Exclusive: Condoleezza Rice has crossed the threshold into esteemed celebrity a welcomed speaker at this year’s College of William and Mary commencement despite her record as the liar who sold the illegal war in Iraq and choreographed torture at CIA “black sites,” writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
By Ray McGovern
Nothing better illustrates the extent to which the United States has turned its back on the rule of law than when the likes of Condoleezza Rice are asked to address graduates and receive doctoral degrees honoris causa at university commencements. Ms. Rice in my view a war criminal was accorded those honors Saturday by the College of William and Mary, the second-oldest college in the U.S.
Unlike Rice’s other university appearances in recent years, there was not the slightest sign of unhappiness, let alone protest. Most of the graduating seniors were not yet ten years old in 2003 when Rice played a key role helping President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney launch a war of aggression against Iraq. So, the graduates’ ignorance may perhaps be understandable, but it does not speak well for their grasp of recent history.
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld listen to President George W. Bush speak about the Middle East on June 24, 2002. (Photo from Whitehouse.gov)
It is far less excusable for the patrician leadership of William and Mary to have bestowed this honor on Rice. Did the news not penetrate their ivory tower that last year Ms. Rice was prevented from being accorded similar honors by irate students at Rutgers University, who were sickened at the thought that their commencement would be sullied by Rice’s presence?
One of the leaders of the “No Rice” campaign at Rutgers last year (a senior at the time), Carmelo Cintrón Vivas, told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! that the “students felt that war criminals shouldn’t be honored. … Someone who has such a tainted record as a public servant in this country should not … get an honorary law degree for trying to circumvent the law. … That’s not fair to any student graduating or not graduating at Rutgers University.”
He found “ludicrous” the familiar argument that Rice’s academic achievements outweigh her political positions: “If we look into a lot of international criminals and just bad people in history, a lot of them had great academic careers or great medical careers. … Your career is one thing, and the way you act as a person, as a human being, is another one. And that’s why we make this an issue about human rights.”
How to explain the contrast between the apathy prevailing at William and Mary and the awareness and activism at Rutgers? Perhaps one clue is the marked difference between the costs of attending. Tuition and fees are significantly higher at William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia. Another clue might be seen in the remarkable “tradition” of asking predominantly conservative Republican speakers to do the honors, and to get the honors, at commencement.
In contrast to the scene at William and Mary, this year’s commencement at Rutgers awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters to Frances Fox Piven, a highly respected scholar and advocate for poor working people. Piven’s recent books include The War at Home: The Domestic Costs of Bush’s Militarism. Piven also won the Shirley Chisholm Award for “leadership toward social and economic justice.”
Looking at the assembled graduates at William and Mary, I could not help but mourn the fact that they were being sent off into life by Rice instead of Piven. I would expect Piven to address the pressing challenges facing the “99 percent” and the injustices behind the growing unrest in Baltimore, St. Louis and other troubled cities. Rice did not mention any of that on Saturday. It was all about her a reflection, perhaps, of the fact that, although black in Birmingham, Alabama, she nonetheless grew up relatively privileged.
Worse Still: War Crimes
Rather than some profile in courage or a person of steadfast principles, Condoleezza Rice represents malleability in the face of criminality and evil. She is a profile in cowardice and expediency, the opposite sort of lesson in how to live one’s life than Piven or many other worthy commencement speakers would be expected to present.
When President George W. Bush told Ms. Rice to scarf up any and all “evidence,” no matter how sketchy or deceptive, to prove that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD), she led the fraudulent campaign to present the “intelligence” needed to deceive Congress into supporting a war that fits the post-World War II Nuremberg Tribunal’s definition of a “war of aggression as the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains the accumulated evil of the whole.”
Rice played her role as drum majorette for war with exceptional enthusiasm conjuring up the danger of “mushroom clouds” from Iraq’s (nonexistent) nukes; “yellowcake” uranium from darkest Africa (based on crudely forged documents); and aluminum tubes (that turned out to be standard Iraqi artillery tubes) but she said were for refining uranium.
