Tuesday, October 25, 2005

What is the Deep Scandal?

It’s all coming to a head now. It looks like Cheney will have to resign and may face criminal charges. More will be known tomorrow.

It is rumored that the indictments that will be announced on Wednesday will have more to do with obstruction of justice and perjury than with outing an intelligence agent. Old hands who have lived through presidential scandals nod sagely and say things like this:

“As usual, it’s not the act itself but the cover up that brings someone down,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked in the Nixon administration. “It’s a sad lesson that those in power never learn.”
I’m not sure that’s true, though. It may be that the cover-up is worse than the surface crime, but the cover-up is usually initiated to conceal much worse crimes that never reach the surface. The Kennedy assassination haunts Watergate the way the October Surprise, drug trafficking and who knows what else haunt Iran-Contra.

Some are claiming that the forgery of the Niger documents is what was being hidden in the Plame scandal. Certainly a serious crime, but one for which they must have had enough deniability.

Remember the extent to which Cheney blocked the release of notes from the energy policy meetings with energy industry leaders? The media claimed that Cheney was trying to cover up the fact that he wrote the energy policy on spec from the industry. But really, that was common knowledge and only shocking to the naïve. I suspect that what was being covered up was the promise Cheney made to the oil companies that he would find a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

It may be that the desperation that fueled Cheney to out Plame and incapacitate Brewster Jennings came out of fear that the CIA was on the trail of the Big Crime: 9/11. That is of course not to say that the CIA would ever bring the truth about 9/11, but they might have been able to use it for blackmail.

For a couple of differing perspectives on the role of the CIA and the Niger forgeries see Justin Raimondo and Xymphora. Raimondo takes it at face value that the documents were forged in consultation with the Neocons, but Xymphora thinks that the CIA, furious at Bush and Cheney, set the Neocons up by passing off poorly forged documents knowing that they would be snapped up. The Neocons fell into the trap and must be furious now.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

"Saddam Hussein" On Trial - Postponed

So “Saddam Hussein’s” trial was postponed. That must mean that the Plame scandal will be worse in November than now (see Wayne Madsen today).

I am disappointed. We could use some amusement now, and the prospect of an impersonator being put on trial (imagine Will Ferrell being put on trial for George Bush’s crimes) is so rich in post-modern irony that CNN would have to hire Jean Baudrillard as their legal analyst to do it justice.

You didn’t think that guy is really Saddam really Saddam, do you? He had dozens of doubles when he was governing to protect him from assassination. The teeth on this guy they have in custody are all wrong and the eyes are different distances apart. His own wife says it’s not him.

Bush vs. Cheney, pt. 2

Following up on yesterday's post it looks like Bush has the upper hand for the moment, with rumors flying of a Cheney resignation. We'll see if the momentum shifts as the day goes on.

As fun as all this is, we should keep in mind the fact that getting rid of Nixon in Watergate was more damage control than real reform. What follows are a couple of comments that hit the mark

Here's Rigorous Intuition's Jeff Wells:

To those for whom "Bush knew" is not inexact shorthand, but rather the kerygma of "9/11 Truth," a Fitzgerald decapitation strike upon the Vice President's office will be as good as it gets. And Cheney should be taken down for something, for everything, even if just by shrapnel from an indictment fired at Scooter Libby. But seeing him "step aside" rather than hauled away would be nothing like good news.

...Might Bush and his team be played for patsies by the spooks seeming to wear, in this light, the white hats? It must be awfully tempting; they've done worse before to sitting presidents. But there is institutional guilt in Washington that predates the late addendum of this administration which took office only because it was most in accord with the decadent and criminalized power structures.

