Merry Christmas!I will be back January 2.
Ned Touchstone's Investigation of the Assassination
Our first real break in the case came as the result of a tip to the Dallas District Attorney's office to the effect that Oswald in applying for a job in New Orleans once gave Jack Ruby as a reference. A Mississippian, Elmore Greaves, had heard this in a casual conversation and passed it on.
Someone--I don't know who--told the Dallas DA that Ned Touchstone was studying the assassination and would be a good man to run down the rumor. An assistant district attorney phoned me, and twenty minutes later Courtney Smith (my Watson!) and I were on the way.
We learned in New Orleans that federal agents had jealously and zealously erased parts of Oswald's trail. We picked up a potful of fresh leads an an awesome regard for the way key evidence disappears behing the iron curtain of federal bureaucracy.
More people were working to cover up the facts than were trying to sincerely unmask the assassination plot.
At the state employment service in New Orleans we sought a list of firms at which Oswald had applied for work, and other useful information about his work record. A Mr. Messina showed a handwritten "receipt" dated Nov. 26, 1963, and signed by John B. Lee, a federal who grabbed extensive state records on Oswald.
(If those records are in the Warren Report, I haven't found them.)
Ned Touchstone, David Ferrie, and Jim Garrison
As everyone who saw Oliver Stone's JFK knows, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, acting on a tip that David Ferrie might have been involved in some way in the assassination of the President on November 22, 1963, had him picked up and held for questioning by the FBI--who promptly let him go. Garrison assumed that they knew what they were doing and and didn't give the matter another thought until he had a conversation with Senator Russell Long, in late 1966, if memory serves. In his book On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison sums up the interval between these two events in three words: "Nearly three years passed." But is this the whole story?
Journalists Sandy Hochberg and James T. Valliere went down to New Orleans to see what Jim Garrison was up to and also interviewed the District Attorney. They published the results of their inquiry in Win magazine, a publication of the War Resister's League, in February 1969, in a special issue called "The Conspirators." I quote from their chronology:
I recently received a 46-page manuscript from the Noel Memorial Library, at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. The untitled manuscript is written by Ned Touchstone, the editor of a rightwing publication The Councilor. Regular readers will recall my earlier posts concerning the correspondence between Touchstone and Joseph Milteer, who so eerily predicted the assassination. I will quote a few excerpts:
Tomorrow: Ned Touchstone's investigation of the assassination.
As everyone who saw Oliver Stone's JFK knows, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, acting on a tip that David Ferrie might have been involved in some way in the assassination of the President on November 22, 1963, had him picked up and held for questioning by the FBI--who promptly let him go. Garrison assumed that they knew what they were doing and and didn't give the matter another thought until he had a conversation with Senator Russell Long, in late 1966, if memory serves. In his book On the Trail of the Assassins, Garrison sums up the interval between these two events in three words: "Nearly three years passed." But is this the whole story?
Journalists Sandy Hochberg and James T. Valliere went down to New Orleans to see what Jim Garrison was up to and also interviewed the District Attorney. They published the results of their inquiry in Win magazine, a publication of the War Resister's League, in February 1969, in a special issue called "The Conspirators." I quote from their chronology:
Fall, 1964 Without fanfare, Garrison reopens his investigation into events in New Orleans leading up to the Kennedy assassination.
November, 1966 This is the date Garrison uses as the "official" beginning of his investigation. Actually, he has been working on the investigation for almost three years and has questioned many of its important figures.
I recently received a 46-page manuscript from the Noel Memorial Library, at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. The untitled manuscript is written by Ned Touchstone, the editor of a rightwing publication The Councilor. Regular readers will recall my earlier posts concerning the correspondence between Touchstone and Joseph Milteer, who so eerily predicted the assassination. I will quote a few excerpts:
He [Garrison] knew about David Ferries part in the Kennedy killing by early March, 1964--THREE YEARS AGO. His files on March 1, 1964 already contained more volatile information about the killing than the soup-thin oupouring to the public in the Clay Shaw hearing.
Garrison continued to gather information about the Kennedy assassination--after I learned in 1964 what he had. I kept pace by turning over the same headstones he looked under watching David Ferrie's actions, and using some of the same sources Garrison doubtlessly used.
We scheduled a giant rally [Summer of 1965] on the steps of the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, only a few feet from where Dr. Carl Weiss assassinated Senator Huey Long almost 30 years earlier. Were were determined that the facts of the JFK murder would not be successfully swept beneath the rug as were the facts of the Huey Long death.
Speaking with me that day were General Edwin Walker and Judge John Rarick. (Rarick was later elected to Congress.) Nearly 8,000 people were on hand to hear that talk.
Whether any of this had an effect on Jim Garrison is anybody's guess. Jim never indicated one way or another but apparently he had his assistant gathering tidbits of information through most of 1965.
In October of 1966 Garrison's investigation of the Kennedy death was renewed.
Tomorrow: Ned Touchstone's investigation of the assassination.
Clay Shaw was the only person ever put on trial in the case of the Kennedy assassination. This CIA document reveals that he was a "highly paid CIA contract source."
104-10428-10104 (02/10/92): MEMO FOR: SURVEY OF CIA'S RECORDS FROM HOUSE SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS INVESTIGATION pg 3
Since the National Security Agency is in the news today I thought I would post some material relating to the NSA and the Kennedy assassination. The NSA is so secret that its very existence was classified for years, and thus NSA is said to stand for No Such Agency. The first reference to the NSA in print, although not by name, may have been by Captain Edward Ruppelt in his book The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects (1956), where Ruppelt refers to the "puzzle palace", later the name of a book by James Bamford on the NSA.
The document above can be found on the website of The Mary Ferrell Foundation, and was posted recently on John Simkin's JFK Forum by Steve Thomas. It says, in part, that:
It has been determined by the military task force, as a result of the NSA--watch list case study--that Oswald, Jack Ruby, and Earl C. Ruby, Jack's brother, were targeted. An NSA spokesman reported that Oswald's name "appeared" in the rhyming dictionary on the day of the President's assassination.
Oliver North is a fixture on Fox News and host of the program War Stories. He has always come across to me as a self-righteous, self-aggrandizing character. To really illustrate what is wrong with the state of our country, one need only note the fact that Gary Webb, a real reporter who documented the Contra/cocaine connection, was professionally ruined, and Oliver North, who was at the center of the whole thing, went on to be a highly-paid "journalist." Americans like Gary Webb are the real patriots.Jack Blum, an investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee, testified that “The Contras moved drugs not by the pound, not by the bags, but by the tons, by the cargo planeloads.” Oliver North knew what was going on. To cite just one entry from his personal notebooks (July 9, 1984):
Call from Clarridge- Call Michel re Narco Issue- RIG at 1000 Tomorrow (Q0384)- DEA Miami- Pilot went talked to Vaughn- wanted A/C to go to Bolivia to p/u paste- want A/C to p/u 1500 kilos- Bud to meet w/ Group (Q0385)The paste referred to was, of course, cocaine paste. Clarridge was Duane "Dewey" Clarridge, a senior CIA official.
For more see The Oliver North File: www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB113/
Over the last few years the Freeway Blogger has put up over 2,500 signs over freeways in California. Now he has an online blog: http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com
Iraq and 911 - Bush clears it up
Now "extenuate" means, of course, "to lessen the extent or seriousness of" which is probably not at all what the Moron-in Chief meant. Some newspapers apparently changed the transcript to "accentuated."
I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein, you're a threat. And the 9/11 attacks extenuated that threat, as far as I'm concerned.
Now "extenuate" means, of course, "to lessen the extent or seriousness of" which is probably not at all what the Moron-in Chief meant. Some newspapers apparently changed the transcript to "accentuated."
From Joseph Trento's blog at Stories That Matter (see links):
CLASSIFIED AND INTERNAL STUDIES CALL US WAR A VICTORY FOR IRAN
A number of contracted studies, including a new study conducted by the Army War College by outside experts, are calling the U.S. invasion of Iraq a failure that has essentially given Iran the victory it sought over Iraq in the stalemated Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. A Pentagon source who has seen the studies tells NSNS that “a number of experts who are respected in the military have concluded that the result of the war in Iraq has been to provide Iran effective control of Southern Iraq and a military presence through Shi’a leaders it controls.”
The reports stop short of saying Iraq is now in a nationwide Sunni vs. Shi’a civil war but one report has concluded that unless the Sunnis can be convinced to come into the political process in the next few months total civil war is likely. The reports also warn that Turkey will not allow an independent Kurdish state inside Iraq on the Turkish border.
From the December 12 issue of Time:
U.S. officials in Baghdad confirm to TIME that they have stepped up their efforts to negotiate with nationalist insurgents and the Sunnis they represent. "We want to deal with their legitimate concerns," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad."
"Insurgency and terror are two different things," says Khalilzad.
"This insurgency has got roots, it's got money, and it's got motivation," says a U.S. intelligence official, in an assessment echoed by military officers and insurgent leaders alike. "And the life span of this insurgency could be years."
Will we ever see Iraqi security forces capable of crushing this insurgency? Probably not. No," says a high-ranking military-intelligence officer in Iraq.Apparently the people quoted in this article did not get the memo from Donald Rumsfeld. Not only are they "insurgents" rather than "terrorists," they have "legitimate concerns." I would say that negotiating with the insurgents is a good idea. If Iraq continues down the road to becoming an Iranian satellite, however, my concern is that we could eventually end up supporting the insurgents. Stranger things have happened--after all, we armed Saddam Hussein.
