Being a CFR Member Makes Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail

MORE ON THE PETRAEUS CRIMES AND COVERUP BELOW-

Exclusive: While lesser Americans face years in jail for leaking secrets – even to inform fellow citizens of government abuses – retired Gen. David Petraeus gets a misdemeanor wrist-slap for exposing covert officers and lying about it, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was jailed just for trying to ask Petraeus a question.

By Ray McGovern

The leniency shown former CIA Director (and retired General) David Petraeus by the Justice Department in sparing him prison time for the serious crimes that he has committed puts him in the same preferential, immune-from-incarceration category as those running the financial institutions of Wall Street, where, incidentally, Petraeus now makes millions. By contrast, “lesser” folks – and particularly the brave men and women who disclose government crimes – get to serve time, even decades, in jail.

Gen. David Petraeus in a photo with his

biographer/mistress Paula Broadwell.

(U.S. government photo)

Petraeus is now a partner at KKR, a firm specializing in large leveraged buyouts, and his hand-slap guilty plea to a misdemeanor for mishandling government secrets should not interfere from his continued service at the firm. KKR’s founders originally worked at Bear Stearns, the institution that failed in early 2008 at the beginning of the meltdown of the investment banking industry later that year.

 

Despite manifestly corrupt practices like those of subprime mortgage lenders, none of those responsible went to jail after the 2008-09 financial collapse which cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes. The bailed-out banks were judged “too big to fail” and the bankers “too big to jail.”

Two years ago, in a highly revealing slip of the tongue, Attorney General Eric Holder explained to Congress that it can “become difficult” to prosecute major financial institutions because they are so large that a criminal charge could pose a threat to the economy – or perhaps what he meant was an even bigger threat to the economy.

Holder tried to walk back his unintended slip into honesty a year later, claiming, “There is no such thing as ‘too big to jail.’” And this bromide was dutifully echoed by Holder’s likely successor, Loretta Lynch, at her confirmation hearing in late January.

Words, though, are cheap. The proof is in the pudding. It remains true that not one of the crooked bankers or investment advisers who inflicted untold misery on ordinary people, gambling away much of their life savings, has been jailed. Not one.

And now Petraeus, who gave his biographer/mistress access to some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and then lied about it to the FBI, has also been shown to be too big to jail. Perhaps Holder decided it would be a gentlemanly thing to do on his way out of office – to take this awkward issue off Lynch’s initial to-do list and spare her the embarrassment of demonstrating once again that equality under the law has become a mirage; that not only big banks, but also big shots like Petraeus – who was Official Washington’s most beloved general before becoming CIA director – are, in fact, too big to jail.

It strikes me, in a way, as fitting that even on his way out the door, Eric Holder would not miss the opportunity to demonstrate his propensity for giving hypocrisy a bad name.

A Slap on Wrist for Serious Crimes

The Justice Department let David Petraeus cop a plea after requiring him to admit that he had shared with his biographer/mistress eight black notebooks containing highly classified information and then lied about it to FBI investigators. Serious crimes? The following quotes are excerpted from “U.S. v. David Howell Petraeus: Factual Basis in support of the Plea Agreement” offered by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Charlotte Division:

“17. During his tenure as Commander of ISAF in Afghanistan, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS maintained bound, five-by-eight-inch notebooks that contained his daily schedule and classified and unclassified notes he took during official meetings, conferences, and briefings. … A total of eight such books (hereinafter the “Black Books”) encompassed the period of defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS’S ISAF [Afghanistan] command and collectively contained classified information regarding the identities of covert officers, war strategy, intelligence capabilities and mechanisms, diplomatic discussions, quotes and deliberative discussions from high-level National Security Council meetings, and defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS’s discussions with the President of the United States of America. [emphasis added]

“18. The Black Books contained national defense information, including Top Secret//SCI and code word information.”

