I spent a long time research on Bin Laden. My conclusion is: He is very religious person just like Bush, he is an oilman just like Bush, he is willing to kill innocents just like Bush, the only different is he has better concept about judtige and his way of thinking is more logic than Bush.

mr. ford is a moron,an illinformed moron at that . It was always thought a high probabilty that Saddam had WMD within the intellagence community and was activly seeking the means to produce them,which is why he had the sanctions on him (realy on his population)when he removed the inspectors he had his ass tomahawked as well as the sites that were suspected of harboring said WMD . I guess Clinton got them all since the Bush boy couldnt find any despite Cheny's BS. As for fireing on americans,how many dead and maimed today Dick? I mean Chris? When I was a rookie cop and took liberties with peoples rights I new that if I got caught their would a price to pay,just because I knew that they were drug dealers, robbers , or burglers ,I was supposed to play by certain rules. Unless there were extigent cercumstances( that means an emergency i was supposed to have a warrant. These jurks can listen in then if they get some good stuff go get the warrant later.wish I had that option. Now we have punks like Chris oking compleatly illegal operations by people that didnt need to disreguard the law to do their jobs/just file another form at the end of the day to ensure judical oversite.But Bush has such contempt for the American people he wont even do that. Clinton got impeached for lieing about sex.Those punks are going to run out of homeboys and hillbillies to send into the meat grinder we,ll see what happens then.After almost 26 years of military and law enforcement protecting my nation and my community Im going to take my pension ,move to the carribean,and tell people im from Canada

mr. ford is a moron,an illinformed moron at that . It was always thought a high probabilty that Saddam had WMD within the intellagence community and was activly seeking the means to produce them,which is why he had the sanctions on him (realy on his population)when he removed the inspectors he had his ass tomahawked as well as the sites that were suspected of harboring said WMD . I guess Clinton got them all since the Bush boy couldnt find any despite Cheny's BS. As for fireing on americans,how many dead and maimed today Dick? I mean Chris? When I was a rookie cop and took liberties with peoples rights I new that if I got caught their would a price to pay,just because I knew that they were drug dealers, robbers , or burglers ,I was supposed to play by certain rules. Unless there were extigent cercumstances( that means an emergency i was supposed to have a warrant. These jurks can listen in then if they get some good stuff go get the warrant later.wish I had that option. Now we have punks like Chris oking compleatly illegal operations by people that didnt need to disreguard the law to do their jobs/just file another form at the end of the day to ensure judical oversite.But Bush has such contempt for the American people he wont even do that. Clinton got impeached for lieing about sex.Those punks are going to run out of homeboys and hillbillies to send into the meat grinder we,ll see what happens then.After almost 26 years of military and law enforcement protecting my nation and my community Im going to take my pension ,move to the carribean,and tell people im from Canada

Translation of our resident White Supremecist Chris Ford:
3rd World ragheads-
If they are wearing a turban they are Sikh
If they have a small square hat-Muslim
Japs-
Japanese, part of Chris Ford's need to demean anyone not white.
Rosenbergs-Chris mentioned the Rosenbergs because of his hatred of Jews and his need to squeeze that in on a regular basis.

"What intrigues me is, how easy it seems to be for our Leaders who champion American Values on one the hand, to totally disregard them over and over again..."

Yeah, I have the same problem. They're against abortions for American women, but they don't mind performing involuntary abortions on Iraqi women with laser-guided bombs.

fandela

I mean really everytime the administration needs a boost, the diabetic arab manages to stagger out of his bed in Riadyh and tape another message for his boss....just in time to get the overly stimulated Amerikan public stirred up again....along with an infomercial from Colt about how having your own arsenal makes the ladies hot....c'mon.

All the government has to do is tell you that there are monsters out there and you give away your right to think and question...

You're being invaded all right, by ludicrous notions that somehow that people that lie, steal, thwart justice and obey their own agendas...

have your best intersts at heart. Where's the evidence? When't the last time the president paid for your coke habit?

Who stands to benifit from controlling the oil in Saudi, Quwait and Iraq?

And think in terms of people not nations.

If the Brits invade India and it's the 1600's is it to teach them democracy or to control spice trade?

The only problem is that YOU, supposedly come from a democratic country....and you have to be convinced that what your affluent, carefully disguised as goverment leaders invoking the power of a "GOOD GAWD" against the powers of the bad gawds of everyone else.....since youse have such simple minds agree must be the right thing.

I am no Bush supporter. I am, however, a supporter of the troops that we sent to fight a foreign war in Iraq. They went to fulfill their obligation because we sent them. We must not forget that.

As for the cur Bin Laden, it is better he remains a living threat. If he at last becomes a dead martyr, we will further fuel the insurgency against the troops remaining in Iraq. The same can be said of Saddam Hussein, now on trial for just one of many war crimes he committed upon his own people and family members.

We can ill afford to make martyrs of people at this stage in the game. Caution is the best point of valor in this type of conflict. We cannot walk away and we cannot afford to maintain current troop strength, either.

Progress is slow, but it is coming. That is the reason for the recent rise in bombings and shootings.

These insurgents are acting as Saddam and trying to force their fellow Iraqi's heads back into the metaphorical sand pile. It is not working, so they are ratcheting up the pressure in the vain hope of stopping democracy's spread throughout the region they once ruled.

We cannot, I repeat cannot, afford to back down now. We will regrettably leave a small cadre of our best in place to assure that progress continues, for that is what nation rebuilding is all about.

We are obliged to leave an Iraq that is better equipped to fight her own battles, more willing to maintain her new rule of law, and better able to educate, feed, clothe, and offer moral support to her people. Only when those goals are realized will we be able to say we achieved what we set out to acheive when we began this blasted war.

help, I am being followed by black helicopters.

'11 U.S. Troops Killed in One Day in Iraq'

Not one big incident but several small ones. A bad sign. Two in Falluja from gunfire. Suddenly these last months there are regular reports of US deaths from small arms fire.

Falluja is the supposed poster child for "clear and hold", not to mention for get-tough Operation Take-Out-Our-Frustration-on-Civilians. It remains a casualty black hole, so flattening the place acheived nothing but more hatred and misery.

Why should one more American die for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq?

The entire US Government, Republicans and Democrats, and the US Corporate Media should be put on trial for War Crimes against Humanity, and tarred & feathered.

11 U.S. Troops Killed in One Day in Iraq
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=060106&cat=news&st=newsd8ev6ptg8&src=ap
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said it was appalled by the attacks. "This terror aims simply to kill innocent Iraqis and provoke further conflict between them," the embassy said.

About 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html
Talk about Terror killing innocent Iraqis!

I doubt anyone will read this but I had to post. Yesterday, before I read this column, certain realities came home to me. I suddenly realized with dead certainty that the bloodshed in Iraq isn't going to end, and that "winning" is not an applicable concept.

It doesn't really matter how the military conducts itself, ultimately, because no one, American or Iraqi, insurgent or occupier, understands what if anything the goal is, or what really underlies the animosity. Or what to do about it, if they understood it. Going house to house and asking "Where's Osama?"...why must we make fools of our young soldiers in addition to killing and maiming them?

