George Shrub's Double-Dealing Arms For Ayatollahs, Cash For Contras, Scam Caper Crisis Affair Rap-Up
Dave LippmanLanguage: English
GEORGE SHRUB'S
Double-Dealing
Arms for Ayatollahs
Cash for Contras
Scam
Caper
Crisis
Affair
RAP-UP
plundered from Dave Lippman
To be read aloud, rhythmically (With feeling)
Declassified 1988 by the Committee to Intervene Anywhere
Come all you good citizens give me a listen
About a few facts that you mighta been missin
The Iran-contra scandal mighta left you in doubt
So here's the background that didn't come out
We begin the story back in '59
When an island paradise called Cuba...was mine
When Bautista pulled out, some folks lost clout
And some felt sort of undone
Like Bautista1s partner in the gambling trade
Meyer Lansky, you know the one
Lansky sent his lieutenant, John Roselli
To a meeting to do some mixin
With a right-hand man to Howard Hughes
At the behest of Richard Nixon
Down at the NSC they all did agree
To concoct a contra war
Operation 40 with a shooter team
And you can guess who that was for
The shooters were led by Santo Trafficante
Pharmaceutical dealer, you might say
He sent Felix Rodriguez to Bolivia
To track down a dude named Che
Luis Posada, Chi Chi Quintera
Were the dudes who bore the brunt
Plus a plumber named Sturgis
But the man with the plan was E. Howard Hunt
After they fizzled at the Bay of Pigs
A different dude drew the battle lines
Theodore Shackley from the CIA
With his sidekick, Thomas Clines
We were damned if we did and damned if we couldn't
Half way in but Mr. Kennedy wouldn't
Things were getting downright Korean
So we beat a retreat from the Caribbean
But there was a little problem of means to ends
I'm talkin bout the Cubans, that is, our friends
We had to keep alive their dreams of glory
And believe me, they come up later in the story
The boys in the mob got pulled off the job
JFK wouldn't play along
I'm not sayin they did the deed in Dallas
But hey, I could be wrong
We pulled a few stunts that were later outlawed
We gave a few friends a boost
But when you're running amok and mucking abroad
Sometimes the chickens come home to roost
Assassination teams are the stuff of dreams
Sometimes I get the urge to snuff
But the guys I hire are so full of fire
Sometimes they hit the wrong president
...and stuff
I said Shackley, dude, if that didn't faze ya
How about a stint in Southeast Asia?
He said "Gimme space and gimme Clines
We'll make sure Laos realigns"
So off they went to stay the course
And put together a Joint Task Force
The natives were restless and rabble rousin
They had to assassinate a hundred thousand
Awesome!..The dude don't spare the rod!
Secord joined the CIA in ‘66
And they taught him a whole new bag of tricks
He worked for Air America in Thailand
Singing this land was your land, but now it's my land
Old Secord was quite an intellectual
He felt foreign policy was ineffectual
So he wrote up a paper on covert war
Said you gotta show Congress and the press the door
His master's thesis, all the Ed Meeses
Just had to applaud
Tradin drugs for guns on official runs
But please don't call it fraud
And Second's boss in the operation
Sent the Com-symps runnin for their mommies
None other than General John K. Singlaub
World's number one fighter of suspected commies
While over in Laos the team had a buddy
A dude by the name of Vang Pao
Three opium dealers shared his trade
But that was two too many to allow
It was a drug war, air power settled the score
Secord was the head air man
Pretty soon Vang Pao was the very top poppy
Thanks to the Shackley plan
Vang organized an army, so grateful was he
To participate in the designs
Of that closed cabal, 3 S's and a C:
Secord, Sinrjlaub, Shackley and Clines
From among the Hmong came the shockest of troops
To be the CIA's brawn
Later they lost, and at such a cost
But Shackley had moved on
Shackley went to Saigon, became chief of station
And at a hotel in his new location
He arranged a meeting that would up the ante
Between Vang Pao and a good ole boy
Named Santo Trafficante
White Gold...Golden Triangle Tea...
