TBR News May 18, 2019
The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. May 18, 2019: “Working in the White House as a junior staffer is an interesting experience.
When I was younger, I worked as a summer-time job in a clinic for people who had moderate to severe mental problems and the current work closely, at times, echos the earlier one.
I am not an intimate of the President but I have encountered him from time to time and I daily see manifestations of his growing psychological problems.
He insults people, uses foul language, is frantic to see his name mentioned on main-line television and pays absolutely no attention to any advice from his staff that runs counter to his strange ideas.
He lies like a rug to everyone, eats like a hog, makes lewd remarks to female staffers and flies into rages if anyone dares to contradict him.
His latest business is to re-institute a universal draft in America.
He wants to do this to remove tens of thousands of unemployed young Americans from the streets so they won’t come together and fight him.
Commentary for May 18:”The story about the attacked Saudi oil tankers has mercifuly died away and I am waiting for the next militant fiction. Poor Bolton has been on the losing end recently and people like that are not happy to be on the losing end. Considering the murderous trouble he want to make for the global community, putting him up in a tree would be a wonderful idea. I am praying that Trump doesn’t get into the health fix nuttiness or he will be recommending used battery acid as a laxative for babies. More people on the planet and more loonies to deal with.”
The Table of Contents
- Homelessness surges in San Francisco while tech’s richest grow richer
- Old grudges, new weapons… is the US on the brink of war with Iran?
- Trump may pardon military men accused or convicted of war crimes: New York Times
- US pastor runs network giving 50,000 Ugandans bleach-based ‘miracle cure’
- Four Simple Steps the U.S. Media Could Take to Prevent a Trump War With Iran
- Encyclopedia of American Loons
- The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
- Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Homelessness surges in San Francisco while tech’s richest grow richer
The number of homeless people in the city, where the cost of living is more unaffordable than ever, has increased to 8,011
May 17, 2019
by Vivian Ho in San Francisco
The Guardian
San Francisco saw a 17% increase in its homeless population since its last homeless count, with numbers rising to levels that haven’t been recorded on these streets in 17 years.
The increase comes amid an IPO boom in a tech industry that has the city’s rich growing richer, the wealth disparities starker and the cost of living more unaffordable than ever.
“The cost of housing hasn’t gone down, so why does anyone expect that the amount of people experiencing homelessness would go down?” said Kelley Cutler, the human rights organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness.
The city released a preliminary summary of its one-night street count on Thursday, tallying the number of homeless people at 8,011. The uptick, according to the mayor’s office, came primarily from people living in their cars, who totaled 68% of those counted.
San Francisco conducts its homeless count every two years, as is required by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. The number is believed to be a low estimate, as federal guidelines for homelessness are broader than the city’s definitions, and the city will release a more accurate count in July. In 2017, the count at this time was 6,858 while the later tally came out to 7,499.
This year’s count showed a 14% drop in veteran homelessness and a 10% drop in youth homelessness.
“The initial results of this count show we have more to do to provide more shelter, more exits from homelessness, and to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place,” the San Francisco mayor, London Breed, said in a statement. “The results around our work focusing on youth and veteran homelessness are evidence that when we target our investments, we can make a difference for those living on our streets. As I have been saying for years, we desperately need to build more housing, especially badly needed affordable housing and supportive housing, because we know that high housing costs contribute to an increase in homelessness.
“We know that homelessness is not just an issue in San Francisco, as other counties in the Bay Area and across the state are experiencing similar circumstances, and we all need to work together on regional and statewide solutions to address this crisis.”
In November, the city passed a measure that will implement an average 0.5% gross receipts tax for companies with revenues over $50m. The measure was hotly contested within the tech industry, with tech billionaires publicly clashing over the industry’s role in creating the economic disparities driving the homeless crisis.
Proposition C is expected to raise an estimated $250m-$300m in additional revenue for homeless services, but is currently tied up in the courts.
The city has promised to increase the number of shelter beds by 1,000, but one proposed homeless shelter, approved by authorities in the city’s waterfront neighborhood, will also be tied up in legal disputes by the neighborhood residents who raised more than $101,000 in a crowdfunding campaign to pay for an attorney to fight the construction of the Navigation Center.
Old grudges, new weapons… is the US on the brink of war with Iran?
While American hawks talk up an ‘imminent’ threat from Tehran with no hard evidence, echoing the start of the Iraq conflict, hardliners are in the ascendant in Iran
May 18, 2019
by Simon Tisdall
The Guardian
For better or worse, America remains the world’s leading military superpower. In Washington last week, a familiar row erupted over how best that power should be used. Past targets have included Soviet Russia, al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Today the international bogeyman topping the White House’s to-do list is Iran.
Once again the US is in the process of deciding whether to go to war. As always, it is a tangled, messy and dishonest business. On one side, favouring punitive action, stand the Iran hawks. They include neoconservative retreads such as John Bolton, Donald Trump’s national security adviser, who championed the 2003 Iraq invasion; Mike Pompeo, a former CIA director and Christian evangelical who heads the state department; and Mike Pence, the ascetic US vice-president.
On the other side, opposing escalation, stand Democratic party leaders in Congress and a clutch of presidential hopefuls; sceptical Pentagon generals and security agency officials who trust Bolton as far as they can toss an IED; a majority of Washington’s more important allies in the EU and Nato; and China and Russia, which oppose American global power-plays on principle.
The focus of the row was secret intelligence, reportedly gathered by US satellites over recent weeks and presented to officials on 3 May. The photographs purported to show Iranian Revolutionary Guards loading missiles onto dhows in the Gulf. Their presumed purpose was to attack American and allied naval or commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s oil supplies pass.
The existence of the surveillance photos was top secret – until the information inexplicably leaked to the media last Wednesday. Oddly enough, a few days earlier Saudi Arabia – America’s close ally and sworn foe of Iran – had reported attacks on four tankers in the Strait. Oddly again, no one claimed responsibility and Tehran denied all knowledge. Marine insurers pointed the finger at Iran’s Houthi allies. But while admitting it had no proof, the pro-war camp in Washington immediately blamed Iran or its proxy forces.
