All just bluster

By Mustang Bobby

In case you missed this piece from Kurt Eichenwald in the New York Times the other day:

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that "a group presently in the United States" was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be "imminent," although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives' suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

"The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden," the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government's transliteration of Bin Laden's first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.

That makes this more than just a tad ironic:

A day before the 11th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, former Vice President Dick Cheney jabbed President Barack Obama over a new report that he opted not to attend a number of presidential daily briefings, a decision that Cheney claims is indicative of his aloofness on national security.

"If President Obama were participating in his intelligence briefings on a regular basis then perhaps he would understand why people are so offended at his efforts to take sole credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden," a Cheney spokeswoman told The Daily Caller in an email.

So the next time you hear a Republican natter on about being "strong on defense," the most polite response would be derisive laughter.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Bush-Cheney ignored CIA warnings about al Qaeda, failed to go after bin Laden prior to 9/11

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yet more evidence that the Bush Administration, for all its self-aggrandizing post-9/11 bluster, did little to nothing to root out America enemies before the attack:

Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.

The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaida's relationship with America's ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 — but didn't get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. "I don't think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didn't get the institutional support they needed," says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.

So Bush-Cheney pushed the CIA around in the lead-up to the Iraq War, politicizing intelligence and fabricating a case for war, but basically ignored the CIA's efforts and warnings about a very real threat to the country's security before 9/11.

Not to excuse the CIA entirely, of course, but this certainly adds to the view many of us have had for a long time now -- not least given that notorious "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US" brief of August 6, 2001, as well as Richard Clarke's January 2001 memo to Condi Rice about the al Qaeda threat, as well as George Tenet's briefing of Condi Rice on July 10, 2001 about an imminent threat -- that Bush & Co. had no interest in dealing with terrorism (and was largely isolationist) before 9/11 and only later used 9/11 as an excuse to go into Afghanistan (justifiably, perhaps, but certainly without focus and a clear long-term purpose) and then to launch the bloody misadventure in Iraq that directed America's resources against a supposed "enemy" that had nothing at all to do with 9/11.

Perhaps there's nothing all that new here, but it's compelling nonetheless, additional confirmation that Bush, Cheney, Rice, and their various minions and cronies were utterly negligent with respect to their national security responsibilities.

Make sure to read the whole piece.

Cheney demands apology from Obama for telling the truth about the Bush-Cheney reaction to 9/11

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As The Hill is reporting, Dick Cheney said yesterday on CNN that "President Obama now owed the Bush administration an apology for claiming they "overreacted to 9/11":

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Cheney said Obama was inconsistent for criticizing the former administration's approach to terrorism while also using "some of the same techniques the Bush administration did."

Well, he's right on one thing, Obama has indeed kept in place a good deal of the Bush-Cheney national security state. As for an apology, though, I'd tell him to go fuck himself -- though of course it would be rather more diplomatic just to ignore him.

I would say that invading Iraq (and lying about Saddam's capacities and intentions for justification), turning America into a torture state, and pushing away most of America's closest allies (and otherwise destroying America's credibility and moral standing in the world) is nothing if not an overreaction, to put it mildly.

But if we're going to talk about reaction, shouldn't we ask Dick why the administration in which he was the most dominant figure (other than the president himself, perhaps) underreacted to explicit warnings prior to 9/11 about an impending terrorist attack?

Woodward slams Rumsfeld

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For writing a memoir that is essentially one big steaming pile of dishonesty:

Rumsfeld's memoir is one big clean-up job, a brazen effort to shift blame to others -- including President Bush -- distort history, ignore the record or simply avoid discussing matters that cannot be airbrushed away. It is a travesty, and I think the rewrite job won't wash.

The Iraq War is essential to the understanding of the Bush presidency and the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon. In the book, Rumsfeld tries to push so much off on Bush. That is fair because Bush made the ultimate decisions. But the record shows that it was Rumsfeld stoking the Iraq fires -- facts he has completely left out of his memoir.

*****

When all the records are available, the other memoirs written and the history complete, this failure to accept responsibility will likely be his legacy.

Woodward has his own failings -- he too often trusts his sources unthinkingly, his analysis is often lacking, or non-existent, and he rarely connects the dots in any satisfactory way -- but he is undeniably a well-respected and generally non-partisan reporter of the historical record. There is still much blame to go around -- Cheney deserves his fair share, too, along with the various other warmongers in and around Bush's bubble, as well as those pushing for war generally -- but clearly Rumsfeld was a key architect of the disaster that was (and to a certain extent still is) the Iraq War and Woodward should be applauded for holding him to account.

One just wonders if this isn't part of some anti-Rumsfeld smear campaign conducted by those on the right -- those in or around Bush's bubble -- who see him as an easy scapegoat, a convenient fall guy for all that went wrong. You wouldn't think it could be Rumsfeld's pal Cheney, but what about someone else?

