zzyzx's Xanga

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Wed, 26 Mar 2003 23:50:40 GMT

THE MOTHER OF ALL BIO-WEAPONS

belated thanks to drew for the image

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 01:41:51 GMT

It has been said that George H.W. Bush failed because he didn't know how or wouldn't spend the political capital he gained through the prosecution of the first gulf war.

George W, it seems, is determined not to repeat his father's mistake. Unfortunately, it appears he can't count.

While the father had personally experienced real combat, and had vigorously and persuasively plied diplomatic channels and gained widespread support, junior fronts a flimsy, shifting argument and a belligerent deaf ear to the concerns of other Nations and our own citizens.

There is no real argument in favor of Hussein that I know of. But by refusing to acknowledge realities of the past including our own and others errors and complicity, by using 9-11 as a cover for an issue that can stand on it's own merit, and the use of bullying in place of Diplomacy, Bush has alienated those nations who's support could help fashion this effort into something that would not resemble a wholesale recruitment effort for alQaeda. Multiple arguments put forward for initiating military intervention have been discredited, the world protests, yet the attack will still come.

Yet one more sad, missed opportunity to do a difficult but necessary thing the right way. Hussein will never change, and his nation suffers daily for his judgment. What will come of the inevitable, at this point, increase of violence in that land is yet to be seen. But expect something resembling a tightly coiled spring being suddenly released. Which way will it bounce? Once in motion, it will follow it's own unpredictable path and not come to rest until it's energy is spent.

I'm afraid that at this point, we won't have to wait long to see.

Monday, March 17, 2003

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 12:06:43 GMT

The Eve of Destruction

It looks like we are about to begin bombing Iraq to 'protect the peace' and 'liberate' the country.

It strikes me as strange, that if just under 100 people are senselessly roasted to death in a nightclub, the whole nation knows about it, everyone grieves the loss....while we're planning to drop the biggest incendiary bombs ever constructed (moab) over a country with a shattered economy, weak militarily and already under the thumb of daily UN disarmament efforts. And none in the media bother to tell us that if we want to understand what is about to happen, maybe even tomorrow, will be ten thousand times worse, only small kids and old people will be in the mix as well.

This morning, I heard the news that ABC has pulled it's news crews from Baghdad. Americans in Middle east countries have been told to leave the area. UN inspectors have been told to leave the area. George Bush is determined to have his war, any and all objections, calls for reason be damned.

And all this while ignoring the largest genuine, clear and present threat to international security- a North Korea busily on the path towards building a Nuclear arsenal, which it is as certain to share as Pakistan was and is. So much for priorities. So much for Reason.

Forgive us lord, we know what we do but are powerless to stop it.

History will not be kind to us for what is about to happen. That is, providing we're not entering into a conflagration that will engulf the globe.

But, then again, Bush is a subscriber to the philosophy that it's a good thing to hasten the arrival of Armageddon. Great. That's not the kind of bold we need from the leader of the most powerful nation on earth.

Again, may God forgive us.

Sunday, March 09, 2003

Sun, 09 Mar 2003 20:19:59 GMT

Interesting Times has among the usual many interesting items this_one:

Perhaps that is the difference between the liberal hawks and the liberal hawks but-for-Bush: the latter are those who realized a long time ago that the case for taking out Saddam would be damaged irreparably by the mere identity of the person who was making it. The hawks with-no-qualifiers were willing to look past Bush's faults because the goal was worth it. However, the last few weeks and months have built up such an increasing pile of offal that even they can't ignore the smell anymore.

'nuff said.

Saturday, March 08, 2003

Sat, 08 Mar 2003 02:39:39 GMT

A week's Reprieve?

Well, I'm ever so happy to be proven wrong on the timing.

Unfortunately, it looks like a couple week's reprieve at best. And I was glad to see at least some real questions asked instead of the usual leading, softball fluff.

