If you haven't heard of
Ray McGovern, you should. He is the brave man, he has the knowledge and experience found in the wise, and he has something important to say to America -- which I will paraphrase, so that you may draw your own conclusions. This is aimed not just at Kossacks -- please read on.
I had the good fortune to be able to hear Mr. McGovern speak a few days ago. He is traveling the Northeast, speaking to Americans, telling them what he feels they should know. He came and spoke at a gathering an hour outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was held in a junior high school auditorium. The gathering was sponsored by (as best I can tell), Democracy for America and Witness for Peace.
Join me over the flip for my notes from his speech, and his upcoming schedule.
Please note that Mr. McGovern will be speaking in public and on the radio almost every day between now and November 7th. Won't you work to make sure as many people as possible come hear this patriot speak the truth about the invasion of Iraq? Speak truth to power? This isn't about convincing Kossacks. This is about spreading the word beyond the Internet. Get the non-bloggers to come. Get the independents to come. Get concerned parents to come. Get anyone who is concerned about what has happened to our country to come hear Mr. McGovern speak.
I found it an inspiring, and educational, evening. I didn't know enough about Mr. McGovern before the evening started. I knew he'd had the chutzpah to stand up in a public forum and call out Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. You can watch the video of that here. But who was this brave man?
Bio of Ray McGovern: Ray McGovern was formerly one of the CIA's senior-most analysts preparing the President's Daily Brief (PDB) for presentation at the White House in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan Administrations. During the mid-eighties, Ray was one of the senior analysts conducting the early morning briefings of the PDB one-on-one with the Vice-President, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State and the Chairman, of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.
McGovern in addition chaired the development of several "National Intelligence Estimates." Highly classified "National Intelligence Estimates" are the authoritative documents of the US government that represent the consensus assessment of the risk posed to the United States national interest by other nations or security issues in the formal, professional judgment of the senior-most members of the US government's 16 intelligence agencies. The New York Times of 24 September 2006, in a front-page story headlined, "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat" reported: "National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue...."
Upon retirement, after a distinguished 27 year career with the CIA's analytical division, McGovern received the CIA's Intelligence Commendation Medallion and a letter of appreciation from then-President George H. W. Bush. He still maintains correspondence with the former president (Bush I) who is also a former Director of the CIA.
McGovern returned his CIA service award when the current George W. Bush Administration defended the use of torture by the US government, to disassociate himself from the practice. (Emphasis added.)
Here are my notes from Mr. McGovern's talk. (Posted with his permission. I spoke with him after the speech -- a calm, clever, funny, but worried man with the gravitas so missing in our elected leaders in the White House, his attitude was "Whatever we can do to help turn the current tide of malfeasance, let's do it!:") Please note that these are MY notes of what Mr. McGovern said, and as such are incomplete and surely fail to capture the nuance and meaning of a live speech. Any mistakes are mine and not his. My comments are in curly brackets.
"Holding Our Government Accountable: Exposing The Truth and Lies About the Iraq War"
Mr. McGovern opens with some facts:
2800 American deaths. 650,000 dead Iraqi civilians. Due to our invasion. Figs. come from MIT and JHU. Methodology is sound. Asks: What have we become when people argue that the correct figure is "only 300,000"? Mentions the maimed soldiers. A lot of them. The next 2.5 weeks will are crucial to our nations future. Asks for a moment of silence {in which to consider the dead, the wounded, and our responsibility}.
Some background factoids.
First, a citation from Charles Péguy: "Together is the important thing ... together we must all return to God's house." In 43 years there has been a sea change which dwarfs all others: no mainstream media. The web has made a difference {righting this inequity}. Most important fact of the 21st. Century: World is running out of oil. Demand exceeds production. The Iraq war is the first of the resource wars of the 21st. Century. We need to talk to bad people. Even people we don't like. Reagan talked to, and made treaties with, the Soviet Union. He had an arms control agreement which worked. Bush Admin. doesn't talk to bad people. Really dumb.
Aside on being a spy.
People tell him, "He doesn't look like a spy". {He looks like a cross between an English professor and an engineer.} What is a spy? The main function of CIA: to speak truth to power. Truman brought it all together after the war: central repository of inf. for analysts to analyse. Truman said: give it to me straight. Example: if you bomb Vietnam, what will happen. Ans: no way is Ho Chi Min going to give up, even if you bomb the trail. It won't work. Of course the president did it anyway.
Spy trade secret: 80% of the inf. you need to analyse anything is available as "open source". Even more so today. That's what anyalyts do: gather, conclude, tell those in power the truth. Colby got fired by Kissinger for telling the truth (and threatening to go public with the 1950's abuses in the CIA).
Faith-based thing going on in Washington.
