When I read War and Peace in school, our teacher gave us a printout of the names and various nicknames of the major characters in the novel in order to help us keep track of them all. Here's a little attempt at something sort of similar; Names, organizations, corporations, media, agencies, etc. I know I've left a lot out, I may have made some errors, etc. Generally, I've tried to connect people with groups that they either currently or formerly have been involved with, but I haven't for the most part attempted to flesh out the corporate connection ties that each person may have. I'll also link to a couple of pages which give graphical connections between some of the corporations/people/agencies, etc. I hope this will be of assistance. Please let me know if you see errors of either ommission or commission. Some ties will be looser than others, obviously and some of the information sources will be more objective or "better" than others. Like I say, this is by no means a complete listing; just my first attempt at a few "major characters".
To see a much more complete accounting (though I have at least one they missed) of both neocons and more traditional conservatives as well as corporations etc., I recommend looking at Appendix B of the
Global Dominance Group pdf
People
(for person to person connections, I will limit these to indicators of an employer/employee, supervisor/underling, teacher(mentor)/student or less than obvious familial relationship, since obviously through membership in a President's cabinet or joint membership in the same group one could connect just about anyone on the list to almost anyone else)
Elliott Abrams (EA) (RK)(NP) ACPC CFR CFW CPSG CSP HI NRO
PNAC
Richard Armitage (RA) CFR CPSG PNAC
Conrad Black (CB) (RP) HI
John Bolton (JB) AEI CPSG JINSA PNAC
Arnaud de Borchgrave (AdB) BA CIA CFR CSIS TE
Dick Cheney (DC) (VN)(IL"S"L)(DW)(DR) AEI CFR CSIS JINSA PNAC
Lynne Cheney (LC) AEI CSIS IWF
Douglas Feith (DF) CFR CPSG CSP DAB JINSA OSP
Frank Gaffney (FG) ACPC BA CPSG CSP CPD PNAC
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (JK)AEI CFW CPD JINSA PNAC TE WINEP
Kenneth Lay (KL) AEI
Michael A. Ledeen (ML) ACPC AEI BA CFW CPSG JINSA NRO TNR TE
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (IL"S"L) CFR HI OVP PNAC
James Lilley (JL) AEI CIA CFR
Martin Peretz CPSG TNR WINEP
Richard Perle (RP) (CB) ACPC AEI BA CFR CFW CPD CPSG CSP DAB HI JINSA PNAC WINEP
Norman Podhoretz (NP) (EA) ACPC CFR CFW HI PNAC
Dan Quayle (DQ) DAB HI PNAC
Lee Raymond (recently retired CEO of Exxon) (LR)AEI
Michael Rubin (MR) AEI OSP WINEP
Donald Rumsfeld (DR) (DF)(PW)(DC)CFR CFW CPD CPSG CSP OSP PNAC
Paul Wolfowitz (PW) AEI CFR DAB PNAC WINEP
James Woolsey (JW) ACPC BA CIA CSIS DAB JINSA PNAC WINEP
David Wurmser (DW) AEI BA CPSG OVP WINEP
Meyrav Wurmser (MW)BA HI
Dov Zakheim (DZ) CPSG CSIS CFR CSP PNAC
here are a few more family names in neoconservatism; they are not necessarily as tied in as the ones above in terms of the think tanks or government positions, but merit mention nonetheless-
The Kristols
Irving Kristol (IK)(father) AEI CFR
William Kristol (WK)(son) CPSG PNAC
The Kagans
Donald Kagan (DK)(father) PNAC
Frederick Kagan (FK)(son)
Robert Kagan (RK)(son) (EA) ACPC CFR CPSG CSP PNAC TNR
Victoria Nuland (VN) (wife of Robert) OVP
A brief intro on the beginnings of Neoconservatism:
(currently I can only find this source material from a secondary site or in cached form. Original source). I will post only a few exerpts. While it provides a great deal of information, that source taken as a whole appears to have an anti-Zionist flavor, so I recommend reading it with filters on.
