mick silver
13th December 2015, 02:48 PM
by Justin Raimondo (http://original.antiwar.com/author/justin/), November 27, 2015 Print This (http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/11/26/a-feast-of-scandal-2/print/) | Share This (http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=20)
A Note From the Author: Well, I was going to write an original Thanksgiving column, but my Significant Other has other plans. And so below I present you with a Thanksgiving column from ten years ago – just to give you some historical perspectve. And while I’m on the subject of history: yes, it’s Antiwar.com’s 20th anniversary next month. We’ve seen it all and then some – and we’ll be around for another 20 years. With your help, that is: please donate to our fundraising drive to make sure that the next 20 years is as good as the last. (http://antiwar.com/donate/)
Originally published on November 25, 2005
A Feast of Scandal
We have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving
I’m thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving that it’s going to take me an entire column just to adequately describe them. Indeed, I’m already so loaded down with gifts that I don’t need Christmas. My cup runneth over! For an old libertarian “isolationist (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard41.html)” like me (http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=2723) this holiday season is a bountiful time, one that yields so much that it seems like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Raimondo) all rolled into one. Take a gander at this wonderful cornucopia of plenty (http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~jafarr/The%20Cornocopia.html):
The indictment of Scooter Libby: After what seems like years of waiting, Patrick J. Fitzgerald (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/) – our Santa Claus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzmas) – finally came down the chimney with a well-crafted indictment (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf) [.pdf] that will put one of the chief architects (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/28/MNGMPFESCJ24.DTL) of the War Party behind bars (http://www.whitmanpolice.com/images/prison.jpg). Let them grumble and cavil (http://mediamatters.org/items/200510310005) about the supposed lack of a reference to the “underlying crime,” let them raise millions for the Neocon Defense Fund (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_libby_defense_2), let them delay (http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2246), divert (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/17/114332.shtml), and deny (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/358657p-305630c.html) all they want – it’ll all be to no avail, and for two very good reasons: (1) Libby is a liar (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7825), as the indictment indubitably and irrefutably proves, and (2) there are more indictments where that came from (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051104.html).
The indictment of Lord Conrad Black: Just like Santa and his elves (http://www.paseelves.org/) this holiday season, Fitzgerald is busy, busy, busy, and he’s come down with yet another indictment (http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/hllngr/usblack1105ind.pdf) [.pdf] of a prominent neocon: press magnate Conrad Black (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1039), whose company, Hollinger (http://www.hollinger.com/hollingerinc.htm), at one time owned the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1595901,00.html), the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/19/wirq19.xml), and 60 percent of Canada’s dailies (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=an713Kr_WEHk&refer=us). The charge: stealing $58.1 million (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/business/18black.html) from investors.
It is a well-deserved comeuppance. While the pro-war Hollinger newspaper chain achieved new heights of reportorial mendacity in the run-up to (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/09/wirq109.xml) and aftermath of (http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2003/07/14/160881.html) the Iraq war – feeding the public a steady diet of lies, libels, and outright fabrications – Black, and his wife, columnist Barbara Amiel (http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/article.jsp?content=20041108_91818_91818), climbed to new heights of ostentatious vulgarity (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051117/conrad_black_profile_051117/20051117/), pouring millions into such necessities of life as mansions in Toronto, London, and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as a luxurious Manhattan condo. In one fashion magazine account of Lady Black’s wardrobe, she confided that “my extravagance knows no bounds.” According to documents Fitzgerald pried out of Black, among the list of personal items charged to Hollinger were the lease of a corporate jet ($3 million per year), and $42,870 for Her Ladyship’s birthday bash at a trendy-wendy New York restaurant. Her bill for handbags, alone, came to $2,463 – and naturally, Hollinger’s long-oppressed investors had to pony up.
The massive theft, which I wrote about here (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j112103.html), epitomizes the operating strategy of the neoconservative gang (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html) that Black did so much to promote and propagandize for: like Richard Perle (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact), another Hollinger executive who pillaged the company (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2020-5-1006783-8307,00.html), Black fattened his bank balance even as the public purse (http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=7134) was drained on the War Party’s behalf.
