At least thirty US soldiers (there are unconfirmed reports that the number is much higher) have died in the last seventy-two hours in Iraq. For what? The _resident's foolish military adventure and the neo-con wet dream that inspired it should destroy him politically, but many more lives will be lost in his unraveling? MEANWHILE, the LNS often highlights the "US mainstream news media" failure to provide the US electorate with CONSISTENCY and CONTINUITY on the life and death stories of I9/11, Iraq, the Bush Cabal's real agenda, etc. Here is a stunning example...Richard Clark (R-Reality) has charged that the _resident, the VICE _resident and the White House au pair wrongly dimissed his preoccupation with Al Qaeda and took the nation's National Security focus away from that imminent threat and turned it instead on to Missile Defense and Iraq...There are many kinds of evidence to corroborate Clark's sworn testimony...Here is a very powerful example...from a very articulate and experienced US statesman...that's why you won't see him interviewed on the Sunday morning propapunditgandist "news" shows...that's why the "US mainstream news media" won't remind you about how the Bush Cabal's blew off the Hart-Rudman report just like it blew off the Clinton-Gore National Security team's view that Al Qaeda was the no. 1 threat, nor will the "US mainstream news media" remind you about how the Bush Cabal resisted the establishment of a Homeland Security Dept. -- even after 9/11 (just as it fought the establishment of a 9/11 commission) until it had no other political choice...It's the Media, Stupid...The coming election is a national referendum on the CREDIBILITY, CHARACTER and COMPETENCE of the _resident...Here is another very important piece of information to share with your fellow citizens...
Gary Hart (D-Reality), Salon: The U.S. Commission on
National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former
Sen. Warren Rudman and myself, reported to President
George W. Bush and his new administration in January
2001 that terrorists were surely going to attack the
United States and that our country was woefully
unprepared. We documented the lack of intelligence
coordination against this threat and the lack of
preparation of up to two dozen federal agencies, as
well as state and local governments, to prevent such
attacks or respond to them when they did occur. Though
we had no ability to forecast specific times, places
and methods for such attacks, we were united in our
certainty that they were bound to occur. In our first
report we said: "America will become increasingly
vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland [and]
Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly
in large numbers." In our final report we urged the
new Bush administration to create a national homeland
security agency to prevent terrorist attacks.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies, Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/04/06/commission/index.html
A Paul Revere no one wants to hear from
I co-chaired a national security panel that warned the Bush administration the terrorists were coming. Why hasn't the 9/11 commission called any of us to testify?
Editor's note: The U.S. Commission on National
Security/21st Century was created by President Bill
Clinton in October 1998, with the approval of the
congressional leadership. It was a bipartisan
commission with a three-year life and a mandate to
review threats to national security and opportunities
to avoid those threats and to report to the next
president of the United States in early 2001. It
completed the most comprehensive review of U.S.
national security since 1947.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Gary Hart
April 6, 2004 | Suppose that in March or April 1941,
14 Americans with lengthy backgrounds in national
security affairs had reported to President Franklin
Roosevelt that the United States was going to be
attacked somewhere, sometime, somehow by the Japanese,
that this attack would result in large numbers of
American casualties, and these officially appointed
Americans had strongly recommended to the Roosevelt
administration that it take urgent steps to help
prevent such an attack. Further suppose that Roosevelt
had done little if anything in response to this
warning, and that almost eight months later, as it
happened, the Japanese attacked American facilities at
Pearl Harbor, and almost 2,000 Americans died. Suppose
after this attack official inquiries were launched, as
it also happened, as to why there was a failure of
intelligence, what actions were or were not taken
based on what intelligence there was, and what could
be done to prevent such catastrophic surprises in the
future. And finally suppose that the official
commission created to investigate the tragedy of Pearl
Harbor failed to call upon the original 14 Americans
who forecast the attack and forewarned against it.
Now move this supposed scenario forward to 2004 and
you have virtually a perfect fit and an actual set of
circumstances. The U.S. Commission on National
Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Sen.
Warren Rudman and myself, reported to President George
W. Bush and his new administration in January 2001
that terrorists were surely going to attack the United
States and that our country was woefully unprepared.
We documented the lack of intelligence coordination
against this threat and the lack of preparation of up
to two dozen federal agencies, as well as state and
local governments, to prevent such attacks or respond
to them when they did occur. Though we had no ability
to forecast specific times, places and methods for
such attacks, we were united in our certainty that
they were bound to occur. In our first report we said:
"America will become increasingly vulnerable to
hostile attack on our homeland [and] Americans will
likely die on American soil, possibly in large
numbers." In our final report we urged the new Bush
administration to create a national homeland security
agency to prevent terrorist attacks.
Now that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States -- the so-called 9/11
commission -- is moving toward completion of its
deliberations and preparation of its final report, I
am increasingly asked what information our earlier
commission, the U.S. Commission on National
Security/21st Century, has provided the 9/11
commission and why that information has not been made
public. When told that the 9/11 commission has not
asked for any public testimony from us, most people
are incredulous. If the 9/11 commission is really
trying to find out what was known and when it was
known, they ask, why would your national security
commission's warnings and recommendations not be of
direct relevance and urgent interest? Didn't you
publicly and privately warn the new Bush
administration of your concerns about terrorism?
Didn't you specifically recommend a new national
homeland security agency? Why wouldn't all this be of
central importance to the work of the 9/11 commission?
The simple answer to all these questions is: I don't
know why we have not been asked to testify.
Since the U.S. Commission on National Security
officially ceased to exist as of the summer of 2001, I
cannot speak for the other 13 commissioners. But I
have been waiting for many months to hear from the
9/11 commission, fully expecting a request for public
testimony from members of our earlier commission, and
have heard nothing.
To my knowledge, few if any members of the media have
asked the 9/11 commission these questions either. Why
would a commission investigating the events leading up
to 9/11 not want to know what an earlier commission
learned about potential terrorist attacks and what
recommendations it gave to the new administration?
This would seem to any reasonable person to be of
intense interest to the press and the public the media
serves. Apparently not. Apparently the politics of
whether National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
will testify under oath and the drama of personal
assaults on chief terrorism advisor Richard Clarke
exhaust media attention. It is difficult to know, or
to understand, why this is so.
In this connection it is important to note that the
U.S. Commission on National Security based its
conclusions about the inevitability of terrorist
attacks in part on testimony from Clarke, and fully
briefed Rice and other senior Bush administration
officials regarding the urgency of its conclusions.
Sixty years after Pearl Harbor, books are still being
written about whether the Roosevelt administration had
any warnings of potential Japanese attacks. There
certainly was no U.S. Commission on National Security
in 1941 to issue such warnings. Only lonely Billy
Mitchell, prophet of aerial warfare, some 18 years
before. Now the 9/11 commission has the great burden
of creating as complete a public record as possible of
all the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks for the
rest of history, to try to lay to rest theories of
conspiracy and behind-the-scenes manipulation and
maneuver, and to exhaustively examine all relevant
information.
This cannot be done until the U.S. Commission on
National Security/21st Century is officially and
publicly heard from.