102 Letters from the Grass Roots

Part One: From a Letter From a Region of James Baldwin's Mind
"One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us. ... It is the responsibility of free men to trust and to celebrate what is constant -- birth, struggle, and death are constant, and so is love, though we may not always think so -- and to apprehend the nature of change, to be able and willing to change. I speak of change not on the surface but in the depths -- change in the sense of renewal. But renewal becomes impossible if one supposes things to be constant that are not -- safety, for example, or money, or power. One clings then to chimeras, by which one can only be betrayed, and the entire hope -- the entire possibility -- of freedom disappears. And by destruction I mean precisely the abdication by Americans of any effort really to be free."
-- James Baldwin; The Fire Next Time; 1962; pages 124-5.
Though I reside in the state of New York, I am fascinated by a struggle taking place in Connecticut. Senator Joe Lieberman is being challenged by Ned Lamont in the democratic primary. Lieberman is a curious case: he appeared to be progressive in the 2000 campaign, as Al Gore's choice for vice president. Yet his behavior in the Clinton years had been a cause of concern. Had Lieberman changed? As we have found out since, Senator Lieberman has grown closer to the Bush administration.
I think that Senator Lieberman is best defined as a neoconservative. But I try to keep an open mind. If one calls him a lap dog for VP Cheney, or a cheerleader for the OVP military occupation of Iraq, I will not strongly disagree.
However, democrats must change to master change .... and thus, yesterday I mailed a contribution to the Ned Lamont campaign. (Send checks to: Ned Lamont for Senate; PO Box 422; Green Farms, CT, 06838.) I also e-mailed a message to "info@nedlamont.com," and was pleased that my question was answered -- fully -- within two hours.

Part Two: One Hundred Letters to Elected Officials
In my last entry on my blog, which I post on three progressive sites on the internet, I advocated that citizens at the grass roots level begin a media campaign to shine a light on the issues involved in the Plame scandal. I noted that in political campaigns, letters to the editor of newspapers are a powerful tool for voter education. I suggested that people would do well to write a simple LTTE that states that President Bush had promised to fire anyone in his administration involved in the Plame leak; Rove and Scott McClellan publicly denied Karl was involved; the FBI and grand jury investigation showed Rove spoke with both Bob Novak and Matt Cooper about Plame; why hasn't Bush fired him?
More, I suggested that people should consider sending brief, 5 to 10 question "surveys" to elected officials, and use the results in LTTE and related media campaigns. This type of citizen survey works especially well in the smaller newspapers of rural America. We are often fooled into thinking that it is far more important to target the New York or Los Angeles Times, and are frustrated when our letters are not printed. Yet he who bemoans a lacvk of opportunity often neglects to see that small doors often open into large rooms. We build the strongest foundation by starting at the lower levels.
Yesterday I sent a cover letter explaining an inclosed survey to 100 elected officials. Because 2006 is an important year for elections involving the House and Senate, I decided to send the letter and survey to 50 officials in each branch of the Congress. In each, I selected 25 democrats and 25 republicans.
I explained that my goal is to get responses from a large cross-section of elected officials to issues that should be important to voters in this election year. The results of the survey will be published on internet sites, and used in LTTEs. The survey allows politicians the opportunity to speak to American citizens at the grass roots level; it could likewise help people at the grass roots level determine which candidates they will support with possible investments of time, contributions of money, and on election day with their ballots.
The 100 politicians included those suggested by readers of the Democratic Underground, and by two college students who are my "summer help." They intend to use the results of the survey in the fall, when they network with other politically active college students across the country.
The students ask me: Do I expect all -- or even most -- of the 100 politicians to respond to the survey? That is a fair question. I suspect that there might be a larger response from democrats than republicans, but the important thing is that we are doing our part. We are not responsible for the actions or inactions of the politicians .... but we can try to hold them responsible.

Part Three: One Thousand Questions of One Hundred Politicians
My survey includes 10 simple questions. Four involve Karl Rove. They include questions about President Bush's 9-30-03 promise to fire anyone in his administration involved in the leak; Rove and McClellan's lying to the news reporters about Rove's involvement; and Rove's enjoyment of a security clearance granting him access to sensitive classified information.
I also included four questions about VP Dick Cheney. Does the American public have the right to know if Iraqi oil supplies were discussed during Cheney's secret energy meetings in early 2001? Has Cheney been honest with the American people about his role in the Plame scandal? Does the VP's copy of the NY Times op-ed by Wilson, complete with Cheney's hand written notes, indicate that Cheney was more actively involved in the operation to discredit Wilson than the White House has previously acknowledged? Should the House/Senate investigate the role Cheney played in misleading the country on intelligence reports on Niger yellow cake and WMD programs in Iraq?
There are two other questions, including one asking if he/she will request that President Bush allow the justice system to deal with Libby and anyone else who may face future charges, and not grant any pardons.
I attempted to ask reasonable, fair questions about the Plame scandal. The survey allows both democrats and republicans an opportunity to express their beliefs about some of the important issues involved in a scandal that helps define the lies the administration relied upon to bring this nation to war in Iraq. The truth is that the war is unpopular, and VP Cheney is now the most unpopular person at that level of power in our nation's history. He recently told a journalist that he isn't running for office, and so he doesn't care what the polls say. But we do. It is fair to ask if politicians embrace or reject VP Dick Cheney.

