The missing Family Jewel

I probably should not write this post. The following text will invite trouble from the one group of conspiracy buffs I consider more annoying than the 9/11 "trannies."

But I feel obligated to say something about the "Family Jewels" documents released by CIA Director Michael Hayden to the invaluable National Security Archives. If you follow the link, you will find a large compendium of internal Agency documents -- material which, according to CIA Office of Security Director Howard Osborne, had "flap potential." This document dump was compiled by Osborne in 1973, when outside investigations of the Agency began.

By "outside," I don't necessarily mean Congress. I mean Richard Nixon. More on that later.

So far, I've not read any commentary on this material by well-educated CIA critics who have specialized in the events of this era. Journalistic response to this release has so far been superficial, even from savvy writers like Robert Parry.

The first thing you should understand is that this compendium does not represent the ultimate treasure trove of covert activities. The dossier is filled with fluff and filler material, which should come as no surprise. Whenever a congressional committee looked into Company activities back in the '70s, those under scrutiny would insist on stuffing the record with documents that were innocuous or unimportant.

The reader should keep the surrounding circumstances in mind. This compilation was put together in 1973, not 2007. The "client" was the young, recently-installed DCI James Schlesinger, who was so mistrusted by Agency personnel that he placed a security camera outside his office to make sure that his files were not vandalized. Nixon gave the job to Schlesinger after firing Richard Helms, with whom the President had an epic (and still rather mysterious) falling out. According to lore, Schlesinger marked his first day on the job by announcing: "I'm here to make sure you don't screw over Richard Nixon."

Instead of allowing Schlesinger to discover the Agency's worst secrets on his own, Osborne decided to show him some damaging information in carefully measured doses. Osborne knew that Schlesinger worked for Richard Nixon, and Nixon had come to mistrust the CIA.

All right, let's get down to business: Family Jewel #1.

It's missing.

You can read about it, or about its absence, here and here and here. The 1973 compendium has a brief introductory page, which is here (thanks to Ed Haslam). You'll see that even in this summary, Jewel #1 is a blank space.

I'm surprised that bright guys like Ed Haslam and Gary Buell have not offered a guess as to what Jewel #1 might be. To me, the answer is obvious.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

A number of books published in the late 1970s and 1980s identified one CIA program as the most frightening skeleton in the Agency's closet -- or, if you prefer another metaphor, the Hope Diamond of the Family Jewels. I refer, of course, to MKULTRA, the mind control program which ran from 1953 to 1963. Indeed, in some of the less carefully written histories of the Agency, the phrases "Family Jewels" and MKULTRA are treated as near-synonyms.

Last night, I went through the entire compendium of newly-released material at lightning speed. Some favorite old spy stories cropped up. (One of these days, I really must discuss the Dan Rowan tale.) But I did not see a single unredacted reference to MKULTRA.

Nor did I see any reference to the predecessor programs BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. I certainly saw no hint of the post-1963 projects, whose existence is known but whose cryptonyms have never been revealed. (A small number of MKULTRA subprojects did continue under the MKSEARCH nomenclature.)

I've heard a rumor as to what one post-1963 cryptonym might be, although I've received no verification. For reasons that will soon be made clear, I won't repeat that rumor in public. (Or in private. So don't ask.)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, MKULTRA was shut down in 1963 when a Kennedy-appointed Inspector General got a whiff of one of the more "fragrant" subsidiary programs, Operation MIDNIGHT CLIMAX, so named because it involved prostitutes. In 1963, as in 1973, there were attempts to keep the full scope of these activities hidden from the DCIs themselves.

I'm not sure why Hayden redacted all MKULTRA-related material from the current release. Thousands of pages of relevant documentation are available to anyone who visits the National Security Archives in Washington D.C., the same body which has recently placed the "Family Jewels" compendium online. This is a private archive, not to be confused with the National Archives or the National Security Agency. (When I visited, they were located in the Brookings Institute building, not far from the famed Phillips Collection.)

The Archive houses the "Marks donation." This phrase refers to the material collated by John Marks when he wrote his classic The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate." That book, Alan Scheflin's The Mind Manipulators, and a little-known paperback by Armen Victorian are the only volumes on the subject written to any sort of scholarly standard.

Many people think they know about MKULTRA. Unfortunately, this is an area where legend has eclipsed fact. A surprisingly large subculture is filled with troubled individuals who have become emotionally wedded to the growing body of MKULTRA folklore.

This Democratic Underground forum uncritically cites an irresponsible piece written by one Robert Lusetich in the Australian. Lusetich did find one passing reference on page 425 to the mind control program. The redactor's pen missed that one paragraph, probably because it does not mention the MKULTRA cryptonym directly. It's not a terribly important passage -- just a brief reference to Inspector General John Earman's report from 1963. But from that small paragraph, Lusetich concocts the following fantasia:

The nature of the experiments, gathered from government documents and testimony in numerous lawsuits brought against the CIA, is shocking, from testing LSD on children to implanting electrodes in victims' brains to deliberately poisoning people with uranium.

"The CIA bought my services from my grandfather in 1952 starting at the tender age of four," wrote Carol Rutz of her experiences.

Lusetich conveys the impression that Rutz is mentioned by the newly released documents. That is not the case.

Rutz is a claimed survivor of Satanic Ritual Abuse who tells her story at length here. She claims that her story has been "confirmed" by CIA documents released under FOIA requests. I feel certain that these are the same documents made available to Marks, Scheflin and Victorian.

Wait a minute, I can you asking. How the hell did Satanism enter this story...?

Many of you will recall the Satanic Ritual Abuse "craze" of the 1980s and 1990s, which ran concurrently with other fads in "recovered memory." These tales struck most people as less than credible, to put the matter charitably.

Most people do not know that, during this same time period, there was another "recovered memory" theme that achieved some popularity in fringe circles. Some people started to "recall" alleged abuse by the CIA's MKULTRA researchers.

The two motifs quickly merged, as hard-core conspiracy buffs conflated Satan-worship and the CIA. Although this conflation may strike most people as absurd, true paranoia junkies make such leaps as a matter of routine.

As the 1990s progressed, the "Montauk" and "Monarch" rumors entered the growing MKULTRA mythos. If you aren't familiar with those terms, I can only refer you to Google; this short essay does not provide sufficient space to recount such complex legends.

As noted above, I've studied the Marks donation in detail and had even photocopied some of it. Alas, I lost my personal files, as well as my library, over a year ago. But I recall the material well. Moreover, any one of you can go to the National Security Archives and confirm what I'm about to say:

Those documents do not refer to Satanism or to experimentation on children.

Not one word in that documentation verifies the "Monarch" and "Montauk" fables.

Let us now return to Carol Rutz. Here are her own words:

From that point on the SRA memories began to surface. I didn't understand them at all as I didn't know such things existed. The people I saw in hooded white robes reminded me of the KKK but what they did was beyond anything I ever heard the KKK was responsible for. My grandfather was the "Big Kahuna" of our intergenerational cult. I have traced the word "Big Kahuna," back to a Polynesian belief system. Oral history tells of a race of beings from another solar system who came to earth and brought with them psychic abilities and huna beliefs. Members of kahuna orders have kept this knowledge alive since that time. The Illuminati family that I was given over to operated with Luciferian beliefs.

The Illuminati is, of course, a myth. I think I need say no more about this woman's credibility.

If your powers of rationalization are so formidable that you feel able to accept this wild and unverified testimony, then no words of mine will ever persuade you. I can only plead with you to transfer your attentions to some other blog.

As for those "numerous lawsuits" mentioned by Lusetich: He neglects to note that most of these suits are so goofy -- usually filed by people who literally wear tin foil hats -- that they are routinely tossed out with prejudice. These same sad individuals will often distribute photocopies of the summary judgments against them as proof that their tales are true.

That said, there have been a few real court cases to arise out of MKULTRA; these are documented in the literature. One example would be the case of Val Orlikov, wife of a Canadian Member of Parliament, who was a victim of the notorious Ewen Cameron. Her horrifying story concerned extremely unethical LSD testing combined with sensory deprivation; it had nothing to do with Satanism, child abuse, the Illuminati or any such silliness. The Orlikov story is confirmed by the released MKULTRA documents, and is universally accepted as credible.

The same cannot be said of the later claimants.

Now, I'm sure that Robert Lusetich means well. So why would he endorse someone like Carol Rutz?

I believe that he has fallen prey to a common problem.

Quite often, anyone attempting to research a sensational story involving covert activity will find his efforts upended by a rather bizarre phenomenon -- a psychological pas-de-deux that I've seen occur many times, in many different contexts. I refer to this phenomenon as "Galahad and the Damsel."

