Author: Ray McGovern

… on Seeing Julian’s Political Asylum Unceremoniously Withdrawn

Have any of you readers had the trouble Ray has experienced in getting the following photo out his mind?

Ray’s hair/beard grows in disheveled witness to the uncivilized treatment accorded his admired friend Julian. Why such treatment? For publishing truthful information highly embarrassing to war criminals and others who dread the possibility that their crimes will come to light.

Continue reading “The Julian Assange Beard (JAB) Movement: A Suggestion”

I just got word that Gerry Condon, President of Veterans For Peace, was
bloodied and “taken to ground,” as they like to say, for trying to get food to people inside the occupied Venezuelan embassy this evening.

This link should take you directly to a photo of Gerry Condon on the sidewalk after the attack.

We are at the point Edward Snowden described as “turnkey tyranny.” Last night the key was turned a bit more, but – at least until now – it has been an almost imperceptibly gradual process, like the proverbial frog in the pan, as the water starts to boil. And, of course, this has happened before.

Continue reading “Fascism in Plain Sight in the Nation’s Capital”

This originally appeared at Consortium News.

It is a very sad day for the rule of law.

Today’s broad-daylight manhandling and kidnapping of Julian Assange from political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London demonstrates in bas-relief that in today’s Anglo-America, the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights are now “quaint and obsolete,” to use the words of pseudo-lawyer, Alberto Gonzales.

White House attorney Gonzales was referring in January 2002 to other basic principles of international law, the Geneva Conventions, from which he decided he could grant Bush an exemption so he could authorize torture – which he did on February 7, 2002. (We have that memo.)

This no secret; we also have the Gonzales’s memo to Bush. For services performed, Gonzales was nominated and confirmed as Attorney General, the chief U.S. law enforcer.

Continue reading “Requiem for the Fourth Estate”

WHY THE DNC WAS NOT HACKED BY THE RUSSIANS by Binney and Johnson

The following is Ray McGovern’s commetary on this important article.

Thinking back, President Barack Obama dropped a huge hint two days before he left office, using his last press conference to point out that the “conclusions of the intelligence community” regarding how WikiLeaks received the DNC emails were “inconclusive.”  The nerve!  Daring to say that just 13 days after the U.S. intelligence Gang of Four briefed Obama up and down on their evidence-free “assessment” that WikiLeaks got the DNC emails via a Russian hack.

This was one time Obama summoned the courage to face down James (the-Russians-are-almost-genetically-driven-to-deceive) Clapper and other intelligence chiefs.  After all, Obama is a lawyer.  He “does evidence.”  In contrast, ex-CIA Director John Brennan, told Congress that he does not “do evidence.”

Continue reading “Sorry, Russia-Gaters: WikiLeaks Got the DNC Emails From Insider, Not Russia”

Here is Karen Kwiatowski’s acceptance speech for the 2018 Sam Adams Award at a ceremony in Washington on Saturday night, preceded by the citation, that was read by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern.

Citation: Karen Kwiatkowski

Know all ye by these presents that Karen Kwiatkowski is hereby honored with the traditional Sam Adams Corner-Brightener Candlestick Holder, in symbolic recognition of her courage in shining light into dark places.

“If you see something, say something,” we so often hear. Karen Kwiatkowski took that saying to heart.

She saw her Pentagon superiors acting as eager accomplices to the Cheney/Bush administration’s deceit in launching a war of aggression on Iraq. And she said something – and helped Knight Ridder reporters Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay see beneath the official lies and get the sordid story right before the war.

Karen’s courage brings to mind the clarion call of Rabbi Abraham Heschel against the perpetrators of an earlier war – Vietnam. “Few are guilty,” he said, “but all are responsible. Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself.” Karen would not be indifferent to evil.

Ed Snowden, Sam Adams awardee in 2013, noted that we tend to ignore some degree of evil in our daily life, but, as Ed put it, “We also have a breaking point and when people find that, they act.” As did Karen. As did 16 of Karen’s predecessors honored with this award.

Continue reading “Karen Kwiatkowski Receives 2018 Sam Adams Award. Read Her Acceptance Speech Here”

Picture the late George H. W. Bush being welcomed with open arms last night by three of the Gang of Six white-collar criminals he pardoned on Christmas Eve, 1992, just before he left office. Waiting for him were former Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, plus swashbuckling, CIA covert action chieftains “Dewey” Clarridge and Clair George – all of them charged (and George convicted) of perjury.

What a celebration is in store when the other three of the gang eventually join them. They are Robert McFarlane, the CIA’s Alan Fiers, and former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams – all of whom had already pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress before Bush Sr. let them off the hook.

It caused an outcry in some circles, as The New York Timesreported: “Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails ‘Cover-Up.’”

Cover-up indeed. George H. W. Bush was up to his neck in the crimes of Iran-Contra, and so was his protégé, Bobby Gates. Gates was so demonstrably involved that he had zero chance of being confirmed as CIA director the first time it was tried. In 1991, Bush had to move mountains to get him confirmed. Gates knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak, and could be counted on to keep them six feet under. (I learned all this well after I spent four years, from 1981 to 1985, for the CIA briefing then-Vice President Bush with The President’s Daily Brief.)

Continue reading “The Bushes: Fathers and Sons (With Apologies to Turgenev)”