Interesting document on two Kennedy murders

Update: This document from The Smoking Gun was originally called to my attention by Wim Dankbaar on the forum at www.jfkmurdersolved.com

From there it was picked up by Cannonfire where Joseph Cannon has picked up on an interesting lead, which he plans to pursue further.

Joseph Cannon summarized the document:

This FBI memo from August of 1971 summarizes an interview with a lady named Lila Hurtado, who, in 1968, had worked for one William R. Huntington, an interior decorator "to the stars" who kept an office on Sunset Boulevard. (The text makes it clear that he was gay, a fact which may be relevant.) Huntington told her of a tape recording made by a friend of his, an attorney named Ronald Buck who owned or ran a club called The Factory...

According to Hurtado, Buck had made a secret tape recording of several "wealthy individuals" hobnobbing with bigwigs from Washington. These worthies were "gloating" over the deaths of JFK and Martin Luther King, and discussed plans to deal similarly with Robert F. Kennedy, who was then running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Buck later played the tape for Huntington, who called Robert Kennedy. (How did he get the number? Probably via Peter Lawford, who was one of Huntington's clients.) RFK personally heard the tape while in California, and responded: "I can't do anything about that until I become President."

I did a search at NARA on the informant in the document, Lila Hurtado ,and came up with 32 hits, including a rather long document she wrote called "The Judas Movement" and a tape of Hurtado under hypnosis.

Supermodel Naomi Campbell is in the news today.

For months, I have told interviewers that no senior political or military official was seriously considering a military attack on Iran. In the last few weeks, I have changed my view. In part, this shift was triggered by colleagues with close ties to the Pentagon and the executive branch who have convinced me that some senior officials have already made up their minds: They want to hit Iran.

Joseph Cirincione, Director for non-proliferation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Bill Miller recently posted these frames from the Zapruder Film on the forum at JFKLancer. A few years back Bill sent me two CDs full of images relating to the JFK assassination, and as soon as I get a home computer I will post some of them here.

“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” - George Washington

“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.” -John Adams, 2nd President

“Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies.” -Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President

“I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.” Jefferson

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." -James Madison, 4th US President

“I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.”-George W. Bush.

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.” -- Winston Churchill

Bush likes to kiss men ... I'm just saying

Bush family values ... alcohol

I used to do this too ... back in the third grade.

www.itmfa.com

Now that Abdul Rahman has been released in Afghanistan, the question occurred to me: does Islam really require the death penalty for conversion away from that religion? From Professor Juan Cole

The doctrine that apostacy deserves the death penalty comes out of medieval Islamic canon law rather than from the Quran itself. If Islam is to survive into the next century, its adherents need to rethink all those medieval legal doctrines to which modern fundamentalists are so attached. It is monstrous, and is the height of hypocrisy for Saudis and others to fund the conversion of Americans to Islam while threatening Saudi converts to Christianity with death.

As for the Quran itself, it says "la ikraha fi'd-din"-- there is no compulsion in religion.


[2:256] There is no compulsion in religion: the right way has been distinguished from the wrong way. Anyone who denounces the idol Taghut and believes in God has grasped the strongest handle; one that never breaks. God is the Hearing, the Knowing.


The Quran is forthright that the wages of unbelief and idolatry in this life are damnation in the next. But it does not permit coercion of the conscience in this life.

There is also Chapter 109, with its implication that the Prophet left the choice of religion, even unbelieving religion, to the individual:


109

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

Say, "O unbelievers.
I do not worship what you worship.
Nor do you worship what I worship.
Nor will I ever worship what you worship.
Nor will you ever worship what I worship.
To you, your religion; and to me, my religion."

Could it be that Islam has been perverted by its later followers, as Christianity clearly has?

Ape-Human Hybrids?

