Jay Rosen on Wilson Case and the Press

Jay Rosen on Wilson Case and the Press

Don't miss Jay Rosen's latest article at the Huffington Post. The White House is reaping that which it has chosen to sow, in their own unique (and ethically questionable) way. If the White House believed, as Karl Rove told Chris Matthews, that Joseph Wilson's wife was "fair game", then shouldn't the press consider questions about the case "fair game" in an atmosphere where reality is "created" every day?

This excerpt has a mountain's worth of a message in a just a few short paragraphs:

Within government, a representative figure for the pre-rollback era is David Gergen, the consummate insider who served as White House advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He preached to both parties, the press, and to television audiences a cautious realism in media relations. It's long gone now but (in my paraphrase) it went something like this:

"The White House has a right to get its message out. The press has a right to question and probe. There are going to be conflicts (and during scandals much worse) but they ought to remain within bounds. The press needs the Administration, it's number one source. The Administration can be hurt by bad press, and helped by good relations with reporters. So calm down and let's get on with producing White House news together."

Or as Larry Speakes, fomer press secretary to Ronald Reagan, once put it: "You don't tell us how to stage the news, and we don't tell you how to report it." It's no surprise that Gergen moved easily from one Administration to the next, and from government into journalism and back. He had the insider's consensus narrative in his pocket. But what if one party unilaterally withdraws from Gergen-style managerialism? There's nothing in the press playbook about that.

I deeply appreciated Mr. Rosen's use of a Ron Suskind "parable" and contrasting the strange White House attitude toward delivering their created version of "the truth" to the reality of the needs of the real-world press, who are now asking some tough questions while reporting the developments in the story of the outing of Valerie Plame:

The Parable (Ron Suskind):

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Today the prosecutor is studying what they do, and there's no way to roll that back. In a Salon interview after the Times article came out, Suskind (whose sources were mostly Republicans) was asked whether the Bush forces were indeed trying to "eliminate a national point of reference on facts."

Absolutely! That's the whole idea, to somehow sweep away the community of honest brokers in America -- both Republicans and Democrats and members of the mainstream press -- sweep them away so we'll be left with a culture and public dialogue based on assertion rather than authenticity, on claim rather than fact.

No more honest brokers; and claims take the place of facts. Disguised by the culture war's ranting about media bias, this is happening all around us today. Limits on what liberties could be taken with the factual record without triggering a political penalty are being overcome. Joseph Wilson interfered, forcing the White House to pay a penalty (my emphasis in bold print): the so-called sixteen words in the State of the Union speech that had to be withdrawn after his op-ed. So he had to pay. And that's how roll back, freedom over fact, culture war, and the naming of Valerie Plame connect to one another.....

- Jay Rosen

E-Mail to Mark Steyn Regarding His Misleadings on Wilson

E-Mail to Mark Steyn Regarding His Misleadings on Wilson
Buying into propaganda doesn't fly in the face of facts pointing to the contrary.Fearmongering and avoiding the core issue, which is Karl Rove playing recklessly and loose with America's classified information, doesn't serve the public well.


I wrote to Mark Steyn today because I totally disapprove of his journalistic style and method, which is clearly one of avoidance, disinformation and fearmongering.

As the Londoners have recently proclaimed, and my heart is with them: "We are not afraid".

We will fight terror, but it can only be done, with cooperation, if we start from a point of honesty. Propaganda just doesn't work in the modern age.

I'll give you a reprint of my e-mail to Mr. Steyn today.

To: Mark Steyn mailbox-at-steynonline-dot-com
My Title: We're Not Buying Your Line of Reasoning
Re: Quote from your column in Chicago Sun Times 17 July 2005

Excerpt from your July 17 column:

"....Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don't take my word for it; it's the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services -- "

Dear Mr. Steyn,

I don't write many e-mails to columnists. In this case, I was driven to do so.

"Everybody on the face of the earth" is an exaggeration that few Americans are "buying." There is too much information out here to believe such a line, which sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard.

We know this is about the gross abuse of intelligence and political retrubution toward the man who dared to try and dispel the inconsistencies on the part of the White House in building their case to make pre-emptive war on Iraq. The retribution came in the form of ceratin White Hose officials playing fast and loose with classified information.

Most people on the face of the earth can see that. There is no ethical excuse for what has been done to Valerie Plame. You can use all the fear-mongering and fact-twisting you'd like. In the end, truth always prevails. Mr. Steyn, I think you'd look a lot better, when the smoke clears, on the right side of history. That, of course, is up to you.

I cannot abide by your gross misleadings, though. I thought I'd write and tell you so. I'm an honest person who happens to believe Mr. Wilson. There isn't anything he's said, to this day, to convince me otherwise. In the end, I think most other American citizens who respect the value of good character will agree with me.

Sincerely
Jude Nagurney Camwell


Senate Intelligence Report -

In his testimony, George Tenet had obvious reservations about Cheney/Feith/Libby:

NYT LINK

These reservations do not seem to have made it into the Senate Intelligence Report.

Comment from Guardian article, showing that Tenet was scapegoated instead:
Link -

The report repeatedly condemns the departing CIA director, George Tenet, accusing him of skewing advice to top policy-makers with the CIA's view, and casting aside dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the state or defence departments.

It blames Mr Tenet for not personally reviewing Mr Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, which contained since-discredited references to Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. Mr Tenet has resigned, and leaves his post on Sunday.

** NOTE: The Senate Intel Committee used Tenet as scapegoat and told America they'd investigate the White House role "later"...and they never did.



Butler Report:

My comments: Joe Wilson's argument was not whether or not an attempt was made to purchase uranium, it was whether or not our American president was using incredibly shaky information in his State of the Union speech to promote an unnecessary war. The Butler Report only served to separate the British government's admittedly inconclusive intelligence from Bush's (ab)use of that intelligence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 6.4
Section 503-

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. British government intelligence from several different sources indicated that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased uranium, as opposed to having sought uranium. The British government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Related post at my freelance blog

From Independent article:

"George Tenet, the CIA director at the time, declared that the Niger claim was "not tenable". And in last week's damning senate report on pre-war intelligence, a memo by a senior CIA official was revealed which said: "We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue."

MI6 -

see my comments here (many links):
LINK

SISMI


French intelligence -

See: New Yorker/Seymour Hersh New Yorker Link
In the fall of 2001, soon after the September 11th attacks, the C.I.A. received an intelligence report from Italy’s Military Intelligence and Security Service, or SISMI, about a public visit that Wissam al-Zahawie, then the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, had made to Niger and three other African nations two and a half years earlier, in February, 1999. The visit had been covered at the time by the local press in Niger and by a French press agency. The American Ambassador, Charles O. Cecil, filed a routine report to Washington on the visit, as did British intelligence. There was nothing untoward about the Zahawie visit. “We reported it because his picture appeared in the paper with the President,” Cecil, who is now retired, told me. There was no article accompanying the photograph, only the caption, and nothing significant to report. At the time, Niger, which had sent hundreds of troops in support of the American-led Gulf War in 1991, was actively seeking economic assistance from the United States.

None of the contemporaneous reports, as far as is known, made any mention of uranium. But now, apparently as part of a larger search for any pertinent information about terrorism, SISMI dug the Zahawie-trip report out of its files and passed it along, with a suggestion that Zahawie’s real mission was to arrange the purchase of a form of uranium ore known as “yellowcake.” (Yellowcake, which has been a major Niger export for decades, can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors. It can also be converted, if processed differently, into weapons-grade uranium.)


"Other European services"
( ???????? ... )

Typical DLC: Tom Vilsack Wimps Out

Typical DLC:
Tom Vilsack Wimps Out

I could hardly believe it.
Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, new head of the DLC, appeared with John King on CNN just now and asked for Karl Rove to APOLOGIZE and said he expected we could "move on" with other issues.

