by Len Hart, the Existentialist CowboyThe Bush administration counts on Americans having short memories. Since the beginning of the year, the Bush administration has conducted a campaign of lies and misinformation about widespread domestic spying.
Bush has lied about it, denied, acknowledged it, and, most egregiously, Bush has said that if he orders it, it's legal.
Interestingly, none of the various cover stories are consistent with one another. How convenient for Bush should you forget one of his past lies!
But among the numerous and conflicting official cover stories is, not surprisingly, a most pernicious cover story: had there been an NSA domestic spying program in place prior to 911 the attacks might have been prevented. That is, of course, an outrageous, bald-faced lie. The attacks might have been prevented anyway!
Moreover, the measures Bush has taken since then have utterly failed to address the issue of terrorism. But while there has been no war on terrorism, Bush has made the world less safe by playing at war, rattling sabres, disrupting lives and threatening sovereignties. He is a sixty year old adolescent playing at war for ego and glory and the world is nearer to the nuclear brink because of it.
That Bush ignored numerous warnings is heavily documented. And there is yet another new story from AlterNet:
Back in the year 2004, Presidential advisor Richard Clarke was revealed by CBS News to have told Bush that there was no link between Iraq and the attacks of 911. Clarke's admonition had legs, even then. [See: Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes] Saddam's was, after all, a secular regime! But Al Qaida —we were repeatedly told —consisted of raving, militant Islamic fanatics. Even then, Bush's cover story made no sense whatsoever, but even now, you will find among Bush's dwindling faithful a few die hard idiots who still spread the bunkum that Bush's attack on Iraq was but a part of the larger "war on terror".The 9/11 Story That Got Away
By Rory O'Connor and William Scott Malone, AlterNet. Posted May 18, 2006.
In 2001, an anonymous White House source leaked top-secret NSA intelligence to reporter Judith Miller that Al Qaida was planning a major attack on the United States. But the story never made it into the paper. ...
It's all nonsense! Bush has never waged a "war on terrorism"! Afghanistan —where bin Laden was allowed to escape —was not it! And Iraq —which even Bush concedes had nothing to do with 911 —was not it!
Consider Bush's official conspiracy theory with respect to 911. It goes something like this. Bin Laden sits at the head of a vast and super secret world wide conspiracy the likes of which has not been seen since Smersh. There are several things wrong with the official conspiracy theory but let's deal with the most obvious ones.
- Bush ignored hard evidence from top intelligence officials between April and September of 2001 about an impending attacks on U.S. soil. Why? If Bush really wanted Bin Laden, he blew SEVERAL opportunities. One of them was in July, prior to 911. The Guardian and the French newspaper Le Figaro reported that bin Laden received dialysis treatment for a period of some 10 days at the American hospital in Dubai, and while there, he was visited by a local CIA agent. It was also about this time that U.S. State Department officials were threatening Afghanistan with carpet bombing if the Taliban didn't come to terms on the proposed Unocal pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush had other opportunities to seize bin Laden but didn't. See: Alexander Cockburn: Bush was offered bin Laden and Blew It.
- Keep in mind, when the CIA was reported to have visited bin Laden in Dubai, 911 had not happened. But, already the Bush State Department was spoiling for war. All it needed was a pretext that the gullible American public would buy! It got it —conveniently, too conveniently —on 911!
Even Bush concedes that Saddam had nothing to do with the events of 911! Then why does Bush continue to cite the war against Iraq as justification for a widespread domestic surveillance program?
Briefly, Bush lied to the nation and the world in order to begin the war on Iraq; "terrorism" had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It was about oil. There were, arguably, no "terrorists" in Iraq before the American attack and invasion and, if terrorists are there now, it's because they are not stupid.
Bush likes to say that we fight them there rather than here.
