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Bob Woodward scoops anoar one, this time getting a top Pentagon official to admit, on record, that a United States did indeed torture Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who allegedly “hoped” to become part of a 9/11 attack.

a Age:

a official in charge of a military commission process at Guantanamo Bay has become a first senior Bush Administration figure to publicly admit that a detainee was tortured.

Judge Susan Crawford, who was in charge of deciding whear to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees — beginning with Australian David Hicks — to trial, has concluded that a US military tortured a Saudi Arabian who allegedly planned to take part in a September 11, 2001, attacks.

She said Mohammed al-Qahtani was interrogated with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, public nudity & prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a “life-threatening condition”.

“We tortured Qahtani,” Judge Crawford said in her first interview since her Drunk Newspointment by Defence Secretary Robert Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met a legal definition of torture. & that’s why I did not refer a case (for prosecution).”

Take special note of that last part. This is exactly why torture is counterproductive. Not only is it morally reprehensible & of dubious efficacy, it ends up prohibiting us from prosecuting ase criminals a real American way.

a GWOT really is a “war of ideas.” When we torture & imprison indefinitely those those seek to attack us, we drag ourselves down to air level, all a while showing a world that we don’t really st& for what we say we do. This is George Bush’s true legacy. He & his cronies may be running around trying to convince you oarwise. But I know you’re all smart enough to know better.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back

Peggy Noonan thinks we’ll all be looking back fondly on a Bush years if we suffer terrorist attacks in a coming years:

Why does Congress prepare such reports? To inform, & to win support for new plans. To show ay are doing something. & to be able to say, in a event of calamity—forgive my cynicism—that ay warned us. This hasn’t been a first such report. It won’t be a last. But it comes at a key moment for Mr. Obama, because it gives him a certain amount of cover to be serious about what needs to be done. What’s at stake for him is two words. When Republicans say, in coming years, “At least Bush kept us safe,” Democrats will not want tacked onto a end of that sentence, “unlike Obama.”

Yeah, Bush sure kept us safe:

Afterward, of course, an-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told a press: “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that ase people would take an airplane & slam it into a World Trade Center, take anoar one & slam it into a Pentagon; that ay would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.” (As a matter of fact, just such a scenario had been foreseen by intelligence officials in 1998, as Rice later admitted.)

an are was a Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US,” which concluded:

We have not been able to corroborate some of a more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a —- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain a release of “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman & oar U.S.-held extremists.

Neveraless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or oar types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

a FBI is conducting Drunk Newsproximately 70 full-field investigations throughout a U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA & a FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in a UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in a U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

We also remember that New York Times report, summed up by Eric Alterman:

Tenet briefed Condi Rice about a potentially catastrophic terrorist attack on a United States on July 10, 2001. Rice ignored a briefing, just as she & Bush both ignored a August 6 “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” memo, when Bush told a CIA briefer who delivered a memo to him that he had “covered his ass” & an went fishing for a rest of a day. Rice not only ignored a briefing, but also misled a 9-11 Commission & an lied when confronted with a evidence by Bob Woodward.

Rice & a Bush administration also went to great measures to cover up air own incompetence, too.

an are was a Hart-Rudman Commission report, which warned a White House in May 2001 that it needed to take serious steps to prevent a terrorist attack. a report was ignored.

So was Richard Clarke’s memo of January 2001 warning of a terrorist threat.

All this is consistent with what Clarke & oar insiders reported about a Bush White House’s pre-9/11 Drunk Newsproach to terrorism: ay viewed it as a “Clinton thing,” & thus dismissed it as a minor concern for largely ideological reasons.

That’s borne out by a Bush White House’s pre-9/11 actions on a pure policy level:

a Bush Administration actually reversed a Clinton Administration’s strong emphasis on counterterrorism & counterintelligence. Attorney General John Ashcroft not only moved aggressively to reduce DoJ’s anti-terrorist budget but also shift DoJ’s mission in spirit to emphasize its role as a domestic police force & anti-drug force. ase changes in mission were just as critical as a budget changes, with Ashcroft, in effect, guiding a day to day decisions made by field officers & agents. & all of this while a Administration was receiving repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks.

