I urge readers to check out HillaryIsANeocon.com. There's a reason that the founder of PNAC, Robert Kagan and other neocon warhawks are now backing (and advising) Clinton over the other presidential candidates and it's not because she's a "true progressive" or a realist. Just the opposite. They know they can depend upon her to continue to wage wars and support "regime changes" around the world based on her solid track record.

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Supports Bernie, but even Trump over Hillary

My guest today is Coleen Rowley, former FBI special agent, whistleblower and one of TIME magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002.

JB: Welcome to OpEdNews, Coleen. You've been critical of the War in Iraq virtually from the get-go. What did you know that so many people within the Beltway didn't?

CR: Thanks! Here's what I knew and warned FBI Director Mueller about on Feb 26, 2003 (published in the New York Times on March 6, 2003):

1) The diversion of attention from al-Qaeda to invade Iraq, would be a step likely to bring an exponential increase in the terrorist threat to the U.S., both at home and abroad.

2) The Bush Administration was threatening Mueller with breaking up the FBI which served as additional pressure on him to politicize intelligence and keep him from voicing any objection to the plan to attack Iraq, a country that had no connection to Al Qaeda or to the 9-11 attacks. I knew the Bush Administration had lied and confused people so much that, incredibly, they had gotten 70% of all Americans to believe that Iraq was behind 9-11.

3) I knew that the figure that were leaked estimating thousands of Al Qaeda terrorists already in the U.S. ("sleeper cells") was greatly exaggerated.

4) I knew that the objectives and justifications that officials were giving about increasing people's security and preventing future terrorist attacks rang hollow inasmuch as officials were not even attempting to interview the first real Al Qaeda terrorist suspects in custody, Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber" to learn what they knew of other plots.

5) I knew that launching war on Iraq would damage liaison with European law enforcement and intelligence agencies who were more on the frontlines than the U.S.

6) The color code threat alerts touted after 9-11 were in many ways ludicrous and proving counterproductive.

7) None of the 1000 or so people rounded up and indefinitely detained after 9-11, mostly in the NYC area, had any connection to terrorism. It was just a way for the FBI to demonstrate it was doing something.

8) The looser "preemptive strike" rationale being applied to Iraq (and other situations abroad) was not consistent with deadly force policy. I warned that the looser standard could migrate back home, fostering a more permissive attitude towards shootings by law enforcement officers in this country.

9) Lacking patience to allow the U.N. Inspectors to do their job and instead launching an attack on Iraq was analogous to the FBI Swat Teams who, a few years before, had lost patience and improvidently rushed the Davidian Branch Compound at Waco, which resulted in the deaths of all the children there.

The NYT's article and my letter warning FBI Director Mueller to warn the President to reconsider launching war on Iraq are here and here.

JB: That's quite a list, Coleen. Among other things, #8 certainly reverberates today with the police shootings of unarmed civilians, largely black males, happening all over the country. Let's cut to the chase. With all due respect, taking your concerns to your boss accomplished exactly what? Was it enough to stop or even slow that incessant drumbeat for war echoing through the halls of power and the media?

CR: I didn't only write to FBI Director Mueller with my concerns--by the way, as he had suggested I do months before, the evening before I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee (June 6, 2002, when I think he was trying to get me on his side by telling me he was also critical-minded and I ought to let him know the next time I saw something amiss). After a week of not getting any response from the FBI Director and with US troops poised to attack Iraq, I panicked and decided to make the letter public, sending it to the NY Times. So it turned out to be one of only a handful of mainstream front page stories opposing the Iraq War before the US launched its misbegotten war. But it obviously didn't stop anything. I ended up stepping down from my legal position which I had held for the prior 13 years as a direct result of that letter but in a way, if I had not tried, I don't think I would have been able to live with myself.

JB: I get that. And now, here we are, all these years later. Isn't this old news? Why is it relevant now, during this presidential primary season?

CR: Well it should be old news and the country should've learned from its mistakes, but unfortunately, most of the presidential candidates, with the exception of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, are still unwilling to admit these post 9-11 wars have been giant mistakes. So their answer is to double down and apply even more military force in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine as well as all other countries the US is drone-bombing in its global "war on terror." Only Sanders and Trump have indicated, in some ways, that they would be more careful in launching wars.

JB: Let's examine Hillary's position on this topic. She and her supporters tout her experience as former Secretary of State as proof that she can well fill the shoes of the Commander in Chief. Do you disagree?

CR: She IS experienced in starting wars and orchestrating "regime changes" around the world, but these have all proven disastrous. She and Bill have been involved in numerous financial and other scandals and deceits. She's experienced in that. But why would anyone vote for someone whose actions have served to increase the level of world-wide violence and terrorism, by some accounts, over 6000% since 9-11? I'm not sure if you can use this image but I've been posting this one on social media captioned: "Dick Cheney, now available in female." Coincidentally Hillary hired one of Cheney's assistants, Victoria Nuland who is PNAC Founder Robert Kagan's wife and who later helped orchestrate the coup in Ukraine.

