|
Edited on Sun Aug-21-05 04:37 PM by FormerRepublican
It's well known that Cheney was Secretary of Defense during Gulf War I. It's also well known that since then, Cheney has been anxious to right the wrong of leaving Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq.
We know that the Neoconservatives with far right leanings have also harbored a longing to change the political landscape in Iraq, viewed as a threat to Israel. The Neocon block should not be confused with mainstream Jewish support of Israel. These guys fall far closer to the political leanings of Yigal Amir, who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin to reverse the Israeli-Palistinian peace process.
It's a fact that Chalabi, former head of the Iraqi National Congress, has been active for years working toward changing the political landscape of Iraq. In fact, he's been so active in supporting this cause that it had become well known in Washington for some time that the information he supplied to US agencies like the CIA to support his cause was often questionable, if not outright lies.
None of these three political factions in and of themselves posed any danger to the United States. Nor did any of these political ideologies per se pose any threat when acted upon within our government. That benign status changed when these three factions came together within the George W. Bush government and achieved unprecedented power. As history has shown over and over again, power is a terrible corrupting influence. Even reasonable, rational people can act in horrific ways when granted unlimited power. That's exactly what happened to our players when they seized power through the Bush presidency.
The collaboration between the three factions began in the past, shortly after Gulf War I. There's nothing criminal in that. Like political minds tend to come together and associate to advance their political causes. When George W. Bush ran for President, it seemed obvious that Dick Cheney - who had served in the prior administration of George Herbert Walker Bush - would be selected for the Vice Presidential slot in George W. Bush's administration. There's nothing criminal in that, either.
Another player in this is Karl Rove, who learned his political tactics in the administration of Richard Nixon, who's fate is also a well known fact. At best, Karl Rove's actions to support political causes could be described as 'ethical lapses.' And let us not forget that George W. Bush learned at the knee of his father, who himself was involved with both Karl Rove and the questionable ethics of Reagan's Iran-Contra hijinks.
Now the stage is set. We have Cheney's angst, the Neocon's extremist support for Israel, Chalabi's lies, and the environment that encouraged and supported 'ethical lapses' like those of Karl Rove.
It seems quite clear that as more and more data about various voter frauds in the Presidential election come to light that ethical lapses began early in the George W. Bush administration. It's even suggested that the Supreme Court itself, which ultimately selected the Presidency through it's ruling, was involved in ethical lapses for reasons that have yet to come to light.
Regardless of how the election was decided, George W. Bush became President. As is the case in all such transitions of power, the players immediately began to advance their political causes. Cheney, who wanted to resolve what had been left undone in Gulf War I, appointed or influenced the appointment of the neoconservatives with similar leanings to supportive positions in the government. Libby became his Chief of Staff, Rumsfeld the Defense Secretary, Feith and Franklin also at Defense, Bolton at the State Department to keep an eye on Powell (who didn't share the far right political leanings), and various other players to extend the control of the 'right' political philosophy in Washington.
Now the murkey actions of the players start to take place. Clinton was despised and ridiculed as weak by the neocons, so when the warnings about bin Laden took place, he was ignored. Bush's long association with the Bin Ladens and the Saudis might have contributed to this lack of interest in security warnings from the Clinton Administration. The Bush government soldiered on, with rumbles here and there about how this or that should be done to support the neocon agenda. But no one paid much attention. The US was at peace, and the really serious threats seemed far away. Why would the US need to go to war with anyone?
That complacency about threat changed drastically on September 11, 2001. 19 terrorists (15 of them Saudi) brought down the twin towers and put a hole into the Pentagon. The US public was in a panic and wanted those who attacked us to be dealt with. But could Bush, with his strong Saudi connections and past links with the bin Laden family have somehow caused the government to overlook the events leading up to 9/11, or even worse, could the lack of willingness to advance the neoconservative agenda caused an ethical lapse on so grand a scale that our own government contributed to the attack itself?
