Thursday, June 16, 2005

Karen Kwiatkowski - Unleashing the Resistance

by Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. - a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon.


The Downing Street Memo explains in brisk understated English what I didn’t fully understand when I worked for Secretary Rumsfeld and Dough Feith in the Pentagon in 2002 and early 2003.

Like a morning cup of tea in a friendly chair with nothing to do but gaze out a window at birds around a feeder, the memo is pleasantly comforting.

I saw accurately what was happening .

Yet, as Robert Shetterly and others have pointed out , accountability for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the war gamers is not likely. At this time, impeachment for Bush and Cheney is politically impossible.

A successful impeachment, or any accountability for the executive branch requires a certain balance of political power. Optimistically envisioned by the Founders, this balance was tenuous even in the early years of the Republic.

GEORGE W. BUSH SAID IT BEST AFTER THE 2004 ELECTIONS WITH: "[MY] ACCOUNTABILITY MOMENT HAS PASSED."

Today we have not even a shadow of the Nixon or Clinton era political and media power competition. Instead, we see only unbalanced power, unbalanced perspective, unbalanced minds. A warped political-media borg warning us that resistance is futile.

The mass state, while obscenely expensive, dangerous and even ridiculous, is the present reality of the United States. Imminent federal biometric ID cards courtesy of the REAL ID Act are just one more symbol of this ongoing massification and American totalitarianism.

The Congress won’t impeach – to impeach its heart, its hands, or its head is to commit suicide. A pleasant fantasy for the rest of us, but that is all.

Interestingly, the Downing Street Memo is actually being reported by CNN and FOX News. It is being discussed in the major papers. Congress intends to examine it.

Hearing it mentioned on the half hour by CNN Headline News has not dispossessed me of the belief that a state suicide is impossible.

THUS, MY GENTLE THOUGHTS ARE INCREASINGLY TURNING TO MURDER. MURDER OF THE STATE. IN SELF-DEFENSE, OF COURSE!

LRC’s Butler Shaffer, eminently wise as always, points out that "we would be better advised to confront our own existential cowardice. Political leaders amass power only through our moral exhaustion; they are strong only because we have allowed ourselves to become weak ."

To murder the state you need strong citizens who understand their rights, have honed their abilities and stocked their mental and physical arsenal, and have adopted the quiet determination and moral confidence that often appears as fearlessness, but is not.

We might take a lesson from the growing Iraqi insurgency and the response of that nation nearly destroyed by our pretext-laden invasion and the American neo-Jacobin possession of that country.

The U.S. Army wonders about the robustness and fluidity of the hard to catch and harder to kill insurgents. Clearly, all Iraqi insurgents do not swear allegiance to any single creed or leader. Understanding this and dealing with Fourth Generation warfare is not Washington’s forte.

It remains wrong and immoral to demonstrate our government’s arrogance, greed and incompetence each dreadful day in Iraq. But it is a helpful demonstration for patriotic Americans at home.

How do the Iraqi insurgents do it? How are they defending themselves from the oppressive U.S. managed state in Baghdad? How are they killing it?

They know what they don’t want, and have made a personal commitment to resist it.

They are living at reduced standards, not only within or under their means but often proudly and creatively so, relying upon and strengthening extended networks of family and friends as they do.

The majority of Iraqis are angry, hurt, underemployed and under extreme stress. Yet most have not rejected or blamed God. Most retain a devotion to a religion, that like most, gathers its believers together, studies great and holy men and women, and attempts to explain human suffering while simultaneously embracing an all powerful God, whose creatures include both beasts of the field and the American enemy.

They don’t trust the central government in Baghdad. They judge the American state's intent solely from the American state's actions, never its words.

They are wary of state efforts at law enforcement, and work hard to stay out of its dangerous and lumbering way.

They love their country, and have no intention of permanently leaving its future in the hands of either the Americans or beholden U.S. allies in the region, be they of Saudi, Kuwaiti, Turkish or Israeli persuasion.

Some resist passively, some actively. They don’t understand everything that is happening, but most Iraqis have decided to pursue one or more of the countless paths of resistance to the state. Iraqis, like Russians and East Europeans before them, honed these skills under Saddam Hussein, as we hone our skills today in early totalitarian America.

ALL ARE QUALIFIED TO RESIST. NONE ARE EXCLUDED.

French-born composer and musician Nadia Boulanger , a major influence on American music in the 20th century, once said:

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

"Liberty" is also a concept George W. Bush favors. He said "liberty" fifteen times in his 2005 inaugural speech, second only to his 25 mentions of "freedom." Bush didn’t specifically advocate the murder, or even the restraint, of the state. On the other hand, perhaps he did.

