A bunch of reference materials that back up some of my political assertions in the book. 

(more…)

 If you love language you’ll put the Online Etymology Dictionary in your Favorites. Start with:http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=p&p=13

Then try "petard" and see where "hoisted by one’s own petard" originated. Give you a hint: the guy who(probably) used it first wrote some plays. Another hint: My father once scoffed at this guy’s work, saying, "He just strings together a bunch of quotes we’ve heard before."

My father had a dry wit. 

With thoughts and insults by my dear friend Lesley
(yes, I have work to do on this page too)

(more…)

(more…)

A collection of videos everyone should see…

(more…)

Part Seven. Odds and ends. This section includes updates on my life, plus what I know of Lisa’s, what’s going on now at Pavones, and some cut stuff from the book that doesn’t fit into the sub-sections of Part Five. Also in Part Seven will be further thoughts on sociopathy, plus a readers’ forum, my blog, my formal owning up to some nonfiction deceits, Acknowledgements, all sorts of stuff. If you subscribe to my DSP I’ll notify you about new postings.

As I write on September 11 (2006), this page is only outlined. Most links are not yet active. This page will have continuing stuff on it. Take a look at it and if you’re interested maybe put it in Favorites so you can periodically come back. Subscribe to my site and I’ll periodically notify you about what’s up.

World Affairs
Since this link is the most important, I’ve archived it here as well as elsewhere. I’ll provide another link to my Cut Chapters and Passages on this subject.

Pavones Now A potentially interesting subject (certainly from my point of view). I’ll tell you what I know of the current doings at my former paradise at the end of the road at the bottom of Central America. Updates on Fowlie (and his attempt to recapture his former land holdings), the Moras, Logan the Nutcase, etc., plus the reactions of Pavones residents to my book.

I’ll ask folks who live there or go there to be spies for me, which is an amusing concept: this will make certain Pavones people nervous about visitors. Full blown paranoia may result!

Lisa Now I’ll fill you in on this potentially interesting subject — so interesting it merits its own link – and likewise ask people who know her or come to know her to keep me informed. I’ll remind folks who run into her to hum a few bars of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and relay her reaction.

The Lies I’ve Told
Since this subject didn’t fit elsewhere, I’ll put it here. I’ll own up to the deceits I perpetrate in my book, explain why I perpetrated them, and how I live with myself in having perpetrated them.

Nonfiction
Related to the above section about the lies I’ve told, I’ll blab more on the nonfiction genre.

My Blog
I get to say more stuff.

Reader’s Forum
You get to say stuff, reply to other readers’ stuff, and get your stuff replied to. I’ll start some threads myself then it’s every man for himself. This should get wild and wooly. I hope so, anyway.

Recommended Reading
Aside from Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, there are a bunch of other books about why the world is so fucked up that are worth reading. I’ll also recommend books that I’ve found just flat pleasurable to read.

Acknowledgements
People in my life who really have helped and supported me, as opposed to gaslighting me and in general being shitball motherfuckers.

By the way, here's the first review of CYGAWA:

http://16streets.com/Cant-You-Get-Along.htm 

From my letter to Lisa's brother Marc:

(To access the right side nav bar hit ctrl + end)

This section consists of the Holiday Inn tape, plus a letter from Lisa “explaining” how it got recorded over. I’ll provide links below.

(more…)

A video clip of the infamous editor on BookTV…
(more…)

A photo tour broken into albums that correspond to each part of the book… (more…)

The trunk-full of documentation from my 1998 murder investigation – and that I had shipped back from Costa Rica — is in my basement, unopened. I’ll get to it and build this section as soon as I can. Given that eight years have gone by, this is going to be tough. Please give me some time. I’ll notify you via my newsletter when I’m done.

 For now, here's a summation of the incident:

http://ssdc.ucsd.edu/news/claea/h97/claea.19971218.html

The Senate Resolution censuring Costa Rica reads as follows:

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 84–EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS RELATIVE TO PROTECTING THE LIVES OF PROPERTY OWNERS IN COSTA RICA (Senate - March 17, 1998) [Page: S2136] 