The Damsel is usually a woman "of a certain age" who has read widely in one or more areas of conspiracy literature. She will claim never to have read any of this literature. She will claim that her information comes from recollected personal experience, not from "book learning." Believe me: A Damsel knows how to use the internet -- and before there was an internet, she knew how to use interlibrary loan and the BBS services.

The Damsel wants attention by any means necessary. This is the first and foremost thing you must know about her.

The Damsel also desperately wants to believe in her own victimhood. She has an overpowering psychic need to blame her perceived failings in life on some dark outside agency. She cannot or will not distinguish between that which she has seen on the printed page and that which she "remembers."

A fantasy ensues.

A "Galahad" is a male researcher or writer who accepts the fantasy at face value, and who rationalizes away any problems with the story, such as the lack of confirmatory evidence. The Galahad will champion the Damsel's tale in public, despite the risk of personal ridicule. The tendency to defend a "victimized" female is hard-wired into the psyche of most males.

(That said, there are a few male "Damsels" out there, as well as a few female "Galahads.")

If ever you decide to research MKULTRA -- or any aspect of what we may call "parapolitics" -- you will encounter the "Galahad and Damsel" scenario repeatedly. I've run into many Damsels. And yes, I've been known to play the Galahad role. Years ago.

Those days are over.

Long-time readers will recall our discussions of Leola McConnell, the sex worker who claims to have witnessed George Bush in a gay tryst; she is a particularly aggressive Damsel. So, I suspect, is Judyth Vary Baker, the alleged eyewitness who has "confirmed" Ed Haslam's research into one aspect of the JFK assassination, and who has appeared on the History Channel.

(I have never communicated with Haslam, who has written extensively on Mary Sherman and David Ferrie, but I've enjoyed listening to his radio interviews. Judy may have drawn her "memories" from the same interviews, which have long been available online. However, she does have another witness, and I'm willing to reconsider my skeptical appraisal as I learn more.)

In the 1990s, I came to know a broadcaster on KPFA who nearly ruined his marriage playing "Galahad" to a particularly conscience-free Damsel named Wendy. Boy, was she a beaut! Alas, that bizarre tale is far too lengthy to tell here...

There have been quite a few false claimants who have attached themselves to the MKULTRA mythos. Those who have carefully researched the real program will know how to spot the fakes.

One of the surest giveaways is this: The fantasists often "recall" that their abusers freely used the MKULTRA cryptonym in the presence of their alleged victims. In real life, most of the scientists employed by the CIA did not use the term MKULTRA and probably were not even made witting of that nomenclature. (Some were not even aware of CIA sponsorship.) "Project" names were used as part of the filing system at headquarters; those working out in the field referred to "operations," which are altogether different.

When Damsels make public statements, they tend to refer to MKULTRA -- even though many of them were born after that program ended. The Damsels never "recall" the unreleased cryptonyms used between 1963 and 1973, because the published literature does not mention those names.

(And now you know why I won't discuss the rumors I've heard about the post-1963 cryptonyms.)

One Damsel "recalled" meeting a CIA-affiliated psychiatrist who, in reality, had died some years before. The Damsels never recall the names of individuals unmentioned in published works whose involvement can be demonstrated through other means.

There are other "tells" which identify a fantasist, most of which I need not discuss here. The most telling of these tells is this: Many Damsels will conflate the hard facts of MKULTRA with goofy lore culled from the farthest corners of conspiracy-land.

We thus come back to Carol Rutz and her blatherings about the Illuminati and alien Kahunas and Satanic conspirators and god-knows-what-else. An unlikely story, to say the least -- and yet, I am sorry to say, it is now on the front page of Democratic Underground.

When a Damsel festoons her MKULTRA narrative with unbelievable and embarrassing material, her "Galahad" defender will usually mutter something about false memories being implanted into the mind of the poor, beleaguered mind control victim. Of course, any such rationalization renders the Damsel's tale non-falsifiable -- and once we have exited the realm of falsifiability, we have exited the realm of science.

In 1996, a presidential advisory commission looked into the possibility of searching for further documentation into MKULTRA. Unfortunately, the commission unwisely took testimony from several Damsels, including one notorious fantasist who brought those ever-present Satanists into the stew. (I've spoken to this woman's shrink; though female, she was a typical Galahad.) The commission members rolled their eyes at this unbelievable account and quickly turned their attention to other areas. Professor Alan Scheflin, who attended the hearing, described it to me privately as a "disaster."

And so it goes. There will never be a proper investigation of MULTRA, for the same reason that there will never be a genuine 9/11 truth movement: Every time someone attempts to address the topic in a serious fashion, the nutcases come out en masse, and they commandeer the conversation. Worse, any researcher who does not say what the Damsels and the Galahads want to hear is damned as an "agent" working for the bad guys.

We live in an age when fear and fantasy will always trump science and rational inquiry.

Since this whole area is one which has caused me heartache, don't be surprised if I refuse to publish any reader commentary. I have had it up to here with accusations of bad faith. I don't want to hear any more incoherent bleatings from weepy Damsels. And I certainly don't want to hear the Galahads offer the usual special pleadings. To be frank, I doubt very much that anyone reading these words can come up with anything to say that I have not heard a zillion times before.

In fact, I don't want to debate the issue at all.

You can believe whatever you like. If you want to accept the Montauk or Monarch fantasies at face value, if you want to believe in dark tales about the Illuminati and wicked Luciferians and similar nonsense, go ahead. I have now said my piece on MKULTRA and would prefer not to deal with this subject ever again.

Can Hillary win?

MSNBC and McClatchy have conducted a new poll:

According to a new Mason-Dixon survey, given exclusively to NBC/MSNBC and McClatchy newspapers, Clinton is the only major presidential candidate -- either Democrat and Republican -- for whom a majority of likely general election voters say they would not consider voting. In addition, she's the only candidate who registers with a net-unfavorable rating.

In the poll, 48% say they would consider voting for Clinton versus 52% who say they wouldn't. By comparison, majorities signal they would consider voting for all other major presidential candidates or possible candidates: Giuliani (64%-36%), Fred Thompson (62%-38%), Bloomberg (61%-39%), Obama (60%-40%), Edwards (59%-41%), McCain (58%-42%), Biden (57%-43%), Richardson (57%-43%), Huckabee (56%-44%), and Romney (54%-46%).

Moreover, 39% say they recognize Clinton favorably, while 42% say they recognize her unfavorably.

That sews it up. Democrats must nominate ABC -- anyone but Clinton.

mAnn alive!

Check it out:

Top Stories - AP
Coulter Comes Out as Transvestite Trickster

WASHINGTON - Shock-pundit Ann Coulter dismayed her right-wing fans today when she admitted to being a cross-dressing man in Thursday's press conference. "This started as a joke, as satire, and I think that it has just gone to far." he said to a startled press.

Ann Coulter was born Fredrick Guebermann, of Des Moines, IA. Fredrick moved to San Fransisco on the 1980's to start a career in drag shows. There, he worked under several stage names, including "Crystal Dawn" and "Rosie the Rocket"...

The first paragraph contains a period where a comma should be. Otherwise, good job! Very persuasively done... (Thanks to Covert History.)

Okay, seriously: Chris Matthews, commenting on the contretemps between Ann Coulter and Elizabeth Edwards, calls Coulter a "brilliant writer." By what standard?

Let's look at her writing as writing. Let's focus on style, on wordsmithing ability, not on content. A recent Coulter piece on immigration features this text:

How about Bush enforce the border and then we'll discuss his amnesty plan?

He assures us that granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants already here won't inspire millions more to run across the border because ... he's going to put infrared lights at the border!

Well, that's a relief. What precisely will infrared lights do again? This is worse than those fake cameras they sell at hardware stores to make it look like you have cameras outside your house. We still need something or someone — say, a wall or a Border Patrol agent — to stop the Mexicans illegally crossing the border as we watch them on the infrared cameras.

As it happens, these sentiments resemble my own. But has she expressed herself well?

The first paragraph is a disaster. In the next two paragraphs, her prose strikes me as no better than competent. The "fake camera" comparison works well enough, but the opening of that sentence -- "This is worse" -- is hazy and inelegant: Good writers eschew pronouns lacking a clear referent. I see no wit here, no well-turned phrases, no striking imagery, no ear for the music of language.

How often have you seen any of those desiderata in Coulter's work? Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw good writing from any well-paid right-wing scribbler?

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, conservatives had talent. I enjoyed William F. Buckley and William Safire even when they infuriated me. P.J. O'Rourke was funny. These days, alas, when you go to the bookstore and pick up the latest reactionary volume by Coulter or Hannity or Savage or O'Reilly or whomever, what do you encounter? One dull sentence after another falls on the page like barbells tossed out of a C-130: Thud, thud, thud, all across the landscape.

Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens write well, but they no longer speak to the audience Coulter addresses. That audience seems to have forgotten what good writing is.

