Israelis at Abu Ghraib: The forgotten story

The new documentary "The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib" will shake decent Americans to the core -- and yet it neglects to mention one key aspect of the scandal: Israelis were present in the prison, directing the torture. That fact was first reported, shortly after the scandal broke, by -- believe or not -- NewsMax. It was later confirmed by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and by the prisoners themselves:

This Israeli dressed in civilian clothes tortured me by inserting in turn first with a jagged wooden stick into my rectum and then with the barrel of a rifle. I was cut inside and bled profusely.

Why were Israelis allowed to run rampant in an American-run military prison? Who was really in charge in Abu Ghraib? And why has the tale of prisoner abuse been allowed to run its course while every media outlet in the Western world covers up Israeli involvement?

I urge all my readers to publicize this story. Send it to your representatives and to the major media. Demand answers.

Like Waiting for T'Go: Random thoughts on Libby, Plame, and Cheney

dr. elsewhere here

We await the jury’s decision. I cannot express how much I have regretted not having the freedom to follow this trial more closely, but I have had to trust that all of you knew where to go. The folks at firedoglake.com have been all over it; made us right proud!

The latest noise from the jury was a request for clarification on one count, whether or not lying to the FBI required that Libby's version of his conversation with Cooper was a lie or that the content of what he told Cooper was a lie. By the time Judge Walton decided he needed clarification on their request, they had moved on.

Which, I think, supports my contention about this jury and the excruciating length of their deliberation. Specifically, there are two (count 'em, 2!) Ph.D.'s on this panel. I therefore contend that each of them have kept meticulous records of their notes during the trial, have cataloged the entire set of documents and evidence, and are forcing the rest of their fellow jurors to go through each and every count and each and every piece of evidence as if their dissertations were at stake.

It's killing us out here in the waiting game, but frankly, this is as it should be. All that education is precisely what our founders had in mind, not just for making decisions at election time, but for making decisions at trial time. Every person who is accused of a crime deserves the careful and precise consideration of the jury. The fact that this is rarely what we get is why most folks prefer a trial by jury; typically, folks just 'go with their guts,' the way our clueless leader has always done. And we see where that kind of thinking gets us.

For what it's worth, I'm predicting that they let Libby off on that count of lying to the FBI, and maybe one of the perjury counts, but he gets nailed for one perjury count and obstruction of justice, and maybe the other one for lying. Given the two Ph.D.'s, I'm actually encouraged at the lengthy deliberation; it seems consistent with what I would do, anyway.

Regardless of the outcome of the jury's deliberations, this trial has been pretty explosive. Numerous issues were raised, not least of which was of course the exposure of Cheney’s role in the entire set of events, as well as Cheney’s role in Fitz’s closing statements. Also regardless of this outcome, there will be more to come from Fitz on Cheney, no doubt.

Many more issues swirl around this case, too many to enumerate here (though I hope to touch on the role of the press soon). But the one that has bothered me from the get-go, and that seems to be the question no one will ask outright is this: Why did Cheney take this particular avenue for discrediting Wilson? Why didn’t they just go after Wilson’s record or his actual trip and de-briefing weaknesses? We know they can spin the daylights out of that stuff, after all. Why did they actually risk exposing themselves to felony charges by exposing Plame’s status? Especially on the flimsy claim that she was the one who sent Wilson on the trip in the first place.

That assertion, as their explanation, has always stuck in my craw. It carried absolutely no heft in their attempt to discredit Wilson. Who out there really got any traction trying to sell that aspect of the story? Oh yeah, well, Wilson is thoroughly discredited on this trip because he only went because his wifey set him up to do it. The claim was utterly useless in that respect, a point which seems to remain under the radar in all our musings. Was the payoff for the administration really that Wilson would back off? Or that other individuals would be intimidated, as Wilson suggested? Were these results - risky for possibly not occurring - really worth the possible occurrences of outing a CIA agent?

Why on earth would Cheney risk so much by outing Plame to add to their efforts to discredit Wilson? As Joe referenced earlier in another matter, it just don't add up.

There seems to me to be a simple answer to that question. Plame was in charge of the CIA Joint Task Force on Iraq, the group charged with fielding all that intelligence that was supposed to say Saddam had WMDs. However, this was just not happening. Given what we know now about WMDs in Iraq, it's a pretty safe bet to suggest that the CIA had nothing Cheney wanted. And given what we’ve come to know about Plame and Wilson, it does not seem much of a stretch to assume she was unwilling to, er, stretch the truth.
(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)


Remember that Cheney made unprecendented visits to the CIA after 9/11, visits that have been described as intimidating for most agents, what with the VP hovering over your work and breathing down your neck (ooh; a ghastly image, no?). One is forced to wonder just how Cheney might have actually avoided meeting Plame during those visits, given her rather key position in the task force studying the matter in question.

Now, consider Cheney's situation during those weeks after the SOTU when Wilson was making 'anonymous' noises about the infamous 16 words. One has to wonder how long it took him to discover that Wilson was married to the woman who was heading the CIA unit that was decidedly not giving him the intelligence he wanted. Clearly he already knew this when Wilson penned his op-ed for the NYTimes, because he referenced the connection in his notes. We also knew that Cheney already knew this by mind-June, because that's when he shared it with Libby, and it was in a document circulated prior to June 10th. How long prior, who knows...

... but imagine, just for a moment, that you're Cheney (egads, another ghastly thought!), and you're wrestling with this Wilson problem, and then you discover that he's married to this woman whose work has interfered with your plans every inch of the way down this path to excuses for invasion. Don't you just know he was wetting himself trying to figure a way to destroy both these albatrosses with one blow?

This scenario is enough for me to consider that Wilson's speculations about the administration's intention to punish him and intimidate other whistleblowers were cover for his wife's real role, not just with the CIA, but in her own outing; Cheney wanted her OUT, even if it meant outED. All along these questions have nagged at the whole scandal; just why did Cheney risk so much to out this woman? What was worth that?

Et voila, this DU thread suggests other angles that have, er, leaked into my thinking on all this. For example, that the outing was not about Wilson at all, or even about Plame's role on the CIA task force, but about Brewster-Jennings. That her organization was hot on the trail of Cheney's connections with highly illegal arms sales, including the infamous A. Q. Khan, and of course there's the altogether too plausible conjecture that our suspicions of four years ago - that there were plans in place to plant the very weapons the neocons accused Hussein of harboring - appear to have been in place for routing via Turkey (which Sibel Edmonds likely uncovered in her exposure). Those plans - and probably more (think Sy Hersh's comparisons to Iran-Contra this week) - were thwarted by the same CIA front group that was dogging Cheney's tail for his profiteering while at Halliburton, Brewster-Jennings.

I doubt anyone needs me to connect any more dots for you from here. My bet is that Fitz is deep into all this, and working hard to collect all the necessary evidence to nail the Big Dick (now that's an image worth entertaining). Why else would he go so far out on a limb during his closing statement?

Regardless of whether these accusations about plans for funneling WMDs into Iraq through Turkey are true, there will always remain the nagging disconnect on the reason Cheney’s office gave for raising Plame’s name, and then - again via Novakula - the name of her front company. Was anyone really convinced that, because Plame may have set up the trip, Wilson was therefore less credible, or less of a manly man? Did we all just dump Wilson’s assertions because of course you see his wife planned the trip, like a junket you see, and therefore nothing he says about any of this can be believed.

Here is a fascinating exercise in vitro of this very sales job. See if you’re sold:

Transcript of audio of woodward and armitage:
Woodward: But why would they send him?
Armitage: Because his wife's a fucking analyst at the agency.
Woodward: It's still weird.
Armitage: It-- [chuckling] it's perfect. This is what she does she is a WMD analyst out there.
Woodward: Oh she is.
Armitage: Yeah.
Woodward: Oh, I see.
Armitage: [unintelligible] look at it.
Woodward: Oh I see. I didn't [unintelligible]
Armitage: Yeah. See?
Woodward: Oh, she's the chief WMD?
Armitage: No she isn't the chief, no.
Woodward: But high enough up that she can say, 'Oh yeah, hubby will go.'
Armitage: Yeah, he knows Africa.

Eanngh. Thanks for playing, but no dice.

