Beware of Darkness .....

{1} "Watch out now, take care,
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly,
Beware of MAYA
Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They'll take you where you should not go
While Weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow --
Beware of Darkness
-- George Harrison

As the investigations of the Plame and neocon/AIPAC scandals progress, it is becoming increasingly clear that a small group of people in the federal government have betrayed our nation. Some are well-known: Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz have been in high-profile positions over the past 30 years or more. Others, such as Douglas Feith and Richard Perle (nicknamed "the Prince of Darkness" by his friends), are primarily known to those who study criminal behavior in republican administrations. Still others are unknown to the public.

Yet even among these shadowy, unknown figures, we find those who build the foundation of the public's perception of public figures from Cheney to Saddam, and of events from 9-11 to the war in Iraq. Let's take a closer look at a few of these "players," and examine some of their tactics as well.

When Karen Hughes or Karl Rove have needed "expert" advice on communications, they turned to The Rendon Group. TRG is a highly secretive agency that was formed by former political operative Rick Rendon. Rick runs TRG with his brother John, and John's wife, Sandra Libby. An interesting description of TRG is found in a speech John gave to Air Force cadets in 1996:

"I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician. I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager."

What type of work do "information warriors and perception managers" do? In the first Gulf War, the CIA contracted for TRG to provide the little American flags to Kuwaitis to wave for "photo-ops" when U.S. forces liberated them from Iraqi occupation. The average American simply doesn't ask where people who were subjected to 7 months of oppressive occupation would get the large supply of American flags, nor would they finf TRG supplying them offensive. That's because the American flag is a powerful symbol.

Some other TRG propaganda could have been more offensive, however. An example was the chilling tale told by a teen-aged Iraqi girl, who had volunteered as a nurse's aide in a hospital. She told a tearful story of Iraqi soldiers barging into the hospital, and stealing incubators, leaving the poor infants to die a cruel death on the cold concrete floors. As it turned out, this story was a lie. TRG used the teen-aged daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S. for the propaganda film. They recognized that few Americans would question their lie, simply because of the power of the image of defenseless babies dying on the hospital floors.

{2} "...I think it's important to show the importance of keeping an open mind. You'll be surprised how fast, how easy it is for someone to steal your and my mind. You don't think so? We never like to think in terms of being dumb enough to let someone put something over on us in a deceitful and tricky way. But you and I are living in a very deceitful and tricky society, in a very deceitful and tricky country, which has a very deceitful and tricky government. All of them in it aren't tricky and deceitful, but most of them are. And any time you have a government in which most of them are deceitful and tricky, you have to be on guard at all times. You have to know how they work this deceit and how they work those tricks. Otherwise you'll find yourself in a bind."
-- Malcolm X; "At the Audubon"; 11-24-1964

Let's look closer at some of the deceit and tricks used to get our nation to support the Bush administration's aggression in Iraq.

An important first step was TRG's creating the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi people knew that there was no such thing as the INC. It was simply a front for the neocon's poster boy, Ahmed Chalabi. But in order to sell Chalabi to the American public -- and indeed the congress -- TRG made the INC sound authentic. In fact, the INC became the symbol of Iraq's post-Saddam future.

TRG's information warriors and perception managers needed to have a reason to replace Saddam. The neocons had been planning to take him out for years, ever since President Bush1 opted to end the Gulf War outside of Baghdad. The 9-11 attacks on the United States gave TRG an old symbol to sell an attack on Baghdad with.

TRG had two "journalists" interview Abnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, an Iraqi civil engineer who claimed he could provide concrete evidence about Saddam's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs. He claimed to know the exact locations of more than 20 factories that were producing WMDs. He hinted that Saddam was planning to attack US interests .... and perhaps a US city.

The first journalist to interview this fellow was Paul Moran. Curiously, Paul was an INC employee, who was "on loan" from TRG. His claim to being a freelance journalist was supported only by his participation in producing CIA-funded "anti-Saddam" films.

The second journalist to interview this fellow before he simply disappeared was none other than Judith Miller of the New York Times. Judith followed up with an article quoting an "unnamed administration source" who assured her that "more than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb .... The closer Hussein gets to a nuclear weapon, the harder he will be to deal with." Judith ended her article with a powerful symbol: "the first sign of a 'smoking gun' .... may be a mushroom cloud."

Information warriors and perception managers know that when a powerful symbol is used over and over again, the public becomes more likely to fall for it. This is the essence of the deceit and trickery that Malcolm warned of.

"It's public now," VP Cheney told Meet The Press. "There is no doubt (that Saddam) has weapons of mass destruction."

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," Condi Rice stated on CNN's Late Edition.

General Tommy franks warned that inaction could result in "the sight of the first mushroom cloud on one of the major population centers on this planet."

"The Iraqi regime is seeking nuclear weapons," President Bush warned. "Does it make any sense for the world to wait .... for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud?"

And Donald Rumsfeld attached the symbol of the mushroom cloud with 9-11: "Imagine a September 11 with weapons of mass destruction."

The icing on the cake, however, came in President Bush's State of the Union speech, in which he uttered the infamous 16 words, claiming he had proof that Saddam was attempting to buy yellow cake urnanium from Niger. That was perception management in action.

{3} "One of the best ways to safeguard yourself from being deceived is always form the habit of looking at things for yourself, listening to things for yourself, thinking for yourself, before you try and come to any judgment. Never base your impression of someone on what someone else has said. Or upon what someone else has written. Or upon what you read about someone that somebody else wrote. Never base your judgment on things like that. Especially in this kind of country and in this kind of society which has mastered the art of very deceitfully painting people whom they don't like in an image that they know you won't like. So you end up hating your friends and loving your enemies."
-- Malcolm X; "At the Audubon"

TRG's perception management convinced the congress and the American people that Iraq posed an immediate threat to our safety. When the stockpiles of WMDs were not found, the majority of Americans were willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt. Even in congress, elected officials were largely unaware of the fact that the administration had purposely mislead them, by failing to mention that many within the State Department and CIA did not support the neocon's claim that Saddam posed a threat to the United States.

However, in March 2003, the IAEA announced the Niger yellow cake documents were crude forgeries. The same day, Joseph Wilson told CNN that the White House had "more information" on this very issue. Wilson was among a group of people, primarily from the State department and CIA, who were trying to communicate the truth to some administration officials (mainly Condi Rice) and to people in congress. They were also speaking "off the record" to select reporters.

The VP's office was aware of Wilson's activities. A group meeting was held in Cheney's office after Wilson spoke to CNN. Their goal was to produce "a work-up" on Wilson, which they could use to crush him if he publicly challenged their lies.

This type of activity is usually done by a group with experience in propaganda, or "perception management." TRG coordinated efforts such as this with a highly secretive Pentagon group, the Office of Strategic Influence. Run by Douglas Feith, the OSI focused on submitting false information to the public through operatives posing as journalists, and in producing documents such as the "Niger yellow cake" forgeries, and the Bush "national guard records" provided to Dan Rather's people.

When Wilson played point for the effort to expose the administration's lies, by writing the op-ed for the New York Times, the administration mercenaries were tasked with outting Valerie Plame. The goal was, in part, to "discredit" Wilson, by falsely indicating his wife sent him on the mission to Africa. It was also to send a clear message to those in the State Department and CIA who might be tempted to come forward. And it was also intended to derail investigations into the potential sale of WMD components.

Further, it was an ugly attempt to divide people in the CIA's embassy-based operations from the NOC programs. Valerie Plame was in the NOC area. The investigations being conducted by NOCs posed the greatest threat to expose the lies of the administration.

{4} Is this real?
Let us see, is this real?
Let us see, is this real?
This life I am living
You, Gods, who dwell everywhere,
Let us see, is this real?
This life I am living?
-- Pawnee song of creation

This summer, the appeal by Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Plame case, along with indictments in the neocon/AIPAC spy scandal, have made the news. Neither case fits the "perception management" mold sought by the White House of TRG. As a result, they began to try to smear Wilson and Plame again. However, even mainstream media sources did not fall in line.

The growing discontent with the war in Iraq; the Downing Street Memo; and Cindy Sheehan, have begun to cut into the administration's traditional base of support. As a result, the perception management efforts are showing up in other, sometimes surprising areas.

Among these are efforts to smear Wilson among the democratic left. The goal is to insert a lie, which will be picked up and repeated enough times to create doubt about the integrity of Joseph Wilson. The appeal is not being made to those who are likely to follow Malcolm's advice to look, listen and think for themselves. Rather, they produce a fictional character who appeals to those who enjoy c-grade flicks: a former "secret agent/attorney," on the run like Dr. Kimble in "The Fugitive," accessing the internet in libraries. A series of democratic sites now feature "discussions" of the misinformation being put forth in order to discredit Wilson. It does not matter that this is built on a foundation of lies .... the attempt is merely to have the lies repeated, side-by-side with the truth, in order to conbfuse people.

