[UPDATED below]The train wreck occasioned by "The Kennebunkport Warning Hoax Controversy" continues to reverberate, and the wreckage still hasn't stopped crumbling.
But even amid the trembling ruins of what was supposed to be a Unified Anti-War and 9/11-Truth Movement, we can clearly see empty holes where supposedly key leaders once stood.
In an unexpected sense, this disaster presents us with a fantastic opportunity.
What is the Kennebunkport Warning? For those who haven't yet seen it, the text runs like this:Massive evidence has come to our attention which shows that the backers, controllers, and allies of Vice President Dick Cheney are determined to orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident, and/or a new Gulf of Tonkin war provocation over the coming weeks and months. Such events would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext for launching an aggressive war against Iran, quite possibly with nuclear weapons, and for imposing a regime of martial law here in the United States. We call on the House of Representatives to proceed immediately to the impeachment of Cheney, as an urgent measure for avoiding a wider and more catastrophic war. Once impeachment has begun, it will be easier for loyal and patriotic military officers to refuse illegal orders coming from the Cheney faction. We solemnly warn the people of the world that any terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction taking place inside the United States or elsewhere in the immediate future must be considered the prima facie responsibility of the Cheney faction. We urge responsible political leaders everywhere to begin at once to inoculate the public opinion of their countries against such a threatened false flag terror operation.
Leadership? What Leadership?
The controversy over who signed or didn't sign this document, physically or electronically or by verbal proxy, has dominated most of the discussion ever since four apparent signatories (Jamilla El-Shafei, Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi and Ann Wright) retracted their apparent support, claiming fraud but at the same time wishing the perpetrators of that alleged fraud well, in one of the most disingenuous and nonsensical denials ever written outside [?] the corridors of power (with my emphasis, here and elsewhere):Each of us were approached during the rally at the Kennebunkport event on August 25, 2007, to sign a statement calling for the immediate impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. Since then, the statement has been altered and posted on the internet, making it appear as if we have evidence that this administration will carry out a "false-flag terror operation."Are we really supposed to believe that they couldn't have signed the statement because they didn't have the evidence? Nobody who has ever signed anything can possibly believe that. You don't need evidence to sign a statement; a pen will do.
None of us have such evidence, and therefore, none of us signed a statement stating that we do.
We wish the authors of the document well in continuing much needed investigations of all aspects of 9/11.
Even more disturbing: Why is the anti-war movement in the hands of people who cannot write the words false-flag terror without enclosing them in quotes?
The answer to that question is clear: It isn't!! Maybe it used to be, but not anymore!!
Cindy Sheehan compounded the felony with this "explanation":
From: The Real Cindy SheehanMaybe I'm a bit simple but it looks to me as if she's admitting she didn't even read it. So how can she say the copy she signed was altered?
Date: Aug 29, 2007 8:03 PM
dear woz
i am not saying that infowars is not a good site
a lot of times it is...
whoever had me sign something the other day in
kennebunkport misrepresented it to me and my assistant.
i would never have signed that "warning" the way it was written.
thanks
cindy
Another serious question concerns Ann Wright. If we are to believe her here, she's disputing having signed the document in question but agreeing (implicitly) that the signature on the document posted on the net is hers. Click that picture and look at the third signature on the list. Does a former ambassador really print her name and a capsule biography whenever she signs a document? But she's apparently not disputing that it's her "signature" and only maintaining that it's the statement she signed which has been altered. Very, very strange.
The announcement "that's not the document we signed" was not the only disappointing part of the story. In my opinion this controversy has been handled poorly by almost everyone involved in it, and it has caused a huge loss of credibility for a large number of people -- people who were supposed to be leaders of a dissident "community" which to this point has been a horrifyingly ineffective. I may find myself elaborating on this statement in a future post, but before I do that I have to spend some time thinking about this:
Nobody should be demoralized or disoriented by the void of leadership which this matter has revealed; it is rather time to fill that void.
Massive Evidence? What Massive Evidence?
