An imaginary place in a reactionary time

A few weeks after 9-11, I saw a tv interview with the head of the NSA. He said he was quite confident that they had intercepted all of the planning communications for 911, and that they would ultimately be identified and translated.

He explained that his agency's chief problem was sorting through all the crap that came over the wires -- so much traffic, so much bullshit, so many empty threats. The hard part is deciding what to pay attention to.

And hindsight is always 20-20. I wouldn't blame the feds for missing 9-11 without a lot more than some intercepts which weren't even translated until well after the fact, no matter how specific those intercepts are.

But I won't hesistate to jump on Bush for this either. He's decided to run as a "war president", and he's quick to point the finger of blame at others, for mercenary political reasons. It also appears he may have tried to spin these translations.

(I won't belabor the stupidity of the FBI.)

Turnabout is fair play.

Here's hoping this story has legs. If those intercepts are ever released publicly, Bush will have hell to pay, rightly or wrongly.

you know, I have no idea what you saw, i'm fairly sure it wasn't who you think you saw, and i'm sure walden never said that. that tla never talks.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/NSA_Intercepts_On_Eve_of_911_Sent_a_Warning.htm

(supposedly he did tell the committee behind closed doors that 9/11 had been planned since 98

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/Sept_11_attacks_were_planned_since_1998.htm )

as for the stupidity of the FBI, if they had the info, which she says they had (as well as claiming and apparently proving that at least one organization the fbi was targeting had infiltrated the FBI, and was obfuscating the post mortem) that's not stupid, that's, well, you know, that dirty word...don't confuse what she was hired to do with what she found out:

This week Edmonds attended the commission hearings and plans to return in April when FBI Director Robert Mueller is scheduled to testify. "I'm hoping the commission asks him real questions -- like, in April 2001, did an FBI field office receive legitimate information indicating the use of airplanes for an attack on major cities? And is it true that through an FBI informant, who'd been used [by the Bureau] for 10 years, did you get information about specific terrorist plans and specific cells in this country? He couldn't say no," she insists.

that's the angle to stick to.

I don't know Jer, yes there are huge volumes of documents that they have to go through, and nobody knows what somebody else is going to do unless they tell them.

But this administration was, at best, embarrasssingly negligent. They have the former administration telling them there is a problem, Clarke (their expert) telling them their is a problem. FBI agents wonderering to their supervisors why so many arabs are going to flying school and dropping out before learning to land, etc etc.

For a war president you would want somebody a whole lot better in touch with the world, especielly with the ones you are fighting.

Yes I do not want to make the CIA FBI etc more powerful, but Bush had knowledge of the risk of attack and he chose to ignore it. Don't you think we should hold him resposible for this incredably greivous error.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18262

Here is a story about our National Security advisors "misqoutes".

Shit people said we were crazy and unpatriotic when we questioned Saddam's ability to be a threat to the US.

I bet there is a bunch more to the story that hopefully will come out before the elections.

You could say blaming bush for 911 is like blaming Clinton for Oklahoma city.

But Clinton and the FBI had just taken many hits about Ruby RIdge and Waco, you know damn well when you have the great unwashed herd of white men yelling that they are being treated like traitors, the FBI is gonna back off, as that is their intended audience.

It does not stop them from arresting enviormentlist on RICO violations alleging terrorists acts, as a matter of fact FOreman the guy who started earth first was arrested for trumped up charges that he was gonna destroy the power grid in nevada or arizona. They infiltrate and fuck up the left all the time, and yes trump up charges.

The left blows up suvs at its worst, the right kills people. Given the bad publicity you know why the fbi backed off the right, and who knows if they would have caught the Okla City folks anyway.

But this situation is different, one arabs are far from a polically powerful group, unless they are arabs in the Carlyle group, AL quieda is a much easier group to spot in the US, two Al quida has committed acts of terror prior, TImothy McVey was a good american (by the way we really have to take the term good american back from the right)and their is no history to suggest that he was a terrorist.

Finally the actions of this administration after 911 are an embarrasment of lies misinformation and manipulation. Hell it looks like bush wanted it to happen.

So yes there is much information to pick through, but it is clear that they had the information, but for what ever reason they chose to ignore what led to the worst civilian disaster in US history, and now all that they are doing is watergate like coverups.

Even if it was just hapenstance that 911 allowed the bush admin to follow their dreams of world domination, it was craven and foul that they would use these deaths, that had they been more on the ball it might be prevented, to justify more unjustifable death and destruction.

The whole situation reeks worse than watergate, too many coverups, too much bullshit, too much nastyness that indicates to me that Bush knew or should have known and now is covering his ass.

But like his Dad and Iran Contra who is gonna take the fall. It looks like they are gonna stick it to the black woman, I would have bet on Chaney, like Casey (the dead guy who took the fall for Iran Contra) and his cancer, Chaney and his heart don't have much time left.

Don't get me wrong. I think Bush is seriously fucked up, has to be replaced, is a lying, dirty scum bag, and you can attach just about any bad adjective to him without objection from me.

But I have a hard time buying into the notion that anyone in the USG knew about 9-11 in advance in any meaningful way. On the other hand, I have no objection to suggestions, or even accusations, along those lines.

I'm not saying we shouldn't say it. I'm just saying I don't believe it's true -- it's an overstatement. But overstatements have great rhetorical value so, again, I have no problem with asserting the position.

And Ffej, I remember the interview with the head of the NSA specifically because it was such an extraordinary event. To me, it had "damage control" written all over it. They knew that, sooner or later, it would come out that we had intercepted all the planning communications on 9-11, and that members of the public would freak out as a result. So, they put their guy out right away, to explain that, just because hey have something, it doesn't mean they know what to do with it. If, every time they got a threat against some facility, they ordered the evacuation of the facility, we would likely be evacuating facilities all across the country on a daily bais.

