I found it, but it was locked!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Democrat says Alito hearings may be pointless - The Changing Court - MSNBC.com
Democrat says Alito hearings may be pointless - The Changing Court - MSNBC.com: "two senators in a testy exchange and Alito�s wife bursting into tears"
Blogger Thoughts: Example of MSNBC getting it wrong.
Blogger Thoughts: Example of MSNBC getting it wrong.
Trees
I figured this would be the best way to capture the trees, of all the options I had in front of me. I had Velvia in my TX, the a95, and TMax P3200 loaded in the Stylus. I figured that if I used the TX or the a95, I'd blow out the skies, wheras the dynamic range of B&W film, even P3200, would make it a better image.
Judge Alito, in His Own Words - New York Times
Judge Alito, in His Own Words - New York Times
January 12, 2006
Editorial
Judge Alito, in His Own Words
Some commentators are complaining that Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings have not been exciting, but they must not have been paying attention. We learned that Judge Alito had once declared that Judge Robert Bork - whose Supreme Court nomination was defeated because of his legal extremism - "was one of the most outstanding nominees" of the 20th century. We heard Judge Alito refuse to call Roe v. Wade "settled law," as Chief Justice John Roberts did at his confirmation hearings. And we learned that Judge Alito subscribes to troubling views about presidential power.
Those are just a few of the quiet bombshells that have dropped. In his deadpan bureaucrat's voice, Judge Alito has said some truly disturbing things about his view of the law. In three days of testimony, he has given the American people reasons to be worried - and senators reasons to oppose his nomination. Among those reasons are the following:
EVIDENCE OF EXTREMISM Judge Alito's extraordinary praise of Judge Bork is unsettling, given that Judge Bork's radical legal views included rejecting the Supreme Court's entire line of privacy cases, even its 1965 ruling striking down a state law banning sales of contraceptives. Judge Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton - a group whose offensive views about women, minorities and AIDS victims were discussed in greater detail at yesterday's hearing - is also deeply troubling, as is his unconvincing claim not to remember joining it.
OPPOSITION TO ROE V. WADE In 1985, Judge Alito made it clear that he believed the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He had many chances this week to say he had changed his mind, but he refused. When offered the chance to say that Roe is a "super-precedent," entitled to special deference because it has been upheld so often, he refused that, too. As Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, noted in particularly pointed questioning, since Judge Alito was willing to say that other doctrines, like one person one vote, are settled law, his unwillingness to say the same about Roe strongly suggests that he still believes what he believed in 1985.
SUPPORT FOR AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY Judge Alito has backed a controversial theory known as the "unitary executive," and argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he installs illegal wiretaps. Judge Alito backed away from one of his most extreme statements in this area - his assertion, in a 1985 job application, that he believed "very strongly" in "the supremacy of the elected branches of government." But he left a disturbing impression that as a justice, he would undermine the Supreme Court's critical role in putting a check on presidential excesses.
INSENSITIVITY TO ORDINARY AMERICANS' RIGHTS Time and again, as a lawyer and a judge, the nominee has taken the side of big corporations against the "little guy," supported employers against employees, and routinely rejected the claims of women, racial minorities and the disabled. The hearing shed new light on his especially troubling dissent from a ruling by two Reagan-appointed judges, who said that workers at a coal-processing site were covered by Mine Safety and Health Act protections.
DOUBTS ABOUT THE NOMINEE'S HONESTY Judge Alito's explanation of his involvement with Concerned Alumni of Princeton is hard to believe. In a 1985 job application, he proudly pointed to his membership in the organization. Now he says he remembers nothing of it - except why he joined, which he insists had nothing to do with the group's core concerns. His explanation for why he broke his promise to Congress to recuse himself in any case involving Vanguard companies is also unpersuasive. As for his repeated claims that his past statements on subjects like abortion and Judge Bork never represented his personal views or were intended to impress prospective employers - all that did was make us wonder why we should give any credence to what he says now.•
The debate over Judge Alito is generally presented as one between Republicans and Democrats. But his testimony should trouble moderate Republicans, especially those who favor abortion rights or are concerned about presidential excesses. The hearings may be short on fireworks, but they have produced, through Judge Alito's words, an array of reasons to be concerned about this nomination.
January 12, 2006
Editorial
Judge Alito, in His Own Words
Some commentators are complaining that Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings have not been exciting, but they must not have been paying attention. We learned that Judge Alito had once declared that Judge Robert Bork - whose Supreme Court nomination was defeated because of his legal extremism - "was one of the most outstanding nominees" of the 20th century. We heard Judge Alito refuse to call Roe v. Wade "settled law," as Chief Justice John Roberts did at his confirmation hearings. And we learned that Judge Alito subscribes to troubling views about presidential power.
Those are just a few of the quiet bombshells that have dropped. In his deadpan bureaucrat's voice, Judge Alito has said some truly disturbing things about his view of the law. In three days of testimony, he has given the American people reasons to be worried - and senators reasons to oppose his nomination. Among those reasons are the following:
EVIDENCE OF EXTREMISM Judge Alito's extraordinary praise of Judge Bork is unsettling, given that Judge Bork's radical legal views included rejecting the Supreme Court's entire line of privacy cases, even its 1965 ruling striking down a state law banning sales of contraceptives. Judge Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton - a group whose offensive views about women, minorities and AIDS victims were discussed in greater detail at yesterday's hearing - is also deeply troubling, as is his unconvincing claim not to remember joining it.
