Tonkin Gulf or Strait of Hormuz: SSDD

CIA, Iran & the Gulf of Tonkin
By Ray McGovern, January 12, 2008
When the Tonkin Gulf incident took place in early August 1964, I was a journeyman CIA analyst in what Condoleezza Rice refers to as “the bowels of the agency.”
Out of that experience I must say that, as much as one might be tempted to laugh at the bizarre theatrical accounts of Sunday’s incident involving small Iranian boats and U.S. naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz, this is—as my old Russian professor used to insist—nothing to laugh.
The situation is so reminiscent of what happened—and didn’t happen—from Aug. 2-4, 1964, in the Gulf of Tonkin and in Washington, it is in no way funny.
[...] What follows is written primarily for honest intelligence analysts and managers still on “active duty.”
[...] Given the confusion last Sunday in the Persian Gulf, you need to remember that a “known known” in the form of a non-event has already been used to sell a major war—Vietnam. It is not only in retrospect that we know that no attack occurred that night.
[...] As James Bamford describes it in “Body of Secrets:”
“The twin missions of the [USS] Maddox were in a sense symbiotic. The vessel’s primary purpose was to act as a seagoing provocateur—to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its 5-inch cannons up the nose of the Communist navy. In turn, this provocation would give the shore batteries an excuse to turn on as many coastal defense radars, fire control systems, and communications channels as possible, which could then be captured by the men...at the radar screens. The more provocation, the more signals...
[...] We in the bowels knew there was no attack; and so did the Director of Current Intelligence as well as Cline, the Deputy Director for Intelligence. But all knew, as did McNamara, that President Johnson was lusting for a pretext to strike the North and escalate the war. And, like B’rer Rabbit, they didn’t say nothin’.
[...] “... the dilemma CIA directors and senior intelligence professionals face in cases when they know that unvarnished intelligence judgments will not be welcomed by the President, his policy managers, and his political advisers...[They] must decide whether to tell it like it is (and so risk losing their place at the President’s advisory table), or to go with the flow of existing policy by accentuating the positive (thus preserving their access and potential influence). In these episodes from the Vietnam era, we have seen that senior CIA officers more often than not tended toward the latter approach.”
[...] Back to Iran. This time, we all know what the president and vice president are lusting after—an excuse to attack Iran. But there is a big difference from the situation in the summer of 1964, when President Johnson had intimidated all his senior subordinates into using deceit to escalate the war.
[...] It is my view that the only thing that has prevented Bush and Cheney from attacking Iran so far has been the strong opposition of the uniformed military, including the Joint Chiefs.
As the misadventure last Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz shows, our senior military officers need all the help they can get from intelligence officers more concerned with the truth than with “keeping lines open to the White House” and doing its bidding.
[...] If you’re working in the bowels of the CIA and you find that your leaders are cooking the intelligence once again into a recipe for casus belli, think long and hard about your oath to protect the Constitution. Should that oath not transcend any secrecy promise you had to accept as a condition of employment?
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/011108a.html

Impeachment IS Worth Fighting For

CheneyBush Burned Again: Too Near the Plame
By Bernard Weiner, Co-EditorThe Crisis Papers
November 27, 2007
[…] If a scandal falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, did it happen?
WE KNOW THEIR THUGGISHNESS
Here's the encouraging truth: The American public, despite all attempts by the rightwing media to distract and distort, long ago became aware of the worst crimes, and incompetencies, of the Cheney Bush Administration. […] The Democrats in Congress, the ostensible "opposition party," know all about these Administration transgressions, and much more. But there is no accountability. Nothing gets done. There are no hearings into possible impeachment, no enforcement of "contempt of Congress" charges against key Administration figures who refuse to turn over subpoenaed documents and to testify under oath.
Just suppose Congress decided to call McClellan and Cheney and Bush and Card and Libby and Rove to testify about the Plame-outing coverup. Assuming that the Democrats would ask them probing questions and catch Bush and Cheney in lies, what do you suppose would happen? Can you imagine Pelosi and Conyers changing their minds and putting impeachment back "on the table"? Not likely. But it's still a cause worth fighting for.
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays7w/plame.htm

