Tom Ridge Says Bush May Have Raised Terror Alert out of Politics

All those who believed that the Bush/Cheney White House at least in the two or three years following the horrendous attacks and in the wake of the carnage of 9/11, used the newly established U.S Department of Homeland Security to exploit fear for political gain, tragically may have been all too correct. That is if the first Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, is to be believed in his forthcoming book.

The Huffington Post via U.S News and World Report says that in his upcoming book, Ridge will allege amongst other matters, that despite heading the Department formed to monitor and combat terrorist threats both on and in the United States of America, he was barred from attending National Security Council meetings, was kept out of the loop on FBI activities and findings, and just before the 2004 Presidential Elections the administration had exerted pressure on Ridge to up the threat level for reasons he now ascribes to politics rather then intelligence about any attacks.

According to the article Ridge was so incensed he thought it was worth resigning over and perhaps that is why he did not serve in a second Bush/Cheney administration. Despite this when questions were raised at the time, Ridge denied politics had anything to do with raising the threat level. It is great he is making those revelations now, but if an administration was so craven to use the instruments of National Security for political gain and this is in fact true, Ridge should have resigned right away and informed the public that the administration screamed terrorist attack not based on national security but political calculation. Personally, in those days I would have thought an allegation such as that was far fetched, but an official like Ridge coming out and exposing the truth (again if its true and not just an attempt to hock books), it would have given such claims at least some credence, and maybe saved some national dignity in the process.

But what is painfully obvious now, the hype leading up to the Iraq War if not made so by the torture memos, excessive secrecy, domestic spying, or accusing political rivals of wanting to erode this nation’s strength; is that the Bush/Cheney’s would take anything whether it be profound,non-existent, even contrary to reason, against the interests of their own political party, the nation’s welfare, prosperity, and even the lives of thousands of men and women to further their agenda and consolidate power. In the wake of all these other allegations of legally questionable, immoral, and even outright illegal conduct by the now previous administration this hardly seems like a surprise. But it is just further proof that for eight years that we had a government that cast aside an notion of accountability, proof, or the old notion that “Politics stops at the water’s edge”.

Still these statements if true, would show that even a national tragedy which left in its wake debris carnage, and thousands slaughtered; the Bush/Cheney administration perceived it as an issue just as ripe for political exploitation and demagoguery as tax cuts, spending, and abortion are in a typical election year. Where most Americans saw tragedy, bloodshed, peril, and the grief of losing someone under such violent circumstances; the Bush/ Cheney white house saw little more then a political issue to bludgeon opponents, dissent, and anyone who questioned their wisdom with, and as an opportunity to radically shift the apparatus and values of our government and country in a more authoritarian direction, while keeping those charged with our safety and from true danger uninformed and possibly the United States vulnerable to such an attack.

Now you can call that mindset many things; opportunistic, gloom and doom; but you can’t call it the accountable, honest, prudent, dignified, or effective conduct of a government of liberty loving people. Too bad we didn’t have all the people yelling about threats to our freedom regarding health care reform there when liberty was really under attack in an area where the government has great power and can do the most damage.

Investigate and Prosecute

Here is yet another disturbing, but not surprising allegation that former Vice President Cheney ordered that information on a secret CIA program ordered to kill Al-Queda terrorists, not be shared with members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees, a violation of the law, so the legislative branch can have oversight and knowledge of the CIA’s activities.

The revelations were made regarding the program that even current CIA director Leon Paneta lacked knowledge of until June when he ended the program.

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) – The CIA withheld information from Congress about a secret counter terrorism program on orders from former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, a leading U.S. senator said on Sunday.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein told Fox News Sunday that CIA Director Leon Panetta disclosed Cheney’s involvement when he briefed members of Congress two weeks ago. She said Panetta told them he had canceled the program.

President Barack Obama appointed Panetta to head the agency early this year. The still-secret program, which The New York Times said never became operational, began after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

News of Cheney’s involvement, first reported by the Times late on Saturday, prompted an outpouring of criticism by Obama’s fellow Democrats and support by rival Republicans in Congress.

Now calls for investigations and possible prosecutions of officials in the small elite of the Bush/Cheney inner circle, regarding torture and wiretapping, could be reawakened after a period when such calls had begun to become more muted and Attorney General Eric Holder is even raising such possibilities.

