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norml Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-16-05 01:11 AM
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Elliott Abrams: A Fallen Hawk Soars Again
February 15, 2005
Elliott Abrams: A Fallen Hawk Soars Again

by Tom Barry
Elliott Abrams, a figure from the Ronald Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal who describes himself as a "neoconservative and neo-Reaganite," is moving to center stage in U.S. foreign policy as head of President George W. Bush's Global Democracy Strategy.

In his new position, Abrams will oversee the administration's promotion of democracy and human rights while continuing to provide oversight to the National Security Council's directorate of Near East and North African affairs – including involvement in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Although not known as a regional specialist, Abrams has frequently voiced his strong support for Israel's Likud party positions on the Oslo peace process and "land for peace" negotiations.

After the launch of the al-Aqsa Intifada in late September 2000, Abrams lambasted mainstream Jewish groups for their continued support of peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and for their call to Israel to halt its attacks.


snip http://www.antiwar.com/orig/barry.php?articleid=4847
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seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-16-05 01:13 AM
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1. and Richard Perle
Edited on Wed Feb-16-05 01:17 AM by seemslikeadream
The principals have also assisted each other down through the years. Frequently. In 1973 Richard Perle used his (and Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson's) influence as a senior staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee to help Wolfowitz obtain a job with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In 1982, Perle hired Feith in ISP as his Special Counsel, and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Negotiations Policy. In 2001, DOD Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz helped Feith obtain his appointment as Undersecretary for Policy. Feith then appointed Perle as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. In some cases, this mutual assistance carries risks, as for instance when Perle's hiring of Bryen as his Deputy in ISP became an extremely contentious issue in Perle's own Senate appointment hearings as Assistant Secretary.

Every appointment/hiring listed above involved classified work for which high-level security clearances and associated background checks by the FBI were required. When the level of the clearance is not above generic Top Secret, however, the results of that background check are only seen by the hiring authority. And in the event, if the appointee were Bryen or Ledeen and the hiring authority were Perle, Wolfowitz or Feith, the appointee(s) need not have worried about the findings of the background check. In the case of Perle hiring Bryen as his deputy in 1981, for instance, documents released in 1983 under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the Department provided extraordinarily high clearances for Bryen without having reviewed more than a small portion of his 1978-79 FBI investigation file.



RICHARD PERLE: A HABIT OF LEAKING

Perle came to Washington for the first time in early 1969, at the age of 28, to work for a neo-con think tank called the "Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy." Within months, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson offered Perle a position on his staff, working with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And within months after that--less than a year--Perle was embroiled in an affair involving the leaking of a classified CIA report on alleged past Soviet treaty violations.

The leaker (and author of the report) was CIA analyst David Sullivan, and the leakee was Richard Perle. CIA Director Stansfield Turner was incensed at the unauthorized disclosure, but before he could fire Sullivan, the latter quit. Turner urged Sen. Jackson to fire Perle, but he was let off with a reprimand. Jackson then added insult to injury by immediately hiring Sullivan to his staff. Sullivan and Perle became close friends and co-conspirators, and together established an informal right-wing network which they called "the Madison Group," after their usual meeting place in--you might have guessed--the Madison Hotel Coffee Shop.

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/green02282004.html



and maybe...

CIA seizes Sen. Jackson papers

By Lara Bain
Herald Writer


SEATTLE - Five federal government officials, including three from the CIA, have removed several documents from the archival papers of the late Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson housed at the University of Washington.

Last week the federal document security team spent three days in the special collections division of the UW Suzzallo-Allen library. The officials, which also included people from the Department of Defense and Department of Energy, combed through 1,200 boxes of material using a five-binder index to find the targeted papers.

Carla Rickerson, head of special collections, said the team removed up to 10 documents.

She would not disclose the exact number or subject matter of the documents because of the university's privacy policies.

http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/05/02/15/100loc_jackson001.cfm
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norml Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Feb-17-05 10:28 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. Mossad, the CIA and Lebanon
WSWS : News & Analysis : Middle East

Mossad, the CIA and Lebanon
The assassination of Rafiq Hariri: who benefited?
By Bill Van Auken
17 February 2005
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author

The US media has responded predictably to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, echoing the bellicose threats of the Bush administration against Syria and amplifying unsubstantiated charges that the regime in Damascus was the author of the killing.

Leading the pack was the Washington Post, which editorialized on Wednesday that “The despicable murder of Mr. Hariri benefits no one outside the rogue regime in Damascus—and the world should respond accordingly.”

The editorial acknowledged that the “crudeness of the killing and the denials by the government of Bashar Assad will cause some to wonder whether it has been framed for a crime it may have desired but did not commit.” But the Post hastened to assure its readers that the assassination was “the panicked act of a cornered tyrant,” terrified by the forced march to democracy which Washington has supposedly initiated in the Middle East with the recent elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

“Crude” is the appropriate designation for the Post’s arguments, which amount to nothing more than war propaganda. The newspaper’s charges are both unsupported and nonsensical. Their transparent purpose—much like the stories about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”—is to promote the policy of aggression which the Bush administration is pursuing in the Middle East.

snip http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/hari-f17.shtml
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norml Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Feb-18-05 08:50 AM
Response to Reply #1
4. PNAC and the Second Gulf War - Neo-Conservatives in the USA


PNAC stands for The Project for the New American Century and it's a right wing think-tank that includes some very influential members of the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney (vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). Check out the PNAC website and read their Statement Of Principles and note the signatures. Here's a quote from that statement (with my emphasis) :

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

snip

Since that speech by Powell Washington has stepped up it's campaign against Syria which eerily parallels the language used against Iraq a year ago. The following article in The Guardian on April 13th makes this clear :

Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz - regarded as the real architect of the Iraqi war and its aftermath - said on Thursday that 'the Syrians have been shipping killers into Iraq to try and kill Americans', adding: 'We need to think about what our policy is towards a country that harbours terrorists or harbours war criminals.

'There will have to be change in Syria, plainly,' said Wolfowitz.

snip http://www.diplo.co.uk/words/pnac.php
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Cell Whitman Donating Member (872 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Feb-16-05 01:23 AM
Response to Original message
2. Deputy NSA Elliot Abrams spoke at three pro-Moon rallies in 1998
There's a link to Robert Parry discussing Abrams on Democracy Now at this link also:

http://iapprovethismessiah.com/2005/02/deputy-nsa-elliot-abrams-spoke-at.html

Finding common cause in supporting the Contra death squads in those days was Reverend Moon, owner of the Washington Times, whose right-hand man cut the $100,000 check that opened Oliver North's "Freedom Fund."

Well, it seems that Moon and Abrams haven't drifted apart since the Contra days. In 1998, Abrams hit the road to speak at a number of Moon's events. ....

Another Moon event that Abrams was drawn to was that summer's Special Convocation On The Family And World Peace. Columnist Maggie Gallagher, payola pundit, came too, according to Moon's Unification News.





http://cellwhitman.blogspot.com/
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