The first two words of the Kennebunkport Warning are crucial: "Massive evidence". In many places around the net, the same question has been raised: What "massive evidence"?Today -- ten days late -- in an addendum to a post at the famously reliable Rense dot com, Webster Tarpley finally discusses the "massive evidence" mentioned in the Kennebunkport Warning:
There is a daily barrage of articles outlining the US war plan for Iran, reporting on how Cheney is pressing for air strikes against the Quds force of the Iranian Pasdaran. The Daily Kos has a report from an officer on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf which confirms that attacks are imminent. We know from Philip Giraldi in The American Conservative two years ago that the Cheney doctrine calls for a new 9/11, followed by air strikes against Iran. We know from Zbigniew Brzezinski's testimony on Feb 1. before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that there is an active scenario for a terrorist act in the United States to be blamed on Iran. More recently, we have Chertoff's gut feeling that a terror attack is imminent. What is there is the analysis offered by the Kennebunkport Warning that its critics find so offensive? Do they not see the danger of the wider war with Iran? Do they not believe Cheney would use false flag terrorist to get what he wants? If they cannot grasp these problems, they are simply not qualified to be taken seriously leaders of the antiwar movement under the grim conditions we face today.As mentioned in a previous post, there's a much more detailed compilation of the "massive evidence" here (and a mirror of it here).
Here's a mirror of "Study: US preparing 'massive' military attack against Iran" (from Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane of Raw Story, original here).
And here's a mirror of Tarpley's article, "Cheney Determined to Strike in US with WMD this Summer".
Reality Check
And at 911Blogger dot com, Tarpley discusses all this and much much more, in a post reproduced here in full:The Kennebunkport Reality Check:Although I find Tarpley's writing a bit over-the-top at times, and although the Kennebunkport Warning infuriates me by claiming to have massive evidence without even offering a single link to support its claim (as if it were written in a world without hypertext), nonetheless the main points of the Warning are clear and irrefutable, in my opinion.
The Danger of World War III is the Much Neglected Heart of the Matter
Most of the comments concerning the Kennebunkport Warning have avoided the main issue. The central point has nothing to do with any signatures or absence thereof. The key issue is whether the world strategic picture given by the Kennebunkport Warning is accurate or not. If the statement is true, as we firmly assert that it is, then the other issues can be seen in proper perspective, meaning that they are dwarfed by the threat of a world catastrophe.
If Cheney really is pressing for a new false flag terror provocation, to be followed by a nuclear attack on Iran and martial law in the US, then that fact certainly ought to command the attention of all thinking people. To duck such an issue would be despicable. Nobody with the vaguest notion of what is happening in the world can doubt that Cheney is doing this – it is written in the newspapers, it is written in the graffiti on the walls. At this point it becomes our duty to mobilize to the limit of our capacity to ward off such an immense evil. All the other questions are trivial by comparison. And you cannot be an antiwar leader and be an agnostic about this, claiming you simply do not know or that you do not understand the concept of false flag. If you choose that cop-out, what kind of a peace leader are you?
The Fear Factor
Naturally, the world described by the Kennebunkport Warning is a terrifying world. But our chances of survival will be better if we are able to face reality, rather than retreat into a dream-world of opinions, perceptions, and recriminations. This applies especially to those who claim to be antiwar leaders.
Reality is that the signers signed – the irrefutable, photographic, courtroom quality documentary proof is posted on the internet. In the light of this overwhelming evidence, it is understandable that most of the signers are reluctant to issue a flat denial that they ever signed. Rather, their denials are oblique and ambiguous doubletalk.
Adults Are Responsible For What They Sign
On the question of signing: under US law, if you are 21 years old and can read and write, if you put your name to something you are bound by it. If you sign it, you must accept the consequences. Your signature is your bond – ask anyone who has signed an adjustable rate mortgage lately. The only way you can get out of this is to prove that you are mentally defective, and nobody has tried that, so far.
Most of us were told by our parents that we should never sign anything unless we had read it carefully and considered it from every possible point of view. That is a very good maxim. We must assume that capable political leaders dealing with the life and death questions of war, peace, and martial law will pay close attention to anything that they are asked to sign. And the signers are serious political leaders who know what they are doing, are they not? Such people know very well that they must take responsibility for their own signatures, don’t they? Surely they cannot be in the habit of signing things without reading them. Considerations of this type lead us to us to the most embarrassing doubts about their competence and seriousness.
It is also worth noting that verbal contracts are valid in almost all states, as long as they cover the main points at issue -- such as a commitment to sign a statement in token of political support. Anyone who recalls the Texaco-Pennzoil case, when the fate of about ten billion dollars was sealed by a verbal contract knows this. It would be foolhardy for people in politics and government to ignore such matters.
