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THE GREEK AFFAIR - 2004
 

Sept. 16, 17, 18 and 19

35 N. Malin Rd
 Broomall PA 19008
 610-353-1592
www.st-luke.org

 
From The Daily Times

Local Voices: SBVT more interested in politics then truth

09/18/2004

To the Times: In Gil Spencer’s column "Not everyone sold on Kerry’s Vietnam valor" (July 30), he introduced readers to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group founded to oppose the presidential candidacy of John Kerry. SBVT is a "527" group, a tax-exempt public advocacy group, free to spend money to influence elections as long as they do not work in coordination with political parties or candidates. On its Web site (www.swiftvets.com), SBVT describes itself as "non-partisan." The connections and loyalties SBVT has to the Republican Party, Bush family, and the Bush/Cheney 2004 re-election campaign makes any non-partisan claim by this group ridiculous. SBVT has waged a politically motivated smear campaign against John Kerry in an attempt to divert attention from questions surrounding President George W. Bush’s own military service record during Vietnam and his record as president of the United States for the past four years.

Sen. John McCain condemned the SBVT advertisement after it first aired as "dishonest and dishonorable" and called on the White House to condemn it as well. The White House declined to do so and let the ad run its course. President Bush finally spoke out Aug. 23, suggesting all 527 groups are bad for the presidential election.

Bush failed to specifically criticize the ad from SBVT. He chose to collectively bunch all 527 groups with the SBVT group. Many of these groups are involved in "get out the vote" campaigns. Most of these 527 groups are not engaging in smear campaigns with unsupported libelous allegations.

In the 60-second TV ad, members of SBVT are presented as men who "served with John Kerry." None of the veterans featured in the ad served on either of John Kerry’s two swift boats (PCF 44 and PCF 94).

In the ad, Louis Letson claims he knew Kerry was lying about his first Purple Heart because he treated him for that injury. Navy records show that Letson was not his doctor and did not treat Kerry for the injury in question.

Adrian Lonsdale said in the advertisement that "(Kerry) lacks the capacity to lead." This opinion contradicts Lonsdale’s own assessment in 1996 of the courage and bravado demonstrated by the young officers that ran the swift boats. Lonsdale stated, "Sen. John Kerry was no exception."

Another veteran in the ad, Lt. Commander George Elliot, states, "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam." However, during Kerry’s Senate re-election campaign in 1996, Elliott defended Kerry and described the action that merited him the Silver Star as "an act of courage."

John E. O’Neill, co-author of "Unfit for Command," (which details SBVT claims), is listed as co-chairman of SBVT. He is a lawyer at the Houston-based firm Clements, O’Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson. The clients of this law firm include oil and energy giants. President George W. Bush’s general counsel when he was the Texas governor, Margaret Wilson, is also a partner at the firm. She followed President George W. Bush to Washington and now serves as the deputy counsel for the Department of Commerce.

In his column, Spencer cited comments by Rear Adm. Roy Hoffman (retired), chairman of SBVT. He failed to include the information that a Los Angeles Times examination of Navy archives found Hoffman actually praised Kerry’s performance in cabled messages during the Vietnam War. Spencer also cited comments by Kerry’s commanding officer, Lt. Commander Grant Hibberd, concerning the first Purple Heart Kerry was awarded for a shrapnel wound received Dec 2, 1968. Hibberd now expresses doubts about the source and severity of Kerry’s wound. Yet Hibberd made no mention of his doubts in a 1969 evaluation in which he gave Kerry the highest possible marks for the categories of moral courage, judgment and decisiveness and the second highest possible marks for the category of military bearing. If Hibberd was so troubled after the incident, why didn’t he include his doubts in his evaluation?

It would also be easier to take the word of SBVT as truth if the major monetary contributors to the group didn’t include some Texans with deep pockets and longstanding loyalties to the Republican Party and Bush family. The most generous donors include Bob Perry, CEO of Houston-based Perry Homes, one of the largest builders in Texas. A campaign finance watchdog group, Texans for Public Justice, ranked Perry as the No. 3 donor in the state of Texas during the 2002 election cycle, with more than $4 million in donations to Republican political action committees and Republican candidates.

The Bush administration has repeatedly denied any involvement or connection with the group launching these attack ads. It is hard to explain why a veteran featured in the recent ad, Kenneth Cordier, was a member of the Bush/Cheney 2004 Veteran’s Steering Committee. Cordier resigned from his position on Aug. 21, and his name was promptly removed from the Bush/Cheney 2004 Web site.

It is difficult to believe the claims made by the veterans in the SBVT ad campaign because many of them have gone on record in the past praising John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. (That they came) forward with these accusations only after Kerry became the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party shows SBVT is more interested in politics than truth.

