Karen Kwiatkowski on Mark Warner, how the truth is suppressed, etc.

[pberq]

Wow! Karen Kwiatowski tells it like it is!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski133.html

Wishful Thinking Promoted, Truth Jailed

by Karen Kwiatkowski

<snip>

"This" is, in fact, unfinishable. It is unfinishable in the sense that the objective never included a U.S. military withdrawal. It is unfinishable because it was never intended to liberate Iraqis, or to ensure their self-determination. It is unfinishable because "success" requires the ongoing maintenance of regional lines of communication and a large number of massive military bases in Mesopotamia. It is unfinishable because the invasion was conducted precisely to facilitate and create new operational missions against Syria, Saudi Arabia, and later Iran and Pakistan.

Wishful thinking. We see it in Presidential candidate and the Democrat’s one real chance for the 2008 Presidency, Virginia Governor Mark Warner, who says "the debate should focus on how to finish the job; that Sunni Muslims and Iraqis in general should be involved in reconstruction; and that the United States must convince more allies to help."

Warner is the Democratic chance for the White House because of the political airgap between Mark "we don’t need more troops in Iraq" Warner and Hillary "we do need more troops in Iraq" Clinton. Warner gets points for reflecting the public mood on Iraq while satisfying the establishment’s need to remain in Iraq, control its politics, finances, security and energy policies.

Just to be clear, by "establishment," I am referring to the big government, big oil, and big military-industrial-congressional complex that is actively strangling the last bit of life out of an already unconscious American Republic.

[pberq]

1. sometimes truth must be jailed

I hope this doesn't violate copyright, but I just had to post more of Karen's article - great stuff!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski133.html

<snip>
Wishful thinking is promoted. But what of its competition? Truth, that poor relative, always hard to face, never needing anything and yet creating a certain discomfort among others in the room, remains a smoldering problem for Washington.

But she is easy to deal with. Give truth some exposure and commendation, and then pat her on the head and send her away. If she doesn’t go away, we can always ignore her.

Sometimes, as in the case of Sgt Kevin Benderman, truth must be jailed. Benderman told the truth about Iraq and about America, and he is safely ensconced for a fifteen-month prison term. SSgt Al Lorentz spoke truth, and he was both bad-mouthed and marginalized, as not a team player and worse. Captain Ian Fishback tried to do the right thing; not a single West Pointer stands up beside him, and his career may be over. Isolate, punish, pressure, torture. It’s what Truth deserves, isn’t it?

The House Committee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, led by Representative Chris Shays, was planning to hold a December 6th hearing on national security whistleblowers in a post 9-11 era, to look at the government’s systematic personal and professional abuse of government truthtellers. Shays has, thus far, refused to hear testimony from any of the members of the most active and current of government whistleblower groups, the National Security Whistleblower Coalition, founded by 9-11 FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. A letter-writing campaign by the NSWBC and many supporting organizations who stand for truth and accountability has resulted in the postponement of this hearing. Stay tuned as our elected public servants continue to wriggle.

[mopinko]

3. just awesome

wondered what happened to benderman. a fucking crime, that is.

[G_j]

2. right on the money -nominated

Kwiatkowski is sharp, and knows what she is talking about.

[MADem]

4. Gutsy woman--she was in a hellish position when she was at the

Pentagon. I have to give her credit for not just walking away from it all; she's kept up the fight in her post-military career.

The only point I take issue with her on is her description of Senator Clinton's Iraq stance. Clinton does not advocate more troops, in fact, she favors reduction, and her thinking is closer to Murtha's nowadays:

I do not believe that we should allow this to be an open-ended commitment without limits or end. Nor do I believe that we can or should pull out of Iraq immediately. I believe we are at a critical point with the December 15th elections that should, if successful, allow us to start bringing home our troops in the coming year, while leaving behind a smaller contingent in safer areas with greater intelligence and quick strike capabilities. This will advance our interests, help fight terrorism and protect the interests of the Iraqi people. http://www.clinton.senate.gov/issues/nationalsecurity/index.cfm?topic=iraqletter

[G_j]

6. NPR had a segment about the OSP yesterday

and had some folks from the Heritage Foundation and Pentagon rebutting what "some Democrats" have been saying about the OSP.
Gee, why didn't they interview Kwiatkowski?

Oh never mind....

[MADem]

12. Actually, she is not a Democrat

She's a Libertarian.