APOLOGIZE?!?

What is WRONG with Tom Vilsack? Has he no courage or moral fortitude?

Rove should be kicked out of the White House - on his ass!

Vilsack’s leadership abilities should be scrutinized. He deserves to be thrashed for this wimpy performance.

He spells L-O-S-E-R for Democrats by taking such a weak position on behalf of the DLC.

John Fund = Liar

John Fund = Liar

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" (cough) with Howard Kurtz today, I observed partisan weasel John Fund protecting Karl Rove like a mother-bear would protect her cub. He's helping to spread the RNC lies about Joseph Wilson - trying to peg him as a liar. Why is John Fund engaging in this behavior? When Howard Kurtz asked John Fund, (not exact wording - transcript not yet availble): "Even if what you're saying may be so, did that give Karl Rove the right to discuss his wife with those journalists?" Fund had no reasonable reply.

*Note: My question as to why Fund would be acting this way is asked in jest. If you look at any of the links on this post, you will see that Fund has been nothing but an extension arm of the attack-dog arm of the RNC.

Mehlman Not Only Looked Ridiculous, He Looked 'Nuts'

There is a fine line in politics where, once you cross it, you begin to look like a bumbling idiot. Ken Mehlman has definitely crossed that line, in my opinion. His performance on Meet the Press this morning was both laughable and insulting to the common sense of most American citizens. While the general modus operandi, in politics, to attack an enemy who has negativity to desseminate about one of your own, you have to pick and choose your battles carefully. The modus operandi of Ken Mehlman's RNC is to attack like a rabid dog, frothing and spinning lies about the target of their defense. Now, in the case of Karl Rove, Mehlman is spewing outright lies and attacking wildly, regardless of the fact that the person he's covering for is a proven liar and glaringly unethical; regardless of any sense he hopes to make by the extremely general attacks. Mehlman thinks, simply by invoking names of certain politicians and organizations, (for example: Moveon.org, Hillary Clinton - whom Mehlman carefully referred to as "former First Lady) and Nancy Pelosi - another high-profile female in politics - women are all "fair game" to these goons, I guess.)

I'm starting to think Mehlman is 'nuts' - he must be. A sane person could not expect to sit on national TV and attack MoveOn.org and Hillary and Nancy Pelosi for having reservations about what Karl Rove did when he engaged in a free-for-all discussion about classified information about a CIA agent with members of the press. Mehlman is attacking anyone and everyone who would even care to TALK about the issue at this time - calling them all "partisans". (Has he completely lost his mind?) Doesn't Mehlman see what he's doing? He's making the objects of his stupid attacks look really, really good by those attacks. It proves that Mehlman and those he defends have no sense about what Americans think about what constitutes good character and that the RNC doesn't hold good character as a serious value.

John Dean: Rove in Serious Trouble

John Dean: Rove in Serious Trouble

John Dean discusses the legal aspects of the Plame outing - the "Randel Precedent" - if followed -- bodes ill For Karl Rove.

Consider this excerpt:

Karl Rove may be able to claim that he did not know he was leaking "classified information" about a "covert agent," but there can be no question he understood that what he was leaking was "sensitive information." The very fact that Matt Cooper called it "double super secret background" information suggests Rove knew of its sensitivity, if he did not know it was classified information (which by definition is sensitive).

United States District Court Judge Richard Story's statement to Jonathan Randel, at the time of sentencing, might have an unpleasant ring for Karl Rove. Judge Story told Randel that he surely must have appreciated the risks in leaking DEA information. "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country," the judge observed. Judge Story concluded this leak of sensitive information was "a very serious crime."

"In my view," he explained, "it is a very serious offense because of the risk that comes with it, and part of that risk is because of the position" that Randel held in the DEA. But the risk posed by the information Rove leaked is multiplied many times over; it occurred at a time when the nation was considering going to war over weapons of mass destruction. And Rove was risking the identity of, in attempting to discredit, a WMD proliferation expert, Valerie Plame Wilson.

Rove and Novak Have a History of Co-Conspiracy

Karl and Bob Novak Have a History of Co-Conspiracy
Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on CIA Officer by David Johnston and Richard W. Stevenson, The New York Times [Reprinted Friday 15 July 2005- Truthout]

This is not the first time Mr. Rove has been linked to a leak reported by Mr. Novak. In 1992, Mr. Rove was fired from the Texas campaign to re-elect the first President Bush because of suspicions that he had leaked information to Mr. Novak about shortfalls in the Texas organization's fund-raising. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove had been the source.

Novak is such a scumbag.

The latest on Novak shows that Novak has probably lied. Has Novak committed perjury? From Americablog:

Novak's own statement contradicts story that HE told Rove about Plame, and not vice versa
by John in DC - 7/15/2005 01:09:00 PM

Astute reader Ted just alerted to what appears to be a lie from either Novak or Rove.

Today's big story is that Rove supposedly never gave Valerie Plame's name to Novak - but rather that Novak mentioned Plame was CIA and Rove said "yeah I heard that too," or something to that effect.

In fact, here's what Novak said in his first interview that we know of just after he leaked Plame's name in print:

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Read that again. I didn't dig it out, it was given to me - they gave me the name. That does not jibe with Rove's anonymous buddy telling the NYT that it was Novak who first brought up Plame as CIA and NOT Rove.

American Service Men and Women are Angry with Karl Rove

American Service Men and Women are Angry with Karl Rove

From a new website called "Taking the Fight to Karl" (TakeItToKarl.com):

"Time for this site to illustrate the main contrast between liberals who answer the call of duty and Karl Rove, who smears them and participates in endangering them in order to play politics. Karl Rove is running scared and Bush is protecting him. This is your moment to go on the offensive...Link this site."

This is becoming an incredibly popular website: 82,498 visitors since June 24, 2005. It is a site set up for the purpose of receiving email from men and women serving currently in the United States military or veterans who are angry at Karl Rove's recent comments. The proprietor does not serve in the military himself. His aim is to let Karl Rove know that when it comes to defending the USA, there are no Democrats or Republicans, just Americans.

Send an email to FightingLiberals at yahoo dot com and it will be published at the blog. Your name will be witheld unless you specifically ask it to be printed.

A Precious Tidbit from Greg Palast

A Precious Tidbit from Greg Palast

Regarding Judy Miller's privileged (and ethically questionable) "access" to Karl Rove and other official goons who would conspire to betray CIA, and protecting these goons as "sources", Palast says:

"Every rule has an exception. My mama always told me to "compliment the chef" at dinner. But that doesn't apply when the chef pees in your soup. Likewise, there's an exception to the rule of source protection. When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my- name" to cover a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation propagandist -- and Miller and The Times have been all too willing to play Izvestia to the Bush's Kremlinesque prevarications.

And that is what Miller is protecting: the evil called "access."

The great poison in the corpus of American journalism is the lust for tidbits of supposedly "inside" information which is more often than not inside misinformation parading as hot news." - [LINK-CommonDreams.com]

The whole thing makes me want to take a shower to scrub away the filth of power-abuse and propaganda; the stinking lovechild borne of the intercourse between journalists with 'access-ego' and lying White House goons, off my brain. If only it could be that easy.

* A tip o'the hat to Dr. Menlo, who has some great links at his site.

Go Ahead Mehlman, Make Our Day

Go Ahead Mehlman, Make Our Day

Seen At Obsidian Wings:

But there's one GOP talking point that I hope they'll go on repeating, and that is that this is just a partisan attack. Lots of Republicans are saying this; as an example, here's Ken Mehlman again:

"It's disappointing that once again, so many Democrat leaders are taking their political cues from the far-left, Moveon wing of the party. The bottom line is Karl Rove was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise and the Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks."

