There is another category of offenses, described by the French poet André Chenier as "les crimes puissants qui font trembler les lois," crimes so great that they make the laws themselves tremble. We know what to do with someone caught misappropriating funds, but when confronted with evidence of a systematic attempt to undermine the political system itself, we recoil in a general failure of imagination and nerve.

-- Gary Sick, October Surprise (p 226)

******

I have never understood why "normal" people are supposed to believe that the Iranians let the hostages go during Reagan's inauguration because he intimidated them, but then Reagan quickly pivoted to sell them all those weapons in the 1982-1986 period traditionally known as "Iran Contra".

It seems like a pretty half-assed coverup, really.

I mean, look at all these damn data points we have to digest. And we're supposed to somehow forget, hold as innocent / benign, fail to comprehend, etc.

The terrible thing is, I'm beginning to understand it.

Byzantine accounts of shell corporations (aka brass plates) get quite addictive. I think it's worse than the cocaine & cash they funneled in the good old days.

This gets back to the intersection of the Savings & Loan scandals & Iran-Contra, as well as many other choice items... Stew Webb is his own case altogether, he made the mistake of marrying into a high level Bush-affiliated fraudster family, the Millmans, out in Denver.

Webb launched a website with perhaps the ugliest color scheme I have ever seen (including the once-thought-extinct HTML blink tag), but there are plenty of awesome primary source documents linked off this page... Be sure to hit up the Sarah McClendon 1991 Washington Report October Surprise items, which explain quite clearly the coverup of chemical weapons to Iraq that later contributed to Gulf War Syndrome, Webb's fate and the general 1991 coverup in Congress.

Before I run the book back to Minneapolis' fab new Central Library, I have to post a review of "October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan" by Gary Sick, the 1991 first edition version.

In a lucky break, I finished this book the evening before a fresh new fake hostage crisis in Colombia. It felt like a lightning bolt to have another cheesy hostage rescue thingy, the very next day! The secret to the FARC Colombia scenario was much like the 1979-1980 classic episode: pay off the bad guys and put on a good show for the American press! CNN and the rest of them will believe every fucking word for two news cycles, and then forget it!

*****

The vast reservoir of cognitive dissonance embedded within the brains of America's Establishment political journalists and analysts makes up the foundation of accepted "consensus political reality." The weird stuff is never talked about, yet becomes heavier by the day. The room's elephants are becoming... super elephants? (Ask the accountant @ Fannie Mae.)

Prior to the emergence of the Internet, all and sundry could easily agree that if a given political fact or event did not get placed in the Washington Post, the New York Times, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, the Associated Press wire or a couple other key press outlets, everyone could safely agree the proposition in question did not exist, and they were safe from being 'burned' by further revelations. "We didn't know, it wasn't in our favorite paper!"

Of course, these outlets occasionally cut to the quick of matters like the Pentagon's military analyst PSYOP news manipulation program, the domestic wiretap program, or other affairs. However, the unique class of Establishment douchebags like David Broder will always fail to synthesize a new analysis of political/government affairs by taking into account their own paper's muckraking, and thus the ruling class can avoid swallowing the bitter pills of their own complicity in general malfeasance and alarming trends of criminality.

(Or shorter: the analysts will never place the results of muckraking in context).

*****

Such is the case with many of my favorite topics, in particular areas with huge layers of documentary evidence, eyewitness accounts and other "weird things" that get left by the wayside all too often. In the last two years I have been fascinated by the historical period of about 1977-1992, the period between when Pres. Jimmy Carter's CIA director, Stansfield "Choir Boy" Turner, fired hundreds of incensed CIA agents, and the election of Bill Clinton.

"October Surprise" was written by Gary Sick (a Carter-era National Security Council staffer with a role in the Middle East) after allegations surfaced in the 1988 presidential election that George H. W. Bush had attended secret meetings in Paris including himself, former CIA honcho and Reagan campaign manager Bill Casey, and various Iranians, with the intent of preventing the hostages from getting released before the November 1980 election. This was the famous, mythical "October Surprise".

Sick provides a sober and cautious synthesis of everything he can, without going out on a limb or offering extraneous, false nuggets that were surely offered by the shady characters that were his sources. He keeps the case minimal, and where he can't verify the names, he doesn't name them.

The American intelligence community in general got pissed at Carter after he took such measures against them, in the wake of partial exposures like the 1975-76 Church Commission, ominous mind control programs and other awesome items. Hundreds of pissed off CIA operators were suddenly cast off the government payroll, and some who you might call "The Cowboys" of the original school were pretty tight with George Bush - after all, he was a player with them since his earliest days. Many of the Cowboys entered fuzzy cargo aviation businesses and other cool cat fronts designed to be geopolitically useful.

In the old days, they knew how to fly copters in hot zones, dammit!

Gen. Claire Chennault put this all together, back then... The survivors of a geopolitically awkward venture, they deserved better than a pink slip from a uptight dude like CIA director Stanfield Turner. Back in China, Nam, elsewhere.... Many died to bring the guns over the line that the pukes in Washington didn't dare tell the public about.

This is true. And under-appreciated. If people in Washington had the guts to be more honest about things (and the press held them to it) then people like Air America and Southern Air Transport (way to go Wikipedia) would never have gotten the short end of the stick. The same is true today.

In the 1980 election, Bush elbowed aside the more regular GOP establishment for the role of Vice Presidential candidate. Bush had a lot of friends in the intelligence community, still, and the unemployed freelancers felt ready to participate in organizing serious operations monitoring Carter. After the Iranians captured the hostages (where was Ted Shackley during the pre-coup period... not sure), Bill Casey, of all people, the grizzled ex-CIA honcho and "half crazy" by all accounts, was suddenly Reagan's campaign manager.

I mean really. The ex-CIA honcho is the campaign manager, and George Bush, ex-CIA director, is the VP candidate, and somehow this does not become a huge mess of covert operations and total PSYOPS subversion?!

How is that no one reminds us how hardcore cool kats in intelligence community put together the whole Reagan campaign?

Damn...

And thus began the Perception Management expertise we know and love today... [see below]

It all began with making sure that FUCKING CARTER couldn't get the FUCKING HOSTAGES out. And all it took was some arms dealers, some arms and some of that old backdoor, secret hotels in Madrid/Paris, don't tell the nerds in the "elected" Democratic White House, old wheeler dealer Texas-sized gambles.

And where did it lead? Getting Felix Rodriguez into the White House? Hurray!

When you wins, you gets ta write the history, eh?

*****

I gotta throw in one of my favorite smoking guns: a rare 1985 document that survived the shredder, wherein Ollie describes the "Honduran DC-6 which is being used for runs out of New Orleans is probably being used for drug runs into U.S."

They do NOT show this one on FOX News War Stories!

*****

Some morons on Amazon are claiming that Sick claims that George Bush flew to Paris in an SR71 Blackbird, which is never floated at all. In fact, Sick provides a good analysis of how the Bush-in-Paris claims acted as a "poison pill" or intentional red herring diversion to embarrass journalists and drive them away from further inquiry.

*****

Apart from the facts of the hostage crisis, the way the whole press coverage got manipulated by disinformation (propaganda) specialists becomes quite important.

Grizzled Iran-Contra-exposing reporter Robert Parry recently put out the formerly "lost chapter" of the Democrats' whitewash committee report, which has TONS of details about how the disinfo experts manipulated the scene in the 1980s. GET THE PDF fools!

In a rare new addition to Iran Contra documentation, an awesome "Lost Chapter" of the Democratically-controlled investigation committee has been unearthed. The Lost Chapter got deleted from the Final Report, because it spelled out how "perception management" type dudes got brought into the inner circle, running interference all around. The tone and substance of how these guys operated gets explained in a choice narrative style.

