Friday, August 11, 2006

the threat of terrorism for political gain

* glenn on AIPAC:
"Numerous Bush supporters have called for criminal prosecution of journalists who publish stories containing classified information. And in the case of the NSA eavesdropping story, Bush's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, himself recently suggested that journalists could be prosecuted for writing about that program. The Espionage Act has never previously been used to imprison journalists for stories they publish about the government. But it has long been clear that the Bush administration is actively entertaining the idea of putting journalists in jail, and today's ruling provides them with a potent weapon."

* digby:
"I know it's absurd to think that the Bush administration cynically uses the threat of terrorism for political gain and that by being suspicious of such a thing I'm unserious about national security. But this is getting ridiculous ...
"It is a mistake to believe there is no threat to the United States of America," (Bush) said. "We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people. But obviously we still aren't completely safe."

His remarks came a day after the White House orchestrated an exceptionally aggressive campaign to tar opposition Democrats as weak on terrorism, knowing what Democrats didn't: News of the plot could soon break.
[]
Snow said Bush first learned in detail about the plot on Friday, and received two detailed briefings on it on Saturday and Sunday, as well as had two conversations about it with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But a senior White House official said that the British government had not launched its raid until well after Cheney held a highly unusual conference call with reporters to attack the Democrats as weak against terrorism."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This from Keith Oblermann, some time ago:

December 17th, 2003: 9/11 Commission Co-Chair Thomas Kean says the attacks were preventable.

December 18th, 2003: A Federal Appeals Court says the government cannot detain suspected radiation-bomber Jose Padilla indefinitely without charges, and the chief U.S. Weapons inspector in Iraq, Dr. David Kay, who has previously announced he has found no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, announces he will resign his post.

December 21st, 2003: Homeland Security again raises the threat level to Orange, claiming “credible intelligence” of further plots to crash airliners into U.S. cities. Subsequently, six international flights into this country are cancelled after some passenger names purportedly produce matches on government no-fly lists.

The French later identify those matched names: one belongs to an insurance salesman from Wales, another to an elderly Chinese woman, a third to a five-year old boy.


The French, of course, told the US very early on that there was nothing in the claim. But, faced with having their US landing rights revoked, they went along with the charade and grounded the flights.

...just in case we all forget the track record of these people.

Anonymous said...

Now for my main rant...Warning! Warning! Serious Tinfoil Alert!

Alex Jones has gone to the top in his terror call: "Today's [US] red level terror alert in symbiosis with escalation of conflict in the Middle East is the trial balloon for a massive staged false flag terror attack, blamed on Hezbollah or Al-Qaeda, that will light the blue touch paper for World War Three."

I AGREE COMPLETELY.

I will be very relieved to be proven wrong and called a fool on this, but Jones vigorously warned of the 9/11 attacks about a month before they actually occured - and named the Bush team as behind it. We have Larissa and Sy Hersh (also here) both pointing to an October attack against Iran. Scott Ritter agrees (he's spoken to Bolton’s speechwriter; the UN speech denouncing Iran has already been written).

There is the expanding Israeli action in Lebanon, with Condi defeated by GW on any peace deal with Lebanon (turned down by the same guy who didn't know there was a difference between shia and sunni when he invaded Iraq).

You don't move aircraft carriers to the Middle East unless you intend to use the.

We know a number of previous US terror alerts have been suspicious, some almost certainly faked. (link) (link)

So people have my full permission to rub it in my face and call me 'fool' every day in ten different ways if I'm wrong. And tell me to get back on my meds. But I'm buying every bit of the Alex Jones. Look for a new, and deadly, 'October Surprise'.

Follow these terror alerts closely, folks. And read back over those earlier ones.

I DON'T TRUST THESE CRIMINALS.

lukery said...

just in case we all forget the track record of these people.

HA! you dont know me very well.

(other stuff fp'd)

Anonymous said...

I know you better than you think, Luke (and I like what I know). The links were included only for my cross posting at Len's place.

I do worry about the Bushies and my general level of paranoia. Meds is probably recommended.

Anonymous said...

Damien -

No need to worry about paranoia. (But to feel better, Dr. Mom over here recommends the herb, Valerian.)

More and more people are coming around to your way of thinking. The numbers have been growing within the US for quite awhile. One friend proposed the theory that as the shock of the events of 9/11 gradually wore off, people began to connect the dots and realized ON THEIR OWN how little sense the government's explanations made.

For my own view of it all, I knew it was an inside job the instant I saw the video, ON 9/11, of bu$h in that classroom with that un-perturbed look on his face. The entire country was stunned and glued to TV sets and he sat there looking exactly like somebody who wasn't even a teensy bit surprised. Later, by a few days, IIRC, he was walking around inside the wreckage of the Pentagon accompanied by reporters (the first time ever since his minders had cancelled any more press conferences because of his abysmal performances early on in 2001). The cameras were rolling, the questions were pointed, and he had that deer-in-the-headlights look of a guilty party.

I'm with Alex. And you.

lukery said...

D. no probs.

am actually running a weird composite here where i do most of my surfing in opera, but i run my email and Blogger in Firefox. when i copy/paste from opera to blogger (firefox) it doesnt carry across the formatting. but when i get comments in Blogger, they are delviered via email, so i then open them up in firefox. therefore, if i copy/paste a comment, it usually has all the links in it. (does that make ANY sense?)

i dont think that you are paranoid at all. we're all scared out of our minds here, and rightly so.