These days, writers who care about craftsmanship don't earn any money from their efforts. They write for unheralded blogs on both the right and left. Meanwhile, publishers help talent-free hacks pay their mortgages -- and cable news pundits tout as "brilliant" authors whose erudition can't match that of a bowl of Rice Krispies.

One hell of a corruption case: Here's the part Josh Marshall left out...

The question is, as Josh Marhsll notes, "Did Karl Rove sic the Justice Department on former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman (D)?" Marshall's video presentation summarizes the facts of the case admirably, and I urge you to go here and watch it.

Alas, Marshall ignores a juicy part of the story. You can find it in this Harper's piece. You see, the main "inside" evidence against Rove comes from an affidavit by one Dana Jill Simpson. After she revealed what she knew, she ran into some unusual troubles:

The response to Simpson’s affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements – all of them unsworn – from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter. She’s been smeared as “crazy” and as a “disgruntled contract bidder.” And something nastier: after her intention to speak became known, Simpson’s house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled. Clearly, there are some very powerful people in Alabama who feel threatened. Her case starts to sound like a chapter out of John Grisham’s book The Pelican Brief. However, those who have dismissed Simpson are in for a very rude surprise. Her affidavit stands up on every point, and there is substantial evidence which will corroborate its details.

Emphasis added. This is a big story.

Noted...

A Kos commenter named lawnorder has offered a wonderful summary of how the Bush administration operates:

"A" students using their brain and skill to enable the whims of their C student bosses."

Subpoena power: The foxes guard the henhouse

A long predicted constitutional battle has finally begun. The judiciary committees of both the House and the Senate have subpoenaed administration documents pertinent to the U.S. attorney scandal. In a letter of response, White House counsel Fred Fielding has declined to cooperate, invoking executive privilege.

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that (former counsel Harriet) Miers and (ex-political director Sara) Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

The judiciary committees have, in a separate action, also subpoenaed documents relating to the warrantless wiretapping controversy. The White House is again expected to invoke executive privilege.

Congressman John Conyers has fired back at the White House attorney:

The executive privilege assertion is unprecedented in its breadth and scope, and even includes documents that the Adminstration previously offered to provide as part of their 'take it or leave it' proposal. This response indicates the reckless disrepect this Administration has for the rule of law. The charges alleged in this investigation are serious - including obstruction of justice and misleading Congress - and the White House should be as committed to this investigation as the Congress. At this point, I see only one choice in moving forward, and that is to enforce the rule of law set forth in these subpoenas.

As Marcy Wheeler points out, the Fielding letter relies on an opinion written by Solicitor General Paul Clement. Clement, however, heads the Office of Special Counsel's investigation into the Attorney firings.

And now, he's the guy who gets to tell the President that he doesn't have to turn over what might amount to evidence of obstruction of justice in the Foggo and Wilkes case, among others.

The result is a classic case of a fox guarding the henhouse:

But that just demonstrates how hopelessly compromised Clement is. He is--already, even before we hit the courts--in a position where he is simultaneously defending the White House, and investigating it.

Moreover, the Clement opinion makes an astonishing admission about the firing of those U.S. Attorneys, the matter underlying those subpoenas. Here's what Clement wrote:

Among other things, these communications discuss the wisdom of such a proposal, specific U.S. Attorneys who could be removed, potential replacement candidates, and possible responses to congressional and media inquiries about the dismissals.

In other words, Clement buttresses his claim of executive privilege by admitting that which Republicans have long denied -- that the White House was involved in the firings and the choice of replacements. Previously, Bush has insisted that “the Justice Department made recommendations, which the White House accepted."

Republican Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah seems oddly unfamiliar with the admission in Clement's opinion:

After close to 10,000 pages of documents, dozens of interviews and testimony under oath, this investigation has not led, as the majority has speculated, to the White House.

Clement has taken the matter out of speculation. If there was no White House involvement, why invoke executive privilege?

Since Clement obviously cannot both investigate and defend the Bush administration, many now call for a special prosecutor.

Fielding's recalcitrance forces the country to consider one key question: What happens when a person, group or branch of government defies a congressional subpoena?

Congress can issue a citation of contempt. However, 2 U.S.C. § 194 states that such a citation must be referred to the U.S. Attorney in Washington D.C. -- a position held at this time by Jeffrey Taylor, a close confidant of Alberto Gonzales. Only Taylor can convene a Grand Jury to prosecute the offense.

Thus, the paradox: The underlying issue in this matter involves politicization of the U.S. Attorneys. And yet Congress must now rely on a U.S. Attorney to uphold a citation of contempt against the administration. Many believe that Taylor is a product of the politicization which is at the heart of this matter.

White House refusal to honor subpoenas may constitute grounds for impeachment of both Bush and Cheney. In 1970, Gerald Ford (then a House member from Michigan) said that “An impeachable offense is whatever the majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at any given moment in its history.” Only the impeachment route would bypass the need to rely on Bush/Cheney loyalists such as Taylor and Clement.

The DC Madam, again (UPDATE: SHE MENTIONS CHENEY!)

The Prissy Patriot claims that she has confirmation from sources other than Wayne Madsen that Dick Cheney was a client of girls employed by the so-called DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. The site also links to a raw sound file of an interview with Palfrey.

She emphasizes that she is being singled out for prosecution. She points out that there are plenty of escort services in the DC area, yet she is the only being charged with federal racketeering and money laundering. She is also charged with conspiracy, even though no other conspirators are named.

I strongly urge you to listen to this interview. You may think you understand the case, but you need to hear Palfrey's side of the matter in her own words. She is quite articulate and she organizes complex material in a very comprehensible, linear fashion.

I am beginning to suspect that something really is up here. Brian Ross of ABC comes off particularly badly. On air, Ross said that most of the clients were not "newsworthy." According to Palfrey, Ross said something quite different behind the scenes.

UPDATE: Here is a transcript of Palfrey's words toward the end of the interview.

Can you imagine scandal after scandal after scandal coming out every week, every two weeks, this one, that one? It will collapse the administration. That’s why the injunction is not being lifted. There is no reason for Judge Kessler at this point in time, in my opinion, to be continuing this injunction. The ban should be lifted and I should be free to release those records en masse at this moment.

But because of the fact that once these records are released en masse to a multitude of responsible investigators and journalists, be they independents or mainstream, the truth will be gotten to. And in those records there are probably twenty, thirty, fifty, a hundred, possibly more Randall Tobiases, Dick Morrises, Harlan Ullman -- and yes, the name Dick Cheney has been touted on more than one occasion. In those records. Can you imagine? It will be Watergate times all those people.

Palfrey knows the score. Those are, after all, her records. She would not mention Cheney lightly. I don't think that she is merely repeating something she read on Madsen's site.

Dick removal: It begins

In the post below, I talk about the issuance of subpoenas as the first step in impeachment of America's least-loved Veep. And now it starts.

Dick removal

Let's import into this blog (from Bradblog, where I've done some guest scribbling) a discussion of the whys and hows of impeaching Dick Cheney. Here's what I wrote:

* * *

...top Republicans are now plotting ways to remove Dick Cheney from office. The thinking is that a vacancy in the Veep's office could well provide a berth for one of the 2008 Republican contenders -- McCain or Thompson.

The strategy could work two ways, of course. Anyone who replaces Cheney will get Bush administration "cooties." It won't be easy to wash off the smell by November of 2008.

How to bell the cat? After Downing Street has some excellent suggestions. I have one of my own.

Call on your senators and congressional representatives and ask to have documents subpoenaed from Cheney's office. Which documents? It almost doesn't matter. Documents pertinent to the energy task force. Documents pertinent to the use of torture. Documents pertinent to the Niger forgeries. Anything will more or less do.

All of Cheney's staffers can be subpoenaed as well, on any number of issues. A Congressional investigation of Plame-gate. Haliburton contracts. The refusal to comply with the National Archives. Anything. Everything. All at once.

If Cheney or any of his underlings refuse to comply with a single subpoena -- and that's a very good bet -- he becomes instantly impeachable, on the same grounds that brought down Nixon. Cheney no longer has many friends in Congress. Nobody has his back.

If every person reading these words made the call to his or her House and Senate members, Cheney could well be history. First subpoena, then impeach. That's the plan, and it WILL work.

* * *

This post elicited some idiotic responses, including one from a reader who claimed that my call to impeach Cheney was part of my dastardly plan to distract us from the really important issue, WT7. (That attitude is so effing typical of conspiracy theorists: God forbid we should ever actually do something in the political realm.)

But one comment, from "Dredd," did pique my interest:

Cheney has appeared, as has his staff, during the Plame-Wilson outting criminal case. Some of them just didn't tell the truth and are headed to the stir as a result (e.g. Libby).

