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Octafish
Octafish's Journal
Octafish's Journal
July 15, 2013
I don't recall Pruneface, Poppy or Smirko ever doing anything nice for Jimmy Carter.
Here's when President Obama had everybody over to the Oval Office.
Please note President Carter's body language.
July 15, 2013
"You've described for us those thousand points of light -- all the people and organizations spread out all across the country who are like stars brightening the lives of those around them," Obama said at the White House. "But given the humility that's defined your life, I suspect it's harder for you to see something that's clear to everybody else around you, and that's how bright a light you shine."
"On behalf of all of us, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can't thank you enough," Obama added.
SOURCE: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/15/19487988-obama-toasts-bush-we-are-surely-a-kinder-and-gentler-nation-because-of-you
Obama toasts Poppy Bush: 'We are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you'
"You've described for us those thousand points of light -- all the people and organizations spread out all across the country who are like stars brightening the lives of those around them," Obama said at the White House. "But given the humility that's defined your life, I suspect it's harder for you to see something that's clear to everybody else around you, and that's how bright a light you shine."
"On behalf of all of us, let me just say that we are surely a kinder and gentler nation because of you, and we can't thank you enough," Obama added.
SOURCE: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/15/19487988-obama-toasts-bush-we-are-surely-a-kinder-and-gentler-nation-because-of-you
July 15, 2013
Wanna know why I think there's no New New Deal for the 21st Century?
One of the things I most happily anticipated in 2009 was a government spending program that would create jobs and tackle the big problems facing the nation, from infrastructure like a new green power grid to de-polluting the environment. What's more, Government spending on new programs would mean new jobs at government pay grades, improving the quality of life of the nation's middle class.
Keynesian economics, traditional FDR Democratic New Deal approach, would also mean there'd be fewer people available to fight for the low-pay service jobs the "job creators" in the private sector. To compete with the government for workers in such an economic climate would require the rich and the corporations they own to pay higher wages. So, the likes of Wall Street and their servants in Washington hated the idea.
It used to be the federal government had to have a certain percentage of jobs go to unions, women and minority-owned business, and others who historically were trampled under hoof in the rush to the federal money trough. I'm not sure if this is still the law, SCROTUS being the 5-4 Scalia cesspool that it is.
But the biggest reason for no New New Deal for the 21st Century, IMFO, is this: If people didn't have to worry about living paycheck to paycheck, if people were sure their families had a home, enough to eat, and the economic security for a sound future, like college and a decent retirement, then the people would have time to wonder more about why the government works so hard to help the rich and does so little -- relatively -- to help the middle class and poor. They'd also find more time to wonder why the government always has money for war and the companies the warmongers own.
Even in our time, where the greatest amount of wealth in human history has been amassed, that would be a problem for those who like things as they are. A New New Deal might interrupt the status quo, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
So. What's the ad say? "Stay thirsty, my Friends!"
Stay hungry, too.
July 15, 2013
by Alberto Armendariz, The Nation, Saturday, July 13, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Appearances deceive. With his striped swimsuit, white flip-flops, jean shirt and a big backpack, Glenn Greenwald looks like a tourist walking along the Sao Conrado in Rio de Janeiro. But his trade is that of journalist, blogger and columnist for the British daily, The Guardian, who surprised the world with the revelations about the extensive computer spy network of the United States, leaked by Edward Snowden, the ex-intelligence analyst of the National Security Agency (NSA).
"Snowden has enough information with which to cause more damage to the government of the United States in one single minute by himself than any other person has had in the entire history of the United States," Greenwald, 46, affirmed to The Nation, and who, from these latitudes, writes regularly on the issues of international security that have made him into a celebrity, the winner of various distinguished awards.
Today, this New Yorker, ex-lawyer, is in the eye of the storm. Legislators in Washington want to bring him to trial; spies of various nations look to obtain the secret information that Snowden shared with him, the heaviest, in Hong Kong and that he continues sending from Moscow via a system of encrypted electonic mail. He knows that he's being surveilled and that his conversations are monitored. This includes the theft of his laptop from his boyfriend, from their own home.
Three men wait in the lobby of the hotel Royal Tulip with credentials from a symposium on osteoporosis, a meeting of which the (hotel) concierge has no idea. Are they really doctors or are they following Greenwald? Appearances deceive.
