TBR News October 23, 2019
The Voice of the White House Washington, D.C. October 23, 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.
It is becoming more and more evident to even the least intelligent American voter that Trump is vicious, corrupt and amoral. He has stated often that even if he loses the election in 2020, he will not leave the White House. I have news for Donald but this is not the place to discuss it.
Commentary for October 24:” I hve been out of the country for a week and during that time, I have acquired some most interesting information. Once I translate it and put it into proper English, I will be publishing it here.”
The Table of Contents
- Chaos erupts as Republicans barge into Trump impeachment inquiry hearing
- Republicans are finally realising Trump is his own worst enemy – and theirs
- US military interventions from 1890 to 2014.
- The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
- Encyclopedia of American Loons
Chaos erupts as Republicans barge into Trump impeachment inquiry hearing
- Group chanting ‘Let us in’ enter closed-door meeting where top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy was to testify
- Ambassador’s Ukraine testimony leaves Trump struggling to respond
October 23, 2019
by Lauren Gambino and Joan E Greve in Washington
The Guardian
Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Republicans “stormed” a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill disrupting a crucial deposition related to the Ukraine controversy was appearing – a day after devastating testimony from a key diplomat.
A group of Republican members of the House of Representatives, chanting “Let us in”, barged into a secure office suite in the bowels of the US capitol where Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy, was preparing to testify.
The chaos and confusion temporarily shut down the proceedings before the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry as Republicans tweeted updates of the disruption from their cellphones, which are not typically permitted in classified areas. Their presence in the chamber reportedly erupted into yelling matches with committee members.
“BREAKING: I led over 30 of my colleagues into the SCIF where Adam Schiff is holding secret impeachment depositions. Still inside – more details to come,” tweeted Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican congressman and one of Donald Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, referring to secured areas of the Capitol known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, or SCIFs, and Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee leading the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry.
The Republicans who led the protest do not sit on the committees involved in the impeachment inquiry – Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs – and are not permitted to attend. Members of those committees already include Republican members of Congress, as well as Democrats, and both parties attend and ask questions at the hearings, whether public or, as in this case, closed to the public and the press.
But the members who staged protest on Wednesday have sought to attack the inquiry on procedural grounds, objecting to the private nature of the hearings and demanding access to the full breadth of the testimony that has rattled Washington in recent weeks.
Much of the testimony that has been made public, however, and news reports confirm key elements of a whistleblower complaint that set in motion the impeachment inquiry. The investigation centers on reports of Donald Trump withholding military aid and dangling a meeting at the White House for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in return for favors that would benefit him in domestic US politics.
The invading Republicans remained in the hearing room into the early afternoon and even ordered pizza and fast food.
“Reporting from Adam Schiff’s secret chamber,” Republican congressman Andy Biggs began, in a series of tweets from inside the room. Biggs has accused Democrats of conducting a “Soviet-style” impeachment inquiry and demanded the testimony be made available to all lawmakers.
“When Republican members were in the SCIF, Chairman Schiff immediately left with the witness,” he tweeted. Biggs later clarified that he had “transmitted” to aides for publication, as the use of electronic devices in the secure area violates security protocols.
More than five hours after the standoff began, committee members were recalled to the room and Cooper’s deposition began.
Democrats were furious and, suggested the timing – days after Trump called on Republicans to “get tougher and fight” the impeachment inquiry amid mounting evidence of misconduct – was no coincidence.
“This is a stunt that corresponded very specifically to the president’s complaint that they weren’t fighting hard enough for him, and in direct response to devastating testimony yesterday from Ambassador Taylor,” Democratic congressman David Cicilline, a member of the House foreign affairs committee, said. “Republicans are playing to an audience of one, and the president’s proud of them, but we’re going to continue to do all the work.”
It was unclear if Republicans would attempt to disrupt future hearings.
“Their frustration was boiling over,” said Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, also on the foreign affairs committee, one of the three panels leading the inquiry. “I would imagine things would get worse not better if the process doesn’t improve.”
The dramatic escalation by Republicans on Capitol Hill came after Bill Taylor, the most senior US diplomat in Kyiv, testified for hours before House investigators on Tuesday, delivering an account that was so shocking to some lawmakers freshman Democrat Andy Levin described it as “my most disturbing day in Congress so far – very troubling”.
In a lengthy opening statement, Taylor said Trump wanted “everything”, including military aid to Ukraine, tied to a commitment by Ukrainian leaders to investigate Democrats and the 2016 election plus a company linked to the family of Trump’s leading 2020 Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
Taylor said Trump “wanted President Zelenskiy ‘in a public box’ by making a public statement about ordering such investigations”.
