Posted on 08/12/2005 5:29:09 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
Even though the Maupin family has not been able to speak to their son in 16 months, they are taking steps to make sure others with family members in the U.S. military overseas can keep in touch.
Keith and Carolyn Maupin of Batavia, through their Yellow Ribbon Support Center, are shipping computer equipment to soldiers stationed in Iraq.
The Maupins' son, Army Spc. Keith "Matt" Maupin, has not been heard from since April 2004, after his convoy was attacked outside of Baghdad. A grainy video released later, claimed by an insurgent group to depict his execution, was ruled inconclusive by the U.S. military.
He is the only American soldier in the Iraq war whose status is listed as captured.
"When Matt's unit came home, we went to Fort McCoy in Wisconsin to see them," explained Keith Maupin. "One of the soldiers told me he watched his kids grow up on a Web cam while he was away. That's when we got the idea to do this."
The Web cams will be distributed to units, which will use them to post online video of the soldiers that can be accessed by their families and friends on the homefront.
An Army warrant officer was at the center making arrangements to ship the equipment Wednesday. Maupin said once the equipment is assigned to a unit, it would become part of its permanent inventory and remain with the troops as long as they were deployed.
In addition to Web cams, the eight pallets awaiting shipment at the Yellow Ribbon Support Center in Eastgate include computers, memory cards and other supplies. Maupin announced the shipment so people who made donations to the center would know their money was put to good use.
"This is something we know will help the families," Maupin said.
The harsh realities of war, which hit the tri-state especially hard with the deaths of four local Marines in a roadside bombing Aug. 3, make communications between soldiers and their families invaluable, Maupin said. "This is a war and anything can happen at any time. For these family members to see and talk to each other is priceless."
Maupin said it was not up to him to tell the families of the Marines how to grieve, but he talked about the things that have given him comfort as he waits for his son's return.
"These guys felt like they were making a difference, not just for us, but for the people of Iraq." he said. "The support we have received from the community has helped us, and I'm sure it will help these families."
The Yellow Ribbon Support Center is an outlet for the families of soldiers and people in the community to show support, Maupin said. In addition to raising awareness about the troops in Iraq, the center also collects non-perishable food items and supplies and ships them to soldiers overseas. Maupin said whenever it seems the stock is getting low, another big donation comes in.
"A couple of weeks ago we shipped everything we had and the next day a church group brought in a ton of stuff," he said.
This will explain why Clinton had Gorelick set up the Wall: How Chinagate Led to 9/11 By Jean Pearce FrontPageMagazine.com | May 25, 2004 As the 9/11 Commission tries to uncover what kept intelligence agencies from preventing September 11, it has overlooked two vital factors: Jamie Gorelick and Bill Clinton. Gorelick, who has browbeaten the current administration, helped erect the walls between the FBI, CIA and local investigators that made 9/11 inevitable. However, she was merely expanding the policy Bill Clinton established with Presidential Decision Directive 24. What has been underreported is why the policy came about: to thwart investigations into the Chinese funding of Clinton’s re-election campaign, and the favors he bestowed on them in return. In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw. It’s a story the 9/11 Commission may not want to hear, and one that Gorelick – now incredibly a member of that commission – has so far refused to tell. But it is perhaps the most crucial one to understanding the intentional breakdown of intelligence that led to the September 11 disaster. Nearly from the moment Gorelick took office in the Clinton Justice Department, she began acting as the point woman for a large-scale bureaucratic reorganization of intelligence agencies that ultimately placed the gathering of intelligence, and decisions about what – if anything – would be done with it under near-direct control of the White House. In the process, more than a dozen CIA and FBI investigations underway at the time got caught beneath the heel of the presidential boot, investigations that would ultimately reveal massive Chinese espionage as millions in illegal Chinese donations filled Democratic Party campaign coffers. When Gorelick took office in 1994, the CIA was reeling from the news that a Russian spy had been found in CIA ranks, and Congress was hungry for a quick fix. A month after Gorelick was sworn in, Bill Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive 24. PDD 24 put intelligence gathering under the direct control of the president’s National Security Council, and ultimately the White House, through a four-level, top-down chain of command set up to govern (that is, stifle) intelligence sharing and cooperation between intelligence agencies. From the moment the directive was implemented, intelligence sharing became a bureaucratic nightmare that required negotiating a befuddling bureaucracy that stopped directly at the President’s office. First, the directive effectively neutered the CIA by creating a National Counterintelligence Center (NCI) to oversee the Agency. NCI was staffed by an FBI agent appointed by the Clinton administration. It also brought multiple international investigations underway at the time under direct administrative control. The job of the NCI was to “implement counterintelligence activities,” which meant that virtually everything the CIA did, from a foreign intelligence agent’s report to polygraph test results, now passed through the intelligence center that PDD 24 created. NCI reported to an administration-appointed National Counterintelligence Operations Board (NCOB) charged with “discussing counterintelligence matters.” The NCOB in turn reported to a National Intelligence Policy Board, which coordinated activities between intelligence agencies attempting to work together. The policy board reported “directly” to the president through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The result was a massive bureaucratic roadblock for