The double standards of Islam

Islamists sure know how to push our buttons and work the sympathies of the western press. Their guilt is expressed through cutting themselves with swords and whipping themselves with chains until bloody; our guilt is spread across the front pages.

It doesn't matter if the article in Newsweek claiming U.S. interrogators flushed a copy of the Koran is true or not. The radical Islam propaganda machine is working overtime. Just about any excuse will do -- except one that has merit. Newsweek's recent report was just handy is all.

It's interesting that Newsweek is taking, and the administration is giving it, credit for the riots. The magazine was in distribution for four days before the riots started. The riots were alleged by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. senior military commander on the ground in Afghanistan to be a result of the country's reconciliation process, not the Newsweek report. Now, the propagandists, taking their lead from the guilt-ridden western press, have accepted the Koran flushing as the handy excuse.

It's amazing how much people in the west bend over backwards trying to accommodate the cultural sensitivities of offended radical Muslims. We're culturally sensitive to people who allow radical mullahs to teach children that the only good unbeliever is a dead unbeliever and that the suicidal bombing of their women, elderly and children is acceptable. Afghanis don't demonstrate when some al Qaeda bombers in Iraq kill innocents at the opening of a waterworks or in a public market, or when Ba'athists behead aid workers, but they're incensed about a report about some wet paper. Go figure.

And we're worried about hurting the religious sensitivities of people who blow up 1,700 year old Buddhas. It doesn't takes a lot of courage to beat up on Buddhists. Buddhists don't fight back; they pray for those who visit violence upon them. The Taliban and al Qaeda must have thought the U.S. would react the same way and turn the other cheek when their "martyrs" killed 3,000 people in attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania but was thought to have been headed to the White House. How freaking stupid are they to believe that the U.S. wouldn't find out who was behind the attack and then start dropping "Daisy Cutters" like there was no tomorrow?

We're worried about the sensitivities of the people who put out a contract to kill writer Salman Rushdie. And we're worried about the sensitivities of people who succeeded in killing a Dutch filmmaker who made a movie depicting violence against women in Islam. Why haven't there ever been any protests against the filmmaker's murder in the middle east? Or protests about the violence against women in Islamic society. That's a "dog bites man" story and would be lucky to earn three column inches in the "Fun" section of the Lower Sandusky Chronicle.

Kuwaitis didn't protest the alleged snub; they were busy celebrating the decision by that country's parliament bringing the country into the 20th Century giving women the right to vote and hold office and didn't have time to protest an alleged religious snub. But you didn't see that sign of democracy in the top news.

(By the way, congratulations to the women of Kuwait! You've come a long way baby! Jewaira, you rock! Just remember that a cigarette named "Virginia Slims" is not a torch of female freedom but a nail in your coffin. Caveat emptor.)

Now the administration is bending over backwards, apologizing to these psychotic mullahs that the desecration of the Koran is not U.S. policy. I wish the administration officials would also let these people know that private citizens in the U.S. might flush copies of the Koran -- I can just about guarantee it's going to happen -- the press will undoubtedly cover the flushing, it'll be international news once again and there's nothing the government can do about it. :P

If the Muslims respond in kind and flush copies of the Bible, some of us will bitch loudly but there won't be widespread rioting. We're not as fucking crazy about religion as Muslims apparently are. Well ... at least not those among us who don't change our names to David Koresh or Rev. Jim Jones. Most of us love and believe in God, but we don't kill people who don't ... at least not anymore. At the worst, we send people to their door at 5 o'clock Saturday mornings with pamphlets to convert them.

Maybe there isn't a federal policy of desecrating the Koran or other religious icons and texts, but the freedoms of our Constitution allow us -- as free individuals -- to stick crucifixes in jars of urine, burn flags, create "art" depicting religious scenes where the medium is feces. As individuals, we don't have to approve of these activities. And we may protest the federal funding for such disgusting things, but free people in a free country can do stuff like that -- that's the way freedom works.

Islamist extremists have been wrapping themselves in the Koran, saying the Koran is the word of Allah, and using this book and its teachings as an excuse to abuse women and torture and kill those innocents who disagree with strict Islamic law. Is it really any surprise that people might want to desecrate that item as a symbol of their disgust with the people who use the Koran for their own greed and self-interest?

When the Islamists start protesting against something that really matters, like how their psychotic mullahs convince illiterate, uneducated men and women to kill themselves so the mullahs can live well, let me know. It'll confirm that Mohammed Atta and the other 18 "martyrs" are having a game of ice hockey in hell.

---

May 15-21 is National EMS Week. Congratulations and thank you First Responders, EMTs, Paramedics and all those in the Emergency Medical Services!

---

Porn spam Easter egg of the day:

One man (or woman) with courage is a majority.-- Thomas Jefferson

ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 1

[There is a graduate level post and it has a pre-requisite. If you haven't read my comment "First you have to admit you're a wingnut," do so. Then come back and read this.]

This is the first of a four post conspiracy theory concerning the alleged suicide of ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, who died from at least one allegedly self-inflicted gun shot wound to the chest.

