D'Souza : Cultural Left Responsible for 9-11

Dinesh D'Souza, author of "Illiberal Education" and "The End of Racism" has decided to set us all straight and let the world know that the "Cultural Left" are the true culprits responsible for 9-11 in his new book "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" (Random House).

From Newsmax

Although it has been officially embargoed before its release on Tuesday, January 16, it is already drawing some heavy gunfire from the left.

Their anger begins with D'Souza's own words: "In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11."

For sure, even some conservatives may do a double-take on that charge.

Would they? Obviously not Chris Wallace.

Newsmax continued...

But before every liberal in America blows a collective gasket, the term "cultural left" to D'Souza doesn't refer to the Democratic Party, or to all liberals. Nor is he saying that anyone on the cultural left actually attacked us on 9/11. And the book avoids much of the strident rhetoric seen in other "liberal-bashing" books.

Oh really? Count me among the skeptical on that point...

Despite the protestations of Newsmax, this argument is far from unfamiliar coming from the Right.

They still blame the Hippies for much of what is "Wrong" in America.

America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias.

Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

And that agenda would be what - Peace and Freedom in our Lifetime? Those Bastards.

However Dinesh's book apparently attempts to make a somewhat different point.

"I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world," explains D'Souza.

These are the true "root causes" liberals are always looking for, but seem to always miss or get wrong.

What he means by this is that the secular progressive left during the past few decades, with its focus on promoting and even glorifying (at home and abroad) what most of the world's more traditional societies see as depravity and atheism, has provoked a backlash among traditional, moderate Muslims who see their religious and moral values threatened by an aggressive, immoral, anti-religious crusade.

That's right boy and girls - it's the War on Christmas Gambit again.

Secular-Progressives (Or "S-P's" as Bully O'Lielly likes to say) have been waging a veritable jihad against religion and morallity - and that is the reason and "root cause" for the anti-American violence we've seen over last half-decade.

If Liberals have their way it'll be Gays and Straights Living Together, Chaos in the streets... and true religious traditionalist simply aren't having that, ok?

Gee, where have I heard that idea before? Hm, could it possibly Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson who on September 13, 2001 said...

FALWELL: And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil, first time, and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters; the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats, what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, if in fact God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.

PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'.

Yep, I was right. And did Pat Robertson step up and knock down this ridiculous fantasy? Er, not so much.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

JERRY FALWELL: Amen. Pat, did you notice yesterday? The ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, the People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang 'God Bless America' and said 'let the ACLU be hanged'. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time- calling upon God.

Call me silly if you will (just not to my face please), but I think I see a similarity between the Falwell/Robertson view - which was ginned up just two days after the tragedy and long before any specific culprit had been identified - and D'Souza's.

In a sense, he says, Muslims are right: The West (led by the American left) is waging a war against Islam, just as it is waging a war against traditional Christianity.

Muslims are not enraged by our political freedom or democracy, but by the left's abuse of that freedom, specifically the excessive sexualization of our society.

This decadence repulses most of the world's traditional and religious societies, just as it repulses and angers religious conservatives at home. D'Souza argues that American Christians and traditionalists have more in common with moderate traditional Muslims than they may realize. Ultimately, we should make common political cause with them to fight the cultural radicals, says D'Souza.

So let me get this one straight, Christian Conservatives have a lot in common with the Taliban (a point on which I happen to concur) and therefore should find common-cause with them against the left and their abuse of "freedom"?

Hmmm...

The battle we fight with Radical Extremists has nothing to do with the application of U.S. Foreign Policy, it's simply all 'dem Libruls fault? That's a great theory, too bad that isn't what Bin Laden says (From Imperial Hubris Page 129)

For God's sake, what are the documents that incriminate the Palestinian people that warrant the massacres against them, which have been going on for more than five decades at the hands of the Crusaders and the Jews. What is the evidence against the people of Iraq to warrant their blockade and being killed in away that in unprecedented in history. What documents incriminated the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina and warranted the Western Crusaders, with the United States at their head, to unleash their Serb ally to annihilate and displace the Muslim people in the region under UN cover. What is the crime of the Kashmiri people and what documents do the worshippers of cows possess to make them sanction their blood for more than fifty years. What have Muslims in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian republics committed to warrant being invaded by the brutal Soviet military regime and after it communisim's killing, annihilating, and displacing tens of millions of them. What evidence did the United States have the day it destroyed Afghanistan and killed and displaced the Muslims there. It even launched prior to that the unfair blockade of [the Afghans] under UN cover. Under the same cover indonesia was ripped apart; Muslims were forced to leave Timor... Under the UN cover too, it intervened in Somalia, killing and desecrating the land of Islam there. It is even the first to urge the Crusader ruler in the Philippines to annihilate our Muslim brothers there.

There are many other countless issues.

We say that all the Muslims that the international Crusader-Zionist machine is annihilating have not committed any crime other than to say God is our Allah.

Bin Laden sees what he is doing a defensive war against not just the social and cultural attacks of the west that D'Souza describes but also the physical and murderous attacks against Muslims by Christians and Jews in many parts in the world as a result of the actions and often inaction of the U.S. Government.

But let's be frank for moment, Bin Ladin is full of shit. It was America - and specifically Bill Clinton - who made going into Bosnia and ending the ethnic cleansing and genocide that was taking place against Muslims and Serb alike, a priority. Al-Qaeda tried to disrupt our efforts and were thwarted. We aren't responsible for what Russia did in Afghanistan, nor are we responsible for what is currently happening in Chechnya. It's not like Putin is really listening to us these days is it? We do not support Bush's hands-off response to the Israels aggressive policies with Palestine and Lebanon. The Left is not in accordance with Bin Laden's view of American foreign policy.

Yet there is one small glimmer of truth to Dinesh's argument in that Bin Laden does not want to conquer us - he wants to find common cause with us, only not exactly on D'souza's terms. In fact, he practically sounds like a dirty-hippie Liberal with his anti-materialism talk. Hubris Page 154.

A message to the American people: Peace be upon those who follow the right path. I aman honest adviser to you, I urge you to seek the joy of life and after life and to ridyourself of your dry, miserable and spiretless materialistic existence. I urge you to become Muslims, for Islam calls for the principle of "there is no God but Allah," and for justice and forbids injustice and criminality. I call on you to understand the lesson of the New York and Washington raids, which came in response to some of your previous crimes. The aggressor deserves punishment.

We call you to Islam; the last religion that has replaced all previous religions; the religion of good manners, sincerity, mercy, fear of Allah, kindness to others, justice between people, giving the rights to the people who deserve them, protection of people from oppressors and unjust acts; the religion which calls upon it followers to amr bi maroof (enjoin the good) and nahi an al-munkar (forbid the evil) with hand, tongue, and heart.

With this book D'Souza is yet again playing the blame the Liberals card that was his stock in trade a decade ago when he wrote "Racism" and "Illiberal Education" before that. Way back then I happened to write a detailed rebutal to "Racism" which is still comes up as the number 2 selection on Google beneath his own listing on Amazon.com. A rebutal which pointed out that that book nothing more than a 500 page long screed against Liberalism filled with false assertions and faulty logic - and that went it finally concluded exactly how racism could be "Ended" presented the completly laughable conclusion.

Back then on my rusty old geocities page I said...

And the "End" is what?