Republicans: please keep saying this. Keep telling the American people that it's only Democrats who think it's wrong to out an undercover CIA agent. Keep saying that the only reason anyone would think it's any sort of a problem to put vindictiveness and a desire to discredit one's political opponents above national security is "partisanship"....Because most people know better. Most people know that you just do not out undercover agents at all, and you surely do not out them to score political points. And if the Republicans keep telling them that it's only Democrats who care about this, maybe they'll listen.

- Hilzoy, Obsidian Wings

Soledad Interviews a Steaming Hunk Of Excrement

Soledad Interviews a Steaming
Hunk Of Excrement

I have never seen anything as bizarre as CNN's Soledad O'Brien's interview this morning with Congressman Peter King-(R-NY). King was attemping to defend Karl Rove (for whom there is no ethical defense). Soledad's lovely face betrayed incredulity while interviewing this fellow, who reduced himself to a steaming hunk of partisan excrement. We understand the despair of these Republican partisans when we see a hack like King talking all too fast and calling Joe Wilson a liar, flat out. Congressman Peter King is a disgusting creature. He's willingly harboring and coddling a traitor to America. Every decent American citizen knows that you just don't out an undercover agent. Doing it to score a political revenge-point is the supreme example of a scum-of-the-earth abandonment of ethics - and most people understand this clearly. All of the fast talk and filthy accusations serve to make King - and any other who'd publically act the same way - look like a crazy fool. This is the dirtiest attack I've ever seen by any of these partisan goons. Joseph Wilson is a former Ambassador who, along with his wife, have only strived to serve America with honesty, even when it meant insisting on remaining honest while working side by side with the dark and secretive Bush administration.

UPDATE: I just read, in Editor and Publisher, that King, in a recent interview with Joe Scarborough, said that people like Tim Russert should be shot. Men with your clean white coats: get a stretcher and take this fascist boob out on it - in a straight jacket - pronto. He's a terrorist.

Fineman: MSM "Soul-Searching" After Poor Iraq War Lead-Up Coverage

Fineman: MSM "Soul-Searching" After Poor Iraq War Lead-Up Coverage

I am encouraged by Howard Fineman's latest article at Newsweek. He tells us, basically, that MSM is not only soul searching after "over its performance, or lack of performance, in the months leading up to the American-led ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq", but they're also pissed off about being used and intimidated by this administration - especially when it was by a person who had totally abused the excess of power that he never should have had in the first place (Rove). The Bush administration's divisive tactics do not only apply to Red state vs. Blue state - they also apply to Fox-style media vs. non-Fox style media. Civil wars are dancing all around us, courtesy of the most secretive, divisive, unethical administration this country has ever known.

Fineman says,

By dividing the press corps into Red versus Blue—and talking only to the Red—administration strategists are inviting attacks from one side.

But that might be precisely what they want. After all, they won two national elections that way.

I'm glad MSM is beginning to see what these bastards have done to damage MSM's integrity, along with this nation's reputation, credibility, and inner-peace.

Raw Story Interview: Joe Wilson Points To WHIG

Raw Story Interview: Joe Wilson Points To WHIG

Larisa Alexandrovna interviews Joe Wilson. Wilson points to WHIG, as I have blogged about many times. (They loved their favorite fake newsboy Jeff Gannon).

EXCERPT:

My understanding is that shortly thereafter, a meeting was held - sometime in March of 2003 - in the offices of the Vice President at which it was decided to do a “work up” on me. A work up means to run an intel op to glean all the information you can about “me.” My understanding is that at a minimum, [Cheney's chief of staff] Scooter Libby was at this meeting.

But in retrospect looking at this, the natural group [of people] who would meet to discuss something like this would be the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

Raw Story: Right, and the group includes Karl Rove as part of that main group of six.

Wilson: Yes, that would include Rove. I believe it is Rove, Karen Hughes, Libby, and others.

Raw Story: Also: Andrew Card, Mary Matlin and James Wilkinson as well as others who advised then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley.

Wilson: That would be the natural group because they were constituted to spin the war, so they would be naturally the ones to try to deflect criticism. Now, some of those people would have very high security clearances.

Dick Don't Know Joe

Dick Don't Know Joe
..If Dick Cheney didn't know Joseph Wilson, someone awfully close to him certainly did.

I am repeating these words, once again, from Matt Cooper's TIME magazine article. The words in quotation came from Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "Scooter" needed to disseminate the storyline good and fast - before the public could effectively point their finger at Dick Cheney.

"The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so." Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.

I gave you a blog entry in September, 2003. "Dick Cheney denies Joe Wilson Three Times"

Read it again. Think about it carefully. Why was it so important, in September, 2003, for Cheney to get out on the political talk shows and swear, hot and heavy on a stack o'Bibles, that he didn't know Joe? Why didn't Tim Russert ask more pointed questions at the time - when he could have?

AND NOW, READ THIS - from the same Time magazine article:

"A source close to the matter says that Wilson was dispatched to Niger because Vice President Dick Cheney had questions about an intelligence report about Iraq seeking uranium and that he asked that the CIA get back to him with answers."

Could that source be JUDY MILLER?
How much does she know about Dick Cheney's involvement?

This one paragraph, from Sy Hersh's October, 2003 New Yorker article titled "The Stovepipe - How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons", leads me to wonder about Miller's involvement with Chalabi, and the Vice President's heavy handed approach in getting directly involved with the CIA while the planning and plotting of the Iraq war was happening:

"The State Department opposed releasing the rest of the money [more than ninety million dollars in federal funds], arguing that Chalabi had failed to account properly for the funds he had already received. “The Vice-President came into a meeting furious that we hadn’t given the money to Chalabi,” the former official recalled. Cheney said, “Here we are, denying him money, when they”—the Iraqi National Congress—“are providing us with unique intelligence on Iraqi W.M.D.s.”

"Unique"..indeed. It's all so clear that our nation was pushed into war by a stack of deliberate lies. Let's go back in time:

From the Independent, June 1, 2003:

Tony Blair's sensational pre-war claim that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction "could be activated within 45 minutes" was based on information from a single Iraqi defector of dubious reliability, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. British intelligence sources said the defector, recruited by Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, told his story to American officials.

Read the words of Karen Kwiatkowski, a lieutenant-colonel who quit the air force and her Pentagon job as a strategic planner because she didn't like the direction the war on terror was going:

"The planners on the OSD [office of the secretary of defense] side were largely unqualified as military planners, and further, they were blinded by ideology, prejudice against Arabs in terms of their military or organizational capability, and confused on reality, because they appeared to only listen to Chalabi and others like him, and held the official intelligence as suspect because it didn't conform to their agenda. In the case of postwar planning, it suffered from the same flaws—incompetence, believing lies, false assumptions about Iraqis and their political culture.....I think Cheney should be impeached, Bush as well, for lying and attempting to deceive in order to go to war. Rumsfeld may be protected, as he worked for them, the Nuremberg defense, as with Perle. Perle, however, should probably be in jail for profiteering, but so far he hasn't been charged—this would be in a criminal or civil court. Because we have a Republican Congress, Bush is safe, as Clinton would have been given a Democrat Congress. More recently, we have reports of information-leaking and possible espionage in the Pentagon, and some of these same policymakers are said to be under FBI investigation. In a fair and objective world, some people will go to jail for their role in creating and implementing the Bush foreign policy."

I realize that these words are strong and that they have been very diffiicult for everyday Americans, who do not pay close attention, to hear (if they have heard them yet at all - the media being "the silencer" that it is.)

Karl Rove's betrayal of America is just the tip of the iceberg.

