Our first post on the American Turkish Council’s new chairman, Richard Armitage, focused on his early years and his involvement with Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle. Our second post focused on Armitage’s history in Washington and his involvement with the Iran-Contra Affair. This post will focus on Armitage’s role as the Deputy Secretary of State for the second Bush administration and the 11 September attacks.

In 1999 Richard Armitage joined an “advisory team” put together by Condoleezza Rice for the George W. Bush presidential campaign. Other members of this “advisory team” included Paul Wolfowitz, Robert Zoellick, and Donald Rumsfeld all of whom, along with Armitage, were signatories to the 1998 PNAC letter to President Clinton that advocated regime change in Iraq through the bogus “Weapons of Mass Destruction” argument. It should have been no surprise, therefore, to see where these “advisors” were to lead as soon as they were appointed to key positions in the Bush administration in early 2001.

Armitage was appointed as the number 2 man at the State Department but not without protest from a certain former Republican congressman:

“General Colin Powell has named Richard Armitage to the key position as his deputy secretary of state.

“Mr. Armitage served in the Pentagon back in the 1980s and, in the process, caused so many problems that by 1989 he twice had to withdraw his name from consideration for high-ranking positions in the first Bush administration.

“Simply stated, the U.S. Senate would not confirm him for any job.

“The FBI agent in charge of compiling the ‘file’ on Armitage said at the time, ‘The Armitage file is the thickest file ever for any nominee for any position.’”

“Now, 12 years later, the new Bush administration is again trying to ram Armitage through the confirmation process. Powell wants him because ‘Rich Armitage is my best friend in the world.’”

Both Armitage and Powell had served in Vietnam and it’s worth remembering that prior to his performance at the UN National Security Council in early 2003, Colin Powell was best known for helping to cover up the My Lai Massacre.

Armitage was confirmed by the Senate as the Deputy Secretary of State in late March, 2001, in plenty of time to implement the plan for regime change in Iraq that he had supported in 1998 and which PNAC had argued for in September, 2000:

“Further, the process of [US military] transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

The “new Pearl Harbor” that was so desired by Armitage and the rest of the PNAC crowd occured on 11 September, 2001. Immediately after 11 September, Armitage threatened to “bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age”:

“During last week’s US media blitz to promote his new book, Musharraf claimed soon after 9/11, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage warned Lt. Gen. Mahmud Ahmed, head of ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, the US would ‘bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age’ if it did not immediately turn against its Afghan ally, Taliban, and allow the US to use military bases in Pakistan to invade Afghanistan. Read more ?

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed provides us with an overview of the role played by US military and intelligence practices in the creation of terrorism, particularly Al-Qaeda. He tells us about the status of investigations into the Blair government’s complicity with the Bush administration in supporting the invasion of Iraq. He discusses possible factors behind Americans’ long-held denial and dismissal of dark US foreign policy practices as conspiracies. Mr. Nafeez talks about the Obama administration, the ongoing posture of US corporate interests and the desire to dominate world energy supplies, the so-called liquid bombing plot and how it was mythologized in the US, and more.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is a bestselling author and political analyst. He is the Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, and has taught courses in contemporary history and international relations theory at the University of Sussex. His Doctoral thesis investigated the radicalization processes and dynamics of violent conflict in the context of hierarchical social systems in the modern world. Dr. Ahmed has also published extensively on international security issues, including The London Bombings; The War on Truth; Behind the War on Terror; and The War on Freedom. He has been an expert commentator for BBC News 24, BBC World Today, Al-Jazeera English, among others. He is currently advising the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on engaging British Muslim communities. Visit Dr. Nafeez’ website.

Here is our guest Nafeez Ahmed unplugged!

 

 Interview with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed [75:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Spectre of Serial War

Security agencies are now focusing their sights on a whole set of countries deemed to be at-risk. According to a leaked confidential memo, people from these countries will be profiled and targeted for “additional screening” at airports. In the words of one US commentator for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“… most frightening to me was that while the leaked document deemed that holders of passports from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, and Algeria should be subjected to additional screening, no such special attention was given to holders of passports from Saudi Arabia – the home of 15 of the 9/11 hijackers. And now it’s worth noting that the list doesn’t include Pakistan or Nigeria – Umar Farouk’s home – either.”

The decision to widen the “screening” of travellers to encompass this vast array of countries deemed to be countries of particular threat to the West fits well within the original logic of the pre-9/11 geostrategy that has now become the ‘War on Terror’.

Hints of this geostrategy surfaced from disparate sources, such as former NATO Commander General Wesley Clarke, who wrote in his book Winning Modern Wars:

“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan.”

