Ray McGovern Says 'John Conyers Is No MLK' And Gets No Argument Here

In the whirlwind days of November and December 2004, with the taste of an obviously stolen presidential election fresh on many tongues, Congressman John Conyers looked like a Hero of Democracy, with his drive to find out What Went Wrong In Ohio, his support for the slowly emerging pro-democracy movement, and his seemingly determined quest to make impeachment happen.

Since the midterm election of 2006, followed quickly by his announcement that "impeachment is off the table", I have been trying to forget all that, and trying especially hard to forget how I temporarily turned my blog into a billboard for the John Conyers Dog and Pony Show.

Since then I haven't said much about him, and that's been mostly a matter of respect, I suppose. In other words, I couldn't debase myself far enough to say what I really think about someone who suddenly forgot everything he seemed to stand for, and betrayed everyone who stood behind him.

Ray McGovern, who was arrested in Conyers' office along with Cindy Sheehan and many others on Monday, has solved a similar problem by showing the congressman more respect than he deserves:

I’ll give this to President Bush. He makes no pretence when he disses. He would not meet with Sheehan to define for her the “noble cause” for which her son Casey died or tell her why he had said it was “worth it.”

[John] Conyers, on the other hand, was dripping with pretence as he met with [Cindy] Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood and me Monday in his office in the Rayburn building. I have seldom been so disappointed with someone I had previously held in high esteem. And before leaving, I told him so.

Throwing salt in our wounds, he had us, and some 50 others in his anteroom arrested and taken out of action as the Capitol Police “processed” us for the next six hours.

I still can't lower myself to say what I really think, but you can read more from Ray McGovern at Bob Parry's Consortium News.

Tom Toles: That's The Spirit!

As usual, when you see Toles here, it's an open thread.

This particular open thread features "How George Tenet Lied" by Ray McGovern, published at Bob Parry's Consortium News dot com:

Here in Washington we are pretty much inured to effrontery, but Tenet’s book and tiresome interviews have earned him the degree for chutzpah summa cum laude. We are supposed to feel sorry for this pathetic soul, who could not muster the integrity simply to tell the truth and stave off unspeakable carnage in Iraq.

Rather, when his masters lied to justify war, Tenet simply lacked the courage to tell his fellow citizens that America was about to launch what the post WWII Nuremberg Tribunal called the “supreme international crime”—a war of aggression.
...

Someone should have told the former CIA director that unprovoked war is not some sort of game. Out of respect for the tens of thousands killed and maimed in Iraq, it is time to start calling spades spades. It was a high crime, a premeditated felony to have taken part in this conspiracy.

There's lots more, and it's well worth reading. Hint, hint!

Veteran Intelligence Professionals Analyze The UK/Iran 'Crisis'

This message from former intelligence professionals Ray Close, Larry Johnson, David MacMichael, Ray McGovern (photo), and Coleen Rowley, was posted earlier today at Robert Parry's site, Consortium News dot Com. In view of its importance, I reproduce it here in full.

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Brinkmanship Unwise in Uncharted Waters

The frenzy in America’s corporate media over Iran’s detainment of 15 British Marines who may, or may not, have violated Iranian-claimed territorial waters is a flashback to the unrestrained support given the administration’s war-mongering against Iraq shortly before the attack.

The British are refusing to concede the possibility that its Marines may have crossed into ill-charted, Iranian-claimed waters and are ratcheting up the confrontation. At this point, the relative merits of the British and Iranian versions of what actually happened are greatly less important than how hotheads on each side -- and particularly the British -- decide to exploit the event in the coming days.

There is real danger that this incident, and the way it plays out, may turn out to be outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s last gesture of fealty to President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and “neo-conservative” advisers who, this time, are looking for a casus belli to “justify” air strikes on Iran.

Bush and Cheney no doubt find encouragement in the fact that the Democrats last week refused to include in the current House bill on Iraq war funding proposed language forbidding the White House from launching war on Iran without explicit congressional approval.