Part Four: "My Dungeon Shook" with James Baldwin
On the one hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation, author James Baldwin penned a remarkable letter to his nephew about being black in America. The letter originally appeared in The New Yorker under the title "Letter from a Region in My Mind." It also appeared as "Down at the Cross" in Baldwin's classic "The Fire Next Time."
It used to be considered "required reading" in high schools across the country. The letter allowed readers -- especially white readers -- to share an intimate insight into how the disease of racism infected human beings. James Baldwin was a sensitive man who used the pen as a most powerful weapon. His message to his nephew was "do not become bitter."
I am reminded of this when I read progressive/democrats being disappointed that Karl Rove was not indicted by the Fitzgerald grand jury in May. I, too, wish that Karl Rove had been indicted .... and, indeed, frog-marched from the White House. I do not know why he wasn't -- perhaps he is providing valuable information to the prosecutor, perhaps the grand jury did not think the evidence warrented indictments.
Whatever the case may be, I know that Karl Rove lied to the public (and had Scott McClellan lie as well) about the role he played. Progressive/democrats know that Karl is a criminal, even if he is not charged or convicted. He is, at best, an unindicted co-conspirator, much like Nixon in Watergate.
We can allow Rove's non-indictment to create bitterness and division within our ranks, as it has already done to a small extent. Or we can use Karl Rove as a political punching bag. That choice is ours. Likewise, VP Cheney's gross unpopularity is a most powerful weapon that we should take full advantage of.
When the survey results begin to be returned, I will be posting them on my blog and the three internet sites I contribute to. I encourage readers to use the information in LTTE in their area. We might not have the pleasure of seeing Karl Rove convicted in criminal court for his Plame crimes .... but it would be poetic justice if we use his skating as a weapon to disable the Bush administration in 2006's elections.
As Baldwin quoted, from a famous poem of long ago, in his letter to his nephew: "The very time I thought I was lost, My dungeon shook and my chains fell off."

