CIA to Blackwater : Kill, Baby, Kill

Government outsourcing according to Bush-Cheney ?

. To Halliburton: drill, baby, drill

. To Blackwater: kill, baby, kill

Even if Blackwater didn't succeed in capturing nor killing jihadists*, the contractor managed to kill at least 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007. A small step compared to the hundreds of thousand deaths caused by that illegal invasion, but a giant leap for a private corporation.

So as someone said, Mission: accomplished.

And Magna cum laude according to standards set by then Amerikan rulers, most notably :

. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a.k.a. The Chief Torture Officer, head of the Destruction of Justice

. Vice President Dick Cheney, a.k.a. The Chairman of the Waterboard, a supervillain with a knack for illegality and infamy.

. President George W. Bush, a.k.a The Fundamentalist in Chief, a stubborn again theocrat under whose rule America ended up one Supreme Justice away from outright fascism.

We don't know yet what CIA's Leon Panetta will come up with next, but expect more public outcries than five years ago when, even as all abuses were perfectly known, Dubya's Weapons of Mass Disinformation earned him a clear mandate from American voters to keep digging.

Eric Holder, this is your time to shine and restore justice in the US.

blogules 2009

* see "C.I.A. Sought Blackwater's Help to Kill Jihadists" (NYT 20090819)

Scoop : Cheney is not a democrat... but why this 5 month delay ?

Leon Panetta put the last nail on Dick Cheney's coffin.

As soon as he learned, on June 23rd, the existence of a secret CIA counterterrorism program hidden from Congress for 8 years (guess which years), Panetta closed it and alerted both Congress intelligence committees, revealing the fact that this secrecy was imposed by direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney*.

I can't see how Lobby Dick can avoid justice now (he'll probably have to answer to other criminal charges**). David Addington is also in the line of fire on that one. At last, Eric Holder can start the cleaning and America a fair inventory of the doomed Bush Legacy***.

So Dick Cheney is a soon to be convicted felon, an enemy of the State and democracy... nothing new under the sun.

The key question here is : why did it take 5 months to brief Panetta ?

According to CIA Spokesman Paul Gimigliano : "It's not agency practice to discuss what may or may not have been said in a classified briefing. When a C.I.A. unit brought this matter to Director Panetta's attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect."

Well the team was not swift at all. Unless Cheney's orders were to go beyond the Bush-Cheney administration. The time to solve technical issues, like paper jams in the shredder room.



* see "Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project" (New York Times - Scott Shane -20090711)
** see previous blogules on Lobby Dick, including "Welcome on Waterboard", "Yoo got mail"... or on a lighter side "Lobby Dick tries to retire, fails to retract.
*** BTW: Holder is considering - at last - probing Bush torture policy : see "Independent's Day".

9/11 Truthers Knockin' At Your Door

A "discussion" with a 9/11 Truther is similar to a visit from a Jehovah's Witness : about 30 seconds into his monologue, you wish you never opened the darned door... and the fanatic won't leave until he's managed to either convert you, or extort from you the pledge to read the tons of brochures he came with.

And it works : the cult claims every day more followers, and because of the network effect (now that more and more people talk about it around me, it sounds more plausible), "skeptics" now refer to the few naïves who keep refusing to believe in The Obvious Truth. At the speed of light or almost (not everybody is optical fiber connected, but the internet surely helps), an underground streamlet becomes the powerful mainstream.

By the end of 2006, more than one third of Americans thought that 9/11 was somehow masterminded by their own Government (cf "Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away" - Time Magazine 20060903). At that stage, this alternative propaganda reached the levels of the official propaganda circa 2004 elections. By "official propaganda", I mean the neocon/theocon spin (Saddam did it), not the plain facts (al Qaeda did it).

Of course, the vast majority of believers have nothing to do with the minority of activists from the far left and the far right who designed this now indestructible perpetual motion device. The aim of the game is not to reveal truth but to keep masses of faithful citizens very angry against the media, democracy or justice... and thus ready to switch to something radically different.

In an ultra-conservative's "best of all possible worlds", the Democratic Party, which somewhat managed to sideline the more or less nihilist "ultra-liberals" who doomed its federal elections for decades, could face the same turmoil as the Republican Party facing its own fundamentalist "minority" (see "GOP : Time to Split"). In a nutshell : US extreme right, in its last throes, resuscitating US extreme left... now we're talking conspiration theories, GOPdamnit !