The problem was, no matter what question was asked, the answer was Iraq, WMD, Saddam's not disarming. It was like a loop tape. It was like a surface film, impenetrable to deeper thoughts or arguments of cause and effect. As if insulated by some kind of mental prophylactic against complexity, he had made up his mind and that was that.

And seeing a man in control of nuclear weapons who's incapable of properly pronouncing what they are still scares me stiff. I'd like to see the camera shot over his shoulder when he does that...actually, no, I don't.

While I don't disagree that Saddam must be disarmed, how that policy is conducted, and how it is justified, affect it's credibility. Credibility affects the viability of every endeavor. It's sad, but Bush is basically trashing 50 years worth of Diplomatic credibility by the goals and policy he's set and the means used in their pursuit. Prior history seems to be totally off the table when it comes to our involvement in how Hussein and Osama became so dangerous. These histories are not unknown abroad, and are finally becoming more known here at home. To make regime change at will the centerpiece of American policy, and then to pursue it in a fashion that guarantees mass destruction and death, we are told this is done to "preserve the peace".

The same way Bush has motivated America's friends to complain and protest, and they're our allies and trading partners, how much is he motivating those who already dislike us? It seems as if this calculation is not just ignored, but ridiculed.

The fact that so much energy must be expended trying to restrain W is a loss to efforts that could be focused on more pressing threats,.

Hello, NORTH KOREA?

Thursday, March 06, 2003

Thu, 06 Mar 2003 15:08:04 GMT

Is Tonight the Night?

I just heard something rare on the radio: Bush is going to hold a press conference tonight. Ordinarily, a president holding a press conference is no big deal. But this President has become famous for his lack of accountability to the press, which in turn has become famous for it's lack of holding Bush accountable for anything.

But in view of the opposition his unilateralist, bullying approach has created among pretty much every other Nation on earth to his war lust, I fear he may have decided that since things will only continue to deteriorate, in regards to international support for his war, he should just cut to the chase and do what he's been determined to do since before he even took office. Namely, to force a regime change in Iraq through military force. And then take over the oil, visibly or otherwise. Corporations make great proxy's for a government that wants at least the appearance of clean hands.

It's been looking bad for him lately, with Iraq destroying those missiles and whatnot. The last thing he wants is the impression that Hussein can be disarmed peacefully. Not to mention increasingly open rejection of his policies from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Even Tony Blair is starting to bend to the pressing reality that no one really wants the bombs to start falling in Baghdad. I can hardly think of a more effective way to alienate allies that the bullying and arm twisting that's been substituted for diplomacy by this administration.

That's why, when I heard about the press conference, the first thought to hit me was, we're going in. Bombs will be dropping even as he tells us how he tried soooo hard to find a peaceful resolution to the situation. Everyone's been talking about mid-month. This would yield him a bit of tactical surprise.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to see if the media will have anything to say about the Korean missile fragments found in Alaska......

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 23:05:47 GMT

Before I get to some ideas for constructive endeavors, I'd like to complete a few thoughts and clear my clipboard on the topic of my last post: 911, Iraq, Accountability and lack thereof.

First, a reminder of one of our glaring credibility gaps in a recent piece by Joe_Conason:

Now the U.N. Security Council is burying roughly 8,000 pages from the 12,000-page weapons declaration delivered by Baghdad last December -- and nobody in the major U.S. media seems to be trying to obtain those crucial papers or protesting the U.N. censorship. Who cares? This is about war -- and therefore not nearly as intriguing as land development in rural Arkansas. The missing pages reportedly are being withheld at the request of the Bush administration, but this is an issue on which adversaries and allies apparently agree. France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain all have no quarrel with keeping those pages secret.

Why? Evidently those documents name corporations and other entities from all those countries that supplied the Iraqi weapons industries, back when our politicians still considered Saddam Hussein preferable to the alternatives and cared little for the fate of the Kurds, the Shia and the tortured Iraqi people. (The National Security Archive has posted a series of important documents dating from 1980 to 1984 that show how the Reagan administration -- then staffed by the likes of Richard Perle and Donald Rumsfeld -- sought to downplay Iraq's use of chemical weapons.)

