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As for your question regarding the issue of rendition, there’s no answer for that, other than to make it abundantly clear –AGAIN- that the torture and rendition was accomplished by the CIA under the direction of Richard B. Cheney. There is too much information out on this now, for anyone to be ignorant of how this came about, and I find your own rendition of the ‘no big deal’ story and ‘cultural relevance’ to be highly offensive. Again, TORTURE, and the rendition for such purposes is about as criminal as it gets, in addition to being morally repugnant.

The CIA obviously flew these people to places OUTSIDE the US, where they COULD be TORTURED by ‘experts’ in the field, and so that Condi Rice could lie through her teeth and say, “The US doesn’t torture” – The CIA just takes them to places where they can and will be tortured. Cheney argued HARD for the CIA to be able to continue this practice, long after the torture at Abu Ghraib and Bragam AFB, and Guantanamo and Guantanamo had been exposed. It was even after the Italian Courts indicted CIA agents for doing exactly that.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1395637.ece

He wanted to make sure that he covered their asses, that’s what the whole Military Commissions Act was designed to do…cover their asses after the fact.

on 9/11, Louise writes,

•  “And there is absolutely NO physical evidence of the alleged dozen or so guys who allegedly carried out that remarkable attack.”
Thanks Louise. This is exactly what I’d planned to point out to AFriend.

A Friend,
Please be advised that there is simply NO physical evidence (and I do mean NONE) to back up the official 9/11 Conspiracy. NONE!

Not only is there absolutely NO physical evidence to connect the alleged highjackers to the deed, there is NO proof that AA flight 77 ever came anywhere NEAR the Pentagon. (ZERO evidence – and I know what ‘evidence’ to expect in any air disaster) The same can be said of the airplanes that crashed into the WTC. We were told that it was AA flight 11 and UA flight 175 that crashed there, but all we saw were airplanes, and only briefly. Since those two aircraft were presumable pulverized in the demolition, there is no physical evidence to prove that those aircraft were in fact AA flt 11 and UA flt 175. HOWEVER, there IS evidence in the dust collected from the crime scene, of thermate. (?) So for those of us who refuse to believe our own eyes, (which was a controlled demolition of the WTC) there’s the dust left over to prove it. The WTC was BLOWN UP, and NOT by airplanes!!

And yes, it could ONLY have been an ‘inside job’. If you don’t believe that, then you should be fossilized in perpetual fear of it happening again. Again, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY for an aircraft piloted by ANYBODY, to have supposedly flown into the MOST PROTECTED AIR SPACE IN THE UNIVERSE, if the US MILITARY DIDN’T LET IT! It was the flippin’ PENTAGON GUYS!!!  The most powerful symbol of military force in the world, and you guys think a bunch of alleged radical Islamists were able to figure out how to breach it. Do you have ANY clue to how the infrastructure that supposedly protects you, (and actually DOES protect you) even works? Do you have even a clue to what happens if a student pilot, private jet, commercial aircraft, or anything else that is NOT a military aircraft wanders into that airspace? Let me tell you…within SECONDS, fighter jets surround that craft, and make it real clear that they’ll be ‘escorted’ back to authorized air space, OR ELSE!!!

That is one of about 5 dozen reasons why we KNOW that 9/11 was an inside job.

If anyone can actually show proof (the evidence A Friend refers to doesn’t exist, or we haven’t seen it) then of course I’d like to see it myself.

So far, there is simply nothing to corroborate the official story. Nothing.

given the history of the US government (how many million needless deaths did we cause in SE Asia?), given the fact that these guys have got a global agenda now (benevolent global hegemony), do you think they’re gonna have any qualms about killing a few thousand americans?

do you think any of these guys give a hoot about the ethical or moral pitfalls of torturing people if that torture will lead to “confessions” that will give them an excuse to advance their agenda?

do you think israelis are gonna give a fig about torture or millions of dead americans if that’s what it takes to secure their country?

...not to mention prominent israelis calling for an abandonment of morals if israel’s existence is threatened.

jews should abandon moral behavior ...from the founder of the JPPPI via the jewish forward.

and who is the new special advisor for the middle east, if not the chairman of the board of the JPPPI?

a continuation of neocon policy will lead to the law of the jungle.

fbi director mueller cant cant prove IDs of hijackers…

...which is bad enough, but he also had to admit he could find no evidence of bin laden’s connection to 9/11…

…and bin laden is not wanted for participation in 9/11, according to the FBI’s wanted poster…

*shrugs*

replacement for bad link below:

how exxon hooked up with the israeli americans...

historians will start looking for the truth some time or other…

…and they’re gonna have a hard time swallowing the official 9/11 conspiracy theory if they use the traditional parameters —motive, means, opportunity, and character— to figure out exactly what happened, especially in view of the fact that peak oil and sea level rise will have become painfully obvious as motives for starting a land and oil acquisition project.

the 9/11 operation was a necessity, to get the project started before the motives for starting the project became obvious.

motive, means, opportunity, and character

…and premeditation, as israelis and israeli americans have been agitating for decades to rearrange the middle east, and PNAC even confessed —a year before 9/11— that they needed “a new pearl harbor” to get their project started.

not to mention the fact that the prime deniers of global warming and peak oil are the AEI, exxon and CERA… the people with the most motive to deny that their motives for doing 9/11 exist.

now, that’s how the historians are gonna see it …and if that’s not what’s happening, it would behoove the israelis, israeli americans, exxon and their fellow travelers to stop behaving as if that IS what’s happening.