The fathers of the neo-conservative movement include Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Podhoretz edited the monthly magazine Commentary for many years and his wife Midge Decter was also active in developing the neo-conservative trend.
As has been described earlier, much has been made by The New Yorker journalist Seymour Hersh, by James Atlas of the New York Times and some others of the influence of the Jewish German émigré Chicago University political philosopher Leo Strauss, who died in 1973. Strauss was an influence on Paul Wolfowitz, and Abram Shulsky who heads the Pentagon intelligence outfit, the Office of Special Plans. Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz are admirers of Strauss, whose books include 'On Tyranny'.
The vehemently anti-Soviet pro-Israeli Democrat Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson is another legendary figure in the history of neo-conservatism. One of Perle's early mentor's, Albert Wohlstetter, suggested that Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, who were at the time graduate students, go to interview Jackson. The outcome was that Perle worked for Jackson for 11 years. Perle often says he is still a Democrat, out of respect for Scoop Jackson.
Some of the other neo-conservatives to have worked with Scoop Jackson are William Kristol (son of Irving Kristol), Elliott Abrams (son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz) and Frank Gaffney. Perle and Abrams, working out of Jackson's office, used the issue of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union to undermine U.S.-Soviet détente. Jackson sponsored legislation that made the Soviet Union's gaining "most favoured nation status" contingent on an increase in Jewish emigration.
In 1973 Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and other similarly minded Democrats set up the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, which favoured hawkish policies on Defense and national security. Elliott Abrams was a member, as were Norman Podhoretz [and] Jeane Kirkpatrick
(also members- Richard Pipes, Joshua Muravchik (nephew of Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter), James Woolsey, Irving Kristol and Martin Peretz among many others) - see
Coalition for a Democratic Majority (
CDM) for more info.
in the mid-1970s Wolfowitz became a key figure in the development of neo-conservatism when he served on a body called 'Team B' - a group of analysts chosen by hawks in the Ford administration who were already working with people in Senator Jackson's office, particularly Richard Perle.
At the time Donald Rumsfeld was in his first incarnation as Defense Secretary, and he helped establish Team B. This helped Rumsfeld outmaneuver Henry Kissinger who was trying to work out an arms-control agreement with the Soviet Union.
The creation of Team B and the undermining of the CIA and the U.S. intelligence community forged an alliance between the neo-conservatives from Scoop Jackson's office, who were still Democrats, and Republican right-wingers of the Donald Rumsfeld type.
The Committee for the Present Danger, which worked towards the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, is seen as the first alliance between the neo-conservatives and the right wing as represented by Donald Rumsfeld.
When Reagan became president, he brought a number of neo-conservatives into the Administration. Kirkpatrick was appointed as ambassador to the UN, and Richard Perle as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1981 to 1987, and was a stiff opponent of arms-control agreements with the Soviets. Ken Adelman served as Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1983-87 and Elliott Abrams was Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the early 1980s, and then became Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs.
A quick look at the network of relationships between the neocons (mostly from
All in the Neocon Family)
(The Cheneys and Bushes deserve a whole section of their own, so I won't go there. Probably you already know most of that, in any case)
The Kristols
Irving Kristol (IK)(father) AEI CFR
Gertrude Himmelfarb (mother)CPD
William Kristol (WK)(son) PNAC
WS
The Kagans
Donald Kagan (DK)(father) PNAC
Frederick Kagan (FK)(son)
Robert Kagan (RK)(son) ACPC CFR
CSP PNAC TNR
Victoria Nuland (VN) (wife of Robert) OVP
Irving Kristol disciple = Richard Perle - married the daughter of Alfred Wohlstetter
Alfred Wohlstetter "helped both his son-in-law and his fellow student Paul Wolfowitz get their start in Washington more than 30 years ago."
