Pre-Halloween spookiness

It’s
not every day that a CIA veteran addresses an audience of social activists and
does not repudiate his past.

            When these guys come out, they
usually sound contrite. Take Philip Agee, the ex-spook who denounced RIT’s
dalliance with Langley. Agee wrote a delicious book on the CIA’s international
crime spree; ultimately he rejected the whole US political and economic
establishment.

            But ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern is
cut from different cloth.

When McGovern spoke here October 19 at
the Metro Justice annual dinner, he stressed that he spent 27 good years as a
CIA analyst. The agency’s statutory job, he said, is to collate intelligence
from many sources and report to the president.

            While he’s aware of the agency’s rap
sheet, he seems proud of the job he did.

            So why has McGovern gone on the talk
circuit? Basically, he thinks things are now so bad that intelligence
professionals have a moral duty to come forward. In a piece for CounterPunch early this year, he quoted
an unnamed intelligence pro: “Have we gone beyond the bounds of reasonable
dishonesty?”

            You already know what McGovern is
talking about. The official lies are as plain as the lengthening noses on Bush
and the US media alike.

            There’s the administration’s
“flawed intelligence,” exploited to demonize Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
(Not “flawed,” but fictitious, and contrary to what honest
intelligence sources were saying.)

            It’s the tall tale about Iraq’s
intent to purchase uranium from Niger. (A tale told by an idiot, based on a
forged document and a purposeful misunderstanding of Niger’s uranium industry,
which is controlled not by the Niger government but by a consortium under
French authority.)

            It’s the whopper that Iraq posed an
“imminent threat” to the US. (Ever since Iraq ceased being a de facto
US ally, the threat has been the other way around.)

            And above all, it’s the Big Lie —
insinuated by high officials and believed by two-thirds of Americans — that
Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

McGovern
didn’t just review this dismal record.

            In response to questions from the
Metro Justice audience, he broached some political questions that Americans
don’t want to hear. For example, he explained some of the mystery of George W.
Bush’s Iraq policies simply by noting they’re consistent with Ariel Sharon’s.

But McGovern didn’t get into how the
war on terror has been brought home.

            I thought it was remarkable to see
— two days after the Metro Justice dinner — a shot of Senator Chuck Schumer
on the Democrat & Chronicle‘s
front page, getting a warm hug from a retired Marine staff sergeant. The
sergeant was grateful for the senator’s efforts to keep the Canandaigua VA
Medical Center from closing. (I put Schumer and other local politicians way up
for this. It would be criminal to pull the rug out from under local vets.
Whatever the nature of the wars they served in, they deserve care in return for
their sacrifices.)

            But last October, Schumer, like
Senator Hillary Clinton, voted to give Bush the power to wage war against Iraq.
In doing so, he committed the nation not just to future war crimes but also to
huge expenditures that will drain vital programs, including those for vets. The
$166 billion already being spent is a mere down payment on the Iraq war —
will it hit a half-trillion dollars? — not to mention wars sure to come. US
military spending, excluding money for Iraq, soars above $400 billion per year.

            From these figures, it’s easy to
understand why it seems every state and municipal budget throughout the
homeland is in the tank.

            Yes, the numbers are being driven by
the recession, radical tax cuts, corporate globalization, and the like. But
it’s clear Washington could do a lot more to help America’s communities. For that
to happen, though, the right-wing fanatics in Washington who’ve seized the
White House and other institutions will have to be sent packing.

            This, too, was part of Ray
McGovern’s message: Dump Bush in 2004. How? Start by exposing all the lies
tabulated above. It’s working elsewhere: The British are giving Tony Blair a
healthy whack or two on this score. And as McGovern pointed out, the Australians
are going to town, as well. Earlier this month, Prime Minister John Howard was
formally censured for playing the Bush game with “intelligence” on
Iraq.

            Paging Crocodile Dundee: We’ve got
our own malefactor who must be called to account.

This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2003.