MOTIVES: security for israel, oil for exxon: US taxpayers foot the bill

it’s no secret that the israelis have been pushing for reassembly of the middle east for decades, and it seems reasonable to assume that israel—-located as it is adjacent to the world’s biggest oil patch—- would not be nearly as important to america if america were not so dependent on oil…. for instance, if america was supplying itself with electricity from nuke plants built and operated by exxon, fueled with uranium from exxon mines.

once exxon became aware of israeli americans’ determination to thwart development of nuke plants, once exxon became aware of the power of the israeli american media, once exxon became aware of israeli and israeli american determination to remodel the middle east, exxon gave up on their nukes and joined up with the israeli americans in their land and oil acquisition project.

since the american taxpayer would be footing the bill for the project—-at a time when oil is getting scarce and exploration and production costs are soaring—- an alliance with the israeli americans and their PNAC project is the cheapest way for exxon to grab a chunk of the biggest oil reserves in the world.

...not to mention the inconvenient fact that israel must be secured before their american protector runs out of gas and collapses from being looted by oligarchs who see the peak oil handwriting on the wall.

so, just to kinda sum things up…

we’ve got PNAC—-a spinoff of the likud’s AEI,  located in the same building as the AEI and bill kristol’s neocon flagship publication, the weekly standard—- saying they need a “new pearl harbor” in september of 2000, a year before their “new pearl harbor” happens.

a couple months after PNAC says they need “a new pearl harbor”, PNAC signatories are installed into positions from which they can make their “new pearl harbor” happen—-they are installed into those positions by an election recount in a state governed by the president’s brother, jeb bush, a PNAC member—- and a few months after that, their hoped-for “new pearl harbor” happens.

once the “new pearl harbor” happens, on september 11, 2001, bibi netanyahu declares the 9/11 operation was “very good”... we have to assume that a handful of little nukes going off in american cities would have been even better… but maybe they’re saving that for “next time”.

what “next time” is that? ...why, it’s the “next time” that cheney and chertoff have been warning us about.

it’s the “next time” that some neocons have said they need.

so if the neocons and their exxon allies needed the first “new pearl harbor”, and admit they need a new “new pearl harbor”, what’s a poor boy to think?

poor boys are led to the inescapable conclusion that PNAC, the AEI and their exxon allies had motives to stage 9/11.

...and once we’ve established they had a motive, the rest—-means, opportunity and character—- is duck soup

Gold Star Father, I’m so sorry for your loss; a son is irreplaceable, but I’m certain that he would have been proud of what you wrote, what you’ve done, and what you will do if necessary. Like you, I believe that 9/11 was the work of skilled fanatics outside of our government and our culture, and that our government cynically led us into a war in Iraq that never should have been. My son-in-law disagreed with the waging of that war but he went because he was a soldier and believed in this country, if not the people leading it at the time. Obama is not a miracle worker, but I do believe he has the intelligence and the will and the decency to get us out of there carefully so that at least some of what your son and my son-in-law fought for will be realized. Thank you for continuing the good fight, and it’s an honor for everyone reading this to hear from you. From one Marine family to another, Semper Fi.

