Deep Politics Forum

Richard Armitage

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Richard L. Armitage

Richard Lee Armitage, KCMG (Honorary) (born April 26, 1945) was the 13th United States Deputy Secretary of State, the second-in-command at the State Department, serving from 2001 to 2005.

Early life and military career

Armitage was born in Boston and graduated in 1967 from the United States Naval Academy and was commissioned an ensign in the US Navy. He served on a destroyer stationed off the coast of Vietnam during the Vietnam War before volunteering to serve what would eventually become three combat tours with the riverine/advisory forces for the South Vietnamese navy.[1]
According to Captain Kiem Do, a Republic of Vietnam Navy officer who served with him in Vietnam, Armitage "seemed drawn like a 'moth to flame' to the hotspots of the naval war: bedding down on the ground with Vietnamese commandos, sharing their rations and hot sauce, telling jokes in flawless Vietnamese."[2] Instead of a uniform, Armitage often dressed in native garb, and was nicknamed "Tran Van Phu" by the Vietnamese.[2]
Several associates who fought alongside Armitage and other politicians (including Ted Shackley)[3] have since said publicly that Armitage was associated with the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) highly controversial and clandestine Phoenix Program.[3] Armitage has since denied a role in Phoenix and has stated that - at most - CIA officers would occasionally ask him for intelligence reports.[4]
In 1973, Armitage left active duty and joined the office of the U.S. Defense Attache in Saigon. Immediately prior to the fall of Saigon, he organized and led the removal of South Vietnamese naval assets and personnel from the country and out of the hands of the approaching North Vietnamese. Armitage told South Vietnamese naval officers to take their ships to a designated place in the ocean where they would be rescued by U.S. forces and the ships destroyed. When Armitage arrived at the designated location he found over 20,000 South Vietnamese clinging to less than three dozen naval boats without food or water.[5] With transportation options limited for removing the floating city, Armitage personally decided to sail the flotilla of ships over 1000 miles to Subic Bay, Philippines in 1975 against the wishes of both the Philippine and American governments. Armitage personally arranged for food and water to be delivered by the U.S. Defense Department before negotiating with both governments for permission to dock in Subic Bay.[1][5]

Public service career

After the end of the Vietnam War Armitage moved to Washington, D.C. to serve as a consultant for the United States Department of Defense. He was almost immediately sent to serve in Tehran, Iran until November 1976. Following that posting, he moved to Bangkok and operated an import/export business in the private sector for the next two years. In 1978, he returned to the U.S. and started working as an aide to Senator Bob Dole.[citations needed]
In late 1980, Armitage became a foreign policy advisor to President-elect Ronald Reagan. Following that role, he was made a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, a high-ranking post in The Pentagon. He served in this position from 1981 to 1983.
In June 1983, he was promoted to Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy where he represented the Department of Defense in developing political-military relationships and initiatives throughout the world. He helped to spearhead U.S. Pacific security policy including the USA-Japan and U.S.-China security relationships, managed all Defense security assistance programs, and provided oversight of policies related to the law of the sea, U.S. special operations, and counter-terrorism. Armitage earned the Secretary of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.[6] He played a leading role in Middle East security policies.[citations needed]
In 1986, after a trip to Burma to interview drug kingpin Khun Sa regarding possible locations of U.S. POWs, former United States Army Special Forces member Bo Gritz returned from Burma with a videotaped interview of Khun Sa purporting to name several officials in the Reagan administration involved in narcotics trafficking in Southeast Asia. Among those named was Armitage, and Ted Shackley. The authenticity of the videotape and the content of the conversations on the videotape have never been debunked.
Armitage left that post in 1989 to serve as a special negotiator for the President on military bases in the Philippines, and as a mediator on water issues in the Middle East.
In 1991, he was appointed a special emissary to King Hussein of Jordan. Following that, he was sent to Europe with the title of ambassador; his assignment was to direct U.S. foreign aid to the states that had been formed out of the fallen Soviet Union. He occupied that post until 1993, at which point he entered the private sector. His roles in the private sector included a directorship of US data aggregation company ChoicePoint. [7]
In 1998, Armitage signed "The Project for the New American Century" letter (PNAC Letter) to President Bill Clinton. The letter urged Clinton to target the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power in Iraq due to erosion of the Gulf War Coalition's containment policy and the resulting possibility that Iraq might develop weapons of mass destruction. The letter's intended purpose of removing Hussein was to protect Israel and other U.S. allies in the region, including oil-producing Arab countries.[citations needed]
During the 2000 Presidential election campaign, he served as a foreign policy advisor to George W. Bush as part of a group led by Condoleezza Rice that called itself The Vulcans.[citations needed]
The United States Senate confirmed him as Deputy Secretary of State on March 23, 2001; he was sworn three days later. A close associate of Secretary of State Colin Powell, Armitage was regarded, along with Powell, as a moderate within the presidential administration of George W. Bush. According to President Musharraf, of Pakistan, shortly after 9/11, Armitage presented Pakistan with demands for assistance in the campaign against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The demands were non-negotiable. Should Pakistan accept, it would be considered a United States ally. Should it decline, Pakistan would be considered an enemy. According to Mussharaf, Armitage further averred that, should Pakistan decline, the United States would bomb it 'back to the Stone Age.' Armitage denies having used those words. Armitage tendered his resignation on November 16, 2004, the day after Powell announced his resignation as Secretary of State. He left the post on February 22, 2005, when Robert Zoellick succeeded the office.