Of course, this surfaced from Robert Parry, who got the tar kicked out of him by pursuing Iran-Contra deeply and professionally. This turned out to be a terrible mistake, since the Establishment coverup took hold and Parry went down some of the many cul-de-sacs put there by the disinfo Beltway experts. So instead of a fancy TV spot, he is here & there, and this lost chapter turned up not in Newsweek but on ConsortiumNews.com.

*****

I will add the October Surprise book jacket notes because they encompass the most important dimensions of the case, and are well-substantiated:

This book was never supposed to have been written. It is an account of a political mystery never intended to be solved, a tale of bold deception by a few powerful men who apparently calculated that political manipulation, if conducted on a sufficiently grand scale, would be essentially invisible and ultimately beyond the law.

October Surprise reconstructs the story of how the 1980 Reagan-Bush presidential campaign, intent on delaying the release of the fifty-two Americans held hostage in Tehran until after the election, made clandestine overtures to Iran and arranged illegal arms shipments through Israel. Thiss effort, spearheaded by Republican campaign manager William Casey, not only prevented President Carter from reaping the political benefits of an early hostage release, but also hobbled his ability to exercise the full powers of his elective office.

This book brings to light startling new information, including:

• The Reagan-Bush campaign's systematic penetration of the national security complex of the U.S. government, through which a network of former and current intelligence agents kept Casey--not then in any government position--informed of highly classified military movements, diplomatic initiatives, and policy decisions.

• The secret meetings that took placed in Europe during the summer and fall of 1980, at which Casey hammered out the deal with the Iranians.

• Israel's shipment of arms to Iran during the last weeks of the presidential campaign (in deliberate violation of the U.S. embargo) and the massive covert arms transfers between the two nations that begin immediately after Reagan's inauguration.

• The connection between the Republicans' 1980 arms-for-hostages deal and the Iran-Contra Affair five years later.

The result of three years of research and hundreds of interviews, October Surprise lays bare an elaborate network of political intrigue and treachery, subversive in its actions and chilling in its implications. It is a cautionary tale about the seductions of power and the fragility of our democratic system.

He spells out the series of events, including the weird and messy power mesh that made up the nebulous Iranian ruling circles, which, in their splintering, oddly mirrored the splintered American side. (Numerous arms dealers and shadeballs, (in particular the Hashemi brothers as channels), "fairly" offered similar terms, separately, to Carter and Casey's people.)

His conclusion chapter was really interesting, as it encompassed the case of the United States of America v. Richard J. Brenneke, as they were ticked off that Brenneke

"had been accused of falsely stating that William Casey, Donald Gregg and possibly George Bush were in Paris on that particular weekend, and that he was employed by the CIA at that time.... Although this case received virtually no attention in the national media, it marked the only time that the U.S. gvoernment had systematically and athoritatively attempted to refute the allegations of an October surprise. All of those accused had an unparalleled opportunity to rebut the charges, and they had all the resources of the U.S. government at their command to research and document their case. To my surprise, and to the surprise of nearly everyone who followed the trial closely, they failed." (p 212)

All they had to do to win the case was prove that George Bush or Casey or Gregg were anywhere but Paris, in the middle of the damn campaign. And they failed. And it was forgotten.

*****

In my own fishing in the murky waters, I would be wise to remember this conclusion about the general morass.

This is hardly earth shattering, but it's a clear explanation of a fundamental principle of all stories about espionage and Deep Politics: (p 214-216):

Over the course of the next two years, during the research and writing of this book, I would meet many men like Richard Brenneke. To my frustration, Brenneke's idiosyncrasies and character flaws were too often representative of the general nature of the sources. These mens were denizens of a shadowy yet flamboyant subculture who expected absolute discretion in dealing with outsiders but tolerated boasting and exaggerated tales of past exploits among the members of the fraternity. They took pains to conceal key facts from an obvious outsider, and when they chose to talk they routinely embellished the facts and inflated their own importance.

Such characters are a researcher's nemesis; they are meant to be. When the CIA or other intelligence agencies need to hire a "contractor," who may be required to carry out tasks that are potentially dangerous and of questionable legality, they look for three things: a specific and useful skill (a knowledge of money-laundering, for example); a romantic streak that glorifies both the secrecy and the risk; and a propensity for exaggeration and trouble. One former CIA officer, David MacMichael, has said that the agency looks for these free-lancers at small community airports and gun ranges--places where men go to escape the boredom of everyday life. Looking for adventure, these men are fascinated by the imagined glamour and excitement of the world of espionage. MacMichael said that often, after one or two assignments, the agency will put the contractor on a case in which he runs afoul of the law. The contractor finds himself in a compromising position--nothing so major as to put him permanently out of commission, but significant enough that if he ever starts telling tales out of school about covert operations, his record will discredit his testimony.

Essentially, such a free-lancer is a skilled Walter Mitty, who delights in possessing arcane knowledge and who imagines himself the instrument that secretly drives events behind the scrim of history. It is a profile, alas, of a less-than-credible witness. Intelligence agencies understand this very well, and bank on it. A free-lancer is inherently difficult to control; if he wanders off the reservation and begins blabbing, it is helpful if no one believes him. A retired CIA covert-operations officer, when asked about the extravagant behavior of a former contract employee, said: "The agency likes things that way... The wilder and crazier and sillier the story, the more they like it. The agency indulges people to come up with that. It's the best defense." MacMichael confirmed that the agency permits contractors to become entangled in a legally compromising position, so that if an operation goes awry they can be cut loose. "When a contractor gets caught," he said, "all their 'friends' disappear. It happens over and over again."

In a story in which the principal actors have no desire for the facts to come out, one does not have the luxury of choosing one's sources. The "respectable" people who plotted and carried out a covert operation refuse to comment or, at worst, fabricate stories to protect themselves and their reputations; because of their "respectability," most people are inclined to believe them. The contractors who were hired to do the dirty work are not "respectable" at all, and if they decided to tell their story, most people assume they are lying.

And sometimes they are. These free-lancers, on occasion, are deliberately recruited as front men for disinformation campaigns. In 1988, when stories about possible Republican tampering with the hostage issue began to emerge in the national media, Oswald LeWinter said he was contacted by some people he had known through his intelligence background. They were concerned, he said, that the United States was once again facing the possibility of a Watergate-type scandal that risked tearing the country apart, discrediting the candidacy of George Bush, and electing a Democratic candidate who was unsympathetic to the intelligence community. He claimed to have been offered $40,000 to undertake a disinformation campaign designed to discredit the stories about the 1980 elections and the Paris meetings. He agreed, and for several months he spoke to journalists and others who were investigating the allegations of an "October surprise." He said that he used the pseudonym "Razin," and refused to be interviewed in person. INstead he spoke to reporters only by telephone, offering a few bits and pieces of accurate information laced with fanciful inventions and false leads. His purpose, as he now freely admits, was to throw dust in the air, to invent tantalizing leads that would eventually prove to be false, and thereby generate so much fruitless commotion that the story would be discredited and abandoned.

To get at the truth, one must listen to those who know something about what happened and who are willing to talk, even if they exaggerate and embroider the truth. Then every significant statement must be carefully weighed against the known facts -- dates, places, times, identities -- and other witnesses. A bald assertion, however intriguing, must be regarded as false unless it can be corroborated independently, and not just from one of the sources' cronies who may have compared stories. When the allegations of Casey's participation in the secret talks with the Iranians surfaced in 1988, the CIA director's defenders swore up and down that Casey had not traveled abroad on the dates that the Madrid meetings were said to have taken place. However, one of my researchers found an obscure item tucked away in the second section of The New York Times of July 30, 1980, in which the following sentence appeared: "A spokesman at Reagan headquarters said that the national campaign chairman, WIlliam Casey, would begin negotiations with the Right to Life group when he returns today from a trip abroad." Suddenly the denials were less convincing.