The reaction from Bolton and Pompeo was swift. Citing yet more secret intelligence that Iran was rallying Shia militias in Iraq and Syria to “prepare for war”, they had already expedited military reinforcements to the Middle East – an aircraft carrier battlegroup and nuclear-armed bombers. Pompeo dramatically cancelled a visit to Germany and flew to Baghdad to warn of the threat.
In the wake of the tanker attacks, the administration upped the ante. Details of a White House national security meeting were also leaked. They revealed that Patrick Shanahan, the acting defence secretary, had presented a new plan to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East, supposedly to deter Iran. Another option under discussion was multiple sea and air-launched missile strikes on Iran’s military facilities and suspected nuclear-related targets.
Since then, White House officials have persistently talked up an “imminent” threat from Tehran, Pompeo has personally briefed EU governments (he reportedly got a cool reception), and the US embassy in Baghdad has been partly evacuated. But there’s a snag. Throughout this accelerating process of military and diplomatic escalation, the US has not produced any firm, on-the-record evidence of hostile Iranian action.
For anybody who recalls the disinformation, untruths and downright lies that preceded the Iraq invasion, the similarities with Iran are uncanny – and disturbing. Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, was among those complaining last week about a blind drift to war. “Did we learn the lessons of the last decade?” asked Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate. “There is an alarming lack of clarity here, there’s a lack of strategy, and there’s a lack of consultation.”
Smelling a familiar rat, Democrats are investigating claims that Pompeo’s state department slanted an annual global arms control report to cast Iran in a bad light.
In this respect Bolton’s current role is particularly suspect. After Iraq went disastrously wrong, he was widely accused of massaging and manipulating secret intelligence to falsely bolster the case for war. Inaccurate US claims that Saddam possessed and was ready to use weapons of mass destruction – claims infamously echoed by Britain’s the then Prime Minister Tony Blair – fatally discredited the strategy.
Memories of the Iraq fiasco may have influenced Major-General Chris Ghika, the British deputy commander of the coalition against Isis, when he was asked about the American claims last week. “There’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,” he said. Since Ghika is based in Baghdad, he might be expected to know best.
That did not stop the Pentagon issuing an extraordinary rebuttal, saying the general’s comments “run counter to the identified credible threats”. In another echo of Iraq, the British government caved in to US pressure and disowned Ghika the following day, saying that it fully agreed with Washington’s threat-level assessment.
The crisis began to build in earnest last year when Trump reneged on the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the US, Europe, China and Russia. When signed, the deal was hailed as a major diplomatic achievement, allaying fears Iran was secretly trying to acquire nuclear weapons by imposing strict, independently verifiable curbs. The US decision to trash it was just the start.
Trump went on to impose probably the most severe, wide-ranging economic and financial sanctions ever levied, including an embargo on oil sales. He also vowed to punish third countries, including allies such as Britain, if they continued to trade with Tehran.
Trump justified his action by claiming the 2015 treaty was a bad deal. Iran might still eventually build a bomb, he claimed, while the pact did not constrain its ballistic missile programme or its “destabilising” regional activities. He just wanted Iran to act like a “normal” country.
That was interpreted, in Iran and elsewhere, as a naked bid to enforce regime change. Indeed, Trump has encouraged opposition street protests amid suggestions the regime’s expensive foreign entanglements are unpopular with Iran’s hard-pressed, tax-paying public.
In recent weeks, the US has stepped up its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign, designating the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation and cancelling remaining waivers allowing some countries to buy Iranian oil. Iran’s oil exports have now fallen to 1 million barrels per day (BPD) or less from a peak of 2.8 million BPD. Exports could fall as low as 500,000 BPD this month.
Pompeo and Bolton also set a new trap over proxy forces. Official policy now states that “any attack on US interests or on those of our allies” will be met with “unrelenting force” directed at Iran. Any one of dozens of pro-Iran Shia militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria or Yemen, or any terrorist group or individual wishing to make trouble, potentially has the power to provoke direct US-Iran armed confrontation by attacking “US interests and allies” anywhere at all.
Relentless, seemingly implacable American hostility is producing an inevitable reaction inside Iran where, for many, the US-Iran war of 2019 has already begun. The military encirclement is tightening. The country is being strangled economically. Ordinary people face growing hardship. Emboldened regional enemies are queuing up to strike. And it seems nothing will silence Washington’s war drums.
That, at least, is how Iranian hardliners, including the powerful clerical establishment, the judiciary, conservative media outlets and Revolutionary Guard commanders, increasingly appear to view the present crisis. Their influence is growing as the inability of Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s moderate president, and his alliesto fend off US pressure becomes more evident.
Defiant Iranian rhetoric is flying hard and fast. Scorning America’s “gun to the head”, the Revolutionary Guards general Saleh Jokar warned last week that Iran could “easily” strike US navy ships in the Gulf. But his assertion that the US “cannot afford the costs of a new war” smacked of dangerously delusional thinking. Saddam made a similar mistake.
Rouhani’s policy of “strategic patience” is now widely dismissed as a failure. Bending to his critics this month, he said Iran would cease to observe some of the terms of the 2015 deal. At the same time, he urged European countries that still support the agreement to do more to circumvent US sanctions. He received short shrift from France and Britain, while at home his move was dismissed as “minimal”.
Rouhani’s second term has two years to run, but he is plainly in trouble. His recent call to the public to prepare for sacrifices even greater than those during Iran’s 1980s war with Iraq did not go down well. Internal repression, arbitrary arrests and censorship of social media, which he once vowed to eliminate, are increasing. Hopes of democratic reform that blossomed in the 2009 “Persian spring” have faded.
US-Iran enmity is by no means new. It dates back to the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, a western ally, and the subsequent, prolonged hostage siege at the US embassy in Tehran. Some Iranians believe the US has never forgiven that humiliation and has sought revenge ever since. That is given as a reason why Washington backed Saddam, and sold him weapons, during the Iran-Iraq war. Others say it is majority-Shia Iran’s emergence as a regional power that enrages the Americans and Trump’s allies, the Sunni Muslim patriarchs of Saudi Arabia.
In one sense, modern Iran is following a well worn path as its strength grows, extending its reach and influence in much the same way as 19th-century America. The chaotic aftermath of the Iraq invasion helped expand its grip. But many in the Sunni Arab world decry Iran’s advance as malign, while Washington has never taken kindly to those who challenge its global prerogatives.
