JUNKIE EDITOR MICHAEL CARMICHAEL
(“Stansfied Turner”)
Admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Stansfield Turner has added his name to the rapidly growing list of former CIA officials who are critical of the Bush-Cheney junta for lying to the American people in order to go war against Iraq.
Admiral Turner was selected to replace George Bush the Elder as DCI by then President-Elect Jimmy Carter. Bush, Sr. had visited Carter in December of 1976 to beg the President-Elect to remain in his beloved post at Langley. Carter politely informed Bush that he had plans for the office of DCI that did not include him.
Bush had been placed in the DCI job by a curious series of incidents. After Nixon's resignation, he resigned as RNC Chairman to take up the previously non-existent post of Envoy to China. From the outset, the Chinese regarded him to be a 'spy', and he did nothing to allay their fears. He associated with the notorious Theodore Shackley of Operation Phoenix infamy, the black CIA operation to conduct horrific psychological warfare on the Vietnamese, a covert operation brought to the big screen by Oliver Stone in his film, Heaven & Earth. In the Stone film, Tommy Lee Jones, playing the part of a US Sergeant was part of the hideous covert ops to instil mass paranoia in the Vietnamese in general and the Vietcong in particular. One of his orders involved the murder of Vietnamese civilians, military personnel and the mutilation of their corpses. Jones described this stomach-churning brutality. US commandoes under orders from the chain of command that included Shackley, with Bush definitely in the loop, killed their Vietnamese victims then ripped out their livers and took a very large bite out of the organs to project paranoia into the population. Stone knew all about this procedure, for he had been a soldier in Vietnam.
Operation Phoenix was the sort of project that qualified George Bush, Sr for consideration for the post of DCI when the job became available in 1975. Former DCI William Colby had been subpoenaed by the Church Committee, which was investigating US intelligence operations, and he had complied with his subpoenas. This was too much for then President Ford and then Secretary of State Kissinger. They sacked Colby for being too compliant with Congress and ordered the White House staffers, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, to find a new DCI that would be pliant to White House policy and to hell with the Congressional investigation. They came up with Bush, Sr., and the rest is history. Bush was confirmed by Congress in February 1976 and he served until January 1977, less than one year. This is part of the reason that ever since his exit from the DCI's office in Langley, Bush has been cautious around Stansfield Turner.
Admiral Turner was one of the most influential and best DCIs in the agency's history. He initiated a much more aggressive program of electronic intel, as opposed to humint, or human intelligence. Let us not forget that it was the humint that failed us all in Iraq, for we were informed by exiled Iraqis that Saddam had a massive stockpile of WMDs. Admiral Turner served President Carter as a brilliant DCI, and he was succeeded by the dreadful William Casey in early 1981.
Under President Clinton, Admiral Turner became the Ambassador to the Court of St James, (the United Kingdom), and he served with exemplary distinction. Then the matter became somewhat darker and more sinister. In early 2000, while visiting Nicaragua with his wife, Admiral and Mrs Turner boarded a smallish plane carrying about 15 passengers. The plane crashed, and Mrs Turner was killed instantly. Admiral Turner sustained massive injuries to his head. He was flown by military jet ambulance to a hospital on a military base in Texas, where he was placed into an induced coma. After several months in this limbo, he was released from the hospital.
It is extremely comforting to see him return to form with his criticism of the handling of intelligence by the Bush-Cheney junta.
TPJ has focused on Tumble Weed’s “scrubbing” of references to global warming in an upcoming EPA report. Several major American newspapers have published the story.
The New York Times editorially takes Tumble Weed to task. They write:
This is the second shameful case of censorship involving global warming in less than a year. Last September, a whole chapter on climate was deleted from the E.P.A.'s annual report on air-pollution trends. That deed was done by Bush appointees at the agency, with White House approval, possibly because the White House had been angered by a previous report from the State Department suggesting the dire harm that could come from climate change. President Bush had dismissed that report as "put out by the bureaucracy."
. . .