Life after public service

There was some media speculation that President Bush would appoint him to a key security position such as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Director of National Intelligence or Defense Secretary. As of the start of July 2007, Armitage had not re-entered public service. On May 10, 2006, he was elected to the board of directors of the ConocoPhillips oil company.
In October 2006, Armitage lobbied – on behalf of the L-3 Communications Corporation, a company providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance products – some key people in the Taiwanese political circles regarding the possible sales of P-3C marine patrol aircraft to the ROC military. Those who received his personal letter included Premier Su Tseng-chang, President of the Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pyng, and opposition People First Party leader James Soong.
Armitage stated in the letter that he wished the Taiwan government would reconsider the purchase from Lockheed Martin, the dealer the United States government had designated. Instead, he hoped that the right to negotiate the purchase should be made through an open and fair bidding process.[8] The letter was made public by PFP Legislators on October 24, 2006 in a Legislative Yuan session discussing the military purchases.[9]

Role in Plame affair

On November 15, 2005 journalist Bob Woodward of The Washington Post revealed that "a government official with no axe to grind" leaked to him the identity of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame in mid-June 2003. According to an April 2006 Vanity Fair article (published March 14, 2006), former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee said in an interview "that Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption," though Bradlee later told the Post that he "[did] not recall making that precise statement" in the interview.[10]

On March 2, 2006, bloggers discovered that "Richard Armitage" fit the spacing on a redacted court document, suggesting he was a source for the Plame leak.[11]

On August 21, 2006, the Associated Press published a story that revealed Armitage met with Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003. The information came from official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.[12]

In the September 4, 2006 issue of Newsweek magazine, in an article titled "The Man Who Said Too Much", journalist Michael Isikoff, quoting a "source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities", reported that Armitage was the "primary" source for Robert Novak's piece outing Plame. Armitage allegedly mentioned Ms. Wilson's CIA role to Novak in a July 8, 2003 interview after learning about her status from a State Department memo which made no reference to her undercover status.[13]Isikoff also reported that Armitage had also told Bob Woodward of Plame's identity in June 2003, and that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald investigated Armitage's role "aggressively", but did not charge Armitage with a crime because he "found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he talked to Novak and Woodward".

Novak, in an August 27, 2006 appearance on Meet the Press, stated that although he still would not release the name of his source, he felt it was long overdue that the source reveal himself.[14] Armitage has also reportedly been a cooperative and key witness in the investigation.[15]According to The Washington Note, Armitage has testified before the grand jury three times.[16]

On August 29, 2006 Neil A. Lewis of The New York Times reported that Armitage was the "initial and primary source" for columnist Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 article, which named Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative" and which triggered the CIA leak investigation.[17]
On August 30, 2006, CNN reported that Armitage had been confirmed "by sources" as leaking Ms. Wilson's CIA role in a "casual conversation" with Robert Novak.[18]The New York Times, quoting people "familiar with his actions", reported that Armitage was unaware of Ms. Wilson's undercover status when he spoke to Novak.[19]

The Times claims that White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was informed that Armitage was involved on October 2, 2003, but asked not to be told details. Patrick Fitzgerald began his grand jury investigation three months later knowing Armitage was a leaker (as did Attorney General John Ashcroft before turning over the investigation).

On March 6, 2007 a jury convicted Libby of "obstruction of justice, giving false statements to the FBI and perjuring himself, charges embodied in four of the five counts of the indictment".[20]

Fitzgerald has issued no statement about Armitage's involvement, and as of August 2006, the CIA leak investigation remains open.

On September 7, 2006, Armitage admitted to being the source in the CIA leak.[21] Armitage claims that Fitzgerald had originally asked him not to discuss publicly his role in the matter, but that on September 5 Armitage asked Fitzgerald if he could reveal his role to the public, and Fitzgerald consented.[21]

In a review of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, which hit book stores in early September 2006, Novak wrote: "I don't know precisely how Isikoff flushed out Armitage [as Novak's original source], but Hubris clearly points to two sources: Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage's political adviser, and William Taft IV, who was the State Department legal adviser when Armitage was deputy secretary."[22]

Pakistan and the War on Terror

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in an interview with CBS News 60 Minutes on September 21, 2006, alleged that Armitage called an ISI general immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks and threatened to "bomb the country (Pakistan) back to the stone age" unless they supported the US-led war on terror. Presently, Musharraf has refused to provide details, commenting that he is unable to provide details due to restrictions by the publisher (Simon & Schuster) of his book In the Line of Fire: A Memoir.[citation needed] President Bush on the other hand has mentioned that he only became aware of these comments as late as September 2006, when he read them in the newspapers. Armitage confirmed he had held a conversation with the Pakistani general to whom Musharraf had sourced the comments, but denied using a threat of military action couched in such terms on the claimed basis that he was not authorized to do so.[23]

References

^ a b ""Deputy Secretary of State Richard Lee Armitage" (bio)". WhiteHouse.gov. http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/armitager-bio.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ a b Do Kiem and Julie Kane, Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval Officer's War, ISBN 1-55750-181-5, 1998, p. 164.
^ a b Mann, James 2004. Rise of the Vulcans Viking Press ISBN 0-670-03299-9. P. 42.
^ James Mann, 2004. Rise of the Vulcans Viking Press ISBN 0-670-03299-9; p 43
^ a b Mann, James 2004. Rise of the Vulcans Viking Press ISBN 0-670-03299-9. P. 52.
^ http://www.citizensmedal.com/RichardArmitage.htm
^ NNDB, loaded 2 April 2007
^ (Chinese) "軍購／軍火商搶標？　橘營指內幕重重　要蘇揆說清楚". ETToday.com. 2006-10-24. http://www.ettoday.com/2006/10/24/301-2007060.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ (Chinese) "軍購案遭擋　橘委批政府與美軍火商同陣線". ETToday.com. 2006-10-24. http://www.ettoday.com/2006/10/24/301-2007299.htm. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ VandeHei, Jim (March 14, 2006). "Magazine: Bradlee Knows Woodward's Source on Plame". The Washington Post. p. A02. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01904.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ emptywheel (March 2, 2006). ""About the Journalists"". The Next Hurrah. TypePad. http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_nex...journ.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ "Calendars mark Armitage-Woodward meeting". MSNBC.com. August 22, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14458302/. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Isikoff, Michael (September 4, 2006 issue). "The Man Who Said Too Much". Newsweek National News (MSNBC.com). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ "Transcript for Aug. 27". Meet the Press (MSNBC.com): p. 7. August 27, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14452115/page/7/. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Bazinet, Kenneth and Meek, James Gordon (May 20, 2006). "Ex-deputy secretary of state new figure in CIA leak probe". New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/05-20-2006/ne...4152c.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Clemons, Steve (May 19, 2006). "Insiders: Richard Armitage Will NOT Be Indicted". The Washington Note. http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001399.php. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Lewis, Neil A. (August 30, 2006). "First Source of C.I.A. Leak Admits Role, Lawyer Says". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.h...94DE404482. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ King, John, and Todd, Brian (August 30, 2006). "Sources: State Department official source of Plame leak". CNN.com. http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/08/30/l...index.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Johnston, David (September 2, 2006). "Leak Revelation Leaves Questions". The New York Times (final). p. A-1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/washin...2leak.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Stout, David and Lewis, Neil A. (March 5, 2007). "Libby Guilty of Lying in C.I.A. Leak Case". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/washin...ref=slogin. Retrieved on 2007-03-06.
^ a b Smith, R. Jeffrey (September 8, 2006). "Armitage Says He Was Source of CIA Leak". The Washington Post. p. A03. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...01781.html. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ Novak, Robert D. (October 16, 2006). "Who Said What When: The rise and fall of the Valerie Plame 'scandal'". The Weekly Standard. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/...=EE501DF13. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.
^ "Richard Armitage interview" (ASX (video)). CNN.com. 2006-09-22. http://dynamic.cnn.com/apps/tp/video/pol...?NGUserID=. Retrieved on 2007-01-27.

