Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts

Monday, October 07, 2013

Cure for terrorism may be worse than disease

The following article was originally broadcast on KPFT-FM (Pacifica) in Houston, Texas during Bush Jr's run up to war against Iraq.

LEAD-IN BY HOST: Anyone who has ever read a campaign manual will recognize a typical tactic: dictate the agenda and change the subject when it is most advantageous to your candidate. The same tactic can now be found in the Bush Administration. Having gone to war by claiming Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, the administration is now shifting the focus. The slogan du jour is now the "liberation of Iraq". Reporter Len Hart finds the origins of this tactic in Ronald Reagan's failed war on terrorism...

The global ambitions of the Bush regime are made easier by the widespread media dissemination of several myths which predate what Republicans themselves boasted was a coup d'etat in Florida in the year 2000.

One of those myths --which plays into the hands of administration hawks --is little more than a pernicious lie: that Ronald Reagan waged an effective war against terrorism during his administration.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ronald Reagan's policies foreshadowed those of Bush. But as an opponent of "terrorism," he was completely ineffective. The standard must be the extent to which administration policies reduce the terrorist threat. That can only be measured by counting the number of such attacks.

The public record is documented by the FBI and those numbers are published by the conservative Brookings Institute. During the Reagan years, the U.S. sustained an average of about about 18 terror attacks per year!

By contrast, the number of such attacks against the United States during the Clinton years averaged slightly more than five per year! Put another way: terror attacks against the United States under Reagan were more than triple the nubmer of such attacks under Clinton.

Clinton, however, is villified by conservative pundits and media for failing to wage a Reaganeque war on terrorism. One wonders: is it preferable to wage a war and fail to not waging a war and succeeding?

Reagan's "War on Terrorism" was as much a cause as a cure for terrorism! The numbers prove that Reagan's loudly touted "War on Terrorism" was totally ineffective --a dismal policy failure if not a cover for the Iran/Contra hijinks in which Reagan, Oliver North, and most probably George Bush Sr. committed serious constitutional crimes while serving the interests of corporate sponsors and other rich special interests who feed like maggots upon lucrative defense contracts. Those contracts, not surprisingly, are always richer in times of "War".

The media seems to have institutionalized fantasy, lie, and propaganda. Most of these media myths are simply fallacious, circular arguments. Consider the performance of Barbara Olson on Larry King live in which she stated that Gary Condit was guilty of murder -- not because there was evidence against him -- but because there was none!

By the time Bush began rattling sabres, the same fallacy was applied to Saddam Hussein --no evidence of weapons of mass destruction is simply evidence that he hid them or moved them out of the country. Most recently, however, Hans Blix is quoted by European media as saying that it is doubtful that any Weapons of Mass Destruction will be found in Iraq and that the administration most probably knows that. It is for this reason, Blix strongly implies, that the administration and thus the media are deliberately downplaying that issue in favor another misnomer: "the liberation of Iraq."

Len Hart, KPFT News, Houston

This story was broadcast April 11, 2003.


Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Lessons of Recent History

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In his essay on Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar”, W.H. Auden observed that theatrical directors throughout the 30's found it quite natural to make of Caesar a great fascist dictator, more like Mussolini than Hitler. The conspirators, he claimed, were “liberals”. Up to date analogies are irresistible. For a brief period not long before Iraq fell into utter chaos, it could be said that George W. Bush had “...crossed the Rubicon”. There are better analogies to be made.

In 1947, Auden would say of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that it had “great relevance to our time”. That is still true, though Auden believed that Julius Caesar was about the society of ancient Rome on the very edge of doom. Auden did not believe that to be true of Western Civilization in 1947. But is it true of the US, Britain, and Western Civilization today? Are we perched on the edge of doom?

Historically, Octavian would “ride the storm” eventually prevailing at Actium, and, assuming the title “Augustus”. He would give to Rome another 400 years. One suspects that Octavian's prospects were not nearly as gloomy as those we face today.

Auden would write of the post Roman-Hellenic world that it collapsed of a spiritual failure, a lack of nerve, an inability to make sense of what was going on. This is the analogy that is to be made with the present. It is not surprising that a far flung war begun upon a pack of malicious and deliberate lies would drag on for four years. It did so because few in power understood the “story” behind the day-to-day news. The BBC stated flatly: the Iraq war has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East that will be felt for a generation. That is, in fact, an optimistic assessment.

There was yet another layer of complication. It had to do with the sense of community found lacking in America and, perhaps, to a lesser degree elsewhere. Auden makes much of the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays. “First things in Shakespeare are always important”, he writes. It is, therefore, significant that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene. It is just as significant that Bush Jr seized the White House following a “stolen election” and the very worst Supreme Court decision (Bush v Gore) since Dred-Scott.

A “crowd” is always one of three important types: societies, communities, and crowds. One belongs to a society in which the individual has a function or to which one contributes in one way or another. Communities are composed of people who share a common love, goal or culture. Crowds, by contrast, are composed of members who neither belong nor join. Members of crowds are mere numerical additions to the crowd. The crowd, Auden writes, has no function. That cannot be said of the “criminal gang” that attacked vote re-counters in Florida.

Crowds arise when communities break down, when individuals for various reasons cannot share a common culture, love or enthusiasm with others. Education, says Auden, has little to do with it. Knowledgeable, highly educated people often become members of crowds for various reasons and thus help drive the enigma of fascism.

An over-simplification is tempting. Crowds are fertile ground, nurturing fascism and other forms of authoritarian governments and regimes. This was witnessed in Germany as A. Hitler rose to power. If the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays is important, then it must be pointed out that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene and ends with the loss of Republic.

A crowd is most often ugly, fickle, angry yet manipulable. Kierkegaard would write of the public as merely a large crowd, “...a Roman emperor, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter.” He would call the “press” the “public's dog” that is often set upon the truly great. Thus, the crowd, manipulated by demagogues and charlatans, becomes a mob.

I submit that the increasingly isolated, suburban nature of American society, in the midst of plenty, devolved into islands of isolation. The word community merely attached to a soulless suburb does not make a real community. It's only a sub-division at best. At worst –a dormitory. An affluent America became a nation of crowds, a public only loosely held together, isolated by the science of demographics whose very purpose is separation and analysis.

Given those conditions, the events of 911 were exploitable. America became an angry mob. The conditions were ripe for a would-be dictator to seize “the crown”, vowing as he did to “...export death and destruction to the four corners of the earth.” This would-be Caesar was hardly swept into office with a genuine popular mandate. Many say the election was stolen. I am among those who believe that. Certainly, Gore received more popular votes in Florida. But for 911, Bush might have been retired.

