Veteran American journalist and longtime overseas correspondent, Patrick Lawrence, who is now foreign affairs columnist for Salon, has written an interesting piece on Dan Berrigan for his journal/blog.

 

Journal Entry

Patrick writes that one of the things prompting his essay was a recent lunch with Ray in an Irish pub in Washington. Last December in Moscow, Patrick conducted a long interview of Ray, which Salon published in two parts (on February 8 and 14). Drawing on that as background for his blog piece, Patrick draws a link between Dan Berrigan and Ray – one that Ray can only hope to live up to.

Below are links to the two-part Salon interview:

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/intelligent_people_know_that_the_empire_is_on_the_downhill_a_veteran_cia_agent_spills_the_goods_on_the_deep_state_and_our_foreign_policy_nightmares/#comments

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/14/this_is_how_the_cia_botched_iraq_post_911_bob_gates_careerist_sycophancy_and_the_real_history_of_the_deep_state/

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Green Zone in Baghdad has been invaded by angry but, for the most part, peaceful mobs loyal to leading Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. So far Iraqi government security forces are standing aside, letting it happen. In interview with RT International, Ray explains why this was virtually inevitable.

Ten years ago, even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had gone wobbly and endorsed the pleadings of top U.S. Army generals who told Congress publicly that it would be folly to insert still more U.S. troops into the Baghdad area in 2007. The generals were insisting, sensibly, that top Iraqi politician shed their corrupt colleagues and be told in no uncertain terms to create workable power sharing arrangements between Shia and Sunni, in order to tamp down the violence of 2006-07.

Bush and Cheney, fearing this might bring clear collapse in Baghdad on their watch, fired Rumsfeld and the generals. Instead, Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus were recruited to lead a benighted – but widely touted – “surge” of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into and around Baghdad. In a typical reflection of the myopia that reigns in Washington, Obama eventually bowed to the media myths about the “successful surge,” after criticizing it earlier. Predictably, the ill-fated operation left almost 1,000 U.S. troops dead, and countless Iraqis also dead or wounded. Will Obama follow the Bush/Cheney precedent and try something similar to prevent his having to leave office after “losing Iraq.” Plus ca change ….?

(8 minutes)

Loud and Clear program’s anchor Brian Becker interviewed Ray on April 20 about the abrupt ouster of a Sputnik journalist from Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clamped down so hard on the media that he has effectively forfeited any claim to democratic governance.

Several leading Turkish journalists are either in prison or awaiting trial for disclosing the support that Turkish intelligence has been providing – including precursors to make chemical weapons – to armed rebels in Syria.  Erdogan has also accused Turkish parliamentarian Eren Erdem of treason for disclosing documentary evidence of Turkish government complicity in this.

Turkish intelligence almost certainly facilitated the (in)famous sarin attack outside Damascus on August 21, 2013.  John Kerry and the neocons blamed that attack on Bashar al-Assad’s government and came within inches from mouse-trapping President Obama into doing “shock and awe” against Syria. (10 minutes)