There was some desperate argument from administration supporters here over whether the NSA leaks were damaging to the program. I think this statement from the Attorney General should put it to rest:

Senator Joseph Biden suggested that Al Qaeda operatives have most likely been aware for some time that the government is trying to intercept their phone calls.

Mr. Gonzales agreed. "You would assume that the enemy is presuming that we are engaged in some kind of surveillance," he said. "But if they're not reminded about it all the time in newspapers and in stories, they sometimes forget." (Quoted from B. Herbert's Op-Ed, NYT.)

There's a strategy: Hope they forget about eavesdropping.

Unless BushCo is just blowing smoke in the public's eyes during a bad news week, why is it we're hearing about the LA plot 3+ years later?  You would think the admin would have bragged about it back when it happened.  Am I missing something?

Johann

Remember Aesop's fable:  'The boy who cried wolf'?  Fits Georgie boy perfectly.  How many times can the Bush Administration cry 'terrorists', or '9/11' and have anyone listen anymore?  Does anyone pay any attention to the 'terror alert' status anymore?  I noted today it was 'elevated' once again.  Bush must need to distract Americans yet again from the failures of his administration.

Let's impeach him before more damage is done to our democracy, or at least go on record as trying to impeach him for failure to uphold the Constitution as he swore to do when he took his oath of office.

Take a pill.  donbraun

I know you're right, donbraun; but it's hard, it's very hard.

This is the same BS they pulled out of the White House Iraq Group -- constantly slipping all those false memes into their statements -- Atta in Prague, terrorist training at Salem Pak, reports from Curveball, al Qaeda going to hospital in Baghdad, uranium from Niger -- until before long the American people were convinced Saddam planned and led 9/11.

When you fear your fellow citizens are Charlie Browns, it's hard not to go a little crazy watching Lucy holding the ball. 

Yeah; another one of those less than meets the eye stories -- but just enough of a story what with those aerial views of Library Tower shining in the setting sun and so reminescent of the WTC towers to leave the impression with an impressionable public that, once again, our wise and fearless leader has saved the nation.

J. McCutchen "JmacSF"

San Francisco. CA

George W. Bush has assured Americans that they can relax about his warrantless wiretapping because the program is reviewed by lots of lawyers and intelligence professionals. What he doesn’t say is that officials who object too much find themselves isolated, ridiculed and pushed out of their jobs.

Another Bush Lie

Make that two more...

Bush: U.S. Surveillance Helped Stop Attack - AP

NBC News: NSA Surveillance Had Nothing to Do With Alleged LA Plot

BTW..Bush claimed that the turruhrisses planned to attack LA's "Liberty Tower". US Bank Library Tower - Los Angeles


There is no Liberty Tower in Los Angeles. Nobody warned the Mayor that Bush was going to scare the hell out of Angelinos

They're coming fast and furious aren;t they?  Bush is undeniably in a full court press to push this issue into oblivion.  Too bad for him, it isn't going to go away

<i>The facts are indisputable.  Since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March of 2003, international terrorist attacks in which people have been killed and injured have almost quadrupled. </i>

What a meaningless statement.  And after the US joined WWII, a lot more people were killed and injured than before the US got involved...and a lot more Americans were killed.  Getting involved in wars in general means that a lot more people will get killed and injured.

You're right again Mr. Johnson. Just like back in July of 2001, the Bush administration is making it up again:

"Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

"None of these beliefs are based in fact. ... While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way." Larry Johnson 10 July 2001, Op-Ed NY Times.

As long as he said/she said journalism is the paradigm, lying will continue to carry no penalties and convey real advantage.  The meme "Terrorist plot foiled" is the message and it gets out, perhaps not to all but to many.  That's the point.  Sure, it's from 3 years ago and it's unclear how imminent or even likely the threat was, and yes, there is no connection to the current NSA scandal.  That's not the point.  That is all after the fact analysis and debunking.  It is not the lede.  It is buried somewhere in the inside pages or consigned to the left side of the blogosphere.  Yet it is precisely in the original reporting that critical thought is most important.  Think how comments by the President made in the last few days could have been reported.  "The President declared progress in the war on terrorism but could only cite a 3 year old example to illustrate his claim" or "The President said that al Qaeda was fractured and weakened but could still launch terrorist attacks.  While citing progress, the President did not, in fact, say that the underlying threat had changed."  If the media passed this Administration's pronouncements through a critical, not partisan, not political, filter.  There would be a cost to nonsensical arguments and the repetition of lies and perhaps, just perhaps, this Administration would be a little less cavalier in their use.

