Obama reversal on the abuse photos
This is very interesting: Obama has reversed himself on the release of the photos of alleged abuse of prisoners by our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reason? Obama was advised by military commanders, who “warned that the images could stoke anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. troops.”
Ya think? That fact, of course, was completely and totally obvious before, and if Obama has any intelligence at all, he certainly didn’t need to be told something so basic. But bucking the ACLU—the group so intent on the world’s seeing these photos—isn’t something Obama would do lightly. So what’s the reason he is now willing to challenge their release on national security grounds, when he wasn’t before?
Logic dictates that the answer is closely related to Obama’s new offensive in Afghanistan. It appears that it was okay to stoke anti-American sentiment and endanger US troops when it was Bush in charge, such as during the Abu Ghraib incident. And, since the photos in question now are of acts that occurred under Bush’s watch, it would seem that Obama would allow or even favor their release.
That was, in fact, his previous position; he declined to challenge the court’s decision to release them in the suit won by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act. But now that Obama will own whatever happens in Afghanistan, it behooves him to be more careful, doesn’t it?
Even if the reasons for Obama’s change of heart are at least partly self-serving, his decision is the correct one. And if I sound cynical about the man’s motivations, it’s because he’s earned it.
There’s another thing, though. Pelosi’s in hot water over her prevarications regarding EIT, and so potentially are other Congressional Dems, and they’re at greater risk than Republicans in this regard. If he releases them, it looks worse for those who constitute his Congressional power base.
So, I don’t buy his representation of his motives.
“Even if the reasons for Obama’s change of heart are at least partly self-serving, his decision is the correct one. And if I sound cynical about the man’s motivations, it’s because he’s earned it.”
AMEN!!!!!!!
He’s flexible and pragmatic!
“Reality has a conservative bias.”
Obama gets to have it both ways. The news cycle making sure the world knows bad photos exist (check), and a sycophant press to discuss them in all their unverifiable horror (check).
The president is a coward. He really wanted to release the photos and other documents, but lawmakers in both Houses on the Hill were in a panic with the way the CIA was retaliating against them.
The real story is the quiet rebellion going on over at Langley. Apparently, neither Mr. Panetta nor the president are able to contain or control this.
So, reality bit them in the ass. And is going to keep on chomping on their gluteii maximi.
Fred,
Well said.I hadn’t thought of that.I learn so much from Neo’s posters.
That is an excellent point, Fred.
Nice to see the CIA do something that advances American interests (albeit inadvertently). It keeps you young to try new things.
I came across the following statement at the end of the FOX News article on this development and the rationale behind Obama’s change of heart:
This legal approach was not employed from the start, the official said, because it was working poorly in the original case that challenged the release of the Abu Ghraib photos. That case was dropped because the photos were all leaked.
Obama’s reversal is a meaningless gesture if these photos are leaked anyway.
As Steve points out, we all now know that bad photos exist, and the press will continue to discuss the (unverified) photos ad nauseum.
Which was likely part of Obama’s goal in the first place.
Neo-neocon: Like you, I wish I didn’t have the view I have of this action. I want to believe that this is merely a patriotic act on the part of “The One,” and perhaps it is, but part of me still wants to ask “What’s in it for him?” Sad state of affairs to doubt that a President is REALLY concerned about the fate of the troops, ain’t it?
He’s teachable.
The country badly needs an adult leader who thinks through the ramifications of his actions before he opens his mouth.
As others have pointed out, real damage has already been done.
This speak first, retract later mode has become a habit; and it is very harmful. Surely, the idiot knows that when the President of the U.S. speaks his words have consequences.
It will be good if the photos are not available for the enemy propagandists, but they will use as best they can what the President and the ACLU so graciously gave them.
“He’s teachable.”
I have no words for this. I’m just shaking my head…
Hussein the Wretched had his cake and ate it too: he announced the non-release because it would stoke anti-American reaction. So he implicitly stimulates antiAmericanism while purporting to heed the opposition. Quite a guy.
I don’t think NPR will have too much problem with its soft spoken propoganda hit piece on this subject because the photos aren’t in hand.
FredHjr,
One point I’d like to add to in your comment above is where you said, “The real story is the quiet rebellion going on over at Langley. Apparently, neither Mr. Panetta nor the president are able to contain or control this.
True enough, this is a real story and one that has not been discussed enough. When the CIA was leaking against the Bush administration they were not able to control it either and many on the right called it a ‘rogue’ agency.
Now that the CIA is leaking against Obama and the dems, many on the right are laughing up their sleeves.
Well, turnabout is fair play. But the real story here, in my opinion anyway, is about the CIA becoming an actor on the political scene, via these leaks.
Regardless of whether anyone thinks that this is wrong or right. This is to me a very scary development. Maybe I’m over reacting, but I do not want to see either the military or intelligence agencies becoming political in any way.
Though for the record I am glad the truth came out, I don’t like the way it came out.
Tim P,
I think inside the CIA there is a division along political/ideological lines. Sure, there are careerists who just “go with the flow.” In the military the same situation obtains, although I suspect that it’s probably at least 80% opposed to Obonga. I know that in the military both officers and nco’s try to be under the radar as to where they are politically. They won’t talk about it in front of civilians or in front of politicians and people in the government. But when amongst each other around those they can trust, you can bet they do discuss political events and trends.
I’m afraid we are long past the time of professional neutrality among public servants, military, and intelligence personnel. I think we live in dangerous and extraordinary times.