AFriend,

“Reams of evidence,  hundreds of hours of testimony, thousands of case files and years of solid investigative man hours can be seen by anyone who puts forth the effort and time.”
~~~

Right ...

Tell me, if we had “Reams of evidence, hundreds of hours of testimony, thousands of case files and years of solid investigative man hours” how come we were so dumb we didn’t prevent it?

Or, could it be those “Reams of evidence, hundreds of hours of testimony, thousands of case files and years of solid investigative man hours” gave whoever or some whoevers the perfect road-map to create the perfect plan to make a few extremely amoral, maladjusted, but very wealthy corporate dudes tons of money?

Have you ever, in your defense of the implausible if not down-right impossible, taken the time to figure out who benefited from 9/11? You know, like money and power? And tell me something else, how come no-where in modern history, before or since 9/11 can we find an example of a skyscraper completely collapsing as a result of fire? Let alone three!

Well, we cant. Because it has never happened. Not before 9/11. Not since 9/11 and most certainly not on 9/11.

And anyone who honestly believes investigators, particularly Federal Investigators, solved the mystery of who, where, when, how and how many, in a matter of hours, only demonstrates how little they actually know about Federal Investigations in general, and Federal Investigators in particular!

There may be a sense of saving something in choosing to ignore reality and buy the bad product, cause it’s wrapped in such pretty ribbon. But that saving came with a very high price. Like seven years of hell, and counting!

Actually I have read those reams and testimonies and investigative results. They do not add up! Well at least not to anyone who knows how to add. Now tell me, have you read the volumes, literally volumes of documentation, evidence and eyewitness testimony that seriously challenges the official story?

Probably not. Reading calculus, physics and other generally scientific stuff can be a bit of a challenge. Not near as easy to understand as gobbledegook designed to look smart, without actually offering factual, scientific evidence! I mean greedy, nasty people don’t worry a whole lot about factual scientific evidence! Why should they when fear and stupidity does such a great job for them?

Yes, planes flew into TWO of the towers. Yes, there were fires. Yes, THREE towers fell down. And there-in lies the truth.

The towers did not burn down. Period.

Structural failure never happens in such a precise fashion. Period.

Not in a fire, not even in an earthquake. Period.

And there is absolutely NO physical evidence of the alleged dozen or so guys who allegedly carried out that remarkable attack.

None.

Period!

cyrena, you might be amused to know that “24” is so popular in San Francisco, bastion of all that is politically correct, that one of the SF Chronicle’s regular columnists has a blog that weekly discusses the ongoing adventures of Jack Bauer and gets dozens of comments every time. (Well, at least the four or five times I checked on it—blundered into it one day looking for movie listings and was astonished.) Don’t have a tv, but later rented a few DVD episodes to see what everyone was talking about. Everybody tortured everybody, good guys, bad guys, (glad to see all the terrorists were not Moslems) but I’d guess the major appeal is hyperactivity and clipped dialogue not challenging even the smallest attention span combined with the notion that scary problems are inevitably soluble and in due course all’s right with the world the viewer inhabits. What I don’t know is whether this plays in places like Somalia, the Near East, and if so how people there see it.

prgill, cyrena, anyone, a question. If it’s really OK with Americans to torture people, why does the CIA bother with rendition (to countries where torture is the norm)? Torture is morally abhorrent and, from what I’ve read by people who study such things, as likely to elicit fairy tales as useful information. Attitudes toward it depend somewhat on the culture. Watching one of many documentary movies on Iraq (this one the product of the filmmaker distributing 500 cameras to Iraqis, asking them to film people discussing the war
and then return the film to him but keeping the cameras for themselves), there was footage in which a European asked a group of older Iraqi men sitting around playing cards what they thought about Abu Graibh. Several of them ducked their heads and ignored the questioner, except for one man who laughed and said that Saddam knew what torture was but the Americans didn’t and were making fools of themselves making such a fuss about it. He added with a small smile that he would be willing to be tortured by an attractive young woman like that girl in the newspaper photos. I doubt he represents the general Iraqi opinion, but his reaction did make me wonder if there were things we just don’t get because we’re generally so sheltered.

The real answer to the article’s main question may simply be that most Americans trust their government to protect them and don’t care how they do it as long as it gets done. This is a peculiar sort of apathy that one only finds in a country whose citizens have not known war on their own soil in their and their parents’ lifetimes. Here, pain is something that accompanies illness and every other kind of pain, the farther removed geographically it is, the less we react to or care about it, even if it’s our own government imposing it. Now, if they started rounding up and torturing wrong-thinking Americans, I believe you’d see a rapid reversal of opinion and a greatly jacked-up interest. But perhaps that’s just my own paranoid thinking, because like Sinclair Lewis I believe that it can happen here, that America can regress to a police state (in baby-steps of course) as easily as people boil a lobster in a pot. 

Like Afriend, I find allegations that 9/11 was an inside job absurd, but on the other hand I don’t think the Warren Commission got anywhere close to naming Kennedy’s murderers. Sometimes governments are relatively candid, sometimes they lie, and it’s a mistake to assume it’s only one or the other. We have to pay smarter and closer attention, and not rely too much on labels such as liberal, conservative, populist etc. Every one of those categories somewhere, sometime, has given birth to a horribly repressive government.

By tropicgirl, March 6 at 7:12 pm #

•  “Come on guys, the question is what is happening now? Is Obama any different? Hindsight is great but the trick is realizing the deception WHILE its happening. I haven’t heard much about how Obama is now somehow different.”

You haven’t ‘heard’ tropicgirl, or are you just too busy bashing to notice, maybe because of how dumbed down you might also be? You don’t see anything ‘different’ about the fact that President Obama IMMEDIATELY –first day:

Gave the order to close Guantanamo, (which is exactly what we’re talking about here)
RE-Affirmed that the US really DOES NOT and WILL NOT TORTURE!!

Gave the order to suspend the kangaroo trials that have been taking place there
Restored the Freedom of Information Act, (which is how and why we’re finally getting to these documents, and others that Cheney had re-classified and locked up for the past 8 years.

Took on the Swiss Banking system (and UBS) to force them to reveal the identities of those 1% the wealthiest of the gang who have been hiding our money in off-shore/Swiss accounts to keep from paying taxes on it.

(I could go on, and I will)

So for YOUR own information, the ‘trick’ of recognizing the deception while it is in progress, is exactly what many of us have already accomplished, including Obama, which is why he ran for the office and won it. RECOGNIZING the deception while it is happening, (as we have for the previous 8 years) didn’t do a damn thing if we didn’t have the power to change any of it, so this isn’t about ‘hindsight’ for US, though it obviously much be for YOU.

No, we already KNEW that the Grand Heist of modern history was taking place, and we couldn’t stop it until NOW that we got the treasonous cabal out of the way. And yes, their crimes will continue to surface, because until Americans understand HOW we got this far into the crash, (the decline has been OBVIOUS to many of us for decades, thanks to the Myth of Regan) we can’t fix NOW. Until Americans understand that we were, (as G Anderson would say) a gnats eyelash away from a completely authoritarian/fascist dictatorship, and that it is the crimes of this cabal that have destroyed us through deregulation and other illegalities that they’ve somehow ‘made legal’ thanks to the handiwork of David Addington and others in service to the Cheney Shadow Government.

Some very good comments here. But, I still get the sense we’re in denial. If we truly understood just how screwed we are, we’d be scared to death; but we also might do something. As it stands, the status quo will be maintained as yet another manufactured crisis keeps us paralyzed and prey for the politicians that would continue to victimize us. God help us; we’re certainly not helping ourselves. I think we’ll know change is coming when the rage finally hits the streets.