The courts upheld Cheney's cover-up of who is driving US energy policy. The DC district and appellate courts, as well as the Supreme Court, are right wing now. It was much less so during Nixon.

So it is a risk to use subpoenas as the foundation of the impeachment action, plus it means waiting to see if Cheney violated a subpoena or not. The courts and only the courts must decide that issue.

But only the House can draft impeachment articles. And those articles are there NOW. Those articles do not need a court ruling.

The impeachment articles mentioned were the ones offered by Dennis Kucinich (blessed be his name), which offer more generalized, less technical grounds for removal from office. Critics can argue, have argued, that Kucinich is trying to impeach the Veep over a disagreement in policy. I do not agree with that assessment, but I can easily see how the radio right would mount such an argument.

Refusal to comply with a subpoena is more straightforward. Moreover, it is not (as Dredd argued in another comment) necessarily a long and drawn-out process. My response to his words:

My intent was to follow to course set by the Nixon impeachment. A subpoena was issued by Jaworski in April, 1974. Nixon ignored it. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Nixon's claim of absolute executive privilege. On July 27, 1974, the House voted for the first article of impeachment.

That's not a whole lot of time --- although it seemed pretty long as it was happening. And look at all that was accomplished!

If we repeat the steps, a Supreme Court appeal might be avoided, since the matter has already been adjudicated.

So I think accusing me of "stalling" is ridiculous. The course I have outlined strikes me as pretty expeditious.

(Forgive the Keillorism.)

Start the process now and Dick is outta there by September.

Personally, I would love it if the House would act on Kucinich's resolution. I just don't think they will. And since the territory is very uncharted, I can see the Kucinich thing somehow ending up in court.

Not only that. Subpoenas are a court "thingie" only if issued by a court. That's what happened in the Nixon case: Jaworski was prosecuting Nixon's co-conspirators, and he subpoenaed the tapes as evidence. But Congress can act, at times, as a court acts. ('Tis the season for cross-currents between the three branches of gummint!) For example, Congress can compel you to give testimony under oath, and you can be charged with contempt of Congress.

So I see no reason --- none at all --- why a subpoena issued to Cheney by Congress, and ignored by him, cannot lead to articles of impeachment within a very short period of time. Like, a couple of weeks.

On a related note: Michael Roston conveys the current arguments in favor of doing away with the office of V.P. altogether:

"In any case after these two are gone the problem will still remain: there is no effective legal restraint against a Vice President who abuses his power the way Cheney has....there is nothing in the Constitution that I can find which explicitly prohibits the VP from taking over the fucking government," wrote 'Xan,' who blogs at CorrenteWire. "Why not go all the way and just abolish the fucking office? The VP has no assigned duties, we already established that. Idle hands are the Devil’s playground..."

I disagree.

Since before my birth, scholars of the presidency have argued that the job is too much for any one man, since the office combines functions normally given, in other systems, to two individuals: Chief of State and Chief Executive. The former is a largely ceremonial role; the second is where the true power resides. The obvious example would be Britain, where the Queen and her family fulfill ceremonial functions while the Prime Minister actually runs things (or, if he's a jerk, allows George Bush to run things).

The answer, to me, is not to abolish the office of vice president but to define it more narrowly. Too many ceremonial duties demand the time of the current chief executive. If we de-veepify the nation, who will do the state funeral thing?

Remove our Dick. America needs a Queen!

Special ops -- in the United States?

Covert History directs our attention to some rather ominous developments.

The U.S. military command in charge of protecting the homeland asked the Pentagon earlier this year for a contingent of special operations officers to help with domestic anti-terrorism missions.

Military sources told The Examiner that U.S. Northern Command, established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado in 2002, requested its own special operations command similar to ones assigned to overseas war-fighting commands, such as U.S. Central Command.

Keating's request to the Pentagon raised some eyebrows because of the sensitivity of deploying commandos domestically. Under U.S. Special Operations Command, covert warriors are playing a key role in fighting terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere overseas.

"Sensitivity" hardly covers the issue. I don't mind seeing commandos operating on U.S. soil if we are talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger up on screen where he belongs. At all other times, I'd like to know who is in charge, who is doing what, and why they are doing it.

More from William Arkin:

The establishment of a domestic special operations mission, and the preparation of contingency plans to employ commandos in the United States, would upend decades of tradition. Military actions within the United States are the responsibility of state militias (the National Guard), and federal law enforcement is a function of the FBI.

Employing special operations for domestic missions sounds very ominous, and NORTHCOM's request earlier this year should receive the closest possible Pentagon and congressional scrutiny. There's only one problem: NORTHCOM is already doing what it has requested permission to do.

When NORTHCOM was established after 9/11 to be the military counterpart to the Department of Homeland Security, within its headquarters staff it established a Compartmented Planning and Operations Cell (CPOC) responsible for planning and directing a set of "compartmented" and "sensitive" operations on U.S., Canadian and Mexican soil. In other words, these are the very special operations that NORTHCOM is now formally asking the Pentagon to beef up into a public and acknowledged sub-command.

Okay. So just what are these sensitive operations on North American soil? Or don't we have a right to know?

According to NORTHCOM documents, CPOC is involved in planning for a number of domestic missions, including:

-- Non-conventional assisted recovery
-- Integrated survey programs
-- Information operations/"special technical operations"
-- "Special activities"

"Special activities" sounds like a catch-all phrase for covert mayhem. "Information operations" -- hmm. Are we talking about information collection or attempts to pollute the data stream through hacking, disinformation, communications disruption or what-have-you? (I'm reminded of the cell phone harassment discussed in a recent post.) "Integrated survey prgrams" sounds a bit like code word for spying and infiltration. "Assisted recovery" of what?

Bombs, perhaps...

CPOC's basic missions include responding to incidents of weapons of mass destruction, support for continuity of government, protection of the president, response to domestic terrorism and insurrection and (presumably) domestic intelligence collection.

We're all for the interception of WMDs, of course. If that is what these guys are doing, then God speed and more power to 'em.

But why weren't the traditional forces sufficient? Why do we need special ops? Why did these guys ask for permission after the fact? Who provides oversight? To whom do these forces answer?

Who watches the watchmen?

Confused by the Constitution

dr. elsewhere here

Ok. I don’t want to sound rude or hateful or nasty or catty (but I have to admit I am just really fed up with the royal crapola that issues from the WH Press Secretary’s office), but….

First let me say that I am duly glad that Tony Snow is healthy. Wish I could honestly say that I am glad he is back behind the podium.

However; that is not my point here.

My point is this: Is it just me, or is there something just really really weird about Dana Perino?

Sure, she’s awfully pretty, but she seems somehow just scary unattractive. I mean, how hideous to get this confused by the Constitution?

In fact, she brings to mind a bizarre inbreeding of Stepford wife and Nurse Ratched and Marnie and Barbie.

And eeyew eeyew, Tony is such the Ken!

Yikes; that shocked even me.

We really must get these robots and their evil masters out of office! They've succeeded in "thoroughly confusing" themselves, and they wonder why the public no longer takes them seriously.

Michelle Malkin: Here's wood in yer eye

Larisa Alexandrovna draws our attention to a piece by noted reactionary Michelle Malkin. In her blog, Malkin publishes some photos of Iranian police brutalizing four men, and adds these comments:

The innocent young men in the photos were beaten, humiliated, and arrested for wearing Western clothing and hairstyles. It is in the public interest to spread these photos far and wide. The images should be seared onto the global conscience...

Question: Will these photos be blared across the front pages of the international media with as much disgust and condemnation as the photos of Abu Ghraib or the manufactured Gitmo Koran-flushing riots?

Turns out she mischaracterized the photos. We'll get to that in a moment. But even if we were to take her assertions at face value, Malkin has ignored what we may call the "Matthew 7:4 factor."

The atrocities at Abu Ghraib were paid for by American tax dollars. You (presuming live in the United States) and I bear responsibility for those acts. The sins of the Iranian police do not burden our souls. But we are responsible, in large measure, for the tortures inflicted by the Shah's brutal forces back in the 1960s and '70s, because our CIA placed the Shah in power after toppling Iran's elected leader.

Malkin's ability to ignore the lumber in her own eye socket reminds me of the arguments right-wingers offered back in the day, when the USSR was still a going concern. "Why do you leftists always talk about human rights abuses in Guatemala or the Philippines? Why don't you talk about what's going on in Eastern Europe?" The answer, of course, was that our government supported the dictators in Guatemala and the Philippines. As for Eastern Europe: Our tax dollars paid for a nuclear arsenal pointed at the USSR, and any further expression of disapproval always struck me as superfluous.