I've divided the post into four separate posts because of the length of it. And I've posted it in reverse order because the blog puts the newest posts last. If you'd like to read it all in one shot, feel free to select the Google hyperlink or head on over to those enterprising folk at DarkConspiracy.com who have been nice enough to archive an older version of this post.

Basics: Do I personally believe that ADM Boorda committed suicide? Good question. I really don't know how to answer that. There are not enough facts in evidence for me to answer that question with any degree of certainty. And that lack of public evidence is at the crux of the problem.

From the very beginning there was a beltway cover-up of this incident. Accusations were laid, blame was placed, misdirection was the rule of the day. The Navy claims it has the information of the death, but no one else knows. We are supposed to trust the Navy and officials of the Clinton administration. The name of the admiral's driver was never released (he allegedly found the body), nor were the names of the medics, the District of Columbia police involved, etc. Because the names were never released, these witnesses were never interviewed by independent third parties. The Navy, for months after the facts, wouldn't even admit an autopsy was ever conducted. The autopsy results were never released. There were early reports that two shots had been fired into the admiral's chest. The suicide notes were never released. The public is supposed to believe what the Navy claims was the complete and entire context of the notes.

In academia, all research must be corroborated independently and submitted to a board of review before reviewers arrive at a finding of fact. The military has boards like these as well, Boards of Inquiry. These types of independent third-party boards were never convened. You can't corroborate information you've never seen. And that gives, at the very least, an implication of investigational impropriety and leaves open the door for evidence tampering by "team players" in the Clinton administration.

Why would the disclosure of the information contained within the alleged suicide notes be important? As reported by The Virginian-Pilot: (T)elevision cameras caught (former President William) Clinton recoiling in shock as an aide handed him a note about the shooting. Reading the note, the president suddenly paled, his shoulders slumped and he grimaced.

Other than the fact that a human being died, there is a greater concern here. ADM Boorda, at the time of his death, was the highest ranking sailor in the U.S. Navy, the strongest navy in the free world. He served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and knew the Navy's and the defense department's most closely guarded defense secrets and strategies.

There were many, many individual posts concerning ADM Boorda's death at the time of his death but those posts, which had been archived on Deja News, are no long available. I saved copies of my posts in Free Agent, and this compilation was derived from them, warts and all. It's certainly not the clearest piece of writing I've ever done, far from it. And it contains faulty assumptions that time disproved, and that disproval is included as well. But at least I'm asking the questions the mainstream media won't. And if you don't ask, you'll never receive an answer.

Call me a flake if you wish but the weird part about it is little "news" buzzer in my brain keeps telling me not to drop this. That buzzer worked real well when I was a reporter. It would ring like a 5-alarm fire bell when I was on to something. James Stewart's character felt it in "Call Northside 777." So it's not unique, just a trait of certain professions.

Every year around the anniversary date of ADM Boorda's death, I post the information on the usenet hoping someone looks at it and funds an investigation into a cold case. The problem is, those with money don't want to look. It was a bad time for the Navy and the press and few want to open old wounds, even if a putrefaction exists. [What can I say -- I'm a registered EMT and my late mother was a nurse. Expect more medical buzz words in the blog. It's not meant to parade my knowledge but expand your vocabulary.]

Part 1 of 4.
==================

Google Groups hyperlink

From: Mark McBride
Newsgroups: alt.journalism.print,alt.journalism.newspapers
Subject: ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda -- 16 May 1996
Organization: (remove the _ to respond directly)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 21:17:01 EDT
Date: Wed, 19 May 2004 20:20:47 -0500


This is a repost. Eight years later and the truth has yet to be reported. No news organization marked the anniversary of the death with so much as a brief. [Hardly surprising though from media that gave short shrift to the brutal and torturous murder of Nicholas Berg.]

Why the repost? With apologies to Dashiell Hammett:

"When a fellow sailor is killed, a sailor's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was a sailor and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we were in the Navy. And he was ex-enlisted and so was I. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every sailor everywhere."

----------------------------------------
On 1998/12/04, jgarc...@nospam.elp.rr.com wrote:

>I was wondering if anyone has any information or theories about
>Admiral Jeremy Boorda's suicide in May 1996.

This is a long post and summarizes several posts I made at the time concerning the alleged suicide. It includes a few after-the-fact news reports. Also, at the end of this post is a report on an exclusive telephone interview I conducted with Charles Thompson, the freelance producer for "60 Minutes" who passed the information about pentagon officials wearing ribbons to which they were not entitled to National Security News Service.
===================
Enterprise Reporting is dead: the Admiral Boorda cover-up remains
unchallenged

Hello:

I'm an ex-4th Estater (Fairchild, AP, UPI, SDX/SPJ), ex-Navy enlisted and ex-USNA student (2 years). Indeed, it is because of this rare background knowledge and my need to know the truth on this, I have been following and tracking down everything I can on Adm Boorda's alleged suicide. I didn't know Boorda or even much about him. But he was an ex-white hat and so was I. And it really appears to me that his death at the very least is being dismissed if not totally swept under the rug.

The following was obtained from John McCaslin's column in the weekly edition of the Washington Times:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
June 3, 1996 World Wide Web Weekly edition - from "Inside the Beltway"

Weary either way

A week before he committed suicide on May 16, Navy Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda was clearly weary of the ways of Washington and looked forward to leaving the heat of the kitchen.

