By Ray McGovern, June 12, 2017
Short speech by Ray before the White House, May 30, 2017, where he talked about the brothers Berrigan and recited “The Fiddler of Dooney.” Peace activist/photographer/author/attorney Bill Hughes wrote some of it up for the Baltimore Post-Examiner, and included a brief video of Ray’s amateur rendition of Yeats’s uplifting poem.
http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/fiddler-dooney-reading-ray-mcgovern/2017/06/02
After a couple of hours of fine speeches at the Lincoln Memorial highlighting the challenges facing those working for peace, Ray thought he would try to inject a somewhat merrier note. So he ditched his prepared remarks and went with the Berrigans and Yeats.
Those who click on Bill Hughes’s article are encouraged to scroll down to Bill’s video of a short talk by Veteran For Peace member and activist Bruce Gagnon, who discusses the “U.S. pivot to Asia” and the “threat” from North Korea – the ostensible justification for emplacing U.S. missile defense systems around the Asian periphery of North Korea, China, and Russia. The real reason = what Pope Francis has called the “blood-drenched arms traders.”
Iran and Terrorism: Shia Iran stopped big-time support for terrorism about 30 years ago – at about the same time the Russian military threat to Western Europe stopped. (Quick: someone tell the mainstream media!) Now, thanks largely to the terrorist waiver Washington grants to U.S. major arms purchasers like the Saudis, it is Saudi Arabia and the radical Sunnis it finances and arms, that are the major exporters of terrorism, WITNESS THE TERRORIST ATTACKS IN TEHRAN SEVERAL HOURS AGO. On Monday, Ray addressed this issue, inter alia, on Brian Becker’s “Loud and Clear.”
http://www.spreaker.com/user/radiosputnik/cia-appoints-notorious-drone-strike-over
June 4, 2017 (18 minutes)
The interview was initially pegged to a highly instructive article appearing in a still widely read newspaper that carries All the News the CIA Deems Fit to Print. The title: “C.I.A. Names the ‘Dark Prince’ to Run Iran Operations, Signaling a Tougher Stance.” (Obiter dictum: Don’t Worry, Americans; We Have a New Dark Prince to Work Cheney’s “Dark Side.”)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/middleeast/cia-iran-dark-prince-michael-dandrea.html?_r=0
Russia-gate’s Mythical Heroes: Comey/Mueller Birds of a Feather
By Coleen Rowley
Former Special Agent and Minneapolis Division Counsel Coleen Rowley knows whereof she speaks. And, typically, she speaks here with unrivalled candor.
Now readers will be able to understand why it is that – as a hedge against disbarment and unemployment – the mainstream media’s “universally respected” Mueller Comey partners-in-crime have applied to become entry-level legal assistants at Car Talk’s former firm – Dewey Cheetham & Howe.
But seriously: Space did not allow Coleen Rowley to include anything near a full list of the Mueller Comey firm’s infractions against the Constitution and the law. An additional crime of which they seemed strangely proud was the practice euphemistically called “parallel construction,” which Ray described three weeks ago in:
How NSA Can Secretly Aid Criminal Cases
Interview about Ray’s Irish, family, Bronx, Jesuit, intelligence-work, Justice, inner-city heritage:
http://www.ruairimckiernan.com/podcast-episodes/love-and-courage-podcast-ray-mcgovern
45 minutes
In early June 2016, on his way to doing talks in Berlin, Ramstein, Aachen, and Bonn, Ray stopped off en route for a few days in Dublin. A previously unknown “cousin,” Ruairi, from Cavan, sat down with Ray to ask him about his checkered past.
Host Ruairí McKiernan is leading Irish social innovator, campaigner, writer and public speaker. He is the founder of the pioneering SpunOut.ie youth organization, and helped set-up the Uplift and the A Lust For Life non-profits. In 2012 the President of Ireland Michael D Higgins appointed Ruairí to the Council of State, a national constitutional advisory body whose members include all current and former leaders of the country. Ruairí is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright fellowship, and he contributes regularly to the media on youth, health, community and social justice issues.
Hiding the Ugly Business of Torture
By Ray McGovern, June 2, 2017
Ray attempts to inject some cool common sense into Tuesday’s (May 30) program of HEAT. As you can see below, the panel discussion got a little heated – in both 15-minute segments.
The following drawn from the set-up for the program:
First foreign trip completed, Donald Trump returned to the White House to face more challenges. Tonight’s panel will discuss the latest troubles in the Trump administration:
- Afshin Molavi, senior fellow with Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
- Ray McGovern, an analyst for the CIA
- Simon Marks, the president and chief correspondent for Feature Story News
- Lester Munson, Vice President with BGR Group, a strategic consulting firm
Mad Dog Shows His Bite on Face the Nation
Musings from Ray on Mad-Dog Mattis and “Military Necessity”
When President-elect Donald Trump sent his talent scouts to the attack-dog kennel run by defense industry giant General Dynamics, in order to recruit former Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis to be secretary of defense, cries of apprehension were drowned out by smug one-percent reassurances.