Casey died of a brain tumor on May 6, 1987, making it impossible to get his side of the story. Nevertheless, he had made several public statements which I now viewed in a new light. For example, when he was questioned in the 1984 Senate investigation into the mysterious theft of President Carter's briefing book four years earlier, he described his knowledge of the hostage crisis at the time as follows: "Information about negotiations for the release of the hostages in Iran came to me from many sources, including bankers involved in loans to Iran and frozen Iranian funds." That Casey admitted, under oath, that he was privy to inside information about the negotiations between the government of the United States and the government of Iran is itself revealing.

All right, I have to put in a couple more passages... This is taking a while, but key to the case: (p 222-223)

I would not be human if I did not confess that I have at one time or another awakened in the middle of the night with the thought: what if all of these people are lying to me? Is it possible that all of these accounts are themselves a conspiracy of lies?

In the early stages of the research, when the descritpiton of these events relied on only a handful of admittedly unreliable source, I had to take that possibility seriously. But as time went on and the number and diversity of sources increased, the likelihood of a concerted, organized disinformation campaign dwindled. At some point, I had to ask myself why all of these individuals might have decided to propagate false statements, and how they had managed to coordinate their stories. Most of these men did not know one another, and those who had met or talked at some pont in the past frequently distrusted one another. Most of them did not come forward of their own accord to publicize this story. On the contrary, most of them were discovered only as the result of persisten digging by journalists and researchers. To believe that there was an orchestrated effort to plant these individuals in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East, and that each was supplied with the same false story, required a considerable leap of imagination -- a grand conspiracy theory to counter a conspiracy theory. Is it easier to believe that all of these sources surreptitiously coordinated their stories to create trouble for the Reagan and Bush administrations, or alternatively, that each of these sources may be telling the truth (or pieces of the truth) as perceived on the basis of his own personal background and personal experience? The answer seems obvious: The chance that these sources are telling their version of the truth is much higher than the chance they are all lying in concert. These sources seemed to be describing the same event, albeit from different perspectives, rather than merely improvising a description based on sketchy published accounts.

In the absence of convincing corroboration, however, I have reserved judgment. For example, several reports have surfaced claiming that vice-presidential candidate George Bush was present at least briefly in Paris during the course of negotiations in October. I have always been incomfortable about this allegation. There was little reason for a vice-presidential candidate to take such an extreme risk at the very peak of a political campaign. Besides, it would have been difficult for any candidate to slip away from his campaign responsibilities, not to mention his Secret Service protection, for a transatlantic flight. Even if the Iranians insistend on very high-level personal assurances as part of the final agreement, which would be entirely characteristic of Iranian bargaining style, surely someone would have been found to stand in for the candidate.

I was also aware that the allegation about Bush might have been deliberately floated in order to discredit the story. An effective way to divert attention from what really happened is to invent a sensational story and send the media scurrying off on a wild-goose chase. That is essentially what happened in the Iran-Contra Affair, where all journalistic resources and public attention were fixated on the question of whether the President knew about the diversion of Iranian arms-sales profits to the Nicaraguan contras. When that could not be proved, because the original memos with identifying signatures had been destroyed and because Admiral Poindexter testifeid that "the buck stopped here, with me," the entire congressional case came to an end. Other important constitutional and legal issues simply faded into the background or were shunted off to the special prosecutor's office.

When the "October surprise" story first received wide publicity in 1988, much of the media attention was devoted to the question of whether or not George Bush had been in Paris. When the evidence proved to be ambiguous, and especially after Bush won the 1988 presidential election, the entire story was shelved.

We gotta get to the nut grafs, the finale..... (p 226-228)

In the end, it is irrelevant whether Bush went to Paris or whether Reagan approved or knew of the deal. The critical question is whether representatives of a political party out of power secretly, and illegally, negotiated with representatives of a hostile foreign power, thereby distorting or undermining the efforts of the legitimate government. Even today, more than a decade later, it is still difficult to imagine that an opposition political faction in the United States would employ such tactics, willfully prolonging the imprisonment of fifty-two American citizens for partisan political gain. Nevertheless, that is what occurred: the Reagan-Bush campaign mounted a professionally organized intelligence operation to subvert the American democratic process.

We are accustomed to the petty scandals of Washington politics: A candidate for high office is a lush or a compulsive womanizer; a member of Congress diverts campaign funds to a private account; an official lies to cover up an embarrassing policy failure. These are misdeeds on a human scale, and these miscreants who are unfortunate enough or careless enough to get caught are pilloried and punished by the press and their peers in periodic cleansings. We regard such rituals with a certain satisfaction, evidence of our democracy at work.

There is another category of offenses, described by the French poet André Chenier as "les crimes puissants qui font trembler les lois," crimes so great that they make the laws themselves tremble. We know what to do with someone caught misappropriating funds, but when confronted with evidence of a systematic attempt to undermine the political system itself, we recoil in a general failure of imagination and nerve.

We understand the motives of a thief, even if we despise them. But few of us have ever been exposed to the seductions of power on a grand scale and we are unlikely to have given serious thought to the rewards of political supremacy, much less to how it might be achieved. We know that groups and individuals covet immense power for personal or ideological reasons, but we suppose that these ambitions usually will be pursued within the confines of the laws and values of our society and democratic political system. If not, we assume we will recognize the transgressions early enough to protect ourselves.

Those who operate politically beyond the law, if they are deft and determined, benefit from our often false sense of confidence. There is a natural presumption, even among the politically sophisticated, that "no one would do such a thing." Most observers are predisposed toward disbelief, and therefore may be willing to disregard evidence and to construct alternative explanations for events that seem too distasteful to believe. This all-too-human propensity provides a margin of safety for what would otheriwse be regarded as immensely risky undertakings.

Illegitimate political covert actions are attempts to alter the disposition of power. Since all of politics involves organized contention over the disposition of power, winners can be expected to maintain that they were only playing the game, while those who complain about their opponents' methods are likely to be dismissed as sore losers. Even if suspicions arose, the charges are potentially so grave that most individuals will be reluctant to give public credence to allegations in the absence of irrefutable evidence. The need to produce a "smoking gun" has become a precondition for responsible reporting of political grand larceny. The participants in political covert actions understand this and take pains to cover their tracks, so the chance of turning up incontrovertible documentation of wrongdoing--such as the White House tapes in the Watergate scandal--is thin.

This leads to a journalistic dilemma. In the absence of indisputable evidence, the mainstream media --themselves large commercial institutions with close ties to the political and economic establishment -- are hesitant to declare themselves on matter of great political gravity. The so-called alternative media are less reluctant, but they are too easily dismissed as irresponsible. By the time the mainstream media are willing to lend their names and reputations to a story of political covert action, the principal elements of the story have almost always been reported long before in the alternative media, where they were studiously ignored.

When the Iran-Contra scandal exploded in 1986, both the Congress and the media pulled up short. Neither had the stomach for the kind of national trauma that would have resulted from articles of impeachment being delivered against a popular President who was in his last two years of office. So, when it could not be proven conclusively that the President saw the "smoking gun" in the case--a copy of the memo to Reagan reporting in matter-of-fact terms that proceeds of Iranian arms sales were being diverted to the Nicaraguan contras-- the nation seemed to utter a collective sigh of relief. (The original memo, bearing the signatures of those who had seen it, had been deliberately destroyed.) The laws trembled at the prospect of a political trial that could shatter the compact of trust between rulers and ruled, a compact that was the foundation upon which the laws themselves rested. The lesson seemed to be that accountability declines as the magnitude of the offense and the power of those charged increase.

