Ah yes, Bush's zest for dismantling the Constitution for personal profit seems to know no bounds, but I'll have to let the links speak for themselves. These come from The Bush Watch website. Happy parousing!
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911

(just a thought…) Either Bush knew of the pending terrorist attack by Osama Bin Ladin and was therefore complicit, or he was ignorant of it and therefore lacked any claim to the sensibilities and trust that putatively justified his becoming president of the US.

  Bush's breach of trust with the American people has eliminated any basis for treating the man as if he had any integrity. Make Bush and his administration lift the veil of secrecy and allow a full investigation of the facts. I, for one, would be ecstatic to learn that 9/11 was simply a result of incompetence of Bush or his administration. On the other hand, I would be crushed to learn that any president of the United States (whether elected or selected) could be so heartless as to allow the murder of innocents to advance his own political agenda. Somebody needs to prove to me and the rest of the American public that there is reason to believe in our government and in our media. Right now, all I see is a shameless propaganda machine that is attempting to manufacture consent? --Scot A. Griffin Redwood City, CA


The Latest Bush Outrage: Kissinger -Christopher Hitchens, Slate.

Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation?

"The new 'commission' will be chaired by a man with a long, proven record of
concealing evidence and of lying to Congress, the press, and the public. "

"Can Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven
coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in
many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open
contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest "

The Bush administration has been saying in public for several months that it does
not desire an independent inquiry into the gross "failures of intelligence" that left
U.S. society defenseless 14 months ago. By announcing that Henry Kissinger will be
chairing the inquiry that it did not want, the president has now made the same
point in a different way. But the cynicism of the decision and the gross insult to
democracy and to the families of the victims that it represents has to be analyzed to
be believed.

1) We already know quite a lot, thanks all the same, about who was behind the
attacks. Most notable in incubating al-Qaida were the rotten client-state regimes of
the Saudi Arabian oligarchy and the Pakistani military and police elite. Henry
Kissinger is now, and always has been, an errand boy and apologist for such
regimes.

2) When in office, Henry Kissinger organized massive deceptions of Congress and
public opinion. The most notorious case concerned the "secret bombing" of
Cambodia and Laos, and the unleashing of unconstitutional methods by Nixon and
Kissinger to repress dissent from this illegal and atrocious policy. But Sen. Frank
Church's commission of inquiry into the abuses of U.S. intelligence, which focused
on illegal assassinations and the subversion of democratic governments overseas,
was given incomplete and misleading information by Kissinger, especially on the
matter of Chile. Rep. Otis Pike's parallel inquiry in the House (which brought to
light Kissinger's personal role in the not-insignificant matter of the betrayal of the
Iraqi Kurds, among other offenses) was thwarted by Kissinger at every turn, and its
eventual findings were classified. In other words, the new "commission" will be
chaired by a man with a long, proven record of concealing evidence and of lying to
Congress, the press, and the public.

3) In his second career as an obfuscator and a falsifier, Kissinger appropriated the
records of his time at the State Department and took them on a truck to the
Rockefeller family estate in New York. He has since been successfully sued for the
return of much of this public property, but meanwhile he produced, for profit, three
volumes of memoirs that purported to give a full account of his tenure. In several
crucial instances, such as his rendering of U.S. diplomacy with China over Vietnam,
with apartheid South Africa over Angola, and with Indonesia over the invasion of
East Timor (to cite only some of the most conspicuous), declassified documents
have since shown him to be a bald-faced liar. Does he deserve a third try at
presenting a truthful record, after being caught twice as a fabricator? And on such
a grave matter as this?

4) Kissinger's "consulting" firm, Kissinger Associates, is a privately held concern
that does not publish a client list and that compels its clients to sign confidentiality
agreements. Nonetheless, it has been established that Kissinger's business dealings
with, say, the Chinese Communist leadership have closely matched his public
pronouncements on such things as the massacre of Chinese students. Given the
strong ties between himself, his partners Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent
Scowcroft, and the oil oligarchies of the Gulf, it must be time for at least a full
disclosure of his interests in the region. This thought does not seem to have
occurred to the president or to the other friends of Prince Bandar and Prince
Bandar's wife, who helped in the evacuation of the Bin Laden family from
American soil, without an interrogation, in the week after Sept. 11.

5) On Memorial Day 2001, Kissinger was visited by the police in the Ritz Hotel in
Paris and handed a warrant, issued by Judge Roger LeLoire, requesting his
testimony in the matter of disappeared French citizens in Pinochet's Chile.
Kissinger chose to leave town rather than appear at the Palais de Justice as
requested. He has since been summoned as a witness by senior magistrates in
Chile and Argentina who are investigating the international terrorist network that
went under the name "Operation Condor" and that conducted assassinations,
kidnappings, and bombings in several countries. The most spectacular such
incident occurred in rush-hour traffic in downtown Washington, D.C., in September
1976, killing a senior Chilean dissident and his American companion. Until recently,
this was the worst incident of externally sponsored criminal violence conducted on
American soil. The order for the attack was given by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who
has been vigorously defended from prosecution by Henry Kissinger.

Moreover, on Sept. 10, 2001, a civil suit was filed in a Washington, D.C., federal
court, charging Kissinger with murder. The suit, brought by the survivors of Gen.
Rene Schneider of Chile, asserts that Kissinger gave the order for the elimination of
this constitutional officer of a democratic country because he refused to endorse
plans for a military coup. Every single document in the prosecution case is a
U.S.-government declassified paper. And the target of this devastating lawsuit is
being invited to review the shortcomings of the "intelligence community"?

In late 2001, the Brazilian government canceled an invitation for Kissinger to speak
in Sao Paulo because it could no longer guarantee his immunity. Earlier this year,
a London court agreed to hear an application for Kissinger's imprisonment on war
crimes charges while he was briefly in the United Kingdom. It is known that there
are many countries to which he cannot travel at all, and it is also known that he
takes legal advice before traveling anywhere. Does the Bush administration feel
proud of appointing a man who is wanted in so many places, and wanted
furthermore for his association with terrorism and crimes against humanity? Or
does it hope to limit the scope of the inquiry to those areas where Kissinger has
clients?

There is a tendency, some of it paranoid and disreputable, for the citizens of other
countries and cultures to regard President Bush's "war on terror" as opportunist and
even as contrived. I myself don't take any stock in such propaganda. But can
Congress and the media be expected to swallow the appointment of a proven
coverup artist, a discredited historian, a busted liar, and a man who is wanted in
many jurisdictions for the vilest of offenses? The shame of this, and the open
contempt for the families of our victims, ought to be the cause of a storm of protest.
--11.27.02

All the desperate lies and spin don't change the fact that the Bush administration had foreknowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks By Larry Chin Online Journal Contributing Editor


BW - 22/05/02 by Kent SouthardThe following are all uncontroversial facts reported in the mainstream media: On or about Jan. 20th, 2001, as the Clinton administration transitioned to the Bush, NSC chief Sandy Berger briefed Condi Rice extensively on the terrorism threat posed by bin Laden, telling her she would be spending more time on this threat than she ever imagined. At the Dept. of Defense, William Cohen was performing the same courtesy for Don Rumsfeld, again with a sharp reminder of the terrorist threat in the form of a hand-written letter to Rumsfeld containing the phone numbers of people in the Pentagon Rumsfeld needed to speak to directly on the subject. On Jan. 26th, the CIA confirmed to the new Bush administration that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole which killed 17 American sailors.

