Salon.com Woodward's disgrace
Woodward's disgraceHe was once a great journalist, but his obsession with "access" turned him into a palace courtier and shill for the GOP.
By Joe Conason
Nov. 19, 2005 Forced to reveal his strange secret about the Valerie Plame case, Bob Woodward has humiliated his trusting bosses at the Washington Post and exposed something rotten at the center of journalism's national elite. By withholding critical information from the Post's editors and pretending to be a neutral observer, Woodward badly compromised the values that he and his newspaper once embodied. A living symbol of the great constitutional role of a free press -- to hold government accountable -- has evidently degenerated into another obedient appendage of rogue officialdom.
With his relentless pursuit of "access," the literary formula that has brought him so much money and fame, Woodward placed book sales above journalism. Boasting of his friendly relationship with the president who facilitated his interviews with administration officials, he now behaves like the journalistic courtiers of the Nixon era.
To those who have observed Woodward's career since the glory of Watergate, including readers of his many bestselling books, the change in his role and outlook have long been obvious. For him, the cultivation of high-ranking sources is the very essence of journalism. And while there is no question that reporters owe a duty of confidentiality to their sources, it is also true that they owe candor to their colleagues and transparency to their readers.
Sadly, Woodward not only served as a silent accomplice of the Bush White House in its attack on Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, but went much further by publicly criticizing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of that attack -- and suggested repeatedly, up to the eve of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that the investigation should be curtailed. Now, instead, his own admission of involvement may have figured in Fitzgerald's indication Friday that he plans to call a new grand jury in the case.
Indeed, Woodward abused his position as a journalistic authority on intelligence and national security issues to denigrate the Fitzgerald probe. Last July 7, on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," he claimed to know that the outing of Plame's identity had created "no national security threat" and "no jeopardy to her life." He went on to mock the case: "There was no nothing. When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great." He didn't say then how he supposedly knew what consequences did or didn't flow from the CIA operative's exposure.
Ten days later, on CNN, Woodward told host (and Post colleague) Howard Kurtz that he didn't think any crime had been committed. He went on to complain about how long the leak investigation had taken. "The special prosecutor has been working 18 months. Eighteen months into Watergate we knew about the tapes. People were in jail." That kind of spin is more worthy of a Republican pundit than a Post editor (and of course Woodward never complained about the extraordinary length and expense of Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigation, presumably because the sources in that case were leaking to the Post).
Woodward reiterated his exoneration of the White House on Oct. 27 -- and on that occasion, he told CNN's Larry King that he knew the CIA had completed its own assessment of the affair and found that no damage had been done in exposing Valerie Plame Wilson.
Only two days later, however, his own newspaper reported that the CIA had performed no formal damage assessment -- a process that doesn't begin until after any criminal investigation is finished. And Woodward neglected to tell King's audience that the CIA had originally demanded that the Justice Department investigate the leak because of its potentially serious effects on national security.
Those misleading remarks were only exceeded by his disingenuous statements about how the leak might have occurred. Denying that there had been a "smear campaign," he assured King that "when the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter."
Of course, Woodward knew then how the leak began, in very specific terms, and used his privileged position to help promote the Republican line. (For a full catalog of Woodward's media misbehavior in this case, see MediaMatters.org.)
According to the Post's ombudswoman, Deborah Howell, the public is now outraged over Woodward's conduct. They are confused by his actions and unconvinced by his explanations, which are contradicted by the timeline of the investigation. Post executive editor Leonard Downie, who bravely engaged in a chat with angry readers on Friday, was reduced to offering testimonials about Woodward's truthful character and bromides about his exceptional record.
"Bob Woodward never lied," declared Downie. Yet at another point in the same conversation, the Post editor conceded that a reader was "correct" in saying Woodward had been "dishonest in the extreme" and "probably destroyed his credibility." Those consequences of his "mistake," said Downie, would have to be measured against "Bob's exceptional record."
So will the contents of Woodward's next book on the Bush administration.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
The Anchoress � Pull-out? The deaths will be on your head
The Anchoress � Pull-out? The deaths will be on your head
Blogger Thoughts: I think this is more rational:
October 3, 2005
What's Wrong With Cutting and Running?
by Gen. (ret.) William E. Odom
If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren't they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.
Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:
We would leave behind a civil war.
We would lose credibility on the world stage.
It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.
Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.
Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.
Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq's neighbors.
Shi'ite-Sunni clashes would worsen.
We haven't fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.
Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.
But consider this:
1. On civil war. Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That's civil war. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can't prevent a civil war by staying.
For those who really worry about destabilizing the region, the sensible policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal, reestablishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing confidence in the UN Security Council, and trying to knit together a large coalition including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until the United States withdraws from Iraq and admits its strategic error, no such coalition can be formed.
Thus, those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.
2. On credibility. If we were Russia or some other insecure nation, we might have to worry about credibility. A hyperpower need not worry about credibility. That's one of the great advantages of being a hyperpower: When we have made a big strategic mistake, we can reverse it. And it may even enhance our credibility. Staying there damages our credibility more than leaving.
Ask the president if he really worries about U.S. credibility. Or, what will happen to our credibility if the course he is pursuing proves to be a major strategic disaster? Would it not be better for our long-term credibility to withdraw earlier than later in this event?
3. On the insurgency and democracy. There is no question the insurgents and other anti-American parties will take over the government once we leave. But that will happen no matter how long we stay. Any government capable of holding power in Iraq will be anti-American because the Iraqi people are increasingly becoming anti-American.
Also, the U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.
President Bush's statements about progress in Iraq are increasingly resembling LBJ's statements during the Vietnam War. For instance, Johnson's comments about the 1968 election are very similar to what Bush said in February 2005 after the election of a provisional parliament.
Ask the president: Why should we expect a different outcome in Iraq than in Vietnam?
Ask the president if he intends to leave a pro-American liberal regime in place. Because that's just impossible. Postwar Germany and Japan are not models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old) constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus, General Clay and General MacArthur were merely reversing a decade and a half of totalitarianism – returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a much longer period in Germany.
Imposing a liberal constitutional order in Iraq would be to accomplish something that has never been done before. Of all the world's political cultures, an Arab-Muslim one may be the most resistant to such a change of any in the world. Even the Muslim society in Turkey (an anti-Arab society) stands out for being the only example of a constitutional order in an Islamic society, and even it backslides occasionally.
4. On terrorists. Iraq is already a training ground for terrorists. In fact, the CIA has pointed out to the administration and Congress that Iraq is spawning so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other countries to further practice their skills there. The quicker a new dictator wins political power in Iraq and imposes order, the sooner the country will stop producing experienced terrorists.
Why not ask: "Mr. President, since you and the vice president insisted that Saddam's Iraq supported al-Qaeda – which we now know it did not – isn't your policy in Iraq today strengthening al-Qaeda's position in that country?"
5. On Iranian influence. Iranian leaders see U.S. policy in Iraq as being so much in Tehran's interests that they have been advising Iraqi Shi'ite leaders to do exactly what the Americans ask them to do. Elections will allow the Shi'ites to take power legally. Once in charge, they can settle scores with the Ba'athists and Sunnis. If U.S. policy in Iraq begins to undercut Iran's interests, then Tehran can use its growing influence among Iraqi Shi'ites to stir up trouble, possibly committing Shi'ite militias to an insurgency against U.S. forces there. The U.S. invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in Iraq, not sealed it out.
Questions for the administration: "Why do the Iranians support our presence in Iraq today? Why do they tell the Shi'ite leaders to avoid a sectarian clash between Sunnis and Shi'ites? Given all the money and weapons they provide Shi'ite groups, why are they not stirring up more trouble for the U.S.? Will Iranian policy change once a Shi'ite majority has the reins of government? Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Ba'athists, opening the way for a Shi'ite dictatorship?"
6. On Iraq's neighbors. The civil war we leave behind may well draw in Syria, Turkey, and Iran. But already today each of those states is deeply involved in support for or opposition to factions in the ongoing Iraqi civil war. The very act of invading Iraq almost ensured that violence would involve the larger region. And so it has and will continue, with or without U.S. forces in Iraq.
7. On Shi'ite-Sunni conflict. The U.S. presence is not preventing Shi'ite-Sunni conflict; it merely delays it. Iran is preventing it today, and it will probably encourage it once the Shi'ites dominate the new government, an outcome U.S. policy virtually ensures.
8. On training the Iraq military and police. The insurgents are fighting very effectively without U.S. or European military advisers to train them. Why don't the soldiers and police in the present Iraqi regime's service do their duty as well? Because they are uncertain about committing their lives to this regime. They are being asked to take a political stand, just as the insurgents are. Political consolidation, not military-technical consolidation, is the issue.
The issue is not military training; it is institutional loyalty. We trained the Vietnamese military effectively. Its generals took power and proved to be lousy politicians and poor fighters in the final showdown. In many battles over a decade or more, South Vietnamese military units fought very well, defeating VC and NVA units. But South Vietnam's political leaders lost the war.
Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military dictatorships arise when the military's institutional modernization gets ahead of political consolidation.
9. On not supporting our troops by debating an early pullout. Many U.S. officers in Iraq, especially at company and field grade levels, know that while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically. And according to the New York Times, they are beginning to voice complaints about Americans at home bearing none of the pains of the war. One can only guess about the enlisted ranks, but those on a second tour – probably the majority today – are probably anxious for an early pullout. It is also noteworthy that U.S. generals in Iraq are not bubbling over with optimistic reports the way they were during the first few years of the war in Vietnam. Their careful statements and caution probably reflect serious doubts that they do not, and should not, express publicly. The more important question is whether or not the repressive and vindictive behavior by the secretary of defense and his deputy against the senior military – especially the Army leadership, which is the critical component in the war – has made it impossible for field commanders to make the political leaders see the facts.
Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration's case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don't see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.
As I wrote several years ago, "the Pentagon's post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants." The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly "supported the troops." The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.
So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now. Why are the Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is because they weren't willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the Democratic Party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest pulling out.
Journalists can ask all the questions they like, but none will prompt a more serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force the issues into the open.
I don't believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.
Look at John Kerry's utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said, "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interests to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interests? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq only serves the interests of:
1. Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al-Qaeda, positioned U.S. military personnel in places where al-Qaeda operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America's most important and strongest allies – the Europeans – and squanders U.S. military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al-Qaeda in Pakistan.);
2. The Iranians (who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight-year war with Iraq.);
3. And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don't really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war with the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.)
The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the U.S.' interests and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.
Reprinted from Nieman Watchdog with the author's permission.
Find this article at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/odom.php?articleid=7487
Blogger Thoughts: I think this is more rational:
October 3, 2005
What's Wrong With Cutting and Running?
by Gen. (ret.) William E. Odom
If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren't they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.
Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:
We would leave behind a civil war.
We would lose credibility on the world stage.
It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.
Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.
Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.
Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq's neighbors.
Shi'ite-Sunni clashes would worsen.
We haven't fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.
Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.
But consider this:
1. On civil war. Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That's civil war. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can't prevent a civil war by staying.
For those who really worry about destabilizing the region, the sensible policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal, reestablishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing confidence in the UN Security Council, and trying to knit together a large coalition including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until the United States withdraws from Iraq and admits its strategic error, no such coalition can be formed.
Thus, those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.
2. On credibility. If we were Russia or some other insecure nation, we might have to worry about credibility. A hyperpower need not worry about credibility. That's one of the great advantages of being a hyperpower: When we have made a big strategic mistake, we can reverse it. And it may even enhance our credibility. Staying there damages our credibility more than leaving.
Ask the president if he really worries about U.S. credibility. Or, what will happen to our credibility if the course he is pursuing proves to be a major strategic disaster? Would it not be better for our long-term credibility to withdraw earlier than later in this event?
3. On the insurgency and democracy. There is no question the insurgents and other anti-American parties will take over the government once we leave. But that will happen no matter how long we stay. Any government capable of holding power in Iraq will be anti-American because the Iraqi people are increasingly becoming anti-American.
Also, the U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.
President Bush's statements about progress in Iraq are increasingly resembling LBJ's statements during the Vietnam War. For instance, Johnson's comments about the 1968 election are very similar to what Bush said in February 2005 after the election of a provisional parliament.
Ask the president: Why should we expect a different outcome in Iraq than in Vietnam?
Ask the president if he intends to leave a pro-American liberal regime in place. Because that's just impossible. Postwar Germany and Japan are not models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old) constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus, General Clay and General MacArthur were merely reversing a decade and a half of totalitarianism – returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a much longer period in Germany.
Imposing a liberal constitutional order in Iraq would be to accomplish something that has never been done before. Of all the world's political cultures, an Arab-Muslim one may be the most resistant to such a change of any in the world. Even the Muslim society in Turkey (an anti-Arab society) stands out for being the only example of a constitutional order in an Islamic society, and even it backslides occasionally.
4. On terrorists. Iraq is already a training ground for terrorists. In fact, the CIA has pointed out to the administration and Congress that Iraq is spawning so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other countries to further practice their skills there. The quicker a new dictator wins political power in Iraq and imposes order, the sooner the country will stop producing experienced terrorists.
Why not ask: "Mr. President, since you and the vice president insisted that Saddam's Iraq supported al-Qaeda – which we now know it did not – isn't your policy in Iraq today strengthening al-Qaeda's position in that country?"
