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Welcome to MichaelMoore.com: "January 29th, 2007

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'The Fifth Estate' ...Cindy Sheehan

Monday, January 29th, 2007
'The Fifth Estate' ...Cindy Sheehan

"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper." --Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785.

If one "googles" Thomas Jefferson and "freedom of the press" one finds a myriad of quotes from the second president, author of the Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia. Mr. Jefferson understood the importance of having a free press as a "fourth estate" of checks and balances on the Federal Government. His concerns that lack of a free press would lead to tyranny and the situation that we are in now with regards to one of the branches of government becoming too powerful over the others was very prescient, to say the very least.

In the United States today, we have a media that is controlled by corporations that are, for the most part, controlled by other entities that profit off of war. NBC is owned by General Electric that is a major war profiteer (which used to be a crime punishable by hanging). The corporate media has a lot at stake by keeping the wag the dog occupation of Iraq afloat on BushCo's failed ship of state.

The inadequacies and sycophantic nature of the press towards the Bush Regime are legion, but Dick Cheney was recently interviewed by Wolf Blitzer and instead of asking the Vice commander in thief about his connections to the obscene war profiteering company, Halliburton; or his being comfortable with surging more troops to Iraq when he had 5 deferments during the Vietnam conflict; or how he said the insurgency was in its final throes; or how his office was connected to outing Valerie Plane, Blitzer asked Dastardly Dicky about his gay daughter's pregnancy. Wolf almost wept with fear when the puppet master attacked him for asking such a question.

Besides a free press, another supposed check and balance on limiting executive power to its proper constitutional authorities is Congress. With its first vote to give Bloody George the authority to invade a harmless country and its continuing feeding Bloody George the blood money he needs to continue the killing and be unwilling to impeach BushCo for crimes against humanity, Congress abdicated its role in declaring war and reining in tyranny. Who can do the heavy labor that the other "estates" are shirking?

Over the weekend, we the people, went to marches and rallies by the hundreds of thousands. From movie stars who are finally breaking their silence to military families, Gold Star families, Vets, and other activists that don't have "skin in the game" we appeared in the hundreds of thousands. Some of us scraped together bus money and stayed 5-6 people per room to afford the trip. We carried creative signs and chanted or sang while we marched. Some of us have not been silent for years.

We want to put Congress, the media, and the executive branch on notice to show them that we will be the checks and balances that Mad King George and the rest so desperately need while we still have a nation to care about. We the people are the Fifth Estate and we are declaring that we will be peace inSURGEnts to save the people of Iraq and to bring our troops home and see BushCo imprisoned for their murder and corruption.

"I am persuaded that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army." --Thomas Jefferson, 1787

Right now we are the only ones.

Let's give Congress the courage it needs to finally do the right thing.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04.

She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute.

She is the author of three books, the most recent is Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism.

Impeach Now!!

Thursday, January 11th, 2007
Impeach Now! ...by Jodin Morey

Well, our chance to convince Nancy Pelosi to Impeach Bush/Cheney is this Monday Jan. 15th.

Pelosi most likely said impeachment was "off the table" to remove any appearance of conflict-of-interest that would arise if she were thrust into the presidency as a result of the coming impeachment.

What we need to do is to pressure Pelosi not to interfere with impeachment maneuverings within her party. Sending her Do-It-Yourself impeachments legitimizes her when she is forced to join the impeachment movement in the future.

Sacks and sacks of mail are about to arrive in Nancy Pelosi's office initiating impeachment via the House of Representative's own rules this Monday January 15th. This legal document is as binding as if a State or if the House itself passed the impeachment resolution (H.R. 635).

There's a little known and rarely used clause of the "Jefferson Manual" in the rules for the House of Representatives which sets forth the various ways in which a president can be impeached. Only the House Judiciary Committee puts together the Articles of Impeachment, but before that happens, someone has to initiate the process.That's where we come in. In addition to a House Resolution (635), or the State-by-State method, one of the ways to get impeachment going is for individual citizens like you and me to submit a memorial. ImpeachforPeace.org has created a new memorial based on one which was successful in impeaching a federal official in the past. You can find it on their website as a PDF.

You can initiate the impeachment process and simultaneously help to convince Pelosi to follow through with the process. Do-It-Yourself by downloading the memorial, filling in the relevant information (your name, state, etc.), and sending it in. Be a part of history.

