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by barracuda » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:00 pm
by compared2what? » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:08 pm
barracuda wrote:The Cassandra comparison seems apt - Cassandra's prophetic powers were achieved after the temple snakes licked her ears. Lindauer's ears have obviously been quite close to some serpent's tongues. Has there been any indication as to why the charges were dropped? Parts of this story remind me of Delmart Vreeland.
by seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:36 pm
by JackRiddler » Wed Mar 11, 2009 5:37 pm
by JackRiddler » Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:36 pm
by JackRiddler » Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:09 pm
The Hornet’s Nest Kicked Back –
A Review of Susan Lindauer’s Extreme Prejudice
Written by Michael Collins
Daily Journal (Opinion), World News
Dec 21, 2010
Fiction delivers justice that reality rarely approaches. Victims endure suffering and emerge as victors after overcoming incredible challenges. Stieg Larsson’s gripping Millennium Trilogy weaves a story of revenge and triumphs for Lizbeth Salander, locked away in a mental institution and sexually abused for years. When Salander got out and threatened to go public about a high level sexual exploitation ring, the perpetrators sought to lock her up again. In the final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Salander found some justice. (Image)
Susan Lindauer’s autobiography, Extreme Prejudice, tells a story with certain broad similarities. In her case, however, the hornet’s nest kicked back with a real vengeance. After over a decade as a U.S intelligence asset, Lindauer was privy to information about pre war Iraq that threatened to serve up a huge embarrassment to the Bush-Cheney regime. She hand delivered a letter to senior Bush administration officials in hopes of averting what she predicted would be the inevitably tragic 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Those officials, unnamed in the indictment, were her second cousin, then White House chief of staff Andy Card, and Colin Powell.
After the invasion failed to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD), Lindauer went to Congress offering to testify about the quality of prewar intelligence. In early 2004, she met with staffers in the offices of Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Trent Lott (R-MS) in February 2004. Shortly after those visits and other offers to testify in public, Lindauer was indicted on March 11 for serving as an “unregistered agent” for pre war Iraq and promptly arrested. .
The Crime That Wasn’t
And what did Lindauer do as an alleged unregistered foreign agent, a charge the government was never willing to try in open court? According to then US District Court Judge Michael B. Mukasey, who handled the case for a period, the “high-water mark” of government’s case was based entirely on the letter that Lindauer delivered to her second cousin, then White House chief of staff, Andrew Card. Lindauer had written Card on at least ten other occasions since the 2001 Bush Inauguration. She wrote:
“Above all, you must realize that if you go ahead with this invasion, Osama bin Laden will triumph, rising from his grave or seclusion. His network will be swollen with fresh recruits, and other charismatic individuals will seek to build upon his model, multiplying those networks. And the United States will have delivered the death blow to itself. Using your own act of war, Osama and his cohort will irrevocably divide the hearts and minds of the Arab Street from moderate governments in Islamic countries that have been holding back the tide. Power to the people, what we call “democracy,” will secure the rise of fundamentalists.” Susan Lindauer’s last letter to Andrew Card, January 6, 2003 in American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer’s Story, Oct 17, 2007
This letter was based on extensive contacts with Iraqi diplomats at the United Nations in New York and a prewar trip that she took to Iraq with the knowledge of her intelligence handlers.
Before she could stand trial, in 2005, Judge Mukasey accepted the opinions of court appointed experts that Lindauer might be delusional and ordered her locked her up for an extended psychiatric evaluation and observation. She was placed in the Carswell federal prison facility at the very secure Carswell Air Force Base in Ft. Worth, Texas.
Mukasey’s conclusion was contradicted by evidence not considered (see below) covering fourteen months (March 2004-April 2005) of court ordered evaluation and psychological services in Maryland that consistently reported that Lindauer was functioning well and not delusional. The order allowed 120 days, the legal maximum detention period. She was at detained for seven months at Carswell and another four months in a Manhattan lockup.
