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reposted by Betty
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Date Posted: 18:48:19 01/05/04 Mon
In reply to:
Betty
's message, "Silly 'Publicans Gallery & circus" on 17:25:28 03/23/03 Sun
NEW YEAR BRINGS SAME OLD BUSH
By Bill Gallagher
Wake up. Rise up. Shake off the holiday haze as we must to keep up with the ever-steady maneuvers of Bush and company. The new year should bring new focus on what they've been up to these recent weeks and the significant events that have occurred and have been given scant attention from the more-oblivious-than-usual mainstream American media.
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is delving into important areas and the hearings set to begin later this month could provide some major revelations about what U.S. intelligence agencies knew in the months preceding the Saudi-financed al-Qaeda operations.
Thomas Kean, the Republican chairman of the commission appointed by President Bush, told CBS News some things that are sending shudders through the White House. Kean said of the commission's work, "As you read the report, you're going to have a pretty clear idea of what wasn't done and what should have been done. ... This was not something that had to happen."
That's not what the Bush crowd wants to hear, especially in this election year. Remember this well. George W. Bush and all his minions did everything they could to prevent the creation of an independent commission in the first place and, after buckling in, they have done everything possible to thwart and frustrate the probe.
The administration makes it difficult to get any information out of the federal agencies targeted in the investigation and it's only with the use and threat of subpoenas that the commission has gotten relevant documents.
High on the list of people the commission wants to hear from is National Security Adviser Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and she doesn't want to testify the way others will be required to.
Commission members want to question her about the remark she made in 2002 that no one "could have predicted that they would use a hijacked airplane as a missile." That claim runs smack in the face of years of intelligence provided to the National Security Council that pointed to al-Qaeda's interest in airplane attacks.
"Time" magazine has learned that Dr. Rice, aka Concealeeza and Queen Condi, doesn't want the indignity of raising her hand and swearing to tell the truth. And she also wants to avoid the discomfort of being required to testify under oath in public. Gee, I wonder why?
Rice is simply inept and is the worst national security adviser any president has ever had. She is usually treated with kid gloves in the media, which avoids the obvious conclusion about her performance: Under the Rice watch, our nation has never been more insecure.
Her job is to sort through sensitive information and arbitrate conflicting fact-finding to make sure the president knows what's going on around the world and what to do about it. The analysis is supposed to be objective and the information developed free from any political tones.
Rice has failed miserably in that role and she has largely abrogated much of her job to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney, who shape intelligence and national security priorities to fit their preconceived conclusions.
Rice, though, is the public face for Bush and the boys, and in that capacity she has shown herself to be little more than a third-rate political flack with glib answers that often fail the test of scrutiny and time.
Rice, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a charter member of the Pinocchio pack that convinced the Congress and most of the American people that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to our national security and war was justified to protect us from annihilation.
Rice added some of the most frightening rhetoric to that monumental lie. Beating the war drum before the invasion of Iraq, Rice spoke of Saddam Hussein and his intentions. "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," Rice warned ominously.
The only mushroom Saddam got close to was in a dark corner of his spider-hole. His nuclear weapons program was nonexistent. Rice also offered this whopper about her peace-loving boss: "The president has always said that war is his last choice, not his first." She said this with a straight face. Perhaps Dr. Rice was preoccupied or out of the room when Cheney, Rumsfeld and the other war-mongers began plotting the invasion of Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001. They, in fact, had been hoping for years for any reason they could sell for regime change in Iraq.
It was their first choice, and Bush and his "brain" adviser, Karl Rove, immediately saw the political advantage of going after the well-defined Saddam and making him the culprit for Sept. 11. Rice helped sell that great canard and she continues to sell the nonsense that we are safer from terror with Saddam in the slammer.
She knows this was a war of choice and war was the first choice. She compromised her office and her own integrity, using phony claims of national security to create the pretext to go after Saddam.
Rice doesn't want the commission and the world to know how flawed her judgments and advice have been before and after Sept. 11. Her testimony could usher her exit from the White House. What she really wants is a prestigious academic or foundation appointment, speaking fees, book deals and corporate board appointments to protect the international oil interests she has served so well.
Rice craves respectability and the money to feed her shoe-shopping addiction. Give it to her. Our nation will be safer with her departure.
The Sept. 11 commission's quest for the truth could have a rival for intriguing information -- the trial of Saddam Hussein. It should be done under international auspices, and seeking the death penalty will only strengthen his followers and add to the violence U.S. occupation forces face daily in Iraq. But since George W. wants Texas justice and an execution in Iraq, that's what's going to happen.
What will be interesting, if allowed, is Saddam's recalling his days of being America's darling in the region when he was waging war against the Iranians. At that time, Rumsfeld was Ronald Reagan's personal envoy to Saddam, sipping scotch with the dictator, bringing him gifts, providing military aid and intelligence support for his murderous regime.
Rumsfeld even looked the other way when Saddam used poisonous gas on those troublesome Kurds. Not a big matter when Rummy's real concern was to help Saddam defeat Iran.
