As Lieutenant Commander Speicher is finally laid to rest, I will never forget what MSM never reported: that he was used as an excuse for the infamous TF20's 4-5 man team in an attempt to have WMD planted in Iraq. I posted this on an earlier thread in GD but thought I should post this as an OP for those unfamiliar with the story. From my 2nd edition of American Judas:



The first plan also originated with a story based on truth but filled with invention. In 1991, Lieutenant Commander Michael “Scott” Speicher was shot down over Iraq during the first day of Operation Desert Storm. He was classified as Killed in Action (KIA) within a few months thereafter. Ahmad Chalabi claimed that Speicher was alive and being held as a prisoner of war in order to convince the administration to invade Iraq. Armed with this pretext, the Pentagon civilian leadership under the guidance of Stephen Cambone, appointed to lead Defense Department intelligence in March 2003, dispatched a series of “off book” missions out of the ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP). Task Force 20, a 40-man assault team, was tasked to secure the following in order of priority: fallen Navy pilot Scott Speicher, WMD and Saddam Hussein. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi...

Following closely behind TF20 in the 75th Exploitation Task Force was Judy Miller. She had used Chalabi as a single source on information for her fictional WMD stories for the New York Times. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi... Chalabi was instrumental in transmitting the erroneous claims of an Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball” about mobile biological weapons laboratories that the administration used as part of its war rationale. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Alleged_... In her quest to find the infamous WMD, to say Miller rubbed her military companions the wrong way would be a huge understatement. Military officials said she had an “imperious manner” and “nobody could stand her” and that “she’s lucky we didn’t shoot her”. Apparently while embedded with these soldiers, “she wore a uniform” and told them “she had an exclusive deal with the Pentagon”. “Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the Secretary of Defense” and as a result, “she ended up almost hijacking the mission”. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0923-1... Perhaps a deeper investigation into this “journalist” might uncover whether these claims were based on a real Pentagon deal or if it was just bluster, like many of her WMD stories. It might also reveal just how close she was to another Iraq war critic, British scientist David Kelly. He disputed the validity of mobile weapons laboratories in Iraq, as well as the claim by British intelligence that Iraq could fire chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of such an order. Maybe if the Hutton Inquiry, which ruled that Kelly committed suicide July 17, 2003, (coincidentally just three days after Plame’s identity was revealed in Novak’s column) had questioned Miller under oath, we might have a greater understanding why one of the last e-mails he sent on the day of his untimely death was to her, and what Kelly might have meant when he mentioned “many dark actors playing games”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

But the real dark actors lie within the extra-legal and unapproved task force missions deployed in obscurity by OSP through the approval of Feith, Cambone and Stephen Hadley. Of most concern is an alleged off-book 4-5 man team that operated in the summer and through the fall of 2003. Most sources pointed to TF20 as the most likely to have spawned this clandestine force. This force interviewed many Iraqi intelligence and former intelligence officers in hopes of securing help with a “political WMD” problem, telling them that ‘Our President is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?’ A source close to the UN Security Council said intelligence officers understood quickly what they were being asked to do and that the assumption was they were being asked to provide WMD in order for coalition forces to find them. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi...

The possible involvement of TF20 in activity of questionable legality doesn’t end with the request for planted WMD. It continues after the creation of Task Force 121 from TF20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_20 TF121 was aggressively trained by Israelis at Fort Bragg, North Carolina as an assassination squad. One of the planners behind this offensive was Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,276... Boykin is infamous for saying in reference to the War on Terror that “the enemy is a guy named Satan” and regarding an Islamic Somalian warlord, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol”. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/10... After such dubious training, what is TF121 known for accomplishing in Iraq? Abusing detainees throughout Iraq in secret interrogation facilities like Abu Ghraib with beatings that, according to an investigation by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington, could “technically” be illegal. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic... And while we’re talking about torture, Feith seems to have something to do with the Iraqi prison abuses of Abu Ghraib. A part from being behind the phony “intelligence” gathered on the alleged WMD of Saddam, and behind the supporting of Ahmad Chalabi, it was Feith’s office who “housed the future undersecretary for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, who facilitated the transfer of Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp that houses suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, to Abu Ghraib prison in the interests of extracting more intelligence from detainees. http://www.tribune-libanaise.com/tribune/a...