Impeach for Peace -- Impeach Now!

Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack

Cheney/Bush vs. Baker Commission

Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack

By GARY LEUPP

The reaction to the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report suggests that a showdown is shaping up within the U.S. power elite between two different sets of cowboys. On the one hand, there are the George W. Bush cowboys who want to expand their conquests from Afghanistan and Iraq into Syria and Iran. It's a natural extension of the Manifest Destiny doctrine that underpinned the conquest of the "Wild West," the annexation of almost half of Mexico's territory in the 1840s, the "opening of Japan" resulting from gunboat diplomacy in 1854, the Marines' overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, and the establishment of a colonial empire from the Pacific to the Caribbean following the Spanish-American War. Bush and Dick Cheney saw nothing wrong with the Vietnam War (except the possibility that they might be personally involved, since they had other priorities at the time). They really liked the first Gulf War, but were disappointed it didn't conquer more. Thus Dubya told Mickey Herskowitz, a Houston Chronicle sports columnist helping ghostwrite his autobiography in 1999 that, "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade [Iraq]---if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it."

On the other hand, there are the Jim Baker-type cowboys who question the feasibility of further conquest at this time, and want to lasso in their wayward buckaroo buddies and rowdy youngins before they get everybody into deeper horseshit in them foreign parts. The Baker cowboys are saying talk to the natives at least, smoke the peace-pipe if necessary, then ride off into the sunset leaving a fort or two behind proudly waving the tattered flag to help save face.

Dubya's cowpokes say, "No, we don't talk to the natives in those rich lands, overflowing with milk and honey and petroleum products, that God made for us." Like a spirit-filled country parson, Bush declared (to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in 2003), "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." Solving that problem of course means making all of Southwest Asia U.S. and Israel-friendly.

(Here the concept of the "promised land," a central theme in the Old Testament which envisions an Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates and deeply affects modern Zionism, nicely dovetails with the entitlement notion so long operative in American psychology and mythology. The Pilgrims felt God gave them the heathen Indians' land, and even the most progressive American artists, such as Woody Guthrie ---"this land is your land, this land is my land"---and Bruce Springsteen---""I believe in a promised land"---draw on that powerful, ultimately religious concept. The twin myths of divine favor to the biblical Israelites and to the European settlers of America can easily enough in the whiskey-impacted cowboy mind produce the delusion that God wants a Yankee war on any oil-rich Muslim country. Especially after 9-11 because "they" attacked "us.")

The Bush gang, backed up by an Israeli posse, says the Syrian and Iranian leaders are evil. Dick Cheney, real bold behind his 28-gauge Perazzi shotgun, has declared, "We don't negotiate with evil. We defeat it." (Especially in a canned-hunt situation.)
But the Baker cowboys respond, "Well sure they're evil. They're murderous heathens. But we have to at least parlay with some of them, if it keeps us god-fearing folks from getting massacred. That's just common sense."

The ISG doesn't question the decision to invade Iraq, problematize its morality or acknowledge the humanity of the Iraqi resistance braves in the face of the Great White Father's assault. It doesn't say, "Pardners, you done wrong, and gotta be held to account." They don't want to deal with any of that history; they just want to move on. (Just like Rumsfeld deputy Paul Wolfowitz, who having disseminated so much disinformation to get Americans to back the assault on Iraq, dismissed the embarrassing collapse of the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction as a merely "historical issue" just a few months after the crime had occurred.) These cowboys aren't interested in going back and dredging up all that dirt, or questioning the need for the cavalry to stay in Iraq for ages to come. They just want the troops out of rifle range, as much as possible, so that the commonfolk back home don't start forming a lynch mob marching on DC. That means asking the Syrians and Iranians to help out.

* * * * *

That recommendation---that the U.S. in the context of a regional conference sit down and talk with those it wants to destroy---was the one most immediately and emphatically rejected by Bush, Condoleezza Rice and other top officials. That rejection is a strong indication that Dick Cheney continues to steer foreign policy assisted by neocon lieutenants such as Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser. From his undisclosed location, undaunted by abysmal popularity ratings, Cheney seems to keep Condi in line and on board the program, and during his weekly lunches with Bush encourages the cowboy president's messianic vision of a Greater Middle East free of terrorism, dotted with U.S. bases "protecting" the oil fields, friendly with Israel, and affording infinite profit opportunities to U.S. corporations.