The ultimate dilemma, which Chenier captured so perfectly in his comment on the revolutionary politics of eighteenth-century France, is the effect of very high stakes. A run-of-the-mill political scandal can safely be exposed without affecting anyone other than the culprits and their immediate circle. A covert political coup, however, like the one engineered by Casey in 1980, challenges the legitimacy of the political order; it deliberately exploits weaknesses in the political immune system and risks infecting the entire organism of state and society. Such a virus of secrecy and subterfuge would permeate the Reagan administration and would culminate in the Iran-Contra Affair, the contours of which bore an uncanny resemblance to Casey's 1980 deal to swap arms for hostages. One of the more puzzling aspects of the Iran-Contra Affair was the Reagan administration's dogged pursuit of a deal in the face of repeated Iranian demands. Yet Reagan's men refused to take no for an answer. The reason now seems plain: The same parties had cut a deal once before.

The weight of the evidence speaks for itself - and the establishment arms/drugs/coverup pattern is damn thick. You can't wrap your head around the JFK assassination, 9/11, other weird political events, without taking into account the real substrate of covert operations, 'perception management' AKA PSYOPS, and the dumb rules that control Washington journalists.

After trekking through the murky wasteland of mirrors, I cannot help but reach the conclusion that the extended cloud of covert activities behind Iran-Contra makes up a totally pivotal - and misunderstood - episode of American political history. The history isn't even past. In order to process the ugly stack that makes up today's political perceptions, the old affairs have to finally get digested.

As long as the rules of the game stay this way, Iran-Contra will never be seen as a complete mesh, the opening episode of total mindwar domination, total PSYOPS, the surrender of Beltway journalism, the death of that heady Woodward-Bernstein take-em-on era.

Oliver North has his TV show, we have the Internets. One of them will finally win.

In the words of Al Martin, a self-described "fourth-level player" in Iran-Contra,

"Iran-Contra is still alive."

There's a whole back story to this one....

The 1980s Franklin scandal. Elite deviance at its core. The pedophile branch of Iran Contra? Certainly plenty of Op Sec - operational security - for powerful conspirators.

We should take a moment to revisit the ol' GOP secret pedophile network, as previously observed in Upcoming Texas Youth Commission Rove-sparked pedophilia scandal promises to kill off Gonzales??!! and I posted the Conspiracy of Silence video about the Franklin scandal earlier. Now there is some new evidence rattling around about the kidnapped Johnny Gosch, who disappeared from Des Moines into some kind of horrible politically protected national (international?) pedophile racket. JusticeForJohnnyGosch.com is the new site.

There were some accusations from uber conspiracy theorist Tom Flocco about a Hunter Thompson link... it wouldn't surprise me if he knew about it:

Noreen Gosch said her son Johnny is living under an assumed name after being abducted on September 5, 1982 while serving his Sunday morning paper route. During a clandestine visit from her son when he was 27 or 28, Mrs. Gosch said Johnny told her he was taken by a highly organized, very corporate global pedophile/pornography ring--linked to the Washington, DC congressional call-boy scandal during the 1980's.

Others have said the creepy John Mark Kerr (who was able to get jobs at Asian schools despite a dubious past), the guy that claimed to kill Jon Benet Ramsey, was part of a human trafficking network involving corrupt State Department diplomats and the likely Asian criminal syndicate type thing...

Drug trafficking, weapons trafficking and human trafficking are the big factors in the black economy, and at a certain point you are assured of finding connections to government officials...

Lax Laws in Parts of Asia Aid Pedophiles - AP ... How much does it take to buy off government officials?

British soldiers accused of sickening sex assault on Iraqi boy, 14 - Home News, UK - The Independent

Yeah it kind of surprised me, but "The Bank Job" (IMDB) is worth seeing if you want a reasonably good action movie: it seems more interested in establishment British deviant behavior, blackmail, censorship and MI-5 covert political management than the heist itself.

Well that's not quite true - the heist takes its fair share of time, but the characters' motivations revolve around the notion that the array of Lloyd's safe-deposit boxes contain tons of destabilizing dirty secrets: Mainly dirty photos of Labor politicians in S&M clubs, a randy royal princess, etc. The heavies in MI-5 want to bring down Michael X, a black radical thug/revolutionary who is holding blackmail photos of said bad princess, and they get a foxy babe to trick Jason Statham's character into robbing the safe deposit vault where the photo resides.

A corrupt angle unravels... and it's funny that both this movie and 2007's "Cleaner" with Samuel L. Jackson (IMDB) revolve a bit around ledgers of corrupt police payoffs. (I also caught that one recently. Jackson was good, it was also a corruption/cleanup thriller, and worked well intermittently, though the ending seemed pretty pat.)

The true story of the real bank job certainly involved the classic British government news suppression order known as a "D Notice," which killed all news coverage within three days. The robbers themselves are a bit crestfallen, then frightened, when their story abruptly gets dropped from the British tabloids.... The UK Telegraph adds some background: Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street - Telegraph Revisiting the riddle of Baker Street:

"Obviously, we've changed the names," says Clement, "and large parts of our story are invented - they have to be, because no one knows the exact details. All we could rely on what was George McIndoe told us." And what George McIndoe told them - whether truth or fiction - is quite remarkable. He claimed that "Terry" and his walkie-talkie gang, as they became known, had found sexually compromising photographs of Princess Margaret inside one of the deposit boxes.

'The idea of the photographs was based on a direct conversation I had with George," explains Clement. "He told me the story, but obviously I can't prove that it's true." Indeed, the real ham radio operator, Robert Rowlands, has spoken out against the film's insinuation. "The film is an amusing series of misconceptions, dragging in royalty," he says. "I am in touch with the princess's solicitors."

In the film, these photographs are placed in the possession of a shady, real-life character called Michael X, a slum landlord and pimp who tried to present himself as a British version of the activist Malcolm X. His ownership of the pictures bestowed upon him a "get out of jail free card", whereby the courts overlooked his criminal activity.

After in-depth discussions with McIndoe, Clement and Le Frenais suggested in their story that the robbery was masterminded by MI5, which was eager to get its hands on the photos and thereby neutralise Michael X's threat.

"That is all conjecture," continues Clement, "but certainly the Caribbean connection [to Princess Margaret] is a fairly obvious one. And while we've become so used to royal scandals since then, in 1971 it would have been a much bigger deal. There was a lot of sensitivity because of the Christine Keeler affair and they didn't want another scandal dancing around like that.

"That's the theory, anyway. But what is curious is that I have seen something that says that Michael X's file is buried until 2054, which is extraordinary. I mean, what the hell he had that was keeping him out of jail, and which was so important that they don't want it known about for another 50 years - well, it boggles the mind. Even if it was photographs of the Royal Family, you'd have thought that that wouldn't have had such a long after-life."

True to smutty tab form, the Daily Mail has the actual HAM radio recordings of the bank robbers - it's kind of fun to hear the actual audio, though much of it is quite fuzzy. FOUND: Radio Ham's sensational tape of the bank heist 'that rescued compromising pictures of Princess Margaret' | Mail Online

Here's the HAM radio clip.

My favorite characters were the totally amoral kinky British establishment bastards, who would stop at nothing to recover their photos, stage crimes, and put themselves into highly blackmailable situations. SPOILER: The whole media gets suppressed, Statham's character cleverly slips the establishment setup-patsy noose, and ends up rich and happy. Lulz.

I noted all this nonsense a while ago: March 27, 2007: New GeoMap; Kremlin warns of "Operation Bite" American attack on Iran April 6? More rumors etc.

The latest twist is that apparently the Democrats agreed to give Bush as much money as they wanted in order to do the "U.S. Covert - BALUCHIS" attack detailed on this sketch here. At roughly the time of my post, actually!