You probably have guessed where my partisan loyalties are, but ultimately my loyalty is to the Constitution and the country, not to a party and certainly not to an elected official. You see, the oath I took in April of 1973 prior to my reporting for active duty on 19 August 1973 still obtains. I checked on it. Veterans are bound by that oath. And we did not take that oath to POTUS or a party or any bureaucrat. If you get my drift…
This is important and it may have ramifications in the future. I think the country may be headed for an escalation of an inner conflict that has been building for decades, and the Cold War’s conclusion did not cancel out the tasks of our socialist enemies. They kept at it long after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, knowing that the socialist world was on a course to be reconstituted along a revised, Gramscian Marxism. Right now, everything seems to have fallen into place, according to plan and also fortuitously for this enemy.
I hope it never comes to this sanguinary crescendo, but the realist in me sees the difference between hope and certain facts on the ground. Thus, I am not opposed to most of the military and the intelligence community coming over to our side.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124223286506515765.html
Detained Indefinitely.
“A fool does eventually what a wise man does initially.”
And Barry is a fool. Electing a fool was folly.
Not a fool.
A revolutionary.
We better stock up on old Chevys, because the New Boss is about to free us all.
We are the fools.
Not a fool.
A revolutionary.
A beloved fool.
The CIA (as well as the State Dept) are cesspools of self-important bureaucrats who think of themselves as aristocrats. Their importance should be reduced to at least pre-WWII levels — unless of course, an unelected group manipulating elected leaders in government is acceptable.
America will live to regret ever allowing their hysterical, gullible, emotional voters to put in to power Barrack HUSSEIN O-BOW-ma the America hating and denigrating Laughing Jackass, Teleprompter Kid and LIAR Messiah.
You only need to look at his statement ‘ I am a Christian and have never been a Muslim’ which he himself contradicts in his books and which even a cursory look at his history , Muslim father, Muslim Stepfather, attendance at a Multi Faith and a state school in Indonesia where he was registered as Muslim and has classmates there who remember him as a devout Muslim to know one absolute about OBAMBI he is a LIAR and all else follows from that.
So, I guess The Messiah was FOR it before he was AGAINST it?
This sounds so familiar. I wonder if we’ll get to see what a Kerry presidency would have looked like after all?
We should be happy that he’s moving towards our position. What would we think if he was moving towards Ramsey Clark’s position, or Dennis Kucinich’s position, well, he is in some corners of opinion and policy making, and we should heap criticism on those points, but we should give him praise when praise is due. For someone who rises from the, or from those of deep end of the Left that uplifted him to the Presidency, he demonstrates a remarkable ability for intellectual growth, perhaps there is hope for the rest of them. Sadly, the country has to be in peril for that growth to take place…
“He’s teachable.”
On the job training?
FredHjr,
I have to agree with you.
Living in Alaska, you get acquainted with a lot of military. At least I have anyway, from doing lots of work on various military bases, but anyway, you’re right about many not liking the present administration’s direction. And most I have had the opportunity to ‘talk’ with also mention their oath is to defend the country and the constitution. These folks are professionals with real integrity and I am indeed glad for that.
I’m not sure that those in the CIA take a similar oath. Perhaps they do. If so, they are not nearly as professional as the military.
That being said, I have to say that I agree for the most part with what Matthew M said above about the CIA and the State Department.
I suspect he still wants the pictures released but is responding to the overwhelming belief by the American people…progressives not included…who couldn’t care less about some guys be frightened by a dog or made to strip to their underwear in front of women. The Horror Of It All!
He can now claim that it’s not his fault the photos where released, it was the the slightly over-zealous ACLU, who of course are only looking after our (their socialist) interests in making sure the world knows what horrible people we were under George Bush. But now under The Won we have become puppy dogs that wouldn’t hurt a flea. The world is once again save from marauding American soldiers.
Surely, the idiot knows that when the President of the U.S. speaks his words have consequences.
Sorry, OldFlyer, but I have seen very little evidence so far that President Obama knows this. I’ve seen convincing evidence that VP Biden doesn’t know this (and worse, that he doesn’t care). Nor am I convinced that Speaker Pelosi knows this.
What we’ve seen repeatedly of late is the desire, by our highest elected officials, to say what they please and not be held accountable for the unintended consequences of their words. It reminds me unpleasantly of university demonstrations.
It is to President Obama’s credit — although it’s a small comfort indeed — that this time, at least he’s admitting that he changed his mind and is making some effort to explain why. (How many times in the past has he changed positions, and prefaced them by saying “as I’ve said before…”?)
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
“[W]ealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren’t very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent — not to say toddlerlike — idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums.”
— P. J. O’Rourke
He’s overwhelmed by THE JOB! Up to now he’s had to do nothing but pose and let the Dem Congress go wild. When he does speak on issues (like this one) his instinct is to go way left and none of his inner circle will restrain him until he gets slapped down.
He’s not in charge but he’s allowing the left’s stampede to drag him anywhere it goes.
thats ok…
Look what PRAVDA has to say about our leader!!!
Russia’s Pravda Calls Obama a Communist
American capitalism gone with a whimper
english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-american_capitalism-0
It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descend into Marxism is happening with breathtaking speed, against the backdrop of a passive, hapless sheep. Excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
Its an eye opener since they pretty much overview the process they visited upon us, but then abandoned themselves. and like some sci fi movie the infection spread even though the carrier was killed by it.
THEY KNOW THE TRUTH… so they can say things like
The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money-printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst, Zimbabwe.
and
These past two weeks have been the most breathtaking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system…by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. Those make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beaten our own thieves in sheer volumes. Should we congratulate them?
so i guess only the deluded are searchign for OTHER explanations that fit so they can just wait to see what happens.