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/03/...

Source: Associated Press

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Navy pilot Scott Speicher, the long-missing first casualty of the first Gulf War, was finally laid to rest Friday in his adopted hometown as thousands of people lined the streets to watch a funeral procession pass his school, church and former military base.

Speicher was shot down in 1991 on the first night of the Gulf War. For more than 18 years, no one knew if he was killed or being held prisoner in Iraq until his remains were discovered in the desert, west of Baghdad, earlier this month.

"Eighteen years, six months and 11 days, that needs to be a record that is never broken," said Buddy Harris, a former Navy pilot and friend who accompanied Speicher's body home to Jacksonville from Dover, Del. Harris married Speicher's widow, Joanne, and helped raise Speicher's son and daughter, plus two more children with Joanne.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl...

---

As Lieutenant Commander Speicher is finally laid to rest, I will never forget what MSM never reported: that he was used as an excuse for the infamous TF20's 4-5 man team in an attempt to have WMD planted in Iraq. From my 2nd edition of American Judas:


The first plan also originated with a story based on truth but filled with invention. In 1991, Lieutenant Commander Michael “Scott” Speicher was shot down over Iraq during the first day of Operation Desert Storm. He was classified as Killed in Action (KIA) within a few months thereafter. Ahmad Chalabi claimed that Speicher was alive and being held as a prisoner of war in order to convince the administration to invade Iraq. Armed with this pretext, the Pentagon civilian leadership under the guidance of Stephen Cambone, appointed to lead Defense Department intelligence in March 2003, dispatched a series of “off book” missions out of the ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP). Task Force 20, a 40-man assault team, was tasked to secure the following in order of priority: fallen Navy pilot Scott Speicher, WMD and Saddam Hussein. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi...

Following closely behind TF20 in the 75th Exploitation Task Force was Judy Miller. She had used Chalabi as a single source on information for her fictional WMD stories for the New York Times. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi... Chalabi was instrumental in transmitting the erroneous claims of an Iraqi defector codenamed “Curveball” about mobile biological weapons laboratories that the administration used as part of its war rationale. http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Alleged_... In her quest to find the infamous WMD, to say Miller rubbed her military companions the wrong way would be a huge understatement. Military officials said she had an “imperious manner” and “nobody could stand her” and that “she’s lucky we didn’t shoot her”. Apparently while embedded with these soldiers, “she wore a uniform” and told them “she had an exclusive deal with the Pentagon”. “Judith was always issuing threats of either going to the New York Times or to the Secretary of Defense” and as a result, “she ended up almost hijacking the mission”. http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0923-1... Perhaps a deeper investigation into this “journalist” might uncover whether these claims were based on a real Pentagon deal or if it was just bluster, like many of her WMD stories. It might also reveal just how close she was to another Iraq war critic, British scientist David Kelly. He disputed the validity of mobile weapons laboratories in Iraq, as well as the claim by British intelligence that Iraq could fire chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of such an order. Maybe if the Hutton Inquiry, which ruled that Kelly committed suicide July 17, 2003, (coincidentally just three days after Plame’s identity was revealed in Novak’s column) had questioned Miller under oath, we might have a greater understanding why one of the last e-mails he sent on the day of his untimely death was to her, and what Kelly might have meant when he mentioned “many dark actors playing games”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly

But the real dark actors lie within the extra-legal and unapproved task force missions deployed in obscurity by OSP through the approval of Feith, Cambone and Stephen Hadley. Of most concern is an alleged off-book 4-5 man team that operated in the summer and through the fall of 2003. Most sources pointed to TF20 as the most likely to have spawned this clandestine force. This force interviewed many Iraqi intelligence and former intelligence officers in hopes of securing help with a “political WMD” problem, telling them that ‘Our President is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?’ A source close to the UN Security Council said intelligence officers understood quickly what they were being asked to do and that the assumption was they were being asked to provide WMD in order for coalition forces to find them. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_mi...