Many Conservative critics worry this is politically motivated and that since those was a low level program that at least as far as was never “fully operational” or was employed, and if so would be utilized to target top Al-Queda Janissary’s, that this shouldn’t be met with such outrage.

However, National Security is a matter that the American people have the most at stake and that transparency to a certain degree is of the greatest value. That doesn’t mean the whole world should have knowledge of military troop movements, or much our intelligence, but that at least Congressional Intelligence committees can exercises oversight and ensure that any programs aren’t either laden with waste or used in a way that breaks laws, violates liberties of American citizens, and be employed in the most efficacious manner.

Rather or not the aims of this program were admirable or just is irrelevant. Since at least 2001 a deplorable and dangerous culture where legislative power is usurped routinely, judicial power is manipulated, oversight is not administered, and a small circle of elites surrounding the Executive Branch seeks to maximize its authority and powers in matters both salient and trivial, large and small. That has to end and oversight and a level of transparency must be reintroduced so that a government that is based not on rickety ideology, an avarice for power, and incompetence in policy execution can be concluded and condemned for being the abhorrence to our system of what it is.

This is just one in a long train of possible infractions of the law regarding in the amassing of intelligence as well as allegations of torture and civil liberties violations. The mantra of “look forward, not backward” have been iterated by those in both parties. That is tempting, especially as we find ourselves in such a grave and deeply involved in foreign policy, national security, and economic challenges. But if the law was broken we must find out. Not only because a law could have been seriously broken, but because leniency in acting to penalize such a crime would set a precedent that will be used by this and other future administrations to justify similar controversial policies and continue to cast aside the system of checks and balances that oversight by the other two branches of government provides that protects the American people from the dangers and excesses that can result from power.

Also whenever in the annals of History a wrong has been committed and then goes unpunished or unaddressed, it paves the way for what is at best a repeat of that wrong or the foundation for something far worse. In the 1838 there was ‘the trail of tears’ where by order of President Andrew Jackson (and in violation of a Supreme Court ruling) around 42 million Cherokee were unjustly removed and resulted in the deaths of numerous Cherokee Indians, about sixty years later we saw another atrocious episode towards the Native American with the massacre of Wounded Knee. We had slavery and the ineffectiveness in dealing with the strife and horrendous crime of slavery led to decades of Jim Crow segregation and violence directed towards African-Americans. We had World War I and the failure to address the postwar situation, paved the way for the craven brutality of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. We failed to penalize those responsible for the Palmer Raids and Red Scare of the 1920s, and we got McCarthyism and the red scare of the 1950s. We failed to effectively punish those in the Nixon administration who wronged this country in the Watergate Scandal and COINTELPRO and we got the possible violations of law and national principles that have come to surface as a result of the previous administration.

Inaction will be seen as a new standard of good and lawful policy, and in the future injustice or ineptitude is certainly set to follow in the near future. The steady stream of allegations and the alarming use of secrecy by the last administration needs to be investigated, penalized, and condemned as the violation of our national principles that it is.

Obama and Indefinite Detention

So much for change and the pre- Bush rule of law. A Defense Department attorney now states that even if detainees are found not guilty, they can still be imprisoned indefinably. So that is our new system, if your found guilty, you are to be kept in prison, but if you are found not guilty you are kept in prison. How can that possibly be troubling?

Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective. Asked by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) the politically difficult but entirely fair question about whether terrorism detainees acquitted in courts could be released in the United States, Johnson said that “as a matter of legal authority,” the administration’s powers to detain someone under the law of war don’t expire for a detainee after he’s acquitted in court. “If you have authority under the law of war to detain someone” under the Supreme Court’s Hamdi ruling, “that is true irrespective of what happens on the prosecution side.”

Martinez looked surprised. “So the prosecution is moot?” he asked.

“No, no, not in my judgment,” Johnson said. But the scenario he outlined strongly suggested it is. If an administration review panel “determines this person is a security threat” and “for some reason is not convicted of a lengthy prison sentence, I think we have the authority to continue to detain someone” under “law of war authority” as granted by the September 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, Johnson said. And beyond that source of authority “we have the authority in the first place.”

And people wonder why Obama’s approval ratings are going down (but still remain at a relatively robust 56%). The American people cast a ballot in November for change, but not change in this direction in terms of the government and not the courts or judiciary being the arbiters of who is guilty and who is not in the form of sole judge, jury, and detainer.

The Responsible White Separatist?