Anyway, I know now that it's useless to keep hoping it will end. It won't. I just wish I knew how to explain this to my kindergarten-age nephew.

If Chris would like to know why the One Time Pad is unbreakable, he might read Claude Shannon's "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems"
at http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~jkong/research/security/shannon1949.pdf#search='Communication%20Theory%20of%20Secrecy%20Systems%20Claude%20Shannon' --See page 27. (Note that Shannon calls the One Time Key Pad System the Vernam cipher .)

I always enjoy Chris Ford's posts because they perfectly illustrate the lack of knowledge (technically defined by Webster's as ignorance) so characteristic of Bush supporters.

NSA exists because the One Time Key Pad (OTKP)is not practical for the high volume of data exchanged by the military and administrative units of governments like the Soviet Union. The military uses computerized methods of encryption that --they hope --can not be broken by massive use of computers.

OTKP is kept for highly secure but low volume communications --e.g., communications to spies, hot line between the USA and Moscow, launch codes,etc.

See e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_time_pad

Re Al Qaeda's use of the One Time Pad, look at this Atlantic Monthly article posted on Free Republic: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1191665/posts (search for string
"One-Time Pad"

Chris Ford's bias toward anyone of another colour, is starting to wear a little thin. He is a tiring little racist bureaucrat, with little to share beyond his White Supremicist views and his need to convince others that hating is good. He gets lots of attention, like borderline personalities tend to get. He fits the profile.Whether he is or not is another issue, but what is the issue is that outrageous racist comments are allowed. I guess there are no hate crime laws in the US, he would be toast in Canada and of that I am proud. This man is America's little White Supremicist, and they are welcome to him.

Great writing Tony Zaar but do not waste your time with Chris Ford, he is a hopeless racist and is a slave to his own racism. He has to focus every opinion, or inanity, to fit his racist rants. The man is emotionally crippled without a clue about Canada. I am Canadian, but none of his blustering opinions made out of hateful assumptions is in any way relevent or true to the Canadian experience. The man has no clue, just an addiction to his own hatred of anything not white a man or any country that is not American.
In Canada he would be charged with hate crimes, for his attempts to give validation to his racism. Just a loser.

'Conventional wisdom will conclude that it is only "prudent" for the United States to start planning for the potential of conflict with the second superpower...'

...a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one. Anglo-German Naval Race anyone?

It amazes me that so few Americans have noticed that their government is trying to start a Cold War with China.

'I say invest in China and Southeast Asia. I may not make you money in 2006 but the best way to avoid the U.S. military addiction of creating enemies, especially big one, is to rejoice in the prosperity and growth of others.'

An even better way to break America's habit of manufacturing enemies and trouble would be to start dismantling the predatory military and arms-dealing system that drives it.

But good for you Arkin. I sometimes knock you, but your heart is in the right place, and you raise the vital issues that other US journalists ignore.

Hey Chris, perhaps you'd care to list all the Sigint successes of the last few decades. I find myself struggling to name any.

Even when NSA did detect things, like Saddam's buildup on the Kuwaiti border in 1990, Washington chose to ignore it. In fact they only took notice when a diplomat reported passing columns of tanks on the highway.

Perhaps I'm being too cynical. In fact, US intelligence-gathering techniques are so sensitive they can even pick up threats that don't exist - like Iraqi WMD.

Don Williams - an "expert", given his past top security clearance, argues that surveillance and intelligence gathering is worthless against any competent foe. (Due to Don's "unbreakable code - available and used by all since WWII)

"There's something the news media and Congress does not seem to realize yet --that the reported NSA surveillance would have been ineffective against Al Qaeda and other real terrorists. The NSA program is largely of value in looking at unsuspecting Americans."

Well, if that holds against smart but still 3rd world ragheads, then surely it holds against the former militarist Japs, Nazis, Soviets, and present day China, Iran, Syria, and N Korea. So by Don's premise, not only are we wasting money on the NSA, CIA, and FBI counterespionage/counterterror - but those agencies are harmful because they only are useful against unsuspecting Americans lacking a use for "one time key pad".

Why do I think Don is spouting bunk? 60 years of bipartisan support for monitoring our foes signals, with clear results that kept funding going, for starters.

"So why are we scrapping the Bill of Rights and key constitutional checks and balances (judical oversight of Executive Branch surveillance of US citizens) when the justification is to allow Executive Branch actions which are largely ineffective against any halfway competent enemy?"

Sounds like you are in the grip of anti-Bush hysteria from your hyperbolic language about scrapping the Bill of Rights - or hysteria against 11 Presidential Administrations starting with Roosevelt that spied on our enemies, including enemies within like the Rosenbergs and the present Islamoids, not the innocent American public.

Clearly the fruits of signals intercepts have warranted the Democrats and the Republicans bipartisan support of it for over 70 years.

These folks who bray about, Why Can't We Capture Bin Laden?? remind me of the dog chasing the car - what do you do when you catch him? Well, I'll answer: There would then be revolution around the world

It's better that OBL stays in his cave/safe-house, out of sight and somewhat out of mind. At this point he almost is a Max Headroom type character, anyway - he may or may exist in reality, but mainly does just out in cyberspace.

I worked on intelligence systems in the 1990s and was cleared for several areas of SCI information.

There's something the news media and Congress does not seem to realize yet --that the reported NSA surveillance would have been ineffective against Al Qaeda and other real terrorists. The NSA program is largely of value in looking at unsuspecting Americans.

Since World War II, underground groups have used encryption that is unbreakable by the NSA --it's called the one time key pad (OOKP). There have been news reports of Al Qaeda using OOKP --the method is simple, easy, and does not require computers. (Computer methods like the overrated PGP can be broken, OOKP can not.
Google "one time key pad")

One shortcoming of OOKP --the need for a random number string equal in size to the encrypted text -- is no longer a problem. A SanDisk memory chip carried by a courier can carry enough random numbers to encrypt the Encyclopedia Britiannica.

The number stream of OOKP is easily disguised as accounting data,etc. Even if intercepted , it tells NSA nothing.

So why are we scrapping the Bill of Rights and key constitutional checks and balances (judical oversight of Executive Branch surveillance of US citizens) when the justification is to allow Executive Branch actions which are largely ineffective against any halfway competent enemy?

Even if you are a strong Bush supporter, you have to agree that his claimed powers could be misused by his successors in order to impose a tyranny on this country.

The Founding Fathers were in far greater danger than we are --yet they imposed constraints on the Executive because they knew that an unrestrained Executive would become a far greater threat than any foreign enemy.

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info/audio

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/

January 4, 2006 -- Owner of West Virginia mine a big donor to Democratic Leadership Council-affiliated candidates.