By the time Bush had survived a full term, there was little hope that a new Congress would force a positive change. I was always hesitant to believe that Congress truly knew what was going on. Until America finds its soul, its sense of real community, it will remain like a latter-day Roman-Hellenic world on the edge of doom. There is no Octavian in the wings. There is little hope that our nation will survive another 400 years or so.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

AA Exposes Bush's 'Big Lie': Flight 11 DID NOT FLY on 911!


by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy


American Airlines is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. If neither flew on 911, the Bush 'theory' is a lie.

If the Bush 'theory' is a lie, there remains only one explanation: 911 was an inside job given a green-light by Bush himself. Moreover --only Pentagon employees were autopsied as a result of Flight 77 crashing the Pentagon.

There are NO names of passengers on the list, which is, in fact, the only admissible evidence to survive Bush's cover up and his obvious and felonious destruction of evidence (wreckage) at the Pentagon.

These "holes" are fatal to the Bush government's crumbling cover up! Conan Doyle, the brilliant creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, said:
"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" 
Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is not only impossible, it is absurd and insulting to intelligent people!

The Bush Conspiracy Theory is impossible; That's why we know it is a lie!  


There is, then, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the crimes of mass murder and high treason. See: U. S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. That includes every lying statement made by Bush.

WikiScanner discovered that it was American Airlines which changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11. If these flights did not fly or did not exist, then Bush's "official conspiracy theory" must be discarded. It is a lie! The original entry was as follows:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).
New entry [as of the date of this article] is as follows and includes the bolded text below:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.
--Wikipedia
To make the point: Wikipedia is NOT the source for these changes. The original source is American Airlines by making changes to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not about Wiki. The story is about a fact that is consistent with the observed facts as follows:
  1. no wreckage traceable to any airliner was ever recovered at the Pentagon
  2. That the flight (77) was not scheduled
  3. no airliner wreckage of any type nor any wreckage traceable to any flight was ever found or revealed by Bushco.
Instead, Bushco ordered the felony destruction of evidence i.e, wreckage that most certainly would have been verified and traced --not to an airliner but to a U.S. Global Hawk!

The ONLY turbo fan that was found and documented is not traceable to any airliner. It is, in fact, about 1/3 the diameter of two much larger turbo-fans that would have been recovered had Flt 77 struckt the Pentagon. It seems to me that Bush's felony destruction of evidence is evidence in itself that it was not an airliner that struck the Pentagon.

What had Bush to fear from airliner wreckage? Surely --the verified presence of debris traceable to an airliner would have supported Bush's version of events. Instead --Bush behaved like the criminal that he is and remains, i.e, he ordered the destruction of the evidence. That's a felony! 

The story is about how corrections to the official story originated with and from inside AA. The story is about the fact that the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 were not flying on 911 comes from American Airlines itself. Clearly --airliner personnel were trying to set the record straight. 
Just as no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered from the Pentagon, there is, likewise, no indisputable or official record that the flight --mothballed for some six months --was ever put back into service. If it had been, the burden of proof is still on Bushco and his league of liars to prove their story. 

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE!! 
According to a Freedom of Information Act reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks, while no pre-9/11 final flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA).

However, a discovered searchable online BTS database produces the following search results for three of the four 9/11 aircraft on September 10, 2001:

AA 11 departs San Francisco (SFO): AA 09/10/2001 0198 (flight number) N334AA (tail number) BOS (destination) 22:04 (wheels-off time)

UA 175 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0170 (flight number) N612UA (tail number) BOS (destination) 13:44 (wheels-off time)

UA 93 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0078 (flight number) N591UA (tail number) EWR (destination) 23:15 (wheels-off time)
--911 Blogger, UPDATE: U.S. BTS FOIA Records For 9/11 Planes Differ From BTS Online Database [The records were obtained by Adrian Monaghan]
The question is raised: how do we know who made the changes to Wiki? Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP is that of American Airlines. It's traceable.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as my Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that the change originated from American Airlines itself. That is consistent with the fact that no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered. If it had been, you can bet that the Bush administration would have put every scrap on parade. They didn't!

Therefore, the Bush theory of 911 is a deliberate lie.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS - 144.9.8.21


Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas
OrgName:    American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID:      AMERIC-112
Address:    P.O.Box 619616
Address:    MD 5308
City:       DFW Airport
StateProv:  TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country:    US

NetRange:   144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR:       144.9.0.0/16
NetName:    AANET
NetHandle:  NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:
RegDate:    1990-10-31
Updated:    2002-06-27

RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName:   Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone:  +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName:   WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone:  +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

In previous articles, I pointed out the fact that mere scraps that were found lying around on the Pentagon lawn were quickly gathered up by white shirted geeks. It was the only wreckage of any kind found on the Pentagon lawn. It included only one engine turbo-fan! But two would have been found had Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fan that was located and photographed on the lawn was one-third the diameter of two much larger compressor rotors that would have been left behind had a 757, indeed, ANY airliner crashed the Pentagon.

Last time I checked, the GOP had not managed to repeal the laws of physics, in this case, the law of the conservation of matter and energy. Simply, the wreckage found at the Pentagon when gathered would have weighed several tons; in other words, it would have weighed as much as a 757 minus passengers and fuel. Instead --the only wreckage gathered was carted off on the shoulders of four or five white-shirted, skinny geeks! Several tons? I don't think so.

Bottom line: NO WRECKAGE TRACEABLE TO A 757 was EVER found at the Pentagon. I do not believe that the laws of the conservation of matter and energy [See: conservation of matter and energy, M.I.T.] were repealed by Bush however much he might have wanted to do so.

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE and TRACE IT TO A 757!!

We can expect a gang of crooks and liars to cover up their own misdeeds but to cover-up the work of an 'alleged' gang of terrorists only makes them look guilty. It makes them look guilty because the only remaining alternative is that Bushco is motivated to destroy evidence. Only those who are guilty of crimes are thus motivated. In this case, only Bushco is motivated to 1) lie about 911 2) order the destruction of evidence as he, in fact, did with respect to the Pentagon and the towers in New York; 3) try to intimidate those questioning the official lie by branding them traitors and/or subversives.

One of Many Fatal Holes in the Bush Official Conspiracy Theory

The many lies (many referenced in previous EC articles; see links below) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!