THE WAY AHEAD IS CLEAR. WE SHOULD PROMOTE OUR GREAT LEADER’S LOVE OF LIBERTY AND RESIST, RESIST, RESIST!

[end item] - June 15, 2005

Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D., [send her mail ] is a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley, and among other things, writes a bi-weekly column on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for militaryweek.com . Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com

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The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Av.

From: palast@gregpalast.com - Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 - To: fpf@chello.nl - Subject:

Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue

Greg Palast, unable to attend hearings in Washington Thursday, has submitted the following testimony: "Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil."

Chairman Conyers,

It's official: The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls." You are warned, Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and "opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush.

On May 5, "blog" site Buzzflash.com carried my story, IMPEACHMENT TIME: "FACTS WERE FIXED," bringing the London Times report of the Downing Street memo to US media which seemed to be suffering at the time from an attack of NADD -- "news attention deficit disorder."

The memo, which contains the ill-making admission that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" to match the Iraq-crazed fantasies of our President, is sufficient basis for a hearing toward impeachment of the Chief Executive. But to that we must add the other evidence and secret memos and documents still hidden from the American public.

Other foreign-based journalists could doubtless add more, including the disclosure that the key inspector of Iraq's biological weapons, the late Dr. David Kelly, found the Bush-Blair analysis of his intelligence was indeed "fixed," as the Downing Street memo puts it, around the war-hawk policy.

Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.

February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.

On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained, "It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime."

March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose -- see below.

October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department "coup" plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. And elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the "sale of all state enterprises" -- that is, most of the nation's assets, "∑ especially in the oil and supporting industries."

2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting "property rights." The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.

Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. "There were plans," says Carroll, "maybe even too many plans" -- but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.

January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.

March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls "Operations Iraqi Liberation" (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom.)

March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output. Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride. He swears, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. ∑We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon," a deliberate fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as "part of the sales pitch" for war.

May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq, is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general revealed in an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off Iraq's oil and national assets.

"That's just one fight you don't want to take on," Garner told me. But apparently, the White House wanted that fight.

The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:

"All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't start them in 2002, they were started in 2001."

November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even after the invasion. The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page plan, "Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry." Per the industry plan, the US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum.

THE STONE WALL

Harper's and BBC obtained the plans despite official denial of their existence, then footdragging when confronted with the evidence of the reports' existence.

Still today, the State and Defense Departments and White House continue to stonewall our demands for the notes of the meetings between lobbyists, oil industry consultants and key Administration officials that would reveal the hidden economic motives for the war.

What are the secret interests behind this occupation? Who benefits? Who met with whom? Why won't this Administration release these documents of the economic blueprint for the war?

To date, the State and Defense Department responses to our reports are risible, and their answers to our requests for documents run from evasive to downright misleading. Maybe Congress, with it's power of subpoena, can do better.

BLOGS, THE MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY

Let me conclude with a comment about those pesky "blogs" that so bother the New York Times. We should stand and offer a moment of quiet gratitude to the electronic swarm of gadfly commentators who make it so much harder for the US media to ignore news not officially blessed. Yes, Judith Miller's breathless reports for The Times that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction may have maintained "access" for the mainstream press to its diet of White House propaganda, but the blogs insure that, whatever nonsense the US press is biting on, the public need not swallow.

********
This week Greg Palast's investigative team was named winner of a 2004-5 Project Censored award from the California State University at Sonoma Journalism School for their exposé of the secret US plans to seize Iraq's oil assets. Special thanks to the chief investigator on Iraq, Leni von Eckardt, as well as additional support from Matt Pascarella. The investigation was conducted for Harper's Magazine, BBC Television Newsnight and "blog" outlet TomPaine.com.

View the BBC television reports and the Harper's and related reports at www.GregPalast.com

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CNN - ANP: Venezuela and international media

The FPF fully shares the views of Senior Editor and estimated writer Oscar Heck, who, in the article below, again is showing how the neocon's information-industry spreads lies to make their manipulative and deadly mix of misleading information. Warmongering propaganda which through 'their' media is presented - and used by many - as "News".

AP or CNN: Senior Editor Oscar Heck on how news is manipulated.
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=37680

No one criticized former Venezuelan presidents for being friends with Fidel Castro

by Oscar Heck

June 15 - 2005 - Associated Press (AP) and CNN appear to be on the same bandwagon as Venezuela's privately-owned anti-Chavez media ... spreading subversive and manipulated information against Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's democratically-elected President. CNN published and AP article (a news report, not an editorial) on June 13, 2005, entitled " Venezuelans demand extradition of bombing suspect."

