Tag: Terrorism

After Wasting 81 Months Since 9/11, Bush Is Now Desperate to Find bin Laden Before He Leaves Office

Jon Ponder

It has been 81 months since Osama bin Laden attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, but only now — with just seven months left in his term, George Bush has become desperate to capture the terror overlord.
“Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope of scoring a home run.”
— U.S. intelligence source
If you factor in the fact that Pres. Bill Clinton tried to kill bin Laden in August 1998, a case could be made that Bush should have started the search for bin Laden on his first day in office, which adds another nine months to the total. That’s 90 months — seven and a half years — during which bin Laden has been at large in the mountains of Pakistan.

With his polling down to a 24 percent approval rating and his legacy in a shambles, Bush is making one last “hail Mary” bid to to capture the 9/11 mastermind before he leaves office.

Traveling in Europe, Bush has now enlisted the aid of British special forces in the hunt, according to the conservative Times of London:

Defense and intelligence sources in Washington and London confirmed that a renewed hunt was on for the leader of the September 11 attacks. “If he [Bush] can say he has killed Saddam Hussein and captured Bin Laden, he can claim to have left the world a safer place,” said a US intelligence source…

The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.

The hunt was “completely sanctioned” by the Pakistani government, according to a UK special forces source. It involves the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles fitted with Hellfire missiles that can be used to take out specific terrorist targets.

One US intelligence source compared the “growing number of clandestine reconnaissance missions” inside Pakistan with those conducted in Laos and Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam war…

Intelligence on the whereabouts of Bin Laden is sketchy, but some analysts believe he is in the Bajaur tribal zone in northwest Pakistan. He has evaded capture for nearly seven years. “Bush is swinging for the fences in the hope of scoring a home run,” said an intelligence source, using a baseball metaphor.

A Pentagon source said US forces were rolling up Al-Qaeda’s network in Pakistan in the hope of pushing Bin Laden towards the Afghan border, where the US military and bombers with guided missiles were lying in wait. “They are prepping for a major battle,” he said.

The main operations in Pakistan are being undertaken by Delta, the US army special operations unit, and the British SBS.

Special forces are being sent to capture or kill Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters based on intelligence provided by the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and its US counterpart, the Security Coordination Detachment.

Yesterday, over 1,100 prisoners, including dozens of Talibanis, escaped from a prison in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was living in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban when he planned the 9/11 attacks. The prison was attacked by 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers.

It’s just speculation but there would appear to be a strong likelihood the breach of the prison was timed to release the Taliban fighters so they could join the battle with U.S. and British forces on the Pakistani border.

As was noted in these pages last month, conditions are ripe for Bush to capture bin Laden in time to influence the presidential campaigns this fall. There can’t be any doubt that the White House has focus grouped the capture and found it would boost Bush’s polling, which would help his party in November.

Bin Laden is especially vulnerable now because polls in Pakistan give him just a 24 percent approval rating, making him as unpopular there as Bush is in the United States. Being unpopular in his host country leaves him open to betrayal, especially since there is a $50 million reward for his arrest.

Game Changer: Capturing bin Laden This Fall Could Flip Race to McCain

Jon Ponder

On Tuesday, my colleague Trish wrote about the possibility that Cheney and Bush might invade Iran as a last, desperate act in order to change the political playing field this fall and tip the race to John McCain. She rightly pointed out that the current occupants cannot afford to allow the Democrats to occupy the White House because “there are too many bodies in shallow graves under the lawn and in the rose garden, too fresh and ready for discovery.”
What has changed recently is that Osama bin Laden has become even more unpopular in Pakistan than George Bush is in the United States, though not by much.
But under the Cheney-Bush layer of secrets in the White House lawn lies another, perhaps equally damaging trove of scandals that, if revealed, could drive the stake deeper into the undead corpse of the Republican brand.

One of George W. Bush’s first acts as president was to seal indefinitely 68,000 documents from the Reagan-Bush administration that, by law, were required to have been released after January 2001. (Bush-Quayle administration records were supposed to have been released in January 2004.) If the next president is a Democrat, Bush’s suppression of these public records will likely be lifted, and nasty secrets could be revealed that destroy the reputations of both Bush’s father and the Republicans’ saint, Ronald Reagan.

In particular, releasing the documents could shed light on two mysteries surrounding dealings between Reagan-Bush officials and Iran: 1) the precise involvement of senior officials, including then Vice President Bush, in the Iran-Contra affair and 2) the truth about the “October surprise” conspiracy theory that Bush Sr. negotiated with Iran to release its 52 American hostages at the precise moment Reagan was being sworn into office.

