Bulletin N°264
Subject: ON GROWING UP IN POST-COLONIAL TEXAS AND OTHER ACTS
OF IRRESPONSIBILITY.
2 October 2006
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
When I was a young man trying to grow up in Texas I remember going
rabbit "hunting" one night with a group of guys from my school. It
wasn't really my thing, but I went anyway because there was nothing
else happening. It was late, like after 10:00 o'clock on a Saturday
night, and we all jumped in the back of someone's pickup truck. I owned
no gun, but there were plenty of shotguns among us, with rounds of
ammunition to spare. There were six or eight of us, as I recall, when
we took off for the farm roads not too far away. It wasn't really a
hunt, as all we did was drive up and down those lonely dirt roads
with the headlights on. When rabbits appeared on the road in front of
us they froze with the impact of the truck's headlights. We took aim
and fired....
I say "we" because I was with them, but in fact no one would allowe me
to
use his gun. Not everyone had a shotgun, and they were taking turns
killing rabbits, but when I ask for my turn I was put off with an
excited: "just a minute" or "it's not your turn yet".... Somehow, when
the guns were passed around I was left out. We stopped occasionally to
look at the kill. At times it seemed like the whole road in front of us
was covered with blood and rabbit fur. Occasionally we would hear the
shrill screaming of wounded rabbits in the fields beyond our lights.
Some of the dead rabbits which were not too messed up were thrown in
the back of the truck to take home.
Eventually, I stopped asking for my turn to shoot rabbits. I wished I
hadn't come along. The change in feelings that night is still
memorable. I wanted to be part of the gang, to fit in. I asked like the
rest of the guys, who didn't have a gun, for my turn to shoot rabbits,
but I asked without conviction and I suppose the others felt this. When
they saw that they didn't need to hand me their gun because they were
enjoying killing rabbits more than I ever could, they ignored me.
I don't mean that they abstracted the relationship to that degree of
understanding, but it was obvious that they felt a need the intensity
for which I did not share. They were not prepared to compromise their
desires to have fun massacring wild rabbits on a dirt road in the
middle of a Texas night for some light-weight claim for justice and
equality. They simply did not allow me to take my turn. I stepped back
and got out of their way. Something strange was happening, a sort of
synergy, I suppose: the escalation of all this activity was beginning
to frighten me and I remained silent, observing from the shadows at the
back of the truck until everyone became bored and we all went home.
This memory of my childhood in Texas comes to mind, I'm not sure
exactly why. But as I witness today the aggressive killing machines
coming out of the U.S. it does bring back memories. The perceived
danger for my own well-being as the "rabbit hunt" progressed was of
course one element, but the feeling of futility in trying to find
something more interesting to do was also present. I simply had to
endure what seemed to be a psychotic episode with no constructive end.
All I had learned that night was that I no longer wanted to fit in with
that group of guys.
We at CEIMSA have spent a lot of time lately reading and talking about
the relationship of
strategy to
tactics. It seems to us
that the current flurry of discussions within the American progressive
community over whether or not to associate with "conspiracy theories"
around The War of Terror is relevant to this subject. Whether the
European imperialists, to take an example from our own early history,
actually conspired to eliminate the entire Native Indian population of
the Americas or whether they simply started doing it because it was the
most expedient thing to do is irrelevant today. They nearly got away
with it, and that is a fact. Why they did it is
the important question,
the answer to which is at the level of
strategy and not simply
tactics.
Most progressive people today in America would agree that the U.S.
government is capable of murdering Americans to achieve a "higher
objective". This, after all, is what war is all about: putting your own
people in harm's way, where they must kill or be killed, for a "higher
goal". Many Americans have been sent to their certain death, but as our
recent executives have told us repeatedly, "It was worth it."
And no educated person today doubts that U.S. government officials
would lie to them for a "higher purpose," such as national security.
Given this predisposition to distrust their government on the part of
tens-of-millions of Americans today, why should we not insist that the
Bush administration actually ordered the murder of thousands of
American civilians in the Twin Towers in order to save the economy by
creating a
War on Terrorism to replace the now defunct
Cold
War economy.
