Intelligence officials leaked to the that President Bush has given a classified order to the CIA allowing them to wage covert war in Iran:
The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert"black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current andformer officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter onABCNews.com.
The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of thesensitive nature of the subject, say President Bush has signed a"nonlethal presidential finding" that puts into motion a CIA plan thatreportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda,disinformation and manipulation of Iran's currency and internationalfinancial transactions.
This is analogous to the that Bush gave the CIA prior to the official start of war in Iraq.
For the last four years, Ahmadinejad has used the U.S. war in Iraq as means to create a nationalist reaction in Iran. Doing that has distracted public attention away from the Iranian economy, which is in shambles. In fact, earlier today the Iranian government raised the price of gasoline in their country by -- one of the largest state-sponsored gasoline increases since petroleum was discovered in mass. The Iranian public is angry, to put it mildly. What better way to divert attention away from those economic issues than by scaring the Iranian public into thinking that the U.S. is going to attack? This CIA order is a blessing in disguise for president Ahmadinejad because it gives him yet another excuse to consolidate power and purge his government of dissent.
is like the of the Blogosphere. Greenwald has from our government and major corporations for theAmerican people, he deserves an "atta-boy". If Alberto Gonzales wasn'tworried before, he should start getting worried. Greenwald and have done it again with a new video and in assisting "us" in getting rid of the lying sack of "unknowledge"
'The President won't fire him--but you can'
Bonus Vid:Jack Kingston owned by Greenwald. Kingston never seems like he knows what hes talking about
Two -- the "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" -- warned the Bush Administration just months before the invasion that regime change followed by occupation in Iraq would lead to regional instability:
The assessment on post-Hussein Iraq included judgments that whileIraq was unlikely to split apart, there was a significant chance thatdomestic groups would fight each other and that ex-regime militaryelements could merge with terrorist groups to battle any newgovernment. It even talks of guerrilla warfare, according tocongressional sources and former intelligence officials.
Thesecond NIC assessment discussed "political Islam being boosted and thewar being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in theregion," one former senior analyst said. It also suggested that fear of U.S. military dominance and occupation of a Middle East country -- one sacred to Islam -- would attract foreign Islamic fighters to the area.
TheNIC assessments paint "a very sobering and, as it has turned out,mostly accurate picture of the aftermath of the invasion," according toa former senior intelligence officer familiar with the studies. Hesought anonymity because he is not authorized to speak aboutstill-classified assessments.
As if it was not already difficult for the Administration to onto the CIA, this latest report makes it harder. The will be available in their entirety within the next week.
'My side, your side and the Hidden side' should be the motto ofthe Bush administration. Its gotten to the point that if the administrationtells us its sunny out, you have to look for a backdrop stretched out above (ormaybe you can actually watch it being stretched). Political scientist PeterMoore, while studying the wartime economy of Iraq, downloaded somedocuments from the ,and stumbled upon some "hidden" information. Actually it was Peter's 8year old son that did the stumbling. While waiting to play a computer game on"dad's" laptop, his son was clicking around....
, check "Mark up," under MicrosoftWord's "View" menu. Then, in the "Tools" menu, choose"Track changes," then "Highlight changes," and check the boxmarked "Highlight changes on screen." (This is the procedureapplicable for Word 2004 for Mac; others may vary.)
In doing so, it brought up all . (thought to have been deleted)
If you are in a Word document where "Track changes" has been turnedon, hitting "Mark up" will reveal all the deletions and insertionsever made in the document, complete with times, dates and (sometimes) theinitials of the editors. When my son did it, all the deleted passages in adocument with the innocuous name "Administrator's Weekly EconomicReport" suddenly appeared in blue and purple. It was the electronicequivalent of seeing every draft of an author's paper manuscript and all thepenciled changes made by the editors. I soon figured out that with a fewkeystrokes I could see the deleted passages in 20 of the 42 Word documents I'ddownloaded. For an academic like myself it was a small treasure trove, and afterI'd stopped hooting and hollering it took some time before I could convince mystartled son that he hadn't done anything wrong.
Posting sloppily edited documents on an official Web site pales in comparisonto some of the CPA's other mistakes. Its worst miscalculation was probablydissolving the Iraqi military on May 16, 2003, which jump-started the insurgencyby sending 400,000 trained soldiers into the streets without jobs.
the author gives six theories for the decline in violence.
One explanation given for the downturn is called "Rounding Up the Bums."It suggests that the U.S. military might have successfully quelled theinsurgency. Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack, who commanded the 82nd Airborne inIraq until May 2004, was well known for using aggressive tactics.
A second explanation hinges explicitly on an old ethnic stereotype about howArabs only understand force. The "Crossed the Line" argumentinsists that violence is intrinsic to Arab culture: "[It] is a form ofpolitical discourse as well as being culturally acceptable for settling disputesand scores.