Trump emerged briefly on Wednesday to declare victory in enforcing what he called a “permanent” ceasefire along the northern Syrian border, after his abrupt withdrawal of US troops effectively opened the door for a Turkish offensive against Kurdish-led forces in that region, leaving scores of civilians and fighters dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
Trump, who has denied wrongdoing in the impeachment inquiry, spent the morning on Twitter downplaying the investigation’s findings, including Taylor’s explosive testimony. He did not address the impeachment issues or take any questions after delivering his statement on Syria.
Later, leaving the White House for Pittsburgh to speak at a fracking conference, Trump was unusually quiet when heading to the Marine One helicopter on the lawn.
Meanwhile a report emerged noting that as early as 7 May the newly elected Zelenskiy told senior aides he was already worried about pressure from the Trump to investigate his Democratic rivals.
Zelenskiy’s group of advisers spent most of a three-hour meeting talking about how to navigate the insistence from Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, for such an investigation, and how to avoid becoming entangled in the American elections, according to three people familiar with the details of the meeting.
Among the many defenses the White House has offered is that Ukraine had not been aware that Trump was withholding military aid that Congress approved unless it launched two investigations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Republicans are finally realising Trump is his own worst enemy – and theirs
The president’s increasingly risible attempts to paint himself as a victim are alienating even his most loyal supporters
October 23, 2019
by Richard Wolffe
The Guardian
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was widely considered suicidal for an American politician to pay hush money to porn stars, cosy up to Russian leaders, or use national security dollars to buy foreign interference at election time.
In those quaint days of yore, an experienced politician might have steered well clear of anything that smacked of being on the wrong side of civil rights.
At some point over the last generation, even the conservatives who hate today’s civil rights came to love yesterday’s civil rights. Martin Luther King Jr was no longer a Commie revolutionary but a beloved national icon. Segregation and the Klan’s reign of terror was as obviously, stunningly immoral as Nazism.
Until today, and until Donald Trump. You may not have known this, but Trump is himself a victim, no different from the poor souls who were publicly tortured and murdered by the Klan and its mobs. Despite his German roots, and his family’s business history of race discrimination, Trump thinks he’s suffering just as much.
“So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights,” tweeted the president who has no recollection of a predecessor called Bill Clinton.
“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!”
Trump is strange, but he’s not a strange fruit. And so it came to pass that the only people who can stop Trump’s conviction at his forthcoming impeachment trial were forced to spend the day talking about lynching.
To do so, you need to suspend a little reality and a lot of self-respect. You need to become a human shell that blurts out words with no meaning, that sparks thoughts with no intelligence. To wit: one Hogan Gidley, who holds the hallucinatory role of deputy press secretary in Trump’s West Wing.
“The president’s not comparing what’s happened to him with one of our darkest moments in American history. He’s just not,” Gidley told reporters, ignoring Exhibit A in the day’s proceedings: the president’s tweet that did just that.
“I understand there are many people in the media who don’t agree with his language. He has used many words to describe the way he has been relentlessly attacked.”
He has indeed used so many words, to such remarkable effect. Much like the hapless Hogan himself. They flow like endless rain into a paper cup.
As a defence of the president’s position, Hogan’s explanation is the equivalent of going back to bed to pull the covers over your head. There’s a reason why there are no White House press briefings any more: because you literally can’t make sense of the boss without getting fired, indicted, or shamed into permanent unemployment.
Other Republicans not employed by the White House found it easier to express what they thought. Both Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leaders in the Senate and House, said they disagreed with Trump’s choice of words.
Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, went even further by saying that Trump should retract his comments immediately. “May God help us return to a better way,” he tweeted.
The almighty ought to be busy in Syria right now, so this unusually orange challenge rightly falls into the lap of Republicans like Kinzinger himself.
Like a fatberg blocking the sewers of Capitol Hill, Trump’s sense of victimhood and love of lying is creating unbearable pressure in a system designed to flush away an extraordinary volume of political waste material.
So Republicans were talking about Trump’s self-styled lynching instead of defending Trump from the blockbuster impeachment evidence of his current ambassador to Ukraine.
Until now, Trump has drawn what he might call a “red line in the sand” around the notion that there was no quid pro quo in Ukraine – no withholding of military aid in exchange for political dirt on the Biden family.
But ambassador William Taylor flatly contradicted Trump’s defence, much like his chief of staff Mick Mulvaney did last week – before Mulvaney was forced to swallow his words and regurgitate them back into the public square in an unspeakable puddle.
Never mind all that quidding and quoing now. It’s time to run for the vomitorium.
How did the party that gave the world freedom fries find itself locked in this Trump-shaped prison? The simple answer is that they built it themselves. Trump didn’t invent it; he’s not nearly enough of a very stable genius.
