The Gates, part 2 -- Investi-Gates I, II and III!

[thingfish]

INVESTI-GATE
(or: Hush, Hush, Sweet Whistleblower!)

"Investi-Gate" is actually three different scandals, each involving investigations that could yank many VIPs from the frying pan of public "service" (derisive snort) and toss them into the all-cleansing flame of public accountability. Unfortunately, there are many reasons to question the effectiveness of all three inquiries. First up…
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1. LIHOP-GATE
(or: The Three-Thousand Victims of Dr. PNAC)

There can be little doubt that with the terrorist attacks of September 11, a certain segment of the American political establishment got exactly what they had publicly confessed to desiring: "a New Pearl Harbor." Having been handed all the justification they could ever hope for, a sinister cabal of neoconservative think-tankers was able to set about transforming their most delusional statecraft fantasies into monstrous reality.

Americans have spent the last three years living the results of this surreptitious revolution. Foundational ideals have been abandoned. Human and constitutional rights that people fought, bled and died for have been erased without so much as a whimpered eulogy.

On the foreign policy side, there has been a move towards unrepentant unilateralism. "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." Steadfast allies have been subjected to extreme vilification simply for expressing doubts about the wisdom of taking an Iraqi detour in the so-called War On Terror. They've been abandoned in favor of mercenary cohorts willing to shut up, line up, and sign up for the Coalition of the Can't-Rape-the-Willing. Never mind if some of the countries in question are guilty of human rights abuses that rival those of Saddam's Iraq. Never mind that most provided nothing more than a bank account where the Pentagon could dump its blood money. They gave the invasion of Iraq the big "thumbs up," so nations like Eritrea, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan and are now America's new best friends.

Obviously, to say that 9/11 "changed America" is a gross understatement. And yet here we are, nearly three years later, and Americans know nothing more about the events that precipitated this change than they did when the sun set on the nightmarish day in question.

There's a reason why Americans don't know more about 9/11 today than they did thirty months ago. It's because the Bush administration doesn't want them to.

From the very beginning, this White House has done everything in its power to frustrate investigative efforts. Dick Cheney went so far as to personally warn Senator Tom Daschle against launching any investigations into the cascade of critical - some would say impossible - systemic "failures" that took place on that day, and in the months and years leading up to it.

When simply refusing to appoint an independent investigation became politically impossible (this was before the Republican re-taking of the Senate), they took a different tack: allowing an investigation, but straight-jacketing it with budgetary and time constraints. Then they set about stonewalling investigators at every turn. Partisan brass at the purged and newly politicized Justice, Defense and Immigration departments - not to mention the FBI - conspired to make the investigators' jobs impossible. For years now, Republican and Democratic investigators alike have marveled at the brazen, unprecedented nature of the hostility and obstructionism they've encountered. After barely securing an extension to their May deadline, they had to threaten the White House with subpoenas if they continued to refuse cooperation.

Yet even as the investigation struggles on, there are some who feel it has yet to start asking the right questions. Questions like those being asked by the Family Steering Committee for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. For instance: "Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th."

The paucity of official information has led many civilians, out of desperation, to launch their own investigations. Some efforts have been lackluster. Some, embarrassing. But a surprisingly high number have been superlative, the cooperative 911 Timeline project being a case in point. And what do these citizen sleuths get in return for their invaluable civic contribution? At one time or another, they've all been mocked as conspiracy freaks and characterized as traitors by bought-and-paid-for shills in the mainstream American media. There has even been an orchestrated campaign by the Right to label anyone who dares criticize PNAC and/or the cult-like, incestuous, nepotistic, neoconservative political movement as being "anti-semitic."

Perhaps if consolidation and upper management editorial tampering hadn't rendered the news media into shell-shocked shadows of their former selves, we'd know by now who the real traitors are.

Scandal Impact Rating: 3 - When the official story falls apart, people try to figure things out for themselves using available information and the intellectual tools at their disposal. When you take a long hard look at what we know for sure about 911, it's hard not to come to some pretty frightening conclusions. Ask around and you'll likely be surprised at how many people are seriously entertaining the darkest of theories about government complicity/duplicity surrounding the attacks.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 10 - If any of the Worst Case Scenarios being seriously contemplated by some researchers were to be confirmed, the potential ramifications would obviously be foundation-shattering. The whole thing could end in a gas chamber.

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2. WHITEWASH-GATE
(or: Fear Mongering for Fun and Profit!)

Of the truth American soldiers have encountered "on the ground" in Iraq, columnist Robert Scheer has so far summed it up best: "Now that top weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei - who both told the world before the invasion that Saddam Hussein was a defanged viper - have been vindicated by Bush's handpicked arms inspectors, it is embarrassing to witness the president prattling on in defense of the indefensible. Perhaps it would be less painful for all of us if the CIA could plant some WMD, of which the U.S. possesses a glorious excess, in Iraq as a kindly, face-saving afterthought for the baffled leader of the free world."