In the final chapters of his book D'souza claims that the solution to racism in this country is to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and replace it with a new law that expressly prohibits ANY recognition of race within the government, but allows ABSOLUTE freedom of use of race by private industry in determining how it should operate (pg. 544). He claims that the only racists of any worth any serious danger in America today are black (pg. 412) - this contrary to the evidence that racial violence against blacks and other minorities persons is increasing, and he continues to absolve all (what I tend to call "unconscious" bigots) such as cab drivers from any and all responsibility to even OBEY the law (they are specifically prohibited from discriminating against their fares), let alone curb their discrimination against blacks (pg. 252) when they refuse to serve them for fear that they will be "robbed" by "young black thugs". This is considered "acceptable" to D'souza even though these people are criminals for this behavior. D'souza would make anyone who attempted to stop this activity - a criminal.

Dinesh would essentially have us make discrimination legal in order to cure racism. It's not the racist or discriminators fault...it's those pesky laws against discrimination and racism.

Yeah, Right.

Just where was that Zen mantra of the modern Conservative - "Personal Responsibility" - hiding when he thought of this?

This is his idea of the "End of Racism", to cripple government and law enforcement from any realistic preventative or even punitive measures, and to allow any and all types of discrimination by private industry as if market forces alone will be able to succeed when nearly 400 years of prior experience with those same forces show us just how likely that is.

I expect this new book with be nothing but more of the same, another screed on the "evils" of Liberal/Secular-Progressive thinking -- and how everything that has ever gone wrong on the face of this earth stems from such wrong-headedness.

This is a view that flies directly in the face of history and fact (Not that has stopped very many Conservatives in the past) as John Dean notes in his own book "Conservatives without Conscience" (Page 15)

In their efforts to present conservatism as an Ameican tradition, conservatives have also reinterpreted the U.S. Constitution. One of the key elements of the Constitution is the establishment of a unique republic, in that a federal system would coexist with state and local governments. Before it was ratified many opponents attacked its progressive and innovative nature, for far from representing teh status quo, the Constitution was dramatically liberal.

James Madison defended it in The Federalist Papers by explaining that the founders "have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom" but rather employed "numerous innovations... in favor of private rights and public happiness." Madison sid that "precden could no be discovered," for there was no other government" on the face of the globe" that provided a model. Madison, the father of the Constitution, clearly saw his work as the opposite of conseratism.

I'm certain Dean would see D'souza as a Right-Wing Authoritian. A Follower. A Brown-Shirt. One who would be ...

"especially submissive to established authority"; as showing "general aggressiveness toward others when such behavior "is perceived to be sactioned" by established authorities, and as highly compliant with "social conventions" endorsed by society and established authoritees.

Or to put it another way - a Boot-licking Neo-Con Attact Dog. But then again, what kind of behavior would you expect from Laura Ingraham's ex-boyfriend at Dartmouth? (According to David Brock's "Blinded by the Right" page 255)

Like Brock himself in his former life as a Right-Wing Attack Dog for the American Spectator who only wished to "Take A Scalp" and make a name for himself while "getting those dirty Liberals". For D'Souza it's not about elevating the discourse of society, or possibly truly looking at the schism between liberlisms demands for ever increasing personal freedom and gratification vs the need to maintain our communal bounds through the excersize of personal and public responsibility.

Actually having a serious review of both liberalism and conservatisms relative advantages and flaws are not on D'souza's plate.

It never has been and it isn't now.

Vyan

Limbaugh and the GOP are having a Nutty!

They know it's coming - the massive Perfect Shit Storm that's going to sweep them right out of Congress. The Congress they fought, connived, cheated and swindled their way into. They can feel it and chiggers crawling on their skin - and it's driving them over the freaking edge.

They're having a full on nutty.

This is what happens when you find yourself in a corner, sweating and desperate. You begin to lash out uncontrollably.

Sometimes you might even hit yourself in the process, and that's exactly what were seeing from the GOP these last few weeks before the Mid-Team Bloodbath Elections.

Neat aint it?

First of course we had Senator Felix Macaca-witz, who decided, like oh-so-many neo-cons that he was the smartest guy in the room so he'd sling the absolutely perfect racial slur at a Camera-man from the Jim Webb campaign. The fact that his own mother happens to have been a french speaking woman from North Africa - and the slur french slang for dark skinned people in North Africa - and the Camera-man was of Morrocan Indian desent with dark skin - was all just some odd concidence.

The fact that this was said on camera somehow didn't occur Felix.

Then you've got Republican candidate Tan Nguyen from Orange County California who is himself an immigrant, deciding it was a good idea send a fradulent letter to every person with a spanish surname in the county threatening them with arrest or deportation if they tried to vote. Of course he claimed he had nothing to do with, unless you count personally purchasing the voter list that was used for the mailing.

In Tennesee we've got the RNC and Republican Senate Candidate Bob Corker playing the Mandigo-Card with their ads against Harold Ford Jr. Not just once, but twice (audio).

Dennis the Menace Hastert in the House is going after Nancy Pelosi for ignoring immigration by claiming

Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi has NEVER visited the border. She claims to understand the needs of those on the front lines but has never visited those agents and offers no solutions.

Yeah, well that's great except that she has backed numerous border security measures and has been to the border and visit with border patrol agents in El Paso. They're are even pictures and stuff.

Rep. Jean (Murtha's a Coward) Schmidt is having her nutty over the fact that her Democratic opponent Victoria Wulsin is actually daring to use her own words on the house floor attacking Murtha against her in campaign ads. Specifically her accusations against John Murtha who nearly a year ago called for a timetable (much like the one the President is now crowing about) for redeploying our troops out of Iraq.

"Her continued violation will land her in serious trouble with the House Ethics Committee," Schmidt's spokesman Matt Perin said in a release, referring to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which the release mistakenly referred to elsewhere as the "House Committee on Official Standards and Conduct."

Yeah, that's nice except that Wulsin isn't in Congress yet - and therefore isn't under the perview of the House Ethnics(less) Committee. This is the dim-bulb that beat Paul Hacket two years ago? Sheesh.

Lastly we have Rush (The Oxy-Viagra King) Limbaugh, who thought it would be humorous to talk about Micheal Fox going off his meds to do a pro stem-cell research commercial. He's claimed that Fox hasn't done any commercial like this for Republicans. He's wrong. Fox did an ad for Arlen Spector as was shown on Countdown.

FOX: Biomedical research could cure hundreds of diseases, save thousands of lives, and prevent millions of tears. I understand that, and so does Arlen Specter. He helped double the funding for biomedical research, more dollars for more research, for more cures.

Arlen gets it. It`s that simple.

SEN. ARLEN SPECTER ®, PENNSYLVANIA: I`m Arlen Specter and approved this ad to tell you there is hope for the future.

After issuing his non-apology apology, Rush went on to state:

I believe Democrats have a long history of using victims of various things as political spokespeople because they believe they are untouchable, infallible, they are immune from criticism.

This sort of tact seems to bring us right back to Ann Coulter the those "Harpies" that lost their husbands and sons in the destruction of the World Trade Center and dared to support Democrats who want to actually implement the suggestions of the 9-11 Commission which they fought hard to have convened doesn't it?

Fox's Response to Limbaugh : I could give a damn about Rush Limbaugh's pity or anyone else's pity. I'm not a victim.

All of this stuff is not an accident. Limbaugh's comment is itself very telling. You see all of these people that Republicans are attacking - Immigrants, Blacks, the parents of our fallen Soldiers such as Cindy Sheehan, the survivors of 9-11 and their families, the survivors of debilitating disease, the people of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans - the most vulnerable, the canaries in the coal mines of our society are exactly the people that their party has failed time and time again.

They aren't being exploited by Democrats - they have chosen to embrace Democrats (and some Republicans) because they share values and they share goals. This is what a great many people are slowly beginning to realize, people such as former Republican Michael Schiavo.

Oops, lost another one to Dietech The Democrats

The GOP isn't looking out for the best interests of the vast majority of the American public. They're only out to line their own pockets with graft from the U.S. Treasury.

