GW Bush
Think Progress » EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At ThemEXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them»
Speaking at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, Seymour Hersh — a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist for The New Yorker — revealed that Bush administration officials held a meeting recently in the Vice President’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran.
In Hersh’s most recent article, he reports that this meeting occurred in the wake of the overblown incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when a U.S. carrier almost shot at a few small Iranian speedboats. The “meeting took place in the Vice-President’s office. ‘The subject was how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,’” according to one of Hersh’s sources.
During the journalism conference event, I asked Hersh specifically about this meeting and if he could elaborate on what occurred. Hersh explained that, during the meeting in Cheney’s office, an idea was considered to dress up Navy Seals as Iranians, put them on fake Iranian speedboats, and shoot at them. This idea, intended to provoke an Iran war, was ultimately rejected:
HERSH: There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.
Might cost some lives. And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
Watch it:
Hersh argued that one of the things the Bush administration learned during the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz was that, “if you get the right incident, the American public will support” it.
“Look, is it high school? Yeah,” Hersh said. “Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.”
Transcript:
HERSH: There was a meeting. Among the items considered and rejected — which is why the New Yorker did not publish it, on grounds that it wasn’t accepted — one of the items was why not…
There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war. The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up. Might cost some lives.
And it was rejected because you can’t have Americans killing Americans. That’s the kind of — that’s the level of stuff we’re talking about. Provocation. But that was rejected.
So I can understand the argument for not writing something that was rejected — uh maybe. My attitude always towards editors is they’re mice training to be rats.
But the point is jejune, if you know what that means. Silly? Maybe. But potentially very lethal. Because one of the things they learned in the incident was the American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it.
…What happened in the Gulf was, in the Straits, in early January, the President was just about to go to the Middle East for a visit. So that was one reason they wanted to gin it up. Get it going.
Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with you know 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran.
Greg Palast » ArticlesAre they going to Steal 2008?
Are they going to Steal 2008? Don't worry: it's already stolen. But you can steal it back. Ted Rall and I have teamed up for one of the first ever series of hard-edged investigative journalism - in 'toon form. Steal this strip ... and pass it on: VOTE THEFT FOR IDIOTS - PART 1 ... (click the photo for higher quality, or click here to download a pdf)
by Greg Palast and Ted Rall
And if you're in LA and New York, don't miss the opening of the film that pulls down the pants of the Ohio election, "Free For All." Follow John Ennis into the colon of American democracy, Ohio 2004. It's funny as hell - oddly, democracy's death can tickle your funny bone while laying out the story of the latest quadrennial vote heist. Watch the trailer here.
This film will be available online at www.freeforall.tv on July 4th -- for downloads, for DVDs, and for FREE streaming! (Please also check out our new line of hip shirts!) (Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 9:19 pm
Greg Palast » Court Rewards Exxon for Valdez Oil SpillCourt Rewards Exxon for
Valdez Oil Spill
by Greg Palast
Chicago Tribune (revised)
Listen to Shannyn Moore of KUDO 1080AM and Greg Palast on the Exxon Valdez Verdict
[Thursday, June 26, 2008] Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by 90% to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill.
Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.
But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.
In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives.
His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it and wait twenty years to get even the pennies. Exxon is immortal - but Natives die.
And they did. A third of the Native fishermen and seal hunters I worked with are dead. Now their families will collect one tenth of their award, two decades too late.
In today's ruling, Supreme Court Justice David Souter wrote that Exxon's recklessness was ''profitless'' - so the company shouldn't have to pay punitive damages. Profitless, Mr. Souter? Exxon and its oil shipping partners saved billions - BILLIONS - by operating for sixteen years without the oil spill safety equipment they promised, in writing, under oath and by contract.
The official story is, "Drunken Skipper Hits Reef." But don't believe it, Mr. Souter. Alaska's Native lands and coastline were destroyed by a systematic fraud motivated by profit-crazed penny-pinching.
Here's the unreported story, the one you won't get tonight on the Petroleum Broadcast System:
It begins in 1969 when big shots from Humble Oil and ARCO (now known as Exxon and British Petroleum) met with the Chugach Natives, owners of the most valuable parcel of land on the planet: Valdez Port, the only conceivable terminus for a pipeline that would handle a trillion dollars in crude oil.
