THIS washington whore post article is a text-book example of why president Bush can COWER the Democratic Senate into abject, craven, cowardly quiescence, even though Bush has only a 30% approval rating, or a 70% disapproval rating:
The WHORE Post headline SHOULD read "Senate Investigation PROVES Feith MANIPULATED intel to EXAGGERATE Iraq WMD Threat" (or plain old "Feith DISTORTED INTEL to EXAGGERATE Iraq threat," but, again, the WASHINGTON POST is in the LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, DISTORT, DIVIDE, and CONFUSE business, making millions of dollars selling snake-oil to American consumers and taxpayers.
For examples, selling Bush's TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS that taxpayers must pay-off (and pay the INTEREST on) as "TAX CUTS"; selling Bush's jingoistic saber-rattling in the Mideast as "DEFENDING America," pushing the OUTSOURCING of US jobs, and the huge US trade deficits as "A STRONG ECONOMY"...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121800205.html?nav=rss_business/economy
...and pushing the neo-con lust for DEATH SQUAD DICTATORSHIPS as somehow "exporting democracy."
The Post, the White House, the corporate media 'news' conglomerates, and network news executives are practically WALLOWING in their ability to sell the American public all this snake-oil poison; they understand that it is the MEDIA NARRATIVE that the public picks up on - the insatiable desire for Ken Starr leaked tidbits of the Clinton perjury grand-jury.... while truly meaninful news can be made to look confusing and complex, as for example this misleading and DISINFORMATIVE headline to this Washington Whore Post piece.
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Official's Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted
'Dubious' Intelligence Fueled Push for War
By Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 9, 2007; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020802387_pf.html
Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general.
Feith's office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith's activities as "an alternative intelligence assessment process."
An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release today in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by The Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith's assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a "mature symbiotic relationship" was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.
At the time of Feith's reporting, the CIA had concluded only that there was an "evolving" association, "based on sources of varying reliability."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Feith emphasized the inspector general's conclusion that his actions, described in the report as "inappropriate," were not unlawful. "This was not 'alternative intelligence assessment,' " he said. "It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."
Feith, who was defense policy chief before leaving the government in 2005, was one of the key contributors to the administration's rationale for war. His intelligence activities, authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and coordinated with Vice President Cheney's office, stemmed from an administration belief that the CIA was underplaying evidence of then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's ties with al-Qaeda.
In interviews with Pentagon investigators, the summary document said, Feith insisted that his activities did not constitute intelligence and that "even if they were, [they] would be appropriate given that they were responding to direction from the Deputy Secretary of Defense."
The report was requested in fall 2005 by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Although the committee and a number of official inquiries had criticized the administration's prewar intelligence, Democratic senators, led by Levin, demanded further investigation of Feith's operation.
"The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq," Levin said yesterday. "The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war."
The summary document confirmed a range of accusations that Levin had leveled against Feith's office, alleging inaccurate work.
Feith's office, it said, drew on "both reliable and unreliable" intelligence reports in 2002 to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq "that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration."
It stated that the office produced intelligence assessments "inconsistent" with the U.S. intelligence community consensus, calling those actions "inappropriate" because the assessments purported to be "intelligence products" but were far more conclusive than the consensus view.
In particular, the summary cited the defense policy office's preparation of slides describing as a "known contact" an alleged 2001 meeting in Prague between Mohamed Atta, the leader of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and an Iraqi intelligence officer.
That claim figured heavily in statements by Cheney and other senior administration officials alleging a link between al-Qaeda and the Iraqi regime, but it has since been discredited.
Three versions of the briefing prepared by Feith's office were presented in August and September 2002 -- months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Cheney's chief of staff; Rumsfeld; and then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, the summary states.
But only "some of the information" in those briefings was "supported by available intelligence," the summary said. The version of the briefing presented to senior Bush officials, it said, contained different information than a presentation to the CIA. Left out of the version for the CIA, the inspector general said, was "a slide that said there were 'fundamental problems' " with the way the intelligence community was presenting the evidence.
While Pentagon officials said in responses cited in the summary that no senior policymakers mistook these briefings as "intelligence assessments," the inspector general said that administration officials had indeed cited classified intelligence that allegedly documented a close al-Qaeda-Iraq relationship.
The policy office, the summary stated, "was inappropriately performing Intelligence Activities . . . that should be performed by the Intelligence Community."
The summary recommended no action within the Defense Department because, it said, the current collaboration under new leadership at the Pentagon and the intelligence community "will significantly reduce the opportunity for the inappropriate conduct of intelligence activities outside intelligence channels."
Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Mary Matalin at CENTER of CIA-outing Treasongate.
Like her Republican (former) bosses (Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and before that, George H.W. Bush, Sr.) there is NOTHING in America that MARY MATALIN won't sell down the river for a slice of the Washington elite-corruption pie. Not Social Security, not voting (machine) integrity, not the transparency of OUR federal budgets, not the ability of our government to act like a Soviet, Chi-Com, Roman (or other ancient) dictator and haul citizens off in the middle of the night, never to be seen again, without oversight or supervision, much less due process....
Indeed, Mary and the DC media-whore pooh-bahs remind us of the Scots NOBLES who BETRAYED WILLIAM WALLACE in the Mel Gibson film, "Braveheart." Newly elected firebrand (Democratic) Senator James Webb writes a concise account of the BETRAYAL of the Scottish lords and nobility to English King Edwards 1, the brutal "Longshanks" of the Braveheart movie, who in reality was even more brutal and mass-murder efficient than portrayed in the movie Braveheart. In his recent (2004) book, "Born Fighting - How the Scots-Irish Shaped America" Webb writes that Scots nobles, lords, and pretenders for the throne were all SEDUCED by English privileges (modeled on the murderous, feudal conquests of William the Conqueror, which basically enslaved or made serfs out of the vast majority of English subjects) and the frilly finnery of other European royal courts (Paris, the Danes, the Vatican, etc), first deserting at the moment of battle when Wallace faced Longshanks in person, and then betraying Wallace to the English when Wallace was living as a guerrilla leader on the run. (Wallace having returned from a safe exile in Europe to face either victory or certain death in his crusade to unite Scotland as a unified nation.) Webb effectively illustrates the Scots nobles calculating every angle of the "rebellion" against the British from the angle of their own greedy ambitions and turf, but as Wallace said in his own defense during his trail for treason in London, and mere hours before he was tortured to death by Edward's predetermined tribunal, "I can not be guilty of treason, for I have never bent my knee to the King of England, and owe him NO ALLEGIANCE."
As were the corrupt, selfish, treacherous, traitorous (to their own people, nation, and independence) and brutal Scots lords and nobility, so with the elite of the DC press whores who made the media circuit their private domain.
A FORMER US HERO of the Iraq Gulf 1 war - Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who stayed in Baghdad up to the minute that US bombs started exploding to demand that Saddam Hussein release his American and British hostage families - was portrayed by the Bush and Cheney White House as a liar, a common lout for daring to tell the Amerian people that there was NO SUBSTANCE to Bush's claim that Iraq was buying African uranium to fuel a (non-existant) WMD program. And in an effort to slur Ambassador Wilson, the Bush-Cheney White House MADE PUBLIC the information that the Ambassador's wife, Valerie Wilson (Plame), was an UNDERCOVER CIA SPY.
And there, through the long, sordid episode, was MARY MATALIN... peddling her wares that Valerie and her Ambassador husband were, not heroes, but common louts. Mary Matalin - assassin of the good name of two Americans involved in the REAL war to make America SAFER from world terrorists... SORCERESS of EVIL and DECEPTION.. LIES to buffer her boss from the truth.
And the sad part is, for over three long years (from 2003 to 2007) Matalin's conjured depiction of Plame and Wilson prevailed in both official Washington and in the Press Whores'
When Democratic uber-Consultant and DC press-media-club circuit regular JAMES CARVILLE wrote "NOT ONLY DO REPUBLICANS MAKE BAD POLICY, BUT THEY PUT OUT BAD HISTORY," he couldn't have been talking about a better example than HIS OWN WIFE, Republican uber-consultant and media personality MARY MATALIN.
And that was BEFORE Libby-gate (which as Ed Schultz comments, should be called "SHOOTER-GATE" in honor of the Vice President's central role in the scandalous "outing" of an undercover CIA agent) saw Mary Matalin in the role of SMEARING dedicated American officials to protect the hide of her precious "Shooter" boss.
FOR SHAME, James! And to think that James Carville recently bashed DNC Chair (former Vt. governor) HOWARD DEAN... for WINNING the midterm elections of 2006 by overthrowing the Congressional House Republican majority... when in fact it was HILLARY who was hoarding millions in campaign funds for her own (future) presidential election, and Carville was demanding that Howard Dean spend millions that were only a CREDIT LINE in the DNC accounts!
James Carville - ENABLING the MARY MATALIN led Republican SMEARING of Ambassador Joe Wilson and undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson - we could not ask for a better metaphor for the CORRUPTION of DC politics and media whoring.
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The Trouble with Mary (Matalin)
by Christy Hardin Smith
Feb 9, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christy-hardin-smith/libby-trial-the-trouble_b_40777.html
(Graphics luv to commenter Andrea of the Huffington Post who sent this to Arianna. Seemed so appropriate for today, somehow.)
It's just been one of those weeks for Mary Matalin, with all Cheney's her own words coming home to roost. The trouble with Mary is that she selected the meticulous note-taker Scooter Libby as her "go to guy," and that he dutifully scribbled down her every, venomous screed about Amb. Wilson and Tim Russert and Chris Matthews. Because, in Mary's world, anyone who would dare have the temerity to question the right of Dick Cheney to do whatever he pleased got what they deserved. Truth be damned.
Except now the truth comes out about Mary's manipulative media machinations. Her whole facade of public interest and loyalty to the boss and keeping you safe and every other bit of malarky she's thrown out to the public in her long career of press maneuvering has now been opened for public scrutiny. And it is not pretty.
This morning, she faced a bit of reckoning from an unlikely source: Don Imus. (Yes, I know. Color me shocked as well, but he asked some very good and skeptical questions. In quite the mocking tone, I might add -- I believe Imus adopted the "Mary Skeptic" pose for today's broadcast.) Via Atrios:
Imus: Did you tell Scooter Libby to call Tim Russert because he hates Chris Matthews?
Matalin: I think I said "Tim hates me." Or "Tim hates..." I hate Matthews. Here's, no let me take you inside the room. When I was at the White House...
Imus: Do you know what you said?
Matalin: I know exactly what I meant then.
Imus: Well what did you say?
Matalin: I don't know why i would have said that but I would have said this. All I know is this: the notes that the prosecutor put up of... a characterization of a conversation .. the prosecutor in that instance and the rest of it mischaracterized what was in my mind. here's what was in my mind. So, here's what I know what was in my mind and here's how it works and here's how I did my job and how all these jobs have to be done.
Other than you, and maybe this has happened to you, when anyone else who purports to be an objective analyst goes on the air and bashes your principle as they're called, and in this case it was the vice president, then you call the bureau chief and you complain. In the case of Chris who purported to be on a nightly basis an objective analyst who would get on there and say things which we knew not to be true, as in Cheney saw this report. The Cheney we knew -Cheney didn't know Wilson, Cheney never sent Wilson, Cheney never saw the report, and the report that did exist corroborated the agency's belief that there was some effort by Saddam to procure yellowcake.
So everything he was saying was wrong. And when that is the case then it is our job - the press guy's job - to call up and complain first to the producers of the show. Second, when there's no response forthcoming to the bureau chief. And, finally, in the case of Chris unfortunately - he used to be a friend of mine - to the New York bosses.
So I wasn't working there at the time and I said "you should call." And I don't remember saying, and I don't know that I would ever say that, because I don't know that Tim hates Chris. I think he likes Chris very much. I think he likes everybody over there. But I don't think he likes - and nor does any bureau chief ever like - when they have to take these complaint calls when their people are on the air saying these fallacious things.
That's just a bunch of butt-covering, nonsensical blather, isn't it? And it smacks of that desperation that you can only find in the Beltway: impending power pariah status because you are about to receive a self-inflicted media shunning, cutting off all the self-promotion and party shilling opportunities with one pull of the television plugs. That moment of unbookability looming, panic filed the air, and a phone was dialed. Matalin wasn't scheduled to be a guest on Imus this morning. She phoned in the show to do this to herself.
Twice.
Here's a bit more from Matalin's impromptu calls to Imus this morning, again via Atrios:
Matalin: We were friends for a really really long time.
Imus: Why do you not like him now:
Matalin: This is not about him or me or liking or disliking. I do not like anyone - I'm being redundant here - who purports to be a purveyor of truth and serving the public by serving the truth out there who flagrantly is making up stuff. To my mind an observation a nightly flagrant bias, an untruthtelling, about the circumstances surrounding this and other things having to do with the Vice President. And I did call his producers to no avail. Chris is to his producers as you are to the world, but you're in a different position.
So it's not what I think about him. I think he's an incredible human being who has overcome a lot. I love his wife and when his show was first on it was must see TV. And now I can't trust... if I know for a fact that everything he's saying about things in which I'm involved are wrong then I can't trust anything else that he says.
But Mary, what if you know for a fact that what Matthews is saying is true, but that by saying it, he's damaging the political prospects of your former boss nee political godfather by calling his myriad of lies to the public's attention? By questioning the little credibility that Vice President Cheney might have left at his 18% approval rate and falling, does Matthews' questioning begins to impinge not just on your former boss's ego, but also, perhaps, on your own personal consulting and lobbying and self-promoting bottom line? Guess that's a horse of a different color altogether, isn't it? Or perhaps a roosting chicken?
Here is Matalin back on November 21, 2005 -- just after the Libby indictment, in one of her many shill circuit bookings -- again attempting to use the Imus Show to pedal her wares lies:
MATALIN: What's the crime here? Everybody in town knew that, and who outed her was her husband -- "my wife, the CIA wife" and all this stuff. No crime, big gossip, politics, he's attacking us, we're answering him, and somehow people are in jail and a guy's career is ruined. Does that make sense to you?
Yep, there she is with the talking point du jour. Except what she and Victoria Toensing and Joe DiGenova (the Boris and Natasha of GOP legal shills) and all the other Cheney apologists out there didn't count on was that the Libby trial would spill out so many of their magic media manipulation beans...right out into the public's view. Because (and not to toot our own little FDL horn or anything, but this is truly what we've been hoping for with our long-standing coverage on this case), people don't have to get their news only via a media filter any longer.
This trial is being immediately summarized and blogged for all the world to read -- right here.
And, in real time, we've all gotten to learn from former WH and VP press secretaries just what outlets are friendly (read: those media outlets that allowed us to prattle on and didn't ask us anything uncomfortable but merely acted as our own personal steno pool), and what ones were considered hostile (read: those media folks who asked questions and had the nerve to expect answers). We've learned that Vice President Cheney likes to send out his minions with handwritten talking points to use with the press (read: such as those one might find atop a certain op-ed piece).
And, this week in particular, we've learned that Mary Matalin's friendship with Tim Russert extended about as far as it needed to in order for him to be useful to her.
Ouch.
Eric Boehlert has an extraordinarily well done piece at Media Matters on the long-term effects of the Libby trial on lifting the curtain from the intertwined and incestuous Beltway access game between politicians and the reporters who cover them. From Eric's piece:
...So as the facts of the White House cover-up now tumble out into open court, it's important to remember that if it hadn't been for Fitzgerald's work, there's little doubt the Plame story would have simply faded into oblivion like so many other disturbing suggestions of Bush administration misdeeds. And it would have faded away because lots of high-profile journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and NBC wanted it to.