Perle = mentor of Douglas Feith
(Wolfowitz's deputy) (son of
Dalck Feith (follower of
Vladimir Jabotinsky); "honored together in 1997 by the right-wing
Zionist Organization of America (
ZOA).")
The AEI has long been a major nexus for such inter-familial relationships. A long-time collaborator with Perle, Michael Ledeen is married to Barbara Ledeen, a founder and director of the anti-feminist Independent Women's Forum (IWF), who is currently a major player in the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and another neo-con power couple -- David and Meyrav Wurmser -- co-authored a 1996 memorandum for Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu outlining how to break the Oslo peace process and invade Iraq as the first step to transforming the Middle East.
And which infamous ex-Reaganite do the Kagans and another leading neocon family have in common? None other than Iran-contra veteran Elliott Abrams.
Now the director of Near Eastern Affairs in Bush's National Security Council, Abrams worked closely with Bob Kagan back in the Reagan era. He is also the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz, long-time editor of the influential conservative Jewish publication Commentary, and his wife, Midge Decter, a fearsome polemicist in her own right.
In addition to being Abrams' father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz is also the father of John Podhoretz, a columnist for the Murdoch-owned New York Post and frequent guest on the Murdoch-owned Fox News channel.
As editor of Commentary, Norman offered writing space to rising stars of the neocon movement for more than 30 years. His proteges include former U.N. ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Pipes, who was Ronald Reagan's top advisor on the "Evil Empire," as the president liked to call the Soviet Union. His son, Daniel Pipes, has also made a career out of battling "evil," which in his case is Islam. And to tie it all up neatly, in 2002, Podhoretz received the highest honor bestowed by the AEI: the Irving Kristol award.
Organizations
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Founded in 1943, the American Enterprise Institute is today the single most influential think tank in America and the country's main bastion of neoconservatism. In a January 2003 speech at an AEI dinner celebrating the life of neocon godfather Irving Kristol, President Bush underscored the institute's impact. After commending AEI for having "some of the finest minds in our nation," the president said: "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds." That was a conservative estimate: Since the Bush administration took over in 2001, more than two dozen AEI alums have served either in a policy post or on one of the government's many panels and commissions--like the Defense Policy Board, which until early 2003 was chaired by AEI all-star Richard Perle. source
AEI has been an avid opponent of the Kyoto protocol, as well as most other environmental regulations. AEI climate science skeptics include James K. Glassman, also of ExxonMobil-funded Tech Central Station. ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond is on the AEI board of trustees. ExxonMobil gave AEI approximately $925,000 between 1998 and 2003. source
Most of AEI's Board of Directors are CEOs of major companies, including ExxonMobil, Motorola, American Express, State Farm Insurance, and Dow Chemicals.
Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, was until recently on the board of trustees of American Enterprise Institute. Other famous former trustees include Vice President Dick Cheney. source
A major backer (Bruce Kovner) of the New York Sun is also a backer of the AEI.
Roger Hertog is also a major backer the NY Sun, a trustee of the AEI and (with Michael Steinhardt) in 2002 bought up 2/3 of The New Republic
(more on The New Republic in just a bit)
Richard Perle was (until 2003) "a member of the board of Hollinger International, which owns a minority stake in the Sun"
(quoted from my Neocon notes and quotes - featuring Eli Lake diary entry)
American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC)
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) describes itself as "the only private, nongovernmental organization in North America exclusively dedicated to promoting the peaceful resolution of the Russo-Chechen war." (1)
ACPC's activities include organizing public education programs, developing policy recommendations for lawmakers, and collaborating with activists, journalists, and scholars. It also works closely with a range of nongovernmental policy groups and think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Jamestown Foundation
Benador Associates (BA)
"When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been. . . . But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
The membership of the CFR includes past Presidents, Ambassadors, Secretaries of State, Wall Street investors, international bankers, foundation executives, think tank executives, lobbyist lawyers, NATO and Pentagon military leaders, wealthy industrialists, journalists, media owners and executives, university presidents and key professors, select Congressmen, Supreme Court Justices, Federal Judges, wealthy entrepreneurs, and as many as ten 9-11 Commission Members. [1] [2]
Due perhaps more to its origins, associations, and history, than to its current composition and activities, the CFR does have a reputation as one of the "triumvirate of elite organizations" together with the Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission. Elitism doesn't necessarily preclude the ability to provide unbiased and useful service however. [3]
"[t]he Council has no affiliation with the U.S. government."
