Rumsfeld Lies About Iraq and the War on Terror ... Again

→ Washington’s Blog

ABC News reports today on Diane Sawyer's recent interview with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld claims:

Powell
-- along with other top Bush administration officials and advisers --
truly believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction at the time of
his famous presentation to the United Nations in February 2003.

The truth, however, is that everyone knew that Iraq didn't have WMDs.

ABC also notes:

Asked if he turned the conversation inside the administration to Iraq in the wake of 9/11, Rumsfeld said "absolutely not."

But as I have repeatedly pointed out, the reality is that Rumsfeld tried to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to attack Iraq:

5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam".

He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

Indeed:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is currently saying that Dick Cheney's vision of policy towards the Middle East after 9/11 was to re-draw the map ....

***

What does this mean?

Well,
as I have repeatedly pointed out, the "war on terror" in the Middle
East has nothing to do with combating terror, and everything to do with
remaking that region's geopolitical situation to America's advantage.

For example, as I noted in January::

Starting
right after 9/11 -- at the latest -- the goal has always been to
create "regime change" and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya,
Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon; the goal was never really to destroy Al
Qaeda. As American reporter Gareth Porter writes in Asia Times:

Three weeks after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, former US
defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military
objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but
overturning the regime in Iran, as well as in Syria and four other
countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted
extensively in then-under secretary of defense for policy Douglas
Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions.
Feith's account further indicates that this aggressive aim of
remaking the map of the Middle East by military force and the threat
of force was supported explicitly by the country's top military
leaders.

Feith's book, War and Decision, released last month, provides excerpts of the paper Rumsfeld sent to President George W Bush on September 30, 2001, calling
for the administration to focus not on taking down Osama bin Laden's
al-Qaeda network but on the aim of establishing "new regimes" in a
series of states...

***

General
Wesley Clark, who commanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
bombing campaign in the Kosovo war, recalls in his 2003 book Winning Modern Wars being told by a friend in the Pentagon in November 2001 that the list of states that Rumsfeld and
deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz wanted to take down
included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia [and Lebanon].

***

When this writer asked Feith . . . which of the six regimes on the Clark list were included in the Rumsfeld paper, he replied, "All of them."

***

The
Defense Department guidance document made it clear that US military
aims in regard to those states would go well beyond any ties to
terrorism. The document said the Defense Department would also seek to
isolate and weaken those states and to "disrupt, damage or destroy"
their military capacities - not necessarily limited to weapons of mass
destruction (WMD)...

Rumsfeld's paper was
given to the White House only two weeks after Bush had approved a US
military operation in Afghanistan directed against bin Laden and the
Taliban regime. Despite that decision, Rumsfeld's proposal called
explicitly for postponing indefinitely US airstrikes and the use of
ground forces in support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in order
to try to catch bin Laden.

Instead, the
Rumsfeld paper argued that the US should target states that had
supported anti-Israel forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

***

After
the bombing of two US embassies in East Africa [in 1998] by al-Qaeda
operatives, State Department counter-terrorism official Michael
Sheehan proposed supporting the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in
Afghanistan against bin Laden's sponsor, the Taliban regime. However,
senior US military leaders "refused to consider it", according to a
2004 account by Richard H Shultz, Junior, a military specialist at
Tufts University.

A senior officer on the
Joint Staff told State Department
counter-terrorism director Sheehan he had heard terrorist strikes characterized more than once by colleagues as a "small price to pay for being a superpower".

No wonder former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative".

***

The number two man at the State Department, Lawrence Wilkerson, said:

The vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy.

***

And
at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions
between top administration officials, several lines below the
statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam
Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case."
In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that
Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as
an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.

Moreover, "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President
Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S.
intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of
Saddam Hussein to the [9/11] attacks and that there was scant credible
evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al
Qaeda".

And a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy.

And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed repeatedly for years that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed, Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11.

Moreover, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph:

(2)
acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is
consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take
the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist
organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons
who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks
that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Therefore, the
Bush administration expressly justified the Iraq war to Congress by
representing that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11
attacks. See this.

Indeed, the torture program which Cheney created was specifically aimed at producing false confessions in an attempt to link Iraq and 9/11.

Rumsfeld had a big hand in torture as well.