Not long ago they wouldn't have dared to be this blatant - they would simply railed against "Libruls" who almost always were nothing more than a surrogate for Black, Hispanic, Poor and Sick people and their interests. They tried to buy off the Black and Hispanic vote by going after them through their Churches - but the cover's been blown on that scam thanks to former White House Official David Kuo.

They've run out of options. There are no more pre-set plays to put on the field. They're winging it.

And now the deep-seated Racism, Sexism and disdain for those in need that is at the core of the Republican Party is finally bubbing back up to the surface.

• They failed to address Osama Bin Laden after the Bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and gave him free pass to attack us again on 9/11.


• They've allowed millions of Americans to lose their health insurance and pensions.


• They were wrong to invade Iraq without a valid justification using lies they gained through TORTURE, and have completely bungled the occupation and reconstruction of that country.

Faced with the truth of their own abject failure, they've reflexively falling back on that old standby - Blame the Victim Survivors or their incompetence and negligence.

Contrary to the claims of commentators on Disney/GOP TV's Nightline that Democrats have been "just as nasty" - they simply don't need to be. The facts and the truth are an automatically negative ad against Republicans.

Just watch and share the DNC's New Web Ad.

All we have to do is point out that Republicans have no plan. Are they going to "Stay the Course" or are they going to "Adapt to Win" - or maybe they're going to "Stay the Win" by "Adapting the Course"... do they really know? Does anyone? Obviously they don't.

In response Democrats have a duty, a sacred responsibility to rise above the muck - to raise the level of debate and discourse in this country, to bring honor back to the nation.

Let the Republicans flail away in the mud, it's is a fitting end for their ideological kind.

Vyan

The Battle for Americas Soul

In 20 days the battle will be joined. A fight to decide exactly what America is destined to become.

Will we become a proto-fascist neo-theocracy where the public is constantly misled by a cowed press, kept under constant electronic surveillence without a warrant, where a well paid informant or an errant Myspace post just might send you (even if you happen to be a U.S. Citizen and West Point Graduate) to Gitmo without a hearing where you could be waterboarded and your coerced "confession" used against you...

or...

Something far more akin to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independance and Bill of Rights, where the greatest of dangers to the people isn't the people themselves - it is the misuse of the powers of the State? A Nation where the accused, even accused terrorists, are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.

Does anyone seriously think the other guys are going to fight anywhere near fair?

The past month has been brutal for Republicans.

Starting with the ABC's Path to 9/11 Lie-u-drama, President Clinton clowning Chris Wallace on Fox News, the Senate Intelligence Report revealing that Al Qaeda and Saddam were enemies not allies, the latest NIE stating that the Iraq war has been increasing terrorism rather than making us "safer", Bob Woodward revealing Bush's ongoing State of Denial and Deception on their response to Al Qeada and the status of the Iraq War, Republican Torture-mongerers like John Warner have finally begun jumping off the Iraq Train, Conservative Christian David Kuo has been blowing the whistle on the Faith Based Voter Bribery Scam, not to mention the ongoing adventures of Senator George Macacawitz Allen of Virginia, Congressman Mark Foley the Alcoholic Formerly Molested Pedophilic IM-ing Page Stalker who has wrought Hastert-Gate and of course - North Korea testing a Nuclear Bomb!

So much for winning the war on terror.

As a result of some are expecting as much as a 30 seat gain for Democrats in the House.

I think a 30-seat gain today for Democrats is more likely to occur than a 15-seat gain, the minimum that would tip the majority. The chances of that number going higher are also strong, unless something occurs that fundamentally changes the dynamic of this election. This is what Republican strategists' nightmares look like.

Whether one looks at national or district-level polling data, or a survey like the new Democracy Corps survey that covered the 49 most vulnerable GOP districts, the conclusion remains the same: it is very ugly for Republicans.

Even with all this for some odd, unexplicable reason - both George Bush and Karl Rove remain very upbeat about the November election.

From the Washington Times.

White House political strategist Karl Rove yesterday confidently predicted that the Republican Party would hold the House and the Senate in next month's elections, dismissing fallout from the sex scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley.
At a luncheon with editors and reporters at The Washington Times, Mr. Rove -- who is widely credited as the architect of the party's historic 2002 midterm election gains -- said Republicans are beginning to make significant headway in defining their party's differences from congressional Democrats, especially on national security.
"I'm confident we're going to keep the Senate; I'm confident we're going to keep the House. The Foley matter has impact in some limited districts, but the research we have shows that people are differentiating between a vote for their congressman and a member from Florida,"

From U.S. News:

Some Republican strategists are increasingly upset with what they consider the overconfidence of President Bush and his senior advisers about the midterm elections November 7-a concern aggravated by the president's news conference this week.

"They aren't even planning for if they lose," says a GOP insider who informally counsels the West Wing. If Democrats win control of the House, as many analysts expect, Republicans predict that Bush's final two years in office will be marked by multiple congressional investigations and gridlock.

So just what the hell is going on here?

Is Rove right and have all these scandals and errors still brought us up short - or is there something else occuring in the mix? An October Surprise to end all Octobers?

Former Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter on the Randi Rhodes show Monday postulated that the surprise would be sudden violent conflict between Iran and the Eisenhower Carrier Group, which should be arriving in the area on Oct 21st.

Some have argued that the Rovian confidence stems from the upcoming November 5th announcement of the Saddam Hussein Verdict.

Still others have argued that massive purging of Democrats from the voter rolls have already occured in key states such as Ohio. Purging that will significantly narrow the margins in tight races and ensure that Republicans retain the House and Senate. Although some doubt has arisen on those claims, there are legitimate issues that various states have indeed made voting more difficult. A cursory examination of this years primary elections bears that out.

Hundreds of voters mysteriously "dropped or displaced" from registration rolls when master lists were electronically merged. Absentee ballots invalidated because voters didn't receive a flier telling them not to remove a security stub. Poll workers who didn't show up to work on Election Day. Polling places unable to open on time because computer memory cards for new machines hadn't been installed. Suspicious shortages of machines in precincts that happened to be heavily Democratic. Voters who left the polls in disgust without having cast a ballot, because they just couldn't wait for overwhelmed precinct workers to sort through a monstrous mess of administrative and equipment problems.

Ohio, 2004? Nope. Ohio, 2006

It's clear that the Repulicans are working hard to suppress the Democratic vote, while doing their damnedest to get their vote out. Kos has posted that the Republican Voluanteer Ground Game is currently breaking records in their outreach effort.

And this doesn't even begin to mention just how hackable a Diebold Voting Machine has proven to be - thanks to Princeton.

The best course, naturally, is to assume all the above is basically true.

Even though the polls are overwhelmingly in the favor of Democrats, we can not afford to expect that all the voters will be able to reach the polls, have their registration honored or that every vote will be accurately counted. That's simply not going to happen.

Even though the worst news for Republicans has been coming from Republicans, We can not simply sit back and expect that the Republicans are simply going to scandal themselves out of office. They've grown far too adept at the blame and deflection game and have long since learned that the electorate is much like a jury that's been sequestered in a hot courtroom for six months -- offer them any cockamamie semi-plausible sliver of doubt and they'll jump at it like a starving man and a bowl of freshly steamed calimari.

Therefore Bill Clinton's "tirade" on Fox was just an attempt to "burnish" his legacy and erase his culpability at failing to stop both Bin Laden and Lil Kim in Korea. Bad Bill. Bad. Bad.

Bob Woodard is suddenly a "hack with an agenda".

