6 thoughts on “Bush, 9/11, Iraq war … new cartoon”
From: Keith Dawson
Date: September 8, 2006 9:08:49 AM PDT
Mark Twain wrote this in “Chronicle of Young Satan”: [*]
“The loud little handful — as usual — will shout for the war.
The pulpit will — warily and cautiously — object… at first.
The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes
and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say,
earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and
there is no necessity for it.
“Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other
side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen,
and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not
last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the
antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
“Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned
from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious
men…
“Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation
that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-
soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to
examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by
convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the
better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-
deception.”
— KDawson
[*] Twain began this manuscript in 1897 but never finished it. He
later worked on two other versions of this material under the
working title “The Mysterious Stranger.” After his death a
bowdlerized edition of these three manuscripts was published,
under the title “The Mysterious Stranger,” by his literary
executor.
All was going well. Serbia, on its knees, had just sold Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for a fistful of dollars (some of which, it was learned later, went to pay debts accumulated since the time of Tito). NATO was stretching eastward as Russia looked on helplessly. Whenever one wished, one could, in all impunity, “bomb Saddam Hussein” (that is, the Iraqi population). The Palestinian territories were under tight police control and their leaders assassinated by smart bombs. In recent years, stockholders had made record profits. The political left no longer existed, all parties having rallied to neo-liberalism and “humanitarian” military intervention. In short, even if we had not yet arrived at the “end of history”; its course was well under control and its “happy ending” in sight.
And then — shock, surprise, horror — the greatest power of all time struck in the very center of its wealth and strength. A sophisticaled electronic spy network had been unable to do anything to prevent the catastrophe.
I do not, of course; share the “values” of Ms. Albright who, when asked if the death of a half million Iraqi children is “worth it”, replies: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it” . The massacre of innocent civilians does not ever seem to me to be worth it. This does not prevent me from considering it necessary, on the occasion of that tragedy, to ask a few questions.
An American pacifist, A.J. Muste, once observed that the big problem after a war is the winning side: it has learned that violence pays. All of post-World War II history illustrates the pertinence of that remark. In the United States; the War Department was renamed Defense Department, although in reality there was no direct danger threatening the country, and successive American governments embarked on campaigns of military intervention and political destabilization. It takes a large dose of good will to see all that as a mere attempt to contain communism. But let us stick to current events and try to see how they look outside West — without trying to think in terms of another culture or another religion, but simply asking ourselves how we would react if we were confronted with certain situations:
The Kyoto protocol: The American objections are not primarily scientific, but of the type: “it would hurt our economy”. How does that reaction sound to people who work twelve hours per day for starvation wages?
The Durban conference — [ i.e., the World Conference against racism, held in Durban (South Africa), from August 31 to September 7 2001. It was widely criticized in the West for its support of Palestinians.]
The West rejects any suggestion of reparations for slavery and colonialism. But how is it possible not to see that the State of Israel functions as a reparation for anti-Semitic persecutions, except that, in this case, the price is paid by Arabs for the crimes committed by Europeans? And how is it possible not to understand that, to the victims of colonialism, this shift of responsibility looks like a manifestation of racism?
Afghanistan: The Americans did not hesitate to train and arm bin Laden to destabilize the Soviet Union, according to a scenario developed by President Carter’s advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. How many lives are lost in the game that Brzezinski called “the Great Chessboard”? And how many terrorists, in Asia, in Central America, in the Balkans or in the Middle East, are left to their own devices after having served the “free world”?
Iraq: For ten years the population has been strangled by an embargo that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives — of people who are also civilian victims, even if they are not shown on television. All that because Iraq attempted to recuperate oil wells that had been de facto confiscated by the British. Compare this to the treatment of Israel which occupies, in perfect illegality, territories conquered in 1967. Does one really think that the idea, generally accepted in the West, that Saddam Hussein is to blame for everything, makes a big impression in the Arab-Muslim world?
China: When an American spy plane is shot down along the Chinese coast on April 1, 2001, and its crew is briefly held prisoner, there is indignation: how dare the Chinese? But how many Chinese or Indian spy planes venture to fly along American coasts?
USA: Is it really of foremost importance to squander the planet’s rare resources, including brains, to build an antiballistic shield that will not protect the United States from terrorist attacks and, eventually, not even from nuclear attacks?
All that doesn’t excuse terrorism, they will say. Agreed, but it does make it possible to undertand why the reaction outside the United States is often mixed: sympathy for the victims, yes; for the American government that tries to play on emotions to legitmatize its policies and is getting ready to violate international law once again, no.
By a pure coincidence; the attacks took place on September 11, anniversary of the overthrow of Allende (1973), which marked not only the installation of the first neo-liberal government, that of Pinochet, but also the beginning of the end of the national and independent movements in the Third World — roughly speaking, those that emerged from the Bandung Conference — which would all soon bend to the dictates of the United States and the IMF. That coincidence recalls that the West’s victory over independent political movements in the Third World has been achieved by methods that are far from democratic: Pinochet, obviously, but also the assassination of Lumumba, terrorist armies in Central America, and, last but not least, support to “good” Islamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan. In fact, so long as the obscurantist and feudalist forces could be used against the political left, they were employed profusely. If the accusations against those forces turn out to be true, it will be appropriate to meditate on that curious irony of history.
