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PROBLEMS OF HIS OWN MAKING ARE NOW RAINING DOWN ON BUSH'S HEAD
(Published in the March 1, 2006 edition of the American
Panthers Newsletter)
A Rain of Other Shoes Dropping
Abramoff
The shoe that dropped this month came in a report by Kim Eisler of Washingtonian Magazine who wrote that
George Bush met personally with Mr. Abramoff about a dozen times in the last five years. A photo of Bush,
Abramoff and Rove at a meeting with the tribal Chief of one of Abramoff’s clients was provided. The picture
was taken in May of 2001 and is also shown in the February 20 issue of Time. Abramoff has already admitted
to bribery and other felonies.
While it might not be one of Bush’s most heinous scandals, it is certainly the one that involves the
most people and could produce a rain of “other shoes” all by itself. In spite of all this, Bush and Rove
still insist that they have no recollection of ever meeting with Abramoff. Bush does admit that there are
other photos in his possession but, according to Scott McLellan they will not be released because the press
will use them for political purposes. We’ve heard that sort of clumsy cover-up language before.
It’s a “slam dunk” that additional photos will come out and they will show that Abramoff has far closer
ties to the Administration than Bush admits.
In 1999 Abramoff gave money to Bush’s recount committee and in 2004 he achieved the honored status of
“Bush Pioneer” by donating at least $100,000 to the Bush campaign. Eisler reports that Abramoff was
invited to Bush’s Crawford ranch and that Bush was close enough to Abramoff to have joked with him about
his twins. At this point Bush is only willing to admit that Abramoff attended two Hanukkah parties and
a few staff-level White House meetings.
We can also expect to see photographs of Abramoff associates with Bush associates. Each photograph
will require an explanation and the concomitant cover-up.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bush’s powerful conservative shield seems to be rapidly deteriorating. The all
Republican House Katrina committee blasted Bush for his poor performance, and the president of the
conservative legal organization Judicial Watch called Bush’s refusal to release information on Abramoff
“inexcusable”.
On April 3rd the trial of David Safavian will begin. Mr. Safavian was the head of procurement for the
Office of Management until his arrest last September on five felony counts of lying to investigators
about his dealings with Abramoff. Safavian was in charge of spending $300 billion as director of Bush’s
Office of Procurement Policy, and is alleged to have accepted favors from Abramoff. His maximum sentence
would be five years and $250,000 on each count and therefore he has good reason to cooperate with the
prosecutor. Abramoff, we know, is already cooperating. So stay tuned for more falling Abramoff shoes.
Iraq
Paul Pillar, who was the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to
2005, wrote an article in the journal of Foreign Affairs, which confirmed the Downing Street Memo.
He wrote that the administration cherry-picked intelligence to support a decision on Iraq that had already
been made. Both Bush and Cheney made it clear that the only reports they wanted from the intelligence
community were those that confirmed their justification for invading Iraq. Reports that did not back
the invasion were ignored.
Pillar said that Bush never asked for an assessment of the consequences of invading Iraq until a year
afterward. He said the intelligence community did that analysis without Bush’s request, and concluded
that an invasion could produce a civil war.
The criticism by Mr. Pillar was important because of its severity, because it came from a former Bush
senior intelligence official, because that official knew exactly what was going on and because it
confirmed the Downing Street Memo. Pillar wrote, “It has become clear that official intelligence
was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence
was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between
policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community’s own work was politicized.”
Pillar is not claiming that Bush lied about the intelligence, only that he picked out the intelligence
that would make his case, and ignored whatever contradicted it. The administration kept demanding more
intelligence that linked Hussein to al Qaeda. The intelligence was gathered at great effort and expense,
and then picked through to uncover the tidbits that Bush thought he could use to make his case.
Paul Pillar was considered the CIA’s leading counterterrorism analyst before he retired after 28 years
of service. He was responsible for coordinating assessments on Iraq from all 15 agencies in the
intelligence community.
Considering the damage that the Iraq war has done, this should be the most difficult “other shoe” that
Bush has to contend with. It is not. This news was quickly buried by other scandals and by our ignoramus
Vice President’s shooting of his friend in a hunting accident. The public attention span is short, and
the press still seems to be shy about dealing with the administration’s most egregious crimes.
Let’s hope that changes soon.