External links

Richard Armitage's Federal Campaign Contribution Report newsmeat.com
"Richard Armitage: the Combatant Who Dreamed of Diplomacy" Voltaire Network, October 8, 2004
news release about his election to the board of directors of ConocoPhillips
"Secret Agent Man: Iran-Contra Operative Richard Armitage Is Now Colin Powell's No. 2", by Jim Naureckas; In These Times, March 5, 2001.
"The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington", by Christopher Hitchens; Slate, August 29, 2006.
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engASA110161999

[size=12]From Adolf Hitler to George Bush Jnr, US capitalism's unbroken link Pre-amble:
When I started putting this essay together, it started out as investigation of Richard Armitage as a typical example of the kind of people employed to run the United States on behalf of their imperialist masters. Then I came across a piece written in 2000 by Michael Ruppert of Beyond the Wilderness, that broadened my inquiries as the article links Kellog Brown and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton to the worldwide distribution of drugs via the global network that Halliburton owns or operates on behalf of the US government and various corporations including major oil companies. A network that evolved over time initially through the CIA's connection to the drug trade in the Golden Triangle but which has its roots in Nazi Germany over thirty years earlier and its connection to US big business. And in the post-war period, Brown Brothers Harriman were also involved in laundering Nazi money through a Dutch-based bank.
And then synchronicity kicked in, as in the middle of writing this piece, I get emailed an article in the New Hampshire Gazette that expands on the piece I included in the ‘Bush Family Saga’ on Prescott Bush, Avril Harriman and Brown Brothers Harriman Bank and its connections to the Nazi Party that it now emerges continued until 1951. What the new information reveals is that the financial connections between US and German capitalism extended even further than had been known until the new documents were released.
A central player in the US/Nazi big business connection was Standard Oil of New Jersey, the Rockefellar-owned corporation that during the 1930s merged with IG. Farben, one of the major backers of Hitler's National Socialist Party and supplier of the infamous gas Cyklon B used in the extermination camps. Standard Oil (now Exxon) also owned the oil concessions in Saudi Arabia (later to be renamed Aramco). Other major players involved in the Nazi business connection include General Motors, Ford and ITT.
The Bush regime is part of an unbroken link that extends back to the founding of Hitler’s National Socialist Party through the funding it received from Brown Brothers Harriman Banking, Prescott Bush's bank and the subsequent link between this bank and Kellog Brown and Root, now a subsidiary of Halliburton and its connections to Bush through the Rumsfeld/Cheney connection and their connection to Halliburton. Brown Brothers Harriman Bank owned Dresser Industries, one of the world’s largest oil drilling companies that in 1998, under urging from Dick Cheney was purchased by Halliburton in an $8.1 billion dollar deal. The link is complete. And yes, it is the same Brown in Brown and Root as the Brown Brothers Harriman Bank.
The point is, a clique of key big business interests extending back over several generations runs the US. And that if anyone doubted that, putting it down to wild ideas of a conspiracy, you have to be blind not see it now. That Bush’s wealth descends directly from backing the Nazi Party is incontrovertible and that the Bush family’s involvement in the trade in drugs and weapons as an intrinsic part of the 'war on communism', later to become the 'war on terror' that extends back thirty years is also incontrovertible.
But why has the current Bush administration hired so many key individuals from the Reagan/Bush years including Richard Armitage, Colonel ‘Ollie’ North, Michael Ledeen, Otto Reich and others? What was so special about a bunch of guys at the centre of the Iran-contra scandal, money laundering operations, drug smuggling and other dirty dealings going back forty years? Enter Ruppert’s article.
Ruppert’s piece illustrates the central role that Brown and Root/Halliburton have played as a global conduit for drugs and the central role that Halliburton/Brown and Root play in Bush’s imperial grab for power. In this context, Armitage suddenly looks like small fry, but consider this; the people who have carried out the imperial policies of subsequent US administrations that extend back to Roosevelt in the 1930s, are people like Armitage, without whom, executing the imperium’s plans could well be severely compromised. Why? A close-knit group of people, all with intimate ties to US intelligence services including the DEA, the CIA and the DIA as well as connections to the banking, oil and defense industries, are also people who are intimately connected to the global trade in drugs, weapons and laundered money. Links that extended to the Vatican Bank, (Banco Lavorno Nationale), BCCI and Nugan Hand. Key players in Iran-contra were also officers or had connections to these banks. Some were involved in laundering money for the CIA. The notorious S&L banking crashes of the 1980s also involved Bush family members.
[Image: armitage.JPG]