In 1974, Belgian zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans and Soviet scientist Boris F. Porchnev published a fascinating book entitled L’homme de Néanderthal est toujours vivant. This book contains the account of a Russian doctor who escaped from the Soviet concentration camps, and in 1952 or 1953 met a trusted friend of Heuvelmans. The doctor claimed that he was arrested because he refused to obey the orders from his superiors. He was to conduct artificial insemination of Oriental women by the sperm of male gorillas. The experiments were conducted in the medical department of the Soviet forced labor camps. The doctor claimed that a race of apemen was created. They were extremely strong and covered with fur, worked tirelessly in the salt mines, and grew larger than the humans—but they could not reproduce.

Also see: Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research – human cloning in all its forms … creating or implanting embryos for experiments … creating human-animal hybrids… George W. Bush

Miss Candy Barr

Verbal Genius of George W. Bush (Video)

Battle for Baghdad 'has already started'

Iraqi officials and ministers are increasingly in despair at the failure to put together an effective administration in Baghdad. A senior Arab minister, who asked not to be named, said: "The government could end up being only a few buildings in the Green Zone."

And, since it's Friday, more
Mary Carey! Includes video of Mary pole dancing!

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

So, Bush is openly announcing that he will not obey the oversight provisions of a law passsed by the Congress of the United States. How about this, if he violates the law, he should be impeached for failing to "faithfully execute" the laws of the United States.

Update: CBC will be showing "Rendezvous with Death" Sunday at 10:00 pm

www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/feature_260306.html


German newsman Willie Huismann’s documentary "Rendezvous with Death" has been reviewed by Carlos Bringuier (author of Red Friday) , who was involved in an altercation with Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1963:

Rendezvous with Silence

I have corresponded with Carlos by email and I believe that he is sincere.

I think I like the old signs better. Just because they sold us a war like a box of laundry detergent doesn't mean the American people do not realize that they have been had.

Sirhan under surveillance before RFK Assassination?

In 1969, while cleaning the former office of a Los Angeles private detective named Earl LaFoon, the building manager found a canister of 16 mm colour movie labeled "Sirhan B Sirhan - 1967." It was a surveillance film, shot approximately half a year before Sirhan was charged with the murder of Robert F Kennedy, walking the streets of Pasadena.

Ed Haslam's fascinating book Mary, Ferrie & The Monkey Virus is available from the author at www.themonkeyvirus.com Read about the horrible death of cancer researcher Dr. Mary Sherman, her connections with JFK assassination suspect David Ferrie, and evidence for a secret underground bio-lab that may have connected the two.

Iraqi documents: Game Over

Documents Show Saddam's WMD Frustrations

On the one side we have anonymous sources and second and third-hand reports; dubious raw intelligence that some conservative bloggers have claimed as proof of Iraqi WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda. On the other hand, as this report shows, we have Saddam Hussein's own words to his closest associates.

"We don't have anything hidden!" the frustrated Iraqi president interjected at one meeting, transcripts show.

At another, in 1996, Saddam wondered whether U.N. inspectors would "roam Iraq for 50 years" in a pointless hunt for weapons of mass destruction. "When is this going to end?" he asked.

Repeatedly in the transcripts, Saddam and his lieutenants remind each other that Iraq destroyed its chemical and biological weapons in the early 1990s, and shut down those programs and the nuclear-bomb program, which had never produced a weapon.

"We played by the rules of the game," Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said at a session in the mid-1990s. "In 1991, our weapons were destroyed."

The inspectors "destroyed everything and said, `Iraq completed 95 percent of their commitment,'" Saddam said at one meeting. "We cooperated with the resolutions 100 percent and you all know that, and the 5 percent they claim we have not executed could take them 10 years to (verify).

"Don't think for a minute that we still have WMD," he told his deputies. "We have nothing."

Honest conservatives will now have to admit that Iraq did not have WMDs. I wonder how many of them there are.

Mysterious "Orb" at site of Kennedy Assassination

Mob didn't turn out vote for Kennedy: UIC professor

No, the Mafia did not win the 1960 presidential election for John F. Kennedy, according to a study by a University of Illinois at Chicago professor.

To test the theory that the mob turned out the vote in Chicago's 1960 general election, John Binder, a finance professor at UIC, analyzed vote totals for five city wards where the mob reputedly had clout, as well as in Cicero and Chicago Heights.