John Ashcroft admits he was briefed by the CIA on Al Qaeda, but never heard any specific Domestic Warnings before September 11th. (Never mind the fact that as Attorney General he doesn't have jurisdiction anywhere but Domestically, so if there was "No Domestic Warning" why was Tenet and Richard Clarke even bothering to talk to him in the first place?

Ken Mehlman claims the Left is filled with mean spirited name calling "Defeato-crats" who want to "Cut and Run" on our soldiers, stop our listening to terrorists and let them go free.

Rove denies calling Evangelicals "Nuts" and all is forgiven. Let's not pay any attention to the fact that Kuo's claims of disdain for "the Nuts" is exactly what Jack Abramoff's former lobbying partner Mike Scanlon has already displayed:

"Simply put," Scanlon wrote, "we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them. The wackos get their information from the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the Internet and telephone trees."

Kuo stated that the disdainful comments came from Rove's Office, not Rove himself. And look who just suddenly fired retired from Rove's Office? Susan Ralston, Jack Ambramoff's former assistant who no doubt worked very closely and who just may have shared a least a few similar sentiments with Scanlon.

Conincidence? I think not.

No matter how bad the news gets, how sleazy the scandal, these guys will keep coming back - again and again.

We have to recognize just who these people are. The atrocities of Haditha and our troops being provided contaminated drinking water doesn't faze them. A fake Anthrax Terrorist attack on Broadcaster Keith Olbermann is grounds for low comedy.

The Right-Wing Cabal that now control this country is commited, deadicated, resourceful, inventive, relentless and fanatical. Make no mistake, they are the American Taliban. They've been striving for over 30 years, since the fall of Richard Nixon, to arrive at a point where they essentially control all three branches of government. We can not afford to fixate on George W. Bush himself, but recognize that he has a legion of enablers behind him from his filth spewing buddies on Talk Radio (and their audiences) to the Unitary Executive/Signing Statement supporting stagnant pool of Federalist Society nut-balls from the DOJ like Abu Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, John Roberts and Alito who continue to mangle the Constitution to do one thing - amass greater and greater power in the Whitehouse.

Power that no doubt will be abused.

These people have been lying in wait within the strata of our country for a very long time, decades, the reigns of power will only be wrested from their cold, dead hands. We can not afford to underestimate their cunning or their willingness to take it to the mat.

Nor can we allow ourselves to be frustrated should we fail to prevail in November, or grow overly elated if win back the House and/or Senate.

In either case, we have long, hard work ahead of us reclaiming true patriotism from the gingoist who would distort and misuse it as a tool of fear-mongering. Reclaiming America's International Honor and Intregrity from those who have wiped it off their Jackboots like freshly trampled mud - will be dirty, difficult work.

Fortunately, the actions of some of our current Democratic Leaders have finally begun to show signs of life as they as last discover - The L Word.

John Kerry:

"Bob Woodward says the Administration is in a state of denial. It's worse than that. The lying needs to end and the incompetents who gave us a Katrina foreign policy have to go. The Administration has a stand still and lose policy in Iraq which isn't the center of the war on terror, and a cut and run policy in Afghanistan which is the center of the war on terror. The only clear thing about the president's policy is that it's clearly not working.

American troops are coming home without arms and legs, for a strategy our military and our leaders know won't work, and a policy that worsens terrorism. The repetition of presidential platitudes in daily speeches only compounds the immorality of a policy that is reckless with young Americans' lives, and leaves America's moral authority in tatters.

We have seven times more troops in the crossfire of a civil war in Iraq, which our intelligence agencies confirm fuels terrorism, than we have in Afghanistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda roams free. Rhetoric about providing money to rebuild Afghanistan is hollow from an Administration that has cut aid to Afghanistan by 30% this year, and even requested 67% less than that for next year. Even Don Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday we need more troops in Afghanistan, but President Bush remains stuck in a state of denial.

This administration cut and run from the truth, and every day this administration refuses to face reality is another day they play into the hands of the terrorists. President Bush needs to start telling the truth, and acting on it."

Kerry is correct that we need to change course in Iraq and Afghanistan, even some of the Wing-nut Brigade is starting to realize that fact - but more importantly we need to change the direction of this country. We have to stop living in fear and apathy. We have to stop following empty rhetoric and start expecting actual results, results that demonstrably improve the quality of life not just for the Paris Hilton's set - but for all of us.

Certainly we can donate money to worthy candidates, we can continue to get the truth out through blogs and continue to press the media to do their freaking jobs - but that isn't going to be enough.

We have to Act, particularly those of us in Battleground States and Districts, we have to get up out of our chairs and from behind our PC, canvass our neighborhoods and ask everyone we meet "are you registered to vote yet?" We have to voluanteer to work at the polls or schedule a vacation day on November 7th to watch the polls - take note of how long the lines are, how easily or often people have been mistakenly left off the rolls or redirected into voting provisionally, read the Street Index Roster (which must be updated each hour during an election by poll workers to indicate who has voted and who hasn't), bring your cell phone and call people at home to remind them - "Have you voted yet?", go knock on their doors and make sure they have a ride to the voting location. Don't just sit their in front of your computer whining, get off your ass and make a difference.

It's not enough to simply vote yourself, we have to do what we can to protect each others vote too.

We don't have to wait for the DNC, the DSCC or the DCCC to get this done and we shouldn't. We are the voters, we are America - it's our responsibility to make sure this country is one we can be proud of. It's our responsibility to do what's neccesary to take our best hopes and dreams for brighter, less mean-spirited, less terror crazed America and make them part of the reality-based world.

Yes, they will lie, they will most definately try to steal the vote from us - but we can't let them get away with it. Not again.

I expect this battle will leave battered, bloodied and far from unscarred but if we honestly join in the fight on the web and on the ground - win, lose or draw - it will be well worth it.

And also, it will only be the beginning.

Vyan

Habeas Corpus dies with nary a whimper

From Thinkprogress:

President Bush signs the "Military Commissions Act of 2006″ today in the Rose Garden, a bill that will not grant detainees legal counsel. "Also, it specifically bars detainees from filing habeas corpus petitions challenging their detentions in federal courts." The new law sets the stage for what many analysts believe will be yet another historic showdown between the courts, the president, and Congress.

That's putting it mildly.

But what's so truly amazing about this event, is how little it's being covered, how little it's being noticed and how there is pratically no outcry at the undermining of our constitutional foundations what-so-ever.

That isn't to say that there hasn't been a reaction. Even before the legislation was signed two lawsuits were filed.

The new legislation, passed a week ago Friday, bars judges from hearing detainee lawsuits. Instead, it sets up a much more limited appeals process for detainees who are seeking to challenge their designation as an enemy combatant or to challenge a war crimes conviction by a military commission.

One suit was filed on behalf of Majid Khan, one of the 14 so-called high value Al Qaeda suspects recently transferred from secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons to the terrorist detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The other was filed on behalf of 25 detainees being held among some 500 men at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.

The outstanding question of course is whether this law actually bars these suits themselves, a decision which will have have to wait until a judge decides whether a judge can decide on this matter. Talk about Catch-22.

Major news outlets have virtually ignored this story, allowing the President's rhetoric about "our desperate need to question detainees" being one of our most "vital tools" in the War on Terror. The fact that the people who we are coercively questioning may not be terrorists at all doesn't seem to enter into his thinking.

From Yahoo News:

KABUL, Afghanistan - Sixteen Afghans and one Iranian released from years in captivity at Guantanamo Bay prison arrived in Afghanistan on Thursday, an Afghan official said, maintaining that "most" of the detainees had been falsely accused.

The 16 Afghans appeared at a news conference alongside Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, head of Afghanistan's reconciliation commission, which assists with the release of detainees from the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the U.S. prison at the Bagram military base north of Kabul.