The real story is the quiet rebellion going on over at Langley. Apparently, neither Mr. Panetta nor the president are able to contain or control this.
of course not… this is why they dont like loyalty oaths. a loyalty oath tells the person who they serve, rather than let ambiguity hijack it. the guys at langley did not swear to serve the president before the constitution, did they?
“A fool does eventually what a wise man does initially.”
a ha!!!! its a VERY obscure quote!!!!!
i put it up and said how long before someone copies us… well, there ya go… how many people have read balthazar from the 1600s?
i did a whole set of posts of that old dead white guy stuff and now WSJ is using it?
neoneocon.com/2009/05/04/look-for-the-union-label-in-the-newpaper-and-auto-industry-meltdowns-and-the-obama-solution-for-the-latter/
Occam said it, and i added other things (but i said it before), and added to that i added other quotes by the same author.
i said
pick up a copy of “the art of worldly wisdom”, written in 1637 by Balthasar Gracian.. (translated to english by joseph jacobs in 1882)..
the whole thing as i said is the kind of thing that fathers would have taught their sons before letting them out into the world.
So’s my golden retriever, but I’d like to think that Presidents should have a clue before he entered the office. The problem is that we have a President who swept into office by virtue of winning the swimsuit contest, not the talent part.
Tim P raises a good point re the CIA. I was pleased that the Dems took a hit from CIA leaks, after the CIA spent eight years sticking it to Bush in that fashion, but at the same time I deplore the involvement of the CIA in politics regardless of who is in office. Let’s just say that this evens the score, and have the CIA knock off the leaks.
Matthew M
The CIA (as well as the State Dept) are cesspools of self-important bureaucrats who think of themselves as aristocrats. Their importance should be reduced to at least pre-WWII levels – unless of course, an unelected group manipulating elected leaders in government is acceptable.
this is eitehr complete utter ignorance or ingenuous at best.
its someone pretending to talk from authority, but forgetting that there are such a thing as facts and history and that they actually existed before they were born and started making up things and calling them facts.
the statement might sound good among ignorant liberals to which any disparaging statement must be fact, but is utter nonsense.
of course the ignorance is in the history if the CIA, KGB, and such…
such agencies never existed permanently before the permanent ideological warfare of the soviet union.
they were put together and would be dissolved upon need. the only one that was permanent before these in any large way was tavistock, which goes back a long way.
the CIA didnt exist till AFTER WWII.
so to say what you say with such authority is to be a huge poser or liar and try to get social cache and respect through party type statements over validity.
The United States has carried on foreign intelligence activities since the days of George Washington, but only since World War II have they been coordinated on a government-wide basis. Even before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. He asked New York lawyer William J. Donovan to draft a plan for an intelligence service. The Office of Strategic Services was established in June 1942 with a mandate to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the War, the OSS supplied policy makers with essential facts and intelligence estimates and often played an important role in directly aiding military campaigns. But the OSS never received complete jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. Since the early 1930s the FBI had been responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the military services protected their areas of responsibility.
In October 1945, the OSS was abolished and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments. But the need for a postwar centralized intelligence system was clearly recognized. Eleven months earlier, Donovan, by then a major general, had submitted to President Roosevelt a proposal calling for the separation of OSS from the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the new organization having direct Presidential supervision. Donovan proposed an “organization which will procure intelligence both by overt and covert methods and will at the same time provide intelligence guidance, determine national intelligence objectives, and correlate the intelligence material collected by all government agencies.” Under his plan, a powerful, centralized civilian agency would have coordinated all the intelligence services. He also proposed that this agency have authority to conduct “subversive operations abroad,” but “no police or law enforcement functions, either at home or abroad.”
Donovan’s plan drew heavy fire. The military services generally opposed a complete merger. The State Department thought it should supervise all peacetime operations affecting foreign relations. The FBI supported a system whereby military intelligence worldwide would be handled by the armed services, and all civilian activities would be under FBI’s own jurisdiction.
In response to this policy debate, President Harry S. Truman established the Central Intelligence Group in January 1946, directing it to coordinate existing departmental intelligence, supplementing but not supplanting their services.
This was all to be done under the direction of a National Intelligence Authority composed of a Presidential representative and the Secretaries of State, War and Navy. Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, USNR, who was the Deputy Chief of Naval Intelligence, was appointed the first Director of Central Intelligence. Twenty months later, the National Intelligence Authority and its operating component, the Central Intelligence Group, were disestablished.
so how much does the whole statement made by matthew m now mean? not much… since its a comment to a reality that never existed!!!!
Failure of russia to dissolve its agencies after the war was the imperitive that helped convert the OSS to the CIA…
also… the CIA is a CIVILIAN agency… its independent from the military… and as you can see by the historical statement, not even structured to accomplish what such assumptive people make up about it!!!!
the CIA is not the branch that does the things that people make up about them. they are external oriented, not internal oriented… the FBI is internal oriented and came before the CIA. the NSA is information oriented… and spies are not CIA people, CIA people are case workers and such, spies are the people they work with, not who they are.
so when statements are based in nothing, their conclusions really dont have much meaning.
the CIA is not that inscrutable, there is a history you can read, and you can coordinate that with other histories…
in fact out agencies are actually less dirty than any others on the planet.
just the same as when you ask any foregner as to how their mail gets delivered, how their coutr works and how their police work… you will not get the idolized kind that is COMMON in the US. (i send mail and stuff all the time and we have to find people to take anything worth anything since you have to bribe the postal clerks in other coutnries, pay fees since they open mail, or just accept that they steal it and there is no recourse, since the courts also require pay offs from the ones who want to win more).
most americans do not realize how good they have it and how much that is VERY different from the other world.
they believe that if they visit countries as a wealthy person (which they dont believ they are), they know what its like to be common or poor in that other country!!!
thats because the leftist people make up reality as they go along. sometimes i can sit and listen to a group of matthews all going round robbin and nothting they say is valid to history!!!
keep these facts in mind when discussing things like the CIA, federal reserve, roosevelt, etc!!!