Those areas performed no differently than the non-mob wards and suburbs, Binder found. "There's really no evidence to support that story," Binder said. "Some of the people telling these stories are nuts."

Full paper: Organized Crime and the 1960 Presidential Election

Iraqi Documents

The rightwing blogosphere continues to selectively quote and misrepresent these documents as "smoking gun" proof that they were right all along.

Ray Robison headlines:

Saddam's WMD and terrorist connections all proven in one document!!!

The al-Quds liberation army division supplied us with information....as follows.

1. The Iraqi government will distribute the same leaflets that the American forces are distributing but it will contain anthrax.

2. Iraq imports uniforms resembling American forces uniforms for the purpose of killing Iraqi citizens....

3. Dig trenches around Baghdad...oil...burning...cause mayhem

But look at the document itself: IZSP-2003-00003336

The document itself actually begins:

The Al-Quds liberation army division supplied us with information (open source) (impaired broadcast) as follows:

This is not completely clear and hopefully Professor Juan Cole or someone else who knows Arabic will check the translation. Looking at the document in its entirety it does appear that the source is repeating rumors and news reports.

Bush says there's no civil war in Iraq

Never believe anything until it's been officially denied.

Porn star Mary Carey hams for the cameras before attending the United to Victory dinner sponsored by the National Republican Congressional Committee, Thursday, March 16, 2006, in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)


Mary was probably the most honest person in the room.

I had hoped to have a detailed investigative report on patriotic porn starMary Carey at the Republican "Invitation to Victory" fund-raising dinner. Here is video of Ms. Carey. The only thing Mary and I have in common is that we would both like to have sex with the Bush twins.

Porn star Mary Carey is hanging out with Republicans at some event this week.

Lucky Republicans.

In the Name of God the Merciful

Presidency of the Republic

Intelligence Apparatus

To the respectful Mr. M.A.M

Subject: Information

Our source in Afghanistan No 11002 (for information about him see attachment 1) provided us with information that that Afghani Consul Ahmad Dahestani (for information about him see attachment 2) told him the following:

1. That Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and it that previously a group from Taliban and Osama Bin Laden group visited Iraq.

2. That America has proof that the government of Iraq and Osama Bin Laden group have shown cooperation to hit target within America.

3. That in case it is proven the involvement of Osama Bin Laden group and the Taliban in these destructive operations it is possible that American will conduct strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. That the Afghani Consul heard about the subject of Iraq relation with Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran.

5. In light of this we suggest to write to the Commission of the above information.

Please view… Yours… With regards

Signature:……, Initials : A.M.M, 15/9/2001

Foot note: Immediately send to the Chairman of Commission

Signature:………….

This is one of the first of the recently relased first Iraqi documents to be translated by a blogger. Wingnut sites all over the internet are trumpeting this as proof of a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. WorldNet Daily headlined this:

Newly released document links Saddam to al-Qaida

Indicates regime was cooperating with bin Laden group to strike U.S.

So, an anonymous source heard from the Afghani Consul who heard it from someone in Iran that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden had links to Iraq and the Americans had proof of this? This is third-hand and I am not impressed. Intelligence reports are full of this sort of "raw data" and this proves nothing.

Another blogger, Laura Mansfield, headlines:

Declassified documents from Iraq show 3,000 Saudi and Iraqi mujihideen depart Iraq in Nov 2001 to fight US in Afghanistan

The document:

Date: 12/1/2001

To: Iraqi Intelligence Service

Re: Rumor

Greetings.

1. In the report on the status of rumors for November of 2001 regarding Fedayeen Saddam in al-Anbar, there is an entry that indicates that there is a group of Iraqi and Saudi Arabians numbering around 3,000 who have gone in an unofficial capacity to Afghanistan and have joined the mujahidin to fight with and aid them in defeating the American Zionist Imperialist attack.

2. After presenting the matter to the Supervisor of Fedayeen Saddam, he ordered that the matter should be looked into for verification of the truth of
the rumor.

Please review and inform us.