Notice how the neocons out of power (including Richard Perle and David Frum) who have recently criticized Bush for his failure to properly subdue Iraq have spared Cheney, no doubt because they see him as their real remaining ally and rock of support in the administration. He may not share their emotional connection to Israel, so central to the neocon movement, but like them he is committed to using U.S. force to refashion the Middle East. He thinks in terms of securing U.S. geopolitical advantage vis-à-vis other imperialist powers and rising capitalist China as the U.S. economy relatively declines. (The U.S. GDP this year for the first time lags behind that of the European Union.) His interests dovetail with those of the neocons, which is why he seeded the administration with them when he constructed Bush's cabinet after the 2000 election.

As Robert Dreyfuss pointed out in the American Prospect in May 2006, Cheney sees China as the biggest long-term threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East, if not the world: "For the Cheneyites, Middle East policy is tied to China, and in their view China's appetite for oil makes it a strategic competitor to the United States in the Persian Gulf region. Thus, they regard the control of the Gulf as a zero-sum game. They believe that the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. military buildup in Central Asia, the invasion of Iraq, and the expansion of the U.S. military presence in the Gulf states have combined to check China's role in the region. In particular, the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the creation of a pro-American regime in Baghdad was, for at least 10 years before 2003, a top neoconservative goal, one that united both the anti-China crowd and far-right supporters of Israel's Likud. Both saw the invasion of Iraq as the prelude to an assault on neighboring Iran."

The administration still adheres to its New American Century game plan of toppling the Syrian and Iranian regimes, despite the Iraqi disaster. The "Office of Iranian Affairs," a successor of the "Office of Special Plans" that prepared the disinformation campaign leading into the Iraq War, occupies the same Pentagon offices as it predecessor and is headed by the same Machiavellian psy-ops specialist Abram Shulsky. John Dean, among others, predicts an assault on Iran next year, following the predictable failure of the UN Security Council to satisfy U.S. demands for harsh sanctions on Iran. A watered-down UNSC resolution will be cited as an international justification for preemptive action, which will blow away the Iranian leadership and produce some sort of friendly Iranian regime. Meanwhile Syria, blamed for political assassinations in Lebanon and support for "terrorist" Hizbollah will also feel Bush's terrible swift sword.

That's all impossible, many rational people say. These may include members of the Iraq Study Group, but their report---a shot across the bow of the Office of Iranian Affairs---indicates, it seems to me, some genuine alarm that the president is out to do the impossible, with more disastrous results. Surely they, and administration officials as well, are worried that an Iran attack could produce some embarrassments, like the resignations of high-level military officers. It could produce some seriously painful measures by China, which owns much of the U.S. national debt, and Russia. It would certainly intensify the already soaring anti-U.S. feelings felt throughout the world, and maybe even jeopardize the emerging alliance with aspiring superpower India. But those who brought us the Iraq War have enormous confidence in themselves and the power of their heroic will, which they think can create a whole new reality for generations to come. They feel that more aggression in Southwest Asia---even if it sows chaos, draws Iran's Revolutionary Guards into the Iraqi conflict, and generates another war between Israel and Hizbollah and its Lebanese allies---is necessary soon, under the current sympathetic president, lest the bold project be lost entirely.

Some suggest that the expansion of the war is inevitable given the internal logic of capitalist imperialism. But clearly many thoroughly invested in the system find the neocons nuts. They want to head them off before they with some of their Christian fundamentalist allies in tow produce an apocalyptic scenario. Baker, Hamilton & Co. seem to doubt that the system's best served at this point by attacking Syria and Iran, and are deliberating provoking discussion about the wisdom of the near-future, planned stages of the neocon project. If that's happening at the level of the ruling class, isn't there an even greater basis for the antiwar movement to agitate against an expanding war? The greatest deterrent of all would be Cheney's expectation that an assault on Iran might lead a politically informed American people to pour out into the streets as the attack gets underway, denouncing it, informing the world that we reject it and those who planned it and demand regime change right here.

