Clarke on the NIE, Impeachment and Bush's Terrorism Record


Read it all, here's some to whet your appetite:

Bush says if we leave Iraq it might become a sanctuary for Al Qaeda. Pakistan already is.

Most people in Washington think talk of impeachment of Vice President Cheney and then Bush is hyperventilating political hyperbole. But what will they all say the day after another Al Qaeda attack on the U.S.?

Maybe that Bush ignored warnings about the first attack six years ago and then, after half measures, pulled some intelligence and military resources off the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda and shifted them to Iraq, then needlessly attacked Iraq, thereby creating a second Al Qaeda group, and funded the Pakistani government, which created a sanctuary for Al Qaeda where the group reconstituted.

The NIE doesn't say any of that either, but unfortunately it is all true.


Ian Welsh July 18, 2007 - 7:29pm
( categories: Global War on Terror )

that the system of government that we have did not respond adequately to the challenges it faced. The Congress and the Supreme Court did not restrain a criminal executive branch. The military blindly collaborated in a collective and individual war crime.

And, they could say, the Constitutional form of government having failed so signally, it is time to replace it with something else.

Something that might work better.

mmeo July 18, 2007 - 8:04pm

I think systems require maintenance and feeding. Like paying attention, speaking up before it's too late, and voting. If you do that, pretty much any reasonably designed system should work reasonably well.

Gordon July 18, 2007 - 9:53pm

The best constitution can not safe you if the political culture deteriorates and people don't fight for their democracy. This is the number one lesson from the Weimar republic's collapse that was apparently never very well understood.

quax July 18, 2007 - 10:45pm

lost its democracy. So did Meiji Japan. And Italy in the 1920s. And Spain in the 1930s.

Nothing says a Constitutional regime must last, no matter what.

mmeo July 19, 2007 - 1:47am

Don't forget how France lost its First Republic to Napoleon I and then, after deciding they liked it so much, went and did it again when the Second Republic fell to Louis-Napoleon, who established the Second Empire. Hell, even Florence had a Republic back in the Quattrocento and lost it. That's what most of Machiavelli's writing is all about. Security issues always wound up destroying the republics for some reason. Even Rome had discovered that two millenia ago.

VizierVic July 19, 2007 - 7:03am

Our system of government as embodied in the Constitution is fine. But we do need some serious reforms:

1. No political campaign donations from anyone ever at anytime. All public funds.

2. Lobbyists get severely limited. And we need lobbyists for "the people".

3. Don't vote if you don't care and are not knowlegeable.

4. Break up the media conglomerates.

Zman1527 July 19, 2007 - 1:37pm

...but (3) - too easy to make it into a "poll test". I'd prefer compulsory voting (felons included) and a "none of the above" choice for each office.

Gordon July 19, 2007 - 3:59pm

Is to vote if you do care. That is the problem I see. We have a bunch of idiots voting who care a lot but there are a lot of us who care but fail to make it to the polls. Whenever I hear: "I hate Bush" I say, "Did you vote" and almost invariably the answer is no.

Joaquin July 25, 2007 - 12:49pm

that I will have no rights and can be thrown in jail and the key thrown away and might never be brought to trial and won't be able to call a lawyer. My government sure as heck isn't going to do a damn thing about my rotting in a cell.

My crime would have been posting to sites like Agonist and surfing the Internet. That's all it takes--own a computer, have an Internet account and it doesn't matter whether you're guilty or innocent...no one gives a rat's petoote! It's enough that I'm not a American citizen--hey even if I were, I wouldn't have any additional rights. Homeland Security makes up its own laws and there isn't 'anything' I or members of my family could do. Use an invisible crayon to paint me gone, poof, out of sight, out of mind!

So if you ever see a post that I've decided to come to the United States to stay in our RV and you don't hear from me again, you'll known I'm incarcerated in a cell, never to see the light of day again. Haydn and my family will be sad, but they'll get over it. Who knows, maybe they'll blame me for being stupid enough to have joined a bulletin board and then take the risk of leaving Canada. Wow...and I so looked forward to just growing old and being able to travel to places I hadn't seen. C'est les vies! (Shit happens!) Sob...perhaps I should just say goodbye now ... nice to have known all of you.

I'll shout to the wind, "Homeland Security may you rot in hell!" I undoubtedly will add profanities as time goes on! I hear that the weather is nice in Guantánamo. I'll know in my heart that there isn't any snow, but will I ever see another dawn?

Before I disappear down the rabbit hole, I'll make this statement, "All Bush ever delivered was fear itself!"

canuck July 19, 2007 - 3:03am

Alas, your fears are well founded, as a casual reading of the "Military Commisions Act" will demonstrate. When the chief executive can lock up anyone he wishes to, without even having to demonstrate probable cause (let alone prove), just on his/her say so that this person is helping terrorists--toss him in solitary, subject him to "enhanced" interrogation, keep him from attorneys or the courts--forever, in prison--forever; when this can be said of a country, we are no longer talking about a democracy.

Fighting for Truth, Justice, and making it the American way!

ThomasWMutherJr December 20, 2007 - 7:13am

Raw Story

National Intelligence Estimate lacks supporting evidence, possibly politicized, intelligence officials say
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Wednesday July 25, 2007

Current and former intelligence officials say the Bush Administration's National Intelligence Estimate regarding terrorist threats to the United States does not provide evidence to support its assertions and may have inflated the domestic threat posed by the Lebanese political and military group Hezbollah, perhaps because it receives financial support from Iran.

According to the report, Hezbollah – a Shi'a Muslim group with ties to Iran that has been labeled a terrorist organization by the United States – may target the US domestically if the US poses a serious threat to Iran. But sources say the allegations about Hezbollah were simply "thrown in."

Speaking under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, several intelligence officers asserted that the report was sloppy and lacked supporting evidence. "The NIE seems… fiddled [with]," regarding Hezbollah, one high-ranking CIA official said. "Whether it is or isn't is not really the point. The point is that nobody is ready to believe it."

.....huge snip

Is there a focus on terrorism funding?

Sources interviewed for this article would not comment on whether Saudi Arabia was discussed or if terrorism funding was addressed in the classified version of the report.

One former high-ranking CIA official believes that the funding of terrorism should be seen as a priority target. The official said, however, that instead of "following the money," law enforcement and counter-terrorism efforts should be aimed at "following the heroin," the single largest currency for the terrorist market.

According to the US Department of Justice, as of 2005, Afghanistan was the leading supplier of heroin in the world. Its rise to that position followed the US-Afghanistan War, after which the US largely abandoned Afghanistan to focus on Iraq.

Table 6. Potential Worldwide Heroin Production, in Metric Tons, 2001-2005

..........2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Mexico 10.7 6.8 11.9 8.6 8.0
Colombia 11.4 8.5 7.8 3.8 *
Afghanistan 7.0 150.0 337.0 582.0 526.0
Burma 82.0 60.0 46.0 32.0 36.0
.....
Total 133.1 245.3 426.7 632.8 577.4

Tina July 25, 2007 - 12:01pm

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