Q: Share with us about Snowden's decision to stay in Russian while awaiting to come to Latin America?
Yes, the most important thing is not to end up in the custody of the United States, whose government has demonstrated to be extremely vengeful in punishing those who reveal inconvenient truth, and whose judicial system can't be trusted when it treats people accused of putting the nation's security at risk; the judges do all tehy can to secure convictions in those cases. He would be imprisoned immediately to pt a stop on debate he helped start, and he'd finish the rest of his days behind bars.
Q: Has Russia guaranteed his security?
There aren't many countries on planet earth that have the capacity and the desire to challenge the demands of the United States. However, Russia is one of those states and has treated him well up to now.
Q: Beyond the revelations about the functioning of the spy system in general, what additional information does Snowden have?
Snowden has enough information with which to cause more damage to the government of the United States in one single minute by himself than any other person has had in the entire history of the United States. But that is not his objective. His objective is to reveal computer programs that persons around the whole world use without knowing that they are being watched and without having consciously agreed to giving up their right to privacy. He has an enormous quantity of documents that would be most damaging to the government of the United States should they be made public.
Q: Is he afraid someone will try to kill him?
That is a possibility, although I do not think that would be of much benefit to anyone at this point. He's distributed thousands of documents and has ensured that various people around the world has his complete archive. Should something happent to him, those documents would be made public. That's his insurance police. The government of the United States should be on its knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something should happen to him, all the information would be revealed and that would make for their worst nightmare.
Q: Could Latin America provide a good place of refuge for Snowden?
Only certain countries, such as various countries in Latin American, China and Russia, have challenged the United States, they have noticed that the United States no longer is in a position of power that it previously had before the rest of the world, and that the rest of the nations no longer have to obey its demands as if they were under imperial orders. In Latin America there is a natural affinity for the United States, but at the same time there is a great resentment for specific historic policies made from Washington for the region. What happened with the aircraft carryign Evo Morales from Europe provoked a very strong reaction, it was as if Bolivia were treated as a colony and not as a sovereign state.
Q: Of the documents Snowden shared with you, is there much more information relating to Latin America?
Yes. For each nation that has an advanced system of communications, which is the case from Mexico to Argentina, there are documents that detail how the United States picks up information from the flow, the programs that are used to capture the transmissions, the amount of information intercepted that is accomplished each day, and much more. One form of intercepting communications is through a United States telecommunications company that has contracts with most of the nations in Latin America. The important thing will be to see what is the reaction of the different governments. I don't believe the governments of Mexico and Colombia will do much in this regard. Perhaps, however, the governments of Argentina and Venezuela will be inclined to take concrete actions.
Translated by Octafish -- Sorry if there are any mistakes. Please let me know and I'll correct.
SOURCE: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1600674-glenn-greenwald-snowden-tiene-informacion-para-causar-mas-dano
GOT some help from: http://www.spanishdict.com/translation
The great DUer Luminous Animal started an OP on the quotes and their context:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3245975
Hey, Carl! Read my translation...Note the part about the three doctors no US report mentions.
The journalist who received the leaks from a CIA mole says there are more documentsby Alberto Armendariz, The Nation, Saturday, July 13, 2013
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Appearances deceive. With his striped swimsuit, white flip-flops, jean shirt and a big backpack, Glenn Greenwald looks like a tourist walking along the Sao Conrado in Rio de Janeiro. But his trade is that of journalist, blogger and columnist for the British daily, The Guardian, who surprised the world with the revelations about the extensive computer spy network of the United States, leaked by Edward Snowden, the ex-intelligence analyst of the National Security Agency (NSA).
"Snowden has enough information with which to cause more damage to the government of the United States in one single minute by himself than any other person has had in the entire history of the United States," Greenwald, 46, affirmed to The Nation, and who, from these latitudes, writes regularly on the issues of international security that have made him into a celebrity, the winner of various distinguished awards.
Today, this New Yorker, ex-lawyer, is in the eye of the storm. Legislators in Washington want to bring him to trial; spies of various nations look to obtain the secret information that Snowden shared with him, the heaviest, in Hong Kong and that he continues sending from Moscow via a system of encrypted electonic mail. He knows that he's being surveilled and that his conversations are monitored. This includes the theft of his laptop from his boyfriend, from their own home.