Laura's analysis:

This clearly indicates that Iraq was being used as a transit point or launch point for Saudi Arabian jihadis, as well as Iraqis, who wanted to go join the forces of Osama Bin Laden in Iraq in November 2001, nearly a year and a half before the US and Coalition forces commenced military action against Saddam Hussein’s regime.

www.lauramansfield.com/j/031706_zarq.asp

Well, no it doesn't. This is a rumor and nothing more. If Saddam Hussein was working with Al Qaeda, wouldn't he know if they were in Iraq or not?

Left-Over: Brokeback White House?

Drums of War beating louder

Bolton compares Iran threat to Sept 11 attacks

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, on Wednesday compared the threat from Iran's nuclear programs to the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

"Just like September 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat," Bolton told ABC News' Nightline program.

Jessica Simpson "Pops" onto Capitol Hill

I'd like to "pop" onto Jessica Simpson.

I have added a new blog in my JFK Assassination links, Some Secrets for You, which concerns the subject of Oswald in Montreal

Researcher James Richards today posted a clearer copy of one of the photos from this blog on www.jfkresearch.com along with these comments:

The guy on the far right is Russell McLarry who was arrested in Dallas just after the assassination for making threats against the President.

I have no proof of this but the guy peaking over the sign, fifth from the left was supposedly the Oswald handing out leaflets in Montreal, an impersonator.

The guy in the middle with the sunglasses looks strikingly similar to the guy with Oswald in New Orleans during the leaflet episode there.

Again, no proof but I submit this Canadian aspect was set-up by Robert Emmett Johnson and Arturo Espaillat - two handlers/cut-outs who I believe dispatched an assassination team to Dallas with funds supplied by Texas millionaire Shearn Moody Jr.

nice tits

Calls to Impeach Bush Growing

A good post by Lisa Pease.

FBI Spied on Peace Group

PITTSBURGH – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania today released new evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting investigations into a political organizations based solely on its anti-war views.

Two documents released today reveal that the FBI investigated gatherings of the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice just because the organization opposed the war in Iraq. Although previously disclosed documents show that the FBI is retaining files on anti-war groups, these documents are the first to show conclusively that the rationale for FBI targeting is the group's opposition to the war.

One of the FBI documents describes the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice as "a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism."

Another document, headed "International Terrorism Matters," states that the Thomas Merton Center "has been determined to be an organization which is opposed to the United States war with Iraq."

Perhaps the most disturbing document is a 4-page document quoting a "source who is not ina position to testify." Unfortunately, everything the "source" related is redacted in its entirety. This suggests that the FBI had an informant inside the Thomas Merton Center.

I am sure this is not the only instance of this sort of activity by the Bush adminstration. Couldn't they put all this time, effort, and money to better use? Fighting terrorism, maybe?

Bush Document

AGENCY: CIA
RECORD NUMBER: 104-10073-10155
RECORD SERIES: JFK
AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 80T01357A

[Redacted] [Felix Rodriguez?]

St. Petersburg, Fla.

October 5, 1961

Dear Bush:

Three weeks ago I finally left Cuba, fortunately with no trouble to speak of. I have been visiting my family in St. Pete, after having spent some time in Miami getting my bearings among the "active exiles", and expect to head North in about a week. I plan to spend a few days in Washington and then go on to New York. I would like very much to keep in touch with the Cuban situation and to remain as active as possible, within the limitations of whatever job I get.

Although a lot of water has gone over the dam since last we spoke, about which the less said the better, I remember your comments about the feasibility of an arrangement along these lines. I would therefore like to encourage from you any suggestions you may be able to offer in this respect. I am naturally very interested in receiving the opportunity of discussing the situation and my possible contribution with qualified persons in Washington. What do you think? So far my only contacts are Senator Smathers, whom I hope to see here in St. Pete on the 9th, and a man named Raskin who answered a letter I wrote Bundy asking for an appointment. Raskin is on Bundy's staff.