In a sense, it was Watergate in reverse. Instead of digging for the truth, lots of journalists tried to bury it. The sad fact remains the press was deeply involved in the cover-up, as journalists reported White House denials regarding the Plame leak despite the fact scores of them received the leak and knew the White House was spreading rampant misinformation about an unfolding criminal case.
And that's why the Plame investigation then, and the Libby perjury trial now, so perfectly capture what went wrong with the timorous press corps during the Bush years as it routinely walked away from its responsibility of holding people in power accountable and ferreting out the facts....
Regardless of the outcome from the Libby perjury case, the trial itself will be remembered for pulling back the curtain on the Bush White House as it frantically tried to cover up its intentional effort to mislead the nation to war. Sadly, the trial will also serve as a touchstone for how the Beltway press corps completely lost its way during the Bush years and became afraid of the facts -- and the consequences of reporting them.
In so many ways, Mary Matalin stands as a cautionary tale to the very media folks that she has, for so long, sought to manipulate into printing her bidding. Arianna summed up Matalin's credibility gap months ago, during Matalin's disastrous appearance on Meet the Press just after Vice President Cheney shot his hunting companion in the face, with this concise description:
But the segment began with Tim basically giving Mary the first third to lay out her side of the story. It was bad enough to just have an administration mouthpiece on to regurgitate talking points, but why not allow -- in old Meet the Press fashion -- the journalists to question her? Maybe Mary demanded some solo time, but, if so, it didn't serve her boss well.
The impact of her appearance was to make the whole story seem even less under control than having a beer and shooting your friend in the face. As for what she said, there were so many intelligence-insulting lies and half-truths it's hard to know where to start.
And there it is in a nutshell -- not just about Mary Matalin, but also about so many people connected to Vice President Cheney and the Bush Administration. Arianna got it exactly right: so many intelligence-insulting lies and half-truths it's hard to know where to start. The trouble with Mary is that she's told so many of these whoppers that she no longer knows where they start and end -- so much so that she had to call back into the Imus show this morning to correct her earlier unscheduled, phoned-in correction of what she says she said or meant to say or may have said to Scooter, but maybe not.
Petard. Meet hoist.
UPDATE: Bless Duncan. He's got the transcript for the call-back up. And it's a doozy. Here's a taste:
You can't twist our words or mischaracterize our conversation. You said to Kelly just now that I essentially deny this. So let me be clear, crystal clear.
If Scooter wrote it down, then I said it.
I don't remember saying it. I was trying to explain to you what it could have meant. What it does not mean is that Tim literally hates Chris.
But if Scooter wrote it down, then I said it.
So don't say I deny it, or don't characterize it in any way.
If Scooter wrote it down, then I said it....
Ummm....as Duncan asks, can you tell what her talking point was for the call back? Can you say "questioning Scooter Libby's credibility during his criminal trial was not smart"? I can. I can also say "someone placed a call to Mary and asked for an immediate correction on the record." Any guesses on who that might have been? (Hi, Babs.) (H/T to CityGirl.)
The fine folks at Crooks and Liars have the clip up of Matalin's performance on Imus. Do take a peek.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
VP Cheney's son-in-law **OBSTRUCTS* GAO investigation into DHS spending... and corruption. Media whore Editors CENSOR this story from FRONT PAGES...
Can anyone in America even IMAGINE a Democrat getting away with this - having the son-in-law of a Kerry, Gore, Clinton, or Edwards STOP a GAO INVESTIGATION into a vital part of the American National Security agencies, that American taxpayers pay BILLIONS to fund in the deadly effort to prevent the war of terrorists from killing MORE American civilians?
Having DONE NOTHING to investigate the Bush administration's pick of a SHOW-HORSE ASSOCIATION show manager to be the head of FEMA (in the months before the Katrina flooding disaster demonstrated "Brownies" abject INCOMPETENCE at coordinating disaster relief), the WHORE MEDIA - the editors of the major papers, those who determine what the HEADLINES and FRONT PAGE STORIES are - are now back to their CRONY CORRUPTION WAY, giving the Bush White House a FREE PASS to use the WAR ON TERROR and America's NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCIES as a giant REPUBLICAN SLUSH FUND for cronies, donors, lobbyists, and connected corprations and contractors.
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Cheney’s Son-In-Law Blamed for Delaying Investigations of Homeland Security Department
by ThinkProgress.org
Feb 6 2007
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/06/perry-homeland-security/
The Department of Homeland Security refuses to cooperate on oversight activities, according to testimony offered today by GAO Comptroller General David Walker and Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner. The investigators highlighted the role of Philip Perry — Chief Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security and Vice President Cheney’s son-in-law — as the major stumbling block in their investigations.
Walker said the DHS strategy in dealing with investigations is to “delay, delay, delay.” CongressDaily reports:
“[Homeland Security] has been one of our persistent access challenges,” GAO Comptroller General David Walker told the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Walker said the problem is “systemic” and not the fault of any single individual. But he complained that GAO has had to go through the office of Chief Counsel Philip Perry. Perry is married to Elizabeth Cheney, a former State Department official who is one of the vice president’s two daughters. Walker said it is his understanding that Perry’s office has to review documents GAO seeks before they are released and that Perry selectively sits in on interviews with department employees.
The GAO’s Skinner “said his investigations have also been hindered”:
“We’re experiencing the same problem,” said Skinner, who added his office is “oftentimes” told who they can interview and that it sometimes takes weeks to get documents. Skinner said he prepared a document last summer to inform all department employees of the IG’s responsibilities and authorities and encouraging them to cooperate with investigations. “That letter has been sitting up in counsel’s office at DHS since I believe June or July of ‘06,” Skinner said.
The news is another in a series of black eyes for the agency. In a recent federal survey, DHS employees “scored last or almost last in job satisfaction, leadership and workplace performance.” The latest semiannual report from Inspector General Skinner highlighted “a litany of staff misconduct: immigration officials demanding sex in exchange for visas, airport screeners stealing money from tourists’ luggage, federal air marshals smuggling drugs, and employees from various DHS agencies committing sex crimes.”
Having DONE NOTHING to investigate the Bush administration's pick of a SHOW-HORSE ASSOCIATION show manager to be the head of FEMA (in the months before the Katrina flooding disaster demonstrated "Brownies" abject INCOMPETENCE at coordinating disaster relief), the WHORE MEDIA - the editors of the major papers, those who determine what the HEADLINES and FRONT PAGE STORIES are - are now back to their CRONY CORRUPTION WAY, giving the Bush White House a FREE PASS to use the WAR ON TERROR and America's NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCIES as a giant REPUBLICAN SLUSH FUND for cronies, donors, lobbyists, and connected corprations and contractors.
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Cheney’s Son-In-Law Blamed for Delaying Investigations of Homeland Security Department
by ThinkProgress.org
Feb 6 2007
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/06/perry-homeland-security/
The Department of Homeland Security refuses to cooperate on oversight activities, according to testimony offered today by GAO Comptroller General David Walker and Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner. The investigators highlighted the role of Philip Perry — Chief Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security and Vice President Cheney’s son-in-law — as the major stumbling block in their investigations.
Walker said the DHS strategy in dealing with investigations is to “delay, delay, delay.” CongressDaily reports:
“[Homeland Security] has been one of our persistent access challenges,” GAO Comptroller General David Walker told the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. Walker said the problem is “systemic” and not the fault of any single individual. But he complained that GAO has had to go through the office of Chief Counsel Philip Perry. Perry is married to Elizabeth Cheney, a former State Department official who is one of the vice president’s two daughters. Walker said it is his understanding that Perry’s office has to review documents GAO seeks before they are released and that Perry selectively sits in on interviews with department employees.
The GAO’s Skinner “said his investigations have also been hindered”:
“We’re experiencing the same problem,” said Skinner, who added his office is “oftentimes” told who they can interview and that it sometimes takes weeks to get documents. Skinner said he prepared a document last summer to inform all department employees of the IG’s responsibilities and authorities and encouraging them to cooperate with investigations. “That letter has been sitting up in counsel’s office at DHS since I believe June or July of ‘06,” Skinner said.
The news is another in a series of black eyes for the agency. In a recent federal survey, DHS employees “scored last or almost last in job satisfaction, leadership and workplace performance.” The latest semiannual report from Inspector General Skinner highlighted “a litany of staff misconduct: immigration officials demanding sex in exchange for visas, airport screeners stealing money from tourists’ luggage, federal air marshals smuggling drugs, and employees from various DHS agencies committing sex crimes.”
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Patrick Fitzgerald OUTWORKED the ENTIRE passel of DC media whores. Get your Ken Starr leaks and IGNORE investigative reporting, DC press corpse!
Scooter Libby and the media debacle
by Eric Boehlert
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702060006
Feb. 5, 2007
The New York Times made headlines last week when it tapped a new D.C. bureau chief. But if the paper of record really wanted to jump-start its Beltway news operation, maybe it should have tried to lure Patrick Fitzgerald away from the Department of Justice.
Let's face it, as special counsel in charge of investigating the Valerie Plame CIA leak, and now the lead prosecutor in D.C. federal court methodically laying out the damning evidence of perjury, obstruction, and lying against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Fitzgerald has consistently shown more interest -- and determination -- in uncovering the facts of the Plame scandal than most Beltway journalists, including the often somnambulant D.C. newsroom of The New York Times.
Indeed, for long stretches, the special counsel easily supplanted the timid D.C. press corps and become the fact-finder of record for the Plame story. It was Fitzgerald and his team of G-men -- not journalists -- who were running down leads, asking tough questions and, in the end, helping inform the American people about possible criminal activity inside the White House.
It's true that Fitzgerald's team had subpoena power that no journalist could match. But reporters in this case had a trump card of their own: inside information. Sadly, most journalists remained mum about the coveted and often damning facts, dutifully keeping their heads down and doing their best to make sure the details never got out about the White House's obsession with discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV by outing his undercover CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
So as the facts of the White House cover-up now tumble out into open court, it's important to remember that if it hadn't been for Fitzgerald's work, there's little doubt the Plame story would have simply faded into oblivion like so many other disturbing suggestions of Bush administration misdeeds. And it would have faded away because lots of high-profile journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and NBC wanted it to.
In a sense, it was Watergate in reverse. Instead of digging for the truth, lots of journalists tried to bury it. The sad fact remains the press was deeply involved in the cover-up, as journalists reported White House denials regarding the Plame leak despite the fact scores of them received the leak and knew the White House was spreading rampant misinformation about an unfolding criminal case.
And that's why the Plame investigation then, and the Libby perjury trial now, so perfectly capture what went wrong with the timorous press corps during the Bush years as it routinely walked away from its responsibility of holding people in power accountable and ferreting out the facts.
Why the early press silence regarding Plame? I think that like Bush, who publicly expressed doubt in 2003 that "we'll find out who the leaker is," it's likely most reporters never thought the case would be cracked, since leak inquiries were historically toothless and futile. (It appears Libby made the same miscalculation, misleading FBI investigators in 2003, never suspecting Fitzgerald would take over the case the following year and uncover Libby's perjury.)
So if the leakers weren't going to be found out, what was the point of reporters going public with their information and angering a then-popular White House that had already established a habit for making life professionally unpleasant for reporters who pressed too hard? Reporters all over Washington, D.C., were more than willing to drop the story and look away. So instead, it fell to Fitzgerald to do the watchdog work traditionally overseen by the press corps.
Nobody would argue that the story is being ignored today. Far from it: The press is gorging on details from the Libby trial, which makes sense considering it's the most significant criminal case to spring from the Bush White House. The case also goes straight to the administration's signature attempt to mislead the country into war, in this case by airing the totally bogus allegation that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger to kick-start his nuclear weapons program. Yet for years, while support for the war remained strong, the press was alternately cautious, misleading, and even contentious about covering the crucial story.
For instance, the press often described the Plame leak as a well-kept mystery that had journalists completely stumped. As late as July 12, 2005, ABC's Nightline reported that, "For two years, it's been unknown who told reporters the identity of Valerie Plame," which was just silly. First, it took me about three days in the fall of 2003 to figure out Libby was the likely culprit, and I had no heavyweight sources helping me. Second, here's a partial list of D.C. journalists who had personal, inside information about the case and could have unwrapped the Plame leak mystery, or at least advanced parts of the story in real time: syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak; NBC's Tim Russert, Andrea Mitchell, and David Gregory; MSNBC's Chris Matthews; Time's Matthew Cooper, along with Michael Duffy, John Dickerson, and Viveca Novak; The New York Times' Judith Miller, and The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.
They could have, but none of them did. Instead, at times there was an unspoken race away from the Bush scandal, a collective retreat that's likely unprecedented in modern-day Beltway journalism.
As for mainstream journalists who didn't have inside info, many of them were busy rooting for the White House and sniping at Fitzgerald. In the days and weeks before the Libby indictments were announced in October 2005, it was media elite columnists who urged Fitzgerald to go easy with any charges. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof (subscription required) didn't want people to "exaggerate" the leaking of Plame's identity, arguing White House insiders probably didn't know she was undercover. ("Negligence rather than vengeance.") Newsweek echoed that defense, insisting that neither Cheney nor Libby ever meant any harm by initiating their Plame whispering campaign. Instead, the newsweekly reported, "It is much more likely they believed that they were somehow safeguarding the republic." [Emphasis added]
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen dismissed the criminal investigation as banal and trivial. "The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals," he wrote. Fellow Post columnist Michael Kinsley agreed, wondering whether the "whole prosecution is nuts."
Online at Slate, which strives mightily to match the clubby, insider tone of traditional media outlets such as the Post, editor Jacob Weisberg in 2005 obediently fretted over what kind of "creative crap charges" Fitzgerald might lodge against Bush administration officials.
More recently, The Washington Post's David Broder dismissed the entire affair as "overblown" and a "tempest in a teapot," while calling on some journalists to apologize to White House senior adviser Karl Rove for suggesting he was part of the campaign to leak Plame's identity, despite the fact Rove did play a central role in the leaking. And just last week, the Post's Cohen dismissed the Libby trial as "silly," while Kinsley, now at Time, suggested that Libby, by leaking to reporters, was "a martyr of press freedom."
As blogger Marcy Wheeler writes in her revealing new Plame/Libby book, Anatomy of Deceit (Vaster Books, January 2007), it was as if the media were "making the case that the press should retain exclusive judgment on the behavior of politicians, with no role for the courts." Unfortunately, the press has shown it's no longer up to fulfilling that important role.
Journalists remain mum during Bush's re-election
In 2004, Time magazine's Cooper was subpoenaed to appear before Fitzgerald's grand jury and answer questions about the Plame leak he received in 2003. Cooper and Time initially refused to cooperate and fought the subpoena in court. Cooper agreed to testify during the summer of 2005 after receiving a waiver from his source, Karl Rove, who assured him it was OK to disclose their confidential conversation. Of course, Cooper could have asked for that same waiver in 2004, which would have significantly quickened the pace of the investigation. But Cooper did not, according to a Los Angeles Times report, because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year."
As blogger Steve Soto wrote at The Left Coaster, "Time magazine's editors knew that Matt Cooper had a huge story on their hands about Rove's involvement and the lengths the White House went to in order to discredit an opponent, but they sat on the story until after the election for fear of becoming part of a story that might affect the election."
Note that when announcing the indictment of Libby on Oct. 29, 2005, Fitzgerald stressed that his two-year investigation could have been over 12 months earlier if reporters had cooperated. "We would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005," Fitzgerald said. [Emphasis added.]
NBC's Russert was another prominent Beltway reporter who could have made life very uncomfortable for the White House in 2004 by publicizing his first-hand knowledge about key disputes regarding the Libby investigation. Instead, Russert -- host of Meet the Press, which at the time enjoyed a very close working relationship with Libby's boss, Cheney -- chose to remain silent regarding central facts.