Deputy under-secretary of state Richard Armitage, the man who "enjoys killing"
"[Richard] Armitage, a former Navy SEAL, who reportedly enjoyed combat missions and killing during covert operations in Laos during the Vietnam War, has never been far from the Bush family's side. Throughout his career, both in and out of government, he has been perpetually connected to CIA drug smuggling operations. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a 1995 Washington Post story, called Armitage, "my white son." In 1990, then President Bush dispatched Armitage to Russia to aid in its "transition" to capitalism. Armitage's Russian work for Bush has been frequently connected to the explosion of drug trafficking under the Russian Mafias, which became virtual rulers of the nation afterwards. In the early 1990s Armitage had extensive involvement in Albania at the same time that the Albanian ally, Kosovo Liberation Army was coming to power and consolidating its grip, according to The Christian Science Monitor, on 70% of the heroin entering western Europe."
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww...52001.html
Strictly speaking, when dealing with politics, the personalities of the people involved are supposedly less important than the context, the power relations, money, class and so forth. But when it comes to the cabal of individuals grouped around the Bush presidency, many of whom have a history of involvement with assassinations, terrorism, drugs, money laundering and other illegal activities, the motivations, the psychology of the individuals involved has a direct bearing on the nature of the activities. Such is the case with people like Richard Armitage although there are others such as Otto Reich, Michael Ledeen and Colonel ‘Ollie’ North. In fact, the list is so big, and stretches back through the administrations of several successive US presidents, that the relationship between the policies and the individuals has to be viewed as inseparable. One could justifiably argue that breaking the law in order to further US policies is now inseparable part of ‘doing business’.
South East Asia, oil, guns and drugs; Nicaragua guns and drugs; Iran, oil and guns; Israel, guns and oil; Iraq, guns and oil; Saudi Arabia, guns and oil; Albania, drugs and oil; Russia oil and drugs, Central and South America, guns, drugs and oil. In all of these situations the name Richard Armitage crops up time and again over more than thirty years of loyal service to US capitalism.
Outrageous? The global trade in cocaine and heroin is estimated at around $500 BILLION and no doubt this is an under-estimate. The US is the major market for drugs just as it is for oil and in turn it is the world’s number one seller of weapons. Is it any wonder that the three commodities go hand in hand and that the US should be at centre of the global trade in these three valuable commodities.
"Noting the indiscreet arrogance of Wall Street in engaging in criminal behavior, I wrote in May's issue, after Citigroup's brazen acquisition of Mexico's drug money-laundering bank, Banamex, "It doesn't matter anymore whether the American public chooses to notice. The fait accompli is that drug money and criminal money are now out of the closet as the most important determinants of economic success for the US financial system. The careless arrogance of these moves only reveals the utter confidence in Washington, on Wall Street and in the banking system that no voices from the wilderness can stop it." Michael Rupperthttp://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww...52001.html
What started out as an intrinsic component of the ‘war on Communism’ has its logical conclusion in the ‘war on terror' and oil, guns and drugs are the threads that tie the current Bush administration to over three decades of international piracy and terrorism that forms the backdrop for the current policies of the Bush regime.
That the US uses the tactics that it accuses its enemies of using should come as no surprise, especially when we consider that the supposed enemies of the US are more often than not its creatures, some of whom have returned to haunt it and especially the cocaine barons. It should also come as no surprise that the corporate media in both the US and the UK have a vested interest in covering up this shameful past, for to do otherwise would expose the cosy relationship that exists between the media and corporate capitalism. Exposing it now would also expose the hypocrisy of the 4th estate and its complicity in deceiving us all. And even as I write, the BBC quotes Armitage as he calls for intensifying the ‘war on terrorism’ as though he were ‘just a diplomat’, completely ignoring the man’s past record and the total airbrushing of history in the classic Stalin mode that goes completely unchallenged.
The same names crop up with tedious regularity and raise the issue that far from being the odd ‘bad apple’ or lose cannon, the individuals who now constitute the core of the Bush cabal, have been breaking the law, both domestic and international, in order to further the interests of US capitalism. But what we see now, is way beyond the ‘normal’ practices of furthering US foreign policy. What it formerly chose to hide, it is now brazenly advocates, indeed it forms the core of its policy as outlined in the PNAC and other strategic documents.
But it’s the corporations that these individuals have or had an interest in such as Halliburton, Unocal, Boeing, Chevron, Enron before its demise, and a host of other defence, electronics and pharmaceuticals corporations, that have been the principal beneficiaries of the policies of the Bush regime and of previous US administrations, especially Halliburton and the subsidiary, Brown and Root, have both been connected to the drug trade:
"A closer look at available research, including an August 2, 2000 report by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) at www.public-i.org, suggests that drug money has played a role in the successes achieved by Halliburton under Cheney's tenure as CEO from 1995 to 2000. This is especially true for Halliburton's most famous subsidiary, heavy construction and oil giant, Brown and Root. A deeper look into history reveals that Brown and Root's past as well as the past of Dick Cheney himself, connect to the international drug trade on more than one occasion and in more than one way.
This June the lead Washington, D.C. attorney for a major Russian oil company connected in law enforcement reports to heroin smuggling and also a beneficiary of US backed loans to pay for Brown and Root contracts in Russia, held a $2.2 million fund raiser to fill the already bulging coffers of presidential candidate George W. Bush. This is not the first time that Brown and Root has been connected to drugs and the fact is that this "poster child" of American industry may also be a key player in Wall Street's efforts to maintain domination of the half trillion dollar a year global drug trade and its profits. And Dick Cheney, who has also come closer to drugs than most suspect, and who is also Halliburton's largest individual shareholder ($45.5 million), has a vested interest in seeing to it that Brown and Root's successes continue."
Moreover, it’s the connection between war, oil, drugs and US corporations that is the key to the Bush imperium, for without war, or preparing for one where would corporations like Halliburton be? Ever since 9/11 the profits of Halliburton have literally shot through the roof. Indeed, ever since 1990, with no country or entity to curb the ambitions of US imperialism, profits from wars of one kind or another have seen the rise of the warfare state that makes the profits made out of the Vietnam War pale into insignificance. And without the 'war on drugs', the US would not be in the position to use its economic and military clout to subvert the governments and economies of so many countries around the world. The line between the 'war on drugs' and the 'war on terror' has effectively dissolved. Linking the two wars is oil, the 'drug of choice' for US capitalism.
"[E]verywhere there is oil there is Brown and Root. But increasingly, everywhere there is war or insurrection there is Brown and Root also. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Chechnya, to Rwanda, to Burma, to Pakistan, to Laos, to Vietnam, to Indonesia, to Iran to Libya to Mexico to Colombia, Brown and Root's traditional operations have expanded from heavy construction to include the provision of logistical support for the U.S. military. Now, instead of U.S. Army quartermasters, the world is likely to see Brown and Root warehouses storing and managing everything from uniforms to rations to vehicles.
"As described by the Associated Press, during "Iran-Contra" Congressman Dick Cheney of the House Intelligence Committee was a rabid supporter of Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North. This was in spite of the fact that North had lied to Cheney in a private 1986 White House briefing. Oliver North's own diaries and subsequent investigations by the CIA Inspector General have irrevocably tied him directly to cocaine smuggling during the 1980s and the opening of bank accounts for one firm moving four tons of cocaine a month. This, however, did not stop Cheney from actively supporting North's 1994 unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate from Virginia just a year before he took over the reins at Brown and Root's parent company, Dallas based Halliburton Inc. in 1995.
