Karen Kwiatkowski

Karen Kwiatkowski
Kwiatkowski on her family's Shenandoah County farm
Born	September 24, 1960 (1960-09-24)
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Air Force
Years of service	1982–2003
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Unit	Near East/South Asia and Special Plans
Other work	A Case Study of the Implementation of the Reagan Doctrine.

Karen U. Kwiatkowski (born September 24, 1960) is an American activist and commentator. She is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency. Since retiring, she has become a noted critic of the U.S. government's involvement in Iraq. Kwiatkowski is primarily known for her insider essays which denounce a corrupting political influence on the course of military intelligence leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. She is currently challenging the ten-term incumbent for the 6th District of Virginia House seat.

While in the Air Force, she wrote two books about U.S. policy towards Africa: African Crisis Response Initiative: Past Present and Future (US Army Peacekeeping Institute, 2000) and Expeditionary Air Operations in Africa: Challenges and Solutions (Air University Press, 2001). More recently, she has contributed or co-written several books on neoconservatism and foreign policy. She contributed to "Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas," (Variant Press, 2008) and "Why Liberty: Personal Journeys Toward Peace and Freedom" (Cobden Press, 2010). She has been featured in a number of documentaries, including "Why We Fight" in 2005. She has written extensively for LewRockwell.com since 2003.

Early life

Kwiatkowski was raised in western North Carolina. She received an MA in Government from Harvard University and an MS in Science Management from the University of Alaska. She has a PhD in World Politics from The Catholic University of America; her thesis was on overt and covert war in Angola, A Case Study of the Implementation of the Reagan Doctrine.

Career

Military

Kwiatkowski began her military career in 1982 as a Second Lieutenant. She served at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska, providing logistical support to missions along the Chinese and Russian coasts. She also served in Spain and Italy. Kwiatkowski was then assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA), eventually becoming a speechwriter for the agency's director. After leaving the NSA in 1998 she became an analyst on sub-Saharan Africa policy for the Pentagon. Kwiatkowski was in her office in the Pentagon when it was attacked on September 11, 2001. From May 2002 to February 2003 she served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia directorate (NESA). While at NESA, she wrote a series of anonymous articles, Insider Notes from the Pentagon which appeared on the website of David Hackworth. Kwiatkowski left NESA in February 2003 and retired from the Air Force the following month.

Writer and commentator

In April 2003 Kwiatkowski began writing a series of articles for the libertarian website LewRockwell.com. In June of that year she published an article in the Ohio Beacon Journal, "Career Officer Does Eye-Opening Stint Inside Pentagon," which attracted additional notice. Since February 2004 she has written a biweekly column ("Without Reservations") for the website MilitaryWeek.com.

Her most comprehensive writings on the subject of a corrupting influence of the Pentagon on intelligence analysis leading up to the Iraq War appeared in a series of articles in The American Conservative magazine in December 2003 and in a March 2004 article on Salon.com. In the latter piece ("The New Pentagon Papers") she wrote:

I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.

Kwiatkowski described how a clique of officers led by retired Navy Captain Bill Luti, assistant secretary of defense for NESA and former aide to Dick Cheney when the latter was Secretary of Defense, took control of military intelligence and how the "Office of Special Plans" (OSP) grew and eventually turned into a censorship and disinformation organism controlling the NESA.

Following the American Conservative and Salon articles, Kwiatkowski began to receive criticism from several conservative sources that supported President Bush's policies. Michael Rubin of the National Review argued she had exaggerated her knowledge of the OSP's workings and claimed she had ties to Lyndon LaRouche. Republican U.S. Senator Jon Kyl criticized her in a speech on the Senate floor. On a Fox News program, host John Gibson and former Republican National Committee communications director Clifford May described her as an anarchist. Kwiatkowski responded by saying, among other points, that she had never supported or dealt with LaRouche. She requested and received a written apology from Senator Jon Kyl for his false statements about her.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to her writings Kwiatkowski has appeared as a commentator in the documentaries Hijacking Catastrophe, Honor Betrayed and Why We Fight.

Politics

Kwaitkowski has been a registered member of the U.S. Libertarian Party since 1994 and spoke at the party's national convention in 2004. She is a member of the Liberty and Power group weblog at the History News Network.

A number of Libertarian Party members and supporters have encouraged Kwiatkowski to seek the Party's presidential nomination in the past few election cycles. On April 15, 2007, Kwiatkowski received the New Hampshire Libertarian Party's 2008 vice-presidential nomination, within a couple of weeks she declined the nomination. In 2007, she announced her support for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

2012 U.S. House of Representatives candidacy

Main article: United States House of Representatives elections in Virginia, 2012

In February 2011, a Federal Elections Commission filing declared the Friends of Karen Kwiatkowski were drafting her to run for congress in Central Virginia in the 2012 election.