The possible involvement of TF20 in activity of questionable legality doesn’t end with the request for planted WMD. It continues after the creation of Task Force 121 from TF20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_Force_20 TF121 was aggressively trained by Israelis at Fort Bragg, North Carolina as an assassination squad. One of the planners behind this offensive was Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,276... Boykin is infamous for saying in reference to the War on Terror that “the enemy is a guy named Satan” and regarding an Islamic Somalian warlord, “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol”. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/10... After such dubious training, what is TF121 known for accomplishing in Iraq? Abusing detainees throughout Iraq in secret interrogation facilities like Abu Ghraib with beatings that, according to an investigation by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington, could “technically” be illegal. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic... And while we’re talking about torture, Feith seems to have something to do with the Iraqi prison abuses of Abu Ghraib. A part from being behind the phony “intelligence” gathered on the alleged WMD of Saddam, and behind the supporting of Ahmad Chalabi, it was Feith’s office who “housed the future undersecretary for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, who facilitated the transfer of Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp that houses suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, to Abu Ghraib prison in the interests of extracting more intelligence from detainees. http://www.tribune-libanaise.com/tribune/a...

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2007/03/...

Source: The Independent

The world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production, a leading energy economist has warned.

Higher oil prices brought on by a rapid increase in demand and a stagnation, or even decline, in supply could blow any recovery off course, said Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which is charged with the task of assessing future energy supplies by OECD countries.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Birol said that the public and many governments appeared to be oblivious to the fact that the oil on which modern civilisation depends is running out far faster than previously predicted and that global production is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.

But the first detailed assessment of more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves, has found that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago. On top of this, there is a problem of chronic under-investment by oil-producing countries, a feature that is set to result in an "oil crunch" within the next five years which will jeopardise any hope of a recovery from the present global economic recession, he said.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/...

---

This is the head of the IEA talking. If he's waking up to the fact that Peak Oil is imminent, hopefully President Obama and the rest of the world leaders will too.

Why didn't the Turks just fly a plane into the building?

Building implosion goes wrong
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/32...

Source: The Raw Story

Buried near the end of a bizarre Time article which compares Obama administration debates about whether to probe torture allegations with President Bush’s struggle to decide whether or not to pardon a former aide who obstructed a leak investigation are two paragraphs which reveal something new about L ‘affaire Plame.

Valerie Plame first became a household name when her identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. The column came only a week after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that White House officials twisted pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Her outing was seen as political retaliation for Wilson’s criticism of the Administration’s claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

But now it turns out that it wasn’t just liberal bloggers and left-leaning Democrats that suspected former vice president Dick Cheney had engaged in a cover-up. According to Time, there were apparently some empty tin foil containers in the wastebaskets of the West Wing, as well.

A former Bush aide even tells the magazine that deep down, the president himself probably suspected Libby went to jail to cover-up for Cheney.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/23/rep... /

Source: The Raw Story

Vice President Dick Cheney isn’t out of the reeds just yet.

In a little noticed statement Friday, the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Intelligence and Investigations announced they will begin a full investigation into charges that the CIA misled congress about a covert spy operation that had been going on for nearly 8 years before it was canceled by CIA Director Leon Panetta last month.

“The House Intelligence Committee will move forward with a full investigation that will explore certain CIA programs and the core issue of how the committee is kept informed,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), the committee’s chairwoman, said in a statement late Friday.

“My subcommittee will take the lead on significant portions of the investigation;” the congresswoman continues. “We will explore instances where the Congress was not informed in a timely way and situations in which laws may have been broken.”

Read more: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/20/che... /

---

About. Fucking. Time!

Source: The Raw Story

The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret assassination squad was allowed to operate anywhere in the world, including the United States, according to a Thursday report in The Washington Post.

“The plan to deploy small teams of assassins grew out of the CIA’s early efforts to battle al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” the paper reported. “A secret document known as a ‘presidential finding’ was signed by President George W. Bush that same month, granting the agency broad authority to use deadly force against bin Laden as well as other senior members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.”

Reporter Joby Warrick added: “The finding imposed no geographical limitations on the agency’s actions, and intelligence officials have said that they were not obliged to notify Congress of each operation envisaged under the directive.”

This revelation, buried in paragraph 12 of the Post’s report, was highlighted by Talking Points Memo’s Zachary Roth later in the afternoon.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/16/rep... /

---

The names going through my head give me the chills.

Paul Wellstone?

David Kelly?

Any other possibilities?

Peak Oil Day
by Richard Heinberg

On July 11, 2008, the price of a barrel of oil hit a record $147.27 in daily trading. That same month, world crude oil production achieved a record 74.8 million barrels per day.

