Niman: The New American Coup

[GreenEarthAl]

http://www.corporations-suck.com/CKs/Niman/NewAmCoup.shtml

Even the intelligence community is split, with some of the strongest allegations that Bush purposefully lied about WMDs coming from official reports issued by the CIA itself. CIA officials are upset that the Bush administration chose to ignore their intelligence about Iraq, and instead use “intelligence” reports prepared by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a group of Iraqi ex-patriots with close ties to the Bush family. The CIA terms their information as “unreliable.” The problem with the INC, according to Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counter-terrorism analyst, is that “they make no distinction between intelligence and propaganda.” This “cooked information,” according to Cannistraro, “goes right into presidential and vice-presidential speeches.” The INC’s info is self-serving. It created a false threat of weapons of mass destruction which led to war, with the Bush administration now working to install the INC as the occupation government of Iraq. This was all done without the blessing of the CIA. In the end, the Bush administration botched the war exactly as they CIA said they would – and the CIA doesn’t want to share the blame.

Everything we’re seeing now with whistleblowers emerging from the CIA and the military points to another coup. George W. initially came to power in what Europeans call a coup-de-grace, with Jeb Bush, Kathleen Harris and their crew overseeing the intentional purging of black Democratic voters from Florida’s election roles. Despite Bush’s pillaging of the economy, his lethal foreign policy blunders and his rampant attacks on the environment and on core American values (such as our former reverence for civil liberties), he seemed to be a sure-win for the 2004 election. This is the predictable result of an unprecedented propaganda campaign launched by a compliant corporate media. The last few weeks, however, have revealed major chinks in George W’s armor, the likes of which even Papa Bush’s former campaign director and current Fox News director, Roger Ailes, can’t mend.

[GreenEarthAl]

1. Niman: Ashcroft on Tour

Specifically, Patriot II will challenge the protections of the First (Freedom of Speech and Assembly), Fourth (Freedom from Unreasonable Searches and Seizures), Fifth (right to confront witnesses and right to a fair and speedy trial), Sixth (no excessive bail) and Fourteenth (Right to due process and equal protection) amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Ashcroft ’s bill will enhance the FBI’s ability to spy on citizens without having to secure permission from a judge. Hence, the FBI will be able to target political opponents and then go fishing for charges. The original Patriot Act allowed the FBI to spy on domestic political opposition groups. The expanded powers sought under Patriot II will allow the FBI to continue this practice, but be exempt from having to explain themselves to a judge, hence anti-corporate globalization protesters, anti-war protesters, environmentalists, as well as anti-abortion and pro-choice protesters and gun owners advocacy groups could all find themselves under FBI surveillance. In short, anyone patriotically exercising their duty to protest could be subject to FBI surveillance – a reality that will thwart democratic participation in our political discourse.

http://www.corporations-suck.com/CKs/Niman/AshonTour.shtml

[Skittles]

2. Thanks GreenEarthAl !!!

this is a wonderful read!

[ArkansasAngie]

3. Don't stop now

I am still waiting for an investigation into who in the Bush adminstration outted Joseph Wilson's wife

Well..... once they have seized your assets and throw you in jail w/ out allowing contact w/ friends, family or lawyers ....

This act is a direct assault on our civil liberties.

[lindashaw]

9. Me, too. I've searched around, but I can't find anything going on.

Can you? I did find that the GAO dropped its lawsuit against Cheney, but Judicial Watch still has an open suit against Cheney, I think.

[camero]

4. Ok, educate me

What's the difference between a coup-de-grace and a coup-de-taat?

P.S. I know I misspelled it. Can't remember.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

5. The first is a bullet to the head following a firing squad execution,...

...and the second is the overthrow of a legally elected government by any means possible.

[camero]

7. Thank you

Hope we don't get to that point.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. The U. S. may have already seen a military coup at least twice before...

...once with the assassination of JFK. Questions about his autoposy and where it was actually conducted have only gotten stronger over time. Was it Bethesda as the original reports stated, or was it at Walter Reed first, and then on to Bethesda. Recently released reports state the latter. The big question is "Why". Questions about the soundness of the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle supposedly used by Oswald are contained in the documents collected by the House Select Committee on Assassinations. FBI firearms experts refused to test-fire the weapon until the scope was fully tightened and aligned, the trigger-pull was corrected to remove a tendency toward an unexpected hair-trigger firing, and the bolt-action corrected to remove a tendency to stick or not operate smoothly. Oswald has been discovered in the last 20 years to have had a CIA 201 personnel file. While in the U. S. Marine Corps he was a radar operator at the airbase in Atsugi, Japan, and was responsible for tracking the flights of the most secret aircraft at the time, which was the U-2. He also stood guard duty on the U-2's hanger. He was also later able to supposedly defect to the Soviet Union with no difficulties whatsoever, and return just as easily with a Soviet-born wife who had an uncle in Soviet intelligence. Odd sorts of duties and dealings for a man who allegedly shot JFK, don't you think?