Okay, maybe not. Maybe Woodward just had to respond to Rumsfeld's blatant dishonesty? Maybe. (It is, after all, at the estimable Tom Ricks's blog.)

Either way, he makes some excellent points. Read the whole thing.

Rumsfeld goes with the lies he wishes he had

By J. Thomas Duffy

Who knew? 

Lenny Bruce used to do a bit where he offered this advice:

Whatever happens, deny it. Flat-out deny it! If you really love your wife, deny it. If they walk in on you, deny it. Even if they got pictures, deny it. Even if she catches you with a chicken, deny it.

 I just can't picture Old Snowflakes being into Bruce, so he must have just taken his own advice and said, "You go to write a book with the lies you have, not the lies you might want or wish to have at a later time."

Yes, yet another of the Bush Grindhouse, one of their most prolific warmongers, has penned a "Not Me, Not My Fault" book, hitting the streets this week.

UGH!

From the NYT: 

“Two weeks after the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history, those of us in the Department of Defense were fully occupied,” Mr. Rumsfeld recalls. But the president insisted on new military plans for Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld writes. “He wanted the options to be ‘creative.’"

[snip]

His biggest mistake, Mr. Rumsfeld writes, was in not forcing Mr. Bush to accept his offers to resign after the abuse of Iraqi detainees by American military jailers came to light in early 2004. Mr. Rumsfeld insists that the abuses were the actions of rogue soldiers and that they did not reflect any approved policies, but nevertheless he offered to step down.

[snip]

While generally defending the Bush administration’s counterterrorism legal policies, Mr. Rumsfeld expresses some regrets. He suggests several times that some criticism and setbacks could have been avoided if the administration had gone to Congress for legislation authorizing the policies instead of relying on the president’s war powers. 

"Oh, if we only didn't didn't have contempt and scorn for our critics (you know, the "appeasers... the morally and intellectually confused" ), and only if we didn't piss on the Constitution and make up our own laws, maybe things would have turned out better."

Will Bunch over at Attytood doesn't mince words: 

Heh, that's funny. Of course, since there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and in fact there apparentrly had not been any for a number of years, the reason that Rumsfeld would like to take "that one" back is because he was lying. Maybe someday someone will free the Washington Post from the tyranny of the inverted pyramid and they can actually say that. 

Donald Rumsfeld lied.

Jack Stuef at Wonkette weighed in as well: 

America’s Grandpa of Death Donald Rumsfeld is having his memoir published on Tuesday, serving as an addendum to George W. Bush’s book in that it has actual, alleged facts, opinions, and memories in it. So: Abu Ghraib? Not his fault, but he really wanted to resign over it and feels very emo that big meanie Bush wouldn’t let him. Initial troop levels? Not his fault, nobody in the military ever asked him for more troops. Guantanamo? Not his fault the jail existed, and actually he made sure there was less torture and fewer prisoners. Hmm, anything we’re forgetting here? Oh, that one war. What was it called again? Anyway, not his fault, Bush came to him about Iraq before the U.S. even invaded Afghanistan, but at the same meeting, he also talked about Rummy’s son’s drug addiction, so all Rummy could do was cry about that. Whoops! 

And this: 

Ah, there you have it. Rumsfeld could have said, “What the fuck are you talking about going to war with Iraq for? Our country was just attacked by a foreign terrorist organization we need to go try to destroy. Iraq has nothing to do with this. Aren’t you more concerned with winning this war we haven’t even begun yet?” But instead, his son had done some drugs. Sure thing, Rumsfeld. Perfectly good excuse. You should drop some leaflets on the families of people, American and Iraqi, whose children have died in that war. “Sorry, my son was doing drugs. I was emotional at the time. Not my fault.” 

Stuef also had a suggestion for those plans to invade and occupy Iraq to be "creative" that "Rummy says Defense was preparing for offense on Afghanistan at the time, but Bush asked him to be “creative.” Creative! Perhaps the military could stage a production of Grease for the people of Iraq before taking a bow and dropping a bomb on them?

No, instead we just got greasy lies at the time and more polished greasy lies now, with the book.

I wonder if his Lie Tour will interfere with his and his former Shadow President's Armageddon weekends?

Like we said above, Ugh!

Bonus Rummy Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: What Would Be Different If Rumsfeld Was A Dog, But Still Secretary of Defense

Leave It to Rumsfeld ... There's Not Enough Lying Going On!

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ...Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ...Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

Rummy On The Run? ... Let's Give Him Some Chase Music!

(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

I'm Pat f***king Tillman — why are you shooting at me?

By Edward Copeland 

That post title is the last words the former NFL star turned Army Ranger said before he was killed in Afghanistan by his own troops in 2004.