911 as we have been told did not happen.

Bushco's 'official conspiracies theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are essential ingredients in the "official conspiracy theory" of 911. That AA claims that neither 11 nor 77 were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. Clearly --the official theory is a lie, an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? The official lie goes like this:
At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport
..Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6
Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.
According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble. 8 
--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research
Simply: if AA Flight 11 was not in the air, it could not have struck the towers; ergo: the Bush theory is false!

The house of cards collapses.

Assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower that are utterly baseless! If neither Flight 11 mor 77 was in the air that day, the Bush administration's version of events must be utterly discarded.

If flights 11 or 77 did not fly on 911, officialdom must come up with another explanation to explain the the events of 911.

No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon.

One would not expect to find wreckage of a flight never flown. What is significant with respect to the changes to Wiki, with respect to BTS/NTSB records is that the burden of proof is now placed upon Bushco to prove its theory. Bush et al should be compelled to prove the official theory --or face charges resulting from the probable cause that Bush himself and high ranking members of his administration participated in the crimes of mass murder and high treason!
Photos of an engine rotor appear to depict an engine used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, according to Britain's International Television News, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. "A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean." 

Britain's ITN continued:
"The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state... It flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images."
ITN quoted Australian Global Hawk manager Rod Smith: "The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway."

"The Missile that Struck this Building" --Don Rumsfeld

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.
  • Only minutes after the strike, [see pic above] there is no sign of an airliner at all!!
  • No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.
  • Only ONE engine rotor was recovered to be seen in photo! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor, i.e about the size of a U.S. Global Hawk rotor and can be traced to a U.S. Global Hawk.
  • A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon. Again --only one rotor was found in Pentagon debris.
  • Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines and would have been found had they been there.
  • Flight 77 could not and did not crash into the Pentagon. That may be because Flt 77 did not fly on 911. According to airline records, Flight 77 had been mothballed and had not flown for some 6 months prior to 911.
No Arabs Were on Board 77

There are no Arabs on the only Pentagon 'evidence' that is admissible in court: the 'Official Autopsy Report' of Pentagon victims. If no Arabs were on board Flight 77, Bush's theory must be trashed! There is not only no evidence to support the conspiracy theory that Arab terrorists hijacked 77. There is every reason to believe that none ever got on board.

The autopsy report was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. In a 'neat' cover-up, a 911 memorial lists all victims of whatever it was that crashed into the Pentagon. At the same time, 77 victims were said to have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. All are Pentagon employees! Where, then, are the passengers buried? I would be very surprised to learn that there were passengers on a flight that cannot be proven to have existed.

Whatever crashed into the Pentagon was described by a witnesses as looking like a "hump-backed whale". Rumsfeld himself called it a missile: Below: a US Global Hawk painted to look like an AA airliner. It is both a 'missile' and it also has a hump back! It 'fills the bill'.

The photo below does not purport to be the craft that would ultimately crash into the Pentagon. It merely demonstrates how easily such a 'paint job' could dupe those who are 1) not experts on aircraft 2) saw it only for a second or less as it scooted across the Pentagon lawn as NO 757 could possibly have done 3) were, in any case, caught off guard.


Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! America, it is time to grow up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies! It is time to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation of 911.

It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the U.S. by the Bush administration, his collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein who ordered WTC 7 be 'pulled', General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time, the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.
By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).
Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard. The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City.
It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense." Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?
There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"
The video asks: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" That is not the question. Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy --a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. It's a stupid theory; without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it.

The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators? It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable MUST be the truth!

There has been a spate of fallacious comments of the form: "...uh...what happened to the passengers, dude?". A few points:
  1. the 'question' is, in fact, an implied statement and assumes that there were flights! It assumes there were passengers! If there were --in fact --passengers one would have expected to have found their names on the official autopsy report. One would have expected to find in the public records the time and location of their burials.
  2. But --alas --there are NO Arab names whatsoever on the ONLY official/admissible scrap of evidence to have survived the Bush cover-up of 911! That would be the official autopsy report! There is simply no evidence of any passengers, no evidence that any flight alleged by Bush to have crashed in either NY or the Pentagon flew at all on that fateful day! In a court, it would be said that any statement with respect to 'passengers' that 'it assumes facts NOT in evidence'!
  3. Absence of evidence is not evidence! It is certainly not evidence in support of anything, let alone Bush's idiotic, fallacious and pernicious lie(s)! The 'absence of bodies' is not evidence of a crash of any sort. Only the presence of bodies traceable to the alleged flights would have been evidence in support of Bush. Alas --there were none! Ergo: Bush lied! The Bush 'theory' is bunk and bullshit!
The only available evidence, moreover, disproves the Bushco conspiracy theory of 911. There is no evidence whatsoever that there were --at any time --any Arabs of any sort (terrorist or otherwise) on board Flight 77, a flight for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it was even in the air.

Even the Washington Post is on record reporting that Hani Hanjour could not have been on board; he did NOT have a ticket. Skinny Hanjour is said to have been very slight, perhaps less than a hundred pounds. Are we to believe he over-powered people at the gate? In any case, there is simply no evidence of that, nor was it reported, nor is it credible.

Also --among the flight information released to an professional pilots association NTSB data that proves that the cockpit door was NEVER opened during the flight. Are we to believe that Hanjour managed to walk through a closed door into the cockpit? Was he sooo skinny he was able to slide under a closed cockpit door. Really! The Bush theory is not merely impossible, it's increasingly absurd, stupid and amateurish. Anyone duped by this bullshit should be ashamed of themselves.
The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were "passengers" on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies. In fact, from the beginning NO explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
Now, being the trusting sort, I figured that the government would want to quickly dispel any rumors so we could get on with the chore of kicking Osama/Sadaam's butt (weren't these originally two different people?). It seemed simple to me. . .produce the names of all the bodies identified by the AFIP and compare it with the publicized list of passengers. So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response, because we were getting ready to send our boys to war on the pretext that Osama/Saddam had done the deed. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list. Believe me that they weren't a bit happy to give it up, and I really have no idea why they choose now to release it.
foia-10003.jpg
No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airlines sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. Indeed, American had the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together.
--Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77 
Worth repeating and in summary:
...the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks.
I don't wish to belabor the point but it must be made clear that unaccounted for passengers is among the biggest holes in Bush's cover story; it is Bush's big, treasonous lie.