GPO's PDFMr. KEMPTHORNE (for himself, Mr. Helms, Mr. Faircloth, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Chafee, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Coverdell, Mr. Gramm, Mr. Smith of New Hampshire, Mr. Leahy, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Warner, and Mr. Craig) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations: S. Con. Res. 84Whereas, although the United States embassy in Costa Rica had forewarned Costa Rican officials about threats on Max Dalton's life, on November 13, 1997, 78 year-old United States citizen from Idaho and World War II veteran Max Dalton was surrounded and murdered in a dispute with squatters, some of whom were illegally occupying his property in the Pavones region of Costa Rica; Whereas the murder of Max Dalton was the tragic conclusion to a seven-year assault perpetrated against Mr. Dalton by the squatters in an attempt to steal his property, and Costa Rican citizen Alvaro Aguilar was also killed in the incident; Whereas the initial investigation of Max Dalton's death was flawed in that investigators failed to take fingerprints, collect bullets, and secure the scene of the crime; Whereas, landowners, including United States and Costa Rican citizens, have reported harassment and invasions by squatters in areas of the country, other than Golfito in Pavones, including Cocotales in the North East, the Caribbean cities of Cahuita and Cocles, and Jaco on the Pacific Coast; Whereas the squatters' tactics have included stealing and starving livestock, burning homes, leveling crops and fruit trees, death threats, machete attacks, and, in the case of United States citizen, murder; Whereas Costa Rica has a long history of democratic governance, respect for human rights and close, friendly relations with the United States. Nonetheless, successive Costa Rican governments have failed to deal with squatters invading property held by foreign and Costa Rican landowners; Whereas, although Article 45 of the Costa Rican Constitution states that `no one may be deprived of his [property] unless on account of legally proved public interest and after compensation in conformity with the law,' this Constitutional guarantee has been eroded by the broad interpretation of the Agrarain Code by individuals who have used it as the basis for aggressive campaigns against landowners; Whereas United States citizens who were drawn to Costa Rica by the relatively reasonable cost of living and property, particularly for retirement, report spending tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs to pursue repeated challenges in the Costa Rican courts without achieving permanent solutions to the squatter problems on their lands; Whereas a concerted national effort on the part of the Government of Costa Rica to deal with the legal confusion and enforcement issues relating to property expropriations by squatters is necessary and desirable: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that the Government of Costa Rica should– (1) in the interest of justice to which Costa Ricans have long been committed, consider fundamental reform to protect the property rights and lives of all law-abiding residents and property owners of Costa Rica from acts of intimidation, violence, and property invasion. (2) conduct a complete and thorough investigation into the death of Max Dalton .  [Page: S2137]  GPO's PDFMr. KEMPTHORNE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my concern with the government of Costa Rica which has failed to deal with the theft of property from American and Costa Rican landowners by squatters. At the same time, I call on the Government of Costa Rica to come to a quick and thorough conclusion in their investigation into the death of United States citizen Max Dalton of Idaho.  Despite claims of the Costa Rican Government to the contrary, landowners, including United States and Costa Rican citizens, have reported harassment and invasions by squatters in all areas of the country. The squatters' tactics have included stealing and starving livestock, burning homes, leveling crops, death threats, machete attacks, and, in the case of one Idahoan, murder. The Washington Post reported in its March 2 edition that Max Dalton had been threatened by these squatters for nearly five years before his death in November. Before he was murdered, Max was harassed by squatters who attacked him with machetes, bombed his house, stole his horses, and set fire to his boat. Just days before his death, Max's children again notified authorities about the threats against their father. The United States embassy in Costa Rica had warned Costa Rican officials about threats on Max Dalton's life. Nonetheless, on November 13, 1997, this 78-year-old United States citizen and World War II veteran was surrounded and ultimately murdered by land squatters, some of whom were illegally occupying his property in the Pavones region of Costa Rica. This crime was the tragic conclusion to a 5-year assault perpetrated against Mr. Dalton by the squatters in an attempt to steal his property. Many facts remain unanswered surrounding Max Dalton's death. The investigation into the murder remains stalled and the killers remain at large. This cannot be tolerated. The murder of Max Dalton must be investigated and I urge the Costa Rican Government to make sure this happens. I call on the Costa Rican Government to take immediate and decisive action to clarify and protect lives and property rights. Law-abiding citizens and residents should not be threatened by acts of intimidation, violence and property theft by bands of squatters who have been terrorizing legitimate landowners through all regions of the country. Max Dalton's death must not be in vain. That is why, Mr. President, I am submitting a resolution, along with 13 of my colleagues, condemning the incompetence surrounding the investigation into the death of Max Dalton . It is important that this body, the United States Senate, acknowledge this situation and let the Government of Costa Rica know that reform is required. Mr. President, I submit this resolution on behalf of myself, Senator Helms, Senator Faircloth, Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, Senator Gramm of Texas, Senator Hutchison of Texas, Senator Craig, Senator DeWine, Senator Smith of New Hampshire, Senator Chafee, Senator Leahy, Senator Coverdell, and Senator Warner.  It is time for use to send a very clear message to Costa Rica, that we ask them for a thorough investigation, that we call upon them for the reform so that the landowners–the citizens in Costa Rica and the U.S. citizens that are there–can know that there are laws that will be adhered to and that justice will be done.     THIS SEARCH     THIS DOCUMENT     THIS CR ISSUE     GO TONext Hit        Forward           Next Document     New CR SearchPrev Hit        Back              Prev Document     HomePageHit List        Best Sections     Daily Digest      Help                Contents Display   

THOMAS Home | Contact | Accessibility | Legal | FirstGov

I have dozens of emails from Fowlie that taken as a history of our relationship clearly prove that his sudden accusations are specious; I didn’t deceive him about anything. That Fowlie told Lisa of my whereabouts on the Caribbean isle and that I was concerned about retribution from the Moras has already been proven, but Click here to go to that.

The whole hit man fiasco. (more…)

Since as of this writing I’m still on good terms with the nice folks at New Crime (John Cusack’s company), I suspect they will verify this through-line. I’ll add their comments if/when they get back to me after reading the book. (more…)

I don’t need much to prove that my description of this fiasco is true as written. My letter firing my movie writing agent (Part Four, Chapter Fourteen) is, in my view, proof of most of what I allege, at least the broad strokes, if not every detail. That my former agent’s only response was “Can’t you get along with anyone?” and not a correction of my description of why I was firing her should do it. (more…)

A PDF File outlining a pretty ridiculous bit of deceit… click here for the PDF.

I like this little piece and was sorry to see it go. I cut it as being off-subject to the book. Click here for the PDF file containing this chapter.

(To access the right side nav bar hit ctrl + end)

These are the chapters I cut from the book as being Big Mo killers, i.e., small stuff compared to how things in general were going. As is the case with other material here, there is sometimes a combining of subject matter. For example, in this first chapter there is backstory about my movie biz career.

Click here for the PDF file containing these chapters.

More musings on the process of writing – as opposed to the horseshit you go through to make a living at it.

Click here for the PDF containing cut chapters about Writing About Writing.