Wilbur Ross, Jr., the Chairman of the Board of International Coal Group, the operator of the safety hazard-ridden Tallmansville, West Virginia mine where 12 miners died after an explosion, has been a contributor to Democrats who are mostly associated with the anti-union, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council. Ross, described as a "vulture capitalist," is a bankruptcy expert for the Rothschild bank in New York. His Ashland, Kentucky-based International Coal Group specializes in buying up bankrupt mines like the Sago mine in Tallmansville where unions are now non-existent. For two hours, International Coal Group sat on information that the 12 miners died after it was announced to the media that they had survived. Sago had been cited on numerous occasions for safety violations, including repeat infractions, by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Ross.jpg (6345 bytes)

"Vulture Capitalist" Wilbur Ross, Jr. -- owner of the West Virginia death trap mine

According to Federal Election Commission records, Ross donated to former Senators Bob Kerrey, George Mitchell, Patrick Moynihan, and current Senator Kent Conrad. Other recipients of Ross's largesse include New York Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Louise Slaughter, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, and unsuccessful 1994 Long Island GOP candidate William Manger, a former official of the G. W. Bush Transportation Department.

Ross is divorced from former Republican-Conservative New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey Ross, who later became a Democrat. Ross's W. L. Ross & Co. global equity and hedge fund firm counts Donald Trump among its clients. International Coal Group director William Cotacosinos, who received a dubious windfall compensation package as CEO of Long Island Light Company (LILCO) after its acquisition by Long Island Power Authority, contributed to former New York GOP Senator Alphonse D'Amato. Another International Coal Group board member, Cynthia Bezik, formerly senior Vice President of the Cleveland Cliffs iron mining company in Cleveland, donated to the National Mining Association, the lobbying arm of the mining industry and Michigan Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, a core member of the Fellowship Foundation, a consortium of rich Christian evangelicals headquartered in Arlington, Virginia that uses Jesus Christ as a tax dodging advertising logo. Hillary Rodham Clinton, another top DLC member, is an associate of the Fellowship Foundation, often attending their prayer sessions and considering the group's leader, Doug Coe, her "spiritual adviser."

The correct term for unending lunches, seminars, and reports that verbosely analyze what other consultants have failed to do properly is "technopork". T-pork stock up in 06.

As for the Chinese, if they want to be the superpower, fine. Can we give them Iraq and Rumsfeld?

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info/audio

WWIII?
Interview with Mordechai Vanunu: Israel preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iran

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060102&articleId=1703

Each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples.

January 2, 2006
Voyenny Parad, No. 4, 2005 (original Russian)

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The first rumors of Israel working on its own nuclear bomb arose back in the mid-1950s, when the Jewish state's scientific institutions started serious nuclear physics research. But only in 1986 did the rest of the world find out the real scale of Israel's work on nuclear weapons, thanks to Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu. With the assistance of Irish journalists Sean O'Carroll and Maria Escribano, we have managed to interview Israel's most prominent dissident. Mordechai Vanunu told us about the threat of a nuclear catastrophe hanging over the Middle East.

Question: You say that Israel already has nuclear weapons. Iran is on its way to acquiring them. And these two countries regularly exchange threats about bombing each other. How likely is a nuclear conflict in the Middle East?

Mordechai Vanunu: All I can say is this: the Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here where I live, people often talk of the Holocaust. But each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, destroy entire peoples. The Israeli Defense Ministry has long had a nuclear arsenal. Israeli intelligence tried to keep the existence of this arsenal secret from the outside world, but fortunately did not succeed. Nevertheless, they are still trying to silence me - even now, after seventeen-and-a-half years in prison.

Question: Do you know how many nuclear bombs Israel has?

Mordechai Vanunu: When I worked at Dimona, nuclear materials were already being produced there - plutonium, lithium, tritium, and others. Enough to make ten nuclear bombs per year. In other words, starting from 1985, Israel has over 200 nuclear warheads by now.

Question: Why did you decide to speak out in 1986?

Mordechai Vanunu: I simply could not help it. Incidentally, now the Western countries, including the US, that condemn Iran for its intention to destroy Israel should condemn themselves first of all. It were they that gave nuclear technologies to the Israelis and helped them to build the center in Dimona where the atomic bomb was created, although the Israeli government did not recognize this fact.

(...)

Question: Israel and Iran are on the threshold of nuclear confrontation now. Is nuclear apocalypse inevitable in Middle East?

Mordechai Vanunu: No doubt, the main reason for this confrontation is the Palestinian problem. For many decades Palestinians have been living in occupation like in prison. They will never stop fighting and sacrificing their lives for the sake of liberation.

Question: But this is not a justification for terrorism and statements similar to those made by the President of Iran when he promised to "wipe Israel off the map"?

Mordechai Vanunu: Killing Palestinians, including civilians - demolishing their houses and pushing people into ghettoes - isn't that terrorism?

Translated by Pavel Pushkin Defesne and Security (Russia)

Sherry,

Martin Luther King stood tall for all of the people in the United States - and was shot dead for his efforts. He was a hero. An honorable man. One of the very few 'good guys' of our time.

You are correct when you intimate that we don't have any heroes in the political spectrum in the US at the moment. Say 'good, honorable man/woman' in DC and simply watch the pundits and bureaucrats laugh. It is all about playing the game, and of course, winning, according to an individual's own definition of the word. Hope - that the US' current status in the world can and will change - is all the American people have left.

Some of us have stood up, as best we can. Our comments may be viewed as 'opining' by the administration, but the American people continue to speak, nonetheless. Democrats, Republicans, and others are speaking out, on this and other blogs and on sites that can be accessed throughout the world. Some of us are not happy with the status-quo and are also painfully aware of the disrespect and hatred that is directed toward this country. Some of us reject the 'uber-bureaucracy' excuse that is used to explain away the failures of so many of this country's official representatives and agencies. We can and should do better - and we know it.

Our vote represents all of the power that we have as individuals in this country. We can not stand tall without leaders who are willing to take risks and endeavor to change the status-quo. We don't need heroes, just a few truly 'good guys/gals' versus 'good 'ol' boys/gals', with incredible, unflinching, courage. I have faith that these individuals do indeed exist somewhere in this country and that the American people, as a whole, are looking for them.

We may be down, but we are not out. Hope reigns for as long as at least one American citizen remembers what this country can do and what it should stand for. TPTB can not steal the hope that exists in the hearts of the American people for their country's future. Some of us still give a damn - despite their laughter and defeated attitudes and amid our collective tears - about The United States of America. We know that the US needs to change in myriad ways.

Do not lose faith in the American people. They are living with the consequences of the decisions made by their leaders. They are neither stupid, nor silent, and they still possess the ability to learn. They will attempt to be heard, once again, in the next election.

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info/audio

Bush employs "Big Lie" technique to defend illegal spying on Americans
By Barry Grey

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/bush-d24.shtml
24 December 2005

The Bush administration is employing its standard tactics of fear-mongering, intimidation and lies to defend its illegal spying on Americans. Bush, Vice President Cheney and other administration spokesmen repeatedly assert that Bush's secret authorization for the National Security Agency (NSA) to monitor international telephone calls and email messages sent from the US without obtaining court-issued warrants does not violate either legal statutes or the Constitution.

In fact, the practice directly contravenes the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures and violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), passed by Congress in 1978. That law was enacted in response to revelations of illegal government spying on Americans on a massive scale that emerged during the Watergate crisis. FISA established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as a secret body to oversee and approve government requests for wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance. The law explicitly bars warrantless wiretaps.

