et la condamnation du banquier-gangster Daniel Dantas, qui il y a 15 ans est l’agent financier responsable par nombreuses fraudes et actes criminels à coté des plus hauts représentants des Pouvoirs Exécutif, Législatif et Judiciaire au Brésil.

À la suite de ce lamentable fait, les Pouvoirs de la République Brésilienne sont en train d’agir de façon manifestement arbitraire et antidémocratique, afin d'entraver les processus de la loi et de l'ordre, trahissant ainsi les intérêts de 190 millions de citoyens brésiliens et encourageant les criminels déjà condamnés par les lois du pays.

Il y a déjà 2 milliards de dollars bloqués grâce à l'aide de gouvernements étrangers ce qui montre la gravité des crimes et preuve que la lutte contre la corruption croise l’océan. Il faut rémarquer que le montant total de dollars détournés par le banquier-gangster Daniel Dantas est de 16 milliards de dollars. Ceci dit et malgré le fait de Daniel Dantas avoir été condamné à dix ans de prison et à payer une amende de 12 millions de dollars après essayer de corrompre un représentant de la Polícia Federal, le banquier-gangster condamné répond au jugement em liberté puisqu’en contrariant l’histoire et les registres des procès de la Cour de Cassation Brésilienne (Suprema Corte), a fait droit a 2 Habeas Corpus successifs.

Malheureusement, il n'est pas seulement le Pouvoir Judiciaire qui est sur “le carnet de paie“ du bandit-gangster Daniel Dantas. Le Président de la République, M. Lula lui-même, vient de nommer “les copains” pour diriger le Service de Renseignement de l’État (Sistema Brasileiro de Inteligência – SISBIN), décret du 19 Février, 2009, afin d’entraver les informations des processus concernant la souveraineté de la Nation, l’action de M. Lula a éte, d’ailleurs, assez semblable au Patriot Act du Président G.W. BUSH qui a couté aux États-Unis le prix que vous pouvez mesurer mieux que quiconque. En ce que concerne la SISBIN, il y avait 11 entités autonomes, y compris l’Armée Brésilienne, qui formaient un Conseil pour sa coordination. Maintenant, ce Conseil a été remplacé par un petit comité de 6 amis de M. Lula, tous les 6 avec des passés moralement douteux.

Il est publiquement connu que les informations de l’opération Satiagraha et les preuves des crimes mentionnés ci-dessus qui lui appartiennent sont réunies dans 12 disques-dûrs qui ont été trouvé dans un mur creux chez le banquier-gangster Daniel Dantas. Il est aussi publiquement connu que ces 12 disques-dûrs sont actuellement avec la CIA aux États-Unis pour être analysés et révéler les schémas de corruption au Brésil lesquels doivent avoir des réflexes aussi dans votre pays. Il n'est pas difficile d'imaginer les raisons pour lesquelles ces éléments de preuve ont été mis en dehors du Brésil, il suffit de prendre en compte la gravité des crimes commis et le pouvoir des criminels concernés, dont la liste comprend des représentants du système financier international, certains déjà bien connus du public américain.

Ainsi comme vous, comme le Sénateur Russ Feingold et des millions d'hommes et de femmes de bien de votre pays, la majeur partie du peuple brésilien croit que la loi doit s'appliquer à tous également car, du contraire, la démocratie n'est qu’un mensonge et l’avenir de la liberté et de la citoyenneté dans le monde entier est mis en risque. Nous avons besoin d´être ensemble dans la lutte pour la justice et pour la transparence des faits, jour après jour, sans cesse, afin d’empêcher que les forces de la corruption s’imposent aux forces du bien. Par tous les faits décrits et face à la crise morale qui a dévasté le Brésil, nous croyons fermement qu'il ne peut point y avoir des retards de justice dans nos revendications.

Enfin, nos combats pour la justice sont pour AUJOURD’HUI. Comme a écrit Martin Luther King Jr.: “Une justice trop longtemps retardée est une justice refusée”. Nous comptons sur vous pour nous soutenir et pour veiller à ce que les processus de l'évaluation et la diffusion des informations contenues dans les 12 disques dûrs qui sont avec la CIA ne soient pas obstrués. Nous ne voulons que connaître la vérité, parce que nous savons que il suffit la verité pour assurer la souveraineté de notre peuple.

Que Dieu vous bénisse et à votre famille, que Dieu bénisse tous les américans et toutes vos initiatives d’améliorer le développment social de l’humanité.

Avec mes sentiments les meilleurs,

Protógenes Queiroz
www.protogenescontraacorrupcao.ning.com

Investigate Bush/Cheney for war crimes. Petition

Texas_Democrat_06 — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:04:41 EST

I will remember the last 8 years of financial destruction here in the US and the bloodshed of millions of civilians on a global scale. most honest political and financial experts consider him the worst leader america has ever had and this is why.

Worst fiscal crisis since the Great Depression
Lied about the war in Iraq
No WMD's found in Iraq
Vetoed health coverage for kids
Ignored law, allowed torture
Illegal wiretapping
Had enough info to stop 9/11 and didn't, hid that fact from the public
Lost Bin laden at Tora Bora
Crassly unconstitutional signing statements
Stripped resources from Afghanistan and sent them to Iraq
Didn't catch Bin Laden
Allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan Afghan war out of control
Lied about reducing greenhouse emissions, ignored warming
Muzzled warming scientists in NASA and elsewhere
Political appointments to Department of Justice and political prosecutions
Cheney, Rove, and others in contempt of Congress -- refused to tell the American people the truth
Fooled public into believing Saddam was involved in 9/11 when he knew otherwise
Made light of inabilty to find WMD's

Please sign the petition to investigate Bush/Cheney for war crimes.
Then pass it on to everyony you know that will sign it.

Petition link http://www.petitiononline.com/856798/petition.html

It Lives!!!!!! And its Renewed!!!!

Stine — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:51:23 EST

Our accounts and blogs on MYBO are still active, and still free! How kewl is that!

So, we've elected the man, now what? Well updates from the White House are making tree-hugging liberals think we've died and gone to Heaven (Summerland for my fellow neo-pagans). And each day deepens my Presidential Crush:

1/22/09: Obama's third Executive Order issued on his second day in office will see Guantanamo Bay closing in a year's time and emphasizes detainee constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and enforces standards of the Geneva Conventions. His fourth Order in the same day forms a task force of high level officials to determine future detainee policy

Wait, it gets better, his next Order, issued on the same day, ensures lawful interrogations--effectively taking care of that torture problem we've been having since 2007. The order creates a task force of high level officials to "study and evaluate whether the interrogation practices and techniques in Army Field Manual 2 22.3, when employed by departments or agencies outside the military, provide an appropriate means of acquiring the intelligence necessary to protect the Nation." Thus examining existing interrogation techniques.

And it gets still better! This same order also deals with CIA "dark" prisons: The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future."

Three dark blots removed from the conscience of the nation in one day.

But one wonders. In that fifth Order there's this statement: "From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2 22.3, but may not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field Manual 2 22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field Manual 34 52 . . . ."

Is this intended to prevent lower rank military personnel from again taking the fall for bad decisions on interrogations? Does this put that onus on higher level officials? Is anyone familiar with military law reading my blog???

Well we've only covered one day, and it gets better. . . so I hope Jimmy Carter doesn't get too jealous while I wallow for several blog entries on how Obama has saved the New World--oh make that Renewed World: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/a_national_day_of_renewal_and_reconciliation/

Until next time Renewed Nation . . . . .

P.S. As promised! Informative links! http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/executive_orders/

In Reflection....

James — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:37:57 EST

Arrogance. What does it really mean...that word? Earlier today, I used the word to describe the reason that Governor Rod, of Illinois, is being brought down. The man has rebuilt the freeway system through Chicago and added the drive-by I-Pass to all toll exchanges, thereby cutting traffic tie-ups, and also making driving life a lot easier. He has attempted to fund education, feed poor people and supported 'fair trade' over 'free trade.' The campaign contribution stuff? Which, of any political officeholder, is not involved in that stuff? The 'selling' of the open Senate seat? Which of them (the other 49 governors) is without sin there? But in making my argument about the governor I was brought up short. Way short. I was informed by someone who has known me for years, that it was arrogance on my part which brought me down back in the early nineties (when I went from being a government agent, wearing a white hat, to being a scuzzball 'skell,' with no hat at all!). The same arrogance that is bringing down Governor Rod. I told another friend about that conversation, later in the day, and kind of got the same response.

Am i arrogant? Was i arrogant, and did that really 'bring me down,' as conjectured? Maybe I was. Maybe I am. I don't feel arrogant. By the way, the definition of that word kind of makes it's way around a central theme, from dictionary to dictionary. The theme being one of 'superior to inferior,' posturing. My dominance, or assumed superior positioning, would come from applied intellect and verbal skills. Governor Rod's would come from his office. I do not want to be placed into the same category as Governor Rod. I do not like him either, mostly because of his public presentation. I have nothing else to judge him by, which is pretty weak, as well. But I have plenty to judge me by. How do i evidence intellect and life experience without 'offending' my audience (the person I may be talking to)? There are ways to do that, I know. Why am I not good at those? And I must not be, at all, or I would not be writing this blog in this way. The criticism would never have been leveled if there was not some substance to it. After all, the people who leveled it actually like me!

There is also the thought that I am not nearly as smart as I think, or present, that I am. That psychologist at the Medical Center in North Chicago did say to me once, in an aside; "you know, you are not nearly as intelligent as you think. You are just really good at portraying yourself as that intelligent." And this is a guy I respected, and still respect. I smiled. I had some great comeback, back then, that I do not recall now. And I smile now. Yeah, I am smart. I know that. I wish I was not so smart, as there is a much greater chance for continued bliss if you are not fully aware of what is happening all over the place. And I do like having bliss. in fact, it was Victor Hugo who penned: "Ignorance is bliss." But ignorance is not really a function of intellect, not directly anyway. Yes, a truly brilliant mind can hypothecate circumstance exclusive of experience (otherwise would have no theories at all about the origin of the universe), but ignorance is more about the lack of life experience (which would include formal education). No knowing some things is great. If you think that you would like to know everything than think about what your life would be like if you knew the date you were going to die! So, maybe, the assumption of my arrogance comes from the simple fact that the 'dominance' of intellect I am assuming exists within me, and does not, (which my audience knows), and it is this element which creates animosity towards me. Or maybe I am being too smart. I don't know.

Writing of that subject (death), the Israeli Army continued on with it's devastation of the Gaza Strip, and the people who live there, this day. Schools and such. Civilians all over the place. Artillery is a cruel and general killer. As are air strikes, no matter how 'surgical' they appear when films are shown later on. We, the United States, stepped up to the plate at the U.N. and did not even swing on the thrown third strike at the U.N. A request that a cease fire be enjoined was put forward. Yes, we, the good guys vetoed that. Why? Because the Hamas people, if that is really who they are, would somehow have to prove that they were not going to send any more of their idiotic home made rockets into Israel. Brooks, in the New York Times, approved of that this morning. You see, the Israeli's have to stand tough. They have to 'succeed.' This 'success' can only be gained by destruction. Any failure, later on, is attributed to not having been violent enough, with the death and destruction. His platform is another of the new neocon movement planks. 'Brutal violence is cleansing and pure.' It is part of the mantra.