April 4, 2007: Iran paranoia, covert war escalates; Tensions rise as Persian Gulf fills with carriers, media crews, tribal revolts; US Air Force buzzes infiltrated Iranian Khuzestan

At that time we had the excellent "Approximate Covert Crisis GeoMap: Shitstorm 2007:

April 8, 2007: Jundullah: Baluchi ally of the United States... And Al Qaeda... in covert Iran war.

Since those heady days, I haven't had too much to say about the Baluchi pawn situation. However, the drums of war have continued and my tasty diagrams are as accurate as last year. Both the CIA-sponsored tribal uprisings and the Mujahideen el-Khalq actions are going forth accordingly.

At least, that's what good ol Seymour Hersh has divined from his vast array of establishment sources, who generally seem quite frightened of the alternate chains of command that Dick Cheney has built up from his office.

Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Pay very close attention to this part, kiddos, because herein lies the primary potential source of a cataclysmic Iran war: the "small group" at the White House who are developing an alternate chain of command.

Fallon’s early retirement, however, appears to have been provoked not only by his negative comments about bombing Iran but also by his strong belief in the chain of command and his insistence on being informed about Special Operations in his area of responsibility. One of Fallon’s defenders is retired Marine General John J. (Jack) Sheehan, whose last assignment was as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, where Fallon was a deputy. Last year, Sheehan rejected a White House offer to become the President’s “czar” for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “One of the reasons the White House selected Fallon for CENTCOM was that he’s known to be a strategic thinker and had demonstrated those skills in the Pacific,” Sheehan told me. (Fallon served as commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific from 2005 to 2007.) “He was charged with coming up with an over-all coherent strategy for Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and, by law, the combatant commander is responsible for all military operations within his A.O.”—area of operations. “That was not happening,” Sheehan said. “When Fallon tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.”

The law cited by Sheehan is the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act, known as Goldwater-Nichols, which defined the chain of command: from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

Admiral Fallon, who is known as Fox, was aware that he would face special difficulties as the first Navy officer to lead CENTCOM, which had always been headed by a ground commander, one of his military colleagues told me. He was also aware that the Special Operations community would be a concern. “Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing,” Fallon’s colleague said. “The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney.”

The Pentagon consultant said, “Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that.”

There you have it. This is huge. Bigger than the usual British-style strategy of renting local warlords like the Baluchis. Also duly noted:

A strategy of using ethnic minorities to undermine Iran is flawed, according to Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Just because Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan have ethnic problems, it does not mean that Iran is suffering from the same issue,” Nasr told me. “Iran is an old country—like France and Germany—and its citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic tension in Iran.” The minority groups that the U.S. is reaching out to are either well integrated or small and marginal, without much influence on the government or much ability to present a political challenge, Nasr said. “You can always find some activist groups that will go and kill a policeman, but working with the minorities will backfire, and alienate the majority of the population.”

The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.

The C.I.A. and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.

The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

I have zero faith in any element of America's political class to even understand what is happening, let alone get some degree of control over these covert operations, ever escalating and widening out into the aggressive galaxy of contractors and militant baby boomers, all set in motion on their own, partitioned even from the regional American military commanders.

When even the President's direct regional commander, General Fallon, couldn't find out what the fuck Special Forces are actually doing, then by definition we have a serious and insane war conspiracy unfolding.

And for now, that is basically all I can say.

Ben Bernanke: I want COFFEE and FRESHLY MINTED $20s. NOW dammit.....

What's New at Bilderberg 2008?

Obama, Clinton staying mum on Bilderberg globalist confab

Turkish paper Today's Zaman: Rice hopes Turkey will solve issues through democracy

Off to Bilderberg conference

Responding to a question regarding his weekend schedule in the US later in the day, [Turkish Foreign Minister] Babacan revealed that he would be attending an international conference of people of influence in the fields of business, media and politics, known as the Bilderberg conference.

The unofficial invitation-only conference will take place from June 5 to June 8 at the Westfields Marriott Hotel in Chantilly, Virginia, this year. Last year, it was hosted at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in İstanbul. "We hosted this conference in İstanbul last year," Babacan said, without mentioning its name. He also said this is the fifth time he has been invited to the elite gathering.

The bad kids have shown up and made a mess of things! Dirty Tricks Campaign Against Alex Jones

Bilderberg 2008 - Day 3 Footage, U.S. Corporate Media Blackout On Bilderberg Meeting

Due to unexpected publicity from the usual New World Order protester types, everyone's favorite secret annual conference (which can never be reported upon inside the United States) was forced to spell out the nature of their gig. Lulz...

Unexpected press release!! And now according to the Internets, Charlie Rose is in on it! Democratic governors Mark Sanford and Kathleen Sebelius (Tom Daschle too) - which means that you can bet your hat Sanford or Sebelius will be Obama's vice presidential choice.

Bilderberg Announces 2008 Conference: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Press Release

Source: American Friends of Bilderberg

Bilderberg Announces 2008 Conference
Thursday June 5, 8:10 pm ET

CHANTILLY, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 56th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Chantilly, Virginia, USA 5 – 8 June 2008. The Conference will deal mainly with a nuclear free world, cyber terrorism, Africa, Russia, finance, protectionism, US-EU relations, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Islam and Iran. Approximately 140 participants will attend, of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.

Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland, where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on common problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting Western nations in the difficult post-war period. The Cold War has now ended. But in practically all respects, there are more, not fewer, common problems - from trade to jobs, from monetary policy to investment, from ecological challenges to the task of promoting international security. It is hard to think of any major issue in either Europe or North America whose unilateral solution would not have repercussions for the other. Thus the concept of a European-American forum has not been overtaken by time. The dialogue between these two regions is still - even increasingly - critical.

What is unique about Bilderberg as a forum, is the broad cross-section of leading citizens that are assembled for nearly three days of informal and off-the-record discussion about topics of current concern especially in the fields of foreign affairs and the international economy; the strong feeling among participants that in view of the differing attitudes and experiences of the Western nations, there remains a clear need to further develop an understanding in which these concerns can be accommodated; the privacy of the meetings, which has no purpose other than to allow participants to speak their minds openly and freely. In short, Bilderberg is a small, flexible, informal and off-the-record international forum in which different viewpoints can be expressed and mutual understanding enhanced.

Bilderberg's only activity is its annual Conference. At the meetings, no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued. Since 1954, fifty-five conferences have been held. The names of the participants are made available to the press. Participants are chosen for their experience, their knowledge, and their standing; all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity.

There will be no press conference. A list of participants is available by phone request at 703-818-3647 between 9am-5pm EDT June 6-7, 2008.

Contact:

American Friends of Bilderberg
Steven Lee, 703-818-3647

Source: American Friends of Bilderberg

******

PRESENTING THE ESTABLISHMENT (in alphabetical order!)