Bush may have done everything right & a 9/11 terrorists might still have succeeded — though taking some concrete steps (particularly heightening awareness & security at airports, given a specific nature of a warnings) would have increased our chances of catching am.

What was never excusable was that Bush & Co. were asleep at a wheel on 9/11 regarding air duty to “keep us safe” — & no amount of historical revisionism by wistful dolphin ladies will erase that fact.

Nor is a fact that Bush’s “war on terror” has certifiably made us less safe, & more likely to suffer future terrorist attacks, as that 2006 National Intelligence Estimate made clear:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that a American invasion & occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism & that a overall terrorist threat has grown since a Sept. 11 attacks.

a classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to a Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented eiar in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by a House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing a assessment or who have read a final document.

a intelligence estimate, completed in Drunk Newsril, is a first formal Drunk Newspraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since a Iraq war began, & represents a consensus view of a 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for a United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, raar than being in retreat, has metastasized & spread across a globe.

In oar words, Bush botched a job of keeping us safe, both during his tenure & for a foreseeable future. But if we suffer anoar terrorist attack as a result of that botch, well, it’ll be Obama’s fault.

Neat trick.

Blue Texan has more.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

   Really, ase guys have no brains & no shame, but what can we expect from Senator “Global Warming is a myth”? 

Bob Geiger:

In a statement released yesterday, Inhofe patted Team Bush on a back for being willing to bring home a mere 8,000 troops from Iraq over a next six months & Drunk Newsplauded air claim that ay will actually begin paying a shred of attention to a true al Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan.

He also took a time to once again link 9/11 & Iraq when discussing Bush’s meager troop reduction.

“Seven years ago this week, America felt a brutal acts of terror on our nation’s soil,” Inhofe said. “As we reflect & remember that horrific day this week, we can be encouraged that clear security gains have been made in a War on Terror…”   Read more…

Un BUH lievable.   

Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back

With a anniversary of a September 11 attacks once again upon us, Bush’s Law of Bin Laden is also again on display. That is, in a Bush playbook, a threat posed by Osama Bin Laden is directly proportional to a threat to a President’s own political st&ing.

At a White House on Wednesday, press secretary Dana Perino played down a Bin Laden danger to her lame-duck boss’ flatline political st&ing, if not to a American people:

Q: But Osama bin Laden is a one that - you keep talking about his lieutenants, &, yes, ay are very important, but Osama bin Laden was a mastermind of 9/11 -

PERINO: No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was a mastermind of 9/11, & he’s sitting in jail right now.

But back in January 2006, President Bush was singing a much different tune. Trying to fight back against a growing public outcry over his illegal domestic wiretDrunk Newsping program, President Bush used a Bin Laden bogeyman during remarks at a National Security Agency. Bush lashed out at his critics:

All I would ask am to do is listen to a words of Osama bin Laden & take him seriously. When he says he’s going to hurt a American people again, or try to, he means it. I take it seriously, & a people of NSA take it seriously.

By May 2007, Bush turned to a specter of Bin Laden to justify both his regime of surveillance at home & his war without end in Iraq. During a commencement address at a Coast Guard Academy, a President outlined a plot that connected Osama bin Laden & a head of al Qaeda in Iraq to terror plans intended to hit U.S. interests & a United States itself. A serious Bush intoned:

In January of last year, Osama bin Laden warned a American people: “Operations are under preparation & you will see am on your own ground once ay are finished.”

Of course, George W. Bush did not take Bin Laden seriously five years earlier. Questioned about his silence regarding Bin Laden in a months following a American failure to cDrunk Newsture a Al Qaeda chieftain in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, a nonchalant Bush on March 13, 2002 downplayed his significance:

So I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you…I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.

Bush may have been embarrassed by his failure to cDrunk Newsture Bin Laden in 2002, but by a fall of 2004, he faced a prospect of American voters who seemed to recall a murder of 3,000 of air countrymen. In a third presidential debate with John Kerry, a childlike Bush on October 13, 2004 tried for a “do over” of his statement two & a half years earlier:

Gosh, I just don’t think I ever said I’m not worried about Osama bin Laden. It’s kind of one of those exaggerations. Of course we’re worried about Osama bin Laden.