So brazen is the administration's defiance of the law and the constitutional principle of congressional and judicial oversight of the executive branch that one of the eleven judges on the secret FISA court resigned Monday in protest. This is a court which routinely grants government requests for wiretaps, usually within a few hours and, when requested, retroactively--a fact the White House ignores in claiming that it must bypass the court to quickly track the movement of terrorist suspects within the US.

One of Bush's claims, that the NSA program does not target purely domestic communications, was exploded by a report in Wednesday's New York Times. The article cited unnamed officials who affirmed that the NSA had intercepted communications to and from people within the borders of the US.

Vice President Cheney, speaking on Tuesday to reporters aboard Air Force Two as he flew from Pakistan to Oman, indicated the real motivations behind the administration's decision to override legal limits on its powers to conduct electronic surveillance. According to press reports, he said, "Watergate and a lot of the things during the '70s served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area."

In other words, the Bush administration deliberately set out to roll back and reverse the measures, limited as they were, that were taken to prevent the kind of illegal and unconstitutional practices for which the Nixon administration became notorious--and which ultimately led to impeachment proceedings and Nixon's resignation. These practices included the compilation of an "enemies list," massive surveillance of anti-Vietnam War protesters, civil rights activists and political opponents, and an array of "dirty tricks" operations including break-ins and other criminal acts.

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 was used by the Bush administration as the pretext for mounting this assault on constitutional safeguards and democratic rights, with the so-called "war on terror" providing the overarching rationale.

That such practices are once again rampant is documented by recent reports of spying on opponents of the Iraq war and political dissidents by the military, the FBI and other government agencies. The Bush administration has gone beyond Nixon in asserting dictatorial presidential powers, with its policy of seizing so-called "enemy combatants," including US citizens, and placing them in indefinite military confinement without any recourse to the courts. Now it is defiantly asserting its right to disobey acts of Congress by declaring it will continue to authorize warrantless wiretaps.

Bush's assurances that only people known to have links to Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups are being targeted by the NSA program have zero credibility, coming from an administration that has made lying its basic modus operandi. Were the NSA wiretaps targeting only terrorists, there would be no need to circumvent the FISA court. The decision to conduct warrantless surveillance makes sense only if the aim is to target political "enemies" who have no plausible connection to terrorist organizations.

On Wednesday, press and television news outlets cited remarks made by Bush in April of 2004 to suggest that he is lying when he now gives assurances about protecting civil liberties. Speaking in Buffalo, New York last year, Bush said: "Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretaps, it requires--a wiretap requires a court order."

Bush continued: "Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down the terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Bush gave this speech some two-and-a-half years after he authorized warrantless wiretaps of American citizens--a program he has boasted of reauthorizing dozens of times since.

As for fear-mongering and intimidation, Cheney on Tuesday reiterated the statements made earlier by Bush to the effect that those who criticized the NSA surveillance program and the administration's assertion of quasi-dictatorial powers were disarming the country, threatening the safety of the American people, and giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. He told reporters on Tuesday, according to a December 21 Washington Post article: "Either we believe that there are individuals out there doing everything they can to try to launch more attacks, try to get ever deadlier weapons to use against us, or we don't...

"And so if there's a backlash pending, I think the backlash is going to be against those who are suggesting somehow that we shouldn't take these steps in order to defend the country."

The case of al Hazmi and al Mihdhar

One canard employed by Bush to defend his violation of the law is particularly revealing. On two occasions, the first being his live radio address last Saturday, Bush cited as a justification for the NSA program the example of Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, two of the 9/11 hijackers. These two Al Qaeda operatives from Saudi Arabia are believed to have been among the men who commandeered American Airlines Flight 77 and crashed it into the Pentagon.

Bush said last Saturday that al Hazmi and al Mihdhar communicated with suspected Al Qaeda members overseas while they were living in the US. But, because of the FISA requirement for warrants, "we didn't know they were here until it was too late."

The Washington Post on December 21 published an article by Josh Meyer citing "current and former counter-terrorism officials" who debunked both the claim that US intelligence had failed to track these communications and the notion that the warrant requirements of FISA constituted an impediment to doing so.

According to the Post, the officials "said there were repeated phone communications between a safe house in Yemen and the San Diego apartment rented by Alhazmi and Almihdhar. The Yemen site had already been linked directly to the Al Qaeda bombings of two US embassies in Africa in 1998 and to the 2000 bombing of the US destroyer Cole in Yemen.... Those links made the safe house one of the 'hottest' targets being monitored by the NSA before the Sept. 11 attacks, and had been for several years..."

The article continued: "Authorities also had traced the phone number at the safe house to Almihdhar's father-in-law, and believed then that two of his other sons-in-law already had killed themselves in suicide terrorist attacks. Such information, the officials said, should have set off alarm bells at the highest levels of the US government.

"Under authority granted in federal law, the NSA was already listening in on that number in Yemen and could have tracked calls made into the US by getting a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Then the NSA could have--and should have--alerted the FBI, which then could have used the information to locate the future hijackers in San Diego and monitored their phone calls, e-mail and other activities, the current and former officials said."

The Post noted that the NSA did not reveal the existence of the phone calls until after September 11, and then quoted one "senior counter-terrorism official familiar with the case" as saying, "The NSA was well aware of how hot the number was ... and how it was a logistical hub for Al Qaeda, and it was also calling the number in America half a dozen times after the Cole and before Sept. 11."

So much for the claim that the NSA was unable to monitor the phone calls of al Hazmi and al Mihdhar.

The case of these two hijackers, far from legitimizing the "war on terror" and the resulting arrogation of unchecked presidential powers, is one of the most damning of the many murky aspects of 9/11 that remain entirely unexplained and render the official version of the attack completely implausible.

Both were known Al Qaeda operatives, identified by the CIA in January 2000 as participants at an Al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. Even earlier, according to the 9/11 Commission report issued last year, the two were being tracked by the NSA.

The report states: "In late 1999, the National Security Agency (NSA) analyzed communications associated with a man named Khalid, a man named Nawaf, and a man named Salem. Working-level officials in the intelligence community knew little more than this. But they correctly concluded that 'Nawaf' and 'Khalid' might be part of 'an operational cadre' and that 'something nefarious might be afoot.'"

Despite this, they were allowed to fly to the US shortly after the Malaysia meeting under their own names and set up residence in San Diego. There they took a course at a flight training school, where instructors noted their insistence on learning how to fly a Boeing commercial jet, and their lack of interest in learning how to take off or land.

According to the 9/11 Commission report, "The al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under their true names, listing Hazmi in the telephone directory."

Not only that. The Commission report further notes: "The housemate who rented the room to Hazmi and Mihdhar during 2000 is an apparently law-abiding citizen with long-standing, friendly contacts among local police and FBI personnel. He did not see anything unusual enough in the behavior of Hazmi or Mihdhar to prompt him to report to his law enforcement contacts. Nor did those contacts ask him for information about his tenants/housemates."

This despite the fact that, according to the Commission report, Hazmi "developed a close relationship with his housemate." In a footnote, the Commission writes: "Although Hazmi did not use his housemate's telephone to make calls, he apparently received calls on it..."

