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Political
Satire
/Commentary*
Daily Updates
.™©·2003
..··
*Where the
satire is
always
commentary but the commentary
isn't always
satire.
Installments for April 1 through 10, 2004 time period
(in reverse chronological order).
April 10, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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No
update for Saturday, April 10, 2004-- Editor away.·
April 9, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
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No
update for Friday, April 9, 2004-- Editor away.·
April 8, 2004: #01
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Condoleeza
Rice testimony before 9-11 Commission provides full-hindsight rebuttal of
half-hindsight partisan criticisms and explains Pre-Patriot-Act legal barriers
against CIA-FBI intelligence-sharing to "connect the dots."·
Today we heard impressive testimony from who, if we are lucky, will become the
President to succeed Bush in 2009. Condoleeza Rice's testimony laid bare
to anyone willing to apply common sense that full hindsight (in
contrast to Clarke's
half-hindsight) ought to teach us we are indeed lucky the Bush
Administration did not implement Clarke's recommendations for
cruise-missile attacks on Afghanistan in early 2001 in response to the attack on
the U.S.S. Cole. Why?
First, it's a virtual certainty such strategy would not have
(indeed could not have) "prevented" 9-11.
Second, it's a virtual certainty that such attacks could not
possibly have been massive enough and accurate enough to have destroyed al Qaeda
in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan.
Third, it's a virtual certainty that after such attacks, the
Taliban and al Qaeda would have used (or falsely portrayed) civilian casualties
in Afghanistan to intensify hatred of us among Muslims.
Fourth, since post-9-11 history has conclusively demonstrated that even
after worldwide broadcast of the post-9-11 video tape of bin Laden claiming
credit for 9-11, an overwhelming majority of Muslims (and even a large
percentage of the book-buying "literati" in France) still clung
to the belief such video tape was a forgery created by the Mossad and/or the CIA
to blame Muslims for an attack staged by the Mossad and/or the CIA to create
demands for war "against Islam," it is a virtual certainty that
an even more overwhelming majority of Muslims (especially in Pakistan) would
have even more strongly refused to accept our assertions that al Qaeda was
responsible for the attack on the U.S.S. Cole; thus, missile attacks on
Afghanistan at that time would have dramatically reduced the chances of our
ultimately being able to procure assistance from Pakistan against its ally, the
Taliban, and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Fifth, since the real post-9-11 history has taught us that a large
majority of the Muslim world thought we "deserved" the 9-11 attack,
it's a virtual certainty that if were were to have launched cruise
missile attacks on Afghanistan several months earlier, such large majority in
the Muslim would would have even more strongly believed we "deserved"
the 9-11 attack; thus, it's a virtual certainty that it would have been vastly
more difficult, if not impossible, to procure post-9-11 assistance from
Pakistan for our full-scale military assault in Afghanistan on the Taliban and
al Qaeda-- therefore, it's highly likely the Taliban would still be
ruling Afghanistan and harboring al Qaeda and Pakistan would still be a
non-ally, if not an overt adversary.
Sixth, since any post-9-11 attempt to attack the Taliban and al Qaeda in
Afghanistan would have been vastly more difficult under such circumstances, the
scope of such commitment would have seriously tempted Saddam Hussein to overtly,
or covertly, take military and/or terrorist action against us in the Persian
Gulf unless, and potentially even if, we were to have dramatically increased (as
we did) the size of our deployment in the region from its token size before
9-11, and such increased deployment would have intensified (as it has done),
rather than diminished, the motivations cited by bin Laden for the 9-11 attack--
i.e., to drive the U.S. from the Middle East.
Half-Hindsight
Pontification.
We're
partisan hacks in the limelight
exposing our version of hindsight
It's like single-entry
accounting invented
for partisan halving of hindsight.
As long as the media limelight
refracts through monocular hindsight,
the public will choose
my half-hindsight view
for lack of binocular hindsight.
The rewrite of hist'ry
we're touting
is like single-entry accounting
according us credit
without any debits
for half-hindsight theories we're spouting.
As difficult as it may be for us to accept, 9-11 probably saved us from a far
greater disaster. If we were to have somehow foiled the 9-11 plot,
it's highly doubtful Pakistan would have elected to become an ally to enable us
to effectively topple the Pakistan's own ally, the Taliban, or to even
significantly-- much less severely-- limit al Qaeda's ability to use Afghanistan
as its base. Full-hindsight from the vantage of the
post-9-11 world conclusively demonstrates an overwhelming unwillingness
of the Muslim world to blame bin Laden even after worldwide broadcasts of his
post-9-11 video tape claiming credit for it. Thus, common sense makes
it self-evident that virtually the entire Muslim world would have refused to
believe our "proof" of a foiled 9-11 plot. The foiling of such
plot would have strengthened the resolve of al Qaeda to make the next attack one
involving chemical, biological, nuclear, or "dirty-bomb"
weapons. It's highly unlikely proof of such foiled plot would have induced
Pakistan to abandon its alliance with the Taliban. Given what we also now
know about dissemination of nuclear technology from Pakistan, the risks are high
that in the near future, we would have experienced an al Qaeda attack in the
U.S. using at least a "dirty-bomb" if not a nuclear device. It's
disturbing, but it's a reality that can't be retroactively altered by
self-serving political posturing predicated upon half-hindsight assumptions.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
April 7, 2004: #01
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Political
Surgeons' inability to separate conjoined twins, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy,
leaves them permanently joined as Ted Kerry's Hind's Kennedy.·
French Surgeons Without Bordeaux announced today that not even modern
science can separate history's first twins to have become conjoined after
birth. This failure of modern science condemns the conjoined twins, John
Kerry and Ted Kennedy, to spend the rest of their political lives as Ted Kerry's
Hind's Kennedy. In their pre-conjoined youth, both of the Kerry/Kennedy
twins achieved fame braving the dangers of waterways-- Kerry by commanding a
Swift Boat in Vietnam and Kennedy by commanding a Swift Car in Chappaquiddick.
