Crime (Government) – Page 39 – Public Intelligence Blog

2007/09/052013/03/05

Review: Someone Would Have Talked–The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History

5 Star, Crime (Government), Impeachment & Treason, Justice (Failure, Reform), Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)

Superb History, Highly Relevant to 9/11 and Lies by Cheney & Other Neocons

September 5, 2007

Larry Hancock

EDIT of 7 Oct 09: MUST READ Review: JFK and the Unspeakable–Why He Died & Why It Matters

I've read one other book that led me to conclude that I had to read this one, both in relation to what is now known about the Warren Commission Report. I consider these important because precisely the same kind of cover-up happened with the 9-11 Commission, and I strongly believe that Dick Cheney should be impeached and then indicted along with Rudy Gulliani and Larry Silverstein and Donald Rumsfeld for the murder of thousands by controlled demolitions and a missile into the Pentagon that destroyed all the computers needed to understand the missing 2.3 trillion that Donald Rumsfeld was being grilled on by Congresswoman McKinney on 10 September.

This is a phenomenal piece of work that makes superb use of social network analysis (who knows who) to connect the dots.

The bottom line: Kennedy was killed by Cuban exiles who set Oswald up as a patsy. Oswald was at his usual lunchroom place in the library where he had reason to be, and the Chief of Police of Dallas is on record as saying they could never connect Oswald to either the window from which the shots were a llegedly fired, or the gun that was claimed to be the assassination weapon. The first officer to enter the building minutes after the shooting placed Osxwald at his usual place in the lunchroom, and Oswald tested negative for gunpowder residue.

Oswald was impersonated in Mexico City, including a staged call to the KGB specialist in assassination, and other trails were left with the intent of proving that Castro had Kennedy assassinated, and hoping to both punish Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs betrayal and for cracking down on Cuban exile missions at the same time that he was authorizing 13 sabotage missions to Cuba.

The evidence is compelling. Robert Kennedy was worried about Castro retaliating against him and his brother. It is now clear that CIA training of Cubans to assassinate Castro was in fact turned against Kennedy.

Three CIA employees are featured: David Philipps who specialized in the big lie; E. Howard Hunt, and David Morales, Operations Chief of JMWAVE under Ted Shackley.

The conspiracy to point the finger at Castro failed, but the true assasins were allowed to go undiscovered because Lyndon Johnson and the Presidents physician began am immediate cover-up, as did the FBI, CIA, and the Secret Service.

The book is compelling in demonstrating that ample warnings had been received by the Secret Service, to the point that the President was personally briefed by Bobby Kennedy, but JFK went ot his death on his own volition–he blew off the warnings.

The cover-ups by the three agencies bear a stricking resemblance to the cover-up of the Oklahmoa City bombing, where unexploded thermite bombs were found on some pillars, and the “loner” theory simply does not stand up. Similarly, Cheney, Gulliani, and Silverstein pre-arranged for the scooping and dumping of the evidence of controlled demolitions from 9-11, and Rumsfeld covered up the fact that a missile, not an airplane was targetted on the Pentagon by our own treasoous officers willing to obey an illegal order and murder their own for the Zionist-NeoCon cause, while also destroying the computers holding evidence of where the “lost 2.3 trillion dollars had gone.

The exiles boasted privately of having been promised additional new funding by the mafia, including the Jewish mafia with casino interests in Cuba, provided they took care of Kennedy and incited an invasion of Cuba.

It is not clear from the book if other US leaders sanctioned the killing. I am inclined to think not. Hoover had all the blackmail material he needed to keep his job. Johnson does not come into the picture until after t he fact, when it became clear that if Bobby Baker talked, Johnson would go to jail for blatant contacts with organized crime and for blatant use of his office to obtain bribes from military-industrial corporations.

In this book Ruby is a patsy paid to murder Oswald when Oswald is arrested and unable to make the theater meeting where he would probably have been subdued and transported to Cuba or Mexico to die under circumstances incriminating Castro. Ruby was probably told he would be freed or pardoned, and money was his primary motivation.

A series of key witnesses who were willing to talk were murdered, and Johnson personally immunized FBI agent Regis Kennedy, Oswald's handler, to keep him from talking.

