Karen Kwiatkowski Wins 2018 Sam Adams Award for Integrity

Award Ceremony on December 8 in Washington, DC

INVITATION:  Saturday evening we will show Rob Reiner’s “Shock & Awe;” then present the 2018 Integrity Award to One of Its Stars

She tried to stop “shock and awe” attack on Iraq 15 years ago. Now patriot Karen Kwiatkowski is featured in “Shock and Awe,” a film directed by Rob Reiner.

YOU ARE INVITED to honor Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, Lt Col, USAF (ret.), for her integrity and courage before the Iraq War. Karen is this year’s winner of the annual Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence award.  (SAAII website: samadamsaward.ch)Date:  Saturday, December 8, 2018

Time:  6:30 PM Showing of film, “Shock and Awe”
8:00 PM Presentation 17th annual Sam Adams Award
Ceremony will include remarks by Larry Wilkerson, 7th SAAII awardee (in 2009)

Place: The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Road, NW, Washington, DC 20009

FREE: But RSVP, if you can, to give us an idea of how many to expect; email: raylmcgovern@gmail.com

ALL WELCOME: Lots of space in main conference room

BACKGROUND: As many are aware, dishonest (not “mistaken”) intelligence greased the skids for the widespread killing and maiming in the Middle East that began with the Cheney/Bush “Shock and Awe” attack on Iraq. The media reveled in the unconscionable (but $$$ lucrative) buzzword “shock-and-awe” for the initial attack.  In retrospect, the real shock lies in the awe-some complicity of virtually all “mainstream media” in the leading false predicate for this war of aggression — weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Only one major media group, Knight Ridder, avoided the presstitution, so to speak.  It faced into the headwinds blowing from the “acceptable” narrative, did the investigative spadework, and found patriotic insiders who told them the truth.  Karen Kwiatkowski, who had a front-row seat at the Pentagon, was one key source for the intrepid Knight Ridder journalists.  Karen tells us that her actual role is accurately portrayed in the professional actress in the movie.

Other members of SAAII were involved as well, but we will leave it to them to share on Saturday evening how they helped Knight Ridder accurately depict the pre-war administration/intelligence/media fraud.

Intelligence Fraud

More recently, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper added a coda to pre-Iraq-War intelligence performance.  Clapper was put in charge of imagery analysis before the Iraq war and was able to conceal the fact that there were were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In his memoir, Clapper writes that Vice President Cheney “was pushing” for imagery analysis “to find (emphasis in original) the WMD sites.”

For the record, none were found because there were none, although Clapper — “eager to help” — gave it the old college try.
Clapper proceeds, in a matter-of-fact way, to blame not only pressure from the Cheney/Bush administration, but also“the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn’t really there.”
 
And, oh, yes; those Clapper-produced “artist renderings” of “mobile production facilities for biological agents”? Those trucks “were in fact used to pasteurize and transport milk,” Clapper admits nonchalantly.  When challenged on all this while promoting his memoir at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC, (See:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/14/clappers-credibility-collapses/  ), Clapper gave not the slightest hint that it occurred to him that his performance was somewhat lacking.Media: Consequential Malfeasance

As for the self-licking ice cream cone that “mainstream media” have become, and how they overlook little peccadillos like feeding at the government PR trough and helping Cheney and Bush attack Iraq, well — now, now — let’s not be nasty.  Here’s how Jill Abramson, NY Times Washington Bureau Chief from 2000 to 2003 while the Times acted as drum major for the war, lets Bob Woodward off the hook for his own abysmal investigative performance.

Reviewing Woodward’s recent book on the Trump White House, Abramson praises Woodward’s “dogged investigative reporting,” notes that he has won two Pulitzer Prizes, and adds, “His work has been factually unassailable.”  Then she (or more probably an editor judging that to be more than a little over-the-top) adds this in parenthesis: (His judgment is certainly not perfect, and he has been self-critical about his belief, based on reporting before the Iraq War, that there were weapons of mass destruction.)

Are we to believe the Abramsons, Woodwards, et al. of the media elite simply missed the WMD deception.  (Hundreds of insiders knew of it, and some were willing to share the truth with Knight Ridder reporters.)  Or did the media moguls simply hunker down and let themselves be co-opted into helping Cheney/Bush start a major war?  The latter seems much more likely: and transparent attempts to cover up for one another, still, is particularly sad — and consequential.  Having suffered no consequences (for example, in 2003 Abramson was promoted to Managing Editor of the NYT), the “mainstream media” appear just as likely to do a redux on Iran.

