A Conversation with War Criminals Cancelled at University of Chicago

A Conversation with War Criminals Cancelled at University of Chicago

"Update: Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, the Nov. 14 event featuring former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has been postponed."  [1]

Economic war criminal Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Secretary of the Treasury responsible for the plan to bail out with taxpayer money his former employer along with other Wall Street banks is now a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.  Evidently the qualification for being a "senior fellow" at the University of Chicago is being one of the prime looters of working class wealth.  Paulson is believed to have bought his fellowship with a hefty donation, but I was unable to discover the going rate for granting a criminal a fellowship and Institute at the U of C.   Paulson's reported net worth of $700 million was earned the old fashioned way at Goldman Sachs; by hyping sales of toxic derivatives to clients, while simultaneously selling them short to bring down the price. 

This used to be prosecuted as fraud.  In the U.S. it is Neoliberal Economics which coincidentally originated at the University of Chicago under the deceased Milton Friedman.  A good working definition for Neoliberal Economics or Neoliberal Globalization: free trade, free markets, tax cuts for the wealthy, no regulations and privatization of everything public. 

A little known piece of information about Goldman Sachs, while Paulson was Secretary of Treasury in 2008 before the derivative collapse and the bi partisan Wall Street bailout in September, the Libyan People's Sovereign Wealth Fund, administered for the people by Moammar Gaddafi's regime, invested $1.3 billion with Goldman Sachs and by 2010 they had lost 98% of their investment.  This in turn led to Gaddafi demanding Western oil companies to pay larger fees, one of the reasons the U.S. and NATO illegally took Gaddafi down.  [2]  

Where to begin with War Criminal Condoleezza Rice?  Was it sheer ineptitude during the summer of 2001, as she ignored intelligence information such as the now famous Aug 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S."?  Or was it a deliberate stand down to allow the attacks to take place?  Her testimony to the 9/11 Commission on May 16, 2002 – National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice claims: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile.” [3]  

Yet President Bush and Rice had just attended the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, July 20-22.  There was such grave concern at this summit that anti aircraft guns were positioned and fighter planes were in the air to shoot down a possible hijacked aircraft by al Qaeda.  The concern was so real that Bush changed his plans and stayed on a protected U.S. aircraft carrier.  [4]

"During the morning of 9/11 five U.S. sponsored war games were taking place, some involving 'live fly' exercises where actual aircraft were simulating the behavior of hijacked airliners in real life, which paralyzed the FAA, NORAD and the Air Force from using the same Standard Operating Procedure they had applied between 09/00 and 06/01 when they had successfully launched fighters on 67 occasions to escort wayward aircraft.  (FAA 08/09/02)" [5]

Are we to believe that National Security Advisor Rice had no knowledge of 5 simultaneous war games going on in the U.S. on 9/11, some of which involved using hijacked U.S. airliners?  Are we to believe that National Security Advisor Rice, attending the Genoa G-8 Summit with the President, had no knowledge that a high level alert was in place from a possible hijacked aircraft even though the President slept on an aircraft carrier instead of the scheduled hotel? 

Then there was Condi beating the drums for war in Iraq, "But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [6] as the Bush Administration proceeded to take us into an illegal war in Iraq without the required by law specific resolution of the U.N. Security Council. 

"...it was Condoleezza Rice who is primarily responsible for the Bush Administration’s torture program. It was she who ordered the CIA to use torture techniques including genital mutilation, fingernail extraction and electrocution in countries across the world. The CIA agents who carried out these interrogations were acting under orders which came directly from the chairwoman of the Group of Principals: Condoleezza Rice. The role of the Principals – a group that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales -- was to select and authorize ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ proposed by CIA Director George Tenet." [7]

"American Faust (Sebastian Doggert's film on Rice) reveals that the techniques that Rice approved went far beyond the mock executions and water-boarding already made public. Our film has first-hand accounts of torture techniques that make stress positions look like a slap on the wrist. Binyam Mohamed had his penis cut, and acid poured into the wounds. Khalid el Masri was drugged, sodomized and imprisoned without charges. Abu Omar was tied to a wet mattress and electrocuted. Mamdouh Habib had his fingernails torn out." [8]

Universityof Chicagostudents rightfully objected to their University hosting a conversation between an economic war criminal and a war of aggression war criminal in which the students would be denied the chance to object to the travesty of it all. 