In the days after the 9/11 attacks, Republicans looked at the world and decided to see its enemies: an amorphous group of freedom-haters. Only Republicans could protect America from such global threats.
But in the absence of a torrent of al-Qaida insurgents at America’s borders, the party rapidly switched to protecting America from Latinos. Once you unleash the politics of fear, you create the space for your own fear-peddling president.
Where you once pretended to be strong on terrorism, you now follow a president who just conspired with Turkey and Russia to revive Isis from near-death in Syria.
Where you once claimed Obamacare was an abuse of the constitution, you now support a president who claims that some part of the same founding document is phony.
Where you once claimed to defend freedom, you no longer have the freedom to speak your mind or your values. Unless you call yourself Pierre and join the cheese-eating surrender monkeys on Twitter.
Until now, Trump has assumed he can get away with murder because Republican senators will acquit him in an impeachment trial. That may be a reasonable assumption, even for someone as smart as Trump.
But there’s one thing that Republican senators value, and it’s not Trump’s leadership or his personal charm. It’s survival.
At some point, Mitch McConnell will look at the polls and his projected losses in the Senate and realise that there’s something even worse than Trump unleashing his tweetbots in a Republican primary.
For now, the GOP is clinging on to a half-baked Trumpian deal: supporting their leader in exchange for him holding his fire and fury. But nobody seriously believes that Trump can stop the projectiles that barrel out of every orifice. Never mind the quid pro quo: this status quo is untenable.
US military interventions from 1890 to 2014.
COUNTRY OR STATE Dates of intervention Forces Comments
SOUTH DAKOTA 1890 Troops 300 Lakota Indians massacred at Wounded Knee.
ARGENTINA 1890 Troops Buenos Aires interests protected.
CHILE 1891 Troops Marines clash with nationalist rebels.
HAITI 1891 Troops Black revolt on Navassa defeated.
IDAHO 1892 Troops Army suppresses silver miners’ strike.
HAWAII 1893 Naval, troops Independent kingdom overthrown, annexed.
CHICAGO 1894 Troops Breaking of rail strike, 34 killed.
NICARAGUA 1894 Troops Month-long occupation of Bluefields.
CHINA 1894-95 Naval, troops Marines land in Sino-Japanese War
KOREA 1894-96 Troops Marines kept in Seoul during war.
PANAMA 1895 Troops, naval Marines land in Colombian province.
NICARAGUA 1896 Troops Marines land in port of Corinto.
CHINA 1898-1900 Troops Boxer Rebellion fought by foreign armies.
PHILIPPINES 1898-1910 Naval, troops Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos
CUBA 1898-1902 Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.
PUERTO RICO 1898 Naval, troops Seized from Spain, occupation continues.
GUAM 1898 Naval, troops Seized from Spain, still use as base.
MINNESOTA 1898 Troops Army battles Chippewa at Leech Lake.
NICARAGUA 1898 Troops Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.
SAMOA 1899 Troops Battle over succession to throne.
NICARAGUA 1899 Troops Marines land at port of Bluefields.
IDAHO 1899-1901 Troops Army occupies Coeur d’Alene mining region.
OKLAHOMA 1901 Troops Army battles Creek Indian revolt.
PANAMA 1901-14 Naval, Troops Broke off from Colombia 1903, annexed Canal Zone; Opened canal 1914.
HONDURAS 1903 Troops Marines intervene in revolution.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1903-04 Troops U.S. interests protected in Revolution.
KOREA 1904-05 Troops Marines land in Russo-Japanese War.
CUBA 1906-09 Troops Marines land in democratic election.
NICARAGUA 1907 Troops “Dollar Diplomacy” protectorate set up.
HONDURAS 1907 Troops Marines land during war with Nicaragua
PANAMA 1908 Troops Marines intervene in election contest.
NICARAGUA 1910 Troops Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.
HONDURAS 1911 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
CHINA 1911-41 Naval, Troops Continuous occupation with flareups.
CUBA 1912 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war.
PANAMA 1912 Troops Marines land during heated election.
HONDURAS 1912 Troops Marines protect U.S. economic interests.
NICARAGUA 1912-33 Troops, bombing 10-year occupation, fought guerillas
MEXICO 1913 Naval Americans evacuated during revolution.
DOMINICA 1914 Naval Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.
COLORADO 1914 Troops Breaking of miners’ strike by Army.
MEXICO 1914-18 Naval, troops Series of interventions against nationalists.
HAITI 1914-34 Troops, bombing 19-year occupation after revolts.
TEXAS 1915 Troops Federal soldiers crush “Plan of San Diego” Mexican-American rebellion
DOMINICA 1916-24 Troops 8-year Marine occupation.