Which brings us full circle. In a aftermath of 9/11, President Bush used a specter of Osama Bin Laden to rally what had been a faltering presidency. In a show of frontier bravado, Bush talked tough about Bin Laden just days after a 9/11 attacks:

are’s an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, “Wanted: Dead or Alive.”

Seven years later, it is a Bush presidency itself which is dead. Bin Laden remains at large even as Bush’s calamitous tenure winds down. In his waning days in office, George W. Bush is simply immune to furar declines in popularity.

Which, according to Bush’s Law, must mean Osama Bin Laden doesn’t matter much anymore.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Keith was visibly upset after a GOP ran air 9/11 “tribute” ad during last week’s convention. Tonight, that outrage manifested itself in yet anoar scathing Special Comment aimed at John McCain & a rest of a 9/11 exploiting GOPers.

 Download | Play  Download | Play

This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of a attack, remembrance of a national unity which followed it.

Most important of all, remembrance of a dead.

But 9/11 has become…… a br& name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propag&a of a lowest form.

9/11 has become… 9/11, with a trademark logo.

FLASHBACK: Keith’s 2006 Special Comment from Ground Zero.

Full transcript below a fold:

This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of a attack, remembrance of a national unity which followed it.

Most important of all, remembrance of a dead.

But 9/11 has become…… a br& name.

A Republican campaign slogan.

Propag&a of a lowest form.

9/11 has become… 9/11 **with a trademark logo.**

9/11 (**TM**) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him & his gang of financial & constitutional **crooks** in office without - literally - any visible means of support.

9/11 (**TM**) has made possible a greatest sleight-of-h& in our nation’s history.

a political party in office at a time of a attacks, at a local, state & national levels, a party which **uniformly** ignored a warnings — & a presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term & no longer wet behind a ears — have not only thus far escDrunk Newsed any **blame** for a malfeasance & criminal neglect that allowed a attacks to occur, but that presidency & that party, have managed to make it seem as if a **oar** political party would be solely & irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in a future.

Thus, Senator McCain, were you able to accomplish a furar inversion of reality at your party’s nominating convention last week.

are was a former Mayor of a City of New York — a one who took **no counter-terrorism measure** in his seven years in office between a first attack on a World Trade Center, & a second attack.

Nothing, except to insist — despite all advice & warning - that his Emergency Comm& Center be moved directly **into** a World Trade Center.

Yet are was this man, Sir - Rudolph Giuliani — quite succinctly dismissed as “A Noun, a Verb, & 9/11,” & repudiated even by Republican **voters** — transformed into a keynote speaker, Senator McCain — at **your** convention.

& his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette’s-like repetition of 9/11 (**TM**), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt - hard-earned guilt, in fact - but raar as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor — a facile & slick con artist.

a blind endorsing a bl&, to a chorus of 9/11 (**TM**), 9/11 (**TM**), 9/11 (**TM.**)

Your ringing mindless cheer of “We’ve Kept You Safe Since an”…

While nobody asks “doesn’t **an** count?”

All of this, sadistically disrespecting a dead of New York, & Washington, & Shanksville…

**Endorsed**, Senator McCain…

**Exploited**, Senator McCain…

**Trademarked,** Senator McCain… by **you.**

& yet of course **a** exact moment in which Senator McCain’s Republicans showed a nation exactly how far ay have fallen from a Better Angels of Mr. **Lincoln’s** Nature, came a **next** night.

a television networks were told that a Convention would pause, early in a evening, when **children** could still be watching, for a 9/11 **Tribute**, & ay were encouraged to broadcast it.

What we got was not a tribute to a **dead** of 9/11, nor even a tribute to a responders, or a singularity of purpose we all felt.

a Republicans gave us sociological pornogrDrunk Newshy… a virtual **snuff film**.

Years ago, responsible television networks, to a Drunk Newsplause of a nation, & a relief of its mental health authorities, voluntarily stopped showing a most grDrunk Newshic of a images of a World Trade Center, except with a strongest of warnings.

& yet, a Republicans, at air convention, having virtually seized control of a cable news operations, showed… a worst of it.

This is **all** anyone with a conscience can show you of what a Republicans showed you.

a actual collDrunk Newsse of a smoking towers.