John Dean once said there was a cancer on the White House. It can appear now as if the cancer is the White House, and all America needs is a good Bushectomy. That's a start. But the cancer is metastastic, and it didn't begin at the top five years ago. Whoever's indicted and for what, it's just a start. 9/11 wasn't the brainchild of Karl Rove, it just played one on TV. The covert networks of intelligence, drugs, arms and terror had been in place long before - even during Democratic administrations, for all the good that did - and the pattern of opening doors for Atta and friends while looking the other way was well established before November, 2000. Bush can be blamed for much, but there is much that remains beyond the reach of nominal leaders, even if they are wicked.

I don't mean to be the wet blanket here. I just want to suggest that the prize is more than a few heads on a plate, or even an entire White House. It must be, if it's to mean anything more than another false dawn.


Here are the editors of Signs of the Times:

The current investigation of Patrick Fitzgerald, should it finish by handing down indictments to major figures of the Bush Reich, has been focused on a very small and relatively unimportant element of the litany of horror stories that have been such an integral part of this administration since it stole its way into office through a Supreme Court fiat. Outing a CIA spy is really a trivial matter. They should all be outed. There are reports, however, that Fitzgerald may be enlarging his investigation to look at the so-called faulty intelligence planted by the neo-cons in the press prior to launching their war on Iraq.

But still...

If Karl Rove or Scooter Libby, or even George W. himself, were to be named by Fitzgerald, prosecuted, and even convicted, do we actually think it would change anything? Do we think that any of these three men were actually involved in the organisation or carrying out of the events of 9/11?

We think not.

So if the public face of the new American fascism is removed, what about all of the others, the real power, the names we don't know? They'll still be in place. And this is why we think that all the hoopla will be much ado about nothing, sound and fury signifying yet another hoodwinking of the American public into believing the "system works", just like with Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Well, yeah, it does. It works very well for those in control. It just doesn't work for what it claims: protecting and ensuring the freedom of the US people.

However, there is another degree of control that no one is talking about, a level of control that is so outlandish and preposterous for most of us that we laugh it off and consider the person making such a proposition as deranged. Yes, friends, we are speaking of the control that comes from hyperdimensional realities and our hyperdimensional overlords. You remember them; they consider us as livestock to be bred for their needs. If coming to the conclusion that the neocons and Israel were behind 9/11 is a bridge too far, how much further is it for the man on the street to consider that we are ruled by time-traveling beings who appear to us as gods and aliens in order to better manipulate us? Who have filled our heads with monotheism in order to divide us, to set us one against another, and if that doesn't work, then, whup, let's bring out the New Age and the occult, black magic and paganism, Planet Nibiru and the other fads of millennial thinking.

If you were holed up in the White House and saw that you were becoming encircled by enemy forces, what would you do? It is easy to suggest that Bush & Co could order another "terrorist" attack on the country, however, it is clear that Bush is but a puppet when it comes to such things. What if his puppet masters didn't want to help him out? What if he has become expendable?

That doesn't exclude the possibility that Bush and Rove could have their black ops experts pull off a little attack of their own, the way MI5 put terror back on the front pages in July in London, but it is risky because not everyone has the experience and know-how of Israeli intelligence when it comes to false flag operations. London was to a certain extent a bungled affair. Too many loose ends. It is only the complicity of the press, that watch dog that seems to forever feast on a piece of stray meat thrown its way when it should be doing its job, that the false flag nature of the bombings haven't come to light in the mainstream media.

We seem to have entered a period of turbulence, perhaps a phase transition. The new state into which we pass will depend upon the energy that is put into the system now, while it is beginning to boil. There are two choices, either the energy of creation or the energy of entropy. Creation is intimately linked to our ability to see the world as it is, free from any and all illusion. In our case, these illusions have to do with the social programming we receive in school, the emotional programming that comes from our relationships in our families, with our friends. If we continue to believe the lies we have been fed all of our lives, then we will remain embedded in a reality of lies, of chaos, of disorder, violence, hunger, and aggression. We will be swept down into the maelstrom of entropy.

Subjectivity is our enemy. It is what holds us prisoner to our personalities, unable to reach deeply inside to touch our real selves.

