Céad Míle Fáilte ~ A Hundred Thousand Welcomes!

Here we seek a rest in the shade, some cool water and a little kindness. This blog is dedicated to peace, truth, justice and a post- industrial, post-petroleum illumined world in spite of all odds against it. I very much like the line about the ancient knight (see poem below) "His helmet now shall make a hive for bees" It is reminiscent of "beating swords into ploughshares" a sentiment I heartily approve of. Thank you for visiting ~ I hope you return!

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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Profiles in Courage July 1


The second in a Fourth of July special profiling people I admire, who have been true patriots, winter soldiers if you will.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
~ Thomas Paine, 1776
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Karen Kwiatkowski, a specialist on the Middle East and retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who "spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon," worked "from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Near East/South Asia and Special Plans" at the Department of Defense. Since retiring, she has become a noted critic of the U.S. government's involvement in Iraq.


Kwiatkowski exposed how a clique of officers led by retired Navy Captain Bill Luti, assistant secretary of defense for NESA, and former aid of Dick Cheney when the latter was Secretary of Defense, took control of the military intelligence, and how the Office of Special Plans (OSP) grew and eventually turned into a censorship and disinformation organism controlling the NESA.


QUOTE: I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president. UNQUOTE


Dr. Kwiatkowski (PhD. in World Politics, Catholic University)has written on defense issues with a libertarian perspective for MilitaryWeek.com, hosted the call-in radio show American Forum, and blogs occasionally for Huffingtonpost.com and Liberty and Power, and Lew Rockwell.
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