Socialist Or Jihadist: You Can Only Pick One

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The claim that the Bush Administration “kept America safe from another attack.” following the September 11, 2001 attack on The Word Trade Center has been a talking point more then a fact from it’s first utterance. In order for such a statement to even be remotely true, George Bush and Dick Cheney would’ve had to pick up a rifle and stand a post in Afghanistan or Iraq. Anything short of that is not only absurd it’s bullshit.

After leaving office, the talking point became a mantra for former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz as they embarked on a media campaign following the release of legal opinions from The Department of Justices Office of Legal Council, which soon became known as “the torture memos.” - Both Cheney’s picked up the pace on their damage control tour and would always fall back on that mantra when their arguments in defense of torture where shot down like ducks in a row. “Well….at the end of the day, the Administration did keep America safe from another attack following 9/11.” Liz Cheney said countless times during the media campaign.

If that’s how the Cheney’s want us to see these events, then lets back up a few years to the first attack on the World Trade Center. President Clinton not only kept up safe through out the completion of two terms in office, but he managed to find the perpetrators, bring them to justice, and do so without launching pre-emptive war against a sovereign nation.

It was only a matter of months after Clinton handed control over to George W. Bush did that protection end when the new administration ignored several warning signs. The daily briefing that warned that Bin Ladin was determined to strike inside the U.S.” was ignored and couldn’t have been more explicitly informative then a courtesy call from Osama Bin Ladin himself.

Now President Obama seems to be falling into the same trap that war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan is a noble cause that will protect America. The fact of the matter is that it won’t and in fact, if anything, it will only increase the desire for Islamic extremist to launch another 9/11-style attack and weaken the Pakistani Government by pushing Al Qaeda and the Taliban across its border.

I needn’t remind the current administration that Pakistan has nuclear weapons that these groups would just love to get their hands on. Yet the Republicans would have us believe otherwise or what Bush and Cheney wanted us to believe for the better part of 8 years. The war against terror was nothing more then a jihad similar to the objectives of Blackwater. It’s chief objective was to rid the world of not only Muslim extremist but also the Muslim faith itself. Therefore, if you supported George Bush, you’re a Jihadist. After all, isn’t that the new battle cry of the right? – If you support Barack Obama, you’re a socialist. Well…I’d rather be a Socialist then a Jihadist.

Bush Admin Debates Using Military On U.S. Soil

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In early 2002, Bush administration officials debated testing the Constitution by deploying American troops into the Buffalo suburb of Lakawanna to arrest a group of six Yemini men suspected of plotting with Al Qaeda, according to former administration officials.

Some advisers to President George W. Bush, including Vice President Dick Cheney, argued that a president had the power to use the military on domestic soil to sweep up the terrorism suspects, who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six, and declare them enemy combatants.

In early 2001, the six young men had traveled to Afghanistan and spent a few weeks training at an Al Qaeda training camp and studying Islamic Revolutionary Theory.





Bush ultimately decided against the proposal to use military force and it was a good this that he did. The FBI had the home shared by the six young men under 24 hour surveillance for nearly a year, but there was never any suspicious activity.

When the government couldn't tie the group to any terrorist activity, they quietly dropped any charges of the men being an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. Instead, the men were charged for having gone to Afghanistan and purchasing uniforms at the Al Qaeda camp prior to there even being a global war on terror.

A decision to dispatch troops into the streets to make arrests has few precedents in American history, as both the Constitution and subsequent laws restrict the military from being used to conduct domestic raids and seize property.

The Fourth Amendment bans “unreasonable” searches and seizures without probable cause. And the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally prohibits the military from acting in a law enforcement capacity.

In the discussions, Dick Cheney and others cited an Oct. 23, 2001, memorandum from the Justice Department that, using a broad interpretation of presidential authority, argued that the domestic use of the military against Al Qaeda would be legal because it served a national security, rather than a law enforcement, purpose.

“The president has ample constitutional and statutory authority to deploy the military against international or foreign terrorists operating within the United States,” the memorandum said. The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States.

The memorandum was declassified in March. But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the document to justify deploying the military into an American town to make arrests.

Bush ended up ordering the F.B.I. to make the arrests in Lackawanna, near Buffalo, where the agency had been monitoring a group of Yemeni Americans with suspected Qaeda ties.

The five men arrested there in September 2002, and a sixth arrested nearly simultaneously in Bahrain, but when the Government couldn't tie the men to any terrorists activity, they quietly dropped all charges of the men being an Al Qaeda sleeper cell. The men pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges, which amounted to them purchasing uniforms at the camp during their visit prior to there even being a global war on terror.

Scott L. Silliman, a Duke University law professor specializing in national security law, said an American president had not deployed the active-duty military on domestic soil in a law enforcement capacity, without specific statutory authority, since the Civil War.

Senior military officials were never consulted, former officials said. Richard B. Myers, a retired general who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the discussion.

Former officials said the 2002 debate arose partly from Justice Department concerns that there might not be enough evidence to arrest and successfully prosecute the suspects in Lackawanna.

Dick Cheney, the officials said, had argued that the administration would need a lower threshold of evidence to declare them enemy combatants and keep them in military custody.

Earlier that summer, the administration designated Jose Padilla an enemy combatant and sent him to a military brig in South Carolina. Padilla was arrested by civilian agencies on suspicion of plotting an attack using a radioactive bomb.

Those who advocated using the military to arrest the Lackawanna group had legal ammunition: the memorandum by John Yoo and Mr. Delahunty. The lawyers, in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote that the Constitution, the courts and Congress had recognized a president’s authority “to take military actions, domestic as well as foreign, if he determines such actions to be necessary to respond to the terrorist attacks upon the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and before.”