Without giving any credibility to this nonsense, I will point out one error: this source claims Wilson is involved in a complex plot to fool the public. His "proof" is that Wilson does not address the issues of espionage involved in the Plame grand jury investigation. To support this lie, his followers quote one sentence, out of any context, from Wilson's book. What they ignore are the references to the DoJ's counterespionage unit's investigating the case.

The Plame and neocon/AIPAC spy scandals are complex, indeed. Those interested in them should read as many sources of information as possible. Authors such as John Dean, James Bamford,Seymour Hersh, and Justin Raimondo are of great value; information in this essay comes from each of those. There are also "mainstream" sources, including Time, Newsweek, and The Nation, which offer some information of value sandwiched between some less-valuable articles. And there are numerous internet sites that have quality information.

In Cold Blood: Perpetual War

{1} "For his part, Cheney knew that the real foreign policy struggle within the administration was not over Rove but Powell. One night he remarked privately that the administration had these intense discussions about the two sides of the Iranian government, that of the democratically elected president, Mohammad Khatami, and the powerful theocratic religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'The debate is whether it's two sides of the same government or whether it's two separate governments,' he said of Iran, adding jokingly, 'The same question applies to Don Rumsfeld and Colin Powell'." -- "Plan of Attack"; Bob Woodward; pages 128-9

I would like to take a few minutes to discuss the United State's relations with Iran. Sources such as Reuters and Truthout reported that President Bush, in an interview with Israeli media, had noted that all options -- including force -- "are on the table" regarding Iran. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder almost immediately responded, "...let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work." (8-13-05)

Bush's comments raised concerns in Europe, in part because it confirmed an article from the 3-13 London Times, which reported that the "inner cabinet of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, gave 'initial authorisation' for an attack (on suspected Iranian nuclear sites) at a private meeting last month on his ranch in the Negev desert.'" The article described practice raids by elite commando units in rather specific detail. It noted that US officials said a strike could not be ruled out if the UN became deadlocked on the issue.

Further, in a 2-18 London Daily Telegraph article ("America Would Back Israel Attack on Iran"), Bush was quoted as saying, "Clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I'd listened to some of the statements by Iranian ayatollahs that regarded the security of my country, I'd be concerned about Iran having nuclear weapons as well. And in that Israel is our ally, and in that we've made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we'd support Israel if her security is threatened." (Both London quotes taken from D. Ireland's "The Real AIPAC Spy Ring Story -- It Was All About Iran"; 8-5-05; direland.typepad.com)

We know from reading Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" that Iran has proven a difficult country for the United States to deal with since the late 1970s. The goal of this essay is not to attempt to define the Iranian state of affairs. However, it is worth noting that in the Reagan era, a number of members of the Reagan & Bush1 administration were involved in illegal activities that were part of the Iran-Contra scandals. More, in the 1990s, a group of people who were from the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush1 administrations became involved in the "neoconservative movement," which identified a change in governments in Iran as one of their goals.

And, as readers will know from previous DU essays ("Feith-based intelligence: A Neocon Scandal" and "Part 2: the Karl Rove of AIPAC"), an administration official named Lawrence Franklin who is under indictment for espionage is known to have met twice in Europe with a notorious Iranian arms dealer from the Reagan-Bush1 scandal.

{2}"America's and Israel's responses must be regional, not local. Israel and the United States should adopt a coordinated strategy, to regain the initiative and reverse their region-wide strategic retreat. They should broaden the conflict to strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the region -- the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran, and Gaza." -- David Wurmser; "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"; 1995

In 1995, a group of neocons authored the "A Clean Break" proposal, which Richard Perle hand-delivered to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan called for: {a} the USA to withdraw from the Palestinian conflict; and {b} for Israel to "roll back" enemies in neighboring countries with "preemptive strikes" that resulted in the installation of friendly governments.

The Muslim world's view of this proposed policy can be found in "Imperial Hubris" by "Anonymous" -- the retired CIA senior analyst -- on pages 11-12, in the secontion on a "greater Israel." The Islamic world's perception that the US backs such a plan is playing a significant role in the current world tensions.

Netanyahu rejected the neocon's plan. However, when George W. Bush assumed the office of the president, it was revived. In large part, this would be the game plan of those in the camp of VP Cheney. They include the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld; his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; Richard Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board; Douglas Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, which is the highest policy position in the Pentagon; and David Wurmser, who started in the State Department, and became VP Cheney's top Middle East expert.

{3}" 'Then along comes a new Administration that is made up of the same neocons that were promoting the (hawkish) Iran policy,' the veteran lobbyist continued, 'but this Administration was divided down the center ...On the one hand, you have the neocons ...on the other side, you have Powell and Richard Armitage and the State department (and the CIA), who want to try to open up a dialogue. One is for confrontation, one is for dialogue ... So the neocons, the Iran hawks, know they have got a natural ally ... at other think tanks around town who feel the same way they do....They also have AIPAC, which has made (Iran) its number-one issue ... My guess is that they went to AIPAC and the others with the same message:"You have friends we don't. Help us to persuade them to see it our way." ' "

-- "The Big Chill" by Laura Rozen; The Nation; 7-14-05

Paul O'Neill, who had only been the Secretary of Treasury for a few days, attended a January 30, 2001 meeting of President Bush2's senior national security team. He would later tell how President Bush started the meeting by announcing, "We're going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict." He noted that he planned to pull the US back from its involvement in the Palestinian conflict, exactly as advocated in Wurmser's "A Clean Break."

Colin Powell, the only person at the meeting who could raise his hand when Bush asked, "Anybody here ever meet Sharon?", objected to this plan. He noted it could lead to an increase in violence. "Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things," Bush answered.

In "Feith-based intelligence," I noted that a newspaper reported on 9-9-01 that President Bush had changed his mind, and was prepared to meet with Yasar Arafat at the up-coming UN General Assembly. After 9-11, of course, this meeting would never occur. The neocons were angry that some on the Powell side of the government had influenced Bush; more, they were furious that Armitage had leaked this to the media. They pressured Condi Rice, who in turn called the Department of Justice, and demanded the FBI investigate leaks from the administration to the media.

As we know, this call resulted in the investigation that has resulted in Lawrence Franklin and two AIPAC employees being indicted for espionage. This investigation is far more involved than simply a government worker sharing his concerns with like-minded patriots from a Washington lobby.

{4} "The Israelis devote a considerable portion of their covert operations to obtaining scientific and technical intelligence. This has included attempts to penetrate certain classified defense projects in the United States and other western nations. The Israeli intelligence service depends heavily on the various Jewish communities and organizations abroad for recruiting agents and eliciting general information ... Israeli agents usually operate discreetly within Jewish communities and are under instructions to handle their missions with utmost tact to avoid embarrassment to Israel." -- CIA document circa 1979, quoted in "A Pretext For War" by James Bamford, page 405

Around the time that the CIA issued this memo, Jonathan Jay Pollard, who was employed by the US Office of Naval Intelligence, was passing over 800,000 pages of highly classified documents to Israeli intelligence. When Pollard's activities were uncovered, it was found that someone had been "tasking" Pollard. In other words, the person who was supervising his spying would identify what documents were needed, and Pollard would fill his order.

In his book on the Pollard case ("Territory of Lies"), Wolf Blitzer wrote, "Their (the Department of Justice) fears were based on more than just a hunch. During their many hours of interogating Pollard, they discovered to their absolute horror that the Israelis had been rather specific in 'tasking' him to obtain certain documents. Indeed, Pollard was often asked to obtain classified documents by their code numbers and titles. U.S. counterintelligence agents quickly concluded that Israel must have had at least one other agent on the inside providing the names of the documents. Perhaps the agent did not have a 'courier card,' like Pollard."

This person was called "Man X" by those investigating the suspected spying that involved Pollard. He -- or they -- were never formally identified and arrested. However, one man who has never stopped investigating the case is David Szady, the FBI's assistant director for Counterintelligence. Szady is a former CIA official who, when informed about the neocon spy case, immediately suspected it could involve "Mr. X."

James Bamford notes that former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro has revealed that Douglas "Feith was fired from a job in the National Security Council early in the Reagan years for leaking classified information to Israel." (page 404)

In "The Price of Power," Seymour Hersch noted that in the fall of 1970, the FBI taped Richard Perle (at the time a staff member for Henry "Scoop" Jackson) passing classified information he had obtained from the National Security Council to the Israeli embassy. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover provided H.R. Bob "Law-n-Order" Haldeman with a summary of the tape.

