Good move Mav! Making a difference ..... a great effort to attempt to help further your goals. Really a right of our system. Though I disagree with much of your politics, and especially with your adoration of GWB, I respect your right to have your opinions, and I especially admire your willingness to make a real contribution for your cause. Doing volunteer campaign work is really time well spent. Peace, RS
In order to provide a little balance to you right wing whackos here's something sort of equivalent from the left: Monday 16 February 2004 The Family Steering Committee believes that President Bush should provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . Collectively, the Commissioners are responsible for fulfilling the Congressional mandate. Therefore, each Commissioner must have full access to the testimony of all individuals and the critical information that will enable informed decisions and recommendations. Before an audience of the American people, the Commission must ask President Bush in sworn testimony, the following questions: 1. As Commander-in-Chief on the morning of 9/11, why didnât you return immediately to Washington, D.C. or the National Military Command Center once you became aware that America was under attack? At specifically what time did you become aware that America was under attack? Who informed you of this fact? 2. On the morning of 9/11, who was in charge of our country while you were away from the National Military Command Center? Were you informed or consulted about all decisions made in your absence? 3. What defensive action did you personally order to protect our nation during the crisis on September 11th? What time were these orders given, and to whom? What orders were carried out? What was the result of such orders? Were any such orders not carried out? 4. In your opinion, why was our nation so utterly unprepared for an attack on our own soil? 5. U.S. Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the Director of the White House Situation Room, informed you of the first airliner hitting Tower One of the World Trade Center before you entered the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. Please explain the reason why you decided to continue with the scheduled classroom visit, fifteen minutes after learning the first hijacked airliner had hit the World Trade Center. 6. Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th. 7. What plan of action caused you to remain seated after Andrew Card informed you that a second airliner had hit the second tower of the World Trade Center and America was clearly under attack? Approximately how long did you remain in the classroom after Cardâs message? 8. At what time were you made aware that other planes were hijacked in addition to Flight 11 and Flight 175? Who notified you? What was your course of action as Commander-in-Chief of the United States? 9. Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01, specifically what information (either verbal or written) about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you receive from any source? This would include briefings or communications from ⢠Out-going Clinton officials ⢠CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and other intelligence agencies ⢠Foreign intelligence, governments, dignitaries or envoys ⢠National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice ⢠Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar 10. Specifically, what did you learn from the August 6, 2001, PDB about the terrorist threat that was facing our nation? Did you request any follow-up action to take place? Did you request any further report be developed and/or prepared? 11. As Commander-in-Chief, from May 1, 2001 until September 11, 2001, did you receive any information from any intelligence agency official or agent that UBL was planning to attack this nation on its own soil using airplanes as weapons, targeting New York City landmarks during the week of September 11, 2001 or on the actual day of September 11, 2001? 12. What defensive measures did you take in response to pre-9/11 warnings from eleven nations about a terrorist attack, many of which cited an attack in the continental United States? Did you prepare any directives in response to these actions? If so, with what results? 13. As Commander-in-Chief from May 1, 2001 until September 11, 2001, did you or any agent of the United States government carry out any negotiations or talks with UBL, an agent of UBL, or al-Qaeda? During that same period, did you or any agent of the United States government carry out any negotiations or talks with any foreign government, its agents, or officials regarding UBL? If so, what resulted? 