This from two men, retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman and Florida businessman J. David Eller. They spoke with the chief of naval operations during a reception at a Pensacola, Fla., naval museum.

But the two men disagree on the target of Adm. Boorda's frustration. Adm. Inman, a former CIA chief, said his friend complained about Washington generally.

But Mr. Eller said Adm. Boorda directly blamed the White House and ticked off the years, months and days he had left in office.

"Boorda told him [Adm. Inman] he had had a lot of differences with the White House," Mr. Eller recalled, quoting Adm. Boorda as saying: "They're really not interested in the military."

Mr. Eller said that, at one point, Adm. Inman pointed his finger at Adm. Boorda and admonished him against resigning.

Adm. Inman, in a telephone interview, denied this part of the story from Mr. Eller, a Republican who ferried former President George Bush to the museum event in his corporate jet.

Said Mr. Eller: "I know what I heard."

Copyright 1996 News World Communications, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is important news. I've been waiting but the wire services haven't picked up on this story and it's like everyone's got their mouth zipped on this. What's going on? The answer, I believe, is that enterprise reporting is dead.

Moreover, The Associated Press, which obtained information from an anonymous source on the day of the alleged suicide that the suicide notes contained information that Adm Boorda was worried about a media controversy surrounding the "Vs," no longer attributes that information. Check the latest articles - except for the latest piece by John Diamond, it's included as news fact when the notes have yet to be released! Repeat a lie long enough and it's accepted fact, right?

Follows are some questions I've yet to see answered in the various news reports:

1.) None of the news reports have included interviews with the admiral's driver or those who found the body. Why not?

2.) Has there been an autopsy of the body? What was the autopsy report - did they check for the existence of depressants in his system that may have exacerbated a previous condition? If there was no autopsy, why not? The man was CNO, highest ranking sailor in the United States, a confidant of the Clintons. (Note: A check of the Raleigh area AP wire from a two weeks ago will verify that a Sgt. died after a fitness test - the Army will be performing an autopsy on the body. An E-5 dies, and the military wants to know why. An O-10 allegedly commits suicide by shooting himself - perhaps twice - in the chest and not the head, the highest ranking sailor in the country, and there's apparently no call for an autopsy.)

3.) The suicide notes - which contain Adm Boorda's final message to his troops and his family - weren't released though in any other situation they would've been released already. Why haven't they been released? Concern for the family is plausible, but Adm Boorda was a public figure and the public interest is overriding in this instance. As the notes are evidence in a criminal investigation (suicide is a crime), they are public domain and must be released immediately upon request. The only reason investigators could use to prevent them from being released is "national security."

4.) NSNS hasn't been quizzed on who passed it the leak to check on Boorda's medals. What was the agenda of the leaker? Embarass Adm Boorda obviously - but why? According to news reports, NSNS claims it had the information on Adm Boorda's medals for a year but needed photographic proof of Adm Boorda wearing the medals. All of a sudden, "Defense Week" runs a photo of Adm Boorda that is more than a year old showing that he's wearing the medals (he had stopped wearing the "Vs" more than a year ago). NSNS says it has its photographic proof after a year of painstaking digging and they pass the info to Newsweek and ABC. Excuse me ... NSNS filed FOIAs to get Adm Boorda's military records and *didn't* think to start diving around in the archives to find an old photo of Adm Boorda to back up their great miraculous find?????? NOT!!!! NSNS was someone's pawns and so too became Newsweek and ABC. As did just about every other news organization in the country IMHO.

5.) Anyone who is being considered for the job of CNO - or any other job of that magnitude - is investigated throughly. Lie detector tests, background screening, etc. Yet, investigations that are known to uncover even the minutest of details - employment of illegal aliens as maids 30 years ago, smoking of one joint in college - did not uncover the apparent discrepancy in the records - and the records were there all the time. Why not?

6.) If Adm Boorda wanted to make an editorial comment - to Clinton and to those who were giving him orders, to the press, to the public, to the Navy - he made it. A portion of the Navy officer corps blaims Adm Boorda for his orders that resulted in the dismissal of some fine Naval officers for reasons having to do with "political correctness" - how do *we* know that Clinton didn't order him to dismiss those officers and that he didn't fight it tooth and nail? Anyone in the press in the oval office everytime Adm Boorda set foot in it?

FACT: Clinton was his CINC.

FACT: If Clinton disagreed with Adm Boorda's actions, Adm Boorda would've been fired on the spot. Ask any military officer, and they will *all* tell you they carried out an order they vehemently disagreed with because it *was* an order.