Sinister or Silly? Bush Buys Paraguay Property

Keep your ears open for this story.
Hideout or Water Raid?
Bush's Paraguay Land Grab
By CP News Wire
Asuncion, Paraguay.
The land grab project of U.S. President George W. Bush in Chaco, Paraguay, has generated considerable discomfort both politically and environmentally.
The news circulating the continent about plans to buy 98,840 acres of land in Chaco, Paraguay, near the Triple Frontier (Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay) is the talk of the town in these countries.
Although official sources have not confirmed the information that is already public, the land is reportedly located in Paso de Patria, near Bolivian gas reserves and the Guarani indigenous water region, within the Triple Border.
..Concern increased last week with the arrival of Bush's daughter, Jenna, and a source from the Physical Planning Department saying that most of the Chaco region belongs to private companies.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cp10202006.html
Here's another source on this hard to find story from BBC News:
Tuesday, 10 September, 2002, 16:37 GMT 17:37 UK
Frontier in terror spotlight
By Andrea Machain, In Paraguay
The so-called Triple Frontier is a border area shared by three South American countries -Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, with a reputation as a centre for drug trafficking and money laundering
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2248487.stm
Why would Bush want to live where terrorists hang out? Searches for this story have brought dead ends, Cuban sites that "can't" be entered, stories about 9/11 and other oddities. Considering what we know about the Bush family, I doubt anything good will come of it.
CNN -- INSIGHT, Aired November 7, 2002 - 17:00:00 ET
The border region between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay has long been known as a classic frontier region where people who want to disappear loiter and where the shops are awash with smuggled goods.
But in recent years, there have been allegations that the area isn't just a collection of freewheeling border towns, but a major center for groups the United States considers terrorists. Now claims that it's from this area that the next major attack against United States interests will originate.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0211/07/i_ins.01.html
I'm getting way over my head now. I implore anyone knowing more about this to please post comments and/or contact me. Here's the last link I can stomach today:
Exclusive: Breaking 9-11 scandal
Feds knew about 9-11 bribery conspiracy before attacks
by Tom Flocco
Khalil bin Laden linked to evidence of terrorism in Brazil’s Triple Border region?
…According to a German news report, seven weeks after the September 11 attacks Brazilian police placed Khalil bin Laden--brother of Osama, under investigation due to reports of his visit in September, 2001 to a province near the tri-border region of Brazil-Paraguay-Argentina--an area suspected as a site for Hezbollah terrorist training camps, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA). (12-03-2002) The results of that investigation have not been publicly revealed. And the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee and 9-11 Commission have never mentioned Khalil or his ties to Triple Border's suspicious connections to terrorism.
"The region is the Hilton of Islamic extremism. It’s been on the radar since the early 90’s but no one’s done anything about it," said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland. (Vanity Fair, December, 2002)
Ranstorp added "the day after September 11, the CIA had a team of investigators [in Triple Border] there," continuing, "Brazilian authorities have intercepted numerous phone calls from clandestine telephone exchanges in Triple Border and Afghanistan [from cell phones in caves?] and last year a CNN reporter in Kabul found a large tourist poster from Triple Border at an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan."
According to U.S. cable television terrorism analyst and author of the Vanity Fair piece--Sebastian Junger, "Triple Border is now a thriving nexus of drugs, weapons, and money-laundering operations," adding "the Paraguayan consul [stationed] in Miami, Florida was recently arrested for allegedly selling a batch of 300 passports to foreigners--including terrorist suspects from the Middle East, who planned to move to Ciudad del Este, Paraguay."
Junger said "bank records show that a Lebanese businessman and shopping mall owner in Ciudad del Este named Assad Ahmad Mohamad Barakat....has transferred thousands of dollars to Hezbollah over the years," while Junger also revealed that "in [Barakat's Paraguay] office the police found scores of copies of an al Qaeda promotional video--providing yet more evidence that Khalil bin Laden’s links to terrorism allegations in Brazil should have been well worth exploring before the White House let him leave the U.S. after the attacks.
Vanity Fair and Junger said another Moroccan named Gueddan Abdel Fatah--incarcerated in Sao Paulo, handed a typed letter to attorney Edith Espinosa at the prison just six days before the September 11 attacks--and begged her to give it to the Federal Police in Brazil in the presence of U.S. Embassy and Israeli diplomatic officials.
In the letter, Fatah said "there were going to be ‘two explosions’ in the United States in the near future," but Espinosa neglected to pass the letter along, while Fatah said "he had gone to Triple Border the year before and had attended meetings at a mosque in Foz do Iguacu where Shiite and Sunni Muslims--ordinarily enemies--talked openly about ‘blowing up’ the United States."