When Lindauer refused to take strong psychotropic medication as part of her evaluation, Assistant US Attorney Ed O’Callaghan sought a court order from Judge Mukasey to force the medication on her either orally or by injection. Remarkably, it appears that Mukasey was not informed that the professional staff at Carswell had recommended against forced medication. Based on his detailed opinion and order of September 6, 2006 denying the Assistant US Attorney’s request, Mukasey was also not aware of direct evidence from Carswell professional staff that Lindauer’s behavior was well with the normal range, particularly considering the circumstances.
Five years after her indictment, Susan Lindauer never got the trial she repeatedly requested. On September 15, 2009, Assistant US Attorney O’Callaghan convinced US District Court Judge Loretta Preska that Lindauer was not mentally competent to stand trial. Judge Preska dismissed the case at the request of O’Callaghan’s replacement on January 15, 2010. This was done against Lindauer’s wishes and ignored credible witnesses who testified to her role as an intelligence asset.
Lindauer’s second attorney, Brian Shaughnessy, a former federal prosecutor in Judge John J. Sirica’s court and distinguished Washington, DC defense counsel, noted that this was the only case that he’d ever heard of in which prosecutors argued that a defendant was mentally incompetent to stand trial
O’Callaghan went on to serve as legal advisor for then Governor Sarah Palin’s scandal defense team in Alaska. Judge Preska received an appointment from President Bush to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit six days before ruling that Lindauer was incompetent to stand trial. Andy Card pursued a successful career in the private sector. And Colin Powell retained is good name and status despite misleading the United Nations about Iraq’s alleged chemical weapons programs and his active participation in “choreographed” torture sessions for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and lesser known detention venues.
Despite her efforts and willingness to go public for the benefit of the country, Lindauer was systematically attacked by the federal government and denied her repeated requests for an open trial in federal court. For her, there were no movies or best sellers, no award or promotions, and no happy endings. She was left at the side of the road with only her story and evidence to challenge the charges that the government steadfastly refused to try in open court for over five years.
Lindauer’s case was so strong that her second and final attorney, Brian Shaughnessy, took the extraordinary step of issuing a statement that her claims were supported by the extensive evidence that he reviewed. He said, “I … assure you that Ms. Lindauer’s story is shocking, but true. It’s an important story of this new political age, post-9/11.” Her uncle, attorney Thayer Lindauer, offered an affidavit on his research which confirmed Lindauer’s role as a US intelligence asset.
What Were They Trying to Hide and How Did They Hide It
Lindauer’s career as a US intelligence asset and back channel to Iraq first came to light in 1998. She released an affidavit for the Lockerbie bombing trial recounting information provided to her by the man she described as her CIA handler, Richard Fuisz. The claim was that the bombings were carried out by Syrian operatives, not the accused Libyans. Given Fuisz’s reputed high level intelligence skills, this was a major event covered in the press. Despite the publicity and controversy surrounding the affidavit, Lindauer’s association with Fuisz continued. She was never charged or even reprimanded by the government for her role in the affair.
But when Lindauer was willing to go public with her work on Iraq with Fuisz and another reported intelligence handler, Paul Hoven, she was indicted for giving one letter to Andrew Card, a letter which proved to be very much in line with of the best advice the Bush administration received on the ill conceived, deadly invasion and occupation of Iraq. That was what the administration was so intent on hide hiding.
The information Lindauer would have released, as told in Extreme Prejudice, concerned her work with Fuisz in the months prior to 9/11 in which Fuisz and his team provided early warning about the attacks on the World Trade Center. She would have revealed Iraq’s willingness to turn over terrorists to the FBI and about her contact providing information on al Qaeda’s financial structure and funding.
The vehicle to silence Lindauer was the indictment as an unregistered foreign agent, despite the flimsy basis for the charge. Once indicted, the newly crafted Patriot Act was the clincher. The act allows charges to be levied without specifics listed in an indictment or known to the defendant. In fact, under the act, the defendant’s attorney may not have access to the charges unless certain security requirements are met.
