posted by David R. Remer

Over at WatchBlog is an excellent and constructive discussion of who is responsible for 9/11. The discussion is taking place among Liberals, Conservatives, folks currently or previously in government and the discussion is, believe it or not, civil and constructive. Check out "Yes, 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented" and join in the discussion.

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by David R. Remer,  Political News & Analysis,  WatchBlog

Operation Vigilant Resolve this week would be better named Operation Vigilant Devolve. It was wrong for the U.S. to enter war with Iraq without the U.N.'s backing and cooperation. That is clear to all except the religiously loyal Bushites. The growing civil and anti-U.S. occupation war developing in Iraq threatens the handover of government to Iraqi's this summer, because it is becoming apparent what many scholars predicted before invasion, that the differing sects in Iraq will not cooperate in a unified government. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said today about the handover threat, "We will make it work."

Whether Donald Rumsfeld understands what he and our troops are really facing is in grave doubt due to such words as he spoke today. Before one can will a thing to happen, one must know that it is possible to make it happen. When the will and intent to win was adamant in the 60's but, the plausibility of any winning scenario was simply not believable, the United States was caught in a trap of pouring ever more American blood into Vietnamese soil with no end in sight. The reason there was no end to the stream of 52 thousand American body bags and 100's of thousands of injuries, was because the will to win was not matched by a strategy or plan that could win. And politicians refused to face the reality that they had erred in their calculations, erred in their planning, and hopelessly underestimated their opponent.

There is still a winning scenario - Turn the war in Iraq over to the U.N. by whatever means necessary. Then the U.S. can claim credit for deposing a ruthless demonic dictator, while laying the burden of decades of nation building and social and cultural rehabilitation which will be necessary in Iraq to allow self governance to become successful. But, like John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard Nixon, the unwillingness of American leaders to admit loss or failure prior to the brink of domestic civil war in the U.S. is every bit as evident in President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld as in their predecessors. But there is no winning scenario if the U.S. pins its hopes of turning security in Iraq over to a civil democratic government representing the Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis. It will take at least a generation or two to bring that about, and our losses will only increase over those decades, threatening domestic peace and tranquility here at home.

It was wrong to invade Iraq without U.N. sanction - meaning, unless and until, the U.N. backed the invasion, the U.S. had no winning strategy, exit strategy, or any other kind of realistic appraisal or strategy backing its targeting of Iraq. Whatever we gained by having a presence in the Middle East, as the last year of history in Iraq demonstrates, will be outweighed by the countless billions of tax dollars, hundreds and even thousands of American troop deaths before it is over, 10's of thousands of injuries, losses of limb, and grief born destruction of families here in America. It was a wrong decision to invade Iraq without the U.N. and pursuing redemption by pursuing a war that has no end will not make the first wrong right, it will just continue to put make American troops in the wrong place, at the wrong time, in what otherwise should be pursuit of terrorists threatening the U.S. instead of a civil war and nation building in Iraq that will take a generation at least.

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by David R. Remer,  Political News & Analysis,  WatchBlog

It is an old maxim in politics that the only person who can beat an incumbent is the incumbent themself. Often it is quoted as "The election is his/hers to lose". Polls this week appear to support that maxim as Kerry pushes past Bush in a number of polls. Kerry's platform is still relatively undefined in the minds of voters, but, President Bush's and his administration's actions are now everywhere in the media and being evaluated by voters. The polls are showing Bush's record, including his war on terrorism, are defeating him. The public is slow to respond to political news, but, given time and media saturation, the voting public is not easily duped or deterred by "doublespeak", spin, or contradictions.

A CBS article regarding its poll states:

Americans believe the Bush Administration is cooperating with the 9/11 Commission, but that there is still more to learn: most say the Administration isn’t telling the entire truth about what they knew before 9/11.

With so many former administration personnel fired or quit coming forth with testimony that the Bush administration was on a mission and no facts or events were going to deter it from its original course, the American people are awakening to the realization that this President, rather than responding to events, may actually have partially been the cause of them: the rise in deficits and national debt, the growth in the number of terrorists gunning for the U.S., and the growth in the number of programs proposed that fail on their face to address our nation's most important needs.

Programs like the illegal immigrant amnesty program, moon and mars colonization programs, undermining the funding for public schools with voucher programs and undermining children's education by underfunding No Child Left Behind, and budgeting for a federal promotion of marriage, are mounting up in voters minds as ineffective, wasteful, and misuse of our nation's resources in addressing the more important concerns of voters like national debt, protecting our borders from terrorist entry, and exporting American jobs.

In a Los Angeles Times poll and article the following is quoted:

The survey found presumed Democratic nominee John F. Kerry holding a 49% to 46% advantage over Bush among registered voters, a difference within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Adding independent candidate Ralph Nader to the mix resulted in little change. In the three-man race, Kerry drew 47%, Bush 44% and Nader 4%.