Only by staring the world in its face, working through the emotional chains that hold us, consciously revisiting our upbringing and identifying our programming, and then learning how to make a different choice when the programme starts to run will be be able to face the world in front of us calmly, steadfastly, and with the clear gaze that will enable us to respond creatively.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Is War Breaking Out between Bush and Cheney?

Here's an interesting bit of speculation from Attytood claiming that evidence is surfacing of a major feud between Bush and Cheney, no doubt fueled by the Fitzgerald grand jury investigation and maybe also by finger-pointing on blame for the Iraq disaster.

Since the Fitzgerald investigation has targeted the top adviser to both men (Rove and Libby), it may be that whoever is the most powerful, Bush or Cheney, that person's top man will be indicted. So, today Attytood points to some information that indicates that Rove (Bush's man) has "flipped" and will testify against Cheney, implicating Cheney himself!

For the last few weeks, the most enthralling angle of the whole Valerie Plame-Judy Miller fiasco is whether the probers will work their way up to Vice President Dick Cheney. Miller made it clear that Special Proscecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took an interest in anything that the veep might have known, and when he knew it.
Today, Bloomberg News is reporting that investigators are indeed focused on Cheney:

Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney's communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president's knowledge of the anti-[Joe]Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with ["Scooter"] Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has now testified twice before a federal grand jury probing the case after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald, wrote in yesterday's New York Times that Fitzgerald asked her whether the vice president ``had known what his chief aide,'' Libby, "was doing and saying'' regarding Wilson, a critic of the war in Iraq.

Of course, Cheney was the driving force behind the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, the little-publicized team that carried out the PR offensive on invading Iraq. Thus, it's quite possible that Fitzgerald is looking at a broad conspiracy among WHIG members to discredit war-whistleblower Wilson, Plame's husband. Libby, after all, is Cheney's top aide, so any push to discredit Wilson and to leak Plame's name may have come from the boss.

Of course, Bush junior is probably not strong enough to stand up to Cheney, but Bush senior is, and there is a history of bad blood between the two after Cheney, Bush I's Defense Secretary during the first Iraq War, allied himself with the Neocons who criticized Bush I for not invading Baghdad in 1991.

Bush I has never really liked the Neocons (or Israel, for that matter) much. Clearly his son badly needs a scapegoat, and Cheney and the Neocons would make a good one.

Another possibility is that the non-Neocon factions in the ruling class want to get rid of both Bush and Cheney, but know they have to get rid of Cheney first, since if they impeach Bush first, then Cheney will become president. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

Comments?

More Additions to the No Peak Oil Crowd

Hmm... This week, Alexander Cockburn, editor of Counterpunch came out against Peak Oil and in favor of the Abiotic theory.

Today, Rense links to an article published last spring in the Harvard Review supporting the Abiotic Theory, which holds that hydrocarbons are created out of minerals under high pressure, not decayed organic matter:
But new research coauthored by Dudley Herschbach, Baird research professor of science and recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry, questions that thinking. Published last fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study describes how investigators combined three abiotic (non-living) materials -- water (H2O), limestone (CaCO3), and iron oxide (FeO) -- and crushed the mixture together with the same intense pressure found deep below the earth's surface. This process created methane (CH4), the major component of natural gas. Herschbach says this offers evidence, although as yet far from proof, for a maverick theory that much of the world's supply of so-called fossil fuels may not derive from the decay of dinosaur-era organisms after all.

David McGowan has been getting attacked by the Peak Oil crowd for years for holding these positions. For more on the ramifications of this debate see my earlier post.

Could it be that there is no shortage of oil, just well-placed wars in high production regions like Iraq and manufacturing bottlenecks (lack of refinery capacity) in the United States? Could the high prices have been set artificially by those means in order to suck wealth out of the world and into a few hands? Are they using Peak Oil scares to condition people to accept martial law and population controls?

Friday, October 07, 2005

Is This Not the Most Pathetic Piece of Disinformation You Have Ever Seen?

