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Subject: RE: torture scandal theory Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 17:44:55 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. thanks for the feedback, Dan, or Carp, or... And good additional information. So far, no response on the indymedia site, which is unusual. one of my local anarcho-green friends questioned why i didn't make reference to that "outed" female agent (basically just because i never looked into it.) and also pointed out that the DCI is considered a temporary and political position by career agency men, a fact which would tend to put him more on the Bush-Rumsfeld side of the fence than on the CIA-liberals side. But I think I/we are grossly oversimplifying, because this obviously involves some black ops, which is a pretty small portion of the agency, and which is probably more aligned with Pentagon than with the tweed-jacket crowd. This is consistent with your idea about trying to save the Pentagon from the Bush-ites. Maybe we are seeing the Bush people force other factions into an uneasy alliance, i.e. the Democrats, the CIA liberals, the CIA black-ops, and the Pentagon top brass all somewhat on the same page. Bush (& Rove, & Cheney etc.) has gotten carried away thinking that oil and defense industries are all he needs to maintain power. I also lean toward thinking that things are developing according to plan. Bush & Co. have probably been set up as fall guy/scapegoats from the very beginning. System puts Bush in office. Bush does system's bidding. Bush pisses off the entire world. System hangs Bush out to dry. System gets what it wanted without being blamed for any of it. System only needs to perform a few minor adjustments (whitewash hearings, etc.) in order to maintain an image of relative integrity. -m -----Original Message----- From: dan combs [mailto:dcombs-AT-bloomington.in.us] Sent: Monday, May 17, 2004 10:15 PM To: Mark Waller; hcgp-peace-AT-yahoogroups.com; 'Houstonanarchists'; Anarchy-List Subject: Re: torture scandal theory At 05:38 PM 5/17/2004, Mark Waller wrote: As promised, my conspiracy theory regarding the torture photos, as posted on Houston Indymedia: http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/29595.php Berg Execution and Abu Ghraib: The Propaganda Wars by malcontent Monday May 17, 2004 at 03:28 PM <snip> Not a bad read, Mark. I am somewhat on the same page. The ascendancy of the neo-cons in the elected portions of the executive branch has bent many limbs in the more permanent trees of the bureaucracies. But it has long been said that administrations come and go but the bureaucracy is never tamed. This follows your line that it is the CIA doing this as a "liberal Institution" whose main goal is preservation of the status quo of state. Colin Powell would be salable in the halls of the Pentagon or in Langley. Rumsfeld and the neo-con "revolutionaries" aren't. So yes, this volley over the prisoners may well be a CIA shot to save the military from the neo-con usurpers who rely very much on corporations to do the business of state and military. But it may be more. Do not forget that as the Abu Gharib scene was being painted other leaks were happening, among them the revelation that civilian contractors for both the Occupational Power and the military do not come under the US Universal Code Of Military Justice and as there is no Iraqi government with sovereignty, there are exactly ZERO legal barriers from keeping these contractors from acting in any way they wish, be it torture, rape, theft or murder. And they are absolved not just in the interrogations they may be contracted for, but as there are 20,000 mercenaries in Iraq with the coalition, they are immune from any legal strictures on behavior. Literally the US has a private army in Iraq that exists completely beyond the pale. The release of the prison pictures pulls those contractors back, somewhat, into the pale. And what if there is resistance from some? Release the Berg video. It speaks volumes about the dangers and penalties of free-lancing. It puts the CIA/"old establishment" back in a position to impart and enforce a bit of firm moral footing in a place where moral relativism is about as good as it ever gets. Did the CIA do it? No, I don't think so. Or at least no direct contractors were involved. But like Kennedy, once sucked into the maw they used it for everything they can. Rejection of this thought is expected. But absent clear thinking or evidence one way or the other, we are back at that original question: How do you control 20K private-hire mercenaries with no code of expected behavior? By example. carp

thanks for the feedback, Dan, or Carp, or... And good additional information.

So far, no response on the indymedia site, which is unusual. one of my local anarcho-green friends questioned why i didn't make reference to that "outed" female agent (basically just because i never looked into it.) and also pointed out that the DCI is considered a temporary and political position by career agency men, a fact which would tend to put him more on the Bush-Rumsfeld side of the fence than on the CIA-liberals side. But I think I/we are grossly oversimplifying, because this obviously involves some black ops, which is a pretty small portion of the agency, and which is probably more aligned with Pentagon than with the tweed-jacket crowd. This is consistent with your idea about trying to save the Pentagon from the Bush-ites. Maybe we are seeing the Bush people force other factions into an uneasy alliance, i.e. the Democrats, the CIA liberals, the CIA black-ops, and the Pentagon top brass all somewhat on the same page. Bush (& Rove, & Cheney etc.) has gotten carried away thinking that oil and defense industries are all he needs to maintain power.

I also lean toward thinking that things are developing according to plan. Bush & Co. have probably been set up as fall guy/scapegoats from the very beginning. System puts Bush in office. Bush does system's bidding. Bush pisses off the entire world. System hangs Bush out to dry. System gets what it wanted without being blamed for any of it. System only needs to perform a few minor adjustments (whitewash hearings, etc.) in order to maintain an image of relative integrity.

-m

File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2004/anarchy-list.0405, message 108

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