Americans have been dumbed down!  Over the last 30 years, Americans have received less news and information as we all have been “chasing the American Dream”, that elusive thing we see only in slumber!  The fact that Repugikans have been in charge of Congress for so long dismantling the very fabric of the social net all while allowing BIG BUSINESS and the very rich to become the new WELFARE recipients; all while telling Americans to be individuals and do it themselves!  It has been a slow long hemorrhage that has now devastated our economy and any moral values that this nation held!  Our government in the meantime has supported dictators and backed criminals - and yet we wonder why the horrors of September 11th happened?  The question is why didn’t it happen sooner?!

As most Americans were not just horrified, the daily changing of threatcon flag colors didn’t do anything to calm the public fears - the Mis-Administration of GWB and his cronies, along with the talking heads that convinced many that those that would dissent were equal to treason, meant that those that did dissent were brushed aside as “haters of America”!  Many in the very compliant media did their jobs by not reporting the truth (they learned the lesson from Dan Rather)!

That many Americans still refuse to pay attention to the evidence is due to: (1)erroneously thinking that the “enemy being spied on is out there”, (2)a cultivated arrogance that America is the world, (3)the religious pimps in the pulpit - leading their flock away from the reality of what is!

My hope with this election of change is that Americans start waking up to the reality that the politicians and talking heads they listen to are just pi—ing on their heads, while they tell them it’s just rain!  Maybe this fiasco we are facing as a nation will make it easier for people to see thru the mist to reality!!

Come on guys, the question is what is happening now? Is Obama any different? Hindsight is great but the trick is realizing the deception WHILE its happening. I haven’t heard much about how Obama is now somehow different.

And to anyone who doesn’t know the truth about 911. Do yourself a favor and at least watch Loose Change Final Edition. If you hide from truth is the whole reason for this article and why no one did anything before.

Come on, you’ve had plenty of time to regurgitate the koolaid but some still (AFriend) remain in ignorance. Willfully.

Thats why you can’t really understand how bad the totalitarianism we lived in and still do. You never will when you hide like that.

The “time of war” excuse used to legitimize suspension of our constitutional rights and protections is the antithesis of our founding principles.

If our constitution has any meaning at all it is precisely during a “time of war” when we must be diligent in ensuring those principles remain in tact. Our character as individuals is revealed most dramaticlly in how we deal with personal crisis. This is no less true of our character as a nation. Suspending our most cherished protections and liberties in times of trial is what led to the unconscionable Japanese internment camps during WW2. The same is true of the warrantless wiretaps and the incarceration, detention and torture of suspected “terrorists” in the last decade.

The bottom line is that if our principles are truly right and good, they remain so in times of peril and must be defended most fervently at those times.

when you think about israel’s history of false flags, and PNAC wanting “a new pearl harbor”, and bibi’s thinking 9/11 was “very good”, and all the warnings we’re getting, and the neocons’ yearnings for “another 9/11”...

well, considering all that, i guess it’s about time we started waterboarding cheney, chertoff, netanyahu, perle, kristol, wolfowitz, abrams, podheretz, libby and the rest of the boys… maybe danielle pletka and meyrav wurmser, too… because we’re pretty sure israelis have planted little nukes in a few american cities.

i mean, if bibi thought 9/11 was very good, we have to assume that a few little nukes going off in american cities would be even better, especially seeing as how the project seems to need a little shot in the arm… at least according to these yahoos who want another 9/11.

and if the israelis havent planted nukes in american cities, well… that’s just tough luck for the boys and girls we torture, isnt it?

Louise,

“We don’t have hard proof that 9/11 happened as we are told! Never have had! Never will have! “

I will never understand this thinking. It seems to me a case of willful -purposeful- ignorance.

Sept. 11 was not an inside job. It was not an Israeli plot. It was not the “Bush cabal”. Etc. etc…

Sept. 11 was planned and carried out by an enemy who declared war on both the West and moderate Arab nations over a decade ago. Reams of evidence,  hundreds of hours of testimony, thousands of case files and years of solid investigative man hours can be seen by anyone who puts forth the effort and time.

Why Did So Few Americans Give a Damn?
*************************************

Because the others are still glupping down the BS from the MSM and the entertainment, which long time ago became commercial, which puts the idea of entertainment as coming from a tube or some other mostly unuseless venue(tv sports for one, casinos another). Once again I say, those decacdes of the neoconservative think tanks(cato, american heritage, hoover, etc…)where a bunch of dedicated treasonous motherf**kers started reading, studing and researching anything that dealt with neocon ideology and the way to gain the power of carry out those ideas, plans and schemes that are now in everyone’s face for individual perusal, have born the fruit that those think tanks were designed to produce and there are still far too many ‘poor souls’ that can’t be bothered with reality.
I once predicted the market will go down to 5000. That day is not far away. But now I don’t think it will bottom out at 5000, I believe that there is a possibility of the NYSE hitting 0, and if it does there will still be those slugs that still accept what ‘big brother’ is stuffing down their throats. So with that I can see the possibility of the point of cannibalism being where those that still don’t give a damn will concede that there is something wrong and needs to be fixed.
Amazing what just a tripling of the human population in the past 60 years or so produced. Well, good luck anyway.

“Possibly a day would have come when some…political pressure group like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, did something that seriously annoyed the White House.” How’s that for slipping in a red flag. We should all live so long as to see the day when AIPAC ever does anything to seriously annoy the White House. Despite a passing flap over some spying connection allegations relating to the Franklin case, The Lobby still holds sway in Washington (and many local districts) like none other. Every top pol and lawmaker regularly troops up to the annual AIPAC convention in the capital every spring to swear allegiance to the Jewish State, just as surely as the cherry blossoms bloom in April. “If a battalion of military police took over the hall and the participants ‘disappeared’, it would certainly’” - be a good thing! But the chances of that happening are about as remote as Barack Obama speaking out - let alone acting - against torture and martial law in the illegally occupied Palestinian territories by America’s leading foreign aid recipient. The delightful prospect of AIPAC - which has played such a leading role in bringing this about and undergirding Israeli fascism - being at last shut down themselves by such measures is almost too delicious to contemplate. Alas, it could never be. “The documents currently being released by the Justice Department that demonstrate the Bush administration’s view of the president’s constitutional power in a ‘state of war’ tell us things” that go on in the Occupied Territories every day, only worse. So far at least, no documents released have shown that the “Bush administration’s view of the president’s constitutional power in a ‘state of war’” included gunning dissidents down in the street from attack helicopters or bulldozing their families houses or other such niceties. But despite the fact that everything in the recently released Bush memorandums and much worse goes on in Palestine all the time and Israel’s “use of torture has been public knowledge or surmise since very early in” the Occupation, “not many Americans seemed to take note or to protest”. “This was the amazing thing, really. Very few people among the American public seemed to care” about Gaza or of forty plus years of Occupation. So perhaps it’s not so surprising that they also didn’t much care about the Israelization of America. What if for forty years in Israel “entertainment radio had broadcast a popular program in which” Mossad and Shin Bet officers tortured Palestinians, or captured resistance fighters, “to extract vital information from them at any cost?” Moshe Dayan himself might have tuned in. He had decreed that Palestinian commandos “should be treated as terrorists rather than as soldiers.” If a battalion of Israeli military police took over Palestinian homes and the inhabitants ‘‘disappeared’ it would certainly have made the newspapers, if the newspapers still reported such things. But considering the precedent of the American popular reaction to torture” and occupation by Israel what else would have happened? “Possibly there would have been a popular new television program about the” holocaust or “about the subversive forces at work in America’s” Middle East oil domains and how imperialists “should deal with them”.

“At the time, this state of armed conflict consisted of a dozen or so stateless persons who had deliberately crashed aircraft into New York and Washington buildings.”
~~~