I've already made¹ the parallel with fundamentalism and explained how decent citizens, legitimately demanding accountability and transparency, are being shamelessly fooled, how 9/11 revisionist movements actually serve both the terrorists who committed the crimes, and the excuse for an administration that deliberately betrayed the victims and lied to its own people.

You want to elaborate on this parallel.

In the endless and strange alternative swamps roam self-proclaimed Keepers of The Truth About 9/11. I guess this breed of fundamentalists, "Truthers", owe their name to the same guys who came up with "pro-life" for "anti-abortion rights". Just like with religious fundamentalists, you can find an infinity of Truths, sects, and charismatic preachers. The difference is that each one of them publishes his own Holy Book.

Speaking of which... one of the main reasons why conspiration theories keep multiplying is the fact that the supposed reference book happens to be a total joke for everyone, including its own authors. Doomed from the start, The 9/11 Commission Report was reluctantly initiated more than one year after the attacks (at that time, even the name of the House Majority Leader was DeLay), and carefully monitored and edited in order to spare the Bush-Cheney ticket... Unsurprisingly, when the final report was issued (July 2004), 9/11 revisionists had more fish to fry than 11/2 conspiratists.

Aggravating circumstances : the whole 9/11 affair is plagued with all the ingredients needed for vintage conspiracy theories. Secret services from Western and Eastern countries alike were aware of the eminence of a massive terror attack in the US involving planes, the White House dismissed the threats, neocons (and Darth Vader himself, the very Lord of False Flags) were waiting for the occasion to spread wealth for corporate lobbies and mayhem for enemies of democracy, the operation leveraged on al Qaeda's comprehensive network and often from US friendly countries, and the public opinion had been relentlessly carpet bombed by Dubya's Weapons of Mass Disinformation... enough stuff to feed one successful thriller trilogy, two sequels, five prequels and a pretzel - no sweeteners needed, thank you.

Anyway... Truthers are pumped up to the max, and they want to expose everything about 9/11. Well... almost everything. For instance, they refuse to see those plane debris around the Pentagon, they don't want to consider the potential links between the collapse of the WTC and the minor dent caused by a small boeing passing by, and they have no clue whatsoever how a peaceful santa claus look-alike meditating in the Afghan mountains could have any connection with this American tragedy.

As Michelle Malkin nailed it the other day, "The plain truth will never mollify a Truther"².

Truthers are the masters of cover-up : everyday, they overwhelm facts with thick layers of new documents, analysis, and theories. Everyday, this fertile soil welcomes more fundamentalists eager to grow everyday more greenbacks. Too bad the said theories are not as sustainable as this profitable ecosystem...

Which may explain why, when it comes to claiming justice, those guys are more successful at building Facebook petitions than bulletproof cases for the usual legal path.

I mean come on, this is America, a country where even before gas prices took a hike, there were more lawyers per capita than cars (I'm wrong ? Sue me). This is Amerika, a country where the First Amendment makes sure the Nazi Party can parade in Ohio or sponsor a highway in Oregon³. This is America, back on track, where even the President's Vice and his former Chief Torture Officer can be brought to justice⁴. This is America, where even O. J. Simpson can run, but can't hide.

The day someone actually finds the proof that al Qaeda didn't commit 9/11, and the day this person actually wants to make his Truth triumph in the arms of Justice, he will succeed. You betcha.

The question is who's gonna win the Race of the Millenium : the fundamentalists desperately waiting for the WTC Messiah, or the fundamentalists ready to provoke the second coming of the Christ / Mahdi via their own false flag⁵ ?

---

1 - sorry dear compassionate reader, but you'll have to visit my French website for that blogule ("Propagande + contre-propagande = tout bénef pour les extrémistes"). Ditto for the parody I recently committed about a mythical French 9/11 ("11 Septembre français : l'incroyable vérité"). Needless to say Truthers didn't enjoy the joke and retaliated. I decided to expose them once again in "Baggy Truthers", a blogule which I decided to follow-up with a translation into my broken English (the very pamphlet you're reading right now).