JB: You've made some pretty strong claims just now, Coleen. And after you briefly specify the "numerous financial and other scandals and deceits", I'd like to see where you get your astounding 6000% increase figure, please.

CR: [Link here.] Not complete as I've never been that interested in compiling a list, but the main scandals and deceits that come to mind that the Clintons have been embroiled in are: Whitewater financial scandal; Lewinsky (and prior sex scandals) during which Hillary's husband slammed his fist and lied, then lamely explained that it depended upon what the meaning of "is" is; her exaggeration of being under fire after plane landing during one of her trips; Vince Foster suicide; the Clintons' raising of $3 billion over 41 years, including from foreign entities where there was a conflict of interest and which may figure into the FBI investigation of her use of a private server [see link]. There's a reason that Hillary gets such low marks in polls on the issue of honesty and trustworthiness.

JB: I just checked out your linkand you underestimated: the article says that, since 2002, the number of terror attacks has actually increased by 6,500%! As secretary of state, Hillary was carrying out her president's wishes. So, is it fair to tar her with war-ishness, if there is such a word?

CR: She wasn't exactly following Obama's orders. And that's not how it even works as Hillary is connected to powerful elements in the "Double State" (the Military Industrial Complex, AIPAC, Netanyahu, the neocon founders of the "Project for the New American Century and her powerful funders such as Haim Saban and George Soros). We know from Jeffrey Goldberg's exhaustive interviews in "The Obama Doctrine" recently published in the Atlantic, that Obama was pushed by Hillary (and Samantha Power) to bomb Libya and again pushed by Kerry and Hillary to arm the Syrian "rebels" (despite their connections to terrorist groups), set up a "no fly zone" (which is the same pretext they used to bomb Libya), to escalate the military occupation of Afghanistan, etc. See Diana Johnstone's book "Hillary: Queen of Chaos" and http://hillaryisaneocon.com/ for a more complete list of all the wars and "regime change" coups she's been involved in. Clinton maintained her vote giving authorization to Bush to launch war on Iraq was correct up until her first run for the presidency, long after it was known Bush-Cheney's pretexts were false. She overcame the objections of Robert Gates, Donlan and other top advisors to Obama regarding the decision to bomb and destroy Libya to take out Gaddafi.

JB: For those of us with faulty memories, remind us why having Gaddafi gone was a bad idea.

CR: Gaddafi, like Saddam, the Taliban, Assad, and other government leaders that the U.S. has either toppled or attempted to topple, may not be to our liking, but it's naive to believe that a democracy can be created, that it will be a "cakewalk" to remove a foreign government by bombing a country. Wars and the toppling of foreign governments creates a vacuum that inherently leads to civil strife and sectarian conflict, also providing "failed states" where Al Qaeda and ISIS can establish themselves. This is well known and predictable. The "Right to Protect" doctrine that was used by Clinton et al by alleging that we had to protect people in Benghazi was factually false just as Bush's lies about Iraq's WMD and ties to terrorism were false. Ultimately the US Ambassador was murdered as a result of Hillary Clinton's war on Libya and it was totally destabilized, destroyed and turned into a haven for terrorism.

JB: I'm pretty sure that Hillary would disagree with your assessment. For the last several months, in reaction to Bernie Sanders's surprising strength, she's been attempting to position herself as the true progressive and realist. Would you say that her foreign policy positions disqualify her from that claim?

CR: Again I urge readers to check out HillaryIsANeocon.com. There's a reason that the founder of PNAC, Robert Kagan and other neocon warhawks are now backing (and advising) Clinton over the other presidential candidates and it's not because she's a "true progressive" or a realist. Just the opposite. They know they can depend upon her to continue to wage wars and support "regime changes" around the world based on her solid track record of having done so during the last couple decades when she's had this power. Like other AIPAC cheerleaders, she has made statements about "obliterating Iran" so it may be that she would seek to undo the agreement that Obama has worked out. She has called for a "no fly zone" over Syria so I don't think she would support the current peace negotiations.

The neocon warhawks have been ascendant over foreign policy since 9-11 and they have a strange form of "idealism" (opposite of realist school of foreign policy) that they sometimes refer to as "creative chaos." But in bombing countries, and stirring up sectarian hatreds, to use to gain control in line with the (neocon) "Wolfowitz Doctrine," the violence has spilled into new areas and led to grassroots type terrorism that they can't control. I think Bernie Sanders would have an easy time, if he wished to make the debate about foreign policy, of challenging her long track record that is anything but progressive. Even Donald Trump exhibits more "progressive"and realistic positions on foreign policy than Hillary Clinton.

JB: That's an intriguing statement! Tell us more about this website, HillaryIsANeocon.com, that you keep referring to. I'd never heard of it before.