They really think we are complete morons.

After Bush gives his speech about the WOT, the Pentagon releases a report about a "letter" they said they "intercepted" written by "Ayman Zawahiri" a supposed "second in command" to the supposedly alive "Osama bin Laden" addressed to the supposedly alive "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" which conveniently reinforced all of Bush's talking points!

Here is the Reuters story:

The Pentagon said on Thursday the United States had obtained a letter written by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the network's leader in Iraq saying tactics being used such as bombing mosques and killing hostages might alienate the Muslim masses.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman described the letter as written by Zawahri, the No. 2 in al Qaeda behind Osama bin Laden, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who heads al Qaeda's branch in Iraq that is engaged in a guerrilla war with U.S. troops and Iraqi forces.

Whitman said the United States considered the letter authentic, but refused to say how, when or where it was obtained or by whom in order to protect "sources and methods" used. Whitman described the letter as "recent," but was not more precise.

"Zawahri does say that the insurgents in Iraq should avoid using tactics such as bombing of mosques and slaughtering of hostages in order not to alienate the masses.

In this letter, he talks about believing that the eventual governance of Iraq must include the Muslim masses, and that they are at risk of alienating those," Whitman told reporters.

Whitman declined to release the letter, which was in Arabic.

Whitman also said Zawahri makes a plea to Zarqawi for financial support.

Whitman declined to say whether Zarqawi responded in any way to the letter.

"Zawahri says that they've lost many of their key leaders and that they've virtually resigned themselves to defeat in Afghanistan, that they're lines of communication and funding have been severely disrupted," Whitman said.

Whitman said the letter emphasizes that Muslim extremists intend to create a broad Islamic state centered on Iraq and expanding into neighboring Muslim countries, although he declined to state which countries were mentioned.

Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for a series of killings, hostage beheadings and most major suicide bombings in Iraq, including the bombings of the U.N. Baghdad headquarters and the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf in 2003 and a suicide car bomb that killed the head of Iraq's former Governing Council in 2004.

Bin Laden appointed Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq after the Jordanian pledged allegiance to the overall al Qaeda leader in October 2004.

Intelligence officials believe Zarqawi communicates with bin Laden and Zawahri through couriers who can take weeks to make the journey between eastern Afghanistan to western Iraq.

Officials say bin Laden and Zawahri have set general parameters within which they expect Zarqawi to run his insurgent struggle against U.S. forces in Iraq. But they say the two sides have clashed over Zarqawi attacks on Shi'ite Muslims.

Well, I guess they do think we are morons. Are we?

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Higher Ground

There is too much happening now to be able to keep up with it on a blog!

Something will sort itself out in a Big Way soon one way or another. Thought of this hearing Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" as performed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers going to work today. The line, "Cause it won't be too long" seems to fit. I looked up the lyrics. I never caught the line about reincarnation before. Or the line where he calls on sleepers to stop sleeping. Very appropriate.

Higher Ground

People keep on learnin'
Soldiers keep on warrin'
World keep on turnin'
Cause it won't be too long

Powers keep on lyin'
While your people keep on dyin'
World keep on turnin'
Cause it won't be too long

I'm so darn glad he let me try it again
Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin'
Till I reach the highest ground

Teachers keep on teachin'
Preachers keep on preachin'
World keep on turnin'
Cause it won't be too long
Oh no

Lovers keep on lovin'
Believers keep on believin'
Sleepers just stop sleepin'
Cause it won't be too long
Oh no

I'm so glad that he let me try it again
Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin
I'm so glad that I know more than I knew then
Gonna keep on tryin'
Till I reach my highest ground...
Whew!
Till I reach my highest ground
No one's gonna bring me down
Oh no
Till I reach my highest ground
Don't you let nobody bring you down (they'll sho 'nuff try)
God is gonna show you higher ground
He's the only friend you have around

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Are You Scared Yet?