5. On Iranian influence. Iranian leaders see U.S. policy in Iraq as being so much in Tehran's interests that they have been advising Iraqi Shi'ite leaders to do exactly what the Americans ask them to do. Elections will allow the Shi'ites to take power legally. Once in charge, they can settle scores with the Ba'athists and Sunnis. If U.S. policy in Iraq begins to undercut Iran's interests, then Tehran can use its growing influence among Iraqi Shi'ites to stir up trouble, possibly committing Shi'ite militias to an insurgency against U.S. forces there. The U.S. invasion has vastly increased Iran's influence in Iraq, not sealed it out.
Questions for the administration: "Why do the Iranians support our presence in Iraq today? Why do they tell the Shi'ite leaders to avoid a sectarian clash between Sunnis and Shi'ites? Given all the money and weapons they provide Shi'ite groups, why are they not stirring up more trouble for the U.S.? Will Iranian policy change once a Shi'ite majority has the reins of government? Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Ba'athists, opening the way for a Shi'ite dictatorship?"
6. On Iraq's neighbors. The civil war we leave behind may well draw in Syria, Turkey, and Iran. But already today each of those states is deeply involved in support for or opposition to factions in the ongoing Iraqi civil war. The very act of invading Iraq almost ensured that violence would involve the larger region. And so it has and will continue, with or without U.S. forces in Iraq.
7. On Shi'ite-Sunni conflict. The U.S. presence is not preventing Shi'ite-Sunni conflict; it merely delays it. Iran is preventing it today, and it will probably encourage it once the Shi'ites dominate the new government, an outcome U.S. policy virtually ensures.
8. On training the Iraq military and police. The insurgents are fighting very effectively without U.S. or European military advisers to train them. Why don't the soldiers and police in the present Iraqi regime's service do their duty as well? Because they are uncertain about committing their lives to this regime. They are being asked to take a political stand, just as the insurgents are. Political consolidation, not military-technical consolidation, is the issue.
The issue is not military training; it is institutional loyalty. We trained the Vietnamese military effectively. Its generals took power and proved to be lousy politicians and poor fighters in the final showdown. In many battles over a decade or more, South Vietnamese military units fought very well, defeating VC and NVA units. But South Vietnam's political leaders lost the war.
Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military dictatorships arise when the military's institutional modernization gets ahead of political consolidation.
9. On not supporting our troops by debating an early pullout. Many U.S. officers in Iraq, especially at company and field grade levels, know that while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically. And according to the New York Times, they are beginning to voice complaints about Americans at home bearing none of the pains of the war. One can only guess about the enlisted ranks, but those on a second tour – probably the majority today – are probably anxious for an early pullout. It is also noteworthy that U.S. generals in Iraq are not bubbling over with optimistic reports the way they were during the first few years of the war in Vietnam. Their careful statements and caution probably reflect serious doubts that they do not, and should not, express publicly. The more important question is whether or not the repressive and vindictive behavior by the secretary of defense and his deputy against the senior military – especially the Army leadership, which is the critical component in the war – has made it impossible for field commanders to make the political leaders see the facts.
Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration's case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don't see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.
As I wrote several years ago, "the Pentagon's post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants." The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly "supported the troops." The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.
So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now. Why are the Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is because they weren't willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the Democratic Party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest pulling out.
Journalists can ask all the questions they like, but none will prompt a more serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force the issues into the open.
I don't believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.
Look at John Kerry's utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said, "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interests to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interests? Nothing, absolutely nothing.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq only serves the interests of:
1. Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al-Qaeda, positioned U.S. military personnel in places where al-Qaeda operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America's most important and strongest allies – the Europeans – and squanders U.S. military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al-Qaeda in Pakistan.);
2. The Iranians (who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight-year war with Iraq.);
3. And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don't really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war with the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.)
The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the U.S.' interests and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.
Reprinted from Nieman Watchdog with the author's permission.
Find this article at: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/odom.php?articleid=7487
TOPDOG08.COM: List of Congress members supporting Able Danger
TOPDOG08.COM: List of Congress members supporting Able Danger
List of Congress members supporting Able Danger
From Weldon's office:
Below is a list of those who have signed Congressman Weldon's letter to Secretary Rumsfeld requesting open hearings for ABLE DANGER members...
Republican (144)
Curt Weldon (R-PA) David L. Hobson, (R-OH) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Joel Hefley (R-CO) Todd Russell Platts (R-PA) Tom Davis (R-VA) Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-PA) Charles W. Dent (R-PA) Jim Ramstad (R-MN) Mark Souder (R-IN) Phil English (R-PA) Michael McCaul (R-TX) Sam Johnson (R-TX) Christopher Shays (R-CT) Walter B. Jones (R-NC) Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) John L. Mica (R-FL) John T. Doolittle (R-CA) Jeff Miller (R-FL) Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) Nathan Deal (R-GA) Joe Wilson (R-SC) Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL) Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA) Ralph M. Hall (R-TX) John E. Peterson (R-PA) Ron Paul (R-TX) Jerry Weller (R-IL) Michael N. Castle (R-DE) Geoff Davis (R-KY) J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) Cliff Stearns (R-FL) Fred Upton (R-MI) Rob Simmons (R-CT) Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) Henry Bonilla (R-TX) Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA) Howard Coble (R-NC) Jim Gibbons (R-NV) Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Dan Burton (R-IN) Joseph R.Pitts (R-PA) Jim Gerlach (R-PA) Trent Franks (R-AZ) Rodney Alexander (R-LA) Ellen Gallegly (R-CA) Don Sherwood (R-PA) Zach Wamp (R-TN) Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Chris Smith (R-NJ) Frank Wolf (R-VA) Chris Chocola (R-IN) Bobby Jindal (R-LA) Rick Renzi (R-AZ) Mark Kirk (R-IL) Ron Lewis (R-KY) Rob Aderholt (R-AL) Randy J. Forbes (R-VA) Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) John Boozman (R-AR) Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ) John E. Sweeney (R-NY) Michael R. Turner (R-OH) Dennis R. Rehberg (R-MT-At Large) Tom Osborne (R-NE) Scott Garrett (R-NJ) Pete Sessions (R-TX) John Linder (R-GA) Todd W. Akin (R-MO) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) Phil Gingrey (R-GA) Robin Hayes (R-NC) John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) Bob Inglis (R-SC) Virginia Foxx (R-NC) Lee Terry (R-NE) Dave Weldon (R-FL) Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT) Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) Melissa Hart (R-PA) John Sullivan (R-OK) Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) Adam H. Putnam (R-FL) Don Young (R-AK-At Large) Peter King (R-NY) Daniel E. Lungren (R-CA) Michael T. McCaul (R-TX) Katherine Harris (R-FL) John Hostettler (R-IN) Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) Roy Blunt (R-MO) Michael Simpson (R-ID) Tom Price (R-GA) Charlie Norwood (R-GA) Michael Bilirakis (R-FL) Spencer Bachus (R-AL) Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC) Thomas G. Tancredo (R-CO) Terry Everett (R-AL) Robert Ney (R-OH) Ed Whitfield (R-KY) Wally Herger (R-CA) Mark Foley (R-FL) Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) Mike Rogers (R-MI) John J. H. "Joe" Schwarz (R-MI) Jon C. Porter (R-NV) Kay Granger (R-TX) Greg Walden (R-OR) Mary Bono (R-CA) Anne Northup (R-KY) John Kline (R-MN) Frank D. Lucas (R-OK) Candice S. Miller (R-MI) William Jenkins (R-TN) Patrick McHenry (R-NC) Sue W. Kelly (R-NY) Mike Pence (R-IN) Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) Cathy McMorris (R-WA) Ralph Regula (R-OH) John Carter (R-TX) Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) James Leach (R-IA) Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) Bill Shuster (R-PA) John McHugh (R-NY) Tim Murphy (R-PA) Barbara Cubin (R-WY-at large) Michael Conaway (R-TX) Chris Cannon (R-UT) Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) Jim Ryun (R-KS) Jeb Bradley (R-NH) Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH) Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) Bill Young (R-FL) Melissa Bean (D-IL) Jack Kingston (R-GA) Ed Royce (R-CA) Tom Cole (R-OK) Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)
Democrats (100)
John Murtha, John P. (D-PA) Ike Skelton (D-MO) Jim Cooper (D-TN) Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) Joe Baca (D-CA) Bob Etheridge (D-NC) James R. Langevin (D-RI) Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) Ed Pastor (D-AZ) Eliot Engel (D-NY) Loretta T. Sanchez (D-CA) Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA) Mike McIntyre (D-NC) Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY) Corrine Brown (D-FL) Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) Sam Farr (D-CA) Chet Edwards (D-TX) Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) Neil Abercrombie (D -HI) Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD) Gwen Moore (D-WI) Madeline Z. Bordallo (D-GU) Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY) Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV) Robert Brady (D-PA) Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) Mike Doyle (D-PA) Tim Holden (D-PA) G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) Dale E. Kildee (D-MI) James E. Clyburn (D-SC) Steve Israel (D-NY) Harold Ford (D-TN) John Larson (D-CT) Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) Ken Meek (D-FL) John Dingell (D-MI) Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Rush Holt (D-NJ) Vernon J. Ehlers (D-MI) Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) Martin Olav Sabo (D-MN) Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) David Wu (D-OR) Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA) Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) Ruben HinoJosa (D-TX) John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-SC) Norman D. Dicks (D-WA) Edward Markey (D-MA) Jane Harman (D-CA) Peter DeFazio (D-OR) Bart Stupak (D-MI) Susan A. Davis (D-CA) Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) Hilda Solis (D-CA) Gene Green (D-TX) Martin T. Meehan (D-MA) Marion Berry (D-AR) Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) James P. Moran (D-VA) Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) Maxine Waters (D-CA) John Lewis (D-GA) Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) Chaka Fattah (D-PA) Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) Lane Evans (D-IL) Shelley Berkley (D-NV) Bill Delahunt (D-MA) Rick Larsen (D-WA) Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (D-AL) Gene Taylor (D-MS) Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA) Richard E. Neal (D-MA) Al Green (D-TX) Robert Wexler (D-FL) John T. Salazar (D-CO) Michael Capuano (D-MA) Mike Thompson (D-CA) Collin Peterson (D-MN) Joseph Crowley (D-NY) Robert Andrews (D-NJ) Mark Udall (D-CO) George Miller (D-CA) Adam Smith (D-WA) Michael Honda (D-CA) Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ) Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Jerry Costello (D-IL) Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) Allen Boyd (D-FL)
Independent (1)
Bernard Sanders (VT-at large)
List of Congress members supporting Able Danger
From Weldon's office:
Below is a list of those who have signed Congressman Weldon's letter to Secretary Rumsfeld requesting open hearings for ABLE DANGER members...