CUBA 1917-33 Troops Military occupation, economic protectorate.
WORLD WAR I 1917-18 Naval, troops Ships sunk, fought Germany for 1 1/2 years.
RUSSIA 1918-22 Naval, troops Five landings to fight Bolsheviks
PANAMA 1918-20 Troops “Police duty” during unrest after elections.
HONDURAS 1919 Troops Marines land during election campaign.
YUGOSLAVIA 1919 Troops/Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.
GUATEMALA 1920 Troops 2-week intervention against unionists.
WEST VIRGINIA 1920-21 Troops, bombing Army intervenes against mineworkers.
TURKEY 1922 Troops Fought nationalists in Smyrna.
CHINA 1922-27 Naval, troops Deployment during nationalist revolt.
PANAMA 1925 Troops Marines suppress general strike.
CHINA 1927-34 Troops Marines stationed throughout the country.
EL SALVADOR 1932 Naval Warships send during Marti revolt.
WASHINGTON DC 1932 Troops Army stops WWI vet bonus protest.
WORLD WAR II 1941-45 Naval, troops, bombing, nuclear Hawaii bombed, fought Japan, Italy and Germany for 3 years; first nuclear war.
DETROIT 1943 Troops Army put down Black rebellion.
IRAN 1946 Nuclear threat Soviet troops told to leave north.
YUGOSLAVIA 1946 Nuclear threat, naval Response to shoot-down of US plane.
URUGUAY 1947 Nuclear threat Bombers deployed as show of strength.
GREECE 1947-49 Command operation U.S. directs extreme-right in civil war.
GERMANY 1948 Nuclear Threat Atomic-capable bombers guard Berlin Airlift.
CHINA 1948-49 Troops/Marines mevacuate Americans before Communist victory.
PHILIPPINES 1948-54 Command operation CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.
PUERTO RICO 1950 Command operation Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.
KOREA 1951-53 Troops, naval, bombing , nuclear threats
U.S./So. Korea fights China/No. Korea to stalemate; A-bomb threat in 1950, and against China in 1953. Still have bases.
IRAN 1953 Command Operation CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.
VIETNAM 1954 Nuclear threat French offered bombs to use against seige.
GUATEMALA 1954 Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat CIA directs exile invasion after new gov’t nationalized U.S. company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.
EGYPT 1956 Nuclear threat, troops Soviets told to keep out of Suez crisis; Marines evacuate foreigners.
LEBANON l958 Troops, naval Army & Marine occupation agains rebels.
IRAQ 1958 Nuclear threat Iraq warned against invading Kuwait.
CHINA l958 Nuclear threat China told not to move on Taiwan isles.
PANAMA 1958 Troops Flag protests erupt into confrontation.
VIETNAM l960-75 Troops, naval, bombing, nuclear threats Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; one million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in l968 and l969.
CUBA l961 Command operation CIA-directed exile invasion fails.
GERMANY l961 Nuclear threat Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.
LAOS 1962 Command operation Military buildup during guerrilla war.
CUBA l962 Nuclear threat, naval Blockade during missile crisis; near-war with Soviet Union.
IRAQ 1963 Command operation CIA organizes coup that killed president, brings Ba’ath Party to power, and Saddam Hussein back from exile to be head of the secret service.
PANAMA 1964 Troops Panamanians shot for urging canal’s return.
INDONESIA 1965 Command operation Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.
DOMINICA 1965-66 Troops, bombing Army & Marines land during election campaign.
GUATEMALA 1966-67 Command operation Green Berets interve against rebels.
DETROIT 1967 Troops Army battles African Americans, 43 killed.
UNITED STATES 1968 Troops After King is shot; over 21,000 soldiers in cities.
CAMBODIA l969-75 Bombing, troops, naval Up to 2 million killed in decade of bombing, starvation, and political chaos.
OMAN l970 Command operation U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.
LAOS 1971-73 Command operation, bombing U.S. directs South Vietnamese invasion;”carpet-bombs” countryside.
SOUTH DAKOTA 1973 Command operation Army directs Wounded Knee
MIDEAST 1973 Nuclear threat World-wide alert during Mideast War.
CHILE 1973 Command operation CIA-backed coup ousts elected marxist president.
CAMBODIA 1975 Troops, bombing Gassing of captured ship Mayagüez, 28 troops die when helicopter shot down.
ANGOLA 1976-92 Command operationCIA assists South African-backed rebels.
IRAN 1980 Troops, nuclear threat, aborted bombing Raid to
rescue Embassy hostages; 8 troops die in copter-plane crash. Soviets warned not to get involved in revolution.