For years prior to this, a growing legion of analysts had been arguing that world oil production would max out around the year 2010 and begin to decline for reasons having to do with geology (we have found and picked the world’s “low-hanging fruit” in terms of giant oilfields), as well as lack of drilling rigs and trained exploration geologists and engineers. “Peak Oil,” they insisted, would mark the end of the growth phase of industrial civilization, because economic expansion requires increasing amounts of high-quality energy.

During the period from 2005 to 2008, as oil’s price steadily rose, production remained stagnant. Though new sources of oil were coming on line, they barely made up for production declines in existing fields due to depletion. By mid-2008, as oil prices wafted to the stratosphere, every petroleum producer responded to the obvious incentive to pump every possible barrel. Production rates nudged upward for a couple of months, but then both prices and production fell as demand for oil collapsed.

Since then, with oil prices much lower, and with credit tight to unavailable, up to $150 billion of investments in the development of future petroleum production capacity have evaporated. This means that if a new record production level is to be achieved, further declines in production from existing fields have to be overcome, meaning that all of those canceled production projects, and many more in addition, will have to be quickly brought on-stream. It may not be physically possible to turn the tide at this point, given the fact that the new “plays” are technically demanding and therefore expensive to develop, and have limited productive potential.

On May 4 of this year, Raymond James Associates, a prominent brokerage specializing in energy investments, issued a report stating, “With OPEC oil production apparently having peaked in 1Q08, and non-OPEC even earlier in 2007, peak oil on a worldwide basis seems to have taken place in early 2008.” This conclusion is being echoed by a cadre of other analysts.

Maybe it’s a stretch to say that the production peak occurred at one identifiable moment, but attributing it to the day oil prices reached their high-water mark may be a useful way of fixing the event in our minds. So I suggest that we remember July 11, 2008 as Peak Oil Day.

more...

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49493

2 OC Men Arrested on Charges Attempting to Have Sex with Minors

SANTA ANA (CNS) - Two Orange County men were arrested for allegedly using the Internet to find teenage girls to have sex with, and a third was arrested on suspicion of having child porn on his computer, the FBI announced today.

David Brown, 34, of Lake Forest, allegedly had a four-month sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl, while Richard Chaney, 23, of Costa Mesa, is accused of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, said Salvador Hernandez, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office.

http://www.knx1070.com/OC-Men-Arrested-on-...

OK,OK,OK, NOW THAT I'VE GOT YOUR ATTENTION WITH COLORFUL MISLEADING NEWS, PLEASE READ THE REAL DEAL:


The Lesson of Richard Barlow: "Looking Forward" without punishing past offenses will destroy you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Sorry, I don't ordinarily act like this, but I feel this is too damn important to drop like a rock just because the title isn't sexy enough.

In Latest Breaking News yesterday, sabra posted a story that deservedly received 60 recommendations. I'll reprint the bulk of it here:



‘US officials linked to AQ Khan’s N-network’

Source: Express Buzz

WASHINGTON: Top US officials allowed Pakistan in the 1980s to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons and were aware that the A Q Khan nuclear network was violating American laws, a US based watchdog has told the US Congress, citing a former CIA whistleblower.

Danielle Brian, executive director of Project on Government Oversight, told a Senate panel that CIA officer Richard Barlow, who then worked for the Pentagon, was fired for suggesting that the Congress should be made aware of the situation relating to Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

...

“The brave, honest public servants deserve better than this second-class system.” Bringing up Barlow’s findings, Brian said that working as a CIA counter-proliferation intelligence officer in the 1980s, he learned that “top US officials were allowing Pakistan to manufacture and possess nuclear weapons, and that the A Q Khan nuclear network was violating US laws”.

...

“Top officials at the DoD (Department of Defence) continued to lie about Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Barlow objected and suggested to his supervisors that Congress should be made aware of the situation. Because Barlow merely suggested that Congress should know the truth, Barlow was fired,” she said.

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.a...

Full thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...



It was very refreshing to see Danielle Brian publicizing the injustice that occurred, but this news item only tells part of the story. This wikipedia link tells another part of Richard Barlow's story:


Richard Barlow is an American intelligence analyst and a former senior member of the counter-proliferation desk at the Central Intelligence Agency who lost his job when he acted as a whistleblower about the George H. W. Bush administration's misleading Congress over Pakistan's nuclear programme. Following several investigations, he was vindicated in 1997; unable to collect a government pension, he lives in a trailer in Montana.