The veritable avalanche of secret memos, and the outpouring of revelations by government insider-whistleblowers: Now that the American (http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9961) (and British (http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/12/troops.shtml)) people have turned against the war, the war-makers, government officials, and other whistleblowers who witnessed the War Party’s prevaricating tactics on the inside are dropping a dime or two on the culprits. We have a flurry of secret memos revealed to the light of day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1648593,00.html), one of the most delightful (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397937&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive--bush-plot-to-bomb-his-arab-ally-name_page.html) being the five-page transcript of a conversation between Tony Blair and George W. Bush, recording the British prime minister’s effort to talk Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera TV (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-10.htm), in Qatar and elsewhere (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jscahill.php?articleid=8148).
Of course, bombing television stations and other media outlets is nothing new for the U.S. hegemon. During the Kosovo war, the Clinton administration made no bones about the fact that the Yugoslav media were in their sights, and NATO defended the bombing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/326653.stm) of Serbian state television on the grounds that it was a “ministry of lies” – a description that, when one considers how most of the English-speaking media have reported their governments’ lies uncritically (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5187), seems like a clear case of pot-kettle-black.
And then we have the latest scoop by National Journal reporter Murray Waas, who reveals (http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm):
“Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al-Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.”
Now that is a stocking stuffer to beat all stocking stuffers (http://stickeremporium.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LS&Product_Code=MB00284&Category_Code=LS0000) – the central lie (http://tinyurl.com/bmp74) in the administration’s elaborate mythology of 9/11 is effectively debunked! And, what’s more, the president of the United States knew the truth all along, even as he railed (http://tinyurl.com/8vvbk) against the 9/11 hijackers and Saddam as if (http://tinyurl.com/77gmh) they were joined at the hip. For years, Americans were led to believe that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis had been the evil motivating force behind the worst terrorist attack in American history – to the point where many thought (http://tinyurl.com/btjtd) it was Iraqis who hijacked those planes and drove them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Yet another gift from the gods is the testimony of Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilkerson25oct25,0,7455395.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions), former top aide to Colin Powell, exposing the machinations of what he calls “the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Wilkerson%20Speech%20--%20WEB.htm).” For years, we at Antiwar.com have been carrying on (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG,GGLG%3A2005-22,GGLG%3Aen&q=cabal%2Bsite%3Awww.antiwar.com&btnG=Search) about the Cabal That Lied Us Into War – only to be excoriated as “conspiracy theorists” and worse (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5226) by the self-appointed forces of “moderation (http://www.counterpunch.org/mccarthy02212003.html)” and political correctness. Now, at last, we have independent confirmation of what we’ve been saying all along: that a camarilla (http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2005/05/16.html) of neocons, centered (http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe102303.html) in Vice President Cheney’s office as well as in key positions (http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8137) at the Pentagon, doctored and massaged prewar intelligence until it had only the most superficial resemblance to the truth.
The neocons pulled off what was in effect a coup d’etat (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2340), doing an end-run (http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003133.html) around the CIA and the State Department and funneling (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact) their fabricated (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8023) “intelligence” to Congress, the White House, and the American people. So how did they do it? How did they pull off creating what Colin Powell – cited in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack – called “a separate government (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html)“? We know some of the story, due to the investigative reporting of writers like Seymour Hersh (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact), Julian Borger (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html), Jason Vest (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html), Robert (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041004/dreyfuss) Dreyfuss (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030707/dreyfuss), Karen (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp/index.html) Kwiatkowski (http://militaryweek.com/kk011904.shtml), and (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14202-2004Jun3.html) oth (http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe080703.html)ers (http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040824-102938-1916r.htm) – but it now looks like we’re about to learn more. The Pentagon’s acting deputy inspector general for intelligence, Shelton R. Young (http://www.stormingmedia.us/authors/Young_Shelton_R_.html), is investigating whether the Office of Special Plans (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html), under former Deputy Defense Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith (http://www.antiwar.com/barry/?articleid=3545), “conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate intelligence activities (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-feith19nov19,1,6075658.story?coll=la-iraq-complete).”
Gee, do you think there may have been something to speculation in this space (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6137) that Feith’s sudden retirement was due to an investigation into possible (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html) illegal activities (http://tinyurl.com/77959) engaged in by his department?
