Idiocy

If you didn't know this was going to happen above Manhattan and you were in a tall office building, what would be your first thought?

That's a pretty big unforced error, Louis Caldera.  We'll see if you keep your job as Director of the White House Military Office.  Apparently Obama was furious when he was informed.  This will be a nice test of accountability in the Obama era.

It was all for a "photo op," because apparently the White House Military Office has never heard of Photoshop.

UPDATE: After the review of the incident, Louis Caldera lost his job.  Score one for accountability.

The 9/11 Timeline

If it had been a Democrat that was President on 9/11, this would be all we'd hear about until impeachment:

• Jan 20, 2001: Bush Inaugurated
• Jan 25, 2001: Richard Clarke sends Condi Rice memo, warning about al Qaeda. Rice does nothing.
• August 6, 2001: Bush gets memo titled "Bin Laden Determined to strike in US." Bush responds by telling the briefer, "All right. You've covered your ass, now." Then does nothing.
• September 11, 2001: Bin Laden strikes in US.

(h/t Atrios)

Respect for the Opinions of Mankind

Another example of why the Bush Administration members shouldn't be taking any European vacations:

The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, according to medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.

...

Such episodes are among more than 250 cases The Washington Post has identified in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003 -- the year the Bush administration handed the job of deportation to the Department of Homeland Security's new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE.

Involuntary chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes. The practice is banned by several countries where, confidential documents make clear, U.S. escorts have been unable to inject deportees with extra doses of drugs during layovers en route to faraway places.

These guys really reach for the stars.

9/11 Recommendations Vetoed?

Wow, this is weird.

The U.S. Senate began debating legislation to bolster America's security on Wednesday with the White House threatening a veto because one part would extend union protection to 45,000 airport workers [...]

The overall bill would implement many of the stalled recommendations of the bipartisan commission created after the September 11 attacks.

The measure refines other recommendations and imposes new ones, such as the labor provision, and would let state and local governments share information with federal authorities, build better communication systems and provide grants to help high-risk areas prepare for disasters.

But White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said if the labor provision remains in the legislation, "the president's senior advisers would recommend he veto the bill."

Thirty-six Republican senators sent a letter to Bush on Tuesday saying they would provide the needed votes to sustain a veto in the 100-member Senate.

Wow, you'd think they'd have done a preliminary whip count before waving the veto threat. Instead the Republicans have to smack him in the face.

Bin Laden's Economic War

This post is about something that's been bothering me for years - the selective quoting of the Big Bads by Republicans to support their pointless warmongering. I'm reminded today of this peeve by one of it's chief progenitors, a Cheney:

· Quitting helps the terrorists. Few politicians want to be known as spokesmen for retreat. Instead we hear such words as "redeployment," "drawdown" or "troop cap." Let's be clear: If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists. Don't take my word for it. Read the plans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman Zawahiri to drive America from Iraq, establish a base for al-Qaeda and spread jihad across the Middle East. The terrorists are counting on us to lose our will and retreat under pressure. We're in danger of proving them right.

"Don't take my word for it. Read the plans" of the terrorists, indeed. The neoconservatives reliably quote the same lines from Bin Laden - that our retreat after Somalia showed "we didn't have the stomach for a prolonged fight," for instance - but they leave out half of Bin Laden's stated strategic goal. The economic war of attrition is how Osama believes he defeated the Soviet Union, vying with Reagan for credit.

Bin Laden's words:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.

(snip)

As part of the "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan," bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States.

"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

So, for those of you conservatives who think that we have to "listen to Bin Laden's words" and to oppose his every intention, shouldn't you also now reject the War in Iraq as playing directly into Al Qaeda's strategic goals? His line about every one of Al Qaeda's dollars defeating a million American dollars carries weight. It is exactly the sort of calculus in which those of us who opposed this war engaged. You know, strategic thinking rather than "He killed my pappy."

"Able Danger," or Not?

Crazy Curt Weldon, of "I Personally Found the WMDs" fame, has been nailed on yet another Bush-cultist lie. The Senate Intel Committee has just released a report on Weldon's "Able Danger" story, wherein Weldon contended that the FBI had Atta's name and picture before 9/11, but that the "Gorelick Wall" had stopped them from connecting the dots.

Military analysts assigned to the effort did create charts with pictures of Al Qaeda operatives whose identities were known publicly at the time, the committee found. But the committee concluded that none of those charts depicted Atta, and that the claims of Weldon and others may have been caused by confusion.

...."One of these individuals depicted on the chart arguably looked like Mohammed Atta," the committee concluded. "In addition, the chart contained names of Al Qaeda associates that sound like Atta, as well as numerous variations of the common Arab name Mohammed."

Put this crazy Weldon lie with the attempt to justify the Iraq War - in the trashcan. I can't tell you how many times I've confronted the forlorn, logically orphaned arguments that descend from this one man's wanton lying. Luckily, he's one of the Republicans we knocked off this election cycle, along with Rick Santorum, his WMD-story buddy.