One would sensibly think veterans who served as John Kerry’s crewmates would be the best judges of his honesty, character and leadership ability. Most of the veterans who actually served as crewmates of John Kerry showed their support for his candidacy for president by appearing on stage with him at the Democratic National Convention in July.

JONATHAN THOMAS

Aston

©The Daily Times 2004

 

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From Tom Flocco

"....the Commission in its report holds no one accountable, stating instead 'our aim has not been to assign individual blame.' That is to play the political game, and it shows that the goal of achieving unanimity overrode one of the primary purposes of this Commission’s establishment."

National Security Experts Blast Bush and 9-11 Commission

[Ed: 9-11 FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds just sent TomFlocco.com a copy of an open letter signed by numerous individuals who have served in government agency positions directly related to American national security. The open letter is specifically addressed to Senate and House Chairmen, Ranking Members and all Members of Congress. We are reprinting it below in the hope that the many readers of this website will contact their own Senators and Congressmen to request that Congress re-open the 9-11 investigation and conduct it in a fully open and proper manner with a grand jury and career prosecutors. We also hope that individuals living in the 100+ countries who read this website will contact their own national leaders and/or email or fax these same congressmen to ask that they re-open the 9-11 investigation to seek justice for the many foreign citizens who also died in the attacks. TF]


Date: September 13, 2004

To The Congress of The United States:

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States ended its report stating that "We look forward to a national debate on the merits of what we have recommended, and we will participate vigorously in that debate."

In this spirit, we the undersigned wish to bring to the attention of the Congress and the people of the United States what we believe are serious shortcomings in the report and its recommendations.

We thus call upon Congress to refrain from narrow political considerations and to apply brakes to the race to implement the commission recommendations. It is not too late for Congress to break with the practice of limiting testimony to that from politicians and top-layer career bureaucrats-many with personal reputations to defend and institutional equities to protect.

Instead, use this unique opportunity to introduce salutary reform, an opportunity that must not be squandered by politically driven haste.

Omission is one of the major flaws in the Commission’s report. We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somehow escaped attention.

Serious problems and shortcomings within government agencies likewise were reported to the Commission but were not included in the report. The report simply does not get at key problems within the intelligence, aviation security, and law enforcement communities. The omission of such serious and applicable issues and information by itself renders the report flawed, and casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.

We believe that one of the primary purposes of the Commission was to establish accountability; that to do so is essential to understanding the failures that led to 9/11, and to prescribe needed changes.

However, the Commission in its report holds no one accountable, stating instead "our aim has not been to assign individual blame". That is to play the political game, and it shows that the goal of achieving unanimity overrode one of the primary purposes of this Commission’s establishment.

When calling for accountability, we are referring not to quasi-innocent mistakes caused by "lack of imagination" or brought about by ordinary "human error". Rather, we refer to intentional actions or inaction by individuals responsible for our national security, actions or inaction dictated by motives other than the security of the people of the United States.

The report deliberately ignores officials and civil servants who were, and still are, clearly negligent and/or derelict in their duties to the nation. If these individuals are protected rather than held accountable, the mindset that enabled 9/11 will persist, no matter how many layers of bureaucracy are added, and no matter how much money is poured into the agencies. Character counts.

Personal integrity, courage, and professionalism make the difference. Only a commission bent on holding no one responsible and reaching unanimity could have missed that.

We understand, as do most Americans, that one of our greatest strengths in defending against terrorism is the dedication and resourcefulness of those individuals who work on the frontlines.

Even before the Commission began its work, many honest and patriotic individuals from various agencies came forward with information and warnings regarding terrorism-related issues and serious problems within our intelligence and aviation security agencies.

If it were not for these individuals, much of what we know today of significant issues and facts surrounding 9/11 would have remained in the dark. These "whistleblowers" were able to put the safety of the American people above their own careers and jobs, even though they had reason to suspect that the deck was stacked against them. Sadly, it was.

Retaliation took many forms: some were ostracized; others were put under formal or informal gag orders; some were fired. The commission has neither acknowledged their contribution nor faced up to the urgent need to protect such patriots against retaliation by the many bureaucrats who tend to give absolute priority to saving face and protecting their own careers.

The Commission did emphasize that barriers to the flow of information were a primary cause for wasting opportunities to prevent the tragedy. But it skipped a basic truth.

Secrecy enforced by repression threatens national security as much as bureaucratic turf fights. It sustains vulnerability to terrorism caused by government breakdowns. Reforms will be paper tigers without a safe channel for whistleblowers to keep them honest in practice.

It is unrealistic to expect that government workers will defend the public, if they can't defend themselves. Profiles in Courage are the exception, not the rule.

Unfortunately, current whistleblower rights are a cruel trap and magnet for cynicism. The Whistleblower Protection Act has turned into an efficient way to finish whistleblowers off by endorsing termination.

