It was an embarrassing day to be an American last Friday. The Founding Fathers are turning over in their graves, once again. I knew it was coming, but it was worse than I expected.
AIPAC turned the screws on their assets in the U.S. Senate to make an example of Hagel, and the race was on to see who could be more subservient. As usual, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the Senators for Israel, led the pack.
To watch the Senate chew up one of their own, solely on instruction of their non-existant Jewish Lobby masters was a humiliating day for America. The Senate, of course, does not look at it that way because they have been doing it for a long time.
January 29, 2013 (Washington, D.C.): A distinguished group of fourteen retired generals and admirals, representing all branches of the United States Armed Forces, has signed a letter opposing the nomination of Sen. Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.
The letter – addressed to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), respectively, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Armed Services Committee – raises several concerns about the nomination of Sen. Hagel, including:
Sen. Hagel’s support for further cuts to the defense budget. Sen. Hagel stated in late August 2011 that the Pentagon is “bloated” and needs to be “pared down”, contrary to Sec. Panetta’s and Chairman Dempsey’s views that sequestration – the additional hundreds of billions in across-the-board cuts to defense that go well beyond the $787 billion in cuts already sustained by the Department since Sec. Gates’ tenure – would be “disastrous for the defense budget” and “very high risk” to national security;
Sen. Hagel’s support for the global elimination of nuclear weapons. Sen. Hagel is a public supporter of the “Global Zero” Initiative, the goal of which is the “elimination of all nuclear weapons.” This stance is ill-advised for any Secretary of Defense, as Russia and China continue to modernize their nuclear capabilities while North Korea and Iran move closer to obtaining them.
Sen. Hagel’s hostility towards Israel. Sen. Hagel has demonstrated an abiding hostility towards Israel, a view that would be detrimental to our national defense and perhaps perilous to our only stable, reliable ally in the Middle East were he to become Secretary.
Sen. Hagel’s outlook towards Iran. Sen. Hagel repeatedly opposed sanctions against Iran while serving in the Senate, and in 2006 stated that “a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option” – an ill-advised statement that undercuts the effectiveness of both diplomatic and military policies to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities.
Was it because his Obama administration handlers gave him awful advice? Peter Beinart on how Hagel prepared for the hearings.
EXTRACT
If the aim of the hearings was simply to make sure Hagel gets confirmed, all this may not matter very much. After the hearings, three important Senate Democrats—New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, and Colorado’s Mark Udall—said they would support Hagel. And if the Democrats hold firm, as it appears they will, it’s unlikely the Republicans will be able to mount an effective filibuster. But if the aim of the hearings was also to begin building a case for Obama’s second term foreign policy—a foreign policy that brings military spending into balance with economic resources and aggressively pursues diplomacy with Iran, and maybe Israel and the Palestinians too—Hagel failed. And if he continues to fail as a foreign policy spokesman once confirmed, that second term agenda will be harder to achieve.
Watching the Senate Armed Services Committee interact Thursday with former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel-President Obama's candidate to be secretary of defense-was a profoundly depressing experience.
Hagel's performance in his “confirmation” hearing was remarkable; he spent the day eating his own words under pressure mostly from Republicans-so much so that it is hard to understand what views he might actually hold.
Unlike most effective politicians who are always clever at saying nothing or changing positions, he was so inarticulate at doing so that it is also hard to understand how he ever could have been elected twice to the Senate from Nebraska.
As fumbling and apologetic as Hagel's answers were to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, even my low expectations for the performance of the senators on that committee went unmet.
Gen. Edward Lansdale, the CIA's expert on coups and assassinations, was identified onsite at Dealey Plaza by Col. Fletcher Prouty and Gen. Victor Krulak both who worked closely with Lansdale. Lansdale was photographed 5 feet west of the Texas School Book Depository in one of the famous “3 tramps” photographs. I think it is a near certainty that Lansdale, the CIA's expert on coups and assassinations, was in Dallas to organize the JFK assassination. Lansdale had run the Operation Mongoose covert operations against Castro for the Kennedys – an experience that Lansdale found to be extremely frustrating.
Oliver North, who was being run by GHW Bush, was a great admirer of Gen. Lansdale and even described himself in the 1980's as being “Landalized.” There is also a picture of Ed Lansdale with Oliver North in the 1980's. Edward Lansdale and Oliver North specialized in covert operations and unaccountable shadow government actions.
The midlevel murderers (including field operations) of JFK would include CIA guys like, James Angleton, David Atlee Phillips, David Morales, Carl E. Jenkins, Rafael Quintero, William King Harvey, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, Luis Posada, Orlando Bosch, Bernardo De Torres, Richard Helms and perhaps Cord Meyer. Deputy Harry Weatherford is a good candidate to have been on the Records Building as a sniper. Influential mobster Johnny Roselli was especially close friends with the CIA’s William King Harvey, a rabid Kennedy hater. The most likely mafia godfathers involved would be Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, particularly in Jack Ruby's murder of Oswald and perhaps in the JFK Assassination as well and other murders in the post assassination cover up.
The below well referenced article was sent to me by JFK Assassination expert Robert Morrow. In the email to me, he endorses the analysis, “I think it is fine article.” I have no separate knowledge of the facts detailed in this article or if the facts could be interpreted differently. I provide this analysis simply as a starting point for those who may want to explore the topic in more depth. The USS Liberty, Israel & President Johnson’s Order to Destroy the USS Liberty
By Judy Morris
Economic Policy Journal, Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Lyndon Baines Johnson is a president who has escaped the scrutiny and judgment of history despite considerable documentation that should make him an outstanding candidate for historical review, critique and analysis. His primary biographer, Robert Caro, consistently gets rave book reviews from mainstream media for his disingenuous puff piece books on LBJ. It’s entirely possible that LBJ is the most evil or one of the most evil presidents in US history.
Some researchers believe that LBJ was the mastermind behind JFK’s assassination and researcher Phillip F. Nelson wrote a book documenting his investigation on this issue: LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination. However, one of greatest unknown chapters in LBJ’s presidency is that he personally gave the order to Israel to bomb and utterly destroy the USS Liberty and its entire crew of 294 Americans. Astoundingly, when the mission went awry and Sixth Fleet Commanders were ordering the rescue of the besieged and bloodied USS Liberty crew, LBJ ordered that rescue operations be called back, at least twice. Against all odds, the USS Liberty survived but after the attack, 34 Americans lay dead. Except for 4 worthless 50 caliber machine guns, the USS Liberty was unarmed and defenseless against the far superior firing power of the Israeli navel and air force armada that descended upon it with relentless and unspeakable terror.
Not a whole lot has been written about the USS Liberty and its just another critically important issue that has been buried in history but two extraordinary books document the truth. James M. Ennes Jr., a retired US Navel Officer and a survivor of the USS Liberty who wrote a book on the USS Liberty that documents his investigative disclosure of the truth, here.
Peter Hounam, an investigative journalist, wrote Operation Cyanide, Why the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War III. Hounam’s extraordinary book, published in 2003, relies heavily on the work of Ennis and also documents numerous interviews that Hounam conducted with the USS Liberty survivors as well as other folks in the US, British and Israel governments.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is slated to testify before lawmakers on the Benghazi attacks, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Tuesday.