The New Editor (via Washington Post) picks up this quote that encapsulates the sickness, torment, and absurdity of the white supremacist philosophy, regarding yesterday’s shooting.

“The responsible white separatist community condemns this,” he said. “It makes us look bad.”

Yeah because the only bad thing is the context. Nevermind one man was killed and countless others traumatized by this lunatic. And responsible white supremacist is just an oxymoron, while the spokesperson who said it is just a plain old moron.

New Report Finds Waste in Afganistan Iraq U.S Contracting System

Eisenhower warned of a “Millitary Industrial Complex” he probably never guessed it would be this calamitous.

The over 4,000 military casualties of the war in Iraq have no doubt been the most sobering, heart wrenching, and tragic aspect of the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. However the system of contracting functions of the occupation out to private contractors on a massive scale has also been known to be rife with instances of corruption, ineptitude, poor planning, ill-conceived, inefficiency, and unaccountability.

Now a new report by a Congressional committee confirms this. Projects have been done unnecessarily, multiple times, or in some instances shoddy in quality. Records and paperwork were poorly kept and a dinning hall was remodeled after just having been remodeled. The Pentagon in many instances was so lackadaisical in its approach and enforcement that the allocation of money was not kept track of or even the contracting companies themselves were not listed in a database of some sorts. All this while having access to an almost endless cascade of billions and billions of U.S taxpayer dollars.

Conservatives often say government is not the answer to everything and is susceptible to bureaucratic red tape, graft, and corruption. One need only to look at the conduct and planning of the Iraq War over the past six years as testimony to the faliability of government. However, the Bush/Cheney administrations prototype of applying the lazie faire economics, small government, loose (if any) regulation, unaccountability of business to Iraq and foreign ventures as opposed to using government employees or the military have been even more disastrous; as these private companies are unrestrained by any clear standards of law, and are not accountable for deficient craftsmanship or poor services, while having access to an almost endless cascade of U.S taxpayers’ money.

Associated Press:

U.S. reliance on private sector employees has grown to “unprecedented proportions,” yet the government has no central database of who all these contractors are, what they do or how much they’re paid, the bipartisan commission found.

In its first report to Congress, the Wartime Contracting Commission presents a bleak assessment of how taxpayer dollars have been spent since 2001. The 111-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, documents poor management, weak oversight, and a failure to learn from past mistakes as recurring themes in wartime contracting.

The commission’s report is scheduled to be made public Wednesday at a hearing held by the House Oversight and Government Reform’s national security subcommittee.

One example of wasted money cited by the commission involves construction of a $30 million dining facility at a U.S. base in Iraq scheduled to be completed Dec. 25. The decision to build it was based on bad planning and botched paperwork. Yet the project is too far along to stop, making the mess hall a future monument to the waste and inefficiency plaguing the war effort.

A Guide to Torture Supporters

(H/T: Andrew Sullivan) Click on the Pic to read.

Neoconservative Columnist Calls on Millitary Attacks Against Members of the Media

Neoconservative writers and academics often seem to be those all too willing to send other people’s children to war, but when they were called to serve their country they shrinked and did everything they could to avoid stepping up to fight (yeah I am talking to you Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol).

Retired Army officer LT Col. Ralph Peters who is a columnist for the New York Post is an exception to that rule, and one has to commend him for at least going to war instead of just rooting for war. Nonetheless his zeal for the neoconservative cause, jingoism, and the idea that America basically needs to commit national suicide to prevent becoming the victim of murder remain as intact as many of those neocons who have never even been in a bar fight.

In a lengthy essay in the international affairs publication called the Journal of International Security Affairs, Peters rails against radical Islamic terrorism and what he sees as an erosion of fighting capabilities on the part of the United States in terms of military and civilian. Fair points. He bemoans what he sees as a loss of familiarity and education in the field of history that causes many to have little if no frame of reference for the Majesty of our country. Fair point. And here as he lists some of those shortcomings of our nation in fighting war, he brings up this point that seems pretty spot on.

Fourth, an unholy alliance between the defense industry and academic theorists seduced decisionmakers with a false-messiah catechism of bloodless war. In pursuit of billions in profits, defense contractors made promises impossible to fulfill, while think tank scholars sought acclaim by designing warfare models that excited political leaders anxious to get off cheaply, but which left out factors such as the enemy, human psychology, and 5,000 years of precedents.