Like the man said, it just don’t add up. But Plame’s role on WMDs, now that begins to look like a real equation. Add the attempt to plant them in Iraq via Turkey, and it starts looking like a real mathematical wizardry. Putting this trial into some real perspective. You listening, Mr. Woodward?

And speaking of the Cheney assassination attempt...

...just how did the Taliban gain advance knowledge of his location?

"Disinhibition"

On FOX Pseudonews, Sean Hannity tried to argue that Arianna Huffington approved of remarks left by some commenters who expressed regret that the assassination attempt was not successful. In fact, Huffington removed those comments -- which, for all we know, might have been left by someone in Hannity's office to provide grist for the propaganda mills.

At any rate, it is impossible to police all comments on so large a site as Huffington Post. The job is tough enough on Cannonfire. Hannity knows damn well that Arianna Huffington can't read in real time all of the hundreds of comments placed on that site at all hours of the day and night.

According to News Hounds:

Nevertheless the other guest, James Taranto, used the occasion to attack liberals anyway. Apropos of nothing related to HuffPo or Cheney, Taranto claimed that conservatives are "circumspect" with their prejudices but that there’s a “disinhibition on a certain part of the left-wing fringe.” Obviously, he has not read some of the more horrific comments on our blog, nor some of our hate-mail, or he would know that there’s plenty of hate-filled “disinhibition” on the right.

Taranto further said he couldn’t remember a conservative saying a liberal politician should be assassinated. Oh no? How about Ann Coulter “joking” about poisoning Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens? Taranto also might want to take a look at this post on Media Matters in which several right wing pundits, including FOX News’ own Bill O’Reilly, talk about killing Bill Clinton, Michael Moore and Michael Kinsley.

What about Ann Coulter's infamous call to assassinate Bill Clinton?

One routinely finds numerous examples of "disinhibition" on Free Republic and other lefty blogs. In 2001, a Freeper wrote (vis-a-vis the prospect of a Hillary run): "There is only one solution to the Klintons, two 45 rounds and a nice little spot in Marcy Park." More recently, Freeper Chad Castagana -- the twerp who used to use the computers in the smae library I often frequent -- sent threats and fake anthrax letters to Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, David Letterman and Jon Stewart.

Right-wingers have sent death threats to the Dixie Chicks, to 15 year-old peace activist Ava Lowery, to Susan Sarandon, to Cindy Sheehan, to Michael Moore and to Jamie Gorelick. Glenn Beck actually made a very serious death threat against Moore -- Beck's own words prove that his comments were no joke. Most liberal bloggers with significant traffic receive death threats -- I certainly have.

Did left-wingers blow up the Federal building in Oklahoma City? Did lefties derail an Amtrack train in 1995? Were Mohammed Atta and company progressive-minded folk? Did lefties commit any notable acts of domestic terror in the past thirty years?

Yes, some people infuriated by Bushco have allowed themselves to utter foolish and even criminal language. "Trannies" threatened Danny Bonaduce after he denounced CD theories of 911. On the whole, though, the record is clear: Violent language and (especially) violent actions occur more often on the right side of America's political stage.

Who da man?

Just askin'.

DUDE!

Keith Olbermann assails Secretary of State Rice on her ignorance of history.

I have one quarrel with Olbermann: You can indeed compare Saddam Hussein with Hitler, just as you can compare apples and oranges. You can compare anything with anything else. Look up the word "compare" in the dictionary.

After you digest what Olbermann has to say, check out this propaganda letter, which -- a couple of years ago -- was widely reprinted in a number of different venues (print and online), ascribed to various names. (Odd how that happens, eh wot?). See if you can spot the error:

President Franklin Roosevelt led us into World War II, but Germany never attacked us. We lost 405,000 military personnel during the war.

Kinda leaves out a few facts, doesn't it? Fact 1: Germany had conquered or attacked our friends and allies. Fact 2: We were directly attacked by Germany's Axis partner, Japan. Fact 3: The Germans declared war against the United States shortly after Pearl Harbor.

In the clip above, Olbermann reminds us of a history that the conservatives want to place into rewrite. The conservatives now want to portray FDR as either the GWB of his day or as the true instigator of WWII. Revealing...

(And those of you salivating to scribble weird Pearl Harbor theories should stand warned: You will be sent immediately to the tranny corner.)

Cheney: What the Hell...? Strange rumors of assassination attempts and a military coup...

Can anyone please explain to me what the hell Dick Cheney is up to?

For years, I've tended to think of him as this administration's Martin Bormann -- the behind-the-throne power, the ruthless and efficient manipulator who secretly keeps the machineries of state humming because the front man is too nutso to do any actual work. In recent times, however, Cheney has seemed pretty damned nutso in his own right. He's still plenty ruthless, plenty manipulative -- but few now would associate him with the words efficiency, practicality and logic.

Let me first make clear that I am quite glad that the Taliban's bomb blast in Afghanistan did not harm him in any way. Still, what the hell was he doing there? How did the Taliban know of his presence there when most Americans did not? Why do we have such a large discrepancy in the reports of fatalities connected with this attack?

And why is the Taliban still a force to be reckoned with? Doesn't their continued existence testify to the failure of American policy?

What is that policy? According to Seymour Hersh, we are aiding Al Qaeda-friendly Sunni jihadist groups to put pressure on Hezbollah and Iran (thereby helping the Israelis). And yet Cheney seems to have chosen the Shi'ite side in the Iraqi civil war. Our government backs Maliki, who is close to Iran, which is now considered our new enemy. Our closest Arab allies are the Saudis, who are funding the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, which is taking a deadly toll on our soldiers. Yet American propaganda has tried to blame all of our Iraq problems on the Shi'ites and on Iran.

As they used to say in the old Warner Brothers' cartoons: It just don't add up!

What has been the real purpose of Cheney's peregrinations in recent months? We still don't know with certainty what he discussed with Saudi Arabia's rulers weeks ago, or even which side called the meeting.

What possible reason could have brought him to Pakistan to meet with the man who made a "safe haven" accord with Osama Bin Laden?

What was the real purpose of the journey to Australia and Japan? As a PR tour, the Aussie holiday failed disastrously; his very presence engendered massive protests. At any rate, no-one considers Cheney the kind of veep who specializes in goodwill tours and state funerals.

There are strange rumors surrounding the way his left the country -- rumors that the airport was closed off, that the jet was delayed in Sydney for undisclosed reasons, that a ramp was rolled back to Cheney's plane and then waved off.

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

After leaving Sydney, the jet made a still-mysterious landing in Singapore.
Official accounts hold that the plane was held up by a "small mechanical problem." Originally, White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said that the touchdown in Singapore was a scheduled fuel stop, but it later emerged that a "generator" problem may have forced the landing.

One has to wonder about the mechanical problem, since -- as it happens -- a surprisingly large number of presidential aircraft are in for "maintenance" at this time. The lack of functioning aircraft recently forced Condi to take a smaller jet than she usually uses.

The earlier ramp incident was not related to the "generator" problem...

Concern about the flight first arose after Mr Cheney's plane had stopped en route to the runway. A mobile stairway was sent out to the plane but a door in the plane opened and an unidentified figure appeared in the hatchway and waved the stairway off, a Reuters photographer said.

The door was then closed and the plane proceeded to the runway and took off.

Ms McBride said the incident was "absolutely unrelated" to the electrical issue, adding the plane stopped because a passenger had alerted officials an item of luggage had been left in a vehicle. It was decided the item should be sent on another plane.

Surely the matter was more important than one piece of misplaced luggage...?

If you examine all of these indicators (insofar as they have slipped into the public awareness), you get the impression that, well before he set foot on Afghan soil, Cheney has been traveling under threat. Yes, I understand that this is speculation based on tea-leaf reading. It is still quite possible than the rumor mills have wildly overblown a few uninteresting air travel troubles.

If the reader will allow a segue from the credible to the mondo-bizarro (and I suspect that some of my readers would positively relish such a side-trip), we have had a flurry of outlandish reports stemming from sites I've never before heard of and which do not strike me as believable. I pass them along because they are, if nothing else, entertaining:

Russian FSB sources are reporting today that an attempt by Special Forces Troops of the United States Military to arrest the American Vice President Cheney shortly after boarding his official plane in Australia has resulted in at least 3 dead and an unknown number of wounded.