If the Senate omits similar language, or if the prohibition disappears in conference, chances increase for a “pre-emptive” US and/or Israeli strike on Iran and a major war that will make the one in Iraq seem like a minor skirmish. The impression, cultivated by the White House and our domesticated media, that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-majority states might favor a military strike on Iran is a myth.

But the implications go far beyond the Middle East. With the Russians and Chinese, the US has long since forfeited the ability, exploited with considerable agility in the 70s and 80s, to play one off against the other. In fact, US policies have helped drive the two giants together. They know well that it’s about oil and strategic positioning and will not stand idly by if Washington strikes Iran.

Lying Poodle

Intelligence analysts place great store in sources’ record for reliability and the historical record. We would be forced to classify Tony Blair as a known prevaricator who, for reasons still not entirely clear, has a five-year record of acting as man’s best friend for Bush. If the President needs a casus belli, Blair will probably fetch it.

Is there, then, any British statesman well versed in both the Middle East and maritime matters, who is worthy of trust? There is. Craig Murray is former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan (until he was cashiered for openly objecting to UK and US support for torture there) and also former head of the maritime section of the British Foreign Office, and has considerable experience negotiating disputes over borders extending into the sea.

In recent days, former ambassador Murray has performed true to character in courageously speaking out, taking public issue with the British government’s position on the incident at hand. He was quick to quote, for example, the judiciously balanced words of Commodore Nick Lambert, the Royal Navy commander of the operation on which the Marines were captured:

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they were in Iraqi territorial waters. Equally, the Iranians may well claim that they were in their territorial waters. The extent and definition of territorial waters in this part of the world is very complicated.”

Compare the commodore’s caution with the infallible certainty with which Blair has professed to be “utterly confident” that the Marines were in Iraqi waters, and you get an idea of what may be Blair’s ultimate purpose.

Writing in his widely read blog, Murray points to a “colossal problem” with respect to the map the British government has used to show coordinates of the incident and the Iran/Iraq maritime border—the story uncritically accepted by stenographers of the mainstream press. Murray writes:

“The Iran/Iraq maritime boundary shown on the British government map does not exist. It has been drawn up by the British Government. Only Iraq and Iran can agree on their bilateral boundary, and they have never done this in the Gulf, only inside the Shatt because there it is the land border too. This published boundary is a fake with no legal force...Anyway, the UK was plainly wrong to be ultra-provocative in disputed waters...

Here's the map. (Click the image to enlarge it.) Four positions are marked: the place where the British say the HMS Cornwall was, the place where they say the sailors were taken, the place where the Iranians originally claimed the event occurred and the place where they later said it happened. Go ahead and measure the distances. All four positions are closer to Iran than they are to Iraq. In the absence of an agreed-upon border, this fact weighs in favor of Iran's claims.

“They [the British Marines] would under international law have been allowed to enter Iranian territorial waters if in ’hot pursuit’ of terrorists, slavers, or pirates....But they were looking for smuggled vehicles attempting to evade car duty. What has the evasion of Iranian or Iraqi taxes got to do with the Royal Navy?”

Ambassador Murray has appealed to reason and cooler heads. To state what should be the obvious, he notes it is not legitimate for the British government to draw a boundary without agreement of the countries involved:

“A little more humility, and an acknowledgement that this is a boundary subject to dispute, might actually get our people home. The question is are we really aiming to get our people home, or to maximize propaganda from the incident?”

War Dreams

What is known at this point regarding the circumstances suggests Royal Navy misfeasance rather than deliberate provocation. The way the UK and US media has been stoked, however, suggests that both London and Washington may decide to represent the intransigence of Iranian hotheads as a casus belli for the long prepared air strikes on Iran.

And not to be ruled out is the possibility that we are dealing with a provocation ab initio. Intelligence analysts look to precedent, and what seems entirely relevant in this connection is the discussion between Bush and Blair on Jan. 31, 2003 six weeks before the attack on Iraq.