The second time took place when 2-star General Al Haig became Nixon's Chief of Staff about a year before Nixon's resignation. The officer that always follows the president with a brief case that contains the nuclear codes was never seen following Nixon the day that Haig arrived at the White House. A friend of man was a Chinese linguist for the Navy stationed in the Pacific and he told me they received a command that day to "disregard all orders from the Commander-in-Chief".

There is also considerable speculation about the assassination of Lincoln and the hurried killing of Boothe. The execution of his fellow plotters who had been tried by a military tribunal while heavily chained with heavy bags over their heads, does nothing to halt that speculation.

[ablbodyed]

12. Nixon

I lived in San Francisco the day Nixon resigned.  Early that
afternoon, I read the first post-resignation edition.  There
was an article that stated that Haig instructed the white
house military staff to disregard any orders from Nixon. 
INEVER APPEARED IN A SUBEQUENT EDITION.

[camero]

13. makes sense

I could see JFK gettin assassinated by the military industrial complex or the CIA for his wanting to pass the Civil Rights Act.

I could also see Nixon being overthrown by the neocons for his support of Medicare and COLA.

I have my thoughts on JFK Jr's death also. It may have been to stop him from becoming president, From what I've heard, he had an 80% approval rating. And what's the first thing that would have been investigated? Who killed his dad? And why did the navy call off the coast guard in searching for the wreckage of his airplane? Stalling for time, maybe?

[Solon]

15. Its a point of fact, that the US almost suffered a coup in 1933

THE BUSINESS PLOT TO OVERTHROW ROOSEVELT

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs.

The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:

Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.
Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a codirector of the American Liberty League.
John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.
Robert Clark - One of Wall Street's richest bankers and stockbrokers.
Gerald MacGuire - Bond salesman for Clark, and a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion. MacGuire was the key recruiter to General Butler.
The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup. They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president. However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.

What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:
"You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…"
The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half.

And what type of government would replace Roosevelt's New Deal? MacGuire was perfectly candid to Paul French, a reporter friend of General Butler's:
"We need a fascist government in this country… to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight."
Indeed, it turns out that MacGuire travelled to Italy to study Mussolini's fascist state, and came away mightily impressed. He wrote glowing reports back to his boss, Robert Clark, suggesting that they implement the same thing.

If this sounds too fantastic to believe, we should remember that by 1933, the crimes of fascism were still mostly in the future, and its dangers were largely unknown, even to its supporters. But in the early days, many businessmen openly admired Mussolini because he had used a strong hand to deal with labor unions, put out social unrest, and get the economy working again, if only at the point of a gun. Americans today would be appalled to learn of the many famous millionaires back then who initially admired Hitler and Mussolini: Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, John and Allen Dulles (who, besides being millionaires, would later become Eisenhower's Secretary of State and CIA Director, respectively), and, of course, everyone on the above list. They disavowed Hitler and Mussolini only after their atrocities grew to indefensible levels.

The plot fell apart when Butler went public. The general revealed the details of the coup before the McCormack-Dickstein Committee, which would later become the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee. (In the 50s, this committee would destroy the lives of hundreds of innocent Americans with its communist witch hunts.) The Committee heard the testimony of Butler and French, but failed to call in any of the coup plotters for questioning, other than MacGuire. In fact, the Committee whitewashed the public version of its final report, deleting the names of powerful businessmen whose reputations they sought to protect. The most likely reason for this response is that Wall Street had undue influence in Congress also. Even more alarming, the elite-controlled media failed to pick up on the story, and even today the incident remains little known. The elite managed to spin the story as nothing more than the rumors and hearsay of Butler and French, even though Butler was a Quaker of unimpeachable honesty and integrity. Butler, appalled by the cover-up, went on national radio to denounce it, but with little success.