2 - "The plain truth will never mollify a Truther. There’s always a convoluted excuse – some inconsequential discrepancy to seize on, some photographic “evidence” to magnify into a blur of meaningless pixels – that will rationalize irrationality." ("Truthers to the left of me, truthers to the right" 20081205).
NB: yeah, I know... I'm a subscriber to Karl Rove's e-mails and I sail dangerous seas over the web. But browsing the site of a "conservative syndicated columnist, author, and Fox News Channel contributor" can be rewarding sometimes. Check this banner out : what a lovely souvenir I fished on her homepage yesterday - Santa GOP has already come to town ! I voted McCain and all I got is this lousy Palin 2012 T-shirt ! =>

3 - see "Red blogule to the First Amendment - Land of Opportunity for Nazis, Land of Plenty for Fascism"

4 - see "Everybody loves Raymondville, TX"

5 - see "Iran : who wants war and why"

Jane Harman, save our soul

"I look forward to your response."

"Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the President ?"

To this question, and many other relevant ones regarding interrogation techniques used by the Agency, Scott W. Muller, CIA's general counsel, lyrically answered "I think it would be fair to assume that policy as well as legal matters have been addressed within the Executive Branch."

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), top Dem in the House Intelligence Committee, received no feed back regarding the most crucial issue of the destruction of the infamous videotapes either*. Her recommandation was pretty clear, though : "You discussed the fact that there is videotape of Abu Zubaydah following his capture that will be destroyed after the Inspector General finishes his inquiry. I would urge the Agency to reconsider that plan. Even if the videotape does not constitute an official record that must be preserved under the law, the videotape would be the best proof that the written record is accurate, if such record is called into question in the future. The fact of destruction would reflect badly on the Agency."

Praise Jane Harman for restoring the image of the Democrats and beyond, the whole American people, in front of History.

Let's forget about Muller and even Gonzales. The President must answer by himself. In front of an Impeachment Commitee.

"I look forward to your response."

In very deed.

* Harman fully disclosed her letter to Muller and his answer on her House.gov site. On the destruction of the tapes, see also "Faith, lies and videotapes" (20071207)

Justice now

Alberto R. Gonzales, David S. Addington, Harriet E. Miers, John B. Bellinger III... the simple mention of those names reminds us the way justice has been disgraced under the Bush-Cheney rule (denial of justice, withdrawal from international conventions, promotion of torture, illegal abductions, the Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib messes... you name it).

These four Bush "law" experts discussed together the destruction of the CIA tapes at the core of the scandal the most likely to lead to some form of impeachment in the short term. We know they didn't issue any warning against the destruction, but we don't know if they pushed in favor of it - one can easily guess where their preferences lied.

We do know what John Negroponte, then the head of national security, recommended. He sent a memo to Goss, then the head of the Agency and thus a subordinate, warning against the destruction of the said tapes.

We do know that the CIA tapes have been destroyed.

Don't tell me a small fish turned the wrong button at the wrong time in a matter involving such big whales (nothing personal, Karl*).

Once again, we are not talking about a fling with an intern in the Oval Office but about the cover up of acts of torture condoned by both the President and his VP.

If the American people wants justice, it should demand impeachment right now.

* see "Whale Hunt at the White House" (20070814)

Faith, lies and videotapes

Mitt Romney may lose the primaries because he's a Mormon supporting religious diversity and mutual respect*. Mike Huckabee may win the primaries because he's a moron supporting creationism and ID.

Guess what : the case for Iran was forged, intel cooked** - and the CIA even destroyed evidencies of Amerika's other wrongdoings : videotapes of torture sessions that could have revealed the faces of CIA agents. Because in Amerika, denouncing torture is a crime... unlike giving names of such weaselish peacemongers as Valerie Plame.

After signing so many pacts with the Devil, George W. Bush decides to write a letter to Kim Jong-il. It starts with "Dear Mr. Chairman", as if North Korea's dictator were a member of his base of "the Haves and the Have-mores". Dubya is just buying time : let me have a cleaner sheet with this atheist "pigmy" - I don't care if I lose face in Asia, all I want is you to let me finish this little crusade of mine in the Middle East before my mandate is over.

This is Amerika all right : this country has lost its values to the point it cannot even consider impeaching its most dangerous criminal.