Iran’s role, with Russia and Hezbollah in Lebanon, in rescuing Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite regime in Syria is nothing to be proud of. Many atrocities and much suffering can be laid at its door. Iran’s hand is also seen in the fight between Houthi rebels, the Saudis and the UAE in Yemen. Bahrain, among others, accuses Tehran of stirring up trouble with its Shia majority. In all these cases, in fact, the Shia-Sunni divide is an important factor.
Most of all, Iran’s growing regional power is seen by the US as a direct threat to Israel. Leading Iranian political and military figures, notably the former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have repeatedly threatened to wipe the country off the map. Iran is building military bases in Syria, within close missile range. And Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and Trump buddy, remains convinced the mullahs, despite denials, are hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
In short, America does not lack for reasons to fear Iran. But does that justify the use of military force? Like Iraq in 2003, all the ingredients for war are again present in 2019: old grudges, new weapons, dodgy intelligence, personal animus, opposing ideologies, regional, territorial and religious rivalries, and competition for resources, particularly oil.
Optimists say both sides are posturing, that it is a war of nerves, not missiles, and that all-out conflict is unlikely. Pessimists say battle has already been joined on multiple fronts and will surely escalate.
Strangely, given his record, Trump could be the person to stop the dread descent to war. Though he does not give a fig about democratic self-determination or human rights, he would like to see a pro-western government in Tehran. His Israeli and Saudi allies desperately want to de-fang Iran and he insists he will defend US interests. He has surrounded himself with hawks and headbangers. On both sides the potential for miscalculation – of war by accident – is massive.
Yet Trump says he does not want a fight and has offered to talk to Iran’s leaders, possibly using Swiss intermediaries. He has consistently criticised unpopular and expensive armed interventions in the Middle East. His gut instinct is to fight America’s battles by all means other than military. He would be loath to launch another war as US election year approaches.
As is often the case with this president, confusion reigns over what he really wants. Is this confrontation about permanently stifling Iranian nuclear ambitions? Ending its missile programme? Curbing its regional influence? Or all-out, forcible regime change? Amid myriad, alarming uncertainties, perhaps the biggest question now is: which way will Trump jump?
The proxy factor
- Recent attacks on Saudi oil tankers and allegedly heightened threats to US forces in Iraq and Syria are blamed by Washington on Iranian “proxy forces”, a reference to regionally based Shia militias owing allegiance to Tehran.
- Iraq The Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, supposedly controls up to 140,000 Shia fighters.
- Syria Iran has reportedly deployed Quds Force units to support the Assad regime and confront Israel.
- Lebanon Iran’s clerics and Qassem Suleimani, the Quds Force commander, have close links to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful anti-Israel military organisation.
- Yemen The insurrectionary Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthis, is the dominant force fighting Iran’s enemy, Saudi Arabia. Iran denies arming the group.
- Gaza Iran backs Palestinian Islamic Jihad in its struggle against what Tehran terms the “Zionist enemy”.
Trump may pardon military men accused or convicted of war crimes: New York Times
May 18, 2019
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has asked for files to be prepared on pardoning several U.S. military members accused of or convicted of war crimes, including one slated to stand trial on charges of shooting unarmed civilians while in Iraq, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Trump requested the immediate preparation of paperwork needed, indicating he is considering pardons for the men around Memorial Day on May 27, the report said, citing two unnamed U.S. officials. Assembling pardon files normally takes months, but the Justice Department has pressed for the work to be completed before that holiday weekend, one of the officials said.
One request is for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, scheduled to stand trial in coming weeks on charges of shooting unarmed civilians and killing an enemy captive with a knife while deployed in Iraq.
Also believed to be included is the case of Major Mathew Golsteyn, an Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010, the Times said.
Reuters could not immediately identify a way to contact Gallagher and Golsteyn.
The newspaper reported that the cases of other men are believed to be included in the paperwork, without naming them.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the report, while the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Legal experts cited in the report said that pardoning several accused and convicted war criminals, including some who have not yet gone to trial, has not been done in recent history, and some worried such pardons could erode the legitimacy of military law.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Nandita Bose; editing by Michelle Price, Diane Craft and Cynthia Osterman
US pastor runs network giving 50,000 Ugandans bleach-based ‘miracle cure’
Revealed: group led by Robert Baldwin and part-funded by Sam Little claims toxic fluid will eradicate HIV/Aids and other diseases
May 18, 2019
by Ed Pilkington in New York and Alon Mwesigwa in Kampala
The Guardian
An American pastor from New Jersey backed by a British former clairvoyant is running a network that gives up to 50,000 Ugandans a “miracle cure” made from industrial bleach, claiming drinking the toxic fluid eradicates cancer, HIV/Aids, malaria and most other diseases.
The network, led by pastor Robert Baldwin and part-funded by Sam Little from Arlesey in Bedfordshire, is one of the most extensive efforts yet to distribute the “miracle cure” known as MMS, or “miracle mineral solution”. The Guardian has learned that poor Ugandans, including infants as young as 14 months old, are being given chlorine dioxide, a product that has no known health benefit and can be extremely dangerous.
Baldwin, 52, is importing bulk shipments of the components of MMS, sodium chlorite and citric acid, into Uganda from China. The two chemicals are mixed to produce chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleach used in the textile industry.
The American pastor has “trained” about 1,200 clerics in Uganda on administering the “miracle cure” and each in turn uses it to treat about 50 congregants, usually after Sunday service. As an inducement, Baldwin is offering smartphones to those clerics who are especially “committed” to spreading the bleach cure.
Baldwin operates under a ministry he founded called Global Healing. The “church” advertises itself as “using the power of Almighty God … to greatly reduce the loss of life” in Africa.
Yet in a phone conversation with Fiona O’Leary, a campaigner against quack medicine who spoke to him while posing as a freelance journalist, Baldwin said he distributed the bleach through churches to “stay under the radar”.
“We don’t want to draw any attention,” he said during the call, a recording of which has been heard by the Guardian. “When you draw attention to MMS you run the risk of getting in trouble with the government or drug companies. You have to do it low key. That’s why I set it up through the church.”
