IT'S ABOUT TIME! "Time," that is, the TIME magazine exert even a MINIMAL EFFORT to present American readers and citizens with the truth 6 long years into the bloody, amazingly incompetent, and astoundingly corrupt era of the George W. Bush - Dick Cheney led "Global War on Terror," where the ONLY bet that Las Vegas oddsmakers would pay off on from 2001 is "In six years, George Bush and Dick Cheney will create MILLIONS of new potential enemies who hate America enough to risk their lives attacking American civilians and/or soldiers; and in the process of creating those millions of "Hate America!" enemies, the Bush-Cheney administration will drive America's life-long friends and allies to the brink of disgust and rejection."
And, amazingly enough, ALL that TIME magazine had to do to dramatically switch course - from overt, craven, abject administration apologists and whitewashers, to 'truth-tellers" - is to start publishing stories that use common sense to examine the facts that the Bush-Cheney White House, their Departmen of Defense, and their 'Justice" department, and other official, quasi-official, and non-official organs present to us, American readers and world citizens, every day.
For example, the Department of Defense press office is an "official" Bush administration PR organization; and the "Swift Boat Liars Against Kerry" political-action group in the 2004 election was an "unofficial" Bush administration PR organ. The later, while not OFFICIALLY connected to the Bush White House and Bush-Cheney reelection campaign; would have STOPPED promoting their "Kerry is a Traitor!" PR campaign in a New York second if the White House had wanted them to desist, much less put pressure on the group's financiers and spokesmen. BUT the "Swiftboat Liars" had a "FREE PASS" from the White House and Republican Party to push their "Kerry is a liar!" advertising campaign all through the summer of 2004.... Even though a FIVE MINUTE INSPECTION into their claims would reveal that NOT ONE "Swift boat veteran" had actually served WITH John Kerry in combat during Kerry's Vietnam tour; they all, every last Swift Boat Veteran Against Kerry, had either arrived in Vietnam long after then Lt. Kerry had rotated back to America, or served at the same time as Kerry, but in differrent sectors of the Navy's Vietnam command.
Make no mistake: The Swift Boat Vets against Kerry MAY have had some legitimate grievances against one of the most outspoken and visible combat-veteran-critics of the Vietnam War (Kerry appeared before the Senate to give testimony on war atrocities when he returned to America from his combat tour in Vietnam, asking on national TV cameras at the hearings "How do you ask a soldier to be the last one to die in a losing war for his country?") - BUT they were ENTIRELY WILLING to LIE about the facts and MISREPRESENT their case against Kerry, thus making ALL their statements suspect to charges of "Partisan vendetta."
Well, at least TIME is now using MINIMUM STANDARDS of analysis and skepticism in the Department of Defense's latest Goebbels-esque self-promotion; that 3,200 American soldier's lives, 30,000 wounded & traumatized lives, billions of dollars, and uncounted Iraqi lives after the glorious invasion of Iraq, the DoD has extracted a "MAGIC BULLET!" confession from THE MASTERMIND of the ENTIRE al Qaida terrorist organization, implying that Al Qaida is now leaderless and on the brink of dissolving - When in fact Al Qaida's Taliban allies in Afghanistan are resurgent, the Civil War / ethnic cleansing battles in Iraq are becoming ever more deadly and mass-murderous, and the US DoD and "Intel" community themselves, at the behest of the Bush-Cheney White House, are actually funding al Qaida-linked organizations against Hezbollah and elsewhere in the violent region!
------------------------------------------------------
Why KSM's Confession Rings False
By ROBERT BAER
Thursday, Mar. 15, 2007
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1599861,00.html
It's hard to tell what the Pentagon's objective really is in releasing the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession. It certainly suggests the Administration is trying to blame KSM for al-Qaeda terrorism, leading us to believe we've caught the master terrorist and that al-Qaeda, and especially the ever-elusive bin Laden, is no longer a threat to the U.S.
But there is a major flaw in that marketing strategy. On the face of it, KSM, as he is known inside the government, comes across as boasting, at times mentally unstable. It's also clear he is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimizes KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated.
Just as importantly, there is an absence of collateral evidence that would support KSM's story. KSM claims he was "responsible for the 9/11 operation from A-Z." Yet he has omitted details that would support his role. For instance, one of the more intriguing mysteries is who recruited and vetted the fifteen Saudi hijackers, the so-called "muscle." The well-founded suspicion is that Qaeda was running a cell inside the Kingdom that spotted these young men and forwarded them to al-Qaeda. KSM and al-Qaeda often appear bumbling, but they would never have accepted recruits they couldn't count on. KSM does not offer us an answer as to how this worked.
KSM has also not offered evidence of state support to al-Qaeda, though there is good evidence there was, even at a low level. KSM himself was harbored by a member of Qatar's royal family after he was indicted in the U.S. for the Bojinka plot — a plan to bomb twelve American airplanes over the Pacific. KSM and al-Qaeda also received aid from supporters in Pakistan, quite possibly from sympathizers in the Pakistani intelligence service. KSM provides no details that would suggest we are getting the full story from him.
Although he claims to have been al-Qaeda's foreign operations chief, he has offered no information about European networks. Today, dozens of investigations are going on in Great Britain surrounding the London tube bombings on July 7, 2005. Yet KSM apparently knew nothing about these networks or has not told his interrogators about them.
The fact is al-Qaeda is too smart to put all of its eggs in one basket. It has not and does not have a field commander, the role KSM has arrogated. It works on the basis of "weak links," mounting terrorist operations by bringing in people on an ad hoc basis, and immediately disbanding the group afterwards.
Until we hear more, the mystery of who KSM is and what he was responsible for is still a mystery.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East, is the author of See No Evil and, most recently, the novel Blow the House Down
No comments:
Post a Comment