But you note that we do not go in and do anything at all to Iran. We cry, off in the distance, with Israel at our side, that Iran is providing all sorts of arms to both Iraq and Hamas. But we do nothing. Why? Because Iran has what North Korea has. Nukes. That is all that has stopped us from going into those countries. So, thank God for nuclear proliferation! Gates' job as Defense Secretary might just be a bit at risk if he were to phone home to report that we just lost the sixth fleet one morning! Aggressors are notedly and historically very poor judges of the need for war and the need for aggression. Hamas is not the aggressor in this new war. It is Israel. They are killing the Palestinians out of love. Because they care for them and want to protect them. And here we are, the United States, doing the same thing over and over and over again. Is there any wonder that we are going broke?

Obama appointed a new head of the CIA. You go, Barack! Lou Pennata. What a great choice! The man has no CIA background. Hooray. The Agency is so rife with the seasoned 'non-warrior' and 'mean office analyst' types that it needs a wake up call. I just hope, upon getting the proper approvals, that Lou cleans house. Out with all the sub-directors. Each and every one. They have done about as good as job as the executives who have been running the car companies, and the guys who have been CEO's of the financial houses. We need new blood, and a lot of it. The examination, in hominids, for self-awareness, is to give the subject an anesthetic. When the subject is out cold, a red magic marker spot is placed on his or her forehead. The subject is awakened to stand before a full length mirror at arm's length. If the subject touches the mirror it is deemed to not be self-aware. If the subject touches it's own forehead, he or she is deemed to be self-aware. The entire CIA needs to be tested. We would lose half of the entire agency to this test. But then, our current President would seen rubbing the mirror, as well.

I suppose that whole entry above is one of arrogance. I wonder. And, if I am arrogant, what is it I would be like if I were not? Would I be able to live with me?

from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com

The way it is.

Kenneth — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:02:42 EST

Our president elect has given reason to believe that his will be a transparent administration; that his policies will be both reparative and in the interest of the general public, that he is not in the corporate pocket. For this I voted, I am proud to have done so.

His lack of candor however about root causes within government and powered circles end in no little anxiety. Institutions such as DHS, Federal Reserve, CIA, corporate military interests, have evolved into unaccountable, expensive, secret powerbases not unlike governments unto themselves. The assembly over the last eight years of unprecedented and incredible power of the presidency has played out in the public sphere as grotesque fait accompli. Power grabs, both corporate and governmental, the likes of which have only appeared occasionally during the history of the US are occurring daily. A kind of insectile sociopathy pervades.

The public, within what is presumed to be its own media, appears to be viewed with suspicion, parameters of acceptable citizenry narrows, while the value of the dollar and ultimately of labor dwindles progressively to the point of desperation. We the working class are not just alienated but divested. Ours has become a versus relationship with government; one in which interface with institutions common to our experience represent compromise of safety and are therefore avoided.

The ideal of government of and by the people is dead. Left to fend for ourselves within this context we turn on one another, deconstructing our only hope, unity. To what or whom shall we turn? Or is this turning a foolish extension of an ideal long dead? There must be clarity and honesty. No ugliness can be left unaccounted or an already lost citizenry will remain turned away.

From this new administration I then ask this; please, if nothing else, tell the truth. Say it like it is, all of it. Give voice to what is obvious and let us know you see it too. K.

The Eve of Christmas...

James — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:50:08 EST

I am fully awake, as I got the papers from under another layer of deep snow. And I found the envelope from the newspaper wraith. What do I put in it? No check because it is addressed to "Delivery Service." I feel like I am getting my papers directly from Langley (CIA) Headquarters. A twenty? Is that too little? Maybe a fifty. I don't have a fifty (this is Southern Outback Wisconsin and they don't know what a fifty is out here, unless is refers to a clothing size) so I would have to put in two twenties and a ten. But that wad seems excessive. But it is Christmas. But it is a tough financial time for all of us. But I am afraid of the Newspaper Delivery Service. I was once a very decisive person, but look at me now. I am still three presents 'short of a full deck' and it is Christmas Eve, and snowing to beat all get out. What do I do? Where do I go? Lake Geneva has a bunch of stores, each about the size of an airport kiosk. Will they even open in the middle of this, the most aggressive winter attack of recorded history out here? I don't know. The aging dinosaur of a Rover sits patiently in the garage, crying softly to be decked out in the chains that even Professor Machado, the smartest man any of us have ever known, can't fathom the directions to install. But they are back there, all shiny on the floor behind the front seats. And 'Bertram' my old wonderful troll of a beaten-up four-wheel-drive is ready for anything.

Oliver Morton. He wrote a column for the New York Times this morning. He slipped through, like Thomas L. Friedman. The editorial board of the Times must be on Christmas furlough. Both of the columns were pretty extraordinary, bright as they were accurate. Morton wrote of the earth, its condition and prospects, while Friedman wrote about the silly and destructive celebration of stupidity that has taken over this country and caused much of what we are experiencing now. Yes, Thomas stole some of my stuff, then wrote it better. Usually, I only celebrate Maureen Dowd's assumption of my blog material (I can't call it stealing as her fan club gets all upset, and besides, its not. We don't own this stuff out here anymore. What we bloggers write is like air. You just breathe it in and then it gets re-breathed again). So Thomas, you may have my stuff and I doff my non-existent hat at the elegant manner in which you chose to use it. But back to Morton's column. He writes about the earth as George Carlin used to describe it. If the earth ever figures out we (homo sapiens) are here, and causing trouble, then we are screwed. We have almost no power over this blue and white ball of water and ice. Even our limp-wristed influence over base temperature is a mere nothing to this planet. And the only one's to actually suffer from our excess are likely to be, well, us. The Earth turns and moves on inexorably and it is unaffected, really, in the scale of things, by even such events as large astroid strikes. That stuff merely impacts on the ecosystem. Life goes up and down and around stuff like that all the time. Way to go Morton. A scientist. A brain. No more of that Bush stuff. Okay, okay, I am not going there. I will even give that low-life scum bag of a drooling president a break today. It is Christmas Eve. And life is cold, snow-buried, but good. Christmas music plays, I have the wood for a fire to burn through this day, on into my own personal Eve, and I have a prime rib for the oven. Harvey is ever loyal and only mildly condescending. Cat bliss.

Now, I shall get cleaned up and go out there into the whiteness of day. It is Christmas Eve and there just have to be more people God wants to put in my way. Merry Christmas!

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

WEBMASTER — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:26:14 EST

The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.

Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.

Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when

individuals and organizations understand that alternative energy technology exists and
when people see the economic benefits of using alternative energy technologies

Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.

Alternative Energy
Source: David Apperson

url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy

Torture aficionados at the White House and CIA have conned key congressional leaders into insisting not only that torture-lite would be a swell idea, but advocating also that the overseers of torture be kept on.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:16:05 EST

Back to the Future Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

By RAY McGOVERN

You've got to hand it to them. Torture aficionados at the White House and CIA have conned key congressional leaders into insisting not only that torture-lite would be a swell idea, but advocating also that the overseers of torture be kept on.

From change-you-can-believe-in we seem to be slipping back to fear-you-can-trade-on. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, has publicly warned those in charge of the administration transition that "continuity is going to be pivotal in keeping us safe and secure." Thus, he argues, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden should stay in their posts.......

ENTIRE POST - http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern12112008.html

The Hayden Record: Condoning Torture, Destroying Evidence, Misleading Congress

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:19:09 EST

The Hayden Record: Condoning Torture, Destroying Evidence, Misleading Congress»

By Faiz Shakir @ thinkprogress.org

U.S. News is speculating that President-elect Barack Obama “might ask CIA Director Mike Hayden to stay on for a while.” CIA officials are advocating on his behalf:

“It’s unfair to blame Hayden for things that occurred long before he took the job. But he deserves credit for standing up for the folks over there at CIA, even though a lot of the stuff he has dealt with didn’t happen on his watch,” said an intelligence official.

Former CIA analyst John Brennan was compelled to withdraw his name from consideration, after a number of bloggers, led by Glenn Greenwald, raised concerns that he had supported Bush’s interrogation policies. Hayden did one better than Brennan – he carried them out, defended them, and in some cases, lied about them........

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/08/hayden-record/

Situation in Somalia Seems About to Get Worse

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:31:23 EST

Situation in Somalia Seems About to Get Worse

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN @ nytimes.com - Published: December 6, 2008

NAIROBI, Kenya — Somalia’s transitional government looks as if it is about to flatline. The Ethiopians who have been keeping it alive for two years say they are leaving the country, essentially pulling the plug.

For the past 17 years, Somalia has been ripped apart by anarchy, violence, famine and greed. It seems as though things there can never get worse. But then they do.

The pirates off Somalia’s coast are getting bolder, wilier and somehow richer, despite an armada of Western naval ships hot on their trail. Shipments of emergency food aid are barely keeping much of Somalia’s population of nine million from starving. The most fanatical wing of Somalia’s Islamist insurgency is gobbling up territory and imposing its own harsh brand of Islamic law, like whipping dancers and stoning a 13-year-old girl to death........

ARTICLE-http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/world/africa/07somalia.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

CIA ‘lied’ over fatal attack on missionary plane

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:26:48 EST

CIA ‘lied’ over fatal attack on missionary planeTony

by Allen-Mills in New York @ timesonline.uk

FOR Jim and Veronica Bowers and their two small children, the flight up the Amazon in a single-engined Cessna float plane should have been a routine return to the remote house-boat where the family lived during missionary work with Indian tribes.

It ended in 90 seconds of horror when a Peruvian air force jet guided by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractors mistook the Cessna for a drug-smuggling plane and shot it out of the sky. Veronica, 35, and her seven-month-old daughter Charity, were killed by a bullet that pierced the Cessna’s fuselage, passed through the mother’s back, and lodged in her infant’s skull......

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5299034.ece

Fiasco in Somalia

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:35:36 EST

Fiasco in Somalia

By MIKE WHITNEY @ counterpunch.com

Until a month ago, no one in the Bush administration showed the least bit of interest in the piracy off the coast of Somalia. Now that's changed and there's talk of sending in the Navy to patrol the waters off the Horn of Africa.

Why the sudden about-face?

It could have something to do with Ethiopia's plans to withdrawal its troops from Mogadishu by the end of the year, thus ending the failed two year US-backed occupation of Somalia.

The United States has lost the ground war in Somalia, but its overall objectives haven't changed. The US intends to stay in the region for years to come using its armada to prowl the waters around the Gulf of Aden. The resurgence of the Somali resistance is set-back, but it doesn't change the basic game-plan. The pirates are actually a blessing in disguise. They provide a good excuse for the US to beef up its military presence and dig in for the long-haul. Every crisis is an opportunity.....

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney12032008.html

Mossad unleashed: Implicated in a coup plot in Turkey, a NATO country; CIA fingerprints also found on attempt.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:52:51 EST

December 2, 2008 -- Mossad unleashed: Implicated in a coup plot in Turkey, a NATO country; CIA fingerprints also found on attempt.

by Wayne Masden @ waynemadsenreport.com

Fresh from revelations, reported by WMR, that Israel's Mossad and Chabad House-based criminal syndicates were targets in a criminal gangland retribution attack by a notorious Muslim gang in Mumbai, comes word that Mossad has, once again, been implicated in an intelligence and criminal network, this time in Turkey. What makes this latest example of Israel's failure to stem the criminal activities of its intelligence service and criminal syndicates worse is that Turkey, unlike Israel, is a NATO ally of the United States and, therefore, the United States is bound by treaty to protect NATO allies from aggression by non-NATO states, including Israel.........

