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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MSI who wrote (12918)	6/1/2002 1:52:50 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

...With the proper leadership and direction, the GAO or other agency could fill that role and gin a group to open and leverage the trillions in potential information value locked up. For political and bureacratic reasons it's more likely to be a maverick independent group like Fitts, at this point. They will get resistance from the entrenched, but will perservere, hopefully. In theory, I don't have any problems with having an independent group do the effort. But it's problematic in a practical sense. Suppose you have economic intelligence related to the oil sector. Who gets it, Halliburton? All oil companies, big and small? Only those that make large political donations? Only those that have no foreign nationals who might have access? From time to time this type of issue comes up and the agencies ask those types of questions to the Administration or Congress and it drops by the wayside because no one has been able to come up with decent answers. IOW, not only do they break the law, they feel free to break specific laws aimed at keeping them from breaking the laws! If you get my drift. Pathetic, if it weren't completely ridiculous and worthy of blowing the entire group out of the water, redrawing the mandate and re-hiring qualified only. Maybe in your entity, not mine. <s> I'll believe that there are some individuals or small groups of cowboys, but I don't believe that it's pervasive or condoned by the community. I would expect that the numbers don't notionally exceed the numbers of expected spys in the community. You might think that's naive, but I have reasons other than wishful thinking. This Administration hasn't seen fit to honor that legislation and the Congress hasn't seen fit to follow it up. No one cares, except the American people.... All six or seven or them? Look at the polls. No one cares about such 'trivia'. The members on the Hill that do care see the polls and the know with all certainty that the first move they make, Ashcroft will be up front calling them irresponsible for sacrificing national security interests for bipartisan political purposes. This Adminstration clearly demonstrates how the vast majority of people can be led around by the nose with three simple themes, 'patriotism' [ignorant nationalism], 'American values' [greed and the religious right], and 'the enemy' [terrorists and liberals]. Take the parentheticals out, you can take people any where you want with patriotism, values and the enemy. JFK, Reagan and Bush Jr. all used those themes. Even Hitler used those themes to get where he wanted to go. [I'll bet Hitler had great poll numbers in 1938] You're only left where the 'leader' wants to go with it. ...its clear the only correction to habitual clandestine offensive behaviors sometimes must be total reduction and reorganization from basic principles. There is no other way of rooting them out. I think there are other ways, but you've probably noticed that's not the direction we're heading. jttmab