Russert's bombshell was that when cooperating with Fitzgerald during the summer of 2004, Russert detailed under oath a key phone conversation he had with Libby the previous summer. In 2004, Russert knew his testimony would likely ensnare Libby because the two men two gave contradictory answers regarding the conversation. Indeed, the conversation became the linchpin for the perjury charges because Libby told investigators it was during his phone call with Russert that Libby first learned about Plame's identity. Russert, though, testified the two men never even discussed Plame that day on the phone. (Or any other day.)
Following his testimony, NBC released a statement in which the network stressed Russert never received a leak from Libby and that Russert did not give Libby any information about Plame.
But why, in the name of transparency, didn't the network issue a statement that made clear Russert and Libby never even discussed Plame? Why was that glaringly important point left unsaid since it would have raised all sorts of questions about Libby's testimony? Why, during an election year, didn't Russert appear on Meet the Press and say, "Based on questions posed by special prosecutor Fitzgerald, it seemed clear Libby had testified that he and I spoke about Plame in July 2003, when in fact we did not"?
If Fitzgerald or NBC's lawyers didn't want Russert to talk publicly about his testimony, Russert should have said so. If Russert didn't want to embarrass Libby politically, he should have said so. Instead, for more than a year prior to the indictments, Russert simply pretended to be upfront about his involvement.
Russert is expected to take the stand in the Libby trial this week.
And then there was the sad display put on by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward who, in various television appearances during the investigation, made it quite clear that he thought little of Fitzgerald's efforts, that it was "disgraceful," that Fitzgerald was a "junkyard prosecutor," and that the leak had caused the CIA no harm. In fact, Woodward boldly predicted that when "all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great."
What the famed Beltway insider forgot to tell television viewers -- not to mention his Post editor -- was that Woodward himself had received a leak about Plame way back in 2003, which meant Woodward, the former sleuth, had been sitting been sitting on a sizeable scoop for more than two years.
If at any point prior to the Libby indictments Woodward had come forward with his information, it would have been politically devastating for the White House. Instead, Woodward remained mum about the facts while publicly mocking Fitzgerald's investigation.
Regardless of the outcome from the Libby perjury case, the trial itself will be remembered for pulling back the curtain on the Bush White House as it frantically tried to cover up its intentional effort to mislead the nation to war. Sadly, the trial will also serve as a touchstone for how the Beltway press corps completely lost its way during the Bush years and became afraid of the facts -- and the consequences of reporting them.
by Eric Boehlert
http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702060006
Feb. 5, 2007
The New York Times made headlines last week when it tapped a new D.C. bureau chief. But if the paper of record really wanted to jump-start its Beltway news operation, maybe it should have tried to lure Patrick Fitzgerald away from the Department of Justice.
Let's face it, as special counsel in charge of investigating the Valerie Plame CIA leak, and now the lead prosecutor in D.C. federal court methodically laying out the damning evidence of perjury, obstruction, and lying against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Fitzgerald has consistently shown more interest -- and determination -- in uncovering the facts of the Plame scandal than most Beltway journalists, including the often somnambulant D.C. newsroom of The New York Times.
Indeed, for long stretches, the special counsel easily supplanted the timid D.C. press corps and become the fact-finder of record for the Plame story. It was Fitzgerald and his team of G-men -- not journalists -- who were running down leads, asking tough questions and, in the end, helping inform the American people about possible criminal activity inside the White House.
It's true that Fitzgerald's team had subpoena power that no journalist could match. But reporters in this case had a trump card of their own: inside information. Sadly, most journalists remained mum about the coveted and often damning facts, dutifully keeping their heads down and doing their best to make sure the details never got out about the White House's obsession with discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV by outing his undercover CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
So as the facts of the White House cover-up now tumble out into open court, it's important to remember that if it hadn't been for Fitzgerald's work, there's little doubt the Plame story would have simply faded into oblivion like so many other disturbing suggestions of Bush administration misdeeds. And it would have faded away because lots of high-profile journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, and NBC wanted it to.
In a sense, it was Watergate in reverse. Instead of digging for the truth, lots of journalists tried to bury it. The sad fact remains the press was deeply involved in the cover-up, as journalists reported White House denials regarding the Plame leak despite the fact scores of them received the leak and knew the White House was spreading rampant misinformation about an unfolding criminal case.
And that's why the Plame investigation then, and the Libby perjury trial now, so perfectly capture what went wrong with the timorous press corps during the Bush years as it routinely walked away from its responsibility of holding people in power accountable and ferreting out the facts.
Why the early press silence regarding Plame? I think that like Bush, who publicly expressed doubt in 2003 that "we'll find out who the leaker is," it's likely most reporters never thought the case would be cracked, since leak inquiries were historically toothless and futile. (It appears Libby made the same miscalculation, misleading FBI investigators in 2003, never suspecting Fitzgerald would take over the case the following year and uncover Libby's perjury.)
So if the leakers weren't going to be found out, what was the point of reporters going public with their information and angering a then-popular White House that had already established a habit for making life professionally unpleasant for reporters who pressed too hard? Reporters all over Washington, D.C., were more than willing to drop the story and look away. So instead, it fell to Fitzgerald to do the watchdog work traditionally overseen by the press corps.
Nobody would argue that the story is being ignored today. Far from it: The press is gorging on details from the Libby trial, which makes sense considering it's the most significant criminal case to spring from the Bush White House. The case also goes straight to the administration's signature attempt to mislead the country into war, in this case by airing the totally bogus allegation that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger to kick-start his nuclear weapons program. Yet for years, while support for the war remained strong, the press was alternately cautious, misleading, and even contentious about covering the crucial story.
For instance, the press often described the Plame leak as a well-kept mystery that had journalists completely stumped. As late as July 12, 2005, ABC's Nightline reported that, "For two years, it's been unknown who told reporters the identity of Valerie Plame," which was just silly. First, it took me about three days in the fall of 2003 to figure out Libby was the likely culprit, and I had no heavyweight sources helping me. Second, here's a partial list of D.C. journalists who had personal, inside information about the case and could have unwrapped the Plame leak mystery, or at least advanced parts of the story in real time: syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak; NBC's Tim Russert, Andrea Mitchell, and David Gregory; MSNBC's Chris Matthews; Time's Matthew Cooper, along with Michael Duffy, John Dickerson, and Viveca Novak; The New York Times' Judith Miller, and The Washington Post's Bob Woodward.
They could have, but none of them did. Instead, at times there was an unspoken race away from the Bush scandal, a collective retreat that's likely unprecedented in modern-day Beltway journalism.
As for mainstream journalists who didn't have inside info, many of them were busy rooting for the White House and sniping at Fitzgerald. In the days and weeks before the Libby indictments were announced in October 2005, it was media elite columnists who urged Fitzgerald to go easy with any charges. The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof (subscription required) didn't want people to "exaggerate" the leaking of Plame's identity, arguing White House insiders probably didn't know she was undercover. ("Negligence rather than vengeance.") Newsweek echoed that defense, insisting that neither Cheney nor Libby ever meant any harm by initiating their Plame whispering campaign. Instead, the newsweekly reported, "It is much more likely they believed that they were somehow safeguarding the republic." [Emphasis added]
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen dismissed the criminal investigation as banal and trivial. "The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals," he wrote. Fellow Post columnist Michael Kinsley agreed, wondering whether the "whole prosecution is nuts."
Online at Slate, which strives mightily to match the clubby, insider tone of traditional media outlets such as the Post, editor Jacob Weisberg in 2005 obediently fretted over what kind of "creative crap charges" Fitzgerald might lodge against Bush administration officials.
More recently, The Washington Post's David Broder dismissed the entire affair as "overblown" and a "tempest in a teapot," while calling on some journalists to apologize to White House senior adviser Karl Rove for suggesting he was part of the campaign to leak Plame's identity, despite the fact Rove did play a central role in the leaking. And just last week, the Post's Cohen dismissed the Libby trial as "silly," while Kinsley, now at Time, suggested that Libby, by leaking to reporters, was "a martyr of press freedom."
As blogger Marcy Wheeler writes in her revealing new Plame/Libby book, Anatomy of Deceit (Vaster Books, January 2007), it was as if the media were "making the case that the press should retain exclusive judgment on the behavior of politicians, with no role for the courts." Unfortunately, the press has shown it's no longer up to fulfilling that important role.
Journalists remain mum during Bush's re-election
In 2004, Time magazine's Cooper was subpoenaed to appear before Fitzgerald's grand jury and answer questions about the Plame leak he received in 2003. Cooper and Time initially refused to cooperate and fought the subpoena in court. Cooper agreed to testify during the summer of 2005 after receiving a waiver from his source, Karl Rove, who assured him it was OK to disclose their confidential conversation. Of course, Cooper could have asked for that same waiver in 2004, which would have significantly quickened the pace of the investigation. But Cooper did not, according to a Los Angeles Times report, because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year."
As blogger Steve Soto wrote at The Left Coaster, "Time magazine's editors knew that Matt Cooper had a huge story on their hands about Rove's involvement and the lengths the White House went to in order to discredit an opponent, but they sat on the story until after the election for fear of becoming part of a story that might affect the election."
Note that when announcing the indictment of Libby on Oct. 29, 2005, Fitzgerald stressed that his two-year investigation could have been over 12 months earlier if reporters had cooperated. "We would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005," Fitzgerald said. [Emphasis added.]
NBC's Russert was another prominent Beltway reporter who could have made life very uncomfortable for the White House in 2004 by publicizing his first-hand knowledge about key disputes regarding the Libby investigation. Instead, Russert -- host of Meet the Press, which at the time enjoyed a very close working relationship with Libby's boss, Cheney -- chose to remain silent regarding central facts.
Russert's bombshell was that when cooperating with Fitzgerald during the summer of 2004, Russert detailed under oath a key phone conversation he had with Libby the previous summer. In 2004, Russert knew his testimony would likely ensnare Libby because the two men two gave contradictory answers regarding the conversation. Indeed, the conversation became the linchpin for the perjury charges because Libby told investigators it was during his phone call with Russert that Libby first learned about Plame's identity. Russert, though, testified the two men never even discussed Plame that day on the phone. (Or any other day.)
Following his testimony, NBC released a statement in which the network stressed Russert never received a leak from Libby and that Russert did not give Libby any information about Plame.
But why, in the name of transparency, didn't the network issue a statement that made clear Russert and Libby never even discussed Plame? Why was that glaringly important point left unsaid since it would have raised all sorts of questions about Libby's testimony? Why, during an election year, didn't Russert appear on Meet the Press and say, "Based on questions posed by special prosecutor Fitzgerald, it seemed clear Libby had testified that he and I spoke about Plame in July 2003, when in fact we did not"?
If Fitzgerald or NBC's lawyers didn't want Russert to talk publicly about his testimony, Russert should have said so. If Russert didn't want to embarrass Libby politically, he should have said so. Instead, for more than a year prior to the indictments, Russert simply pretended to be upfront about his involvement.
Russert is expected to take the stand in the Libby trial this week.
And then there was the sad display put on by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward who, in various television appearances during the investigation, made it quite clear that he thought little of Fitzgerald's efforts, that it was "disgraceful," that Fitzgerald was a "junkyard prosecutor," and that the leak had caused the CIA no harm. In fact, Woodward boldly predicted that when "all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great."
What the famed Beltway insider forgot to tell television viewers -- not to mention his Post editor -- was that Woodward himself had received a leak about Plame way back in 2003, which meant Woodward, the former sleuth, had been sitting been sitting on a sizeable scoop for more than two years.
If at any point prior to the Libby indictments Woodward had come forward with his information, it would have been politically devastating for the White House. Instead, Woodward remained mum about the facts while publicly mocking Fitzgerald's investigation.
Regardless of the outcome from the Libby perjury case, the trial itself will be remembered for pulling back the curtain on the Bush White House as it frantically tried to cover up its intentional effort to mislead the nation to war. Sadly, the trial will also serve as a touchstone for how the Beltway press corps completely lost its way during the Bush years and became afraid of the facts -- and the consequences of reporting them.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Media whores ENABLED the Cheney COVER UP of illegal (treasonous) CIA agent "outing"... Broder, Woodward, Novak...
Great article by Frank Rich, who (along with Paul Krugman) is one of rare exceptions to the "Defense of the Reich Uber Alles!" whoring of the neo-cons over at the New York Slimes.
In this piece, Rich explains that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, DICK CHENEY was engaged in OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE - a COVER-UP to downplay, distort, and gloss-over his role in the Bush administration's premeditated OUTING of an UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE, _AND_ her ENTIRE CIA cover organization! - as a means of intimidating, smearing, and maligning a critic of the Bush administration's illegal and fraudulently hyped war against Iraq.
This is a Vice President who on numerous occassions has flirted with policies HARMFUL to the United States, from selling Saddam oil-drilling equipment (Cheney was Chairman and CEO of Halliburton corp. in the late 1990s when he directed Halliburton's European subsidiaries to sell Saddam's Iraq oil-drilling equipment, skirting costly US enforced UN sanctions in deals that would ENRICH the Iraqi dictator), to PRIVATIZING the US Army, to FORCING CIA analysts to DISTORT their intelligence reports; to DISBANDING the Iraqi military (and sending them home, unemployed, penniless, tobbed of their pensions, and aggrieved... but WITH their Ak-47s!), to LETTING Osama bin Laden ESCAPE Tora Bora, so as to avoid losing the justification for attacking Iraq.
Now the Vice President's entire charade of non-involvement in the ILLEGAL CIA outing is out there for the whole world to see... except, that is, for the Bush administration's die-hard, reactionary, apocalyptic supporters, who prefer to give the Cheney-Bush White House MORE, EXPANDING, UNLIMITED draconian war powers, including the GESTAPO/KGB power to summarily KILL anyone, anywhere as an "enemy of the state" ("defense of the homeland") WITH NO justification or oversight TO ANYONE!
(The above draconian, KGB/Gestapo war powers in addition to the rude irony of Mr. Cheney et. al. CLAIMING to be for "TAX CUTS!" for American citizens, while actually WANTING to saddle American taxpayers with the exponentially expensive costs of wars - at least $245 billion for next two years alone -so to huge government deficits to ROB American citizens of Social Security and any other social services that keep us citizens even 1/2 step above a "barefoot workin' the fields for free" plantation worker.)
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FRANK RICH: Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up
Sunday, February 04, 2007
In the days since Dick Cheney lost it on CNN, our nation’s armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who boasted of “enormous successes” in Iraq and barked “hogwash” at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those diagnoses long ago.
The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly violent public flare-up.The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was conducted the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney’s former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq.
He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House’s current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of all, he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious. From the start, the capital has belittled the Joseph and Valerie Wilson affair as “a tempest in a teapot,” as David Broder of The Washington Post reiterated just five months ago.
When “all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,” Bob Woodward said in 2005. Or, as Robert Novak suggested in 2003 before he revealed Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer in his column, “weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger” are “little elitist issues that don’t bother most of the people.” Those issues may not trouble Mr. Novak, but they do loom large to other people, especially those who sent their kids off to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent uranium.
In terms of the big issues, the question of who first leaked Ms. Wilson’s identity (whether Mr. Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove) to which journalist (whether Mr. Woodward, Mr. Novak, Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) has always been a red herring. It’s entirely possible that the White House has always been telling the truth when it says that no one intended to unmask a secret agent. (No one has been charged with that crime.)
The White House is also telling the truth when it repeatedly says that Mr. Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson on his C.I.A.-sponsored African trip to check out a supposed Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. (Another red herring, since Mr. Wilson didn’t make that accusation in the first place.) But if the administration is telling the truth on these narrow questions and had little to hide about the Wilson trip per se, its wild overreaction to the episode was an incriminating sign it was hiding something else.