SOURCE - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Mumbai attacks more complicated than corporate press reports

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:08:00 EST

December 1, 2008 -- Mumbai attacks more complicated than corporate press reports

by Wayne Madsen @ waynemasdenreport.com

As first reported by WMR while the corporate press was uttering the "Al Qaeda" bogeyman as likely behind the terror attacks on Mumbai, the Press Trust of India (PTI) is now confirming WMR's initial report that Pakistan- and Dubai-based criminal syndicate boss Dawood Ibrahim's gangsters handed over the weapons and explosive material to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) terrorists to carry out the assault on targets in Mumbai.

According to PTI, one LET terrorist captured by India, Ajmal Qasab, said he and his fellow terrorists sailed from Karachi and entered Mumbai's port area with the help of Ibrahim's agents who run several customs facilities in Mumbai. However, there are some questions being raised about Qasab and his claims. The so-called security camera shot of Qasab, who is being billed by the media as the "lone surviving gunman," at Chatrapathi Sivaji train terminal in Mumbai, appears fake. The angle is too narrow for a train station which would have a wider angle and be shot from higher up than the photo being shopped by the Indian police. However, according to Asian intelligence sources, Qasab may have been trained by Hindu militants and was rushed to the scene of the attack for a photo opportunity hastily arranged by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) propaganda team. One Asian intelligence source who has spent a great deal of time in Pakistan reports that he has "never seen a haircut like his [Qasab's] in Pakistan or on either side of Line of Control in Kashmir." He also pointed out that Qasab is a bit overweight for an average "mujad" who slim down in training by exercising and eating a sparse diet of lentils and flat bread.......

SOURCE - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Mumbai attacks part of "Blowback" for CIA double cross

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:36:59 EST

November 27-28, 2008 -- Mumbai attacks part of "Blowback" for CIA double cross

by Wayne Madsen @ waynemadsenreport.com

The violence that is sweeping Mumbai's tourist and business areas is the work of rival Hindu nationalist terrorists and Muslim gangs, according to WMR's Asian intelligence sources. Scores have been killed and hundreds injured in the violence sweeping India's financial capital. Although the "Indian Mujaheddin" and "Al Qaeda in India" are the corporate media's suspects in the violence, the attacks have more to do with score settling and a warning by a CIA asset and Muslim-Hindu gang violence.

The violence began with some crude "dud" bombs being planted around the city. However, these are seen as "false flag" attacks carried out by HIndu nationalist terrorists who support the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which hopes to beat the ruling Congress Party in forthcoming elections. The Hindu nationalists often wave the "Muslim terrorist" shirt to win popular support.

SOURCE - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

Open Letter to Obama: Reject John Brennan as Director of the CIA

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:21:55 EST

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 22, 2008
9:00 AM

CONTACT: Psychologists and Allies
Stephen Soldz ssoldz@bgsp.edu (617) 935-4246

Open Letter to Obama: Reject John Brennan as Director of the CIA

- November 22 -

Dear President-Elect Obama,

We are writing to urge you not to select John Brennan as Director of the CIA. We are psychologists and allies who have long opposed the abuses of detainees under the Bush administration. We are just concluding a successful several-year struggle to remove psychologists from their roles in aiding or abetting these abuses. It has been a distressing fact that, while the Bush administration resorted to abuse and torture of those in our custody, often psychologists have been put in positions to use their psychological expertise to guide these unconscionable practices.

We look forward to your administration as an opportunity for genuine change - in this case for our country to take a new direction in its treatment of prisoners. We applaud your commitment to closing Guantanamo and are encouraged by your clear statement from your 60 Minutes interview last Sunday, "America doesn't torture, and I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture." This fuels our hope for a decisive repudiation of the "dark side" - the willingness to use or abet illegal and unethical coercive interrogation tactics that sometimes amount to torture and often constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

The Mossad decided to 'trade out' Hanssen in order to keep the FBI pre-occupied trying to ferret out a mole within their own ranks and take the heat off Emanuel and the Clinton White House over the knowledge that Israel had penetrated WH communications

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:52:41 EST

November 20, 2008 -- Hanssen's confessions clued Opus Dei and Mossad in on his espionage for Moscow.

from waynemadsenreport.com

On November 10, 2008, WMR reported on the compromise to Israel's Mossad of the espionage being carried out on behalf of Moscow by former FBI counter-intelligence chief Robert Hanssen and how that information came to the attention of Bill Clinton's policy adviser Rahm Emanuel.

We reported: "WMR has learned that Hanssen also spied for Mossad at the same time he was spying for the Russians and that this information was known to Emanuel. WMR has learned that the FBI established that there was a relationship between Hanssen, a Chicago native whose father was a Chicago police officer, and Emanuel, also a native of Chicago. The Mossad decided to 'trade out' Hanssen to the FBI's counter-intelligence division in order to keep the bureau pre-occupied trying to ferret out a mole within their own ranks and take the heat off Emanuel and the Clinton White House over the knowledge that Israeli intelligence had penetrated White House communications and this fact was related by Clinton to White House intern Monica Lewinsky during a phone conversation. Hanssen was convicted of espionage after he was pressured into not going ahead with a jury trial. Hanssen was warned that his wife would be denied his FBI pension if he insisted on a full jury trial. He is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement at the Federal Supermax Prison in Colorado."

SOURCE - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20081120

The CIA ignores its own rules and regulations, kills innocent Americans, and then the people in charge of the operation lie to Congress to cover up what happened.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:23:47 EST

CIA Blamed in Downed Missionary Plane

by Colin Clark @ military.com

It must be the worst nightmare of every CIA director.

The agency ignores its own rules and regulations, kills innocent Americans, and then the people in charge of the operation lie to Congress to cover up what happened.

This nightmare became reality Nov. 20 when Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced that a report by the CIA inspector general found that agency officers seemingly ignored standing rules and regulations governing when they could shoot at aircraft during counter-drug operations in Latin America. The lapses led to the death of at least 10 innocent civilians, Hoekstra said, including Americans Veronica "Roni" Bowers, 35, and her daughter Charity in April 2001. They were missionaries in Peru heading home in a single engine Cesna when the CIA provided targeting data to a Peruvian Air Force jet that shot down their plane.......

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.military.com/news/article/cia-blamed-in-downed-missionary-plane.html?col=1186032310810

Change we can believe in? Summers, Brennan?

Jason — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:23:42 EST

I'd like to comment on the rumors about two potential Obama appointments: Lawrence Summers for Treasury Secretary and John Brennan for CIA Director. I feel both would be horrible appointments and represent an abandonment of the type of change theme on which our President-elect campaigned. And may I add that I can hardly believe my first blog post here is of the negative variety.

First off, I must say that I'm not one looking for a liberal counterstroke to Bush-Rove-Atwater style politics and appointments that have ruled the day for last 8, or 16, years. I do truly believe that we need to come together to solve our problems, both nationally and internationally. To do so, we need a new type of vision about ourselves, and our relationship to each other. More of a "world citizen" approach where we are all equal, and cooperate more than we compete, but that is a topic for another day.

Here, I'd just like to note that I didn't go into appoplexy when Joe Lieberman retained his place and chiar in the Senate. I'm no fan of Joe's, but overall, he has been a good Democrat on most issues. I wanted him out not for revenge, but for the simple fact he is a horrible chair of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Homeland Security is bloated, wasteful, and has inadequate oversight, and Joe also failed to investigate Katrina, domestic spying, Gitmo, secret prisons, the AG's mess, or much of anything. Like Dingell in the House, he should have lost the Chair. But we do need every vote, and 60 would be sweet, so I don't have a problem with it.

Nor do I have a problem with Hillary as SoS. Maybe not what I'd have done, as I think domestic, not interantional issues, are her strongpoint, and I question her managerial skills. I think she's a fantastic legislator and lawyer, or potential judge. But, whatever, I still like her and think she could do a good job at State.

But Lawrence Summers and John Brennan? You have GOT to be kidding me! Is this some kind of sick joke?

Regarding the most aggregious choice, John Brennan at CIA. This is a man who adores Dick Cheney, favors "enhanced interrogations", and also was a backer of the pre-war "intelligence" case for going to war, which has been debunked. And George Tenet's former Chief of Staff.

First off, if his eye for good intelligence is so poor he can't figure out that going to war based on one questionable agent, "Curveball", wasn't a good idea he has no business running the CIA, or holding any high-ranking intelligence or security post.

Secondly, a torture supporter at CIA? Heading CIA? What a sick joke. How in the world can Obama claim to "make sure" we don't torture, then install a torture supporter as head of CIA? I call BS, and so should you.

Here's Andrew Sullivan's take (who can be over the top sometimes): http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/obama-picks-a-b.html

Indeed, Obama seems to be trending pro-war, pro-torture on virtually all the defense and intelligence posts. How is this change? It isn't.

Regarding Mr. Summers.

I am not one who puts much weight on the comments he supposedly made about women not being able to do math. I think they were taken largely out of context, and Mr. Summers has a long record of supporting women, and promoting them, while at Harvard.

What I do find troubling is the memo he wrote while at the World Bank urging industrialized nations to ship their pollution and waste to "underpolluted" areas in the third world for economic reasons, and shruggled off any moral or ethical arguments against it.

For me, this shows that Mr. Summers lacks some critical qualities in a leader: empathy and a moral and ethical center. It is a deal breaker for me, and should be for others as well. Not to mention the fact that he was also a proponent of deregulation (Clinton sytle).

Mr. Obama has said that a critical quality for Supreme Court justices is empathy, Mr. Summers' memo demonstrates he has none. Mr. Obama says we need to look out for Main Street not Wall Street, but wants to put someone at Treasury who literally wanted our shit to roll downhill onto the poor and downtrodden nations of the world. I guess its OK if its good for Main Street but polluts African, South American, or Central American streets.

Here is the memo, check it out for yourself:

http://www.counterpunch.org/summers.html

Again, I don't expect to be happy with every Obama decison or appointment. But what I do expect is that leaders show empathy and a moral and ethical center. Mr. Summers and Mr. Brennan, by virtue of their exporting pollution and pro-torture positions fail on this critical apsect. Furthermore, Mr. Brennan's naivete on pro-war intelligence shows he is ill-suited to run ANY intelligence agency.

Pleaase let Barack, and your Senator's know how you feel about these potentioal appointments.

An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru.

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:10:15 EST

CIA Withheld Details On Downing, IG SaysShooting in Peru Killed Missionary, Infant

By Joby Warrick , Washington Post Staff Writer

An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case.

The agency's inspector general said CIA officers repeatedly ignored rules of engagement in a joint U.S.-Peruvian campaign to halt airborne drug smugglers, resulting in the downing of at least 10 other aircraft without proper warnings. Afterward, CIA managers concealed the problems from lawmakers and the Justice Department, the agency watchdog said.