SECRET BASES BEING BUILT IN IRAQ
The National Security News Service has learned from intelligence sources that the United States government is secretly negotiating construction contracts for two permanent bases near the Iranian border and another base on the Syrian border.
Sources tell NSNS that the bases are to be “heavily fortified and large enough to preposition large amounts of equipment and supplies in the event that hostilities with Iran or Syria break out.”
Secret Bases in Iraq
Regular readers of this blog know that one of my main interests is the Kennedy assassination. We will never know the full story of the Kennedy assassination. People still debate whether it was the Mafia or the CIA. (It was both, in my opinion, but the tail doesn't wag the dog.) A handful of people still maintain that it was Lee Harvey Oswald, acting entirely on his own.
The assassination of President John Kennedy is an unsolved homicide but it is more than that. It was a covert operation. Study of the political assassinations of the sixties sheds a little light on the shadowy nexus between organized crime, the political power structure of this country, and its intelligence apparatus.
Assassination researcher Lisa Pease posts at Real History, not as often as I would like, but always worth reading. She is also co-editor of the book pictured above, which is essential reading. She recently had this to say:
When people used to join the CIA under James Angleton, he wouldn't let them work in his counterintelligence outfit until they had studied one Soviet deception case, called "The Trust", for two full years. Only then were they fit to study counter-intelligence. Similarly, I wish citizens would study the Kennedy assassination for two years. After that, they would never take any government or media pronouncement on faith alone. They would ask to see the evidence. They would ask better questions, and hold the government and media more accountable to the truth.
After Iraq, Syria and Iran are next in line for regime change by the neo-con madmen. Israel, being a little closer to the scene, is not so sure this is a good idea:
Israel: We prefer Assad
Israel: We prefer Assad
I would certainly agree with the Daily Kos take on this:Israel told the United States it fears the outcome of regime change in Syria.
At a strategic-dialogue meeting this week among senior officials, Israel laid out for the United States three scenarios if Bashar Assad is toppled: chaos, an Islamist regime or another strongman from Assad’s minority Alawite sect. Israel fears all those options, saying Assad provides a measure of stability.
U.S. officials told their Israeli counterparts that toppling Assad could be “transformative” and dismissed concerns about an Islamist regime taking his place. Israel and the United States favor pressure on Syria to force it to stop hosting Palestinian terrorist groups and supporting Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organization.
http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=270
Perhaps the most security-minded nation in the world, with perhaps the most effective intelligence apparatus in the world, is being lectured by idiot neocon "intellectuals" about what will and won't be "transformative" in their own backyard.
Bits from the Blogs:
From Ratbang Diary:
For five years, the White House practice has been to call failure by another name: Success.
From Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005:
Why did we go down the "suicidal" road of seeking to bring our long term enemies to power as a satellite government of Iran?
From No Quarter:
We are the midwife of a new Shia state.
From Ratbang Diary:
For five years, the White House practice has been to call failure by another name: Success.
From Sic Semper Tyrannis 2005:
Why did we go down the "suicidal" road of seeking to bring our long term enemies to power as a satellite government of Iran?
From No Quarter:
We are the midwife of a new Shia state.
U.N.: Iran 'Months' From Having Nuke
(oh, really?)
But according to another site:
An excerpt from an interview with El-Baredei may help clarify this:
Now, Iran Years Away From Having Nuclear Weapons! doesn't quite have the same punch does it? The obvious motive behind this is revealed in this quotation from Swift Boat author (and author of Atomic Iran) Jerome Corsi on WorldNet Daily:
(oh, really?)
Iran could be months away from a nuclear weapon, warned Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency.
ElBaradei told the British newspaper The Independent that Iran's nuclear capabilities depend upon whether it begins enriching uranium.
"I know they are trying to acquire the full fuel cycle," he said. "I know that acquiring the full fuel cycle means that a country is months away from nuclear weapons, and that applies to Iran and everybody else."
www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/12/5/123007.shtml
But according to another site:
El-Baradei estimated that once Iran's mothballed Natanz underground enrichment plant becomes operational, Iranians could be "a few months" away from a nuclear weapon.
International Atomic Energy Agency officials have said that it would take at least two years for the facility to become fully operational.
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3179547,00.html
An excerpt from an interview with El-Baredei may help clarify this:
WEYMOUTH: What is the timeline for Iran getting a nuclear weapon?
ELBARADEI: It depends on whether they have been doing weaponization. We haven´t seen signs of that. But they have the know-how. If they resume the fuel cycle, they should be able to get the fissile material within a year or two. If they have that, they are a year away from a weapon. It´s a matter of time, because they have the know-how and the industrial infrastructure.
Now, Iran Years Away From Having Nuclear Weapons! doesn't quite have the same punch does it? The obvious motive behind this is revealed in this quotation from Swift Boat author (and author of Atomic Iran) Jerome Corsi on WorldNet Daily:
"If no progress is made diplomatically by March 2006, the likelihood that Israel will launch a nuclear strike regardless of the consequences increases dramatically," Corsi said. www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47742
How Bush Compromised the war on Terror
Former Senator Bob Graham:
Former Senator Bob Graham:
In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq -- a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.
From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.
On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html
So, let's see. First we have news reports that the Pentagon is considering "the Salvador option"—that is, death squads.
Jan. 14, 2005-NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.And now, it appears that, lo and behold, there are death squads in Iraq. Who'd have thought?
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged recently, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation. Some Sunni males have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills. Many have simply vanished.
CIA Veterans Condemn Torture
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1119nj1.htm
Speaking at a College of William and Mary forum last year, for example, Burton L. Gerber, a decorated Moscow station chief who retired in 1995 after 39 years with the CIA, surprised some in the audience when he said he opposes torture "because it corrupts the society that tolerates it." This is a view, he confirmed in an interview with National Journal last week, that is rooted in Albert Camus's assertion in Preface to Algerian Reports that torture, "even when accepted in the interest of realism and efficacy," represents "a flouting of honor that serves no purpose but to degrade" a nation in its own eyes and the world's. "The reason I believe that torture corrupts the torturers and society," Gerber says, "is that a standard is changed, and that new standard that's acceptable is less than what our nation should stand for. I think the standards in something like this are crucial to the identity of America as a free and just society."
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1119nj1.htm
British-trained police in Iraq 'killed prisoners with drills'
By Francis Elliott, Raymond Whitaker and Kim Sengupta
Published: 20 November 2005
By Francis Elliott, Raymond Whitaker and Kim Sengupta
Published: 20 November 2005
Britain has been dragged into the growing scandal of officially condoned killings in Iraq. British-trained police operating in Basra have tortured at least two civilians to death with electric drills, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.
John Reid, the Secretary of State for Defence, admits that he knows of "alleged deaths in custody" and other "serious prisoner abuse" at al-Jamiyat police station, which was reopened by Britain after the war.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article328214.ece
Torture
Frontline has posted an interview with Spc.Tony Lagouranis (Ret.), a U.S. Army interrogator from 2001 to 2005.
Frontline has posted an interview with Spc.Tony Lagouranis (Ret.), a U.S. Army interrogator from 2001 to 2005.
When we were trained in the schoolhouse about what we could and couldn't do, it was very strict and it came from the Geneva Conventions, the law of land warfare based on enemy prisoners of war. And we never expected that we would interrogate anybody who wasn't an enemy prisoner of war.
And it's still unclear to me what the status of the Iraqis that we had were. Well, I know that they weren't being afforded the legal status of enemy prisoners of war. But supposedly, we were treating them as though they were, but we weren't. I mean, there's just no way that what we were doing and what was sanctioned by the Pentagon through the IRE, the interrogation rules of engagement -- there's no way that fit in within the Geneva Conventions. …
What was happening, for example?
Well hypothermia was a widespread technique. I haven't heard a lot of people talking about that, and I never saw anything in writing prohibiting it or making it illegal. But almost everyone was using it when they had a chance, when the weather permitted. Or some people, the Navy SEALs, for instance, were using just ice water to lower the body temperature of the prisoner. They would take his rectal temperature to make sure he didn't die; they would keep him hovering on hypothermia. That was a pretty common technique.
A lot of other, you know, not as common techniques, and certainly not sanctioned, was just beating people or burning them. Not within the prisons, usually. But when the units would go out into people's homes and do these raids, they would just stay in the house and torture them. Because after the scandal, they couldn't trust that, you know, the interrogators were going to do "as good a job," in their words, as they wanted to.
The worst stuff I saw was from the detaining units who would torture people in their homes. They were using things like … burns. They would smash people's feet with the back of an axe-head. They would break bones, ribs, you know. That was serious stuff.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/interviews/lagouranis.html
Ann Coulter calls Democrats traitors
In her latest column titled "New Idea for Abortion Party: Aid the Enemy" Ann Coulter once again shows just how vile she really is.
In her latest column titled "New Idea for Abortion Party: Aid the Enemy" Ann Coulter once again shows just how vile she really is.
The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats' behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle.
They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.
Free speech, I suppose, but then Ann does not believe in free speech:
She also criticized the media for being liberal and Democrats for whining about their rights under the First Amendment.
"They're always accusing us of repressing their speech," she said. "I say let's do it. Let's repress them."
She later added, "Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."