The following statement was drafted by University of Chicago students in the early morning hours after being notified that the event was cancelled.  The students read the statement at the rally and the Occupy Chicago General Assembly meeting that took place in the park across the street from where Rice and Paulson had been scheduled to speak. 

Statement on Rice and Paulson's Postponement of their Event and the Provost's So-Called Respect for Free Inquiry:

"We the students and the people of Chicago condemn Hank Paulson and Condoleezza Rice's postponement of their even scheduled to occur on Monday, November 14, 2011 at the University of Chicago.

Last night Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Provost of the University and Kimberly Geoff-Crews, Dean of Students emailed a statement to the entire university community, faculty, students, and staff threatening disciplinary action against anyone daring to "disrupt" the event.  "Disruption" to be defined as the university administration sees fit.

In their email Rosenbaum and Geoff Crews invoke the concept of free inquiry in order to justify disciplinary action taken against those expressing such free inquiry.  Such an invocation makes a mockery of the concept of free inquiry by invoking it in order to stifle truly free inquiry which would allow those who disagree to make their opinions known in a voice just as loud as Hank and Condi's.

The Paulson Center is a corporate forum where war criminals like Condoleezza Rice can merge corporate interests with academic legitimacy without being called out for their actions.

Rosenbaum and Geoff-Crews do not care about free inquiry.  They are only concerned about their reputations and the reputation of this university in the eyes of its corporate sponsors.

We the students had no intention of shutting down this talk.  We only wanted to express our frustration with the system of which Paulson and Rice are an integral part in a forum where our questions would have to be answered. 

Paulson and Rice's postponement of this event suggests that they can't handle free inquiry. 

Rosenbaum and Geoff-Crews' threatening email suggest that they can't handle free inquiry.

With this statement we seek to puncture the illusion that this University already embodies its highest ideals.  We issue a call to the University and to all universities to reflect on their basic commitments and recognize the ways in which they have fallen short.

We issue a call for true free inquiry where those with money and influence like Hank Paulson and Condoleezza Rice do not get to speak louder than everyone else.

We are the 99% and we call upon this university to uphold its ideals." [9] 

It was particularly gratifying at the rally to have great participation from different community groups and individuals from Chicago's South Side, including an Occupy the South Side contingent that had their first occupation last Saturday.  The future of the Occupy Movement lies in our ability to take it into the neighborhoods where the suffering is most acute. 

Research Notes

1.  U Chicago News, "Henry Paulson to Host Condoleezza Rice at Nov 14 Event"

http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2011/11/02/henry-paulson-host-condoleezza-rice-nov-14-event

2.  Russ Baker, "Libya: Connect the Dots--You Get a Giant Dollar Sign"

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/06/06/libya-connect-the-dots-you-get-a-giant-dollar-sign/

3.  Matthew B Robinson, Associate Professor Criminal Justice, Appalachian State University,  "9/11 Lies", http://www.justiceblind.com/911lies.html

4.  Kyle F Hence, "If Only I Had an Inkling..." http://www.rense.com/general51/ifo.htm

5.  "War Games on 9/11 Paralyzed Attempts to Intercept Planes" http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html

6.  Wolf Blitzer, "Search for the Smoking Gun", http://articles.cnn.com/2003-01-10/us/wbr.smoking.gun_1_smoking-gun-nuclear-weapons-hans-blix?_s=PM:US

7.  Sebastian Doggert, "The Queen of No Soul", http://warisacrime.org/node/52133

8.  Ibid 

9.  The statement was crafted by a number of students.  I only wish that I had all their names to properly credit them.  It was finished at 4AM after an email chain of more than 60 links. 

Nick Egnatz

Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam veteran. He has been actively protesting our government’s crimes of empire in both person and print for some years now and was named “Citizen of the Year” for Northwest Indiana in 2006 for his peace activism by the National Association of Social Workers.