Christie Whitman, the E.P.A. administrator, is putting on a brave face after her agency's capitulation. She says she feels "perfectly comfortable" issuing the broader assessment of land, air and water quality without waiting to resolve differences over climate change, where the evidence is less solid. But this sorry trampling of her agency's best judgment suggests that Congress, in confirming a successor after she steps down next week, will need to look hard at how free that person will be to offer the best scientific judgment on environmental issues. – New York Times
The New York Times’ editorial is all true but misses the point. As noted in the article in TUMBLE WEED WATCH: “A Blind Eye – Deadly Ignorance”, British scientists are warning that global warming in the immediate future threatens life on our planet as we know it. -- Guardian Unlimited
Stop and think of the implications of what Tumble Weed is doing. Is it not analogous to your doctor discovering you have a cancer that is treatable but does not tell you?
Even worse, Tumble Weed is hiding the truth from the American public in order to protect his neoconservative agenda. At the same time that his administration is scrubbing the truth from the American public, the “Senate Republicans have circulated a draft document that would use one of Congress's most popular pieces of legislation as a vehicle to allow states broader discretion in how they conform to federal air pollution standards and other environmental requirements. Environmental advocacy groups charged that the proposals would seriously weaken heightened state obligations under the Clean Air Act. Senate Republicans ‘have been fighting a war against these new standards since Day One,’ said Mark Wenzler, energy programs director for the National Environmental Trust. ‘But these guys don't give up.’” – Washington Post
Junkie contacted several members of the press and larger web sites asking them to consider running this incredible story. Not one will. One member of the print media explained that Tumble Weed had scrubbed reports on global warming before and the latest story had run.
Does any Junkie truly believe that if the American public knew that its government was hiding the cancer of pollution that may well kill life on our planet that they would demand changes? Would they tolerate the neoconservatives continuing dismantlement of what environmental safeguards we have? These are questions on which our future existence may depend!
“STELLA”
(What is TPJ going to do?”)
TPJ’s best writing and material was the "Fabrication" story. Reminds me of a saying my grandmother had "...would lie when the truth suits better..." but the article was really well written, the most logical I have seen and needs to go to the greenest, youngest of converts --except and my mind how can they be converts if it is the obvious-
But what is [TPJ] going to do about the candidates for 2004 which is important, and I think it is going to slowly now?
Is there any really hope for Gore? People not too tuned in seem
to think he is the answer. I suppose you read the Moveon. [T]he very liberals
I talk to (which is limited) prefer Dean, but the letters from Kerry and the
others [whom] I wasn't familiar with was very impressive. I saved them all to
reread. But isn't it funny there's 9 or 10 of them and I can't tell whether
[they are trying to] stay in the limelight, or in office (which has its
benefits) or to offer opposition or to lead. But I want electable. I really
want electable [whether it] means grass roots electable or name recognition. I
want electable!
Anyway, thanks for the really good articles of this week. I send
them on every chance I get.
[Junkie: Thanks for the compliment. What is TPJ going to do on the candidates? GREAT QUESTION! Your question comes at a time when TPJ’s editors have been discussing what to do. Junkie would optimally like to have one separate page for each Dem candidate that would have permanent links to important candidate sites, updated news about the candidates and their policy positions and a feedback section for Junkies to write about their candidates.
The problem is money! Publishing TPJ is not exactly cheap. The webmaster, who has deeply discounted his services, currently charges $100.00 a month to update TPJ three times a week. Any extra postings cost $20.00 for each update. The website and other related internet costs are approximately $50.00 per month. Total: $150.00+ a month.
To have a page for each candidate would involve a one time cost of $200.00. The monthly update fee would be approximately $160.00. Total: over $2,000 for the next year. Junkie, being a state employee, just does not have that much to give to the cause.
TPJ solicited contributions and still does. There is a link on the Feedback page to Paypal through which TPJ readers can contribute. To date, contributions total $0.
TPJ has not pushed for contributions a lot. TPJ has focused on establishing itself and gaining subscribers. On the few occasions where TPJ has asked for contributions, one TPJ Editor felt that it sounded like “wheedling.” [great word “wheedling”]
Soliciting funds is also complicated by the fact that Junkie is a hearing officer in the North Carolina workers’ compensation claims system and cannot (and should not) accept contributions from those involved in the workers’ compensation process.
For the time being, TPJ will continue to run articles about the candidates in THEM DEMS each week.
Junkies can help by recommending TPJ to their friends and encouraging them to subscribe to TPJ.]