These reports state that the United States Air Force, which is in control of the American Vice Presidents plane, sent an ‘urgent’ flash message shortly after takeoff from Sydney, Australia alerting their US Pacific Command Forces through the United States Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) network, and which is monitored by Russian Military Forces, of the deaths aboard the plane and requesting ‘orders’.

Near as I can tell, this tale originated with a strange creature called Sorcha Faal, who claims to have acquired the "True Knowledge of the Three Minds" after reading the Gnostic Gospel of Mary Magdalene. As it happens, I've read that book myself (insofar as it still exists). Alas, I still possess but one mind -- and that, just barely.

If the reader knows of any other source for these wild "FSB" reports, please let me know.

Need more proof of election fraud in 2004?

Brad Friedman reports that when New Mexico switched from touch-screen voting to paper ballots, the undervotes in minority precincts -- that is, the places where Native Americans vote -- plummeted 85%. Do we really need more proof that someone had his finger on the scale when the votes were weighed in 2004?

Yes, New Mexico's five electoral votes -- which went to Bush -- would not have sufficed to make Kerry the winner. But, obviously, proof that the system was gamed in one part of the country indicates huggermugger elsewhere. If anyone denies that such proof exists, show 'em this chart.

"Double Bubble": Bush, Carter, and disinformation

You probably have already heard the allegations that the Reagan/Bush campaign undermined Jimmy Carter's election bid in 1980. But according to this extremely strange -- yet compelling -- story, the first "get Carter" attempt by Bush the elder occurred at the beginning of Carter's term.

Remember, Bush was still Director of Central Intelligence during the 1976 election. As Bush vacated that position, he engineered a bizarre scheme to feed false and discrediting information to Carter -- using, as an unwitting cut-out, a young Daniel Sheehan, lawyer for the Jesuits, later to gain fame as the head of the Christic institute.

(Note: Yes, I know all about the Christic controversy, and would prefer not to rehash the details here. Today, our focus is elsewhere.)

Carter did not take the bait because the ploy involved allegedly "secret" information about flying saucers, a topic correctly seen as radioactive. But the clever, roundabout technique of employed by the disinformationists deserves some scrutiny here. The method remains in play, and will continue to be utilized until journalists learn to recognize it on sight.

Maxwell Smart might have labeled it "The old look-but-don't-copy trick":

The tactic is simple. Colin Wallace, who used to run the trick when he was attached to the British Army’s psyops unit in Belfast back in the 1970s, called it the “double bubble.” Robin Ramsey, a British writer who has worked closely with Wallace, thus describes the gambit in his book Conspiracy Theories:

Wallace would take journalists, especially foreign journalists with a limited understanding of British politics, into a back room and show them ‘secret documents’ which they could read but not copy. Some of the documents were genuine, some forgeries. We have copies of some of the forgeries.

This is not an obscure matter for historians. The "double bubble" continues to play its part in the dissemination of false information.

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

One journalist who, it has been alleged, has fallen for the double bubble ploy is Con Coughlin of the U.K. Seven years ago, the British Journalism Review described a number of stories, mostly concerning foreign affairs, affected by such ploys. That piece recounts an incident which should be more notorious, in which the Sunday Telegraph (the newspaper employing Coughlin) published a planted story about a putative counterfeiting scheme engineered by Libya's Colonel Gaddafi.

The Sunday Telegraph was served with a libel writ by Gadafy’s son. The paper was unable to back up its suggestion that Gadafy junior might have been linked to a fraud, but pleaded, in effect, that it had been supplied with the material by the Government. In a long and detailed statement, which entered the public domain in the course of a judgment given in an interlocutory appeal on 28 October 1998, the paper described how, under Charles Moore’s editorship, a lunch had been arranged with the then Conservative foreign secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, at which Con Coughlin had been present. Told by Rifkind that countries such as Iran were trying to get hold of hard currency to beat sanctions, Coughlin was later briefed by an MI6 man – his regular contact. Some weeks afterward, he was introduced to a second MI6 man, who spent several hours with him and handed over extensive details of the story about Gadafy’s son. Although Coughlin asked for evidence, and was shown purported bank statements, the pleadings make clear that he was dependent on MI6 for the discreditable details about the alleged counterfeiting scam. He was required to keep the source strictly confidential.

The beauty of a scheme like this is that when a lie is exposed as such, the public's anger goes to the journalist, not to his government agents planting the misinformation. That's why the "Look, but don't copy" rule is in place.

This portrait of Conrad Black's Daily Telegraph pictures that paper as a "serial victim" of such intelligence hoaxes:

In an equally inventive 1999 article, 'The Daily Telegraph' claimed that Osama bin-Laden was buying child slaves from Ugandan rebels and using them as forced labour on marijuana farms in Sudan in order to fund international terrorism... When asked about this claim, the British government stated they had seen no evidence for such allegations.

When the histories of the Iraq war's origins are published, expect to see some spectacular examples of "double bubble" in action.

Gored (updates 1 and 2 and 3)

That was easily THE biggest laugh I've ever received from an Oscar show.

UPDATE: I'm glad Inconvenient Truth won, and I'm sorry Big Al did not say what we were hoping he would say. And I'm very pleased about the tribute to Ennio Morricone -- a great composer.

UPDATE 2: Chris Rouse -- a really nice guy I went to school with -- was nominated for editing United 93. Alas, he didn't get a statue to match his Dad's. Next year, Chris!

UPDATE 3: America's best director finally won. Scorcese, Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas all in one shot -- now that was a sight.

And Helen Mirren was pure class. Ever hear John Boorman's commentary track for Excalibur? He spends a lot of time mooning over her like a lovesick 13 year old...

Gosh. You think Matt Drudge actually LIES?

According to Matt Drudge, this is the reception Dick Cheney encountered when he visited Australia:

According to Australian investigative journalist "Nick Possum", the actual reception was a little more like this:

Yeah. The "left-wing American media" strikes again...

Wikileaks

Now there is a safe (and allegedly untraceable) method for insiders to leak documents and other evidence of malfeasance.

You may be learning of Wikileaks for the first time here and now. I suspect that within three years, the name will be very familiar.

Sy Hersh on the Middle East -- UPDATE

Note: For a video pertinent to this story, go to Crooks & Liars here.
The video is a must-watch. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STORY OF THE DAY.

Seymour Hersh offers the best current overview of the mad situation in the Middle East. In essence, we are supporting a pro-Iranian Shi'ite government in Iraq while counterbalancing Iran by supporting radical Sunnis everywhere else. These Sunni jihadists are quite often pro-Al Qaeda. One does not really have to read very far between the lines of Hersh's piece to discover that Al Qaeda is, in essence, Bush's friend -- in practice, though not in rhetoric.

This blog has seen some discussion of the partition-of-Iraq idea. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah spoke to Hersh on that subject. Nasrallah thinks that the goal is partition not just of Iraq but all other nations in the region, including Saudi Arabia:

Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”

Some readers, and some other bloggers, have voiced a similar view. But is this view accurate? In fact, Bush has done nothing to indicate that he favors the partition of Iraq. He could have accomplished that goal by now if he wanted it. Besides, even in Nasrallah's wildest fantasy, Iran cannot be partitioned. One of the main problems with the invasion of Iraq -- and this is a point Hersh drives home -- is that it left Iran without a countervailing power in the region.

Hersh saves some of his most fascinating material for the end, where some may miss it.

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

Yeah, we kind of figured as much. But:

The Pentagon consultant added that one difficulty, in terms of oversight, was accounting for covert funds. “There are many, many pots of black money, scattered in many places and used all over the world on a variety of missions,” he said. The budgetary chaos in Iraq, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for, has made it a vehicle for such transactions, according to the former senior intelligence official and the retired four-star general.

“This goes back to Iran-Contra,” a former National Security Council aide told me. “And much of what they’re doing is to keep the agency out of it.” He said that Congress was not being briefed on the full extent of the U.S.-Saudi operations. And, he said, “The C.I.A. is asking, ‘What’s going on?’ They’re concerned, because they think it’s amateur hour.”