Marx thought that a political struggle against oppression would cause religious obscurantism to recede. For the past twenty years, the trend is in the opposite direction: the more the political left loses ground; the more obscurantism asserts itself, and not only in the Muslim world. And this is largely because it has become the only possible form of protest against this “vale of tears” on earth.
In the West; the “firm responses” will of course be applauded when they come. Numerous intellectuals will be found to link those attacks to whatever they don’t like in the world: Saddam Hussein, Western pacifists, the Palestine liberation movement, and, while they are at it, the “anti-globalization” movement. Spy networks will be built. Citizens will be watched more closely. Edifying stories will be told about the struggle between Good and Evil and the wicked people who attack us because they don’t like democracy; or women’s liberation, or multiculturalism. It will be explained that we have nothing to do with such barbarism — indeed, we prefer to bomb from on high or use embargoes to kill people gradually. But none of that will solve any basic problem. Terrorism grows in the soil of revolt which is itself nourished by injustice in the world.
For the immediate future, it is to be feared that those attacks will have at least two negative political consequences. On the one hand, the American population, which in its vast majority displays a disturbing nationalism, risks “rallying around the flag”, as they put it, and supporting their government’s policy, no matter how barbarous it is. It wants, more than ever, to “protect its way of life”, without asking the price paid by the rest of the planet. The timid movements of dissent that have appeared since Seattle will no doubt be marginalized or even criminalized. On the other hand, millions of people, who have been defeated, humiliated and crushed by the United States all around the world, will be tempted to see in terrorism the only weapon that can really strike the Empire. That is why a political — and not terrorist — struggle against the cultural, economic and especially military domination of a tiny minority of the human race over the vast majority is more necessary than ever.
Jean Bricmont sat down and wrote this essay a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was published in Europe in French in a number of venues including Le Monde, on September 27, 2001, under the title “Quelques questions à l’empire et aux autres”. This is the first time it has appeared in English, with very minor changes.
Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium. He is a member of the Brussells Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, will be published by Monthly Review Press.
*Promises Not Kept*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:57 am (PDT)
How Bush has the nerve to go to Ground Zero and act as if he gave or
gives a damn is just amazing to me. Not only did Bush refuse to go after
Osama bin Laden for the first eight months of his presidency — even
though he and his top officials had been warned by the counterparts in
the Clinton administration that terrorism would be their most urgent
problem — but our military had Osama bin Laden penned in, in the
mountains of Afghanistan, Bush withdrew our forces and dispatched them
to Iraq, leaving the capture of bin Laden to the local warlords who, as
any fool could have predicted, allowed bin Laden to escape.
Bush’s good friend in the region, the Pakistani president, just
concluded a “peace” pact with the warlords in the region where Osama bin
Laden is assumed to be living. President Musharraf will not only NOT try
to capture bin Laden, he will also prevent any foreigners from going
into the region to attempt to capture him.
Osama bin Laden — five years after masterminding 9/11 — is living safe
and serene under the protection of Bush’s political ally in the region.
>
.
And, not only all of that but Bush has CUT Homeland Security FUNDING
for New York City on the grounds that there are no important monuments
or buildings there that terrorists would wish to attack.
How about the Statue of Liberty, you friggin’ ignoramus?
Oh, and after Bush withdrew most of our forces from Afghanistan, the
Taliban gradually re-installed itself with the result that this year
Afghanistan produced a bumper crop of poppies to supply the drug trade.
Money gained from the sale of poppies and the drugs that are made from
the poppies go to FUND MORE TERRORIST ATTACKS on us and our European
allies.
————————————————————————
*Promises Not Kept*
by Paul Krugman
The New York Times
September 11, 2006
>
————————————————————————
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Messages in this topic (1)
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3. *No evidence of Saddam-al-Qaida ties*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:21 am (PDT)
For the record — and if you have time, you might print out a copy of
the Senate Intelligence Committee report (released on Friday, links
below) and mail it to Dick Cheney, since he says he hasn’t read it, and
he still claims — in spite of all evidence to the contrary — that
Saddam Hussein was hooked up with al Qaeda.
Cheney is either a slow learner or an ignorant nincompoop (or could he
be an evil charlatan?).
In fact, the whole Bush gang are either incredibly stupid or are
HABITUAL and PATHOLOGICAL LIARS.
>
>
.
The only “tie” between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was that
Saddam was trying to KILL Zarqawi.
————————————————————————
*The path to Iraq*
by Tim Grieve
Salon.com
Sept. 11, 2006
CIA assessment, June 2002: “. . . the ties between Saddam and bin Laden
appear much like those between RIVAL intelligence services, with each
trying to exploit the other for its own benefit.”
Defense Intelligence Agency report, February 2002: “Iraq is UNLIKELY
to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons]
knowledge or assistance.”
CIA assessment, January 2003: “Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are
FAR from being natural partners.”
George W. Bush press conference, February 2003: “Iraq has sent
bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaida. Iraq has
also provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training. We
also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior
Al Qaida terrorist planner.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Bush is obviously lying..]
Dick Cheney interview, June 2004: “There clearly was a relationship.
It’s been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming. It goes back to
the early ’90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level
contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Cheney is obviously lying..]
George W. Bush press conference, June 2004: “Zarqawi is the best
evidence of [Saddam Hussein’s] connection to al-Qaida affiliates and
al-Qaida. He’s the person who’s still killing. He’s the person — and
remember the email exchange between al Qaida leadership and he, himself,
about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?”
[NOTE FROM ME: Bush is obviously lying..]
