THE 911 HALL OF MIRRORS
MORE MILITARY MISHIGAS
HATE RADIO USA

And so we are back, in these dog days of August, to 911, that unsolved mystery, with more questions raised every day. CNN was leading last night with this report from the hall of mirrors:

“Members of the commission that uncovered the government’s failures to share intelligence among agencies before the September 11, 2001, attacks want to know whether U.S. defense intelligence officials knew for more than a year that four of the hijackers were part of an al Qaeda cell but failed to tell law enforcement.

“Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the September 11 commission could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that defense intelligence officials had identified ringleader Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers.”

Al Jazeera reports the Pentagon is investigating what it knew, who it told, and why this story never came out until now.

BBC reports: “Two Syrian nationals suspected of having links with al-Qaeda have been arrested in Turkey.”

‘PLAMING’ CINDY AS A NOUN BECOMES A VERB

On the war front, we had Donald Rumsfeld charging that some of the bombs going off in Iraq came from Iran, while others close to the Administration — including the man who coined the phrase “Axis of evil” — discrediting Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a dead veteran, who insists on talking with President Bush. Ahmed Amr has that story on Dissident Voice.org:

”A few weeks ago, David Frum — the neo-con author of the ‘axis of evil’ doctrine — had the audacity to call Cindy Sheehan an ‘anti-war crazy.’ The neo-cons are good at that sort of thing. When they come up against compelling arguments for which they have no canned retort, they never hesitate to go for the jugulars. As Ambassador Joseph Wilson or Hans Blix can attest, they have a nasty habit of viciously Plaming dissenters to teach them the proper etiquette for addressing impertinent questions to our White House governors.

“Within 48 hours after Cindy marched on Bush’s Texas ranch, the long knives were being sharpened. Instead of answering her questions, the Rove squads made the decision to give her the ‘Valerie Plame’ treatment. Plaming is a two-step process — first you denigrate the offending serf in the public square. You then call in the mass media muscle guys to dump the remains some place where the victim can safely be ignored. In keeping with the game plan, CNN and FOX are back filming the endless soap opera in Aruba and monitoring shark attacks and Tsunamis. If only they could spare that kind of coverage for Cindy Sheehan — George Bush would be permanently retired in Crawford and the neo-con brigades would be sharing bunks in a federal penitentiary.

“Not one to be easily deterred, Cindy Sheehan has managed to lay siege to Bush’s hideout. Instead of flamethrowers, she launched her campaign armed with nothing more than a few uncomplicated questions. If Bush wants to break the siege, he only needs to spare a little time to explain why her son had to die in Sadr City at the age of 24. Like many others who served in Iraq, Casey Sheehan went into battle believing he was on a mission to disarm Iraq of fictional lethal WMDs. Saddam was also said to be plotting with Bin Laden to set off mushroom clouds over New York and Washington. Many of Casey‚s comrades and officers carried in their pockets pictures of the WTC in flames. As they laid waste to Iraq, they killed and died in righteous anger in the belief that Iraq was in some way connected to the 9/11 atrocities…”

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Amr0810.htm

WHAT NOT, GWOT?

As the Global War on Terror (GWOT) turns into “a struggle against violent extremism,” Robert Higgs asks: “Is it a marketing gimmick or ominous turn?”

“Say good-bye to the GWOT and, so far as the Bush administration is concerned, good riddance, too. This acronym for the ‘global war on terrorism’ — often rendered ‘global war on terror’ — an unpronounceable monstrosity with all the charm of the verbiage in a Pentagon planning document, never caught on with the public anyhow. So nothing is lost. The question is: what does the administration seek to gain by relabeling its efforts as the ‘global struggle against violent extremism’? Is the shift to a new slogan nothing more than that, or does it signify a move toward a different approach to the government’s ongoing exploitation of the ‘opportunity’ the president’s most influential advisers perceived in the events of 9/11?

“The government’s successive labels for its actions in response to 9/11 have attracted ridicule from the start. ‘War on terror’ made no sense: you can’t drop a bomb on an emotion. ‘War on terrorism’ scarcely made any more sense, inasmuch as terrorism is not something you can blast with a howitzer, but a tactic available to countless millions of determined persons in one form or another. Evidently none of the government’s public-relations geniuses ever saw any merit in the more sensible phrase ‘war on terrorists.’ In due course, the GWOT came along, attracting it own share of ridicule (’gigantic waste of time,’ and so forth). It did have the merit of emphasizing the worldwide reach of the government’s actions, giving fair warning that nobody on earth can occupy a neutral zone, that anyone on the planet might be visited by a Predator drone’s Hellfire missile if he raised sufficient suspicions at Langley.”

http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1547

WITHDRAWAL, WHAT WITHDRAWAL?