Admiral Burkley, JFK's personal physician, handicapped and stopped most of the atopsy process, and concealed and manipulated evidence to support the lone gunman theory. The Navy hospital staff received a gag order similar to the one given the crew of the USS Liberty after they were deliberatedly attacked by Israel and many of them murdered by our so-called ally.

There are several take-away bottom lines relevant to today, as Dick Cheney seeks to attack Iran in the same illegal way he ordered the attack on Iraq using lies and his secret authority:

1) We cannot trust our elected politicians. They lie to us.

2) We cannot trust the FBI, CIA, or Secret Service. They lie to us.

3) We cannot trust government commissions, neither executive nor legislative, they are exercises in deception and lie to us.

The author is meticulous is documenting the long list of unsung heros whose personal research has over time brought out the truth. Similarly, I am quite certain that within five years Cheney, all the neocons, Gulliani, and Silverstein will be meticulously impeached and indicted and covicted in the public eye. They may escape to Dubai, but the truth will be known.

The book documents Johnson's offer of a $1 million bribe to Bobby Baker to keep quiet and allow the investigation to go down the path that Johnson orchestrated, of a Warren Commission brow-beaten into validating an FBI conclusion that was known to be false by all conceerned.

The books comes with great note and appendices. The author has made superb use of telephone records, diaries, and known social and professional connections. The only thing I missed from this was a two page diagram of the network as it is described.

The book is also exceptional for clearly identifying additional paths for further investigation.

I put the book down with the strong feeling that We the People need to reject every sitting member of Congress and every current candidate for President. We need to elect a transpartisan Executive team with a Cabinet announced beforehand that also publishes a balanced sustainable budget before election day, and we need to demand that every piece of legilsation henceforth be published in full one week prior to its being voted on, with no secret earmarks. The military-industrial complex is not our enemy–they are simply doing what they have been incentivized to do. Our enemy is the complete corruption of the Democratic and Republican parties, the complete corruption of our election system, and the lack of transparency on how all taxpayer funds are spent. We can fix this. A good start would be the redirection of half the Pentagon budget toward waging peace, ending our ties with all 42 of the dictators Dick Cheney embraces with such fervor, and the elimination of two thirds of all existing secret programs, using the funds instead to stand up a Multinational Information Sharing Activity that supports stabilization, reconstruction, and peacekeeping everywhere, and completely free connectivity for the five billion poor to a global network of 100 million volunteer tutors who can teach the five billion “one cell call at a time.”

Some other books I recommend that tie this one to today's events and the pattern of lies, lies, and more lies:
A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, And the Case That Should Have Changed History
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)

2007/06/242009/10/16

DVD: Death of a President (Widescreen)

5 Star, Crime (Government), Impeachment & Treason, Religion & Politics of Religion, Reviews (DVD Only), Secession & Nullification

June 24, 2007

Hend Ayoub

This is a world-class film with subtlety that may be lost on some. It is easily five stars for its blend of real-world filming of Bush and Cheney, its use of “interviews” supposedly after the fact, and its extremely subtle ending: without appearing, Dick Cheney gets to be President and passes Patiot Act III which finishes trashing the Constitution and our concept of “Liberty & Justice for All.” Nailing a passing Muslim for the crime, even after a black man committed suicide, left a note, and had a copy of the detailed schedule that could only have come from Dick Cheney or Scooter Libby, one can only ponder the near term.

I abhor the death penalty, assassination, and secession, but I also abhor war crimes and what is being done in our name, all of which give Vermont and others serious grounds for secession. It will take a quarter century to undo the damage done by Dick Cheney and his witless “decider.”

See my varied lists on serious DVDs, impeachment, Iraq after action, and evaluative books on Dick Cheney, the best two of which are listed below. In my reviews, mostly in the second, I itemize 25 high crimes and misdemeanors that Dick Cheney should be facing charges on as I write this. He has, virtually alone, destroyed the Republic.

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

2007/06/092015/04/26

Review: Dark Alliance–The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Intelligence (Government/Secret)

CIA Case Officer from Central American Era Validates This Book, June 9, 2007

Gary Webb

I am probably the only reviewer who was a clandestine case officer (three back to back tours), who participated in the Central American follies as both a field officer and a desk officer at CIA HQS, who is also very broadly read.