If Bush cannot explain the absence of airliner wreckage or the missing passengers, then his official theory must be discounted. It was Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!" But, of course, finding, learning, revealing the truth has never been the Bushco agenda. Seizing unjustifiable war powers was, I am sure, always on his agenda which always included oil!

Those who assert must prove! 

The burden of proof is on anyone believing and/or asserting that the alleged flights existed. A mass movement of Americans to include members of Congress should have insisted insisted that a Federal Prosecutor put Bush on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury where the following question would be put to him: 'what was the fate of the passengers on flights 77 and 11?'

It would be very interesting to learn how he might escape the experience without being indicted for:
  1. PERJURY
  2. OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
  3. MASS MURDER
Concerning possible charges of 'high treason' against Bush: was it not Bush who declared that we were at war? Was it not Bush and his shills who insisted that the US attack, invade and occupy Iraq in response to an 'attack' upon the US? Have not Bush partisans insisted, from the 'gitgo' that the U.S. attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was part and parcel of the US 'war on terrorism'? That being the case, Bush's complicity in the events of 911 are most certainly acts of betrayal against a sovereign in a time of war and, therefore, high treason! 

Among a growing number of links back to this article is this excellent expose of the Flight 77 fraud:
According to the official story, AA Flight 77, a Boeing 757, took off from Dulles Airport in northern Virginia at 8:10 a.m. bound for Los Angeles, with between 50 and 58 passengers. It flew west for about 45 minutes, making a curious detour to the north, west and south, before turning around and flying for another 45 minutes back to Washington. Why hijackers would allow a jet which they planned to crash into a target in Washington to fly for 45 minutes away from its target is not explained. Why did they not commandeer the plane ten minutes after takeoff when the plane was only ten minutes flying time from its intended target? The official story ignores this question, as it does all other questions.

As reported by the New York Times (International Herald Tribune, 2001-10-17, p.8), as AA 77 approached the Pentagon it executed a 270-degree 7,000-foot descent over Washington while flying at 500 mph. It approached the Pentagon on a horizontal trajectory so low that it clipped the power lines across the street then (so the story goes) it smashed into an outer wall of the Pentagon.

We were told (and, of course, expected to believe without question) that this maneuver was executed by an Arab pilot, Hani Hanjour, who in August 2001 was judged by the chief flight instructor at Bowie's Maryland Freeway Airport as not having the piloting skills required to fly a Cessna 172 solo. (Is there something fishy here?)

In contrast to the attention given to the collapse of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon received little attention until in February 2002 a French website (by Thierry Meyssan) appeared which reproduced images obtained from U.S. Army websites: Hunt the Boeing! These images cast doubt upon the official story that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 jetliner. For example, here is a picture of the Pentagon crash site taken about two hours after the impact, with the fire still burning. Can you see any remains of the approximately 100 tons of metal (including engines, wings, and tail section) which makes up a Boeing 757? .....
--Pentagon Official Story Hoax
The FBI doesn't believe the 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. Why should you?

The FBI has admitted, officially, that it cannot find any 'evidence' or documentation to support popular myths that some four airliners were hijacked by terrorists and used as weapons on 911. Moreover, the FBI itself admits that "... no records would have been generated responsive to plaintiffs request for documents."

In other words, even the FBI concedes that there is no admissible, no official evidence to support Bush's lies about 911. Their investigation, says the FBI, was based upon the never questioned assumption that the said flights had been hijacked. The key word in the FBI statement is: ASSUMPTION. The FBI is overly polite. 'Assumption' by Bushco is unacceptable! But a better description of Bush and company is 'bald-faced lie' purpose of which was two-fold: 1) obstruct justice 2) protect the guilty and prevent their prosecution for the crimes of high treason and mass murder!

The Co-chairs of the 911 Commission don't believe the official theory; why should you?



Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Howard Zinn: Why the U.S. May be Doomed

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' is must reading! It should be required in American secondary and high schools but most certainly won't be! It will remain anathema in states like Texas! Why is that the case? Simply --Zinn told the truth about our nation, it's history of genocide, aggressive war, income and wealth disparity, elitism, slavery, bigotry, growing distrust of one another, the need to 'feel good about ourselves' when maybe we ought NEVER to feel good about ourselves.

Back to Zinn who wrote:
There is evidence of growing dissatisfaction among the guards. We have known for some time that the poor and ignored were the nonvoters, alienated from a political system they felt didn't care about them, and about which they could do little. Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line. These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods, hostile to government-combining elements of racism with elements of class consciousness, contempt for the lower classes along with distrust for the elite, and thus open to solutions from any direction, right or left.

--Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
Texas may be 'the' case in point. It seems to have been the GOP 'lab' in which were tested 1) its radical, extremist, elitist, right wing ideology and 2) the means by which this ideology would be sold if not blatantly foisted upon an unsuspecting, often soporific public content to be easily distracted by the increasingly radical right wing, extremist media.

Texas had been Democratic for some 100 years! And then it was taken over by GOP cultists, a process begun in the middle 80s when at least one extremely conservative consultant --Paul Caprio of Chicago --engineered wins for the GOP even as Tom DeLay gerrymandered the state. Caprio's prominent client was State Sen Mike Richards representing the extremely conservative, elitist Houston suburb --Sugarland.

It was in Sugarland that reps from the Taliban met with Unocal and other pooh bahs of big oil just prior to 911, just prior to the U.S. attack and invasion of Afghanistan. Who has followed up on this? What payoffs were made to the Taliban? What has become of those representatives of the Taliban who journeyed to the suburbs of Houston to met with big oil and other right wing extremists? Recall --this is Bush/Perry country. This is the cancer from which sprang Dick Cheney's efforts to carve up the oil fields of Iraq.

The GOP takeover of Texas is even older. You may recall this date: November 22, 1963. Just prior to the tragic, cold-blooded murder of JFK, a slim, often slouching figure was photographed 'hanging around' beside the front entrance to the Texas School Book Depository Buiding on Elm St. This slouching figure is that of a man I came to know in Houston. His name is George H. W. Bush
The fact of that discontent is clear. The surveys since the early seventies show 70 to 80 percent of Americans distrustful of government, business, the military. This means the distrust goes beyond blacks, the poor, the radicals. It has spread among skilled workers, white-collar workers, professionals; for the first time in the nation's history, perhaps, both the lower classes and the middle classes, the prisoners and the guards, were disillusioned
with the system.