But what little sense Peters may have made is eclipsed by his anger and disdain, if not violent rage towards the media and an ends justify the means mentality. In his diatribe Peters engages in such cartoonish hyperbole in referring to the media as “neo-pagans” and “lackeys at the terrorists bloody alter”. And we’re supposed to take this guy seriously? Later he even goes on to speak of the possibility of “military attacks on the partisan media”. Now whether he means that the military should begin systematically executing journalists like they have in totalitarian nations or engaging in a war of words with the media is debatable. However in light of his recent column that suggests that we merely execute the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, it may not be too much of a leap to say he means the former rather then the latter.

While this brief essay cannot undertake to analyze the psychological dysfunctions that lead many among the most privileged Westerners to attack their own civilization and those who defend it, we can acknowledge the overwhelming evidence that, to most media practitioners, our troops are always guilty (even if proven innocent), while our barbaric enemies are innocent (even if proven guilty). The phenomenon of Western and world journalists championing the “rights” and causes of blood-drenched butchers who, given the opportunity, would torture and slaughter them, disproves the notion—were any additional proof required—that human beings are rational creatures. Indeed, the passionate belief of so much of the intelligentsia that our civilization is evil and only the savage is noble looks rather like an anemic version of the self-delusions of the terrorists themselves. And, of course, there is a penalty for the intellectual’s dismissal of religion: humans need to believe in something greater than themselves, even if they have a degree from Harvard. Rejecting the god of their fathers, the neo-pagans who dominate the media serve as lackeys at the terrorists’ bloody altar.

Of course, the media have shaped the outcome of conflicts for centuries, from the European wars of religion through Vietnam. More recently, though, the media have determined the outcomes of conflicts. While journalists and editors ultimately failed to defeat the U.S. government in Iraq, video cameras and biased reporting guaranteed that Hezbollah would survive the 2006 war with Israel and, as of this writing, they appear to have saved Hamas from destruction in Gaza.

Pretending to be impartial, the self-segregating personalities drawn to media careers overwhelmingly take a side, and that side is rarely ours. Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. Perceiving themselves as superior beings, journalists have positioned themselves as protected-species combatants. But freedom of the press stops when its abuse kills our soldiers and strengthens our enemies. Such a view arouses disdain today, but a media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

Peters appears to take the view that somehow our ideals and the institution of a media free from the restraints of government or military control, which is absolutely crucial to a functioning vibrant democracy has like many argue a number of other rights that make the U.S great are somehow have become too cumbersome or as Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) said of the Bush/Cheney officials who advocated for “enhanced interrogation” ” a legal nicety that we could not afford”. They are wrong. A Free press, the rule of law, and other such human rights and freedoms have been fought for a forged in the blood, time, and toil of too many men for too long and have faced far greater threats to just be dispensed with or scoffed at.

Is the media imperfect and sometimes frustrating? yes. But to equate all with the enemies of our nation is not only profoundly stupid, but outrageous. According to Reporters without Borders, as many as 225 Journalists have been killed in Iraq, since the invasion and occupation began in March 2003. They two, while maybe not being as valiant as our military have certainly made sacrifice and have in some instances paid with their lives to inform the American people. And simply because your views, or your rigid ideology isn’t reinforced by the reporting does not diminish their work or sacrifice in the eyes of their families or colleagues.

But Peters elaborates on this become the enemy to kill the enemy, win at any price, if you criticize the mission or aspects of it you are a terrorist puppet, by basically saying the ends of victory justify any and all means and later scoffs at the idea that if we sacrifice our ideals that we will be sacrificing what makes our existence worth continuing.

The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win. Our victories are ultimately in humanity’s interests, while our failures nourish monsters.

Isn’t that the kind of irrational violent sentiment that we are trying to combat Colonel? Can’t one as Albert Camus once wrote “love my country and still love justice”?

Terror Plot Foiled Yesterday Actually Results in Gulp Arrest and Terrorists appearing in Federal Court

How can this be and without the use of water boarding? But what do we do with them afterwards? Put them in maximum security prisons like Ramsey Yousef or Zacharias Mosuai, or the “blind sheik”? No according to Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) if you put a dangerous individual in prison that is the same thing as setting them free.

Yahoo.com:

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Four men arrested after planting what they thought were explosives near two New York City synagogues were disappointed that the World Trade Center wasn’t still around to attack, a federal prosecutor said Thursday as the men appeared in court for the first time.