OPPOSITION TO ROE V. WADE In 1985, Judge Alito made it clear that he believed the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He had many chances this week to say he had changed his mind, but he refused. When offered the chance to say that Roe is a "super-precedent," entitled to special deference because it has been upheld so often, he refused that, too. As Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, noted in particularly pointed questioning, since Judge Alito was willing to say that other doctrines, like one person one vote, are settled law, his unwillingness to say the same about Roe strongly suggests that he still believes what he believed in 1985.
SUPPORT FOR AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY Judge Alito has backed a controversial theory known as the "unitary executive," and argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he installs illegal wiretaps. Judge Alito backed away from one of his most extreme statements in this area - his assertion, in a 1985 job application, that he believed "very strongly" in "the supremacy of the elected branches of government." But he left a disturbing impression that as a justice, he would undermine the Supreme Court's critical role in putting a check on presidential excesses.
INSENSITIVITY TO ORDINARY AMERICANS' RIGHTS Time and again, as a lawyer and a judge, the nominee has taken the side of big corporations against the "little guy," supported employers against employees, and routinely rejected the claims of women, racial minorities and the disabled. The hearing shed new light on his especially troubling dissent from a ruling by two Reagan-appointed judges, who said that workers at a coal-processing site were covered by Mine Safety and Health Act protections.
DOUBTS ABOUT THE NOMINEE'S HONESTY Judge Alito's explanation of his involvement with Concerned Alumni of Princeton is hard to believe. In a 1985 job application, he proudly pointed to his membership in the organization. Now he says he remembers nothing of it - except why he joined, which he insists had nothing to do with the group's core concerns. His explanation for why he broke his promise to Congress to recuse himself in any case involving Vanguard companies is also unpersuasive. As for his repeated claims that his past statements on subjects like abortion and Judge Bork never represented his personal views or were intended to impress prospective employers - all that did was make us wonder why we should give any credence to what he says now.•
The debate over Judge Alito is generally presented as one between Republicans and Democrats. But his testimony should trouble moderate Republicans, especially those who favor abortion rights or are concerned about presidential excesses. The hearings may be short on fireworks, but they have produced, through Judge Alito's words, an array of reasons to be concerned about this nomination.
Dawn Ducks and Cattails
This morning I was drawn to this clump of cattails on Heron Lake. As I approached it a Great Blue Heron sprang out and flew away before I could ready my camera! There were plenty of other birds on the lake this morning too, but I hope I can approach more cautiously and get a shot of the Heron in the future.
Dadahead - This blog kills fascists: Howard Stern on decency
Dadahead - This blog kills fascists: Howard Stern on decency
Howard Stern on decency
On Monday, Howard Stern began his new program on Sirius satellite radio. Part of the show was devoted to an on-air press conference given by Stern, where he answered questions from the media for about an hour or so. One of the reporters asked him:
Can you define for us what you believe 'indecent' would be?Stern's response:
... I think there are a lot of things in this country that are indecent. I think the war going on in Iraq right now is not fair to the guys serving over there. I think that they haven't been equipped properly. When I read about vests that don't work, that these guys drive around in tanks that aren't properly suited up, that we might have gotten in there on a lie ... I find that indecent.
I find it indecent when the hypocrites in this country, particularly the religious right, say they don't want abortions, they don't want a woman to have the right to choose, but then at the same point, when a child is born into poverty and has no way out, they're against affirmative action. How can you be for all these births, and then when someone needs a handout like George Bush got from his father, we say no? That's indecent to me.
When the Church covers up that a priest is molesting boys, and they just move him to another parish, that's indecent. That's indecent to me.
When the religious right acts like the Taliban, and doesn't tolerate other people's opinions, other people's sexuality ... gay people in this country have every right to live here, have every right to be open about their sexuality ... the more you suppress gay people, the more miserable you make them, the worse our society gets.
Q: Right, but when it comes to bodily functions and language, you don't think anything's indecent?
Compared to what I just mentioned, no. Because we all go to the bathroom ... Big deal. When you talk about Senator Stevens from Alaska building a bridge to nowhere with taxpayer money while our boys in Iraq aren't protected, that's indecent. How can you get upset about urinating jokes?
2 Comments:
Howard's questioning the status quo! Quick, someone shut him up before he hurts any more American soldiers!
By Joe, at 1/11/2006 4:43 PM
Howard Stern and his ilk of shock jocks are quite disgusting to my middle aged sensibilities. But I don't have to listen to them ... their world does not spill over into mine. I don't have the same luxury to shut out the elected "leaders" and their mischief. Their greed, arrogance and corruption affect me by shaping the world I live in now and the world that the coming generations will inherit. What is so patently hypocritical is that Howard Stern does not pretend to "save" anyone with his potty mouth but George Bush took us to a bloody and capricious war under the pretext of saving us and the Iraqis. A foul mouth is child's play compared to the gross obscenity of selfishness, deception, exploitation and mindless aggression.
By Ruchira Paul, at 1/11/2006 6:00 PM
Repost: Saturday on codshit.com
09/11/2001
Opinion
Dupes and dupers in London, America, and the world
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.
August 6, 2005—Now that the British police and intelligence are having second doubts about the four bombers being suicide bombers, the notion has surfaced that maybe they were duped into dying. The question is who are the dupers?