Rice led the parade, with Dick Cheney’s indispensable help, promoting the various manufactured “evidence” against Iraq. The fraudulent nature of those spurious claims was laid bare in a July, 23, 2002 British document, The Downing Street Memorandum, published by The London Times on May 1, 2005. Established as authentic, the memo exposed the unconscionable attempt to “fix” the intelligence to justify a U.S./U.K. attack for “regime change” in Iraq.
It was widely known at the time that, despite Dick Cheney’s repeated claims, Iraq had no functioning nuclear weapons program. But that did not stop Condoleezza Rice from warning in September 2002 that “we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Her drumbeating for war was greatly assisted by the compliant “mainstream media,” but she led the charge.
Suppressing Dissent
The dissents to the Bush-Cheney-Rice “big lie” such as the warnings issued by us Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) were repressed. Some of our pre-war warnings were written in Memoranda for the President. There were three before the attack on Iraq: (1) “Today’s Speech by Secretary Powell at the UN” (Feb. 5, 2003, warning of week intelligence and catastrophic consequences from an attack on Iraq); (2) “Cooking Intelligence for War” (March 12, 2003); and (3) “Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem With the Intelligence, Mr. President” (March 18, 2003).
With those memos and copious other warnings on the record, I can be perhaps forgiven for taking offense on Saturday as Ms. Rice piously urged reason, courage, honesty, humility and optimism on the graduates. Without apparent irony, she advised them to avoid being caught in an echo chamber, don’t think you are absolutely right, seek out people to challenge you, be wary of a constant Amen to everything you say.
The above is almost verbatim, since I was able to take good notes while watching the commencement event via live stream. The friends who invited me had “forgotten” to tell me who the commencement speaker was and stressed that tickets were available only to immediate family. My hosts were prompted by a (not unreasonable) fear that I would be constitutionally unable to sit quietly watching Condoleezza Rice give hypocrisy a bad name.
But aggressive war was only one of George W. Bush’s abuses of power. There also were kidnapping, black prisons, torture, unconstitutional surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment, etc. What role did Ms. Rice play in those?
In spring 2008, ABC News, citing inside sources, reported that beginning in 2002, at President Bush’s behest, National Security Advisor Rice convened his most senior aides (Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and Tenet) dozens of times in the White House during 2002-03 to sort out the most efficient mix of torture techniques for individual captured “terrorists.”
The torture advisers planned and approved the use of various methods even choreographing some of them including near drowning (waterboarding), sleep deprivation, physical assault, subjection to extremely cold temperatures to cause hypothermia and so-called stress positions.
At one point Attorney General John Ashcroft expressed aloud his misgivings: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”
Rice herself personally conveyed the White House group’s order to the CIA to commence waterboarding of prisoners, telling the CIA: “Go do it. It’s your baby” in July of 2002, even before Bush administration lawyer John Yoo wrote his famously faulty “torture memo” to “legalize” what they were doing. Such memos were an attempt to provide what a later Justice Department lawyer would label a “golden shield” from future criminal accountability for everyone involved. Other lawyers aptly describe Yoo’s memos as a kind of “get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Initially, ABC News attempted to insulate the President from this sordid activity. But Bush spurned the protection, bragging that he knew all about these activities and approved.
Torture Photos
After photos leaked depicting horrible inhumane abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Major General Antonio Taguba was assigned to investigate, he called the interrogation program that Rice and other officials had devised a “systemic regime of torture.” The list of approved techniques for the CIA had migrated down the military chain of command via Rumsfeld, one of the main participants at the White House meetings. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Misguided Honor for Condi Rice.”]
In 2008, the top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial, Judge Susan J. Crawford, was forced to dismiss war crime charges against an important 9/11 suspect when she concluded that the U.S. military tortured the Saudi national by interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition.”
The difficulty that university officials experience in giving proper weight to these sordid facts about Condi Rice may stem in part from a political decision the one made by President Barack Obama to “look forward as opposed to looking backward.” That decision could hardly be seen as based on adherence to the law, since all accountability for crime inherently requires examining past actions.