…
"As the Bush Secretary of Defense during Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990-91), Cheney also directed special operations involving Kurdish rebels in northern Iran. The Kurds' primary source of income for more than fifty years has been heroin smuggling from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Having had some personal experience with Brown and Root I noted carefully when the Los Angeles Times observed that on March 22, 1991 that a group of gunmen burst into the Ankara, Turkey offices of the joint venture, Vinnell, Brown and Root and assassinated retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant John Gandy.
"In March of 1991, tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees, long-time assets of the CIA, were being massacred by Saddam Hussein in the wake of the Gulf War. Saddam, seeking to destroy any hopes of a successful Kurdish revolt, found it easy to kill thousands of the unwanted Kurds who had fled to the Turkish border seeking sanctuary. There, Turkish security forces, trained in part by the Vinnell, Brown and Root partnership, turned thousands of Kurds back into certain death. Today, the Vinnell Corporation (a TRW Company) is, along with the firms MPRI and DynCorp (FTW June, 00) one of the three pre-eminent private mercenary corporations in the world. It is also the dominant entity for the training of security forces throughout the Middle East. Not surprisingly the Turkish border regions in question were the primary transhipment points for heroin, grown in Afghanistan and Pakistan and destined for the markets of Europe."
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ci...drugs.html
These extracts are from an article written in 2000, three years before the US invaded Iraq and before Bush the smaller stole the election. It’s clear from the connections between all the players including Colin Powell, whose links to Iran-Contra and who is a close pal of Armitage, and the guns for drugs scandal, Halliburton, Brown and Root, Dyncorp, Vinnell Corporation go all the way back to old man Prescott Bush and his links to financing the German Nazi Party via Brown Brothers Harriman Bank that owned Dresser Industries that is now owned by Halliburton. Dresser built oil platforms in key drug routes around the world including the Gulf of Mexico. What better offloading location could one have than an oil platform.
And clearly, the illegal nature of the activities of the Armitages of this world, mixing with drug smugglers, assassins, money launderers, covert arms dealers and the like, means that their actions are already thoroughly compromised. And this is critically important to my analysis because it exposes the so-called morality that the imperialists like to espouse as fundamental to their policies of supposedly supporting human rights, democracy and the like as a complete fraud.
So who is Richard Armitage and why is Armitage and his peers — with involvements stretching back to the Vietnam War era and even before — suddenly back in ‘favour’? What is it that they bring to the Bush administration that makes them so important to have onboard?
Power, drugs, guns, money and the connections that come with it are at the top of the list and as I hope to show, they go to the very heart of the totally corrupt regime that now runs America. Most important of all, it exposes the ruthless nature of the capitalist system, a system that takes ends justifying the means to the ultimate conclusion, that in order to preserve the system anything goes including the use of drugs as an integral part of projecting US economic and political power.
Armitage is, I suppose, typical of the kind of person who does the dirty work of imperialism, whether it’s for money, prestige or personal satisfaction. (For a complete listing of Armitage’s financial investments see http://www.public-i.org/cgi-bin/WhosWhoS...on_ID=1007)
The CIA’s involvement in drug running that started during the Vietnam War with Project Phoenix is perhaps the key to the current situation as the connections made during that period set the scene for later US involvement with the sale of drugs as means to further US foreign policy, whether as a source of finance for the illegal purchase and sale of weapons or as a means of destabilising countries and communities, or winning friends and influencing people. Colombia, Peru, Mexico, Afghanistan, Albania, Russia are just some of the countries whose economies and cultures have been taken over through the US policy of the ‘war on drugs’.
"Project Phoenix…was financed in part with opium money. It has been alleged that the close relationship with SE Asian drug dealers continued after the US withdrawal from Vietnam, with Iran used as a conduit for drugs and money. It has also been reported that, as a sequel to Project Phoenix, an off-the-books assassination program was established in Iran.
"The Phoenix or Phuong Hoang Operation was originally designed to "neutralize," that is assassinate or imprison, members of the civilian infrastructure of the [Vietnamese] National Liberation Front. Phoenix offices were set up from Saigon down to the district level. Their functions were to: (1) collate intelligence about the "Vietcong Infrastructure"; (2) interrogate civilians picked up at random by military units carrying out sweeps through villages; (3) "neutralize" targeted members of the NLF . . . The original Phoenix concept was quickly diluted, for two main reasons: (1) pressure from the top to fill numerical quotas of person to be neutralized; (2) difficulties at the bottom of identifying NLF civilian infrastructure, who were often indistinguishable from the general population, and the near impossibility of proving anyone membership in the NLF. The result was vastly to increase the numbers of innocent persons rounded up and imprisoned, indiscriminately murdered, and brutally tortured in an effort to show results . . . Between 1968 and 1972 hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians were rounded up and turned over to the Vietnamese police for questioning. Such interrogation has usually been marked by brutal torture.
http://www.vicpeace.org/stories/03/1070.html
"After four tours with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, Armitage joined the U.S. Defense Attaché's Office in Saigon in 1973, just in time to play a key role in "preparing" the botched evacuation of friendly South Vietnamese. Tens of thousands of loyal partners who had worked with the Americans were abandoned to advancing North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces.
Never one to admit failure or duplicity, Armitage covered his own posterior by accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of wrongly predicting that a deal for an orderly pullout could be arrived at with the advancing communists and then failing to provide enough notice that Saigon was about to fall.
Fresh from the debacle in Southeast Asia, Armitage went to work as a consultant for the Defense Intelligence Agency, where the quality of his work, to say the least, did not improve."
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=673
Following the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975, Armitage joined the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was posted to Tehran where he excelled at not predicting the overthrow of the Shah (the man he had been assigned to keep on the throne) and even went as far as accusing the Ayotollah Khomeini of being a friend of the Soviets.
"Armitage became…a special consultant to the Department of Defense, working out of Bangkok and dealing with unrepatriated prisoners and the missing in action. Armitage also started a mysterious business called the Far East Trading Company. Meanwhile, from 1976 to 1979 in Iran, Richard Secord was supervising the sale of US military aircraft and weapons to Middle Eastern nations. During this same period, there are reports that Shackley, Clines, Secord, and Armitage set up several curious corporations and subsidiaries around the world including Lake Resources, Stanford Technology Trading Group, Compa[g]nie de Services Fiduciaria, CSF Investments and Udall Research Corporation."
http://www.vicpeace.org/stories/03/1070.html
In fact all the companies referred to above, were and those that still exist, are so-called proprietaries of the CIA, a fact that further reinforces the belief that during this period Armitage was in the employ of the CIA, and although we can only speculate as to his role during this period, it is generally believed that the front companies were used for CIA covert actions in Southeast Asia and later in Afghanistan and it's been suggested that the idea of using heroin as a weapon in the 'war against communism' in both Indo-China and Afghanistan was Armitage's idea.

