And so....(Froomkin from WP)

[Aviation Pro]

...the debate continues: LIHOP or MIHOP? Hopefully, we'll all be alive 50 years from now when the truth is finally revealed:

Link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/07/15/BL2008071501518_pf.html


A War of Convenience?

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, July 15, 2008; 1:11 PM



President Bush and Vice President Cheney could have reacted to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in lots of ways. What they chose to do was launch a global war on terror -- potentially a war without end.

This decision now seems like a big mistake. In the name of the war on terror, we have invaded and occupied a country that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11, we have emboldened our enemies, we have lost and taken many lives, we have spent trillions of dollars, we have sacrificed civil liberties, and we have jettisoned our commitment to human dignity.

But was it an honest mistake? Did Bush and Vice President Cheney declare war because they believed it was the best way to guarantee the safety of the American people? Or did they do it in a premeditated -- and ultimately successful -- attempt to seize greater political power?

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's new book, "The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals," offers evidence of the latter. (See yesterday's column for an overview.)

In an online interview with Harpers blogger Scott Horton, Mayer sums up her findings this way: "After interviewing hundreds of sources in and around the Bush White House, I think it is clear that many of the legal steps taken by the so-called 'War Council' were less a 'New Paradigm,' as Alberto Gonzales dubbed it, than an old political wish list, consisting of grievances that Cheney and his legal adviser, David Addington, had been compiling for decades. Cheney in particular had been chafing at the post-Watergate reforms, and had longed to restore the executive branch powers Nixon had assumed, constituting what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called 'the Imperial Presidency.'

"Before September 11, 2001, these extreme political positions would not have stood a change of being instituted -- they would never have survived democratic scrutiny. But by September 12, 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney were extraordinarily empowered. Political opposition evaporated as critics feared being labeled anti-patriotic or worse."

Andrew J. Bacevich called attention to this point in his review of Mayer's book in The Washington Post on Sunday: "Mayer recognizes . . . the intimate relationship between the global war on terror and Addington's new paradigm. The entire rationale of the latter derived from the former: no war, no new paradigm. Hence, the rush to declare that after Sept. 11, 2001, everything had changed. The insistence that the gloves had to come off, that the so-called law enforcement approach to dealing with terrorism had failed definitively, that only conflict on a global scale could keep America safe: These provided the weapons that Addington's War Council wielded to mount its assault on the Constitution -- all of course justified as necessary to keep Americans safe.

[underpants]

1. No I think they just did their sociopathic thing and moved while everyone else

was trying to figure out what the hell was going on


Same scenario as most school shootings, Va. Tech is a prime example

as far as torture I think they wanted to make sure that someone paid horribly for that day. That someone was made to scream in pain and horror for that day. I would not be surprised if Dick, especially, was in the room a few times.

[11 Bravo]

2. Nice catch, AP. And thanks for the link.

(Hell, I subscribe to the Post and I missed this one,)

[Subdivisions]

3. IBTMTD. 9-11 was an inside job. n/t

[librechik]

4. ack, there goes my blood pressure again

Must Not Think About Cheney and Addington. Want to Kill!

AAAAArrrgghh!