14. Your schedule for September 11, 2001 was in the public domain since September 7, 2001. The Emma E. Booker School is only five miles from the Bradenton Airport, so you, and therefore the children in the classroom, might have been a target for the terrorists on 9/11. What was the intention of the Secret Service in allowing you to remain in the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, even though they were aware America was under attack? 15. Please explain why you remained at the Sarasota, Florida, Elementary School for a press conference after you had finished listening to the children read, when as a terrorist target, your presence potentially jeopardized the lives of the children? 16. What was the purpose of the several stops of Air Force One on September 11th? Was Air Force One at any time during the day of September 11th a target of the terrorists? Was Air Force Oneâs code ever breached on September 11th? 17. Was there a reason for Air Force One lifting off without a military escort, even after ample time had elapsed to allow military jets to arrive? 18. What prompted your refusal to release the information regarding foreign sponsorship of the terrorists, as illustrated in the inaccessible 28 redacted pages in the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry Report? What actions have you personally taken since 9/11 to thwart foreign sponsorship of terrorism? 19. Who approved the flight of the bin Laden family out of the United States when all commercial flights were grounded, when there was time for only minimal questioning by the FBI, and especially, when two of those same individuals had links to WAMY, a charity suspected of funding terrorism? Why were bin Laden family members granted that special privilegeâa privilege not available to American families whose loved ones were killed on 9/11? 20. Please explain why no one in any level of our government has yet been held accountable for the countless failures leading up to and on 9/11? 21. Please comment on the fact that UBLâs profile on the FBIâs Ten Most Wanted Fugitives poster does not include the 9/11 attacks. To your knowledge, when was the last time any agent of our government had contact with UBL? If prior to 9/11, specifically what was the date of that contact and what was the context of said meeting. 22. Do you continue to maintain that Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda? What proof do you have of any connection between al-Qaeda and the Hussein regime? 23. Which individuals, governments, agencies, institutions, or groups may have benefited from the attacks of 9/11? Please state specifically how you think they have benefited.
So people who don't agree with you are whackos? Nice. So basically your opinions can be wholly ignored as that of a bigot..
I am a mirror reflecting the insanity of the right wing whackos, of which there are getting to be far too many in this country. Take a closer look. m
Mackie, Stripped of the "have you stopped beating your wife" tone, I actually agree that those questions, or at least many of them deserve answers. I'm relatively sure there are reasonable explanations for most of these questions, but of course in hindsight it is easy to turn simple mistakes into monumental incompetency. I think the Clinton administration has at least as much to answer for as Bush, but turning it into a political contest is not likely to advance matters. The commission has a charter to examine certain matters, but they seem to be trying to expand that jurisdiction into a general examination of the administration. That raises questions about their motives and destroys cooperation. In fact, it is perfectly clear to all why 9/11 happened: the airlines didn't want to spend the money to secure the cockpit doors, the government didn't force them to do so, pilots were not allowed to be armed, the INS and State Department were too free in giving out visas and not enforcing the immigration laws and a general fear of accusations of bias chilled law enforcement in pursuing obvious leads. No one in public life wants their name attached to such conclusions however, so they will come up with some useless 800 page report talking about intelligence failures.
You're right AAA, but that's monday morning quarterbacking. All those measures may have prevented the hijackings, but did we have a reasonable expectation of being hijacked? 1991 WTC attack did not galvanize the nation, the threat was presumed to be a fringe group of crackpots. Like Pearl Harbor, 9/11 is the wakeup call. There were however, many who saw the threat of radical Islam long ago, but were not listened to.