Setting Dick Cheney's Picnic Table

"The essence of the American Revolution -- the principle on which this country was founded -- is that direct participation in political activity is what makes a free society."
-- Robert F. Kennedy; quote from "Make Gentle the Life of This World," by Maxwell Taylor Kennedy; Broadway Books; 1998; page 12.
One of my favorite books from 1968 was Gary Synder's "Earth House Hold," published by New Directions. The book describes the politics of the day in terms of family structure. He discussed Lewis Henry Morgan's "Ancient Society," a study on how family structure in Iroquois culture impacted their political structure. The Iroquois were a significant influence on our Founding Fathers, and Morgan's book led Engals to write "Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State."
Synder also wrote about how people of all ages were looking to create a healthier, more democratic society in 1968. Those of us who were alive way back then can likely recall that this year in our nation's history led to many a family discussion -- and many heated debates -- about politics in America.
I think that 2006 may be a year of similar significance in our nation's history. Today, I am hoping you will join with me in starting the initial planning of the Earth House Hold family reunion. Many of us did not enjoy some of the recent extended family picnics. After 9-11, a lot of our extended family was afraid. We remember how our cousin Michael Moore documented this fear in his wonderful family film, "Fahrenheit 9/11." Some of our relatives were afraid that terrorists were ready to attack the Wal-Marts of rural America.
Uncle Dick Cheney and cousin Byron York were considered the voices of reason at the picnic table. They had convinced a lot of the family that Saddam had pulled off 9-11. They kept saying, "We can't wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," and many in the extended family believed them. Fear does that. For those of us who remember the 1968 classic film "Yellow Submarine," President Bush did a mean version of Jeremy, even in his "debates" with John Kerry. It amazed us when some of the extended American family said, " He sure makes a lot of sense. He's a real leader." No, he's not. He's a cartoon character.
But things have changed in this country, even in the time since Jeremy Bush was "re-elected." The price of gas has gone up enough that everyone coming to the reunion will be aware of how much it costs to "fill her up." And more than 2500 of our family have paid a much higher price for the family backing Dick Cheney's plans to make the country safer. While a few years back, many in the American family thought that those who strongly disagreed with Uncle Dick were the offspring of cousin James Foreman, threatening to kick the legs out from under the picnic table if he wasn't seated, today more and more citizens are listening to Cousin Kos than to the obnoxious Byron York-types, who support Cheney's violence as long as someone else is suffering and dying.
Because 2006 is a significant election year, we need to be aware of some of the themes that will play out at this summer's reunion. In any political campaign, we need to be aware of the "three groups" that are always involved: {1} those who always agree with you; {2} those who always oppose you; and {3} the undecided. One of the most basic strategies in politics is to gear your message to group #3. You already have group #1, and you'll never get group #2. In most cases, it's a pretty even split. Group #3 decides the contest, either by participating or not participating. Our goal is to have a message that convinces them that it is important that they vote.
The Cheney "Family" is going to try to present a message that they represent democracy, the flag, and national security. They use a tactic called "perception management," made infamous by forces such as the Rendon Group. Think back to the "liberation" of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, when the corporate media filmed citizens of that country waving thousands of little American flags. Where did those flags come from? Who planned such a curious photo-op? The Rendon Group.
National polls in April showed that not only was the war in Iraq extremely unpopular, and that President Bush's approval rating was in the Nixon range, but VP Cheney was ranked with the most despised politicians in our nation's history. One of the most important factors in the public's dislike of Cheney was his heading up the effort to bring the country to war in Iraq, based upon outright lies. Those lies could be summed up as the infamous "16 words" in Jeremy's state of the union speech. The national debate expanded with Joseph Wilson's exposing those lies. And it went to a lower, very ugly criminal matter when the OVP attacked Wilson and his wife.
In April, the court documents in the I. Liar Libby case had shown the American public what Patrick Fitzgerald knew -- that VP Cheney was directly involved in the campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson. This was no surprise to our group #1. And their group #2 didn't care -- they back VP Cheney. But it was shocking to group #3 to see the evidence, which was as clear as Uncle Dick Cheney's handwriting on his copy of Wilson's NYTimes op-ed.
Thus, we knew that Cheney & Co would be conducting a serious "perception management" campaign, to distract the American public from the important facts, and to convince some, including within our group #1, that the Plame scandal is much to do about nothing. Hence, they try to focus the discussion on Rove's not being indicted -- as if that is as important as VP Cheney's role. It's a sad thing to see people on sites such as the Democratic Underground snarling that the most significant issue involved in the scandal today is some article in Truthout. It's also sad to see some people being discouraged because a few of group #2 are saying that it would be best if Libby were pardoned. Of course, at most large family reunions, we can expect a few distant cousins to get ugly drunk and try to pick fights, while a couple others will cry in their beer. We need to take a more sober approach.
The democratic/progressive left has collected and organized a huge amount of information on the Plame scandal in the past few years. Most people in our group #1 have a pretty fair grasp on what happened, and how it relates to the war in Iraq. There is really no excuse for us not to have some knowledge about the case, even though it is complex. C-SPAN recently covered a panel discussion from the annual Daily Kos "reunion." that provided some interesting opinions about where the investigation of the scandal may be heading.
Yet we must remember a scene from the wonderful movie "Gandhi," in which the Mahatma is speaking to the Indian National Congress. At first, he was being ignored. But then Gandhi reminds the audience that it really did not matter much what a small collection of lawyers said in their plush surroundings, if their message did not reach the masses. This, of course, was a simple variation of the "three groups" tactic. Gandi knew that it didn't matter if one or more of the speakers at that meeting was an "expert" if the message didn't reach the larger group #3.
How can we do this? After all, we are going up against Cheney, York, and Karl Rove? And for goodness sakes! They are posting "pardon Libby" messages like tiny flags in Kuwait. More, Karl Rove is surely as rough and tough as a young, hungry Mike Tyson. First, I would suggest we stop listening to anyone who says we should focus on Jason Leopold and not Dick Cheney. Second, we need to recognize that our cousins who are taking the Eeyore helpless stance need to take a back-row seat.
In the Nixon administration, they recognized that "letters to the editor" were a powerful part of perception management, especially so during election years. Patrick Buchanan was in charge of organizing a group of people around the country, who could be counted on to write a LTTE on a given issue when Pat gave the word. In election years, citizens in group #3 are known to read the LTTE in their local newspapers, and these are considered of high value in defining "community values."
If the progressive/democratic left had people who would write a simple, one or two paragraph LTTE of their local paper today, it would be as effective as those tiny American flags in Kuwait. These LTTE should simply state: President Bush promised to fire anyone in his administration involved in outing Valerie Plame; Karl Rove was absolutely involved; Rove lied to the public, if not to the investigators; why isn't Bush firing Rove? Four sentences, and the message will connect with group #3.
More, people should make this a campaign issue for the 2006 elections. Send a letter to your representatives and senators. Ask if they are willing to take steps to have congressional investigations on the administration's lies that led the country to war. Ask what steps they will take. Let them know that you will be using their responses (or lack of response) in LTTE.
Better yet, make a 5 or 10 question survey, and send it to a range of politicians. Let them know that you will be using the results in a public way. A local citizen actually doing this type of thing will be more effective in reaching the group #3 in your local community than one of the crusty republican operatives saying, "Jeremy should pardon Scooter for the good of the nation."
This is the type of "direct participation in political activity" that Senator Kennedy was saying was needed to breath life into our democracy in 1968. We have that same need today. I am hoping that you will be able to attend this summer's American Family Reunion.
RSVP!