A little humor cut from Part One. Click here for the PDF of these chapters.

This is the longest of these subsections. I’ll come back to this section at some point and organize it as to level of interest as I perceive it.

Click here for the PDF containing these chapters.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government. –Edward Abbey

Although they are archived elsewhere on this site, I'll reproduce the cut chapters on Bob Woodward (and why he will rot in Writer Hell [and/or real hell, if there is one])

Part One is a revised chapter from the book. Parts Two through Four are new.

You can scroll down for a pdf page for other World Affairs cut chapters.

STATES OF DENIAL (Part One)

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

George Orwell 

The nonfiction book by Bob Woodward I was reading and which slightly exacerbated my terminal loneliness and nudged me further towards the brink of a nervous breakdown was called Veil, The Secret Wars of the CIA. I was seeking a better handle on the CIA’s antics in Central America back in the 1980s, which is the time frame of my reinvented screen story about The Meaning of Life. (Note: I’m referring to my screen adaptation of my novel, Cosmic Banditos, for John Cusack’s production company.)

Not only did I not get a better handle on the CIA’s antics in Central America back in the 1980s, or anything else, but my reading of Veil resulted in a rush of insight of the negative variety, a dispiriting one. Woodward’s book is so packed with lies by omission and outright lies, plus blatant gaslighting/perception management, that it’s safe to say that the book itself is a lie. See, I already knew a bit about the 1980s, having been around then (including in Central America) and having paid attention to what was going on while doing so. In fact, all one need to have done during the 1980s — aside from being around — would have been to be conscious, i.e., not comatose, to realize that Woodward’s book, his nonfiction book, is a lie. One example: Endings. Important, right? Woodward sees fit to end Veil, The Secret Wars of the CIA with a lie on every level you can lie in a nonfiction book. He ends it with a chapter describing a personal visit with CIA director William Casey on his deathbed (from the brain tumor).

About two sentences into this, I knew Woodward had made up the scene. Remember that when it comes to making up stuff, I know whereof I speak — the old one, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter comes to mind.          

But I could have forgiven that lie, which was only about facts, i.e., Woodward’s deathbed visit to Casey having never happened. I’ve lied about facts myself. Sometimes it’s okay, sometimes not. What Woodward does, however, in the deathbed scene he made up, is to lie in subtext as well — in what is really going on — which kind of lying is a sin, for the commission of which writers will rot in Writer Hell.          

Here’s the scene: Casey, on his deathbed, admits to having known about the diversion of Iran arms sales funds to the contras. The subtext here is that Casey didn’t actually have anything directly to do with the diversion. He knew about it.          

Technically, Woodward wasn’t outright lying. But what he left out of his nonfiction narrative is that Casey knew about the diversion because he had been instrumental in planning and executing it.          

A whopper of a lie by omission, no?         

Another thing Woodward left out of his nonfiction narrative about the CIA in the 1980s involves drug trafficking by the contras. Casey and his protégé, Oliver North, didn’t just know about Contra drug trafficking, they were likewise indirectly involved in the planning of it, plus the cover up. (In 1989, Oliver North was barred entry in Costa Rica for being a known drug trafficker.)          

In Veil, Woodward doesn’t even mention the contras and drug trafficking, let alone that Casey and North knew about it, let alone that they were involved in the planning and subsequent cover up. Since the Contra war in Nicaragua was one of the secret wars of the CIA of the title of Woodward’s book, one would think that the CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking to finance that war would bear mention, no? This is Bob Woodward writing. (There’s a surf break in northern Costa Rica called Ollie’s Point, so named because it’s near a clandestine landing strip North used to run cocaine into the United States. Point being: if the ragamuffin surfers who named the break knew about North’s smuggling antics, why didn’t this legendary journalist?)         

A question: Since other journalists from that time knew about all this, how did Bob Woodward miss it? (Bob Parry’s excellent book, Lost History, is a good summation of what was known at the time.) The answer is that he didn’t miss it. He just left it out of his nonfiction narrative, for reasons related to Woodward having turned into a sniveling toady of the powers that be.          

Of Bob Woodward’s nonfiction books since All the President’s Men, at the time of my brink-hovering I had only read Veil, The Secret Wars of the CIA. Out of (morbid) curiosity I went on to read two of his subsequent books. In The Commanders, purported to be the definitive history of the U.S. military’s overthrow of Manuel Noriega, Woodward devotes one sentence to U.S. history with the Panamanian dictator. Here it is, the one sentence:

“Although he once had been one of the CIA’s key Latin American assets, the administration now viewed (Noriega) as an outlaw and an enemy of U.S. interests.”

…the administration now viewed Noriega as an outlaw and an enemy of U.S. interests…

In his definitive history, Bob Woodward justifies the U.S. invasion of another country by telling us… nothing… nothing whatever…

Do you think maybe Woodward left out some stuff about Noriega’s relationship to the CIA in his nonfiction narrative? I mean aside from not even mentioning the CIA’s collusion with Noriega on drug trafficking (likewise to fund the contras) and aside from not even mentioning the list of treaties and international laws solemnly signed by the United States that were broken by the invasion. Nor does he mention that the unilateral aggression of invading another country without “imminent threat” (or any threat) is the same crime for which Nazis were executed at Nuremburg. Noriega being an “outlaw” (a drug trafficker) was fine and dandy as long as some of the drug money made its way to the illegal war the CIA was supporting, but when the dictator quit cooperating, colluding with the CIA in big-time criminal activities, he was now an “enemy of U.S. interests” and his country was fair game for invasion.