Rather, Bush took the bait. The terrorists are most surely telling their own constituencies they are killing Americans in Iraq! But how many of what Bush calls "insurgents" are, in fact, terrorists? How many are simply Iraqis defending their own country against an illegal occupation by an aggressor? To that extent, they are protected by International Law. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, put it this way to Parliament during Britain's occupation of the American colonies:
If I were an American as I am an Englishman, I would never lay down my arms! Never! Never! NEVER!Now —about the real reasons for war against Iraq. Bush made promises to Dick Cheney's Halliburton, Condo Rice's Exxon-Mobil er al. It was not promised to them that oil prices would go down upon the American seizure of control over Iraqi oil fields and production! Rather, prices would go up and with them, the profits of big oil. Now —isn't that precisely what has happened? Just keep this in mind: it's hard to go wrong when you realize that nothing that Bush has ever said about anything has ever been in anyway true.
I have reinforcements
Wiretapping Wouldn't Have Prevented 9/11
History shows that it was secrecy and incompetence that helped the hijackers get on those planes.The Republican senator tossed Gen. Michael Hayden a big, fat softball of a question: "Do you think that if you had this program [of wiretaps without warrants] in place before Sept. 11th you might have prevented it?"
Gen. Hayden jumped right on it. He said that yes, if he had his secret powers then that he has today, he could have stopped al Qaida's plot.
Then he said, there were two guys in San Diego …
He was referring to Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar. George Bush also talks about them when he wants to justify wiretaps without warrants. The truth is that Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar are the poster boys for missed opportunities. If the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the White House had not screwed up so royally, mostly by cherishing their secrets, they would have had al Hasmi and al Mihdhar several times over. Here are the facts. ...
UN panel tells America to end torture and close Guantanamo
By Simon Freeman and agencies
A United Nations panel today made the strongest call yet on the United States to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and to disclose the locations of all of its rumoured secret prisons abroad.
The committee said it was "deeply concerned" that detainees were being held at the prison camp in Cuba for protracted periods without proper legal safeguards or reliable judicial justification.
The ten members of the UN Committee Against Torture also called upon President Bush to end the use of torture and cruel treatment in interrogation of detainees, citing sexual humiliation, mock drownings and the use of dogs to induce fear.
In a 11-page report published today, the panel urged the US to reveal the location of any of the secret prisons, believed to be in Egypt, Jordan and Eastern Europe, to which suspects are allegedly transported by special rendition for interview under conditions which violate human rights conventions. ...Some essential resources:
Is America Becoming a Police State?
The price of perpetual war is a police state, one in which a permanent state of "emergency" – the threat of a terrorist attack – is utilized to break down institutional safeguards, the system of constitutional checks and balances, that protect us from dictatorship.
The Most Dreaded Enemy of Liberty
by James Madison
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .
[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Executive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature. . . .
The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war . . . the power of raising armies . . . the power of creating offices. . . .
A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.
The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.
The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.
The separation of the power of creating offices from that of filling them, is an essential guard against the temptation to create offices for the sake of gratifying favourites or multiplying dependents.
James Madison was the fourth president of the United States. This is from Letters and Other Writings of James Madison.
10 comments:
Saw you interviewed Fritz Hollings. He used to be my senator, one of my favorite politicians of all time.
Like John Wayne a lot. "That's my steak, Valance."
Why thank ya' ma'am.
And, angryman, to be honest, I can't remember what I asked Fritz. It was awhile ago and I ain't tellin' my age. Still, I recall him as being well mannered, even elegant. He answered questions forthrightly, and had the kind of genuine regional accent that you don't hear much nowadays.
The anonymous source referred to in the Judith Miller story is widely believed to be Richard Clarke. Subsequent to 9/11 both Rumsfeld and Condi Rice claimed before Congress that the use of aircraft by al Qaeda was entirely unexpected which was a flat out lie. There was also all the overlooked foreign intelligence warnings.
Claims have been made that specific knowledge of the attacks on the twin towers was provided to Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Robert Wexler prior to 9/11 from con man turned FBI informant Randy Glass as part of Operation Diamondback. During an allegedly recorded meeting at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Grill in NY on July 22, 1999 Pakistani arms dealer Raja Abbas pointed towards the World Trade Center and stated "those towers are coming down." 1 2 3 The warnings were never acted upon.
