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Tag(s): Coverups; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Disinformation; Failure; People Gates Robert; RIght Wing Lies; Reality; Right Wing Selling Off America; Right Wingers Endangering America; Ronald Reagan
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April 7, 2008 at 20:59:16

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Headlined on 4/7/08:
Losing the War for Reality

by Robert Parry Page 4 of 5 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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But a firestorm over Gates’s role in politicizing CIA intelligence threatened his nomination in fall 1991. Rather than back off this time, however, President George H.W. Bush told committee Republicans “that he was ‘going to the mat’ for Gates and wanted his nomination confirmed at all cost,” Goodman wrote.

Gates’s future ultimately was saved by Boren and his top aide, George Tenet, who shepherded the nomination through the committee and then the full Senate.

Once Gates got in as director, he went to work shielding Bush from political scandal, including Bush’s secret military support of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq during the 1980s, according to Goodman.

Gates helped squelch the House Banking Committee’s examination of a multi-billion-dollar Iraqi-financing operation involving the Italian-owned Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Goodman wrote, adding:

“The fact is that the Bush administration was engaged in an effort to subsidize and arm Saddam Hussein right up to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the CIA was totally aware of these efforts.”

The Casey-Gates approach of putting politics and ideology ahead of objective analysis was still alive and well a decade later when then-CIA director George Tenet offered President George W. Bush the “slam-dunk” intelligence on Iraq’s WMD.

Though Goodman suspects that Bush would have invaded Iraq whatever the CIA did, “it is conceivable … that honest leadership from George Tenet and John McLaughlin and a strong CIA stand could have created more opposition to the war from the Congress, the media, and the public,” Goodman wrote.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Goodman wrote: “The CIA’s failure in the run-up to the Iraq War was a total corporate breakdown.”

Even in the wake of the Iraq WMD disaster, politicization has remained dominant, according to Goodman.

Tenet’s successor, former Republican congressman Porter Goss, issued a memo to the CIA staff telling them to “support the administration and its policies in our work. As Agency employees, we do not identify with, support, or champion opposition to the administration or its policies.”

In Goodman’s view, other post-9/11 changes in the structure of the U.S. intelligence community – such as topping it off with another presidential appointee as Director of National Intelligence – have failed to address the underlying problem of a lost ethos that was committed to telling the truth no matter the political consequences.

Faced with mounting opposition to the Iraq War in 2006, President Bush also dipped back into his father’s old roster of pliable bureaucrats and brought Robert Gates back into the government as Secretary of Defense. Gates helped put a fresh face on the “surge.” [For more on Gates, see Consortiumnews.com's archive, "Who Is Bob Gates?"]

Lost Moral Compass

To Goodman, the erroneous intelligence analyses – that caused the United States to massively over-spend on military hardware to confront a declining Soviet threat in the 1980s and that led the nation into a bloody quagmire in Iraq this decade – were not simply mistakes.

“The intelligence provided in the Gorbachev era and the run-up to the Iraq War represented the failure of the CIA’s moral compass,” Goodman wrote. “There have been pluses and minuses over the sixty-year history of the CIA, but the past twenty-five years have provided an unending cycle of failure in telling truth to power. …

“The moral failure is the most worrisome aspect of all because, without the willingness to tell truth to power, reform and reorganization of CIA become irrelevant.”

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

http://www.consortiumnews.com

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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8 comments

In 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Initially focused on elections, she investigated the 2004 Ohio election, organizing, training and leading several forays into counties to photograph the 2004 ballots. She officially served at three recounts, including the 2004 recount. She also organized and led the team that audited Franklin County Ohio's 2006 election, proving the number of signatures did not match official results. Her work appears in three books. ...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Rady AnandaIn 2004, Rady Ananda joined the growing community of citizen journalists. Initially focused on elections, she investigated the 2004 Ohio election, organizing, training and leading several forays into counties to photograph the 2004 ballots. She officially served at three recounts, including the 2004 recount. She also organized and led the team that audited Franklin County Ohio's 2006 election, proving the number of signatures did not match official results. Her work appears in three books. ...

to see more of bio, click on member name

lost moral compass?

“The CIA’s failure in the run-up to the Iraq War was a total corporate breakdown.”

Assuming this review fairly captures the theme of the book, then the book fails to get to the heart of the matter. Morals have nothing to do with the deception.

The deception was deliberate, and a huge corporate success for all those who have made and continue to stand to make billions on defense spending.

This was no corporate breakdown - what the hell is he talking about?

by Rady Ananda (128 articles, 290 quicklinks, 37 diaries, 1130 comments) on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 11:20:49 PM

Richard Mynick is a US citizen who, despite the best efforts of the corporate media, noticed something disturbing about how the 2000 election was decided, & felt it augured poorly for democracy.
Richard MynickRichard Mynick is a US citizen who, despite the best efforts of the corporate media, noticed something disturbing about how the 2000 election was decided, & felt it augured poorly for democracy.