He added that as a further precaution he uses euphemisms on Facebook, where he raises money through online donations. “I don’t call it MMS, I call it ‘healing water’, to protect myself. They are very sophisticated. Facebook has algorithms that can recognize ‘MMS’.”
Baldwin, who trained as a student nurse and is understood to have no other medical expertise, said he chose Uganda because it was a poor country with weak regulation. Speaking from New Jersey, where he is based, he told O’Leary: “America and Europe have much stricter laws so you are not as free to treat people because it is so controlled by the FDA. That’s why I work in developing countries.”
He added: “Those people in poor countries they don’t have the options that we have in the richer countries – they are much more open to receiving the blessings that God has given them.”
Asked how babies and children were treated with MMS, he said the dose was reduced by half. “Little tiny infants can take a small amount, they will spit it out. It causes no harm – they just get diarrhea.”
The Guardian contacted Baldwin by phone in New Jersey and asked the pastor to explain his work in Uganda. He said: “We use natural healing therapies to help people – that’s something Christians do.”
Then he said: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be talking to the media right now.”
Asked what doses of bleach he was using in Africa, he abruptly ended the call.
‘Sam’s orphanage’
MMS is banned in several countries, including Canada and Ireland. In the UK and US it is strictly controlled and has led to fraud prosecutions.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a public warning that advises anyone with MMS to “stop using it immediately and throw it away”. Several people have been sickened by the chemical, the FDA says, suffering nausea, diarrhea and potentially “life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration”.
Baldwin’s growing MMS network in Uganda appears to involve the distribution of the bleach free of charge. It is not clear how the money is raised to pay for it. There are fundraising pages on Facebook, though the sums of money donated seem small.
The MMS push has been partly bankrolled by Sam Little. Aged 25, the Briton is currently based in Fort Portal, in the west of Uganda, where the Guardian spoke to him via cellphone.
According to his Facebook page, Little attended Staffordshire University before setting up as a clairvoyant with a business that is now defunct called Psychic Sam. Facebook posts from 2015 show him offering Tarot card readings, “healings” and “regression therapy” for £6.99 ($8.90).
He told the Guardian he also made money through “investments” and was using his savings to help fund MMS distribution in Uganda with a donation of $10,000. Separately, he has also put $30,000 into building a home for about 20 homeless Ugandan children.
He calls the home “Sam’s orphanage” on Facebook, where he is attempting to raise money through donations to complete the building. He said that project was a separate venture from his work with the bleach treatment and he insisted he had no intention of treating the children in his orphanage with MMS.
Little was first introduced to the “miracle cure” in England by a friend.
“Somebody in my family was cured of cancer with MMS,” he said. “I started researching online and saw more and more videos of people being cured. That’s when I decided to test it myself on malaria and travelled to Africa.”
Little has posted a video online of a trip he made on 11 March to a village hospital in Kyenjojo district, in western Uganda, where he conducted a trial that he said would prove malaria could be cured with chlorine dioxide within two hours. Though he has no medical training, the Briton is seen on the video instructing workers in a tiny local hospital to administer the bleach according to the formula: 18 drops for adults, 12 drops for children aged five to 12 and eight drops for children aged one to four.
The video shows nine people being given two doses of the fluid, including a baby aged about 14 months who screams in his mother’s arms as he imbibes it. Little claims blood tests conducted by a lab technician showed microscopic signs of malaria disappearing within two hours.
The Briton told the Guardian a lab technician had looked at blood samples from the nine local people being tested and said they had been cured. Little himself has not been back to the hospital to verify the results.
He told the Guardian he was repeating the study on HIV/Aids patients in several locations in Uganda, to prove that MMS was also a cure for that disease. He admitted he would not be allowed to conduct such “field studies” in the UK or US, but when asked whether he was using poor Ugandans as guinea pigs he replied he was not doing any of this for money but purely out of altruistic motives.
“It’s not using people as guinea pigs for trials,” he said, “it’s helping them. We’ve cured loads of people not just for malaria, cancer, HIV, all sorts of things.”
Asked to cite any scientific evidence that MMS cured diseases, he pointed to a 2018 study in which chlorine dioxide was tested on 500 malarial patients in Cameroon. The lead author of the study was Enno Freye of the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.
The Guardian contacted the university and was told its medical faculty had reviewed the study and found it “scientifically worthless, contradictory and in part ethically problematic”. In February, Freye was stripped of his title of Apl-Professor of the faculty on grounds that he had “severely damaged the respectability and trust this title requires”. He no longer works at any institution of the university.
The Guardian attempted to contact Freye for comment but did not immediately hear back.
The Uganda ministry of health was alarmed to hear about the MMS trials, saying it had no information about chlorine dioxide being tested in Ugandan hospitals. Emmanuel Ainebyoona, a spokesman for the ministry, said a government investigation had been initiated.
“We are investigating these people’s activities. In the medical profession, you don’t do advertising when you heal people,” he said, referring to Little’s video in which he claims to have cured malaria in two hours.
The Ugandan ministry of gender and social development, which vets and approves all new orphanages, said it was also launching an inquiry into Little’s plans for a home for 20 children.
“We have never received documents from Fort Portal showing the need for an orphanage,” a senior official said. “That is new information to us.”
Four Simple Steps the U.S. Media Could Take to Prevent a Trump War With Iran
May 17, 2019
by Mehdi Hasan
The Intercept
Here we go again. Sixteen years after the U.S. media helped the Bush administration spread myths and lies about the threat posed by Iraq to the United States and its allies, the Trump administration is spreading similar myths and lies about the threat posed by Iran.
The 64,000-rial question, therefore, is whether or not journalists have learned any lessons whatsoever from the Iraqi WMD debacle of 2003.
Well, consider these recent headlines:
- “US deploying more Patriot missiles to Middle East, amid Iranian threats” (CNN)
- “Pentagon Builds Deterrent Force Against Possible Iranian Attack” (New York Times)
- “U.S. Says Iran Likely Behind Ship Attacks” (Wall Street Journal)
- “Iranian threats led to White House’s deployment announcement, U.S. officials say” (Washington Post)
The evidence for these hawkish headlines? For this stream of alarmist media reports about “threats” and “attacks” from Iran? Yes, you guessed it: statements provided to reporters by U.S. officials hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. In some cases, just one official. Take the Wall Street Journal’s scoop:
An initial U.S. assessment indicated Iran likely was behind the attack on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers and two other vessels damaged over the weekend near the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official said, a finding that, if confirmed, would further inflame military tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Why would you trust the word of a single official on such a sensitive and contentious issue? And why, oh why, would you rely on the testimony of a member of the Trump administration, known globally, of course, for its stringent and unbending adherence to the truth?