And former Nixon administration senior advisor Patrick Buchanan notes in his book "Where The Right Went Wrong" that in "1992, when Wolfowitz was an assistant secretary of defense, a startling document leaked from his shop. Defense Planning Guidance had been prepared by Wolfowitz and his deputy, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, for Secretary Richard Cheney. Barton Gellman of the Washington Post called it a 'classified blueprint intended to help "set the nation's direction for the next century ...'." (page 42)

{5}"Several U.S. officials and law enforcement sources said Thursday that the scope of the FBI probe of Pentagon intelligence activities appeared to go well beyong the Franklin matter. FBI agents have briefed top White House, Pentagon, and State Department officials on the probe in recent days. Based on those briefings, officials said, the bureau appears to be looking into other controversies that have roiled the Bush administration, some of which touch Feith's office.

"They include how the Iraqi National Congress, a former exile group backed by the Pentagon, allegedly received highly classified U.S. intelligence on Iran; the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters; and the production of bogus documents suggesting that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger. Bush repeated the Niger claim in making the case for war against Iraq.

" 'The whole ball of wax' was how one U.S. official privy to the briefings described the inquiry."

-- Justin Raimondo; antiwar.com; "Indictment Shows Washington Is 'Israeli-Occupied Territory'; 6-15-05

When Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, representing Douglas Feith, traveled to Europe with Michael Ledeen to meet with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, they were being watched. (The Pentagon and CIA had noted in 1988 that Ledeen was suspected of being a spy for Israel.) Bamford notes their goal was to coordinate efforts to undermine a deal that was being considered by progressive forces in the USA and Iran.

Iran was offering to turn over 5 al Qaeda operatives in return for Washington's agreeing to stop supporting Mujahideen El Khalq (MEK). This Iraqi-based rebel group, supported by Ahmed Chalabi, was listed as a terrorist group by the State Department. It was believed that the 5 operatives being offered by Iran had: {1} information about attacks planned for the future; and {2} details about the location of Usama bin Laden.

It is noted that this meeting represented a "rogue faction" from the Pentagon, attempting to run US foreign policy outside of the normal channels. As noted in "Feith-based intelligence," Franklin was also viewed meeting two AIPAC officials and a representative of the Israeli government, and passing classified information to them.

When confronted by the FBI, Franklin at first was willing to cooperate in order to get charges against him reduced. The FBI gave him "tasks" that included passing disinformation to the AIPAC officials, and then to representatives of Ahmed Chalabi. They had Franklin ask these people to "pass" the information on to higher-level people. And the FBI monitored the flow of information.

On Friday, 8-27-04, the FBI visited AIPAC. Rosen and Weissman were stunned, and refused to be interviewed without their attorneys present. The FBI investigators took a number of AIPAC computer hard-drives, including Rosen's.

Two days later, on a Sunday, Bamford reports that the FBI paid highly unusual visits to the homes of Feith, Wolfowitz, and others. Over the next 21 days, numerous officials were interviewed by the FBI. They were asked questions about Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, and Wurmser.

On August 27, CBS broke the story. This is the same CBS that would be set-up with fake documents regarding George W. Bush's military service.

Two months later, Franklin had a new lawyer inform the FBI that he would no longer cooperate with their investigation.

On 12-1-04, the FBI conducted a second raid on AIPAC. They confiscated stacks of computer files.

Readers will also remember that the FBI conducted a raid on the offices of Ahmed Chalabi. Media reports connected this raid to concerns that Chalabi had informed some factions inside the Iranian government that the USA had broken their code, and that the US and Israel were able to read Tehran's most secretive internal communications.

There was a time that it was difficult to understand how this fit in the neocon spy scandal. Perhaps it makes more sense now.

Part 2: "the Karl Rove of AIPAC"

Who is Steven J. Rosen, the "former" AIPAC official who is charged with espionage in the neocon spy scandal? That is an important question. Rosen is called "the Karl Rove of Israeli-American" politics.
Because discussions of Israeli-American politics is a sensitive subject, this examination of Rosen will avoid commenting on them. I think that it important to be able to speak about extremists in any nation -- including the USA, China, England, Iraq, Iran, Israel, and I don't want to forget Poland -- without that discussion being viewed as being pro- or anti- that nation. My belief that Karl Rove should be frog-marched from the White House is not an anti-American emotion, for example.
That said, when I read that a person is compared with Karl Rove, I have immediate concerns. And when I read that Mr. Rosen, who joined AIPAC in the early 1980s, was good friends with Senator Jesse Helms, my concerns double.
Until the 1980s, most Americans associated Jewish American politics with liberal causes. The single best example, in my opinion, was the Civil Rights movement. Not only did Jewish Americans help to finance many of the organizations that were the foundation of the movement, and march arm-in-arm with black Americans long before it became "in style" .... but the Jewish experience served as a model for progressive black leaders to use in terms of learning self-sufficiency within the greater society. More, Jewish Americans were willing to absorb much of the hostility and hatred of the racist, ignorant forces that sought to crush the Civil Rights movement.
And so it was a curious thing, in the early 1980s, that Steven Rosen was intent upon moving AIPAC from the democratic mainstream to the far right of the republican party. His friends and admirers say that he recognized then that there was a major political shift occuring within the United States. However, I think that a study of Rosen indicates that he wasn't simply a person looking to see which side the bread was buttered on, but instead was one of the original neocon activists, with an agenda that he knew was achievable.
He is called a genius at political strategy and subterfuge. I do not think this is exaggeration. He was a student of Nixon-style politics. For example, he kept a detailed "enemies list" of journalists and politicians. He would send AIPAC student interns to work "under cover" for politicians or organizations that he thought were pro-Arab. He was an extremely capable fund-raiser, who invested money to his best advantage, which was always to promote the neoconservative agenda within the United States.
Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan has often called Washington DC "Israeli-occupied territory" in specific reference to AIPAC's influence in both the democratic and republican parties. Rosen's influence was not limited to the Jewish community; in fact, many of the more liberal Jewish-American activists say that Rosen isn't pro-Israel at all, and that he is simply an extremist. In fact, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin specifically asked Rosen to butt out of the peace process in the Middle East, because it had become apparent that Rosen was an agitator who was not interested resolving the conflicts between Israel and Palestine.
After Rabin's request, Rosen became focused on two nations in the Middle East: Iraq and Iran. He has advocated that the United States take an aggressive policy aimed at regime change in both countries. This has included his attempting to strengthen ties between the US and such characters as Ahmed Chalabi and Manucher Ghorbanifar.
While we are all entitled to our own political beliefs, Mr. Rosen has long been in possession of classified intelligence documents that it is illegal for him to have. Included among these are numerous ones that he got from Lawrence Franklin. More, Rosen acted in a manner that indicates he was confident that he could influence the structure and policy-making of the federal government. For one example, the FBI has tapes of him saying he was going to get Franklin promoted to the NSC, where he would be "at the president's side," and able to exercise more direct influence.
The FBI has information that shows that Rosen himself exercised an unhealthy and direct influence on every administration since Reagan was president. One of the building-blocks of the FBI's case against him, which will be made public in an edited form fairly soon, is a 1983 Rosen memo that states that he had channels to classified documents which would help AIPAC influence US policy in the Middle East.
When the public finds out who was channeling these classified documents to Mr. Rosen, it will not be pretty for the current administration.