Stop the war

The grand encampment to stop the war begins on March 12 and lasts until March 19. For more data, go here.

WHERE? on the mall directly in front of the Capitol building (3rd street between Constitution and Independence)

WHY NOW? During the week beginning March 12, Congress will begin voting on Bush’s request for $100 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. If Congress votes to cut off funds, they can end the war now and bring the troops home. If they approve Bush’s war funds, the killing, and dying and occupation will go on…it’s as simple as that. This vote will be the most important war related vote since Congress voted to authorized Bush to invade and occupy Iraq in October of 2002.

The antiwar movement must be there to let Congress know that we won’t let them get
away with it this time.

Right now, the Troops Out Now Coalition is working with local organizers, churches and mosques, unions, and community groups to prepare for a long-term occupation of Washington by the anti-war movement. Local organizers across the U.S. are organizing buses, vans, and car caravans.

We have a real opportunity if we act decisively--and we need your help. Please contact us by Monday, February 26 --use the "comments" section of the volunteer form to let us know:

Can you come to Washington for the Encampment to Stop the War? On what day can you join the encampment? For how long? Some are planning to come for a day or two, others are staying longer.

Do you have equipment that would be useful for an encampment (tents, sleeping bags, etc.)??

Can you volunteer to take on a task during the encampment (logistics, medical, security, legal, transportation, etc)?

If you live in the Washington DC area, do you have space for people to sleep or freshen up?

The coalition of the willing

As Bush's grand alliance unravels, I have a question: If the "coalition of the willing" really were that, would the administration have felt compelled to call it that? Whenever I see that name, I always think of the Legitimate Businessmen's Club, frequented by Fat Tony on The Simpsons.

de la Vega talks

dr. elsewhere here

Elizabeth de la Vega just sent me this clip of her brief talk at the Olympia Impeachment Forum. It seems Washington state Senator Eric Oemig has announced he will sponsor a resolution calling for Washington State to petition Congress to impeach President Bush; this forum was called to inform the public on the details. The panel included Elizabeth, Ray McGovern, and David Lindorff, and in attendance were also Rachel Corrie's parents, Lt. Ehren Watada and James Yee. The place was evidently packed with 850 citizens, and you'll gather from the reaction to Elizabeth that there was abundant support for the resolution.

Be sure to also check out C-Span's coverage of Elizabeth's presentation at her book signing at Garrison Keillor's Corner Bookstore in St. Paul last month. Scheduled for 11:30 EST tomorrow, Sunday; check it out.

Finally, you'll be happy to know her book, US vs George W. Bush et al, is now #33 on the NYTimes best seller list.

Not only is all this great for Elizabeth, it's also good to know about all this great response to the idea of Bush's impeachable corruption.

Joe Biden, Bill Maher, Islam and war

Joe Biden's appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time damn near has me converted to his cause. I know he's not popular in progressive circles, but his plan for Iraq -- de facto partition of a nation still held together by a loose confederation -- coincides with my own view of the least-awful outcome. The time for that plan may be past: 2004-2005 was the best period for this suggestion. Still, the idea deserves consideration.

Maher himself was a disappointment. His jokes about celebrity rehab might have sat better if the guy were not so obviously well-toasted on the air.

Had he been in his right gourd, he would have avoided some real embarrassments -- as when he tried to claim that the Koran was more violent than the Old Testament, or that the god of the OT directed his wrath almost entirely against the Jews, not against other tribes.

Hey, Bill -- ever read past Genesis? Try Joshua. Exodus. Numbers. Deuteronomy. Ah, now there's a stroke book for the Divine Marquis: "When the Lord delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the males..." "As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves." Not to mention: "You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you." Yum-O!

You don't have to be a Muslim to take offense at Maher's ignorant suggestion that Islamic societies are inherently more warlike than others. Oh really? Let's look at the record of Islamic nations, focusing -- at first -- on conventional war.

As readers know, I am no fan of the despotic Saudi regime. That said, when was the last time Saudi Arabia went to war? If I recall correctly, their last battle occurred when Abdul Azziz cemented his rule in the 1920s.

The United Arab Emirates has never been involved in a military conflict in its (rather brief) history. Oman has been ruled by a peaceful and more-or-less benevolent dictator since 1970; before that, the British held sway. (And why were the "Christian" British in that part of the world in the first place?) Bahrain has not been involved in a war since it broke free of the British, although it has had internal troubles. Jordan has not been involved in a war since 1967. Iran had a revolution in the late 1970s and was invaded by Iraq shortly thereafter. Egypt and Syria have not prosecuted a war since 1973. The most violent Islamic nations in the post-WWII era have been Indonesia and Pakistan -- neither one the target of American animosity -- and Afghanistan.

By contrast: The United States of America has involved itself in seven major conflicts over the course of the past hundred years, not counting smaller incursions such as the invasions of Panama and Grenada. (I count Afghanistan and Iraq separately.) Four of those conflicts occurred in the post-1967 era. (Obviously, Vietnam began earlier.)

Yes, but what of non-conventional warfare? In this field, we can all agree that factions within Islam have sponsored many horrors. On the other hand, take a look at William Blum's history of U.S. non-conventional actions against other societies.

Humanity may give lip service to the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran, or some other set of scriptures. But our one true god remains Ares.

The Padilla mystery

In today's Guardian, Naomi Klein reports that accused terrorist Jose Padilla has been subjected to extreme methods of pscyhological torture -- techniques reminiscent of the worst abuses uncovered during the MKULTRA investigations:

Arrested in May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Padilla, a Brooklyn-born former gang member, was classified as an "enemy combatant" and taken to a navy prison in Charleston, South Carolina. He was kept in a cell 9ft by 7ft, with no natural light, no clock and no calendar. Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. Padilla was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured the extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds. Padilla also says he was injected with a "truth serum", a substance his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP.

According to his lawyers and two mental health specialists who examined him, Padilla has been so shattered that he lacks the ability to assist in his own defence. He is convinced that his lawyers are "part of a continuing interrogation program" and sees his captors as protectors.

(Emphasis added.) Now, I don't want to open up a discussion of the CIA's notorious mind-alteration program. There is a surprisingly large subculture of unpleasant people who want to blame their mental health issues on the Agency, and these folks get very angry if you dare to ask for evidence. But the Padilla case justifies a (cautious) reference to MKULTRA. The CIA and the military did indeed fund many studies in sensory deprivation; they even financed John Lilly's well-known work, which inspired the fanciful Ken Russell film Altered States.

From a piece by George Monbiot, published last December:

The purpose of these measures appeared to be to sustain the regime under which he had lived for more than three years: total sensory deprivation. He had been kept in a blacked-out cell, unable to see or hear anything beyond it. Most importantly, he had had no human contact, except for being bounced off the walls from time to time by his interrogators. As a result, he appears to have lost his mind. I don't mean this metaphorically. I mean that his mind is no longer there.

(Emphasis added.) As we've noted before, the purpose of mental torture often is not to extract the truth, but to force a man to "confess" to a lie -- or to hide the truth by foisting insanity on someone who has seen too much.

But why Padilla? Why was he held for so long without warrant, without charges? The evidence against him -- insofar as it has been made available to the public -- amounts to this:

Padilla was a Latino street gang thug who, as a juvenile, killed another gang member. He converted to Islam and (reportedly) embraced non-violence. He was associated with one Adham Amin Hassoun, agent for a charitable organization accused of being a secret funding mechanism for terrorism. Padilla traveled throughout the Middle East in 2001 and 2002: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. It is claimed (but not proven) that, in an intercepted communication, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed suggested to another Al Qaeda operative that Padilla might participate in a "dirty bomb" plot. (KSM is quite the mystery man in his own right, and the oddities surrounding his capture remain perplexing.) When Padilla was arrested in May of 2002, he inexplicably carried some $10,000 in cash, as well as the email addresses of several Al Qaeda operatives.

All of which sounds extremely troubling, even damning -- although finding a triable crime in that resume seems to have given prosecutors difficulty. However, Padilla's phone wiretaps have been leaked, and the evidence is far from compelling:

The leaked transcripts documented seven telephone conversations on which Padilla's voice is heard that were intercepted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Defense lawyers have said that Padilla is never overheard discussing any violent acts and that many of the conversations involve family matters, casting doubt on the strength of the government's case.

