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The Transparency Presidency - A Legacy Of Lies
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thinbl...@gmail.com
Dec 21, 2016, 1:48:03 AM12/21/16
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John J. Mearsheimer’s “Why Leaders Lie”
By Carlos Lozada April 15, 2011
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-j-mearsheimers-why-leaders-lie/2011/03/09/AFqk88jD_story.html?utm_term=.360a71d84d28
Who is more duplicitous, more inclined to deceive his own people as well as other nations for strategic advantage — current and past dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, or democratically elected Western leaders such as, say, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama?
Easy. Just look at Gaddafi, who early in the revolt against his regime claimed that the Libyan people still loved him, that the gunfire in his country was merely celebratory, and who announced a ceasefire only to continue his attacks on rebel forces. Or Mubarak, who tried to cling to power in Egypt by suggesting that nefarious foreign agents — rather than frustrated Egyptian citizens — were behind the Tahrir Square protests. It’s got to be the dictators, right?
John J. Mearsheimer would disagree. The University of Chicago political scientist argues that the leaders most likely to lie are precisely those in Western democracies, those whose traditions of democracy perversely push them to mislead the very public that elected them. In fact, Mearsheimer says, leaders tend to lie to their own citizens more often than they lie to each other.
In his disheartening yet fascinating book, “Why Leaders Lie,” Mearsheimer offers a treatise on the biggest of big fat lies, breaking down the deceptions the world’s presidents and generals and strongmen engage in — when, why and how they lie, and how effective those falsehoods can be.
///
Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
The University of Chicago Published on Mar 1, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe5f5dcrGE
///
The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie
---------------------
"If you can't trust us, we are going to have some problems. Nobody is listening to your phone calls."
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
June 07, 2013
Statement by the President
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/07/statement-president
By Carlos Lozada April 15, 2011
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-j-mearsheimers-why-leaders-lie/2011/03/09/AFqk88jD_story.html?utm_term=.360a71d84d28
Who is more duplicitous, more inclined to deceive his own people as well as other nations for strategic advantage — current and past dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, or democratically elected Western leaders such as, say, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama?
Easy. Just look at Gaddafi, who early in the revolt against his regime claimed that the Libyan people still loved him, that the gunfire in his country was merely celebratory, and who announced a ceasefire only to continue his attacks on rebel forces. Or Mubarak, who tried to cling to power in Egypt by suggesting that nefarious foreign agents — rather than frustrated Egyptian citizens — were behind the Tahrir Square protests. It’s got to be the dictators, right?
John J. Mearsheimer would disagree. The University of Chicago political scientist argues that the leaders most likely to lie are precisely those in Western democracies, those whose traditions of democracy perversely push them to mislead the very public that elected them. In fact, Mearsheimer says, leaders tend to lie to their own citizens more often than they lie to each other.
In his disheartening yet fascinating book, “Why Leaders Lie,” Mearsheimer offers a treatise on the biggest of big fat lies, breaking down the deceptions the world’s presidents and generals and strongmen engage in — when, why and how they lie, and how effective those falsehoods can be.
///
Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
The University of Chicago Published on Mar 1, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe5f5dcrGE
///
The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie
---------------------
"If you can't trust us, we are going to have some problems. Nobody is listening to your phone calls."
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
June 07, 2013
Statement by the President
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/07/statement-president
thinbl...@gmail.com
Dec 21, 2016, 11:10:38 PM12/21/16
to
December 21, 2016 By Robert Parry
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/21/trumps-need-to-trust-americans/
Exclusive: President Obama promised transparency but delivered a deceptive administration hostile to truth-tellers. President-elect Trump’s narrow path to greatness would require the opposite choice, writes Robert Parry.
Barack Obama’s chance for a transformative presidency ended when he bowed to Official Washington’s foreign-policy establishment of neocons and liberal interventionists and bought into the elitist notion that the American people should be guided by propaganda, not informed by facts.
Although he began his presidency by promising transparency, Obama instead undertook an unprecedented crackdown on national security whistleblowers, prosecuting more than all other presidents combined. Meanwhile, he authorized partial and misleading releases of information about key events. Instead of an informed public, his administration sought maximum propaganda advantage, such as with the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria, and with the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine.