After all, each of the four young men who died (or vanished) on July 7 had purchased round trip railway tickets from Luton to London. I guess you wouldn't do that if you weren't planning to come back. Germaine Lindsay's rented car was left in Luton with a seven-day parking sticker on the dashboard. Also, a large quantity of explosive was left in the trunk of that car, maybe for a second round of bombings.
One of the other alleged bombers also had his car fixed, probably to insure a getaway. What's more, all the men carried driver's licenses and other ID cards with them to their deaths, unusual for suicide bombers, unless you were Mohammed Atta, and your ID somehow managed to pop up clean and clear as day in the wreckage of 9/11. That is, after the plane you flew into the tower exploded in flames and came down in a heap with the building. But that could be someone else's way of saying, hint, hint, it was him, he did it, which might indicate someone was trying to dupe us. Who could that have been?
Well let's think. Maybe the London guys carrying the bombs onto the trains were 'mules," who planned to just leave them to make a few bucks. Maybe they were angry young men making a political statement, maybe both. Their handler might have promised it was an in and out job and they could get out before the blast. The blasts might have surprised them as much as the horrified onlookers and victims. Bottom line, dead men tell no tales, which perhaps they never considered. But 57 minutes later, the fourth bomber, who I guess never bothered to check on his first three cohorts, went up in smoke the same way. Witnesses, it is said, actually saw him put his hand in the backpack—to ignite the bomb or look for his shades and split? We'll never know.
Then we have the July 21 bombers, exactly two weeks later, for whom practice obviously didn't make perfect. The bombs failed to explode. The bomber on the bus took off as the detonator fizzled. Did he and the others instantly assume they might be on their way to heaven? If so, maybe they weren't ready to meet the virgins waiting there. Maybe they were lightweights. And calling them suicide bombers, calling on the full flagon of fear from the English and Europe, was bloody unnecessary, and not a signal for a new level of threat. After all, it is easier to recruit "mules" than die-hard patsies, a la the 9/11 guys (if indeed they were) or Lee Harvey Oswalds (one or two of them), the genuine article(s) or even Jack Rubys, dying of cancer in jail, lips sealed in Omerta. So what are we dealing with here, and whom? In addition, the explosives went from being high level military material to home-brewed boom for the blooming home boys.
Supposedly there's some lively debate going on about the level of commitment and fear ratings in intelligence circles. Or maybe the intelligence agencies, MI-5, MI-6 or CIA, are purposely going round in circles to obfuscate. Because we all know, or should, this is an inside job, a booster shot for Tony Bliar's, excuse me, Tony Blair's War on Terror. Some people even think that saying, as the New York Times did, "that the initial hypothesis that the July 7 attacks were carried out by determined fanatics willing to die in the name of a radical interpretation of Islam may have been too simplistic." Well, it's good to see the investigative principal of questioning government press releases is still alive in the uptown press.
The Times went on to say that maybe these weren't "dedicated but stupid guys run by a smart group of people pulling the strings." Now there's a memorable line, a kind of one-size fits all terrorists' line. And maybe even Hanni Hanjor (the purported idiot, according to his flying instructor) who supposedly flew Flight 77, didn't know he was going down with the plane, if he and his buddies were on the four flights at all. They weren't listed on the manifests, nor did anyone actually prove they were on the planes.
But subsequently the so-called 19, 9/11 terrorists, their names and pictures were produced only 19 hours after the tragedies out of a hat by the same dysfunctional FBI that couldn't stop them in the first place. Is there a pattern here of disinformation along with dysfunction? And may it all be for the purpose of obfuscation, part of a process Webster Tarpley calls 'synthetic terror' in his new book, 911 Synthetic Terror- Made in USA, and in the London case, made in Great Britain.
The Concept of 'Synthetic Terror'
It is Tarpley's notion that 'synthetic terror' is state-sponsored, using members, poseurs or manufactured sympathizers, of nations that we want to attack us, to get our people to want to kick the bejesus out of those nations, in this case out of the Islamic world. And that would include our arch enemy, Osama bin Laden, whom Donald Rumsfeld has told us, he would much rather have dead than alive. "You can bet your life on it," he told reporters. Because, what, dead men don't talk? And old Osama, who's been on the CIA payroll since 1978, was hired by the agency and Saudi and Pakistani intelligence, to lead an army of Mujihadeen. They in turn were trained, armed and paid for by the CIA as well to fight the Soviets, whom our own Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security chief, provoked into attacking Afghanistan in '78.
So who's your daddy, Osama? Tarpley's book on page 149, tells us of an October 2001 article in Le Figaro by Alexandra Richard, who reported, "The CIA met bin Laden in Dubai in July" [of 2001], two months before 9/11." Imagine that. An American France Presse dispatch quoted in Tarpley's book says,
Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in Dubai where he met a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official . . . Quoting a "witness," a professional partner of the administrative management of the hospital, they said the man suspected by the United State of being behind the September 11 terrorist attacks had arrived in Dubai on July 4 by air from Quetta, Pakistan. He was immediately taken to the hospital for kidney treatment. He left the establishment on July 14.
The dispatch also reports that the CIA man was named Larry Mitchell, Osama's handler and case officer. He was seen going into bin Laden's room and later "boasting to his friends of the meeting." Le Figaro also reported that bin Laden brought his own doctor, and a close collaborator who would be the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, along with bodyguards and a personal nurse. Dr. Terry Callaway was bin Laden's urologist and attended to his serious kidney condition. Bin Laden also had had a mobile dialysis machine sent to his Kandahar hideout in Afghanistan in the first half of 2000 . . ." Of course, the CIA denied this all, despite reconfirmation from the ballsy French investigative reporters.