The Washington Post reports this morning:

“Iraq’s leaders and military will be unable to lead the fight against insurgents until next summer at the earliest, a top U.S. military official said Wednesday, trying to temper any hopes that a full-scale American troop withdrawal was imminent as Iraq moves toward elections scheduled for December.”

IS THE MILITARY FREAKING OUT?

Yesterday, I reported on a general busted for sexual abuse and Rumsfeld organizing his own freedom march. Today, there’s this:

“Air Force Colonel Accused of Defacing Cars Bearing Pro-Bush Bumper Stickers

“DENVER (AP) — An Air Force Reserve colonel could face criminal charges for allegedly vandalizing cars at Denver International Airport bearing pro-Bush bumper stickers.

“Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, is believed responsible for defacing at least 10 parked vehicles between December and June, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Tuesday.

A bait car left by a police detective was also defaced and the detective tracked down Fecteau, who turned himself in Friday. He was released on bond.”

FUDGED KIA FIGURES

Rense.com reports:

“‘Most people simply do not want to believe the US Army would simply bulldoze trenches in the combat areas [of Iraq] and toss in mangled GIs who were in such a shape as to preclude their being shipped back to Baghdad en route to the United States,’ writes Walter Storch of TBR News [www.tbrnews.org] to a loyal web subscriber.

“States Storch: ‘We have had access to the so-called “Supplemental Lists” that list the number of the actual dead and injured in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Brian Harring, a computer data specialist obtained and sent TBR News these official Department of Defense U.S. Military casualty reports.’

“In September, Dandelion Books, www.dandelionbooks.net will publish the full list in a book titled Prelude to Disaster: The Harring Report — Complete Official DoD Iraq & Afghanistan US Military Casualty List.”

http://www.rense.com/general67/comrades.htm

For more stories of Iraq War protests, see: www.ustourofduty.org

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

Al Jazeera: “Iraq war makes US Army unattractive”

THE WAR INSIDE ISRAEL

The New York Times reports today: “Up to 2,000 Jewish opponents of the Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip scheduled to begin next week have infiltrated the area.”

Israeli editor Hillel Shenker writes from Jerusalem to tell us that those settler rallies to block Gaza disengagement are becoming more strident and violent: “Right now 40,000 irrational right-wing fanatics (from the ‘faith-based’ camp, which should be a familiar concept out your way), are praying in front of the Wall to stop the disengagement. Tomorrow they’ll be coming to Tel Aviv, to the left-wing bastion of Rabin Square, for a presumably more secular demo.”

He then passes on some stories he was told.

“I want to tell you a story. My son is a Lt. Colonel in the IDF, a psychologist, and I recently got a phone call that he was wounded, and was in Soroka Hospital in Be’ersheva. When I asked what happened, the doctors said that I’d better come to find out for myself. I rushed down to Be’ersheva, and found my son lying in a hospital bed with heavy bandages on his arms. He told me that he had been assigned to head a team of three IDF soldiers who were sent to Gush Katif (in the Gaza Strip) to talk to the settlers about IDF plans for the evacuation. The idea was that the IDF wanted to show sensitivity towards the settlers, to make the process easier for them. When they arrived at one of the homes, they were greeted by the woman of the house, carrying a thick grated iron rod. Her way of welcoming them was to start beating them with the rod, causing major gashes in his son’s arms, which required hospitalization. So much for sensitivity.”

“But I also want to tell you what happened to me yesterday… Yesterday I was walking in the heart of Jerusalem. A young guy approached me and insisted that I take an orange ribbon for my car. When I refused, he hit me. A high-ranking police officer who was standing near by saw this, and grabbed the fellow. He told me that he had just spent the entire previous day facing the anti-disengagement demonstrators trying to break into Gush Katif. He back to Jerusalem to spend the night, and now has to arrest this violent guy, and then he’ll be heading back to Gush Katif on Friday morning. As far as the police officer is concerned ‘they’ve gone crazy.’”

AIPAC SCANDAL : MORE QUESTIONS

Closer to home, Doug Ireland has a revealing report in his blog on the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) spy ring story:

“Here’s what the stories in today’s Washington Post and New York Times on the new indictments of the two AIPAC spies aren’t telling you: their espionage was principally about helping to prepare an attack by Israel on Iran. And one of the Israeli embassy officials who knows all about AIPAC’s role in helping plan the attack on Iran has been whisked out of the country and out of the reach of U.S. prosecutors, the Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports this morning.

“The neo-cons in the Pentagon had long been arguing for an attack on Iran to take out its nuclear facilities that had the potential to be converted for development of nuclear weapons. Wolfie’s man Doug Feith had been particularly assiduous in pressing the case for a ‘forward strategy’ against Iran. Feith’s views are madly extremist, and Jim Zogby collected them in an April profile of Feith that should scare the pants off of anyone rational. (Feith’s been a major activist for years with the viciously anti-Arab crazies of the ZOA, the Zionist Organization of America)…”

http://direland.typepad.com/