--Howard Zinn, A Peole's History of the United States
It's only gotten worse! People are desperate! There is no check on right wing mendacity, psychopathy, elitism, imperialism, greed! Anyone daring to oppose them --Dem or indie --are crushed. The right wing, the moneyed elites, make the rules and finance their stooges. The electoral systems favor the status quo because it takes BIG MONEY to even get into the race; ergo --everyone who runs --regardless of party affiliation --are but pawns of the vast right wing money and power machines.

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

'Conspiracies of Rich Men' to Rob You, Enslave You, and Wage Aggressive Wars at Your Expense!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It is still fashionable in the American media to deride 'conspiracies' with a blanket if illogical and uninformed smear. Conspiracies are, in fact, how things get done in either crime or commerce. Lately, there is little difference. When just one percent of the U.S. population owns more than the rest of us combined, we are expected to believe that this is the result of merit and 'free enterprise'. But if we should cite the evidence that argues persuasively that this outcome is the result of a conspiracy of right wing politicians and the venal elites who bankroll them we are reviled and/or ridiculed. In fact, 'free enterprise' does not exist in an oligopoly and 'oligopoly' is a polite word for what has happened to and in America. We should expect a pack of lies from those caught with a hand in the cookie jar! We should expect cover stories and propaganda from those caught in the act of looting the United States. We should expect 'excuses' and rationalization from the cadre which cooked up the cover story --'supply side economics'.

Conspiracies are how things get done. If legal, they are called 'corporations'. If not, they are criminal conspiracies and there is a huge body of case law that proves how utterly stupid is the meme: "conspiracies don't exist!" Tell it to the judge!

Very little is accomplished by one person working alone, be it the mythical 'lone gun man' in Dealy Plaza' or Dick Cheney wishing to gain control of the oil fields of Iraq. The Dick, as you may recall, required a conspiracy, his 'Energy Task Force' which met to divvy up the spoils of aggressive war before it would occur, before they would have the convenient pretext to justify it: 911!

Like Hitler with Thyssen, Krupp, I.G. Farben et al, the Dick met with his co-conspirators, his 'Energy Task Force', just prior to 911. They met to carve up the oil fields of Iraq amongst them just as Hitler had coveted the coal in Poland.

We are expected to believe the official cover story that the subsequent 911 attacks were merely coincidental when, in fact, they provided the essential pretext to attack and invade Iraq. We are expected to fall into line and goosestep. We are expected to just shut up and allow the corporate media to brainwash us. We are expected to believe coincidence theories upon faith and faith alone; to ask for evidence or proof is 'unpatriotic'. Not all of us fell for this crock! It was only the gullible, the stupid, the right wing!

Conspiracies need not be illegal though most of them probably are; else --why keep them secret? Why the campaign to convince you that they do not exist? If a conspiracy is legal, it's called a corporation. For awhile, Enron found that 'corporate person-hood' was the perfect cover. Like the Twin Towers later, Enron crashed and burned as a result of its own conspiratorial schemes to include putting the screws to California.

Conspiracy theorists on the high court have provided rich theorists and criminals yet another layer of cover: corporate person-hood! The robed conspiracy theorists have have said that corporations are people! But if should you call those five idiots who, in fact, conspired to subvert the U.S. Constitution, by the term 'conspirators', you will be denounced as a nut job! That the insane will call us 'nuts' is proof that we live in absurd, Kafkaesque times.

A recent decision of the Supreme Court has said that 'corporations' are people! Now any rag tag collection of crooks, ne'erdowells and/or robber barons can send money to the Secretary State in Delaware and receive in return a nice binder with impressive documents along with a genuine Delaware corporate seal! Thereafter, you --too --will be a real person, a 'corporation'! The Delaware Secretary of State has made it so! Now, I ask you, who is nuts? At one time, this cost about $5o to $100 and there were/are numerous 'registered agents' who handle all the paper work for you. All you have to do is send them real money, as real as money can be these days.

The biggest conspiracy theorists since WWII have been the demagogues of the right wing who raised the specter of a World Wide Communist Conspiracy. We were told that there were evil conspiracies of drug dealers and drug cartels which they used to justify crack downs on civil liberties and justify domestic surveillance. We were told about evil schemes to poison our drinking water for the greater glory of communism --a world wide conspiracy. Or so we were told. Later, the same folk would tell us that conspiracies do not exist. No one should believe them.

The government often cites the specter of 'organized crime' in order to rally voters to a 'right wing' cause like 'law and order', a big issue in the 1960s. What is organized crime if not a conspiracy? In order to believe in the specter of 'organized crime', we must believe that 'conspiracies exist'. Either they exist or they do not! Either organized crime is real or it is not! Which is it? I despair that the idiots who run our government will ever make up their mind.

Organized crime was a favorite 'boogie man' back in the 30s, 40s and 50s. After all, Al Capone was selling booze and screwing whores. But what are 'crime syndicates' if not conspiracies? Again --the government will have it both ways if it can get away with it. Having spent several decades scaring the pants off the population by raising the specter of a 'conspiracy' --organized crime --the government now expects us to believe that conspiracies do not exist. When is the government telling the truth? When is it lying? It is reasonable to question everything said by the government about anything at any time! It is clear that the government will tell you anything that is expedient!

The government itself is, as St Thomas More said of the court of King Henry VIII, a 'conspiracy of rich men". These 'rich men', this mere one percent of the total population, will exploit whatever 'threat' is convenient to keep the people uninformed, enslaved and/or pacified. The perceived 'threats' are many and, over the years, the 'threats' have included hippies, black people, rock n' roll, crime syndicates, etc. But, most recently, the 'conspiracy of rich men' we call the government has hit the bonanza: terrorism.

In order to fully exploit this new buggaboo, the government demonized the religion of Islam. It raised the specter of racism, in this case, the 'brown skin' of many who live in the Middle East. These liars and criminals had to resort to every trick in the book. But, to be honest, they were not very good at it and only the very, very stupid fell for it.

The right wing establishment are themselves conspiracy theorists when it is useful but not otherwise. 911 is a case in point. The official theory of 19 Arab Hijackers is a conspiracy theory favored by the Bush administration though there is absolutely no admissible evidence to support it. It is 'Orwellian' that anyone proposing any 'other' conspiracy theory is labeled a 'conspiracy theorist' and reviled or called other names.