Butler was not vindicated until 1967, when journalist John Spivak uncovered the Committee's internal, secret report. It clearly confirmed Butler's story:

In the last few weeks of the committee's life it received evidence showing that certain persons had attempted to establish a fascist organization in this country…

There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned and might have been placed in execution if the financial backers deemed it expedient…

MacGuire denied allegations under oath, but your committee was able to verify all the pertinent statements made to General Butler, with the exception of the direct statement suggesting the creation of the organization. This, however, was corroborated in the correspondence of MacGuire with his principle, Robert Sterling Clark, of New York City, while MacGuire was abroad studying the various form of veterans' organizations of Fascist character.

Needless to say, the survival of America's democracy is not an automatic or sure thing. Americans need to remain vigilant against all enemies... both foreign and domestic.

Sources:
Jonathon Vankin and John Whalen, The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time (Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Publishing Group, 1997)
Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1973)
George Seldes, Even the Gods Can't Change History (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1976)
John Spivak, A Man in His Time (New York: Horizon Press, 1967)

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/Coup.htm

[RainDog]

16. Smedley Butler's War is a Racket

has been re-issued by Feral Press. In the book, Butler recounts the people who came to him...someone in the DuPont family and someone from the J.P. Morgan corp.

Butler said they wanted him because they knew he was one of the few who could rally the troops behind them. They told him that if he didn't agree to do this, they would go to MacArthur or Patton. (and some factions of these coup plotters favored MacArthur because they didn't think Butler would go along.)

I do think that Kennedy was assassinated by factions within the U.S. which included the same Cuban faction which helped Nixon break into the Watergate Hotel. Oswald was a stooge who worked as a so-called soviet sympathizer...according to the things I've read which seem to make sense.

This same faction within the U.S. was behind the overthrow of Mossedagh in Iran, the first coup unseating a democratically elected govt by any nation...we who are supposedly so democratic.

This same faction was behind the coup which installed Pinochet in Chile and which assasinated the General in Chile who supported Allende. This has been documented all over the place, and Colin Powell has even called it not our best moment, or something to that effect.

Apparently Kissinger used a fascist in the Chilean military to carry out this assassination, according to The Trial of Henry Kissinger and other sources.

Kissinger, as well, made sure Nixon was elected by delaying the peace in Vietnam by telling South Vietnam that Nixon would give better terms. Five years later, and twenty thousand American soldiers' lives later, the South Vietnamese made peace on the same terms that were on the table when Kissinger made his illegal deal.

The problem with our country right now is that these criminals do not get prosecuted. Kissinger should have been executed for his crimes, if you ask me.

If there were some high profile imprionments, as least, for these crimes, maybe they wouldn't continue so blatantly.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. Thanks! Excellent post!

[RainDog]

8. fwiw

I don't have accents enabled, but the other word is d'etat. (de- of and etat- the state) when a vowel begins the word after an article, the article is elided.

that's one of the things I happen to still remember from my French classes...I now I get to recall it!

We're known as Les Etats-Unis, or (plural) The States United.

and I hope this person is right and the Bush junta will be overthrown and their illegal coup made part of American history.

[camero]

10. me too, thanks

I know very little french. Ca va bien?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. This is an EXPLOSIVE editorial and supports what I also thought...

...was happening behind the scenes.

Consider the following points for a moment:

The mainstream media supported the Bushies until about 4-6 weeks ago when the first questions about the Bushies began to apear in print and on TV/radio. The mainstream media is owned by major corporations that are very conservative from a political point of view. Those corporations backed the Bushies in the 2000 election with major sums of money, and they expected some major paybacks.

Part of the payback was a MAJOR reduction in the amount of taxes paid by wealthy individuals and corporations. That was supposed to result in a major amount of money added to the bottomline. and that money, in turn was supposed to be used to create new jobs and an expansion of the then-vibrant economy. What they got was about 1/3 to 1/2 of what they wanted.

Another payback was a reduction of any or all environmental legislative restraints, thereby putting more money in the pockets of the wealthy by having to spend less on systems designed to protect the environment. Rejection of the Kyoto Accord was a major part of the anti-environmental effort. By and large, they have gotten what they wanted here, but it has resulted in a large backlash by those wanting to protect the environment, bothhere and overseas.

Consider also the widespread and accelerated movement of American manufacturing bases to geographic locations outside of the U. S. Cheaper labor, higher profits. That has also worked pretty successfully, but now people are starting to question the wisdom of sending jobs overseas during a recession.

Still another payback was to be a dramatic expansion of the military-indusrial complex with funding to be provided to any and every proposal imaginable. Money has been provided for the provably non-working "Star Wars" scheme to new personnel carriers with armor that will not stop small-arms fire and a main gun that can only be fired in the forward direction for fear of tipping over the vehicle. But at the same time this was taking place, the Bushies were cutting benefits to veterans, most notably those vetarans who fought in WWII and Korea and were promised lifetime benefits whether they retired from the military or not. Military pay is also being cut, going directly against promises made to the military prior to the 2000 election.