* this absurd witch hunt is still on, and the reverse burden of proof remains to be implemented. As I pleaded before (see "Universal Declaration of Independence From Fundamentalism " - 20070809) : "The aim is not to please atheists and condemn believers but to expose fundamentalists, especially among those who are supposed to defend justice, education or democracy. You don’t want to ignite a witch hunt the McCarthy way (are you or have you ever been a fundamentalist ?), but rather to promote transparency over the hypocrisy and confusion fundamentalists are feeding upon. I’m asking for a much needed reverse burden of proof : nowadays, lawmakers are terrorized by fundamentalists and it should be the other way round. Instead of harassing the bulk of the candidates with questions regarding their private life, we should be forcing fundamentalists to come out in the open, give democracy the lead over the theocratic agenda. Lawmakers shouldn’t be compelled to demonstrate confusingly why they are good believers, they just should clearly tell that they don’t support fundamentalism and that, whatever they believe in, religion should not mix with politics in this country. Ultimately, if some people want religion to rule politics, let them found their own party like they do in other countries."
** nothing new under the sun (see "Iran : who wants war and why" - 20070925)

Chief Torture Officer

Impeachment. The situation requires impeachment.

I know neither Dubya nor Lobby Dick are likely to get it on time. But there is a chance their Chief Torture Officer will, as a tribute to such a disgraceful presidency.

The least one could say is Alberto Gonzales acted wrongly in the US at the head of the DOJ, but History is bound to attach two more exotic resorts to his name : Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Not to mention these Twilight Zones where people disappeared, phantom CIA planes landed, and justice was denied.

If Gonzales is not responsible for everything ("higher" beings were in charge), he clearly provided the theory and was a mastermind for the most revolting insults made by this administration to justice and democracy.

Impeaching Alberto Gonzales would be a small step for the restoration of American values, but a giant leap for mankind.

Red blogule to Dick Cheney - Apneamerika

Hold your breath. The latest videogame is about entering Amerika safe and leaving it alive.

First, you must pass through the Great Mexican Wall. Then, you have to avoid Florida snipers (The Gunshine State welcomes you*) and scary CIA Abductors. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200 but give ten times that amount to the GOP and you may reach the next level. But you can end up in a dead end even before entering Amerika - that twilight zone is called the Guantanamo Law Warp.

Now is the moment of truth : are you truly an Amerikan ? Answer a few tricky questions from Darth Vader (Lobby Dick Cheney), such as "Do you consider the law of the jungle in business to be Darwinian (only the fittest prevail) or creationist (there is a scheme and big corporations set some kind of an Intelligent Design) ?"

Whatever the outcome, you then must take a bath. Either in order to be baptised a stubborn-again Bushite, or to be drowned to death a cruel, inhumane and degrading way**.


* see "Red blogule to the Gunshine State - shootfirstlaw.org Hammered down by the NRA" (20051011)

** see "White blogule to John McCain vs cruel, inhuman, or degrading Amerika" (20051025)

Red blogule to the reconstruction of Afghanistan...'s talibans

9/11 harmed all major airlines but two : CIA Airlines and United Terror. None can be dubbed "no-thrill" and in spite of what the former claims, only the latter is a low cost company with genuine Qaeda members as frequent flyers.
Code sharing allows Chechens and other exotic partners to flock in numbers in Somalia or Afghanistan, where Talibans rule again and whack entire families without much reaction from peacekeepers stretched to the limit by the Rummy Doctrine.
Terrorism is stronger than ever, thank you. US casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq will soon reach 3,000 - not even one tenth of all deaths caused by this so-called "war on terror". Even in Paris, it's getting more and more difficult for a Muslim woman not to wear a scarf.
And the beauty of it is everything was planned from the start : for a majority of neocons who actually thought they would change the World for the better, only a minority of fundamentalists knew exactly what the said change for the better would mean.

White blogule to Scooter Webring Crasher Libby

So I. Lewis Libby Jr. was given by Dick Cheney the presidential green light for leaking the Valerie Plame Wilson - CIA link. Green light confirmed by his now successor David Addington right before meeting journalists.
Unless Amerika reached the point of no return towards Bushdom, Dubya's closest ring must implode : either the President's caught stealing bases or Lobby Dick makes a sacrifice fly to help him reach yet another base.
At the end of the game, home plate won't look like a Cooperstown's plate : George W Bush is bound to end in History's Hall Of Shame.
Condi Rice could enter the 2008 race as a Veep... Unless "her husband" is forced to resign beforehand : I've been waiting for a double play impeachment for over two years now.