Kerry commanded his Swift Boat into a hail of gunfire to rescue a wounded
crewman, and Kennedy braved a long walk past houses with telephones to seek
counsel from political advisors about a passenger trapped underwater in his
Swift Car.
Soon after Kerry joined Kennedy in the Senate to form a political team as the
Twin Liberal Senators from the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts, they became
conjoined the first time they found themselves together alone in the Senate
Cloak Room. Orin Hatch, who claims to have played a vital role in
separating Kennedy from alcohol, said he tried to separate the Kerry/Kennedy
twins but found the effort too disgusting.
Anonymous sources indicate the Surgeons Without Bordeaux had been
exploring the possibility of removing Ted Kerry's Hind's Kennedy and quickly
substituting John McCain for the Hind's Kennedy to enable Ted Kerry to
survive. When PoliSat.Com's Washington Bureau Drawer Chief asked McCain
about the report that he had consented to be joined to Kerry to enable him to
survive after separation from Kennedy, he said, "I've always been close to
Kerry, but not that close."
The Heinz Company, eager to distinguish itself as a politically neutral company
distinct from Kerry's wife's Heinz Ketchup issued a press release urging the
press to avoid confusing Kerry's wife's Heinz Ketchup with Kerry's hind's
Kennedy. A Kerry spokesman issued a supportive press-release to reinforce
the distinction by stressing, "Mrs. Heinz's Ketchup is slooow good,"
but Kerry's Hind's Kennedy is just "slow."
Kerry
Then/Now & Teddy Then/Now.
Although the Ted Kerry's Hind's Kennedy twins both vehemently oppose the
"Defense of Marriage Act," they enthusiastically support the
"Annulment of Marriage Act." Each one assiduously avoids blaming
any aspect of what they perceive as the flaws of the Vietnam War on Lyndon
Johnson by always referring to the war as "Mr. Nixon's War." To
be fair, however, neither of them lays claim to any particular expertise in
knowledge of history and both share a fervent desire to avoid learning lessons
from it.
Ted
Kerry's Hind's Kennedy.
Though
Kerry at first remained mum¹
on what his Hind's Kennedy's done
in claiming Iraq's
on Vietnam's track,
he's finally removing his thumb.
Says
Kerry, "Teressa's Heinz's Ketchup,
is famously 'slow good' as ketchup,
however my hind's
twin-Kennedy's mind's
so slow that it's 'Kerry's Hind's MessUp.'"
Says
Kennedy, "Kerry, of Heinz,
don't worry, I'm doing just fine
though sometimes you must
pretend you distrust
my guarding the left of your hind."
When will Ted Kerry elaborate on his views of his Hind's Kennedy's speech
undermining the moral of our troops by characterizing Iraq as a
"quagmire" like "Vietnam"? Not until modern
surgery can devise a way to separate the Ted Kerry's Hind's Kennedy conjoined
twins.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
¹·According
to a report
by Scripps-Howard, Kerry "has remained mum" in the wake of
Kennedy's speech undermining the morale of the troops in Iraq by claiming it has
become Bush's "Vietnam."
April 6, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
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Baathists
& Islamic fanatics' "Tet Offensive" meet The Ted Offensive a.k.a.
The Offensive Ted; Ted Kennedy impersonates Peter Arnett; Tactical combat
operations resume in Iraq.·
John Kerry describes the Vietnam War as "Mr. Nixon's War" rather than
Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson's War. Ted Kennedy
compares Iraq to the Vietnam War and, like Kerry, tries to imply the Vietnam War
was "Nixon's War" rather than "Johnson's War."
Kennedy, no great student of history (no great student at all, for that matter,
since he was kicked out of Harvard for cheating) also tries to compare George
Bush to Richard Nixon by claiming that on the issue of war, Bush, "like
Nixon" suffers a "credibility gap." He either conveniently
forgets or simply lacks the knowledge that the term "credibility gap"
was coined to apply to Lyndon B. Johnson. He conveniently ignores the fact
that the infamous "Pentagon Papers" declassified over Nixon's
assertion of secrecy normally applicable to such documents were papers revealing
duplicity not by Nixon but by his Democratic predecessor, Johnson, who had
escalated the war from the modest involvement under John F. Kennedy's policy
before his being assassinated.