Katrina
If you think that all of the administration’s talk about fixing what’s wrong with FEMA has born any
fruit, forget it. Of all of the related stories that came out last month, the one that shocked the most
was about 11,000 3-bedroom, 2-bath mobile homes ordered by FEMA for New Orleans that were sitting unused
in a cow pasture in Arkansas. It seems as if the homes were ordered without the realization that
local laws do not allow them to be located in a flood plain. That means that they cannot be placed
almost anywhere in southeast Louisiana. There was also no consideration about finding a place to put
them that had access to water and sewer hook-ups. So the homes just sit there as FEMA’s payments for
hotel rooms are being discontinued. Typical of a Bush cover-up, there doesn’t seem to be any
information available that explains what idiot ordered these homes, and who made a profit on them.
The accelerating exodus of rats from the sinking ship was made evident by the February 15 report of an
11 member, all Republican house panel, blasting FEMA and the Bush administration for its incompetence
in handling the Katrina disaster. Perhaps the panel members were thinking that they will have to get
re-elected while Bush and Cheney will not. Anyway, the report accuses Bush and FEMA of failing to act
promptly when they first heard that the levees were breached. Instead of quickly following up, they
questioned the accuracy of the reports and delayed the evacuation.
The panel also blamed the failure on state and local levels of government, as well as national. The
wording pulled no punches. “Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication
of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare…” The report also questioned how the
response to Katrina reflected on FEMA’s ability to react to even more serious disasters, like a terrorist
attack.
The most disturbing aspect of the Katrina response was that the catastrophe was easily foreseen and
had been anticipated for years. New Orleans is a city that is below sea level and in a major hurricane
zone. “This crisis was not only predictable, it was predicted”, the report said.
Democrats had refused to join the panel saying that its purpose was a whitewash, and later complained
that not enough individual fault was cited.
The White House’s inept response was that Bush was focused on the future and not the past.
You’re doing a heck of a job Bushie.
Valerie Plame
Federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who indicted Lewis (Scooter) Libby on five counts of perjury and
obstruction of justice, sent a revealing letter to Libby’s lawyers last January 23. The letter says that
Libby testified before a grand jury that in June and July of 2003 he was authorized by his superiors to
disclosed classified information to reporters about Iraq’s weapons capability.
Libby’s testimony is an admission that he used classified information to assist Bush’s propaganda effort
to support going to war in Iraq. Since he worked as an aide to Dick Cheney, the implication of being
authorized by his “superiors” is that he and Cheney worked together to plant news stories to justify
the war. The letter does not discuss Valerie Plame, but the indictment relates to lies about revealing
her name as a C.I.A. undercover operative.
In his defense, Cheney has declared that since he has authority to declassify information, he did not
break any laws. If so, the Vice President feels that it is proper to select, declassify and reconstruct
secret information in order to create bogus news stories to trick the American people into a war that has
cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Hopefully the courts will also consider
whether it is legitimate for the Vice President to declassify information to further political ends, or
to punish whistle blowers, in this case Ms. Plame’s husband Joseph Wilson, for exposing one of Bush’s
false claims about Iraq.
The information in question came from The National Intelligence Estimate, which was declassified on
July 18, 2003. The report suggested the possibility that Iraq could have nuclear weapons during the
decade, but also contained dissenting views. Mr. Libby selectively revealed the contents of that secret
document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller ten days before it was declassified. In a perversion
of the concept of protecting news sources, Ms. Miller went to jail for 85 days to protect the source that
leaked a planted and dishonest propaganda piece. Ms. Miller, now discredited in the eyes of its staff,
is no longer with the Times.
The issue goes well beyond the compromising of classified information. It is about the administration’s
attempt to control the free press to further its own political aims. The free press is the defense of
last resort against official abuse of power. Planting news stories, and attempting to intimidate
reporters, is a major serious threat to the freedoms built into our society by the Constitution.
Expect Cheney to be indicted and other shoes to drop in this matter.
Cheney Shooting
It is difficult to concentrate on a scandal when the administration keeps creating newer and fresher
scandals. Cheney shot his friend in the face, and Bush shot himself in the foot on Dubai Ports World,
and at this writing, Sunnis and Shiites are shooting each other in Iraq. Who can keep up?
This stupid incident was one that everybody just wanted to have some fun with, and then forget.
Even the most Liberal of the Liberals were ready to let it go as just an accident. However,
“other shoes” began to rain down as our alchemist friend Dick found a way to turn nothing into
something.
Maybe Cheney thought that the press would find this incident more interesting than his getting the
country involved in a useless war, or his flouting of due process and the balance of powers.
Maybe he was afraid of Jay Leno and David Letterman. Maybe he thought that it would make his friends
at the NRA look bad. Who knows? Anyway, for some reason he preferred to cover up instead of
being forthright.
The incident was first reported to a local Texas newspaper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times on the day
after, by the ranch owner, Katherine Armstrong. First reports were that Armstrong called the newspaper
on her own. Later, Cheney changed the story to say that she called the newspaper at his request because
that was how he preferred to announce the story to the public.
