EDITORIAL
KARL ROVE: THE KING OF DIRT
The Turd Blossom's Chickens May Come To Roost
By Wayne Madsen
(Special to From The Wilderness)
© Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.
December 5, 2003 100 PDT (FTW) -- After many years as a privacy advocate and author of privacy books, I now reluctantly believe that there's one citizen of the United States who is not entitled to any privacy or solitude, but should be subjected to a relentless campaign of intimidation, harassment, and knavery. In other words, patriotic Americans who believe in fair play should -- within the bounds of the law -- make this person's life a living hell.
The target for such a campaign is Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political Svengali, and the chief instigator of character assassination campaigns against those who challenge the policies of the Bush administration. Democrats, progressives and the liberally inclined must learn to fight fire with fire, Rove tactics against Rove tactics. This evil practitioner of political chicanery earned his stripes first as an apprentice of Richard Nixon's dirty trickster, Donald Segretti. Rove then went on to hone and refine his duplicitous craft under Republican National Committee chairmen George H. W. Bush, Lee Atwater, and, finally, George W. Bush (who affectionately and alternately calls Rove his "boy genius" and "turd blossom").
After trashing the personal character of former Texas Democratic Governors Mark White and Ann Richards, Texas Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett, and Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, Rove now uses his Felix the Cat-like bag of dirty tricks to assassinate the characters of noble and non-political men and women. It is clearly time to take action against Rove, and give this maniac a taste of his own bitter medicine.
Over the years, Rove has relied on the planting of bogus stories in the media, production of counterfeit documents, the theft of campaign materials and internal documents, production of false witnesses, electronic eavesdropping, misuse of government resources, unethical political polling techniques, intimidation of minority voters, and "whispering campaigns" to advance the sordid agenda of the neo-conservative, extreme right wing of the Republican Party.
Rove reached his outrage limit with me when Iraq war veteran and prisoner of war Private Jessica Lynch accused the Bush administration and the neo-con Pentagon of hyping her capture for blatant political purposes. Regarding the Hollywood-like production used by White House and Pentagon propagandists to document her rescue from an Iraqi hospital, where she was receiving medical treatment for her injuries (and not abuse by Iraqi soldiers), Lynch told ABC News, "Yeah, it does [bother me]. It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch said, "I mean, yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know what they had ... or why they filmed it."
The despicable Rove character assassination machinery soon went into full gear. First, gargoyle-like neo-con commentators such as Charles Krauthammer began criticizing Lynch for selling her book rights and accused her of hypocrisy. Then came reports (unproved and largely dismissed) that Lynch had been sexually molested while being held captive. Then the Rove coup de grace: news that Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine had obtained topless photos of Lynch frolicking with two other male soldiers before deploying to Iraq in early 2001. The photos were reportedly taken deep in the heart of Rove's Texas at Fort Bliss. To his credit, Flynt realized that by publishing the photos he would be playing into Rove's hands, and he decided to secure them. Poor Jessica found out what it is like to go from America's wholesome young heroine to an accused tart. All this, merely for confronting the evil Karl Rove.
Jessica was not the first innocent person to incur the wrath of Rove's maniacal filth machine, but she needs to be the last.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA undercover operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, also discovered what it was like to be at the receiving end of a Rove dirty tricks campaign. Wilson, who challenged assertions that Iraq sought yellow cake uranium from Niger, was soon pilloried as a partisan political hack seeking the limelight. His wife, Valerie, saw her undercover CIA operation, Brewster Jennings Associates, exposed by Rove's other favorite media gargoyle, Bob Novak. It is almost certain that Rove or one of his deputies provided the classified information to Novak. Wilson later said nothing would make him happier than seeing Karl Rove "frog marched" out of the White House in handcuffs.
Here, here!
Then there was former UN weapons inspector, former Marine Corps officer Scott Ritter. A vocal opponent of the Iraq war, he found himself subject to criminal charges (later summarily dismissed) of improper chat room communications with an undercover cop, posing as a minor, on the Internet. Not only was the case dismissed by a New York State judge, but the transcript was ordered sealed, the usual response when unfounded charges are brought against a person. Still, someone mysteriously unsealed the transcript and leaked it to the press. Ritter similarly discovered what personal harm Rove's political machine can do to those it doesn't like.
Independent-minded Pentagon flag rank officers, from retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni to Iraqi War commander General Tommy Franks, have also been on the receiving end of Rove's torrents of abuse and disinformation; Zinni for being outspoken against the war, and Franks for disagreeing with awarding to Silver Star to Lynch. Army Specialist Clinton Deitz of the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division told ABC News, "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation." Deitz and other soldiers opposed to the insane war were then threatened with court martial by the chickenhawks surrounding Rumsfeld, who were undoubtedly egged on by the demonic Rove. Another 2nd Brigade Sergeant was more pointed when he said, "I've got my own 'Most Wanted' list" of senior Bush administration officials." Sarge, it would not be a complete list without Rove's name on it.
It now appears that former Iraqi proconsul, retired General Jay Garner, was tossed overboard because he disagreed with the disbanding of the Iraqi army. Heresy! He was replaced with the much more sycophantic and dapper L. Paul Bremer III, who played emcee for Bush's Turkey Trot at Baghdad airport.