Even the White House was kept in the dark, as agency officials and lawyers withheld key details while cautioning their staff to avoid putting anything in writing that might be used later in a criminal or civil case, the inspector general said in a report.,,,,

ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112002011.html?nav=rss_nation

Authorities inspect the plane that was mistakenly targeted in April 2001 by a Peruvian fighter pilot working with the CIA in a program to halt airborne drug smugglers. (By Silvia Izquierdo -- Associated Press)

Black File 7001

Lee from Beaverton, OR — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:56:40 EDT

Black File 7001 Following my leaving the FBI after a five year long assignment, I discovered a black projected shrouded beneath the Federal Witness Protection Program that was sired by the CIA's MK-ULTRA Program. For the past eight years the Bush-Cheney administration has subjected me to actionable offences of psyops terrorism, "no-touch" invisible physical torture and threatened me with their "invention" of a criminal charge if I publish my book. I have black listed by the mainstream press and only Senator Obama and Congressman Kucinich have responded. My covert status has been commingled and outed multiple times in violation of Title 18 of the United States Code and I am seeking asylum in Canada through the U.N. Please feel free to communicate with me at BlackFile7001[AT]gmail[DOT]com.

WHY CIA VETERANS ARE SCARED OF JOHN MC CAIN; Laura Rozen's article in Mother Jones

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:44:08 EDT

WHY CIA VETERANS ARE SCARED OF JOHN MC CAIN
By Laura Rozen August 29, 2008 MOTHER JONES

Washington Dispatch: Four years ago, the candidate called the CIA a "rogue organization"; now he's advised by a former Chalabi promoter and Agency basher. No wonder the spooks are spooked.

This is part one of a two-part series on the main presidential candidates' intelligence policies. Next week we'll look at Barack Obama.

Tall, broad-shouldered, mustached, Michael Kostiw looks like the former oilman and CIA case officer in Africa he once was. Now, as Republican staff director for Sen. John McCain on the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, Kostiw, 61, is probably the closest top former CIA official to the Republican presidential candidate, and is discussed as a possible candidate for a senior intelligence position should McCain win the presidency. But his relationship with his former Agency is complex. Standing in his large office in the Senate Russell building on a quiet day during August congressional recess, Kostiw shows off a pair of wooden statuettes that were given to him by an African nation's ambassador—and longtime top official in his country's government—to Washington. The envoy, Kostiw says, is an old contact that he proposed trying to recruit two decades ago when he was a CIA case officer in the country. But his Agency boss at the time waved him off the recruitment, saying, "That guy isn't going anywhere."

It's a small but telling anecdote in an almost two-hour conversation with a man whose career trajectory from CIA Soviet East Europe division operations officer to Texaco oilman to co-vice chair of the International Republican Institute to top Porter Goss and McCain Senate aide may signal what a McCain presidency would mean for the intelligence community—and why many from the CIA are quietly worried about a McCain presidency. The Bush years have been brutal for the CIA, which was pilloried for getting Iraq intelligence wrong while accused of downplaying and withholding intelligence from the White House that would have justified military action. Many current and former US spies expect a McCain administration guided by neoconservatives to treat them with hostility and mistrust. They also say McCain would likely weaken the CIA by giving broad new spying authorities to the Pentagon, which CIA officials believe is more amenable to giving policymakers the intelligence they want, while being subject to less congressional oversight.

These critics point especially to the McCain campaign's top national security adviser Randy Scheunemann—who ran a front group promoting war with Iraq and the fabrications of controversial Iraqi exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and who has lobbied for aggressive NATO expansion. Scheunemann's record, they argue, encapsulates everything wrong with the past eight years of Bush leadership on intelligence issues, from a penchant for foreign policy freelancing and secret contacts with unreliable fabricators, to neoconservatives' disdain for the perceived bureaucratic timidity of the CIA and State Department, to their avowed hostility for diplomacy with adversaries. If McCain wins, "the military has won," says one former senior CIA officer. "We will no longer have a civilian intelligence arm. Yes, we will have analysts. But we won't have any real civilian intelligence capability."

"McCain would be an absolute disaster," says a second recently retired senior US intelligence operations officer. "He is prejudiced against the CIA. The day after the 2004 election when Bush won, McCain came on TV and gave an interview in which he said something to the effect of, 'The CIA tried to sabotage this election. They've made their bed and now they have to lay in it.' I used to like McCain, but he is inconsistent." Columnist Robert Novak quoted McCain in November 2004 as saying, "With CIA leaks intended to harm the re-election campaign of the president of the United States, it is not only dysfunctional but a rogue organization."

McCain is influenced by a circle of hardline Republican legislators and congressional staff as well as disgruntled former Agency officials "who all had these long-standing grudges against people in the Agency," the former senior intelligence officer said. "They think the CIA is a hotbed of liberals. Right-wing, nutty paranoia stuff. They all love the military and hate the CIA. Because the CIA tells them stuff they don't want to hear."

But Kostiw says such fears are overblown. He insists that McCain's national security inclinations are more independent than the neoconservative caste of his campaign's advisory brain trust would suggest. "McCain on intelligence will favor an OSS-type agency," Kostiw said, referring to the CIA's World War II-era predecessor organization, the Office of Strategic Services. What does that mean? "An effective intelligence professional element that will take risks and will be responsive to civilian control and made up of the best and brightest officers the US has to offer." A civilian agency? "It has to have a civilian function, but will have a vast military element as well. I always say, you have to keep the Central in the Central Intelligence Agency."

"Lots of people talk to John on foreign policy matters—not just Randy Scheunemann," Kostiw adds, ticking off a list of realist Republican foreign policy hands: Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to President George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, General Jim Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, former defense secretary James Schlesinger. But are these people really in McCain's inner circle? "The inner circle is the critical issue," Kostiw concedes.

"There has been a battle within the McCain campaign between neoconservatives and realists, but by and large, neoconservatives hold the high ground," says a former White House official now advising the Obama campaign on intelligence issues, on condition of anonymity. "And some of their positions have been deeply troubling," he added, citing McCain's proposal to kick Russia out of the group of eight leading industrialized countries.

Kostiw downplays any damage done by the McCain camp's rhetorical hostility to Moscow. And he says that McCain has been around so long, he is not overly susceptible to the influence of his national security brain trust. "I've been in meetings with McCain, where some adviser is discussing a policy issue," Kostiw said. "And at the end, McCain thanks them and says he's made up his own mind, and the outcome is the other way." Take his position against torture, Kostiw points out, a position that put McCain at stark odds with the Bush/Cheney White House.

But former CIA hands say they have heard such reassurances from Kostiw before—about former House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, who served as CIA director from 2004 until his sudden resignation in 2006—and they proved delusionally unfounded. "Mike [Kostiw] is a nice guy," says the former senior CIA operations officer. "But this is the guy who sat around talking to all of us when Porter came in [as CIA director in 2004], and told us how much Porter respected us, and not to worry about the stories we hear. He was trying to reassure us that Goss was not out to destroy the Agency. He told us everything is going to be fine." Goss (for whom Kostiw was a special adviser) brought to Langley several ultrapartisan House Republican aides—the "Gosslings"—whose hostility to the Agency's senior operations officers and conviction that they were not loyal to the Republican president was so blatant, it led to the angry departure of the two top operations veterans—and dozens more—and sent morale plummeting. After Goss' proposal that Kostiw serve in the CIA No. 3 spot crumbled when it was leaked that Kostiw had been fired from the Agency two decades earlier, allegedly for not paying for a package of bacon from a grocery store (some colleagues say that was just the cover story, and that Kostiw had in fact left the Agency for other financial-related reasons), Goss, against the advice of senior CIA officers, appointed a controversial, womanizing administrative officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, to be the CIA executive director. Foggo's indictment on corruption charges related to the Congressman Duke Cunningham corruption case in May 2006 coincided with Goss' abrupt resignation the same month. (Foggo is slated to go on trial in October.) The top two Agency operations vets who had quit in disputes with the Gosslings—Steve Kappes and Michael Sulick—returned to the Agency after Goss' departure. And Kostiw, after serving as Goss' "special adviser" at the Agency, went to work for McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Kostiw may insist that a McCain presidency would steer away from his advisers' ideological zeal. But his fellow former intelligence officers are skeptical, fearing his assurances will prove as overly optimistic as his promises to them about Goss.

Laura Rozen is Mother Jones' national security correspondent. She can be reached at lrozen@motherjones.com.

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:32:28 EDT

Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain

By Laura Rozen

Washington Dispatch: Four years ago, the candidate called the CIA a "rogue organization"; now he's advised by a former Chalabi promoter and Agency basher. No wonder the spooks are spooked.

.........These critics point especially to the McCain campaign's top national security adviser Randy Scheunemann—who ran a front group promoting war with Iraq and the fabrications of controversial Iraqi exile politician Ahmad Chalabi, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and who has lobbied for aggressive NATO expansion. Scheunemann's record, they argue, encapsulates everything wrong with the past eight years of Bush leadership on intelligence issues, from a penchant for foreign policy freelancing and secret contacts with unreliable fabricators, to neoconservatives' disdain for the perceived bureaucratic timidity of the CIA and State Department, to their avowed hostility for diplomacy with adversaries.........

ARTICLE- http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2008/08/why-cia-veterans-are-scared-of-mccain.html

The Red Queen and the CIA, Part II?

signsSansSignifieds — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 08:57:26 EDT

We all remember how Bush and Cheney presumed to know The Truth about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, and then leaned on the CIA when its reports failed to support their assumptions. Cheney was so hostile to the CIA from the start that he arranged with Donald Rumsfeld to set up the Office for Special Plans, whose purpose was to funnel raw intelligence tidbits to the White House behind the back of the CIA. (This despite the fact that intelligence procedures have long held that raw intelligence should never be released because determining the value, relevance, validity and implications of a given bit of intel requires adherence to rigorous methodology unknown to those--such as politicians and the general public--who are not trained in that methodology.) And we all know what kind of methodology the White House used: "First the sentence, then the evidence." Needless to say, we all know how well that went. And then they turned around and blamed the CIA when things didn't go according to plan (if 'plan' is the word to use).

According to Laura Rozen, an expert in intelligence and foreign policy, CIA veterans are very worried that a President McCain will bring back the same disastrous approach to the CIA and intelligence in general that Bush and Cheney engaged in. She's comparing Obama and McCain on intelligence in a two-part article, the first of which, focused on McCain, is here.

How The CIA Kinda Helped Make “Obama Nation” Smear A Best-Seller

Charley James — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:40:08 EDT

When Jerome Corsi’s latest distortion-and lie-packed smear book, Obama Nation, hit the best seller lists this week, Corsi and his Republican Party apparatchik turned hack publisher can thank a precedent established by the CIA in the early 1950s.

Obama Nation owes its hit status to what The New York Times says are “bulk purchases” of the tome. In other words, right wing groups from the Republican National Committee to 501(C)(3) organisations to who knows which group of wingnuts bought boxes of Corsi’s deranged musings. What they do with the volumes is anyone’s guess: Hand them out to fellow travellers, distribute them to delegates in “welcome packages” at the Republican convention in St. Paul, or just stack the boxes in closets.

This is precisely how then-CIA director Allan Dulles made a national best seller out Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler’s sombre, brooding, anti-Communist fictional rant, in the early 1950s. The unintended consequence was to force millions of baby boomer junior and senior high school students in the US to read the monstrosity.

How the CIA came to be a factor in the book publishing business in the America is a fascinating story, a historical footnote that shows Langley was interfering in domestic politics long before the Church Commission exposed Richard Nixon’s use of the agency to spy on anti-war activists during Viet Nam.

