Monday, January 02, 2006

Tomdispatch: The Political Folly Awards of 2005

A Year of Folly Revisited

Note to readers: Tomdispatch returns in the New Year full of hope and with as complete an account as possible of the Political Folly Awards of 2005, sponsored, of course, by the full Tomdispatch team.

It was a resplendent event -- you had to be there to fully appreciate it (and to catch the parties afterwards) -- a genuine who isn't who of the political, media, and comedy worlds. So here's my award-by-award account, the very best I could scribble down, of the festivities that caught the spirit of our now dearly departed last year in the shade. Tom

The Political Folly Awards of 2005

By Tom Engelhardt

As with bestselling books by big authors from publishing conglomerates and Oscar-winning films from giant studios, so, when it comes to the Political Folly Awards, the famed PFs, ever fewer members of the Bush administration and associated bureaucrats, spooks, and Pentagon officials took ever more of them in 2005.

Unfortunately, our secret panel of judges, all former members of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (or FISA) courts, saw no alternative but to distribute the PFs as they did. We want, however, to give you our ironclad guarantee of probity as we run through the winners for 2005: No unwarranted decisions were made this year.

The newly minted "Complete Victory" Award, known in previous years as the "Mission Accomplished" Award, goes to President George W. Bush. It was bestowed to honor his sudden declaration on November 30, 2005 , against a backdrop of "Plan for Victory" signs, that we would settle for nothing less than the whole shebang in Iraq, right down to the unconditional surrender of whomever it was we were fighting.

The President drove home his point by using the word "victory" a record-breaking 15 times in that speech and once in its title ("President Outlines Strategy for Victory in Iraq"); meanwhile, the administration issued a 35-page "strategy document," supposedly from the Pentagon, on how to successfully fight the insurgency. The document was, in fact, written by Peter D. Feaver , a Duke University spec! ialist on wartime public opinion, and as Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post commented, was "principally designed to prove" that Bush had a strategy. All this left our heads spinning!

The citation for this award -- that accompanied the traditional winged plastic turkey statuette -- was written for our judges by an Iraqi commentator, Ghassan Attiyah , who summed up their feelings in a single mission-accomplished sentence: "In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two new Talibans in Iraq."

And Ghassan, ever modest, didn't mention the half of it. After all, in the same blindingly short period, our President managed to spread democracy to the Middle East by opening the way fo! r a Shiite theocratic government in Baghdad guaranteed to be c! losely a ligned with the theocratic government of Iran whose shaky leader recently declared the Holocaust to be a figment of the modern Jewish and European imagination! Congratulations, George. And it all comes from skipping the frills and emphasizing the fundamental(ism)s!

The Most Imperial Vice President Award proved, for yet another year, to be a contest of one... and the winner was [redacted].

Please note, if you read further, you will be investigated. If, however, some branch or agency of the U.S. government is already investigating you, as is likely if you are an American or have ever sent an e-message like, "Virginia, the Afghan rug is unraveling. I'd love another one for my birthday. Your loving niece [name withheld]," then read on -- the damage is already done.

The Mission Leap Award (until this year, the Mission Creep Award, also known as the Security Begins Under Your Bed Award) went to the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity or CIFA. This new counterterrorism agency grew in three brief years from a small coordinating office located in a five-sided broom closet into "an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority" (as well as a sizeable secret budget).

Without oversight itself, it now oversees a data-mining operation including a database codenamed Talon that contained surveillance reports on peaceful American civilian protests and demonstrations. It was, one PF judge commented, the best mission-leap example of the militarization of civilian counterintelligence seen in years.

According to our panel of judges, this was the most hotly contested category in the competition. After all, as the year ended, we learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) was warrantlessly harvesting unknown but vast numbers of domestic conversations and emails via the American telecommunication system's main arteries (and passing some of the information gleaned on to other government agencies); that FBI and Department of Energy teams were trolling Washington DC Muslim communities and institutions (and entering private property without warrants) looking for nuclear bombs, while the FBI was obtaining controversial "national security letters" to g! ain secret access to the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans (and depositing anything learned, even from those not suspected of wrongdoing, in permanent government data banks); that the New York City Police Department was conducting illegal surveillance of "people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident";

and that, despite much negative publicity this year, the CIA program known as GST , which includes the Agency's "extraordinary rendition" or kidnapping operations, its secret fleet of planes to transport kidnapped terror suspects around the globe, its network of secret prisons outside the U.S., and its enhanced ability to mine financial records and eavesdrop on suspects, has not even been slightly de! nted.

For this, according to A. John Radsan, assistant genera! l counse l at the CIA from 2002 to 2004, the CIA can thank the "personal commitment" of a President who "seems to relish the secret findings and the dirty details of operations."

FPF-fwd. : Pls. click here to read more of this dispatch.

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Russia vs Ukraine: KGB stops gas to CIA

Democracy's Rapid Deployment Force? Bush promised to support young democracies: a special corps of federal workers that will deploy quickly to help foreign governments in crisis - or growing cold - like in the Ukraine.

by Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF - Europe - 02 Jan 2006 - The halting of the gas by Russia to Ukraine is actually no more than a blunt 'Halt' by former KGB secret service Head Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, to the CIA formed puppet government in Ukraine. That's why too Russia again has warned Ukraine against the present siphoning of transit gas, and blames Ukraine for all negative effects possible in European countries.

Objectively seen, it's just another draw in the 'Great Game' - the Russian/US turf war concerning the ownership of Europe, it's military bases and the natural resources. Ex-KGB boss Putin tells the CIA's 'National Endowment for Democracy' (NED) it's covert CIA financiers and the US prone government in Ukraine, to go to a place where it's much warmer.

