February 17, 2005
Nominating a Liar and Killer to Head America's new KGB
By Dave Lindorff
The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.
Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the agency's blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the later part of the 20th Century.
As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in that poorest of Latin American nations, and in creating and running the so-called Contras, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America?s KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller (D-W. VA), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination. If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test.' Democratic Senators Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.
Continued:
http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1081254.htm
America's Iraq, Hendrix's Army and the Arrogance of Power
by Mark A. LeVine
February 17, 2005
...why is no one asking the Administration what "leaving" means? I mean, while President Bush has said that the US would leave if asked (and it's very nice of him to say so), what does leaving mean?actually withdrawing every single US soldier? Abandoning the more than one dozen expensive and valuable bases that when I was in Iraq last spring were about the only thing being built (rather than destroyed) in Iraq? Giving up the corporate cash-cow of the occupation and reconstruction? Not controlling or at least having a strong hand in managing the petroleum sector? I cannot imagine a scenario where the US would willingly leave Iraq with no troops and no contracts behind. And this is why things are not going to get tangibly better in Iraq until the US is sure that when it leaves, it's leaving significant personnel, material and agreements behind
Continued:
http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1081089.htm
U.S. fomenting fear to keep populations in thrall to "strong leaders" who will protect the nation from the ever-present terrorist threat
by Chris Floyd
February 18, 2005
'You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force ... the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security."
[Snip]
While not infallible, the ancient Latin question is still the best guide to penetrating the bloody murk of modern terrorism: Cui bono? Who benefits? Whose powers and policies are enhanced by the attack? For it is indisputable that the "strategy of tension" means power and profit for those who claim to possess the key to "security." And from the halls of the Kremlin to the banks of the Potomac, this cynical strategy is the ruling ideology of our times.
Perpetual War Update:
http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/index.cfm?m=2&y=2005
MARC PARENT
Political tags?such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth?are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
- Robert A Heinlein
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
- H.L. Mencken
CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
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