RAY MCGOVERN : Please Don’t Trust Fox News, There Was NO Heckler

EDITORS’ NOTE :  On February 15, 2011,  Ray McGovern, U.S. Army veteran and former senior CIA analyst whose duties included preparing the President’s Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates, was beaten, handcuffed, violently dragged out and arrested by ‘two goons’ (in his words) after he stood up and turned his back ‘silently protesting’ a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at George Washington University, in which she ironically called for internet freedom and condemned governments in the Middle East especially Iran for arresting protesters and not allowing free expression.

The term “heckler,” is certainly inappropriate for what he was doing, is defamatory and a false accusation by FOX NEWS.

Ray McGovern gives Press TV his own account of what exactly happened.

[A rushed press tv transcript below]

Press TV: Would you give us your own account of exactly what happened during and after the speech?

McGovern: Let me just start out by saying that your lead-in indicates that you are relying on Fox News, which is a notoriously unreliable source. There was no heckler. Iwas the person there. I said not a word. I stood silently with my back to the Secretary lest she get the idea that everyone in that whole auditorium agreed with her war-mongering policies.

I was standing silently, and I was jumped on by a man in a regular suit, then another person in a police uniform. I still do not know who jumped me, but I was taken outside where nobody was watching; I was manhandled; I have cuts and lacerations all over my body, and the important thing is that I was not heckling anyone.

I was completely silent. So I was taken completely by surprise, and by the time I realized what was happening to me, I had a chance to yell “So! This is what America has become!” Then I turned to my people that were pulling me out of this auditorium and said, “Who are you?” and the odd thing is that to this day I do not know who they were. But luckily there are photos on the Internet.

We will be able to find out who ordered that 220-pound muscular man who manhandled me; who ordered him to do that to a peaceful person not making a sound. Many still cameras captured exactly what I was doing and what I was not doing. I just finish up again by saying “Please do not trust Fox News. There was no heckler.”

Press TV: Mr. McGovern what happened after they dragged you out? From what we understand you were put in jail and left bleeding for quite a while. Also please, elaborate for our viewers what was the stance you were trying to make?

McGovern: Well, the stance that I was making is that Hillary Clinton is a person who has been an admirer of every war she has heard of. She was a great supporter of the Iraq war even though she knew better, because I told her, what a catastrophe it would be. She is a great supporter of the Afghanistan war, where many thousands of people have met their deaths, and she is in the forefront of agitating for war on Iran, and that comes through in her speech here.

I was amazed after I was released from prison and was able to go to the hospital and get my wounds bound. I read the speech, and it was quite remarkable. It was a speech about protests, and she is saying here in the speech – I just quote two or three sentences – that “Iran this week is once again using violence against protesters seeking basic freedoms. People protest. They stand. They march and chant. And the authorities track them and block them and arrest them.” There is something Kafaesque about this.

She is saying this; three paragraphs; and she stood silently watching me in the fourth row being pounced upon by these goons and unceremoniously ejected from the auditorium. She finishes with this sentence: “Iran is awful, because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people.”

And here I am being thrown out, bleeding profusely from these wounds that you can see there, and thrown in prison without any medical attention; kept there for three and a half hours, and it was myself that had to take a taxi cab to the hospital to get my wounds attended to; my wrists X-rayed to see what damage had been done.

Now fortunately I am going to survive, but I am thinking about people who are less able to defend themselves, not that I try to defend myself, but less able to contend with this kind of violence. And for Hillary Clinton to be talking about peaceful means of protest, in the same speech at which she continued as she watched me directly in front of her, being pounced upon and violated, there is a little too much to take.

Press TV: Indeed, this was very different from how Rumsfeld reacted when you peacefully confronted him as well. What do you say to that, and also, can you elaborate on the US’s double stance as far as what is going on in the Middle East these days; Bahrain, Yemen etc.?

McGovern: I think you have said it all when you say “double stance.” We are very much in favor of protest when it seems to be succeeding, except in our country. We like to keep the lid on. But what happened, of course, was that I was arrested and I am charged; I have to go to court. They said that I was guilty of “unruly conduct.” So there is a law against that, and I am smiling now, because there were about sixteen cameras there and there was indeed unlawful conduct, but it was not I who was doing the unlawful conduct. There were two goons. And the main question is “Who told them to violate me? Who told them to give me this kind of treatment?” We are going to find that out.

Press TV: We hope that you do, but from what I understand the Veterans Group, which you are also a part of, has demanded an apology from the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Have you gotten any response from them?

McGovern: Well, we are now holding our breath. You see, when you are the sole remaining super power in the world, you do not need to apologize for anything. I will give you five dollars if I get an apology from Hillary Clinton.

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Vets for Peace Demands Apology from Hilliary Clinton