A Radical Blackfoot

Capitalism: A System Run By and For Psychopaths

2007-02-25T23:08:00.000-08:00

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The Compensated Psychopath**

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The famed Swiss psychiatrist Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, Jungian author of The Emptied Soul, believes that many psychopaths (a.k.a. sociopaths) who walk among us are often those who hold upstanding positions in society. Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig calls them "compensated" psychopaths. Unfortunately, psychopathy showing up in places other than a prison or mental hospital is an extremely serious and all too common social problem, partly because just one compensated psychopath can so adversely affect the lives of so many unsuspecting, trusting people.

These psychopaths can be economically and emotionally (if not physically) "socially dangerous" — capable of unbelievably appalling acts. In 1941 Dr. Hervey Cleckley discussed the "partial psychopath" when he talked about "incomplete manifestations or suggestions of the disorder" in psychiatrists, physicians, businessmen, etc. "Compensated" psychopaths were described as the subclinical psychopath or subcriminal psychopath by the famous Dr. Robert Hare. These doctors are all talking about the same problem — psychopathy. Pure psychopaths really do exist, but even so, they are very, very rare. It is the vastly more common so-called compensated, or partial, psychopaths (Adolph Hitler is an extreme example; see link 3, below) who are the far more insidious, and pervasive, social problem.

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Hervey Cleckley (best known for co-authorship of The Three Faces of Eve), a pioneer in the field who provided the first coherent, thorough description of what he called the "psychopath" (and the "partial" psychopath), wrote:

Although they occasionally appear on casual inspection as successful members of the community, as able lawyers, executives, or physicians . . . . [t]he true difference between them and the psychopaths who continually go to jails or to psychiatric hospitals is that they keep up a far better and more consistent outward appearance of being normal.

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"Partial" Psychopaths

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Regardless of whether they are characterized as compensated psychopaths, partial psychopaths, subclinical psychopaths or subcriminal psychopaths, these psychopaths cause others to suffer immeasurably from their own psychopathy, and conveniently for them they do it without a trace of their always nonexistent conscience. Dr. Robert D. Hare, the world's foremost expert on the psychopath, has described psychopathy as “a socially devastating disorder defined by a constellation of affective, interpersonal, and behavioral characteristics."

Particularly characteristic of the psychopath are shallow emotions, the utter absence of empathy, guilt, or remorse, glibness/superficial charm, manipulativeness, inconsistency, deceitfulness/lying and a grandiose sense of self-worth.

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Lacking any genuine remorse, psychopaths also lack the motivation to change. It's generally thought that not only do psychopaths not get better with treatment, they actually get worse because they learn how to better manipulate the system, as well as the clinicians who try to treat them. According to Robert Hare, "Administrators actually took it to mean that not only are they not treatable, but if they're going to be worse, let's do everybody the service of not treating them." Dr. Hare believes in developing a good treatment plan; there just isn't one yet.

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The term Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) was originally meant to replace the charged (and not clearly distinguishable) terms psychopath and sociopath to describe psychopathy, but Dr. Hare argues convincingly that ASPD and psychopathy are in reality, by their actual definitions, describing different disorders. The incidence of ASPD has been estimated at 3% in males and 1% in females, while the rate of psychopathy is about 20% to 50% of the rate of ASPD. With 300 million people, the United States therefore has a range of roughly 1.2 to 3 million psychopaths within it's borders in 2006, and because there are fewer than 100 (clearly dangerous) serial killers, this suggests that about 1.2 to 3 million other socially dangerous psychopaths, existing on a continuum of varying degrees of severity, are wreaking their havoc in countless other devastating and socially dangerous ways.

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The Psychopaths Are Winning

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Psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, in his seminal work The Mask of Sanity (1941), which first put together the characteristics of psychopaths, noted that psychopaths are "apparently sane, often dynamic . . . almost always seductive . . . impress others with their sincere motives and positive intentions and wind up causing great institutional and personal harm. With an unexplainable capacity to engender trust, even in experienced and cynical observers, these people create chaos . . . The single most powerful diagnostic test was his own willingness to cash their checks . . . Charm, a quick sensitivity to the unspoken needs of others, and a certain flexibility with the truth are woven into a personal charisma that entrances."

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As psychiatrist A. J. Mandell noted, "Cleckley speaks of the psychopath's immunity from anxiety, extraordinary poise, sense of well-being, and remorselessness."

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Psychologist Robert Hare, in his classic book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (1993), states:

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Psychopaths are social predators who charm, manipulate, and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations, and empty wallets. Completely lacking in conscience and in feelings for others, they selfishly take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without the slightest sense of guilt or regret. Their bewildered victims desperately ask, "How can we protect ourselves?"

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Dr. Hare notes that the psychopath "can use words any way he wants. If you catch him lying, he'll just shift gears and go on as though nothing had happened."

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To explain why people are so easily taken in by these superficially charming and socially adept, but socially dangerous, psychopaths, in Without Conscience Robert Hare quotes from William March's The Bad Seed (1954):

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Good people are rarely suspicious: they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing; usually they accept the undramatic solution as the correct one, and let matters rest there. Then too, the normal are inclined to visualize the [psychopath] as one who's as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could well get . . . These monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters; they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself - just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be, than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled.

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Robert Hare recently said, "The majority of people and therefore workplaces are easy prey, because we still want to believe that people are inherently good. We don't really want to believe that such people exist." So it is that Dr. Hare, the world's best-known expert on the psychopath, concludes that the ultimate problem is — "Us!"

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By contrast, writer Henry Lloyd-Roberts concluded by re-framing the issue from the opposite perspective in "How to Spot the Office Psychopath":

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. . . These ‘qualities’ are fundamental in helping them [psychopaths] climb the corporate ladder:
They can be manipulative, arrogant, callous, impatient, impulsive, unreliable, superficially charming and susceptible to flying into rages. Further redeeming features include a fondness for breaking promises and blaming colleagues when things go wrong. It is their single-minded focus, however, that helps them to achieve their corporate goals.

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According to Professor Hare, who led the research:

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“Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them. The most important thing is to be aware you are working with a psychopath. Then you are in better position to deal with them.”

The fundamental characteristic of all psychopaths is having no conscience and consequently lacking any empathy with their fellow man. Small wonder then that they seem to particularly thrive in industries where a little ruthlessness goes a long way, namely business, law, politics and the media.

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A Garrison Keillor-type might call such people well-compensated psychopaths, but like I said, they're winning!

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Intro To Psychopathy: Links

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Click the links below to learn more about compensated (partial) psychopaths & psychopathy generally:

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1. The New York Times > Magazine > Psychopathic C.E.O.'s (registration is free)
2. The Psychopathic or Sociopathic Personality
3.**The Compensated Psychopath - from The Emptied Soul - Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig
4. Incomplete Manifestations or Suggestions of the Disorder - Hervey Cleckley
5. Discussion with Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig and James Hillman
6. The Emptied Soul - Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig - excerpts
7. Quotes about Psychopathy
8. Without Conscience - Robert Hare — book review by Muriel Fraser
9. Psychology Today: Predators - from Without Conscience - Robert Hare, Ph.D.
10. Snakes in Suits - Robert Hare and Paul Babiak — pre-publication lecture review
11. All about Dr. Robert Hare - Expert on the Psychopath - What is a Psychopath?
12. The Mask of Sanity - Hervey Cleckley, M.D. - excerpts
13. Discussion of Psychopathy Traits - The Mask of Sanity - Hervey Cleckley
14. The Psychopath - Special Report on Psychopathy
15. Official Culture in America: A Natural State of Psychopathy?-L. Knight-Jadczyk
Related Psychopathy Links . . .

Site Map - You Are Here
Internetidiot.net: Socially Dangerous Compensated Psychopath Guide
Socially Dangerous Partial Psychopaths: The Compensated Psychopath
Compensated, Partial, Subcriminal, and Subclinical Psychopathy Links
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1980 "OCTOBER SURPRISE"

2007-01-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

The Consortium
The Russian Report

On Jan. 11, 1993, Russia 's Supreme Soviet sent a secret cable to the U.S. Congress. The cable claimed that Russian national security files held evidence that two U.S. Presidents and two CIA directors had committed an act of treachery with Iran 's radical Islamic government in 1980.
Despite its explosive potential, the document was kept from the American people. It was buried in a pile of cardboard boxes, left behind with a host of other unclassified and secret papers in an obscure storage room on Capitol Hill: a real-life "X-Files."

October Surprise X-Files (Part 1): Russia 's Report By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- On Jan. 11, 1993, the nation's capital was readying itself for the Inauguration of President Bill Clinton, the first Democrat to sit in the Oval Office in a dozen years. Temporary grandstands were going up along Pennsylvania Avenue . The city brimmed with a celebratory air that fills the capital whenever a grand event like an Inauguration takes place. But in an obscure set of offices near the U.S. Capitol, a congressional task force was coping with another problem, one that had seeped out over those same twelve years to stain the Republican victory that had last changed party power at the White House, in 1980.

The House task force was concluding a year-long investigation into claims that Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign had interfered with President Carter's negotiations to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran . A mixed bag of Iranian officials, foreign intelligence agents and international arms dealers had alleged a Republican deal behind Carter's back. But the task force had decided there was "no credible evidence" to support allegations that the Reagan campaign had blocked Carter's possible "October Surprise" of an election-eve hostage return.

Carter's failure to free those hostages over 444 days had sealed his political doom and boosted Reagan from a neck-and-neck race to a resounding electoral victory. The hostages' release, as Reagan was completing his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, opened a floodgate of patriotic fervor that reshaped the political landscape and made Reagan a hero.

The possibility that this pivotal moment in modern American history had resulted from a nearly treasonous dirty trick had drawn understandably angry denials from Reagan-Bush loyalists -- and even from Democrats who feared that the public would lose faith in politics if the charges proved true.

So, with a collective sigh of relief, the House task force debunked the charges by adopting an elaborate set of alibis for the key players, particularly the late CIA director William J. Casey, who had run Reagan's campaign. One of the Casey alibi dates was nailed down, according to the task force, because a Republican operative had written Casey's home phone number on a piece of paper that day, although the operative admitted that he had no recollection of reaching Casey at home.

Nevertheless, with a host of such dubious alibis, the 968-page report was shipped off to the printers, with a public release set for Jan. 13, 1993. Washington journalists, already briefed on the task force findings, were preparing to praise the report as "exhaustive" and "bipartisan."
But two days before the news conference, a cable arrived from Moscow . It was a response to a query dated Oct. 21, 1992, that Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who headed the House task force, had sent to Sergey Vadimovich Stepashin, then chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Committee on Defense and Security Issues. Hamilton asked Stepashin -- whose job was roughly equal to chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- what information the Russian government had about the so-called "October Surprise" charges.

The Supreme Soviet's response was delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow by Nikolay Kuznetsov, secretary of the subcommittee on state security. Kuznetsov apologized for the "lengthy preparation of the response." It was quickly translated by the U.S. embassy and forwarded to Hamilton .

Carter vs. Reagan

To the shock of the task force, the six-page Russian report stated, as fact, that Casey, George Bush and other Republicans had met secretly with Iranian officials in Europe during the 1980 presidential campaign. The Russians depicted the hostage negotiations that year as a two-way competition between the Carter White House and the Reagan campaign to outbid one another for Iran 's cooperation on the hostages. The Russians asserted that the Reagan team had disrupted Carter's hostage negotiations after all, the exact opposite of the task force conclusion.
As described by the Russians, the Carter administration offered the Iranians supplies of arms and unfreezing of assets for a pre-election release of the hostages. One important meeting had occurred in Athens in July 1980 with Pentagon representatives agreeing "in principle" to deliver "a significant quantity of spare parts for F-4 and F-5 aircraft and also M-60 tanks ... via Turkey ," according to the Russian report. The Iranians "discussed a possible step-by-step normalization of Iranian-American relations [and] the provision of support for President Carter in the election campaign via the release of American hostages."

But the Republicans were making separate overtures to the Iranians, also in Europe , the Russians claimed. "William Casey, in 1980, met three times with representatives of the Iranian leadership," the Russians wrote. "The meetings took place in Madrid and Paris ."

At the Paris meeting in October 1980, "R[obert] Gates, at that time a staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy Carter and former CIA director George Bush also took part," the Russians said. "In Madrid and Paris , the representatives of Ronald Reagan and the Iranian leadership discussed the question of possibly delaying the release of 52 hostages from the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran."

Both the Reagan Republicans and Carter Democrats "started from the proposition that Imam [Ruhollah] Khomeini, having announced a policy of 'neither the West nor the East,' and cursing the 'American devil,' imperialism and Zionism, was forced to acquire American weapons, spares and military supplies by any and all possible means," the Russians wrote. According to the report, the Republicans won the bidding war.

"After the victory of R. Reagan in the election, in early 1981, a secret agreement was reached in London in accord with which Iran released the American hostages, and the U.S. continued to supply arms, spares and military supplies for the Iranian army," the report continued. The deliveries were carried out by Israel , often through private arms dealers, the Russians said. Spares for F-14 fighters and other military equipment went to Iran from Israel in March-April 1981 and the arms pipeline kept flowing into the mid-1980s.

"Through the Israeli conduit, Iran in 1983 bought surface-to-surface missiles of the 'Lance' class plus artillery of a total value of $135 million," the report said. "In July 1983, a group of specialists from the firm, Lockheed, went to Iran on English passports to repair the navigation systems and other electronic components on American-produced planes." Then, in 1985, the weapons tap opened wider, into the Iran-contra shipments.

The Russian 'Bomb'

The matter-of-fact Russian report was stunning. It also matched other information the task force had. The Israelis, for example, had shipped U.S. military spares to Iran in the early 1980s, with the acquiescence of senior Reagan administration officials. But the Russians weren't clear about where their information came from or how reliable it was.

After receiving the Russian report in January 1993, a U.S. Embassy political officer went back to the Russians seeking more details. But the Russians would state only that the data came from the Committee on Defense and Security Issues. The embassy political officer then speculated that Moscow 's report might have been "based largely on material that has previously appeared in the Western media."

But apparently, there was no serious follow-up -- even though Moscow , the communist enemy in the 1980s, claimed to possess incriminating evidence about two CIA directors (Casey and Gates) and two U.S. Presidents (Reagan and Bush). Though the Russian claims about Carter's negotiations with Iran might cause embarrassment, Carter, as President, possessed the constitutional authority to negotiate with a foreign power. The Republicans did not.

Task force investigators felt the Russian report could be safely dismissed because one section took seriously the allegations of former Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe, an Iranian-born Jew. Ben-Menashe had testified to Congress that, as an Israeli intelligence officer, he participated in Paris meetings between senior Iranians and Republican emissaries in October 1980. Ben-Menashe had placed Casey, Bush and Gates at those meetings as well.

But Bush, who was Reagan's vice presidential running mate in 1980 and President during the task force investigation, denied being in Paris. So did Gates, who was Casey's deputy director at CIA and Bush's CIA director. (Casey died in 1987 before the October Surprise issue surfaced.)
When Ben-Menashe went public in the early 1990s, the Israeli government first called him an imposter and claimed he had never worked for Israeli intelligence. But confronted with documents proving Ben-Menashe's employment, Israeli officials reversed themselves and admitted that Ben-Menashe had worked for Israeli military intelligence from 1977-87. Nevertheless, they continued to attack his truthfulness. The House task force also rejected Ben-Menashe as lacking credibility. For his part, Ben-Menashe, now living in Canada , still insists that he was telling the truth.

After finding the Russian report in a remote storage room on Capitol Hill, I contacted one well-placed official in Europe who checked with the Russian government. "This was real information based on their own sources and methods," the official told me. As for the possibility that the report was blowback from the U.S. media, the official insisted that the Russians "would not send something like this to the U.S. Congress at that time, if it was bullshit."

Instead, the Russians considered their report "a bomb" and "couldn't believe it was ignored," the official said. Not only did the House task force keep the extraordinary Russian report secret, it ended up in a cardboard box among hundreds of documents, some unclassified and others "secret." The document boxes were piled, ingloriously, on the floor of a former Ladies' Room which had been converted into storage space, deep inside a parking garage of the Rayburn House Office Building .

The Ladies' Room Secrets

Stored away in a converted Ladies' Room on Capitol Hill, dusty boxes contained startling evidence of Republican dirty tricks in the 1980 presidential campaign -- and of a bipartisan cover-up that continues to this day.

From secret payments to an Iranian banker to incriminating CIA discussions, the documents painted a picture of political deceit at the highest levels of national power and of a fraud perpetrated on American history: another chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 2): The Ladies' Room Secrets By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- After its release on Jan. 13, 1993, the House task force report on the October Surprise controversy quickly hardened into historical concrete. Its conclusion that there was "no credible evidence" to support the allegations of Republican sabotage in the 1980 Iran hostage crisis won acclaim across the political spectrum.

Columnist David Broder lauded Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., the task force chairman, as the "conscience of Congress" for repudiating the accusations of GOP wrongdoing. No one, it seemed, examined the quality of the investigation or listened to the few dissenting voices.

But in the months following the task force's findings, more foreign leaders in positions to know told other Americans that there was more to the October Surprise story than the task force found. Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasir Arafat informed American journalist Richard Fricker that senior Republicans had traveled to Beirut in 1980 seeking avenues to the Iranian leadership.

In a May 1993 videotaped interview in Tel Aviv, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was asked "was there an October Surprise?" and he responded "of course, it was." In another interview, retired Israeli General Yehoshua Saguy, who was head of Israeli military intelligence in 1980, said Prime Minister Menachem Begin claimed American approval for Israel 's secret 1980 weapons shipments to Iran . But the approval had not come from President Carter, who had angrily objected to the shipments when he learned of them.

The French Spymaster

Alexandre deMarenches, the man who ran French intelligence in 1980, privately mocked the House task force findings and let stand the sworn testimony of his biographer that he (deMarenches) had arranged meetings between Ronald Reagan's campaign chief William J. Casey and Iranians in Paris in October 1980.

In December 1992, deMarenches's biographer, David Andelman, an ex-New York Times and CBS News correspondent, had testified before the task force that deMarenches had discussed the Paris meetings while the two were writing deMarenches's autobiography, The Fourth World War. After Andelman's testimony, the task force called deMarenches. But when the imperious French spymaster failed to return the call, the task force concluded, paradoxically, that Andelman's testimony was "credible" but lacked "probative value."

These newer witnesses also were corroborating longstanding claims about Republican interference that had been made by top Iranians of the period, including Iran 's President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, Foreign Minister Sadeq Ghotzbadeh and Defense Minister Ahmed Madani. Other testimony supporting the October Surprise charges had come from intelligence agents with confirmed ties to Israel , France and the United States .

But the dismissive House task force report effectively buried the October Surprise story as an historical issue. Washington 's conventional wisdom readily accepted that there had been no Republican contacts to Iran in 1980; that Casey, George Bush and other Reagan campaign officials had been falsely accused.

Then, last year, senior representatives of Iran 's current government held informal talks in Europe with Americans close to President Clinton. Like deMarenches, these Iranians were amused at how wrong the House task force had been. Casey indeed had made secret overtures to Iran during the hostage crisis of 1980, these Iranians said.

The new Iranian claims were relayed to the highest levels of the Clinton administration. But fearing how a reopened October Surprise investigation might look, the White House refused to reconsider the House task force findings. For reasons perhaps explained best by Washington 's acute sense for sniffing career danger, the October Surprise story had become one of the capital's most powerful taboos.

The Ladies' Room Files

Given that reality, I hesitated before seeking access to the task force's raw files. But having learned of the new Iranian claims, I decided to go ahead. I obtained permission from the House International Relations Committee to examine the task force's unclassified papers. I was told that there had not been a single prior request for these records that had been collecting dust in an obscure office off the Rayburn House Office Building 's parking garage, across from the U.S. Capitol.

To reach the files required taking the Rayburn building's elevator to a sub-basement floor and then winding through the musty underground garage almost to the car exit at the building's south side. To the right, behind venetian-blind-covered windows was a small locked office. Inside were a few desks, cloth-covered partitions, phones and a rumbling old copying machine.
At the rear of the office was a converted Ladies' Room, now used for storage. The task force's taped boxes sat against the wall, under an empty tampon dispenser which still hung from the salmon-colored tiles. I began pulling the tape off the boxes and poring through the files. Not only did I find unclassified notes and documents about the task force's work, but also "secret" and even "top secret" papers that had been left behind, apparently in the haste to wrap up the investigation.

A few "secret" depositions were there, including one of a senior CIA officer named Charles Cogan. Cogan testified that he had attended a 1981 meeting at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., in which a high-ranking Republican commented to Casey about their success in disrupting Carter's "October Surprise," the term used to describe President Carter's hope for a last-minute release of the 52 American hostages held in Iran.

FBI Wiretaps

Another box contained a "secret" summary of FBI wiretaps placed on phones belonging to Cyrus Hashemi, an Iranian financier who had worked for the CIA in 1980. Hashemi also was a key Carter intermediary in the hostage talks. But in fall 1980, the wiretaps showed Hashemi receiving a $3 million deposit arranged by a Houston lawyer who claimed to be associated with then-vice presidential candidate George Bush.

After the 1980 election, the Houston lawyer was back on the phone promising Hashemi help from "the Bush people" for one of Hashemi's failing investments. And shortly after President Reagan's Inauguration, a second mysterious payment to Hashemi arrived from London by Concorde, via a courier for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

There were notes, too, describing Bush's active involvement in monitoring President Carter's Iran hostage negotiations. According to one set of notes, dated Oct. 27, 1980, Bush instructed foreign policy adviser Richard Allen to funnel last-minute information about the negotiations back to him via Theodore Shackley, the CIA's former associate deputy director for operations.
Still, another file contained a summary of all "secret" and "top secret" State Department records on arms sales to Iran in the 1980s. One "top secret/sensitive" document recounted private meetings that Secretary of State Alexander Haig had with Middle Eastern leaders during a trip in May 1981. The leaders told Haig about the continuing secret flow of weapons from Israel to Iran .

I also found a "confidential" October Surprise report that had been sent by Russia 's Supreme Soviet informing the task force that Moscow 's national security files contained evidence that Casey, Bush and other Republicans had negotiated secretly with Iranians in Europe in 1980. [See "The Consortium," Dec. 11, 1995, Vol. 1, No. 1]

All of this information had been excluded from the House task force report. And after the report was completed, the documents were left unceremoniously behind on the floor of the converted Ladies' Room.

'A Trap Door'

Other task force papers in the boxes revealed how flimsy the report's October Surprise debunking had been. Even, task force chief counsel E. Lawrence Barcella was nervous about the weaknesses. On Dec. 8, 1992, he instructed his deputies "to put some language in, as a trap door" in case later disclosures disproved parts of the report or if complaints arose about selective omission of evidence.

"This report does not and could not reflect every single lead that was investigated, every single phone call that was made, every single contact that was established," Barcella suggested as "trap door" wording. "Similarly, the task force did not resolve every single one of the scores of 'curiosities,' 'coincidences,' sub-allegations or question marks that have been raised over the years and become part of the October Surprise story."

But as the documents made clear, many of those "coincidences" left out were historically important. The October Surprise story connected some of the world's most powerful figures in secret interlocking business deals. The documents also revealed an investigation that not only overlooked a few "curiosities" or failed to mention a "lead" or two, but an inquiry that consistently slanted the evidence.

The boxes of documents revealed that the task force used false alibis on Casey's whereabouts for key October Surprise dates; withheld relevant documents and testimony that clashed with its conclusions; dismissed credible witnesses who supplied unwelcome support for the allegations; and accepted dubious -- if not blatantly false -- testimony from Republicans.

Conflicts of Interest

In addition, the task force's files contained new evidence of conflicts of interest for the House investigators, particularly chief counsel Barcella. In the 1980s, he had been a lead attorney for the corrupt international bank, BCCI, which paid his firm more than $2 million to shield it from press and governmental investigations. At that time, Barcella also was a law partner of Paul Laxalt, who had been chairman of the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980.

Indeed, the Ladies' Room files showed that a fascinating chapter of recent American history -- the story of the pivotal 1980 election -- had been seriously miswritten. Even if one still judges that the evidence falls short of proving an explicit Republican-Iranian "deal" to delay the release of the 52 American hostages, the facts do point to significant GOP interference in President Carter's negotiations during the campaign.

Much of that missing history was there in the documents.

Bill Casey' Iranian

Iranian banker Cyrus Hashemi was a mystery man of the 1980s, a nexus point for scandal, from accessing vaults of the corrupt BCCI to opening doors to the Iran-Contra Affair. But for years, the FBI withheld key wiretaps of Hashemi's secret conversations.

Now, from a dusty box in a Capitol Hill storage room, a classified summary of those incriminating calls has been recovered. It fills in crucial missing pieces of the history of the Reagan-Bush era: another chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 3): Bill Casey's Iranian By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- On Sept. 23, 1980, in the midst of the Reagan-Carter presidential race, two men from Houston placed phone calls to an Iranian banker at his swank office in a mid-town Manhattan skyscraper. The two men had a cryptic message. They informed the banker, Cyrus Hashemi, that "a Greek ship captain" would be delivering a $3 million deposit from Beirut to Hashemi's offshore bank headquartered in the Netherlands Antilles .

Hashemi was told the "Greek ship captain" would use the name "Fibolous." One of the Texans, a former judge named Harrel Tillman, considered himself a 30-year friend of George Bush, the Republican candidate for Vice President. Hashemi, in 1980, was acting as a principal intermediary for President Carter's frantic efforts to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran .
On Nov. 20, after President Carter failed to spring the hostages and lost to Ronald Reagan, Tillman was back on the phone with Hashemi, this time about the "purchase of [a] refinery," according to a "secret" FBI wiretap summary. Tillman said he had been in touch with Vice President-elect Bush and had consulted with "the 'Bush' people" about the troubles that Hashemi and his business associate, John Shaheem, were having with a bankrupt oil refinery in Newfoundland .

"Bush people would be cooperative with this matter and make it a showcase," Tillman said, according to the summary. "But the 'Bush' people would not act on it until after the Inauguration" in January 1981.

Interviewed this past week about those 1980 phone calls, Tillman said he recalled nothing about either the $3 million deposit or the promises from the "Bush people." "I don't remember having that conversation," Tillman told me. He acknowledged, though, being questioned about the calls by congressional investigators in 1992, but added that he could not recall the substance of that interview either. "I'm not trying to be evasive," he insisted.

But the ex-judge did add another twist to the mysterious phone calls. Tillman said that besides supporting the Reagan-Bush ticket in 1980, he was working as a consultant to Iran 's radical Islamic government. Tillman also felt President Carter had bungled the hostage crisis.

Still, whatever the reason for the $3 million deposit -- whether it was a payoff or an unrelated business deal -- it added to Hashemi's already-deep dependence on the Republicans. Hashemi worked closely with former Nixon administration official Stanley Pottinger and was a business associate of John Shaheen, a Republican businessman who counted among his best friends William J. Casey, then in charge of the Reagan-Bush campaign.

A Madrid Meeting?

Hashemi's ties to Casey and Shaheen would be central to allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign sabotaged President Carter's hostage talks. Hashemi's older brother, Jamshid, claimed that Cyrus and Casey began collaborating secretly on the Iranian hostage issue in the spring and summer of 1980.

According to Jamshid Hashemi's sworn testimony, Cyrus arranged a clandestine meeting in Madrid between Casey and a radical Iranian mullah, Mehdi Karrubi, in late July 1980. At the meeting, Casey allegedly opened a back-channel to Iran that disrupted President Carter's hostage negotiations and ensured Ronald Reagan's resounding victory that November.

As many as two dozen other Iranian, European and Middle Eastern officials made similar assertions of GOP interference. But in January 1993, after a year-long investigation, a special House task force concluded that "no credible evidence" existed to support allegations of a Republican dirty trick. One of the task force's principal arguments for the debunking was that a careful review of secret FBI wiretaps on Cyrus Hashemi's phones from September 1980 to February 1981 found nothing to support the so-called October Surprise charges.

So when I gained access to boxes of the task force's raw records in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room (see The Consortium, Dec. 21), I was startled to discover a "secret" FBI wiretap summary that revealed a much more complex story than the House task force's sanitized version of events.

For instance, while the task force was aware of the $3 million "Greek ship captain" deposit and the potential conflict of interest it represented for Cyrus Hashemi, no mention was made of it in the House report. Nor did the task force explain financial connections that tied Shaheen and Hashemi to wealthy figures from the Philippines , the Middle East, the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and the ousted royal family of Iran .

All those links gave Hashemi powerful motives to betray President Carter -- and, in each one, William Casey was in the background.

'Two Faces'

The wiretap summary showed almost daily contacts between Cyrus Hashemi, a worldly financier in his 40s whose phone calls included chats with high-priced prostitutes, and John Shaheen, the fast-talking former officer in World War II's Office of Strategic Services. Shaheen and Casey, who met in the OSS , also had worked together on the failed Newfoundland oil refinery that Hashemi and Tillman discussed in the wiretapped conversation.

Indeed, on Sept. 22, the day before the first calls from Houston, Hashemi was on the phone discussing how to line up a $40 million loan to help Shaheen regain control of the refinery.That same week, Hashemi and Shaheen hashed over schemes for opening a bank together, possibly in Asia with some Philippine investors.

On Sept. 25, Hashemi and Shaheen discussed a " Hong Kong deal," according to the wiretaps. On Oct. 14, the two men were arranging a meeting with Philippine bankers and businessmen. Hashemi expressed concern because he had already deposited "a large sum of money in a bank in the Philippines ."

In mid-October 1980, even as Hashemi supposedly was helping President Carter's last-ditch effort to resolve the hostage crisis, the Iranian banker began work with other Republicans lining up arms shipments to Iran , including parts for helicopter gunships and night-vision goggles for pilots.

The FBI wiretap summary also contained references to Hashemi lying about the hostage issue. On Oct. 22, 1980, the FBI bugs caught Hashemi's wife, Houma , scolding her husband about his denials that he had discussed the hostages with Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Rafsanjani. "It is not possible to be a double agent and have two faces," Houma warned Cyrus.

The next day, Oct. 23, Shaheen again was in Hashemi's office at 9 West 57th St. , using one of the bugged phones to brief a European associate, Dick Gaedecke, about the latest developments in the hostage negotiations. Hashemi was keeping Shaheen, Casey's pal, fully informed about President Carter's hostage strategies.

A Reagan Link?

On Oct. 24, the FBI recorded another cryptic note suggesting Hashemi's close ties to another prominent Republican. Using Cyrus Hashemi's initials, it read: "CH-banking business about Reagan overseas corp.," according to the wiretap summary.

The possibility of a Reagan-Hashemi link was not entirely new. It arose initially in 1992 when Reuters news agency quoted FBI sources in New York as saying that agents heasrd Ronald Reagan on one Hashemi tape. But the congressional investigators said Reagan was not recorded speaking on the 548 tapes made available to Congress, except for some television background noise.

But the investigators were unable to explain an eight-day gap on one tape. Eleven others were blank, a condition possibly caused by intentional erasure, according to tape experts. Still, the House task force found nothing suspicious about this pattern.

In clearing the Republicans, the House report also left out testimony from Iran 's former Defense Minister, Ahmed Madani, who stated that he, too, had chastised Hashemi for collaborating secretly with the Republicans behind President Carter's back. Madani testified that Hashemi offered to bring Casey to a hostage discussion during the campaign.

"We are not here to play politics," Madani said he responded. The discussion convinced Madani that "Casey wanted to fish in troubled waters" and that Hashemi was "double-dealing" President Carter.

In the transition period after Ronald Reagan's victory, the FBI picked up more conversations about Hashemi's GOP ties. On Nov. 20, the same day as Tillman's call about the "Bush people," Hashemi boasted to fellow Iranian Mahmood Moini about ties to Casey, who was then running President-elect Reagan's transition office. "I have been, well, close friends ... with Casey for several years," Hashemi told Moini.

Although the Carter administration had finally frozen Hashemi out of the hostage talks because of the arms dealing, the shrewd Iranian banker kept his hands in. On Jan. 15, 1981, Hashemi met with Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials in London and opened an account for them with 1.87 million pounds (roughly equal to $3 million), according to the FBI wiretaps. The money apparently was to finance arms sales.

On Jan. 19, 1981, the last day of the Carter Presidency, Hashemi was back on one of the bugged phones, describing to a cohort "the banking arrangements being made to free the American hostages in Iran ." Hashemi was also moving ahead with military shipments to Iran . "How should we proceed with our friend over there?" the associate asked Hashemi. "I'm just a little bit nervous that everyone is trying to move in on the action here."

The hostages were released the next day, immediately after Ronald Reagan's Inauguration.

BCCI Flies the Concorde

Over the next weeks, unusual deposits continued to flow into Hashemi's offshore bank, the First Gulf Bank and Trust Company. In early February 1981, the FBI recorded a call alerting Hashemi that "money from BCCI [is] to come in tomorrow from London on Concorde."

Within days of the BCCI-Concorde call, the new Justice Department ordered the wiretaps pulled from Hashemi's office. Though the FBI and field prosecutors wanted to use the wiretap information immediately to mount an arms trafficking case against Hashemi, the proposed indictment languished for more than three years. Even then, in May 1984, when the evidence finally went to a grand jury, the Justice Department insisted on tipping off Hashemi, allowing him to cancel a flight from London to New York and avoid arrest.

Less than a year later, in early spring 1985, Israeli arms dealers, Albert Schwimmer and Ya'acov Nimrodi, arrived at a luxury London hotel to meet with Cyrus Hashemi, Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi and an Iranian intelligence man named Manucher Ghorbanifar. Hashemi was proposing more weapons sales for Iran.He was working again with John Shaheen and Bill Casey, who was President Reagan's director of the CIA.

A year later, still in London , Hashemi fell suddenly ill with what was diagnosed as acute leukemia. He died on July 21, 1986. But what Hashemi had started in that London hotel room would become known a few months after Hashemi's death as the Iran-Contra Affair.

Follow the Money

An intimidating array of individuals and forces wanted President Carter ousted from the White House in 1980. Some were driven by ambition; others by money; and still others by revenge. Together, they were over-powering.

Newly revealed documents, meant to stay hidden from the public, now show the interlocking relationships that operated behind the facade of American democracy: a chilling chapter of the October Surprise X-Files

· October Surprise X-Files (Part 4): The Money Trail By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- It was the start of winter, December 21, 1992, but the mild Washington weather was still like fall. In a secure conference room, a senior CIA Middle East specialist sat down to give a classified deposition to a special House task force investigating the October Surprise controversy.

The task force had already drafted its report, which firmly rejected allegations that the Reagan-Bush campaign sabotaged President Carter's Iran hostage talks in 1980. The distinguished gray-haired CIA man, Charles G. Cogan, had been called to tie down a loose end or two.

But Cogan started his testimony with a startling recollection. He remembered an off-hand remark that he had heard in 1981, during a meeting between then-CIA director William J. Casey and a prominent Republican, Joseph V. Reed. Cogan said he was finishing a meeting with Casey in the director's seventh floor office at CIA's campus-like headquarters in Langley , Va. , when Reed arrived.

Knowing Reed, a longtime top aide to Chase Manhattan's David Rockefeller, Cogan lingered at the door. Cogan said he had a "definite memory" of a comment Reed made about disrupting President Carter's "October Surprise" of a pre-election release of 52 American hostage held in Iran . But Cogan said he could not recall the precise verb that Reed had used.

"Joseph Reed said, 'we' and then the verb [and then] something about Carter's October Surprise," Cogan testified. "The implication was we did something about Carter's October Surprise, but I don't have the exact wording." (Another congressional investigator, who discussed the recollection with Cogan in a less formal setting, concluded that the verb apparently was the past tense of an expletive related to sex.)

Though supposedly seeking evidence of just such a Republican action, the task force lawyers did not welcome Cogan's testimony. Republican lawyer (and former CIA official) David Laufman asked if Cogan had since "had occasion to ask him [Reed] about this?"

Yes, Cogan replied, he had asked Reed about it, after Reed moved to a protocol job at the United Nations. "I called him up," Cogan said. "He was at his farm in Connecticut, as I recall, and I just told him that, look, this is what sticks in my mind and what I am going to say [to Congress], and he didn't have any comment on it and continued on to other matters."

"He didn't offer any explanation to you of what he meant?" exclaimed Laufman.

"No," answered Cogan.

"Nor did he deny that he had said it?" asked another task force lawyer Mark L. Shaffer.

"He didn't say anything," Cogan responded. "We just continued on talking about other things."
And so did the task force lawyers at this remarkable deposition. They even failed to ask Cogan the obvious follow-up: How did Casey react to Reed's remark about doing something to President Carter's October Surprise? Instead, Cogan's testimony, like so many other pieces of incriminating evidence, would be excluded from the final report and locked away with classified information that was intended to stay outside the public's reach.

A Hostile Witness But the Cogan deposition was one of the "secret" documents left behind, apparently by accident. It was mixed in with unclassified material that I was allowed to examine in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room. (See "October Surprise X-Files" series for more details.)
I also discovered the notes of an FBI agent who tried to interview Joseph Reed about his October Surprise knowledge. The FBI man, Harry A. Penich, had scribbled down that "numerous telephone calls were placed to him [Reed]. He failed to answer any of them. I conservatively place the number over 10."

Finally, Penich, armed with a subpoena, cornered Reed arriving home at his 50-acre estate in Greenwich , Conn. "He was surprised and absolutely livid at being served at home," Penich wrote. "His responses could best be characterized as lashing out."

Reed threatened to go over Penich's head. In hand-written "talking points" that Penich apparently used to brief an unnamed superior, the FBI agent wrote: "He [Reed] did it in such a way as to lead a reasonable person to believe he had influence w/you. The man's remarks were both inappropriate and improper."

But the hard-ball tactics worked. When Reed finally consented to an interview, task force lawyers treated him with kid-gloves. Penich took the interview notes and wrote that Reed "recalls no contact with Casey in 1980," though Reed added that "their paths crossed many times because of Reed's position at Chase." In 1979, Reed had spearheaded the Rockefeller lobbying to get the shah admitted into the United States for cancer treatment, an event that led to the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran.

As for the 1981 CIA visit, Reed added that as the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Morocco , he "would have stopped in to see Casey and pay respect." But on whether Reed made any remark about obstructing President Carter's October Surprise, Reed claimed he "does not specifically know what October Surprise refers to," Penich scribbled down. The task force lawyers did not press too hard.

Most glaringly, the lawyers failed to confront Reed with a key piece of evidence that would have impeached his contention that he had "no contact with Casey in 1980." According to sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters in Arlington , Va. , which the task force had obtained, Reed saw Casey on September 11, 1980.