A Note From the Author: Well, I was going to write an original Thanksgiving column, but my Significant Other has other plans. And so below I present you with a Thanksgiving column from ten years ago – just to give you some historical perspectve. And while I’m on the subject of history: yes, it’s Antiwar.com’s 20th anniversary next month. We’ve seen it all and then some – and we’ll be around for another 20 years. With your help, that is: please donate to our fundraising drive to make sure that the next 20 years is as good as the last. (http://antiwar.com/donate/)
Originally published on November 25, 2005
A Feast of Scandal
We have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving
I’m thankful for so many things this Thanksgiving that it’s going to take me an entire column just to adequately describe them. Indeed, I’m already so loaded down with gifts that I don’t need Christmas. My cup runneth over! For an old libertarian “isolationist (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard41.html)” like me (http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=2723) this holiday season is a bountiful time, one that yields so much that it seems like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Raimondo) all rolled into one. Take a gander at this wonderful cornucopia of plenty (http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~jafarr/The%20Cornocopia.html):
The indictment of Scooter Libby: After what seems like years of waiting, Patrick J. Fitzgerald (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/) – our Santa Claus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzmas) – finally came down the chimney with a well-crafted indictment (http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf) [.pdf] that will put one of the chief architects (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/28/MNGMPFESCJ24.DTL) of the War Party behind bars (http://www.whitmanpolice.com/images/prison.jpg). Let them grumble and cavil (http://mediamatters.org/items/200510310005) about the supposed lack of a reference to the “underlying crime,” let them raise millions for the Neocon Defense Fund (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051119/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/cia_leak_libby_defense_2), let them delay (http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/2246), divert (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/17/114332.shtml), and deny (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/358657p-305630c.html) all they want – it’ll all be to no avail, and for two very good reasons: (1) Libby is a liar (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7825), as the indictment indubitably and irrefutably proves, and (2) there are more indictments where that came from (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051104.html).
The indictment of Lord Conrad Black: Just like Santa and his elves (http://www.paseelves.org/) this holiday season, Fitzgerald is busy, busy, busy, and he’s come down with yet another indictment (http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/hllngr/usblack1105ind.pdf) [.pdf] of a prominent neocon: press magnate Conrad Black (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1039), whose company, Hollinger (http://www.hollinger.com/hollingerinc.htm), at one time owned the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1595901,00.html), the Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/19/wirq19.xml), and 60 percent of Canada’s dailies (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=an713Kr_WEHk&refer=us). The charge: stealing $58.1 million (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/business/18black.html) from investors.
It is a well-deserved comeuppance. While the pro-war Hollinger newspaper chain achieved new heights of reportorial mendacity in the run-up to (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/09/wirq109.xml) and aftermath of (http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2003/07/14/160881.html) the Iraq war – feeding the public a steady diet of lies, libels, and outright fabrications – Black, and his wife, columnist Barbara Amiel (http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/article.jsp?content=20041108_91818_91818), climbed to new heights of ostentatious vulgarity (http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051117/conrad_black_profile_051117/20051117/), pouring millions into such necessities of life as mansions in Toronto, London, and Palm Beach, Fla., as well as a luxurious Manhattan condo. In one fashion magazine account of Lady Black’s wardrobe, she confided that “my extravagance knows no bounds.” According to documents Fitzgerald pried out of Black, among the list of personal items charged to Hollinger were the lease of a corporate jet ($3 million per year), and $42,870 for Her Ladyship’s birthday bash at a trendy-wendy New York restaurant. Her bill for handbags, alone, came to $2,463 – and naturally, Hollinger’s long-oppressed investors had to pony up.
The massive theft, which I wrote about here (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j112103.html), epitomizes the operating strategy of the neoconservative gang (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/lind1.html) that Black did so much to promote and propagandize for: like Richard Perle (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact), another Hollinger executive who pillaged the company (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,2020-5-1006783-8307,00.html), Black fattened his bank balance even as the public purse (http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=7134) was drained on the War Party’s behalf.
