Bill's Big Diamond Blog

A Dickensian Visit from the Ghost of Authority Granted Past

While America watches the bailout hearings on Capitol (er, capital?) Hill today, it might be worth keeping in mind a previous urgent request made of Congress.  Back in 2002, the Bush Administration wouldn’t allow conditions to be attached to its critical request for war powers against Iraq.  The White House pointed to dire consequences to accrue if legislators modified or watered down unfettered authority to wage war against Iraq and stipulated that Bush’s authority would be used only with the most careful consideration.

Ron Suskind reports in his important book, The Way of the World, that even a month before the invasion of Iraq, British intelligence proved to the Americans that there were no WMD and no chemical weapons capabilities remaining in Saddam Hussein’s stockpile.   Lord Dearlove himself, as well as an aide, confirmed to Suskind that a meeting between a British intelligence operative and the head of Iraqi Intelligence (IIS) took place in Iraq in February 2003.  The Iraqi intel chief confirmed that they had no nuclear program and explained that Saddam was playing a cat and mouse game with his Iranian opponents in order to discourage a feared invasion from the east—by pretending to have a deterrent.

Did this influence the American administration, even at that late date?  Lord Dearlove would only say, “I don’t think it was too late for Bush.”

The parallels aren’t one-to-one, but the rush to approve Executive power without oversight is reminiscent of past giveaways.  Congress needs to be wary of unconditional power grabs, particularly while that ceded authority would rest with this Administration.

Fully Investigate the Anthrax Episode

I’ve long wondered about what America after 9/11 would have been like had there not been a second and more sustained terrorist threat in the wake of the September 11 attacks: the anthrax terror. This event lasted for weeks and never actually came to a definitive end, sustaining the sense of siege in the country and prompting a mindset of dread that became poisonous to democracy.

The anthrax attacks also provided the backdrop for so much of the post 9/11 speculation about how Middle Eastern terrorists could be planning multiple and even more apocalyptic attacks at any point. This speculation was seized upon by the most draconian elements of the Bush Administration (especially by Dick Cheney’s inner circle) and used to justify the most brazen measures to curtail American civil liberties in our history. Not least, speculation and leaks about the anthrax attacks sometimes tilted toward Iraq. Even after the Iraq angle was discounted, the anthrax episode helped fuel the irrational emotional hype behind a relentless campaign to invade Iraq, under the false pretense that Saddam Hussein continued to threaten the United States with biological and nuclear weapons.

So, the news that the long, inept, and inconclusive investigation into the anthrax attacks has come to a dead end after the suicide of Army biological weapons specialist Bruce Ivins isn’t particularly comforting to me. I believe that the truth behind the anthrax attacks should be investigated to a point beyond question. The implications of the attacks have never been given a full hearing, because the investigation was ongoing and criminal. Now, it seems that because the investigation can no longer result in a trial of Mr. Ivins, there will never be a complete hearing on it.

Most of the journalists who have seriously considered the anthrax attack story aren’t satisfied with the investigation. The false leaks that both heightened public panic and ruined the life of an earlier target were apparently indicative of the lack of precision and preparedness needed to get to the bottom of the story. Even if the theory which seems to have resulted in Ivins’ suicide turns out to be correct, it would be in the country’s best interest that the facts be laid out for the public to the best of our ability.

Glenn Greenwald has called for a Congressional investigation into the attacks and into the events surrounding them. This would be for the best. This episode in our history, with its connections to the tragedies and profound policy mistakes that followed from it, needs a full and unassailable airing.

The Dark Side

“I don’t want to hear about that anymore!”

— John Ashcroft on the presence of Al Qaeda operatives (soon to be 9/11 hijackers) in the United States, 2001.

Is anyone still wondering why the Bush Administration didn’t want a 9/11 Commission or why their cooperation was so poor once the Commission was inevitable?

(See Frank Rich on Jane Mayer’s book, The Dark Side)

excerpt from Rich:

In her telling, a major incentive for Mr. Cheney’s
descent into the dark side was to cover up for the
Bush White House’s failure to heed the Qaeda
threat in 2001. Jack Cloonan, a special agent for
the F.B.I.’s Osama bin Laden unit until 2002,
told Ms. Mayer that Sept. 11 was “all
preventable.”

from Random House:

In the days immediately following September 11th,
the most powerful people in the country were
panic-stricken. The radical decisions about how to
combat terrorists and strengthen national security
were made in a state of utter chaos and fear, but
the key players, Vice President Dick Cheney and
his powerful, secretive adviser David Addington,
used the crisis to further a long held agenda to
enhance Presidential powers to a degree never
known in U.S. history, and obliterate Constitutional
protections that define the very essence of the
American experiment.

Bush Personally Leaked Iraq NIE— and Plame Identity?