Listening to Kennedy give speeches requires the kind of self-discipline needed
to endure dental work without Novocain, but listening to speeches by Kerry is
akin to receiving Novocain. Perhaps the solution is to arrange for the two
of them to always speak simultaneously.
Ironically, "The Ted Offensive" by "The Offensive Ted"
coincides with unprecedented collaboration in Iraq among die-hard Baathists, a
virulently fanatical minority of the Shiite majority, and foreign Islamic
fanatics conducting what they hope to be a middle-east version of the "Tet
Offensive" to demoralize Americans' support for Operation Iraqi
Freedom. However, just as Peter
Arnett was so far from the mark nearly a year ago when he arrogantly
predicted the American military plan had "fallen apart," this current
"offensive" will be the Battle of the Bulge for the pro-tyranny
alliance rather than the "Tet Defensive" for the Coalition. This
is the time for those who know Operation Iraqi Freedom to be a morally just war
for freedom over tyranny and civilization over barbarism to be steadfast.
The
"Tet Offensive" meets The Ted Offensive a.k.a. The Offensive
Ted.
No
doubt what barbarians "dread"
when "Tet" type offensives they've led
are tools in our quiver
that most make 'em shiver:
a verbal Offensive of Ted.
Will this "Battle of the Bulge" attack by the Baathists and Islamic
fanatics in Iraq ultimately succeed? Of course it won't. Are the
non-fanatical Iraqis still hedging their bets out of fear that we might abandon
them? Probably. Will speeches such as those by Ted Kennedy stiffen
or weaken their spines? Isn't the answer obvious? Won't Kennedy, who
glories in claiming Bush started the war to enlarge the profits of his financial
supporters, nevertheless try to characterize these kinds of questions raised
about his judgment as "attacks" on his "patriotism"?
Of course he will.
Does the fact that die-hard Baathists and Islamic fanatics are able and willing
to launch a Battle of the Bulge effort to drive the anti-tyranny forces from
tyranny's stronghold undermine the validity of the moral imperative for such
stronghold to be destroyed? Of course not. This won't be the last
temporary setback we suffer in what will be a long twilight struggle between the
forces of liberty and tyranny, between civilization and barbarism. Should
our public utterances now focus on setbacks or support
for the troops? The latter, of course. The former are in
the process of being reversed.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.
April 5, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
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Tactical
military operations resume in Iraq; Tactical political cannibalism continues on
home front; 9-11 Commission invokes flashback to Pearl Harbor hearings ; Terrorists await
"reality-TV" spectacle of Bush's
partisan opponents grilling Condoleeza Rice during, and after, testimony before 9-11 Commission.·
Tactical
military operations-- That
Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower and McArthur did not, and could not have,
foreseen the precise nature of every setback and countermeasure that would
unfold in World War II did not undermine the moral imperative of the war against
Fascism. That such setbacks occurred after Roosevelt and Churchill
celebrated tactical and strategic successes preceding them did not undermine the
moral validity of their leadership or comprise a basis for adversaries to impugn
their motives for morale-boosting celebrations of successes. Did flawed
intelligence lead to losses of thousands of lives in World War II? Of
course. It's an imperfect world. Did flawed intelligence lead to
underestimations of enemy capabilities at various points in the conflict?
Of course. It's an imperfect world.
Is resumption of tactical military operations in Iraq indicative of Bush's
failure to have precisely foreseen the insurgency forcing such resumption?
Of course. That all setbacks and tactics necessary for overcoming them for
ultimate victory unfolds cannot be foreseen with precision far in advance of a
morally-just war does not negate the morality or wisdom of its justification.
Tactical
political cannibalism-- As
tactical military operations resume in Iraq to deal with setbacks in the form of
more aggressive resistance by both Islamic fanatics and Sunni loyalists to
Saddam Hussein's barbaric regime, many of Bush's adversaries will again
stoop to political cannibalism by citing the resumption of such operations in
order to mock Bush's morale-boosting, carrier-landing announcement that
"major combat operations [were] over." Furthermore, Bush's
adversaries will characterize Bush-supporters' criticisms of their judgment in
expressing such criticisms as attacks on their
"patriotism."
In the minds of Bush's most most virulent opponents, for them to allege he
toppled Hussein to provide profits to his "financial supporters" does
not constitute an attack on his "patriotism," but it does
constitute an attack on the "patriotism" of Bush's opponents for his
supporters to express the common-sense criticism that such attacks on him by his
opponents have the effect of encouraging our adversaries to believe political
opposition will sufficiently undermine his authority to enhance their chances of
prevailing against us. They have it backwards-- attacks impugning Bush's
motives are attacks on his patriotism but criticism disparaging the judgment of
such political opponents' tactics are not attacks on their
"patriotism."