But Obama’s anti-democratic approach to information, i.e., treating Americans like mushrooms in a darkened cellar, creates an opportunity for President-elect Donald Trump to do the opposite, reinvigorate U.S. democracy by arming citizens with facts. By doing so, he also can counter his reputation as someone hostile to reality.
Once in office, Trump could use his power over pardons and commutations to reverse Obama’s punishment of truth-tellers – the likes of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden – and Trump can authorize as full a release of evidence about turning-point events as possible. There’s no justifiable reason for the U.S. intelligence community to continue to withhold its assessments on the Syria-sarin case, which killed hundreds of civilians, or on the shoot-down of MH-17, which killed 298 people.
I’ve been told by intelligence sources that there is a great deal more evidence regarding each incident than the Obama administration has shared even with official inquiries, although holding back this information has allowed guilty parties to escape while sending investigators off in wrong directions. [See here and here.]
Instead of pursuing justice, the Obama administration exploited the atrocities to demonize geopolitical “enemies.” The sarin case was pinned on the Syrian government and the MH-17 shoot-down was blamed on Russian President Vladimir Putin – all the better to gin up the New Cold War and justify massive new armaments spending.
Official Washington’s foreign-policy establishment, aided and abetted by the mainstream U.S. media, also concealed or played down other relevant facts about Syria and Ukraine. Regarding Syria, the Obama administration hid the degree of collaboration between U.S.-backed “moderate” Syrian rebels and radical jihadists, including Al Qaeda’s affiliate, Nusra Front. On Ukraine, Obama concealed American complicity in the violent putsch that overthrew Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych and threw Ukraine into a nasty civil war with the pro-U.S. side relying on neo-Nazi storm troopers to kill ethnic Russian Ukrainians. Those realities had to be whitewashed because they didn’t reinforce the desired narrative.
Opening the Records
On his first day in office, President Trump could order his CIA Director Mike Pompeo to review these cases and release all information that does not compromise sensitive sources and methods. The order could extend to other intelligence-related mysteries, including some that may reflect poorly on Republicans such as the October Surprise mystery of 1980, whether Ronald Reagan’s campaign went behind President Jimmy Carter’s back to undermine his hostage negotiations with Iran and thus ensure Reagan’s election.
By demonstrating a readiness to tell it like it is – regardless of where the partisan chips fall – Trump could reassure nervous Democrats and progressives who view him as a demagogue who disdains facts and exploits emotions for political gain. He could reverse that negative image by doing what Obama promised – but failed to deliver on – a transparent government that trusts the people.
thinbl...@gmail.com
Jan 17, 2017, 10:37:46 AM1/17/17
to
On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:48:03 AM UTC-5, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
> John J. Mearsheimer’s “Why Leaders Lie”
> By Carlos Lozada April 15, 2011
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-j-mearsheimers-why-leaders-lie/2011/03/09/AFqk88jD_story.html?utm_term=.360a71d84d28
>
>
> Who is more duplicitous, more inclined to deceive his own people as well as other nations for strategic advantage — current and past dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, or democratically elected Western leaders such as, say, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama?
>
> Easy. Just look at Gaddafi, who early in the revolt against his regime claimed that the Libyan people still loved him, that the gunfire in his country was merely celebratory, and who announced a ceasefire only to continue his attacks on rebel forces. Or Mubarak, who tried to cling to power in Egypt by suggesting that nefarious foreign agents — rather than frustrated Egyptian citizens — were behind the Tahrir Square protests. It’s got to be the dictators, right?
>
> John J. Mearsheimer would disagree. The University of Chicago political scientist argues that the leaders most likely to lie are precisely those in Western democracies, those whose traditions of democracy perversely push them to mislead the very public that elected them. In fact, Mearsheimer says, leaders tend to lie to their own citizens more often than they lie to each other.
>
> In his disheartening yet fascinating book, “Why Leaders Lie,” Mearsheimer offers a treatise on the biggest of big fat lies, breaking down the deceptions the world’s presidents and generals and strongmen engage in — when, why and how they lie, and how effective those falsehoods can be.
>
>
> ///
>
>
> Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
> The University of Chicago Published on Mar 1, 2012
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe5f5dcrGE
>
>
> ///
>
>
> The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie
> By Carlos Lozada April 15, 2011
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/john-j-mearsheimers-why-leaders-lie/2011/03/09/AFqk88jD_story.html?utm_term=.360a71d84d28
>
>
> Who is more duplicitous, more inclined to deceive his own people as well as other nations for strategic advantage — current and past dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak and Saddam Hussein, or democratically elected Western leaders such as, say, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama?