Despite the sensitivity of the notebooks and existing law and regulations, Petraeus did not surrender them to proper custody when he returned to the U.S. after being nominated to become the Director of the CIA. According to the Court’s “Factual Basis,” Petraeus’s biographer/mistress recorded a conversation of Aug. 4, 2011, in which she asks about the “Black Books.” The Court statement continues:

“ [Petraeus] ‘Umm, well, they’re really – I mean they are highly classified, some of them.  … I mean there’s code word stuff in there.’ … On or about August 27, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS sent an email to his biographer in which he agreed to provide the Black Books to his biographer. … On or about August 28, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWEL PETRAEUS delivered the Black Books to a private residence in Washington, D.C. where his biographer was staying. … On or about September 1, 2011, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS retrieved the Black Books from the D.C. private residence and returned them to his own Arlington, Virginia home.” [emphasis added]

I would think it a safe guess that Petraeus’s timing can be attributed to his awareness that his privacy and freedom of movement was about to be greatly diminished, once his CIA personal security detail started keeping close track of him from his first day on the job as CIA Director, Sept. 6, 2011.

“32. On or about October 26, 2012, defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS was interviewed by two FBI special agents. … [He] was advised that the special agents were conducting a criminal investigation. … PETRAEUS stated that (a) he had never provided any classified information to his biographer, and (b) he had never facilitated the provision of classified information to his biographer. These statements were false. Defendant DAVID HOWELL PETRAEUS then and there knew that he previously shared the Black Books with his biographer.” [emphasis added]

Lying to the FBI? No problem. As “Expose Facts” blogger Marcy Wheeler immediately commented: “For lying to the FBI – a crime that others go to prison for for months and years – Petraeus will just get a two point enhancement on his sentencing guidelines. The Department of Justice basically completely wiped out the crime of covering up his crime of leaking some of the country’s most sensitive secrets to his mistress.” [emphasis added]

Talk about “prosecutorial discretion” or, in this case, indiscretion – giving Petraeus a fine and probation but no felony conviction or prison time for what he did! Lesser lights are not so fortunate. Just ask Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning who is serving a 35-year prison sentence for disclosing information to the public about U.S. war crimes and other abuses. Or Edward Snowden, who is stuck in Russia facing a U.S. indictment on espionage charges for informing the people about pervasive and unconstitutional U.S. government surveillance of common citizens.

Or former CIA officer John Kiriakou who was sent to prison for inadvertently revealing the name of one Agency official cognizant of CIA torture. Here’s what Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said then: “The government has a vital interest in protecting the identities of those involved in covert operations. Leaks of highly sensitive, closely held and classified information compromise national security and can put individual lives in danger.”

When, on Oct. 23, 2012, Kiriakou acquiesced to a plea deal requiring two-and-a-half years in federal prison, then CIA Director Petraeus sent a sanctimonious Memorandum to Agency employees applauding Kiriakou’s conviction and noting, “It marks an important victory for our agency …  there are indeed consequences for those who believe they are above the laws that protect our fellow officers and enable American intelligence agencies to operate with the requisite degree of secrecy.” [emphasis added]

Consequences for Kiriakou but not, as we now know, for Petraeus.

If you feel no discomfort at this selective application of the law, you might wish to scroll or page back to the “Factual Basis” for Petraeus’s Plea Agreement and be reminded that it was just three days after his lecture to CIA employees about the sanctity of protecting the identity of covert agents that Petraeus lied to FBI investigators – on Oct. 26, 2012 – about his sharing such details with his mistress.

Why Did Petraeus Do It?

Old soldiers like Petraeus (indeed, most aging but still ambitious men) have been known to end up doing self-destructive things by letting themselves be flattered by the attentions of younger women. This may offer a partial explanation – human weakness even in a self-styled larger-than-life super-Mensch. But I see the motivation as mostly vainglory. (The two are not mutually exclusive, of course.)

Looking back at Petraeus’s record of overweening ambition, it seems likely he was motivated first and foremost by a desire to ensure that his biographer would be able to extract from the notebooks some juicy morsels he may not have remembered to tell her about. This might enhance his profile as Warrior-Scholar-“King David,” the image that he has assiduously cultivated and promoted, with the help of an adulating neocon-dominated media.

Petraeus’s presidential ambitions have been an open secret. And with his copping a plea to a misdemeanor, his “rehabilitation” seems to have already begun. He has told friends that he would like to serve again in government and they immediately relayed that bright hope to the media.