Perhaps imaginary national enemies will eventually give rise to real
enemies for more nationalist wars, but one can be sure that any signs
of resistance will be used for the creation of
the indispensable
enemy and will be welcomed by the powers that be as a necessary
reenactment of the
tried and true formula :
Tactics
against Strategy --all very profitable for some, very costly to
many more, but for shareholders in major corporations it is a conflict
the outcome of which is always predictable. What is essential for the
"winners" in the war economy is that
new strategies never get
introduced into this grim little "game" --
new strategies
might actually change the rules that govern this cycle of violence
and ultimately deprive the most powerful players of their huge
investment profits.
After that rabbit hunt with the guys back in Texas, I began to feel the
need for more intimate friendships. Just trying to fit in was no longer
satisfying. I began to develop strategies to find intimate
relationships which were more rewarding. Each time that I entered into
a new relationship it required strategy and tactics to realize my
desires, and I received a farely well-rounded education from my
experiences
with people of different ethnic and social backgrounds. This diversity
has enriched my life.
In a way, I left people like George Bush and Dick Cheney back on the
dirt road with their pleasures derived from the periodic massacres they
organized. It was a dismal mentality on that road that night which I
will never forget, where the power of life and death was the ultimate
thrill. It's a sexual drive, I'm sure, carrying a loaded gun with all
the determination and energy derived from
a survival of the species
instinct, but its only a virtual reality, a fascist fantasy, and a
sad, sad waste of life.
Below you will find
7 items which depict the controversies over
the killings of Americans, which lie at the origins of The War on
Terror. In my opinion, "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID!" still wins the
debate.
Item
A. is an interview by news
reporter
George Kenney with former CIA agent-turned-critic,
Bill
Christison, debunking the conspiracy theory that Osama bin Laden
was behind the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, D. C. with
facts which seem to prove it is not true.
Item
B. contains links sent to us
by
Camille Perrin-Blanc, which offer documentary evidence in
both French and English on the origins of Bush's War on Terror.
Item
C., from
Greg Palast.
is a short taken from the new documentary film,
American Blackout,
which describes the stolen elections of 2004.
Item
D., sent to us by
Richard
Du Boff, is a review of former deputy assistant attorney general,
John
Yoo's new book,
War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of
the War on Terror.
Item
E. , from the
National
Security Archive (NSA), contains new documentation on the
LETELIER-MOFFITT
ASSASSINATION 30 YEARS LATER.
Item
F. is the
announcement of the latest security measures voted by the U.S.
Congress, a
700-mile-long fence separating Mexico from the
United States of America.
Finally, item
G., is the now
famous debate, organized by
Democracy Now!, between the
conservative journal,
Popular Mechanics, and the progressive
film makers of
Loose Change, on
"Debunking 9/11 Myths".
And, as usual, we share with you the enlightening newsletter from
author William Blum,
Anti-Empire Report :
Sincerely,
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université Stendhal
Grenoble, France
http://www.ceimsa.org/
P.S. I have attached an announcement of the film CEIMSA will be
showing on the Grenoble campus on Thursday night, 12 October, at 6:30.
If you are in the area, we hope
you will attend.
ff
____________
A.
from George Kenney :
Date: Fri, 29 September 2006
Subject: Podcast with Bill Christison
Dear Francis,
A lot of people have mixed feelings about 9/11, and I know
it's difficult for many to think that alternative explanations of what
happened (conspiracy theories, so-called) might have merit. So it's
important to hear from somebody with a fair amount of gravitas as to
why they changed their mind, fairly recently, from an outright
dismissal of alternative explanations to extreme skepticism regarding
the official story. Whether you've gone through such a shift in
thinking yourself or not, you'll probably find it interesting to
consider the experience of somebody who has.
Bill Christison was with the CIA for 28 years. When he
retired he was in charge of a shop with over 250 officers -- in my book
that put him in the upper reaches of management. Someone, obviously,
with a lot of ability. He's been retired now for quite a while, and
he's getting up there in years, but his mind is clearly firing on all
cylinders and he's put a lot of thought into what he says about 9/11.