* * * *

I've been accused of spinning a "conspiracy theory" because I connect the dots between Cheney, the neocons, the Office of Special Plans and the campaign to make war on Iraq. I'm really not a conspiracy theorist, but if I were one, I'd have to bring up the issue of Mary Cheney's pregnancy. Just bear with me.

On October 26, 1965, the Selective Service listed constraints on drafting childless married men. Cheney was then classified as 1-A , "available for service." Cheney, who had been married to his wife Lynn for fourteen months, may have been influenced by this policy change to think seriously about parenthood. Daughter Elizabeth was born nine months later on July 28, 1966. Cheney applied for and received a 3-A classification, his fifth and final draft deferment (following marriage and education deferments) during the Vietnam era when, as he has stated, he "had other priorities" than going to war.

Elizabeth, married to General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security Philip Perry, is now Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and sitting directly atop the spooky "Office of Iranian Affairs" inhabiting the Office of Special Plans' former offices in the Pentagon and headed by Machiavellian disinformation artist Abram Shulsky. (Such an irony that a child born out of a man's earnest desire to avoid the battlefield should be assigned to help him later in life rain down terror upon Iran.) Lynn's a powerful figure too, having spent seven years on Lockheed Corporation's board of directors, and serving as a "fellow" at the American Enterprise Institutute for Public Policy Research. She founded the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative group that monitors American academia and in November 2001 issued a report entitled Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It. The whole family is nasty, and Mary's being a lesbian and pregnant doesn't get her off the hook. She was public relations manager for Coors Brewing Co., for god's sakes. She was director of vice-presidential operations in the 2004 campaign. She's an AOL executive. But because she's a lesbian, and the Christian right hates lesbianism (the sin if not the sinner), she might receive sympathy from Americans who are liberal (or rational) on gay-lesbian issues. And who are also, antiwar and anti-Bush/Cheney.

So maybe Vice President Cheney, who's gotten women pregnant before to save his skin, might not have said to Mary, some months back, "Why don't you and your life partner Heather have a baby?" It makes the whole family seem so much more human, and complicated. So many have the stereotype of Cheney as the man who opposed the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa because he considered him a "terrorist" working with communists. A man who, while thoroughly callous when it comes to the well-being of South African blacks or Iraqi civilians, is filled with self-righteousness, telling the world "We don't negotiate with evil, we defeat it." A man dripping with corporate greed, ruthlessly pursuing his goals, repeating bald-faced lies every step of the way. A man actively planning an assault on Iran as we speak. But a man who supports and defends his gay daughter, expressing his own family values. Couldn't such a man, whose popularity is at rock bottom, benefit should it be known that in this Christmas season his daughter Mary is pregnant, and that he rejoices?

Cheney publicly disagrees with the president's position on gay marriage. Can you think of any other issue on which the two men publicly differ? And this isn't just any issue; it might have been the one that won the 2004 election, skillfully managed by Karl Rove. So it was significant that Bush and Cheney differed on it. Highly significant too that the president just told the press: "I think Mary is going to be a loving soul to her child. And I'm happy for her." That was a little risky for Bush. His hard-right Christian fundamentalist base, reeling from the revelation that yet another prominent Colorado preacher man has had a history of man-to-man sin, wasn't real pleased with it. It put Bush on record as saying, I'm not that homophobic. I'll bet he did it out of deference to Cheney, the man still calling the shots, and Cheney's family situation.

I don't think it's coincidental that the report of the "virgin birth" of the Komodo dragon in the British zoo comes out just as Mary's pregnancy hits the front pages. The Komodo dragon fertilized her own eggs; some lizards have evolved in such a way that they can do that. A female lizard can produce young without a male (and still be a good mother). A zoologist on NPR stated that by his calculations the earliest likely date for the lizards to hatch is Dec. 25.

Mary Cheney's special pregnancy. Virgin Mary's giving birth at Christmas. A lizard virgin birth on that same day. How likely is all this a coincidence?
Ok. I confess I've just playing with your mind. I don't believe Cheney encouraged Mary to get pregnant, or planted the Komodo dragon story in the press, or wants to steer the administration away from its Christian right base towards more gay-friendly stances in order to acquire a reputation for fairness and reason as it plans to attack Iran. I just believe that Cheney still shapes the cowboy mind in Washington, his violent amoral proclivities touched by ordinary family sentiments, to which he's asked the homophobic Commander-in-Chief to please attach himself. Bush's public happiness for Mary might be simultaneously a testimony that he is happy to leave the big decisions for his administration, as before, with Uncle Dick.