A third explanation, "Occupation Ending," says that theinsurgents are backing off because they think the U.S. is about to depart. Moore'snote: (Four years later, the Bush administration often says any deadline fortroop withdrawal would increase attacks.)
A fourth argument, "ProjectMoney Flowing," embraces an enduring pillar of American foreign policy inthe Middle East. Economic development and free trade, according to the moneytheory, would solve political disputes.
A fifth theory,"Engagement," says that Iraqis have begun to have hope thanks tosustained contact with Americans. "We'll take some credit here. We havebeen engaging widely with ... ex-Baathists, ex-Army. While many are tiring ofthe refrain that if you stay with us things will get better, for some theyactually have improved and that many have given hope to entire groups." Theauthor calls these people "the various groups of losers in the NewIraq."
A final argument for the downturn in attacks offers what brieflylooks like a flash of reality. The "Operational Pause" theory surmisesthat reduced attacks may be a statistical blip. They may increase again as"terrorists" regroup for future fights against the Americans and"other Iraqis." But then the author calls this "a boringtheory," and notes, "There are very few persons we have met whosubscribe to this."
Nowhere in any of these theories, including the "boring" one, doesthe author address the dissolution of the Iraqi Army as a major contributor tothe violence. Nowhere, in fact, does the author seem to know which"bums" or "losers" are attacking the Americans or why.Indeed, the most remarkable passage in the entire deletion is a simple statementby an Iraqi businessman, whom the writer quotes in passing while explaining whyAmerican-induced economic prosperity will end the fighting. "It is nothingpersonal," the Iraqi says. "I like you and believe you could bebringing us a better future, but I still sympathize with those who attack thecoalition because it is not right for Iraq to be occupied by foreign militaryforces." In the world of the CPA circa 2004, first one American glossesover this Iraqi's prophetic words, and then another tries -- unsuccessfully, asit turns out -- to delete them.
As the new way forward continues, so does the never ending billows of smokebeing blown up our asses.
If you would rather go directly to the stories....
President Bush's new bill that has been sent to Congress would amend the -- the law that requires spy agencies to get a warrant from the a before wiretapping anyone inside the United States. The Administration's goal, should the bill pass, is to allow the NSA to spy on our soil without a warrant.
Now let's put aside the fact that the NSA should not be spying on us anyway, since it is their job to conduct foreign surveillance. Also ignore for a minute that the Bush Administration is currently in violation of that '78 law. Those two points are very important. But they are not my number one concern regarding this new bill.
My question is why does the Bush Administration would want to bypass the FISA courts? According to the , the FISA courts sided with the Administration 2,176 times in 2005. And how many warrants did the FISA courts not approve? Only one.
So if the FISA courts rule in the Administration's favor 99.95% of the time, how can Bush sit there and argue that the existing FISA law restrains the intelligence community's ability to keep our country safe?
More than anything, this bill appears to represent an unprecedented excuse to increase Executive power -- coming from a President that campaigned on a platform of smaller government.
This is from the new book by former CIA Director George Tenet, titled :
“There was never a serious debate that I know of within theadministration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,†Mr. Tenetwrites in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for manyyears. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion†aboutthe possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Tenet went on to add that his infamous "" comment about WMD's in Iraq was taken out of context, and that it had no impact on whether the Administration went to war. His with Vice President Dick Cheney was quite evident on one passage:
Mr. Tenet described with sarcasm watching an episode of “Meet thePress†last September in which Mr. Cheney twice referred to Mr. Tenet’s“slam dunk†remark as the basis for the decision to go to war.
“I remember watching and thinking, ‘As if you needed me to say ‘slam dunk’ to convince you to go to war with Iraq,’ †Mr. Tenet writes.
Tenet, who is scheduled to appear this Sunday on CBS' , will lash out at the Administration for .
What a surprise, Secretary of State Rice is going to takeadvantage of , and will answer any questions in writing, Rice said I have "" referring to what she knew about thegovernments claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger, which waslater proven to be false. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted and approved the subpoena 21 to 10.
The subpoena for Rice, committee led byCalifornia Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman, was part of a flurry of action in thestepped-up congressional oversight of how the Bush administration operates.
Rice said she had answered questions about the matter in three letters overthe last month and cited a legal doctrine that can shield a president and hisaides from having to answer questions from Congress.
When are theconservative "hold-outs" going to stop complaining about theinvestigations, and realize that something is very wrong with thisadministration. Stop sticking up and making excuses for this crap.
In my younger years I considered myself a Republican, I wasn't sure why, butit probably had something to do with my traditional points of view, even though my ways ofthinking were liberal. I suppose the bottom line was Ihad no clue. As I grew older I learned how to understand my views and combine andmold them into what turned out to be mainstream liberal. I'm not easilyconvinced or swayed about everything left, I need to see it, hear it andunderstand it before I hop on any band wagons. That's why when I saw the title , I was taken back a bit and thought another (nutty) conspiracytheory. Then I read it.
