rigorousintuition.ca

A good post by Lisa Pease on her Real History blog:


Scooter Libby's Pardon and 9/11

Scooter Libby's pardon begs the question of what he would have talked about had he been truly faced with prison. Whatever it was, it was important enough for Bush to grant Libby a last-second reprieve so he wouldn't have to go to jail.

I thought back to something I had tripped upon a while ago, something that involved Libby, which happened on September 10, 2001, the day before the twin towers were struck.

On the CNN site, in a timeline available from this page, I found this stunning entry:

SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 A CIA plan to strike at al Qaeda in Afghanistan, including support for the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, is given to the White House. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asks for a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney. The California Democrat is told that Cheney's staff would need six months to prepare for a meeting.

When I read this, I was stunned on two levels.

First, read that again. The CIA was going to do BEFORE 9/11 exactly what it did AFTER 9/11 - strike at al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Since we hadn't been attacked yet, 9/11 provided a nifty justification for this plan.

But second, Feinstein is a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a group that works closely with intelligence agencies and--ostensibly--provides oversight of intelligence activities. (I say ostensibly because the committee does not know of, and therefore has no option to approve or disapprove all intelligence activities). How could it be that, as the 9/11 Commission report states, when the "system was blinking red" on a possible terrorist attack on the country, and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee comes to say hey, something serious is afoot and we need to talk, the VP's office could blow off Feinstein by saying they couldn't review her plans for six months?

Curious, I called Senator Feinstein's office and asked, is it normal for the VP to blow off a meeting with Senator Feinstein for six months? The four people I spoke to in her office all said and did the same thing. They said no, that's not usual, what is this about? I said this is about the Senator's 9/10 visit to Cheney, the day before 9/11. At this, each staffer got nervous and transferred me to the next person. None of them would even confirm that this conversation had transpired, but in the end, I found it on a press release on Feinstein's senate site:

[more at the link

Apparently, there have been several reports that several nations, including Russia, Pakistan, India and the UK, were informed by US officials in the summer of 2001, of plans for an attack on Afghanistan led by the US to occur sometime that fall. Also, that detailed attack plans were on Bush's desk by 9-9-2001. Certainly, Libby has been in the middle of the Administration's duplicious scheming leading to pretexts for its long-intended Pax Americana wars in the Middle East. That Bush interfered with his sentence for Obstruction of Justice and Perjury before all of Libby's appeal rights had been exhausted was an illegal abuse of Executive privelege. The implication is obvious -- Bush acted to 'buy' Libby's silence.
Starman
*****
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/preplanned.html

The US Invasion of Afghanistan was
Announced Months Before the 9/11 Attacks

Jane's Defense - India Joined US led plan against Afghanistan in March 2001.
"India joins anti-Taliban coalition"

By Rahul Bedi

India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against Afghanistan's Taliban regime. [janes.com]

From April 2001, yet more indications that a mideast war was planned long before 9/11.
*****

India Reacts - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JUNE 2001.
In this article published in India in the summer of 2001 the Indian Government announces that it will support America's PLANNED military incursion into Afghanistan.

India in anti-Taliban military plan

India and Iran will "facilitate" the planned US-Russia hostilities against the Taliban.

By Our Correspondent

26 June 2001: India and Iran will "facilitate" US and Russian plans for "limited military action" against the Taliban if the contemplated tough new economic sanctions don't bend Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime.

The Taliban controls 90 per cent of Afghanistan and is advancing northward along the Salang highway and preparing for a rear attack on the opposition Northern Alliance from Tajikistan-Afghanistan border positions.

Indian foreign secretary Chokila Iyer attended a crucial session of the second Indo-Russian joint working group on Afghanistan in Moscow amidst increase of Taliban's military activity near the Tajikistan border. And, Russia's Federal Security Bureau (the former KGB) chief Nicolai Patroshev is visiting Teheran this week in connection with Taliban's military build-up.