The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?

"Casting Ominous Conjecture on the Whole Success"

The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?

By ALEVTINA REA

The King is dead. Long live the King! With such words, proclamations about the departure of a deceased and the rule of a new monarch have been announced to the court and, subsequently, to the world. According to the Wikipedia website, "The phrase arose from the law of le mort saisit le vif--that the transfer of sovereignty occurs instantaneously upon the moment of death of the previous monarch." In the world of lawful rulers, the title of monarch is hard to challenge. A monarch may be, and often is, a dictator, but the sanctity of his rule is rarely questioned. Nonetheless, if overthrown and executed, the regicide is often mourned and regretted after the fact. Reverse the equation, and the situation is rather mockery than a real sorrow. The execution of a dictator is hailed as a justified accomplishment, but notes of doubt manage to creep in, notwithstanding the back-patting pretence of justice being carried out.

In Saddam Hussein's case, his departure from this world was accompanied with the following words: "The tyrant has fallen." And no one proclaimed: "Long live the tyrant!" to immediately announce transfer of sovereignty to the next in line. Saddam is dead, and who would dare to announce that a new dictator is about to reign over Iraq (or that the U.S.-backed president of Iraq is its new dictator personified)? And wouldn't it be even too pessimistic to predict that the next Iraqi government will be as tyrannical as Saddam's rule ever was? However, the question at hand is not about whether the dictator should be punished for his horrible deeds and be hanged as a common criminal. And the question is not about the fact that Saddam's tyrannical deeds were aided by the U.S. government when he was a convenient pawn to be used to further American interests in the Middle East. The question here is rather about the fairness of an execution so hastily carried out--less than four days after the verdict--and at the dawn of one of the two most important Islamic holidays. By cowardice and being an U.S. pawn, thus we know the current Iraqi government. By tactlessness and ineptitude we know the Bush administration.

Anybody who saw pictures of Saddam Hussein's execution could comment on the dignity written on Saddam's face in the last few minutes of his life and the criminal appearance of his executioners, whose faces were covered by ski masks, exactly as bank robbers' faces that are shown on TV--whether in movies or documentaries. Indeed, the impression is that a martyr had been executed in cowardly fashion by criminals presiding over the country. While the current Iraqi government's officials may boast about the justice finally imposed on the former ruler of Iraq, we need to ask ourselves whether Saddam's execution displayed Iraqi officials acting according to law or rather in a spirit of barbaric revenge. (In any case, it did reveal the indifference of the international community on this matter.)

It is a given fact that Saddam's cruel rule inflicted death on thousands of innocent Iraqi people. And it is also a fact that U.S. government officials supported his criminal deeds when it was convenient for U.S. interests abroad. Does the realization of the former make this execution more justified than Saddam's execution of Iraqis? Doesn't our knowledge of U.S. complicity in Saddam's crimes evoke the need to judge also those U.S. officials involved in his support? Is the execution of the criminal moral per se? Is capital punishment less barbaric than the original crime?

According to L.P. Pojman's definitions of capital punishment in his article "For the Death Penalty" (1998), "institutional or legal punishment is an evil inflicted by a person in a position of authority upon another person who is judged to have violated a rule." One word in this definition stands out immediately; that is, capital punishment is a calculated "evil," no less. The irony of the situation is that those who are authorized by law to punish the violators, in reality murder those whose actions (or murders) are considered morally wrong from the point of that law. The murder in the former case is justified while the murder in the latter is condemned. Hence, there is an inherent contradiction between what is proscribed by law and what is prescribed as a remedy. In "Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion and Death" (1966), Albert Camus offered the following considerations on the morality of official executions:

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life."

