I can appreciate Miller’s disdain for those who have cashed in and his sentiment that the high officials should have resigned and spoken out instead of waiting, for if they had spoken out at the time it much more likely would have made a difference. Scott McClellan’s revelations of the Bush White House manipulating intelligence to justify the illegal war on Iraq would have been much more useful if he’d spoken out when he was being instructed to lie by the White House. Over a million lives wasted that have resulted from our invasion could have been saved.
Better late than never. I am glad that McClellan finally spoke up. It is a good thing, not a bad thing, that his conscience bothered him.
It’s good, not bad, that McClellan revealed dirty secrets, secrets that were no secret to those of us who were saying it all along in the anti-war movement. But the fact that an insider revealed it carries a great deal of weight. It makes this country’s leaders’ deceit all the harder for their ardent defenders to refute and dismiss as the ravings of malcontents. I don’t care whether McClellan made a bundle of money for doing it. I don’t even care what his motives are as long as he’s telling the truth. I’d happily trade the money he made for the hundreds of billions spent on this immoral and unjust war.
As for Stephanopoulos, Miller’s right, the man’s clearly his own biggest fan. But just because he thinks the world revolves him is no reason to lower a wall of secrecy around the White House even thicker than what already exists. Miller’s advocating promised silence as a condition for serving in the White House extends the trend that Glenn Greenwald correctly decries as the increasing non-accountability surrounding the executive branch (and the government more generally).
As Barbara Bowley reveals at length in her chapter “The Campaign for Unfettered Power: Executive Supremacy, Secrecy and Surveillance “ in my book, Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney:
In May 2006 USA Today revealed that since 2001 the NSA has been illegally and covertly collecting a massive database of calls placed by tens of millions of Americans. In May 2006, shortly after this startling revelation, Bush nominated Gen. Michael Hayden to be the new CIA Director. As NSA chief from 1999 to 2005, Hayden oversaw that agency’s massive, illegal surveillance. During his confirmation hearings, Hayden refused to publicly answer any probing questions about this surveillance, continuing to claim against all evidence that he and the NSA were abiding by the law.
As each new revelation of more massive and more intrusive illegal surveillance comes out, the administration concocts a new cover story, only to subsequently have another whistleblower reveal the falsity of the administration’s last rationale. Small wonder the administration is so intent on criminalizing media coverage of their illegal acts and thus strangling the public’s right to know.
On May 16, 2006 ABC News reported that the administration was tracking phone numbers dialed by major news organizations in order to intimidate reporters and those in government who provide leaks to the press. Furthermore, this tracking can be done without court order, using a “national security letter,” issued by an agent in the field. This letter can require a phone company or Internet provider to turn over the information, and not reveal the act has been done. According to Brian Ross, ABC News’ Chief Investigative Correspondent, the Justice Department’s figures show the F.B.I. issued 9,254 of these national security letters in 2005, aimed at surveilling 3,500 US citizens and legal immigrants. This administration is clearly operating surveillance at a magnitude far greater than it has ever represented. (Pp. 168-169)
If Colin Powell had broken ranks - he claims now that his February 2003 perjured speech before the UN Security Council advocating a war on Iraq is “painful” to remember – this might have single-handedly stopped the Bush White House’s deceitful plans for war from being carried out.
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