Clear enough for ya yet?
A former Qwest Communications International executive, appealing a conviction for insider trading, has alleged that the government withdrew opportunities for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars after Qwest refused to participate in an unidentified National Security Agency program that the company thought might be illegal.
Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio, convicted in April of 19 counts of insider trading, said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to court documents unsealed in Denver this week. </em>
From the AP:
Pentagon, FBI misusing secret info requests
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon has misled Congress and the US public by conniving with the FBI to obtain hundreds of financial, telephone and Internet records without court approval, civil-rights campaigners said Sunday.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has successfully challenged key planks of US anti-terrorism legislation, said it had uncovered 455 “National Security Letters” (NSLs) issued at the behest of the Department of Defense.</em>
George Bush spied on Americans six months prior to 9/11. Warrant less, illegal wiretapping of American citizens. When cornered about it, he lied.
THE PRESIDENT: After September the 11th, I vowed to the American people that our government would do everything within the law to protect them against another terrorist attack. As part of this effort, I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations. In other words, if al Qaeda or their associates are making calls into the United States or out of the United States, we want to know what they’re saying.
There are only two conclusions that you can draw from this information. Both are equally frightening, equally toxic to our concept of America. First, that despite the illegal surveillance of American citizens (which of course also means increased spying on our “enemies”), the Bush administration was unable to uncover the plan to attack America on 9/11.
Or they did.
So there are your two choices. Either Bush and crew are completely incompetent, or they are evil. Which is worse? If they are evil, then they are an aberration, one that the American people can send the way of the Nuremberg trials and rid ourselves of sulfur stink that Bush has permeated our society and world with. It won’t be easy, and there will be “patriots” who to their dying breath will champion the murdering, lying bastards because they crave the caress of the boot- as long as they don’t believe it’s stomping on them- which of course it always is. There is still a bit over a year left in the official reign of King George, plenty of time for story after story to be laid at the feet of the public. Finally, something will crack and the dam will open, and Bush will leave in disgrace, exposed as a petty dictator with theocratic delusions and a daddy complex. Our society will be rocked, certainly, and it will be painful undoing the massive damage that the last six years have caused us, but it can be done. We have intelligent, compassionate forces in this nation. It is their time to rise.
Evil is one thing, but worse is the concept that Bush is incompetent. Why? Because then his only failing is not achieving his goals. Our armchair tyrants will then only bluster louder, begging for more of their liberties to be stolen, more little brown people killed, all in a sickening dash to the ruination of all we think of when we think of America. Really think voting is going to help us? That Saint Rudy or Hillary will restore our rights, accept the reality of why we are loathed around the world? The only candidates that speak the truth, such as Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, are derided and ignored, while the front runners do nothing more than hiss out glib promises they have no intention of keeping.
Is it clear enough yet? This entire six year horror show has been a lie. The “war on terror”? A lie. 9/11? A lie. Sure, there are people around the world who want us dead. Who can blame them? We stole their land, their resources, murdered their elected leaders, lied about it all. Hell, we did that in our own country. Its an old habit. Sure, maybe Iran is working on a nuke. Again, who can blame them? It’s the only way a nation can prevent an attack from the US or Israel, so build on, I say. They do so knowing that the first time a one of their missiles hits the atmosphere, Tehran becomes a sheet of glass. The same way the Soviets did.
I personally knew that 9/11 was a lie the moment the second plane hit. The Patriot Act, the anthrax attacks, all too conveniently ready to go. I have lived the last six years knowing that our government was at war with its citizens. It is why I do this blog. I have tried desperately to not become, as Frank Rich so artfully reminds us, one of our generations Good German.
Our system is broken. If it wasn’t, George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al, would be in handcuffs this morning, and the papers would be topping each other, in a mad race to expose yet another lie from this cast of killers. Our Congress would have brought impeachment charges, and begun bringing home our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, tragically, and perhaps fatally, this hasn’t happened.
But the facts are there. If you choose to ignore them, do so at your own peril. If you think the democratic system will save you, then you haven’t been paying attention to the news. If you think we’re too powerful to fall, then you haven’t been reading history. And if you think that what Bush has done is right and necessary, then you deserve the same fate as he.