Clarke didn’t mention Yemen. But Yemen was explicitly mentioned in an address by the infamous Richard Perle – then Chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense policy Board and former Assistant Secretary of Defence in the Reagan administration – in the same month, at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Washington DC:

“Those who think Iraq should not be next may want to think about Syria or Iran or Sudan or Yemen or Somalia or North Korea or Lebanon or the Palestinian Authority.”

Obama’s Neocons: Kissinger and Brzezinski

The escalation of US military activity in Yemen, therefore, is by no means simply a response to events of recent years, but merely the continuing extension of a wider bipartisan geostrategy that was formulated not only by people largely associated with Republican neocons, but also by arch-Democrats, such as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former National Security Adviser to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski. During the 1970s Middle East oil crisis, Kissinger secretly advocated that the US military might have to intervene to directly and permanently occupy the oil-producing Gulf States to prevent future volatility in US energy security. Four years before 9/11, in his study published by the Council on Foreign Relations, Brzezinski outlined in unnerving detail the contours of what the Bush, and now the Obama, administration, have pursued in the context of the ‘War on Terror’: a plan to dominate “Eurasia” – the landmass comprising the continents of Europe and Asia, at the juncture of which lies the Middle East:

“… how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical… A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

“Two basic steps are thus required: first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them;… second, to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above…”

Democratic neocons Kissinger and Brzezinski continue to play a key role in Obama’s foreign and security policies, particularly in… (drum roll)… Eurasia! (Eureka? – no, way too easy) In December 2008 before Obama’s foreign policy team was even fully formed, the incoming President dispatched  Kissinger to Moscow to meet Putin and president Medvedev. Kissinger re-visited Russia in March 2009,  this time joined by a whole cohort of former senior US administration officials, just two weeks before the Medvedev-Obama summit in London. Although the White House insisted this was a purely private affair, it was obvious that his visit was part of normal ‘Track Two’ diplomacy. Brzezinski is also playing a behind-the-scenes advisory role to Obama, on Russia and NATO, as well as on issues in the Middle East including Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Just how key their role is, is a matter for debate. While Brzezinski has acted as Obama’s senior foreign policy advisor, Kissinger purportedly has no ‘official’ position. Or has he? “As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States,” declared Obama’s National Security Advisor General Jim Jones at the 45^th Munich Conference, “I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal [sic] Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.”

Say what?? Read more ?

Continuing the Smell Test

I see the previous post I had on conducting a smell test on the latest intense coverage of Iran’s elections got quite a bit of traction, including some retorts from the ‘misinformed’ in a few places. First, let me remind you, I don’t disagree with the view of highly probable election fraud in this case. My main point in this was ‘the selective coverage’ of election fraud throughout the world and the typical riots and government attacks that tend to follow these incidents. Also, I have a real issue with the timing of this media focus. Why don’t we have similar coverage and discussion when identical, or in many cases worse, incidents take place elsewhere? Especially when it occurs in countries we consider allies and friends regardless of how dictatorial, corrupt, or atrocious.

I can provide tens if not hundreds of similar cases of election fraud followed by dictatorial repression of demonstrators/rioters who take a stand against such practices.

Here is an excerpt from the election fraud scandal and the following violence in Egypt as reported by Human Rights Watch in 2006:

“Egyptian authorities should drop threats to dismiss two senior judges protesting election fraud and investigate the violence and fraud that plagued elections last year, Human Rights Watch said today.
The organization also expressed grave concern about a police attack against peaceful demonstrators outside the Judges Club in the early hours of Monday morning. An eyewitness told Human Rights Watch that a large number of men, apparently plainclothes police, attacked around 40 persons who had been holding a round-the-clock vigil in support of the two judges threatened with dismissal. They beat 15 demonstrators and Judge Mahmud `Abd al-Latif Hamza, who came out from the club.”

The 2003 presidential election results in Azerbaijan dubiously declared Ilham Aliyev the president. Of course this was cheered by many in Western policy circles since they viewed Ilhan Aliyev ‘critical’ to the stability of billions of dollars of investments in Azerbaijan’s energy sector. This is an excerpt from another report:

“International and domestic monitors reported widespread irregularities in the Oct. 15 election. The government clearly stole the election, and then brutally beat hundreds of people who poured out in the streets in protest. The day after the election, I watched from the roof of a hotel in Baku as thousands of riot police beat protesters unconscious. Afterward the riot police raised their shields to the sky and turned their batons into drumsticks, celebrating the victory of intimidation.

