Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career at the CIA, he worked for nine CIA directors, several of them at close remove. Primarily a substantive analyst and briefer, he nonetheless served in all four of CIA's main directorates and, during one of his postings abroad, helped manage a large covert action project. In January 2003, he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
How Iran Might See the Threats
In CIA jargon, “Aardwolf” is a label for a special genre of intelligence report from field stations abroad to headquarters in Washington. An Aardwolf conveys the Chief of Station’s formal assessment regarding the direction events are taking in his or her country of assignment – and frequently the news is bad. ...
Asylum for Julian Assange -- Former Awardee for Integrity
(for Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence) Holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum sits Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, who has been responsible for spreading more truth around than any single journalist in recent memory. This, basically, is why he has been labeled all ...
Barring a CIA drone strike on the Ecuadorian embassy in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s sudden appeal for asylum there may spare him a prison stay in Sweden or possibly the United States. Assange’s freedom now depends largely on Ecuadorian President Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado, a new breed of independent-minded ...
Sorting Out the Facts about Iran
On the issue of Iran’s “nuclear ambitions” you hear one thing on Monday, a different thing on Tuesday. “It’s a puzzlement!” to quote Yul Brunner’s famous line in The King and I. But in this case, the confusion is hardly insignificant. In a speech on March 4 to the American Israel ...
The Moral Challenge of ‘Kill Lists’
In an extraordinary article in Tuesday’s New York Times, “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” authors Jo Becker and Scott Shane throw macabre light on the consigliere-cum-priestly role that counterterrorist adviser John Brennan provides President Barack Obama. At the outset, Becker and Shane note that, ...
Last Thursday, I took part in a panel discussion on “Targeting Iran: Sanctions and War” at California State University, Fresno. The panel discussion took place against the backdrop of all-too-familiar warnings to Iran that it has one “last chance” to stop doing what the CIA and pretty much all serious ...
Render to Caesar, Extraordinarily
Some of us pause on Good Friday to mark the torture and death of a high-value detainee rendered, extraordinarily, to Roman occupiers. Although the charges against Jesus of Nazareth were trumped up, the Romans decided to err on the safe side by going to the “dark side.” They applied enhanced ...
In Protest of John Brennan's Speech
After learning that U.S. national security official John Brennan would address Jesuit-run Fordham’s graduating class, I protested in this letter to the Fordham Ram. Dear Editor: I write to express shock and sadness that Fordham’s trustees would think it consonant with Jesuit values to have Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan give ...
CNN Silences War-Skeptical Soldier
When CNN interviews a U.S. Army corporal preparing for his third deployment to Afghanistan, should TV viewers be permitted to hear him out on a front-burner issue like Iran’s alleged threat to Israel? For those who might think so, watch what happens when 28-year-old Cpl. Jesse Thorsen touches a neuralgic ...
Obama’s Super-Bowl Fumble on Iran
Before President Barack Obama’s interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer, aired before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu probably hoped that, if Obama discussed Iran, he would give him the strong backing that Israeli leaders crave, freeing them to lash out at Iran — militarily, if they ...
Watching top U.S. intelligence officials present the annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” before the Senate Intelligence Committee, I found myself wondering if they would depart from the key (if politically delicate) consensus judgment that Iran is NOT working on a nuclear weapon. In last year’s briefing, Director of National Intelligence James ...
US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes
Has Iran decided to build a nuclear bomb? That would seem to be the central question in the current bellicose debate over whether the world should simply cripple Iran’s economy and inflict severe pain on its civilian population or launch a preemptive war to destroy its nuclear capability while possibly achieving ...
Israel Tamps Down Iran War Threats
In a stunning departure from recent Israeli threats to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday used an interview with Israel’s Army radio to assert that any attack on Iran “is very far off,” adding, “We haven’t made any decision to do this.” When pressed as ...
President Barack Obama desecrated the Constitution that he and I swore to defend when he signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which includes language violating the Bill of Rights and other constitutionally protected liberties. The NDAA affirms that the president has the authority to use the Armed Forces ...
Bulletin for those of you who get your information only from the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM): Former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has accused ex-CIA Director George Tenet of denying him and others access to intelligence that could ...
They Died in Vain; Deal With It
Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as “heroes” the 30 American and 8 Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when a helicopter on a night mission crashed, apparently after taking fire from Taliban forces. This week, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to ...
