Tuesday, August 12, 2014

What does Saddam Hussein's death have to do with Domestic Violence?


by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

In November, 2002 I was asked, “Is Qusay something like E-Bay?” The query came from my now estranged daughter, Morgan Pillsbury Gell. That November, Morgan was in hiding with a sympathetic family in Georgia, following an attempt on her life by John Fund, her former boy friend.

Although Fund was employed at the Wall Street Journal as a journalist, and served on their Editorial Board, his real job was as a political operative for the Bush Administration, work he had begun for the Koch brothers in 1979, while claiming to be a registered Libertarian.

Lying to the public, manufacturing evidence, and destroying lives, was standard practice for the NeoCons in control of the Bush W. White House. John came into his association with them already trained. As an operative, John Fund inserted fabricated information into public consciousness. Protecting him was important. Protecting their constructed scenario for the War in Iraq being sold to the public, was even more so.

In the years leading up to the opening of the War in Iraq ordinary Americans still believed those in control of their government understood their obligation to act only on the facts and act justly. We were wrong.

This narrative uses one story, a minor one, in the larger scheme of things, to illustrate the ruthlessness and lack of conscience at the core of the Bush Administration which continued with Obama.

Demanding Proof

My demands Morgan provide evidence for events too incredible to believe, began with the Weasel Search Tape in 1999. She and I were estranged and no longer speaking when she called me from her apartment in Jersey City to tell me she was broke and starving. She told me she had been in a relationship with John Fund for nearly a year.

Having asked John Fund, who I had known politically since 1979, about the relationship the March before I told her she was lying. John claimed to know her only casually, having fed her cat for her once.

At that moment, John called her. Putting me on hold, she took his call, recording it. Calling me back she said, “Just listen.” What I heard was a stunning indictment of any claim by John Fund to honesty. At the very time he was lying to me Morgan, I later discovered, was in Los Angeles aborting his child.

Although I told Morgan, in the strongest possible terms, she should walk away from the relationship and return to college, she refused the offer, instead telling me with a little help she could find a job in New York in public relations. I agreed to assist her.

During the year I paid for an apartment in New York Morgan spent far more time with Fund than looking for a job. She later told me he was living at the apartment about half the time.

At the beginning of 2001 it was clear Morgan had no interest in working for a living and I ended my assistance to her. With the plane ticket I provided she returned to New York from California. Occasionally I heard from her but her focus continued to be her relationship with Fund.

On May 2, 2001, Morgan called, telling me she had just heard from John, who had phoned her, dead drunk, while celebrating the end of the Blumenthal - Drudge suit. The end of Blumenthal's law suit, seemed to mark a change in their relationship. Soon, he asked her to move in with him.

Sex, Lies, and the Tape

But there were complications. Morgan had provided interviews about her relationship with Fund to John Connolly of Vanity Fair. She had also provided Connolly with what would become known as the Weasel Search Tape, which Morgan had used to persuade me she was not lying in September of 1999.

The beatings started after Connolly's article, “Sex, Lies, and the Tape,” was published, September 4, 2001.

Morgan, born July 5, 1967, was then 34 years old. Later I learned, psychopaths court disaster because they enjoy living on the edge. Although she was living at a more publicly visible level this behavior was in evidence all of her life. There were many reasons I started demanded proof when dealing with her.

While the trauma of 9/11 was playing out, with its grief, anguish, and shock, most Americans, being emotionally normal, began searching for an explanation for the tragedy. The NeoCons in the White House saw only opportunity for carrying out plans already made for war. Instead of using the tragic events to enact peace, they invaded Afghanistan, and continued their plan to invade Iraq.

In parallel with these events, Morgan and John were spiraling down to violence. John would batter Morgan multiple times. I heard this happening on the phone, as did Eric Buchanan, the husband of the couple who later hid her in Georgia.

Although what Eric and I heard was offered as evidence many times, we were ignored.

Domestic Violence is a Crime

Listening to what was transpiring through the phone that day nauseated and sickened me. That first time I still did not believe Morgan, who had told me about the beatings a few days earlier. That changed after this first incident.

It started with Morgan's voice dropping and growing unsteady as the sound of the door opening came through the phone. She left the phone on, probably putting it down. Then John began talking. He accused her of breaking 'the rules,' talking to other people and repeating a bewildering list of requirements she was to follow to retain his trust.

His voice began rising. It sounded like he was beginning to snarl, like he was an animal preparing to attack. Even more frightening, Morgan sounded like a little girl, her voice growing shaky and rising in pitch.

I heard something crash, like it was knocked over. This was followed by the sound of a hand hitting flesh. Morgan cried out but I could not understand her words. John, however started laughing, a deep, maniacal sound that made me shudder. I could not stop listening, but my hands were shaking and I had to use both of them to hold on to the phone.

It went on for a long time. Blow following blow, each accompanied by her little girl voice, begging him to stop. Finally, I heard him ask what she had made for dinner. From Morgan, there was no sound.

I hung up and called the Jersey City Police. It was not long before I had the number memorized. This began an aspect of my education in how events are manufactured and altered beyond recognition. John knew a lot of people in politics.

The police and the authorities in New York and New Jersey knew these incidents had been heard both by myself and by Eric Buchanan. Neither of us were ever called or mentioned in their reports. Although these were offered, neither of us was allowed to make a statement in the months, and years, which followed.

Criminal Minds – Political Lies

I vacillated between rage at how Morgan was being treated and wondering if she was asking for it, as everyone else in the family believed. But I could not turn my back on her. Those screams and the sound of John's maniacal voice still haunt me today, even knowing she is not emotionally normal. I had felt as if the blows were landing on my own body.

In late January Morgan finally listened to my pleas and agreed to move to an apartment in New York, for which I paid.

