Top Stories of 2007...

...says me.

1] Venezuelan Dictatorship.
2] Fernando Lugo.
3] Spend on poverty, say US Catholic Bishops.
4] Poverty causes terrorism.
5] Creeping fascism.
6] US support for terrorism.
7] US Court frees internationally-wanted terrorist.
8] CIA warned White House that Iraq would go down the shitter if we invaded.
9] Al Gore: Media Ecologist, Nobel Prize Winner.
10] US funded Colombian death squads.
11] US liberates Afghan poppy fields.
12] Chavez is good for business: Business Week.
13] My book wins the Marshall McLuhan Award (hey -- it's MY daggone blog!).
14] Bad dictator/Good dictator (postmodern confusion).
15] Poverty causes terrorism.
16] American Medievalism.
17] American Postmodernism.
18] Iran is an immanent nuclear threat. Oh, wait...

Happy New Year!!!

No Surprise, Right Wing Lies : Documents Show Valerie Plame was Covert CIA Operative at the Time of White House Leak

The right-wing has been insisting that Valerie Plame was not a covert operative since someone in the White House leaked her name to Robert Novak almost four years ago. Of course, to knowingly identify a covert CIA operative would be a felony under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, passed as a result of the assassination of CIA operative Richard Welch in Athens in 1975, who himself had been outed by Counterspy, a renegade magazine that called for the "neutralization" of spies by taking away their cloak of secrecy. So, of course, the last thing the right-wing in the US would want to admit is that Plame was, in fact, covert.

Guess what? Valerie Plame was, in fact, covert. A covert CIA operative. At the time of the leak. Translation: someone in the White House committed a felony. To read the three-page document for yourself, see it here, at Salon's "Primary Sources."

In Federal Court on Tuesday, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald filed a summary of declassified CIA information that proves that Plame was an active spy, and not, as many on the right have disparagingly remarked, a mere "desk jockey." So, all the defensive posturing, the name-calling, and the disparaging was another example of (surprise!!!) the right-wing LYING TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!

Who'd have thought it???

Senate Report : CIA Told White House Before US Invasion That Iraq War Would Go Bad, Create a Haven for Al Qa'ida, and Embolden Iran

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

According to a report released Friday (that hole-in-the-newscycle when no one is paying any attention) by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the CIA warned the White House as early as January 2003 that a US invasion would ignite sectarian violence, give al Qa'ida an opportunity to gain a foothold in Iraq, and embolden Iran to assert its influence further in the middle east.

Are you listening, Howie?

So let me get this straight: the White House knew beforehand, according to the Pentagon, that there was no evidence of WMDs, no evidence that al Qa'ida was operating in Iraq, and that there was no evidence of Iraqi complicity in 9/11; we also knew that an invasion would break Iraq into pieces, spread terrorism, and widen Iran's influence. Do I have that correctly?

So I have two questions:

1] What are we doing there?
2] When are we going to have the courage to IMPEACH BUSH???

Venezuela : Extradite Terrorist Posada to the OAS

An update on the "New Axis of Evil"^TM

Well, as you are probably aware, a Federal Court released terror mastermind Luis Posada Carilles on bail this month pending his trial on illegally entering the country. I'm sure you've been following the story closely in the mainstream media, right? Astounding.

President Bush in a speech to the United Nations some months after the US invasion of Iraq (9/23/03), reminded nations of their responsibilities in bringing terrorists to justice. To shirk those responsibilities in a post-9/11 world, he said, was tantamount to aiding and abetting terrorism.

All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.

Well, Venezuela says they are serious about those obligations, and since the US won't extradite Posada to either Venezuela or Cuba (ironically because the Bush adminitrsation says the 79 year old may be tortured), then extradite him to the Organization of Amercan States, all of whom have made committments to cooperate with the United States to fight terror.

Fulfillment of the commitments made by the states concerning anti-terrorist efforts, including trial or, as appropriate, extradition of the masterminds of terrorist acts, is an ethical duty and a golden rule in hemispheric cooperation.

Unfortunately, Bush can ignore this suggestion and there will be no public outcry, because the "liberal" media are doing their best to ignore this entire story. But whenever he holds up a picture of some other terror mastermind, the "left-wing" media will be all over it.