In Lindauer’s case, her attorney had a secret briefing with US intelligence officials. Just as the Patriot Act allows, the occurrence and the content of that meeting were never revealed to Lindauer. Her first attorney, Samuel Talkin, had a met with US intelligence officials shortly after the defense psychologist, Sanford L. Drob, PhD, conducted a two hour interview with Lindauer (report reviewed by the author).. A few days after the Talkin-US intelligence meeting, Drob recommended a defense based on mental incompetence. The meeting between her first attorney’s and US intelligence officials was revealed to Lindauer only years later by her second counsel, Brian Shaughnessy, who obtained the information through pre trial discovery motions.
Psychiatric Set Up and Tear Down
The full spectrum tear down of Lindauer relied heavily on highly selective psychiatric testimony from several court appointed psychiatrists in Manhattan. None of these psychiatrists ever treated Lindauer. They all interviewed her in a forensic setting, which typically drastically limits understanding an examinee’s mental state in politically charged contexts where the examinee is not cooperative. Worse, the forensic experts hired by the state in such contexts often act as “hired guns,” and typically refuse to consider independent substantive evidence that supports the examinee’s claims.
By her report and the author’s review of interview transcripts provided by her attorney, Lindauer was not once cooperative with the court appointed forensic examiners. The dialog between her and psychiatrist Stewart Kleinman, MD, the most influential expert, was caustic and devoid of substantive content. Linder repeatedly stated that she didn’t want to be interviewed by Kleinman.
In essence, the court experts routinely refused to follow up with witnesses Lindauer offered to attest to her role as an intelligence asset and to confirm her activities related to Iraq.
Most telling, the experts, upon whom Judge Mukasey relied for his confinement of Lindauer and his later opinion on forced medication, failed to consider the twelve month record of evaluation and counseling treatment after her arrest. Psychiatrist Dr John S. Kennedy, MD of Maryland concluded that her:
“… thought content was free of hallucinations, delusions, homicidality, or suicidality. She expressed confidence in an acquittal. Judgment and insight were fair. Cognition was grossly intact. … I don not believe there are grounds for a psychosis diagnosis.” March 13, 2004
Lindauer attended 35 hours of counseling sessions between March 2004 and April 2005. You can examine the notes yourself provided by Lindauer and a part of her legal defense documentation.
There is a consistent pattern of assessed psychological stability in every single monthly summary. A frequent theme is expressed over time is that Lindauer, “appears to maintain psychological stability and shows no sign or symptom of mania or psychosis.” Her treatment was concluded on April 7, 2005 with the note, “So far she has shown no signs of mania or depression and any symptoms of psychosis that would require additional intervention.”
This information was not seriously considered or, more likely, completely ignored by the New York court appointed “experts” who labeled her delusional for maintaining her innocence. In addition, never mentioned in court proceedings was important evidence from Carswell psychiatric nursing reports. These reports document a consistent pattern of positive behavior and no signs of hallucinations or delusions during confinement. The Mukasey ruling of September 6, 2006, well referenced with the court expert opinions, makes no mention of Dr. Kennedy’s evaluation, the 35 hours of counseling provided in Maryland, or the Carswell nursing reports. This was highly relevant primary evidence by clinicians familiar with Lindauer’s day to day and week to week behavior over time.
As she tells it convincingly in Extreme Prejudice, Lindauer had to be silenced. First she was defamed publicly as someone who had worked for Iraq. Then she was diminished by the selective analysis by court appointed psychiatrists which further negated her story. Like the current Wikileaks controversy over Julian Assange, the delivery of bad news for those in power in the White House resulted in a figurative order to shoot the messenger.
Extreme Prejudice is memoir, action thriller, and cautionary tale on the risks citizens take when they go too far, know too much, and offer to tell the truth.
END
Disclosure: Lindauer based a chapter of Extreme Prejudice on an unpublished paper I wrote on the relationship between 9/11 and the Iraq war. I received no compensation for this.
Extreme Prejudice by Susan Lindauer
Susan Lindauer’s web site
Articles on the Lindauer case by Michael Collins
Special thanks to Michael Green for his helpful comments
This article may be reproduced in whole or in part with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.