The “White House Memo” (like the famous “Downing Street Memo” leaked earlier to the British press) shows George Bush broaching to Blair various options to provoke war with Iraq. The British minutes -- the authenticity of which is not disputed by the British government -- of the Jan. 31, 2003 meeting stated the first option as:

“The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”

Not to mention the (in)famous Tonkin Gulf non-incident, used by President Lyndon Johnson to justify bombing North Vietnam.

The increasingly heavy investment of "face" in the UK Marine capture situation is unquestionably adding to the danger of an inadvertent outbreak of open hostilities. One side or the other is going to be forced to surrender some of its pride if a more deadly confrontation is going to be averted.

And there is no indication that the Bush administration is doing anything other than encouraging British recalcitrance.

Unless one’s basic intention is to provoke a hostile action to which the US and UK could “retaliate,” getting involved in a tit-for-tat contest with the Iranians is a foolish and reckless game, for it may not prove possible to avoid escalation and loss of control. And we seem to be well on our way there. If one calls Iran "evil,” arrests its diplomats, accuses it of promoting terrorism and unlawful capture, one can be certain that the Iranians will retaliate and raise the stakes in the process.

That is how the game of tit-for-tat is played in that part of the world. What British and American officials seem not to be taking into account is that the Iranians are the neighborhood toughs. In that neighborhood, they control the conditions under which the game will be played. They can change the rules freely any time they want; the UK cannot, and neither can Washington.

Provocative behavior, then, can be very dangerous, unless you mean to pick a fight you may well regret.

Someone should recount to Tony Blair and Ayatollah Khameini the maxim quoted by former United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix just last week:

"The noble art of losing face
Will someday save the human race."

By:

Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN

Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS)

Many thanks to VIPS and Robert Parry.

Webster G. Tarpley: What To Do Next

UPDATED: see below

[Webster G.] Tarpley is a patriot who speaks five languages and is out front on the truth tours, technical analysis and in bringing people into the light concerning the methods of the covert ops, e.g., patsies, moles, etc., as per JFK assassination ad nauseum.

Until we openly teach the power of the mind, and how tractable the average citizen is, we will be vulnerable to various forms of mind control, propaganda and simple advertising manipulation, not to mention personal prejudice. Immature people are generally control-freaks and don't understand liberty for what it really is...rather than the channeled form of "freedom" we now generally experience as the Matrix-type existence. If we don't have control of our minds and have allowed ourselves to be conditioned to be sophists, it's all over...

So pass this everywhere, and get people thinking in terms of effective action, as Tarpley does.

So writes prez_usa_exile, who quotes Webster G. Tarpley

The 9/11 truth movement contributed decisively to the defeat of the pro-Bush forces in the November 2006 election. Bush and Rove intended to terrorize the electorate with the 9/11 fear issue, as they had successfully done in 2002 and 2004, to create an atmosphere conducive to stealing yet another election with vote fraud, vote suppression, and other illegal dirty tricks. But this time, as even some leading Democrats noted, the spell had been broken, and the nightmare vision had lost its hypnotic power. Bush was exposed as the desperate little demagogue behind the curtain. This was the result of five years of agitation and political education carried out by the 9/11 truth movement on the internet, through regional, national, and local conferences, in books and other publications, in battles for academic freedom on campus, and on cable television especially during 2005-6.

The turning point of the election campaign was probably the four telecasts in July-August of the round table of the Alex Jones Los Angeles conference, taped in late June; these broadcasts reportedly garnered the highest ratings in the history of C-SPAN thanks in part to a campaign of call-ins to talk radio by 9/11 truth activists and deflated the racist, militarist, and fascist 9/11 myth in the eyes of a whole stratum of opinion leaders. The Hillary Clinton-Lieberman-Rahm Emmanuel wing of the Democratic Party, by contrast, did everything possible to re-enforce the 9/11 myth and lose the election, and has been attempting ever since to throw away the fruits of victory in the name of "bi-partisan" sellouts.