Do justice a favor: write a letter to the editor of your local paper and urge them to follow this story and to report on it regularly. Don't let America remain IN THE DARK.

US Wants to Bar Posada Testifying About CIA Resume in His Upcoming Trial

An Update on "America's Terrorist"^TM

The US Government doesn't want the upcoming trial of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to draw a lot of attention to the fact that he worked for many years for the CIA.

In a nine-page motion filed with a federal tribunal in El Paso, Texas, state prosecutors claimed Posada Carriles's relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency ended more than 30 years ago and that as testimony or questioning about those ties were not relevant to his trial on immigration charges.

Not relevant? Not relevant? Recently declassified CIA documents (viewable here and here) show that the man planned the mid-air bombing of an airliner, killing 76 people, many of them students. How in the world is this not relevant to his trial on immigration charges? And why is he charged only with illegal entry into the United States?

And his tenure as either a CIA operative or associate did not necessarily end in 1976. Even though he was employed as a CIA agent in 1965, he was trained in 1961 (at the School of the Americas) in sabotage and explosives and took part in the CIA-planned and sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. While still a CIA agent, Posada bacame the Chief of Operations of the Venezuelan Intelligences Services. The CIA believed at this time that Posada was trafficking in cocaine, but he remained on the payroll until 1976.

Imprisoned in Venezuela in 1977 for the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455, Posada escaped to Chile, where he was again jailed. With help from the Reagan administration-funded -- and ultra right-wing -- Cuban American National Foundation, Posada again escaped and settled in El Salvador. Here he worked on regional programs during the 1980s sponsored by the Reagan administration, including selling arms to Iran in exchange for US hostages, the money going to fund (illegally) the Contra war in Nicaragua.

In 1997, Posada was implicated in a number of bombings of tourist hotels in Havana, and indicated that even though he no longer worked directly for the CIA, benefitted from a "tolerant attitude" on the part of US law enforcement.

Why are we fighting a so-called "war on terror" but refusing to extradite a man who we know to be a terrorist? Why are we rushing to deport immigrants who do essential work in the United States, but refusing to extradite that same man who we know to be a terrorist?

On September 23, 2003, President George W. Bush addressed the UN General Assembly and spoke about the so-called "war on terror." Among other things, he said:

“All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization.” – President Bush's UN speech, 9/23/03

In training people sabotage and explosice techniques, we are supporting terror. In supporting right-wing death squads, or supporting governments that support right-wing death squads, we are supporting terror. In selling arms to Iran in order to illegally fund a revolutionary army, we are supporting terror. In allowing Luis Posada Carriles to walk the streets free, we are supporting terror. In trying him for illegal entry into the United States, we are supporting terror. In refusing to extradite him to Venezuela to stand trial for variouos crimes he committed there, we are supporting terror.

The Bush administration's so-called "war on terror" is a sham.

IMPEACH!!!

France Told CIA in January 2000 About Al Qa'ida Plans to Hijack Airliners

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

French newspaper Le Monde adds more fuel to the fire by publishing a story saying that they warned the CIA about al Qa'ida intentions to hijack airplanes nine months before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The newspaper says it has obtained 328 pages of classified documents that show foreign agents infiltrated al-Qaeda's network.

It produced nine reports between September 2000 and August 2001, including the January 2001 document called 'Plan to hijack an aircraft by Islamic radicals'.

That's reminiscent of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Good Lord, how many dots do you have to draw in a straight line before it occurs to George W. Bush's administration to connect them???

Le Monde said the January 2001 report was handed over to a CIA operative in Paris, but that no mention of it was made in the official US September 11 Commission which produced its findings in July 2004.

Why was that? Don't we deserve an explanation?

Le Monde said the documents also show the French believed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was still receiving help from family members and senior officials in Saudi Arabia in advance of the 11 September attacks.

Yes. Like Pakistan's dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Saudis are our allies.

God help us.