7.) PURE SPECULATION: If Adm Boorda did, in fact commit suicide, maybe the shame Adm Boorda felt was *not* the controversy of the medals but perhaps he felt that he didn't fight against those WH orders hard enough or that he didn't resign rather than carry out those orders. Maybe it wasn't shame but a significantly serious editorial comment. Maybe it was his way of telling Clinton: "NO MORE!" Maybe that's what's in the suicide notes the White House, the DOD and the Navy don't want released. Who's to say that ADM Boorda didn't standfast and say no on some latest order from Clinton and the result was the leak to the press from the White House about the question of the "Vs?" Don't you think that investigators examining Adm Boorda's record prior to his being appointed CNO might have discovered that bureaucratic discrepancy in his records and that it might just kept have been kept as control ammunition to ensure Adm Boorda danced to Clinton's tune? Adm Boorda was too well respected by the fleet enlisted - your "Letters to the Editor" section following the alleged suicide will tell you that. Clinton couldn't easily fire him - especially in an election year - so if he wanted to get rid of him, his only political choice would be to disgrace him in front of his troops. And as I've noted before, why haven't the suicide notes been released yet? Things like that are usually released pretty soon after the fact unless there's a "national security" question involved, e.g. mud on Clinton? The suicide notes reportedly were written the day before the suicide, *before* the phone call from Newsweek. (TIME Magazine reported this.)

Adm Boorda died for a reason, and I seriously doubt the "Vs" were the reason. And I don't think it was a botched inside Navy hatchet job either.

Something's dreadfully wrong here. If you look at all the information presented, your news nose *has* to be twitching as much as mine on this.

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark and it appears to me the press has collectively backed off and cynically written off the man's death as another Washington occurrence.

Next post: ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 2

ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 2

Part 2 of 4.
=================================
Washington Post: How rumor becomes news fact - the Adm Boorda cover-up

Navy's Top Officer Kills Himself After Medal Inquiries
Adm. Jeremy Boorda Faced Media Questions About Legitimacy of His
Combat Valor Pins

By Bradley Graham and John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 17 1996; Page A01
The Washington Post

-clip-

Boorda left two notes, one to his wife and family, and another addressed to two friends with instructions to pass the message to all Navy sailors, according to Pentagon and law enforcement sources. In the message to sailors, Boorda acknowledged he made a mistake in wearing the "V" pins. He had wrongly thought he was entitled to them, he said, but worried that some would never see his action as an honest mistake.

-clip-

In addition to the questions about Boorda's decorations, top Pentagon officials pointed out that the Navy chief had recently drawn two public attacks on his leadership. An anonymous letter in this week's Navy Times alleged that Boorda had lost the respect of other senior officers and should resign. And former Navy secretary James H. Webb III delivered a scathing speech at the Naval Academy last month accusing unnamed service leaders of currying political favor at the expense of Navy personnel.

Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Enigma of an Admiral's Death

To Many Colleagues, Neither Medal Controversy Nor Grueling Pace
Explains Suicide

By Dan Morgan and George Lardner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 20 1996; Page A01
The Washington Post

-clip-

Grieving fellow officers and friends have therefore been left with two main explanations for what happened.

One is that Boorda was acting in a noble, if misguided, attempt to protect the honor of the Navy, which has suffered a string of embarrassments and scandals over the last several years. Boorda left two suicide notes, which indicated the CNO's deep concern about questions being raised by news organizations about his past, possibly unauthorized wearing of two combat pins on Vietnam-era ribbon decorations.

Boorda indicated that he was not taking his life in the belief that he had been caught in a lie, but out of fears that the media would accuse him of one and blow it out of proportion.

[Mac note: No longer attributed - assumed fact.]

-clip-

Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boorda Critic Voices Regrets
But Navy Officer Who Wrote Letter Stands By Comments

By John Mintz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 29 1996; Page A03
The Washington Post

-clip-

The Navy has announced it will not release Boorda's suicide notes, one to his family and one addressed to "the sailors." The message the Navy sent to its personnel included a passage that, according to Bettie Boorda, "might be something like" what her husband would have wanted to say.

-clip-

Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pursuing a Non-Story to Its Bitter End

By Nat Hentoff
Saturday, June 1 1996; Page A15
The Washington Post

-clip-

In his suicide notes, Boorda -- as reported by Dan Morgan and George Lardner in The Post -- "indicated he was not taking his life in the belief that he had been caught in a lie, but out of fears that the media would accuse him of one and blow it out of proportion." Of whom could the admiral have been thinking?

-clip-

[Mac note: Despite fact, Hentoff quotes reporters, who read some other rumor, as factual sources.]

Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mac note: Washington Post collusion or just fargin' stupid? I just can't believe the Washington press corps is this idiotic!! Hello Janet! Nice to see you again - was wondering where you've been keeping yourself.]

============================================

Truth still unknown - NSNS and Adm Boorda Cover-up

The Boorda Story: `What Good Reporters Are Supposed to Do'

Saturday, June 8 1996; Page A13
The Washington Post

-clip-

As the bureau chief who authorized the Freedom of Information request that uncovered the reality that Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda wore unauthorized Combat Distinguishing Devices (combat V's), I can tell Hentoff that having someone take his life over a story in which you had a hand is not an experience I take lightly ["Pursuing a Non-Story to Its Bitter End," op-ed, June 1]. The suicide of Adm. Boorda is a tragedy. But this tragedy cannot be used as an excuse not to do stories.

-clip-

Hentoff and others have decided to make NSNS and Newsweek the issue instead of how a very talented but troubled man came to head the Navy at a critical time. The Navy public relations apparatus and others have been working hard to keep the attention on the role of the media, not problems in the Navy. Only a few stories, including one in the Philadelphia Inquirer, took seriously indications that Boorda had been displaying signs of stress.