Three men wait in the lobby of the hotel Royal Tulip with credentials from a symposium on osteoporosis, a meeting of which the (hotel) concierge has no idea. Are they really doctors or are they following Greenwald? Appearances deceive.
Q: Share with us about Snowden's decision to stay in Russian while awaiting to come to Latin America?
Yes, the most important thing is not to end up in the custody of the United States, whose government has demonstrated to be extremely vengeful in punishing those who reveal inconvenient truth, and whose judicial system can't be trusted when it treats people accused of putting the nation's security at risk; the judges do all tehy can to secure convictions in those cases. He would be imprisoned immediately to pt a stop on debate he helped start, and he'd finish the rest of his days behind bars.
Q: Has Russia guaranteed his security?
There aren't many countries on planet earth that have the capacity and the desire to challenge the demands of the United States. However, Russia is one of those states and has treated him well up to now.
Q: Beyond the revelations about the functioning of the spy system in general, what additional information does Snowden have?
Snowden has enough information with which to cause more damage to the government of the United States in one single minute by himself than any other person has had in the entire history of the United States. But that is not his objective. His objective is to reveal computer programs that persons around the whole world use without knowing that they are being watched and without having consciously agreed to giving up their right to privacy. He has an enormous quantity of documents that would be most damaging to the government of the United States should they be made public.
Q: Is he afraid someone will try to kill him?
That is a possibility, although I do not think that would be of much benefit to anyone at this point. He's distributed thousands of documents and has ensured that various people around the world has his complete archive. Should something happent to him, those documents would be made public. That's his insurance police. The government of the United States should be on its knees every day praying that nothing happens to Snowden, because if something should happen to him, all the information would be revealed and that would make for their worst nightmare.
Q: Could Latin America provide a good place of refuge for Snowden?
Only certain countries, such as various countries in Latin American, China and Russia, have challenged the United States, they have noticed that the United States no longer is in a position of power that it previously had before the rest of the world, and that the rest of the nations no longer have to obey its demands as if they were under imperial orders. In Latin America there is a natural affinity for the United States, but at the same time there is a great resentment for specific historic policies made from Washington for the region. What happened with the aircraft carryign Evo Morales from Europe provoked a very strong reaction, it was as if Bolivia were treated as a colony and not as a sovereign state.
Q: Of the documents Snowden shared with you, is there much more information relating to Latin America?
Yes. For each nation that has an advanced system of communications, which is the case from Mexico to Argentina, there are documents that detail how the United States picks up information from the flow, the programs that are used to capture the transmissions, the amount of information intercepted that is accomplished each day, and much more. One form of intercepting communications is through a United States telecommunications company that has contracts with most of the nations in Latin America. The important thing will be to see what is the reaction of the different governments. I don't believe the governments of Mexico and Colombia will do much in this regard. Perhaps, however, the governments of Argentina and Venezuela will be inclined to take concrete actions.
Translated by Octafish -- Sorry if there are any mistakes. Please let me know and I'll correct.
SOURCE: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1600674-glenn-greenwald-snowden-tiene-informacion-para-causar-mas-dano
GOT some help from: http://www.spanishdict.com/translation
The great DUer Luminous Animal started an OP on the quotes and their context:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3245975
July 13, 2013
And in more recent days...
Blackwater managed CIA Predator drone assassination program
As for Snowden's go-to reporter...
DC Journo Overhears Intel Pros Talking About ‘Disappearing’ NSA Leaker, Glenn Greenwald
CIA contracted with the Mafia in 1960 to do that to Castro. Wet work continues to present day.
The CIA Enlisted the Mafia to Kill Fidel Castro in 1960And in more recent days...
Blackwater managed CIA Predator drone assassination program
As for Snowden's go-to reporter...
DC Journo Overhears Intel Pros Talking About ‘Disappearing’ NSA Leaker, Glenn Greenwald
July 12, 2013
‘Disappointed’ Siegelman: Obama Justice Dept. Virtually The Same As Bush DOJ
JUSTIN ELLIOTT NOVEMBER 25, 2009, 10:42 AM
When the Obama Administration argued in a filing earlier this month that the Supreme Court should not consider an appeal by Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor wasn’t surprised, even though the Obama filing maintained the Bush-era stance in Siegelman’s controversial corruption case.
