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InvisibleAlteredAgain
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Bush after 9/11
    #6052184 - 09/12/06 12:27 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/September2006/110906_b_After.htm

Bush After 9/11

DAVE LINDORFF | September 11 2006

The fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001 are a good time to take stock of where we've come since that day, and it is not a pretty picture.

Others are writing about what has been done to make the country safer from such attacks in the future (answer: not much), and about how the Iraq War, far from being a part of that project, was a duplicitous diversion that had nothing to do with combating terror, and everything to do with establishing the president as a "commander in chief."

I want to write about the five-year crime spree against the Constitution and the American people that began almost immediately as the buildings fell, and that today has the American Republic teetering on the brink of a totalitarian future. Because it is clear that Bush and his advisors, far from acting to unite the country and protect it from attack, used that horrible tragedy half a decade ago as an excuse to terrorize Congress and the American public, and as an excuse to set the nation on a permanent war footing, so as to aggrandize unchecked power and to usurp the powers of the Congress and the Courts, thus converting the presidency into a dictatorship.

We know the Bush team had their sights set on an invasion of Iraq from even before the president took his first oath of office. The ousted Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, a member from the outset of the White House National Security Council, has reported that at the first meeting of that body, several days into the first Bush term and long before the 9-11 attacks, the focus was on how to get the U.S. into a war against Iraq. "Find me a way to do this," O'Neill quotes our draft-dodging president as saying.

Within days of the attacks, the White House had cobbled together a massive document composed of hundreds of police-state measures submitted to Congress by police and right-wing legislators, and summarily rejected, over the years and cynically called it the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act. Barbara Olshansky, my co-author on our new book The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin's Press, May 2006), and deputy director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, says that many of the pages of the initial draft of that nightmarish legislation still had the old bill numbers of the rejected legislation that they had begun life as. Passed without discussion or debate, the new law effectively gutted the First, Fourth and Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments of the Constitution's Bill of Rights. But that was just the start.

In attacking Afghanistan and the Al Qaeda organization operating there, the president appropriately sought, and was granted by Congress, an Authorization for the Use of Force. But he has subsequently interpreted that authorization to pursue terrorism in Afghanistan and other jurisdictions around the world to mean he had been given the permanent title of commander in chief in a "war on terror" that has no conceivable end, and no boundaries (it includes the domestic U.S. in his view), and that this title authorizes him to override acts of Congress, orders of the Courts, the rules of government laid out in the U.S. Constitution, and international treaties and laws adopted by the U.S.

In short order, the president ignored Congress's passage of a funding bill for the war in Afghanistan, and called off the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, illegally shifting troops and personnel in that country away to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other areas around Iraq, in preparation for an invasion of that country.

While Bin Laden was left free and continue his plotting, a secret conspiracy was then organized by the Bush Administration, which included creation of an alternative intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, in the Pentagon, and a propaganda arm, the White House Iraq Group, all with the goal of manufacturing and pushing into the media fake evidence designed to frighten Congress and the American public into supporting war against Iraq. The OSP used lies and bogus "defectors" provided by the CIA-created Iraqi National Congress to gin up horror stories of germ weapons and chemical weapons programs, and even of a nonexistent nuclear weapons program by Saddam Hussein. One of the most elaborate hoaxes involved the use of forged documents purporting to be signed agreements by the government of the African state of Niger to provide 400 tons of uranium ore to Iraq.

These documents originated in Italy, where stationary and seals stolen from the Niger Embassy in Rome were used to give them a look of authenticity, but the forgers, apparently linked to the Italian intelligence service SISMI, were slipshod and signed the names of officials no longer in office in Niger. When the forgeries were easily spotted by U.S. intelligence experts, key members of the OSP, allegedly working together with Iran-Contra conspirator Michael Ledeen and notorious arms dealer and con-artist ManucherGorbanifar, as well as with the heads of Italian intelligence and defense, allegedly concocted a black-op scheme to recycle those forged documents through British intelligence, presenting them as "new" evidence of Hussein's nuclear ambitions.