We are living in the Golden Age of Nonfiction. I thought it silly when the Oscars expanded best picture to 10 nominees, but I could live with them doubling the number of documentary feature nominees because documentaries get better and better. I have a difficult time cutting it down to five. I've only seen one 2010 documentary that I've given a negative review. More importantly, this meant that Oscar finalist The Tillman Story didn't make the final cut and it's the second-best 2010 documentary I've seen (so far).

For the Bush Administration, the wars in Afghanistan and later in Iraq weren't just campaigns for whatever reason they chose to give on any particular day, they also were part of a re-election strategy and whenever there was a chance to sell a positive story to the lazy eager-to-echo-anything press, they took it. So, when Pat Tillman, who earned millions in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals, decided to give up his football career to join the fight against terrorism after 9/11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told his subordinates to keep special watch on him. This was an American hero in the making that would make for great P.R.

Things didn't turn out that way exactly, though the government and high-ranking Pentagon officials did their best to keep their heroic scenario when Tillman was killed April 22, 2004, the initial story was the he died from enemy fire in an ambush, going so far as to credit him for saving the lives of some of his fellow soldiers and Gen. Stanley McChrystal awarded him the Silver Star posthumously. Just one problem: That was all a lie. Tillman died as a result of friendly fire and it took years and the persistence of his family to get at the truth.

Director Amir Bar-Lev gives a detailed portrait of who Tillman was both before and after his enlistment and with testimony from others who served with him, evokes a sense of outrage at the coverup, misguided accusations and fall guys the government used because their desired tailor-made American hero failed to pan out the way they envisioned. Ironically, during his unit's Iraq deployment Tillman was even there to witness the lengths they went in setting up the false tale of Pvt. Jessica Lynch's rescue. They were kept waiting 24 hours before retrieving Lynch to allow time for the camera crew to arrive. During his time in Iraq, Tillman also turned against Bush and the war effort, commenting to fellow soldiers that the Iraq war was "so fucking illegal." Bar-Lev keeps the focus moving with complete clarity and this documentary is quite a change-of-pace from his previous one, 2007's My Kid Could Paint That.

Narrated by Josh Brolin, The Tillman Story shows the true Pat Tillman, one that defied all stereotypes one would lump on the star athlete. He was a well-read man (Chomsky and Emerson; most religious texts, despite his atheism) who graduated from Arizona State with a 3.8 G.P.A. While the administration and the media were eager to wrap Tillman's decision to forgo his lucrative NFL career with a simple patriotic motive, Tillman himself refused interviews on the subject.

Even though both he and his very close younger brother Kevin joined up as Army Rangers, Tillman was determined to keep his reasons private. However, before he'd ever made the decision to enlist, various NFL players were filmed giving reactions to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and this footage was usurped by the Pentagon in their P.R. efforts to define Tillman's motive, be it true or not.

The entire Tillman family could be viewed somewhat as iconoclasts, compared to most Americans, so as far as I'm concerned that's what endears them to me all the more. When his family first learns of his death, they were given the false story of the ambush and the enemy fire. Still, even at the large, made-for-television memorial service Washington assembled (despite the fact that on his enlistment papers Pat Tillman specifically said he wanted no military funeral. Military officials even tried to take advantage of his grieving wife Marie to get Pat buried at Arlington.), while speakers spoke of God's blessings, etc., ignoring Pat's quite vocal status, like most of his family, as an atheist, his youngest brother Rich thanked the previous speakers for their thoughts but said, "Pat isn't with God. He's fucking dead."

Once soldiers on the scene spoke out and the Pentagon was forced to admit that Tillman was a victim of friendly fire, D.C. realized they picked the wrong family to screw with as his mom began a years-long campaign to get at the truth about the coverup. The story as told proves both inspiring and frustrating, as the Army drops so many documents, most redacted, upon Dannie Tillman, that she and another veteran start approaching them like some sort of crossword puzzle to decipher what names and words are blacked out.

In one of the most infuriating incidents, Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, who Tillman served under in Afghanistan, went on ESPN and made comments to the effect that the reason the Tillman family wouldn't let it go and just accept the Army's story was that because they were atheists and didn't believe in God, it would be hard for them to accept any truths. Eventually, after they finally got a congressional inquiry, Kauzlarich was demoted in retirement and remains the only person who received any sanction for the coverup.

On the other hand, the soldiers who did speak to the truth, were all punished in other ways for essentially being whistle-blowers.

Credit for the excellence of The Tillman Story should also be given to Mark Monroe for compiling this massive amount of information into a workable script for Bar-Lev to direct into such a coherent, compelling and, yes, chilling film. It almost makes me want to synopsize the entire documentary, but it's better to see it for yourself.