“There’s really been no substantial change in the heart of the Department of Justice from the Bush-Rove Department of Justice,” Siegelman tells TPMmuckraker in an interview.
Siegelman, a Democrat, served roughly nine months in prison after his 2006 bribery conviction. He was ordered released pending appeal in March 2008. The case, which has been dogged by allegations of politicization and prosecutorial misconduct — including links to Karl Rove — centers on what the government called a pay-to-play scheme in which Siegelman appointed a large donor to a state regulatory board.
Siegelman has asked the Supreme Court to consider the definition of bribery, arguing that he merely engaged in routine political transactions. But, in the Nov. 13 filing that raised Siegelman’s hackles, Obama’s solicitor general argued that “corrupt intent” had been established in the trial.
While Solicitor General Elena Kagan was appointed by Obama, Siegelman says the DOJ staffers who are giving advice and making decisions on his case are the same people who were at the department under Bush. “The people who have been writing the briefs for the government are the same people who were involved in the prosecution,” he says.
CONTINUED...
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/disappointed_siegelman_obama_doj_virtually_the_sam.php
I'm disappointed, too. I had hoped that the Justice Department would lean less corporate and more individual rights, you know more "Democratic," in a Democratic administration.
Do you suffer from echolalia or echopraxia?
You very often repeat part of what my posts say. Then, you add a conclusion I didn't make.
Padilla and Siegelman were convicted of crimes by the same State that cannot find cause to indict the likes of Dick Cheney or George W Bush.
I believe if we were to ask Edward Snowden his thoughts about your question, he'd agree that the state has criminally mistreated Padilla and has falsely tried ("criminally tried" sounds so Orwellian) Siegelman.
I wish we could ask what Padilla thinks. Unfortunately, that is no longer possible due to his mental state.
We do know what Siegelman thinks:
‘Disappointed’ Siegelman: Obama Justice Dept. Virtually The Same As Bush DOJ
JUSTIN ELLIOTT NOVEMBER 25, 2009, 10:42 AM
When the Obama Administration argued in a filing earlier this month that the Supreme Court should not consider an appeal by Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor wasn’t surprised, even though the Obama filing maintained the Bush-era stance in Siegelman’s controversial corruption case.
“There’s really been no substantial change in the heart of the Department of Justice from the Bush-Rove Department of Justice,” Siegelman tells TPMmuckraker in an interview.
Siegelman, a Democrat, served roughly nine months in prison after his 2006 bribery conviction. He was ordered released pending appeal in March 2008. The case, which has been dogged by allegations of politicization and prosecutorial misconduct — including links to Karl Rove — centers on what the government called a pay-to-play scheme in which Siegelman appointed a large donor to a state regulatory board.
Siegelman has asked the Supreme Court to consider the definition of bribery, arguing that he merely engaged in routine political transactions. But, in the Nov. 13 filing that raised Siegelman’s hackles, Obama’s solicitor general argued that “corrupt intent” had been established in the trial.
While Solicitor General Elena Kagan was appointed by Obama, Siegelman says the DOJ staffers who are giving advice and making decisions on his case are the same people who were at the department under Bush. “The people who have been writing the briefs for the government are the same people who were involved in the prosecution,” he says.
CONTINUED...
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/disappointed_siegelman_obama_doj_virtually_the_sam.php
I'm disappointed, too. I had hoped that the Justice Department would lean less corporate and more individual rights, you know more "Democratic," in a Democratic administration.
July 12, 2013
Ask Jose Padilla.
He's another guy James Comey* may want to forget.
The government of the United States destroyed his mind.
*"We now know much of what Jose Padilla knows, and what we have learned confirms that the President made the right call and that that call saved lives." -- James Comey, Deputy Attorney General; press conference, when asked about Bush torture program.
July 12, 2013
Andrei Amalrik wrote 'Will the Soviet Union Survive until 1984?'
Read it in junior high and it gave me hope that communist tyranny would end.
Perhaps, one day, capitalist tyranny also will end.
"I must emphasize that my essay is based not on scholarly research but only on observation. From an academic point of view, it may appear to be only empty chatter. But for Western students of the Soviet Union, at any rate, this discussion should have the same interest that a fish would have for an ichthyologist if it suddenly began to talk."