Republican (144)
Curt Weldon (R-PA) David L. Hobson, (R-OH) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Joel Hefley (R-CO) Todd Russell Platts (R-PA) Tom Davis (R-VA) Michael G. Fitzpatrick (R-PA) Charles W. Dent (R-PA) Jim Ramstad (R-MN) Mark Souder (R-IN) Phil English (R-PA) Michael McCaul (R-TX) Sam Johnson (R-TX) Christopher Shays (R-CT) Walter B. Jones (R-NC) Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) John L. Mica (R-FL) John T. Doolittle (R-CA) Jeff Miller (R-FL) Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) Nathan Deal (R-GA) Joe Wilson (R-SC) Donald A. Manzullo (R-IL) Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (R-LA) Ralph M. Hall (R-TX) John E. Peterson (R-PA) Ron Paul (R-TX) Jerry Weller (R-IL) Michael N. Castle (R-DE) Geoff Davis (R-KY) J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) Cliff Stearns (R-FL) Fred Upton (R-MI) Rob Simmons (R-CT) Rodney P. Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) Henry Bonilla (R-TX) Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (R-VA) Howard Coble (R-NC) Jim Gibbons (R-NV) Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Dan Burton (R-IN) Joseph R.Pitts (R-PA) Jim Gerlach (R-PA) Trent Franks (R-AZ) Rodney Alexander (R-LA) Ellen Gallegly (R-CA) Don Sherwood (R-PA) Zach Wamp (R-TN) Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Chris Smith (R-NJ) Frank Wolf (R-VA) Chris Chocola (R-IN) Bobby Jindal (R-LA) Rick Renzi (R-AZ) Mark Kirk (R-IL) Ron Lewis (R-KY) Rob Aderholt (R-AL) Randy J. Forbes (R-VA) Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) John Boozman (R-AR) Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ) John E. Sweeney (R-NY) Michael R. Turner (R-OH) Dennis R. Rehberg (R-MT-At Large) Tom Osborne (R-NE) Scott Garrett (R-NJ) Pete Sessions (R-TX) John Linder (R-GA) Todd W. Akin (R-MO) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) Phil Gingrey (R-GA) Robin Hayes (R-NC) John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN) Bob Inglis (R-SC) Virginia Foxx (R-NC) Lee Terry (R-NE) Dave Weldon (R-FL) Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT) Ginny Brown-Waite (R-FL) Melissa Hart (R-PA) John Sullivan (R-OK) Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) Adam H. Putnam (R-FL) Don Young (R-AK-At Large) Peter King (R-NY) Daniel E. Lungren (R-CA) Michael T. McCaul (R-TX) Katherine Harris (R-FL) John Hostettler (R-IN) Paul E. Gillmor (R-OH) Roy Blunt (R-MO) Michael Simpson (R-ID) Tom Price (R-GA) Charlie Norwood (R-GA) Michael Bilirakis (R-FL) Spencer Bachus (R-AL) Henry E. Brown, Jr. (R-SC) Thomas G. Tancredo (R-CO) Terry Everett (R-AL) Robert Ney (R-OH) Ed Whitfield (R-KY) Wally Herger (R-CA) Mark Foley (R-FL) Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) Mike Rogers (R-MI) John J. H. "Joe" Schwarz (R-MI) Jon C. Porter (R-NV) Kay Granger (R-TX) Greg Walden (R-OR) Mary Bono (R-CA) Anne Northup (R-KY) John Kline (R-MN) Frank D. Lucas (R-OK) Candice S. Miller (R-MI) William Jenkins (R-TN) Patrick McHenry (R-NC) Sue W. Kelly (R-NY) Mike Pence (R-IN) Kenny Hulshof (R-MO) Cathy McMorris (R-WA) Ralph Regula (R-OH) John Carter (R-TX) Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) James Leach (R-IA) Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) Bill Shuster (R-PA) John McHugh (R-NY) Tim Murphy (R-PA) Barbara Cubin (R-WY-at large) Michael Conaway (R-TX) Chris Cannon (R-UT) Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) Jim Ryun (R-KS) Jeb Bradley (R-NH) Steven C. LaTourette (R-OH) Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) Bill Young (R-FL) Melissa Bean (D-IL) Jack Kingston (R-GA) Ed Royce (R-CA) Tom Cole (R-OK) Patrick Tiberi (R-OH)
Democrats (100)
John Murtha, John P. (D-PA) Ike Skelton (D-MO) Jim Cooper (D-TN) Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) Joe Baca (D-CA) Bob Etheridge (D-NC) James R. Langevin (D-RI) Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) Ed Pastor (D-AZ) Eliot Engel (D-NY) Loretta T. Sanchez (D-CA) Linda T. Sanchez (D-CA) Mike McIntyre (D-NC) Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-NY) Corrine Brown (D-FL) Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) Sam Farr (D-CA) Chet Edwards (D-TX) Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) Nita M. Lowey (D-NY) Neil Abercrombie (D -HI) Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD) Gwen Moore (D-WI) Madeline Z. Bordallo (D-GU) Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY) Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV) Robert Brady (D-PA) Paul Kanjorski (D-PA) Mike Doyle (D-PA) Tim Holden (D-PA) G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) Dale E. Kildee (D-MI) James E. Clyburn (D-SC) Steve Israel (D-NY) Harold Ford (D-TN) John Larson (D-CT) Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS) Ken Meek (D-FL) John Dingell (D-MI) Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) Rush Holt (D-NJ) Vernon J. Ehlers (D-MI) Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL) Martin Olav Sabo (D-MN) Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA) David Wu (D-OR) Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA) Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) Ruben HinoJosa (D-TX) John M. Spratt, Jr. (D-SC) Norman D. Dicks (D-WA) Edward Markey (D-MA) Jane Harman (D-CA) Peter DeFazio (D-OR) Bart Stupak (D-MI) Susan A. Davis (D-CA) Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) Hilda Solis (D-CA) Gene Green (D-TX) Martin T. Meehan (D-MA) Marion Berry (D-AR) Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) James P. Moran (D-VA) Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) Maxine Waters (D-CA) John Lewis (D-GA) Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) Chaka Fattah (D-PA) Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) Lane Evans (D-IL) Shelley Berkley (D-NV) Bill Delahunt (D-MA) Rick Larsen (D-WA) Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr. (D-AL) Gene Taylor (D-MS) Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-PA) Richard E. Neal (D-MA) Al Green (D-TX) Robert Wexler (D-FL) John T. Salazar (D-CO) Michael Capuano (D-MA) Mike Thompson (D-CA) Collin Peterson (D-MN) Joseph Crowley (D-NY) Robert Andrews (D-NJ) Mark Udall (D-CO) George Miller (D-CA) Adam Smith (D-WA) Michael Honda (D-CA) Anthony Weiner (D-NY) Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ) Bennie Thompson (D-MS) Jerry Costello (D-IL) Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) Allen Boyd (D-FL)
Independent (1)
Bernard Sanders (VT-at large)
Schwarz - Luttwak's Coup D'Etat - A Practical Handbook
Schwarz - Luttwak's Coup D'Etat - A Practical Handbook
Schwarz - Luttwak's Coup D'Etat - A Practical Handbook
From Karl W B Schwarz
kwbschwarz@comcast.net11-18-5
My last update introduced you to Edward Luttwak, a hardliner Zionist with ideas about Israel that many Israelis find harsh and belligerent. Mr. Luttwak actually made the well-known comment about bombing in 1990 or 1991, just before George H.W. Bush attacked Iraq in a set-up of Saddam Hussein. In the same way, George W. Bush pulled a set-up in 2003.
The main point: if you know the Neocons, you will recognize their references. Luttwak, an Israeli citizen, said "we" rather than "the US is going to bomb them into the Stone Age". Take his comments in the context they were probably meant, and you will know where his allegiance lies.
Pay attention to history and learn from it. What started the first Gulf War? What was the true underlying reason? Iraq found out that Kuwait, with the assistance of certain U.S. oil service companies, had installed directional drilled wells from Kuwait, under the Kuwait - Iraq border and were stealing the Iraq oil from the southern fields near Basra. Those companies were siphoning off billions of dollars from the trade in Iraqi oil, or, put another way, committing grand theft to the tune of billions of U.S. dollars. When the issue turned into a diplomatic dispute, our government, through Ambassador April Glaspie, explicitly told Saddam that aggression toward Kuwait to collect on this debt-and stop the theft of Iraqi oil-was of no interest to the United States. Do you see the set-up?
A transcript of that discussion is available at this link:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html
One day while we were looking through 9-11 evidence, I was contacted by a person in the U.S. Foreign Service. Just before Iraq invaded Kuwait to collect on stolen billions, a conference call took place between the United States and Iraq. That call made the "green light" even more clear. It came from officials in our government far more highly placed than Ambassador April Glaspie. This particular former USFS officer was on that conference call while stationed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The above-mentioned officials told Saddam that the U.S. had no interest in his collection of Kuwait's outstanding debts from the stolen oil. Of course, the United States was not willing to admit officially that it and some of our home grown thug corporations had aided and abetted the theft of Iraqi oil.
If you compare the facts to the first Gulf War in 1991-based on government lies- and to the current War, also based on a series of lies, the picture comes into closer focus. Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraq and certain U.S. firms were aiding and abetting that theft. When you hear the catch-phrase "rule of law" from the mouth of any Bush Family member or from one of their cronies, you should immediately question the statement and look for more information. In my opinion, those people have no regard for the law, and the facts show they have acted outside of it repeatedly.
Research we have done since 1999 [preparation for RICO court cases] persuades me that the same "we" is responsible both for 9-11 and for the current fiasco in Iraq. After you finish reading what follows, you might see the past four or the past sixteen years quite differently.
With permission from the editors of those two books, I have excerpted an entire essay from the beginning of Neoconned Again written by Maurizio Blondet. I comment on it after the excerpt. I had to go back and read it again while I was continuing through the second book because something jumped out from the pages and caused me to pay even closer attention. I ask that you slow down and read closely what follows, written by Israeli citizen Edward Luttwak.
This is excerpted exactly from Chapter 3 of Neoconned Again and the Editor's Gloss that preceded the chapter:
If there is one thing that stands out clearly in the United States and the rest of the world, it is the widespread belief that the official version of the attack on the Twin Towers does not stand up to scrutiny. Even with the Report of the Commission of Inquiry issued, many believe that there are still too many questions left unanswered, or even unasked. This is not the first time that this has happened in America. Many do not believe the official reports issued after the investigations into the Waco Massacre, and far more do not believe a word of the report of the Warren Commission which looked into the assassination of J.F. Kennedy.
It was because Mr. Blondet made reference in his article to Dr. Luttwak that we asked for and obtained his permission to reprint a chapter from his book, Who Really Governs America?, a chapter which deals exclusively with Dr. Luttwak's celebrated book, Coup d'Etat, which has been reprinted endlessly since its first publication and which has been translated into 14 languages. Neither Mr. Blondet nor the editors have changed the text of the chapter that follows (though emphasis has been added in parts), which is composed of illustrative highlights of Dr. Luttwak's book along with Mr. Blondet's comments in brackets. It is here reproduced because, in light of the fact that it is widely believed that the Bush Administration, or parts of it, have hijacked the Pentagon and many positions of influence within the American State structure, we believe that it might provide food for thought to those who want to think for themselves in these dangerously unstable days. -The Editors
Postscript to Chapter 3: Luttwak's Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook
Maurizio Blondet
It is not a recent book. Published by Harvard University Press in 1968, it is entitled Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook. Its author is Edward Luttwak, the well-known military expert who was an adviser on National Security to Ronald Reagan. He is Jewish, an ultra-conservative and a militarist with known links to the CIA, to friends in the Pentagon, to the military-industrial complex and, naturally, to JINSA.
We will seek to present crucial passages from this old book, limiting ourselves to underlining in bold the ideas which could have been in the minds of those - if our hypothesis is correct - who orchestrated the tragedy of September 11.
Chapter 1: What is a Coup d'Etat?
A coup d'état is not necessarily assisted by either the intervention of the masses, or, to any significant degree, by military-type force. The assistance of these forms of direct force would no doubt make it easier to seize power, but it would be unrealistic to think that they would be available to the organizers of a coup.
If a coup does not make use of the masses, or of warfare, what instrument of power will enable it to seize control of the State? The short answer is that the power will come from the State itself.
A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the State apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder [JINSA infiltrated the Pentagon in precisely this manner].
Chapter 2: When is a Coup d'Etat Possible?
First of all, Luttwak lists the necessary "preconditions":
1. The social and economic conditions of the target country must be such as to confine political participation to a small fraction of the population [this is the case in America where non-voters are the majority].
2. The target State must be substantially independent and the influence of foreign powers in its internal political life must be relatively limited" [the United States is the only State remaining that enjoys these conditions].
3. The target State must have a political centre. If there are several centres these must be identifiable and they must be politically, rather than ethnically, structured. If the State is controlled by a non-politically organized unit [like the CFR, the representative of business] the coup can only be carried out with its consent or neutrality.
Already in the Preface, Luttwak underlined as essential the fact that the perpetrators of a coup must be able to count upon "the absence of a politicised community," upon the apathy of the public. "The dialogue between the rulers and the ruled [upon which democratic legitimacy is founded] can only take place if there is a large enough section of society which is sufficiently literate, well fed and secure to 'talk back.'" But "without a politicised population, the State is nothing other than a machine.
Then the coup d'état becomes feasible because, like every machine, one can take control of everything by grasping the essential levers." [Now Luttwak identifies this "machine" in the Bureaucracy.]
The growth of modern bureaucracy has two implications which are crucial to the feasibility of the coup: the development of a clear distinction between the permanent machinery of State and the political leadership [which changes], and the fact is, like most large organizations, the bureaucracy has a structured hierarchy with definite chains of command....
The importance of this development lies in the fact that if the bureaucrats are linked to the political leadership, an illegal seizure of power must take the form of a 'Palace Revolution,' and it essentially concerns the manipulation of the person of the ruler. He can be forced to accept policies or advisers, he can be killed or held captive, but whatever happens the Palace Revolution can only be conducted from the 'inside' and by 'insiders' [in these pages, we have seen nothing but the work of insiders surrounding a weak President].
The State bureaucracy has to divide its work into clear-cut areas of competence, which are assigned to different departments. Within each department there must be an accepted chain of command, and standard procedures have to be followed. Thus a given piece of information, or a given order, is followed up in a stereotyped manner, and if the order comes from the appropriate source, at the appropriate level, it is carried out.... The apparatus of the State is therefore to some extent a 'machine' which will normally behave in a fairly predictable and automatic manner.
A coup operates by taking advantage of this machine-like behaviour; during the coup, because it uses parts of the State apparatus to seize the controlling levers; afterwards because the value of the 'levers' depends on the fact that the State is a machine.
Who are the best conspirators? Here is how Luttwak describes them:
All power, all participation, is in the hands of the small educated elite, and therefore radically different from the vast majority of their countrymen, practically a race apart. The masses recognize this and they also accept the elite's monopoly on power, unless some unbearable exaction leads to desperate revolt.... Equally, they will accept a change in government, whether legal or otherwise.
After all, it is merely another lot of 'them' taking over" [this is precisely the case of American society: a great mass of badly educated people, remains passive because of need, accepts the new capitalist flexibility so as to hold on to or find work].
Thus, after a coup...the majority of the people will neither believe nor disbelieve.... This lack of reaction is all the coup needs on the part of the people to stay in power.
The lower levels of the bureaucracy will react - or rather fail to react - in a similar manner and for similar reasons: the 'bosses' give the orders, can promote or demote and, above all, are the source of that power and prestige.... After the coup, the man who sits at district headquarters will still be obeyed - whether he is the man who was there before or not - so long as he can pay the salaries....
For the senior bureaucrats, army and police officers, the coup will be a mixture of dangers and opportunities. For the greater number of those who are not too deeply committed, the coup will offer opportunities rather than dangers. They can accept the coup and, being collectively indispensable, can negotiate for even better salaries and positions.
As the coup will not usually represent a threat to most of the elite, the choice is between the great dangers of opposition and the safety of inaction. All that is required in order to support the coup is, simply, to do nothing - and that is what will usually be done.
Thus, at all levels, the most likely course of action following a coup is acceptance ...This lack of reaction is the key to the victory of the coup.