But my favorite lie by omission, one near and dear to my heart, comes in Woodward’s Plan of Attack – his definitive history of our conflict with Saddam Hussein. Woodward does better, wordage-wise, in this one, devoting one whole page (out of 450) to U.S. history with “The Beast of Baghdad.” A little problem, though: In his one page history Woodward skips from the 1970s to the 1990s, leaving out the 1980s. Not a word about the decade of the 1980s. Right. The decade during which the U.S. and The Beast of Baghdad were close allies and the U.S., under Reagan then Bush I, was actively and knowingly aiding and abetting The Beast of Baghdad in his crimes against humanity.

Here’s the thing: Bob Woodward himself classifies his books, his nonfiction books, as being “somewhere between the news and the history books.”

Let’s take him on his word on that.

See if you concur: People who provide a democratic society (like what the United States is purported to be) with news (meaning journalists) should maybe question what the bastards in power tell them about their antics, not just parrot them as facts. Same goes for the writers of history books, which mold the minds of our children.

In his books, Bob Woodward does not question anything the bastards tell him. He just parrots them as facts. Bob Woodward’s books, his nonfiction books, which are something “between the news and history,” are lies. That I had this rush of insight about the journalist who in the 1970s questioned everything and in so doing uncovered the truth, then followed the truth wherever it led, even to the toppling of a president, and who was a hero of mine, and who was now the personification of why Orwell was an optimist, slightly exacerbated my terminal loneliness.1

[1]  Footnote:If the rewriting (or erasing) of history, which is what Woodward does in his books (the erasure of the 1980s from his history of U.S. relations with Iraq, for example), sounds vaguely familiar: This was the protagonist Winston Smith’s job at the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984. Smith, along with the rest of the world of that story, was intimidated, threatened, bullied, into denial/lying via “jackboots on human faces.” That the jackboots are unnecessary in the real world of today to get Woodward (and the rest of the mainstream media) to rewrite history is the basis of my observation that Orwell was an optimist.

Part Two follows. 

      STATES OF DENIAL (Part Two)

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
–George Orwell

Aside from Bob Woodward, there’s another journalist who used to have a modicum of integrity but is now a sniveling toady of the powers that be: Christopher Hitchens. In the April, 2006 issue of Vanity Fair Hitchens describes how Bush and Tony Blair, in a meeting back on April 16, 2004 were discussing the possibility of bombing the Al Jazeera office in Qatar, Al Jazeera being a news organization that’s critical of Bush/Blair.

Hitchens mentions this in the context of his trying to get U.S. citizenship, saying that since he had once visited an Al Jazeera office, he might be considered to have had “contact with suspected-terrorist targets”; he infers that this wouldn’t look good on his citizenship application.What Hitchens seems to have forgotten (since he doesn’t see fit to mention it) is that blowing up the offices of a news organization is at the very least a war crime, most likely outright aggression (since Quatar is a neutral country in the “war”), a crime for which Nazi’s were executed.

Assuming that deaths would have resulted from the bombing Bush and Blair were discussing, Hitchens also seems to have forgotten that fellow journalists, if it’s appropriate to label Hitchens thus, would have been slaughtered; this seems to bother him not a whit, nor does it occur to him that if Bush has no problem in murdering journalists who do no agree with him, Hitchens himself might eventually be a target, should he ever revert back to his critical views of Bush and his gang. Plus, he is, currently at least — like the Al Jazeera folks he sees no problem in murdering — a foreign journalist. (Hitchens quite correctly points out the Bush/Blair conspiring in 2004 puts in doubt that the U.S. bombing of the Al Jazeera office in Baghdad in 2003 was a “regrettable accident,” as the U.S. claimed.  What he does not bother to point out is that a journalist was killed in this attack – murdered. His name was Tareq Ayyoub, a man with a wife and a family and a life and who was reporting on the war as he saw it — there is no evidence whatsoever that Al Jazeera has ties to any terrorist groups, let alone that Ayyoub was so linked.)

I find this chilling. Be advised, though, that I am not chilled that Bush would conspire (with another head of state) to murder journalists – biz as usual. What is chilling is that Hitchens’ state of denial  could be so deep-rooted (up there with Bob Woodward’s, even) that he doesn’t notice the implication thereof (that he himself might someday be a Bush/Blair target of assassination).

A more serious upshot of the state of denial phenomenon – which is the standard mode for not only individuals, Hitchens, say (or the denial-maestro himself, Bob Woodward) but various sociopathic closed systems (the media, say, as epitomized by Bob Woodward) – is that it can have disastrous effects on the agenda that motivated the lies that are at the bottom of the denial in the first place. An obvious example is Bush’s catastrophic “miscalculation” that the Iraqis would welcome his invading force “with open arms.”

Although it’s unlikely that many tears were shed over the toppling of Saddam, consider the history – meaning the real history, not the perception-managed media rewrite of it (via Bob Woodward, for one) – of U.S. involvement with Iraq over the past quarter century. Here’s a very brief recap, and let’s try to Put Ourselves In An Average Iraqi’s Place: In 1991 the U.S. attacks your country, killing who knows how many rank and file soldiers. (No official “body count” was kept but estimates are as high as 100,000, the vast majority being poor conscripts with no choice in the matter of being in uniform. Although, yes, the death of opposing forces is inevitable in war, remember I’m dealing with the delusion of the “open arms” theory here. Point being: Put Yourself In The Place of these 100,000 dead grunts’ loved ones regarding welcoming the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation with “open arms.”)