Indian officials say that India and Iran will only play the role of "facilitator" while the US and Russia will combat the Taliban from the front with the help of two Central Asian countries, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to push Taliban lines back to the 1998 position 50 km away from Mazar-e-Sharief city in northern Afghanistan.

Military action will be the last option though it now seems scarcely avoidable with the UN banned from Taliban controlled areas. The UN which adopted various means in the last four years to resolve the Afghan problem is now being suspected by the Taliban and refused entry into Taliban areas of the war ravaged nation through a decree issued by Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar last month. [indiareacts.com]

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BBC - American government told other governments about Afghan invasion IN JULY 2001.
US 'planned attack on Taleban'

The wider objective was to oust the Taleban

By the BBC's George Arney

A former Pakistani diplomat has told the BBC that the US was planning military action against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban even before last week's attacks.

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.

Mr Naik said US officials told him of the plan at a UN-sponsored international contact group on Afghanistan which took place in Berlin.

Mr Naik told the BBC that at the meeting the US representatives told him that unless Bin Laden was handed over swiftly America would take military action to kill or capture both Bin Laden and the Taleban leader, Mullah Omar.

The wider objective, according to Mr Naik, would be to topple the Taleban regime and install a transitional government of moderate Afghans in its place - possibly under the leadership of the former Afghan King Zahir Shah.

Mr Naik was told that Washington would launch its operation from bases in Tajikistan, where American advisers were already in place.

He was told that Uzbekistan would also participate in the operation and that 17,000 Russian troops were on standby.

Mr Naik was told that if the military action went ahead it would take place before the snows started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest.

He said that he was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks.

And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban. [BBC]
*****
MSNBC - Afghanistan war plans were on Bush's desk on 9/9/2001

President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News. ... The plan dealt with all aspects of a war against al-Qaida, ranging from diplomatic initiatives to military operations in Afghanistan, the sources said on condition of anonymity. [MSNBC]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the summer of 2001, while the American media kept the people distracted with "All Condit All The Time", the US Government was informing other governments that we would be at war in Afghanistan no later than October.

How lucky for our government that just when they are planning to invade another country, for the express purpose of removing that government, a convenient "terrorist" attack occurs to anger Americans into support for an invasion.

and check this out, from the page she links to in the CNN archives:

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITIC ... ror.probe/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle Tuesday to limit the congressional investigation into the events of September 11, congressional and White House sources told CNN.

The request was made at a private meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday morning. Sources said Bush initiated the conversation.

He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry that some lawmakers have proposed, the sources said

Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call to Daschle from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request.

"The vice president expressed the concern that a review of what happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from the effort in the war on terrorism," Daschle told reporters.

Unbelievable. CNN proably would never even report such as this these days. The White House wouldn't let them.

Then check out the timeline she was talking about. It's one of the java links on the right-hand side. Again, it's Feinstein:

JULY 1, 2001
Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Richard Shelby, both members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, appear on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer", and warn of potential attacks by Osama bin Laden. "One of the things that has begun to concern me very much as to whether we really have our house in order, intelligence staff have told me that there is a major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months," Feinstein said.

This is a huge smoking gun.

Just wanted to leave a comment for posterity that it's now Friday July 6 and the Scooter Libby story has all be disappeared from the mainstream media. In its wake is the return of Paris Hilton, apparently a front page news item because she called a student's cell phone.

Thankfully the Brits seem to be keeping up with the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2120740,00.html


5pm
Congress and Libby give Bush the birthday blues


Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Friday July 6, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


President George Bush turned 61 today but he did not have much to celebrate at the end of a week, in which his isolation and crumbling support has been exposed as never before.

Laura Bush held an early family party for him on Wednesday, to which a few professional golfers were also invited, and yesterday, the president made a rare DC outing to the RFK stadium to watch a baseball game. He left the White House early this morning for the presidential Maryland retreat Camp David, with only a few well-wishers around to shout out birthday greetings.