On that visit, Reed accompanied David Rockefeller; Owen Frisbie, Rockefeller's Washington lobbyist; and the late Archibald Roosevelt, a Chase adviser and a legendary CIA veteran of Middle East operations, including the 1953 plot that restored the shah to the Peacock Throne.
'Flying Dutchman' In the quarter century after that CIA operation, David Rockefeller's bank profited handsomely from the shah's deposits. But when the shah was ousted in January 1979, Chase faced serious exposure as the new Islamic government ordered $6 billion pulled from Chase's vaults.

Besides the money, Rockefeller and his aides were furious at President Carter's treatment of the shah. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger lamented that the shah had been turned into a real-life "Flying Dutchman," fleeing from one temporary shelter to another, from Egypt to Morocco to Mexico to the United States to Panama , before returning to Egypt where the shah died on July 27, 1980.

But Cogan's testimony about the Reed-Casey conversation also pointed the way toward a major investigative avenue that the task force had little desire to go down. The shah's family (the Pahlavis) had close financial ties not just to Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan but to William Casey's personal business circle.

According to a 1984 CIA memo given to the task force, Casey recruited his old World War II spy chum John Shaheen and Iranian banker Cyrus Hashemi in 1979 to sell off property in New York City belonging to the shah's Pahlavi Foundation. At that time, the radical Islamic government in Teheran was claiming that property as its own and the shah's family was desperate for the cash.
The early Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi partnership on this Iranian business deal was important, because in 1980 Hashemi became one of President Carter's principal intermediaries on the hostage crisis and Casey was in charge of Ronald Reagan's campaign. The Casey-Shaheen-Hashemi connection made the October Surprise allegations far more credible.

Though Cyrus Hashemi died in 1986, his older brother, Jamshid, testified under oath before the task force that Cyrus had arranged July 1980 meetings in Madrid where Casey discussed the hostages with a radical Iranian mullah, Mehdi Karrubi. Jamshid's testimony was at the heart of the October Surprise charges that Casey derailed President Carter's hostage talks.

But the House task force cast aside the CIA memo and concluded that there was "no evidence" that Casey had met Cyrus Hashemi before the 1980 election in November. In the public report, the task force briefly mentioned the CIA memo, but deleted the identity of the foundation. The word "Pahlavi" was excised, thus obscuring the significance of the information.

A Marcos Bagman Also missing from the report was evidence that Cyrus Hashemi had worked with Casey ally Shaheen on other lucrative business schemes tied to the Pahlavi fortune. For instance, FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi's New York City office in fall 1980 discovered that Shaheen and Hashemi were planning to invest millions of dollars to establish a bank together, possibly in Hong Kong with Philippine investors. (See Consortiumnews.com's "Bill Casey's Iranian.")

The bank deal took final shape two days after President Reagan Inauguration and the near-simultaneous release of the 52 American hostages whom President Carter had failed to free. On January 22, 1981, Shaheen opened the Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty Bank with $20 million that had been funneled to him through a Rockefeller-connected lawyer in Geneva , named Jean Patry.

The bank sported on its board other powerful world players, including Herminio Disini, known as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos's personal bag man. Indeed, a Shaheen lawyer told me that Shaheen flew to Manila in early 1981 to meet face-to-face with Marcos, the man whom Shaheen considered really "in charge." The lawyer said the Hong Kong bank was a way for Marcos "to get his hands on some of the Arabs' Euro-petrodollars."

In 1980, Marcos also may have delivered secret payments to Casey. According to a letter revealed in the Philippines after Marcos's overthrow in 1986, President Reagan wanted files about those payments back before Marcos fled to Hawaii . The letter, purportedly written by Marcos's executive assistant, Victor Nituda, stated that Sen. Paul Laxalt, R-Nev., "expects all documents checklisted during his last visit or the deal is off." One of the files was marked "1980 SEC-014, Funds to Casey." Another file was slugged "1980 SEC-015, Reagan Funds Not Used."
While in exile in Hawaii , Marcos reportedly boasted to visitors that he gave $4 million to Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, contributions that would have violated federal election laws -- and might explain why Marcos was allowed to profit off the Hong Kong bank.

From 1981-84, Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty did pull in hundreds of millions of petrodollars, just as Marcos had hoped. The bank also attracted high-flying Arabs to its board of directors. Two directors were Ghanim Al-Mazrouie, the Abu Dhabi official who controlled 10 percent of the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and Hassan Yassin, a cousin of Saudi financier Adnan Khashoggi and an adviser to BCCI principal Kamal Adham, the former chief of Saudi intelligence.

Though Cyrus Hashemi's name was not directly connected to the Hong Kong bank, he did receive cash from BCCI. An FBI wiretap of Hashemi's office in early February 1981 picked up an advisory that "money from BCCI [is] to come in tomorrow from London on Concorde."

The Missing Millions In 1984, the Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty collapsed and an estimated $100 million disappeared. The crash put Shaheen in hot water again, but he died of liver cancer in 1985 so the bank's loss was buried with him, in his estate. The biggest loser in the deal -- the mystery $20 million investor from 1980-81 -- apparently did not want any publicity.
The House task force figured out who the bank's benefactor was. But, again, the House report left out this intriguing fact.

The $20 million that had capitalized Hong Kong Deposit and Guaranty, the money that was funneled through the Rockefeller lawyer in Geneva , had come from Princess Ashraf, the shah's strong-willed twin sister. The House task force interviewed Ashraf and accepted her bald statement that the $20 million was just a routine business investment.

In 1980, however, the deposed princess was one of Jimmy Carter's most implacable enemies. She blamed the President for failing to save the shah. His overthrow then led to the murder of her son. Ashraf suspected, too, that President Carter's team was desperate enough to trade the ailing shah for the hostages. According to The Shah's Last Ride by William Shawcross, she snubbed White House chief of staff Hamilton Jordan when their paths crossed in Panama in early 1980.

That Princess Ashraf was supplying $20 million to Cyrus Hashemi's American business partner, John Shaheen, while Hashemi was supposedly helping President Carter resolve the hostage impasse would normally be seen as evidence of a pay-off. So, too, might BCCI's curious Concorde money flight.

But as it turned out, the task force's chief counsel, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., had worked as a lead attorney for BCCI in the late 1980s. BCCI paid Barcella and his firm more than $2 million, and the lead partner in the firm was former Sen. Paul Laxalt. Not the BCCI money, nor Ashraf's $20 million, nor the Philippine files were mentioned in the House report. The task force, it seemed, had no interest in following the money.

Saddam's 'Green Light'

In 1980, Iraq 's Saddam Hussein was suddenly a bigtime international 'player,' invited to the gaudy palaces of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. But there was an ulterior motive behind the flattering invitation: Saddam's army was the new protector of the petro-rich against the Iranian hordes.

Saudi Prince Fahd claimed to have a message, too, from the President of the United States . It was a missive that might have changed the course of history, another installment from the October Surprise

October Surprise X-Files (Part 5): Saddam's 'Green Light' By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- In summer 1980, Iraq 's wily president Saddam Hussein saw opportunities in the chaos sweeping the Persian Gulf . Iran 's Islamic revolution had terrified the Saudi princes and other Arab royalty who feared uprisings against their own corrupt life styles. Saddam's help was sought, too, by CIA-backed Iranian exiles who wanted a base to challenge the fundamentalist regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. And as always, the Western powers were worried about the Middle East oil fields.

So because of geography and his formidable Soviet-supplied army, Saddam was suddenly a popular fellow.

On Aug. 5, 1980, the Saudi rulers welcomed Saddam to Riyadh for his first state visit to Saudi Arabia , the first for any Iraqi president. The Saudis, of course, wanted something. At those fateful meetings, amid the luxury of the ornate palaces, the Saudis would encourage Saddam to invade Iran . The Saudis also would claim to pass on a secret message about President Carter's geo-political desires.

During that summer of 1980, President Carter was facing his own crisis. His failure to free 52 American hostages held in Iran was threatening his political survival. As he wrote in his memoirs, Keeping Faith, "The election might also be riding on their freedom." Equally alarming, President Carter had begun receiving reports that the Republicans were making back-channel contacts with Iran about the hostage crisis, as he would state in a letter to a journalist nearly a decade later.

Though it was unclear then, this multi-sided political intrigue would shape the history from 1980 to the present day. Iraq 's invasion of Iran in September 1980 would deteriorate into eight years of bloody trench warfare that did little more than kill and maim an estimated one million people. What little more the war did was to generate billions of dollars in profits for well-connected arms merchants -- and spawn a series of national security scandals.

In 1986-87, the Iran-Contra Affair peeled back some of the layers of secrecy, but bipartisan investigations dumped the blame mostly on Oliver North and a few low-level "men of zeal." Later inquiries into Iraqgate allegations of secret U.S. military support for Saddam Hussein also ended inconclusively. The missing billions from the sleazy Bank of Credit and Commerce International disappeared into the mist of complex charge and counter-charge, too. So did evidence implicating the CIA and Nicaraguan contra rebels in cocaine trafficking.

A similar fate befell the October Surprise story and President Carter's old suspicion of Republican interference in the 1980 hostage crisis. A special House task force concluded in 1993 that it could find "no credible evidence" to support the October Surprise charges.

Haig's Talking Points

Still, I gained access to documents from that investigation, including papers marked "secret" and "top secret" which apparently had been left behind by accident in a remote Capitol Hill storage room. Those papers filled in a number of the era's missing pieces and established that there was more to the reports that President Carter heard in 1980 than the task force publicly acknowledged. (For more details, see the first four issues of The Consortium.)

But besides undermining the task force's October Surprise debunking, the papers clarified President Reagan's early strategy for a clandestine foreign policy hidden from Congress and the American people. One such document was a two-page "Talking Points" prepared by Secretary of State Alexander Haig for a briefing of President Reagan. Marked "top secret/sensitive," the paper recounted Haig's first trip to the Middle East in April 1981.

In the report, Haig wrote that he was impressed with "bits of useful intelligence" that he had learned. "Both [ Egypt 's Anwar] Sadat and [Saudi Prince] Fahd [explained that] Iran is receiving military spares for U.S. equipment from Israel ." This fact might have been less surprising to President Reagan, whose intermediaries allegedly collaborated with Israeli officials in 1980 to smuggle weapons to Iran behind President Carter's back.

But Haig followed that comment with another stunning assertion: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Fahd." In other words, according to Haig's information, Saudi Prince Fahd (now King Fahd) claimed that President Carter, apparently hoping to strengthen the U.S. hand in the Middle East and desperate to pressure Iran over the stalled hostage talks, gave clearance to Saddam's invasion of Iran. If true, Jimmy Carter, the peacemaker, had encouraged a war.

Haig's written report contained no other details about the "green light," and Haig declined my request for an interview about the Talking Points. But the paper represented the first documented corroboration of Iran 's long-held belief that the United States backed Iraq 's 1980 invasion.

In 1980, President Carter termed Iranian charges of U.S. complicity "patently false." He mentioned Iraq 's invasion only briefly in his memoirs, in the context of an unexpected mid-September hostage initiative from a Khomeini in-law, Sadeq Tabatabai. "Exploratory conversations [in Germany ] were quite encouraging," President Carter wrote about that approach, but he added: "As fate would have it, the Iraqis chose the day of [Tabatabai's] scheduled arrival in Iran , September 22, to invade Iran and to bomb the Tehran airport. Typically, the Iranians accused me of planning and supporting the invasion."

The Iraqi invasion did make Iran more desperate to get U.S. spare parts for its air and ground forces. Yet the Carter administration continued to demand that the American hostages be freed before military shipments could resume. But according to House task force documents that I found in the storage room, the Republicans were more accommodating.

Secret FBI wiretaps revealed that an Iranian banker, the late Cyrus Hashemi, who supposedly was helping President Carter on the hostage talks, was assisting Republicans with arms shipments to Iran and peculiar money transfers in fall 1980. Hashemi's older brother, Jamshid, testified that the Iran arms shipments, via Israel , resulted from secret meetings in Madrid between the GOP campaign director, William J. Casey, and a radical Islamic mullah named Mehdi Karrubi.

For whatever reasons, on Election Day 1980, President Carter still had failed to free the hostages and Ronald Reagan won in a landslide.

A 'Private Channel'

Within minutes of President Reagan's Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, the hostages finally were freed. In the following weeks, the new administration put in place discreet channels to Middle East powers, as Haig flew to the region for a round of high-level consultations. The trim silver-haired former four-star general met with Iraq 's chief allies, Saudi Arabia and Egypt , and with Israel , which was continuing to support Iran as a counter-weight to Iraq and the Arab states.
On April 8, 1981, Haig ended his first round of meetings in Riyadh and issued a diplomatic statement lauding Saudi Arabia 's "dedication to building a better world and the wisdom of your leaders." More to the point, he announced that "the foundation has been laid during this trip for the strengthening of U.S.-Saudi relations."

After Haig's return to Washington, his top secret Talking Points fleshed out for President Reagan the actual agreements that were reached at the private sessions in Saudi Arabia, as well as at other meetings in Egypt and Israel.

"As we discussed before my Middle East trip," Haig explained to President Reagan, "I proposed to President Sadat, [ Israel 's] Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin and Crown Prince Fahd that we establish a private channel for the consideration of particularly sensitive matters of concern to you. Each of the three picked up on the proposal and asked for early meetings."

Haig wrote that on his return, he immediately dispatched his counselor, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, to Cairo and Riyadh to formalize those channels. "He held extremely useful meetings with both Sadat and Fahd," Haig boasted. "In fact, Sadat kept Ed Muskie [President Carter's secretary of state] waiting for an hour and a half while he [Sadat] extended the meeting."

These early contacts with Fahd, Sadat and Begin solidified their three countries as the cornerstones of the administration's clandestine foreign policy of the 1980s: the Saudis as the moneymen, the Israelis as the middlemen, and the Egyptians as a ready source for Soviet-made equipment .

Although President Carter had brokered a historic peace treaty between Egypt and Israel , Sadat, Begin and Fahd had all been alarmed at signs of U.S. weakness, especially Washington 's inability to protect the Shah of Iran from ouster in 1979. Haig's Talking Points captured that relief at President Carter's removal from office.

"It is clear that your policies of firmness toward the Soviets has restored Saudi and Egyptian confidence in the leadership of the U.S. ," Haig wrote for the presentation to his boss. "Both [Fahd and Sadat] went much further than ever before in offering to be supportive."

Haig said "Sadat offered to host a forward headquarters for the Rapid Deployment Force, including a full-time presence of U.S military personnel." Sadat also outlined his strategy for invading Libya to disrupt Moammar Khadafy's intervention in Chad . "Frankly," observed Haig, "I believe he [Sadat] could easily get overextended in such an undertaking and [I] will try to moderate his ambitions on this score."

'Special Status,' Money and Guns

Haig reported that Prince Fahd was "also very enthusiastic" about President Reagan's foreign policy. Fahd had agreed "in principle to fund arms sales to the Pakistanis and other states in the region," Haig wrote. The Saudi leader was promising, too, to help the U.S. economy by committing his oil-rich nation to a position of "no drop in production" of petroleum.

"These channels promise to be extremely useful in forging compatible policies with the Saudis and Egyptians," Haig continued. "Both men value the 'special status' you have conferred on them and both value confidentiality. I will follow up with [Defense Secretary] Cap Weinberger and [CIA Director] Bill Casey. ...The larger message emerging from these exchanges, however, is that your policies are correct and are already eliciting the enthusiastic support of important leaders abroad."

In the following years, the Reagan administration would exploit the "special status" with all three countries to skirt Constitutional restrictions on Executive war-making powers. Secretly, the administration would tilt back and forth in the Iran-Iraq war, between aiding the Iranians with missiles and spare parts and helping the Iraqis with intelligence and indirect military shipments.

When the Soviets shot down an Israeli-leased Argentine plane carrying U.S. military supplies to Iran on July 18, 1981, the State Department showed it, too, valued confidentiality. At the time, State denied U.S. knowledge. But in a later interview, assistant secretary of state Nicholas Veliotes said "it was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment."

According to a sworn affidavit by former Reagan national security staffer Howard Teicher, the administration enlisted the Egyptians in a secret "Bear Spares" program that gave the United States access to Soviet-designed military equipment. Teicher asserted that the Reagan administration funnelled some of those weapons to Iraq and also arranged other shipments of devastating cluster bombs that Saddam's air force dropped on Iranians troops.

In 1984, facing congressional rejection of continued CIA funding of the Nicaraguan contra rebels, President Reagan exploited the "special status" again. He tapped into the Saudi slush funds for money to support the Nicaraguan contra rebels in their war in Central America . The President also authorized secret weapons shipments to Iran in another arms-for-hostages scheme, with the profits going to "off-the-shelf" intelligence operations. That gambit, like the others, was protected by walls of "deniability" and outright lies.

Some of those lies collapsed in the Iran-Contra scandal, but the administration quickly constructed new stonewalls that were never breached. Republicans fiercely defended the secrets and Democrats lacked the nerve to fight for the truth. The Washington media also lost interest because the scandals were complex and official sources steered the press in other directions.

'Read Machiavelli'

When I interviewed Haig several years ago, I asked him if he was troubled by the pattern of deceit that had become the norm among international players in the 1980s. "Oh, no, no, no, no," he boomed, shaking his head. "On that kind of thing? No. Come on. Jesus! God! You know, you'd better get out and read Machiavelli or somebody else because I think you're living in a dream world! People do what their national interest tells them to do and if it means lying to a friendly nation, they're going to lie through their teeth."

But sometimes the game-playing did have unintended consequences. In 1990, a decade after Iraq 's messy invasion of Iran , an embittered Saddam Hussein was looking for pay-back from the sheikhdoms that he felt had egged him into war. Saddam was especially furious with Kuwait for slant drilling into Iraq 's oil fields and refusing to extend more credit. Again, Saddam was looking for a signal from the U.S. president, this time George Bush.

When Saddam explained his confrontation with Kuwait to U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie, he received an ambiguous reply, a reaction he apparently perceived as another "green light." Eight days later, Saddam unleashed his army into Kuwait , an invasion that required 500,000 U.S. troops and thousands more dead to reverse.

Where's Bill Casey?

In 1991-92, the October Surprise investigation was like a worldwide Where's Waldo game, trying to locate Bill Casey on crucial days in 1980. Two national magazines and a House task force claimed success, thus disproving that Casey sabotaged the Iran hostage talks. The game was over; Casey and the Republicans were innocent.

But from an obscure storage room on Capitol Hill comes a photograph showing that the Where's Bill game was fixed, that his face is not among the Bohemian Grove members who supplied the vital alibi, a troubling chapter about faked history from the October Surprise X-Files.

October Surprise X-Files (Part 6): Where's Bill Casey? By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- "We found a photograph from the Bohemian Grove for the last weekend of July," the congressional investigator boasted to me over the phone. I was stunned.
"You found a photograph from the Bohemian Grove?" I stammered.

The announcement might not have sounded that unusual. But for the few reporters who were investigating the October Surprise controversy, the statement that the House task force had located a photograph from the Bohemian Grove for the last weekend of July 1980 was big news. It was exactly the kind of hard evidence that we had been seeking to show whether William Casey was at that exclusive men's retreat in northern California or at a secret meeting with Iranian emissaries in Spain .

From the investigator's confident tone, it sounded as if the House task force finally had the smoking-gun evidence to disprove the allegation that Casey, as Ronald Reagan's campaign director in 1980, had disrupted President Carter's Iranian hostage negotiations, a dirty trick that bordered on treason and might have cinched a historic GOP victory.

As the October Surprise story belatedly heated up, in 1991-92, investigators had tried to fix Casey's whereabouts on a handful of days when several witnesses placed the Republican campaign chief at meetings in Madrid and Paris . Two of those mystery days were July 27 and 28, 1980, a Sunday and a Monday, when Iranian CIA agent Jamshid Hashemi testified that he was with Casey in Madrid at a two-day meeting with radical Iranian mullah Mehdi Karrubi.

But nailing down the whereabouts of Casey, a wily old World War II spymaster, had proved difficult. Documents and news clips did show that going into that late July weekend in 1980 Casey was in Arlington , Va. , at the Republican campaign headquarters. He disappeared from public view on Saturday, July 26; was missing Sunday and Monday morning; and then turned up late on Monday afternoon, July 28, at a World War II historical conference in London .

But where had Casey been from Saturday until Monday afternoon? Could he have gone to Madrid for a two-day meeting before flying to London ?

A Debunking Hysteria

At a pivotal moment in the October Surprise investigation (in November 1991), two national magazines, Newsweek and The New Republic, published matching cover stories declaring that records at the historical conference revealed that Casey arrived in London Sunday evening, July 27, and attended the next morning's session, July 28. That proved, the magazines declared in unison, that a two-day meeting in Madrid was impossible. The October Surprise story was declared a "myth."

The impact of those two magazine stories cannot be overstated. They convinced most of the Washington news media and many members of Congress that the longstanding suspicions of Casey's skulduggery were false. A kind of debunking hysteria followed, with other publications joining in a stampede that trampled any careful examination of the October Surprise facts.

But Newsweek and The New Republic were wrong; they had completely misread the London evidence. When more thorough interviews were done with Americans who had attended the London conference with Casey, it became clear that Casey was not there on either Sunday night or Monday morning. He arrived late Monday afternoon, as a notation on the attendance sheet corroborated. It said Casey "came at 4 p.m."

Typically, however, neither magazine corrected the major journalistic error that they had committed. The new information also received almost no mention in the rest of the national media. So millions of Americans were left believing that the two magazines had established a correct alibi for Bill Caseyand that the October Surprise story had been disproved.

Though inclined to join in the debunking, the House task force, which started work in 1992, was forced to recognize the glaring mistake by the two magazines. But instead of blowing the whistle, the congressional investigators simply began a quiet search for a new alibi to slip into the place of the old.

By fall 1992, the task force had settled on a new location for Casey's late July weekend whereabouts. The task force put him in the Parsonage cottage at the Bohemian Grove encampment in northern California .

According to this new alibi, Casey flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco on Friday, July 25, with Republican operative Darrell Trent. Casey then drove with Trent to the Bohemian Grove, arriving sometime late Friday evening. Casey stayed at the Grove until Sunday morning, July 27. He then went to San Francisco, boarded a British Airways flight, flew all night, and landed about lunchtime the next day, Monday, July 28, in London.

That itinerary left no time for a side trip to Spain, so Jamshid Hashemi's allegations of a secret two-day meeting in Madrid could be declared false a second time. The October Surprise charges were again dismissed as a "myth."

But there were problems, too, with this Bohemian Grove alibi. I and other reporters at Public Broadcasting System's FRONTLINE program had already investigated this possibility for Casey's whereabouts and found it to be untrue. We discovered clear documentary evidence that Casey actually attended the Grove on the following weekend, Aug. 1-3, not the last weekend of July.

Evidence in the Way

Indeed, the House task force's own evidence countered the Bohemian Grove alibi. According to Grove records obtained by the House investigators, Casey's host, Darrell Trent, was already at the Grove on Friday, July 25, while Casey was still in Washington . So they could not have traveled together from Los Angeles .

Further, the task force found a plane ticket for a flight that Casey did take that day. But it was not to the West Coast. It was a ticket for the Washington -to- New York shuttle. A Casey calendar entry then showed a meeting on Saturday morning, July 26, with a right-to-life activist who said she met Casey at his home in Roslyn Harbor , N.Y.

Other records supported FRONTLINE's interpretation that Casey had attended the Grove the following weekend. Republican campaign records revealed that on Aug. 1, Casey did travel to Los Angeles , where he hooked up with Darrell Trent. Also on Aug. 1, Grove financial records documented Casey and Trent making purchases at the Grove. In addition, there was a diary entry from Matthew McGowan, one of the Grove members at the Parsonage cottage. He wrote on Aug. 3 that "we had Bill Casey, Gov. Reagan's campaign mgr., as our guest this last weekend."
Still, regardless of these facts, the House task force insisted on the Bohemian Grove alibi. The congressional investigators showed a similar bias in handling the alibi for Casey on the other crucial date, Oct. 19, 1980. That's when witnesses claimed they saw the campaign director in Paris at another round of meetings with Karrubi, an assertion supported by four French intelligence officials, including the French spy chief Alexandre deMarenches who described the meetings to his biographer.

To overcome the Paris evidence, the task force relied on the decade-old memory of Casey's nephew, Larry Casey, who claimed he remembered his late father placing a telephone call to Bill Casey who was at the Republican headquarters in Arlington . Though Larry Casey had no corroboration for that memory, the task force accepted it as "credible."

But again, FRONTLINE reporters had been down that road -- and found it to be a dead end. I had interviewed Larry Casey on videotape in 1991, a year before his House testimony. In that interview, Larry Casey offered a completely different alibi, insisting that he vividly remembered his parents having dinner with Bill Casey at the Jockey Club in Washington on Oct. 19, 1980.

"It was very clear in my mind even though it was 11 years ago," Larry Casey said. But then I showed Larry Casey the sign-in sheets for the GOP headquarters. The entries recorded Larry Casey's parents picking up Bill Casey for the dinner on Oct. 15, four days earlier. Larry Casey acknowledged his error, and indeed an American Express receipt later confirmed Oct. 15 as the date of the Jockey Club dinner.

In 1992, however, Larry Casey testified before the House task force and offered the phone call alibi, which he had not mentioned in the FRONTLINE interview. Though I notified the House task force about this discrepancy, the task force was undeterred. It still used the phone call alibi to debunk the Paris allegations.

The Bohemian Grove Photo

This pattern of accepting silly alibis for Bill Casey had convinced me that the House investigation was little more than a whitewash. Clearing the late Bill Casey and Ronald Reagan's campaign pleased Republicans who wanted to protect the legitimacy of the 12-year Reagan-Bush reign. But the Democrats, too, seemed eager to go along, frightened of a head-on fight with the Republicans.

But my confidence was shaken by the House investigator on the phone and his photograph. A formal group photo of the Bohemian Grove members and guests at the Parsonage cottage on the last weekend of July 1980 would be the clincher. It would prove, finally, that Jamshid Hashemi was a liar and that the Madrid allegation was a myth.

"You found a photograph of Bill Casey at the Bohemian Grove?" I choked. A lightheadedness swept over my mind as I tried to reconcile how the seeming ironclad evidence against the Bohemian Grove alibi could have been so wrong.

But I sensed an uncertainty, maybe even embarrassment, at the other end of the line.

"Well," the investigator answered hesitantly, "Bill Casey's not in the photograph. Everyone else is. Darrell Trent, his host, is there. But Bill Casey's not in the picture."

"Bill Casey's not there?" I exclaimed in amazement.

"No, Bill Casey's not in the picture."

Still, in its published report, the task force ditched the photograph and other documents putting Casey at the Grove only on the first weekend of August 1980. The task force relied instead on one piece of paper, a notation written by Republican foreign policy adviser Richard Allen. On a note page dated Aug. 2, Allen had scribbled down Casey's Long Island home phone number.

That act of writing down the number proved, the task force sleuths concluded, that Casey was at home that day -- and thus not at the Grove. That, in turn, meant that Casey must have attended the Grove the last weekend of July. The task force embraced this strange argument even though Allen testified that "I can't tell you whether or not I got through" on Casey's number when he dialed it Aug. 2.

In other words, the seasoned House investigators decided that writing down a person's home phone number proved the person was at home, even if the phone went unanswered. Armed with such "logic," the task force completed its debunking of the October Surprise allegations.
On the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, the task force chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., cited the solid Casey alibis as a key reason why the task force report "should put the controversy to rest once and for all." (Jan. 24, 1993) Hamilton 's article was aptly entitled "Case Closed."

And so it stayed, until I learned that senior Iranian officials had informed intermediaries close to President Clinton in 1993-94 that the House task force had gotten the story all wrong. These Iranians asserted that they indeed had collaborated with Casey and other Republicans in 1980. But the Clinton administration, at its highest levels, chose not to reopen the "closed" investigation. President Clinton apparently felt the old fight was too risky and might detract from his high-priority domestic agenda.

It was then that I tracked down the House task force records in a barren storage room off the House Rayburn parking garage. In the boxes were documents, some "secret" and even "top secret," that contradicted many of the task force's conclusions. I dubbed these records, the October Surprise X-Files. (See the first five issues of The Consortium for more details.)

In one of the dozens of boxes, I found a color photograph of the 16 men who spent that pivotal last weekend of July 1980 in the Parsonage cottage at the Bohemian Grove. They were posed in a formal setting, with some older gentlemen seated in front and the other members and guests standing in elevated rows behind them. I looked at one man after another, searching for the tall, stooped, large-headed figure of Bill Casey. He was no where to be seen.

Bush & a CIA Power Play

The CIA Old Boys were reeling. In the 1970s, exposure of their dirty games and dirty tricks made the Cold Warriors look sinister -- and silly. Then, President Carter ordered a housecleaning that left scores of CIA men out in the cold.

In 1980, the CIA men wanted back in and their champion was former CIA director George Bush. With Bush and Ronald Reagan in power, the old spies could resume their work with a vengeance. The temptation was to do to Jimmy Carter what the CIA had done to countless other world leaders -- overthrow him, a frightening chapter from the October Surprise X-Files

October Surprise X-Files (Part 7): Bush & a CIA Power Play By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- With little more than a week left in the 1980 campaign, Republican vice presidential nominee George Bush was nervous. New polls put Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in a dead heat. Then, while going to campaign in Pittsburgh , Bush got an unsettling message from former Texas Gov. John Connally.

Connally, a onetime-Democrat-turned-Republican, said the oil-rich Middle East was buzzing with rumors that President Carter had achieved his long-elusive goal of a pre-election release of 52 American hostages held in Iran . If true, Ronald Reagan's election was in trouble.

So, at 2:12 p.m., Oct. 27, 1980, George Bush called Richard Allen, a senior Reagan foreign policy adviser who was keeping tabs on Carter's hostage progress. Bush ordered Allen to find out what he could about Connally's tip. Allen's notes, which I discovered many years later in an obscure Capitol Hill storage room, made clear that Bush was in charge.

"Geo Bush," Allen's notes began, "JBC [Connally] -- already made deal. Israelis delivered last wk spare pts. via Amsterdam . Hostages out this wk. Moderate Arabs upset. French have given spares to Iraq and know of JC [Carter] deal w/Iran. JBC [Connally] unsure what we should do. RVA [Allen] to act if true or not."

In a still "secret" 1992 deposition to House investigators, Allen explained the cryptic notes as meaning Connally had heard that President Carter had ransomed the hostages' freedom with an Israeli shipment of military spare parts to Iran . Allen said Bush then instructed him to query Connally, who was in Houston , and to pass on any new details to two of Bush's closest personal aides.

The Blond Ghost

According to the notes, Allen was to relay the information to "Ted Shacklee [sic] via Jennifer." The Jennifer was Bush's longtime assistant, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Allen testified. "Shacklee" was Theodore Shackley, the legendary CIA covert ops specialist known as the "blond ghost."

During the Cold War, Shackley had run many of the CIA's most controversial paramilitary operations, from Vietnam and Laos to the JMWAVE operations against Fidel Castro's Cuba . When Bush was CIA director in 1976, he appointed Shackley to a top clandestine job, associate deputy director for operations.

But Shackley's CIA career ended in 1979, after three years of battling Carter's CIA director, Stansfield Turner. Shackley believed that Turner, by cleaning out hundreds of covert "old boys," was destroying the agency -- as well as Shackley's career.

After retiring, Shackley went into business with another ex-CIA man, Thomas Clines, a partner with Edwin Wilson, the rogue spy who later would go to prison over shipments of terrorist materials to Libya . Clines himself would be convicted of tax fraud in the Iran-contra scandal, another controversy in which Shackley's pale specter would hover in the background.

But in 1980, Shackley was set on putting his former boss, George ush, in the White House and possibly securing the CIA directorship for himself. Shackley volunteered his prodigious skills to Bush in early 1980. Though that fact has come out before, Shackley's involvement in the Iran hostage issue, the so-called October Surprise controversy, has been a closely held secret, until now.

In 1992, the House investigators should have jumped when they saw the Shackley tie-in. The task force, which was examining charges that Republicans sabotaged Carter's hostage talks, already knew that other ex-CIA men were managing a 24-hour-a-day " Operations Center " at Reagan-Bush campaign headquarters to monitor Iran developments. Richard Allen had called the ex-spies a "plane load of disgruntled CIA" officers "playing cops and robbers."

Some House investigators wanted the behind-the-scenes CIA role mentioned. A "secret" draft chapter of the House task force report, which I also found in the storage room, stated that: "Many of the [ Operations Center 's] staff members were former CIA employees who had previously worked on the Bush campaign or were otherwise loyal to George Bush." But that section was deleted from the publicly released version.

Another task force discovery -- also dropped from the final report -- was that conservative "journalist" Michael Ledeen, another Shackley associate, was privately collaborating with the Reagan-Bush campaign on the Iran hostage issue. The draft chapter said Ledeen was an unofficial member of the campaign's "October Surprise" group. A separate page of Allen's notes revealed Ledeen joining campaign director, William J. Casey, in a Sept. 16 meeting for what was called the "Persian Gulf Project."

In 1980, Shackley had teamed up with Ledeen as paid consultants to a "war game" for SISMI, the Italian intelligence service with close ties to the secret international right-wing Masonic lodge, P-2. As the 1980 campaign neared its end, Italian intelligence leaked a damaging -- and questionable -- story to Ledeen about President Carter's brother Billy and his business ties to Libya . Ledeen wrote the story for The New Republic without mentioning that he was working for SISMI or assisting the Reagan-Bush campaign. (See David Corn's The Blond Ghost, p. 359.)
Shackley had strong bonds to many CIA officers still in the government, too. Donald Gregg, who also has been linked to the October Surprise allegations, served under Shackley's command in Vietnam . In 1980, Gregg was the CIA liaison inside Carter's National Security Council, making him privy to secrets about the hostage talks. Gregg would later become national security adviser to Vice President Bush and a secondary figure in the Iran-contra scandal.

A Paris Tale

But the pivotal October Surprise question still turned on whether Reagan's campaign director Casey and vice presidential nominee Bush met face-to-face with Iranian mullahs in 1980. According to one set of allegations, the pair slipped off to Paris for such a meeting on Oct. 19, 1980.

Four French intelligence officials, including France 's spy chief Alexandre deMarenches in statements to his biographer, placed Casey at the Paris meeting. But two other witnesses, a pilot named Heinrich Rupp and Israeli intelligence official Ari Ben-Menashe, also claimed to have seen Bush in Paris that day. Ben-Menashe testified that Casey and Bush were accompanied by active-duty CIA officers.

Rupp, who says he flew Casey from National Airport to Paris , recalled that the flight left very late on a rainy night. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy and sign-in sheets at the Republican headquarters showed Casey stopping at the Operations Center for a 10-minute visit at about 11:30 p.m. The headquarters in Arlington , Va. , was only a five-minute drive from National Airport . Casey also had no credible alibi for his whereabouts on that day. (See The Consortium, Feb. 14).

Bush, however, was a different story. He was under Secret Service protection and those confidential records listed him as taking a day off from the campaign at his home in Washington . Yet, there were troubles with Bush's alibi. None of the Secret Service agents could recall the two personal trips that Bush supposedly took in the morning and afternoon of Oct. 19.

Then, the Bush administration blocked access to one family friend listed as receiving a visit from the Bushes in the afternoon. The name was blacked out in the records given to the task force, and the investigators only got the name by promising to keep it secret and to never question the family friend.

In a bipartisan spirit, eager to repudiate the disturbing Bush charges, the House task force acquiesced to these unusual terms. Amazingly, the purported alibi witness was never interviewed. In its first public statement on July 1, 1992, the task force cleared Bush.

That decision meant the investigators found no need to explain another curious fact. At PBS FRONTLINE, we had discovered that on Oct. 18, 1980, a Chicago Tribune reporter named John Maclean told a U.S. foreign service officer, David Henderson, that a Republican source had supplied a fascinating tip -- that Bush was flying to Paris to discuss the hostages with Iranians.
That two strangers -- Maclean and Henderson -- would have discussed a Bush trip to Paris at the precise time that others would allege, years later, that Bush left the country should have raised the task force's eyebrows. At least, the investigators should have questioned the Bush family friend. But they didn't. (Allen's notes for that week reveal a meeting with Maclean, although the reporter has refused to divulge the name of his source.)

To the task force, the possibility that former and current CIA officers conspired with Republicans and foreign intelligence services to unseat a President of the United States was unthinkable. If true, it would have meant that elements of the CIA mounted a silent coup d'etat that undermined American democracy to put in place a President who would unleash the spy agency.

But certainly what followed in the 1980s pleased the CIA's hardliners. Under President Reagan's CIA director William Casey, CIA covert operations proliferated. Dozens of cashiered CIA officers were brought back on contract. Billions of taxpayer dollars were poured into CIA projects. The CIA was also spared Carter's nagging about human rights, as CIA-trained units launched death-squad operations throughout Central America and Africa .

A real politick Zeitgeist took hold in Washington . It tolerated drug smuggling by CIA-connected groups, including the Nicaraguan contras and the Afghan mujahadeen. It watched passively as CIA associates plundered the world's banking system, most notably through the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which also had paid off a key Iranian in the October Surprise mystery. (See The Consortium, Dec. 31)

Connally's False Alarm

Still, regardless of what did or didn't happen in Paris , Bush was jittery on Oct. 27, 1980. If Connally was right, Carter might have offered Iran a deal so sweet the mullahs couldn't refuse. But as it turned out, Connally's news was garbled. It was true that Israel had shipped military spare parts by air to Iran a few days earlier. But the shipment had been in defiance of Carter, not part of a solution to the hostage crisis.

In 1992, ex-President Carter told the congressional investigators that Israel 's Likud government had opposed his re-election. According to other notes I found in the storage room, Carter said that from April 1980, "I felt Israel cast their lot with Reagan." Carter sensed a "lingering concern [among] Jewish leaders that I was too friendly with Arabs."

But the House task force had little interest in pulling strings that might unravel a nasty national security scandal. Luckily for the CIA, the chief investigator, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. was a favorite of the intelligence community and had worked closely with many of the figures implicated in the October Surprise affair.

For instance, BCCI paid Barcella and his law firm more than $2 million to fend off charges of corruption and money-laundering. At that time, Barcella's senior law partner was former Sen. Paul Laxalt, Reagan's finance chairman in 1980 who allegedly had covered up secret payments to the 1980 campaign from the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos. (See The Consortium, Jan. 15)
Barcella was also close friends with Michael Ledeen. The two men shared a housekeeper and socialized together. In 1982, when Barcella was the lead prosecutor in the Edwin Wilson case, Ledeen visited Barcella's home one night to urge that the prosecutor drop Shackley from the investigation.