Faith-based intelligence: A Neocon Scandal

{1} "Nobody needs to tell me what to believe. But I do need someone to tell me where Kosovo is."-- George W. Bush, candidate, 2000
When George W. Bush ran for president, he had virtually no experience with foreign affairs. Thus, it is fair to say that John Dean was correct in saying Bush "was, for all practical purposes, a blank slate to be written on." (Worse Than Watergate; page 105) The job of schooling the candidate fell to a group of "tutors" headed, Dean tells us, by Condi Rice.
At the time, Rice was not a true "neoconservative." Her previous government experience would seem to have placed her more in the school of the elder Bush: a conservative republican, for sure, but not one with the rigid belief system of those who were to be brought in by Vice President Dick Cheney. Still, it is evident that Rice intended to direct Bush in a foreign policy direction selected by Cheney; indeed, she named her team "the Vulcans."
Although Bush lost the election to Al Gore, he would assume the office of president in 2001. He would be the eleventh president that Senator Robert Byrd would serve with. In his book "Losing America," Byrd notes that Bush "entered the White House with fewer tools than most. He had virtually no experience in foreign policy, and little more in domestic policy. .... In short, George W. Bush, a child of wealth and privilege and heir to an American political dynasty, did not pay his dues. He did not have to. His name was Bush and he ran for president because he could and because he was tapped by Republican Party poobahs. .... He was, and is, carefully 'handled' by political operatives who work hard to shield him from complicated or probing questions, and to keep him to 'bullet points' of repetition. His major talent seems always to have been in raising money." (pages 18-19)
There was a brief period when the public hoped that Bush was serious when he claimed he would be "a uniter, not a divider." The only position that he filled that indicated this might be a possibility was his appointing Colin Powell as Secretary of State. This was the first time Powell, a retired military hero, had held a political office.
Within a short period of time, however, it became obvious that Dick Cheney was running the administration. Bush was a ceremonial figurehead who was used primarily in commercials to sell Cheney's agenda. Thus, many in the Cheney administration were surprised to read on September 9, 2001, in a New York Times article, that President Bush had decided he would reverse the policy of refusing to meet with Yasir Arafat. The article quoted an administration official as saying that George was considering meeting Yasir at the United Nations General Assembly, to try to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.
{2} "On the morning of Wednesday, September 12, Cheney had a moment alone with Bush. Should someone chair a kind of war cabinet for you of the principals? We'll develop options and report to you. It might streamline decision making.
"No, Bush said, I'm going to do that, run the meetings. This was a commander in chief function -- it could not be delegated. He also wanted to send the signal that it was he who was calling the shots, that he had the team in harness. He would chair the full National Security Council meetings, and Rice would continue to chair the separate meetings of the principals when he was not attending. Cheney would be the most senior of the advisers. Experienced, a voracious reader of intelligence briefing papers, he would, as in the past, be able to ask the really important questions and keep them on track.
"Without a department or agency such as State, Defense or the CIA, Cheney was minister without portfolio. It was a lesser role than he had perhaps expected. But he, as much as any of the others, knew the terms of presidential service -- salute and follow orders."-- "Bush At War"; Bob Woodward; pages 37-38
On January 26, 1998, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) wrote to President Bill Clinton, demanding that he begin "implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power." Of the 18 PNACers who signed the letter, 11 held positions of power in the Bush administration when the decision to go to war with Iraq -- a country that had no connection to 9-11. Several will be of interest in the examination of the Plame and the neocon spy scandals: Eliot Abrams, John Bolton, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.
VP Cheney, being a "voracious reader of intelligence briefing papers," knew that Iraq was not involved in 9-11. Yet in the meetings that President Bush "led," Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense continued to state the evidence indicated Saddam played a role.
As Cheney and Wolfowitz would consolidate power within the meetings Bush ran. Evidence shows that Colin Powell and his top assistant, Richard Armitage, did not agree with the effort to target Saddam and Iraq for the attack on the United States on 9-11. As those who have read my previous essay "The Unknown Soldier" know, the neocons in the administration were convinced that: (a) they needed to keep Powell from influencing President Bush; and (b) that they needed to counter "leaks" by Richard Armitage.
Condi Rice had been appointed to deal with the September 9, 2001 article in the New York Times, which had told of a now-forgotten plan to have Bush meet Arafat at the UN. Condi called the FBI, and demanded that they deal with leaks by administration officials, who were leaking information to journalists. That phone call by Condi Rice would have some unintended consequences that were never anticipated by those who wanted to silence Dick Armitage.
{3} "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reson."-- Paul Wolfowitz in Vanity Fair; January 2004;
When it became apparent that the CIA and State Department could not only prove that Saddam had no ties to 9-11, and that Iraq posed no threat to the United States, Paul Wolfowitz needed to rely heavily upon Feith-based evidence. Almost immediately after 9-11, there was a shift in staffing, including "loans" of analysts from one department to another. Hence, as we examine some of the players -- who readers may recognize as being involved in the Plame scandal as well as this, the neocon spy scandal -- it can become mildly confusing. Hence, this will be a general review, to be followed by more in-depth studies of some of the criminals in the administration.
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the undersecretary for policy in the Pentagon, recruited David Wurmser to work for them immediately after 9-11. Wurmser set up an un-named intelligence "unit" at the Pentagon, which was responsible for much of the disinformation campaign that resulted in Americans initially supporting the Bush aggression in Iraq. Wurmser's goal was to support Wolfowitz's stance that Saddam was linked to 9-11, and that Iraq posed a threat to the United States.
Wurmser's wife is a neocon employed at the far-right Hudson Institute. She is also one of the top people at MEMRI, a "charity" that is widely recognized as an intelligence front. It was founded by Colonel Yigal Carmon, a 22-year veteran of Israeli intelligence. Mrs. Wurmser has long advocated for a stronger U.S. policy against both Iraq and Iran.
David Wurmser had previously worker for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. WINEP was founded in 1985 by Martin Indyk, formerly of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
On page 445 of Joseph Wilson's "The Politics of Truth," David Wurmser is identified as one of the administration officials who reportedly talked to journalists about Valerie Plame's status with the CIA.
Another person connected to Feith was Lawrence Franklin. Although Franklin is refered to as Feith's deputy, his immediate supervisor was William Luti. Luti is a student of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. Readers may recall that Newt Gingrich is reported on page 452 of Joseph Wilson's book to be listed as among those who attended the original March 2003 meeting in VP Cheney's office, where it was decided to do a "work up" on Wilson.
Franklin and others began acting beyond their authority, although there is no question that they were encouraged to. For example, Franklin, his colleague Harold Rhode, and Pentagon consultant Michael Ledeen were involved in a "rogue" operation that included meeting in Rome and Paris with Manucher Ghorbanifar. This is the Iranian arms dealer who the American public financed through Oliver North during the Iran-Contra scandals.
Feith's staff was also involved in trading information with Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Chalabi, of course, is the favorite Iraqi of the neocons, AIPAC, and MEMRI.
{4} "You set the agenda." -- Lawrence Franklin to Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of AIPAC.
As a result of Condi Rice's phone call, the FBI was watching a lot of different people in washington, DC. Among them was Larry Franklin. Because David Wurmser was too obviously connected to AIPAC, Larry had been assigned to meet with the top people in what may be the most powerful "lobbying" group in the United States.
Over a three year period, the FBI would monitor numerous meetings between Franklin and the AIPAC representatives Rosen and Weissman. At times, the three were clearly playing a "cloak-and-dagger" game: one morning, for example, them met in one restaurant, moved to a second, and then to an isolated corner of a third restaurant, to be sure they were not being followed.
They were less careful, however, on the telephone. They were overconfident, because Franklin was convinced that the Department of Justice would not be tapping his phone without warning him. But the FBI was.
Franklin's May '05 indictment also shows that he met 14 times with Naur Gilon, an official from a foreign country. After one such meeting, Franklin wrote an "Action Memo" to his supervisor, advocating that US policy be changed to reflect what Gilon suggested.
More, Franklin traded classified documents and other information with the two AIPAC officials, who were indicted late last week. AIPAC used the information to try to influence US policy; they passed it on to at least one official from another country; and to "feed" the news media to influence public opinion.
To show what a small world it is, one of the journalists in question is the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler. Those interested in the Plame scandal will likely recall that Glenn was one of the reporters that Fitzgerald targeted. Glenn gave a taped statement after getting a release from Scooter Libby, allowing him to discuss their July 12 and 18 conversations. Kessler, on the tape played for the grand jury, told Fitzgerald that Libby and he did not discuss Plame, Wilson, or Wilson's trip to Niger.
However, in October of 2003, the Post reported, "On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction."
{5} "Washington is a town in which the flow of information is virtually nonstop. ... (There is a clear distinction in the law that) separates classified information from everything else. Today's charges are about crossing that line. Those entrusted with safeguarding our nation's secrets must remain faithful to that trust. Those not authorized to receive classified information must resist the temptation to acquire it, no matter what their motivation may be."-- U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty on indictments of Franklin, Rosen, & Weissman
Steven Rosen is facing up to 20 years in prison. Weissman faces up to 10 years. Franklin faces up to 45 years of incarceration.
While the prosecutor has told the media that there are no more indictmenta in the immediate future, the investigation is not over. And FBI investigators have told at least one person interviewed that they consider Franklin to be a minor player in this case of espionage.