9-11 Commission's Pearl Harbor Flashback--
Understanding how political cannibalism changed the question of whether Rice ought
to testify before the 9-11 Commission from a tactical issue to a strategic one
(see "Di-Cast")
does not negate the validity of criticisms that notwithstanding the 9-11
Commission's too-stridently-professed intention to be "bi-partisan" or
"non-partisan," the conduct of such inquiry now is feeding,
rather than diminishing, political cannibalism over foreign policy at a time
when such cannibalism makes us more, rather than less, vulnerable. Much is
being made today over reports
that the 9-11 Commission "persuaded" Bush to relinquish his opposition
to Condoleeza Rice testifying under oath before the Commission by faxing Bush's
counsel a picture of Harry Truman's chief of staff testifying under oath before
Congress in hearings into whether we could have prevented, or been better
prepared for, the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. What the Commission,
the dominant media and the rest of Bush's opponents ignore is that the Pearl
Harbor inquiry occurred after, not during, World War II. What the
Commission, the dominant media and the rest of Bush's opponents ignore that the
conduct of such inquiry at such time could not have encouraged our then-defeated
adversaries to believe we might lose our will to win the war since we had
already won it.
Reality-TV Programming for Terrorist Audience--
One may agree that Bush's reversal of his initial opposition to formation
of the 9-11 Commission as well as his reversal of his initial opposition
to Condoleeza Rice publicly testifying under oath before the Commission became
strategic necessities in fighting the home-front war against political
cannibalism in order to covertly as well as overtly wage world-wide war against
Islamic fanatics and rogue states supporting them while nevertheless
disagreeing with the formation of such commission to conduct such inquiry now
and and nevertheless criticizing its operational effect of feeding
political cannibalism despite the fact that some members of the
Commission may have genuinely (and naively) hoped to prevent the Commission's
work from being politicized. Meanwhile, the spectacle of political
cannibalism cannot help but provide encouragement to Islamic fanatics and Saddam
Hussein loyalists hoping for Bush to be restrained to political developments in
the U.S. Does that mean we shouldn't be trying to discover, and repair,
deficiencies in our intelligence, analysis of same, defensive preparedness and
offensive capabilities to reduce the incidence of terrorist attacks against us
in the future? Of course not. Could that be done, and has much of it
already been done, without a redundant investigation by a
"bi-partisan" Commission perceiving part of its function to publicly
highlight our current and former vulnerabilities? Yes. Would the
latter maximize remedial action without maximizing vulnerabilities? Yes.
Educational
TV-- Usama's Favorite Show.
To
cohorts, a note from bin Laden:
I'm certain you haven't forgotten
Somalia's lesson:
Barbarity lessens
resistance to paths we have trodden.
To
boost your morale I am naming
a program to augment your training:
Reality shows
the Infidels show
will augment your video training.
The
best Q and A exposition
of Infidels' weakest positions
to learn without paying
are broadcasts displaying
their own 9-11 Commission.
Via satellite reception somewhere in a mud hut in the no-man's-land
between Afghanistan and Pakistan, if not in luxurious accommodations in Tehran,
Usama bin Laden must be enjoying our international version of Reality-TV:
Terror Survivors aka Political Cannibalism aka 9-11
Hearings. --Jim Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
April 4, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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Sibel
Edmonds, Richard Clarke, John Dean-- a Turk, a Smirk and a Jerk; John Kerry,
Bill Clinton, Ralph Nader-- Flip, Flop & Flak; George Bush, Dick Cheney,
George Tenet, Condoleeza Rice-- Di-Cast, Bypass, Spyglass & High-Class.·
The Turk-- Sibel Edmonds achieves her
fifteen minutes of fame by claiming that as a post-9-11 translator of pre-9-11
intelligence data she "discovered" that "months" before
9-11, Bush, et al, had access to "warnings" that al Qaeda would
"hijack airliners" to "attack cities" with
"skyscrapers." If the 9-11 attack were to have been a small
nuclear bomb smuggled into one of our harbors, it's a virtual certainty that a
post-attack review of intelligence data acquired before such attack would
include theories, warnings or suspicions of such attack. As should be
self-evident to anyone willing to use common sense, even if one were to assume
her allegations to be 100% correct, they are irrelevant to the real issues-- i.e.,
that defensive strategies against the evil-genius tactics of barbarian fanatics
seeking to replace Western Civilization with medieval tyranny cannot be 100%
effective.
The Smirk-- On June 28, 2000, Richard
Clarke, told a classified meeting of Rep. Christopher Shays' House National
Security Subcommittee that "it was 'silly' to think the government could
develop a comprehensive strategy to fight [terrorist] threats." [Source]
After characterizing the Clinton administration's "strategy" against
terrorism as "chasing ... the vermin du jour," Clarke told
Shays' subcommittee that he was "confident that he knew where the threats
were and had the tools to act accordingly." Recently, former Gen. Anthony
Zinni, who worked with Clarke in the Clinton administration (and who has been a
critic of Bush's policy in Iraq), characterized Clarke's views of pre-9-11
strategies as reflecting "a perspective that at times was 'overly
simplistic.'" [Source]
As an illustration of Clarke's arrogant impetuousness, Zinni described an
incident during the Clinton administration in which Clarke called Zinni
"criminal" for refusing to approve Clarke's recommendation for firing
cruise missiles at the Afghan city of Kandahar on the basis of "U.S. intelligence
suggest[ing] Osama bin Laden was [there]." Zinni said such missile
strike could have caused as many as 15,000 civilian casualties and added that
eventually it was determined that bin Laden was "not there" at that
time.
