Robert Gates (Rummy's Replacement) = bin Ladin's Teacher and Protector

[kpete]

1998 article

Bin Laden comes home to roost
His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story
By Michael Moran
NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 1998


While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now.
So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the “reliable” partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow.....

The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its “mission,” had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual “Soviet Military Power” report right up to 1990.


Given that context, a decision was made to provide America’s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower.

That decision is coming home to roost.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340101/

[texpatriot2004]

1. Does BushCo know anyone who isn't part of one scandal or

another? Obviously not.

[bullimiami]

2. super-friend and enabler of saddam hussein as well.

and a iran-contra insider. unprosecuted.

[Toots]

3. Just shows Bush* just doesn't get it

He still wants to surround himself with inept and devious partisans that are only in it for themselves and the Party instead of America. Clinton chose a Republican to be his Sec of Defense but Bush* refuses to accept the idea any Democrat might actually help this nation instead of just helping Bush* I really hope Impeachment happens. IMO it is an absolute necessity.

[wishlist]

4. Up to his neck, sounds like he knows where all the bodies are buried n/t

[acmejack]

5. Count on it>

Another of the "Old boys", they'll be thrilled, The gang's almost all there...

[BonnieJW]

6. Bev Harris sent this email regarding Bob Gates

I know some people don't like her, but I put her name in the title so they don't have to read this.

Permission to excerpt or reprint granted, with link to
http://www.blackboxvoting.org

Rumsfield replacement (Robert Gates) was director of voting company
by Bev Harris

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfield will resign, reportedly to be
replaced by former CIA director Robert Gates.

Gates was on the board of directors of VoteHere, a strange little
company that was the biggest elections industry lobbyist for the Help
America Vote Act (HAVA). VoteHere spent more money than ES&S, Diebold, and
Sequoia combined to help ram HAVA through. And HAVA, of course, was a
bill sponsored by by convicted Abramoff pal Bob Ney and K-street lobbyist
buddy Steny Hoyer. HAVA put electronic voting on steroids.

You can find copies of the VoteHere lobbying forms here:
http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/m_opr_viewer.exe?DoFn=0

I can't get them to save to pdf, perhaps you can. Enter search terms in
both "registrant" and "client" fields and put in terms "Rhoads"
"Livingston" and "Votehere" (one at a time.). Then look at the gravy train
while it was in the process of derailing American democracy.

I first became acquainted with VoteHere when I met a source, Dan
Spillane, who is the wonderful guy that identified the Diebold source code
modules for me after I found the Diebold files. He is the person who
introduced me, and subsequently everyone else, to the odd role of The
Election Center and R. Doug Lewis in the elections industry.

Spillane also filled me in on The Livingston Group, VoteHere lobbyists,
run by Bob Livingston -- the fellow that Hustler publisher Larry Flynt
outed during the Bill Clinton blow job days. Larry Flynt offered a
million dollars to anyone who could locate a Republican congressman
committing adultery, and out popped peccadilloes by Livingston.

Livingston couldn't live that one down, so he resigned his post as
House Speaker-Elect and became a lobbyist -- but that's not all! He also
launched a group called "Center for Democracy" which was going to
"monitor elections." This group also featured several good old boys from the
tobacco industry and some mining companies.

Former VoteHere test engineer Dan Spillane was looking into all this
because he had been fired after he questioned the certification process
on a touch-screen system in which he had identified 250 flaws. It was
way back in November 2002 that Spillane told me, "The voting machine
industry is a house of cards. And the certification and testing process is
the bottom card in the house of cards."

BUT DON'T RUN OUT OF THE ROOM TO TAKE A SHOWER YET. There's more.

VoteHere was a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with
NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens, another crony of
Rummy, Perle and Wolfowitz). For some reason this company claims it was
unable to prevent itself from being hacked. In this alleged hack,
VoteHere claims that someone stole their source code. Said source code was
offered to me in October 2003, an obvious attempt at entrapment which I
refused.

Nevertheless, VoteHere claimed to the media that its master security
experts had supposedly "tracked" the hacker and had identified the hacker
as an activist in the election reform community.

For some reason, it was decided that I should be investigated in
connection with this "hack" of VoteHere -- nevermind that I can't remember
how to change the password on my own laptop. Therefore I was interviewed
by the Secret Service several times about this. Curiously, they never
seemed to ask any questions about VoteHere, only my role in finding the
Diebold files and publishing the Diebold memos.

This nonsense eventually culminated in a gag order and a letter from
the U.S. Attorney to appear in front of a federal grand jury with
information on all the visitors to the Black Box Voting Web site. (As if they
couldn't get that in less dramatic ways in post-Patriot Act America).
Attorney Lowell Finley (now with http://www.VoterAction.org ) went to
bat for me on this. A reporter named George Howland from the Seattle
Weekly also got wind of it. When it hit the press, and with Lowell Finley's
help, their harassment of me stopped.

VoteHere never sold any voting machines that I can find, but apparently
did set up some deals to embed its cryptography into some voting
systems. We found memos in the Diebold trash about VoteHere's crypto-crap,
and Maryland Director of Elections Linda Lamone shows up in
VoteHere-related letters. Sequoia Voting Systems signed an agreement with VoteHere,
but its not clear to me whether they ever did anything about it.

Robert Gates stepped away from VoteHere shortly before he showed up in
Chapter 8 of my book, Black Box Voting, in a short bit about the
VoteHere company history. You can read that here:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a paper, pencil, and count
by hand at the polling place than have former CIA director Robert Gates
fooling around with my vote.

But that's just me.

-- Bev Harris
Founder, Black Box Voting

[starroute]

9. SAIC comes into this picture as well

http://www.residentbush.com/Aftermath-2004_Angry-Girl.htm

And in fourth place we have Science Applications International Corporation Fourth (SAIC). This secretive defense contractor became involved in counting American votes through Admiral Bill Owens, former military aide to Dick Cheney.

[AntiFascist]

18. Holy shit!!

"VoteHere was a company shilling cryptographic solutions and filled with
NSA types (another director was Admiral Bill Owens, another crony of
Rummy, Perle and Wolfowitz)."

Also, I had a feeling there were a lot of wierd intelligence types converging on the BBV site.

:scared:

[Pab Sungenis]

7. Playing devil's advocate

...isn't the Master the proper one to send to take down the Student?

[Jcrowley]

8. k & R n/t

[blm]

10. Well, Who's ready to open the books on IranContra and BCCI now?

No wonder the centrist Dems want the left to shut up.

[Solly Mack]

11. Me!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!!!

I am!!!

Clean those fuckers out - regardless of who they are and what they are now doing. Expose them. Bring them down.

Save America - jail a thug!

[AntiFascist]

15. Exactly! People need to realize these are key issues n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. I think Bush just made a big mistake

Trying to make Gates head of DOD.

This opens up a number of cans of worms for BushCo. Let the nomination hearings begin. This is going to be a real fun lame duck session.

[KittyWampus]

12. Oops! Now HOW did some truth slip out?

[KittyWampus]

14. how did this slip under

[EvolveOrConvolve]

13. Doesn't the Senate have to confirm Gates

before he's allowed to become Secretary? This may be the first big battle/test of the new Senate.

[AntiFascist]

16. K&R, I wonder how many proto-neocons were counting on the fact that...

"the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later"?

[Disturbed]

17. Let's keep track of how many Dems vote for Bush family insider.

He should be voted down. Make the Busholini Regime bring forth someone who is not covered in Bush Family slime.

[BelgianMadCow]

20. Typical kpete actionable intelligence. Bookmarked.

[BR_Parkway]

21. filibuster him, and dare Frist to go nuclear