___________________________________

KEEPING TRACK OF HISTORY AS I HAVE BLOGGED IT:
Some of my prior posts on Miller and Chalabi
Some may say that Judith Miller's reporting on WMD should not cause us to abandon the defense of her 1st amendment rights....but what if she has been involved- directly or indirectly - in a crime (or impeachable offense, at best) for which she needs to maintain silence in order to protect her rights? It seems and they're probably just as happy to keep her in jail and silent than to have her free and talking.

April 28, 2003-

Chalabi the embezzler and Bush the American-democracy snuffer team up for fun and profit Chalabi, cousin of Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon's choice to head the country, said he would be prepared to serve the Iraqi oil industry if a democratically elected government was in place. He said selling off Iraq's oil assets was the only way to secure investment in his country. 'Iraq is going to need a lot of money in the next five years, up to $300bn. 'Privatisation or partial privatisation is the way to secure this investment.

May 2003 - THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO 'HMMMM'....

"A dustup between two NY Times reporters over a story on an Iraqi exile leader raises some intriguing questions about the paper's coverage of the search for dangerous weapons thought to be hidden by Saddam Hussein. An internal e-mail by Judith Miller, the paper's top reporter [sic] on bioterrorism, acknowledges that her main source for such articles has been Ahmad Chalabi, a controversial exile leader who is paid by top Pentagon officials. Could Chalabi have been using the Times to build a drumbeat that Iraq was hiding WMD?... "

July 13, 2003 -Miller's Misleading Headlines Head-lies

-September 30, 2003- RIPPED OFF - US paid $1m for 'useless intelligence' from Chalabi , Buncombe, Independent UK

".... Information from Iraqi defectors made available by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress before the US invasion was of little or no use...The Pentagon and those pushing for war against Iraq were quick to cite the information it provided and to promote the cause of Mr Chalabi, but the CIA and the State Department were much more cautious about the organization's reliability."

- March 23, 2004 - How the NY Times Contributed to the Great Lies

June 26, 2003 - Judith Miller---What WERE you thinking?

"More than a half-dozen military officers said that Miller acted as a middleman between the Army unit with which she was embedded and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi.......The April trip to Chalabi's headquarters took place "at Judy's {Judith Miller's} direction," one officer said...."This was totally out of their {MET Alpha's} lane, getting involved with human intelligence," said one military officer who, like several others interviewed, declined to be named because he is not an authorized spokesman. But, the officer said of Miller, "this woman came in with a plan. She was leading them. . . . She ended up almost hijacking the mission."

February, 2004 - THE OBVIOUS TIE BETWEEN CHENEY'S OFFICE, AND THE MOTIVE FOR KARL ROVE TO HAVE OUTED VALERIE PLAME - ENMESHED WITH THE INVOLVEMENT OF JUDITH MILER AND AHMED CHALABI IN THE CREATION OF THE WHITE HOUSE CASE FOR THE IRAQ WAR:

Federal law-enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year. The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said. --According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were the two Cheney employees. "We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. [Richard Sale, UPI, February 5, 2004]
**Per Kos at Daily Kos: "Hannah, by the way, is a "senior national security aide" for Cheney, and was, in fact, the administration's main point of contact with Chalabi's INC."**

May 4, 2004- The rift between CIA and Neocons begins to go public in a mean way.
From: How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons [Salon.com] --

Israel's most dangerous enemy -- have also alarmed both his allies and his enemies in the Bush administration. Those ties were highlighted on Monday, when Newsweek reported that "U.S. officials say that electronic intercepts of discussions between Iranian leaders indicate that Chalabi and his entourage told Iranian contacts about American political plans in Iraq." According to one government source, some of the information he gave Iran "could get people killed." A Chalabi aide denied the allegation. According to Newsweek, the State Department and the CIA -- Chalabi's longtime enemies -- were behind the leak: "the State Department and the CIA are using the intelligence about his Iran ties to persuade the president to cut him loose once and for all."

May 27, 2004- Chalabi and Judith Miller

"The White House had a perfect "deal" when it came to Miller. Chalabi would provide the Bushites with the information they needed to support their political objectives with Iraq, and he would supply the same material to Miller. Chalabi would tip her on something and then she'd go to the White House, which had already heard the same thing from Chalabi, and she'd get it corroborated by an insider she'd always described as a 'senior administration official.'

I'm not certain if it was arrogant ignorance or some greed or delusional heroic motive or downright intent to deceive the American public. All I know is that George W. Bush should have known better and his administration should have known what they were doing when they gave such enormous credence to Chalabi, whose own self-interest (and past indication of poor character) was totally invested in getting the Americans to invade Iraq.

The fact that the N.Y. Times failed to point out that much of its reporting was dependent on Chalabi and Iraqi defectors (while the Bushites apparently sucked up Chalabi's lies and distortions) is inexcusable."

- May 29, 2004- NeoCons Still Love Chalabi - The Inconvenient White House Friend

"Would their vociferous defense of con-man Chalabi make the NeoCons anti-American? Have NeoCons become inconvenient friends of the White House? Wait! Some of the NeoCons are members of the White House administration !

June 1, 2004- Chalabi Duped Pentagon; Played U.S. vs. Iran for himself

"I highly recommend you read a Stratfor.com analysis before it's removed from the site."

Mehlman's Joke of the Day

Mehlman's Joke of the Day

Is RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman a comedian - or what? This is what he's going to say today to the NAACP - with a straight face, mind you:

The history of the other party is a different one. Democrats were the party of Jim Crow and Democratic filibusters blocked progress for decades.

Despite this history, the Democratic Party by the 1960s had something real and tangible to overcome this legacy. Lyndon Johnson, a Democratic President, signed what in my opinion were the most important laws of the 20th century: the civil rights act, voting rights act, open housing law.

By the 70s and into the 80s and 90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out.

Didn't effectively reach out?? Bwahahahahahaha! Those who held on to their racist political philosophy turned Republican (and good riddance to them - they found their home in the right party at last!). The old Southern Dixiecrats ran away from the Democratic party when the Democrats accepted civil rights..and the old dogs joined up with "the party of Lincoln". (Which is now the party of "Benedict Rove").

Karl Rove's Betrayal of America - Updates

LATEST UPDATES ON THE GOP LIES TO TRY AND SAVE THEIR OWN ASSES:

Raw Story has posted the GOP Talking Points

The RNC Talking Points, based upon GOP Senators "rallying around Karl Rove" are HERE at GOP.com. Any Senator on this list, who would back a TRAITOR TO AMERICA, are playing with political fire. On the list of ugly partisans who'd coddle a traitor for love of party:

SENATORS: Elizabeth Dole-NC, Arlen Specter-PA, Norm Coleman-MN, Rick Santorum-PA, Orrin Hatch-UT, John Cornyn-TX, Jeff Sessions,-AL,

CONGRESSMEN: Roy Blunt-MO, Deborah Pryce-OH, Tom Reynolds-NY, Eric Cantor-VA, Jack Kingston-GA, Tom DeLay-TX, Kay Granger- ,Peter King-NY.


RNC Release - Sad defenses as aseen at Raw Story

Josh Marshall shows how media's gullibility and ignorance (in this case, the AP) can warp public opinion.

Toe sucker Dick Morris has been there - he knows your pain, Karl Rove. At least Dickie didn't betray America.

Any Republican activists who are "emboldened", as Donald Lambro put it in the Washington Times (that rightwinger's bastion of Moonie-loonie-ism), should be careful. When you are emboldened to act with the inspiration of a traitor's actions, you just might be a fascist.
*Look at them whistling past the graveyard. Talk about denial!