The Navy and the D.C. police have refused to release the contents of the two suicide notes that Boorda left behind. Why? The Navy claims it wants to protect the privacy of the family. Since one of the suicide notes was typed and dated the day before Boorda was to see the Newsweek reporters, the possibility is raised that his suicide may have been prompted by other issues.

To set the record straight, the Boorda story began with a request and tip from a "60 Minutes" producer named Charles Thompson, who told us that he had heard that a number of top military officers were wearing decorations they were not entitled to. Our inquiry about Boorda was one of many FOIA letters we sent out requesting service decoration citations. In the meantime, Thompson left "60 Minutes" after we had filled the FOIAs. Our reporter, Roger Charles, asked me if he could bring the results to David Hackworth, whom we had worked with before. Hackworth, had Hentoff bothered to check, had the role of being handed the FOIA material. He had no vendetta against Boorda.

-clip-

-- Joe Trento

The writer is bureau chief of the National Security News Service.

(C) Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company

[Mac note: Trento still doesn't explain why NSNS waited a year before pursuing the story. The claim was NSNS needed photographic proof. All of a sudden "Defense Week" runs a photo of Adm Boorda that is more than a year old where he's wearing the medals (he had stopped wearing them more than a year before Newsweek's Thomas and Hackworth called for the interview), and voila NSNS - which didn't think to unearth on old photo of Adm Boorda wearing the medals when it finally received the FOIA info - has its miraculous scoop! IMHO, Trento is ready to take down the house of cards what set him up. And why hasn't this "Charlie Thompson" of 60 Minutes been interviewed? What the hell's going on with the Washington press corps????]

Next post: ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 3

ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 3

Part 3 of 4.
==========================================
Re: Enterprise Reporting is dead: the Admiral Boorda cover-up remains unchallenged

Did you hear the news? On 19 Jun 96 09:14:52 MDT, our ether buddy
bad...@cc.usu.edu (Roger L. Perkins) spaketh thusly:

:)the same questions as you have posed. For example... just how do you shoot
:)yourself twice in the chest? I mean, you can do it if you are really
:)interested in dying or if the gun goes off twice due to a muscle twitch or
:)something. But I'd like to know. And the question about the letters bothers
:)me too.

The "two shot" theory is speculation from these usenet groups. There have been no confirmed reports in the press that there were "two shots," at least as far as I've determined. The first post on this, I believe, was made by Dwayne Allen Day who noted on 17 May 1996:

>Boorda is told of meeting, leaves work and goes home abruptly--driving
>himself. His official driver, worried that something is wrong, follows
>him home. At the time that the driver pulls up to the admiral's
>residence, shots are heard from the house.
^^^^^
I seem to recall that I also read "shots" in one of the press reports, but I'll have to go back and verify that. I can't say for sure if it was there or if it was, if wasn't a typo - which happens. I'll let you know. There's been of lot of articles, mostly repeating the same anonymously sourced allegations re: "Vs" and very little enterprise reporting.

There *have* been reports in the press that at least a portion of at least one of the suicide notes was written the day before the suicide, *before* the call from the Newsweek reporters, which raises *significant* questions about the WH/DOD/Navy's "anonymous source" claim about the "Vs" being the prime reason stated for the alleged suicide in the notes.

Without the WH/DOD/Navy admitting there was an autopsy, much less making it available to the public, this question about the "two shots" will remain. The press has not been granted access to the notes from the preliminary investigation, or if it has, it has not reported its findings, only what the WH/DOD/Navy has spoonfed it. Normally - or at least when I was working in the press - the press would report that access to the preliminary reports was denied, but I haven't seen even that.

I, with you, want the truth. And there aren't just two of us left in the country either, no matter what Dwayne Nutting will try to tell you.

(Dwayne's made a post previously where he, as a claimed "LDO mustang" took umbrage that the press was referring to Adm Boorda as a "mustang.")

There's a lot of off-usenet support mail I've received on the post who stand with you in wanting to know the truth. Obviously Dwayne has succeeded in scaring some folk away from publicly commenting on this subject, for whatever reason he has to do that. But the support is there nonetheless.

:)The point is this whas the CNO, for Christ sake! I want to know just exactly
:)what happened. Now, whether this is a cover up or whether the media just
:)doesn't care about another military guy dying I don't know. But I will be
:)watching he press to see what they do.

As you note: the CNO has access to the most *closely* kept Naval defense secrets and strategies. He commits suicide and the White House/DOD/Navy slam the door shut on the release of pertinent information relating to that death. Vince Foster was a lawyer in the White House - Adm Boorda knew *every* Navy and probably most other Defense secrets and strategies.

:)Not seeing a conspiracy or black helos, but there is something fishy here.
:)What is the questions.
:)Roger
:)AIRBORNE!

My greatest fear is that one day one of the conspiracy theorists will be right.