SOURCE: http://all-history.org/474.html
July 11, 2013
Cheney's Multi-Million Dollar Revolving Door
News: As Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney steered millions of dollars in government business to a private military contractor -- whose parent company just happened to give him a high-paying job after he left the government.
By Robert Bryce
Mother Jones
August 2, 2000
EXCERPT...
In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report. That same year, BRS won a massive, five-year logistics contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia.
After Bill Clinton's election cost Cheney his government job, he wound up in 1995 as CEO of Halliburton Company, the Dallas-based oil services giant -- which just happens to own Brown & Root Services. Since then, Cheney has collected more than $10 million in salary and stock payments from the company. In addition, he is currently the company's largest individual shareholder, holding stock and options worth another $40 million. Those holdings have undoubtedly been made more valuable by the ever-more lucrative contracts BRS continues to score with the Pentagon.
Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million.
CONTINUED...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/08/cheneys-multi-million-dollar-revolving-door
A real swell guy.
That was Cheney.
As SecDef, Sneer put into play the privatization of profits from war.
Cheney's Multi-Million Dollar Revolving Door
News: As Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney steered millions of dollars in government business to a private military contractor -- whose parent company just happened to give him a high-paying job after he left the government.
By Robert Bryce
Mother Jones
August 2, 2000
EXCERPT...
In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report. That same year, BRS won a massive, five-year logistics contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia.
After Bill Clinton's election cost Cheney his government job, he wound up in 1995 as CEO of Halliburton Company, the Dallas-based oil services giant -- which just happens to own Brown & Root Services. Since then, Cheney has collected more than $10 million in salary and stock payments from the company. In addition, he is currently the company's largest individual shareholder, holding stock and options worth another $40 million. Those holdings have undoubtedly been made more valuable by the ever-more lucrative contracts BRS continues to score with the Pentagon.
Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million.
CONTINUED...
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2000/08/cheneys-multi-million-dollar-revolving-door
A real swell guy.
July 11, 2013
Who Gave Bush His Teflon Coat in the Iran Contra Scam?
LosAngeles Times
November 04, 1988|JONATHAN KWITNY |
EXCERPT...
But the way George Bush has been let off the hook sickens me--as does the notion that he could be an acceptable candidate for the presidency, let alone leading the polls, less than two years after the Iran-Contra scandal broke.
The Bush-Reagan team rode to office on the issue of terrorism, pledging to halt it by never negotiating with terrorists and stopping others from doing so. For much of their Administration, federal law prohibited waging war on Nicaragua. Yet Bush attended dozens of meetings at which were discussed either our active role in starting and sustaining the Contra war or the secret supply of arms to Iran, which in public he called a leading terrorist state. Bush's assertion now that he didn't know of these activities is preposterous. An aide's minutes show him being briefed on arms shipments to Iran as they were in progress. He says that he misunderstood; he thought that the sales were Israeli. If so, he was muddleheaded on this linchpin issue and lacked leadership, considering our influence over Israel. Alternatively, he is simply lying; records show that he had been told earlier that Israel was acting as our front in the transactions.
In fact, Bob Woodward has reported, and Bush hasn't (to my knowledge) denied, that Bush was with Reagan when the President signed the Bible that was delivered as a gift to the "terrorist" ayatollah along with a planeload of missiles and other arms.
Nor was Bush just a loyal confidant who kept his mouth shut when Reagan erred. Bush, a former CIA director, hired career CIA officer Donald Gregg as his personal vice presidential adviser. When Contra military aid was banned, Gregg began phoning and meeting with an old CIA pal of both men, Felix Rodriguez, who, allegedly as a private citizen, went to the Salvadoran military base where arms were transferred for shipment in small craft to Contra bases.
Guns, ammo, mines and explosives were collected by men close to White House aide Oliver North and used in a terror war against civilian farm cooperatives in Nicaragua. Rodriguez ran the arms depot, at times talking almost daily with Gregg and meeting at least three times with Bush--whose office says that they only discussed other things, and that the presence of the arms deals on the agenda for one of those meetings was a typing error.