This is why there will be a premium on honest insider patriots, like Karen Kwiatkowski, to rise to the occasion and try to prevent the next war.  Bring along your insider friends; they need to know about Karen and about Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

Please do come and join us in congratulating Karen Kwiatkowski and the other SAAII members who also helped Knight Ridder get the story right.  (Those others shall remain unnamed until Saturday.)  And let insiders know about this; they are not likely to hear about all this otherwise.)

And again, if convenient, RSVP to raylmcgovern@gmail.com.

PLEASE FORWARD TO OTHERS; MORE, MERRIER.

 
Ray McGovern
Member, SAAII

Assange Never Met Manafort

Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant Lies From MI-6 [the UK’s CIA]
By Ambassador Craig Murray, November 27, 2018
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/11/assange-never-met-manafort-luke-harding-and-the-guardian-publish-still-more-blatant-mi6-lies/

The right wing Ecuadorean government of President Moreno continues to churn out its production line of fake documents regarding Julian Assange, and channel them straight to MI6 mouthpiece Luke Harding of the Guardian.
Amazingly, more Ecuadorean Government documents have just been discovered for the Guardian, this time spy agency reports detailing visits of Paul Manafort and unspecified “Russians” to the Embassy. By a wonderful coincidence of timing, this is the day after Mueller announced that Manafort’s plea deal was over.

The problem with this latest fabrication is that Moreno had already released the visitor logs to the Mueller inquiry. Neither Manafort nor these “Russians” are in the visitor logs.
This is impossible. The visitor logs were not kept by Wikileaks, but by the very strict Ecuadorean security. Nobody was ever admitted without being entered in the logs. The procedure was very thorough. To go in, you had to submit your passport (no other type of document was accepted). A copy of your passport was taken and the passport details entered into the log. Your passport, along with your mobile phone and any other electronic equipment, was retained until you left, along with your bag and coat. I feature in the logs every time I visited.  [Ray can verify this detail from the visits he has made to Julian at the embassy.]
There were no exceptions. For an exception to be made for Manafort and the “Russians” would have had to be a decision of the Government of Ecuador, not of Wikileaks, and that would be so exceptional the reason for it would surely have been noted in the now leaked supposed Ecuadorean “intelligence report” of the visits. What possible motive would the Ecuadorean government have for facilitating secret unrecorded visits by Paul Manafort? Furthermore it is impossible that the intelligence agency – who were in charge of the security – would not know the identity of these alleged “Russians”.
Previously Harding and the Guardian have published documents faked by the Moreno government regarding a diplomatic appointment to Russia for Assange of which he had no knowledge. Now they follow this up with more documents aimed to provide fictitious evidence to bolster Mueller’s pathetically failed attempt to substantiate the story that Russia deprived Hillary of the Presidency.
My friend William Binney, probably the world’s greatest expert on electronic surveillance, former Technical Director of the NSA, has stated that it is impossible the DNC servers were hacked, the technical evidence shows it was a download to a directly connected memory stick. I knew the US security services were conducting a fake investigation the moment it became clear that the FBI did not even themselves look at the DNC servers, instead accepting a report from the Clinton linked DNC “security consultants” Crowdstrike. [Emphasis added]
I would love to believe that the fact Julian has never met Manafort is bound to be established. But I fear that state control of propaganda may be such that this massive “Big Lie” will come to enter public consciousness in the same way as the non-existent Russian hack of the DNC servers.
Assange never met Manafort. The DNC emails were downloaded by an insider. Assange never even considered fleeing to Russia. Those are the facts, and I am in a position to give you a personal assurance of them.
I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services.
I am not a fan of Donald Trump. But to see the partisans of the defeated candidate (and a particularly obnoxious defeated candidate) manipulate the security services and the media to create an entirely false public perception, in order to attempt to overturn the result of the US Presidential election, is the most astonishing thing I have witnessed in my lifetime.
Plainly the government of Ecuador is releasing lies about Assange to curry favour with the security establishment of the USA and UK, and to damage Assange’s support prior to expelling him from the Embassy. He will then be extradited from London to the USA on charges of espionage.
Assange is not a whistleblower or a spy – he is the greatest publisher of his age, and has done more to bring the crimes of governments to light than the mainstream media will ever be motivated to achieve. That supposedly great newspaper titles like the Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post are involved in the spreading of lies to damage Assange, and are seeking his imprisonment for publishing state secrets, is clear evidence that the idea of the “liberal media” no longer exists in the new plutocratic age. The press are not on the side of the people, they are an instrument of elite control.