Think how comments by the President made in the last few days could have been reported.  "The President declared progress in the war on terrorism but could only cite a 3 year old example to illustrate his claim" or "The President said that al Qaeda was fractured and weakened but could still launch terrorist attacks.  While citing progress, the President did not, in fact, say that the underlying threat had changed."

Or "Sen. Kennedy, who watched his date drown in the car he drove off of the Chappaquidick bridge says 'Even if she lived Sam Alito wouldn't want her at Princeton'"

Confronting the terrorist mind: explaining the repeated failure of intelligence
Speaker: Professor Raj Persaud
Date/Time: 29/09/2004, 6pm
Venue: Barnard’s Inn Hall

Excerpts below, A really thought provoking article. 
    Modern police forces and governments frequently claim victories in the war against terrorism when a bomb plot is supposedly averted. But this belies a mistaken belief that terrorism is aimed at killing or mutilating indiscriminately....
   Actually the primary target is the psyche of a population, so our current weapons are impotent against this new battle of the mind because we overly rely on the military, rather than psychology. A psychological analysis produces some surprising insights into how definitively to reduce global terror.....
   Security and preparedness are essential components in countering terrorism, but so are honesty, transparency and accountability of our leaders in whom we must trust. Terrorism is not about war in any traditional sense, of destroying the material resources of an enemy nation and taking over their country. Terrorism is about psychology. It is about taking strategic actions that incite terror and frighten civilian populations. Terrorism is about making ordinary people feel vulnerable, anxious, confused, uncertain and helpless. Ultimately, when terrorism works, citizens feel hopeless, and trust in their leaders to guarantee the fundamentals of existence, safety and security is lost. Terrorism is about imagining the monster under our beds or lurking in dark closets: the faceless omnipotent enemy who might be the friendly ice cream van driver, our neighbour, or some horrible creature of our imagination. It has no one place, time, space or face. The power of terrorism lies precisely in its pervasive ambiguity, in its invasion of our minds....
   Reactions to feeling personally vulnerable vary considerably, from blindly obeying powerful leaders to intense feelings of anger. Anger is one form of displaced emotion that arises from feeling helpless or vulnerable. Human nature seems to abhor feelings of personal weakness and uncertainty, seeking instead to ally one’s identity to those manifesting strength with conviction. In these times, people want to support leaders who are bold, decisive, single-minded, even arrogant, men of action. They want our leaders to identify the enemy, for them to give it a name, a face, and a location, so that they can channel their collective hatred and unleash the strength of the military on a readily winnable war against anything that can be identified as a foe. Many of us are willing to accept any identifiable figure as proxy for the elusive virtual terrorist enemy. While we prepare to save our bodies, we must not lose our minds. Our government is not getting the best scientific advice on how to construct terror alerts and how to think like terrorists in selecting probable targets for attack. High levels of sustained stress on its citizens can have a greater long-term destructive impact on a nation than the consequences of any single terrorist attack....
   Terrorists create terror, terror creates fear and anger, fear and anger create aggression and aggression against citizens of different ethnicity or religion creates racism, and that in turn creates new forms of terrorism....
   We must, individually and collectively, refuse to adopt the terrorist devaluing of human life. If we do not and we yield to the quiet rage of hatred that their vile deeds have generated in most of us, then our desire to destroy them at all costs allies us more with the forces of evil than of good. We have seen the enemy. Do not allow it to become us.

The real terror is the constant harping about it by the President, it is his mind game, to control America.

Liberals should adopt the cynical view of politics that I see is largely attributable to current Republicans. Politics equals who gets what.

donbraun, I know you’re right that political climates come and go and that all politicians engage in fantastic hyperbole.  But I hope that the cynical view of politics that you call for here never, ever becomes dominant.  I still want to believe in government — maybe not this particular administration, but the American government. 

Maybe I’m being naive, but I think that that the vision thing, that sense that government can make a positive difference in people’s lives, that government is indeed by and of "the people" — that is the most important part of modern liberalism / progressivism.  It’s not just that things are icky and corrupt and bad, but that we and the government can make a difference. I want my elected officials to be guided by principle, not political calculation.

The Counterterrorism Blog February 09, 2006 Fast and Easy with the LA Terrorist Plot by Zachary Abuza

....I have been studying JI for over five years now and it does not smell good. The facts and history just do not add up to what the president said....