…Whistleblower Retaliation

[Mary] Schneider said she specifically contacted other key government officials before the September 11 attacks: Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) Office of Internal Audit Director John Chase, The New York Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force, INS Internal Audit Assistant Director Sue Armstrong on August 9, 2001, Ft. Lauderdale DOJ Office of the Inspector General Special Agent-in-Charge Alan Hazen six times, and Miami INS District Director Robert Wallis and Deputy District Director John Bulger on Nov. 1, 2000--less than a year before 9-11. Both have since been promoted despite failing to take action before the attacks.

Because she repeatedly alerted multiple federal officials, Miami U.S. attorney Guy Lewis and Congress about terrorist threats, Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Mary Schneider is currently being harassed, threatened with termination after 30 years federal service--but prior to pension benefits, issued unsatisfactory work evaluations based on trumped up allegations, had her official whistleblower status recently revoked by the courts, and had her Title VII civil rights violations lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft dismissed just one day prior to jury selection in a manner similar to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.
Instead of promoting Schneider and giving her a raise for attempting to protect the American people, current congressional oversight permits the executive branch of govenment to commit what amounts to financial and emotional attrocities against a loyal and honorable federal employee.
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/FedsKnewAbout911.htm

Mad Cow Flys Over Florida, Pt. 2

(But only Pt. 2 insofar as this blog goes. See post: September 11, 2007 -- NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. FROM DALLAS TO 9/11: The War on the Truth)
Daniel Hopsicker has been on the case for a very long time. Another installment of La Vida Loca in the ever-so-crazy world of Florida Aviation. Don't go Busch Gardens. Go to Venice Aviation School and Flying Circus!
Bush Fundraiser Linked to CIA Drug Plane
WORLD EXCLUSIVE, Oct 29, 2007
by Daniel Hopsicker
...Moreover at the same time the Bush Ranger extraordinaire Stephen Adams owned the Gulfstream (N987SA) in 1999 and 2000, he was personally buying over $1 million of billboard ads for George W. Bush for his 2000 Presidential election bid.
…and neither of the federal agencies with apparent jurisdiction—the DEA and FAA—has so far offered any answers about how the American-registered red-white-and-blue Gulfstream business jet, whose recent owners are politically very well-connected, could have wound up carrying so much Colombian coke.
...The recently-busted drug running Gulfstream has been linked to CIA renditions. The DC9 flew painted with a bogus but official-looking Seal, as if it were from the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security, without protest from the Coast Guard’s major air facility in the Caribbean Basin, which was located just a few hundred yards away.
http://www.madcowprod.com/10292007.html

Thank You, Congressman Nadler!

U.S. leaders apologize to Arar
'This was a kidnapping,' U.S. congressman says of Canadian's arrest and deportation to Syria The Star.com [Toronto] Oct 19, 2007
Tim Harper WASHINGTON–Republicans joined with Democrats yesterday to offer Maher Arar something he has never received from the Bush administration – an apology for the U.S. role in wrongly detaining him, then sending him to Syria where he was tortured.
The 37-year-old wireless technology consultant listened by video link from Canada as an American legislator provided the most damning, blanket condemnation of the government's so-called security dossier, which it maintains contains evidence that Arar still poses a threat to the U.S.
"There is nothing there," said New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler.
… The administration even denied him entry to tell his story in person, said a clearly agitated Nadler.
He said he could not recall having to go to such lengths to get a witness to appear before a committee, and said he looked forward to personally apologizing to Arar on American soil.
… The surprise was the reaction of California Republican Dana Rohrabacher, a conservative who defended the rendition program, but also offered heartfelt apologies to Arar and said that he should be compensated.
…[Delahunt said] "We've seen enough dossiers from this administration – dossiers on weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/268463

Who Counts, Redux.

or, why not?
None Dare Call It Genocide
By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Well, it's about time that we think about the numbers, even though the US military has decided that body counts are not worth their time. Opinion Research Business, a highly reputable polling firm in the UK, has just completed a detailed and rigorous survey of Iraqis. In the past, the company's results have been touted by the Bush administration whenever the data looks favorable to the US cause. But their latest report received virtually no attention in the US.
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=23775

See my blog from Sept. 16, Who Counts? for more on this.

Emotions + Manipulation = The Next President?

A BuzzFlash Interview

Excellent interview with Drew Westen, a professor at Emory University and a specialist in behavior and psychiatry and the brain and author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation

Dem Leaders Don't Understand the Role of Emotion in Framing the Political Debate, So Writes Drew Westen of Emory University

If you look at the 2000 and 2004 elections, I think it was not only bad judgment, from a political standpoint, because it was jamming people's emotional radar, but I think it was ethically questionable not to call attention to George W. Bush's character in those campaigns.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/075