With great sadness, I must conclude that this book is truthful, accurate, and explosive.

The book lacks some context, for example, the liberal Saudi funding for the Contras that was provided to the National Security Council (NSC) as a back-door courtesy.

There are three core lessons in this book, supported by many books, some of which I list at the end of this review:

1) The US Government cannot be trusted by the people. The White House, the NSC, the CIA, even the Justice Department, and the Members of Congress associated with the Administration's party, are all liars. They use “national security” as a pretext for dealing drugs and screwing over the American people.

2) CIA has come to the end of its useful life. I remain proud to have been a clandestine case officer, but I see now that I was part of the “fake” CIA going through the motions, while extremely evil deeds were taking place in more limited channels.

3) In the eyes of the Nicaraguan, Guatemalan, and Honduran people, among many others, the US Government, as represented by the CIA and the dark side Ambassadors who are partisan appointees rather than true diplomats, is evil. It consorts with dictators, condones torture, helps loot the commonwealths of others, runs drugs, launders money, and is generally the bully on the block.

I have numerous notes on the book, and will list just a few here that are important “nuggets” from this great work:

1) The CIA connection to the crack pandemic could be the crime of the century. It certainly destroys the government's moral legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

2) The fact that entrepreneur Ricky Ross went to jail for life, while his supplier, Nicaraguan Blandon, was constantly protected by CIA and the Department of Justice, is a travesty.

3) Nicaragua, under Somoza, was the US Government's local enforcer, and CIA was his most important liaison element. As long as we consort with 44 dictators (see Ambassador Palmer's “The Real Axis of Evil,” we should expect to be reviled by the broader populations.

4) I believe that beginning with Henry Kissinger, the NSC and the CIA have had a “eugenics” policy that considers the low-income blacks to be “expendable” as well as a nuisance, and hence worthy of being targeted as a market for drugs to pull out what income they do have.

5) I believe that CIA was unwitting of the implications of crack, but that Congress was not. The book compellingly describes the testimony provided to Congress in 1979 and again in 1982, about the forthcoming implications of making a cocaine derivative affordable by the lowest income people in our Nation.

6) The Administration and Congress, in close partnership with the “mainstream media,” consistently lied, slandered witnesses to the truth, and generally made it impossible for the truth to be “heard.”

7) The ignorance of the CIA managers about the “ground truth” in Nicaragua and Honduras, and their willingness to carry out evil on command from the White House, without actually understanding the context, the true feelings of the people, or even the hugely detrimental strategic import of what they were about to do to Los Angeles, simply blow me away. We need to start court-martialling government employees for being stupid on the people's payroll.

8) CIA officers should not be allowed to issue visas. When they are under official cover they are assigned duty officer positions, and the duty officer traditionally has access to the visa stamp safe for emergencies (because the real visa officers are too lazy to be called in for an emergency).

9) I recently supported a movie on Ricky Ross, one that immediately won three awards in 2006 for best feature-length documentary, and I have to say, on the basis of this book, that Rick Ross was clearly not a gang member; was a tennis star and all-around good guy, was trying to make school grades; was disciplined, professional, and entrepreneurial. He did not create the cocaine, he did not smuggle it into the country, he simply acted on the opportunity presented to him by the US Government and its agent Blandon.

10) There is a connection between CIA, the private sector prison managers in the US, and prisoners. This needs a more careful look.

11) Clinton's bodyguards (many of whom have died mysteriously since then) were fully witting of Bill and Hillary Clinton's full engagement in drug smuggling into the US via Arkansas, and CIA's related nefarious activities.

12) CIA not only provided post-arrest white washes for its drug dealers, but they also orchestrated tip-offs on planned raids.

13) Both local police departments, especially in California, and the US Government, appear to have a standard “loot and release” program where drug dealers caught with very large amounts of cash (multiple millions) are instantly freed in return for a quit claim on the money.

14) CIA Operations Officers (clandestine case officers) lied not just to the FBI and Justice, but to their own CIA lawyers.