.
The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004: “The reports describe friendly
contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the
United States. But to date we have seen NO EVIDENCE that these or the
earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational
relationship. NOR have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated
with al-Qaida in developing or carrying out any attacks against the
United States.”
Senate Intelligence Committee report, September 2006: “Postwar
information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to
locate and CAPTURE al-Zarqawi and that the regime did NOT have a
relationship with, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.”
Dick Cheney interview, Sept. 10, 2006: “You’ve got Iraq and al-Qaida,
testimony from the director of CIA that there was indeed a relationship,
Zarqawi in Baghdad, etc.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Cheney is obviously lying again..]
Condoleezza Rice interview, Sept. 10, 2005: “The director of central
intelligence, George Tenet, gave that very testimony, that, in fact,
there were ties going on between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s regime
going back for a decade. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission talked about
contacts between the two. We know that Zarqawi was running a poisons
network in Iraq. We know that Zarqawi ordered the killing of an American
diplomat in Jordan from Iraq. There were ties between Iraq and
al-Qaida.”>>
[NOTE FROM ME: Condoleezza Rice is obviously doing what she
always does — she is lying. The only “tie” between Saddam
Hussein and Zarqawi was that Saddam was trying to KILL
Zarqawi.]
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Sun Oct 1, 2006 12:27 pm (PST)
The evil in this Bush administration is still bubbling up to the surface
where all can see it — it is beyond shocking.
It may even be treason.
These people — George Tenet, Cofer Black and Condoleezza Rice — all
testified UNDER OATH and yet they still withheld important
information from both the 9/11 Commission and from the earlier
Congressional Joint Inquiry
Will someone please call the FBI and ask them to investigate this for a
crime at least?
———————————————————-
*Bush Officials May Have Covered Up Rice-Tenet Meeting From 9/11
Commission*
by Peter Rundlet [Peter Rundlet, was a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission.]
Think Progress
Sept. 30, 2006
Most of the world has now seen the infamous picture of President Bush
tending to his ranch on August 6, 2001, the day he received the
ultra-classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) that included a report
entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.”
And most Americans have also heard of the so-called “Phoenix Memo” that
an FBI agent in Phoenix sent to FBI headquarters on July 10, 2001, which
advised of the “possibility of a coordinated effort” by bin Laden to
send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools.
As a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, I became very familiar with both
the PDB and the Phoenix Memo, as well as the tragic consequences of the
failure to detect and stop the plot. A mixture of shock, anger, and
sadness overcame me when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new
book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his
counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10,
2001:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an
impending attack and “sounded the loudest warning” to the
White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.
Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, “They felt the
brushoff.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an
overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know.
Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation
— questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the
Commission been told about this significant meeting.
Suspiciously, the Commissioners and the staff investigating the
administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the
meeting. As Commissioner Jamie Gorelick pointed out, “We didn’t know
about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our
report if we had known to ask about it.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Please remember that Philip D. Zelikow was made
executive director of the 9/11 Commission and was in the
perfect place to DEFLECT any focus, criticism or information
harmful to Rice or even to the Bushites. He could keep such
information from reaching the 9/11 Commission members and
being investigated and/or included in the 9/11 Commission’s
final report. Philip D. Zelikow was a personal friend of Ms.
Rice and was/is one of her staffers.]
The Commission interviewed Condoleezza Rice privately and during public
testimony; it interviewed George Tenet three times privately and during
public testimony; and Cofer Black was also interviewed privately and
publicly.
All of them were obligated to tell the truth.
Apparently, NONE of them described this meeting, the purpose of which
clearly was central to the Commission’s investigation.
Moreover, document requests to both the White House and to the CIA
should have revealed the fact that this meeting took place. Now, more
than two years after the release of the Commission’s report, we learn of
this meeting from Bob Woodward.
Was it covered up?
It is hard to come to a different conclusion.
If one could suspend disbelief to accept that all three officials forgot
about the meeting when they were interviewed, then one possibility is
that the memory of one of them was later jogged by notes or documents
that describe the meeting. If such documents exist, the 9/11 Commission
should have seen them.
According to Woodward’s book, Cofer Black exonerates them all this way:
“Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork about the
meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know
about and things they didn’t want to know about.”
[NOTE FROM ME: How DARE Cofer Black take it upon himself to
decide just what the 9/11 Commission did or did not want to
know. The American people had a RIGHT to know everything
related to the attack on 9/11.]
The notion that both the 9/11 Commission and the Congressional Joint
Inquiry that investigated the intelligence prior to 9/11 did not want to
know about such essential information is simply absurd.
At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an
outrage.
*C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Tue Oct 3, 2006 6:51 am (PST)
This is dynamite.
Condoleezza “The Liar” Rice said that she has NO recollection of any
July 10, 2001 meeting at which then-CIA Director George Tenet and his
counterterrorism official Cofer Black met with her at the White House to
urge her to take action … that a big terrorist attack was imminent.
Oops, now the White House confirms the meeting.
———————————————————-
*C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda*
by PHILIP SHENON and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
October 3, 2006
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 — A review of White House records has
determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central
intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July
10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department
spokesman said Monday.
The account by the spokesman, Sean McCormack, came hours after Ms. Rice,
the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did
not recall the specific meeting on July 10, noting that she had met
repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice,
the national security adviser at the time, said it was
“incomprehensible” to suggest she had ignored dire terrorist threats two
months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records showed that the Sept. 11 commission had
been informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence
officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.