Gingrich Lies Through His Teeth to Try to Save Rove and Company
O'Reilly Factor: Newt Gingrich Lies About Ambassador Joseph Wilson

The NY Post (forever the Bush administration apologists) are trying to make us believe Karl's not "the Villain". (As if it's anyone else's fault that fathead Karl Rove couldn't keep his big mouth shut - revealing to journalists what any other person in his position should NEVER have known).

ROVE TO STEP DOWN?? [**no confirmation of validity - I don't knowe who this organization is - it popped up on Google news]

Bush Honesty Ratings Sink to Lowest Point

Congressman Tierney Calls For Suspension of Rove’s Security Clearance and Access to Classified Information [seen at Raw Story]


Karl Rove has endangered America and needs to be fired immediately.

The Left Coaster has a killer post called "Treasongate (Part VI): Response to GOP talking points."

EIR: The Plame Affair: Rove and Cheney Are Guilty As Charged-

"..the question must be asked: Can the nation survive a continuation of the Bush-Cheney Presidency?"

Garrett Graff comments on the latest Press conference. Graff believes that perhaps the Karl Rove leak investigation will succeed in sticking because it affects D.C. journalists and their friends.

A Roundup of the Latest Official Developments is at Editor and Publisher.

William Rivers Pitt: A History of the Bush Administration in One Sentence

LEAKGATE

Aram-Con?

Aram-Con?

Warning: Put on the Tin Foil Hat for this one.

From Mobjectivist:

Michael Ruppert, known in Peak Oil circles as the chief nemesis of Thomas "Dry Hole" Gold, has a new circumstantially disturbing piece. He tries to piece together some of the broken U.S. intelligence strategies in the Middle East.

I did not realize that the CIA and in particular Plame, had deep cover in the Saudi oil company Aramco. I suggest the tag line Aram-con for what they were trying to do, a variant of the Big Store con described in this previous post.

If this is true, and the fact that the administration blew the cover of Plame, and apparently dissolved the con-game in mid-stream, means that the administration got conned themselves (a la Chalabi) while bungling a con operated by their own people.

ARAMCO, Valerie Plame, and National Security

ARAMCO, Valerie Plame, and National Security
How Are National Security, the Plame Leak, and Lies About Reason for Iraq War Tied In?

Here's an idea:

In 2001, a company named ARAMCO, which is the the largest oil group in the world, had signed a $140 million multi-year contract with Halliburton, then chaired by Dick Cheney, to develop a new oil field. Halliburton does a lot of business in Saudi Arabia. Current estimates of Halliburton contracts or joint ventures in the country run into the tens of billions of dollars. So do the fortunes of some shady figures from the Bush family's past.

ARAMCO constitutes 12% of the world's total oil production; a figure which has surely increased as Iraq's oil fields have burned and our misguided war has sunk it into irreversible decline for an unpredictable term. ARAMCO operates, manages, and maintains virtually all Saudi oil fields - 25% of all the oil on planet Earth.


A named defendant in a $1 trillion lawsuit filed by 9/11 victims' families against the Saudi government is Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has been reported to be a brother-in-law to Osama Bin Laden (he's denied it). As recently as 1991, bin Mahfouz was on the Supreme Council of ARAMCO's board of directors. Mahfouz has historical ties to the Bush family dating back to the 1980s, when another bank connected to Mahfouz - the InterMaritime Bank - bailed out a cash-starved Harken Energy in 1987 with $25 million. (The Bushes played with the inside knowledge and made a lot of money on this pump-and-dump).

Are you feeling filthy, just knowing about this incestuous relationship of greed yet?

This is a time when Saudi Arabia is one of the three or four countries of highest interest to the US, and the non-official cover (NOC) operation which Valerie Plame had been involved was irreplaceable. The demise of her cover operation, Brewster Jennings, was guaranteed the moment Plame was outed. "NOCs" are generally regarded in the intelligence community as among the best and most valuable of all CIA operations officers and the CIA goes to great lengths to protect them in what are frequently very risky missions.

The Saudis are denying reprots that oil production has peaked, but they are being strongly refuted by an increasing amount of hard data. The truth remains unproven, but the mere possibility has set the world's financial markets on edge. The answer to the Saudi peak question will determine whether Saudi Arabia really can - or cannot - increase production quickly. If they can't, then the US economy is going to suffer bitterly, and it is certain that the Saudi monarchy will collapse into chaos.

Valerie Plame's cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was instrumental in getting the answers our country so desperately required. Brewster, Jennings & Associates were tied closely with ARAMCO, and someone in the White House decided it was more important to cover their own lies to the American people and betray America than it was to protect such a crucial national interest.

Is it any wonder George Tenet would have been pissed off at the Plame leak? And why he may have resigned - knowing that, in order to truly serve his country's best security interests, it would be best for him to step away from his delicate position? Perhaps that Medal of Freedom was richly deserved, after all?

Michael C. Ruppert and Wayne Madsen, from whom I retrieved much of this information, have stated:

The CIA Director's job by definition, whether others like it or not, is to be able to go to his President and advise him of the real scientific data on foreign resources (especially oil); to warn him of pending instability in a country closely linked to the US economy; and to tell him what to plan for and what to promise politically in his foreign policy. In light of her position in the CIA's relationship with Saudi Aramco, the outing of Valerie Plame made much of this impossible. In short, the Bush leak threatened National Security.

Former White House Counsel and Watergate figure John Dean, writing for the prestigious legal website findlaw.com on June 4th made some very ominous observations that appear to have gone unnoticed by most.

This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer. Unsurprisingly, the White House is doing all it can to bury the story, providing precious little detail or context for the President's actions.

Related: Daily Kos blog entry

Saudi Oil Bombshell -

First, a few words about the author of Twilight in the Desert. Matthew (''Matt'') Simmons is not a militant environmentalist or anti-oil partisan; he is Chairman and CEO of one of the nation's leading oil-industry investment banks, Simmons & Company International. For decades, Simmons has been pouring billions of dollars into the energy business, financing the exploration and development of new oil reservoirs. In the process, he has become a friend and associate of many of the top figures in the oil industry, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He has also accumulated a vast storehouse of information about the world's major oil fields, the prospects for new discoveries, and the techniques for extracting and marketing petroleum. There is virtually no figure better equipped than Simmons to assess the state of the world's oil supply. And this is why his assessment of Saudi Arabia's oil production capacity is so devastating.

Briton Bombers - Iraq war likely cause for extremism

We're Not Afraid

Briton Bombers - Iraq war likely cause for extremism

If there's one thing we can say about the four young Britons who turned to terrorism last week, it is that they sure as hell didn't do it in a vaccuum. I'm convinced that Tony Blair told an untruth, whether it was intentional, or whether it was just his warped opinion, when he denied, in the House of Commons this week, a suggestion that Britain was more at risk from a terrorist attack because of its involvement in Iraq. Blair had said, "It is a form of terrorism aimed at our way of life, not at any particular government or policy." What has me totally unconvinced is the fact that, before the London bombings, a leaked UK memo had warned that the Iraq war a key cause for the growth of "extremism" in Britain.

From an Independent article by Dilip Hiro:

"...Instead of focusing on finishing the onerous task of decimating al-Qa'ida and its associates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas - in which Bush and Blair had the support of the international community - they embarked on the illegal venture of invading Iraq, which has helped create an even more menacing swamp for breeding extremists. Among those who reached this conclusion is Richard Clarke, who served as the counter-terrorism chief for 10 years under both presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. "I doubt that anyone had the chance to make the case to Bush that attacking Iraq would make America less secure and strengthen the broader radical Islamist movement," he wrote. "Certainly he did not hear that from the small circle of advisers who alone are the people whose views he respects and trusts."

THE ANSWER IS STILL PEACE

THE ANSWER IS STILL PEACE


The terrorist attack in London today has once again created deep anguish in our collective soul...

