Saturday, September 12, 2015

PELTIER: THE LETTERS

Dear Supporters:

At this critical point in the Peltier saga it must be asked: To what depth will Peltier and his attorneys go to change the narrative and attempt to convince us that he is something other than an unrepentant cold-blooded murderer?

The answer clearly rests in “The Letters” recently sent to members of the Coler and Williams’ families.

Peltier has had many attorneys who have devoted years and thousands of work hours along with their own funds to support his case. Most notable among these is Barry Bacharach, who is no longer with the Peltier cause.                   

More recently is high profile New York attorney Martin Garbus*, but while previous attorneys worked pro bono, Marty apparently wanted a hefty retainer that Peltier was unable to raise. Among his long list of clients is “Leoonard (sic) Peltier, convicted murderer, for Clemency application to President Obama. (Footnote 1). Garbus was apparently sought not for filling out a simple form but his political connections and influence. Another client, Robert Redford, may have had some sway here. This is the same Redford (film: Incident at Oglala; Fn: 2), who bought into Peltier’s fabrication that “Mr. X” (even featured in camouflage cameo in the film along with an AR-15), attacked and then killed the agents. This has been proven to be one of Peltier’s greatest lies, (Peltier is incapable of understanding the old adage that if you never lie, you never have to remember anything else), yet the gullible Redford is too blind to see or accept it. (Fn: 3)

Another recent addition and the author of “The Letters,” is Harvard educated attorney Jennifer Harbury* who has a history with Peltier dating back some fifteen years.

December 15, 2000, Washington, D.C., The White House:

On a cold, crisp, early morning some seven hundred and fifty FBI agents gathered at the National Law Enforcement Memorial. All were on personal time. Men and women, professionally dressed, gathered to begin a solemn and dignified walk to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Leading the long line that morning was a simple banner “In Memory” and large photos of FBI martyrs Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams. They walked silently to the gates of the White House where the then President of the FBI Agent’s Association was invited in and delivered over 10,000 signed petitions asking the President not to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.

Evidently, and obviously, President Clinton was listening. (Fn: 4)

Ms. Harbury’s response to all this was denigrating media statements, a prior letter to then Attorney General, Janet Reno, and a lawsuit.

Harbury was quoted widely in the media describing this somber occasion as “armed agents marching on Washington.” Harbury, so bewildered by her own passions, was incapable of recognizing the right of American citizens, yes, even FBI Agents, expressing their own Constitutional rights to free speech, expression, and assembly. Instead, they were castigated. And now she writes letters.

In her letter she states, “We have both lost loved ones to the terrible and recurring clashes between Native people and our government.”

As a widow herself, (and this letter was received by one of the murdered agents’ widow), she fails to recognize the bewildering irony of her defective logic.

Harbury’s husband was a Mayan guerrilla leader, better known as Commandante Everado, who was killed by the Guatemalan Army, and yes, there was, in the early 90’s, CIA involvement with the military.

What exactly is Harbury’s nexus between her husband’s guerrilla actions (Some may call them terrorist acts. Did her husband kill Guatemalan soldiers? Did her husband execute civilians as some guerrilla’s did?), and those of Peltier and American Indian Movement (AIM) members that horrific day at Pine Ridge on June 26, 1975?

Surely, she isn’t suggesting to the widow of a slain agent that her husband was the antagonist that day with the “our government” she refers to, since it’s obvious to everyone that FBI Agents Coler and Williams were representing their government in the lawful exercise of their duties while searching for a fugitive.

The Native people she refers to, AIM members, or more aptly referred to by one as the American Indian Mafia—because that was indeed what they were—an organized gang of criminals, albeit cowards, with Peltier in the lead. Peltier, though leading only that ragtag encampment at White Clay Creek. (Fn 5)

AIM members taking the two agents’ under fire, pinning them down in an open field, firing countless rounds from rifles until they were both severely wounded. Then the final act; cold-blooded murder of two defenseless human beings. And need we remind Harbury of Peltier’s own admission during his escape from Pine Ridge about Agent Williams? “He begged for his life but I shot the *&%-#*! anyway.” (Fn: 6)

So, which is it, Ms. Harbury, with your tortured logic: Who are the bad guys here? Coler and Williams or the murdering coward Peltier and the other AIM aggressors?

Following the December 15th event Ms. Harbury went even further and in an email dated January 20th had the dizzying gall to state about Peltier not being released that there was “…somehow…not enough to outweigh the outright terror the FBI was able to instill in our government leadership.” (Fn: 7) Apparently, Ms. Harbury must have been too preoccupied or paranoid over the previous eight years and failed to notice that there was one aspect of the President’s persona that was consistent; nobody intimidates Bill Clinton.

Peltier v. Louis Freeh, ET. AL.:

There’s no direct proof but it’s even money that Ms. Harbury had knowledge of, or perhaps contributed in some manner to a lawsuit filed by Bernard V. Kleinman* on April 4, 2002.

As absurd as it was, Kleinman, on Peltier’s behalf, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against FBI Director Freeh, the author of this website and Blog, and others, for violation of the Bivens case alleging a "...systematic, and officially sanctioned campaign of misinformation and disinformation designed to prevent the named Plaintiff from receiving a fair hearing on his claims for both Clemency... and ...Parole..." Peltier sued for a jury trial and judgments, which include restraining orders and “Damages in the amount of $1,000,000 for the knowing dissemination of false and misleading information by each named Defendant both individually and jointly (including reasonable attorneys’ fees, court costs, expenses and disbursements).”