The ultimate irony about Pat Tillman is that the Bush Administration wanted to mold him into a hero for their own cynical, political purposes but by the covering up of the way he died, it enabled us to see who the real Pat Tillman was and he was more patriotic and a hero on a far grander scale than any P.R. flaks could have dreamed up. It's tragic that he died the way he did, but it's reassuring to know that men like him still exist in the first place.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Be careful which enemies you make

By Edward Copeland 

In Charles Ferguson's outstanding documentary on the financial meltdown, Inside Job, one of his interview subjects is former N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who'd been known as the Sheriff of Wall Street for going after shady business practices long before the collapse. Toward the end of Inside Job, it makes the point that none of the financial firms ever faced investigations for their traders writing off high-priced escort services as business expenses, but the Justice Department did pursue Spitzer when it was discovered after he was governor that he used an escort service. The work that Spitzer did and the promise he held as a gifted politician that came crashing down because of his personal weakness are detailed well in another excellent documentary from the prolific filmmaker Alex Gibney, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer.

Gibney also made the great 2010 documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money as well as the similarly outstanding Taxi to Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the World. He also served in producing capacities on Ferguson's excellent No End in Sight and the brilliant Who Killed the Electric Car?

While Client 9 definitely makes the case that the political downfall of Spitzer may have been an orchestrated hit by his enemies in the business community and the Republican Party, Gibney doesn't try to downplay Spitzer's faults beyond the weakness that led him to seek high-priced sexual companionship in the first place. The film paints a broader portrait of the man's achievements and his hubris, which include a superiority complex and an approach that makes him come off as a bully, even if what he was trying to do was right.

As with the best documentaries, Client 9 teaches you things that you didn't know. It seems as if so many of the recent outstanding documentaries, no matter what their subject may be, show how spoonfed the U.S. media are, regurgitating "facts" that get handed to them while seldom checking their veracity. As far as I knew (and I imagine this to be the case with most people who heard about Spitzer and the call girl), his preferred escort was "Kristen" aka Ashley DuPre, who then turned herself into another of those freak celebrities, who ended up with a job at Rupert Murdoch's New York Post as a love and sex columnist.

Client 9, through interviews with one of the owners of The Emperors Club escort service, reveals that Spitzer saw "Kristen" maybe once but mainly went out with a woman who went by the name Angelica. Gibney interviewed her, but she didn't want her face or voice revealed, so an actress plays her part and reads the transcript of her interviews. Ironically, she's now a commodities day trader.

Where Spitzer really might have earned the enemies who were determined to stop him was when as attorney general he went after the head of AIG, Hank Greenberg, for the crooked financial games that company was playing, long before that company's collapse became a major cause of the world financial collapse and cost U.S. taxpayers billions in not one, but two bailouts. Greenberg was not at the helm by then, having been removed by his own board for violating company rules, but the methods AIG employed while Greenberg ran it were still going on and led to AIG's implosion.

U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia prevented Spitzer's pursuit of Greenberg prior to that by claiming the Justice Department was building a case against Greenberg, which they never filed. However, this same Garcia intercepted wire transfers Spitzer made and started looking into escort services that led to leaks that got Spitzer's sexual habits revealed. This also came at the time the Bush Administration was firing U.S. attorneys who weren't prosecuting enough Democrats.

Needless to say, when prosecutors go after prostitution rings, they rarely go after the clients, just the owners and the prostitutes. In contrast, around the same time, the D.C. Madam case surfaced and they only pursued the madam there, even though it was revealed that two of her clients were high-profile Republicans, including Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, who was just re-elected. He faced no legal inquiries.

Many believed that Spitzer had a good shot at being the country's first Jewish president. I just wonder if he'd been able to keep after Wall Street as he was doing, whether some of the mess that happened could have been prevented since no regulatory fixes have really been put in place to stop it since. Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations shall not perish from the United States and we the little people always will be the ones paying the price. Thank goodness we have documentary filmmakers such as Alex Gibney to do the job that journalists have long since abandoned or forgotten how to do.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Glenn Greenwald and the "climate of fear"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Much of the political world has been talking about the Arizona shooting the past few days, but there remains a larger and more troubling development, namely, the U.S. government's manufacturing of a "climate of fear" that allows it to advance its interests both at home and abroad.

I highly recommend this essential post from Glenn Greenwald. Key passage:

So much of what the U.S. Government has done over the last decade has been devoted to creating and strengthening this climate of fear. Attacking Iraq under the terrorizing banner of "shock and awe"; disappearing people to secret prisons; abducting them and shipping them to what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter (when advocating this) euphemistically called "our less squeamish allies"; throwing them in cages for years without charges, dressed in orange jumpsuits and shackles; creating a worldwide torture regime; spying on Americans without warrants and asserting the power to arrest them on U.S. soil without charges: all of this had one overarching objective. It was designed to create a climate of repression and intimidation by signaling to the world -- and its own citizens -- that the U.S. was unconstrained by law, by conventions, by morality, or by anything else:  the government would do whatever it wanted to anyone it wanted, and those thinking about opposing the U.S. in any way, through means legitimate or illegitimate, should (and would) thus think twice, at least.