Sen. John McCain was quick to call the whole matter “closed.” A strong supporter of Petraeus, McCain added this fulsome praise: “At a time of grave security challenges around the world, I hope that General Petraeus will continue to provide his outstanding service and leadership to our nation, as he has throughout his distinguished career.”

And Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings’ neocon military specialist who rarely gets anything right, spoke true to form to the New York Times: “The broader nation needs his advice, and I think it’s been evident that people still want to hear from him. … People are forgiving and I know he made a mistake. But he’s also a national hero and a national treasure.”

The “mainstream media” is trapped in its undeserved adulation for Petraeus’s “heroism.” It is virtually impossible, for example, for them to acknowledge that his ballyhooed, official-handout-based “success” in training and equipping tens of thousands of crack Iraqi troops was given the lie when those same troops ran away (the officers took helicopters) and left their weapons behind at the first sight of ISIL fighters a year ago.

Equally sham were media claims of the “success” for the “surges” of 30,000 troops sent into Iraq (2007) and 33,000 into Afghanistan (2009). Each “surge” squandered the lives of about 1,000 U.S. troops for nothing – yes, nothing – except in the case of Iraq buying time for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to get out of town without a clear-cut defeat hanging around their necks.

Many of the supposed successes of Petraeus’s Iraqi “surge” also predated the “surge,” including a high-tech program for killing top militants such as Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the formation of the so-called Sunni Awakening, both occurring in 2006 under the previous field commanders. And, Bush’s principal goal of the “surge” – to create political space for a fuller Sunni-Shiite reconciliation – was never accomplished. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Surge Myth’s Deadly Result.”]

And last, it is important to note that David Petraeus does not have a corner on the above-the-law attitudes and behavior of previous directors of the CIA. The kid-gloves treatment he has been accorded, however, will increase chances that future directors will feel they can misbehave seriously and suffer no serious personal consequence.

The virtual immunity enjoyed by the well connected – even when they lie to the FBI or tell whoppers in sworn testimony to Congress (as Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has done) – feeds the propensity to prioritize one’s own personal ambition and to delegate a back seat to legitimate national security concerns – even basic things like giving required protection to properly classified information, including the identity of covert officers.

One might call this all-too-common syndrome Self-Aggrandizing Dismissiveness (SAD). Sadly, Petraeus is merely the latest exemplar of the SAD syndrome. The unbridled ambitions of some of his predecessors at CIA – the arrogant John Deutch, for example – have been equally noxious and destructive. But we’ll leave that for the next chapter.

Full Disclosure: Petraeus has not yet answered McGovern’s letter of Feb. 3 regarding why McGovern was barred from a public speaking event by Petraeus in New York City on Oct. 30, 2014, and then was roughly arrested by police and jailed for the night. McGovern wonders if Petraeus failed to respond because he was pre-occupied working out his Plea Agreement.

Ray McGovern worked for a total of 27 years in all four of CIA’s main directorates. He served under seven Presidents and nine CIA Directors, and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). He now works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.

source consortiumnews

PETRAEUS  FILES

Charleston Voice: Petraeus Affair: Shirtless FBI Pic Appears to Be ...

Nov 21, 2012 ... Petraeus Affair: Shirtless FBI Pic Appears to Be Playful - ABC News.

Charleston Voice: General Petraeus may have been officially ...

Sep 9, 2013 ... Another special forces veteran, retired Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had ...

Charleston Voice: Cover-up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Nov 11, 2012 ... “What I do know is that an integral part of that firewall involved having information on Petraeus that would potentially damage his career, legacy ...

Charleston Voice: CIA-Sponsored Trolls Monitor Internet & Interact ...

Nov 29, 2012 ... Petraeus is seeking to better the CIA's ability to create online identities for undercover spies. Currently, each internet user has a digital footprint ...

Traitors Within the Gates: CFR's Military Membership Roster

Oct 6, 2014 ... GEN David Petraeus - Director CIA (Aug. 2011) Resigned 11/9/12 Admitted Adulterer present Commander of U.S. and Coalition forces in ...

