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If the Shoe Fits, Duck!
Which is exactly what President Bush did, twice, to avoid shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist today in Baghdad:
He said: “It is the farewell kiss, you dog.”
Gary Webb Was A Great Reporter
For those interested in the tragic story of Gary Webb, the reporter who covered the Dark Alliance between the CIA and crack epidemic-supplying Contra gangsters, as told in this weekend’s viewpoint by Robert Parry, you can listen to my January 31, 2004 interview of Webb here.
You can read the entire Dark Alliance series for the San Jose Mercury News here.
Where the Taliban Gets Their Money
The subcontractors responsible for moving NATO supplies from Karachi to the forces in Afghanistan have reportedly paid millions of dollars in protection money, called the “Taliban Tax” by the Times, to keep militants from attacking them.
One company reported spending 25% of its security money to the Taliban, while another company is reportedly on such good terms with the militants that they send fighters to escort their convoys.
It provides an interesting alternative explanation for the recent attacks on NATO vehicles around Peshawar, perhaps the depots fell behind on their protection fees.
Stinnett Responds to NSA’s Pearl Harbor Claims
At Scott Horton’s suggestion, I wrote Robert Stinnett, author of Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor, and asked “about the new story [1,2] that the NSA has debunked the Pearl Harbor foreknowledge narrative.” His response is as follows:
I received your email which I believe you refer to the “Winds Code” story which I read in the New York Times on Sunday, December 7, 2008, based on a news release of the National Security Agency written by NSA “court historians.”
The story is NOT news. The “Winds Code” was introduced in the Congressional Investigation of 1945-46 in an attempt by Congress to divert attention from American success in solving the Japanese naval codes prior to Pearl Harbor. American newspapers and radio networks carried the story in November 1945.
The “winds code” was issued by the Japanese Foreign Office, not the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Foreign Office, certain the Allied nations would cut off communications, planned to use hidden word phrases in their world-wide news broadcasts aimed at Japanese Embassies and Consulates world-wide. Example “East wind Rain” in the weather report during the short wave news broadcast meant war with America; East wind North meant war with Russia. Ralph T. Briggs, a U.S. Naval intercept operator at Station “M”, Cheltenham, Maryland, intercepted the “Winds Code” broadcast on December 4, 1941, numbered the report and sent it to headquarters in Washington, D.C. The numbered report of Briggs is missing from U.S. Navy files.
While the Foreign Office report certainly revealed Japanese war intentions, the Japanese Navy also used a hidden war phrase: Niitaka Yama Nobore 1208, which translated meant “Climb Mt. Niitaka on December 8, 1941” (Tokyo time). This radio message originated by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Commander in Chief of the Imperial Navy and was intercepted by Station “H” in Hawaii. Yamamoto transmitted the Niitaka message on December 2, 1941, in the hidden word phrase, according to testimony during the Congressional Investigation 1945-46. RADM Edwin Layton, who was Admiral Kimmel’s intelligence officer said the message was received in Hawaii in the hidden word system.
The Imperial Japanese Army also had a hidden word phrase. I have not seen the message, but it reportedly was “The Black Kite will fly on December 8, 1941.”
Best regards, Bob Stinnett.
See here for more on Pearl Harbor revisionism.
The Problem with the Blackwater Indictments
So, five Blackwater guards have been indicted on charges related to a 2007 shooting in which 17 Iraqis were killed. Blackwater hired guns should be held accountable for their actions—actions that Iraqis call premeditated murder. However, I see a major problem with this. As I said when light sentences were given out to U.S. soldiers for murdering Iraqi civilians: “We should never forget that since the invasion and occupation of Iraq was itself aggressive, unnecessary, and immoral–every Iraqi killed by U.S. troops could be said to be murdered.”
The government criticizing Blackwater is the ultimate case of the pot calling the kettle black. It diverts people’s attention from the criminality of the war. The most ardent supporters of the war can condemn Blackwater guards while at the same time lauding U.S. soldiers as defenders of our freedoms even though they have unleashed a genocide in Iraq. It is hard to get excited about the indictments of the Blackwater guards when I see no indictments forthcoming of George Bush, Robert Gates, and Donald Rumsfeld.