Comments

[Jonathan North]

I'm glad you got a laugh out of it, I find it quite hilarious myself.  Hind sight really is 20/20 and looking back on it I can see how wraped up we were with our own theories, plans, and justifications.

[nmewn]

ROTFLMA!

by Jonathan North
on Tue, 02/08/2011 - 04:46
#942390

I was working with the Rumsfeld Administration at the time.  I even met the man. I floated a theory that the Iraqi WMD were shipped off to Liberia where Muammar Qaddafi conveniently gave them up in the interests of peace.  My theory was given quite a lot of consideration but never saw the light of day.  >>>I don't know why they squashed my theory.<<<(Me either...LOL).  Anthony Cordesman floated my theory on C-Span Washington Journal but I guess nobody saw the merit in it.  To me it seemed like a perfect answer to the WMD question.  To this day I believe that Saddam Hussein not only flew his air force to Liberia but also played hide and seek with his WMDs to make us look foolish."

Thanks for the laugh...I had to capture this in all it's leftwing moonbattery before it escaped down the memory/edit hole...LOL.

[Jonathan North]

I was working with the Rumsfeld Administration at the time.  I even met the man. I floated a theory that the Iraqi WMD were shipped off to Liberia where Muammar Qaddafi conveniently gave them up in the interests of peace.  My theory was given quite a lot of consideration but never saw the light of day.  I don't know why they squashed my theory.  Anthony Cordesman floated my theory on C-Span Washington Journal but I guess nobody saw the merit in it.  To me it seemed like a perfect answer to the WMD question.  To this day I believe that Saddam Hussein not only flew his air force to Liberia but also played hide and seek with his WMDs to make us look foolish.

[Temporalist]

Where is that missing $2.3 Trillion Rummy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU4GdHLUHwU

[Bear]

Why is it so important the G. Bush (et all) did not know the truth or lied or some combination of the two?

What is important is that all the Presidents since Regan are total statists who believe that government can solve problems ... It cannot, and the only way we will be successful is if government just gets out of the way and leaves the power to those who the Constitution appoints ... the individual.

[essence]

Why am I not surprised that when George Washington does an article about the hypocrisy and corruption behind the U.S. wars, sure enough it brought out the trolls.
Poster "freddie'"certainly was one. The common denominator being their posts are full of invectives and short of a reasoned counter argument.

George Washington ... you did us a service yet again. Good article.

Unfortunately, as Jack Nickolson stated in that classic movie line "You can't handle the truth". That of course being directed to so many of the clueless in the U.S. In debt, overweight, overconsuming, pumped full of too much hollywood & mass media.

Agreed folks, no one likes to entertain the thought that their servicemen died in vain, or worse... died as pawns for those with manipulative, even evil intentions. Some,   many ... simply can't handle the thought. So they lash out .... even when someone presents the truth. For the truth can be uncomfortable, it is sometimes stark, glaring,harsh.

It's not what many older Americans grew up with, what with being indoctrinated
with Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Rambo. Slow to anger, harsh in their righteousness.

Thankfully those troglodytes that can't handle the truth are dying off and becoming rarer. The remaining Americans no doubt are dazed and confused enough with the ongoing recession/depression without troubling their minds by thinking back more than 5 years.

Yes America, your Government by and large is corrupt. Is a warmonger.
The Russians and Chinese actually were correct when back in the cold war they used the term "hegemony" in the same breath as "America". And in that same period Ronald Regan was the first of the corporatate shills to pay Americans bills with it's credit card, the first of the corporate shills to oversee the outsourching of jobs abroad, oversee the chasm between CEO pay and line workers (from 50 to 1  to 500 to 1).

Many of you sense, know.. that things are dreadfully wrong. That things have gone dreadfully bad.

Don't blame George Washington for being the messenger.

Need Proof?  Look to our financial system, our Central Bank. Our Congress.
Go read History. Educate yourselves about the fraud behind the selling of the Vietnam War with the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

A den of liars and thieves ... in bed with the Military/Industrial Complex.

That's our government.

[Hephasteus]

They knew in the 60's. The made the soldiers feel horrible and scared when they came back from vietnam. They got forced into drug usage by strange emotional forces. They got subjected by endless movies of soldiers pain and angst over being rejected upon returning.

People now know what the industrial revolution was about. More deadly weapons.

People now know what the IT revolution is about. Spying and more deadly weapons.

People now know what government is about. Weapons and killing and forcing and enforcing.