Neither Barcella nor Ledeen saw anything wrong with Ledeen's out-of-channel contact. "He just wanted to add his two-cents worth," Barcella told me. "This is a community in which people help friends understand things," Ledeen explained. Shackley was soon cleared of complicity in the unsavory Wilson matter.

In 1993, Barcella would also find "no credible evidence" to support the October Surprise charges. But as we have shown in the first six parts of this series, a wealth of evidence that pointed in the opposite direction was left out of the final report.

For instance, there was no reference to BCCI's secret money deliveries to October Surprise suspects, no mention of Ledeen, Shackley or the other ex-CIA men assisting the Reagan-Bush campaign on Iran, no word about Laxalt and the Marcos money -and nothing about Bush's phone call.

Lies Spun into History

Better than Democrats, Bob Dole and other Republicans grasped the value of defending heroes, even imperfect ones. So the GOP battled the charges that Bill Casey and other Republicans played a nearly treasonous dirty trick to win in 1980.

The defense required enforcing absurd alibis, bullying investigators and massaging the facts. But it worked. The Democrats acquiesced and the Republicans proved that they respected history enough to falsify it, the final chapter of the October Surprise X-Files.

October Surprise X-Files (Part 8): Lies Spun into History By Robert Parry

WASHINGTON -- Bill Clinton's Inauguration ended the 12-year Reagan-Bush reign, but the Republicans still had the legacy. On Feb. 3, 1993, two weeks after Clinton moved into the White House, GOP congressmen took to the House floor to celebrate the debunking of the October Surprise allegations. During a "special order," Rep. Henry Hyde denounced the long-standing suspicions as a "myth." He trumpeted the bipartisan House task force's finding -- that William Casey and George Bush did nothing to undercut President Carter's Iranian hostage talks in 1980.

"October Surprise" quickly passed from allegation to Republican grievance. It would become a GOP battle cry, echoing through the next three years as Sen. Bob Dole and others demanded investigations of Clinton by citing the attention given the "baseless" accusations from 1980. House Democrats may have thought they were buying some political peace by clearing Casey and Bush on the 1980 matter. But the Democrats were wrong.

In a gleeful House colloquy, Hyde, a white-haired rotund Republican from Illinois , did acknowledge some weakness in the House task force findings. Casey's 1980 passport had disappeared, as had key pages of his calendar, Hyde admitted. He noted, too, that the chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches, had told his biographer that Casey, while Ronald Reagan's campaign director, did hold hostage talks with the Iranians in Paris in October 1980. Several French intelligence officials were corroborating that assertion.

But Hyde insisted that two solid blocks of evidence proved that the October Surprise allegations were false. Hyde's first cornerstone was hard-rock alibis for Casey and other suspects. "We were able to locate [Casey's] whereabouts with virtual certainty" on the dates when he allegedly met with Iranians in Europe to discuss the hostages, Hyde declared.

For instance, Casey had been in California on the late July 1980 weekend of a purported meeting with Iranians in Madrid , Hyde said. There was an alibi, too, that weekend for the late Cyrus Hashemi, a mysterious Iranian banker with ties to the CIA, Tehran 's radical mullahs and the corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Hashemi was in Connecticut , Hyde said -- even though Hashemi's older brother Jamshid testified under oath that he and Cyrus were with Casey and a senior Iranian cleric in Madrid .

The second debunking cornerstone, Hyde added, was the absence of anything incriminating on FBI wiretaps of Cyrus Hashemi over five months in late 1980 and early 1981. Hyde noted that according to the task force report, "there is not a single indication that William Casey had contact with Cyrus or Jamshid Hashemi. ...Indeed, there is no indication on the tapes that Casey or any other individuals associated with the Reagan campaign had contact with any persons representing or associated with the Iranian government."

Cracked Cornerstones

But under any careful inspection, both of Hyde's cornerstones crumbled. The alibis were laughably bogus. The clear and documented record showed that the House investigators put Casey in California on the wrong weekend. (See The Consortium, Feb. 14, 1996)

Plus, the "proof" of Hashemi's presence in Connecticut consisted of phone records showing two one-minute calls, one from a lawyer to Hashemi's home and one back to the lawyer. There was no evidence that Hashemi received or made the calls, and the pattern more likely fit a call asking a family member when Hashemi was due home and the second call giving the answer.

The Republicans were wrong, too, about the absence of incriminating evidence on the Hashemi wiretaps. But since those wiretaps were secret in 1993, that argument was impossible to assess then. But when I accessed the raw House documents (which I dubbed the "October Surprise X-Files") in a remote Capitol Hill storage room many months later, I found a classified summary of the FBI bugging.

According to that summary, the bugs actually revealed Cyrus Hashemi deeply enmeshed with Republicans on arms deals to Iran in fall 1980 as well as in business schemes with Bill Casey's close friend, John Shaheen. And contrary to the task force's claim of "not a single indication" of contact between Casey and Cyrus Hashemi, the Iranian banker was recorded as boasting that he and Casey had been "close friends" for years. That claim was supported by a CIA memo which stated that Casey recruited Cyrus Hashemi into a sensitive business arrangement in 1979. (See The Consortium, Dec. 31, 1995)

But beyond that, the secret FBI summary showed Hashemi receiving a $3 million offshore deposit, arranged by a Houston lawyer who said he was a longtime associate of then-vice presidential candidate George Bush. The Houston lawyer, Harrel Tillman, also told me in an interview that in 1980, he was doubling as a consultant to Iran 's Islamic government.

After Reagan defeated Carter in November 1980, Tillman was back on the line promising help from the "Bush people" for one of Hashemi's floundering business deals. Then, the FBI wiretaps picked up Hashemi getting a cash payment, via a courier arriving on the Concorde, from the corrupt bank, BCCI. (For more details, see The Consortium, Dec. 31, 1995, & Jan. 15, 1996)

The House task force concealed these documents and then grossly miswrote an important chapter of recent American history. But even the primary author, the chief counsel, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., saw potential problems caused by the report's omissions. According to another document I found in the storage room, Barcella ordered his staff "to put some language in, as a trap door" to allow a last-minute escape should complaints arise about selective use of evidence.
Barcella also needed to duck another problem -- conflicts of interest confronting him from the October Surprise case. Not only was the chief counsel friends with some of the suspects, he had earned more than $2 million from BCCI for his law firm which was headed by former Sen. Paul Laxalt, who had served as Reagan's campaign finance chairman in 1980. The conflict-of-interest difficulty was handled simply by purging any reference to BCCI and Barcella's associates from the final report. (See The Consortium, Feb. 29, 1996)

Dissent Denied

Inside the House task force, Barcella encountered some resistance to the report's bogus alibis and twisted logic. When a draft was belatedly shown to Democrats on the panel, in December 1992, one congressman, Mervyn Dymally of California , authorized the writing of a formal dissent.

Staff aide, Marwan Burgan, quickly spotted some of the report's absurd alibis, including the claim that because someone wrote down Casey's home phone number on one day that proved Casey was home, or that because a plane flew from San Francisco directly to London on another important date that Casey must have been onboard.

According to sources who saw Dymally's dissent, it argued that "just because phones ring and planes fly doesn't mean that someone is there to answer the phone or is on the plane." But Dymally's reasonable observations were fiercely opposed by Barcella, who enlisted the task force chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., to pressure Dymally into withdrawing the dissent.
If the dissent were not pulled, Barcella and Hamilton threatened to denounce Dymally for missing task force meetings and for not having Burgan cleared to review all the classified material. Hamilton warned Dymally, who was retiring from Congress, that he [Hamilton] would "come down hard" on Dymally. The next day, Hamilton fired all the staffers who had worked on Dymally's Africa subcommittee.

Seeing the firings as retribution (though Hamilton denied a connection), Dymally relented and withdrew the dissent, which was never made public. With the road cleared, the task force report, resplendent in its irrationality, rolled ahead to become the official history of the United States .

But the silencing of Dymally was only the final act in a long-running campaign to halt any serious accounting for Reagan-Bush misdeeds in the 1980s. Two weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve 1992, President Bush had pardoned six Iran-contra conspirators, effectively ending the Iran-contra investigation by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh. Bush also left office with his aides ripping out the hard discs of their computers and still stonewalling congressional requests for documents about the secret arming of Iraq .

Dole to the Defense

On Bush was aided in these national security cover-ups by a sometimes political rival, Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole. The dour Kansan, now seeking the Republican presidential nomination, played the same protective role for Bush that House Minority Leader Gerald Ford had for President Nixon in the early days of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

Throughout the Iran-contra affair and its spin-off scandals, Dole fought rear-guard actions to frustrate investigations. In doing so, he earned credit with the GOP's dominant right wing, which was in denial that Ronald Reagan could do anything wrong. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1993, Dole boasted how he had gone to the Senate floor "on countless occasions" to hector special prosecutor Walsh, often over petty issues.

"I've discussed his violation of Washington , D.C. tax laws, his first-class air fares, the lavish office space," Dole said. "I've talked about his breakfasts, his paid-for room service and dinners provided by American taxpayers." Dole bragged that he even examined the "political leanings" of Walsh's staff lawyers, some of whom were then set up for bashing in the right-wing press.
But on the October Surprise issue, Dole went straight for the jugular. Not content to harass an ongoing investigation, Dole mounted a filibuster against any independent Senate inquiry. On Nov. 22, 1991, Dole invoked party discipline to defeat a cloture vote and block special funding for the investigation.

When a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee still sponsored a small-scale investigation, Dole's lieutenants, Sens. Mitch McConnell and Jesse Helms, summoned the chief counsel, Reid Weingarten, into a closed-door meeting. McConnell brow-beat Weingarten with personal insults. Helms barred Weingarten's investigators from interviewing witnesses outside Washington .

Though hamstrung by lack of funds and hampered by Republicans, Weingarten did make some significant discoveries. He obtained testimony corroborating claims that Casey had known Cyrus Hashemi before the 1980 election. His investigators found that some FBI wiretaps of Hashemi might have been intentionally erased. He revealed that key Casey records -- the 1980 passport and several calendar pages -- were missing and that the Casey family was withholding documents.

In the end, however, the best Weingarten could do was conclude that Casey had been "fishing in troubled waters" on the hostage issue in 1980 and was engaged in "informal, clandestine, and potentially dangerous efforts on behalf of the Reagan campaign to gather intelligence on the volatile and unpredictable course of the hostage negotiations."'

Thanks to the Dole filibuster, most of the October Surprise investigation was delivered into the friendlier hands of the House task force. Then, with crucial evidence hidden, the House task force concluded that Ronald Reagan won the Presidency without recourse to a very dirty trick.

In that way, the historical legitimacy of the Reagan and Bush presidencies was preserved.
Henry Hyde and the other Republicans could celebrate.

The Bushes & the Truth About Iran

By Robert Parry September 21, 2006

Having gone through the diplomatic motions with Iran , George W. Bush is shifting toward a military option that carries severe risks for American soldiers in Iraq as well as for long-term U.S. interests around the world. Yet, despite this looming crisis, the Bush Family continues to withhold key historical facts about U.S.-Iranian relations.

Those historical facts – relating to Republican contacts with Iran ’s Islamic regime more than a quarter century ago – are relevant today because an underlying theme in Bush’s rationale for war is that direct negotiations with Iran are pointless. But Bush’s own father may know otherwise.

The evidence is now persuasive that George H.W. Bush participated in negotiations with Iran ’s radical regime in 1980, behind President Jimmy Carter’s back, with the goal of arranging for 52 American hostages to be released after Bush and Ronald Reagan were sworn in as Vice President and President, respectively.

In exchange, the Republicans agreed to let Iran obtain U.S.-manufactured military supplies through Israel . The Iranians kept their word, releasing the hostages immediately upon Reagan’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, 1981.

Over the next few years, the Republican-Israel-Iran weapons pipeline operated mostly in secret, only exploding into public view with the Iran-Contra scandal in late 1986. Even then, the Reagan-Bush team was able to limit congressional and other investigations, keeping the full history – and the 1980 chapter – hidden from the American people.

Upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2001, George W. Bush walled up the history even more by issuing an executive order blocking the scheduled declassification of records from the Reagan-Bush years. After 9/11, the younger George Bush added more bricks to the wall by giving Presidents, Vice Presidents and their heirs power over releasing documents.

Impending War

But that history is vital today.

First, the American people should know the real history of U.S.-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East . Second, the degree to which Iranian officials are willing to negotiate with their U.S. counterparts – and fulfill their side of the bargain – bears on the feasibility of talks now.

Indeed, the only rationale for hiding the historical record is that it would embarrass the Bush Family and possibly complicate George W. Bush’s decision to attack Iran regardless of what the American people might want.

The Time magazine cover story, released on Sept. 17, and a new report by retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner – entitled “The End of the ‘Summer Diplomacy’” – make clear that the military option against Iran is moving rapidly toward implementation.

Gardiner, who taught at the National War College and has war-gamed U.S. attacks on Iran for American policymakers over the past five years, noted that one of the “seven key truths” guiding Bush to war is that “you cannot negotiate with these people.”

That “truth,” combined with suspicions about Iran ’s nuclear ambitions and Tehran ’s relationship with Hezbelloh and other militant Islamic groups, has led the Bush administration into the box-canyon logic that war is the only answer, despite the fact that Gardiner’s war games have found that war would have disastrous consequences.

In his report, Gardiner also noted that Bush’s personality and his sense of his presidential destiny are adding to the pressures for war.

“The President is said to see himself as being like Winston Churchill, and to believe that the world will only appreciate him after he leaves office; he talks about the Middle East in messianic terms; he is said to have told those close to him that he has got to attack Iran because even if a Republican succeeds him in the White House, he will not have the same freedom of action that Bush enjoys.

“Most recently, someone high in the administration told a reporter that the President believes that he is the only one who can ‘do the right thing’ with respect to Iran . One thing is clear: a major source of the pressure for a military strike emanates from the very man who will ultimately make the decision over whether to authorize such a strike – the President.”

A Made-up Mind

Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who reflects the thinking of influential neoconservatives, reached a similar conclusion – that Bush had essentially made up his mind about attacking Iran .

Krauthammer noted that on the day after the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush responded to a question about Iran by saying: “It’s very important for the American people to see the President try to solve problems diplomatically before resorting to military force.”

“‘Before’ implies that one follows the other,” Krauthammer wrote. “The signal is unmistakable. An aerial attack on Iran ’s nuclear facilities lies just beyond the horizon of diplomacy. With the crisis advancing and the moment of truth approaching, it is important to begin looking now with unflinching honesty at the military option.” [ Washington Post, Sept. 15, 2006]

Yet, before making such a fateful decision, shouldn’t Bush at least ask his father to finally level with him and with the American people about what happened in 1980 when the country was transfixed by Iranian militants holding 52 American hostages for 444 days?

At Consortiumnews.com, we have a special interest in that history because it was my discovery of a trove of classified documents pointing to the secret Republican negotiations with Iran that led to the founding of this Web site in 1995 and the publication of our first investigative series.
In the mid-1990s, the U.S. news media was obsessed with issues such as the O.J. Simpson trial and the so-called “Clinton scandals,” so there was little interest in reexamining some historical mystery about Republicans going behind Jimmy Carter’s back to strike a deal with Iran’s mullahs.

[The fullest account of this history can be found in Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege, which was published in 2004.]

But that history now could be a matter of life or death for thousands of people in the Middle East, including Iranians, Israelis and American soldiers in Iraq .

False History

The false history surrounding the Iranian hostage crisis also has led to the mistaken conclusion that it was only the specter of Ronald Reagan’s tough-guy image that made Iran buckle in January 1981 and that, therefore, the Iranians respect only force.

The hostage release on Reagan’s Inauguration Day bathed the new President in an aura of heroism as a leader so feared by America ’s enemies that they scrambled to avoid angering him. It was viewed as a case study of how U.S. toughness could restore the proper international order.

That night, as fireworks lit the skies of Washington , the celebration was not only for a new President and for the freed hostages, but for a new era in which American power would no longer be mocked. That momentum continues to this day in George W. Bush’s “preemptive” wars and the imperial boasts about a “New American Century.”

However, the reality of that day 25 years ago now appears to have been quite different than was understood at the time. What’s now known about the Iranian hostage crisis suggests that the “coincidence” of the Reagan Inauguration and the Hostage Release was not a case of frightened Iranians cowering before a U.S. President who might just nuke Tehran .

The evidence indicates that it was a prearranged deal between the Republicans and the Iranians. The Republicans got the hostages and the political bounce; Iran ’s Islamic fundamentalists got a secret supply of weapons and various other payoffs.

State Secret

Though the full history remains a state secret, it now appears Republicans did contact Iran ’s mullahs during the 1980 campaign; a hostage agreement was reached; and a clandestine flow of U.S. weapons soon followed.

In effect, while Americans thought they were witnessing one reality – the cinematic heroism of Ronald Reagan backing down Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – another truth existed beneath the surface, one so troubling that the Reagan-Bush political apparatus has made keeping the secret a top priority for a quarter century.

The American people must never be allowed to think that the Reagan-Bush era began with collusion between Republican operatives and Islamic terrorists, an act that many might view as treason.

A part of those secret dealings between Iran and the Republicans surfaced in the Iran-Contra Affair in 1986, when the public learned that the Reagan-Bush administration had sold arms to Iran for its help in freeing U.S. hostages then held in Lebanon .

After first denying these facts, the White House acknowledged the existence of the arms deals in 1985 and 1986 but managed to block investigators from looking back before 1984, when the official histories assert that the Iran initiative began.

During the 1987 congressional hearings on Iran-Contra, Republicans – behind the hardnosed leadership of Rep. Dick Cheney – fought to protect the White House, while Democrats, led by the accommodating Rep. Lee Hamilton, had no stomach for a constitutional crisis.

The result was a truncated investigation that laid much of the blame on supposedly rogue operatives, such as Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.

Many American editors quickly grew bored with the complex Iran-Contra tale, but a few reporters kept searching for its origins. The trail kept receding in time, back to the Republican-Iranian relationship forged in the heat of the 1980 presidential campaign.

‘Germs’ of Scandal

Besides the few journalists, some U.S. government officials reached the same conclusion. For instance, Nicholas Veliotes, Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for the Middle East , traced the “germs” of the Iran-Contra scandal to the 1980 campaign.

In a PBS interview, Veliotes said he first discovered the secret arms pipeline to Iran when an Israeli weapons flight was shot down over the Soviet Union on July 18, 1981, after straying off course on its third mission to deliver U.S. military supplies from Israel to Iran via Larnaca , Cyprus .

“We received a press report from Tass [the official Soviet news agency] that an Argentinian plane had crashed,” Veliotes said. “According to the documents … this was chartered by Israel and it was carrying American military equipment to Iran . …And it was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment.

“Now this was not a covert operation in the classic sense, for which probably you could get a legal justification for it. As it stood, I believe it was the initiative of a few people [who] gave the Israelis the go-ahead. The net result was a violation of American law.”

The reason that the Israeli flights violated U.S. law was that no formal notification had been given to Congress about the transshipment of U.S. military equipment as required by the Arms Export Control Act – a foreshadowing of George W. Bush’s decision two decades later to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

In checking out the Israeli flight, Veliotes came to believe that the Reagan-Bush camp’s dealings with Iran dated back to before the 1980 election.

“It seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration,” Veliotes said. “And I understand some contacts were made at that time.”

Q: “Between?”

Veliotes: “Between Israelis and these new players.”

Israeli Interests

In my work on the Iran-Contra scandal, I had obtained a classified summary of testimony by a mid-level State Department official, David Satterfield, who saw the early arms shipments as a continuation of Israeli policy toward Iran .

“Satterfield believed that Israel maintained a persistent military relationship with Iran , based on the Israeli assumption that Iran was a non-Arab state which always constituted a potential ally in the Middle East ,” the summary read. “There was evidence that Israel resumed providing arms to Iran in 1980.”

Over the years, senior Israeli officials claimed that those early shipments had the discreet blessing of top Reagan-Bush officials.

In May 1982, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon told the Washington Post that U.S. officials had approved the Iranian arms transfers. “We said that notwithstanding the tyranny of Khomeini, which we all hate, we have to leave a small window open to this country, a tiny small bridge to this country,” Sharon said.

A decade later, in 1993, I took part in an interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in Tel Aviv during which he said he had read Gary Sick’s 1991 book, October Surprise, which made the case for believing that the Republicans had intervened in the 1980 hostage negotiations to disrupt Jimmy Carter’s reelection.

With the topic raised, one interviewer asked, “What do you think? Was there an October Surprise?”

“Of course, it was,” Shamir responded without hesitation. “It was.” Later in the interview when pressed for details, Shamir seemed to regret his candor and tried to backpedal somewhat on his answer.

Lie Detector

Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh also came to suspect that the arms-for-hostage trail led back to 1980, since it was the only way to make sense of why the Reagan-Bush team continued selling arms to Iran in 1985-86 when there was so little progress in reducing the number of American hostages in Lebanon .

When Walsh’s investigators conducted a polygraph of George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser Donald Gregg, they added a question about Gregg’s possible participation in the secret 1980 negotiations.

“Were you ever involved in a plan to delay the release of the hostages in Iran until after the 1980 Presidential election?” the examiner asked. Gregg’s denial was judged to be deceptive. [See Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, Vol. I, p. 501]

While investigating the so-called “October Surprise” issue for PBS “Frontline” in 1991-92, I also discovered a former State Department official who claimed contemporaneous knowledge of an October 1980 trip by then vice presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to Paris to meet with Iranians about the hostages.

David Henderson, who was then a State Department Foreign Service officer, recalled the date as October 18, 1980. He said he heard about the Paris trip when Chicago Tribune correspondent John Maclean met him for an interview on another topic.

Maclean, son of author Norman Maclean who wrote A River Runs Through It, had just been told by a well-placed Republican source that Bush was flying to Paris for a clandestine meeting with a delegation of Iranians about the American hostages.

Henderson wasn’t sure whether Maclean was looking for some confirmation or whether he was simply sharing an interesting tidbit of news. For his part, Maclean never wrote about the leak because, he told me later, a GOP campaign spokesman had denied it.

Faded Memory

As the years passed, the memory of that Bush-to-Paris leak faded for both Henderson and Maclean, until October Surprise allegations bubbled to the surface in the early 1990s.

Several intelligence operatives were claiming that Bush had undertaken a secret mission to Paris in mid-October 1980 to give the Iranian government an assurance from one of the two Republicans on the presidential ticket that the GOP promises of future military and other assistance would be kept.

Henderson mentioned his recollection of the Bush-to-Paris leak in a 1991 letter to a U.S. senator, which someone sent to me. Though Henderson didn’t remember the name of the Chicago Tribune reporter, we were able to track it back to Maclean through a story that he had written about Henderson .

Though not eager to become part of the October Surprise story in 1991, Maclean confirmed that he had received the Republican leak. He also agreed with Henderson ’s recollection that their conversation occurred on or about Oct.18, 1980. But Maclean still declined to identify his source.
The significance of the Maclean-Henderson conversation was that it was a piece of information locked in a kind of historical amber, untainted by subsequent claims from intelligence operatives whose credibility had been challenged.

One couldn’t accuse Maclean of concocting the Bush-to-Paris allegation for some ulterior motive, since he hadn’t used it in 1980, nor had he volunteered it a decade later. He only confirmed it when asked and even then wasn’t eager to talk about it.

Bush Meeting

The Maclean-Henderson conversation provided important corroboration for the claims by the intelligence operatives, including Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe who said he saw Bush attend a final round of meetings with Iranians in Paris .

Ben-Menashe said he was in Paris as part of a six-member Israeli delegation that was coordinating the arms deliveries to Iran . He said the key meeting had occurred at the Ritz Hotel in Paris .

In his memoirs, Profits of War, Ben-Menashe said he recognized several Americans, including Republican congressional aide Robert McFarlane and CIA officers Robert Gates, Donald Gregg and George Cave . Then, Ben-Menashe said, Iranian cleric Mehdi Karrubi arrived and walked into a conference room.

“A few minutes later George Bush, with the wispy-haired William Casey in front of him, stepped out of the elevator. He smiled, said hello to everyone, and, like Karrubi, hurried into the conference room,” Ben-Menashe wrote.

Ben-Menashe said the Paris meetings served to finalize a previously outlined agreement calling for release of the 52 hostages in exchange for $52 million, guarantees of arms sales for Iran , and unfreezing of Iranian monies in U.S. banks. The timing, however, was changed, he said, to coincide with Reagan’s expected Inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981.

Ben-Menashe, who repeated his allegations under oath in a congressional deposition, received support from several sources, including pilot Heinrich Rupp, who said he flew Casey – then Reagan’s campaign director – from Washington ’s National Airport to Paris on a flight that left very late on a rainy night in mid-October.

Rupp said that after arriving at LeBourget airport outside Paris , he saw a man resembling Bush on the tarmac. The night of Oct. 18 indeed was rainy in the Washington area. Also, sign-in sheets at the Reagan-Bush headquarters in Arlington , Virginia , placed Casey within a five-minute drive of National Airport late that evening.

Other Witnesses

There were other bits and pieces of corroboration about the Paris meetings. As early as 1987, Iran ’s ex-President Bani-Sadr had made similar claims about a Paris meeting between Republicans and Iranians. A French arms dealer, Nicholas Ignatiew, told me in 1990 that he had checked with his government contacts and was told that Republicans did meet with Iranians in Paris in mid-October 1980.

A well-connected French investigative reporter Claude Angeli said his sources inside the French secret service confirmed that the service provided “cover” for a meeting between Republicans and Iranians in France on the weekend of Oct. 18-19, 1980. German journalist Martin Kilian had received a similar account from a top aide to the fiercely anti-communist chief of French intelligence, Alexandre deMarenches.

Later, deMarenches’s biographer, David Andelman, told congressional investigators under oath that deMarenches admitted that he had helped the Reagan-Bush campaign arrange meetings with Iranians about the hostage issue in the summer and fall of 1980, with one meeting held in Paris in October.

Andelman said deMarenches ordered that the secret meetings be kept out of his biography because the story could otherwise damage the reputation of his friends, Casey and Bush. “I don’t want to hurt my friend, George Bush,” Andelman recalled deMarenches saying as Bush was seeking re-election in 1992.

Gates, McFarlane, Gregg and Cave all denied participating in the meeting, though some alibis proved shaky and others were never examined at all.

Lashing Out

For his part, George H.W. Bush lashed out at the October Surprise allegations. At a news conference on June 4, 1992, Bush was asked if he thought an independent counsel was needed to investigate allegations of secret arms shipments to Iraq during the 1980s.

“I wonder whether they’re going to use the same prosecutors that are trying out there to see whether I was in Paris in 1980,” Bush snapped.

As a surprised hush fell over the press corps, Bush continued, “I mean, where are we going with the taxpayers’ money in this political year?” Bush then asserted, “I was not in Paris , and we did nothing illegal or wrong here” on Iraq .

Though Bush was a former CIA director and had been caught lying about Iran-Contra with his claims of being “out of the loop,” he was still given the benefit of the doubt in 1992. Plus, he had what appeared to be a solid alibi for Oct. 18-19, 1980, Secret Service records which placed him at his home in Washington on that weekend.

However, the Bush administration released the records only in redacted form, making it difficult for congressional investigators to verify exactly what Bush had done that day and whom he had met.

The records for the key day of Sunday, Oct. 19, purported to show Bush going to the Chevy Chase Country Club in the morning and to someone’s private residence in the afternoon. If Bush indeed had been on those side trips, it would close the window on any possible flight to Paris and back.

Investigators of the October Surprise mystery – including those of us at “Frontline” – put great weight on the Secret Service records. But little is really known about the Secret Service’s standards for recording the movements of protectees.

Since the cooperation of the protectees is essential to the Secret Service staying in position to thwart any attacker, the agents presumably must show flexibility in what details they report.
Few politicians are going to want bodyguards around if they write down the details of sensitive meetings or assignations with illicit lovers. Reasonably, the agents might have to fudge or leave out some of the facts.

Bush’s Alibi

As it turned out, only one Secret Service agent on the Bush detail – supervisor Leonard Tanis – claimed a clear recollection of the trip to the Chevy Chase Country Club that Sunday. Tanis told congressional investigators that Mr. and Mrs. Bush went to the Chevy Chase club for brunch with Justice and Mrs. Potter Stewart.

But at “Frontline,” we had already gone down that path and found it to be a dead end. We had obtained Mrs. Bush’s protective records and they showed her going to the C&O Canal jogging path in Washington , not to the Chevy Chase club.

We also had reached Justice Stewart’s widow, who had no recollection of any Chevy Chase brunch. So it appeared that Tanis was wrong – and he later backed off his claims.

The inaccurate Tanis account raised the suspicions of House International Affairs Committee counsel Spencer Oliver. In a six-page memo urging a closer look at the Bush question, Oliver argued that the Secret Service had withheld the uncensored daily report for no justifiable reason from Congress.

“Why did the Secret Service refuse to cooperate on a matter which could have conclusively cleared George Bush of these serious allegations?” Oliver asked. “Was the White House involved in this refusal? Did they order it?”

Oliver also noted Bush’s strange behavior in raising the October Surprise issue on his own at two news conferences.

“It can be fairly said that President Bush's recent outbursts about the October Surprise inquiries and [about] his whereabouts in mid-October of 1980 are disingenuous at best,” wrote Oliver, “since the administration has refused to make available the documents and the witnesses that could finally and conclusively clear Mr. Bush.”

Secret Flight

Unintentionally, Bush’s eldest son poked another hole in the assumption that the government would never doctor official records to help cover up international travel by a protected public figure.

For Thanksgiving 2003, George W. Bush wanted to make a surprise flight to Iraq . To give Bush’s flight additional security – and extra drama – phony flight plans were filed, a false call sign was employed, and Air Force One was identified as a “Gulfstream 5” in response to a question from a British Airways pilot.

“A senior administration official told reporters that even some members of Bush’s Secret Service detail believed he was still in Crawford, Texas, getting ready to have his parents over for Thanksgiving,” Washington Post reporter Mike Allen wrote. [ Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2003]
Besides falsely telling reporters that George W. Bush planned to spend Thanksgiving at his Texas ranch, Bush’s handlers spirited Bush to Air Force One in an unmarked vehicle, with only a tiny Secret Service contingent, the Post reported.

Bush later relished describing the scene to reporters. “They pulled up in a plain-looking vehicle with tinted windows. I slipped on a baseball cap, pulled ‘er down -- as did Condi. We looked like a normal couple,” he said, referring to national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Though the melodramatic deception surrounding Bush’s flight to Baghdad soon became public – since it was in essence a publicity stunt – it did prove the ability of high-ranking officials to conduct their movements in secrecy and the readiness of security personnel to file false reports as part of these operations.

Collapsing Alibis

By the late 1990s, other elements of the Republicans’ October Surprise alibis were collapsing, including pro-Reagan-Bush claims cited prominently by some news organizations, such as the New Republic and Newsweek. [For more details, see Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege or Consortiumnews.com’s “The Bushes & the Death of Reason.”]

With the Republican defenses falling apart and with many documents from the Reagan-Bush years scheduled for release in 2001, the opportunity to finally learn the truth about the pivotal election of 1980 loomed.

But George W. Bush got into the White House via a ruling by five Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the counting of votes in Florida . Then, on his first day in office, his counsel Alberto Gonzales drafted an executive order for Bush that postponed release of the Reagan-Bush records.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush approved another secrecy order that put the records beyond the public’s reach indefinitely, passing down control of many documents to a President’s or a Vice President’s descendants.

Thus, the truth about how the Reagan-Bush era began in the 1980s – and what was done to contain the Iran-Contra investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s – might eventually become the property of the noted scholars, the Bush twins, Jenna and Barbara.

The American people will be kept in the dark about their own history, like the subjects of some hereditary dynasty. Without the facts, they also face the possibility of being more easily manipulated by emotional appeals devoid of informed debate. That moment has come sooner than many expected. The United States appears to be on the brink of a war with Iran , while many government officials and the citizenry are operating on historical assumptions derived more from fiction than fact.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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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A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States: With An Invitation to Expand It

2007-01-20T20:34:00.000-08:00

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A National Intelligence Estimate on the United States {1}

by Chalmers Johnson {2}

Harper's Magazine (January 2007)

KEY JUDGMENTS

The United States remains, for the moment, the most powerful nation in history, but it faces a violent contradiction between its long republican tradition and its more recent imperial ambitions.

The fate of previous democratic empires suggests that such a conflict is unsustainable and will be resolved in one of two ways. Rome attempted to keep its empire and lost its democracy. Britain chose to remain democratic and in the process let go its empire. Intentionally or not, the people of the United States already are well embarked upon the course of non-democratic empire.

Several factors, however, indicate that this course will be a brief one, which most likely will end in economic and political collapse.

Military Keynesianism:

The imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation's wealth from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers -has created a form of "military Keynesianism", in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.

The Unitary Presidency:

Sustained military ambition is inherently anti-republican, in that it tends to concentrate power in the executive branch. In the United States, President George W Bush subscribes to an esoteric interpretation of the Constitution called the theory of the unitary executive, which holds, in effect, that the president has the authority to ignore the separation of powers written into the Constitution, creating a feedback loop in which permanent war and the unitary presidency are mutually reinforcing.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition:

The US legislature and judiciary appear to be incapable of restraining the president and therefore restraining imperial ambition. Direct opposition from the people, in the form of democratic action or violent uprising, is unlikely because the television and print media have by and large found it unprofitable to inform the public about the actions of the country's leaders. Nor is it likely that the military will attempt to take over the executive branch by way of a coup.

Bankruptcy and Collapse:

Confronted by the limits of its own vast but nonetheless finite financial resources and lacking the political check on spending provided by a functioning democracy, the United States will within a very short time face financial or even political collapse at home and a significantly diminished ability to project force abroad.

DISCUSSION

Military Keynesianism

The ongoing US militarization of its foreign affairs has spiked precipitously in recent years, with increasingly expensive commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. These commitments grew from many specific political factors, including the ideological predilections of the current regime, the growing need for material access to the oil rich regions of the Middle East, and a long-term bipartisan emphasis on hegemony as a basis for national security. The domestic economic basis for these commitments, however, is consistently overlooked. Indeed, America's hegemonic policy is in many ways most accurately understood as the inevitable result of its decades-long policy of military Keynesianism.

During the Depression that preceded World War II, the English economist John Maynard Keynes, a liberal capitalist, proposed a form of governance that would mitigate the boom-and bust cycles inherent in capitalist economies. To prevent the economy from contracting, a development typically accompanied by social unrest, Keynes thought the government should take on debt in order to put people back to work. Some of these deficit-financed government jobs might be socially useful, but Keynes was not averse to creating make-work tasks if necessary. During periods of prosperity, the government would cut spending and rebuild the treasury. Such countercyclical planning was called "pump-priming". Upon taking office in 1933, US President Franklin Roosevelt, with the assistance of Congress, put several Keynesian measures into effect, including socialized retirement plans, minimum wages for all workers, and government-financed jobs on massive projects, including the Triborough Bridge in New York City, the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, a flood-control and electric-power generation complex covering seven states. Conservative capitalists feared that this degree of government intervention would delegitimate capitalism - which they understood as an economic system of quasi-natural laws - and shift the balance of power from the capitalist class to the working class and its unions. For these reasons, establishment figures tried to hold back countercyclical spending.

The onset of World War II, however, made possible a significantly modified form of state socialism. The exiled Polish economist Michal Kalecki attributed Germany's success in overcoming the global Depression to a phenomenon that has come to be known as "military Keynesianism". Government spending on arms increased manufacturing and also had a multiplier effect on general consumer spending by raising worker incomes. Both of these points are in accordance with general Keynesian doctrine. In addition, the enlargement of standing armies absorbed many workers, often young males with few skills and less education. The military thus becomes an employer of last resort, like Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps, but on a much larger scale.

Rather than make bridges and dams, however, workers would make bullets, tanks, and fighter planes. This made all the difference. Although Adolf Hitler did not undertake rearmament for purely economic reasons, the fact that he advocated governmental support for arms production made him acceptable not only to the German industrialists, who might otherwise have opposed his destabilizing expansionist policies, but also to many around the world who celebrated his achievement of a "German economic miracle".

In the United States, Keynesian policies continued to benefit workers, but, as in Germany, they also increasingly benefited wealthy manufacturers and other capitalists. By the end of the war, the United States had seen a massive shift. Dwight Eisenhower, who helped win that war and later became president, described this shift in his 1961 presidential farewell address:

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, and even spiritual - is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

Eisenhower went on to suggest that such an arrangement, which he called the "military industrial complex", could be perilous to American ideals. The short-term economic benefits were clear, but the very nature of those benefits - which were all too carefully distributed among workers and owners in "every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government" - tended to short-circuit Keynes's insistence that government spending be cut back in good times. The prosperity of the United States came increasingly to depend upon the construction and continual maintenance of a vast war machine, and so military supremacy and economic security became increasingly intertwined in the minds of voters. No one wanted to turn off the pump.

Between 1940 and 1996, for instance, the United States spent nearly $4.5 trillion on the development, testing, and construction of nuclear weapons alone. By 1967, the peak year of its nuclear stockpile, the United States possessed some 32,000 deliverable bombs. None of them was ever used, which illustrates perfectly Keynes's observation that, in order to create jobs, the government might as well decide to bury money in old mines and "leave them to private enterprise on the well-tried principles of laissez faire to dig them up again". Nuclear bombs were not just America's secret weapon; they were also a secret economic weapon.

Such spending helped create economic growth that lasted until the 1973 oil crisis. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan once again brought the tools of military Keynesianism to bear, with a policy of significant tax cuts and massive deficit spending on military projects, allegedly to combat a new threat from Communism. Reagan's military expenditures accounted for 5.9 percent of the gross domestic product in 1984, which in turn fueled a seven percent growth rate for the economy as a whole and helped reelect Reagan by a landslide.

During the Clinton years military spending fell to about three percent of GDP, but the economy rallied strongly in Clinton's second term due to the boom in information technologies, weakness in the previously competitive Japanese economy, and - paradoxically - serious efforts to reduce the national debt. {3} With the coming to power of George W Bush, however, military Keynesianism returned once again. Indeed, after he began his war with Iraq, the once-erratic relationship between defense spending and economic growth became nearly parallel. A spike in defense spending in one quarter would see a spike in GDP, and a drop in defense spending would likewise see a drop in GDP.