The response of the Bush administration was to cease Predator drone surveillance flights to track bin Laden, reassign the cruise-missile equipped submarine stationed in the Indian Ocean with the specific mission of targeting bin Laden, reassign the AC-130 gunships on scramble alert that could be on top of bin Laden after a six hour flight, suspend the special forces operations targeting bin Laden already based in Uzbekistan for the purpose thanks to a treaty signed by Bill Clinton.

In May, June and July, the sole remaining Clinton appointee, CIA Director Tenet, was frantic with concern over incoming intelligence indicating a huge terrorist attack on American soil. Vice-President Dick Cheney was head of a new counter-terrorism task force, yet held no meetings.

Attorney General John Ashcroft refused FBI requests for hundreds of new agents to be assigned to counter-terrorism; his concerns were drugs and pornography, yet in late July he stopped flying commercial airliners due to a "threat assessment." The general threat assessment was considered to be the most severe in decades according to CIA's Tenet; members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were briefed on the situation on July 5th.

….As an interesting aside, before 9/11 Ashcroft was known to put in 3 1/2 day work weeks at the Dept. of Justice. In the early months of the administration, FBI agents flew to Ashcroft's home in rural Missouri to obtain his signature on a wire-tap for a terrorism investigation. Ashcroft was so displeased to see the agents, he had them stand out in the cold while he sat in his pickup to read and sign the documents.

On Sept. 4th, Cheney's counter-terrorism task force met for the first time. According to the Pentagon's liaison for terrorism, Gen. Kerrik, Clinton's had met almost weekly, but with Bush he "didn't see that same kind of focus." On Sept. 10, Diane Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee briefed on July 5th, asked Dick Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby when the administration would start focusing on these terror threats which had so pre-occupied CIA's Tenet, the most severe in decades - she was told it would have to wait another six months.

So, obviously, it's all Clinton's fault.

Having key members of the Cabinet abandon flying by commercial airliners in July of 2001 makes it appear, in retrospect, that you and they knew something about the upcoming use of hijacked commerical jets as possible terrorist weapons long before you chose to share that information with others. Now you say that you learned what was about to go down only in August of 2001, which certainly suggests that since the others, including key senators, knew in July, either you're lying or you weren't in charge and that whoever was in charge wasn't providing you key information. Not good, Georgie. Whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it ain't good for the pitcher.



"With approval from the F.B.I., according to a Saudi official, the bin Ladens flew by private jet from Los Angeles to Orlando, then on to Washington, and finally to Boston. Once the F.A.A. permitted overseas flights, the jet flew to Europe. United States officials apparently needed little persuasion from the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, that the extended bin Laden family included no material witnesses [re 9.11]. " --New Yorker 11.12.01


PHOENIX MEMO REVEALED!! "Chilling" Says Fortune Magazine Cheney's Nonsense Exposed, Why The Bushies Are Stonewalling Fortune reporter Richard Behar has filed a report exposing the contents of the notorious FBI Phonix memorandum. The memo was written by Phoenix FBI Special Agent Kenneth J. Williams, described as a member of "Squad 16," and it was approved by a man named William A. Kurtz. The title reads:
"Zakaria Mustapha Soubra; IT-OTHER (Islamic Army of the Caucasus)." The "synopsis" says: "Usama bin Laden and Al-Muhjiroun supporters attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona." And the memo bears the FBI codes: "Derived from G-3" and "Declassify on X1." The organization named in the memo's title, the Islamic Army of the Caucasus, is based in Chechnya and was at one time headed by a man named Amir Khattab, who, according news reports, is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden. The FBI's probe of Soubra, according to the Williams memo, was instituted on April 17, 2000, nearly 17 months before last year's terror attacks. Williams warns in his July 10 memo of a possible "effort by Usama bin Laden to send students to the U.S. to attend civil aviation universities and colleges."


Cheney, weeks ago, THREATENED Tom Daschle that if Daschle and Congress asked for a thorough investigation of 9-11, that Cheney and the White House would CLAIM that Congress and Dems were 'interfering with the war on terra.' Well, Cheney must be SCARED that such an investigation will ensue (as well it SHOULD), because he has now issued the THREAT that he told Tom Daschle he would... http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200- 1051897,00.html "...

Bush 9-11 Photo Scandal In the Infamous 9-11 Fundraising Photo, Did Bush Order the Shootdown of the Flight 93 Heroes? by Bob Fertik ….There is overwhelming evidence that Flight 93 was shot down - and no evidence at all that the Heroes succeeded in taking control of the cockpit…..If the Bush administration truly believed Flight 93 crashed without being shot down, it could release a wide range of credible evidence to prove its case: Disclosure of the collected debris, with a full debris map Disclosure of both the voice and data flight recorders Radar reports from ground radar and AWACS Interviews with the fighter jet pilots who were scrambled on 9-11, as well as their commanders Interviews with air traffic controllers But the Bush administration adamantly refuses to disclose any information about its conduct on 9-11…..

As perhaps the most savage crimes in history, the terrorists' acts should have been met with a swift, forceful response far more targeted than the present war has been. Police action, not war. The criminals, not an impoverished nation, should be on the receiving end of the punishment.

Instead, a massive war against a substitute enemy leaves the sprawling criminal network intact - perhaps in Afghanistan, certainly in major cities elsewhere. Meanwhile, because of the war, the rule of law at home is being undermined. Because of the war-driven pressure to be ''united,'' the shocking incompetence of US domestic security agencies goes unchallenged.

Early in the war, the highest US officials, including the president and vice president, encouraged the idea that the anthrax attacks were originating with the bin Laden network. The understandable paranoia that consequently gripped the public imagination - an enemy that could shut down Congress! - was a crucial aspect of what led both press and politicians to accept the idea that a massive war against an evil enemy would be both necessary and moral.

Now, the operating assumption is that the anthrax cases, unrelated to bin Laden, are domestic crimes, not acts of war. But for a crucial moment, they effectively played the role in this war that the Gulf of Tonkin ''assault'' played in the Vietnam War, as sources of a war hysteria that ''united'' the nation around a mistake. In such a context, the more doubt is labeled disloyal, the more it grows. The more this war is deemed ''just,'' the more it seems wrong. --Commondreams.org

If I sound a little bitter about this, I am; the resident rightly appeals every day for sacrifice. But to these mercenaries, sacrifice is for suckers. So I am bitter, yes, and sad. Our business and political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who declared class war twenty years ago and it was they who won. They're on top. If ever they were going to put patriotism over profits, if ever they were going to practice the magnanimity of winners, this was the moment. To hide now behind the flag while ripping off a country in crisis fatally (fatally!) separates them from the common course of American life.

Some things just don't change. Once again the Republican Party has lived down to Harry Truman's description of the GOP as guardians of privilege. And as for Truman's Democratic Party, the party of the New Deal and the fair deal, well, it breaks my heart to report that the Democratic National Committee has used the terrorist attacks to call for widening the soft money loophole in our election laws. How about that for a patriotic response to terrorism?

Do we want to send the terrorists a message? Go for conservation. Go for clean, home-grown energy. And go for public health. If we reduce emissions from fossil fuel, we will cut the rate of asthma among children. Healthier children and a healthier economy -- how about that as a response to terrorism?