But, alas, I've already realized that fear: POWs alive in Korea; LSD tests and atomic tests on unknowing Airborne Division soldiers; yellow rain, the chemical warfare against the H'mong in Laos; Agent Orange; the Scorpion Ops commandoes written off as dead to save a budget buck; the chemical testing deaths of many Korean War POWs; the cover-up on the U.S.S. Iowa; Filegate; My Lai; Gulf War Syndrome; FBI wiretapping of the press phones during the '60s; Nixon's Dirty Tricks Campaign; etc.

[Mac note: One of my mentors was one of those reporters whose telephone was tapped. He worked for the Associated Press and had been having conversations with members of the Black Panther Party.]

The only report I could find on the usenet from someone who claimed to have known Adm Boorda was from Will D. O'Neil from a post 1 June 1996 in sci.military.naval:

>Woody has it right. I knew ADM Mike Boorda (as a
>professional acquaintance) for the last five years of his
>life, and I know dozens of people who were close to him in
>the Navy. I very frequently had occasion to discuss his
>directions and decisions with senior officers, so I heard
>him referred to several times a day (and still do). I NEVER
>heard anyone call him as anything but "ADM Boorda," "the
>CNO," (or, "the CinC," when he was CINCUSNAVEUR) or, in
>intimate contexts, "Mike Boorda."
>I also should say that although everyone was objectively
>aware that ADM Boorda was a short man, no one was likely to
>be thinking about it when with him: his personality was that
>dynamic and powerful. No one who knew him will ever forget
>him.
>Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but mine is that
>Mike Boorda's death was a tragedy far beyond the ordinary,
>and not just for his family and close friends. I've known
>other suicides, but none which left more painful puzzles.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Will O'Neil

==================================

Re: Enterprise Reporting is dead: the Admiral Boorda cover-up remains unchallenged

Did you hear the news? On Sat, 15 Jun 1996 18:41:05 GMT, I wrote:

:)5.) Anyone who is being considered for the job of CNO - or any other job
:)of that magnitude - is investigated throughly. Lie detector tests,
:)background screening, etc. Yet, investigations that are known to uncover
:)even the minutest of details - employment of illegal aliens as maids 30
:)years ago, smoking of one joint in college - did not uncover the
:)apparent discrepancy in the records - and the records were there all the
:)time. Why not?

I had to quote myself on this one to provide background.

First, let me say UPFRONT AND OUT LOUD this is pure speculation and a hunch. Okay, so stand by:

I've just had a thought - if the WH keeps innuendo files on everyone close to the WH, then it *had* to have Adm Boorda's file.

The press reports are that the stories have been circling D.C. for quite some time that senior Pentagon officials wore ribbons they were not entitled to wear. I would expect that this is *just* the type of rumor that might land in Adm Boorda's FBI innuendo file.

Q: Who had access to this file?

A: WH/Clinton/Livingston/Marceca and apparently a zillion other Clintonistas - no security.

IF, the rumor was in the file,

IF, Adm Boorda drew a line in the sand,

IF, the WH wanted him to keep toeing the Clinton line,

What might they do with the innuendo file information on the ribbon?

Leak it to the press as a warning not to rock the boat? Trento of NSNS says the info on the "Vs" came from a "Charles Thompson" a producer at "60 Minutes" who had since left that organization. Thompson has yet to be interviewed by the press on where the info came from, not that he divulge it anyway.

BUT, put 2 and 2 together ...

Rumor+FBI innuendo file+WH+Boorda taking a stand=LEAK?

That's *if* Adm Boorda took a stand on some latest Clinton order and said "NO!" ... and I feel in my heart he did. Was the order the firing of Adm "Snuffy" Smith, NATO commander in Bosnia? Adm Smith is highly respected in the Navy. The announcement of his firing occurred just weeks after Adm Boorda's death - coincidence?

The Clinton plan wasn't working - the scandals showed it over and over again. Change was too fast and too radical and the harassment, sex, accidents, cheating scandals were saying that! It was *his* Navy, it was over 200 proud years old and Clinton/Shroeder were killing it. Almost like a father deciding he needed to protect his cubs - "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one."

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Navy Report Withholds Suicide Notes
By Susanne M. Schafer, Associated Press, 11/02/96; 01:14

WASHINGTON (AP) - The public version of an official report on the suicide of Adm. Jeremy "Mike" Boorda lacks two messages the Navy's top officer wrote shortly before he took his life.

Boorda, the chief of naval operations, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest, said the inch-thick report compiled by the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

But the document, released Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, does not give a motive for the admiral's act, although there were reports he was troubled by questions about combat decorations he wore.

Nor does it provide the text of messages found side-by-side on a desk in the study of Boorda's home after his death May 16.

One was addressed to Boorda's wife, Bettie. The other was a two-part note addressed to the Navy's chief information officer, Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, with a sub-section titled ``To My Sailors.''

Many other items in the report also are blacked out, such as the contents of the autopsy report, as well as the names and identities of any individual interviewed by investigators.

It was a Navy Department decision not to release the content of the notes, the service said. Exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act say such records may be withheld, for example, if they ``constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy'' or could ``endanger the life or physical safety of any individual,'' a spokesman said.

Boorda shot himself shortly before he was to have been interviewed by Newsweek magazine about whether he was entitled to wear combat decorations for valor during the Vietnam War.