Victims Protest Terrorist's Release by US Judge

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

The relatives of 72 people killed by the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner grieved for their loved ones on Wednesday and protested the planned release of the planner of the attack, Luis Posada Carilles, by a US court. Posada, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative who participated in both the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the illegal supply of arms to the Contra army under the Reagan administration, will be free on $250,000 bond soon, thanks to US District Judge Kathleen Cardone.

"I'm outraged,'' said Iliana Alfonso, whose father was among those killed on the Cubana de Aviacion flight that exploded off Barbados. "In the United States, they are talking about good terrorism and bad terrorism. To me, all terrorism is bad.''

Welcome to the United States of America as envisioned by George W. Bush and the Project for a New American Century. The point Ms. Alfonse is missing is that the US is inherently good, and any act undertaken in our interest is inherently good. So, yes, we can point to bad terrorists and we can celebrate our own good terrorists. Or so the logic goes...

Still, Ms. Alfonso stubbornly insists on making moral judgments:

It is not ethical to unleash wars against terrorism, provoking the deaths of thousands of citizens in distant parts of the world while sheltering in its own territory terrorists who are self-confessed and still active.

Again, ethics has nothing to do with it. We are, by definition, right, so anything we do is right. That is the value system we're working within in the neo-con mindset. Oh, and Democracy? The idea of government being responsive to "will of the people?"Don't hold your breath. And laws?

The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry on Wednesday also slammed the U.S. court decision, accusing the United States of protecting a "terrorist.''

And they're right. We are harboring a terrorist, much to our shame (well, I'm ashamed we're harboring a terrorist, but I don't know if you are. But you ought to be). George W. Bush has brought shame and disgrace on the United States of America.

HE SHOULD BE IMPEACHED.

ABC : US Sponsors Terror Group in Pakistan

An Update on the "So-called War on Terror"^TM

According to a report from ABC News, the US is aiding, advising, and -- through a network of Iranian exiles throughout Europe and the Gulf states -- funding a group that is crossing the border into Iran and kidnapping and executing Iranians.

The Jundullah is led by Abd el Malik Regi who has maintained close ties with the CIA since 2005. ABC News terrorism consultant and senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Centre Alexis Debat describes Regi:

He is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera. He used to fight with the Taliban. He’s part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist.

This is the latest in a number of suspicious circumstances involving our "new best friend," Pakistan, led by despotic tyrant and dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Those circumstances center on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, the CIA, Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban, once allies in the jihad against Soviet occuption of Afghanistan, all living quite comfortably now in Pakistan.

The situation mirrors the circumstances of Latin America in the 1980s. Proxy wars against left wing governments and guerilla armies were funded through back-channels contacts (Saudi Arabia for one) and drug smuggling (via our friends in Colombia). The same thing seems to be happening today, with the CIA using its back-channel contacts, and the likelihood of profits from the sale and processing of Afghanistan's record opium-poppy harvests going to groups like the Jundullah.

Winning the hearts and minds of the east to "freedom and democracy?" It doesn't seem so. The word on the Afghan street is "We want the Taliban back."

Al Qa'ida Thrives in Musharraf's Pakistan

For as long as I've been posting on this blog, I've been saying that the war in Iraq is taking away from the actual war on terror. Lately, the mainstream media have been forced to ackowledge the obvious. At the same time, this unnecessary invasion and occupation -- so pitifully led by the Bush administration -- has given al Qa'ida its first foothold in Iraq. The CIA said this as early as January 2005 (see also here, here, here, and here). Now, the MSM again are scratching their heads as the resurgence of al Qa'ida continues in Pakistan, five years after we "beat" the Taliban and declared "victory" in Afghanistan.

The new leaders rose from within the organization after the death or capture of the operatives that built Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. This has led to surprise and dismay within U.S. intelligence agencies about the group's ability to rebound from an American-led offensive.

Perhaps if we had maintained that offensive pressure -- and exerted some pressure on the likes of Pakistan's dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf -- instead of bailing out to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq, we wouldn't be feeling all this "surprise" and "dismay."

The evidence officials said was accumulating about (ascending terrorist leader Abu Ubaidah al-)Masri and a handful of other Al Qaeda figures has led to a reassessment within the U.S. intelligence community about the strength of the group's core in Pakistan's tribal areas, and its role in some of the most significant terrorism plots of the last two years, including the airline plot and the suicide attacks in London in July 2005 that killed 56 people.