(The story of Dr. Magdy Elamir and Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff referred to in the links makes for an interesting read about how this govt deals with terrorist financiers and arms merchants - generally they like them because they want to use them.)
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds pointed to extensive 9/11 warnings received by the FBI. The Bush admin has silenced her. 1 2
Then there was all the Able Danger stuff, the questions about a second Mohammed Atta, FBI agents Behrooz Sarshar and Colleen Rowley.
It's hard to say if 9/11 could have been avoided. Whether through incompetence - or something more sinister - the Bush administration certainly ignored or shut down warning lights across the board.
There actually is a "War On Terrorism" but, of course, it isn't what the Bushies say it is.
Fortunately or not, we have propagandized the world with entertainment products that promulgate the ability to waste resources as a status symbol, along with the idea of upward social mobility. Almost everyone now believes that they deserve it. But there aren't enough resources to do that for everyone. So the establishment has only two choices:(1) change their lifestyle to one that could be egalitarian and sustainable or (2) use force to keep the poor poor. Bush and Blair have pledged that they will use all the force available (i.e., nuclear weapons) to "maintain our lifestyle"--which is to say keep the poor, poor. So there is the inevitability of conflict, i.e., the "War on Terror". The Nonestablishment wants to be able to waste resources like we do and we don't want them to, so we have no choice except to kill one another.
It probably won't come to a world-wide Iraq-cum-Afghanistan. Our economy is based on the production and sale of junky imitations of the status symbols of the establishment. The next significant disaster (natural or terrorist) will scare people into limiting their purchases to necessities and the economy will collapse. So will China's, because they are thriving by selling us junk. When our economy collapses so will the world and we will experience the "Decline and Fall of Western Civilization".
When a crisis like that happens (or an individual gets close to death) there is a chance for him to change his ideas. (See the book called "Wholly holistic Evolution, Mr. Darwin" at http://we.karleklund.net for an explanation of why this works and why we have evolved to the stage we are in.) My version of the future (based on Norbert Weiner's 1948 idea that nobody will be ALLOWED to work unless they can do something better than a robot or computer--he grew up in Cambridge along with old money who thought waste was "bad taste") can be found in http://utopia.karleklund.net . Other sites can be found through http://index.karleklund.net.
Yes, Fuzzflash, you're probably right about the Judy Miller- Richard Clarke thing. Some of the blogs that follow the neocons closely are saying this because Miller is joined at the hip with the cons and she appears to have been working for them on the Iraq WMDs thing. But, you're right, Miller is not in Clarke's league.
I wrote all the other stuff as, perhaps, a resource for cowboy readers who might not know what the 9/11 intelligence objections were. Don't worry, I don't really know very much and I'm embarrassed to mention things twice, so you can expect cake recipes from me in future postings.
Let's look forward to the day when punting on the ponies is our major interest. Above all we should avoid - as the Chinese say - the curse of living in 'interesting times'. Hang in there.
Great writing, Len! You're my idol.
Just remember that a departing Bush will give unconditional pardons to Rove, Cunningham, Libby etc. Also, there is a policy of pre-emptive war, so to cover the possibility that the repugs may not be charged till Bush leaves office he's going to issue pre-emptive pardons for everybody, Cheney included. He knows the Hague awaits him for war crimes so he'll be going for the Son of Sam defence and calling Barney as his lead witness. Fitzy's not going to win against this sob, I tell ya...
Len:
Yeah, Fritz had the old school Charleston accent that people got from growing up there and living there their whole life. Unfortunately, that accent is long gone.
"Just remember that a departing Bush will give unconditional pardons to Rove, Cunningham, Libby etc."
Not if he's impeached or forced to resign...
Wow...EXCELLENT COMMENTS, ALL!
Great way to start the day. Stay tuned; I hope to write what I hope will be pertinent responses .
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