But here’s another scenario that could be effective in boosting support for Bush, and thus McCain, that would be less costly and risky than an invasion: Capturing Osama bin Laden.

Consensus has it that bin Laden has been hiding out for years in the Northwest Frontier, an impassable region of high terrain along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is said to have been living on the Pakistani side under the protection of local conservative factions.

What has changed recently, however, is that bin Laden has become even more unpopular in Pakistan than George Bush is in the United States, though not by much:

[…]

Iran: Bush’s Nuclear Option for a McCain Victory

Trish

I have been harboring a fear this election cycle. I’ve been worried that Bush/Cheney would not sit idly by and allow Democrats to take the White House. There are too many bodies in shallow graves under the lawn and in the rose garden, too fresh and ready for discovery: almost anything to do with Karl Rove, what really happened in Cheney’s energy summit, what gay male prostitute “Jeff Gannon” was really doing with high-level clearance, how many times Jack Abramoff really had private visits with Bush, why we are really in Iraq, and so much more.

The Republicans and the Neocons can’t let Democrats shine lights on all these closely held secrets because it would literally be the destruction of their party and their ideology.

When Senate Republicans threatened to use the “nuclear option” to get around Democratic denials of Bush judicial appointments in 2005, the term meant using a strategy from which there was no turning back. For many months now, the Bush administration has been beating the drums of war with Iran in exactly the same rhythm as it did before invading Iraq but we have chosen to ignore the sound and turn our attention to who will replace Bush, the price of gas, and the ruined housing market. Now it looks like a plan to launch a pre-emptive strike is at hand.

My fear, which appears to be coming true, has been that they will commit us to another war before they go, thereby ensuring the shaken and timorous electorate chooses not to change horses.

The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

…The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that that the US plans an air strike against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The air strike would target the headquarters of the IRGC’s elite Quds force.

…The source said the White House views the proposed air strike as a limited action to punish Iran for its involvement in Iraq. The source, an ambassador during the administration of president H W Bush, did not provide details on the types of weapons to be used in the attack, nor on the precise stage of planning at this time. It is not known whether the White House has already consulted with allies about the air strike, or if it plans to do so.

The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment passed last September, named for the other senator from Arizona and everyone’s favorite independent Democrat. The amendment declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and was meant as a clear signal to Bush that he could proceed with any strategy he saw fit.

Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the amendment, breaking ranks with many non-independent Democrats voting against it, including Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, Robert Byrd, Christopher Dodd, Russ Feingold, Thomas Harkin, Daniel Inouye, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Claire McCaskill, and Jim Webb, as well as Republicans Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama was present for the vote, although McCain has made his intention to go to war with Iran clear numerous times.

Senators and the Bush administration denied the resolution and terrorist declaration were preludes to an attack on Iran. However, attacking Iran rarely seems far from some American leaders’ minds. Arizona senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain recast the classic Beach Boys tune Barbara Ann as “Bomb Iran”. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton promised “total obliteration” for Iran if it attacked Israel.

We found out in 2004 that the Bush administration was willing to scare us into voting for them by exploiting bogus elevated terror threat levels and serendipitously timed videos from Osama bin Laden. My fear, which appears to be coming true, has been that they will commit us to another war before they go, thereby ensuring the shaken and timorous electorate chooses not to change horses. Suddenly, being John McSame would be an advantage.

Did Huckabee Have Someone Set Up Obama Remark?

Trish

WTF??

Huckabee’s bizarre comments to NRA members defy understanding. The 10-minute front-runner in this year’s Republican presidential contest went a long way with these words toward reassuring evangelicals reluctant to support John McCain that the old guy is probably their best Republican option after all.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Several things jump out at you as you watch the video. First, how did he pop that out so fast? It was like he was waiting to say it. No pause, no hesitation. Did he put someone up to making the noise just so he could say this?

Second, how is this funny? What’s the joke here? “Somebody aimed a gun at him?” Does Huckabee realize how much danger Obama is in every second of every day in a country with gun nuts (a huge crowd of whom he was addressing) and religious wackos and racists? The Obama campaign met with the ugliest racism yet in the recent contests in Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to campaign workers.

How did he pop that out so fast? It was like he was waiting to say it. Did he put someone up to making the noise just so he could say this?

Here’s the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into “a horrible response,” as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

“The first person I encountered was like, ‘I’ll never vote for a black person,’ ” recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. “People just weren’t receptive.”

For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president…

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”

And Huckabee thinks “Somebody aimed a gun at him” is funny?