Scotty McClellan’s revelations in the press tour for his book, What Happened, include his Today Show retelling of an incident aboard Air Force One between Scotty and the President about the leaking of the Iraq NIE. This morning, Scotty said that the President admitted to authorizing the leak himself in a conversation with him during a flight. The interesting part of this, as Emptwheel points out today, is that the ‘NIE’ leak they were discussing included classified information Scooter Libby used to leak Valerie Plame’s identity to Judy Miller at the Times.

At the time, the President said publicly and repeatedly that he would have anyone involved with leaking this information fired— and that he would cooperate with the special prosecutor’s inquiry into the leak of Plame’s identity. Since then, he reversed course on his promise and commuted Libby’s sentence.

See Emptywheel’s post for the details, which lead to the fairly inescapable conclusion that the President was, shall we say, consciously and initially deceptive on the little matter of outing a covert CIA officer as political retaliation against her husband.

Following the Silence on Pentagon Media Manipulation

Glenn Greenwald has been on a writing tear ever since the NY Times ran David Bartow’s excellent April 20 dissection of how the Administration manipulated military talking heads in the media regarding Iraq. Greenwald has another good post up today about the story.

One of the perplexing questions that arise when the country’s leading newspaper runs a huge story on such a sophisticated and devious scheme, complete with life and death consequences— and then virtually no one picks it up… is to ask whether anyone cares— or whether Americans now just expect stuff like this— and therefore simply aren’t surprised or interested. I suspect there’s an element of both of these answers to the question— and some other memes responsible as well.

1) The television networks are most defensive about the Times story and least likely to give it play, since they are most heavily implicated in the deception it unveils. It is largely a consequence of their lack of vetting of military analysts that such a program could be so effective.

2) Many Americans, fed so much tit-for-tat media over the years, have forgotten that information isn’t all spin anyway— and so might think the Administration feeds us their line because that’s its job. The differences between political persuasion and a complex deception are not yet visible to many citizens, especially if they already don’t care to be challenged over the veracity of their assumptions.

3) Many of us who DO care about the manipulation of ‘experts’ over Iraq now are so overwhelmingly cynical in our expectations of the Bush Administration that we no longer gin up much outrage over new revelations of its extent. As Scott Collins wrote in the LA Times blog:

…many Americans, confronted with evidence that
TV's talking heads are taking orders not just from
government officials but also military-contractor
clients, can be excused for not being all that
surprised. That is the price we pay for having a
government that's not afraid to use sophisticated –
and often brazenly misleading -- PR tactics.

4) The Barstow story is COMPLICATED. This is a big problem for most newspapers and all television programs. Remember that CBS had to get Papal dispensation to run a three-minute story on the Watergate money way back in the seventies, since the flow of Republican CREEP cash was such a difficult thing to explain with only pretty pictures. We can’t expect, with all the changes for the worse in media ownership since then, that the Barstow story will command the same amount of time from corporate news management as Woodward and Bernstein’s work did, unless the story itself becomes a hot product.

With all the above working against the dissemination of information about how the war machine has been spinning its tales, we are left with new media as the only reasonable way to rail against mainstream silence. The blogosphere, led by writers like Greenwald, needs to keep pointing out the story and its consequences. It may not be likely for it to catch fire with the public, but without the blogosphere, military analysts maintained by the Pentagon and rewarded by the mainstream media for their conflicts of interest and spoon-fed conclusions have no reason to expose the psy-op that was used against them, and through them, against us all.

I’d like to point out that within the media, NPR’s On the Media ran a good piece on the Barstow story and suggest that readers listen to it. I’d also suggest that we keep up with Greenwald’s battle to make the networks account for their use of analysts who were either advocates for the Iraq operation from its infancy— or were so beholden to Pentagon spin and to their military contractor clients winning big deals to support the effort— that they were useless as objective commentators.

This story, in the context of the Plamegate scandal and what we know from sources as varied and conservative as Paul O’Neill and the MI6’s Richard Dearlove, points to an operation to foment and justify war against Iraq that preceeded 9/11—and was likely a goal from the outset of the Bush Administration. It isn’t going to be possible for the US to unravel itself from Iraq now without the public better understanding how we got in—and weaning itself off the the same experts who now tell us we must stay for another decade, if necessary.

Blackwater Hearing Follow-ups

The Crux at Buck Naked Politics introduces the House Oversight Committee’s Blackwater hearings well in her post yesterday. This piece is a well-structured synopsis, complete with links to more in-depth pieces and media of the entire event.

The Blackwater story is a great lens through which to view policy decisions about Iraq; it encapsulates the way our slapdash, crony-ridden White House’s crew has manned the frontlines of Iraq policy. From the beginning, they’ve been dragging the military professionals, who have voiced deep reservations about the whole enterprise, along for the ride, while favoring anyone who would enthusiastically toady their line, even if just for some silver to line their pockets.