Obama Blows a Judas Kiss to the Poor
The unconscionable result of the manufactured crisis over the debt ceiling shows that the political Right knows how to play hardball, and that President Obama and his hapless party know how to get rolled. There are other options; and we, the people, need to press them home. The Obama-brokered deal ...
Neocons Fume Over US Boat to Gaza
My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose. Poor Alan, he seems upset ...
A July Fourth Shame on the Founders
Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the distress mode — upside down. Indignities experienced by me and my co-guests on “The Audacity of Hope,” the American boat to Gaza, over the past ...
Spirits of Justice Going to Gaza
For those who engage in the common struggle for Justice, an invaluable grace comes from getting to know new friends similarly engaged — and equally willing to speak with more than words. Thus, it has been a great grace to get to know folks like Alice Walker personally as well as through ...
Recalling the Slaughter of Innocents
Twenty years ago, as Americans were celebrating Valentine’s Day, Iraqi husbands and fathers in the Amiriyah section of Baghdad were peeling the remains of their wives and children off the walls and floor of a large neighborhood bomb shelter. The men had left the shelter the evening before, so their ...
Obama's Timidity and Deaths at Sea
A chief lesson to learn from President Barack Obama’s recent unwillingness to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Lobby is that such timidity can get people killed.Casualty figures are still arriving in the wake of Israel’s Sunday night-Monday morning commando attack on an unarmed flotilla ...
Dirty Linen Gets Intel Chief Fired
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of how 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab soiled his underpants with a makeshift bomb over Detroit last Christmas hung out so much dirty linen on the crowded clothes line of the U.S. intelligence community that it was an easy call to get rid of Director ...
Mullen Wary of Israeli Attack on Iran
Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came home with sweaty palms from his mid-February visit to Israel. Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the U.S. into war with Iran. This is especially worrying, because Mullen has had considerable experience in putting ...
Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day. After Obama briefly addressed L’Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote “must do better” on ...
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May 29th, 2013
Doubting Obama’s Resolve to Do Right
An article in the Washington Post on July 6, 2010, reported me standing before the White House, announcing a new epithet for President Barack Obama: ...
May 16th, 2013
The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo
There have been nine congressional hearings on the Benghazi controversy – with more to come – but almost no one in Congress dares put the ...
March 18th, 2013
A Last-Second Appeal for Sanity
Ten years ago, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was only hours away, but the case for this unprovoked war was already falling apart with exposure ...
March 5th, 2013
‘Talking Points’ for Hagel on Iran
From: Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern To: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Subject: Proposed Talking Points on Iran for Your Meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud ...
February 25th, 2013
Eyes Wide Shut on the Iraq War
Ten years ago, as President George W. Bush and his administration were putting the finishing touches on their unprovoked invasion of Iraq, the mainstream U.S. ...
February 22nd, 2013
Brennan’s Loose Talk on Iran Nukes
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on John Brennan to head the CIA focused on lethal drones, but Brennan’s loose talk lumping Iran with North Korea ...
February 12th, 2013
To Obama: Close the Deal with Iran
Dear Mr. President: As you put the final touches to your State of the Union Address, I urge you to avoid overstating the “threat” from Iran. ...
August 13th, 2011
They Died in Vain; Deal With It
Many of those preaching at American church services Sunday extolled as “heroes” the 30 American and 8 Afghan troops killed Saturday west of Kabul, when ...
July 3rd, 2011
A July Fourth Shame on the Founders
Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the ...
September 17th, 2012
Why the Mideast Exploded, Really
“Why Is the Arab world so easily offended?” asks the headline atop an article by Fouad Ajami, which the Washington Post published online last Friday ...
February 5th, 2013
Colin Powell: Conned or Con-Man?
Ten years ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations in a speech which routed what was left of American resistance to the ...
July 16th, 2011
Neocons Fume Over US Boat to Gaza
My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in ...
June 25th, 2012
Asylum for Julian Assange -- Former Awardee for Integrity
(for Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence) Holed up at the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum sits Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, ...
August 17th, 2011
Bulletin for those of you who get your information only from the New York Times, the Washington Post and other outlets of the Fawning Corporate ...
'The East'
Why have you started a comedy festival in northern Michigan in the middle of winter?
Because if you were here in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere (which is actually somewhere to us), you'd need a few laughs too ... Continue Reading
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Michael Moore on the Rachel Maddow Show, 2/27/12