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there arecertain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutionalfreedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to betaking them all
I knew Bush did some evil things, andshould be impeached (and flogged), but how are they going to equate Bush toHitler?
Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the couptook a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list.In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down:the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residentialareas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press,tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.
NowI had to keep reading, I had to see how this British paper was going to tie U.S.policy to that of a military coup in Thailand.
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy -After we were hiton September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weekslater, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that hadlittle chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. Wewere told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "globalwar" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe outcivilisation". There have been other times of crisis in which the USaccepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincolndeclared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands ofJapanese-American citizens were interned.
2. Create a gulag - Once you have got everyone scared, the next stepis to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wantedthe American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal"outer space") - where torture takes place.
3. Develop a thug caste - Thugs in America? Groups of angry youngRepublican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workerscounting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you canimagine that there can be a need for "public order" on the nextelection day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election;history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a pollingstation "to restore public order".
4. Set up an internal surveillance system - In 2005 and 2006, whenJames Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret stateprogramme to wiretap citizens' phones, read their emails and followinternational financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans thatthey, too, could be under state scrutiny.
5. Harass citizens' groups - The fifth thing you do is related to stepfour - you infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. It can be trivial: a churchin Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, founditself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches thatgot Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, havebeen left alone.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release - In 2004, America'sTransportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list ofpassengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried tofly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peaceactivists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member ofVenezuela's government - after Venezuela's president had criticised Bush; andthousands of ordinary US citizens.
7. Target key individuals - Bush supporters in state legislatures inseveral states put pressure on regents at state universities to penalise or fireacademics who have been critical of the administration. As for civil servants,the Bush administration has derailed the career of one military lawyer who spokeup for fair trials for detainees, while an administration official publiclyintimidated the law firms that represent detainees pro bono by threatening tocall for their major corporate clients to boycott them.
8. Control the press - You won't have a shutdown of news in modernAmerica - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and SidneyBlumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well.What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false informationthat is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth fromuntruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying.When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands foraccountability bit by bit.
9. Dissent equals treason - Cast dissent as "treason" andcriticism as "espionage'. Every closing society does this, just as itelaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expandthe definition of "spy" and "traitor". When Bill Keller, thepublisher of the New York Times, ran the Lichtblau/Risen stories, Bush calledthe Times' leaking of classified information "disgraceful", whileRepublicans in Congress called for Keller to be charged with treason, andrightwing commentators and news outlets kept up the "treason"drumbeat. Some commentators, as Conason noted, reminded readers smugly that onepenalty for violating the Espionage Act is execution
.10. Suspend the rule of law - The John Warner Defense AuthorizationAct of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This meansthat in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers todeclare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that hehas declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and itscitizens.
Special Thanks to granny for pointing us to this information.
My thought's quickly changed. These steps are much more detailedin the article and can be .
2 other far left conspiracy theories that after seeing the information I was (conservatively) 65% convinced were true. Alex Jones's '' (w/ VIDEO), and Robert Greenwald's Iraq For Sale: ''.
I don't know if this guy is telling the truth or not, and I am sure he hassome terrorist ties, but that isn't what this post is about. It's about our intelligence,or lack thereof.
"" - In September 2006, advocating legislation for a Guantánamo war court,President Bush described Abu Zubaydah as ''a senior terrorist leader and atrusted associate of Osama bin Laden'' who survived wounds suffered duringhis capture because of CIA-orchestrated medical treatment.
He resisted interrogations, Bush said -- until the CIA employed ''analternative set of procedures'' and he spilled a series of al Qaeda plots.
If "an alternative set of procedures" gets information, how do youknow its the truth? It seems to me that throughout history people have"spilled their beans" because something "bad" was happening orabout to happen to them.
I don't have any answers to securing factual information from the enemy or a suspectedenemy, but somebody in the government better come up with some answers becauseour nations intelligence has a low IQ.
Vice President Cheney appeared on Limbaugh's radio show and repeated hisallegation that al-Qaeda was operating in Iraq "before we ever launched thewar, uner the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi"
"This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh'slisteners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq."Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawingU.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."
The only problem for the VP is he said this on the same day that the Pentagon's reportdiscounted al-Qaeda ties to Iraq.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman (D-Mich.), who requested the report's declassification, said in awritten statement that the complete text demonstrates more fully why theinspector general concluded that a key Pentagon office -- run bythen-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith -- had inappropriately writtenintelligence assessments before the March 2003 invasion alleging connectionsbetween al-Qaeda and Iraq that the U.S. intelligence consensus disputed.
EitherCheney doesn't realize this information is available to the public, he is lyingor he doesn't read the news. It really is amazing how the misinformation fromthe administration is still alive and well.
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