A very interesting article by Robert Dreyfuss in the November issue of The American Prospect. There is a definite pro-CIA bias, not surprising since most of his sources were former or current CIA officials. Here are a few excerpts:
Although two "official" inquires have found that CIA analysts were not pressured to provide intelligence to support the Bush adminstrations decision to go to war, the CIA itself dissents. Richard Kerr, a 32 year CIA veteran, was brought out of retirement to lead the agency's own internal review, resulting in four reports that have not been made public. Kerr, however, shared the conclusions with the author of this article.
Since Goss took over, between 30 and 90 senior CIA officials have made their exit, according to various sources, some fleeing into retirement, others taking refuge as consultants.
The agency's vaunted Near East Division, in particular, which served as the "pointy end of the spear," as one CIA veteran put it, in simultaneous wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the "global war on terror," has been decimated.
Another former CIA chief of station said: There aren't any Arabists left in the CIA. They're gone. They weren't with the program. It's like Pol Pot, who killed anybody wearing glasses because they might be able to read.
From 2001 on, its covert opertives and analysts were ignored, pressured, and forced to toe the administration's line; neconservative ideologues considered those operatives to be virtually part of the enemy camp. Many of those who remain inside the CIA are distraught, convinced that their work is wasted on an administration that doesn't want to hear the truth."How do you think they feel?" asked one recently retired officer with three decades of experience. "They're watching a fucking idiotic policy, run by idiots, unfold right before their eyes."Emphasis added.
Although two "official" inquires have found that CIA analysts were not pressured to provide intelligence to support the Bush adminstrations decision to go to war, the CIA itself dissents. Richard Kerr, a 32 year CIA veteran, was brought out of retirement to lead the agency's own internal review, resulting in four reports that have not been made public. Kerr, however, shared the conclusions with the author of this article.
"Everybody felt pressure. A lot of analysts believed that they were being pressured to come to certain conclusions ... There were certainly people who felt they were being pushed beyond the evidence they had."Michael Scheuer, who headed the Osama bin Laden unit, had this to say:
"I know a lot of people in the Iraq shop who were dissenting. There were people who were disciplined or taken off accounts ... One gentleman that I talked to, a senior Iraq analyst, regrets to this day that he did not go public."Nonetheless, the CIA got some things right. They concluded that Saddam Hussein did not pose a threat to the U.S. They concluded there there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, or between Iraq and 9-11. They concluded that Iraq was not even close to developing nuclear weapons. And they concluded:
Long before the war, the CIA told the White House that if the United States invaded Iraq and carried out a prolonged occupation, it would spark an insurgency like the one now tearing Iraq apart.It has been clear for at least two years that Bush has pissed of the CIA, which usually does not end well for American presidents. I will close with one last excerpt:
Having clashed early with the Directorate of Operations, Goss has alienated--some say irreparably--the heart of the CIA: its clandestine service.Clearly the Bush adminstration did not go to war because the CIA provided bad intelligence. They found the intelligence they wanted to support a decision already made. When the CIA was not sufficiently cooperative they created the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon. As the Guardian reported more than two years ago:
www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.htmlAccording to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.
The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." - John F. Kennedy
Albert Camus on Terrorism and Torture
Reprisals against civilian populations and the use of torture are crimes in which we are all involved. The fact that such things could take place among us is a humiliation we must henceforth face. Meanwhile, we must at least refuse to justify such methods, even on the score of efficacy. The moment they are justified, even indirectly, there are no more rules or values; all causes are equally good, and war without aims or laws sanctions the triumph of nihilism.
Torture has perhaps saved some, at the expense of honor, by uncovering thirty bombs, but at the same time it arouses fifty new terrorists who, operating in some other way and in another place, will cause the death of even more innocent people. Even when accepted in the interest of realism and efficacy, such a flouting of honor serves no purpose but to degrade our country in her own eyes and abroad.
But, to be both useful and equitable, we must condemn with equal force and in no uncertain terms the terrorism applied by the F.L.N. to French civilians and indeed, to an even greater degree, to Arab civilians. Such terrorism is a crime that can be neither excused nor allowed to develop.
. . . it seemed to me harmful and indecent to condemn terrorism in the company of those who are not bothered by torture.
www.cadaverpolitik.com/essays/Camus/Algeria/Preface-To-Algerian-Reports.html
“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents
By John Buchanan and Stacey Michaelfrom
The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003
After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.
Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.
Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.
The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings unabated. These activities included a financial relationship with the German city of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War Two.
At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's personal emissary to the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-runbusinesses were being seized by the U.S. government, Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to discuss the war effort.
Denial and Deceit
While Harriman was concealing his Nazi relationships from his government colleagues, Cornelius Livense, the top executive of the interlocking German concerns held under the corporate umbrella of Union Banking Corporation (UBC), repeatedly tried to mislead investigators, and was sometimes supported in his subterfuge by Brown Brothers Harriman.
All of the assets of UBC and its related businesses belonged to Thyssen-controlled enterprises, including his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, the documents state.Nevertheless, Livense, president of UBC, claimed to have no knowledge of such a relationship. " Strangely enough, (Livense) claims he does not know the actual ownership of the company," states a government report.H.D Pennington, manager of Brown Brothers Harriman and a director of UBC "for many years," also lied to investigators about the secret and well-concealed relationship with Thyssen's Dutch bank, according to the documents.
Investigators later reported that the company was "wholly owned" by Thyssen's Dutch bank.
Despite such ongoing subterfuge, U.S. investigators were able to show that "a careful examination of UBC's general ledger, cash books and journals from 1919 until the present date clearly establish that the principal and practically only source of funds has been Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart."
In yet another attempt to mislead investigators, Livense said that $240,000 in banknotes in a safe deposit box at Underwriters Trust Co. in New York had been given to him by another UBC-Thyssen associate, H.J. Kouwenhoven, managing
director of Thyssen's Dutch bank and a director of the August Thyssen Bank in Berlin. August Thyssen was Fritz's father.
The government report shows that Livense first neglected to report the $240,000, then claimed that it had been given to him as a gift by Kouwenhoven. However, by the time Livense filed a financial disclosure with U.S. officials, he changed his story again and reported the sum as a debt rather than a cash holding.In yet another attempt to deceive the governments of both the U.S. and Canada, Livense and his partners misreported the facts about the sale of a Canadian Nazi front enterprise, La Cooperative Catholique des Consommateurs de Combustible, which imported German coal into Canada via the web of Thyssen-controlled U.S. businesses."
The Canadian authorities, however, were not taken in by this maneuver," a U.S. government report states. The coal company was later seized by Canadian authorities.
After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures.
The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.
One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von
Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets."
It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party," government investigators concluded.
At the same time the last Brown Brothers Harriman client assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate campaign that led to his election in 1952.
Investigation Investigated?
In 1943, six months after the seizure of UBC and its related companies, a government investigator noted in a Treasury Department memo dated April 8, 1943 that the FBI had inquired about the status of any investigation into Bush and the Harrimans."
I gave 'a memorandum' which did not say anything about the American officers of subject," the investigator wrote. "(Another investigator) wanted to know whether any specific action had been taken by us with respect to them."
No further action beyond the initial seizures was ever taken, and the newly confirmed records went unseen by the American people for six decades.
What Does It All Mean?
So why are the documents relevant today?"
The story of Prescott Bush and Brown Brothers Harriman is an introduction to the real history of our country," says L.A. art book publisher and historian Edward Boswell. "It exposes the money-making motives behind our foreign policies, dating back a full century. The ability of Prescott Bush and the Harrimans to bury their checkered pasts also reveals a collusion between Wall Street and the media that exists to this day."
Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist who will soon launch a liberal talk radio network, says the importance of the new documents is that they prove a long pattern of Bush family war profiteering that continues today via George H.W. Bush's intimate relationship with the Saudi royal family and the bin Ladens, conducted via the super-secret Carlyle Group, whose senior advisers include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III.
In the post-9/11 world, Drobny finds the Bush-Saudi connection deeply troubling. "Trading with the enemy is trading with the enemy," he says. "That's the relevance of the documents and what they show."
Lawrence Lader, an abortion rights activist and the author of more than 40 books, says "the relevance lies with the fact that the sitting President of the United States would lead the nation to war based on lies and against the wishes of the rest of the world." Lader and others draw comparisons between President Bush's invasion of Iraq and Hitler's occupation of Poland in 1939 - the event that sparked World War Two.
However, others see an even larger significance.
"The discovery of the Bush-Nazi documents raises new questions about the role of Prescott Bush and his influential business partners in the secret emigration of Nazi war criminals, which allowed them to escape justice in Germany," says Bob Fertik, co-founder of Democrats.com and an amateur 'Nazi hunter.' "It also raises questions about the importance of Nazi recruits to the CIA in its early years, in what was called Operation Paperclip, and Prescott Bush's role in that dark operation."
Fertik and others, including former Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, a Constitutional attorney in Miami, and a former Veterans Administration official, believe Prescott Bush and the Harrimans should have been tried for treason.
What Next?
Now, say Fertik and Loftus, there should be a Congressional investigation into the Bush family's Nazi past and its concealment from the American people for 60 years."
The American people have a right to know, in detail, about this hidden chapter of our history," says Loftus, author of The Secret War Against the Jews. "That's the only way we can understand it and deal with it."
For his part, Fertik is pessimistic that even a Congressional investigation can thwart the war profiteering of the present Bush White House. "It's impossible to stop it," he says, "when the worst war profiteers are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who operate in secrecy behind the vast powers of the White House."