Anyone who has ever organized support for a statement knows how such a process works. You get a bunch of copies of the statement. You go to a gathering and hand out the copies. You buttonhole influential people and urge them to read the statement, evaluate it, and then sign it. Anyone who signs something under such circumstances knows that as mature adults they must take responsibility for their own signature. The organizer cannot subject the signers to hours of psychiatric depth analysis to determine their mental state, or to establish whether they have fully grasped each detail of the statement. There is no way to bring a notary along. They are professional politicians, are they not? One or two are or have been candidates for important federal offices. Surely in their official capacities they plan to read things before they sign them, since they are sure to be held responsible. Otherwise, they will be a laughingstock. They knew exactly what they were signing and, if they deny it, they are unfortunately lying. Anyone who talks of forgery or trickery in gathering these signatures is compounding that lying with slander.
The Kennebunkport Warning is a statement of about a dozen lines. Any normal person can read it and grasp the main points in less than a minute. Nobody can be rushed or stampeded into signing something like this, because it is so brief. It is not an appropriations bill of 1,000 pages.
We cannot avoid the delicate question of cointelpro, the domestic sabotage and wrecking activities of the intelligence agencies. A current news item relates that the FBI spied on Coretta Scott King after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The reason was that J. Edgar Hoover feared that Mrs. King might continue her late husband’s efforts to unite the anti-Vietnam War movement with the civil rights movement. The Kennebunkport Warning attempts to do something similar: its entire logic is to unite the peace, impeachment, and anti-globalization and other movements on a platform which would be independent of the Democratic and Republican Parties, which would no longer be crippled by a single-issue focus, and which would acquire the decisive power of 9/11 truth. The intelligence community of our time is well aware of the vast potential that would be unleashed by such a convergence. This is the eventuality they are intent on preventing. So nobody should be surprised to see counter-organizing in general, or to see the individual signers of such a statement quickly leaned on, squeezed, intimidated, threatened, or otherwise counter-organized. How could it be otherwise? Under Reagan’s Executive Order 12333, many of the functions of the Cold War intelligence community were privatized into fronts and especially into foundations. Many foundations must thus be considered as tentacles of the intelligence community. The role of foundations in funding the peace movement and some of its leading activists is an immense factor of impotence and corruption. One such leader has commented: “I can’t say anything about 9/11 – I might lose my funding!” Well, the Kennebunkport Warning does talk about 9/11, and that may be the rub.
Is Cheney Pressing For a Wider War Via False Flag Ops, Or Not?
This brings us back to the issue of whether the Kennebunkport Warning gives an accurate picture of today’s world. We maintain that it does, and that it is true independently of who signs it or does not sign it. Those who have never learned to take responsibility for their own signatures will now fall by the wayside. But those who remain committed to operating in the real world as it exists independent of signatures or non-signatures must now redouble their efforts of mobilization to stop the Cheney neocon faction. Nobody should be demoralized or disoriented by the void of leadership which this matter has revealed; it is rather time to fill that void. We call on all persons and organizations of good will everywhere in the world to support the Kennebunkport Warning. We appeal to them to endorse it, to post it, to sign it, to publish it, and to recruit new signers as fast as they possibly can.
www.actindependent.org
How could I possibly disagree? I've spent the last three years documenting the very things it talks about! 9/11 was an inside job. The GWOT is bogus. There's a mad drive for war with Iran. The federal government has been preparing for the eventuality of martial law. Another false flag attack here is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility -- the hints are everywhere! The neocon columnists are busy trying to convince us all that it would be a good thing, and Dick Cheney's fingerprints are to be found everywhere in this mad dash for world dominion.
What can we do about it?
Tarpley's right: It's time to fill the leadership void.We need credible spokesmen who can spell "false flag terror" without the quotes.
We need writers who know enough to provide links to their sources -- especially in a document intended for worldwide distribution.
We need thinkers who can deal with peace, impeachment, anti-globalization and other topics, who can function outside the false dichotomy of the the Democratic and Republican Parties and who can refute the fictions they endorse.
We need leaders who are not crippled by a single-issue focus, and who can promote the decisive power of 9/11 truth.
Is there anybody out there who meets this description? If so, let him step forward. At the very least he should start a blog, or something.
UPDATE:
A mere ten days after the Kennebunkport Warning was presented for signatures, and eight days after it hit the net, Webster Tarpley's compilation of Massive Evidence is suddenly available (as a DOC file) at Act Independent dot Org.
I suggest we all take the name of that website very seriously.
Talk about timely advice!