It was this scheme that Cheney and Condi Rice were mendaciously citing when they referred ominously to a mushroom cloud threat in the fall of 2002, and that Bush lyingly referred to in his 2003 State of the Union message, when he said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The administration lies that launched the country into a war in Iraq were just that. Lies and a conspiracy against the public and against peace which have cost the lives of over 2700 American troops and of over 100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children. Even the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has now admitted that the administration's claims, like one linking Hussein to Al Qaeda, were bogus-but the did the trick all the same, and the country continues to pay the price, in blood and money.

Bush also used his "commander in chief" title to justify his decision to exempt hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan, and hundreds of others kidnapped from all over the world, and held in Guantanamo Bay's detention center, from the protections of the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court recently ruled that this decision was a violation not only of the Geneva Convention, but of the U.S. Criminal Code, which adopted the Third Geneva Convention on Treatment of POWs as a part of U.S. law in 1996. The president, that is to say, has already been declared to be a criminal by the highest court in the land. (I should note that some of the "terrorists" held for five years at Guantanamo were kids, some as young as seven and eight, at the time of their "capture"-a violation of the Geneva Accords. One of these children, brought to Guantanamo at age 12 from Afghanistan, was one of the three captives who committed suicide last June in despair at ever being released. Compounding the horror, the government had determined several weeks earlier, that he had been wrongly accused and had scheduled for him for release just three days after the day of his suicide. But government officials didn't bother to tell him. Though his attorney was told of his pending release, the government barred the attorney from contacting him.)

A lower federal court has also found the president to have criminally violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution for authorizing National Security Agency spying on the communications of tens of thousands of Americans without first seeking a warrant from the secret FISA Court.

When the Supreme Court slapped down the president's claim to have special powers as commander in chief, it effectively pulled the plug on his argument justifying other criminal abuses of power, including his refusal to provide information demanded by congressional committees and the bi-partisan 9-11 Commission, and his use of "signing statements" to invalidate all or part of over 850 laws enacted by Congress. The same court ruling undermines the president's claim that as commander in chief he has the power to declare any American to be an enemy combatant, subject to arrest without charge and detention without the right of habeas corpus access to the courts, or the power to authorize the use of torture against such individuals, or against other captured in the bogus "war" on terror.

The problem is that while the Supreme Court has made this determination regarding the president's criminal behavior, the president is constitutionally invulnerable from prosecution, even from war crimes. The only recourse is impeachment, which is the power to remove an elected president or any other federal official, and which belongs solely to the Congress.

Because both houses of Congress, and most importantly, the House of Representatives, are currently controlled by the Republican Party, which is in league with the president, there will be no impeachment of the president until at least this November.
At that point, however, if Democrats manage to gain the necessary 15 seats to gain a majority in the House, impeachment becomes not only a possibility, but a duty and a necessity.

It simply cannot be allowed for a president to commit the broad array of crimes against the Constitution and the People of the United States that President Bush has already committed, and for there to be no effort to impeach him. To allow that travesty to happen would not only be an insult to the memory of the Founding Fathers (and of those who died on 9-11, in whose names most of these crimes have so cynically been committed). It would also condemn us to a future in which subsequent presidents, of both parties, could commit the same crimes with impunity, citing the Bush presidency as a precedent.

Take just one crime-the use of signing statements to invalidate acts of Congress. If a Democratic Congress were not to impeach on this issue, and were to allow the president to continue with this abuse of his power, not one significant piece of Democratic legislation could pass into law without the president doctoring it to fit his own political needs. Moreover, a future president-say Hillary Clinton or Russ Feingold-could use the same tactic to invalidate laws passed by some future Republican Congress.

There are less than two months remaining before the November congressional election, at which all members of the House and a third of the members of the Senate must face the voters. The American people owe it to themselves, to the founders and to all the American soldiers who have died over the years fighting to defend America and the Constitution, to ensure that: 1) Democrats are given control of the House of Representatives, and 2) their own representative, whether Democrat or Republican, understands that this president is a serial Constitutional criminal who must be brought to justice.

That will be the best commemoration of 9-11: That Americans finally stood up as citizens of a great republic and demanded that their country survive not just the threat of terror from without, but the even more serious threat of tyranny from within.