Bush, you may be out of touch with the Cuban problem, but in case you are not and have any ideas I will appreciate hearing from you. I expect to be here another week and then drive up in a little VW I bought in Miami. In Washington I will be staying at my cousin's, [redacted] Bethesda, Maryland. In any event I will look forward to seeing you soon.

Best Wishes,

[Redacted]

If I had to take an educated guess as to the author of this letter, I would go with Felix Rodriguez. His book Shadow Warrior shows that he infiltrated Cuba before the Bay of Pigs invasion, and after it he took asylum in the Venezuelan embassy. In September 1961 he was granted safe conduct out of the country, arriving in Caracas on September 13, and arrived in Miami on October 1.

Bush and narco-terrorist Felix Rodriguez

Personal note from Bush to Felix Rodriguez

Felix Rodriguez and Che Guevara

I find the oddest items on my hard drive.

Update: OK, I remembered where I found this. From the webpage of rightwing survivalist Kurt Saxon aka Donald Sisco at www.kurtsaxon.com/sisco01.htm

Oswald in Montreal?

Was Lee Harvey Oswald in Montreal in the Summer of 1963, distributing Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets during the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace? That is the question asked by Maurice Philipps in his book De Dallas à Montréal: La filière montréalaise dans l'assassinat de JFK. A book which most researchers have not read because it has not been translated into English. Philipps is currently putting some of the material from this book on his blog at http://somesecretsforyou.blogspot.com/

Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only "Candy Barr"
....

Rodriguez Affirms Possibility of Chavez Assassination

In an interview on Miami’s Spanish-language channel 22, the former CIA agent Felix Rodriguez said that the U.S. government has plans to “bring about a change in Venezuela.” When pressed as to what type of plans these might be, Rodriguez responded that the Bush administration “could do it with a military strike, with a plane.”

The former CIA agent’s comments were made last week, on Thursday, during the talk show of a well-known supporter of the anti-Castro movement, Maria Elvira Salazar. Rodriguez affirmed during the program, “According to information I have about what is happening in Venezuela, it is possible that at some moment they [the Bush administration] will see itself obliged, for national security reasons and because of problems they have in Colombia, to implement a series of measures that will bring about a change in Venezuela.”

DEA Agent Celerino Castillo testimony, April 27, 1998

In August 1982, George Bush hired Donald P. Gregg as his principal adviser for national security affairs. In late 1984, Gregg introduced Oliver North to Felix Rodriguez, (a retired CIA agent) who had already been working in Central America for over a year under Bush's direction. Gregg personally introduced Rodriguez to Bush on Jan. 22, 1985. Two days after his January 1985 meeting, Rodriguez went to El Salvador and made arrangements to set up his base of operations at Ilopango air base. On Nov. 01, 1984, the FBI arrested Rodriguez's partner, Gerard Latchinian and convicted him of smuggling $10.3million in cocaine into the U.S.

Dubai Port Capitulation Likely Fraudulent

Wouldn't surprise me.

Ratbang Diary agrees

So does Larry Johnson at No Quarter

More JFK Assassination Documents

Washington Post, July 10, 1975

Castro is Linked To Ruby, Oswald

MIAMI, July 9 (UPI)--

Cuban Premier Fidel Castro and Jack Ruby discussed "removal of the President" at a 1963 meeting 10 weeks prior to President Kennedy's assassination, according to Watergate burglar and one-time Central Intelligence Agency agent Frank Sturgis.

Sturgis claimed in a telephone interview Thursday he had been assigned to investigate possible involvement of Cuban exiles in the Kennedy assassination. He would not say what agency had ordered the probe.

The investigation failed to show any Cuban exile links to Kennedy's death, but produced evidence that Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Ruby, who shot Oswald in Dallas, were "involved in the same conspiracy, along with some other people," Sturgis said. He said he and "other agents" gave informaton of the meeting to several government agencies in 1964.

Frank Sturgis investigating the Kennedy assassination is a bit like OJ investigating his wife's death.

Political Prognostication

The Bush administration will crash and burn. Arrogance and incompetence is a dangerous combination, however, and I hope they do not take America down with them.