So we were in touch with the world's number one terror maven several months before he supposedly spearheaded 9/11. What could the conversation have been about, past exploits or future projects? Did bin Laden know what he was really getting into? In fact, in his first post-9/11 speech he expressed surprise at how extensive the damage was, and that the towers actually fell. Perhaps it was like the British bombers meeting with their handlers, their spooks duping the dupes in London. If the notion works for the super-heavies, why wouldn't it work for the lightweights? After all it serves the greater oligarchic cause of ruthless rule of the few and not democracy's cause of serving the 'common good.'
Also, consider who the players are on both sides of the pond: the British queen, what with her $100 billion stashed in her private Coutt's bank in London, her palaces, lands, investments and such, and her good friends and 13th cousin, Georgie Bush 43 and her 12th, 41, who keep a few bucks (billons) there too, a kind of all in the family deal.
As to London as a recruiting ground, Tarpley writes,
The role of London as the leading center of Islamic radicalism has been an open secret for years, but has never been reported by the US controlled corporate media . . . In the post colonial world, the British have found it to their advantage to encourage violent movements which could be used for destabilizations and assassinations in the former colonies, which their ex-masters did not want to see become strong and effective modern states. Between 1995 and 1999, protests were lodged by many countries concerning the willingness of the British government to permit terror groups to operate from British territory. Among the protestors were: Israel, Algeria, Turkey, Libya, Yemen, India, Egypt, France, Peru, Germany, Nigeria, and Russia. This is a list which, if widely known, might force certain US radio commentators to change their world picture about who is soft on terrorism.
'It Must Have Been Forces Behind Them'
Returning to our four 7/7 bombers, in a July 27 New York Times article, headlined "Police Debate if London Plotters Were Suicide Bombers, or Dupes" . . . it was reported that "Shehzad Tanweer's uncle, Bashir Ahmed, 65, said his family had no idea that the 22-year old Leeds man who loved cricket and soccer was planning a suicide attack. 'It must have been forces behind him.'"
"The family of Germaine Lindsay, 19, also said they were stunned. His wife, Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, said her late husband was 'a loving husband and father' who had shown 'absolutely no sign of doing this atrocious crime.'" Ah well, love, but we can't ask him, can we? He and his fellow conspirators are conspicuously gone.
But as the Times tells us, "Mark Baillie, the terror and defense expert at the Center for Defense and International Security Studies, said the debate about whether the July 7 bombers intended to die 'is something that everybody is beginning to talk about. It would have been very interesting if they were tricked.'" Indeed, sir. And to know just who of your dupers scuttling in the shadows, shadow people themselves, did so.
So use this little episode as the great English Poet William Blake suggests, "To see the universe in a grain of sand," in this case, the micro terror event working like the macro. Think of Osama in his cave, with his kidney dialysis machine, his laptop in his hand, and a few rough hewn associates on the move with him, and think of the pinpoint precision of the colossal bombings that 9/11 morning, and of the huge apparatus it took to coordinate the many parallel "terror hijack exercises" that were going on along with the real thing.
Richard Clarke Decides it Was al Qaeda
And so the principle of synthetic terror remains, whether in London or New York, Africa or the Middle East. The physical terror caused deep psychological terror, which engendered feelings of hatred of the supposed perpetrators, who we were told later were Islamic terrorists, and all al Qaeda, the CIA's household name, actually the name on a file on bin Laden's laptop, which contained the names of fighters he had met in his 10 years of war in Afghanistan. And how did the al Qaeda revelation come about? Perhaps in part as Tarpley tells us on page 20 of his book. . . .
[Richard] Clarke tells us in his memoir that he attempted to collect his thought about the events going on around him [on 9/11] as he walked from the White House Secure Videoconferencing Center just off the Situation Room across the White House to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, which was Cheney's underground bunker:
"In the quiet of the walk, I caught my breath for the first time that day: This was the 'Big al Qaeda Attack' we had warned was coming and it was bigger than almost anything we had imagined, short of a nuclear weapon." (Clarke 17)
Tarpley himself states:
This is already one of the most fateful snap judgments in world history. Had Clarke utterly forgotten the lessons of Oklahoma City, when leaders had inspired the report that the explosion was the work of Muslims? Clarke had no proof then, and has come forward with none since.
Rushing to overtake Clarke as the leading hipshot in snap strategic diagnosis was CIA Director Tenet [of Slam Dunk fame]. While Bush was cowering in his spider hole at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, he conducted a National Security Council meeting by means of teleconference screens. "Who do you think did this to us?" Bush asked Tenet. Tenet was emphatic: "Sir, I believe it's al Qaeda." (Bamford 2004 91) In other words, Tenet also had no proof, no evidence, no case—just his crude Lockean sense certainty, real or feigned.
Later, after the World Trade Center 7 had gone through its inexplicable and embarrassing collapse at about 5:50 PM, Clarke addressed a high-level interagency meeting from the Situation Room. Present by video link were Armitage of State, General Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and other important officials. Clarke stated: "Okay, we all know this was al Qaeda. FBI and meantime, let's go with the assumption it's al Qaeda. What's next?" (Clarke 23) Before he went to bed in the White House, Bush jotted a note to himself: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. We think it's Osama bin Laden" (Bamford 2004 92).
