Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, having led his party to the disastrous defeat in 2006 that put the Democrats back in power in Congress, is departing -- perhaps to plan a legal defense for his role in a wide variety of scandals, including, to name just a few, his violation of the Hatch Act ( www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801182.html ) (using government employees to aid a political party's election chances), his coverup role in the outing of a covert CIA agent, his power interactions with corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, his role in election fraud in 2000 and 2004, and his involvement in the coverup of the U.S. Attorneys mess.
The key generals, most prominently George Casey and John Abizaid, were unable to put lipstick on the pig of this war; after trying in their own ways to warn the Administration that it was engaged in a futile quagmire in Iraq and that escalation maybe wasn't such a great idea, they were forced out in favor of lickspittle generals who would swallow the CheneyBush kool-aid and not make waves.
The departure of all those key figures leaves Cheney, Bush, Addington and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley as the last creators of major Administration policy left standing. (Rice and Gonzales are toadies, doing the jobs ordered of them by their bosses.)
ADDICTED TO SECRECY
As it turns out, Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will not be writing the much-awaited September report on the progress of the Administration's escalation ("surge"). Not taking any chances, the White House will write it. ( www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pullback15aug15,0,4840766.story?page=2&track=mostviewed-storylevel ) One can expect that report will say that enough "progress" is being made on the ground to justify a continuation of the escalation, perhaps with some pre-election fig-leaf alteration in the number of troops and where they will be deployed.
CheneyBush at first indicated that Petraeus and Crocker would defend the war-policies of their masters before the Congress in closed session. ( click here ) (After the Democrats loudly complained, that decision was reversed.) That's how much confidence this gang of ideological brutes had in its policies. It didn't want the American people to hear what the general and the ambassador would have to say under oath about this war and CheneyBush's attempt to string it out until a new president is inaugurated in January 2009.
The obsession with secrecy this Administration has displayed for the past six and a half years is not only an authoritarian knee-jerk reaction to keep the public in the dark about what it's up to, but is also symbolic of CheneyBush's deep suspicion of and revulsion towards democratic institutions of all kinds.
Knowing that the public would never support a pre-emptive war of aggression against Iraq based on the neo-con ideology of America ruling the world, CheneyBush invented Saddam's supposed "weapons of mass destruction" (especially non-existent nuclear weapons), and an imagined tie between Iraq and 9/11. As a result of its lies and deceptions to Congress, the American people and the United Nations, the Administration was able to launch its "shock&awe" war and occupation. The current run-up to a likely war with Iran is starting to resemble the pattern used before the attack on Iraq.
Fearful of the public hearing too much truth about its various domestic and war policies, CheneyBush spent $1.6 billion of taxpayer money to buy journalists ( www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/13/AR2006021301897.html ) and place their propaganda stories in various media outlets, along with pre-packaged "news" reports churned out by its own governmental employees and often run as "news" on small-town TV stations. Administration spokesmen then quoted those stories in mainstream media, as proof of the correctness of its policies.
EVEN ASHCROFT KEPT IN THE DARK
At times the Administration doesn't even tell the truth to its own high-ranking officials. We now learn that it didn't keep then-Attorney General John Ashcroft fully informed about aspects of the National Security Administration's own data-mining operations against American citizens. Thus it made sure that Ashcroft would not have a full range of well-researched legal opinions about the unconstitutional nature of the program.
These facts are now coming to light only as a result of James Comey's recent Senate testimony about the infamous hospital visit of Alberto Gonzales, then White House Counsel, and then-Chief of Staff Andrew Card to Ashcroft's bedside in March of 2004. We've all heard how Gonzales and Card tried to take advantage of the woozy, post-operative Ashcroft to get him to sign an authorization to continue the illegal eavesdropping -- illegal because it was an end-around the FISA court established by law to adjudicate warrant requests for such domestic surveillance. Here are the money quotes ( www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081607V.shtml ) about CheneyBush having kept their own Attorney General in the dark about the legal justifications for the data-mining program:
>>"According to his notes, [FBI Director Robert] Mueller arrived at the hospital at 7:40 p.m., 20 minutes after receiving a call from Comey saying that Gonzales and Card were en route to the hospital and requesting Mueller's presence in order to 'witness the condition of the Attorney General.' By the time Mueller arrived, Gonzales and Card had already left. Mueller's notes of the subsequent conversation between Comey, Ashcroft and Mueller reveal that the top law enforcement officer of the United States may have been prevented from reviewing the wiretapping program that had already been put in place by the president.
>>"In his notes, Mueller says that Ashcroft 'reviewed for Gonzales and Card the legal concerns relating to the program. The AG also told Gonzales and Card that he was barred from obtaining the advice he needed on the program by the strict compartmentalization rules of the White House'." (Italics added by author Matt Renner.)
Needless to say, Ashcroft's replacement was a guaranteed "loyal Bushie," (wait for it!) Alberto Gonzales.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations, has taught at universities in California and Washington, worked for two decades as a writer-editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
i remember being quite sure that the alerts were political in nature. you say that ridge admitted it? i never saw that.
do you have any links?
thanks for your good work.
joanB
by
Joan Brunwasser (133 articles, 3335 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 589 comments)
on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 9:24:11 PM