In fact, the ploy traces its roots to the end of World War II. When William “Wild Bill” Donaldson established and ran the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the war, he worked closely with both Dulles and Koestler. Dr. Mark Levine, an English professor at the University of Toronto and noted Koestler scholar, has told me that after the war as Donaldson and Koestler shared a long boat ride home from Europe they talked about their belief that an OSS-like organisation should continue to play a role in intelligence gathering. By the time the ship docked in New York, they had conceived the structure, organization, duties and responsibilities of what would become the CIA. Donaldson presented Pres. Truman with his idea who sent a bill to Congress which quickly passed the measure into law. Dulles became its first director.

Spurred by the Soviet’s blockage of Berlin, by the late 1940s and extending into the Fifties the United States was gripped with Communist paranoia. The Red Menace everywhere: Politicians, statesmen, screenwriters and directors, maybe even grocery store bag boys all were suspected of being Commies or Communist “sympathizers” and countless Congressional committees obsessed on uprooting and exposing them.

In the middle of this national psychosis, Koestler – a long-time anti Communist who was imprisoned briefly by the French in 1941 – showed Donaldson a copy of Darkness at Noon, which he’d written in 1941. Wild Bill thought it ought to be one of those “must read” books and handed a copy on to Dulles, now ensconced as the CIA’s director. Dulles, no slouch himself in spotting the Reds In Every Bed, decided the best way to bring the 10-year old, inconsequential novel to America’s attention was to make it a best seller. It was easy enough for Dulles to it pull off. With the CIA’s many secret operating funds, he sent agents fanning out across New York to order – it was barely in print in the States at the time – and buy up all of the copies of the book they could lay their hands on. The books were sent back to Dulles who ordered them stored in CIA vaults.

Because the CIA refused repeatedly over the years to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests about its role in making Darkness at Noon a cultural phenomenon in the 1950s, it’s not known whether Koestler’s books are still collecting dust in the Company’s storage bins a half-century later. The University of Toronto’s Dr. Levine believes they remain buried at Langley.

So read the best-seller listing this week of Obama Nation with scepticism. Its sudden prominence owes a debt of gratitude to the CIA, Bill Donaldson and Allan Dulles.

More McCain-Approved Shredding Of Constitution

Charley James — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:59:20 EDT

This morning, the Christian Science Monitor on-line edition carries a disturbing, detailed report on an Afghan woman, supposedly the number one woman terrorist suspect in the world according to the Bushies, who appears to have emerged from five years of secret detention by either the US Army or CIA.

In federal court, her lawyers maintained that she was held secretly, released in Pakistan where the US set her up by planting evidence, tortured her repeatedly at a prison inside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and refused her access to medical care.

The article is at www.csmonitor.com/2008/0814/p99s01-duts.html.

This was done in our name, by our government. It seems that every day, something new is revealed that makes me ashamed to be an American - and glad that I reside outside of the country I grew up loving and respecting. Jan. 20, 2009, cannot come fast enough.

Beyond The Forgery: The Real Message Of Ron Suskind’s Book

Charley James — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:00:59 EDT

Most of the discussion of Ron Suskind’s The Way of the World has focused on a single anecdote: The White House ordered the production of a rather clumsy forgery of a letter from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service to Saddam purporting to prove that Muhammad Atta trained in Iraq and that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from Niger. The forgery was leaked to a sympathetic British hack journalist in 2003 with little impact. The content was immediately seen to be implausible. Though the anecdote is juicy and apparently true – the letter exists, after all – it is somewhat beside the point, confirming my suspicion that those who discuss such books read only the first and last chapters. Over the last few days, I read the entire book. There is much more than the not-wholly-surprising news that someone at the White House panicked when no WMDs were found and tried to cover himself politically by forging a document. In fact, Suskind’s work is a book of singular beauty and importance.

First, the forgery anecdote is part of a larger story about the failure and misuse of American intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, especially in human intelligence. Suskind reveals that skillful British agents had managed to develop two highly placed sources within the Iraqi government prior to the start of the war: The head of intelligence who supposedly wrote the incriminating letter, and the foreign minister. Both told the British that there were no weapons of mass destruction and explained why. This was passed to the White House through Dick Cheney’s office, which ignored it and never passed the information along to either the president or the CIA. Suskind also points out that the CIA was completely unable to develop such sources inside Iraq. He also tells an even more alarming tale about how George Bush deliberately blew the British operation that was watching the development of the plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. Despite American urgings to shut the plot down immediately, the British were waiting until the plotters revealed their plans and contacts. They were forced to act prematurely when the US had Pakistan arrest a key intermediary between the plotters in Britain and al-Qaeda. The purpose was apparently to allow Bush to claim progress in preventing terrorism in the run-up to the 2006 congressional elections.

But even more important is the main theme of the book: The role of moral authority in the struggle against terrorism. Suskind argues that American democratic ideals retain a powerful appeal throughout the world. He makes this point by telling the stories of a number of individuals: An American official desperate to prevent terrorists from getting enriched uranium, an Afghan teenager in America on an exchange program, a lawyer from Illinois and her client in Guantanamo, a young Pakistani man educated in the US and living and working in Washington who is arrested by the Secret Service one day when walking to work past the White House, a former US ambassador to Pakistan who wants to see something like the Peace Corps to express what is best about America, Benazir Bhutto, who despite herself finds herself at the head of genuine democratic movement but went to her death believing that America had been unwilling to protect her, and others. Their stories are often touching and beautiful; Suskind can really write. A few examples:

- The Illinois lawyer convinces her new client in Guantanamo that she is genuine by laying 26 annual bar association membership cards on the table between them.

- The young Pakistani who emerges from hours in the interrogation cell beneath the White House – God help us, there is such a thing – to find his co-workers waiting with a cake to welcome him back. Later, when Musharraf declares martial law and shuts down the Pakistani media, he and his Pakistani-American fiancée set up an impromptu news service funneling information back to the leaders of the democratic lawyers’ movement in Pakistan.

- The young Afghan exchange student is asked for the first time in his life what he thinks is right.

- A former military judge remembers seeing the key to the Bastille at Mount Vernon and writes a memo exposing the trials at Guantanamo as farces.

Contrasted with these people, their hopes and ideals are the lies, cruelty, ruthlessness and the sheer injustice that characterize America's prosecution of the putative "Global War on Terror.” We're told these abuses are necessary to fight a new kind of enemy. Suskind does not dwell on these abuses; because they are summarised with white-hot anger in Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, a book that should be read with this one. Instead, Suskind argues that the abuses have undermined the struggle against terrorism.

Suskind points out that Bin Laden and al-Qaeda tapped an old folk tale theme: The prince who leaves the palace behind to live with the people and defend justice. He argues that Ayman al-Zawahiri skillfully deployed this myth to make Osama Bin Laden a champion of justice and Islam. Suskind argues that the ethical corner-cutting of the War on Terror has simply confirmed the jihadist portait of a hypocritical America whose real interest is the colonization of the Islamic world. Guantanamo stands as proof that American pretensions are hollow.

But there were not only torturers at Guantanamo; there were also American lawyers – even American military lawyers, some of whom were booted out of the service as a result of their commitment – who chose to defend the detainees out of a stubborn commitment to law and justice. Suskind argues passionately that it is not too late to redeem the situation, that there is a counter-narrative in which American democratic ideals do prevail, in which America does the right thing, not because it is good public diplomacy and will advance America's interests, but simply because it is moral and ethical and the right thing to do. The world needs and desperately wants America to lead with its moral ideals.

Suskind is right about this. For example, one year ago public opinion polls showed that only 9% of Turks had a favorable impression of America, a country Turkish citizens once idolised. That has risen somewhat, partly due to simple relief that George Bush's term would soon be over but also out of astonishment that America might elect a Black man with a Muslim name as President. The corresponding event in Turkey, electing a Greek or Armenian as prime minister of Turkey, is inconceivable but people want America to be different. They are beginning – very cautiously – to let themselves believe that the old America, Lincoln's "last best hope of mankind," might return. Suskind's goal is to urge Americans to let this happen, both through new government policies and through the actions of individual Americans. May it be so, al-Shallah.

Iraqi politician was at CIA headquarters just days before he distributed a fake memo incriminating Saddam Hussein in 9/11

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:38:01 EDT

New evidence suggests Ron Suskind is right

What was an Iraqi politician doing at CIA headquarters just days before he distributed a fake memo incriminating Saddam Hussein in 9/11?

By Joe Conason

Aug. 8, 2008 | If Ron Suskind's sensational charge that the White House and CIA colluded in forging evidence to justify the Iraq invasion isn't proved conclusively in his new book, "The Way of the World," then the sorry record of the Bush administration offers no basis to dismiss his allegation. Setting aside the relative credibility of the author and the government, the relevant question is whether the available facts demand a full investigation by a congressional committee, with testimony under oath.

When we look back at the events surrounding the emergence of the faked letter that is at the center of this controversy, a strong circumstantial case certainly can be made in support of Suskind's story.......

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/08/08/suskind/

Tape: Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:20:58 EDT

Magazine asserts Feith's Office of Special Plans (OSP) created bogus document

In transcript, ex-CIA official says Cheney likely ordered letter linking Hussein to 9/11 attacks

by John Byrne

A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.

The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. The book was leaked to Politico's Mike Allen on Monday, and released Tuesday......

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Tape_Top_CIA_officer_confesses_order_0808.html

Liberia: CIA Agents Executed 1980 Coup

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:03:34 EDT

Liberia: CIA Agents Executed 1980 Coup

Alloycious David
Monrovia

A former official of the administration of slain President William R. Tolbert has linked agents of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the execution of the 1980 coup d'état.

It is widely believed that the 1980 Coup was carried out by 17 non-commissioned officers of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) of the People's Redemption Council (PRC).

Following the coup, 13 senior government officials of the Tolbert regime were executed by firing squad.

Cllr. Chea Cheapoo who served as Justice Minister under the PRC government told the Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Tuesday that it was an American CIA agent that killed President Tolbert........

ENTIRE ARTICLE- http://allafrica.com/stories/200808061031.html

A Smoking Gun Finally Points Directly At Bush, Cheney, Maybe McCain

Charley James — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:11:06 EDT

It’s too late for impeachment but a new book lays out a clear case for criminal prosecution of Bush and Cheney for launching the Iraq war, either by the US government (obviously after they leave office) or the International Criminal Court.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose book The Way of the World was officially released yesterday but available over the weekend (at least in my neighbourhood bookstore) contends that the White House obtained compelling evidence in early 2003 that Iraq possessed no significant stocks of nuclear or biological weapons but decided to invade anyway.

The book contends – using named sources and on-the-record interviews – that the Bush administration also orchestrated the forging of a document by Iraqi defector and former intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush to create an after-the-fact justification for invading Iraq: That Saddam had WMDs and that Mohammad Atta, the lead 9/11 highjacker, trained in Iraq under Abu Nidal with Saddam Hussein’s blessing.

The forged document, purportedly signed by Habbus, was leaked to British tabloid hack Con Coughlin in December, 2003. Habbush was paid $5-million and re-settled in Jordan because of his cooperation.

The forgery creates legal culpability for Bush and Cheney because they violated two federal statutes.

The first is a bill in 1991 that amended the 1947 act creating the CIA. It states “No covert action may be conducted which is intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion, processes or the media.” Even worse, they could be charged under 18.USC.371 – the same law that hung most of the Watergate conspirators including Nixon – which makes it a crime to conspire to defraud the US government.