Shortly after Boorda's death, The New York Times reported that the notes suggested the admiral had been driven to take his life by fear that the reputation of the Navy, already battered by a series of scandals, would be further harmed by the disclosures about his medals.

Pease was with the admiral a little more than an hour before the shooting, and had scheduled the meeting between Boorda and Newsweek reporters.

Boorda, according to several people interviewed for the report, had not acted upset or distraught when discussing the medals.

``We'll just tell them the truth,'' several quoted him as saying.

Copyright 1996 Associated Press

Next Post: ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 4

ADM Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, May 16, 1996: Pt. 4

If you're starting here, please don't. Go to Part 1.

This article is pretty long. I'm just getting used to this blog and the way it handles postings. It's backwards. If you want to read my first post, you have to go to the end of the blog. Well, let me circumvent that cludginess, at least this once, and put this article into four postings, beginning with part 4, then part 3, then part 2, then part 1. Most folk read from up to down, not down to up, so that seems ergonomically sound. I'll discuss my thoughts on this a little more in Part 1, which I'll post last.

Part 4 of 4
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Admiral Wrote He Killed Self to Avoid Dishonoring `My Sailors'
By Mike Feinsilber, Associated Press, 11/24/96; 14:26

WASHINGTON (AP) - Dreading a new Navy scandal, Adm. Jeremy Boorda, in a note addressed "to my sailors," wrote that he was about to kill himself because "I couldn't bear to bring dishonor to you."

Boorda's suicide note is made public in a 20,000-word story in the December issue of Washingtonian magazine that also provides new details on the chief of naval operations' death - an event that stunned Washington.

Freelance writer Nick Kotz reports that Boorda had confided to his son, Edward, that he planned to resign two years early as the Navy's top officer. He mentioned the enormous demands of the job and the stress on his wife, Bettie.

Then Boorda shot himself in the chest last May 15 (actually date of shooting is May 16 -- this is a typographical error in the AP article), just hours before he was about to be questioned by reporters about two Vietnam combat decorations he wore but may not have been qualified to display.

The magazine says the decorations affair was only one factor.

Another, Kotz writes, was a drumbeat of hostility from the Navy's old guard, which considered Boorda a ``political admiral'' who had appeased politicians in his handling of the Navy's Tailhook scandal.

In the suicide note, whose contents the Navy has never disclosed, Boorda mentioned the decorations but also talked of ``those who want to tear our Navy down.''

Known for his camaraderie with sailors - he himself rose through the ranks - Boorda wrote to the sailors, according to the magazine:

``If you care to do so, you can do something for me. That is take care of each other. Be honorable. Do what is right. Forgive when it makes sense, punish when you must, but always work to make the latter unnecessary by working to help people be all they really can and should be. My idea of one-on-one leadership really will work if you let it and honestly apply it. We have great leaders, and I know you'll succeed.

``Finally, for those who want to tear our Navy down, I guess I've given them plenty to write about for a while. But I will soon be forgotten. You, our great Navy people, will live on. I am proud of you. I am proud to have led you if only for a short time. I wish I had done it better.''

Kotz declined to say how he obtained Boorda's note. ``I got the letter from sources in the course of reporting the story,'' he said. The Navy did not dispute the authenticity of the suicide note.

Rear Adm. Kendell Pease, the Navy's chief of information, said, ``The Navy made a conscious decision not to release the letter, and that is still the Navy's position.''

Kotz wrote that in the final weeks of his life Boorda was hurt when he learned that the midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy had given a standing ovation to a speech by former Navy Secretary James Webb that was a thinly veiled attack on Boorda. Boorda earned his commission in the four-month program of the Naval Officer Candidate School, the first CNO in the Navy's 198-year history who was not graduated from the Annapolis, Md., academy.

Webb said in the speech that some Navy leaders were ``guilty of ultimate disloyalty. To save or advance their careers, they abandoned the very ideas of their profession in order to curry favor with politicians.''

But the suicide's immediate cause may have been the interview scheduled that afternoon by Newsweek reporters on the medals issue.

``It was an honest mistake,'' Boorda told his aides when he learned of Newsweek's interest.

And before going home for lunch - and to write the suicide notes and shoot himself - he asked them, ``What do we do?'' He answered his own question: ``We will tell them the truth.''

He discussed the medals issue in the first part of his suicide note:

``What I am about to do is not very smart, but it is right for me. You see, I have asked you to do the right thing, to care for and take care of each other and to stand up for what is good and correct. All of these things require honor, courage and commitment ... our core values.

``I am about to be accused of wearing combat devices on two ribbons I earned during sea tours in Viet Nam. It turns out I didn't really rate them. When I found out I was wrong I immediately took them off, but it was really too late. I don't expect any reporters to believe I could make an honest mistake, and you may or may not believe it yourselves. That is up to you and isn't all that important now anyway. I've made it not matter in the big scheme of things because I love our Navy so much, and you who are the heart and soul of our Navy, that I couldn't bear to bring dishonor to you.''

Copyright 1996 Associated Press
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Exclusive interview with Charles Thompson, freelance producer, 18 Nov 1996

The former producer at "60 Minutes" who gave the tip on the "Vs" to National Security News Service doesn't believe Adm Boorda would have committed suicide over the discrepancy of the medal devices.