Destabilizing the Nixon White House

{1} "....the intelligence community is at war with the White House ..." ("Plenty to Swear About"; Joe Klein; Time; 7-5-04)Last night, a thread on DU:GD discussed the potential of the White House attempting to interfere with two federal grand jury investigations -- the Plame and the neocon spy cases. The conversation is of great interest to people who are concerned that the Bush administration has enough power to control virtually all branches of the federal government.Could someone in the Department of Justice, for example, pull some strings in order to upset or destabilize either or both of the grand jury investigations? Both of these cases are coming uncomfortably close to those inhabiting the top offices in this administration. This would seem to make it more likely that the administration would attempt anything and everything that could destabilize the efforts of the two federal prosecutors who are, in fact, destabilizing the White House.I thought it might be of interest for DUers to examine a case from three decades ago, where much like today, there was a war between the intelligence communities and the White House, and where there were investigations into the illegal activities of high-ranking administration officials.The Watergate and the Plame/neocon spy scandals have many things in common. However, they are not identical by any means. This essay will not answer all of the important questions DUers have raised in the past week. In fact, if possible, I hope it will raise more questions. And these questions may lead us in the right direction.{2} "On June 30, the Ervin Committee ended its trailblazing life and quickly issued its damning final report on the president. Senator Baker released, as his own minority opinion, a special report on the CIA's involvement in Watergate. It offered no conclusions, but documented how the CIA might have known in advance of both the fielding and Watergate break-ins." ("Watergate"; Fred Emery; page 441)Richard Nixon frequently hinted that he believed his administration was set-up by elements within the intelligence community. He was convinced that a faction in the CIA had played a more significant role in Watergate that the public would ever know. Both Bob Haldeman and Charles Colson would write and say they were convinced that the CIA played a major role; Colson eventually accused other forces.Were these men simply paranoid? Looking to blame others for their criminal behaviors? Or was Watergate a more complex scandal than the public, watching the explosive hearings on live television, really knew? A number of fascinating books, including Emery's, have hinted as much; others, such as Hougan's "Secret Agenda" and Colodny & Gettlin's "Silent Coup" deal directly with evidence the authors believe prove that certain forces at the federal level were intent upon destabilizing an administration they viewed as threatening our constitutional democracy.About a month ago, I had expressed my belief that one of the Watergate burglars had played a role in destabilizing the Nixon administration. The behaviors of James McCord deserve close attention. Another DUer rejected this theory -- and it is only a theory -- and said that sometimes "things just happen." I had asked him/her to contnue the discussion, but he/she declined to. Certainly, everyone is entitle to their own interpretation of the facts. Mine is of no more value than anyone else's, and people are encouraged to look at the facts and decide for themselves. {3} "At the time, in the 1970-71 pre-Watergate period, there was little public knowledge of the vast pushing, shoving, and acrimony between the White House and the FBI. For example, as the Watergate investigations later revealed, in 1970 a young White House aide named Tom Charles Huston came up with a plan to authorize the CIA, FBI and military intelligence units to intensify electronic surveillance of 'domestic security threats,' to authorize illegal opening of mail, and lift the restrictions on surreptitious entries or break-ins to gather intelligence. Huston warned in a Top Secret memo that the plan was 'clearly illegal.' President Nixon initially approved the plan. Hoover strenuously objected, principally because eavesdropping, opening mail and breaking into homes and offices of domestic security threats was basically the FBI bailiwick and they didn't want competition. Four days later Nixon rescinded the Huston plan."Felt later wrote that he considered Huston himself 'a kind of White House gauleiter over the intelligence community.' The four-inch thick WEbster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary defines a gauleiter as 'the leader or chief official of a political district under Nazi control.' " ("The Secret Man"; Bob Woodward; pages 33-4)The tensions between the Nixon White House and the intelligence community was not limited to differences between Tom Huston and J. Edgar Hoover. Older DUers will recall the "Moorer-Radford affair," in which the military was shown to be keeping track of those things the administration considered "top secret." And younger DUers may be surprised to find that the media played a role.On 12-14-1971, Jack Anderson reported on "top secret" administration meetings that discussed highly sensitive material on the US position on the India vs Pakistan war. Very few officials had been involved in the meetings, and the White House -- intent on stopping all "leaks" -- had a group of fellows known as "the plumbers" attempt to find the source of the leak so it could be plugged.Rear Admiral Robert Welander served as a connection between the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and Henry Kissinger's NSC. Welander pointed a finger at a young Navy officer who served as his assistant (always take special notice of Naval officers!). It turned out this young fellow had been copying NSC documents for years for the Chairman of the JCS, Admiral Thomas Moorer. Moorer had information on the things that Nixon considered the most sensitive of his secrets, including that of his administration's corresponding with China.What is fascinating is that Welander would implicate a military man named Al Haig, who would play a curious role in the Nixon administration during the Watergate years. Haig has given a number of contradictory statements about his concerns with what occured in those years, including on if his goal was to protect "the president" or "the presidency." Under oath on 12-3-73, he told Judge Sirica about what he called "a devil theory." Haig believed "some sinister force" was responsible for erasing parts of one tape. Haig made clear that he knew Rose Mary Woods did not mistakenly erase it. Sirica asked, "Has anyone ever suggested who that sinister force might be?" Haig said that it was "vital" to identify who had access to the tapes. Sirica answered, "Precisely." (Emery; page 418) For many years, these actions caused many to suspect that Al Haig might have been one of the sources that Woodward called "Deep Throat."{4) "Dorothy Hunt was suspicious of McCord, the wireman at Watergate, who she thought was a double agent." ("Watergate"; Fred Emery; page 229)The White House recognized that there was tension between them and the various intelligence groups. Thus, in order to further their own political agenda, they would form there own "secret" intelligence groups. This should remind DUers of the Bush/Cheney administration.A question worth considering is would the other forces in the intelligence community (a) be aware of what the White House was doing; and, if so, (b) attempt to infiltrate the White House operations? To do so, they would need to plant a "double agent" within the White House operation.In the early days of the Nixon scandals, a significant amount of the intelligence operations were run from the offices of the Committee to re-elect the President (CREEP). A secret services agent, Al Wong, would recommend that CREEP hire a retired CIA officer who specialized in security operations. James was soon hired as CREEP's security coordinator.McCord was a WW2 Air Force veteran. He had served as an FBI agent for three years, then was in the CIA from 1950 to 1971. He had specialized in domestic spying, and as such, was an expert at both break-ins and electronic. It is likely that he had been acquainted with E. Howard Hunt in some capacity years before being hired by CREEP.In his work for CREEP, he had contact with Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. At this time, among other things, Liddy was considering killing Jack Anderson as a "rational response" to the reporter's columns, which Liddy believed were responsible for the death of a CIA agent. (See Liddy's book, "Will.") He and Hunt were also involved in plans for several break-ins of political enemies of the White House. It has been suggested that, because CREEP was being run by politicians who were not intelligence operatives (think Rove, Cheney, Libby, etc), that they talked far too much, and agencies such as CI were well aware of their plans.McCord ran his own small "security" firm after retiring from the Agency. Hunt and Liddy approached him to participate in the bugging of the offices of the democrats at the Watergate. McCord would later testify that he was under the impression that these operations had been undertaken under the authority of Mitchell, Dean, and Nixon. (Hence, while he may have had cause to want the operations exposed, he did not anticipate being incarcerated for an extended period for his role.)At the time, McCord had been providing "security" for John Mitchell. This included checking his apartment for bugs, transporting his family, and hiring a retired FBI agent named Alfred Baldwin to protect Martha Mitchell. (I suspect older DUers are grinning when they think of the implications of that.){5} "If we didn't know better (we) would have thought it was deliberately botched." -- Richard Nixon on the Watergate break-inBy May of 1972. G.Gordon Liddy began to notice a strange pattern of behavior in his dealings with McCord. The former CIA operative, who knew exactly how to keep his activities secret, had kept precise records of all the money that CREEP was spending on electronics equipment. More, although McCord could have easily used his connections through his private company, he opted to go through the Yellow Pages to locate and buy the electronic equipment to be used in bugging the Democratic Headquarters. And strangest of all, McCord went to the Federal Communications Commission to get approval for the frequencies his hidden transmiters would use -- something Liddy compared to registering a gun you plan to use in a hold-up.In late May, in time for the Memorial Day weekend, McCord rented a room at the Howard Johnson's opposite the Watergate. He registered the room in his private firm's name, again leaving a solid trail. McCord brought in Alfred Baldwin, who would later testify that he was impressed with the electronic set-up that McCord had. In fact, McCord let him listen in on a phone conversation, which is curious, because the buglars had not planted any bugs yet. This raises the questions of who McCord had already bugged, and who was he really working for?The first break-in was successful in that the buglars got in, planted the bugs, and got out without being detected. However, McCord would reportedly convince Liddy that the bugs were not working properly, and that he was not getting the intelligence information needed. There is some confusion about this: McCord would say the re-entry was Liddy's idea; and there is reason to question if the original bugs worked well or not.Liddy would later express his concerns about McCord. In Emery's book, it is noted that many of the things McCord would claim later were simply not true, in regard to alarms and other things that an operative with his experience would be unlikely to be confused about. Emery focuses on Liddy noting McCord's habit of "always slipping away ... he hated to stay in one place very long .... sometimes he would just loited in the shadows, so to speak, trying hard not to be noticed. I wasn't sure whether this was the product of long clandestine-induced caution or a lack of nerve." (Emery; pages 120-1)In June, McCord again stationed Baldwin in the Howard Johnson's across from the Watergate. Another mysterious figure was there: Louis Russell, called the "sixth man" in James Hougan's "Secret Agenda," was also at the scene. Russell is an interesting person. He had been connected to Nixon in the 1948 investigation of Alger Hiss, but more recently was employed by McCord's private agency, and served as an informant for Jack Anderson. Russell admitted to FBI investigators that he was at the Howard Johnson's on June 16; he died the day he was summoned to testify before the Senate Watergate Committee, from a heart attack.The night of the break-in, McCord called Hunt and Liddy at 12:45 to say the offices they targeted were "dark." Both Hunt and Liddy would comment that it took McCord an unexplained long time to then meet them. He brought six walkie-talkies, two of which had dead batteries. Liddy thought this was "unprofessional."The burglars would contradict each other on who taped, re-taped, and/or untaped the doors inside the Watergate. Most evidence indicates that it was McCord, and that he was not honest when telling his partners exactly what he did. What is not in dispute is that a night watchman found the taped doors, and called the police.The nearest marked car did not respond. Instead, a TAC unite (tactical, meaning undercover car & officers) arrived was at the Watergate within 90 seconds. Alfred Baldwin, on look-out, saw what appeared to be a couple "hippies" walking through the Watergate. He was not concerned until it was too late. More, someone had convinced the other burglars to turn off their walkie-talkies, so that they could be totally silent. Thus, the undercover police were abled to easily follow the taped doors to burglars. It is worth noting that taping the doors served no practical purpose for the burglars -- it is easy to walk out of a locked door. Thus, the purpose of an experienced operative's taping those doors has never been explained.{6} "...if we are going to have that funny guy take credit ...."-- President Nixon on tape, referring to the plan to blame the CIA for the Watergate break-in by using McCord.When the TAC unit caught the burglars, the first thing any of the suspects said McCord: "Are you Metropolitian police?" When the suspects were arraigned, he would tell the judge that he was a retired CIA agent. And, while in jail, McCord would destroy the administration's efforts to tie the break-in to "national security" operations by the CIA.McCord would write an infamous anonymous letter to a White House official, making clear that the top officials were going to be exposed; he wrote numerous letters to Richard Helms at the CIA, sharingvital information; he had his wife share copies of private letters to at least one reporter; and he blew the lid off the case when he approached Judge Sirica. Later, he provided investigators with information about Robert Reisner, who testified that Magruder attended all three GEMSTONE meetings.Perhaps more than any other single figure, James McCord would destabilize the Nixon administration. Was it just a series of unlikely coincidences? A person could make that case, I suppose. I think the evidence indicates otherwise.What do you think?