Barlow entered the intelligence community with two years of work at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He then, in 1985, entered the CIA, where he collated and examined information about nuclear programs in the Third World. He worked on the National Intelligence Estimates, and won the CIA's Exceptional Accomplishment Award in 1988<1>.

In 1989, Barlow transferred to the office of the Secretary of Defense, where he initiated an in-house intelligence analysis programme. He was in a chain of command below Stephen J. Hadley, then Assistant Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of Defense was Dick Cheney. His early work included an effort to sound the alarm about the now-discredited Pakistani nuclear scientist and proliferator, Abdul Qadeer Khan. In particular, he discovered that Pakistan's nuclear program depended upon clandestine and illegal procurement activity within the US<2>. The US administration, however, knew that this was the case; indeed, his report detailed occasions when the State department under Ronald Reagan had actually helped it happen, warning targets of sealed arrest warrants in FBI operations and approving export licenses for restricted goods.

During the debate over the sale of F-16s to Pakistan in 1989, the U.S. administration was constrained by the 1985 Pressler amendment of the Foreign Assistance Act which prohibited the sale of any matériel or armaments which might assist in the development or delivery of nuclear weapons. Barlow's analysis of Pakistan's nuclear programme indicated that Pakistan possessed the capability to use the fighters to drop nuclear bombs, and the report which he submitted to Dick Cheney concluded that the F-16 sale indisputably violated the law. He drew on details available to the intelligence community about how Pakistan had used the F-16s it already possessed<1>.

Barlow then learned that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Hughes had delivered testimony to Congress that stated the exact opposite, including the statement that using F-16s to deliver nuclear weapons "far exceeded the state of art in Pakistan," which Barlow knew to be untrue. Barlow believed that the details had been "willfully falsified by officials at the Office of the Secretary of Defense"<2>, including then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and then-Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Scooter Libby. On examining the archives he discovered that his reports were "mysteriously substituted or altered"<3>.

Within days of Barlow's sharing his concerns with colleagues at the Department of Defense he was fired.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Barlo...


We know the truth now. But we knew the truth back in 1997 when Richard Barlow was "largely vindicated". What good is being vindicated when you lose your pension and the criminals you blew the whistle on succeed in destroying you? What good is knowing the truth about criminal activity when the criminals are never punished? This is the lesson of Richard Barlow's story. It is the same lesson of BCCI: If you know the truth behind criminal activity but refuse to prosecute the criminals, they come back later to commit new, more terrible crimes. The lesson is even more transparent where BCCI is concerned. Brave Senator John Kerry investigated and produced a report on the crimes that occurred. Unfortunately, the Clinton adminstration declined to prosecute those responsible.

It may take time, but I highly encourage everyone who truly wants to understand the scope of criminal activity that occurred in the last eight years to read the 1st and 2nd editions of American Judas links in my signature in their entirety. I believe the lesson should be clear for one simple reason: no single party can maintain a monopoly on the Executive Branch. Sometime, hopefully later but possibly sooner than we want, the Republican Party will reside again in the Oval Office. We cannot let the crimes of the Bush administration go unpunished lest we risk witnessing history repeat itself. There is no point in a Truth Commission that scolds the criminals with words and leaves the free to commit future atrocities in a future administration. It must stop NOW!

Larry Franklin free for another month

This is from PACER

Date Filed # Docket Text
05/14/2009 893 NOTICE OF HEARING ON MOTION in case as to Lawrence Anthony Franklin 892 SEALED MOTION: Motion Hearing set for 6/12/2009 at 09:00 AM before District Judge T. S. Ellis III. (jlan) (Entered: 05/15/2009)
05/14/2009 892 SEALED MOTION by USA as to Lawrence Anthony Franklin. (jlan) (Entered: 05/15/2009)

I'd love a glimpse at the sealed motion.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/larry-f...

Big shout-out thanks to Luke Ryland, for staying on top of a story the media would rather just disappear.