Rice’s leading role as White House action officer for torture was reiterated recently in a new book The Great War of Our Time, by Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA. Morell writes: “After the CIA presented a range of possible [interrogation] techniques to the White House, National Security Advisor Rice told us one of the techniques crossed the White House moral line and it was not to be used” (page 275).
Wherever that moral line was it apparently didn’t exclude waterboarding, which was among the tactics approved.
Almost seven decades ago, Robert H. Jackson, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and the Chief U.S. Prosecutor at Nuremberg provided these prescient remarks to serve as what he believed would turn out to be a necessary guide for the future. He included this in his opening address:
“I am too well aware of the weaknesses of juridical action alone to contend that in itself your decision under this Charter can prevent future wars. Judicial action always comes after the event. Wars are started only on the theory and in the confidence that they can be won. Personal punishment, to be suffered only in the event the war is lost, will probably not be a sufficient deterrent to prevent a war where the war makers feel the chances of defeat to be negligible.
“But the ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”
A Bad Precedent
The William and Mary experience on Saturday is hardly the first time a university has succumbed to the “prestige virus” and given some powerful celebrity high honors at a commencement despite the person’s deplorable actions. There are, sad to say, numerous examples, including an earlier one involving Ms. Rice.
Condoleezza Rice gave the commencement address at Boston College on May 22, 2006, and was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (yes, George Orwell, that is ironic.). This was while she was serving as Secretary of State after her deceptive sales job for the Iraq War but before the ABC News revelations in 2008 about her direct oversight role in torture.
Ten days before the commencement at BC, Steve Almond, adjunct professor of English, resigned in protest. Here are excerpts from his letter to BC’s president, Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J.: “I am writing to resign as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation.
“Many members of the faculty and student body already have voiced their objection to the invitation, arguing that Rice’s actions as secretary of state are inconsistent with the broader humanistic values of the university and the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which those values derive.
“But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar. She has lied to the American people knowingly, repeatedly, often extravagantly over the past five years, in an effort to justify a pathologically misguided foreign policy.
“This is the woman to whom you will be bestowing an honorary degree, along with the privilege of addressing the graduating class of 2006. Honestly, Father Leahy, what lessons do you expect her to impart to impressionable seniors? that it is acceptable to lie to the American people for political gain?
“I cannot, in good conscience, exhort my students to pursue truth and knowledge, then collect a paycheck from an institution that displays such flagrant disregard for both. I would like to apologize to my students and prospective students. I would also urge them to investigate the words and actions of Rice, and to exercise their own First Amendment rights at her speech.”
Professor Almond was hardly alone. About a third of Boston College’s faculty members signed a letter objecting to Rice’s appearance. And here is how the New York Times reported the commencement event:
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered the commencement address on Monday at Boston College to an audience that included dozens of students and professors who stood, turned their backs and held up signs to protest the war in Iraq.
“A small plane flew overhead twice, pulling a sign that said, in red letters, ‘Your War Brings Dishonor.’ Outside Alumni Stadium, where 3,234 students received diplomas, protesters marched up Beacon Street holding signs reading ‘No Blood For Oil’ and ‘We’re Patriotic Too.’”
“Inside, however, Ms. Rice received a standing ovation when she was introduced, and she drew applause throughout her address.”
In his 1987 autobiography, To Dwell in Peace, Daniel Berrigan wrote of “the fall of a great enterprise”, the Jesuit university. He recorded his “hunch” that the university would end up “among those structures whose moral decline and political servitude signalize a larger falling away of the culture itself.”
Berrigan lamented “highly placed” churchmen and their approval of war, “uttered with sublime confidence, from on high, from highly placed friendships, and White House connections.”
“Thus compromised,” warned Berrigan, “the Christian tradition of nonviolence, as well as the secular boast of disinterested pursuit of truth, these are reduced to bombast, hauled out for formal occasions, believed by no one, practiced by no one.”
Fr. Berrigan was particularly concerned with the devolution of Jesuit universities like Boston College. But, clearly, his observations apply not only to “highly placed” churchmen, but also to others like the highly placed folks responsible for inviting Condoleezza Rice to the commencement exercises at William and Mary.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for 30 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
I wouldn’t expect anything different from most colleges.