There is a legitimate question of the degree to which John McCain knowingly participated in carrying the message to the public in appearances in 2003 and 2004 on Sunday morning talk shows such as Meet The Press and in newspaper interviews.

Suskind has written two previous books sharply critical of Bush administration policies. described the alleged forgery as one of the great lies in modern American political history, likening it to Watergate. Last night on Countdown, Nixon White House counsel John Dean agreed.

The allegations in the document are completely non-sensical.

Abu Nidal was a psychopathic and paranoid leftist with ties to East Germany and split with the PLO because it was too far right for him. Al-Qaeda, a far rightwing Muslim fundamentalist cult, would have wanted anything to do with him, nor he with it.

Hussein would never have allowed a loose canon like Abu Nidal to run a terrorist training camp in Iraq. I mean, really: First Bush and Cheney accuse the Baath Party of being totalitarian, then they say Saddam let notoriously unstable people run around with explosives? Get real! Moreover, Jordanian intelligence never would have tolerated it and Saddam needed Jordan's smuggling trade to get around the UN and US boycotts. So, he could not have afforded to disregard Jordanian sensibilities completely. He could not have hidden a whole training camp from Amman.

Ironically, Habbush, who allegedly signed the forgery, was probably the man who killed Abu Nidal in 2002.

The letter also mentions, according to Coughlin, the purchase of uranium from Niger by Iraq and its transhipment across Libya and Syria.

Ayad Allawi, a long-time CIA asset, vouched for the forged document to Coughlin. That item is evidence for Suskind's narrative about Bush coercing George Tenet into manufacturing the letter. Allawi, based in London, had a special mandate from the CIA to cultivate ex-officers who defected from Iraq, so he was likely Habbush’s handler.

Now for the big mystery: Why bother to cook this up in September, 2003, after the US had already conquered Iraq?

It seems likely that the forgery was ordered by the White House as a direct response to former Ambassador Joe Wilson’s New York Times Op-Ed that revealed that the allegation that Saddam had recently bought yellowcake uranium from Niger was total bunk.

By September of 2003, a guerrilla war was raging in Iraq and it had become clear that there was no WMD. Shiite cleric Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim was blown up in Najaf on August 31. GIs were being killed in al-Anbar. Bush and Cheney needed to refute Wilson's allegation that they ignored his report on Niger uranium. They also needed a smoking gun to tie Iraq to al-Qaeda, without which their continued occupation of the country was on thin legal grounds.

Tying Atta to Abu Nidal would form an ex post facto justification for the war, something Bush desperately needed. Tying Syria and Libya to the alleged Iraqi nuclear program was also a way to set them up as the next targets.

Dean titled his 2005 book Worse Than Watergate. Actually, this is worse than anything the United States has experienced, ever; it is even worse than Pearl Harbor or 9-11 itself.

UPDATE: Both the White House and CIA dismissed the Suskind book and allegations today. But it will be hard for either to dismiss the tape recorded interviews he had with people involved in the entire matter, men who agreed to let their names be used in The Way of the World.

Book says White House ordered forgery

Mikeystyle — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 16:54:29 EDT

Mike Allen, Politico

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”

Suskind: Bush ordered fake letter linking Iraq to 9/11

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:39:53 EDT

Suskind: Bush ordered fake letter linking Iraq to 9/11

David Edwards and Nick Juliano
Published: Tuesday August 5, 2008

A blockbuster new book from investigative journalist Ron Suskind adds another revelation to the growing canon demonstrating the lengths to which President Bush and members of his administration lied, misled and deceived the American people to pursue its invasion of Iraq.

Bush allegedly ordered the CIA to forge a handwritten letter from the head of Iraq's intelligence service to Saddam Hussein that purported to link the Iraqi dictator to the ringleader of the hijackers who toppled the Twin Towers on 9/11, according to news accounts of Suskind's new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Such use of an intelligence service to influence domestic political debate could be an impeachable offense, Suskind writes........

ARTICLE & VIDEOS- http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Suskind_Bush_ordered_fake_letter_linking_0805.html

NPR: author Ron Susskind says Bush administration ordered CIA to fabricate intelligence on Iraq

Mikeystyle — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:50:34 EDT

In his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth And Hope In An Age of Extremism, author Ron Suskind alleges that the Bush administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and eventually fabricated intelligence assets to support its case for war. Both the White House and the CIA deny his claims. Steve Inskeep talks with Suskind about the book.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93293353

False-Flags' Deep Dark History -- Attempting to Blame or Provoke Iran

Amunaor — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:17:17 EDT

For folks that find this type of operation incredible, here is an extensively, well documented false-flag example:

"Operation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a false flag conspiracy plan, proposed within the United States government in 1962. The plan called for CIA or other operatives to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Castro-led Cuba. One plan was to "develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington". This operation is especially notable in that it included plans for hijackings and bombings followed by the use of phony evidence that would blame the terrorist acts on foreign governments. The plan states, "The desired resultant from the execution of this plan would be to place the United States in the apparent position of suffering defensible grievances from a rash and irresponsible government of Cuba and to develop an international image of a Cuban threat to peace in the Western Hemisphere." Operation Northwoods was drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and signed by then-Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and sent to the Secretary of Defense."
OPERATION NORTHWOODS, BAMFORD VIDEO
January 31st, 2003 Bush’s proposal to Tony Blair was to paint a U.S. plane in UN colors and fly it over Iraq in the hopes of getting it shot down was straight out of Operation Northwoods (Philippe Sands, Lawless World)

Brzezinski: On The Path To War With Iran
The Rationale for War
“...a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran...” Zbigniew Brzezinski.
01 Feb 2007 The National Security Advisor to former President Carter testified before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on 1 Feb 2007. Dr.Zbigniew Brzezinski delivered a scathing assessment of the core mistakes made by the Bush administration in the Middle East. Just before describing what he termed the “mythical historical narrative” of the policy, he offered a scenario that the Bush administration might use as a convenient invitation to attack Iran...
“…by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ U.S. military action against Iran…”

To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them
Think Progress | July 31, 2008

Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh -- a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker -- revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President's office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.

In Hersh's most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The "meeting took place in the Vice-President's office. 'The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,'" according to one of Hersh's sources.

During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney's office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them:
HERSH: There were a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don't we build -- we in our shipyard -- build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.

Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, "if you get the right incident, the American public will support it.” "Look, is it high school? Yeah," Hersh said. "Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We're playing, you know, who's the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran."

Transcript: HERSH: There was a meeting. Among the items considered and rejected -- which is why the New Yorker did not publish it, on grounds that it wasn't accepted -- one of the items was why not...There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don't we build -- we in our shipyard -- build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives...

False Flags by Captain Eric H. May
Global Research, February 23, 2008
The easiest way to carry out a false flag attack is by setting up a military exercise that simulates the very attack you want to carry out. As I'll detail below, this is exactly how government perpetrators in the US and UK handled the 9/11 and 7/7 "terror" attacks, which were in reality government attacks blamed on "terrorists."...

The necon regime has had plenty of precedent to study and exploit. Let’s hope we can throw a monkey wrench into their schemes to prevent another.

More Info Here:

The Power of Nightmares - Why We Fight

When is a Surge not a Surge: When an Invasion/Occupation is not a War

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

The Spy Who Loves Us

Chinni — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:45:53 EDT

It's a complicated world we live in..

The Spy Who Loves Us

by Philip Giraldi, June 2 2008

After Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1986, the U.S. negotiated an understanding with Israel—a “gentlemen’s agreement” —stipulating that neither nation would thenceforth conduct espionage operations in the other’s territory without consent. But the agreement was a sham from the beginning. The Israeli government didn’t even honor its commitments in the aftermath of the Pollard case, failing to return the estimated 360 cubic feet of stolen information to enable the U.S. to conduct a damage assessment. The United States, for its part, continued to recruit and run agents inside Israel throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was known within the intelligence and counterintelligence communities that Israel did the same in the United States..

Ray McGovern's Response to Obama

Joshua Tinnin — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:16:29 EDT

I have asked for all donations back and am quitting the campaign. This FISA mess is revealing that Obama is willing to sell our rights down the river and lie about it, and he hasn't even been to the convention yet.

I happened across veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern's blog today, which should be required reading for staffers and volunteers:

It's a Deal Breaker for This Intelligence Officer (click for complete post)

"A painful reminder that the Republicans have no corner on arrogance. You think you have us over a barrel. Well let me tell you something those suits from K Street haven't told you; you need our active support, and you are about to blow it.

"Your "explanation" was unworthy of one who has sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (including the Fourth Amendment).

"And your attitude is not that of a person I THOUGHT was different--and would be genuinely for change I could believe in."

...

Ray McGovern
US Army Infantry/Intelligence Officer: 1962-64
CIA Analyst, 1964-1990
Co-Founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Question: How do we protect national security AND civil liberties?

Benjamin Vos, Nashville — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:24:43 EDT

How can we effectively prevent terrorists from organizing and planning attacks on US interests at home and abroad, but still protect the civil liberties that were trampled on by the Patriot Act, Protect America Act, and the recent FISA revision HR 6304 passed by the US House?

Please post your comments, along with any articles, information, or links, in the comment section below.

Re-evaluation of drugs-laws

Andreas Firewolf — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:43:09 EDT

Imagine that the USA would adopt a policy like this:

1. The use of any substance (heroine, cocaine, alcohol, nicotine) is legal for personal use,
1a. if that person is older than 25 (for example);
1b. and that substance does not cause criminal behaviour. (A substance that makes you loose your mind in such a way that you start killing people can not be legal.)

2. The use of drugs and alcohol by people younger than a certain age is to be punished with re-education in a special institution.

3. Supplying young people with drugs is severely punished: life-long sentence for example;

4. Drugs are sold in the drugstore and taxed with special health-tax. With these taxes, institutions that try to cure drug- and alcohol-problems are financed.

5. The DEA and other narcotic-task-forces will be closed. The employees can be more useful with anti-terrorist activities.

What results can be expected?

1. Organized crime will loose a major part of their income and will have less money to corrupt society;

2. Terrorists will loose a major part of their funding;

3. Since there is no more money to be made by selling drugs, the drug-dealers will disappear. The pressure on young people to start with drugs will diminish;

4. Street-gangs will loose a major part of their income, the members have to find ordinary jobs. There will be less money to buy weapons. There will be less violence on the streets.

5. Drug-addicts can buy their drugs for regular prices at the drug-store, crimes done by drug-addicts will fall sharply;

6. The drug-addicts finance their own rehabilitation when they buy drugs: The drugs are taxed with health-tax and the money is spend on institutions that try to cure drug-problems;

7. If giving drugs to young people is severely punished and we can prevent the usage of drugs by young people, the drug-abuse will drop sharply. Not many people start with drugs when they are mature.

7a. It is essential to try to keep young people away from nicotine. Nicotine is the gate-way to drug-addiction. Not in a way that ALL smokers will become drug-addicts. Everyone can see that this is not true. But on the other hand: How many drug-addicts are non-smokers? Nicotine does make people more vulnerable for other addictions. If you can keep juveniles away from nicotine, you also keep them away from other drugs.

8. The conflict between liberty or personal freedom and the drug-laws disappears. I am not quite sure about the constitution of the USA. In my country, the Netherlands, there is a sharp conflict between article 1 of the constitution and the drug-laws. It has not happened yet, but suppose an attorney of a drug-criminal (for example caught with 1.000 kg of cocaine) would demand the return of his drugs and immunity of his client against criminal prosecution, this demand has a good chance to succeed. Article 1 of the constitution of the Netherlands prohibits discrimination of any kind. To make a distinction between nicotine on one hand and heroine or cocaine on the other, is based on conviction. Discrimination based on conviction is prohibited by article 1 of the constitution.