15) DEA in Costa Rica was dirtier than most, skimming cash and protecting drug transports.

The book ends with a revelation and an observation.

The revelation: just prior to both the Contra drug deals and the CIA's ramping up in Afghanistan, which now provides 80% of the world's heroin under US administration, the CIA and Justice concluded a Memorandum of Understanding that gave CIA carte blanche in the drug business.. The author says this smacked of premeditation, and I agree.

The observation: here is a quote from page 452: ” …the real danger the CIA has always presented–unbridled criminal stupidity, clouded in a blanked of national security.”

Shame on us all. It's time to clean house.

Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade
Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America, Updated edition
The Big White Lie: The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War : An Undercover Odyssey
Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb
The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA
From BCCI to ISI: The Saga of Entrapment Continues
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
Breaking the Real Axis of Evil: How to Oust the World's Last Dictators by 2025
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)

2007/05/052009/12/04

Review: At the Center of the Storm–My Years at the CIA

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Corruption, Crime (Government), Diplomacy, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), War & Face of Battle

Deceptive Beginning, Vital Middle, Disappointing End,

May 5, 2007

George Tenet

This is a very good book. There are some extremely important nuggets in here that essentially put the final nail in Dick Cheney's coffin while certifying the importance of holding Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Cambone accountable for their high crimes and misdemeanors. Condi Rice continues to be depicted, in this book and others, as a zero in the sense of having been ignored, sidelined, or run over by Dick Cheney and his minions.

The book loses one star for a lack of prior context. George Tenet was Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for many years, and then Intelligence Director for Bill Clinton. He avoids any mention of his long-standing role in helping dismantle the very IC he ended up leading, and he is terribly deceptive when he says he asked for more funding for anti-terrorism, but fails to mention his inability to redirect funds within the $35-40 billon he had at the time. Today the IC has $60-70B and we are no safer–these clowns cannot even put together a consolidated accurate terrorist watchlist five years after 9/11.

The bottom line on the author is that he is a big-hearted staffer, not a leader and not a strategic thinker. He was a place-holder in a job that two presidents saw fit to relegate to losers–a mouse, a pit-bull, and a turtle.

He takes credit for months of redesign dialog but fails to point out that there was no substantive contact with iconoclasts, published author-practitioners. I am especially angry that he placed Buzzy Krongard in as Executive Director. In my view, Krongard was there to look out for Wall Street interests and ensure Brown and Root did not get caught smuggling drugs into the USA through New Orleans and heavy equipment being returned to the USA “for repairs.” I've come to the conclusion, after thirty years in this business, that there are four CIA's: 1) White House sychophants; 2) Wall Street support via Carlyle Group and a small network of retired intermediaries; 3) the “front” of earnest people working out of official installations, incapable of actually doing serious spying (I was part of this group); and finally, a multinational “dirty deeds” arm that does terribly immoral and illegal things with Saudi money, Egyptian sodomy of children (photographed so as to force them to spy on their fathers), and so on.

In many ways, this book is a capstone account of the death of US secret intelligence. It's gone. The DNI, DCI and USDI are earnest men, but they will fail because they simply do not comprehend the “paradigms of failure” (essay online) and are not willing to contemplate a clean-sheet fresh-start. On page 26 the author confirms that “time and technology [have] passed us by.”

As fascinating as his claims are of ramping up on Bin Laden, I go with Michael Sheuer's damnation as published by the Washington Post. Condi Rice blew off warnings, Dick Cheney focused on energy conspiracies with Enron and Exxon, and the plain truth is that the CIA refused to read the book by Yossef Bodansky or view the PBS broadcast in 1994 by Steve Emerson. They closed themselves off from open sources (called “Open Sores” within the now near-moronic secret world).

The middle of the book is sensational. Chapter Thirteen on “The Threat Matrix” and the succeeding chapters in Part II of the book are superb and contain many nuggets that restored much of my respect for the author.

The author damns Cheney on page 138 for taking over the National Security Council and it is clear that if there is one person to be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, it is not the President, but rather the Vice President.

On page 317 he tells us that “Policy makers have a right to their own opinions but not their own set of facts.”