William and Mary is down the road from a major nuclear weapons depot, but I doubt most people at the college even know that nor care.
Those who lived near the Nazi concentration and extermination camps were threatened to keep quiet.
Those who live near our own Weapons of Mass Destruction merely deal with indifference.
Few of the best scholars in the JFK research community have any university affiliation, even though understanding the coup of November 1963 is the ideal place to start with recognizing what our country has become – politically, militarily, even psychologically.
Proud of my alma mater, she has come a long way since having Muskie as a speaker. Disagree with Rice but admire her as a statesman.
JF,
Rice is preposterous as a statesman. She’s not as shrill as Al Haig, but pretty much stuck in that mindset.
And she remains a war criminal.
Thanks again Ray! a brilliant and pithy analysis. Looking back a bit into recent American History, the predicament we find ourselves in was articulated by that renowned terror expert, Loretta Napoleoni. I’ll attempt to summarize her thoughts; A whole generation of diplomats had been raised in the shadow of Soviet containment and after the collapse of the USSR, a political vacuum formed. Our nation lacked the vigilance to prevent powerful Washington lobbies from filling this void with ambassadors and diplomats who represented American corporations (oil) and thus a new barbaric imperialism formed. The dismantling of Soviet power was interpreted as the beginning of a profiteering period by US oil, to literally seize the oil fields in the middle east. This began under George W. Bush, with predictable results in Iraq, Libya, Yemen…and more to come. Unforeseen political consequences appeared such as hostage crises (Lebanon) and after the first “oil shock” a massive amount of capital found it’s way into the hands of Islamist militant groups. What spawned from all this instability? why, the new economy of terror of course!
It would be an understatement to say the current reality is a reflection of our American culture and character. Our collective actions tell us we’re a nation of hypocrites – claiming equality, liberty and justice towards various pursuits are inalienable rights while we blatantly disregard those principles practicing unlawfulness and inequality through a maze of legal double standards and triple BS in domestic and international law. We’ve become a country whose course is decided by members of the world’s oldest profession. The ethical and legal principles promoting equal rights and liberty towards all things in the social-economic-political order have all been sold, and it’s an illusion on the part of anyone to think theft by deception or self-deception is good for the country as a whole; rather it serves to divide us while rewarding the betrayers – a bad message to send. They’ve sold our freedom by denying us truthful information and the ability to make accurately informed decisions. Basically they’ve sold our country right out from under us which constitutes theft — as none of what they’ve sold, even their own patriotism, is not and was not legally theirs to sell.
Second time posted; first one was deleted: “Rice herself personally conveyed the White House group’s order to the CIA to commence waterboarding of prisoners, telling the CIA: “Go do it. It’s your baby†in July of 2002…”
I clicked on the link for this sentence three times now and got knocked off line every time. Has anyone else had that experience?
Sadly, the acceptance of this person at such a function is just one more example of what the USA has become. There is nothing, or so it seems to me, that shocks, nothing that is unacceptable and nothing thew raises the public ire any more. The good values are gone, the new America has arrived, reinforced next year with a US President who will be purchased for $150 million by a Zionist gambler in Los vegas.
Not that’s rock bottom, because Rice contributed in some measure to the current state of the country and does not deserve any recognition as is being accorded to her here.
As Drew above said, “If we lived in a just nation Rice, Wolfowitz, Bush, Powell, Judith Miller, Feith, Perle, C. Hitchens, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, rightwing radio & cable talkshow blowhards as well as some establishment reporters and mouthpieces would be spending their days on death row facing lethal injection.
Hey, Drew, I can add to that list substantially but it would be a good start. About 600 on my list need to be treated this way if the US, as we used to know it, will be saved. You forgot such notables as Murdoch, Kagan, Koch Brothers, McCain on it does.
Where is the heir to the Joe McCarthy throne. Anti-American activities? And how!
A final note. It all goes back to 1967…the USS Liberty. The Zionist have gone from strength to strength since that date. They saw the weakness of US democratic principles and the character of the people and went ahead and bought them both, piece by piece.
