Head-spinning post on TomDispatch - A Journalist Writing Bloody Murder…

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And No One Notices

A must read: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=174764

Tomgram: The Seymour Hersh Mystery

A Journalist Writing Bloody Murder…
And No One Notices
By Tom Engelhardt

Let me see if I've got this straight. Perhaps two years ago, an "informal" meeting of "veterans" of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal -- holding positions in the Bush administration -- was convened by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams. Discussed were the "lessons learned" from that labyrinthine, secret, and illegal arms-for-money-for-arms deal involving the Israelis, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Contras of Nicaragua, among others -- and meant to evade the Boland Amendment, a congressionally passed attempt to outlaw Reagan administration assistance to the anti-communist Contras. In terms of getting around Congress, the Iran-Contra vets concluded, the complex operation had been a success -- and would have worked far better if the CIA and the military had been kept out of the loop and the whole thing had been run out of the Vice President's office.

Subsequently, some of those conspirators, once again with the financial support and help of the Saudis (and probably the Israelis and the Brits), began running a similar operation, aimed at avoiding congressional scrutiny or public accountability of any sort, out of Vice President Cheney's office. They dipped into "black pools of money," possibly stolen from the billions of Iraqi oil dollars that have never been accounted for since the American occupation began. Some of these funds, as well as Saudi ones, were evidently funneled through the embattled, Sunni-dominated Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to the sort of Sunni jihadi groups ("some sympathetic to al-Qaeda") whose members might normally fear ending up in Guantanamo and to a group, or groups, associated with the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

All of this was being done as part of a "sea change" in the Bush administration's Middle Eastern policies aimed at rallying friendly Sunni regimes against Shiite Iran, as well as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Syrian government -- and launching secret operations to undermine, roll back, or destroy all of the above. Despite the fact that the Bush administration is officially at war with Sunni extremism in Iraq (and in the more general Global War on Terror), despite its support for the largely Shiite government, allied to Iran, that it has brought to power in Iraq, and despite its dislike for the Sunni-Shiite civil war in that country, some of its top officials may be covertly encouraging a far greater Sunni-Shiite rift in the region.

Imagine. All this and much more (including news of U.S. military border-crossings into Iran, new preparations that would allow George W. Bush to order a massive air attack on that land with only 24-hours notice, and a brief window this spring when the staggering power of four U.S. aircraft-carrier battle groups might be available to the President in the Persian Gulf) was revealed, often in remarkable detail, just over a week ago in "The Redirection," a Seymour Hersh piece in the New Yorker. Hersh, the man who first broke the My Lai story in the Vietnam era, has never been off his game since. In recent years, from the Abu Ghraib scandal on, he has consistently released explosive news about the plans and acts of the Bush administration...

Think that's enough motivation to steal an election?

[blm]

1. belongs in GD - powerful

.

[whometense]

2. thanks -

done: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3160308

Scary, scary stuff.

[karynnj]

3. wow!

Especially to steal it from the candidate most likely to demand the truth.

[whometense]

4. Exactly.

Can you imagine what they thought when they saw those crowds he was attracting in the fall, Swift Liars or not?

[wisteria]

5. What possible reason for the lack of interest in this very serious matter?

The media aiding and abetting the administration again? The Congress ignoring the issue or worse, going along for lack of discussion on other ideas on how to handle Iran? Questions need to be asked of the White House. Why aren't they being asked?

As for what this all might of meant if in fact it was going on during the 2004 election, I would have to agree that it would of had to of had an impact and might even explain the aggressiveness and vitriol they tossed at JK back then. It may even still play apart in still trying to discredit him.

[karynnj]

6. I agree that it may explain the press in 2004 and now

It seems clear that some of the top "liberal" media were complicit in the run up to Iraq and need to be watched on Iran.

It is also clear that they hid large portions of what happened in Central America as well. The fact is that a significant part of the Democratic party, including Gore and Clinton, did not disagree with the funding of the Contras. The question is whether they KNEW of the illegal funding before it was exposed - largely because Kerry was pursuing it. If Kerry hadn't been where he was I wonder if the Reagan/Bush administration would have been able to contain the story just to selling arms to gain the release of the people held hostage in Lebanon.

Even now, most people do not know that they let cocaine into the country or that the RW thugs we supported killed Jesuit priests and massacured many people in Central America. The true depth of that side of the story has not become common knowledge.

[ProSense]

7. Fascinating article. Something that makes me say hmmm:

here

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8. Wow.

Thanks for the link. This is one of those stories that seems to just barely cover the Pandora's box of roiling scandal underneath. You know it's there; it's just looking for an opening to explode out in a million directions.

[ProSense]

9. Post about the 2004 election and the current focus on voter fraud

here

[whometense]

10. Thanks for the link.

It's one point of satisfaction that the attorney firing scandal is the conduit leading back to election tampering/fraud.

Too little, way too late, but it is a source of grim schadenfreude that all the lies were covering up what most of us always assumed they were lying about - lying to get power; lying to keep power.