No government workers have access to jury trials like Congress enacted for corporate workers after the Enron/MCI debacles.

Government workers need genuine, enforceable rights just as much to protect America's families, as corporate workers do to protect America's investments. It will take congressional leadership to fill this hole in the 9/11 Commission's recommendations.


The Commission, with its incomplete report of "facts and circumstances", intentional avoidance of assigning accountability, and disregard for the knowledge, expertise and experience of those who actually do the job, has now set about pressuring our Congress and our nation to hastily implement all its recommendations.

While we do not intend to imply that all recommendations of this report are flawed, we assert that the Commission’s list of recommendations does not include many urgently needed fixes, and further, we argue that some of their recommendations, such as the creation of an ‘intelligence czar’, and haphazard increases in intelligence budgets, will lead to increases in the complexity and confusion of an already complex and highly bureaucratic system.

Congress has been hearing not only from the commissioners but from a bevy of other career politicians, very few of whom have worked in the intelligence community, and from top-layer bureaucrats, many with vested interests in saving face and avoiding accountability.

Congress has not included the voices of the people working within the intelligence and broader national security communities who deal with the real issues and problems day-after-day and who possess the needed expertise and experience-in short, those who not only do the job but are conscientious enough to stick their necks out in pointing to the impediments they experience in trying to do it effectively.

We the undersigned, who have worked within various government agencies (FBI, CIA, FAA, DIA, Customs) responsible for national security and public safety, call upon you in Congress to include the voices of those with first-hand knowledge and expertise in the important issues at hand. We stand ready to do our part.

Respectfully,

1. Costello, Edward J. Jr., Former Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI

2. Cole, John M., Former Veteran Intelligence Operations Specialist, FBI

3. Conrad, David "Mark", Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs

4. Dew, Rosemary N., Former Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism & Counterintelligence, FBI

5. Dzakovic, Bogdan, Former Red Team Leader, FAA

6. Edmonds, Sibel D., Former Language Specialist, FBI

7. Elson, Steve, Retired Navy Seal & Former Special Agent, FAA & US Navy

8. Forbes, David, Aviation, Logistics and Govt. Security Analysts, BoydForbes, Inc.,

9. Goodman, Melvin A., Former Senior Analyst/ Division Manager, CIA; Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy

10. Graf, Mark, Former Security Supervisor, Planner, & Derivative Classifier, Department of Energy

11. Graham, Gilbert M., Retired Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI

12. Kleiman, Diane, Former Special Agent, US Customs

13. Kwiatkowski, Karen U., Lt. Col. USAF (ret.), Veteran Policy Analyst-DoD

14. Larkin, Lynne A., Former Operation Officer, CIA

15. MacMichael, David, Former Senior Estimates Officer, CIA

16. McGovern, Raymond L., Former Analyst, CIA

17. Pahle, Theodore J., Retired Senior Intelligence Officer, DIA

18. Sarshar, Behrooz, Retired Language Specialist, FBI

19. Sullivan, Brian F., Retired Special Agent & Risk Management Specialist, FAA

20. Tortorich, Larry J., Retired US Naval Officer, US Navy & Dept. of Homeland Security/TSA

21. Turner, Jane A., Retired Special Agent, FBI

22. Vincent, John B., Retired Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI

23. Whitehurst, Dr. Fred, Retired Supervisory Special Agent/Laboratory Forensic Examiner, FBI

24. Wright, Ann, Col. US Army (ret.); and Former Foreign Service officer

25. Zipoli, Matthew J., Special Response Team (SRT) Officer, DOE

CC:
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Pat Roberts & Vice Chairman John D. Rockefeller

Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Chairman Orrin G. Hatch & Ranking Democratic Member Patrick Leahy

Senate Committee on Armed Services, Chairman John Warner & Ranking Member Carl Levin

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Chairman Susan Collins & Ranking Member Joseph Lieberman

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Porter J. Goss & Ranking Member Jane Harman

House Committee on the Judiciary, Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. & Ranking Member John Conyers

House Armed Services Committee, Chairman Duncan Hunter & Ranking Member Ike Skelton

House Committee on Government Reform, Chairman Tom Davis & Ranking Member Henry A. Waxman

House Select Committee on Homeland Security, Chairman Christopher Cox & Ranking Member Jim Turner

Senator Charles Grassley

Contact: Sibel Edmonds

Additional Information:

Government agencies roasted for screw-ups in war on "terror"

 

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News from the Admin

 09/05/04:

The site is slowly progressing. We have added new forums and are working on a faster loading web portal.

The directories are also coming along nicely, everything from Accountants To zoologists will be included.  We like to call it" Delaware County's Yellow Pages".

Again we ask anybody interested in adding their web site to this just e mail us and we will be happy to. All that we ask in return is a text link back.

Thanks, The Admins.