These polls however must be countered with two other state polls reported on Taegan Goddard's Political Wire site which reports:

In Pennsylvania, President Bush "has moved to a six-point lead" over Sen. John Kerry in this key battleground state, the latest Daily News/CN8 Keystone poll shows. (Full poll results are available.)
In Indiana, President Bush leads Sen. John Kerry, 52% to 37%, according to the latest Bellwether Poll.

Polls this early in the game are no predictor's of election results. They do however, provide some evidence of the impact of candidate's campaign strategies and tactics and media coverage of issues of the day. Somewhere in the Whitehouse in the back of a political mind is a growing question of Karl Rove's ability to improve upon the year 2000's election results. Sometimes no amount of political strategy can overcome an incumbent's record. It remains to be seen if November will be one of those times.

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Pres. Bush is in the N.E. defending his record on jobs and anti-terrorism. He is spending this time and money to shore up his record because it is under major attack from a number of directions. Both Democratic and Republican party members of Congress agree that jobs are critically important to both the economy and the November elections, and they both agree, the jobs growth is a major disappointment to economic recovery. On the other hand, 2003 saw our economy grow at a healthy 4.1 percent pace, a point that is sure to be touted in Bush’s speeches and ads from this point forward.

On anti-terrorism, the President is under fire from the 9/11 Investigation Commission which has brought forth testimony indicating that both Presidents Bush and Clinton failed to use intelligence they had to defend American lives on 9/11/2001. President Bush stated today he did not know that planes would be used to attack targets in the U.S. However, the 9/11 Commission has evidenced that our Intelligence Community did in fact know that planes may likely be used in attacks and that the targets such as the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were possible targets. Bush’s critics are calling Bush’s statement an outright lie. The question of whether the President knew of this intelligence prior to 9/11 has not been answered. The question of whether the President should have known this information is just now being raised.

Of course the main controversy centers on Richard Clarke’s testimony that the Administration was so obsessed with Iraq and Saddam Hussein that they misinterpreted intelligence regarding an impending al-Queda attack and failed to take necessary steps to defend against what became the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Clarke’s credibility is the primary target by conservatives both on the Commission and in the media. Nonetheless, Republican attempts to pin Clarke in his own testimony were unsuccessful as Clarke demonstrated remarkable poise and calm in responding to court like inquiries by panel members.

While the President has agreed to testify before the Commission, the person with probably the most detailed knowledge of the policies and decisions on anti-terrorism before 9/11, Condoleeza Rice has refused to testify under oath and in public before the Commission. Ms. Rice is becoming a prime target of progressive attacks for what appears to them to be increasingly a case of having something to hide. While the Administration argues that commanding her testimony is a breach of Executive Branch powers and rights, progressives argue that no person in government should be above investigation by the public’s representatives. This is an issue that is sure to fester for months to come and may become a campaign issue.

The stock market tumbled last week amid jitters over terrorist attacks in Spain and Israel, and bombs being found in various locations, as well as intelligence being reported that the U.S. is going to be targeted again, and Donald Rumsfeld has stated it could happen tomorrow. Investors lost big as the markets tumbled, the Dow Jones Average losing almost 500 points in recent weeks. Bearish sentiments are replacing the previous bullish enthusiasm that has lifted the Dow from 7000 plus to over 10,000 since 9/11 according to MSNBC today.

Lou Dobbs began a series on TV over a month ago called The Exporting of America. This program has helped raise the issues of outsourcing jobs to other countries by American corporations, and the transfer of ownership of American assets to foreign investors via America’s national debt and rising deficits, has put these issues in the headlines on the campaign trail. Sen. Kerry is making the lack of jobs a central issue in his campaign and putting the President on the defensive on this issue as seen by his speeches today.

Polls are showing the race between Kerry and Bush neck and neck and the near half billion dollars being raised for campaigning by Kerry and Bush are now in play buying ads to tarnish the image if each candidate’s opponent. This may be an unprecedented spending year for a Presidential election in American history. Ad agencies are salivating.

Bush’s ads are focusing on Kerry’s Senatorial voting record making claims which are not factual about Kerry’s votes on raising taxes. The Bush camp is using votes that reflect Kerry’s votes for alternative amendments and bills that would not have included Bush’s tax cuts. Also included in the GOP claim of over 350 votes to increase taxes are votes on in which Kerry opposed the bills on issues other than the taxes included in them. Kerry’s camp has launched ads placing the jobless recovery and failure to provide troops and veterans with the funds they say are needed to keep military families from falling into poverty or bankruptcy.