CR: I think the motivation for the website is precisely this false perception of Hillary Clinton as a feminist (even though younger women are not buying it) when in fact she is a female Dick Cheney if you actually look at her long track record of callously launching wars in line with the neoconservative ideology of using "creative chaos" to further the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" of seeking full spectrum dominance. The trauma of 9-11 has opened the door to the neocons' series of foreign policy blunders but we know from both leaked intelligence documents and Hillary's own e-mails that they are not so much blunders as coolly and coldly calculated.

JB: Do you think anyone out there is listening? So many people disregard policies and positions in deciding. For instance, many women simply want a woman president and they want her now, regardless of her past or policies. The pundits long ago anointed her the Democratic nominee. Is there time for enough of a dialogue about Hillary's true nature to affect the outcome of this race?

CR: So, there are still lots of unknowns. Bernie Sanders is winning the primaries today and he still has a chance. I will be terribly disappointed if he doesn't get the nomination but even more disappointed if he throws his support to Hillary Clinton. But if it does come down to Clinton vs Trump, as many political watchers predict, I think we may well see Trump not afraid to challenge her disastrous track record just as he was not afraid to challenge Jeb Bush's support of his brother's disastrous war on Iraq (even though Trump knew he would be booed in South Carolina).

I personally encourage people to consider the issues and not be blinded by party loyalties or "identity politics" as the two party system is such a game of ping pong, incapable of changing course for the better. The war party (based on MIC and AIPAC type special interests) has tentacles into both Democrats and Republicans. Progressives, true conservatives, greens and libertarians need to start noticing there is a big consensus for changing course off the post 9-11 perpetual war meme.

JB: I want to make sure I understand what you just said. You're hoping Bernie gets the nomination. But, if Hillary prevails, are you saying that you would support Trump over her?

CR: It's a bit too early as we'll have to wait and see what transpires. Trump is a loose cannon and no one knows what he'll say, or more importantly what he'll do. But we know what Hillary will do as she has already repeatedly done the worst. I should look up the links, but there are now more and more well known anti-war and anti-imperialist progressives such as William Blum, William Greider(who writes for The Nation) as well as anti-war libertarians such as Justin Raimondo who are making arguments (which I agree with) that if it comes down to having to vote between these two, the lesser evilat this point would seem to be Trump.

JB: Even with the Supreme Court and reproductive rights, to name just two, hanging in the balance?

CR: This argument about appointing Supreme Court judges is always the fallback but in my opinion, and as someone who's read and studied a number of Supreme Court decisions, it's an exaggerated concern and a false reason for voting straight party lines. A number of Supreme Court judges once they were appointed, have changed their stripes and if you look at all judges and judicial opinions, you're hard-pressed to identify the party of the President who appointed them. So I don't think the Supreme Court hangs in the balance.

JB: I wish I shared your confidence on that matter, Coleen. You've made it quite clear why you're not enthused about Hillary. But, I'm curious how does your current support for Bernie [or, if necessary, Trump] fit, in terms of your candidate picks in past elections?

CR: Of course, when I worked for the FBI, through 2004, we were all forbidden under the strictest version of the Hatch Act, from active participation in all partisan political campaigns, except for voting. I had generally voted Republican, however, throughout my FBI career, as I thought they were the party of "law and order" up to and including for George Bush in 2000 (and also based on Bush's non-military intervention campaign stances). So after 9-11 and Bush's wrongful launching of the wars, I voted for Democratic candidates including for Kerry in 2004 and then Obama in 2008, as well as for other Democratic candidates for Congress. I ran (unsuccessfully) as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor endorsed candidate for U.S. Congress in my Minnesota district in 2006. After Obama was elected but disappointed by continuing to escalate and launch more wars, escalating drone assassination programs, etc., essentially doubling down on Bush-Cheney's militarism, I voted for Jill Stein of the Green Party in 2012.

You might want to also add this meaningful new ad for Bernie Sanders by military veteran, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard: (who resigned from the DNC because of their favoring Clinton). I very much agree with Gabbard's opposition to the costly post 9-11 "wars for regime change."

Got it. That is a powerful ad. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

CR: It will be an interesting election and I worry that unless more people realize their responsibility is not just to vote but to speak out and "make presidents do" what they promised, even after elections, we will be in for even worse times, and more dangerous times, if terrorism continues to rise and cold wars turn to hot wars, with nuclear-armed countries. If there is to be some solution, it's going to require pressure from a consensus of people, a tipping point, and not just allowing any "leader" to dictate policies, subject as they are to moneyed and powerful forces.

JB: Thanks so much for talking with me, Coleen. You've given me a lot to think about.

***

New website HillaryIsANeocon.com

Rowley's piece "Ten years after Iraq."

See WikiLeaks searchable archivesof Clinton's emails

Counterpunch article: American Exceptionalism and the Election Made in Hell (Or Why I'd Vote for Trump Over Hillary)

See also:
Neocon War Hawks Want Hillary Clinton Over Donald Trump. No Surprise -- They've Always Backed Her

Consider Clinton's Experience... at Lying, Spycraft, Corruption

Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.