According to testimony in the Libby case, the White House went berserk when Mr. Wilson published his Op-Ed article in The Times in July 2003 about what he didn’t find in Africa. Top officials gossiped incessantly about both Wilsons to anyone who would listen, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby conferred about them several times a day, and finally Mr. Libby, known as an exceptionally discreet White House courtier, became so sloppy that his alleged lying landed him with five felony counts.
The explanation for the hysteria has long been obvious. The White House was terrified about being found guilty of a far greater crime than outing a C.I.A. officer: lying to the nation to hype its case for war. When Mr. Wilson, an obscure retired diplomat, touched that raw nerve, all the president’s men panicked because they knew Mr. Wilson’s modest finding in Africa was the tip of a far larger iceberg. They knew that there was still far more damning evidence of the administration’s W.M.D. lies lurking in the bowels of the bureaucracy.
Thanks to the commotion caused by the leak case, that damning evidence has slowly dribbled out. By my count we now know of at least a half-dozen instances before the start of the Iraq war when various intelligence agencies and others signaled that evidence of Iraq’s purchase of uranium in Africa might be dubious or fabricated. (These are detailed in the timelines at frankrich.com/timeline.htm.) The culmination of these warnings arrived in January 2003, the same month as the president’s State of the Union address, when the White House received a memo from the National Intelligence Council, the coordinating body for all American spy agencies, stating unequivocally that the claim was baseless.
Nonetheless President Bush brandished that fearful “uranium from Africa” in his speech to Congress as he hustled the country into war in Iraq.If the war had been a cakewalk, few would have cared to investigate the administration’s deceit at its inception. But by the time Mr. Wilson’s Op-Ed article appeared — some five months after the State of the Union and two months after “Mission Accomplished” — there was something terribly wrong with the White House’s triumphal picture.
More than 60 American troops had been killed since Mr. Bush celebrated the end of “major combat operations” by prancing about an aircraft carrier. No W.M.D. had been found, and we weren’t even able to turn on the lights in Baghdad. For the first time, more than half of Americans told a Washington Post-ABC News poll that the level of casualties was “unacceptable.” It was urgent, therefore, that the awkward questions raised by Mr. Wilson’s revelation of his Africa trip be squelched as quickly as possible. He had to be smeared as an inconsequential has-been whose mission was merely a trivial boondoggle arranged by his wife.
The C.I.A., which had actually resisted the uranium fictions, had to be strong-armed into taking the blame for the 16 errant words in the State of the Union speech. What we are learning from Mr. Libby’s trial is just what a herculean effort it took to execute this two-pronged cover-up after Mr. Wilson’s article appeared. Mr. Cheney was the hands-on manager of the 24/7 campaign of press manipulation and high-stakes character assassination, with Mr. Libby as his chief hatchet man. Though Mr. Libby’s lawyers are now arguing that their client was a sacrificial lamb thrown to the feds to shield Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby actually was — and still is — a stooge for the vice president.
Whether he will go to jail for his misplaced loyalty is the human drama of his trial. But for the country there are bigger issues at stake, and they are not, as the White House would have us believe, ancient history. The administration propaganda flimflams that sold us the war are now being retrofitted to expand and extend it.In a replay of the run-up to the original invasion, a new National Intelligence Estimate, requested by Congress in August to summarize all intelligence assessments on Iraq, was mysteriously delayed until last week, well after the president had set his surge.
Even the declassified passages released on Friday — the grim takes on the weak Iraqi security forces and the spiraling sectarian violence — foretell that the latest plan for victory is doomed. (As a White House communications aide testified at the Libby trial, this administration habitually releases bad news on Fridays because “fewer people pay attention when it’s reported on Saturday.”) A Pentagon inspector general’s report, uncovered by Business Week last week, was also kept on the q.t.: it shows that even as more American troops are being thrown into the grinder in Iraq, existing troops lack the guns and ammunition to “effectively complete their missions.” Army and Marine Corps commanders told The Washington Post that both armor and trucks were in such short supply that their best hope is that “five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky.”
Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Colin Powell’s notorious W.M.D. pantomime before the United Nations Security Council, a fair amount of it a Cheney-Libby production. To mark this milestone, the White House is reviving the same script to rev up the war’s escalation, this time hyping Iran-Iraq connections instead of Al Qaeda-Iraq connections. In his Jan. 10 prime-time speech on Iraq, Mr. Bush said that Iran was supplying “advanced weaponry and training to our enemies,” even though the evidence suggests that Iran is actually in bed with our “friends” in Iraq, the Maliki government.
The administration promised a dossier to back up its claims, but that too has been delayed twice amid reports of what The Times calls “a continuing debate about how well the information proved the Bush administration’s case.” Call it a coincidence — though there are no coincidences — but it’s only fitting that the Libby trial began as news arrived of the death of E. Howard Hunt, the former C.I.A. agent whose bungling of the Watergate break-in sent him to jail and led to the unraveling of the Nixon presidency two years later.
Still, we can’t push the parallels too far. No one died in Watergate. This time around our country can’t wait two more years for the White House to be stopped from playing its games with American blood.
In this piece, Rich explains that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, DICK CHENEY was engaged in OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE - a COVER-UP to downplay, distort, and gloss-over his role in the Bush administration's premeditated OUTING of an UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATIVE, _AND_ her ENTIRE CIA cover organization! - as a means of intimidating, smearing, and maligning a critic of the Bush administration's illegal and fraudulently hyped war against Iraq.
This is a Vice President who on numerous occassions has flirted with policies HARMFUL to the United States, from selling Saddam oil-drilling equipment (Cheney was Chairman and CEO of Halliburton corp. in the late 1990s when he directed Halliburton's European subsidiaries to sell Saddam's Iraq oil-drilling equipment, skirting costly US enforced UN sanctions in deals that would ENRICH the Iraqi dictator), to PRIVATIZING the US Army, to FORCING CIA analysts to DISTORT their intelligence reports; to DISBANDING the Iraqi military (and sending them home, unemployed, penniless, tobbed of their pensions, and aggrieved... but WITH their Ak-47s!), to LETTING Osama bin Laden ESCAPE Tora Bora, so as to avoid losing the justification for attacking Iraq.
Now the Vice President's entire charade of non-involvement in the ILLEGAL CIA outing is out there for the whole world to see... except, that is, for the Bush administration's die-hard, reactionary, apocalyptic supporters, who prefer to give the Cheney-Bush White House MORE, EXPANDING, UNLIMITED draconian war powers, including the GESTAPO/KGB power to summarily KILL anyone, anywhere as an "enemy of the state" ("defense of the homeland") WITH NO justification or oversight TO ANYONE!
(The above draconian, KGB/Gestapo war powers in addition to the rude irony of Mr. Cheney et. al. CLAIMING to be for "TAX CUTS!" for American citizens, while actually WANTING to saddle American taxpayers with the exponentially expensive costs of wars - at least $245 billion for next two years alone -so to huge government deficits to ROB American citizens of Social Security and any other social services that keep us citizens even 1/2 step above a "barefoot workin' the fields for free" plantation worker.)
===========================================================
FRANK RICH: Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up
Sunday, February 04, 2007
In the days since Dick Cheney lost it on CNN, our nation’s armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who boasted of “enormous successes” in Iraq and barked “hogwash” at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those diagnoses long ago.
The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly violent public flare-up.The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was conducted the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney’s former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq.
He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House’s current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of all, he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious. From the start, the capital has belittled the Joseph and Valerie Wilson affair as “a tempest in a teapot,” as David Broder of The Washington Post reiterated just five months ago.
When “all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,” Bob Woodward said in 2005. Or, as Robert Novak suggested in 2003 before he revealed Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer in his column, “weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger” are “little elitist issues that don’t bother most of the people.” Those issues may not trouble Mr. Novak, but they do loom large to other people, especially those who sent their kids off to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent uranium.
In terms of the big issues, the question of who first leaked Ms. Wilson’s identity (whether Mr. Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove) to which journalist (whether Mr. Woodward, Mr. Novak, Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) has always been a red herring. It’s entirely possible that the White House has always been telling the truth when it says that no one intended to unmask a secret agent. (No one has been charged with that crime.)
The White House is also telling the truth when it repeatedly says that Mr. Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson on his C.I.A.-sponsored African trip to check out a supposed Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. (Another red herring, since Mr. Wilson didn’t make that accusation in the first place.) But if the administration is telling the truth on these narrow questions and had little to hide about the Wilson trip per se, its wild overreaction to the episode was an incriminating sign it was hiding something else.
According to testimony in the Libby case, the White House went berserk when Mr. Wilson published his Op-Ed article in The Times in July 2003 about what he didn’t find in Africa. Top officials gossiped incessantly about both Wilsons to anyone who would listen, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby conferred about them several times a day, and finally Mr. Libby, known as an exceptionally discreet White House courtier, became so sloppy that his alleged lying landed him with five felony counts.
The explanation for the hysteria has long been obvious. The White House was terrified about being found guilty of a far greater crime than outing a C.I.A. officer: lying to the nation to hype its case for war. When Mr. Wilson, an obscure retired diplomat, touched that raw nerve, all the president’s men panicked because they knew Mr. Wilson’s modest finding in Africa was the tip of a far larger iceberg. They knew that there was still far more damning evidence of the administration’s W.M.D. lies lurking in the bowels of the bureaucracy.
Thanks to the commotion caused by the leak case, that damning evidence has slowly dribbled out. By my count we now know of at least a half-dozen instances before the start of the Iraq war when various intelligence agencies and others signaled that evidence of Iraq’s purchase of uranium in Africa might be dubious or fabricated. (These are detailed in the timelines at frankrich.com/timeline.htm.) The culmination of these warnings arrived in January 2003, the same month as the president’s State of the Union address, when the White House received a memo from the National Intelligence Council, the coordinating body for all American spy agencies, stating unequivocally that the claim was baseless.
Nonetheless President Bush brandished that fearful “uranium from Africa” in his speech to Congress as he hustled the country into war in Iraq.If the war had been a cakewalk, few would have cared to investigate the administration’s deceit at its inception. But by the time Mr. Wilson’s Op-Ed article appeared — some five months after the State of the Union and two months after “Mission Accomplished” — there was something terribly wrong with the White House’s triumphal picture.
More than 60 American troops had been killed since Mr. Bush celebrated the end of “major combat operations” by prancing about an aircraft carrier. No W.M.D. had been found, and we weren’t even able to turn on the lights in Baghdad. For the first time, more than half of Americans told a Washington Post-ABC News poll that the level of casualties was “unacceptable.” It was urgent, therefore, that the awkward questions raised by Mr. Wilson’s revelation of his Africa trip be squelched as quickly as possible. He had to be smeared as an inconsequential has-been whose mission was merely a trivial boondoggle arranged by his wife.
The C.I.A., which had actually resisted the uranium fictions, had to be strong-armed into taking the blame for the 16 errant words in the State of the Union speech. What we are learning from Mr. Libby’s trial is just what a herculean effort it took to execute this two-pronged cover-up after Mr. Wilson’s article appeared. Mr. Cheney was the hands-on manager of the 24/7 campaign of press manipulation and high-stakes character assassination, with Mr. Libby as his chief hatchet man. Though Mr. Libby’s lawyers are now arguing that their client was a sacrificial lamb thrown to the feds to shield Mr. Rove, Mr. Libby actually was — and still is — a stooge for the vice president.
Whether he will go to jail for his misplaced loyalty is the human drama of his trial. But for the country there are bigger issues at stake, and they are not, as the White House would have us believe, ancient history. The administration propaganda flimflams that sold us the war are now being retrofitted to expand and extend it.In a replay of the run-up to the original invasion, a new National Intelligence Estimate, requested by Congress in August to summarize all intelligence assessments on Iraq, was mysteriously delayed until last week, well after the president had set his surge.
Even the declassified passages released on Friday — the grim takes on the weak Iraqi security forces and the spiraling sectarian violence — foretell that the latest plan for victory is doomed. (As a White House communications aide testified at the Libby trial, this administration habitually releases bad news on Fridays because “fewer people pay attention when it’s reported on Saturday.”) A Pentagon inspector general’s report, uncovered by Business Week last week, was also kept on the q.t.: it shows that even as more American troops are being thrown into the grinder in Iraq, existing troops lack the guns and ammunition to “effectively complete their missions.” Army and Marine Corps commanders told The Washington Post that both armor and trucks were in such short supply that their best hope is that “five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky.”
Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Colin Powell’s notorious W.M.D. pantomime before the United Nations Security Council, a fair amount of it a Cheney-Libby production. To mark this milestone, the White House is reviving the same script to rev up the war’s escalation, this time hyping Iran-Iraq connections instead of Al Qaeda-Iraq connections. In his Jan. 10 prime-time speech on Iraq, Mr. Bush said that Iran was supplying “advanced weaponry and training to our enemies,” even though the evidence suggests that Iran is actually in bed with our “friends” in Iraq, the Maliki government.
The administration promised a dossier to back up its claims, but that too has been delayed twice amid reports of what The Times calls “a continuing debate about how well the information proved the Bush administration’s case.” Call it a coincidence — though there are no coincidences — but it’s only fitting that the Libby trial began as news arrived of the death of E. Howard Hunt, the former C.I.A. agent whose bungling of the Watergate break-in sent him to jail and led to the unraveling of the Nixon presidency two years later.
Still, we can’t push the parallels too far. No one died in Watergate. This time around our country can’t wait two more years for the White House to be stopped from playing its games with American blood.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
America's media whores IGNORE CIA's new "murder anyone, anywhere, with no reason or explanation" powers...
This great report by Jayne Lyn Stahl over at HuffingtonPost shows the COWARDLY Washington Post and the LYIN' New York Times betraying their roots; as the "premier" press organizations of a nation that became an empire by KILLING natives, relentlessly, over 3 centuries, and by ENSLAVING AFRICANS for nearly that span of time.
And the slave trade wasn't an accident or byproduct of what would become the American empire. The slave trade DEMANDED fresh supplies of slaves... which is to say, DEMANDED wars, mass-murder, and the dehumanizing capture of natives to feed the New World's insatiable desire for cheap labor to fuel the riches gained from their sweat.
Well, at least we have the grim satisfaction of seeing, within one generation, those who whined and wailed about Hitler's genocidal slave-labor policies now EMBRACE SAME.... in name of "fighting the war on terror!" of course.
Shoot First, Ask Later
by Jayne Lyn Stahl
02.02.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayne-lyn-stahl/shoot-first-ask-later_b_40309.html
The CIA is certainly getting its fifteen minutes of fame lately what with the Scooter Libby trial, and trying to figure out who first leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a "covert" CIA operative. And now, just yesterday, comes word that a German court has issued arrest warrants to more than a dozen CIA agents who are believed to be involved in the kidnapping, and beating of a German citizen of Lebanese descent, Khaled el-Masri.
While the Libby trial and leak-gate are crucially important not just for the future of a journalist's right to ensure confidentiality to sources, or for citizens to believe that they haven't been victims of a marketing campaign on the part of their government, the trial must not be allowed to deflect attention away from the astonishing fact that Germany wants to arrest these agents.
While he is a Muslim, and Lebanese by descent, Mr. Masri is a German citizen, and his claims that he was "drugged, beaten, then flown by the CIA to a detention center in Afghanistan where he was held for five months before the U.S. government flew him to Albania and left him there" (International Herald Tribune) have ostensibly attracted enough attention to enable Munich prosecutors to attempt to secure these warrants. Though the extradition of these agents, from the U.S., is far from certain, the fact that the German government has taken the covert, extraordinary rendition of Khaled el-Masri to the lengths it has attests to the extent to which the European community, in general, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, deplore the Bush Doctrine of military preemption, its ongoing violation of Geneva, and international law. Arguably, these arrests are also in response to the report presented to the European Parliament, in January, that show that many member nations of the European Union cooperated with the CIA, and enabled them to use their air space to transport terror suspects to secret detention cells in countries where torture is permissible.