the CIA – which at the time had a vast lead on the FBI in foreign intelligence – and for the FBI itself, which was also forced to report to the NCOB. This hampered cooperation between the two entities. All this occurred at a time when both agencies were working separate ends of investigations that would eventually implicate China in technology transfers and the Democratic Party in a Chinese campaign cash grab. And the woman charged with selling this plan to Congress, convincing the media and ultimately implementing much of it? Jamie Gorelick. Many in Congress, including some Democrats, found the changes PDD 24 put in place baffling: they seemed to do nothing to insulate the CIA from infiltration while devastating the agency’s ability to collect information. At the time, Democrat House Intelligence Chairman Dan Glickman referred to the plan as “regulatory gobbledygook." Others questioned how FBI control of CIA intelligence would foster greater communication between the lower levels of the CIA and FBI, now that all information would have to be run through a multi-tier bureaucratic maze that only went upward. Despite their doubts, Gorelick helped the administration sell the plan on Capitol Hill. The Directive stood. But that wasn’t good enough for the Clinton administration, which wanted control over every criminal and intelligence investigation, domestic and foreign, for reasons that would become apparent in a few years. For the first time in Justice Department history, a political appointee, Richard Scruggs – an old crony or Attorney General Janet Reno’s from Florida – was put in charge of the Office of Intelligence and Policy Review (OIPR). OIPR is the Justice Department agency in charge of requesting wiretap and surveillance authority for criminal and intelligence investigations on behalf of investigative agencies from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. The court’s activities are kept secret from the public. A year after PDD 24, with the new bureaucratic structure loaded with administration appointees, Gorelick drafted the 1995 memo Attorney General John Ashcroft mentioned while testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The Gorelick memo, and other supporting memos released in recent weeks, not only created walls within the intelligence agencies that prevented information sharing among their own agents, but effectively walled these agencies off from each other and from outside contact with the U.S. prosecutors instrumental in helping them gather the evidence needed to make the case for criminal charges. The only place left to go with intelligence information – particularly for efforts to share intelligence information or obtain search warrants – was straight up Clinton and Gorelick’s multi-tiered chain of command. Instead, information lethal to the Democratic Party languished inside the Justice Department, trapped behind Gorelick’s walls. The implications were enormous. In her letter of protest to Attorney General Reno over Gorelick’s memo, United States Attorney Mary Jo White spelled them out: “These instructions leave entirely to OIPR and the (Justice Department) Criminal Division when, if ever, to contact affected U.S. attorneys on investigations including terrorism and espionage,” White wrote. (Like OIPR, the Criminal Division is also part of the Justice Department.) Without an enforcer, the walls Gorelick’s memo put in place might not have held. But Scruggs acted as that enforcer, and he excelled at it. Scruggs maintained Gorelick’s walls between the FBI and Justice's Criminal Division by threatening to automatically reject any FBI request for a wiretap or search warrant if the Bureau contacted the Justice Department's Criminal Division without permission. This deprived the FBI, and ultimately the CIA, of gathering advice and assistance from the Criminal Division that was critical in espionage and terrorist cases. It is no coincidence that this occurred at the same time both the FBI and the CIA were churning up evidence damaging to the Democratic Party, its fundraisers, the Chinese and ultimately the Clinton administration itself. Between 1994 and the 1996 election, as Chinese dollars poured into Democratic coffers, Clinton struggled to reopen high-tech trade to China. Had agents confirmed Chinese theft of weapons technology or its transfer of weapons technology to nations like Pakistan, Iran and Syria, Clinton would have been forced by law and international treaty to react. Gorelick’s appointment to the job at Justice in 1994 occurred during a period in which the FBI had begun to systematically investigate technology theft by foreign powers. For the first time, these investigations singled out the U.S. chemical, telecommunications, aircraft and aerospace industries for intelligence collection. By the time Gorelick wrote the March 1995 memo that sealed off American intelligence agencies from each other and the outside world, all of the most critical Chinagate investigations by American intelligence agencies were already underway. Some of their findings were damning: In an investigation originally instigated by the CIA, the FBI was beginning its search for the source of the leak of W-88 nuclear warhead technology to China among the more than 1,000 people who had access to the secrets. Despite Justice Department stonewalling and the Department’s refusal to seek wiretap authority in 1997, the investigation eventually led to Wen Ho Lee and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The FBI first collected extensive evidence in 1995 linking illegal Democratic Party donations to China, according to the Congressional Record. But Congress and the Director of the CIA didn’t find out about the Justice Department’s failure to act upon that evidence until 1997, safely after the 1996 election. According to classified CIA documents leaked to the Washington Times, between 1994 and 1997, the CIA learned that China sold Iran missile technology, a nuclear fission reactor, advanced air-defense radar and chemical agents. The Chinese also provided 5,000 ring magnets to Pakistan, used in producing weapons-grade uranium. The Chinese also provided uranium fuel for India's reactors. In many cases the CIA resorted to leaking classified information to the media, in an effort to bypass the administration’s blackout. Gorelick knew these facts well. While Clinton may have refused to meet with top CIA officials, Gorelick didn’t. According to a 1996 report by the legal news service American Lawyer