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Meet Tom Fiscus
The story we are about to tell has been only ONE of a series of stories we hear about in passing; stories about the bullying and McCarthyism that characterizes the Bush Administration. This particular story came to us through several pathways, the first one being my friend Bev.
Bev came to DC while we were working on the Kerry campaign and she introduced me to her good friend, Carolyn, who was married to a Judge Advocate General. We had a lively conversation about John Kerry's campaign and thoroughly enjoyed the "girl-time" we had. Four years later, Bev emailed me.
Do you remember my friend Carolyn, she asked? I did, vaguely. Bev told me Carolyn's husband was having a good deal of trouble and perhaps we could suggest help. I sent her to Jesselyn Radack's site and Daily Kos because I knew that a number of Bush whistleblowers were getting together for support and action.
Tom wrote to Jesselyn and Suz became involved (Suz is ALWAYS involved in these heart-filled stories!) and so the story came back to us. We have waited to tell it because we wanted Tom to tell it first. It's his story and it needs to be heard.
Yesterday he launched his website.
For nearly 37 years I was privileged to wear the uniform of my country. I wore it in Vietnam as an Air Force Academy cadet, in Germany during the Cold War, in Saudi Arabia for Operation Southern Watch and in the Pentagon on Sep 11, 2001. During the last 2 ½ years of that career, I was proud to have reached the pinnacle of my profession by serving as The 14th Judge Advocate General of the United States Air Force, the senior uniformed lawyer of that service.
If you have read accounts of the end of my military service, you saw how I was investigated by the Inspector General based on an anonymous allegation of unprofessional relationships. I was then punished under the very system I had upheld and defended for my entire professional life as a judge advocate. Some initial media accounts of the investigation noted the conflict between me and high ranking civilians in the Bush administration over torture and the detainee interrogations at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Since the media didn't know what they were on to, DOD officials quickly overwhelmed that thread. With a skill developed by much practice, the DOD leaked carefully selected half-truths from the incomplete investigation to poison the public perception of me.
Sid Blumenthal wrote about the case, and then went on to other stories. Jane Mayer wrote a piece for The New Yorker but it was scotched at the last minute. She does not know why. ABC News and 60 Minutes both initiated stories and then dropped them.
Meanwhile, Tom remains in a kind of limbo, unable to practice law and finding that rumors and innuendo follow him everywhere. We have inquired in high places and been met with serious pushback in the form of cautions, but they are cautions without real information. In other words, no one is talking, and everyone APPEARS nervous. Now there could be many reasons for this, ranging from insiders knowing something we don't know to serious threats against anyone who talks about this story.
And truly, my friends, Tom's story IS only one of many many peeks into how the Bush administration has operated. I am sure it is not even the worst story. But to quote him once again:
So much of what happened in my case, from the filing of the bizarre anonymous complaint against me, to my forced retirement as a colonel, was the product of outright illegal reprisal by senior civilian and military personnel in DOD. To challenge that reprisal in a calmer atmosphere, I filed a complaint of reprisal in November 2006. My complaint explains why those political appointees and some of my uniformed leadership wanted me crushed and shows the steps they took to effect the assassination of my career.The complaint was filed over a year ago, I am still awaiting action. My efforts to engage my Congressional delegation have been fruitless with Senator Gordon Smith's (R-OR) office agreeing only to act as a conduit for communications received from the DOD. Neither Senator Ronald Wyden D-OR) or Congressman David Wu (D-OR) even acknowledged my requests for assistance. Despite all we have learned about the operation of the Bush administration in the three years since my case arose, people still have a hard time accepting that the Administration acts the way it does - the way it did in my case and so many others.
Tom is a warm and high-minded man, and he wants his story to be known, if only so people will continue to awaken and be aware of what has been done in the name of democratic freedoms. Please help us to share his tale. Let newspapers know, write letters and let Tom know via his site what you are doing.
Thank you, from those in the future who will benefit from truths over lies.
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I just want to add a few things...
When I first heard from Tom, I was totally shocked by the similarity in Tom's story to Jesselyn's story. And there were many ways in which the administrations actions were taken from the same playbook.