Chapter 3: The Strategy of a Coup d'Etat
If we were revolutionaries, wanting to destroy the power of some of the political forces, the long and often bloody process of revolutionary attrition can achieve this. Our purpose is, however, quite different: we want to seize power within the present system, and we shall only stay in power if we embody some new status quo supported by those very forces which a revolution may seek to destroy.... This is perhaps a more efficient method, and certainly a less painful one, than that of a classic revolution [this is a perfection description of the neo-conservative coup d'état].
Though we will try to avoid all conflict with the 'political' forces, some of them will almost certainly oppose a coup. But this opposition will largely subside when we have substituted our new status quo for the old one, and can enforce it by our control of the State bureaucracy and security forces. We shall then be carrying out the dual task of imposing our control on the machinery of State while at the same time using it to impose our control on the country at large.
As long as the execution of the coup is rapid, and we are cloaked in anonymity, no particular political faction will have either a motive, or opportunity, to oppose us.
Chapter 4: The Planning of the Coup d'Etat
Whether it is a two party system, as in much of the Anglo-Saxon world, where parties are in effect coalitions of pressure groups, or whether they are the class or religion-based parties of much of continental Europe, the major political parties in developed and democratic countries will not present a direct threat to the coup. Though such parties have mass support at election time, neither they nor their followers are versed in the techniques of mass agitation. The comparative stability of political life has deprived them of the experience required to employ direct methods, and the whole climate of their operation revolves around the concept of periodic elections.
Though some form of confrontation may be inevitable, it is essential to avoid bloodshed, because this may well have crucial negative repercussions amongst the personnel of the armed forces and the police.
Chapter 5: The Execution of the Coup d'Etat
With detailed planning, there will be no need for any sort of headquarters structure in the active stage of the coup: for if there is no scope for decision-making there is no need for decision-makers and their apparatus. In fact, having a headquarters would be a serious disadvantage: it would constitute a concrete target for the opposition and one which would be both vulnerable and easily identified.... We should avoid taking any action that will clarify the nature of the threat and thus reduce the confusion that is left in the defensive apparatus of the regime....
The leaders of the coup will be scattered among the various teams. [As we can see Luttwak is theoretically discussing an invisible coup d'état: the infiltrated coup participants speak with the voice of the legitimate government, of that which they have seized. On September 11, let's remember, the immediate entourage of President Bush were not thinking of an Arab attack, but of a military coup d'état. It is for this reason that the President was taken to a secure location for 10 hours].
In the period immediately after the coup, they [the high level Civil Servants and Military Commanders] will probably see themselves as isolated individuals whose careers, and even lives, could be in danger. This feeling of insecurity may precipitate two alternative reactions, both extreme: they will either step forward to assert their loyalty to the leaders of the coup or else they will try to foment or join in the opposition against us. Both reactions are undesirable from our point of view.
Assertions of loyalty will usually be worthless since they are made by men who have just abandoned their previous, and possibly more legitimate, masters. Opposition will always be dangerous and sometimes disastrous. Our policy towards the military and bureaucratic cadres will be to reduce this sense of insecurity. We should establish direct communications with as many of the more senior officers and officials as possible to convey one principal idea in a forceful and convincing manner: that the coup will not threaten their positions in the hierarchy and the aims of the coup do not include a reshaping of the existing military or administrative structures [this appears to be exactly the task of JINSA].
The masses have neither the weapons of the military nor the administrative facilities of the bureaucracy, but their attitude to the new government established after the coup will ultimately be decisive. Our immediate aim will be to enforce public order, but our long-term objective is to gain the acceptance of the masses so that physical coercion will not longer be needed.... Our far more flexible instrument will be our control over the means of mass communication.... In broadcasting over the radio and television services our purpose is not to provide information about the situation, but rather to affect its development by exploiting our monopoly of these media. [This is exactly what the American mass media has done since September 11.]
[The action of the media] will be achieved by conveying the reality and strength of the coup instead of trying to justify it [the emotional blow of the collapse of the World Trade Centre was presented with plenty of "reality" and "force" by CNN]. We will have fragmented the opposition so that each individual opponent would have to operate in isolation. In these circumstances, the news of any further resistance against us would act as a powerful stimulant to further resistance by breaking down this feeling of isolation. We must, therefore, make every effort to withhold such news. If there is in fact some resistance...we should strongly emphasize that it is isolated, the product of the obstinacy of a few misguided or dishonest individuals who are not affiliated to any party or group of significant membership. The constant working of the motif of isolation, and the emphasis on the fact that law and order have been re-established, should have the effect of making resistance appear as dangerous and useless.
There will arise, Luttwak says, "the inevitable suspicions that the coup is a product of the machinations of the Company [American slang for the CIA]. This can only be dispelled by making violent attacks on it...and the attacks should be all the more violent if these suspicions are in fact justified.... We shall make use of a suitable selection of unlovely phrases [for example, anti-Americanism? Anti-Semitism?]. Even if their meanings have been totally obscured by constant and deliberate misuse, they will be useful indicators of our impeccable nationalism."
It seems to this author that these paragraphs describe, with shocking precision, all that has taken place in America since September 11.
If you see the agenda and strategies of the Neocons, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and keep in mind the title of the book Luttwak wrote, Coup d'Etat. The use of "we" and "our" should not be lost on you as this is coming from an Israeli citizen. Bear in mind that many right-minded Israelis find Luttwak's ideas repugnant.
If you see the nonchalance toward death and killing uttered by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et alia, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and weigh carefully what you have heard them say against the unexpected times he said those things. Then compare all of that to his comments in the essay above. Consider how virtually none of the Neocons have worn uniforms or put their lives at risk in wartime, always act as if they have the only answers, and so casually send people to die and be maimed or to kill, maim and torture as if it were just another day at the office.
If you see the plan for the false terror of 9-11, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and make the connections. They are there and glaringly obvious.
If you see how they have used pejoratives like "anti-American" and "un-American", and "anti-Semitic" to smear anyone who speaks out against their policies and actions you are paying attention. If not, read and consider the changes you've seen America just since Bush took office. It's easy to call names. Look who does the most name-calling.
If you see the rationale for Patriot Acts I and II and Homeland Security, you are paying attention. If not, please read the excerpts again. Have you read the Patriot Act to understand how much of our Constitutional freedoms have been erased?
If you see reasons for the veil of secrecy the Bush Administration and Congress have put on the most mundane information, you are beginning to see what they are hiding and why.
If you see sound reasons why Congress has acted so inexplicably, you are paying attention. If not, please read again with more skepticism. Even known "Anti-War" politicians are supporting this war in Washington, D.C. and almost every day something surfaces to shed light on the truth, that same truth that refuses to come from our National Capitol. Almost every day the truth is coming out and the lies being exposed.
In knowing who most of the Neocons are, I and others have for four years sought after the author of "The Plan". I had seen things in FOXNews, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and other mass media outlets that had a common theme but no apparent reason to have such a suspiciously similar message. We know now that these media outlets were quoting or paraphrasing the ideas in Luttwak's book. When challenged, their spokesmen equivocate and try to deflect your attention from their actions, their conduct, and their earlier equivocations.
If you see the media and Congress rolling over for a New World Order, you are paying attention.
In the next email update I am going to publish information regarding Afghanistan that was sidestepped by the Bush Administration, Congress and the 9-11 Commission. If you do not already know what is in the next email update, remember this email and compare to the next one. We went to Afghanistan for a reason and I believe Americans deserve to know the real reasons. The Neocons needed a coup d'etat to implement their grand war strategy and imperial agenda.
In fact, in their own words (and they did put this into writing), the Neocons knew that America would not buy off on their agenda unless there was something akin to a Pearl Harbor attack on the United States, just as 9-11 appeared to be. Bear in mind that the PNAC wrote its most famous screed one year before 9-11 happened.
the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.
-"Rebuilding America's Defenses -- Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century," page 51
Project for the New American Century, September 2000
Who is Dr. Edward Luttwak? The following comes from three different sources:
Author, Pentagon advisor, JINSA, author of 1968 book Coup d'Etat, A Practical Handbook. Edward Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. His books include The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire and, more recently, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.
Edward Luttwak----Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war on Iraq. WINEP's (Washington Institute for Neat East Policy) Board of Advisors includes: Edward Luttwak and other well known Neocons. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy was founded by Martin Indyk
WINEP was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, previously research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). While AIPAC focused its lobbying on the U.S. Congress, WINEP was founded as a think tank that would primarily interact with the executive branch to set U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
If I were President, Mr. Luttwak would be spending some time before The Real 9-11 Commission along with a lot of people who were never questioned by the farce Thomas Keane led 9-11 Commission. The 9-11 Commission appointed by Bush had Neocons investigating Neocons and had people who are directly and indirectly benefiting from Bush policies, hence they were not investigating anything for that would have impacted them personally.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we can beat these people. The Neocons are few, we are many. They are not the heart and soul of this nation, we are. They are not the true face of this nation, we are. They are trying to steal this Nation from all of us and we all need to stand up and stop that from happening.
Contributions can be made via check through the mail or via credit card at http://www.karlschwarz2008.com/contribute.htm
If you have not read the platform, you may download a copy of it at http://www.karlschwarz2008.com/platform.htm. Please get a copy of the platform and pass it along to all you know.
This is a battle about the future of America and all that we love.
Best regards,
KARL SCHWARZ FOR PRESIDENT
The American Patriot Party, An Independent 3rd Party
Wake Up, End The Lies & Take Back America
www.karlschwarz2008.com
Schwarz - Luttwak's Coup D'Etat - A Practical Handbook
From Karl W B Schwarz
kwbschwarz@comcast.net11-18-5
My last update introduced you to Edward Luttwak, a hardliner Zionist with ideas about Israel that many Israelis find harsh and belligerent. Mr. Luttwak actually made the well-known comment about bombing in 1990 or 1991, just before George H.W. Bush attacked Iraq in a set-up of Saddam Hussein. In the same way, George W. Bush pulled a set-up in 2003.
The main point: if you know the Neocons, you will recognize their references. Luttwak, an Israeli citizen, said "we" rather than "the US is going to bomb them into the Stone Age". Take his comments in the context they were probably meant, and you will know where his allegiance lies.
Pay attention to history and learn from it. What started the first Gulf War? What was the true underlying reason? Iraq found out that Kuwait, with the assistance of certain U.S. oil service companies, had installed directional drilled wells from Kuwait, under the Kuwait - Iraq border and were stealing the Iraq oil from the southern fields near Basra. Those companies were siphoning off billions of dollars from the trade in Iraqi oil, or, put another way, committing grand theft to the tune of billions of U.S. dollars. When the issue turned into a diplomatic dispute, our government, through Ambassador April Glaspie, explicitly told Saddam that aggression toward Kuwait to collect on this debt-and stop the theft of Iraqi oil-was of no interest to the United States. Do you see the set-up?
A transcript of that discussion is available at this link:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html
One day while we were looking through 9-11 evidence, I was contacted by a person in the U.S. Foreign Service. Just before Iraq invaded Kuwait to collect on stolen billions, a conference call took place between the United States and Iraq. That call made the "green light" even more clear. It came from officials in our government far more highly placed than Ambassador April Glaspie. This particular former USFS officer was on that conference call while stationed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The above-mentioned officials told Saddam that the U.S. had no interest in his collection of Kuwait's outstanding debts from the stolen oil. Of course, the United States was not willing to admit officially that it and some of our home grown thug corporations had aided and abetted the theft of Iraqi oil.
If you compare the facts to the first Gulf War in 1991-based on government lies- and to the current War, also based on a series of lies, the picture comes into closer focus. Kuwait was stealing oil from Iraq and certain U.S. firms were aiding and abetting that theft. When you hear the catch-phrase "rule of law" from the mouth of any Bush Family member or from one of their cronies, you should immediately question the statement and look for more information. In my opinion, those people have no regard for the law, and the facts show they have acted outside of it repeatedly.
Research we have done since 1999 [preparation for RICO court cases] persuades me that the same "we" is responsible both for 9-11 and for the current fiasco in Iraq. After you finish reading what follows, you might see the past four or the past sixteen years quite differently.
With permission from the editors of those two books, I have excerpted an entire essay from the beginning of Neoconned Again written by Maurizio Blondet. I comment on it after the excerpt. I had to go back and read it again while I was continuing through the second book because something jumped out from the pages and caused me to pay even closer attention. I ask that you slow down and read closely what follows, written by Israeli citizen Edward Luttwak.
This is excerpted exactly from Chapter 3 of Neoconned Again and the Editor's Gloss that preceded the chapter:
If there is one thing that stands out clearly in the United States and the rest of the world, it is the widespread belief that the official version of the attack on the Twin Towers does not stand up to scrutiny. Even with the Report of the Commission of Inquiry issued, many believe that there are still too many questions left unanswered, or even unasked. This is not the first time that this has happened in America. Many do not believe the official reports issued after the investigations into the Waco Massacre, and far more do not believe a word of the report of the Warren Commission which looked into the assassination of J.F. Kennedy.