The Jerk (not to be confused with
Steve Martin's hilarious movie)-- John Dean, an accomplished liar, is now promoting his
new book, Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.
No doubt the dominant media will fawn over it. Perhaps 60 Minutes will
schedule an interview with him and in pre-broadcast publicity identify him as a
formerly a "registered Republican." Dean's perceptions
about other people's trustworthiness is about as valuable as a pig's opinion on
ham and eggs. ··
The Flip-- John Kerry, who (except,
perhaps, in battle) cannot distinguish between understanding "nuances"
and indecisiveness, said that if he were president, "he would stop pumping oil into the nation's emergency stockpile until prices fell and would pressure OPEC to provide more oil.
[Source]
He seems to understand that small increases in supply can have a significant
downward pressure on prices except, of course, such "small" increases
as would be provided by drilling in Alaska. He seems to believe there are
things we could do to "pressure" OPEC to increase supply to lower the
price except, of course, the lasting, positive impact that a decision to drill
in Alaska would have on the oil-futures market, and, hence, on the price of
gasoline.
The Flop-- Bill Clinton, having
flopped in his goal to have a legacy as a "great president" (other
than in the "minds" of the Entertainment Industry Left), is
understandably frustrated by his unsatisfied lust for a way to be able to credibly
say, "I told you so" to Bush regarding al Qaeda. Remember the
statesman-like way that George H. W. Bush limited his post-presidency comments
when Clinton was president to non-partisan statements? Clinton, who does
not deserve blame for 9-11 any more than does Bush, should have the integrity
(for once) to publicly and categorically recite two truths: (1) If he were
to still have been president, he wouldn't have "prevented" 9-11 and
(2) he unequivocally believed Saddam Hussein possessed massive stockpiles of
chemical and biological weapons and would resume work on a nuclear program at
his earliest opportunity. Will he do it? Of course not.
Instead, he
tries to imply that Bush failed to heed Clinton's "warnings" about the
need to "get" bin Laden.
The Flak-- Many people foolishly take
at face value the dominant media's interpretation of Ralph Nader's intentions as
seeking to expand his third-party base. Instead, Nader is committed
to take, and fire, flak on behalf of John Kerry. He intends to function as
the Vice-Vice-Presidential
Candidate for Kerry against Bush and thereby increase his (Nader's)
power base within the left wing of the Democratic Party.
The Di-Cast-- That George Bush is
more pragmatic than ideological is already evident to his base, which is quite
upset with what they perceive as his having embraced too much of the liberal
agenda in the course of what they consider the fool's errand of seeking
bi-partisan compromise with the dominantly left wing of the Democratic
Party. That Bush is di-cast about the di he has cast in the war on terror
is what drove his recent flip-flop on whether to assert executive privilege
against Condoleeza Rice testifying before the 9-11 Commission. That's
because a tactical issue had become a strategic one. In many (perhaps
most) contexts, an issue on which testimony by presidential staff members is
tactical relative to the long-term, strategic separation-of-powers principle of
executive privilege. Once Bush realized that the passions of political
cannibalism (ignited by Richard Clarke's and 60 Minutes efforts to hype
Clarke's book for CBS' parent company and promote 60 Minutes' view of
Bush as hapless) were threatening to undermine the strategy of his war against
terrorism, he pragmatically concluded that whether Rice should testify had
morphed from a tactical issue into a strategic one. That the media fail to
understand it as such is yet another manifestation of their tendency to
underestimate him.
The ByPass-- The stereotypical view
of Dick Cheney among the media and his political opponents is that he's secretly
running the government, which enabled him to bypass the hierarchical chain of
command within bureaucracies such as the State Department, the Defense
Department, the FBI and the CIA. If such were the case, Bush would have
refused to seek to involve the United Nations before toppling Saddam Hussein.
The SpyGlass-- In the
long-ago-vanished world of bi-partisan foreign policy (i.e.,
pre-Vietnam), a new president's retention of the CIA director of his
opposite-party predecessor would induce the opposition party to support, rather
than malign, such new president's motives in foreign policy.
Why is it that whenever George Tenet makes a public utterance supportive of
Bush, the dominant media rarely (almost never), describes him as "Clinton's
CIA Director" or a "registered Democrat"?
The High-Class-- Condoleeza Rice, a
woman of great intellect and accomplishment (indeed, a pre-1982 Democrat like
Amb. Jean Kirkpatrick) [FYI],
has exhibited more moral poise in response to the savage political cannibalism
directed at her by the Bush-haters than most of her critics. Her admirers
have a high degree of confidence that regardless of how her critics view and
characterize her forthcoming testimony before the 9-11 Commission, the Rice diet
will nurture the intellectual health of the country on the issue of 9-11 and
terrorism. Furthermore, given what we know know about North Korea's
nuclear program as well as its rocket program (involving repeated tests of
rockets flying over Japan) as well as its having sold (but failed to deliver due
to fear of U.S. military action) long-range rockets to Saddam Hussein, it
boggles the mind that anyone would view her speech planned for, but not
presented on, September 11, 2001, focused on the need to accelerate missile
defense programs to render us (and our allies and our military forces deployed
around the world) from nuclear blackmail, as manifesting a focus on a threat
less serious than terrorism.