According to the Venona decryptions, Stalin’s agents included:
Lauchlin Currie, senior White House aide to FDR, who alerted the NKVD (Soviet intelligence) to FBI investigations of its top agents.
Martha Dodd, licentious daughter of the American ambassador to Berlin, whose passionate affair with the first secretary of the Russian embassy included passing confidential diplomatic correspondence to Moscow.
Alger Hiss, chief of the State Department’s Office of Special Political Affairs, who accompanied Roosevelt to Yalta in 1945 and chaired the founding conference of the UN. This senior assistant to the secretary of state gave Soviet military intelligence diplomatic cables concerning Axis threats to Soviet security.
Laurence Duggan, head of the State Department’s Division of American Republics and the secretary of state’s personal adviser for Latin America, who gave the NKVD Anglo-American plans for the invasion of Italy.
Michael Straight, a family friend and protege of President and Mrs. Roosevelt who was recruited into the NKVD by Soviet spy Anthony Blunt while attending Cambridge University.
Harry Dexter White, assistant secretary of the Treasury, U.S. director of the IMF, senior adviser to the American delegation at the founding conference of the UN, who facilitated employment for Soviet sources in his department.
Harold Glasser, vice-chairman of the War Production Board and assistant director of the Treasury’s Office of International Finance, who gave the NKVD a State Department analysis of Soviet war losses.
Gregory Silvermaster, a Treasury economist whose spy network provided Moscow with prodigious amounts of War Production Board data on arms, aircraft, and shipping production.
Victor Perlo, chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board whose spy ring supplied the Soviets with aircraft production figures and included a Senate staff director.
Judith Coplon, Justice Department analyst who alerted Moscow to FBI counterintelligence operations.
Duncan Lee, descendant of Robert E. Lee and senior aide to OSS chief William J. Donovan, who became the NKVD’s senior source in American intelligence; he divulged secret OSS operations in Europe and China.
William Weisband, NSA linguist who informed Moscow that the Venona Project had deciphered its messages.
that bolded part shows that the russians had already put spies in the US government BEFORE we had even created our CIA!!! that the assistant to the man that created the agency, and with the credentials of history, was a spy…
of course we mostly know what bad things WE did, but we dont know or arent taught what bad things they STILL do that we dont (or never have).
you would be AMAZED as to the things that they injected into our public discourse that we spout.
want to know how the CIA was pegged as an Evil right wing org?
Joachim
Joesten’s book Oswald: Assassin or Fall-Guy, published in 1964, claimed that Kennedy’s
death was the result of a right-wing conspiracy involving the CIA–a myth famously
endorsed by Oliver Stone’s movie JFK. Today, we know that Joesten’s publisher was a
KGB front and the author a paid Soviet agent.
so what is now truth? if you KNOW the history of this, then its hard to believe the fact that its a right wing org, no?
look at the equally enduring rumor that
the Pentagon developed the AIDS virus as a biological weapon at Fort Detrick,
Maryland. First published on Independence Day in 1984, the tale had been planted by the
KGB in an Indian newspaper and spread around the globe.
reverent wright is still spouting this…
tuskeegee syphilis experiment was not state funded, it was funded by a communist sympathiser, but hey! who cares about the facts when a good hateful harmful story tht may help deconstruct personal freedom is in use?
most never looked past the mohamed cartoons as to who made them, that persons history, and how did so many dutch flags be present just in time in the middle east to be burned in protest? i guess they just had warehouses full of national flags to give out just in case…
“The communists must be prepared to make every sacrifice and, if necessary, even resort to all sorts of cunning schemes and stratagems, to employ illegal methods, to evade and conceal the truth.
…. The practical part of communist policy is to incite one [enemy] against another.
…. We communists must use one country against another.
My words were calculated to evoke hatred, aversion, and contempt…..not to convince but to break up the ranks of the opponent, not to correct an opponent’s mistake but to destroy him, to wipe his organization off the face of the earth.
This formulation is indeed of such a nature as to evoke the worst thoughts, the worst suspicions about the opponent.”—V. Lenin
and from retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin
“On the other hand — and this is the other side of the Soviet intelligence, very important: perhaps I would describe it as the heart and soul of the Soviet intelligence — was subversion. Not intelligence collection, but subversion: active measures to weaken the West, to drive wedges in the Western community alliances of all sorts, particularly NATO, to sow discord among allies, to weaken the United States in the eyes of the people of Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and thus to prepare ground in case the war really occurs. To make America more vulnerable to the anger and distrust of other peoples.”
“In that sense, the Soviet intelligence [was] really unparalleled. … The [KGB] programs — which would run all sorts of congresses, peace congresses, youth congresses, festivals, women’s movements, trade union movements, campaigns against U.S. missiles in Europe, campaigns against neutron weapons, allegations that AIDS … was invented by the CIA … all sorts of forgeries and faked material — [were] targeted at politicians, the academic community, at [the] public at large.”
