Informed sources have told us that President Obama has developed a close association with former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, one of the media sources for the covert identity of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.
Obama has sought the advice of Armitage on national security matters. Ironically, Armitage was an adviser to the failed presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, Obama's adversary. Armitage is among a number of Republicans who Obama has consulted with since being elected President. Others include former Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush national security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretaries of State George Shultz, James Baker (George W. Bush's 2000 "fix-it" man in the Florida recount], Zbignew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger....
While Powell's deputy in 2001, Armitage told Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf after 9/11 that the United States would "bomb Pakistan back to the stone age" unless joining the battle against Al Qaeda.
Armitage, who is 64, can still bench press 300 pounds and he is reportedly now one of Obama's regular basketball playing partners. Their gymnasium repartee has earned Armitage the ear of Obama on a number of national security and foreign policy matters.
There is another irony with Obama's relationship with Armitage. With revelations that former Vice President Dick Cheney operated an assassination unit out of the White House, it should be noted that Armitage was associated with the CIA's Phoenix Program, a covert operation that targeted Vietnamese political and religious leaders for assassination. Armitage was also linked to narcotics trafficking from Southeast Asia's "Golden Triangle." After the Vietnam War, Armitage was a Pentagon "consultant" in Tehran until 1976 and from 1977 to 1978, he ran an "import-export" business in Bangkok. In 1978, Armitage joined the Senate staff of Bob Dole, the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential candidate in 1976. Armitage was reportedly involved with the CIA's Ted Shackley in Indochinese drug smuggling and other covert activities.
In 1981, when the 20-year-old Obama, who was known as "Barry Soetoro," traveled to Pakistan from his home in Indonesia, during a time of increased covert assistance to Pakistan-based Afghan mujahidin elements, Armitage served as Ronald Reagan's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs where his portfolio included U.S. relations with and programs in Indonesia. In 1998, Armitage was a signatory to the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) letter to Bill Clinton urging the military removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq....
I wouldn't say Obama is worse than Bush, but I would agree the same people control him. Almost everybody around Obama are recycled from the Clinton/Bush year, and the international bankers who pull their strings are still there, as always. The Obamacons offer a false sense of security, which may make them more dangerous in the long run. The republican-neocons would never be able to take away guns and free speech, but the democrat-neolibs might be able to do that. They also intend to create an Obama-youth corps, which I find chilling. There is going to be widespread unrest, but the last thing we need is to arm the indoctrinated violence-prone youth of this country. I can see it now: hordes of uniformed Obama-youth patrolling the streets of our cities to
"prevent" violence, and take-away dissenters to the gulags (yes there is a gulag system already in place). That's when this old boy gets out of the city!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/house-passes-mandatory-national-service-bill.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Luther_Pierce
RICHARD ARMITAGE QUIETLY CONFIRMEDAS DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE ....
FTW - On March 23, after being recommended in a unanimous 18-0 vote by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, former Vietnam-era covert operative and Contra-era figure Richard Armitage was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of State in a voice vote on the Senate Floor. The unchallenged confirmation of a figure who had previously been investigated by President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime (1984) for alleged links to gambling and prostitution was totally ignored by the major American media. Armitage has already begun work at the State Department and is deeply involved in negotiations over a US spy plane recently captured by the Chinese government.
The total lack of opposition to Armitage's appointment indicates an apparent inability of the US Congress to muster any critical examination of appointments or policy at a time when an imperiled US economy and an almost combative Bush Administration is dealing with mounting economic and political challenges around the globe.
Armitage, who was denied a 1989 appointment as Assistant Secretary of State because of links to Iran-Contra and other scandals, served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan years. U.S. Government stipulations in the Oliver North trial specifically named Armitage as one of the DoD officials responsible for illegal transfers of weapons to Iran and the Contras. But Armitage's dirty past goes much deeper.
A Vietnam veteran and graduate of Annapolis, Armitage's roots have been thoroughly intertwined with the likes of CIA veteran Ted Shackley, Richard Secord, Heine Aderholt, Elliot Abrams, Dewey Clarridge, Edwin Wilson and Tom Clines. All of these men have been directly linked to CIA covert operations, the drug trade, the abandonment of U.S. prisoners of War after Vietnam and/or Iran-Contra. Armitage has also been routinely discussed in FTW as a Bush-era covert functionary who has been linked to covert operations, drug smuggling and the expansion of organized crime operations in Russia, Central Asia and the Far East.
In 1986 a private dispute between POW activist Ross Perot and Armitage went public as photos of Armitage with a topless Vietnamese nightclub owner Nguyen O'Rourke brought allegations of gambling and prostitution close to Armitage's doorstep. The stories went public when TIME and "The Boston Globe" wrote lengthy stories on the feud in 1986 and 1987. That scandal arose as a result of 1984 investigations by President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime in which the photo and documentation of gambling charges and prostitution led to direct Armitage's close association with O'Rourke. Then LAPD Assistant Chief Jesse Brewer, a former Commanding Officer of this writer, served on the Reagan Commission.
The 1992 best-seller "Kiss The Boys Goodbye" by former "60 MINUTES" producer Monika Jensen-Stevenson details Armitage's role as Reagan point man on Vietnam POW-MIA issues and describes why Armitage has earned the enmity of many POW activists. However, in a 1995 interview with "The Washington Post", Colin Powell referred to Armitage as his "white son." This, notwithstanding the fact that the 6 foot, balding, power-lifter, now 56, can still bench press 300 or more pounds and reportedly "enjoys killing."
William Tyree, Special Forces Veteran who has provided much reliable information and documentation to FTW in the past said, "Armitage used to 'sit ambush' on the trails in Laos and Cambodia. He liked it. Now when Powell, 'the dove,' sits down at a table with Armitage 'the killer' beside him the message will be that Armitage can reach across the table and deal with the other party on the spot." That message will not go unheard.
Mike Ruppert
Publisher/Editor
"From The Wilderness"
http://www.copvcia.com
Richard Armitage Reportedly Enjoys Killing