Unlike virtually all other individuals cited in the 9/11 Commission report, the "housemate" is never named. This confirms the fact that he is an important FBI informant on Islamist groups and individuals in San Diego. The claim that his FBI handlers never inquired about his housemates is incredible on its face.

When one of the pair's visas expired, the State Department quickly renewed it, and al Mihdhar, who left the US in June 2000 to return to Yemen, was allowed to return prior to September 11, 2001 without the slightest difficulty.

According to the official cover-ups carried out by the 9/11 Commission and a separate congressional inquiry, the CIA never informed the FBI of the movements or activities of al Hazmi and al Mihdhar. This was, the story goes, one of the many failures to "connect the dots" that contributed to a massive "failure of intelligence" and allowed the 19 hijackers to seize the planes and fly them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Others include the rejection by FBI headquarters of a request from the FBI office in Minneapolis to seriously investigate Zaccarias Moussaoui, the Islamist extremist whom local FBI agents suspected of seeking flight training for terrorist purposes, the failure of the FBI leadership to follow up on a memo from the Phoenix, Arizona office warning of Islamists taking flight training in various parts of the country, and Bush's inaction following his August 6, 2001 daily briefing from the CIA entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US."

Last August, news surfaced of the existence of a special military intelligence unit called Able Danger that in 2000 identified Mohammed Atta, the purported 9/11 ringleader, and three other future hijackers, including al Hazmi and al Mihdhar, as Al Qaeda. According to a member of Able Danger, the unit was blocked from sharing the information with the FBI, and the 9/11 Commission refused to mention its existence in its official report.

All of this points not to a "failure of intelligence," but to a deliberate policy of shielding the hijackers and allowing them to prepare some kind of terrorist attack. The new right-wing administration needed a Pearl Harbor-like event to shift public opinion and create an atmosphere of fear and patriotic hysteria so it could press forward with plans, already well prepared before 9/11, for military interventions in the oil-rich Middle East and Central Asia, and an unprecedented assault on democratic rights at home.

See Also:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.onlinejournal.com
www.takingaim.info/audio

A very good link with Noam Chomsky commenting about the war for the control of the media.

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/myth_of_the_liberal_media.ram



from the following site: http://www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk/

The bigot Chris Ford obviously despises Muslims and is utterly ignorant about the world. Otherwise, why would he describe our government in Canada as "Muslim-hugging?"
We are not supposed to "hug" Muslims, but rather hate them, as Chris Ford so obviously does and so many others in the U.S. do as well today?
Unlike your warmongering nation, we in Canada are a nation of peace and, yes, we reach out to and "hug" peoples of all faiths and backgrounds. That's why Republican bigots like Chris Ford have no support in our nation.
Ford claims, laughably, that French Canadians believe their "real leader" is Jacques Chirac.
Obviously, Mr. Ford has never met a French-Canadian but spouts this nonsense only because French Canadians and the French from France share the same ethnic heritage. In fact, the French and the French Canadians could not be more unalike. But yes, French Canadians, unlike Americans, are generally knowledgeable about the world and respectful of other nations and faiths.
Bigotry of the sort spewed by Chris Ford tells us all we need to know about the kind of thinking that prevails among those in power in America today.
That is why hostility to the U.S. is at an all-time high here, as it is elsewhere around the world.
Go on, Chris, foam at the mouth all you want, but yours is an empire in decline, run by ignoramuses and despised ever more the world over because of people just like you. All the jingoistic chest-thumping in the world cannot change that.
Tony Zaar
Montreal

I have tried hard to understand the reason why some Americans ever believed the guy, I mean yes Bill Clinton was a liar but he knew how to do it. This guy is a retard, I don't get how he got an MBA in business he can't even talk. I am baffled that some of his followers who are very smart people listen to the crap he says.He repeats 9/11 all the time and then cries about partisanship. He is the more divisive politician I ever seen. The democrats should be pounding him every day and calling his bluff all the time, calling him on his lies and misleadings.There are some decent republicans, Mr. Bush is not one of them.
He was born in third base and believes he hit a triple. What a joke of a man.

Sherry in Canada - "I take offense by the gentleman who quoted Canada as one of the countries who believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the free world. WE DID NOT!!!!!! and that is why we didn't join Bush's illegal war of the Greed Mongers quest for more oil."

That is not what Canadian intelligence officials said at NATO briefings. Your current Muslim-hugging political alignment didn't agree with intelligence sources and went with your French Canadians devotion to their real leader, Chirac..

Besides, right about now, Canada's military might is down to around Luxemburg levels. What Canada had was in Afghanistan, other than the two broken down Lend Lease Sherman tanks Canada could have sent South on logging trucks. It would be nice if Canada was behind us in Iraq, but militarily about as important as Costa Rica's backing.

"Chretien, our last Premier, called it when he said NO, to the War." Chretien was just Chirac's 2nd fiddle toady boy, trotting to France's tune right after Paris's Belgian poodle.

Canada - The Maritimes are hurting, Seattle-liberal type Vancouver is more focused on what is going on in China than Ottowa, the rest of the West has people that would fit right in in Texas or Montana. The big liberal problem is Quebec, aided by the "must always cave to the Canucks" appeasers to Quebec in Ontario, Toronto thinking it must be more liberal than NYC to be credible, and the government workers clustered in Ontario.

As Michael Moore said, "since when are your lives equivalent to those of the sons and daughters of the affluent?"

There are no sons and daughters of the affluent in Iraq, unless they're working for Halliburton.....your sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters of people unable to find work in closed steel towns, factory-towns and inner city people that want a way out of the ghetto, and a few people that trusted the government and signed up for completely different jobs...but who had their contracts magically rearranged to go to Iraq...or else, as well as those thugs who actually like the idea of shooting things...anything

The cost in lives to the landed is to give them a few more things at the cost of those lives.....you really need to get that...you're a statistic that doesn't include your class.....bush was a national gaurdsman during Vietnam _on_effing_purpose_ to avoid war and getting hurt

HOW DOES HE TREAT NATIONAL GAURDSMEN IN TIME OF WAR?

Like it matters that they didn't want to go to war? DO THEY HAVE A CHOICE?

A wonderful set of predictions: they are left vague and unexplained in ways that conjure my imagination.

For example, the third prediction: "I say that the NSA story is about something else: A far more massive intrusion into the private lives of all Americans being conducted in the name of data-mining and link analysis."

I'm not familiar with "link analysis". But if it means that the 13 intelligence agencies are surveying and surveilling a variety of domestic information databases a la Equifax or ChoicePoint and attempting to match individuals with known al Qaeda information so that they may inquire further through wire-tapping (warranted or not), then I think this is the most important and far reaching prediciton if it comes to be.

Consider how much consernation our society (and Britain's) over the concepts discussed in the book 1984 by Orwell. Now consider how much consternation we have had over Iraq. Iraq will be lowered in it's prominence in American history quickly (like the Philippine occupation for example) while the continuing struggle over the responsibility for individuals' lives will not end.