Those who “know what’s best for the country” insisted: “NOT TO WORRY; actually Mattis is a Renaissance Man. Yes, he thinks, and says, it’s fun to shoot people. But after taking a hot shower in the evening, he reads Greek epic poetry.
Syria
Last Sunday, Mattis told CBS it’s gonna be more fun again. At a time when civilian casualties are extremely high in Syria, thus spake James Renaissance Man Mattis to CBS’s Face the Nation:
“We have already shifted from attrition tactics, where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them.”
Mattis was asked what about civilian casualties.
“Civilian casualties are a fact of life in this sort of situation,” he replied, adding that the U.S. military does “everything humanly possible consistent with military necessity.”
This brings to mind the Feb. 7, 2002 Executive Order signed by President George W. Bush authorizing another kind of war crime – torture. That Memorandum concluded with identical reassurance – in this case, that detainees would be “treated humanely, and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.”
Afghanistan
Worse still (if there can be a “worse still”), Mattis reportedly is weighing how many thousands more troops from the U.S. poverty draft to send to – hold your breath – AFGHANISTAN!
Instead of reading Homer and reflecting on the Trojan War 33 centuries ago, Mattis ought to fast forward and read more “modern” history on Afghanistan. He might fast forward to “just” 27 centuries ago, when Alexander the Great made, but did not follow through on, an abortive attempt to conquer Afghanistan. “Abortive” is the key word here. He faced stiff resistance from the locals, who for some reason did not like being invaded and lacked the respect due the “sole superpower the world” of those times.
Alexander was smart enough to realize that he had bit off more than he could chew. He brought his army back west, before many more of them got killed, to where he knew what he was doing. On that count alone he deserves the moniker “Great.” Unlike those who have tried to conquer Afghanistan in the 22 centuries that followed, he decided the game was not worth the candle.
This adage is attributed to Alexander: “There is nothing impossible to him who will try.” ( οὐδὲν τοῖς θαρροῦσιν ἀνάλωτον ) The corollary, of course, is that some things DO happen to be well nigh impossible – and, as such, not worth the cost of trying for some dimly perceived, non-essential gain.
Fools Walk In
In the centuries that followed, many powerful “statesmen” – powerful, but not so “Great” in terms of knowing when to avoid trying the impossible – have attempted to subdue those incorrigible tribes in Afghanistan. The long, sad, fools’ list includes: Arabs, Mongolians, Persians, Indians, British, Russians – and now Americans.
Let’s hope ‘Renaissance Man” Mattis will leave Homer and the Trojan War behind and read up more “recent” history. A good way to start would be to get a hold of Barbara Tuchman’s classic “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.”
The bomb blast last night in Kabul that killed more than 80 and wounded 300 will probably tempt Mattis and his delusional boss to lash out militarily. That could include the next surge in the fool’s errand into Afghanistan. It would be a piece of what Mattis’s predecessors browbeat the benighted Barack Obama into doing as soon as he came into office, playing on his campaign rhetoric that Afghanistan was some kind of “good war,” in contrast to the one in Iraq.
Since greeting WBTE (Wet-Behind-The-Ears) Barack Obama in March 2009 with a piece titled “Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President,” Ray has tried to keep at it. He says the effort runs no risk of getting boring, given the high stakes involved. A lot of people are dying – just a small portion of whom are the American “heroes” celebrated over the weekend as “the fallen; the lost.” (They were neither lost nor fallen; they were pushed to death – many of them with the help of a supremely unjust poverty draft).
But the vast majority of dead and injured are non-American “others” – mostly civilians – a fact of death, which Mad Dog Mattis rationalizes as “a fact of life … consistent with military necessity.”
Maybe someone can give him a history book about Alexander the Great and how it was not such a bad idea to “chicken out” and withdraw from Afghanistan. He could be told that history would be happy to call him “Mad Dog The Great,” should that appeal to him. He desperately needs to educate himself on the indomitable folks in that poor country (and their equally determined supporters across the border in Pakistan). Please, someone suggest to Mattis that it would be “Renaissance-Man-like” to follow Alexander’s example and avoid confronting the impossible – even aside from the human and other costs – when it is “a fact of life” that neither the strategic stakes nor “military necessity” warrant it.
It would be nice, too, if one of his aides could replace Homer with one or two of the following articles under his pillow – on the chance he can be brought to realize that it’s not “fun” – just dumb – to go around shooting people. And that that goes in spades for Afghanistan.
Veterans For Peace in DC Monday and Tuesday
| VFP: 1404 N. Broadway St. Louis 63102 (314) 725-6005
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Susan Schnall, susanschnall@gmail.com, 917-620-0189 Michael McPhearson, mcphearson@veteransforpeace.org, 973-666-4605 Barry Ladendorf, bladendorf@veteransforpeace.org, 619-997-2772 Veterans Oppose Trump Policies, Wars; Rally at Lincoln Memorial; March to White House
On Tuesday, May 30, at 11:00 am, veterans and supporters will mass at the Lincoln Memorial. Speakers include Veterans For Peace President Barry Ladendorf, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Medea Benjamin, David Swanson, Chris Hedges, Jonathan Hutto, Brian Becker, Col. Ann Wright, Mara Verhayden Hilliard, Michael McPhearson, Matt Hoh, and Ray McGovern. Music will be provided by Lyla June Johnston, Pat Scanlon, Ariel Zevon, and the Fugs, who will lead an attempt to exorcise the White House as they did 50 years ago. “Donald Trump and company are hell-bent on destroying what’s left of our democracy, the environment, and whatever chance we have of world peace. Veterans will not be silent while he does it,” says Matt Hoh, former Marine Captain (two tours in Iraq) and State Department official, who resigned in protest from his post in Afghanistan over U.S. strategic policy and goals. Veterans For Peace President Barry Ladendorf has sent a letter to President Trump requesting a meeting to discuss military policy and to refocus spending on peace and issues at home. The letter said, in part: “We speak for the majority of U.S. citizens, who believe your policies are taking innocent lives and endangering more of our young soldiers, who have already given so much in the needless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now you have sent more Marines into Syria. Your policies are also causing suffering and despair among immigrants, Muslims, communities of color, women, Native Americans, and LGBTQ communities, and if implemented, these policies will further destroy the environment. Ultimately, they make all of us considerably less secure.” After the rally, veterans and allies will march down Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues to the White House, where they will present a list of ten demands for peace at home and abroad. On the Day Before, (Memorial Day, May 29) Veterans For Peace will gather for a solemn and respectful occasion to deliver letters at the Vietnam Memorial Wall and to remember all combatants** and civilians who died in Vietnam and all wars. We will mourn the tragic and preventable loss of life calling for people to abolish war in the name of those who have died and for the sake of all those who live today. The Swords to Plowshares Memorial Bell Tower has been set up within sight of the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial Wall. The Bell Tower has been visited by thousands as it has traveled around the country. ** Ray’s letter to a college friend, Capt. Edward Krukowski, USAF, shot down over Cambodia on October 24, 1964, is copy/pasted in below. * * * Veterans For Peace is an international organization made up of military veterans, military family members and allies; accepting veteran members from all branches of service. Our networks are made up of over 120 chapters across the United States and abroad. We are dedicated to building a culture of peace, exposing the true costs of war, and healing the wounds of war. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ** Letter to Ed Krukowski May 27, 2017
Dear Ed,
This week, as Memorial Day draws near, I was writing an article about the 34 sailors of the USS Liberty who were deliberately killed by fire from Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats off the Sinai 50 years ago. My eye caught a name on a rubbing I made many years ago from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall: “Edward S. Krukowski.”
What fun we had at Fordham studying Russian together. Remember how our Moscovite Russian teacher, Mrs. Lindsay, used to yell at us when we acted up – and our uproarious laughter as she kept repeating: “What are you laughing? Who are you laughing? This is nothing to laugh!” (I’m glad no one broke our mutual pledge never to let her know that in English, “laugh” normally requires a preposition.)
Your heritage is Ukrainian, if memory serves, and I have been thinking about that amid the hostilities in Ukraine. I do hope that whatever extended family you have there is safe.
You were in the Air Force ROTC, while I was in the Army ROTC. You graduated and were commissioned in 1960, a year before I was. Just a few years later I vividly remember reading the sad notice: “Capt. Edward Krukowski, USAF, was flying a C-123 on a resupply mission in Vietnam when shot down on Oct. 24, 1964, six days short of his 26th birthday, leaving a wife and three small children.”
I remember weeping with your widow and three small children at your wake, funeral, and burial in Arlington cemetery. You had planned for the worst, leaving a request to be buried within view of the grave of President John F. Kennedy, whom we both admired so much. That’s where your body lies today; it’s a direct-line view. They tucked your tombstone onto the end of a row with that view.
It is a good place to sit and think – with you at my back and President Kennedy in front. What Kennedy knew, but you didn’t, is that a year before you and your crew were killed, he had ordered a phased withdrawal of almost all U.S. troops from Vietnam. Many believe – including me – that this is one of the reasons he was assassinated.
On Memorial Day a few years ago, I wrote about you, and the article caught the attention of your son, Ed, the dentist in Florida. That put him in touch with me; it was a blessing to have a new, Ed Krukowski as a tangible reminder of my college buddy Ed – you.
In just two days, this year’s Memorial Day (May 29) falls on President Kennedy’s 100th birthday:
‘Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.’
ПОКОЙСЯ С МИРОМ! до скорого, Your old friend, Ray |
Europe May Finally Rethink NATO Costs
By Ray McGovern, May 27, 2017
This speculative article suggests that, eventually, the dunning of NATO nations to chip more money into the military alliance may inadvertently cause some Europeans to rethink the over-the-top anti-Russian propaganda and the need for all that money for the arms makers and arms dealers.
Ray wrote this piece after the curtain went down on the official blessing by self-important leaders of NATO of its spanking new $1.1 billion palatial headquarters in Brussels. A more appropriate use, in Ray’s view, would be to shelter some of the refugees from wars, fought/endorsed by NATO that create such massive uprooting and pain. But that should be obvious, no? Not, apparently, to Europe’s “one percent.”