Philip Giraldi

Lies, War, Ignorance and Impunity: George Tenet, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and the whole War Party

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/awphillipgiraldi050807.mp3]

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi explains why he signed the joint letter with other former CIA officers demanding that former DCI Tenet give his book money to wounded soldiers and give up him medal of freedom, that lying a country into war is a war crime, Condoleeza Rice’s trip to Australia in the summer of 2006 and what it reveals about her abject ignorance of the world, whether Iraq’s WMDs were secreted away to Syria before the invasion, Dick Cheney’s trip to the Middle East to disrupt any chance of negotiation between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Israel and Syria, and whether there’s any chance the War Party will ever be held accountable.

MP3 here. (17:22)

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA agent, a partner in Cannistraro Associates, contributing editor to the American Conservative magazine and columnist for Antiwar.com.

[audio:http://dissentradio.com/charles/awphillipgiraldi050807.mp3]

Robert Parry

Secrecy and Privilege: The President gets away with whatever he wants

Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews.com discusses the need he found to create a new home for investigative reporting back in the 1990s, explains the role of the old Iran-Contra criminals in running the war party today, evidence of George Bush Sr.’s role, the narrative of the “crazy” Iranian regime which was apparently plenty sane enough when this same crew sold them weapons to use against Iraq who the U.S. was also backing in the 1980s, the October Surprise, how Bush claims to follow the advice of his generals as he replaces them with ones sure to “agree” with him that the answer in Iraq is to escalate, why al Qaeda wants the U.S. to stay in Iraq, why they did 9/11 in the first place, the crazy theory that the President has unlimited power over an unlimited area forever, and the media narrative that Bush is some great decisive leader even though he is an idiot and a coward and their suppression of the story of the Florida recount in the election of the year 2000.

MP3 here. (43:00)

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek, has written a new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

What Would Martial Law Look Like?

This is from the “Celebrate Public Service Recognition” exhibition on the Smithsonian Mall in Washington this weekend.

If they put a sign saying “Rule of Law” on front of the howitzer, people would figure it was just one more post-9/11 decorative change.

Some people look at the howitzer and think how easily it could be turned at Congress.

Folks don’t recognize that the barrel is already pointing in their direction.

Other photos I took yesterday of the military on the Mall are at my blog here.

Deja Vu

“And I think that withdrawal would be totally unrealistic and would a catastrophe.”

Sound familiar? It is Hubert Humphrey at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago speaking in defense of the Vietnam War.

Nonchalantly, NYT Details Israeli Ethnic Cleansing

Today is my day off; I wasn’t even planning on looking at the news, but it’s on my Google page and when I opened my browser, there it was: “Israeli Riddle: Love Jerusalem, Hate Living There”. I’ll be brief, as the article speaks for itself. The article starts out right away matter-of-factly stating that Israel has tried to cram more Jews into Jerusalem while trying to squeeze out the natives.

For four decades, Israel has pushed to build and expand Jewish neighborhoods, while trying to restrict the growth in Arab parts of the city.

I can’t imagine the vitriol that would be packaged as journalism if some southern US state were to, say, subsidize the construction of white neighborhoods and yet refuse permits for private building in overcrowded black neighborhoods. In 2007. It would be the only news for weeks. But it’s Israel, so the New York Times shrugs.

The article goes on to document the rising air of religious fanaticism convincing secular Israels to flee to more modern, cosmopolitan cities like Tel Aviv, mainly because of the astounding birth rate of Jewish religious extremists.

Ms. Angel [who left Jerusalem after 30 years] said she was increasingly turned off by religious and political intolerance. She recalled being casually but modestly dressed one day when an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman began yelling at her that she was not properly clothed.

Also, because the ultra-Orthodox hardly participate in wealth-generating enterprises, in addition to the conscious economic crushing of the Palestinians in their ghettoes, Jerusalem has become service-poor and opportunities have bled away to other, more liberal parts of Israel. Enlightened, upwardly-mobile Israelis simply don’t want to live there. And yet, while

More than 60 percent of Israelis said they would not want to give up Israeli control of the city’s holy sites, even as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians…78 percent of Israelis said they would not consider living in Jerusalem or would prefer to live elsewhere in Israel.

They don’t want to live there, but they want their government to continue the ethnic cleansing of the native population of the Old City. And the New York Times just finds that yawnable.

When War Just Can’t Wait

Prominent in the international press this past month has been Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s latest push to have the nation’s constitution amended to support a more belligerent foreign policy. The Japanese people, to their credit, have organized massive protests in opposition to the government’s rising militarism.

While revision of the constitution has been and remains a top priority for Abe’s administration, former envoy Shunji Yanai feels that the matter is simply too pressing to be allowed to continue through the appropriate legal channels. Revising a constitution can take years, after all, and in the meantime, the prohibitions against starting wars or getting involved in other peoples’ wars would remain in place. That is why Mr. Yanai has been appointed as the head of a committee to seek legal loopholes that would allow the government to further erode the interpretation of this portion of the constitution.

The “growing threat” of North Korea may be the present justification for this policy, but getting Japan to ditch its pacifist constitution so that they can “do their part” in assisting in America’s various international adventures has been a goal of American foreign policy for many years. In 2000, a bipartisan study group featuring such well-placed neocons as Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz issued a report that called the Japanese policy a ‘constraint’ on their alliance and urged a model similar to US-Britain alliance for broadening Japanese involvement in global military operations.

Yohei Kono, the Speaker of the Japanese Parliament says he takes pride in the fact that the Japanese troops haven’t killed a single person in the 60 years since this constitution has been in place. Between that and turning a country devastated by war into the second largest economy on the planet, one can’t help but wonder why there is such haste amongst policymakers, and indeed, why there would be any support at all from the population at large for such a major change. Hasn’t peace served Japan well enough since then? Hasn’t war after war proven enough of a disaster for the nations that have gone down that road since then?