Political
Cannibalism--
Will
the final "report" of the 9-11 Commission eschew political
cannibalism? Even if the Commission members nominally purport to do so,
partisans on both sides will attack it, or support it, with partisan zeal the
likes of which we been witnessing in the course of coverage of its inquiry and
proceedings. One hopes that by next November, however, at least a majority
of those who vote will have perceived such partisanship as the political
cannibalism that it is.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
April 3, 2004: #01
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satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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No
update for Saturday, April 3, 2004.·
April 2, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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Sibel
Edmonds's claims that Bush ignored pre-9-11 "warnings"
that al Qaeda would "hijack airlines" to "attack" cities with "skyscrapers"
exemplify half-hindsight.·
Among people professing expertise in matters pertaining to counter-terrorism,
half-hindsight is becoming pandemic. News reports are awash with articles
fawning over allegations by Mrs. Sibel Edmonds, one of a number of
mid-eastern-language translators hired after 9-11 by the FBI to translate
intelligence data collected, but not translated, before 9-11.
Edmonds alleges that before being fired, she saw data which she claims to prove
that months before 9-11, the Bush administration had knowledge of intelligence
warnings that al Qaeda would "hijack" planes for the purpose of
"attacking" unspecified cities "with tall buildings."
Implicit in her allegations is the contention that such information was
sufficient for Bush to have prevented 9-11.
Bush-haters are so cravenly eager to prove that he either knew too much, or too
little, before 9-11, they embrace such allegations without bothering to apply
rudimentary common sense to determine whether they have any value in the real
world. That such is the case with respect to Edmonds' allegations become
self-evident to anyone performing a common-sense thought experiment predicated
upon assumptions (for purposes of argument) that her allegations are 100%
correct. What should one charged with preventing terrorists attacks do in
response to such information?
Decades of doctrine on how to deal with hijacking of airliners stressed the
importance of minimizing risks to passengers by complying with, rather than
physically resisting, hijackers' demands. Given
the then-recent event in India in which Islamic terrorists hijacked an Indian
airliner for the purpose of demanding release of some of their jailed leaders,
could one have responsibly ignored clues indicative of risks of
"traditional" hijackings and instead restructured warnings and
instructions to airline crews to operate only on the assumption that
failing to physically overcome hijackers would mean certain death for the
passengers and people in buildings intended to be targeted by
hijackers?
One could not issue both kinds of instructions-- i.e., one
would need to instruct airline crews either to resist at all costs or
to comply at all costs. In any particular incident, no crew would have
sufficient information at the time to know whether hijackers ultimately intended
to conduct a suicidal mission or a hostage-taking/demand-making mission.
Without the precedent of 9-11 (in contrast to the then-recent hostage-type
hijacking in India), would any airline crew have refused to comply with demands
of hijackers slitting the throats of attendants and/or passengers to induce
compliance? Would Todd Beamer and his fellow heroes have adopted their
"let's roll" strategy if they were to have believed the hijackers
intended to land and negotiate rather than to crash the plane into a
building?
The only "safe" choice would be a third one: To ground all
passenger flights until intelligence could be sufficiently refined to determine
with a high degree of confidence whether such possible hijackings would
constitute the traditional hostage-taking, negotiation-oriented type (like
the then-recent hijacking of the Indian airliner by Islamic terrorists allied
with the Taliban) or the suicidal kind not previously experienced despite having been
previously predicted as a possible change of tactics. How long would it
take to achieve such degree of confidence about the nature of such threat?
Would it ever have been possible (before 9-11) to have achieved the requisite
degree of confidence?
Sibel
like Cybil or Sibel like Libel?
For
translating needs that were dire,
'twas post-9-11 we hired
some mid-eastern speakers
|as translating readers
of mid-eastern data acquired.
The
backlog in which we were mired
was mid-eastern data acquired
remaining unleavened
before 9-11
in oceans of dots we'd acquired.
And
one who is named "Sibel Edmonds"
is claiming before 9-11
the data explained
'twas hijacking planes
to crash into buildings envisioned.
Assume,
arguendo, she's right
that Tenet and Dubya and Rice
had learned there were clues
that airlines they'd use
as missiles by hijacking flights.
Assume
you were told, "Make a plan
to stop such attack on our land,"
but also assume
there also were clues
of hijackers planning to land.
Assume
you must furnish the clues
as warnings to airliner crews.
Should warnings prescribe
"resist or you'll die"
or "let 'em prescribe where to land"?
Without
9-11 as hindsight,
you'd not know which warning's designed right,
so which would you choose:
"Resist or you'll lose"
or "Let them take-over the flight"?
Following the
"safe" choice would make us perpetual hostages to such threats.