First, in both their stories, everything is honky-dory as long as they remained silent. However, in both of their stories, they witnessed our government participating in torture. They witnessed our government commit coverups to hide their participation in torture. And they both took the evidence they had and went to the media to tell the truth.
They became TRUTH TELLERS or some might say they became whistle blowers.
My brother says if someone blows a whistle, then they should expect to receive blowback as a result.
Well, Tom and Jess both received major blowback. BUT this is OUR GOVERNMENT and OUR TAX DOLLARS giving the blowback! IT's not some little company saying they're going to black list you. It's OUR GOVERNMENT and OUR tax dollars PAYING for the government resources to be used to prevent truth tellers from getting jobs. It's our tax dollars that are being used to take away licenses. And it's our tax dollars being used to go to the media and wire tap them. To go to a persons place of business and get them investigated, threatened, and fired.
AND it's our tax dollars that have been used to ILLEGALLY investigate emails--emails that were NOT a national security risk--but were PRIVATE emails such as the ones you and I send.
And it is OUR tax dollars being used to go to the media with false stories and then to get the media to swiftboat the truthtellers with every thing they could.
I heard it from Jess. I heard it from Tom. Things were MADE UP about events in their lives and the media took a tiny bit of 'suggestion' and created a whole new story line--in other words, they took a marigold seed and created a Black Walnut tree.
So when you see articles such as this one ask yourself if this started out as a Marigold seed or a Black Walnut seed.
These allegations make it more difficult to garner sympathy, of course.
However what about the utter wrong doing of OUR GOVERNMENT and the people who set forth our TORTURE policy and who set forth the murder of our troops and the Iraqis people based on their own LIES. What about the people who ILLEGALLY spied, ILLEGALLY SEARCHED emails in order to find anything on which to hang Tom by? And what about the fact that they then spread LIBELOUS infomation about those truthteller? And what about the fact that they took things that were unclassified and reclassified them to classified in order to prevent the TRUTH from going forward and by doing so they obstructed JUSTICE and they COMMITTED A COVERUP?
Yes, things were reclassified after the fact which makes it that much more difficult to defend himself and to speak the truth about the real allegations of his superior's misconduct.
Can anyone say mafia?
Unbelieveable.
Thanks for sharing Tom, Karen and Suz. I'm thoroughly disgusted.
Karen and Suz - thanks for this. I was disturbed by reading Jesselyn's story. And now this just adds weight to the corruption at all levels of the Whitehouse hierarchy. I do believe that there will be more coming out with the truth as the days, weeks and months march on. And hopefully, when there are too many similar stories, the msm will have no choice but to start reporting on it.
What strikes me as odd is that here in Australia, our media loves a scandal. This kind of tell-all experience would be played for all it's worth. If our media don't have a real scandal, they create one. Our political reporters especially are always on about leadership challenges.
When there's a leadership challenge against the Prime Minister here, a new Prime Minister can take over without a vote by *we, the people*. It's happened before and no doubt it will happen again.
When is the White House corruption going to be considered scandalous enough to spread like wildfire through all of your media outlets?
woz said:
When is the White House corruption going to be considered scandalous enough to spread like wildfire through all of your media outlets?
Karen replies:
Oh, it spreads like wildfire and then the editors weigh in with the clamp-down. Or else the story gets a thumbs-down from the insiders. Or the reporter is made to feel like a dumbass for even thinking such stupid thoughts. Or (wink, wink) where there's smoke, there's fire. Or the message that one had better think long and hard about one's future career takes over. Or...well, there's no real proof anyway, and I just do my job...or...well, you get the picture.
There's always "My dog ate my research."
I think I will contact NPR and pitch this story... This is the kind of thing that NPR might go after. They have been pretty good with the Gonzales scandal (although I tried to pitch Radeck's story and didn't get anywhere - maybe they considered it old news).
NPR has also been doing a great job of covering the amazing incompetence at FEMA - they did a very good report on the lousy FEMA trailers with formaldehyde...
Ralph,
Thanks for contacting them. Let Karen or I know what happens. I know Tom is eager to do what he can as well.