His is not a frivolous or wild-eyed assessment of things. In my
conversation with him we mostly talk about the process of changing
one's mind about 9/11, less about the facts in question.
I hope you have time to listen and that you find it
thought-provoking.
Best,
g.
Radio Broadcast interview with George Kenney :
Written texts on 9/11 by William Christison :
_____________
B.
from Camille Perrin-Blanc :
Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2006
Subject: 9/11.. Une autre version
Puisqu'on
est abreuvé de commémorations, alors ça vaut le
coup de prendre le temps d'écouter ce petit film, et de se faire
une idée sur les questions qu'il pose :
- English version : http://www.loosechange911.com/
- French
version : http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-577174447327390558
-
Voir aussi ce témoignage
(bilingue, Fr/Eng) édifiant :
___________
C.
from Greg Palast :
Date : 28 September 2006
Subject : American Blackout -- A Must-See Documentary
AMERICAN BLACKOUT
[Featuring Cynthia McKinney, Greg Palast, Bernie Sanders, Bob
Fitrakis and many others... ]
by Zach Roberts
I'm
going to start this with a sales pitch: you need to buy this film. No,
really. Not because Greg Palast receives second billing but because you
must see this film.
American Blackout is the kind of documentary that only comes along
every few years. It's the sort of film that changes things -- changes
how you think. If there was any justice in this world this film would
receive the same buzz and box office that anything that Michael Moore
releases gets. Greg Palast told me the film "blew him away" -- this
from a man who is almost always underwhelmed by documentaries,
especially ones about his field of expertise.
When delving into the voter issue, the media distracts you with all
the things it loves to talk about. But you need to forget the hanging
chads and forget the malfunctioning machines. They're just a sideshow
to the real story. The real story is a lot less sexy, dealing with road
blocks, purged voters, 'misplaced' voting machines, uncounted ballots
and long lines. This is the Civil Rights Movement all over again but
this time there are no great monsters like Bull Connor. The lynchings
today are electronic and political... and the freedom riders nowhere to
be found.
American Blackout, directed by Guerrilla
News Network's Ian Inaba uses a stunning mix of never before seen
archive and firsthand interviews. Inaba knows how to make otherwise
dull C-Span clips look like something completely new and interesting.
He does this by split-screen and zooming so you know who you're
supposed to be looking at -- Katherine Harris, Jeb Bush, ChoicePoint
representatives. You see them lying to a Civil Rights panel, you see
them sweat when questioned by Congresswoman McKinney. All I can say is that I am stunned that I've
never seen this technique used before -- it keeps you interested, on
your toes and wanting for more. Yes, you will be wanting to see more of
this documentary, these 90 minutes fly past quickly. So do take notes
-- there will be a test afterwards -- the 2006 election.
Among the great footage in this documentary is a pan shot of lines of
people waiting to vote -- I saw this once before, when I was 13 and
apartheid came to an end. South Africa held its first free election and
Black voters could be seen in lines that went on for miles. But this is
America, we are not a developing democracy and should
long have emerged from the dark ages of electoral segregation.
The story of Cynthia McKinney that sews the running thread through the
film, is uglier than even I knew. Many only familiar with the
Congresswoman's press coverage will be aghast at just how distorted a
picture the media has fed us.
It literally defies belief.
Here we see her cross-examining Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
with such surgical precision and grasp of her brief that Rumsfeld is
left stammering and ashen-faced. It makes us wonder what kind of
country we might have right now if more had put this administration
under such factual scrutiny. American Blackout lays out exactly why she
has been so relentlessly hounded. Every one of her speeches brings to
mind the hoarse pleas of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
a force to be reckoned with. (In the DVD extras you can watch "Capitol
Policeman Speaks Out" and see why she "lost it" back in March 2006.)
Inaba's film is intense yet easy to grasp for even the most
non-political among us.