To understand the real weight of military Keynesianism in the American economy today, however, one must approach official defense statistics with great care. The "defense" budget of the United States - that is, the reported budget of the Department of Defense - does not include: the Department of Energy's spending on nuclear weapons ($16.4 billion slated for fiscal 2006), the Department of Homeland Security's outlays for the actual "defense" of the United States ($41 billion), or the Department of Veterans Affairs' responsibilities for the lifetime care of the seriously wounded ($68 billion). Nor does it include the billions of dollars the Department of State spends each year to finance foreign arms sales and militarily related development or the Treasury Department's payment of pensions to military retirees and widows and their families (an amount not fully disclosed by official statistics). Still to be added are interest payments by the Treasury to cover past debt-financed defense outlays. The economist Robert Higgs estimates that in 2002 such interest payments amounted to $138.7 billion.

Even when all these things are included, Enron-style accounting makes it hard to obtain an accurate understanding of US dependency on military spending. In 2005, the Government Accounting Office reported to Congress that "neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing" or "details on how the appropriated funds are being spent". Indeed, the GAO found that, lacking a reliable method of tracking military costs, the Army had taken to simply inserting into its accounts figures that matched the available budget. Such actions seem absurd in terms of military logic. But they are perfectly logical responses to the requirements of military Keynesianism, which places its emphasis not on the demand for defense but rather on the available supply of money.

The Unitary Presidency

Military Keynesianism may be economic development by other means, but it does very often lead to real war, or, if not real war, then a significantly warlike political environment. This creates a feedback loop: American presidents know that military Keynesianism tends to concentrate power in the executive branch, and so presidents who seek greater power have a natural inducement to encourage further growth of the military-industrial complex. As the phenomena feed on each other, the usual outcome is a real war, based not on the needs of national defense but rather on the domestic political logic of military Keynesianism.

As US Senator Robert La Follett Sr observed, "In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for war, it insists on making war." George W Bush has taken this natural political phenomenon to an extreme never before experienced by the American electorate. Every president has sought greater authority, but Bush - whose father lost his position as forty-first president in a fair and open election - appears to believe that increasing presidential authority is both a birthright and a central component of his historical legacy. He is supported in this belief by his vice president and chief adviser, Dick Cheney.

In pursuit of more power, Bush and Cheney have unilaterally authorized preventive war against nations they designate as needing "regime change", directed American soldiers to torture persons they have seized and imprisoned in various countries, ordered the National Security Agency to carry out illegal "data mining" surveillance of the American people, and done everything they could to prevent Congress from outlawing "cruel, inhumane, or degrading" treatment of people detained by the United States. Each of these actions has been undertaken for specific ideological, tactical, or practical reasons, but also as part of a general campaign of power concentration.

Cheney complained in 2002 that, since he had served as Gerald Ford's chief of staff, he had seen a significant erosion in executive power as post-Watergate presidents were forced to "cough up and compromise on important principles". He was referring to such reforms as the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires that the president obtain congressional approval within ninety days of ordering troops into combat; the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which was designed to stop Nixon from impounding funds for programs he did not like; the Freedom of Information Act of 1966, which Congress strengthened in 1974; President Ford's Executive Order 11905 of 1976, which outlawed political assassination; and the Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, which gave more power to the House and Senate select committees on intelligence. Cheney said that these reforms were "unwise" because they "weaken the presidency and the vice presidency", and added that he and the president felt an obligation "to pass on our offices in better shape than we found them".

No president, however, has ever acknowledged the legitimacy of the War Powers Act, and most of these so-called limitations on presidential power had been gutted, ignored, or violated long before Cheney became vice president. Republican Senator John Sununu of New Hampshire said, "The vice president may be the only person I know of that believes the executive has somehow lost power over the last thirty years". Bush and Cheney have made it a primary goal of their terms in office, nonetheless, to carve executive power into the law, and the war has been the primary vehicle for such actions. John Yoo, Bush's deputy assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, writes in his book War By Other Means (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), "We are used to a peacetime system in which Congress enacts laws, the President enforces them, and the courts interpret them. In wartime, the gravity shifts to the executive branch." Bush has claimed that he is "the commander" and "the decider" and that therefore he does not "owe anybody an explanation" for anything. {4} Similarly, in a September 2006 press conference, White House spokesman Tony Snow engaged in this dialogue:

Q: Isn't it the Supreme Court that's supposed to decide whether laws are unconstitutional or not?

A: No, as a matter of fact the president has an obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That is an obligation that presidents have enacted through signing statements going back to Jefferson. So, while the Supreme Court can be an arbiter of the Constitution, the fact is the president is the one, the only person who, by the Constitution, is given the responsibility to preserve, protect, and defend that document, so it is perfectly consistent with presidential authority under the Constitution itself.

Snow was referring to the president's habit of signing bills into law accompanied by "statements" that, according to the American Bar Association, "assert President Bush's authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress". All forty-two previous US presidents combined have signed statements exempting themselves from the provisions of 568 new laws, whereas Bush has, to date, exempted himself from more than 1,000.

Failed Checks on Executive Ambition

The current administration's perspective on political power is far from unique. Few, if any, presidents have refused the increased executive authority that is the natural byproduct of military Keynesianism. Moreover, the division of power between the president, the Congress, and the judiciary - often described as the bedrock of American democracy - has eroded significantly in recent years. The people, the press, and the military, too, seem anxious to cede power to a "wartime" president, leaving Bush, or those who follow him, almost entirely unobstructed in pursuing the imperial project.

Congress:

Corrupt and indifferent, Congress, which the Founders believed would be the leading branch of government, has already entirely forfeited the power to declare war. More recently, it gave the president the legal right to detain anyone, even American citizens, without warrant, and to detain non-citizens without recourse to habeas corpus, as well as to use a variety of interrogation methods that he could define, at his sole discretion, to be or not be torture.

The Courts:

The judicial branch is hardly more effective in restraining presidential ambition. The Supreme Court was active in the installation of the current president, and the lower courts increasingly are packed with judges who believe they should defer to his wishes. In 2006, for instance, US District Judge David Trager dismissed a suit by a thirty-five-year-old Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, who in 2002 was seized by US government agents at John F Kennedy Airport and delivered to Syria, where he was tortured for ten months before being released. No charges were filed against Arar, and his torturers eventually admitted he had no links to any crime. In explaining his dismissal, Trager noted with approval an earlier Supreme Court finding that such judgment would "threaten 'our customary policy of deference to the President in matters of foreign affairs'".

The Military:

It is possible that the US military could take over the government and declare a dictatorship. {5} That is how the Roman republic ended. For the military voluntarily to move toward direct rule, however, its leaders would have to ignore their ties to civilian society, where the symbolic importance of constitutional legitimacy remains potent. Rebellious officers may well worry about how the American people would react to such a move. Moreover, prosecutions of low-level military torturers from Abu Ghraib prison and killers of civilians in Iraq have demonstrated to enlisted ranks that obedience to illegal orders can result in their being punished, whereas officers go free. No one knows whether ordinary American soldiers would obey clearly illegal orders to oust an elected government or whether the officer corps has sufficient confidence to issue such orders. In addition, the present system already offers the military high command so much - in funds, prestige, and future employment via the military-industrial revolving door - that a perilous transition to anything resembling direct military rule would make little sense under reasonably normal conditions.

The People:

Could the people themselves restore constitutional government? A grassroots movement to break the hold of the military industrial complex and establish public financing of elections is conceivable. But, given the conglomerate control of the mass media and the difficulties of mobilizing the United States' large and diffuse population, it is unlikely. Moreover, the people themselves have enjoyed the Keynesian benefits of the US imperial project and - in all but a few cases - have not yet suffered any of its consequences. {6}

Bankruptcy and Collapse

The more likely check on presidential power, and on US military ambition, will be the economic failure that is the inevitable consequence of military Keynesianism. Traditional Keynesianism is a stable two-part system composed of deficit spending in bad times and debt payment in good times. Military Keynesianism is an unstable one-part system. With no political check, debt accrues until it reaches a crisis point.

In the fiscal 2006 budget, the Congressional Research Service estimates that Pentagon spending on Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom will be about $10 billion per month or an extra $120.3 billion for the year. As of mid-2006, the overall cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since their inception stood at more than $400 billion. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, and his colleague, Linda Bilmes, have tried to put together an estimate of the real costs of the Iraq war. They calculate that it will cost about $2 trillion by 2015. The conservative American Enterprise Institute suggests a figure at the opposite end of the spectrum - $1 trillion. Both figures are an order of magnitude larger than what the Bush Administration publicly acknowledges.

At the same time, the US trade deficit, the largest component of the current account deficit, soared to an all-time high in 2005 of $782.7 billion, the fourth consecutive year that America's trade debts set records. The trade deficit with China alone rose to $201.5 billion, the highest imbalance ever recorded with any country. Meanwhile, since mid-2000, the country has lost nearly three million manufacturing jobs. To try to cope with these imbalances, on March 16 2006, Congress raised the national debt limit from $8.2 trillion to $9 trillion. This was the fourth time since George W Bush took office that the limit had to be raised. Had Congress not raised it, the US government would not have been able to borrow more money and would have had to default on its massive debts.

Among the creditors that finance this unprecedented sum, two of the largest are the central banks of China ($854 billion in reserves of dollars and other foreign currencies) and Japan ($850 billion), both of which are the managers of the huge trade surpluses these countries enjoy with the United States. This helps explain why the United States' debt burden has not yet triggered what standard economic theory would predict, which is a steep decline in the value of the US dollar followed by a severe contraction of the American economy - the Chinese and Japanese governments continue to be willing to be paid in dollars in order to sustain American demand for their exports. For the sake of domestic employment, both countries lend huge amounts to the American treasury, but there is no guarantee how long they will want or be able to do so.

CONFIDENCE IN KEY JUDGMENTS

It is difficult to predict the course of a democracy, and perhaps even more so when that democracy is as corrupt as that of the United States. With a new opposition party in the majority in the House, the country could begin a difficult withdrawal from military Keynesianism. Like the British after World War II, the United States could choose to keep its democracy by giving up its empire. The British did not do a particularly brilliant job of liquidating their empire, and there were several clear cases in which British imperialists defied their nation's commitment to democracy in order to keep their foreign privileges - Kenya in the 1950s is a particularly savage example - but the people of the British Isles did choose democracy over imperialism, and that nation continues to thrive as a nation, if not as an empire.
It appears for the moment, however, that the people of the United States prefer the Roman approach and so will abet their government in maintaining a facade of constitutional democracy until the nation drifts into bankruptcy.

Of course, bankruptcy will not mean the literal end of the United States any more than it did for Germany in 1923, China in 1948, or Argentina in 2001. It might, in fact, open the way for an unexpected restoration of the American system, or for military rule, revolution, or simply some new development we cannot yet imagine. Certainly, such a bankruptcy would mean a drastic lowering of the current American standard of living, a loss of control over international affairs, a process of adjusting to the rise of other powers, including China and India, and a further discrediting of the notion that the United States is somehow exceptional compared with other nations. The American people will be forced to learn what it means to be a far poorer nation and the attitudes and manners that go with it. {7}

NOTES

1 The CIA's website defines a National Intelligence Estimate as "the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence." These forecasts of "future developments" and "their implications for the United States" seldom are made public, but there are exceptions. One was the NIE of September 2002 , "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction", which became notorious because virtually every word in it was false. Another, an April 2006 ME entitled "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States", was partly declassified by President Bush because its main conclusion - that "activists identifying themselves as jihads" are "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" - had already been leaked to the press.

2 The CIA is prohibited from writing an NIE on the United States, and so I have here attempted to do so myself, using the standard format for such estimates. I have some personal knowledge of NIEs because from 1967 to 1973 I served as an outside consultant to the CIA's Office of National Estimates. I was one of about a dozen so-called experts invited to read draft NIEs in order to provide quality control and prevent bureaucratic logrolling.

3 Military Keynesianism, it turns out, is not the only way to boost an economy.

4 In a January 2006 debate, Yoo was asked if any law could stop the president, if he "deems that he's got to torture somebody", from, say, "crushing the testicles of the person's child". Yoo's response: "I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that".

5 Though they undoubtedly would find a more user-friendly name for it.

6 In 2003, when the Iraq war began, the citizens of the United States could at least claim that it was the work of an administration that had lost the popular vote. But in 2004, Bush won that vote by more than three million ballots, making his war ours.

7 National Intelligence Estimates seldom contain startling new data. To me they always read like magazine articles or well-researched and footnoted graduate seminar papers. When my wife once asked me what was so secret about them, I answered that perhaps it was the fact that this was the best we could do.

_____
Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback (Metropolitan, 2000), The Sorrows of Empire (Metropolitan, 2004), and, most recently, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, which will be published in February by Metropolitan Books. His last article for Harper's Magazine, "The War Business: Squeezing a Profit from the Wreckage in Iraq", appeared in the November 2003 issue.

The "Mainstream" vs "Non-mainstream" Media: Dilettantes vs Substance

2007-01-01T20:23:00.000-08:00

Lewis & Clark: "frontmen for genocide"

e-mail interview between Jim Craven and a Time Magazine Correspondent (who will remain unnamed): ****

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hello, i am a writer for time magazine working on a story on native american attitudes toward the lewis and clark commemoration. would you have a few moments to email me your current thoughts? i saw a few clips from the oregonian and the columbian dating back 2 years, where you discussed lewis and clark as "frontmen for genocide." am also confused about what's happening vis a vis the commemoration with the Blackfeet generally. There is a reference on the official lewis and clark website to some sort of "day of reconciliation" planned by the tribe, along with a performance of an opera about Scarface. i am writing this week. thanks.

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National Correspondent

TIME Magazine 11766 Wilshire Bl.

Los Angeles, CA 90025
****

Hello,

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Thanks for the inquiry. Yes, I was invited on to and then kicked off of the Vancouver Wa Mayor's Committee on Lewis and Clark celebration. The reason? Because I used the term genocide in reference to all of U.S. history before and after Lewis and Clark (according to Hitler, his inspiration for possible scopes and methods of genocide) vis-a-vis American and Canadian Indians.

Interestingly, not one person who took issue with my use of the word genocide had ever read the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (have you by the way?) that defines genocide in Article II or read any scholarly literature on the subject (I am extensively published in this area). I am attaching some of my work which gives my views clearly and somewhat succinctly. Yes, we Blackfoot (Blackfeet are in Montana and use the term "Blackfeet" but the correct term is "Piikani" or Blackfoot which constitute a whole nation--still--made up of four principal Bands or Tribes: Amskaapipiikani (Blackfeet or Southern Peigan)); Kainaiwa (Blood); Apatohsipiikani (Northern Peigan);Siksika (Blackfoot)).

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Blackfoot were the only ones to take on Lewis and Clark in combat (we knew there goes the neighborhood). But the letters of Thomas Jefferson before and after Lewis and Clark make it clear that they were not only staking out possible lands and resources, they were also seeing how many Indians would ultimately have to be forced assimilated and/or killed. (See letter by Thomas Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, Feb. 24, 1803 that spells out genocidal intentions very clearly).

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Please read the attached. The attached indictment of the U.S. and Canadian Governments for genocide has been reviewed by eight professors of international law who say it is airtight.

Jim Craven *****

Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 11:20 AM To: jcraven@clark.edu <mailto:jcraven@clark.edu>
Subject: Re: blackfeet/lewis and clark

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thanks for all the documents. my story is tightly focused on native american attitudes and activities surrounding the lewis and clark bicentennial. can you offer some comments and reflections on that? i haven't heard much open dissention, nor even much talk about lewis and clark as "frontmen for genocide." in your phrase.

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**** jcraven@clark.edu <mailto:jcraven@clark.edu> wrote:

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Well for one thing, there is no such thing as "native american attitudes" about anything; Indians are as diverse as any communities and of course have different views. The main schism is between the "Traditionals" (of which I am one) and the "Officials" (BIA/DIA).

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The term "frontmen for genocide" comes from having read the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (not ratified by the U.S. until 1988 and still not fully ratified due to the "Helms/Lugar/Hatch Sovereignty Amendment" which says that anything in the UN Convention contradicting U.S. Laws and/or Constitution is trumped by the U.S. Laws and Constitution--sort of a "sovereign right to do genocide which is exactly what the nazis argued and is also a violation of the U.S. Constitution itself or Article VI Section 2); it comes from having read the letters of Thomas Jefferson and others to Lewis and Clark and about the real intentions of their mission vis-a-vis the Indians; it comes from examination of U.S. history and a long chain of calculated, planned, covered-up (consciousness of guilt) actions against Indians and Indian Nations that fall under Article II (a to e) and other articles of the UN Convention on Genocide; it comes from a lot of living and activism in Indian Country (over 35 years); it comes from an examination of the debates of the 98 US Congress in which many senators argued that the U.S. could never ratify the UN Convention on Genocide as the US itself could be charged as a result of "Jim Crow laws and laws/policies governing Indians" that could easily be seen as genocidal; it comes from examining the sad statistics in the U.S. and Canada on the deteriorating life conditions/expectancies of Indians;

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The view I have articulated is prevalent among many Indians. The reason you do not hear it much is due not only to BIA/DIA cover-ups and reporters not having access to the real Indian world(not the damn "officials" in the typical rolodex of a typical reporter) but also due to laziness and inadequate education of the typical reporters and media personalities. Our story doesn't fit into neat sound-bites or neat paragraphs. Plus you have the "rolodex syndrome" where the same sell-outs get interviewed time after time by reporters who don't know what a real Indian is.

Then you have the typical imperatives of the profit/career-driven media and media personalities: Not asking certain nasty questions to those in power gets/keeps your access, which helps to get the "scoop", which brings exposure/recognition/ratings/revenues/market share which brings expanded access and off you go. Which reporter will dare ask Bush: "How can the U.S. government lecture anyone about human rights or terrorism when by all accounts American Indians have been brought to the verge of extinction and the U.S. Government still refuses to fully ratify the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide and is one of only 7 countries not to have done so?" Which reporter will dare ask that question? Or here is another one: "Mr. Bush, you talk a lot about treason by individuals who have not yet even been charged let alone convicted of it, in discussing treason, how about the fact that your grandfathers Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were principal financiers of Hitler from 1924 onward and how about the fact that their company, the Union Banking Corporation, was broken up by the U.S. Government for selling nazi securities and trading with the nazis AFTER Pearl Harbor and during World War II; is that not real treason? (see The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Arrons or Trading With The Enemy by Charles Higham) No journalist would dare ask those questions just as none would dare seriously investigate the genocidal conditions, laws and policies to which Indians in America and elsewhere are subject--while America dares to lecture anyone about genocide, war crimes, human rights or whatever.

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Jim Craven [Craven, Jim]

****

jim,

beware of lumping all reporters into one category--just as we should be wary of generalizing about "native american attitudes." i try to avoid the "rolodex" syndrome--i just made two separate trips to ft. berthold and standing rock and interviewed a lot of native americans from all walks of life who were not in any rolodex. not to mention that you weren't in my rolodex...
but, to be constructive, i am interested in your views and wonder if you could elaborate on the following questions.

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1) why do you consider lewis and clark to be "front men for genocide"? 2) should native americans be commemorating the bicentennial of the lewis and clark trip? 3) what's to commemorate? 4) if not commemorating, what would you like to see native americans doing as far as this anniversary goes? 5) you were quoted in some newspaper saying you thought there might be a protest. do you still think that? 6) some native americans see this as an opportunity to tell their version of history. do you think it is? will it happen? 7) specifically, what do you hear about what is or is not being done vis a vis lewis and clark among the Montana Blackfeet(foot).
thanks. ****

-----Original Message-----

[Craven, Jim]

From: Craven, Jim Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:54 AM To: @timemagazine.com' Subject: RE: blackfeet/lewis and clark

I do not lump all journalists into the same category. But I do understand the system--and associated imperatives-- under which they work which is why there are fewer and fewer journalists of the stature of I.F. Stone or George Seldes or Edward R. Murrow left--and the few of such stature have either been driven out or marginalized into the "non-mainstream".

If you were assigned to do a retrospective on Henry Luce for example, and you dared to research and write up his history fully (a principal financier of Hitler from 1924 onwards; a member of the American Liberty League that formed a conspiracy to overthrow FDR in 1935 and replace him with Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler to lead dispossessed veterans as shock troops to support a fascist dictatorship in America as Butler exposed the conspiracy and its members who were never prosecuted); a member of Skull and Bones, a sick and twisted satanic cult with some very bizarre and very "un-Christian" rituals and practices, etc etc); you would either change what you wrote or be gone (and the fact that you even dared to find out such historical facts would brand you as a troublemaker or some kind of radical and your future at Time would be limited).

So many journalists can honestly say that they were never told what to write or not write; that is because they were hired with a certain working paradigm ( and lack of real education) in-tact such that they do not need to be told what to write or not write--they know instinctively what is taboo, what brings/keeps access (that leads to the "scoop" that leads to exposure, that leads to name recognition, that leads to expanded access) and what brings ostracization and marginalization.

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Being an Indian does not give me any kind of "credential" per-se to speak on Indian issues, on Lewis and Clark or whatever; just as there are many Americans who no know nothing about the realities of America, the Constitution, American history etc, so there are many "Indians" (by "blood") who know nothing about the realities of Indian Country, histories of their Nations or Lewis and Clark's role in history vis-a-vis Indians etc. That is why your having interviewed a bunch of Indians on various Rezes does not mean much in and of itself; part of the genocide Indians have suffered involves a corps of sell-out Indians doing the work of those intent on exterminating them and perhaps--or perhaps not--you ran into some of them. That is why I sent documents with evidence and not just my opinions on the realities of genocide in America; I am also a scientist by training.

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To answer your questions:

1) Genocide is defined legally in Article II of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide:

a) Killing members of a group;

b) Causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of a group;

c) Deliberately inflicting upon a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d) Imposing measures designed to prevent births within a group;

e) Forcibly transferring children of a group to another group.

The U.S. Government did not finally ratify (and still is not fully ratified) the UN Convention on Genocide until 1988--40 years after the Convention was drafted. In the minutes of the 97th Congress, there was explicit mention that if the U.S. ratified the Convention, the U.S. could easily be charged with genocide due to Jim Crow laws against African-Americans and due to the intended policies, practices and impacts of the U.S. government vis-a-vis Indians throughout the whole of U.S. history; that is why the U.S. Government continues to block the formation of a World Court to deal with War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide etc as the U.S. Government could be the first defendant for past and present genocidal practices and/or complicity in genocide etc.

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When Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark mission, he had already written several classified letters (e.g. Feb. 24, 1803 to William Henry Harrison) laying out his plan for Indians: to remove them forcibly to west of the Mississippi; to drive them into debt in order to acquire Indian lands on the cheap and acquire "legal title"; to forcibly assimilate Indians as "marginal citizens" and destroy any Indian cultures and values that conflicted with "American culture and values"; etc. In other words, he laid out a plan for cultural if not physical extermination of Indians. Lewis and Clark were commissioned as recon or front-men for his "Manifest Destiny" program to survey the exploitable resources and peoples to the West and he explicitly stated so; hence my description of Lewis and Clark as "front-men for genocide". There are also accounts in Blackfoot oral histories of Lewis and Clark carrying vials of what they purported to be "smallpox bacillus" which they threatened to unleash when cornered in an area of what is now Montana. but in any case, the whole of American history in relation to Indians and African-Americans, pre and post Lewis and Clark, is one of outright genocide as defined in the UN Convention. The documentation is overwhelming.

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2) No real Indian should be "celebrating" the Lewis and Clark expedition any more than any Jew or real human being should be "celebrating" Hitler's birthday; like "Columbus Day" it should be a national day or mourning. The fact that "Columbus Day " is still "celebrated" in America shows how backward, illiterate and inhuman this country and its system really are.

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3) "Commemoration" of "there goes the neighborhood"; genocide, historical revisionism, "Manifest Destiny" (America's version of the nazi concept of "Lebensraum");

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4) Educating the public about the real history, interests and intentions behind Lewis and Clark before and after.

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5) No doubt there will be protests from various segments of Indian Country and from non-Indian supporters who are not illiterate about American history and the nature of the U.S. system that continues today;

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6) We cannot tell our true history in media that focus on: "if it bleeds it leads"; "find controversy, and if not, manufacture it"; 9-second sound bites; profit for power and power for profit; keep access by not asking nasty questions that will cause the gatekeepers in power to deny access and or give the "scoop" to the competition as payback. We have to tell our story through our own media and through our own demonstrations knowing full-well that what will show-up in the "mainstream" media will be shallow, superficial, cover-up and generally "within the established parameters of what is called mainstream or orthodoxy".

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7) Plans among the Blackfoot are being discussed in Blackfoot Ways; We do plan to demonstrate against all public events "celebrating" Lewis and Clark to give our version of what they were really about; we have links with other Nations and plan coordinated actions and informational sessions etc; Of course Blackfoot are not a homogeneous mass either, we have our traitors and sell-outs and "official Indians" so I'm sure that some of them will be on the other side.

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In Aboriginal Law there are five fundamental mandates: 1)Truth, without which there can be no: 2)Justice; Truth and Justice without which there can be no real: 3) Healing; Truth, Justice and Healing without which there can be no real: 4) Reconciliation; Truth Justice, Healing and Reconciliation without which there can be no: 5) Prevention of Future Abuse.

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As long as the lies and revisionist histories continue there can be no real Justice, Healing, Reconciliation or Prevention of Future Abuses and any purported "Reconciliation Ceremonies" around Lewis and Clark will be phony and will be labeled/attacked as such along with those sell-out Indians who dare to hold them in service to their white or nominally Indian masters.

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Hope that answers your specific questions.

Jim Craven

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Added:

From DotRez:

Comrades might recall the pithy response of Jim Craven to the Time Magazine reporter looking for an Indian perspective on Lewis and Clark.

It turns out that this issue is now on the newsstands and online at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,1101020708,00.html While I have not read every word, it appears to me that the Indian perspective is left out entirely. What you get is this kind of idiotic breathless prose:

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Commanding, cooperative, confident, complementary-why Lewis and Clark were perfectly cast as co-CEOs.

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When the men of the Corps of Discovery had arrived back in St. Louis in 1806, the residents "Huzzared three cheers." But they otherwise did not seem to know what to make of this crew or its achievement. Two nights later, they feted the captains at William Christy's inn. There they raised toasts to, among others, President Jefferson ("the polar star of discovery") Christopher Columbus ("his hardihood, perseverance and merit") ... and Agriculture and Industry ("The farmer is the best support of government"). But when the revelers got to the captains in the 18th and final toast, they seemed to be at a loss for words. Finally they settled for saluting "their perilous services [that] endear them to every American heart."
It has been that way ever since.

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Perhaps Jim anticipated this kind of crap when he was approached by the Time reporter. In fact, Jim used to include this bit of business from Jefferson in his signature:

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"our settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. The former is certainly the termination of their history most happy for themselves; but, in the whole course of this, it is essential to cultivate their love. As to their fear, we presume that our strength and their weakness is now so visible that they must see we have only to shut our hand to crush them..."

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About six months ago I began reading Lewis and Clark's journal. While it has absolutely no literary value, it is extremely interesting for its portrayal of what the USA looked like prior to capitalist development. It teems with wildlife and fauna that are in an ecological balance with each other. For example, this excerpt reflects the peculiar quality of Lewis and Clark's reportage. It mixes a kind of inventory-taking mentality with an astonishing image of the aboriginal landscape. Keep in mind that the trees mentioned below were mostly destroyed in the 19th century, to be replaced by cultivated trees that had solely had value for home construction, etc.

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"Last night posted out our guard and sent out 4 men, Captn. Lewis & [I] went up the Bank and walked a Short Distance in the high Prarie this Prarie is Covered with Grass of 10 or 12 inches in hight, Soil of good quality & at the Distance of about a mile still further back the Countrey rises about 80 or 90 feet higher, and is one Continued Plain as fur as Can be seen, from the Bluff on the 2d rise imediately above our Camp, the most butifull prospect of the River up & Down and the Countrey Opsd. prosented it Self which I ever beheld; The River meandering the open and butifull Plains, interspursed with Groves of timber, and each point Covered with Tall timber, Such as Willow Cotton sum Mulberry, Elm, Sucamore Lynn [linden] & ash (The Groves contain Hickory, Walnut, coffee nut & Oake in addition)."

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My favorite passage in Lewis and Clark, however, recounts the resistance mounted by the Blackfoot Indians who clearly recognized the intruders as a threat no matter how many "medals" they brought with them as gifts:

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"This morning at daylight the indians got up and crouded around the fire, J. Fields who was on post had carelessly laid his gun down behi[n]d him near where his brother was sleeping, one of the indians the fellow to whom I had given the medal last evening sliped behind him and took his gun and that of his brother unperceived by him, at the same instant two others advanced and seized the guns of Drewyer and myself..."

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Terrorism For the Campus Community:

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Among the "campus-wide abilities" to be integrated into curricula, the need for some "global/multicultural awareness" has been given some support by some recent examples.

For example, the present military buildup, originally called "Operation Infinite Justice", has been changed to "Operation Enduring Freedom." Why? Well it seems that with all of these massive expenditures on arms and forging alliances with "moderate" Muslim theocracies/states, no one bothered to consult someone familiar with the Koran and aspects of Arab/Muslim cultures who might have informed them that in the Koran, as in the New Testament Bible and Torah--and indeed sacred books of many religions--"infinite justice" is reserved for Allah, God, Creator, etc and it is considered blasphemy (not only in Islam) to presume to undertake and dispense that which is reserved for Allah.

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Indeed there are as many perspectives on the recent terrorism as forms and ways of manifesting grief and concern. The night before last I was called by a Blackfoot Elder on Tribal issues. She said to me the following (I took notes as the conversation became quite striking). "So many Americans are now ready to take some forms of terrorism seriously, depending upon who is doing the terrorism and who is the object of it, but we, in Indian Country have known only terrorism and attempts to exterminate us since before the founding of this Republic."

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She said, "Biological warfare?; We know all about it; what do you call it when blankets of smallpox victims were gathered specifically to be used in trading with Indians and epidemics were deliberately started and even the head of the BIA has openly admitted that that was done on a mass scale--only to Indians--throughout American history?"

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She said, "Chemical warfare?, We know all about it; what do you call it when Indian Reservations are targeted as toxic-waste dump sites, when 72 out of 73 designated toxic-waste dump sites are Indian reservations and the toxic water and soil are causing damaged kids and many early deaths?".

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She said, "Terrorism? we know all about it, what do you call it when the government installs, maintains and protects massive Tribal corruption and those who do it (corrupt "hang-around-the-fort" Indians who sell-out cheap and do the bidding of the "Man") resulting in losses of lives, precious resources and our culture?".

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"What do you call it when a government has programs that forces sterilization on thousands of unknowing Native women and organizes the stealing of Indian babies from their homes for adoption into white families?"

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She said that her daughters work in a rental car place and the FBI had recently been by to check on a rental that had racked-up over 6,000 miles in a short period, but she noted that repeated pleas by traditional activists, over many years, for the Federal Government to stop supporting Tribal corruption and to help solve the murders of activists and others had fallen over deaf ears.

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She said that she wished no ill on anyone, even those who have damaged Indians, but that she felt that soon "a whole lot of non-Indians are going to get a small taste of what it is like to be Indian and live on a Reservation in America."

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She said "we already know a lot about obscene gas prices, inferior food at obscene prices, electricity shut-downs, toxic water and soils, gouging in the name of profit, national ID cards, losses of civil liberties available to others, ethnic profiling", etc. She thought that in the end, maybe Indians will be the lucky ones in terms of not suffering the shock of losing that which is customary and upon which one has become reliant in the sense that Indians have never had access to much of what others take for granted and will freak out upon losing.

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However one feels about the various perspectives on recent issues, attached is the perspective on some current issues of Ward Churchill, a Professor of Native and Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado (Boulder), who is the author of many influential and highly-regarded books on Native issues. For those highly offended, perhaps they can consider that perhaps their own views are equally offensive to others and that the campus-wide abilities are supposed to teach and reinforce and explore various kinds and forms of diversity and respect for the right to hold and present diverse opinions even if one has no respect for the particular opinions themselves.

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BACK TO TOP

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Residential Schools—The Past is Present Radio program w/James Craven on The United Church May 2000 TAPE 1 transcription - introduction…

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Most genocides in this century have been perpetuated by nation states upon ethnic minorities living within the state’s own borders. Most of the victims have been children. The people responsible for mass murder have by and large gotten away with what they have done. Most have succeeded in keeping the wealth that they’ve looted from their victims. Most have never faced trial. Genocide is still difficult to eradicate because it is usually tolerated, at least by those who benefit from it.

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Pierre Laboisser intro… Residential schools operated in Canada from around 1870 to the early 1980s. The children of First Nations groups were removed by law from their homes and families and forced to attend schools operated by non-Indians. The government contracted out the running of the schools to the churches. Although not all Indian children went to these schools, or went for the full 12 years, residential schooling was a part of the Indian experience affecting everyone in the communities. Residential schools were part and parcel of the federal government’s policy towards native people. The eradication of a people facilitates the theft of occupied land. This can be done using various methods, and the residential school is one of them. And this has clearly been the agenda of the Canadian government. These methods have been understood by many countries who have bloodied their hands in colonialism, using residential schools to destroy a people, such as their implementation in the Soviet Union, the USA, Australia, Japan and India. It is also defined, within the UN Convention on Genocide, as being a violation against humanity. Residential schools do not stand alone as an aberration out of context with the development of Canada. They are but one tactic in the process of the colonization of the Americas which has been and still is, genocidal.

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PL: Jim Craven and I went up to the United Church conference today. We went up there to hand out some pamphlets on residential schools and to talk with people, individual members of the congregation. We wanted to address what the United Church was involved with in implementing the residential schools, which is nothing short of genocide. We wanted to talk with people and point out certain things that the United Church has not been addressing. In 1986 they issued an apology to native people regarding the operation of residential schools and that was contained within our pamphlet that we handed out. One of the things they said was that they have since issued another apology, a revised apology, so to speak, in 1998, and they were suggesting that we shouldn’t be handing out a pamphlet that was just talking about something in the past that they’ve changed. Well, we got hold of the 1998 apology, the revised apology so to speak. I think we’ll start off by looking at these apologies and what they really mean. How much of an apology they really are.

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JC: We went up there to the United Church, and we had the understanding that we were invited as observers. We checked in, so it was all up front, we weren’t sneaking in on anybody, we announced who we were. We had some literature with us, and initially no one told us we couldn’t pass out literature. We went in, looking to set up a booth, because we didn’t want to invade people’s privacy, force literature on people. What we wanted was a table so people could come up on their own and pick up the literature, or not, rather than our approaching people. We tried to be respectful in every way, and what happened was some of the clergy and other volunteers approached us and said that we could stay there as observers but not pass anything out. We asked why, because those same clergy had been at our conference in St. Thomas and were welcomed, and they were perfectly free to pass out whatever they wanted to pass out and say what they wanted to say. We thought we would have the same arrangement, and if people don’t like what you’re saying they will rebut it. We were told, no, because some of the parishioners who were there were just starting to understand about the residential schools and they really weren’t prepared for a lot of detail on it. Our pamphlet, by the way, includes a copy of the full text of the UN Convention on Genocide, so that when we use the word “genocide” people can see exactly what it means. What they said was that our pamphlet was in error because it includes the 1986 apology and a critique of it, but, there has subsequently been a 1998 apology.

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We both asked for a copy of the 1998 apology and said we’ll include it in the pamphlet. We asked repeatedly for a copy of the 1998 apology. Finally, they said no. So we said, ok, this is your space, your right, so we’ll just go outside and pass out our pamphlets outside so we’re not on your property. We proceeded to do that. We were then approached and asked by one United Church minister who asked if we would want to meet with the moderator of the UC, The Right Rev Bill Phipps. We said, yes, absolutely, we’d like to have a talk with him; especially since during the Tribunal I participated in in Vancouver he had been invited and didn’t even give a response that he wouldn’t be attending. So we had about a 1-1/2 hour conversation with the moderator. Present was the General Counsel of the UC, some clergy, and some other people. We wanted to have a dialogue and tell them exactly where we were coming from. We asked repeatedly in that meeting to give us a copy of the 1998 apology so we could include it as the latest one. We said “whatever you have to offer we will circulate it ourselves because we don’t hide things, play tricks with evidence.” But they continually said they didn’t have it while getting on our case for not having included it in our pamphlet. When we returned, we got on the internet and got a copy of the 1998 apology. Obviously it’s important, if we’re going to talk about the issue, to talk about the most recent apology. They said this was a “better” apology than the one in 1986. So perhaps we could start with the 1986 apology, then talk about the discussion we had with the Moderator of the UC, and then take it from there.

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We’ll start by reading out the 1986 UC apology, and I’ll make brief commentaries in specific aspects of it as we proceed.

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Apology given by the UC of Canada (1986)

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UC: Long before my people journeyed to this land, your people were here and you received from your elders an understanding of creation and of the mystery that surrounds us all that was deep and rich and to be treasured. We did not hear you when you shared your vision…

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JC: First of all, they didn’t allow native children to even speak. It wasn’t a question of merely not hearing. Native children were never allowed to give their vision. They were disabused of it from the get-go.

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UC: …in our zeal to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ, we were blind to the value of your spirituality…

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JC: This implies that the only motive in the residential schools was missionary zeal. In fact, the missionary schools were about grabbing land, about creating a pool of semi-skilled and unskilled cheap labor; they were about de-Indianization, about breaking connections with tribes and with inheritance of allotments that went with the tribal connection.

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PL: Can you comment a bit more in terms of theft of land…

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JC: A famous case is called Lot 363. That was a case in British Colombia, which is traditional ancestral lands of the Ahousaht and large lands were appropriated from these people. They were sold to the grandson of a UC missionary for $2500. Later on that same plot of land, after repeated protests by the elders, was sold to McMillan-Blodell for over $1 million, a considerable profit. And there were numerous other cases where lands were “gifted” to the Church and then later sold for profit. But part of de-Indianizing involves not only assimilating Indians into the dominant culture, but breaking Indians away from the traditional community which includes the lands of your traditional community; and those lands of course are very rich and very precious. So the implication here is that all the schools were about was telling Indians about the good news of Jesus Christ. By the way, as far as I know Jesus Christ never sanctioned murder, torture, rape, sexual molestation, or sterilizing children and using them for medical experiments.

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UC: …we imposed our civilization as a condition for accepting the gospel. We tried to make you like us, and in doing so we helped destroy the vision that made you what you were. As a result you and we are poorer, and the image of the creator in us is twisted and blurred, and we are not what we are meant by the great spirit to be.

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JC: That part is at least admitting that the residential schools were about more then spreading the gospel. It’s about forced assimilation. And that part does suggest that there were motives other than just spreading the gospel. “We tried to make you like us”? No. They have never accepted Indian people, even assimilated ones, as like them. What they wanted to make them was non-Indians, but never whites. Assimilated Indians will always be Indians first, but they will never have the status of the whites.