These low-key birthday celebrations apart, the week ended as badly as it began. The public backlash against his decision on Monday to commute the jail sentence of the former White House aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was followed yesterday by the withdrawal of support by Pete Dominici, a Republican senator for 35 years. The loss of such previously loyal Republicans is ominous for Mr Bush's war strategy.

Mr Dominici told a press conference in his home state, New Mexico, he was not calling for an immediate withdrawal. "But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path of coming home." More Republican defections are expected.

The portrait of Mr Bush that emerged this week is of a lonely president, holed up in the White House more than his predecessors, and fretting over his legacy.

Professor Robert Dallek, of Boston University and the author of several books about the presidency, as well as biographies of Franklin D Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, rates him as among the worst. He said that while it was not unprecedented for a president to end up as the lamest of lame ducks, citing Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Johnson, he saw Mr Bush as a particularly pronounced case.

"If you are looking at defeat, no one wants to be associated with the person responsible. This is the case with Bush. You do not see his party rally round. He has united opinion against him and it makes for a lonely, isolated position," Prof Dallek said today. He added: "Once a president loses trust, he cannot govern effectively."


ASoF back again with a final thought: And dare I add, perhaps more dangerous than ever before.

.


Terry Jones, having another pop at Bush.

A president transformed


It is so moving to see how a willing executioner can soften into a man of compassion - for cronies

Terry Jones
Saturday July 7, 2007
The Guardian

It has been a truly moving experience to witness the concern and compassion the president of the United States can show towards a convicted felon. Particularly someone accused of such grave offences as Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. On March 6 2007 Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, making false statements to the FBI, and twice committing perjury before a grand jury. According to the charge sheet, Libby "did knowingly and corruptly endeavour to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice by misleading and deceiving the grand jury". So it wasn't a case of absent-mindedness, then.

That is why George Bush's act of mercy is so inspiring, especially when one considers that compassion is not something generally associated with him. When he was governor of Texas, for instance, there were quite a number of convicted felons towards whom he didn't show much compassion at all. In fact he insisted they receive the full penalty of the law, which in their case was somewhat more severe than in Libby's. They were executed. When Bush became governor in 1995, the average number of executions in the state was 7.6 a year. During his time in office, he managed to put down a further 24 humans a year, bringing the annual number of executions up to 31.6; it is heartwarming to see how his attitude to convicted criminals has softened.

The president said the sentence imposed on Libby was "excessive", and that he had suffered enough punishment without it. "The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is for ever damaged," said Bush. "His wife and young children have also suffered immensely."

Now this will be good news for critics of the current system of justice. For some time, defence lawyers have been complaining that sentences are too harsh, that defendants' positive contributions to society are ignored, and that collateral damage caused to defendants' families is disregarded. Only last month the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, announced that the justice department would push for legislation to make federal sentences even tougher and less flexible. How delighted the critics of such harsh attitudes must be to see that the president has now come around to their way of thinking.

Mind you, Bush's softening of heart can only have happened in very recent days. A couple of weeks ago, in an eerily similar case, Victor Rita was, like Libby, convicted of perjury, making false statements to federal agents, and obstruction of justice. Like Scooter, Rita has an unblemished record of public service - 25 years in the armed forces with 35 commendations, awards and medals - and yet he was handed a 33-month jail sentence without even a message of condolence from the president.

In another recent case, the justice department tried to have Jamie Olis put away for more than 24 years for accounting fraud. In the end he got six years inside. But then I suppose fiddling the accounts isn't on a par with trying to obstruct an investigation into a breach of national security.

So I thoroughly approve of the president's change of heart towards convicted criminals, and hope it will continue until his term of office expires - and that in the future we shall witness increasing moderation in the justice department's insatiable urge to punish, imprison and execute.

And I sincerely hope that the commutation of Libby's prison sentence will usher in a new era of clemency, compassion and human forgiveness, under a president who otherwise has so much blood on his hands.

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
Terry-jones.net

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... 13,00.html

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