A Snapshot of CFR Dominance
Establishment photo-op: (from the left) former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State James Baker, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. source
A Report on CIA Infiltration and Manipulation of the Mass Media
Should CIA agents be allowed to pose as journalists to further the aims of their clandestine activities?
Members of a Council on Foreign Relations task force on the future of U.S. intelligence in the post-Cold War world say yes, and a CIA official recently came forward to admit that the Agency already occasionally does so despite regulations barring the practice. But is this a breaking story or just the latest chapter in a spy story that traces its roots back to the 1950's? While they may act like strangers in public, the press and the CIA have a sordid past that spans more than four decades.
TESTIMONY OF JAMES LILLY
HEARING OF THE COMMISSION ON THE ROLES AND CAPABILITIES
OF THE UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY (1996)
Journalists, I think, you don't recruit them. We can't do that. They've told us not to do that. But you certainly sit down with your journalists, and I've done this and the Station Chief has done it, others have done it, it's a wonderful way of finding out what's happening in a country, whether it's Steve Muffson or Patrick Tyler of the Times or Debbie Wong of ABC, you've got to keep in touch with these people because they're very well plugged in. But you stay away from the clandestined aspects of it.
The Homeland Security Act and the CFR
One area of interest regarding the HSA is the question of its origins. The American people were told that the Act was a direct result of September 11. However, it's widely known that the Hart-Rudman Commission, (officially the "US Commission on National Security for the 21st Century"), created under Clinton in 1998, actually authored the blueprint for what became the HSA, and published it in a report called the "Road Map for National Security: Imperative For Change."
The Hart-Rudman report called for the inception of a new, independent "National Homeland Security Agency," which would integrate various US Government agencies, including FEMA, the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and Border Patrol.
Of the 14 members of the Hart-Rudman Commission, nine were members of the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR roster has included, over the years, almost every CIA director since Allen Dulles, as well as most of the conservatives who populate the Bush Administration, including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Robert Zoellich, George Tenet and Paul Wolfowitz.
Admiral Chester Ward, retired judge advocate general of the US Navy and long-time CFR member was quoted in Jim Marrs' book "Rule By Secrecy" as saying that the one common objective of every CFR member is to "bring about the surrender of sovereignity and the national independence of the US... primarily they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of the global government."
Vice President Dick Cheney has said "We created the Department of Homeland Security, brought together 180,000 federal employees from 22 agencies, for a single purpose: to better protect America."
One is forced to wonder exactly whom Dick Cheney is trying to protect when one considers that his highly secretive Energy Task Force (which, FOIA petitions have revealed, conducted secret study sessions of maps of Iraqi oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals in March, 2001), would have been free to meet and generate any kind of document in utter secrecy after the HSA's ratification. source
Committee for the Free World (CFW)
In its initial press conference, the CFW said it planned to work for freedom "in the world of ideas," and planned to concentrate its efforts on books, newspapers, broadcasting networks, and in classrooms. (2) It envisioned itself as an organization committed to the defense of the non-communist world "against the rising menace of totalitarianism."(2) The group's intellectualism, democratic emphasis, and strident anticommunism places the CFW in the arena of the numerous neoconservative groups formed preceeding and following the election of former President Ronald Reagan.
