Michael Collins

I just read the presidents big speech tonight and it struck me.  There were some key lines left out of the speech.  You may have had the same response.  For the sake of clarity and fairness, I’ve tried to reconstruct the missing lines.  I’m sure that the omissions were just an accident.  Or maybe that Robert Gibbs may be up to his old tricks again.  My insertions are in italics, following the president’s words from the official White House transcript.  White House, August 31, 2010 Here goes.

THE PRESIDENT:  Good evening.  Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.  But before I do that, we need a moment of truth.  The Iraq war was based on a deliberate lie involving the White House distorting the National intelligence estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).  The report got it wrong on WMD.  There were none.  But it concluded that the only way the nonexistent WMD would be used against the United States was in retaliation for a US attack on Iraq that threatened Saddam Hussein.  By deleting this information, the Bush-Cheney White House justified a preemptive invasion without any basis, a crime under international law that our nation helped establish after World War II. READ FULL POST

Michael Collins

Wikileaks offered its first release since the controversial distribution of documents related to the United States effort in Afghanistan.

The current leak was posted to their web site on August 25. It is titled CIA Red Cell Memorandum on United States “exporting terrorism”, 2 Feb 2010.

The leak describes Red Cell as a CIA unit created by the Director to develop “out-of-the-box” analysis offering “alternative viewpoints” on key intelligence issues.

This document doesn’t disappoint in being out-of-the-box.

CIA Perception Management – How the World Sees the United States

CIA Red Cell starts out by stating, “This report examines the implications of what it would mean for the US to be seen increasingly as an incubator and exporter of terrorism.” Don’t hold your breath. There’s nothing there about the School of the Americas, the shock and awe invasion of Iraq and the carnage that entailed, or 300 dead Panamanians and United States soldiers as a result of the 1981 manhunt for General Manuel Noriega, a former US asset.
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Michael Collins

A revealing article appeared in Voice of America (VOA) on August 12. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the following statement:

“I think we have an agreement with the Iraqis that both governments have agreed to, that we will be out of Iraq at the end of 2011,” he (Gates) said. “If a new government is formed there and they want to talk about beyond 2011, we’re obviously open to that discussion. But that initiative will have to come from the Iraqis.” Robert Gates in “US Military Prepares to Leave Iraq, But May Stay If Asked”, Voice of America (VOA), Aug 12

At the time of this post, if you do a Google “News” search for the sentence underlined, you will find it only at the VOA source. The article notes that Gates made the statement, “to reporters on his aircraft during a domestic trip on Wednesday.” Apparently, it wasn’t newsworthy except to the official news agency for the United States government.

President Obama’s withdrawal promise has been treated with some skepticism. Now we’ve got Robert Gates adding a cynical codicil: “if they want to talk … we’re obviously open to discussion.”

Who’s in charge here?
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Michael Collins
(Satire)

White House Press Secretary, Robert “the mole” Gibbs, was outed last night for his lead role in throwing the 2010 congressional election to the Republican Party. The White House refused to return calls to comment on the charge or verify the outline of the carefully orchestrated plot. But a variety of off the record sources spoke as one – the plot is real and has been going on long before the 2008 general election. The scope of the plot goes well beyond the upcoming congressional contests.

In a recent interview for The Hill newspaper, Gibbs used an entirely new technique in election tactics – offend and humiliate a key element of your voting block right before a critical election. Gibbs ridiculed progressives as part of the “Professional Left” and said, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.” Research indicates that this approach has never been used within 90 days of a general election.

But the story goes much deeper than simple electoral politics. The planned outburst has a short term benefit for Republicans but, as we will see, Gibbs is reporting to a higher authority.
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By Michael Collins

“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.” Julian Asange, Wikileaks, July 19 (Image right)

John Young was one of the co-founders of Wikileaks. He quickly left the organization in disagreement with some of its policies (CNET). Young was a natural choice for Wikileaks since he’s operated a leak website, CRYPTOME, since 1996. His site just released two articles on July 31 attributed to Wikileaks’ Julian Assange (me@i.1.org). The announcement read:

“These essays on conspiracies by Julian Assange (me@iq.org) were retrieved today from his website iq.org. The first from the currently active site, dated November 10, 2006, and the second at archive.org, dated December 3, 2006.” CRYPTOME – 31 July 2010 (author’s emphasis)

The essay titles indicate an entirely different take on conspiracies than that indicated by Assange in his 9/11 comments. In fact, in these two essays from 2006, Assange defines conspiracies as the critical state function to maintain power. The titles are:

State and Terrorist Conspiracies me @ iq.org November 10, 2006

Conspiracy as Governance me @ iq.org December 3, 2006

In the second essay, Conspiracy as Governance, Assange outlines the centrality of conspiracies to maintaining elites. READ FULL POST