| ¢U L P R I T S |
Joe Allbaugh FEMA Shrub's TX enforcer
Walter Kansteiner Scowcroft
John Bolton State Dept
John Maisto NSC
John Negroponte UN
Otto Juan Reich State Dept
Bruce Chapman WHouse
Lorne Craner State Dept
Richard L. Huber NorteSur
John P. Walters Narc czar | |
|
Pres. GWBush is quietly building the most conservative administration in modern times,
surpassing even R.Reagan in ideological commitment of his appts, WHouse officials &
prominent conservatives say. As Bush fills out sub-Cabinet & WHouse staff, he turned to
large number of formidable intellectuals drawn from conservative think tanks, journals & law
firms. The appts surprised even to conservative leaders, who expected Bush, particularly after
disputed presidential election, to follow centrist path closer to his father's. "This administration is
shaping up to be the best," said Paul Weyrich, prominent conservative. "When Reagan ran for
office, even when Nixon ran, it was the campaign that was lovey-dovey. Then, when they got in,
they didn't know who you were. Here, the Bush campaign didn't pay any attention to us, but as
soon as they got in, they started taking notice. This is something that I've never experienced
before." Michael Horowitz, Reagan WHouse vet now with conservative Hudson Institute,
concurred. "In many respects, this is better than the Reagan administration," he said.
Bush's collection of "movement" conservatives, those identified with moral, religious or small-govt
causes, is wide-ranging: Otto Reich,
; Christian activist Kay Coles James,
slated to be solicitor general is Theodore B. Olson, who served on Richard Mellon
Scaife-funded American Spectator magazine's board & argued pivotal Supreme Court case
against affirmative action. Bush admin officials say conservatives' appt should not be surprising
because Bush is a conservative. They also say appts do not necessarily translate into right-wing
agenda. They point out that Bush continues to make his campaign themes, incl education, tax
cuts, and military & entitlement reform, top priorities. "The president is reaching out to
experienced individuals of highest integrity who share his commitment to a conservative agenda
with compassionate results," said Scott McClellan, Bush spokesman. Even moderate Republicans
say they are pleased with the lineup. "I am struck by the depth of the Bush bench," said Rep. Phil
English R-PA, noting that the appointments "don't run up any red flags."
Still, Bush's appts surprise those who interpreted Bush's soothing campaign rhetoric to mean he
was, if not a moderate, then a "new kind of Republican," as the campaign often said. Liberals believe such appts
explain why Bush admin has taken actions on controversial issues that did not surface much during the election: abandoning pledge to limit carbon dioxide emissions, restricting labor unions & abortion rights, revoking ergonomic & arsenic regulations, and tightening bankruptcy law. "What you're seeing is an administration that, believe it or not, is further to the right than either the first Bush or the Reagan's," said Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way. "Across the board, it's obvious that the right wing is in control. And it's a right-wing agenda that's being implemented." At first, conservatives & other observers believed Bush's gestures to the right were simply "outreach," building up loyalty from his base of support in order to strike deals with Democrats later.
After all, Bush's top 3 advisers, Karl Rove, Karen P. Hughes & Andrew H. Card Jr., ç were not regarded as movement conservatives, and his appts in Texas tended to be establishment Republicans. | ||
Attorneys for Libby told jurors at the onset of his trial that Libby was the victim of a conspiracy to protect Rove. Details of any save-Rove conspiracy were promised but never materialized.
The most explicit testimony on Rove came from columnist Robert Novak, who outed Plame in a July 2003 column. He testified that Rove, a frequent source, was one of two officials who told him about Plame. Libby, with whom he seldom spoke, was not a source.
¹
Rove, though, was not indicted after testifying 5 times before the grand jury, occasionally correcting misstatements he made in his earlier testimony. The jury in Libby's trial did not hear that testimony, nor did it hear that Rove is credited as an architect of Republican political victories and has been accused by opponents of playing dirty tricks.
All that jurors heard is that Rove leaked Plame's identity and, from the outset, got political cover from the White House. He was never charged with a crime.
Seeking men of convictions 2.22.02 American Prospect
The title sounds reassuring: Information Awareness Office. A new little bureaucracy recently created by Pentagon's
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, this office is charged with focusing on new kinds of military threats,
including terrorism. Who better to head it than a guy who himself was once a military threat to the rule of law here
in America: Retired Adm. John Poindexter. Ollie North's erstwhile boss. Former Reagan national-security
adviser who supervised the Iran-contra operation, selling guns to Iranians to fund an off-the-books war the contras
were waging in Nicaragua, a war whose funding with federal dollars the Congress had specifically proscribed.
