9/11 - Buck Passing American Style

I just read a September 2006 Interview With the New York Post Editorial Board and Condoleezza Rice, where they asked her if she was calling former President Clinton a liar when he said that the Bush Administration "didn’t even try to go after al-Qaida" prior to 9/11. She responded:

"I would just suggest that you go back and read the 9/11 Commission report on the efforts of the Bush Administration in the eight months, things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important..."

I thought what good idea! I'll read the report. Sure enough, The 9/11 Commission Report Executive Summary states:

"The CIA also produced a plan to improve intelligence collection on al Qaeda, including the use of a small, unmanned airplane with a video camera, known as the Predator."

Imagine my surprise then, to read a report of former White House Counter Terrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke's 9/11 Commission testimony specifically the reference to his damning memo to Rice, blasting the CIA for blocking the predator program.

No wonder he resigned. It must be bad enough having to fight assholes who want to terrorize your country while a willfully deaf, dumb and blind Administration remains incomprehensively fixated on it's own selfish and partisan objectives.

As Clarke stated in his testimony:

"...all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done ...after September 11th. They were all done. I didn't really understand why they couldn't have been done in February."

Well Richard, that's because Bush & Co. used those eight months to plan Operation Pork-barrel in Iraq.

Zaki Chechub on HAMAS: getting it all wrong!

Zaki Chechub's article on the HAMAS recent political victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections titled No middle ground in the Australian Literary Review dated April 4 is more than a little revisionistic.

He begins by leveraging Condoleezza Rice's public and rhetorical lament "Why was it that nobody saw it coming?" as proof positive that all parties including Bush, Israel's Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were caught unawares.

Zaki, Condi knew it was coming, Bush knew it was coming, the Israelis knew it was coming and so did Abbas. In fact both Abbas and the Israelis had met with Bush et al in Washington well before the elections to raise their concerns about a potential HAMAS victory and Condi had also met with both Abbas, Sharon and Olmert in the Middle East prior to the elections and would have been privy to the same issues and concerns of both parties.

For the record, Israel conceded not to interfere and Abbas agreed to let the elections take place albeit after a short delay to rebuild Fatah's popularity in the electorate. They agreed to this because Bush felt that being an active part of Palestinian government would facilitate an "Ardoganised" HAMAS by shifting their activities from political agitation to the everyday problems of governing.

So, far from being a surprise, the legitimization of HAMAS had been a calculated gamble by George Bush since at least mid 2005 and HAMAS' electoral potential had been widely opined by the likes of Newsweek, Harpers and the Washington Post to name a few.

Condi's public rhetorical sleight of hand then was simply to divert attention regarding any Administration involvement in smoothing the way for HAMAS--a designated terrorist group. Your article is living proof that she succeeded.