So al Qa'ida has survived the "American-led offensive" (which included the "fumbled" opportunity at Tora Bora) in Afghanistan, they have a safe haven in Pakistan, and --SURPRISE!!! -- they have gained a foothold in Iraq.

Experts say they still see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of Al Qaeda's hub in Pakistan but that they believe the fighting in Iraq will produce future al Qaeda leaders. "The jihadis returning from Iraq are far more capable than the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets ever were," said Robert Richer, who was associate director of operations in 2004 and 2005 for the CIA. "They have been fighting the best military in the world, with the best technology and tactics."

"To say that Al Qaeda was out of business simply because they have not attacked in the U.S. is whistling past the graveyard," said Michael Scheuer, a former head of the bin Laden tracking unit at the CIA. "Al Qaeda is still humming along, and with a new
generation of leaders."

Yes. Thanks to George W. Bush and his friends, like Pakistan dictator Pervez Musharraf.

Chavez : Negroponte a "Professional Killer"

An update on the "New Axis of Evil"^TM

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he believes enemies including the CIA are out to kill him, and called U.S. diplomat John Negroponte a "professional killer.''

The CIA does have a history of coups and assassinations in Latin America (1954 Guatemala coup against Jacobo Arbenz, 1961 coup against J. M. Velasco Ibarra of Ecuador, a 1963 coup against Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic, the 1973 coup against -- and assassination of -- Salvador Allende in Chile, the 1983 CIA establishment of the "Contra army" in Nicaragua, as well as the entire history of death squads emerging from the School of the Americas). John Negroponte as a "professional killer" is certainly hyperbole, and it is doubtful that the Assistant Secretary of State ever killed anyone himself. However, as US Ambassador to Honduras (1981-85), Negroponte oversaw the establishment of death squads in Honduras and El Salvador as well as the US-supported "Contra war' against Nicaragua's Sandinista government.

Chavez said Venezuelan officials have intelligence that associates of jailed Cuban anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles also are involved in plotting to assassinate him.

He said the death plot idea has "gained weight'' due to various factors, including the recent appointment of Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence, as deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Here and here is the entire FOIA file on Luis Posada Carriles from the National Security Archives at George Washington University. Here is the file on John Negroponte. Read them and decide for yourself if Chavez is being paranoid.

"Who did they swear in...there at the White House as deputy secretary of state? A professional killer: John Negroponte,'' Chavez said.

Chavez did not elaborate, but his government has previously accused Negroponte of playing a key role in the Contra war against the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua when he served as ambassador to Honduras - a haven for clandestine Contra bases - from 1981 to 1985.

U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but they have denied Chavez's repeated accusations that they are plotting to oust him.

Of course they have. What else would they say? Logic -- and ethics -- demands we acknowledge the fact that none of this proves anything. Chavez may be lying, he may be crazy, he may be manipulating the media. Or he may be telling the truth. My point is that our history in Latin America suggests that he is not, at the very least, crazy.

Chavez was asked about reports of assassination plots during a televised interview.
"'They have assigned special units of the CIA, true assassins, who go around not only here in Venezuela, in Central America, in South America,'' Chavez said, without elaborating.

He added that while Posada Carriles, a former CIA operative, remains jailed in the U.S. on immigration charges, "Posada Carriles' people are very active in Central America and searching for contacts in Venezuela ... They are going around searching for explosives in large quantities, thinking about a sort of car bombing or searching for ground-to-air missiles, thinking about the presidential plane.''

Chavez did not give details. His government has demanded that the U.S. extradite Posada Carriles, a naturalized Venezuelan, to stand trial for allegedly masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles denies involvement in that incident.

Posada's involvement is documented in recently declassified CIA papers. Posada's FOIA files can be seen here and here, and the actual declassified CIA memo that refers to his involvement in the bombing can be seen here.

The CIA documents also show that Posada worked with another terrorist, former CIA operative Orlando Bosch. Bosch was pardoned by the first President Bush in 1990.

This, my friends, is our "war between good and evil."