The United States is now in the throes of a party re-alignment on the model of 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932, and 1968. This past election, like 1930 and 1966, was the prelude to and harbinger of a great historical watershed. If the cause of 9/11 truth prevails, the re-alignment can be resolved in a positive direction for the United States and the world. If 9/11 truth is strangled, the re-alignment may well turn out to be a re-alignment into totalitarian fascism. If the Democratic Party attempts to continue the war of civilizations imposed using the 9/11 pretext, it is the Democratic Party which will be destroyed. The new Congress must repudiate the discredited 9/11 commission and re-open the 9/11 question, working to bring the September criminals in the US government to justice.

The Baker-Hamilton commission is an attempt by the US ruling class to continue the Iraq and Afghan wars with different rhetorical packaging, pushing the neocon fascist madmen into the background and attempting to recruit Syria for a US-sponsored Sunni alliance with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt to oppose the Shiite bloc of Iran, Hezbollah, and the Iraqi Shiites. Baker-Hamilton ignore the grave danger that the 150,000 US troops in landlocked Iran will have their supply lines cut by insurgents, leading to their encirclement, decimation, and rout. Bush's likely insistence on escalating the Iraq war into an endless bloodbath, while retaining the lunatic victory rhetoric of the neocons and preserving total US subservience to Israel, may well propel part of the ruling class to seek the impeachment of the current regime, or Bush's ouster under the XXV Amendment. Such conflict is the public expression of a contrast within the US-UK ruling class itself between an extremist pro-fascist financier faction identified with George Shultz, and the imperialist grouping represented by James Baker III. The hegemony of either of these groupings spells doom for the United States as the death agony of the US dollar unfolds over the coming months. All indications point to a looming catastrophic worldwide dollar panic as more and more countries refuse to accept the US currency in payment for oil, raw materials, and other exports. The US ruling class will try to save the dollar by means of a regime of genocidal austerity here on the home front. We demand instead that the finance oligarchs pay for the crisis by means of a securities transfer tax (Tobin tax), taxes on the $300 trillion in derivatives held by Wall Street, and other taxes on the parasitical top 2% who have been the beneficiaries of the predatory tax policies of the Bush regime.

Bush-Cheney will necessarily attempt to motivate their policy of endless war and wider war against the will of 80% of the electorate by obsessive and compulsive citation of the lessons of 9/11. In this way they will place 9/11 more than ever before at the center of political conflict. Our ability to further dismantle and discredit the 9/11 myth will be the key to defeating Bush-Cheney and their war regime. By sweeping the 9/11 myth into the garbage can of history, we will destroy Bush's last line of defense. In doing this, the 9/11 truth movement is the only force which can save the United States.

The Democratic rubber-stamping of al Qaeda founder and Iran-contra criminal Robert Gates as Pentagon boss shows that the Democratic Party is strongly inclined to capitulate to Bush. Despite the parliamentary cretinism of Speaker Pelosi, other forces are at work to radicalize the Democrats. Whatever legislation the Democratic Congress may pass is likely to be vetoed by Bush. The one important power the Congress can exercise is that of oversight hearings, using subpoenas to compel testimony and the disclosure of documents by such lawless officials as Gonzalez, Rice, etc. Cheney has already signaled that the administration will refuse to comply, citing the fascist theory of the "unitary executive." This will force the Congress, deprived of any other way of justifying their own existence, to resort to contempt of Congress citations, funding cutoffs (on the model of the Hatfield-McGovern amendment that ended the Vietnam war), and boycotts of Bush's nominees. The resulting constitutional crisis over checks and balances would then set the stage for the impeachment of top officials.