It was because Mr. Blondet made reference in his article to Dr. Luttwak that we asked for and obtained his permission to reprint a chapter from his book, Who Really Governs America?, a chapter which deals exclusively with Dr. Luttwak's celebrated book, Coup d'Etat, which has been reprinted endlessly since its first publication and which has been translated into 14 languages. Neither Mr. Blondet nor the editors have changed the text of the chapter that follows (though emphasis has been added in parts), which is composed of illustrative highlights of Dr. Luttwak's book along with Mr. Blondet's comments in brackets. It is here reproduced because, in light of the fact that it is widely believed that the Bush Administration, or parts of it, have hijacked the Pentagon and many positions of influence within the American State structure, we believe that it might provide food for thought to those who want to think for themselves in these dangerously unstable days. -The Editors
Postscript to Chapter 3: Luttwak's Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook
Maurizio Blondet
It is not a recent book. Published by Harvard University Press in 1968, it is entitled Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook. Its author is Edward Luttwak, the well-known military expert who was an adviser on National Security to Ronald Reagan. He is Jewish, an ultra-conservative and a militarist with known links to the CIA, to friends in the Pentagon, to the military-industrial complex and, naturally, to JINSA.
We will seek to present crucial passages from this old book, limiting ourselves to underlining in bold the ideas which could have been in the minds of those - if our hypothesis is correct - who orchestrated the tragedy of September 11.
Chapter 1: What is a Coup d'Etat?
A coup d'état is not necessarily assisted by either the intervention of the masses, or, to any significant degree, by military-type force. The assistance of these forms of direct force would no doubt make it easier to seize power, but it would be unrealistic to think that they would be available to the organizers of a coup.
If a coup does not make use of the masses, or of warfare, what instrument of power will enable it to seize control of the State? The short answer is that the power will come from the State itself.
A coup consists of the infiltration of a small but critical segment of the State apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder [JINSA infiltrated the Pentagon in precisely this manner].
Chapter 2: When is a Coup d'Etat Possible?
First of all, Luttwak lists the necessary "preconditions":
1. The social and economic conditions of the target country must be such as to confine political participation to a small fraction of the population [this is the case in America where non-voters are the majority].
2. The target State must be substantially independent and the influence of foreign powers in its internal political life must be relatively limited" [the United States is the only State remaining that enjoys these conditions].
3. The target State must have a political centre. If there are several centres these must be identifiable and they must be politically, rather than ethnically, structured. If the State is controlled by a non-politically organized unit [like the CFR, the representative of business] the coup can only be carried out with its consent or neutrality.
Already in the Preface, Luttwak underlined as essential the fact that the perpetrators of a coup must be able to count upon "the absence of a politicised community," upon the apathy of the public. "The dialogue between the rulers and the ruled [upon which democratic legitimacy is founded] can only take place if there is a large enough section of society which is sufficiently literate, well fed and secure to 'talk back.'" But "without a politicised population, the State is nothing other than a machine.
Then the coup d'état becomes feasible because, like every machine, one can take control of everything by grasping the essential levers." [Now Luttwak identifies this "machine" in the Bureaucracy.]
The growth of modern bureaucracy has two implications which are crucial to the feasibility of the coup: the development of a clear distinction between the permanent machinery of State and the political leadership [which changes], and the fact is, like most large organizations, the bureaucracy has a structured hierarchy with definite chains of command....
The importance of this development lies in the fact that if the bureaucrats are linked to the political leadership, an illegal seizure of power must take the form of a 'Palace Revolution,' and it essentially concerns the manipulation of the person of the ruler. He can be forced to accept policies or advisers, he can be killed or held captive, but whatever happens the Palace Revolution can only be conducted from the 'inside' and by 'insiders' [in these pages, we have seen nothing but the work of insiders surrounding a weak President].
The State bureaucracy has to divide its work into clear-cut areas of competence, which are assigned to different departments. Within each department there must be an accepted chain of command, and standard procedures have to be followed. Thus a given piece of information, or a given order, is followed up in a stereotyped manner, and if the order comes from the appropriate source, at the appropriate level, it is carried out.... The apparatus of the State is therefore to some extent a 'machine' which will normally behave in a fairly predictable and automatic manner.
A coup operates by taking advantage of this machine-like behaviour; during the coup, because it uses parts of the State apparatus to seize the controlling levers; afterwards because the value of the 'levers' depends on the fact that the State is a machine.
Who are the best conspirators? Here is how Luttwak describes them:
All power, all participation, is in the hands of the small educated elite, and therefore radically different from the vast majority of their countrymen, practically a race apart. The masses recognize this and they also accept the elite's monopoly on power, unless some unbearable exaction leads to desperate revolt.... Equally, they will accept a change in government, whether legal or otherwise.
After all, it is merely another lot of 'them' taking over" [this is precisely the case of American society: a great mass of badly educated people, remains passive because of need, accepts the new capitalist flexibility so as to hold on to or find work].
Thus, after a coup...the majority of the people will neither believe nor disbelieve.... This lack of reaction is all the coup needs on the part of the people to stay in power.
The lower levels of the bureaucracy will react - or rather fail to react - in a similar manner and for similar reasons: the 'bosses' give the orders, can promote or demote and, above all, are the source of that power and prestige.... After the coup, the man who sits at district headquarters will still be obeyed - whether he is the man who was there before or not - so long as he can pay the salaries....
For the senior bureaucrats, army and police officers, the coup will be a mixture of dangers and opportunities. For the greater number of those who are not too deeply committed, the coup will offer opportunities rather than dangers. They can accept the coup and, being collectively indispensable, can negotiate for even better salaries and positions.
As the coup will not usually represent a threat to most of the elite, the choice is between the great dangers of opposition and the safety of inaction. All that is required in order to support the coup is, simply, to do nothing - and that is what will usually be done.
Thus, at all levels, the most likely course of action following a coup is acceptance ...This lack of reaction is the key to the victory of the coup.
Chapter 3: The Strategy of a Coup d'Etat
If we were revolutionaries, wanting to destroy the power of some of the political forces, the long and often bloody process of revolutionary attrition can achieve this. Our purpose is, however, quite different: we want to seize power within the present system, and we shall only stay in power if we embody some new status quo supported by those very forces which a revolution may seek to destroy.... This is perhaps a more efficient method, and certainly a less painful one, than that of a classic revolution [this is a perfection description of the neo-conservative coup d'état].
Though we will try to avoid all conflict with the 'political' forces, some of them will almost certainly oppose a coup. But this opposition will largely subside when we have substituted our new status quo for the old one, and can enforce it by our control of the State bureaucracy and security forces. We shall then be carrying out the dual task of imposing our control on the machinery of State while at the same time using it to impose our control on the country at large.
As long as the execution of the coup is rapid, and we are cloaked in anonymity, no particular political faction will have either a motive, or opportunity, to oppose us.
Chapter 4: The Planning of the Coup d'Etat
Whether it is a two party system, as in much of the Anglo-Saxon world, where parties are in effect coalitions of pressure groups, or whether they are the class or religion-based parties of much of continental Europe, the major political parties in developed and democratic countries will not present a direct threat to the coup. Though such parties have mass support at election time, neither they nor their followers are versed in the techniques of mass agitation. The comparative stability of political life has deprived them of the experience required to employ direct methods, and the whole climate of their operation revolves around the concept of periodic elections.
Though some form of confrontation may be inevitable, it is essential to avoid bloodshed, because this may well have crucial negative repercussions amongst the personnel of the armed forces and the police.
Chapter 5: The Execution of the Coup d'Etat
With detailed planning, there will be no need for any sort of headquarters structure in the active stage of the coup: for if there is no scope for decision-making there is no need for decision-makers and their apparatus. In fact, having a headquarters would be a serious disadvantage: it would constitute a concrete target for the opposition and one which would be both vulnerable and easily identified.... We should avoid taking any action that will clarify the nature of the threat and thus reduce the confusion that is left in the defensive apparatus of the regime....
The leaders of the coup will be scattered among the various teams. [As we can see Luttwak is theoretically discussing an invisible coup d'état: the infiltrated coup participants speak with the voice of the legitimate government, of that which they have seized. On September 11, let's remember, the immediate entourage of President Bush were not thinking of an Arab attack, but of a military coup d'état. It is for this reason that the President was taken to a secure location for 10 hours].
In the period immediately after the coup, they [the high level Civil Servants and Military Commanders] will probably see themselves as isolated individuals whose careers, and even lives, could be in danger. This feeling of insecurity may precipitate two alternative reactions, both extreme: they will either step forward to assert their loyalty to the leaders of the coup or else they will try to foment or join in the opposition against us. Both reactions are undesirable from our point of view.
Assertions of loyalty will usually be worthless since they are made by men who have just abandoned their previous, and possibly more legitimate, masters. Opposition will always be dangerous and sometimes disastrous. Our policy towards the military and bureaucratic cadres will be to reduce this sense of insecurity. We should establish direct communications with as many of the more senior officers and officials as possible to convey one principal idea in a forceful and convincing manner: that the coup will not threaten their positions in the hierarchy and the aims of the coup do not include a reshaping of the existing military or administrative structures [this appears to be exactly the task of JINSA].
The masses have neither the weapons of the military nor the administrative facilities of the bureaucracy, but their attitude to the new government established after the coup will ultimately be decisive. Our immediate aim will be to enforce public order, but our long-term objective is to gain the acceptance of the masses so that physical coercion will not longer be needed.... Our far more flexible instrument will be our control over the means of mass communication.... In broadcasting over the radio and television services our purpose is not to provide information about the situation, but rather to affect its development by exploiting our monopoly of these media. [This is exactly what the American mass media has done since September 11.]
[The action of the media] will be achieved by conveying the reality and strength of the coup instead of trying to justify it [the emotional blow of the collapse of the World Trade Centre was presented with plenty of "reality" and "force" by CNN]. We will have fragmented the opposition so that each individual opponent would have to operate in isolation. In these circumstances, the news of any further resistance against us would act as a powerful stimulant to further resistance by breaking down this feeling of isolation. We must, therefore, make every effort to withhold such news. If there is in fact some resistance...we should strongly emphasize that it is isolated, the product of the obstinacy of a few misguided or dishonest individuals who are not affiliated to any party or group of significant membership. The constant working of the motif of isolation, and the emphasis on the fact that law and order have been re-established, should have the effect of making resistance appear as dangerous and useless.
There will arise, Luttwak says, "the inevitable suspicions that the coup is a product of the machinations of the Company [American slang for the CIA]. This can only be dispelled by making violent attacks on it...and the attacks should be all the more violent if these suspicions are in fact justified.... We shall make use of a suitable selection of unlovely phrases [for example, anti-Americanism? Anti-Semitism?]. Even if their meanings have been totally obscured by constant and deliberate misuse, they will be useful indicators of our impeccable nationalism."
It seems to this author that these paragraphs describe, with shocking precision, all that has taken place in America since September 11.
If you see the agenda and strategies of the Neocons, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and keep in mind the title of the book Luttwak wrote, Coup d'Etat. The use of "we" and "our" should not be lost on you as this is coming from an Israeli citizen. Bear in mind that many right-minded Israelis find Luttwak's ideas repugnant.
If you see the nonchalance toward death and killing uttered by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et alia, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and weigh carefully what you have heard them say against the unexpected times he said those things. Then compare all of that to his comments in the essay above. Consider how virtually none of the Neocons have worn uniforms or put their lives at risk in wartime, always act as if they have the only answers, and so casually send people to die and be maimed or to kill, maim and torture as if it were just another day at the office.
If you see the plan for the false terror of 9-11, you are paying attention. If not, please read it again and make the connections. They are there and glaringly obvious.
If you see how they have used pejoratives like "anti-American" and "un-American", and "anti-Semitic" to smear anyone who speaks out against their policies and actions you are paying attention. If not, read and consider the changes you've seen America just since Bush took office. It's easy to call names. Look who does the most name-calling.
If you see the rationale for Patriot Acts I and II and Homeland Security, you are paying attention. If not, please read the excerpts again. Have you read the Patriot Act to understand how much of our Constitutional freedoms have been erased?
If you see reasons for the veil of secrecy the Bush Administration and Congress have put on the most mundane information, you are beginning to see what they are hiding and why.
If you see sound reasons why Congress has acted so inexplicably, you are paying attention. If not, please read again with more skepticism. Even known "Anti-War" politicians are supporting this war in Washington, D.C. and almost every day something surfaces to shed light on the truth, that same truth that refuses to come from our National Capitol. Almost every day the truth is coming out and the lies being exposed.
In knowing who most of the Neocons are, I and others have for four years sought after the author of "The Plan". I had seen things in FOXNews, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and other mass media outlets that had a common theme but no apparent reason to have such a suspiciously similar message. We know now that these media outlets were quoting or paraphrasing the ideas in Luttwak's book. When challenged, their spokesmen equivocate and try to deflect your attention from their actions, their conduct, and their earlier equivocations.
If you see the media and Congress rolling over for a New World Order, you are paying attention.
In the next email update I am going to publish information regarding Afghanistan that was sidestepped by the Bush Administration, Congress and the 9-11 Commission. If you do not already know what is in the next email update, remember this email and compare to the next one. We went to Afghanistan for a reason and I believe Americans deserve to know the real reasons. The Neocons needed a coup d'etat to implement their grand war strategy and imperial agenda.
In fact, in their own words (and they did put this into writing), the Neocons knew that America would not buy off on their agenda unless there was something akin to a Pearl Harbor attack on the United States, just as 9-11 appeared to be. Bear in mind that the PNAC wrote its most famous screed one year before 9-11 happened.
the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.
-"Rebuilding America's Defenses -- Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century," page 51
Project for the New American Century, September 2000
Who is Dr. Edward Luttwak? The following comes from three different sources:
Author, Pentagon advisor, JINSA, author of 1968 book Coup d'Etat, A Practical Handbook. Edward Luttwak is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. His books include The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire and, more recently, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.