Same John Poindexter convicted in 1990 on 5 felony counts of conspiracy, making false statements to Congress,
and obstructing congressional inquiries into the affair. (Poindexter's convictions, along with North's, were later
overturned by an appellate court on the grounds that he'd been granted immunity because of his forced testimony
to Congress.)
War on terrorism is redemption & rehiring hall for a slew of questionable characters govt was
compelled to cashier in earlier, more normal times. Poindexter's fellow contra boosters Elliott Abrams
& Otto Reich already are back in the fold. North is probably making too much money in talk radio to
be coaxed back into secret ops. But why not hand homeland security over to a guy who's already
demonstrated his zeal (if not his expertise) for spying on Americans?
[ Iran-Contra, aka CIA fueled crack cocaine gang war, reborn by default;
Bush² admin having no other contacts but those same bumbling villains to carry water for its agendas, hollow
NatSec shadows. ]
Poindexter would have made a fine bookie
¹
San Diego, CA In the blue corner is the disgraced, desk hugging admiral, who, not that long ago,
was forced to resign as Reagan's National Security Advisor due to his part in the Iran-Contra affair. Thereafter, the
flag officer was convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, defrauding the govt, altering evidence, destroying
evidence, lying to Congress, only escaping jail w/ the aid of luck, good lawyers and technicalities.
10 years later he's back with a new govt job, this time as director of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office,
whose mission is to "Imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies,
components and prototype closed loop information systems."
That was no problem. What got him busted (Poindexter leaves govt service 8.29.03) was his one good
idea, his attempt to become a reputable bookie. The idea was to create a Policy Analysis Market. It was a market
that would have "allowed trading of futures contracts based on possible political developments in several
MidEastern countries".
If given a choice, and a choice was given, between being outraged at the Pentagon's plans for collecting every byte
& lick of your private life or being outraged at the Pentagon's plans for running a sportsbook, national
politicians and the American public came down hard on sportsbooks.
Here's the point: the Iowa Election Market has been more accurate than any professional pollster, and this is where
Poindexter came in. Something about the market, as a whole, knowing more than the individual, the market being
able to predict future events more astutely than anyone else.
The good admiral must have been surprised at the shitstorm his tiny futures market provoked. As I recall, "trading
in death" was one of the favored charges leveled against him.
One Internet pioneer for these kinds of markets is tradesports.com, a Dublin Ireland based futures market backed
by the country's largest bank. Most of their contracts are made up using a 0 to 100 method. That is, suppose the
trading price for the San Diego Chargers winning the Super Bowl is 12. If the Bolts pull that off, then every contract
acquired for the price of $12 will return a profit of $88.
Secret talks w/ Iranian arms dealer
Wash.D.C. Pentagon hardliners pressing for regime change in Iran held secret & unauthorized meetings in Paris with a controversial arms dealer who was a major figure in the Iran-contra scandal, according to administration officials, who said at least 2 Pentagon officials working for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas
Feith have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, Iranian middleman in U.S. arms-for-hostage
shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s
The admin officials who disclosed the secret meetings to Newsday said the talks with Ghorbanifar were not
authorized by the White House and appeared to be aimed at undercutting current sensitive back channel
negotiations with the Iranian regime.
The sr official and another admin source who confirmed that the meetings had taken places aid that the ultimate
policy objective of Feith and a group of neo-conservatives civilians inside the Pentagon is regime change in Iran.
This second official said, "United States policy officially is not regime change, overtly or covertly, "but to engage
Iranian officials in dialogue over contentious issues, such as Iran's nuclear weapons program, and to press the
regime to extradite al-Qaida operatives.
He said that the immediate objective of the Pentagon hardliners appears to be to "antagonize Iran so that they get
frustrated and then by their reactions harden U.S. policy against them." He confirmed that Sec.State Powell
complained directly to DefSec Rumsfeld several days ago about Feith's policy shop conducting missions that
countered U.S. policy.
The sr admin official identified 2 of the Defense officials who met with Ghorbanifar as Feith's top MidEast specialist
Harold Rhode, and Defense Intelligence Agency analyst on loan to the undersecretary's office Larry Franklin.
Rhode recently acted as a liaison between Feith's office, which drafted much of the admin post-Iraq planning, and
Ahmed Chalabi, a former Iraqi exiled disdained by CIA & State Dept but groomed for leadership by the
Pentagon.
Rhode is a protege of Michael Ledeen, neo-conservative who was National Security Council consultant in the mid-
1980s when he introduced Ghorbanifar to Oliver North, National Security Council aide, and others in the opening
stages of the Iran-contra affair.