On A Positive Note .....

In the past week, a number of DUers have mentioned feeling some stress or anxiety relating to the current political atmosphere. There have been a number of leaks relating to the Plame case; a flood of misinformation put out by the republican machine; and, on top of it all, the Bolton appointment. These are all significant events. However, I am going to venture that they indicate the administration is feeling more stress and anxiety than we might suspect.
History is always a good guide. In this case, I want to review a little of the Watergate era. Many DUers may remember these events, and I hope that they will add their thoughts. Others are also encouraged to add questions or comments.
Much like George Bush in 2004, President Nixon seemed extremely confident in 1972. Nixon's re-election seemed a sure thing. The Watergate break-in was only recognized by a few people as being a potentially huge scandal.
"I can state categorically that no one in the White House staff, no one in this administration, presently employed, was involved in this very bizarre incident, " Tricky Dick told an August 29, 1972 news conference. "What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact they occur, because overzealous people in campaigns do things that are wrong. What really hurts is when you try to cover it up."
But, as history has shown, President Nixon attempted to cover-up the Watergate scandal. When a grand jury was empaneled a month after the burglars were caught, Nixon was confident he had events under control. He and the boys mey repeatedly, and came up with an ever-shifting cover-up. During the trials that followed, even though the cases had a few shakey moments, it looked like Nixon and the boys might pull it off.
But a funny thing happens when people at the lower levels of a conspiracy find out that "the plan" is for them to go to jail, and their families to suffer, to protect those higher up. And that is especially true when there was a Judge named Sirica, who felt the prosecutors in the cases he heard were trying to protect something or someone.
That's why Judge Sirica said, "Everyone knows that there's going to be a congressional investigation in this case. I would frankly hope, not only as a judge but as a citizen of a great country and one of millions of Americans who are looking for certain answers, I would hope that the Senate committee is granted power by Congress by a broad enough resolution to try to get to the bottom of what happened in this case."
Now, as Fred Emery notes on page 240 of his book, "Watergate," Nixon was preoccupied with the thought of Senate hearings. He had made a name for himself hunting Alger Hiss in 1948; he was proud of catching an enemy of the Constitution in perjury. "Perjury, that's a damned hard rap to prove," the president kept saying over and over in 1973, as he became anxious about televised Senate hearings.
Tricky Dick was pretty sure he could distract attention by making it look like Senator Ted Kennedy was making the Watergate investigation into a political witch hunt. But the Senate Judiciary Committee pulled a quick one, and appointed Sam Ervin, who was a conservative, to head the investigation up. Nixon was furious, because he felt that this took "Teddy off the hook," as if Teddy were the one being investigated. Guilty people are funny that way.
Nixon and the boys started having a series of meetings. Some were held in Washington, DC, others in Florida, and some in California. Nixon liked to meet with different people in different places. He was weighing his options for sacrificing anyone and everyone else, in order to protect himself. Pretty soon, others noticed Nixon lacked loyalty, but they were still prepared to lie for him.
But then, on March 21, 1973, during one of the conversations that made a great tape documenting how guilty everyone of them really was, John Dean told Nixon there was a big problem, "Because, one, we're being blackmailed; two, people are going to start perjuring themselves very quickly that have not had to perjure themselves to protect other people and the like. And that is just -- there is no assurance -"
Nixon butts in, worried, "That it won't bust." And Dean agrees, "That it won't bust."
Pretty soon, most of the boys who had been willing to go along with Nixon when they thought he'd protect them realized that he probably couldn't protect them, even if he wanted to. A few realized that he didn't want to. So they got attorneys of their own.
Now, private attorneys never tell their client, "Hey, lie and protect others. Now is the time to dig yourself in a deeper hole. You owe loyalty to those using you." No, sir, that's not the ticket. Instead, they tell their client, "You are in big trouble. I'm going to have to try to make a deal to save your behind. "
So, when Nixon and the boys met, they were all stressed and anxious. Why? Because they knew they were lying through their teeth, looking to set-up the others, and save themselves.
How bad did it get? At a point in time not unlike today in the Plame scandal, Fred LaRue, John Mitchell's best friend, told others in the White House that Mitchell was "on the verge of breaking -- suicide." Magruder would later admit that he was considering taking his own life. Dean told of his concerns that his wife Maureen might kill herself. And Ehrlichman would disclose that he had a fantasy of seizing the controls once when he was in the cockpit of Air Force One, and crashing it, thereby killing everyone. Even Nixon would say he had hoped he would not wake up mornings at this time.
I take no pleasure in any human being feeling so desperate that they seriously consider killing themselves. That isn't the point of this story. Rather, I think it is important to remember that as tired and worn out as you and I might feel, we're still doing a lot better than the other side
Appointing Bolton that way wasn't "bold leadership." It was the actions of someone who feels a sense of desperation. Sending that dehydrated weasal Bob Novak out to distract attention wasn't the administration regaining control. It was an administration recognizing that even "former" CIA employees can nail them.
I can't honestly say everything is going to be okay. That would be a lie worthy of Nixon. More soldiers are dying every day. More innocent Iraqis are suffering from the Bush/Cheney madness. And people in the United States are paying a heavy price for this administration's crimes.
But I can say we will win. And right now, I'm far more confident than anyone in the White House. Especially when they hear what their attorneys are saying in private.

