Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #647 Reflections on the Coming Election

MP3: 30-Minute Seg­ment
REALAUDIO NB: This RealAu­dio stream con­tains FTRs 646 and 647 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: Record­ed in late August, just before the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion in Den­ver, the pro­gram exam­ines a num­ber of against the back­ground of the 2008 pres­i­den­tial race. The McCain cam­paign gained con­sid­er­able momen­tum from the Geor­gian war, with rhetor­i­cal flour­ish­es aimed at both Russia–the “New Evil Empire”–and Barack Oba­ma, dimin­ished by the GOP and Cit­i­zen McCain as weak on for­eign and nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy. Depart­ing sharply from the pre­vail­ing jour­nal­is­tic wis­dom on the Geor­gian war, the pro­gram sets forth the analy­sis pre­sent­ed by the U.S. ambas­sador to Rus­sia, John Beyr­le. Beyr­le swam against the diplo­mat­ic tide and pub­licly opined that the ini­tial Russ­ian mil­i­tary response in Geor­gia was jus­ti­fied, a far cry from the posi­tion tak­en by the GOP and “The McCain Mutiny,” which pro­ject­ed the con­flict as bes­tial, Russ­ian impe­r­i­al instinct made man­i­fest.

Although Russ­ian excess­es are not to be excused any­where or any­time, that nation’s actions must be exam­ined against the back­ground of Amer­i­can diplo­mat­ic and nation­al secu­ri­ty pol­i­cy tak­en in the post-Cold War peri­od. Exem­pli­fy­ing and embody­ing that pol­i­cy is the pres­ence in the U.S.-backed Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment of the for­mer Kather­ine Chu­machenko, now mar­ried to Ukrain­ian head of state Vic­tor Yuschenko. In a pre­vi­ous polit­i­cal incar­na­tion, the for­mer Ms. Chu­machenko was the point ele­ment for a Ukrain­ian emi­gre fas­cist move­ment that col­lab­o­rat­ed with the Third Reich (the SS in par­tic­u­lar), Ger­man intel­li­gence and the CIA. Despite the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has con­tin­ued to pur­sue a pol­i­cy of ter­ri­to­r­i­al and polit­i­cal con­fronta­tion and com­pe­ti­tion with Rus­sia, con­tin­u­ing the long­time U.S. adop­tion of “Roll­back” or “Lib­er­a­tion The­o­ry.”

Adopt­ed by dom­i­nant ele­ments of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and the GOP, this for­mer Third Reich polit­i­cal and mil­i­tary strat­e­gy entailed the dis­so­lu­tion of the for­mer Sovi­et Union into its eth­nic republics. With the ascen­sion of Ronald Rea­gan, George H.W. Bush and William Casey (all deeply involved with the Nazi emi­gre milieu that allied with the GOP), the dom­i­nance of the Third Reich alum­ni with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty became insti­tu­tion­al­ized and [almost] for­mal. U.S.–and McCain–policy in Geor­gia must be seen against the back­ground of this ongo­ing polit­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare dynam­ic. Mrs. Yuschenko–the for­mer Ms. Chumachenko–was the Deputy Direc­tor of Pres­i­den­tial Liai­son under Ronald Rea­gan.

Anoth­er of the Nazi appointees with­in the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion was Bob Whitak­er, a neo-Nazi who held the posi­tion of ” . . . Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Direc­tor of the Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment, in charge of secu­ri­ty clear­ances, staffing, and that sort of thing. . . .” Yet anoth­er of the Rea­gan appointees with Nazi traces was John Koehler, the suc­ces­sor to Pat Buchanan as White House Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor. Koehler had to resign when his mem­ber­ship in a Nazi youth orga­ni­za­tion became pub­lic. As the elec­tion sea­son unfolds, this Nazi ele­ment with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty is some­thing to bear in mind. The con­clu­sion of the pro­gram turns to events unfold­ing as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion approached. After not­ing the assas­si­na­tion of the head of the Arkansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, the pro­gram sets forth the alleged sui­cide of a Soma­li native and Cana­di­an cit­i­zen, found dead in his hotel room in Den­ver with a pound of cyanide.