It was '69 when Shackley and Clines
Closed out their career in Asia
With a boom and a bang and many a whimper
Mass scale Euthanasia
The war was a mess, as you could guess
But from the heroin trade they made millions
For the Phoenix program which cleaned up
60,000 civilians
Well with that, Ted's qualifications were clear
They made him head of operations for the Western Hemisphere
Down south it got hot, they had to go get Chile
Ted and Kissinger cured them of Allende
Soon after, Ted was switched again
To head Far Eastern operations
The war was winding down, they had to move
Some stuff to other nations
Took the guns and butter on outa Nam
And stashed it over in Thailand
And their pal Vang Pao had extra cash around
Which they took to a bank called Nugen Hand
An Australian Bank in an outback way
Which was close to the Company
Funded by officials of Air America
Of which I had custody
For this part of the scheme we recruited the cream
Once again, familiar faces
Clines and Secord personally carried millions
In their own suitcases
Now some of the money was slithered back
To fatten up some my-wing PAC's
From the Nugen Hand we could rule the land
With secret dollar attacks
The hearings of 75 were just too live
They were getting out of control
We believe in separation of Church and State
So we put Frank Church on the dole
The Senator had us nervous...in the service
Yes the Senate held a hearing on assassinations
And things began to get a bit smelly
In a barrel at the bottom of Biscayne Bay
They found the star witness, John Roselli
...'member him?.. .Somebody dismembered him
So they sent three Feds to protect the next witness
Citizen Sam Giancana
But the agents ran errands, no Sam, case closed
Check it out, if you wanna
The report of the committee wasn't too pretty
Said JFK might have been creamed
By a conspiracy of mafia and Cuban exiles
And some super-secret hit team
By that year it was becoming clear
That Shackley was rated tops
They brought him home, made him subdirector
of worldwide covert ops
He was a man of action on whom you could depend
When shove came to push
And that was known full well to the company director
A man by the name of Bush
Ted had his ticket, he was on his way
To becoming bg cheese of the whole CIA
And Secord was ridin on a movable feat
Directing Pentagon sales in the Middle East
Things were gettin dangerous in Iran
Shackley was quick on the draw
He used the skills he had earlier developed
To develop a cleanup squad for the Shah
He needed a tough nut to crack the unrest
He hired a dude, said go out and kill, son
I know you won't give up, I know you're the best
Go live up to the name of Edwin Wilson
...Dangerous!
But certain types of operations were becoming harder
In the wake of Watergate
The government was gettin a bad reputation
So Ted said, let's incorporate
EATSCO was the name, gun runnin was the game
With Wilson, Secord and the whole team
After Camp David they cleaned up in Egypt _
It was an arms salesman's dream
Buyin weapons at cost, not a moment was lost
They were resold at an inflated price
The profits were stashed with the opium cash
In Nugen Hand, to be precise
But the team got into a spot of trouble
Sellin explosives to Khadafy, you'll recall
The DA turned purple, told Wilson and Terpil
I'll get you, and I'll get you all
This is clearly a moment for damage control
I said, dusting off my Gucci
Shackley and Clines were obliged to resign
By my deputy Chief, Carlucci
Things were bad, things were bleak
Wilson got more and moroser
Shack and Clines sent him off to feed at the trough
Of a son of a bitch named Somoza
These were private Americans, patriots all
From a mile away you could hear a dollar fall
But now was the time for my boys to fear
Cause Somoza was all that was fallin that year
The arms started flowin to the national guard
but before too long they were feathered and tarred
And up at the White House you could hear the man's mantra
They're seizin our coke plant, Hey, I'm a contra!
In June '81, came a White House meeting
It seemed the contras weren’t quite competing
So Reagan, Casey, Bush and Meese
Took up the contra case, told Secord to cease
...Chill, dude.
But the CIA soon found training too confining
They escalated to harbor mining
This created an uproar and great melancholy
For the dude who planned it, a guy named Ollie
So he got on the horn to the Secret Team
Said North, the South is part of our dream
Please carry the ball as far as you can
And by the way I got an errand for you, in Iran
These are the Voyages of the Enterprise
To boldly go where no Lieutenant Colonel has gone before
To seek out new hostages
And snow tires
You see it seems our side has run out of luck
Some terrorists have kidnapped William Buckley
The chief of CIA station in Beirut
Who's our top assassination man, to boot!
Now I'm not sayin just what he knows
But he might spill it if his captors chose
There are several incidents he might speak about
And that's a situation we can do without
Well the boys got the picture and off they went
With a cake and a bible from the President
When they got there Buckley was six feet under
Still they sold the arms, don't it make ya wonder!
After the harbor mining, Congress said we're confining
The CIA to its coop
So Bush, Meese and Casey subcontracted out
Took the government right out of the loop
But the team didn't trust it, Wilson was busted
They were wary of White House intrigue
So Casey called Ollie and Ollie called Singlaub
Of the World Anti-Communist League
From Korea to Laos and now to the League
Singlaub never knew the meaning of fatigue
Ever-faithful to his compatriots he's
Commander of a band of forget-me-Nazi's ...Radical!