If the reader will forgive a bit of speculation (and I am, of course, hardly the first to offer this thought): Padilla's resume suggests the possibility that he functioned as an undercover agent. A gang member with a murder rap might well have stayed in the joint for the bulk of his life. Padilla could have made a deal in order to regain his freedom.

The "undercover agent" thesis could also explain why the government held him without charges: He might have rebelled against his assignment, and might have displayed a willingness to reveal matters his handlers considered best kept secret.

As noted above, he now apparently views his captors as his protectors. It is easier to understand how Padilla, in his addled state, might have been led to this conclusion if we posit that he once worked for the government.

Some conspiracy theorists have suggested that Padilla could well have been the infamous John Doe #2 of Oklahoma City bombing lore. Padilla does bear an inarguable resemblance to the drawing issued by the Janet Reno Justice Department. Then again, so do many other people.

Incidentally, it seems to me that the only possible witness against Padilla, vis-a-vis the dirty bomb charge, would be Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Whatever happened to him, and why aren't more people curious about his fate? Many would dearly love to see him on a witness stand -- indeed, many would love to see him tried. No charges have ever been brought against him. Why not?

Longstanding rumor holds that KSM was never captured and has been living comfortably in Pakistan. Most people believe that he is being held in rough detention in Jordan, undergoing torments even worse than those applied to Padilla. I wish we knew the truth. Alas, too much of current history is written in invisible ink.

So get out there and do your duty

This image comes to us via BradBlog. I just had to pass it along.

The true cost of Hookergate

I've been lax in covering recent developments in the Wilkes-Cunningham scandal, an ongoing story that once received a great deal of attention on this blog.

Daniel Hopsicker has published an excellent piece pointing out a simple fact missed by all other commentators: "Hookergate" -- unlike previous sex scandals, such as those involving Monica Lewinski or Donna Rice -- cost lives. Tons of DOD cash went to Wilkes and Wade, while our solders went begging:

Just one month after the Duke-ster was getting his rocks off in Hawaii, a story in the Los Angeles Times contained this headline: “Why must Americans in Iraq face death because of outmoded body armor?”

From a New York Times article cited by Hopsicker:

“The Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since the beginning of the war in March 2003 in part to determine the effectiveness of body armor.

"The military's medical examiner, Dr. Craig T. Mallak, told a military panel in 2003 that the information 'screams to be published.'"

“The findings and other research by military pathologists suggests that an analysis of all combat deaths in Iraq, including those of Army troops, would show that 300 or more lives might have been saved with improved body armor.”

Hopsicker then brings it all back home:

What makes all this tragic almost beyond words is this statement from the story in the N.Y. Times: Even at retail prices, it would have cost less than $97 million to outfit each of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq with state-of-the-art vest plates.

Hell, the Defense Department's 'black budget' spent more money than that with Wilkes’ company just to Xerox old maps.

Meanwhile, speculation continues to grow that the rash of fired U.S. Attorneys may have been engineered to provide cover for the one firing that really, really counts -- Carol Lam, the woman who went after Wilkes, Dusty Foggo, and John T. Michael (an under-discussed Cunningham bribe figure).

Interestingly, Lam will soon function as an attorney for Qualcomm, the wireless technology firm. That news may intrigue conspiracy buffs of a certain sort. As this blog noted a long time ago, Qualcomm came up in a mini-scandal involving one Jack Shaw, the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security. I never did figure out if Shaw was the good guy or the bad guy in that business; you'll have to read the earlier stories to come to your own conclusions. I will note here simply that Qualcomm has strong ties to Israel (a factoid which may set off your paranoia buzzers, though not necessarily mine), and counts among its board members Brent Scowcroft.

One possible explanation: The company hired Lam, in part, to keep an eye on her. She must know some very sensitive material.

Cheney in Australia

Dick Cheney's state visit to Australia has resulted in massive protests. Although you may have seen RAW Story's coverage, you really ought to take a look at the fine work done by "Nick Possum," a terrific investigative reporter Down Under, and an early friend to this blog. The photographs are quite impressive -- and the protest signs feature raunchy jokes.

In this country, Cheney is quite unpopular -- witness the case for impeachment outlined in GQ magazine (of all venues!). Still, the Aussies seem to have taken a visceral dislike to the man unmatched on these shores.

The war in Iraq; the war at home

Readers will recall our previous discussion of the email from Bryant "Doc" Shurley, a medic in Iraq who supports the "surge." The erudite message received massive "viral" distribution, leading some to suspect a hoax, or a propaganda effort of some sort. I contacted Bryant's father Michael and determined that the message was real.

I was also interested to discover that Bryant was, like me, a graphic designer. Although he's probably quite good at what he does, competition never bothered me -- so if the war ends soon and he rejoins the field back here in the States, that'll be fine.

Bryant's position on the war angered some readers; obviously, it is not a position I share. Still, these words from his father deserve to be read:

I was in fact, thankful that someone would finally attempt to validate Bryant's letter as authentic. Most folks we've met who oppose the war had rather just slam the letter for being of contemptible and of shady "Republican" conspiratorial origin.... Your professionalism in the rebuttal presentation on your blog is important to me and very much appreciated. There are some out there who when faced with an opposing point of view, would rather just rip it, out of contempt and hatred, rather than attempting to discern in it any possible merit. You have offered studied rebuttal, without trying to defame or abuse in an attempt to change what is merely opinion. Why is it so hard for others on both sides of this issue, to do the same, without the hatred and derision on every issue?

As I had said, Bryant was not trying to write historical copy for some news machine, or a political document intended to cause polarization. Rather, it was a quick effort by him to explain to his parents that he was ok, and to share what he had gleaned in the short 2 months of daily "sapper" missions in Iraq. Neither was it my intent to fuel pockets of political division when I sent out those email copies of the letter to my classmates. I was just a father wanting to share my elation at finally hearing that his son, serving in harm's way, was ok after a long time of no communication.

The whole process of dealing with the "aftershock" of Bryant's letter has been quite educational for my family. His letter rose above normal internet correspondence, and took on a life of it's own. It seems to have been incredibly polarizing across the nation, for having started with such innocent intent.

Once again, thanks for being fair and for explaining the facts underlying your point of view. I am now more informed and equipped to make better decisions based on your information. Thank you also for your thoughtfulness in explaining the medic's work to others who might not want to give it the credit it deserves....

This message touched me, and to some extent, shamed me. Mike Shurley reminded me of how coarsened the discourse in this nation has become. We need not be this way. We used to be better.

I used to be better.

It's easy enough to point to the other side and to say: "Well, they started it." Year after year, Coulter, Malkin and Limbaugh have used words like "traitor" to describe anyone disagreeing with their positions. Not long ago, Sean Hannity came out with a book which, in its very subtitle, equated liberals with terrorists.

With accusatory titles facing us every time we wandered into a bookstore, with those sorts of attacks blaring out of every radio loudspeaker, many of us felt that this nation no longer had room or desire for reasoned debate. The time had come to "imitate the tiger," as Shakespeare once put it.

The result has been something akin to a civil war in this country.

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

We haven't actually started shooting at each other, but we've gotten used to screaming at our fellow citizens like howler monkeys each and every day. To tell the truth, some progressives have become so strident, I find them as repellent as I find Limbaugh.

After the last election, quite a few people "kidded on sly" about the need for a new civil war to get rid of the south. Even after the jokes ended, I made no secret of the fact that the idea of red state/blue state separation appealed to me. The culture, I felt, had fractured beyond repair. The "mystic chords of memory," as Lincoln put it, no longer possessed their power to bind.

But even in Lincoln's day, when cultural war gave way to an actual shooting war, far-sighted Confederates understood that the South and North would soon be trading partners, while far-sighted Northerners understood that the Union would be best preserved if a defeated South were treated with dignity. We should apply a similar understanding to our current conflicts.

Despite Bryant Shurley's words, we will, I think, lose in Iraq. That assessment stems from realism, not from a mindless defeatism, and I mean by it no disrespect for our soldiers. This administration went to war in a part of the world it did not understand -- Bush, according to reliable report, did not even know the difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites. We are not wanted there, even by the people we had hoped to aid. Moreover, and most importantly, American taxpayers are sick of funding this adventure.