When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob
Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials
questioned Mr. Woodward’s reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration
officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account.
Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his
counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about
intelligence pointing to an impending attack by Al Qaeda that they
demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her
National Security Council staff.
According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those
assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the
C.I.A. had collected suggesting an attack was in the works. But both
current and former officials, including allies of Mr. Tenet, took issue
with Mr. Woodward’s account that he and his aides had left the meeting
feeling that Ms. Rice had ignored them.
Earlier this week, some members of the Sept. 11 commission said they
could not recall being told about a meeting like the one described by
Mr. Woodward.
On Monday, officials said Mr. Tenet had told members of the commission
about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but
committee members said he never indicated he had left the White House
with the impression that he had been ignored.
“Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,” said Richard Ben-Veniste,
a Democratic member of the commission. “We certainly would have followed
that up.”
Mr. McCormack said the records showed that far from ignoring Mr. Tenet’s
warnings, Ms. Rice acted on the intelligence and requested that Mr.
Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
and John Ashcroft, then the attorney general.
[NOTE FROM ME: Good grief … “acting on” it means something
more than telling Tenet to go tell someone else. It should
mean that Rice was MOTIVATED to DO something herself, like
tell the president and vice president and URGE them to “shake
the trees” to be sure everyone in every intelligence and law
enforcement agency was doing everything possible to thwart any
terrorist attack. What a bloomin’ loser that Rice is. If
sheactually did do something, I am sure she would have been
happy to brag about whatever she did. She did NOTHING.]
..
But Mr. Ashcroft said by telephone on Monday evening that he never
received a briefing that summer from Mr. Tenet.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing,” he
said. “I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by
and tell me.”
Government investigations have shown that Mr. Ashcroft was briefed by
other C.I.A. officials in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The dispute that has played out in recent days gives further evidence of
an escalating battle between the White House and Mr. Tenet over who
should take the blame for the failure to stop the Sept. 11 attacks and
assertions by Bush administration officials that Saddam Hussein was
stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al
Qaeda.
Mr. Tenet resigned as director of central intelligence in the summer of
2004 and was honored that December with a Presidential Medal of Freedom
at a White House ceremony. Since leaving the C.I.A., Mr. Tenet has
stayed out of the public eye, largely declining to defend his record
even after several government investigations assailed the faulty
intelligence that helped build the case for the Iraq war.
Mr. Tenet is now completing work on a memoir that is scheduled to be
published early next year. It is unclear how much he will use the book
to settle old scores, although recent books have portrayed him both as
dubious about the need to invade Iraq and angry that the White House has
made the C.I.A. the primary scapegoat for the war.
In his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” the journalist and author Ron
Suskind quotes Mr. Tenet’s former deputy at the C.I.A., John McLaughlin,
as saying Mr. Tenet “wishes he could give that damn medal back.”
In his own book, Mr. Woodward wrote that over time Mr. Tenet developed a
particular dislike for Ms. Rice, and that the former C.I.A. director was
furious when she publicly blamed the agency for allowing President Bush
to make the false claim in the 2003 State of the Union address that Mr.
Hussein was pursuing nuclear materials in Niger.
“If the C.I.A., the director of central intelligence, had said, ‘Take
this out of the speech,’ it would have been gone, without question,” Ms.
Rice told reporters in July 2003.
In fact, the C.I.A. had told the White House months before that the
intelligence about Niger was dubious, and had managed to keep the claim
out of an October 2002 speech that Mr. Bush gave in Cincinnati.
More recently, Mr. Tenet has told friends he was particularly angry
when, appearing recently on Sunday talk shows, both Ms. Rice and Vice
President Dick Cheney cited Mr. Tenet as the reason that Bush
administration officials asserted that Mr. Hussein had stockpiles of
banned weapons and ties to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Cheney recalled in an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sept. 10:
“George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United
States asked him directly, he said, ‘George, how good is the case
against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?’ The director of the
C.I.A. said, ‘It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk,'”
– – – – – – – – — – — – – – –
Philip Shenon reported from Jidda, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
From: Keith Dawson
Date: September 8, 2006 9:08:49 AM PDT
Mark Twain wrote this in “Chronicle of Young Satan”: [*]
“The loud little handful — as usual — will shout for the war.
The pulpit will — warily and cautiously — object… at first.
The great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes
and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say,
earnestly and indignantly, “It is unjust and dishonorable, and
there is no necessity for it.
“Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other
side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen,
and at first will have a hearing and be applauded, but it will not
last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the
antiwar audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
“Before long, you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned
from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious
men…
“Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation
that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-
soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to
examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by
convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the
better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-
deception.”
— KDawson
[*] Twain began this manuscript in 1897 but never finished it. He
later worked on two other versions of this material under the
working title “The Mysterious Stranger.” After his death a
bowdlerized edition of these three manuscripts was published,
under the title “The Mysterious Stranger,” by his literary
executor.
http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/1165.html
LikeLike
September 11
The End of the “End of History”
By JEAN BRICMONT –
http://www.counterpunch.org/
All was going well. Serbia, on its knees, had just sold Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for a fistful of dollars (some of which, it was learned later, went to pay debts accumulated since the time of Tito). NATO was stretching eastward as Russia looked on helplessly. Whenever one wished, one could, in all impunity, “bomb Saddam Hussein” (that is, the Iraqi population). The Palestinian territories were under tight police control and their leaders assassinated by smart bombs. In recent years, stockholders had made record profits. The political left no longer existed, all parties having rallied to neo-liberalism and “humanitarian” military intervention. In short, even if we had not yet arrived at the “end of history”; its course was well under control and its “happy ending” in sight.