Mejadedi said many of the detainees, who are now free, had served up to four years in Guantanamo. He said "most" of the prisoners were innocent and had been turned in to the U.S. military by other Afghans because of personal disputes.

"For four years they put me in jail in Cuba for nothing," said Shah, a doctor from the eastern province of Paktia whose hands shook from nervousness when he spoke.

"All these people (the other prisoners) and all those Afghans still in Cuba, they are innocent," he told reporters. "All were arrested because of false reports, and the Americans, without investigating, they arrested innocent people and put them in jail for a long time."

Another former prisoner, 20-year-old Habib Rahman, said he was arrested because he had a weapon in his home.

"They told me, 'You are against us, you are anti-American and anti-government and you are fighting with us,'" said Rahman. "At that time in our area everyone had weapons. I was innocent and I hadn't participated in any fighting."

Rahman said that he was treated harshly at Guantanamo, and was once kept awake for 38 hours while being questioned about ties to terrorists.

"The last time they tortured me like that was four months ago," he said. "They were kicking us all the time, beating us with their hands."

Please note that Rahman is 20-years-old now, that means that when he was taken to Gitmo - he was only 16.

Many of the detainee currently at Gitmo were actually sold into captivity by Afghan warlords.

Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces.

Even though the ACLU has obtained a literal mountain of documention via the Freedom of Information Act - the issue of how these people, many of them innocent, are being treated still falls on deaf ears. Even when ABC News features reports of abuse from a former Gitmo Marine.
From Thinkprogress:

President Bush has consistently touted the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay as a "model prison," saying the American people should "ftake great pride" in the facility.

But a sworn statement by Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny paints an entirely different picture. Cerveny has described how "she met several Navy prison guards at a club on the base where, over drinks, they described harsh physical abuse" of Gitmo detainees. The guards alledgedly told Cerveny of practices including "hitting the detainee's head into the cell door" and "punching [them] in the face." The Pentagon Inspector General today announced a new investigation into the claims.

Cerveny gave her first public comments on her charges last night to ABC News. You can read Cerveny's affidavit to the Pentagon Inspector General here (pdf).

Here's what Amnesty International (who over a year ago called for the Prosecution of George W Bush for War Crimes) has to say on the subject:

The past five years have seen the USA engage in systematic violations of international law, with a distressing impact on thousands of detainees and their families. Human rights violations have included:

o Secret detention
o Enforced disappearance
o Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
o Outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating treatment
o Denial and restriction of habeas corpus
o Indefinite detention without charge or trial
o Prolonged incommunicado detention
o Arbitrary detention
o Unfair trial procedures

Yet at the same time, US officials have continued to characterize the USA as a "nation of laws" and one that in the "war on terror" is committed to what it calls the "non-negotiable demands of human dignity", including the "rule of law".

...

There is a stark "disconnect" between the USA and the international community. After all, President Bush's speech came only weeks after two expert United Nations bodies - the Committee against Torture and the Human Rights Committee - told the US government that secret detentions violated the USA's international treaty obligations. In effect, the President was rejecting the conclusions of these UN bodies, as well as admitting that the USA had resorted to enforced disappearance, a crime under international law.

The response of the US administration to the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling has perhaps been even more shocking, although apparently not shocking enough to nudge Congress finally into calling the executive to account for "war on terror" abuses. Indeed, President Bush's defence of the CIA's program of secret detention and "alternative" interrogation techniques policy, which he said had been called into question by the Hamdan ruling and therefore needed congressional approval, showed an administration in assertively unapologetic mood.

Again, one can begin to trace the administration's manipulation of the law to fit its policy. According to a document recently issued by the Director of National Intelligence, after "high-value" detainee Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and handed over to the USA, he stopped "cooperation" with his US interrogators. In order to overcome this lack of cooperation, "over the ensuing months, the CIA designed a new interrogation program" and "sought and obtained legal guidance from the Department of Justice that none of the new procedures violated the US statutes prohibiting torture."

Any such claim of legality rings hollow. For until the Detainee Treatment Act was passed in December 2005 (in the face of executive opposition), Department of Justice lawyers took the position that because of the reservation attached to the USA's ratification of the Convention against Torture in 1994, the USA had no treaty obligation on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to foreign nationals held in US custody overseas. In addition, in August 2002, the Justice Department provided legal advice in a memorandum which only came to light in mid-2004 after the Abu Ghraib torture revelations. It was reportedly written in response to a CIA request for legal protections for its interrogators. The memorandum stated among other things that interrogators could cause a great deal of pain before crossing the threshold to torture, that there were a "significant range of acts" that might constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment but would not rise to the level of torture and be prosecutable under the US torture statute, and that the President could override international or national prohibitions on torture.(1)

Conservatives have scoffed at claims that Zubaydah was "tortured" claiming that they simply kept the lights on and played Red Hot Chili Peppers music for hours. In a nation where Jackass Number Two is a hit movie, bright lights and loud music could hardly be considered torture - it sounds more like a RAVE right? To hear the Right tell it, they were just warming him up for Round II of Fear Factor: Electrodes to the Gonads. Let's face it: Torture is likely to be our next Extreme Sport, to be scheduled at the Triple-X Games right after Base Jumping while on fire and swallowing male-cow jism.

But all dark humor aside, Time Magazine and author Gerald Posner paint a different picture:

Posner elaborates in startling detail how U.S. interrogators used drugs--an unnamed "quick-on, quick-off" painkiller and Sodium Pentothal, the old movie truth serum--in a chemical version of reward and punishment to make Zubaydah talk. When questioning stalled, according to Posner, cia men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where "two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces," pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions.

This is known as a "False Flag" operation - where U.S. officials pretend to be Saudi, Egyption or Israeli interrogators who don't have any of the "limits" which U.S. law (used to) place on our own people - and is itself a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions (Article 37).

However, it should be noted that most of the valuable information we received from Zubaydah, such as the identity of "Muktar" as Khallid Sheik Muhammad, and the indentity of Jose Padilla came before he was tortured, not after. Oh, and by the way - Zubaydah is nuts.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind paints a more complicated picture of Zubaydah. In one of the most hotly discussed sections of his book "The One-Percent Doctrine," Suskind reveals that at least one top FBI analyst considered Zubaydah an "insane, certifiable, split personality" and that he was mainly responsible only for logistics like travel arrangements. According to Suskind's reporting, the interrogation methods used on Zubaydah -- waterboarding and sleep deprivation, among others -- only yielded information about plots that did not exist.

SUSKIND: In the case of Zubaydah, when it comes to some of the harsh interrogation tactics he was put through, what occurred then was that he started to talk. He said, as people will, anything to make the pain stop. And we essentially followed every word and various uniformed public servants of the United States went running all over the country to various places that Zubaydah said were targets, and were not.

Ultimately, we tortured an insane man and ran screaming at every word he uttered.

What has largely worked in all the interrogations, what we got -- and in many cases it's not very much -- but whatever we got, for the most part occurred because we were, let's just say, a little more clever than that. Instead of going medieval, which is the tactic our enemies here embrace, we essentially find a way to confuse their expectations. In many cases, just by treating them as human beings we have created an environment where we get what we so desperately need, which is information that might help save American lives.

That's the key. The key is to not give in to anger, but to do whatever works best. There's clearly been a learning curve on that; some of the harsh techniques used early on have been I think largely abandoned because they didn't work.

So let's review shall we?