Has affected analysis. Faith-based intellegence analysis. {Fixing the intelligence around the policy?}
What happened {regarding Iraq and the Bush Administration}?
Let's look. Do a media analysis. Watching what imp. people say in public. W. started saying things about WMD right away when he took office. McGovern shows video of Powell and Rice in summer 2001. "No threat." "Iraq is NOT a threat." No WMD. Powell and Rice are each is asked, each says Saddam has no WMD. {From the Rush to War DVD? Note: I will diary this important DVD as soon as I can.} Emphasizes 2001.
Six weeks later: 9/11. After 9/11, "everything changed". Ray says this is stupid. No rocket scientist needed to figure this out. {He means, that the government was lying about WMD.}
Ray put together Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and started writing letters. Said, It is going to be catastrophic.
It now is: welcome to catastrophe.
Cites Downing St. minutes. We know from this patriot's leak, that the coming war will be justified by WMD and terrorism. "The intelligence and the facts are being fixed around the policy".
Aside on Fox News: Fox News says "fixed" means something else in Britain. This lasted for two full news cycles on Fox. McGovern called an old friend in England and asked "What does "fixed" mean?" Of course it means the same thing in England that is does in the US.
The Iraqi foreign minister at the time was a CIA agent. Knew a lot about WMD. Told the CIA that ALL WMD WERE DESTROYED AFTER THE WAR IN 1991. Told Andy Card. Offered more info. Card said "No, thanks."
Other noxious claim was that Saddam has something to do with 9/11. He did not. CIA knew this and told Cheney. Cheney's response: set up mini-CIA {OSP?} and "found" evidence.
What happened on 9/12. Quotation from Richard Clarke's book. (Clark) ran into the president outside the situation room. "Look," he told us, "Go over everything. See if Saddam is linked." "But Mr. President, I told you: Al Qaida did this." "I know, I know. Look at it again. Look into Saddam. IRAQ." "Wolfowitz got him," the other person there said, shaking her head.
Even Pat Robertson (R-Kansas) -- chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- has finally been forced to admit that the Saddam / 9/11 connection was a lie.
In sum: we have documentary evidence that the president knew there were NO WMD. We have documentary evidence that there is no connection between Saddam and 9/11.
What do we do now?
People say "How are we going to get out?" We tried SO HARD to prevent this from happening. In my view and the other 56 members of VIPS there are two possibilities: stay or withdraw.
Stay the course Result: Vietnam. More violence. Much more death. American farm kids killed and maimed.
Withdraw. What will happen? Don't know. Let's pay attention to what the Iraqi's want.
Suggestions: 1. Disavow any claim to the oil. 2. Disavow any claim to the permanent military bases. 3. TALK to the people involved. 4. Help them help us exit as gracefully as we can.
Withdrawal is the only smart thing to do.
"There is no criminal class in America, except for Congress."
That is a quotation from Mark Twain. McGovern then brings up the American "Enabling" Act: dictatorial powers. {For the historical precedent, see Enabling act.} "I, Ray McGovern, can be disappeared." Suspension of habeus corpus. End of 900 years of legal tradition. Allows president to torture at will, listen to all conversations at will. Has pardoning provision built-in.
Are there signs of hope?
Yes. A lot of Americans have come to the realization that they've been had. Frank Rick has been on Oprah. Martha Raditz asked Bush re: Roberts report on no evidence of ties betw. Saddam and 9/11.
McGovern gets even more serious. But it's getting kinda late folks. The implications are horrendous. We have a couple of weeks to change this. What we have now in this country is a "one-party state".
Historical parallel.
I was born in Aug. 1939 {?} on week before Hitler sent troops into Poland. Spent time in Germany professionally. Speak German. Asked Germans, HOW COULD YOU LET HITLER PASS THE ENABLING ACT? HOW COULD YOUR CHURCHES NOT FIND THEIR VOICE?
I SEE VERY DISTURBING PARALLELS NOW. OUR CHURCHES DO NOT SPEAK OUT AGAINST TORTURE. THEY ARE NOT "PRO-LIFE". TAKE NO NOTICE OF PEOPLE GETTING KILLED IN WARS.
I see parallels with the current situation.
Less than 1% of the people in this country are effected by this war. SPEAK OUT! Very few in Germany spoke out. Some did.
Conclusion of talk:
Reads sonnet "Schult" -- "Guilt"
I should have earlier recognized my duty
I should have more shortly called evil "evil"
I did warn, but not enough and clear
And now I recognize what I was guilty of.
It is getting to be too late.
{End of talk.}
Note: typing and formatting this has taken a long time. I will post details of McGovern's schedule in the comments. I want to get this posted before the end of the business day.