It gets worse. As his own assistant Rodriguez hired, under an assumed name, Luis Posada Carriles, another former CIA colleague who had just been sprung from a Venezuelan jail--with his help, Rodriguez has hinted. Posada was in jail for the mid-air bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that took 73 lives. That surpasses all the Arab terrorist acts that Bush and Reagan have complained of.
Bush's office has said that he didn't know of Posada's background. Nonsense. Posada bombed that airliner on Bush's watch, in October, 1976, and Castro's howls of CIA culpability and U.S. denials were big news. Surely a CIA director worthy of the title would have called for the file on Posada.
CONTINUED...
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-04/local/me-984_1_contra-arms
That particular fellah also seemed to have gotten a hand into every thing worth keeping secret since the Bay of Pigs Thing.
Oh well. Must be business as usual for the son of a Senator, another strange coincidence for a former head of the CIA turned vice president turned president turned father of a president.
Sorry to ramble. I get nostalgic.
Look forward, my Friend. And, stay thirsty!
See your Riggs and raise you a Nugan-Hand Bank.
And Banco Nazionale del Lavoro. And BCCI. And UBS. And just about every major bank since.
Odd how one name publicly and privately links these. The late, great Jonathan Kwitny wrote all about he seemed to weasel out of any illegality during Iran-Contra:
Who Gave Bush His Teflon Coat in the Iran Contra Scam?
LosAngeles Times
November 04, 1988|JONATHAN KWITNY |
EXCERPT...
But the way George Bush has been let off the hook sickens me--as does the notion that he could be an acceptable candidate for the presidency, let alone leading the polls, less than two years after the Iran-Contra scandal broke.
The Bush-Reagan team rode to office on the issue of terrorism, pledging to halt it by never negotiating with terrorists and stopping others from doing so. For much of their Administration, federal law prohibited waging war on Nicaragua. Yet Bush attended dozens of meetings at which were discussed either our active role in starting and sustaining the Contra war or the secret supply of arms to Iran, which in public he called a leading terrorist state. Bush's assertion now that he didn't know of these activities is preposterous. An aide's minutes show him being briefed on arms shipments to Iran as they were in progress. He says that he misunderstood; he thought that the sales were Israeli. If so, he was muddleheaded on this linchpin issue and lacked leadership, considering our influence over Israel. Alternatively, he is simply lying; records show that he had been told earlier that Israel was acting as our front in the transactions.
In fact, Bob Woodward has reported, and Bush hasn't (to my knowledge) denied, that Bush was with Reagan when the President signed the Bible that was delivered as a gift to the "terrorist" ayatollah along with a planeload of missiles and other arms.
Nor was Bush just a loyal confidant who kept his mouth shut when Reagan erred. Bush, a former CIA director, hired career CIA officer Donald Gregg as his personal vice presidential adviser. When Contra military aid was banned, Gregg began phoning and meeting with an old CIA pal of both men, Felix Rodriguez, who, allegedly as a private citizen, went to the Salvadoran military base where arms were transferred for shipment in small craft to Contra bases.
Guns, ammo, mines and explosives were collected by men close to White House aide Oliver North and used in a terror war against civilian farm cooperatives in Nicaragua. Rodriguez ran the arms depot, at times talking almost daily with Gregg and meeting at least three times with Bush--whose office says that they only discussed other things, and that the presence of the arms deals on the agenda for one of those meetings was a typing error.
It gets worse. As his own assistant Rodriguez hired, under an assumed name, Luis Posada Carriles, another former CIA colleague who had just been sprung from a Venezuelan jail--with his help, Rodriguez has hinted. Posada was in jail for the mid-air bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that took 73 lives. That surpasses all the Arab terrorist acts that Bush and Reagan have complained of.
Bush's office has said that he didn't know of Posada's background. Nonsense. Posada bombed that airliner on Bush's watch, in October, 1976, and Castro's howls of CIA culpability and U.S. denials were big news. Surely a CIA director worthy of the title would have called for the file on Posada.
CONTINUED...
http://articles.latimes.com/1988-11-04/local/me-984_1_contra-arms
That particular fellah also seemed to have gotten a hand into every thing worth keeping secret since the Bay of Pigs Thing.
Oh well. Must be business as usual for the son of a Senator, another strange coincidence for a former head of the CIA turned vice president turned president turned father of a president.
Sorry to ramble. I get nostalgic.
Look forward, my Friend. And, stay thirsty!
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