Now consider these points:

The economy began to fail shortly after Greenspan began to raise interest rates in 1999-2000 to fight inflation that no other economic expert could find. The interest rate moves are provable by going to the website for the Fed and taking a few moments to find it. Crude oil prices also began to rise at the same time for reasons that were never made clear to anyone. That's also provable because the information is easily found on the Net. That was double-whammy added to the collapse of the dot.com bubble. The resulting recession was inescapable, something the Bushies either never saw in terms of the extent of the depth of the current recession, or they knew that what they were doing would result in long-term unemployment at 6-7% and that would result in lower wages paid to workers at all levels. That results in more money in the pockets of the wealthy. Are you starting to see a pattern?

Then came the attacks of September 11th, 2001. This allowed the Bushies to expand their control of the country through vastly increased intelligence and law-enforcement means. Few Americans understand today that if the U. S. were to declare the highest levels of terror alert status, any U. S. citizen caught outdoors would be considered a terrorist first, and a U. S. citizen a distant second. That means that anyone could be shot or detained at the whim of the local Homeland Security official on the scene. Few American citizens realize that they now have no more rights if they were to be detained than any foreign national detained for a visa violation. You can be made to disappear and nobody will ever know what happened to you. Think about that for a few moments.

And have you ever stopped to think how the new medical quarantine laws could be used in a time of civil unrest? A town or city could simply be "quarantined" under one or more medical pretenses while military units took care of the disturbance.

But meanwhile, the attacks had a residual damaging effect on the U. S. economy...the market began to lose value. From close to a 12,000 stock market close prior to 9/11, we have been mired in the 8,000 to 9,500 range since that time. That is a huge drop in overall value, and stockholders have been and continue to be very unhappy. And that makes the owners and boards of major corporations very unhappy.

And that leads me to the kicker. It has become very clear to me that the major coroporations have also given up on the Bushies. They have lost confidence that the Bushies will get the economy on the right track. Additionally, despite the potential for huge profits from overseas operations they are no longer convinced that the Bushies' use of the military is heading toward the ultimate business goal of opening up vast new markets in the Middle East. So, the major corporations have unleashed the media and that has allowed all of the latest stories of the incompetance of the Bushies to be published.

Stand by...this may be just starting to get interesting.

[PATRICK]

14. yes, what IS going on?

There are so many players. Yet the dark side of the military and CIA has been used, hired, enabled by the Bushes. The career people just doing their jobs may be rising to the challenge, but the whistleblowing is whistling in the dark so far. In other words, the great dark overseer that one might see in this is divided or owned. the stakes may go beyond the failure or even fall of Junior. Nixon became very isolated. Bush's power base is all there in their respective chairs.

The AG of Nixon and his Veep had to fall first for the walls of that much less significant protection to waver. Junior has the whole GD aparatus and the Congress AND the SCOTUS depending on his future.

Maybe someone else sees this is easy or comparable to the past with some foreseeable results. I can't. The good news(I think) is that all the violent vermin are in Bush's corner and the forces of law and justice lining up in the other. That's also the bad news.

(Can't resist the history comment)
As for Lincoln's Secretary of War and the Impeachment failed coup, that miserable SOB Stanton was a combo of Rumsfeld and Cheney, a war god who tried to become president. When it failed and he was no longer feared the shadows of suspicion and especially distaste at the quick hanging of the woman conspirator caused him to be another depressed pariah. And again no one did any digging among all the odd facts. THAT has to end once and for all.
Nixon, according to Kissinger anyway, was losing it emotionally and making dangerous statements. But Haig was always one to jump the gun on authority himself regardless.

Considering all that, should Bush succeed in duping history, even being praised as much as the non-entity Reagan, it will be a first among his historical peers in the rubbish bin of national betrayal.

[RainDog]

17. history will not deal kindly with Reagan or Bush

there is so much documented evidence out there about Reagan, Bush Sr. and, I have hopes that more and more will be revealed, Bush Jr.

Jr. is well-documented prior to the White House, at least.

There are dozens of books which deal with Iran-Contra and Iraqgate and Reagan's appeal to fascist networks in America and on and on.

When the spinmeisters are dead, the truth will be more readily accepted. The truth will not be lost, either, among those who actually get an education.

Of course, at the grade school and high school level, there is always propaganda and outright lies...sort of like Santa Claus.