There's nothing like hard-nosed investigative fact-finding to reach a conclusion. Only the nation's and perhaps the world's future were at stake. But perhaps it was all so easy to believe for Bush & Company because these ideas had been in the air for quite a while to act upon or ignore, in the form of copious FBI and CIA reports, suppressed or quietly observed.
And from Clarke's point on, it was only a matter of reiteration and official finger-pointing at Osama—from Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, et al. And despite the warnings of Professor Paul Rogers, as Tarpley reminds us, warnings against assuming Middle Eastern extremists were behind the tragedy, the hysteria, the orchestrated hysteria, spread like wildfire, to a war in Afghanistan to unsuccessfully find bin Laden, to a war in Iraq on false premises that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and god knows what else and where next.
What Really Did Happen in Oklahoma?
Moreover, just in case you're wondering about the bottom line on the Oklahoma bombing, let me provide some facts that predate the above scenarios . . .
Raw news footage and reports in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing show that local TV reporters stated over and over that two additional, sophisticated, undetonated explosive devices were found by investigators on the scene. TV reporters questioned the official government version that an "extremist" and his friend acted alone (like Lee Harvey Oswald and his double?), this time using a Ryder rental truck and a 1,200 pound ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO) bomb to destroy the building's face.
KWTV-9, KFORTV-5 and Channel 4's initial feature reports, confirmed by state, local, and federal officials, told that a total of three bombs had been placed inside the Murrah building. Obviously, one went off inside the building, collapsing it. Two did not and may have been slated for early responders and further rescuers. Reporters confirmed that the two other bombs "were larger than the first one" that blew up inside, not outside, the building. The other two bombs were found inside the east and west sides of the building. The Ryder truck explosion occurred in front, on the north side of the building. TV-9 also reported "the U.S. Justice Department confirmed" that other bombs were found in the structure.
In later reports, within hours of the blast, news crews reported federal and local authorities confirmed the two other explosives (bombs) had been "defused" and "moved off site." This was not unlike early reports of JFK being hit by four bullets, two from the front, two from the rear, which had to be inflicted by several shooters. Later the story changed to three bullets, all from the rear, and from one shooter. So it goes.
McVeigh, the right arm of the not-so-lone assassin team, said he did it in return for the destruction of the Branch Davidians in Waco, giving the feds "dirty for dirty." TV news reported President Clinton said three anti-terrorist teams were en route from D.C. to investigate. And that the White House and Justice Department . . . have said [the bomb] was the work of a sophisticated group and would have had to been carried out by an explosives expert. Critics complained McVeigh and Nichols were not known experts. Later that day into the next, details of witnesses, the authorities, the rescue efforts began to change. Just like JFK assassination reports. Especially after Oswald was shot by Ruby and Kennedy's body had been whisked away to Bethesda Naval Hospital.
In 24 hours, honchos from BAFT (Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco) reversed stories and said that the explosion hadn't occurred in the building, but the damage was caused by the "car" parked in front, packed with an ANFO bomb. Soon the "car" was a Ryder rental truck and the bomb grew in size to 4,500 pounds. Pundits began to pooh-pooh the second and third bomb stories, focusing on the single north-face blast as the one and only. Nevertheless, witnesses said they felt the Murrah building "shake and shift" for several seconds from within, before "glass blew on top of them." One said he saw the ceiling collapse "several seconds before the glass blew in." Experts outside of D.C. said the ANFO bomb was intended to mask the internal explosion and, in fact, gave the government a plausible reason for its single bullet, excuse me, 'single bomb outside' version.
In the years following the tragedy, investigators of all kinds gleaned through old evidence and found new evidence to suggest the early reports were probably the most accurate. One website posted official government documents and statements substantiating the three-bomb reports first aired by local TV news. A Department of Defense Atlantic Command memo released a day after the blast says " . . . a second bomb was disarmed; a third bomb evacuated . . ." A Federal Emergency Management Agency report dated April 20, 1995, confirms the reality of three bombs in the building. A U.S. Forces Command daily log report said the same day: "two more explosive devices located in vicinity of explosion site. Evidently intended for rescuers." Also, independent engineers, explosives experts, and military analysts' studies conclude the government's "single truck-single bomb" explanation "technically impossible."
Curiously, the Murrah building was torn down two weeks after the attack. The site was covered with dirt and like the Twin Towers wreckage the building materials were trucked to a dump, though this one was manned by armed guards and buried. What could they be hiding? Could it be any existing evidence? Or the fact that witnesses reported three men in the parking garage of the Murrah building? It was nine stories tall and had a four-floor parking garage underneath. These men were working with electrical equipment and pointing at various parts of the garage in the days before the attack. Many survivors said some of these men were dressed in uniforms identified by the words "Government Services Administration." Get that. The witness had never seen them before or since! Were they government black ops, out to give America its first big terror punch?
And So Forth and So On . . .
I will spare you the first World Trade Tower's real story, and ask you to investigate that on your own in Tarpley's book. But think of the March of Time and memory. And how it forces one to consider who our friends are and who are not. And who or what our government has become, or became one day, when no one was looking because life was too good, in New York, London or Timbuktu.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
Opinion
Dupes and dupers in London, America, and the world
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.
August 6, 2005—Now that the British police and intelligence are having second doubts about the four bombers being suicide bombers, the notion has surfaced that maybe they were duped into dying. The question is who are the dupers?