As for national security, well, it's time to expose the energy plan before Congress for the dinosaur it is. Everyone knows America needs to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel. But this energy plan is more of the same: more subsidies for the rich, more pollution, more waste, more inefficiency. Let's get the message out. Before the 11th of September the nuclear power industry was salivating at the prospect of the government giving it limited liability for the risks of the meltdown or other nuclear accident. We were told by Vice President Cheney that nuclear power was a "safe technology" that could help alleviate energy shortages and not contribute to greenhouse gases. --http://grannyd.com/moyers.htm


"In my judgment, any country right now that has a despotic leadership, that is unrepresentative of its people, that is not putting in place market economic systems, that is rife with corruption, a lack of transparency and no rule of law, that thinks it can achieve a position on the world stage through development of weapons of mass destruction that will turn out to be fool's gold for them, is a loser," he said. -Colin Powell (he could have been talking about America)

News links listing most recent articles from the top...

Gore: Bush ignored signs of al-Qaida threat -By Tom Raum Sept. 26, 2002 Salon

Why the White House Said Yes to a 9-11 Inquiry -Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman NEWSWEEK

Bush Stonewalls on Pre-9/ll Knowledge David Corn, The Nation 09/20/2002 @ 2:54pm
"A briefing prepared for senior government officials at the beginning of July 2001 contained the following language: 'Based on a review of all-source reporting over the last five months, we believe that UBL [Usama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.'"

Poppy Paradox - U.S. War in Afghanistan Boosts Terror Funds Pacific News Service, Peter Dale Scott, Aug 01, 2002
By installing and rewarding a coalition of drug-financed warlords in Kabul, the United States has itself helped restore the flow of Afghan heroin to terrorist groups, from the Balkans and Chechnya to Tajikistan, Pakistan and Kashmir. Thanks to the U.S. intervention, Afghanistan will again supply up to 70 percent of the world's heroin this year, 90 percent of the heroin reaching Europe and even a part of the heroin reaching the United States....Ultimately, the United States will have to choose between its two conflicting policies in Central Asia: pursuing terrorists, or accommodating to a drug-driven status quo. --Scott (pdscott@socrates.berkeley.edu) is an author and former Canadian diplomat. His Web page on 9/11 and Afghanistan can be found at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q.html.

While America Slept -NYT, Sept.19, 2002
One of the great unanswered questions has been whether the government had enough intelligence in the months before Sept. 11 to fear an imminent blow within the United States and to take aggressive steps to heighten security, especially at airports. The answer now appears to be affirmative. Investigators working for the Senate and House intelligence committees found numerous reports in the archives of the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy organizations suggesting that the bin Laden network was eager to mount attacks within the United States. There were also warnings that terrorists were considering using airplanes.

Report cites warnings before 9/11 CNN News,Thursday, September 19, 2002 Posted: 10:48 AM EDT (1448 GMT)

Barriers To 9/11 Inquiry Decried - Congress May Push Commission By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A14
Lawmakers from both parties yesterday protested the Bush administration's lack of cooperation in the congressional inquiry into Sept. 11 intelligence failures and threatened to renew efforts to establish an independent commission....

Three-minute discrepancy in tape - Cockpit voice recording ends before Flight 93's official time of impact By WILLIAM BUNCH, Philidelphia News bunchw@phillynews.com

Anniversary: No Place to Hide -Washington Post

Impaired Intelligence by DAVID CORN, NATION

Senator Shelby Faults the Intelligence Agencies By ALISON MITCHELL, NYT

Americans are Badly Served by Semi-Official Media Propaganda Mark Hertsgaard Wednesday September 11, 2002 The Guardian

Why this national reluctance to face the country's bloodiest modern disaster in all its dimensions? Investigating 9/11: An Unimaginable Calamity, Still Largely Unexamined By JIM DWYER September 11, 2002 NYT

The War on Civil Liberties, NYT Opinion

Leahy’s Intelligence Assessment: Mistakes Were Made September 9, 2002 By BRUCE EDWARDS Herald Staff

Connecting The Dots Bush..Bath..Bin Laden Bin Laden's Brother-in-law Had Close Ties to Bush, Presented by... http://www.unansweredquestions.org/

Probe of Hill Leaks On 9/11 Is Intensified FBI Seeks Records From 17 Senators By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, August 24, 2002; Page A01

White House uses FBI to intimidate congressional probe of September 11 By Peter Daniels 19 August 2002

The FBI investigation of members of the US Senate and House Intelligence Committees to determine the source of a leak of classified information in connection with the September 11 attacks is the latest effort by the Bush administration to establish an authoritarian presidency and overturn the traditional balance of powers in the US. The FBI request that Congressmen subject themselves to lie detector tests and other questioning is a transparent attempt to intimidate the Democratic and Republican politicians who have called for a probe of intelligence “lapses” in connection with September 11.

The White House is concerned that a continuing investigation could be the vehicle for the release of damaging information. In addition, the Bush administration seeks to intimidate any and all critics as it plows ahead with plans for war in Iraq and elsewhere and steps up its attacks on civil liberties at home.

How Bush Hit the 'Trifecta' on 9/11--and the Public Lost Big-Time by Brad Carlton. In light of revelations that Bush's August 6 briefing memo was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S.," Bush's "Trifecta luck" and weird prescience are worth more than passing scrutiny....

Sept. 11 Families Join to Sue Saudis Banks, Charities and Royals Accused Of Funding al Qaeda Terrorist Network Washington Post, Aug 16, '02

THE TRUTH ABOUT SEPTEMBER 11 Wed Aug 7, 9:02 PM ET By Ted Rall

The US is now a threat to the rest of the world. The sensible response is non-cooperation George Monbiot Tuesday August 6, 2002 The Guardian

Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented? Long before the tragic events of September 11th, the White House debated taking the fight to al-Qaeda. It didn't happen and soon it was too late. The saga of a lost chance BY MICHAEL ELLIOTT

Bush held up plan to hit BinLaden Julian Borger in Washington Monday August 5, 2002 The Guardian

Bin Laden Family Could Profit From a Jump In Defense Spending Due to Ties to U.S. Bank By DANIEL GOLDEN, JAMES BANDLER and MARCUS WALKER Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL September 27, 2001

Learning to love Big Brother George W. Bush channels George Orwell Daniel Kurtzman Sunday, July 28, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle

Declaration of National Emergency by Reason Of Certain Terrorist Attacks --White House web site

PLAN WAS READY TO GO President Bush was expected to sign (Clinton administration) detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News. --msnbc

George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT ACT on October 26, after both the House and the Senate overwhelmingly approved most of John Ashcroft's outline for fighting terrorism. The military tribunals and diminishment of laws that protect American's privacy is meant to protect us. But is the legislation also terrorizing our fundamental rights? --Village Voice

War Against What? Absent A Goal In The War On Terror, We've No Shortage Of Enemies --Tom Paine.com

U.S. Soldiers Guard Afghan Leader Mon Jul 22, 5:23 AM ET YaHoo news

Informant Fever (NYT opinion) July 22, 2002

Bush's snoop troops Boston Globe By Derrick Z. Jackson, 7/19/2002

Al Martin Raw has been warning people for years not to vote for any more Bushes --Al Martin

UnAnsweredQuestions.org is an on-line community of concerned citizens, researchers, independent investigators and journalists asking and exploring unanswered questions. Our intention is to add energy to those who participate in a spirit of independent, non-partisan and useful inquiry. We believe that good questions can lead to answers and solutions. We believe in transparency that supports people and possibilities with uncommon sense. We are starting with questions about 9-11 the US and international response to 9-11. These questions lead to deeper questions about the sustainability and integrity of our cultures, our governments and our economy.