To borrow a term the CIA often employs, the attempt to hold these agents accountable to German law may be seen as blowbock, or retaliation for covert and illicit CIA overseas operations that have been hidden from the American public, a government that has compromised its citizens' privacy more than any country to date appears to be more accomplished at hiding its tracks than any other in recent memory.
What a cruel irony that we claim to be exporting democracy and human rights when the European Union, and the U.N., are speaking out against our egregious transgressions, as well as monitoring the practices of our intelligence operatives while we, in the U.S., don't seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to it. This is even more troubling in light of revelations, shortly after 9/11, that under a "secret finding" of Bush's anti-terror legislation, the CIA now has the power to hunt down, and kill any American citizens deemed to be an "enemy combatant," or member of Al Qaeda, anywhere in the world. (CBS News)
Back in December, 2002, an anonymous U.S. government official suggested that, while capturing Al Qaeda would be "preferable" to killing them, murder would be okay, too. Importantly, American citizens are not exempt from being hunted, and murdered. There has already been one reported American victim of this newfound power invested in the CIA. In Yemen, in 2002, a car filled with what were believed to be Al Qaeda members was riddled with bullets, taking the life of a Yemeni who was an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, who was in the car. It was never determined if Derwish was, in fact, an Al Qaeda member. A legal analyst, at the time, said, in effect, that empowering the CIA with the capacity to take the lives of anyone it deems to be an enemy of the U.S. is legal "because the President and his lawyers say so--it's not much more complicated than that." (CBS) Yet, more than four years after this startling report aired which revealed that a wartime president can order the murder of enemies, without regard to due process, whether or not they happen to be U.S. citizens, on or off American soil, we haven't heard a peep about this from Congress.
What is the administration's argument for ordering the killing of an American citizen anywhere in the world? It says that when someone becomes an "enemy combatant," a term of its own devising, and takes up weapons on the side of our adversaries, "his constitutional rights are nullified and he can be killed outright." This is nothing new. Previous presidents have given the green light to kill Americans who take up arms on the side of the enemy in Latin America, but this is the first time questions have arisen as to whether or not it might be legal to take the life of an American citizen on our own soil. Lots of gray area exists in this war of abstractions where abstractions have become the weapon of mass distraction.
When questioned about their new authority following 9/11, not surprisingly, the CIA declined to comment.
Let's stop a moment, catch our breath, and think. What kind of government is it when intelligence is in bed with the military, and the military is in the president's pocket? It is incumbent upon Congress and the Supreme Court to ask this question, and to mitigate against this kind of abuse of power, and authoritarianism that may not be unprecedented in world history, but which has yet to surface in these United States.
Something is seriously awry when a prominent Western European nation is actively attempts to arrest members of the CIA on charges of kidnapping, and torturing a citizen of their country during one of our now infamous clandestine operations. Something is terribly wrong when, by a simple turn of phrase, a person can be stripped of their constitutional rights, hunted down like a wild animal, and shot, or locked up in secret terror cells throughout the world , and methodically damaged in custody, routinely robbed of due process, or an adequate defense.
Now that the European Parliament has completed an investigation into practices of our CIA, and vowed never to allow extraordinary rendition to recur on their continent, it's time that the Democrats in Congress, as well as the justices on the Supreme Court stand up to this president, and an administration which has not only attempted to bully the globe, but has scrupulously managed to pull the wool over our eyes for the past six years.
And the slave trade wasn't an accident or byproduct of what would become the American empire. The slave trade DEMANDED fresh supplies of slaves... which is to say, DEMANDED wars, mass-murder, and the dehumanizing capture of natives to feed the New World's insatiable desire for cheap labor to fuel the riches gained from their sweat.
Well, at least we have the grim satisfaction of seeing, within one generation, those who whined and wailed about Hitler's genocidal slave-labor policies now EMBRACE SAME.... in name of "fighting the war on terror!" of course.
Shoot First, Ask Later
by Jayne Lyn Stahl
02.02.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jayne-lyn-stahl/shoot-first-ask-later_b_40309.html
The CIA is certainly getting its fifteen minutes of fame lately what with the Scooter Libby trial, and trying to figure out who first leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a "covert" CIA operative. And now, just yesterday, comes word that a German court has issued arrest warrants to more than a dozen CIA agents who are believed to be involved in the kidnapping, and beating of a German citizen of Lebanese descent, Khaled el-Masri.
While the Libby trial and leak-gate are crucially important not just for the future of a journalist's right to ensure confidentiality to sources, or for citizens to believe that they haven't been victims of a marketing campaign on the part of their government, the trial must not be allowed to deflect attention away from the astonishing fact that Germany wants to arrest these agents.
While he is a Muslim, and Lebanese by descent, Mr. Masri is a German citizen, and his claims that he was "drugged, beaten, then flown by the CIA to a detention center in Afghanistan where he was held for five months before the U.S. government flew him to Albania and left him there" (International Herald Tribune) have ostensibly attracted enough attention to enable Munich prosecutors to attempt to secure these warrants. Though the extradition of these agents, from the U.S., is far from certain, the fact that the German government has taken the covert, extraordinary rendition of Khaled el-Masri to the lengths it has attests to the extent to which the European community, in general, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, deplore the Bush Doctrine of military preemption, its ongoing violation of Geneva, and international law. Arguably, these arrests are also in response to the report presented to the European Parliament, in January, that show that many member nations of the European Union cooperated with the CIA, and enabled them to use their air space to transport terror suspects to secret detention cells in countries where torture is permissible.
To borrow a term the CIA often employs, the attempt to hold these agents accountable to German law may be seen as blowbock, or retaliation for covert and illicit CIA overseas operations that have been hidden from the American public, a government that has compromised its citizens' privacy more than any country to date appears to be more accomplished at hiding its tracks than any other in recent memory.
What a cruel irony that we claim to be exporting democracy and human rights when the European Union, and the U.N., are speaking out against our egregious transgressions, as well as monitoring the practices of our intelligence operatives while we, in the U.S., don't seem to be paying a whole lot of attention to it. This is even more troubling in light of revelations, shortly after 9/11, that under a "secret finding" of Bush's anti-terror legislation, the CIA now has the power to hunt down, and kill any American citizens deemed to be an "enemy combatant," or member of Al Qaeda, anywhere in the world. (CBS News)
Back in December, 2002, an anonymous U.S. government official suggested that, while capturing Al Qaeda would be "preferable" to killing them, murder would be okay, too. Importantly, American citizens are not exempt from being hunted, and murdered. There has already been one reported American victim of this newfound power invested in the CIA. In Yemen, in 2002, a car filled with what were believed to be Al Qaeda members was riddled with bullets, taking the life of a Yemeni who was an American citizen, Kamal Derwish, who was in the car. It was never determined if Derwish was, in fact, an Al Qaeda member. A legal analyst, at the time, said, in effect, that empowering the CIA with the capacity to take the lives of anyone it deems to be an enemy of the U.S. is legal "because the President and his lawyers say so--it's not much more complicated than that." (CBS) Yet, more than four years after this startling report aired which revealed that a wartime president can order the murder of enemies, without regard to due process, whether or not they happen to be U.S. citizens, on or off American soil, we haven't heard a peep about this from Congress.
What is the administration's argument for ordering the killing of an American citizen anywhere in the world? It says that when someone becomes an "enemy combatant," a term of its own devising, and takes up weapons on the side of our adversaries, "his constitutional rights are nullified and he can be killed outright." This is nothing new. Previous presidents have given the green light to kill Americans who take up arms on the side of the enemy in Latin America, but this is the first time questions have arisen as to whether or not it might be legal to take the life of an American citizen on our own soil. Lots of gray area exists in this war of abstractions where abstractions have become the weapon of mass distraction.
When questioned about their new authority following 9/11, not surprisingly, the CIA declined to comment.
Let's stop a moment, catch our breath, and think. What kind of government is it when intelligence is in bed with the military, and the military is in the president's pocket? It is incumbent upon Congress and the Supreme Court to ask this question, and to mitigate against this kind of abuse of power, and authoritarianism that may not be unprecedented in world history, but which has yet to surface in these United States.
Something is seriously awry when a prominent Western European nation is actively attempts to arrest members of the CIA on charges of kidnapping, and torturing a citizen of their country during one of our now infamous clandestine operations. Something is terribly wrong when, by a simple turn of phrase, a person can be stripped of their constitutional rights, hunted down like a wild animal, and shot, or locked up in secret terror cells throughout the world , and methodically damaged in custody, routinely robbed of due process, or an adequate defense.
Now that the European Parliament has completed an investigation into practices of our CIA, and vowed never to allow extraordinary rendition to recur on their continent, it's time that the Democrats in Congress, as well as the justices on the Supreme Court stand up to this president, and an administration which has not only attempted to bully the globe, but has scrupulously managed to pull the wool over our eyes for the past six years.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Sulzberger family, owners and head whores at the New York Times, THREATEN Wall St. over their corrupt, crony shareholder deal...
HERE, in two paragraphs, is the secret for why the WHORE NEW YORK TIMES is so abjectly in favor of the CORRUPT, budget-busting, nation-busting, social-safety-net shredding policies of the Bush-Rethuglican administration, even though the Times has earned the moniker from (misleading) right-wing pundits as a so-called "liberal" news organization:
The Och-Sulzberber family CONTROLS FAR MORE DIRECTORS SEATS on the Board of Directors than their percentage of stock ownership would indicate, through a split or dual share class stock that gives the Ochs-Sulzberger family control of the paper.
NY TImes CEO Janet Robins complains about the forces "tearing at the heart of some of the great journalistic insitutions of our country."
The fact is that GREED has already "torn at the heart" of the journalistic institutions of America, and that the Times, having led that degeneration, hardly qualifies as a "GREAT" journalistic institution any more.
They are PAID PROFESSIONAL LIARS, seeking to UNDERMINE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, rip apart the American social safety net created over 100 years of progressive politics (and built on the tradition over 200 years old of ever-increasing EMPOWERMENT of even wage-earning Americans in the political process), by making MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLEHILLS in the case of democratic administration (the "Travel-gate," "Lincoln-bedroom," and "White House Trashing" scandals were ALL MANUFACTURED SCANDALS, created by the Rethuglican propaganda machine with the willing COMPLICITY of the NEW YORK WHORE TIMES)...
....while the Times joins the Rethuglicans in DEMEANING disenfranchised Florida Voters, anti-war protesters, torture victims, and even Iraq war combat veterans, whose SACRIFICE is all by CENSORED from the pages of the WHORE Times and other "major media" press.
The New York Times: competing, with the Washington Post, for the title of "MOST CORRUPT 'news' ORGANIZATION in American history" - "We don't count all the shareholder votes, which is why we support George W. Bush and the Rethuglican Party not counting American citizen's votes."
=====================================
Ochs-Sulzberger Family Won't Yield Control Over Times Board
Posted on Dec 7th, 2006 with stocks: MS, NYT
The Ochs-Sulzberger family, owners of a controlling vote on New York Times' board, has no intention of loosening its grip on the paper. There has been growing pressure, largely from minority owner Morgan Stanley, for the family to eliminate the dual share class structure that gives the Ochs-Sulzberger's nine of thirteen board seats despite owning a far smaller proportion of the paper's outstanding shares. Times CEO Janet Robinson said yesterday that the family "has no intention of opening any doors to the action that is tearing at the heart of some of the other great journalistic institutions of our country." She also denied rumors the Times would willingly part with the Boston Globe calling the paper an important asset.
• Sources: AP, Motley Fool, Business Week. Conference call transcripts: New York Times Q3 2006
The Och-Sulzberber family CONTROLS FAR MORE DIRECTORS SEATS on the Board of Directors than their percentage of stock ownership would indicate, through a split or dual share class stock that gives the Ochs-Sulzberger family control of the paper.
NY TImes CEO Janet Robins complains about the forces "tearing at the heart of some of the great journalistic insitutions of our country."
The fact is that GREED has already "torn at the heart" of the journalistic institutions of America, and that the Times, having led that degeneration, hardly qualifies as a "GREAT" journalistic institution any more.
They are PAID PROFESSIONAL LIARS, seeking to UNDERMINE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, rip apart the American social safety net created over 100 years of progressive politics (and built on the tradition over 200 years old of ever-increasing EMPOWERMENT of even wage-earning Americans in the political process), by making MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLEHILLS in the case of democratic administration (the "Travel-gate," "Lincoln-bedroom," and "White House Trashing" scandals were ALL MANUFACTURED SCANDALS, created by the Rethuglican propaganda machine with the willing COMPLICITY of the NEW YORK WHORE TIMES)...
....while the Times joins the Rethuglicans in DEMEANING disenfranchised Florida Voters, anti-war protesters, torture victims, and even Iraq war combat veterans, whose SACRIFICE is all by CENSORED from the pages of the WHORE Times and other "major media" press.
The New York Times: competing, with the Washington Post, for the title of "MOST CORRUPT 'news' ORGANIZATION in American history" - "We don't count all the shareholder votes, which is why we support George W. Bush and the Rethuglican Party not counting American citizen's votes."
=====================================
Ochs-Sulzberger Family Won't Yield Control Over Times Board
Posted on Dec 7th, 2006 with stocks: MS, NYT
The Ochs-Sulzberger family, owners of a controlling vote on New York Times' board, has no intention of loosening its grip on the paper. There has been growing pressure, largely from minority owner Morgan Stanley, for the family to eliminate the dual share class structure that gives the Ochs-Sulzberger's nine of thirteen board seats despite owning a far smaller proportion of the paper's outstanding shares. Times CEO Janet Robinson said yesterday that the family "has no intention of opening any doors to the action that is tearing at the heart of some of the other great journalistic institutions of our country." She also denied rumors the Times would willingly part with the Boston Globe calling the paper an important asset.
• Sources: AP, Motley Fool, Business Week. Conference call transcripts: New York Times Q3 2006
Vice President Cheney DISCLOSED Valerie Plame's SECRET CIA identity to Scooter Libby - and ORDERED HIM to BROADCAST her name to DC press !
Vice President Cheney WAS THE FIRST to tell Libby about VALERIE PLAME's SECRET, UNDERCOVER CIA identity.. and Cheney INSTRUCTED Libby to "OUT" her to the pathetic, gullible, willing, and corrupt DC press corpse:
<<< FBI agent Deborah S. Bond also testified that Libby said that, while he was preparing to be interviewed by investigators in the fall of 2003, he came across a handwritten note he had made during a phone conversation with Vice President Cheney. The note made it clear that, SHORTLY BEFORE June 12, 2003, CHENEY HAD TOLD LIBBY THAT [Valerie] PLAME WORKED AT THE CIA COUNTERPROLIFERATION DIVISION [in fact Plame was "NOC" undercover in that position] and was married to an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. >>
Note both the CONFUSING writing of Amy Goldstein's "report," and the even MORE CONFUSING headline the Washington Whore Post's editors use to headline the story.