Scared yet? Bush yesterday proposed using the military to enforce quarantines in case of an outbreak of Avian Flu.

Here is what he said:
Bush stated, "If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country, and how do you then enforce a quarantine? When -- it's one thing to shut down airplanes; it's another thing to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the avian flu. And who best to be able to effect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move."

The following story imparts the bad news epidemiologists were fearing:

Bird flu jumps transmission barrier in humans

By Tom Clifford, Assistant Editor

Published: 1/10/2005, 07:48 (UAE)

DUBAI - Bird flu has broken the transmission barrier and jumped from human to human, according to the World Health Organisation.

Most cases have been bird to human but transmission between people increases fears of a global pandemic.

The acknowledgement came on a day when the organisation had to backtrack on the number of potential deaths forecast from a bird flu pandemic created by widespread human-to-human infection.

Dr David Nabarro said on Thursday, less than one day into his new role as the UN coordinator for global readiness against an outbreak, that measures taken by the world today would determine whether bird flu ended up killing five million or as many as 150 million people.

The figure of 150 million deaths was quickly played down by the WHO yesterday.
"There is obvious confusion, and I think that has to be straightened out. I don't think you will hear Dr Nabarro say the same sort of thing again," WHO influenza spokesman Dick Thompson told a news briefing.

The UN health agency said it has warned countries to prepare for a death toll of up to 7.4 million.

The 1918-19 'Spanish flu' outbreak, the most lethal flu pandemic so far recorded, claimed 50 million lives, far more than the 15 million killed in the First World War.

But the flu has jumped the barrier of human-to-human transmission.


What would such a quarantine do the already precarious economy if goods and people were prevented from moving in and out of large regions?

Remember when Bush’s people claimed that one of the books he would pretend to read during his vacation was a book on the 1918 flu epidemic? Were they trying to tell us something? How about all those mysterious deaths of microbiologists?

Earthquakes and volcanoes are on the rise. Storms are getting more severe and some even think that hurricane landfalls can trigger large earthquakes. Meteorites are starting to fall like rain. Could it be that we are entering a period of cyclical catastrophe? Could it be that people in power know this? Could that be why they have put massive control systems in place and have been steadily preparing people to accept it with the phony terrorism scare the government-sponsored anthrax mailings, the planting of peak oil stories, etc.?

How about this story?

Deadly bacteria detected in US capital during anti-war march

AFPSun Oct 2,12:54 PM ET

A deadly bacteria listed among bioterrorism agents was detected in the US capital last month during a mass protest against the Iraq war, a top health official said.

District of Columbia Health Director Doctor Gregg Pane told WTOP Radio late Saturday that biological agent monitors on the National Mall, an esplanade in downtown Washington, gave positive readings for a small amount of tularemia on September 24 and 25.

The sensors are operated by the Department of Homeland Security, but officials were not notified of the potential hazard until Friday, according to Pane.

"We've stepped up our surveillance and have notified doctors in the area about what to look for," Pane told the radio station.
...The Washington Post reported Sunday that national security officials believe the bacteria was probably not intentionally spread.

"There is no known nexus to terror or criminal behavior. We believe this to be environmental," the paper quoted Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, as saying.

But federal health officials remain on alert for outbreaks of the disease far away from Washington because of the numbers of visitors to the capital last weekend.

Thousands of opponents of the war in Iraq from all around the country converged on the National Mall on September 24.

Organizers put the number of participants at more than 300,000, while police said, unofficially, the protesters probably numbered a little over 100,000.

How about the strange stories of mass deaths of birds and strange smells coming out of the ground and lakes? Is this something to worry about?

If you are interested in these types of things and want a one-stop site, updated daily where you can follow such stories, I recommend the Signs of the Times page. It’s more than fear-mongering, you can find constructive suggestions on what to DO about it all as well. Sure, your friends may call you paranoid, but wouldn’t you rather be prepared for what is to come than be taken completely by surprise? Ignorance is not bliss and knowledge protects!