Committee on the Present Danger (CPD)
The revitalization of the CPD grew out of an independent group called Team B. Team B was authorized in 1976 by President Gerald Ford and organized by then-CIA chief, George Bush. The purpose of Team B was to develop an independent judgment of Soviet capabilities and intentions. Team B was headed by Richard Pipes and included Paul Nitze, Foy Kohler, William Van Cleave, Lt. Gen. Daniel O. Graham (ret. ), Thomas Wolf of RAND Corp and Gen. John Vogt, Jr. (ret. ). Also a part of Team B were five officials still active in government: Maj. Gen. George Keegan, Brig. Gen. Jasper Welch, Paul D. Wolfowitz of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and Seymour Weiss of the State Department. (2,6) Team B was housed in the offices of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. (6)
The political base for CPD II was in the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, a group formed in 1972 by the hard-line, anti-Soviet wing of the Senate, led by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson. (6) These conservative Democrats contended that communism was a great evil and that the U.S. had a moral obligation to eradicate it and foster democracy throughout the world. (2) The 193 individual members of the revitalized CPD comprise a who's who of the Democratic Party establishment and a cross-section of Republican leadership. (1,2) Eventually, 13 of the 18 members of the Foreign Policy Task Force of the CDM, lead by Eugene V. Rostow, joined the CPD. Notable among them were Jeane Kirkpatrick, Leon Keyserling, Max Kampelman, Richard Shifter, and John P. Roche. (6)
Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG)
In February 1998, the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG) called upon US President Bill Clinton to endorse a scenario which, more than five years later (August 2003), has become a familiar one to the world.[1]
The CPSG asked Clinton "to go beyond a military strike on Iraq and to help overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with a provisional government." According to the news report, however, "U.S. law and international opposition to such a plan would make it unlikely."[2]
"Neocons are fond of keeping business in the family. Many of the current members and associates of the Committee, PNAC, and The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI) were involved with the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf (CPSG), a hard right group created prior to the Gulf War. CPSG was co-chaired by Bush chickenhawk Richard Perle along with former New York Democratic Rep. Stephen Solarz. CPSG teamed up with the Bush Senior administration to mobilize support for Iraq Attack, version I. According to Jim Lobe of the Project Against the Present Danger, CPSG received a sizable grant from the Wisconsin-based Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, a major funder of both PNAC and AEI. Obviously, these folks like [to] share the same bed."[5]
Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf Open Letter to the President, 19 February 1998
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
For many years, CSIS was also seen as a think tank where right-wing "officials-in-waiting" could wait until their next appointment in government.
CSIS is dominated by members with strong ties to the government and private industry. Sam Nunn, CSIS Chairman of the Board of Trustees, served as U.S. Senator from Georgia for 24 years (1972-1996) and is currently on the boards of top US corporations and a law firm.
Center for Security Policy (CSP)
Founded in 1988, the Center for Security Policy (CSP) says that it is " committed to the time-tested philosophy of promoting international peace through American strength." According to CSP, it "accomplishes this goal by stimulating and informing national and international policy debates, in particular, those involving regional, defense, economic, financial, and technology developments that bear upon the security of the United States." 1
CSP's slogan is: "To promote world peace through American strength."
CSP Members and Staff
Frank Gaffney, who founded CSP in 1988, is CSP's president, and has deep roots in the neoconservative camp, dating back to the late 1970s when he was an aide to Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, leader of the Cold War warriors and Israel boosters in Congress. Gaffney served as the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the Reagan administration, following four years of service as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear forces and arms control policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson. According to Gaffney, CSP is "an organization for our time ... [whose] lean agile organizational structure enables the Center to bring to today's debate what we call `precision-guided ideas'."