And for those who can't sit in one place for too long, the DVD comes
with a shortened version which still gets the point across in under 20
minutes.
Since I started with a sales pitch it only seems right to end with one:
Remember when in the days after 9/11 our president told us to go out
and shop? Do the patriotic thing and buy this DVD. In fact I would buy
several: you are going to want to pass this one around your
friends and chances are you're not going to get it back.
Buy it directly at the American
Blackout website. We get nothing from these sales except the
knowledge that we are supporting one kick-ass filmmaker with a
gotta-see-it call to arms against the racial poisoning of our democracy.
Or donate
a tax-deductible $50 or more to our educational foundation and Palast
will send you a signed
copy of American Blackout. All proceeds support the investigative
work of the Palast team.
"A muckraking indictment" (LA TIMES) and "engrossing, fast-paced,
stylish... a powerful examination of voting rights in America."
(HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)
_____________
Greg Palast is a reporter for BBC Television and the author of the
just-released New York Times Bestseller, Armed
Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the
Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from
the Front Lines of the Class War.
Read his articles and watch his reports at: GregPalast.com
______________
D.
from : Richard B. Du Boff
Subject: He Wrote the Book on Torture
The American Conservative
October 9, 2006 Issue
copyright © 2006
http://www.amconmag.com/
He Wrote the Book on Torture
[War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on
Terror, John Yoo, Atlantic Monthly Press, 224 pages ]
by James Bovard
George
W. Bush has made absolutism respectable among American conservatives.
And no one has done more pimping for president-as-Supreme-Leader than
John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who helped create the
"commander-in-chief override" doctrine, unleashing presidents from the
confines of the law. At a time when Bush is pushing Congress to approve
the use in military tribunals of confessions that resulted from
torture, it is vital to understand the thinking of the Bush
administration's most visible advocate of "coercive interrogation."
Yoo's new book, War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War
on Terror, reads like a slippery lawyer's brief submitted to a dim
judge who gets all his information from Fox News. Though Yoo's
misrepresentations and omissions should provoke outrage, his book will
likely receive accolades from many conservative reviewers. This new
volume compliments Yoo's first book, The Powers of War and Peace,
which revealed that the Founding Fathers intended to permit presidents
to start wars on their own whims, regardless of what the Constitution
says.
Perhaps Yoo's authoritarian tendencies resulted from his time at
Harvard, where empowering an elite is always in fashion. Yoo paints
every proposal for limiting the president's power as a dangerous
novelty. He is always trying to shift the burden of proof onto anyone
who thinks the president should not be a czar.
He scoffs at critics of the phrase "war on terror" while admitting "the
United States is not at war with every terrorist group in the world, or
all who employ terrorist tactics, or a social problem, but with Al
Qaeda." Yet top administration officials were laying plans to invade
Iraq within days after the Twin Towers collapsed. Two weeks after 9/11,
Yoo, in a memo to the White House, claimed that the attacks gave the
U.S. government carte blanche for war anywhere in the world. Yoo
suggested that "an American attack in South America or Southeast Asia
might be a surprise to the terrorists," since they were expecting the
U.S. to target Afghanistan. Yoo assured the White House that "the
President's broad constitutional power ... would allow the President to
[take] whatever actions he deems appropriate to pre-empt or respond to
terrorist threats from new quarters." Yoo's assurances may have
inspired Bush's declaration a few weeks later that "So long as
anybody's terrorizing established governments, there needs to be a war."
Yoo wrote a Torturers' Emancipation Proclamation memo while serving as
deputy assistant attorney general. He informed the White House in
August 2002 that it could scorn federal law because "the President
enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his Commander-in-Chief
authority and in conducting operations against hostile forces ... . we
will not read a criminal statute as infringing on the President's
ultimate authority in these areas." Thus, the "commander-in-chief"
title automatically swallows up the rest of the Constitution.