In the course of the 1991 conflict the U.S. bombs and destroys your civilian infrastructure (to create chaos and desperation amongst the populace), which (oh-by-the-way) is a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions, plus the U.N. Charter (both of which the U.S. not only signed but largely formulated). So “collateral damage,” a.k.a. civilian deaths, are not only due to direct military action but also the long-term effects of no power (hospitals need it), a dearth of potable water and so forth. 

Then, the war “won,” for the ensuing decade (the 1990s) the U.S. subjects your country to more civilian infrastructure destruction, plus illegal economic sanctions (commonly defined as “economic terrorism”) that result in the deaths of at least 500,000 people, virtually all civilians, a high percentage of which are infants and young children (who are most in need of the unavailable food, medicine, potable water, etc.). These sanctions were supposedly meant to weaken Saddam.

Since the decade-long de facto slaughter of your countrymen took place mostly during the Clinton presidency, let’s see what his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, had to say about it. Albright, when asked on 60 Minutes if the deaths of a half million civilians was worth the effect (weakening Saddam), she replied, “Yes, we think it was worth it.” (See http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084 for an analysis of Albright’s remark.)

She and her boss thought it was “worth it” in the face of the warnings of virtually every credible Middle East authority that the sanctions would in fact strengthen Saddam, not weaken him. And, as predicted, the sanctions had nothing to do with Saddam’s exit. I wonder if Clinton/Albright still think those half million corpses were “worth it.” How about you, in your Average Iraqi persona? How are your arms doing? Do they feel like “opening”? (It’s hard for me to resist bringing up Al Franken – who is so fond of exposing the lies and hypocrisies of others – and his love for Bill Clinton. A half million innocents dead because of Clinton’s policy, and his spokesperson claims it was “worth it.” A question for Al: How do you get through the day with this one? Does the title of Bob Woodward’s new book come to mind?)

Then, in 2003, came Bush’s “Shock and Awe,” which for you and your loved ones translated to “Death and Maiming,” mostly via indiscriminate bombing of urban centers.  (Here, as an Average Iraqi, you might also recall the 2003 “Cut the head off the serpent” “smart” bombing of a civilian restaurant that killed 18 civilians, missing Saddam, who was lunching elsewhere.)Although, again, there is no official body count for “unworthy victims” like you and your countrymen, we have to assume that as a result of military action and economic sanctions the total dead from U.S. “policy” toward your country since 1991 is approaching one million.

But, Bush’s perception management machine would argue, the U.S. has rid your country of a brutal dictator; that is not arguable, right? In Putting Yourself In An Average Iraqi’s Place, let’s go along with this and assume that you hated Saddam with a passion; let’s even assume you yourself were tortured by his regime and, further, lost a loved one via his mass murdering of dissidents.

There’s another problem here, though, for the “open arms” theory: Unlike with Bob Woodward’s “definitive history” of U.S. relations with Iraq, in our little recap we’re going to leave in the decade of the 1980s, which was when the worst of Saddam’s crimes were perpetrated. (I refer to Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack, in which he omitted the decade of the 1980s from his history of U.S./Iraqi relations. Presumably, Woodward did this because during the 1980s the U.S. and Saddam were close allies — I’ll not try reader patience with another reference to the title of Bob Woodward’s new book as the psychological condition that would allow the legendary journalist to do this.)

So for you as an Average Iraqi, the memory of Saddam and his inhumanity is inextricably tied to direct U.S. support, even to the torture you personally underwent; the equipment and methods having been at least in part CIA supplied. (The torture of course continued on during the U.S. occupation, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.)And if in your Average Iraqi persona you’re a Kurd or have Kurd loved ones – and since no one (like Bob Woodward) rewrote history for you — you will likely remember that the helicopters with which Saddam dropped poison gas on you and your loved ones were supplied by the United States, as were the chemical components used to make the poison gas. This was in 1988, with foreknowledge of what Saddam would use the choppers and chemicals for. (See http://www.casi.org.uk/info/usdocs/usiraq80s90s.html for a summation of U.S. economic relations with Saddam’s Iraq, including a list of the U.S. corporations that made a buck selling Saddam the choppers and chemicals.)

Yes, if you include the 1980s in your history of U.S. relations with Iraq the total number of Average Iraqis dead as a direct result of U.S. “policy” comes to well over a million. And we’re not even counting the failed 1991 coup against Saddam (after the first Gulf War), in which the rebellious forces seeking to overthrow Saddam were put down with the help of the U.S. military. Deaths of the anti-Saddam forces are estimated in the tens of thousands. Perhaps in your Average Iraqi persona, at least one of the anti-Saddam rebels was a loved one. (See http://www.representativepress.org/evenafter.html.)

Point being: Aside from the handful of toadies installed in the new puppet regime, it’s difficult to imagine even one Iraqi, Average or otherwise, that has not been subjected to U.S. “policy” – a friend or loved one killed by violence or economic sanctions, or maimed or tortured.

One million equals about 1 in 25 Iraqis dead. If translated to the U.S., which has about ten times the population of Iraq, we’d be contemplating 10 million U.S. citizens killed.

Can you wrap your mind around that number?

A question for Bush and his gang: What state of denial were you living in with your “open arms” theory? (A similar question for Bob Woodward: What State of Denial were you living in that you failed to point out any of this in your definitive books on the Bush presidency and its relations with Iraq?)

One more question for both Bush and Bob: Are you really surprised that 95% of the “insurgents” in Iraq are Average Iraqis, and that in their “open arms” are cradled AK 47s or RPGs?

An observation: It’s one thing for Bush and his gang (with the collusion of Bob Woodward) to rewrite history, to perception-manage the truth behind their greed-driven empire-building, but quite another when they themselves believe the rewrite. We are now going beyond the State of Denial Woodward (plus Hitchens, plus most of the American public) inhabit.