Listen to the Deconstructed podcast, where Mehdi Hasan discusses the prospects for another illegal and bloody regime change war in the Middle East.
Also: If you’re going to trust a single anonymous official, in this administration of fanatical hawks and shameless dissemblers, why not trust this particular official who was quoted in the New York Times?
One American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential internal planning, said the new intelligence of an increased Iranian threat was “small stuff” and did not merit the military planning being driven by Mr. Bolton. The official also said the ultimate goal of the yearlong economic sanctions campaign by the Trump administration was to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States.
Plenty of journalists say they want to learn the lessons of Iraq. But the sad reality is that many of my colleagues in the media are, wittingly or unwittingly, becoming complicit in this administration’s cynical and dangerous attempt “to draw Iran into an armed conflict with the United States.”
So what to do? Here are four suggestions.
- Stop the Stenography
Simply passing along the claims of U.S. officials to readers or viewers, without checking whether they are true or not, is not even close to the definition of journalism. Reporters are not supposed to be stenographers to the people in power; they’re supposed to hold power to account.
Showing blind faith in U.S. officials on national security issues, in particular, makes no sense whatsoever. The United States has a long history of starting, or escalating, conflicts on the basis of fraudulent threats and provocations. Remember Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin lies? Remember the first Gulf War and the false congressional testimony about Kuwaiti babies being thrown out of incubators by Iraqi troops? Remember how George W. Bush not only fabricated a threat from non-existent WMDs but also plotted to provoke Saddam Hussein into shooting down a U.S. plane “painted in U.N. colors”?
Then there is Iran. Last week, in a radio interview, Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator and defense secretary under Barack Obama, accused the Trump administration of “baiting Iran in a very dangerous way.”
We all know, of course, that John Bolton wants to bomb Iran. He has said so himself, on the op-ed pages of the New York Times.
So why aren’t reporters more skeptical of the administration’s claims on Iran? Why are they so keen to slavishly and uncritically repeat them to the public, as if they came down on stone tablets from on high?
This week, however, the most senior British general in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS told reporters that “there’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria.”
Oops.
“Fool me once,” as President George W. Bush so famously was unable to say, “shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
- Get Your Facts Straight
Iran does not have nuclear weapons. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. Iran has complied with the terms of the nuclear deal.
These three statements represent the consensus view of, among others, the U.S. intelligence community, Israeli security chiefs, top U.S. generals, and, perhaps most importantly, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). If, as a journalist, you report differently, then you have a blockbuster scoop. But there’d better be something behind it beyond the musings of anonymous White House officials.
Yet the New York Times reported earlier this week that the Pentagon’s plan to send 120,000 U.S. troops to the Middle East partly depends on whether Iran decides to “accelerate work on nuclear weapons.”
How can the Iranians “accelerate work” on weapons that do not exist?
- Context, Context, Context
We are constantly shown images on our TV screens of Iranians burning U.S. flags or chanting “Death to America.” But wouldn’t it be useful if journalists also provided much-needed context to this long-running conflict between the United States and Islamic Republic? Could they try to explain to their readers or viewers how there are legitimate and long-standing grievances on both sides?
After all, how many Americans are aware of the fact that the Eisenhower administration toppled the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in a CIA coup in 1953? Or that the Carter administration offered safe haven to the repressive dictator, the Shah of Iran, after he fled from the Iranian Revolution in 1979? Or that the Reagan administration helped Saddam Hussein’s Iraq use poison gas against Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq war? Or that George H.W. Bush’s administration refused to apologize to Iran after a U.S. navy warship shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 passengers onboard?
It isn’t that hard for journalists to provide historical context in their reporting. Here’s Bernie Sanders laying it out briefly and bluntly, in February 2016, during a Democratic presidential debate with Hillary Clinton:
Nobody knows who Mossadegh was, democratically elected prime minister of Iran. He was overthrown by British and American interests because he threatened oil interests of the British. And as a result of that, the Shah of Iran came in, terrible dictator. The result of that, you had the Iranian Revolution coming in, and that is where we are today.
- Get Better Sources
Why only quote, or rely on, administration officials? Or men and women in uniform? Or folks from hawkish D.C. think tanks?
Why can’t we hear from skeptical and anti-war voices, too? From Iranian Americans perhaps?
A month before the Iraq invasion, in February 2003, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, or FAIR, produced a study of 393 on-camera sources who had appeared in stories about Iraq on network news. According to FAIR, a whopping three out of four (76 percent) sources were current or former government and military officials, compared to a minuscule 6 percent of sources who were skeptics about the need for a conflict with Iraq. Meanwhile, less than 1 percent — or three out 393 sources! — were “identified with organized protests or anti-war groups.”
I have a suggestion for reporters and anchors looking for guests and sources on the current crisis: If they got Iraq wrong, don’t ask them about Iran.
With a know-nothing yet belligerent president in the Oval Office, a national security adviser who has dreamt of war for decades, and the Saudis baying for blood, the importance of fair and accurate reporting on Iran, and the threat that it may or may not pose, cannot be overstated. Think about this: Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, as well as more than 4,400 American troops, might be alive today had U.S. media organizations — with a few honorable exceptions — done their job in 2003.
In fact, a year after the invasion, in May 2004, the editors of the New York Times issued a stark mea culpa, under the headline “The Times and Iraq.” “Controversial” information about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, they admitted, was “insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.”
“Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism,” they continued, “were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. … Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.”
Is the New York Times planning on issuing another mea culpa entitled “The Times and Iran” a year or two from now? Do U.S. reporters, anchors, and editors really want more Middle Eastern blood on their hands? If not, they need to fix their rather credulous and increasingly hawkish coverage of Iran and the Trump administration — and fix it fast.