He slams Rumsfeld for blocking several 737's full of State people and language-qualified individuals specifically trained and organized to get the post-war reconstruction off to a good start. He does not mention Rumsfeld's idiocy in allowing Pakistan to evacuate 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda people from Tora Bora, but he does mention that General Tommy Franks refused to put the Rangers in Bin Laden's path, claiming he needed weeks to set it up (this is of course baloney, they could have been air-dropped in 24 hours with a 3-day resupply 24 hours after arrival).

He defends himself on the “slam dunk” as applying to the presentation plan for the UN, not the intelligence. I want to believe this, but the fact that he took imagery and other materials to the first NSC meeting, significantly on Iraq rather than terrorism, gives me pause. I certainly do believe that Dick Cheney hijacked the White House and closed out the entire policy process, but George Tenet, Colin Powell, and our generals all failed us by not resigning and screaming out at the top of their lungs against the high crimes and misdemeanors they witnessed Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Steve Cambone commit, day after day.

He lays bare Cheney's misbehavior in stating on 26 August 2002 that “there is no doubt” on Iraq's having weapons of mass deception but very strangely does not mention that both Hussein's son-in-law who defected to the US, and every one of the 25+ line crossers that Charlie Allen sent in, all said the same thing: kept the cook books, destroyed the stocks, bluffing for regional ego's sake.

He slams Paul Bremer for de-Bathification and confirms that “Iraq came at exactly the right time for Al Qaeda.”

The author avoids major criticism of Stephen Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, but he reveals the DoD operations against Iran. He tells us about Chalabi hoaxing DIA for millions, and that President Bush ordered Chalabi off the payroll.

He confirms Paul William's view on Al Qaeda having nuclear capabilities.

Pre 9/11 air travelers believed “be calm, see Cuba” when hijacked. Pre 9-11, and today still, our senior government executives are still confusing loyalty with integrity. We can do better. We need, right now, a “Smart Nation.”

On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World
Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11
Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America
First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan
Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Osama's Revenge: THE NEXT 9/11 : What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You
The True Cost of Conflict/Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,

on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

I Respond to Comments Here or There

2007/03/222009/12/04

Review: Rumsfeld–His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy

4 Star, Biography & Memoirs, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Government), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), War & Face of Battle

Damns the Man, Ignores the Dead and Wounded,

March 22, 2007

Andrew Cockburn

Having read most of the books about the last eight years and the various debacles imposed on the world and on America by Cheney-Bush (see my lists on Iraq After-Action Reports and on Evaluating Dick Cheney), much of this book was not a surprise, but I would also be quick to say that there are a number of gems here not found elsewhere.

Of special interest to me were the reality that the lies and fantasy on the Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq were a replay of the Team B lies about Soviet weapons successfully carried out under Reagan. This cabal has a clear pattern of believing that any lie is acceptable, that Congress is to be ignored, that there is no constraint on Executive power.

Gems:

Rumsfeld started talking about bombing Iraq before 3 pm on 9/11.

Rumsfeld built the force that he fought with, back when he was first secretary of defense.

Sadaam Hussein was the only Arab leader that welcomes Rumsfeld in the 1990's.

Novak was a willing accomplice in destroying CIA under Reagan with Team B lies, and again in destroying Plume today.

Rumsfled liked Doug Feith *because* of Feith's notorious stupidity.

Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff was widely viewed as an “abused puppy” avoiding confrontation with Rumsfeld.

CIA won the Afghan war, but Rumseld claimed it for himself. No mention that I noticed of Rumsfeld's disterous mistakes in allowing Pakistan to evacuate 3000 Tlaiban and Al Qaeda, and in refusing to but a Ranger battalion in Bin Laden's path when CIA had “eyes on” for four days (see my reviews of “First In” and “JAWBREAKER” as well as various books on my Iraq After Action list).

After a while I tired of this book. I thought to myself that the author has done a good job on destroying Rumsfeld, but there is a great deal of context that is missing, including Cheney's more active role behind the scenes, and virtually no mention of the thousands of US dead and 75,000 amputees that Rumsfeld created for no good reason.