“It was really a worldwide campaign, often not only sponsored and funded, but conducted and manipulated by the KGB. And this was again part and parcel of this campaign to weaken [the] military, economic and psychological climate in the West.”
here is an interesting read..
Soviet Active Measures
in the
“Post-Cold War” Era
1988-1991
A Report Prepared at the Request of the
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Appropriations
by the
United States Information Agency
June 1992
intellit.muskingum.edu/russia_folder/pcw_era/index.htm#Contents
I would pay close attention to chapters like new thinking…
According to Novikov, the Soviets view ideologies as pseudo-scientific constructs based on carefully selected portions of social theories, which the party elite uses in order to achieve its goals. Novikov states, “it should be stressed that an ideology is not a theory, but the party elite’s self-interest translated into theoretical terms.” Thus, Novikov notes, despite the fact that Marxist ideology prevailed in the Soviet Union, certain books by Marx were forbidden. They were part of Marxist theory, but conflicted with Marxist ideology – that portion of the theory that served Soviet interests. So, they could not be read.
“New thinking” was a mind-boggling innovation: a totally new, supra-Marxist Soviet ideology. Instead of relying solely on Marxist theory, the “new thinkers” used all of human thought as “raw material” for constructing a new Soviet ideology, including cherished Western concepts about human rights, democracy, and freedom of choice, as well as universal human concerns about the dangers of nuclear war and irreparable damage to the environment. The idea animating the “new thinkers” was to construct an ideology that would be more effective than communist ideology in enabling Soviet leaders to design manipulative propaganda campaigns that could be turned to Soviet advantage. As Yuri Krasin, then head of the CPSU Central Committee’s Institute of Social Sciences, told a group of fellow Marxists in 1988:
concern was voiced here that the raising of the issue of universal human values implied a rejection of the class-based approach. I am convinced this is not so: the Communists are assessing and analyzing these values from Marxist positions. …Do we really need to talk to people using political terminology only? After all, there are simple words clear to everyone, such as life, freedom, or justice. They reflect concepts which we interpret from our own Marxist perspective. (World Marxist Review, March 1988, p. 116)
there is a lot more..
but note how it parallels the politica change that would bring about this fast cahnge now…
but hey! lets keep watching the magician trying to figure him out rather than learning magic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nyom wrote, “He’s teachable.”
1) He’s done a LOT of damage already.
2) He could’ve issued an executive order instead he’s directed the justice department to appeal.
3) What are Obama’s instincts? Political survival and poll reading? Protection of American interests? In the first few phases of this saga it was not American interests but his own.
The contrast between “old thinking” and “new thinking” could not be clearer. In traditional communist ideology, capitalism, in the form of transnational corporations, was identified as the enemy, and Soviet-style socialism as the solution. Under the ideology of “new thinking,” pollution was identified as the enemy, Western transnational corporations as the source of the problem, and binding international initiatives at the United Nations (ideally designed with substantial Soviet input) as the solution. Thus, “new thinking” provided an extremely cooperative, non-militaristic, non-confrontational, democratic, and “rule-of-law” approach to achieving unchanged Soviet goals.
think hillary on this one
One of the main themes of “new political thinking” was that the United States should “eliminate the image of the Soviet Union as the enemy” and, as Gorbachev stated in June 1989, “mov[e] from the notion of enemy to the notion of partner.” (Washington Post, June 22, 1989) This theme encouraged the thought that the rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR was not an inevitable clash between competing and irreconcilable visions of freedom and totalitarianism, but rather the result of mistaken images which had arisen from hostile propaganda, and could therefore easily be “eliminated.”
and on obamas COMPROMISES…
and of course this is a tiny excerpt..
but how many will actually read the documents that inform the magicians as to what tricks to play?
The monograph explained the Leninist understanding of compromise as a temporary phenomenon, a “moment of agreement” that occurs when “the new … is not yet strong enough to completely overthrow the old.” It reminded the reader that a Leninist compromise “in no way minimizes revolutionary devotion and readiness to carry on the struggle.” The monograph emphasized:
Lenin repeatedly stressed that a compromise did not eliminate the struggle. Nor did a compromise make the question of “who will defeat whom” irrelevant. … Lenin observed that a compromise was a very specific form of struggle. It is a peaceful form of struggle in which the factor of agreement and coexistence prevails over the factor of mutual exclusion. (p. 6)
In a formulation that can be viewed as a guide to the thinking behind the “post-Cold War” policies of glasnost, perestroika, and “new political thinking,” the monograph stated:
…in the sphere of foreign policy the most important thing for Lenin on the question of compromise was to neutralize and, if possible, isolate the class enemy; in the realm of home policy the most important thing was the problem of winning allies, of building and expanding the mass base of the movement. It is important to note that here Lenin viewed the question of compromise as the key problem of long-term political strategy. (p. 24)
The monograph characterized the following extremely Machiavellian quotation from Lenin as “without question the key provision of all of Lenin’s writings on compromise:”
The most powerful enemy can be vanquished only be exerting the utmost effort, and by the most thorough, careful, attentive, skillful, and obligatory use of any, even the smallest, rift between the enemies, any conflict of interests among the bourgeoisie of the various countries and among the various groups or types of bourgeoisie within the various countries, and also by taking advantage of any, even the smallest, opportunity of winning a mass ally, even though this ally is temporary, vacillating, unstable, unreliable, and conditional. (pp. 23-24)
The monograph concluded that “compromise is an indisputable objective law of the revolutionary process,” admonishing its readers that “it is impossible to get even a general picture of these processes … without seeing the problem of compromise as part and parcel of the question of revolution.” (p. 49)
The monograph also shed light on the reasons the Soviets had for wishing to integrate the Soviet economy into the world economy and for wishing to reintroduce elements of a market economy in the USSR. It described Lenin’s policies during the New Economic Policy (NEP] of the 1920s, which allowed the rebirth of some market economic relations after the harsh, confiscatory policies of “War Communism” had brought the USSR to the brink of economic collapse:
So, out of necessity, the idea emerged of turning for assistance to foreign capital, … which, from the point of view of the class-oriented analysis of the alignment of the main forces inside the country and on the world scene, was the outright enemy of the Soviet state and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
… Lenin’s provisions on this score are of great importance for understanding the way the elements of capitalism were used in the conditions of NEP. It can be said that in essence Soviet power in those days allowed and even cultivated … precisely that (and only that) kind of capitalism and only in that form which it considered admissible and desirable. As Lenin put it, this is “capitalism which we shall be able to restrain, and the limits of which we shall be able to fix….”