Around the world people yearn to find peace and give solace to the suffering and bereaved. Once again the clash of polarized enemies clamors for attention. Al-Qaeda takes pride in this heinous and
sordid crime, while Western nations seek to bring the terrorists to justice. Yet it would be naive to take the simple way out and call this an example of pure evil and depravity.

In a very real way we are all part of the London tragedy. Everyone is caught in the tangled web of social injustice, economic
disparities, ecological disaster, war, and terrorism. Unless we accept this fact, we will continue with our madness of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Mahatma Gandhi declared that if we continue on this path the whole world would go blind. Will we ever see through our blindness and create a global community of connected humanity? To promote peace today means promoting a critical mass of consciousness where violence is never an option.

London, like the attacks in Madrid, Bali, and Indonesia before it, should make us want to live for peace above all. I
understand how it's possible to respond to terrorism with deep anger; I cannot understand responding to it with anger that goes on and on forever. There are causes behind every terrorist act and therefore hope that these causes can be changed, even as we continue to pursue justice. We still ignore the source of global instability: religious fundamentalism which has its roots in extreme poverty, where 50% of the world lives on $2 per day, 20% of it on less than $1 per day, a world where 8 million people die each year because they are too poor to survive.

Terrorism also festers because of a lack of education, toxic nationalism, ignorance about the outside the world, and deep economic disparities. Twenty thousand children died yesterday of hunger-related causes around the world, twenty thousand will die today, and twenty thousand tomorrow. That is not part of the evening news. Why not?

Nature abhors a deep imbalance. The human species has become the most dangerous predator on our planet. Nature might be
saying to herself, "Human beings were an interesting experiment that didn't work, so let's move on." Or, perhaps, our self-awareness has reached a turning point, as Inside ourselves we've always carried the seeds of creativity. The
next creative leap isn't a mystery. Millions of people are ready to join in harmonious interaction with Nature--and with our own complex inner nature--to create a world of peace, harmony, laughter and love. Let us strengthen our intention to create that critical mass of peace consciousness. Every tear can be a drop of nourishment for the new world that wants to be born and is making itself known little by little, every day. Each one of us can help create this critical mass by becoming the embodiment of peace conciousness their peace practices:

Being Peace
Thinking Peace
Feeling Peace
Speaking Peace
Acting Peace
Creating Peace
Sharing Peace
Celebrating Peace.

The Alliance for the New Humanity is committed to connecting and strengthening the synaptic network of the emerging planetary mind.

Love, Deepak Chopra

Rove and Others Seem Guilty By Their Reactions

"They need to point the finger at the person who inserted the 16 words, not at the person who found the truth of the matter."

- Joseph Wilson - From a web chat sponsored by Kerry for President Oct. 29, 2003, fact check

George Tenet and the 16 Words
On Plame Leak, Rove and Others Seem Guilty By Their Reactions


Americablog

Two years ago, George Tenet claimed full responsibility for the CIA's mistakes, even though they were not his direct mistakes. It's a bit of a mystery. Tenet cannot understand how those infamous 16 words could have gotten into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech. According to Tenet, he had recommended they be dropped, yet somehow, through some agency official, they were allowed to stay in.

In a press release on July 11, 2003 (two years ago almost to the day), Tenet said:

Also in the fall of 2002, our British colleagues told us they were planning to publish an unclassified dossier that mentioned reports of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium in Africa. Because we viewed the reporting on such acquisition attempts to be inconclusive, we expressed reservations about its inclusion but our colleagues said they were confident in their reports and left it in their document.

In September and October 2002 before Senate Committees, senior intelligence officials in response to questions told members of Congress that we differed with the British dossier on the reliability of the uranium reporting.

In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90 page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the Intelligence Community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the NIE’s Key Judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them...

...The background above makes it even more troubling that the 16 words eventually made it into the State of the Union speech. This was a mistake....

.... Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the CIA for comment shortly before the speech was given. Various parts were shared with cognizant elements of the Agency for review. Although the documents related to the alleged Niger-Iraqi uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries, officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed. From what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct - i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a Presidential address. This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for Presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that it was removed...

... I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency....

...These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President...

- George Tenet

Who are these "Agency officials?"..these "cognizant elements of the agency?" Why did he (or she or they) disregard the CIA head's clear recommendation?

Will he (or she) take the fall for someone far higher up?

To add to the mystery, the subsequent Senate Intelligence Committee report, which investigated the 16 words, conflicts with Tenet's statement. It says that the CIA had reviewed Bush's State of the Union address, and -- whatever doubts it may have harbored -- cleared it for him. Yet, if you read Tenet's statement, it isn't very clear AT ALL.

Senate Report: When coordinating the State of the Union, no Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts or officials told the National Security Council (NSC) to remove the "16 words" or that there were concerns about the credibility of the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting.

See ex-CIA Larry Johnson's statements about Valerie Plame at TPM.

Josh Marshall had said, on July 11, 2003:

But all of this begs the obvious and singularly important question: the charge is that CIA didn't push hard enough to keep bogus information out of the president's speech. Who was pushing on the other side? Who was pushing to keep the bogus information in? And why?

Ken Mehlman and the RNC are so very desperate to protect President Bush that they are actually referring people to this damaging statement by Tenet, simply because it backs up Karl Rove's statement about CIA deciding to send someone (Wlison) to Niger. This, of course, gave no right to someone at Rove's level to out any CIA operative to so many journalists. He was too hot to score a political point and betrayed his country in the process. His zeal carried him too far this time.

What does Judy Miller know? Who does she know? How does she know what she knows?

One has to wonder. George Tenet quit the same time that Bush hired a criminal attorney to represent him. By the way, the CIA is part of the Executive Branch, and I don't see George Tenet hanging around the Executive Branch anymore. Using the question posed by Katherine Yurica, "did the CIA director, George Tenet, take full responsibility for the inclusion of false material in President George Bush's State of the Union address, or did he expose the game plan to the world?

I can't see Karl Rove surviving any of this with an administration position intact. There is no excuse for what he has done - the fatheaded traitor to America.

As I have said before, this is about the cover-up, just as it is about the leak itself.

This - from a Time magazine article by Matt Cooper (with two other writers) July 17, 2003:

A source close to the matter says that Wilson was dispatched to Niger because Vice President Dick Cheney had questions about an intelligence report about Iraq seeking uranium and that he asked that the CIA get back to him with answers. Cheney's staff has adamantly denied and Tenet has reinforced the claim that the Vice President had anything to do with initiating the Wilson mission. They say the Vice President merely asked routine questions at an intelligence briefing and that mid-level CIA officials, on their own, chose to dispatch Wilson.

In an exclusive interview Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so. " Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.

This goes beyond Karl Rove, and the fact that Bush refuses to fire him and sends Ken Mehlman out to spew "Partisan attack!" on all the networks, with no reasonable alibi for Rove, leads me to believe there are many more vulnerable criminals waiting in the West Wing to be found out.


You might want to read The Oklahoma Hippie's theory [TPM]

Joshua Zeitz thinks this case is going to be a biggie and agrees that this is about the cover-up of the leak, just as much as it is about the leak itself.

SUNDANCE - Review of New Opera by Matthew J. Walton

Sundance - World Premiere of
An Original Opera by Matthew J. Walton

"Listen to me! Listen! I am the Indian voice.
Hear me crying out of the wind,
Hear me crying out of the silence.
I am the Indian voice. Listen to me!

I speak for our ancestors,
They cry out to you from the unstill grave.
I speak for the children yet unborn,
They cry out to you from the unspoken silence.

We are your own conscience calling to you.
We are you yourself
crying unheard within you

Put your ear to the earth
and hear my heart beating there.
Put your ear to the wind
and hear me speaking there.

We are the voice of the earth,
of the future,
of the mystery.