Edward Luttwak----Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war on Iraq. WINEP's (Washington Institute for Neat East Policy) Board of Advisors includes: Edward Luttwak and other well known Neocons. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy was founded by Martin Indyk
WINEP was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, previously research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). While AIPAC focused its lobbying on the U.S. Congress, WINEP was founded as a think tank that would primarily interact with the executive branch to set U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
If I were President, Mr. Luttwak would be spending some time before The Real 9-11 Commission along with a lot of people who were never questioned by the farce Thomas Keane led 9-11 Commission. The 9-11 Commission appointed by Bush had Neocons investigating Neocons and had people who are directly and indirectly benefiting from Bush policies, hence they were not investigating anything for that would have impacted them personally.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we can beat these people. The Neocons are few, we are many. They are not the heart and soul of this nation, we are. They are not the true face of this nation, we are. They are trying to steal this Nation from all of us and we all need to stand up and stop that from happening.
Contributions can be made via check through the mail or via credit card at http://www.karlschwarz2008.com/contribute.htm
If you have not read the platform, you may download a copy of it at http://www.karlschwarz2008.com/platform.htm. Please get a copy of the platform and pass it along to all you know.
This is a battle about the future of America and all that we love.
Best regards,
KARL SCHWARZ FOR PRESIDENT
The American Patriot Party, An Independent 3rd Party
Wake Up, End The Lies & Take Back America
www.karlschwarz2008.com
Jewish Group Asks Bush to Start War's End
BellSouth - NEWS
Jewish Group Asks Bush to Start War's End
HOUSTON (AP) - About 2,000 representatives of the Union for Reform Judaism asked the Bush administration Friday to provide a clear exit strategy for the war in Iraq and begin to bring some soldiers home in mid-December.
The 1.5-million member organization of the most liberal of the three major branches of Judaism voted almost unanimously for the resolution at its Houston convention, spokeswoman Emily Grotta said.
"The sentiment was clear and overwhelming," Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, union president, said in a statement. "American Jews, and all Americans, are profoundly critical of this war and they want this administration to tell us how and when it will bring our troops home."
The resolution also asks for a bipartisan independent commission to study the lesson's learned from the war, and condemns "in the strongest possible terms" the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
Jewish Group Asks Bush to Start War's End
HOUSTON (AP) - About 2,000 representatives of the Union for Reform Judaism asked the Bush administration Friday to provide a clear exit strategy for the war in Iraq and begin to bring some soldiers home in mid-December.
The 1.5-million member organization of the most liberal of the three major branches of Judaism voted almost unanimously for the resolution at its Houston convention, spokeswoman Emily Grotta said.
"The sentiment was clear and overwhelming," Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, union president, said in a statement. "American Jews, and all Americans, are profoundly critical of this war and they want this administration to tell us how and when it will bring our troops home."
The resolution also asks for a bipartisan independent commission to study the lesson's learned from the war, and condemns "in the strongest possible terms" the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
Kate/A/blog: Enabling Able Danger
Kate/A/blog: Enabling Able Danger
Blogger Thoughts: I don't Kate/A/blog has been paying attention. Able Danger stories are completely compatible with 9/11 being an inside job, and the hijackers being patsies.
Blogger Thoughts: I don't Kate/A/blog has been paying attention. Able Danger stories are completely compatible with 9/11 being an inside job, and the hijackers being patsies.
Glimpse at America's Efforts to Make Earthquakes
codshit.com: conspiracy theories and a search for the truth
A Glimpse at America's Efforts to Make Earthquakes
by Trowbridge H. Ford On August 11, 1984, Jane's Defence Weekly, a new magazine printed by the authoritative Jane's Fighting Ships, published high quality photographs of the Nikolaiev 444 shipyard in the Crimea's Sevastopol, one on the weekly's cover and three more on the inside, showing the Soviet aircraft carrier Lenoid Brezhnev under construction. Then many newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, reprinted them. When US Navy Captain Captain T. Fritz of its Naval Intelligence Support Center (NISC) noticed them while reading his paper over breakfast, he immediately called the FBI to report that they were ones missing from its facility at Suitland, Maryland. The photographs had been taken by the National Reconnaisance Office's new KH (Keyhole) -11 satellite, the first to suppy digital imaging of targets, and developed by the National Security Agency's Program 1010 aka Kennan. KH-11 used systems developed by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the previous Keyhole project, and were later the basis of the Hubble Space Telescope. In keeping with the National Security Decision Directive 84 - what the Willard Group, appointed by President Carter, had proposed to stop leaks resulting from Watergate, and in the assassination of CIA covert operatives, and President Reagan had adopted - the FBI was contacted so that if no criminal laws were broken in the leak, at least the leaker could be weeded out of the government.When the Bureau's agents contacted Jane's editors about the leak, they simply handed over the photographs which had had secret classifications snipped from their tops and bottoms.Once a fingerprint was identified as that of Samuel Loring Morison, son of the famous Harvard historian who had written, with Henry Steele Commanger the standard survey of American history, and who was working at the NISC, "Morison was arrested as he was about to board a plane on his way to vacation in England," Angus Mackenzie has written in Secrets: The CIA's War at Home. "He was charged with theft and espionage." (p. 136) When Morison's trial finally occurred in October 1985, it was most baffling, as Mackenzie has recounted. The charge of espionage seemed most unjustified since a real spy, William Kampiles, had already been convicted of selling the operating manuels for KH-11, so it could be assumed that the photo in Jane's Defence Weekly had told Moscow nothing new about the photo reconnaissance obiter, but the prosecution begged to differ, contending that knowing nothing new about a highly covert program was in itself potentially harmful to the United States. Then the defense finally found an expert who would testify on behalf of Morison, Professor Jeffrey T. Richelson, but his testimony about how easy it was for even the average person to spot a KH-11 in the sky was quashed by the trial judge.Once one of the defense witnesses, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Richard Hineman admitted that Morison's disclosure did inform Moscow that the satellite was still working, as all satellites have a limited life span, the jury found that he had potentially damaged America's security, especially since he had done so for money, and he was sentenced to two years in prison, though he ended up only spending eight months incarcerated.While Mackinzie was understandably upset about the verdict, he never got round to explaining why Morison ended up spending so little time in jail. The reason seems to be that the Reagan administration decided to make Morison's disclosure a positive bit of disinformation as the planned showdown with Moscow by the US Navy was finally taking shape - what an Anglo-American conspiracy hoped to trigger with the assassination of Sweden's statsminister Olof Palme, sink the Soviet nuclear submarines while they went on station in response to the surprise, and then clear out all the naval facilities on the Kola Peninsula by American and NATO air and army operations. Where Morison, either deliberately or ignorantly, fitted into all this is determined by just considering what Moscow had learned from all its spies at the time.Since Kampiles had given the Soviets all the capabilities of the KH-11, they could at least take all the necessary countermeasures while it was passing overhead, if not even arrange to blow it up. Then the John A. Walker Jr. spy ring had resulted in Soviet attack submarines being almost as difficult to spot as American ones - what enraged Navy Secretary John Lehman, Jr. so much that he called publicly for Walker to be drawn and quartered instead of given a life sentence, with eligibility for parole after merely 10 years in prison. Then Ronald W. Pelton, another NISC employee, had told the Soviets about the tapping of their land lines in Sea of Okhotsk to their naval base at Petropavlovsk (Operation Ivy Bells). (For more about this, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man's Bluff: The Story of American Submarine Espionage, p. 351ff.)For good measure, the Reagan administration allowed failed Agency agent Edward Lee Howard to escape to the USSR - hoping that Moscow would think that he was another Kim Philby - and Jonathan Pollard, another NISC employee, was sentenced to life in prison for supplying Shamir's anti-American government in Israel with satellite and signal intelligenceregarding the structure of US deterrent forces in case there was some kind of Cold War showdown - what Tel Aviv exchanged with Moscow for the release of more Soviets Jews who wanted to immigrate to the Holy Land. Of course, this information would hardly help Moscow for what Washington and London had planned, as it was a question of the Soviets spotting Lehman's attack submarines as they sought out the Soviet boomers and their own attack subs, stopping communications to the West by double agents and from bugging other communication lines, and stemming the planned attack over the Finnmark region of Norway with some kind of defense in depth. Defector Vitaly Yurchenko was even programmed by Moscow into the whole deception operation by telling tales on various agents, especially Pelton and Howard, when he came over, and then being allowed to escape back to Moscow by the CIA with the most important double agent, Valeri Martynov, in his entourage. It was the most important, complicated deception operation in the history of the Cold War, and who would ultimately triumph was not known until the very end.While we now know that the spying for the Soviets by the CIA's Rick Ames and the Bureau's Robert Hanssen saved everyone's skin, as I have described in many articles in the Trowbridge Archive, the role of Morison in the process has not been told. His conviction was to reassure Moscow that any KH-11satellite which showed up over the Black Sea naval base was just another photo reconnaissance one - what the Soviets would neutralize one way or another.Little did they realize that it was airborne with a laser accelerator, feigning to be a Magnum satellite - what could cause massive earthquakes in the unstable area if necessary. As it circled over the area 15 times a day, it could make a devastating earthquake there in little time at all.As with so many conspiracies - what results in so many cock-ups - the best laid plans were destroyed by a foul-up. When the space shuttle took the laser accelerator aloft on August 28, 1985 (No. 7 in the Kennan program), it failed to be launched because of a premature engine shutdown. NASA did a rush job to prepare another space shuttle, Challenger, for a replacement mission on January 28, 1986 but, as we all know, it ended in tragedy with the space craft separating from the booster rockets almost immediately, and plunging into the Atlantic, off the Kennedy Space Center. While the Reagan administration made much of the loss of life, especially woman astronaut and school teacher Christine McAuliffe, Washington was more concerned about the lost satellite.Instead of the White House scrubbing the operation, it pushed ahead with reckless abandaon despite the fact that it had lost its most crucial element in any surprise showdown with the Soviets. The CIA's Rod Carlson recruited Stig Bergling in the hope that he would be the fall guy for Palme's assassin by fleeing to the USSR while on prison release to get married, the Agency's resident in the Stockholm Embassy Jennone Walker got the Swedish security service Säpo to bug the Soviet Embassy telephones and KGB residence in the hope that Bergling would call to arrange his escape - what would confirm Moscow's being behind the assassination - and Britain's SOD George Younger was on hand when NATO's Anchor Express Exercise commenced in Norway, so that he could direct it against the Kola Peninsula when America's carrier battle fleet, Operation Eagle, arrived off Narvik.Fortunately, the whole conspiracy went a cropper when Bergling declined to flee, Operation Eagle never arrived because Atlantic Fleet Commander Admiral Carl Trost refused to follow Navy Secretary's orders, and Anchor Express Exercise immediately got caught in devastating but expected avalanches which killed 17 Norwegian engineers. It was all just as well, though, as KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov had announced on the morning of Palme's assassination that it had uncovered the plot, and taken appropriate counter measures. If Washington and London had succeeded in triggering the showdown with conventional weapons - what they attempted on several occasions - the result would have been devastating to us all, as the Soviets had 82 nuclear-armed SS-23 missiles in East Germany and Western Russia which the vaunted Western intelligence knew nothing about.Little wonder that when the scope of the whole cock-up began to emerge, and the political atmosphere between Reagan and Gorbachev began to change dramatically at the Reykjavik meeting in October 1986, Morison was released early from prison. It was a far different matter with the Walker gang and Pelton, however, Admiral William Studeman, a former NISC chief and the current director of the Naval Intelligence Service, writing an affidavit for the trial of one of the former in California in late September 1986, claiming gratuituously and falsely that Pelton's spying had presented the Soviets with war-winning possibilities in any showdown with the West. Of course, Studeman did not explain what war he was referring to. Studeman was the driving force in Navy ranks behind the whole confrontation that Secretary Lehman sought, directing the attack submarines in the latest Ivy Bells Operation, having CNO James Watkins coordinate the planned attacks with the British MOD, and seeing that Admiral Frank Kelso's Sixth Fleet in the Black Sea tried to make up for the absence of the KH-11 (No. 7) satellite. (For sanitzed details about the whole fiasco, see Gregory L. Vistica, Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy, p. 213ff.)Of course, while America lost the satellite on Challenger, it had the capability to make more, and once the problems with launching the space shuttles safely were solved, it sent two more KH-11s into orbit in 1987 and 1988, and a more advanced one, called LACROSSE, into space on an orbit which flew over the Middle East all the way to North Korea, as this was the area of concern with the USSR and the Soviet bloc going down the drain. China was now the hot target, especially after its leadership intensified and institutionalized its repression of dissent after the forceful clearing on Tiananman Square on June 4, 1989. The new Bush administration was most interested, though, in keeping on talking terms with Beijing, "constructive engagement", because of what it had planned for Iraq, and the now independent oil-producing nations of Central Asia.Despite the Chinese crackdown, Washington wanted to persuade the Chinese leadership to ease up on the protesters, especially on the Uighur, Muslims, in Xinjuing province where vast new deposits of oil were discovered, and worked to persuade Congress not to invoke sanctions on Beijing but to maintain China's most favored nation status in trade as bargaining chips. In return, China's Foreign Minister Qain did not block Washington's UN approach to punishing Saddam for his invasion of Kuwait. And by this time, Admiral Studeman had managed to become NSA's director, and was interested in what KH-12 satellites could really do rather than make them simply survivable in the event of a Soviet attack - what the previous director General William Odom was obsessed with. Studeman was able to work easily behind the back of his nominal superior, DCI Judge William Webster, who had been selected to clean up the