After all, each of the four young men who died (or vanished) on July 7 had purchased round trip railway tickets from Luton to London. I guess you wouldn't do that if you weren't planning to come back. Germaine Lindsay's rented car was left in Luton with a seven-day parking sticker on the dashboard. Also, a large quantity of explosive was left in the trunk of that car, maybe for a second round of bombings.
One of the other alleged bombers also had his car fixed, probably to insure a getaway. What's more, all the men carried driver's licenses and other ID cards with them to their deaths, unusual for suicide bombers, unless you were Mohammed Atta, and your ID somehow managed to pop up clean and clear as day in the wreckage of 9/11. That is, after the plane you flew into the tower exploded in flames and came down in a heap with the building. But that could be someone else's way of saying, hint, hint, it was him, he did it, which might indicate someone was trying to dupe us. Who could that have been?
Well let's think. Maybe the London guys carrying the bombs onto the trains were 'mules," who planned to just leave them to make a few bucks. Maybe they were angry young men making a political statement, maybe both. Their handler might have promised it was an in and out job and they could get out before the blast. The blasts might have surprised them as much as the horrified onlookers and victims. Bottom line, dead men tell no tales, which perhaps they never considered. But 57 minutes later, the fourth bomber, who I guess never bothered to check on his first three cohorts, went up in smoke the same way. Witnesses, it is said, actually saw him put his hand in the backpack—to ignite the bomb or look for his shades and split? We'll never know.
Then we have the July 21 bombers, exactly two weeks later, for whom practice obviously didn't make perfect. The bombs failed to explode. The bomber on the bus took off as the detonator fizzled. Did he and the others instantly assume they might be on their way to heaven? If so, maybe they weren't ready to meet the virgins waiting there. Maybe they were lightweights. And calling them suicide bombers, calling on the full flagon of fear from the English and Europe, was bloody unnecessary, and not a signal for a new level of threat. After all, it is easier to recruit "mules" than die-hard patsies, a la the 9/11 guys (if indeed they were) or Lee Harvey Oswalds (one or two of them), the genuine article(s) or even Jack Rubys, dying of cancer in jail, lips sealed in Omerta. So what are we dealing with here, and whom? In addition, the explosives went from being high level military material to home-brewed boom for the blooming home boys.
Supposedly there's some lively debate going on about the level of commitment and fear ratings in intelligence circles. Or maybe the intelligence agencies, MI-5, MI-6 or CIA, are purposely going round in circles to obfuscate. Because we all know, or should, this is an inside job, a booster shot for Tony Bliar's, excuse me, Tony Blair's War on Terror. Some people even think that saying, as the New York Times did, "that the initial hypothesis that the July 7 attacks were carried out by determined fanatics willing to die in the name of a radical interpretation of Islam may have been too simplistic." Well, it's good to see the investigative principal of questioning government press releases is still alive in the uptown press.
The Times went on to say that maybe these weren't "dedicated but stupid guys run by a smart group of people pulling the strings." Now there's a memorable line, a kind of one-size fits all terrorists' line. And maybe even Hanni Hanjor (the purported idiot, according to his flying instructor) who supposedly flew Flight 77, didn't know he was going down with the plane, if he and his buddies were on the four flights at all. They weren't listed on the manifests, nor did anyone actually prove they were on the planes.
But subsequently the so-called 19, 9/11 terrorists, their names and pictures were produced only 19 hours after the tragedies out of a hat by the same dysfunctional FBI that couldn't stop them in the first place. Is there a pattern here of disinformation along with dysfunction? And may it all be for the purpose of obfuscation, part of a process Webster Tarpley calls 'synthetic terror' in his new book, 911 Synthetic Terror- Made in USA, and in the London case, made in Great Britain.
The Concept of 'Synthetic Terror'
It is Tarpley's notion that 'synthetic terror' is state-sponsored, using members, poseurs or manufactured sympathizers, of nations that we want to attack us, to get our people to want to kick the bejesus out of those nations, in this case out of the Islamic world. And that would include our arch enemy, Osama bin Laden, whom Donald Rumsfeld has told us, he would much rather have dead than alive. "You can bet your life on it," he told reporters. Because, what, dead men don't talk? And old Osama, who's been on the CIA payroll since 1978, was hired by the agency and Saudi and Pakistani intelligence, to lead an army of Mujihadeen. They in turn were trained, armed and paid for by the CIA as well to fight the Soviets, whom our own Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security chief, provoked into attacking Afghanistan in '78.
So who's your daddy, Osama? Tarpley's book on page 149, tells us of an October 2001 article in Le Figaro by Alexandra Richard, who reported, "The CIA met bin Laden in Dubai in July" [of 2001], two months before 9/11." Imagine that. An American France Presse dispatch quoted in Tarpley's book says,
Osama bin Laden underwent treatment in July at the American Hospital in Dubai where he met a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official . . . Quoting a "witness," a professional partner of the administrative management of the hospital, they said the man suspected by the United State of being behind the September 11 terrorist attacks had arrived in Dubai on July 4 by air from Quetta, Pakistan. He was immediately taken to the hospital for kidney treatment. He left the establishment on July 14.
