Ray McGovern

Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as “heroes” the 30 American and 8 Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when a helicopter on a night mission crashed, apparently after taking fire from Taliban forces. This week, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to beat a steady drumbeat of “they shall not have died in vain.”

But they did. I know it is a hard truth, but they did die in vain.

As in the past, churches across the country will keep praising the fallen troops for protecting “our way of life,” and few can demur, given the tragic circumstances.

But, sadly, such accolades are, at best, misguided — at worst, dishonest. Most preachers do not have a clue as to what U.S. forces are doing in Afghanistan and why. Many prefer not to think about it. There are some who do know better, but virtually all in that category eventually opt to punt.

Should we fault the preachers as they reach for words designed to give comfort to those in their congregations mourning the deaths of so many young troops? As hard as it might seem, I believe we can do no other than fault — and confront — them. However well-meaning their intentions, their negligence and timidity in confronting basic war issues merely help to perpetuate unnecessary killing. It is high time to hold preachers accountable.

Many preachers are alert and open enough to see through the propaganda for perpetual war. But most will not take the risk of offending their flock with unpalatable truth. Better not to risk protests from the super-patriots — many of them with deep pockets — in the pews. And better to avoid, at all costs, offending the loved ones of those who have been killed — loved ones who can hardly be faulted for trying desperately to find some meaning in the snuffing out of young lives.

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Ray McGovern

We passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza represent a cross-section of America. Yet, if there is an emblematic trait that sets us apart from "mainstream" America, it is a common, radical determination to take risks to bring Justice for the oppressed — in this case, the 1.6 million people locked in an open-air prison on a narrow strip of land called Gaza.

While most of those calling us "radical" hurl the word as a barb, we welcome the label — but radical as derived from the underlying meaning of this word, "root." Like radishes, we are rooted in soil, the soil of Justice.

"Extremist?" Yes, we confess to that too — as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. did in his Letter From the Birmingham City Jail.

Replying to those who threw the "extremist" epithet at him, Dr. King acknowledged that he was, indeed, an extremist — "an extremist for love."

He placed this kind of extremist squarely in the tradition of the Hebrew prophet Amos ("Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream"), as well as Jesus of Nazareth, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal").

"So," wrote King, "the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice – or will we be extremists for the cause of justice."

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Ray McGovern
Consortium News

Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the distress mode — upside down.

Indignities experienced by me and my co-guests on The Audacity of Hope, the American boat to Gaza, over the past 10 days in Athens leave no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama’s administration has forfeited the right to claim any lineage to the brave Americans who declared independence from the king of England 235 years ago.

In the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to a new enterprise of freedom, democracy, and the human spirit. The outcome was far from assured; likely as not, the hangman’s noose awaited them. They knew that all too well.

But they had a genuine audacity to hope that the majority of their countrymen and women, persuaded by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the elegant words of Thomas Jefferson, would conclude that the goal of liberty and freedom was worth the risk, that it was worth whatever the cost.

These days we have been seduced into thinking that such principles have become “quaint” or “obsolete” — words used by President George W. Bush’s White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to make light of important international agreements like the Geneva Conventions.

As every American should know, and remember, the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence were based on the firm belief that ALL men are created equal, that they have UNALIENABLE rights — among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Not just “all Americans,” mind you, but all people. The Declaration of Independence was meant to be a statement expressing the “self-evident” rights of all mankind. Those principles had a universality that was a beacon to the world.

True, American democracy and, indeed, the Founders themselves were far from perfect. In the early decades of the Republic, basic rights were denied to women, to black slaves, to Native Americans, and to many of the poor. But Americans worked on building that “more perfect union” and are still working on it.

Justice was always at the heart of the American ideal. That we still have a long way to go in securing that justice must not be allowed to obscure the fact that ours is a noble and courageous experiment. Or at least it was.

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Stephen Lendman

The humanitarian excuse for the attack on Libya is nothing
but a preparation for an invasion.

After three and a half terror bombing months and counting, destroying Libya for wealth and power continues, each imperial nation playing its part in this sinister dirty game, masquerading as liberation.

France finally admitted what's already known, that it's been supplying mercenary cutthroats with automatic weapons, rocket launchers, assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, and who knows what else. So have Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, perhaps other US imperial allies, and the Pentagon itself. In mid-April, The New York Times said Benghazi-based rebels got weapons from abroad without naming names.

