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March 8-9, 2010 -- SPECIAL REPORT -- FIRST IN A SERIES -- Rahm: "Flaking away in 'Fucknutsville'"
BY WAYNE MADSEN
President Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, as previously reported by WMR, has been engaged in a virtual "pogrom" against progressive Democrats in the White House, as well as in Congress. However, WMR has learned from multiple Capitol Hill sources that Emanuel's vendetta has taken on vicious racial overtones with the African-American leadership of House of Representatives committees being his top targets.
On March 7, The Guardian of the UK reported that the foul-mouthed Emanuel referred to Washington, DC as "fucknutsville." The latest epithet followed Emanuel's description of progressive Democrats upset over Obama's pro-business slant as "fucking retarded."
Although the long knives are out on Emanuel among many Democrats in Congress, Obama's chief of staff has been gaining the upper hand with pro-Obama "puff pieces" recently appearing in The Washington Post praising Emanuel as the top White House pragmatist at the expense of Obama's chief political strategist David Axelrod, adviser Valerie Jarrett, and even Obama himself.
Informed Democratic and Republican congressional sources report to WMR that Emanuel's latest gambit is to wrest control of key House committee chairmanships from African-Americans and have the gavels handed over to Jewish members, all of whom are close political allies of Emanuel. The ethics probe of House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has forced him to "temporarily" hand over the chairmanship of the powerful committee to Sander Levin (D-MI) after ranking Democratic Representative Pete Stark of California, a critic of American wars in the Middle East and Israeli policies, was passed over in favor of Levin after the intervention of Emanuel with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Congressional sources do not believe that Rangel will see his chairmanship restored.
WMR has now learned that the next target for Emanuel is House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, Jr., the long-serving Michigan Democrat who has been outspokenly critical of Obama's policies on health care and other key issues.
Last year, Conyers's wife Monica Conyers, the former President of the Detroit City Council, was indicted last year for accepting a $5000 bribe from Carlyle-Synagro Technologies of Texas and then reversed her vote on approving a $1.2 billion sludge disposal contract with the city of Detroit. Carlyle-Synagro is owned by the Carlyle Group, the firm that has close ties to the Bush family.
Mrs. Conyers is due to be sentenced on March 10 by US Judge Avern Cohn, who, as WMR previously reported, has been conspiring with Emanuel to delay sentencing Mrs. Conyers as a way to pressure House Judiciary Chairman Conyers to temper his criticisms of Obama. Federal prosecutors studiously avoided bringing charges against Carlyle-Synagro because of the firm's "cooperation" in the federal investigation of Monica Conyers and her former aide Sam Riddle. WMR has learned that the bribe of Mrs. Conyers was part of a conspiracy by Emanuel, US Attorney for Eastern Michigan Terrence Berg, and FBI agent in Detroit Andrew Arena to bring down Conyers as House Judiciary Chairman by going after his wife.
After Mrs. Conyers's sentencing on March 10, Emanuel, WMR is told, will arrange for a letter signed by Chairman Conyers and sent to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which advocated for the Romulus hazardous waste injection well contract for Environmental Geo-Technologies, Inc., a company owned by Dimitrios "Jim" Papas, to be awarded to the firm, to be released to the media. Papas reportedly offered Riddle to receive a $20,000 sub-contract while Mrs. Conyers, according to Riddle, would receive $10,000 of that money as a finder's fee.
After the letter is released after Mrs. Conyers's sentencing by Cohn, Emanuel's media friends will call for John Conyers, the second longest serving House member after John Dingell (D-MI), to repeat the actions of Rangel and "temporarily" hand over his gavel with concurrent calls for a House Ethics probe.
However, WMR has learned from House sources that John Conyers never signed the letter to the EPA, which was drafted by an EPA fellow working on Conyers's staff. Mustafa Santiago Ali. Ali, WMR has learned, did not want to write the letter but was forced into it by Conyers's chief of staff Cynthia Martin, who, WMR is told, is part of Emanuel's conspiracy against the Judiciary chairman. After Ali wrote the letter, his fellowship on Conyers's staff was terminated by Martin.
WMR, which hopes to obtain the letter, has learned that Conyers's signature was affixed by a staffer, that it has no salutation, and is undated. However, there is a possibility that what is arranged for release by Emanuel may include a date and a salutation and thus, falsely implicate Chairman Conyers in the Detroit bribery politics that sank his wife's political career.