During the period of November 2008 to January 2009, when Barack Obama was still a President-Elect and George W. Bush was the lamest of lame ducks, speculation was rampant that Scooter Libby would top the list of last minute pardons. I didn't put much stock in such predictions because it seemed so pointless: the sentence had already been commuted, Libby would never serve a day for his crimes. The one felon I was certain would get a pardon was Larry Franklin. It seemed to me Bush had the most to lose from not pardoning him. To review:

Lawrence Anthony Franklin is a former U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel who has pleaded guilty to passing information about U.S. policy towards Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S, while he was working for the Defense Department. He claims this was an attempt to get the information to the United States National Security Council, which he was not able to do through regular Pentagon channels. Two former employees of AIPAC (Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman) also faced charges (that would later be dropped) that they assisted him in the AIPAC espionage scandal and passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined him $10,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Frankli...

I assumed Bush had everything to gain from pardoning a loyal neo-con who had been rotting in prison since January 20, 2006. There was one problem with this assumption that I discovered recently while investigating the revelations that Sibel Edmonds has provided on this scandal reported by Luke Ryland: LARRY FRANKLIN IS NOT IN JAIL!

One other interesting part of the interview, highlighted by Mizgin, is that indicted spy Larry Franklin was working with Richard Perle and Douglas Feith at the ATC way back in 1994. According to Sibel, Franklin was "one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001." Despite many media reports to the contrary, Larry Franklin is not currently in jail,(emphasis added) and it is not clear what will happen to him if the trial of Rosen & Weissman from AIPAC doesn't proceed as planned in June.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-m...

I clicked on the link where I boldprinted and this came up:

Inmate Locator - Locate Federal inmates from 1982 to present
Name Register # Age-Race-Sex Release Date
Location
1. LAWRENCE ANTHONY FRANKLIN 70425-083 62-White-M UNKNOWN NOT IN BOP CUSTODY(emphasis added)

http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServl...

Where the hell could he have disappeared to?! I kept investigating and today I came across this revelation: LARRY FRANKLIN IS STILL A FREE MAN!



In this interview at antiwar.com, CQ's Jeff Stein - who broke the new allegations about U.S. Rep. Jane Harman's alleged involvement in seeking leniency for Rosen and Weissman - says that the Pentagon leaker at the heart of the affair, Larry Franklin, is in jail, doing 12.5 years and moreover, the sentence is relatively lenient, only because Franklin is expected to cooperate at trial.

That might have come as a surprise to Franklin, who was seen last week hanging around the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, sporting camouflage pants and boots (the weather has been very weird in DC of late. And he is a former Air Force colonel.) I mean, the Ronald Reagan Building is less than inspiring, it's true, but a prison it's not.

(Jeff's not the only one who's made this mistake - just the latest. I keep hearing references to Franklin being in jail.)

Franklin was sentenced to just over 12.5 years, it is true - and that was by all accounts not a lenient sentence - but his time was deferred until after he testifies at the Rosen and Weissman trial. I heard from sources at the time that prosecutors would recommend a reduction to three years should he cooperate, and that Judge T.S. Ellis was likely to take the deal.

But that was over three years ago. And now the case might not even go to trial. And if it does, I've heard that prosecutors are reluctant to use him.

This, I've heard, is remarkable; prosecutors pull key witnesses only if they've done serious damage to their credibility while awaiting trial (for instance, a repentant mob hitman who just can't break the habit.) Franklin's abided by the conditions of his sentencing, including avoiding reporters like the plague.

So why not use him? His outbursts during his allocution when he pleaded guilty might be illustrative: The promise of the crux of the government case shouting out "it wasn't classified and isn't classified" when he's on the stand must be giving prosecutors the willies.

So what does this mean for Franklin? His crimes are not unserious: He swore to keep the secrets he leaked not only to Rosen and Weissman, but to Naor Gilon (the Israeli diplomat coming soon to an international incident near you.) (all emphasis mine)Franklin's unhappy profile as a prosecution witness might not necessarily mean he isn't "helpful" - just truthful.

But 12.5 years, especially after being held in limbo for more than three years?

And a deal's a deal, right?

We'll soon find out.


http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009...


Unfortunately, though it almost slipped under the radar, we soon found out that the charges against Rosen and Weissman were dropped:


WASHINGTON — A case that began four years ago with the tantalizing and volatile premise that officials of a major pro-Israel lobbying organization were illegally trafficking in sensitive national security information collapsed on Friday as prosecutors asked that all charges be withdrawn.