Blakey Loses Confidence in the CIA
The committee's chief counsel, G. Robert Blakey, whose main suspect remains the late New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, explained his loss of confidence in the CIA in a talk Saturday night. The committee had relied on the late George Joannides, a CIA officer called out of retirement, to help it find and review CIA documents during its investigation. But the agency never told the committee that Joannides had been the case officer for a CIA-funded anti-Castro exile group that had contacts with Oswald and an ostensible confrontation with him in New Orleans before the assassination.(Emphasis added)
"The agency set me up," Blakey said. Joannides, he recalled, frequently blocked the efforts of the House panel's young researchers to obtain relevant CIA records, but when they complained to him, Blakey said he accepted the CIA's assurances that his aides were being too pushy and suspicious. Looking back on it, he said, "I have no confidence in anything the agency told me."
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck said the agency had no immediate comment.
WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS
Gingrich sees Iran threat to U.S. like Nazi Germany
Ex-speaker latest official to raise alarm on threat of nuclear EMP attack by Tehran
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47501
Gingrich sees Iran threat to U.S. like Nazi Germany
Ex-speaker latest official to raise alarm on threat of nuclear EMP attack by Tehran
www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47501
WASHINGTON – The threat posed to the national security of the United States by Iran was likened only to the one posed by Nazi Germany in the 1930s, by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suggested Tehran could be planning for a pre-emptive nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on America that would turn a third or more of the country "back to a 19th century level of development.".I guess we better get them before they get us.
Admiral Stansfield Turner calls Bush a liar
Speaking of Bush's claims that the US does not use torture, Admiral Turner, who ran the CIA from 1977 to 1981, said: "I do not believe him".
www.itv.com/news/index_1447362.html
Neither do I.
The Strange Death of Dr. Mary Sherman
On July 21, 1964 the body of Dr. Mary Sherman was found in her apartment after Juan Valdes, a Cuban customs house broker, phoned the police. According to Joan Mellen in A Farewell to Justice:
Mary Sherman, however, was not killed by spontaneous human combustion. The immediate cause of death was a knife wound in the heart. Ed Haslam, in his book Mary, Ferrie and the Monkey Virus, speculates that Dr. Mary Sherman was so tragically disfigured in either an accident or act of sabotage at a linear particle accelerator at the soon to be vacated U.S. Public Health Hospital, where he believes some sort of covert research took place.
Mr. and Mrs. Owen Hawes were neighbors of Juan Valdes during the summer of 1963. Mrs. Hawes got to know Valdes who asked her to accept packages for him. Also, he asked to use her phone for long distance calls, although he had his own phone. Many of the calls were to Cuba and Miami.
One day a caller appeared at her door asking, "Is this Juan's apartment?" In one of history's strange coincidences she recognized him. They had attended Beauregard Junior High School together. His name was Lee Harvey Oswald, although she had known him as "Harvey." After that, she saw Lee Oswald frequently with Juan Valdes. Victoria Hawes also observed that both Oswald and Valdes were friendly with Dr. Mary Sherman.
(According to researcher John Armstrong, in his mammoth book Harvey and Lee, school records show that Oswald attended Beauregard Junior High School beginning in the Fall of 1953. Oddly, other records show that at the same time Oswald attended PS#44 in New York. Armstrong theorizes that there were in fact two people sharing the identity of Lee Harvey Oswald as far back as Junior High School.) This seems unlikely but I do not have a better explanation.
CIA-linked reporter Hoke May told journalist Don Lee Keith that Mary Sherman had been a close friend of David Ferrie, an associate of Guy Banister, whose detective agency served as a focal point for CIA activities in New Orleans, some apparently involving Lee Harvey Oswald. At this time Oswald was contacting anti-Castro Cubans, while demonstrating in favor of Castro.
On July 21, 1964 the body of Dr. Mary Sherman was found in her apartment after Juan Valdes, a Cuban customs house broker, phoned the police. According to Joan Mellen in A Farewell to Justice:
Mary Sherman's body was found with unspeakable wounds: on the right side of her body, flesh and bone had evaporated so that her right rib cage and all of her right arm had disintegrated. The massive conflagration necessary to cause her bones to evaporate would have converted the entire apartment complex to ashes had her injuries been inflicted at the Patios. Yet the curtains hadn't even caught on fire.
Mary Sherman, however, was not killed by spontaneous human combustion. The immediate cause of death was a knife wound in the heart. Ed Haslam, in his book Mary, Ferrie and the Monkey Virus, speculates that Dr. Mary Sherman was so tragically disfigured in either an accident or act of sabotage at a linear particle accelerator at the soon to be vacated U.S. Public Health Hospital, where he believes some sort of covert research took place.
Mr. and Mrs. Owen Hawes were neighbors of Juan Valdes during the summer of 1963. Mrs. Hawes got to know Valdes who asked her to accept packages for him. Also, he asked to use her phone for long distance calls, although he had his own phone. Many of the calls were to Cuba and Miami.
One day a caller appeared at her door asking, "Is this Juan's apartment?" In one of history's strange coincidences she recognized him. They had attended Beauregard Junior High School together. His name was Lee Harvey Oswald, although she had known him as "Harvey." After that, she saw Lee Oswald frequently with Juan Valdes. Victoria Hawes also observed that both Oswald and Valdes were friendly with Dr. Mary Sherman.
(According to researcher John Armstrong, in his mammoth book Harvey and Lee, school records show that Oswald attended Beauregard Junior High School beginning in the Fall of 1953. Oddly, other records show that at the same time Oswald attended PS#44 in New York. Armstrong theorizes that there were in fact two people sharing the identity of Lee Harvey Oswald as far back as Junior High School.) This seems unlikely but I do not have a better explanation.
CIA-linked reporter Hoke May told journalist Don Lee Keith that Mary Sherman had been a close friend of David Ferrie, an associate of Guy Banister, whose detective agency served as a focal point for CIA activities in New Orleans, some apparently involving Lee Harvey Oswald. At this time Oswald was contacting anti-Castro Cubans, while demonstrating in favor of Castro.
From The Wayne Madsen Report:U.S. intelligence sources: Sexually-explicit photos at Abu Ghraib special ordered by a homosexual and pedophile ring inside the BushWhite House
There is good reason for the embarrassment of the Pentagon in the affair. The orders to take the sexually-oriented photos and videos, some of which involve teenage Iraqi boys and girls and sodomization by their guards, came directly from a pedophile and closeted male homosexual ring operating in the White House, according to the intelligence sources. Copies of the tapes and photos were sent directly to the White House for the entertainment of senior members of the Bush WhiteHouse, including officials in the Vice President's office and the Executive Office of the President.
Bush Breakdown! What every American needs to know.President Bush is drinking heavily again as he's overwhelmed by crisis after crisis, GLOBE has learned exclusively. "Bush is breaking down. He's boozing and that's a dangerous personal situation, " a source tells us. "It's an open secret in the Inner circle, no one is happy about it. He's fallen back into it. He's under so much stress that he just cracked. The White House is hiding this from America. They don't want anyone to know."The President is hanging in there by a thread thanks to Laura's unwavering support." Shockingly, insiders have even whispered that the president has been seeing atherapist to help hm cope and in several emotional outbusts, told Laura he just can't take it anymore.In one outburst, a source reveals that Bush "actually had tears in his eyes as he said, "I'd just walk away from all of this if I could. The price is too high!"
Oswald and U.S. Customs
Joan Mellen, in her new book A Farewell to Justice, reveals that Lee Harvey Oswald was not only an FBI informant, and an employee of CIA contract agent Guy Banister, but also had an affiliation with U.S. Customs. Bar owner and FBI informant Orestes Pena testified under oath that he saw Oswald with Customs officials on a regular basis. His handler at Customs was a man named David Smith.
Joan Mellen, in her new book A Farewell to Justice, reveals that Lee Harvey Oswald was not only an FBI informant, and an employee of CIA contract agent Guy Banister, but also had an affiliation with U.S. Customs. Bar owner and FBI informant Orestes Pena testified under oath that he saw Oswald with Customs officials on a regular basis. His handler at Customs was a man named David Smith.
In the morning, Pena revealed, Oswald frequented a Greek restaurant on Decatur and Iberville with "other federal agents from the Customs House Building," which housed FBI, ONI, CIA and Immigration. At least ten or twelve times, Pena testified, he observed Oswald having breakfast with his Customs handlers. He had witnessed his own handler Warren de Brueys at that same Greek restaurant when Oswald was there with federal agents. "I believe they knew each other very, very well," Pena said of Oswald and de Brueys...
Pena had also observed Oswald, de Brueys, David and Wendall Roache of the Immigration Service leave the restaurant and head for the Customs House building."
So explosive were Pena's revelations about Oswald's relationships with Customs officers that Pena's files were systematically destroyed by the FBI in a multicity effort that stretched across Europe. A document survives, a teletype directed to J. Edgar Hoover, dated January 14, 1976: "Rome file regarding Orestes Pena: IS-Cuba' Destroyed."
After the assassination David Smith was transferred to Uruguay. Wendall Roache was moved to Puerto Rico. When Roach was finally contacted by the Church Committee in 1975, he said, "I've been waiting twelve years to talk to someone about this." His testimony remains classified to this day.
From a man who knows:
From a post today on John Simkins JFK forum (see links) from legendary retired soldier-of-fortune Gerry Patrick Hemming:
From a post today on John Simkins JFK forum (see links) from legendary retired soldier-of-fortune Gerry Patrick Hemming:
Most of what is in print, including what is at NARA is "Legend" and "backstop" files !! CYA flows through the blood of the Intel Community -- when it clots, we get 9/11s !!