Agency's image after the Iran-Contra scandal.While the world was occupied with the Gulf War, Washington pulled a surprise on the troublesome Chinese by causing an earthquake in Hangzhou, southwest of Shanghai, on June 20, 1990 - reminiscent to what the Russians had done 14 years earlier in North China. The 7.7 quake on the Richter scale killed or injured 370,000 people, and opened up the area to outside disaster reconstruction, especially by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - a consortium of Chinese, Russian and Central Asian interests which hoped to open the whole country to free trade and global capitalism. The quake rendered the monoply that the Hans were trying to maintain throughout China through the military, state petroleum companies, and state-run construction firms completely untenable.While Washington's role in the tragedy escaped completely unnoticed, Jeffrey Richelson, the professor who had tried to help Morison in his espionage case, published an article, "The Spies in Space, in Air and Space magazine, which raised all kinds of questions about its possible role - what NSA tried to quash by classifying the article 'SECRET', and Representative Geroge Brown tried to make light of by bringing up the matter in Congress on November 26, 1991. By this time, Richelson had become a leading authority on America's satellite capability, having written many books on the subject, especially The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology which showed that it was involved in much more than just trying to find "The Manchurian Candidate".Richelson, after having explained the role various KEYHOLE satellites had played in some confrontations and wars, declared: "And still others become the catalyst for further collection efforts and eventually for action political, diplomatic, or military." While he did not indicate what ones had been involved in military follow-ups, he did give this operational scope to them: "Satellities search for signs of new nuclear reactors or missile deployment in countries that buy arms and nuclear technology from China, including Algeria, Iran, Palestine, Saudia Arabia and Syria." It did not take a space scientist to figure out that this country was the apex of the growing axis of evil, and that Washington may well have taken counter action against its increasing threats - what the Chinese, unlike the Iraqis who laid fiber optics cables to protect the security of their messages, using micro wave communications had made crystal clear.Richelson concluded his article by surprisingly discounting the effectiveness of digital-imaging reconnaissance vehicles in countries which had very cloudly weather, very secretive regimes, and took effective countermeasures against their intrusions, making one wonder why the NSA was going for broke with the new LACROSSE program when China was the only regime which presented these problems.The answer was supplied, it seems, by an obscure Chinese chemist Zhonghoa Shou working for the Hangzhou Quality Control Institute, and investigating the effects of climate change on its fishing when the deadly earthquake struck. Shou predicted it 18 hours before it happened, though the area had no history of such quakes. He based his prediction upon the unexpected cloud which developed from the eventual epicenter, and the consequent fracturing of the surface which developed from it. It seemed as if some huge rock was being stressed by external forces, causing the cloud to steadily appear, and as the process intensified, the geoeruption commenced, ultimately resulting in the devastating earthquake. The only problem left to be explained was the source of the external forces, as the area was not known for having volcanoes either. Were they the energy caused by tectonic plates scrapping across one another, a new volcano suddenly appearing, or man-made rays steadily burning a hole through the earth's crust at Hangzhou? The last seemed the only possible explanation as techtonic plates do not meet there, and there were no signs of a new volcano.To head off Shou's claims from becoming widely known, he was allowed to come to California in May 1993, and while he was studying the history and evidence of its earthquakes - thanks to the assistance his daughter Wenying, an accomplished biologist, supplied from her grants - the Clinton administration became involved in its own program of earthquake-making, as I explained in my last article. By this time Studeman had taken over the actual running of the CIA, having become its Deputy Director, and was anxious to come up with something big - what the President wanted too because of his growing domestic scandals - to neutralize the expected fallout from the unfolding Ames spying scandal. Studeman apparently made the arrangements for the test quake in Australia's Great Victoria Desert in 1993 from the US Navy station on the North Cape - what American Secretary of Defense William Cohen did for real in Turkey on August 17, 1999. Clinton had to be shown that quakes could be controlled - not having been introduced to what the Soviet and Americans had done for fear of difficult complications - before he agreed to the attack in the Straits of Mamara. Cohen had done everything he could to deflect suspicion from Washington for having caused the Izmit disaster by claiming that it was something one could only expect from unknown terrorists.In August 2000, after NSA had yet postponed again its launch of its latest LACROSSE satellite from Vandenberg Air Base - neither the National Reconnaissance Office, its manufacturer, nor the Air Force discussing its 66-foot nose cone and its orbit in any way - the NRO did issue a shoulder patch to commenorate all its orbiters in a most menacing way. It was entitled - "National Reconnaissance Office - We Own the Night", and represented by an Owl's face - and underneath it were the four vehicles transversing the globe, with two going along a line from Africa to Russia, and the others crossing the Middle East towards China - striking back with boomerangs. A boomerang is an Australian native instrument which recoils on its user with deadly consequences - a most telling depiction of what the Americans had been up to in Down Under's desert, and were handing back to the axis of evil with devastating results. One of the obiters had a black boomerang - the LACROSSE one launched in 1988 - while the others were white, indicating that it was the one which applied the deadly payback in Hangzhou and Izmet. Within the Owl's face above the obiting satellites was a white covered mesh, hiding apparently a black stinging antenna.By this time, Shou had gotten photographs from EUMETSAT's meteorological satellites, and was explaining past earthquakes in terms of his hypotheses, and making highly accurate predictions about new ones, based upon them. IndoEX, a European agency examining the weather in the Indian Ocean area had been much more forthcoming with its photographs of various earthquake sites than the Pentagon's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program had been with its.Shou predicted on December 22, 2003 an earthquake in Bam within 60 days - a city which had not apparently experienced a serious one in 2,500 years, and did not have any active volcanoes in the area - because of the emerging, unexplained cloud along a growing fault. The earthquakes struck early in the morning of the 26th, 2003, killing 26,271, injuring another 20,000, and leaving 60,000 homeless. The citadel was first struck with a 4.4 earthquake at just after 4 a. m., causing all the residents to flee their homes, but they then went back to bed and the deadly quake struck an hour and a half later - just the time required for the obiter to go around the globe. The 6.6 quake melted all the clay houses on the surface, causing them to collapse completely around its victims, preventing them from breathing. Of course, the Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an unprecedented, undersea earthquake - what was triggered again, it seems, from the US Navy Base on Australia's North Cape, so there was apparently no cloud for Shou to base a prediction upon, so he missed its coming.But Shou was back in business just before the one in Pakistan occurred, predicting accurately yet another one, but "...everyone," according to scientific sources, "ignored his mail as 'not significant'." The earthquake took place in an area where one was hardly expected, and shook the area with unprecedented consequences, causing the seismic zoning to be changed to a major threat area. It occurred later in the morning than the Bam one, at 8.52 a.m., while people were up and preparing to go to work, and taking them completely by surprise. "I've never seen such devastation before," remarked Jan Egeland, the UN's relief coordinator. By this time, the fourth and fifth LACROSSE satellites had been launched, the fourth on September 9, 2003 to replace the first deadly one, and then the fifth one on April 27, 2005 - on a course between the ones which went over Russia and those over China. This apparently put it right over the North Frontier of Pakistan when the earthquake struck. Little wonder that Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC), hit the overhead when he heard about its launch in April. He thought that Congress had killed the program after the fourth one had finally been launched, but the House and Senate Appropriations Committees had continued funding its construction behind the back of the SIC in order to satisfy the employment demands of constituents. The program, Rockefeller angrily declared, "is totally unjustified and very wasteful and dangerous to national security." Of course, he did not explain how and why an apparent intelligence satellite could be dangerous to national security. In the past, no one ever considered their role dangerous, whether it had been answering the question of the alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets during the 'sixties, eavesdropping upon them during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the buildup of Saddam's forces on the Kuwaiti border in preparation for its invasion in 1990, and the like. A dangerous satellite can only be an offensive weapon of war. And one can well imagine why the scientific community did not take Shou's predictions seriously. If taken seriously, scientists would be probbing the skies to see where the LACROSSE satellites are going, and where earthquakes may well be developing so that appropriate countermeasures could be taken - like shooting them down, and warning the populations threatened.Is the scientific community ever going to give up its chorus of denial when it comes to what Washington is up to?
posted by ewar @ 12:18 PM
A Glimpse at America's Efforts to Make Earthquakes
by Trowbridge H. Ford On August 11, 1984, Jane's Defence Weekly, a new magazine printed by the authoritative Jane's Fighting Ships, published high quality photographs of the Nikolaiev 444 shipyard in the Crimea's Sevastopol, one on the weekly's cover and three more on the inside, showing the Soviet aircraft carrier Lenoid Brezhnev under construction. Then many newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, reprinted them. When US Navy Captain Captain T. Fritz of its Naval Intelligence Support Center (NISC) noticed them while reading his paper over breakfast, he immediately called the FBI to report that they were ones missing from its facility at Suitland, Maryland. The photographs had been taken by the National Reconnaisance Office's new KH (Keyhole) -11 satellite, the first to suppy digital imaging of targets, and developed by the National Security Agency's Program 1010 aka Kennan. KH-11 used systems developed by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, the previous Keyhole project, and were later the basis of the Hubble Space Telescope. In keeping with the National Security Decision Directive 84 - what the Willard Group, appointed by President Carter, had proposed to stop leaks resulting from Watergate, and in the assassination of CIA covert operatives, and President Reagan had adopted - the FBI was contacted so that if no criminal laws were broken in the leak, at least the leaker could be weeded out of the government.When the Bureau's agents contacted Jane's editors about the leak, they simply handed over the photographs which had had secret classifications snipped from their tops and bottoms.Once a fingerprint was identified as that of Samuel Loring Morison, son of the famous Harvard historian who had written, with Henry Steele Commanger the standard survey of American history, and who was working at the NISC, "Morison was arrested as he was about to board a plane on his way to vacation in England," Angus Mackenzie has written in Secrets: The CIA's War at Home. "He was charged with theft and espionage." (p. 136) When Morison's trial finally occurred in October 1985, it was most baffling, as Mackenzie has recounted. The charge of espionage seemed most unjustified since a real spy, William Kampiles, had already been convicted of selling the operating manuels for KH-11, so it could be assumed that the photo in Jane's Defence Weekly had told Moscow nothing new about the photo reconnaissance obiter, but the prosecution begged to differ, contending that knowing nothing new about a highly covert program was in itself potentially harmful to the United States. Then the defense finally found an expert who would testify on behalf of Morison, Professor Jeffrey T. Richelson, but his testimony about how easy it was for even the average person to spot a KH-11 in the sky was quashed by the trial judge.Once one of the defense witnesses, CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology Richard Hineman admitted that Morison's disclosure did inform Moscow that the satellite was still working, as all satellites have a limited life span, the jury found that he had potentially damaged America's security, especially since he had done so for money, and he was sentenced to two years in prison, though he ended up only spending eight months incarcerated.While Mackinzie was understandably upset about the verdict, he never got round to explaining why Morison ended up spending so little time in jail. The reason seems to be that the Reagan administration decided to make Morison's disclosure a positive bit of disinformation as the planned showdown with Moscow by the US Navy was finally taking shape - what an Anglo-American conspiracy hoped to trigger with the assassination of Sweden's statsminister Olof Palme, sink the Soviet nuclear submarines while they went on station in response to the surprise, and then clear out all the naval facilities on the Kola Peninsula by American and NATO air and army operations. Where Morison, either deliberately or ignorantly, fitted into all this is determined by just considering what Moscow had learned from all its spies at the time.Since Kampiles had given the Soviets all the capabilities of the KH-11, they could at least take all the necessary countermeasures while it was passing overhead, if not even arrange to blow it up. Then the John A. Walker Jr. spy ring had resulted in Soviet attack submarines being almost as difficult to spot as American ones - what enraged Navy Secretary John Lehman, Jr. so much that he called publicly for Walker to be drawn and quartered instead of given a life sentence, with eligibility for parole after merely 10 years in prison. Then Ronald W. Pelton, another NISC employee, had told the Soviets about the tapping of their land lines in Sea of Okhotsk to their naval base at Petropavlovsk (Operation Ivy Bells). (For more about this, Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man's Bluff: The Story of American Submarine Espionage, p. 351ff.)For good measure, the Reagan administration allowed failed Agency agent Edward Lee Howard to escape to the USSR - hoping that Moscow would think that he was another Kim Philby - and Jonathan Pollard, another NISC employee, was sentenced to life in prison for supplying Shamir's anti-American government in Israel with satellite and signal intelligenceregarding the structure of US deterrent forces in case there was some kind of Cold War showdown - what Tel Aviv exchanged with Moscow for the release of more Soviets Jews who wanted to immigrate to the Holy Land. Of course, this information would hardly help Moscow for what Washington and London had planned, as it was a question of the Soviets spotting Lehman's attack submarines as they sought out the Soviet boomers and their own attack subs, stopping communications to the West by double agents and from bugging other communication lines, and stemming the planned attack over the Finnmark region of Norway with some kind of defense in depth. Defector Vitaly Yurchenko was even programmed by Moscow into the whole deception operation by telling tales on various agents, especially Pelton and Howard, when he came over, and then being allowed to escape back to Moscow by the CIA with the most important double agent, Valeri Martynov, in his entourage. It was the most important, complicated deception