I agree with our Author in that GWB will never explain why circumventing the FISA court was truly necessary. Like so many of their other failed policies, what remains unsaid is harder to fight than what is said. (Apologizing for the intelligence failures surrounding 9/11, finding Osama and invading Iraq for example).

I look forward to measuring these predictions against posterity's progress next year!

Thanks...

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be
led, like sheep to the slaughter."
--George Washington

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience
to remain silent."
--Thomas Jefferson

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the
government fears the people, there is liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson

BUSH is worse than INCOMPETENT. He's EVIL!

He is not the best President. But he is not incompetent

BUSH is worse than EVIL. He's INCOMPETENT!

Bush is worse than Evil. He's incompetent!

I think we went into Iraq for the right reasons we just haven't conducted it very well. Personally I Like George Bush. I am glad that Kerry did not get elected

I take offense by the gentleman who quoted Canada as one of the countries who believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the free world. WE DID NOT!!!!!! and that is why we didn't join Bush's illegal war of the Greed Mongers quest for more oil, using any excuse they could get, including lies and beefed up paid media BS. The gentleman who was against the war but who now feared that a pullout would cause more deaths to the Military and civilians in Iraq, doesn't understand that the so called insurgents have been responsible for about 4% of civilian deaths while America's Weapons of Mass Destruction with depleted uranium raining down in the quise of bogus democracy (freedom bombs let's call them) have killed well over 30,000 innocent people, including yesterdays accidental murder of a family who was sleeping when they were wiped out. OOOOOPs missed again. It's enough to make you sick. The insurgents which are made up more of Iraqi's than outside sources don't want Americans there, never asked for them, and foreign fighters were not there until America illegally invaded. There is right and wrong. America was wrong under this administration to do what they did. It's time for a reckoning as your country has become a dictatorship, and every day they are changing the laws behind your back. Even the trumped up "War on Terror" is American made to cover up all the years of corrupt foreign policies in other countries. Especially in the Middle East and South America. Your governments have propped up "evil dictators" all over the world and then taken them out when they no longer were willing to do the U.S. bidding. The hypocrisy the Global Village sees is due to the facts. You point the finger at other countries for a lack of human rights when you allow your President to torture,and illegally invade countries that had nothing to do with 911. Iraq is not the first. There's a whole list of
them in the history books.
I love America and I'm not anti-anything but the facts are the facts. What happened to Good old America. Will those 49% of grass roots America who did not vote for the "evil dictator" Bush or Cheney, doesn't matter, please stand up and be counted. I think, you will find there are a lot more of you now, and it's time to take your country back and restore the principals you used to have before Darth Vader and Junior destroy what little if any credibility you have left in the World. Tell them to take "Pat Robertson" with them when they go. He is the epitome of hypocrisy. One of the greatest spiritual leaders in the U.S. was Martin Luther King. Non violence is what Jesus practiced even when he stood his ground. Canada and the U.S. have never had such a bad relationship as now and we as a Country (Canada) are no less hypocrites than yourselves. (Global warming) human rights destroyers (native Indians), corruption in Government,(Liberals. But, thanks to what Bush has done in the World I don't think you'll see us going any farther right in this next election. Same in South America. Chretien, our last Premier, called it when he said NO, to the War. He said we Western Nations would have to accept responsiblity for all the corruption of our foreign policies in the Middle East and that sooner or later 9/11 was going to happen somewhere.

Another item to add to your predictions for 2006: outraged by Bush's contempt for international law, and for the truth in Iraq, people around the world will continue to elect strongly anti-American governments. More heads of government, like Zapatero in Spain, Morales in Bolivia and Kirchner in Argentina, will speak forthrightly and in public about Bush's lies. More countries will pull out of your bogus "coalition" in Iraq. Americans will continue losing military and diplomatic allies. The U.S. will be politically and economically isolated as never before and will begin paying an economic, as well as a political and military price for the hubris of Bush and his neocons.
Tom Walters
Melbourne, Australia

CIA can not catch Osama bin Laden even though CIA knows where he is. Musharraf is not eager for Osama to be captured. Why would Musharraf want US to capture Osama? Osama alive and well sheltered is worth lot more to Pakistan in US foreign aid than measly 25 or 50 million dollars offered by US for Osama's capture or death.

Sometimes one has to wonder if Bush administration is not part of this Pakistani conspiracy. Afterall, Bush can up the 'terrorist attack' ante when ever political expediency requires him to prove his macho against Democrats. Alive and well Osama helps Bush keep terrorist threat ever present.

Having gone to bed with Pakistani terrorist mafia under Reagan to oust Soviets from Afghanistan, US has come to realize the need for a permanent enemy. Until China steps upto the plate to fulfill that role, US needs somebody to bang on continuously and terrorism can play that role.

As such, 9/11 attacks was Pakistan's revenge for US refusing to supply F-16 jet fighters after Pakistan had already paid for them. May be US under Bush helped Pakistan engineer 9/11 attacks to showcase Republican Party's stronger nationalistic fervor as opposed to that of Democratic Party. That is why Bush administration has supressed all the evidence that will implicate Pakistan in 9/11 attacks. Capture Osama alive and Osama may well prove US complicity in 9/11 attacks.

***DISCLAIMER*** I am a true Republican who loves all things Bush, President George W. Bush, Governor Jeb Bush, Barbara Bush who read to me at RIF one day, her husband, Neal Bush even though he helped collapse the Saving and Loans in the 80's (or was that Marvin... no he's the one getting STD's from Thai entertainers), Heisman winner Reggie Bush, and even Busch Beer, although I prefer MGD. ***DISCLAIMER***

Frank said:
"What they bungled so terribly is expecting it to be easy."

Actually, they didn't expect it to be easy at all. I would venture to say that they wanted this process to remain as difficult as possible. The more instability, the more reason to stay. If the Iraqis can never get to a true position of self government, then the US would have to remain to continue providing "guidance". If they had any intention of a full pull-out by the U.S. Military, why build 14+ bases in the country?

Let me speak plainly and call a spade a spade as someone here mentioned earlier:

WE ARE NEVER LEAVING IRAQ.

The politicians will dance and sing, but nothing will change. Now, I guess I'll be wiretapped because I don't agree with the handlers of the village idiot they use as the front man for their illegal activities in hijacking our government.

***DISCLAIMER*** I am a true Republican who loves all things Bush, President George W. Bush, Governor Jeb Bush, Barbara Bush who read to me at RIF one day, her husband, Neal Bush even though he helped collapse the Saving and Loans in the 80's (or was that Marvin... no he's the one getting STD's from Thai entertainers), Heisman winner Reggie Bush, and even Busch Beer, although I prefer MGD. ***DISCLAIMER***

Cheney and the other neocons planned in 2000 to expand U.S. power, but they needed a disruption since the Americans did not want war.