A chapter cut from the book.  

STATES OF DENIAL (Part Three)
 

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
–George Orwell

Today as I write, March 20, 2006, is the third anniversary of the start of Bush’s Iraq war. Dubya, as he’s affectionately referred to by certain journalists that maintain the illusion of taking issue with him, held a press conference today, wherein he answered questions.

A press conference? Answered questions?

Here’s a question: Where were the journalists at the press conference?

There weren’t any. It’s now gotten to where Dubya’s perception management machine doesn’t even trust the usual toady-journalist plants to ask the agreed-upon puff questions that allow the shitball motherfucker to answer with talking points. The questions were from the likes of local high school students (plants, every one) reciting talking point queries Dubya already knew about, plus a couple morons asking how they can help him spread democracy.

Hold on. This is too easy.The good stuff was in V.P. Cheney’s little speech today, timed to complement Dubya’s debacle, his insult to your intelligence, his utter contempt for your intelligence. But Cheney: Cheney –who gets to shoot scumbags with a shotgun (a lawyer) and face no repercussions – tells us that the war in Iraq is being misrepresented by the media because the media shows the violence over there.

Listen: I’m not going where you think I’m going with this. Again, too easy. Where I’m going is more to the root of why the world is so fucked up than Cheney’s latest relatively minor a priori insult to your intelligence, utter contempt for your intelligence.Where I’m going is to the subtext of Cheney’s insult, which subtext being that in the U.S. of A. we have an adversarial media. This is the complaint put forth by Dubya and his gang, right? The media are biased. That the media are indeed biased there is no doubt: They are biased in that they don’t question anything about motives, about the real agenda of the administration — not just the current one, but, say, the last five, all of which are guilty of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and outright aggression. Crimes for which Nazis were executed at Nuremberg. (The last five being Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, Reagan and Carter. If you’re surprised at my inclusion of that nice man Jimmy Carter in the crimes against humanity club, I’ll give you just one example, although there are scads: Carter actively and knowingly aided and abetted the Shah of Iran in the torture and murder of tens of thousands of human beings. He even liked the Shah of Iran, who, by any reasonable definition, was a monster.)

But: “The media are biased against this administration.” This is the claim, right?

Perception Management Commandment 8: When the truth or image of a situation is a problem, claim the reverse, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, and if at all possible try to muster outrage and/or moral indignation, as you do so. If you’re not up to outrage or indignation, beleaguered sadness will do.
 

Since the truth/image problem for Dubya and his gang is that the media are biased for them (meaning not challenging them on their motives and Big Lies), they just claim the reverse, i.e., that the media are biased against them. And the media love this since it sounds like they’re doing their job, i.e., questioning the powers that be. (Which is the media’s job in a democracy.)  Boom, everyone’s happy. (Except maybe George Orwell, embarrassed from the grave for his excess optimism.)

In order to see how Perception Management Commandment 8 works, lets imagine How It Went in a few other situations where there was a truth and/or image problem for Bush and a couple of his predecessors. (There are so many choices here that I’ll just do this off the top of my head):The 1989 invasion of Panama was not only illegal according to UN resolutions and international treaties solemnly signed by the U.S. (and therefore are “supreme laws of the land”), but was outright aggression. So let’s listen in on Bush I’s perception management gang debating how to solve this truth/image problem:
           

“Our problem is we have no right to invade Panama.”
           

“No just cause, eh?”
           

“None whatsoever.”
           

“So how about if we call the invasion ‘Operation Just Cause.’”
           

“Great.” (Instead of listing the international treaties, laws, resolutions, and conventions broken by the invasion and kidnapping of Noriega, I’ll ask you this: If in 1998 Sudan invaded the U.S. or otherwise attempted to kidnap Bill Clinton for his destruction of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant by flying bombs (which directly caused the deaths of the tens of thousands deprived of the medicine the plant produced) , what would be your reaction? That’s completely different is it? Yes, it’s different: Clinton’s offense was at the very least a terrorist act and a crime against humanity, probably outright aggression, and inarguably mass murder, not drug dealing, which was the complaint against Noriega [most of his drug crimes having been committed with the tacit or outright approval of the CIA, for whom he was working for most of the 1980s]. That’s the only difference, if rule of law means anything.) 

Another truth/image problem, this one for Junior, for Dubya: The environmental amendment he wants to push through will increase rather than decrease air pollution:

“The amendment will dirty the skies, turn it brown.”
           

“The legislation we need to push through will result in a lot of children being left behind in their education.”
           

“We’ll call the legislation ‘No Child Left Behind’.”
           

 “Great.” (See http://nochildleft.com/2003/jancov03.html#index) Iraq.
           “

"It’s obvious that the last thing we’re going to do is give the Iraqis any freedom.”

 “‘Operation Iraqi Freedom?”
           

“Great.” (See… Christ, just think about it)

My favorite, though, the one near and dear to my heart, goes back to the Reagan Administration’s perception management of their terrorism in Nicaragua. In order for the American people to accept the death, misery, and horror perpetrated in their name the CIA helped set up a domestic propaganda operation to lie about everything (by the way, CIA involvement in domestic operations of any sort is illegal). The name of the operation that would lie about everything?“Project Truth.” (A good source for the truth of Project Truth is Pulitzer nominee Bob Parry’s book, Lost History.) The media, of course, are old hands at this. Let’s imagine How It Went when Fox was setting up its cable news network.
           

“What about our problem of us having to go along with Rupert Murdock’s lunatic right wing politics?”

“You mean our reportage not being fair and balanced?”

“Right.”