And then — shock, surprise, horror — the greatest power of all time struck in the very center of its wealth and strength. A sophisticaled electronic spy network had been unable to do anything to prevent the catastrophe.
I do not, of course; share the “values” of Ms. Albright who, when asked if the death of a half million Iraqi children is “worth it”, replies: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it” . The massacre of innocent civilians does not ever seem to me to be worth it. This does not prevent me from considering it necessary, on the occasion of that tragedy, to ask a few questions.
An American pacifist, A.J. Muste, once observed that the big problem after a war is the winning side: it has learned that violence pays. All of post-World War II history illustrates the pertinence of that remark. In the United States; the War Department was renamed Defense Department, although in reality there was no direct danger threatening the country, and successive American governments embarked on campaigns of military intervention and political destabilization. It takes a large dose of good will to see all that as a mere attempt to contain communism. But let us stick to current events and try to see how they look outside West — without trying to think in terms of another culture or another religion, but simply asking ourselves how we would react if we were confronted with certain situations:
The Kyoto protocol: The American objections are not primarily scientific, but of the type: “it would hurt our economy”. How does that reaction sound to people who work twelve hours per day for starvation wages?
The Durban conference — [ i.e., the World Conference against racism, held in Durban (South Africa), from August 31 to September 7 2001. It was widely criticized in the West for its support of Palestinians.]
The West rejects any suggestion of reparations for slavery and colonialism. But how is it possible not to see that the State of Israel functions as a reparation for anti-Semitic persecutions, except that, in this case, the price is paid by Arabs for the crimes committed by Europeans? And how is it possible not to understand that, to the victims of colonialism, this shift of responsibility looks like a manifestation of racism?
Afghanistan: The Americans did not hesitate to train and arm bin Laden to destabilize the Soviet Union, according to a scenario developed by President Carter’s advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. How many lives are lost in the game that Brzezinski called “the Great Chessboard”? And how many terrorists, in Asia, in Central America, in the Balkans or in the Middle East, are left to their own devices after having served the “free world”?
Iraq: For ten years the population has been strangled by an embargo that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives — of people who are also civilian victims, even if they are not shown on television. All that because Iraq attempted to recuperate oil wells that had been de facto confiscated by the British. Compare this to the treatment of Israel which occupies, in perfect illegality, territories conquered in 1967. Does one really think that the idea, generally accepted in the West, that Saddam Hussein is to blame for everything, makes a big impression in the Arab-Muslim world?
China: When an American spy plane is shot down along the Chinese coast on April 1, 2001, and its crew is briefly held prisoner, there is indignation: how dare the Chinese? But how many Chinese or Indian spy planes venture to fly along American coasts?
USA: Is it really of foremost importance to squander the planet’s rare resources, including brains, to build an antiballistic shield that will not protect the United States from terrorist attacks and, eventually, not even from nuclear attacks?
All that doesn’t excuse terrorism, they will say. Agreed, but it does make it possible to undertand why the reaction outside the United States is often mixed: sympathy for the victims, yes; for the American government that tries to play on emotions to legitmatize its policies and is getting ready to violate international law once again, no.
By a pure coincidence; the attacks took place on September 11, anniversary of the overthrow of Allende (1973), which marked not only the installation of the first neo-liberal government, that of Pinochet, but also the beginning of the end of the national and independent movements in the Third World — roughly speaking, those that emerged from the Bandung Conference — which would all soon bend to the dictates of the United States and the IMF. That coincidence recalls that the West’s victory over independent political movements in the Third World has been achieved by methods that are far from democratic: Pinochet, obviously, but also the assassination of Lumumba, terrorist armies in Central America, and, last but not least, support to “good” Islamic fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan. In fact, so long as the obscurantist and feudalist forces could be used against the political left, they were employed profusely. If the accusations against those forces turn out to be true, it will be appropriate to meditate on that curious irony of history.
Marx thought that a political struggle against oppression would cause religious obscurantism to recede. For the past twenty years, the trend is in the opposite direction: the more the political left loses ground; the more obscurantism asserts itself, and not only in the Muslim world. And this is largely because it has become the only possible form of protest against this “vale of tears” on earth.
In the West; the “firm responses” will of course be applauded when they come. Numerous intellectuals will be found to link those attacks to whatever they don’t like in the world: Saddam Hussein, Western pacifists, the Palestine liberation movement, and, while they are at it, the “anti-globalization” movement. Spy networks will be built. Citizens will be watched more closely. Edifying stories will be told about the struggle between Good and Evil and the wicked people who attack us because they don’t like democracy; or women’s liberation, or multiculturalism. It will be explained that we have nothing to do with such barbarism — indeed, we prefer to bomb from on high or use embargoes to kill people gradually. But none of that will solve any basic problem. Terrorism grows in the soil of revolt which is itself nourished by injustice in the world.