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UC: We who represent the UC of Canada ask you to forgive us and to walk together in the spirit of Christ so that our people may be blessed and God’s creation healed. . .In 1986 The UC of Canada issued an apology to native congregations in respect to the operation of residential schools. The UC of Canada recognizes that Church-run residential schools was one of the primary contributors to the destruction of Indian culture, spirituality and language.

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JC: Here they don’t mention that that [ the destruction of Indian culture, spirituality and language] was the intention. The implication is that was an effect. But it was the intention, the clear-stated intention in their own documents.

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UC: In the 1990s, the UC of Canada has undertaken a number of initiatives to build a new relationship between native and nonnative members and between the Church and other aboriginal people. The UC of Canada states we are committing ourselves anew to finding a good way.

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JC: Again, as we discussed with the Moderator today, you remember that the Moderator said they have a problem using the word genocide because some people are just leery of that word, they’re uncomfortable, it freaks them out, and we included in this pamphlet the actual UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide so that rather than being accused of talking rhetoric people could read the actual law itself, and what exactly constitutes genocide, and it’s in Article 2:

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“A. Killing members of the group.” Has that been done to Indians in North America? Absolutely.
“B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” Was that done at the residential schools? Yes, gang rapes, feeding people maggot-infested food, sterilizing children, murdering children, secret graveyards, using them for medical experimentation, putting needles through various parts of their bodies, forcing them to perform public sex acts for voyeuristic Church officials…and it goes on and on and on. I think all those would qualify as serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
“C. Deliberately inflicting upon the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Was that done? Yes, the evidence is unequivocal.
“D. Imposing measure intended to prevent births within the group.” Yes, native children, both male and female, routinely have been sterilized in both Canada and the United States. Many times it was done without their knowledge, like saying you got a gynecological problem, or in some cases it was coerced, actually forced.
“E. Forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.” Was that done? You bet. That’s what the residential schools were all about.

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In law, any of those five, any of them, not all, constitutes genocide under the law. And we pointed that out. I also asked the Moderator if he had read the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, and he said it has been some time ago. So this is the apology given in 1986. It says nothing about the residential schools being subcontractors in genocide. It says nothing about the various intentions, and these are revealed in their own documents, of not just to spread the gospel of Jesus, but intentions in terms of grabbing land, creating cheap labor pools, forcible assimilation, breaking treaties, destroying whole tribes and whole cultures by destroying their Indianness; and even destroying them physically.

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We pointed that out to the Moderator. When he asked the question how do we move forward, we discussed the mandates of aboriginal law, which are: truth first; then justice; then healing; then reconciliation,; then prevention of future abuse. I said we can’t move forward without the truth. We can’t move forward with half-truths, pseudo-truths. There’s no reason to proceed if we continue those lies. And one of those lies is not to use the word genocide. I asked him if anyone would have a problem if I used the word genocide in connection with what the Nazis did to Jews, Gypsies, and so on. Would anyone consider it rhetoric?; would it make them queasy or nervous? He said no.

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But before we proceed on, I’d like to read from James Poole’s Hitler and his Secret Partners:
“Hitler did not approach the problem of extermination of the Jews haphazardly. He had carefully studied some of the most prominent examples of mass murder in history. His four principal inspirations were the slaughter of the American Indians, killing of Armenians by the Turks, the Red Terror during the Communist Revolution in Russia, and Japanese butchery in Nanking in 1937…. Always contemptuous of the Russians, Hitler said ‘for them the word liberty means the right to wash only on feast days. If we arrive bringing soft soap we’ll attain no sympathy. There’s only one duty: to Germanize this country by the immigration of Germans and to look upon the natives as Redskins.’ Having been a devoted reader of Karl May’s (sp?) books on the American West as a youth, Hitler frequently referred to the Russians as ‘Redskins.’ He saw a parallel between his effort to conquer and colonize land in Russia with the conquest of the American West by the white man and the subjugation of Indians or Redskins. ‘I don’t see why,’ he said, ‘a German who eats a piece of bread should torment himself with the idea that the soil that produces this bread has been won by the sword. When we eat wheat from Canada, we don’t think about the despoiled Indians.’

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I read this passage to the Moderator. So here we have evidence. Nobody would have any problem in using the word genocide when talking about the Nazis and what they did. And furthermore, clear evidence that Hitler’s inspiration was the Canadian/American experience with respect to First Nations peoples. So what are we to make, then, of the continual refusal to use that word, genocide? And the explanation? “Our parishioners aren’t ready for that yet.” As we pointed out to the Moderator today, we have no time left. Our elders are dying, our children are dying, we don’t have time for people to get “ready” for it. As long as these cover-ups continue, as long as they refuse to call it what it is, the genocide and legacies of genocide continue. I’m sure that somebody who commits murder doesn’t want to call it murder; one more example: remember the case of Bishop O’Connor, who committed violent rape, convicted three time and got off three times, and finally he has a “healing session circle” in lieu of being tried for the fourth time? What does he do? He said, “I apologize for violating my responsibilities as a priest for having had sexual relations with my parishioners.” No rape – it’s hard for him to use that word rape. He didn’t have “sexual relations.” He beat and mauled and raped women and he was convicted three times for doing it. So with all due respect to the Moderator, and we’re grateful he gave us time and listened to us, this is a phony apology.

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What’s interesting is that when we read the 1998 one tonight, it’s even worse than the 1986 one. Why they would tout that to us is inexplicable. In law, if I see that a crime has been committed, and I cover it up, and covering it up includes not calling it what it is, that’s a coverup. Two crimes have been a committed: (1) I’m a party morally to the perpetration of the original crime I’m helping to cover up by not calling it what it is and discussing its true magnitude, and (2) I’ve created a new crime, the crime of coverup, which is a second crime. And that’s what we’re talking about here. You’ve got evidence that the major inspiration for Hitler was exactly the system, the system of residential schools and everything that went with it.

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PL: Just a comment: not calling genocide “genocide” is covering up the reality and changes the implications of what happened.

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JC: Here they say in their apology “we did not hear you.” Not true, because children were not allowed to speak. They were beaten whenever they did anything “Indian.” When children said their prayers in their native language they were beaten and tortured. When a child wore her hair long, the hair was cut. When a child wore traditional ornaments and regalia, he or she was beaten and then mocked and tormented. Saying “you said it to us but we didn’t hear you…” No. They were never allowed to be Indian from the first day of residential school. Just like boot camp in the military. From the first day you’re told you’re not an Indian here. Get ready for it. Don’t speak your language. So here they’re saying “we have so much respect for you native people, we’re sorry we didn’t listen to you.” Well, when you don’t call genocide “genocide,” you desecrate the memory, desecrate the pain and desecrate the suffering of all of those who suffered in that system.

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Better you don’t apologize--just say go to hell--than a phony apology that is designed to mitigate your damages in any litigation and mitigate your cognitive dissonance problems, and cover up what that system was about. That system wasn’t about Jesus Christ. There’s nowhere in the bible that sanctions what went on in that residential school. Nothing that sanctions gang rape and torture, sterilization, using children for medical experiments, secret graveyards, forcing children to eat their own vomit, putting glue in their nose, cutting their hair. I’ve read the gospel a fair amount and I find nothing that went on the Residential Schools that is remotely connected to Jesus Christ. To suggest that their motives were missionary zeal is a cover-up; their motives were economic, political, cultural. Their motives were genocide. They were subcontractors in genocide.

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The Canadian government shares responsibility and it’s not enough to say, well, the Catholics did it too, Mormans did it to, Lutherans, Presbyterians. That’s not going to wash for whoever did it. It’s not up to the United Church to point to the other Churches. It’s up to the UC to point to themselves and do what they ask every one of their parishioners to do: properly atone, make it right, and stop it and make the damages right. Because people who suffered, they’re paying their medical bills, for their drugs, they’re paying in many ways, some of which are financial. Meanwhile these people are flying all over the place, have big salaries, have big homes and so on. This isn’t going to go away.

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They want to jump right to reconciliation without healing; they want to jump to healing without justice and truth. In an aboriginal court, the mandates form a sacred hoop; without truth, nothing else follows. Without truth there can be no justice; without truth and justice there can be no healing; without truth, justice and healing, there can be no reconciliation; and without truth, justice, healing and reconciliation, there can be no prevention of future abuses. And without all of that, there can be no climate to further the search of truth; and so it forms from truth to truth, the sacred hoop. Truth is the center, the core, the foundation.

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This “apology” has nothing to do with the truth. This is an evasion, dissembling, obfuscation. But worse: by putting some flowery language in here, some ersatz Indian language… “long before my people journeyed to this land, your people were here, you received from your elders…” It’s ersatz Indian talk. “How. Me Tonto.” It’s “Great Spirit” talk. It’s a caricature and its insulting, demeaning, patronizing, and it won’t wash.

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PL: Here’s the “new” apology:

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UC: To former students of the UC Indian Residential Schools and to their families and communities: From the deepest reaches of your memories, you have shared with us your stories of suffering from our Church’s involvement in the operation on Indian residential schools. You have shared the personal and historic pain that you still bear and you have been vulnerable yet again. You have also shared with us your strength and wisdom born of the life-giving dignity of your communities and traditions and your stories of survival. In response to our Church’s commitment to repentance, I spoke these words of apology on behalf of the General Counsel and Executive on Tuesday, October 27, 1998: ‘As Moderator of the UC of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of the UC of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our Church’s involvement in the Indian residential school system has caused.

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We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetuated on Canada’s First Nations people. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry. To those individuals who were physically, sexually and mentally abused as students of the Indian residential schools in which the UC of Canada was involved, I offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong. You were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused. We know that many within our Church will still not understand why each of us must bear the scar, the blame for this horrendous period in Canadian history, but the truth is we are the bearers of many blessings from our ancestors and therefore we must also bear their burdens. Our burdens include dishonoring the depths of the struggles of the First Nations peoples and the richness of your gifts. We seek God’s forgiveness and healing grace as we take steps towards building respectful compassion and loving relationships with First Nations peoples. We are in the midst of a long and painful journey as we reflect on the cries that we did not and would not hear, and how we have behaved as a Church. As we travel this difficult road of repentance, reconciliation and healing, we commit ourselves to work towards incurring that we will never again use our power as a Church to hurt others with attitudes of racial and spiritual superiority. We pray that you will hear the sincerity of our words today and that you will witness the living out of our apology and our actions in the future.

Signed: The Right Rev. Bill Phipps (sp?) of the UC of Canada.

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JC: Lets start with the first paragraph:

UC: "From the deepest reaches of your memories, you have shared with us your stories of suffering from our Church’s involvement in the operation on Indian residential schools. You have shared the personal and historic pain that you still bear and you have been vulnerable yet again. You have also shared with us your strength and wisdom born of the life-giving dignity of your communities and traditions and your stories of survival."

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JC: When exactly have residential school victims, other than in court, been allowed to “share” their stories? Every time the residential school victims tried to share their stories, they were called crazy, they were marginalized, demonized and slandered. The churches used various obstructionist and legal tactics designed to bankrupt the victims so they could never get to court. In some cases people who protested or tried to tell the story were murdered; in some cases they lost their tribal connections. For instance, even when we had the Tribunal in Vancouver, we had witnesses intimidated there, one of whom was doing it was indeed on the UC payroll and I personally witnessed that individual intimidating witnesses at the Tribunal. So every time the victims have tried to tell the story with specifics, they have been obstructed. We need specifics, not for salacious detail, but we need to know because these are crimes, crimes that people need to be brought to the bar of justice. We can’t bring them to the bar of justice when the Church continues to seal its archives, when they continue to refuse to get into the specifics, and when they try to get sealed settlements, for example, so the specifics won’t come out in court, when they fight it in court, rather than simply stipulating known and proved truths. So when they said “you shared it”, it’s not because of what the Church has done. It’s actually tried to obstruct residential school victims being able to give specifics and names. In fact, the perpetrators of these crimes, when they were brought to the bar of justice in the few cases, many times got off on technicalities, because the victims weren’t assisted in discovery. So that part there may sound nice but the reality is that only very recently and only with considerable effort have the victims been able to give some of the specifics of what happened to them, and certainly without any help from the Church.

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You remember, I gave the document to Rev. Phipps which had his name on it where he had been asked to come to an inter-Tribal Tribunal, and he didn’t attend? That could mean that he was busy, but he didn’t even bother to respond. I gave him a list of all those people from the UC who were asked to be at that tribunal to assist in the discovery process so that people wouldn't’t have to testify and drag out these demons and suffer more trauma and damage. It has been through no help of the Catholic Church, or the UC or any other churches. We asked them to help uncover the story so that the true story could be told and we could help find out who did what and in some cases bring people to the bar of justice, but without having to make some of the victims bring out the demons and the trauma and having to relive what they had gone through. It would be much easier if they would use their offices to help because they have the archives, the documents, that would help us find out who did what and when. We never got assistance.

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PL: ‘As Moderator of the UC of Canada, I wish to speak the words that many people have wanted to hear for a very long time. On behalf of the UC of Canada, I apologize for the pain and suffering that our Church’s involvement in the Indian residential school system has caused. We are aware of some of the damage that this cruel and ill-conceived system of assimilation has perpetuated on Canada’s First Nations people. For this we are truly and most humbly sorry.

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JC: Well, in one way that’s a step forward, and it’s a step forward in the sense that it’s not suggesting that what went wrong was how the schools were run, but the problem is in the schools themselves. It’s suggesting that the whole system itself, from its foundations upward, was corrupt and rotten. But again, where did that system come from? Why did that system come about? What was behind it? Was it just psychological aberrations? People just had it in for Indians, is that it? Or thought that Indians would just be better off looking white or acting white? There are concrete material, political, economic, social, cultural, systemic interests behind genocide anywhere it occurs. Genocide doesn’t happen just because one group has a thing for another group. That’s the rationale sometimes. But always behind genocide you find land, resources, markets, interests, profit, power, power projection, imperial conquest, moving somebody out in order to move somebody else in. And so when he said “ill-conceived system,” OK, but why? Where did that system come from and why was it ill-conceived? Ill-conceived by whom and for what purpose. Did they just have a bad day? Just got it wrong? So in one sense it goes a little bit further because some people suggest that it wasn’t the schools themselves that were wrong, but how they were run. But the reality is that any time you try to force your religion on other people it’s wrong. You got no right to take children and beat Jesus into them; or rather your sick, twisted notion of Jesus into them You have no right to declare their culture and spirituality inferior and backward and pagan, and declare your own religion and gospel to be THE TRUTH, THE LIGHT, and anyone who doesn’t accept it does so at the pain of going to hell but more…the pain of being beaten or murdered, raped. So the whole notion of missionary zeal itself assumes this. What right do you have to take your private business and push it on other people, in their faces? Who gave you that right? What’s behind that ill-conceived evil system? There’s no discussion of that, and there again avoidance of the word genocide; and it was a genocidal system. Its intent…all five specifics of Article 2 of the UN Convention on Genocide, were the intent of that system; it happened to too many people. What few of their documents that survive, that they haven’t destroyed, say that clearly; it’s not just about spreading the good word.

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TAPE 2:

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RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: The Past is Present W/Roland Chrisjohn & Jim Craven Moderator: Why this conference here in Fredericton, now?

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RC: Basically, it’s in response to a continuing trend that’s been happening right across Canada. Earlier this year both the Catholic and Anglican Churches met, and met in more populated centers than Fredericton…Toronto was their meeting place where they decided to reconstitute themselves, restructure themselves organizationally in such a way as to limit their liability over the residential school litigation. All the churches are beginning to be very public in their concerns about the very real possibility that this litigation with respect to their involvement in residential schools could lead to their bankruptcy. So the Catholics and the Anglicans have already taken steps to avoid that by contending that they’re just a bunch of people who read the same books and sing the same hymns and bow to the same people, but if you want to argue what happened at this particular residential school, argue with that Anglican Church because that’s not the same as the other Anglican Church right across the road. Well, one of the things is that the UC is meeting, and we don’t really know what their agenda is, they haven’t approached us, but we’ve been concerned that the supposed First Nations advocacy organizations , like the Assembly of First Nations, have done absolutely nothing to interject these kinds of concerns at these previous meetings that were held elsewhere. When the UC decided that they were going to hold a meeting in Fredericton, we thought that this was our opportunity at least to get one of the churches to set a slightly different agenda other than, “how are we going to cover our ass” in the way that, for instance, Dow Corning did over the breast implant problem, or Ford Motor Co. did over the Pinto.

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We said, we want you to consider another set of issues that you haven’t been considering. We invited the UC to come to our conference and it was open to the public, well advertised as best we could, with the idea that as long as issues of the immorality of what a moral institution did, what the Churches did, as long as that’s not on the table, then none of these considerations that the gov or any of the churches are undergoing about what to do about the residential schools is actually addressing the real issue and we want them to get on board with that.

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JC: Here’s a parallel: suppose I recklessly go out and get drunk and stoned, run a bunch of red lights, and I cause you serious damage. You’re in the hospital with long term medical bills bankrupting you. I turn around and while I’m driving my Mazarrati, I declare bankruptcy to avoid liability. So your medical bills go on, I tell you I’m sorry but I’m broke, meanwhile I continue to drive my car and live in my big home, telling you all the time, gee, I’m really sorry about that, I hope you really believe that I’m genuinely sorry about that. Well, that’s precisely what they did. You were at the conference today, you saw some people spontaneously tell about the pain they’re suffering, and they’re suffering real damages, real costs, from real pain and hardship that they endured in those churches. One of them we heard today was a victim of Port Alberni of the United Church. Her medical bills are ongoing and directly trace back to trauma she suffered in Port Alberni. She wound up in an emergency ward because of a mess-up.

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And yet they propose to say they’re sorry and restructure so they don’t have to pay victims like her for the ongoing medical liabilities and pain they’re suffering that cost money. Shrinks and lawyers don’t work for free. Drugs are not free, even in Canada. So knowing the shameless hypocrisy of these people in not making a genuine atonement as they tell their parishioners they should do, the shameless hypocrisy of restructuring in order to avoid liability and payments and financial obligations that will then be borne by those victims one more time, the victims not only bear the pain and suffering, they bear the financial responsibilities, as the churches continue to build big churches, continue to pay huge salaries to some of the parasites that run these organizations, and meanwhile their victims are left, often poor and indigent, with mounting bills while the church escapes any liability for them.

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RC: I would like to interject that we should say, their potential attempt to do that because again, we really don’t know what the UC really wants to do and I’m stupid enough to believe that the tactics that any of the churches have adopted haven’t been as a result of the church membership as a whole deciding that, hey, we better cover our ass on this, I think it’s been an institutional decision to subtract morality out of the decision making process. And my real hope is that an institution that poses as a moral institution will actually begin to use moral bases in order to come to grips with the past and the present.

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JC: That’s right. Either that or just give up the act altogether. Give up your act and stop preaching to people. Either walk your talk or get out of the business and stop your shameless hypocrisy. I agree with Roland, it’s not the average parishioners who are doing this, but the people with the big salaries and cars who take the big trips to exotic places who are doing this stuff. It’s clear in their restructuring that there’s an intent to limit liability or exposure. If nobody wants to see them bankrupt, the first concern should be responsibility for these actions. Maybe they have to sell their Mazarratis, sell their big houses and move into an apartment ; better that than the persons damaged should have to suffer from damage caused from negligence, foreseeable consequences of actions and something people protested against at the time. It’s not that we’ve suddenly come to a new realization that what was done was wrong. We knew it then that it was wrong, and the evidence for that is that all of the residential schools of Canada were in out-of-the-way places. If you look at a map, they’re all on islands and tucked away in these out-of-the-way places, partly to remove them from people and brainwash them better, partly to prevent them from escaping, but partly to prevent those schools from being exposed. If you look at Part Alberni, and Alert Bay, the rest of them, they’re all in out-of-the-way places. They knew what they were doing was wrong; no need to hide what’s clean, only what’s dirty, and they were hiding what was dirty, and they new it was dirty at the time, because they never allowed their precious white children to be put in those schools. Those schools were for Indian children, not white children.

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Narrator: Unfortunately we’re running out of time. It feels like we just started to get into some of this. Any closing comments?

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RC: Just that again there’s still an opportunity for Canadians in general, the government and churches, to do the right thing. If I didn’t think there was that possibility, I would have shut up about it a long time ago. What I’ve tried to say to the churches overall is that if you think your getting away with genocide you might be getting away with it on this level, but if you really believe what it is that you’ve been shoving down everybody’s throats all these years, there’s still somebody else that you’re going to have to account to for this, and you’re not going to get away with that.

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JC: Get right, walk your talk, get right with the creator, do the right thing, or else come out with what you are and stop lecturing other people about human rights. If you don’t get it together, you have no right to lecture anybody about anything.

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BACK TO TOP

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Economics and Politics INTERVIEW WBAI 2/15/98
(Doug Henwood and Jim Craven)

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DH: There was a court decision in Canada last December in British Columbia where the Canadian court decided that Indian claims to property in BC were actually well grounded and that this may have a substantial effect in Canada about who owns what. A lot of these disputed lands are rich in resources, so this is not mere matter of landscape, it’s also a matter of big money.

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Jim, before we get going, just a word on nomenclature. I’ve been saying “American Indians” all along, and I know a lot of folks prefer Native Americans, or the Canadians use First Nations, what’s the word on language here?

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JC: There’s a mixed bag on that. Most of the people that I know use the term American Indian. What they mean by that is an Indian of the Americas. The reason why many will use that is first of all, Indians weren’t even American citizens until 1924. Many Indians also feel that they’re not real Americans, there’s no real place for them in America, and they are sovereign nations within a nation. They prefer the term Indian rather than the term Native American. Also many Indians I know don’t like the nativism that’s associated with that term Native American, and there may be some implication that the further back here your ancestors go, the more “real” American you are; and most Indians that I know don’t share that kind of sentiment. They don’t differentiate people by how far back your ancestors go. The actual word Indian didn’t come from Columbus looking for India and missing the boat. Rather, when he came here there was no India. The Indian comes from the term “la gente en dio” – the people in god. They’re also referred to as “Los Indios.” Columbus called them gentle and loving people and thought they would be easy to turn into slaves, which is what he actually wrote in his diary. Most of the people I know prefer to use the term American Indian, but they don’t mean an equivalent to “Irish-American” or Jewish American”, they mean an Indian of the Americas, which includes Central, South American and Canada.

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DH: Now let’s talk about this decision from the Canadian Supreme Court. What’s involved with this decision that’s relevant to the US?

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JC: First of all, the decision didn’t go as far as some people might think in terms of of really laying out full use, full custody, for indigenous lands. But it was an extremely important decision in the sense that it was a recognition that some of the very same rights and privileges and laws that protect property today in white society, call into question the very property they protect. For instance, suppose you find all around you your relatives and neighbors being slaughtered and the people who are doing the killing send a message that you’re next. You flee for you life, leave your home. Somebody moves into your home and destroys all records, histories, whatever that show you occupied that home. Then they proceed to go ahead and sell your home to someone else who had no idea how it was acquired. The new owner holds that property only as long as the true story isn’t told. As soon as the true story is told about how that property was originally acquired, even under mainstream or capitalist law, that property becomes tainted. The new owner doesn’t get to keep it, even though he innocently bought stolen property. The same thing holds here. More and more the courts are realizing that when the true story is told and it becomes evident that so much Indian land was stolen, and by stolen I don’t mean according to Indian law, I mean according to white law, capitalist law. What happened with the Canadian decision was that for the first time or almost the first time they are starting to admit oral histories and historical place names as a basis for establishing original occupancy. What happened historically was that American society was confronted more and more with this contradiction, and this contradiction was by virtue or your own laws, not Indian laws, this is stolen land; ill-gotten land.

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So the answer to that was, first of all, you know Indians never really had a concept of private property or territory; therefore, in Indian terms, nothing was really stolen from them. That was the first myth. The second myth was, well, Indians never continuously occupied territorial lands, or Indians never made “improvements” on the land; therefore, they don’t hold ownership in the way that we establish legitimate ownership. So there were attempts to rewrite history to get around that contradiction, that being by virtue of capitalist law, that property is stolen property. Now what’s happening is that the courts, right now there’s a case going on whereby thousands of non-Indians are being sued by the federal government on behalf of the Cherokee, Chocktaw and Chickesaw nations having to do with the Arkansas River because it turns out that as a result of a 1970 Supreme Court decision, that land was treaty land and it was illegally sold to non-Indians. So now these mineral and land owners are all being served notices that they don’t hold title they once thought they held. So what we’re seeing now is a recognition that either you’re going to have to come out in an open, naked say and say, yes, we have sacred laws but they’re only situationally applied; they’re not really that sacred. If you’re non-white they don’t apply. If you’re not “American” they don’t apply. Or they’re going to have to make some kind of attempt to apply consistency.

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DH: This speaks to what Marx calls primitive accumulation, which is the origin of private property through act of theft or in claiming private land that was previously held in common. So whether we’re looking at the enclosures in England or the theft of native lands here in North America or in what’s going on in a good bit of the Third World today, the capitalists have not really lost much sleep over the contradictions of their own tradition. Do you think this is actually going to give them pause? Force them to come to terms with their own hypocrisy?

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JC: I think that the extent to which this happens is as much is as necessary. Their primary goal is to maintain the system as it is and the basic power structures as they are. But they do make concessions when contradictions require it. Their policies represent very few of ultra rich, but they need a mass social base, especially when you have the illusion of a democracy, participatory democracy, they need a mass social base to ratify policies which are actually in the interests of a very few ultra rich people. How do you do that? One way is to push hot button issues, like abortion and whatever. They try to get people to vote one way or another on single issues for a party that can never represent the interests of those who are actually voting for that party. That’s one way. The second way is of course through mystification and rewriting history: American the most moral, decent, productive, efficient, richest, beacon of democracy, and so on. Of course then they don’t discuss all the ugly dictators we’ve supported and are supporting cause there’s a contradiction there. The other way they deal with it is to make concessions on an ad hoc situational basis. So when those contradictions surface, become really glaring, naked, they will make such concessions as are necessary to keep the façade going. So they say, yeah, you got me, you got me there. According to my own laws, this is stolen property, you’re right. So they’ll return bits of land, piece by piece. Of course usually what happens is that land returned bit by bit, they just find another way to get it. What you’ll see is big developers who come in and front certain interests in the tribal councils, and they wind up getting the land back through “normal commerce,” or they’ll find ways to counter-litigate and tie people up in court for extensive periods of time through expensive, costly litigation. But still they’re caught in that contradiction between the façade of the system and the façade they need to maintain that system vs. how the system really works and for whom it really works.

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It’s quite clear: out of 22 industrialized countries, the US is No. 1 in wealth and income Inequality. We’re number one in infants born at low birth weight; homicides; substance abuse; executions; imprisonment. We’re number one in a whole bunch of indicators that don’t speak very well for us. Those indicators are an indictment of that very system itself. The average life expectancy for most Indian males is between 49 and 52 years old. For Indian females, 47 and 51 years old. That’s as opposed to a white male around 71 and white female around 73.

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DH: Those life expectancies are really about the bottom of the poorest portion of the Third World. We’re talking about some pretty bad social rankings here.

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JC: That’s correct. The infant mortality rate is much lower in Cuba than it is among Indians in North America. In fact, it’s lower than all of America combined.

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DH: Let’s talk about the social-economic conditions that Indians in America live in. I think people who live in urban areas might not think about it very often. Where do folks live, just how bad off are they?

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JC: It will vary, of course. But for the vast majority of reservations in this country, and I’ve been on many, people are isolated, it’s very stark, almost all the businesses are owned by non-Indians. Typically you get about 12 or 15 cents on the Indian dollar that stays on the reservation, the rest is shipped out in banking and other services. Savings are little, and what little savings that occur don’t stay on the reservation, taken to big banks in the big cities, it’s never reinvested on the reservation. You have tribal councils that sometimes are corrupt and sometimes not. You have big developers with extensive agendas with their eyes on the prize, with various ways of identifying the mineral rich land and moving in to get it 10 cents on the dollar. You have very few children graduating from high school not to mention going to college and graduating. You have one Indian Health clinic overworked and understaffed. You have high incidences of tuberculosis, incidences of AIDS because of kids going to urban areas and becoming involved in prostitution and drugs and returning with AIDS. So the clinics are overstretched in terms of demands and ability to meet those demands. You have high incidences of alcoholism and drug addiction, about 5 times the national average, teenage suicide roughly five times the national average.

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People say then, well what about the casinos? The best studies I’ve seen suggest that out of each casino gross profit dollar about 18 cents actually goes to the tribe because you’re taking out consulting, licensing fees. So only about 18 cents stays with the tribe and of that a large amount is taken off by the powers that be in the tribe, so that maybe 5 cents of a casino dollar comes anywhere near the average Indian on an average reservation. So casinos are not the panacea that everyone talks about. Plus you lose part of the heritage and culture when you enter that type of enterprise. It’s a very sad, stark existence. It’s an indictment. People talk about genocide on Bosnia, and we should definitely be concerned about that because we’re all human beings, we’re all part of this planet. It’s interesting by the way that in the Inuit language there’re 103 words for snow, but only one for people: which is “Inuit” (human being) There’s no word for black people, white people, red people, there’s just one word: human being. And so we should be concerned about Rwanda and Bosnia, but there’s genocide going on right here in America, and as long as it keeps going on it’s an indictment of this country. For those who say why should I care, I’m not Indian, the issue is that the best form of “national security” is having a society that’s worth being secure.

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DH: How does the situation of American Indians compare with that of other indigenous peoples around the world, say in Australia or Canada or New Zealand?

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JC: Well, from what I’ve been able to see, the situation in New Zealand and Australia with respect to aboriginal people is actually somewhat better than the US in terms of available services, recognition of aboriginal rights – it’s not a rosy picture, there’s still very brutal exploitation there--but there is more recognition that when this kind of subjugation and genocide is going on inside your borders it’s an indictment of the whole nation. In terms of services and national sovereignty, in Canada, in my opinion, it’s much better than the US, although again if you go to Saskatchewan and Alberta and whatever, it’s still a very stark existence on Indian reserves. I worked on a Cree reserve and conditions then and now still are pretty raw. But I would say that they’re better than here in the US. The US is way behind in terms of addressing not only land issues but issues of national sovereignty and what’s happening. If something isn’t done now I suspect that there won’t be any Indian people left in three generations.

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Narrator: Because of their death or because they will blend into the surrounding society?

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JC: All of it: death, blending, all of it. Part of it has to do with the redefinition of Indian people by non-Indians. This is a serious issue. The other thing is the powerlessness. Just imagine if you had a football team called the New York Niggers. Or the Kansas City Kikes. Or the San Francisco Spiks. Imagine that they have the watermelon shuffle. Some caricature of a black person coming out and shuffling around. There would be an absolute outrage and rightly so, because that’s really ugly stuff. But nobody thinks even twice about the Washington Redskins, the tomahawk chop Kansas City Chiefs, the Cleveland Indians with the buck-tooth, illiterate looking Indian icon. We’ve seen so much sensitivity, and rightly so, to injustices that have been done to blacks, Jews, Hispanic people, and we should, but when it comes to Indians, we see all sorts of stereotypes and caricatures that no one would dare make with respect to any other group, and part of it comes from the fact that we have no national Indian voice or leadership, but part of it is the whole history that well, they’re dying anyway, they have no power anyway, they’re off on their own anyway, so just let them go.

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DH: You say there is no national Indian movement, virtually one publication of any significance. Why is there this lack of cohesion, lack of voice?

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JC: Well, a lot of it has to do with the divide and rule tactics that have been used against Indian people for hundreds of years, where they would separate tribes and where there were some territorial disputes, and not even disputes really, disputes were created. A good example is the Hopi and Navaho. The Hopi and Navaho have been inter-marrying for generations. But because there is some uranium and coal some land disputes were started. The Paiute and Navaho are another example where the powerful, mostly for economic interests, played one off against the other. These divisions continue to this day. Just imagine: we don’t have, for example, a Bureau of African American Affairs, of Polish Affairs. But we have a Bureau of Indian Affairs. What do they do? Right now, for example, there’s close to $3 billion missing in BIA accounts. Missing! Nobody knows where it went. And the records were all torched, they weren’t even put on computer backup. We’ve got another case where, because Indian royalties were undervalued by oil and mineral interests according to the formula they were using, almost $6 billion of royalties due tribes being ripped off by undervaluation of oil and gas royalties. The BIA also has been caught, for example, fronting for developers, identifying mineral rich lands and then aiding developers in getting some of the land at 10 cents on the dollar. The BIA should be abolished; they’ve done far more harm than good. Their argument is that now, for example, to recover your money you’ve got to stick with us because otherwise you have no chance of getting the tribal monies that are missing – almost $3 billion dollars missing. But the BIA is a custodial agency, a broker on Indian issues. It was formed to take care of “internal colonies” – it’s part of the Department of Interior and says, “we can’t trust you Indians to deal with non-Indians directly.” So if non-Indians want to deal with Indians they have to go through the BIA. There are some exceptions to that, but not many. It’s a gatekeeper between various nations and non-Indian people and other interests. Again, we get to the same problem. Can you imagine if we had a Bureau of African American Affairs, or Bureau of Caucasian Affairs? There would be an outrage if there was something like that, but nobody says anything when it comes to Indians.

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DH: What might a more humane set of policies look like?

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JC: I can only speak for myself, but basically it comes down to the fact that there needs to be more coherent and cohesive outreach to non-Indians. Indians alone are not going to be able to solve these problems. They need natural allies. Part of the problem is to break down a lot of the stereotypes and myths, you know, about the rich Indian from casino money, and so on, among non-Indians. Indians need to work with working class people and progressive intellectuals and whatever, to say, these are the myths you’ve been told about us. We don’t think you’re the enemy, because your skin color is different. Please join us because our fight is your fight. You know, there was a time in Germany when people said, well, I’m not Jewish, or homosexual, or trade unionists and therefore this isn’t my problem. What happened is they were living in a Nazi society where it was only a matter of time that anyone with a heart or an IQ over 60 could be next. It’s the same thing about Indians in America. If you don’t care about Indian issues, well go ahead and say that now, because you may be next, because it means you live in the kind of society that allows genocide, that allows this kind of desecration of the sacred, if you want to put it that way. And it’s only a matter of accident as to whether or not you’re next. So we need to reach out, we need to build united fronts, common concerns, break down stereotypes, and need to educate. We need to say, listen this is all of us, we need to stay together. We don’t want to take your land, please don’t steal ours. By virtue of the very same principles that you hold sacred that defends your property, then please understand that our lands, our rights, our birthrights, our cultures and heritages have been stolen from us and we need to define ourselves, we don’t need non-Indians defining what is “authentic” Indian and what is not.

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BACK TO TOP

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Investigation of crimes of genocide in Canada WBAI Interview: 6/18/98 (Doug Henwood and Jim Craven)

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Narrator: Tell us about this panel you’ve been serving on investigating crimes of genocide in Canada.

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JC: This was an inter-Tribal court made up of tribal judges from different tribes and nations. It was sponsored by the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities which is a consultative body of the UN. It was a UN-NGO-observed tribunal. Any comments I make here are personal, not official findings as these findings have not been made public yet. The tribunal was conducted under the rules of tribal law. The director of IHRAAM was present, and it had to do with allegations of systematic and various forms of abuse of Indian children in the residential school system. It also had to do with allegations of genocide under the terms of the UN Convention on Genocide. This Convention defines genocide as follows: A. killing members of the group, B. causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group; C. deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, D. imposing measures intended to prevent birth within a group, or E. transferring children of the group to another group. So it was also to investigate the patterns in residential school systems and other things: de-Indianizing land, privatizing Indian land and whether they constituted genocide. And finally the Canadian government. has imposed a settlement of $326 million because there’s already been an admission of guilt to some extent in a British Columbia Supreme Court decision. We were also to investigate whether those monies had been paid to the victims, or the terms under which they would be paid, and whether there were other victims who should be covered under that settlement. So that’s basically it. As of now, none of that money has been disbursed and we are supposed to investigate. There are some disputes between some of the nations where some don’t want a blanket settlement. They want to fight it tribe by tribe, nation by nation, and the reason for that is because a blanket settlement – “we’re sorry, here’s $356 million, now the guilt is over” – some people feel we need to get out the particulars of what went on, not just to point the fingers of blame, but also to bring individuals to justice that need to be brought to justice and also to point out a pattern.

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Listen, the word genocide came from a Polish jurist named Raphael Lemkin in 1944. It comes from “genos which means race in Greek and “cide” or the killing of, which is Latin. The UN has subsequently differentiated “ethnocide” where a group is progressively destroyed, but there may not be an intention to destroy that group as a group. An example is warfare, like in Bosnia let’s say, where one group is at war with another group and gets wiped out, but supposedly the intention is not to wipe out these people as a people. That’s called ethnocide. Genocide means that there’s a conscious, deliberate intention, what they call in law mens rea – an intention to destroy a people as a people. One of the reasons why some people are opposed to a blanket settlement is that it may gloss over or not allow us to get to exactly what is going on and whether there is genocide going on and not just ethnocide. I found it interesting: the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Cretien said “It looks like the Court has attributed (he’s talking about the BC Supreme Court) to the federal government some responsibility. If we had responsibility we have to meet our responsibilities." The Canadian government was summoned to be at this tribunal, but sent no observer. The Catholic Church was asked to be there, because a lot of the residential schools were being run by them (UC, Catholic, Methodists, Anglicans, and there was some mention of Mormons), but they sent no one. Observers from these churches were asked to be there also. Not only to look at what has happened but to make sure it doesn’t happen again. They chose not to send any observers even though they knew this was an official UN tribunal. Another quote from Jerry Kelly of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops: “This is a major threat to every church in the country.” “The potential costs are exceedingly high. I don’t really know what’s going to happen. The number of cases have just grown and grown.” So the churches are well aware that there are some serious allegations being made and they’re mounting, but they chose not to send representatives.

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DH: The situation is that the churches were subcontractors of the Canadian government to run schools and they were essentially subcontractors for genocide.