NARA is the National Archives and Records Adminstration.
Ex-KGB Colonel: Leaders of the USA and Israel Were Victims of Conspiracy
www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=474
The link above is to a rather poorly written article which attempts to give the impression that the KGB was behind the JFK assassination, with references to the long-discredited theories of Michael Eddowes the author of Khrushchev killed Kennedy, and the man whose theories led to the exhumation of the body of Lee Harvey Oswald.
What is of interest in this article is that it gives the views of a high-ranking former KGB officer, Dmitry Fonarev, as related to the Russian publication Moscowski Komsomolets. Read carefully, the statements of Fonarev do not support the theory of KGB involvement in the assassination--to the contrary.
The views of Dmitry Fonarev, an intelligence professional, regarding the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are extremely interesting and certainly make sense. The attempts of Axis Globe to twist the story so as to blame the KGB for the assassinations are deplorable and unsupported, although I am grateful that they reported Fonarev's comments, as originally made to the Russian-language publication Moscowski Komsomolets.
www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=474
The link above is to a rather poorly written article which attempts to give the impression that the KGB was behind the JFK assassination, with references to the long-discredited theories of Michael Eddowes the author of Khrushchev killed Kennedy, and the man whose theories led to the exhumation of the body of Lee Harvey Oswald.
What is of interest in this article is that it gives the views of a high-ranking former KGB officer, Dmitry Fonarev, as related to the Russian publication Moscowski Komsomolets. Read carefully, the statements of Fonarev do not support the theory of KGB involvement in the assassination--to the contrary.
American President John Kennedy and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were killed as a result of a plot, the former high-ranking KGB officer Dmitry Fonarev declared yesterday in the interview to the Russian edition "Moscowski Komsomolets". He clearly specified that in both cases the plots were hatched by the supreme levels of state leadership, or by the secret services. In 1982-91 Fonarev served in 9-th Department of the KGB charged with security of the first persons of the state.
Anyway, it is curious that two weeks prior to the 42-nd anniversary of Kennedy's murder the former bodyguard of the Soviet heads decided to speak up. It is also interesting that Dmitry Fonarev speaks not only on his own behalf: "From our point of view, it was a plot." In confirmation of his version, an authoritative professional, he marks: "The route of Kennedy's ride was changed at the last moment. This means that security simply had no opportunity to check up the route. The feeling is that the President was intentionally brought to this street where the murder awaited."Fourenev also gives his views on the assassination of Robert Kennedy:
Then, in the ballistic laboratory of the Moscow department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs a special investigation of circumstances of Kennedy's death was carried out. According to the conclusion of the Soviet experts, the bullets that killed the US President where not shot by Oswald, but someone else shooting from completely another position.
The recent interview in the "Moscowski Komsomolets" newspaper is not the first time when Dmitry Fonarev sounds rather non-standard comments concerning attempts at the statesmen in the various countries of the world. It is curious that, as a rule, he talks on this issue during his conversations with the journalists of "Moscowski Komsomolets". In the interview to the same edition, in March 2001 Fonarev stated the version of murder of the brother of the late President Kennedy and a favorite of presidential pre-election race Robert Kennedy in June, 5, 1968. Under the official version, the murderer was the 24-years old immigrant of the Palestinian origin from Jordan Sirhan Abu Hattar (known in the West as Sirhan Sirhan). He shot his victim almost at a point-blank before the eyes of the numerous security men and journalists. However, the former bodyguard of the Soviet heads categorically rejects the official version. As he said: "Sirhan was shooting, but he missed, and Robert was casually shot by his security guard…".The Axis Globe also attempts to give its own interpretation on this, derived from its own "Israeli sources":
Sirhan Abu Hattar came from East Jerusalem, which up to 1967 was a part of Jordanian Kingdom. He lived in the USA since 1957, but starting from 1964 frequently visited the Middle East. His trips and contacts have drawn attention of the Jordanian and Israeli secret services. According to our Israeli sources, archival materials of that period testify that in Lebanon and Jordan Abu Hattar had connections with activists of left-wing radical fraction "Al-Qaumiun Al-Arab" (Arab Nationalists Movement.) Besides, in 1967 in a secret apartment in the south of Beirut he met the assistant to the trade attaché of the Soviet embassy Vladimir Vasiliev,who was actually the representative of the KGB "residentura" in Lebanon.Fourenev then gives his view on the Rabin assassination:
In his interview, Dmitry Fonarev together with John Kennedy's murder mentioned the killing of the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He died in November, 1995, under the official version from the hands of the lone Jewish terrorist Yigal Amir. As Fonarev said: "In this case we also see that it was plot ". The President of the Russian association of bodyguards explains this version by a fact that "Rabin was shot practically at point-blank when he was standing between two security guards. The one who worked on such a post it is obvious that it is impossible."After which the author of the Axis Globe article also attempts to link Rabin's alleged assassin to the KGB.
By the way, similarly to Oswald, shortly before an attempt at the Prime Minister, Yigal Amir have spent rather long time in the territory of the former USSR...
The views of Dmitry Fonarev, an intelligence professional, regarding the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin are extremely interesting and certainly make sense. The attempts of Axis Globe to twist the story so as to blame the KGB for the assassinations are deplorable and unsupported, although I am grateful that they reported Fonarev's comments, as originally made to the Russian-language publication Moscowski Komsomolets.
War Crimes in Iraq
US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah
By Peter Popham Published: 08 November 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article325560.ece
Stories that the United States military used napalm and white phosphorus in the attack on Fallujah have been circulating for a year. Initial reports were from Islamic websites and were firmly denied by the United States government. But now "new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon."
A U.S. soldier had this to say:
A war based on lies, the military occupation of another country whose people do not want us there, reports of torture and war crimes. Fears that our government will expand that war into neighboring countries. The lessons of history, the lessons of Vietnam, are lost on this administration. It is time to protest."Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."
Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.
Thanks to Larry C. Johnson of No Quarter (see links) for clearing this up. Mr. Johnson is a counter-terrorism expert who has worked previously with the CIA.
To read the whole article:Full story
For starters, why can’t conservative talkers and bloggers accept the fact that Valerie Plame was undercover until exposed in Bob Novak’s column? Patrick Fitzgerald spoke in English and did not stutter when he said very clearly at the start of his press conference last Friday, “Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown”. You can only blow a cover if a cover exists.
Then there is the claim that the law to protect intelligence identities could not have been violated because Valerie Wilson had not lived overseas for six years. Too bad this is not what the law stipulates. The law actually requires that a covered person “served” overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
How about the charge that Joe Wilson lied because he denied that it was his wife who got him sent to Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium? Ladies and gentlemen, pay close attention—CIA officials in July 2003 and in July 2005 have said on the record that Valerie Wilson played no role in the decision to send Joe Wilson to Niger. Although the Senate Intelligence Committee report from July of 2004 tried to insinuate otherwise, Valerie’s bosses asked her to write a memo outlining her husband’s qualifications for a mission to Niger and she introduced her husband at a meeting (and then left). She was an undercover case officer, not a manager with the authority to make such a decision.
To read the whole article:
QKENCHANT
From A Farewell To Justice, by Joan Mellen, p.132, quoting from CIA documents:
From A Farewell To Justice, by Joan Mellen, p.132, quoting from CIA documents:
In 1952, Shaw had been cleared for project QKENCHANT, along with E. Howard Hunt and Monroe Sullivan, his San Francisco host during the weekend of the assassination. QKENCHANT authorized trusted CIA personnel for clearance to recruit or enlist "civilians," people not officially with the Agency, to discuss "projects, activities and possible relationships." It supported "an array of CIA activities.: An author named Hugh Chisholm McDonald was cleared under QKENCHANT to be "used for intelligence procurement."
QKENCHANT clearance meant you were a safe contact, and could be utilized as a "cutout" with the CIA giving you only a certain amount of information. You might be told to contact someoneyou didn't know. You might not know the planner of an operation or its ultimate sponsors. You might know something about who is running an operation, but not everything. But QKENCHANT, in CIA's own words, was an "operational project."
Shaw, then, could recruit other agents, granting them security approvals. His QKENCHANT records resided not with Domestic Contact, but in the Agency's "operational files." Shaw used his QKENCHANT clearance "to plan or coordinate CIA activities", as well as to "initiate relationships with ...non-Agency persons or institutions." Shaw was part of the Agency's clandestine services with Covert Security Approval, working under cover.
Among those who Shaw recruited under his QKENCHANT clearance was Guy Banister. The date was August 1960. A recently uncovered "Secret" CIA document reveals that Guy Banister Associates, Inc., was of interest to the Agency "for QKENCHANT purposes."
The Louisiana Psychoanalytic Association
Thomas H. Purvis today posted this document along with this commentary:
The "Intelligence Agency" was nothing more than a "Front" which has at time becomes known in NO, among those aware of it, as the "Garrison Detective Agency".
As you can see, Garrison was smart enough to file the Corporation as a "Non-Profit" entity. Which thereafter eliminated the need for various State & Federal document submission.
As a separate "Corporation", Garrison was thereby personally protected by the laws which separate the Corporate entity from the personal entity.
And, although the Corporation may have received funds which derived from it's activities, Garrison was responsible only for filing documentation relative to salaries paid to it's employees.