That a large percentage of those brutalized by this system turned out to be innocent -- knowingly innocent --  is a feature, not a bug:  that one can end up being subjected to these lawless horrors despite doing nothing wrong only intensifies the fear and makes it more effective. The power being asserted is not merely unlimited and tyrannical, but arbitrary. And now, the Obama administration's citizen-aimed, due-process-free assassination program, its orgies of drone attacks, its defense of radically broad interpretations of "material support" criminal statutes, and its disturbing targeting of American anti-war activists with subpoenas and armed police raids are all part of the same tactic. Those contemplating meaningful opposition to American action are meant to be frightened. The anguished, helpless cries of 18-year-old American Gulet Mohamed, after a week of being disappeared and brutalized by America's close ally, serves an important purpose.

Make sure to read the whole thing. You'll notice that Greenwald is not engaging in demagoguery and is not using violent rhetoric to whip his readers up into a mouth-frothing frenzy. He is simply doing what the media are not, which is reporting on what is actually going on in the world, including what the government is doing, and encouraging people to educate themselves and to demand that their democratically-elected government not engage in undemocratic and illiberal practices that violate America's purported principles and ideals:

There has been much talk over the last several days, in the wake of the Arizona shooting, about attempts by some citizens to instill physical fear in elected officials. That's a worthwhile and necessary topic, but the fear that government officials are attempting to instill in law-abiding, dissenting citizens is far more substantial and sustained, and deserves much more attention than it has received.

Indeed.

Wait, Bush lied America into war with Iraq? Seriously?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yeah, yeah, we knew this already, but it's important to keep track of the evidence as it mounts and to prevent the whole sordid episode from slipping into the oblivion of Americans' generally non-existent historical memory. Think Progress reports on the latest brick in the wall:

[W]ith the help of a Freedom of Information Act request, the National Security Archive has obtained a newly declassified document that details talking points that emerged from a meeting between Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy Franks in November 2001.

The talking points mainly revolve around the logistical planning for a war in Iraq. They detail the "decapitation" of the Iraqi government by U.S. forces and make regime change the goal. Interestingly, they already mention U.S. forces "coming out of Afghanistan" to join the invasion of Iraq. Yet the most alarming part of the document is a bullet point titled, "How start?" (which is a discussion that actually appears after the planning of the entire war). The participants in the Rumsfeld-Frank meeting discussed possible ways to provoke a conflict with Iraq, including an attack by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish north, the U.S. discovering a "Saddam connection" to 9/11 or the anthrax attacks, or a dispute over WMD inspections. It appears from the language of the talking points that the Bush administration had already decided to go to war with Iraq and was looking for an opportunity to invade:


Another document obtained by the National Security Archive shows that the Bush State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research created an assessment of international support for a war against Iraq in December 2001.

This won't get much attention. It's not sensationalistic enough for the media and Americans just don't want to know what really happened lest they actually have to face the fact that their president lied to them and that a war that has cost thousands of American lives, not to mention countless Iraqi lives, was built upon a campaign of utter dishonesty and deception.

It is essential, however, that the truth not be swept under the rug. History, after all, has a way of repeating itself, including in a democracy with a demos that doesn't care enough to hold its leaders accountable.

Truth in Comics

By Creature


If it's Sunday, it's Truth in Comics.

Good riddance!

By Carl

You think Barack Obama is glad to see 2009 end?

1) Climate Change Conference Stalled

2) Democrats Squabble Over Healthcare Reform

3) Whiny Republicans Throw A Temper Tantrum

4) First Time Jobless Claims Are Surprisingly Higher

5) Obama's Support Is Winnowing Away

This closely mirrors the first Bush year, when he could get nothing done and was falling apart, until one fateful day in September of 2001.

We hope Obama will not resort to allowing a tragedy on his watch, but one never knows for sure.

I wouldn't say he desperately needs good news, but it's certainly looking as though he could stand a bit of picking up and the clock is running, after all. He needs something in the first half of 2010 in order to consolidate the gains Democrats have made over the past six years in Congress.

Curiously, it's the attacking from the left that flummoxes me. I get that an awful lot of hope (pun intended) was placed on Obama's shoulders, but come on! The economy this year, the worst since the Great Depression, has hampered any effective legislation he could possibly have been expected to pass, AND he's had to herd cats from his left and his right in order to do what he has been able to accomplish.

And it's most assuredly NOT helping that the moronic leadership in Congress has been nipping at his heels instead of assisting his agenda.