But the Heritage Foundation doesn't really want to argue with anyone, regardless of party, who can effectively rebut them....

[G_j]

13. actually that is what I meant

they cast the issue as partisan by citing the critics as Democrats.
There would have been no better person to interview for the story than Karen.
She is not an R or a D and she was THERE.

[MADem]

14. Ah, I misapprehended!

Thanks for setting me straight!

[pberq]

8. Thanks for posting Hilary's position

I'm glad to hear she is not still calling for sending in additional troops.

However, for me, her position is not the answer. First she uses the phrase "if successful" in refering to the elections as a condition for withdrawal. The military is saying that there is not a military solution to this situation. By setting some arbitrary condition of a successful election for withdrawing troops, she is missing the point.

Murtha and many military people have told us that the occupation is the CAUSE of the insurgency. So her plan of leaving behind a "smaller contingent" is not the solution.

[mmonk]

18. Senator Clinton's position has just recently changed.

Her position was more troops and the change might not have been made public enough when Karen wrote her draft.

[MADem]

22. I have seen where she has advocated "total force" plus ups

because she disagreed with the SECDEF CHENEY drawdown that started under Poppy, but I have never seen anything where she advocated upping the deployment numbers to Iraq.

[mmonk]

25. Then I misunderstood her rhetoric

about more troops when combined with the rhetoric about how the war was done wrong and without enough troops (and never about the questions whether this war should have taken place). My comments weren't about Clinton as much as they were about Karen's and why they didn't reflect Clinton's most recent comments.

[electropop]

5. Warner the "one real chance" for presidency?

C'mon, maybe he's the DLC's "one real chance" but Democrats would prefer a full Democrat, and will vote accordingly in the primaries. Warner has been a competent governor in VA, but the Presidency demands somebody with strong and clear views on national and international issues. Halfway measures (Repiglican-Lite) will no longer cut it with the public. We have to get out of Iraq. We can't be a half-assed occupier, and everybody but the DLC and the extreme right know it.

[RubyDuby in GA]

7. Ditto

But there's hope. Maybe there's a little schism going on in the DLC and it implodes before it can do anymore harm to us in national elections.

[pberq]

10. I hope you're right!

The irrelevance of the DLC will hopefully bring them down.

[skipos]

15. We have three years to figure out who is our "one real chance"

but I think you are wrong in your assumption that Democrats would prefer a "full" democrat. Kucinich didn't do very well in the primaries, and wasn't a favorite on DU. Most DUers, like myself, supported Clark, even though he has voted for several republican presidents. Right now, according to every scientific poll that I have seen, most democrats support Clinton in the primaries, is she the "fullest" democrat?

A lot of things effect the way someone votes, and I don't think democrats are all looking for your definition of a "full" democrat.

Further, our dem candidate needs to do more than just appeal to democrats, since they only make up about 37% of the vote. I am not saying that we need a centrist, but we do need to think about what will influence an independent or casual voter's vote.

[cascadiance]

20. I think there's TWO separate questions on the DLC...

First is where they stand on issues, liberal, conservative, or moderate...

The second and more important question I think to many of us here is whether their constituency is more real "people" as Democrats, or if they serve more the corporations and other folks that give them money.

I would contend that the DLC is less concerned in reality where they stand in terms of being "liberal" or "conservative", but how those stances are received by their benefactors (the corporations).

I would argue that Howard Dean (who lead the primaries earlier) was more the one that was challenging the DLC on the latter question, which made him more what people wanted, and more of a threat to the DLC, which is why they architected ways to "shut him down" with the "scream" incident, etc. Howard Dean may have some conservative or moderate positions on some things like gun ownership, etc. but that was ignored by the DLC, Rethugs, and others that tried to paint him as a big liberal and being out of step. The liberal/conservative labels that the DLC, etc. were labelling him with were the "cover" for their true agenda of trying to shut someone down that didn't respect the traditional institutionalized bribery methodology of beltway politics that the DLC subscribed to.

Kucinich may have been more "liberal" than Dean or Kerry, but I suspect more along side Dean on the side of getting the party back for the people. The latter is more the issue that will unite this party and make it a majority party again, not how "liberal", "moderate", or "conservative" it is. It has to be the party that represents "We the People" of the United States, not the "We the Corporate Elite" of the United States that this country has become in recent years.

I think it is essential that we get someone that can operate independently of campaign financing bribery, and can lead the fight to reform campaign finance laws to something a lot more constructive than the overly compromised McCain-Feingold bill was. Something along the lines of "clean elections" laws that have been working well in Arizona and Maine, and just this week got passed in Connecticut.