A-Z: the archetype of Zarqawi

Section One: Zarqawi
"Would you have believed that a whole nation of highly intelligent and cultivated people could be seized by the fascinating power of an archetype?"
-- C.G. Jung; Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice; Vintage Books; 1968; page 183.
The death of the man our media called Zarqawi raised a number of questions last week. Who was he? How did he die? What was he doing in Iraq? And what will be the consequences of his death? Could it possibly mark the beginning of the end of this ugly, brutal war?
Almost immediately after the "official" story was reported in the corporate news, even journalists from MSNBC mentioned previous reports that the US military intelligence had, to some extent, used Zarqawi's image in parts of sophisticated "psychological operations." Progressives on the democratic left used the internet to remind people that psy-ops are not only aimed at the Iraqi population. The US public has been served images of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman that have turned out to be "perception management."
Just as Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman's images were used to appeal to the public as wholesome and patriotic, representing the "good" in President Bush's holy war on "evil-doers," it is clear that the image of Zarqawi was presented as pure evil. And, in fact, most Americans would no doubt agree that Lynch and Tillman represent goodness, and that Zarqawi was a dangerous killer. For the sake of this discussion, I am not as interested in these people as individuals, but rather as symbols that communicate messages at a "gut level."
Another description of that "gut level" message would be the attempt to communicate on an unconscious or subconscious level. Just as when we teach our children to recognize the subliminal messages in corporate advertisements, we do well the nature of the images of the war presented to us by the corporate state. In the Vietnam era, Jonathan Myrick Daniels wrote about the "raw material for a living theology"; in the Iraqi war era, we may be examining the symptoms of the administration's death cult.

Section Two: King
"If Washington and Jefferson risked 'crucifixion' by kings to establish democracy, he preached, the lowliest American should do no less to refine the spirit and practice of equal citizenship."
-- Taylor Branch; At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68; Simon & Shuster; page 641.
A generation ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. died trying to raise the public's conscious awareness of the dangers of what he called "the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism." In his day, Martin was not the first black leader to connect American military aggression in Southeast Asia with racism within our society. Malcolm X had done the same, just as he connected domestic racism with Uncle Sam's African policy.
When Malcolm began to take his message to Africans, in hopes that it would reach the United Nations, he was killed. Today we can look back objectively, and see that Malcolm was actually attempting to refine the spirit and practice of equal citizenship, but in the 1960s, the media created an image of a dark, evil, and violent thug that posed a serious threat to American society.
Similarly, when Martin began to address the true nature of the disease that threatened the very soul of America, he became a "threat." When he bridged the Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, he became a danger to more than just the racists who were upset by the thought of blacks sitting at a public coffee counter. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had long considered King a danger: the aging Hoover -- who was clearly not the man his "image" was made to project -- combined his fear of Martin's passionate nature with a belief that King was being manipulated by communists. When King delivered his "A Time to Break Silence" speech in 1967, the decision was made to kill him.
In his powerful book, Branch notes that shortly after Martin's death, his close friend Stanley Levison was upset by the fact that most Americans had "already distorted the loss of 'their plaster saint who was going to protect them from angry Negroes'." (page 769) Branch's book penetrates the mythology of Martin's last days and weeks. Perhaps better than any other author, he makes the reader conscious of the fact that Martin suffered greatly as a man, and was crucified between the two "criminals" that are a part of all of our sad and weakly human nature.

Section Three: Jung
"He is our culture hero, who, regardless of his historic existence, embodies the myth of the divine Primordial Man, the mythic Adam."
-- C.G. Jung; Selected Writings; BMC Books; 1997; page 320.
In "Christ, A Symbol of the Self," Jung engages in a discourse on "Christ and his adversary, the Anti-Christ," in psychological terms. The discussion includes his examining the intersection of the unique and the universal, the unitemporal and eternal, of good and evil, and of the spiritual and of the material. Jung is not as concerned with a study of the historic Jesus, but rather with Christ the archetype.
Jung details how Christianity has attempted to deal with the concepts of evil and sin. From Paul to St. Augustine, there was an attempt to separate the natural world, which clearly contains pain and suffering, from the definition of "God." By the time of the Renaisance (or "rebirth of the antique spirit"), the symbolic nature of the ancient texts was confused, and their message lost to many. For example, in the case of Jesus's journey to the desert, where he was tempted, being understood as an internal, psychological process, the church began to teach that Jesus was tempted by an external entity.
It's interesting to note that Malcolm said the Dead Sea Scrolls would "take Jesus off the stained-glass windows, and place him in the context of humanity, where he belongs." Jung also talks about images from the Essenses and Gnostics, which speak of Jesus as being the "younger brother" of the Anti-Christ. Their images of "light" and "dark" recognize the relationship between the two potentials. Jung notes that their texts speak of good and evil, and light and dark, as being the right and left hands of God.
The Gnostics referred to the lower "God" of the less enlightened mainstream church of their day. This is the angry, jealous, and punishing God that in psychological terms could be described as the collective unconscious that Jung wrote about. It is the "god of war" that our president worships.

Section Four: Bush
"...(P)eople had simply no idea that our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the ocean of collective psychology. The powerful factors, the factor which changes our whole life, which changes the surface of our known world, which makes history, is collective psychology, and collective psychology moves according to laws entirely different from those of our consciousness."
-- C.G. Jung; Analytical Psychology; page 183.
Much of the ancient world was aware that human nature included both good and bad potentials. We can think of the concept of "yin-yang," or of the Iroquoian tribes understanding of people being a complex mix of light and dark, or even St. Patrick's introduction in his Confession ("I, Patrick, a sinner, the most unlearned and least of all the faithful and despised by many..."), who re-introduced the concepts of compassion and forgiveness to a rigid and political church.
The opposite of that awareness of self in terms of human nature, is the unconsciousness that Jung notes is unabled to distinguish between good and evil. He writes that, "Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves. The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner opposite, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposing halves."
It is difficult not to see President George W. Bush's policies reflected in that description of unconscious conflict. Even if we are generous enough to grant that he is sincere in his misguided attempts to "fight evil-doers" in his violent policies in Iraq, it seems evident that he is unaware of the terror and pain and suffering that his actions has caused. If we again accept the description of Zarqawi being a thug and a brute, we surely must recognize that no force on earth will create more Zarqawis than this administration's Middle East policies.
In his "A Time to Break Silence" address, Martin quoted a letter from a Buddhist monk: "Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the imafe of violence and militarism."
For a variety of reasons, men like Bush and Cheney have no conscious understanding of Vietnam's lessons. They are likewise unconscious of the realities of their evil in Iraq, and rather than take responsibility for the pain and suffering they have caused, they will instead project it upon the next Zarqawi. They have created a nightmare.