Charleston Voice: Could Theft of $500M Fuel in Afghanistan be ...

Sep 11, 2012 ... Could Theft of $500M Fuel in Afghanistan be another Thread to be Unraveled on Petraeus' Watch? Posted by Charleston Voice ...

Charleston Voice: Mossad Chief Secretly Met With Top U.S. Officials ...

Feb 1, 2012 ... Feinstein then indicated that she had met Mossad chief Pardo earlier in the week in Washington, with Petraeus adding that he too met Pardo ...

CIA Contractor: We Fabricated ISIS

Posted by Sean Adl-Tabatabai

Former CIA contractor Steven Kelley has said on record that ISIS/ISIL are a fabricated terrorist group made and funded by the CIA in the United States.

According to the video description:

“This is a completely fabricated enemy,” he said in a phone interview with Press TV from Anaheim, California on Thursday.

“The funding is completely from the United States and its allies and for people to think that this enemy is something that needs to be attacked in Syria or Iraq is a farce because obviously this is something that we create it, we control and only now it has become inconvenient for us to attack this group as a legitimate enemy,” Kelley added.

He made the remarks as US President Barack Obama is under pressure to seek congressional approval before expanding Washington’s military air campaign against ISIL targets from Iraq into neighboring Syria.

The Pentagon has already launched at least 100 airstrikes on ISIL positions in northern Iraq since Obama authorized the use of force against the terrorist group earlier this month.

The White House insists it does not need explicit congressional authorization for those operations because they are intended to protect American personnel and interests inside the Arab country.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Obama “will not hesitate to use his authority” to keep Americans safe, but added that the president was “committed to coordinating and consulting with Congress” on a decision to hit ISIL targets in Syria.

“If you want to get to the root of the problem and remove this organization, the first thing they need to do is to remove the funding and take care of entities responsible for the creation of this group,” Kelley said.

“I believe that this ISIS group would probably go away, would be easily defeated by the armies of [Syrian President] Bashar Assad,” he said.

via yournewswire

'Secret' Gold Repatriation: the Banksters' Newest Bullion Scam

Tell yourself it’s not evident that the world’s mainstream media is not duplicitous in this cover-up. Where are there any other “investigative journalists” and/or financial “trustees” with the spine to step forward as a whistleblower. Not even one soul among a million with a fibre of honor and self-respect. Are we so embedded with cowards who can only smear and ridicule the truth as treason when it’s brought forth by independent competitors? It’s become clear to all why an immoral people being creators of a dishonest money must be shielded, and the truth not be told.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

February 2, 2015

Many previous commentaries have detailed the

Accomack County, Virginia

mounting crises faced by the One Bank in its own paper-bullion markets. 

Invariably, these “crises” are 100% self-created. This is easily illustrated by reviewing a few of its current (increasingly serious) problems.

1)  No one has seen the 10,000+ tons of gold which the U.S. government claims to have been storing (on behalf of itself, and other nations) for roughly 60 years.

2)  The reason why no one has seen this gold is that most of it does not exist, and of the small fraction that remains, any audit would reveal that every bar had been pledged to numerous (dozens of?) owners.

3)  Those owners are now “requesting” (demanding?) that their gold be returned to them.

Why does the U.S. government (and its Big Banks) no longer hold all the gold that it used to hold – and still pretends to hold? The short answer is that the One Bank is a clan of psychopaths, which chooses to employ psychopaths as most of its senior henchmen.

The somewhat longer answer is that one of this crime syndicate’s most important strategies in operating the massive paper-currency fraud it has been running for the past 44 years is the suppression of gold/silver prices. 

Gold and silver are the monetary “canary in the coal mine” which would (normally) alert the world to paper-frauds of this nature/magnitude.

The “modus operandi” of all psychopaths in performing most tasks is overkill. All that the banksters needed to do in this operation was to dribble-out a few hundred tons of gold per year onto the market. In conjunction with their endemic market manipulations; that would have been sufficient to keep prices under control – and they could buy back what they dumped onto the market out of annual mine supply, thus maintaining this operation in perpetuity.

