DEAR RICHARD...here is an item pertaining ‘to the other side of the [Kovovo] coin’, which do not seem to appear as frequent in your dispatches as I would like. Talk about putting ‘constraints’ on your own press... Does Bernard Shaw et al have to worry about this sort of thing happening to them as they walk out of the CNN building? (I know...these assassins mentioned in the attached article were actually CIA agents who committted the deed so that the Yugoslav Gov’t would be blamed—right? Riiiiiiiiiight.)

Dear Javier,

Thanks for the piece on assassinating a Serbian journalist. But, sorry to say, you have missed the proverbial ‘point’ : about how news is distorted, about what is truly dangerous to freedom loving men. Whether one journalist murdered, anywhere, is worse than hundreds upon hundreds compromised, bribed and secretly controlled, I shall leave that for you to decide. For me, if I wish to live in a true (de facto) democracy rather than a constitutional (de jure) democracy, I prefer the killer with the gun, who I see or easily learn has acted, to the killer who slowly poisons the institutions, who I can only know about when the rot starts to stink so badly that our children have a hard time with honest and ethical perceptions.

Without going very deeply, let me try to bring the criminality of the Balkans, all the actors, into perspective, through some personal perceptions on just a bit of my experiences with our foreign affairs.

In the late fifties and early sixties I had been a Gang Worker in the NYC Youth Bureau, redirecting Blacks and PRs getting in trouble in So. B’klyn, and a substitute teacher of Spanish; then moved into the NYC P.D. First in a regular precinct from where I quickly departed because of not wanting to tolerate the petty corruption I had run head first into; then transferring into the elite Tactical Patrol Force (AKA the Riot Squad, before there were such things as SWAT). Within a little more than two years becoming one of the top three men of some 500 in arrests and medals; for this record I was, quite exceptionally, transferred to the Safe, Loft and Truck Squad of Special Frauds Bureau. The first time a TPF cop had been promoted directly to the elite of the elite detective squads which worked out of HQ. We worked only against professional criminals and organized crime, much with the FBI (the only detective squad with whom they shared informant info), and were allowed to go outside NY state borders. I received more medals there, including the third highest, for an actual combat shoot-out, which got me into the Honor Legion. Two years later I went with SOD, Far East, of the Agency. To Vietnam.

I tell you this small bit of my bio so you will understand as best possible the type of criminality which is destroying your country. It is NOT, obviously, the criminality of the Mafia hit, or the political assassination (even though we have had a number of those, at the highest levels; usually not called by such name, though, as they’re accomplished with more sophistication, via sickness, heart attack, stroke, or accident - such ways preferable to the bullet in the back fashion, the latter being much too clear and crude for our top cosmopolitan criminals).

The Mafia type ‘family’ criminality of big business destroying America from the inside out, not silly communists supposedly attacking from the outside, as the public was falsely made to fear for so long (to the point of building bomb shelters in their back yards). Big business criminality is an insidious criminality, with false numbers and people and companies doing the job, not bullets : until small time special ops like Cuba, DR, Haiti, Panama, Grenada etc. come about; or resource ripe regions like the Arab peninsula or Balkans have to be secured for future exploitation. A perfect example of the most sophisticated regional asset stripping type criminality occurring is the story I sent you about Korea, only one of more than 45 countries I have working knowledge of (35 of which I have worked IN) from 25 years security consulting work overseas.

Milosovec is another form of Mafia type, quite different than our American business mafia criminality of which I just spoke. It would seem to appear obvious that he is no good, non- democratic, etc., BUT the propaganda we’re fed about him is a smoke screen for our real, long-term business and political interests in the Balkans. This is much, much too long a subject for me to educate you on - not wanting to sound condescending, but that’s what it takes due to all the false history (read, e.g.., "Lies My Teacher Told Me", by Loewen, 1995, Free Press, a simple book but indicative of others written on the high level of BS we are fed, from childhood onwards)..., so I shall end this with a little story which is symbolic:

Well, Javier, if you know anything about your Nam history you will remember that during my time (1967-8) Cam Ranh Bay was the largest $$$ volume, and quantity volume, commercial port of entry in the world. And, take it from an expert, it was full of big $$$$$$ corruption, top to bottom, from hijacking 10,000 50 Kilo bags of ‘free’ rice donated from the American working taxpaying stiff to his counterpart Vietnam peasant even before the ship docked and got to unload; to PX and Commissary burglaries and truck hijackings getting packaged goods sold to the Black Market, for other VC purchases, including the Ronson lighter flints which VC sabotage units used for the command detonated mines used to blow our vehicles sky high with the 105 and 155 mm shells they also bought on the Black Market which our military people, and allies, supplied by stealing. All this, remember quite clearly, Javier, while our men are getting their guts and arms and legs and lives blown all over Nam...., by whom? who were maiming and killing these men, just hard core Northerner communists?, ...you must ask yourself that, Javier (remembering, propaganda comes before bullets).

Well, by God, most of our men were so damaged by those very same civilians among and for whom they fought, who just changed clothes at night. Common people who hated WASPS, they killed our grunts, grunts who had been bullshitted into believing they were there TO SAVE these people. Of course, they killed Americans because we were hated as much as the French, the Japanese and the Mongols were hated before us. And for the same reason : we invaded their country, set up a puppet Catholic dictator and tried to push OUR system down their throats.

