No More Liars in the Pentagon - Stop Gates as Secretary of Defense!
Sign a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Robert Gates!
Tell Senators to Oppose Gates for Secretary of Defense!
To sign on to this letter as a group or as an individual click at right! The letter with all signatures will be sent to Senator John Warner, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Carl Levin, ranking Democratic member, and the other members of the Committee on December 4, 2006.
Why is Gates a Terrible Choice to take over at the Pentagon?
Gates is an old Cold Warrior involved in most of the illegal and immoral US government actions in the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
He should not be Secretary of Defense because of his:
1. Involvement in the CIA mining of the Nicaraguan port of Corinto and execution of Contra war against Nicaragua ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice at The Hague;
2. Lying to the Senate about knowledge of the illegal activities known as the Iran/Contra scandal in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and the Boland Amendment;
3. Providing chemical weapon components to Iraq during Iran/Iraq war; and
4. Tailoring intelligence on the Soviet Union, according to former Secretary of State George Shultz.
To learn more about the record of Robert Gates, read the November 9th interview with former CIA agent Melvin Goodman and Journalist Robert Parry on the radio/TV program "Democracy Now!" http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/09/1444242. Goodman states that "There was a record of Bob Gates creating intelligence out of whole cloth and urging Bill Casey to take even more provocative measures than the CIA and the Reagan administration was proposing toward Central America, particularly toward Nicaragua."
Melvin Goodman also wrote an opinion piece which appeared in the Baltimore Sun on November 10 in which he brings out Gates' politicization of intelligence, especially on the Soviet Union. To read the article go to: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.gates10nov10,0,3393156.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines
Read Scott Shane's articles on Gates' difficulties in his previous confirmation hearings in the New York Times (you will have to register first, but it is free) of November 10 at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/washington/10gates.html?ex=1164171600&en=0f2afb9c771928a1&ei=5070 and November 18th at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/19/washington/19gates.html
An excerpt from the autobiography of Lawrence Walsh, independent counsel in the Iran/Contra investigation from 1986 to 1993, is posted on the web page of Counterpunch. Go here to read it: http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh11082006.html Walsh wrote, "We did not believe that he could have forgotten a warning of North's diversion of the arms sale proceeds to the Contras. The mingling of two covert activities that were of intense personal interest to the president was not something the second-highest officer in the CIA would forget."