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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (194479)	8/2/2006 11:51:45 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Pentagon may have criminally misled 9/11 Commission about what really happened on 9/11 americablog.blogspot.com by John in DC - 8/02/2006 08:51:00 AM Okay, I'm a bit creeped out. The purpose of this commission was to find out what went wrong so that next time we don't lose another 3,000 Americans. And the Pentagon and the FAA may have lied to the commission, in violation of the law, and in violation of the entire intent of establishing the commission, to help ensure we never have another 9/11. Jesus. What country do we live in anymore? And for those who say this is politics as usual, then maybe it's time to change politics as usual. Time to stop defending and supporting and tolerating politicians who lie and even break the law, while jeopardizing national security. Maybe if we finally stand up to these politicians things will change. "Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said." Then there's this from the Republican co-head of the panel: "We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied." Here's a thought. Let's find out why they lied? Oh that's right, the Republicans control the US House and the US Senate, so we can't have real hearings on what went wrong. But don't worry, the Pentagon that lied about what happened on September 11 is doing its own investigation of whether and why they lied, so I'm sure we'll find out the truth from the very people who lied to us in the first place. Do you get how corrupt things can get when one party is permitted to rule the entire federal government for this long? We need to know now whether the entire September 11 commission report is now called into question. If they didn't get the true facts about what happened on that day, then they couldn't give us the best recommendations for how we can fight the war on terror in the future. This is criminal, and, not to overuse the word, but intentionally jeopardizing the national security of the United States is treasonous as well.

To: geode00 who wrote (194479)	8/2/2006 12:58:35 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Single Issue" Candidate Knows What's Important by Jesse Jackson ____________________________________________________________ Published on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 by the Chicago Sun-Times To this day, Joe Lieberman still doesn't get it. The 18-year incumbent Democratic senator from Connecticut is in the battle for his political life in the Democratic primary. He dismisses his challenger -- Ned Lamont, a Connecticut businessman whose campaign is grounded on opposition to the war in Iraq, as a single-issue candidate. But Iraq is not a single issue, it is a central issue -- both for the country and for the Democratic Party. It is a catastrophic foreign policy debacle. It has alienated us from our allies and generated hatred among Muslims across the world. It has weakened our military, forcing our troops into an extended occupation in the midst of a growing civil war for which they have neither appetite nor training. It has proved a recruiting boon for al-Qaida. It has sorely weakened our foreign policy influence, as demonstrated graphically in the current conflict in Lebanon. It has cost nearly 2,700 American lives, over 20,000 Americans wounded -- and an estimated 50,000 Iraqi deaths. It has skewed our budget priorities. We've spent about $300 billion already -- with the estimated cost likely to exceed $1 trillion -- even as we cut support at home for the still-displaced Katrina survivors, raise interest rates on student loans and cut access to preschool for poor children. The budget is a statement of our moral choices -- and this is a deeply immoral choice. The Iraq debacle has featured the cronyism, corruption and incompetence that is characteristic of this administration. Billions have been pocketed in Iraq by companies like Halliburton, which the Pentagon charged with contracting abuse even as it renewed its no-bid contracts. The administration cooked the intelligence to get us into the war, and then launched the war with no plan for the occupation, and with inadequate forces and inadequate equipment. The war has undermined our own democracy, with a president claiming untrammeled powers to act above the law for the duration of a war on terror that he says will last for generations. And from this arrogance has come shameful abuses, from the torture in Abu Ghraib to the hidden prisons of the CIA to the locking up of people -- too many of them innocent -- without hearing or lawyer or charges in Guantanamo and elsewhere. America, which has championed the rule of law throughout the world, is now widely viewed as a rogue nation that views itself as above the law. Through all this, Lieberman has been, as the New York Times termed it, the president's "enabler." He lobbied early and hard for the pre-emptive war of choice. He echoed the lies and dismissed the folly of the president's men while questioning the patriotism of those who raised sensible questions about our course. Iraq is not a single issue; it is a central issue. Lieberman's response has been to line up the Democratic Club -- basking in the embrace of Bill Clinton, whom he once called a moral disgrace, and enlisting fellow Sen. Chris Dodd to mobilize other senators to support him. The Democratic Senate Committee has rushed in political pros and organizers to help "save our guy." But across Connecticut, voters are saying "this is not our guy." They are sending a message not just to Bush but to the Democratic Party -- calling them to account. Lieberman's opponent, Ned Lamont, has run a principled campaign, devoid of personal attacks or gutter politics. He has simply argued, correctly, that Lieberman has not simply been wrong on the war, but has been a leader of the war hawks, the president's favorite Democrat and leading defender. Workers in Connecticut -- which has witnessed a steady hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs -- have other reasons to think Joe is not their guy. He's been a leading promoter of the corporate trade policies that have devastated U.S. manufacturing while racking up the largest trade deficits in the history of mankind. He's the single greatest defender of off-the-books, short-term executive stock options, which contributed directly to the worst corporate crime scandals in a century. Whatever happens in the primary next Tuesday, the message has already been sent. Americans don't pay much attention to politics. They are easily roused by appeals to patriotism and fear. They tend to re-elect incumbents. But periodically, democracy works. A defining issue rouses opinion, and that leads to a defining election. In Connecticut, the Democratic primary is just that. And every member of the club had better listen to what the voters are saying. © 2006 Digital Chicago, Inc.