Saturday, August 28, 2004
A Spy in the House of 'W'?
Quick public service annoucement here:
The trained poodles at CNN (the media and propaganda arm of the American Enterprise Institute) have been blinking into the cameras this early summer morn (late summer eve on the west coast) expressing "shock and awe" over the latest allegations of a potential "mole" infestation of our collective national victory garden. MSGOP/General Electric, as I write this, has also dispatched the perennially clueless Alex Witt to babble frantically into the bright lights and express additional wide-eyed wonder upon being informed by someone or another (i forgot who it was offhand) that such suspicions of such suspicious derring-do on the part of yet unnamed derring-doosters has been suspected for months, if not years. Shazzbot! Say it ain't so gasps Alex! Apparently Witt doesn't - oh say - read The Nation magazine for instance. Like ya know.... if it ain't contained in a Video News Release from the Karen Ryan Group it ain't really worth her high profile media personality face time.
On we go. I don't want to get into any screed here, which is often my usual habit, because it's late and i'm too tired and because a good deal of this stuff now emerging with respect to various luminaries gnawing at the foundation of our national defense and foreign policy has been highlighted in great detail in the past. As a matter of fact it winds it's way back through old right wing catacombs including old Iran Contra backchannels and players.
So, that said - below are some names and places and old articles to read or refresh your memory with as they relate to this emerging "spy" scandal. Which, if you ask me, isn't so much a spy chase as it is a matter of flipping over a wet rock and subjecting a lot of creepy crawly things to the sunlight and fresh air. In any case i'm waiting patiently for Miles O'Brien to pop onto my TeeVee screen and inform me that official White House spokespersons close to "the president" have denied that "the president" had any prior knowldege of any previuous activiities or contacts involving Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Harold, Larry, Elliot,....blither blather - blither blather - and blah blah blah.... never heard of any of em. You know the drill.
Team GWB's Shadowy Groupies
Manucher Ghorbanifar - (a Newsweek item) Iranian arms dealer and one of Oliver North's go-to-guys with respect to the orchestration of the Iran Contra scam. And other stuff.
Michael Ledeen: Still Dreaming of Tehran - by Robert Dreyfuss & Laura Rozen (The Nation magazine March 25 2004) Michael Ledeen (American Enterprise Institute) - Chalabi boosteroo and also...
Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin:
more more more..... background info links.
Chalabi...: Also see: Tinker, Banker, NeoCon, Spy - By Robert Dreyfuss - American Prospect Issue Date: 11.18.02.
A whole rotten nest of creepy crawly things: Also see: The Lie Factory - Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest, Mother Jones 1.12.2004.
Also see: The Dreyfus Report Feith Based Intelligence April 28, 2004.
And this recent blog entry from War and Piece: August 27, 2004 The FBI investigation
Just a few quick items there to browse with respect to topical background info and previous investigations on the part of actual real journalists. No doubt this story will become more interesting and complicated and strange as it rolls along. As if it hasn't been weird enough already.
*
The trained poodles at CNN (the media and propaganda arm of the American Enterprise Institute) have been blinking into the cameras this early summer morn (late summer eve on the west coast) expressing "shock and awe" over the latest allegations of a potential "mole" infestation of our collective national victory garden. MSGOP/General Electric, as I write this, has also dispatched the perennially clueless Alex Witt to babble frantically into the bright lights and express additional wide-eyed wonder upon being informed by someone or another (i forgot who it was offhand) that such suspicions of such suspicious derring-do on the part of yet unnamed derring-doosters has been suspected for months, if not years. Shazzbot! Say it ain't so gasps Alex! Apparently Witt doesn't - oh say - read The Nation magazine for instance. Like ya know.... if it ain't contained in a Video News Release from the Karen Ryan Group it ain't really worth her high profile media personality face time.
On we go. I don't want to get into any screed here, which is often my usual habit, because it's late and i'm too tired and because a good deal of this stuff now emerging with respect to various luminaries gnawing at the foundation of our national defense and foreign policy has been highlighted in great detail in the past. As a matter of fact it winds it's way back through old right wing catacombs including old Iran Contra backchannels and players.
So, that said - below are some names and places and old articles to read or refresh your memory with as they relate to this emerging "spy" scandal. Which, if you ask me, isn't so much a spy chase as it is a matter of flipping over a wet rock and subjecting a lot of creepy crawly things to the sunlight and fresh air. In any case i'm waiting patiently for Miles O'Brien to pop onto my TeeVee screen and inform me that official White House spokespersons close to "the president" have denied that "the president" had any prior knowldege of any previuous activiities or contacts involving Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Harold, Larry, Elliot,....blither blather - blither blather - and blah blah blah.... never heard of any of em. You know the drill.
Team GWB's Shadowy Groupies
Manucher Ghorbanifar - (a Newsweek item) Iranian arms dealer and one of Oliver North's go-to-guys with respect to the orchestration of the Iran Contra scam. And other stuff.
Michael Ledeen: Still Dreaming of Tehran - by Robert Dreyfuss & Laura Rozen (The Nation magazine March 25 2004) Michael Ledeen (American Enterprise Institute) - Chalabi boosteroo and also...
Leading the charge against Iran is AEI's Michael Ledeen, perhaps best known for setting in motion the US-Israeli arms deal with Iran in the mid-1980s that became known as Iran/contra.
Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin:
Rhode and Franklin were critical players in the campaign for war against Iraq. In 2002 they helped organize the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, the Iraq war-planning unit whose intelligence staffers are now under investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for allegedly manipulating evidence about Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and ties to terrorism. Both the OSP and the Rhode-Franklin effort on Iran were run out of the office of Douglas Feith, the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and a key neocon ally. Their initiative on Iran reportedly drew a sharp protest from the State Department. Newsday quoted a US official who said that the entire effort was designed to "antagonize Iran so that they get frustrated and then by their reactions harden US policy against them." [Still Dreaming of Iran - Dreyfuss/Rozen - see The Nation link above]
more more more..... background info links.
Chalabi...: Also see: Tinker, Banker, NeoCon, Spy - By Robert Dreyfuss - American Prospect Issue Date: 11.18.02.
A whole rotten nest of creepy crawly things: Also see: The Lie Factory - Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest, Mother Jones 1.12.2004.
Also see: The Dreyfus Report Feith Based Intelligence April 28, 2004.
And this recent blog entry from War and Piece: August 27, 2004 The FBI investigation
For months, I have been working with my colleagues Paul Glastris and Josh Marshall on a story for the Washington Monthly about US policy towards Iran. In particular, it involves a particular series of meetings involving officials from the office of the undersecretary of defense for Policy Doug Feith and Iranian dissidents.
Just a few quick items there to browse with respect to topical background info and previous investigations on the part of actual real journalists. No doubt this story will become more interesting and complicated and strange as it rolls along. As if it hasn't been weird enough already.
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