Under most circumstances Kleinman’s frivolous lawsuit would be almost laughable if it was not intended to chill the NPPA’s exposure of Peltier’s propaganda and ever changing stories by providing truth and facts, as well as to curtail free speech by those who are calling attention to fabrications that Peltier himself had been guilty of for many years. Aside from its many factual errors the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice on March 22, 2004. (Fn: 8)

Although Ms. Harbury’s letters offer that she “recognize(s) the tragic loss” and calls for a “…joint commemoration to honor the dead,” let’s examine just a little of that tragic loss for a moment.

Harbury certainly includes Jack Coler and Ron Williams, and undoubtedly, Joe Stuntz as well. The same Joe Stuntz who fired on Coler and Williams when they were pinned down in an open field. The same Joe Stuntz who Peltier described: "I seen Joe when he pulled it out of the trunk and I looked at him when he put it on and he gave me a smile." To simplify this scene for Ms. Harbury to understand, what Peltier is talking about is Joe Stuntz smiling and stealing Jack Coler's FBI raid jacket while two dead, mutilated, human beings (who both were, by the way, rolled over to face the ground after being shot to death, yes executed, at pointblank range), lay at their feet. Later, while shooting at responding agents and law enforcement, Stuntz was killed. He was wearing Agent Coler’s FBI jacket. There is no commemoration here because the reality is that Peltier is the one responsible for yet another victim. Stuntz followed Peltier to his own death.

As offensive as Ms. Harbury’s message is, there are worse letters out there that the family members had to endure. Cynthia K. Dunne*, who boasts of her tenure as an Assistant U.S. Attorney has gone around the bend and forsaken both decency and common sense when she describes Peltier as “…an icon who symbolizes the historic and continuing injustices facing many American Indians.” Dunne claims to understand the legal history of Petlier’s conviction; she does not. Dunne ignorantly confuses Peltier’s blatant criminal act with a pitiable sense of martyrdom. She certainly feels deeply about the history and plight of Native Americans then and now—as we all do—but she has become a casualty of her own passion; now a victim of her own Wasichu-guilt and blinded to the truth. Perhaps a future Blog will address Ms. Dunne’s many shortcomings. (Fn: 9)

Dunne claims that among Native America there is a “uniform belief” Peltier had been treated unfairly. However, she is dreadfully wrong. The fact remains that Peltier is seen for what he really was and remains, along with AIM, those who contributed absolutely nothing to the betterment of his “people.” In the meantime history has proven that Peltier hijacked, demeaned and adulterated an otherwise proud and storied Native heritage. Regretfully, Ms Dunne is incapable of recognizing that. (Fn: 10)

Previously, Ms. Harbury, as a tool of the former Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC), provided a litany of erroneous details taken from the prepared script of Peltier folklore, all of which have been easily and repeatedly disproven as their original presentation was altered in an attempt to make Peltier’s version fit what actually happened. (Fn: 11)

* * *

Ms. Harbury’s letters offer to have  a “quiet conversation” and that “…there is a time for reflection and discernment.”

Ms. Harbury, just how would that conversation go?

Will Leonard Peltier finally admit his guilt, tell the truth and confess to the brutal killing of two defenseless human beings? Will he apologize and show remorse for the deaths he caused and ask for forgiveness not only for the murders but the decades of lies and denigration of the sacrifice and memory of Jack Coler and Ron Williams? Hardly not. Even if he did, and if by some miracle was released, it would take about a second outside the walls of FCI Coleman for him to backslide to the same Peltier we have known since 1975.

No, Ms. Harbury and Ms. Dunne, no discernment, no reconciliation. Your efforts to contact the victim’s families is obscenely obvious. So transparent that anyone can see you have neither the moral character nor ethical standards as you speak for the likes of Leonard Peltier.

As attorneys how do you get beyond Peltier’s own remorseless admissions of guilt?

Attack his conviction all you’d like, but after thirty-five years he publicly stated
“And really, if necessary, I’d do it all over again, because it was the right thing to do.” (2010), and after thirty-nine years, “I don’t regret any of this for a minute.” (2014)

Ms. Harbury (and Ms. Dunne) are being made the fools for buying into the Peltier myth. (Fn. 12)

Ms. Harbury is engaging in irresponsible pandering in a dismal attempt to garner some sympathy, or God-forbid, support from the victims’ families to engage even the remote possibility of adding legitimacy to Peltier’s cries for clemency.

Your letters are pathetic and shameful. They are dishonorable reminders that there are those few who will go to any depth to prove a negative, that Peltier is nothing more than a remorseless cold-blooded murderer. Your feckless and shallow efforts are an embarrassment to yourself and chosen profession.  

So, to ask again, to what depth will Peltier and his attorneys go to attempt to legitimize his existence?

As low as imaginable, to here, scraping the detritus from the bottom of the putrid Peltier cesspool.

“In the Spirit of Coler and Williams”
Ed Woods

*Martin Garbus, 3 Park Avenue, 16th Floor, NY, NY 10016, (212) 561-3625 mgarbus@evw.com
  Jennifer Harbury, 1020 S. Missouri St., Weslaco, Texas 78596, (512) 751-5852 jharbury@gmail.com
  (Email to Ms. Harbury for a dialogue went unanswered. No surprise there.)
  Bernard V. Kleinman, 2 Gannett Dr., Suite 418, White Plains, NY 10604 (203) 981-0781
  Cynthia Dunne, P.O. Box 581, Scarsdale, NY 10583 (914) 522-2569, cindy@lakotachildren.org
  (Email to Ms. Dunne for a dialogue went unanswered. No surprise there either.)
Footnotes:
4) Peltier calls former President Clinton a sleazebag: http://www.noparolepeltier.com/speak.html
5) American Indian Mafia: http://americanindianmafia.com