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Thursday, November 30. 2006

Bush’s Phony War

“I’m the decider and I’ve decided that if you criticize me you’re a Al Kida sympathizer
and ought to be in Gitmo."

In the five years since September 11, 2001, the president has pushed legislation through Congress that has had little — if any — effect on the so-called “War on Terror.” In particular, there is the Patriot Act which, among other things, authorizes our intelligence agencies to sift through our medical, financial and library records with out cause or due process.

Then there is the NSA eavesdropping program that will die with this, the 109th Congress, at the end of the year because even the president’s allies in Congress don’t want to pass the bill that would make it “legal.” And the Military Commissions Act, which basically deprives us of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.

All of these “tools” in the so-called “war on terror” have been foisted upon the public — with many of my fellow citizens applauding! — With the expressed purpose of rooting out the terrorists among us.

Never mind that in May of 2002, then Attorney General John Ashcroft announced new methods of surveillance, which included wiretaps and searches of bank records without warrants, information that basically told the terrorists — Al Qaa’ida specifically — to change its method of communication.
 Would you like to know why Bush and his cronies resorted to breaking the law in regards to surveillance without proper authorization? Well, I’m gonna tell you anyway. In May, 2002, a federal court — the FISA Court to be specific (Click Here) — ruled the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies had filed erroneous reports in order to mislead the court to obtain warrants for wiretaps.
 Apparently, the Justice Department wanted to use FISA to investigate crimes, or merely potential crimes, with the open latitude provided by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). So, what the FBI did was create phony foreign anti-terrorist excuses for investigations that otherwise had nothing to do with foreign intelligence. Oops.

This past summer the president announced that the alleged plot to blow up U.S. bound passenger jets was disrupted because of the illegal use of wiretap surveillance, but that hasn’t been borne out by any facts. In fact, initial reports indicated this plan was entirely a British-Pakistani operation with little U.S. involvement until sic days prior to the mass arrests of the suspects when British Prime Minister Tony Blair informed the president of the plot. Then we found out the president and his administration pushed the British to make arrests before British authorities had a solid case. Of the 24 people arrested, only 14 were charged with any crimes.

As more details of the alleged plot come to light, we find out that number of aircraft targeted — ten, initially — was “speculative and exaggerated,” according to British authorities and — this is the funny part — the explosives the plotters are alleged to have had in mind needed to be mixed on the plane, in near-zero (Celsius) temperature and then dried for several hours before they had an effective bomb. And each bomb needed to weigh just over half a pound (nine ounces) to be effective on an airliner.

Despite all the presidential rhetoric about keeping America safe, we still have less than 5% of the cargo coming into this nation’s ports inspected, whether it’s inspected in foreign ports or here. Security at nuclear sites is still lax, especially at research facilities on university campuses. Chemical plants and oil refineries are still soft targets for terrorists.

What is the president’s focus? Al Qaa’ida in Iraq, which the Pentagon says is causing just a fraction of the violence there, and of course, Al Qaa’ida didn’t set up shop in Iraq until we deposed Saddam Hussein. Yeah, in answer to the stupid question: “Would you rather have Saddam Hussein still in power?”

Duh … yeah. He’d still be a despotic ruler, but we wouldn’t have 150,000 troops in Iraq today, with no end in sight, no plan to get us out — if there was a plan there would be no need for the Iraq Study Group — There would still be the same number of WMD’s in Iraq — none — and Iran and Syria wouldn’t have been bold enough to set Hezbollah on a Jihad in Israel.

We wouldn’t have lost over 2,800 of our young men and women to hostile fire, or have 23,000 wounded; nor would we have spent 340 billion dollars since the president started this war, or about 3 billion per week, with no end in sight.

You’d think the president would have got the message on November 7th when his party was removed from power in Congress, but he didn’t. As far as he is concerned, U.S. troops will be in Iraq until “the mission is completed.”