LiveLeak.com - Bilderberg Attendee List 2008

Bilderberg Attendee List 2008
Bilderberg Attendee List 2008
Chantilly, Virginia, USA
5-8 June 2008

CURRENT LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

Honorary Chairman
BEL Davignon, Etienne Vice Chairman, Suez-Tractebel

DEU Ackermann, Josef Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee, Deutsche Bank AG
CAN Adams, John Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence and Chief of the Communications Security Establishment Canada
USA Ajami, Fouad Director, Middle East Studies Program, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University
USA Alexander, Keith B. Director, National Security Agency
INT Almunia, Joaquín Commissioner, European Commission
GRC Alogoskoufis, George Minister of Economy and Finance
USA Altman, Roger C. Chairman, Evercore Partners Inc.
TUR Babacan, Ali Minister of Foreign Affairs
NLD Balkenende, Jan Peter Prime Minister
PRT Balsemão, Francisco Pinto Chairman and CEO, IMPRESA, S.G.P.S.; Former Prime Minister
FRA Baverez, Nicolas Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
ITA Bernabè, Franco CEO, Telecom Italia Spa
USA Bernanke, Ben S. Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System
SWE Bildt, Carl Minister of Foreign Affairs
FIN Blåfield, Antti Senior Editorial Writer, Helsingin Sanomat
DNK Bosse, Stine CEO, TrygVesta
CAN Brodie, Ian Chief of Staff, Prime Minister's Office
AUT Bronner, Oscar Publisher and Editor, Der Standard
FRA Castries, Henri de Chairman of the Management Board and CEO, AXA
ESP Cebrián, Juan Luis CEO, PRISA
CAN Clark, Edmund President and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group
GBR Clarke, Kenneth Member of Parliament
NOR Clemet, Kristin Managing Director, Civita
USA Collins, Timothy C. Senior Managing Director and CEO, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC
FRA Collomb, Bertrand Honorary Chairman, Lafarge
PRT Costa, António Mayor of Lisbon
USA Crocker, Chester A. James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies
USA Daschle, Thomas A. Former US Senator and Senate Majority Leader
CAN Desmarais, Jr., Paul Chairman and co-CEO, Power Corporation of Canada
GRC Diamantopoulou, Anna Member of Parliament
USA Donilon, Thomas E. Partner, O'Melveny & Myers
ITA Draghi, Mario Governor, Banca d'Italia
AUT Ederer, Brigitte CEO, Siemens AG Österreich
CAN Edwards, N. Murray Vice Chairman, Candian Natural Resources Limited

DNK Eldrup, Anders President, DONG A/S
ITA Elkann, John Vice Chairman, Fiat S.p.A.
USA Farah, Martha J. Director, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience;
Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Natural Sciences, University of Pennsylvania
USA Feldstein, Martin S. President and CEO, National Bureau of Economic Research
DEU Fischer, Joschka Former Minister of Foreign Affairs
USA Ford, Jr., Harold E. Vice Chairman, Merill Lynch & Co., Inc.
CHE Forstmoser, Peter Professor for Civil, Corporation and Capital Markets Law, University of Zürich
IRL Gallagher, Paul Attorney General
USA Geithner, Timothy F. President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
USA Gigot, Paul Editorial Page Editor, The Wall Street Journal
IRL Gleeson, Dermot Chairman, AIB Group
NLD Goddijn, Harold CEO, TomTom
TUR Gö?ü?, Zeynep Journalist; Founder, EurActiv.com.tr
USA Graham, Donald E. Chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company
NLD Halberstadt, Victor Professor of Economics, Leiden University; Former Honorary Secretary General of Bilderberg Meetings
USA Holbrooke, Richard C. Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
FIN Honkapohja, Seppo Member of the Board, Bank of Finland
INT Hoop Scheffer, Jaap G. de Secretary General, NATO
USA Hubbard, Allan B. Chairman, E & A Industries, Inc.
BEL Huyghebaert, Jan Chairman of the Board of Directors, KBC Group
DEU Ischinger, Wolfgang Former Ambassador to the UK and US
USA Jacobs, Kenneth Deputy Chairman, Head of Lazard U.S., Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
USA Johnson, James A. Vice Chairman, Perseus, LLC
SWE Johnstone, Tom President and CEO, AB SKF
USA Jordan, Jr., Vernon E. Senior Managing Director, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC
FRA Jouyet, Jean-Pierre Minister of European Affairs
GBR Kerr, John Member, House of Lords; Deputy Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc.
USA Kissinger, Henry A. Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc.
DEU Klaeden, Eckart von Foreign Policy Spokesman, CDU/CSU
USA Kleinfeld, Klaus President and COO, Alcoa
TUR Koç, Mustafa Chairman, Koç Holding A.S.
FRA Kodmani, Bassma Director, Arab Reform Initiative
USA Kravis, Henry R. Founding Partner, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
USA Kravis, Marie-Josée Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, Inc.
INT Kroes, Neelie Commissioner, European Commission
POL Kwasniewski, Aleksander Former President
AUT Leitner, Wolfgang CEO, Andritz AG
ESP León Gross, Bernardino Secretary General, Office of the Prime Minister
INT Mandelson, Peter Commissioner, European Commission
FRA Margerie, Christophe de CEO, Total
CAN Martin, Roger Dean, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
HUN Martonyi, János Professor of International Trade Law; Partner, Baker & McKenzie; Former Minister of Foreign Affairs
USA Mathews, Jessica T. President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

INT McCreevy, Charlie Commissioner, European Commission
USA McDonough, William J. Vice Chairman and Special Advisor to the Chairman, Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.
CAN McKenna, Frank Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group
GBR McKillop, Tom Chairman, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group
FRA Montbrial, Thierry de President, French Institute for International Relations
ITA Monti, Mario President, Universita Commerciale Luigi Bocconi
USA Mundie, Craig J. Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft Corporation
NOR Myklebust, Egil Former Chairman of the Board of Directors SAS, Norsk Hydro ASA
DEU Nass, Matthias Deputy Editor, Die Zeit
NLD Netherlands, H.M. the Queen of the
FRA Ockrent, Christine CEO, French television and radio world service
FIN Ollila, Jorma Chairman, Royal Dutch Shell plc
SWE Olofsson, Maud Minister of Enterprise and Energy; Deputy Prime Minister
NLD Orange, H.R.H. the Prince of
GBR Osborne, George Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
TUR Öztrak, Faik Member of Parliament
ITA Padoa-Schioppa, Tommaso Former Minister of Finance; President of Notre Europe
GRC Papahelas, Alexis Journalist, Kathimerini
GRC Papalexopoulos, Dimitris CEO, Titan Cement Co. S.A.
USA Paulson, Jr., Henry M. Secretary of the Treasury
USA Pearl, Frank H. Chairman and CEO, Perseus, LLC
USA Perle, Richard N. Resident Fellow, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
FRA Pérol, François Deputy General Secretary in charge of Economic Affairs
DEU Perthes, Volker Director, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik
BEL Philippe, H.R.H. Prince
CAN Prichard, J. Robert S. President and CEO, Torstar Corporation
CAN Reisman, Heather M. Chair and CEO, Indigo Books & Music Inc.
USA Rice, Condoleezza Secretary of State
PRT Rio, Rui Mayor of Porto
USA Rockefeller, David Former Chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank
ESP Rodriguez Inciarte, Matias Executive Vice Chairman, Grupo Santander
USA Rose, Charlie Producer, Rose Communications
DNK Rose, Flemming Editor, Jyllands Posten
USA Ross, Dennis B. Counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
USA Rubin, Barnett R. Director of Studies and Senior Fellow, Center for International Cooperation, New York University
TUR ?ahenk, Ferit Chairman, Do?u? Holding A.?.
USA Sanford, Mark Governor of South Carolina
USA Schmidt, Eric Chairman of the Executive Committee and CEO, Google
AUT Scholten, Rudolf Member of the Board of Executive Directors, Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG
DNK Schur, Fritz H. Fritz Schur Gruppen
CZE Schwarzenberg, Karel Minister of Foreign Affairs
USA Sebelius, Kathleen Governor of Kansas
USA Shultz, George P. Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

