Wednesday, July 23, 2003

The Government Lies QUOTE OF THE DAY Thirty years later, Americans are still asking why we went to war in Vietnam and stayed at war. Of course, the American presidents gave answers at that time -- and we are still looking for better answers." - - Daniel Ellsberg KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JULY 23rd 1973 - Testifying before the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin Committee), John Ehrlichman, aide to President Richard Nixon, asserted that the burglary of anti-war activist Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office was within the constitutional powers of the president. The televised committee hearings exposed a wide range of activities, including a secret White House program of harassment and IRS audits of political enemies, burglaries, wiretaps, forging of State Department documents, a secret fund to finance spying and sabotage of Democratic Party primary campaigns and more that culminated in the House vote for impeachment and the Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. RHINO HERE: The Quote of the Day comes from a January interview with Daniel Ellsberg which is linked below. The excerpt is Ellsberg's rendition / of H.R. Haldeman addressing his boss, President Nixon / paraphrasing something Donald Rumsfeld had said. It's tough for many people to swallow the fact that their government lies to them. It's a realty my Father fought hard to deny. That's because he had fought hard in WW2, even unto The Battle Of The Bulge where he was injured. The Pentagon Papers & all they implied were really hard for him. Today's Blog focuses on the lies & schemes of Vice President Dick. Source of Pentagon Papers Critiques Iraq Coverage E&P's Q&A With Daniel Ellsberg , JANUARY 28, 2003 ...Talking to [President] Nixon, H.R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, paraphrased a staff colleague's judgment of the impact of the Pentagon Papers after the first two days of reporting on them by The New York Times: "[O]ut of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say; and you can't rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong." The White House aide Haldeman was quoting was Donald Rumsfeld. Whether Rumsfeld himself has kept that lesson in mind isn't clear. Has the press? I'm not sure if the press learned from Vietnam how to do better. In any case, the press as a whole is not doing it better now... THE INTERVIEW IS ALL AT: Q&A With Daniel Ellsberg The World According To Halliburton: The Interactive Map Want to know where to find the 58 off-shore tax shelters used by Halliburton - the defense contractor whose fortunes became bloated with U.S. tax dollars under Dick Cheney's stewardship? Try the Cayman Islands (9 subsidiaries), Barbados, the Dutch Antilles, the Island of Jersey, Bahrain, Mauritius and tiny Lichtenstein. Mother Jones provides an on-line interactive map, complete with individual histories and a list of the company's key Defense Department contracts. According to the Mother Jones, Halliburton's revenues rose 26% in one year after Cheney took over. Halliburton's overseas energy projects were subsidized by $3.3 billion in federal loans and guarantees. Cheney doubled the company's political contributions to $1.2 million. Federal investigators said the company "had the upper hand in the Pentagon, because it knew the process like the back of its hand." Go to: http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/28/we_455_01.html Kucinich Challenges Cheney in Iraq Flap By MALIA RULON , Associated Press, July 22, 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential aspirant Dennis Kucinich is calling on Vice President Dick Cheney to explain his role in how the now-disavowed claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa ended up in President Bush's State of the Union address. In a letter sent to the vice president, the Ohio congressman and two members of the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations asked Cheney to explain his multiple visits to CIA headquarters. ``These visits were unprecedented. Normally, vice presidents, yourself included, receive regular briefings from CIA in your office ... there is no reason for the vice president to make personal visits to CIA analysts,'' said the letter, which was sent late Monday... http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2936760,00.html Not Business as Usual: Cheney and the CIA By Ray McGovern, AlterNet June 30, 2003 As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit... READ MORE: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16283 7:02:43 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Cheney had Iraq in sights two years ago Cheney had Iraq in sights two years ago By Simon English in New York, Money Telegraph (Filed: 22/07/2003) Documents released under America's Freedom of Information Act reveal that an energy task force led by vice-president Dick Cheney was examining Iraq's oil assets two years before the latest war began. The papers were obtained after a long battle with the White House by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal charity that opposes government secrecy and which is suing for the dealings of the task force to be made public. The emergence of the documents could fuel claims that America's war in Iraq had as much to do with oil as national security. It also indicates that the Bush administration is beginning to lose the battle to keep its internal workings secret. The 16 pages, dated March 2001, show maps of Iraq oil fields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. A document titled Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts is also included, listing which countries were keen to do business with Saddam's regime. Judicial Watch requested the papers two years ago as part of its investigation into links between the Bush administration and senior energy executives including Enron's former chairman Ken Lay. Mr Cheney has fought the release of the documents at every stage. A court ordered two weeks ago that at least some of the task forces working papers should be made public. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said: "People will draw their own conclusions about the documents, but that is what an open society is about. Given the delay in their release, the Bush administration clearly did not want them to come out."... READ ON: http://money.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2003/07/22/cncheney22.xml "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 6:17:12 AM    comment

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