Hell, you'd almost be tempted to blame Bush/Cheney for sabotaging the nation, poisoning the well ahead of Obama's takeover, in order to give one final bird to the people of the United States.

If liberals, and I count myself a liberal, albeit one with a mind, are going to blame anyone, then let's shift the focus to where the blame truly belongs. If Republicans could blame Clinton (or worse, Jimmy Carter) for Bush's failings eight years out, certainly we can be sporting enough to blame Bush for failing to live up to his fiduciary duty to protect the nation and its citzenry, just one year down the road.


(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

Irony of the day

By Mustang Bobby

Jack Kelley, a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and The Blade in Toledo, and the poor man's William Kristol, is railing against President Obama's "vendetta" against the Bush administration.

Former Justice Department official Shannen Coffin thinks the real reason for a civilian trial is that President Obama hopes KSM and his lawyers will attack the Bush administration.

“The decision to try KSM in civilian court accomplishes indirectly what Obama does not wish to do directly — it puts the Bush administration’s interrogation tactics on trial for all the world to see,” Mr. Coffin said. This would be red meat for the liberal base. But it’s unlikely to be popular with centrists who are already unhappy with Mr. Obama’s economic policies.

This has been the most political administration in modern times. Ten months after his inauguration, Mr. Obama still behaves more like a candidate than a president. But in pursuing his vendetta against his predecessor at the expense of American security, he may be campaigning to be a one-term president. [Emphasis added.]

I'd like to take up a collection and send Mr. Kelley a get-well card and hope that now that he's recovered from his eight-year coma, someone will bring him up to date on just which has been "the most political administration in modern times." That's an insult to Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, Harriet Miers, and the rest of the people in the Bush administration who worked so tirelessly to try to secure a permanent Republican majority. How Mr. Kelley could ignore their work just to take a cheap shot at President Obama is unconscionable.

But seriously, while it is important to grant the defendants a fair trial, it is also important to recognize that it's going to be that much harder because the Bush administration did everything they possibly could to make it impossible for that to happen. They expected two outcomes: either KSM and his cohorts would be tried in a military tribunal using evidence that could never stand up in a civilian court, or they were going to let them rot away in jail for the rest of their lives without ever bringing them to trial. They never expected the rule of law to be applied, and now the biggest fear they and the rest of the monarchists have is that the Bush administration will be the ones held accountable for throwing the case against the terrorists into the crapper.

Will Holder investigate Bush's torture regime? If so, how far will he go? (Likely not far enough.)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

By now, I suspect, many of you have read, or at least read about, Newsweek's article on Attorney General Eric Holder and the possible appointment of "a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices" (i.e., torture). Like Glenn Greenwald, I was, initially, optimistic. Finally, I thought. It's about time. And, like Creature, I was also firmly in "the I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it camp."

Well, it looks like Glenn is right:

New facts about what that investigation would entail and, more importantly, would exclude -- facts added by [yesterday]'s Washington Post -- strongly suggest it's the opposite. At least if that article is to be believed -- and it seems clear that Holder dispatched his allies to leak his plans in order to gauge reaction -- the investigation will only target "rogue" CIA interrogators who exceeded the limits of what John Yoo authorized, and would not include high-level policy makers who authorized the torture tactics and implemented America's torture regime.

What I thought was that Obama and Holder were playing more of the good cop, bad cop routine that has come to characterize Obama's PR handling of key issues. (It's usually Obama and Emanuel.) In this case, Obama was, as president, remaining above the partisan fray, not only refusing to commit to an investigation but also seemingly against one altogether, talking up bipartisanship and the need to look to the future, not to the past. Ultimately, it's Holder's call, though, more or less, and that has afforded Obama some protection. If there's an investigation, it's because Holder wants one, not Obama, because it's what the law requires (or demands), or at least because the country's chief law enforcement official (Holder) thinks it's the right thing to do, regardless of political calculation.

But now what?

"I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," said Holder. "But that can't be a part of my decision." No, but while he has "the responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws," he is also "part of the president's team." And it's not at all clear that the president and his team want to go ahead with an investigation into what happened under his predecessor, at least not a serious one, one that examines not just what "rogue" CIA interrogators did but what was authorized and by whom at the very top. Indeed, that an investigation would only target "rogue" agents is despicable. What it suggests is that "the president's team" thinks that what is needed is not the truth but some effective scapegoating. For if the whole sordid mess can be blamed on a few "rogue" agents, just like a few "rogue" troops were blamed for what happened at Abu Ghraib without a full accounting of who authorized what, then Bush and Cheney and their various minions will essentially be let off the hook. Not only that, but "the president's team" would effectively be concluding that what was authorized was not actually improper or illegal. Who knew that Obama would be such a staunch supporter of Cheney and Yoo?