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Testimony today before the 9/11 Investigating Commission was shocking. Among those testifying were Generals, Mr. Armitage, M. Allbright, and C. Powell, D. Rumsfeld, and P. Wolfowitz. Overall, it appears that both administrations, Clinton's and G.W. Bush's governed over a history of intelligence from 1991 right up through the summer of 9/11 which gave a host of indications and warnings of airliners to be used as weapons against the U.S. There were even, though not during 2001, intelligence data indicating the Pentagon and World Trade Center may be targets. Despite this intelligence neither the Clinton nor the Bush administration took any steps to beef up security of our airline industry, or to warn Congress that such action might be necessary.

Particularly damning was testimony by Donald Rumsfeld acknowledging heightened intelligence activity warning of possible impending attack throughout the summer preceding 9/11. Mr. Rumsfeld's response was that he was not responsible for domestic security and his focus was on overseas threats. He stated he does not recall being directly informed of a possible threat to the Pentagon, an area of responsibility that was his.

The President, G.W. Bush today also stated very carefully that, had he known there would be an attack on the WTC on Sept. 11, he would have taken action. Note what he did not say. He did not say he was not aware of increased intelligence indicating a possible impending attack. He did not say he was not aware that the WTC was a potential target. He did not say he was not aware the attacks could likely come from hijacked airliners. Testimony by Rumsfeld indicates that our Intelligence officers and head of CIA were aware of all these facts. Rumsfeld stated however, he does not recall if he had been made aware by the intelligence community of this information.

What we can expect from this investigation is tough questions seeking tough answers as the panel appears to be serious in their endeavor to determine what happened, what didn't happen, and why 9/11 occurred at all. What we cannot expect is a confession by anyone that they messed up or were responsible in anyway for allowing 9/11 to occur. Their answers were calculated, and appeared at times rehearsed. Only Wolfowitz however, became defensive and testy when questioned. Cooperative attitudes appear to be the order of the day. We can also not expect to ever hear the whole truth. Their was reference made by one of the panel that certain information specifically about intelligence content would not be disclosed to the public.

The one inescapable fact that came out today, however, was that both administrations reigned over intelligence indicating that something like what occurred on 9/11 was very likely to occur at some point in time, and neither administration took a single step to beef up airline security. The Bush administration is particularly vulnerable on this point since the intelligence community and the head of the CIA were receiving a high volume of indications in the few months preceding 9/11 that something was very likely about to happen against the U.S. resulting from al-Queda actions.

Clark is scheduled to testify tomorrow. There is a very different story to be told between him and Wolfowitz, tomorrow regarding prioritizing Iraq over al Queda. Wolfowitz today denied Clark’s charge that Wolfowitz in a meeting had indicated that Iraq was a greater priority.

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Posted by D.R. Remer   Political News & Analysis,  WatchBlog

There is a story circulating on the net about Americans unloading the kind of parts needed by Hussein in the early 1990’s to develop WMD and long range missiles. The source is an Iraqi Government official who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Mehr, an Iranian news agency covering Iraq. The official reports Americans were seen unloading cargo of the kind mentioned above at a port in Southern Iraq and timed to coincide with other big news and events that would overshadow the unloading.

Two sites reporting this are Forum for America and Dread Times.

The implications if the story can be verified are enormous.

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 by David R. Remer,  Political News & Analysis,  WatchBlog

Half the country has been fooled by the Great Bush Hoax. The other half saw it for what it was when it was launched. The Great Hoax is the idea that any amount of money, soldiers, or equipment sent overseas could possibly win the War on Terrorism. If you are a Bush supporter, you won’t want to read this, the inescapable logic of it will make you angry. For all others, the simple and elegant logic that follows will vindicate your gut feelings about this President’s foreign policy and War on Terrorism.

For centuries China had it’s warlords who terrorized their feudal serfs into submission and taxation. The armies of the warlords were terrorists. Ancient Greek history is full of myth, legend, and history regarding terrorists and terrorist tactics by opposing armies. The great Roman Empire ended with the terrorism from the likes of the Visigoths and Huns who with their hit and run tactics, drove fear into the hearts of Roman legions. They did so effectively that Rome actually hired (bribed) the terrorist leaders to join Roman campaigns, only to see the terrorist tactics grow by throngs hoping to get bribed by Rome also.

The Medieval period saw one of the greatest terrorist movements in all of history played out by none other than the Roman Catholic Church via the Inquisition. The epitomy of terrorism was defined during this period. Then there was the conquest of the America’s which brought terror in the form of disease, alcohol, land theft, and habitat and cultural destruction. In the 1940’s and 50’s terrorism was unleashed on 10’s of millions in Germany and Russia by monsters named Stalin and Hitler. In the 1950’s the U.S. saw the growth and perpetuation of a form of terrorism that lives in infamy and is learned by every Congress Man and Woman. That form of terrorism was called McCarthyism and Commie Witch Hunts. And let us not forget the Ku Klux Klan.