LIBYA 1981 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.
EL SALVADOR 1981-982 Command operation, troops Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash.
NICARAGUA 1981-90 Command operation, naval CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution.
LEBANON l982-84 Naval, bombing, troops Marines expel PLO anback Phalangists, Navy bombs and shells Muslim positions. 241 Marines killed when Shi’a rebel bombs barracks.
GRENADA l983-84 Troops, bombing Invasion four years after revolution.
HONDURAS 1983-89 Troops Maneuvers help build bases near borders.
IRAN 1984 Jets Two Iranian jets shot down over Persian Gulf.
LIBYA l986 Bombing, naval Air strikes to topple Qaddafi gov’t.
BOLIVIA 1986 Troops Army assists raids on cocaine region.
IRAN 1987-88 Naval, bombing US intervenes on side of Iraq in war, defending reflagged tankers and shooting down civilian jet.
LIBYA 1989 Naval jets Two Libyan jets shot down.
VIRGIN ISLANDS 1989 Troops St. Croix Black unrest after storm.
PHILIPPINES 1989 Jets Air cover provided for government against coup.
PANAMA 1989 Troops, bombing Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.
LIBERIA 1990 Troops Foreigners evacuated during civil war.
SAUDI ARABIA 1990-91 Troops, jetsIraq countered after invading Kuwait. 540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.
IRAQ 1990-91 Bombing, troops, naval Blockade of Iraqi and Jordanian ports, air strikes; 200,000+ killed in invasion of Iraq and Kuwait; large-scale destruction of Iraqi military.
KUWAIT 1991 Naval, bombing, troops Kuwait royal family returned to throne.
IRAQ 1991-2003 Bombing, naval No-fly zone over Kurdish north, Shiite south; constant air strikes and naval-enforced economic sanctions
LOS ANGELES 1992 Troops Army, Marines deployed against anti-police uprising.
SOMALIA 1992-94 Troops, naval, bombing U.S.-led United Nations occupation during civil war; raids against one Mogadishu faction.
YUGOSLAVIA 1992-94 Naval NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
BOSNIA 1993 Jets, bombing No-fly zone patrolled in civil war; downed jets, bombed Serbs.
HAITI 1994 Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup.
ZAIRE (CONGO) 1996-97 Troops Troops at Rwandan Hutu refugee camps, in area where Congo revolution begins.
LIBERIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
ALBANIA 1997 Troops Soldiers under fire during evacuation of foreigners.
SUDAN 1998 Missiles Attack on pharmaceutical plant alleged to be “terrorist” nerve gas plant.
AFGHANISTAN 1998 Missile Attack on former CIA training camps used by Islamic fundamentalist groups alleged to have attacked embassies.
IRAQ 1998 Bombing, MissilesFour days of intensive air strikes after weapons inspectors allege Iraqi obstructions.
YUGOSLAVIA 1999 Bombing, Missiles Heavy NATO air strikes after Serbia declines to withdraw from Kosovo. NATO occupation of Kosovo.
YEMEN 2000 Naval USS Cole, docked in Aden, bombed.
MACEDONIA 2001 Troops NATO forces deployed to move and disarm Albanian rebels.
UNITED STATES 2001 Jets, naval Reaction to hijacker attacks on New York, DC
AFGHANISTAN 2001 Troops, bombing, missiles Massive U.S. mobilization to overthrow Taliban, hunt Al Qaeda fighters, install Karzai regime, and battle Taliban insurgency. More than 30,000 U.S. troops and numerous private security contractors carry our occupation.
YEMEN 2002 Missiles Predator drone missile attack on Al Qaeda, including a US citizen.
PHILIPPINES 2002 Troops, naval Training mission for Philippine military fighting Abu Sayyaf rebels evolves into combat missions in Sulu Archipelago, west of Mindanao.
COLOMBIA 2003 Troops US special forces sent to rebel zone to back up Colombian military protecting oil pipeline.
IRAQ 2003-11 Troops, naval, bombing, missiles Saddam regime toppled in Baghdad. More than 250,000 U.S. personnel participate in invasion. US and UK forces occupy country and battle Sunni and Shi’ite insurgencies. More than 160,000 troops and numerous private contractors carry out occupation and build large permanent bases.
LIBERIA 2003 Troops Brief involvement in peacekeeping force as rebels drove out leader.
HAITI 2004-05 Troops, naval Marines & Army land after right-wing rebels oust elected President Aristide, who was advised to leave by Washington.
PAKISTAN 2005 Missiles, bombing, covert operation CIA missile and air strikes and Special Forces raids on alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban refuge villages kill multiple civilians. Drone attacks also on Pakistani Mehsud network.