Ghorbanifar,said to live in Paris, could not be reached for comment Thursday. Ledeen once described him as "one
of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." But CIA, noting he had failed 4 polygraph tests
administered during the arms-for-hostages deals, warned its officers not to deal with him, asserting he "should be
regarded as an intelligence fabricator and nuisance." Chavez calls Negroponte ‘professional killer’ Venezuelan leader also says enemies, including CIA, are plotting to kill him 3.4.07 AP
Caracas, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a “professional killer.” Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.
“Who did they swear in
there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte,” Chavez said.
U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but they have denied Chavez’s repeated accusations that they are plotting to oust him. Chavez was asked about reports of assassination plots during a televised interview. Chavez did not give details. His govt has demanded that the U.S. extradite Posada Carriles, a naturalized Venezuelan, to stand trial for allegedly masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles denies involvement in that incident. |
Bush LatinAm advisers' IranContra roles Colin Powell, Sec.State Sec.Defense military asst (known as "filter"). Autobio: Pentagon's "point man" for U.S. Contra support. Key role funding Contras via illegal arms sales to Iran.
John Maisto, Natl Security Council Adviser Inter-American affairs, hence cohort of Narc czar
J.P. Walters
John Negroponte, DNI,
U.S. UN ambassador
FIPF
A carefully crafted deception
Tegucigalpa, Honduras A dangerous truth confronted John Dimitri Negroponte
as he prepared to take over as U.S. ambassador to Honduras late in 1981. The military in Honduras, the country
from which the Reagan administration had decided to run the battle for democracy in Central America, was
kidnapping & murdering its own citizens. "GOH [Govt of Honduras] security forces have begun to resort to
extralegal tactics, disappearances &, apparently, physical eliminations 'to control a perceived subversive
threat','' Negroponte was told in a secret briefing book prepared by embassy staff. The assertion was true, and
there was worse to come.
Time & again during his tour of duty in Honduras 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was
confronted with evidence that a Honduran army intelligence unit, trained by the CIA, was
stalking, kidnapping, torturing and killing suspected
subversives.
14-month investigation by The Sun, which included interviews with U.S. & Honduran officials who could not
have spoken freely at the time, shows that Negroponte learned from numerous sources about the crimes of the unit
called Battalion 316. The Honduran press was full of reports about military abuses, including hundreds of
newspaper stories in 1982 alone. There were also direct pleas from Honduran officials to U.S. officials, including
Negroponte. A disgruntled former Honduran intelligence chief publicly denounced Battalion 316. Relatives of the
battalion's victims demonstrated in the streets and appealed to U.S. officials for intervention, including once in an
open letter to President Reagan's presidential envoy to Central America.
Rick Chidester, then jr political officer in Tegucigalpa U.S. Embassy, told The Sun that he compiled
substantial evidence of abuses by the Honduran military in 1982, but was ordered to delete most of it from the
annual human rights report prepared for the State Dept to deliver to Congress. Those reports consistently misled Congress & the public. "There are no political prisoners in Honduras,'' the
State Dept asserted falsely in its 1983 human rights report.
Fact vs. fiction
[ Grounds for class action suit for fraud against Negroponte ] a large number of lives would have been saved, and the govts would have moved toward democracy quicker.''
Negroponte replies
Negroponte's arrival in Honduras coincided with the Reagan administration's decision to reduce
the emphasis that the Carter administration had put on rights issues in dealings with allies. The
new policy had been made clear to Negroponte's predecessor, Ambassador Binns, a Carter
appointee, after he repeatedly warned of human rights abuses by the Honduran military. In a June
1981 cable obtained by The Sun, Binns reported: The reaction was swift & unexpected. Binns was summoned to Washington by Thomas O. Enders, new assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs. "I was told to stop human rights reporting except in back channel. The fear was that if it came into the State Dept, it will leak,'' Binns recalled. "They wanted to keep assistance flowing. Increased violations by the Honduran military would prejudice that.'' "Back channel'' messages are unofficial or informal communications, often in code, sent outside the usual distribution system to restrict circulation of information. Enders confirmed the 1981 meeting with Binns. "I told him that whereas human rights violations had been the single most important focus of the previous administration's policy in Latin America, the Reagan administration had broader interests,'' Enders said. "It believed that the most effective way to overcome civil conflicts & human rights violations was to promote democratically elected govts and that should be his point of focus.'' |
Evidence came from other sources.