US-led coalitions are facing catastrophic defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the vaunted Israeli army has been mauled by Hezbollah during this past summer's war in southern Lebanon. These events symbolize the death knell of imperialism in the Middle East. Oblivious of this, the Shultz-Cheney faction continues to strive for a new 9/11, a new Gulf of Tonkin, of other provocations which would enable US nuclear attack on Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or other nations. Since these machinations would most likely be conducted under the cover of exercises and drills, we must maintain our vigilance, including by forcing the new Congress to address the issues of what 9/11 really was and how it could be repeated by the rogue networks in the CIA, Pentagon, etc. We must:

1. Impeach Bush-Cheney and top administrations officials (Gonzalez, Rice, etc.) for 9/11 crimes, starting with the overwhelming prima facie case for misprision of treason. (The Vermont Idea)

2. Deploy 9/11 Truth Squads into New Hampshire, Iowa, and other early primary/caucus states to confront candidates of all parties, challenging them to repudiate the racist, militarist, and fascist official myth of 9/11, re-open the investigations, and bring the actual perpetrators -- the 9/11 September criminals infesting the US government to justice. We reject the warmongers, totalitarians, globalizers, and state terrorists from all parties.

3. Aggressively lobby the new Congress to re-open 9/11, condemn the discredited Kean-Hamilton-Zelikow commission report, end the Iraq war at once, block the planned attacks on Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela, and ward off new acts of US-UK false flag state sponsored terrorism. We want the Patriot Act repealed, habeas corpus restored, and illegal NSA wiretaps shut down.

4. Prepare now to field slates of 9/11 truth candidates in the 2007 and 2008 elections, with a view to pushing the ongoing party re-alignment towards a positive anti-fascist outcome compatible with human progress.

5. Expand the effort of drill monitoring to deprive the ruling elite of the option of bootlegging new synthetic terror actions under the cover of military exercises and homeland security drills.

6. Call for more whistle blowers and deep throats to come forward with the truth of how 9/11 was a deliberate provocation run through the US military-security bureaucracy. We must identify, denounce, expose, and shut down suspect drills, educating world opinion about how drills are the matrix of state terrorism.

7. Prepare the ground for mass actions, including an open-ended general strike on the model of Spain in March 2004, to fight back against new state terrorist provocations, wider aggressive wars, and attempts to cancel elections or impose martial law.

8. In the context of the ongoing death agony of the US dollar, prepare urgent measures for emergency relief, job creation, re-industrialization, and economic recovery along the lines of the New Deal.

9. Work for the convocation during 2007 of an Independent International Truth Commission of eminent world figures to pass judgment of the US-UK official explanation of the 9/11 events and the neocon war of civilizations deriving from them.

10. The 9/11 truth movement, having largely transcended the artificial and obsolete left-right divide, will continue to work for the convergence of leftists, progressives, conservatives, greens, libertarians, and all persons of good will on the basis of a program of rejection war and dictatorship, and promoting economic recovery. This is a vital contribution to the ongoing party realignment and crisis of the political system.

The emphasis above is mine, and I wonder what you think about all (or any part of) this.

Please speak freely, as usual.

UPDATE: It's happening!!

From the Boston 9/11 Truth Blog:

Announcing an afternoon of TRUTH with Webster Tarpley

Jan 20th, 2006 11AM at the Friends Meeting House,
141 Central Avenue
Dover, NH

Webster Tarpley, noted author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, and George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, will lead the day's activities for 9/11 activists, the public and invited guests in an event to create "Truth Squads" which will present a challenging presence to the presidential candidates in New Hampshire.

In his presentation Webster will discuss the current political party realignment and whether this transition will take us towards a new progressive phase or a more fascist and draconian society. As well the political evidence of 9/11 crimes, the dollar collapse, the dangers of a new 9/11 and the impending collapse of US forces in Iraq will be addressed by Mr. Tarpley.

Additional speakers will be added to address the issues of Impeachment and ending the war in Iraq.

Contact:

Peggy Brewster: brewstout@adelphia.net (Seacoast 9-11 Questions)
Jason King: jason@boston911truth.org (Boston 9/11 Truth Committee)

More details to follow at:
http://boston911truth.org

Voice Mail: 617-401-8047
Web: http://boston911truth.org
Email: boston911truth@gmail.com

Anyone close enough to attend?? Have a go at it! You never know what you can do until you try!!