Therefore, good ole Mr. Jack Martin/aka Suggs, could be paid a salary from the "Detective Agency" /Intelligence Agency activities, and all other funds received expended as "expenses" related to the "Non-Profit" status of the corportion.
In that regard, one might want to look at how much of the New Orleans Taxpayers monies/DA budget was expended into "Investigation". Also, this kept Martin/Suggs happily employed with more than adequate funds to keep him on the "happy" sideline, out out of the line of fire and away from "inquiring minds".
In that regard, it is also no coincidence, (some would obviously call it irrelevant) that prior to his employment with the "Garrison-Intelligence-Agency", Mr. Martin/aka Suggs was a part of the phony front organization "Louisiana-Psychoanalytic-Association".
It is also "possibly" irrelevant that the co-founder/registered agent with Martin in this venture was none other than Thomas Juse Baumler, father to the "Hon" Thomas J. Baumler, Jr of the Garrison-Intelligence-Agency.
The Garrison Intelligence Agency
Thomas H. Purvis has been posting on John Simkin's JFK forum (see links) for several months now. His posts have consisted of scattered bits of information that has been difficult to put together. Yesterday he posted this document which caught my eye. Thomas Baumler is an extreme rightwinger who worked for Guy Banister. Harold Weisberg described him this way:
He delineated a self-portrait of an unabashed facist, congenital and conscious. He is aware of the meaning of his beliefs and considers what he describes as his beliefs as proper. He is an exponent of the rights of power. (HSCA Record# 1801007610190)
Jack Martin also worked with Banister and Ferrie. Joan Mellen, in her new book A Farewell to Justice presents evidence that Martin was CIA, and much more important than previously realized. Another piece of the puzzle.
A Prescient Warning in 1961
Concerning the Future of the JFK Presidency
The Presidential Motorcade In Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963
Report from Federal Bureau of Investigation
Dated December 9th, 1963
_____ H. Garrick, 3150 Old ___ Road, Bridgeport, Connecticut, employed as a cost accountant at the H.B. Ives Company of New Haven, Connecticut, furnished the following information:
Garrick advised that as a shareholder in the Rutland Railway Corporation ______ Vermont, he attended a stockholders meeting of that corporation at Rutland, Vermont, in April of 1961. He advised that among others present at that meeting were the following described individuals:
Frank C. La Grange, who he advised is the owner of La Grange & Company, 61 Broadway, New York City, and whom he further described as an investment banker, financier and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Central Railroad; _____ A. Bruno, whom he described as a railroad securities advisor for the Wall Street ____ ; L. James Gumpert whom he described as a retired former Vice President of Bon-Ami Corporation, presently Vice President of the B.T. Babbit Company and also a member of the Board of Directors of the ______ Railway Corporation.
Garrick advised that following this meeting of the Board of Directors of the Rutland Railway Corporation held in April of 1961 he had lunch on the same date with the above three mentioned individuals at a small restaurant, name unrecalled, located across from the freight yard on a side street opposite a large parking lot which had formally been the location of the railroad station in Rutland. Garrick stated that during conversations at this luncheon, La Grange while in the midst of a tirade against labor unions and the Government, made a statement "mark my words President Kennedy will not finish his first term". Garrick stated that he asked La Grange to amplify his statement. He stated that La Grange then said that Mr. Kennedy was not favorable toward business and that there was a group with a lot of money who wanted to put Mr. Johnson in the President's position but he stated that he could not go into the identities of the individuals in the group. Garrick further stated that he then asked La Grange what he meant by stating that President Kennedy would not finish his term. At this point Garrick was quite vague and reports La Grange as having stated either that Mr. Kennedy would meet a violent end or had used some words to that effect.
Garrick was unable to furnish any further information concerning this incident other than to state that the remarks which he attributed to La Grange had been made also in the presence of Bruno and Gumpert.
Inquiry at The LaGrange Company, 61 Broadway, New York, New York, revealed that Mr. Frank C. La Grange had died on June 13, 1964.
http://www.toronto.hm/lagrange.html
Concerning the Future of the JFK Presidency
The Presidential Motorcade In Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963
Report from Federal Bureau of Investigation
Dated December 9th, 1963
_____ H. Garrick, 3150 Old ___ Road, Bridgeport, Connecticut, employed as a cost accountant at the H.B. Ives Company of New Haven, Connecticut, furnished the following information:
Garrick advised that as a shareholder in the Rutland Railway Corporation ______ Vermont, he attended a stockholders meeting of that corporation at Rutland, Vermont, in April of 1961. He advised that among others present at that meeting were the following described individuals:
Frank C. La Grange, who he advised is the owner of La Grange & Company, 61 Broadway, New York City, and whom he further described as an investment banker, financier and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Central Railroad; _____ A. Bruno, whom he described as a railroad securities advisor for the Wall Street ____ ; L. James Gumpert whom he described as a retired former Vice President of Bon-Ami Corporation, presently Vice President of the B.T. Babbit Company and also a member of the Board of Directors of the ______ Railway Corporation.
Garrick advised that following this meeting of the Board of Directors of the Rutland Railway Corporation held in April of 1961 he had lunch on the same date with the above three mentioned individuals at a small restaurant, name unrecalled, located across from the freight yard on a side street opposite a large parking lot which had formally been the location of the railroad station in Rutland. Garrick stated that during conversations at this luncheon, La Grange while in the midst of a tirade against labor unions and the Government, made a statement "mark my words President Kennedy will not finish his first term". Garrick stated that he asked La Grange to amplify his statement. He stated that La Grange then said that Mr. Kennedy was not favorable toward business and that there was a group with a lot of money who wanted to put Mr. Johnson in the President's position but he stated that he could not go into the identities of the individuals in the group. Garrick further stated that he then asked La Grange what he meant by stating that President Kennedy would not finish his term. At this point Garrick was quite vague and reports La Grange as having stated either that Mr. Kennedy would meet a violent end or had used some words to that effect.
Garrick was unable to furnish any further information concerning this incident other than to state that the remarks which he attributed to La Grange had been made also in the presence of Bruno and Gumpert.
Inquiry at The LaGrange Company, 61 Broadway, New York, New York, revealed that Mr. Frank C. La Grange had died on June 13, 1964.
http://www.toronto.hm/lagrange.html
Essential ReadingJoan Mellen's long-awaited book on former New Orlean's District Attorney Jim Garrison's investigation into the Kennedy assassination is now available. I have not received my copy yet, but researchers who have had a look at her manuscript have said that it is a block-buster.
Available from
Amazon may be more convenient for widely available books like this one, but for the more obscure books on assassinations and other conspiracies, researchers have been going to Last Hurrah for decades.
Syria: The Next War?
Everyone should read JFK assassination researcher Lisa Pease's article on Syria, excerpts of which I quote below:
Syria: Falsely Accused as Pretext for War?
Everyone should read JFK assassination researcher Lisa Pease's article on Syria, excerpts of which I quote below:
Syria: Falsely Accused as Pretext for War?
I talked to an intelligence analyst not long ago who told me to keep an eye on Syria. He said we couldn't get to Iran until we first secured Iraq, and the only way to do that would be to secure the borders, i.e. Syria, through which aid flows to insurgents in Iraq.
Combine this with my long experience with government cover-ups, and you can imagine how skeptical I am of the UN Report, informally called the Mehlis report after lead Commissioner Detlev Mehlis, implicating the Syrian government in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. This seems to me to be the next "yellowcake," the next "sexed-up" intelligence leading us to yet another war.
Remember when President Reagan ordered the bombing of the house of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi? The justification given was that there had been solid evidence that Colonel Qaddafi's security forces had been behind the April 1986 bombing of the German disco La Belle. But a German documentary that aired in August of 1998 concluded that the case against the main suspect was so weak as to make him appear a patsy. The Berlin judge found the case against the lead suspect, Yasser Chraidi, so weak that he threatened to throw the case out of court unless better evidence could be presented.http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2005/10/syria-falsely-accused-as-pretext-for.html
So who stepped up to the plate to ensure a conviction, in spite of the lack of evidence? You guessed it, or should have guessed it if you follow these patterns: Detlev Mehlis. Who was being protected? According to the German documentary, the CIA and the Mossad. Mehlis met with a CIA agent named Musbah Eter and promised him immunity if he would implicate Chraidi in the plot. Eter did, the plot was "sold" to the world, and Reagan sealed it with a bomb attack on Qaddafi's home.
Is Karl Rove Gay?
Karl Rove: Known in Gay Circles as 'Miss Piggy'
Read the whole article--I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
Karl Rove: Known in Gay Circles as 'Miss Piggy'
In Washington's more 'discreet' gay bars Karl Rove is well-known as a frequent visitor. Witty gays have given him the nickname 'Miss Piggy, after the character on 'The Muppets'. Whether this refers to his appearance ['the doughboy'] or his sexual preferences is open to speculation.
Read the whole article--I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
From AmericaBlog:
CIA: Plame leak damaged US national security
by John in DC - 10/25/2005 05:5 8:00 PM
CIA: Plame leak damaged US national security
by John in DC - 10/25/2005 05:5 8:00 PM
I just watched this on CNN this afternoon:
Wolf Blitzer: Does the CIA believe that there was damage done to US national security as a result of Valerie Plame Wilson's name being leaked?
David Ensor, CNN National Security Correspondent: I'm told that in the day that it was leaked there was a quick look done, as there routinely would be, at whether there was damage. Officials simply won't go into the details, but I did speak to one official who did say yes, there was damage, this woman had a long career and she was posing as someone else, and all those people who saw her now know that she wasn't the person they thought that they were dealing with.