-snip-

While Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman trafficked in facts, ideas and rumor, they had done so with the full awareness of officials in the United States and Israel, who found they often helped lubricate the wheels of decision-making between two close, but sometimes quarrelsome, friends.

-snip-

The investigation of Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman also surfaced recently in news reports that Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat long involved in intelligence matters, was overheard on a government wiretap discussing the case. As reported by Congressional Quarterly, which covers Capitol Hill, and The New York Times, Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing with an Israeli intelligence operative to try to intercede with Bush administration officials to obtain leniency for Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman in exchange for help in persuading Democratic leaders to make her chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee.

-snip-

Over government objections, Judge Ellis had also ruled that the defense could call as witnesses several senior Bush administration foreign policy officials to demonstrate that what occurred was part of the continuing process of information trading and did not involve anything nefarious. The defense lawyers were planning to call as witnesses former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Stephen J. Hadley, the former national security adviser; and several others.(all emphasis mine) Government policy makers indicated they were clearly uncomfortable with senior officials’ testifying in open court over policy deliberations.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/polit...


So chalk up another rug-sweeping victory for the Deep State. They got to Judge Ellis, who if you read the text of the sentence against Franklin http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/franklin012006.... completely reversed the logic he used to sentence Franklin by setting the standard that Rosen and Weissman had to be proven to try to harm the security of the United States to be convicted, whereas Ellis admonished Franklin for providing the defense that he meant no harm! So Rosen and Weissman, along with their probable co-conspirators Hadley and Rice go free.

But what about Franklin? His freedom was contingent upon his testimony at the Rosen and Weissman trials. Now that there will be no trials, does anyone know where Franklin is now? While I have to give credit to Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05012009.... http://www.counterpunch.org/abourezk050420... and antiwar.com for exposing the bullshit behind the excuses for the dismissal, neither have reported correctly the current status of Larry Franklin. Only Luke Ryland has been staying on top of this:


One other point: None of the coverage today mentions the fact that Larry Franklin is currently a free man, and that his eventual sentence was supposed to be dependent on him co-operating. What happens to Franklin now? And what happens to all of the other evidence he has given FBI counter-intelligence in the meantime? Will that ever be acted upon?
Posted by lukery at 5/02/2009 10:33:00 AM
Labels: AIPAC, Larry Franklin, Rosen, Weissman
3 comments:

Robert Paulsen said...

Thank you so much for staying on top of this. It boggles my mind that nobody, not in MSM, not on any other alternative media internet site, NOBODY EXCEPT YOU, seems to be aware of this oversight. I've tried posting about this on DU and everyone there seems to be unaware as well.

Three years after being sentenced to 12.5 years in jail, LARRY FRANKLIN IS STILL A FREE MAN!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

I'll keep shouting out about this injustice if you keep researching. Any updates as to Larry Franklin's current whereabouts? I'd like to see at least one person pay for this scandal.
May 8, 2009 5:50 AM
lukery said...

RP - Franklin was last seen in DC. I suspect he still lives there.
May 8, 2009 8:54 AM

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/aipac-c...

Can someone put a warrant out for this convicted felon who has yet to serve his sentence?!

http://americanjudas.blogspot.com/2009/05/...

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Forgotten in the brouhaha over Jane Harman/Dennis Hastert/Porter Goss he said-she said-he said is the fall guy in the center of this very real scandal: Larry Franklin. A brief review:


Lawrence Anthony Franklin is a former U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel who has pleaded guilty to passing information about U.S. policy towards Iran to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying organization in the U.S, while he was working for the Defense Department. He claims this was an attempt to get the information to the United States National Security Council, which he was not able to do through regular Pentagon channels. Two former employees of that organization (Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman) are also facing charges that they assisted him in the AIPAC espionage scandal and passing classified national defense information to an Israeli diplomat Naor Gilon. On January 20, 2006, Judge T.S. Ellis, III sentenced Franklin to 151 months (almost 13 years) in prison and fined him $10,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Frankli...


H2O Man addressed many of the important issues in the many dimensions of this great scandal a couple weeks ago in his thread Six Dimensions of Scandal. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... While investigating the revelations that Sibel Edmonds has provided on this scandal, I came across this shocking detail reported by Luke Ryland: LARRY FRANKLIN IS NOT IN JAIL!