The report sounds like something that Globovision, El Nacional or El Universal would have published, making a marked point to highlight Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' relationship with Cuba's President, Fidel Castro .. even though the report is specifically about Venezuela's request for the US government to extradite Posada, a former CIA operative who is wanted in Venezuela on charges regarding his implication in the bombing of a commercial airliner which reportedly killed 73 people in 1976.

(Globovision, El Nacional and El Universal are three of the "traditional" or "corporate" Venezuelan news sources, one television station and two newspapers, which joined the Venezuelan opposition in promoting the sabotage of the country in 2002 and 2003 during the opposition's attempts to "get rid of Chavez" through a coup and by destabilizing the country.)

I don't remember anyone criticizing or ostracizing former Venezuelan presidents, Carlos Andres Perez or Marcos Perez Jimenez, for being friends with Fidel Castro. So why is the US media trying to make Chavez look bad because of his friendship with Fidel Castro? When AP states, "Chavez has close ties with Cuban President Fidel Castro," it isn't saying that the fact that Chavez has close ties with Castro is a "bad thing," it is implying it.

WHY DOES AP GO OUT OF ITS WAY

AP (and CNN) know that most USA readers believe that Fidel Castro is an "evil commie" ... a "threat" to the USA and to "democracy." Therefore, for many readers, if Chavez has "close ties" to Castro, Chavez must also be an "evil commie" ... or at least a "commie" ... and a potential "threat" to the USA and to "democracy." So, why highlight Chavez' relationship with Castro in this (and many other) AP reports? Why does AP go out of its way to mention Chavez' friendship with Castro, twice in the same report?

The report states: "Castro, who is Chavez's closest ally in Latin America, has demanded Posada be extradited to Venezuela, not communist-led Cuba ... Chavez, a self-styled 'revolutionary' and outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, said it would be hypocritical for Washington not to turn Posada over while talking about getting tough on terrorism. Chavez has close ties with Cuban President Fidel Castro."

To state, "Castro, who is Chavez's closest ally in Latin America" is a subversive statement ... with negative implications. In other words, if Castro is an "enemy" of the USA (which is what most people in the USA seem to believe) and if Chavez and Castro are "allies," then it is reasonable to assume that many readers will infer that Chavez is also an "enemy" of the USA.

RIGHT? THIS IS HOW NEWS IS MANIPULATED.

AP also uses the description, "communist-led Cuba" in the same report. As far as I can see, the only other country for which this description (communist-led) seems to be popular these days is North Korea. Now that China has become a business "ally" of the USA, we no longer really hear, "communist-led China." In other words, the description "communist-led" appears to be usually used when the "communist-led" country is considered at "threat" to the USA.

Even though Cuba is too small to be a threat to the USA and even though North Korea is too far away, it remains a fact that both North Korea and Cuba are labeled as "threats" by the US government ... and it remains a fact that many people in the USA believe that Cuba and North Korea are "threats" to the USA ... even if they are not. Thus, as far as communist countries go, Cuba and North Korea are "communist-led" ... and it seems that is must be repeated over and over and over by the US "corporate media."

Furthermore, when reading the AP article, some readers will automatically assume that Venezuela is communist country ... because they will assume that Chavez is a "commie." (Venezuela is not a communist country, far from it. It is perhaps the most democratic country in the world.)

Now, I must assume that the people who write for AP and CNN are not stupid. They must know what they are doing, and they most certainly know when and how to say what ... and how words and phrases can be interpreted by readers. They are in the business. I also suspect that they consider themselves to be "professional." I find this AP report (as many of their reports) to be unprofessional and intentionally manipulative.

Now, if AP writers are "professional," then who is "forcing" the writers to write such manipulative statements? The editors? Maybe the editors are also "told" how to edit? Where do the guidelines come from? If the editors are "told" how to do their job, then the guidelines must come from above, I suppose. But who is above the editor? The publisher? The owners?

WHO OWNS CNN?

According to information on the internet, CNN is owned by Time-Warner-AOL, which also apparently donated 1.6 million ($) to Bush's 2000 campaign. (I don't know how or where people get such information, but I suspect that it is true. At least, it is highly probable. Also see: Boycott Bush website for the list of the 25 top donators to Bush's Republican Party - 1999-2003.)

WHO OWNS AP?

According to AP's website: "The Associated Press is a not-for-profit cooperative, which means it is owned by its 1,500 US daily newspaper members. They elect a board of directors that directs the cooperative."

BUT ... AS FAR AS I CAN FIND OUT, IT APPEARS THAT NO ONE CAN FIND OUT WHO EXACTLY IS ON THE BOARD OF AP.