We now have an Official Policy of Indefinate Detention without trial, access to a lawyer or a hearing for people who may in all likelyhood be completely innocent. We will be torturing these people even though doing so has repeatedly given us bad information (such as Zubaydah or Ibn Sheik al-Libi who lied to us about Saddam training Al-Qaeda on the use of chemical weapons, or Abu Omar an innocent Egyption man who was kidnapped by the CIA in italy and tortured or Maher Arar the innocent Canadian man who was taken into custody and tortured in Syria) but that using "soft techniques" such as "Treating them like Human Beings" actually works better. Imagine that, eh?

All of this has been implemented as an end-run around Hamdan and 18 US 2441 the War Crimes Act - which then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales claimed in 2002 that if applied might result in "unwarranted charges" against administation officials.

I would argue that they are entirely warranted, and long overdue.

It is also frequently overlooked that the definition of an "Enemy Combatant" does not exclude American citizens. Last Night during his interview with John Ashcroft, Keith Olberman - the lone broadcaster willing to seriously address this subject - put this very question to the former Attorney General:

OLBERMANN: In your new book, you have defended some of the more imposing efforts to fight terror and terrorism, and this subject is particularly relevant right now, because the president is set to sign the Military Commissions Act tomorrow, which is going to codify some of those efforts into law.

I`d like to read one of the definitions in the act and ask you a hypothetical about it, if I may. "The term `unlawful enemy combatant` means -- (i), a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant."

What is there in this new law that would check the president--or any president, not in terms of tradition or in terms of common sense nor even in terms of fear of bad publicity--but in that measure itself, if a president claims that you or I materially supported hostilities against America and declares us unlawful enemy combatants and he wants to send you and I off to Guantanamo Bay, where in the law does it say the president can`t do that?

ASHCROFT: Well, let me just first indicate that I have not read this new statute in its completeness.

I do believe that the president should have the authority to designate individuals who bear arms or take up hostility against the United States as enemy combatants. I think in doing so, the president has a responsibility to have a process that is consistent with the Constitution.

We have a president; we don`t have a king. And he has to make a determination based on facts.

Like the determination he made that Saddam Hussein was an imminant threat? The question posed by Olbermann is not an idle one. Jose Padilla is an American Citizen who has already been held as an "Enemy Combatant" without trial for years, as is Yaser Esam Hamdi. Normally it would be the job of the judiciary, an independant body free from the political winds, who would make the determination of what is fact and what is not regarding defendants and detainees (a Constitutional requirement which was recently reenforced by the Supreme Court in Hamdi v Rumsfeld (pdf)) -- but not anymore. Now the President himself can be judge, jury, torturer and even - executioner.

Is this what our nations forefathers fought and died to produce? Are these the actions of a nation which has touted freedom and justice as it's bedrock principles? I would hope and pray not - but with a stroke of a pen, President George W Bush has today murdered not only Habeas Corpus - not only our international moral standing and justification for our war against terror - he may have very well have murdered our democracy itself.

Vyan

Al Qaeda Threat Warning to Rice : 10 on a Scale of 10

From Judd at Thinkprogress:

Condoleezza Rice describes her briefing with CIA officials George Tenet and Cofer Black on July 10, 2001 as relatively unremarkable. Here’s how her spokesman Sean McCormack described it yesterday:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack [said]… the information Rice got “was not new'’ and didn’t amount to an urgent warning. “Rather, it was a good summary from the threat-reporting from the previous several weeks,'’ McCormack said in a statement from Saudi Arabia where Rice is traveling.

Earlier in the day, Rice questioned whether the meeting even happened and said that it was “incomprehensible” the meeting included a warning that U.S. interests faced an imminent threat from al-Qaeda.

Here’s how the briefing was described by the officials who prepared it, according to McClatchy:

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a “10 on a scale of 1 to 10″ that “connected the dots” in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again…

“The briefing was intended to `connect the dots’ contained in other intelligence reports and paint a very clear picture of the threat posed by bin Laden,” said the official, who described the tone of the report as “scary.”

Rice also considered the August 6 President’s Daily Brief, entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike US,” an historical document.

A lot has been said about this meeting ever since it was revealed by Bob Woodard in his new book "State of Denial" that George Tenet and Cofer Black went to Condoleeza Rice with this intense Powerpoint Presentation.

Of course our good friends over at RedState have been johnny-on-the-ball with this one.

I've just about had it with the “he said, she said” game by the press. Why are we not more skeptical of these "experts" who criticize the Bush Administration after talking to a few "insiders" looking for publicity? A journalist writes a book, and suddenly he's an expert on what essentially amounts to gossip.

The NY Times reported today that members of the 9/11 commission were "alarmed" to learn that Condoleezza Rice was informed in July of 2001 by CIA Director George Tenet about an imminent attack from al Qaeda, according to a new book, State of Denial, by journalist Bob Woodward. Secretary of State Rice of course denies this saying she has no recollection of any such meeting. Who could blame her? Big surprise there. So who’s right?

Ignoring the obvious ridiculousness of claiming that Bob ("All the President's Men/Bush At War Parts I &II") Woodard is just "suddenly" becoming on expert on various White House goings on. But it turns out, yet again, that Rice is the one whose wrong as was explained by Roger Cressey on Countdown last night.

OLBERMANN: My first question, you‘re now consulting within a firm with Richard Clarke, who was at that meeting on July 10, on the central question of whether Rice was warned then of an attack on the U.S. Do we know who‘s right here, Woodward or Secretary Rice?

CRESSEY: Yes, she was warned. I mean, there was a meeting. It was George Tenet, Dick Clarke, another individual from the agency, Cofer Black, and Steve Hadley. And what it was, Keith, was a briefing for Dr. Rice that was similar to a briefing the CIA gave to us in the situation room about a week before, laying out the information, the intelligence, laying out the sense of urgency. And it was pretty much given to Dr. Rice and Steve Hadley in pretty stark terms.

OLBERMANN: The $500 million Cofer Black action plan against bin Laden, would have read like crazy talk if that had been presented to her as Woodward describes it?

CRESSEY: Not crazy talk, but because in some respects, that‘s what we did after 9/11, although, as much as I love and respect Cofer, I don‘t think we would have been able to bring his head back in a box then, because, frankly, all the CIA sources in Afghanistan stunk, and that was part of the problem.

But that type of aggressive, robust covert action is ultimately what was implemented after 9/11.

CRESSEY: There have been reports that neither Secretary Rice nor director Tenet nor Mr. Black had told the 9/11 commission about the meeting on July 10. NBC News learned that the 9/11 commissioner Richard Ben Veniste and Rice‘s friend Philip Zelikow (ph), who was the executive director on the panel, in fact did interview Tenet about the meeting. Can you reconcile those two accounts for us?

CRESSEY: Yes, actually Andrea Mitchell did some great reporting on this today. There was that meeting, it was January 28, 2004. George Tenet spoke about the July 10 meeting extensively. And as a matter of fact, it is in the notes, the transcripts of that meeting that are now contained in the National Archives.

But according to the Right, this is all just payback for "Path to 9/11". Redstate revisted:

Conservatives know what really drives all of this. In the aftermath of Bill Clinton's emotional debacle of an interview with Fox News Sunday, the Left is poised to replace the blame for 9/11 on the shoulders of the current Clinton family counterpoint, Condoleezza Rice or any other poor sap in the Bush Administration at which they can throw mud.

