The National Security Archive is in the news because they forced the issue of the U.S. sheltering of Nazi war criminals into the open, eventually leading someone to leak the full unredacted report to the New York Times. But that story doesn’t actually have much new information. We’ve known for a long time that our leadership made a decision to exploit German brainpower for the Cold War.
What people should be focused on, considering George W. Bush’s current white-washing book tour, is the National Security Archive’s work on the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. They are doing masterful work of getting American documents declassified and using British sources to reconstruct what happened in 2002 and early 2003.
THE IRAQ WAR — PART I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001, Documents Outline Policy Makers’ Aims for the Conflict and Postwar Rule of Iraq.
THE IRAQ WAR — PART II: Was There Even a Decision?, U.S. and British Documents Give No Indication Alternatives Were Seriously Considered.
THE IRAQ WAR — PART III: Shaping the Debate, U.S. and British Documents Show Transatlantic Propaganda Cooperation.
Matt Lauer should have read this stuff before he agreed to interview Bush in church.
People forget what Izzy Stone said, at their peril.
What did he say?
He said several things that are appropriate here:
What did he say?
See the first quote Boo posted above. That’s the one I meant on this occasion.
The Nazi connection to the CIA has been known for years. It has just been submerged from the national discussion, a kind of “conspiracy theory” of sorts.
Christopher Simpson’s BLOWBACK, in the 80s, and a number of other books spelled out a lot of this. Probably more than what will come of this story. For example, back in the early fifties Ronald Reagan was the spokesman for the Crusade For Freedom, a CIA-sponsored program to get a lot of ex-Nazis and fascists into the US.
Not sure of whether they were in that program, but the von Spakovkys were brought to the US in the 1950s under the story that they were escaping the Nazis, but I’m guessing that they were just Nazis escaping. They were resettled on in Alabama in the same town where the government resettled the Nazi rocket scientists. So much for escaping Nazis. And a half century later their kid Hans Spakovsky is working for Bush trying to prevent blacks from voting. Bringing Nazis to the US was not a misplaced act of kindness by the CIA. It was a business plan.
If you know about the CIA’s secret armies behind the Iron Curtain (like the fascists in the Ukraine), then Weyrich’s Free Congress Foundation, wherein military attack is replaced by political subversion, makes sense. And once you understand the profit motive for wars (oil, oil, oil) then you can begin making connections. You know, unless you are afraid of being a conspiracy theorist.
Rather than pictures of grim faced decision makers, the pictures on the pages of Rumsfeld and Cheney show them each with self satisfied smiles.
Bush have been a puppit to their mastery but he was also a willing puppit.
Get Russ Baker to interview Dubya. I’d like to see him answer questions about his business career, which is beginning to look like he was a money-launderer for his dad’s old Company.
Interesting comments, all! what about this sobering (and depressing) article by Juan Cole on decline of usa on world stage, pushed over the edge by Bush-Cheney overreach:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175319/tomgram%3A_juan_cole%2C_the_asian_century/
Somehow the notion of Matt Lauer reading much of anything seems a bit of a stretch.