The Anti-Rent War

{1} "Only 130 year ago in New York State a few families, intricately intermarried, controlled the destinies of 300,000 people and ruled in almost kingly splendor over nearly 2,000,000 acres. Albany was the social and political capital of this island of semi-feudalism in a nation which had, only a half century before, declared its common faith in democracy and free enterprise. Here the farmers of a dozen counties were bound permanently to their landlords by a lease formulated by Alexander Hamilton, who had married into the landed aristocracy. Rebellion, long dormant, flared up among the hard-pressed tenants ....
"Like the patriots at the Boston Tea Party, these tenants, many of them descendants of Revolutionary soldiers, disguised themselves as 'Indians' in warpaint and calico whenever it was necessary to resist evictions. They used their tin dinner horns to signal from farm to farm to rally the neighborhood against the sheriff and his offending writs. The struggle became almost immediately an issue in state politics, where young William H. Steward demonstrated against the Hamiltonian idea of a priveleged upper class. Linked to the growing slave issue and the nation's policy of disposing of public lands, it became an important factor in the national political unrest between 1840 and 1860. It attracted the support of non-farmers, of liberal thinkers as far away as England.
"Though it took many years of suffering and terror to break the tyranny of serfdom and to bring democracy to the Empire State, the farmers never took the offensive in solving their problems by violence. In the end their victory was won by the vote.
"The Anti-Rent Rebellion led directly to the passage of the federal Homestead Act of 1862 which opened the West to the people. Indirectly it led to the birth of the Republican Party; one of the principal Anti-Rent agitators named the party and called the first meeting."-- "Tin Horns and Calico"; Henry Christman; Hope Farm Press; 1978;
The above four paragraphs are the introduction to the single best book on the Anti-Rent War. I think that just that introduction would be enough to make most people realize this was an important event in our nation's history. Yet, very few people outside of the historical societies in a handful of upstate New York counties know about this conflict.
In this, the second part of an essay that I began earlier in the week, I will cover just a few of the issues that was involved in the Anti-Rent War. I will focus, in part, on a man who was educated in the hedge schools of Ireland in the early 1800s, and who came to the United States in search of the Jeffersonian agrarian ideals for democracy.
The Anti-Rent War itself is too long and complicated for a full telling in this short a space. More, it was done perfectly by Mr. Christman's book, originally published in 1945 by Henry Holt & Co; then in 1978, a 4th edition was by the Town of Berne Historical Society.
In 1997, Dorothy Kubik of Hamden, NY, published "A Free Soil -- A Free People," a valuable account of the Anti-Rent War in Delaware County. She teaches at the SU-Delhi. Her book is availalable from Purple Mountain Press in Fleischmanns, NY.
{2} Thomas Ainge Devyr was born in Donegal, Ireland in 1805. Christman notes that the conditions of his early life seemed likely to produce a common criminal; instead, they produced an uncommon philosopher and reformer. As a young man, he published a pamplet called, "Our Natural Rights," based on the teachings of the Irish hedge masters who influenced his thinking.
Advocating for democracy was, of course, a dangerous thing. When a rally that he attended began to turn ugly, Devyr told the crowd, "It is not a riot we want, but revolution." He ended up facing a longer prison sentence than the violent rioters, because it was (and is) often ideas that are feared.
Devyr escaped and came to the United States in early 1840. Living in the New York City area, he found employment writing for liberal newspapers. He was strongly opposed to the ability of industries' owners to give the working class the ultimatum of "work for me at my price or starve." Within two years, however, he learned about the plight of the farmers in upstate areas, and he was determined to join the fight against feudalism.
Devyr traveled by stage coach through the hill country of the upstate counties, which reminded him of the land he had left. The farmers he encountered, though often but one generation away from the Revolutionary War soldiers, were frequently conservative. Knowing that he needed to earn their trust, Devyr would stay at their homes, work the land with them by day, and talk philosophy in the evenings.
Still, the anti-renters' leadership was a secret society. Devyr's experience with the Irish rebel's society had taught him how to earn their trust. By the summer, the outspoken Irishman had become friends with Dr. Smith Boughton, one of the leaders of the movement. On July 4th, Boughton placed Devyr among the leading speakers at their celebration in Rensselaerville.
"The immortal author of the Declaration of Independence has left us his opinion that the present generation is entitled only to the usufruct of the earth, and that they are bound to leave it free for the use of the generation that is to succeed them. Those who please to invert the laws of nature and adopt the doctrine of the thickheaded Dutch Company are, of course, at full liberty to do so -- but for my part I cling to the law which is stamped upon creation -- and I have more respect for the least sentence that ever fell from the pen of Thomas Jefferson than for all the dirty greasy tobacco-stained parchments that ever chronicled the wisdom of the big-breeched sages of Old Amsterdam ....
"If you permit unprincipled and ambitious men to monopolize the soil, they will become masters of the country in certain order of cause and effect. Holding in their hands the storehouse of food, they will make men's physicall necessities subdue his love of freedom. They will flood the halls of legislation, sent there by their dependent tenants. Then rapacity and wrong will assume all the due forms of 'law and order.' Then our unhappy descendants will be coerced, enslaved, famished to death .... Then resistance to the oppression will be stigmatized as a 'crime' against 'lawful authority.' Then our country will career down the steeps of wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last."
{3} While that speech won Devyr the trust of the anti-rent leadership, the movement was the cause of concern for the landlords who were finding that their rents were being withheld by a growing number of tenants. The landlords began having sheriffs and others go to collect by way of public auctions. Anti-rent tenants had crops, livestock and property sold to pay back-rents.
The anti-rent leaders formed neighborhood groups of men who ere organized into "cells" led by a "chief." These chiefs took the names of Indian leaders, such as Red Jacket, Yellow Jacket, Black Hawk, The Prophet, and Big Thunder. When the sheriffs would come to a farm to hold a public auction, groups of Indians, wearing disguises of calico, would appear and disrupt any attempt to sell the farmer's property or possessions. By 1844, the combined number of "Indians" was over 10,000.
No where were they more militant than in Delaware County. Many of these Scotch-Irish farmers resented the lack of clear title to the farms that their fathers and grandfathers were supposed to have earned for service in the Revolution. When sheriffs or others came on their property, they believed them to be trespassers. As the conflicts between the groups grew, the "Indians" began to tar and feather those who were serving the landlords.
It's interesting to note that Chauncey Burroughs, one of the Indians, was the father of 7-year old John, at a time that John Gould, father of 8-year old Jay, were involved in one such conflict. Gould opposed the Indians; his son watched the tribe tar and feather his father. Jay Gould went on to be one of the most notorious railroad robber barons in US history; John Burroughs, of course, became a famous naturalist.
On August 7, 1845, a particularly obnoxious sheriff's deputy, Osmond Steele, backed by a small group of friends, came to the farm of Moses Earle. Steele had announced an auction, although there appears to be no evidence he had the authority to hold such an auction. The only people who attended were over 200 Delaware County "Indians," who surrounded Steele and friends on Earle's farm outside the village of Andes.
Although accounts differ, it seems Steele was going to be tar-and-feathered, when he pulled out his pistol and began shooting into the crowd of "Indians." A brief volley of return shots killed him. Within hours, the 200 anti-rent "Indians" were long gone. Many would leave the county, and even the state. Interestingly, many would follow the routes that served as the "underground railroad." The connection was not coincidental. (Three ended up staying at a house a few miles from where I now live. The house was owned by the ancestor of the woman who did my secretarial work at the MHC where I was employed.)
The governor soon declared Delaware County to be in a "state of insurrection," and sent the state militia to arrest the "Indian" leaders. To this day, the people who shot Deputy Steele remain unidentified. However, the militia would suspend all constitutional rights of the farmers, including those who had not participated in the conflict at the Moses' farm. Over 100 people were arrested, causing the militia to have to build three log "long houses" on the lawn of the county jail in Delhi.
Eventually, 94 of the men were convicted for the death of Steele, including many who were not in Delaware County on the day he was shot. Of these, 40 were transported to Sing Sing prison. Thomas Ainge Devyr, reporting for several regional journals, noted that the jurors involved in the trials had agreed upon the guilt of those accused before the cases were heard. Eventually, the injustices led the governor to pardon all those convicted.
{4} The Anti-Rent movement underwent changes. Although many chapters were officially disbanded, they began to use the power of the ballot. In the 1846 NYS Constitutional Convention, they sent 52 Anti-Rent delegates, including two from Delaware County. They were not able to completely destroy the leash system that year, but they make significant progress. Most importantly, they changed the law so that judges would hold elected, rather than appointed, positions. (In Delaware County, Anti-Renters got more votes than any other party; they won more town and county offices, including the Board of Supervisors, than the democrats.
It was a time when "political parties" were changing. In the early 1830s, the "national republican" party had been strong; but in 1834, it became the Whig party. In the 1840s, the "democratic republican" party split up; one segment, known as the "barn-burners," were radical abolitionists; the "locofocos" were opposed to what they fet were plans to "make the masses mere serfs to bankers and capitalists." There was the "Liberty Party," started in 1840, and ended shortly thereafter. In 1848, the "Free Soil" party was organized.
In 1844, Thomas Ainge Devyr had proposed a party to unite "free soilers" and abolitionists. He proposed calling it the Republican Party, in honor of Thomas Jefferson. In 1852, Alan Bovay, a former Anti-Renter who had been influenced by Devyr, was at the formal meeting uniting the Whig and Free Soil parties, and he suggested using the name "republican." While the new parties' first presidential candidate was defeated, their second candidate, Abe Lincoln, won.
(The northern Whigs would become republicans. The southern ones, who opposed equal rights for blacks, became the democrats that we knew as "dixiecrats" in the early-to-mid 1900s. Nixon would bring them into the republican party in 1968.)
{5} This is an untold part of American history. Few people know of Thomas Ainge Devyr, or the Anti-Rent War. That's a shame, because Devyr was certainly an influential figure. But while others from that era, including Thoreau, Fourier, Marx, and Engels have a place in the history books, Devyr has been largely forgotten.
In the past decade, several of Delaware County communities' historical societies have worked hard to record and preserve the record of events in the Anti-Rent War. Their county museum in Delhi has more information for those interested in learning more.

H2O Man's "appreciation" to DUers.....