12 Responses for “The Hornet’s Nest Kicked Back – A Review of Susan Lindauer’s Extreme Prejudice”
Susan Lindauer says:
December 22, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Many thanks to Michael Collins for an outstanding investigative journalist review of my book! I would add one caveat: I was declared “incompetent” to stand trial on the basis of a single Rorschach Ink Blot test. No joke. The psychiatrist, Dr. Sanford Drob, declared that my desire to “pursue witnesses and leads to refute the allegations” and prove that I worked as an Asset qualified as a “mental defect” that rendered me “unfit.” So long as I sought a trial, I was not qualified to have one. Very scary stuff!
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avahome says:
December 22, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Knowing how Bushco operates, I feel like someone was desperately protecting Susan…..after all, she is alive to tell the tale.
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Marj Creech says:
December 22, 2010 at 8:42 pm
Susan, thanks for your bravery to be steadfast and continue to speak the truth, Michael also. Susan, you had a witch trial: if you didn’t sink in the water by admitting your “guilt,” then you were judged guilty and insane. But like the comment above says, alive. Yay! And sane despite efforts to make you crazy. Long may you both live to shed light on these evildoers!
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Susan Lindauer says:
December 22, 2010 at 10:29 pm
That’s a great image, Marj — I appreciate all of your support. It was a terrifying experience I can assure you.
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dael says:
December 23, 2010 at 7:52 am
Susan, I want to express my appreciation for your bravery and tenacity through all this. No one will know the amount of suffering you have endured. The implications of the decision to go to war were barely confronted and those who dared to do so were either ignored or denigrated. Humanity is in your debt!
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jurassicpork says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:08 am
Seriously, what’s the deal here? Why have I been banned from commenting and why was my first comment removed? I’m trying to write an article that actually links to yours (the ironically-named Daily Censored) and since I asked my first (unposted) question of why I’m being censored, someone else has posted another comment. So I know the moderator is on duty. So what gives? What did I write that was so horrible I had to be censored?
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jurassicpork says:
December 23, 2010 at 8:12 am
And Trent Lott was NOT a Democrat. What is this, Fox News?
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akw says:
December 24, 2010 at 4:45 amEx-Congress Aide Accused in Spy Case Is Free on Bail
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
Published: September 9, 2006
A former journalist and Congressional aide accused of working with Iraqi intelligence before the war was released from prison yesterday after a federal judge ruled that she could not be forced to take antipsychotic medication in an effort to make her competent to stand trial.
The judge, Michael Mukasey of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said he was not convinced that even if she took the medication, the defendant, Susan P. Lindauer, 43, would improve enough to be capable of standing trial.
Judge Mukasey also criticized the strength of the government’s case, saying that the legal standard for forcibly administering medication requires a strong government interest in prosecution, and that the government has not been able to establish that standard in this case. The ruling was a setback for the government’s case against Ms. Lindauer, who was arrested in March 2004 at her home in Takoma Park, Md. An indictment charged that Ms. Lindauer, also known as Symbol Susan, conspired to act as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq from October 1999 until February 2004, and engaged in illegal financial transactions.
Although he was reluctant to analyze the government’s case before trial, the judge said, “There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have.” The indictment, he said, describes an attempt to influence an unnamed government official as unsuccessful.
Investigators said she had tried to influence American policy by presenting herself as an agent of Saddam Hussein’s government in early 2003 to Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, who was described as a distant relative.
Judge Mukasey said that for Ms. Lindauer to succeed as an agent of the Iraqi government, she would have had to influence other people. But her mental condition makes that highly unlikely, he said.
“The record shows that even lay people recognize that she is seriously disturbed,” Judge Mukasey said in a 35-page ruling issued on Wednesday. He said that a neighbor had suspected her of being mildly schizophrenic.
Prosecutors said she met with Iraqi intelligence officers at places in Baghdad, including Al Rashid Hotel, in 2002, where she accepted $5,000 in cash.
Ms. Lindauer told a television reporter after her arrest that she was innocent, and that she was an antiwar activist.
Ms. Lindauer worked as a journalist in Washington and in the press offices of several liberal Democrats in the House and Senate, although her last such job was in 2002.