…Naturally, the growth of capitalism was bound to revive anti-Bolshevik tendencies. … But even that prospect did not bother Lenin. The attitude towards small-scale commodity producers in general was one thing, while the attitude towards their ideologists was something else. In the case of the former, compromise was inevitable and even desirable, while in the case of the latter complete irreconcilability was necessary. …In the latter case, it was methods of suppression that were necessary.
…But let us return to the problem of the relations with … foreign big business, the highly advanced capitalism of Western Europe and America.
Lenin believed that the most resolute compromise had to be made with that force. For “socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. …At the same time, socialism is inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state. This is also ABC.”
Thus, the idea was to combine that large-scale capitalist engineering and the corresponding organization of labor with the domination of the proletariat in politics. In other words, it was necessary to figure out how to combine the dictatorship of the proletariat with state capitalism in the economy.
…All that, of course, did not mean establishing a kind of “Lass peace” with the capitalists … on an international scale. This, so to say, was the class struggle in the form of coexistence and, consequently, compromise. (pp. 42-45)
thats enough for the next day or so…
these documents are HUGE and completely invisabl to the average person.
but to thsoe who are political theorists, analysits, think tankers and politicians with a bent to achieve. these are the texts that inform them what game is really being played.
if you want to see the results of real active measures then all you have to do is go here.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Holdt
American Pictures had a profound impact on the youth in Scandinavia and Germany, and the Communist block saw a chance to use his work against President Carter’s human rights campaign. Holdt was approached by the KGB a few months after his slideshow became a success and he saw a chance with the help of the Soviet Union to penetrate the Marxist bureaucracy in Angola. Here it was his intention to spend the money earned from American Pictures in building a hospital in support of the anti-apartheid struggle.
However, when his book was published in 1977 the KGB revealed to him that it was their intention to use it in an all-out campaign against Carter to try to demonstrate that human rights were just as bad off in America as in Russia. Only a month after its publication Holdt therefore hired his lawyer, Sé¸ren B. Henriksen, to stop his own book all over the world. Except for Germany, Holland and Scandinavia, where they already had contracts with his Danish publisher, he managed to stop it, and did not release it again until the end of Communism.
As a result of losing most of his expected income from the book, Holdt could not finance a hospital, but only a nursing school built for the Namibian resistance group SWAPO in Kwanzu Zul in Angola with matching funds from the European Union. After the liberation of Zimbabwe in 1982 he also supported projects there. At the end of the cold war he was briefly accused of having been a KGB-agent, but it was easy for his publisher, Dagbladet Information, to show that he had actually worked for the other side and had even flown President Carter’s human rights envoy over to approve his film manuscript intended for the American market.
kind of makes him seem one way..
according to Ekstra Bladet, that the active measures campaign “which involved the publication, distribution, and publicity for the book American Pictures earns special recognition” and had been reported to the highest Soviet authorities, including the Politburo. Gordievsky concluded by characterizing Jacob Holdt as a “first class agent of influence,” stating, “Jacob Holdt was a true and real agent. He fulfilled the criteria and we paid him.”
burning the candle at both ends, eh?
The January 2 Ekstra Bladet cited a top secret KGB workplan for active measures work in 1978, which stated:
There will be great power put behind our active measures in the following areas:
…Emphasis on the human rights abuses of the United States. The publication of [Jacob Holdt’s] book in West Germany and Sweden, and help to assure its publication in Great Britain and help with activities in relation to [Jacob Holdt’s] picture exhibit. Study possibilities to have the exhibit shown in other Western countries.
American Pictures became one of the most popular books about the United States in the Danish secondary school system, spreading its extremely unfavorable portrayal of the United States widely throughout Danish society.
winter soldier was another successful campaign as most americans believe that attrocitis by americans were common.
meanwhile they dont know the real attrocities that actually happened!
According to KGB documents cited by Ekstra Bladet, the KGB also wished to use Holdt to recruit other agents. One KGB document stated, under the topic of “Principal goal for agent infiltration in the work against the Main Enemy [the United States]:”
Intensify the study of [Jacob Holdt’s] contacts. The idea is that we lead him to people who have a potential interest in working against the Main Enemy and the idea is that we should think, later on, of getting [Jacob Holdt] to recruit them under “false flag” pretenses.
A “false flag” recruitment is one in which a person is convinced to work on behalf of, in this case, Soviet intelligence, but given the false impression that he is working for another government. In this way, individuals who would have been repulsed by the idea of working for the Soviets could have been recruited to do anti-American work. The Soviets envisaged such a recruiting role for Holdt.
so which history is the right one? the wiki one in passing… or the one with names, details, documents, and cross confirmational information and verifiable stuff?