It's a cute joke, a cutting crack. But the way intelligence was distorted by elements at the highest levels of government is no laughing matter. Indeed, the degree to which this willful distortion was even possible makes yer old pal Jerky think of General Jack D. Ripper from Dr. Strangelove. At one point in this satirical Cold War film, a furious president Muffley is informed that General Ripper, a delusional, paranoid Bircher, has single-handedly and irreversibly launched World War III. When asked how such a thing was possible, an advisor explains: "It's beginning to look like General Ripper may have exceeded his authority."

The same can be said today in Washington, only here in reality, American force has not been hijacked by a madman, but by a mad movement. A cult-like, revolutionary ideological movement led by self-declared wise men who have little respect for democracy and bar no holds in slandering those who dissent from their messianic groupthink.

It's a fact of history that the Bush administration engaged in outrageous fear mongering in the lead up to its attack on Iraq. It was a somewhat successful society-wide attempt to use negative reinforcement to garner support for their policy. Not that they were going to let a little thing like public opinion - or even world opinion - stand in the way of their mercenary ambitions for the region. But they gave persuasion a shot. Repeatedly, officials were trotted out to threaten the American people with all manner of horrors.

Taking a break from dragging entrepreneurs off to federal prison for selling glass pipes, Jesus H. Ashcroft warned us to be on the lookout for any dirty forei- I mean dirty bombers in our midst.

Big Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Chunk-head-in-Chief, played us like a game of Simon Says. "Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Yellow, Orange, Orange, High Orange, Yellow, Bleep-Bleep-Bloop-BRRRR!" Did you know there aren't even any guidelines to determine which color to use in that ridiculous "alert system" of theirs? Ridge, Dubya and a handful of other officials do a conference call every once in a while and just "decide" what color it should be. It serves no purpose beyond a political one, to pump bursts of anxiety into the body politic whenever a distraction is needed.

Preznit Dubya may be tongue-tied, but he's good about sticking to his talking points. His speeches and interviews are stuffed tight with the language of crude, fundamentalist dualism. "We're good, they're evil. Case closed." It's a comforting conceit, but it's also ridiculous.

Of course, Ashcroft, Ridge and Dubya are universally regarded as useless. Even their own partisans secretly admit these three are empty figureheads. But when allegedly serious statesmen like Colin Powell enter the fray, the world pricks up its ears. In terms of pure political spectacle, watching Powell piss away his hard-won legitimacy has had few parallels. To have lived the life that Colin Powell has lived, only to end up here, in the twilight of his public life, a willing tool for the forces of naked reaction... it's the stuff of which Great American Novels are made.

And then there's Dick. Sweet, miserable Dick. Like some grim, Satanic groundhog, the creepy veepy keeps periodically popping up from his underground lair to warn us about mushroom clouds and mega-deaths. "It's not a matter of if," he intones in that warm, defibrillated drone of his, "but when."

Where did administration officials get these horror stories they've been telling us? Not from the CIA, according to George Tennet, who publicly contradicted the White House party line on Iraq's "imminent threat." Not from the State department, which for the last three years has been suffering non-stop assaults by neoconservatives who accuse the diplomatic corps of failing to provide evidence for their unproven claims, or support for their untested theories... the swine!

There's a fine, broken line between interpretation and exaggeration. But the line between interpretation and fabrication is clear. Beyond that boundary lies criminality, and unless our five senses are conspiring to deceive us, many so-called public servants in this administration have most likely crossed that line. That a small number of individuals with ulterior motives, hidden agendas and ethically questionable entanglements were able to subvert and/or bypass and/or seize control of the nation's intelligence gathering apparatus is heinous and terrifying. That the White House and its neoconservative brain-trust now seek to fob off the blame for their mess onto the intelligence communities whose product they corrupted beyond all recognition is merely pathetic.

The Preznit's response to this exploding controversy has been predictably laughable. At first, he was hesitant to admit fault, citing the discovery of Saddam's "weapons-of-mass-destruction-related program activities," and insisting that stockpiles might still be discovered. But after David Kay's report, search teams were called back and it was obvious that the issue would need to be addressed. Ever ready to pass the buck, Dubya appointed a hand-picked, blue ribbon panel to investigate the "intelligence failures" that led to the war in Iraq. Immediately insuring that the panel would be relegated to the status of bad political joke, he appointed infamous VRW-conspirator Laurence Silberman to co-chair his Warren Commission.

Hopefully, the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into whether/how administration officials exaggerated or misused intelligence will cast some light where light is sorely needed… for instance, into the Pentagon's neocon-only intelligence stove-piping operation, the Office of Special Plans.

Scandal Impact Rating: 7 - As long as Iraq remains a shit-hole - which appears to be its fate for a long time to come - there's no escaping this one.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 10 - It just doesn't get much worse than starting wars under false pretenses.