These are questions that are only now starting to be asked. There is some circumstantial evidence that both involvement and disregard for terrorist threat took place. We have the anthrax attacks that took place in the same time frame that have been traced back to a US government lab. We have scientific experts who say the official explanations about what happened on 9/11 may not hold water. We have the Bush Administration working tirelessly to cover-up any hint of Bush culpability in 9/11. Perhaps in time we will know the answer to the questions raised about what role our government played in 9/11.
For now, we move on to the aftermath. First, bin Laden was 'dealt with' through the invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban. But, the mastermind bin Laden got away. Was this by accident, or yet another ethical lapse by the Saudi connected Bush?
Once we were firmly entrenched in Afghanistan, the political landscape was ripe for the neocons to finally launch their agenda. There was only one problem. How could they link Iraq, the first step in their agenda, to the public outrage over 9/11? Enter the Cheney spin machine, Chalabi's lies, the neocon web of power, and Bush's ties to the ethical lapses of Rove and Iran-Contra.
A case had to be made for war or the American public would not support the diversion of the military machine from the justifiable war on terror to the questionable invasion of Iraq. The Bush propaganda machine swung into motion, accusing Saddam of playing with terrorists in his back yard, accusing Iraq of playing a role in the Anthrax attacks that we now know have been traced to our own government, and spreading a thick layer of Chalabi's and other's lies about Iraq in the press. Enter the known Niger forgeries and a new player - Ambassador Wilson, and his covert CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
Ambassador Wilson was not subject to the ethical lapses of the Bush Administration, and when asked to investigate the Niger claims, he went to Niger and reported back with the truth. The truth was ignored because it didn't fit the political agenda. Frustrated, Ambassador Wilson became more and more vocal about the truth until the truth landed in the pages of the New York Times.
This presented a prime opportunity for the Rove ethical lapses to take center stage, and the White House began it's smear of Wilson by exposing a covert CIA operative. The awesome power of the United States had so corrupted the political players in the White House that they believed they could do this and never be held accountable. Their beliefs might have proven true except for two things - the frustration of the CIA, and the facts about Iraq that presented themselves after the Bush Administration ignored the truth to serve their own political agenda and invaded Iraq.
The CIA, and it's head George Tenet, managed to get the Justice Department to start an investigation of the illegal leak of the identity of one of it's covert operatives. The players in the Bush Administration resisted - John Ashcroft would not recuse himself, the spin machine was insisting Plame was not covert and no one at the White House was involved, and the ethical lapses of the Bush Administration swung into high gear to keep the whole thing quiet. Perhaps because of the seriousness of the issue, these actions were counteracted by the appointment of Fitzgerald to investigate the leak after strong protest about the conflict of interest by John Ashcroft.
So, the investigation began in all seriousness. We're starting to see pieces and parts of the investigation making their way into the press, although many are still not talking. We see Rove clearly implicated, as well as Libby. We also see the indictment of Franklin and two important players at AIPAC. Perhaps the indictments made it to the light of day because Franklin, a prominent neoconservative appointed by Cheney, was also involved with leaks to Chalabi and his organization, and was thus tied to the failures in Iraq and the smear of Wilson. Chalabi has been accused of leaking important US secrets to Iran. Iran is another step on the agenda for the neocons. Would Franklin have leaked classified information that would get back to Iran when the plan was to put Iran on the agenda?
It's clear from the bits we see in the news that the Bush Administration is taking action to try to keep the investigation from reaching to the top. The Rove spin machine is in high gear. All mentions of Libby (and his connections to the Iraq mastermind Cheney) are carefully avoided in the press. Chalabi is outed and discredited as an Iranian spy. The connection of Franklin to the Israeli spy network at AIPAC is severed. Feith, his boss, resigns to take up a position in the private sector. Bolton is banished to the UN. The fingers creeping toward Cheney are silenced by a press blackout and 'no comment' from the White House. The Bush Administration is taking all steps possible to keep the scandal from reaching the highest political offices in the land.
And what we're left with is the eerie calm before the storm, and speculation about what will happen next when Fitzgerald lays out his cards. One thing is clear - we'll find out more than we ever wanted to know about the environment that encouraged ethical lapses in the White House of the United States, and how it turned benign political ideology into treason.
(Edited for clarity and to correct 1 error)
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
