AIM Myth Busters Shine the Light on "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"

Here is the book American Indian Mafia by Joe and John Trimbach. The book exposes the terrible crimes of the American Indian Movement (AIM)---crimes they mendaciously blamed on others.

The AIM Myth Busters have a new post (reposted below) titled "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: 9-Year Old Report Exposed as Anti-American Propaganda."

The true history of the American Indian Movement (AIM) leadership is one of violence, mayhem, and the despicable efforts to blame it on others. And so bringing the perpetrators to justice and telling the true story of the American Indian Movement’s crimes against the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation is good news for Indian Country. American Indian Mafia has arguably provided Indian America with the first truthful account of AIM’s rise and fall. But not everyone is happy that the truth is finally seeing the light of day. Particularly bothered are the self-anointed “historians” of the AIM legacy who appear indignant when challenged by the facts. Over the last three decades, the revisionists have come to expect agreement, or at least tacit assent with, a history built on sham research and bound with conspiracy threads. They do not like their version of Pine Ridge history questioned by anyone, even by people who were there.

A good example of adulterated scholarship was provided by Washington-based attorney Paul Wolf. In 2001, Wolf oversaw a report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Commission about alleged civil rights violations against AIM and other dissident groups. Central to Wolf’s arguments were his accusations regarding COINTELPRO, the FBI’s counter-intelligence program originally designed to disrupt the Communist Party’s infiltration of America. While there were some abuses of COINTELPRO in its final years, Wolf’s presentation has proven to be a distinctly unreliable source of information for telling us about it. After reading American Indian Mafia, you’ll see that all of Wolf’s assertions regarding COINTELPRO and the American Indian Movement, for example, are either distortions or outright lies. Also telling, Wolf’s report overlooks the fact that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover formally terminated all COINTELPRO operations on April 28, 1971, well before AIM violence attracted the attention of federal investigators.

Not surprisingly, Wolf blogged that the facts in American Indian Mafia should be dismissed as the non-specific remarks of an old former FBI Agent. You gotta love that, a civil-rights lawyer in favor of age discrimination. Curious as well, Wolf chose to post his views at Native American blog sites, where Indian Country readers are often critical of fat-cat, white lawyers. (Note to the red-haired attorney from the authors: We know Indians. Indians are our friends. Mr. Wolf, you’re no Indian!)

The problem with Wolf’s report, as he surely must have figured out by now, is that it is mostly propaganda designed to advance a political agenda. Wolf’s credibility is not helped by virtue of his co-authors, among them John Conyers, Cynthia McKinney, and Sheila Jackson Lee, all members of Congress conned into believing in Wolf’s assertions. These politicians take the position that there were massive government abuses enacted against the Black Panthers, a group of extremists from the violent 1960s. Again, while there may have been some truth to the allegations, it is impossible to tell from this highly falsified report.

Want more proof that Wolf’s rant is political horse hockey? Consider that defrocked Professor Ward Churchill lent his expertise in research, and that Left-wing ideologue Noam Chomsky is listed as an unbiased contributor. Wolf howls about everything from the assumed subversion of the press to the plight of “political prisoner” and convicted killer Leonard Peltier. Even Jimmy Carter is implicated in a vast conspiracy to deprive citizens of their rights under the guise of promoting American security. The unsuspecting reader is thus treated to the usual mantra of an all-powerful government subverting the rights of the common man, with solutions founded in rank socialism.

Wolf’s report also proved to be the perfect vehicle from which attorney Bruce Ellison could construct plausible alibis for the murder of AIM member Anna Mae Aquash. This is the same Bruce Ellison who, for over 30 years, has been in the business of blaming the FBI for the crime while skillfully diverting attention away from his own alleged involvement in Anna Mae's murder—nice work if you can get it. Do you suppose the U.N.’s High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, to whom the report was presented, had a clue about any of this? Of course, the real travesty of justice was not the actions of government Agents who faithfully and legally did their jobs. It is rather the legitimacy granted those who practice the same type of dishonesty and recklessness in print they accuse others of having committed in upholding the law.

Wolf did not get very far before another blogger [here] pointed out that he failed to note numerous references to COINTELPRO in American Indian Mafia all of which demolish his arguments. No wonder. Referencing the inconvenient truths in Mafia would have exposed Wolf’s report as the fraud that it is. Wolf and his political bedfellows cannot afford to analyze American Indian Mafia on its merits; that would require far too much honesty and integrity. It appears that so far, Native Americans who are not fooled by the usual AIM smoke and mirrors are among the book’s strongest supporters. They know the truth and they see through Wolf’s sheepish attempts to run from it.