These Alaskan natives ultimately agreed to sell the Exxon consortium this astronomically valuable patch of land -- for a single dollar.
The Natives refused cash. Rather, in 1969, they asked only that the oil companies promise to protect their Prince William Sound fishing and seal hunting grounds from oil.
In 1971, Exxon and partners agreed to place the Natives' specific list of safeguards into federal law. These commitments to safety reassured enough Congressmen for the oil group to win, by one vote, the right to ship oil from Valdez.
The oil companies repeated their promises under oath to the US Congress.
The spill disaster was the result of Exxon and partners breaking every one of those promises - cynically, systematically, disastrously, in the fifteen years leading up to the spill.
Forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate would never have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his Raycas radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disasbled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was just too expensive to fix and operate.
For the Chugach, this discovery was poignantly ironic. On their list of safety demands in return for Valdez was "state-of-the-art" on-ship radar.
We discovered more, but because of the labyrinthine ways of litigation, little became public, especially about the reckless acts of the industry consortium, Alyeska, which controls the Alaska Pipeline.
* Several smaller oil spills before the Exxon Valdez could have warned of a system breakdown. But a former Senior Lab Technician with Alyeska, Erlene Blake, told our investigators that management routinely ordered her to toss out test samples of water evidencing spilled oil. She was ordered to refill the test tubes with a bucket of clean sea water called, "The Miracle Barrel."
* In a secret meeting in April 1988, Alyeska Vice-President T.L. Polasek confidentially warned the oil group executives that, because Alyeska had never purchased promised safety equipment, it was simply "not possible" to contain an oil spill past the Valdez Narrows -- exactly where the Exxon Valdez ran aground 10 months later.
* The Natives demanded (and law requires) that the shippers maintain round- the-clock oil spill response teams. Alyeska hired the Natives, especiallly qualified by their generations-old knowledge of the Sound, for this emergency work. They trained to drop from helicopters into the water with special equipment to contain an oil slick at a moments notice. But in 1979, quietly, Alyeska fired them all. To deflect inquisitive state inspectors, the oil consortium created sham teams, listing names of oil terminal workers who had not the foggiest idea how to use spill equipment which, in any event, was missing, broken or existed only on paper.
In 1989, when the oil poured from the tanker, there was no Native response team, only chaos.
Today, twenty years after the oil washed over the Chugach beaches, you can kick over a rock and it will smell like an old gas station.
The cover story of the Drunken Captain serves the oil industry well. It falsely presents America's greatest environmental disaster as a tale of human frailty, a one-time accident. But broken radar, missing equipment, phantom spill teams, faked tests -- the profit-driven disregard of the law -- made the spill an inevitability, not an accident.
Yet Big Oil tells us, as they plead to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, as Senator John McCain calls for drilling off the shores of the Lower 48, it can't happen again.
They promise.
Greg Palast is a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow for Investigative Reporting at the Nation Institute, New York. Read and view his investigations for BBC Television at www.GregPalast.com. An earlier version of this report originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune. Photos by James Macalpine (1993).
Greg PalastJoin Our Network!
MySpace
FaceBook
Article RSS
Flickr
Audio Podcast
Recent Video and Audio
Bobby Kennedy and Palast on GoLeftTV on Exxon Valdez
Shannyn Moore and Palast discuss the truth behind the Exxon Valdez Disaster
The Palast Report on Action Point 6/22
The Palast Report on Action Point 6/15
The Palast Report on Action Point 6/08
The Palast Report on Action Point 5/18
Palast on the The Green Show
#
Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should.
by Greg Palast
In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color.
In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives – overwhelming Black voters.
In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.
In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.
My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was “concerned” about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.
He’s concerned. I’m sweating.
It’s time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama’s candidacy – journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.
And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team. Here’s how:
We have been offered an astonishing opportunity to place the Kennedy-Palast investigative findings on a national, prime-time, major-network television broadcast. Plus, separately, we have an extraordinary offer to create a series of reports for national network radio.
