From the February 2008 Idaho Observer:


The billboard above just went up in Austin, Texas-and was paid for by volunteer Ron Paul supporters who recognize that Americans have one last hope to save their nation.

Of politicians and statesmen

Only one of these is not advised like the other ones

Of those in the nation currently holding public office, an overwhelming majority—probably approaching 99 percent of them—are "politicians."

Under definition 2, The American Heritage Dictionary (1969) defines a politician as, "One who is interested in personal or partisan gain and other selfish interests."

The remaining one percent may be revered as "statesmen." Also under definition 2, the same American Heritage Dictionary defines a statesman as, "A political leader regarded as a disinterested promoter of the public good" (Note: Disinterested, in this case, means "Freedom from selfish bias or selfish interest"—not "uninterested").

In modern politics, politicians and statesmen are easily identified by their friends, associations, positions on the issues, bills they sponsor/endorse, their campaign contributors and political advisors. Pages 11-14 were compiled this month to prove the following points about the remaining "election 2008" presidential candidates, (Democrats Hillary and Obama; Republicans McCain, Huckabee and Paul) and the 2008 presidential election:

1. That all presidential candidates (but one) from either party are puppets of their advisors and financiers.

2. That all of them (but one) present a public facade that is not consistent with their true personalities or their track records as public "servants."

3. That all of them (but one) may be competing against each other and their rival parties to win a sweepstakes prize to live in the White House for four years, but they are on the same team and close ranks to protect their puppetmasters.

4. That the directors of this intelligence-insulting theatre macabre have decided that a Democrat will be coronated president in D.C. next January and, to insure a Democrat "victory" in the 2008 general election in November, the Republican "frontrunners" (with one exception) have been chosen for their ability to lose against Hillary or Obama.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! recently observed that the nation is all abuzz with the four (plus one) remaining presidential candidates, "But little attention has been paid to perhaps one of the most important aspects of the candidates: Their advisers—the men and women who likely form the backbone of the candidate’s future cabinet if elected president."

Her observation is so astute that it might be considered folly for any of us to develop an opinion on who should be the next president without first considering who is advising them behind the scenes.

Goodman interviewed journalists Kelley Vlahos and Allen Nairn on Democracy Now! January 3, 2008 in a segment titled, "Vote for Change? Atrocity-linked U.S. Officials Advising Democrat, GOP Presidential Frontrunners." The journalists discussed what they had uncovered regarding the notoriously dark shadows behind all (but one) of the still-standing candidates

British rock band "The Who" had a popular tune in the 70s called "Won’t Get Fooled Again." An appropriate line at the end of the song goes like this: "Meet the new boss—same as the old boss."

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

Sen. Clinton’s team of advisors include former Clinton administration officials Secretary of State Madelaine Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Strobe Talbott, General Wesley Clark and UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Albright condoned the post Gulf War I sanctions that caused the deaths of 400,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and the military occupation of that country that is ongoing today. Berger was advising President Clinton during the bombing in former Yugoslavia, pre-Gulf War I operations in Iraq and was instrumental in creating the trade ties the U.S. currently "enjoys" with China. General Clark masterminded the bombing in former Yugoslavia and openly stated that civilian TV, radio stations and public utilities were among his targets. Assistant Secretary of State Holbrooke brokered the Dayton "peace" agreement in Bosnia in 1995. As a state department official under President Carter, Holbrooke oversaw the shipment of weapons used by the Indonesian army to mass murder one-third of the people of East Timor in 1975. Clinton’s friend, fellow Rhodes Scholar and journalist Strobe Talbott oversaw the breakup of the Soviet Union as "ambassador at large" and is a proponent of "the global state."

Both Bill and Hillary acknowledge Tragedy and Hope author Prof. Carroll Quigley as a mentor. Quigley believed in the inevitability of the traditional nation-state giving way to the global rule of the power-elite. Tragedy, Quigley believed, will be experienced during the transition; hope will then lie in the new ruling elite and its capacity for wielding its power with compassion.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL)

Atop Sen. Obama’s list is former Carter administration National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former GW Bush "counterterrorism czar" Richard Clarke and Dennis Ross, the former pro-Israel Middle East peace negotiator under presidents HW Bush and Clinton.

Brzezinski has boasted that he was responsible for creating the Islamic Jihadist movement that created the alleged 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and is the author of "The Grand Chessboard."