We lost this war the moment it started.

But, as I've argued previously, nations tend to go a little mad after a loss. History is pretty clear on that point: Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese war led to the advance of Communism. Germany's humiliation after World War I aided the rise of Hitler. After France lost to the Prussians in 1870, that nation ruptured culturally in ways reminiscent of America's current red state/blue state divisions.

That's why I fear the post-war period even more than I fear the current war.

We cannot afford to go "a little mad" as those other nations did. America needs to be what it once was -- a nation in which citizens can have opposing viewpoints while still respecting opponents as fellow citizens.

I can't force the Ann Coulters of this world to moderate their tone. All I can do is to try to regain my best self -- and to apologize for the many times when I've stupidly let passion overwhelm civility.

The last time a race riot broke out in my city, the man at the center of the storm, Rodney King, asked his fellow Angelenos to "get along" -- and he added a few words that should be better remembered: "Ain't nobody going anywhere." People made fun of him, but he was right.

Ain't nobody going anywhere.

So we're going to have to find a way to talk to each other.

OKC

Tim McVeigh's co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, has made a startling claim in a recent affidavit (emphasis added by me throughout):

Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says a high-ranking FBI official "apparently" was directing Timothy McVeigh in the plot to blow up a government building and might have changed the original target of the attack, according to a new affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Utah.

The official and other conspirators are being protected by the federal government "in a cover-up to escape its responsibility for the loss of life in Oklahoma," Nichols claims in a Feb. 9 affidavit.

Documents that supposedly help back up his allegations have been sealed to protect information in them, such as Social Security numbers and dates of birth.

My first response: Obviously, Terry Nichols is no-one's idea of an unimpeachable source. He may well be lying to draw attention to himself, or to pursue his continuing political agenda.

On the other hand, the reference to possible confirmatory evidence must give us pause. After the jump, I will present the reasons why we should take Terry Nichols' allegations seriously, and I will offer one suggestion as to just who this hidden "FBI guy" might be. (Please don't comment until you've at least skimmed the material to come.)

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

Conspiracy buffs of a certain stripe will no doubt seize upon this latest claim as "evidence" that Clinton ordered the blast -- a notion I consider ridiculous. Nichols points the finger at the FBI, which had an adversarial relationship with the Clinton administration. Former FBI head Louis Freeh has made clear that he despised the President he worked for -- and I imagine that Freeh had people working beneath him whose feelings ran even deeper.

I well recall the 1994-95 period -- the Winter of Hate, as I call it. By comparison, the much-discussed 1967 Summer of Love had far less impact on society.

During that winter, I was in a position to read many publications from both the left and (especially) the far right. One could smell trouble brewing. Oliver Stone's JFK still had people talking. Satanic Ritual Abuse allegations were everywhere. Roswell and the MJ-12 documents had not yet been exposed as frauds. Danny Casolaro was murdered. The Polly Klaas kidnapping gave birth to a hundred different conspiratorial scenarios. Thousands of right-wingers -- the type of people who had once applauded the MOVE bombings and the Greensboro massacre -- were incensed by the Waco disaster. Whitewater had yet to be exposed as a right-wing put-up job. The militias openly talked treason while waving the flag. Race riots were still a recent memory. The Turner Diaries received a wide readership. A rumor spread that Soviet SPETZNAZ troops had massed at the Mexico-US border, poised for a takeover -- yes, in 1994!

When the federal building in Oklahoma City exploded, my first reaction was not total shock. On a gut level, I somehow knew some ultra-paranoid creep would try a stunt like that, although the scale of the attack certainly came as a horrible surprise.

The original bombs-in-da-building theorists made their appearance in the aftermath of that ghastly event. Right-wingers loved that particular conspiracy theory, just as they've always loved to babble about radionics and Soviet "Scalar" technology and mind-reading helmets and other examples of pseudoscience .

(Ah hell. Might as well get these unpleasant duties out of the way here and now: PLEASE do not presume that I have never laid eyes on the "evidence" offered by Brigadier General Partin and his ultra-reactionary brethren. I'm older and more widely-read than most of you are, and I've been around the block so many times I'm starting to get dizzy. That level of experience doesn't make me right, necessarily, but it does mean that you probably have nothing to say to me that I haven't already heard. I familiarized myself with the "CD in OKC" scenario years ago, and I rejected it. So take it elsewhere. Sorry to be rude, but people ignore polite words these days.)

What really attracted my respectful attention was the sudden appearance of obviously bogus scenarios. A creature named Deborah Von Trapp offered up a particularly wild yarn: According to her, the Japanese engineered the OKC blast in retaliation for the (allegedly) American-sponsored Tokyo subway attacks. She passed this absurd story to a zany conspiracy promoter named Sherman Skolnick, who spread the word throughout the militia community.

The rapid diffusion of this inane "blame Japan" scenario proved that the American fringe no longer needed to season their conspiracy theories with even the subtlest sprinkling of evidence. It also indicated -- to me, at least -- that someone may have intentionally hoped to hide the truth about McVeigh behind a screen of disinformation.

Which meant, of course, that there was a truth to hide.

Eventually, we learned more about McVeigh's time in Elohim City, and of his interactions with the mysterious Andreas Strassmeir. I refer readers to this piece on FBI agent Danny Coulson:

Central to his call for additional investigation are FBI teletypes that were heavily redacted by the agency before their release some weeks ago. Although some sentences and many names are redacted, there was enough information contained in those documents to impress the former OKBOMB commander that more persons were involved in the attack.

Referring to a January 4, 1996 teletype from former director Freeh to a select group of FBI offices, Coulson said that he believes a man he has long suspected should have been more thoroughly investigated in the crime, German National Andreas Strassmeir, is one of the names the bureau has blacked out of those documents.

The following (from 2005) demands careful attention, since it places the latest revelations in proper context:

The plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act case against the FBI – and making use of the teletypes – is Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue. He believes the FBI is hiding evidence that his brother was tortured and murdered in August 1995 during an interrogation at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center.

For years, the FBI has said Kenneth Trentadue hanged himself, but his older brother believes FBI agents killed his ex-convict brother while seeking information about a group of bank bandits associated with McVeigh, Strassmeir and the bombing.

Before McVeigh was executed, Trentadue says he was contacted by an intermediary at the prison where McVeigh was incarcerated and told that McVeigh believed the FBI mistakenly thought Kenneth Trentadue was a man associated with a bank robbery gang linked to the bombing conspiracy.

As we've long known, Strassmeir -- connected to McVeigh in a number of journalistic accounts -- is a former German intelligence officer. Strassmeir is no ordinary right-wing extremist (if ever we could use the words "ordinary" and "extremist" in the same sentence): He is the son of Gunther Strassmeir, the chief of staff for Helmut Kohl, Germany's right-wing chancellor from 1982 to 1998. In other words, he is an extremely well-connected individual.

The younger Strassmeir was (according to various news accounts) associated with former Green Beret Dave Hollaway:

And then there is Hollaway's alleged role as a pilot for the CIA and his well-established relationship with the FBI. However, the most remarkable allegations contained in the Feb. 25, 1997, FBI report, are those regarding Hollaway's eerie admissions that McVeigh failed to park the bomb truck in the best location in front of the Oklahoma City federal building that fateful April morning in 1995.

Although Dave Hollaway hardly can be described as a "high-ranking FBI official," he has been accused of being an undercover agent within the radical right, working for the Bureau. I don't know if that accusation is true, but I do know that it has been made.

Did Terry Nichols, in his affidavit, make a garbled reference to Hollaway?

Let us now return to the afore-cited 2005 piece on FBI agent Danny Coulson -- who seems to be one individual in the Bureau determined to uncover the truth:

McVeigh’s phone records, discovered by the FBI after the bombing, indicate a call was placed to Elohim City on April 5, 1995 – just seconds after a call was made with the same calling card to a Ryder Truck establishment. People the FBI interviewed at the compound said McVeigh was seeking Strassmeir.

A judge in the Salt Lake City federal court has ordered the FBI to turn over to Trentadue documents showing there were informants at Elohim City at the time of the bombing that worked for a private charity – the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

According to those teletypes, SPLC informants were present at Elohim City on April 17 when McVeigh contacted the compound, looking for additional help in the bomb plot.