Encyclopedia of American Loons
Lyssa Royal & Ron Holt
Tom Rowles is, of course, British. Now, we are not entirely sure about Lyssa Royal and her husband Ron Holt, but they seem to be American. Holt and Royal (or Royal Holt) are the directors of the Seed of Life Institute LLC and the SOLi School, an organization “whose primary purpose is to assist individuals to understand the nature of consciousness.” That, of course, is not really what they offer. Instead, they claim to provide a “road map to the process of realizing the true Awareness beyond the human identity.” Royal is a channeler (a “trance channel”) and UFO abductee (pleiadians seem to be involved), who views channeling as “a tool for spiritual evolution,” and is apparently best known for “her in depth explorations of the nature of extraterrestrial consciousness and how it impacts human evolution.” Yes, it isa collection of words, none of which Royal would be able to define correctly if her life depended on it. According to Royal, “[c]hanneling is the process of accessing information or energy that isn’t normally available to the conscious mind.” It really isn’t.
She has written a number of books, including The Prism of Lyra, Visitors from Within, Preparing for Contact, and Millennium, as well as released the Galactic Heritage Cards, “a one-of-a-kind set of 108 inspirational cards based on the cosmology she introduces in her classic book The Prism of Lyra.” We are sure they are unique. Her husband Ronald Holt has his “expertise in the fields of sacred geometry, meditation, yoga and martial arts, and much more”, and when they combine their skills they constitute a true power house. Royal is “also a certified teacher of Taoist yoga.” We don’t know who certified her or why it would matter.
The couple seems to have some kind of connection to legendary crank Drunvalo Melchizedek.
Diagnosis: Probably harmless fluff and imaginary cotton-candy, but good grief how silly it is.
The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
May 18, 2019
by Dr. Peter Janney
On October 8th, 2000, Robert Trumbull Crowley, once a leader of the CIA’s Clandestine Operations Division, died in a Washington hospital of heart failure and the end effects of Alzheimer’s Disease. Before the late Assistant Director Crowley was cold, Joseph Trento, a writer of light-weight books on the CIA, descended on Crowley’s widow at her town house on Cathedral Hill Drive in Washington and hauled away over fifty boxes of Crowley’s CIA files.
Once Trento had his new find secure in his house in Front Royal, Virginia, he called a well-known Washington fix lawyer with the news of his success in securing what the CIA had always considered to be a potential major embarrassment.
Three months before, on July 20th of that year, retired Marine Corps colonel William R. Corson, and an associate of Crowley, died of emphysema and lung cancer at a hospital in Bethesda, Md.
After Corson’s death, Trento and the well-known Washington fix-lawyer went to Corson’s bank, got into his safe deposit box and removed a manuscript entitled ‘Zipper.’ This manuscript, which dealt with Crowley’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, vanished into a CIA burn-bag and the matter was considered to be closed forever.
The small group of CIA officials gathered at Trento’s house to search through the Crowley papers, looking for documents that must not become public. A few were found but, to their consternation, a significant number of files Crowley was known to have had in his possession had simply vanished.
When published material concerning the CIA’s actions against Kennedy became public in 2002, it was discovered to the CIA’s horror, that the missing documents had been sent by an increasingly erratic Crowley to another person and these missing papers included devastating material on the CIA’s activities in South East Asia to include drug running, money laundering and the maintenance of the notorious ‘Regional Interrogation Centers’ in Viet Nam and, worse still, the Zipper files proving the CIA’s active organization of the assassination of President John Kennedy..
A massive, preemptive disinformation campaign was readied, using government-friendly bloggers, CIA-paid “historians” and others, in the event that anything from this file ever surfaced. The best-laid plans often go astray and in this case, one of the compliant historians, a former government librarian who fancied himself a serious writer, began to tell his friends about the CIA plan to kill Kennedy and eventually, word of this began to leak out into the outside world.
The originals had vanished and an extensive search was conducted by the FBI and CIA operatives but without success. Crowley’s survivors, his aged wife and son, were interviewed extensively by the FBI and instructed to minimize any discussion of highly damaging CIA files that Crowley had, illegally, removed from Langley when he retired. Crowley had been a close friend of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s notorious head of Counterintelligence. When Angleton was sacked by DCI William Colby in December of 1974, Crowley and Angleton conspired to secretly remove Angleton’s most sensitive secret files out of the agency. Crowley did the same thing right before his own retirement, secretly removing thousands of pages of classified information that covered his entire agency career.
Known as “The Crow” within the agency, Robert T. Crowley joined the CIA at its inception and spent his entire career in the Directorate of Plans, also know as the “Department of Dirty Tricks. ”
Crowley was one of the tallest man ever to work at the CIA. Born in 1924 and raised in Chicago, Crowley grew to six and a half feet when he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in N.Y. as a cadet in 1943 in the class of 1946. He never graduated, having enlisted in the Army, serving in the Pacific during World War II. He retired from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a lieutenant colonel. According to a book he authored with his friend and colleague, William Corson, Crowley’s career included service in Military Intelligence and Naval Intelligence, before joining the CIA at its inception in 1947. His entire career at the agency was spent within the Directorate of Plans in covert operations. Before his retirement, Bob Crowley became assistant deputy director for operations, the second-in-command in the Clandestine Directorate of Operations.
Bob Crowley first contacted Gregory Douglas in 1993 when he found out from John Costello that Douglas was about to publish his first book on Heinrich Mueller, the former head of the Gestapo who had become a secret, long-time asset to the CIA. Crowley contacted Douglas and they began a series of long and often very informative telephone conversations that lasted for four years. In 1996, Crowley told Douglas that he believed him to be the person that should ultimately tell Crowley’s story but only after Crowley’s death. Douglas, for his part, became so entranced with some of the material that Crowley began to share with him that he secretly began to record their conversations, later transcribing them word for word, planning to incorporate some, or all, of the material in later publication.
Conversation No. 47
Date: Wednesday, November 20, 1996
Commenced: 1:50 PM CST
Concluded: 2:22 PM CST
GD: Good afternoon, Robert. Am I being inconvenient?
RTC: No, Gregory. I’ve finished lunch, done a bit with the Switzers, read the papers and the rest of the day is free. How are you doing? Getting ready for Thanksgiving?
