I think we need to see everything laid out simply for the American people…the story of this Administration’s War on Terror (“WOT”) from beginning to end. I would love to see someone produce a miniseries (a feature-length movie would be too short to cover it all) that puts it out there and lets the people decide whether we have a president who should not be in jail for crimes against this country and the world. Just to keep it to a 2-3 installment program, we have to limit ourselves to the story of WOT, beginning with 9/11.
A breakdown of the story, as I see it, is below the fold
[Upon request from the comments] As a prologue, we can give background information on the Clinton War on Terror that commenced after the 1993 WTC bombing and led to the foiling of the milennium terror plot—an actual verified success in the WOT.
1. Government fails to act on various information that may have led to the foiling of the 9/11 attacks (knowledge of suspected terrorists taking flight training; the FBI informant who associated with 2 hijackers in San Diego, the August 6, 2001 PDF (“bin Laden determined to strike in U.S.”), etc.)
2. Bush’s incompetence/indecision in immediate response to attacks at the time they took place. (My Pet Goat)
3. The ramming through of the Patriot Act, without the opportunity for Congress to read, discuss or debate it—legislation with the potential to severely compromise our civil liberties.
4. The War in Afghanistan, poorly executed to the extent that bin Laden was allowed to escape at Tora Bora.
5. The relocation of troops and resources from Afghanistan in preparation for war with Iraq in 2002—prior to authorization for war against Iraq having been granted by Congress.
6. The whole Iraq WMD, ties to al Quaeda case/lies, with focus on the Downing Street Memo and the Niger/uranium SOTU claim.
7. The Wilson story & subsequent outing of Valerie Plame, an operative working on WMD proliferation, as political retribution & the resulting cover-up perpetrated by Libby & Rove.
8. The NSA spying on the UN Security Council members (a recommended diary today) for political gain.
9. The vote on the IWR, forced through prior to the 2002 elections, despite the protests of the Democrats.
10. The rush to war, in the absence of any evidence of WMD found by the inspectors. The associated failure of the U.S. military to take action against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, at the time operating a terrorist camp in the Kurdish north, whose presence in Iraq was one of the justifications for war, despite the fact that Saddam had little control in the area where Zarqawi was.
11. The poor execution of the war in Iraq, including: the failure to use enough troops for the invasion; the failure to guard weapons storage facilities; the premature disbanding of the Iraqi army; and the lavishing of all the reconstruction contracts on American companies, to the exclusion of Iraqi firms, to name a few examples.
12. Finally, the revelations of the NSA spying on domestic “terrorist suspects” outside the authority of the FISA.
At each step of the way, the common theme is that Bush’s actions (when he did act and not fail to act through incompetence) were motivated by politics. The failure to use enough troops in Iraq was premised on the theory that victory would be swift and the troops would be greeted as liberators. The lies in the run-up to the war all calculated to get the public behind it, as proven by the Downing Street Memo. The Plame outing, the U.N. spying, the pre-election vote on the IWR, the rush to war before the inspectors had a chance to finish the job, the domestic spying (probably on political enemies)—all of these events were crafted with politics in mind rather than the security of the American people.
When will everyone wake up & stop perpetuating the lie that Bush doesn’t care about politics? All he cares about is politics. The whole WOT is being waged for a political end—to keep power despite the administration’s numerous manifest failures in governing this nation.
To tell the true story of the illegal Bush WOT would be one of the greatest movies ever made...except he didn’t get a blowjob.