(If an attorney would make such a demand, it is likely that the judges would make a political decision and allow this kind of discrimination, because the social and political consequences would be to high.)

If the western world would re-evaluate it's drug-policy, the abuse of drugs could diminish, crime-rate would fall and the conflict between freedom and drugs-laws would disappear.

Damage-control

The American society has tried to prevent the abuse of drugs, like it tried to prevent the abuse of alcohol around 1930. Al Capone and Lucky Luciano gained power with many thanks to the alcohol-prevention-program. Street-gangs, terrorists and criminal organizations have gained power with many thanks to the drug-laws.

Is there another CIA? We know about the CIA from Langley. But is there another CIA in Amsterdam and New York? Is there a Criminal Intelligence Agency, funded by organized crime, that gathers information about FBI, DEA and many other organizations. Do they have a database with fingerprints of all people that ever went to a police-academy? Do they send people to police-academies to infiltrate and to gather information? If criminal organizations would pay 5% of their revenues to such an organization, it would have more money than FBI, CIA and DEA together.

The 'war-on-drugs' was lost before 1980. We should do damage-control. If mature people want to use or abuse drugs, we should let them. We should not sacrifice our society to useless attempts to save all people. We should focus our attention to young people and to save mainstream society from the corruption of organized crime.

At the moment, the use of certain substances (drugs) is punished. Why? Because the majority is against drugs. But what an adult person does with his/her live is a matter of personal freedom, as long as the behaviour is not harmful to other people and society. In stead of punishing the use of drugs, harmful behaviour should be punished. If someone wants to destroy himself with drugs, and that person does no harm to other people, it is better to let him. Destructive persons will find a way to destroy themselves. If the state taxes harmful substances with health-tax and uses this health-tax for therapy, the damage can be controlled.

Muslim Activists Seeking Probe of Reported Surveillance

funkfresh01 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:18:08 EDT

http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_C_muslim30.426eaa8.html

Source: Press-Enterprise

Author: Paige Austin

A civil-rights group and a coalition of Muslim activists headed by a Corona man called on Congress this week to investigate a report that military and law enforcement officials stole surveillance records of Southland Muslims from Camp Pendleton.

The request stems from a news report that military officials and law enforcement members of the Los Angeles County Terrorist Early Warning Group illegally took the top-secret documents from the base's Strategic Technical Operations Center.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz has been court-martialed and convicted for his role in the thefts.

While the details of the surveillance and the alleged theft remain largely unknown, the incident provides confirmation that the military and law enforcement groups have been gathering information about local Muslim communities, said Michael German, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office.

I'm done now with my rant on Columbia - LOL

Inspired in Florida - a Recovering Republican — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:49:38 EDT

I'm done now with my rant on Columbia - LOL

But THIS is why we need Obama in the whitehouse. HE GETS IT!!!

WE NEED CHANGE!!! WE NEED TO TAKE THES BILLIONS BEING SENT TO FUND ANOTHER FALSE WAR AND PUT IT INTO PREVENTATIVE DRUG POLICY REFORM.

AND WE NEED TO STOP THE CIA FROM FLYING COCAINE INTO THIS COUNTRY.

And Hillary's not going to do it because her husband has too much too lose!!!

Grrrrrrrrr

Rant off.

Sloppy Tradecraft Exposes CIA Drug Plane

Inspired in Florida - a Recovering Republican — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:39:17 EDT

I apologize for going on and on about Plan Columbia, but there will be no reform on Drug Policies until this problem is eliminated, and the Government stops flying Cocaine into the US so they can take over Columbia's fossil fuels and coal mining.

Sloppy Tradecraft Exposes CIA Drug Plane

WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Oct 08, 2007
by Daniel Hopsicker

Seventeen months after an American-registered DC9 airliner was busted with 5.5 tons of cocaine, a major international scandal is brewing over a second drug trafficking incident in Mexico's Yucatan involving an American-registered jet owned by a dummy front company of the kind usually associated with the CIA.

A weekend visit to “Donna Blue Aircraft Inc” of Coconut Beach FL., the company which FAA records show owned the Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) which crash-landed with 3.7 tons of cocaine aboard in Mexico’s Yucatan two weeks ago, has revealed that the company’s listed address is an empty office suite with a blank sign out front.

There was no sign of Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc., at the address listed at the Florida Dept. of Corporations, 4811 Lyons Technology Parkway #8 in Coconut Beach FL.

Bush Has Privately Owned Spies

smffy — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:14:05 EDT

The Carlysle Group, a private intelligence Contractor, jsut bought out the second biggest such contractor to become a super intelligence agency. President Bush, his father George H Bush, former Sectretaries of State, and other high officials are owners of the Carlyle Group.

No longer is the CIA the intelligence gathering agency informing President Bush. He now has his own private army (Blackwater, and The Carlyely Group as well. It does not bode well for the country to have paid spies and a priveate military.

Letter to Barack Obama

William from Westford, MA — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:20:45 EDT

Hello. I am running for Massachusetts House of Representatives and I am contacting you because of the debate that you had last night. The CIA has been conducting Remote Viewing, which is psychic intelligence gathering, since 1972. I am skilled in these methods, and during the debate I used them to gather information from you and to remotely interact with you and your competetor in a secondary respect.

I encourage you to examine the policies on my campaign page at www.WilliamBunker2008.blogspot.com. It contains information important to the 2008 elections and the coming presidential term.

I am aware of the July 1952 UFO flyover of the White House and other Capitol buildings in Washington, DC and president Truman's admission of the existence of UFOs that summer. You may be aware of the Disclosure Project. If elected, I would invite them to testify before the Massachusetts State Congress. I believe human activity is guided and influenced psychically by alien and other 'spiritual' forces, but in a way that may not always be best for mankind, and which progresses according to the politics of advanced alien civilizations.

I have researched government association with various aliens, and I believe that human and alien interaction will change during the 2008-2012 time period. I also believe that in relation to this interhuman association will change geometrically.

Organizations, financial control, and information repression maintained by Western governments and financial houses will be reduced and ended. Advanced human-originated technology and liberty that interrupts global energy businesses and government authorities will become focused in the eyes of the public.

Since this is inevitable, it will be important for us to prepare the public for this kind of intelligence and power. Currently our systems are working to suppress this technology and the knowledge of it. It will be challenging to work against that established base to provide these preparatory skills.

This seems to be the biggest mass-human and informational problem for the coming time period. Coming forward with information decisive to divulgence of government activity will help the grassroots organizations which are most able to process and distribute this information to people.

Thank you for your open mindedness and interest in these matters and your enthusiasm. I would be willing to work in association with your campaign on these platforms.

William

Video relevant to this topic:

6 Hour long UFO Flyover of Washington, 1952:

On Taking One For The Team, Or, Hillary’s “Sniper” Truth Revealed

Fake from Chicago, IL — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:11:10 EDT

There has been much made of Hillary Clinton’s recent Bosnian “sniper” incident, and many who have a lower opinion of her as a result.

For the first time ever, we can now reveal in this space that far from being untruthful, Senator Clinton in fact has taken a major political hit in order to protect an important national security program…the existence of which she has not been in a position to reveal.

Through the use of secret anonymous sources we will reveal the surprising reality…the “rest of the story”, if you will—and although you may be shocked, you probably won’t be surprised.

Senator Clinton's Nomination is C-H-I-M-E-R-I-C-A-L

Thatcher — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:42:34 EDT

(cross-posted on The Dead Guy)

chimerical

Main Entry: chi•me•ri•cal
Pronunciation: k?-?mer-i-k?l, k?-, -?mir-
Variant(s): also chi•me•ric -ik
Function: adjective
Etymology: chimera
Date: 1638
1 : existing only as the product of unchecked imagination : fantastically visionary or improbable
2 : given to fantastic schemes

Thanks to a friend, I was able to attend tonight's musical at the Des Moines Civic Center - "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (Spelling Bee). It was a fun night, but as I drove home, a bell went off in my head (and no, Spellers, it wasn't Vice-Principal Panch), I recognized that Senator Clinton and her campaign for the Democratic Presidential Nomination can be encapsulated using many of the lyrics from the musical.

Bitter? Sweet!

Thatcher — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:38:53 EDT

(cross-posted on The Dead Guy)

So once again, lifelong politicians have taken words out of context and wielded them as weapons back at the person who spoke those words.

Senator Obama was 100% correct when he said after all the promises we have been given about improving the economic conditions, not just in Pennsylvania - but across America, and yet nothing has truly changed, that we are bitter and many of us blame that which we are told to blame: immigrants, people wanting to restrict the 2nd Amendment, the government supposedly trampling our religious rights, and so forth.

That's what Obama was saying. And if you hear the whole conversation in context - you know that is what he said. The American people have been given scape - goats to blame by the people that are really to blame - the politicians that won't do a damn thing to bring about the change needed to restore jobs and better conditions for our country.

But let me tell you something - I'm not bitter - I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!

The Power of Nightmares - Why We Fight

Amunaor — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:19:04 EDT

Considering the mental torment unleashed by the 911 psychodrama; under which the public mind is currently spell-bound, as a pretext, the architects now have the power to 'project' the nemeses 'Al Qaeda' into any corner of the globe they wish to insert their bloody boot, knowing full well that their actions will be accompanied by a modicum of public cheering and support.

The corporation’s successful deployment of Freudian psychological tricks, employed once before to harness the purchasing power of the consuming masses, has now turned an even more sinister corner. Tapping into the deeply rooted xenophobic religious fears of the psyche, enabling it to pit ‘Us’ against ‘Them’, while an evolving war industry thrives in the chaos, bloating itself upon the export market of war material, as it covertly seeks to undermine imerging democracies, a thorn in the side, and threat to imperial desires.

This force has evolved the capacity and of necessity, the psychological tools to incite global dominance, while the masses languish in its psychic prison, as automatons, a manufactured corporate bubble of consensus reality, suitable only to its own egocentric survival.

If you haven't seen the BBC documentires, I highly recommend you set time aside to watch both: 'The Century of Self' followed by 'The Power of Nightmares'. You will see how the - Al Qaeda Everywhere - specter morphed into its present form; a psychological tool for the exploitation of fear, to promote a never ending war!

Adam Curtis exposes the public manipulation we sense but usually don't understand. His BBC documentaries are legendary in Britain but practically unknown in the US. An American network executive who wouldn't even let his name be used said "we would be crucified if we showed that here". These documentaries are like a graduate course in how the American and British public has been herded like cattle since the end of World War I.
Essential BBC documentaries not shown on US TV
The Power of Nightmares Part 1 (Alternate to part 1 broken link at above location)

A cursory examination into the networking tentacles of the defense industry, which tap and prioritizes every innovative thought that bubbles to the surface, from each and every institution of American society, it becomes obviously difficult to escape the clutches of its reach into every segment of our economy. What should be even more worrisome is the continued raising up of mercenary, Solders of Fortune.

In the HBO documentary video, ‘Why We Fight’, the point is quickly hammered home, just how deeply permeated every nerve and fiber of American psyche has become, with the notion that war is necessary, war is good and war creates jobs.