[Precious]

And you keep electing them numbnuts.

[mrgneiss]

About GW you can say one thing, he usually manages to bring out the worst in everyone.

[aerial view]

Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush and now the current Obama administration put their conscience away to make killing easy in far off countries and no matter how immoral or barbaric their actions or how much evidence disputes their claims, "the ends will always justify the means" unless of course it happens to the U.S., then it's the act of terrorists. Hypocrisy rules! 

[zebra]

come on guys, he is just doing his job as a professional liar like all the others in Washington.

[loup garou]

Lies about Rush Limbaugh and Fox News referring to Arabs as “camel jockeys”… lies about millionaire Marxist Amy Goodman being “charged for simply COVERING a republican convention”…

Now, more lies:

“The truth, however, is that everyone knew that Iraq didn't have WMDs.”

This is a lie. If you follow the link to his own blog you find ( A LOT) more lies.

“And the number 2 Democrat in the Senate -who was on the Senate intelligence committee - admitted that the Senate intelligence committee knew before the war started that Bush's public statements about Iraqi WMDs were false.”

Yet another lie. Durbin never said anything of the sort. Read it for yourself. Durbin simply said that some of the intelligence given to the committee was “flimsy”… The article continues:

    Five of nine Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted for the measure as did all eight Republicans.
    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's office circulated an e-mail Wednesday highlighting Mr. Durbin's comments, but his office didn't respond to requests yesterday to elaborate on the e-mail.
    The e-mail said Mr. Durbin's comments were inconsistent with the words of other Democrats on the committee, including Sens. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia and Carl Levin of Michigan. Those two Democrats said publicly before the war that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was intent on pursuing nuclear weapons. Mr. Rockefeller voted for the war, but Mr. Levin did not.

Jihad George has built up such a mountain of lies that shoveling through all of them would take far more time than it is worth. So, here are some facts:

Regardless of the careful wording of the Authorization, did the Bush administration orchestrate a "public relations drive" that was "proved false"?

Inasmuch as a public relations drive was mounted, it was examined by a Democrat-controlled Senate Committee on Intelligence and largely found to be "substantiated by intelligence."  This [June 2008] biased report from Chairman John Rockefeller's committee analyzed various statements by Bush administration officials and compared them to post-war intelligence.  Here is what they found (emphasis added).

* "Statements by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor regarding possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community."

* "Statements ... regarding Iraq's possession of biological agents, weapons, production capability, and use of mobile biological laboratories were substantiated by intelligence information."

* "Statements ... regarding Iraq's possession of chemical weapons were substantiated by intelligence information."

* "Statements ... regarding Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction were generally substantiated by intelligence information, though many statements made regarding ongoing production prior to late 2002 reflected a higher level of certainty than the intelligence judgments themselves."

* "Statements ... regarding Iraqi ballistic missiles were generally substantiated by available intelligence."

* "Statements ... that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles that could be use to deliver chemical or biological weapons were generally substantiated by intelligence information, but did not convey the substantial disagreements or evolving views that existed in the intelligence community."

* "Statements ... regarding Iraq's support for terrorist groups other than al-Qa'ida were substantiated by intelligence information."

* "Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qa'ida-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments."

http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

Substantiated, substantiated, substantiated by the intelligence.  And these conclusions from some of the most ardent Bush-bashers in the Senate.  About the worst they could come up with was that the Bush administration made claims with more confidence than seemed warranted by the intelligence community.

Our invasion of Iraq was not based on a public relations drive; it was based on Public Law 107-243, otherwise known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, passed by the 107th Congress in October of 2002 .  (Herein referred to as the "Authorization".)  It passed the House with a vote of 296 to 133 (by 69%) and the Senate with a vote of 77 to 23 (by 77%), including 58% of Senate Democrats.  In short, it was overwhelming; it was bipartisan; and it was law.

Did the Authorization try to "prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction"?  Was that proved false? No and no.

[From the Authorization]

"Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated."  [Emphasis added.]

There are several things to notice in that clause.  First is the tense of the verb "had."  The clause does not claim that Iraq has WMD now (in 2002), but that it at one time had them.  Secondly, the only stockpiles mentioned are of chemical weapons.  Of biological and nuclear weapons it mentions only programs.  At no place does the Authorization say that any WMD are current (post-1991).

