| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
28 Jan 2007 05:38:28 PM |
| Object: |
Bush's Four Anti-Terror "Successes" All Fictional. |
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00351.htm
Monday, 29 January 2007
Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional
By David Swanson
President Bush claimed in his State of the Union speech to have
prevented four terrorist plots.
Phew!
It's a good thing to know that we tossed out our Bill of Rights for
some actual REASON – I mean other than turning Iraq into a training
ground for terrorism.
Except that we didn't.
1.-"We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the
tallest building on the West Coast."
An October 8, 2005, LA Times story, headlined "Scope of Plots Bush
Says Were Foiled Is Questioned," cited "several counter-terrorism
officials" as saying that "the plot never progressed past the planning
stages.... 'To take that and make it into a disrupted plot is just
ludicrous,' said one senior FBI official….At most it was a plan that
was stopped in its initial stages and was not an operational plot that
had been disrupted by authorities."
On Feb. 10, 2006, the LA Times quoted a "US official familiar with the
operational aspects of the war on terrorism," who said that "the
Library Tower plot was one of many Al Qaeda operations that had not
gone much past the conceptual stage….The official spoke on the
condition of anonymity, saying that those familiar with the plot
feared political retaliation for providing a different
characterization of the plan that that of the president."
Michael Scheuer, an al Qaeda expert in the CIA's counter-terrorism
center, told the Voice of America:
"This doesn't sound like anything that I would recall as a major
threat, or as a major success in stopping it….My impression [was that
the National Security Council] culled through information to look for
something that resembled a serious threat in 2002. It doesn't strike
me, either as someone who was there or as someone who has followed al
Qaeda pretty closely, that this was really a serious sort of effort."
A February 10, 2006 Washington Post story cited "several U.S.
intelligence officials" who "said there is deep disagreement within
the intelligence community over the seriousness of the Library Tower
scheme and whether it was ever much more than talk."
A February 10, 2006, New York Daily News story cited one senior
counterterrorism official who said:
"There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the
thought stage."
Back on June 17, 2004, the New York Daily News quoted John Pistole,
the FBI's counterterrorism director.
Asked to comment on a CIA agent's statement that "I think we've
probably prevented a few aviation attacks against both the East and
West coasts," Pistole at first said he was "not sure what [the CIA]
was referring to."
The Daily News reported that "Even after consulting CIA officials,
Pistole still would not call the alleged threat uncovered in the
summer of 2003 an advanced plot."
2.-"We uncovered an al Qaeda cell developing anthrax to be used in
attacks against America."
An October 31, 2006, Washington Post article describes al Qaeda's
efforts as well short of "developing" and the case to tie them to the
anthrax attacks in the United States as leading nowhere.
A September 25, 2006, Washington Post article describes the FBI's
investigation of the anthrax attacks in the United States as still
open, but just barely active.
If that investigation has reached any conclusion, or if Bush has
discovered a plot of some other attacks that were prevented, he should
produce evidence of such.
3.-"Just last August, British authorities uncovered a plot to blow up
passenger planes bound for America over the Atlantic Ocean."
Well, the British "authorities" did arrest two dozen people at the
insistence of the Bush Administration, but numerous reports found
consensus among experts that those arrested could not have possibly
mixed together on an airplane the liquid explosives they allegedly
planned to use.
And common sense suggested that if they had managed such a
sophisticated plot, it was unlikely anyone else was working on the
same thing (the assumption that prevents us all from traveling with
toothpaste and deodorant unless sealed in a proper protective plastic
bag, and leads to government employees carelessly tossing deadly
dangerous toothpaste tubes into trashcans in the middle of
unsuspecting crowds).
Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, summed this
case up well:
"None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a
plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the
efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a
plane bomber for quite some time. In the absence of bombs and airline
tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to
convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to
go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have
bragged in internet chat rooms.
"What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for
over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just
Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the
need for early arrests. Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the
details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which,
rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance.
Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways
of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you
can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it
always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more,
in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give
is the truth."
4.-"We broke up a Southeast Asian terror cell grooming operatives for
attacks inside the United States."
Was this the one broken up in 1995, before Bush, when we still had
much of our Bill of Rights intact?
Is this the "tallest building on the West Coast" story by another name
in order to expand the list?
I've seen a lot of reports on Bush's speech, but no explanation of
what he's talking about here.
5.-Of course, such claims are not new:
They follow the pattern of the Padilla radiation bomb claim.
The announcement of that supposed success was made at a time when Bush
needed a boost in the media, even though the man had been locked up
for a month already; and then the charges were later dropped.
Keith Olbermann once ran a segment highlighting the suspicious timing
of ten such announcements, each one of which ended up amounting to
nothing at all.
Olbermann's story left out plenty of more recent examples, but then,
so did Bush's speech.
Have we forgotten the heroic way in which he saved the Sears Tower
already?
________________________________________________
Well, Georgie just wanted to liven things up, ya see.
Harry
.
|
|
| User: "Fredric L. Rice" |
|
| Title: Re: Bush's Four Anti-Terror "Successes" All Fictional. |
30 Jan 2007 08:28:06 PM |
|
|
Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00351.htm
Monday, 29 January 2007
Bush's Four Anti-Terror Successes All Fictional
Amusing how this Christian terrorist tergime is zero different than
the Soviet State and their endless lies against their country.
---
Bullets stops fascism.
Penile Dysfunction, v., see "Republican"
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