The veritable avalanche of secret memos, and the outpouring of revelations by government insider-whistleblowers: Now that the American (http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9961) (and British (http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/10_october/12/troops.shtml)) people have turned against the war, the war-makers, government officials, and other whistleblowers who witnessed the War Party’s prevaricating tactics on the inside are dropping a dime or two on the culprits. We have a flurry of secret memos revealed to the light of day (http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,16518,1648593,00.html), one of the most delightful (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397937&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=exclusive--bush-plot-to-bomb-his-arab-ally-name_page.html) being the five-page transcript of a conversation between Tony Blair and George W. Bush, recording the British prime minister’s effort to talk Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera TV (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0402-10.htm), in Qatar and elsewhere (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jscahill.php?articleid=8148).
Of course, bombing television stations and other media outlets is nothing new for the U.S. hegemon. During the Kosovo war, the Clinton administration made no bones about the fact that the Yugoslav media were in their sights, and NATO defended the bombing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/326653.stm) of Serbian state television on the grounds that it was a “ministry of lies” – a description that, when one considers how most of the English-speaking media have reported their governments’ lies uncritically (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5187), seems like a clear case of pot-kettle-black.
And then we have the latest scoop by National Journal reporter Murray Waas, who reveals (http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm):
“Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al-Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.”
Now that is a stocking stuffer to beat all stocking stuffers (http://stickeremporium.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=LS&Product_Code=MB00284&Category_Code=LS0000) – the central lie (http://tinyurl.com/bmp74) in the administration’s elaborate mythology of 9/11 is effectively debunked! And, what’s more, the president of the United States knew the truth all along, even as he railed (http://tinyurl.com/8vvbk) against the 9/11 hijackers and Saddam as if (http://tinyurl.com/77gmh) they were joined at the hip. For years, Americans were led to believe that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis had been the evil motivating force behind the worst terrorist attack in American history – to the point where many thought (http://tinyurl.com/btjtd) it was Iraqis who hijacked those planes and drove them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Yet another gift from the gods is the testimony of Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilkerson25oct25,0,7455395.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions), former top aide to Colin Powell, exposing the machinations of what he calls “the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Wilkerson%20Speech%20--%20WEB.htm).” For years, we at Antiwar.com have been carrying on (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLG,GGLG%3A2005-22,GGLG%3Aen&q=cabal%2Bsite%3Awww.antiwar.com&btnG=Search) about the Cabal That Lied Us Into War – only to be excoriated as “conspiracy theorists” and worse (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=5226) by the self-appointed forces of “moderation (http://www.counterpunch.org/mccarthy02212003.html)” and political correctness. Now, at last, we have independent confirmation of what we’ve been saying all along: that a camarilla (http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2005/05/16.html) of neocons, centered (http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe102303.html) in Vice President Cheney’s office as well as in key positions (http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=8137) at the Pentagon, doctored and massaged prewar intelligence until it had only the most superficial resemblance to the truth.
The neocons pulled off what was in effect a coup d’etat (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2340), doing an end-run (http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003133.html) around the CIA and the State Department and funneling (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact) their fabricated (http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8023) “intelligence” to Congress, the White House, and the American people. So how did they do it? How did they pull off creating what Colin Powell – cited in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack – called “a separate government (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17347-2004Apr16.html)“? We know some of the story, due to the investigative reporting of writers like Seymour Hersh (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact), Julian Borger (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html), Jason Vest (http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html), Robert (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041004/dreyfuss) Dreyfuss (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030707/dreyfuss), Karen (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp/index.html) Kwiatkowski (http://militaryweek.com/kk011904.shtml), and (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14202-2004Jun3.html) oth (http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe080703.html)ers (http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040824-102938-1916r.htm) – but it now looks like we’re about to learn more. The Pentagon’s acting deputy inspector general for intelligence, Shelton R. Young (http://www.stormingmedia.us/authors/Young_Shelton_R_.html), is investigating whether the Office of Special Plans (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html), under former Deputy Defense Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith (http://www.antiwar.com/barry/?articleid=3545), “conducted unauthorized, unlawful, or inappropriate intelligence activities (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-na-feith19nov19,1,6075658.story?coll=la-iraq-complete).”
Gee, do you think there may have been something to speculation in this space (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6137) that Feith’s sudden retirement was due to an investigation into possible (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html) illegal activities (http://tinyurl.com/77959) engaged in by his department?