Justice Department To Attempt Shut Down of 9/11 Evidence Friday by Tom Flocco * July 11th, 2002 snoop media

In the Northwest: Reagan-appointed judge has words for Ashcroft Monday, July 15, 2002 Seattle News Source

CIA Director Warned Congress About 9/11 Attacks --the memory hole

Debating September 11 David Corn's May 30, 2002, "Capital Games" article, "The 9/11 X-Files," debunking what he saw as the numerous conspiracy theories that have sprung up purporting to explain what happened on September 11, generated numerous letters. We've printed five of them below along with a response from Corn. --The Nation

Why George Loves "Pooty-Poot" online journal editorial

US Supports Afghan Pipeline ASHGABAT, July 4 (energy24.com)

"Why are they shooting our women and children?" A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL July 9, 2002

Massacre in Mazar, by Irish director Jamie Doran, is currently being shown in capitals around Europe. The film alleges that American troops collaborated in the torture and killing of thousands of captured Taliban troops near the town of Mazar-i-Shariff, following the fall of the city of Kunduz in November of 2001. (Tom Paine.com)

The Declaration of Independence ... from Dubya (With apologies to Thomas Jefferson) BY JOHN SUGG --creativeloafing.com

Losing the "trifecta" The president tries to defend his deficit spending through a little campaign revisionism. By Brendan Nyhan --Salon

Bush stole trifecta line from Al Gore --Washington Post

Bush 9-11 Photo Scandal In the Infamous 9-11 Fundraising Photo, Did Bush Order the Shootdown of the Flight 93 Heroes? --Democrats.com

How Post-9/11 "Paranoia" Has Become Today's Realities -Bernard Weiner

In the nine months since Sept. 11, George W. Bush has put the United States on a course that is so bleak that few analysts have - as the saying goes - connected the dots. If they had, they would see an outline of a future that mixes constant war overseas with abridgment of constitutional freedoms at home, a picture drawn by a politician who once joked, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - so long as I'm the dictator." --Consortium news

"The Bush administration has now asserted that (a) citizens can be taken into custody as enemy combatants; (b) that, beyond such battlefield detainees, citizens can also be taken off the streets of any American town; and (c) that civilian courts cannot intervene to inquire into the legality of such arrests and detentions. When these propositions are taken together as a whole, the implications are very disturbing. --Timothy Lynch, Cato Institute, 06.21.02

'Combatants' Lack Rights, U.S. Argues Brief Defends Detainees' Treatment By Tom Jackman and Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, June 20, 2002; Page A01

The I-Said-So Test --Washington Post Thursday, June 20, 2002; Page A22

Cat And Mouse Between U.S. And Al Qaeda Reveals Terrorist Strategy http://www.stratfor.com/

A Changed President--or a New Repression? --fair.org http://www.fair.org/media-outlets/wpost-newsweek.html

Bush the Scholar And Politics 101 by Joe Conason, New York Observer

http://www.politicspa.com Power Point presentation of repug strategies, by Carl Rove…

It is really only in the light of Watergate that the Bush administration's actions since Sept. 11 make sense... --Salon

S.F. attorney: Bush allowed 9/11 BY DAVID KIEFER Of The Examiner Staff Publication date: 06/11/2002

Officials: Sept. 11 attacks were planned since 1998 By John Diamond and Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY

How Bush Hit the 'Trifecta' on 9/11--and the Public Lost Big-Time --by Brad Carlton, Baltimore Sun, June 02

GEORGE W. KAFKA: Thu Jun 13, 7:02 PM ET Ted Rall

Cracks show in Bush's White House Mr Ashcroft, who carries the banner for the Christian right, spent his first months in office seeking to divert justice department resources from counter-terrorism to crusades against drugs and pornography. Even after September 11, scores of FBI agents have been tied up by a prolonged surveillance of a New Orleans brothel, and a crackdown was ordered against medical marijuana. --Guardian UK

A Word to Graduates: Organize! by TONY KUSHNER

June 14, 2002 Plutocracy and Politics By PAUL KRUGMAN

John Ashcroft: Minister of Fear --CBSNews.com

movie of Bush at elementary school on 911 Posted on Thu, Jun. 06, 2002

Strange Solutions from Ashcroft and Dynegy Published on Saturday, June 8, 2002 in the Boulder Daily Camera With each passing day it is becoming increasingly clear that the FBI was institutionally incapable of assimilating information that it had before Sept. 11 that might have permitted it to take action that would have prevented the attacks. It needed reform. The attorney general's solution was to encroach on the civil rights of the citizenry.

WASHINGTON - A secretive U.S. eavesdropping agency monitored telephone conversations before Sept. 11 between the suspected commander of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks and the alleged chief hijacker, but did not share the information with other intelligence agencies, U.S. officials said Thursday. --Miami Hearald

Bad-mouthing of President Bush results in suspension for Air Force colonel KIM CURTIS, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, June 5, 2002 (06-05) 02:25 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AP)

Is It OK To Hate Bush? By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Friday, June 7, 2002

Department of Homeland Insecurity By FRANK RICH, New York Times, June 06, '02

911 for dummies - redo, Online Journal

The Corruption of Journalism in Wartime --Yahoo News

Lines of control Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange 06.03.02

Heads-Up To Ashcroft Proves Threat Was Known Before 9/11 Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate Monday, June 3, 2002 Don't let them fool you, folks: They knew.

Maybe George W. Bush didn't twig to terrorist data from U.S. intelligence because he was busy protecting his Saudi pals, says JOHN R. MacARTHUR By JOHN R. MACARTHUR Tuesday, June 4, 2002 - Print Edition, Page A15

Al-Qaida monitored U.S. negotiations with Taliban over oil pipeline --Salon, June 5. 2002

Holding Bush Accountable Gene Lyons May 29, 2002

"Ashcroft Learned of Agent's Alert Just After 9/11 but Bush Was Not Told" http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/21/national/21INQU.html

Answers, Not Scapegoats By Richard Cohen Tuesday, May 21, 2002; Washington Post Page A17

Riddle of the Spores Why Has the FBI Investigation into the Anthrax Attacks Stalled? The Evidence Points One Way by George Monbiot Published on Tuesday, May 21, 2002 in the Guardian of London

Revelations of Pre-September 11 Warnings Require PATRIOT ACT Repeal by Peter Erlinder Published on Monday, May 20, 2002 by CommonDreams.org

The USA PATRIOT Act Was Planned Before 9/11 by Jennifer Van Bergen t r u t h o u t | 20 May, 2002

The row about whether the September 11 attacks could have been averted has begun to focus on the US attorney general, who is accused of playing down the terrorist threat in the first months of the Bush administration. 21 May 2002 -guardian.co.uk

BW-052002 PRE-9.11 TIMELINE --http://www.bushwatch.com

April-May 2001: CIA warns White House of possible al-Qaeda attack.