At least a half dozen doctors for both the defense and the prosecution have found that Ms. Lindauer suffers from delusions of grandeur and paranoia, which makes her incompetent to stand trial, the judge said. But she refuses to accept the diagnosis or to take medication, he said. One doctor found that Ms. Lindauer had a history of psychotic episodes going back to her childhood, possibly at the age of 7, the judge said. These include her contention that she had gifts of prophecy that allowed her to report 11 bombings before they happened, that she spoke with divine inspiration and that she was an angel.
Among her paranoid delusions, doctors said, were the notion that she was being watched by hidden cameras in her apartment, that the Egyptian government had tried to assassinate her and that men next door had videotaped her under instructions from President Bill Clinton.
At a hearing before Judge Mukasey yesterday, prosecutors offered a backup plan, asking the judge to order Ms. Lindauer to either voluntarily take antipsychotic drugs for 30 days or be held in contempt. Contempt charges could be punished with jail time.
Judge Mukasey declined to rule on the prosecutor’s suggestion, saying that the case was being assigned to another judge and that he would leave that decision to her.
Meanwhile, he ordered Ms. Lindauer to be released under previously determined terms, including on bail of $500,000, on the condition that she receive psychological counseling and that her travel be restricted.
Her lawyer, Sanford Talkin, said she was released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where she has been held for the last few weeks.
Before that, she was in a federal prison hospital in Carswell, Tex. He said she would now return to her home in Maryland.
“She can’t go to trial until she’s competent,” Mr. Talkin said. “I think it was a difficult decision, but I think it was the right decision, and I think it was a just decision.”
Ms. Lindauer is a 1985 graduate of Smith College, where she majored in economics, and she received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.
Her father, John Lindauer, was the Republican nominee for governor of Alaska in 1998.
Judge Mukasey also expressed humanitarian concerns about forcing Ms. Lindauer to take medication, which, he said, “necessarily involves physically restraining defendant so that she can be injected with mind-altering drugs.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/nyregion/09spy.html
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Susan Lindauer says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:23 am
To anyone who believes this garbage, I challenge you to read the psych reports in “The Hornets Nest Kicked Back:” It’s bunk.
My case was dirty from the first day. I would like to stop short of accusing Judge Mukasey of corruption in the case. Everybody lied to the Court non-stop, denying confirmation of the 9/11 warnings, for example. Unforgivably, I was denied my right to a competency hearing as guaranteed by federal statute. Witnesses who had known me 15 years stood ready to testify that they’d never observed any sign of mental defect, in my character or behavior. Two years after my release, that’s exactly what they told the Court when I got a new attorney.
For the record, the Psychiatrists in the evaluation cited my faith in God as evidence of delusions– which is nonsense and politically offensive. And the corporate media took no action to investigate my claims of working as an Asset. The New York Times was the most sleazy of all.
It’s an appalling story of how the laziness of the corporate media and the pandering towards neo-conservative philosophy and leadership has seriously damaged our political system and our judicial rights.
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akw says:
December 24, 2010 at 4:48 amWoman Accused of Iraq Ties Is Ruled Unfit for Trial Again
By BENJAMIN WEISER
Published: September 16, 2008
A federal judge in Manhattan has ruled that Susan P. Lindauer, a former journalist and Congressional aide who was accused of working with Iraqi intelligence before the war, is still mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Ms. Lindauer, who had been declared incompetent for trial by Judge Michael B. Mukasey, now the United States attorney general, tried to persuade a different judge that she was now competent.
But the second judge, Loretta A. Preska of Federal District Court, ruled late Monday that while Ms. Lindauer was “highly intelligent” and “generally capable of functioning at a high level in many ways,” she also was suffering from a mental disease or defect.
As a result, the judge said, Ms. Lindauer was “unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense.”
Ms. Lindauer, 45, pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, which include acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s government and engaging in illegal financial transactions with the Iraqi government.
Ms. Lindauer, who lives in a Washington suburb and remains free on bond, said by phone on Tuesday: “I am disgusted and horrified by the decision. The right to a trial is fundamental in a democracy. I have been fighting for a trial because I am innocent and I believe I have the right to prove my innocence.”