Both the Sunday Herald in Scotland and Die Tageszeitung in Germany have recently published extracts from the censored documents, naming prominent firms in their own countries and the United States as major suppliers of chemical, biological and nuclear equipment to the Iraqi regime. Among the firms named by the Sunday Herald is International Military Services, a commercial branch of the U.K. Ministry of Defense.

Next, from Tom_Paine, an excerpt from Greg Palast's 'Best Democracy Money can Buy':

Still, we are left with the question of why both Bush Jr. and Clinton would hold back disclosure of Saudi funding of terror. I got the first glimpse of an answer from Michael Springmann, who headed up the U.S. State Department's visa bureau in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during the Reagan-Bush Sr. years. "In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there." That was Springmann's mistake. He was one of those conscientious midlevel bureaucrats who did not realize that when he filed reports about rules violations he was jeopardizing the cover for a huge multicontinental intelligence operation aimed at the Soviets. Springmann assumed petty thievery: someone was taking bribes, selling visas; so he couldn't understand why his complaints about rule-breakers were "met with silence" at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
Springmann complained himself right out of a job. Now a lawyer, he has obtained more information on the questionable "engineers" with no engineering knowledge whom he was ordered to permit into the United States. "What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama bin Laden, to the United States for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets."

But then they turned their talents against the post-Soviet power: us. In the parlance of spook-world, this is called "blowback." Bin Laden and his bloody brethren were created in America's own Frankenstein factory. It would not do for the current president nor agency officials to dig back to find that some of the terrorists we are hunting today were trained and armed by the Reagan-Bush administration. And that's one of the problems for agents seeking to investigate groups like WAMY, or Abdullah bin Laden. WAMY literature that talks about that "compassionate young man Osama bin Laden" is likely to have been disseminated, if not written, by our very own government. If Abdullah's Bosnian-operated "charity" was funding Chechnyan guerrillas, it is only possible because the Clinton CIA gave the wink and nod to WAMY and other groups who were aiding Bosnian guerrillas when they were fighting Serbia, a U.S.-approved enemy. "What we're talking about," says national security expert Joe Trento, "is embarrassing, career-destroying blowback for intelligence officials." And, he could add, for the presidential father.

There's much more; go have a look.

So what does it all mean? Basically, most of this administration, and many if not most members of our congress, should have resigned. They took an oath to protect our Nation and our Constitution, and failed in that task. It comes down to this: Which takes more courage- to admit fault, and be held responsible for one's actions, or to shift the focus of attention and blame others.

Seeing as there has not been a single dismissal in the Intelligence, or any other governmental agency or department as a result of the multiple failures that led to 9-11, the choice they made is clear: shoot any messengers who dare speak of any burden of responsibility on our part, and deflect attention to the real issues by any means possible. Palast continues...

Dan Rather, still in his confessional mode, told BBC, "One finds oneself saying, 'I know the right question, but you know what, this is not exactly the right time to ask it.' "
But I'll ask anyway. "Where does the Bush family business end and policy begin?"
In my opinion, much too much has been made of the bin Ladens's Carlyle connection to the Bushes. It would be absurd to say that President Bush spiked the investigation of the bin Laden family and Saudi funding of terrorists in return for packets of cash. The system is not so crude. Gentlemen of the club do not act that way. Rather, what's created is a prejudice, call it a disposition, to conclude that these smiling Gulf billionaires, whose associates made you and your family wealthy, are unlikely to have funded mass murder of Americans, despite the evidence.

Finally, it would be unfair to lay this whole mess at the feet of the politicians. The incestuous relationships between Big money, media and our government has done our Nation far more harm than than the attacks of 9-11. Those attacks were only a symptom of a far greater disease afflicting our country. Until we fix that problem, everything else we do is just window dressing.