Media, Gorelick and then-Deputy Director of the CIA George Tenet met every other week to discuss intelligence and intelligence sharing. But those in the Clinton administration weren’t the only ones to gain from the secrecy. In 1994, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation transferred military-use machine tools to the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corporation that ended up in the hands of the Chinese army. The sale occurred despite Defense Department objections. McDonnell Douglas was a client of the Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin, L.L.P. (now called Baker Botts), the Washington, D.C., law firm where Gorelick worked for 17 years and was a partner. Ray Larroca, another partner in the firm, represented McDonnell in the Justice Department’s investigation of the technology transfer. In 1995, General Electric, a former client of Gorelick’s, also had much to lose if the damaging information the CIA and the FBI had reached Congress. At the time, GE was publicly lobbying for a lucrative permit to assist the Chinese in replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear plants. A 1990 law required that the president certify to Congress that China was not aiding in nuclear proliferation before U.S. companies could execute the business agreement. Moreover, in 1995, Michael Armstrong, then the CEO of Hughes Electronics – a division of General Electric and another client of Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin – was publicly lobbying Clinton to switch satellite export controls from the State Department to the Commerce Department. After the controls were lifted, Hughes and another company gave sensitive data to the Chinese, equipment a Pentagon study later concluded would allow China to develop intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missiles aimed at American targets. Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin partner Randall Turk represented Hughes in the Congressional, State Department, and Justice Department investigations that resulted. The Cox Report, which detailed Chinese espionage for Congress during the period, revealed that FBI surveillance caught Chinese officials frantically trying to keep Democratic donor Johnny Chung from divulging any information that would be damaging to Hughes Electronics. Chung funneled $300,000 in illegal contributions from the Chinese military to the DNC between 1994 and 1996.
Sorry............. read it as it is............ stick the paragaphs where you need them........... BUT UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was this web of investigations that led Gorelick and Bill Clinton to erect the wall between intelligence agencies that resulted in the toppling of the Twin Towers. The connections go on and on, but they all lead back to Gorelick, the one person who could best explain how the Clinton administration neutered the American intelligence agencies that could have stopped the September 11 plot. Yet another high crime will have been committed if the September 11 Commission doesn’t demand testimony from her.
God Bless this strange and wonderful MAN!!!!!
If there were hundreds or worse missing I could understand, not agree but understand. We have ONE MISSING would it be that tough?
Thanks FMC. Prayers with the family and with their son.
God bless MAtt Maupin and his family. Prayers for them. Everyday.
Where can I get one?
Sorry, I do not have the on line link anymore. I bet if you did a google using Matt's full name you would find it.
:)
May God bless Matt and his family and reunite them soon.
http://www.pownetwork.org/hoi.htm
Look here.
Thank you.
Sgt. Maupin, his family and loved ones remain in my prayers.
Thank you so much for the ping. I'd heard his name, but not his story. Prayers for Matt and his family.
thank you for adding that link to the thread
But, there is one thread/topic I hold close to my heart, those regarding SGT. Keith "Matt" Maupin. As I watched the mother who is protesting near the President Bush's ranch, his parents came to mind, so I looked for any news regarding their son. I thought if anyone deserved to be angry and bitter it would be his parents but they have held their had high, I applaud them for that.
Each time I have posted about Matt, I have inquired about a MIA bracelet, I was directed to the military as to why Matt is not considered a MIA or POW. HELLO, than what is he, and because of the status the local places who sell these bracelets say they cannot make them. Blah blah blah.
Just ticked me off. Then, another FREEPER, bentfeather , posted a link where you can obtain this bracelet. I hope you will join with me and our family to purchase a bracelet and to wear it proudly until he returns home. We must show our support.
I am so disgusted with the ongoing Holloway case, to think what might have happened if they same interest were there for the last days of Maupin. I do not think there are any current war correspondents that I can even name and if I could I doubt I would respect them.
Thanks for allowing to get that off my mind. - FMC
With heart in my throat and tears in my eyes, I'd like to bump this thread to the top. Let everyone who reads this remember Matt Maupin and his family. God bless his family for their strength, courage, help and ongoing support of our military and their mission.
Thank you so much for posting this, FMC. God love you too. chena
I applaud your point of view. I was thrilled when the news came to cable. Yet, it slowly has become an Oprah wanna be. There are no hard hitting journalists. They just come on with talking points and avoid questions. It is disturbing.
I have no doubt the Holloway mom as only the welfare of her daughter at heart, but, the 24/7 coverage of this story is just over the top. When breaking news came in about the "Bonnie and Clyde" team, Greta was again yacking about Holloway and both CNN and MSNBC beat them to the breaking news.
It is not news and frankly I do not know what to call it.
But, someone could talk with Maupin's platoon buddies, get a hummer, retrace the steps of that day. Offer what ever reward can be offered, not sure if that would be allowed but we have done nothing and frankly neither has the military when it comes to this MIA soldier.
Thanks for the comment friend, enjoy that first cup of coffee.
Have those savages ever put out a phony beheading movie? For all their lies, this seems to be something they're brutally honest about.
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