According to then-director Freeh, McVeigh was looking for extra help with his plans when he called the compound. However, the FBI blacked out much of the person’s name with whom Freeh said McVeigh was closely associated.

Why would they do that?

The Terry Nichols affidavit arose from the above-cited case of Kenneth Trentadue, the poor fellow who allegedly was mistaken for a conspirator and killed in an interrogation that got "out of hand."

McVeigh told him he was recruited for undercover missions while serving in the military, according to Nichols. He says he learned sometime in 1995 that there had been a change in bombing target and that McVeigh was upset by that.

"There, in what I believe was an accidental slip of the tongue, McVeigh revealed the identity of a high-ranking FBI official who was apparently directing McVeigh in the bomb plot," Nichols says in the affidavit.

McVeigh had tried to join the Special Forces but did not qualify. This attempt may have brought him into the orbit of Hollaway, a Special Forces operative with alleged ties to American intelligence.

I am not accusing Hollaway or Strassmeir of any illegal activities. I would be delighted to print their sides of the story, should they care to present their responses in this forum.

All I am trying to do here is to establish reasons why we should not dismiss the Nichols affidavit out of hand. I am arguing that one cannot hope to get at the real truth until one has pushed aside the disinformation. In the aftermath of the OKC tragedy, pseudoscientific nonsense and simplistic "blame the prez-dent" scenarios deflected attention away from the real lingering mysteries.

And not for the last time.

A final note: Over the past decade or so, I've heard the persistent rumor -- and it is just a rumor -- that McVeigh's ties to the deceased Arizona militia leader (and flamboyant crackpot) Milton William Cooper ran much deeper than published accounts would have us believe. Again, I know of no evidence to back that claim. I pass it along only because it might spur some researcher in the audience to dig deeper into that territory. Who knows what might turn up?

W War III

We are mere hours away from the deadline imposed on Iran for the suspension of uranium enrichment -- a deadline which Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will probably ignore. Peter Symonds of the WSWS has compiled all the ominous signs indicating war with Iran.

A BBC report on Monday made clear that the Pentagon has completed contingency planning for extensive air strikes on Iran that go “beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country’s military infrastructure”. The article continued: “It is understood that any such attack—if ordered—would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.”

And:

“British military sources told the New Statesman, on condition of anonymity, that ‘the US military switched its whole focus to Iran’ as soon as Saddam Hussein was kicked out of Baghdad. It continued this strategy, even though it had American infantry bogged down in fighting the insurgency in Iraq. The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for ‘Operation Iranian Freedom’.”

What is significant about the BBC report is that it identified two “triggers”, demonstrating that an attack on Iran is under active discussion. According to security correspondent Frank Gardner, the first was “any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon”. This trigger provides a sweeping excuse for military action, as the Bush administration insists that Tehran already has a nuclear weapons program, despite the lack of definite proof and repeated denials by the Iranian regime.

Turns out Iran really does feel the need for nuclear power, due to shrinking oil production -- or so reports the Wall Street Journal, in a story summarized by Raw Story here.

Iran's citizenry has always pointed to the nation's nuclear program as a source of pride, and they would react with bitterness toward any leader who tried to shut down the program. Neoconservatives would have you believe that in the wake of American airstrikes, a popular uprising within that country will take down the Iranian leadership. That scenario is pure fantasy.

Other bloggers

Marcy "emptywheel" Wheeler, one of our favorite bloggers (even if I cannot follow all the details of Plamegate) tells RAW Story that she thinks Fitz may really be after Cheney. What she has to say on her own site is even more intriguing:

I feel sure today that Cheney honestly saw himself responding to a plot against him.

Maybe he was. People in various agencies must have been aware of some things during May and June as the Wilson iceberg approached.

Meanwhile, Brad Friedman -- who has also been doing good Plamegate work of late -- is reaching out to his readers for help. If any one man deserves credit for making election reform a national issue, that man is Brad Friedman. He deserves your support.

Romance in the Oval Office

No doubt you have already heard of this report that Bush once promised that if he ever caught Osama Bin Laden, "I will screw him in the ass!" A correspondent tells me he does not take this as a reference to homosexuality, "but more of a power reference. Power through humiliation."

My response: "I dunno. I like to picture W saying those words in a soft voice, with a wistful look in his eye, as he glanced out over the rose garden..." On the other hand, we should keep in mind that Jiminy-Jeffety is a Top.

Re: Returning (Eternally)

dr. elsewhere here

Not exactly Nietschze, but you catch the drift.

I’ve thought long and hard about how to re-enter the blogosphere after all this time, but I keep coming up short. And soft, in the head.

A few interesting things happened on my various journeys, so I’ll share some of them with you. Hopefully, you’ll find something interesting here, too.

For starters, there is nothing in life so wonderful as visiting family and friends. I’ve taken two distant and extended trips since I last surfaced, and the time was almost entirely about family and friends. Someone once shared with me her grandmother’s response to that eternal question, do you have any regrets as your life nears its end? I wish I’d spent more time with my friends, came the sincere reply.

I wish that on each of you; not the regret, but the time with your friends, in great abundance. Make time to do that, with frequency. Place it at the top of your priority list, without fail.

Life’s too damn short.

There is also this blessing of visiting distant places, though Atlanta and Seattle are hardly Paris or Bangkok. But still, a different setting is always good for broadening your horizons and refreshing your perspective.

I also wish that on each of you, a chance to view new horizons and get fresh perspectives on …things. In fact, I have always felt this should be required of each citizen, that we each spend time in at least one other place, preferably one other place inside the country, and one other place outside the country. Though more and more visiting inside this country is harder and harder to distinguish between cities and even regions, so pervasively WalMarted and Starbucked we’ve become. That trend is taking over the world, it seems. Is there anyone anywhere who does not have financial stake in this trend who can say this is a good thing? I think not.

I didn’t really get exposed too much to this trend while traveling the eastern seaboard over the holidays, as I generally stayed out of the cities when I reached my destinations. Though the toll road pit stops have really become quite the little mini-mall centers, replete with – you guessed it – Starbucks. Sigh. At least I knew I could get a soy chai latte.

On the west coast, though, spent almost all my time in Seattle and Portland, and I have to say, these are beautiful cities. I’ve long been enamored with Seattle, and now a real good ol’ buddy has a 9th floor condo with a view of the Space Needle and the Olympic Mountains and Lake Union and the sound. Really cool, especially the view of the Paul Allen Experience Music Project, designed by Frank Gehry. Quite the place. My fave, of course, was the Hendrix exhibit (Seattle is mighty proud of their home boy). Spent over an hour in there reminiscing. Yes, folks, I can claim to have seen the god himself twice in concert. And yes, he was a god.
(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)


Seattle and Portland are both fabulous cities, especially progressive in areas like mass transit and recycling (even in the airport!) and promoting green areas and the like. So those of you hailing from that part of the world, thanks for all your work toward these fine results.

However, one thing really bothered me in both locations. There was a truly disturbing abundance of homelessness. Almost every corner, it seemed. Panhandling, hunger, despair. Of course, the "reason" for this "abundance" of "want" is actually embedded in the progressive nature of these cities, where both have active and relatively generous programs for the homeless. All that generosity attracts the homeless in droves, and they are grateful.

As a tourist, I make a point to avoid carrying any cash when I’m walking alone in cities, so I often had to say I had nothing to give. And in every single case, these folks (almost all of them guys) thanked me with kindness and courtesy; not a hint of bitterness or cynicism. But oh, the hopelessness, and the shame.

This was particularly heart-breaking in contrast to the remarkable abundance everywhere, all those restaurants and tony boutiques and Microsoft millions. Er, billions. Still, it is such injustice that these folks must suffer the absence of such a basic human need, a place to live. All the generosity from all that wealth will not change the fundamental problem; where there is justice there is no need for charity.

There lies the other half of my revelatory returnings: can’t get enough of our friends, ever, but neither can we give enough to our needy strangers. Poverty is not the result of a healthy society, it is the result of a greedy one. And we are members of this unhealthy, greedy society.