Instead, being psychopaths; the One Bank and its minions chose to crush the precious metals sector. More than 90% of the mining companies were driven into bankruptcy, minimizing annual supply. Compounding this, excessive price-suppression of gold and silver meant that both metals were perpetually “on sale”, stoking (if not maximizing) demand.

The One Bank took a sector which was in balance (the natural state of all markets/sectors), and created a massive, permanent, structural supply-deficit. Thus not only were the banksters dumping excessive amounts of their bullion (gold) stockpiles each year to maintain their excessive level of price-suppression, they were forced to expend large, additional quantities of those stockpiles simply to meet the excess demand which was created by their (psychopathic) overkill.

To attempt to mask this massive, self-created bullion crisis (rather than simply curb their own psychopathic behavior); the banksters initiated numerous other, massive frauds in the precious metals sector. These include their sham “leasing”, “hedging”, fraudulent accounting of inventories, and their ultra-absurd“leveraging” of the entire paper-called-gold and paper-called-silver markets – at some extreme ratio in excess of 100:1.

As with most of the One Bank’s self-created economic “crises”; its preferred method of dealing with this problem has been to pretend it didn’t exist. But (as the banksters are now discovering) such self-delusion does not suffice when the nations who believe that the U.S. government is storing gold on their behalf ask that this “gold” be returned to them.

First it was Germany, and then it was Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, and France. All of these nations have either made formal requests or statements of intention that they want their gold. It was the first (and most-public) of these “gold repatriations” which exposed the obvious fact that the gold supposedly stored in the U.S. wasn’t there.

To begin with; Germany only requested a small fraction of its gold. Secondly, the “repatriation” was spread-out over a ridiculously long period – seven years – when (as we later found out) the entire process could have been conducted in a matter of weeks. 

Finally, as detailed at Zero Hedge; the U.S. had been unable to comply with even these feeble/minimal deliveries.

Then we had the strange case of the Netherland’s “successful” repatriation effort. What made it “strange”? Primarily, it was the fact that it was done in secret. What was also strange (given Germany’s prior failure) is that the Netherlands got all its gold (more or less) in ‘one gulp’, in a process which – we are told – took only a few weeks.

Despite the cloak-and-dagger nature of this gold “operation”; most were inclined to accept this “secret gold repatriation” at face value. The reason for this is that it was considered quid pro quo: a reward for the complicity of the Netherlands government in the “MH-17” cover-up. However, suddenly, we must now question whether this entire episode was simply more of the One Bank’s disinformation.

What has changed here – suddenly – is the “breaking news” (also covered at Zero Hedge) that now, supposedly, Germany’s government has been able to secretly, successfully “repatriate” a large quantity of its own gold, the same gold which it was totally unable to obtain via an open, public process.

Here it is important to step back, briefly, for some historical context. Why were all these thousands of tons of Europe’s gold ferried across the Atlantic to the United States, in the first place? Two reasons. First of all; it was done on the eve of the Second World War, when Hitler’s rapacious intentions were already obvious.

The second reason it was considered imperative to move Europe’s gold to the U.S. (where Hitler couldn’t loot it) was because at that time the world was still on a gold standard, making gold a primary strategic asset. For these reasons; the transfers of gold to the U.S. were conducted with the utmost secrecy.

But flash ahead 75 years, and the world is a dramatically different place. There is no “Third Reich”, or other foreign menace threatening Europe, which is one reason why these nations are now asking that their gold be returned. Equally important, the world has not been on a gold standard for more than 40 years.

Not only is gold no longer a primary strategic asset (at least at the moment), but officially (according to the banksters) it is a mere “barbarous relic”. Putting these obvious points together, we arrive at a simple conclusion: there cannot be any possible legitimate reason to engage in these “gold repatriations” in secret.

Conversely, there is one gigantic, obvious motive for why the One Bank would instruct its puppet governments to “repatriate” Europe’s gold “secretly”. What is the only, possible way to “repatriate” gold which doesn’t exist? Do it “secretly”. Here we need merely reference the 60-year farce inside the U.S., where no one has seen the gold since the 1950’s, yet officially no one questions its legitimacy (let alone its existence).