But guess what? The networks will NOT PAY for our public service reports. We have to raise the start-up funds in the next two weeks to film it, record it and get it on the airwaves.
WE need YOU to fund the reports, DISSEMINATE the findings (Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 6:48 pm
Vote Theft for Idiots: Part Deux
To see the full size version click here.
Greg Palast and Ted Rall for the second installment of 'Vote Theft for Idiots.'
Vote Theft for Idiots Part 2
(Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 9:11 pm
The House I Live In
America is a nation of losers. It’s the best thing about us. We're the dregs, what the rest of the world barfed up and threw on our shores.
John Kennedy said we are "a nation of immigrants." That’s the sanitized phrase. We are, in fact, a nation of refugees, who, despite the bastards in white sheets and the know-nothings in Congress, have held open the Golden Door to a dark planet. We are not imperialists and that’s why Bush lies and Cheney lies and, yes, the Clintons lied.
Winston Churchill didn’t lie to the Brits about their empire: He said, These lands belong to the Crown, we own'm and we’ll squeeze the value from them. "Imperialism," as Karl Marx complained, was a good word in Britain, a word that got you elected in Europe until too recently.
(Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 3:53 pm
The Exxon Valdez and McCain's
Threat to Drill Our Coastline.
'Catch Greg Palast with Bobby Kennedy on 'Ring of Fire' this weekend, on your local Air America Radio Station - or, on the 'Net - at GoLeft.TV and RingofFireRadio.com
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 4:21 pm
Court Rewards Exxon for
Valdez Oil Spill
by Greg Palast
Chicago Tribune (revised)
Listen to Shannyn Moore of KUDO 1080AM and Greg Palast on the Exxon Valdez Verdict
[Thursday, June 26, 2008] Twenty years after Exxon Valdez slimed over one thousand miles of Alaskan beaches, the company has yet to pay the $5 billion in punitive damages awarded by the jury. And now they won't have to. The Supreme Court today cut Exxon's liability by 90% to half a billion. It's so cheap, it's like a permit to spill.
Exxon knew this would happen. Right after the spill, I was brought to Alaska by the Natives whose Prince William Sound islands, livelihoods, and their food source was contaminated by Exxon crude. My assignment: to investigate oil company frauds that led to to the disaster. There were plenty.
But before we brought charges, the Natives hoped to settle with the oil company, to receive just enough compensation to buy some boats and rebuild their island villages to withstand what would be a decade of trying to survive in a polluted ecological death zone.
In San Diego, I met with Exxon's US production chief, Otto Harrison, who said, "Admit it; the oil spill's the best thing to happen" to the Natives.
His company offered the Natives pennies on the dollar. The oil men added a cruel threat: take it or leave it (Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 12:11 pm
Are they going to Steal 2008?
Are they going to Steal 2008? Don't worry: it's already stolen. But you can steal it back. Ted Rall and I have teamed up for one of the first ever series of hard-edged investigative journalism - in 'toon form. Steal this strip ... and pass it on: VOTE THEFT FOR IDIOTS - PART 1 ... (click the photo for higher quality, or click here to download a pdf)
by Greg Palast and Ted Rall
And if you're in LA and New York, don't miss the opening of the film that pulls down the pants of the Ohio election, "Free For All." Follow John Ennis into the colon of American democracy, Ohio 2004. It's funny as hell - oddly, democracy's death can tickle your funny bone while laying out the story of the latest quadrennial vote heist. Watch the trailer here.
This film will be available online at www.freeforall.tv on July 4th -- for downloads, for DVDs, and for FREE streaming! (Please also check out our new line of hip shirts!) (Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 9:19 pm
Driving the surge in gas prices?
The Bush-McCain surge in Iraq
By Greg Palast for TomPaine.com/OurFuture.org
[New York, May 22, 2008.]
Blog Directory - Blogged
I can’t make this up:
In a hotel room in Brussels, the chief executives of the world’s top oil companies unrolled a huge map of the Middle East, drew a fat, red line around Iraq and signed their names to it.