An old friend once wrote a really cool line in a song: Take what’s left, you come out ahead every time; one for the money is too many.

America’s capitalistic greed is deeply embedded in our history; just read Zinn. I don’t know quite how to undo all that, and I don’t even know if it’s possible to reverse any of it, we’re so entrenched in consumption. As frugal and minimalist as I try to be, my flights alone consumed enormous energy and lined deep, bulging pockets. The very fact that we’re communicating right now via computers and the net actually feeds into a remarkably pervasive cult of consumption, however spare the rest of our lives might be.

But my long absence from the Cannonfire frontline has made me wonder just how much I can count these often self-indulgent rants as any effort toward a better world. I know it may contribute to a cumulative positive effect, but is that enough? I know it’s not working toward a worse world, but is that enough? I can’t help but ask, regardless of the effort or intent, where can I look for a result that shows it makes a real difference?

I noticed upon each of my eternal returns that, although much had happened, most everything remained the same. The world is still just as insane as ever, and the bad guys are still responsible and they’re still bad as ever. Lots of details have shifted, but it’s still a large version of neighborhood gossip, this keeping up with the news. History as yesterday’s scuttlebutt.

So Joe and I are both belly-aching about this blogging thang, but for different reasons, each as valid as the other, neither more noble or more whiney. I honestly don’t know how he manages to continue digging deeper and deeper and finding more and more dirt and writing more and more truth, only to get the most active responses from crackpot readers. What could be more disillusioning? I don’t know how he has kept going, but I sure hope he'll keep it going, however much I understand his particular brand of frustration.

My frustration? I’m not sure it’s the blogging that frustrates me; reality is doing a bang-up job of that. I’m just unloading opinion, frustrated opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t claim any particular wisdom, no unique understanding, no special insights. Just lots of questions. Lots and lots and lots of frustrated questions, posing as opinion.

And maybe the odd observation now and again. My next post will share an observation of a dear old friend. Who happens to be a born again, fundamentalist Christian rightwingnut Bush fanatic. Who happens to be a wonderful, gentle, kind, loving, generous, devoted friend.

Go figure.

How’s that for the ultimate eternal return, spinning so many seeming opposites and contradictions into one person? I count him as, in addition to being a treasured pal, an opportunity to truly understand what lies in and at the heart of a man such as this. To my mind, this understanding holds a key to bridging this gaping divide in our country, and in the world.

Stay tuned….

Christofascism and Fascism: Further thoughts

In the post below, we asked a couple of simple yet difficult questions:

1. Can we fairly use the term "Christofascist" to describe the modern tendency toward Dominionism or theocracy?

2. What, exactly, is fascism?

Readers offered thoughtful responses. One in particular deserves additional attention:

Some months back Lewis H. Lapham made an interesting case that the present Bush regime is fascist, using the essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt by Umberto Eco...

I think it's a pretty good definition. I particularly like its reference to four apparently diverse regimse that most people would say are "fascist:" Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin. I would also point out that it predates (1995) the current American administration.

Christofascist?

Cult of tradition: check.

Rejection of modernism: check.

Action for action's sake: Not sure.

Disagreement is treason: check.

Fear of difference: check.

Appeal to a frustrated middle class: check.

Obsession with a plot (War on Christmas, anyone?): Check.

Humiliation by ostentatious wealth of the enemy (Hollywood?): check.

Life is permanent warfare: not sure.

Contempt for the weak: not sure.

Cult of heroic death: not sure.

Obsession with sexual matters: check.

Selective populism: check.

Newspeak: check.

Not as compelling as the case Lapham made for GWB, but not far off the definition.

I would put a double check after the "Cult of heroic death" tab. After all, the entire religion got its start with a heroic death.

Contempt for the weak? Nearly all Christians would vehemently deny that they feel any such thing. But recently we have seen the growth of ministries espousing what has been called the "gospel of prosperity" -- the belief that God financially rewards the faithful and thus (presumably) punishes those on the lower end of the economic scale.

Life as permanent warfare? Certainly the theocrats view mortal life as permanent spiritual warfare. Beyond that, I think no-one can deny that the areas of the country where theocracy has the greatest appeal also tend to be the areas with strong military traditions.

Action for action's sake? I think we can make a case. Certainly, we can all admit that in the world of the televangelists we often see drama for drama's sake. There is always a new cause, a new crusade, a new goal, a new challenge, new reasons for hostesses with massive hairdos and an overabundance of makeup to weep and to caterwaul and to beg for coin.

Obsession with putative evil plots? Oh yes, and we can go far beyond that nonsense about a "war on Christmas." Indeed, this is the area where we can point to definite links between the Nazis and our modern fundies. Old-school fascists such as Nesta Webster and Gerald Winrod propagated the conspiratorial myth of the Illuminati -- a myth resurrected after the war by the John Birch Society. Tim LaHaye, a leading JBS member in California, injected that mythos into modern evangelical Christianity. Pat Robertson quoted Nesta and Eustace Mullins (a disciple of Pound) in his book The New World Order.

And then there's the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" hoax. Back in 1995 or 1996, when the world wide web was still quite young, I made the experiment of typing the term "Christian" into the AltaVista search engine (the best search function of that time). Of the first ten web sites that came up, eight of them either contained some version of the Protocols or contained a link to another site that referenced the Protocols. That is no longer the case, of course. Still, I think of that experiment every time I read about Christian Zionism.

Of course, we can never identify fundamentalist Christianity with fascism. Two circles can overlap without being congruent. There is an even larger degree of overlap between fascism and what was, until recently, called the "New Age" underground -- a subject which should one day give rise to a very long and very weird book.

We still have not addressed the question of economics. Fascists have always had wildly divergent economic views, a fact which both fascists and anti-fascists hate to admit. Disciples of any given economic doctrine are thus free to denounce opponents as fascists. Soviet propagandists decried fascism as "the final stage of capitalism," while far-right propagandists in this country denounced Bolshevism and Nazism as two branches of the same tree. Most post-war fascists have embraced the ideology of unrestrained capitalism -- but a little-known fascist strain, best espoused by Francis Yockey (author of Imperium) considered American-style capitalism even more despicable than Soviet-style communism. I'd hate to be the economist tasked with convincing that world that the economic system now in place in China differs markedly from what we saw in the Third Reich.

Despite Eco's highly useful list, we still lack a proper definition of the term fascist. Until we have one, people will continue to use that word to describe any individual, movement or concept they don't like.

What is fascism?

I may have judged Amanda Marcotte, formerly of the Edwards campaign, rather hastily. I ask you to read her apologia, which is here.

In the back-and-forth with the readers, she defends her use of the term "Christofascist," which she considers an acceptable example of satirical rhetoric. One reader suggests that the term can be used non-satirically, and offers this definition: Christofascism is the view that "the laws of the state should be dictated by Christian belief, as described by a minority of Christian believers."

I have no problem with this term.

Unlike many others on the left, I also have no problem accepting the terms Islamofascist and Judeofascist. Obvious example of a Christofascist: Gerald L.K. Smith. Obvious example of an Islamofascist: The Grand Mufti. Obvious example of a Judeofascist: David Raziel.

Alas, I'm not sure I have a workable definition of fascism.

That word, like "pornography," eludes a precise classification, although most of us claim to know it when we see it. In common speech, we conflate rather too easily the concepts of fascism and compulsion. Anthony Burgess used to joke that his students would call him a "fascist" every time he assigned a little reading.

Benito Mussolini once famously defined fascism as "corporatism." But this does not explain the mystical element which is almost always present in fascism; one may call (say) Julius Evola a fascist sympathizer without accusing him of worshiping at the altar of corporatism. Neither does this definition offer any explanation for the anti-capitalist strain found in such fascist writers as Feder, Strasser and Pound.

Geroge Orwell -- who may still be the best guide for all who venture into this territory -- here discusses the problem of summarizing what we mean by "fascism," and offers a potential solution:

When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Petain, Montagu Norman, Pavelitch, William Randolph Hearst, Streicher, Buchman, Ezra Pound, Juan March, Cocteau, Thyssen, Father Coughlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Arnold Lunn, Antonescu, Spengler, Beverley Nichols, Lady Houston, and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings.

If you think you can add to Orwell's words, I'm all ears.