GD: Oh yes. I was reading a Sheldon ‘Furry Freaks’ cartoon that showed a bunch of hippies at Thanksgiving. One of them was making a terrible face and he said to the girlfriend, who had obviously cooked the bird, ‘This stuffing is really terrible. What is it?’ And she replied that it came already stuffed from the organic foods shop. It obviously had not been emptied of its innards and I was wondering how much of it they ate.
RTC: Typical long-hair stupidity. I take it your turkey is not from an organic turkey farm?
GD: Free range turkeys? No, they stuff them in little pens, fatten them and then into the eye with the icepick and into the defeathering machine. As Cromwell was supposed to have said about Charles I, ‘Cruel necessity.’ But it tastes fine if you aren’t socially conscious.
RTC: It smacks of the concentration camp soap stories.
GD: And don’t forget the shrunken heads and the lampshades while you’re at it, Robert. We mustn’t be callous and forget the crime of the century. Of course, it’s interesting that the Turkish murders of a million unarmed Armenians some years ago seems to be strangely forgotten.
RTC: Well, the Israelis are friends with Turkey and since they run the media here, they have an understanding about that. There can’t be stories that would eclipse their very own big money maker and which at the same time would offend one of their only allies.
GD: Oh, the bitter realities of realpolitik. You recall talking about the Pedophile Academy you people run?
RTC: I do. You aren’t interested in joining, are you?
GD: No, actually, I lust after sheep. Just think of it as Farrah Fawcett in a fur coat and all will come out in the end.
RTC: A pun is the lowest form of humor, Gregory.
GD: I know and I am so ashamed. but they do look so cute in lacy panties.
RTC: I am certain you’re joking, Gregory. Do you have lamb at Easter?
GD: Sir, think you I am so callous? Months of true love to be followed by sordid death and the roasting pan? Terrible, Robert, terrible. Oh well, I suppose there in our imperial city things are really pure and noble.
RTC: Hardly. You mentioned the kiddie’s club. There’s a lot worse than that in our fair city, believe me.
GD: Oh, I am sure of that. Prominent Evangelical leaders meeting in a basement dungeon while someone like Pat Robertson, dressed in mesh stockings and a feather boa, whipping teen-aged acolytes with a cat of nine tails. I’ve heard Washington is famous for things like that.
RTC: Actually, yes it is. For example, one of the less appetizing aspects of our little Company has been the fairy club.
GD: You mean you hire all those nasty florist types?
RTC: No, I mean we have an entire subsection devoted to the care and feeding of queers. Its under the Science and Technology people and consists of raging homos whose job it is to infiltrate groups of prominent Beltway queers, get the information on them so we can blackmail them into doing what we want. We’ve set up male whorehouses around here, all equipped with special mikes and cameras so we can get the evidence on the creeps and then twist their arms. They staff these places with young military personnel…mostly Marines but quite a few Army people, and naturally sailors. We have a lot of Congressmen in the basket and one hell of a lot of senior military people around to do what we want, not to forget foreign diplomats, important business people and, as you say, some impressive religious leaders. It’s mostly the military that we bag and a large number of the far right and the very fanatical religious types.
GD: That’s not surprising. Most of those people are drawn to strength and a well-muscled Marine with a leather belt is a pretty good illustration of what they consider strength. Far right types like leather boots and domination. I suppose the marks pay for sex?
RTC: Oh, yes, and pay very well. First they pay cash and then they pay later in services. You would be astounded the number of fairies in high places here and most of them are in our little bags. And they do perform for us. A proper vote on yearly cash allotments, no questions asked, shutting off people who don’t like us, promoting or assisting those who are known to be on our good list. We have one Supreme Court justice, at least five appellate court judges, God knows how many senior FBI people, quite a few NSA personnel and, who would be shocked, enough State Department queers to stock a good hotel. I, personally, have nothing to do with this, but my friend Ed is involved in the administration of this and he has mentioned governors, senior senators and so on that he can jerk around at leisure. Of course, we set up the male whorehouses, but never, never have any of our people on the premises. We have surveillance monitors all over the neighborhood and perhaps next door listening to the tapes and turning on the TV cameras but we don’t want one of our straight people bagged if the local cops raid a place. The DC cops are stupid and corrupt beyond belief, but one never knows if they’ll get a wild hair up their ass and pull a raid. If they did, of course, we could quiet it down in the court system here, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. It does pay off, Gregory, and I can assure you that I, personally, have nothing to do with it.
GD: I don’t question that, Robert. Anyone I might know about?
RTC: Oh, God, it would be wonderful if you put all of this into your books, but if you did, don’t talk about it in front or you would have many problems. Faggotry is a fact of life, Gregory, but none of these assholes want to be exposed. Nixon had his times with Bebe Rebozo, too, but of course never in one of our DC peg houses. That never went anywhere, but I know it’s true. There are tapes. We bug all kinds of rendezvous places like certain motels, beach houses and so on. For example, we couldn’t bug Nixon’s place in Florida, but we certainly could bug Rebozo. It’s quite an area of exploitation, Gregory. Once we nailed a very senior Israeli diplomat who liked to be whipped by muscular young blacks and when we wanted some information, Jim just casually showed him some stills from a surveillance tape and you would be amazed how much instant cooperation we got on a certain Arab matter. And speaking of diplomatics, the Saudis are absolutely the worst. They’ll fuck anything in sight if it’s warm, and my, they do have lots of money.
GD: I recall an old Persian poem I once read out loud in Lit class that goes, ’Across the river there is a boy with an ass like a peach, but alas, I cannot swim.’ I had to go home for two days for that but the class had quite a laugh.
RTC: You must indeed have been quite a scholar.
GD: No, I was quite a trouble-maker. One of my teachers once told me, in front of the class, that I was an idiot’s delight. I told her right back that I was pleased to make her so happy. This time, I went on leave for a week.
RTC: Well, she had it coming.