For the immediate future, it is to be feared that those attacks will have at least two negative political consequences. On the one hand, the American population, which in its vast majority displays a disturbing nationalism, risks “rallying around the flag”, as they put it, and supporting their government’s policy, no matter how barbarous it is. It wants, more than ever, to “protect its way of life”, without asking the price paid by the rest of the planet. The timid movements of dissent that have appeared since Seattle will no doubt be marginalized or even criminalized. On the other hand, millions of people, who have been defeated, humiliated and crushed by the United States all around the world, will be tempted to see in terrorism the only weapon that can really strike the Empire. That is why a political — and not terrorist — struggle against the cultural, economic and especially military domination of a tiny minority of the human race over the vast majority is more necessary than ever.
Jean Bricmont sat down and wrote this essay a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was published in Europe in French in a number of venues including Le Monde, on September 27, 2001, under the title “Quelques questions à l’empire et aux autres”. This is the first time it has appeared in English, with very minor changes.
Jean Bricmont teaches physics in Belgium. He is a member of the Brussells Tribunal. His new book, Humanitarian Imperialism, will be published by Monthly Review Press.
He can be reached at : bricmont@fyma.ucl.ac.be
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*Promises Not Kept*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 7:57 am (PDT)
How Bush has the nerve to go to Ground Zero and act as if he gave or
gives a damn is just amazing to me. Not only did Bush refuse to go after
Osama bin Laden for the first eight months of his presidency — even
though he and his top officials had been warned by the counterparts in
the Clinton administration that terrorism would be their most urgent
problem — but our military had Osama bin Laden penned in, in the
mountains of Afghanistan, Bush withdrew our forces and dispatched them
to Iraq, leaving the capture of bin Laden to the local warlords who, as
any fool could have predicted, allowed bin Laden to escape.
Bush’s good friend in the region, the Pakistani president, just
concluded a “peace” pact with the warlords in the region where Osama bin
Laden is assumed to be living. President Musharraf will not only NOT try
to capture bin Laden, he will also prevent any foreigners from going
into the region to attempt to capture him.
Osama bin Laden — five years after masterminding 9/11 — is living safe
and serene under the protection of Bush’s political ally in the region.
>
.
And, not only all of that but Bush has CUT Homeland Security FUNDING
for New York City on the grounds that there are no important monuments
or buildings there that terrorists would wish to attack.
How about the Statue of Liberty, you friggin’ ignoramus?
Oh, and after Bush withdrew most of our forces from Afghanistan, the
Taliban gradually re-installed itself with the result that this year
Afghanistan produced a bumper crop of poppies to supply the drug trade.
Money gained from the sale of poppies and the drugs that are made from
the poppies go to FUND MORE TERRORIST ATTACKS on us and our European
allies.
————————————————————————
*Promises Not Kept*
by Paul Krugman
The New York Times
September 11, 2006
>
————————————————————————
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Messages in this topic (1)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
3. *No evidence of Saddam-al-Qaida ties*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Mon Sep 11, 2006 9:21 am (PDT)
For the record — and if you have time, you might print out a copy of
the Senate Intelligence Committee report (released on Friday, links
below) and mail it to Dick Cheney, since he says he hasn’t read it, and
he still claims — in spite of all evidence to the contrary — that
Saddam Hussein was hooked up with al Qaeda.
Cheney is either a slow learner or an ignorant nincompoop (or could he
be an evil charlatan?).
In fact, the whole Bush gang are either incredibly stupid or are
HABITUAL and PATHOLOGICAL LIARS.
>
>
.
The only “tie” between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was that
Saddam was trying to KILL Zarqawi.
————————————————————————
*The path to Iraq*
by Tim Grieve
Salon.com
Sept. 11, 2006
CIA assessment, June 2002: “. . . the ties between Saddam and bin Laden
appear much like those between RIVAL intelligence services, with each
trying to exploit the other for its own benefit.”
Defense Intelligence Agency report, February 2002: “Iraq is UNLIKELY
to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons]
knowledge or assistance.”
CIA assessment, January 2003: “Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are
FAR from being natural partners.”
George W. Bush press conference, February 2003: “Iraq has sent
bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al-Qaida. Iraq has
also provided al-Qaida with chemical and biological weapons training. We
also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network, headed by a senior
Al Qaida terrorist planner.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Bush is obviously lying..]
Dick Cheney interview, June 2004: “There clearly was a relationship.
It’s been testified to. The evidence is overwhelming. It goes back to
the early ’90s. It involves a whole series of contacts, high-level
contacts with Osama bin Laden and Iraqi intelligence officials.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Cheney is obviously lying..]
George W. Bush press conference, June 2004: “Zarqawi is the best
evidence of [Saddam Hussein’s] connection to al-Qaida affiliates and
al-Qaida. He’s the person who’s still killing. He’s the person — and
remember the email exchange between al Qaida leadership and he, himself,
about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?”
[NOTE FROM ME: Bush is obviously lying..]
.
The 9/11 Commission Report, July 2004: “The reports describe friendly
contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the
United States. But to date we have seen NO EVIDENCE that these or the
earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational
relationship. NOR have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated
with al-Qaida in developing or carrying out any attacks against the
United States.”
Senate Intelligence Committee report, September 2006: “Postwar
information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to
locate and CAPTURE al-Zarqawi and that the regime did NOT have a
relationship with, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.”
Dick Cheney interview, Sept. 10, 2006: “You’ve got Iraq and al-Qaida,
testimony from the director of CIA that there was indeed a relationship,
Zarqawi in Baghdad, etc.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Cheney is obviously lying again..]