Defense Advisory Board (DAB)
Historically, the DPBAC has mostly served as a method for the Pentagon to leverage consulting expertise in the private sector. However, the DPBAC now serves a very powerful and influential role in foreign policy and the George Walker Bush Presidency. One time chairman Richard Perle, a neo-conservative, is a staunch supporter for a war with Iraq. Perle and other members of the Board have strong ties to private interests that can potentially profit financially from a war. Some of his ties have raised conflict of interest and ethical issues, leading Perle to resign his chairmanship in an attempt quiet the criticism.[1] [2] [3]
Other members of the board also have strong ties to private business, especially defense contractors. Members disclose their business interests with the Pentagon, but they are not made available to the public, leaving only the Pentagon as the ethical arbitar of the Board. Companies with ties to DPBAC include Bechtel, Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton and smaller players like Symantec Corp., Technology Strategies and Alliance Corp., and Polycom Inc.
(see also -
Advisors of Influence: Nine Members of the Defense Policy Board Have Ties to Defense Contractors)
Hudson Institute (HI)
The Institute was founded in 1961 by the late Herman Kahn and his colleagues Max Singer and Oscar Ruebhausen from the RAND Corporation. Initially its policy focus, while right-wing, was dictated by Kahn's own interests (such as domestic and military uses of nuclear power, the future of the US workplace, and the science of "futurology"). Following his death in 1983, the Institute expanded its staff and took on a more overtly conservative stance.
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Critics have alleged, in part, that JINSA, perhaps in association with Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy (http://www.csp.org) is part of a cooperative initiative to influence governmental affairs in Washington in a manner favorable to Israeli, or Zionist, interests. [1]
Office of Special Plans (OSP)
The Office of Special Plans (OSP) was created by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to help create a case to invade Iraq. OSP evolved from the Northern Gulf Affairs Office, which fell under the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia policy office. It was renamed and expanded to the Office of Special Plans in October 2002 to to handle prewar and postwar planning.
'What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline,' Kwiatkowski wrote recently. 'If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam occupation has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense.' She described the activities of Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans as, 'A subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-optation through deceit of a large segment of the Congress.'
Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a neo-conservative think tank with strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute. PNAC's web site says it was "established in the spring of 1997" as "a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership."
PNAC's policy document, "Rebuilding America's Defences (http://www.newamericancentury.org/...)," openly advocates for total global military domination. Many PNAC members hold highest-level positions in the George W. Bush administration.
The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts (TE)
The link between the institutes/think tanks and the mass media is provided by the large body of experts on terrorism, or "terrorologists," who publish books, articles, and monographs through leading publishing houses, the mainstream press, and newsletters and journals issued by the various institutions that house them. They count among their ranks right-wing journalists and policy analysts, former military and intelligence officers, ultraconservative academics, counterinsurgency specialists, FBI informants, and CIA contract employees. A significant number of these experts are affiliated with ultra-right-wing organizations such as the WACL, CAUSA, the ASC and its affiliate, the WACL-based Coalition for Peace Through Strength, and the John Birch Society.
With the aid of their sponsoring organizations, these experts attend one another's conferences and seminars, serve on the editorial advisory boards of one another's journals (such as Terrorism and Conflict Quarterly), review and write forewords for their colleagues' books, and cite one another copiously. Through this mutually supportive network, these experts establish their facts as true and their very similar assumptions and opinions as mere common sense. They validate themselves by echoing one another in an information market which they dominate. There are other individuals knowledgeable about the issues terrorologists address, but they start from the wrong premises, are not funded by the institutes and think tanks of the terrorism industry, and are thus not properly accredited. Furthermore, their discordant views do not mesh well with the commonsense understanding of the issues established by the government, industry members, and press, and they are generally excluded from serious discussions in public forums that reach large numbers of people.
Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)
The establishment of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy' (WINEP) in 1985 greatly expanded the pro-Israel lobbys influence over policy as well. WINEP's founding director, Martin Indyk, had previously been research director of AIPAC which, then as now, focuses much of its efforts on Congress. Indyk developed WINEP into a highly effective think tank devoted to maintaining and strengthening the US-Israel alliance through advocacy in the media and lobbying the executive branch. Indyk is a major proponent of the two-state solution.