Compounding the absurdity of this new gold-scam; we’re now told that the “gold transfers” to Germany are not only also “secret”, but retroactive. As recently as Christmas of last year; “officially” we were told that virtually none of Germany’s gold stored in the U.S. had been returned to it.

But flash-ahead a mere six weeks; and now we’re supposed to believe that all during the months we wereofficially told that virtually no gold was being shipped to Germany at all, that shipments were regularly taking place – “in secret”. Could not have happened.

As also documented by Zero Hedge; again and again over the past 6 months, various German officials have assured Germans that their U.S.-stored gold was “totally safe”, and thus it wasn’t necessary to repatriate it. This additional layer of lies would have been entirely unnecessary if the gold was actually (secretly) being shipped back to Germany, and would accomplish nothing — except to make those officials look foolish, in hindsight.

Conversely, “assuring” Germans (again and again and again) that their U.S. gold was “safe” is/was precisely what we would expect these stooges to say and do if there was simply no gold to transfer. Now, if all of Europe’s mythical gold is “secretly” shipped back to the vaults of its own (corrupt) banks, then – so the banksters hope – it can mythically exist in their vaults (with no one ever allowed to see it), for the next 60 years or so. Problem solved.

Of course if it took one, intrepid writer only about thirty seconds to see through the One Bank’s latest gold-scam, chances are that this sham won’t fool very many people, for very long. There can be no possible, legitimate reason to do any of this (supposed) gold repatriation in secret. Not only is there no positive reason to do this, there is an obvious reason not to do so: expense.

Doing anything “secretly” means doing it more expensively, starting with the additional “security costs” necessary to maintain the secrecy. If the U.S. government was a prosperous nation, wallowing in a large budget surplus; one could understand such ostentatious secrecy.

However, as the world’s ultimate Deadbeat Debtor, which has had to (literally) resort to counterfeiting its own currency – by the $trillions – merely to stave-off its own bankruptcy; clearly it would need to conduct any trans-Atlantic gold repatriation via economy class. 

Of course with the U.S. government actually “shipping” nothing (other than more lies), it can afford to go first-class, all the way.

via SprottMoney

Marine Corps Commandant Censors 1st Amendment Rights for Active Marines

Beneath that stoic face figuratively adorned with the globe and anchor we see a capital "T". To obey un-Constitutional commands from a civilian "leader" is to dishonor one's oath to the people of America. 

Amos made the choice which was best for his personal career. He's no Chesty Puller. Amos chose politics over his Marines. Who's he afraid of? 

"Don't you forget that you're First Marines!
Not all the communists in Hell can overrun you!"
-Col. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, USMC rallying his First Marine Regiment near the Chosin Reservoir, Korea, December 1950. [granted, it's more difficult when the communists are behind your lines...CV]

Oh, and before you think Amos to be the disloyal exception within the military, he has plenty of company, read this: TRAITORS WITHIN THE GATES: CFR'S MILITARY MEMBERSHIP ROSTER

---

let the Marine Corps Times tell the story:

Independent newspaper does not conform to new Marine Corps message, brass says

 Marine Corps Times first casualty in headquarters' war to 'professionalize'

Feb. 9, 2014 - 05:05PM   

Marines leaf through a copy of Marine Corps Times during some downtime at a patrol base in Afghanistan's Helmand province. The newspaper, which throughout the last year has investigated allegations of wrongdoing involving the service's top general, has been targeted by Marine Corps headquarters as part of a new initiative to 'professionalize' areas where the publication is sold. (Brennan Linsley / The Associated Press)

By Lance M. Bacon
Staff writer

Marine Corps leaders have ordered the independent Marine Corps Times newspaper removed from its prominent newsstand location at base exchange stores worldwide and placed instead in areas away from checkout lines, where it is harder to find and fewer copies are available.

The move raises troubling questions about motive and closely follows a directive prohibiting commanders from using budget funds to buy Marine Corps Times and a number of other publications.