Watch this video and decide for yourself:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11222.htm

These Bush apologists are too much. The anonymous poster that began with "President Bush is a good man in a tough spot" then followed that line with a bunch of halfass excuses and the usual blame game on all liberals. Typical of the partisanship that has CONSTANTLY been used while Bush has bungled his way through his presidency.
I could care less if Bush is a good man in a tough spot. Is he competent? Besides, he's a POLITICIAN. Are they such good men commonly? If Bush is in a tough spot, maybe because it's from his own incompetence. He didn't stop 9/11 from happenning. He hasn't caught Osama Bin Laden. He started the war in Iraq but hasn't run it very well. His administration did a truly lousy job after Hurricane Katrina. That's not Bush bashing... that's the facts.
For once, I'd like the Bush apologists to put out at least one criticism of their hero George Bush. Otherwise, I see no reason to value the opinions of people who think a politican can do no wrong. It has nothing to do with conservative or liberal. Enough with using partisanism as a red herring every time this president is criticized. Stop blaming the messengers and start blaming the people in public office that are not doing a good job governing. It's amazing how manipulated people let themselves be by politicians and political propoganda. Cynicism is healthy. Blindly following a politician is the height of naivete'.

Am I the only one that can visualize the big grin that came over b

President Bush is a good man in a tough spot. After Sept. 11th he went throught the State of the Union and said exactly what he was going to do. He labeled Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as and axix of evil and said any country who harbors terrorist will be consideresd terrorist. It is 100% accurate that Saddamm supported terrorism. With 911 still fresh in the minds of the American people close to 70% of the nation stood behing OUR president. Once he started doing what he said he would do and Americans started dying public opinion faded which is understandable. this is a war and men and women will die. Over 2,000 of our people have died but in terms of past wars this number is very low. democrats and liberals say Bush lied about WMD but those same democrats who say he lied saw the same intelligence and voted to go to war. Not to menton the enire world thought he had WMD but from a liberal standpoint Bush lied or he fabricated the intelligence. I find it so amazing how the media can twist the minds of our people. You have this Larkin guy saying WMD is no threat. How irresponsible is that. Does he really beleive that and what about the people who trust his opinion. Look the Iraq war is hard and mistakes have obviously been made but it is the commanders on the ground making the decission and although this comes back to the President and should we need to understand there is no such thing as a flawless war. The problem here is that most of the media is Liberal and all they do is talk about the bad while leaving the tremendous good out. It is hard for Americans to stay on track when all they here from this highly liberal media are the mistakes and death. Nothing about schools being build, a dictator gone, millions if Iraqis voting, and now after all the liberals said Iraq would go into cival war all sides, Kurd, Sunnis, and Shites are close to signing a deal to share power in this new government which can only weaken the insurgency. It seems to me that most liberals want this war to be a failure so they can gain seats in the next election and have ammunition to bash Bush but if you get past the negative media and see what is really happeneing I think in the long run this war will help spread democracy which in turn will help stop the spread of terrorism. Again there have been plenty of mistakes and most likely will be more but show me one war that was without mistakes. the fact is that we are at war and all the bashing in our own country on our president does nothing but embolden the terrrorist and terrorist states. It is perfectly acceptable to criticize the President but calling him a liar, war criminal, hitler, or mass murderer by members of our own government officials is just wrong and does nothing at all to help win this war and bring our troops home.

The NSA spying thing will go nowhere, and no one will pay much attention to the hoovering of emails and other internet traffic even though it makes the whole FBI Carnivore program gave everyone fits.

Basicly, same worthless posturing & inaction from an ethicly challenged government that's crippled by right wing special interests, just z different day.

Bin Laden will probably start making music videos if he wasn't flattened in the earthquake at this rate. One things for sure, they arn't going to even come close to catching him.

I'll predict there won't be another huge terrorist attack either, but Americans will lose more rights anyway.

May I see your papers comrade?

-G

Bush's illegal war for oil in Iraq only continues because of the jingoistic flag-waving of the corporate controlled media. That is why we really cool progressives need to continue to use these Internet chat boards to promote our socialist/communist agenda under the guise of the anti-war movement.

why is china automatically assumed to be a "threat"? Because the US Military-Industrial complex misses the Cold War days; has an enormous apparatus built up to combat/contain a similar large-size enemy; and there's $ to be made drumming up a bogeyman.

Seriously, China is the least of our worries.

Mr. Grossberg,

Nice sarcastic remark "Grenada anyone?" in your post. I doubt that the American medical students who were being held hostage by a Marxist regime and were rescued by our troops would find humor in your comment.

Were there much of a middle class anymore then there probably would be people marching in the street to lynch President Bush. Unfortunately the rich have become wealthy, and the middle class has become poor. The people that would normally take to the streets are woorking two service sector jobs to avoid going bankrupt this year. I have little doubt that President Bush will go down in our history as being the worst President in the history of our country. I always worry about a President that interacts with only eight people and millionaires. This President has never had more that a five minute conversation with anyone who wasn't a millionaire, and if I'm wrong it's only about the number of minutes, and then only by a minute or two.
There need to be very stricht laws set into lobbying and the revolving door between government jobs and then going into the lobbying business. If the Democrats can't wrestle away a majority in wither the Senate or the congress in 2006 with all the ammunition the Republicans have given them, they should cease their existance as a party. I have come to laugh at the phrase "Compassionate Conservative", whenever I hear this phrase used I quickly check for my wallet, just to make sure it's still there.

Posted by Chris Ford above,

"4. I agree on the NSA leak. Democrats have to be careful they do not go out further on the limb their Hard Left donors and activists are driving them. They cannot afford to cast themselves as the Party that favors enemy civil liberties over American citizen's lives."

Actually I want the Democrats to be considred for the defense of my(our) civil liberties. We have due process of law and at this point I want it to be that way. I do not believe we are in that grave of danger to just give up our civil liberties. In fact giving up our civil liberties would make life even more dangerous than it is today because we'd have presidents like Bush creating more enemies overseas than we already have.

I've been wanting to hear more about why Bush has dropped the ball on finding Bin Laden. That truly is a big story! Bush is either seriously incompetent or Bush is really not interested in finding Bin Laden and dealing with the "real" war on terror. And Bush talks about defending our country, yeah right. When Bush actually gets the job done, then I take what he has to say seriously.

LOL - No bin Laden Capture in 2006 - RIP

It's been 1,570 days since GWB said he'd catch UBL 'Dead or Alive!'

I think he died back in 2001 before Operation 9/11. Those Bin Laden videos look like Shrek 3, I believe 9/11 was just a PNAC/AIPAC Christian Zionist War Game run amock. I'm surprised the American People never figured out the official conspiracy theory never made much sense. Who got the most out of 9/11? Muslims? Zionists? US Politicos? I'm surprised they have not been lynched in the streets! The Criminal Government now have the unchecked power to call us "terrorists", detain us without charges, and even execute us without a trial!

Usama bin Laden: "Al Qaeda"
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/war_terror_index.html
The US Invasion of Afghanistan was Announced Months Before the 9/11 Attacks

The 9/11 USAF Stand Down
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wrh_9-11_index.html
War Games: The Key to a 9/11 USAF Stand Down

To help set the record straight, it is clear that Bush and his crew of NeoCons were determined to invade Iraq and needed only the thinnest of excuses to proceed. 9/11 gave them that excuse. The whole arguement on WMD's is irrelevant. What they bungeled so terribly is expecting it to be easy. That collosal mistake has cost 2,100 American lives, and based on the current run rate will be over 3,000 by the end of 2006. As the editorial yesterday showed, many Americans feel that these lives were wasted, and the number appears to be growing.

well, aren't chou special. Since when is mustard gas WMD? Grow up and quit lying. Show me the nukes or shut up....turd.