According to the 'Herald Sun' paper: "alarm spread throughout Europe and the US yesterday after Russia halted gas supplies to Ukraine. The US said the action raised questions about the use of energy as a political weapon." [http://tinyurl.com/a29xe] - Europe - apart from countries like Poland and Hungary - is not alarmed yet. The Netherlands and Norway have enormous amounts of own natural gas which they can share.

But the US mouthpieces are right: Russia uses the natural gas as a political weapon, especially since Putin and company is still angry because of the fake - US fomented and paid - 'revolutions' that have turned Ukraine and other former Soviet states - for the time being- from Russian- into US slave-states. Russia cut its gas supply to Ukraine yesterday, saying it had no choice but to act after Ukraine refused to sign a new contract that would have raised prices fourfold. But of course it's millions of people risking to freeze off vital parts because of this poisonous political 'power game'.

TIME FOR THE US CAVALRY!

Now again there's the risk for the omnipotent blundering 'Prez of the US' to realize what he promised and/or threatened, and send the helping cavalry, as reported on Wednesday May 18th last year: "President Bush, seeking to put muscle behind a promise to support young democracies, said Wednesday the administration is creating a special corps of federal workers that will deploy quickly to help foreign governments in crisis."

In a story by propaganda channel Associated Press 'Bush Proposes Corps to Aid New Democracies' it was said that: "Bush is proposing $100 million next year for a new conflict response fund and $24 million for a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department. That office will coordinate U.S. government efforts to support emerging democracies, with the new Active Response Corps of foreign and civil service officers as a crucial tool, Bush said.

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH 'SPREADING DEMOCRACY'

    "This new corps will be on call - ready to get programs running on the ground in days and weeks instead of months and years," Bush said at a dinner hosted by the International Republican Institute*, a federally funded group that promotes democracy worldwide. "If a crisis emerges and assistance is needed, the United States of America will be ready." * [The 'International Republican Institute' (IRI) has absolutely nothing to do with 'spreading democracy' - on the contrary. IRI = CIA = NED - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/dwmu2]

    Bush cited a series of what he referred to as revolutions during the past 18 months in ex-Soviet republics and across the Middle East: in Georgia, Ukraine, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan and Lebanon. - "We are seeing the rise of a new generation whose hearts burn for freedom _ and they will have it," Bush said.

[endquote AP - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cewpg]

In Ukraine - and that's what the geopolitical turf war is about - president Yushchenko's American wife Kateryna, earlier worked for Ronald Reagan, and the description of her as a possible 'mole' is obvious in Wikipedia: "Yushchenko is married to Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko (his second wife). She is a Ukrainian-American born in Chicago and a former official with the U.S. State Department, where she worked as a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs.

Opponents of Yushchenko have criticized her for remaining a U.S. citizen. During the recent election campaign, Kateryna was accused of exerting the influence of the U.S. government on her husband's decisions, as an employee of the U.S. government or even a CIA agent. Russian television journalist Mikhail Leontyev had earlier accused her of leading a U.S. project to help Yushchenko seize power in Ukraine; in January 2002, she won a libel case against him. Ukraine's pro-government Inter television channel repeated Leontyev's allegations in 2001 but in January 2003 she won a libel case against the channel as well."

THE CHANCE OF LOSING A COURT CASE WHEN YOUR HUSBAND IS THE PRESIDENT IN A COUNTRY SEEMS TO BE VERY SMALL...

How 'president' Bush is going to 'help' this US protégé with this 'Corps to Aid New Democracies' remains to be seen, because right now this "new generation whose hearts burn for freedom" - as Bush said, would rather see their gas stoves burn.

And have freedom of freezing.


Henk Ruyssenaars


RELATED:

* Soros, US & Ukraine - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3rz5u

* Kateryna Yushchenko-Chumachenko (his second wife)- Url.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko

* Bush in NWO/Cold War meeting in Europe - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5hwuv

* Putin loses his smile after lecture from Bush on democracy: Independent / Bratislava meeting - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6y8s8

* Why not try an article which is contrary to all you read in your history books: 'Why Putin is under attack' - by David Duke: http://tinyurl.com/6j9ju

* The 25 bucks revolution in Georgia: http://tinyurl.com/4g2gg

* GUARDIAN/UK - US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev - URL.: http://tinyurl.com/43raa

* Yukos/Israel & Putin: http://tinyurl.com/6k9e5

* USurping: http://tinyurl.com/5g6xr

* What is the National Endowment for Democracy? - Url. : http://tinyurl.com/6jguf

* NED report - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3qdrh

* Fox "News" http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,139340,00.html

* "Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful." - Henry Kissinger speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992 Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.

* And global warcriminal Henry Kissinger and his ilk succeeded, but nobody apart from 'them' was 'grateful'. On the contrary: own US troops - even with tanks - appeared in the streets of Los Angeles: against anti-war protesters! - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7qh65

* 'American Military Personnel - Know Why You're Being Sacrificed' - by Robert L. Johnson: "When I joined the United States Marines in September of 1973, I swore an oath..." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/75pl3

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* "People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don't forget: they also strike back." - 2005 Nobel Literature Prize winner Harold Pinter - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9cyeq

* Reference guide to the Geneva Conventions - Url.: http://www.genevaconventions.org

* Al Qaeda – The Database - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqx69

* The 9/11 WTC drama was PNAC terror - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9np7d - It was an inside job - Google - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7tj9d

* 'Anti-Semitism' - The Provocative Accusation - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/8z6gd

* Who's financing? - The 'Federal Reserve' is the absolute biggest crime ever - Url.: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm

* The infamous US 'Lie Factory' -  Url.: http://tinyurl.com/8ncal

* Help all the troops - of whatever nationality - to come back from abroad! - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE WERE FORCED TO PAY FOR BY TAXES - [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm ] - We need them badly at home in many countries to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
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