I can’t unequivocally say I’m a disbeliever. I just haven’t yet run into an organized religion that inspires my trust. But I do like this new Pope. I had my doubts at first. After all, he grew up in Peronista territory. But, I’m inspired by the fact that he’s pissing off all the right people. Take for instance, “Bud” up above. Clicking on his link reveals a think-tank connection obviously beholden to “Big Oil”. It should come as no surprise to the readership that Condi has an oil tanker named after her. Or that out there in Oklahoma, some billionaire named Harold Hamm tried to have university professors fired for studying seismic events caused by fracking. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, somebody asked Wolfowitz why the Neocon strategy toward North Korea and Iraq were so different, given that both were accused of nuclear aspirations. In a rare moment of political candor, the reptilian brain failed to engage, and Wolfowitz replied, “Iraq is floating on a sea of oil”. That was the plan all along. It’s why Jeb said that, knowing what he knows now, he’d have invaded too. It’s why we’re now embroiled in Neocon Plan B – helping the jihadis win in Syria, but trying to make sure they don’t lose in Iraq. It’s why we’re committing to an “ironclad defense” for the GCC at Camp David – the Neocons must be dimly aware that this will not serve the Likudniks’ fondest dreams, but the New Silk Road reality finally kicked in. Watching India and China march through Moscow in lock-step with Russia probably helped. The Neocons delivered Putin a decisive victory in Ukraine. Kerry came home carrying something on a platter with instructions from Lavrov to hand it to his boss. Suddenly, Minsk II is the only game in town. Yep, Pope Frank laid it all out. We’ll be judged for our stewardship of the earth, and American Catholics seem none too happy – especially the ones hooked up to the oil wells. There’s another thing that gives me hope. All of the war criminals have written books. They shamelessly ‘tell all’, and brag about their geopolitical exploits. Nuremberg II may never come, but if it does, they’ll follow in Alfred Rosenberg’s footsteps. Grazie Dio. Habemus Papam!
Using the Nuremberg show and Alfred Rosenberg in your statement really is ignorant. Alfred Rosenberg, a great mind, was killed for what crime again? What did Rosenberg do? He was killed for being German, right?
So basically your calling for people to be brought up on false charges and executed for it? Because that’s what Nuremberg was. A puppet show.
What ethnicity was 2,400 of the 3,000 people involved with the Nuremberg “trials”?
Sorry but for you to cite this travesty as something to be hoped for again is just a shame…. Your basically fighting against what you think your fighting for. Why weren’t Soviet, American, and English “war criminals” not also tried at Nuremberg? Does waging a exterimantion war against Germany count as a war crime? Does Killing 2 million Germans in DEATH camps count as a war crime? Eisenhower, the man who ran these death camps then went on to become President of the USA. 13 million Germans dead AFTER the war, have those responsible been brought to justice?
I rest my case, Your Honor!
Why would you think there basically is any difference in any anti-God nation? If you read the history of all countries since there have been records of man’s behavior, you will see that all mankind is driven by the same corrupt instincts and desires. There have always been wars, and will continue to do so. Only by having a faith in God and His love and justice will we have any peace. I’m not preaching, but can you show me any positive alternatives?
“All mankind is driven by the same corrupt instincts”
That may apply to Americans but it sure doesn’t apply to the billions who lived and continue to live peaceful lives.
Floridashank,
Stop trying to speak for a god that may not exist.
It’s really arrogant and insulting.
And portrays a limited vision of the world on your part.
Why weren’t Soviet, American, and English “war criminals†not also tried at Nuremberg?
Because victors’ justice prevailed. When American and British lawyers were preparing for what would become the Nuremberg Trials, they listed (somewhat naively) all the crimes they believed they could charge the Nazis with. Washington and London deleted from their lists all the crimes also committed by American and British forces. The Nazis were charged only with the crimes unique to them. Would you suggest the Nazis should have gone free despite a “war of aggression as the supreme international crime, differing from other war crimes only in that it contains the accumulated evil of the whole.†because the Yanks and Brits also committed war crimes? How about the slave labor worked to death? Or the murder of all possible Jews in Warsaw? Etcetera.
Aaron,
You need to drop the false equivalence BS.