We don’t have hard proof that 9/11 happened as we are told! Never have had! Never will have! We’ve watched Justice plow, be dragged and be damned for seven years, completely unable to stop the abuses going on in the Bush Administration. Yet, we’re expected to believe without question, the crime of 9/11 was solved before the dust settled!

Bull Crap!

~~~
“The two initial memos on torture were withdrawn when they became public.”
~~~

Were they? Or is that what we’re expected to believe? They may have been withdrawn as in hidden from view, but torture went on long after public notice, long after Congress took note. Long after.

This article implies nobody gave a damn. That’s not true! A lot of us were warning people long before the selection. Molly Ivins springs to mind! Greg Palast springs to mind! But I didn’t see war coming until my kids in the military gave me a heads-up! More concerned about Rummy than Bush, I was told his appointment meant we would be going to war! Long before 9/11, long before Afghanistan, or the twelve alleged hijackers. Long before torture memos or the Patriot Bill! Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense meant we would be going to war!

“War?” I asked. “With who?”
“Iraq,” came the answer.

So as horrible as it was, what followed can’t have been a surprise to everyone. Now, thanks to the way Bush and Rumsfeld did NOT fight the war THEY started in Afghanistan, we’re faced with a Heroin epidemic! Their stepping stone to Iraq only managed to create more instability in Afghanistan, leading to the most flourishing drug trade the Warlords have ever enjoyed!

Needless war, torture, illegal renditions, abuse of civil rights, a tin-pot dictator and his evil adviser telling him what to do. The rape of a nation, the looting of the treasury, the decimation of our military. Restarting Reagans failed “Star Wars” and the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Creating layers of (fixed) “intelligence” in the DOD, the CIA. All the while putting in place incompetents and dunderheads to make and break policy which hurt everyone and everything, but enriched them! Yoo and Bybee were household names in many households before Congress woke up! Some in Congress STILL don’t get it! Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll see Yoo and Bybee disbarred, but don’t count on it.

There’s SO MUCH lawbreaking surrounding dictator Bush it will take an army of investigators and prosecutors, and YEARS to see these criminals and their enablers brought to justice! So of course a “truth” commission holds great appeal. Quicker, cheaper, easier and constructed in such a way as to “protect” us from to much awful truth! We the People do not need a truth commission! THEY, the elected DO!

But foreign nations have been paying careful attention since day one. We may never have the satisfaction of seeing Bush and company marched off to prison here, but there are several places in the world waiting for the opportunity to do just that!