AAA: >I'm relatively sure there are reasonable explanations >for most of these questions, but of course in hindsight >it is easy to turn simple mistakes into monumental >incompetency. I don't think those questions are aimed at exposing incompetency, I think they clearly are attempting to expose conspiracy. (and a ridiculous one IMO) JB
The Thief of Baghdad By MAUREEN DOWD Published: February 15, 2004 WASHINGTON In the Ford White House, Dick Cheney's Secret Service name was Backseat, because he was the model of an unobtrusive staffer, the perfect unflashy deputy chief of staff for that lord of the bureaucratic dance, Donald Rumsfeld. As James Mann writes in his new book, "The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet," Mr. Cheney started out supervising such lowly matters as fixing a stopped-up drain in a White House bathroom sink; getting a headrest for Betty Ford's helicopter seat; and sorting out which salt shakers â the regular ones or, as he put it, the "little dishes of salt with funny little spoons" â would be best for stag dinners in the president's private quarters. Rummy's alter ego rose quickly, though, because he seemed to have no ego. Good old Dick could be counted on to be the man behind the man, a butler to power. The new President Bush, a tabula rasa in foreign affairs, put himself in Mr. Cheney's hands. But W. had barely settled into the Oval when Backseat clambered into the front seat. Retracing the rush to war, the names Cheney and Chalabi are entwined in bold relief. Back when Dick Cheney was fiddling with salt shakers, Ahmad Chalabi, a smooth-talking and wealthy young Iraqi M.I.T. graduate, was founding the Petra Bank in Jordan. As Mr. Cheney moved up in the capital, Mr. Chalabi was tripped up in Jordan by a small matter of embezzlement from his own bank. Jordanian officials have said that the crime rocked their economy and that they paid $300 million to depositors to cover the bank's losses. By the time Mr. Chalabi was convicted and received a sentence of 22 years of hard labor, he was a fugitive in London. During the early 90's, when Mr. Cheney was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Mr. Chalabi was in a full courtship press with Washington's conservative and journalistic elites. He saw them as a springboard for his triumphant return to Iraq. After 9/11, his passionate desire to take out Saddam coincided with that of conservatives. All they needed for their belli was a casus, so Mr. Chalabi obligingly conned the neocons. He hoodwinked his pals Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle into believing Iraq would be a flowery cakewalk to democracy. A wily expert in the politics of the bazaar, he knew he had to sell his scheme on what was good for Americans and their security. He was happy to funnel information to the vice president that painted a picture of Saddam hunkered on a hair-raising stockpile of W.M.D. His group, the Iraqi National Congress, tried to spin our government and media through its "information collection program." Intelligence officials now say that the prewar information provided to Washington by this group was suspect and useless, even disinformation. But here's the wild thing: the propaganda program was underwritten by U.S. government funds. So Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week â and a precious human cost. Cops dealing with their snitches check out the information better than the Bush administration did. Mr. Chalabi's séances swayed the political set, the intelligence set and the journalistic set. In an effect Senator Bob Graham dubs "incestuous amplification," the bogus stories spewed by Iraqi exiles and defectors ricocheted through an echo chamber of government and media, making it sound as if multiple, reliable sources were corroborating the same story. Rather, one self-interested source was replicating like computer spam. The C.I.A. was stung to find out its analysts had mistakenly thought that Iraq weapons information had been confirmed by multiple sources, when it came from only a single source; that analysts had relied on a fabricating Iraqi defector and spin material from Iraqi exiles; and that this blather made its way into documents and speeches used by the Bush administration to justify war. George Tenet ordered a major change in procedure last week, removing barricades so that analysts can know more about the identities of clandestine agents' sources, and their possible motives. But even incestuous amplification could not have drowned out reality if Bush officials had not glommed onto the Chalabi flummery for their own reasons â to feed their fantasies about refashioning America's power, psyche and military, and making over the Middle East in our image. Swept up in big dreams, the foreign policy dream team became dupes in Ahmad Chalabi's big con.
After reading 'The Price Of Loyalty' you get a very disturbing picture of Cheney and his role in this administration. "Mayberry Machiavellis" it too cute. Cheney, Rove and the other hard core idealogues are a serious danger to our democratic form of government. They don't really believe in open discourse, free exchange of ideas...all is driven by ideology. Give me a good old pragmatist any day. You can see where govt driven by ideology will end up...just look at all these screwed up Muslim theocracies. m
Very true. The Clinton administration badly mishandled the 1993 WTC bombing, treating it as an isolated criminal act and not the kickoff to terrorism. My observations are clearly Monday morning qb'ing, but I'm just trying to make the point that this 9/11 commission doesn't have a job that requires investigating the entire executive branch, like they seem to want to do. I'm relatively sure there was not a week that went by since '93 that there weren't multiple credible terror warnings. Now, we cancel flights, but back then people would have gone nuts if that had happened. Like you say, they needed a wakeup call.