I was in a toy store picking up a few things for our son’s birthday tomorrow, and when I saw this, I just had to catch it on camera.

Does anyone think that the CIA is all about playing infrared tag? This is what we’re telling our kids now?

(shaking head)

Plame Wilson was online Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss her book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, which details her CIA training, covert status, experiences, responsibilities, the outing and her life now. Portions of “Fair Game” are blacked-out and indicate, say the publishers, places where the CIA has demanded redactions. The extensive afterword by reporter Laura Rozen, drawn from interviews and the public record, is included to provide context to Plame Wilson’s story.

Here are some tidbits, but go read it.

If none of this had happened, I would be overseas right now, with my family, working on counterproliferation issues of great concern and interest to me.

Mr. Armitage has been in Washington for decades. In fact, he served at the CIA for some time. He should have known better than to “gossip” about me to journalists. However, his involvement, no matter how it might be characterized, does not preclude the fact that there was a simultaneous conspiracy “by many in the White House” in the words of Spec. Prosecutor Fitzgerald to undermine and discredit Joe Wilson.

As far as Armitage – don’t forget that Mr. Libby was convicted on obstruction of justice – meaning that the Prosecutor could not really get to the bottom of what happened.

I did not suggest nor recommend Joe Wilson, my husband, for the trip to Niger. A reports officer who knew of Joe’s bona fides (including several previous trips on behalf of the CIA) suggested Joe. When we went to our boss to tell him about the interest in the alleged sale of yellowcake from Niger to Iraq, he asked me to ask Joe when I went home that night to come into CIA Headquarters the next week to discuss what we should do. That was the extent of my involvement in Joe’s trip.

The CIA did a damage report after I was outed. That is standard procedure. I have not seen it, nor any members of Congress. However, I can say that the damage was serious.

I have never met Judith Miller. I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of her reporting on the WMDs in Iraq in the run-up to the war has all been discredited. She relied heavily upon Iraqi exile Chalibi, who the CIA early and often knew was not a credible source, to say the least.

(About Dick Cheney) I think he has a very dangerous view of Executive Power and is simply wrong about how our Constitution should be interpreted.

While we expected the administration to go after Joe for his criticism of their case for war, we certainly did not expect them to commit treason by betraying my covert identity.

We are too easily misled and kept in the dark. When we see a bit of light, it is too easy to cover our eyes. We have been progressively desensitized, but we’re not the first.

I am beginning to have some hope again.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the state can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.” — Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945

Americans are starting to be unable to avoid recognitions of some of the consequences… at last. Don’t forget the lessons of the “Good Germans”.

Our moral trajectory over the Bush years could not be better dramatized than it was by a reunion of an elite group of two dozen World War II veterans in Washington this month. They were participants in a top-secret operation to interrogate some 4,000 Nazi prisoners of war. Until now, they have kept silent, but America’s recent record prompted them to talk to The Washington Post.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

In related news, Gen. Michael V. Hayden has ordered an investigation of its own Inspector General John L. Helgerson – for Helgerson’s own investigations into the CIA’s involvement in torture. Got that? Read it again.

This warrants an immediate and aggressive investigation by Congress into a clear case of attempting to suppress dedicated public servants because they may believe the United States should abide by international law and basic human morality. … This story fits the pattern of absolutely everything this Administration does: fail, commit crimes, try to cover up those failures and crimes, and when honest and competent people make honest and competent efforts to keep our government honest and competent, punish them.

On the domestic front lines, it looks as though the NSA approached Qwest before 9/11 to enlist telecommunications firms in surveillance without court oversight. Don’t give me any more fluff about the “post-911 world,” if you please.

Details about the alleged NSA program have been redacted from the documents, but Nacchio’s lawyer said last year that the NSA had approached the company about participating in a warrantless surveillance program to gather information about Americans’ phone records. In the court filings disclosed this week, Nacchio suggests that Qwest’s refusal to take part in that program led the government to cancel a separate, lucrative contract with the NSA in retribution.

From Gary Wood at Hear My Thunder, here’s a commentary worth reading on our 4th largest city, Prison USA:

Based on 2005 population figures for both our prisons and U.S. cities the prison population would rank as the 4th largest city behind New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago while beating Houston out by over 200,000 people.

Check out Amy Branham’s article on how we went shopping while our constitution burned, too.

Be sure to take a look at Jon Stewart’s little video on America’s favorite private mercenary force (Killing People since 1906 … for Money), care of Crooks and Liars.