Third, it’s almost surrealistic how Huckabee goes from this loutish remark to instantly falling back into the preacher holier-than-thou cadence as he declares “a democracy cannot operate in a moral vacuum” and calls “for us to live more honestly and more ethically.” Like starting with you, Mikey?

Huckabee’s “apology” was even lamer than his joke.

During my speech at the N.R.A., a loud noise backstage, that sounded like a chair falling, distracted the crowd and interrupted my speech. I made an off hand [sic] remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama. I apologize that my comments were offensive. That was never my intention.

So what was your intention, Governor?

In Address to Knesset, Bush Mischaracterizes Obama’s Position on Mideast Negotiations

Jon Ponder

George Bush took the occasion of his speech before Israel’s Knesset today to end the longstanding tradition of U.S. presidents leaving domestic politics behind “at the water’s edge” when they travel. Addressing lawmakers as part of the observance of Israel’s 60th anniversary, Bush deliberately misstated Barack Obama’s position on negotiating with U.S. adversaries, without naming him directly, of course:
“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack.”
–Obama campaign

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said…

“We have heard this foolish delusion before … As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Predictably, the White House then lied about lying — purporting that Bush was also referring to recent discussions held by former Pres. Jimmy Carter with leaders of Hammas:

…White House press secretary Dana Perino flatly rejected the idea that the Knesset remark was aimed in any way at Obama, and [White House spokesman Gordon] Johndroe said Bush was referring to “a wide range of people who have talked to or suggested we talk to Hamas, Hezbollah or their state sponsors.”

The Obama campaign responded in a statement:

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in a statement released to CNN by his campaign. “It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel….”

“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel,” Obama’s statement said.

Obama favors “tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions,” according to his Web site, “and is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe.” He does not favor talks with Hamas, which he has called a terrorist organization.

Bush’s motivation in lying about Obama’s position is to assist John McCain in trying to put a wedge between Obama and Jewish voters. Last week, McCain falsely claimed that Obama was the favored candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian political organization with ties to terrorism.

Gingrich: Democratic Left ‘Admires American Terrorists’

Jon Ponder

Keep in mind that this is a supposed statesman, the former Speaker of the House, talking:

Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News Friday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the conservative pundit that “the left wing of the Democratic Party, frankly, kind of admires American terrorists.” Gingrich then went on to say that “they don’t mind at all that Farrakhan is anti-semitic. They shrug off Jeremiah Wright.”

Not only has Gingrich smeared millions of Americans with a patently false statement, he ignores the fact that the most dangerous American terrorists are rightwingers like Timothy McVeigh, Eric Robert Rudolph, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the Klu Klux Klan, abortion clinic bombers and the rest.

See the video here.

Torture Revelations: The Cure for Outrage Fatigue

Trish

We all, myself included, gave ourselves a pass a few years into the Bush administration by claiming “outrage fatigue.” Well, fatigue or no, it’s time to get outraged again.

Continuing revelations about Bush cabinet members — the highest level of unelected power-holders in this country — and Vice Pres. Dick Cheney ordering precise torture techniques on individual prisoners are too shocking to ignore. First we found that “The Principals,” as they are known, informed themselves on such methods so they could personally choose which ones would be inflicted. They just as deliberately kept the president slightly beyond their level of direct knowledge.

While his most trusted advisers selected which method to inflict on which detainee, Bush delivered the denials

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved…

The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room…Attending the sessions were Cheney, then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The eagerness on the part of these officials to learn about the methods and then to weigh the consequences of getting caught using them is shocking.

[…]

Cheney, Rice, Powell and Other Top Bush Officials Said to Have ‘Choreographed’ Torture Techniques

Jon Ponder

ABC News is reporting that a gang of top Bush officials known as the “Principals” — but for whom a better moniker might be the “Sadists” — met, starting in 2002, to prescribe in detail which torture techniques, and what combinations, American interorogators could use on terror suspects.
The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed [that] some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
At the time, the Principals included Dick Cheney, National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and John Ashcroft, a devout Christian who then served as U.S. attorney general.

What this group of high officials did in these meetings appears to have been not only horrifically immoral and unethical, but illegal and un-Constitutional:

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of “combined” interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

All of these officials — these suspects — were unavailable or refused to comment when contacted by ABC News.

Torture is illegal in the United States, and it can’t be made legal by a cabal around George Bush, or any president, just because they say so. Or at least that’s the way it used to be, back in the quaint old times before 2000, when Americans — especially Republicans — demanded that our elected leaders abide by the U.S. Constitution.