Corporations
Enron
Global Crossing
Arthur Andersen
Carlyle Group
Qwest
Nortel
Halliburton
Exxon Mobil
Lockheed Martin
some connections between many of these corporations can be seen at the Axis of Corporate Evil
Media
Hollinger International Inc.
New York Sun (see my Neocon notes and quotes - featuring Eli Lake post for lots of info on the Sun)
The New Republic (TNR)
National Review (NRO)
The Weekly Standard (WS)
More information on the OSP (includes a chart link):
The Lie Factory
A Mother Jones Special Investigation
The inside story of how the Bush administration pushed disinformation and bogus intelligence and led the nation to war.
By Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest
Graphics on The Intelligence Chain
Illustration by Nigel Holmes
Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon established a secret intelligence unit to build the case against Iraq. The unit's members -- many of whom were recruited from neoconservative think tanks, primarily the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century -- funneled faulty information up the chain of command, often all the way to the White House. By early 2002, the unit had been incorporated into the Defense Department's Office of Special Plans.
Some Cheney items:
After leaving the Defence Department in 1993, Dick Cheney served as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and lectured widely around the country. He currently serves on the Board of Directors at Proctor and Gamble, Union Pacific and EDS. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Southern Methodist University and the American Enterprise Institute. He also serves on the Board of Directors and the Public Policy Committee of the American Petroleum Institute.
from the introduction-
Full text of Dick Cheney's speech at the Institute of Petroleum Autumn lunch, 1999 by Dick Cheney
Oil is unique in that it is so strategic in nature. We are not talking about soapflakes or leisurewear here. Energy is truly fundamental to the world's economy. The Gulf War was a reflection of that reality. The degree of government involvement also makes oil a unique commodity. This is true in both the overwhelming control of oil resources by national oil companies and governments as well as in the consuming nations where oil products are heavily taxed and regulated.
It is the basic, fundamental building block of the world's economy. It is unlike any other commodity.
Oil is the only large industry whose leverage has not been all that effective in the political arena. Textiles, electronics, agriculture all seem oftentimes to be more influential. Our constituency is not only oilmen from Louisiana and Texas, but software writers in Massachusetts and specially steel producers in Pennsylvania. I am struck that this industry is so strong technically and financially yet not as politically successful or influential as are often smaller industries. We need to earn credibility to have our views heard.
Lynne Cheney's 1999 director compensation packages:
American Express/IDS Funds, $95,000
Lockheed-Martin, 120,000
Reader's Digest, $50,000
Union Pacific Resources Group, $40,000
Dick Cheney's 1999 director compensation packages:
Procter & Gamble, $110,000
Electronic Data Systems, $112,500
Union Pacific, $60,000
Dick Cheney's 1999 Halliburton compensation package: $26.4 million source
Office of the Vice President (
OVP)
Cheney's Office Declares Exemption from Secrecy Oversight by Michelle Chen in The New Standard.
In its 2005 report to the president released last month, the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), a branch of the National Archives, provides a quantitative overview of hundreds of thousands of pages of classified and declassified documents. But the vice president's input consists of a single footnote explaining that his office failed to meet its reporting requirements for the third year in a row.
Though not the only government entity to shrug off the reporting duties, Cheney's office is unique in that it has actually issued a public justification for its non-compliance. Cheney's office argued on Monday that its dual role in the federal government places it above the reporting mandate.
"This matter has been carefully reviewed, and it has been determined that the reporting requirement does not apply to [the Office of the Vice President], which has both executive and legislative functions," Lea McBride, a spokesperson for Cheney's office, told The NewStandard.
Cheney's press aides declined to specify to TNS how the office's legislative role effectively exempted it from the executive order, or why the office had complied prior to 2003.