But such monsters are definitely encountered in official life of politics. In this particular case, the Iraqi government committed a premeditated murder of Saddam and, prior to this, the U.S. government handed him to his enemy, namely the current Iraqi authority. Therefore, the U.S. complicity in Saddam's previous crimes resulted in betraying him later on. It is important to remember that handing the criminal to his enemy is against international law. Moreover, another interesting fact is that Iraq reinstated the death penalty in August 2004, during the U.S. occupation. The new law on capital punishment became more expansive than it was during Saddam's years at the helm of Iraqi government. But who is to judge the criminal complicity of the U.S.A. during and after Saddam's dictatorial rule and the devastating effects of the U.S. occupation of Iraq? Which international authority will dare to confront the bullying power of the U.S.A. and demand its responsibility in international crimes?

While the U.S. government brags about bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq, which suffered during Saddam's regime, during those years and today it is perpetrator or accomplice in many of the criminal deeds inflicted on the Iraqi people. Behind good words hide evil means that--in reality--do not lead toward but rather barricade the path to democracy and civilization. As J. Reiman put it in his article, "Why the Death Penalty Should Be Abolished in America" (1998), the level of our "civilization is characterized by lower tolerance for our own pain and of others." When the state refrains from imposing grave harms such as a death penalty on those who deserve them, it propagates a powerful message about the repugnant nature of capital punishment, in this case, of Saddam's execution. By shifting to abolition of capital punishment, the government, or the state, acts in a way that advances civilization. It is definitely a deep contradiction between our country's claim to be a harbor of freedom and democracy--of civilization, in other words--and tolerance for the pain of the Iraqi people.

The partners in crime, in this case, Saddam and his U.S. supporters (during Saddam's regime before the invasion of Kuwait at least) cannot be judged differently, on dissimilar grounds. By executing its former ally, the U.S. government falls still lower and commits vengeance instead of justice. By continuing its occupation of Iraq, the Bush administration discloses that all its proclaimed intentions of bringing freedom and democracy to Iraqi people are false and hollow. Moreover -- to end with John Milton's words--the current U.S. politics in Iraq in general and its role in Saddam's execution in particular "seem to cast ominous conjecture on the whole success."

Alevtina Rea lives on Olympia, Washington and can be reached at sailcool@comcast.net.

The 911 Evidence that May Hang George W. Bush

Wednesday, 12 June 2002, 2:37 pm
Article: Cheryl Seal

The 9/11 Evidence that May Hang George W. Bush

By Cheryl Seal
Also published - 02 June 2002
http://web11.superb.net/www.nodomain.com/editorials/smoking_gun.html

The Case Against G.W. Bush: a Preliminary "Hearing" in the Court of Common Sense

At the very least Bush allowed 9/11 to happen. But the evidence indicates his guilt involves more than just a huge intentional sin of omission – this now seems certain. So it is ulcer-fomenting to watch him, Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and their PR army try to sell America yet another Big Lie – that they had no idea such a thing as 9/11 could happen...they could never have imagined it in their wildest dreams...they had no specific warnings...there was nothing unusual about the summer 2001 warnings, etc, etc, ad nauseam. I have compiled some material that clearly shows that the above litany is blatantly, arrogantly false. But first, let's hold a preliminary hearing in the "Court of Common sense".

To see through a wall of propaganda and determine what's really going on, one must tune out the spin completely and take a good, objective look at what has been DONE and what the parties involved have to GAIN by their actions. Let's look at the well-documented facts:

First, when Bush, Rice and the other top Reichmeisters discarded the warning on August 6, Bush's approval ratings had sunk to just 49% – this is the red zone for a president. As any political expert or presidential historian: Hit 45%, and impeachment may soon loom on the horizon.

Second, Bush's actions throughout his entire life show a clear and consistent pattern: without exception, he has always chosen the path that will benefit himself and his corporate friends the most and will do so in the face of even the most outraged criticism.

Third, the stolen election of 2000 proves that Bush was willing to participate in a very daring, very large scale crime in pursuit of power.

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Fourth, Bush's father's approval ratings went from shaky to astronomical within a month of declaring war on an "evil terrorist" leader back in 1991. This lesson could hardly have been lost on Bush, Jr.: Start a war and the emotions of the public can be whipped up to a point that will push presidential approval ratings way, way up.

So, given the above facts as "evidence," what do you imagine a self-serving man who has faced no serious opposition from Congress, the press, or the American public would be likely to do? A bookie would most certainly lay odds that Bush would stand aside and allow an event like 9/11 to happen.