Death Squads in Iraq

As Iraq slides into civil war, the death squads are increasingly active. Let me point out two facts:

1. There is growing evidence that the death squads are run out of the Ministry of the Interior

and

2. The Ministry of the Interior is largely under the control of the CIA.

Is this the Salvador Option in action, or out of control?

Iran accuses U.S. of sabotaging efforts toward nuclear agreement

TEHRAN, March 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Iran on Tuesday accused the United States of sabotaging the efforts of Iran and other parties to reach an agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Whenever the Americans feel there may be any chance for an agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia or other countries, they try to destroy it," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi was quoted as saying.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-03/08/content_4272013.htm

I can believe this. The Bush administration does not want a diplomatic settlement--I fear they want war. This reminds me of the diplomatic lead-up to the first Gulf war, and to the current one. Going through the motions, talking peace while preparing for war.

Russia-Iran plan 'blocked by US'

CNN - VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- A Russian proposal to allow Iran to enrich a small amount of uranium on its soil has been shot down by US officials, diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

One the other hand I don't believe this:

EXCLUSIVE: Iraq Weapons -- Made in Iran?

March 6, 2006 — U.S. military and intelligence officials tell ABC News that they have caught shipments of deadly new bombs at the Iran-Iraq border

http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/story?id=1692347&page=1

News Hog has an interesting post on this report:

http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2006/03/abc-and-ieds-from-iran-that-were-made.html

This is interesting though:

Syria, Iran to build oil pipeline across Iraq

Election fraud is not yet a proven fact but not just a a wild conspiracy theory. I have linked to Brad Friedman's posts about Clint Curtis in the "heroes" section of my links. Here is a quick summary of what Clint has to say (and I believe Clint Curtis and not Tom Feeney.)

In 2000, computer programmer Clinton Curtis was asked by a GOP congressional candidate, Tom Feeney, to create a software program that would alter vote counts in favor of the Republicans. Curtis testified to this under oath, signed an affidavit, and took a polygraph test. Of course, Feeney, now a congressman, denies Curtis' allegations, but unlike Curtis, Feeney refuses to state his denial under oath or to submit to a polygraph.

www.democraticunderground.com/crisis/06/050_ep.html

Another JFK Assassination Document

#104-10070-10292: This is a memo from Lawrence R. Houston, General Counsel of the CIA, to J. Walter Yeagley, Assistant Attorney General, Internal Security Division, Department of Justice, dated October 31, 1967. The memo concerns Cesario Diosdado of US Customs and his appearance on a list of prospective witnesses in the case of United States v. Rolando Masferrer, et al. Diosdado had arrested Masferrer and the other defendants under a Bureau of Customs warrant. Diosdado's name is consistently mispelled as Diosado in the document.

As we have informed you, since 1962 Diosado, although carried on the Bureau of Customs roles, was actually working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and this Agency reimbursed Customs for his salary. This arrangement is classified as Diosado's duties were in sensitive intelligence areas and it was not intended that he be known as working for this Agency.

If counsel for the defense is able to establish during the trial that Diosado was under the direction and control of the Central Intelligence Agency, it would not only be seriously embarrassing to the Government, but we suggest that it might raise a question of the validity of the arrest in view of the statutory prohibitions on the Agency against the exercise of any police, subpoena, or law-enforcement functions.

For more on Diosdado: http://cuban-exile.com/photo/jfk/KW-JFK2003nov22.pdf

From Raw Story:

Majority of U.S. thinks civil war likely

Oh, in Iraq!

JFK Assassination Research

I just received a small stack of documents from the National Archives and Records Adminstration (NARA) from the Kennedy Assassination Collection. For those not familiar with this, interested researchers and members of the public can search online and then order documents at fifty cents a page. The first 100 pages are free, however, so I would encourage everyone to order. The cover sheets or identification aids to the documents, but not the documents themselves, can be searched at www.archives.gov/research/jfk/search.html

I thought that over the next few days I would describe some of the documents that I received.