Now hundreds have been arrested, while Isa Gambar, the opposition leader, is effectively under house arrest and activists from his Musavat party are being beaten and detained all over the country. Everyone I speak to is scared.”

And here is a further damning quote from Peter Bouckart:

“More astonishing, however, were the public assessments of the election made by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Council of Europe. Their election-monitoring missions in Azerbaijan took due note of the violence and election irregularities, but their overall appraisals were alarmingly upbeat.”

Speaking of post election protests and the recent ‘bloody’ pictures in post election Iran that have been circulating, here are some that didn’t make it into our social awareness, since it involved another ally country, thus was avoided by our press:

Click here to watch a protest against election fraud in Agri, Turkey.

And where was the same level of ‘attention’ and coverage in cases like this one reported by Craig Murray, where the dictator government of Uzbekistan (supported by us), whom Murray rightfully calls a ‘fascist regime,’ was (and probably still is) engaged in atrocious human right abuses. Yes, we certainly were closely courting a dictator regime where the dissenters were/are boiled alive.

“The police repeatedly tortured prisoners, State Department officials wrote, noting that the most common techniques were “beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask.” Separately, international human rights groups had reported that torture in Uzbek jails included boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners were boiled to death, the groups reported. The February 2001 State Department report stated bluntly: “Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with limited civil rights.””

And here is how elections are held in Uzbekistan:

“The Communist Party simply renamed itself the Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, and, after getting rid of

Muhammad Salih, his only rival for power by exiling him, engaging in massive election fraud, and banning his Erk (Freedom) party, Karimov, president of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and a Politboro member, seized the reins of power and refused to let go. A completely controlled “referendum,” in 1995, led to an extension of his term in office, and in January, 2002, a similar farce awarded him 92 percent of vote, with nominal opposition. Political parties that aim to “change the established order” are banned, including the “Birlik” Popular Unity

movement, which advocates democracy, religious tolerance, and economic liberty, as well as Islamist groups which the Karimov regime blames for the violence.”

And finally, for a bit of deja vu, remember Black Friday of 1978 in Iran? On September 8, 1978, a huge demonstration against the Shah’s regime was staged in Tehran. Thousands of students and progressive activists took part in this demonstration to peacefully express their dissent against the dictator monarch, Shah Pahlavi. The Shah’s military responded with extreme violent force, and even resorted to using tanks and helicopter gunships to respond. While the Shah Regime and Western media put the number of those massacred at around 80 or so, mainly students, other reports put that number in the range of thousands.

Again, I am inviting you all to join me for a ‘collective smelling test.’ I truly appreciated and enjoyed your informed comments and perspectives posted here. As for those people who chose to attack my previous points ‘elsewhere’: it is okay, unlike the regimes I mentioned above I do indeed welcome dissent. However, please do it with facts and logic, not as some loose lipped incoherent rant. Go buy a map, learn where Iran is located, then read a bit of history (not the ones written by the Neocons, that is), put aside what you are being fed by the propaganda machine and PR spin, take some vitamins and minerals to fortify your mental clarity, check with your grandparents and receive a tip or two on the value of giving respect in order to receive it in return, then come back and put forth your counterarguments and disagreements; I’ll be all ears.

…and it ain’t passing

Okay, I’ve been trying very hard to ignore the latest on Iran: Roxana’s highly publicized and dubious adventure (begging for a smell test), the pre-elections predictions making their way even onto the Sunday Talk Shows (A great Smell Test Indicator), and of course now, the intense and loud coverage of the post elections drama (The Smelliest of Alll)…

Why would I try to ignore this? Not because I am not interested in Iran, Iran Politics, or Iranians. Hey, I lived there for eight years. I speak Farsi as my second language. I had my primary education there. My Father is half Iranian, and through him, his family and friends, and his activities, I grew up with ‘lots of Iran politics’, not only in talk but in actual life. I witnessed the revolution unfold in 1978-79. In fact, along with my father, I participated in some demonstrations as an eight year old kid whose father was interrogated and tortured by the ruthless monarch, Shah. Contrary to what the US government has led citizens here to wrongly believe, the regime change in Iran did not occur through only Islamists. In the beginning, the liberals, the social democrats, the communists, socialists…many factions came together, united to get rid of the US-UK planted monarchy.

The country had its chance at having a democratic form of government, via Mossadegh. But hey, back then, the United States, driven by its Cold War, didn’t want democracies in that region. Are you kidding me??! Our business back then was ‘toppling democracies’; and replacing them with puppet monarchists, dictators, and the like. Back then we loved Islamic Fanaticism. It worked magically against the commie Soviets; Right?! So yes, due to my background, experience, education, family, friends, and past activities, Iran is not a subject I would ever ignore.