ESP Spain, H.M. the Queen of
CHE Spillmann, Markus Editor-in-Chief and Head Managing Board, Neue Zürcher Zeitung AG
USA Summers, Lawrence H. Charles W. Eliot Professor, Harvard University
GBR Taylor, J. Martin Chairman, Syngenta International AG
USA Thiel, Peter A. President, Clarium Capital Management, LLC
NLD Timmermans, Frans Minister of European Affairs
RUS Trenin, Dmitri V. Deputy Director and Senior Associate, Carnegie Moscow Center
INT Trichet, Jean-Claude President, European Central Bank
USA Vakil, Sanam Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies, The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
FRA Valls, Manuel Member of Parliament
GRC Varvitsiotis, Thomas Co-Founder and President, V + O Communication
CHE Vasella, Daniel L. Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG
FIN Väyrynen, Raimo Director, The Finnish Institute of International Affairs
FRA Védrine, Hubert Hubert Védrine Conseil
NOR Vollebaek, Knut High Commissioner on National Minorities, OSCE
SWE Wallenberg, Jacob Chairman, Investor AB
USA Weber, J. Vin CEO, Clark & Weinstock
USA Wolfensohn, James D. Chairman, Wolfensohn & Company, LLC
USA Wolfowitz, Paul Visiting Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
INT Zoellick, Robert B. President, The World Bank Group

Rapporteurs
GBR Bredow, Vendeline von Business Correspondent, The Economist
GBR Wooldridge, Adrian D. Foreign Correspondent, The Economist

AUT Austria HUN Hungary
BEL Belgium INT International
CHE Switzerland IRL Ireland
CAN Canada ITA Italy
CZE Czech Republic NOR Norway
DEU Germany NLD Netherlands
DNK Denmark PRT Portugal
ESP Spain POL Poland
FRA France RUS Russia
FIN Finland SWE Sweden
GBR Great Britain TUR Turkey
GRC Greece
USA United States of America

Meanwhile here is the list of attendees going around the Internets!

Barack Obama ditches his press corps to go hang out!! Behind the Scenes: Obama press 'hijacked' during Clinton meeting - CNN.com

The press soon noticed there were far too few people aboard for a standard campaign flight. Something was different. It's fair to say that the term "everyone" was used a bit loosely -- especially when the presumptive nominee appeared to be missing.

As the plane taxied, communications director Robert Gibbs admitted that Obama was remaining behind because he "wasn't going to be back in D.C. for a while" and had "scheduled some meetings" before he left.

Obama staffers, including Gibbs and Linda Douglass, a newly appointed senior adviser and campaign spokeswoman, didn't ask the reporters on board if they'd prefer to wait on the runway in Washington until the meetings concluded. They were going to Chicago. Without Barack Obama.....

Once airborne, a timid and slightly giggly Gibbs granted the confused and agitated press corps a meeting, one that any eyewitness would have easily labeled contentious and heated. Watch the riled press corps grill Gibbs »

Gibbs took on a barrage of questions, and, to his credit, listened to what he called the "anticipated grievances" from the press for almost 20 minutes.

"He's having a secret meeting tonight, and we're not going to see him until Monday" because of three scheduled "down days," one reporter began. "I'd like to say that's unacceptable. He's the -- "

"Presumptive Democratic nominee?" Gibbs finished, adding a giggle. "Yeah."

Questions centered largely on why the press was essentially held hostage with no candidate and no choice but to fly to Chicago on a chartered plane -- a flight many news organizations pay thousands of dollars to keep their journalists stationed on, ideally with the candidate.

"We're not paying however much this plane is to be here -- no offense -- with you," one reporter said to Gibbs as the largely newsless news conference wrapped up.

When pressed, Gibbs admitted he was responsible for how the situation was handled.

"It wasn't an attempt to deceive in any way," he said. "It was just private meetings."

LiveLeak.com - Hillary & Obama In Secret Bilderberg Rendezvous, LiveLeak.com - Bilderberg boys will decide who’s Obama’s “chosen” Veep Sure, why not?!

Photos! Bilderberg Meeting 2008 Photos, Flickr: shepherdjohnson's Photostream

And don't forget, you government schlubs! Meeting with foreign heads of state and other agents of influence without filing your activities with the State Department is illegal under the Logan Act!

Can't wait to cut off their government salaries!

Here's some quality satire: Bilderberg Group orders end to Obama-Clinton contest « Sir Satire’s New World Order News Service

The two presidential hopefuls were summoned to the Bilderberg Group annual meeting, where they were both informed that Obama would play the part of the Democratic candidate this election year. Clinton is reported to have begged Lord Rothschild and David Rockefeller — both senior level Bilderbergers — for forgiveness following her poor campaign performance this past year.

“Mrs. Clinton was very upset,” said a male prostitute who services some of the male Bilderberg members. “She said David Rockefeller was behind the push to oust her from the race. She had apparently been promised a comeback effort by Lord Rothschild like the kind that was granted to her husband Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, when it looked like he was going to be out of the presidential race.”

How will Obama change the structure of the Democratic Party: is it progressive or autocratic? Etc??! Matt Stoller: Obama's Consolidation of the Party - Politics on The Huffington Post and The Obama Squeeze | The Agonist.

Meanwhile over @ No Quarter they are pretty grumpy b/c they've been in the Hillary camp for a dang long time: I Call a Spade a Spade : NO QUARTER

PSYOPS update: here's your raw data: John Stauber: Pentagon Propaganda Documents Go Online: But Will the Media Ever Report on Them?

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.

The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

News of the Pentagon's online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times "limited information about a military office early in the reporting process."

Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/

More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon's military analyst program to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, "the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have still not mentioned the report at all."

Keep running the airtight ship, guys!

Meanwhile, General Electric didn't have a dog in that media game, did they? Hmmm.... The Raw Story | Chris Matthews: MSNBC bosses were 'basically pro-war'

As previously noted on this website, the Pentagon has had an extensive agenda to manipulate mainstream media in order to promote the war, via PSYOPS strategies that make the American population a "strategic" target for brain spoofing. Controlling elite opinion and mass ideas has been the big picture, which is prety obvious. But actually reading all those strategic emails about how to spoof the news via 'military analysts' is another matter altogether.

This was reported in the New York Times and then obviously deleted from the A-story media agenda because it raises too many questions about news oversight and industry-wide management practices.

Meanwhile the paranoid thread digs parallel concerns: Pentagon Secretly Goes To War With The Internet with exciting new systems designed to help the powers that be do... something.

It is not a surprise: the Pentagon's ever-expanding system of total rationality would see the off-message resistance to the war agenda as a kind of distributed evil/terrorist network. Ensuring the primacy of war and top-down information control as the organizing principles of our 21st century society would be a primary goal. True? Probably, even if the various individual humans in the system can't actually see or understand this.

WIRED adds: What's Up with the Secret Cybersecurity Plans, Senators Ask DHS | Threat Level from Wired.com

Why might citizens be worried about privacy and civil liberties? Consider that the whole initiative appears to have been launched after the Director of National Intelligence told the President Bush that a cyber attack might wreak as much economic havoc as 9/11 did.

Consider that the NSA, which currently protects classified networks, wants to expand into protecting all non-classified federal government networks. Consider that Congress is set to legalize the NSA's monitoring rooms in the nation's phone and internet infrastructure.

For its part, the FBI says it also needs access to the internet's backbone, while the Air Force is hyping its own efforts at cyber defense and offense. Meanwhile, THREAT LEVEL's sister blog Danger Room reports that DARPA is getting in on the hot cyber-action, with a project to make a fake internet to develop new cyber attacks and defenses.

It's been said many times that if the government knew what the internet was going to become when it grew up, they would had never let it out of the lab.

Now it seems the only question is whether the government will be able to turn the net into a controllable, monitorable and trackable pre-internet AOL-type service or whether the chaotic net will live on as just another frontier for the military-industrial complex to start an arm's race and rake in billions of government dollars.

Meanwhile the paranoia side also blames the schemes of the Bilberberg Group for the gas pump disaster. I'd say, well, this kind of thing wouldn't surprise me anymore. Goldman Sachs: Bilderberg Target Of $200 Dollar Oil Nears.

And why not some more stuff: Military and Homeland Security Dictate Who Lives And Who Dies In A Pandemic

Rational Annihilation. Of ideas, sick old people, whatever. The ominous specters continue, and blog posts go up apace....