White blogule to the Law Lords - find another al-Libi, Dubya

Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the Lybian detainee who confessed in 2002 a link between al Qaeda and Iraq, did it under torture but in an Egyptian jail (back then, the C.I.A. would still outsource this nasty business).
In London, the Law Lords just ruled that evidence obtained under torture (even on a foreign soil) could not be used in British courts.
The US have used the "foreign soil" loophole since the Cold War and torture has been banned since 1640 in England.
Talking about cold wars and smoking guns... Amerika's Real Estate Agent Condi Rice just clinched a deal with Romania where 4 US military bases will be installed. This former Soviet satellite enjoys a view on the European Gulf (the Black Sea ? an epitome of the Bush doctrine : a major oil and gas hub and an environmental nightmare), locates in Europe but not yet in the EU (perfect timing as far as the European agenda is concerned), and happens to be neither too close from the Middle East (the Gaza Tigers can draft Roger Clemens, their stones will never reach the Constanta shores), nor too far (when the boys are withdrawn, their toys will remain nearby). Of course, today's EU members won't budge and The Company Airlines gets all the time slots they need.

White blogule to John Murtha - My kingdom for a horse

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) : "I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions that what may need to be done."
VP** Dick Cheney (R-BA*) : "A few politicians are suggesting these brave Americans were sent into battle for a deliberate falsehood. This is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety. It has no place anywhere in American politics, much less in the United States Senate." NB : Lobby Dick, who couldn't win any Purple Hart since he doesn't have any (last time he tried it attacked him) should know about revisionism, corruption and shamelessness, which take place anytime in Amerika's White House.
Scott McClellan (R-BA*) : (Murtha) "is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party."
Michael Moore (I-MI) : "Is that the best you can do to persuade them to stick with you -- compare them to me? You gotta come up with a better villain. For heaven's sakes, you had a hundred-plus million other Americans who think the same way I do -- and you could have picked on any one of them! But hey, why not cut out the name-calling and the smearing and just do the obvious thing: Come join the majority! Be one of us, your fellow Americans! Is it really that hard? Is there really any other choice? George, take a walk on the wild side! Your loyal representative from the majority, Michael Moore."
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) : "By misrepresenting the facts, by misunderstanding Iraq and misleading the war, I believe the administration has brought us to the verge of a national security debacle."
VP*** George Bush (R-BA*) : "I'm here (NB : in Mongolia) on an important international mission. Secretary Rumsfeld asked me to check on his horse." A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

Who said that ? Richard The Third ? Dick, The Turd ? I don't care : here comes the Debate, at last.

But so late. More than one year behind schedule. We knew all about the lies, the torture, the disinformation, the CIA Airlines FFPs..., yet Dubya got reelected.

Both the Democrats and the Media hold a share of responsibility in this failure. To do the right thing, I'd expect them to lead the first double impeachment in History. A Late Summer Night's Dream ?

* Bush Administration
** Vicious President
*** Virtual President

Red blogule to the Department Of Justice - Denial Of Justice

A couple of months ago, French soldiers would try to cover up an incidental death in Ivory Coast : as soon as the Government understood it, they suspended the general in charge of the whole operation in the country.

Just days later, the US DOJ decided not to charge CIA felons for the institutionalized abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan*, considering enough people paid.

Only low rank soldiers have been charged but everybody knows who's responsible for the Abu Ghraib and Salt Pit infamies ; the man who even wrote down in memos his vision of an Amerika refusing the Geneva Convention and embracing torture ; the man George W. Bush put at the very head of the Department Of Justice.

You don't want to stir bitter feelings among CIA people these days. So Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales decided not to sue Senior Adviser Alberto R. Gonzales.

Shame, shame, shame ? Not really : this mob keeps talking about the pride of defending Freedom and Democracy against fascism.

Lynnie England definitely found her master in sick jokes.

* C.I.A. to Avoid Charges in Most Prisoner Deaths" (NYT 20051023)

Red blogule to New York University's Jacob Jacoby

Professor Jacob Jacoby may reconsider the name his NYU students picked for their agency devoted to the promotion of the CIA ("Agent C Marketing"). What's the usual color of C Vitamins ? Orange. Thus, I'd recommand "Agent Orange Marketing", definitely the most relevant description for this outfit.