Another action that must be considered in the cold hard light of day is Bush's behavior after 9/11. He seized upon national fears, worked at intensifying them, and immediately, without waiting for Congress or serious discussions with other nations, called for an attack on Afghanistan and a global war on terrorism. At the same time, he worked through John Ashcroft with stunning swiftness to dismantle civil liberties. These are not the actions of a leader who wants to keep his nation calm, reassured, and standing tall in its principles in the wake of tragedy. They are the actions of an opportunist who knows, from watching his father's presidency, that the window of opportunity for consolidating his power will be narrow: Bush Sr.'s approval rating high lasted only a few months.

Last, why would Bush admit to having been warned about 9/11 in the first place? In the corporate and political world, this admission is a strategy that has been used over and over by creeps who are guilty of huge crimes and know the heat is on. By confessing to a lesser charge, they try to draw the heat away from the main, more dangerous issue. Ken Lay, the head of Anderson, and every criminal who has ever copped or tried to cop a plea bargain have used this ploy. If Bush were innocent of any complicity in 9/11, why should he make ANY statement? It is always the guilty who feel the need to make statements: "I am not a crook!", "I never had sex with that woman!" Or how about that row of tobacco industry CEO's who all swore that none of them knew their product was harmful or addictive?

Therefore, based on the evidence, I would say we have a phony president who is as guilty as hell, who knows that someone has the goods on him and is breathing down his neck. He is gambling that by making a preemptive strike while he still has control of the media, he can spin a protective wall around himself. Thus, we have Dick Cheney appearing on 5/19 on Meet the Press, being "interviewed" about the 9/11 flap by his friend and neighbor Russert. Yep, that's right –both interviewer and interviewee live in the feudally exclusive Kalorama suburb of D.C., where houses START at around $1 million. In fact, on the same program, Russert had the arrogance to even mention how he'd seen his buddy out taking the air on his new "It" scooter. How cozy! And this is what is being served to America in the name of a free and honest press. Ya got a problem? Just pick a pal in the press corps and tell him what questions you want him/her to ask you so you can spin them in just the way you want.

Russert asked Cheney how he responded to charges that the information existed in several reports which showed that a WTC-type attack was a possibility. Cheney responded –incredibly!– that reading all those reports weren't his concern. There's just too darn many of them. Russert let this ridiculous response go totally unchallenged and unqualified.

Here are the questions that are missing –the questions a real journalist would have asked: "So then, Mr. Cheney, just what are your criteria for a report that is important enough for you to read? How do you prioritize what you read or what those under you are directed to call to your attention? What reports on this matter DID you read?"

It is insulting to America's intelligence that such questions are not being asked. It's like a grand jury that refuses to ask a murder suspect questions like "Where were you on the night of such and such? What was your relationship to the victim?" but instead says, "Well, here's what we heard from the police that someone thinks you may have killed someone. Go ahead and explain yourself. Don't worry –we won't interrupt you or ask you any uncomfortable questions. And, by the way, your good pal who lives down the block volunteered to serve as jury foreman!"

Here's one last FACT to consider. The GOP spent $40 million to pursue an ultimately merit-less case against Clinton that involved diddling an intern and some questionable real estate deals. Since Bush took office, not one dime has been spent by Congress to investigate Cheney and his secret energy dealings, Bush's stolen election, Tom Delay's boiler room scams that have bilked doctors out of millions, the mysterious wild trading of American and United Airlines stock the week before 9/11 or any of the other crimes that were far more serious than Clinton's offenses. Meanwhile, the GOP –so eager to spend millions to investigate an office romance– has worked overtime to block the initiation of any serious investigation into the biggest crime to have ever been perpetrated on American soil that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. WAKE UP AMERICA!!

"Vague Warning" or Blueprint for Disaster?

The story Bush wants the world to buy is that the warnings he received were vague, routine, too general to act upon. Condi Rice wants us to believe that no one in the administration could have dreamed the hijackers would fly into a landmark building. But, as they say in show biz, this is "lies, lies, and damn lies."

Since 1993, scores of people, collectively, in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and CIA have know that an attack like 9/11 was not only a possibility –but an increasingly likely probability. Because I am not writing a book here, I will confine myself to summarizing the most obvious pieces of evidence that Bush and his team had to work with. However, they are enough to convict him in any court of opinion.