By the way, the excuse of an ignorant and indifferent populace all rests on the assumption that Bush was elected. He never was! Seriously folks, do you think the idiots we see sloshing about in the republican party could ever win anything? The only thing they’re good at is fixing the outcome! (Cheating) That’s why they’re in such a conundrum now. They don’t know how to get control any other way!

But I agree brainwashing was, and still is alive and well on certain streams of mainstreammedia. Look what a marvelous job CNBC has done keeping us non-informed and utterly confused regarding the economy!

Anybody watch the Jon Stewart March 4th show? It’s right over there on the left. Watch it! Especially the Joe Nocera segment! Learned more in simple language from that, than from anything I’ve seen! In fact I think Obama needs to watch it!

The reason so few gave a damn is that America is a religious nation, in the sense of believing in the good-evil dichotomy.  Bill Maher ran afoul of this when he argued that the 9/11 attack should not be called “cowardly.”  America HAD to believe the enemy is an evil coward because our guys (and gals) are good and brave.  Then came Abu Graibh.

Since the enemy is a coward, he will divulge valuable information under “intense interrogation,” and since he is evil, he deserves the pain.

After the attack, the public was asking, “Why do they hate us so much?”  Very, very good question, and it could have led to greater awareness of different cultures and the record of exploitation by Western democracies.  But it was so easy to accept, “They hate us for our freedoms.”  I still cannot forgive my fellow Americans for accepting that inanity; I may never recover my belief in the human race.

Similarly, anyone speaking out against America’s headlong rush into brutality and bankrupcy (financial and moral) was “unpatriotic.”  “You want Freedom Fries with your Koolaid?”

In the words of Dave Mason, “There ain’t no good guys.  There ain’t no bad guys.  There’s only you and me, and we just disagree.”

I don’t know where you all were but there was some pretty hard core protesting that went on since 2003 or so. I remember being surrounded in Miami, at the FTAA protest, by thousands of menacing police, chased into corners, threatened and infiltrated. But we shut that meeting down as country after country watched what happened and withdrew, and by the end of the protest we had some cops thinking about how they might become Wackenhut robots if NAFTA and CAFTA and FTAA went unrestrained.

That’s what really changes things. Hard work at the ground level. We wouldn’t be here today without Cindy Sheehan, Amy Goodman, Media Benjamin and others who went into the trenches bigtime, along with lots of regular people.

The real problem now is, why are so many Democrats, liberals and progressives not catching on to the continuous deception being continued by the Obama administration? Now you can’t say you don’t know what is right.  At best he’s doing a piss poor job at torture justice, renditions, concentration camps and Israel. At WORST he’s untrustworthy and will continue the hawkish practices, going along with the worst opinions in our government, secretly stealing our money to give to Wall Street and the world market. He is giving us a worse health care system in the long run because it keeps the predator profit mongers center stage with the ILLUSION of reform. And he’s going to get up there night after night and tell us how lucky we are to have change coming and how great they are for wanting to change. Blah blah.

You ask why we were so blind? I ask why are you STILL blind? Look at Obama honestly. Can you? For example, the US was the only one with Israel to walk out on the UN when the entire UN international war crimes panel accused Israel of the disgusting crimes they have committed. We, the USA, recently bombed children in Pakistan. Thats all Obama’s work, my friends.

The banks won’t tell us what they did with our trillion, no one is making them, and no real reform is taking place even now that we are in an incredible crisis. Obama won’t even tell us the truth about the torture sessions, although England and Europe will and are demanding it.

So please don’t stand up there and say, whew, finally we know stuff… Because NOTHINGS CHANGED. Nothing substantially has changed but rhetoric. Put that together with the sickening overspending of Pelosi and Dirty Harry, who wrote a budget BEFORE the recession struck and still expects to get that AND pay raises, and pork, and Obama is looking like a real scheister with no credibility, no power and no real sense of direction except to form a committee to put on a show. Not a change agent at all. An irritation to all sides of the spectrum. Everyone has a reason now to hate him from every side now. Very disappointing to say the least. What a huge mess. I guess this is what happens when you have no real convictions of your own and promise the world.

Folktruther - you’re basically correct to say that torture is not used to elicit viable information. 

When we first got in the ‘torture’ game, Congress was told (and acquiesced) to keep the various means of torture we were using quiet lest the ‘enemy’ would train their forces in how to withstand the pain and not spill their guts should they get caught.

Some time later, Congress etal did a complete u-turn this time reasoning that our torture techniques were to be advertised the reason given that the threat of torture if captured would deter future, potential terrorists.

Because of the above goobledegook and because torture, according to counter-intelligence agents who are trained to elicit info, does not elicit viable information, I have concluded that people were tortured out of revenge and for no other reason.

(I also remember reading that boy George tortured animals and half-grown-up George tortured fraternity pledges.)

Why Did So Few Americans Give a Damn?

A very interesting and legitimate question to which no single reason can be given as a satisfactory answer! Therefore, I will attempt below to highlight several points, which if taken collectively can provide a more intellectual explanation to this question:

1. I agree with Verne Arnold (March 6 @ 11:50 am) that the deficient educational system has a good deal to do with this sad state of affairs. Giving up on liberal education and universal humanity studies creates consumers with narrow minded world view. This world view promotes the false notion of American “exceptionalism” in terms of values and political superiority, which leads to laxity in being vigilant about what the political and power class are doing. The political class takes advantage of this lethargy and indifference among the majority, and concentrate their energies on consolidating their powers and material benefits.