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JC: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily use that term “subcontractors” but I guess that would be proper. Under Canadian law in the case of broken families it’s a matter of law that the children are put into residential schools. The residential schools are run by the churches. So that gets into the forced assimilation issue as opposed to choosing to be assimilated. Under international law if people choose to assimilate with another group, that’s not a crime. But if people are forced to assimilate into another group, that comes under one of the particulars of genocide. We heard allegation after allegation of people whose parents put them in residential schools believing they were under a legal obligation to do so. We heard allegations that children were beaten for speaking their native language, being left handed, for practicing traditional rituals or practices. We heard testimony where children were forced off their traditional Indian diets and residential school diets designed to be cheaply provided, heavy on carbohydrates and fat, where you could feed a lot of people for very little. As a result a lot of them today are suffering diabetes and kidney failure and other kinds of diseases associated with diets they were pushed on to in the residential school system. We heard repeated allegations of sexual abuse, physical abuse, murder, intimidation when people reported murder, threats of retribution when reporting murder. We heard allegations of secret graveyards, of victims who were buried, graveyards of children the products of liaisons between a priest and children that were disposed of.

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DH: And these horrors were something in the distance past, right? We’re talking about fairly recent events?

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JC: Oh yes, going back to the 30’s all the way up to the present. The allegations we heard go right on up to the present.

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DH: And this is not just freelance abuse but part of a pattern amounting to genocide?

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JC: Yes. What we are looking for is whether there is a pattern. Lemkin, when he wrote his original book on genocide, said that genocide involves two phases: The first phase is the destruction of a national pattern of the oppressed group; the second phase is the imposition of a national pattern of the dominating group. So what we heard were allegations of the destruction of the national pattern of Indian peoples, meaning diet, religion, language, culture, family structure, belief systems, moral value systems – all of it. Then we also heard that the residential schools were being used to de-Indianize, and impose the national pattern of the dominant group – to Christianize them, to de-Indianize them.

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DH: Why were they doing these things?

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JC: There are various motives involved. One is economic. For example, one of the cases we heard that was typical was known as the Lot 363 case. This had to do with traditional native ancestral land on Flores Island which is off BC, of the Ahousaht people. This land was expropriated by the UC, sold in 1953 for about $2,500 to the grandson of a church missionary despite repeated protests of the Ahousaht elders, and that land was then sold to McMillian-Blodell for over $1 million in 1994 – it was very rich in old-growth timber. So part of the motive had to do with de-Indianizing children as a way of breaking their connections with their tribes, their nations, but also breaking the connection of the nations with their ancestral lands, to privatize ancestral lands. The second motive we heard of course is the usual arrogance of some of the mainstream religions that, you know, “We are the true church,” Our way is the only way,” “These children are savages practicing a savage religion,” “They represent an affront to the mainstream culture,” and so on.

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DH: Again, we’re talking about the present, not the 19th century?

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JC: That’s right. It goes on today. We heard allegations, for example, of just recently very very severe beatings by RCMP and others, and again it seemed that if you’re Indian, you have no protection, no rights, it’s just open season. We heard allegations of public beatings within a context that probably people from other groups would not suffer the same intensity. We heard about not only priests and church officials being involved, but members of the RCMP, allegedly, members of the government.

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Narrator: We hear all about NAFTA, the economic borders between the US and Canada supposedly disappearing rapidly. You told me a case this afternoon of people who were prosecuted for crossing the border to trade wheat with other tribe members.

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JC: Yes. Among the Blackfoot people, there are four main tribes, the Akaina or Blood, the Northern Peigan, the Siksika which are Blackfoot, and the Southern Peigan or Blackfeet which are in Montana. There was a case of one person, Harvey Franks who brought wheat down across the border to sell to the Blackfeet tribe in Montana (keep in mind that these are all part of one natural people who existed there long before there was a Canada or a United States or indeed any kind of border.) He was put on trial in Alberta for violating the Wheat Export Control Act because in Canada all wheat is brokered through the Wheat Board. So his argument was that Blackfoot people are a whole people, that members of one tribe have every right to sell to fellow Blackfoot, and further that this interfering with commerce between tribes of one nation is effectively helping to promote the destruction of that whole nation. I’m not sure where the case stands right now, my understanding is that it’s in abeyance right now as a result of protests against it. But this is an example of whereas NAFTA is supposed to break down borders for free trade, free commerce, here’s someone who just from one tribe of a nation came to sell to his fellow tribal members and was put on trial for it. I suspect part of the reason is because of the sovereignty implications of it. In other words, because we have the Jay Treaty which the US has recognized but Canada doesn’t which calls for free and unmolested travel on both sides of the border between indigenous people (so many of the nations are divided because of the border) and in order to keep one nation together and preserve what’s left there has to be free exchange back and forth. This has been interfered with on both sides of the line.

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DH: The border exists at the pleasure of capital and the state.

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JC: Indeed. As to the tribunal, we took it very seriously, it was conducted under tribal law, everybody understands that allegations are not facts in and of themselves, they may lead to facts, but they’re not facts in and of themselves. I suspect personally that non-Indians got a much fairer hearing from Indians than Indians have ever received from non-Indians in their courts.

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DH: We’re running short on time, but is one of these tribunals planned for the US?

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JC: Yes. It’s still in the works right now. This was the first tribunal of its kind to investigate not human rights in China, in Tiennaman Square or whatever, but now we’re talking about genocide inside our own borders. And the people who are doing this know how to use that term very carefully. So what’s being planned now is inside the borders of the US because the Boarding School system, which is equivalent to the residential school system in Canada, many of the same atrocities and abuses allegedly occurred in those schools, too. There are so many Indian nations in the US who have made these kinds of allegations for years and they’ve never been investigated. So the next stop will be inside US borders to look at the same kind of thing.

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Narrator: Has this tribunal been publicized well in Canada, do people know about it?

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JC: What happened was at the tribunal we had people who brought to us how they had allegedly been threatened inside the tribunal. We had false press releases sent out telling people to go to another place at another time so that press wouldn’t show up. The government of Canada and members of the churches refused to show up even though it was a UN tribunal. Right now I’m sitting on another phony press release saying that findings have already been made from this tribunal which is not the case. We also saw during the tribunal numerous examples of attempts to sabotage what was being done there. So yes, it was publicized but not as widely as you might think because there were some forces at work there trying to prevent it from being fully publicized. Nevertheless it did occur and it was generally conducted with a great deal of integrity although we did have some problems internally.

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DH: Any idea of who was doing these disruptions?

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JC: I can only speculate, but I suspect it was the people who were being examined, they would have the greatest motive to do so.

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DH: How would you compare the status of the Indian peoples in the US vs. those in Canada?

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JC: The fact that something like this could even go on in Canada is indicative of something. On a formal level, I believe that in terms of indigenous rights and so on, Canada is probably ahead of the US. On the de facto level, perhaps that’s another question. But I think the Canadian is probably more “advanced” than our own government in the US in terms of being willing to consider the possibility that there were some serious crimes and wrongs that need to be addressed and prevented in the future. The settlement for $356 million, as much as that may be a blanket settlement and designed to not deal with the specifics that may be uncomfortable to deal with, is a heck of a lot farther than what we’ve seen here in the US. In capitalist law, if you wrong somebody, you’ve got to pay damages. It’s the same thing here: some people have been horribly wronged and until we’re honest about ourselves and our own history we’re going to have a real tough time pointing to human rights violations in China, and Burma and other places, when there’s genocide going on right inside the borders of the US and Canada.

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BACK TO TOP

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BIA Apology 00 September ’00: Indian Affairs Head Makes "Apology" comments by Eugene Johnson (Selitz) and Jim Craven (Blackfoot)
from AP report by Matt Kelly:

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs apologized Friday for the agency's “legacy of racism and inhumanity” that included massacres, forced relocations of tribes and attempts to wipe out Indian languages and cultures.

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By accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right,'' Kevin Gover, a Pawnee Indian, said in an emotional speech marking the agency's 175th anniversary. Gover said he was apologizing on behalf of the BIA, not the federal government as a whole. Still, he is the highest-ranking US official ever to make such a statement regarding the treatment of American Indians.

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The audience of about 300 tribal leaders, BIA employees and federal officials stood and cheered as a teary-eyed Gover finished the speech. “I thought it was a very heroic and historic moment,”' said Susan Masten, chairwoman of California’s Yurok tribe and president of the National Congress of American Indians. “For us, there was a lot of emotion in that apology. It’s important for us to begin to heal from what has been done since non-Indian contact.” Lloyd Tortalita, the governor of New Mexico’s Acoma Pueblo tribe, welcomed the apology but said, “If we could get an apology from the whole government, that would be better.” . . . Canada’s government has formally apologized for abuses in government-run boarding schools for Indians but has rejected calls for a broader apology.

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Australian Prime Minister John Howard also has rebuffed repeated calls for an apology to that country’s Aboriginal population for similar abuses there. Gover recited a litany of wrongs the BIA inflicted on Indians since its creation as the Indian Office of the War Department. Estimates vary widely, but the agency is believed responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians. “This agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the Western tribes,” Gover said. “It must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life.”

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The misery continued after the BIA became part of the Interior Department in 1849, Gover said. Children were brutalized in BIA-run boarding schools, Indian languages and religious practices were banned and traditional tribal governments were eliminated, he said. The high rates of alcoholism, suicide and violence in Indian communities today are the result, he said. “Poverty, ignorance and disease have been the product of this agency’s work.” Now, 90 percent of the BIA’s 10,000 employees are Indian and the agency has changed into an advocate for tribal governments. “Never again will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways,” Gover promised. “Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again.”

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Eugene Johnson: Kevin Gover is Indian. An apology coming from him is like having a black official in the U.S. government apologize to the black populace for slavery, Rosewood, the KKK, etc. It's like having a Jew apologize to the Jewish populace for Nazi atrocities enacted during WWII. His apology is truly offensive to me. It reminds me of when the Methodists apologized for Chivington’s massacre of the Cheyennes at Sand Creek. Then I found out that it was Indian Methodists who were apologizing.

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As for the so-called Indian “leaders” present at his “apology,” who are these Indian leaders? Were they Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) tribal council government “leaders”-- mostly corrupt individuals who would gladly sell their own people off to the highest bidders--or were they traditionalists? Most likely they were IRA leaders, favorite “spokespeople” of the US government which does its best to avoid traditional leaders who can’t be manipulated.

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Jim Craven: When I read this obscene cover-up masquerading as an “apology,” I immediately thought of Theresienstadt. That was the showcase concentration camp in Czechoslovakia that the Nazis used for Swiss Red Cross Inspections. They would kill off half the inhabitants, rushing them out to Auschwitz on “blitz transfers,” then paint the place up, put on operas sung by the remaining children (only 100 of some 10,000 survived), and even issue camp-specific “currency” in which the “workers” were being paid to give the illusion of paid workers. Of course the usual “Arbeit Macht Frei” was painted over the entrance; the Cremetorium was portrayed as a means to insure hygiene and sanitary disposal of any “unfortunate deaths.” This is truly sick. It reminds me of something my mother used to tell me as a child: There are more white trash [and their apple minions] (wearing three-piece suits) on Wall Street and in Washington DC than in the trailer parks of America.

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Nuremberg was the major force for the origination and adoption of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide (this word is never mentioned in Grover’s “apology”). The US was the major force at Nuremberg despite the fact it allowed US companies like JP Morgan, Standard Oil, Texaco, GM, Brown Brothers Harriman , and individuals like George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush [grandfathers of George W. Bush] to trade with the Japanese, German and Italian fascists throughout World War II; despite the fact that the U.S. put wanted Nazi war criminals on CIA/US Government payrolls after the War. Yet the US refused to sign the UN Convention on Genocide until 1988. Even then it claimed a “Sovereignty Exemption” that US law would trump the UN Convention in the event of any contradiction (this exemption is itself in violation of Article VI Section 2 of the US Constitution).

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Gover has explicitly stipulated to every single type of act mentioned in Article II of the UN Convention on Genocide as constituting genocide while refusing to use that word; killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group; inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in whole or in part; conducting measures to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children from one group to another group. And all of this while Canada and the U.S. commit troops to supposedly “stop” genocide in places like Bosnia and Kosovo and presume to lecture countries all over the world about “human rights.”

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This is so typical of those who plunder. First they consolidate their positions, then they expect those plundered to just “get over it” while the plunderers keep the very system that was born and nurtured upon ill-gotten power and wealth. Notice the reference in the “apology” to the percentage of “Indians” at BIA. Yet Eugene Johnson (see his comments above), a Siletz Indian who worked for a subcontractor of the BIA, was let go for “failure to pass a security check” (required by all BIA employees so no “radicals” can get in.) After a FOIA request, the agency supposedly giving the security check claimed to have nothing on him. So much for what kind of “Indians” the BIA has working for them. There’s no mention of the fact that the BIA still clings to genocidal legacy of the 25% blood-quantum rule and arrogates the “right” to define who and what an Indian is, the clear intention of which is revealed in the following quote from a BIA Document:

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“Set the blood-quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed...and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence. When that happens, the federal government will finally be freed from its persistent Indian problem.” (Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West p. 338).

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There’s no acknowledgement that the “legacy of racism and inhumanity” mentioned in the “apology” continues today in the more recent use of Indians for medical experiments, as objects of chemical/biological warfare, and in forced sterilizations, among other things. There’s no discussion of redressing broken treaties, or the possibility of reparations. There’s no discussion of the estimated $3 billion (plus interest) “missing” from BIA accounts. Where is it? There is an estimated $6 billion (plus interest) in royalties owned to Indian Nations. Where is it? Lost monies mean lost lives here and now.

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There is no discussion of Indian Reservations being designated as dumpsites for toxic wastes (the nazis used to bring the victims to the gas chambers, the new nazis bring the gas chambers to the victims.)

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Indian Nations are sovereign by the same international law that recognizes the US and Canada as sovereign nations. Nations do not make treaties with their own "citizens." In the case of Canada, “subjects” do not make treaties with fellow “subjects” of the Crown. We do not need permission or recognition of our sovereignty or nation status; we need only continue to assert them and point out the hypocrisy and intentions of those bent on our extinction.

Climate Change 101

2006-12-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (2006)

Edited from a PDF document by The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a non-profit, nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers, and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change.

Introduction

The science is clear: climate change is happening, and it is linked directly to human activities that emit greenhouse gases. This overview summarizes the six-part series Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change. (References for other PDF documents in the Pew series appear at end of the essay.)

Science and Impacts discusses the most current scientific evidence for climate change and explains its causes and projected impacts. As explored here and in greater depth in Technological Solutions, a number of technological options exist to avert dangerous climatic change by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions both now and into the future. Business Solutions, International Action, State Action, and Local Action describe how business and government leaders at all levels have recognized both the challenge and the vast opportunity climate change presents. These leaders are responding with a broad spectrum of innovative solutions. To successfully address the enormous challenge of climate change, new approaches are needed at the international level, and the United States must re-engage in the global effort and adopt strong and effective national policies.

I. A Real Problem with Real Solutions

An overwhelming body of scientific evidence paints a clear picture: climate change is happening, it is caused in large part by human activity, and it will have many serious and potentially damaging effects in the decades ahead. Scientists have confirmed that the earth is warming, and that greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other manmade sources - rather than natural variations in climate - are the primary cause. Due largely to the combustion of fossil fuels, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, are at a level unequaled for more than 400,000 years. As a result, an enhanced greenhouse effect is trapping more of the sun's heat near the earth's surface and gradually pushing the planet's climate system into uncharted territory. (Figure 1 explanation and URL appear at end of essay.)

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases always have been present in the atmosphere, keeping the earth hospitable to life by trapping heat. Yet, since the industrial revolution, emissions of these gases from human activity have accumulated steadily, trapping more heat and exacerbating the natural greenhouse effect. As a result, global average temperatures have risen both on land and in the oceans, with observable impacts already occurring that foretell increasingly severe changes in the future. Polar ice is melting. Glaciers around the globe are in retreat. Storms are increasing in intensity. Ecosystems around the world already are reacting, as plant and animal species struggle to adapt to a shifting climate, and new climate-related threats emerge.

Scientists predict that if the increase in greenhouse gas emissions continues unabated, temperatures will rise by as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, potentially causing dramatic - and irreversible - changes to the climate. The consequences, both anticipated and unforeseen, will have profound ramifications for humanity and the world as a whole. Water supplies in some critical areas will dwindle as snow and ice disappear. Sea levels will rise, threatening coastal populations. Droughts and floods will become more common. And hurricanes and other powerful storms will increase in intensity. Adding to the threat will be the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and the spread of disease. Human health will be jeopardized by all of these changes.

Climate change is a real problem, but it also has real solutions. Some of its effects are already inevitable and will require some degree of adaptation. But humanity has the power - working collectively and individually and at all levels of society - to take serious action to reduce the threat posed by climate change. To avoid the worst effects, scientists say we will need to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere; that means reducing emissions of these gases by about fifty to eighty percent. It is a major challenge that will require unprecedented cooperation and participation across the globe. Yet, the tools exist to begin addressing this challenge now. Around the country and throughout the world, many political, business, and community leaders already are working to prevent the consequences of global warming. They are acting because they understand that the science points to an inescapable conclusion: addressing climate change is no longer a choice, but an imperative.

II. Reducing Emissions: What it Will Take

Climate change is not just a daunting challenge; it is also an enormous opportunity for innovation. While there is no "silver bullet" technological solution, many tools already exist for addressing climate change, and new options on the horizon could potentially yield dramatic reductions in worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases.

Although greenhouse gas emissions are primarily associated with the burning of fossil fuels (chiefly, coal, oil and natural gas), they come from many sources. As a result, any effort to reduce the human impact on the climate will need to engage all sectors of society. As shown in Figure 2 (URL at end of essay), the largest contributors to total US emissions are the electricity generation and transportation sectors; significant emissions also come from other commercial and agricultural activity and from residential and industrial buildings. In each of these areas, technologies and practices already exist that can reduce emissions. Other tools that are still being developed hold tremendous promise. Significant reductions will require a transformation in global energy use through a combination of short-term and long-term commitments. Real reductions are possible today, but we also need more advanced technology - and we need to begin developing it now.

Given the many sources of emissions, a comprehensive response to climate change requires a portfolio of solutions. In the electricity sector, these solutions include improving the efficiency of power plants; generating an increasing share of electricity from climate-friendly renewable sources such as solar, wind and tidal power; developing new technologies to store carbon-dioxide emissions underground; and investing in new nuclear facilities. Increased energy efficiency in buildings and appliances also can provide significant and cost-effective reductions. At the same time, transportation-sector emissions can be reduced through investments in new and existing technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks. Other transportation solutions include using low-carbon fuels (such as biofuels, fuel cells or electricity) and adopting "smart growth" policies that reduce driving.

There will certainly be costs associated with adopting these technologies and transforming the way we consume energy. Yet, addressing climate change also offers enormous economic opportunities, starting with the opportunity to avoid the considerable costs that climate change will pose to societies and businesses. In addition, the global technology revolution that is needed to protect the climate will create new economic opportunities for businesses and workers, as well as the localities, states and nations that successfully position themselves as centers of innovation and technology development for a low-carbon world. However, innovation will not happen quickly enough or at the necessary scale without government action to push and pull new technologies into mainstream use. A comprehensive strategy of economy-wide and sector-specific policies is needed. Key policy solutions include investments in science and technology research; efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles, and appliances; and perhaps most importantly, an overall limit on greenhouse gas emissions and a market for reductions. One such system, known as cap-and-trade, would set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and allow companies to trade emission allowances so they can achieve their reductions as cost-effectively as possible.

III. Embracing Climate Solutions

In the absence of a strong US federal policy, leaders in business and government at all levels have begun taking significant steps to address climate change. Current efforts cannot deliver the level of reduction needed to protect the climate, but they provide a foundation for future action, as well as proof that progress is possible without endangering economic success.

1. Business Solutions

Leading businesses around the globe are taking action to reduce their impact on the climate and to advocate for sensible policy solutions. A survey of over thirty companies asking why they are taking action on climate change revealed a number of key motivations for action, including increasing profits, influencing government regulation, enhancing corporate reputations, and managing risk. (Figure 4 explanation appears at end of essay).

Recent years have seen a shift in corporate approaches to climate change from focusing exclusively on risk management and protecting the bottom line to the pursuit of new business opportunities. Improvements in energy efficiency, for example, can lead to reduced costs; sales of climate-friendly products and services are growing rapidly; and new markets for carbon reductions are taking off.

Many corporate leaders increasingly believe that the growing certainty about climate science means that government action is imminent. Companies want a head start over their competitors in learning how to reduce their emissions. Others in the private sector are responding to growing pressure from investor and consumer groups for disclosure of climate-related risks and integration of climate concerns into companies' core business strategies. There may also be considerable risk to a company's brand and reputation if customers, partners, investors and/or employees don't view the firm as responsible with regard to climate change. The potential physical impact of climate change on business operations is another concern among corporate leaders.

Recognizing both that government action is inevitable and that policy decisions made on this issue will have substantial implications for future profits, business leaders increasingly are engaging with policymakers to help influence those decisions. Many of these business leaders favor approaches that level the playing field among companies, create more certainty for businesses, and spread responsibility for greenhouse gas emission reductions across all sectors of the economy. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change's Business Environmental Leadership Council includes more than forty companies at the forefront of corporate action on climate change. Council members' diverse, innovative efforts show the power of business to have a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions while helping the bottom line. These companies employ over three million people and have combined a stock market value of over $2.4 trillion. Thirty-two of these companies have set targets that reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

2. International Action

Climate change is a global problem requiring a global response. Carbon dioxide emissions have risen 130-fold since 1850 and are projected to increase another sixty percent by 2030. Most emissions come from a relatively small number of countries. An effective strategy to avert dangerous climate change requires commitments and action by all the world's major economies.
The United States, with five percent of the world's population, is responsible for 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country. On an intensity basis (emissions per gross domestic product or GDP), US emissions are roughly fifty percent higher than the European Union's or Japan's. On a per capita basis, US emissions are roughly twice as high as those of the EU and Japan (and five times the world average).

US emissions are projected to rise eight percent above 2004 levels by 2010 (and 28 percent by 2025). By comparison, emissions are projected to hold steady in the EU, and decline five percent in Japan, by 2010.

Emissions are rising fastest in developing countries. China's emissions are projected to nearly double, and India's to increase an estimated eighty percent, by 2025. Annual emissions from all developing countries are projected to surpass those of developed countries between 2013 and 2018. Their per capita emissions, however, will remain much lower than those of developed countries. In 2025, per capita emissions in China are expected to be one-fourth - and in India, one-fourteenth - those of the United States.

In 1992, countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with the objective of avoiding dangerous human interference in the climate system (189 countries, including the United States, have ratified the agreement). In the Convention, developed countries agreed to "take the lead" in addressing climate change and to the voluntary "aim" of reducing their emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Soon recognizing that stronger action was needed, governments launched new negotiations on binding emission targets for developed countries. The resulting agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, requires industrialized countries to reduce emissions on average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012. All major industrialized countries but the United States and Australia have ratified the protocol.

At the national and regional levels, a range of policies contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The most far-reaching is the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, which caps emissions from 12,000 facilities across 25 countries. In major developing countries like China and India, policies driven by economic, energy, or development objectives in many cases contribute to greenhouse gas reduction. China, for instance, reduced its energy intensity 68 percent from 1980 to 2000 and has ambitious targets to further improve energy efficiency and expand renewable energy.

In 2005, governments launched new processes under the Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol to consider next steps in the international effort. The report of the Climate Dialogue at Pocantico, a group of senior policymakers and stakeholders from fifteen countries convened by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, calls for a flexible international framework allowing different countries to take on different types of commitments (including economy-wide emission targets, sectoral agreements, and policy-based approaches). The future of the international effort hinges in large measure on the United States - other major emitters are unlikely to commit to stronger action without the participation of the world's largest economy and emitter. As it strengthens its domestic response to climate change, the United States must also provide the leadership needed for an effective long-term global effort.

3. United States: Federal Action

In February 2002, President Bush announced a voluntary target to achieve an eighteen-percent reduction in US greenhouse gas intensity (the ratio of emissions to gross domestic product) by 2012. Under this target, emissions actually will continue to rise as the economy grows. In 2004, US emissions were eighteen percent higher than they were in 1990, and 2.6 percent higher than at the start of 2002. A number of senators and representatives - both Democrats and Republicans - have offered proposals to limit emissions, but a mandatory climate bill has yet to pass in either branch of Congress. Nonetheless, momentum for action is growing, as indicated by the increasing number of bills, votes and hearings held on climate-related issues in Congress in recent years.

4. United States: State Action

The lack of action in Washington on the climate issue has prompted many states to seek their own solutions both individually and cooperatively. At this point, nearly every state is engaged in working in some way on climate solutions. By taking action to address climate change, US states are fulfilling their role in American democracy as "policy laboratories", developing initiatives that serve as models for federal action.

To date, states have implemented a broad spectrum of climate policies. Twenty-eight states have adopted climate action plans detailing steps they will pursue in addressing climate change, and twelve states actually have set targets, ranging from modest to aggressive, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead. Beyond these broad-based plans and targets, many states have adopted sector-specific policies that reduce emissions from electricity generation - for example, by promoting the development of clean and renewable energy resources and by requiring that utilities generate a specified share of power from renewable sources. States also are directing public funds to energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and adopting new standards for power plant emissions and energy efficiency. In the transportation sector, states are adopting policies and standards to promote efficient, low-emission vehicles and climate-friendly fuels. They are also working on smart growth, zoning reform, and transit-oriented development. Agricultural policies also are being redesigned to promote biomass as another solution to climate change.

Among the main motivating factors for state action has been concern about the potential impact of climate change on state economies from consequences such as sea level rise or extreme weather. However, many state leaders also see enormous and largely untapped economic opportunities that will come with developing new markets for climate-friendly technologies. In contrast to the global warming debate at the federal level, climate-related policies typically enjoy bipartisan support among the states.

This activity on the part of states is significant because some US states are major emitters of greenhouse gases, producing levels comparable to those of many developed countries. In addition, state actions are showing it is possible to reduce emissions and spur technological innovation without endangering economic competitiveness. And, through interstate partnerships, states are demonstrating the power of collective action to reduce costs and to achieve increased efficiency, while cutting emissions across a larger geographic area. (Figure 5 explanation and URL appear at end of this essay.)

In addition to spotlighting what works, however, states also are demonstrating that their efforts alone are not enough. States have limited resources and strict budget requirements that make far-reaching climate policies difficult to implement, and they also lack certain powers that would be crucial to a comprehensive climate change policy. Moreover, the patchwork quilt that can result when states take individual approaches to the climate issue can be inefficient and pose challenges for business. State action is important, but strong and coherent federal policies are needed to ensure consistency and to mobilize climate solutions throughout the economy and the nation.

5. Local Action

State leaders are hardly alone in their movement to address climate change. Across the country and all over the world, city and county governments are implementing their own policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Cities have a strong history of climate action, and continue to mount responses to climate change that are resulting in emissions cuts. Cities are working together to achieve their goals through a number of programs and mechanisms, including the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives and the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, both of which have experienced dramatic growth in participation.

Policies adopted by cities and towns within the United States span everything from energy supply to transportation to tree planting. Local leaders are taking action because they recognize that their communities have a lot to lose should emissions remain unchecked and climate change accelerate. Many of the potential effects of climate change - such as extreme weather, higher sea levels and reduced water supplies - will be felt most sharply by urban populations. In addition to reducing risks, cities and towns also can realize indirect benefits by tackling climate change, such as energy savings and improved air quality. Localities, like the states, are offering lessons in what works to protect the climate. However, as is the case with action by the states, a patchwork of local policies is no substitute for economy-wide action at the federal and international level.

IV. The Path Forward

The science is clear. Climate change is happening, and the time to act is now. While the early actions of local and state governments, nations, and business leaders are significant, climate change remains a global problem requiring a global solution. Ultimately, a fair and effective international approach must engage all of the world's major economies and allow enough flexibility for all countries to contribute.

Substantive US engagement at the international level is going to be crucial to the success of the global effort. On the domestic front, the federal government needs to adopt policies that recognize that climate change is real, and that it poses both risks and opportunities for the United States and the rest of the world. With comprehensive federal policy and constructive international engagement, the United States can harness the power of markets to drive innovation and protect the climate.

URL for this essay is http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figures and References:

Figure 1 The Greenhouse Effect:

1.A. Natural Greenhouse Effect: The greenhouse effect is a natural warming process. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and certain other gases are always present in the atmosphere. These gases create a warming effect that has some similarity to the warming inside a greenhouse, hence the name "greenhouse effect".

1.B. Enhanced Greenhouse Effect: Increasing the amount of greenhouse gases intensifies the greenhouse effect. This side of the globe simulates conditions today, roughly two centuries after the Industrial Revolution began.

Greenhouse Effect explanation: Illustration of the greenhouse effect: Visible sunlight passes through the atmosphere without being absorbed ...

1.1 Some of the sunlight striking the earth is absorbed and converted to heat, which warms the surface.

1.2 The surface emits heat to the atmosphere.

1.3 Some heat is absorbed by greenhouse gases.

1.4 Some absorbed heat is re-emitted toward the surface.

1.5 Some of the heat not trapped by greenhouse gases and escapes into space.

1.6 Human activities that emit additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere increase the amount of heat that gets absorbed before escaping to space, thus enhancing the greenhouse effect and amplifying the warming of the earth.

Source: Marian Koshland Science Museum of National Academy of Sciences http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figure 2 shows 2004 US Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector (Million Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent)

Figure 3: Getting it Done - in "Wedgers". One oft-cited forecast suggests that under a "business-as-usual" scenario, annual global greenhouse gas emissions will reach fourteen billion tons per year by 2055. Assuming we need to cut those emissions at least in half (or by a minimum of seven billion tons), researchers Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala have suggested that one way to think about the problem is to break the necessary reduction into seven wedges. Each wedge represents a strategy that can reduce carbon emissions by one billion tons per year within fifty years.

The result of the so-called "wedges" analysis of Socolow and Pacala is shown in Figure 3. Achieving the necessary total reductions will require a combination of strategies. The following examples of wedges give an indication of the magnitude of the effort required:

3.1 Producing two billion cars that travel sixty miles per gallon of gas instead of thirty miles per gallon

3.2 Build one million two megawatt wind turbines to displace coal power

3.3 Build 700 gigawatts of nuclear power to displace coal power (twice current global nuclear capacity)

3.4 Decrease car travel for two billion 30 MPG cars from 10,000 to 5,000 miles per year

3.5 Capture and store carbon emissions at 800 gigawatts of coal plants

3.6 Improve energy efficiency by one-fourth in buildings and appliances

3.7 Produce 100 times current US ethanol output

Source: S Pacala and R Socolow. 2004. "Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies". Science, 305(5686): 968-972.]

Figure 4: Why Companies Take Action (Explanation): Once begun, how important are the following measures of success in undertaking your climate-related strategy?

Scale of one to five where one indicates least important and five indicates most important:

(a) Energy Efficiency: 3.7 (b) Operational Improvement: 3.5 (c) Cost Savings 3.4 (d) Anticipating and influencing climate change regulation: 3.3 (e) Protect the global climate: 3.3 (f) Elevating corporate reputation: 3.3 (g) Social responsibility: 3.2 (h) Improving risk management: 3.1 (i) Identifying new market opportunities: 2.9 (j) Enhancing human resource management and corporate culture: 2.8

Source: Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, 2006. http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figure 5 indicates Regional Initiatives for US states

Figure 6: Cities Committed to the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Mayors of 320 cities have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement as of October 2006. Source: http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/

Other Pew Global Climate Change PDF documents in the Global Climate Change series:

In an effort to inform the climate change dialogue, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Pew Center on the States have developed a series of brief reports entitled Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change.

These reports are meant to provide a reliable and understandable introduction to climate change. They cover climate science and impacts, technological solutions, business solutions, international action, recent action in the US states, and action taken by local governments. The overview serves as a summary and introduction to the series.

Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change http://www.pewclimate.org/images/cover-climate-101.gif

Climate Change 101: The Science and Impacts http://www.pewclimate.org/images/science_101_cover_100906_163644.gif

Climate Change 101: Technological Solutions http://www.pewclimate.org/images/tech_101_cover.gif

Climate Change 101: Business Solutions http://www.pewclimate.org/images/business-cover.gif

Climate Change 101: International Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/intl-cover_113006_073345.gif

Climate Change 101: State Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/states_101_cover.gif

Climate Change 101: Local Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/local-cover.gif

Contact: Pew Center on Global Climate Change 2101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 550, Arlington, Virginia 22201 www.pewclimate.org

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

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Medal of Honor Recipient Addresses U.S. Forces in Iraq

2006-12-25T11:35:00.000-08:00

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient addresses U.S. forces in Iraq.
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By Charlie Liteky May 7, 2003
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By way of introduction, my name is Charlie Liteky, a U.S. citizen, a Vietnam Veteran, and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. However, I renounced the Medal of Honor on July 29,1986 in opposition to U.S foreign policy in Central America. What the U.S. was supporting in El Salvador and Nicaragua, namely the savagery and domination of the poor, reminded me of what I was a part of in Vietnam 15 years earlier.
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I placed the medal at the apex of the Vietnam Memorial Wall into which are etched the names of 58 thousand young American men. In depth study of the Vietnam War revealed political and military liars insensitive to the value of human life, inclusive of their own countrymen. The biggest liar was the Commander in Chief of U.S. armed forces, President Lyndon Johnson, who lied to Congress about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It was this lie that motivated Congress to vote the money for the war. As a veteran of an ill-fated war, in the waning years of my life, I’d like to share some reflections on my country’s attack on Iraq.
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Once again, I find myself in protest of a U.S. military action that no court in the world will declare legal. The U.S. attack on the sovereign country of Iraq fails to meet any of the necessary provisions of a just war. Iraq on the other hand, met the most fundamental condition for a country to use military force against an adversary, namely the defense of its homeland against an unjust aggressor. But, because of the incredible superiority of the U.S. military, there was no possibility of a successful defense.
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In its attack on Iraq, the U.S. violated the UN Charter, international law and universal standards of morality. This is borne out by the worldwide condemnation of the U.S. attack by mainstream religious denominations and spiritual leaders.
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Claiming liberation of the Iraqi people as a just cause for a war that kills thousands of innocents is hypocrisy at its worst. If liberation of an oppressed people were the real motive behind the invasion of Iraq - why did the U.S. wait 25 years to act? Why did the U.S. refrain from condemning Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran in the 80s? Why did the U.S. fail to prevent chemicals critical to the production of biological weapons from reaching Iraq? How is it that what we condemn today we approved yesterday?
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Many Iraqi people rejoiced at the sight of their American/British liberators, but many more did not, because they had no legs to walk to the sites of celebration, no arms to wave in jubilation or they had no life left to celebrate. The sanitary military term for such people is “collateral damage.”
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I first came to Iraq in November of 2002 in response to the bellicose words of war coming from the President of the U.S. and his staff. When I think of children, the most vulnerable of the innocents. In my imagination I could hear them crying, I could see the terror in their eyes and faces as they heard the planes overhead, followed by bombs exploding. I wanted to be with them to offer what small comfort I could.
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This cartoon [of a sly, American eagle with its talons deeply planted in Iraqi earth] published in the Jordan Times on April 23, 2003 depicts what many Arab people believe is the U.S. motivation behind its attack on Iraq, namely, a deep-rooted, long-lasting presence. Recently, newspapers have reported that plans are underway to establish four military bases in Iraq.
What the cartoon does not include is the U.S. interest in and access to Iraq’s immense oil reserves.
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A two-time Medal of Honor recipient, General Smedley Butler, said that “War is a Racket” and that he spent his 33 year military career being a bodyguard for U.S. business interests. I submit that protecting U.S. business interests, sometimes referred to as “national interests” is still the primary mission of the U.S. military. Wartime profits go to a select few at the cost of many. Again to quote Gen. Smedley Butler:
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“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
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This letter containing some of my reflections is not meant to cast blame for an attack on Iraq on U.S. military personnel. I’m sure you believe that what you are a part of is right and just. I once believed the same of my participation in the Vietnam War. I share my thoughts and conclusions as gifts of truth revealed to me through years of studying U.S. foreign policy.
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Sincerely,
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Charlie Liteky, Vietnam Veteran
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PS: God be with you in your search for truth, your quest for justice, and your efforts to help a beautiful people.
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Charles Angelo J. Liteky was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire while serving as a chaplain with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam.
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Note: For more on Liteky www.mishalov.com/Liteky.html
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Interview with Dr. Francis Boyle

2006-12-24T08:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15983.htm

Impending Police State in America Interview with Professor Francis Boyle

Francis A Boyle says 9/11 was allowed to happen, war on terror is facilitating the downfall of The Republic, concentration camps are in place and US citizens are the targets
CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN

12/23/06 "CRG" --- - Alex Jones was joined on air this week by a leading American professor, practitioner of and expert on international law to discuss his detailed knowledge of the cover up of the 2001 anthrax attacks, which he is adamant were perpetrated by criminal elements of the US government in an attempt to foment a police state by killing off opposition to hardline post 9/11 legislation.

Dr Franics A. Boyle literally helped write the law with regards to terrorism, as he was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed unanimously by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush Snr.

Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court.

The professor started off by explaining the motivation behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks:

"After the September 11th 2001 Terrorist attacks, the Bush administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress, that would have, if already had not, set up a police state. And we know for a fact that the PATRIOT Act had already been drafted and was sitting on Ashcroft's desk as of September 10th.

Senators Daschle and Leahy were holding it up because they realised what this would lead to, indeed the first draft of the Patriot Act, they would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus. And all of a sudden out of nowhere come these anthrax attacks. And at the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either with respect to September 11th or the anthrax attacks, but then the New York Times revealed that the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. A trillion spores per gram, special electro-static treatment.

This is super-weapons grade Anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, and we had one before Nixon, had never developed before. So it was obvious to me that this was from a US Government lab, there is no where else you could have gotten that."

Dr Boyle proceeded to call a very high level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism and counter-terrorism, Spike Bowman, whom he had met at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School.

He told Bowman that the only people that would have the capability to carry out the attacks were people working on US government programs on Anthrax and with access to high level a bio-safety lab. Dr Boyle went through all the names, the contractors and the labs for Anthrax work with the FBI's Bowman.

Bowman then informed Dr Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick on the matter, to which he responded that Fort Detrick could really be the main problem.

It was documented at the time that the anthrax strain used was military grade. This was widely reported in 2002 in publications such as the New Scientist.

"Soon after I had informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorised the destruction of the AMES cultural Anthrax database." The Professor continued.

The destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, IA., from which the Ft. Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant destruction of evidence as it meant that there was no way of finding out which strain was sent to who to develop the larger breed of anthrax used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led directly back to a secret but officially-sponsored US government biowarfare program that was illegal and criminal.

"Clearly for the FBI to have authorised this was obstruction of justice, a federal crime. That collection should have been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the fingerprints right there. It later came out of course that this was AMES strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letter."