There just wasn’t mass German death after the war, though no it was not pleasant.
Following the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Alfred Rosenberg was appointed head of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete).
Alfred Meyer served as Rosenberg’s deputy and represented him at the Wannsee Conference, a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. Another official of the Ministry, Georg Leibbrandt, also attended the conference, at Rosenberg’s request.
The purpose of the Wannsee Conference, called by director of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Main Security Office; RSHA) SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered.
At the Nuremberg Trials he claimed to be ignorant of the Holocaust, despite the fact that Leibbrandt and Meyer were present at the Wannsee conference.
Rosenberg had presented Hitler with his plan for the organization of the conquered Eastern territories, suggesting the establishment of new administrative districts, to replace the previously Soviet-controlled territories with new Reichskommissariats. These would be:
Ostland (Baltic countries and Belarus),
Ukraine (Ukraine and nearest territories),
Kaukasus (Caucasus area),
Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and the rest of nearest Russian European areas)
Such suggestions were intended to encourage certain non-Russian nationalism and to promote German interests in accord with geopolitical “Lebensraum im Osten” plans.
Following these plans, when Wehrmacht forces invaded Soviet-controlled territory, they immediately implemented the first of the proposed Reichskommissariats of Ostland and Ukraine.
Since the invasion of the Soviet Union intended to impose the New Order, it was essentially a war of conquest. German propaganda efforts designed to win over Russian opinion were, at best, patchy and inconsistent. Alfred Rosenberg was one of the few in the Nazi hierarchy who advocated a policy designed to encourage anti-Communist opinion among the population of the occupied territories.
Another of Rosenberg’s initiatives, the “Free Caucasus” campaign, was rather more successful, attracting various nationalities into the so-called Eastern Legion (Ostlegionen), though in the end this made little difference in the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front.
Who discovered the minutes of the Wansee Conference?I tried to wiki it and couldn’t find the answer.
I don’t trust serial liars.
Undoubtedly prompted by F.G.’s references to Wolfowitz and Likudniks, Aaron the hasbara sock puppet pops up to remind us that the Holocaust didn’t ‘really’ happen.
The entire senior leadership of the State of Israel have eagerly followed in Alfred Rosenberg’s footsteps. Their heels would be swinging in the air at a Nuremburg II and they know it.
Aaron boys fan out across the interwebs masquerading as “Historical Revisionists” to ‘splain’ Israel’s distinctive brand of Nazi moral equivalence.
Hasbara trolls jus’ loves them some Consortium News. Curioser and curioser.
Abe, thanks for the backup. It’s lonely out here sometimes.
@F.G.S.
For what it’s worth you have my support too. As a longtime lurker, I think I have come to know who’s who and what’s what on this site; I surmise that I’m not alone in this. I haven’t commented before because I have nothing to add that compares to your contributions or those of certain others.
And thanks to Mr. Parry, the writers, and the commenters for all of the enlightenment.
Word. F.G.
Never heard anyone in my lifetime deny the Germans put their political enemies in CCs and many many died.So Holocaust denial claims are a denial of truth.And the machinations of Nazi assistants(nations) in denying their culpability,and the ZIonist MSMs collusion in such(Ukraine),raise more questions.
Some people claim motivations and plans that weren’t,historically accurate,and to make discussion of dearly held shibboleths illegal is a clear sign of repression and a sign of the fear that those shibboleths,which in turn created the monster of Israel,could be destroyed as BS.
Peron was an Argentinian nationalist,and why,unless you are Argentine,and with historical grievances,just why are you concerned about him?American hostility,such as displayed towards Perons political descendants,the Kirchners?Propaganda strikes deep,and we push it to the hilt.
I view mankind with a bitter outlook. Looking at history I see a continuing expression of hatred, wars, corruption, selfishness, etc. the list is endless. In today’s postmodernism I see things continuing to go downhill because morality is growing uphill. One thing that is easily observable and it’s people following their own set of moral, justice, honorable principles and that doesn’t bode well for any country and society. I know that many people will not look to Jesus Christ for answers so I’m not being dogmatic to say we must all become Christians, but I am saying that if people followed His principles and teachings, including the Ten Commandments, the world would be much better and people would help each other rather than take for themselves. Most “religions” don’t have the answer because most of them are weak in True Christianity, and people don’t like God to begin with. Too many people don’t want to look at a spiritual life, and instead look to technology and materialism for leadership, which gives us an empty, poor answer for our internal proble3ms.