2. Hence, the preoccupation with selfish individualism based solely on greed, money and short-term material advancement and frivolous instantaneous pleasures. Within such value system, short term partisan politics and ideologies prevail over the long-term common good of the homeland, the nation and the universal human values at large.
3. Thus obsession with frivolous pursuits that consume the little precious time the average person has left after a long day of hard work. This little precious time is stolen by the entertainment industry of Hollywood, TV soap operas and idle talk shows, and professional sports entertainment. One needs only think about the millions of wasted hours the collective population waste sitting passively in front of these entertainment devises; precious time wasted just being passive speculators rather than being active thinkers about the political, economic and social settings of the larger world they live in. It’s during these long times of collective social slumber that the evil ones work harder to pass and strengthen their agendas and consolidate their power and material enrichment.

4. The laws of history, based on cause and effect, or the Laws of a Universal One God as I would like to call it, is fashioned in such a way that material civilizations, worldly centers of power have a limited life-span, based on the fact that each civilization carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction, due to the recalcitrant nature of human beings. One of the Scriptures I accept its validity and Truths puts it in such way:
 
“And if WE so ordain to destroy a locality (nation), We would ordain that its affluent ones (i.e. the ruling powerful class) will spread corruption on Earth (unopposed). And as sin and evil persist, Judgment is irrevocably passed, and We destroy it utterly.” (Qur’an 17:16)

All the signs of this impending destruction- politically, economically, socially, and morally- are all around us for those endowed with wisdom and understanding to see and to heed, if it’s not already too late!

Why do so many Americans not give a damn?  Because they are afraid, just as we are.  The problem is not intellectual ignorance, but emotional denial.  It isn’t a question of not knowing, but of not wanting to know.

Torture is not being used by the US and Israel primarily to gain information, but to terrorize populations to obey imperialism.  Under Obama as well as Bush, while both say that the USA does not torture.  The Dems are promoting the same policies as the Bushites, disguised a little more by rhetoric and marginal changes.

The US and Israel are both terrorist regimes, which use torture, death and mutalation to impose their power.  But it is un-Patriotic to say so in a simple way.  And what is un-Patriotic to say, becomes over historical time un-Patriotic to think.  Americans do not want to think that they are being ruled by a terrorist power system.  So they don’t like to think about related subjects at all.

To understand why little ensued, believe you need to remember what was going on at the time.  From tomsdispatch.com

“Why has the public response to issues that cut to the very core of America’s national identity been so muted? The short answer: The administration’s increasingly unapologetic advocacy of torture has echoed subtly but effectively with the trauma of 9/11.

With the horrific reality of the Twin Towers attack still resonating and endless nuclear-bomb-in-Times-Square/ticking-bomb interrogation scenarios ricocheting around the media and pop culture, torture seems to have gained an eerie emotional traction. Polls taken over the last three years have confirmed this. With a complex reality reduced to a few terrifyingly simple, fantasy-ridden scenarios, torture in defense of the “homeland” has gained surprisingly wide acceptance, while the torture debate has been reframed—to the administration’s great advantage—as a choice between public safety and the lives of millions or private morality and bleeding-heart qualms over a few slaps up the side of the head. In this way, old-fashioned morality has been made to seem little short of immoral.”

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/57336/tomdispatch_alfred_mccoy_on_how_not_to_ban_torture_in_congress

All the State—and the Elites who run it, regardless of party affiliation—care about is power, no matter how they get it or how many suffer because of it. Rahm Emanuel himself has said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”, or words to that effect.

So sure, AFriend, I’ll gladly go along with the idea that the Demos are just as much traitors as the Repubs to what America is really all about. But let’s put both parties on trial, OK? Both are part of the problem; neither is part of the solution.

BTW, this may be a de facto war, but it’s certainly not a de jure war; America is legally at war only if the Congress declares that a state of war exists (Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution). There has been no formal, legal state of war since 1945, but the Constitution is still quite clear. And if, as George W. Bush said once, the Constitution is “just a g_dd_mned piece of paper”, why not be honest and junk it?

I might add I was once a conservative Republican, but from the 2000 election onwards, I’ve voted Libertarian. I’m utterly disillusioned with both of the wings of the War Party.

What do you expect from a bunch of Draft Dodging Deferment Junkies? These “Neo-Cons” were the kids that got stuck in lockers on the first day of High School. They were the kids that got teased for peeing their pants on the playground. What do you expect? Cowards do cowardly things, They are PUNKS !!!

Jackpine savage,

You write that “All the tools needed to fight terrorism were already available.”

I beg to differ. Before Sept 2001 the FBI and CIA could not share information regarding perceived threats. That was unacceptable.

Before Sept. 2001 Federal prosecutors had more power to investigate domestic organized crime than the Federal government had to investigate terrorist suspects. The Patriot Act allowed for the needed changes.

There are many more examples of the same vein.

—-

This is indeed a real war. Know that and you’ll see a different world. The world seen by Kings and Presidents. Not the media world most people pay attention to.