WMR has also learned that Emanuel is pumping campaign cash into the coffers of potential primary opponents prior to the May 11 candidate filing deadline in Michigan. Conyers's congressional colleague from Detroit, Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, whose son, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted of corruption, and Conyers, are being targeted for primary defeat by potential candidates hand-picked by Emanuel. The potential opponents, which include three identified as challengers to Conyers, are receiving money from the same Israel Lobby sources who helped defeat Representatives Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Earl Hilliard (D-AL) over their lack of support for pro-Israel resolutions.
WMR has learned from an African-American congressional source that Emanuel has made no secret of his dislike of African-Americans in Congress, particularly the chairmen of committees, including Conyers, Rangel, and Homeland Security committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS). Ironically, Emanuel, who is the chief of staff for the first African-American president of the United States, is known to use the term "shvartz" in describing the senior African-American congressmen. Shvartz is the Yiddish word that means the same thing as "nigger."
We have also learned from a former Democratic member of the House that Emanuel's job with the investment firm Wasserstein-Perella, where he earned $16.2 million for his prospective congressional race to succeed Rod Blagojevich as congressman from Illinois's 5th congressional district, was partly arranged by the media-shy rabid pro-Israeli owner of Slim Fast Foods, S. Daniel Abraham. It is the type of political quid pro quo that Emanuel is now using to hammer Rangel, Conyers, and the ousted chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee John Dingell, who was replaced by Emanuel ally Henry Waxman (D-CA).
Blagojevich has argued that transcripts of his wiretapped phone calls were only selectively released to the media. WMR has learned from a top GOP lobbyist that Blagojevich can be expected to beat the criminal charges against him when it is revealed in trial that Emanuel conspired with U.S. Attorney for northern Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald to indict the former Illinois governor by focusing on his attempt to "sell" Obama's vacant US Senate seat. In fact, Emanuel was adamantly opposed to Blagojevich naming any African-American, Representative Jesse Jackson III or Roland Burris to the seat. Although it has been reported that Emanuel favored Valerie Jarrett for the seat, WMR has learned that Emanuel actually was pushing for Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), an Emanuel ally, for the seat.
Knowing of Emanuel's personal dislike for African-Americans, Blagojevich responded to Emnanuel's pressure by naming Burris to the seat. Emanuel's allies in the Senate responded by greeting the junior Illinois senator with an ethics investigation. The Senate dropped its ethics investigation of Burris due to lack of evidence and merely issued a letter of admonishment on November 20, 2009. However, Burris's career was finished and he announced he would not seek re-election.
If Conyers is forced to step down or "temporarily" step aside as chairman, ranking Democrat Howard Berman (D-CA), another Emanuel ally, would step up as chairman. Such a move would see Representative Gary Ackerman, another Emanuel friend, step up to take Berman's place as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emanuel also has Thompson, chairman of Homeland Security, as a target. Thompson has been under an ethics cloud for taking lobbyist-funded trips to Saipan, courtesy of jailed GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and to Saint Martin, courtesy of Citigroup lobbyists. Although Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) is the ranking Democrat on the committee, Emanuel can be expected to pressure Pelosi to find another assignment for her so that the third-ranking Democrat, Representative Jane Harman (D-CA), another Emanuel ally, can step up to chair the committee. Harman has been under a cloud resulting from her close association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Mossad agents in Washington, DC.
WMR was told by a top GOP lobbyist who is on good terms with Representative Conyers that number of House and Senate members and staffers view Emanuel as a "dangerous psychopath" capable of doing almost anything to advance his agenda. A former African-American member of the House told WMR that Emanuel's goal is to eliminate every African-American chairman from their leadership roles and pave the way for Emanuel's Jewish colleagues to take their chairmanships from them. The strategy has already been carried out with respect to Rangel, as well as with pro-union Dingell, who is white. The strategy is about to be played out against Conyers and, eventually, Thompson.
As this story was being prepared, freshman Representative Eric Massa (D-NY), who announced his resignation after being embroiled in a homosexual sexual harassment scandal involving a staffer, announced on a WKPQ-FM Saturday radio show that he was the victim of a conspiracy carried out by Emanuel and his House allies. Massa said he had a "profanity-filled conversation" conversation with Emanuel last year after voting against Obama's health care bill. Massa said he told Emanuel to resign for his use of profanity. Massa added, "Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn . . . He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
NEXT: THE BACKMAIL INFORMATION THAT EMANUEL HAS ON PRESIDENT OBAMA.
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http://www.islamtimes.org/vdca0anu.49n661gtk4.html
Who’s to blame for the Iraq war? A not-so-trivial quiz
by Maidhc Ó Cathail
This month marks the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Despite the passage of time, there is still much confusion, some of it deliberate, about why America made that fateful decision. The following questions are intended to clarify who’s to blame for the Iraq war.