Others have also faced recriminations from Rove's "Matrix" system of political retribution and retaliation. They include State Department diplomats John H. Brown, John Brady Kiesling, and Mary Wright, all of whom resigned over the war. They were described as low ranking malcontents by the White House spinmeisters. Another target was former State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) officer Greg Thielmann who spoke about how intelligence was skewed by the neo-cons.
It is not known whether Thielmann's colleague at INR, John Kokal, also voiced concerns about similar issues. We will never know, because tragically, Kokal's shoeless body was discovered in a 20 feet window well, 8 floors below the top of the State Department building early in the evening of November 7th. Contrary to what the State Department said about Kokal, senior State Department sources report that not only was the diplomat a top Iraq specialist, he regularly briefed Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Kokal incident is too reminiscent of the alleged suicide of British Ministry of Defense weapons of mass destruction expert, Dr. David Kelly (who is said to have committed suicide with a dull pen knife and over the counter drugs). Kokal was the first foreign affairs official found dead at the bottom of a foreign ministry since Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk's body was found in the courtyard below his window in 1948. Masaryk's defenestration preceded the total Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia.
I would hope that Rove would not resort to that kind of political retribution, but in an era when the battle cry is, "If you're not with us, you're against us," who really knows? Would Rove let his Machiavellian attitude dictate more extreme forms of retaliation? Let's hope not, but we shouldn't be surprised if it is otherwise the case.
Because just as the Kokal matter was fading into oblivion, the United Nations headquarters reported that on December 1, an American, Michael Holton, a 16-year veteran of its security police, was found shot to death inside the UN headquarters in New York. It was the first incident of its kind in the history of the UN. The head of the UN security department said there was "no prior indication of psychological problems and that no note was left near the body . . . there were no witnesses and no one was known to have heard anything unusual." Yes, there's a lot of that happening as of late.
It was from Rove's shop that a CD-ROM containing a White House PowerPoint campaign strategy miraculously was "found" in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Ken Mehlman, Rove's accomplice in the planted park CD scam, is now Bush's 2004 campaign manager. A strategy paper from the Senate Intelligence Committee's Democratic minority staff suddenly wound up in the hands of GOP radio demagogue Sean Hannity. A Republican staffer for the Senate Judiciary Committee was caught hacking into sensitive Democratic files. Also, consider the bogus intelligence documents pointing to Iraq trying to obtain uranium from Africa. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Rove accused the Democrats of secretly videotaping a Bush debate practice session. All smoke and mirrors designed by Rove to mask his special brand of political conniving. Rove's brand of subterfuge and chicanery is copied from his Teutonic cousins who practiced it so well in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s.
Was it a coincidence that former Vice President Al Gore (the de jure President of the United States) was subjected twice to special baggage searches at airports during a campaign swing to Wisconsin? No, that was again Rove at work. Just like when Rove and ex-Orkin exterminator Tom DeLay misused Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, and FBI personnel in a search for absent members of the Texas House of Representatives. Then there was the story that leaked to the press about California Governor Gray Davis physically abusing a female staff member. Gray Davis? The man who was likened to Casper Milquetoast, all of a sudden acting like Arnold Schwarzenegger! More Rove fingerprints -- the Davis story appeared as Schwarzenegger was fending off allegations of groping females over his long movie career.
The late FBI counterterrorism agent John P. O'Neill had a briefcase containing some sensitive documents stolen from him as he was attending a retirement planning session in Tampa. The briefcase was later returned with nothing missing. But soon the news of the "stolen briefcase" was leaked to the press, and O'Neill faced his first FBI investigation in his 30-year career. The incident smells of Rove all over it. O'Neill, who was on to the Bush family relationship with Saudis who, in turn, backed Al Qaeda, ironically died at the World Trade Center on 9/11.
The serpentine Rove has directed his venom against a number of international personages as well -- from French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohammed El Baradei, to former South African President Nelson Mandela and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. All had opposed the Bush march to war.
I have become aware of journalistic colleagues being mugged (without any theft involved) on the streets of Washington and London. Could these have been warnings to those who have written extensively about the misdeeds of the Bush cabal? Possibly. As the United States continues to sink into a Third World-style dictatorship, we can expect more harassment of journalists and political activists.
Unless, that is, Rove is deep-sixed as a matter of political necessity to shore up Bush's Christian Right base. Washington is awash with stories, including those from the normally pro-Bush conservative Washington Times group, of Rove's Hooveresque off-hours antics (as in J. Edgar Hoover). Gee, Karl, how are you going to square that with the good Reverends Robertson and Falwell?
Stay tuned.
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Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author, syndicated columnist, and a long-time advocate for privacy and civil liberties. He testified before Cynthia McKinney's hearing on the genocide in the DRC in May 2001 and has worked with Bob Barr on privacy legislation in the past.
He is the author of "Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999" (Mellen Press), "The Handbook of Personal Data Protection" (Macmillan, 1992), and "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II" (Dandelion Books). He is a frequent commentator on national security issues on the Fox News Channel and has also appeared on The News Hour, ABC News, and 60 Minutes.
Madsen served as a U.S. Naval Officer from 1975 to 1985, his last duty station being the National Security Agency (NSA). He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal, Meritorious Unit Commendation, and Navy Unit Commendation.
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