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The pres­ence on the board of the Diebold elec­tion soft­ware com­pa­ny of Tim Timken, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s ambas­sador to Ger­many; analy­sis of the sig­nif­i­cance for this elec­tion of the GOP/Muslim Broth­er­hood con­nec­tion.

1. The U.S. ambas­sador to Rus­sia has bro­ken diplo­mat­ic ranks to opine that the [ini­tial] Russ­ian mil­i­tary response was jus­ti­fied.

“The US ambas­sador to Moscow, endors­ing Rus­si­a’s ini­tial moves in Geor­gia, described the Krem­lin’s first mil­i­tary response as legit­i­mate after Russ­ian troops came under attack.

This was the first pos­i­tive state­ment by an Amer­i­can offi­cial about Moscow’s first response to the Geor­gian inva­sion of South Osse­tia, after a string of con­dem­na­tions from the heads of the Bush admin­is­tra­tion. It came from US ambas­sador John Beyr­le, who arrived in Moscow last month, in an inter­view pub­lished by the Russ­ian dai­ly Kom­m­er­sant Fri­day, Aug. 22.

DEB­KA-Net-Week­ly dis­closed Fri­day in its lead arti­cle that Wash­ing­ton and Moscow are work­ing qui­et­ly and inten­sive­ly to set up a sum­mit between Pres­i­dent George W. Bush and Russ­ian prime min­is­ter Vladimir Putin to bring cri­sis-rid­den US-Russ­ian rela­tions back on an even keel. (Both Pow­ers Push for a Bush-Putin Sum­mit.)

Ambas­sador Beyrle’s words were the first pub­lic depar­ture by a US offi­cial from the crit­i­cal remarks of Moscow’s con­duct heard uni­form­ly from Bush, Con­doleez­za Rice and Robert Gates. . . .”

“US Con­cedes Kremlin’s First Mil­i­tary Response in Geor­gia Was ‘Legit­i­mate’”; Deb­ka Net Week­ly; 8/22/2008.

2. Not­ing a fun­da­men­tal ele­ment of U.S. pol­i­cy toward Rus­sia in the post-Cold War era, the broad­cast notes that Ukrain­ian head of state Vic­tor Yuschenko is mar­ried to a promi­nent mem­ber of the Ukrain­ian fas­cist emi­gre milieu. Note also that Mrs. Yuschenko–the for­mer Kather­ine Chumachenko–served as the Deputy Direc­tor for Pub­lic Lisai­son at the Rea­gan White House. (The text excerpt is from FTR 529.) Hav­ing suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed “roll­back” or “lib­er­a­tion” the­o­ry vis a vis the for­mer Sovi­et Union, the U.S. has con­tin­ued to empow­er and back polit­i­cal fas­cist ele­ments in some of the for­mer republics of the U.S.S.R.

“ . . . On July 20, 1988, George Bush reaf­firmed the ties between the Repub­li­can Par­ty and the ABN by mak­ing a cam­paign stop at Fedorak’s Ukrain­ian Cul­tur­al Cen­ter in War­ren, Michi­gan. Bush deliv­ered a hard-line for­eign pol­i­cy speech to those attend­ing the annu­al Cap­tive Nations ban­quet spon­sored joint­ly by the Cap­tive Natins Com­mit­tee and the ABN. Shar­ing the dais with Fedo­rak and Bush was Kather­ine Chu­machenko, for­mer­ly the direc­tor of the UCCA’s Cap­tive Nations Com­mit­tee and cur­rent­ly the Deputy Direc­tor for Pub­lic Liai­son at the White House. [Empha­sis added.] Ignatius M. Billinsky, Pres­i­dent of UCCA, had already been named Hon­orary Chair of Ukraini­ans for Bush, and Bohdan Fedo­rak named Nation­al vice-chair of Ukraini­ans for Bush. . . .”

(Old Nazis, The New Right, and the Repub­li­can Par­ty; by Russ Bel­lant; South End Press [HC]; Copy­right 1988, 1989, 1991 by Russ Bel­lant; ISBN 0–89608-419–1; pp. 76–77.