Late June: State Department issues "worldwide caution."

July: Memo from FBI's Phoenix office urges agency to investigate Middle Eastern men attending flight schools. [Summer 2001: For security reasons, White House instructs Ashcroft to stop flying on commercial airplanes.--WP]

Early August: CIA warns White House that al-Qaeda may hijack jets. [According to the Guardian, that memo was passed to Bush on August 6. The Guardian reports WP said the memo indicated hijacked planes were to be used as missiles against targets in U.S. See Monday's headlines below.]

Mid-August: Minnesota flight school reports Zaccarias Moussaoui to local FBI after he asks to learn how to fly a jet but not how to land. He's arrested, but his computer isn't searched. Source: The Associated Press; USA TODAY research (Timeline)

Timeline of events leading up to and following 911, From the Wilderness web site.

FTW, November 2, 2001 - 1200 PST -- On October 31, the French daily Le Figaro dropped a bombshell. While in a Dubai hospital receiving treatment for a chronic kidney infection last July, Osama bin Laden met with a top CIA official - presumably the Chief of Station. The meeting, held in bin Laden's private suite, took place at the American hospital in Dubai at a time when he was a wanted fugitive for the bombings of two U.S. embassies and this year's attack on the U.S.S. Cole. Bin Laden was eligible for execution according to a 2000 intelligence finding issued by President Bill Clinton before leaving office in January. Yet on July 14th he was allowed to leave Dubai on a private jet and there were no Navy fighters waiting to force him down.

Bush Administration Explanations for Pre-9-11 Warnings Fail the Smell Test Warnings Received From Heads of State, Allied Intelligence Services Specifically Warned of Suicide Attacks by Hijackers Insider Trading Also Clearly Warned of Attacks by Michael C. Ruppert --From the Wilderness

Bush's little secret Why didn't the president share his pre-9/11 knowledge about a terrorist threat? David Corn WorkingForChange 05.17.02

US agents told: Back off bin Ladens Sydney Morning Hearald

Just one day after the GOP tried to shake the money tree with a photo of President Bush evincing "gritty determination" as he was shuttled around the country on Air Force One after the terror attacks, the administration was forced to admit that while Bush was relaxing at his Crawford ranch in early August, he was briefed about a potential Osama bin Laden hijacking plot. And yet the Bush team, lulled perhaps by advice that the Clinton administration had become obsessed with U.S. grievances against bin Laden, did not go into high alert. --Dave Talbot, Salon.com, May 16, 2002

Last week, in little-noticed testimony before a Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that may prove more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to "fly something into the World Trade Center." --msnbc, May 2002

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush was told by U.S. intelligence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might hijack American airplanes, prompting the administration to issue a private warning to law-enforcement agencies, the White House acknowledged Wednesday night. --By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent Wed May 15,11:14 PM ET

Pre-Attack memo written to FBI cited Bin Laden, states that flight training schools can be used by Bin Laden to train potential terrorists…--New York times, May 15, 2002

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The head of the FBI told a Senate panel last week that an agent warned the bureau last summer that Zacarias Moussaoui, the first man charged in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks, "could fly something into the World Trade Center." --CNN May 12, 2002

The FBI has insisted it had no advance warning about the 9-11 attacks. But internal documents suggest there were more concerns inside the bureau's field offices than Washington has acknowledged. ONE FBI MEMO, written by a Phoenix agent in July 2001, warned about suspicious activities by Middle Eastern men at an Arizona flight school. Last week, in little-noticed testimony before a Senate panel, FBI Director Robert Mueller referred to another internal document that may prove more explosive: notes by a Minneapolis agent worrying that French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui might be planning to "fly something into the World Trade Center." May 20 issue -msnbc news

Bush's foreign policy is based on a fairytale, the persistent if childish hope that all of our problems can be solved by one solid blow to the latest Evil Empire, now found in Baghdad. Someone needs to read the president a better bedtime story. -Robert Sheer, Working for Change

Putting Bush in the hot seat, given the chance William Rivers Pitt truthout.com 05.09.02

...There is scant mention of Saudi Arabia. The vast majority of the September 11th hijackers called Saudi Arabia home. Many Saudi Arabians fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. One of those was named Osama bin Laden. The Bin Laden Group, a massive construction firm with deep business ties to America that was created by bin Laden's father, is based in Saudi Arabia. The extreme fundamentalist Wahabbi sect of Islam is rooted in Saudi Arabia, and it is from this movement that scores of would-be terrorists have grown. The silence surrounding Saudi Arabia has been huge. How can we fail to pursue Saudi Arabia with the Bush Doctrine guiding our way? Nations that sponsor terrorism, or have terrorists operating freely within their borders, are in grave danger of invasion and destruction. This Doctrine was established in Afghanistan, and it appears many other countries face a similar fate. Yet Saudi Arabia, a veritable birthing bed for international terrorism, escapes taint.

Part 4 of a four-part series September 11: The circumstantial case By Bill Molson Online Journal Contributing Writer

Part 3 of a four-part series September 11: The circumstantial case By Bill Molson Online Journal Contributing Writer

Part 2 of a four-part series September 11: The circumstantial case By Bill Molson Online Journal Contributing Writer, April 19, 2002

Part 1 of a four-part series September 11: The circumstantial case By Bill Molson Online Journal Contributing Writer Apri115, 2002

Says waitress of terror pilots: "I thought they were Mafia By Daniel Hopsicker April 8, Venice, FL

A less democratic nation --SF Chronicle, March 18, 2002

For those imposing poll numbers do not alter by one iota the fact that Bush holds his office illegitimately, through vote manipulation in Florida and the seditious act of five Supreme Court justices. On September 10, 2001, the Usurper's poll numbers stood at 50 percent. Due to the public's clamor for leadership following a national catastrophe, combined with the fawning of a sycophant press, Bush's numbers soared. That bump in the ratings had nothing whatever to do with Bush's qualities as a leader or with the content of his agenda. On the contrary, the political clout of those polls has given Bush's team a license to erode our civil liberties, to lock up public documents, to accelerate the transfer of wealth into the hands of the rich and powerful, and to tear up or ignore numerous international treaties. All the while, the opposition has been muted at home and our national reputation has been tarnished abroad. --Online Journal, March 17, 2002

New developments raise troubling questions about "Pied Piper" of terrorist pilots. Mohamed Atta had connections with the Saudi Royal Family, according to his flight instructor at Huffman Aviation in Venice Florida, who told another student pilot Atta's status as a member of the Saudi elite warranted him having a full-time bodyguard at all times during his U.S. flight training. The bombshell revelation, buried in news reports immediately after 9/11, re-surfaced recently in an Australian television documentary interview with Anne Greaves, a London osteopath whose passion for aviation led her to take flight training at Huffman Aviation at the same time as Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi. From Hamburg Germany to Venice Florida... no source

Bush Employs Iran - Contra Veterans By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) March 13, 2002

What Went Wrong? Missed Signals and Intelligence Failures Newsweek, May 21, 2002

 The Training-Wheel President Consortiumnews.com, May 20, 2002

 Making the World Safe for Nuclear Weapons  CommonDreams.org, May 14, 2002

 US Tells of Covert Afghan Plans Before Sept. 11 Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2002