Cheney aide is screening legislation
Adviser seeks to protect Bush power The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington , is the Bush administration's leading architect of the ``signing statements" the president has appended to more than 750 laws. The statements assert the president's right to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Just in case you still want more reading material:
25 Ways to Suppress Truth The Rules of Disinformation
War Is Sell
some wikipedia entries:
Operation Mockingbird Media manipulation Media literacy News management News Embargo Psychological warfare Information Operations RoadmapChurch committee List of proven conspiracies Plausible deniabilityPsyOp False flag Astroturfing Covert operation Operation Northwoods
Lavon Affair Information warfare Big Lie Propaganda in the United States
some links to articles about stories which are considered by some to be disinformation and/or PsyOp (with their evidence for that contention)
2006 Iranian sumptuary law controversy (more informally generally referred to as something like the false Iranian yellow bands for Jews story or something similar)
Wag the Kennel? The Kenneth Joseph Story by Carol Lipton (Arnaud de Borchgrave's "story" of the human shield in Iraq who changed his mind)
In The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed, Craig Unger mentions a few others including "Billygate", The Bulgarian Connection, and in the main thrust of the article, the Niger yellowcake documents.
various other links and quotes, mostly to do with propaganda, the media, disinformation and intelligence:
http://www.usatoday.com/...
http://www.projectcensored.org/...
http://www.projectcensored.org/...
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...
operation mockinbird
http://www.vanityfair.com/...
http://library.thinkquest.org/...
http://www.psywar.org/
http://regimechangeiran.blogspot.com/...
http://www.larouchepub.com/...
The Moonie-Sharon dirty alliance was hardly a dark secret. During the height of the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy scandal in the United States, CAUSA's International Security Council staged two high-profile conferences in Tel Aviv, where the Moonies publicly mingled with the Sharon mafia. On Jan. 26-29, 1986, ISC sponsored a conference on "State Terrorism and the International System." Churba chaired the conference, and introduced his boss, Col. Bo Hi Pak, who delivered the opening remarks. Moonie-owned Washington Times editor-in-chief Arnaud de Borchgrave urged the conference attendees to back a new Washington-Tel Aviv axis for combatting terrorism.
Two of the other speakers at the Moonie event were Raphael "Dirty Rafi" Eytan and Yossef Bodansky. Up until the day of Jonathan Pollard's arrest in Nov. 1985, Eytan was the director of the super-secret Israeli espionage unit, Lekem, which was established under the Ministry of Defense when Sharon was its Minister. Eytan has been Sharon's partner in crime since the 1950s, when Eytan was a top official of Israeli intellgence and Sharon ran IDF "Brigade 101," a death squad that assassinated Palestinians and Arabs.
Bodansky had worked for Israeli Air Force Intelligence before coming to the United States. According to one account in the Dec. 1, 1985 issue of the Israeli newspaper Davar, Bodansky, while working as a "journalist" for the Moonie-owned Washington Times, was, in fact, one of the Lekem agents in Washington--controlling Pollard's spy activities. Bodansky, according to Israeli sources, was dispatched to the United States by Moshe Arens, to obtain U.S. technical secrets that Israel desperately needed, to complete work on their Lavie jet.
Bodansky insinuated himself in the U.S. right-wing Zionist circles, centered around the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), where he worked closely with Richard Perle, Stephen Bryen, and Michael Ledeen. Bodansky was hired in the early 1980s as an "outside consultant" to the Pentagon unit headed by Perle and Bryen, which specialized in military and dual-use technology transfers.
Bodansky, in addition to his "employment" by the Moonie Washington Times, also was a partner of Washington Times editor-in-chief Arnaud de Borchgrave and British spook John Rees in Mid-Atlantic Associates, a small "think tank" that was bankrolled by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith and by right-wing moneybags Richard Mellon Scaife.
Committee for the Free World http://rightweb.irc-online.org/...
http://www.reachm.com/...
http://www.counterpunch.org/...
http://mprofaca.cro.net/...
http://mprofaca.cro.net/...