Artfldgr, it was obvious that the Winter Soldier nonsense was KGB-inspired – it had that aroma.
But was Kerry duped, or a willing participant in the fraud? He’s stupid enough for the former, and dishonorable enough for the latter, so it’s not clear, at least to me.
Tim P Says:
“Bush administration they were not able to control it either and many on the right called it a ‘rogue’ agency.
Now that the CIA is leaking against Obama and the dems, many on the right are laughing up their sleeves.”
I thinking of both. Its still a rogue agency and I’m laughing…. but someone still needs to go in a clean house / kick some teeth in. Speaking of teaching moments, hopefully it has been one for the CIA. They joined in the Bush bashing and look what it has brought them….
As to the teachability or learning-ability of Barack Obama, I thought the much-maligned Sarah Palin nailed it:
Occam, i have no idea at all as to the answer to your question.
as i said before, some subjects are so full of dirt that its like bobbing for apples in a outhouse pit… even if you win you lose…
kerry could know and play dumb, or be dumb and not know…
i will say that oddly enough winter soldier II is in the news.
turns out that another of the soldiers is not a soldier, but a mental patient who never served in the military at all.
Jessie MacBeth, was a fake army ranger..
then there was josh landsdale, micah wright, and randall…
and now “Rick Duncan” is discovered to be a lying mental patient.
According to Warvi, when an FBI agent asked whether he was Strandlof or Duncan, he responded “both,” then requested an attorney.
the sad part is that i have heard people tell me they personally know a person who was their when a winter solder attrocity happened…
and no matter how much you show them the winter soldier facts, they believe.
one of the MOST COMMON is the soldier who llike a bull fighter collects ears…
go back to the work of meil sheehan to get an angle on kerry..
It was, however, Lane’s book which inspired the “Winter Solder investigation”. The major organizers of the so-called “investigation” staged in Detroit in 1971 included Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, Phil Ochs, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Tom Hayden, Daniel Berrigan actor Donald Sutherland and activist lawyer and writer Mark Lane –
the same guy who’d already been revealed as a fake.
Also deeply involved in the organization of the event was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) which included John Kerry who was on the VVAW Executive committee.
Kerry hooked up with an organization called Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Two events cooked up by this group went a long way toward cementing in the public mind the image of Vietnam as one big atrocity. The first of these was the January 31, 1971, “Winter Soldier Investigation,” organized by “the usual suspects” among antiwar celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory, and Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theorist, Mark Lane.
Here, individuals purporting to be Vietnam veterans told horrible stories of atrocities in Vietnam: using prisoners for target practice, throwing them out of helicopters, cutting off the ears of dead Viet Cong soldiers, burning villages, and gang-raping women as a matter of course.
and almost ALL those things were included in full metal jacket, apocolypse now, and so forth… till people beleive they actually know someone that doesnt exist!!!
To reveal the depth of dishonesty present, Al Hubbard, one of the founders of the VVAW and its Executive Secretary, claimed to be an Air Force pilot, wounded in Viet Nam. In fact, Hubbard was never an officer, never wounded and never in Viet Nam. VVAW members Elton Mazione, John Laboon, Eddie Swetz and Kenneth Van Lesser all claimed to have been a part of the Phoenix program in Viet Nam where they routinely killed children and removed body parts as a part of their duty. They were shown to have never been in the Phoenix program nor had they ever been in Viet Nam. And the list of more frauds later found within the organization is mind-boggling.
so if one were to claim that kerry was a powerful person kept ignorant so they can use him, he would have to be really really really stupid not to run away at the first mention of one fraudulent person.
but to find out that ALL of them were fraudulent (except one i think), and still be there, would be high idiocy, or complicity.
all of them are protected by ambiguity and our good natures.
remember that kerry use mark lane and other fake solders words as testimoney to congress!!! so if any one can prove he knew, well that would be an interesting thing to show… but how do you PROVE intent, and prior knowlege?
even showing pelosi prior knowlege is turning out to be a boondoggle.
I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.”
and
”It is part and parcel of everything that we are trying as human beings to communicate to people in this country: the question of racism which is rampant in the military, and so many other questions; also the use of weapons, the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions, in the use of free-fire zones, harassment, interdiction fire, search-and-destroy missions, the bombings, the torture of prisoners, the killing of prisoners – accepted policy in many units in South Vietnam.”
the military promoted americans of color WAY before others did.. anywone want to go back to the civil war to show it? or what years during jim crow that they were being promoted in the military?
And Kerry’s emotional, from-the-heart speech had been carefully crafted by a speech writer for Robert Kennedy named Adam Walinsky, who also tutored him on how to present it.[BG]
so he was being scripted.. and i think that this is happening more and more since the demcomunists are in power… that if one reads the document above that i linked to, one can then read the point as to who was rewarded..
adn kerry fits that, a person who would do whatever he was told to do and accept wahtever consequences. if one thinks about it that way, then his actions were whatever OTHERS needed of him, he is a foil, a tool… and so he lets them use him and goes farther because of it than he would otehrwise.
in other words, people of merit and skill need not deal with the devil to take a place that they can earn themselves without him.
The same disrespect for the truth was in operation during the Winter Soldier hearings. After all the atrocities were dutifully taken down, the transcript was inserted into the Congressional Record by Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, who asked the commandant of the Marine Corps to investigate the many crimes, particularly those perpetrated by Marines.