"His critics had alleged in the past that he was the author of the idea of using heroin to weaken the fighting capability of the communists in Indo-China and then in Afghanistan though the late Le Comte de Marenches, the head of the French External Intelligence Agency under Presidents George Pompidou and Giscard d'Estaing, had claimed that it was he who had given this idea to the Americans with specific reference to Afghanistan."
http://www.saag.org/papers5/paper473.html

1978 saw him (officially) rejoining government when he joined the staff of Senator Robert Dole and then as an advisor to Reagan election campaign who rewarded his services in 1981 by appointing him Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and Pacific Affairs and then in 1983 he became Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs until 1989. His speciality was special forces operations and 'counter-terrorism'. Under George Bush Snr he was made 'Special Emissary' to King Hussein of Jordan during the 1991 Gulf War.
But it's Armitage's role in the 'Secret Team' that was at the heart of the Iran-contra scandal during this period that kept him out of government until Bush the smaller grabbed the throne of state when Armitage was rewarded for his loyalty by being appointed as deputy secretary of state under his old friend Colin Powell.

"Armitage…under investigation for his role in the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra scandal. Though he testified that he didn't know about the administration's secret sale of arms to Iran until November 1986, when they became public knowledge, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's report laid out extensive evidence that he knew about them a year earlier.
In fact, Armitage apparently opposed the arms sales as early as December 1985, on the grounds that Iranians were "sleazebags." Secord later testified that he met with Armitage then in an effort to change his mind. Armitage claimed not to remember meeting with Secord, though Armitage's own meeting logs show that he did. Armitage kept a December 6, 1985 document describing the legal ramifications of the Iran arms sales, entitled "Possibility for Leaks," locked in his Pentagon safe until June 1987, when it was belatedly turned over to Walsh and the congressional Iran-Contra committee.
Armitage also attended a Pentagon meeting in August 1986 in which Oliver North outlined the covert activities in support of the Contras that he had been supervising through the National Security Council. Armitage denied remembering anything about this meeting as well. In his final report, Walsh said he declined to prosecute Armitage for his numerous dubious statements on these issues because he could not prove they were knowingly false."
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/25/07/...s2507.html
"The Bush cabinet is a virtual who's who of oil, defense and pharmaceutical bigwigs.1 The Bush family is itself closely tied financially to the bin Ladens.2 , 3 Both families are involved in the Carlyle Group.4 Bush Sr. sits on the board of Carlyle, a 12 billion Equity company with oil holdings and defense contracts.5 Dick Cheney was the former CEO of Halliburton Oil. Colin Powell is a major stockholder in several defense contractors. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice sat on the board of Chevron. Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff is from General Motors. Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was CEO of Searle Pharmaceuticals. Dick Armitage, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has ties to the Russian mafia and is a board member of Carlyle. Robert Jordan, the Saudi ambassador, was a member of Baker Botts, a legal firm specializing in oil and defense (the Baker in Baker Botts is James Baker). Tony Principi, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, comes from Lockheed Martin. Gordan England, Secretary of the Navy, is tied to General Dynamics. James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force, is from Northrop Grumman. Gen. Thomas White, retired, Secretary of the Army, is from Enron Energy. Donald Evans, the Commerce Secretary, owns Colorado Oil Company. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice sat on the board of Exxon. And Mr. Carlucci, the Chief of Carlyle, sits on the Middle East Policy Council. 6

""Several western oil companies [some represented by Richard Armitage] including Occidental, Shell and British Petroleum had their eyes riveted on Albania's abundant and unexplored oil deposits. Western investors were also gawking [at] Albania's extensive reserves of chrome, copper, gold, nickel and platinum""
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/re.../KLA1.html
So we've come full circle, from the earliest days of the Bush family's involvement with Nazi Germany via Brown Brothers Harriman Bank and Standard Oil/IG Farben and later, Saudi Arabia (Aramco), through to the Vietnam War and the Golden Triangle where the trade in drugs started, and then to Iran and Iran-contra and the South American drug connection, and then onto Afghanistan and finally Iraq where Dresser Industries (Brown Brothers), Brown & Root, all come together under the aegis of the Bush emperium with Halliburton as the final link. Throughout it all, key individuals have played important roles in linking together oil, guns and drugs as part of a web of business and political connections designed to further the interests of big capital. The question is, how much longer can this web of deceit be kept hidden from the public? How much longer can the mass media ignore the crimes of a dynasty that extends back through three-quarters of a century?
Notes
1 The Oil behind Bush and Son's Campaigns by Ranjit Devraj, Inter Press Services, 5 October 2001.http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/DEV110A.html
2 George W. Bush's Dubious Friends , Intelligence Newsletter, 2 March 2000.http://globalresearch.ca/articles/INL110A.html
3 BUSHLADEN by Jared Israel, Emperor's Clothes; 8 October 2001.[URL="http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm"]
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/bushladen.htm[/URL]
4 Judicial Watch: Bush/bin Laden Connection "has now turned into a scandal!", Jared Israel, Emperor's Clothes; 6 October 2001.[URL="http://emperors-clothes.com/news/jw.htm"]
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/jw.htm[/URL]
5 The Carlyle Group , Alfred Mendes, Spectrezine.[URL="http://www.spectrezine.org/global/carlyle.htm"]
http://www.spectrezine.org/global/carlyle.htm[/URL]
6 You've got to be Up Front , Mike McCormick, transcription of an interview with Stan Goff; October 24, 2001. http://narconews.com/goffmccormick1.html ,http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3795
Some further References