It turns out that Malkin has, for propaganda purposes, misidentified the photos on her site. They do not depict Iranians who have violated any dress code:

But the man in the photograph, according to widespread Iranian news reports, was one of more than 100 people arrested recently on charges of being part of a gang that had committed rapes, robberies, forgeries and other crimes.

Of course, this post must not be taken as an apologia for the Iranian government. Years ago, I knew an Armenian lady whose family had immigrated here from Iran, and she had plenty of stories about the Draconian measures inflicted by the Iranian "justice" system. (As I recall, she reported that a woman guilty of a morals infraction might be made to "wash the dead.") On the other hand, her family felt that Iran's problems all stemmed from the CIA's intervention in the 1950s. Although they felt grateful for the asylum provided by this country, they could not blind themselves to history.

By the way: Malkin drew her misidentification from this New York Times story. Here's the NYT's apologia:

In this case, The Times relied on an interview with a researcher for a nongovernment agency that no longer operates within Iran who said the photograph was evidence of a more visible police role in public crackdowns on what the authorities consider immoral behavior. The reporter then wrongly interpreted what the researcher said as applying to a crackdown on dress, and incorporated the erroneous interpretation into the body of the article, without giving any indication of the source for it.

The nongovernment agency is obviously the MEK, which others, including our own State Department, label a terrorist group. The MEK was allied with Saddam Hussein. In her update, Malkin makes clear that she considers the group credible.

Is your cell phone spying on you?

Long time readers may have noticed a recurrent theme in our various explorations of Spook World: Telecommunications. This piece from Washington's News Tribune delivers a particularly odd and frightening variation on that motif.

Three families in a town called Fircrest are getting death threats on their cell phones. Repeatedly. Even when the phones have been well and truly shut off, and even after they replaced the devices.

For four months, the Kuykendalls, the Prices and the McKays say, they’ve been harassed and threatened by mysterious cell phone stalkers who track their every move and occasionally lurk by their homes late at night, screaming and banging on walls.

Police can’t seem to stop them. The late-night visitors vanish before officers arrive. The families say investigators have a hard time believing the stalkers can control cell phones without touching them and suspect an elaborate hoax. Complaints to their phone companies do no good – the families say they’ve been told what the stalkers are doing is impossible.

It doesn’t feel impossible to Heather Kuykendall and her sister, Darci Price, who’ve saved and recorded scores of threatening voice mails, uttered in throaty, juvenile rasps stolen from bad horror films.

Price and Kuykendall have given the callers a name: “Restricted.” That’s the word that shows up on their caller ID windows: on the land lines at home, and on every one of their cell phones.

Their messages, left at all hours, threaten death – to the families, their children and their pets.

Did you ever see a not-terribly-good horror film called The Mothman Prophecies, starring Richard Gere? In one scene, Gere -- sitting alone in a hotel room -- receives a phone call from a mysterious, mechanical voice who seems to know everything about him, including the fact that he is holding a tube of Chapstick.

The filmmakers claimed that this scene was based on a real event -- a claim I've heretofore doubted. But perhaps my skepticism was premature. Consider:

The stalkers know what the family is eating, when adults leave the house, when they go to baseball games. They know the color of shirt Courtney Kuykendall, 16, is wearing. When Heather Kuykendall recently installed a new lock on the door of the house, she got a voice mail. During an interview with The News Tribune on Tuesday, she played the recording.

The stalkers taunted her, telling her they knew the code. In another message, they threatened shootings at the schools Kuykendall’s children attend.

And:

Messages received by the sisters include snatches of conversation overheard on cell-phone mikes, replayed and transmitted via voice mail. Phone records show many of the messages coming from Courtney’s phone, even when she’s not using it – even when it’s turned off.

McKay, a teacher in the Peninsula School District, said she and Taylor recently explained the threats to the principal at Gig Harbor High School, which Taylor attends. A Gig Harbor police officer sat in on the conversation, she said.

While the four people talked, Taylor’s and Andrea’s phones, which were switched off, sat on a table. While mother and daughter spoke, Taylor’s phone switched on and sent a text message to her mother’s phone, Andrea said.

Are such attacks technically feasible? Apparently so:

Cell phone technology allows remote monitoring of calls, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Known as a “roving bug,” it works whether a phone is on or off. FBI agents tracking organized crime have used it to monitor meetings among mobsters. Global positioning systems, installed in many cell phones, also make it possible to pinpoint a phone’s location within a few feet.

According to James M. Atkinson, a Massachusetts-based expert in counterintelligence who has advised the U.S. Congress on security issues, it’s not that hard to take remote control of a wireless phone. “You do not have to have a strong technical background for someone to do this,” he said Tuesday. “They probably have a technically gifted kid who probably is in their neighborhood.”

I question the "technically gifted kid" explanation, since a young prankster probably would not have the ability to do physical surveillance. Besides, the facts indicate a team at work. Amateurs might well have been caught by now.

Obviously, anyone who intends actual physical harm to these people would not indulge in such an elaborate charade. If we discount the "just for laffs" theory, what do we have left?

It is perhaps worth noting that Richard Price, a member of one of the affected families, is an officer at McChord Air Force Base. That factoid leads me to suspect that these attacks constitute a psychological experiment of some sort. The military has certainly engaged in even more bizarre studies in decades past.

(Anyone who scoffs at the suggestion should look up an old book by the respected British journalist Peter Watson, called War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology, which is filled with strange-but-true anecdotes. In one chapter, the book recounts the tale of a small group of soldiers on an island who were led to believe that the rest of the world had perished in a nuclear war.)

Price's superiors and fellow officers would be in a position to track how the campaign has affected him. If the gambit succeeds in "breaking" his equilibrium and inducing paranoia, similar techniques may be applied to other targets -- for example, to a government whistleblower, or to someone like Cindy Sheehan.

Just a theory. Consider it.

Godhead

A stream of bad news has made my ever-surly mood even surlier, and I need a break. So let's take advantage of this blog's policy of posting the occasional non-political piece on weekends. Thanks to the wonders of You Tube, I have compiled some of my favorite musical numbers on the theme of religion.

After all, today is Sunday.


Even though I haven't seen it for many years, one of my favorite films is Fellini's 1957 masterpiece Nights of Cabiria. Yet I somehow managed to miss -- until quite recently -- Sweet Charity, the Americanized, musicalized 1969 remake directed by Bob Fosse in a style more reminiscent of Fellini '69 than Fellini '57.

In the original, our heroine -- a whore whose heart is both golden and all-too-breakable -- finds herself wandering through a mondo-bizarro Catholic procession. The cognate sequence in Sweet Charity involves Sammy Davis Jr. as the leader of San Francisco's strangest new religion, which Charity's dweebish boyfriend discovers through the Church-of-the-Month Club. In real life, ironically enough, Sammy had joined San Francisco's most notorious cult -- and bonus points go to the first reader who can name it.

This song boasts one of my favorite couplets: "And the voice said 'Daddy, there's a million pigeons/Waiting to be hooked on new religions..." When you think about it, the phrase "Hit the floor and crawl to Daddy!" bottom lines the message delivered by every preacher who ever lived.

The tune is catchy, Sammy is great, and the zombie congregants are hilarious -- but the real reason I keep watching this number is sheer nostalgia. The Austin Powers films may try to capture a 1968-69 vibe, but here we have the real thing. That period was marked by war, riots, assassinations, daily tensions -- and yet I'd sacrifice five years of my life to spend just one week back then.

I wonder if today's young folk will one day feel a similar nostalgia toward 2007?


Three years before Mel Gibson had a go at the story, this remake of Jesus Christ Superstar reconceived the Passion as a gay BDSM spectacle.

The standout here is Fred Johanson as Reichsmarshall Pilate. He has -- let us quickly acknowledge -- a terrific voice. He also chews more scenery in 30 seconds than Godzilla stomped over the course of a dozen films. This guy makes Bill Shatner look like a statue.

If you watch this scene under the right circumstances (around 1 A.M., after you've knocked back a couple of beers), you may declare it the most side-splitting cultural artifact since the Spear of Longinus. The earlier encounter with Pilate is even more...er...flamboyant. Ecce homo!


Man, I really hate Godspell. I hate the music, I hate the concept, and I hate the 1973 film version in which a troupe of clowns enact the Greatest Story in a mysteriously vacant New York City. I hate the way this film is directed. I hate the edited-by-Homer-Simpson bits in fast motion. I hate the flat cinematography and the sloppy zooms. I hate all of these things with that special, seething, snarling, howling, hollering hatred that can offer a lifetime of satisfaction.

But this number...well, actually, I kind of like it.

And even if you hate this song, watch it through to the end. If the last few shots don't make your jaw drop, it's undroppable.


Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy achieve Cosmic Consciousness. As a demonstration of music's ability to immanentize the eschaton, this scene can be compared only with the finale of Bruckner's Fourth Symphony as conducted by Sergiu Celibidache.