Antiwar.com Blog · Did Israelis Leak New Spy Info to Thwart War?

Things in the Middle East are always too thoroughly linked together, backwards, forwards, each way through the hall of mirrors. And it's going to be the traditional 'summer fightin' months' all around the region soon enough.

Deadlock in Afghanistan, Negotiations in Pakistan | The Agonist

There's a certain preamble of mega-spin going on right now. Hillary makes these weird statements about obliterating Iran, and McCain is chuckling all the way to the Big Red Button.

As usual, the rationality of the Baby Boomer generation drifts towards paranoia, incoherence, rage and infinite debt. Whether or not the American people get it together and block the Middle East mega-war from blowing up out of control seems to be the big question.

Iran gets blamed for killing American soldiers occupying Iraq. Not surprisingly, the guys selling this line never acknowledge that the arms market is quite a free market over in Iraq, with many busy arms dealers working all directions. And people are buying weapons that come from Iran. Is that some kind of surprise? "FREE MARKET WEAPONS FOR IRAQ: ALWAYS PLENTY OF DEALS!" That's a motto which the Iranians should try... Then remind everyone which country is importing the most weapons into Iraq, handing them over to parties unknown...

British dealers supply arms to Iran: The Observer

As you may have noticed, there has been a lot of extra buzz about possible American conflict with Iran in the news (after cooling for a couple months prior).

Is War With Iran Imminent?- by Justin Raimondo

A couple weeks ago, the story from last fall about the mysterious Israeli bombing of a purported nuclear-or-something site in Syria came back strong into the news: exciting tidbits that the North Koreans were propagating some nuclear research at the Syrian location. Very exciting stuff for the news.

For example, Stratfor.com is all over this case and its exciting murkiness:

What is important to note is this information is not new. It is a confirmation of the story leaked by the administration shortly after the attack and also leaked by the Israelis a bit later. The explanation for the attack was that it was designed to take out a reactor in Syria that had been built with North Korean help. There are therefore three questions. First, why did the United States go to such lengths to reveal what it has been saying privately for months? Second, why did the administration do it now? Third, why is the United States explaining an Israeli raid using, at least in part, material provided by Israel? Why isn’t Israel making the revelation?

It has never been clear to us why the Israelis and Americans didn’t immediately announce that the Syrians were building a nuclear reactor. Given American hostility toward Syria over support for jihadists in Iraq, we would have thought that they would have announced it instantly. The explanation we thought most plausible at the time was that the intelligence came from the North Koreans in the course of discussions of their nuclear technology, and since the North Koreans were cooperating, the United States didn’t want to publicly embarrass them. It was the best we could come up with.

The announcement on Thursday seems to debunk that theory, at least to the extent that the primary material displayed was U.S. satellite information and the Israeli video, which was said to have been used to convince the United States of the existence of the reactor and of North Korean involvement. So why didn’t the administration condemn Syria and North Korea on Sept. 7? It still seems to us that part of the explanation is in the state of talks with North Korea over its own program. The North Koreans had said that they would provide technical information on their program — which they haven’t done. Either the United States lost its motivation to protect North Korean feelings because of this or the Bush administration felt that Thursday’s briefings would somehow bring pressure to bear on North Korea. Unless the United States is planning to use these revelations as justification for attacks on the North Koreans, we find it difficult to see how this increases pressure on them.

More interesting is the question of why the United States — and not Israel — is briefing on an Israeli raid. Israeli media reported April 23 that the Israelis had asked the Americans not to brief Congress. The reason given was that the Israelis did not want the United States to embarrass Syria at this point. As we noted on April 23, there appeared to have been some interesting diplomatic moves between Syria and Israel, and it made sense that revealing this information now might increase friction.

Meanwhile another more original story got lost in the sea of buzz: some old defense engineer, 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish, got caught by the FBI stealing secret documents from his top secret research lab during his career, and has admitted everything. Antiwar.com broke that to me:

Pollard's Ghost- by Justin Raimondo. Check this out for a well-linked background in the case, though I'm not totally sold on Raimondo's spin...

Kadish would smuggle out the papers, photograph them, send 'em over to his foreign spy handler, and bring them back to the lab, no one the wiser. A pretty classic scheme which should have gotten a bit of news bounce in the War on Terror, but of course it didn't. The engineer was passing secrets to Israel. Uff da...

This raises the question of how big the Israeli espionage thingy really gets. It's a big question especially since two AIPAC officers are supposed to go on trial this summer for circulating secrets between neo-con Pentagon staffer Lawrence "Larry" Franklin and the Mossad officers over at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

In the Fed's case for this "big" AIPAC scandal, everyone pretty much got caught red-handed, so the AIPAC defense strategy appears to be "graymailing" the Justice Department into disclosing all kinds of classified stuff. (The idea is that the feds' tummies turn sour and they give up because they don't want to cough up the docs. This is the traditional strategy DC lawyers for Oliver North / Elliot Abrams type guys use to get their guys off the hook in scandals like Iran-Contra.)

But let's go back to the beginning of the "big" AIPAC scandal. How did it start? The FBI was already spying on the AIPAC officers when Franklin wandered up to them at a DC restaurant. The Feds already wanted AIPAC on espionage. Why? The short speculative answer: the FBI has continuously been looking for a high-level spy/mole known by code name MEGA.

MEGA was the secret guy somewhere in the U.S. government in the 1980s who (among other things) provided extremely secret document numbers to the Israelis. In turn, the Israelis sent a more disposable spy, Jonathan Pollard, the low-level Pentagon staffer, as a gofer to get the documents. Pollard got caught; he's still in a U.S. jail. (There's a rumor Bush might pardon him, ugh). MEGA never got caught. So we could speculate that officially the FBI was looking to see if MEGA sends AIPAC messages, enter Franklin accidentally.

Ok ok... this is pretty baroque spy stuff. Why did this engineer get exposed? How did the FBI catch him? Well, they got a tip. A tip from somewhere in Israel.

Reportedly, someone in Ehud Olmert's government tipped off the FBI about the engineer spy because they wanted to prevent the expanding middle east war. In other words, an Israeli exposed an old engineer spy in order to damage the neocons / hawks' chances of ginning up the war with Iran.

Old school ex-CIA dude Phil Giraldi spilled it:

"Israeli sources are reporting that the FBI investigation of the Ben-Ami Kadish spy case resulted from a leak coming from inside the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The information on Kadish and on a number of other Americans who have spied for Israel was provided to the FBI anonymously, leading to the Bureau's opening of a full investigation. One source reports that the National Security Agency was provided with Yosef Yagur's current phone number and address and was able to obtain corroborating information on the case by tapping the phone."

It was interesting to read that, in a change-up, some Israeli military officials would not brief the U.S. Congress about the big bad Muslim threats because the Congress would now grill them over that just-exposed Israeli espionage.

Sounds like a good time to put out some fun stories about evil Syrians and bombing their weird shacks of shadiness.

Interesting stuff I suppose... If you're into that kind of thing. Beyond that, there is of course the Sibel Edmonds scandal, which involves a certain network of nuclear secrets traffickers, intersecting with heroin and Washington lobbyists, or something.

Someone speculated that MEGA was really Marc Grossman, a longterm DC hack who is certainly in well over his head on this scandal. Grossman also has been rumored to have tipped off the Turks and Pakistanis that Valerie Plame's front company, Brewster Jennings, was really a CIA front. But he got caught on an FBI wiretap which Sibel Edmonds probably had to listen to, while she worked there.

So there is that angle. Good luck figuring it out, kids! There's a good chance this stuff will get some sunlight during the summer. I'll drink to that!!

********

Some more awkward PR that had to get drowned out: Carter calls Gaza blockade a crime and atrocity | World | Reuters