One other interesting part of the interview, highlighted by Mizgin, is that indicted spy Larry Franklin was working with Richard Perle and Douglas Feith at the ATC way back in 1994. According to Sibel, Franklin was "one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001." Despite many media reports to the contrary, Larry Franklin is not currently in jail, and it is not clear what will happen to him if the trial of Rosen & Weissman from AIPAC doesn't proceed as planned in June.

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/04/first-m...

I clicked on the link where I boldprinted and this came up:

Inmate Locator - Locate Federal inmates from 1982 to present
Name Register # Age-Race-Sex Release Date
Location
1. LAWRENCE ANTHONY FRANKLIN 70425-083 62-White-M UNKNOWN NOT IN BOP CUSTODY(emphasis added)

http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServl...


Where the hell could he have disappeared to?! I kept investigating and today I came across this revelation: LARRY FRANKLIN IS STILL A FREE MAN!


In this interview at antiwar.com, CQ's Jeff Stein - who broke the new allegations about U.S. Rep. Jane Harman's alleged involvement in seeking leniency for Rosen and Weissman - says that the Pentagon leaker at the heart of the affair, Larry Franklin, is in jail, doing 12.5 years and moreover, the sentence is relatively lenient, only because Franklin is expected to cooperate at trial.

That might have come as a surprise to Franklin, who was seen last week hanging around the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, sporting camouflage pants and boots (the weather has been very weird in DC of late. And he is a former Air Force colonel.) I mean, the Ronald Reagan Building is less than inspiring, it's true, but a prison it's not.

(Jeff's not the only one who's made this mistake - just the latest. I keep hearing references to Franklin being in jail.)

Franklin was sentenced to just over 12.5 years, it is true - and that was by all accounts not a lenient sentence - but his time was deferred until after he testifies at the Rosen and Weissman trial. I heard from sources at the time that prosecutors would recommend a reduction to three years should he cooperate, and that Judge T.S. Ellis was likely to take the deal.

But that was over three years ago. And now the case might not even go to trial. And if it does, I've heard that prosecutors are reluctant to use him.

This, I've heard, is remarkable; prosecutors pull key witnesses only if they've done serious damage to their credibility while awaiting trial (for instance, a repentant mob hitman who just can't break the habit.) Franklin's abided by the conditions of his sentencing, including avoiding reporters like the plague.

So why not use him? His outbursts during his allocution when he pleaded guilty might be illustrative: The promise of the crux of the government case shouting out "it wasn't classified and isn't classified" when he's on the stand must be giving prosecutors the willies.

So what does this mean for Franklin? His crimes are not unserious: He swore to keep the secrets he leaked not only to Rosen and Weissman, but to Naor Gilon (the Israeli diplomat coming soon to an international incident near you.) Franklin's unhappy profile as a prosecution witness might not necessarily mean he isn't "helpful" - just truthful.

But 12.5 years, especially after being held in limbo for more than three years?

And a deal's a deal, right?

We'll soon find out.

http://blogs.jta.org/politics/article/2009...


Now I understand why Bush never pardoned Franklin.

Obama's Secret Plan
by Charles Hugh Smith

snip

If you set out to completely discredit the bankers and eviscerate their political power, you'd proceed exactly as Obama has done, enabling it to reach its reductio ad absurdum conclusion of fat bonuses and tax-funded bailouts in the trillions of dollars, at which point the public will rise up in fury, doing the work which was impossible for you, a new "liberal" president.

Imagine the uproar had Obama sought to send the bankers straight into deserved bankrupty and eliminated their looting; he would have been thwarted and second-guessed at every turn by politcos, pundits and the ultra-wealthy Aristocracy whose perks and privileges were threatened, not to mention a Republican Party spoiling to be spoilers.

What better way to discredit the bankers than to give them plenty of rope to complete their tarnished, fraudulent "plan to save Capitalism from itself"? How can they complain when their own bankrupt policies have been supported?

What better way to trigger "change" that even the banking Aristocracy are powerless to stop than to give them everything they want: no restrictions on stupendous bonuses, no punishment or prosecution, no mark-to-market rules with actual bite, no limits on accounting legerdemain, and on and on and on?

more...

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogapr09/obamas...