Efrain Diaz Arrivillaga, then a delegate in the Honduran Congress and a voice of dissent in the
prevailing atmosphere of intimidation, said he spoke several times to Negroponte about the
military's human rights abuses. Diaz said that in meetings at the U.S. Embassy and at social
occasions, he rebuked Negroponte for the U.S. govt's refusal to take a stand against the
repression. The Honduran legislator said Negroponte reproached him for refusing to take a strong
stand against Communists who were trying to seize control of Honduras. "I remember Negroponte
told me, 'You and others, what you are proposing is to let communism take over this country
& over the region,' " Diaz said. "The most important thing to him was to win public support for
the presence of the U.S. military in Honduras,'' Diaz said. "Their [the U.S.] attitude was one of
tolerance and silence. They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned
about innocent people being killed.''
Accusations against the military also came from former insiders. Aug. 1982, Col. Leonidas Torres
Arias, ousted chief of intelligence for the Honduran military, issued a public warning about
Battalion 316. In a news conference in Mexico City, he told reporters about "a death squad
operating in Honduras led by armed forces chief General Gustavo Alvarez.'' The story made
headlines in Mexico and across Central America. A reporter from the Honduran newspaper El
Tiempo asked Negroponte about the colonel's allegations. Said Negroponte in an article that
appeared 10.16.82 "Democracy is being consolidated in this country. The armed forces have
supported that process. It was the armed forces that turned over power to the civilian constitutional
leaders of Honduras. So, I have a lot of difficulty taking those kinds of accusations seriously.''
The evidence was also to be found in the streets of Tegucigalpa. Each week, hundreds marched
through the streets of the capital demanding the release of the disappeared. Sometimes they
marched past the U.S. Embassy, a hulking concrete complex on La Paz Avenue. The Committee
of the Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras (COFADEH) turned to the U.S. govt for help.
6.13.83, COFADEH addressed an open letter to Richard Stone, President Reagan's special envoy
to Central America, complaining that the Honduran military was holding dissidents in clandestine
jails. "More than 40 people have been illegally arrested & tortured,'' the letter said. "Some
have never been heard from since their arrest.'' The letter was published in El Tiempo, one of the
largest newspapers in Honduras. The U.S. govt never responded to the committee's pleas. In an
interview, Stone said that he did not recall the letter.
Spurned at the embassy
Oct. 1983, members of COFADEH visited the U.S. Embassy to ask for help. They said they met
with Scott Thayer, a junior political officer assigned to monitor human rights. Among the relatives
who attended was Bertha Oliva, whose husband, Tomas Nativi, had been missing for more than 2
years. Also there was Zenaida Velasquez, whose brother, Manfredo, had been missing for more
than 2 years. The parents of Eduardo Lanza attended. Lanza, a medical student, had been a
prominent student leader when he was kidnapped by Battalion 316 Aug. 1982. The group told
Thayer that they had searched jails & hospitals across Honduras for their missing relatives,
that military officials only laughed at them and that judges were too afraid to help. They begged the
embassy to use its influence with Honduran officials to win their relatives' freedom.
Zenaida Velasquez remembers that Thayer listened politely, then dismissed their allegations. "He
said he knew Honduras had a democratic govt and [that] those kinds of practices were not going
on,'' Velasquez said. "They were such a bunch of liars it was disgusting.''
Thayer, now a political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spain, said that meeting with
Hondurans about human rights abuses "was part of my job. I recall having meetings like that, but I
can't recall that specific meeting.'' Oliva still fumes over the meeting. In an interview in
Tegucigalpa, she said that the embassy official acted as if they were fabricating the
disappearances of their relatives. "He was very cold, very cold,'' she said, pursing her lips. "Any
kindness was gone. He did not even smile at us.'' Roberto Becerra, father of the student Eduardo
Lanza, said he came away from the meeting with a hopeless feeling. "We felt like we were
screaming in the desert. No one heard us. No one would help us.''
In at least one case, Negroponte was confronted with evidence of abuse that he could not ignore,
arrest & torture in July 1982 of journalist Oscar Reyes and his wife, Gloria. Reyes, founder of
the journalism school at the National Autonomous University of Honduras, was openly sympathetic
to Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and had written numerous newspaper columns criticizing the
Honduran military. The abduction of the Reyeses sparked newspaper stories & raucous
student protests. The Reyeses said they were locked in a secret cell for a week, and beaten
& tortured with electric shocks. At the U.S. Embassy, there was fear that if the story got to the
U.S. it might damage carefully assembled public support for the Central America program
operating out of Honduras. Cresencio S. Arcos, then the embassy press spokesman, alerted
Negroponte that the Honduran military had abducted the Reyeses.
"If they do this guy, then we're in trouble,'' Arcos warned. "We cannot let this guy get hurt.