The map, the red line, the secret signatures. It explains this war. It explains this week’s rocketing of the price of oil to (Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 2:55 pm
BBC journalist warns against voter irregularities
Palast and Randi RhodesBy Dwayne Robinson
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The BBC journalist who uncovered possible voter fraud in the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections told a South Florida crowd Sunday those same forces that led to President Bush's victories will not "steal" this year's election.
(Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 5:54 pm
New Attack on the Right to Vote
Kennedy, Palast Investigate
One million Democrats attempting to vote in this year’s primaries found their names missing from voter rolls. WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO?Palast and Kennedy
Law professor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and journalist Greg Palast are launching an investigation. We want to know: where are these votes? Who swiped them? How? And how do we prevent it from happening in November?
The investigations team needs your help. RIGHT NOW. The not-for-profit Investigative Fund needs support to pay the cost of phones, airfare, microphones (hidden, when needed), detective agency fees, camera crew, researchers and all the infrastructure of inquest.
(Show me more...)
ShareThis
Dropped in: Articles around 6:05 pm
$300 MILLION FROM CHAVEZ
TO FARC A FAKE
for TomPaine.com/Ourfuture.org
By Greg Palast
Originally published 6 March
EN ESPANOL
Do you believe this?
In early March Colombia invaded Ecuador, killed a guerrilla chief in the jungle, opened his laptop – and what did the Colombians find? A message to Hugo Chavez that he sent the FARC guerrillas $300 million – which they’re using to obtain uranium to make a dirty bomb!
That’s what George Bush tells us. (Show me more...)
Richard Perle, War Architect, Exploring Iraq Oil Deal
Please wait, your request is processed...
Richard Perle, War Architect, Exploring Iraq Oil Deal
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
| July 29, 2008 08:40 AM
Read More: Iraq Oil, Iraq Oil Money, Iraqi Oil, Kurdistan Oil, Richard Perle, Richard Perle Iraq, Richard Perle Iraq Oil, Richard Perle Oil, Richard Perle War In Iraq, Politics News
Show your support.
Buzz this article up.
Buzz up!
Show your support.
Digg this article.
* Share
* Print View
* Comments
Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address
The Wall Street Journal reports that neoconservative war architect Richard Perle is getting back into Iraq:
Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals.
Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.
Think Progress remembers that Perle "resigned from his position on the Defense Policy Board in an attempt to 'defuse a controversy over charges he stood to profit from the war in Iraq.'"
RJ Eskow: A Murderer's Bookshelf: Hannity, O'Reilly, and Savage On Killer's Reading List
RSS
BIO Become a Fan Get Email Alerts Bloggers' Index
A Murderer's Bookshelf: Hannity, O'Reilly, and Savage On Killer's Reading List
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust
Posted July 28, 2008 | 09:09 PM (EST)
Read More: Bill O'Reilly, Cnn, Dick Morris, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Jim Adkisson, Knoxville Church Killings, Michael Savage, Right Wing Extremism, Sean Hannity, Media News
Show your support.
Buzz this article up.
Buzz up!
Show your support.
Digg this article.
* Share
* Print View
* Comments
Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address
This morning I wrote (in "Monster") that Sean Hannity et al. might bear some share of moral responsibility for the killings in Knoxville. Sadly for everyone concerned, that may be true.
This evening we learn from the Knoxville News that officers entering the home of murder Jim Adkisson "found Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder by radio talk show host Michael Savage, Let Freedom Ring by talk show host Sean Hannity, and The O'Reilly Factor, by television talk show host Bill O'Reilly."
The presence of somebody's books in a mentally disturbed person's home does not make them accessories to a killing. But right-wing rhetoric toward liberals and humanists like those who attended the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has been exceptionally violent for years. Liberal groups are often called "Nazi" or "Nazi-like" by O'Reilly (he even said that about our own Arianna Huffington). Savage says he'd "hang every lawyer" who tried to establish constitutional rights for Guantanamo prisoners, describes Obama as an "Afro-Leninist," and said the folks at Media Matters were "brownshirts." He describes Rep. Wexler as a "Nazi" and calls Nancy Pelosi a "Mussolini."
As for Hannity, he said that "there are things in life worth fighting and dying for and one of 'em is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the speaker (of the House)." Think about it: "worth fighting and dying for."