Maybe Rumsfeld himself should testify at the trial and explain how he helped create the monster, and how some of the bloodiest years of Saddam's rule and oppression of his people came when he was our "friend."
The day of Saddam's capture, Rumsfeld went on a gloating bender, explaining how great it was to have finally snatched his old pal.
ABC's Peter Jennings and CBS's Leslie Stahl both interviewed Field Marshall Rumsfeld about the capture, but neither dared to even mention the Reagan-Rummy-Saddam axis.
I guess these millionaire crypto-journalists didn't want to offend such a powerful man on his triumphant day. Or perhaps they were just unaware of Rumsfeld's intimacy with Saddam. Either way, it's disgraceful. No wonder so many Americans don't have a clue about the sordid history of that relationship.
During the December doldrums, a terribly underreported story developed that actually points to Halliburton's innocence of charges the company was engaged in price-gouging and war profiteering through a Pentagon contract to provide gasoline in Iraq.
Cheney's old outfit got a $1.2 billion deal to deliver fuel to our oil-rich colony. Halliburton got some heat when Pentagon auditors learned the company was paying $2.27 per gallon for gasoline from a Kuwaiti company that could be purchased for $1.18 per gallon from Turkey.
Howls of outrage were heard everywhere and Democrats in Congress demanded an explanation and investigation. But it turns out Halliburton may have been squeezed to buy the higher-priced fuel.
The Wall Street Journal reported Halliburton executives were pressured to buy the more expensive fuel from Kuwait and the pressure came from the U.S. Embassy there. In an incredible statement, Thomas A. Crum, chief operating officer for Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown and Root unit, told the Journal, "There's been considerable pressure here on our people from the embassy encouraging us to buy as much fuel as we can from Kuwait, telling us it's a political issue."
Let's check out the politics. Kuwait helped in the invasion of Iraq and Turkey did not. So we reward the Kuwaitis and punish the Turks, squandering the American taxpayers' money in the process.
Since the stated reasons for the war have faded, the administration's new line is that deposing the dictator Saddam will help spread the seeds of freedom and democracy throughout the Middle East.
Kuwait is a chunk of oil-rich desert corrupt British map-makers carved out to present to the Sabah family, which paid the bribes to get the land. The country, under Sabah rule, is run by rich despots who exploit foreign workers and disdain freedom.
Turkey, on the other hand, is a democracy, although not exactly on the Western model. Turkey is our NATO ally and, during the Cold War, stood firmly against the Soviet Union. Turkey has good relations with Israel and its government is secular and resists Islamist extremists, unlike Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for instance.
Many Turkish political leaders wanted to allow U.S. troops to use its territory to invade Iraq. But the Turkish parliament, fearing problems with the Kurds, among other things, nixed the plan. Democracies can be unpredictable.
So it looks like someone in the Bush administration decided to reward the dictators in Kuwait and punish the Turks for having the nerve to follow their democratic institutions. That sends an interesting message to other nations in the region.
Our viceroy in Iraq, J. Paul Bremer, jumped off the script, and perhaps accidentally debunked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's claims that weapons hunters had discovered "massive evidence of clandestine laboratories" in Iraq and that Saddam had attempted to "conceal weapons."
One of those tricky British reporters asked Bremer for his assessment of the claims without bothering to tell him Blair had made them. Not true, Bremer proclaimed, stating emphatically that the United States' chief weapons inspector found nothing of the sort.
"I don't know where those words come from, but that is not what David Kay has said. I have his report, so I don't know who said that. ... It sounds like someone who doesn't agree with the policy sets up a red herring and then knocks it down."
When informed the words were Blair's, Bremer quickly backpedaled and said, yes, indeed, that weapons inspectors did find in Iraq "clear evidence of violation of UN Security Council resolutions relating to rockets," but still a far cry from the prime minister's wild and unsubstantiated claims. Bremer's lapse into truth and candor was given very little media play on the U.S. side of the Big Pond.
The Bush administration wants these issues to go away.
The death and suffering in Iraq continue with Saddam behind bars. Al-Qaeda thrives and can strike at any time. The morphing of the war on terror from bin Laden to Saddam has eroded U.S. credibility around the world and America's new role as the great enforcer makes our nation less safe and secure.
At home, on the fiscal front, the Bush policies of reckless spending and borrowing are heading the U.S. Treasury for disaster. The Bush tax policies are best described as offering a preferential option for the rich.
In spite of all this, the president is a heavy favorite to win re-election. He has the advantage of incumbency, more money than anyone can imagine, and will skillfully play the politics of fear to try to convince people he is indispensable.
Televangelist Pat Robertson says God has already informed him George W. will win re-election in a "blowout." God actually tried to relay the inside information to Jerry Falwell, but he put the Lord on hold to take a call from Karl Rove.
If God, indeed, is whispering into the ears of the right-wing religious zealots, those who think the Bush presidency is an abomination are certainly heading to damnation.
But maybe, just maybe, the American people will finally catch on and send George W. Bush in the direction he richly deserves in November -- on the path to political perdition.
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