Back to ignoring the current publicity wave involving Iran. This one is no different than the previous wave towards the end of the Bush Presidency; only a tactic change, and this in a very sneaky and shrewd way. The ‘Nuke Scare’ didn’t quite work for the previous administration; neither domestically nor internationally. With Israel as adamant as ever, with President Obama as eager as his predecessor, only a bit savvier, and with the new neocons under new names and faces leading the way – and let’s not forget several disgruntled Iranian factions actively lobbying – it was about time to see the Iran topic resurface, but a bit differently. Thus, we have the new wave of recent publicity, although much more dangerous than before, since the appearance of the current method and operations do not seem nearly as bold as the old one – and so far it seems to be working and garnering public support for the neocon establishment and their agenda.

A recent survey which was conducted about three weeks before the elections showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin, even greater than his actual margin of victory in Friday’s election.

Here is what Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty had to say about the legitimacy of the survey:

“Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.”

Are allegations of election fraud designed to further isolate Iran? Are they meant to be used to massage and shape domestic and international public opinion to lead the way for ‘further action’ on Iran? Let’s face it, the timing and the latest events don’t pass the smell test. We just had the ‘Free Roxana’ episode, with both the mainstream media and the alternative press carrying it as a campaign not dissimilar to Bush’s campaign on ‘Exporting Democracy’ to ‘oil-rich’ regions. This lady never actually denied working for Intelligence (based on my two CIA sources she indeed did), and in fact, in a way, she accepted the espionage charges brought against her by the Iranian government.

Remember the covert action program against Iran reported by Seymour Hersh? How about the report by Telegraph on how the US has been funding terror groups and other factions in Iran to create chaos? Do you think those are only ‘military’ operations?

With the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq the majority among our military leaders have been opposing another war in the region. The ‘Nuclear Iran’ campaign didn’t prove to be that fruitful for the previous administration in garnering public support to pave the way for our next attack in the next oil rich Middle Eastern country. And of course, using the same tactic would have been too much for the Obama administration to expect to have swallowed by the public. So what better alternative than pursuing a ‘Humanitarian & Democratization’ campaign to change the ‘hearts & minds’ of our people and garner ‘liberal’ support against Iran?

Give them a martyr self-declared reporter in the form of ‘Roxana.’

All of a sudden get on our high horse and preach vehemently on elections’ lack of integrity in Iran, never mind the same conditions exist in two thirds of the world’s phony democracies.

Start displaying a few selective pictures of ‘bloody noses and arms’ taken in Iran and cry ‘atrocities,’ never mind our 2000+ torture pictures with not only bloody and torn up bodies, but actual corpses.

What are they going to do next? Well, if they run out of ‘dramatic’ pictures, they may go back and recycle their favorite footages from the Iran Hostage Crisis of 1979! They certainly love that one; nothing like it when it comes to inducing misinformed passion to bring about wrongly expressed patriotism in the form of consent to another war.

We have Ann Coulter of the Right – I just finished reading her recent typical hate mongering article which includes some bizarre garbage misinformation on Iran and Mossadegh. Talk about ignorance combined with psychotic behavior! Here is another one – equally twisted.

Then, there are those Ann Coulters of the left, writing about issues and an area they know zilch about, and whether intentionally or unintentionally they beat the war drums for their President of Change in need of a ‘pretext’ to bring to fruition the objectives put in place before him by the previous administration. I just checked out one of these popular ‘lefty’ blog sites, and here is the list of what this ignorant lady has been writing about (as a pundit) just in the past two weeks, all with a ‘pretense’ of expertise; preposterously and ignorantly analyzing and attacking the Iran elections, analyzing the health care bill, the current economic crisis, some Hoax Blogger Baby Scandal (I have no idea what it is, since I don’t read stuff like that), Dr. Tiller Analyses, Torture Pictures & DOJ, Mass Production of Food, Sarah Palin and why she is a ‘slut,’ Palin’s daughter and why she is a ‘slut,’ Iraq, Drinking Coke vs. Water…I guess you get my point, right? Of course it’s okay for anyone to write about anything. What is not okay is the pretense of expertise with the intention of propaganda when it is advertised and supported by an ‘agenda driven’ establishment…Can’t they please go back and chase Rove, Libby, etc.?!!!

Now your turn: What’s your take on the recent intensive coverage of Roxana followed by even more intense coverage of the elections in Iran by both the MSM and the blogosphere? Do they pass your smell test? If yes, please tell me how and why? If no, let me hear your points and arguments.