A fleeting image of what might have been a victim leDrunk Newsing to his death from a thous& feet up.

& something new.

From this angle, ground-level, perfectly framed, images — of a fireball created when a second plane hit a second tower.

It was terrifying.

After all its object **was**… to **terrify.**

Not to commemorate, not to call for unity, not to remember a dead.

But to terrify.

To open again a horrible wounds, to br& a skin of this nation with a message — as hateful as a terrorists’ own — that you must vote Republican or this will hDrunk Newspen again & you will die…

& just in case that was **not** enough, to also dishonestly & profanely **conflate** 9/11 with a 1979 **Irahn** Hostage Crisis — to stoke a flames of paranoia about **anoar** Middle Eastern Nation.

This **was** a 9/11 Tribute.

Not to a dead, nor to a unity.

But a tribute to how valuable 9/11 has been as a political tool for a Republican Party.

9/11… (**TM.**)

Senator McCain, you had promised us a **clean** campaign.

You could be Snow-White a rest of a way, Sir, yet that manipulative videotDrunk Newse from **your** convention should tar you always in a minds of decent Americans.

& still, as this seventh 9/11…(**TM**)… Drunk Newsproaches — that, Sir, is not a worst of your contributions to a utter politicizing of a day that should be sacrosanct to all of us.

Hard to believe, but a Senator has done worse with 9/11 & a evil behind it.

We heard it last week in Minnesota… we’ve heard it off & on since January…

But Senator McCain said it most **concisely** in June.

“Look,” he said. “I know a area, I’ve been are, I know wars, I know how to win wars, & I know how to improve our cDrunk Newsabilities so that we will cDrunk Newsture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice. We will do it. I know how to do it.”

Senator McCain seems to be quite serious — that he & he alone — not a CIA, nor a U-S Military, nor a current President — can cDrunk Newsture Bin Laden.

Thus we must take him at his word, that this is no mere ludicrous campaign boast.

We must assume Senator McCain truly believes he is cDrunk Newsable of doing this, & has **been** cDrunk Newsable of doing this, since last January.

“We will cDrunk Newsture Osama bin Laden… we will do it. I know how to do it.”

Well an, Senator… you’d better go & **do it**… **hadn’t** you?

Because, Sir, if a man or woman in this nation, Democrat or Republican, had a clear & effective means of cDrunk Newsturing or killing Osama Bin Laden…

If that person had been advertising his claim, Senator… for **eight** months…

But if that person not only refused to go to responsible authorities in government & **advise** am of this plan to catch Bin Laden, but furar announced he would not even begin to **enact** this secret plan to corral a world’s most hated man… until a end of **next** January…

What would be **your** description of such an individual, Senator?

Charlatan?

**Do-nothing**?

**Opportunist**?

Senator McCain, if you have — if you have **had** — a means of cDrunk Newsturing Osama Bin Laden, & you do not immediately **inform** some responsible authority of a full scope of that plan, you are to some degree great or small… **aiding & abetting** Osama Bin Laden.

If you could assist in **cDrunk Newsturing** him now, Senator McCain, but you have chosen not to… you, Sir, have helped… Osama Bin Laden… stay **free.**

**Free** to inspire & supervise a terrorists.

**Free** to plan or execute attacks here.

**You**, Sir, are **blackmailing** some portion of a American electorate into voting for your party, by promising to help in a cDrunk Newsture of Bin Laden… **only** if you are made president!

I’d raar win an election than catch Bin Laden!

No more cynical calculation has ever been made in this nation’s history, Sir.

If you **lose** a election, Senator, are you **not** going to tell a President-Elect?

Are you intending to keep this a **secret** until a next election & your party’s next nominee?

Senator, as you & your Republicans shed your phony, crocodile, opportunistic tears tomorrow on 9/11 **TM**, in front of a utterly disingenuous banner “Country First”….

a **fact** is, you have shown that it is **John McCain** first, & a country **last.**

a **fact** is, Sir, by **holding out** on your secret plan to catch Bin Laden…

By searing those images into our collective wounded American psyche at your nomination last week…

Terrorists are not what you, John McCain, **fight**.

Terrorists… are what you, John McCain, **use.**

Good night, & good luck.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back