3. Not­ing the lega­cy of the Helene Von Damm/Otto von Bolschwing axis with­in the GOP, the pro­gram high­lights the fact that Amer­i­can neo-Nazi Bob Whitak­er held a sen­si­tive posi­tion with­in the Rea­gan White House. A pro­tege of Otto von Bolschwing–one of Hitler’s pri­ma­ry archi­tects of Nazi pol­i­cy against the Jews–Helen Von Damm select­ed the lists of per­son­nel from which Rea­gan made his pres­i­den­tial appoint­ments. Avail­able evi­dence sug­gests very strong­ly that Von Damm served as a func­tionary of the Under­ground Reich. Notice the posi­tion of Bob Whitak­er with­in the Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion: ” . . . Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Direc­tor of the Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment, in charge of secu­ri­ty clear­ances, staffing, and that sort of thing. . . .”

” . . . KAS: When we intro­duced you for the first time to our read­ers in Nation­al Van­guard, we gave a cap­sule biog­ra­phy of you as fol­lows:

“Mr. Whitak­er was born and raised in South Car­oli­na, and attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia Grad­u­ate School. He has been a col­lege pro­fes­sor, an inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion nego­tia­tor, a Capi­tol Hill senior staffer, a Rea­gan Admin­is­tra­tion appointee, and a writer for the Voice of Amer­i­ca.”

So you’re a Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion appointee — what’s the sto­ry behind that?

BW: I was Spe­cial Assis­tant to the Direc­tor of the Office of Per­son­nel Man­age­ment, in charge of secu­ri­ty clear­ances, staffing, and that sort of thing.

KAS: Why is some­one with such excel­lent estab­lish­ment cre­den­tials defend­ing the White race, as you do in your work, with­out apol­o­gy or regret? Isn’t that some­thing that sim­ply “isn’t done” these days by any­one who wants to retain his posi­tion in pri­vate or pub­lic life?

BW: Well, I did it. And they cleared me at the high­est pos­si­ble lev­els, so if you do it right, you can do it. And I’m good at it. . . .”

“A White Future is Com­ing: an Inter­view with Bob Whitak­er” by Kevin Alfred Strom; Amer­i­can Dis­si­dent Voic­es; 7/3/2004.

4. Anoth­er piece of the Von Damm/Von Bolschwing lega­cy con­cerns Pat Buchanan’s des­ig­nat­ed suc­ces­sor as White House Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor. John O. Koehler has served in a Nazi youth orga­ni­za­tion dur­ing his boy­hood days in Ger­many.

” . . . Bak­er swift­ly dis­posed of one inher­it­ed per­son­nel prob­lem. He dis­missed John O. Koehler, who had replaced Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Pat Buchanan last month. Koehler’s mem­ber­ship in a Nazi youth orga­ni­za­tion at the age of ten had embar­rassed the Admin­is­tra­tion, but what sealed his fate was his arro­gance, illus­trat­ed by a refusal to move out of Buchanan’s office to make way for Can­non. . . .”

“Bak­er Breaks the Fever” by Ed Mag­nu­son; Time; 3/16/1987.

5. Turn­ing to Bush sup­port­er Tim Timken, the pro­gram notes his posi­tion as a direc­tor of Diebold.

” . . . But Mr. Timken wears anoth­er hat: He’s a long­time board mem­ber of the Diebold Cor­po­ra­tion, anoth­er Can­ton-based com­pa­ny that is one of the largest ven­dors of elec­tron­ic vot­ing equip­ment in the coun­try.

Like the Timken Com­pa­ny, Diebold has a his­to­ry of gen­eros­i­ty to the Repub­li­can Par­ty. The com­pa­ny and its exec­u­tives have giv­en more than $400,000 to var­i­ous cam­paigns, state com­mit­tees and the nation­al par­ty since 2001, accord­ing to electionline.org, a non­par­ti­san group that tracks news on elec­tion reform. Last sum­mer, Diebold’s chief exec­u­tive, Walden (Wal­ly) O’Dell-him­self a Bush-Cheney Pio­neer, with more than $100,000 in con­tri­bu­tions col­lect­ed-caused a stir by send­ing out an invi­ta­tion to a fund-rais­ing event in which he said he was “com­mit­ted to help­ing Ohio deliv­er its elec­toral votes” to Bush in the Novem­ber pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. . . .”

