This Day In War

Twenty years ago today:

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops led by dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the oil-producing nation of Kuwait. Like Noriega in Panama, Hussein had been a US ally for nearly a decade. From 1980 to 1988, he had killed about 150,000 Iranians, in addition to at least 13,000 of his own citizens. Despite complaints from international human rights group, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations had treated Hussein as a valuable ally in the US confrontation with Iran. As late as July 25 - a week before the invasion of Kuwait - US Ambassador April Glaspie commiserated with Hussein over a "cheap and unjust" profile by ABC's Diane Sawyer, and wished for an "appearance in the media, even for five minutes," by Hussein that "would help explain Iraq to the American people."

Ah yes, good times:

Hey whatever happened to Rumsfeld, anyway?

Not long after, America was at war with Iraq -- our first great, glorious war against Saddam Hussein. Let’s rewind the tape and recall how Saddam was repositioned from BFF to Evildoer in the mind of the American public in just a few short months:

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah's full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait. "I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," Nayirah said. "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."

Three months passed between Nayirah's testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council. "Of all the accusations made against the dictator," MacArthur observed, "none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City."

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait's Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis' own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.

Hill & Knowlton is one of America’s oldest PR firms, responsible for countering scientific claims about tobacco’s adverse health effects and other corporate propaganda. In 1990 they represented the government of Kuwait (for more, see the "Citizens for a Free Kuwait” hoax.
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That's pretty incredible client service for a PR firm: getting America to go to war for your client! I mean, how awesome is that?

And for arranging false testimony before Congress the PR firm of Hill & Knowlton received ... sanctions? A fine? A slap on the wrist? How about some government PR contracts? Ding ding ding! Thank you for playing!

Meanwhile, Lauri Fitz-Pegado served as one of the Obama campaign's foreign policy experts, though thankfully not for the Middle East. She is now a lobbyist for the Livingston Group. Her latest coup--pardon the pun:

In 2008, Fitz-Pegado was part of Livingston's team for the non-profit Council for a Democratic Iran, which paid the firm $300,000 in the third quarter of 2008 alone.

If America goes to war with Iran I think we all know who we have to thank.

I think it’s important to remember that this shit has been going on for decades. Who’s pulling your strings, America? Why do you keep letting them?

Speaking of Manchurian Candidates ...

I’ve been following the goings-on of notorious right-wing cult leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon for several years now. Moon, founder of the Unification Church, has long and deep ties to the Bush Administration, the Bush family, and the GOP, as well as top leaders of the Christian right such as Tim LaHaye and the late Jerry Falwell.

He’s a creepy guy to the say least; if you think Scientology is weird, check out Moon, who calls himself Messiah and has his fingers in a dizzying array of global businesses (not all of which are legal, say Moon watchers). For instance, did you know that Moon supplies nearly all of the country’s sushi restuarants with fish? If you eat sushi, chances are you're supporting this creepy cult leader (I know, I eat sushi anyway, too).

About a year ago we heard rumors that the Bush family had bought thousands of acres of land in Paraguay adjacent to Unification Church land there. Some speculated that because there is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Paraguay, this was Bush’s exit strategy. This struck me as a little silly and anyway, we do indeed have extradition treaties with Paraguay, so the argument was wrong.

But there’s clearly something going on, beause the land deal is real, and First Brother Neil Bush has been traveling with Moon in South America, as did George Bush Sr. back in the 1990s. Last week, Neil Bush was in Paraguay to meet with President Nicanor Duarte along with a group of Moon associates.

Strange.

I don’t know what’s going on, but some tin-foil hat types have wondered if the Bush family isn't a key player in Moon's stated plans to take over the world. That also strikes me as silly, but no one has yet explained to me what was up with that "coronation" of Moon and his wife at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in 2004. Understandably, those involved in this bizarre event, including former Rep. Curt Weldon and Sen. Lindsey Graham, have been too embarassed to talk about it and have hoped the whole thing would fade from memory. As if.

I also think it’s interesting that several “Moonies” were given prominent positions in the Bush Administration: for example, David Caprara, one of Moon’s top political players, was director of the Office of Faith Based & Community Initiatives. His previous gig with Moon was as head of the American Freedom Coalition, which the Los Angeles Times described as an organization "dedicated to repairing Moon's tattered persona in the United States" (Caprara is now with the Brookings Institution, BTW).

All of which is food for thought. I'm not saying I buy into the conspiracy theories but I do think it's disturbing that a destructive cult leader and ex-felon would have access to those holding the reins of power in America. I'm blogging about this today because I think it's fascinating, and Ken Layne’s column yesterday offers a good run-down on the Bush-Moon connection. Folks might get a kick out of reading it.

Bush Godson Quashes Surgeon General’s Report

The latest dispatch from the Republican war on science concerns a 2006 Surgeon General’s report on the link between poverty and poor health quashed by a Dept. of Health political appointee --for purely political reasons:

A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.

The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.

Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.

William R. Steiger is no ordinary “loyal Bushie,” however. According to the National Review of Medicine, he is George Bush Sr.’s godson. This also isn’t the first time he’s used his position to favor politics over science:

In a leaked confidential letter to the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Lee Jong-Wook, the US government has rejected decades of nutritional research and denied that there is any evidence of a link between junk food and obesity. The letter, from William R Steiger, special assistant at the Department of Health and Human Services and godson to George Bush Sr, is the United States' official response to an April 2003 report by the WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The report was released last spring, prompting American food manufacturers' groups to begin frantic lobbying in Washington. The Sugar Association wrote to Gro Harlem Brundtland, then WHO director-general, threatening to "exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature" of the report. Congressmen recruited by the food industry urged the Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, to cut off the $406 million annual US contribution to the WHO.

Yes of course, because when it comes to Americans' health and the obesity epidemic, we simply must put an expert in Latin American history in charge. That person will surely keep the interests of Kraft, General Foods, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo at the forefront.

Heckuva job, Billy!

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there's a connection between poverty and poor health, and that a high-fat, high-sugar junk food diet is causing America’s obesity epidemic. But it does take the removal of political cronies and Bush family friends and relatives from policy positions.

It’s time to shove Steiger off the government payroll. No, I won't feel sorry for him. I'm sure he'll land a cushy Heritage Foundation gig where he can do corporate America's bidding all he wants.