Charles Thompson also said he believes there are significant unanswered questions regarding the alleged suicide and that the truth has yet to come out.

Thompson, interviewed by me over the telephone at his home, said the tip alleging high ranking officers in the Pentagon were wearing medals they did not deserve came from within the Navy. He declined to identify his source but he intimated to me his source was not a USNA graduate.

Thompson said he believes the Washington press corps has not followed up on the story for a twofold reason. First, he believes it's because few in Washington have military experience or a strong enough background covering the military. Secondly, he said the Navy, and in particular Chief of Naval Information Kendell Pease, orchestrated the story of "Vs" so well, casting so much blame on the media that the usually aggressive Washington media are afraid to go near the subject.

Thompson said he's been interviewed only once since Adm Boorda's death, and then only for a short piece in The Baltimore Sun.

Thompson said he passed the tip alleging high ranking Pentagon officers wearing undeserved medals to National Security New Service in the spring of 1994. Freedom of Information Act requests were filed and results obtained in the spring of 1995 and neither corroborated nor disproved the information Thompson had been seeking on another Naval officer in the Pentagon. Thompson said that was the last he heard of it until receiving a call that brought the news of Adm Boorda's death more than a year later.

Thompson, who said he himself had served two tours in Vietnam, said Adm Boorda had been assisting him in the preparation of a book he is writing on the U.S.S. Iowa cover-up. It is because of this book, he said, that he personally is not pursuing the story at this time.

[Note: Mr. Thompson has finished his book, "A Glimpse of Hell," published by Norton Books.]

======================

To date, the autopsy reports on Adm Boorda have never been released. No interviews had been reported from those who were directly on scene, i.e. Adm Boorda's driver, the attending physician, paramedics, DC police, etc. The original "suicide" notes have not been released. I would also note that the press immediately was blamed in the death of Adm Boorda, just as the photographers were initially blamed in the death of Princess Diana. The connection here is that these appear to have been public relations ploys of misdirection; and the members of the arrogant press corps are easy targets. The ploy blaming the papparazzi in the death of Princess Diana did not work; the ploy blaming the press in the death of Adm Boorda did.

(I also find it kind of interesting that, in a country where the network script writers will jump on the latest scandal bandwagon to put out a made-for-TV "disease of the week" movie, none has ever aired on the cover-up of the death of Adm Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, much less any other members of the Clinton Body Count.)

Hope this helps. I'm still waiting for the truth.

Best, Mac

P.P.S. The last person of command rank to speak with ADM Boorda prior to his death allegedly was ADM Boorda's competitor for Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Charles Larson. [An explanation of competitors is in order here. Both ADM Larson and ADM Boorda had been in line for promotion to CNO. ADM Boorda was named CNO and ADM Larson retired shortly thereafter.] ADM Larson had been recalled from retirement to take over the reins as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy during a very troubling time including a wide-ranging cheating scandal, drug scandals, a car-theft ring and the implication of a female midshipman in a love triangle murder. ADM Larson reportedly spoke with ADM Boorda the night before ADM Boorda's death. ADM Boorda drove to Annapolis, MD to meet with ADM Larson. After ADM Boorda's death, ADM Larson, an alleged lifelong Republican, retired from the Navy again and ran unsuccessfully on the Democratic ticket for the Lieutenant Governor's post of Maryland. At the time of ADM Boorda's death and Mrs. Bettie Boorda's discussions with ranking brass, two of ADM Boorda's sons and a daughter-in-law were serving naval officers. The only other person allegedly at home when ADM Boorda arrived for lunch and his appointment with his fatal destiny was his autistic son. RADM Kendell Pease, the Navy's Chief of Information who reportedly was with ADM Boorda an hour before his death, retired in 1998 after 34 years service. Pease currently serves as vice president of communications for General Dynamics. Retired Army Colonel and columnist David Hackworth, 74, died May 5, 2005 of bladder cancer, just 11 days shy of the ninth anniversary of the death of ADM Boorda.

[Update 9/27/2005: "The stories were told by ... public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution." Quote attributed to the Associated Press acknowledging its fault helping spread spread rumor and allegations of murder and rape in the New Orleans Superdome as fact in the Hurricane Katrina disaster.]

In Memoriam, for Mike and the rest, a poem I wrote in 1971:

Two Steel Tags

Smoke curling off dry lips
Shows his deep meditation
For love of life
Not constant strife.
Or maybe it's just imagination?

He remembers Friendswhofought

Side BY Side

In the consuming heat of battle.
His cry of pain heralds: "No Answer!"
From George, of the Klan, or Bobby, a Black Panther.

Just a toss of the dice and it's all over!
Lord, how the time does lag-g-g-g.
Some men going home.
Most will just roam.
And some are just two steel tags.

God bless you vets. Thank you. Welcome home.

[Know something the world doesn't know about ADM Boorda's death? Send me e-mail using the hyperlink in the "About me" box, or leave me a voice mail message, toll free in the U.S., 888-389-8950. Anonymity assured for all verifiable accurate information. Pitch me a line or try to scam me and the world will know. Serious information only, please.]