Judge Mukasey had earlier said that Ms. Lindauer was “seriously disturbed” and that even antipsychotic medication might not make her fit to stand trial.
He cited findings that she had paranoia and delusions of grandeur; he also questioned the strength of the government’s case, saying, “There is no indication that Lindauer ever came close to influencing anyone, or could have.”
Judge Preska, in her ruling, said that Ms. Lindauer generally understood the roles of jurors, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges, but did not seem to have a “rational understanding of the roles” they played in her case.
The judge cited the testimony of a government psychiatrist who said that Ms. Lindauer claimed to have special powers and that she had indicated she once met with Osama bin Laden, who disclosed to her the location of a bomb. The judge said that demonstrated “a lack of connection with reality.”
Judge Preska also cited Ms. Lindauer’s behavior in court last year, when, after being admonished not to speak without first consulting with her lawyer, she stuffed tissues in her mouth. That was “not the response of someone rationally connected to the proceedings,” Judge Preska said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/nyreg ... dauer.html
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Susan Lindauer says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:28 am
Five days before Judge Preska’s decision to declare me incompetent, President Bush nominated her to the Appellate Court– a significant promotion for a Judge. And the New York Times reporter sat through testimony by 2 high caliber witnesses who confirmed my 9/11 warning & told the Court they had never observed any mental illness in all of our years working together. It was a political invention.
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Susan Lindauer says:
December 24, 2010 at 7:35 am
Notably, before Carswell I had a public defender– overworked and underpaid for such a complex case. He signed off, though he had done such a poor job that I had to ask my uncle Ted Lindauer, with 40 years of legal experience, to interview all of my witnesses. After Carswell, a marvelous Washington attorney, Brian Shaughnessy, took over the case. And he swore to Judge Preska that I was entirely capable of assisting him in the preparation of my defense. In his own words, my case was the only time that he knows of a prosecutor arguing for the incompetence of a defendant over the objections of her own attorney.
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by seemslikeadream » Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:27 pm
An Intelligence Defense of Julian Assange
Written by Susan Lindauer
Thursday, 09 December 2010 04:02
by Susan Lindauer
If only I'd known Julian Assange, everything would have been different.
Mine was a spook's world of black ops and counter-terrorism. The real stuff—not color coded threats. For a decade I performed as a covert back channel to Libya and Iraq at the United Nations in support of anti-terrorism. My special access made me one of the very few Assets covering Baghdad before the War. Our team started talks for the Lockerbie Trial with Libyan diplomats. We also held preliminary talks to resume the weapons inspections with Iraq's Ambassador, Dr. Saeed Hasan. Once Baghdad agreed to rigorous U.S. conditions for transparency in the inspections, I notified the Security Council myself, and within 72 hours the U. N invited Iraq to attend formal talks to ratify the technical language. By then it was a done deal. Contrary to official reports, Iraq always welcomed the return of weapons inspectors as a necessary step to ending the sanctions. Ordinary people just didn't know it.
My world was "black." Off radar. So deeply secretive that my father, brother, aunts and cousins had no knowledge of my work in Washington. I operated in absolute secrecy.
My bona fides in anti-terrorism were no less outstanding for my lack of public acclaim. I discovered advance intelligence about the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. My team conducted one of the very first investigations of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts—then known as the Inter-Arab group— six months before the Embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam/Nairobi in 1998.
Most provocatively by far, my team warned about a 9/11 scenario involving airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center throughout the spring and summer of 2001. My CIA handler responded aggressively, ordering me to threaten Iraqi diplomats with War, in the event they failed to supply intelligence to thwart the attack.
If that wasn't politically dangerous enough, I solicited Iraq's cooperation with the 9/11 investigation—a cause Baghdad embraced enthusiastically. Oh yes, Iraq was one of our best sources on anti-terrorism throughout the '90s. You didn't know that either, did you?
If only I'd known Julian Assange.