 White House Commission on Aviation and Security Final Report, Feb. 12, 1997

 What We Knew: Warnings Given, Stories Missed Columbia Journalism Review, Nov/Dec 2001

 Officials Told to Back Off on Saudis Before Sept. 11 The Guardian, Nov. 7, 2001

 Threat of US Strikes Passed to Taliban Weeks Before NY Attack The Guardian, Sept. 22, 2001

 The US Ignored Foreign Warnings Too International Herald Tribune, May 21, 2002

 Afghanistan, the Taliban, and the Bush Oil Team Centre for Research on Globalisation, March 23, 2002

 US Planned Attack on Taliban BBC News, Sept. 18, 2001

 Has Someone Been Sitting on the FBI? BBC Newsnight, Nov. 6, 2001

 FAA knew of Moussaoui arrest Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2002

 Oil Diplomacy Muddled US Pursuit of bin Laden New York Times, Nov. 12, 2001

 US Oil Company Favored for Afghan Pipeline BBC News, May 13, 2002

 White House Eyes New Nuclear Arms Boston Globe, May 14, 2002

 Forgotten Victims The Guardian, May 20, 2002

 Soldiers of Fortune: Dick Cheney's Halliburton San Francisco Bay Guardian, May 1, 2002

 US Rejects All Support for New Court on Atrocities  New York Times, May 7, 2002

 Diplomacy, US Style The Guardian, April 23, 2002

 Bin Laden's Family Link to Bush Daily Mail, Sept. 24, 2001

 No Warning: Bush and the Taliban In These Times, Oct. 15, 2001

Three countries to discuss big Afghan gas project

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12525

Is the White House covering up that it was molding foreign policy as well as energy policy to suit Enron? Did the Bush Administration know that Enron's collapse was coming as early as August? If any of these is true, the largest bankruptcy in American history may well connect with the greatest political scandal in American history.

Follow the map: Once a proposed 400-mile extension from Multan, Pakistan to New Delhi, India was built, Caspian Sea gas could flow into India's network to New Delhi, follow the route to Bombay -- and bingo! A plentiful source of ultra-cheap LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) that could supply Enron's plant in India for three decades or more.

 

America has been scourged by terrorist attacks because of its often heavy-handed interventions abroad, not because Muslims hate democracy or McDonalds. The Saudis who stage kamikaze attacks on the US did so because of the agony of Palestine and Iraq, and American domination of Saudi Arabia. Deeper US involvement in Asia will likely mean more, not less, risk of terrorist attacks. --foreigncorrespondent.com

If another country were planning to develop a new nuclear weapon and contemplating pre-emptive strikes against a list of non-nuclear powers, Washington would rightly label that nation a dangerous rogue state. Yet such is the course recommended to President Bush by a new Pentagon planning paper that became public last weekend. Mr. Bush needs to send that document back to its authors and ask for a new version less menacing to the security of future American generations. New York Times, March 12, 2002

Consider the absurdity: We risk escalating a worldwide nuclear arms race to nuke a shadow terrorist enemy whose most effective military action to date was begun with box cutters. Clearly, that threat could have been met best by taking the modest steps of maintaining armed air marshals on civilian planes and employing better-trained airport security guards --LA Times, March 12, 2002

Who Knows? © March 3, 2002 The Daily Brew

We don't know what's going on with this war. We don't know where Bin Laden is, we don't know that the Bin Laden family was allowed to leave this country without questioning, we don't know who sent the anthrax, we don't know why George Bush gave the order before 9/11 to leave the Bin Laden family alone, why he gave the order to the FBI not to investigate terrorists activities, we don't know why the Bush administration gave the Taliban millions of dollars last spring, we don't know why the Bush family is connected to and doing business with the Carlyle group and Bin Laden family We don't know how many innocent lives are destroyed in Afghanistan, we don't know. Is it the "not knowing" that makes us give GWB good marks? --Michael Springmann is a Washington lawyer. He worked for the US State Department's foreign service for 20 years. He spent two years as chief of the visa section at the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His superiors repeatedly ordered him to issue visas to unqualified applicants. It was illegal. He protested.

When you think you are going to lose, the easy reaction is to be the first to attack. So 9-11 was not just a mad act, it was a political act meant to create a good ground for a big war in all Central Asia. Mullah Omar and bin Laden wanted to rally Muslims in Central Asia. In the last 10 years, the focal point of Islamists has taken off from the Middle East and gone into Central Asia --Salon Interview with Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, 02.08.02.

George W. Bush inexplicably tries to send his Texas Governor's papers to his father's presidential library, where they would apparently be exempt from Texas' tough freedom of information laws. While the papers sit in legal limbo, not yet safely entombed, a Texas FOI request frees Bush's entire correspondence with Enron - and out pops a letter from Kenny Boy requesting Gov. Bush to please meet with the President of.....Uzbekistan. -Kent Southard, Bushwatch.

"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," pundit Ann Coulter told this month's meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. "Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 02.14.2002 By JAY BOOKMAN Atlanta Journal-Constitution Columnist

The Money Changer ByBridget Gibson 02/08/02 Altogether, there is a $48 Billion increase in military spending. These dollars are not for servicemen/women, but for equipment. The kind of equipment that a certain sector of the economy makes a handy profit from supplying to our government. One of the companies that is most heavily vested in this industry is The Carlyle Group.

The Carlyle Group is comprised of private investors and its senior directors are such notable figures as George H. W. Bush (US President from 1988 - 1992, also the father of George W. Bush), James A. Baker III (Secretary of State under GHWB), Frank Carlucci (Secretary of Defense, Reagan Admin and college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld) and John Major (former UK Prime Minister).

If GHW Bush has a larger estate to pass to his children, made larger not only by the cessation of the estate tax under his son, George Walker Bush, but larger because of governmental contracts, our country needs to know.

George W. Bush has been busy trying to make presidential records secret. It is becoming the hallmark of his administration. If there were not conflicts in these dealings, why would George do this?

Is George W. Bush busy changing our money into his own?

"Clinton's advisors met nearly weekly on how to stop bin Laden... I didn't detect that kind of focus from the Bush administration." -- Two Star General Donald Kerrick, reflecting on both Clinton and Bush

Bush blunder shows it's time for dissent By Robert Kuttner, 2/13/2002

Bush's Decision to Bring Back Otto Reich Exposes the Hypocrisy of the War Against Terror by Duncan Campbell --Published on Friday, February 8, 2002 in the Guardian of London

Has someone been sitting on the FBI? 6/11/01 GREG PALAST bbc news

Putting It All Together © February 3, 2002 The Daily Brew
I had to turn off the "O'Reilly Factor." I just couldn't take listening to O'Reilly's guest, Bernard Goldberg, sell his book "Bias" about the supposedly liberal media. So instead, I did a quick google search for the string "Enron Afghanistan Pipeline Taliban." This is what I learned in about 10 minutes of web surfing.

