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MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO
We the undersigned are longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on September 4-5.
You need to know, for example, that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence" seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12 years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Barack Obama tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as "a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not really a shift."
Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack on Syria based, once again, on "intelligence" that was dubious, at best.> Snip.
Maybe just maybe we have a shot at not going to war with Russia. I sure hope so. At least there are some sane voices out there that have a ton a credibility.
originally posted by: SubTruth
a reply to: GrantedBail
OK so these guys are retired CIA/NSA and they do not think Russia is involved.......Really. Most people with 2 braincells that are not pro-Russia see this for what it really is. And to be honest imagine if this was Mexico and the tables were turned we would already be at WW3.
So Yes I think Russia has the right to a secure border and I also think they invaded the Ukraine to do it.
All it takes is for americans to pay attention (I know, this is a BIG problem with americans ) to the web of disinfo and its obvious deceit.
William Edward Binneyis a former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security Agency (NSA)[3] turned whistleblower who resigned on October 31, 2001, after more than 30 years with the agency. He was a high-profile critic of his former employers during the George W. Bush administration.
David MacMichael is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst. A ten-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, he was a counter-insurgency expert in South-East Asia for four years.[1] He also served as an analyst for the National Intelligence Council from 1981-1983. MacMichael graduated with an MA and Ph.D. in History from the University of Oregon.
MacMichael resigned from the CIA in July 1983 because he felt the Agency was misrepresenting intelligence for political reasons.
Raymond McGovern (born August 25, 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a CIA analyst from 1963 to 1990, and in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief. He received the Intelligence Commendation Medal at his retirement, returning it in 2006 in protest at the CIA's involvement in torture.[1] McGovern's post-retirement work includes commentating on intelligence issues and in 2003 co-founding Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Todd Pierce is an American lawyer and an officer in the United States Army Reserve, who volunteered to help defend Guantanamo captives.[1][2] Pierce took leave from the State of Minnesota's Department of Administration on June 1, 2008.
An article Pierce published in the the National Law Journal on the tenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, triggered widespread comments.[3] Accord
“As evident in Yoo and Delahunty’s legal memos asserting unitary executive authority, the legal theory underpinning Guantánamo and the military commissions were an assault upon the structure of our form of constitutional government; lawfare. It was not the inevitable conclusion required by the Sept. 11 attacks, but the exploitation of a tragedy to import a foreign legal ideology, a legal bacillus, into our legal system.”
Coleen Rowley (born December 20, 1954) is an American former FBI agent and whistleblower, and was a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd congressional district, one of eight congressional districts in Minnesota in 2006. She lost the general election to Republican incumbent John Kline.[1]
Shortly after becoming a Special Agent with the FBI, Rowley was assigned to the Omaha, Nebraska and Jackson, Mississippi divisions. Beginning in 1984, she spent six years working in the New York field office on investigations involving organized crime. She also served in the U.S. embassy in Paris and the consulate in Montreal. In 1990, she was assigned to the FBI's Minneapolis field office, where she became the chief legal adviser.[citation needed]
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Rowley wrote a paper for FBI Director Robert Mueller documenting how FBI HQ personnel in Washington, D.C., had mishandled and failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui. Moussaoui had been suspected of being involved in preparations for a suicide-hijacking similar to the December 1994 "Eiffel Tower" hijacking of Air France 8969. Failures identified by Rowley may have left the U.S. vulnerable to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Rowley was one of many agents frustrated by the events that led up to the attacks, writing:
During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre–September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?--Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case? (I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but jokes were actually made that the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles like Robert Hanssen who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis's effort.) [4][5][6]
Rowley testified in front of the Senate and for the 9/11 Commission about the FBI's internal organization and mishandling of information related to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Mueller and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pushed for and got a major reorganization, focused on creation of the new Office of Intelligence at the FBI. This reorganization was supported with a significant expansion of FBI personnel with counterterrorism and language skills.[citation needed]
Rowley retired from the FBI in 2004 after 24 years with the agency.
Mary Ann Wright (born 1947) is a former United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone.[1] She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the Gaza flotilla.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a small group of former officers of the United States Intelligence Community. It was formed in January 2003 as a "coast-to-coast enterprise" to protest the use of faulty intelligence "upon which the US/UK invasion of Iraq was based." The group issued a letter before the 2003 invasion of Iraq stating that intelligence analysts were not being listened to by policy makers. Initially the group numbered 25, mostly retired analysts.[1] Kathleen Christison and William Christison, Santa Fe, NM - resigned from VIPS in July 2003, over a memo calling for Cheney’s resignation.[2] In August 2010 it issued a memorandum to the White House warning of an imminent Israeli attack on Iran.
YOU ARE HEREcontent / Publications of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Publications of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
32. MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO
August 29, 2014
LINK.
31. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Intelligence on Shoot-Down of Malaysian Plane
July 29, 2014
LINK.
30. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Urgent Action on Ukraine
May 4, 2014
LINK.
29. MEMORANDUM FOR: THE PRESIDENT
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. National Interest
April 28, 2014
LINK.
28. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong
January 7, 2014
LINK.
27. MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Fire Clapper
December 11, 2013
originally posted by: Xcathdra
a reply to: GrantedBail
I am not questioning the fact the wrote the material and posted / published it. I am questioning their motives for doing so based on their backgrounds and reasons they left government service. The number of years they have been out of government service would tend to suggest they are no longer in the know for current intelligence information.
As I stated, the info they published should be read but verified.
originally posted by: buntalanlucu
i hope saner heads prevailed in washington..
originally posted by: BaconNeggs2
originally posted by: buntalanlucu
i hope saner heads prevailed in washington..
Saner heads will NOT prevail.
Washington wants World War 3, and I got news for ya.
They expect YOU to fight and die in it.
originally posted by: Xcathdra
originally posted by: BaconNeggs2
originally posted by: buntalanlucu
i hope saner heads prevailed in washington..
Saner heads will NOT prevail.
Washington wants World War 3, and I got news for ya.
They expect YOU to fight and die in it.
Russia is the one threatening to use nukes, not the west.
and I see we have another member who joined one day ago and b lines for these types of threads.