It would be a disaster for our policy. "The ambassador did approach [General] Alvarez about this
to manifest his concern,'' Arcos said. The case clearly shows that Negroponte knew of the
Reyeses' abduction and that the ambassador acted in such cases when he felt compelled to do
so. Reyes & his wife were released from the clandestine jail after a week. They were taken
before a public court and sentenced to 6 months in prison. Two weeks before their sentences
ended, they were allowed to leave for the U.S. on condition that they keep quiet about the torture
they endured. That condition was laid down personally by Alvarez, said the Reyeses, who now live
in Vienna, Va.
The U.S. Embassy also kept quiet publicly about the Reyes case. It was not mentioned in the
human rights report for 1982, even though it was widely covered in the Honduran press and
illustrated the Honduran military's violation of human rights on several counts: illegal abduction,
secret incarceration, torture and suppression of press freedom. Instead, the 1982 report asserted:
"No incident of official interference with the media has been recorded for several years.''
Inside the embassy
Negroponte's aides at the embassy told The Sun that they knew about serious human rights
abuses by the Honduran military, and that the violence was a subject of constant discussion.
One of those aides was a junior political officer, Rick Chidester, who was assigned in 1982 to
gather information for the embassy's annual report on human rights, a task that usually fell to a
junior officer. Chidester, now 43 & a private businessman, said that while in Honduras, he
interviewed human rights advocates & journalists who provided him with information that the
Honduran military was illegally detaining, torturing & executing people. "I had allegations
about vans coming up to police cells and taking out people they [the Honduran military] didn't want
and shooting them,'' Chidester said. "`I had allegations that, as part of the interrogation
techniques, torture was being used.'' He said he included the allegations in his draft of the 1982
report.
A supervisor, who Chidester will not name, demanded proof, sworn testimony or photographs of
torture victims. Chidester said he was admonished for basing his report on rumors when he was
unable to produce such evidence. Chidester said he argued that while he had not interviewed
torture victims, the allegations came from too many credible sources to be ignored, and that the
reports were not supposed to be limited to provable facts. "While the State Dept is not an
investigative body, we're supposed to analyze political events & identify trends,'' Chidester
said. "Our analysis is valuable, even if based on opinion and not admissible as proof in a court of
law.'' His arguments failed.
By the time the report reached the U.S. Congress, the serious accusations against the Honduran
military had been removed. Allegations that remained were described as unsubstantiated or as
isolated abuses that had been dealt with swiftly by the Honduran government. Overall, the report
portrayed Honduras as an emerging democracy where the civilian govt & military respected
human rights. The report was such a misrepresentation of the facts that Chidester recalls joking
with others in the embassy: "What is this, the human rights report for Norway?''
An official explanation
While Negroponte has refused to be interviewed by The Sun, his boss at the time of his
appointment to Honduras described the priorities on human rights. Thomas Enders, the asst
secretary of state who told Negroponte's predecessor to stop reporting rights violations through
normal channels, said it was crucial to keep U.S. aid flowing to Honduras. "What we were
attempting to do was, on the one hand, to maintain our ability to act in Central America. That is,
our congressional authority to send economic & military aid, so we avoided direct public
confrontations against the military in El Salvador & Honduras,'' he said. "And at the same
time, privately we were spending an enormous amount of effort in order to change the way they
looked at how they behaved. There was endless jawboning.''
Instead of telling Congress what was going on in Central America, the Reagan administration
employed the State Dept human rights reports as instruments to advance policy objectives.
Consequently, the human rights reports differed sharply in tone, depending on whether the govt
was a friend or foe. The 1982 report on Nicaragua, where the U.S. was trying to topple the Marxist
Sandinista regime, made strong charges against that govt.
[ That govt brought literacy & universal health care to majority of population for
first time in national history while fighting for independence against U.S. mercenaries
]
A section titled "Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom from Killing'' said:
"There is credible evidence that security forces have been responsible for the death of a number
of detained persons in 1982.'' In the same section of the Honduras report for 1982, the State
Department said: "Allegations that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras have
not been substantiated.'' Cresencio Arcos, press spokes-man in the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa
from June 1980 to July 1985 and U.S. ambassador from Dec. 1989 to July 1993, explained the
difference:
"Invariably, the result in this process was to magnify your enemies' misdeeds and minimize
your friends' misdeeds,'' he said. Amb. Negroponte also made numerous public statements
praising Honduran military for supporting civilian govt and for respecting the rights of its people.
In a letter to NYTimes, published 9.12.82, he wrote: "Honduras' increasingly professional armed
forces are dedicated to defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, and they
are publicly committed to civilian constitutional rule.'' In Oct. 1982, he wrote to The Economist:
"Honduras' increasingly professional armed forces are fully supportive of this country's
constitutional system.'' That was the same year journalist Oscar Reyes and his wife were abducted
& tortured by the Honduran military for a week because of articles he had written.