One nice thing in the news, at least. Hey, Al Gore! You rock! Congrats on the Nobel Peace Prize!

But McCain is such a wanker, making this nasty and absurd statement:

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain said the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, announced today, should have gone to someone else other than former Vice President Al Gore. “I would have liked to see that prize go to the Buddhist monks who are suffering and dying in Burma,” McCain said after a speech this morning in Davenport.

I sure hope not, but nice try for the heartstrings. There would have been a long line of suffering and dying people who would have been in line before them.

I think Gore’s contribution was to work for the recognition of a worldwide problem that we need to solve together in peace. We can all be warring with one another until there is nothing left to fight for, or we can work together on a larger project, one that is truly a global problem.

…McCain, an Arizona senator, said he hoped Gore would now support nuclear power and a cap and trade proposal made by McCain and Sen. Joseph Lieberman to mandate that all sections of the U.S. economy reduce greenhouse gasses through a market-based system of trading emissions.

Trading guilt – like indulgences?

At this point, the second Lieberman’s name is on it, I have serious reservations. I would be more optimistic about nuclear power in the US if I felt sure about the government’s true ability or inclination to safeguard the public…

The statement from White House spokeman Tony Fratto on the honor to Gore was hilarious (or maybe it’s just me). Not only is Bush fully aware that Gore should have been President… but don’t forget that Bush has vigorously opposed mandatory reductions of greenhouse gas throughout his “reign,” appointed industry cronies to important posts, and even interfered with scientific reports. Bush may be the least environmentally-friendly President in history, and he is no friend to Gore (obviously). So, what can he say?

First there is the humorous suggestion that the President is “happy”:

“Of course he’s happy for (former) vice-president Gore and happy for the international panel on climate change scientists who also shared the peace prize.”

But it gets better!

Obviously, it’s an important recognition and we’re sure the vice president is thrilled.

It almost gushes – we’re SURE the vice president is THRILLED. Mrriooww- hissss.

Oh brother.

I want to see, and I think it’s really time for us all to see, a serious unmoderated round-table debate between John Edwards, Dennis Kuchinich, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and maybe even Ron Paul. I’m getting tired of the bull already. I don’t want a performance – I want to see a serious discussion where they have to deal with each other.

What I’ve seen of the Republican debates doesn’t make me want to see any more, but they should do this too.

And – hey – why not have a series of two at a time? Not the stupid dogshows they do later, but real debates. Unmoderated debates, but under standard rules of debate. Sigh. I’ll keep hoping, although everything I see works against it ever happening.

CLINTON: Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises. I’m being asked this on the FOX network. ABC just had a right- wing conservative run in their little “Pathway to 9/11,” falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.

And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush’s neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn’t do enough said I did too much — same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in “Black Hawk down,” and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let’s look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Usama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaeda was a growing concern in October of ‘93. …

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Cole, I had battle plans drawn to go into Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and launch a full-scale attack search for bin Laden. But we needed basing rights in Uzbekistan, which we got after 9/11. The CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible while I was there. They refused to certify. So that meant I would’ve had to send a few hundred Special Forces in helicopters and refuel at night. Even the 9/11 Commission didn’t do that. Now, the 9/11 Commission was a political document, too. All I’m asking is, anybody who wants to say I didn’t do enough, you read Richard Clarke’s book.

That’s the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted. So you did Fox’s bidding on this show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me. What I want to know is … how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of. I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, “Why didn’t you do anything about the Cole?” I want to know how many you asked, “Why did you fire Dick Clarke?”

I had responsibility for trying to protect this country. I tried and I failed to get Bin Laden. I regret it but I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could. The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. Until I left office. And yet I get asked about this all the time and they had three times as much time to get him as I did and no one ever asks them about this. I think that’s strange.

The whole transcript is here.

‘Bout time, Bill.

Kudos, thanks, and a kiss anytime. You’re the man. Just seeing you argue again lit up my world today.

Where on earth can we find another like him? Who has what it will take to turn this country around?

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE THAT,

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the Undersigned Scholars for 9/11 Truth Hereby Petitions for, and hereby demands, Release of the Following kinds of documents, video and films, and physical evidence to the public for study by experts and scholars investigating the events of 9/11:

1. Immediate release of the full Pentagon surveillance tapes, of which five frames (only) have been released via the official ASCE report, as Judicial Watch has also requested. We further demand release of the video tape seized by FBI agents minutes after the Pentagon hit, from the fuel service station near the Pentagon, as well as any other videotape which shows the 9/11 strike on the Pentagon.