:superkitty:


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Invisiblezorbman
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Registered: 06/04/04
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: AlteredAgain]
    #6052315 - 09/12/06 01:51 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

"Find me a way to do this," O'Neill quotes our draft-dodging president as saying.


His treatment of our military as his own personal army is what turned me against this President. I never failed to vote Republican President before Bush and was one of the minority who opposed the Iraq diversionary war from the beginning. Before I was joined by most of the country when emotions subsided and they could think straight again I was called "traitor" and worse by the dopes who support these neocon chicken hawks.

I am glad the rest of the country has caught up to people like me, but I wish they could smell the BS from the very beginning in the future. It would save a lot of trouble for a lot of us.

Nowadays the administration is carefuly to not portray dissenters as "traitors", but boy oh boy that wasn't the case in the beginning. They let all their attack dogs go on us back then. It is a lesson.

If the so-called "War on Terror" were to become popular again I have no doubt they'd go right back to labeling us "traitors". (The word "treason" is thrown around commonly in conservative talk radio. They are laying the groundwork.) In their heart-of-hearts I have no doubt that many would like to see us in their FEMA relocation camps and will use the fear generated by terrorist attacks to gather more and more power for the executive to see that all dissenters are eventually oppressed.

I have no doubt this sounds like crazy-talk to some here, but if you read history you'll see that this is how it begins.

Neocons have forgotten the lessons of history.

You become what you hate.


"Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares also into you."

—Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, chapter 4, no. 14

Witness prisoner abuse at Abu Gharid, secret CIA prison camps, rendition and torture by our side.

Meet the new boss,

Same as the old boss
.

-"Won't Get Fooled Again" -The Who



This country is moving towards a theocracy.

More executive power is a stated goal of many neocons, that's public record. This in spite of our founding fathers goal of a purposefully weak executive given their experience with King George.

I admit all this is a minority view NOW. But then again so was my anti-war stance pre-Iraq invasion! I see where this is headed and I am not alone. I just pray we will have the ability to resist by the time the American people wake up to the hidden agenda of those who are preaching peace while pushing war.

This so-called War on Terror is being sold to us as an open-ended war. A war whose end is not in sight and which may last generations.

How convenient.

In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the way a seemingly democratic president kept his nation in a continual state of repression was by conducting a continuous war.

Our founding fathers warned us against this.

James Madison said, "war is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them." "The strongest passions and the most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast," he wrote "are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace."

He went on to state, "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

So hopefully our nation will give pause and carefully consider what is being done in their name. In spite of the hyper-macho stance taken by this chicken hawk administration they are strangely sensitive to criticism. They have begun to attack critical newspapers such as the New York Times and judges who oppose their will.

To those who can see, this crowd is setting the stage for violent repression.

All they need is an excuse..


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“The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”  -- Rudiger Dornbusch

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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: AlteredAgain]
    #6052357 - 09/12/06 02:31 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

I wish the Democrats would give this kind of crap a rest.

I'm sorry but at the end of the day, the Republicans are a hell of a lot closer to the founding fathers than the Democrats will ever be. (of course, IMHO the Libertarians are the closest, but they're not likely to win in the near future)

The ignorance of actual historical facts in this article is apparent immediately when the author refers to "This in spite of our founding fathers goal of a purposefully weak executive given their experience with King George". To say so is to purposefully interpret a piece of the Federalist Anti-Federalist debate as though it was the foundation of the revolution, and not something that happened afterwards

The reality is that the American colonists didn't really care about being subjects of King George: it was Parliament that concerned them.

Consider the famous cry of "No taxation without representation" how could this possibly refer to King George? Simple: It didn't, it referred to the lack of American representation in Parliament.

Furthermore, the American Revolution was NOT about personal freedoms, it was about economic freedoms, something the Democrats certainly do not believe in. The American colonists wanted an elimination of the several taxes imposed by Parliament, an elimination of the Mercantilist trading system, and greater protection of propert rights.