operation in the history of the Cold War, and who would ultimately triumph was not known until the very end.While we now know that the spying for the Soviets by the CIA's Rick Ames and the Bureau's Robert Hanssen saved everyone's skin, as I have described in many articles in the Trowbridge Archive, the role of Morison in the process has not been told. His conviction was to reassure Moscow that any KH-11satellite which showed up over the Black Sea naval base was just another photo reconnaissance one - what the Soviets would neutralize one way or another.Little did they realize that it was airborne with a laser accelerator, feigning to be a Magnum satellite - what could cause massive earthquakes in the unstable area if necessary. As it circled over the area 15 times a day, it could make a devastating earthquake there in little time at all.As with so many conspiracies - what results in so many cock-ups - the best laid plans were destroyed by a foul-up. When the space shuttle took the laser accelerator aloft on August 28, 1985 (No. 7 in the Kennan program), it failed to be launched because of a premature engine shutdown. NASA did a rush job to prepare another space shuttle, Challenger, for a replacement mission on January 28, 1986 but, as we all know, it ended in tragedy with the space craft separating from the booster rockets almost immediately, and plunging into the Atlantic, off the Kennedy Space Center. While the Reagan administration made much of the loss of life, especially woman astronaut and school teacher Christine McAuliffe, Washington was more concerned about the lost satellite.Instead of the White House scrubbing the operation, it pushed ahead with reckless abandaon despite the fact that it had lost its most crucial element in any surprise showdown with the Soviets. The CIA's Rod Carlson recruited Stig Bergling in the hope that he would be the fall guy for Palme's assassin by fleeing to the USSR while on prison release to get married, the Agency's resident in the Stockholm Embassy Jennone Walker got the Swedish security service Säpo to bug the Soviet Embassy telephones and KGB residence in the hope that Bergling would call to arrange his escape - what would confirm Moscow's being behind the assassination - and Britain's SOD George Younger was on hand when NATO's Anchor Express Exercise commenced in Norway, so that he could direct it against the Kola Peninsula when America's carrier battle fleet, Operation Eagle, arrived off Narvik.Fortunately, the whole conspiracy went a cropper when Bergling declined to flee, Operation Eagle never arrived because Atlantic Fleet Commander Admiral Carl Trost refused to follow Navy Secretary's orders, and Anchor Express Exercise immediately got caught in devastating but expected avalanches which killed 17 Norwegian engineers. It was all just as well, though, as KGB Chief Viktor Chebrikov had announced on the morning of Palme's assassination that it had uncovered the plot, and taken appropriate counter measures. If Washington and London had succeeded in triggering the showdown with conventional weapons - what they attempted on several occasions - the result would have been devastating to us all, as the Soviets had 82 nuclear-armed SS-23 missiles in East Germany and Western Russia which the vaunted Western intelligence knew nothing about.Little wonder that when the scope of the whole cock-up began to emerge, and the political atmosphere between Reagan and Gorbachev began to change dramatically at the Reykjavik meeting in October 1986, Morison was released early from prison. It was a far different matter with the Walker gang and Pelton, however, Admiral William Studeman, a former NISC chief and the current director of the Naval Intelligence Service, writing an affidavit for the trial of one of the former in California in late September 1986, claiming gratuituously and falsely that Pelton's spying had presented the Soviets with war-winning possibilities in any showdown with the West. Of course, Studeman did not explain what war he was referring to. Studeman was the driving force in Navy ranks behind the whole confrontation that Secretary Lehman sought, directing the attack submarines in the latest Ivy Bells Operation, having CNO James Watkins coordinate the planned attacks with the British MOD, and seeing that Admiral Frank Kelso's Sixth Fleet in the Black Sea tried to make up for the absence of the KH-11 (No. 7) satellite. (For sanitzed details about the whole fiasco, see Gregory L. Vistica, Fall from Glory: The Men Who Sank the U.S. Navy, p. 213ff.)Of course, while America lost the satellite on Challenger, it had the capability to make more, and once the problems with launching the space shuttles safely were solved, it sent two more KH-11s into orbit in 1987 and 1988, and a more advanced one, called LACROSSE, into space on an orbit which flew over the Middle East all the way to North Korea, as this was the area of concern with the USSR and the Soviet bloc going down the drain. China was now the hot target, especially after its leadership intensified and institutionalized its repression of dissent after the forceful clearing on Tiananman Square on June 4, 1989. The new Bush administration was most interested, though, in keeping on talking terms with Beijing, "constructive engagement", because of what it had planned for Iraq, and the now independent oil-producing nations of Central Asia.Despite the Chinese crackdown, Washington wanted to persuade the Chinese leadership to ease up on the protesters, especially on the Uighur, Muslims, in Xinjuing province where vast new deposits of oil were discovered, and worked to persuade Congress not to invoke sanctions on Beijing but to maintain China's most favored nation status in trade as bargaining chips. In return, China's Foreign Minister Qain did not block Washington's UN approach to punishing Saddam for his invasion of Kuwait. And by this time, Admiral Studeman had managed to become NSA's director, and was interested in what KH-12 satellites could really do rather than make them simply survivable in the event of a Soviet attack - what the previous director General William Odom was obsessed with. Studeman was able to work easily behind the back of his nominal superior, DCI Judge William Webster, who had been selected to clean up the Agency's image after the Iran-Contra scandal.While the world was occupied with the Gulf War, Washington pulled a surprise on the troublesome Chinese by causing an earthquake in Hangzhou, southwest of Shanghai, on June 20, 1990 - reminiscent to what the Russians had done 14 years earlier in North China. The 7.7 quake on the Richter scale killed or injured 370,000 people, and opened up the area to outside disaster reconstruction, especially by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization - a consortium of Chinese, Russian and Central Asian interests which hoped to open the whole country to free trade and global capitalism. The quake rendered the monoply that the Hans were trying to maintain throughout China through the military, state petroleum companies, and state-run construction firms completely untenable.While Washington's role in the tragedy escaped completely unnoticed, Jeffrey Richelson, the professor who had tried to help Morison in his espionage case, published an article, "The Spies in Space, in Air and Space magazine, which raised all kinds of questions about its possible role - what NSA tried to quash by classifying the article 'SECRET', and Representative Geroge Brown tried to make light of by bringing up the matter in Congress on November 26, 1991. By this time, Richelson had become a leading authority on America's satellite capability, having written many books on the subject, especially The Wizards of Langley: Inside the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology which showed that it was involved in much more than just trying to find "The Manchurian Candidate".Richelson, after having explained the role various KEYHOLE satellites had played in some confrontations and wars, declared: "And still others become the catalyst for further collection efforts and eventually for action political, diplomatic, or military." While he did not indicate what ones had been involved in military follow-ups, he did give this operational scope to them: "Satellities search for signs of new nuclear reactors or missile deployment in countries that buy arms and nuclear technology from China, including Algeria, Iran, Palestine, Saudia Arabia and Syria." It did not take a space scientist to figure out that this country was the apex of the growing axis of evil, and that Washington may well have taken counter action against its increasing threats - what the Chinese, unlike the Iraqis who laid fiber optics cables to protect the security of their messages, using micro wave communications had made crystal clear.Richelson concluded his article by surprisingly discounting the effectiveness of digital-imaging reconnaissance vehicles in countries which had very cloudly weather, very secretive regimes, and took effective countermeasures against their intrusions, making one wonder why the NSA was going for broke with the new LACROSSE program when China was the only regime which presented these problems.The answer was supplied, it seems, by an obscure Chinese chemist Zhonghoa Shou working for the Hangzhou Quality Control Institute, and investigating the effects of climate change on its fishing when the deadly earthquake struck. Shou predicted it 18 hours before it happened, though the area had no history of such quakes. He based his prediction upon the unexpected cloud which developed from the eventual epicenter, and the consequent fracturing of the surface which developed from it. It seemed as if some huge rock was being stressed by external forces, causing the cloud to steadily appear, and as the process intensified, the geoeruption commenced, ultimately resulting in the devastating earthquake. The only problem left to be explained was the source of the external forces, as the area was not known for having volcanoes either. Were they the energy caused by tectonic plates scrapping across one another, a new volcano suddenly appearing, or man-made rays steadily burning a hole through the earth's crust at Hangzhou? The last seemed the only possible explanation as techtonic plates do not meet there, and there were no signs of a new volcano.To head off Shou's claims from becoming widely known, he was allowed to come to California in May 1993, and while he was studying the history and evidence of its earthquakes - thanks to the assistance his daughter Wenying, an accomplished biologist, supplied from her grants - the Clinton administration became involved in its own program of earthquake-making, as I explained in my last article. By this time Studeman had taken over the actual running of the CIA, having become its Deputy Director, and was anxious to come up with something big - what the President wanted too because of his growing domestic scandals - to neutralize the expected fallout from the unfolding Ames spying scandal. Studeman apparently made the arrangements for the test quake in Australia's Great Victoria Desert in 1993 from the US Navy station on the North Cape - what American Secretary of Defense William Cohen did for real in Turkey on August 17, 1999. Clinton had to be shown that quakes could be controlled - not having been introduced to what the Soviet and Americans had done for fear of difficult complications - before he agreed to the attack in the Straits of Mamara. Cohen had done everything he could to deflect suspicion from Washington for having caused the Izmit disaster by claiming that it was something one could only expect from unknown terrorists.In August 2000, after NSA had yet postponed again its launch of its latest LACROSSE satellite from Vandenberg Air Base - neither the National Reconnaissance Office, its manufacturer, nor the Air Force discussing its 66-foot nose cone and its orbit in any way - the NRO did issue a shoulder patch to commenorate all its orbiters in a most menacing way. It was entitled - "National Reconnaissance Office - We Own the Night", and represented by an Owl's face - and underneath it were the four vehicles transversing the globe, with two going along a line from Africa to Russia, and the others crossing the Middle East towards China - striking back with boomerangs. A boomerang is an Australian native instrument which recoils on its user with deadly consequences - a most telling depiction of what the Americans had been up to in Down Under's desert, and were handing back to the axis of evil with devastating results. One of the obiters had a black boomerang - the LACROSSE one launched in 1988 - while the others were white, indicating that it was the one which applied the deadly payback in Hangzhou and Izmet. Within the Owl's face above the obiting satellites was a white covered mesh, hiding apparently a black stinging antenna.By this time, Shou had gotten photographs from EUMETSAT's meteorological satellites, and was explaining past earthquakes in terms of his hypotheses, and making highly accurate predictions about new ones, based upon them. IndoEX, a European agency examining the weather in the Indian Ocean area had been much more forthcoming with its photographs of various earthquake sites than the Pentagon's Defense Meteorological Satellite Program had been with its.Shou predicted on December 22, 2003 an earthquake in Bam within 60 days - a city which had not apparently experienced a serious one in 2,500 years, and did not have any active volcanoes in the area - because of the emerging, unexplained cloud along a growing fault. The earthquakes struck early in the morning of the 26th, 2003, killing 26,271, injuring another 20,000, and leaving 60,000 homeless. The citadel was first struck with a 4.4 earthquake at just after 4 a. m., causing all the residents to flee their homes, but they then went back to bed and the deadly quake struck an hour and a half later - just the time required for the obiter to go around the globe. The 6.6 quake melted all the clay houses on the surface, causing them to collapse completely around its victims, preventing them from breathing. Of course, the Indian Ocean tsunami was caused by an unprecedented, undersea earthquake - what was triggered again, it seems, from the US Navy Base on Australia's North Cape, so there was apparently no cloud for Shou to base a prediction upon, so he missed its coming.But Shou was back in business just before the one in Pakistan occurred, predicting accurately yet another one, but "...everyone," according to scientific sources, "ignored his mail as 'not significant'." The earthquake took place in an area where one was hardly expected, and shook the area with unprecedented consequences, causing the seismic zoning to be changed to a major threat area. It occurred later in the morning than the Bam one, at 8.52 a.m., while people were up and preparing to go to work, and taking them completely by surprise. "I've never seen such devastation before," remarked Jan Egeland, the UN's relief coordinator. By this time, the fourth and fifth LACROSSE satellites had been launched, the fourth on September 9, 2003 to replace the first deadly one, and then the fifth one on April 27, 2005 - on a course between the ones which went over Russia and those over China. This apparently put it right over the North Frontier of Pakistan when the earthquake struck. Little wonder that Senator Jay Rockefeller, the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC), hit the overhead when he heard about its launch in April. He thought that Congress had killed the program after the fourth one had finally been launched, but the House and Senate Appropriations Committees had continued funding its construction behind the back of the SIC in order to satisfy the employment demands of constituents. The program, Rockefeller angrily declared, "is totally unjustified and very wasteful and dangerous to national security." Of course, he did not explain how and why an apparent intelligence satellite could be dangerous to national security. In the past, no one ever considered their role dangerous, whether it had been answering the question of the alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets during the 'sixties, eavesdropping upon them during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the buildup of Saddam's forces on the Kuwaiti border in preparation for its invasion in 1990, and the like. A dangerous satellite can only be an offensive weapon of war. And one can well imagine why the scientific community did not take Shou's predictions seriously. If taken seriously, scientists would be probbing the skies to see where the LACROSSE satellites are going, and where earthquakes may well be developing so that appropriate countermeasures could be taken - like shooting them down, and warning the populations threatened.Is the scientific community ever going to give up its chorus of denial when it comes to what Washington is up to?
posted by ewar @ 12:18 PM
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