8.12.83, the LATimes published a Negroponte column in which he acknowledged that there were
"credible allegations of some disappearances.'' However, he added: "There is no indication that
the infrequent human rights violations that do occur are part of deliberate govt policy."
[ CIA torture trainers instructed the military, not the civil govt. The torture was practice,
not policy. ]
"Indeed, disciplinary action has been taken against members of the police & military
(including officers) who have abused their authority.''
That year, in a case that gained notoriety, 24yr old leftist Ines Consuelo Murillo was held for more
than 11 weeks naked, beaten, suffocated, shocked, fondled & threatened with rape. To this
day, none of her torturers has been punished. Arcos said that Negroponte privately expressed
concerns about abuses to Honduran officials. "The ambassador did pressure the Hondurans. Not
publicly. Quietly,'' Arcos said. "We were concerned by the issue. Reports [of human rights abuses]
were increasing.'' Even years after he left Honduras, Negroponte would not publicly acknowledge
the crimes of kidnapping, torture and murder that were committed by the Honduran military.
During his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing as ambassador to Mexico in
1989, Negroponte was asked about Battalion 316 and its abuses. "I have never seen any
convincing substantiation that they were involved in death squad-type activities,'' he said.
|
Otto Juan Reich, Asst Sec.State W.Hem.Affairs
FIPF |
4.18.02 Tom Turnipseed CounterPunch
Per NYTimes, Reich told congressional aides the admin received reports "foreign paramilitary forces, suspected to
be Cuban, were involved in the bloody suppression of anti-Chavez demonstrators, in which at least 14
Vz people were killed. Reich, former U.S. Amb. to Vz and lobbyist with Vz
ties to Mobil Oil, further told Cong. staffers Chavez meddled with historically independent state oil co., provided
haven to Colombian guerillas, and bailed out Cuba with preferential rates on oil.
Senate Foreign Relations
Committee had examples of Reich's malfeasance to ask him about when he was the dir. of State Dept Office of
Public Diplomacy (OPD). 9.30.87 Republican appointed U.S. comptroller general found Reich had done things as
director of the OPD that were "prohibited, covert propaganda activities, "beyond the range of acceptable agency
public information activities...". The same report said Mr. Reich's operation violated "restriction on State Dept's
annual appropriations prohibiting use of federal funds for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by
Congress." Reich used covert propaganda to demonize democratically elected Sandinista govt of Nicaragua and
establish the Contras as fearless freedom fighters to make the U.S. public afraid enough of the Sandinistas to get
Congress to fund the Contras directly. Boland Amendment passed by Congress in 1982 prohibited U.S. funds from
being used to overthrow the Nicaraguan govt. Meanwhile, Contras were illegally armed by the Reagan admin via
the Iran-Contra arms deal.
On night of Reagan's 1984 re-election, Reich's office put out news that "intelligence sources" revealed Soviet MIG
fighter jets were arriving in Nicaragua. Andrea Mitchell interrupted election night coverage on NBC to give the
phony report. This resembles Joseph Goebbel's fabrication that Polish troops had attacked German soldiers to
give Third Reich an excuse to launch the Nazi blitzkrieg into Poland to begin World War II in 1939. Other Reich
prevarications given to media sources incl Nicaragua had been given chemical weapons by the Soviets, per Miami
Herald; and Sandinista leaders were involved in drug trafficking per Newsweek magazine. |
|
First State Dept Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America & Caribbean dir. 1983-86. Engaged in "prohibited, covert
propaganda activities" to promote Reagan policies toward Nicaragua. Maintained private network
of individuals & organizations coordinated with & sometimes directed by Col.Oliver North
as well as other NSC officials that raised & spent funds for influencing congressional votes
& U.S. domestic news media. Right-wing Cuban American & former Venezuela ambassador. Dallas Morning News Bush depending heavily on Cuban-Americans for key foreign policy advice. § Ideology Triumphs Ctr for Intl Policy GAO rpt
3.9.01 Carolyn Skorneck AP [ aka U.S. military intervention against democratic revolutions ]
Senators John Kerry D-MA & Christopher Dodd D-CT are trying to squelch nomination of the
staunchly anti-Castro businessman & lobbyist by publicly criticizing Reich before he is
named. "The issue is not his conservative politics", Kerry said Friday. It was his central part in
"deeply divisive'' policies and domestic propaganda his office allegedly generated to support
Reagan administration C.Am policies in 1980s. Kerry & Dodd are influential members of the
evenly divided Senate Foreign Relations Committee which would handle the nomination if Pres.