Given the total disregard the neocon planners have shown for international norms, it’s also no wonder that they attempted to give the yahoos from Blackwater carte blanche to shoot up Iraq and Iraqis, while US Army and Marine regulars and reservists are held to normal standards of military justice.

For a feel of what the most public of the Blackwater shooting sprees was actually like for Iraqis under the hail of mercenary artillery, yesterday’s NY Times piece by James Glanz and Alissa Rubin on the September 16th massacre in Baghdad is repelling, but essential reading.

Gone-zo, But Not Forgotten?

I know it’s been a little slow in coming, but here’s an appropriate tribute to the tenure of one Alberto Gonzales, who’s last day in office was this past Friday. Wherever you go, keep the cards and letters coming, Bert-o!

Click here to connect to media through Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars.

Jen's Call From Nancy: Impeachment on the Table?

Let’s hear it for Jen Datka, a masters degree candidate who, in her spare time, has become involved in progressive politics (and marching bands, but that’s another post). In her first try at producing a video, she’s created a wryly funny and informative telephone chat with Nancy Pelosi over impeaching Dick Cheney. The video has rocketed to popularity on YouTube and won the Dump Dick Video Contest, sponsored by Democrats.com.

Let’s hope it’s the beginning of a series. By the way, the band is also terrific.

What's a Seven-Letter Word for Impunity?

Welcome, celeb-Fitz! Our favorite unfired federal prosecutor.

Yes, the all-around funster, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald taped an appearance on the weekly news-quiz-comedy radio show, “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!” yesterday in Chicago. What you can’t see on the radio, but can view in today’s NY Times, is a shot of the protector of the Constitution receiving a gift from host Peter Sagal.

You’ll have to click on the link to find out what the gift is. A hint? It rhymes with what people sometimes become during blackouts (no, not in couples on elevators!) and is an energy-efficient mode of transportation. Oh…and it’s a nickname.

The Corruption of Power: Our Independence Was a Response

I have to say that I’m not in much of a July 4th kind of mood this morning. Usually, this is the day each year when I enjoy waking up early and listening to a recitation of the Declaration of Independence that National Public Radio so ably produces annually. Hearing the words by which our founding fathers declared themselves separate and free from the tyranny of the British King George III tends to root a person in the revolutionary democratic idea that formed this nation.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to see that idea much in evidence today in America. People are especially demoralized now, by seeing that just before the holiday, the President chose to cover his Administration’s backside by commuting the jail sentence of Vice President Cheney’s right–hand man— before he had to think of either serving his sentence or turning state’s evidence on his former employer. Demoralization is an important tool in the arsenal this Administration employs to retain power in the face of record low public approval.

If people weren’t demoralized, we’d think about the implications of a commutation (and the continued talk by the President that he might still pardon I. Lewis Libby for his crimes). We'd ask about how it could be given hours after a lost appeal by the only Administration official convicted in the biggest con job ever foisted on the American people: the total invention of grounds for a foreign invasion. If we weren’t demoralized, we’d be thinking about what to do in response to this kind of outrageous slap in the face of a jury verdict and sentence.

Tony Benn, the former titan of the British Labour Party, speaks of the role of demoralization in keeping people down in Michael Moore’s new film, Sicko. Benn describes representative democracy as a way to wrest power from the small minority who hold sway over capital, bringing many of the benefits his people now enjoy, like universal health care. But if most people can be demoralized, that ideal is kept from them, Benn argues. If the people can be convinced that it doesn’t matter whether they vote, whether they do in fact rule, the rights of the population can be trammeled upon over and over.

Many of us feel demoralized, left outside the institutions of power, feeling that no matter what we do as individuals, the machine continues. We see the misuse of office, the lies, and the arrogant trampling of the Constitution that has occurred over and over during this Administration, unstopped. We see this week the kind of brash negation of even the smallest effort to seek legal redress against these lies and against the illegal stonewalling that Scooter Libby’s conviction and sentencing documented and demonstrated. As another blogger wrote this week, the President’s commutation shows that “them that’s got, shall get; them that’s not, shall lose.” Those in the cabal shall fear not, for impunity shall rule while the President does.

I guess that after this, I am getting into an Independence Day kind of mood in spite, perhaps because of it all. In the face of this kind of arrogant power grab, the words expressed by our forefathers have even more meaning than they usually do:

… that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Maybe it’s a good day to listen to and feel the power of words some quite ordinary and alienated people wrote down and then sent off to the most powerful monarchy in the world. “King George, We don’t recognize your power,” they essentially told their ruler. And they were ready to fight for their freedom.

Have a happy and a revolutionary Fourth.