Monday, April 23, 2007

You don’t have to be a cynic to ask...

* frank rich (liberated):
"You don’t have to be a cynic to ask if the White House’s practice of bestowing better jobs on those who bungled the war might be a form of hush money. Mr. Wolfowitz was promoted to the World Bank despite a Pentagon record that included (in part) his prewar hyping of bogus intelligence about W.M.D. and a nonexistent 9/11-Saddam connection; his assurance to the world that Iraq’s oil revenues would pay for reconstruction; and his public humiliation of Gen. Eric Shinseki after the general dared tell Congress (correctly) that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to secure Iraq after the invasion. Once the war began, Mr. Wolfowitz cited national security to bar businesses from noncoalition countries (like Germany) from competing for major contracts in Iraq. That helped ensure the disastrous monopoly of Halliburton and other White House-connected companies, including the one that employed Ms. Riza.

Had Iraqi reconstruction, like the training of Iraqi police, not been betrayed by politics and cronyism, the Iraq story might have a different ending. But maybe not all that different. The cancer on the Bush White House connects and contaminates all its organs. It’s no surprise that one United States attorney fired without plausible cause by the Gonzales Justice Department, Carol Lam, was in hot pursuit of defense contractors with administration connections. Or that another crony brought by Mr. Wolfowitz to the World Bank was caught asking the Air Force secretary to secure a job for her brother at a defense contractor while she was overseeing aspects of the Air Force budget at the White House. A government with values this sleazy couldn’t possibly win a war.

Like the C.I.A. leak case, each new scandal is filling in a different piece of the elaborate White House scheme to cover up the lies that took us into Iraq and the failures that keep us mired there. As the cover-up unravels and Congress steps up its confrontation over the war’s endgame, our desperate president is reverting to his old fear-mongering habit of invoking 9/11 incessantly in every speech. The more we learn, the more it’s clear that he’s the one with reason to be afraid."

* Our newest regular commenter, Enlightment, thinks that VTECH was MKULTRA. See the comments here.

* Kleiman:
"Dammit, for the taxes I pay the least I ought get is threatening letters in decent English."

7 comments:

profmarcus said...

et's jump in mr. peabody's wayback machine and look at the reaction when bush announced wolfie's nomination on 16 march 2005... there wasn't exactly dancing in the streets...

from the 17 march 2005 wapo...

-----

The nomination shocked many among the bank's 10,000-member staff and in many capitals abroad, especially in Europe. When Wolfowitz's name surfaced a couple of weeks ago as a possible nominee, many diplomats and bank insiders dismissed his prospects as remote.

-----

paybacks are hell, wolfie...

Anonymous said...

Regarding Enlightment's justified suspicions, I posted the following at the web link Lukery references in this post:

The snippet of Cho's recording I heard sounded so monotonous and uninflected in tone, like he was reading a statement or was psychologically programmed, say by hypnosis. His statement did not sound spontaneous or like he was emotionally involved and conscious of what he was doing, supporting the claim that it might be an MK Ultra Manchurian Candidate type of black bag operation.

Adding support to this hypothesis is the information I have seen from two different sources -- the Wayne Madsen Report whose source apparently is a South Korean newspaper and this website I accessed through Lisa Pease's Real History Blog.

According to these sources, the alleged killer's older sister, Sun-Kyung, graduated from Princeton University in 2004. A source, who asked to be identified as a senior Administration official, said she works for McNeil Technologies, a firm contracted by the State Department to manage reconstruction efforts in Iraq. From the company website: "McNeil’’s Intelligence and Language Center (ILC) provides unmatched expertise in the areas of Intelligence and Language Services. The combination of Intelligence and Language guarantees our clients mission success.... Our services and capabilities include:
* Intelligence Architecture Operations in support of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
* Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) which supports the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and other government agencies, and
* HUMINT (Human Intel) operations in support of DIA, or with federal counter Intel outsourcing effort."

As Cryptogon says: "It’s obviously just a coincidence [obviously, tongue very firmly in cheek] that the sister of the shooter works for a large provider of these services. Right? A company with more publicly stated connections to U.S. Intelligence than you can shake a stick at… A company that is providing ongoing support to current U.S. Intelligence operations…"

According to Madsen: "Her employer is McNeil Technologies of Springfield, Virginia. McNeil, which was involved in prisoner interrogations for the Defense Department, is owned by Veritas Capital, a defense industry acquisitions firm that also owns two other Defense and US intelligence contractors, Dyncorp International and selected remnants of the former company of Mitchell Wade (of Duke Cunningham infamy), MZM Inc., renamed Athena Innovative Solutions, Inc. Cho Sun Kyung is three years older than her brother. While attending Princeton, Cho's sister served a stint as an intern at the US Embassy in Bangkok, where among other tasks, she studied the plight of Burmese migrant workers on the Thai-Burmese border."

lukery said...

Prof - you're exactly right - the appointment was wrong before Day One.

ANd James Ridgeway pushed the story for years the he was hated at the Bank.