Hear us."

- Leonard Peltier

The story of the trial and incarceration of Leonard Peltier has many facets that make it surprisingly translatable to opera. Peltier's story is not widely known, especially to the youngest generation, because it occurred thirty years ago, with Peltier being literally hidden away in a prison cell for most of that time, making what must often seem, to him and his many supporters, like a futile symbolic sacrifice of his life as a political prisoner. Yet, never daunted, Peltier's supporters work tirelessly for his freedom. Staying close to the facts of the story surrounding the case, the opera shows that the lesson to be learned from the saga of Leonard Peltier is morally ambiguous, at best. The issue is one that runs deep and is rooted in Native American history. There can be no convenient resolution, no tying up of sub-plots, and no closure, because the story, in and of itself, has never ended. From the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, the opera reveals that, for Native Americans, there has not been an acceptable level of progress on the issues of social progress or social justice in a land that prides itself on justice and progress.

The triumph of Sundance, a new and distinctively American opera with music by Matthew J. Walton and libretto by Leonard Walton, is that the expertise in other areas of its composer, an honors graduate in Music Composition who also holds an MA in Political Science from Syracuse University, has created something relatively new, educational, incredibly moving, and emotionally powerful - all within a familiar and traditional format.


"Ghost Shirts of Wounded Knee, 1890"

Narrator Alex deMontigny, who is from the Lakota Sioux and Nez Perce Native American bloodlines, speaks as the forthright Peltier, using the words that Peltier, himself, has said over the years. The opera begins with an artistic interpretation and revelation of the sometimes shocking events at Wounded Knee in 1890 - well after the Civil War and the Battle of Little Bighorn (Custer's "Last Stand") - when the US cavalry was beginning to round up and disarm the remaining Native Americans. The Ghost Dance was an attempt of a group of North American Indian tribes to further separate themselves from the white man and the religious doctrines they were forcing upon the tribal peoples. Begun by a prophet named Wovoka, his vision embodied the belief that the white man would disappear from the Earth after a natural catastrophe and that the Indian dead would return bringing with them the old way of life that would then last forever. The first dance was held by Wovoka around 1889. Word spread quickly and the Ghost Dance was accepted by many tribes including the Sioux who added the element of a ghost shirt. Among those killed at Wounded Knee were women and children wearing their ghost shirts. The Ghost Dance continued to be danced in more southern tribes, but the end of the movement really came with the deaths at Wounded Knee in 1890.

Chief Sitting Bull had been killed while the calvary was attempting to round him up. Hearing of this, Chief Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The following morning, December 29, 1890, the soldiers entered the camp demanding the all Indian firearms be relinquished. A medicine man named Yellow Bird advocated resistance, claiming the Ghost Shirts would protect them. One of the soldiers tried to disarm a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. A scuffle ensued and the firearm discharged. The silence of the morning was broken and soon other guns echoed in the river bed. At first, the struggle was fought at close quarters, but when the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss artillery opened up on them, cutting down men, women, children alike, the sick Big Foot among them. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them.


Wounded Knee 1890


Alcatraz:
"This has given me a goal in life...I will be able to look back and say that I did something worthwhile..."

In subsequent scenes, we see the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz island, California, by Native American activists. Leonard Peltier played no part, but this occupation inspired his own political consciousness. Early in the morning on November 20, 1969, seventy-nine American Indians, including students, married couples and six children, sailed to Alcatraz and began the 19-month occupation of the island. Despite the Coast Guard's attempted blockade, the group disembarked successfully. Shortly after arriving, they listed demands of the US Government, including the return of Alcatraz to the American Indians and sufficient funding to build, maintain and operate an Indian cultural complex and a university. Though the US government agreed to negotiate, they rejected all of the demands the occupiers had proposed. The occupation ended in 1971, with disillusionment after various tragedies and troubles on the island, along with the turn of public opinion against the occupiers. Despite public criticism, a spirit was reborn during those years. In the words of Adam Fortune Eagle:

"To view Alcatraz from its end is a mistake. It must always be known that, more than anything else, Alcatraz brought us together. And it brought the problems of Native Americans to national attention. It may seem strange to someone in the future to imagine that we could have been unified and inspired by a bleak and inhospitable old prison that was used to punish and ruin so many other lives."

see photos here


A Return to Wounded Knee

"Let us forgive the worst among us
because the worst is in ourselves,
the worst lives in each of us,
along with the best.

Let us forgive the worst
in each of us
and all of us
so that the best
in each of us
and all of us
may be free."

The audience is then led to back to the Pine Ridge reservation, 85 years after the Wounded Knee massacre - and how far had the Native Americans come? We see the reclaiming of Wounded Knee, and the confusion of the early morning in June, 1975. Sometime in the late morning, two FBI agents drove onto Indian land near Oglala, South Dakota, a small village on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Here a shoot-out occurred in whith both agents and an Indian man were killed. Although large numbers of FBI agents, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, state trooopers, sheriff’s deputies and vigilantes surrounded the property within an hour of the first shots (no one has never been able to ascertain who shot first), the numerous Indians involved in the shoot-out escaped into the hills. Of the four men eventually indicted for the two killings, one was later released because the evidence was ‘weak’. Two others were acquitted in July 1976 when a jury concluded that, although they had fired at the agents, they had done so in self-defense. The fourth man was Peltier.

We see the grim and dubious process of the scapegoating of Peltier by the US Justice system. He has been incarcerated at Leavenworth Penitentiary for almost 30 years, despite alleged misconduct, including falsification of evidence, by various U.S. officials, which led to his conviction.

The opera is set to music composed and conducted by Walton and performed by an extremely talented six-piece chamber ensemble consisting of Linda Greene on flute, David Abrams on clarinet, Steven Heyman on piano, James Krehbiel on violin, Florent Renard-Payen on cello, and Phil de Chateauvieux on electronic keyboard. The music integrated very well with the performers, and the words of the libretto, which are words that were actually spoken or written at one point in history and raised to art by Leonard Walton, brought enunciation and clarity to the music's occasional instrumental complexity.

In Beethoven's one and only opera Fidelio, a prisoner (Florestan) is being held for life as a political prisoner by his mortal enemy, a wicked governor named Pizzaro, and to be sure Florestan is forgotten by the public, Pizzaro falsely announces Florestan's death - placing his prisoner in the lowest dungeon and planning to starve him to death. Walton's opera is worthy of Beethoven's story in the context that Leonard Peltier has been held indefinitely for a crime he swears he never committed, and his imprisoners (the US Government) have virtually silenced the mainstream media about Peltier's many active supporters and pleas for clemency; and have recently moved him from Leavenworth to the maximum-security US Prison at Terre Haute, Indiana, where Peltier was immediately placed in "the hole" (solitary confinement). Metaphorically speaking, Pelitier is a political prisoner who is being starved of his freedom while being declared "dead" by media silence.

The singing talents of Amanda Newhouse Carnie (soprano), Jonathan Howell (tenor), Carol Ansell Spradling (mezzo), Eric Johnson (bass), Uma Maedke (mezzo-soprano), William Black (baritone), and the rest of the cast, along with the directing talent of Victoria Harder King, production of (teacher of voice) Neva Pilgrim, and set design by Jarrod Bray, all added to the effective drama. The form and words reach out to the audience and ask them to consider not only the place, Pine Ridge, and the time of night when the confusion of the Pine Ridge shootings took place; but also the place in history where Peltier was standing on that fateful night when it all culminated in the swirling violence of a political showdown. The ghosts of Wounded Knee 1890 were by his side that night, as was the spirit of the Native Americans who had hoped for a great cultural awakening and political acceptance at Alcatraz Island circa 1969, the same time that white American youth were rebelling and searching at Woodstock.