On August 18, 2011, Kwaitkowski formally announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives seat in Virginia's 6th District. She is challenging ten-term incumbent Representative Bob Goodlatte for the nomination.

Personal life

Kwiatkowski currently lives with her family in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and is a farmer and part-time professor. She has four children and three grandchildren.

Books

• Kwiatkowski, Karen (2000). African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) past, present, and future?. Peacekeeping Institute, Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College. 
• Kwiatkowski, Karen (2001-10-01). Expeditionary Air Operations in Africa: Challenges and Solutions. Air University Press. ISBN 978-1585661008. 
• Griffin, David Ray; Peter Dale Scott (2006-08-23). 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, Vol. 1. Karen Kwiatkowski: Assessing the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: Olive Branch Press. ISBN 978-1566566599. 

Anonymous essays 2002-2003

• Deep Throat Returns: Insider Notes from The Pentagon, Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski's anonymous essays while still at the Pentagon. (Anonymous essays number 1 to 39)
• Insider Notes from The Pentagon: Ready to go to war?, January 31, 2003. (Anonymous essay number 40)
• Insider Notes from The Pentagon: Fear of God, February 3, 2003. (No.41)
• Insider Notes from The Pentagon: Life is Tough All Over, February 8, 2003. (No.42)
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love CBW, March 10, 2003. (No.47)
• The Souffle has Fallen, March 29, 2003. (No.49)
• Insider Notes from The Pentagon: Those Awful Turks, May 28, 2003. (No.51)

See also

• Oil Factor

External links

• Karen Kwiatkowski archives at lewrockwell.com (more than 250 articles and interviews)
• Karen for Congress, official 2012 Congressional campaign site
• Karen Kwiatkowski, entry on SourceWatch
• Liberty and Power Group Blog
• Center for Cooperative Research Profile of Karen Kwiatkowski
• The New Pentagon Papers, an article by Kwiatkowski that appeared on Salon.com
• Archive of articles by Karen Kwiatkowski on LewRockwell.Com
• List of articles on militaryweek.com
• "Conscientious Objector", an article by Kwiatkowski, originally appearing in The American Conservative
• Honor Betrayed page on veteransforpeace.org
• The Pentagon Insider Who Spread Rumors that Sounded Anti-Semitic by Edwin Black appearing on History News Network
• Web of Conspiracies by Michael Rubin appearing on National Review Online
• Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear, and the Selling of American Empire
• Democracy Now, September 10, 2004 Hijacking Catastrophe
• Democracy Now, October 22, 2004 The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror
• Karen Kwiatkowski's 2002-2003 archives Deep Throat Returns: Insider Notes from The Pentagon
• Knight Ridder News, July 31, 2003 Career Officer Does Eye-Opening Stint Inside Pentagon
• Inter Press Service, August 5, 2003 War Critics Zero In on Pentagon Office
• Inter Press Service, August 7, 2003 Pentagon Office Home to Neo-Con Network
• If Americans Knew, December 1, 2003 Israelis walked through the Pentagon to Feith's office like they owned the place
• Interhemispheric Resource Center, February 12, 2004 Office of Special Plans
• Inter Press Service, October 28, 2005 A Formidable Hawk Goes Down
• Mother Jones, January 2004 The Lie Factory
• Democracy Now, December 18, 2003 The Lie Factory - Neocons & the OSP Pushed Disinformation and Bogus Intelligence
• In These Times, April 12, 2004 Outside the Inside
• In These Times, October 24, 2004 The Bush team’s foreign policy disregarded reality and ignored actuality
• Democracy Now, August 8, 2003 Ex-Pentagon Official Suggests Bush Administration Should Face War Crimes Tribunal
• Interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, November 2, 2003 Pentagon Whistle Blower
• Interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, May 22, 2004 An Insider's Look at the March to War
• Interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, September 21, 2004 Timothy McSweeney
• Interview with Karen Kwiatkowski, June 16, 2005 Daily Kos
• Ten questions and answers, with Karen Kwiatkowski, October 25, 2005 Unknown News
• Daily Kos Karen Kwiatkowski
• After Downing Street, June 16, 2005 Written Testimony of Karen Kwiatkowski
• Karen Kwiatkowski's video interview California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
• Democracy Now, June 29, 2005 Former Pentagon Insider Blasts Bush's Iraq Speech and Repeated References to 9/11
• Karen Kwiatkowski's audio interviews on The Charles Goyette Show
• Karen Kwiatkowski's audio interviews The Weekend Interview Show with Scott Horton
• Brian Lamb. Karen discusses her service in the Air Force, Pentagon & more C-SPAN, April 2, 2006.
• Karen Kwiatkowski's radio show American Forum
• Interview With Kwiatkowski: Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran
• Interview with Karen Kwiatkowski on Liberty Cap Talk Live with Todd Andrew Barnett