There’s a lot of eye for eye crap in the old testament, and the 10 commandments aren’t really in Christ’s teachings.
So way simplistic there and and big misdirection.
And don’t ever claim to speak for “true Christianity”, else you want to be treated as a fool.
Regarding the Ten Commandments, the Bible was written and put together by fallible human beings, and I think it exhibits human fallibility and human prejudice just like anything else that has ever been written.
One of the things in the Bible that I think is wrong is the commandment to “honor your father and mother”, which in the biblical text is unconditional and makes no exceptions if one’s parents are abusive or otherwise not deserving of honor.
It is wrong to say to somebody with abusive parents that that person has a duty to honor such parents.
I would think it is a much greater crime or “sin” to abuse, mistreat, or humiliate a child than it is to talk back to or otherwise dishonor one’s parents.
If anything there should be a commandment to parents to treat their children with dignity and respect, that they (the children) might come to treat themselves and others with dignity and respect.
And another one to parents to earn and be worthy of the honor, respect, and love of their children.
And I second Jay’s comment: “And don’t ever claim to speak for “true Christianityâ€, else you want to be treated as a fool.”
The 10 Commandments predate Jesus by 1000 years,and are OldTestament.Jesus taught universality,not tribal exclusivity.
In the U.S.:
FightGangStalking.com
Imagine that.
If we lived in a just nation Rice, Wolfowitz, Bush, Powell, Judith Miller, Feith, Perle, C. Hitchens, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, rightwing radio & cable talkshow blowhards as well as some establishment reporters and mouthpieces would be spending their days on death row facing lethal injection. The heads of AIPAC and the Council of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations would be sitting right along with them too.
Never forget that many of the “best and brightest” at the centrist cool-headed, all-knowing Brookings Institute also sold the Iraq War to the public. The Brookings boyz are as culpable as anyone because with their imprimatur much of “respectable” liberal opinion went right along with them beating the war drums.
I’ll never forget how it was being one of the few people in my social circle who saw through the lies and deceit in the run up to the Iraq War in 2002 and early 2003. The scorn, mockery, contempt and ridicule thrown my way by certain people was not insubstantial. I was the deceived moron, they were the hip rational intelligent ones.
Barely any of the policymakers or “intelligentsia” who so brainwashed the vast majority of Americans have paid any price! They live in relative comfort and esteem; the sign of society in need of serious reform.
No, Brookings didn’t order troops to deploy to Kuwait. Bush and Rumsfeld did. And Rice and Powell were deeply involved in specific war plans.
You confused stupid group think with actual crimes.
Brookings is anything but stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing.
DH,
And what the fools at Brookings were doing in siding with conventional “wisdom” is not criminal. And nor is what Judith Miller did criminal.
By your logic freedom of speech doesn’t exist.
Brookings and Miller did not activity participate in the invasion of Iraq.
He’s a verbose idiot,along the lines of Regis Philbin,or Robert Benchley,but his was an act,this guy is seriously handicapped.The only reason he has a job is his ethnicity and proclivity for tribal BS.
I think Powell put it best when his Sources w/i the Military* and Intel* communities, with what he stated on Nat’l Network & Cable news told prior to the contrary spin made by the Press Secretary shortly afterwards (days), and well prior to when Bush made statement about WMD’s.
Then, when Powell changed what he said after the “PS’s B.S” after a meeting with the President, in his 2nd Press Conference before Bush would address the Public;
Powell made it Crystal Clear, where he really stood* on the subject of the presence of WMD’s in Iraq* that weren’t there*, and that was when he said in a closing statement during the 2nd conference, that he “DID NOT” intend to continue as Secretary of State with the Bush ADM should the President decide to make a 2nd Run for Office.”
His clue to the Public “In Plain Site” & Sound.