“How about we come up with a catchy slogan?” (I’ll not insult your intelligence by saying anything here.) 

You get the idea: Billy O’s “No Spin Zone” spun off from “Fair and Balanced”And so forth.A couple of concepts come to mind in all this.

Contempt is one. Not so much contempt for truth, which is a given, but contempt for our, your, intelligence.

Contempt. What else?To once again plug fellow journalist Bob Woodward’s latest effort: State of Denial, which is the only explanation for why so few people (including Woodward) see the contempt for what it is.

____________   

STATES OF DENIAL (Part Four)

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
–George Orwell

April 6, 2006. Nine days until my self-imposed, symmetry-inspired deadline to finish this book before I have to leave this little Caribbean island. It’s going to be close.

CNN. I generally let it rip, turn CNN loose in the background as I write. This to surround myself with lies, steep myself in them, wallow in them. The BBC sometimes. (But how I lament the lack of the Fox News Network on this island!) Such perspective, such (darkly) comic relief it all is, as I hit the true homestretch, sprint for the wire.

Lies.

Woodward. Bob Woodward.  I’ve been reading Bob Woodward to further steep myself in lies, and in Lies. 
Here’s a little passage from his book, Veil; The Secret Wars of the CIA, that got my attention:

"…after (CIA Director) Casey had worked with the Saudi intelligence service and its ambassador in Washington to arrange the assassination of the archterrorist Fadlallah. Instead of Fadlallah, the car bomb had killed at least eighty people, many innocent." 

When I came across this passage I had to stop and read it again, wondering how and why it had gotten into a book by Bob Woodward. With all his toadying lies by omission, outright lies and Lies, how and why had Woodward included in his book this doozey of an admission?

I knew of the 1985 Beirut car bombing and that the CIA had been behind it from so-called dissident literature: The mainstream press in their contemporaneous reporting of the incident — and it of course bore minimal discussion since the victims were Arabs — did not spill the beans about who was responsible, although you would think it worthy of at least cursory mention. 

Details: The car bomb was placed in front of a mosque, timed to detonate as the worshippers were leaving. Aside from the 80-plus human beings killed outright, 250 or so were maimed or injured, mostly women and children. The bomb destroyed most of a city block and severely damaged the mosque; an infant in its crib on the next block was killed by flying debris. The explosion was nothing short of catastrophic; in the realm of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Woodward devotes six pages of Veil to this incident; he really had the dope on it. This being Bob Woodward, let’s take him on his word that he has his facts straight.

Some facts: President Ronald Reagan had to sign a specific presidential finding before the operation could be carried out (after signing a finding allowing it to be set up). The plan involved a car bomb rather than a “cleaner” assassination – a sniper or other type of lone gunman, say – so the Israelis, who have no problem with mass killings of Lebanese (or any Arabs), could be blamed. They wanted it to be a mess, a slaughter.

But they fuck up. Fadlallah isn’t nearby and over 300 people are killed or maimed.

Hold on. Notice the last two words of the above quoted passage from Veil, Bob Woodward’s definitive history of the CIA in the 1980s. Woodward characterizes the car bomb casualties thus: “many innocent.” Since neither Fadlallah nor any other suspected terrorists were apparently killed or maimed, where does Woodward come up with “many innocent”? As far as he knows, the victims were all innocent, no?

A question for Bob: Which of the victims was guilty? And guilty of what?

Imagine something. Imagine you’re there in Beirut at the mosque right after the explosion, dazed and wandering around in the smoke and debris and torn bodies looking for a loved one, a child, say.Your six year-old daughter, say. You slip and fall. Getting up you realize that that you stepped on the slick and bloody stomach and intestines of your child, who had been eviscerated by shrapnel. She’s not quite dead yet and is crying out for you. You try to gather up her guts and put them back inside her…

Enough, huh? I mean who needs to actually reflect on what it was like that day? Who needs to think about the specific human beings who were slaughtered?

Point being: Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, and William J. Casey, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, did this. (For UK readers: A British intelligence operative was involved in the planning as well.)

Here’s how Woodward sums up the incident: “(Casey) was too smart not to see that he and the White House had broken the rules, probably the law.”

Broken the rules? Probably the law? A question for Bob: What State of Denial were you living in that you could claim that a car bombing that slaughters scores and maims hundreds is rule breaking? What are we doing here, playing Parcheesi? Probably law breaking? You want a list of laws, international and domestic – plus supreme laws of the land, this land, the U.S. of A.– that were broken in this collusion between the President and CIA Director? On the other hand, it’s now explained why in all your books, your nonfiction books, wherein the word “terrorism” (or its variations, like “terror” or “terrorist”) are used in total hundreds of times, you never define the word. Bob, I’m going to define it for you, the way you use it: It’s terrorism if it’s done to us. If we do it, it’s… something else.

I’ll again ask the question regarding Woodward’s book about the secret wars of the CIA: How and why had Woodward included this doozey of an admission?Answer: Because the car bombing that killed and maimed hundreds of people wasn’t terrorism, but just an unfortunate incident in “the war on terror.” (In the U.S. government’s list of terrorist acts of 1985, the Beirut car bombing does not appear. Perhaps the title of Bob Woodward’s new book was referring to this circumstance. Then again, perhaps not.)

Here’s an observation, plus a question, for Bob Woodward: In the 1970s you were largely responsible for toppling a president for obstruction of justice, yet you now consider a President’s collusion in mass murder to be rule breaking? Did something awful happen to you or am I missing something here?

#

As described, I wrote the above in April of this year (a chapter in my new book, later cut). As I now write the date is October 1st, six months later. I just watched Bob Woodward on C-Span’s Book TV, pitching State of Denial.