Section Five: Us
"Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Time To Break Silence.
Ninety years ago, as Carl Jung has noted, intelligent people said that there would be no "great war," because they were "far too reasonable to let it happen, and our commerce and finance are so interlaced internationally that (such a) war is absolutely out of the question...." Yet Jung "saw it coming, I said in 1918 that the 'blond beast' is stirring in its sleep and something will happen in Germany...." (Analytical Psychology; pages 182-3)
Jung was convinced that a great war was coming from examing the archetypes moving beneath the unconscious levels: ".... what the unconscious really contains are the great collective events of the time. In the collective unconscious of the individual, history prepares itself; and when the archetypes are activated in a number of individuals and come to the surface, we are in the midst of history, as we are at present."
President Bush is as unconscious as any machine, such as a lawn-mower. He is representative of the collective unconscious mass of republicans who believe that the death of a common thug in Iraq is going to bring peace to that war-torn land .... just as they believe the execution of a death row inmate will end crime in Texas.
When they hear a Mr. Berg speak to the futility of killing the man who reportedly murdered his son, they are mildly uncomfortable, for they are unable to relate to that belief. They do not believe that this type of forgiveness is part of "human nature." They want Christ on the stained glass window, and King to be cause for a holiday sale.
President Bush has become so intoxicated with the illusion of power, that he has passed out at the wheel. He is driving our nation towards a greater war in the Middle East.
As citizens of this nation, and as members of the global community, we need to sound the alarm clock. We need to wake up, as a people, and become conscious of our humanity. We can not expect a sleeping "leader" to end the war in Iraq by killing a thug; we need to end the war by reaching the consciousness of Martin Luther King, Jr.
What would Martin do, were he here today? That's exactly what we need to do.