At that point Boyle says it became very clear to him that there was a cover up in operation by the FBI. He points out that later on on reading one of David Ray Griffin's books on the 9/11 attacks, he discovered that Agent Bowman was the same FBI agent who sabotaged the FISA warrant for access to Zacarious Moussaoui's computer, which contained information that could have facilitated the prevention of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Later on Bowman was promoted and given a decoration, presumably because he did such a fine job on Moussaoui's computer and also on the anthrax.

So it was to be that the patriot act was rammed through, because the opposition from Leahy and Daschle, whom they had tried to kill, disappeared. Congress and even the House itself officially shut down for the first time in the history of the Republic. The Senate refused to shut down. Dr Boyle commented that he believes this to be one of the biggest political crimes in the history of America.

The professor agreed that actions such as this and legislation such as the Patriot act and the new Military Commissions act are the precursors to a military dictatorship.

"And remember that the first draft of the Patriot act that sat on Ashcroft's desk before 9/11, and also remember that Ashcroft was flying around in a private jet because he was told that there was going to be a terrorist attack with airplanes, so all this had been planned.

They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which is all that really separates us from a police state. And that is what they have done now with respect to enemy combatants."
With regards to 9/11 itself the professor asserted that it is clear Bush, Rice, Tennet, Ashcroft and other Bush Administration officials all knew a terrorist attack was coming and that the attacks were at the very least allowed to go ahead.

"They let it happen because they wanted a war and they wanted a police state, all the elements for a war against Afghanistan were there in place, even the military force in the gulf were there on the scene, there were massive military forces in the gulf, in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, in the Arabian Ocean before September 11th poised for an attack, whether it was going to be Afghanistan or Iraq would be decided by Bush and the rest of them."

The professor pointed out that it is now being argued by lawmakers that the 14th amendment does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that under the Military Commissions Act any US citizen can be stripped of their citizenship and thus be labeled an enemy combatant.

"So in other words they are taken the position that in some point in time if they want to, they can unilaterally round up United States native born citizens, as they did for Japanese Americans in World War Two, and stick us into concentration camps. That is correct. They haven't actually yet done it but my guess is that the papers have been drawn up... and we know that the FEMA camps are out there.

So it's clear that the Bush people, I guess they are waiting for some other terrorist attack, another anthrax attack, who knows what, and then they will proceed to invoke these emergency orders."

Dr Boyle believes that the domestic police state is a seen as a must by the neoconservatives who are pushing for dominance in the middle east in order to quell dissent from an American public who, the informed majority of, clearly will not stand for such aggression in their names.

The professor then went on to talk about the sickness of the neoconservative sympathizers who are pushing for the practice of torture to be made legal. Legislators such as John Yu and Professor Goldsmith of Harvard Law School. Dr Boyle believes that there is a move afoot to infiltrate both the legal profession and legal education with opinion and legislature that subverts long established US law. His warning is stark:

"The Nazis did the exact same thing too. They had their lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl Schmidt was the worst and he was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the founder of the neoconservatives. So the same phenomena that started out in Nazi Germany is happening here and I exaggerate not... we could all be tortured, we could all be treated this way."

Dr Boyle stressed that in order to seek justice over the anthrax attacks it is vital to keep the pressure on Senator Leahy who will apparently be becoming the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy will have subpoena power and investigative power, and if anyone would have motivation to try to get to the bottom of the attacks, it would be him.

Dr Boyle ended by urging readers and listeners to become informed and spread this information. He also admitted that in the Summer of 2004 he was interrogated by an agent with the CIA/FBI joint terrorism task force. The agent tried to recruit Dr Boyle as an informant to provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When he refused the FBI placed him on all of the government's terrorism watch lists and he now finds it very difficult to travel in and out of the US.

=============

All Kinds of Holocaust Denial Going Around

2006-12-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

BUSH-NAZI LINK CONFIRMED

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Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor

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by John Buchanan (Exclusive to the New Hampshire Gazette)

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WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.

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The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

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Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial tycoon for nearly a year after the U.S. entered the war.

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No Story? For six decades these historical facts have gone unreported by the mainstream U.S. media. The essential facts have appeared on the Internet and in relatively obscure books, but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes. This story has also escaped the attention of "official" Bush biographers, Presidential historians and publishers of U.S. history books covering World War II and its aftermath.

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The White House did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

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The Summer of '42 The unraveling of the web of Bush-Harriman-Thyssen U.S. enterprises, all of which operated out of the same suite of offices at 39 Broadway in New York under the supervision of Prescott Bush, began with a story that ran simultaneously in the New York Herald-Tribune and Washington Post on July 31, 1941. By then, the U.S. had been at war with Germany for nearly eight months.

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"Hitler's Angel Has $3 Million in U.S. Bank," declared the front-page Herald-Tribune headline. The lead paragraph characterized Fritz Thyssen as "Adolf Hitler's original patron a decade ago." In fact, the steel and coal magnate had aggressively supported and funded Hitler since October 1923, according to Thyssen's autobiography, I Paid Hitler. In that book, Thyssen also acknowledges his direct personal relationships with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess.

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The Herald-Tribune also cited unnamed sources who suggested Thyssen's U.S. "nest egg" in fact belonged to "Nazi bigwigs" including Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, or even Hitler himself.

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Business is Business The "bank," founded in 1924 by W. Averell Harriman on behalf of Thyssen and his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V. of Holland, was Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York City. According to government documents, it was in reality a clearing house for a number of Thyssen-controlled enterprises and assets, including as many as a dozen individual businesses. UBC also bought and shipped overseas gold, steel, coal, and U.S. Treasury bonds. The company's activities were administered for Thyssen by a Netherlands-born, naturalized U.S. citizen named Cornelis Lievense, who served as president of UBC. Roland Harriman was chairman and Prescott Bush a managing director.

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The Herald-Tribune article did not identify Bush or Harriman as executives of UBC, or Brown Brothers Harriman, in which they were partners, as UBC's private banker. A confidential FBI memo from that period suggested, without naming the Bush and Harriman families, that politically prominent individuals were about to come under official U.S. government scrutiny as Hitler's plunder of Europe continued unabated.

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After the "Hitler's Angel" article was published Bush and Harriman made no attempts to divest themselves of the controversial Thyssen financial alliance, nor did they challenge the newspaper report that UBC was, in fact, a de facto Nazi front organization in the U.S.

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Instead, the government documents show, Bush and his partners increased their subterfuge to try to conceal the true nature and ownership of their various businesses, particularly after the U.S. entered the war. The documents also disclose that Cornelis Lievense, Thyssen's personal appointee to oversee U.S. matters for his Rotterdam-based Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., via UBC for nearly two decades, repeatedly denied to U.S. government investigators any knowledge of the ownership of the Netherlands bank or the role of Thyssen in it. Brown Brothers Harriman sent letters to the government seeking reconsideration of the seizures by using false information.

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UBC's original group of business associates included George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, who had a relationship with the Harriman family that began in 1919. In 1922, Walker and W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin to set up the German branch of their banking and investment operations, which were largely based on critical war resources such as steel and coal.

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The Walker-Harriman-created German industrial alliance also included partnership with another German titan who supported Hitler's rise, Friedrich Flick, who partnered with Thyssen in the German Steel Trust that forged the Nazi war machine. For his role in using slave labor and his own steel, coal and arms resources to build Hitler's war effort, Flick was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to prison.

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The Family Business In 1926, after Prescott Bush had married Walker's daughter, Dorothy, Walker brought Bush in as a vice president of the private banking and investment firm of W.A. Harriman &Co., also located in New York. Bush became a partner in the firm that later became Brown Brothers Harriman and the largest private investment bank in the world. Eventually, Bush became a director of and stockholder in UBC.

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However, the government documents note that Bush, Harriman, Lievense and the other UBC stockholders were in fact "nominees," or phantom shareholders, for Thyssen and his Holland bank, meaning that they acted at the direct behest of their German client.

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Seized On October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized UBC and liquidated its assets after the war. The seizure is confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley.

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In August, under the same authority, Congress had seized the first of the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entities, Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126, also signed by Crowley. Eight days after the seizure of UBC, Congress invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act again to take control of two more Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses - Holland-American Trading Corp. (Vesting Order No. 261) and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp. (Vesting Order No. 259).

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The documents from the Archives also show that the Bushes and Harrimans shipped valuable U.S. assets, including gold, coal, steel and U.S. Treasury bonds, to their foreign clients overseas between 1931-33, as Hitler engineered his rise to power.

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Still No Story? Since 1942, the information has not appeared in any U.S. news coverage of any Bush political campaign, nor has it been included in any of the major Bush family biographies. It was, however, covered extensively in George H.W. Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. Chaitkin's father served as an attorney in the 1940s for some of the victims of the Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

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The book gave a detailed, accurate accounting of the Bush family's long Nazi affiliation, but no mainstream U.S. media entity reported on or even investigated the allegations, despite careful documentation by the authors. Major booksellers declined to distribute the book, which was dismissed by Bush supporters as biased and untrue. Its authors struggled even to be reviewed in reputable newspapers. That the book was published by Lyndon LaRouche's organization undoubtedly made it easier to dismiss, but does not change the facts.

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The essence of the story has been posted for years on various Internet sites, including BuzzFlash.com and TakeBackTheMedia.com, but no online media seem to have independently confirmed it.

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In the 1990s, former U.S. Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, now honorary president of the Florida Holocaust Museum, wrote a book and launched a web site (www.john-loftus.com) which did breakthrough reporting, including establishing the link between Prescott Bush, Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and forced labor at Auschwitz. Although the widely-respected Loftus established a successful international speaking career with his information, no U.S. newspaper or major TV news program acknowledged his decade of work, nor did he ever see many of the recently released documents.

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Meanwhile, the mainstream media have apparently made no attempt since World War II to either verify or disprove the allegations of Nazi collaboration against the Bush family. Instead, they have attempted to dismiss or discredit such Internet sites or "unauthorized" books without any journalistic inquiry or research into their veracity.

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Loyal Defenders The National Review ran an essay on September 1 by their White House correspondent Byron York, entitled "Annals of Bush-Hating." It begins mockingly: "Are you aware of the murderous history of George W. Bush - indeed, of the entire Bush family? Are you aware of the president's Nazi sympathies? His crimes against humanity? And do you know, by the way, that George W. Bush is a certifiable moron?" York goes on to discredit the "Bush is a moron" IQ hoax, but fails to disprove the Nazi connection.

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The more liberal Boston Globe ran a column September 29 by Reason magazine's Cathy Young in which she referred to "Bush-o-phobes on the Internet" who "repeat preposterous claims about the Bush family's alleged Nazi connections."

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Poles Tackle the Topic Newsweek Polska, the magazine's Polish edition, published a short piece on the "Bush Nazi past" in its March 5, 2003 edition. The item reported that "the Bush family reaped rewards from the forced-labor prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp," according to a copyrighted English-language translation from Scoop Media

(http://www.scoop.co.nz). The story also reported the seizure of the various Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

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Still Not Interested Major U.S. media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, as well as Knight-Ridder Newspapers, have repeatedly declined to investigate the story when information regarding discovery of the documents was presented to them beginning Friday, August 29. Newsweek U.S. correspondent Michael Isikoff, famous for his reporting of big scoops during the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair of the 1990s, declined twice to accept an exclusive story based on the documents from the archives.

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Aftermath In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past. There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.

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John Buchanan is an award-winning and internationally published journalist and investigative reporter with 33 years of experience in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Miami. His work has appeared in more than 50 newspapers, magazines and books. He can be reached by e-mail at: jtwg@bellsouth.net. Interview with a Prosecutor John Buchanan interviews John Loftus on the significance of the Prescott Bush - Nazi story.

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Interview by John Buchanan from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 2, October 24, 2003

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Buchanan - What do you think is the true significance of the story in the New Hampshire Gazette?

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Loftus - Your story, the first in a "reputable" US newspaper in 60 years, redeemed my two decades of work that only resulted in the mainstream media slamming doors in my face, despite my credentials as a Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor. I give a lot of credit to the courage of the New Hampshire Gazette as well, for practicing journalism as it should be practiced - tell the truth and let the facts speak for themselves.

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Buchanan - How do you explain the fact that the mainstream media has simply refused to touch it?

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Loftus - It's a complex story and the media hate that now in the age of the sound bite headline. It's also unpopular and frightening to most people, understandably. But the truth about this period of our history as a nation must come out and be dealt with. You and the Gazette have helped to accomplish that. It will come out now, I think.

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Buchanan - What is the importance of it coming out, in your view?

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Loftus - Your stories will be the crack in the dam and it will come flooding out. For 60 years, it has been a huge cover-up of the activities of some of the people who brought us the worst grief in the history of the world - the Holocaust. This country needs to understand which of its most prominent families supported Hitler, even after the US went to war with Germany.

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Buchanan - Can you offer a good example?

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Loftus - Joseph Kennedy bought his Nazi stocks from Prescott Bush. The British thought Kennedy was guilty of treason because his code clerk was tried in London as a Nazi agent and convicted.

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Buchanan - How do you account for the failure of the media to break this story before the Gazette did?

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Loftus - My feeling is that about 15 years ago, when big corporations started taking over media companies that had been privately owned by families or individuals, we ended up with an over-worked but well-intentioned media without the staff or resources, in light of all the corporate cost-cutting that was done, to look into the really big stories. The real enemy is the multinational corporations who are only interested in profits and choose profits over truth.

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Buchanan - What can be done about that?

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Loftus - We need to educate the media.

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Buchanan - Should Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker and the Harrimans have been tried for treason?

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Loftus - Yes, they should have been tried for treason, because they continued to support Hitler after the US entered the war. As a former prosecutor, I could have made that case.

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Buchanan - What do you think their true motives were in betraying their country for profit?

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Loftus - It was a perfect example of spin, before the term was even invented. Their goal was that no matter which side won the war, their international industrial cartel would survive and prosper. They had a perfect set-up - a bank in New York (UBC), one in Holland (Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart), and one in Germany (August Thyssen Bank). They were prepared for anything that could have happened. They wanted to avoid exactly what happened to Fritz Thyssen after WWI. That was the whole point. He had lost many of his major businesses, and they came up with a better way to prepare for the Second World War.

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Buchanan - How did they manage the cover-up after the first seizures in 1942 and continue with their dealings until 1951, when Thyssen died in Argentina?

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Loftus - They brought in John Foster Dulles and Sullivan and Cromwell, and his brother Allen in Europe. The Dulles brothers put into effect a cloaking arrangement?that was reflected in the records of Brown Brothers Harriman. There was one account - Brown Brothers Schroeder Rock - that was a cloaking account at Schroeder Bank. The Rock was the Rockefellers.

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Buchanan - What were they most guilty of after the US entered the war?

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Loftus - They shipped gold through axis countries after the US entered the war. That certainly was treason, because it gave aid and comfort to the enemy and assisted them economically.

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Buchanan - Why would they do that - take that chance of facing execution for treason if caught?
Loftus - They were afraid Britain would lose the war and they were protecting themselves.
Buchanan - If there is information like that to be uncovered still, what do you propose?

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Loftus - I want a full Congressional investigation and I think your reporting in the Gazette certainly justifies one. I want the cover-up itself investigated, and I want the long-concealed Nazi histories of these families brought out to the public.

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Buchanan - Who should investigate?

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Loftus - Now that this information has finally come out, I am calling for full investigations by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees. We'll see where it goes from there. But I want the cover-up fully and aggressively investigated. The American people and Congress have a right to find out how this happened, to make sure it never happens again. It's too late for justice, but it's never too late for the truth. The American people and survivors of the Holocaust and veterans of the war are entitled to the truth.

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Buchanan - Why hasn't it come out before?

Loftus - President Clinton wanted all the Nazi files declassified, but it didn't happen fast enough. Some of the documents you saw on I.G. Farben were only declassified a few days before you walked into the archives. You were very lucky, I'd say.

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Buchanan - What is the most damning single thing you've learned in your 20 years of working on this?

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Loftus - That it wasn't just the Nazis. The Harrimans backed a Communist-Soviet front of international trade and they sold the Czar's gold to support the Bolsheviks and fund the Russian Revolution. W. Averell Harriman also did business through other Brown Brothers Harriman and Harriman Fifteen Corp. enterprises that did business with Joseph Stalin as he purged his opposition.

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Buchanan - How many people died while Brown Brothers Harriman and the Bush-Walker-Harriman partnership did business with Stalin?

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Loftus - Millions, including American and Allied soldiers and people in concentration camps, both in Germany and Russia. And all the while, even during WWI when American troops died in Russia, the Harrimans did business with the Bolsheviks and then Stalin.

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Buchanan - What should happen next as a result of this coming out?

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Loftus - I think that American war veterans and Holocaust survivors are entitled to compensation. I'm not as interested in filing another reparations lawsuit, as I am in a bill in Congress.

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Buchanan - How realistic is that?

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Loftus - They did it for Japanese internees. I don't see why they wouldn't do it on this issue if the public outcry is loud enough. We should reimburse those vets and Holocaust survivors whose lives were harmed by the Bushes and Harrimans in their dealings as traitors with enemies of the US.

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Buchanan - Do you think it will happen?

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Loftus - I don't know, but I do know that all you can do in this world is tell the truth and see what happens.

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John Loftus served as a prosecutor with the Justice Department's Nazi-hunting unit. John Buchanan wrote "Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed," in our last issue. - The Ed.

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Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951?- Federal Documents

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If George W. Bush had been born poor he never would have been made president. Where did his family's money come from?

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By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

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After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

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Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

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Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

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The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.

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Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings unabated. These activities included a financial relationship with the German city of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War Two.

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At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's personal emissary to the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-run businesses were being seized by the U.S. government, Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to discuss the war effort.

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Denial and Deceit

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While Harriman was concealing his Nazi relationships from his government colleagues, Cornelius Livense, the top executive of the interlocking German concerns held under the corporate umbrella of Union Banking Corporation (UBC), repeatedly tried to mislead investigators, and was sometimes supported in his subterfuge by Brown Brothers Harriman.

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All of the assets of UBC and its related businesses belonged to Thyssen-controlled enterprises, including his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, the documents state.

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Nevertheless, Livense, president of UBC, claimed to have no knowledge of such a relationship. "Strangely enough, (Livense) claims he does not know the actual ownership of the company," states a government report.

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H.D Pennington, manager of Brown Brothers Harriman and a director of UBC "for many years," also lied to investigators about the secret and well-concealed relationship with Thyssen's Dutch bank, according to the documents.

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Investigators later reported that the company was "wholly owned" by Thyssen's Dutch bank.
Despite such ongoing subterfuge, U.S. investigators were able to show that "a careful examination of UBC's general ledger, cash books and journals from 1919 until the present date clearly establish that the principal and practically only source of funds has been Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart."

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In yet another attempt to mislead investigators, Livense said that $240,000 in banknotes in a safe deposit box at Underwriters Trust Co. in New York had been given to him by another UBC-Thyssen associate, H.J. Kouwenhoven, managing director of Thyssen's Dutch bank and a director of the August Thyssen Bank in Berlin. August Thyssen was Fritz's father.

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The government report shows that Livense first neglected to report the $240,000, then claimed that it had been given to him as a gift by Kouwenhoven. However, by the time Livense filed a financial disclosure with U.S. officials, he changed his story again and reported the sum as a debt rather than a cash holding.

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In yet another attempt to deceive the governments of both the U.S. and Canada, Livense and his partners misreported the facts about the sale of a Canadian Nazi front enterprise, La Cooperative Catholique des Consommateurs de Combustible, which imported German coal into Canada via the web of Thyssen-controlled U.S. businesses.

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"The Canadian authorities, however, were not taken in by this maneuver," a U.S. government report states. The coal company was later seized by Canadian authorities.

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After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures.

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The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.

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One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets.

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"It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party," government investigators concluded.

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At the same time the last Brown Brothers Harriman client assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate campaign that led to his election in 1952.

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Investigation Investigated?

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In 1943, six months after the seizure of UBC and its related companies, a government investigator noted in a Treasury Department memo dated April 8, 1943 that the FBI had inquired about the status of any investigation into Bush and the Harrimans.

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"I gave 'a memorandum' which did not say anything about the American officers of subject," the investigator wrote. "(Another investigator) wanted to know whether any specific action had been taken by us with respect to them."

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No further action beyond the initial seizures was ever taken, and the newly-confirmed records went unseen by the American people for six decades.

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What Does It All Mean?

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So why are the documents relevant today?

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"The story of Prescott Bush and Brown Brothers Harriman is an introduction to the real history of our country," says L.A. art book publisher and historian Edward Boswell. "It exposes the money-making motives behind our foreign policies, dating back a full century. The ability of Prescott Bush and the Harrimans to bury their checkered pasts also reveals a collusion between Wall Street and the media that exists to this day."

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Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist who will soon launch a liberal talk radio network, says the importance of the new documents is that they prove a long pattern of Bush family war profiteering that continues today via George H.W. Bush's intimate relationship with the Saudi royal family and the bin Ladens, conducted via the super-secret Carlyle Group, whose senior advisers include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

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In the post-9/11 world, Drobny finds the Bush-Saudi connection deeply troubling. "Trading with the enemy is trading with the enemy," he says. "That's the relevance of the documents and what they show."

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Lawrence Lader, an abortion rights activist and the author of more than 40 books, says "the relevance lies with the fact that the sitting President of the United States would lead the nation to war based on lies and against the wishes of the rest of the world." Lader and others draw comparisons between President Bush's invasion of Iraq and Hitler's occupation of Poland in 1939 - the event that sparked World War Two.

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However, others see an even larger significance.

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"The discovery of the Bush-Nazi documents raises new questions about the role of Prescott Bush and his influential business partners in the secret emigration of Nazi war criminals, which allowed them to escape justice in Germany," says Bob Fertik, co-founder of Democrats.com and an amateur 'Nazi hunter.' "It also raises questions about the importance of Nazi recruits to the CIA in its early years, in what was called Operation Paperclip, and Prescott Bush's role in that dark operation."

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Fertik and others, including former Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, a Constitutional attorney in Miami, and a former Veterans Administration official, believe Prescott Bush and the Harrimans should have been tried for treason.

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What Next?

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Now, say Fertik and Loftus, there should be a Congressional investigation into the Bush family's Nazi past and its concealment from the American people for 60 years.

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"The American people have a right to know, in detail, about this hidden chapter of our history," says Loftus, author of The Secret War Against the Jews. "That's the only way we can understand it and deal with it."

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For his part, Fertik is pessimistic that even a Congressional investigation can thwart the war profiteering of the present Bush White House. "It's impossible to stop it," he says, "when the worst war profiteers are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who operate in secrecy behind the vast powers of the White House."
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John Buchanan is a journalist and magazine writer based in Miami Beach. He can be reached by e-mail at jtwg@bellsouth.net.

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Stacey Michael is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of Religious Conceit. His most recent book is Weapons of Mass Dysfunction: The Art of "Faith-Based" Politics, due in early 2004. He can be reached by email at staceymichael@religiousconceit.com.

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ETERNAL CAPITALISM AND ITS SYCOPHANTS

2006-12-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

Eternal Capitalism and its Sycophants by Jim Craven

One of my favorite poems of Bertolt Brecht:

"Those who take the meat from the table,

teach contentment.

Those for whom the taxes are destined,

demand sacrifice.

Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry,

of wonderful times to come.

Those who lead the country into the abyss,

call ruling too difficult,

for ordinary folk."

Indeed those who most benefit from a given order or system, along with their sycophants, will always characterize--and martial contrived data and syllogisms in support of--their own system, interests, behaviors, proclivites--and supporting constructs--as "eternal, immutatble, inevitable", in accordance with Their [Which they characterize as generalized "Human"] Nature. And if a given system is in agreement with, or does not violate, or does not attempt to suppress but rather actually puts to work, "Human Nature", even if that "Nature" be rather ugly, such a system is likely to last longer and work "better" than some system that seeks to deny or suppress "Human Nature".

In the old days, when the academic salesmen of capitalism were really crude, the texts would give the example of the proverbial monkey picking up a stick to reach low-hanging fruit from a tree. It was said that the stick was "capital" because, although the monkey did not craft the stick with a knife or even break it off of a tree, nonetheless the monkey saw an everyday stick and saw it could be used as a " tool" in roundabout ways to produce his meal. Capital, the text tells you, is anyTHING that has been produced (or appropriated for uses beyond its natural state) used to produce something else. Capital, it was seen, is a THING or a "Stock" of conceptually fixed quantity in time and space, not a social relation that is historically determined and specific.

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And it gets better. Since the monkey's DNA is similar to Human DNA with (estimates varying from 92 to around 97% correspondence), but the monkey cannot even define, spell or plan "capital" or plan its further development, this must mean an INSTINCT, part of overall "Human Nature", for "capital" and even roundabout methods of production and distribution. Further look at the monkeys fighting over the stick and the fruit. This is further "evidence" of other Human-Nature-based "INSTINCTS": to "compete"; for selfishness; for "private property" (of the fruit) and its appropriation; even for "War".

Now this is not merely an example of "extrapolating" from the features of the present to "understand" the causes of the present in the past without going into research on the past; this is also simply rationalizing, for the purpose of preserving, the present and its fundamental and defining features, imperatives and interests. After all, if only capitalism is in accordance with "Human Nature", then it is futile--even disastrous--to try to change, modify or overthrow it (Human Nature is, after all, summarily and metaphysically asserted to be eternal, immutable and thus non-negotiatable).

Further, if it is the case that Capitalism (and its defining/differentiating categories and constructs that reflect the historical realities and uniqueness of that mode of production) is not immutable and eternal, but instead, is merely one of several modes of production historically determined and specific, which means that since "History" aint't over until the human species is, then maybe not only capitalism, but even "Human Nature" itself (e,g, classic Homo Oeconomicus) can be changed and not accepted simply as "given, eternal, immutable or NATURAL.

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When I think of all the academic salesmen (called professors) I had in economics going back to the mid 1960s, sometimes I smile, sometimes I don't when I think of all that they could have turned me on to but didn't because of their imperial arrogance and patent intellectual dishonesty in service of their capitalist masters and petit-bourgeois interests/proclivities. When I was in China and someone said that he thought sending the professors out to the countryside to work the rice paddies was a crime, I disagreed and think it would be a great idea (I'll volunteer even with health problems) just to see some of these pampered and super-annuated elites do a decent day's--and real--work for a change.

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First it was Economic Growth is primarily a function of K/L ratios with "K" defined as a "STOCK" of "Physical" Capital (machines, tools etc). Then someone got the bright idea in the 1970's that even with all these fancy machines, if your workforce is illiterate and not properly "tuned up" by the teachers at the schools, and if they can't read a technical manual to fix the fancy machines, well what good are they? Along comes "Human Capital" (again a "STOCK" of Human education, skills and experience to interface with and further augment "Physical" Capital). Interestingly, the classic definitions of Human Capital didn't even mention accompanying "work ethic", socialization etc necessary to put that "STOCK" of education, skills and experience to effective use.

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Now comes the late 1980s and the academic salesmen of capitalism get caught in another potential contradiction. Even if I have a "STOCK" of fancy machines, and even if I have a workforce of compliant and/or desperate workers bringing in a "STOCK" of their "Human Capital", forced to sell their labor power or capacity to work for far less than the "value" they will produce through the appropriation and employment of that labor power, what if they, or even the capitalists and "investors", have no hope, no cohesion, no cooperation or even no more belief in the system itself? Then what good is all that "STOCK" of Human and Physical Capital? So, along comes "SOCIAL" Capital--a "STOCK" of "GIVEN institutions" to promote socially requisite (for the continual expanded reproduction of capitalism) levels of trust, hope, cohesion, cooperation and buying into the system. It was not defined as David Gordon defined a slightly parallel concept of SSA (Social Structures of Accumulation): dynamic complexes of embedded and interrelated institutions and relations--politico-legal, socio-cultural-, economic, domestic and international--necessary for the preservation and expanded reproduction of capitalism and its fundamental and defining features--like "Capital" as an historically generated and specific relation.

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Now there was a problem. The academic salesmen of capitalism could no longer simply ignore "institutions", imperially "assuming" them away or as "given". But here is now another problem: If social capital is about institutions to foster not only hope (without hope no reason to save, invest, give credit, suffer the tyranny of university profs, vote etc) but also "trust", social cohesion and even cooperation, well with all this social shit about cooperation and social cohesion, etc, what about "Human Nature" and its associated "INSTINCTS" for selfishness, ultra-individualism, cooperation, private property, capital formation etc?

Well along comes Robert Putnam from Harvard to the rescue with his "Bowling Alone". Yes, social capital is about getting people to be social and to buy into a social system that may be kicking their asses; but, but, people only do social stuff (like reprocity, cooperation etc) in order to really be individualists and do their own self-maximizing/satisficing things (profit, income, ultility, pleasure etc). When people are being "social", or appear so, they are really only giving up short-term pain for long-term gain.: E.G. "I obey laws I personally don't like so that others will obey the same and/or others and not fuck me over or interfere with the playing out of my own "Human Nature" in pursuit of my own individual interests. The social shit is like the stick for the monkey--merely another form of 'capital'".

Of course you have to watch it because this might even smack of a little "dialectics" like social and individual are both opposites and yet complements, or even that the social or macro is a lot more--or potentially less with internal contradictions--than the sum of the individuals or micros making it up--thus challenging the Thatcherite right-wing notion of "there is no such thing as society; there are only individual men and women and there are families".

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Why do we call the monkey the monkey and the human the human if they share perhaps 97% of common DNA? Why don't we call the monkey a 97% proto-human and the human a 97% proto-monkey to show their commonalities? Well why do we have different names for anything? By having different names for different things, logically and linguistically, we are implying that these different things are called by different names because they stand in relation to-- and are different from--each other in some very fundamental ways. Each possesses its own defining, differentiating (from other things with their own respective different--defining--features) and naming characteristics. Why do we have even the words Communalism, Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism?

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First of all DNA is not all that makes any organism what it is and what it is capable of. Rats, who also share considerable DNA commonalities with humans--enough to make them suitable analogs for research purposes--for example, are capable of learned behaviors and retaining that learning for some time. Further, Human DNA is not 97% Monkey and 3% Human; it is 100% Human as that which is shared with common ancestors with the monkey, when interacted with that which is uniquely human, causes organic interdependency and resulting synergy producing a quantum leap in consciousness, capabilities, phenotypes etc. The same appplies with "social DNA" when, aspects of the present, which may appear to be in common or appear to be somewhat similar with something from the past interact; this creates a organic unity and new and quantum leap so fundamental that the new forms, for all practical purposes, are 100% part of that which makes in the present what is unique, characteristic, defining and differentiating it from something else--including aspects from the past that help to shape that unique present.

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So yes, if you summarily define "capital" as a THING that is produced to produce other THINGS, yes it appears that "capital" has always existed and even there is a human biologically--based "instinct" to form and use "capital". If you define "capital" as a social/power relation, then you have something historically developed and specific. The same with "credit". If you define "credit" as simply a product of an "act", like trusting and advancing resources today to be paid back tomorrow (for whatever kind of return--interest, portion of future output, hope of default to take moe valuable collateral advanced ) then it appears that "credit", as it assumes superficial forms under capitalism, indeed existed also prior to capitalism. But now we are back to the monkey and the stick.

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Economic surpluses have existed in some form since Communalism (sorry for reference to "some Canadian Tribe", but the "Winter Count" is about production and setting aside surpluses for Winter non-hunting times), but in different modes of production and social formations, how, by whom, for whom and how the surpluses were to be ultilized were differnt in essence as well as form. The forms and methods of production and extraction of surpluses, for whom they were destined as well as how they were likely to be used, under Feudalism and Slavery, were quite open, direct and relatively unambiguous. Under capitalism, the production, extraction, realization and appropriation of the capitalist form--surplus value--is much more hidden, abstract, roundabout, mystified and dressed up.

The worker is "free" to sell his/her labor-power or is also "free" to starve. How can this be "exploitation" as the worker is "free" to choose? It gets even better: If a capitalist is an "owner" of one the means of production called capital, then the worker is a capitalist also because, as he/she is no longer a serf or slave or indentured servant, he/she also "owns" another "factor of production" called "labor power" that he/she is free to use or not use as she/he pleases.

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The capitalist, who is partly defined in terms of his relation to non-capital as hot is partly defined in relation to cold and vice versa, once obtaining "ownership"(sanctioned/facilitated by institutions of "private property" which is not the same as personal property) and/or "control", also sanctioned and facilitated by "private property", not only acquires the power to hire and fire, but also acquires "ownership" of any surplus "value". Surplus value, a form of economic surplus unique to capitalism, because that which is unique to capitalism (e.g. wage labor) is required to produce it, is defined as the difference between what the capitalist was willing to pay for the use of the labor-power (capacity to work which the worker "owns") versus what the capitalist was able to sell the product of "labor" (the application of labor power in conjunction with other forces of production) for. And indeed the price obtained for that product of labor may even be at vaiance with the long-run "value" of it through let's say market power and managed elasticities of supply and demand creating economic rents etc.

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But as capitalism develops, attempting to mitigate fundamental and defining contradictions (part of what also defines and differentiates different modes of production--unique contradictions) in the course of attempting to mitigate or cover-up some contradictions(partly what SSAs--Social Structures of Accumulation--are about) new ones emerge and/or surface from relative hiding. For example the contradiction between the production of surplus value and its realization. In the course of attempting to increase both relative and absolute surplus value, and in the course of pushing down costs of labor-power, since those costs are also incomes of the broad masses who drive a large part of aggregate demand, well the classic problems of "underconsumption" and "overproduction" (not the same) also emerge and intensify thus increasing the role of finance capital realtive to industrial, manufacturing, and agricultural capital.

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Historically, increasing mechanization of agriculture led to incerasing organic fusion between agricultural and industrial capital under the hegemony of industrial capital. The same occurred with increasing organic fusion of agricultural, industrial, manufacturing, "service-sector" and finance capital under the increasing hegemony of finance capital.

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What happens is not new methods and powers for producing surplus value, but rather new methods and powers for realizing and dividing it. You can do compounding all day on a basic calculator racking up interest, late payments, over limit charges etc (over 50% of total profits of banks); but it is all a bunch of numbers on the caluculator until it is paid off and realized. And where do the funds to ultimately pay off--and thus have realized for the financiers--come from? More compounding? Yes, new types of financial instruments and markets continually extend the time horizons for "borrowing from peter to pay--or clear the accounts receivable--of paul", but the possibilities are not endless. You can make bankruptcy impossible, but if I cannot pay off my debt what will you do? Here you get into what Marx dealt with dismissing exchange as the basis for genesis of surplus value: what one seller (lender) would gain as a seller, is offset as also a buyer (borrower).

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Shifting divisions of Surplus value, into rent, interest, profit, dividends (property income) occur as different elements of overall "Capital" (as a class and social relation) emerge, compete, collude, and take more political-economic power relative to others. This can be seen in the shifting "functional" divisions of national income as well as in dominant and subordinate influences of various wings of overall "Capital" in the State.

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to be continued...

It's Time for a National Day of Atonement

2006-11-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's Time for a National Day of Atonement
by Robert Jensen

--
Alternative Press Review (November 21 2006)

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One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting.

In fact, indigenous people have offered such a model; since 1970 they have marked the fourth Thursday of November as a Day of Mourning in a spiritual/political ceremony on Coles Hill overlooking Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, one of the early sites of the European invasion of the Americas.

Not only is the thought of such a change in this white-supremacist holiday impossible to imagine, but the very mention of the idea sends most Americans into apoplectic fits - which speaks volumes about our historical hypocrisy and its relation to the contemporary politics of empire in the United States.

That the world's great powers achieved "greatness" through criminal brutality on a grand scale is not news, of course. That those same societies are reluctant to highlight this history of barbarism also is predictable.

But in the United States, this reluctance to acknowledge our original sin - the genocide of indigenous people - is of special importance today. It's now routine - even among conservative commentators - to describe the United States as an empire, so long as everyone understands we are an inherently benevolent one. Because all our history contradicts that claim, history must be twisted and tortured to serve the purposes of the powerful.

One vehicle for taming history is various patriotic holidays, with Thanksgiving at the heart of US myth-building. From an early age, we Americans hear a story about the hearty Pilgrims, whose search for freedom took them from England to Massachusetts. There, aided by the friendly Wampanoag Indians, they survived in a new and harsh environment, leading to a harvest feast in 1621 following the Pilgrims first winter.

Some aspects of the conventional story are true enough. But it's also true that by 1637 Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop was proclaiming a thanksgiving for the successful massacre of hundreds of Pequot Indian men, women and children, part of the long and bloody process of opening up additional land to the English invaders. The pattern would repeat itself across the continent until between 95 and 99 percent of American Indians had been exterminated and the rest were left to assimilate into white society or die off on reservations, out of the view of polite society.

Simply put: Thanksgiving is the day when the dominant white culture (and, sadly, most of the rest of the non-white but non-indigenous population) celebrates the beginning of a genocide that was, in fact, blessed by the men we hold up as our heroic founding fathers.

The first president, George Washington, in 1783 said he preferred buying Indians' land rather than driving them off it because that was like driving "wild beasts" from the forest. He compared Indians to wolves, "both being beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape". Thomas Jefferson - president #3 and author of the Declaration of Independence, which refers to Indians as the "merciless Indian Savages" - was known to romanticize Indians and their culture, but that didn't stop him in 1807 from writing to his secretary of war that in a coming conflict with certain tribes, "[W]e shall destroy all of them".

As the genocide was winding down in the early 20th century, Theodore Roosevelt (president #26) defended the expansion of whites across the continent as an inevitable process "due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races which have not lost the fighting instinct, and which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian peoples of the world hold sway". Roosevelt also once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth".

How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here's how "respectable" politicians, pundits, and professors play the game:

When invoking a grand and glorious aspect of our past, then history is all-important. We are told how crucial it is for people to know history, and there is much hand wringing about the younger generations' lack of knowledge about, and respect for, that history. In the United States, we hear constantly about the deep wisdom of the founding fathers, the adventurous spirit of the early explorers, the gritty determination of those who "settled" the country - and about how crucial it is for children to learn these things.

But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable - such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States - suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, "Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?"

This is the mark of a well-disciplined intellectual class - one that can extol the importance of knowing history for contemporary citizenship and, at the same time, argue that we shouldn't spend too much time thinking about history.

This off-and-on engagement with history isn't of mere academic interest; as the dominant imperial power of the moment, US elites have a clear stake in the contemporary propaganda value of that history. Obscuring bitter truths about historical crimes helps perpetuate the fantasy of American benevolence, which makes it easier to sell contemporary imperial adventures - such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq - as another benevolent action.

