The following is a selection of letters sent to the World Socialist Web Site on the testimony of Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Carter administration, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 1. Brzezinski warned that the Bush administration may use a “provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran” to justify military action against Iran.
This article is a superb piece of journalism. The author’s face-to-face encounter with Brzezinski is telling. Brzezinski twice refused the opportunity to dismiss the possibility of the US government staging a false-flag provocation. He could easily have done so with some off-the-cuff remark about loony conspiracy theories, but chose not to.
It is quite ironic that Brzezinski, author of the “Grand Chessboard” strategy in Central Asia, now sees his vision in the hands of uncontrollable lunatics. He must understand that September 11 was another such provocation. But he is now unable to prevent the runaway train of false-flag terror, having failed to call the perpetrators of September 11 to account.
AP
6 February 2007
* * *You write, “This was an unmistakable warning to the US Congress, replete with quotation marks to discount the ‘defensive’ nature of such military action, that the Bush administration is seeking a pretext for an attack on Iran. Although he did not explicitly say so, Brzezinski came close to suggesting that the White House was capable of manufacturing a provocation—including a possible terrorist attack within the US—to provide the casus belli for war.”
WSWS is a little shy. Brzezinski did not come close to suggesting, he suggested what we know all too well, that the covert action end of the neocon-controlled Pentagon branch of the US government might stage another terror attack on US soil to justify invading and possibly nuking Iran. It did so with 9-11 and then lied pervasively that Iraq was connected to 9-11 to justify the invasion of Iraq, even while showing itself indifferent to capturing/killing the alleged actual perpetrators (i.e., deliberately allowing bin Laden to escape Tora Bora as reported by Sy Hersh in the New Yorker).
For those of you who follow such matters, this threat is no secret. I’ve written you before that I was present when Ray McGovern, CIA analyst of 27 years who briefed Bush Sr., stated his belief that 9-11 was “helped” along by Cheney. McGovern may be found issuing the same warning in writing that Brzezinski is now making, about a year or so ago. You must scour the underground media to read it.
My point is about media coverage. Mike Ruppert used to display a famous quote from John Swinton made in the 1880s that he and every other newspaper man was paid to keep the truths that mattered out of the press. The quote ended, “We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.” Ruppert misidentified Swinton as editor of the New York Times, but he was editor of the long defunct New York Tribune. The quote may be found on p. 400 of Upton Sinclair’s The Brass Check.
In the late 1940s Frank Wisner, Jr., one of the CIA’s founding four officers, consolidated the media of the ruling class to create and maintain a barrage of public mind control through distortion and misinformation, the genius of which is that neither the public nor most of the lower level participants would know its intent or their participation in it. Wisner recruited Philip Graham of the Washington Post and gathered in the ruling class troops from there. Operation Mockingbird, as the plan was called, was so successful that by the 1970s CIA Director William Colby could boast, truthfully and literally, “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
During the past few months I have done some archival research in the New York Times. In the 1940s-1950s, and even into the 1970s, key testimony before a Senate or House Committee was reprinted in full in the Times. I know how Barry Grey of WSWS got his information: he attended the hearings. So did theNew York Times, to which I subscribe, and which I read and searched breathlessly for the full text of Brzezinski’s testimony. The newspaper whose masthead reads, “All the News that’s Fit to Print.” Here is that fittable news en toto:
“The censure continued this week during three days of rare Senate testimony from a cadre of Ms. Rice’s predecessors. While the former secretaries of state and national security advisers—Mr. Baker, Henry A. Kissinger, Madeleine K. Albright, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski—were diplomatic in their critiques of the administration’s foreign policy, all left the impression that as America’s top diplomat, Ms. Rice was not engaging in real diplomacy.
“‘That’s what we hire a secretary of state for, not to sit there and proclaim categorical statements, but to engage in the process,’ said Mr. Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.”
WSWS has reported on its systematic exclusion from the press corps on sensitive events hosted by private entities, and reported on the lies it was told as justification. I’m almost tempted to suggest that you support your international socialists if for no other reason than to hear the actual news. I still don’t think that the revolution has a prayer.
Warm regards,
MG
Los Angeles, California, US
5 February 2007
On “Why is the US press silent on Brezezinski’s warnings of war against Iran?”
I’ve been reading your coverage of Brzezinski’s revelations. Another possible spin on this is that perhaps this is Brzezinski’s method for announcing to Congress that they should indeed support massive troop increases and military spending—or else face the consequences—a full-on war in Iran.
KA
6 February 2007
* * *The corporate media has become a ministry of propaganda. You know that. “When the premise is false, all that follows is false.” The mass media helped establish the false premise (the coup in 2000 and September 11). All subsequent communication is calculated deception.
DW
6 February 2007
* * *It really is mind-boggling how determinedly the establishment sticks to their lies. I wonder if we are once again gong to hear about the dangers of hijacked city busses of death, and sleeper cells rising up to commandeer tanker trucks? Besides using 9-11 as an excuse to declare war on Middle Eastern oilfields, the second worst development was Ashcroft’s detaining 10,000 Muslim visitors. There is more than enough evidence available now for any politician, law enforcement officer, reporter, or political partisan to see that the official story is wrong, and that it must be a false flag inside job.
JH
St. Louis, Missouri, US
4 February 2007
* * *Your two articles on Brzezinski’s shocking testimony at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing were fantastic, and very important. It really makes a difference to have a reporter with a live brain in the corridors of Washington!
I rushed out, after reading your Friday article, to look at a New York Times to see how they covered it. Nothing! No doubt they didn’t approve of his call for a solution to the Israel/Palestine “problem.” I did see an AP story covering the testimony, dated Saturday (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0203-01.htm), which is all I’ve seen other than your story.
The Senate posted a pdf of Brzezinski’s testimony, and it is very incomplete! Much of what you quote is missing (including the “cabal” analysis). I wonder why the Senate didn’t provide the entire transcript. Who are they working for, the Bush administration? It might be worthwhile to compare your notes or tape to the incomplete transcript, to see what they’re trying to suppress.
Of course these revelations about Brzezinski, the Bush cabal and the Senate can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Without your excellent reporting we would have much less of an idea of what’s really going on.
Keep up the great work. Time to make a donation to WSWS.
TF
Petaluma, California, US
5 February 2007
* * *I am in complete agreement with the driving point of the articles, though I must admit that I thought everyone had access to the news of the testimony. I realize close friends and fellow peaceniks locally probably missed the event. I will share as often this WSWS article with everyone. Who knows, maybe the evildoers will strike before we meet at our next monthly meeting. We are few but truly active, and I can say everyone is grateful for the news and hopes of the WSWS.
GH
4 February 2007