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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY Former top CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful it is. Read how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier, exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories June 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook Rev. William E. Alberts
June 13, 2006 Medea Benjamin Anthony Alessandrini Paul D'Amato Dave Lindorff John Ross Gabriel Garcia Hilton Obenzinger Yitzhak Laor Juan Antonio
Ocasio Rivera Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of the
Day
June 12, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Mike Marqusee Lee Sustar Robert Fisk Michael J. Smith Felice Pace Jennifer Loewenstein Website of the Day
June 10 / 11,
2006 Robert Fisk Diane Christian Joe Allen Ralph Nader Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin /
John Cox Dennis Perrin Greg Moses John Chuckman Michael J. Smith Roger Burbach Ira Moskowitz Sam Bahour Seth Sandronsky Michael Berg Kirsten Roberts Ron Jacobs Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of the
Weekend
June 9, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Eric Ruder Evelyn Pringle Mickey Z. Michael J. Smith Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
June 8, 2006 Chris Floyd Michael Dickinson Ron Jacobs William S. Lind Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Lloyd Williams Bill Christison Website of the Day
June 7, 2006 Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor John Walsh David MacMichael Mickey Z. Evelyn Pringle Myles Palmer Laura Ribeiro Website of the Day
June 6, 2006 Diane Christian Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Norman Solomon Darmont / Genovali Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Subcomandante Marcos Patrick Cockburn Website of the Day
June 5, 2006 Bruce Jackson Chris Floyd Michael Neumann Heather Gray William Hughes David Swanson Alexander Cockburn Website of the Day
June 3 / 4, 2006 Robert Fisk James Petras Rosemary Radford Ruether Harry Clark Jeffrey St. Clair Ron Ridenour Ron Jacobs Fred Gardner Peter Montague John Walsh Greg Moses Sean Donahue Mike Whitney Dave Patten Ali Khan Robert Dotson,
MD Hammond Guthrie St. Clair / D'Antoni Poets' Basement Website of the
Day
June 2, 2006 Kathy Kelly Alan Maass Mickey Z. Dave Lindorff Chris Kutalik Sunsara Taylor Sam Husseini Mike Ferner Website of the
Day
June 1, 2006 Brian Cloughley David Peterson Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Paul Rockwell Clifton Ross Kevin Zeese Website of the
Day
May 31, 2006 Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz P. Sainath Ramzy Baroud Seth Sandronsky Mickey Z. Ralph Nader Jeffrey St. Clair Website of the Day
May 30, 2006 Lee Ballinger Jonathan Cook Gary Leupp John Ross Robert Jensen Michael Dickinson Michael Carmichael Tim Wise Harry Browne Website of the
Day
May 27 / 29,
2006 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Kathy Kelly Christopher
Reed Lawrence R. Velvel Tom Barry Gary Leupp Col. Dan Smith Ron Jacobs Don Fitz Fred Gardner Peter Montague Raymond Garcia John Farley Seth Sandronsky Tia Steele Lenni Brenner Dr. Susan Block Scott Michael Perey Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Recipe of the
Weekend Website of the Weekend
May 26, 2006 Col. Douglas
MacGregor Brian J. Foley Michael Dickinson Missy Comley Beattie Pierre Tristam Joe Allen Kona Lowell Roger Burbach Website of the
Day
May 25, 2006 Les AuCoin Jeff Halper Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Bob Wing Elise Gould Robert Bryce Website of the Day
May 24, 2006 Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Lucinda Marshall Dave Lindorff Shmuel Rosner Moshe Adler Heather Gray Pratyush Chandra Paul Craig Roberts Floyd Rudmin Website of the Day
May 23, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Sunsara Taylor Joel Whitney Alice Cherbonnier Ron Jacobs Kristen Ess Patrick Cockburn Website of the
Day
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June 14, 2006 Karl and GeorgeThe Teflon PartnershipBy EVELYN PRINGLE Shortly after Valerie Plame was outed, Joe Wilson received a long handwritten letter from the first President Bush expressing his "outrage at what had happened and his understanding of the seriousness of it," according to Wilson. The elder Bush, a former CIA Director himself, is known to have said in 1999, that "those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources" are "the most insidious of traitors." How must the father feel now that he knows his son is the leader of a gang of the "most insidious of traitors?" The American taxpayers who paid for the investigation to determine the identities of the insidious traitors deserve to know what happened to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald between October 28, 2005 and June 13, 2006. Back when he announced the Scooter Libby indictment, he said Valerie Plame's CIA status was classified and not common knowledge. At his October press conference, Fitzgerald specifically told reporters:
In an August 27, 2005 affidavit, filed in the Libby case, Fitzgerald described Valerie Plame as "a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years." Fitzgerald has identified Karl Rove as one of Novak's sources. In fact, according to court filings, Rove was the person who told Scooter Libby that Novak was planning to write a story about Wilson before it was published. And as it turns out, Rove was Time Magazine's Matt Cooper's source as well. So what happened to the special prosecutor since October 28, 2005? One thing is clear. The "Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement," Forms SF-312, signed by members of the Bush administration are not worth the paper they are written on. Rove signed that form as a condition of employment and it prohibits even confirming or repeating classified information already leaked. The briefing book that comes with the form states in relevant part:
Since day one, when Plame's identity showed up in the press, there have been lies, upon lies, upon more lies from members of the Bush administration On September 29, 2003, during a public press conference, press secretary, Scott McClellan told the world in regard to any White House involvement in the leak:
McClellan assured Americans that "if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." In regard to Rove being involved, McClellan said the "President knows" it is not true and then told world:
On June 24, 2004, Fitzgerald and his assistants interviewed Bush himself in the Oval Office. At a press conference that day, McClellan told Americans that Bush was "pleased to do his part" and stated: "No one wants to get to the bottom of this matter more than the president of the United States, and he has said on more than one occasion that if anyone -- inside or outside the government has information that can help the investigators get to the bottom of this, they should provide that information to the officials in charge." A month or so later, Karl Rove said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name," to a CNN reporter at the Republican convention in July 2004. "This is at the Justice Department," Rove said, "I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation." On July 2, 2005, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." The thorough investigation Rove referred to is done and it revealed what many of us knew when it began. Rove was the source of the leak of Valerie's identity, and not to only one reporter but to two. On July 13, 2005, Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury and informed the panel that Rove was the first source that told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. In an article discussing his testimony, in the July 17, 2005 Time Magazine, Cooper wrote: "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes." "Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes," Cooper asked and answered in the article. "When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know," Cooper wrote. On April 6, 2006, it was widely reported that Libby told the grand jury that Bush and Cheney authorized the disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to debunk Wilson's claims, according to documents filed in the Libby case. Libby testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller, getting approval from the President through the Vice President to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval were unique in his recollection, according to Fitzgerald's filings in the case. He further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by Cheney to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin, the communications person for Cheney at the time. Press secretary McClellan confirmed that Bush authorized the leak, but refused to answer questions about why Bush would bother appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Plame matter if he knew from the beginning who disclosed the information. After being made a fool of in front of his fellow reporters, poor old Scott McClellan bit the dust apparently because he did not possess the ability to lie at the drop of a hat without looking guilty, THE top requirement for anyone who hopes to hold onto a job in the Bush White House. On October 7, 2003, three months after Plame's identity was leaked, Bush said in a press conference that it was unlikely that the person who leaked the name would be found. "I mean this is a town full of people who like to leak information," he said. "And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official." "Now," he rambled on, "this is a large administration, and there's lots of senior officials. I don't have any idea." For 3 long years, Bush engaged in this type of a cat-and-mouse game at the expense of the American taxpayers, and most taxpayers emphatically say they are not amused. John Dean, former White House counsel to President Nixon during Watergate, wrote an open letter to Fitzgerald and warned that the Bush gang was using the same tactics the Nixon team used during Watergate and said in part:
We will no doubt have a Democratically controlled Congress in about 8 months and they had better do their job in exposing this corrupt regime because this gang of thugs is ten times worse than the Nixon administration. The damning truth is that the US government exposed the identity of an undercover office and the fact that this unprecedented act will go unpunished will have far reaching consequences on covert operations all over the world. If a CIA officer is exposed, his or her informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of an officer ensures not only his or her own safety but that of the agent's assets as well. A CIA agent in some foreign country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be invaluable because promises of protection will no longer carry the trust they once did. When the outing occurred, critics say, Bush should have demanded the resignation of all persons involved. At a bare minimum, he should have suspended their security clearances and placed them on administrative leave. But then how could he do that when him and Cheney were directing the plot. Instead, even knowing what they knew, the Bush gang flooded the airwaves with political rhetoric demeaning Plame's importance at the CIA. Each time the talking heads displayed their ignorance by portraying Plame as a mere paper-pusher, or belittled the degree of cover used to protect CIA operatives, they did a disservice to all intelligence agents. On July 22, 2005, former CIA agent, Larry Johnson testified at a Senate hearing and said the matter was not just about Plame. "We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials," Johnson said, "that went out and started talking to the press about this." "And they have," he testified, "harmed the security of this country." On October 30, 2005, former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowski told 60 Minutes that one of the worst things about the leak is that it gives America's enemies clues about how the CIA operates. "She is the wife of an ambassador," he explained, "now, since this happened, every wife of an ambassador is going to be suspected." "Or they'll know there's a possibility," he said, "that the wife of a U.S. ambassador is a CIA agent." "This was done to silence others," according to Joe Wilson. "The message was if you do to us what Wilson did to us, we'll do to you what we just did to Wilson's family," he said. Well then mission accomplished. After watching this dog and pony show for 3 years, who among us is going to expose the truth when we know this gang of thugs has done something detrimental to the country when it means our entire family is fair game for destruction and there is nothing we can do about it. Evelyn Pringle can be reached at: evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
