(Oringially posted on Jottings from a cluttered mind.)I don't have a lot of time for multiple posts today, but there is one subject I do want to tackle in depth with the few minutes I have free.
There are a pair of smoking guns that have been uncovered recently that Jottings (and Kos) readers might want to check out. (Forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir on this one.) One gun is perhaps less smoldering than the other, but they both point to the pervasive manipulation of fact this administration regularly does to support it's reprehensible agenda. Both expose the outright insults to real democratic freedom we have suffered at the hands of the Bush administration.
...more below...
First is
this incredible graph which correlates the raw polling data of Dubya's popularity ratings with rises in the Homeland Security Terror Alert Levels.
To anybody paying attention, it was painfully obvious during the last few years that any time Bush's popularity started to sag, the Threat Level would be jacked up a notch to keep people focused on their fear and not on the questionable actions of our so-called leader.
From USA Today comes this damning statement from former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge:
The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.
Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.
"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "
This, of course, should come as no surprise. The administration has a pattern of doing what they want to do regardless of facts that contradict them. (A pattern you will see continued in the second smoking gun below.)
So, if Tom Ridge, Secretary of Homeland Security, kept getting over-ruled, who exactly was responsible for raising the alert level? Who are the "some people" who were "aggressive about raising it?" Another passage from the same USA Today article sheds light on the subject:
The level is raised if a majority on the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council favors it and President Bush concurs. Among those on the council with Ridge were Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI chief Robert Mueller, CIA director George Tenet, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Ridge and Ashcroft publicly clashed over how to communicate threat information to the public. But Ridge has never before discussed internal dissention over the threat level.
Hmmm..."flimsy evidence to justify"...where have I heard that one before? Oh yes, I remember! It was during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, when fact-based objectors like Colin Powell and Richard Clarke were over-ruled by ideology-based leaders like Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Rice who were in such a rush to invade Iraq, evidence be damned.
Which brings me to smoking gun number two, the leaking of a "secret Downing Street memo."
The memo, written by Downing Street foreign policy aide Matthew Rycroft, and published by the London Times on May 1st, went to the defense secretary, foreign secretary, attorney general and other high officials in the U.K. It is the minutes of their meeting on Iraq with Tony Blair. It has been confirmed as legitimate and is dated July 23, 2002.
First, some salient details from the memo, and then some hard questions.
"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. [my emph. -ed.] The NSC (National Security Council) had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Pay attention to the key phrase in that paragraph:
"the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much more obvious than that! Note also the date of the memo, July of 2002. Ouch!
More choice bits from the memo:
"No decisions had been taken, but he (British defense secretary) thought the most likely timing in U.S. minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the U.S. congressional elections."
"The foreign secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the U.N. weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force."
"The attorney general said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defense, humanitarian intervention or UNSC authorization. The first and second could not be the base in this case."
Hard question number one has got to be: Why is this incredible memo being virtually ignored by the mainstream media in the U.S.? Seriously!
This is the epitome of a smoking gun. And it isn't even close to an easily dismissed "conspiracy theory." (Oh god, how I'm sick of THAT phrase.) It ain't a theory if there's an actual conspiracy, folks. Got it? Good.
Hard question number two: Given that it is clear Bush and Co. had plans to invade Iraq despite all evidence against them, where is the outrage of the American public over having been lied to so blatantly by their leaders? Our sons and daughters are being sent to die for a big fat lie. That's just not right. These soldier citizens have offered their lives to defend their country and all they ever asked of us is that we only send them if we have a legitimate reason to do so.
This has gone way beyond "interpretation of data" or whatever bullshit they were shoveling at the U.S. and the U.N. to justify the invasion. It's crystal clear at this point. They lied to us. Not distortion, not misrepresentation, but outright bald-face lying.
In considering these two so-called smoking guns (yeah I know it's a cliché, but it's true) one phrase just keeps echoing around my brain: "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." The deliberate manipulation of intelligence data is making us LESS safe as a country and the truth is being buried in a landslide of neo-con propaganda. This administration's narrow focus on Iraq has kept us from paying attention to real threats like Iran and North Korea. Our democracy, or what's left of it at least, is seriously threatened when facts take a back seat to ideology.
Remember, truth is always the first casualty of war.
Oh yeah, one more thing... you might want to dig out that old copy of George Orwell's "1984" from high school and read it again. There are a lot of lessons to be learned therein. About the only thing Orwell missed was the actual date. He was off by about 20 years, but otherwise right on the money. (For more on Orwell and our current slide towards fascism, check out this post over at Orcinus.)
Okay, that's enough of that. I need to get back to my real job. :-}