The document added that the neither the Posse Comitatus Act nor the Fourth Amendment tied a president’s hands. Despite this guidance, some Bush aides bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects.

“What would it look like to have the American military go into an American town and knock on people’s door?” said a second former official in the debate.

Chief James L. Michel of the Lackawanna police agreed. “If we had tanks rolling down the streets of our city,” Chief Michel said, “we would have had pandemonium down here.”

The Lackawanna case was the first after the Sept. 11 attacks in which American intelligence and law enforcement operatives believed they had dismantled a Qaeda cell in the United States.

However, none of the sleeper cell cases prosecuted by the Government ever panned out to anything close to the announcements from the White House regarding the disruption of yet another terrorists sleeper cell on American soil.

In the months before the arrests, George Bush was regularly briefed on the case by Mr. Mueller of the F.B.I. and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence. The C.I.A. had been tracking the overseas contacts of the Lackawanna group.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed article in March, Mr. Yoo defended his 2001 memorandum and its reasoning, saying that after Sept. 11 the Bush administration faced the real prospect of Qaeda cells undertaking attacks on American soil.

“The possibility of such attacks raised difficult, fundamental questions of constitutional law,” he wrote, “because they might require domestic military operations against an enemy for the first time since the Civil War.”

Bush Kept America Safe: A Fantasy

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George W. Bush claims that his torture policies have kept America safe for seven years and that information obtained via these violations of the Geneva Convention have assertained specific information that have prevented subsequent terrorist attacks (plural) from taking place. Yet we have not heard word one as to the time, place, manor, and person or persons involved in these thwarted attacks, and what judicial measure of justice has been served upon the would-be terrorist?

Much like the so-called terrorist sleeper cell cases of Detroit, Portland, Lackawana, etal, there seems to be an eliment of fantasy in many of claims that Bush and Cheney make in justifying their torture programs. Cheney recently stated in an interview with CBS that he was convinced, absolutely convinced that these policies have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. Try as I may, I cannot accept such a claim at face value and particularly due it's source.

If the Septmember 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center claimed 3,500 lives, what kind of attack could Dick Cheney possibly believe his torture policy was directly responsible for interrupting that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The fact that he says "I'm convinced" that we saved hundreds of thousands of lives makes it quite clear that this claim is nothing more then an assumption, if not wishful thinking and that it has no basis in fact. Therefore, if he is only convinced and not certain that hundreds of thousands of lives were spared, then whatever information that was obtained via the waterboard would also be assumptive and speculative at best.

If you step back and look at the big picture surrounding this issue, I submit that it was actually President Clinton who is responsible for keeping America safe for seven years following the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. As disconnected as the FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Departments were during that time, Ramsi Youseff and a whole list of other individuals responsible were caught and brought to justice rather swiftly. Not only do I disagree that George Bush kept America safe as he cliams, I believe that Bush ignored vital information that was passed on to him by the Clinton Administration during the transition in regards to Osama Bin Ladin.

We all know that Bush gave no creedence to the "Osama Bin Ladin Determined To Strike Inside of The United States." memo and the famous "Okay, you've covered your ass." line when he was briefed yet again in person regarding OBL.

Way back in 1993, many may have wondered whether the World Trade Center bombing itself is not a harbinger of the train wreck coming. Well...we now have that answer and no matter how you want to disect it, it happened on Bush 43's watch, and his lack of attention and concern over Osama Bin Ladin was a key factor.

Chico Brisbane

One Percent Doctrine: A Ron Suskind Masterpiece

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The most interesting book I have ever read twice.
CHICO BRISBANE -

What is the guiding principle of the world's most powerful nation as it searches for enemies at home and abroad? The One Percent Doctrine is the deeply secretive core of America's real playbook: a default strategy, designed by Dick Cheney, that separates America from its moorings, and has driven everything -- from war in Afghanistan to war in Iraq to the global search for jihadists.
The story begins on September 12, 2001, the day America began to gather itself for a response to the unimaginable. Ultimately, that reply would shape the nation's very character.
Suskind tells us what actually occurred over the next three years, from the inside out, by tracing the steps of the key actors -- the notables, from the President and Vice President to George Tenet and Condoleeza Rice, who oversee the "war on terror" and report progress back to an anxious nation; and the invisibles, the men and women just below the line of sight, left to improvise plans to defeat a new kind of enemy in an hour-by-hour race against disaster. The internal battles between these two teams -- one, under the hot lights; the other, actually fighting the fight -- reveal everything about what America faces, and what it has done, in this age of terror.

President Bush. Good Luck & Good Riddance

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Good riddance Mr. President, good riddance to you.

As the clock runs out on the failed presidency of George W. Bush, he seems prepared to vacate his office profoundly ignorant of the monumental fiasco that he created and then blisfully presided over. He refuses to acknowledge the distruction that he will be leaving behind, even with the evidence right in front of his face. Or in one instance, flying right passed his face. When an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at the president, which is culturally the insult of insults in that region. Bush paused to wonder out loud what his "cause" might be. Almost as if the preemptive invasion of the sovereign nation that this journalist calls home wasn't even within the realm of possibility as the "cause" for his anger. It is this sort of breathtaking arrogance of George Bush that will surely dirty up the pages of American history with his name on them.

Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon both left office under staggering disapproval and public scorn. However, they both tried in vein to seek any amount of redemption for their failures. Failures which are now dwarfed by the failures of George Bush and his morally bankrupt administration. His distorted view of the world combined with his willingness to hear only that which validates his view became the breeding ground for his failed policies.