Tales from the Grassy Knoll: From 1911 to 9/11
Richard Armitage Links (more links to Armitage sources)
William J Casey and Iran/contra
My Dream and the Color of Suffering by Michael C Ruppert
'War is Horrible. But...': Speech by US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, January 21
Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Armitage: background notes
The Bush 100: Richard Armitage
Richard Armitage's Colorful Past
The Dangers of Richard Armitage
[URL="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/dec2001_files/background_is_oil.html"]The Background is Oil
[/URL]The Dick Cheney Deep Data Dump
It's a Lie by Michael C Ruppert
Secret Agent Man: Iran-contra operative Richard Armitage is now Colin Powell's No.2
Kosovo Liberation Army and Albanian Sponsors Have Well Documented Roots in The Heroin Trade
The Golden Triangle Texts
CIA
[URL="http://prorev.com/bush3.htm"]Behind the Bushes: The New Generation
[/URL]The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire
Bank of New York Laundromat
911 Timeline by Michael C Ruppert

http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0136.html

[/SIZE]

The Two Sides of Richard Armitage

10th January 2008

[Image: 060907_richardArmitage_hmed_6p.hmedium.jpg]

Two articles here. The first concerns the wretched past of Richard Armitage, the second his “Smart Power” Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a seemingly liberal program that advocates undoing much of the destruction caused by the rogue Bush administration – destruction that Armitage himself had a fat invisible hand in.
This Janus Armitage is a feral piece of work, not the Obamaesque reformer that compromised media outlets make this murderous jackal out to be.
- AC
RICHARD ARMITAGE: KILLER PIMP IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT
By Alex Constantine
“I have, for better or worse, a track record…” - Richard Armitage, Senate Confirmation Hearing, March 15, 2001.
Back at the Iran-contra ranch, on February 24, 1986, 4:44 pm, a furious military intelligence agent contracted by the CIA, DIA and ISA dialed (202) 695-4351, the desk of Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, to inquire about “his alleged involvement in a house of prostitution for senior military officers, intelligence agents, and informants in Southeast Asia.” Scott Barnes, the interrogator, also wanted to know “about his work with Vang Pao and drug money laundering.”1
Barnes had discovered these connections while on assignment in South
Vietnam searching for POWs. He didn’t find POWs, exactly. What he found
in Vietnam was American pilots with CIA connections imprisoned on charges of attempting to smuggle opium out of the country AFTER the war.
Four days later, he was on the phone with Dave Hall, assistant special agent
in charge of the Inspector General’s office, to discuss Armitage’s “connection with drugs and prostitution in Southeast Asia and his continued involvement with Mr. [Patrick] O’Rourke running guns.” The IG inspector said that he had heard of “a possible connection,” and put up, “former Ambassador Phil Habib was also involved.” An Army major general had written the IG to expose “Armitage’s and Habib’s alleged involvement in prostitution in a Da Nang house of prostitution and in [money] laundering out of Southeast Asia to the Philippines and to Sidney, Australia, using Air America, Vang Pao connections and secret airlines.”1
Drugs? Hookers? Secret airlines? Karen Hughes wouldn’t approve. The pimp
climbed the geopolitical step-ladder of power…
1978: Armitage joins the staff of Senator Robert Dole of Kansas.
1980-81: He joins the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, is appointed
as senior advisor to the new president’s Interim Foreign Policy Advisory Board.
1985: Ferdinand Marcos is making a mess of it in the Philippines. The
embattled dictator is toying with the notion of reinstating General Fabian Ver as armed forces chief of staff. The General has been fingered by the
Agrava Commission for complicity in the 1983 murder of President Begnino S. Aquino at an airstrip by gun-slinging terrorists. Nonetheless, Marcos refuses stubbornly to appoint anyone but General Ver to the post, an
“interim” chief of staff is installed, Reagan wrings his hands and sweats it out.
There are plans to dismantle Marcos and his dictatorship. In January, a
well-dressed wing formation of American officials swoop into Manila. It is
Paul Wolfowitz, assistant secretary of state for East Asia, Richard Childress of the NSC, Richard Armitage, assistant secretary of defense for international affairs. They’ve come to whip Marcos into line, insisting that he “reform” his military forces to crush the scattered but rising “Communist” backlash – that is, starving peasants pushing against unemployment, death squad rule, crony capitalism and general squalor – without provoking further scandals that could return to haunt the Reagan administration…2
Since, Armitage has been a familiar face in government – as a spook, he
never really leaves it. Amongst positions held by him since leaving public service in 1993, according to an Internet profile, count “a member of the Board of Directors of the General Dynamics Electric Systems, Inc.; a member of the Board of Visitors of the United States Naval Academy; holder of the Brig.Gen. H. L. Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strategy at the Marine Corps University; a member of the National Defense Panel; a member of the Board of Directors of the Roy F. Weston, Inc., and of the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce; Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University, a member of the Secretary Navy Committee on Women in the Navy and Marine Corps; a member of the Board of Visitors of the Naval War College and of the Advisory Board of the ManTech International Corporation… He has received numerous military decorations from the Governments of Thailand, Republic of Korea, Bahrain, and Pakistan. He has been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service four times…”
He’s been a puffy-chested diplomat, military strategist, drug runner, money
launderer and “solicitor.” The rewards can be enormous … And a good
“counter-terrorist” who knows the ropes, with the right connections …
He was one of the signatories of the notorious Project for the New American
Century (PNAC) letter to President Clinton in 1998. Armitage was a board
member for CACI, a private military contractor (with revenues of $1.5 billion in 2004), headquartered in Arlington Virginia. CICI employed four of the salacious, murderous interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison.
In 1989, the year Marcos died of kidney failure in Hawaii, Bush was in the White House and Armitage returned to the Philippines to “negotiate military bases.” He would “negotiate military bases” for the next three years.
A voice whispers, “what was he really doing over there?” The Independence
web site offerws a peek at his secret life: “Richard Armitage became Deputy
Secretary of State in March 2001.” A few months after George W. Bush was
selected president, Armitage moved over to “agent in place” status. And a
well-qualified one: “He was a professional ASSASSIN in Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia during the Vietnam war. He led ASSASSIN teams similar to the
PHOENIX program that killed and tortured tens of thousands of Asians.”
That’s right. “COUNTER-terrorist.”
“After Vietnam he worked for the Defense Department on arms sales in Iran