{1} Introduction
"If you had the luck of the Irish,
You'd be sorry and wish you were dead.
You should have the luck of the Irish,
And you'd wish you were English instead.
A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land.
A land full of beauty and wonder,
Was raped by the British brigands.
.....In the 'Pool they told us the story
How the British divided the land.
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland."-- John Lennon; "Luck of the Irish"
I wanted to thank the people on DU who contributed to the "H2O Man Appreciation Thread" today. Although I'm a gruff and grumpy old man, it meant a lot to me. I had thought I would put something organized on here tonight, and was sitting trying to write an outline in my mind, when my older daughter walked by, and asked me if she could use the computer, as I was sitting and staring into space. So I showed her the thread, and said that apparently a few people care about what goes on in my head when I stare blankly.She said, "Well, since I turned 11, I've found that your opinion isn't always right." Probably exactly what I needed to hear, before my head expanded, and all traces of thought become lost. Anyhow, I am not going to say anything very organized or planned out .... because I have an 11-year old girl who wants a turn on the computer. But maybe, in some strange way, I can tie a few random thoughts together.
{2} The Irish Penal Laws"...a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man..." --Edmund Berke; Letter to Sir Hercules LangrisheIn an essay on the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, that I posted earlier this week, I wrote about the trade relationships between urban city/states, and outlying rural areas. The city/states depend on the natural resources of the rural lands, in order to support them.For example, a city doesn't produce enough food to provide for its inhabitants; hence, a New York City will "import" both food and water. Food, fuel, and "man-hours" are the three most important resources that city/states import.The larger the city/state, the larger the area it needs to trade with in order to meet its needs. When the rural population shares the same racial, ethnic, religious, language, and other "identities" of the city/state, the more pleasant and fair the trade relationship. When the peoples are different, we have something that is defined as imperialism, which often becomes colonialism. More, the relationships become far more exploitive and oppressive.Many years ago, mid-way between the Roman Empire and the Bush Empire, the British Empire was so large, that the sun never set upon it. One of the places that the most exploitive and oppressive examples of imperialism was found in Ireland. I think it might be of interest to us to take a look at the "Later Penal Laws" in Ireland.
{3} "Like good wine the Penal code improved with age."-- Seumas MacManus; "The Story of the Irish Race"The early penal laws in Ireland were primarily imposed as a means to oppress the largely rural population, so that the English could have a favorable trade relationship. This included introducing a certain amount of non-Irish to the island, generally to settle in the port areas. But the majority of the island remained "Irish," though its resources were being stolen.Now, most DUers are familiar with the earlier Cambro-Norman invasions of Ireland, and how over the years, the invaders became absorbed into the Irish culture .... giving the world families like the Galloways. The English were also aware of this, and so they attempted to keep as many social walls between the Irish and the colonists in the norhwest as possible. We are all aware that the Catholic-Protestant divide has been used to oppress Ireland for centuries.It's interesting to note, however, that after the "Williamite" wars,(which led to a temporary role of traditional Irish influence in self-government) and as a consequence of the Limerick Treaty, in the early 1700s, the colonists in Ireland were afraid the Catholics would exact a bloody revenge. The Irish militia, though appearing to be peasants, had defeated the professional army of the Brits in terrible battles, and there was fear they would be vicious.But those who suffer oppression often are the most peaceful when they gain power. The Irish actually passed laws granting freedom of religion, so that being Catholic or Protestant made no difference in a person's status. And other parts of Irish culture were attracting attention in Britian and Europe. The single most important one was the long-recognized belief that women were equal to men. Not exact. Equal. (Now you understand why my daughter's comment got me started on this!)
{4} "... Conceived by demons, written in blood, and registered in Hell." -- Montesquieu; A French Jurist's Description of Irish Penal Law.People do not kill that which they hold in contempt; they kill that which they fear. And the British "royalty" feared the ideas expressed by the Irish. For those ideas -- freedom, equality, and the value of being sovereign -- were ideas that threatened the status of those who lived in luxury, but who contributed no more to society than a tape worm does to its host.The Irish could no longer be simply colonized and exploited: they had to be utterly destroyed. Hence, we find these laws were imposed:The Irish were forbidden to practice their religion.It was illegal to be educated.It was illegal to practice a profession.They could not hold public office.They could not own a business.They could not live in a corporate town, or within 5 miles of one.They couldn't vote.They couldn't own land.They could not leash land.They could not use their land as a security for a loan.They were forbidden to keep any weapons.They couldn't buy, inherit, or receive a gift of land from a Protestant.They couldn't rent land worth more than 30 shillings a year.They could not reap benefit of over 1/3rd of their rent.They could not be guardians to children.They could not leave children with Catholic relatives. They were compelled to attend Protestant services, and donate to Protestant church-schools their children were forbidden to attend.Attending church or school were offenses that were punishable by death. Both priests and school teachers were hunted by professional military men, using Irish bloodhounds.In most city-state relationships with rural populations, there is found a tendency to have those displaced from the land move into the city. There, they form ethnic neighborhoods, and provide large pools of cheap labor for industries. As we can see, in Ireland, the goal included keeping them out of the cities. There "No Irish allowed!" signs that would become a part of the American experience actually started in Irish cities at this time.On the gates of one town was a sign which read: "Enter here, Turk, Jew or athiest; Any man except a papist." Below it, an Irishman wrote: "The man who wrote this wrote it well; For the same is writ on the gates of Hell."
{5} "But sometimes the troops came on them unawares, and the Mass Rock was bespattered with his blood -- and men, women and children caught in the crime of worshipping God among the rocks were frequently slaughtered on the mountainside." -- MacManusTwo figures that stood out in the "Later Penal Law" era were the rebel priest, and the hedge school master. The priests had to live in the wilderness. They lived in caves and under rock ledges in the most isolated mountains in the southwest. Some, who dared to venture closer to populated hamlets, lived in the bogs that allowed them to escape the bloodhounds.They held religious services at the old, pre-Christian sacred sites. These included at boulders on the mountains; near springs and wells that were long recognized as being where powers existed; and at the cromlechs (or dolmen) that are composed of three great standing stones, connected by flat slabs resting on them -- which had a special symbolism to the Irish.The "hedge masters" were the school teachers. They tended to fit in with the general population, much like a fish in the ocean. They were usually tenet farmers who did not appear as anything other than peasants to the British. But, at odd hours, they would teach small classes of Irish children, hidden by the hedges along a lonely stretch of road.In my family, there were both rebel priests and hedgemasters. The rebel priests rarely had children, or so I have been told. But for this discussion, I shall focus on one hedge master. He lived near Limerick, and records from the Royal Irish Academy show that he had taught "Fair Penmanship, Correct Reading, Arithmatic, Book-keeping, Euclid's Elements, Algebra, Geography, and the Greek and Latin languages." His specialty were the Gaelic languages, and his manuscripts on the relationship between Irish, Scottish, and Manx are still housed in the RIA.
{6} "My lords, it may be a part of a system of angry justice, to bow a man's mind by humiliation to the proposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold's terrors, would be the shame of such unfounded imputations as have been laid against me in this court. You, my lord (Lord Norbury), are a judge, I am a supposed culprit; I am a man, you are a man, also. By a revolution of power, we might change places, though we never could change characters." -- Robert Emmett; (quoted in "The World's Famous Orations," by William Jennings Bryan; Vol VI, pages 137-8; copyright 1908) My ancestor joined the United Irishmen and was sentenced to die after the Uprising of 1798. He was friends with men like Robert Emmett and John Philpot Curran. Being friends with Curran, the noted attorney, saved his life.I'm far more proud that he was a hedge master, than that he was to become an "Honorary" Member of the Gaelic Society, with manuscripts that are still considered of great value in the study of the Irish language. It means more to me to sit along the "information higfhway" on DU, and to debate the great issues of the day, than to mingle with the high and mighty. I've done both. Today I am in a position to do whatever I please, and I like that I can post my little essays on DU, and discuss them with people here.
{7} Robert Kennedy:"What do you think of Che Guevara?"Roger Baldwin: "I think he's a bandit. What do you think?"Robert Kennedy: "I think he's a revolutionary hero."-- "Robert Kennedy"; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.; page 861Of course, the United Irishmen's uprisings led to greater oppression, including the Great Starvation, where the British royalty were guilty of genocide in Ireland in one of the ugliest chapters of human history. At that time, more than a million Irish came to North America. It changed the culture here.One of the greatest Irish-American politicians was Robert Kennedy, Sr. Towards the end of his life, he told a British journalist that if he had not been born rich, he would been a revolutionary. Alice Roosevelt Longworth saw this quality in him, and Schlesinger quotes her as saying, "Bobby could have been a revolutionary priest."If people find this interesting, I may do a second part that explores part of the Irish contribution to American culture that our history books ignore. Are people familiar in the Anti-Rent War? Interested in learning about it?