E-mail to a Friend

I was thinking about what you said today as you were heading for the escalators - that the Democrats favor the terrorists over Americans. I've been thinking about that off and on while I research this Data Center project late into the night, and I just get angrier and angrier that people hold that position. I felt 9/11 like the death of 3000 brothers and sisters, and the pain has not diminished in the intervening years. For me, it was and is very real, and changed entirely the way I think. To say that the Democrats are on the side of the terrorists is to start a fight. A literal, nose-bloodying fight, my friend, for you are impugning my love for my fellow American - my brothers and sisters; my fathers and mothers.

So, in the interest of restoring my ability to be civil to you, I'd like the opportunity to try to make you understand my personal commitment to the war on terror, which should, for a smart man like you, serve to convince you that neither I, nor therefore the Democrats are interested in "coddling" or "protecting" the terrorists. I wrote the following last May, in response to exactly the mindset you apparently have. Try to read it with an open mind - it is the best mirror of the contents of my soul that I could manage. I know you will be able to understand.

...What pushed me to think of myself as a Democrat was the way we executed the War on Terror. The unfinished job in Afghanistan hurt me. I felt like I was physically mourning the life we allowed Bin Laden to continue living. I wanted the big gets. I wanted Mullah Omar. I wanted Al-Zawahiri . I wanted them killed, or even better, brought to the dock in American courts, so the world could see the sagacious exercise of Justice. Instead, no such news arrived. Even then, it was clear that we held back for some reason. 15,000 troops in Afghanistan? To capture the most hated villains in American history? Fewer boots on the ground than police in New York City? For the love of god, why would we pursue with such daintiness?

The fog surrounding the answer started clearing soon after the Afghanistan conflict cooled - we needed those troops for Iraq. As we started banging the war drums about Iraq, I read everything I could get my hands on, and unlike Afghanistan, there was some dissent about pursuing "the terrorists" to Iraq. There were no Al Qaeda operating in the Saddam controlled portions of Iraq, I learned. To me, it was automatically apparent that no American would be on the side of Al Qaeda - outside the normal collection of the literally insane. No American could have watched the murder of our brothers and sisters and not felt the same rage and sorrow that I did. So when dissent began, I listened, considered, and came to the conclusion that Iraq was no threat to us and was in no way responsible for 9/11. I didn't conclude that the anti-war types must have been objectively on the side of Al Qaeda. Luckily for me, I opposed the Iraq War from the start. Thank god.

There was a second reason I opposed the Iraq War. I hesitate to even state it, since it is so painfully obvious. If the goal of the War on Terror is to decrease the amount of terrorism directed against Americans, then it's unforgivably immoral and strategically myopic to pursue that goal by bombing the living hell out of people that have nothing to do with terrorism directed against Americans. To paraphrase one of the greats: It's like ordering a pizza and getting a free walrus. Even if the walrus were excellent, I mean truly exemplary, I'm really not in the market for it and it's not why I ordered the pizza. Similarly, no matter what rationale the administration stated or how "fun" and well executed the war would be, ultimately, wars of choice work against the main goal of the war on terror - protecting me and mine. Imagine how you would you react if your father was scattered around the block because of no fault of his own. I know how I would react: exactly the same way I did on the morning of September 11th. I felt Hatred, Rage, and a desire for Revenge so deep it took on a color. And that was for the murder of people I had never even met! Increasing the number of people who feel that way towards America only makes my family less safe.

The response on the Republican side, as I referenced earlier, was to question whether the opponents of the war in Iraq loved the terrorists more than the United States of America. Whether we were labeled Pro-Al-Qaeda, Pro-Saddam, traitors, cowards, or just "on the wrong side," the rhetoric didn't match the reality I was living since we all want to see the terrorists dead. I wondered how the Republicans could possibly believe the things they said about us, and that lead down a road of thinking similar to the one Glenn Greenwald has outlined repeatedly. Combined with their attitudes towards science, it was clear that the modern Republican party wasn't interested in rational thinking, or real debate. It seemed that they had been out of power so long that now that they had their chance, no liberally-biased facts would get in their way of ensuring a successful presidency. To them, that meant brooking no dissent, never wavering in their religious support, and being seen as Commander-in-Chief via the Iraq War. The government that enabled was one of desires fulfilled over empiricism applied. They wanted war, so they got one, and forever alienated me.

At this point, please watch this take on 9/11.

And this take on Bush's recent attacks on Democrats.

So don't say that Democrats favor the side of Terrorists again. Do not pretend that the Republicans, who have INCREASED the terrorist threat to America (according to 16 US intelligence agencies), gotten 2700 U.S. servicemen killed, and incurred 21,000 serious military casualties in the process, are somehow the more "serious" party for defending America. How dare you? We are not the enemy.