So here we have Dick Cheney, whom we know is very interested in how the press reports about him,
entrusting someone inexperienced, to announce a shocking story to the world, and to answer any questions
that a reporter may choose to ask. Cheney backed his claim that he chose this method of revealing
the incident saying, “I thought that made good sense because you get as accurate a story as possible
from somebody who knew and understood hunting.” Sure Dick. This is the same Cheney who was only
willing to discuss the story in public four days later in a controlled interview on the Fox, “fair
and balanced”, News Network.
Cheney may have been telling the truth when he called the incident, “one of the worst days of my life”.
That’s because five times draft-deferred Dick had better things to do with his life than go to Viet Nam
and live through some other very bad days.
After the shooting Cheney said that he ran over to Whittington and said to him, “Harry, I had no idea
you were there.” I only wish that Whittington had been conscious enough to look back up at him and
say, “No shit, Sherlock.”
Wiretaps
Never before in the history of the United States has judicial process and the balance of power between
the three branches of government, the essential strengths and mandates of our constitution, been so
violated.
Even some Republicans were embarrassed when the chief law enforcement officer of the United States,
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, defended the administration’s illegal wiretaps at a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing on February 6. Gonzales lied and evaded questions as best he could, but for most on
the committee there was really no way to put lipstick on that pig. With elections coming up, many
Republicans felt the need to separate themselves from their executive branch.
One of the bigger rats fleeing the sinking ship was Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. Last month
he told the Washington Post, referring to Attorney General Gonzalez and the legality of torture and
warrantless wiretaps that, if that lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, “he’s smoking Dutch
Cleanser.” Fleeing the ship with Specter was conservative Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina. Referring to the Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Al Qaeda,
Graham said, “ I’ll be the first to say, when I voted for it, I never envisioned that I was giving
to this president or any other president the ability to go around FISA carte blanche.” He went on
to argue against the administration’s position that it had the inherent power under the Constitution
to authorize the warrantless wiretapping. Other Republican Senators who expressed concern about Gonzales’
testimony were Sam Brownback of Kansas and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
The other serious problem with the wiretaps is that they do not seem to be capturing terrorists.
The Washington Post published a story that current and former government officials, and other sources
involved in the wiretaps, have dismissed nearly all of them as yielding no information on terrorism.
Democratic Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware pressed Gonzales on the effectiveness of the program by
asking if it has resulted in any arrests. Gonzales answered, “When we can use our law enforcement
tools to go after the bad guys, we do that.” American Panthers takes that witless answer as a “no”.
Mr. Gonzales has a history of obfuscation and deceit that goes back to his confirmation hearing.
The good news is that by now even the Republicans know he is a liar.
Prisons and Torture
The “other shoes” that landed on Bush’s head were a report by the United Nations and a broadcast by
an Australian television station of as yet unpublicized photographs taken at Abu Ghraib in 2003.
On February 16 a United Nations Human Rights Commission report blasted the Bush Administration for
its treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The Australian photos showed examples of abuse and
torture that were even worse than those previously released.
The Bushmen feel that if they maintain these prisons outside of the United States they escape the need
to comply with American laws. That may be true, but they do not escape the need to comply with American
values. To them, the bottom line is neither laws nor values, but whether or not they can get away with
what they’re doing.
The release of the photos sparked yet another call for the closing of these prisons, but this was soon
obscured by the Dubai Ports World idiocy.
George Bush has decided that the existence of a state of war puts the president above the law. At the
same time he has decided that the “war on terror” is virtually permanent. This logic puts Bush above the
law, forever.
One of the consequences of this is that the 500 men in Guantánamo can be imprisoned arbitrarily and held
indefinitely. Some prisoners may be guilty, but the vast majority are not terrorists. The Bush administration
has, thus far, made no attempt to sort one from the other. The president has unabashedly stripped the
prisoners of their right to challenge their detentions.
Many of the prisoners were scooped up by Afghan and Pakistani warlords who were paid bounties to capture
“terrorists” and turn them over to American forces. It was a great opportunity for the warlords to get
rid of people they did not like and make a few bucks at the same time. Meanwhile, putting people in jail
made it look as if Bush was fighting terrorism.
To date only about ten prisoners have been charged. Sham hearings were held for the others after they
had been imprisoned for three years.
While we know a little about the shocking conditions and injustices at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, we
know virtually nothing about the secret CIA prisons in other parts of the world. It is hard to believe
that we are talking about America under Bush and not the Soviet Union under Stalin. A black mark will be
left on the history of the United States that will take generations to erase, if ever.
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