That's why pols like Clinton, Biden, Warner, etc. don't work for me. They want to maintain that destructive status quo, even though they want to try and make it sound like they are "liberal" or "moderate" reformers.

[mattclearing]

19. DLC or not, I will vouch for Warner being a real Democrat.

I am sure Warner will go out of his way to explain his thinking on international matters.

The fact that he has the Pentagon and most defense contractors in his state likely gives him more defense credibility than any other governor, without a congressional voting record hanging around his neck.

[FreedomAngel82]

24. Oh yes

And from what I've read and heard of Warner I do think he is a democrat just probably more moderate on issues. I have read he is pro-choice and for LGBT rights which is a plus in my book. So far my only real problem with him is his stance on Iraq. Maybe that'll change as he talks to more people or something. I don't know. He does have the advantage like Dean had of being a governor and not having any paper trail and such with voting like with Kerry and the other democrats in the House and/or Senate do. But I do like the plan(s) Dean has to get corporation funds out of politics and have finance reform where that is concerned. My biggest problem, my most problem, with the DLC is the corporations involved. Where it concerns individual canidates and people I look at them seperatley and see where they are on issues and if I like what they say and have done etc.

[FreedomAngel82]

23. Yep

Give me Russ Feingold and even Kerry a second time. Warner is alright but the only problem I have with him is his stance on Iraq.

[MADem]

26. Solely to play devil's advocate, mind you, the counter-argument to

that thesis is that Clinton had no international or national experience before he ran, either. And poor America suffered with eight years of peace and prosperity as a consequence! :)

I'm not going to let the candidates worry me, though, just yet. I hope a good dozen people, from far left to right as you can be (and still be a Democrat) jump into the pool and start swimming. The more, the merrier. Let's get all the ideas out on the table, see which ones click with the voting masses, and take it from there!

[mmonk]

9. I love it when they talk the truth.

Too bad you can't get her on the talking head shows on a regular basis.

[pberq]

11. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Why would this House committee ignore Sibel Edmonds group? Or is it just the obvious answer that the committee's real goal is to shut down whistleblowers, rather than help them out?

"The House Committee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, led by Representative Chris Shays, was planning to hold a December 6th hearing on national security whistleblowers in a post 9-11 era, to look at the government’s systematic personal and professional abuse of government truthtellers. Shays has, thus far, refused to hear testimony from any of the members of the most active and current of government whistleblower groups, the National Security Whistleblower Coalition, founded by 9-11 FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. A letter-writing campaign by the NSWBC and many supporting organizations who stand for truth and accountability has resulted in the postponement of this hearing. Stay tuned as our elected public servants continue to wriggle."

[cascadiance]

16. Tom Davis is no friend of the security whistleblowers...

He was instrumental in making sure that the earlier whistleblower bill that went to the House to protect them had specific exclusions regarding security whistleblowers being included. He did this out of concern that it would a larger bill it was attached to get voted down or vetoed by the whole House if this ammendment wasn't attached. In other words, he was concerned that the White House would have wanted to squelch any way that Sibel Edmonds and her associates would have any way of nailing the cabal and conspired with the white house in keeping their protection out of this bill, which prompted efforts to have this hearing.

It isn't too hard to see how he would also try to "masquerade" that he's concerned about security whistleblowers with such a "doctored" hearing, much like he tried to make it sound like he was concerned about whistleblowers in general when they passed that bill that protected others, but not the real important security whistleblowers. Evidently Sibel and the NSWBC had had just about enough of their B.S. and got vocal about it.

Here was my earlier thread on this subject with links to articles on the recent "boycott".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1953156

[pberq]

17. Thanks for the info.

Another example of how checks and balances have ceased to exist. Repub Congress members tailor things to cover for the crimes of BushCo.

[donkeyotay]

21. We can't handle the truth. It would be far too painful for too many

important people. Better to just keep promoting an un-winnable victory. This war was lost when Bush was installed in 2000.

Representative Chris Shays, was planning to hold a December 6th hearing on national security whistleblowers in a post 9-11 era, to look at the government’s systematic personal and professional abuse of government truthtellers. Shays has, thus far, refused to hear testimony from any of the members of the most active and current of government whistleblower groups

Makes sense. Investigate whistleblowing, just don't talk to any whistleblowers.