The government will turn a blind-eye to the fact that it is, itself, a conspiracy and not always a legal one. It was Ronald Reagan who sold arms to Iran illegally and committed treason in the process. He did not do this on his own. Reagan conspired with the CIA, Bush Sr et al to sell arms to Iran --called at the time an 'avowed enemy of the United States! The CIA used the proceeds of those sales to bankroll --illegally --the Nicaraguan Contras. The CIA, itself, must be considered to be nothing more nor less than an institutionalized conspiracy. There is a word for a conspiracy of this type: traitors guilty of high treason:
The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The tone in Iran/contra was set by President Reagan. He directed that the contras be supported, despite a ban on contra aid imposed on him by Congress. And he was willing to trade arms to Iran for the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East, even if doing so was contrary to the nation's stated policy and possibly in violation of the law.

The lesson of Iran/contra is that if our system of government is to function properly, the branches of government must deal with one another honestly and cooperatively. When disputes arise between the Executive and Legislative branches, as they surely will, the laws that emerge from such disputes must be obeyed. When a President, even with good motive and intent, chooses to skirt the laws or to circumvent them, it is incumbent upon his subordinates to resist, not join in. Their oath and fealty are to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to the man temporarily occupying the Oval Office. Congress has the duty and the power under our system of checks and balances to ensure that the President and his Cabinet officers are faithful to their oaths.

--Lawrence Walsh, Special Prosecutor, Concluding Observations, FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS
No one ever called the Senior Bush a 'conspiracy theorist' though he was, in fact, a conspirator! But worse, he was a 'traitor' and so was Ronald Reagan.
"I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth."

- Sir Thomas More (1478 - 1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia
Let's put the myths to rest forever. Conspiracies exist! OK? Last time I checked the Cornell University Law Library and FINDLAW, I found hundreds if not thousands of court decisions, having to do with conspiracies large and small, of one sort or another. If conspiracies do not exist, I would urge that someone, anyone please send a memo to that effect to the Supreme Court. Tell them to stop handing down decisions having to do with 'conspiracies'. Inform them that conspiracies do not exist! Do that! Then get back with me!

In his 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', William Shirer described a 'conspiracy of rich men'! A record of this conspiracy of Hitler survives. It includes corporate/business supporters, his financiers, his minions. Like Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' with respect to Iraq, Hitler's gang was a conspiracy to invade the nations of Europe, steal their resources and divide up the booty.
Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)

The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.

Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."

All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

----William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34
We are fortunate that no one 'informed' Shirer that conspiracies did not exist before he bothered unearthing the mountain of Nazi documents that proved --beyond any reasonable doubt --the Nazi conspiracy, specifically, the meeting that proved and described in considerable detail the Nazi conspiracy to wage war and genocide for the benefit of global corporations that participated. Some of those corporations were American. There is no evidence that these corporations ever stopped being 'Nazis'. It is interesting to note that one of Hitler's early and generous sponsors was Henry Ford, the American car maker. A portrait of Ford hung in Hitler's fancy New Reich Chancellery. A traitor, perhaps he should have been hanged in the Chancellery!

This meeting of 'industrialists' took place just as surely as did meeting of Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' in which the oil fields of the the Middle East, Iraq in particular, were 'divvied' up among the conspirators. The results were published in a 'National Energy Policy' report in May 2001 [PDF], several months before 911 would give them the pretext to make the report come true.

Another example is Heinrich Heydrich's infamous conspiracy --his meeting at Wannsee, attended by Nazi bureaucrats, and corporate kiss ups. Over a civilized lunch, this 'conspiracy of rich men' planned the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
... within a few months after the meeting, the first gas chambers were installed in some of the extermination camps in Poland. These six camps, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka were in operation in Poland.

Responsibility for the entire project was placed in the hands of Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS, and head of the Gestapo and the Waffen-SS.

The Wannsee Conference did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland. Not one of the men present at Wannsee objected to the announced policy. Never before had a modern state committed itself to the murder of an entire people.

--The Wannsee Conference, Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
Very little is accomplished by one person working alone unless you happen to be Michelangelo. Conspiracies exist! Our own Supreme Court has said so. This is ironic as the high court itself has deteriorated, devolved; they are, themselves, of late, a conspiracy of right wing ideological extremists in service to just one percent of the population, the ruling one percent which, in fact, owns more than the rest of us combined. SCOTUS is owned!

Another tool of the ruling elite is the CIA, an acronym forever linked by time and space to the name George Bush Sr. Like Dan Quayle, Bush Sr was expert at saying nothing while moving his lips. The opposite of ventriloquism. In his presence, one was in danger of death by boredom! Nevertheless, he was a Bonesman, the son of a traitor, a CIA 'operative'. Having known Bush SR, I would testify that that is, indeed, the Senior Bush photographed hanging around the TSBD just prior to the assassination of JFK. Bush Sr was and probably still is a very dangerous man! As Caesar said of Cassius, Bush Sr had 'a lean and hungry look'! Cassius, as you may recall, participated in the murder of Caesar.
A body of leads has been assembled which suggests that George Bush may have been associated with the CIA at some time before the autumn of 1963. According to Joseph McBride of The Nation, “a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.” 1

By the time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which refers to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency,” and despite official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:
  • The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA’s “Miami Station” (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other targets.

  • The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the cover-up of those responsible for this crime.

  • The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special Investigations Unit (the “Plumbers” and later Watergate burglars) from among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans.

  • The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.
George Bush’s role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: “…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs.

The names Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises. There were Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf.” 2 Felix Rodriguez tells us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the “Grey Team” in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find directing the contra supply effort in central American during the 1980’s, working under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. 3 Theodore Shackley, the JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential campaign.

--Webster Tarpley, , George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 8b – The Bay of Pigs and The Kennedy Assassination
The assassination of JFK is clearly a textbook example of the The Modus Operandi of the CIA. In this source insider Ralph McGehee, chronicles the work he performed for the CIA from 1952 through 1977.

Another book --Deadly Deceits --is sub-titled: My 25 years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1983). In this source is compiled a computer data base of CIA activities. Persons interested may write to him at: 422 Arkansas Ave., Herndon, VA 22070. (See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_SOP.html .)
“...it is essential to provide background on the scope and nature of its worldwide operations. Between 1961 and 1975 the Agency conducted 900 major or sensitive operations, and thousands of lesser covert actions. The majority of its operations were propaganda, election or paramilitary. Countries of major concern, such as Indonesia in the early 1960s, were usually subjected to the CIA's most concerted attention. Critics of the CIA have aptly described the mainstays of such attention: "discrediting political groups... by forged documents that may be attributed to them. . . ." faking "communist weapon shipments,'' capturing communist documents and then inserting forgeries prepared by the Agency's Technical Services Division.