Yoo's memo began by largely redefining torture out of existence. It
then explained that even if someone died during torture, the torturer
might not be guilty if he felt the torture was necessary to prevent
some worse evil. Yoo pre-emptively exonerated any U.S. torturer: "If a
government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an
interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate [the Anti-Torture
Act], he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the
United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network." Yoo never explained
why preventing a catastrophic attack is the only reason why a suspect
might be maimed during interrogation.
War by Other Means endlessly refers to Abu Ghraib as if that
were the alpha and omega of the torture scandal. In reality, the photos
in late April 2004 were not even the tip of the iceberg. U.S.
government agents have inflicted abuses ranging from the endless
high-volume repetition of a "Meow Mix" cat food commercial at
Guantanamo to tearing out toenails in Afghanistan, from compulsory
enemas for recalcitrant prisoners to beating people to death in Iraq
and kicking them to death outside Kabul, from illegally sending
detainees to foreign governments to be tortured by proxy to creating a
system of "ghost prisoners" worthy of a banana republic.
Yet Yoo implies that the torture scandal may be largely a liberal media
concoction. After citing The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, Yoo
says, "Articles have appeared claiming abuses at Guantanamo such as
long-term isolation, stress positions, and exposure to extreme heat or
cold or noise. At this writing we cannot know if such reports are
false, or isolated examples. They are currently unverified and the
subject of continuing investigations."
Unverified-except for a deluge of e-mails from FBI agents who visited
Gitmo and were horrified by what they saw. An FBI agent reported on
Dec. 5, 2003 that the "torture techniques" used at Gitmo have "produced
no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature." One FBI agent
complained about a female U.S. military interrogator who yanked back a
shackled prisoner's thumbs and grabbed his genitals. Another FBI agent
e-mailed bureau headquarters on Aug. 2, 2004 after seeing detainees
"chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair,
food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves
and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more." FBI agents also
observed that detainees were being abused with extreme temperatures and
loud rap music.
An agent detailed to Iraq complained to FBI headquarters in June 2004
after seeing U.S. forces involved in "numerous serious physical abuse
incidents of Iraqi civilian detainees ... strangulation, beatings,
placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings." (The FBI
memos were disclosed as a result of an ACLU lawsuit.)
Yoo plays to True Believers throughout the book, invoking Vice
President Dick Cheney as an authority on the value of torture-as well
as "the popular Fox television program 24." But he ignores FBI
and military experts who disdain torture because it generates false
confessions. A prime example Yoo offers of the merits of "coercive
interrogation" involved allegations that sparked Attorney General John
Ashcroft to issue a warning in May 2004 that "Al Qaeda planned to
attack the United States that summer. ... The attacks never happened;
perhaps the intensive scrutiny caused El Shukrijumah [a Saudi al-Qaeda
operative] and his cell to scuttle their plans."
Actually, this warning was one of the biggest farces of Bush's 2004
fear-mongering election campaign. Ashcroft's May 26 warning was quickly
repudiated by Homeland Security Department officials who informed the
media that "there was no new information about attacks in the U.S., and
... no change in the government's color-coded 'threat level.'" NBC News
reported that Ashcroft's primary al-Qaeda source was "a largely
discredited group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, known for putting
propaganda on the Internet" that had falsely "claimed responsibility
for the power blackout in the Northeast last year, a power outage in
London, and the Madrid bombings." The group's warning consisted of one
email sent two months earlier to a London newspaper. Newsweek
reported that the White House "played a role in the decision to go
public with the warning Š . Instead of the images of prisoner abuse at
Abu Ghraib, the White House would prefer that voters see the faces of
terrorists who aim to kill them."
Yoo's claims about the benefits of torture were effectively obliterated
on Sept. 6 by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, the Army deputy chief of staff for
intelligence. Kimmons announced at a Pentagon news conference, "no good
intelligence is going to come from abusive practices. I think history
tells us that. I think the empirical evidence of the last five years,
hard years, tells us that." Kimmons has vastly more credibility on
interrogation methods than desk warriors like Yoo.