Any attempt to complicate this story guarantees hostility from mainstream culture. After raising the barbarism of America's much-revered founding fathers in a lecture, I was once accused of trying to "humble our proud nation" and "undermine young people's faith in our country".

Yes, of course - that is exactly what I would hope to achieve. We should practice the virtue of humility and avoid the excessive pride that can, when combined with great power, lead to great abuses of power.

History does matter, which is why people in power put so much energy into controlling it. The United States is hardly the only society that has created such mythology. While some historians in Great Britain continue to talk about the benefits that the empire brought to India, political movements in India want to make the mythology of Hindutva into historical fact. Abuses of history go on in the former empire and the former colony.

History can be one of the many ways we create and impose hierarchy, or it can be part of a process of liberation. The truth won't set us free, but the telling of truth at least opens the possibility of freedom.

As Americans sit down on Thanksgiving Day to gorge themselves on the bounty of empire, many will worry about the expansive effects of overeating on their waistlines. We would be better to think about the constricting effects on the day's mythology on our minds.

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Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center http://thirdcoastactivist.org/. He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism (City Lights, 2005) and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004). He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .

This article comes from Alternative Press Review http://www.altpr.org/

The URL for this story is:http://www.altpr.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=529

In Memory of Dr. Norman Bethune (Bai Qiu En)

2006-11-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung
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IN MEMORY OF NORMAN BETHUNE
December 21, 1939

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Comrade Norman Bethune,[1] a member of the Communist Party of Canada, was around fifty when he was sent by the Communist Parties of Canada and the United States to China; he made light of travelling thousands of miles to help us in our War of Resistance Against Japan. He arrived in Yenan in the spring of last year, went to work in the Wutai Mountains, and to our great sorrow died a martyr at his post.

What kind of spirit is this that makes a foreigner selflessly adopt the cause of the Chinese people's liberation as his own? It is the spirit of internationalism, the spirit of communism, from which every Chinese Communist must learn.

Leninism teaches that the world revolution can only succeed if the proletariat of the capitalist countries supports the struggle for liberation of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples and if the proletariat of the colonies and semi-colonies supports that of the proletariat of the capitalist countries.[2] Comrade Bethune put this Leninist line into practice. We Chinese Communists must also follow this line in our practice. We must unite with the proletariat of all the capitalist countries, with the proletariat of Japan, Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy and all other capitalist countries, for this is the only way to overthrow imperialism, to liberate our nation and people and to liberate the other nations and peoples of the world. This is our internationalism, the internationalism with which we oppose both narrow nationalism and narrow patriotism.

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Comrade Bethune's spirit, his utter devotion to others without any thought of self, was shown in his great sense of responsibility in his work and his great warm-heartedness towards all comrades and the people. Every Communist must learn from him. There are not a few people who are irresponsible in their work, preferring the light and shirking the heavy, passing the burdensome tasks on to others and choosing the easy ones for themselves. At every turn they think of themselves before others. When they make some small contribution, they swell with pride and brag about it for fear that others will not know. They feel no warmth towards comrades and the people but are cold, indifferent and apathetic. In truth such people are not Communists, or at least cannot be counted as devoted Communists. No one who returned from the front failed to express admiration for Bethune whenever his name was mentioned, and none remained unmoved by his spirit. In the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei border area, no soldier or civilian was unmoved who had been treated by Dr. Bethune or had seen how he worked. Every Communist must learn this true communist spirit from Comrade Bethune.

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Comrade Bethune was a doctor, the art of healing was his profession and he was constantly perfecting his skill, which stood very high in the Eighth Route Army's medical service. His example is an excellent lesson for those people who wish to change their work the moment they see something different and for those who despise technical work as of no consequence or as promising no future.

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Comrade Bethune and I met only once. Afterwards he wrote me many letters. But I was busy, and I wrote him only one letter and do not even know if he ever received it. I am deeply grieved over his death. Now we are all commemorating him, which shows how profoundly his spirit inspires everyone. We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With this spirit everyone can be very useful to the people. A man's ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people.

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NOTES

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1. The distinguished surgeon Norman Bethune was a member of the Canadian Communist Party. In 1936 when the German and Italian fascist bandits invaded Spain, he went to the front and worked for the anti-fascist Spanish people. In order to help the Chinese people in their War of Resistance Against Japan, he came to China at the head of a medical team and arrived in Yenan in the spring of 1938. Soon after he went to the Shansi-Chahar-Hopei border area. Imbued with ardent internationalism and the great communist spirit, he served the army and the people of the Liberated Areas for nearly two years. He contracted blood poisoning while operating on wounded soldiers and died in Tanghsien, Hopei, on November 12, 1939

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2. See J. V. Stalin, "The Foundations of Leninism", Problems of Leninism, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1954, pp. 70-79.

"Tell the Truth--then Run": What Kerry Couldda/Shoudda Said"

2006-11-01T17:04:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

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Democratic Sen.John Kerry apologized directly to U.S. troops on Wednesday for comments about Iraq that had prompted a firestorm of criticism from Republicans and President George W. Bush.

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"I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform and I personally apologize to any service member, family member or American who was offended," Kerry said in a statement.

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Kerry said earlier in the day he was sorry for a "botched joke" about Bush that was interpreted as a slam on the U.S. military. Republicans demanded a more direct apology and seized on Kerry's comments to students as a sign of Democratic weakness on national security.

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Kerry told students in California on Monday that if they study hard they could do well but if they did not, "you get stuck in Iraq." His office said he misread his remarks and intended to say "You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."

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Thought Experiment: What if Kerry, in addition to a spine transplant, got into a situation like Jim Carey in "Liar Liar" where he was under a spell and could only tell the truth. Might it not sound something like this?

There is an old Yugoslav aphorism: "Tell the truth then run".
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Ladies, Gentlemen, Fellow Veterans and all Voters:

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First of all, I not only stand by my comments I will expand upon them.

Next, what we have here is the usual Republican "framing" of an issue coupled with media complicity in lack of elementary--even formal--logic.

To say, that there is at present, and historically, an inverse relationship between higher levels of formal schooling one the one hand, versus lower liklihoods of serving in a combat area or in combat on the other hand, is simply to state a pure and provable fact. But it is only the likes of the pampered elitists, like my fellow Skull and Bonesmen, the kinds that are now framing the issue that many are getting sucked into, the ones who privately show contempt for those they manipulate in their service, that see any necessary connection between "formal schooling" on the one hand, and either "education" or "intelligence", on the other hand.

Indeed some serious research suggests that there is an inverse relationship between higher levels of schooling versus lower levels of "education" as more formal schooling ("socialization"/cloning commonly called "schooling" or "education") tends to "dumb down" and make one less not more critical and critically aware.

And George Bush himself, is living proof that there is no necessary relationship between years of formal schooling and either education or intelligence. This is in either direction of causality: idiots can buy their way into years of formal schooling in "prestigious institutions"--and presidencies; and these "prestigious institutions" have many demostrable idiots, with many years of formal schooling, both teaching and studying there.

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Indeed the relationshp between the variables "years of formal schooling" and "intelligence" often appears indeterminate. So, to deny the obvious, that the higher the level of formal schooling the less likely one is to serve in combat or a combat area, and then make the leap in formal "logic", that this means, or would mean if true, that troops in Iraq are among the less intelligent of the general population, that is the framing and leap in "logic" of the pampered preppy chickenhawks now framing this issue before the election in desperation.

This is not to say that all the troops in Iraq are pure and raving geniuses. Just look at some of the tapes of the comedians like Drew Carey, who himself appears unable to "make it on the outside", and hear the types of jokes that get a laugh and reflect something about some cultures among the troops in Iraq and elsewhere. You can hear a lot of misogyny (with women laughing), racism, sexism, homophobia, national chauvinism, hubris, jingoism and yes, just plain stupidity of the types that produce the caricature of the "Ugly American." Yes, among the troops are also sociopaths, psychopaths, sadists, rapists, murderers, torturers, liars, misogynists, homophobes, thieves, traitors, war profiteers etc in addition to some real heros trying to survive and make the best of the cards handed to them.

Also something else must be said. All US forces are subject to UCMJ and therefore cannot openly criticize the Commander in Chief. But it is sad to see US troops, who are serving under lethal conditions, making heroic personal sacrifices, cheering and praising an apparent deserter during wartime (Bush), an outright draft dodger like Cheney, and other chickenhawks, who are using those who are risking what the chickenhawks and their kids never dare risk, as props for their electoral races and ambitions. And it is sad to see their families at home, suffering all sorts of cognitive dissonance angst, suddenly master geopoliticians, supporting the "just cause" and Chickenhawk in Chief, whose outright lies and cherrypicking of intelligence and`intelligence agencies led to their kin coming home in a body bag, or without limbs, or psychologically devastated.

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When I was in the Navy in the 60s and we had a draft. As is the case today with a nominally "volunteer" military and a backdoor draft (stop-loss), along with the permanent form of draft associated with lack of opportunities and options in the private sector that capitalism delivers on the many in the benefit of the few like me, it was/is indeed true, that if you can get in and afford to hit the books at college (with any bullshit declared major and minor), you get a deferment from the military and combat and/or you get a relatively safer gig if in the military. The military itself promotes this truth even internally with opportunities for retraining with reenlistment and externally in their recruiting campaigns.

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I was in error in stating that if you study hard and do well you can stay out of combat areas and combat. Actually that is not true. Actually you can wind up kicked out of Yale for bad grades (an incredible feat in the days of the "gentleman's C") and still get 5 deferments (all while being involved in campus groups promoting the Vietnam War) like Cheney who had, according to him, "other priorities" [other than military service].

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Or, like our Fuhrer and fellow Skull and Bones member, King George, whose own grades at Yale were unbelievably higher than my own, you can do what used to be the acceptable form of draft dodging for hypocritical rightwingers: the Guard and the Reserves. And even with poor grades from Yale as a "history major" (read Dilettante-Can't-Really-Do-Anything-Talk-Any-Kind-Of-Crap Studies), and a long waiting list of others like you, and with the right family wealth, name and connections, even if built with treason and financing nazis, you can wind up in the "Champagne Squadron" of the Texas Air Guard flying an almost obsolete fighter (guaranteed never to be sent to Vietnam) and even get away with desertion during wartime and being released eight months early from Guard obligations to go to Harvard--that you also got into again with family wealth, name and connections.

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You ask if I, as a privileged preppy and Skull and Bones member like Bush, could have gotten out of going to Vietnam like Bush? And if so, why didn't I? Well that is a good question. You see in the Skull and Bones, in addition to all sorts of homoerotic and satanic fun and games, we have certain notions. One of them is that War is the ultimate test of manhood and character and that each member of "The Order" (we call you outsiders "Barbarians") is called upon to find his--now also her--own War to be tested in. And we believe that there are many kinds of "wars" we can seek to be "tested" in. Also, as I was on record publicly, around the same time as Bill Clinton was similarly on the record publicly, saying that I not only will someday seek the presidency, but, also, WILL attain it. I knew that I had to have the right resume, which means some combat and combat decorations if possible. I was on a destroyer off the coast of Vietnam, but that did not deliver the kinds of medals I needed for that right resume. That is also why I did a brief stint in VVAW--for name recognition with the public hearings and for my resume for running for office in relatively liberal Massachusetts at a time of mass anti-War sentiment.

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There is a dirty little secret we might as well let out now. Those who have argued for an "All Volunteer" army knew/know well that the vicissitudes, trajectories and inexorable consequences of capitalism will likely provide all the "volunteers" necessary for an "All Volunteer" Military. They have also said, in their internal documents, that a Draft should be avoided if possible as with a Draft, you get a diverse population in the military some of which have levels of education, values, proclivities, attitudes, allegiances etc that make them "untrustworthy" in terms of being able/willing to do, without questioning and in robot-like fashion, what they are told to do--e.g. Abu Gharibs, My Lais etc. In their own internal documents--the one's screaming about "slandering our troops"--they say that an all volunteer military, partly composed of shock troops, "beholden" to the military because they lack the skills, experience, education, proclivities and mental health etc to "make it on the outside", are likely to be more beholden and therefore more "reliable" as compliant and unquestioning shock troops.

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Now someone in military "service" who does not betray his/her buddies and who does not seek/accept special favors relative to his/her buddies, has done a form of "honorable service". But that does not mean that the ultimate CAUSE for which one fights, the strategic objectives for which one was sent to fight, even if sent by the powers-that-be on the basis of honest versus cooked intgellegence, and some truth rather than outright lies, is an honorable one or even really in the interest of the U.S. Those who "served" in Vietnam, were, some consciously and some not consciously, part of "serving" a series of brutal dictatorshps and kleptocracies in what was called "South" or "Republic of " Vietnam. They "served" in a criminal and illegal war that was as criminal and illegal as anything individuals were properly hanged for at Nuremberg. They "served" in a war that caused major and still-present catastophes not only on the Vietnamese and other adjacent nations in the region, they caused the same for the US. They served to ratify and protect the egomania, narcissism, megalomania and crimes of the likes of Nixon and Kissinger (whose Nobel Peace Prize as like giving Hitler a B'nai Brith Award). The same can be said of those who "serve" in Iraq and Afghanistan: they "serve", ultimately, to deal with inexorable, foreseeable--at the time--and longlasting "blowbacks" from past and present covert and overt projections of US imperial power (e.g. former CIA assets Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein); they "serve" a bunch of chickenhawks who, along with their kids, will never see the horrors to which those who "serve" will be sent to be killed or maimed--then, to be brought "Home" to be used as props in some Chickenhawk's election campaign.

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Just look at the recruiting posters and the different WHY'S (pitches) they give for joining the military. They rarely mention "patriotism" and national "service" because they know that initially speaking, most of the motives for which people join up, and yes some have to do with lack of formal education and seeking a way to finance/acquire it, have little to do with "patriotism" or even knowing where the places they are likely to be sent are geographically located, let alone what is going on there and why. Among the various motives for military service (the real reasons that led them into service before boot camp coditioned the propagandistic and cognitive-dissonance-resolving reasons for serving:

The "Glory Boys and Girls" : "Nothing like a War to turn a relative nobody into a somebody--the Audie Murphy syndrome";

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"Join-or-The-Joint": "Given offers by courts and Judges they couldn't refuse: either "The Joint"--prison--and perhaps winding up changing one's views on same sex marriage, as one winds up 'married' to a 300-pound tatooed biker named Spike, going into the military suddenly looks like a good alternative";

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"Wounded-Low-Self-Esteem": "I'll show that bitch Muffy the cheerleader who dumped me for Biff the quarterback what she lost when I come home a hero with chestfull of medals";

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"In-Running-FROM-Rather-than-TO-Somewhere-Any-Direction-Will-Get-You-There": "I have to get out of this nowhere in-bred podunk town, see the world, have adventures and not wind up like my dad working himself to death in the town mill";

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"Family-Business": "My great grandaddy, granddaddy, father, brother, sister, uncles etc all were in the military; and they have raised me that I will carry on the family business, plus,they have some contacts inside that will help get into the Academy and some sweet promotion-generating gigs";

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"Criminal Psychopaths-Sociopaths": "Damn, you mean I get paid AND medals to do what I have always lusted to do, would do for free and would wind up in the joint if I did it back home: murder, rape, looting and mayhem? And you say in the fog of War, along with the cheap bitches and primo dope/booze, the chances of getting caught or prosecuted for "War Crimes" and other crimes is nill because WE Americans, under the banner of 'sovereignty', do not allow American troops to be held accountable for crimes against others or to be tried in other courts? Sign me up";

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"Need-Structure-and-Order[s]-in-Order-to-Function":"My life and brain has always been scattered, I lack ambition, just tell me the rules, make it worth my while, don't complicate my life by trying to make me think, and I'll do what you need done where, when and how you want it done--no questions asked".

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"Caught-in-a-Catch-22": "Got no experience cuz no one will give me a job (with a meager resume and little formal schooling which is not the same as education) and can't get a job cuz I got no experience and little formal schooling; sign me up, not only resume embellishment possible, but hey, travel, adventure, hook-ups, get out of the podunk town etc".

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"Reactive-Emotional-Whiners": "Sobbing, I saw our president at 9-11 with that fireman standing next to the 9-11 rubble, and I heard the president's call to sign up and go fight the evil doers that did 9-11; and just like the song from my favorite Country singer, six-times-married--Mr. "Family Values"--Lee Greenwood, "I'm proud to be an American", I am, and I'm ready to go to kill Saddam Hussein for what he did on 9-11, for all those weapons of mass destruction I know we will find and for his alliance with Osama bin Ladin and other terrorists who hate us because we Americans are so free and prosperous--secretly they wish they had NASCAR, Country Music and World Wide Wrestling..."

"My Recruiter Was the First Person Who Ever 'Cared' About Me": My recruiter said I would get to go to places I never heard of, see things I could never imagine seeing, and do things I could never imagine doing. He said that the military would give me the family I never had and buddies that would last for a lifetime. Some day, when I am old, going through some Willy Loman moments, a nobody at the ol VFW or American Legion, lying about what I used to do in the military (the older I get the better and more heroic I used to be) and rembering when I was a somebody in the military, I'll remember my buddies and the only family I ever had..."

So, Ladies and Gentlemen, fellow vets, potential voters, you can see that there are many reasons why people enter and stay in the military. Indeed many of them have to do with lack of formal schooling; not being able to pay for schooling to stay away from future combat areas and combat; or, to acquire a sweeter and safer gig in the military; or, just to have a venue that handles some deep psychological issues and needs; or, just being unable to "make it" in the private sector.

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Thank you and now let the Chickenhawks try to frame and deal with this.

Why Are American Indian Soldiers Serving in Iraq?

2006-08-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Why are American Indian soldiers serving in Iraq?
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Posted: August 04, 2006
by: Michael Yellow Bird

Editor's note: Dr. Yellow Bird's essay will be disagreeable to many and welcomed by many. Please read carefully. Share your views with editor@indiancountry.com.

An open letter to all indigenous peoples.

As the United States celebrates its annual Independence Day, I strongly urge all of our nations to hold critical and independent discussions on why we are committing our young people to serve the U.S. military in its occupation of Iraq.

The recent reporting (including revelations of a cover-up) of the murders, executions and massacres of innocent Iraqi citizens by U.S. troops prompts me to ask, ''Why are indigenous (American Indian) soldiers serving in Iraq?'' I wonder why our tribal communities have not had critical debates on the immorality of this war, on the lies of the present Bush administration that got us into this war and on the spiritual, economic, social and psychological costs that our people and the Iraqi people will pay for this war. It is clear from the history of many of our tribes that our people understood the grave costs of war and so took this act very seriously.

Before engaging in war, many of our tribes initiated peace councils and sent emissaries to negotiate goodwill and friendship with the ''enemy'' in order to avoid war. As sovereign indigenous nations, we did not do this before or during the invasion of Iraq. We instead let the United States make the decision for us as to whether we should or should not enter into this war. I wonder when was the last time that the United States asked our people for our opinion about war and its costs.

Our history tells us that because war was so destructive on many different levels, many of our tribal nations ''before committing to war against another tribe'' consulted our elders, peacemakers, women, youth, philosophers, intellectuals, spiritual leaders, children, warriors and veterans to weigh the costs of war. This is something that many of our nations have not done for some time. Many of us have ''outsourced our thinking'' to the United States with respect to when and why we should or should not go to war.

We are sovereign nations with very intelligent and moral people who do not need to rely on this country to interpret for us the meaning and the costs that war will bring to our communities. Most of us already know the answer to this. And we know that we should decide for ourselves, after careful, deliberate and intelligent discussions, whether we must commit our people and resources to the wars of the United States.

Along with the U.S. invasion of the lands of our respective nations, the last two major conflicts of the United States - Vietnam and now Iraq - were based on lies created by the U.S. government. That track record makes it even more imperative that we rely upon our own thinking, experiences and morality when we enter into discussions on why our tribal nations should compel our people to go to war.

The Vietnam lie was very expensive and horrific: it was responsible for the deaths of 58,191,000 American soldiers and 153,303 wounded. One million Vietnamese combatants and 4 million civilians were killed for this American lie. The missing in this war includes approximately 2,300 American soldiers and 200,000 Vietnamese.

In Iraq, more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 2003. After so many lies told to our people by the United States, do we trust this nation to be honest with us? Do we trust it to care about life as much as we do?

If we are to have discussions about this war, topics must include:

Our belief that all people and beings are related to us, so what does it mean to make war on our relatives?
The fact that we value all life so, therefore, war truly must be a last resort.
The fact that we value Mother Earth as a living being and the fact that the U.S. military is contaminating the lands, waters, trees, plants and people in Iraq through the use of biowarfare, land mines and depleted uranium which will kill innocent people and poison much of their territory for many years.
The fact that we believe in the great circle of life (e.g., what goes around comes around; and what we are doing to the Iraqi people is what the United States did to our ancestors).
What are the effects that all of the killing, maiming, poisoning and torturing will have upon our people, especially on the psychic and cosmological levels?
How the United States has treated us in the past and the present, and how it has conscripted our minds and hearts so that we are participating in their same oppressive behavior of another group/race of humans.
What other nations have the United States overthrown for its own interests?
How many innocent non-U.S. peoples have been killed by this country's covert operations, and who is it planning to attack in the future? Why?
Who benefits most from war and who are the biggest losers? "

Finally, there are many other reasons that we can discuss and analyze. It seems that we cannot rely on corporate media or the U.S. government to tell us the truth or to give us the facts about why we should go to war or whom we should consider our enemy.

John Stockwell, the highest-ranking CIA official to leave the agency and go public with information about CIA-sponsored activities, once said that the United States neither does ''bloody, gory operations'' in Europe nor does it spend its time attacking these countries. Rather, it performs such operations in countries that are filled with people of color who do not have the military strength and resources to protect themselves from U.S. invasions. I am convinced that Stockwell is suggesting that the U.S. government has a clear racist war ideology and readily employs it against people or races that are not white.

So, we must use all the available evidence to independently decide for ourselves if and when we should go to war and who is our enemy. An enemy should not be invented because of the color of its skin or religious beliefs. I believe that it is time for us to demand that our tribal governments call for critical and independent discussions, and we need to tell the United States to immediately call for withdrawal of its military forces from Iraq. Most importantly ''and independently of their decision or indecision'' we must immediately pull our people out of this quagmire.

Countries such as Japan, Honduras, Tonga, Nicaragua, Spain, Dominican Republic, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Portugal and Moldova already have pulled out their troops and many other nations are planning to reduce their troop commitment in the near future. So why are we still in Iraq fighting the United States of America's illegal war?

It also is time for our tribal leaders and communities to impose a moratorium upon any further enlistments of our young men and women into the U.S. military. The United States has abused our trust and has coerced us to fight its illegal, immoral wars long enough. Many things about this war trouble me to the very core.

One of the most disturbing questions is why does it seem that of all the countries that have been or continue to be in this war, it is only U.S. soldiers who are committing the murders of, and atrocities against, innocent Iraqi citizens (the unarmed, the disabled, the defenseless elders, the women and the children)? Is it because the United States is serving in larger numbers? Is it because the United States is serving in more hazardous situations? Is it because the United States is more trigger-happy? Is it because of poor oversight and supervision by the upper ranks of the military? Is it because U.S. troops are a more violent group and enjoy killing more than do other soldiers? Is it because the architects of this war, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz care more about profit than ''just war'' principles? Is it all of the above?

As I write this, two National Guardsmen are being investigated for killing an innocent Iraqi man earlier this year; seven Marines and one Navy corpsman were charged with the shooting death of an Iraqi man, whom they had kidnapped from his home, forced into a hole, and shot to death. They then left a stolen AK-47 near his body to make it look like he was firing at them; three soldiers and one noncommissioned officer were charged with killing (in May 2006) three unarmed Iraqis who were in military custody. And many more Iraqi people have been abused and tortured to death in U.S. custody (especially in the military prisons). Many of these atrocities have been covered up or are ''under investigation.'' The story currently receiving the most press is the November 2005 massacre of the 24 innocent civilians (including women and children) in Haditha by U.S. Marines. This mass killing is being compared to the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

A Washington Post article reported that ''Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident,'' said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families; recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. ''I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' Fahmi said. 'But they killed him, and his wife and daughters.' The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1'' (Saturday, May 17, 2006).

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who maintains close ties with senior Marine officers despite his opposition to the war, stated, ''Marines overreacted ... and killed innocent civilians in cold blood.'' Murtha already has called for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq and has called the war ''a flawed policy wrapped in illusion'' (Larry Downing, Reuters, Nov. 18, 2005).

There are many reasons why we must immediately get our people out of this war:

1. War is not a moral act. The occupation, torture, mutilation, killing and murder of innocent Iraqi people are acts of immorality. Our people should not be complicit in atrocities.

2. The invasion of Iraq was based on lies. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction by the Bush administration; it did not. Iraq was accused of having ties with Osama Bin Laden; it did not. Our people should not be complicit in lies.

3. The war against Iraq does not meet the standards of a ''just war'' that evolved among ''civilized'' societies. Our people have enough struggles and battles, and should not be complicit in unjust global activities on behalf of the United States.

4. The war on Iraq was for ''regime change'' which is not legal under international law, Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter. Our people should not be complicit in lawlessness.

5. After two decades of wars, invasions and sanctions, Iraq did not have the military power to pose a clear and present danger to the United States before or after being invaded in 2003. Our people should not be complicit in oppressing and occupying a nation that never attacked us.

6. Many people in the United States and throughout the world oppose this war. Our nations should exercise their right to voice their opposition to U.S. military operations, conflicts, wars and occupations.

7. The U.S. soldiers who have murdered Iraqi civilians must now stand trial. Several of them could receive the death penalty. Will more death and life sentences follow or will the deaths of innocent Iraqis be ignored or covered up? Do we want our men and women involved in situations that might conclude in such trials or cover-ups? Our people should mentor their young into just and moral activities that benefit their nations, while encouraging conflict-resolution when possible.

8. This war is creating new ''terrorism'' and retribution that will be directed at the United States for its invasion of Iraq and its torturing and killing of innocent people. Our people should not contribute to U.S. creation of hatred.

9. There is no end in sight for a U.S. military exit out of Iraq. Many sources report that the United States is establishing permanent military bases in Iraq which would keep troops in Iraq for many years. Our people should not contribute to the expansion and maintenance of U.S. militarization, colonization and occupation.

10. Invading Iraq is extremely financially costly and takes resources away from many badly needed priorities at home. At present, it costs nearly $1 billion a week to wage this ''war on terrorism.'' Our people should not be complicit in U.S. activities that waste money.

11. Billions of dollars have been authorized by Congress to be used for occupation and reconstruction. There is evidence that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been lost through waste, abuse and fraudulent billing. In a June 8, 2006, article published in The Baltimore Chronicle, Dave Lindorff reported that $21 billion ''has gone missing without a trace in Iraq.'' Who is responsible for this? I am reminded that our people are fighting for, in part, accountability of billions of lost dollars in the Eloise Pepion Cobell, et al. v. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior lawsuit in the United States. Our people should never be complicit in U.S. theft, fraud and dishonesty.

12. The United States is supposed to be rebuilding Afghanistan, but it is not; rather, it is targeting most of its focus and resources on Iraq. Our people should not contribute to unilateral U.S. policy and doctrines.

13. Despite billions of U.S. dollars spent in Iraq after its invasion, very little of the promised rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure has been accomplished. Our people ''who are familiar with broken promises and treaties'' should never be complicit in the lies of the United States.

14. The rebuilding of Iraq is not happening. Many U.S. firms that went to Iraq to perform reconstruction services have been accused of ''bilking'' funds intended for reconstruction.

In an April 16, 2006, news story, the Boston Globe reported that ''American contractors swindled hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi funds.'' For instance, in March 2006, a Rhode Island-based company called The Custer Battles was found ''liable for $3 million in fraudulent billings in Iraq.'' Stories such as this are outrageous and numerous. Many of these companies had/have ties to the current Bush administration, especially Cheney. Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. Halliburton has made hundreds of millions of dollars from this war and occupation. Our people should not be complicit in helping the rich, like Cheney, get richer. We must no longer allow our nations to remain in the fog of war, participating in the United States continued colonization and destruction of the world. What this country has done and continues to do to the Iraqi people is unconscionable and must stop.

The U.S.-led war in Iraq is wrong, immoral, illegal, unjust, a lie; it is about profiteering for a very small, corrupt, elite sector of the U.S. population. Our people, many of whom occupy some of the lowest levels of decision-making in the U.S. military, are considered expendable and are being used for cannon fodder so that the rich, especially in the United States, can become richer. We must realize that many of the people in the highest levels of the U.S. government suffer from an addiction to war, power and colonization. Many, but not all, indigenous peoples have become co-dependent in this addiction as demonstrated by not holding public meetings and councils that question the U.S. invasion, and by allowing our people to participate in this unjust, illegal war that is creating suffering for untold numbers of innocent Iraqi people.

In the fall of 2004, the academic journal Wicazo Sa Review published a paper I wrote entitled ''Cowboys and Indians: Toys of Genocide, Icons of American Colonialism.'' In that article, I stated that ''it took me some years to understand that colonialism is a sickness, an addiction to greed, power, and exploitation. ... Colonialism has taught many Indigenous Peoples to be silent, passive, compliant victims who participate in, excuse, enable, or ignore the colonizer's addictive behaviors. Left unchecked, colonialism has continued to flourish, devastate, and suppress Indigenous Peoples, keeping them in a the perpetual role of 'the Indian,' causing many to say, do and think things they never would if their minds and hearts were free from American colonial rule.''

Today this addictive behavior or the drug of choice of this country is its illegal, dishonest and brutal invasion of Iraq. I urgently ask each and every indigenous person to quit enabling the addictive behavior of the United States. In this same article, I also wrote that there are ''antidotes to colonialism that Indigenous Peoples can and must employ: courage, intelligent resistance, development of a counter-consciousness and discourse, and a fierce critical interrogation of American colonial ideology.''

It is incumbent upon our peoples to employ these antidotes in order to condemn and get our people out of this war. We must commit all of our intellectual and truth-seeking energies to this objective and not let anyone, indigenous or non-indigenous, hijack our need for such critical and independent discussions. A key democratic principle of our peoples was our willingness to allow our people dissent from popular opinion so that we might consider all of our options. We must not let accusations that our ''honor and courage as warriors is on the line'' prevent us from deciding to leave Iraq - and the U.S. military. After generations of service in the U.S. military - and its numerous wars - our people have repeatedly proven that we are brave and courageous beyond compare. However, our ability to think morally, critically and independently about our participation in this war is another matter that we now must undertake ever so seriously. Maybe, just maybe, if we act using our traditional indigenous forms of morality that value truth, intelligence, honesty, life and dignity, and refuse to be enablers to the U.S. addiction to greed, war, power and colonization, we can help it overcome its unhealthy, destructive obsession for war, conquest, and killing of others.

And, as it recovers from this addiction, maybe we also can help it overcome its two greatest phobias: dikephobia (the fear of justice) and hypegiaphobia (the fear of responsibility). I pray that that you will take this open letter (or a statement of your own) to your tribal leaders and communities and immediately begin the important critical and independent discussions that will promote and act upon the well-being of all of our people.

Michael Yellow Bird, Ph.D., is founder and director of the Center for Indigenous Peoples' Critical and Intuitive Thinking and an associate professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kan. E-mail him at mybird@ku.edu.

GENOCIDE: CANADIAN STYLE

2006-08-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

MILTON BORN WITH A TOOTH ON TRAIL OF TEARS CAMPAIGN ACROSS CANADA
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MILTON BORN WITH A TOOTH ON TRAIL OF TEARS CAMPAIGN ACROSS CANADA
MNN. August 7, 2006.

Milton Born with a Tooth showed up at my house at 9:00 pm. last Friday. He had a very important colonial tale to tell. Milton Born With a Tooth is a Blackfoot Indigenous man from Piegan in Alberta. He went to jail for four and a half years for trying to divert the Old Man River back to its natural course in 1990. As a lone Fighter he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon. The weapon was a bulldozer. In 1921 the river had been diverted to an irrigation canal for the benefit of non-native farmers in southern Alberta. The Blackfoot of Piegan did not give their consent for this diversion and had always protested it.

From August 3rd to September 7th 1990 Milton worked. He took a bulldozer and alone started to dig a ditch so that the river would return to its natural course. 75 RCMP officers descended on him, followed by government officials and a SWAT team. Altogether 200 armed police arrived to overpower Milton. Was this overkill or what? Initially he was going to get 56 years in jail. He got out in 1995 serving the last part of his sentence in the Kainai Correction Institute on the Blood Reserve near Lethbridge Alberta.

When Milton was asked where he got the plan to divert the river, he said, I got it from the beaver. The old people gave an offering to the caretaker of the river. If he can do it without money and a weapon, then I could do it too? declared Milton. He used the laws for safeguarding traditional medicines. He said that the culture of the river provides our understanding of the basis of where we come from and who we are. He tried to divert the river to show that we are still in touch with nature. He had lobbied and gotten national and international scientific support to stop this irrigation project. He even got National Geographic to support him.

While Milton was in jail, the elders and environmentalists took it to court. In 1991 the Supreme Court ruling came down. The Piegan got $64 million, half from the federal government and half from the provincial government. In future, to do anything on the Old Man River they have to consult the Piegan people. The first offer went to the people for a vote. They said No. It was taken back. Another clause was added that they would take $10 million of it to distribute to the people who were poor. This was agreed upon. In 2002 the agreement was finalized.

In the meantime when Milton got out of jail he went to court. He got an injunction that the provincial government of Alberta had no right to divert the Old Man River in the first place.

Once the money came to the Blackfoot, then troubles began. All kinds of sharks descended on the Piegan people. Alberta and Indian Affairs recommended that the chief and four councilors hire a young financial advisor, Lili Kostic, for $1.5 million per year to serve them. She is Indian Affairs ideal, a Pamela Anderson look-alike. This is what Indian Affairs thinks a nouveau riche Indian man should want.

In the agreement the CIBC holds the $54 million in a block account. Remember them? They were in the Enron scandal. They didn't come out of it too clean.

Meanwhile the community can get a financial report. Five non-native consultants were also hired, one from the World Evangelistic Church. They'e there to pacify the Indigenous people. Indian Affairs is up to its old tricks. All these helpers[who are helping themselves to the people money] are being paid from the education, housing, health, economic development and other social programs. They have now depleted all the funds. This is when Indian Affairs decided to put the community into receivership and took over the management of their financial and all their affairs. This is totally disgusting and all too familiar.

Throughout this saga the community was involved emotionally in the Old Man River dam issue. This $64 million was supposed to help them. Suddenly these outsiders got parachuted into their community by Indian Affairs. No reports are filed. The people don't know what's going on.

The chief and council are flying around and incurring all kinds of expenses. In March 2005 a councillor, Edwin Small Legs, sat in a meeting with the CIBC Joe Marino in Calgary. While in the meeting the councilors and the chief heard Joe Marino complain the he was feeling the hit and was worried because of the other people involved. Marino turned around to Small Legs and asked him, What will I do with this? The pressure was on because of the questions being raised by the people.

Small Legs asked, What do you mean? Everything stopped. The whole community was asking too many questions throughout.

In December 2005 Joe Marino refused to give any documents on how he was handling their funds. The community found out a whole lot of money was missing through embezzlement by the chief, Peter Strikes With a Gun, and others. The chief started to panic. In late May 2005 the chief told Milton, don't like being called a crook. He decided to resign. He went in front of the people and sang a tear jerking finale. Five days later he returned. Indian Affairs had gotten a court injunction appointing him as the chief.

Then there was an election. Indian Affairs knew that Peter Strikes With a Gun was going to lose. The morning of the election, at 9:00 am. Indian Affairs in Calgary got a court order and quickly sent it to Ottawa. It was sent back and arrived at Piegan by 3:43 pm the same day. What happened is that two-thirds of the way into the election, the RCMP showed up with the court order and confiscated all the ballot boxes.

The community freaked out. Indian Affairs had used three community women to take out this injunction. In the end these women did something that impeded the will of the people. The community erupted into chaos.

Edwin Small Legs, a councilor, called a friend in Ottawa, Walter Rudnicki, who found somebody to help. In the end nothing was done about the corrupt non-election.

From September until December 7th 2005, Edwin Small Legs finally decided to come clean. Things were going crazy. Everybody was getting harassed. What do I do ? he asked Milton. A media conference was called and Milton spoke about the situation. Documents were presented showing the duplicity of Joe Marino of CIBC with the chief and four of the councilors. Edwin got scared. He was afraid he was going to be the fall guy.

The following day the financial advisor, Lili Kostic, charged Milton with threatening to kill her and he daughter. Milton went to the RCMP. He decided to play dumb. He was afraid that because he is an Indian in a racist community, the white woman would be considered more credible.

Then Milton went to the chief of police. He released all the documents he had and charged her with blackmailing him. With the knowledge of the cops Milton reported that Kostic gave him money. She showed him her panties in her car. Milton swears he never took her up on her offer. He reported these incidents each time to the RCMP.

Since then this case has been under investigation. In April 2006 the RCMP brought evidence of financial mismanagement to the Commercial Crimes Division in Calgary. The preliminary investigation is finished and there is a strong case of fraud against these people.

On July 5, 2006, Milton held a press conference announcing that he had charged everybody with fraud; the chief, four councilors, two financial officers, two financial institutions, three Indian Affairs officials and the 6 consultants. One of those charged was Neil Sharp Adze. One week later he killed himself. Indian Affairs knows how to get their hooks into a guy like Sharp Adze, get him to compromise himself and scare him into thinking he is he? going to be blamed for everything. They are partly to blame for what happened. Look, folks! Whatever wrong you may have done in the past, don't kill yourself. You can make amends to the people. You owe it to future generations to do what you can to make things better. You don't owe your soul to that criminal organization called Indian Affairs.

Milton went to the constituency office of the Minister of Indian Affairs, Jim Prentice. He spoke to his Chief of Staff. At this meeting an offer was made that they would look into the chief's resignation issue, the RCMP interference in the election and the dealings of the financial officers. It is obvious the RCMP needs training on who they should take orders from. Do they have to be patsies for every crook going? It looks like things haven't changed since the bad old days when Duncan Campbell Scott had free reign to depose Indigenous governments left, right and center.

On his journey to other Indigenous communities across Canada, Milton has found this kind of corruption everywhere in almost every Indigenous community. He is asking for a full public inquiry into Indian Affairs and its crimes against his people. We can hope that the Canadian public will support his cause. Indian Affairs is using their tax money for illegal purposes.
Milton wants to take water from the Atlantic Ocean and from the Pacific Ocean. He will mix them together and pour it into the Old Man River.

The way things are going, we are shocked when we hear that someone in government is honest!