In the pre-9-11 world, to have relied upon clues such as those alleged by
Edmonds as justification for immediately instructing all airline crews to resist
to the death any hijacking attempt (and thereby doom the passengers on the
assumption that such hijacking necessarily must be the suicidal type) would have
been irresponsible. As difficult as it is, we simply must face the
reality that those barbarians outsmarted us.
We must also face the likelihood that in some context not fully anticipated by
us, they will outsmart us again. We cannot realistically expect to
ultimately prevail in this war between civilization and medieval barbarism
without taking more casualties. Rumsfeld repeats it, but few pay
attention: On defense, we must succeed 100 times against every 100
attempts against us, but the barbarians need to succeed only one time in a
hundred to achieve a victory. We cannot protect every bridge, every length
of railroad track, every building where people congregate, every shopping mall,
every office building, every airplane, every boat, every inch of shoreline,
every inch of our northern and southern borders, every inch of every highway,
every school, every sporting event, every church, every government office, etc.
100% of the time. No matter what event were to occur, it's a certainty
that somewhere in the oceans of dots, there will be dots whose connections will
be rendered discernibly connected only by hindsight from the vantage of future
events.
Is there any consolation? At least in the post-9-11 world,
potential hijackers now know that passengers (such as those who helped subdue
Richard Reid) will resist on the assumption that they will die anyway if they
were to remain passive. That's the effect of full-hindsight in contrast to
the self-serving, self-important, half-hindsight theories of "experts"
such as Edmonds (and Clarke).
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.
April 1, 2004: #01
Political Satire/Commentary where
satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
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A
soon-to-be-identified expert on terrorism reveals evidence showing who deserves
blame for the 9-11 attack.·
A soon-to-be-identified expert on terrorism reveals evidence showing who
deserves blame for the 9-11 attack. However, before explaining evidence
revealing who deserves such blame, the soon-to-be-identified expert insists on
recounting relevant historical events that buttresses the compelling evidence
supporting such findings. What follows is a summary of such historical
events:
After fanatical mobs seized the American Embassy in Tehran and held American
diplomatic employees hostage, Jimmy Carter ordered a rescue mission, which
failed despite the heroism of those on the mission. Burned by the failure
of that mission, he did not order another one. To spite Carter, and
perhaps fearing Reagan, the fanatics released the hostages on the day of
Reagan's inauguration as Carter's successor.
In 1983, Reagan made the mistake (in the words of then-Senator Barry Goldwater)
of sending to Lebanon too few Marines to do the job (of containing the PLO) and
too many to die. After a truck bomb killed hundreds of Marines in their
barracks in Lebanon, Reagan withdrew from Lebanon. He had made the mistake
of starting something he wasn't then prepared to finish.
In the early 1980's, Iranian fanatics duped Reagan's operatives into believing
they were moderates poised to seize power from the fanatics controlling Iran and
that by acquiring American weapons for use against Iraq in the Iran/Iraq war
they would thereby acquire influence to persuade the fanatics controlling those
holding American hostages in Lebanon to release the hostages. Reagan's
operatives procured sequential releases of a number of hostages by covertly
selling to such the Iranians posing as "moderates" American weapons
the operatives first purchased from the U.S. military. Meanwhile,
Reagan's operatives were diverting profits from such sales to support the
Contras in Nicaragua. Although public revelation of such covert operations
led to their cessation and political condemnation of Reagan and the operatives (i.e.,
Oliver North, et al), the diversion of profits to the Contras proved vital to
the ultimate rejection of the Sandinista's totalitarian rule of Nicaragua in
favor of non-totalitarian, democratic governance to the credit of North, et
al.
In the 1980's, a series of airline hijackings of airliners other than Israeli
airliners repeatedly taught terrorists that Western fears of harm to
passengers was so great that terrorists could count on Western governments
negotiating with hostage-takers rather than jeopardizing lives of passengers by
undertaking rescue missions. In contrast, Israel's reaction to such
hostage-taking was a rescue mission successfully staged against hostages being
held at Entebbe. At Entebbe, the Israeli commandos rescued nearly all the
hostages safely, but at least one of the rescuers (the brother of Benjamin
Netanyahu) died in the mission. There has not been a hijacking of an Israeli
plane since then.
In 1993, in Somalia, barbaric killers associated with, or inspired by, al Qaeda
killed, and then barbarically desecrated the bodies of, American soldiers who
were seeking to capture a warlord interfering with a humanitarian mission by
American troops initiated under Bush 41 to stop anarchy that was inducing
starvation and to provide security to humanitarian organizations feeding the
Somali population on the verge of starvation. Clinton ordered withdrawal
of the American forces without those who killed and desecrated the bodies of our
troops being required to pay any price for their barbarism. Usama bin
Laden has often cited this to support his assertion to his fanatic followers
that such they could count on such acts of slaughter and barbarity to induce the
United States to withdraw.
In 1993, Islamic terrorists, some of whom had indisputable connections to Iraq's
intelligence service, bombed the World Trade Center. One of the
conspirators fled to, and received protection of Saddam Hussein's regime in,
Iraq. In 1993, Iraqi intelligence agents attempted to assassinate
then-former-President George H. W. Bush (Bush '41) during his visit to
Kuwait. Clinton responded with a cruise-missile attack on a
government-ministry building in Iraq.