Libby, Ledeen, and the Wall Street Journal

Timing is everything. Two brief examples come to mind: The same month that George W. Bush broke into the office that Al Gore had actually been elected to, the Niger Embassy in Italy was burglarized. Then, when the Bush administration needed something to convince the American public that Saddam's Iraq posed a threat to this country, the Niger yellow cake forgeries appeared. Fancy that.
When Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and other administration representatives were going to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows on September 8, 2002, they were all able to point to an article from that very morning's New York Times about Saddam's WMD programs. As it turned out, Scooter Libby had timed that article with disgraced "journalist" Judith Miller.
Could it be that those aspens have such good timing because they are connected at the roots? Let's take a look at two articles that came out yesterday, which were about the Niger yellow cake forgeries and the role these documents played in bringing our nation to war in Iraq. The first is an editorial from the Wall Street Journal ("Fitzgerald, Scooter and Us"), the second is from Vanity Fair ("The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed," by Craig Unger).
The Niger yellow cake forgeries are documents that suggested that Iraq was buying large quantities of uranium to use in WMD production. The Niger forgeries are one leaf on a clover of closely related scandals, which also the Plame and the neocon/AIPAC spy scandals. All three involve a core group of shadowy, unofficial intelligence operations, coordinated with what Joseph Wilson has called "a small pack of zealots ... with cells in most of the national security system," and with agents representing foreign governments. Wilson further noted that, "Among these cells are the secretive Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense (repportedly now disbanded) and a similar operation in the State department that is managed in the Office of Under Secretary for Disarmament John Bolton." (The Politics of Truth; page 432)
The goal of these shadowy operations was summed up in a September 4, 2002 Wall Street Journal article by one of the group's leading members, Michael Ledeen, which advocated the USA overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The fact that the Bush administration was focused on invading Iraq since Bush took office has been documented by a number of former administration officials, including Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill. And in "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward documents that the Saudi government was offering the Bush administration "up to $1 billion" for joint intelligence operations aimed at overthrowing Saddam in April of 2002. (page 229)
Now let's look at the twelve paragraphs of the WSJ editorial. Their article trashes Patrick Fitzgerald and Joseph Wilson, while expressing support for Scooter Libby. The foundation for this is the Niger forgeries.
The language they use to describe Mr. Fitzgerald and the case against Libby is telling. They claim that Mr. Fitzgerald "comes close to suggesting that senior government officials have no right to fight back against critics who make false allegations." Actually, of course, Libby is charged with lying to FBI investigators and the grand jury.
"It suggests that his case is a lot weaker than his media spin." In fact, Judge Walton looked into exactly who was spinning the media. Team Libby admitted to talking to a reporter, and to releasing a court document before it was made public by the court. The prosecutor had not violated the court's instruction to avoid engaging in such activities.
"...Mr. Fitzgerald is scrambling even now...", "...Mr. Fitzgerald refuses to acknowledge," and "...he has made the terrible mistake ... of taking Joe Wilson's side..." are three other examples of the editorial's attempt to spin the case against little Scooter.
Regarding Joseph Wilson, the editorial refers to: "...Joe Wilson and his false allegations"; "...Mr. Wilson's fantasy version"; "...Mr. Wilson's manifestly false allegations"; and "...the official probes (that) destroyed his credibility."
I am reminded of Minister Malcolm X teaching us that the corporate media would try to portray criminals as victims, and victims as criminals. The WSJ editorial would have us believe that Scooter was acting to protect our country from dangerous enemies when he exposed Valerie Plame's identity, and that the yellow cake documents were not forgeries after all. Indeed, the WSJ "comes close to suggesting" that the US found the yellow cake that these forgeries claimed had been sold to Saddam.
Craig Unger's article in Vanity Fair is everything the WSJ editorial is not. It takes a fair approach that includes presenting both side's claims, it is an honest attempt to find the truth, and it is an accurate report of the Niger forgeries operation that led a large number of citizens to support the administration's aggression in Iraq.
The article includes information from nine former intelligence officials, including several who served in the Bush administration. They refer to the Niger forgeries as "a disinformation operation," "black ops," "black propaganda," and "a classic psy-ops campaign" -- all descriptions of "a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public."
Vanity Fair found at least 14 examples of the intelligence community warning the White House that the Niger documents were suspect, before George W. Bush included his infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address. However, the Office of Special Plans (OSP) and White House Iraq Group (WHIG) continued to push the claim that Iraq was buying yellow cake uranium from Niger for WMD production.
One of the individuals central in the effort to mislead the American public that the article identifies is Michael Ledeen. He has a history of engaging in misinformation operations inside the United States, and coordinating criminal activities such as those of the Iran-Contra scandals. He is closely tied to the group of zealots that Wilson describes as having "spanned decades" in their efforts to promote the neoconservative agenda.
It is interesting to note that the article by Craig Unger lists six times where Wall Street Journal articles by or about Mr. Ledeen include information about the neoconservatives' plans to remake the Middle East in their own image.
Mr. Ledeen has done much more than inspire the WSJ to promote the Niger forgeries. He is described as Douglas Feith's collaborator, who was "in and out" of OSP meetings during the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion. More, he set-up meetings in Rome between intelligence fabricator Manucher Ghorbanifar (who Ledeen connected with Ollie North in the Iran-Contra crimes), Harold Rhode, and Larry Franklin of ythe OSP. Franklin, of course, has pled guilty to playing a role in the closely related neocon/AIPAC spy scandal.
In an April essay, I had suggested that the people connected to the OVP/WHIG were going to engage in a disinformation campaign, to try to make the criminals look like victims, and the victims look like criminals. The Wall Street Journal editorial is clearly part of that campaign. The article is of the same quality as Judith Miller's pre-war advocacy for the OVP/OSP/WHIG lies.
Thank goodness for Craig Unger's article.

Libby, Ledeen, and the Wall Street Journal

Timing is everything. Two brief examples come to mind: The same month that George W. Bush broke into the office that Al Gore had actually been elected to, the Niger Embassy in Italy was burglarized. Then, when the Bush administration needed something to convince the American public that Saddam's Iraq posed a threat to this country, the Niger yellow cake forgeries appeared. Fancy that.

When Dick Cheney, Condi Rice and other administration representatives were going to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows on September 8, 2002, they were all able to point to an article from that very morning's New York Times about Saddam's WMD programs. As it turned out, Scooter Libby had timed that article with disgraced "journalist" Judith Miller.


Could it be that those aspens have such good timing because they are connected at the roots? Let's take a look at two articles that came out yesterday, which were about the Niger yellow cake forgeries and the role these documents played in bringing our nation to war in Iraq. The first is an editorial from the Wall Street Journal ("Fitzgerald, Scooter and Us"), the second is from Vanity Fair ("The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed," by Craig Unger).


The Niger yellow cake forgeries are documents that suggested that Iraq was buying large quantities of uranium to use in WMD production. The Niger forgeries are one leaf on a clover of closely related scandals, which also the Plame and the neocon/AIPAC spy scandals. All three involve a core group of shadowy, unofficial intelligence operations, coordinated with what Joseph Wilson has called "a small pack of zealots ... with cells in most of the national security system," and with agents representing foreign governments. Wilson further noted that, "Among these cells are the secretive Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense (repportedly now disbanded) and a similar operation in the State department that is managed in the Office of Under Secretary for Disarmament John Bolton." (The Politics of Truth; page 432)


The goal of these shadowy operations was summed up in a September 4, 2002 Wall Street Journal article by one of the group's leading members, Michael Ledeen, which advocated the USA overthrowing the governments of Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The fact that the Bush administration was focused on invading Iraq since Bush took office has been documented by a number of former administration officials, including Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill. And in "Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward documents that the Saudi government was offering the Bush administration "up to $1 billion" for joint intelligence operations aimed at overthrowing Saddam in April of 2002. (page 229)


Now let's look at the twelve paragraphs of the WSJ editorial. Their article trashes Patrick Fitzgerald and Joseph Wilson, while expressing support for Scooter Libby. The foundation for this is the Niger forgeries.