One document #104-10004-10096 contains a translation of a letter from Benito Diaz Camacho of Tlaquepaque, Jalisco, Mexico and is addressed to Mr. Helen W. Gandy. Helen Gandy, of course, was actually a woman and was J. Edgar Hoover's secretary for decades. The letter is dated June 12, 1964 and states:

The life of the Governor of Texas is in danger. Two men are taking a secret trip from California to Texas. Conduct a search in San Antonio, Texas. It is a savings account. The name is Eric Harvey Oswald. Either Lee changed his name to Eric or he has a relative. In this account, there must be $1,220.

Another document #119-910003-10172 is a Department of the Army document from Finland dated November 27, 1959. It is a list of arms dealers active in Scandinavia. Six companies are listed. One is Interarmco, located in Alexandria, VA. According to Daniel Hopsicker, in his book Barry and the Boys, which I am currently reading, Interarmco was a CIA proprietary company. The last of the companies on the list is Saunders Import Co., which is listed as being based in New York, NY. The contact for this company is named as "Jack Rubenstein (US)."

Another document #104-10109-10374, is from the CIA and is dated August 26, 1960. The subject is Guy W. Banister Associates. The document states, in part, "Subject organization is of interest to CCD/NC for QKENCHANT purposes."

More tomorrow.

US to present Iran with 30-day ultimatum

The United States will present a 30-day ultimatum to the UN Security Council this week, the Washington Post reported Saturday, calling on Iran to cease with its nuclear program.

It was reported however, that the US would not request further economic sanctions on Iran.

jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1139395531778&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

I've got a bad feeling about this.

Dick Morris on George W. Bush

Bush, he said, "has now dropped to a point where Republicans are turning on him, the public is turning on him and all he's got is a portion of the Republican base. And it is going to get worse - he's going to get schlonged in the election of '06, he'll probably have at least one if not two houses (of Congress) controlled by Democrats launching investigations, etc. This is not a pretty picture. He has lost control over public opinion and he has only his own laziness to blame."
www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/4/141014.shtml?s=ic

Lethal ‘flying gunships’ returning to Iraq
AP: Armed airplanes used in Vietnam War secretly moved to Iraqi base

AN AIR BASE IN IRAQ - The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes — the lethal “flying gunships” of the Vietnam War — to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11657894

The only question in my mind is just how bad will the situation in Iraq get?

Alfred McCoy is the author of one of the classic works on covert history, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, reissued in an updated and expanded edition as The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. He is also the author of a new work, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Although a scholar, McCoy has never been afraid to go where the story is. Here is an an excerpt from a recent interview:

Alfred McCoy: When I was researching that book [The Politics of Heroin] in the mountains of Laos, hiking from village to village, interviewing Laotian farmers about their opium harvest, and they were telling me that they took it down to the local helicopter pad where Air America helicopters would land, Air America being a subsidiary of the C.I.A., and officers, tribal officers in the C.I.A.'s secret army would buy the opium and fly it off to the C.I.A.'s secret compound, where it would be transformed into heroin and ultimately wind up in South Vietnam.

While I was doing that research, we were ambushed by a group of C.I.A. mercenaries. Fortunately, I had five militiamen from the village with me, and we shot our way out of there, but they came quite close. Then later on, a C.I.A. operative threatened to murder my interpreter unless I stopped doing that research.

www.alternet.org/story/32638/

Baghad Enjoys Rare Day of Peaceful Streets

(Thanks to the militia of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr)

The militia that kept order Friday was the same force that went on a rampage of reprisal attacks against Sunni Muslim mosques and clerics after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5661493,00.html

Great, maybe we won't need those Iranian troops after all.

Iran to invest $1 billion in Iraq

Iraq has agreed to invest $1 billion to rehabilitate the country’s industrial sector, said Industry and Minerals Minister Abdulaziz al-Najafi in a statement.

The statement, obtained by Azzaman, said the money from Tehran will be invested in several industrial projects and Iraqi entrepreneurs were welcome to make use of it.

www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2006-03-02%5C206.htm

You don't suppose they would be willing to send troops to help keep the peace do you?