For months, US and UK special forces provided training, The Times saying "professional training centers" were used to do it. In fact, recruiting, funding, and arming rebels began well before bombing began. America's war was planned many months, perhaps years earlier. Obama picked his moment to launch it.

Even the International Criminal Court (ICC) is complicit, functioning as an imperial tool, not a legitimate tribunal. Its chief prosecutor Jose Luis Moren-Ocampo, in fact, targets victims, not criminal Washington, London and Paris conspirators, attacking a nonbelligerent country. It's been standard US practice since WW II.

In May, Ocampo sought arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam, and brother-in-law intelligence chief, Abdullah Al-Sanousi, on "charges of orchestrating systematic attacks against civilians (amounting) to crimes against humanity," with no evidence whatever to prove it.

Then end of June he issued arrest warrants against all three on alleged crimes against humanity, saying reasonable grounds exist to believe they're "criminally responsible as indirect perpetrators of civilian killings and repression" - again with no corroborating evidence or authority. Libya, in fact, isn't an ICC member, nor are America, China, Russia and India, some nations, openly critical of how it operates with good reason.

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Ray McGovern
Antiwar

For those who engage in the common struggle for Justice, an invaluable grace comes from getting to know new friends similarly engaged—and equally willing to speak with more than words.

Thus, it has been a great grace to get to know folks like Alice Walker personally as well as through her writings—including some new ones. In one recent article, Alice addressed her reasons for joining the other 49 of us by putting her body on the line in sailing with The Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat to Gaza. She wrote:

There is for me an awareness of paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the South in our time of need. I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help—our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to nonviolent protesters—and came to stand with us.

They got as far as the truncheons and bullets of a few “good ol’ boys” of Neshoba County, Mississippi, and were beaten and shot to death along with James Chaney, a young black man with formidable courage who died with them. So even though our boat will be called The Audacity of Hope, it will fly the Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner flag in my own heart.”

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Ray McGovern
Antiwar

Stuffing my backpack before setting out to board The Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat to Gaza, I got a familiar-sounding call from yet another puzzled friend, who said as gently as the words allow, “You know you can get killed, don’t you?”

I recognize this caution as an expression of genuine concern from friends. From some others—who don’t much care about Gaza’s plight and/or who do not wish us well—the words are phrased somewhat differently: “Aren’t you just asking for it?”

That was the obligatory question/accusation at the end of a recent interview of me that was taped for a BBC-TV special scheduled to air this coming week as we try to break—or at least draw attention to—Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and the suffering it inflicts on the people there.

I also have been cautioned by a source with access to very senior staffers at the National Security Council that not only does the White House plan to do absolutely nothing to protect our boat from Israeli attack or illegal boarding, but that White House officials “would be happy if something happened to us.” They are, I am reliably told, “perfectly willing to have the cold corpses of activists shown on American TV.”

I mention this informal warning for the benefit of anyone who may have harbored hope that the U.S. government would do something to protect us American citizens from the kind of violence used by the Israelis against last year’s flotilla. It seems best to be up-front and realistic about what to expect.

Two millennia ago, “Civus Romanus Sum”[1] automatically won lawful treatment and free passage for Roman citizens in trouble. It was a matter of pride and a benefit of being part of a powerful empire. Today, the contrast could hardly be starker. It is sad fact that “Civus Americanus Sum” would engender ridicule, rather than respect, if invoked in an attempt to secure basic rights for those of us working for justice for the Palestinians.

Americans also face the reality that they are put in harm’s way by the view held by millions around the world—and especially in the Middle East—that the United States is partly responsible for the injustices and the humiliations that Palestinians face daily.

So I want to turn around the question/warning to me about safety and direct it to fellow citizens who will not be aboard The Audacity of Hope: “You know you can get killed, don’t you?”—if the U.S. government continues to enable Israel in keeping a million and a half Gazans in a densely populated open-air prison with few prospects for a normal life. It is a no-brainer. The longer that goes on the more likely it becomes that many more Americans will become the target of terrorists seeking to inflict some pain on the great power that stands behind Israel whatever it does.