Despite my great respect for Robt Parry, I take issue with

the thesis expressed here (basically a summary of former CIA agent Melvin Goodman's new book) that the CIA (more properly, its analytical division) only began to be seriously corrupted in the mid 1970's. I think it was probably always fairly corrupt. Its corruption results not so much from purging individual employees blessed with personal integrity, as from its intrinsic institutional nature: it's a private army of the executive branch, that has no accountability to the public, in law or even in principle.

There were the coups in Guatemala (1954) & Iran ('53). There were countless attempts to kill Castro. They killed Lumumba in 1960. They overthrew Allende in 1973, & had been working on that one for years. They infiltrated the US media decades ago. They may well have been involved in the assassinations of JFK, RFK, & MLK. And the whole Cold War was based on the very biggest of Big Lies, which the analytical division must have known.

The law that created the CIA created an unaccountable monster. The fact that they purged any employees who had integrity is an inevitable consequence of the organization's fundamental conception.

by Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1232 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 12:17:34 AM

Virginia Simson is a spiritual journalista/activist who runs a visionary planetary tutorial blogspot, www.ladybroadoak.blogspot.com as well as a blog on the uranium industry and depleted uranium at www.lowlevelradiation.blogspot.com. She feels that we must educate the young as to the real issues of the day - economics, clean energy, a drug free lifestyle, friendship and concern for the environment. We must plan for seven generations in the future. She unconditionally supports impeachment and...

to see more of bio, click on member name
ladybroadoakVirginia Simson is a spiritual journalista/activist who runs a visionary planetary tutorial blogspot, www.ladybroadoak.blogspot.com as well as a blog on the uranium industry and depleted uranium at www.lowlevelradiation.blogspot.com. She feels that we must educate the young as to the real issues of the day - economics, clean energy, a drug free lifestyle, friendship and concern for the environment. We must plan for seven generations in the future. She unconditionally supports impeachment and...

to see more of bio, click on member name

They don't hire people with integrity

in the first instance.

An agency of climbers.

The only person that I know who was EVER approached to be in the CIA out of all the radicals I know from 1960's was me. We were smart, patritiotici in a very very fundamental way. But we already knew about the infiltration of the CIA by naZis, we knew how bent US middle east policy was by then, and we were not afriad to tell the truth. Ergo, an entire generation of people in the US who could have provided TRUTH within the US intel community was thrown in a garbage can.

And history will bear me out. As the US empire crumbles, much will come to light. Academics still writing revisionist history will be shown to be a BIG PART of the problem, sticking as they do to ONLY telling you what White Guys do - as that is all there is to history.

The soviet union actually fell because Women got FED UP with the soviets after Chernobyl and figured they might as well die fighting back in Lithuanian and Lativia and the movement spread. Could the US have identified that resistance movement? NO. Absolutely not. Because the analysts go into looking at a situation as the White Guy supervisers tell them to look at it.

Now as the US DoD is spread out over a vast area of bases (750? over 1000?) and there is also a vast archipelago of dark sites to look after as well, when the US fall comes it will also come in the "twinkling of an eye". How can the US maintain supplies (food, water, other necessities) in all those places when most have a staff of around 1200 on them?

The US is relying on a phoney premises of FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE that is going to be found falling FAR SHORT Of what is required to defeat the human drive for survival around the globe. Debstalization and balkanization ideas be damned, they are just not going to work. Assassination, torture, disapperances, genocide, the creation of millions of refugees, concentration camps as large scale as Gaza -- all these and other tactics ensure that the US cannot count on their alliances with rich rulers "to keep America safe"!!!

I believe that the lynchpin to all the changes that are going to occur, and the outting of the truth about all the bad things about American intel will occur very soon - as NATO is really on its last legs. THEN we will see some rather different reality and a marked changed in books that come out such as this. And all the dirty little secrets about the CIA (and the 16 new alphabet soup agencies) will come to light in all its gruesome awfulness.

Until then, someone like me who as stayed informed for 40 years will continue to yawn when reading these analysis of what went wrong.

Meanwhile, I spend my time trying to figure out WHAT IS TO DONE to make it RIGHT. A good book for people to read is DISMANTLING TYRANNY. I think it is more worth the effort than picking up this TOME which will only lead to more confusion.

Reality isn't ONLY for those with White Guy mentality.

by ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 391 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 10:56:36 AM

CIA Campus Recruitment

My first quarter on campus, school officials let everyone know the CIA was recruiting. It just so happened I took an honors linguistics class and got an A. I think I got a pure 4.0 that quarter (except for the university orientation class which I continually missed - one credit).

Anyway, school officials also advised that a survey was being sent to a portion of the freshman class. I got one. The first 5 of about 100 questions related to campus life. ALL the remaining questions were a psych profile. Maybe 20 different questions asked 4 or 5 different ways.

I suspect it was from the CIA, and that I qualified for an interview because of that linguistics grade. The subject is really code-breaking.

I tossed the survey out. Then I got 3 emails from some campus official asking for me to return the survey. I wouldn't even answer the emails, it scared me so bad. lol

later on I met someone who admitted working for the CIA. That knowledge chilled my relationship... totally.