George Bush Gives Finger

www.jfkmurdersolved.com/film/Zapruderstable.mov

May be the first honest work George W. has done in his life

Is Carlyle Group at heart of DPW deal?

So asks Jeromie Corsi his column at wingnut site WorldNetDaily. Now Corsi is, of course, the co-author of that slimy Swift Boat Veteran book that did such damage to the Kerry campaign. Are the Bushites turning on their own?

Widely discussed is that CSX – the rail and ocean carrier container company – was sold to DP World in 2004 after Treasury Secretary John Snow was no longer CSX's chief executive officer. What has received far less attention is the transaction announced in December 2002, in which the Carlyle Group acquired a majority stake in CSX for $300 million.

John Snow was sworn-in as secretary of Treasury on Feb. 7, 2003. Then we see that David Sanborn, the U.S. Merchant Maritime Academy graduate who President Bush just nominated to be maritime administrator under Transportation Secretary Mineta was an executive with CSX before he served as DP World's director of Operations for Europe and Latin America.

Then we find that Dubai International Capital, a private equity investment capital firm that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dubai Holdings commonly participates in co-investments with the Carlyle Group. Dubai Holdings, like DP World, ends up being owned by the United Arab Emirates government, with ultimate ties to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the successor currently at the head of Dubai's royal family.

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49096

Copied from Born at the Crest of the Empire, one of my favorite blogs:

I'm just going to put these two articles together and let you draw your own conclusions. First WaPo.

Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

And then this from AFP

US military officers, breaking with domestic and international legal precedent, said that "war on terror" military tribunals at the Guantanamo naval base could allow evidence obtained through torture.The US military officer presiding over the trial of an alleged aide to Osama bin Laden said he was not ready to rule out such evidence.

Why don't we just crown him King and be done with it? King George, has a nice ring to it.

The Conspiracy--diagrammed. (With thanks and apologies to whoever it was who took this seriously and posted it on whatever website I found it on.)

Why am I so strangely attracted to Ana Marie Cox,

the original Wonkette?

Lawmakers still angered, but growing resigned over ports

US lawmakers were losing hope of being able to block the controversial takeover of operations at several US ports by a United Arab Emirates-owned firm, with the deal becoming final on Thursday.

Members of Congress from both parties kept up their attacks against the impending 6.8 billion dollar sale of the British firm which manages the ports to Dubai Ports World, citing security concerns.

They conceded, however, that they are powerless to prevent the sale from going forward, and placed their hope in an 11th-hour intervention by US President George W. Bush.

www.breitbart.com/news/2006/03/01/060301222720.m1pir6gy.html

Powerless! Aren't they the fucking United States Congress? Almost everyone in Congress is against this deal. Couldn't they, oh, I don't know pass a law or something?

An army of mercenaries?

Here is a really bad idea that I think we will be hearing more of. Wayne Long, a retired Colonel in the US Army, thinks the United States should have a Foreign Legion.

The good news is that there is a large untapped resource of potential manpower that has not ever been considered by the army: huge numbers of young foreign military age males who have green cards and are eagerly seeking U.S. citizenship, or are awaiting visas in their homelands.

In exchange for U.S. citizenship at end of enlistment, these young men could be vetted and recruited by the army on five-year terms at recruiting stations in the United States and around the world. Placed in their own infantry units, and led by seasoned U.S. citizen officers and noncommissioned officers, they could be trained in the latest techniques of light infantry tactics and counterinsurgent warfare, and appropriately equipped for that mission - forming, in essence, an American Foreign Legion.

All superpowers, from ancient times to the modern era, have seen their civilian populations grow more and more disinclined to serve in their national defense forces. Inevitably they have all turned to mercenaries to defend their interests, thereby extending their national integrity, their ways of life and their unchallenged supremacy.

www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/28/opinion/edlong.php#

There is a kind of "crackpot realism" to this notion, at least from a certain perspective. If we are going to be an Empire, then we will need mercenaries. Clearly, the majority of American families do not like the idea of their sons dying in wars of empire.

This is a good blonde joke!