Now. What can be done?

Firstly, anyone reading this needs to know that they are a minority. The web is a great place to get information and hone your arguments, but we need to bring the message to the millions who are not online, or who are but don't use it to gain social/political knowledge.

First, know that your voice does matter, but only if it's heard. Calls and letters to Congressmen, Senators, and news outlets do have a cumulative effect. The Conservatives know this, and expend a great deal of time and money motivating their members to do so. So should we.

Second, vote with your wallet. A good example of this is the Rush Boycott: Radio Shack pulled their ads from his show. So I wrote them a letter thanking them, and let them know that because of their action, I now purchase from them what I would have otherwise bought elsewhere.

Third, join organization(s) fighting for causes you agree with. They need to know how widely their message is resonating, and you will become more informed.

Fourth: this is one I'm just starting to work on. Along the lines of bringing the message to those who don't tap the reservoir of knowledge here on the web, how about renting billboards to get the message out? Newspaper ads? Radio spots?

Fifth: talk to your friends and neighbors. They may not agree with you, but if you can plant the seeds of another view, and give them a truth they have to think about or try to disprove, every step forward is progress.

Finally, patience and persistence. The rad right spent 25-30 years and a billion dollars pushing to the right before they finally tipped the scales. We won't fix these distortions in our country overnight. But doing nothing is the most dangerous course of all.

Saturday, March 01, 2003

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 16:32:12 GMT

THE LATEST LAST STRAW.

I haven't been able to bring myself to post for a while. Almost a couple of weeks, actually. Besides work finally picking up a bit, the mad push towards war and my usual frustration with the gibberish on offer instead of real policy, I had another stop-me-in-my-tracks realization of how truly fucked up our country has become, an uninvited glimpse into how deep the problems really run.

I heard about the congressional investigation being launched (sorry) to look into the causes of the space shuttle disaster. This in itself is not a necessecarily bad thing. Understanding why something failed is half the battle of making sure it doesn't happen again. I've had the good fortune to participate in NASA technology development projects, and the level of dedication to quality and innovation is impressive. So as long as the politicians keep their focus on revealing any procedural flaws that could have led to this and don't muck about in the technology end of things, maybe we'll end up with a safer system. But that's optimistic, and I digress.

What floored me was that within a week, we have a congressional investigation on the space shuttle crash. One week.

We're still waiting for a real investigation of 9-11. I know, I know, they did finally put together a panel once the administration was able to find enough members they could trust not to look too deeply for the truth. But it took over a year. Over a year!

Shuttle crash? one week.
Terrorist attack? one year plus.

Now, isn't part of the ability to carry out an effective investigation tied to being able to start before the trail goes cold, and before everyone with something to hide has the chance to shred it?

From sf_indymedia, we have this:

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Bush Administration and the intelligence community issued a series of erroneous statements. Congressional findings have since corrected some lingering fictions. We now know the following to false: 1) the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon had been a complete surprise that occurred because U.S. intelligence had no one inside the bin Laden organization positioned to warn of the plan; 2) US counterterrorism efforts were divided and underfunded, and 3) the FBI and CIA weren't talking to each other because of legal obstacles. A close examination of the record, particularly the testimony of CIA Director Tenet, delivered to the Joint Congressional Panel on October 17, 2002, reveal that these assumptions are little more than convenient myths. [See, Written Statement for the Record of the Director of Central Intelligence Before the Joint Inquiry Committee, 17 October 2002, http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/speeches.html; and, Oral Testimony of George Tenet Before the Joint Inquiry Committee, 17 October 2002, http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/ story/0,11209,814749,00.html; also see, “How U.S. Counterterrorism failed in 911, and Why the Bush Administration Can't Fix It”, Parts 1 and 2, http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/09/26_failed.html]

So what we basically have is a government lying to us about what happened and why, and influencing the investigation of their own involvement. The article finishes:

The best available facts now indicate that the Bush Administration has lied to the American people and unjustly tried to scapegoat rank-and-file counterterrorism officers, most of whom themselves had been kept in the dark about the entry of al-Qaeda until mere weeks before the attack occurred.
· It is not true, as unfairly alleged, that the working agents in CIA, FBI, NSA and other federal counterterrorism offices were totally incompetent and uncoordinated. They were not – they were misled and betrayed by their superiors.
· It is not true, as has been claimed, that U.S. intelligence was paralyzed by the Wall during the summer of 2001. The Wall was largely ignored in the al-Qaeda investigation, as it had been for a long time in such joint operations.
Rather, there was no real breakdown of coordination between the Agency and the Bureau; instead, in dealing with Mr. Atta and his roommates before 9/11, the agencies operated in a cooperative but informal manner. As they had many times before, American intelligence did not officially “hand off” known terrorists to the FBI when they were observed entering the country. The FBI was not notified in the normally mandated way. When CIA learned that Atta and the others were returning to the U.S. in the summer of 2001, there is no remaining record of written notice given the FBI in the joint Counterterrorism Center.
As one examines the record closely, this is what seems to have actually happened: the ongoing CIA probe of al-Qaeda, known within the Agency as “The Plan”, was considered by command authorities to be too sensitive and important to risk a breach of operational security by official notification, which would have been widely-disseminated. According to CIA Director Tenet, there was instead “informal notification” that went to a limited number of eyes. Had the law been followed, FBI would have had to obtain FISA warrants to continue surveillance of the terrorist suspects after they entered the country. Instead, in at least one case, the FBI liaison officer at CTC was notified verbally by his Agency contact that a known al-Qaeda member had arrived at LA Airport. It has not been fully explained why this information not officially recorded at CTC, or whether it was passed up the chain of command. Both agencies are required to keep records, but in this case, the FBI and CIA testified to the Congressional committee that no record of an official pass-off was maintained. By every indication, he CIA continued to run its covert operation after al-Qaeda terrorists entered the United States, while the FBI had at least some knowledge.

The “family jewels” of US intelligence that the Bush Administration is presently trying to protect at all costs is the fact that Mr. Atta and his confederates, before they obliterated themselves, were the apparent focus of a CIA covert operation that was – for whatever reason -- allowed to cross over the borders into the U.S. Laws requiring FISA wiretaps were also ignored in the case of the al-Qaeda cells (there is no record that they were sought), [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, 50 U.S.C. § 1801-1863] as were regulations mandating a “pass-off” of surveillance to FBI within the U.S. were violated [See, Appendix A, Executive Order 12333 of Dec. 4, 1981, appears at 46 FR 59941, 3 CFR, 1981 Comp., p. 200, Part 2, Sec 2.5] [Footnote] [LINK APPENDIX] While Bureau liaison officers were apparently notified of the entry of Mr. al-Mihdhar, official notification was not given to the Attorney General through his designate at the joint federal agency Counterterrorism Center.
Such an operation appears to have breached the Agency's charter that prohibits domestic covert CIA operations and law enforcement activities.

[National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. § 401-441d] If this were to be the finding of a court or official investigation, it would also open responsible officials to liability for billions of dollars in damages in law suits by the victims of the 9/11 attacks. An admission or finding to this effect could politically destroy the CIA, and the Bush Administration along with it. Inasmuch as “The Plan”, the operation to neutralize Osama bin Laden, was launched during the Clinton presidency, Democratic leaders also have no real appetite for exhuming the details. All around, there are powerful interests that would prefer that the American people, in the oft-repeated phrase, “just get over it”. Congress and President Bush, through amendment to USA PATRIOT and pardons, may well end up immunizing those responsible for breaking the law and their catastrophic breach of duty to protect the public.
None of this necessarily implies that any U.S. official really wanted 3,000 people to die on 9/11. We don't yet know why this operation ended as it did. That question will not be answered, however, except under oath before a Grand Jury or in later sworn testimony by former high officials. As to whether there is a real will to see justice done in open court, time will tell.