At what point does a threat reach the level that you take action? Judgement call. Since 9-11, they have gone overboard with safety measures and I, for one, am pissed off about that. Ashcroft, Ridge and their buddies have gone way too far. If anything, I want them to back off, notwithstanding any threats out there.

My judgement is that the risk of an attack from insurgents is less than the risk of government intrusion in my life. And, ultimately, I know that there is really nothing you can do with the military or law enforcement to prevent attacks like 9-11. Threats like that have to be dealt with politically (e.g., getting our troops out of the Mid-East, forcing peace in Israel/Palestine.)

So, again, I have no problem with accusing Bush of knowing about 9-11, or of being negligent about 9-11. But, to me at least, that's rehetorical bullshit.

And I generally try to avoid believing my own bullshit (not always successful.)

That's all.

I know what you are saying Jer and yes armed government agents scare me more than any thing, and yes we do not want any of the law enforcement agencies to have any more power than they have now.

However there is too much behind this stuff, like the people who put "put" orders on the airline stock right before 911. Little georgie was spinning and fudging information right from the start, if he did not do anything wrong, why the machinations.

Besides if this stuff does take down little georgie, you can bet we will learn from the leasons that this right wing admin has taught us.

Law enforcement, coporate interests etc that have relied on the right wing to extend their power and expand social conformity will also be looked at with fresh eyes if little georgie falls hard.

and yes Jer this is the type of arguement that we have been argueing about.

Sure for political purposes its great to smear bush with whatever, even if you do not believe it. Why not with Karl Rove now and Lee Atwater for daddy, we should be able to play that game as well.

But you are being too judicious with your beleifs, yes you do not be a fool to your beliefs, but just because your paranoid does not mean its true.

I would think that all would agree that I am an expert about the GreyLord Scandal in Chicago. One rule that I learned about corruption is that the more pompous and arrogant the more corrupt. Rules are meant to be broken but I find it to be a almost a no fail rule.

If you look up arrogant in the dictionary there is the picture of Chaney snearing, if you look up pompous there is the picture of Rumsfeild try to look like Rosevelt. Little Georgie is too child like and stupid to ever make those monikers stick, but if you saw his state of the union address, you know thats what that little prick was going for.

Combine my rule of corruption with the fact that there is a whole lot of smoke, and I beleive that there be some fire somewhere. I just hope its found before it burn the country down.

So my position lacks irony, is that stupidity? If I can not believe my own bullshit whose else am I gonna believe? Ya maybe I have been out in the woods to long, and maybe I lack any good type of herding instinct. But I do believe it is stupid not to believe that those pompous arrogant sobs were not up to something and missed what should have been obvious (or further along on the paranoia chain that they wanted or caused it to happen) and now hopefully we can have the joy of watching them unravel.

Ya I believe what I want to believe but I would be careful to call anyone even little georgie criminally negligent unless I thought they were. Although I agree I am much less circumspect than you.

But its pretty clear little georgie and his horde, had a major hard on for Iraq, it blurred their vision and took up time that should have been used for other considerations. Would we have been able to stop 911 had the bushies been looking at things objectively rather than through the lens of thier own limited world view. A real good arguement could be made that it could have been.

Look at the information they had, look at the priorities of the Clinton Administration, look at the advice they were getting from some of their top guys. But oh no we are after Iraq, we ain't got time for nothing else. I know I would sleep better knowing the president is more concerned with objective realities than odepal dreams of domination.

They should have been on the trail of something like Al Quieda, they should have been smarter. Instead they were fixated on invading Iraq. Can we blame them for not preventing 911, that might be going too far. But can we blame them for ignoring a real terror, while chasing a chimera, yes indeed. Is that criminally negligent, yep, when you are too busy lying and spinning to make something stupid happen, and you ignore a real situation, what else would you call it, expcielly when you are the president of the united states. Remeber he owes a fiduciary duty to the people of the united states to act in theri best interest, and yes he is given wide lattitude as to what is the best interests, but ignoring a known threat and then using your own fuck up to justify possibly the reason why you fucked up to begin with, is disgusting.

Hey, we don't have to be paranoid at all to accuse Bush of serious misconduct with war.

Iraq is a perfect example of something which was planned and executed with the most deceitful, devious bullshit I've seen in my life time. There is no doubt of his intention, no doubt of his motives, no doubt of his duplicity. We've got him cold on Iraq.

On the other hand, Iraq doesn't carry the charge that 9-11 carries. It wasn't an attack on our shores, and Americans are much more freaky about American civilians dying by the thousands.

So everything you say about Bush is true. Iraq proves that. We have no quarrel there.

And we have no quarrel about blasting him for not preventing 9-11.

I just don't think it's the truth. I don't know. To me, the first rule of conflict is: "Know your adversary." Both underestimation and overestimation are mistakes, which can hurt us.

Bush is a devious prick with a bad temper who's not as stupid as he lets on. (Ha! - some would say the same thing about me, and I wouldn't necessarily argue with that.) He fucked us, and the whole world, with Iraq. But my estimation is that he bears only indirect responsibility for 9-11 (meaning, his policies made it more likely, but he niether knew, nor should have known, it was coming.)

But I could be wrong.

IF he did not knew he screwed up big time why is he acting like he got something to hide

One way of looking at it is subservience. He doesn't think he has to answer, because he is the man. All that yammering about executive privilege didn't help Clinton...