Tony-boy, try playin' it safer: Drink the wine and chew the wafer

Tony Blair told the Pope that he wants to become a Catholic. (That is, Tony wants to be Catholic; the Pope already is, presumably.) And the Pope, it seems, came that close to telling Tony to go to Hell. No, I'm not making this up.

You don't know Dick

From Wikipedia, which cites the Chicago Sun-Times:

Although his last name is very often pronounced ['tʃeɪni] (chAYnee), the Vice President himself and his family pronounce it as ['tʃi:ni] (chEEnee).

The family also insists that Mary isn't gay, she's ghee.

This morning, everyone's talking about this Washington Post profile, which contains the priceless tale of a quietly chuckling Dick Cheney telling Dan Quayle that 43's veep ain't gonna do the traditional funerals-and-fundraisers thang. That was for lesser Vice Presidents.

The Post article plays it cute, in that it begins by denying that Dick is the power behind the throne, and then goes on to prove that very point. Here's one for the 9/11 researchers (and please note that I did not say "Trannies, start your engines"):

Previous accounts have described Cheney's adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning, a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

"There was a groan in the room that I won't forget, ever," one witness said. "It seemed like one groan from everyone" -- among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney's chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president's wife.

Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.

Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Bush done more in the way of funerals-and-fundraisers than has Tricky Dick II?

Peace and love

From a blog called DesertPeace:

A few weeks ago the former chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, issued a proclamation calling for the elimination of the Palestinian people by literally bombing them off the face of the earth. He was apparently not the first (former) chief rabbi to utter such hatred to his flock.

Six years ago another former chief rabbi, Ovadia Yosef called for the annihilation of Arabs, referring to them as 'vipers'... Yosef is the spiritual head of the Shas Party in Israel, one of the ultra orthodox parties represented in the Knesset.

I'll be tickled when one of the "megaphonies" accuses me of racism because I repeated these two quotes. Question: Has Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ever uttered words so brutal?

Rahming the Dick

dr. elsewhere here

Please excuse the rather pornographic title, but no censorable filth anyone could possibly submit anywhere could ever beat the obscenity that is VP Cheney's latest indecent exposure.

As many of you no doubt know, the Big Dick has tried to pull the ultimate fast one in dodging an Executive Order - originally issued by President Clinton, but augmented by Bush - for an oversight agency within the National Archives to keep track of classified national security information.

By claiming that, by virtue of being President of the Senate, he is not subject to the Executive Order that required ALL agencies of the Executive Branch to submit to said oversight, Mr. Cheney appears to be arguing himself right out of the Executive Branch itself.

Now, the obscenities get better, given that the WH has had to scramble to cover everyone's tracks here and justify not just Cheney's insane, um, position, but...well, just about everything. Now it seems that the President himself has informed his subjects that neither he nor the VP are subject to this Executive Order. That Bush himself wrote. Seems he somehow omitted this rather crucial piece, this piece that would have said, well, this applies to everyone else in the Executive Branch, but "not to me and VP 'Shotgun' Dick." That was just, um, well..., an oversight.

Perfect.

But, it's really a non-issue because he wrote the damn Order and by golly he knows what he meant. And this is what he meant. The rule applies to everyone; everyone, but me and Dick.

But. I digress. (Though wasn't that little excursion a lark?) The point of all this is to alert everyone out there to the fact that Rahm Emmanuel (I know, not my fave corporate lackey Dem, but hey, he sometimes pulls one outa the fire) has come up with a downright ingenious response to this nonsense.

Seems he is taking the Big Dick mucho seriously, and upon hearing that the VP has divested himself of any membership in the Executive Branch, Rahm is introducing a bill in Congress that will (wait for it...) pull funding for the VP's salary and home (and presumably his "secret undisclosed location").

Ya gotta love it.

The alert part is important here: We must each and all of us contact our Reps and let them know just how strongly we feel about this proposal! Surely to God the 82% of Americans who despise the man can get their voices heard here!

Alert everyone you know about this. Then, first thing Monday, contact your Representative.

DO IT!!

The family jewels

This Raw Story article on the upcoming CIA "family jewels" document dump is misleading. The article summarizes a document which was actually released some years back, pursuant to the JFK Assassination Records Collections Act of 1992 -- a noble piece of legislation, for which you may thank Bill Clinton and Oliver Stone. The actual "Jewels" document -- a 693 page whopper -- has not yet been released. (At least I was not able to find it at the national Security Archives web page here.)

Why is this document considered a JFK record? Because it references the Nosenko affair, without actually naming poor Yuri. That scandal is intimately tied in with the assassination controversy, and with the even larger story of James Jesus Angleton's madness. Nosenko was considered a false defector in part because Angleton's source, Anatoly Golitsyn, had told him that all subsequent defectors would be fakes.

The six-page memo was put together in 1974, by an easily gulled Associate Deputy Attorney General in the Ford administration. Interestingly, the CIA's behavior modification program is listed as taking place between 1963 and 1973. This is not, as some of you might think, a reference to MKULTRA, ARTICHOKE or BLUEBIRD. MKULTRA lasted, if memory serves, from 1953 to 1963, when it was shut down by CIA Inspector General John Earman, a Kennedy appointee who actually did a little house-cleaning. Within a month, JFK met with, like, an unfortunate accident, and the behavioral modification program started anew. We don't really know the cryptonym or cryptonyms involved. In fact, we know far less than we should about the post-1963 research. (As I recall, seven MKULTRA subprojects did continue after 1963, but they were relatively insignificant.)

Some of you will be amused to learn that Britt Hume -- yes, that Britt Hume! -- was placed under physical surveillance. In those days, Hume worked for Jack Anderson. As the 70s progressed, Anderson started spewing conservative horsecrap -- the "Team B" assessment of Soviet military intentions, the Castro-diddit theory of the JFK assassination, and so forth. As for Hume -- well, we all know what happened to Hume.

Is it possible that the spooks doing the surveillance found something?

The CIA claims, in the same document, that it played no role in the January 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba. That's a lie. Another section makes reference to a "Latin American" woman with information about a plot to kill CIA Director Richard Helms and Spiro Agnew. Does anyone know more about that?

There's more, but the point is made. The real "Family Jewels" were a lot nastier than this document may lead you to believe.

Did you hear the one about Osama Bin Laden...?

Strange stories about Osama Bin Laden have circulated in recent days.

The most striking revelation comes to us by way of the brilliant Larisa Alexandrovna, who references newly-obtained FBI documents revealing that either the Saudi royal family or Osama Bin Laden himself chartered a flight carrying Bin Laden family members from Los Angeles to Orlando, Florida, on September, 19, 2001. The flight went on to Paris.

(It occurs to me that this route gave those fun-loving Bin Ladens a chance to visit three Disney theme parks in the same week.)

One would expect the FBI to have a firmer idea as to just who chartered the flight. After all, if Osama acted on behalf of family members, the actions would disprove their claim to have ostracized him.

Incredibly, the FBI had previously redacted Osama bin Laden’s name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”

We've known something about this flight for a while, but this is the first indication that OBL might have chartered it.

The documents became public pursuant to action taken by Judicial Watch. Xymphora has cooked up a particularly inane conspiracy theory about all this -- something about Richard Mellon Scaife working with Michael Moore's agent, or some such twaddle. Whatever ill feelings that you or I or a pseudonymous blogger may harbor toward Judicial Watch are unimportant. Only the authenticity of the documents is of significance, and I know of no-one who has challenged them. Why would the administration gin up fake documents which can only bolster accusations that Dubya protected Osama?

A PROMIS to Osama: Larisa has also scored an interview with former FBI investigator Eric O’Neill, which touches on a story that has made the rounds for some time now: That Osama Bin Laden had acquired a copy of the legendary PROMIS software.

Some background is necessary...

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

PROMIS was a case management system designed by the INSLAW company for use by courts. This super-database program proved of particular benefit to the FBI, and eventually to the intelligence services of various nations. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the software became the focus of many news articles after its originator, William Hamilton (an old NSA hand, if I recall correctly) claimed that his brainchild had been, in essence, stolen by Reagan cronies.

PROMIS became a key ingredient in every conspiracy buff's stewpot when alleged spook Michael Riconosciuto claimed, shortly before his arrest on a drug charge, that he had engineered a back door into the software. The back door, we were told, allowed the Americans access to the data stored on copies of PROMIS used by competing services.

I never trusted Riconosciuto, who reminds me of Jack Black's character in The Jackal. After his incarceration, Riconosciuto told so many fibs -- about spies and flying saucers and mind control and God knows what else -- that even his most ardent supporters came to doubt him. (One of these days, I'll tell you about the Ian Spiro whopper.)