GWBush selects Reich as asst sec of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Marc Thiessen,
spokesman for committee chair Jesse Helms R-NC, dismissed the criticism, saying, "This is all
about Cuba'' & Reich's adamant opposition to Castro. If Reich gets the job, Thiessen said,
"he would probably be one of the most qualified people ever to hold the post.''
Support for the former ambassador to Venezuela is also strong among fellow Cuban-Americans in
Congress. "Otto is a good fit with the president and is a good team player as well as a person who
has forward-thinking, innovative ideas on how to revamp U.S.-Latin American policy,'' Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen said Friday in phone interview from Miami. The Democrats' concerns over Reich
focus on his leadership of the State Dept's one-time Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin
America & Caribbean. The office, which Reich led from its inception in June 1983
until January 1986, was accused of illegal, covert domestic propaganda against
Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista govt and in favor of Contra rebels. Reich denied any wrongdoing.
The office "was one of the most open operations the State Dept had,'' he said in 1987. Reich did
not respond Friday to calls to his RMA Intl office in suburban Alexandria VA |
AIFLD has been disbanded by the current AFL-CIO leadership, largely because of its
compromised cold war mission. Otero, for instance, was identified by renegade CIA agent Philip
Agee as a onetime CIA operative. And the Doherty family is also linked to the agency. William
Doherty Sr., grandfather of WRAP director Lawrence, was a early labor leader associated with the
CIA in the 1940s. And Bill worked with the CIA in Latin America. Reich, too, worked with the CIA
on Central American during his tenure at OPD. But what can a professional anticommunist do
these days other than denounce Cuba? Apparently, there's prosweatshop work, where the three
adventurers now find themselves. If there's an any more precise explanation for Reich in the rag
trade, he's keeping it to himself. Actually he's keeping everything to himself these days-he's not
speaking to the press. Perhaps WRAP is no more than a corporate PR effort, but if that's so, why
is it staffed with cold war relics like Otero, Doherty and Reich? And, if the former "labor guys" are
running WRAP, why do they espouse an essentially unionbusting line? There may be as much
ideology here as profiteering, but we don't yet know.
In any case, Otto Reich shows that he is indeed not merely focused on preserving the Cuba
boycott. He is willing to link himself with other retrograde causes, including an implicitly antilabor,
antienvironment, prosweatshop organization. Just the man we need to run US hemisphere policy.
§UPPLEMENT
including
Sen. John McCain's CFR minder & NSC rep
If confirmed by Senate, Lorne W. Craner will step down as Intl Republican Institute president to
serve as asst secretary of State for democracy, human rights & labor. During 5yrs at IRI
helm, Craner has helped the "nonpartisan, democracy-building
organization" grow in terms of "achievement, innovative programming &
news coverage." Says Craner, 41: "We have programs in over 30 countries,
ranging from instructions on running campaigns to workshops on the
legislative process." He cites succesful election reform efforts in Central
Europe as one of the organization's major accomplishments. Before joining
the IRI, Craner worked under former National Security Advisor Brent
Scowcroft as director of Asian affairs. 1989-92 State Dept dep.asst sec. for legislative
affairs. Before that, foreign policy advisor to Sen. John McCain, R-AZ
Craner's late father, USAF Col. Robert Craner, was VietNam prisoner of war with McCain.
Around the Agencies
4.7.01 People §, National Journal
2.9.00 Christine Stone British Helsinki
HRts Group cryptoSerb agitprop?
Sen. McCain
one of his most significant foreign policy roles, chairman of
directors of Intl Republican Institute, founded in 1983 "to promote democracy, strengthen free
markets & the rule of law
a global campaign against tyranny & totalitarianism".
Since collapse of Communism, IRI has concentrated activity in former Soviet
bloc, and on elections in particular.
IRI, which had an office in the Albanian capital,
parroted all the accusations against Berisha's party. An IRI official in Washington called the hero of
the anti-Communist forces, Azem Haijdari, "a pig" in an interview in 1998 while supporting bona
fides of ex-Communist Socialist Party of Albania.