Marines in Al Anbar Province

Mission complete? The Marines are pulling out of Al Anbar Province, not because the mission has been accomplished there, but because the mission is all but lost. Colonel Peter Devlin, the senior Marine Corps Intelligence officer in Al Anbar Province, said in an intelligence assessment that “without a massive infusement of more troops, the battle in Al Anbar is unwinnable.” With 30,000 troops, mostly Marines, already in that province, the deadliest in Iraq for American military personnel, there is little, if any, support available, considering the need for more troops in Baghdad will suck up any extra troops the Pentagon might find to send into Iraq.

As of today, November 29th, the city of Baqouba has been shut down due to all the violence. The list of what’s going bad in Iraq could take hundreds of thousands of words to describe … but I won’t.

But just a few more: if all that didn’t make the situation in Iraq bad enough, as of today we find out the president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, has reached a security agreement with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after a three day visit in Teheran, Iran. Talabani told reporters, “We discussed in the fields of security, economy, oil and industry. Our agreement was complete, This visit was 100 percent successful. Its result will appear soon.”

Bringing into sharp focus the news that the summit In Jordan between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been delayed by one day and at least one White House spokesperson claiming the meeting was going to be of a “social nature” anyway … or maybe both sides are trying to figure out how to frame the agreement reached in Teheran.
 Or maybe it’s the White House memo that was published in the New York Times that said Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, had little faith in al-Maliki.
 Which brings up the other bit in the New York Times quoting a State Department official saying Tony Blair and the British government are ignored.

If you still believe the U.S. will prevail in Iraq; if you still believe we have any influence over the political and security situation in Iraq, that meeting in Teheran should dispel those notions.

Earlier this year I joked, with somewhat of a hopeful tone, that the president would be doing the nation a favor if he just went on permanent vacation in Crawford, Texas. He could wile away the remainder of his term collecting the 500 million dollars needed to build his presidential library and staff his “think tank” with young historians eager to rewrite history in his favor.

I’m happy with that, despite the hypocrisy of the righties who blasted Clinton’s library for costing 165 million. And despite the political favors Bush would incur collecting that money. You figure a lame duck without any political cache in Washington can’t do too much harm, although he might decide to use his veto pen.

But that might be a small price to pay to keep him out of Washington so the adults can get the ship of state back on course.

Former Georgia Congressman
Newt Gingrich

Which brings up this little chestnut: Newt Gingrich was giving a speech in New Hampshire, the state’s motto being “Live Free or Die,” celebrating our first amendment, in particular, the freedom of speech. In his speech, Gingrich suggested limits to this fundamental of all freedoms, especially in efforts to restrict access to the Internet and what is published on the Internet. In other words, he thinks we should be like China, North Korea and Iran. That sounds like a way to promote our values!

It’s bad enough Reporters Without Borders rank the United States 53rd in Freedom of the Press, behind such nations as Slovakia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Estonia, Namibia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Botswana. We have freedom of the press codified … and yet we are ranked barely in the top half of all nations measured in this survey.

What’s truly sad is that there is a large block of kool-aid drinkers in the country who will actually agree with Gingrich. From reading on article on the Huffington Post about the latest attack on the press by the Supreme Court, there will a vocal minority calling for the elimination of the so-called lefty Communist media.

The article on HuffPo was about the court’s decision not to block the federal government from searching through the phone records of reporters at the New York Times in a leak investigation. Some of those who commented on the story said the management and rank-and-file of the Times should all be put in jail, with one respondent reminding we readers sedition and treason were still crimes. Holy cow! The harpy has clones!

Gingrich is going to run for president in 2008. Let’s not forget his opinion of the First Amendment when he announces his candidacy.

Now, I’m going back to bed. I’ve been really sick these past few days and it’s taken three days to write this screed. It’s long overdue and way past the “normal” word count, but I’m changing a thing.

Posted by Tim Forkes in NEWS and POLITICS at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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