The dispatch also reports that the CIA man was named Larry Mitchell, Osama's handler and case officer. He was seen going into bin Laden's room and later "boasting to his friends of the meeting." Le Figaro also reported that bin Laden brought his own doctor, and a close collaborator who would be the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, along with bodyguards and a personal nurse. Dr. Terry Callaway was bin Laden's urologist and attended to his serious kidney condition. Bin Laden also had had a mobile dialysis machine sent to his Kandahar hideout in Afghanistan in the first half of 2000 . . ." Of course, the CIA denied this all, despite reconfirmation from the ballsy French investigative reporters.
So we were in touch with the world's number one terror maven several months before he supposedly spearheaded 9/11. What could the conversation have been about, past exploits or future projects? Did bin Laden know what he was really getting into? In fact, in his first post-9/11 speech he expressed surprise at how extensive the damage was, and that the towers actually fell. Perhaps it was like the British bombers meeting with their handlers, their spooks duping the dupes in London. If the notion works for the super-heavies, why wouldn't it work for the lightweights? After all it serves the greater oligarchic cause of ruthless rule of the few and not democracy's cause of serving the 'common good.'
Also, consider who the players are on both sides of the pond: the British queen, what with her $100 billion stashed in her private Coutt's bank in London, her palaces, lands, investments and such, and her good friends and 13th cousin, Georgie Bush 43 and her 12th, 41, who keep a few bucks (billons) there too, a kind of all in the family deal.
As to London as a recruiting ground, Tarpley writes,
The role of London as the leading center of Islamic radicalism has been an open secret for years, but has never been reported by the US controlled corporate media . . . In the post colonial world, the British have found it to their advantage to encourage violent movements which could be used for destabilizations and assassinations in the former colonies, which their ex-masters did not want to see become strong and effective modern states. Between 1995 and 1999, protests were lodged by many countries concerning the willingness of the British government to permit terror groups to operate from British territory. Among the protestors were: Israel, Algeria, Turkey, Libya, Yemen, India, Egypt, France, Peru, Germany, Nigeria, and Russia. This is a list which, if widely known, might force certain US radio commentators to change their world picture about who is soft on terrorism.
'It Must Have Been Forces Behind Them'
Returning to our four 7/7 bombers, in a July 27 New York Times article, headlined "Police Debate if London Plotters Were Suicide Bombers, or Dupes" . . . it was reported that "Shehzad Tanweer's uncle, Bashir Ahmed, 65, said his family had no idea that the 22-year old Leeds man who loved cricket and soccer was planning a suicide attack. 'It must have been forces behind him.'"
"The family of Germaine Lindsay, 19, also said they were stunned. His wife, Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, said her late husband was 'a loving husband and father' who had shown 'absolutely no sign of doing this atrocious crime.'" Ah well, love, but we can't ask him, can we? He and his fellow conspirators are conspicuously gone.
But as the Times tells us, "Mark Baillie, the terror and defense expert at the Center for Defense and International Security Studies, said the debate about whether the July 7 bombers intended to die 'is something that everybody is beginning to talk about. It would have been very interesting if they were tricked.'" Indeed, sir. And to know just who of your dupers scuttling in the shadows, shadow people themselves, did so.
So use this little episode as the great English Poet William Blake suggests, "To see the universe in a grain of sand," in this case, the micro terror event working like the macro. Think of Osama in his cave, with his kidney dialysis machine, his laptop in his hand, and a few rough hewn associates on the move with him, and think of the pinpoint precision of the colossal bombings that 9/11 morning, and of the huge apparatus it took to coordinate the many parallel "terror hijack exercises" that were going on along with the real thing.
Richard Clarke Decides it Was al Qaeda
And so the principle of synthetic terror remains, whether in London or New York, Africa or the Middle East. The physical terror caused deep psychological terror, which engendered feelings of hatred of the supposed perpetrators, who we were told later were Islamic terrorists, and all al Qaeda, the CIA's household name, actually the name on a file on bin Laden's laptop, which contained the names of fighters he had met in his 10 years of war in Afghanistan. And how did the al Qaeda revelation come about? Perhaps in part as Tarpley tells us on page 20 of his book. . . .
[Richard] Clarke tells us in his memoir that he attempted to collect his thought about the events going on around him [on 9/11] as he walked from the White House Secure Videoconferencing Center just off the Situation Room across the White House to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, which was Cheney's underground bunker:
"In the quiet of the walk, I caught my breath for the first time that day: This was the 'Big al Qaeda Attack' we had warned was coming and it was bigger than almost anything we had imagined, short of a nuclear weapon." (Clarke 17)
Tarpley himself states:
This is already one of the most fateful snap judgments in world history. Had Clarke utterly forgotten the lessons of Oklahoma City, when leaders had inspired the report that the explosion was the work of Muslims? Clarke had no proof then, and has come forward with none since.
Rushing to overtake Clarke as the leading hipshot in snap strategic diagnosis was CIA Director Tenet [of Slam Dunk fame]. While Bush was cowering in his spider hole at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, he conducted a National Security Council meeting by means of teleconference screens. "Who do you think did this to us?" Bush asked Tenet. Tenet was emphatic: "Sir, I believe it's al Qaeda." (Bamford 2004 91) In other words, Tenet also had no proof, no evidence, no case—just his crude Lockean sense certainty, real or feigned.
Later, after the World Trade Center 7 had gone through its inexplicable and embarrassing collapse at about 5:50 PM, Clarke addressed a high-level interagency meeting from the Situation Room. Present by video link were Armitage of State, General Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and other important officials. Clarke stated: "Okay, we all know this was al Qaeda. FBI and meantime, let's go with the assumption it's al Qaeda. What's next?" (Clarke 23) Before he went to bed in the White House, Bush jotted a note to himself: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. We think it's Osama bin Laden" (Bamford 2004 92).
