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SquattingMarmot
Inquiring Mind
Registered: 08/19/03
Posts: 418
Last seen: 9 years, 9 months
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Don't Trust Government
#2071824 - 11/04/03 11:57 PM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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Charley Reese is one of my favourite writers. Here's another one of his great articles.
Quote:
Don't Trust Government By Charley Reese
The independent commission set up to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks is threatening to use subpoenas to get documents that the White House has so far refused to give up.
This is stonewalling and a cover-up.
The president, at his recent news conference, referred to his daily intelligence briefings and said, in his own muddled way, that if they were made public, the people who prepared them would somehow be inhibited in preparing future intelligence briefings.
That is so illogical it beggars reply. These briefings are written in summary form. It's not as if they quote Serge, Russian President Vladimir Putin's butler. They don't quote anybody. No harm at all would be done if they were made public, except on some occasions to embarrass the president by revealing the fact that he had information and didn't act on it.
I had an off-the-record interview years ago with the man who prepared the president's daily intelligence briefing. He explained in detail how it's prepared. This was during the first Bush presidency, after the first Gulf War. The current president's father had used as an excuse to rush American troops to Saudi Arabia the idea that the Iraqi forces in Kuwait were about to invade the kingdom.
So I asked the guy, who had talked about his access to all the latest satellite imagery, "Did you at any time see any evidence that Iraqi troops were massing for an invasion of Saudi Arabia?"
"Off the record?" he said as a reminder.
"Off the record," I replied.
"No," he said.
So, 13 years later, you can know that two President Bushes have led this country into war in the Persian Gulf on false pretenses. It's no wonder the White House loves secrecy so much. The wonder is that the American people are so tolerant. It's also no surprise that some folks refer to oil as "the devil's tears."
What Rudyard Kipling popularized as the "great game" is afoot again. World demand for oil is rising, and the world supply of oil is static. It won't be many years before the situation will get sticky and hairy. The United States wants to be positioned militarily in the Persian Gulf (hence the Iraq wars) and around the Caspian Sea (hence Afghanistan). Of course, the Russians are no fools. They just opened a Russian military base about 30 miles from an American military base in the Caspian Sea area. And they are keeping their hands in the Persian Gulf area with strong relations with Iran.
I don't pretend to know what is going on in the world's mahogany-paneled back rooms, but I do know you can discard as disinformation practically every word uttered by the federal government in regard to foreign policy. What government officials say is blarney for public consumption. The real reasons usually involve money, oil, other valuable resources and power relationships.
The American people don't really control their own government. Until they realize this and decide to take it back by electing honest men and women who can't be bought by corporations and other special interests, they will go on supplying the blood and money for the great game that yields great profits only to the few.
None of the young men and women who have died in Iraq, nor those who are yet to die, will make a penny profit from the war. Those profits will go to multinational corporations as the Bush administration auctions off the Iraqi people's country and resources.
Forgive me if this sounds cynical, but you ought to take note of how easily things like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and weapons of mass destruction just disappear from the president's speeches. You should ask why the White House won't cooperate with the independent commission, why it won't reveal the notes that went into its energy bill, and why so many other things are kept secret.
The American Revolution was not fought so that people could be passive and uninformed citizens. You can be that in a dictatorship. To be free, you must be an informed, skeptical, inquiring citizen. ? 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
-------------------- "In the United States anybody can be president. Thats the problem." "The gray-haired douche bag, Barbara Bush, has a slogan: "Encourage your child to read every day." What she should be is encouraging children to question what they read every day." - George Carlin
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Evolving
Resident Cynic
Registered: 10/01/02
Posts: 5,385
Loc: Apt #6, The Village
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-------------------- To call humans 'rational beings' does injustice to the term, 'rational.' Humans are capable of rational thought, but it is not their essence. Humans are animals, beasts with complex brains. Humans, more often than not, utilize their cerebrum to rationalize what their primal instincts, their preconceived notions, and their emotional desires have presented as goals - humans are rationalizing beings.
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Grav
Registered: 02/06/02
Posts: 4,454
Last seen: 11 years, 3 months
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Re: Don't Trust Government [Re: Evolving]
#2072838 - 11/05/03 10:24 AM (20 years, 4 months ago) |
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thanks
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Rono
DSYSB since '01
Registered: 01/25/01
Posts: 16,259
Loc: Calgary, Alberta
Last seen: 1 year, 28 days
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I give that article two thumbs up...nice find.
-------------------- "Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
Edited by Rono (11/05/03 10:29 AM)
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afoaf
CEO DBK?
Registered: 11/08/02
Posts: 32,665
Loc: Ripple's Heart
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word. I sent this letter to my rep last week when I read about the stonewall by the bush administration. -------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Representative %REPNAME, I am writing you to express my concern for the sanctity of the investigation into the failures of our government before the September 11th attacks that is currently being conducted by The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. Commission chairman, Thomas Kean, is now being forced to threaten or outright supboena officials because the Bush administration is refusing to turn over highly relevant files under the guise of national security concerns. The administration's behavior is doubly offensive when you take into account the fact that this group has only until May 27, 2004 to complete its report. Time is of the essence. The only way we can effectively prevent such atrocities from occuring again is by honestly addressing the shortcomings in the intelligence and defense communities as well as the FAA. Only by understanding our failures can we begin to implement the necessary reforms to ensure that Americans never have to relive the horror of domestic terrorism again. I hope that you will do all that you can to support this commission's endeavors. Further, I wholeheartedly believe that this group should have an extended, if not indefinite amount of time to conduct their investigation. When such precious things as human life are at stake, such unnecessary deadlines and restrictions seem to defeat the spirit of the cause. Thank you for your concern, %NAME %ADDRESS %PHONE
-------------------- All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.
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