The bipartisanship after 9/11 faded and this poison atmosphere began when the President and the Republicans took the votes on the DHS (the Democrat's idea) and the Iraq War and used them to paint Democrats as traitors. What would the nation be like now, if the President had chosen a different course? Chosen to build on that unique unity and accomplish things, rather than using our shared pain as a political sledgehammer against the Democrats, who have always wanted to find and kill the terrorists even when President Bush said he didn't think they were "that important..." The Democrats, who have steadfastly supported the troops through this ineptly executed war even as Condi Rice blamed the Administration's failures on the Military's "thousands of tactical errors in Iraq". If President Bush had taken that different course, how cold would Osama's body be?

To support the desecration of the Constitution, of our cherished laws, is to accomplish what the terrorists have no power to do - destroy the very thing that has made America great. If anyone is unpatriotic, it is the President, and it is you, for lying to the American people about whose side the loyal opposition is on.

-Kepler

P.S. You know why my conversations with Boortz are more civil than those with you? Because Neal will not countenance the view that the Democrats are on the terrorist's side - that they are traitors. He is a civil man, so we can disagree civilly.

Condi Fails Us Again

Hot on the heels of news regarding Condi's direct involvement in lying to the public about the air condition around Ground Zero after 9/11, we have yet another bombshell. When this election cycle is done there wont be any more talk of Condi running for President in 2008.

This time, Condi directly stood in the way of preventing 9/11. The burden of guilt she must feel makes her stuttering performances on the topic during 2003 and 2004 more understandable. I remember thinking a number of times that she seemed on the verge of an emotional moment. Were I her, I certainly couldn't have withstood questioning after the role she played in this episode, described in Woodward's new book:

It describes how, on July 10, 2001, CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters "to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. The mass of fragments made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately."

Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser. "For months," Woodward writes, "Tenet had been pressing Rice to set a clear counterterrorism policy... that would give the CIA stronger authority to conduct covert action against bin Laden.... Tenet and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action.

"Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming....

"But Tenet had been having difficulty getting traction on an immediate bin Laden action plan, in part because Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had questioned all the intelligence, asking: Could it all be a grand deception? "

Woodward describes the meeting, and the two officials' plea that the U.S. "needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden."

The result? "Tenet and Black felt they were not getting though to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies."

"Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated. Though Rice had given them a fair hearing, no immediate action meant great risk. Black felt the decision to just keep planning was a sustained policy failure. Rice and the Bush team had been in hibernation too long....

They were warned by the Clinton Administration, and they were warned by their own Director of Central Intelligence - then the chief of all the USA's intelligence resources. They were strongly warned, and they didn't even have a meeting about bin Laden because Bush didn't want to "swat at flies." It's that same aversion to Clintonian "small bore initiatives" that I've mentioned before.

Clinton tried to get bin Laden. They had 8 months, strenuous warnings, and they did not try. At that time, Bush thought that his most serious duty, to protect the American people - a duty he's been reiterating over and over these past months - meant building a grand missile defense shield to protect us from a threat that does not exist. On the morning of September 11th, Condi was going to give a speech on the national security importance of the Ballistic Missile Defense Shield... needless to say, it was cancelled.

They did not try.

Olbermann on 9/11

Keith Olbermann has just been on fire for the last few months. Here's his take on the anniversary of 9/11:



This is the kind of rhetoric I like to see on our side of the aisle - very aggressive, and making no appologies for the convictions we hold. I believe Congressman Conyers used one of Olbermann's commentary pieces on the House floor last week, in fact. More of this, please.

When the YouTube link goes down, you can watch it here, thanks to Crooks and Liars.

Video of Osama in Tora Bora

For all the right-wingers who said we never had bin Laden in our sights at the Battle of Tora Bora - which we outsourced, by the way - the CIA has video evidence. Believe your own eyes or don't, wingers.

The Washington Post has the story, and they really bury the lead:

Intelligence officials think that bin Laden is hiding in the northern reaches of the autonomous tribal region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This calculation is based largely on a lack of activity elsewhere and on other intelligence, including a videotape, obtained exclusively by the CIA and not previously reported, that shows bin Laden walking on a trail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when U.S. forces came close but failed to capture him.

(snip)

On the videotape obtained by the CIA, bin Laden is seen confidently instructing his party how to dig holes in the ground to lie in undetected at night. A bomb dropped by a U.S. aircraft can be seen exploding in the distance. "We were there last night," bin Laden says without much concern in his voice. He was in or headed toward Pakistan, counterterrorism officials think.

That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

Several officers confirmed that the number of special operations troops was reduced in March 2001

We had bin Laden, the most deservedly hated man in American history, and we let him get away because we diverted troops to prepare for the invasion of Iraq - a war of choice that had nothing to do with 9/11, protecting us from weapons of mass destruction, or spreading democracy to the Arab world. This Administration is not interested in fighting a smart war on terror - they are only interested in getting elected. Theirs is a long record of failure, and is five years of failure enough? If you think they're headed in the right direction, vote Republican. If you think we need a new direction so that we can get some results, vote Democratic.