The suspects were arrested Wednesday night, shortly after planting a 37-pound mock explosive device in the trunk of a car outside the Riverdale Temple and two mock bombs in the backseat of a car outside the Riverdale Jewish Center, another synagogue a few blocks away, authorities said. Police blocked their escape with an 18-wheel truck, smashing their tinted SUV windows and apprehending the unarmed suspects.

Authorities said the men also plotted to shoot down a military plane.

James Cromitie, 55; David Williams, 28; Onta Williams, 32; and Laguerre Payen, all of Newburgh, were charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles.

All the suspects except Payen appeared in federal court in White Plains on Thursday, their hands shackled to their waists. Payen was expected to appear in court later Thursday.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

The more one reads about former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield the more one is astounded by how anyone that shallow,opportunistic, selfish, self-serving, and just plain stupid could come to head the U.S Pentagon.

Aside from his one time protege Dick Cheney nobody could every really mistake the former smart-ass congressman, turned Nixon disciple, turned Gerald Ford Chief of staff and Defense Secretary, turned Saddam hand shaker, turned cantankerous and sardonic Defense Secretary under the Bush/Cheney administration of being likable or pleasant to work with.

First, there came the revelation that neocons in the lower levels of the civilian leadership Defense Department killed overtures made by Sunni insurgent leaders in 2004 Iraq prior to the 2007 “the Sunni awakening”, for reasons of their own Department and ideology that clashed with reality.

Now we learn that Rumsfield, who nobody would really mistake for a strongly religious man, used militaristic old testament language of the Bible on the covers of Intelligence Reports, presumably to influence the thinking of the deeply religious Bush.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld routinely used militaristic passages from the Bible on the cover pages of White House intelligence documents, according to startling new revelations by GQ.

The magazine said he displayed the passages over photographs of US forces in Iraq to curry favor with then president George W. Bush, despite concerns about the incendiary impact on Islamic opinion if they were ever made public.

One of the images was from March 31, 2003, showing a US tank roaring through the desert about 10 days after the United States invaded Iraq to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Over the image was printed a verse from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

Luckily the current Pentagon and current administration have ceased the practice.

Regardless, Rumsfield was dressing these reports and dressing Millitary intelligence and objectives in the language of religion, while Al-Queda and militants the U.S is fighting were dressing their military intelligence and objectives in the language of religion. The leaders and proponents of violence against the U.S, continuously stoke fears of the people of the Middle East that the U.S hates Islam and look at Muslims as inferior. Employing this rhetoric and tying it to the overall U.S war efforts no doubt allows the militants to tell those moderates that are weary of but not yet violently hostile of the U.S and her allies, that the things the militants claim may have some credence to them. Thus making the U.S Battle for hearts and minds more arduous and the possibility that many moderate elements will veer towards Al-Queda and a more inflammatory view of America a more likely possibility.

The conflict we are locked in with groups of Al-Queda, has one side justifying their use of violence and build thier movement by distorting the faith of Islam constantly invoking the language of the crusades and the valor of conquest. The last thing we should do is cede the ground of reason and ourselves become enveloped in a haze of religious dogma to justify our military objectives. If we continue to do that, aren’t we just devolving into a state where we are as misguided and illogical as those who subscribe to the rhetoric and violence of Al-Queda?

Also on another note, Rumsfield was willing to use the religion which has guided so many to a better life and enriched so many souls, for something as crass as selling his own political views. Using religion to advertise it, like commercials use sexy women, fast cars, and succulent hamburgers to reach consumers. He used religion to sell war. His actions suggest that he views Christianity as little more then an advertising tool. That is degrading to religion no matter how one feels about a given policy. If I was a devout Christian I would be infuriated by a move that treated my religion with such disdain.

Attention All Criminal Defendents, Here is a New Defense That Could Soon Be Viable in a Court Near You

At Torture hearings yesterday Sen. Lindsay Graham (R SC) who amazingly is a former JAG Prosecutor.

The Hill (H/T: Americablog)

The Bush administration did not commit any crimes, Graham said, but “they saw the law as a nicety we could not afford.”

How can someone so willing to excuse the blatant disregard of the law be elected to even hold a law degree and practice law, much less be elected to the U.S Senate where he is charged with crafting laws and conducting oversight to make sure they are enforced? Any criminal who would ever use such an excuse in court would be laughed out of the courtroom.