Well, we're not there quite yet, but the signs aren't exactly encouraging. It's not that I don't think that Obama and Holder are honourable men, it's that I think they'll let partisan political considerations trump doing what is right for America. And, make no mistake, uncovering the truth is what is right for America, and for the world beyond. An ongoing suppression of the truth, when so much was hoped for from Obama, would only foster cynicism at home and abroad and increase the likelihood of the very same abuses happening again and again in future, because the abusers would effectively have gotten away with it. Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it, after all.

**********

One other point, which Creature touched upon. The current media take, driven by Republican spin (and, make no mistake, Republicans are behind what the media are saying), is that an investigation into what happened under Bush would increase partisan rancour and doom Obama's domestic agenda (health care, global warming, energy, the economy, etc.). What it suggests is that Republicans are more than willing to play ball with Obama now and that Obama, and Democrats generally, delve into the past at their own, and their own agenda's, peril.

Nonsense, I say.

Republicans aren't playing ball, as we saw with Obama's economic stimulus package. They're already partisan -- and they're already trying to torpedo every last major part of Obama's domestic agenda, from cap-and-trade on carbon emissions to a "public option" on health care. It is hardly possible that an investigation into Bush's torture regime would make Republicans less likely to support Obama or render Obama's agenda less likely to succeed. If Obama succeeds, it will not be because Republicans played ball, and supported him, but in spite of their rigid opposition to his agenda.

So don't buy the spin. This has nothing to do with Obama's agenda and everything to do with what must be done to uncover the truth about a terrible chapter in recent American history.

What the media are reporting is a threat, that's all, a threat that can't be backed up. I am not terribly optimistic, at least not at the moment, but I am hopeful that Obama and Holder know this to be the case.

If nothing else, at least an investigation, even one with a weak mandate, would get the ball rolling. (For more on this, and on Holder's independence from Emanuel and Axelrod, see Scott Horton.)

AG Holder leaning towards appointing special prosecutor

By Creature

Put me in the I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it camp. While I don't want to see Obama's agenda stalled, the reality is that the same people who are currently saying no to anything Obama will be the same people up in arms over any decision to look into Bush era crimes. Sure there will be yelling on the TV. Sure we will be subjected to an endless loop of Newt and Liz, but that's about it. It's not like Republicans are playing nice now. If it's a choice between getting yelled at and the rule of law, well, that's not a very hard choice. Is it?

Raping for freedom

By Capt. Fogg

Somebody must be running a little bit scared since the Commander Guy has put away his toys and has entered the stage, making excuses about torture. It's legal and I did it to protect you, he said in Michigan last night, and perhaps many of those people who decide they're "conservatives" and therefore trust whatever the Republican government says, will buy the story despite their pretended anti-government stance. "I'm from the government and I'm here to inspect your hamburger meat" scares the hell out of them, but "I'm from the government and I rape and murder women and children to protect you" slides down the throat as easily as the Flavor-Aid in Jonestown.

To be up-front about it, I think the experiment is over and democracy lost, but as a cynical observer of our national hypocrisy I'm anticipating a great deal of entertainment if and when the statements of General Taguba and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are graphically depicted to the public as irrefutable proof. I truly want to see the Decider reduced to justifying the sodomy of little boys to "protect" us. I want to see him justify his love of war and conquest with unscrupulous cowardice. I want to hear Cheney justify shoving light sticks and batons up the rectums of crying and screaming teenagers as "saving lives." Of course, they've already done that, but they've portrayed it only as making horned and bearded terrorist devils "uncomfortable" and the man who delights in shooting tame birds laughs at our squeamishness.

I want to hear Rush and Ann tell us that American prison guards were justified in forcing oral sex on captured Muslim women "because they might know something" and we all know they wanted it. I want to hear the lot of them giggle at these pictures. I want to hear them tell us that Iraq was not justified at rising up against us for these acts alone, costing us thousands of lives.

No, we didn't torture anyone, but when we did, it was legal because we make the law and the Geneva convention doesn't apply because old women and boys don't wear uniforms and besides Geneva is in a foreign country when the men are all girly Liberals and Festus, Missouri would long since have become a Taliban stronghold if we hadn't. You may laugh or cry or sputter like a Republican, but that's been the argument.

Did Bush and his henchmen actually save my life in his chambers of horror? If so, my life is worth nothing and your life and your honor are worth less than nothing if you defend it.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

A win for Obama!

By Carl

It feels good to write that after hearing about how for eight years, Bush kept us safe from terrorists, and then having it turn out that, welllllll....it was police work that saved the day, even if the threat was hardly credible to begin with:

Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The "informant" in question was a Sunni Muslim who was working with the FBI in exhcange.

I'm betting he was not tortured.