Condoleezza Rice interview, Sept. 10, 2005: “The director of central
intelligence, George Tenet, gave that very testimony, that, in fact,
there were ties going on between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s regime
going back for a decade. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission talked about
contacts between the two. We know that Zarqawi was running a poisons
network in Iraq. We know that Zarqawi ordered the killing of an American
diplomat in Jordan from Iraq. There were ties between Iraq and
al-Qaida.”>>
[NOTE FROM ME: Condoleezza Rice is obviously doing what she
always does — she is lying. The only “tie” between Saddam
Hussein and Zarqawi was that Saddam was trying to KILL
Zarqawi.]
Read this at:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/09/11/statements/index.htmlv
************************************************
Links to Iraq Intelligence Phase II Reports
“Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and
How they Compare with Prewar Assessments” at:
Click to access phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
“The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the
Iraqi National Congress” at:
Click to access phaseiiinc.pdf
************************************************
————————————————————————
*No evidence of Saddam-al-Qaida ties*
by Tim Grieve
Salon. Com.
Sept. 8, 2006
>
Read this at:
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/09/08/intel/index.html
************************************************
Links to Iraq Intelligence Phase II Reports
“Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and
How they Compare with Prewar Assessments” at:
Click to access phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
“The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the
Iraqi National Congress” at:
Click to access phaseiiinc.pdf
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Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Sun Oct 1, 2006 12:27 pm (PST)
The evil in this Bush administration is still bubbling up to the surface
where all can see it — it is beyond shocking.
It may even be treason.
These people — George Tenet, Cofer Black and Condoleezza Rice — all
testified UNDER OATH and yet they still withheld important
information from both the 9/11 Commission and from the earlier
Congressional Joint Inquiry
Will someone please call the FBI and ask them to investigate this for a
crime at least?
———————————————————-
*Bush Officials May Have Covered Up Rice-Tenet Meeting From 9/11
Commission*
by Peter Rundlet [Peter Rundlet, was a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission.]
Think Progress
Sept. 30, 2006
Most of the world has now seen the infamous picture of President Bush
tending to his ranch on August 6, 2001, the day he received the
ultra-classified Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) that included a report
entitled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.”
And most Americans have also heard of the so-called “Phoenix Memo” that
an FBI agent in Phoenix sent to FBI headquarters on July 10, 2001, which
advised of the “possibility of a coordinated effort” by bin Laden to
send students to the United States to attend civil aviation schools.
As a Counsel to the 9/11 Commission, I became very familiar with both
the PDB and the Phoenix Memo, as well as the tragic consequences of the
failure to detect and stop the plot. A mixture of shock, anger, and
sadness overcame me when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new
book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his
counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10,
2001:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an
impending attack and “sounded the loudest warning” to the
White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.
Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, “They felt the
brushoff.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an
overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know.
Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation
— questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the
Commission been told about this significant meeting.
Suspiciously, the Commissioners and the staff investigating the
administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the
meeting. As Commissioner Jamie Gorelick pointed out, “We didn’t know
about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our
report if we had known to ask about it.”
[NOTE FROM ME: Please remember that Philip D. Zelikow was made
executive director of the 9/11 Commission and was in the
perfect place to DEFLECT any focus, criticism or information
harmful to Rice or even to the Bushites. He could keep such
information from reaching the 9/11 Commission members and
being investigated and/or included in the 9/11 Commission’s
final report. Philip D. Zelikow was a personal friend of Ms.
Rice and was/is one of her staffers.]
The Commission interviewed Condoleezza Rice privately and during public
testimony; it interviewed George Tenet three times privately and during
public testimony; and Cofer Black was also interviewed privately and
publicly.
All of them were obligated to tell the truth.
Apparently, NONE of them described this meeting, the purpose of which
clearly was central to the Commission’s investigation.
Moreover, document requests to both the White House and to the CIA
should have revealed the fact that this meeting took place. Now, more
than two years after the release of the Commission’s report, we learn of
this meeting from Bob Woodward.
Was it covered up?
It is hard to come to a different conclusion.
If one could suspend disbelief to accept that all three officials forgot
about the meeting when they were interviewed, then one possibility is
that the memory of one of them was later jogged by notes or documents
that describe the meeting. If such documents exist, the 9/11 Commission
should have seen them.
According to Woodward’s book, Cofer Black exonerates them all this way:
“Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork about the
meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know
about and things they didn’t want to know about.”
[NOTE FROM ME: How DARE Cofer Black take it upon himself to
decide just what the 9/11 Commission did or did not want to
know. The American people had a RIGHT to know everything
related to the attack on 9/11.]
The notion that both the 9/11 Commission and the Congressional Joint
Inquiry that investigated the intelligence prior to 9/11 did not want to
know about such essential information is simply absurd.
At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an
outrage.
Very possibly, someone committed a crime.
And worst of all, they failed to stop the plot.
Read this at: http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/30/911-meeting
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*C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Tue Oct 3, 2006 6:51 am (PST)
This is dynamite.
Condoleezza “The Liar” Rice said that she has NO recollection of any
July 10, 2001 meeting at which then-CIA Director George Tenet and his
counterterrorism official Cofer Black met with her at the White House to
urge her to take action … that a big terrorist attack was imminent.
Oops, now the White House confirms the meeting.