“Meet Tim Timken, Elec­tion-Reform Case-Study” by Ali­son T. Hoff­man; The New York Observ­er; 9/5/2004.

6. Timken is also the Bush admin­is­tra­tion’s ambas­sador to Ger­many.

“Wash­ing­ton’s choice for future US ambas­sador to Ger­many has all the mak­ings of a polit­i­cal bomb­shell. For years, a com­pa­ny owned by the mul­ti­mil­lion­aire and new­ly-appoint­ed diplo­mat William Timken, Jr. has been prof­it­ing from anti­com­pet­i­tive tar­iffs — at the direct expense of Ger­man com­pa­nies. . . .”

“How Bush’s Berlin Ambas­sador Pick Prof­it­ed from Pro­tec­tive Tar­iffs against Ger­man Com­pa­nies” by Georg Mas­co­lo and Juer­gen Dahlkamp; SpiegelOn­line; 1/8/2005.

7. As the Democ­rats pre­pared for their con­ven­tion in Den­ver, the chair­man of the Arkansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty was shot to death. Dis­missed as the work of a lone nut, the event must be crit­i­cal­ly eval­u­at­ed against this coun­try’s sad his­to­ry of dis­miss­ing polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions as the work of iso­lat­ed indi­vid­u­als.

“A man barged into the Arkansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic head­quar­ters and opened fire Wednes­day, fatal­ly shoot­ing the state par­ty chair­man before speed­ing off in his pick­up. Police lat­er shot and killed the sus­pect after a 30-mile chase.

Police said they don’t know the motive of the sus­pect, who they described as about 50 years old but whose name has not been released. . . .”

“Arkansas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair Shot, Killed” by Andrew DeMil­lo [AP]; The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 8/14/2008; p. A5.

8. A Soma­li native was found dead of cyanide poi­son­ing in Den­ver short­ly before the con­ven­tion. Note in the con­text of his death that Soma­lia has expe­ri­enced rule by the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and ele­ments asso­ci­at­ed with and/or inspired by al-Qae­da.

ay had been in con­tact with a female rel­a­tive in the Col­orado city in the days before his death, accord­ing to the direc­tor of a U.S.-based Soma­li activist group who is now assist­ing the man’s fam­i­ly. . . .”

“Infor­ma­tion Sparse on Cyanide Death” by Andrew Sey­mour; Ottawa Cit­i­zen; 8/14/2008.

9. The sus­pect was in pos­ses­sion of a pound of cyanide, sug­gest­ing that the deceased indi­vid­ual was more than just a casu­al, trag­ic deviant.

“Author­i­ties in Den­ver say they have found about a pound of high­ly tox­ic sodi­um cyanide in a hotel room where a man’s body was dis­cov­ered.

Police say foul play is not sus­pect­ed and FBI spokes­woman Kathy Wright said Wednes­day there was no appar­ent con­nec­tion to ter­ror­ism. . . .”

“Pound of Cyanide Found in Room Where Man Died”; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 8/14/2008.

10. Author­i­ties are dis­miss­ing any pos­si­ble link between the cyanide pro­cur­er, ter­ror­ism and the Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tion. This denial should be viewed against the back­ground of both the endem­ic denial of polit­i­cal con­spir­a­to­r­i­al process by the main­stream jour­nal­is­tic and aca­d­e­m­ic estab­lish­ments in this coun­try, as well as the GOP’s hard con­nec­tions to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood and Bank al-Taqwa milieux.

” . . . The Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion opens in Den­ver this month, but The Burns­ley is not on the list of hotels where del­e­gates are stay­ing.

Five rooms on the fourth floor were occu­pied, and those guests were moved to oth­er floors. . . .”

“Den­ver Police Sus­pect Cyanide Death at Hotel” AP; WKBT.com; 8/11/2008.

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