I do agree with you that the term, “war against terror” is excruciatingly incorrect. It’s a poor bumper sticker slogan used by almost everyone. The Congress, the White House, the media, everyone.

Terror is a tactic. You are correct about that. But to suggest that the world is not at war is, well, stupid?

Why Did So Few Americans Give a Damn?

That’s a very good question; the answer is however, not so simple.
We’re a nation that long ago gave up a “liberal arts” education as having any value. Yeah, it’s really that simple. As the world has become globalized, it’s become incumbent upon us to understand the world we interact with on a daily basis. With no clear idea of the world we live in, we have no idea how to respond to the day to day interactions. It for this very reason a liberal arts education is more valuable today than at any time in the past.  So, lacking that, our response has become that of a bully. A bully acts with no comprehension; only emotion. Somebody with an MBA only understands bottom lines; not the human condition and will fail; as we have in the day to day life we live. Hey, life is great in America now?
Our preoccupation with money, success (what ever the hell that is), status, and “getting ahead” (again, what ever the hell that is) only leads us to the place we now find ourselves. Good? Not hardly!
So, what will you actually do?
For myself; I have opted to relocate and live a modest but adequate life in another country. I’m happy, sufficient, and healthy. What more could one possibly want?
The rest is just bullshit!

Because we’re a nation of grocery store clerks that doesn’t even realize that we’re a nation of grocery store clerks.

Yes, prosecute Democratic leadership for treason…that would be fine with me.

AFriend, this is not and never has been a real war.  An issue, yes, but you cannot wage a way against a tactic.  And to abrogate our freedom in response to something that hopes to provoke an abrogation of our freedom in response to fear is…well, it’s stupid.  All the tools needed to fight terrorism were already available.

We need only ask ourselves, If torture is an acceptable evil when dealing with potential international criminals, and the suspension of civil rights in america is accepted, how long will it be before suspects are randomley selected and tortured for info at your local police station. Imagine being beaten with a rubber hose by some local nazi flatfoot because you resemble the guy who knocked off a 7-11 down the street.

How do we know that these new rules written by the bushies were not an effort to see just how much shit the american public will eat?

The fact that many americans still consider torture an acceptable evil says alot about the US.

How many here would say that Nancy Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Tom Daschle, and Harry Reid should be charged with treason?

Each was involved in the writing of, and ultimately voted for, the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act has twice been re-authorized by the democrat controlled Congress since 2006.

Ms. Pelosi, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. Daschle sat in the situation room in the White House while decisions were made on the Terrorist Surveillance program. The program that allowed the NSA to listen in on telephone and data calls if the call originated from a known enemy outside the United States. Each was asked if they believed the tools in the TSA were necessary. Each not only approved of the measures but, each also stated that no further “legislative measures” were needed to continue with the program.

It also seems important to note that the U.S. President has long had extraordinary powers in times of war or crisis. For decades it has been common knowledge that the president has the power to declare martial law. The power to “suspend” the Constitution and basic American rights in matters of “national security”. There is nothing new in that “news”.

I am a little more ambiguous about torture than Cyrena. My issue is with the institution of power in American politics: The competition for and use of power in a winner-take-all competitive environment.

A fundamental inequality among the institutional powers enshrined by the constitution favors the executive. The winner-take-all terms of the competition means that resulting power configurations are essentially unassailable for at least four years. The winners then assume that there is consensus on the national agenda.

I’m not sure a parliamentary system would be much better or even viable without the institution of a higher authority, represented in the U.K. by royalty. The parliamentary system does however, promote the idea of a “shadow government” ready to step into the breech whenever the leading coalition loses the confidence of the people’s representatives. 

The “nature” of American politics is what it is, and wishfully thinking that it might be otherwise is just that, wishful thinking. It might be helpful though, if we could find a way to make “course corrections” while under way.

It took us four years to get back control of the public agenda and put the “coalition of evil” (military-industrial interests, highway and combustion engine interests, pharmaceutical and insurance interests) in perspective and out of the way, and we were enormously assisted by market failure and collapse of the financial house-of-cards.

How long will it take for a new “corporate materialism” to arise and make a play for the public agenda? Indeed, do we have a shared perspective on “corporate materialism”? Could we have learned from our mistakes any faster or more efficiently?

Well William, you’re preaching to the choir with me at least…it was the torture that was the final straw for me. That began an intensive program of me trying to figure out just what the hell was going on. By now, nearly all of the Yoo/Bybee memos are burned into my brain.

Been bitching about the terrorist show ‘24’ from Fox as well. Who and where else would the Ministry of Propaganda be able to sell their created realities at such a profit. The former US regime was able to CREATE the shadowy group to wage a ‘war on terror’ against, and the propaganda to sell the creation is a profit maker on top of it. We pay our captors to keep us stupid by selling us lies.

Meantime, my colleagues and I had hoped that this would be among the first things the new Administration would do…expose each and every secret executive order and signing statement this former thug regime ever executed. And for good measure, and to keep it all on the up and up, they should be published right along with the signing statements and executive orders of all the presidents we’ve ever had, or since they started doing them.

THAT will give Americans, (and the world) the proof positive they need, to see what the world has been subjected to for the past decade at least.

Sad to say that may not solve the problem, considering the mostly NON-reaction (with the noted exceptions and fringe folks in academia) of the American public to the torture. Torture is at the top of the Universal ZERO TOLERANCE Laws.