Contact Nick at nickatlakehills@sbcglobal.net

A Conversation with War Criminals Cancelled at University of Chicago

"Update: Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, the Nov. 14 event featuring former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has been postponed."  [1]

Economic war criminal Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and Secretary of the Treasury responsible for the plan to bail out with taxpayer money his former employer along with other Wall Street banks is now a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.  Evidently the qualification for being a "senior fellow" at the University of Chicago is being one of the prime looters of working class wealth.  Paulson is believed to have bought his fellowship with a hefty donation, but I was unable to discover the going rate for granting a criminal a fellowship and Institute at the U of C.   Paulson's reported net worth of $700 million was earned the old fashioned way at Goldman Sachs; by hyping sales of toxic derivatives to clients, while simultaneously selling them short to bring down the price. 

This used to be prosecuted as fraud.  In the U.S. it is Neoliberal Economics which coincidentally originated at the University of Chicago under the deceased Milton Friedman.  A good working definition for Neoliberal Economics or Neoliberal Globalization: free trade, free markets, tax cuts for the wealthy, no regulations and privatization of everything public. 

A little known piece of information about Goldman Sachs, while Paulson was Secretary of Treasury in 2008 before the derivative collapse and the bi partisan Wall Street bailout in September, the Libyan People's Sovereign Wealth Fund, administered for the people by Moammar Gaddafi's regime, invested $1.3 billion with Goldman Sachs and by 2010 they had lost 98% of their investment.  This in turn led to Gaddafi demanding Western oil companies to pay larger fees, one of the reasons the U.S. and NATO illegally took Gaddafi down.  [2]  

Where to begin with War Criminal Condoleezza Rice?  Was it sheer ineptitude during the summer of 2001, as she ignored intelligence information such as the now famous Aug 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S."?  Or was it a deliberate stand down to allow the attacks to take place?  Her testimony to the 9/11 Commission on May 16, 2002 – National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice claims: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile.” [3]  

Yet President Bush and Rice had just attended the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy, July 20-22.  There was such grave concern at this summit that anti aircraft guns were positioned and fighter planes were in the air to shoot down a possible hijacked aircraft by al Qaeda.  The concern was so real that Bush changed his plans and stayed on a protected U.S. aircraft carrier.  [4]

"During the morning of 9/11 five U.S. sponsored war games were taking place, some involving 'live fly' exercises where actual aircraft were simulating the behavior of hijacked airliners in real life, which paralyzed the FAA, NORAD and the Air Force from using the same Standard Operating Procedure they had applied between 09/00 and 06/01 when they had successfully launched fighters on 67 occasions to escort wayward aircraft.  (FAA 08/09/02)" [5]

Are we to believe that National Security Advisor Rice had no knowledge of 5 simultaneous war games going on in the U.S. on 9/11, some of which involved using hijacked U.S. airliners?  Are we to believe that National Security Advisor Rice, attending the Genoa G-8 Summit with the President, had no knowledge that a high level alert was in place from a possible hijacked aircraft even though the President slept on an aircraft carrier instead of the scheduled hotel? 

Then there was Condi beating the drums for war in Iraq, "But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [6] as the Bush Administration proceeded to take us into an illegal war in Iraq without the required by law specific resolution of the U.N. Security Council. 

"...it was Condoleezza Rice who is primarily responsible for the Bush Administration’s torture program. It was she who ordered the CIA to use torture techniques including genital mutilation, fingernail extraction and electrocution in countries across the world. The CIA agents who carried out these interrogations were acting under orders which came directly from the chairwoman of the Group of Principals: Condoleezza Rice. The role of the Principals – a group that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney Generals John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales -- was to select and authorize ‘enhanced interrogation methods’ proposed by CIA Director George Tenet." [7]

"American Faust (Sebastian Doggert's film on Rice) reveals that the techniques that Rice approved went far beyond the mock executions and water-boarding already made public. Our film has first-hand accounts of torture techniques that make stress positions look like a slap on the wrist. Binyam Mohamed had his penis cut, and acid poured into the wounds. Khalid el Masri was drugged, sodomized and imprisoned without charges. Abu Omar was tied to a wet mattress and electrocuted. Mamdouh Habib had his fingernails torn out." [8]

Universityof Chicagostudents rightfully objected to their University hosting a conversation between an economic war criminal and a war of aggression war criminal in which the students would be denied the chance to object to the travesty of it all. 