Woodward’s appearance on Book TV was interesting in that it was made clear up front by the moderator that there would be no audience Q & A of Bob Woodward, the author of a book the subject of which is states of denial. 

An audience Q & A following an author’s appearance is a staple of Book TV.

Why no Q & A this time?

Bob Woodward, the legendary journalist who brought down a corrupt president by asking questions, did not want to answer questions.Why not? Why did legendary journalist Bob Woodward not want to answer questions?

One possible answer: Because he was afraid someone might have asked if State of Denial is about the psychological condition someone might be living under to think that a president’s collusion in mass murder is rule breaking.

Another possible answer: Because he was afraid someone might have asked if something awful had happened to him.

Click here for a PDF file containing cut passages about World Affairs. (Two are versions of the above: scroll past them!)

Hold on. That’s not true. In fact, I hit someone else in the same way – an open-handed shot to the side of the head to put a nice ring in the shitball motherfucker’s ear — just a few months ago, in early September. Right. I’m just now remembering this…

Click here for the PDF file about this stuff.

To recap: After my mercenary buddy Ron informed me of the likelihood that Logan had hired a hit man (his main two reasons for wanting me dead being the information I had on him and that I surf rings around the asshole), I tried to protect myself by going to the U.S. embassy, where I told a flunky named Flook my cockamamie story, plus The Tico Times — a gutless little rag, as it very soon turned out…

Click here for the PDF file about this stuff.

That morning Lisa described a dream wherein I grilled her about the affairs she had in 1995. The dream-me wanted to know about these guys, where they were now and so forth…

Click here for a PDF of a cut chapter about serial cheating.

Notwithstanding my sincerity and desperation – and this might remind you of my Hollywood fiascos — my (“publicly”) spilling the Lisa-beans to Marc set off a shit storm….

Click here to go to a PDF about this.

This is a guy who “cares” about me? Or about his sister and her slight problem of having a hole where her soul would normally be? Maybe he also gets a kick out of laying out a line of China white in front of a former dope fiend….

Click here to go to a PDF of this section.

Given everything we know: Lisa did give that surfer our room number; he called and when I answered, her hung up. Period. And her marathon 3 hours session? She was hinging with the pro she wanted. Zero doubt….

Click here to go to a PDF of this cut passage.

Four AM that night, or rather the next morning, my cell phone rang. It was Lisa, wanting to know how I am. (We had two cell phones.)…

Click here for a PDF to this cut chapter.

While in Atlanta between flights, she told me, she was at an airport bookstore, and there was this guy, a surfer, perusing a travel guide to Costa Rica. She approached him…

Click here to go to the PDF file of this cut excerpt.

One time we were in the nearby town of Ciudad Neilly and I asked Lisa if she had a phone card. Lisa replied quickly and adamantly that she did not…

Click here for the PDF file of this chapter, which I reluctantly cut from the book.

…something I did immediately following the Holiday Inn Taping incident: I changed my will to leave my house at Pavones to Lisa. Further, I signed a power of attorney so Lisa had absolute control over my Costa Rica holdings and money (I had a considerable amount in a Costa Rican bank)….

Click here for the pdf of this cut section.

This was written in 2001, contemporaneously with the events, while they were still fresh. (more…)

A Note On This Document:

As of this writing on September 6, this section is incomplete; some of the internal links are not yet active; there are other omissions and problems. I’ll be working on it.

This very long document (40,000 plus words) will provide to readers of my book (and potential litigators) verification of the veracity of almost all the events and facts necessary to come to the conclusion that my book is true as written, regarding the Lisa through-line.

Lisa’s qualifications/explanations for the incidents of our relationship (which are in bold font) clearly show her background in professional “Perception Management,” a euphemism for gaslighting, which I define as an attempt, through deception, to make another person or persons doubt their own perceptions, or sense of logic, usually to conform to a personal agenda. Perception management may be viewed as institutional gaslighting.

A WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT IS SOLELY TO PUT THE TRUTH – IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL – ON THE RECORD. If you liked my book, I do not recommend that you read this link in its entirety. I fear that that the book and the proofs offered here (and elsewhere on this site) will “run together” in your mind, with the result that your opinion of my book will change. The book is the book! This is the Appendix to the book!

IMPORTANT: NONE OF THE LINKS IN THE DOCUMENT ARE ACTIVE DUE TO OUR DECISION TO PRESENT IT IN PDF. A SEPARATE APPENDIX WILL BE CRAFTED TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM. 

Click here to get the whole document (a PDF, which will open with the free Acrobat Reader).

I wrote the following in April (2006) on the Caribbean island. It’s a part of an epilog that I eventually cut from the book… (more…)

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That Lisa was fucking Esteban Mora, told him about the Dalton Investigation section of this book, and gave him the hard copy is verified in several ways, aside from the inevitable logic of it… (more…)

Although I hope you agree that this accusation is absurd on the face of it, my proofs are extensive, complex, and involve a lot of stuff (documents, emails, etc)…. (more…)

That Lisa had been fucking my next door neighbor Barry is inarguable; everyone in Pavones knows about them, and Lisa has admitted it. Plus we have the emails already quoted — from Marcos and from neighbor who had first hand knowledge. (more…)

During this time Lisa was down in paradise, finishing the spec house we were partners in and doing whatever fucked up things she was doing, which would turn out to be plenty, although the only fucked up thing I knew about at the time was that she was still fucking my next door neighbor Barry, the ex-pro V-baller, and still doing it in my bed, the upstairs one….

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Here’s the email exchange in the order sent/received:
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