“We must push back” — Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright takes on AIPAC-funded Tom Cotton, charging him with reckless libel.
Sen. Tom Cotton during U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. (C-Span)
By Ann Wright
Yesterday, in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Sen. Tom Cotton, accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.
During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to US national security and yelled “Stop Funding Israel,’ since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton and Vice Chair Mark Warner had mentioned Israel in their opening statement nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.
As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist party of China.” Cotton then said if anyone had something to say, to do so.
Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army Colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK and it is not funded by Communist China.” I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.
Tighe Barry at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. (CODEPINK)
After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarty lie: “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK which interrupts a hearing about Israel illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”
Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee.
Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends and family.
The five heads of U.S.. intelligence agencies in Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. (C-Span)
In today’s polarized political environment we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, with President Donald Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s Capitol building in their attempt to stop the presidential election proceedings.
CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the George W. Bush administration’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Cotton was elected as a U.S. senator in 2014. We have been in the U.S. Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden and now Trump again.
After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to this office staff.
We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee for the untrue and libelous statements Senator Cotton made in the hearing.
The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests against U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country and now the McCarthy intimidating tactics used by Cotton in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge U.S. government politics, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza must be called out and pushed back.
And we must push back against U.S. senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries. Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She resigned from the U.S. government 22 years ago in March 2003 in opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq. She is a member of CODEPINK, Veterans For Peace, Women Cross DMZ and many other peace groups. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Oh, I understand! It’s so obvious! China is red, right? And when they send money to a U.S. group, it turns the group pink! = Code Pink! Like a red sock in the wash! Duh! It’s so simple!
CODEPINK has been my hero(es) for more than two decades. Thank you.
C’mon Cotton.
China has a Communist Party. The one thing that can be said today, the name of a political party is a lie.
China has a communist party. This party rules the nation. But China has billionaires and usually Cotton and Rubio have their panties in a wad over what the Chinese billionaires are buying.
America has a Democratic Party. In the last cycle, the Democratic Party did not allow voters to get a word in sideways about who the nominee of the party would be. That was decided by a tiny handful of Mega-Donors who pushed out Joe and pushed in Kamala.
America has a Republican Party. Yet this party believes in the theory of the Imperial Presidency where nothing the President does is illegal because its the President doing it, which means the end of the Republic.
In Germany, the Greens are reopening coal mines and are strong supporters of the most environmentally destructive policy => war. The Greens love the sound of the big engine roaring in a Leopard tank and the smell of burning carbon in the morning.
There is also a Libertarian Party. It was said that the President of Argentina represents Libertarism. The leader of Argentina is ruling with riot police smashing the heads of retirees telling them to sit down and shut up in the name of Liberty because all the money has to go to the rich and crypto-cons.
Communists do not have billionaires.
Democracy is not leaders picked by oligarchs
A Republic is not a President ruling by decree.
Green is not the exhaust from a tank.
Liberty is not riot police beating up retirees.
The Party Name is Always a Lie.
“AIPAC-funded Tom Cotton”
Some would say that is anti-SemTic.
Shedding light on the truth these days is often “anti-SemTic and must be shut down…
Especially if demonstrated in a place of higher learning.
Or in independent media.
Or on your state capitol lawn.
They hate us for our ever-dwindling freedoms, donchaknow.
The funny bit is the bit about “communist China”.
China has billionaires. Enough said.
People need some basic definitions apparently to sort through all the BS. So, write this one down. “Communist Countries Do Not Have Billionaires.” Do a Bart Simpson and put that on the board 100 times. Communist countries do not have billionaires… Then at the very bottom write, “China is not a Communist Country”
Then, flip the board over and begin writing “Millionaires Are Never Socialists” 100 times …
Pretty much all politics these days is McCarthy-style.
I was just reading a piece on another site where they were ranting about “Chinese Money” and “SpaceX”. At first I was confused about “Chinese money”, as its hard for me to differ between Musk making fortunes via factories in China and Chinese making fortunes from factories in China.
But, then I realized what this Democrat-leaning outfit was referring to. It was the people with yellow skin who had money. That’s what had their panties in a wad. That is what their functional description of “Chinese money” comes down to the fact that it is Chinese people who hold the money. They did ‘research’ about how this person with a Chinese name or that person invested in SpaceX. Thus, the Yellow Peril journalism had tagged along to a “Hate Trump/Hate Musk” theme to reach lefty readers. OMG, we must watch the Chinese Money! I’m surprised they didn’t have a secret list of 100 names of Chinese Money in SpaceX.
All American politics is McCarthy-Style.
Those in congress who like to peddle the biggest lies about China (such as Cotton and Rubio) seem to be among the biggest defenders of the slaughter going on in Gaza.
We must ALWAYS put “AIPAC-backed” before the name of every single cretin bought and paid for by that despicable group, as is done here. I smiled when I saw this at the top of the article. Let’s all do it!
Anyone who takes Tom Cotton seriously should be lobotomized.
Oh, what a sad spectacle Gabbard’s become.
As George Carlin said, “when you’re born into this world, you’re born into the freakshow. And when you’re born into the United States, you’ve got a front row seat!”
Thank you for all that you do. As for the Signal issue I’m glad its all out there for the world to see. Everything the US has done since Vietnam has been an act of aggression for regime change or invasion to seize control of resources killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the process. If we are being attacked or if a country had declared war it would be a different issue and of course these clowns would not keep us safe but I hope everything gets leaked so the world can see and defend itself.
Bravo Col Wright!I tip my hat to you and Code Pink. At the next opportunity in legislative session, let rip the the question: My dear fellow citizens – did you know Senator Cotton is under the $million plus AIPAC thumb to serve Israel’s not your interests. Doesn’t that qualify him as a traitor?
Heartily seconded!