A news rack where Marine Corps
Times had been displayed in the
top position. (Marine Corps
Times photo)

Marine Corps Times is widely recognized for its comprehensive coverage of the Corps, focusing on everything from career tracks, to pay and benefits, family and spouse issues, and employment after leaving the military.

Throughout much of the past year, the paper has published dozens of articles as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations the service’s commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, abused his authority to ensure Marines were punished for an embarrassing war-zone scandal.

Numerous reports have captured the attention of mainstream media outlets, including NPR, CNN and Time magazine, among several others.

Spokesmen for the commandant’s office would not answer questions about whether Amos or his staff were aware of or involved in the decision to relocate the newspaper, but a source with knowledge of the new directive said it was approved with the commandant’s knowledge.

“It is no secret [in the Pentagon] that the commandant does not like Marine Corps Times,” the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The commandant’s office punted all questions, including whether Amos was involved in the decision to move Marine Corps Times from prominent display in the exchanges,to Manpower & Reserve Affairs, which has oversight of the exchange. A spokeswoman for Manpower & Reserve Affairs said the paper was moved as part of a plan to “professionalize” the front of the exchanges.

Fiscal guidance for 2014, issued Oct. 22, specifically prohibits commands from using operations and maintenance funds for purchasing subscriptions to Marine Corps Times, which is part of the Military Times network and owned by Gannett, one of the world’s largest media corporations.

The order to move the paper from checkout areas came six weeks later. Distributors were given a variety of reasons. One was told it was due to business performance, though the paper is one of, if not the top-selling publications in Marine Corps exchanges.

Officials at Marine Corps Community Services and the Semper Fit and Exchange Services Division did not respond to multiple requests for sales data. However, information provided by Army and Air Force Exchange Services shows that Army Times and Air Force Times — Marine Corps Times’ sister publications — outsell the next publication 10-to-1.

“For any retailer to hide one of its best-selling products is just bad business. It obviously will hurt our newsstand sales, but it also hurts revenues to the Exchange,” said Peter Lundquist, Military Times’ vice president and general manager. “But I’m told this isn’t about business. Marine Corps Times helps Marines and their families stay informed about their service and their livelihood. We believe our independence is an asset to Marines. By what standard is Marine Corps Times not professionally oriented reading material, and who is setting that standard for Marines?”

Cindy Whitman Lacy, chief operating officer and deputy director of business operations for the Marine Corps’ Semper Fit and Exchange Services Division, offered another explanation to the head of circulation for Military Times. Marine Corps Times, she said, is not consistent with the Marine Corps “brand.”

While a provided statement said Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead, deputy commandant for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, “directed” the change, it does not say who made the decision.

Milstead “directed the Semper Fit and Exchange Services Division to determine how to professionalize the front areas of our stores,” Maj. Shawn Haney, spokeswoman for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, said in the statement. “As a result, the store entry merchandising strategy was reviewed and new directives were issued on how and where publications are to be displayed.”

Marine officials did not respond when asked if this meant Marine Corps Times is viewed as unprofessional.

The only step taken to “professionalize” the front area is to force all paid newspapers to the back of the store. Officials did not say how many, if any other newspapers were affected by the change. Most local and national newspapers are sold out of coin-operated vending machines. Other publications such as magazines will not be moved, officials said, due to contractual agreements already in place.

The wire racks and bins “are only authorized to display Marine Corps Exchange promotional materials,” according to the new policy. Exchange managers were told to move the newspapers to make room for the commandant’s reading list and that of the “First Lady of the Marine Corps,” Amos’ wife Bonnie.

Those racks remained empty as of Feb. 6, nearly two months after the order to remove the newspapers was issued.

1953, Communist Espionage Uncovered by Sen. Jos. McCarthy - ignored by Investigators

Cover-ups as we have now have been part 'n parcel characteristics of our congressional oversight committees for decades. Expect it to be so until the people change it. Here's the audio clip supportive of the article below: Government Printing Office and Rothschild, 1954 

Visit our posted Sen. McCarthy audio library here. 
 