Not everyone failed to catch both of his Press conferences or record them, but some of “us” did.
Powell is a sorry and typical example of the ”go along to get along’
syndrome of the totally corrupt system, nor were his hand clean from the beginning. He was the chief denier of Mi Lei, charged with ‘making it go away’ and was fairly successful as other such atrocities were not uncommon but never made the news. But singling out the surface characters as those above is almost lame when it’s The System, Stupid.
Not singling YOU out Zuuumie, we are ALL responsible for letting it exist for so long with it’s inherent criminality.
While the Twin Towers were still smoldering, ex-Provost Condosleeza was invited back to my Alma Mater to give the 2002 commencement address.
So, the fool Rice hadn’t thought about a possible attack using jet planes, BUT in the spring of 2002, the Iraq invasion had not occurred.
Best to not overstate how long lower Manhattan smoldered.
More problematic for Stanford, the university still employs the war criminal Rice in 2015.
I don’t know exactly how long it smoldered,but I could see smoke from 30 miles away a long time after,out fishing.
To be fair, The U.S. Has been ran by war criminals for what, the last hundred years? When hasn’t the U.S. Been committing war crimes? One of the biggest war criminals, FDR is honored and celebrated.
What particular war crime of FDR’s are you referring to?
The illegal invasion of Nicaragua?
Sinking German U boats before the official declaration of war against Nazi Germany?
Frances Fox Piven honorable? McGovern must be joking. Piven, the creator of a revolutionary strategy to overthrow the government, is less honorable than any politician in the government who sells a lie or takes an action that Mr. McGovern and I believe is wrong. McGovern might as well roll out the red carpet for Lenin. In the United States we replace politicians we don’t like, we don’t overthrow the government. Mr. Govern argues for the greater evil. Having said that, this is no defense for anyone in the Bush or Obama administrations for their continuing wars of aggression, aka regime change.
Little too much Glenn Beck there.
The Chancellor of William and Mary is Robert Gates.
Subtext of Condolooza’s address: Even with a bundle of lofty degrees you too can be the worst NSA in American history – allowing 9/11, invading a country to kill thousands of people, heinously torture people, and then earn honorary degrees, while getting invited to speaking engagements.
So, the fool Rice hadn’t thought about a possible attack using jet planes, BUT in the spring of 2002, the Iraq invasion had not occurred.
Best to not overstate how long lower Manhattan smoldered.
More problematic for Stanford, the university still employs the war criminal Rice in 2015.
Wrong, place, would be nice if this website didn’t do that.
I clicked on the “fraudulent campaign” (in blue) link provided by Ray; it resulted in a disconnect (twice). Anyone else have that happen?
Just goes to show how old sayings (such as “Crime doesn’t pay.”) are not true. When you also look at the case of the Clintons, Obama, Cheney, and the Bush tribe, it does seem that being a war criminal does, in fact, pay – and quite handsomely.
Are you saying that Obama is taking money on the side while president?
Or are the books that sold well some how criminal?
Which is it?
“Are you saying that Obama is taking money on the side while president?”
Naw, get real – he’ll collect after he leaves office.
I’m not surprised Ifthe Nobel peace prize can be given to a war monger and leader of the known world want to be, then why not honorary degrees. Wonder what amount of grant money was given to the College by the global Corporations Rice helped empower and enrich.What college or university isn’t co opted by some corporation in America today. The best medical schools are owned by pharmaceutical companies. Institutes of Technology by the military complex. What is a degree,bachelors, Masters, Doctorate but a lottery ticket for a chance to get into the CLUB..
That Nobel Peace Prize was awarded before the drone strikes expanded. Or are you referring to Kissinger?
Smart MDs actually don’t buy into the drugs for everything “solution”. A problem with MD schooling is simplistic tests sold by pharma purported to provide quick and accurate answers.
Sorry but military research paid for this internet, and in the late 19th century for standardization, without that latter you’d have zero consumer goods starting in the 1920. So it’s very simplistic to dismiss the military’s ties to polytechnic schooling.
Excellent. Please pass my thanks to Mr McGovern, for this and for all his good work.