>
> Easy. Just look at Gaddafi, who early in the revolt against his regime claimed that the Libyan people still loved him, that the gunfire in his country was merely celebratory, and who announced a ceasefire only to continue his attacks on rebel forces. Or Mubarak, who tried to cling to power in Egypt by suggesting that nefarious foreign agents — rather than frustrated Egyptian citizens — were behind the Tahrir Square protests. It’s got to be the dictators, right?
>
> John J. Mearsheimer would disagree. The University of Chicago political scientist argues that the leaders most likely to lie are precisely those in Western democracies, those whose traditions of democracy perversely push them to mislead the very public that elected them. In fact, Mearsheimer says, leaders tend to lie to their own citizens more often than they lie to each other.
>
> In his disheartening yet fascinating book, “Why Leaders Lie,” Mearsheimer offers a treatise on the biggest of big fat lies, breaking down the deceptions the world’s presidents and generals and strongmen engage in — when, why and how they lie, and how effective those falsehoods can be.
>
>
> ///
>
>
> Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics
> The University of Chicago Published on Mar 1, 2012
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPe5f5dcrGE
>
>
> ///
>
>
> The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie
> "If you can't trust us, we are going to have some problems. Nobody is listening to your phone calls."
>
> The White House
> Office of the Press Secretary
> June 07, 2013
> Statement by the President
> https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/07/statement-president
A Demand for Russian ‘Hacking’ Proof
>
> The White House
> Office of the Press Secretary
> June 07, 2013
> Statement by the President
> https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/07/statement-president
January 17, 2017
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/01/17/a-demand-for-russian-hacking-proof/
More than 20 U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans are calling on President Obama to release the evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign – or admit that the proof is lacking.
MEMORANDUM FOR: President Barack Obama
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, a pall hangs over his upcoming presidency amid an unprecedentedly concerted campaign to delegitimize it. Unconfirmed accusations continue to swirl alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “Russian hacking” that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House.
As President for a few more days, you have the power to demand concrete evidence of a link between the Russians and WikiLeaks, which published the bulk of the information in question. Lacking that evidence, the American people should be told that there is no fire under the smoke and mirrors of recent weeks.
We urge you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence that takes us beyond the unsubstantiated, “we-assess” judgments by the intelligence agencies. Otherwise, we – as well as other skeptical Americans – will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those – like Mr. Trump – who wish to deal constructively with them.
In the immediate wake of the holiday on which we mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it seems appropriate to make reference to his legacy, calling to mind the graphic words in his “Letter From the Birmingham City Jail,” with which he reminds us of our common duty to expose lies and injustice:
“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”
For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA
Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)
Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official, ret.
Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)
Brady Kiesling, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, ret. (Associate VIPS),
John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)
Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat
thinbl...@gmail.com
Jan 19, 2017, 6:46:19 AM1/19/17
to
On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:48:03 AM UTC-5, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
19 Jan, 2017
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/01/stunning-admission-obama-wikileaks/
In his final press conference, beginning around 8 minutes 30 seconds in, Obama admits that they have no evidence of how WikiLeaks got the DNC material. This undermines the stream of completely evidence-free nonsense that has been emerging from the US intelligence services this last two months, in which a series of suppositions have been strung together to make unfounded assertions that have been repeated again and again in the mainstream media.
Most crucially of all Obama refers to “The DNC emails that were leaked”. Note “leaked” and not “hacked”. I have been repeating that this was a leak, not a hack, until I am blue in the face. William Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA, has asserted that were it a hack the NSA would be able to give the precise details down to the second it occurred, and it is plain from the reports released they have no such information. Yet the media has persisted with this nonsense “Russian hacking” story.
Obama’s reference to the “the DNC emails that were leaked” appears very natural, fluent and unforced. It is good to have the truth finally told.
thinbl...@gmail.com
Jan 21, 2017, 12:34:02 AM1/21/17
to
On Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 1:48:03 AM UTC-5, thinbl...@gmail.com wrote:
corbettreport Jan 20, 2017
SHOW NOTES: https://www.corbettreport.com/?p=21383
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeDZIyGkGNM
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-312-obama-a-legacy-of-ashes/
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