In 1995, Islamic fanatics believed to be associated with Usama bin Laden killed
five Americans in a car-bomb attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In 1996,
Islamic fanatics killed 19 American military personnel by bombing the Khobar
Towers residential complex for American military personnel in Dharan, Saudi
Arabia.
In 1998, the two hours-apart bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
bore signs of being operations of Islamic fanatics associated with Usama bin
Laden. Two weeks later, Clinton
ordered strikes by dozens of cruise missiles on suspected al Qaeda camps in
Afghanistan and the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory in the Sudanese capital,
Khartoum, believed by U.S. intelligence to have been engaging in, or
planning to engage in, manufacture of chemical weapons via financial support
from Usama bin Laden and direct contacts with the head of Iraq's
chemical-weapons program for making VX nerve gas. (After-attack reports
indicated bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders were no longer in the training
camps in Afghanistan when the cruise missiles struck and that investigation of
the rubble of the pharmaceutical plant failed to reveal chemical-weapons
residues.)
In January,
2000, there was a failed attempt to attack an American destroyer, the
U.S.S. Sullivan, and in October,
2000, Islamic fanatics associated with al Qaeda killed 17 sailors and
wounded 39 by bombing the U.S.S. Cole in the harbor at Aden, Yemen.
In July/August 2001, FBI
field agents in Minnesota and Arizona independently practicing ethnic
profiling of young men from the Middle East ostensibly interested in learning to
fly large airplanes without learning to take-off or land failed to persuade
their superiors that such activities warranted more aggressive investigative
tactics. By August, Agent Crowley had procured the arrest of Moussaoui for
a visa violation but failed to present sufficient probable cause for seizure of
his computer hard-drive. Many in the FBI bureaucracy were still smarting
from accusations of prejudice against people from the Middle East as a result of
initial reports following the Oklahoma bombing focusing on suspicions that it
was the work of Middle-East terrorists. At the same time, long-standing
laws originally intended to protect us from police-state powers being exercised
in the name of national security made it a criminal offense for FBI agents to
share intelligence with the CIA and vice versa.
In June/July, 2001, there were "spikes" of intelligence leads
suggesting al Qaeda was planning "something big" soon against
U.S. interests, and included among such information was information indicating
such attack "might" include "hijacking" of airlines to
bargain for releases of captives and/or other political concessions.
At that time, accepted doctrine for how airlines should respond to any such
hijacking was to avoid jeopardizing the passengers by having the airline crew
comply with, rather than to resist, hijackers' demands in order to allow
"experts" to "negotiate" with the hijackers to secure safe
release of the passengers. If one were to have accepted the
predictions of the possibility of hijackings but ignored those
same predictions' characterization of such hijackings as being expected comprise
the hostage-taking variety and instead embraced the theory that such
hijackings would be for the purpose of using passenger airliners as missiles,
then to provide a meaningful, non-counterproductive "alert" to
airlines would have required instructing them to reverse decades-old doctrine by
ordering them to resist the hijackers at all cost regardless of how many
passengers they might kill or mutilate to induce the crew to let them gain entry
to the cockpit. Given the information available, no responsible official
would have issued any such doctrine-reversing orders even if they were to
have known about Moussaoui's incarceration and the contents of the "Phoenix
memo."¹
Blame-O-Rama-9-11.
So, who is to blame for the 9-11 attack? Bill Clinton? Clinton's
advisors? No. Madeline Albright? No. William
Cohen? No. Sandy Berger? No. Not even Al Gore.
George Bush? No. Bush's advisors? Condoleeza Rice?
No. Dick Cheney? No. Donald Rumsfeld? No. Colin
Powell? No. Not even Richard Clarke.
For
Nine-One-One fixing of blame
this lim'rick peruses the names
of people construed
in hind-sighters' views
as people deserving of blame.
Though
some think it fair to blame Clinton,
and Albright, who also is mentioned,
and Cohen as well
and Sandy and Al,
such blame is by fairness forbidden.
Though
some think it fair to blame Bush
for failing to urgently push
for Cheney and Condi
and Colin and Rummy
to say, "Plans by Clarke we will push."
However,
our expert possessing
the common-sense skill for assessing
the facts as they were
and not as preferred
has learned where the blame should be resting.
You
say to our expert on blame
there has to be someone to blame,
but expertise shows
what common-sense knows
as shown in the following frame.*
(*Readers
should view the animated slide show "Blame-O-Rama-9-11" to discern
whom our expert has discovered to be blameworthy, but readers disliking
animations may read the next paragraph.)
People wanting to know who to blame would say to our expert, "There must be
someone to blame!" To them, our expert replies,
"Of course-- the blame belongs on the 19 hijackers, al Qaeda members who
supported them, and the masterminds, Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri--
it's not rocket science."
¹·"None of the students Williams[,
who
authored the "Phoenix memo" about young Arab men taking flying lessons,]
was investigating were involved in the Sept. 11 hijackings. But one knew hijacker Hani Hanjour from flight training and an Arizona religious center."
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