IF this article were about a BILL CLINTON or AL GORE or John Kerry, the WHORE, LYING, TRAITOROUS, CORRUPT Washington Post would headline the story: "TREASON! Vice President communicated undercover CIA spy's name to his Chief of Staff!" and the report would read "The Vice President not only disclosed the SECRET, UNDERCOVER INDENTITY of a leading CIA undercover non-proliferations agent, but the Vice President DIRECTED his Chief of Staff to have that secret NOC identity be shopped around to various Washington reporters until her name and identity WERE MADE PUBLIC, as a tactic or means to discredit and intimidate (SMEAR) her husband, Gulf War1 hero Ambassador Joe Wilson. (Who had earned the despicable Vice President's ire, by publicly informing the nation and the world that not only was the story "Niger (Africa) yellowcake uranium ore for Saddam's weapons program" was a FALSE story... but that the President and Vice President KNEW the story was a FABRICATED LIE when Pres. Bush included it in his 2003 State of the Union speech, which was nothing more than a banging of the war drums to justify an illegal and undeclared war against and invasion of Iraq.
================================
Libby Left Out Some Facts In Interviews, FBI Agent Says
By Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 2, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020100913.html
One of the FBI agents who interviewed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby during the CIA leak investigation testified yesterday that the vice president's then-chief of staff did not acknowledge disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters, asserting that he was surprised when another journalist later told him about her.
FBI agent Deborah S. Bond also testified that Libby said that, while he was preparing to be interviewed by investigators in the fall of 2003, he came across a handwritten note he had made during a phone conversation with Vice President Cheney. The note made it clear that, shortly before June 12, 2003, Cheney had told Libby that Plame worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division and was married to an outspoken critic of the Iraq war.
<<< FBI agent Deborah S. Bond also testified that Libby said that, while he was preparing to be interviewed by investigators in the fall of 2003, he came across a handwritten note he had made during a phone conversation with Vice President Cheney. The note made it clear that, SHORTLY BEFORE June 12, 2003, CHENEY HAD TOLD LIBBY THAT [Valerie] PLAME WORKED AT THE CIA COUNTERPROLIFERATION DIVISION [in fact Plame was "NOC" undercover in that position] and was married to an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. >>
Note both the CONFUSING writing of Amy Goldstein's "report," and the even MORE CONFUSING headline the Washington Whore Post's editors use to headline the story.
IF this article were about a BILL CLINTON or AL GORE or John Kerry, the WHORE, LYING, TRAITOROUS, CORRUPT Washington Post would headline the story: "TREASON! Vice President communicated undercover CIA spy's name to his Chief of Staff!" and the report would read "The Vice President not only disclosed the SECRET, UNDERCOVER INDENTITY of a leading CIA undercover non-proliferations agent, but the Vice President DIRECTED his Chief of Staff to have that secret NOC identity be shopped around to various Washington reporters until her name and identity WERE MADE PUBLIC, as a tactic or means to discredit and intimidate (SMEAR) her husband, Gulf War1 hero Ambassador Joe Wilson. (Who had earned the despicable Vice President's ire, by publicly informing the nation and the world that not only was the story "Niger (Africa) yellowcake uranium ore for Saddam's weapons program" was a FALSE story... but that the President and Vice President KNEW the story was a FABRICATED LIE when Pres. Bush included it in his 2003 State of the Union speech, which was nothing more than a banging of the war drums to justify an illegal and undeclared war against and invasion of Iraq.
================================
Libby Left Out Some Facts In Interviews, FBI Agent Says
By Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 2, 2007; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020100913.html
One of the FBI agents who interviewed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby during the CIA leak investigation testified yesterday that the vice president's then-chief of staff did not acknowledge disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters, asserting that he was surprised when another journalist later told him about her.
FBI agent Deborah S. Bond also testified that Libby said that, while he was preparing to be interviewed by investigators in the fall of 2003, he came across a handwritten note he had made during a phone conversation with Vice President Cheney. The note made it clear that, shortly before June 12, 2003, Cheney had told Libby that Plame worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division and was married to an outspoken critic of the Iraq war.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Bush's war is LICENCE TO KILL Iraqis. What US military and Bush govt. reported as "VICTORY" vs Al Qaida, may have been a MASSACRE of Shia pilgrims!
If true, nothing illustrates the CRAVEN, MURDEROUS WHORING of the American press/media than this report about the US military's latest "victory" in Iraq.
Coming at a time when the Bush government was demanding another 20,000 (or is it really 50,000?) US combat troops to feed in, piecemeal, to the Iraq Baghdad bloodbath, the story seemed to be another "LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL" report (paraphrasing):
"See, the US occupation is finally WORKING, US troops PREVENTED a massive AL QAIDA ATTACK on Shiite religious pilgrims in Najaf province."
- But there were IMMEDIATELY some noticable problems with this story: why would Al Qaida use a LARGE force to storm such a pilgrimage, when the US military loves nothing better than destroying large units in the field?
- the US military and government, were both GIDDY with GLEE reporting the hundreds of dead corpses on the ground.. but we didn't hear from (or about) ONE captured prisoner who could verify the "large Al Qaida infiltration" story.
- The "Al Qiada" insurgents apparently had "heavy weapons" and "anti-aircraft missiles" that were able to shoot down one US helicopter - but there were NO other US casualties, and very few Iraqi army casualties.
- In short, while Mr. Cockburn is unabashedly a fierce critic of the Bush administration and proudly a bearer of the "left of center" banner, HIS report makes alot more sense than the typical American media reports on this "great victory," which as usual are nothing more than rephrased paragraphs of official military and government claims.
And, again, the 800 lb. gorrila of this story is "WHERE IS THE post-battle CORROBORATION that it was, indeed, an Al Qaida operation?
The more likely explanation is that the US whore press & media have bestowed on the Bush administration (and US military) an ABSOLUTE LICENCE TO KILL _ANYONE_ IN IRAQ, merely by declaring them "terrorists" and dropping tons and tons and tons of US bombs on them.
Or, in the more familiar term from the war that ALL FOUR BUSH BROTHERS AVOIDED like a plauge (Vietnam) "WE HAD TO DESTROY THE VILLAGE TO SAVE IT."
"Destroy the village" of course being an euphamism for "KILL ANY AND EVERYONE WHO REMAINED IN IT as our bombs rained down."
At any rate, it shouldn't be at all difficult for Ameica's WHORE MEDIA - the COWARDLY Washington Post and the LYING New York Times especially - to CONFIRM or DISPROVE Mr. Cockburn's contention that it was SHIITE PILGRIMS, and NOT Al Qaida Sunni death squads, that DIED BY THE HUNDREDS under the deluge of US bombs and Iraqi army bullets.
IF Mr. Cockburn's story is accurate, then the US media and major press whores are indeed PARTY TO MASS MURDER and war crimes, the blood and crushed bones of Iraqis the currency for media corporate profits.
========================================
US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 31 January 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2201103.ece#2007-01-31T00:00:06-00:00
There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.
A picture is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu Kamar), who believed himself to be the coming Mahdi, or Messiah, appears to have been accidental.
The story emerging on independent Iraqi websites and in Arabic newspapers is entirely different from the government's account of the battle with the so-called "Soldiers of Heaven", planning a raid on Najaf to kill Shia religious leaders.
The cult denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement. The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe, which lives between Najaf and Diwaniyah to the south, and arrived in the Zarga area, one mile from Najaf at about 6am on Sunday. Heading the procession was the chief of the tribe, Hajj Sa'ad Sa'ad Nayif al-Hatemi, and his wife driving in their 1982 Super Toyota sedan because they could not walk. When they reached an Iraqi army checkpoint it opened fire, killing Mr Hatemi, his wife and his driver, Jabar Ridha al-Hatemi. The tribe, fully armed because they were travelling at night, then assaulted the checkpoint to avenge their fallen chief.
Members of another tribe called Khaza'il living in Zarga tried to stop the fighting but they themselves came under fire. Meanwhile, the soldiers and police at the checkpoint called up their commanders saying they were under attack from al-Qai'da with advanced weapons. Reinforcements poured into the area and surrounded the Hawatim tribe in the nearby orchards. The tribesmen tried - in vain - to get their attackers to cease fire.
American helicopters then arrived and dropped leaflets saying: "To the terrorists, surrender before we bomb the area." The tribesmen went on firing and a US helicopter was hit and crashed killing two crewmen. The tribesmen say they do not know if they hit it or if it was brought down by friendly fire. The US aircraft launched an intense aerial bombardment in which 120 tribesmen and local residents were killed by 4am on Monday.
The messianic group led by Ahmad al-Hassani, which was already at odds with the Iraqi authorities in Najaf, was drawn into the fighting because it was based in Zarga and its presence provided a convenient excuse for what was in effect a massacre. The Hawatim and Khaza'il tribes are opposed to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party, who both control Najaf and make up the core of the Baghdad government.
This account cannot be substantiated and is drawn from the Healing Iraq website and the authoritative Baghdad daily Azzaman. But it would explain the disparity between the government casualties - less than 25 by one account - and the great number of their opponents killed and wounded. The Iraqi authorities have sealed the site and are not letting reporters talk to the wounded.
Sectarian killings across Iraq also marred the celebration of the Shia ritual of Ashura. A suicide bomber killed 23 worshippers and wounded 57 others in a Shia mosque in Balad Ruz. Not far away in Khanaqin, in Diyala, a bomb killed 13 people, including three women, and wounded 29 others. In east Baghdad mortar bombs killed 17 people.
Coming at a time when the Bush government was demanding another 20,000 (or is it really 50,000?) US combat troops to feed in, piecemeal, to the Iraq Baghdad bloodbath, the story seemed to be another "LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL" report (paraphrasing):
"See, the US occupation is finally WORKING, US troops PREVENTED a massive AL QAIDA ATTACK on Shiite religious pilgrims in Najaf province."
- But there were IMMEDIATELY some noticable problems with this story: why would Al Qaida use a LARGE force to storm such a pilgrimage, when the US military loves nothing better than destroying large units in the field?
- the US military and government, were both GIDDY with GLEE reporting the hundreds of dead corpses on the ground.. but we didn't hear from (or about) ONE captured prisoner who could verify the "large Al Qaida infiltration" story.
- The "Al Qiada" insurgents apparently had "heavy weapons" and "anti-aircraft missiles" that were able to shoot down one US helicopter - but there were NO other US casualties, and very few Iraqi army casualties.
- In short, while Mr. Cockburn is unabashedly a fierce critic of the Bush administration and proudly a bearer of the "left of center" banner, HIS report makes alot more sense than the typical American media reports on this "great victory," which as usual are nothing more than rephrased paragraphs of official military and government claims.
And, again, the 800 lb. gorrila of this story is "WHERE IS THE post-battle CORROBORATION that it was, indeed, an Al Qaida operation?
The more likely explanation is that the US whore press & media have bestowed on the Bush administration (and US military) an ABSOLUTE LICENCE TO KILL _ANYONE_ IN IRAQ, merely by declaring them "terrorists" and dropping tons and tons and tons of US bombs on them.
Or, in the more familiar term from the war that ALL FOUR BUSH BROTHERS AVOIDED like a plauge (Vietnam) "WE HAD TO DESTROY THE VILLAGE TO SAVE IT."
"Destroy the village" of course being an euphamism for "KILL ANY AND EVERYONE WHO REMAINED IN IT as our bombs rained down."
At any rate, it shouldn't be at all difficult for Ameica's WHORE MEDIA - the COWARDLY Washington Post and the LYING New York Times especially - to CONFIRM or DISPROVE Mr. Cockburn's contention that it was SHIITE PILGRIMS, and NOT Al Qaida Sunni death squads, that DIED BY THE HUNDREDS under the deluge of US bombs and Iraqi army bullets.
IF Mr. Cockburn's story is accurate, then the US media and major press whores are indeed PARTY TO MASS MURDER and war crimes, the blood and crushed bones of Iraqis the currency for media corporate profits.
========================================
US 'victory' against cult leader was 'massacre'
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 31 January 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2201103.ece#2007-01-31T00:00:06-00:00
There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.
A picture is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu Kamar), who believed himself to be the coming Mahdi, or Messiah, appears to have been accidental.
The story emerging on independent Iraqi websites and in Arabic newspapers is entirely different from the government's account of the battle with the so-called "Soldiers of Heaven", planning a raid on Najaf to kill Shia religious leaders.
The cult denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement. The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe, which lives between Najaf and Diwaniyah to the south, and arrived in the Zarga area, one mile from Najaf at about 6am on Sunday. Heading the procession was the chief of the tribe, Hajj Sa'ad Sa'ad Nayif al-Hatemi, and his wife driving in their 1982 Super Toyota sedan because they could not walk. When they reached an Iraqi army checkpoint it opened fire, killing Mr Hatemi, his wife and his driver, Jabar Ridha al-Hatemi. The tribe, fully armed because they were travelling at night, then assaulted the checkpoint to avenge their fallen chief.
Members of another tribe called Khaza'il living in Zarga tried to stop the fighting but they themselves came under fire. Meanwhile, the soldiers and police at the checkpoint called up their commanders saying they were under attack from al-Qai'da with advanced weapons. Reinforcements poured into the area and surrounded the Hawatim tribe in the nearby orchards. The tribesmen tried - in vain - to get their attackers to cease fire.
American helicopters then arrived and dropped leaflets saying: "To the terrorists, surrender before we bomb the area." The tribesmen went on firing and a US helicopter was hit and crashed killing two crewmen. The tribesmen say they do not know if they hit it or if it was brought down by friendly fire. The US aircraft launched an intense aerial bombardment in which 120 tribesmen and local residents were killed by 4am on Monday.
The messianic group led by Ahmad al-Hassani, which was already at odds with the Iraqi authorities in Najaf, was drawn into the fighting because it was based in Zarga and its presence provided a convenient excuse for what was in effect a massacre. The Hawatim and Khaza'il tribes are opposed to the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party, who both control Najaf and make up the core of the Baghdad government.
This account cannot be substantiated and is drawn from the Healing Iraq website and the authoritative Baghdad daily Azzaman. But it would explain the disparity between the government casualties - less than 25 by one account - and the great number of their opponents killed and wounded. The Iraqi authorities have sealed the site and are not letting reporters talk to the wounded.
Sectarian killings across Iraq also marred the celebration of the Shia ritual of Ashura. A suicide bomber killed 23 worshippers and wounded 57 others in a Shia mosque in Balad Ruz. Not far away in Khanaqin, in Diyala, a bomb killed 13 people, including three women, and wounded 29 others. In east Baghdad mortar bombs killed 17 people.
Karl ROVE told TIME's Matt Miller - NOT vice versa - about Valerie Plame's secret CIA identity. Bush Sr. called such "outing" "insidious treason."
Karl ROVE told TIME's Matt Miller - NOT vice versa - about Valerie Plame's secret CIA identity.
Bush Sr. called such an illegal "outing" of an undercover CIA agent "insidious treason."
Matthew Cooper Testifies Rove Told Him About Plame (Update5)
By Laurie Asseo (Bloomberg)
Jan 31 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aKqCOEH3eUaw
-- Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified today that top presidential aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell him that an Iraq war critic's wife was a CIA official.
Cooper, testifying in Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's perjury trial, also contradicted Libby's account of a conversation the two had the following day, on July 12, 2003, about war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.
Libby, 56, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, is accused of lying to investigators probing whether U.S. officials deliberately leaked Plame's identity to retaliate against Wilson for attacking the administration's Iraq war claims. Prosecutors say Libby falsely told a grand jury that, when Cooper asked about Plame, he said he heard about her from other reporters and didn't know if the information was true.
``I asked what he heard about Wilson's wife'' sending him to Niger to find out if Iraq sought to buy uranium there, Cooper said. ``Mr. Libby said words to the effect of `yeah, I heard that too.'''
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked whether Libby said where he had learned about Plame.
``Not in any way,'' said Cooper, now Washington editor of a new magazine, Conde Nast Portfolio. Asked whether Libby said he heard about her from other reporters, Cooper replied no.
