Neck Deep: The Real 9/11 Scandal (consortiumnews.com)

[Octafish]

From consortiumnews.com comes light:

Neck Deep: The Real 9/11 Scandal

By Robert, Sam and Nat Parry
September 11, 2007
consortiumnews.com

Editor’s Note: As George W. Bush tries to squeeze 16 more months of political advantage from America’s 9/11 memories, it is worth recalling how different history might have been had the Bush administration heeded intelligence warnings in the summer of 2001.

Bush’s supporters have worked mightily to foist off blame for the attacks on the Clinton administration, but the truth is that the key developments in the emergence of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist band date back to the Reagan-Bush years of the 1980s – and the missed opportunities to stop the attacks fell heavily on George W. Bush’s watch.

That reality is recalled in this excerpt from the new book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush:

During the lazy summer of 2001, relatively few Americans had even heard of al-Qaeda, which in Arabic means “the base.” This organization of Islamic extremists had taken shape during the CIA-supported war against the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In the years of the late Cold War, CIA Director William J. Casey and other anti-Soviet hard-liners viewed Islamic fundamentalism as a tool to pry historically Muslim territories in the southern Soviet Union away from Moscow and its atheistic communist government.

So, besides arming a multinational force of Islamists to fight in Afghanistan, the CIA printed thousands of copies of the Koran and smuggled them into the Soviet Union.

In another trade-off for the Afghan war, the CIA looked the other way while Pakistan was developing its nuclear bomb. The CIA wanted nothing to interfere with the vital cooperation that Pakistani intelligence was providing in funneling weapons to the anti-Soviet Afghan rebels and their Islamic allies, including bin Laden.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091107.html

I'd recommend everyone read this article and pass it along to people who care.

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[Octafish]

5. Bush 'Kicking Ass' in Congress

Not that it's anyone's fault:

Bush 'Kicking Ass' in Congress

By Robert Parry
September 10, 2007

George W. Bush reportedly told Australia’s deputy prime minister that “we’re kicking ass” in Iraq, but the pithy tough talk may fit better with what the President is doing to the Democrats in Congress.

To cover their political beating, some Democratic operatives are advising the party’s leadership to claim a measure of victory when Bush and Gen. David Petraeus agree to make a symbolic troop cut – perhaps 5,000 – from the current levels of about 172,000.

“The challenge for us is whether we will be able to take ‘yes’ for an answer,” one leading (though unidentified) Democratic strategist told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. This “smart Democrat strategy,” as described by the strategist, would be to argue that Bush’s actions are in line with what the Democrats want.

The strategist wrote down in Ignatius’s notebook a statement that Democratic leaders should give after Bush announces a symbolic cut in U.S. forces: “This is an important and historic step away from the status quo of more troops, more money, more time and more of the same. It is however the first step and only the first step.”

Ignatius, an influential Iraq War supporter over the past five years, endorses this view of the “smart strategy” as it applies to both modest troop “cuts” and the “soft partition” of Iraq, the brutal ethnic cleansing that is creating de facto sectarian enclaves, for which the Democrats also would claim credit.

“As the Democrat strategist suggests, it’s time to take yes for an answer,” Ignatius wrote in an article entitled “Can the Democrats Say Yes?”

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/091007.html

Thanks for giving a damn, dicksteele!

[glitch]

2. Always K & R a consortiumnews post reminds me - where's blm? I haven't seen her around in awhile. nt

[Octafish]

6. Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn

More light on a friendship based on money and power and greed and all things made bad:

Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn

Just as Sylvester and Tweety Bird achieved lasting Hollywood fame from their comical cartoon chases, the less amusing duo of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden continue to benefit each other by reviving their long-distance rivalry, one posturing against the other in a way that helps them both.

By Robert Parry
September 8, 2007

In a new video, al-Qaeda leader bin Laden again taunts Bush, the United States – and then the Democrats for not forcing an American withdrawal from Iraq, which should help guarantee that the Democrats won’t dare press for a withdrawal from Iraq.

At a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in Sydney, Australia, President Bush then did his part, highlighting bin Laden’s Iraq comments:

“I found it interested that on the tape Iraq was mentioned, which is a reminder that Iraq is part of the war against extremists. If al-Qaeda bothers to mention Iraq, it’s because they want to achieve their objectives in Iraq, which is to drive us out.”

Except that U.S. intelligence has long concluded that al-Qaeda really wants the opposite: to bog the United States down in a hopeless, bloody war in Iraq that has been a boon for recruiting young jihadists, raising money and protecting al-Qaeda’s leadership holed up in base camps inside Pakistan.

Bin Laden continues to play the role of another cartoon character, Walt Disney’s Brer Rabbit, who escaped one famously tight spot by begging not to be thrown into the briar patch when that was exactly where he wanted to go. (For more details on this Bush-bin Laden symbiosis, see Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/090807.html

blm's resting, I hope. Fine mind, blm's.

Thanks for caring, glitch!

[blm]

9. Still here - still believing Democrats should side WITH open government

and against secrecy and privilege of the Bushes and their cronies.

And those Democrats who get upset with that simple notion are still curiosities.

[H2O Man]

3. Nominated.

Thank you for posting this accurate, informed essay that gives a clear background of the events that led up to 9-11.

[Mabus]

4. I read the excerpt Gore "turned up making tragically prescient comments."

it was a great "companion" piece to the VF article about the mediawhores and their whack job on Al.

Time and again – from Campaign 2000 to the post-9/11 “war on terror” to the invasion of Iraq to Bush’s expansion of presidential powers – Gore pointed to grave dangers when nearly all other national political leaders and media bigwigs were either running with the herd or keeping silent.

In our daily coverage of those political developments at Consortiumnews.com, we’d run stories citing Gore’s speeches, but it wasn’t until we pulled together the book that Gore’s extraordinary role jumped out.

Though there were a few other political leaders who made prophetic comments, such as Sen. Robert Byrd in his pre-Iraq War speeches on the Senate floor, none was as consistently on target as Al Gore.

Indeed, a poignant aspect of Neck Deep is the recognition that a less hostile press treatment of Gore during Campaign 2000 or a full-and-fair recount of votes in Florida after Election 2000 might have put the United States on a very different track.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/082607.html

[beachmom]

7. Good thing John Kerry investigated and shut down BCCI.

It wasn't enough to stop 9/11, but it controlled the bleed for a while. I hope as the chairman of the subcommittees in the SFRC for the Middle East and Central Asia, he can start changing this disasterous direction our country went in.

And whoever becomes president sure the HELL better open all books on this dark period, so it can be exposed for what it is, and the artchitects and their apprentices will NEVER, EVER, EVER find work in the government again.

[blm]

8. Imagine if powerful Democrats had sided WITH Kerry instead of using their

cache to protect secrecy and privilege.

The fascist agenda would have been stopped over a decade ago.

[Junkdrawer]

10. Talk by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: "Creating Terror"

1 hour mp3:
ftp://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/[e-mail]/2704-1-20070720-creating_terror_part1edited.mp3

I also recommend Reprehensor's great thread “Deconstructing ‘al Qaeda’":
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1415451

[Junkdrawer]

11. K&R