Adam Schiff’s Incredible, Incurable Credulity

Putin henchman ready to assassinate Medvedev by pillow
https://twitter.com/almostjingo/status/1054963776661938176
(hat tip to Rosie Memos @almostjingo for tweeting)Rep. Adam Schiff, who takes the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in January, has a nose for hot tips about his bete noire, Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as a strong bent toward credulousness.  On October 23, 2018, Schiff solemnly told a young audience at the old Hillary Clinton/John Podesta Center for American Progress Action Fund that he had been told that Putin has one of his henchmen follow Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev around with a pillow to smother him in his sleep if he ever gets out of line.

No, the video contains no hint that Schiff was speaking tongue in cheek.  Perhaps worse, no one in the audience laughed (where do they recruit such credulous young folks?).

Be sure to scroll down for images of the pillow-carrier caught in action. :-))  He apparently has no reason to fear “identification,” since, according to Schiff’s source, “Medvedev is nothing.”

On a more serious note, it was 22 months ago that I challenged Schiff as the “Russian hacking” accusations were proliferating. ( See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdOy-l13FEg ) In the 2-minute clip, Schiff recites language highly relevant today as the Deep State tries desperately to brand Julian Assange a “known participant” — that is, an active conspirator with Russia, and not merely Russia’s “useful idiot.”

Some of our “Justice” officials today apparently think they can detour around 1st amendment hurdles if they can dredge up, or manufacture, “evidence” enabling them to use the Espionage Act of 1917 against Assange.

At think tanks like the Center for American Progress, hope springs eternal.  Impatience too.  As poor Schiff knows, Mueller has been at it for a year and a half — and FBI super-sleuth Peter Strzok for a half-year before that, after which he complained to FBI lawyer/girlfriend Lisa Page that “there is no big there there.”  But when Schiff takes the chair in January, God knows what they’ll find!

Meanwhile back at the ranch, President Donald Trump and his chief advisers give no indication they are aware of what to expect, if Trump continues to allow the Justice Department to slow-walk his order to declassify crucial documents that could — in a lawful world — land ex-FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former CIA Director John Brennan, et al. behind bars.
The stakes are very high.  By all indications Trump is afraid — and not only of pillows.

Those wishing more background on the rudderless Schiff may wish to click on:
  — or —

Will the Gray Lady Commit Hari-Kari over Assange?

Timm interviews James Goodale, the former NY Times lawyer who insisted, correctly, that publication of the Pentagon Papers would enjoy 1st amendment protection.  Will the NYT now make an exception for Julian Assange, and thereby set “an incredibly dangerous precedent?”  And is today’s legal profession so cowed by the Deep State, as to enable suppression of the press — as in Germany 85 years ago?
 
Goodale points to the huge stakes involved in a step that would emasculate the 1st amendment that Jefferson, Madison, Mason, and other Founders saw as the core protection of our freedom.  What seems about to happen has implications far beyond the unseemly effort to “get” Assange, and to hold his case up as a high-profile object lesson as to what government is now able to do — given the widespread abdication of responsibility on the part of co-opted lawyers and timid journalists.

Greenwald: 1st Amendment in Peril; Johnstone on Dem “Karma”


As the Obama DOJ Concluded, Prosecution of Julian Assange for Publishing Documents Poses Grave Threats to Press Freedom
By Glenn Greenwald, November 16, 2018
https://theintercept.com/2018/11/16/as-the-obama-doj-concluded-prosecution-of-julian-assange-for-publishing-documents-poses-grave-threats-to-press-freedom/

The “Resistance” Struggles To Justify Support For Trump’s Prosecution Of Assange
By Caitlin Johnstone, November 19, 2018
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/11/19/the-resistance-struggles-to-justify-support-for-trumps-prosecution-of-assange/

Last Tuesday former National Intelligence Director James Clapper was asked why President Obama, two days before he left town, told a press conference that intelligence “conclusions” about “Russian hacking” were “inconclusive.” Clapper said he could not explain that.

(See:
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/11/14/clappers-credibility-collapses/ ) The reference was to one of the key conclusions of the so-called “Intelligence Community Assessment” authored by “hand-picked” analysts and briefed to Obama on January 5, 2017 (published the following day).

Here’s are the words Obama chose to use, less than two weeks later, at his final news conference (January 18), answering a question from Jeff Mason of Reuters.  Obama:

“ … the conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC e-mails that were leaked.” (emphasis added)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/obama-final-press-conference.html

Watching the back and forth in media reporting over the past couple of weeks, it seems a safe bet that Mueller & Associates have finally conjured up enough “evidence” to “prove” WikiLeaks was indeed “witting,” and that this — by some stretch — justifies indicting and prosecuting Julian Assange (the 1st amendment be damned).
So what about us?  Do we stand by as, well, bystanders?  Better to ponder the following warning four decades ago by Hannah Arendt.  It sure looks like time for bystanders to become “winter soldiers?”

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed?

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows.

“And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”