Wilson wrote a column in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, saying he found no evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger and accusing the Bush administration of ``twisting'' intelligence to justify invading Iraq.
State of the Union
The day after Wilson's article, the White House acknowledged that President George W. Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address shouldn't have included a claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium in Africa.
Cooper said he was looking into the controversy over that statement when he spoke on July 11, 2003, to Rove, who hasn't been charged in the leak investigation.
Rove said, ``A number of things were going to be coming out about Mr. Wilson that would cast him in a different light,'' including who was involved in sending Wilson to Africa, Cooper testified.
``I said `who' and he said, `like, his wife,''' Cooper said. Rove said Wilson's wife worked in weapons of mass destruction at ``the agency,'' which Cooper said he took to mean the Central Intelligence Agency. Rove then said, ``I've already said too much. I've got to go,'' Cooper said.
Rove testified five times before a grand jury that investigated the leak of Plame's identity.
Grand Jury Testimony
Libby is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of obstruction, the most serious charge. Libby resigned after he was indicted in October 2005.
Cooper said he remembered his July 12 conversation with Libby vividly, and that he mentioned nothing about who told him about Plame.
According to the indictment, Libby -- testifying in March 2004 before the grand jury -- said that in his conversation with Cooper about Plame, ``I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that, because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact.``
Libby told the grand jury, ``All I had was this information that was coming in from reporters,'' according to the indictment.
Cross-Examination
Under cross-examination by defense lawyer William Jeffress, Cooper conceded his memory was ``cloudy'' about Libby's exact words in saying he had heard about Plame. Cooper's draft of an article for Time magazine quoted Libby differently, and Cooper later sent his editors an e-mail changing the quote to the one he told the jury today, Jeffress said.
The defense lawyer questioned Cooper in detail about his reporting and note-taking methods, displaying to jurors his typewritten notes on the interview with Libby and e-mails to his editors and another Time reporter.
Jeffress asked Cooper about a note on the interview with Libby that referred to Wilson and said ``not sure if it's ever,'' breaking off at that point.
Jeffress suggested that if Cooper meant to type ``even'' rather than ``ever,'' Libby might have said he was ``not sure that it's even true.'' Cooper said Libby didn't say that.
Confirmation?
Jeffress also asked Cooper whether he viewed Libby's statement, ``I heard that too,'' as a confirmation that Wilson's wife was a CIA official.
``I took it that way from Mr. Libby, yes,'' Cooper responded.
``Did you ask him where he'd heard it?'' Jeffress asked.
``I did not,'' said the reporter. He acknowledged that a memo he wrote to his editors about his conversation with Libby didn't mention Wilson's wife.
Cooper appeared on the witness stand after former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The two fought subpoenas seeking their testimony, and Miller went to jail for 85 days in 2005 rather than disclose Libby as her source. She said she decided to testify after Libby released her from a promise of confidentiality.
Miller testified yesterday that Libby told her about Plame in June 2003. Prosecutors say Libby told investigators he learned about her on July 10, 2003, from NBC journalist Tim Russert.
Novak Column
On July 14 of that year, eight days after Wilson's column in the New York Times, syndicated columnist Robert Novak publicly revealed that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Fitzgerald then began investigating the leak.
Fitzgerald told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton he expects to finish presenting his case on Feb. 5 or 6 after testimony from Russert, another ``witness we have to discuss,'' and other evidence.
Defense lawyer Ted Wells said that among the witnesses he will call is Jill Abramson, who was the Times's Washington bureau chief at the time of Miller's conversation with Libby. Miller testified yesterday that although she didn't write an article about Wilson's wife, she recommended to Abramson that the Times pursue the matter.
Walton has said he expects the trial, now in its second week of testimony, to last four to six weeks.
The case is U.S. vs. Libby, 05-394, U.S. District Court, the District of Columbia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurie Asseo in Washington at lasseo1@bloomberg.net
Bush Sr. called such an illegal "outing" of an undercover CIA agent "insidious treason."
Matthew Cooper Testifies Rove Told Him About Plame (Update5)
By Laurie Asseo (Bloomberg)
Jan 31 2007
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aKqCOEH3eUaw
-- Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified today that top presidential aide Karl Rove was the first person to tell him that an Iraq war critic's wife was a CIA official.
Cooper, testifying in Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby's perjury trial, also contradicted Libby's account of a conversation the two had the following day, on July 12, 2003, about war critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.
Libby, 56, Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, is accused of lying to investigators probing whether U.S. officials deliberately leaked Plame's identity to retaliate against Wilson for attacking the administration's Iraq war claims. Prosecutors say Libby falsely told a grand jury that, when Cooper asked about Plame, he said he heard about her from other reporters and didn't know if the information was true.
``I asked what he heard about Wilson's wife'' sending him to Niger to find out if Iraq sought to buy uranium there, Cooper said. ``Mr. Libby said words to the effect of `yeah, I heard that too.'''
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked whether Libby said where he had learned about Plame.
``Not in any way,'' said Cooper, now Washington editor of a new magazine, Conde Nast Portfolio. Asked whether Libby said he heard about her from other reporters, Cooper replied no.
Wilson wrote a column in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, saying he found no evidence that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger and accusing the Bush administration of ``twisting'' intelligence to justify invading Iraq.
State of the Union
The day after Wilson's article, the White House acknowledged that President George W. Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address shouldn't have included a claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium in Africa.
Cooper said he was looking into the controversy over that statement when he spoke on July 11, 2003, to Rove, who hasn't been charged in the leak investigation.
Rove said, ``A number of things were going to be coming out about Mr. Wilson that would cast him in a different light,'' including who was involved in sending Wilson to Africa, Cooper testified.
``I said `who' and he said, `like, his wife,''' Cooper said. Rove said Wilson's wife worked in weapons of mass destruction at ``the agency,'' which Cooper said he took to mean the Central Intelligence Agency. Rove then said, ``I've already said too much. I've got to go,'' Cooper said.
Rove testified five times before a grand jury that investigated the leak of Plame's identity.
Grand Jury Testimony
Libby is charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of obstruction, the most serious charge. Libby resigned after he was indicted in October 2005.
Cooper said he remembered his July 12 conversation with Libby vividly, and that he mentioned nothing about who told him about Plame.
According to the indictment, Libby -- testifying in March 2004 before the grand jury -- said that in his conversation with Cooper about Plame, ``I was very clear to say reporters are telling us that, because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact.``
Libby told the grand jury, ``All I had was this information that was coming in from reporters,'' according to the indictment.
Cross-Examination
Under cross-examination by defense lawyer William Jeffress, Cooper conceded his memory was ``cloudy'' about Libby's exact words in saying he had heard about Plame. Cooper's draft of an article for Time magazine quoted Libby differently, and Cooper later sent his editors an e-mail changing the quote to the one he told the jury today, Jeffress said.
The defense lawyer questioned Cooper in detail about his reporting and note-taking methods, displaying to jurors his typewritten notes on the interview with Libby and e-mails to his editors and another Time reporter.
Jeffress asked Cooper about a note on the interview with Libby that referred to Wilson and said ``not sure if it's ever,'' breaking off at that point.
Jeffress suggested that if Cooper meant to type ``even'' rather than ``ever,'' Libby might have said he was ``not sure that it's even true.'' Cooper said Libby didn't say that.
Confirmation?
Jeffress also asked Cooper whether he viewed Libby's statement, ``I heard that too,'' as a confirmation that Wilson's wife was a CIA official.
``I took it that way from Mr. Libby, yes,'' Cooper responded.
``Did you ask him where he'd heard it?'' Jeffress asked.
``I did not,'' said the reporter. He acknowledged that a memo he wrote to his editors about his conversation with Libby didn't mention Wilson's wife.
Cooper appeared on the witness stand after former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The two fought subpoenas seeking their testimony, and Miller went to jail for 85 days in 2005 rather than disclose Libby as her source. She said she decided to testify after Libby released her from a promise of confidentiality.
Miller testified yesterday that Libby told her about Plame in June 2003. Prosecutors say Libby told investigators he learned about her on July 10, 2003, from NBC journalist Tim Russert.
Novak Column
On July 14 of that year, eight days after Wilson's column in the New York Times, syndicated columnist Robert Novak publicly revealed that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Fitzgerald then began investigating the leak.
Fitzgerald told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton he expects to finish presenting his case on Feb. 5 or 6 after testimony from Russert, another ``witness we have to discuss,'' and other evidence.
Defense lawyer Ted Wells said that among the witnesses he will call is Jill Abramson, who was the Times's Washington bureau chief at the time of Miller's conversation with Libby. Miller testified yesterday that although she didn't write an article about Wilson's wife, she recommended to Abramson that the Times pursue the matter.
Walton has said he expects the trial, now in its second week of testimony, to last four to six weeks.
The case is U.S. vs. Libby, 05-394, U.S. District Court, the District of Columbia.
To contact the reporter on this story: Laurie Asseo in Washington at lasseo1@bloomberg.net
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
NY Times WHORES UNSUBSTANTIATED, PROPAGANDA LIE "IRAN was behind successful Iraqi insurgent attack." LYING and PROPAGANDA is what Sulzberger & co. do
As we've said here 1,000 times if we've said it once, the New York Times, as token "leader" of America's WHORE "major media," is in the LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, MISINFORM, DISTORT, DISTRACT, and help the radical right-wing loot, steal, and plunder business, in part because the Times is the official organ of the AIPAC neo-con lobby, and in part because Arthur Sulzberger & crew are insatiably greedy liars joining corporate America in an all out assault on 100 years of American social progress.
(That is, the whore, Lyin' Times, like Rush Limbaugh, Fox 'news," the Wall St. journal, and other right-wing publications, want to take America BACK to the pre-Depression days, when there was NO social safety net, VERY LITTLE restrictions or oversight on Big Business, women were not allowed to vote (until the 19th Amendment in 1919), and official, state-enforced SEGREGATION was the law of the land, even though it (segregation) violated the spirit and law of the 15th amendment.)
In this case, the successful insurgent attack that amazed the US command was likely SUNNI insurgents (being as the targets were Shiite-dominated Iraqi government facilities), and Iran is OPPOSED TO THE SUNNI INSURGENCY, whether secular (Baathist) or sectarian (Sunni fundamentalist, often Al Qaida.)
---------------------------------------------------------
Ghost of Judith Miller: NYT Drinks the Kool-Aid, Claims Iran is Behind Attacks on U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
Robert Naiman and Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy,
January 31, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot-and-robert-naiman/ghost-of-judith-miller-n_b_40120.html
If there's something you were thinking of apologizing for, but you were holding back on the grounds that apologizing might be taken as an implicit commitment not to make the same mistake in the future, I can now reassure you.
No less venerable an institution than the New York Times has shown the path.
You can apologize, be contrite, tear your hair, rend your garments, and then do the same damn thing again.
This is what the New York Times wrote in May 2004 about its pre-war reporting on Iraq:
"information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged...Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."
Today the New York Times, on page A10, informs us that "Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis Say"
Note that:
- the claim that Iran "may have" trained attackers gets the headline and the lede. Of course, green Martians "may have" trained the attackers. The key question is: is there real evidence?
- there is not a single named source in the article.
- there is no rebuttal, no point of view different from the allegation, even though plenty of knowledgable analysts (Juan Cole, Gareth Porter, Trita Parsi, for starters) could have easily been found to give a contrary view. A recent Los Angeles Times piece found "scant evidence" for the claim that Iran was behind attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
- no "direct evidence" exists, as the article acknowledges (further down.)
- the only "evidence" given is that the attack was sophisticated (what are they saying - Iraqis are too dumb to do this by themselves ?!) and that Iran has a motive for retaliating against the U.S. Which is no evidence at all - lots of folks have a motive for retaliating against the U.S.
In no way did this unsourced, unsubstantiated speculation deserve this article and this headline.
This is a dangerous development. Just as before the Iraq war, much of the media is drinking the Kool-Aid. That the New York Times is again drinking the Kool-Aid is particularly worrisome, given its (undeserved) role as a leader for other media.
---
Write the Times:
Letters to the Editor: letters@nytimes.com
Public Editor: public@nytimes.com
News Editor: nytnews@nytimes.com
---
Get involved:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org
(That is, the whore, Lyin' Times, like Rush Limbaugh, Fox 'news," the Wall St. journal, and other right-wing publications, want to take America BACK to the pre-Depression days, when there was NO social safety net, VERY LITTLE restrictions or oversight on Big Business, women were not allowed to vote (until the 19th Amendment in 1919), and official, state-enforced SEGREGATION was the law of the land, even though it (segregation) violated the spirit and law of the 15th amendment.)
In this case, the successful insurgent attack that amazed the US command was likely SUNNI insurgents (being as the targets were Shiite-dominated Iraqi government facilities), and Iran is OPPOSED TO THE SUNNI INSURGENCY, whether secular (Baathist) or sectarian (Sunni fundamentalist, often Al Qaida.)
---------------------------------------------------------
Ghost of Judith Miller: NYT Drinks the Kool-Aid, Claims Iran is Behind Attacks on U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
Robert Naiman and Robert Naiman, Just Foreign Policy,
January 31, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot-and-robert-naiman/ghost-of-judith-miller-n_b_40120.html
If there's something you were thinking of apologizing for, but you were holding back on the grounds that apologizing might be taken as an implicit commitment not to make the same mistake in the future, I can now reassure you.
No less venerable an institution than the New York Times has shown the path.
You can apologize, be contrite, tear your hair, rend your garments, and then do the same damn thing again.
This is what the New York Times wrote in May 2004 about its pre-war reporting on Iraq:
"information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged...Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."
Today the New York Times, on page A10, informs us that "Iran May Have Trained Attackers That Killed 5 American Soldiers, U.S. and Iraqis Say"
Note that:
- the claim that Iran "may have" trained attackers gets the headline and the lede. Of course, green Martians "may have" trained the attackers. The key question is: is there real evidence?
- there is not a single named source in the article.
- there is no rebuttal, no point of view different from the allegation, even though plenty of knowledgable analysts (Juan Cole, Gareth Porter, Trita Parsi, for starters) could have easily been found to give a contrary view. A recent Los Angeles Times piece found "scant evidence" for the claim that Iran was behind attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
- no "direct evidence" exists, as the article acknowledges (further down.)
- the only "evidence" given is that the attack was sophisticated (what are they saying - Iraqis are too dumb to do this by themselves ?!) and that Iran has a motive for retaliating against the U.S. Which is no evidence at all - lots of folks have a motive for retaliating against the U.S.
In no way did this unsourced, unsubstantiated speculation deserve this article and this headline.
This is a dangerous development. Just as before the Iraq war, much of the media is drinking the Kool-Aid. That the New York Times is again drinking the Kool-Aid is particularly worrisome, given its (undeserved) role as a leader for other media.
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Monday, January 29, 2007
The president IS NOT the "commander in chief" of American Civilians. Media Whores LOVE the militaristic theme of society SUBSERVIENT to war...
<< Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescient last book, “Secrecy,” traced the ever-faster-growing secrecy of our government and said that it strikes at the very essence of democracy — accountability of representatives to the people. How can the people hold their representatives to account if they are denied knowledge of what they are doing? Wartime and war analogies are embraced because these justify the secrecy. The representative is accountable to citizens. Soldiers are accountable to their officer. The dynamics are different, and to blend them is to undermine the basic principles of our Constitution. >>
At Ease, Mr. President
By GARRY WILLS
Published: January 27, 2007
Evanston, Ill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/opinion/27wills.html
WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”
But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.