All I knew back then was that the CIA ran drugs - heroin from Viet Nam and Cocaine from South America.

But I like the analysis above that the law creating the CIA - a secret unaccountable spy agency of the federal gov - is what is flawed, so naturally, those with integrity won't survive in it.

by Rady Ananda (128 articles, 290 quicklinks, 37 diaries, 1130 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 1:50:18 PM

KEVIN STODA has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades. He sees himself as a peace educator and have been a promoter of good economic and social development--making him an enemy of my homelands humongous spending and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global issues."I am from Kansas so I also use the pseudonym 'Kansas' when I write and publish. I...

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ALONEKEVIN STODA has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades. He sees himself as a peace educator and have been a promoter of good economic and social development--making him an enemy of my homelands humongous spending and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global issues."I am from Kansas so I also use the pseudonym 'Kansas' when I write and publish. I...

to see more of bio, click on member name

IMPUNITY IS PRAISED

I saw the film on the shooting of Jesse James made a few years back with Brad Pitt. That film shows that impunity for murderers is part of U.S. history.

However, it is the other side of history, like those of the Catonville 9 who need to be lifted up as do the brave folks who staged the recent hearings on Iraq War in Maryland.

We need to retake history from the mediocre guides and guidelines--not to relativize it but to make sure that the world spins in the right direction.

http://alone.gnn.tv/blogs/27864/AMERICA_S_LOSER_SCHOOL_OF_GOVERNMENT_DOES_IT_AGAIN_RENEWS_BLACKWATERS_CONTRACT

by ALONE (152 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 337 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:05:18 AM

We need to stop praising impunity in legends and history

http://alone.gnn.tv/blogs/27864/AMERICA_S_LOSER_SCHOOL_OF_GOVERNMENT_DOES_IT_AGAIN_RENEWS_BLACKWATERS_CONTRACT

This can be done via the web and by further sidelining corporate media across the country and making links across nation states.

Let's not give up on the mess built in MADE IN AMERICA over the last decade(s) in terms of skewed memories of American and World history.

Shave off the bad wood and build anew on better soil.

One way to start is to keep pressure on children's textbooks which have been improving even if only in spite of the bad media and U.S. government trends controlled by extremist spinners of skewed doctrines.

by ALONE (152 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 337 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 7:06:46 AM

well, not really better textbooks

Center for Inquiry Raises Concerns over Civics Textbook

Stoda's article is important - check out the OEN discussion on this article (Blackwater contract renewal not approved by Iraq) that shows the Iraqi Gov is rejecting Blackwater's continued use in Iraq.

by Rady Ananda (128 articles, 290 quicklinks, 37 diaries, 1130 comments) on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 1:25:30 PM

Union Construction Electrician for the past 21 years. Former United States Marine 1982 - 1986 who participated in the Multinational Peacekeeping Force sent to Beirut, Lebanon back in 1983.
SleeperUnion Construction Electrician for the past 21 years. Former United States Marine 1982 - 1986 who participated in the Multinational Peacekeeping Force sent to Beirut, Lebanon back in 1983.

Surprise/Surprise

I've always had concerns since reading this:

Letters to the Editor

Portland Press Herald

P.O. Box 1460

Portland ME 04104-5009

Dear Editor:

Before Israel devotees jump on Bill Slavick ("Inhumanity, silence reap the whirlwind," August 21) for revealing that where Israel is concerned, things are not always as they seem, consider:

* On June 8, 1967, as Israel was warring on neighbors, it bombed the clearly marked USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans, and strafed bombing survivors. When the Liberty radioed for air support, President Lyndon Johnson called off the relief to avoid a confrontation with Israel. Washington continues to refuse a full investigation.

* The bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks on October 23, 1983, killed 241 Marine peacekeepers. It is blamed "on terrorists, most likely Hezbollah," with Syria and Iran involvement, and serves as foundation for US hostility to Hezbollah. In fact, perhaps the largest non-nuclear bomb explosion ever was 666 pounds of enhanced RDX "rag bombs"-- "enhanced" with propane gas and primed with PETN boosters or detonation cord, an Israeli specialty. In 1983, the only active sources of RDX were the US, France, Canada, Sweden, China--and Israel. A year earlier, Israeli defense intelligence headquarters had been accidently destroyed by an RDX explosion. US military intelligence knows where the bomb came from, a secret for 23 years now.

* On Feb. 14, 2005, Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Lebanon's unifying political figure, died in an RDX explosion, quickly blamed on Syria, forcing its withdrawal from Lebanese affairs. But the only maker of RDX, Chemko in Slovakia, has never sold to an Arab country; it licensed Israel to buy in 2003.

Arthur Whitman

Lberty Alliance

P.O. Box 586

Auburn ME 04212

783-7865

25 August 2006

I've wondered if by chance these rag bombs got to Hezbollah through this connection. It really kinda makes me wonder. "Blessed Are The Peacemakers" 10/23/1983. "They Came In Peace."

Is this the Reality of Robert Gates, Dick Cheney, & George H.W. Bush?

by Sleeper (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 276 comments) on Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at 6:50:42 PM