The Democrats believe in none of those things. The Democrats favor higher taxes, protectionist trade tariffs, and forced wealth redistribution. To claim that voting for the Democrats would somehow align one with the "Found Fathers" is pure crap.

It's one thing to attack President Bush for the horrible things his administration has forced upon this country. It's another to make the Democrats out to be some bastion of the "ideals of the American Revolution" which they clearly are not.

Even many of the opinions expressed in the article would directly contradict actual views of the founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson, for instance, would have disagreed with the decisions of the Supreme Court:

"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." -Thomas Jefferson on the right of the Supreme court to overrule the Executive, 1820

Edited by Economist (09/12/06 02:40 AM)

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InvisibleAlteredAgain
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: Economist]
    #6053056 - 09/12/06 11:15 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

to vote democrat this year makes it possible to impeach Bush and remove him from office, that is the point.

in my opinion this has less to do with "aligning with our founding fathers" than it has to do with ending domestic tyranny and bringing back our true values of peace and lawfulness, not war and injustice.


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OfflineEconomist
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: AlteredAgain]
    #6053153 - 09/12/06 11:39 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

AlteredAgain said:
in my opinion this has less to do with "aligning with our founding fathers" than it has to do with ending domestic tyranny and bringing back our true values of peace and lawfulness, not war and injustice.




Except that empowering Democrats merely replaces one type of tyranny with another.

Instead of the Republicans taking my privacy, Democrats are going to take my money and my jobs.

Personally, I'd rather lose my privacy and keep my money, if you feel otherwise, I feel bad for you. God help us before we join France and Germany with unemployment rates in excess of 10% and no-growth economies.

I think government-imposed poverty is a hell of a lot more tyrannical than anything the Republicans are doing.

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InvisibleAlteredAgain
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: Economist]
    #6053423 - 09/12/06 01:03 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

from the words of an economist.. :grin:

no, i see your view and i acknowledge it.

i, myself, still young and with not a whole lot of money, am concerned about losing my privacy, not only because i smoke pot and use psychedelics, but also because i believe that mass-surveillance, high-speed consumerism, and lack of peace are crippling humanity and the individual's spirit.

i see the development of society running down a rocky path, i don't think there is a dead-end, but there sure is going to be a fork, and what path we choose to follow, will ultimately determine the lives of our children.

i'm not against capitalism, and i'm not for it. i see our economic system as a catalyst for growth, population increase, technology enhancement, and culture. the downside is, the capitalistic machine runs not on human spirit, but on money, and money is a resource, and as we learn from the earth, resources are not unlimited.

the potential for capitalism i see is to create ideas, not material objects. ideas themselves don't require wood, oil, or steel, ideas are light, and light is unlimited. the internet is a good start.

but to keep plundering the body of our planet to build bigger skyscrapers, faster cars, and hollywood glamour, well, i think we just cannot afford that anymore..

i'm straying a bit off the subject here, but this is a good discussion. :thumbup:

EDIT: dem/rep both sides of the same coin, we need a new coin. :mushroom2:


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Edited by AlteredAgain (09/12/06 01:08 PM)

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OfflineRosettaStoned
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Registered: 05/29/06
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: Economist]
    #6053597 - 09/12/06 02:07 PM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

Democrats are going to take my money and my jobs.





Care to expand upon that? How are democrats going to take your money and jobs more than what the repubs have already done?


--------------------
"Government big enough to provide you with all you need is also big enough to take everything you have." ~ Thomas Jefferson

"Without stupid, faggy potheads we wouldn't have wars." - Zappa

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OfflineViveka
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Re: Bush after 9/11 [Re: AlteredAgain]
    #6056870 - 09/13/06 11:30 AM (17 years, 8 months ago)

Quote:

the downside is, the capitalistic machine runs not on human spirit, but on money, and money is a resource, and as we learn from the earth, resources are not unlimited.




What? The scarcity of resources is linked to the status quo. Sure, as long as people get things done with petroleum, the problem of petrolium scarcity exists. But as soon as another means of getting things done is devised and implemented, petroluem scarcity is no longer an issue. Resources are unlimited, as long as human ingenuity continues to be.

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