[Peace] FW: wilpf-news Sweden -free speech to US refugees

[Marianne Brun]

----------
Von: linda kaucher <lindakaucher at hotmail.com>
Antworten an: lindakaucher at hotmail.com
Datum: Wed, 01 Jan 2003 11:49:54 +0000
An: wilpf-news at igc.topica.com, ukwilpf at egroups.com
Betreff: wilpf-news Sweden -free speech to US refugees

Sweden offers Free Speech Refuge to US Officials


Sweden Offers Free-speech Refuge To U.S. Officials
By Dennis Hans | http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0212/S00082.htm
From: Editor <changingplanet at supremalex.org
[Changing Planet] Sweden Offers Free-speech Refuge To U.S. Officials

Sweden Providing Platform for U.S. Officials Cowed by Bush

Intimidated bureaucrats regain their voice as protected guests of a
genuinely democratic regime.
By: Dennis Hans - 12/11/02
Also Published at www.liberalslant.com

STOCKHOLM - Blaine Williams hasn't stopped grinning since he arrived in
Sweden two weeks ago. Several times a day he'll approach a complete
stranger,
offer a handshake and a smile, introduce himself as a former CIA analyst
from America, and proceed to tell the bewildered Swede all the things he
knows that
directly contradict President George W. Bush's declarations about Saddam
Hussein's intentions and capabilities.

"Free at last!" Williams exclaimed to a reporter as he sat on his front
porch and waved to new neighbors. "I was stuck in a totalitarian bureaucracy
for 14
months. What a relief it is to say in public who I am and what I think."

Williams is the first of dozens of former U.S. government employees expected
to take refuge in Sweden over the next several months, courtesy of a bold
project of the new social democratic government.

On October 15, the Swedish Parliament appropriated 500 million dollars for
the "Palme Plan." Named for former Swedish president Olaf Palme, it promotes
the virtues of free and honest speech among government officials in
underdeveloped democracies.

"Swedes have always been generous in providing economic aid to countries
with underdeveloped economies," said Erland Carlsson, the parliamentarian
who
conceived the Palme Plan. "But we've done little to promote democratic
development in underdeveloped democracies."

Some leaders of underdeveloped democracies have welcomed Sweden's "democracy
teams," encouraging their efforts to create a culture of candor and
transparency in the corridors of power. Those efforts comprise the overt
component of the Palme Plan. The covert component kicks in when a leader is
hostile
to the very notions of candor and transparency.

Palme, who was Carlsson's political mentor, believed his greatest failure as
president was his inability, during the Vietnam War, to persuade U.S.
officialdom of
the virtues of public candor. "Palme believed that if the national security
bureaucracy had not been cowed into silence in the face of a torrent of
deceit from a
determined White House, the U.S. would never have invaded and destroyed
Vietnam," Carlsson said.

An October 8 story in the Houston Chronicle, by Jonathan Landy and Warren
Strobel ( http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/nation/1607676), convinced
Carlsson that the same suffocating environment had enveloped key sectors of
the Bush administration.

Thirteen officials from the CIA, State Department and Pentagon, many with
vast experience in the Middle East and South Asia, told Landy and Strobel
the same
thing: The White House has squelched dissent, imposed conformity and
silence, demanded skewed analyses to justify its hard line, and repeatedly
exaggerated
or falsified intelligence information to inflate the Saddam threat.

What most alarmed the Swedish MP was that none of the analysts were willing
to be quoted by name. Some were too frightened even to be quoted
anonymously.

"I couldn't help thinking that if these informed, respected patriots could
raise their voices openly and in unison, they'd stop the administration's
chicken hawks
in their tracks," Carlsson said. "Public and congressional support for the
war path would whither, and the president would be exposed as the world's
most
crooked 'straight shooter.'"

Borrowing Bush's Brilliant Idea

When Bush insisted that U.N. weapons inspectors be able to take Iraqi
scientists and their families outside of Iraq for interviews, thus
protecting the scientists
from possible retaliation by Saddam's secret police, Carlsson had the
solution that had eluded Palme so many years ago.

"That's it!" he told a colleague. "We'll offer U.S. bureaucrats and their
families safe passage to Sweden and a secure environment from which they can
speak
freely and publicly to the folks back home. They can stay here at our
expense until a climate of openness and honesty prevails in the Bush
administration."

In addition to Williams, 28 other bureaucrats and their families are en
route to Stockholm. All were spirited out of Washington by a team of Swedish
secret
agents who had honed their rescue skills in Yugoslavia and the Congo.

Once the former officials settle into their new homes and get comfortable
with saying who they are and what they think, they'll spend their time
giving speeches
an interviews.

Former CIA analyst Williams is already a sensation on Swedish TV as a
regular guest on the top-rated chat show, Nugen Farger ("Hard Rugby"). On a
recent
edition, he parsed a string of Bush's statements on Iraq, including
assertions at a Republican fundraiser that Saddam Hussein hopes to deploy al
Qaeda as his
"forward army" against the West, and that "we need to think about Saddam
Hussein using al Qaeda to do his dirty work, to not leave fingerprints
behind."

"I can assure you," Williams told Swedish viewers, "that no one at CIA
believes a word Bush said. What's more, no one at CIA believes that Bush
believes a
word Bush said."

Strong words, and Williams anticipates an echo chamber as more of Sweden's
newest residents regain their voice. But he wonders if members of the U.S.
news
media, particularly those he calls "the boobs on the tube," will dare to
listen.







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