The following statement was drafted by University of Chicago students in the early morning hours after being notified that the event was cancelled.  The students read the statement at the rally and the Occupy Chicago General Assembly meeting that took place in the park across the street from where Rice and Paulson had been scheduled to speak. 

Statement on Rice and Paulson's Postponement of their Event and the Provost's So-Called Respect for Free Inquiry:

"We the students and the people of Chicago condemn Hank Paulson and Condoleezza Rice's postponement of their even scheduled to occur on Monday, November 14, 2011 at the University of Chicago.

Last night Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Provost of the University and Kimberly Geoff-Crews, Dean of Students emailed a statement to the entire university community, faculty, students, and staff threatening disciplinary action against anyone daring to "disrupt" the event.  "Disruption" to be defined as the university administration sees fit.

In their email Rosenbaum and Geoff Crews invoke the concept of free inquiry in order to justify disciplinary action taken against those expressing such free inquiry.  Such an invocation makes a mockery of the concept of free inquiry by invoking it in order to stifle truly free inquiry which would allow those who disagree to make their opinions known in a voice just as loud as Hank and Condi's.

The Paulson Center is a corporate forum where war criminals like Condoleezza Rice can merge corporate interests with academic legitimacy without being called out for their actions.

Rosenbaum and Geoff-Crews do not care about free inquiry.  They are only concerned about their reputations and the reputation of this university in the eyes of its corporate sponsors.

We the students had no intention of shutting down this talk.  We only wanted to express our frustration with the system of which Paulson and Rice are an integral part in a forum where our questions would have to be answered. 

Paulson and Rice's postponement of this event suggests that they can't handle free inquiry. 

Rosenbaum and Geoff-Crews' threatening email suggest that they can't handle free inquiry.

With this statement we seek to puncture the illusion that this University already embodies its highest ideals.  We issue a call to the University and to all universities to reflect on their basic commitments and recognize the ways in which they have fallen short.

We issue a call for true free inquiry where those with money and influence like Hank Paulson and Condoleezza Rice do not get to speak louder than everyone else.

We are the 99% and we call upon this university to uphold its ideals." [9] 

It was particularly gratifying at the rally to have great participation from different community groups and individuals from Chicago's South Side, including an Occupy the South Side contingent that had their first occupation last Saturday.  The future of the Occupy Movement lies in our ability to take it into the neighborhoods where the suffering is most acute. 

Research Notes

1.  U Chicago News, "Henry Paulson to Host Condoleezza Rice at Nov 14 Event"

http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2011/11/02/henry-paulson-host-condoleezza-rice-nov-14-event

2.  Russ Baker, "Libya: Connect the Dots--You Get a Giant Dollar Sign"

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/06/06/libya-connect-the-dots-you-get-a-giant-dollar-sign/

3.  Matthew B Robinson, Associate Professor Criminal Justice, Appalachian State University,  "9/11 Lies", http://www.justiceblind.com/911lies.html

4.  Kyle F Hence, "If Only I Had an Inkling..." http://www.rense.com/general51/ifo.htm

5.  "War Games on 9/11 Paralyzed Attempts to Intercept Planes" http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html

6.  Wolf Blitzer, "Search for the Smoking Gun", http://articles.cnn.com/2003-01-10/us/wbr.smoking.gun_1_smoking-gun-nuclear-weapons-hans-blix?_s=PM:US

7.  Sebastian Doggert, "The Queen of No Soul", http://warisacrime.org/node/52133

8.  Ibid 

9.  The statement was crafted by a number of students.  I only wish that I had all their names to properly credit them.  It was finished at 4AM after an email chain of more than 60 links. 

Nick Egnatz

Nick Egnatz is a Vietnam veteran. He has been actively protesting our government’s crimes of empire in both person and print for some years now and was named “Citizen of the Year” for Northwest Indiana in 2006 for his peace activism by the National Association of Social Workers.

Contact Nick at nickatlakehills@sbcglobal.net