The Motive
For years, US oil interests have been trying to build a pipeline across Afghanistan to access the oil and gas around the Caspian Sea; efforts that have continued past the 9-11 attacks. Source: http://www.wluml.org/english/new-archives/wtc/at-stake/unocal.htm
Enron was a key player in this game. Way back in 1996, Enron had cut a deal with the president of Uzbekistan for joint development of the nation's natural gas fields.
Source: Houston Chronicle Date: TUE 06/25/96 Section: Business Page: 4 Edition: 3 STAR (sorry, no link)

Enron had also done the feasibility study for the pipeline.
Source http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html

For a time, the Taliban appeared to be a potential partner. They had even visited Sugarland, Texas to talk things over.
Source http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/west_asia/newsid_37000/37021.stm

The Crime Unfortunately, the talks broke down, and by late last summer, the US Government was threatening to commence war against Afghanistan (an attack which would have violated every precept of international law). Sources http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/1550366.stm

At least twice, Bush conveyed the message to the Taliban that the United States would hold the regime responsible for an al Qaeda attack. But after concluding that bin Laden's group had carried out the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, a conclusion stated without hedge in a Feb. 9 briefing for Vice President Cheney, the new administration did not choose to order armed forces into action. Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8734-2002Jan19.html

Simultaneous with making, but not following through on these threats, Bush took a number of actions to make the US decidedly more vulnerable to a terrorist attack. He ordered the Naval strike force, which Clinton placed in the Indian Ocean on 24 hour alert so he could hit Osama as soon as he had solid intelligence, to stand down. Bush threatened to veto the Defense Appropriations Bill after Democrats tried to move $600 million out of Star Wars and into anti-terror defense. Bush opposed Clinton's anti-money-laundering efforts, which were designed to stop al Qaeda's money. Bush abandoned Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, or as the two star general Donald Kerrick told the Washington Post, reflecting on his service to both President Clinton and President Bush: Clinton's advisors met nearly weekly on how to stop bin Laden and al Qaeda. "I didn't detect that kind of focus" from the Bush Administration.
Source http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=5714

I don't have to tell you what happened next.

The Cover Up Dick Cheney is openly breaking the law by defying GAO requests to turn over his records of meetings with Enron. Source http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20020201.htm At the same time that Cheney has refused to turn over his records, Enron and its accountants have shredded millions of pages of documents. Source http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/30/business/30SHRE.html

The Bush's themselves may have destroyed evidence. When the Justice Department instructed the Bush administration to preserve any documents related to Enron Corporation, a senior administration official said that until now, "the White House had not been making any formal effort to preserve or catalogue information about Enron contacts." Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10918-2002Feb1.html

While all of this law breaking, stalling, and destruction of evidence has gone on, Bush has asked Daschle to limit Congressional probes into Sept. 11. Source http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/inv.terror.probe/index.html

Note that the supposedly "liberal press" has so far failed to put all of these pieces together. They are too busy giving Bernard Goldberg and Bill O'Reilly the airtime to sell a canard called "Bias."

 

Bush took FBI agents off Laden family trail RASHMEE Z AHMED TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 07, 2001 9:05:48 PM ]

US planned war in Afghanistan long before September 11 By Patrick Martin 20 November 2001

We may not see Osama bin Laden's brothers at Carlyle's investor conferences any more, but business will go on as usual for the biggest old boys network around. As Mr. Snow puts it, "Carlyle will always have to defend itself and will never be able to convince certain people that they aren't capable of forging murky backroom deals. George Bush's father does profit when the Carlyle Group profits, but to make the leap that the president would base decisions on that is to say that the president is corrupt." --RedHerring, Jan, 2002

Who Killed John O'Neill? © January 9, 2002 The Daily Brew http://www.thedailybrew.com/ Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to (911), O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.

Bush is working desperately to pack the Federal Judiciary with members of the Federalist Society, of which Ashcroft is a leading light and whose members exactly share his attitudes. The Federalist Society quite simply advocates a country conformed to a radically pure Hamiltonian interpretation of American history and origin; an interpretation scrubbed clean of Thomas Jefferson and the entire experiment with democracy, a country conforming to Alexander Hamilton's vision of a semi-dictatorship organized for the benefit of the rich and their corporations.

We must fear fundamentalist fanatics of all kinds, especially when they're members of our own wartime Cabinet. --sfgate, Dec 12, 2002

In essence, John Ashcroft claims that if you question the unprecedented steps he and his Justice Department are taking, if you voice doubts about the concept of destroying freedom in order to save it, if you step out of the narrow line being drawn by he and Mr. Bush, you are a terrorist. If you dare to participate in that most fundamental American activity - dissent - you are aiding and abetting the murderous butchers who sent thousands of our citizens to death three months ago. --bushwatch.net/pitt.htm

John Ashcroft lied repeatedly to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his actions in the past and his plans for the future.

On November 1, President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13233, a policy enabling his administration to govern in secrecy. For good reason, this has upset many historians, journalists, and Congresspersons (both Republican and Democratic).

Because of the war, the rule of law at home is being undermined. Because of the war-driven pressure to be ''united,'' the shocking incompetence of US domestic security agencies goes unchallenged.

The Bush regime's attitude toward the Taliban - and even to bin Laden - was driven by the new president's fixation on energy. A stable regime in Afghanistan would allow construction of an oil and gas pipeline from the former Soviet republics in Central Asia to Pakistan and the sea. And initially, Washington's best bet for a stable regime in Afghanistan was the Taliban.

in his latest executive order, in which he grants himself the power to have anyone he designates as a terrorist to be tried by secret military tribunals and executed without appeal. Bush's dread edict -- which of course takes effect without any input from that useless appendage of a bygone era, the U.S. Congress -- covers anyone who "causes, threatens to cause" or even "has as their aim" to cause "adverse effects" on, among other things, the American economy or U.S. foreign policy. As always, Bush alone retains the right to decide who is and who is not a terrorist, just as he alone decides what constitutes an "adverse effect" on the United States. --Moscow Times

If the United States had continued to conserve oil at the rate it did in the period from 1976 to 1985, it would no longer have needed Persian Gulf oil after 1985. Had we continued this wise course, we might not have had to fight the Persian Gulf war, and we would have insulated ourselves from price shocks in the international oil market. Fuel efficiency is a sound national energy policy, economic policy and foreign policy all wrapped into one. Every increase of one mile per gallon in auto fuel efficiency yields more oil than is in two Arctic National Wildlife Refuges. An improvement right now of 2.7 miles per gallon would eliminate our need for all Persian Gulf oil! Yet the Republican Congress in 1995 made it illegal for the Environmental Protection Agency even to study higher CAFE standards. The result is that America now has the worst energy efficiency in 20 years. --New York Times, 11/24/01

If the administration were really proud of how it's grabbing "emergency" powers that skirt the law, it wouldn't do so in the dead of night. Our government refuses to identify its many detainees, or explain why they are held, or even give an accurate count. The next stop on the assembly line for these suspects could be a military tribunal, which, as decreed by President Bush in an executive order, is another secret proceeding in which neither the verdicts, evidence nor punishments ever have to be revealed to the public. Thus could those currently in captivity move from interment to execution without anyone ever learning why or where they disappeared. If this sounds like old-fashioned American justice, it is - albeit of such Americas as Cuba and Chile.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/opinion/15SAFI.html --Another NYT Opinion.

The USA PATRIOT ACT constitutes another nail in the coffin of the US Constitution and further strengthens the argument that, as of now, the people of the United States have allowed their government to be a democracy in name only. The people of the United States have not only abdicated any authority over the power of their own government, but they have also abdicated their personal liberties and freedoms. --Al Martin

Have we worked as hard as we should have, the justice-loving God I imagine would ask, to create a world in which justice, rather than raw power, governs how conflicts are resolved? Have we shown a willingness to subordinate ourselves to good treaties and international law, rather than maintaining our freedom to "do what we can"? When we've wielded force, have we properly weighed the lives and blood of the innocent people of other nations in relation to the value we place on our own lives and blood?

