Some recommended reading – do your homework.

Saving the World By Stopping the Pentagon’s Programs
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet

All that work against nuclear proliferation – gone, gone, gone. Another way we make the world a more dangerous place.

Then there is “Complex 2030,” a proposal to consolidate and update the entire nuclear complex, including the opening of a new plutonium “pit” facility capable of producing 125 new bombs a year. Estimated price tag: $150 billion over 25 years. The Bush administration and the Department of Energy argue that the overhaul is necessary to maintain the country’s deterrence and close aged plants, but arms control experts who have read the fine print say otherwise.

“The current nuclear stockpile is not in need of replacement, all of the existing nuclear weapons sites would still be in operation under the new plan, and the fundamental environmental problems of weapons production would not be solved,” states a joint report issued by more than a dozen nuclear watchdog groups, including Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Furthermore, the increased design, production and testing capabilities of Complex 2030 could spark a new nuclear arms race.”

…The major nuclear powers cannot continue to simultaneously refine their arsenals while keeping the rest of the world in 1944 by threat of force; only a madman thinks threats and preemptive strikes constitute a coherent or sustainable nonproliferation strategy. Nor can we continue to allow the production of fissile material and expect it to remain forever out of dangerous hands. We cannot have our yellow cake and eat it, too.

If we don’t come to grips with the dead-end of the nuclear double-standard, and begin soon the brave and historic grapple with the nuclear genie, we race toward a climax as awful as it is certain.

Take a look at Payson’s blog entry (Think Progress)on Chuck Hagel’s claim that the White House originally wanted the 2002 Iraq War Resolution to cover the entire Middle East. No-one else picked this up from the men style column at GQ? It ought to be on the front page.

Scooter Libby and Me
By Nick Bromell, The American Scholar, posted at AlterNet

Childhood friend of Scooter Libby’s shares questions he wants to ask him, and comments on the differences between liberalism and fundamentalism as they affect current US policy. This is worth a read just for the clear explanation of the difference between truth and the Truth (How did I miss Lynne Cheney’s article “The Roots of Today’s Lying Epidemic: The English Department Virus”? ). Oh, on lying?

Keep an eye out for fact checking updates on the State of the Union Address. The discussion on Charlie Rose was pretty good, and ABC has collected some citizen comments. To my ears, all Bush is saying…. is give war a chance.

Please sign this petition, which supports a call (from prominent experts, including scholars, scientists and former high-level military personnel) for release of basic 9/11 information.

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

That’s the number of laws that Bush has claimed authority to disobey.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ”whistle-blower” protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush’s assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government.

The President’s job is to faithfully execute the laws. In his (or his advisors’) view, the Supreme Court’s job and the Congress’ job is really his job too.

I think that perhaps he’s spent a little too much time with the Royal Family – no, not his own, but the Saud variety. American boots on the ground in Saudi Arabia, protecting the regime of the royal family, acted as one of the first recruiting points for bin Laden’s terrorist network (despite his own ties) there. Our role in the middle east has been unpopular — supporting dictators, establishing military bases, things like that. Our decades-long protection of this family has been documented to some extent already – but I fully expect to see more revelations of just how deep our complicity has been, and how much it has really cost, as time goes on. Meanwhile, they’re raking it in even faster than ExxonMobil.

In any case, the expansion of executive power in this administration has been striking. They must feel very confident in continuing “Republican” power (They’re not really Republicans, are they…).

Here’s how it’s done, the modus operandi: Signing statements. It’s a form of crossing fingers behind your back, if you remember that children’s “loophole on a promise.”

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ‘’signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills — sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

”He agrees to a compromise with members of Congress, and all of them are there for a public bill-signing ceremony, but then he takes back those compromises — and more often than not, without the Congress or the press or the public knowing what has happened,” said Christopher Kelley, a Miami University of Ohio political science professor who studies executive power.

Here are a couple of examples:

Dec. 30, 2005: US interrogators cannot torture prisoners or otherwise subject them to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Bush’s signing statement: The president, as commander in chief, can waive the torture ban if he decides that harsh interrogation techniques will assist in preventing terrorist attacks.

Oct. 29, 2005: Defense Department personnel are prohibited from interfering with the ability of military lawyers to give independent legal advice to their commanders.

Bush’s signing statement: All military attorneys are bound to follow legal conclusions reached by the administration’s lawyers in the Justice Department and the Pentagon when giving advice to their commanders.

Nov. 6, 2003: US officials in Iraq cannot prevent an inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority from carrying out any investigation. The inspector general must tell Congress if officials refuse to cooperate with his inquiries.

Bush’s signing statement: The inspector general ‘’shall refrain” from investigating anything involving sensitive plans, intelligence, national security, or anything already being investigated by the Pentagon. The inspector cannot tell Congress anything if the president decides that disclosing the information would impair foreign relations, national security, or executive branch operations.

The method of “no veto, then ignore with signing statement” is deceitful, especially given the way he does it. A Presidential veto can be overturned by Congress, but this cross your fingers behind your back is just plain infantile – not to mention creepy – and more than 750 examples is rather excessive.

“Ha-ha – take it back! Fooled ya again!”

It’s amazing to me that Congress is handing over its powers like this. It’s got to burn even the most rabid right-wingers a little bit.

“What we are living with now is the consequences of successive policy failures. Some of the missteps include: the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war, McNamara-like micromanagement that kept our forces from having enough resources to do the job, the failure to retain and reconstitute the Iraqi military in time to help quell civil disorder, the initial denial that an insurgency was the heart of the opposition to occupation, alienation of allies who could have helped in a more robust way to rebuild Iraq, and the continuing failure of the other agencies of our government to commit assets to the same degree as the Defense Department.

My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions–or bury the results.

Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon’s military leaders is quite another. Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military’s effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. A few of the most senior officers actually supported the logic for war. Others were simply intimidated, while still others must have believed that the principle of obedience does not allow for respectful dissent. The consequence of the military’s quiescence was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, al-Qaeda, became a secondary effort.”

- Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold, former director of operations at the Pentagon’s military joint staff, writing in Time magazine.

Newbold resigned four months before the invasion of Iraq, but has now gone public with his criticism of the war.

Thanks to Sojourners – faith, politics, culture