The more power Yoo believes the president deserves, the more
obfuscations he makes about how existing power has been used. Though
this book went to press in July 2006, Yoo relies on dubious data from
September 2004 to exonerate the federal torturers. Yoo cites a report
done by a committee headed by Vice Admiral Albert Church, who literally
became a laughingstock when he testified in March 2005 before the
Senate Armed Services committee. Church, charged with investigating
detainee abuse in Iraq, never bothered interviewing Paul Bremer, the
chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Church explained:
"Ambassador Bremer, as I understood it, worked for the Department of
State." This assertion stunned the senators, as Bremer was a Pentagon
employee and directly in the military chain of command.
Regardless, Yoo relies on this guy as a top defense witness: "Church's
investigation found (as of September 2004) 71 cases of detainee abuse
and 6 deaths, and with only 20 of those cases involving interrogation,
and 130 cases still under investigation." Yoo asserts, "this is an
extremely low error rate," considering that the U.S. had detained
50,000 people at that point.
The week after Church testified, the Pentagon admitted that 26
detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan had been killed in what appeared to
be criminal homicides-more than four times as many homicides as Church
noticed. Yoo disdained updating the morgue count. And it has become
obvious since last Fall that the feds greatly undercounted their
interrogation victims. Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne
repeatedly unsuccessfully sought to get guidance from superiors on the
standards for lawful and humane treatment of detainees in Iraq.
Fishback publicly complained late last year: "I am certain that this
confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death
threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme
forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, stripping, sleep deprivation
and degrading treatment." Tony Lagouranis, a former army interrogator
at Abu Ghraib and member of a special intelligence team in Iraq, told
PBS's "Frontline": "It's all over Iraq. The infantry units are
torturing people in their homes. They would smash people's feet with
the back of an axhead. They would break bones, ribs."
None of this appears in Yoo's book.
In War by Other Means, Yoo eschews following his logic to its
conclusions. He was more forthcoming in a debate last December when
asked: "If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody
including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no
law that can stop him?" Yoo replied, "No treaty." His opponent, Notre
Dame law professor Doug Cassell, followed up: "Also no law-that is what
you wrote in the August 2002 memo." Yoo replied, "I think it depends on
why the president thinks he needs to do that." (One blogger summarized
Yoo's philosophy of government: "All Your Balls Belong to Us!") Yoo has
yet to specify appropriate presidential pretexts for juvenile
testicular demolition.
While curtsying to the prevailing rhetoric on democracy, Yoo shows
contempt for "government by consent." He claims the 2004 election
vindicated Bush's torture policy: "Our nation had a presidential and
congressional election after Abu Ghraib and the leaking of the [2002]
memos. If the people had disagreed with administration policies, they
could have made a change."
How could the people judge the policy when the Bush administration was
suppressing almost all information about it? There were no independent
probes into the torture scandal during 2004. All the investigators were
under the thumb of the Pentagon. The investigations were designed to
look only downward-with no authority to pursue wrongdoing to the
highest branches of the Pentagon and the White House. The Bush team
succeeded in delaying the vast majority of damning revelations until
after he was re-elected. Presumably, the public can "approve"
atrocities even when the government deceives them about the actual
events.
Yoo reasons like a devious personal-injury lawyer-yet it is the rights
of the American people that are being run over. He is being feted by
conservative foundations and think tanks, and often treated
deferentially by liberals, for a theory of presidential power that
would make Hobbes proud.
Yoo believes Americans should presume that the government always has a
good reason for violating the law, even when it deceives the citizens
about the reasoning. Yoo's doctrines are absolutely unfit for any
system with a pretense of self-government.
___________________________________
James Bovard is the author, most recently, of
Attention Deficit Democracy and The Bush Betrayal.
___________
E.
from National Security Archive :
Date: 20 Sep 2006
Subject : Letelier-Moffitt Assassination 30 Years Later, a National
Security Archive Update.
http://www.nsarchive.org
Francis,
National Security Archive is calling for the release of withheld
documents relating to Pinochet's role in infamous act of terrorism in
Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976. NSA has released a new document
on the CIA approach to Manuel Contreras on Operation Condor.