———————————————————-
*C.I.A. Chief Warned Rice on Al Qaeda*
by PHILIP SHENON and MARK MAZZETTI
The New York Times
October 3, 2006
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia, Oct. 2 — A review of White House records has
determined that George J. Tenet, then the director of central
intelligence, did brief Condoleezza Rice and other top officials on July
10, 2001, about the looming threat from Al Qaeda, a State Department
spokesman said Monday.
The account by the spokesman, Sean McCormack, came hours after Ms. Rice,
the secretary of state, told reporters aboard her airplane that she did
not recall the specific meeting on July 10, noting that she had met
repeatedly with Mr. Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Ms. Rice,
the national security adviser at the time, said it was
“incomprehensible” to suggest she had ignored dire terrorist threats two
months before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mr. McCormack also said records showed that the Sept. 11 commission had
been informed about the meeting, a fact that former intelligence
officials and members of the commission confirmed on Monday.
When details of the meeting emerged last week in a new book by Bob
Woodward of The Washington Post, Bush administration officials
questioned Mr. Woodward’s reporting.
Now, after several days, both current and former Bush administration
officials have confirmed parts of Mr. Woodward’s account.
Officials now agree that on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his
counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about
intelligence pointing to an impending attack by Al Qaeda that they
demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her
National Security Council staff.
According to two former intelligence officials, Mr. Tenet told those
assembled at the White House about the growing body of intelligence the
C.I.A. had collected suggesting an attack was in the works. But both
current and former officials, including allies of Mr. Tenet, took issue
with Mr. Woodward’s account that he and his aides had left the meeting
feeling that Ms. Rice had ignored them.
Earlier this week, some members of the Sept. 11 commission said they
could not recall being told about a meeting like the one described by
Mr. Woodward.
On Monday, officials said Mr. Tenet had told members of the commission
about the July 10 meeting when they interviewed him in early 2004, but
committee members said he never indicated he had left the White House
with the impression that he had been ignored.
“Tenet never told us that he was brushed off,” said Richard Ben-Veniste,
a Democratic member of the commission. “We certainly would have followed
that up.”
Mr. McCormack said the records showed that far from ignoring Mr. Tenet’s
warnings, Ms. Rice acted on the intelligence and requested that Mr.
Tenet make the same presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
and John Ashcroft, then the attorney general.
[NOTE FROM ME: Good grief … “acting on” it means something
more than telling Tenet to go tell someone else. It should
mean that Rice was MOTIVATED to DO something herself, like
tell the president and vice president and URGE them to “shake
the trees” to be sure everyone in every intelligence and law
enforcement agency was doing everything possible to thwart any
terrorist attack. What a bloomin’ loser that Rice is. If
sheactually did do something, I am sure she would have been
happy to brag about whatever she did. She did NOTHING.]
..
But Mr. Ashcroft said by telephone on Monday evening that he never
received a briefing that summer from Mr. Tenet.
“Frankly, I’m disappointed that I didn’t get that kind of briefing,” he
said. “I’m surprised he didn’t think it was important enough to come by
and tell me.”
Government investigations have shown that Mr. Ashcroft was briefed by
other C.I.A. officials in the weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks.
The dispute that has played out in recent days gives further evidence of
an escalating battle between the White House and Mr. Tenet over who
should take the blame for the failure to stop the Sept. 11 attacks and
assertions by Bush administration officials that Saddam Hussein was
stockpiling chemical and biological weapons and cultivating ties to Al
Qaeda.
Mr. Tenet resigned as director of central intelligence in the summer of
2004 and was honored that December with a Presidential Medal of Freedom
at a White House ceremony. Since leaving the C.I.A., Mr. Tenet has
stayed out of the public eye, largely declining to defend his record
even after several government investigations assailed the faulty
intelligence that helped build the case for the Iraq war.
Mr. Tenet is now completing work on a memoir that is scheduled to be
published early next year. It is unclear how much he will use the book
to settle old scores, although recent books have portrayed him both as
dubious about the need to invade Iraq and angry that the White House has
made the C.I.A. the primary scapegoat for the war.
In his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” the journalist and author Ron
Suskind quotes Mr. Tenet’s former deputy at the C.I.A., John McLaughlin,
as saying Mr. Tenet “wishes he could give that damn medal back.”
In his own book, Mr. Woodward wrote that over time Mr. Tenet developed a
particular dislike for Ms. Rice, and that the former C.I.A. director was
furious when she publicly blamed the agency for allowing President Bush
to make the false claim in the 2003 State of the Union address that Mr.
Hussein was pursuing nuclear materials in Niger.
“If the C.I.A., the director of central intelligence, had said, ‘Take
this out of the speech,’ it would have been gone, without question,” Ms.
Rice told reporters in July 2003.
In fact, the C.I.A. had told the White House months before that the
intelligence about Niger was dubious, and had managed to keep the claim
out of an October 2002 speech that Mr. Bush gave in Cincinnati.
More recently, Mr. Tenet has told friends he was particularly angry
when, appearing recently on Sunday talk shows, both Ms. Rice and Vice
President Dick Cheney cited Mr. Tenet as the reason that Bush
administration officials asserted that Mr. Hussein had stockpiles of
banned weapons and ties to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Cheney recalled in an appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sept. 10:
“George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United
States asked him directly, he said, ‘George, how good is the case
against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?’ The director of the
C.I.A. said, ‘It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk,'”
– – – – – – – – — – — – – – –
Philip Shenon reported from Jidda, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.
Read this at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/washington/03rivals..html?hp&ex=1159934400&en=a8d116e7a90c4c5f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
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