and other countries…. He was an intimate insider in the Iran/Contra
illegalities. He has been accused of links to illicit gambling, drug smuggling and expansion of organized crime in Russia, Central Asia and the Far East…”3
This is the man who would play a leading role in Middle East “security” policies under G.W. Bush.
Prior to his appointment to the State Department, Armitage was a board
member of Database Technologies (DBT)/ChoicePoint Inc. ChoicePoint is a
partner of the vast “data mining” company Science Applications International
Corp. The SAIC web site proclaims it has developed a strategic alliance with ChoicePoint Incorporated to provide our clients with quick and effortless information retrieval from public records data. ChoicePoint Incorporated maintains thousands of gigabytes of public records data.’”
Picture, for a moment, a secret “strategic alliance” between Science Applications International Corp., in San Diego, the penultimate, classified
military-industrial-intelligence contractor, and mass-murderer Armitage, in
control of all those gigabytes.
The emerging world as Armitage saw it during his Senate confirmation hearing in March 2001: “American leadership will be the central reality of the
international system for as far as the eye can see…”
And he meant it.
••••••••
NOTES
1) Scott Barnes with Melva Libb, “BOHICA,” Scott Barnes, Bohica Corp., 1987.
Phil Habit was known as “Mr. Foreign Service” to his subordinates. Babib was
raised in Brooklyn and joined the service after WW II. Habib was at the
forefront in negotiations to end the Vietnam War, ambassador to East Asia
under President Gerald Ford. From 1981-83, he was Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East. Raymond Bonner of the New York Times writes, “Some of the missions he undertook in his career are still not known about publicly. Nor will they be, at least not from Habib.”
2) Raymond Bonner, Waltzing with a Dictator, New York Times Books, 1987.
3) http://www.independence.net/armitage/
••••••••
RICHARD “KILLER PIMP” ARMITAGE CLEANS UP HIS IMAGE:
http://www.stabroeknews.com/index.pl/art...d=56535089
Smart Power
Friday, December 14th 2007
Richard L Armitage was US Deputy Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005 under President George W Bush. He is a Republican. Joseph S Nye Jr is a Professor of Government at Harvard. He also served as an Assistant Secretary of Defence for international security affairs in the Clinton administration. He is a Democrat.
The two men co-chair the bipartisan Commission on Smart Power, under the auspices of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington think-tank.
The Commission released its report on November 6, exactly one year before the presidential election. The main objective of the CSIS Smart Power project is to provide US policymakers, particularly the next president of the United States, with a strategic vision for integrating soft and hard power tools into “Smart Power”, in order to address current and future challenges and opportunities in the international arena and to chart a new approach to foreign policy.
Smart Power, as explained by Mr Armitage and Dr Nye in a recent Washington Post article, is essentially “a smarter strategy that blends [US] ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power”, that is, American economic and military might with the “ability to attract and persuade”, in exercising world leadership.
The Smart Power report recognizes that there is general, global dissatisfaction with America’s attitude to the world. Notably, most foreigners do not believe that America can be trusted to act responsibly and President Bush is seen as a threat to world peace. America has dissipated the considerable sympathy aroused by the 9/11 atrocities and its standing, reputation and influence are at an all-time low. The report argues that this matters a great deal for the security and prosperity of the United States.
The report is brutally frank, identifying five significant causes for America’s declining influence: the backlash against America’s status as the sole superpower; a perception that globalization only benefits America and is simply a cloak for American economic and cultural imperialism; America’s increased unilateralism and rejection of the United Nations and international, multilateral agreements; America’s fearful and isolationist reaction to 9/11, its often simplistic and arrogant conduct of the so-called “War on Terror” and its double standards on human rights and international law; and perceptions of American fallibility and incompetence, based on poor managerial performances in Iraq and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and flawed domestic policies on health care and immigration.
The report argues that it is not too late to turn things around and makes the case for a broader, more balanced, “smarter approach”.
The Smart Power project is based on the premise that effectively addressing the main foreign policy challenges facing America today requires deploying the full spectrum of tools available to the US Government, ranging from public diplomacy and educational exchanges to counterterrorism, economic development, health and energy security. The report therefore presents five specific recommendations, whereby the United States should:
“invest in a new multilateralism” by reinvigorating the alliances, partnerships and institutions that allow it to address numerous hazards at once without having to build a consensus from scratch to respond to every new challenge; create a Cabinet position for global development and aid for a more unified and integrated aid programme that aligns US interests with the aspirations of people worldwide, starting with global health; reinvest in public diplomacy within the government and establish a non-profit institution outside of it to build people-to-people ties, including doubling the annual appropriation to the Fulbright programme;
sustain its engagement with the global economy by negotiating a “free trade core” of countries in the World Trade Organisation, willing to move directly to free trade on a global basis, and expand the benefits of free trade to include those left behind at home and abroad; and take the lead in addressing climate change and energy insecurity by investing more in technology and innovation.
Over the next year and a half, Mr Armitage and Dr Nye, along with the other eighteen Smart Power Commissioners, representing a cross-section of eminent Americans, in addition to CSIS scholars and staff, will travel around the United States conducting a broad-based, national discussion about America’s role in the world, which should provide feedback that would further inform the findings of the report and, hopefully, the future development of US foreign policy.
If the United States is once more to be, as Mr Armitage and Dr Nye put it, “a force for good in the world”, then much will depend on their own ability to persuade people that America has more to gain from being perceived as a friend than as a bully, a willing partner in multilateral consensus-building rather than a swaggering, threatening leader of the “Coalition of the Willing”, a leader in investing in the global good rather than an uncaring, inward-looking behemoth.
By using Smart Power, the two co-chairmen argue that America can become a “smarter power”. The world needs a smarter America. Let us hope that the CSIS Commission can convince their fellow citizens of this imperative.
http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/a...d-armitage

Magda Hassan

Magda Hassan

Magda Hassan