So how in hell are we going to fix this mess? I'll be looking at that question in my next post.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

Sun, 16 Feb 2003 00:44:08 GMT

The Consortium News has this, one of many, articles outlining the doings of Rev. Moon, his connections to conservative politics and the Bush family. Which is bad enough. But to learn that Moon was manipilating thing behind the scenes in regards to N. Korea....

Some press estimates have put the fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, though one former leader of Moon’s Unification Church told me that the organization had earmarked $10 million for the former president. [For more on the Bush-Moon relationship, see the story in our Archives, "Hooking George Bush."]

Ex-President Bush’s pro-Moon speeches came at a time, too, when Moon – now 80 – was expressing intensely anti-American views. In the mid-1990s, Moon denounced the United States as “Satan’s harvest” and condemned American women as having descended from a “line of prostitutes.”

In a speech to his followers on Aug. 4, 1996, Moon vowed to liquidate American individuality, declaring that his movement would “swallow entire America.” Moon said Americans who insisted on “their privacy and extreme individualism … will be digested.”

(...)

To many Americans, Moon is perhaps best known as a 1970s cult leader who allegedly brainwashed young recruits into joining his Unification Church and then paired up his followers in mass marriages where Moon would preside wearing lavish costumes and crowns.

But Moon also understood the importance of political clout. In 1978, a congressional investigation identified Moon as a part of a covert influence-buying scheme aimed at American institutions and run by the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency, a charge that Moon denied.

In 1982, Moon was convicted of tax fraud and served an 18-month sentence in federal prison. Nevertheless, his political influence grew when he launched The Washington Times, also in 1982.

(...)

In 1991, President Bush expressed his gratitude to Moon’s newspaper by inviting its editor, Wesley Pruden, to a private White House lunch “just to tell you how valuable the Times has become in Washington, where we read it every day.” [Washington Times, May 17, 1992]

(...)

Contacted in Seoul, South Korea, Bo Hi Pak, a former publisher of The Washington Times, acknowledged that Moon met with North Korean officials and negotiated business deals with them in the early 1990s.

But Bo Hi Pak denied that payments were made to individual North Korean leaders and called “absolutely untrue” the DIA's description of the $3 million land sale benefiting Kim Jong Il. Bo Hi Pak also said the North Korean business investments were structured through South Korean entities.

“Rev. Moon is not doing this in his own name,” said Pak.

(...)

Because of the long-term U.S. embargo against North Korea – eased only last year – Moon’s alleged payments to the communist leaders raise potential legal issues for Moon, a South Korean citizen who is a U.S. permanent resident alien.

“Nobody in the United States was supposed to be providing funding to anybody in North Korea, period, under the Treasury (Department's) sanction regime,” said Jonathan Winer, former deputy assistant secretary of state handling international crime.

The U.S. embargo of North Korea dates back to the Korean War. With a few exceptions for humanitarian goods, the embargo barred trade and financial dealings between North Korea and “all U.S. citizens and permanent residents wherever they are located, … and all branches, subsidiaries and controlled affiliates of U.S. organizations throughout the world.”

So. This guy does business with NK against the embargo, has clout in washington, is a freind of the bushies and has vowed to strangle our freedoms? I guess he just fit right in with that fundamentalist crowd that have been around since nixon and run things now. This guy should have been deported a long time ago. Why do we put up with this?

Friday, February 14, 2003

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 01:28:36 GMT

Here's some food for thought:

Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

29 have been accused of spousal abuse

7 have been arrested for fraud

19 have been accused of writing bad checks

117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses

3 have done time for assault

71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit

14 have been arrested on drug-related charges

8 have been arrested for shoplifting

21 are currently defendants in lawsuits

84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?

It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

There. Now do you feel safe? Let e'm know....especially next November.