According to an October 23, 2004 article by Lynn Landes:

"The Associated Press (AP) will be the sole source of raw vote totals for the major news broadcasters on Election Night. However, AP spokesmen Jack Stokes and John Jones refused to explain to this journalist how the AP will receive that information. They refused to confirm or deny that the AP will receive direct feed from voting machines and central vote tabulating computers across the country. But, circumstantial evidence suggests that is exactly what will happen ...

Their board of directors is elected by voting ''bonds". However, it is not clear who controls the bonds. AP spokespeople would not give out information on who sits on their board, however AP leadership appears quite conservative."
In 2003, Louis D. Boccardi was president of AP. Louis D. Boccardi also sits/sat on the board of directors of Gannett, which owns USA Today, the USA's most sold newspaper.

Gannett also owns many other newspapers throughout the USA and the United Kingdom and television stations in the USA ... and, coincidentally, the following:

Army Times
Navy Times
Navy Times
Marine Corps
Air Force Times
Federal Times
Defense News
Military Market
Now it makes sense!

In summary: CNN is owned by a company which apparently donated 1.6 million ($) to Bush and AP appears to indirectly support the US military, which is under Bush's control.

It is becoming clear to me that both AP and CNN "must" publish information which conforms to the whims of the US government and to Bush's aspirations. CNN and/or AP "cannot" write against US-government policies .. or against US government foreign policies. CNN and/or AP "cannot" write against US-government policies regarding Venezuela.

CNN and AP "must" follow suit ... they "must" write in favor and in support of the US government ... they "must" follow the US State Department's rhetoric about Chavez, which they often do. Remember people.

If AP and CNN have loyalty to Bush and to the US Military (as they appear to have) AP and CNN may not necessarily have loyalty to the truth.

IF THIS SEEMS LIKE A CONSPIRACY, IT IS.

How can we expect to receive accurate and objective news if the people who own the "corporate" media (the media which most people depend on, such as AP and CNN) have loyalty to Bush and/or to the US government and/or to the US military? To exacerbate the situation, AP's motto is "The essential global news network" ... and according to their website:

242 total bureaus worldwide
1,700 US daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers
5,000 radio/TV outlets taking AP
1,000 AP Radio Network affiliates taking AP Network News
330 International broadcasters who receive AP's global video news service, APTN, and SNTV, a sports joint venture video service.
8,500 International subscribers who receive AP news and photos
121 number of countries served by AP
5 languages, including English, German, Dutch, French and Spanish. The report is translated into many more languages by international subscribers.
3,700 AP editorial, communications and administrative employees worldwide.

These are scary statistics ... considering that AP seems to support US-government policy. Scarier yet, is the thought that AP might somehow be linked to The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) ... a Washington-based organization which promotes US world dominance, economic, social and military. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz signees of the PNAC. So is Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

According to the Center for Security Policy website, Frank Gaffney (a signee of the PNAC) has also written editorials which have been published, amongst others, in USA Today, the newspaper owned by Gannett, on whose board of directors sits/sat the former president of AP.

Is this coincidental?

Perhaps ... perhaps not.

Is it possible that AP's 242 bureaus throughout the world are really covers for CIA operatives?

Finally, when AP and/or CNN make any references to Chavez, keep this in mind:

Perhaps they are not telling you the truth.

They may want to twist your minds and lead you down the path of deception and into the web of their masked support for US foreign policy.

Oscar Heck

[end item] - Url.: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=37680

oscar@vheadline.com

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FPF Footnotes:

* HOW HATE MEDIA INCITED THE COUP AGAINST THE VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT - Le Monde Diplomatique - Url.: http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela

* HR: My conclusion - based on decades of experience - is that absolutely NONE of the major so called 'news agencies' can be trusted : they are all falsifying the facts: "their" 'international news agencies' kill honest journalism. - Url.: http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=3004

* In earlier times the Netherlands had a 'National News Agency' called ANP - (Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau) which now is owned by the ill famous dutch multinational 'Fentener van Vlissingen'.

What one - nationally in Holland and internationally - gets in text and pictures 'on the wire' from the so called 'Dutch ANP', is 'their information' made the way 'Dutch industry', the US/Israeli multinationals running the Netherlands - want you to have it, serving their malignant neocon scheme to people kept ignorant. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7ory9

* ANP/Fentener - SHV - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/66erx

* US VOTERS SKEPTICAL: ASSOCIATED PRESS DECIDES ? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5zosu

* Reporters without Honour - RSF - http://tinyurl.com/dvh7w

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