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Stephen Lendman

Manning is being emotionally destroyed, assuring his inability to defend himself properly at trial. The Pentagon plans it, besides extracting vengeance and warning other whistle blowers what they'll face if they dare emulate him. Obama very much concurs, showing he's as lawless as Bush.

A previous article discussed him in detail, accessed through this link. Another discussed torture as official US policy, institutionalized under Bush II, continued under Obama, practiced despite official denials.

Manning, of course, is the Army intelligence analyst allegedly turned whistle blower, who supposedly leaked thousands of diplomatic cables, many from Iraq and Afghan war databases, as well as two or more explosive videos, showing US air strikes murdering civilians. As a result, he may have felt obligated to reveal them. They reveal criminal acts by the US government, demanding prosecution of everyone up the chain of command ordering them.

If Bradley [in fact] disclosed them, he did so at great personal risk. He then would deserve praise, not prosecution. He would be a hero, risking personal harm to reveal disturbing truths, what government and media reports suppress, sanitize and distort, letting warlords plunder lawlessly so war profiteers can cash in. Americans are the worse off for it.

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John Pilger
John Pilger's ZSpace Page

"The heroic Bradley Manning is kept naked under lights and cameras 24 hours a day. Greg Barns, director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance, says the fears that Julian Assange will “end up being tortured in a high security American prison” are justified. Who will share responsibility for such a crime?"

As the United States and Britain look for an excuse to invade another oil-rich Arab country, the hypocrisy is familiar. Colonel Gaddafi is “delusional” and “blood-drenched” while the authors of an invasion that killed a million Iraqis, who have kidnapped and tortured in our name, are entirely sane, never blood-drenched and once again the arbiters of “stability”.

But something has changed. Reality is no longer what the powerful say it is. Of all the spectacular revolts across the world, the most exciting is the insurrection of knowledge sparked by WikiLeaks. This is not a new idea. In 1792, the revolutionary Tom Paine warned his readers in England that their government believed that “people must be hoodwinked and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other”. Paine’s The Rights of Man was considered such a threat to elite control that a secret grand jury was ordered to charge him with “a dangerous and treasonable conspiracy”. Wisely, he sought refuge in France.

The ordeal and courage of Tom Paine is cited by the Sydney Peace Foundation in its award of Australia’s human rights Gold Medal to Julian Assange. Like Paine, Assange is a maverick who serves no system and is threatened by a secret grand jury, a malicious device long abandoned in England but not in the United States. If extradited to the US, he is likely to disappear into the Kafkaesque world that produced the Guantanamo Bay nightmare and now accuses Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks’ alleged whistleblower, of a capital crime.

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Ray McGovern
Antiwar

Is the U.S. Army stooping to Mafia-style tactics in seeking to imprison 23-year-old Private Bradley Manning for the rest of his life, essentially making him an example for other U.S. soldiers who might be tempted to put conscience and commitment to truth ahead of military discipline and going by the book?

If the Mafia comparison strikes you as a tad over the top, perhaps a seven-year trip down memory lane may prove instructive. Remember what happened after the U.S. Army learned of the obscene and brutal treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in early 2004?

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba led the first (and only honest) investigation of the scandal. In May 2004, he completed a report that sharply criticized the Army and the higher-ups in the Bush administration for creating the conditions that permitted the mistreatment to occur.

When the report leaked to the press, Taguba found himself treated like a disloyal capo who had talked out of school about the Family business.

Rather than thank Taguba for upholding the honor of the U.S. Army, the Bush administration singled out this hard-working, low-key general for retribution and forced retirement.

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John Pilger
t r u t h o u t

Former CIA officer Ray McGovern. (Photo:
Cheryl Biren)

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared then-president George W. Bush's daily intelligence brief. At that time, McGovern was at the apex of the "national security" monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to Bush that the "drumbeat for war" was based not on intelligence, but lies.

"It was 95 percent charade," McGovern told me.

"How did they get away with it?" I asked.

"The press allowed the crazies to get away with it."

"Who are the crazies?"

"The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in 'Mein Kampf,'" said McGovern. "These are the same people who were referred to, in the circles in which I moved at the top, as 'the crazies.'"

I said: "Norman Mailer has written that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What's your view of that?"

"Well ... I hope he's right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode."

On January 22, 2011, McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration's barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.

"Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq," he wrote, "I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly."

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