The Strategy
1. Shift the Blame
Newsmax reported the story as:
NY Times: CIA Leaked Plame's Name
Cheney drawn into CIA spy leak investigation
Even Fox News phrased the story as:
Plame Leak Said to Come From Cheney
And if George Tenet gave the information about Plame to Cheney, so what? Cheney is cleared for classified information--just not to give it to the press.
2. Smear Joseph Wilson
On Hannity and Colmes last night Sean Hannity said Joseph Wilson has "frankly, lied repeatedly" and that "he's a left-wing radical with a political agenda."
3. Smear Patrick Fitzgerald
W pals bushwhack CIA leak prosecutor
4. No Crime Here
It is all just the "criminalization of politics" or some little "technical" crime (like perjury or obstruction of justice). Columnist John Tierney had this to say:
Tell it to the jury.
1. Shift the Blame
Newsmax reported the story as:
NY Times: CIA Leaked Plame's Name
The New York Times itself had the story as:The ultimate source of information identifying Leakgate accuser Valerie Plame as a CIA employee my turn out to be the CIA itself, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Cheney drawn into CIA spy leak investigation
Even Fox News phrased the story as:
Plame Leak Said to Come From Cheney
And if George Tenet gave the information about Plame to Cheney, so what? Cheney is cleared for classified information--just not to give it to the press.
2. Smear Joseph Wilson
On Hannity and Colmes last night Sean Hannity said Joseph Wilson has "frankly, lied repeatedly" and that "he's a left-wing radical with a political agenda."
3. Smear Patrick Fitzgerald
W pals bushwhack CIA leak prosecutor
He's a vile, detestable, moralistic person with no heart and no conscience who believes he's been tapped by God to do very important things," one White House ally said, referring to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.Are you sure he wasn't talking about George W. Bush? Or is this what they call projection?
4. No Crime Here
It is all just the "criminalization of politics" or some little "technical" crime (like perjury or obstruction of justice). Columnist John Tierney had this to say:
No one deserves to go to jail for leaking information to reporters without criminal intent. The special prosecutor was assigned to look for serious crimes, not to uncover evidence that bureaucrats blame other bureaucrats when things go wrong.
Tell it to the jury.
Olson Twins Nearly Naked
The folks over at The Aurora ought to be ashamed of themselves for posting a photo of the Olson Twins with scarcely any clothes on--obviously in a shameless attempt to boost their web traffic.
http://theaurora.blogspot.com/2005/10/mascots-of-week.html
You're welcome.
The folks over at The Aurora ought to be ashamed of themselves for posting a photo of the Olson Twins with scarcely any clothes on--obviously in a shameless attempt to boost their web traffic.
http://theaurora.blogspot.com/2005/10/mascots-of-week.html
You're welcome.
Watergate and the Secret Army Organization
As we wait for what may be another Watergate-level event to unfold, it might be a good idea to look back at the time of Watergate, and some of the covert history that did not become part of the official record.
The Secret Army Organization, in many ways a sucessor to the Minutemen, was founded in February 1970 by Jerry Lynn Davis and Howard Barry Godfrey. Godfrey had been an FBI informant since 1967. The SAO stockpiled weapons and explosives and used them. In 1972 they bombed the Guild Theatre, a venue for pornography. They also fired shots into the home of a radical economics professor, Peter Bohmer, wounding a woman within.
Godfrey was a man with plans. They included:
1) putting massive dosages of LSD, cyanide or strychnine into punch at anti-war meetings.
2) bombing the Headquarters of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and several porn theatres
3) bombing the homes or offices of anti-war leaders
4) kidnapping or assassinations of anti-war leaders
5) fire bombing of vehicles and property belonging to anti-war activists
By November-December of 1971 his plans included dropping high explosives and phosphorus by plane on anti-war demonstrations and filling a plane with TNT or C-4 plastique and using it to blow up Air Force One and kill President Nixon. The SAO distributed a "Wanted for Treason" flyer featuring Nixon, eerily similar to one that had been distributed in Dallas in 1963.
Richard Popkin asked "Were there elements which opposed Nixon for his policy of rapprochement with China and Russia, and which would have preferred, say, Spiro Agnew as President?"
According to the NY Times (June 27, 1975) the ACLU had sent a report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which contained some startling information:
FBI informer John Rasperry stated that the FBI had instructed him to assassinate radical professor Peter Bohmer. Rasperry also declared that the FBI had paid for $10-20K worth of weapons and explosives.
According to the Times, "In addition to the F.B.I.'s direct control over the Secret Army, the White House allegedly maintained contact with the group through Donald H. Segretti, who was later convicted for directing a campaign of political espionage and sabotage against the Democratics in 1972."
(According to the Citizen's Research and Investigation Committee , Donald Segretti also met with, and gave money to, Arthur Bremer, who later shot George Wallace.)
According to the San Diego Union (Jan 11, 1976):
"Despite the staggering number of crimes Godfrey committed, the FBI prevented the San Diego D.A.'s office from prosecuting him."
The same paper, on Jan 16, quoted Steve Christensen, the FBI agent who supervised Godfrey for five years:
"Yes, I suppose you could say we were involved in some interesting activities. And other activities were going on elsewhere," he said during a telephone interview. "But I cannot discuss them."
According to Donald Freed in the chapter "Operation Gemstone" in Big Brother and the Holding Company, Louis Tackwood, ex-agent provocateur for the Los Angeles Police Department told of plans to provoke a small-scale war at the Republican Convention, then expected to be held in San Diego, leading to the declaration of a "State of Emergency" and martial law. Tackwood was to lead a team of black and Chicano provocateurs, which would foment street violence. Inside the convention hall explosives would kill and maim Republican delegates.
According to Freed: "An FBI provocateur, William Lemmer, has since admitted that a group posing as VVAW cadres, but with a special lightning flash insignia for recognition, would fire on convention delegates with automatic weapons." VVAW was Vietnam Veterans Against the War, led by John Kerry.
The possible connections between Watergate, the Secret Army Organization, and the attempted assassination of George Wallace should have been, but were not, fully explored by the Senate Watergate Committee. There may have been, as well, connections to another, successful, assassination attempt:
In The Glass House Tapes, Tackwood is quoted as saying:
"I'm giving up only two names. There's 'Martin', and there's 'White'. Aright, now, 'Martin' was the code name for my contact, and I'm gonna tell you he's C.I.A., all the way. Are you ready for this? He was in Dallas when they got Kennedy; he left out of there for the Caribbean."
Martin and White were names used by James McCord and Howard Hunt.
Sources:
Big Brother and the Holding Company: The World Behind Watergate, edited by Stephen R. Weismann, Ramparts Press, 1974
The Glass House Tapes - The Story of an Agent Provocateur and the New Police Intelligence Complex, Citizens Research & Investigation Committee and Louis Tackwood, Avon Books, 1973.
Mormon Spies, Hughes and the CIA, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1976
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~esisco/friendlyfire/A1972.html
As we wait for what may be another Watergate-level event to unfold, it might be a good idea to look back at the time of Watergate, and some of the covert history that did not become part of the official record.
The Secret Army Organization, in many ways a sucessor to the Minutemen, was founded in February 1970 by Jerry Lynn Davis and Howard Barry Godfrey. Godfrey had been an FBI informant since 1967. The SAO stockpiled weapons and explosives and used them. In 1972 they bombed the Guild Theatre, a venue for pornography. They also fired shots into the home of a radical economics professor, Peter Bohmer, wounding a woman within.
Godfrey was a man with plans. They included:
1) putting massive dosages of LSD, cyanide or strychnine into punch at anti-war meetings.
2) bombing the Headquarters of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and several porn theatres
3) bombing the homes or offices of anti-war leaders
4) kidnapping or assassinations of anti-war leaders
5) fire bombing of vehicles and property belonging to anti-war activists
By November-December of 1971 his plans included dropping high explosives and phosphorus by plane on anti-war demonstrations and filling a plane with TNT or C-4 plastique and using it to blow up Air Force One and kill President Nixon. The SAO distributed a "Wanted for Treason" flyer featuring Nixon, eerily similar to one that had been distributed in Dallas in 1963.
Richard Popkin asked "Were there elements which opposed Nixon for his policy of rapprochement with China and Russia, and which would have preferred, say, Spiro Agnew as President?"
According to the NY Times (June 27, 1975) the ACLU had sent a report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which contained some startling information:
FBI informer John Rasperry stated that the FBI had instructed him to assassinate radical professor Peter Bohmer. Rasperry also declared that the FBI had paid for $10-20K worth of weapons and explosives.
According to the Times, "In addition to the F.B.I.'s direct control over the Secret Army, the White House allegedly maintained contact with the group through Donald H. Segretti, who was later convicted for directing a campaign of political espionage and sabotage against the Democratics in 1972."
(According to the Citizen's Research and Investigation Committee , Donald Segretti also met with, and gave money to, Arthur Bremer, who later shot George Wallace.)
According to the San Diego Union (Jan 11, 1976):
"Despite the staggering number of crimes Godfrey committed, the FBI prevented the San Diego D.A.'s office from prosecuting him."
The same paper, on Jan 16, quoted Steve Christensen, the FBI agent who supervised Godfrey for five years:
"Yes, I suppose you could say we were involved in some interesting activities. And other activities were going on elsewhere," he said during a telephone interview. "But I cannot discuss them."