And that's just a sampler.
Ann Coulter says liberals should be beaten with baseball bats and tried for treason (she's not clear about the order in which these events are to take place.) Dick Morris says they're "traitors" who should be decapitated.
I had a friend at Clear Channel (yes, I have a broad group of friends) who described some of these people as "entertainers." Don't you get it, guys? You use inflammatory images that equates your fellow Americans with violent enemies of the nation. Then you act surprised when a mentally ill person believes you and kills. You use the language of war and then say you're not to blame when somebody enlists in your imaginary struggle.
Their next step will be outrage -- outrage! -- at the idea that they may be morally accountable for this action, the possible fruit of their rhetoric.
We all need to be thoughtful about the impact of our words. But the Right has made it their business to promote a particularly virulent brand of hatred. Would Jim Adkisson have killed without all that prompting from the vituperative chorus of the right? We'll never know. But it's looking less likely with every passing hour that he would ever have entered a church filled with children and started shooting.
If they found something I wrote in a killer's home, I'd stop what I was doing and begin some serious self-reflection. I'd write about it, consider my errors, and try to make amends. Wouldn't you? Not that censorship isn't the answer. Not every reprehensible act can be legislated away. Sometimes the most effective way to change people is to hold them accountable. That includes not only Fox News, in this case, but also CNN -- who recently gave the anchor chair to hate-speaker Glenn Beck.
Guys, it's not "entertainment" any more -- if it ever was. We need to hold those in the boardroom accountable, too. They make their money and serve their political agenda by telling hundreds of millions of people that liberal Americans are treacherous and mentally ill enemies of the state. And they use the public airwaves to do it.
If these right-wing pundits are as devout as they say they are they'll stop, think, and ask forgiveness. That goes for their corporate paymasters, too. I hope they do for their own sakes, though I don't expect it.
As for the rest of us, it's time to look at new strategies for containing the spread of hate speech in our media. The old ways aren't working.
RJ Eskow blogs at:
MichaelMoore.com : Protest march planned during President Bush's visit to Kennebunkport, MaineSaturday, August 2, 2008 at 1:00
Protest march planned during President Bush's visit to Kennebunkport, Maine
WHEN: Saturday, August 2, 2008 at 1:00 PM
WHERE: Protest March begins at 1:00 from the Consolidated School on School Street in Kennebunkport (The Google) and protesters will make a 2 mile walk to the Bush family compound at Walker's Point (The Google).
Contact: Jamilla El-Shafei, organizer of The Kennebunks Peace Department: jamillaelshafei@gmail.com
Kennebunkport, Maine -- The Kennebunks Peace Department, the organizer of the last several massive anti-war marches in Kennebunkport, is planning a protest march on Saturday, August 2nd to Walker's Point where President Bush will be visiting his family at their compound.
The permitted march will include guest of honor, Carlos Arredondo, who lost his son in Iraq on August 25th four years ago. Carlos travels around the country in his truck which has been made into a memorial to his son Alex. Also attending will be members of CODE PINK, Maine Peace Action, Seacoast Peace Response, several Veterans for Peace chapters, the AFL-CIO, and many other peace and justice organizations and concerned citizens from Northern New England.
The march will commence from the Consolidated School on School Street in Kennebunkport at 1:00 PM and will travel up Ocean Avenue for two miles to Walker's Point with the message: HANDS OFF IRAN! OUT OF IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN NOW!
"President Bush is turning the screws on Iran, ramping up pressure in the form of economically damaging sanctions -- which is the same weapon used to cripple Iraq before the invasion in 2003. The American people are against striking Iran, which would destabilize the entire Middle East and cause much suffering," said Jamilla El-Shafei. "President Bush is a war criminal and is certainly NOT welcome here in Maine, a sentiment which most of the civilized world shares."
Jamilla El-Shafei, is the organizer for The Kennebunks Peace Department and is a Steering Committee member of The National Assembly, a coalition consisting of hundreds of peace and justice organizations from all over the country. She organized a national protest on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC in March called Stop-Loss Congress and organized the last three mass protests in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Posts