In conspiracy-buff folklore, PROMIS was credited with semi-magical powers. This "killer app" soon became connected with so many bizarre things -- spies and flying saucers and mind control and God knows what else -- that I started to tune out every time a new yarn made the rounds. I kept expecting someone to tell me that PROMIS killed Kennedy.

We later learned that someone did plug a back door into PROMIS: Israeli intelligence.

Or so, at least, claims Gordon Thomas in his biography of Robert Maxwell. I've lost my copy of the book, but you can get the gist of what Thomas has to say in this piece from 2003. The plan was to put a Trojan into the software which would send data back to the Israelis, who made sure that both friendly and unfriendly intelligence services got hold of the thing.

I have problems with Thomas' claims, but at present I'm not in a position to outline my concerns in any detail. Maybe when I find my copy of the damned book! I can say that Thomas seems disconcertingly reliant on Israeli spooks. Similarly disconcerting is the fact that the first versions of this "Hanssen and PROMIS" story came to us via the Washington Times and FOX News. That should set off a warning bell or two.

At any rate, the Gordon Thomas version of events holds that FBI man Robert Hanssen, recruited by the KGB, sold PROMIS to the Soviets, who in turn sold it to Osama Bin Laden. This, despite the fact that OBL and the Russians were ancient enemies.

The chronology is uncertain. Thomas writes:

Hanssen, now serving a life sentence, has yet to reveal all he knows about how the KGB sold on a copy of the software to Osama bin Laden for $ 4million shortly before the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

(Emphasis added.) Which brings me to one of my big problems. "Back door" rumors have circulated around PROMIS since 1991 or thereabouts. Why would anyone pay $4 million for a known Trojan? Even Osama Bin Laden has to be more computer-savvy than that.

Much of the PROMIS info in Thomas' book comes from Ari Ben-Menashe, whose credibility (as we have noted earlier) has been questioned.

(Truth be told, I find it hard to believe that a 1980s vintage application would still be of use. Then again, I make daily use of Photoshop, which was "born" in that decade.)

If PROMIS did indeed contain a Trojan, then making sure that the KGB and Al Qaeda got hold of the thing would be the entire point. We should also keep this in mind about the Hanssen connection:

The government has denied using the Promis software or that Hanssen delivered it to the Russians, but charged in a criminal complaint against the former FBI agent that he made extensive use of the bureau’s computerized case management systems — Field Office Information Management Systems (FOIMS) and Community On-Line Intelligence Systems (COINS) — as part of his activities.

The government also said Hanssen gave his handlers a technical manual on the US intelligence community’s secure network for online access to intelligence databases. Law enforcement authorities said FOIMS and COINS are believed to be upgraded versions of the Promis software.

Mr Hamilton said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III acknowledged to Inslaw attorney C. Boyden Gray in late 2001 that the FBI system was based on “the Inslaw software,” a fact the bureau had vigorously denied for more than a decade.

(Emphasis added.) Note that nothing here really proves that Hanssen delivered PROMIS or any other program to his Soviet minders. O'Neill says he really does not know if Hanssen delivered PROMIS. And just to add another layer of confusion to the issue, Thomas also claims that Robert Maxwell handed PROMIS over the the Russians before Hanssen did.

In short and in sum, this story simply does not add up.

Still, the possibilities are intriguing. What if Bin Laden did acquire the software? And what if the old bastard really was ignorant of the decade-old rumors of a back door? The Israelis would have been able to peep in on his every move. That possibility places some of the infamous "Israeli mover" tales in an interesting light.

Added note: A thought suddenly hit me. American or Israeli intelligence might have deliberately over-hyped the capabilities of PROMIS to protect information derived from agents in place. One of the problems with "turning" someone who works for a foreign government is the inability to use data supplied by that insider without exposing him. The mysterious, magical PROMIS could provide cover.

Also, and for what it is worth, Riconosciuto is the fellow responsible for the claim that Osama Bin Laden toured U.S. military bases under the name "Tim Osman." Being older than eight, and knowing what I know about Mikey and his antics, I don't take that story very seriously.

Who da men?

Everyone's talking about this passage from Sydney Blumenthal's latest piece:

In private, Bush administration sub-Cabinet officials who have been instrumental in formulating and sustaining the legal "war paradigm" acknowledge that their efforts to create a system for detainees separate from due process, criminal justice and law enforcement have failed. One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. If he were to speak up, given his seminal role in formulating the policy and his stature among the Federalist Society cadres that run it, his rejection would have a shattering impact, far more than political philosopher Francis Fukuyama's denunciation of the neoconservatism he formerly embraced. But this figure remains careful to disclose his disillusionment with his own handiwork only in off-the-record conversations. Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration's policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "Not everything we've done has been illegal." He adds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" -- a legal term referring to actions beyond the law.

Can we attach a couple of names to these two characters?

You can tell that Blumenthal wants to encourage a guessing game, hence the clues -- the Federalist Society remark and the "even now at the commanding heights of power" bit. These things usually spill out. If you call the shot, you'll get major bragging rights.

My picks: John Yoo as the Federalist guy and David Addington as the "commanding heights of power" guy.

Why the Republicans will recapture Congress in 2008

From TPM election central:

Poll: Americans Have Almost No Confidence in Congress
A new Gallup poll shows that Americans have a record low level of confidence in Congress as an institution — only 14% said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence. By contrast, 18% trust big business, 19% trust organized labor, 33% trust the public schools, 46% trust organized religion, and 54% trust the police.

I swear, the people of this country WANT to hate Democrats. Hating Dems serves a profound psychic need that I cannot comprehend.

On DU just now, I saw a prolific poster insist that it is better to have a Republican in office than to have a Democrat who does not fit that particular poster's notion of ideological purity. Well, that outcome is exactly what will occur.

You will either support the current Democratic crew and you will try to elect more of the same, or you will get the kind of Congress you had between 2000 and 2006. You have no third choice.

"But...there SHOULD be alternatives! Why can't we have a House and Senate filled with Kucinich clones? That's they way it SHOULD be..."

Should, should, should. Fuck "should." I deal with the word IS. That's the most difficult word in the English language.

It IS the fact that the American people are conservative by nature. I don't like it, but that's what IS.

It IS the fact that your fellow citizens still listen to Limbaugh and watch Fox. It IS the fact that the American people will believe any swiftboating lie the Rovian hordes choose to radiate. It IS the fact that a lot of the Dems in Congress won razor-thin victories in red-tinged states and cannot afford to piss off their conservative constituents. It IS the fact that we don't really have a majority in the Senate, except in a technical sense.

It IS the fact that the President has a veto, insuring that any attempt to withdraw funding for Iraq will fail. It IS a fact that the deal which raised the minimum wage -- and thereby improved life for millions -- was the best we could get under strained circumstances. I don't like that situation, I hate that situation, but that is what IS.

It IS the fact that we don't have enough votes to impeach. It IS the fact that any attempt to impeach will be spun against the Democrats.

I do not expect much action on the war from this Congress because we don't have the numbers. We don't have the presidency. We don't have the media. Most of all, we do not have the zeitgeist.

What do I mean by that? This: I don't think Dick Nixon got into politics to oversee the creation of something like the EPA, and I don't think Bill Clinton got into politics to end welfare. The zeitgeist -- the spirit of the age -- forced an inherently conservative man to do some very liberal things, and it forced a liberal to veer as far to the right as he could.

The present zeitgeist was shaped more by Limbaugh and LaHaye than by Krugman and Kos. Don't think that the reactionary nature of the American citizenry has changed simply because the public turned against the war. Within ten or fifteen years, the same people who now decry the Iraq debacle will convince themselves that the cause was noble and that we were stabbed in the back by the liberal media. Watch it happen. It has already begun.

I don't understand the psychic stranglehold the Republican party has on the American imagination, but that stranglehold exists. How else to explain the "Log Cabin Republican" phenomenon? How else to explain why Progressives seem so intent on handing power back to the people who did so much to ruin the country? You can't venture anywhere within the left side of Blogland without encountering the (objectively) pro-Republican sentiments of the Progressive Purists:

"Dems take AIPAC money. Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

"Obama offers too many empty platitudes. Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

"The Dems cannot get a veto-proof majority to cut off Iraq funding. Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

"Edwards and Clinton supported the war in 2003, and they must never be forgiven, no matter what they say now. Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

"We must never tolerate Dems who ran scared after 9/11. Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

"No Dem politician is 100% pure! 90% isn't good enough -- I insist on 100%! And if I cannot have my personal idea of 100% purity, then I say: Better to let the Republicans run everything!"

Here is a very partial look at what Henry Waxman's oversight committee is looking into. I like what he's doing. You know the way things were before. You know that no committee was allowed to look into such things.

Is that the situation you want to have again?

Apparently so.