 

Los Angeles Times February 9 Bush Describes Foiled Al Qaeda Plot Against L.A. By Edwin Chen and Josh Meyer, Times Staff Writers

....Later in the day, National Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend provided a few additional details on the so-called "West Coast plot." The plot's existence has long been known, although details surrounding it have remained murky.

 

Bush, who is under fire for ordering a domestic surveillance program as a part of the war on terrorism, was not highlighting the 2002 incident as a way to bolster support for the eavesdropping, Townsend said.  

 

The chief White House counterterrorism official refused to say whether the National Security Agency spying program had helped disrupt that plot against Los Angeles. In a speech in October, Bush said the U.S. and its allies had disrupted at least 10 Al Qaeda plots against the West, including three planned attacks on American soil, and stopped at least five additional attempts to scout out targets in this country. The White House then issued a list of such foiled plots, citing potential 9/11-style airliner attacks, a plan to blow up an apartment building, and surveillance of gas stations, bridges and tourist sites nationwide.

 

 Some law enforcement officials questioned whether some of those incidents constituted a true, imminent threat. Others said the plot against the Library Tower, which was renamed the US Bank Tower in 2003, never progressed beyond the planning stages.....

 

Los Angeles Times

February 9

Workers at U.S. Bank Tower take the president's revelation of a suspected terrorist plot in stride.

Los Angeles Times February 9

Post-Threat Chagrin Around the Tower

By Tanya Caldwell Times Staff Writer

Employees in and around the U.S. Bank Tower reacted with concern, confusion and skepticism to President Bush's reference this morning to a terrorist threat four years ago against the high-rise building.....

 

Employees who work in the building, on 5th Street between Flower and Hope, said they hadn't heard about a possible attack and were a little disturbed to find out about it years after it could have happened.

"Just imagine, we'd all be dead right now," said Luisa Gonzalez, a cashier at Eastern Newsstand, on the building's second floor.

Other downtown employees saw the new details as a political move by Bush to "keep us living in fear" and garner support for the war on terrorism.

"It's a travesty.... I mean, we've caught him lying so many times," said Mark Lea, who works at a major law firm in the Wells Fargo building next door. "He's only doing this to draw up support for his domestic spying."

Patrick Grover, who works on the tower's 2nd floor, agreed.

"I'm not alarmed [by the threats]," Grover said. "I'm alarmed that they're exploiting it years later." Grover called Bush's announcement "malarkey," criticizing the president for supposedly setting up a "smokescreen" now that the administration's spying policies are under attack.....

Dear Ellen,
Nobody likes to be BSd. And this White House is not much different than any other in conjuring up a pretext for meddling, adventure, etc. Here's the concluding paragraph from a 10/25/2000 article by Phyllis Schlafly:
Bill Clinton's actions in Yugoslavia were certainly not to defend U.S. "peace and safety." The purpose was defined by his Rhodes scholar buddy and NATO Supreme Commander of the Yugoslav bombing, General Wesley Clark, who declared on C-Span on September 26 that our goal is "to build a multi-ethnic, democratic society in Kosovo."

Sound familiar?

The critical problem is not to harp on the BS but to get 'em where it hurts. Take away the campaign bucks, K Street hustlers, et al. A little grass roots activism is better than watching Lucy -- but I didn't much care for Peanuts. Could you cast this image with Pogo characters?

All the best, Don

As I've said repeatedly here and elsewhere, the essence of the state is as follows:

You do everything we tell you and give us everything you have, and we'll protect you from the bad people inside and outside our borders - and if there aren't any bad people, we'll make some.

That is the essence of ALL government of every kind everywhere throughout human history.

It cannot be otherwise because this is the primate hierarchical behavior pattern of humans.

I'll also repeat my standing offer here yet again:

You want Osama bin Laden? You talk to me.

Pay me one billion dollars in advance - and I will deliver bin Laden alive or dead (your choice! - but dead is easier) within ninety days.  Such a deal I offer you!

If you had taken that deal for Saddam, you'd be $449 billion, over 2,000 US troops, and 100,000 Iraqi civilians ahead of the game today.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

The point is that Bush's invasion of Iraq was counter-productive, if his real goal was to decrease terrorism - which it wasn't. His real goal was to establish permanent bases in Iraq. We'er building 14 of them.