1. Ahmed Chalabi, the source of much of the false “intelligence” about Iraqi WMD, was introduced to his biggest boosters Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz by their mentor, a University of Chicago professor who had known the Iraqi con man since the 1960s. Who was this influential Cold War hawk who has an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) conference centre named in his honour?
2. In 1982, “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s” appeared in Kivunim, a journal published by the World Zionist Organization, which stated: “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel.” Who wrote this seminal article?
3. “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a report prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, recommended “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq—an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.” Which then member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board was the study group leader?
4. A November 1997 Weekly Standard editorial entitled “Saddam Must Go” stated: “We know it seems unthinkable to propose another ground attack to take Baghdad. But it’s time to start thinking the unthinkable.” The following year, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, published a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a “hazard” to “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” The co-founders of PNAC were also the authors of the “Saddam Must Go” editorial. Who are they?
5. In Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published by AEI Press in 1999, he argued that Clinton policies in Iraq were failing to contain the country and proposed that the US use its military to redraw the map of the Middle East. Who was this Mideast adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to mid-2007?
6. On September 15, 2001 at Camp David, the Deputy Defense Secretary attempted to justify a US attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan because it was “doable.” In the lead-up to the war, he said that it was “wildly off the mark” to think hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify a postwar Iraq; that the Iraqis “are going to welcome us as liberators”; and that “it is just wrong” to assume that the United States would have to fund the Iraq war. Who is this chief architect of the Iraq war? 7. On September 23, 2001, which US senator, who had pushed for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that there was evidence that “suggests Saddam Hussein may have had contact with bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network, perhaps [was] even involved in the September 11 attack”?
8. A November 12, 2001 New York Times editorial called an alleged meeting between Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague an “undisputed fact”? Who was the columnist, celebrated for his linguistic prowess, who was sloppy in his use of language here?
9. A November 20, 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed argued that the US should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism, claiming, “Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped al Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction.” Who is the professor of strategic studies at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University who made these spurious claims?
10. George W. Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union address described Iraq as part of an “axis of evil.” Who was Bush’s Canadian-born speechwriter who coined the provocative phrase?
11. “Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power”? Who is the longtime editor of Commentary magazine who made this assertion in a February 2002 article entitled “How to win World War IV”?
12. Which Pentagon Defense Policy Board member and PNAC signatory wrote in the Washington Post on February 13, 2002, “I believe that demolishing Hussein’s military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk”?
13. “If we win the war, we are in control of Iraq, it is the single largest source of oil in the world…. We will have a bonanza, a financial one, at the other end, if the war is successful.” Who is the psychiatrist-turned- Washington Post columnist who tempted Americans with this illusory carrot on August 3, 2002?
14. In a September 20, 2002 Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “The Case of Toppling Saddam,” which current national leader claimed that Saddam Hussein could be hiding nuclear material “in centrifuges the size of washing machines” throughout the country?
15. “Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel.” Despite this candid admission to a foreign policy conference at the University of Virginia on September 10, 2002, he authored the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which provided the justification for a preemptive war against Iraq. Who was this member of President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board?
16. According to a December 7, 2002 New York Times article, during Secretary of State Powell’s efforts to negotiate a resolution on Iraq at the United Nations, this Iran-Contra conspirator’s role was “to make sure that Secretary Powell did not make too many concessions to the Europeans on the resolution’s wording, pressing a hard-line view.” Who was this senior director of Near East and North African affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration?
17. Who was Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, until he was indicted for lying to federal investigators in the Valerie Plame case, who drafted Colin Powell’s fraudulent February 5, 2003 UN speech?
18. According to Julian Borger’s July 17, 2003 Guardian article entitled “The spies who pushed for war,” the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans (OSP) “forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel” to provide the Bush administration with alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq. Who was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who headed the OSP?
19. Which British-born professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, whose 1990 essay “The Roots of Muslim Rage” introduced the dubious concept of a “Clash of Civilizations,” has been called “perhaps the most significant intellectual influence behind the invasion of Iraq”?
20. Apart from their key role in taking America to war against Iraq, what do the answers to questions 1 to 19 all have in common?
Answers: 1. Albert Wohlstetter 2. Oded Yinon 3. Richard Perle 4. William Kristol and Robert Kagan 5. David Wurmser 6. Paul Wolfowitz 7. Joseph Lieberman 8. William Safire 9. Eliot Cohen 10. David Frum 11. Norman Podhoretz 12. Kenneth Adelman 13. Charles Krauthammer 14. Benjamin Netanyahu 15. Philip Zelikow 16. Elliott Abrams 17. Lewis “Scooter” Libby 18. Douglas Feith 19. Bernard Lewis 20. They are all Jewish Zionists.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.