My bottom line: Rumsfeld was put at Defense because the first candidate irritated the President, the President was a fool and wanted to appoint someone his father hated, and Dick Cheney was happy to have his former mentor over at Defense, which Cheney, as a more recent Secretary of Defense, no doubt felt he could manage from the White House. America chose to allow this cabal to steal two elections in a row, and to go to war on a web of lies denounced in advance by General Zinni,at OSS.Net, and in many other places. SHAME ON US. Rumsfled is our child, and we have to live with what we have wrought on the world.

Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan
Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency

Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,

on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

I Respond to Comments Here or There

2007/02/172009/12/04

Review: Secrecy & Privilege–Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

4 Star, Crime (Government), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Impeachment & Treason, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

Superb Personal Effort, Narrow, Needs Other References,

February 17, 2007

Robert Parry

This is a superb personal effort by the author, and it does a tremendous job of harvesting both news media stories and key books. It is however a bit anrrow, and I recommend other references.

A simple example: he speaks of the narrow Bush victory in Florida without reference to Greg Palast's PRE-ELECTION reporting, subsequently summarized in the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy or any understanding of the fact that over a year in advance of the election Jeb Bush stole the election by disenfranchizing over 35,000 black voters whose names were remotely–very remotely–linked to the names of felons from other states (only Florida felons cannot vote, but Jeb Bush wanted this so bad he paid ten times the going rate to a “friendly” company that used Texas felon lists to “disqualify” voters who only found out they were disqualified on election day.

Another example: he has a great (but dated) appendix on CIA and who it has funded as intermediaries and end recipients of CIA cash all over the world, but he completely misses the same necessary information for Wall Street, the 40,000 non-profits created to hide wealth and manage perceptions (as well as lure people off land with gold, see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).

There are many other books on the Nazi, mafia, and Saudi corruption ties of the Bush family, and there are also other books that are more comprehensive and current on the problems we face today because of young Bush II and his war criminal vice President. See for example, “Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil; Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids and my personal favority, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency.

Robert Parry is a gifted investigative reporter. His first book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth' remains among my favorites. In this book, what may be his most important message is this: the extremists Republicans (I am an estranged moderate Republican disgusted with Karl Rove's hijacking of the party) have combined secrecy, lies, and “perception management” to completely confuse and mislead the public, while carrying out high crimes and misdimeanors against the government, the treasury, the military, and the people.

From Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and the young (and rather stupid) George Bush II, this book paints a very ugly and accurate picture of the pathological abuse of power and of the public purse by these people. Most of them need to be tried, convicted, and jailed. None of them are fit for public office in a moral informed democracy, but then, as the author makes clear, we do not live in a moral, informed democracy. We live in a The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead where most Americans cannot identify all the states around their own, much less other countries. We have gotten the government we deserve.

One final observation: this book is super but in isolation. I am increasingly persauded that Amazon should digitize ALL books, so that customers can “buy” composite renditions of information that honor copyright at the paragraph and page level, while creating unique original visualizations and summarizations that are free of copyright and can be bought on their own. I would pay $1,000 for a visualization–a poster–of all of the criminal, dictator, and immoral connections of George Bush II and his evil former master, Dick Cheney (whose Secret Service nickname is “Edgar,” for the guy that managed the puppet). Bush has finally figured out, way too late, that Cheney hijacked and destroyed the first six years.

Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,

on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

I Respond to Comments Here or There

2007/01/292009/12/04

Review: How The World Really Works

6 Star Top 10%, America (Founders, Current Situation), Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Religion & Politics of Religion

Best Insight into Organized Crime-Vatican-Wall Street Collaboration,

January 29, 2007

Alan B. Jones

I am going to put my reputation on the line, and the 850+ non-fiction books I have read that make me the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction (and to my great surprise, today #49 over all fiction, movies, music, and software as well as non-fiction) for the simple reason that too many people discuss books such as this by labeling it “conspiracy theory.”

It's not a conspiracy theory if it is true. I will try to be brief as well as illuminative.

First off, the author has culled a handful of books that support his case against a global financial elite, and these tend, with the exception of the Quigley book, to be left of left of center. I am however happy to add a number of books that support his essential theses that a handful of banking families control the central banks which are NOT government banks, and through loans, control governments, impoverish the middle class, and harvest profit without conscience from the “working poor.”