Tom

What a peculiar explanation for our intervention in Yugoslavia.  I am not sure there is anywhere in the globe that is not of interest to the United States.  We were not there to build anying in Kosvo.  We were trying to stop genocide after the Europeans failed to act and sought NATO's intervention.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Good to see you are up on an event that happened 38 years ago. 

 As Bush is responsible for over 2,000 dead Americans in Iraq, for which he either did not care why we should go to war there or was misled, I would say that is a least as serious as Ted Kennedy's tragic and irresponsible act 38 years ago.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The shame is that getting Al Qaeda and destroying it could have been a source for the world or much of it uniting.  There are few countries that would not be better off with Bin Laden and his henchmen captured or dead.  However Bush squandered the opportunity not just be going to war in Iraq but through arrogance and disdain for the rest of the world.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Just how the Nazis took control of Germany is no mystery.  All one needs to do is to watch it all unfold again.  The Nazis exploited fear, prejudice, and self-interest...you see?  The reason news organizations don't run unsympathetic stories about Bush is because they have children in private schools, mortgages, and careers, just like people in Germany did in 1933.  Amazing.  If you don't believe me, just ask Peter Arnett! 

This is a brilliant parody of a troll comment. I especially liked this part: American mass media is notoriously liberal and [t]he media ... have all but denounced any kind of progressive agenda.  A parody that parodies itself.  Brilliant!

Gettysburg:

Dude, you gotta be kidding.

Lets see, you're pro Iraq War, think the left has ruined America - oh yeah and the left is to blame for "polarization." Does FOX ring a bell...no? Thank God for the WSJ editorials, otherwise there wouldn't be a voice for elitism, plutocracy, kleptocracy and injustice in America.  

Why do you bother with TPM? Honestly why?

To british wonker

The older generation is the more likely to vote in any election. To a lot of veterans. talking about the biggest threat to that generation, hopefully  resonates and calls to mind what America fought against . FASCISM  the similarities of Hitlers actions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_fascism

Fascism is typified by:

Totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic.

• The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production.
• Fascism exalts the nation, state, or race as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it.
• Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness;
• Demands loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.

Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics:

• 1. A very high degree of nationalism,
• 2. Economic corporatism,
• 3. A powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.

 One of the most widely circulated arguments implying the U.S. may share some similarities with fascism is the article by Lawrence Britt.

Britt argues that "fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for." Britt claims to have looked at the following regimes in conducting his analysis: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. "To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible" [1][2]. In support of his implication that the US may be fascist, Britt points out the following characteristics of the fascist regimes mentioned previously:

Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
Disdain for the importance of human rights.
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
Rampant sexism.
A controlled mass media.
Obsession with national security.
Religion and ruling elite tied together.
Power of corporations protected.
Power of labour suppressed or eliminated.
Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
Obsession with crime and punishment.
Rampant cronyism and corruption.
Fraudulent elections.
He closes his piece by stating, "Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not."

Sound the warning, This Administration isn't going to come out and say it openly "We"re fascists", are they?

When you say they aren't calling for the extermination of entire people, Not yet, but give them time and America will hate every Muslim who doesn't agree with American Colonialism, When people finally realize that this is occuring, they'll  be labeled Unamerican and probably be charged with aiding and abetting. TO LATE!   

Ruminant evacuation.

There was no significant genocide before, NOW there is. You haven't lkept up with the aftermath. Kosovo and Albania are the drug, weapons smuggling and nuclear black market capitals of the world. Nobody ever found any mass graves. No 100,000 dead bodies. It was all ruminant evacuation.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

Uhm, yes, they ARE calling for the extinction of an entire people - anybody who opposes them. It's that simple.  Just because a collection of people aren't of the same ethnicity doesn't make it any less than genocide.

Besides that, these Christian fanatics actually want Israel to be destroyed so they can have their "Second Coming". This doesn't sound like genocide to you? And the Israelis, who know damn well from their own history that Jesus was nothing but a fanatical Jewish nationalist just like them, are cynically playing these nutcases for their own geopolitical benefit.

Formulate a message on terrorism? And what message would that be? That terrorism is a minor issue compared with American imperialism? Just how would you communicate that to the fifty-five million US morons who voted for Bush? To the morons who want all "Ay-rabs" nuked tomorrow? Who the latest polls show have already elevated Iran from 6% to 30% or more as the "greatest threat" to the US?

Get a clue. The Dems are worthless. Take out Bush? As Kris Kristofferson once said, "They couldn't take out a Big Mac and fries."

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

The latest whoppers from George Bush in describing “progress” in the war on terrorism are not new, but the breathless media is reporting them as such.