The same as we did, and still try to do, with Cuba.

These little bits and pieces I tell you, for that’s all they are bits and pieces - I won’t get into big cases I later worked on like the company’s BCCI several trillion $$$ asset stripping of over thirty 3^rd World economies - are only my beginnings, Javier, but they should give you the idea behind the disgust I feel for the HYPOCRISIES with which Washington operates for many years now, most specially post W.W.II. And I’ll end by trying to bring all this criminality and lies and smoke screens to a common point, so to speak.

After a while down in Cam Ranh - after discovering and reporting on the criminality killing our men and the Vietnamese people (well over 75% dead were innocent civilians, inconveniently in the way, we usually excused ourselves), a criminality not politically based but in pursuit of an ideologically based commercial GREED - one day a former Special Forces Lt. Col. asked me over the bar at the monthly II Corps regional P&O officers conference at Nha Trang,

"Rich, what do think about your work here with the company compared with being a detective in NYC?"

I had to think somewhat about that. After a while I answered, paraphrased as best I can remember,

"A stick-up man with a gun is an honest thief, for he puts in your face exactly who he is and what he wants and how he intends to get his demands. The criminals and thieves over here are far, far more evil. They steal and kill hiding under the values represented by our flag and our religion."

Think, Javier, and read widely. You will better understand what our leaders do overseas in the name of flag or humanitarianism, or whatever other excuse is then convenient to big business.

richard manning

PS: sorry, but no time, spiritual energy, really, to re-read, correct, put words, paragraphs, thoughts, my argument, etc., in a more logical order. So, feel it!, Javier, and maybe you’ll understand many new things. For instance, why I respect Castro and greatly honor Ho Chi Minh, even while not liking the economic structure they were both forced into.

and my friend answered:

RICHARD...I will READ all you send. And I respect your credentials. As for CASTRO...his AF downed two UNARMED Cessnas (Brothers-To-The-Rescue). Of course, OUR own AF just demolished a truck of CIVILIANS in KOSOVO. I, however, do not 'respect' either. Both actions, no matter which side, are ABERRATIONS. I truly feel you are not being objective.You have sort of 'gone to the other dark side', because you found out that 'our side' is not pure and holy. It is NOT. But neither is the other, my dear friend. Given the choice, I'd stay over HERE.

Javier,

Deep knowledge and the moral courage (which many humans have lost, specially our new world materialists always so worried about salary, IRAs, pensions, health insurance, etc.) to speak honestly of one's country's lies and hypocrisies and greed does not in any way mean a person has "gone to the other dark side". As exemplified by most with religions, that 'other side' is based on much ignorance.

You have arrived at such a simplistic conclusions, about me, not worthy of further discussion, that I think the shady subject of 'sides' best be dropped after today..

PLEASE, do not respect my "credentials". That has absolutely nothing to do, whatsoever, with my just sending you bits about my experiences. What you know is less than 10% of my totality. Judging anyone by 'credentials' is a modern habit also quite simplistic, to say the least, and so often proven of little or no value. Though I understand disdaining credentials, as with disdaining materialism and the Vatican, is American heresy serious enough to cause one to be labeled some kind of leftist, or even a communist. God forbid!

Rather, think and study and reflect on whatever you read, from me or Mao Tse Tung or the Rockefeller family. Credentials, finally, mean nothing compared with the truth to be found, which even the most uneducated, ignorant, or backward living person may find even faster than some Guru advising presidents. The former may find it easier because he has less to lose, no reputation or 'credentials' or position to maintain in the face of unethical, greedy pressures upon his mind and body.

The two air incidents you noted have nothing to do, whatsoever, with being ABERRATIONS. Rather, they are both factual incidents, parts of two different historical patterns, which can be learned about objectively - if you really want to - and then understood clearly and fully. Sorry to say this, but both your logic and historical perspectives are in dire need of expansion. I do not say this to be in any way nasty, or sound superior, but simply because it demonstrates an educational failure which must be corrected if you wish to ever be able to analyze facts without coloring your mind beforehand with prejudices.

As to my not being objective, to me it is clear that you know too little about me, and certain other subjects of study, to so judge. But that's your decision as to when and how to judge people, including me and anyone else you meet on the internet.

All the 'sides' of human history are "not pure and holy", as you put it in good old Catholic cliché fashion. And where is this "other" side you note, away from which you move so "I'd stay over here."? I believe you really do not know much of the "other" sides out there, my friend. Even as you so presumptuously decide that I have "sort of" gone there.

It seems, maybe, Javier, you are jumping to a number of conclusions, rather prematurely, without either well securing your chute or knowing where you might land.

All my above comments come from, and are meant with, all honesty and courtesy, even though they may shake your head a bit. You are far from alone, though, for the US education system - as a good number of scholars and social scientists, men wiser and better educated than I in this subject, have recently well documented - is a gross failure in educating the public in most everything except matters related to money. And some very experienced commentators truly believe this failure is no accident.

Best of luck,

richard