10.2.98 HIRC E.Asian & Pacific
Affairs subcomm re election monitoring
[ GOP Selection2K counting strategy from 1998 Cambodia election ]
7.6.97 John Murphy IRI LatinAm pgm officer Global Ctr for Democracy & Governance
[ putting Fox in charge with Mexico Cong. prelims using U.S. tax$ ]
1.24.94 Wm P. Hoar The New American
review The Men We Left Behind Henry Kissinger, Politics of Deceit & Tragic
Fate of POWs After Vietnam War, Mark Sauter & Jim Sanders National Press Books,
Bethesda, MD 1993
re father USAF pilot Robert Craner, Nam POW
|
money in a country is master of all its legislation & commerce". |
a Horatio (1.1.70)
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who is't that can inform me? |
|
Arise & fall of Sir Alan The Queen has a knighthood for Alan Greenspan but financiers may put his reputation to the sword 9.22.02 Faisal Islam The Observer | ||
|
City economists are sober types, not known for falling off their chairs laughing. But this was the unlikely reaction of
one when he heard that Alan Greenspan had been awarded a knighthood for his 'contribution to global economic
stability'. Indeed, he claimed that his view was now the consensus in the City. Federal Reserve chair will attend a lunch Wed. w/ finance ministers, media barons, and business leaders from across the world. He will preside over the opening of the refurbished Treasury building and then go to Buckingham Palace to receive his honorary knighthood from the Queen.
Another economist, Stephen Lewis of Monument Derivatives, did not fall off his chair but is only a little milder in his
critique. 'The shine has come off the Greenspan story over the last 2 years. Back then there was a feeling that
everything he touched turned to gold, but now the new economy is in fragments. He was seen at the heart of
arguments that the economic rules had changed and that the US economy was capable of far more growth, but
perhaps the Fed should have come more on its guard.'
Greenspan's famous speech on 'irrational exuberance' in 1996, and the criticisms of the 'infectious greed' allowed
by US corporate governance in his testimonies to Congress last month, were entirely consistent. But his accusers
charge that the period between these speeches was marked by a Damascene conversion to 'new era' thinking as
he kept the Federal Funds 'base rate' low & accomodative of spectacular rates of growth.
Inflation, Greenspan's key policy target, has been under control, and unemployment, although it has been creeping
up since 2000, is lower than the figure he inherited. The other side of the coin is the collapse in savings as
Americans poured money into stock markets, and the gaping hole that is the
US current account balance. The deficit stands at $130 billion. The US
boom years were fuelled by debts and cheap financing, both personal and external. By Q1 2002, household debt
was equivalent to 76% of GDP. Non-financial corporate debt was another 47%. Total debt in the US is
about $20,000bn.
Received wisdom said he was the second most powerful man in the world. Some argued that he was effectively
number one, laying down the law to incoming presidents. On trade protectionism over steel & agriculture, the
56% increase in the budget deficit, and the Treasury Secretary's suggestion that the current account deficit is a
'meaningless concept', Greenspan has publicly clashed with members of Bush's team.
The low interest rates that followed these comments were more a reaction to financial shocks than his buying-in to
'new era' thinking. 'With the hedge fund, Asia & Y2K crises, Greenspan was dealt a bad hand. In attempting to
save the rest of the world, he exaggerated imbalances in the US economy itself. You can't really blame him. You
can blame the falsely held belief in central bankers' infallibility,' says King. If you take this view, it is the realisation
that Greenspan isn't in charge of the US economy that has contributed to the emergence of a 'new stagnation'.
For his part, Greenspan says that there is not much that a central banker can do about the emergence of a bubble.
'It was far from obvious that bubbles, even if identified early, could be pre-empted short of the central bank inducing
a substantial contraction in economic activity, the very outcome we would be seeking to avoid,' he said. Bank of
England governor Sir Edward George in a speech on Friday, said: '20-20 hindsight is very easy, as a lot of
commentators have demonstrated just recently in their criticisms of US policymakers in the light of the economic
& financial market bubble which built up in the late 1990s.' As for Greenspan's legacy, he will leave the US economy with the same rising budget deficits, and volatile oil, stock and currency markets that typified the era of Reaganomics when he arrived. The meat in this sandwich was the Clinton boom years, and the resilience of the US financial system to 9.11.01. 'But the markets won't fall away precipitously when they find out he's retiring, which might have been the case 3 years ago,' says Stephen Lewis. Recognising Greenspan's fallibility is probably no bad thing.
9.26 Financial Times The chancellor was so rationally exuberant that he repeatedly uttered the rarely-used title "Dr" Alan Greenspan and even attempted a joke. Lauding the open-plan offices, Brown said 60,000 tons of rubble were removed, "not all of it old budget drafts and discarded economic policies". How the watching businessmen wished that Brown had taken the chance to dump many of his petty regulations into the skip. Greenspan duly heaped praise on Brown and Sir Edward George, the Bank of England governor, keeping a straight face as he called them "worthy custodians" of the financial legacy which Britain had left the world. Intriguingly, Greenspan had surfed the Treasury website to find out more about a past chancellor's decision, in 1711, to pay the government's debts with stock in the South Seas Company. When the "Bubble" burst in 1720, Greenspan noted, the chancellor ended up in the Tower for "dubious practices that appear eerily contemporary".
9.26.02 Richard Adams The Guardian |