Gateway Pacific Terminal Consultant Threatens Journalists

In a tragic comedy worthy of Shakespeare, Craig Cole, political consultant to Pacific International Terminals, has threatened two journalists and publications for exposing an apparent anti-Indian strategy by his employer, and for linking the anti-Indian hate campaign by right-wing media and the Tea Party to the political climate Pacific International Terminals actively created through its inflammatory deceptions, cynically exploited by hate campaign entrepreneurs working in tandem with white supremacists. As one of the journalists threatened by Cole, I note that my collegial relationship with Whatcom Watch contributor Sandra Robson has been especially productive, generating positive responses from human rights organizers and Lummi Nation leaders opposing Pacific International Terminals’ callous disregard for indigenous human rights, as well as the laws of the United States and State of Washington. Given the importance of providing “thorough, fair, insightful and important” information about the Wall Street/Tea Party convergence against Lummi Nation — and indeed against the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians — Cole’s threat cannot go unanswered.

Sandra Robson’s January 2014 Whatcom Watch article about Native American Rights and Gateway Pacific Terminal, in footnote number nine, cites my May 5, 2013 article at IC Magazine titled White Power on the Salish Sea. White Power on the Salish Sea notes the role of Craig Cole, as political consultant to Gateway Pacific Terminal proponents, who were exposed in Robson’s article as apparently pursuing an anti-Indian strategy.

On February 3, 2014, Craig Cole left a comment on Intercontinental Cry Magazine editor John Schertow’s January 5, 2014 article, requesting a US mailing address for IC. On February 7, Whatcom Watch received a 4-page letter from Cole about Robson’s January article, accusing her and myself of libel, and demanding that Whatcom Watch print an apology to him, as composed by him, threatening that Robson and Whatcom Watch are thus “put on notice.”

On page four of the April 16, 2013 issue of Cascadia Weekly is my letter to the editor titled Givers and Takers, in which I opine that the April 6, 2013 CERA anti-Indian conference covered by IC Magazine and Cascadia Weekly should come as no surprise after a year of mobilized anti-Indian resentment over the Gateway Pacific Terminal. Shortly after it appeared, Craig Cole phoned Cascadia Weekly‘s editor Tim Johnson, protesting his choice to print my letter.

As I remarked to my colleague Ms. Robson in January, “I was thinking about Craig Cole and how he must be tormented by the groundswell of moral support for Lummi Nation from churches and human rights organizations. The only way for him to redeem himself at this point is to resign from his post with Pacific International Terminals, apologize to the Lummi people, and announce his regret for not having done so sooner.”