GD: Oh yes, she did. They never liked me in high school, Robert, and the feeling was mutual. Once, I entered a national patriotic essay contest and, by God, I won a big prize. I wrote about the joys of being a patriot and the usual drivel. Anyway, I got the letter at home and I assume the school was told at the same time. Wonderful responses from them. They had planned for a special assembly to honor the gifted one, but no way would they do this for me. Do you know, they actually called me in and suggested, very firmly, that I step aside and let little Robbie the Pig get the prize? This was the son of the local Methodist minister and a real toad. Chubby, whining, self-righteous and a born stool pigeon. Learned the art from dad, no doubt. Anyway, I flatly refused to yield. Then they called my mother and went to work on her. Of course she didn’t need any leaning and for two weeks, I got nothing but stereophonic yammering from both parents. I just wasn’t a good advertisement for the school and a real gentleman would let them have a grand ceremony for Robbie the Pig. I still wouldn’t budge so they sent the award and the check to me at home and I had a hell of a time getting the check away from my father, who tried to keep it. Lovely.
RTC: Not very civilized behavior, Gregory. I think you did the right thing then.
GD: Oh yes, Robert, and I certainly did the right thing about two weeks later.
RTC: I am almost afraid to ask. No more detergent in the school soup pot?
GD: No, this came before that. I felt I had been dishonored, and as Mueller once said to me, I have a fine fourteenth century mind. One cannot permit that sort of thing. My revenge was fairly simple and direct. Of course, no one suspected me, which is a little of a letdown, but the uproar was worth it. In the main hall of the school, right by the front office, was a large, bronze medallion with a depiction of the school symbol on it. It was set into the floor right in front of another bronze piece that listed all the former students of the high school who died in the Second World War. On both sides were flags, and during school hours, two members of the Honor Patrol stood on both sides of the sacred lares and panares to prevent careless or evil students from trampling on the school crest or not saluting, hand on chest, the plaque. My, my, what an inviting and sacred target. I broke into the school one Saturday night, very easy considering the very pickable locks and the better reality that there was no watchman. Now, I suppose, they would have surveillance cameras every ten feet but we were not so advanced then. I got into the chemistry lab, stole two bottles of concentrated nitric acid and a pair of acid-proof lab gloves, went down the hall and poured one bottle all over the floor relic. Much hissing and bubbling and clouds of stinking smoke. The second bottle I uncorked and poured the contents all down the wall piece. Much hissing, smoking and so on. Then, I tossed the bottles into a convenient trash bin and left by the front door. Outside they had the imperial flag pole in the courtyard. Every morning, the royal honor guard attended the morning flag-raising while someone played some raucous piece, off key of course, on a bugle. As a sort of afterthought, I took out my Swiss Army knife and cut the halyards on the pole and pulled down the lines. The pole was about sixty feet tall and set in concrete so replacing the lines would be a major task. My, my, and I felt so good all the way home.
RTC: Your honor had been avenged?
GD: Yes, and the next day, it was even more pleasurable. I had so little to really enjoy in those days, I treasured every moment, believe me. Came into the school and saw no one. Halls empty. For a hopeful moment, I thought that there was no school but it was not to be. Walking around, I came to the main hall which was packed with very emotional fellow students. Weeping girls and outraged boys. I managed to work my up towards the front of the mourners and saw my handiwork, full in the face as it were. It looked like the sacred relics had been made of brown sugar and melted in great gullies. I didn’t obliterate them but you could only see a few letters on the wall plaque and the mess on the floor looked like it had been at the bottom of the sea for a thousand years. Police all over the place, taking pictures, very angry honor students, people in a state of anger and grief. And all over a few crummy pieces of bronze. Oh, yes, and a scene outside where a fat janitor was risking his life on a ladder that kept slipping, to replace the flagpole ropes. They had to get a local fire truck out later on to do the job. Oh, my, and the police, who made Mongoloid idiots look like Harvard graduates, running all over the place with note books, interviewing everyone that would hold still. Massive grief and anger. A special assembly, mandatory attendance, in which the principal and other lesser lights offered a small reward to any snitches listening. You’d have thought someone took the Shroud of Turin and used it for toilet paper. Ah well, these rare and beautiful moments are ones to be treasured.
RTC: Simple but effective, Gregory.
GD: Always smile at a man when you kick him in the balls, Robert. Oh, that thing played out for about a month and then we were all asked to contribute to a replacement venture. When the collection cup came around in my math class, I spit into it. Another moment of perverse happiness. The soaping of the stock pot was a real, transcendent joy for me, but the curtain raiser was almost as much fun. The thought, and the sight, of most of the student body soiling their clothes, and the floors, was good enough to keep me warm for months but the wailing and cursing of my fellow stoats at the scene of the great sacrilege in the upper hall was not to be denigrated.
RTC: Did you ever tell your friend Heinrich Mueller about this?
GD: No. I don’t think he would have approved of it and I admired him. Listen, do you think you might get a list of your limp-wristed victims? Of course, I assure you that I will publish it, know that in front.
RTC: Not while I’m alive, but yes, I think I can accommodate you. Too bad I wouldn’t be around to read about all the suicides or flights from Congress.
(Concluded at 2:22 PM CST)
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
Neoconservative foreign-policy group, founded in 1976
Kenneth Blackwell
Government 28-Feb-1948 Ohio Secretary of State
John Bolton
Government 20-Nov-1948 US Ambassador to the UN, 2005-
Rudy Boschwitz
Business 7-Nov-1930 US Senator from Minnesota, 1978-91
Eric Cantor
Politician 6-Jun-1963 Congressman, Virginia 7th
Dick Cheney
Politician 30-Jan-1941 Dubya’s VP, ex-CEO of Halliburton
Douglas Feith
Government 16-Jul-1953 Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
Steve Israel
Politician 30-May-1958 Congressman, New York 2nd
Max Kampelman
Diplomat 7-Nov-1920 US Ambassador to the CSCE
Jack Kemp
Politician 13-Jul-1935 American politican, football player
Jeane Kirkpatrick
Government 19-Nov-1926 Reagan’s UN Ambassador
Michael Ledeen
Government 1-Aug-1941 Neoconservative activist
Connie Mack
Politician 29-Oct-1940 US Senator from Florida, 1989-2001
Richard Perle
Government 16-Sep-1941 Prince of Darkness
Nina Rosenwald
Philanthropist ? Sears Roebuck heiress
Stephen Solarz
Politician 12-Sep-1940 Congressman from New York, 1975-93
Paul Wolfowitz
Government 22-Dec-1943 Head of the World Bank
James Woolsey
Government 21-Sep-1941 CIA Director, 1993-95
Fred S. Zeidman
Business c. 1947
GOP activist