SOMALIA 2006 Missiles, naval, troops,
Special Forces advise Ethiopian invasion that topples Islamist government; AC-130 strikes, Cruise missile attacks and helicopter raids against Islamist rebels; naval blockade against “pirates” and insurgents.
SYRIA 2008 Troops Special Forces in helicopter raid 5 miles from Iraq kill 8 Syrian civilians
YEMEN 2009 Missiles, command operation Cruise missile attack on Al Qaeda kills 49 civilians; Yemeni military assaults on rebels
LIBYA 2011 Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation NATO coordinates air strikes and missile attacks against Qaddafi government during uprising by rebel army. Periodic Special Forces raids against Islamist insurgents.
IRAQ 2014 Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation Air strikes and Special ,Forces intervene against Islamic State insurgents; training Iraqi and Kurdish troops.
SYRIA 2014 Bombing, missiles, troops, command operation Air strikes and Special Forces intervene against Islamic State insurgents; training other Syrian insurgents.
The CIA Confessions: The Crowley Conversations
October 24, 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. 55
Date: Monday, December 30, 1996
Commenced: 8:45 AM CST
Concluded: 9:21 AM CST
RTC: Hello, Gregory. Have a nice Christmas?
GD: Wonderful. I got a sled, some bunny slippers, a silencer for my shotgun, a pornographic Bible, three pair of socks that were too small and a dead turtle. Yourself?
RTC: Somehow, I don’t believe you. Christmas was fine here. I take it you did not have an extensive Christmas.
GD: The rabbit died and we were in deep mourning. But then we ate it and felt much better.
RTC: I could send a sympathy card.
GD: Just flush it down the loo. It might meet up with what’s left of the rabbit. Robert, to be serious, you said that Corson did not like Mark Lane. He represented Carto in a lawsuit and I was wondering what was the reason for the bad feeling?
RTC: My God, Gregory, this is like an old auntie’s sewing circle. Everyone here hates everyone else, tells lies, sticks out their tongues at each other and acts like small children. There was a lawsuit of the Keystone Cops type. Victor Marchetti, who used to be one of ours but got booted out, wrote an article for the Spotlight paper saying that Hunt had been in Dallas on the day Kennedy was shot. He was. Hunt sued the paper and got a judgment. The paper fought back and got Mark Lane to defend them.
GD: The Oswald lawyer?
RTC: The same. So they went back and forth. Marchetti is a fat slob who thinks he is very important when we who really know him consider him to be a chattering nut. Hunt is grossly incompetent but the reason why Corson hates Lane and everyone else, is that Marchetti claimed he got this information about Hunt in Dallas on November 22nd from Corson. Corson got dragged over the coals by Lane and clearly was proved to be a liar. However, there was a third person there when Corson told his little story to Marchetti and that’s what nailed him. Poor Bill. He always has to put his oar in, needed or not.
GD: Well, he told Kimmel that he knew some secret British soldier who told Corson about the Roosevelt/Churchill conversation. Corson claimed he backed it up. Kimmel went for this like a duck after a June bug, but I can’t believe it. Who was this mysterious witness? Corson said his lips were sealed.
RTC: Too bad that isn’t true.
GD: Back and forth. I know Corson has lectured me on a subject that I knew far better that he did but I just kept quiet and acted impressed. Didn’t he get court-martialed?
RTC: My God, Gregory, don’t ever go into that one. Look, these people like Bill and Trento, Marchetti and the rest of them, are like squirrels in the park running around begging nuts from the public. This is the Beltway, Gregory. It’s a hot house. Someone sees the President from about two hundred feet away, driving past in his armored limousine and then tells his friends that he had a chance to talk to the President that afternoon and the President told him….and that’s how it goes. Trento thinks he is a brilliant writer, Bill thinks he’s a mover and shaker, Marchetti sees himself as a secret agent and Hunt has just enough sense to put on his pants before going outside to get the paper. These are the hangers-on, Gregory, the wannabes as the current generation calls them.
GD: Ah, Robert, but you were actually there, you knew from doing it. The sun versus the moon. The moon reflects the glory of another. Does that role make you happy?
RTC: It makes me sad sometimes. And they run around acting like old women. Chatter, chatter, boast, back-stab, strut and eventually die. We all die, Gregory, but some take a long time to do it. I’m pleasant with them because perhaps they can help me but I am giving up with most of them. I thought Costello would be a good outlet but I gave up on him long before he died last year. Trento thinks he’s a great intelligence writer but he reminds me of a wino rooting around in old dumpsters for chicken bones. Bill hints at great secrets that only he knows and Hunt is a bumbling idiot and we should have done him instead of his wife. Marchetti is a little bit of all of them. If you listen to them, Gregory, they will convince you that big black cars drive up in front of their homes, every evening, and give them briefcases full of very secret papers. You know the types.
