Lipstick?

Hi PW.

eCAHN fils is in town from Austin. Must leave to take him out for a steak dinner. BBL.

I think what’s important to understand is that for Bush, Cheney, Libby, Addington, and Yoo 9/11 was a pretext not a crime. For us, it was a tragedy. For them, it was an opportunity. Getting bin Laden was never really part of the plan.

Rethugs are all about winning elections and handing the country over to megacorps.
First we get the fundies – keep promising to elim abortion but secretly against – retain fundie vote
second after handed a gift by OBL get the fraidy vote and the macho vote – don’t solve – retain vote
third get the fuck the planet vote

Sorry to go OT so soon, PW. I said earlier I would do some research on suicide rates in the military. Not finished yet but I ran across a piece from Nov 2007 done by CBS that was worth sharing. The article covers the years 2004-05. The figures I found elsewhere for the Army in 2007 was 115 suicides and in 2006 there were 102.

Let’s also remember that John Sidney McCain III was talking about war on Iraq very soon after the events of 9/11. As much as anyone within the Administration, McCain was selling war on Iraq as the “second phase” of the GWOT.

I think McCain was the first to publicly float the idea of targeting Iraq.

I tried to find out when he first spoke about it. I don’t know if I was successful but I did find this at TPM: a timeline of McCain’s quotes on the Iraq war and whether or not he supported Bush in the quote or was criticizing Bush or telling a whopper. I counted them up:

15 statements for Bush
22 statements against his policy
7 Pinochios

So he isn’t quite accurate when saying he has criticized the war all along etc etc. It’s hard to know what he’s about. FWIW.

Seems like I saw something recently about him first mentioning it during a speech on September 20, 2001.

Dang, PW, I had forgotten this part of his quote:

without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies

He sure called that one in advance, didn’t he? Didn’t we also have surplus then? He called that part, too.

I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since Saddam flew into building 7.

And all he wanted was to release lot of oil at low low prices into the world market.

That is not true!!! Although the military trains for potential enemies, someone needs to ask, why in 7/01 they were totally focused on Iraq. Enough is enough. We have to fight back.

Had the US used money to grease the palms of Pakistani intelligence and some other folks bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and a host of others would have been history a long time ago. IIRC a lot of criminals get caught that way. Pay handsomely up front and top it off with a big reward. The $25M, or whatever, reward for bin Laden is chickenfeed compared to what we’re shelling out now in Afghanistan alone. Shrub’s buddies in the oil industry and the neocon’s buddies in the war industry have come out quite well while probably a million people, ours included, have died in this folly.

For Euros instead of dollars.

You may note that I said McCain was the first to PUBLICLY float the idea and the context was, the first to suggest it publicly AFTER 9/11. The neocons were discussing it among themselves before Bush ever set foot in office. In fact, there was some memo circulated among members of PNAC early in 2001 to the effect that given the political climate, they wouldn’t be able to move their goals forward BARRING some cataclysmic event resulting in a radical shift of public opinion. Personally, I don’t think they were directly responsible for the events of 9/11 but I do think they were fully prepared to exploit it to advance their private agenda.

I don’t mean to be flippant but DUH! Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a MSM to invistigate this. Unfortunately, we do not and I personally feel depressed. If we did, they would uncover McCain as the phony that he is.

He certainly didn’t oppose it, that’s for sure.

Meanwhile, I’m not the only one who wonders what the world would look like today if Bush had done what Clinton did:

One week after the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan, the Taliban presented us with an opportunity to investigate the possibility of a peaceful, legal resolution to the crimes of 9/11.

On Oct. 14, 2001, Afghanistan’s deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, announced that if the United States stopped the bombing and produced evidence of bin Laden’s guilt, “we would be ready to hand him over to a third country” for trial.

President Bush, determined to launch and pursue the “war on terror,” refused even to discuss, much less investigate this possibility.

A Different Course

Exactly 30 months after 9/11 there was another catastrophic terrorist attack in another country: Spain. On March 11, 2004, 191 people in Madrid were killed and over 1,800 injured when 10 backpack bombs exploded on four morning rush-hour commuter trains.

As with 9/11, “11-M” was the most devastating series of terrorist acts in Spanish history.

But Spain chose the path the U.S. rejected.

The Spanish government addressed the crimes of 11-M with the tools, techniques and resources of law enforcement. There was an investigation, arrests, a trial, and appeals.

This process is today essentially complete.

Spain has demonstrated an effective alternative to war as a means of addressing and resolving the bloody horrors of terrorism.

The Spanish example can thus help us make an educated guess at how things might have gone had the Bush administration not immediately and contemptuously rejected Kabir’s offer of Oct. 14, 2001.

And while such an endeavor can’t undo the past seven years, perhaps it can help us make a better choice next time our leaders tell us it’s time for another war.

From a Democracy Now! interview of Robert Fisk on 5 Mar 2007:

ROBERT FISK: Well, the last time I saw him, which was ‘97—he did want to see me after 9/11, but I couldn’t reach him. An American air raid was on the road in front of me on my way to see him. But the last time I saw him, he had moved from his hatred of the Saudis, which was still there, into a quite clear fury at the United States. He was starting to talk about them as being crusaders.

And, in fact, the last words he said to me, as we sat in a very freezing mountaintop—I spent the night with his al-Qaeda people in a tent sleeping. I woke up with ice in my hair. And the last words he said to me, and I have my notebooks, which, of course, I will research for this book, and his words were, “Mr. Robert, from this mountain upon which we are sitting, we destroyed the Soviet army and helped to destroy the Soviet Union,” which was an element of truth, though obviously a usual bin Laden exaggeration. And then he said, “and I pray to God that He permits us to turn America into a shadow of itself.” Those were his words. And in my notebook, which I actually took these words down in, I put two lines on each side of the quote. At the time, I wrote, “Rhetoric?” It wasn’t, of course.

Bold is mine. The meeting with bin Laden occurred on 22 Mar 1997.

PW,
Great blog! I’m gonna send a copy to my Republican reactionary aging uncle who keeps spamming me with Obama smears.

Bob in HI

I think what’s important to understand is that for Bush, Cheney, Libby, Addington, and Yoo 9/11 was a pretext not a crime. For us, it was a tragedy. For them, it was an opportunity. Getting bin Laden was never really part of the plan.

I think lefty bloggers and many others understand that. Where there is a gap in our knowledge of the Right is between what you write and what Sarah Palin is referring to when she says the “reform” they’re undertaking and the “mission” they’re on. We often imagine it’s just for financial greed and continuation of Republican political power, but that doesn’t entirely fit with the selection of Palin. I suspect the gap in our understanding of the Right exists because they are being stealthy and haven’t revealed their plan in public.

That’s why I’d zero-in on Palin’s reference to “reform” and a “mission” from God. What EXACTLY does she mean? And then, what would it mean for us?

… bin Laden exaggeration. And then he said, “and I pray to God that He permits us to turn America into a shadow of itself.” Those were his words.
…

The meeting with bin Laden occurred on 22 Mar 1997.

Has anyone claimed to have heard directly from bin Laden or Zawahiri precisely why they wish to destroy America, who helped them against the Soviets? Is that quote source reliable?

Certainly the negotiations for the trans-Afghan pipeline(s) was underway by ‘97, but again that’s financial stuff. It’s more likely that if they truly hate us it would be for more than money.

There is a lot about all this which remains unknown to the American public. How can we possibly expect Americans or a new Dem administration to make the best decisions with information which Bushies have handled?