For more information contact:
Peter Kornbluh
202/994-7000
LETELIER-MOFFITT ASSASSINATION
30 YEARS LATER
Washington, DC, September 20, 2006 - On the thirtieth anniversary of
the assassination of former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and his
American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, the National Security Archive
today called on the U.S. government to release all documents relating
to the role of General Augusto Pinochet in the car bombing that brought
terrorism to the capital city of the United States on September 21,
1976.
Hundreds of documents implicating Pinochet in authorizing and covering
up the crime were due to be declassified under the Clinton
administration but were withheld in the spring of 2000 as evidence for
a Justice Department investigation into the retired dictator's role.
After more than six years, according to Peter Kornbluh, who directs the
Archive's Chile Documentation Project, it is time to release them. "If
there is not going to be a legal indictment," Kornbluh said, "the
documents can and will provide an indictment of history."
The Archive today released a declassified memo to Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger reporting on a CIA approach in early October 1976 to
the head of the Chilean secret police, Manuel Contreras, regarding U.S.
concerns about Operation Condor assassination plots. The secret memo,
written by Kissinger's deputy for Latin America, Harry Schlaudeman,
noted that Contreras had denied that "Operation Condor has any other
purpose than the exchange of intelligence." While the car bombing in
downtown Washington, D.C. that killed Letelier and Moffitt took place
on September 21, 1976, the memo contains no reference to any discussion
with Contreras about the assassinations--even though DINA was widely
considered to be the most likely perpetrator of the crime. In 1978,
Contreras was indicted by a U.S. Grand Jury for directing the terrorist
attack.
The document was obtained by Kornbluh under the Freedom of Information
Act.
The memorandum to Kissinger adds to a series of documents that have
been obtained by the National Security Archive that shed light on what
the U.S. government knew about Operation Condor--a collaboration of
Southern Cone secret police services to track down, abduct, torture,
and assassinate opponents in the mid and late 1970s--and what actions
it took or failed to take prior to the Letelier-Moffitt assassination.
The Archive also released a second memo from Schlaudeman to Kissinger
reporting on a cable from U.S. Ambassador to Uruguay Ernest Siracusa
voicing his concerns on presenting the Condor demarche. Siracusa, the
memo suggests, feared that he would become a target of Operation Condor
if he followed his diplomatic instructions, and recommended that
Schlaudeman approach Uruguay's ambassador to Washington instead. In his
memo to Kissinger dated August 30, 1976, Schlaudeman spelled out the
U.S. position on Condor assassination plots: "What we are trying to
head off is a series of international murders that could do serious
damage to the international status and reputation of the countries
involved."
Kornbluh noted that neither the CIA memorandum of conversation with
Contreras nor the Sircusa cable has been declassified and urged the
Bush administration to release all records relating to Operation Condor
and the Letelier-Moffitt case. "Amidst today's ongoing effort against
international terrorism," he noted, "it is important to know the full
history of the failure of U.S. efforts to detect and deter a terrorist
plot in the heart of Washington, D.C."
________________________________________________________
THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE is an independent
non-governmental research institute and library located at The George
Washington University in Washington, D.C. The Archive collects and
publishes declassified documents acquired through the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA). A tax-exempt public charity, the Archive
receives no U.S. government funding; its budget is supported by
publication royalties and donations from foundations and individuals.
http://www.nsarchive.org
___________
F.
from Truthout :
Date : 30 September 2006
http://www.truthout.org
Among its final tasks before leaving to
campaign, the Senate on Friday night passed and sent to President Bush
a bill authorizing 700 new miles of fencing on the southern border.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the border security
achievements trumpeted by Republicans don't measure up to the more
comprehensive reforms her party backed.
__________
G.
from Democracy Now!
11 September 2006
Subject: Debate on 9/11 between conservative journal Popular
Mechanics and progressive film makers, Loose Change.
http://democracynow.org/
*******************
Francis McCollum Feeley
Professor of American Studies/
Director of Research
Université de Grenoble-3
Grenoble, France
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/