Try these on for size:

1) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. 85% rock solid, 15% flakey, but in my view, a perfectly reasonable slam on the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund as instruments for impoverishing lesser developed countries, not empowering them.

2) The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs, another slam on the WTO/IMF, which he relegates to third rate out-dated economist ranks, not at all focused or able to achieve what he calls “developmental economics.”

3) The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future – and What It Will Take to Win It Back by Jeff Faux, a fine discussion of how our elites bribe the elites in other countries, and the both screw the public by looting the commonwealths of gold, oil, etcetera, without returns to the people whose families have lived on top of these resources for centuries.

4) Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It, by Paul Peterson of the Council of Foreign Relations (which the author hates, in my view it has two types of members–one manipulative like Henry Kissinger, another honest, like Paul Peterson), in which both the Republican and the Democratic parties are lambasted for being the ignorant slaves of the ultra-rich elites, and hopeless out of touch with reality and unable to represent We the People.

5) War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It by General Smedley Butler, the highest decorated Marine of his time, who complained about being an enforcer for banks and businesses that lent money to the Third World then sent the Marines to get it back for them.

There are many other books that support this author's book reviews in great detail and from many varied perspectives. I refer you to my various lists, including the list on “Screwing the 90% that do the work.”

The author has some pretensions and some slop, his arguments are not always consistent, but then neither are mine. On balance I regard this book as a first rate personal effort that should be read by every middle class person wondering, as Lou Dobbs on CNN has wondered, why we are exporting middle class jobs and importing poverty in the form of illegal aliens.

The author wraps up his varied reviews with a focus on the relationship between organized crime and the super-elite as well as their political elite (e.g. the Bush family, the best of the servant class), and on the relationship between drugs, covert operations, and Wall Street. Here again the author draws on a very tiny sub-set of books while not listing many others that support his thesis so I will mention a few here.

Having been through both Viet-Nam as a youth and the Central American Wars as an adult, I am quite certain that there are at least four different slices of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where I served for ten years as a clandestine case officer:

A small slice does what the White House wants, including black bag jobs.

A small but more important slice does what Wall Street wants, and helps Wall Street with access to financially relevant information that the public which pays for the CIA does not get. Buzzy Krongard, until recently Executive Director of the CIA, comes to mind as the most recent leader of this section.

A larger slice, that does covert action off the books with funding from Saudi Arabia and others, sometimes called the Safari Club, sometimes having off-shoots like Ted Shackley's Southern Air Transport, and so on. This slice can provide the intersection between criminal activities, white collar crime profits, illegal White House activities, and plain profiteering.

Finally, 90% of the CIA, folks like me that did not realize they were simply going through the motions and giving the local counterintelligence service a full-time rabbit to follow while the commercial clandestine boys and girls looted the bank in bright daylight.

I have two intelligence lists that can be helpful here, but I have not focused on creating crime lists. I'll just say that between the books on the The Working Poor: Invisible in America and on being Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in Americaand books on immoral predatory capitalism and unilateral militarism of the Dick Cheney variety (I have compiled a list of 25 specific impeachable actions by Dick Cheney based on three books:

The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

There is a very clear-cut and direct relationship between dictators, transnational organized crime and terrorism, and Wall Street as well as the Republican and Democratic National Committees (see Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It)

That reminds me: there is an entire literature on petroleum, peak oil, petrodollars, and so on. Americans have been betrayed by their government since at least 1975, and more likely, back to the 1950's when naiveté about international affairs was replaced by active complicity.

Good news. 1) Internet leveled playing field. 2) Not enough guns to kill us all. 3) A few of the really rich have realized they need to help us create infinite wealth for ourselves, or lose all they have to locusts. Read, be vocal, be active, we're going to get a grip on our commonwealth soon.

Tip of the Hat to Jere for the following added links:
When Corporations Rule the World
The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents–The Definitive Edition (The Collected Works of F. a. Hayek)
Money Masters of Our Time

Click Here to Vote on Review at Amazon,

on Cover Above to Buy or Read Other Reviews,

I Respond to Comments Here or There