A Time for Openness
For all of the political scolding, there comes a time when secrecy becomes its own greatest handicap in the ultimate game to protect global security. Informed consent creates power for the people to make better decisions that impact the welfare of the total community. Just like government leaders require a depth of information to guide them, the people require it, too—so they can provide better instructions to government leaders representing their interests.
Conversely, interrupting that flow of information robs the community of the power to make the wisest possible choices. That's a major drawback of secrecy. There comes a point where secrecy compromises the community's capability to evaluate events and trends, in order to protect its own best interests. Politicians are loath to admit that, not surprisingly. They're most often the ones invoking secrecy as a method of hiding the incompetence of their policies. Lately, that's become a serious problem in Washington, as elected leaders try to dodge voters' questions.
That's not just lip service, tragically. Three examples prove my point most painfully, that a wider breadth of knowledge for the people would have substantially improved their ability to shape government policy, with better outcomes for national security.
Exposing the failure of anti-terrorism policy
The first is obvious: My team's 9/11 warnings.
Of course the intelligence community anticipated the 9/11 attacks! EXTREME PREJUDICE reveals the whole context of the warnings from May, 2001 onwards. It infuriates me that any politician would dare to deny it! Political fraud like that dishonors the community—and the dead.
Worst of all, people know the government lied, and that has festered like a wound in the American heart. People have lost confidence in our leaders' capability to speak truthfully because of 9/11—and that hurts the fabric of our democracy. It particularly offends Americans to recognize that politicians could be so cynical as to demagogue the issue for personal attention, and then use secrecy and intelligence classifications to prevent the electorate from adequately evaluating their leadership performance on anti-terrorism overall.
If government honestly makes mistakes, they could be forgiven. But when the government actively creates a patchwork of deception to thwart public knowledge, though they clearly see they have created a crisis in the psyche of our nation, in my opinion, they have no business occupying positions of leadership at all.
It's serious reason why, despite my life amidst such black secrecy, I would have told Julian Assange everything, so that somebody could give that information to the people honestly. All of America would have rested easier for having that truth.
Not only did the government lie about the 9/11 warnings, in my opinion as a participant, the 9/11 investigation was thwarted at every turn—mostly to conceal offers of assistance from Baghdad. Saddam's government offered a windfall of intelligence on terrorism, including financial records on Al Qaeda figures. And the U.S. refused to take it, amounting to false promises and false leadership on a matter of genuine importance to national security.
If only I had known Julian Assange. The world could have accepted the same documents that Tony Blair and George Bush spurned.
Unhappily, the government's decision to leave that terrorist money in play—mostly from global heroin trafficking—stands out as the single most dangerous decision in the War on Terrorism. That money is being deployed as a weapon in conflicts all over the world today—from Yemen and Indonesia to India, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Yet thanks to our great secrecy laws, the public has lacked the necessary information to challenge that decision to forego Iraq's financial records on Al Qaeda figures. Instead, the American people have bought into the myth of outstanding leadership performance in the fight against terrorism, without ever knowing if it's true.
Here we come to the third and most tragic example of abusive secrecy that I discuss in great depth in EXTREME PREJUDICE. Forced to rely on the government's word of honor before the War, the public failed to discover a range of non-military options dealing with Iraq, which required no deployment of troops, whatsoever.
The corporate media has never reported the existence of our comprehensive peace framework, so even the most sophisticated opinion leaders have no comprehension that the U.S. and Britain could easily have resolved their conflicts with Iraq, without firing a single missile or killing a single Iraqi child.
Oh, politicians in Washington were thoroughly debriefed on all its components, developed in a two year period before the War, and faithfully reported to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in 11 progress reports on the success of our back channel. Andy Card happened to be my second cousin. For all of their denials afterwards, members of Congress in both parties understood that the peace option was rock solid to the very last days before the invasion.
If only there'd been a Julian Assange to help me bring this critical and valuable intelligence to the attention of the world community. Empowering the global community with knowledge of the choices and options for peace in the Iraqi conflict would have given the people more power to compel the U.S. and British governments to accept the will of the people. The Middle East would be a different place today.