According to Donald Freed in the chapter "Operation Gemstone" in Big Brother and the Holding Company, Louis Tackwood, ex-agent provocateur for the Los Angeles Police Department told of plans to provoke a small-scale war at the Republican Convention, then expected to be held in San Diego, leading to the declaration of a "State of Emergency" and martial law. Tackwood was to lead a team of black and Chicano provocateurs, which would foment street violence. Inside the convention hall explosives would kill and maim Republican delegates.
According to Freed: "An FBI provocateur, William Lemmer, has since admitted that a group posing as VVAW cadres, but with a special lightning flash insignia for recognition, would fire on convention delegates with automatic weapons." VVAW was Vietnam Veterans Against the War, led by John Kerry.
The possible connections between Watergate, the Secret Army Organization, and the attempted assassination of George Wallace should have been, but were not, fully explored by the Senate Watergate Committee. There may have been, as well, connections to another, successful, assassination attempt:
In The Glass House Tapes, Tackwood is quoted as saying:
"I'm giving up only two names. There's 'Martin', and there's 'White'. Aright, now, 'Martin' was the code name for my contact, and I'm gonna tell you he's C.I.A., all the way. Are you ready for this? He was in Dallas when they got Kennedy; he left out of there for the Caribbean."
Martin and White were names used by James McCord and Howard Hunt.
Sources:
Big Brother and the Holding Company: The World Behind Watergate, edited by Stephen R. Weismann, Ramparts Press, 1974
The Glass House Tapes - The Story of an Agent Provocateur and the New Police Intelligence Complex, Citizens Research & Investigation Committee and Louis Tackwood, Avon Books, 1973.
Mormon Spies, Hughes and the CIA, Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1976
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~esisco/friendlyfire/A1972.html
Torture-One Victim's Story (from the Sunday Herald) - Excerpts below
www.sundayherald.com/52304
ON each stage of his journey, as he descended further and further into the gulags and torture chambers of the war on terror, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi was shadowed by British intelligence. The British were there in Karachi when Americans interrogated him and Pakistanis tortured him; they were feeding questions to the Moroccan torturers who took a scalpel to his penis; they stood back and watched as he was dragged to an American torture chamber in Afghanistan and then to the gulag of Guantanamo, where he languishes to this day.
Al-Habashi was seeking refugee status in the UK and thought of himself as British, so he was surprised when the American FBI arrived at the Pakistani jail to interrogate him. They told him he was a top al-Qaeda operative. Al-Habashi pointed out that he couldn’t even speak Arabic.
He laughed at them, and the Americans told him that if he didn’t start talking, he’d be taken to an Arabic country and tortured.
One guard told him how the torture would happen, saying: “They’ll come in wearing masks and beat you up. They’ll beat you with sticks. They’ll rape you first, then they’ll take a glass bottle, they break the top off and they make you sit on it.”
“One of them,” al-Habashi’s statement says, “took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming ... They must have done this 20 or 30 times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over ... They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better to just cut it off as I would only breed terrorists … there were even worse things. Too horrible to remember, let alone talk about.”
The Americans then helped him compose his confession. “The story was like this,” al-Habashi says. “First, Jose Padilla and I were meant to have good connections because we both spoke English. We were meant to have been hanging out together. Second, I was meant to have come to Afghanistan with him ... third, I was meant to say that he and I were going to go to the US to explode a dirty bomb … By then, I just did what they told me.”
Read the whole story. The actions described go far beyond making a suspect wear underwear on his head , or standing in "stress positions" or even water-boarding. These are not the activities of a few rogue military personell working the late shift. This is TORTURE and it is part of a pattern of torture, a policy of torture, formulated at the highest levels of our government. A policy of torture that is in clear violation of national and international law, and of all standards of civilized conduct and human decency. President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney should be impeached.
www.sundayherald.com/52304
ON each stage of his journey, as he descended further and further into the gulags and torture chambers of the war on terror, Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi was shadowed by British intelligence. The British were there in Karachi when Americans interrogated him and Pakistanis tortured him; they were feeding questions to the Moroccan torturers who took a scalpel to his penis; they stood back and watched as he was dragged to an American torture chamber in Afghanistan and then to the gulag of Guantanamo, where he languishes to this day.
Al-Habashi was seeking refugee status in the UK and thought of himself as British, so he was surprised when the American FBI arrived at the Pakistani jail to interrogate him. They told him he was a top al-Qaeda operative. Al-Habashi pointed out that he couldn’t even speak Arabic.
He laughed at them, and the Americans told him that if he didn’t start talking, he’d be taken to an Arabic country and tortured.
One guard told him how the torture would happen, saying: “They’ll come in wearing masks and beat you up. They’ll beat you with sticks. They’ll rape you first, then they’ll take a glass bottle, they break the top off and they make you sit on it.”
“One of them,” al-Habashi’s statement says, “took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming ... They must have done this 20 or 30 times in maybe two hours. There was blood all over ... They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better to just cut it off as I would only breed terrorists … there were even worse things. Too horrible to remember, let alone talk about.”
The Americans then helped him compose his confession. “The story was like this,” al-Habashi says. “First, Jose Padilla and I were meant to have good connections because we both spoke English. We were meant to have been hanging out together. Second, I was meant to have come to Afghanistan with him ... third, I was meant to say that he and I were going to go to the US to explode a dirty bomb … By then, I just did what they told me.”
Read the whole story. The actions described go far beyond making a suspect wear underwear on his head , or standing in "stress positions" or even water-boarding. These are not the activities of a few rogue military personell working the late shift. This is TORTURE and it is part of a pattern of torture, a policy of torture, formulated at the highest levels of our government. A policy of torture that is in clear violation of national and international law, and of all standards of civilized conduct and human decency. President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney should be impeached.
Ted Callaway: Dallas native saw Oswald shortly after JFK's slaying
09:33 PM CST on Wednesday, March 16, 2005
By CHRISTY A. ROBINSON / The Dallas Morning News
On Nov. 22, 1963, Ted Callaway was standing on the front porch of Harris Bros. Auto Sales when he heard five gunshots.
His subsequent experience with Lee Harvey Oswald soon after Dallas police Officer J.D. Tippit was killed turned Mr. Callaway into a participant in the Warren Commission hearings.
Mr. Callaway, 81, died March 10 of complications from pneumonia at Doctors Hospital in Dallas. His services were Tuesday at Restland Funeral Home.
"He was very concerned about the state of the nation at the time, and for the president's family," said his son, Robert Callaway of Dallas. "He was also concerned about his own family because of being an eyewitness."
Mr. Callaway was working at the car lot when President John F. Kennedy was shot, according to his Warren Commission testimony. Officer Tippit, patrolling the area, pulled up next to Mr. Oswald, who shot the officer and fled.
Those shots brought Mr. Callaway out onto the sidewalk, where Mr. Oswald, gun in hand, walked hurriedly down Patton Avenue, as close as 18 yards away.
Mr. Callaway testified that he yelled to Mr. Oswald, "Hey man, what the hell is going on?" Mr. Oswald stopped, said something unintelligible in reply, shrugged and walked quickly west on Jefferson Boulevard.
Mr. Callaway and others gathered around Officer Tippit's squad car. The officer was lying in the street.
The salesman and a cabdriver had seen Mr. Oswald headed toward Texas Theater. They got in a taxi and drove on 10th Street, Crawford Street, Jefferson and Beckley Avenue trying to find him.
Police captured Mr. Oswald at the theater 45 minutes after he shot the officer. Mr. Callaway picked him out of a police lineup that night.
"It was a sunny but very cold day. You could feel the cold of the nation, like September 11th," said Mr. Callaway's son, who was in fifth grade at the time.
The elder Mr. Callaway believed that Mr. Oswald was the lone gunman but that others were involved in the assassination.
A few days before the assassination, Mr. Callaway sold an old car to a clean-cut, well-dressed businessman, said his daughter Katy Callaway of Dallas.
Mr. Callaway discovered it was bought under a bogus name, and the Secret Service found the vehicle next door to where Oswald lived, Ms. Callaway said.
Two days after the assassination, someone fired on the car lot, she said. Police never found the gunman. Secret Service agents kept watch on the family for two weeks.
In the coming decades, Mr. Callaway gave interviews to media outlets and authors delving into the controversy of that day, including 60 Minutes and Geraldo Rivera.
He helped with the filming of The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald and Oliver Stone's JFK, his family said, and Southern Methodist University students would call him through the years seeking information for projects related to the assassination.
The Dallas native was born Aug. 26, 1923. He graduated from Sunset High School and studied English at Southern Methodist University.
He married Jeannette Callaway in 1951.
From 1942 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954 he served in the Marine Corps. He was a survivor of Iwo Jima, Saipan and Guadalcanal.
"He was a marksman in the Marines," Ms. Callaway said. "He used the same [kind of] rifle Oswald used, so he knew everything about it."
Mr. Callaway was a 32nd-degree Mason and a member of First Baptist Church in Dallas.
"He was in the nursing home, and some people visited him for interviews" for an upgrade on a book. Ms. Callaway said. "They visited him [there] twice, the last time about a year ago."
In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Callaway is survived by another daughter, Maggie Tarasoff of Dallas; a sister, Jean Carmack of Dallas; and two grandchildren.
www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/obituaries/stories/031705dnmetcallawayob.46e43.html
(Emphasis added)