The language they use to describe Mr. Fitzgerald and the case against Libby is telling. They claim that Mr. Fitzgerald "comes close to suggesting that senior government officials have no right to fight back against critics who make false allegations." Actually, of course, Libby is charged with lying to FBI investigators and the grand jury.


"It suggests that his case is a lot weaker than his media spin." In fact, Judge Walton looked into exactly who was spinning the media. Team Libby admitted to talking to a reporter, and to releasing a court document before it was made public by the court. The prosecutor had not violated the court's instruction to avoid engaging in such activities.


"...Mr. Fitzgerald is scrambling even now...", "...Mr. Fitzgerald refuses to acknowledge," and "...he has made the terrible mistake ... of taking Joe Wilson's side..." are three other examples of the editorial's attempt to spin the case against little Scooter.


Regarding Joseph Wilson, the editorial refers to: "...Joe Wilson and his false allegations"; "...Mr. Wilson's fantasy version"; "...Mr. Wilson's manifestly false allegations"; and "...the official probes (that) destroyed his credibility."


I am reminded of Minister Malcolm X teaching us that the corporate media would try to portray criminals as victims, and victims as criminals. The WSJ editorial would have us believe that Scooter was acting to protect our country from dangerous enemies when he exposed Valerie Plame's identity, and that the yellow cake documents were not forgeries after all. Indeed, the WSJ "comes close to suggesting" that the US found the yellow cake that these forgeries claimed had been sold to Saddam.


Craig Unger's article in Vanity Fair is everything the WSJ editorial is not. It takes a fair approach that includes presenting both side's claims, it is an honest attempt to find the truth, and it is an accurate report of the Niger forgeries operation that led a large number of citizens to support the administration's aggression in Iraq.


The article includes information from nine former intelligence officials, including several who served in the Bush administration. They refer to the Niger forgeries as "a disinformation operation," "black ops," "black propaganda," and "a classic psy-ops campaign" -- all descriptions of "a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public."


Vanity Fair found at least 14 examples of the intelligence community warning the White House that the Niger documents were suspect, before George W. Bush included his infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union address. However, the Office of Special Plans (OSP) and White House Iraq Group (WHIG) continued to push the claim that Iraq was buying yellow cake uranium from Niger for WMD production.


One of the individuals central in the effort to mislead the American public that the article identifies is Michael Ledeen. He has a history of engaging in misinformation operations inside the United States, and coordinating criminal activities such as those of the Iran-Contra scandals. He is closely tied to the group of zealots that Wilson describes as having "spanned decades" in their efforts to promote the neoconservative agenda.


It is interesting to note that the article by Craig Unger lists six times where Wall Street Journal articles by or about Mr. Ledeen include information about the neoconservatives' plans to remake the Middle East in their own image.


Mr. Ledeen has done much more than inspire the WSJ to promote the Niger forgeries. He is described as Douglas Feith's collaborator, who was "in and out" of OSP meetings during the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion. More, he set-up meetings in Rome between intelligence fabricator Manucher Ghorbanifar (who Ledeen connected with Ollie North in the Iran-Contra crimes), Harold Rhode, and Larry Franklin of ythe OSP. Franklin, of course, has pled guilty to playing a role in the closely related neocon/AIPAC spy scandal.


In an April essay, I had suggested that the people connected to the OVP/WHIG were going to engage in a disinformation campaign, to try to make the criminals look like victims, and the victims look like criminals. The Wall Street Journal editorial is clearly part of that campaign. The article is of the same quality as Judith Miller's pre-war advocacy for the OVP/OSP/WHIG lies.


Thank goodness for Craig Unger's article.