You progressive purists want the Republican party in power -- forever. I don't know the why or the how of it, but on some primal "Monster of the Id" level, the Republicans get you people hard. They get you wet. They make you come.

The Republican party is the "bad boy" you once knew (presuming you are female), the poisonous lover who nearly destroyed your life -- yet despite that history, because of that history, you're dying to hop back in bed with him.

14%.

That number had better rise, or the Republican rotters will return in 2008. Your evil lover awaits, tempting you with absinthe and other dark liquors, whispering those naughty words that secretly thrill you.

"Did I act selfishly, baby? Did I forget your needs? Did I give you crabs? Did I empty your bank account? Did I hit you? Did I threaten to kill you? Did I make you feel ashamed and filthy? Yeah, but that other guy is a wimp. You don't want him. Come to Daddy..."

On Libertarianism: What he said

Needlenose presents some words on Libertarians that had me mumbling "Hear hear!"

I cringe when I hear some jackass, high on Ayn Rand, claim that the free market can solve all problems. Or who whines about regulations and how they are the root of all evil, and opines about how wonderful the world would be if only the markets were truly free.

I wonder how said jackass would react if he/she found his toddler gnawing on a Chinese-made toy painted with lead paint. Or found his beloved Labrador was eating pet food tainted by melamine, added no doubt by fellow Ayn Rand afficianados to save a buck at the jackasses expense. Or found out his toothpaste was purposely contaminated with a toxic chemical. Sadly, the list goes on.

There has been a truce, of sorts, between Progressives and Libertarians, since both groups opposed Bush's war at a time when it commanded popular support. The truce, having served its purpose, must end.

Why I think the Republicans will win in 2008

Take a look at the commentary in this Buzzflash forum regarding the possibility of a Bloomberg run. I disagree with the oft-heard idea that Bloomberg would draw more votes from the Republicans than from the Democrats.

It seems clear to me that Bloomberg's class interests (if I may use that quaint phrase) are best served by making sure the Republican wins. He can best do that by running as an Independent, and by telling Progressives what they want to hear. Progressives are easily duped by such maneuvers. They think they're hip, but hip they ain't.

More than that. It is clear from the commentary that the Democratic party is still the party that all Americans -- including and especially the Progressives -- love to hate.

WHY does Buzzflash insist on supporting the status quo while claiming to be 'progressive'? We don't have a two-party SYSTEM in the US! We have two different names for the SAME party - WHICH merely TRADES POWER EVERY 4-8 YEARS

In the past ten years, our congress, including dems and repubs alike, has rolled over and stuck their collective rumps in the air like cowardly primates with low testosterone levels confronted with a big, hairy, bully ape. They have collectively collaborated with, unquestionably, the most criminal white house regime in history in order to accomplish our country's destruction economically, environmentally, politically and socially.

The ONLY ticket that I might accept is:

Gore-Nader

My preference is:

Nader and anyone he likes

Hope we can get a super progressive ticket--Nader and Sheehan; Bill Moyers; our own movie star--Warren Beatty, George Clooney. Let's think outside of the box.

Of course, that kind of thinking comes right out of a very familiar box, a box labeled "progressive purity." I've said it before and I'll say it again: I've been watching the "progressive purists" -- a.k.a. the peepees -- at work for decades. THEY HAVE NEVER ACCOMPLISHED A SINGLE WORTHWHILE THING. On a practical level, all they ever do is alienate independents and throw elections to the rightists.

I've heard the mantra "the two parties are the same" repeated ad nauseam ever since I was a kid. You'd think that any comparison of the Bush years to the Clinton years would have demolished that notion.

Apocalypse

Juan Cole delivers some fascinating background on the recent bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Baghdad. The shrine is dedicated to a figure connected to the apocalyptic "Twelfth Imam" tradition. Most Americans reading Cole's description of this tradition will be struck -- at first glance -- by its exotic nature. On second glance, the story seems familiar enough. Are these irrational beliefs really so different from the scenarios outlined by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye?

One unfortunate side effect of this shrine-destruction strategy is that the shrines are revered in Iran, as well, and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is a millenarian especially devoted to the cult of the Twelfth Imam. Sentiments of the Iranian public are also being stirred by these attacks (not to mention Hizbullah in Lebanon, and Shiites in Pakistan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, who increasingly blame the US for the desecrations). Religious politics is politics, and the US is being wrongfooted in a major way here.

Muqtada al-Sadr has alleged that the entire point of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was to keep this decadent situation in place and to forestall the coming of the Mahdi by planting military bases around Iraq and the Persian Gulf. He says that the US Pentagon has an enormous file on the Mahdi.

In orther words, the US and militant Sunni Arabs are felt by many Iraqi Shiites to be playing the role of Dajjal or "Anti-Christ", a figure whose purpose is to forestall the coming of the Imam Mahdi. Shiite tradition holds that the Mahdi will come together with the Return of Christ, and that the returned Christ will kill the Dajjal. (Ironically, some of the US troops fighting the Shiite millenarians may be evangelicals who also believe that the Return of Christ is near; Iraq is a wonderland for apocalytpicism).

We face an appalling situation: Believers in the apocalypse may bring about that which they predict and claim to fear.

The latest Abu Ghraib revelations

I was going to write about the things we've learned from Seymour Hersh and General Taguba, but the above Keith Olbermann segment covers nearly everything. Notice the reference to the U.S. having "lost" Iraq. Past tense.

Centrism

D-Day gets very near the truth about the new centrism, as exemplified by Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger:

Now it's of course true that this "centrism" is broadly defined as implementing the wishes of Democrats and the overwhelming majority of Americans without the help of Republican votes at all, while still calling yourself a Republican, setting you apart from those dirty fucking hippie Democrats.

Arnie's centrism is purely a facade, forced upon him by political reality: He's a red politician running a blue state.

The whole "new centrism" gambit is simply a method of rescuing as much of the conservative agenda as is salvageable while Bush goes down in flames. Centrism means no universal health care, no liberal judges, no campaign finance reform, no attempts to block corporate socialism, no real measures against global warming -- but we will get the occasional nice word about gays, coupled with the grudging admission that Iraq was a mistake.

One of the world's great women. Plus: Does jewelry fund terror?

Amy Goodman has an outstanding interview with Malalai Joya, an Afghan member of parliament thrown out of that chamber (called the Loya Jirga) in 2003, after she protested the inclusion of warlords and other criminals. Joya, whom we may fairly call Afghanistan's answer to Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, is the subject of a new documentary called Enemies of Happiness.

Here's what she has to say to Goodman:

And the reason that I stand up against these fundamentalist warlords and I expose their mask, because, unfortunately, they were in power and they control Loya Jirga, and they are those people that after 9/11, they -- mentally they are same like Taliban, but physically they changed. By mask of democracy and support of US and its allies, they come in power.

They were those criminals that from ’92 to ’96, when they were in power, they killed only, in the capital of Afghanistan, 65,000 innocent people, just because of power in the civil war. And also they raped even a seventy-year-old grandmother and also a seven-year-old baby, and many more violence against women. And also they are those criminals that they destroyed completely our country, and they were a puppet of foreign countries.

Joya's website is here:

Joya said the Afghan people had been hopeful the US-led invasion "would bring democracy for them and security for them and many more things like that, but unfortunately we are looking at a worse situation than the Taleban period."

From an interview with PBS:

It seems that the U.S. government and its allies want to rely on them [the warlords] and install them to the most important posts in the executive, legislation and judicial bodies. Today the whole country is in their hands and they can do anything using their power, money and guns. They grab billions of dollars from foreign aid, drugs and precious stones smuggling.

The U.S. wants a group or band in Afghanistan to obey its directions accurately and act according to the U.S. policies, and these fundamentalists' bands of the Northern Alliance have proved throughout their life that they are ready to sacrifice Afghanistan's national interests for their lust for power and money. The U.S. has no interest in the prosperity of our people as long as its regional and strategic interests are met.

(Emphasis added.) Perhaps we should take a side-trip down the gemstone trail...

Few people consider the implications of precious stone smuggling out of Afghanistan; you can read more about it here and here. Emeralds and other gems are smuggled into Pakistan and sold, interestingly enough, to buyers from Poland, which has increasingly close ties to U.S. neocons. In this light, we should take a close look at this important (and overlooked) Washington Post piece from last year, which mentions that in the late 1990s, Osama Bin Laden himself ran a gem smuggling operation to raise money for Al Qaeda.

The implications of this are worth considering. The Russian mob controls much of the world's trade in illicit gems. The most recent edition of Daniel Hopsicker's Welcome to Terrorland includes two new chapters a new chapter entitled "Late-Breaking News: The Russian Mob and 9/11." (You may also want to read this page, which I would classify as "provisionally believable," although the citing of Wayne Madsen necessitates a "consider the source" caveat.)