See
news.nationalgeographic.com
www.defenselink.mil
www.defenselink.mil
perso.wanadoo.fr/jpdesm/pentagon

2. Immediate release of 6,899 photographs and 6,977 segments of video footage held by NIST, largely from private photographers, regarding the collapses of WTC buildings on 9/11/2001 (NIST, 2005, p. 81). In particular, all footage relating to the collapse of WTC 7 (including shots before, during and after the collapse) must be released immediately, without waiting for the NIST report on WTC 7, which is long overdue and may be prolonged indefinitely.

3. An explanation from Vice President Richard Cheney regarding the “orders” described by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta in his testimony before The 9/11 Commission. Secretary Mineta stated that while in an underground bunker at the White House, he watched Vice President Cheney castigate a young officer for asking, as a plane drew closer and closer to the Pentagon, “Do the orders still stand?” The officer should be identified and allowed to testify at a deposition under oath.

See
www.911truthmovement.org/video/hamilton_win.wmv

4. The documents generated by Vice President Cheney’s energy task force have been kept from the public. A court case brought forth a few maps that display oil fields in the Middle East. We hereby put Congress on notice that there is probable cause with regard to criminal activities by the Cheney Energy Task Force involving a criminal conspiracy to launch illegal wars and/or terrorist activities. We therefore demand that Energy Task Force document that comprise, discuss, or refer to plans to invade the Middle East, including Iran, and Venezuela or other sovereign nations be released immediately.

See Cheney v. District Court 542 U.S. 367 (2004) and United States v. Nixon 418 U.S. 683 (1974).

www.worldnetdaily.com/news

5. Audio tapes of interviews with air traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 were intentionally destroyed by crushing the cassette by hand, cutting the tape into little pieces, and then dropping the pieces in different trash cans around the building. We demand an explanation for this destruction of evidence and ask that the possible existence of other copies of such tapes or perhaps of written transcripts of the interviews be pursued. All air traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 should be allowed to testify during a public forum under oath.

See
query.nytimes.com archive
web.archive.org suntimes cst-nws-tape07.html

6. The Secret Service, which is highly trained to protect the President from danger and to move him to a secure location in the event of a threat, breached its own standard procedures by allowing President Bush to remain at a public location for 25 minutes after it was known that the nation was under attack. All Secret Service personnel who were at Booker Elementary School with President Bush on 9/11 should be required to testify in public and under oath about these events.

See
abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121331
www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/feral_press_9-10.gif
www.whatreallyhappened.com/bushbook.mov

7. On the morning of 9/11, some five “war games” or “terror drills” were being conducted by U.S. defense agencies, including one “live fly” exercise employing aircraft. These drills reportedly included the injection of false radar blips onto the screens of air traffic controllers. In addition, the government was running a simulation of a plane crashing into a building the morning of 9/11. Who was in charge of coordinating these war games and terror drills? Who had the ability to issues orders in relation to their conduct? On which screens were “false radar blips” inserted? When did such false injects commence? When were they purged from the controllers’ screens? What was the effect of these activities on standard procedures for interdicting hijacked aircraft?

See
www.911readingroom.org article_id=92
www.fromthewilderness.com Mckinney_transcript.shtml
www.spiegltech.com McKinney2.rm (6 minutes, 12 seconds into the video)
www.boston.com 0903_plane_exercise.htm

8. It has been reported that the FBI long ago found three of four “black boxes” from the two airplanes which hit the Twin Towers, yet has consistently denied that they were ever found. Their data would be of the greatest importance to understanding the events of 9/11. This matter must be investigated and the data they provide released to the public.

See
www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001139.html
www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12202005.html

For each of the four sites under investigation, the 9/11 Commission reported that two Boeing 757s, and two Boeing 767s (FAA, Part 121, airliners) owned by United Airlines and American Airlines were hijacked by novice pilots and were subsequently crashed, resulting in an unimaginable loss of life. Approximately 3,000 people died the morning of 9/11 as the direct result of these officially reported hijackings and subsequent crashes.