                                VOLUME 1
                              ____GPO___
                         EIGHTY-THIRD CONGRESS
                             FIRST SESSION
                                  1953

 

EXPOSED - High Treason Within Our Gates: Sen. Joseph McCarthy: Marquette Audio Collection

Sen. McCarthy exposes all the treason - with names - whose policies are at the root of our tragedy today. It's all here. Just hearing his testimonies will leave you with a clear understanding why the senator is still hated today to the utmost degree by our subversive Left. He had to go. And so the greatest whistleblower of all time went.  

Hard to say how much longer these clips will be available to the public, so copy, download, or do whatever you must to preserve them. Here's a 'teaser clip' to whet your whistle:  Government Printing Office and Rothschild, 1954 

 

Read our related post:  The Real McCarthy Record

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  • Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954
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    Anti-communist movements -- United States -- History; Army-McCarthy Controversy, 1954; McCarthy, Joseph, 1908-1957; McCarthyism; Schine, G. David (Gerard David), 1927-1996; Stevens, Robert Ten Broeck, 1899-1983;

Report,Whistleblowers: Libya: A Muslim nation destroyed for Israel and greed

Posted on November 6, 2014 

 

“We have a copy of an agreement between the would-be-rebels and the Mossad. The agreement states that Israel will provide arms and training to the rebels until they take-over the country and in return for that Israel will get to put a military base in the Green Mountain of Libya,” said Jo Anne and her husband James Moriarty, the whistle-blowers, who worked in Libya during 2007-2011.

Head of the CRIF (the French AIPAC), and
leading Zionist operator against. Dieudonné.

In November 2011, French Jewish “philosopher” and a close friend of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Bernard-Henri Levy, admitted at the first conference of the French Jewish Lobby CRIF that Qaddafi had to be removed because he became a threat to Israel.

“What I have done all these months, I did as a Jew. And like all the Jews of the world, I was worried. Despite legitimate anxiety is an uprising to be welcomed with favor, we were dealing with one of the worst enemy of Israel,” said Levy.

Last month, Dr. Franklin Lamb was allowed to interview Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, formerly heir-apparent to his father, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Qaddafi in Libyan jail. Dr. Lamb says that the main purpose of his meeting was to find out the fate of Iranian-born Lebanese Shia cleric and politician, Imam Musa Sadr, who disappeared while on visit to Libya in 1978. Dr. Lamb claims that after talking to several Libyan professionals, he came to the conclusion that Saif al-Islam could be the only person in Libya who could muster a popular public support in order to defeat the US-NATO armed and funded Islamist militia groups fighting each other for power and oil money.

“The rampant regional, ideological and tribal conflicts are worse than the rule of the dictator,” said Salah Mahmud al-Akuri, a doctor in Benghazi. “Some Libyans are looking back to the old regime.”

In July 2011, Saif al-Islam was quoted as saying: “It isn’t just Libya’s black gold (oil) that the West wants, but Libya’s “blue gold” – that Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, the only fresh water source of its kind that remains in North Africa and the Middle East, a region now experiencing a permanent drought. As famine sets in (famine has already begun in East Africa) that Libyan aquifer will become as valuable as gold. Two French water firms, the largest in the world (Veolia and Suez S.A.) want to own that aquifer, since they will make countless billions in profit from food grown from the water. Many books have been written about the escalating global water wars. Every IMF or World Bank loan is issued on the condition that the victim nation sells its water supplies to private investors. The human race can survive without oil if necessary, but not without water.”

Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are arming and funding US-NATO’s former allies (Islamists) to establish their influence in the ‘future Libya’ while the Zionist-controlled vultures are watching the on-going bloodshed of Muslim people on the sideline.

Muslims must learn the truth, sooner the better that Western invasions of their countries have nothing to do with bringing democracy or liberating women, but the agenda is totally opposite. The purpose of these “humanitarian interventions” is to installed regimes which are subservient to Zionist interests. The US, France, Britain, Canada and Italy has played major part in these “Zionist wars” in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Yemen, etc., which have made life for ordinary citizen a living hell. In April 2011, American Jewish scholar, Noam Chomsky, admitted that United States is against democratic governments in the Middle East because they turn out to be anti-Israel.