Ok, when exactly did Bob Woodward join the left? He's been a staunch Republican and supporter of Bush for quite some time, some would argue that up until this book he'd tossed journalistic integrity out the window in exchange for access. In fact, I'd argue that point -- particularly regarding his previous two books about Bush at War:

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: He is terrific. He’s a great journalist, and I look forward to reading it. He’s talking about a pretty complex set of discussions about military issues and diplomatic issues, and I’m sure it will be — be fantastic. [CNN, 4/25/04]

DAN BARTLETT: I think Bob Woodward has done a pretty — particularly good job of describing how complicated of a process it is for a commander in chief to do two real important but sometimes conflicting responsibilities. [CNN, 4/25/04]

BARTLETT: We’re urging people to buy the book. What this book does is show a president who was asking the right questions and showing prudence as well as resolve during very difficult times. This book undermines a lot of the critics’ charges. [Washington Post, 4/21/04]

JOHN KING, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But what is most striking is that, here at the White House, they say read the book. They believe it shows — it paints the picture of a president who asks the right questions, the tough questions, before going to war and then decided that he was right in launching that war. [CNN, 4/19/04]

But now it's clear that once he started asking questions that the Bushies didn't like, his access, particularly to the President was completely cut-off.

The right may cover their eyes and pretend this is "he said, she said" - or that Woodward suddenly has an "agendy", his information is "poorly sourced" or dissappears like "cotton candy" - but as you truly look closer it doesn't dissappear, it hardens into cold hard reality.

Rice was warned, repeatedly, and did nothing - except call for more meetings.

But wait it gets worse, Richard Ben-Veniste, who had originally claimed that the 9/11 Commission had no knowledge of this meeting has reversed his position and now states that they did know (just as Cressey describes). To me, these revelations have echoes of the Ben Sliney incident.

Sliney who played himself in the film United 93 (as a forward thinking man of action and basically the films lead character) was the FAA Hijack Co-ordinator on 9/11, which was also his first day on the job. In reality Sliney initially declined the offer of military assistance for an "intercept" of the aircraft even after they had realized that a hijacking was underway, but of course - this fact was left out of the film.

Intercepts of this type were in fact extremely common. According the Sen Mark Dayton's statements during the Condoleeza Rice confirmation for Secratary of State there were 62 successful intercepts of the "normal" type (where fighter planes are scambled to shadow and follow a no responsive aircraft), during 2001 prior to the 9/11 hijacking and over 100 such intercepts during 2000.

"I'm tired of the lies" Dayton stated in exasperation.

Such intercepts were under within the power of the FAA Hijack Coordinator (Sliney) to request. Not fully understanding his own authority, Sliney made no such request until after American Flight 11 had already hit the World Trade Center Tower 1.

History is being re-written right under our noses.

What this also reminds me of is the fact that in 2001 the FAA distributed a CD-ROM presentation to airlines and airports that cited the possibility of a suicide hijacking. This information and the fact the FAA's own Intelligence unit received over 50 warnings of possible suicide hijackings during that summer was kept Classified by the Bush Administration for five months after the completion of the 9/11 Report, and not released until after the 2004 election was over and Rice had been confirmed as the new Secretary of State replacing the just fired Colin Powell.

It's quite possible and in fact highly likely that portions or even all of the Powerpoint briefing that Tenet provided to Rice -- and according to McClatchy Newspapers were later to also shown to Rumsfeld and Ashcroft -- were also Classifed.

In all fairness to all involved, even Rice, federal law would prevent them from revealing any details of this meeting - even to the 9/11 commission unless they had the proper security clearances. It appears that Tenet's interview with the commission was done privately, and may have been restricted IMO -- (just as the full contents of the infamous Aug 6th PDB once were) - but since that time has been declassified. This would explain why they might first deny any knowledge, but it doesn't explain why they didn't take any action what so ever against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda even after their involvment in the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole was confirmed.

The very temerity of the arguement that this is some kind of journalistic payback for "Path to 9/11" or that ABC's timing on revealing the Foley scandal are some clumsy attempt at "balance" is just plain insulting. "Path to 9/11" was packed with politically charged lies and distortions of the truth.



But the truth is clear: Clinton tried (to stop al Qaeda), while Bushco simply stood by and let 3000 people die.

Vyan

On Keith, Clinton and Courage

When Keith Olbermann gave his ball-busting critique of President Bush this Monday - I cheered and then I worried. I knew the reaction would be intense, unrelenting and hysterical - because he'd just done the one thing that hadn't yet been done in much of the various criticism Bush has received.

He correctly noted George W. Bush's repeated failures and Cowardice!

He'd shown something Bush and his cronies are incapable of - Courage.

Naturally the shrill counter-attack didn't come from George personally. It never does.

It wasn't George Bush himself who slandered John McCain claiming he'd been driven a bit batty after his time in the Hanoi Hilton, or that he'd had an illegitimate black child out of wedlock. It wasn't George Bush himself who claimed John Kerry wanted to throw "Spitballs" at our enemies, had lied about the circumstances of his Bronze Star and had betrayed our soldiers by accusing them of War Crimes (by telling the truth). It wasn't George Bush who accused Bill Clinton of being asleep at the switch before 9/11 - and it wasn't George Bush who sent fake Anthrax to Keith Olbermann's home and then laughed at him in print.

MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick.

[Let me re-emphasize that this letter went to Olbermann's Home - not the MSNBC Offices - which begs the question whether it was sent by someone who either knows Keith personally or was able to get his home address from other "journalists"?]

All these things were done by people even worse than Bush - the people that got him elected.

It seems amazing to me that these people would go to these lengths, but it shouldn't be. We should know by now exactly who we're dealing with. We should know by now that they'll stop at nothing, not the law - not the Constitution - not FISA - not even torture and Terrorism (which is exactly what they attempted with Olbermann) to get and keep what they want.

Which is nothing short of Absolute Power.

No, it wasn't Bush - it was Rupert Murdock's Fox News Network that attempted to sandbag President Clinton last Friday, provoking his highly animated response.

WALLACE: Can I ask you about the Clinton Global Initiative?

CLINTON: You can.

WALLACE: I always intended to sir.

CLINTON: No you intended to move your bones by doing this first. But I don't mind people asking me. I actually talked o the 9/11 commission for four hours and I told them the mistakes I thought I made. And I urged them to make those mistakes public because I thought none of us had been perfect. But instead of anybody talking about those things. I always get these clever little political...where they ask me one sided questions... It always comes from one source.

...

CLINTON: And you guys try to create the opposite impression when all you have to do is read Richard Clarke's findings and you know it's not true. It's just not true. And all this business about Somalia -- the same people who criticized me about Somalia were demanding I leave the next day. Same exact crowd..

WALLACE: one of the...

CLINTON: ...So if you're going to do this for gods sake follow the same standards for everybody.

Olbermann responded forcefully to the attacks on Clinton, by turning the tables onto Bush and exactly what he did and didn't do prior to 9/11. (Which was nothing!)

Thus instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it... we have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by somebody who evidently redd the Orwell playbook too quickly.

Thus instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since -- a statement that might range anywhere from Zero, to One Hundred Percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush -- you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles... wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous President to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be the textbook definition... Sir, of cowardice.

Then we have Condoleeza Rice arguing before - you guessed it - Rupert Merdock's New York Post Editorial Board that Bush Administration "did as much to stop Al-Qaeda before 9-11 as the Clinton Administration".

QUESTION: By now I assume you've seen Bill Clinton's performances. How do you respond to his specific accusation that the eight months before 9/11 the Bush Administration, in his words, didn't even try to go after al-Qaida?

SECRETARY RICE: I'd just say read the 9/11 report. We went through this. We went through this argument. The fact of the matter is I think the 9/11 Commission got it about right. Nobody organized this country or the international community to fight the terrorist threat that was upon us until 9/11. I would be the first to say that because, you know, we didn't fight the war on terror in the way that we're fighting it now. We just weren't organized as a country either domestically or as a leader internationally.