Other key Obama advisors include foreign policy advisor Anthony Lake and General Merrill McPeak. Lake instigated the U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1994 that resulted in placing the nation’s elected President Aristide in political chains. Lake supported a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the Haitian economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition-related deaths among Haitians and set the stage for the ongoing political disaster that defines the contemporary Haitian reality.

General McPeak oversaw the delivery of U.S. fighter planes to Indonesia after the 1975 East Timor massacre.

Sarah Sewall, also noted as an advisor, heads a human rights center at Harvard and is a former Department of Defense official. Sewell wrote the introduction to Gulf War II theater commander General Petraeus’ Marine Corps/Army counterinsurgency handbook, which is now being used worldwide by U.S. troops, counterinsurgency personnel, intelligence operatives and others involved in the U.S.-authorized murder of innocents.

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX)

The team of advisors helping Paul include Doug Bandow, Charles Peña and Philip Giraldi.

Bandow, a widely-published political writer, is a Robert A. Taft fellow with the American Conservative Defense Alliance and former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and a senior policy analyst in the 1980 Reagan for President campaign.

Peña is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a senior fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, a senior fellow with the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute and an adviser to the Straus Military Reform Project. Peña is also the author of "Winning the Un-War: A New Strategy for the War."

Giraldi is a former CIA officer who writes regularly on intelligence and foreign policy issues. Giraldi is a partner in an international security consultancy Cannistraro Associates, a contributing editor at The American Conservative magazine and a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance.

Paul also cites the Founders as the source of his constitutional views; he relies on Ludwig von Mises and G. Edward Griffin on matters relative to economics, honest taxation and honest money.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Former Nixon/Ford administration Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former GW Bush Secretary of State General Colin Powell, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, former national security/foreign policy advisor to presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, HW Bush and GW Bush General Alexander Haig and former CIA Director James Woolsey and former state department official Brent Scowcroft are advisors in the "McCain for president" campaign.

Kissinger’s policies have been behind every genocidal event on earth for the last 40 years. General Haig has been a part of the ruthless U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam and was a key player in the Iran Contra scandal and the bloody conflicts in Central America in the 80s as President Reagan’s secretary of state. Scowcroft has been a close business and political associate of Kissinger.

Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR)

Last December, Huckabee listed as advisors former UN Ambassador John Bolton and former Reagan administration National Security Advisor Richard Allen, both men reportedly admitted they had never spoken to Huckabee.

It is official, however, that Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass is Huckabee’s foreign affairs advisor.

Honorable mentions

Though Mitt Romney (R-MA) and Rudy Guiliani withdrew their bids for the Republican nomination, it should be noted that they were being advised by the same ilk as all the others (with one exception).

One of Romney’s top advisors, for instance, was former CIA official and current Blackwater Worldwide vice-Chairman Cofer Black. Guiliani’s top advisor was Norman Podhorez who, along with Irving Kristol, fathered the neocon movement to disguise Zionism as "conservatism."

Do you approve the direction our country has taken? Do you believe those in the shadows advising the candidates of every presidential campaign (but one) are interested in changing that direction? Of these "advisors," which one would get your vote?

Each of the candidates (but one) is being advised by the same cast of interventionist, globalist, corporatist characters that have been shaping U.S. foreign policy since the 60s. These people are puppeting all the candidates (but one) to continue this agenda of aggressive war, militarism and mass murder, corporate exploitation, fiscal irresponsibility, chemical poisoning and fear mongering—to continue covering their decades of capital crimes.

To fully appreciate the implications of the coming election should anyone but the congressman from Texas become the 44th president, read Vlahos’ "War Whisperers: The 2008 Hopefuls Promised a Change in Foreign Policy Then Hired the Old Guard" (The American Conservative, Oct., 2007) and "The US Election is Already Over. Murder and Preventable Death Have Won" by Allen Nairn at newsc.blogspot.com. It is also advisable to look deeper into the careers of these "advisors." You will then realize that a vote for any of these people (but one) is a vote—your vote—for perpetual war and the mass murder of innocents, ever-increasing public debt, taxation, inflation and the continued chemical contamination of the world. It is also a vote for the advancement of an adulterated global food supply and adulterated human and animal bodies via genetic manipulation, diminished property rights and personal freedom; a vote for the torture of ever-expanding numbers of people deemed to be enemies of this increasingly despotic state.