Who cares if they capture bin Laden?

You'd just be wrestling with snakes as they tried to make it out that there were no ties to the CIA....Bush Sr. used to head the CIA before he was President...ample time to set things up to control that region of the world....get clued....quit looking at things the way the affluent-government is framing it.

Want to have democracy, start calling a spade a spade and ask them to pull theirs out of your but.

First, correcting the record somewhat for Tony. Hussein used WMD galore on Kurds and Iranian troops in the 1980s. In 1991's Gulf War, we found WMD stocks never used because we threatened to nuke his ass if he did. We found nuclear efforts putting him 6 months -3 years away from a weapon. In 1994, despite assurances to the UN to the contrary, 2 of his son in laws defected and revealed vast hidden stocks of nerve gas and anthrax - a month away from UN inspectors giving him a clean bill of health. UN inspectors stayed, but were harassed and the feeling in all countries was he had more stuff. Finally, Hussein tossed the WMD inspectors out in 1998. They would not return until the US and UK assembled an invasion force at Iraq's border in late 2002. Along the way, Iraq defied 17 UN resolutions and Hussein continued to play a game of ambiguity - saying no weapons existed, but refusing to prove it. And firing on Americans.

Immediately prior to the invasion, the following people and countries were convinced he had WMD: Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, France, Israel, Russia, China, Iran, USA, Canada, Germany, Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan, KSA, Kuwait, Gen Tommy Franks and all of Southern Command. A slam dunk for Clinton's appointee to the CIA.

In the face of Hussein's history, the whole global intelligence community thinking otherwise, it may be pleasing in a partisan way to say just Bush and only Bush "lied" - while the rest were in honest error from past WMD and Saddam's suicidal shell game - but not the truth, Tony.

=======================

On Bill's predictions:

1. Catching bin Laden will not be the Holy Grail of Counterterrorism that some people once thought. Only a little satisfying and satidfying only if we kill him, not give him the ACLU's Trial of the Century and Global Martyrdom Apotheosis. There is no "Mr Evil" outside a bad James Bond movie, no evil mastermind behind all the drug cartels or Salafist Islam without which illegal drug use or Muslim terrorism will end.

2. The threat of China is real. It is growing and modernizing it's military at a rate that Hitler could only dream of in the 1930's, lacking the Walmart dollars and "look the other way to get free trade" attitude present in the world today. China's power is no concoction of the military industrial complex.

3. "Conventional wisdom says that terrorists will continue to pursue weapons of mass destruction and this will continue to be used like Saddam's phantom WMD to justify extraordinary and lawless U.S. government action. I say there is no WMD to be concerned about."

Radical Islamists were told that getting WMD was a religious duty to make Jihad and infidel-killing more effective. Several Muslim countries have WMD, if only nerve gas and limited biowar capacity like Syria and Egypt. Iran and Pakistan have far greater capacities. N Korea, a rogue business anywhere in the world, and perhaps one of the ex-Soviet countries might, just might have some neat stuff for sale for the right price....

Arkin assures there are no WMD to be concerned about. How comforting.

4. I agree on the NSA leak. Democrats have to be careful they do not go out further on the limb their Hard Left donors and activists are driving them. They cannot afford to cast themselves as the Party that favors enemy civil liberties over American citizen's lives.

SJB,

News reports (accuracy unknown) have led me to believe that the US is not reducing its presence/influence (?) in the ME at all. It is instead reducing the number of highly visible US/coalition forces housed in large groups throughout the ME. Despite this, construction of new, permanent bases is said to be on-going.

Pre-determined or not, the invasion of Iraq ultimately represents yet one more lily pad in the administration's 'pond' in the ME, 'consequences be damned'.

However, time/history may determine that invading Iraq was not a strategically brilliant idea with regard to the US' security. While Iraqis who survived the invasion may yet find a way to build a life lived in relative peace, elephants never forget as they say. The people of the world will remember the event, as well.

Great predictions, but most qualify for the Keen Grasp of the Obvious Award...

1)Of course there'll be troop reductions this year...there's U.S. elections coming. Oh, there's no domestic political considerations at play here? And the Bush administration pays no attention to polls? Yeah, right! I guess it's sheer coincidence that Bush made four major speeches in late November and early December on the war, just as his poll numbers reached their nadir.

2) Of course Iran, Syria, and North Korea are safe from attack by the U.S. As if we ever pick on anybody our own size (i.e., someone who has or might have nuclear capabilities). Grenada, anyone?

I, too, still don't know why bin laden is on the loose, but we pulled Saddam from a spider hole. I also don't understand why South Korea has had over a half a century to have their own people trained, and ready to defend their homeland from the North without significant numbers of U.S. troops, but somehow we're supposedly going to do that in Iraq in the much-nearer term. From the very beginning I have been totally puzzled about Mr. Bush's haste in confronting Iraq, when the man who actually did attach the U.S., bin laden, had not yet been captured. Since he is known for patience and the ability to wait several years between major attacks, I find no solace in the fact that he hasn't been heard from in over a year.

According to the plan originally proposed over a decade ago, and supported by Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and others, (through the Project for the New American Century), after "stablizing" Iraq the US would keep tens of thousands of troops permanently based there. (As proposed by the Project, the ouster of Saddam was to occur through an internally run military action, led by the Kurds, I think. However, the end result would have been substantially similar to a US invasion.)

It is my understanding that current "withdrawal" plans includes a substantial long-term US military presence in Iraq, and thus in the Middle East (like we did in Germany after WWII)

Any thoughts or insight?

I am against all wars. In fact I was against the Bush-Cheney duo and worked for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. What intrigues me is, how easy it seems to be for our Leaders who champion American Values on one the hand, to totally disregard them over and over again while they continue to defend their in-defensible stand on going to war in Iraq because it was a threat to us with its hidden arsenals of WMD.

NONE have been found. Iraq was never a threat to the U.S. as N. Korea was. Yet we went to war in the 'wrong' country because of faulty and incorrect 'intelligence.' After almost 2200 military deaths during the Peace in Iraq, the President and his Chiefs will not tell this Nation that they lied to us to go to war in Iraq. When is lying an American Value?

Thank you, Mr. Arkin, for your predictions.

I have been against the war since the beginning, but I don't support a pull-out now. If your prediction is true, and we have less than 100,000 troops in the region come next December, I believe we will see an increase in the rate of deaths among US/Iraqi forces. Gen. Shinseki must be looking in from the outside at this 'adminstration' - and I use that term loosely - and thinking "If only they had listened." I'm very disappointed and very worried for friends - military and Iraqi - back in Iraq.

Bill -- Interesting and depressing, as usual. But I think you need to do some heavy duty proof-reading on this: e.g., "4. Iraq, Syria, North Korea:" -- I assume the first country is supposed to be Iran?