Unfortunately, there was no Julian Assange. I had to trust in formal channels to raise these points on Capitol Hill. And I quickly saw proof their bad faith. Thirty days after I phoned the offices of Senate leaders, John McCain and Trent Lott, requesting to testify before Congress, I awoke to find FBI agents pounding on my front door, with a warrant for my arrest on the Patriot Act—a frightening arsenal of secret charges, secret evidence, secret grand jury testimony, and secret attorney debriefings.
Because there was no Julian Assange to help expose these major deceptions, I got locked in prison on a Texas military base, while politicians in Washington and London reinvented the story of Pre-War Intelligence—focusing blame onto my shoulders as the "incompetent" Asset who failed to correct mistakes in pre-War assumptions. (I watched it all on prison television).
Because there was no Julian Assange to break the media sound barrier, the world community never learned how this highly developed parallel track to War made the whole war in Iraq wholly avoidable and unnecessary.
In the absence of public knowledge, politicians have manipulated silence and secrecy to their own advantage. They have abused secrecy classifications to prevent the public from discovering their own weakness and policy mistakes.
Without public examination of their actual performance, they have continued to promote policies, which have caused grave harm to American security, and perhaps most ironically of all, undermined the War on Terrorism. Voters have been denied the fundamental right to hold leaders accountable for their actions and decision making, which is critical to the well being of democracy.
And all because Intelligence Assets like me, with 10 years in anti-terrorism, had no Julian Assange to help us bring this vital intelligence to the attention of thinking peoples all over the world—
There was no Julian Assange to help protect American soldiers from easily avoidable battle deployments, triple tours of duty, amputations, head injuries, paralysis, and post traumatic stress disorder.
There was no Julian Assange to expose opportunities for peace that would have saved Iraqi families and children from an onslaught of suicide bombings, sectarian warfare, starvation, and the loss of their future.
There was no Julian Assange to guarantee that non-military options for anti-terrorism would be used to maximum impact for the world community—reducing terrorism and closing down the cash pipeline without water boarding, rendition, Guantanamo, wasteful wars, or seizing Islamic charitable donations.
Without Julian Assange to expose the truth, nobody could stop leaders in Washington and London from lying to all of us pretty much non-stop. Nobody could expose the fraud of using secrecy and the aura of intelligence to undercut national security at all levels.
As a long-time Asset, I believe the world is not better off today because there was no Julian Assange to help me. Global security is weaker not stronger, because the people got thwarted from demanding accountability from our leaders. Public scrutiny is a critical factor in a vibrant democracy. The people lost a fundamental opportunity to possess knowledge of actions taken in our collective name. Indeed, a vital organ to a healthy system of governance has been cut down.
And so perhaps you can understand why I carry such deep regrets, and why I shake my head alarmed over the attacks on Wiki-leaks and Julian Asange by those who pretend to defend national security, those who, in promoting their own self interests, have selfishly undermined the foundation of national security for all countries for the foreseeable future.
If only there'd been a Julian Assange, the world would have been spared so much pain.
If only I had found him, life would have turned out differently for all of us. If only.
by Nordic » Fri Dec 31, 2010 2:47 pm
by hohum » Sat Jan 01, 2011 3:10 pm
by D.R. » Sun Jan 02, 2011 2:40 pm
by StarmanSkye » Mon Jan 03, 2011 7:03 pm
by D.R. » Mon Jan 03, 2011 9:12 pm
by StarmanSkye » Mon Jan 03, 2011 11:10 pm
by stickdog99 » Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:28 pm
JackRiddler wrote:Comments on DU:
I wrote:
From where I sit, I can't tell for sure about the Susan Lindauer story.
1) Would the Bush regime be willing to persecute a mentally ill person who was deluded about this story under the unconstitutional provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act?
Indubitably. They did a lot of that.
2) Would the Bush regime and CIA handlers be willing to persecute a person who told the truth about advance knowlege of 9/11 (regardless of their state of mental health) and portray them as mentally ill in court and in the press?
Only a partisan of the official story would rule that out.
More importantly: Why don't we know more?
by D.R. » Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:26 pm
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