--Ralph McGehee
Americans may be less informed about the CIA than residents of almost every other country. Americans are routinely lied to and deliberately kept in the dark by a 'mainstream' media that often seems complicit. For example, the MSM dare not tell the truth about the CIA and often seems to be in cahoots with them. As the CIA was known to have infiltrated student groups in the sixties the suspicion that they have, likewise, infiltrated the media is not only reasonable but conservative. It is the rare media outlet that will risk alienating its advertising base. See: Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass.

It is only coincidence, we are told, that the now dead Kennedys had been a threat to the CIA and it is only a coincidence that they are dead because of it. It is only coincidence --we are told --that activist Steve Kangas had zeroed in on conservative crimes and failures just as Richard Mellon Scaife was bankrolling a jihad against Clinton. It was only coincidence that Bush Sr was photographed hanging around the front entrance to the Texas School Book depository just minutes prior to the murder of JFK. It was only coincidence that tramps looking like E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis et al were arrested for just hanging around the rail road tracks that run north and south just behind the grassy knoll. It was just coincidence that Martin Luther King Jr seemed to have prophesied his own death with his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

"The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." --FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, speaking on the telephone to Johnson aide Walter Jenkins two hours after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, HSCA Report, vol. III, pp. 471-73. (The Warren Commission -charged with determining the truth in the JFK assassination --relied upon Hoover's FBI as its primary investigative arm.)

"We have not been told the truth about Oswald."

--Senator Richard Russell, former Warren Commission member, conversation with researcher Harold Weisberg in 1970, Whitewash IV
We have not been told the truth about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But we know who the liars are and we know what it is they are lying about. We also know a great deal about why they lied as well as who is protected by the lies and why. It has also been my experience that only the guilty are sufficiently motivated to lie about a crime. Those who cover up a crime do so because they are guilty. By contrast, the innocent are motivated to tell the truth or to get at the truth. Their lives often depend upon it. The innocent must insist that truth be told if they are to remain free. It was Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

The answer to that question might well have solved the JFK murder case! Had the train behind the grassy known not been a threat, the FBI would not have removed every trace of it in photos. I know that the FBI did so because I held in my hand the evidence that proved that they did so --slides taken in Dealy Plaza, doctored while in FBI possession. The slides were taken by Phil Willis, kept by the FBI for years, but when they were returned to Rosemary Willis (his daughter) they had been altered. The FBI is responsible.

Cover-ups, of course, are intended to protect the guilty. Something about the train --where earlier well-dressed tramps had been arrested --is germane to the plot to murder JFK. Tampering with evidence is always intended to protect the guilty. By removing the evidence, the FBI was not merely obstructing justice, it was protecting the identity/identities of murderers and traitors! Why would the FBI protect an assassin's get-away? It is reasonable to conclude that the FBI was and remains a part of the plot. See more at: Exposing Lies About the FED, the CIA, the Murder of JFK

The death of Lee Harvey Oswald relieved the government of having to get a conviction. Had Oswald gone to trial, he would have walked. The government 'case' against him would never have convinced a jury.

The magic bullet said to have created all of JFKs wounds was pristine; clearly, it had never been fired, had never struck anything. It was found on the wrong gurney at Parkland Hospital and could not have been placed at the scene of the crime. Oswald had to die because a competent judge would have thrown out the 'magic bullet'. Oswald would have walked and in 'walking' would have been a threat to the liar of the CIA, George Bush Sr who was photographed hanging around the front entrance of the TSBD just minutes before the shooting would start.

Nevertheless, we are expected to believe that a single bullet fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano was responsible for numerous wounds --a fatal one to JFK and serious wounds to Texas Governor John Connally. None of this would have gotten by a competent defense. The plotters concluded that it was better to destroy the evidence and kill all the witnesses.
“Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who on pretence of managing the public only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they pleasure. And if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws. Yet these wicked men after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among themselves with which all the rest might have been well supplied, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed among the Utopians; for the use as well as the desire of money being extinguished, much anxiety and great occasions of mischief is cut off with it. And who does not see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are indeed rather punished than restrained by the severities of law, would all fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world? Men’s fears, solicitudes, cares, labours, and watchings, would all perish in the same moment with the value of money; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall.”

--St. Thomas More, Utopia
If the Military-Industrial Complex is not a 'conspiracy of rich men', then what is? If the Supreme Court has not deteriorated into a conspiracy of right wing ideologues, then why are not the dictionaries re-written and the thousands of pages of case law burned or dumped offshore? The 'conspiracy rich men' has been careless. Nevertheless, we are expected to buy the lies and die for them. No thanks!
Note: The Existentialist Cowboy is currently bombarded by spam from a lunatic name caller of the right wing ilk! Therefore, comments are moderated. Intelligent comments are, as always, welcome! Ad hominem attacks, spam and psychotic drivel is not! Eventually, the offending party will be committed to an asylum and we adults can once again engage in intelligent, articulate dialogue. Thanks for understanding.


Sunday, November 15, 2009

The End of American Community

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In his essay on Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar", W.H. Auden observed that theatrical directors throughout the 30's found it quite natural to make of Caesar a great fascist dictator --more like Mussolini than Hitler. The conspirators, he says, were "liberals". Up to date analogies are irresistible.


There was a very brief period of time not so long ago, before Iraq fell into utter chaos, that it could be said that George W. Bush had "...crossed the Rubicon". There are, however, even better analogies to be made. I am still surprised that the GOP 'released' the White House so willingly, it seems in retrospect. Still cynical, I am inclined to believe that the world left Obama in Bush's wake is now so precariously perched, so involved in economic disaster that it is hoped Obama will take 'the fall' for the mess that was left him.

In 1947, Auden would say of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that it had "great relevance to our time". Auden believed that Julius Caesar was about a society, the society of ancient Rome, on the very edge of doom. Auden did not believe that to be true of Western Civilization in 1947. But --is it true of the US, Britain, and Western Civilization today? Are we perched on the edge of doom?

Historically, of course, Octavian would "ride the storm" to prevail at Actium, and, assuming the title "Augustus" would give to Rome another 400 years. The prospects thus were not nearly so gloomy as those we face today.

Auden would write of the post Roman-Hellenic world that it collapsed of a spiritual failure, a lack of nerve, an utter inability to make sense of what was going on. This is the most accurate analogy that is to be made with the present. It is not surprising that a far flung war begun upon a pack of malicious and deliberate lies would drag on for years. It has done so only because few in power understand what is going on. The BBC states flatly: the Iraq war has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East that will be felt for a generation --an optimistic assessment.