Now that may sound weird but they are much-feared
This collection of clowns called WACL
And a certain gang of old Kuomintang
Is their forward tackle
Another good old goon is the Reverend Moon
Publisher of the Washington Times
Having Moonies on board has been a boon
They may be slimes, but they're our slimes
People like these don't tend to appease
They're always willin to up the odds
That's why they volunteered to create and train
Central American death squads
Freedom fighters...fightin terrorism...WACL style
The scene shifts to Costa Rica (That's Spanish for Rich Man's Coast - and a very special rich man: Big John Hull)
(tune: Beverly Hullbullies):
Well the first thing to know is John's a millionaire
Sandinistas said, John move away from there
Said Costa Rica ain't the place for you to be
But he loaded up his guns and went on a shootin spree
(tune: Big Bad John):
Every mornin at the ranch you could see him arrive
Guns in by 9, coke out by 5
Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the brain
And everybody knew you could get cocaine from Big John
The planes flew in from the north with weapons
To Hull House on the border
Refilled with snow which in Colombia they grow
They returned to Miami in short order
To a man named Paco Chanes
Old friend of the Cuban mob - I mean, group
Who packed the snow in shrimp cans
Many millions to recoup
The two top dogs in the industry
Jorge Ochoa and Pablo Escobar
Were Colombian corporate citizens
Who ruled the roost from a Jaguar
One might say Ochoa and Escobar
Were the new edition of Vang Pao
With Paco Chanes playing Trafficante
All of whom I disavow
But word trickled out, everyone began to shout
The Congress was properly appalled
But by the time they got around to holding the hearings
Very little could be recalled
Including the President, who said:
I didn't do it, and if I did it
Well, I must not a been too wid it
I was on medication, and I don't mean drugs
I don't recall authorizin any thugs
To send M-16's to the freedom fighters
That's just a lotta bull From some back-biters
Who want to see the executive weakened
So we can't remain a liberty beacon
In our hemisphere, and it is our hemisphere
Cause Nicaragua's not free, if the Soviets want it
They've got to dig deep and pay us for it
I've said it before and I'll say it again
America will stand by its friends
Like the Shah and Marcos, keep ‘em in the steeple
Defending their governments from their people
...that's fresh!
To sum it up, said the President
I don't know what else to say
You just get the best people for the job
And then get out of their way
Don't call me, cause I can't be reached
I'm tryin not to be impeached
OK, I bungle sometimes
I can't remember when I made the first blunder
Now comes the climax, Ollie North to the witness stand
His opening statement took four days
Hey, give the dude a hand
They said Colonel, did you tell us all you knew
On November 8th?
He said I misled you, ok, no lie
But I misled you in good faith
It may have been illegal but it wasn't wrong
Lemme tell ya, life's a beast
When you're caught between Iraq and a country
Of strategic importance in the Middle East
Up against the Iron Curtain, Herbert Hoover said
and I quote
"Longstanding American concepts of fair play
Must be reconsidered"
And that's all he wrote
But Hoover wrote for Mr. Truman, and Truman set the stage
For containing Communism, which was quickly becoming the rage
Old Harry S. stated something we don't normally talk about
That even when the people want it, socialism is out!
Our solution to every social problem is to pave it
Sometimes you have to destroy the world
In order to save it ...radical!
Contributed by Riccardo Venturi - 2007/3/19 - 19:39
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by GEORGE SHRUB
The World's Only Known Singing C.I.A. Agent
plundered by Dave Lippman
to be read aloud rhytmically, with feeling
*Parts of the Rap-Up are recorded in concert on "Shrub in 88!!"
George Shrub has been traveling throughout his globalized domain, sharing his Point of View (the Right One) so that people won't need their own. He employs anti-folk songs and interventionary anthems to explain (and enforce) that the business of America is none of your business, that unions are never civil, and that the proper place for himself, like Wal-Mart, is everywhere.
Lippman , meanwhile, has been trying to keep up with his shadow, Shrub, touring closely behind him. He continues to afflict the complacent, occasionally rhyming in the process. Dave has been known to take the air out of the windbags of the week, de-distort history, and rewrite the classics with parody and thrust.
Mr. Lippman is the founder of the International Federation of Investigative Songwriters, which no one has joined. He remains one of America's foremost non-corporate comedians.