GD: I do, Robert, I really do. I love it when one of your pinheads starts telling me about German intelligence. Oh yes, and what about Nosenko?
RTC: A Russian double agent that Angleton mismanaged.
GD: Was Angleton Italian?
RTC: No, half Mexican. He spoke wop from his father, having lived there and sold cash registers but he was a Mexican. He was well-connected with the mob, though.
GD: Mueller told me about Boris Pash…
RTC: That asshole. A gym teacher with more dreams of glory.
GD: Heini said that Pash tried to kill the Italian Communist leader.
RTC: Togliatti. Yes, but he missed. They always miss, Gregory.
GD: I have an Irish friend who never does. He prefers a knife but bombs will do very well.
RTC: I think you mentioned him. Mountbatten?
GD: The same. Now that’s a professional. And he doesn’t talk like the rest of them.
RTC: Real professionals never do.
GD: So if we both agree on what constitutes a professional agent, how do you analyze Corson, Kimmel, Marchetti, Trento and the others? Are they agents? Kimmel works for the FBI, Marchetti used to work for your people and the others?
RTC: What we have there is the wannabe club, Gregory. All of them think they are important people and, because they have, or have had, connections with the intelligence community, they begin to feel, somehow, that they are possessors of the secrets that others do not have. This elevates them from boredom and real obscurity and makes them believe that they are privy to those who really do walk in the corridors of power. I am the one, pardon the vanity, with the secrets and I am the one who walked once in the corridors of power so they gather around me, snapping up any little bit of information I choose to drop. There are many things I would like people I know, such as my family, to know about. I would like not to leave a legacy of mystery and negativity behind me. I know Corson and the others would like to have a private club type of inner knowledge, to sit around the fire solemnly talking about great secrets they have known. Never happen. When I go, they go. It’s that basic. I had thought once to cultivate Costello and let him speak for me but I gave up on him after his visit with you. The man was brittle, opinionated and as blind as a bat. Kimmel is an establishment man with no creative juices, Corson runs around barking like one of those obnoxious little Mexican dogs that were once raised for food, Marchetti reminds me of a drunken little rat running around in a barn, trying to get out. And when he does get out, he runs around outside trying to get back in. Trento and his wife are delusional and self important and love to mix it up with losers and never-could-have-beens.
GD: Basking, like the moon, in reflected glory.
RTC: Absolutely. And these are at the top of the rank amateur clubs. Down below them, we find the “experts” and the “researchers” who represent the bottom of the pyramid. They are the ones who scribble, jabber and strut. They look upwards to the top for the voices of the masters. They all feed on each other, Gregory. Their little worlds are all they have and if someone like you, especially someone like you, comes along, they loathe, fear and despise you. You see, you are the real thing and they are just wearing Halloween costumes and they know it. After Costello returned from his visit with you and spent hours telling me how terrible and unpleasant you were, I put this down to simple jealousy and thought that perhaps I might look into you myself. And that’s why we’re talking right this very moment.
GD: Thank you for your approval, Robert. I agree with you, but they are wearing the gold-braided clown suits and go to clubs and meetings and, like old peacocks, preen endlessly. What you tell me I already know, Robert, but short of grabbing them by their throats and banging their heads against the wall, there isn’t much I can do…
RTC: Except to out-produce them, Gregory. And they know you can do it and they hate you for it. A week does not go by without my getting some kind of a phone call about what a terrible, evil person you are and warning me never to talk with you. Notice how impressed I have been with these dire warnings. But please make my life a little easier in my old age by not quoting me to any of these cheap hustlers. If they really get it into their heads that I am being informative to you, they will call me every other day, warn Greg and Emily to protect me from you and then do everything in their shabby little power to trash you. Do not, and I repeat, do not trust any of them, ever. I think we understand this all, don’t we?
GD: Oh, yes. I never trusted these sort anyway. They remind me of old aunties or, even worse, academics. Both of them gossip, chatter, denigrate everyone not present and can’t sleep well at night unless they feel they have damaged someone else that day. They see themselves as giants and, in fact, they are small, chattering mice. But, and I am sure you know all about this, we have to put up with them in order to get along with the really important matters. Don’t worry about making myself vulnerable to these types. It ends up that they make themselves vulnerable to me in the end. What is the saying? Out of nothing, nothing is made.