Even today we have numbers of terrorists in the USA, serial murderers, freeway marksman killers, Timothy McVeigh, and young lad arrested just last week with 20 or so homemade bombs and a firearm on his high school grounds. They all have an agenda and a common means of carrying it out. Strike fear in the hearts of others. The point of this history recital is simple. The President of the U.S. says he will win this war on terrorism. That is as bold a lie as has ever been told by a sitting President. Humankind carries with it, terrorism, wherever societies emerge. There has always been terrorism in the world, and there will always be terrorism in the world. No amount of money, equipment, or soldiers sent overseas could possibly hope to end terrorism in the world any more than it could hope to end evil, greed, and corruption.

The War on Terrorism will become a terrorism of its own making as the war takes more and more thousands of innocent lives. The lives of children, mothers, and fathers who happen to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, like the Afghani children killed by U.S. troops in December, or the countless thousands of innocent Iraqis who died in the wake of Bush’s campaign against Saddam Hussein. As long as this war on Terrorism is fought as a military campaign, instead of an intelligence and police campaign, millions of innocent people will live in fear of the war coming to their home despite the fact that they have nothing to do with terrorist activity.

The Europeans (save for Tony Blair) differ with Bush’s military campaign against terrorism. They are going to deal with terrorism as an intelligence and police issue rather than indiscriminately bomb and kill 10’s of thousands of innocent bystanders overseas in the name of liberating them or defending ourselves. The U.S. is becoming increasingly isolated by world opinion, thanks to the Bush Administration. The world was behind us in our invasion of Afghanistan, the U.N. assisted us in Afghanistan, because a direct assault upon our people originated in Afghanistan. Such a retaliatory attack was also seen as defensive by the rest of the world and therefore justified.

And then, the Bush Administration took advantage of the sympathy of foreign nations for our plight on 9/11 to carry out plans laid down in the 1990’s to seize a military hold on the middle east, to obtain revenge for an assassination attempt upon G.W. Bush’s father sanctioned by Saddam Hussein, and to spread American military might around the globe in attempt no less than world wide military strike domination. What the rest of the world sees, but this Administration does not, is the simple fact that to secure our people against terrorist attacks from abroad, we must secure our borders.

When Bush’s Administration places the bulk of its military spending, equipment and personnel overseas to fight terrorism, the people of the rest of the world ask how can such action be committed in the name of war against terrorism? It is obvious to them, that if defense against terrorism is our real objective, we should be placing that money, equipment, and personnel on our own borders, in our shipping lanes and in our airports. The way to defend against terrorism is to keep terrorists from getting in, in the first place. Yet every objective review of domestic defense against terrorism reveals we are as vulnerable today as we were on 9/11. Therefore, it is inescapably logical to conclude that our efforts overseas have some other agenda than defending ourselves from terrorists.

And in fact, that is the conclusion the people of the rest of the world are coming to. As recent headlines reveal that heads of state are beginning to realize what the people have known, as Spain, Honduras, and more to come announce they are no longer to be counted in the coalition of the willing. They recognize the absence of WMD in Iraq, combined with our utter and almost complete disregard for allocating our national resources to our own border defenses, amounts to a Hoax played upon the sympathies of peoples around the globe. A hoax which uses 9/11 and the war on terrorism to cover a far more sinister and dangerous agenda of spreading military strike capability around the globe and having the ability to aim that might into the heart of any city, hamlet, or neighborhood in the world.

If President Bush is reelected, it is the U.S. which will be viewed as the spreader of terrorism, as it continues to fail to rally other nations into its hoax. Bush will in the next four years, leave the U.S. military spread out in the world posing the largest threat to the peace and safety of billions of other people in the world as well as to our own troops. We may easily become viewed as the greatest terrorist threat in the world under another four years of this war fixed administration.

President Bush is not looking to make the U.S. a terrorist. He is not looking to become the greatest fear of peoples throughout the world. He is not bankrupting the American tax payer with grandiose plans of becoming King of the World. He is honestly trying to do what he believes is right for his family, for his friends, and for his country. The problem is, he is afraid. And like all bullies, fear motivates him to overreact, to offend as defense, to harm others first lest he be harmed. All bullies are basically cowards and their irrational behavior is designed to mask their fear. President Bush is just such a man. With the best of intentions, he has become the most aggressive, most deceiving, and most unpredictable U.S. President the World has seen in a very, very long time.

Our nation cannot afford the consequences of another four year term by President George W. Bush. Half the voters in this country understand that. The question is will the other half be capable of seeing through the hoax before it is too late. November will tell.

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