I spent a year in a remote area in the Sudan. My colleagues and I got our news over the shortwave, BBC, VoA and Armed Forces radio.  We called the latter "the disaster news" because they had  a predeliction for tornadoes and fires.

The reason the media reports these stories so breathlessly is because they're great stories. That they don't have the virtue of being true is unfortunate, but even though they are not true, they are well-sourced, so they can't be faulted for running them 

They run them for the same reason they run non-stop coverage of a girl trapped in a well, or stand on the seashore during a hurricane.  They're dramatic stories.  

"The president lied about the reasons for war" is not a great story.  It's not part of the narrative that the media constructs for us, nor is part of the American narrative.  Rove knows that  there are some people--a large number, actually--who simply won't believe the president would lie us into a war. It creates too much cognitive dissonance; it's inconsistent with American self-image.  As with torture. As with illegal wiretapping.  For a number of people it can't  be true.

The media is complicit in this, not just because they fear the president (the froomkin and Howell flaps demonstrated that to be the case), but also because the story of fear and heroism the president constructs plays well on TV.  It's got a long story arc, and interesting episodes.  Gonzales stonewalling is a boring episode in a tedious late night PBS documentary.

So the question is, have they  jumped the shark?  Have they stretched the premise as far as it could go, rerunning past scripts  that don't bear scrutiny?  So far, the public has been ahead of the media; even with the cooperation of the media in telling the story, folks are noticing that things aren't going well.

We'll see. 

Richard

You are certainly entitled to your opinion.  The last time I checked every president in U.S. history has been a member of the "upper class."  While I suppose you were inspired by the egalitarian utopia being promulgated by the long-dead Che Guevara in "The Motorcycle Diaries," it behooves you to look at history both in terms of who has led and what they did.  George W. Bush gaining personally from his presidency?  Hell yes he has.  As has EVERY OTHER PERSON who has ever held that office.  Your arguments could simply be cut and pasted to a blog about any president in U.S. history. 

As far as Bush's Administration being tried as criminals?  That would be un-American as well.

theorajones, congratulations.  You have summarized all the posts on this blog.  We are dealing with the fiction of this administration and the tragedy is we have become unable to recognize it.  It makes me sick.

Actually Kennedy was making a fool of himself just last week, with the "CAP" claims. Also Pres. Bush didn't "cause" the deaths of those soldiers, they all volunteered to serve and swore an oath to God. I don't think Mary Jo Kopechne volunteered to take a header into Poucha Pond.

Fascism came to power during the time of another war of religions, albeit secular religions.  Twentieth century Europe was the scene of a struggle between three ideologies-- liberalism, communism, and fascism.  And when liberalism went into hiding after WWI, there seemed to be only two choices.

While we leftists may have a soft spot in our hearts for Rosa Luxembourg and La Impassionata, the fear of anti-clerical, godless, revolutionary, dictatorial communism was real and realistic.  Humans are naturally conservative, and fascists leaders, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Salazar, the Greek Colonels, promised to still their fears and to protect them.  It is well to note that Bush and Cheney and their party's leaders are pushing the same buttons that the fascists leaders pushed.

Their policies bear resemblance; their practices bear resemblance; their offerings bear resemblance; and if it walks like a duck  .  .  .  .  

You surprise me, SFCWallace.  I would have thought fascism would be right up your alley and that its appearance upon our shores -- and my explanation for its success-- would be balm to your heart.

I was just about to mention Johnson's "last refuge of a scoundrel" quip, but then, remembered H.L.Mencken's add-on:  “But there is something even worse: it is the first, last, and middle range of fools.”

They're confusing that with the Millenium plot that was foiled at the border.

Meanwhile Bush ignores border security and banks on packs of drunk rednecks in camoflague fatigues to keep our deserts safe. The minute men are turing the corner and Al Qaeda is in its last throes. 

When Mr. Johnson starts BSing, then we'll nail him.  So far, most of what I've seen from him is a combination of fact and good analysis.

Now, as for your trolling... 

They swore an oath to the CONSTITUTION.

If you don't know that or don't acknowledge that, then YOU NEVER SERVED. 

A minor issue, I know, but, seriously:  How is this "they have to fight us in Iraq so they can't fight us in the U.S." line really playing in Iraq?  Forget whether it's effective or not  -- how would anyone here feel if I told them that I'd solved my problem with a bully beating me up by chasing that bully into YOUR front yard? 

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