After the Sears Tower plot of 2006 was exposed, we were told time and time again about how effective the Bush administration had been in foiling terror attacks.

This time?

Around 9 p.m., a law enforcement official said an 18-wheel New York Police Department vehicle blocked the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle at 237th Street and Riverdale Avenue. Another armored vehicle arrived and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit took the men out of the truck and handcuffed them.

After the plot was broken up, the team of uniformed officers took the suspects away.

So it was good old fashioned police work...none of this military-industrial-covert espionage crap that Bush tried to ram down our throats. Identify a plot and work to uncover the breadth and depth of it, then shut it down and roll up the cells.

Reminds me of the good old safe days of the Clinton administration with Janet Reno!

And should serve as a reminder of the cynical gloating of the Bushies, who treated the most insignificant terror plot revelation as a two-year child who just took a dump would expose it to his mom.

"Lookit! Lookit what I did!"

(crossposted to Simply Left Behind)

43

By Creature

That's the percentage of American people who believe it is “somewhat likely” or "very likely" that the CIA lied to Nancy Pelosi about the use of waterboarding when interrogating detainees. On the other end, 41% say it’s “not very likely” or “not at all likely.” Now, keeping in mind this is a right-leaning Rasmussen poll and the media's embrace of the Republican frame on this, I'm very surprised that so many people were willing to give Pelosi the benefit of the doubt.

For me, for the record, on the narrow lie that waterboarding had already been used when Pelosi was briefed that it could legally be used, I'm fully in the pluralities camp. Everything the Bush administration did to CYA on torture, including briefings, was after the fact and no amount of muddying can change that.

The photos

By Creature

I am disappointed that the president has decided not to release the additional detainee abuse photos. However, I'm more disappointed that he used the "few bad apples" excuse as part of his reasoning. It was not a small number of individuals. It was a well thought out program of abuse ordered from the highest levels of our government. To characterize it in any other way is dishonest and, again, disappointing.

Note to dead old white guy

By Carl

You had your chance, you killed 3,000 Americans on American soil and another 5,000 in unnecessary wars. Please go away:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may have largely stayed under the radar during his time in the Bush administration, but he is not going softly into that good night, seemingly launching a one-man campaign to fight for his legacy and -- in his view -- the safety of the nation.

"Legacy"... funny word that. No doubt you were privvy to the contents of the August 6, 2001 PDB. Maybe you recall the bloody title?

Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Nothing says "safe" like ignoring a warning!

Did anyone else die in terror attacks on American soil since September 11? Frankly no. But no one can know if that's due to your *koffkoff* tireless efforts, or merely because al Qaeda et al shot their wad on 9/11 and it took them years to arm up again.

Indeed, I'd absolutely lay money on the latter because of the posturing you guys did. Keeping in touch with your inner adolescence, you and your Bush administration cronies acted like a bunch of pre-teen hoodlums outside the polar bear enclave at the zoo, teasing and harassing the animals, knowing full well that the next person in the cage...you know, the adults?...would have to deal with an angry bear.

Yeah. Brave. That pretty much sums up the level of courage you and Bush the Immature showed in the past eight years.

Dick, and I call you that because it's your name and not necessarily because I think it describes you to a T, your heart stopped decades ago.

Follow suit, mmmmmmmmmmmmmK?

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Graham denies torture briefing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This -- from Greg Sargent -- is very, very interesting:

Former Senator Bob Graham, who received a classified briefing on terror detainees during the same month in the fall of 2002 as Nancy Pelosi, was not briefed about the use of either waterboarding or enhanced interrogation techniques during the meeting, he claimed in an interview with me.

Graham's assertion — his first public comments since the release of the intelligence document detailing torture briefings given to members of Congress — directly contradicts the document's claim that he had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs. Graham is now the second Dem official to deny on the record the document's contents and raises questions about its claim that Pelosi had been told, which she has denied.

"I do not have any recollection of being briefed on waterboarding or other forms of extraordinary interrogation techniques, or Abu Zubaydah being subjected to them," Graham told me by phone moments ago, in a reference to the terror suspect who had been repeatedly waterboarded the month before.

Graham is the only other Dem aside from Pelosi to get briefed in 2002, so they are both in effect asserting that no Dem was briefed on the use of EITs that year.

The other side -- the pro-torture enthusiasts -- are defending themselves in part by claiming that top Democrats knew what was going on and did not intervene. What Graham is saying, though, even more clearly than Pelosi, is that they weren't actually told what was going on, that they were intentionally being kept in the dark.

For more on this, make sure to read Emptywheel: "[T]he big news should be what it always has been -- that the Bush Administration and the CIA did not give the legally required briefing on their covert ops to Congress."

And why didn't they? Because they were up to something not just controversial but illegal.

Judge them accordingly.