"Silence is the voice of complicity
But silence is impossible
Silence screams
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act.

Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and every deed.
Become who you are…

What you do is who you are
You are your own comeuppance
You become your own message
You are the message..."

The most important and effective message the opera sends out is that the Peltier case has clearly not received the quality of attention that it deserves and that the collective voice of the Native American is still waiting to be heard by a government which has been all too willing, throughout US history, to silence it.

The spirit of the Native Americans beg you - listen.


*NOTE: For those of you who missed the premiere, you can still experience Sundance on the web. It is archived and available for viewing anytime at www.xmievents.com. The webcast costs $5 and all of the profits will go to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

Iraq: Too Little Too Late

Iraq: Too Little Too Late
Soldiers Don't Think Iraqi Troops Will Be Well-Enough Trained In Time for Success

At a website for a magazine called World News, which is a Christian-based news website, there is an article which I found interesting by Chattanooga Free Press military correspondent Edward Lee Pitts.

No one denies that most soldiers currently fighting in Iraq today just want to get back home. Wouldn't any of us? It doesn't mean they don't want to do a good job, but they desire to come back home, with life and limbs intact.

If we are ever going to redeem the obvious mistakes that the Bush administration has made and if we are to expect to see any degree of success in the final outcome, a hell of a lot of things must change. I happen to think it may be far too late to win back the hearts and minds of most Iraqis, and it's obvious that not one soul in the Bush administration has never understood how to do it. You just don't go in, as a foreign power, and reduce someone's cities to rubble and stick around for years and expect them to love you for it simply because you rid them of one wicked dictator.

Freedom means something different than we have had in mind for these people. Occupation wasn't their idea of what post-Saddam freedom would look like. Democracy means a lot to them, but they want us to get the hell out of their country so they can build their own style of democracy.

We look like occupiers (whether or not we say we aren't) and we've made it easy for the propaganda machine on the other side to succeed. This isn't WWII. This is 2005. Communication is immediate. People don't sit around for weeks wondering how the battle turned out. Photos and stories are sent with a quick download and, with one click of a key, the world sees what it wants to see...hears what it wants to hear. I'm no Nostradamus, but I sure as hell could have told you that this was a misguided way to win hearts and minds - as a matter of fact, I did tell you on this very blog, time and time again.

In order for there to be an appearance of any form of "success" for the U.S. in Iraq, the Iraqi army and police must be the key in this wicked propaganda battle between the U.S.-led occupation forces and the insurgents for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Our failure to adequately and promptly train these Iraqis is in direct proportion to the loss of so many hearts and minds. I fear what we've done has been too little - too late.

While I believe Pitts' article is optimistic, it is cautiously optimistic. It isn't the full-blown "happy talk of pure fantasy" that we sometimes see coming from media.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

The success of an independent Iraq hinges on the ability of the country's new army, so the U.S.-led coalition forces have stepped up military training. Since April small military transition teams—each made up of about seven U.S. soldiers—have embedded themselves into Iraqi army units. Acting as coaches, these Americans are preparing the Iraqi soldiers to take control of their own destiny.

The preparation takes on new urgency as the Iraqi army is scheduled to be capable of conducting independent operations by the end of next month. Throughout July, area U.S. units are set to officially transfer military authority over certain sectors to the Iraqis, leaving the U.S. forces as backup.....

.....Many believe the Iraqis will need help long after most U.S. regiments currently stationed in Iraq return home later this year. "You can't get years of proper training in a few weeks," said Sgt. 1st Class Clay Rader, who is training a unit of 200 Iraqis; only 30, he says, have been soldiers for longer than two months.....

....many of the Iraqis failed to qualify on their weapons because of poor eyesight. Most Iraqis cannot afford eyeglasses to correct their vision...

.....[The soldiers] realize a fully trained Iraqi army offers the U.S. military its best chance of making its own future deployments smaller and smaller...

"My main driving force is to train them so I can get home," said Sgt. Barrett Vaughn, 24.

And I hope Barrett gets home...safely and soon. Whether or not the Iraqi soldiers can afford eyeglasses. We cannot afford to lose Barrett just because our government sent him to a war that he couldn't possibly have "won" in the span of time in which the American public would have been tolerant enough to accept all the unnecessary death and destruction.

The soldiers have not failed us. They wanted to do the best job they could have done. It's the Bush administration that has failed us all with their lies, their failures, and their subsequent cover-ups.

________________

Meanwhile, things are changing for the U.S. Army in Europe (many of whom have been fighting in Iraq.) In accordance with the Pentagon's transformation plans for the Army, it was announced last Thursday that the Army will reduce their 1st Infantry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team in Vilseck, Germany to a small detachment to make room for a Stryker Brigade Combat Team that is set to arrive as early as 2006. Current 3rd Brigade troops will be assigned to other jobs throughout the Army. According to an article in Stars and Stripes, this announcement sets in stone a movement of forces openly talked about in Army circles but not confirmed until this week. A gentleman I've often blogged about, Col. Dana Pittard, became part of the string of these command and restationing changes. I wonder how effective this will be in disastrously insecure places such as Iraq. The Pentagon's top independent tester had long ago warned the Secretary of Defense that the vehicle should not be deployed in Iraq because it is vulnerable to rocket propelled grenades. Strykers are meant for ground campaigns and because of their vulnerability, are highly dependent upon accurate intelligence gathering (a system of satellites, UAVs, soldier reports, and other intelligence tools to provide a common and detailed picture of what's happening on the battlefield.)

Godspeed, Andy Stephenson

Godspeed, Andy Stephenson

"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless."

-- Words inscribed on the gravestone
of Brandon Lee

...So begins a moving tribute to the life of one of Seattle's most passionate political activists, Andy Stephenson, written by William Rivers Pitt. Andy passed away last Thursday from complications due to pancreatic cancer.
There is also a tribute to Andy at Daily Kos.

Roberts, Moran and Gregory Blast McClellan Over Rove

QUESTION: "Scott, if I could point out: Contradictory to that statement, on September 29th of 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one to have said that if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then, on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation, when the president made his comments that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved, so why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation?"


CBS' John Roberts, questioning White House Press Sec'y Scott McClellan today

Roberts, Moran and Gregory Blast McClellan Over Rove

Scott McClellan refuses to comment on Karl Rove, and he is being blasted right now by journalists in the White House press corps gallery. ABC's Terry Moran, NBC's David Gregory, and CBS' John Roberts have been especially forceful. David Gregory actually told McClellan he was looking "RIDICULOUS." McClellan refuses, flatly, to make any comment about the White House reaction to the news that Karl Rove leaked the fact that Joseph Wilson's wife was CIA to so many reporters. McClellan uses the limp-as-noodle excuse that they are "waiting for the ongoing investigation to be completed". David Gregory, with obvious emotion in his voice, asks McClellan how he believes this looks to the American people.
Excerpt from today's White House Press Conference:

Q: "....you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?"

McClellan: "I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that."

Even Fox News' Bush-bootlicker Carl Cameron pushed McClellan on the Karl Rove question.

David Corn asks if Bush is taking any action at all about the recent news about the Rove leak. After all, Bush is free to take whatever action he wants to take immediately (such as firing Rove) without need for the completion of an investigation. McClellan has (surprise) "no comment."

This looks so bad for the White House. McClellan's taken a good lambasting today and I have been shown that the Fourth Estate is waking up to the fact that they've been astoundingly ill-used by this White House.

McClellan is asked if the President agrees with the information about the U.S. drawing down U.S. troops by end of 2006 (found in the secret British memo) - McClellan says it's some kind of "contingency plan."

After McClellan ended the press conference and left the room, there was a lot of chatter and laughter passing between members of the press corps. It sounded like mockery to me.

TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE.