Ray McGovern

Giulietto Chiesa, one of the moderators of the 9th annual EU Parliament Members’ Forum on Russia recorded Ray’s speech there and has posted it on his website:

http://www.pandoratv.it/?p=5176

There is voice-over in Italian, but Ray spoke mostly in English and a lot of that is audible. Thankfully, no one voiced-over the Russian poem by the 19th Century poet Nikolai Nekrasov: “Vnimaya Uzhasam Voiniy” (“Paying Attention to the Horrors of War”). (translation ** below)

Ray’s talk came on the second day of the Forum; until then, almost all of the speeches were pretty much head-speeches. So Ray tried a little heart therapy and called his presentation “Stay Human.”

Ray is now in Moscow, where he will be one of three panelists discussing “Security or Surveillance: Can the right to privacy and effective anti-terror security coexist in the digital age?” The panel is tomorrow at a Moscow conference arranged by RT to celebrate its 10th anniversary. Coincidentally, the UN has designated Dec. 10th (tomorrow) Human Rights Day; Ray’s will suggest the obvious: Since humans do have a right to privacy, it’s high time to reverse recent infringements on that very important freedom.

** Poetry always looses something in translation, and this attempt is no exception. Ray has tried to be literal without undue sacrifice to verse and feeling. A lot is lost, though; so the original is included for those who read Russian.

Внимая ужасам войны,

Heeding the horrors of war,

При каждой новой жертве боя

At every new victim of battle

Мне жаль не друга, не жены

I feel sorry not for his friend, nor for his wife,

Мне жаль не самого героя.

I feel sorry not even for the hero himself.

Увы! утешится жена,

Alas, the wife will be comforted,

И друга лучший друг забудет;

And best friends forget their friend;

Но где-то есть душа одна –

But somewhere there is one soul –

Она до гроба помнить будет!

Who will remember unto the grave!

Средь лицемерных наших дел

Amidst the hypocrisy of our affairs

И всякой пошлости и прозы

And all the banality and triviality

Одни я в мир подсмотрел

Unique among what I have observed in the world

Святые, искренние слезы –

Sacred, sincere tears –

То слезы бедных матерей!

The tears of poor mothers!

Им не забыть своих детей,

They do not forget their own children,

Погибших на кровавой ниве,

Who have perished on the bloody battlefield,

Как не поднять плакучей иве

Just as the weeping willow never lifts

Своих поникнувших ветвей.

Its dangling branches

 

The US-Russia Proxy War in Syria

CIA Whistleblower Kiriakou Honored

Bush-41 Finally Speaks on Iraq War

Not likely, says Ray; seems more likely that Godot will arrive before Chilcot report.

Syria: Will the Saudis buy fewer arms if we twist their arms to stop arming ISIS? One large elephant in the room has been Israel with a marked preference for “no outcome” in Syria.

Russia: were seeds of cooperation sown at the UN on Sept. 28, when Obama and Putin spent 90 minutes behind closed doors?

These and other issues discussed by Ray via Skype, live on Richie Allen Show, London, Oct. 29 (28 min.)

As Yogi Berra put it, “The future ain’t what it used to be.” The Russians are in Syria big-time and Obama has surprised almost everyone by choosing, while taking care to include de rigueur bashing of Moscow, to welcome the Russian move as an opportunity to turn primary attention to stopping the Islamic State and the flood of Syrian refugees into Europe.

Some of the earlier preconditions to talks have been waived, and negotiations began on Friday in Vienna. Moreover, the key powers seem agreed that, as Defense Secretary Ashton Carter conceded on Tuesday, “The structures of the Syrian state are going to be important in the future, and we don’t want them to dissolve entirely. … The U.S. approach to removing Assad has been mostly a political effort.” (Could it be the Smart People in Washington have learned something from the debacles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya?)

From Ray’s perspective, those are the key pieces of the news this week – not the familiar attempts by Secretary Carter to flex his muscles, announcing token military reinforcement, to show that the Pentagon means to stay in the game, somehow, in Syria.

Early Tues. morning, PressTV asked Ray for preliminary reaction; he replied with 4 minutes of commentary over the phone:

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/28/435276/us-isis-takfiri-daesh-obama-syria-iraq

Later Tues. morning, the Senate hearing on the same issue prompted Ray to don his old President’s Daily Brief hat, impersonate today’s Russian intelligence analysts, and prepare a notional PDB item — for President Putin to appear the following morning:

Seeing Syrian Crisis Through Russian Eyes

Seeing Syrian Crisis Through Russian Eyes

The video is in English (after the 45-second introduction) and runs up to minute 18:30. Text also included in following link: http://www.kontext-tv.de/node/496

Issues discussed include:

-How does it happen that intelligence analysts become activists?
-Why so many refugees from Syria? Implications for Europe.
-Is there “no daylight” between U.S. and Israeli behavior on Syria?
-Germany and the drone war; the critical role of U.S. base in Ramstein.
-Why not assemble stakeholders on Syria around a table, and figure out how to stop the carnage? Need to get the Saudis, in particular, to stop supporting ISIS.

 

Had time to explain purpose behind their Veterans for Peace-sponsored lecture tour of Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, Parnell, Iowa City, Ames, Des Moines, and places in between – mostly at universities. At the University of Iowa, Ed Snowden was live-streamed into an overflow crowd of 850.

In early 2015, three Iowa chapters of Veterans For Peace decided, “If we build it, they will come.” Coleen and Ray came in September; more important, hundreds and hundreds of Iowans also came – and learned things that are very hard to learn from “mainstream media.”

(2 segments: the first is 11 min; the second is 7 min.)

http://www.kwwl.com/category/256572/the-steele-report