This is the mindset Obama wishes to change. If not, it will be to our own peril. There is something beastly psychopathic reflected in a nation's annual military budget of 650 billion dollars, when weighed in the balace of world population, of roughly 7 billion people.

“Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” - James Jesus Angelton - Director of CIA Counter Intelligence (1954-74)
“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” - William Colby - Director of the CIA (1973-76)

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

CIA Rebuts one of McCain's Criticisms. Point, Obama.

Albert McMurry — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:42:26 EST

Huffington Post points out something McCain said in his speech tonight to criticize Obama.

"In August, Sen. Barack Obama had made the argument that, as president, he would target Al Qaeda officials in Pakistan even without the country's acquiescence -- the type of attack that, six months later, proved to be successful."

Explicating Words, Such as 'is' and 'Torture'

James H. Versemann — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:28:01 EST

Explicating Words, Such as 'is' and 'Torture'

2/7/2008

So, I saw on CNN yesterday that there was a discussion within the House Judiciary Committee as to whether or not the practice of waterboarding is (or should be) considered torture.

In the words of comic Lewis Black, "When did that go up for grabs?!"

As with most of my rants, you may want to open FireFox and get a couple of tabs going.

The article I’m now considering is here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/07/mukasey.waterboarding/index.html

This is a wiki on waterboarding that I found to be very informative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterboarding

The demonstration of waterboarding that I will refer to can be found here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EdswfKFt4wo

“Attorney General Michael Mukasey told lawmakers Thursday he will not open a criminal investigation into the CIA's acknowledged use of ‘waterboarding’ on terror suspects.” This is the lead on one of CNN’s top stories today, the day after the oh-so-useless hearing that exemplifies the mockery that this administration has made of our country.

Well, the CIA has confirmed the use of waterboarding, and now the government wants to quibble over the definition of torture because the public sees it hasn’t washed for dinner. Maybe we should redefine ‘is’ again. . .

According to CNN, Mukasey also said, “opening an investigation would send a message that Justice Department opinions are subject to change.” Isn’t the failure to acknowledge honest changes in positions what always hurts our nation’s leaders?

Generally speaking, waterboarding is an interrogation technique that attempts to coerce subjects into offering confessions. The basic idea is to give the subject the sensation of suffocation and drowning in a less messy setting. Feet and hands are stretched out and bound, and the head is held at a slight decline to open the larynx. Next, water is forced into the subject’s mouth (often, a towel or plastic wrap is wrapped around the subject’s head to prevent oxygen from entering the subject’s lungs), and its entrance into the larynx produces a drowning that is intolerable, even for those who have undergone elite special forces training. But these confessions are due to the obligatory duress that is embodied in this type of. . interrogation.

Despite the U.S. “commitment” to preventing torture through agreements such as the UN Convention Against Torture, it continues. I think it’s clear that something that could cause death, depression, PTSD, brain damage, lung damage and extreme pain is torture. The U.S. has agreed not to do this to humans, via the UN.

As has often been pointed out by conservatives, terrorists use these techniques. The next step is to say “Why shouldn’t we?” The obvious answer is that a nation that claims to respect life (though abortion and the death penalty continue to exist), and constantly touts itself as the world’s moral leader, cannot continue to play into the hands of America’s critics. A realization of higher morality and national security cannot be achieved through these instances of torture, and the efforts to bypass America’s judicial system with claims of “extrajudicial prisoners.”

_||//

Don’t Let Them Bury Torture Crimes

Tony Loyd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:16:54 EST

Evidently, CIA director Michael Hayden decided that Super Tuesday was a good day to bury bad news, and he wasn’t far from wrong. Yesterday Director Hayden admitted that the US Government has used waterboarding on at least 3 people. This is the first such clear admission by the Bush Administration.

Background: FISA in Historical Context

Tony Loyd — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 18:44:11 EST

The purpose of this document is to provide you with historical context for the current fight over FISA, and the FISA Amendments Act of 2007 which is scheduled for a vote on Monday, February 4, 2008.

Torture & CIA Rendition

Ed — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:02:37 EST

Recently I heard the story of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. In short, this Al-Qaeda operative was tortured to get information about links between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. He gave his interrogators the information they sought, and that information was used in the lead up to the war in Iraq. Unfortunately for all of us, the "confession" he gave, after being beaten, was false.

But, I stumbled onto a Frontline piece on CIA Rendition. Also an ABC News blog on the topic.

On the Frontline site, a time line lays out the history of rendition. If you read the first page's info, it was the Clinton administration which began this process in the effort against Al-Qaeda in the late 1990's. It began as a way to handle terrorists by sending them to countries that held charges against them. It would free our government from having to bring them to the US and put them on trial.

The Bush administration later used this as a way of getting the terrorists to "talk" when it wanted information, while avoiding any risk of Geneva or War Crimes violations. Renditions to places that don't adhere to international and national law that condemns torture.

So the question exists, what is Obama's position on torture and CIA Rendition? If he does not condone, nor would allow it to continue, what will be his plan to protect Americans?

Do we need new laws to make it easier to permanently en prison terrorists? Should we have special rules for evidence in the trials?

I am inspired by Obama and his ability to speak. A leader must be able to communicate to get others to follow. That communication skill must include the ability to listen. The leader then must be able to decide a path to take and, if not the popular one, inspire those who disagree that this is the best path to take.

None Dare Call it Torture

Tony Loyd — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 12:05:11 EDT

There’s a story told about President Abraham Lincoln. A group of citizens came to him early in his presidency, before the start of the civil war, and tried to get him to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln listened politely, and then posed a question to his visitors. “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, then how many legs would a dog have?” The group answered “Five.” “No,” replied Lincoln. “A dog has four legs. Calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”

== Character Assassination ==

Mason Dixon — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:11:54 EDT

== Character Assassination ==
We should establish a network of sympathentic organizations that can deliver simultaneous specific messaging to help the cause. The Republician parties has this, and it has proven very effective over the last decade. The Democrates have struggled to establish as effective a network. An artist network would be more tied into media and could be more effective than Fox news, et al.

===Campaigns===

'''Schwarzenegger - The Killing Machine'''

One really powerful way that artists could help right now is use the image of arnold schwarzenegger in some way. Use it on posters, in art, as a funny comment. Show the real Arnold : The Terminator, the killing machine, make him look like a fool, make him look like Hitler. Use images from Predator and Commando. Give him red eyes.Use every outlet you have to make him an embarissment to the Republician Party. Make them hide him. Link />

'''Giuliani - The Dictator of New York'''

As mayor of New York, Giuliani showed how extream police presents could "clean up" any town. Giuliani's solution for New York? Jail more people than ever before. Another brilliant plan from the US Conservatives.

'''Cheney - Why Wont he run?'''

Why wont Cheney Run? Is it because of Haliburton? Or the FEMA Appointment? or the Grand Jury investigation of the CIA leak? or his ties to the Energy cartel? Or what he knew about 9/11? Or misusing intelligence to make a case for war? Take your pick... He's done it all.

No election would suffer the scandal his administration has perpetrated on the electorate. That's why Cheney wont run, and Bush with him. The're a disgrace to what it is to be an American.

=== Distribution Affiliates ===

* Parties: Democratic National Committee, Green Party, Libratarian, Communist* Wikipedia, WikiCampaign* A Google Bomb Network, Bloggers, ...* Daily Show/Colbert Report, Comedy Central, Charley Rose Show...* Adbusters, zine scene, other magazines...* Traditional News agencies, Lehrer News Hour, ...* Political Advocacy agencies, human rights watch, earth watch, NORML, Green Energy, Organic Foods, Noam Chomsky, Darfur Charities, etc* Muscians: DJ Spooky, Rage Against the Machines, ...* Filmmakers & Actors: Michael Moore, ...* Social Web Communities: mailing groups, meetup groups, ...* Hacker & Activist networks* Churches, Spiritual Organizations, Holistic Institutions

We need someone to contact some of these organizations and begin to formalized way they can suggest memes to the network, and receive memes from the network. How, when and if network memes are used by affiliates is up to the affiliate in question, but the better the network can be organized the more strategically it can be used.

A Voice From the Past

Duncan from Vista, CA — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 12:56:21 EDT

This month Rolling Stone is publishing an article by the son of E. Howard Hunt. CIA agent Hunt was one of the Watergate burglers and leader of Nixons dirty tricks team and the article is a preview of a forthcoming book. It is also a deathbed confession of a man that was intimately involved with the assasination of John Kennedy. It is available online, the reading of which floods the memory with the trauma that the whole world endured as a community, and the tragedy that myself and contemporaries suffered as individuals in a time of youth, hope and innocence.

It was a fundamental event in which the tragic component was the birth of cynicism and a turning away from political participation by those who were born after World War Two. Since that day in Dallas, rhetoric by those aspiring to office rang hollow and idealism seemed, well, naive. It was with great interest and a kind of macabre fascination that I poured over the article and its incumbant verifications of the dark suspicions we have held since November 22, 1963. After many hours of website visits about the asassination, its participants and victims, sadness numbed me to any more diabolical, conspiritorial connections . As I was about to trudge into the bedroom, I came across parts of a speech that Kennedy gave in 1959 to supporters. The word 'resonate', like much hackneyed new age buzzterms, has been used so frequently that it loses much of its capacity to buzz, but this paragraph from JFK being read from the perspective of one who is is drawn to a political candidate for the first time in forty plus years, ..resonates:

"Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed a Lincoln-after Taft we needed a Wilson-after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt. . . . And after eight years of Eisenhower, this nation needs a strong, creative Democrat in the White House."

His words are powerful, relevent and of vast import after eight years of the Reichian Presidency of George Bush and his minions. Obama for President...our last, best chance at wholeness.

The Bush Administration is Criminally Insane

BarbaraAnne — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 11:24:58 EST

Ignoring reports like "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" because Bush was on vacation.

Twisting intelligence so they could lie us and go to war in Iraq

Lying to anyone stupid enough to believe there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11

CIA rendition to torture people

Holding Jose Padilla without trial or charge

Torture at Guantanamo Bay

Torture at Abu Ghraib

Messed up war plan for Iraq

Not enough armor for our troops in Iraq

Secret Pentagon Intelligence Unit - Office of Special Plans - to give Cheney the twisted intelligence he wanted so he could ignore the CIA and the State Department

Bremer taking apart the Iraqi Army and infrastructure when we only had 150,000 troops in the entire country, then getting a Medal of Honor for it. Doesn't he know that award is hollow? Bush demeaned the entire award. Now no Medal of Honor has the value it once did.

Electronic eavesdropping on Americans without a warrant since 2002

Outing of covert CIA Agent Valerie Plame, committing a crime to discredit her husband who wrote that their claim about Iraq buying uranium in Niger was false

Doing nothing about global warming

Cheney's secret meeting with oil executives to set Energy Policy

Planning to attack Iran

Allowing the African-American citizens of New Orleans to die after Katrina, in third-world conditions so disgusting, the news media were calling citizens of the United States of America refugees. No one even realized what an insult that was. People actually had to ask them to stop.

Not rebuilding New Orleans and leaving all those people's homes to rot.

Voting against stem-cell research

40 million Americans still do not have health insurance.

Bad trade agreements, which hurt middle class job values

The Bush Administration is criminally insane. I think the whole lot of them should be impeached and put in jail for war crimes. They have made our country an attack dog, and the shame of the world.

Barbara