(Concluded at 9:21 AM CST)
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Conversations+with+the+Crow+by+Gregory+Douglas
Encyclopedia of American Loons
Frank Simon
The American Family Association is a group of bigoted, unhinged fundamentalists. The national leaders are crazy enough, but the wild-eyed Talibanists you find in their various state chapters might occasionally be even crazier. Frank Simon is the director of the Kentucky chapter, and he believes that the 1962 Supreme Court decision prohibiting government-led prayer in schools led to “the AIDS epidemic and the drug culture” (as well as teen pregnancy and violent crime). Accordingly, legalizing government-led school prayer is “one of the best ways of returning God’s protection to America,” Simon thought, and promptly started a petition to change the Constitution.
No fan of gay people, Simon has a long history of anti-equality activism that borders on the, shall we say, unhinged, in particular through his group Freedom’s Heritage Forum, which in practice is just a de facto lobbying wing for his church. He has for instance promoted, in addition to pseudoresearch by Paul Cameron, Scott Lively’s The Pink Swastika, a piece of Holocaust revisionism that claims not only that gays weren’t systematically murdered by the Nazis, but were rather the architects of the Holocaust. And as Simon sees it, the evil continues: “There are hundreds of children in America who are dying of AIDS because they were sexually abused by homosexuals,” Simon said back in the early 2000s, based on data he found in the place where he usually finds data for his claims. There really are not, and it should be unnecessary to point that out.
In his anti-gay campaigns, Simon is locally famous for using any means possible to win, and has a long history for instance of paying for anti-equality ads where he tries to link homosexuality to pedophilia. In 2004 he mailed what was more or less gay porn (graphic descriptions of sexual acts) to 65,000 households as part of his attempt to prevent renewal of the Kentucky Fairness Ordinance. The move seems to have backfired somewhat.
Diagnosis: Raging maniac. But Simon is resourceful and desperate enough to use any tricks at his disposal, and has been doing so for decades. So yes, he’s had an impact. It is less clear whether he is overall helping his cause or not.
Matthew Silverstone
Matthew Silverstone is a self-styled “serial entrepreneur” and possible poe. Silverstone has apparently, through spending “two years researching amongst other things the property of water”, made “discoveries that prove very simply how acupuncture works.” And it “is nothing whatsoever to do with chemistry but it is all to do with the unique properties of water and vibrations.” Right. Vibrations. And properties of water that have nothing to do with chemistry (one is forgiven for suspecting that Silverstone doesn’t really know what chemistry is).
And how come Silverstone made such an amazing discovery that had thus far eluded science? “Western science ignores things that it does not understand, and energy flow is one of those subjects.” Scientific progress is hardly characterized by ignoring things science doesn’t yet understand, but according to Silverstone “If you ask most scientists with a western trained background they will look at you blankly when talking about energy flow.” Well, scientists tend to understand thermodynamics, but Silverstone’s ideas are of course not about energy but about shimmering, magical spirit-stuff, like the Force. Admittedly, we have no doubts that Silverstone is able to confront scientists in ways that leave them baffled. Despite his contempt for science, though, “I have managed to provide overwhelming evidence that acupuncture works on simple scientific principles; namely vibrations and the unique properties of water. It is through water that the energy is transferred throughout the body.” Wanna bet on whether his scientific explanation and “overwhelming evidence” involve more than vague handwaving?
Silverstone is, however, more famous for his book Blinded by Science, which advocates tree hugging. Which is fine. We are sympathetic to tree hugging. But not for the reasons Silverstone thinks tree hugging is a commendable practice. According to Silverstone, he has scientifically validated that hugging trees is good for you, and his research shows that you don’t even have to touch a tree to get better, you just need to be within its vicinity to obtain a beneficial effect. Of course, Silverstone does not have the faintest idea what “scientifically” could possibly mean – nor “validated” or “research” – but apparently his conclusion is based on public health reports concluding that children function better in green environments and that “access to nature can significantly contribute to our mental capital and wellbeing”. Silverstone doesn’t go for “access to nature” as the causally efficacious feature here. No, Silverstone’s project is “proving scientifically” that it is … the vibrational properties of trees and plants that give us the health benefits: “everything vibrates in a subtle manner, and different vibrations affect biological behaviours,” claims Silverstone. The exact mechanisms are left as nebulous as the evidence he purports to have, of course, but you need to have a pretty closed mind and be pretty Big Science brainwashed to think that exactitude, detail, evidence or accuracy has anything to do with anything. The whole thing is really pretty much a variant of some branch of Taoism, just peppered with random assertions that things are “scientifically proven”.
Diagnosis: Mostly spam. Dressed in the garb of New Age pseudoscience. But still spam.: Raging maniac. But Simon is resourceful and desperate enough to use any tricks at his disposal, and has been doing so for decades. So yes, he’s had an impact. It is less clear whether he is overall helping his cause or not.