Anonymous said...

I tend to think you're right about it being "hush money". It fits with other examples of the same thing. Freedom Medal for George Tenet who (by the "official" myth of 9/11) failed to see the "warning signs" of an impending terror attack [which almost certainly was not FAILING to see "warning signs" but rather as per the plan ignoring things that surfaced like the seemingly suspicious nature of their assets Mohammed Atta et al receiving rudimentary flight training, as it was part of the plan to leave a trail of phony "evidence" to flesh out the "nineteen hijackers" myth]. Nevertheless, by the "official" fairy tale, the system was "blinking red" and Tenet did nothing, yet got a Freedom Medal.

Then there's the matter of the two generals Myers and Eberhart, at the time of 9/11 the head of the Air Force and NORAD respectively. By the "official" myth the Air Force "just didn't get there in time" but as we can see they made SURE they didn't get there in time, ordering fighters to fly at about 25% speed, sending others out over the Atlantic etc. There were even two F-15s off Long Island but "didn't get there in time". Yeah. Nevertheless, Gen. Myers was PROMOTED to become the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while Gen. Eberhart was also PROMOTED to take over Myers' former position as head of the Air Force. Either they purposely reward incompetence or (certainly) this wasn't "incompetence" at all but instead a necessary part of the 9/11 plan, and they were rewarded for going along with it, for carrying out their part in it, and helping to cover it up after the fact like at the 9/11 whitewash commission's SINGLE DAY of N.O.R.A.D. testimony. Disgusting, but rewarding them further proves our side of it, that it was an inside job.

Anonymous said...

Ewastud-- Great investigating!! I knew Cho's sister went to Princeton and worked for the State Dept. but beyond that I had no idea what she was involved in.

By the way, Dyncorp is basically a C.I.A. front company. They were also heavily involved in human trafficking in the former Yugoslavia including underage females for prostitution, which is a matter of public record and well known by Congress, however Dyncorp was awarded huge contracts in Iraq "reconstruction".

Anonymous said...

The implication of the information about Cho's sister's employer is that the alleged killer brother may have been "accessed" throught the sister in some way, with of without the knowledge of the sister. If this case is investigated by independent, honest police detectives, it will be interesting to see whether any further details come out to either support or render irrelevant this possible spook connection.

If you read my comment I posted on the original wot is it good 4 post, one of the blog links I referenced has this interesting follow-up:

"Cho Attended Same High School as Another 'Lone Nut' Shooter, and the shootings occurred within one year of each other.

To quote the story, 'It’s just a horrible coincidence… It’s hard to believe.'
But is it really that hard to believe?
Is it? ....

Via: Chicago Tribune:

Fairfax County, Va., police investigators said today that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui was a 2003 graduate of the same high school attended by an 18-year-old who went on a shooting rampage last year at a Virginia police station, killing two officers.

Michael Kennedy, armed with an AK-47, fired more than 70 rounds in the parking lot of the Sully District police station on May 8, killing Det. Vicky Armel and Master Police Officer Michael Garbarino. Kennedy was shot to death by police.

Cho and Kennedy lived in Centreville and graduated from Westfield High School, said Officer Courtney Thibault of the Fairfax County Police Department. She said Cho graduated four years ahead of Kennedy.

Once Cho’s identify was released by police in Blacksburg, Va., home of Virginia Tech, Thibault said Fairfax County police launched an investigation to determine if there was any connection between the two shooters. She said they found nothing tying the two young men together.

'It’s just a horrible coincidence,' she said. 'It’s hard to believe.'"

Also curious is the correspondence pointed out in this Cryptogon blog post between the photo of Cho with a hammer (released to the media company by Cho between shootings) and a scene from a popular South Korean film, Oldboy, about forced drugging, psychological torture, and split personalities. But these are just bizarre coincidences, undoubtedly, right?

«—U®Anu§—» said...

You cats are great scholars. If you want to apply for a job as a reporter and need a letter of reference, call me. This is a big story, and of course MSM would be skeert. Yesterday I heard a cable news story about Cho saying his girlfriend was from outer space. Enough with the sarcasm, the whole thing is an insult to my intelligence.

I heard a local TV news story this morning about a protest at our capitol by OTR professionals (skanky truck drivers) regarding Mexicans being able to run the whole lower 48. I haven't found a link for it yet. They'd been talking about that for a long time, and I was unaware, and didn't believe, it would happen.

As a former driver, I know the hearsay was "someone" planned to replace all of America's drivers with Mexicans and pay them dirt nothing. I can also tell you a gringo couldn't get 20 miles inside Mexico before he'd be killed and his body hidden.

It's almost the most asinine thing I've ever heard. The way this was decided entirely without public disclosure tells you all you need to know. The spokesman referred to a reduction of emission standards, so you can probably assume white man's law won't apply to these guys--and they won't even be requierd to speak English. And, they said it's Bush's plan. He wants to try it for a year. Thanks AGAIN, Dickface.