Scooter Libby & The Barber of Seville

June 2, 2006 was not a good day for Scooter Libby and his legal team. Just as people following the case will remember Scooter using crutches when he was indicted on October 28, 2005, yesterday may be remembered as the day Judge Walton knocked the crutches out from under his case. The Judge filed three documents that are worth taking a closer look at.
The first is Document 112, which is Judge Walton's Order, which outlines the Court's answer to Team Libby's Third Motion to Compel Discovery. This motion had led to Mr. Fitzgerald's Response and Team Libby's Reply, which allowed the public to have a far greater appreciation for the amount of evidence that the prosecutor has about the OVP/WHIG attempts to "discredit" Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
On May 5, the Court heard argument from both sides on the disputed issues. Team Libby had presented ten separate areas of information they argued were essential for his defense. Their goal is to make the case into a debate about the war in Iraq, and to argue about the president's state of the union address with his infamous "16 words," and about Wilson's trip to Niger.
But the judge isn't allowing that to happen. "Rather," Judge Walton writes, "the only question the jury will be asked to resolve in this matter will be whether the defendant intentionally lied when he testified before the grand jury and spoke with FBI agents about statements he purportedly made to the three reporters concerning Ms. Wilson's employment. The prosecution of this action, therefore, involves a discrete cast of characters and events, and this Court will not permit it to become a forum for debating theaccuracy of Ambassador Wilson's statements, the propriety of the Iraq war or related matters leading up to the war, as those events are not the basis for the charged offenses. At best, these events have merely an abstract relationship to the charged offenses."
Judge Walton explains in a footnote that this "reality is not altered" because Mr. Fitzgerald will introduce various news reports on the Wilson trip as evidence. He notes that Mr. Fitzgerald will not be introducing the full articles, that the Court "suspects it would not permit" the prosecution to introduce full articles if it attempted to, and that the truth of the articles is not at issue. Judge Walton defines the limited purposes that such evidence will be allowed to be introduced for. None of those purposes can be viewed as helping Team Libby.
Those limited purposes translate into seven of Team Libby's requests being fully denied. "For several reasons, and contrary to the defendant's position otherwise, the bulk of the documents which may be responsive to these requests are simply not material to the preparation of the defendant's defense," Judge Walton noted. Rather, they were attempts to dillute the prosecution's case by introducing evidence "without regard for whether the defendant or any likely witnesses even reviewed or ever knew about these documents."
And even in the case of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Scooter and other likely witnesses were aware of, Judge Walton correctly ruled that it is not at issue, because Mr. Fitzgerald is not claiming that it was "improperly" disclosed by Libby.
In the end, the Judge ordered the prosecution to produce a limited number of documents "to the extent it has not already done so" that relate directly to Scooter's role in the OVP/WHIG "effort to rebut the accuracy of Ambassador Wilson's" trip and findings, and related documents that are discoverable under Brady.
Document 113 is Judge Walton's Protective Order, in which he grants Mr. Fitzgerald's motion to withhold "discrete items of classified information from the defendant, and to provide to the defense, as substitutes for several items of classified information, summaries setting forth the relevant information contained in the classified documents."
A quick review of the types of classification may be helpful here. For those not familiar, these classifications are pursuant to Executive Order 12958, as amended by Executive Order 13292. National security information is classified in three ways: Top Secret; Secret; or Confidential. "Top Secret" is the designation of information which if improperly disclosed could reasonably be expected to cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security." Next, "Secret" means the information's unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to national security. And "Confidential" designates information which when improperly disclosed can reasonably be expected to damage our national security.
Judge Walton writes that after careful review of the prosecutor's requests, "the Court finds the documents and information identified in the government's Section 4 CIPA filings are extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States." Thus, he will allow Mr. Fitzgerald to provide "unclassified substitutions (which) are more than sufficient to address any obligation the government might have to produce the underlying classified documents and information to the defense."
This information includes a limited recounting of Valerie Plame's employment history with the Agency from January 2002 on; a review of "potential damage" created by the disclosure of her affiliation with the Agency; and the names of three individuals mentioned in classified documents previously provided to the defense.
The most significant issue, in my opinion, is that Judge Walton heard Mr. Fitzgerald's Motion in camera and ex parte, which means in chambers and with only the prosecutor there to present his side. Team Libby was particularly upset by the prospect of this being presented ex parte. There are a couple reasons why. First, Judge Walton is known for having strong beliefs on the need to keep classified information secret. His stating that the information Mr. Fitzgerald showed him "could cause serious if not grave damage" to our country if improperly disclosed indicates he has an appreciation for the full flavour of the OVP/WHIG operation against the Wilsons.
Further, although the classified information will not be introduced as part of the case for the jury to consider, Judge Walton now knows what the CIA knows about the case. It reminds me of when attorneys were preparing my friend Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's federal appeal, and they wanted to include what was known as the Caruso File. Leon Friedman, the Hofstra University professor who co-authored the definitive 5-volume history of the justices of the US Supreme Court, included the information in his appeal. The federal judge read the appeal, and then excluded the information from the Caruso File, because it did not fit the definition of an exhausted claim. However, Leon knew it was like on a movie, when explosive evidence is introduced, and the judge orders a jury to ignore it for technical reasons. No juror or movie viewer forgets that evidence. In Carter's case, Judge Sarokin noted that not only was he overturning the conviction on procedural grounds, but that he was aware that Rubin Carter was not only "not guilty," but that he was innocent. That was because he had read the Caruso File. In Scooter's case, even though the trial is limited to Libby's lying to the FBI and grand jury, Judge Walton is now aware of the true nature of the issues involved in the OVP/WHIG operation to destroy the Wilsons.
Document 114 is Judge Walton's Order to the prosecutor and defense to "appear for a status conference on June 12, 2006 at 1:30 p.m." They will be discussing several issues, including the status of discovery; the possibility that other motions are going to be filed; and if Mr. Fitzgerald will be "asserting any claims of executive privilege." These three issues alone make the hearing worth keeping an eye on. But there is something else that appears far more significant.
Judge Walton wants to discuss if the parties "believe it is necessary to issue early returnable trial subpoenas to resolve anticipated claims of testimonial privilege." It is hard not to conclude that Judge Walton is taking Mr. Fitzgerald's statements regarding the possibility of calling one Dick Cheney to testify very seriously. The possibility of Mr. Fitzgerald calling on the vice president is fascinating to consider, and there is a variety of opinions on how Dick Cheney might respond. Will he attempt to avoid testifying? Surely he would not want to either be used by Mr. Fitzgerald to put the screws to the man who is lying to protect him. Nor would he want to risk lying on the witness stand.
The three documents filed by Judge Walton on June 2 were bad for Scooter Libby. The June 12 hearing may be worse for Dick Cheney.