But what we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton Administration did in the preceding years. In fact, it is not true that Richard Clarke was fired. Richard Clarke was the counterterrorism czar when 9/11 happened and he left when he did not become Deputy Director of Homeland Security some several months later. We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida. For instance, big pieces were missing, like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren't going to get Afghanistan. And there were reasons that nobody could think of actually going in and taking out the Taliban, either the Clinton Administration or the Bush Administration, because it's true you couldn't get basing rights in Uzbekistan and that was the long pole in the tent.

So I would make the divide September 11, 2001 when the attack on this country mobilized us to fight the war on terror in a very different way. But the notion that somehow for eight months the Bush Administration sat there and didn't do that is just flatly false. And you know, I think that the 9/11 Commission understood that.

QUESTION: So you're saying Bill Clinton is a liar?

SECRETARY RICE: No, I'm just saying that, look, there was a lot of passion in that interview and I'm not going to - I would just suggest that you go back and read the 9/11 Commission report on the efforts of the Bush Administration in the eight months, things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important, working to get a strategy that would allow us to get better cooperation from Pakistan and from the Central Asians, but essentially continuing the strategy that had been left to us by the Clinton Administration, including with the same counterterrorism czar who was Richard Clarke. But I think this is not a very fruitful discussion because we've been through it; the 9/11 Commission has turned over every rock and we know exactly what they said.

To be fair: Getting a foothold in Pakistan was indeed a great help, but the Armed Predator Drone project had been started under President Clinton, it simply wasn't completed until after he was out of office. The project had begun because Bin Laden's hiding place in Afghanistan was out of the reach of Helicopters, which restricted the ability of a Special Forces attack. Cruise missles launched against him had to travel for two hours over Pakistan airspace, giving him ample warning and time to escape. The Predator Drone however had already sighted Bin Laden at least twice during the Clinton Administration, but was unarmed at the time.

In contrast Condoleeza Rice did not even have a meeting to discuss use of the Armed version of the Predator until September 4th 2001 [Although Richard Clarke had begged for the urgent need for such a meeting on January 25th) This means that the Armed Predator did not even fly from the time Clinton left Office until after September 11th.

In his book Clarke accurate describes some genuine failures of the Clinton Administration - not having an Armed Predator ready, missing Bin Laden on August 20, 1998 with the Cruise Missle attack and yes, also missing him with other missle attacks that were called off by CIA. But this is how Clarke describes that fateful meeting - one month after the August 6th PDB "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States" and establishes exactly what the Bush Administration did about Al Qaeda prior to 9/11.

In preparation for [the Sept 4th] meeting I urged Condi Rice to see the issue cleanly, the Administration could decide that al Qaeda was just a nuisance, a cost of doing business for a superpower (as Reagan and the first President Bush had apparently decided about Hezbollah and Libya when those groups had killed hundreds of Americans), and act accordingly, as it had been doing. Or it could decide that the al Qaeda terrorist group and its affiliates posed an existential threat to the Ameican way of life, in which case we should do everthing that might be required to eliminate that threat. There was no in-between. I concluded by noting that before choosing from these alternative, it would be well for Rice to put herself in her own shoes when in the very near future al Qaeda had killed hundreds of Americans. "What will you wish then that you had already done?"

The Principals meeting, when it finally took place, was largely a noneevent. Tenet and I spoke passionately about the urgency and seriousness of the al Qaeda threat. No one disagreed.

Powell laid out an aggressive strategy for putting pressure on Pakistan to side with us against the Taliban and al Qaeda. Money might be needed, he noted, but there ws no plan to find the funds.

Rumsfeld, who looked distracted througout the session, took the Wolfowitz line that there were other terrorist concerns, like Iraq, and whatever we did on this al Qaeda business, we had to deal with the other sources of terrorism.

Tenet agreed to a series of things that CIA could do to be more aggressive, but the details would be worked offline: what would be the new authorities given CIA, how much money would be spent, where would the money come from. I doubted that process would be fruitful anytime soon. CIA had said it could not find a single dollar in any other program to transfer to the anti-al Qaeda effort. It demanded additional funds from Congress.

The only heated disagreement came over whether to fly the armed Predator over Afghanistan to attack al Qaeda. Neither CIA nor the Defense Department would agree to run that program. Rice ended the discussion without a solution. She asked that I finalize the broad policy document, a National Security Presidential Directive, on al Qaeda and send it to her for Presidential signature.

Just over a week after this meeting, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were in flames. This fact is what the right can't stand to admit. This is what their so afraid of. This is why they attack Clinton, they attack Clarke, and they attack Olbermann -- all of whom have done nothing but show exactly what they're made of in the face of the snears, jeers, and mysterious white powder appearing in thier Personal Mail [not from al Qaeda, but from Domestic Terrorists who Support Bush]. All of whom have done what America needed them to do - none of them may have completely suceeded in their tasks, not even Olbermann - yet - but all have tried. All have shown exactly what Bush's minions - Murdock, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, The Swiftboaters, The Republican Congress - have all failed to show.

Courage.

Vyan

Bush was Asleep at the Wheel!

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts — that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
From Thinkprogress:

In her interview with the New York Post, Condoleezza Rice falsely claimed that President Bush’s pre-9/11 anti-terror efforts were “at least as aggressive” as President Clinton’s. In fact, the 9-11 Commission disputes that account. While the Bush administration should have been preparing for a potential terrorist attack, it was instead focused on developing a costly missile defense system.

[S]enior officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations…say that Clarke had a set of proposals to ‘roll back’ al-Qaeda. In fact, the heading on Slide 14 of the Powerpoint presentation reads, ‘Response to al Qaeda: Roll back.’ Clarke’s proposals called for the ‘breakup’ of al-Qaeda cells and the arrest of their personnel.” [Time, 8/4/02]

In a speech on May 1, 2001, Bush said, “Unlike the Cold War, today’s most urgent threat stems not from thousands of ballistic missiles in the Soviet hands, but from a small number of missiles in the hands of these states, states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life.” [Bush, 5/1/01]

“After his first meeting with NATO heads of state in Brussels in June 2001, Bush outlined the five top defense issues discussed with the closest U.S. allies. Missile defense was at the top of the list, followed by developing a NATO relationship with Russia, working in common purpose with Europe, increased defense spending in NATO countries, and enlarging the alliance to include former East European countries. The only reference to extremists was in Macedonia, where Bush said regional forces were seeking to subvert a new democracy.” [Washington Post, 4/1/04] expand post »

Providing more than just a briefing, In January of 2001, Richard Clarke also presented a memo request and the URGENT NEED TO ADDRESS AL-QIDA.

Attached to that memo was THE DELENDA PLAN that Clarke had developed to fight Al Qaeda both Politically and Militarily.

After the bombing of the Cole the Clinton Administration had two months to respond before leaving office. During that time the CIA and FBI could not come to an agreemen on whether Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden was responsible. That confirmation came while Bush was in office - and he did nothing.

That is the bottom line point, as Keith Olberman so eloquently stated last night on Countdown.

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts — that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.
...

Thus instead of some explanation for the inertia of your first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept us "safe" ever since -- a statement that might range anywhere from Zero, to One Hundred Percent, true.

We have nothing but your word, and your word has long since ceased to mean anything.

And, of course, the one time you have ever given us specifics about what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush -- you got the name of the supposedly targeted Tower in Los Angeles... wrong.

Thus was it left for the previous President to say what so many of us have felt; what so many of us have given you a pass for in the months and even the years after the attack:

You did not try.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your predecessor.

You ignored the evidence gathered by your own people.

Then, you blamed your predecessor.

That would be the textbook definition... Sir, of cowardice.

To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase the truths of the past.

Vyan