I first cringed at the misuse in 1973, during the “Saturday Night Massacre” (as it was called). President Richard Nixon, angered at the Watergate inquiry being conducted by the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, dispatched his chief of staff, Al Haig, to arrange for Mr. Cox’s firing. Mr. Haig told the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to dismiss Mr. Cox. Mr. Richardson refused, and resigned. Then Mr. Haig told the second in line at the Justice Department, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox. Mr. Ruckelshaus refused, and accepted his dismissal. The third in line, Robert Bork, finally did the deed.
What struck me was what Mr. Haig told Mr. Ruckelshaus, “You know what it means when an order comes down from the commander in chief and a member of his team cannot execute it.” This was as great a constitutional faux pas as Mr. Haig’s later claim, when President Reagan was wounded, that “Constitutionally ... I’m in control.”
President Nixon was not Mr. Ruckelshaus’s commander in chief. The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”
When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.
But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.
There has never been an executive branch more fetishistic about secrecy than the Bush-Cheney one. The secrecy has been used to throw a veil over detentions, “renditions,” suspension of the Geneva Conventions and of habeas corpus, torture and warrantless wiretaps. We hear again the refrain so common in the other wars — If you knew what we know, you would see how justified all our actions are.
But we can never know what they know. We do not have sufficient clearance.
When Adm. William Crowe, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticized the gulf war under the first President Bush, Secretary of State James Baker said that the admiral was not qualified to speak on the matter since he no longer had the clearance to read classified reports. If he is not qualified, then no ordinary citizen is. We must simply trust our lords and obey the commander in chief.
The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.
That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).
We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescient last book, “Secrecy,” traced the ever-faster-growing secrecy of our government and said that it strikes at the very essence of democracy — accountability of representatives to the people. How can the people hold their representatives to account if they are denied knowledge of what they are doing? Wartime and war analogies are embraced because these justify the secrecy. The representative is accountable to citizens. Soldiers are accountable to their officer. The dynamics are different, and to blend them is to undermine the basic principles of our Constitution.
Garry Wills, a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern, is the author, most recently, of “What Paul Meant.”
At Ease, Mr. President
By GARRY WILLS
Published: January 27, 2007
Evanston, Ill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/opinion/27wills.html
WE hear constantly now about “our commander in chief.” The word has become a synonym for “president.” It is said that we “elect a commander in chief.” It is asked whether this or that candidate is “worthy to be our commander in chief.”
But the president is not our commander in chief. He certainly is not mine. I am not in the Army.
I first cringed at the misuse in 1973, during the “Saturday Night Massacre” (as it was called). President Richard Nixon, angered at the Watergate inquiry being conducted by the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, dispatched his chief of staff, Al Haig, to arrange for Mr. Cox’s firing. Mr. Haig told the attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to dismiss Mr. Cox. Mr. Richardson refused, and resigned. Then Mr. Haig told the second in line at the Justice Department, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox. Mr. Ruckelshaus refused, and accepted his dismissal. The third in line, Robert Bork, finally did the deed.
What struck me was what Mr. Haig told Mr. Ruckelshaus, “You know what it means when an order comes down from the commander in chief and a member of his team cannot execute it.” This was as great a constitutional faux pas as Mr. Haig’s later claim, when President Reagan was wounded, that “Constitutionally ... I’m in control.”
President Nixon was not Mr. Ruckelshaus’s commander in chief. The president is not the commander in chief of civilians. He is not even commander in chief of National Guard troops unless and until they are federalized. The Constitution is clear on this: “The president shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States.”
When Abraham Lincoln took actions based on military considerations, he gave himself the proper title, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” That title is rarely — more like never — heard today. It is just “commander in chief,” or even “commander in chief of the United States.” This reflects the increasing militarization of our politics. The citizenry at large is now thought of as under military discipline. In wartime, it is true, people submit to the national leadership more than in peacetime. The executive branch takes actions in secret, unaccountable to the electorate, to hide its moves from the enemy and protect national secrets. Constitutional shortcuts are taken “for the duration.” But those impositions are removed when normal life returns.
But we have not seen normal life in 66 years. The wartime discipline imposed in 1941 has never been lifted, and “the duration” has become the norm. World War II melded into the cold war, with greater secrecy than ever — more classified information, tougher security clearances. And now the cold war has modulated into the war on terrorism.
There has never been an executive branch more fetishistic about secrecy than the Bush-Cheney one. The secrecy has been used to throw a veil over detentions, “renditions,” suspension of the Geneva Conventions and of habeas corpus, torture and warrantless wiretaps. We hear again the refrain so common in the other wars — If you knew what we know, you would see how justified all our actions are.
But we can never know what they know. We do not have sufficient clearance.
When Adm. William Crowe, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticized the gulf war under the first President Bush, Secretary of State James Baker said that the admiral was not qualified to speak on the matter since he no longer had the clearance to read classified reports. If he is not qualified, then no ordinary citizen is. We must simply trust our lords and obey the commander in chief.
The glorification of the president as a war leader is registered in numerous and substantial executive aggrandizements; but it is symbolized in other ways that, while small in themselves, dispose the citizenry to accept those aggrandizements. We are reminded, for instance, of the expanded commander in chief status every time a modern president gets off the White House helicopter and returns the salute of marines.
That is an innovation that was begun by Ronald Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower, a real general, knew that the salute is for the uniform, and as president he was not wearing one. An exchange of salutes was out of order. (George Bush came as close as he could to wearing a uniform while president when he landed on the telegenic aircraft carrier in an Air Force flight jacket).
We used to take pride in civilian leadership of the military under the Constitution, a principle that George Washington embraced when he avoided military symbols at Mount Vernon. We are not led — or were not in the past — by caudillos.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s prescient last book, “Secrecy,” traced the ever-faster-growing secrecy of our government and said that it strikes at the very essence of democracy — accountability of representatives to the people. How can the people hold their representatives to account if they are denied knowledge of what they are doing? Wartime and war analogies are embraced because these justify the secrecy. The representative is accountable to citizens. Soldiers are accountable to their officer. The dynamics are different, and to blend them is to undermine the basic principles of our Constitution.
Garry Wills, a professor emeritus of history at Northwestern, is the author, most recently, of “What Paul Meant.”
Sunday, January 28, 2007
DC press corpse a craven, corrupt, complicit adjunct to the PROPAGANDA LIES of the Bush administration.....
Cheney's staff, and a useful press
TIM RUTTEN
January 27, 2007
http://www.calendarlive.com/columnists/rutten/cl-et-rutten27jan27,0,5935282.story
IT wasn't what anybody intended, but this week Vice President Dick Cheney and some of his former aides gave the rest of us a rather instructive seminar in the symbiotic contempt that links the Bush administration and self-serving members of the Washington press corps.
The lesson began in the courtroom, where Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is on trial for perjury, charged with lying to a grand jury about whether he told reporters that Valerie Plame — the wife of a prominent administration critic, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — was a CIA agent. Libby's defense turns, in part, on assertions that the White House "sacrificed" him to protect Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, and that Libby and Rove had been instructed to manipulate the press in ways that discredited Wilson.
ADVERTISEMENT
Wilson had been sent by the CIA to the African country of Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had been trying to obtain yellow cake uranium mined there as part of his alleged nuclear weapon program. Wilson reported that nothing of the sort had occurred and went public with that fact when Bush and other members of the administration falsely alleged otherwise in making the case for war against Iraq.
Hussein, it turned out, had no program to develop weapons of mass destruction, and, depending on how you view things, the war in Iraq began with either lies or delusions.
Either could have been abetted by the sort of cynical media manipulation described this week when the vice president's former communications director, Catherine J. Martin, testified in Libby's trial. She described how Cheney was obsessed with Wilson's criticism, particularly after publication of an op-ed piece in the New York Times and how the vice president ordered a counteroffensive in parts of the press deemed receptive to whatever the administration wanted to dish out concerning the former diplomat. One of the options she recommended to Cheney was an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," because the program's host, Tim Russert, would allow the vice president to "control the message." (Russert, along with a number of reporters whom Libby attempted to make conduits of misinformation, will be testifying later in the trial.)
She also told the court that she suggested that the vice president's office "leak" information that seemed to undercut Wilson's credibility to carefully selected reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post, arranged a lunch for Cheney with right-wing commentators and advised him to avoid the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof because he had "attacked the administration fairly regularly." Other witnesses this week testified that Libby had been assigned to contact selected reporters deemed receptive to information that might discredit Wilson as a critic and to plant with them anonymously sourced stories.
Martin called the word "leak," which appeared in her notes as a "term of art" and testified, "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."
She has that about right, though the "art" she has in mind is deception.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had the best summation of Martin's testimony: "The trial has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it."
It's such an amateurish approach to news management, in fact, that you have to wonder how the Bush administration and, particularly, Cheney's office, got away with it for as long as they did. If you recall that there always are a certain number of high-level Washington journalists willing to play ball with any form of transparently self-interested deceit for the sake of a Page 1 byline or a few minutes of prime airtime, you don't have to wonder very long.
To get a firsthand look at this brutally cynical contempt for the public and its right to know in action, all you had to do was watch Cheney's own appearance on CNN's "Situation Room" this week. The vice president sat there straight-faced and told the show's host, Wolf Blitzer, that the media have been ignoring all the "enormous successes" in Iraq and are "eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure."
When Blitzer asked if "blunders and the failures" on the ground in Iraq had undercut the administration's ability to make its case for its policies, the vice president flatly asserted, "I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash."
When Blitzer said there is a terrible situation in Iraq, Cheney replied, "No there is not. There is not. There's problems — ongoing problems — but we have in fact accomplished our objectives."
As Blitzer pressed a mild series of questions about the war's conduct, Cheney snapped, "What you're recommending is, or at least what you seem to believe the right course is, is to bail out."
"I'm just asking," Blitzer interjected.
"No, you're not asking," the vice president replied.
This week, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported that "just 37% [of Americans] believe that America's security from terrorist attacks depends on our success in Iraq — a fundamental part of President Bush's case for the additional troops" he now wishes to send to Baghdad. Pew also found that 51% of Americans now believe that the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong.
Cheney's demonstrated proclivity for rhetorical bullying aside, dismissing legitimate questions growing out of such views in the fashion aired by CNN this week is an expression of contempt for public opinion itself.
There's no particular reason why malfeasant members of the press or those who merely are incompetent shouldn't be held in contempt. The news media, after all, are like every American institution, home to its share of idiots, poseurs, slothful time-markers and self-interested time servers. The problem is that Cheney and his former aides aren't simply contemptuous of the individual reporters or even of the press itself. They're contemptuous of the principle under which the free press operates — which is the American people's right to have a reasonable account of what the government does in their name.
The lesson to take away from this week's unintended seminar in contemporary journalism is that the vice president and his staff, acting on behalf of the Bush administration, believe that truth is a malleable adjunct to their ambitions and that they have a well-founded confidence that some members of the Washington press corps will cynically accommodate that belief for the sake of their careers.
It's a sick little arrangement in which the parties clearly have one thing in common: a profound indifference to both the common good and to their obligation to act in its service.
timothy.rutten@latimes.com
TIM RUTTEN
January 27, 2007
http://www.calendarlive.com/columnists/rutten/cl-et-rutten27jan27,0,5935282.story
IT wasn't what anybody intended, but this week Vice President Dick Cheney and some of his former aides gave the rest of us a rather instructive seminar in the symbiotic contempt that links the Bush administration and self-serving members of the Washington press corps.
The lesson began in the courtroom, where Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is on trial for perjury, charged with lying to a grand jury about whether he told reporters that Valerie Plame — the wife of a prominent administration critic, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — was a CIA agent. Libby's defense turns, in part, on assertions that the White House "sacrificed" him to protect Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political advisor, and that Libby and Rove had been instructed to manipulate the press in ways that discredited Wilson.
ADVERTISEMENT
Wilson had been sent by the CIA to the African country of Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had been trying to obtain yellow cake uranium mined there as part of his alleged nuclear weapon program. Wilson reported that nothing of the sort had occurred and went public with that fact when Bush and other members of the administration falsely alleged otherwise in making the case for war against Iraq.
Hussein, it turned out, had no program to develop weapons of mass destruction, and, depending on how you view things, the war in Iraq began with either lies or delusions.
Either could have been abetted by the sort of cynical media manipulation described this week when the vice president's former communications director, Catherine J. Martin, testified in Libby's trial. She described how Cheney was obsessed with Wilson's criticism, particularly after publication of an op-ed piece in the New York Times and how the vice president ordered a counteroffensive in parts of the press deemed receptive to whatever the administration wanted to dish out concerning the former diplomat. One of the options she recommended to Cheney was an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," because the program's host, Tim Russert, would allow the vice president to "control the message." (Russert, along with a number of reporters whom Libby attempted to make conduits of misinformation, will be testifying later in the trial.)
She also told the court that she suggested that the vice president's office "leak" information that seemed to undercut Wilson's credibility to carefully selected reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post, arranged a lunch for Cheney with right-wing commentators and advised him to avoid the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof because he had "attacked the administration fairly regularly." Other witnesses this week testified that Libby had been assigned to contact selected reporters deemed receptive to information that might discredit Wilson as a critic and to plant with them anonymously sourced stories.
Martin called the word "leak," which appeared in her notes as a "term of art" and testified, "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."
She has that about right, though the "art" she has in mind is deception.
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had the best summation of Martin's testimony: "The trial has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it."
It's such an amateurish approach to news management, in fact, that you have to wonder how the Bush administration and, particularly, Cheney's office, got away with it for as long as they did. If you recall that there always are a certain number of high-level Washington journalists willing to play ball with any form of transparently self-interested deceit for the sake of a Page 1 byline or a few minutes of prime airtime, you don't have to wonder very long.
To get a firsthand look at this brutally cynical contempt for the public and its right to know in action, all you had to do was watch Cheney's own appearance on CNN's "Situation Room" this week. The vice president sat there straight-faced and told the show's host, Wolf Blitzer, that the media have been ignoring all the "enormous successes" in Iraq and are "eager to write off this effort or declare it a failure."
When Blitzer asked if "blunders and the failures" on the ground in Iraq had undercut the administration's ability to make its case for its policies, the vice president flatly asserted, "I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash."
When Blitzer said there is a terrible situation in Iraq, Cheney replied, "No there is not. There is not. There's problems — ongoing problems — but we have in fact accomplished our objectives."
As Blitzer pressed a mild series of questions about the war's conduct, Cheney snapped, "What you're recommending is, or at least what you seem to believe the right course is, is to bail out."
"I'm just asking," Blitzer interjected.
"No, you're not asking," the vice president replied.
This week, the nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported that "just 37% [of Americans] believe that America's security from terrorist attacks depends on our success in Iraq — a fundamental part of President Bush's case for the additional troops" he now wishes to send to Baghdad. Pew also found that 51% of Americans now believe that the decision to go to war in Iraq was wrong.
Cheney's demonstrated proclivity for rhetorical bullying aside, dismissing legitimate questions growing out of such views in the fashion aired by CNN this week is an expression of contempt for public opinion itself.
There's no particular reason why malfeasant members of the press or those who merely are incompetent shouldn't be held in contempt. The news media, after all, are like every American institution, home to its share of idiots, poseurs, slothful time-markers and self-interested time servers. The problem is that Cheney and his former aides aren't simply contemptuous of the individual reporters or even of the press itself. They're contemptuous of the principle under which the free press operates — which is the American people's right to have a reasonable account of what the government does in their name.
The lesson to take away from this week's unintended seminar in contemporary journalism is that the vice president and his staff, acting on behalf of the Bush administration, believe that truth is a malleable adjunct to their ambitions and that they have a well-founded confidence that some members of the Washington press corps will cynically accommodate that belief for the sake of their careers.
It's a sick little arrangement in which the parties clearly have one thing in common: a profound indifference to both the common good and to their obligation to act in its service.
timothy.rutten@latimes.com
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