There is yet another layer of complication. It has to do with the sense of community lately found lacking in America and, perhaps, to a lesser degree elsewhere. Auden makes much of the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays. "First things in Shakespeare are always important", he writes. It is, therefore, significant that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene, evidence of community found in few modern societies.

The crowd is one of three important types: societies, communities, and crowds. One belongs to a society in which the individual has a function or to which one contributes in one way or another. Communities are composed of people who share a common love. Crowds, by contrast, are composed of members who neither belong nor join. Members of crowds merely add numerically to the crowd. The crowd, Auden writes, has no function.

Crowds arise when communities break down, when individuals for various reasons cannot share a common love or enthusiasm with others. Education has little to do with it. Knowledgeable, highly educated people often become members of crowds for various reasons and thus often help drive the enigma of fascism.

Over simplifications are tempting. Crowds are fertile ground, nurturing fascism and other forms of authoritarian governments and regimes. If the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays is important, then it must be pointed out that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene and ends with the loss of Republic.

A "crowd" is most often ugly, fickle, angry yet manipulable. Kierkegaard would write of the public as merely a large crowd "...a Roman emperor, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxification of laughter." He would call the "press" the "public's dog" that is often set upon the truly great. Thus, the crowd, manipulated by demagogues and charlatans, becomes a mob.

I submit that the increasingly isolated, suburban nature of American society, in the midst of plenty, devolved into islands of isolation. The word community merely attached to a souless suburb does not make a community. It is but a sub-division at best. At worst --a dormitory. An affluent America became a nation of crowds, a public only loosely held together yet isolated by the science of demographics the very purpose of which is separation and analysis.

Given those conditions, the events of 911 were highly exploitable and America became an angry mob. The conditions were ripe for a would-be dictator to seize "the crown", vowing as he did to "...export death and destruction to the four corners of the earth." This would-be Caesar was hardly swept into office with a genuine popular mandate. Many say the election was stolen. Certainly, Gore received more popular votes in Florida. But for 911, Bush would have been retired early.

There is still some hope for a positive change, more if Bush had not left Obama an economic catastrophe already well under way. In this fog, we are fortunate if we should know what is really going on. Until America finds its soul, its sense of real community, it will remain like the Roman-Hellenic world. There is no Octavian in the wings who might give us a reprieve of some 400 years or so.
______________________________________________________________________________






Sunday, June 22, 2008

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

It's hard to stop buying oil when the world's economy is based on it. But --start! An economy based upon oil will have to fall before anything is done or changed. As long as the US economy is based upon a resource that it cannot produce economically, the US will continue to blackmail oil producing nations with nukes.

The US has become MUGGER NATION!.

Why is a different standard applied to gangs of crooks than apply to crooks individually?

The source of most US crookery abroad is the 'Military/Industrial Complex' --a high sounding name for a gang of ruthless, venal corporations who openly conspire to hijack the apparatus of state for business purposes. The enforcement arm of the MIC is 'Blackwater USA' a private firm best described as 'paid thugs', professional muggers! Individuals who do that are called either 'criminals' or 'terrorists'.

Any political party supporting this arrangement is a criminal conspiracy. Any individual providing material support is a crook! The GOP is a criminal conspiracy and its leadership should be prosecuted under RICO statutes. Sadly, Democrats will never change anything as long as they are content to lick up the leavings.

Though M*A*S*H informed us that 'Suicide Is Painless", it solves nothing. The cure for addiction is never painless but must begin if the US has any hope of surviving. Suffer a little pain for a better world. Stop feeding the beast! Stop addressing him as 'The Great and All Poweful Oz'! He's a hologram!
The machine cannot continue unless you continue. You are the power that turns the wheel. Step away from the wheel. As one more slithering entity calls out for the murder of a truthseeker you must now call out for justice. We are in dire need of a new Nuremberg. Those who have killed without conscience must be called into the dock. Justice must be done for the dead and dishonored. The evidence is vast and convincing; the perpetrators known and identified.

Can you hear the rushing of the waters? Can you see the events near and far that tell you the water, which is not water, is uncomfortably close? Can you feel the wind that drives the specters in the mist? Will you go or will you step away from the wheel?

--Les Visible, The Creeping Madness of the Collectively Unhinged Mind.
Michael Reagan is a product of the 'machine'. The radio stations that carry his venom sell advertising that shills the products of an economy that is utterly dependent upon the continued theft --by the US --of the resources of other nations and other individuals. Theft! In fact, a mugging. The US overtly threatens other nations with nukes! 'Give us your oil or a fat juicy cut or get nuked!' Millions deplore such tactics yet they remain in the play book. Too few have stepped away from the wheel.
The Wizard of Oz was written at the turn of the century, so how could the author have known America was going to be drugged? The Crown has been playing the drug cartel game for centuries. Just look up the history of Hong Kong and the Opium Wars. The Crown already had valuable experience conquering all of China with drugs, so why not the rest of the world? What was the Emerald City? The Federal Reserve System. [note: the author quoted cites the 'Fed'. I think the machine if much bigger even and includes the Fed, the MIC, the US 'corporotacracy', et al.]

Who finally exposed the Wizard for what he really was? Toto, the ugly (or cute, depending on your perspective) and somewhat annoying little dog.

Toto means "in total, all together; Latin in toto." What was it that the witch wanted after she alleged that the little dog had bitten her? TOTO. ... everything. Notice how Toto was not scared of the Great Wizard's theatrics, yet he was so small in size, compared to the Wizard, that no one seemed to notice him? The smoke, flames and holographic images of Oz were designed to frighten people into doing as the Great Wizard commanded. Toto simply padded over, looked behind the curtain (the COURT, etc.), saw it was a scam, started barking until others paid attention to him and came to see what all the barking was about.

Who was behind the curtain? Just an ORDINARY PERSON controlling the levers that created the illusion of the Great Wizard's power and authority. When Toto pulled back the curtain and completely exposed him, the charade was at an end. (The veil hiding the corporate legal fiction and its false courts was removed.) The Wizard's game was UP. What was he after all? ... a con-man. A FRAUD. We can see, in this tale, just how loud the bark from a little dog can be.

Start thinking about the various ways in which you have supported this "hologram", this phony wizard, this great beast and then stop doing it. Stop supporting the machine and stop supporting it's "mugger" government. When enough people have stoppedfeeding this beast, the beast will die!