These four scheduled airliners were reported to have carried a total of 266 passengers and crew members, which, under FAA and NTSB regulations, demands a comprehensive investigation of the primary and contributing causes of each. In the case of suspected criminal foul play, the NTSB would normally assign the lead investigative role to the FBI, with assistance of investigators from the NTSB and FAA. A comprehensive investigation of each aircraft crash is not a regulatory option: they would have been mandatory. Therefore, we demand public release of each comprehensive crash investigation report, including access to all physical evidence that was required to have been collected and secured at a suitable facility. Such evidence should have included a large assortment of indestructible parts, including landing gears, surface actuators, engines, black boxes, and so on. The serialized parts would be invaluable in identifying each aircraft and, contrary to some reports, could not have “vaporized” upon impact.

Considering the enormous loss of life and financial collateral damage, if no crash investigations were conducted, who made the decision to disregard the FAA, Part 121, regulatory requirement? In the absence of the Part 121 investigation reports, the identity of the responsible authorities who made the decision not to investigate must be released, and they should be made immediately available for deposition under oath.

9. In the weeks before 9/11, the US Stock market showed rather high levels of activity on companies that would subsequently be affected by the attacks. The afternoon before the attack, alarm bells were sounding over trading patterns in stock options. A jump in United Air Lines some 90 times (not 90 percent) above normal between September 6 and September 10, for example, and 285 times higher than average the Thursday before the attack, have been reported. A jump in American Airlines put options 60 times (not 60 percent) above normal the day before the attacks has also been reported. No similar trading occurred on any other airlines appear to have occurred.

Between September 6-10, 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw suspicious trading on Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, two of the largest WTC tenants. An average of 3,053 put options in Merrill Lynch were bought between Sept. 6-10, compared to an average of 252 in the previous week. Morgan Stanley, another WTC tenant, saw 12,215 put options bought between Sept. 7-10, whereas the previous days had seen averages of 212 contracts a day. According to Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg News: “This would be the most extraordinary coincidence in the history of mankind, if it was a coincidence. This could very well be insider trading at the worst, most horrific, most evil use you’ve ever seen in your entire life. It’s absolutely unprecedented.”

On September 18, 2001, the BBC reported: “American authorities are investigating unusually large numbers of shares in airlines, insurance companies and arms manufacturers that were sold off in the days and weeks before the attacks. They believe that the sales were by people who knew about the impending disaster”.

According to the London Independent, October 10, 2001: “To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also emerged that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options – where a trader, in effect, bets on a share price fall – on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.”

See
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1549909.stm
news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=99402

The 9/11 Commission, after looking into the pre-9/11 stock trades, never denied their unusual nature. Instead, the Commission declared that al-Qaeda did not conduct the trades, and asked no further questions.

See amazon.com David Ray Griffin’s book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions

Who, if not al-Qaeda, performed the incriminating trades? This information exists, it can be easily obtained, and it needs to be made public. Moreover, illegal money transfers may have been processed through computers housed at the World Trade Center before the planes crashed into the Twin Towers on 9/11. We demand a disclosure of the source of the put options and that this whole sordid affair receive a complete and public investigation.

See
www.rediff.com/money/2001/dec/17wtc.htm
archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/12/20/wtc.harddrives.idg/

10. Eyewitness testimony and a substantiating photographic record suggest that a large sample of slag from the World Trade Center is being held at Hangar 17 of the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Access to the slag sample should be made available to appropriate physicists in order to conduct non-destructive X-ray Fluorescence tests and other forms of examination, which should reveal evidence of the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers. Based on these tests, we further demand two small samples (about the size of a fist) be extracted from this large piece for further scientific analysis.

See
911proof.com/resources/Slag+Sample.gif

11. Release of a complete inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from flights 11, 77, 93 or 175 or any other aircraft that crashed or was destroyed on September 11, 2001, including, but not limited to:

(a) the location (whether warehouses or otherwise) of all such items;

(b) a catalog of photographs and videotapes taken of any and all such items; and

(c) a list of all tests and examinations concerning any and all such items, including reports of such tests or examinations.

12. Release of a complete inventory of any steel, other metal or other material from the World Trade Centers, including, but not limited to:

(a) the location (whether warehouses or otherwise) of all such items;

(b) a catalog of photographs and videotapes taken of any and all such items; and

(c) a list of all tests and examinations concerning any and all such items, including reports of such tests or examinations.

On behalf of the People of the United States of America, we demand that the cover-up in this case end and that the kinds of documents, video and films, and physical evidence described above be provided to the public for experts and scholars to evaluate and assess in their efforts to expose falsehoods and reveal truths about events on 9/11.

FOR THE SOCIETY:

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.
Founder and Co-Chair
Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Steven E. Jones, Ph.D.
Co-Chair
Scholars for 9/11 Truth

28 February 2006