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3. WILSON-GATE
(or: The Incredibly Arrogant Staffers Who Stopped Smirking and Became Nervous Wrecks)

In essence, Wilson-gate is about unknown Bush administration officials contacting conservative "friendlies" in the media to get them to expose the identity of an undercover CIA operative. They apparently did this for two reasons: 1) to get back at the operative's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, for being an outspoken administration critic, and 2) to have a chilling effect on any other career diplomats who might be thinking about criticizing this administration and its policies. But in Wilson's case, it was purely personal.

As Preznit Dubya and his cohorts were trying to convince a wary United Nations to sanction their proposed military strike on the crippled pseudo-nation of Iraq, the government sent Wilson to Africa, where he investigated documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase "yellow cake" uranium there. After a brief investigation, it was determined that the documents were crude forgeries. Wilson filed his report with the CIA and at the State department.

By January, when it was becoming obvious that the UN was in no way going to sanction Bush's war - and with the American people still 60/40 against attacking Iraq without UN approval - the 'mongers were resting their hopes on Bush's State of the Union address. And that's where Saddam's African uranium hoax found its way back into the official litany of justification for war. Soon afterwards, Colin Powell cited the Niger "evidence" as some of the most important in the USG's case for war.

Then came the war, which America aced. Then came the peace, which America flunked and is flunking, big time. The chronology from that point forward is important.

In a NYT op-ed piece that ran on July 6, 2003, Wilson criticized the administration's handling of the war. Perhaps more importantly, he made it clear that when Bush and Powell warned Americans about Saddam's African "yellowcake," they weren't just wrong, they were lying.

Two days later, the White House had to admit that the Nigerian "evidence" was bogus. This sparked one of the most embarrassing rounds of buck-passing in the recent history of the Presidency of the United States. The whole sorry spectacle came to a nadir when, much to Condi Rice's relief, CIA director George Tenet agreed to (sorta) take the blame for the information getting into Dubya's speech.

Three days after that, the Chicago Sun Times runs an op-ed piece by conservative columnist Robert Novak in which he claims top administration officials told him the only reason Joe Wilson got the Niger job was because his wife, Valerie Plame, was CIA.

Make that undercover CIA... in Africa. Working on cases relating to the proliferation of Third World WMD.

Needless to say, she isn't doing that anymore. Neither are the people who used to make up her network of what intelligence workers euphemistically refer to as assets.

At first, despite the fact that disclosing the identity of a covert agent is a felony offense, all hell did not break loose. It just sorta oozed past the starting gate. But thanks to a few outraged (and persistent!) bloggers, the story eventually caught hold in the mainstream. Now, months later, a Congressional probe into what is being dismissively called "the leak" is well underway. So far, they've apparently determined that somebody from the Vice President's office contacted at least a half-dozen conservatives in the media trying to get them to out Plame as CIA.

Novak recently tried to change his story. He said that people had misunderstood him, that nobody from the White House had ever contacted him, and that his source was some anonymous flunky.

To bad for Novak, then, that unidentified officials from the Vice President's office have told investigators that while it's true Novak was given the information in question, he'd been specifically warned not to print Plame's name.

Now that his former "prize pig" insider sources have tossed him to the sharks, do you think Novak is starting to regret letting himself be used and discarded like a phlegm-filled Kleenex tissue?

Nah. He's probably loving it. Most conservatives are secretly masochists at heart. That's because they're all so sexually repressed. Isn't that right, former Republican "drug czar" and problem gambler Bill Bennett?

"Why, yes it is, Jerky! In fact, after a hard day spent slandering liberals and character-assassinating anybody who dares question the wisdom of the Conservative Movement that's sweeping the nation, there's nothing I like better than to fly to Vegas, lose a couple hundred grand in a high stakes game of poker, then pay a mulato she-male steroid giant to strap me to a rack and beat me 'til I'm black, blue and bleeding!"

"Thanks for the confirmation, Bill. Say, where do you get all your money, anyway?"

"Don't go there, girlfriend!"

Okay, that's it. We've gone far enough afeild.

Scandal Impact Rating: 3 - …but if, as some are predicting, the investigation reveals that Dick Cheney is somehow implicated in all this, it could break open real big, real fast.

Scandal Gravity Rating: 9 - This kind of hubris-fueled, gutter-grudge behavior is exactly what brought down the Nixon administration. Everybody at the White House is allegedly shitting bricks over this.

[soup]

1. kicking.

:kick:
and linking-


The 'Gates, part 1 -- Russert-Gate and AWOL-Gate!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1164060


The 'Gates, part 3 -- Hemi-Gate and Domesti-Gate!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1164066

[LiviaOlivia]

2. Bravo/Brava

[imax2268]

3. DAM...!!!

nice...!

:kick:

[LiviaOlivia]

4. Kicking

[thingfish]

5. kik

d