“The results of this investigation, carried out by the Naval Investigative Service are interesting and revealing,” said historian Guenter Lewy in his book America in Vietnam. His history of the war was one of the first to rely on previously classified documents in the National Archives. “Many of the veterans, although assured that they would not be questioned atrocities they might have committed personally, refused to be interviewed. One of the active members of the VVAW told investigators that the leadership had directed the entire membership not to cooperate with military authorizes.
One black Marine who testified at Winter Soldier did agree to talk with the investigators. Although he had claimed during the hearing that Vietnam was “one huge atrocity” and a “racist plot,” he could provide no details of any actual crimes. Lewy said the question of atrocities had not occurred to the Marine until he left Vietnam. His testimony had been substantially “assisted” by a member of the Nation of Islam.
“But the most damaging finding consisted of the sworn statements of several veterans, corroborated by witnesses, that they had in fact not attended the hearing in Detroit,” Lewy wrote, “One of them had never been to Detroit in his life.” Fake “witnesses” had appropriated the names of real Vietnam veterans.
Lewy pointed out that incidents similar to those described at the Winter Soldier hearings did occur. “Yet these incidents either (as in the destruction of hamlets) did not violate the law of war or took place in breach of existing regulations,” Lewy wrote. Those responsible were tired and punished.
“In either case, they were not, as alleged, part of a ‘criminal policy,'” Lewy said. Despite the antiwar movement’s contention that military policies protecting civilians in Vietnam were routinely ignored, Lewy said the rules of engagement were implemented and taken very seriously, although at times the rules were not communicated properly and the training was inadequate. That’s what made the failure so notable.
“The VVAW’s use of fake witnesses and the failure to cooperate with military authorities and to provide crucial details of the incidents further cast serious doubt on the professed desire to server the causes of justice and humanity.” Lewy wrote. “It is more likely that this inquiry, like others earlier and later, had primarily political motives and goals.”
the point here is to remember tha after mccarthy, there was allowed zero opposition to making up things and lying… that we were no longer allowed to even contemplate subversion as a form of politics not to be allowed… and other things as well.
so much that makes sense of this can be read in the links i give for kgb and things.. in fact, reading them often puts normal people on a paranoid edge… but if you can tolerate it and not run with it, you can really find things tha make the current situation make sense.
like russias statements that america is now communist… how would that make sense in the area of white active measures? well, they are going to switch places, and we are going to become the evil communists to defeat… after all, if you read the programs with names you can verify of the opposite, the removal of russia as evil and enemy, was just the new thinking program…
so… as to kerry… i have no real idea of this… he was never really on my reading radar before, and he was such a poor pick to be used that he is a non player who had potential at one time. he is gone now… there will be no comeback for him… he was a waste of good intention, and so it went to another post turtle wiling to follwo the orders in exchange for the goals that cant be reached any other way.
for if they can put him up, they can prevent another. and if so, then there is no more a way to succeed the old way any more… and so unless house is cleaned, we are completely communist and the rate of change si mediated by the trouble and the lack of production they will ahve if they act otherwise. its in their interest not to call out the tanks but keep playing the game all the way through. ‘
Thanks, Artfldgr. I doubted Kerry’s testimony even at the time, when I was nearing the end of my own infatuation with leftist politics. It had too much of the “germ warfare over Korea” cachet. For some reason, communists cannot resist using highly stylized language that marks them indelibly as communists (references to “peace,” “justice,” “imperialism,” “mass movement,” and those hardy perennials so beloved of demonstrators, “Hands off —-” and “Defend —–“).
But the real story here, in my opinion anyway, is about the CIA becoming an actor on the political scene, via these leaks.
Having the CIA getting on the political stage is disturbing, this shot across Pelosi’s bow is more along the lines of we’re not going down alone for something you knew about and have some responsibility for not raising objections.
Note to those prattling on Obama’s pragmatism and ability to learn — Obama did not reverse this disastrous course until:
* He was smacked silly by his military commanders that American soldiers would be killed — which would have been obvious to any American president with a knowledge of history and who loved America.
* The CIA went to the mattresses with leaks to destroy the credibility of prominent Democratic leaders like Pelosi and Rockefeller.
* Speaker of the House Pelosi had been caught in successive lies and hypocrisies that even the mainstream media noticed.
* Polls of the American people revealed that –call it torture, call it enhanced interrogation — the majority didn’t have a terrible moral problem of applying such techniques to unlawful combatants like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Sure the ACLU started it, but Obama was the bright boy who thought he could harness the whirlwind to his vindictive and partisan agenda. Only when it blew up in his face did he back off.
I should also add Dick Cheney’s unashamed yeoman work defending the Bush administration’s policies, highlighting the Democratic sign-off, and bringing the issue of national security after 9-11 front and center.
Artfldgr, you seriously need to post that stuff on your blog, not in comments elsewhere.
Re the post – The word from Tom Ricks (Washington Post guy) is that it was General Odierno himself who prevailed on Obama not to release the photos.
My dream: Odnierno: “You damn stupid fool, you’ll get us all killed if you release them!”
Obama: “uh, ok”
Excellent analysis, huxley, and nice recognition for Cheney’s role. In some ways, Cheney is showing the rest of us how to get the job done: go straight at them, and don’t leave a man behind.
“Obama gets to have it both ways.”
This is like his NAFTA moment from the campaign. Publicly, he claimed he disapproved of the agreement, while his campaign people reassured the Canadians it was just rhetoric.
Here, he can convince the people he wants to protect the military, while he tells the ACLU and the far left that the judicial rulung will be upheld, and the photos released.