There's nothing like hard-nosed investigative fact-finding to reach a conclusion. Only the nation's and perhaps the world's future were at stake. But perhaps it was all so easy to believe for Bush & Company because these ideas had been in the air for quite a while to act upon or ignore, in the form of copious FBI and CIA reports, suppressed or quietly observed.
And from Clarke's point on, it was only a matter of reiteration and official finger-pointing at Osama—from Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, et al. And despite the warnings of Professor Paul Rogers, as Tarpley reminds us, warnings against assuming Middle Eastern extremists were behind the tragedy, the hysteria, the orchestrated hysteria, spread like wildfire, to a war in Afghanistan to unsuccessfully find bin Laden, to a war in Iraq on false premises that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and god knows what else and where next.
What Really Did Happen in Oklahoma?
Moreover, just in case you're wondering about the bottom line on the Oklahoma bombing, let me provide some facts that predate the above scenarios . . .
Raw news footage and reports in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma bombing show that local TV reporters stated over and over that two additional, sophisticated, undetonated explosive devices were found by investigators on the scene. TV reporters questioned the official government version that an "extremist" and his friend acted alone (like Lee Harvey Oswald and his double?), this time using a Ryder rental truck and a 1,200 pound ammonium nitrate and fuel oil (ANFO) bomb to destroy the building's face.
KWTV-9, KFORTV-5 and Channel 4's initial feature reports, confirmed by state, local, and federal officials, told that a total of three bombs had been placed inside the Murrah building. Obviously, one went off inside the building, collapsing it. Two did not and may have been slated for early responders and further rescuers. Reporters confirmed that the two other bombs "were larger than the first one" that blew up inside, not outside, the building. The other two bombs were found inside the east and west sides of the building. The Ryder truck explosion occurred in front, on the north side of the building. TV-9 also reported "the U.S. Justice Department confirmed" that other bombs were found in the structure.
In later reports, within hours of the blast, news crews reported federal and local authorities confirmed the two other explosives (bombs) had been "defused" and "moved off site." This was not unlike early reports of JFK being hit by four bullets, two from the front, two from the rear, which had to be inflicted by several shooters. Later the story changed to three bullets, all from the rear, and from one shooter. So it goes.
McVeigh, the right arm of the not-so-lone assassin team, said he did it in return for the destruction of the Branch Davidians in Waco, giving the feds "dirty for dirty." TV news reported President Clinton said three anti-terrorist teams were en route from D.C. to investigate. And that the White House and Justice Department . . . have said [the bomb] was the work of a sophisticated group and would have had to been carried out by an explosives expert. Critics complained McVeigh and Nichols were not known experts. Later that day into the next, details of witnesses, the authorities, the rescue efforts began to change. Just like JFK assassination reports. Especially after Oswald was shot by Ruby and Kennedy's body had been whisked away to Bethesda Naval Hospital.
In 24 hours, honchos from BAFT (Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco) reversed stories and said that the explosion hadn't occurred in the building, but the damage was caused by the "car" parked in front, packed with an ANFO bomb. Soon the "car" was a Ryder rental truck and the bomb grew in size to 4,500 pounds. Pundits began to pooh-pooh the second and third bomb stories, focusing on the single north-face blast as the one and only. Nevertheless, witnesses said they felt the Murrah building "shake and shift" for several seconds from within, before "glass blew on top of them." One said he saw the ceiling collapse "several seconds before the glass blew in." Experts outside of D.C. said the ANFO bomb was intended to mask the internal explosion and, in fact, gave the government a plausible reason for its single bullet, excuse me, 'single bomb outside' version.
In the years following the tragedy, investigators of all kinds gleaned through old evidence and found new evidence to suggest the early reports were probably the most accurate. One website posted official government documents and statements substantiating the three-bomb reports first aired by local TV news. A Department of Defense Atlantic Command memo released a day after the blast says " . . . a second bomb was disarmed; a third bomb evacuated . . ." A Federal Emergency Management Agency report dated April 20, 1995, confirms the reality of three bombs in the building. A U.S. Forces Command daily log report said the same day: "two more explosive devices located in vicinity of explosion site. Evidently intended for rescuers." Also, independent engineers, explosives experts, and military analysts' studies conclude the government's "single truck-single bomb" explanation "technically impossible."
Curiously, the Murrah building was torn down two weeks after the attack. The site was covered with dirt and like the Twin Towers wreckage the building materials were trucked to a dump, though this one was manned by armed guards and buried. What could they be hiding? Could it be any existing evidence? Or the fact that witnesses reported three men in the parking garage of the Murrah building? It was nine stories tall and had a four-floor parking garage underneath. These men were working with electrical equipment and pointing at various parts of the garage in the days before the attack. Many survivors said some of these men were dressed in uniforms identified by the words "Government Services Administration." Get that. The witness had never seen them before or since! Were they government black ops, out to give America its first big terror punch?
And So Forth and So On . . .
I will spare you the first World Trade Tower's real story, and ask you to investigate that on your own in Tarpley's book. But think of the March of Time and memory. And how it forces one to consider who our friends are and who are not. And who or what our government has become, or became one day, when no one was looking because life was too good, in New York, London or Timbuktu.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer living in New York. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)