"If we continue to take the course we're on now, it will lead to a loss of America's power and prestige. And that's in terms of the political, economic and social. It won't only hurt our global standing, but it will also hurt the country as a whole internally. It will put us in the exact same position as Sept. 11. We will be ill-prepared for what will happen next. You can put a good face on everything. But in the real world, spin doesn't win, it only buys you time." --Courior-Journal

Bush's America remains a unilateralist power, in the world, in Afghanistan, in the Middle East, everywhere. --ahram.org

Until now, only banks, thrifts, and credit unions have been required to report cash transactions to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970. Immigrants and the working poor are the most likely to find themselves in the database, since they tend to use the traditional banking system the least. ''The scope of this thing is huge,'' said Bert Ely, a financial services consultant in Alexandria, Va. ''It's going to affect literally millions of people.'' --Boston Globe

Secret military trials and summary executions are not the face of justice the United States should show the world as the nation pursues lawless global terrorism. --Newsday

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin. And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban. --By the BBC's George Arney

Since Bush does not deny the reality and the seriousness of global warming, the message he sends is clear: don't you dare expect American citizens to sacrifice for the common good. He asks for more than he is willing to give. --Tom Paine.com

In the passage of this so-called anti-terrorist legislation euphemistically named "The Patriot Act," we have given George Bush the power of Caesar. The implication is that anyone who disagrees with it is "unpatriotic." The American people have, in one fell'n swoop, given George Bush the power of Caesar-control of the public purse beyond the dreams of avarice. When you consider the existing power of the president, then you add the powers of the 1995 Anti-Terrorism Act, and the further extension of those powers by the 2001 Anti- Terrorism Act, George Bush and all his successors have been given dictatorial powers. --Online Journal

This war is not a "campaign against international terrorism". It is a war of conquest with devastating consequences for the future of humanity. And the American people have been consciously and deliberately misled by their government. Whether this amounts to the complicity of the Bush Administration remains to be firmly established. --Cops Versus CIA

"United States special agents were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September 11, a BBC television program has claimed." --Sydney Morning Herald

The qualified optimism marking U.S. military assessments last week dimmed as the results of the US Special Forces raid came in.Despite official assurances that they went off without a hitch, several independent military sources reported the US troops took a number of casualties - some from friendly fire. --DEBKA News

There are members of Congress who believe you should sacrifice in this time of crisis by paying for lobbyists' long lunches. And cut capital gains for the wealthy, naturally, that's America's patriotic duty, too. And while we're at it, don't forget to eliminate the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax, enacted fifteen years ago to prevent corporations from taking so many credits and deductions that they owed little if any taxes. But don't just repeal their minimum tax; give those corporations a refund for all the minimum tax they have ever been assessed. -Moyers.

The greatest peril of this twenty first century crusade will be to the liberty of average Americans. Already, the Congress has authorized promiscuous wiretapping of phones and unlimited spying on the internet. There will be further confiscations of freedom and infringements of privacy, all in the name of patriotism. --David Podvin

Divorcing America's true national security from Middle East oil politics would gradually remove one source of long-term regional resentment. --Commondreams.org

IGNITING AN EXPLOSIVE BACKLASH When asked in a press conference last Friday for his response to the vitriolic hatred that has mushroomed around the globe, Bush could only mumble: "I'm amazed. I just can't believe it because I know how good we are" -- which, in the world's eyes, must bring profoundly new meaning to the word "naiveté." --Commondreams.org

Members of Women in Black have routinely risked their lives in the hope of preventing war. They have stayed in the homes of Palestinians being shelled by Israeli tanks and have confronted war criminals in the Balkans. They have stood silently while being abused and spat at during vigils all over the world. But now, in this looking-glass world in which war is peace and peace is war, instead of winning the peace prize the Women in Black have been labeled potential terrorists by the FBI and threatened with a grand jury investigation. --Commondreams.org

Bush (referring to members of Congress) - "I understand there may be some heartburn on Capitol Hill," Bush said, "but I suggest if they want to relieve that heartburn they take their positions very seriously, and that they take any information that they've been given by our government very seriously because this is serious business we're talking about." Information THEY'VE been given by OUR government? Excuse me George, but THEY are OUR government. THEY are given this information because that's what WE elected them for. The information isn't YOURS to distribute as you see fit. I know you believe this would be a lot easier if this were a dictatorship, as long as you are the dictator, but WE are counting on THEM to keep YOU from doing just that. --msnbc

The great temptation will be for the US to answer terror with terror, to meet barbarism with barbarism, to reward those suicide bombers and the men who masterminded the attacks with counter-atrocities. The most bellicose American voices, echoed by some here, call for total war. They urge the West to embark on a made-in-Washington jihad which will only serve to spawn more fanatics in the Middle Eastern gulfs of hate. --Observer UK

In 1998 the civilised world, as represented by 140 governments, created the International Criminal Court to judge the grossest violators of life and liberty. Bill Clinton gave the court America's endorsement in the dying hours of his presidency. Bush is determined that America will not meet global standards. He has asked the lawyers, who fought so well for him in Florida, to discover if there is a way of 'unsigning' the treaty. Bush's Republican allies in Congress want to authorise the US military to free American soldiers remanded in custody by the court. The only explanation for American opposition to international law was that her generals could see themselves committing a few war crimes, as they may well do in the coming days. --Observer UK

Bush may overreach himself in the coming days - he has, in any case, ill-advisedly set himself an impossible strategic goal - but the world needs an engaged United States. Those outside who disagree with it need to work with liberal internationalists within, not abandon the debate to unilateralists. --Tamim Ansary, a writer in San Francisco, and the son of a former Afghani politician, and can be found on the Salon.com Web site

Even a brief look at the CIA's history demonstrates the agency consistently behaves in ways many of us might consider un-American and anti-democratic. For example, the agency routinely lies to the public, supports injustice, disregards fairness, and suppresses equality and civil liberties. And we're not talking about minor transgressions. The CIA supports terrorism around the world while claiming to denounce it. --Carla Binion at Online Journal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

The Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians. The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal. With secret US government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan.

A US diplomat said: "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with that," he said. Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the administration of George W. Bush, which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it. So, not surprisingly, US Secretary of State Colin Powell is now referring to "moderate" Taliban, who will join an American-sponsored "loose federation" to run Afghanistan. The "war on terrorism" is a cover for this: a means of achieving American strategic aims that lie behind the flag-waving facade of great power.

There is no war on terrorism. If there was, the Royal Marines and the SAS would be storming the beaches of Florida, where more CIA-funded terrorists, ex-Latin American dictators and torturers, are given refuge than anywhere on earth. There is, however, a continuing war of the powerful against the powerless, with new excuses, new hidden agendas, new lies. Before another child dies violently, or quietly from starvation, before new fanatics are created in both the east and the west, it is time for the people of Britain to make their voices heard and to stop this fraudulent war - and to demand the kind of bold, imaginative non-violent initiatives that require real political courage. --John Pilger