A few days later she called and told me John had found her and moved it. It felt as if my stomach had dropped out. I was dizzy and nauseated. To say it was surreal understates the case. I could not believe she had permitted it.

But she began sending me scans of his mail, which he would leave there on the floor, for instance, the letter to him from Fidelity Investments, dated January 25, 2002. John, also, was lying. He was then claiming he Morgan was out of his life.

In March I flew in to see some plays with a friend, calling Morgan from the taxicab a few blocks away. When Morgan answered the phone I could hear John talking in the background. When I arrived Morgan was bloody and he was gone.

I insisted she file a police report, as any normal person would do. I hoped the police in Manhattan would be different. Initially, they were. But what I did not know, because she did not tell me, was that John had been promised help by the men occupying spaces One and Two on his speed dial, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

I had never imagined that domestic violence would be viewed as a political issue and handled accordingly. I was wrong.

An attempt on her life took place in late April, 2002. Someone with a key turned the first lock. Morgan, who was talking to me on the phone as she stood in the tiny kitchen next to the entry door, threw the deadbolt. I immediately told her to call security. The camera showed a man's back leaving the building. The Manhattan police refused to investigate.

The search began for someplace where she would be safe. Morgan left New York as if she was headed to spend a weekend in the Hamptons, her other possessions shipped, one box at a time, ahead of her.

Desperately Seeking Help

During the time we were desperately looking for help Sidney Blumenthal had ignored our pleas for assistance. The police and DA's office were refusing to follow the law in the case of domestic violence filed by Morgan against John Fund on February 19, 2002.

It was Fund who had assisted Matt Drudge in libeling Blumenthal as a wife beater. Instead of helping, Blumenthal tried to persuade Morgan to supply material for his book, “Clinton's War.“ The request was made via this email, dated June 22, 2002. Morgan refused and was very angry with his dismissal of a real case of domestic violence and the attempt on her life.

She was even angrier a short time later. Blumenthal, she discovered, had stolen the information he had requested from her computer, using a keylogger. She had found the Keylogger and traced its origin.

Morgan returned the favor. Soon, she was reading the never ending revisions of Sidney's book and his emails.

When Morgan left New York I stopped having nightmares about flying in to view her body. During this time, the ramp up to the invasion of Iraq was mounting.

The Ramp Up to War

In September of 2002, along with the rest of Americans, I listened as the claims for Weapons of Mass Destruction began, were debunked, and then began again, reaching a level of hysteria. In October, the National Intelligence Estimate became available. It was all remote, horrible, but without immediate impact on us. I thought.

Morgan had never keep up on unfolding events for anything but what immediately interested her. However, what interested her had changed somewhat, beginning in early summer, 2002 due to events in her own life. By November she had been monitoring traffic to and from the computer owned by Sidney Blumenthal, formerly a top adviser to Bill Clinton, and close friend of the both Clintons, for six months.

Later, I realized what must have been happening in the background, out of sight.


Saddam Considers His Options

Considering his options, Saddam Hussein, whose career had started as an operative for the CIA, offered to leave Iraq, if he was paid. He could have had no illusions about what was to come. He probably believed the powers set against him would be happy to lower their transaction costs for getting access of Iraqi oil.

But the Bush agenda had assigned a role for Saddam. He was to be the villein in the drama, now launched. Therefore, his continued presence was essential. Bush wanted him dead, and dead he was going to be, the facts not withstanding. How much this would cost in money, lives and suffering, was not an issue.

But someone had to keep Saddam in place and this could not be anyone associated with the Bush Administration. So in late 2002 Bill and Hillary Clinton, aided by Sidney Blumenthal, were apparently asked to ensure Saddam Hussein stayed in Iraq so the eagerly awaited invasion could begin.

Morgan was still reading Sidney's emails in between baking cookies in the middle of the night and trips with Mrs. Buchanan to Walmart.

When Morgan sent me the first email involving Saddam Hussein I had a friend, expert in computers, ascertain where the email sent to Blumenthal originated. The answer came back, the Emirates, likely Baghdad.

I knew perfectly well it was illegal for the Clintons, now private citizens, to manipulate policy. I still could not imagine a presidency based on the kind of manipulation which would view reshaping events as they take place so these would match pronouncements which were elaborately constructed propaganda. I also could not imagine this kind of cooperation between Bush and Clinton, given what the NeoCons had done to Bill during the Monica Lewinsky Debacle.

I knew it was my duty to inform authorities, which I did.

In the mean time, Morgan and Eric had managed to get a keylogger on Qusay's computer by using a subject line which read, “Women without Veils.”

Morgan was watching on March 20, 2003 at about 02:30 UTC, or about 90 minutes after the lapse of the U.S. 48-hour deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq ended. According to The Pentagon, 36 Tomahawk missiles and two F-117 launched GBU-27 bombs were used in this assault.

The targets were high-level Iraqi governmental officials, including Saddam Hussein himself, and were based on intelligence which led the U.S. government to believe it knew his movements. Civilian buildings were also hit.

On May 29, 2003, it was claimed the Bunker never existed, but the computer was definitely hit. Morgan told me about watching as the ping moved to CIA headquarters in Virginia.

I had told Morgan the Clintons and Blumenthal would be charged with treason. When this did not happen I realized I had failed to understand the real agenda followed by the NeoCons running the Bush Administration. We would now become targets ourselves. This began April 1, 2003. See our John Fund site /Time Line & Evidence. Scroll down to April Fool's Day, 2003.

We knew too much. I realized all too well it was unlikely anyone would believe me then.

But now, the world has endured the trauma of endless war,  destroying nations, murdering millions of innocent people, all to profit a small elite and carry out their plans for us. Those who orchestrated these, controlled by both major political parties, are following the same marching orders.

So, what are we going to do about it?