Another clause states Iraq continues "to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability" (my emphasis).  Again, capabilities and potential capabilities are mentioned, but not ready-to-use weapons or even weapon programs, much less large stockpiles of modern WMD.

Feel free to read all 23 clauses.  The Authorization never claims that Iraq had large stockpiles of modern WMD in 2002, which later became, for no good reason, the threshold used for validation by the media and administration critics.  (The logical fallacy employed by Bush's critics here is the "straw man.")

So what was found post-invasion?  The Duelfer Report  noted that 53 chemical weapons were found.

"Beginning in May 2004, ISG recovered a series of chemical weapons from Coalition military units and other sources.  A total of 53 munitions have been recovered."  (Found on page 97 of Annex F of Volume 3.)

The Duelfer Report:
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/inde...

That number later grew to over 500 chemical weapons.  You can now check the "large stockpiles of chemical weapons" off your checklist (even though the Authorization did not claim they existed in 2002 or later).

[Duelfer] makes clear that Saddam had every intention of restoring the programs as soon as he could get sanctions lifted.  His very first finding, echoed often throughout the report, states his fundamental conclusion:

     "[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to 

reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted."

In short, the Authorization did not try to "prove that Iraq had WMD."  Inasmuch as the Authorization mentioned WMD, such statements were fully validated by post-war intelligence.  And Duelfer went even further than Authorization claims by finding that Saddam had every intention of reconstituting his WMD has soon as he could bribe his way out of sanctions.

Did the Authorization try to "prove that Iraq had connections to the 911 terrorists"?  Was that proved false?

Again, no and no.

The Authorization mentions the September 11 attacks in five of the 23 "whereas" clauses.  Here is what it says in three such clauses, with the other two being repeats of the same sentiments.

* "Members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for the attacks ... are known to be in Iraq."

* The "attacks... underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of WMD by international terrorist organizations."

* "... necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those ... who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

One clause mentions 9/11 only to provide a background of the gravity of the situation.  Another clause explicitly says that all terrorists are to be targeted, noting that the 9/11 terrorists are only a subset of that larger threat.

There is only one statement in all of the Authorization that connects Iraq with al Qaida and the 9/11 attacks, and then only indirectly.  All it says is that some al Qaida members were known to be in Iraq.

Note that nowhere in the Authorization is there any claim of even a logistical, training or strategic relationship between al Qaida and Iraq, much less an operational or planning one for the 9/11 attacks in particular.  Again for no good reason, this latter claim became the only legitimate threshold for military action per administration critics.

Were any al Qaida members in Iraq at the time of the Authorization?  Yes, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his cell.  The most recent Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the matter concluded the following .

"[Pre-war administration] statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qa'ida-related terrorist members were substantiated by the intelligence assessments.  Intelligence assessments noted Zarqawi's presence in Iraq and his ability to travel and operate within the country."

"Postwar information supports prewar assessments and statements that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Baghdad and that al-Qa'ida was present in northern Iraq."

This report is the product of a Democrat-controlled Senate committee, chaired by John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), in a Democrat-controlled Senate.  Moreover, more extensive Iraq-al-Qaida links have also been substantiated.  According to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report,

   "One of the reported contacts [between Iraq and al-Qa'ida before the war] has been confirmed, and two other meetings have since been identified."

Judge Harold Baer ruled in Federal court that Iraq was indeed partially responsible for the September 11 attacks, enough so that the plaintiffs could be awarded damages against Saddam's Iraq .  The judge ruled there was "a sufficient basis for a reasonable jury to draw inferences"… "that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.... Iraq collaborated in or supported bin Laden/al Qaeda's terrorist acts of September 11...  Iraq provided materiel support to al Qaeda and that it did so with knowledge and intent to further al Qaeda's criminal acts."

Judge Harold Baer is not some 10-Commandment-Displaying Reaganite; he was appointed by President Clinton.  Significant testimony in the case came from James Woolsey, President Clinton's CIA chief from 1993 to 1995.

In short, not only was the language of the Authorization validated, but significantly more involvement between Iraq and al Qaida has been substantiated by a Democrat-controlled Senate, a Clinton-appointed federal judge and a Clinton-appointed former CIA chief.

The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality.  Articles of impeachment would have made more sense if Bush had not invaded.

That the exact opposite story is what a majority of Americans appear to believe, and a super-majority of non-Americans, is a scary thought.  The truth has been sabotaged, and not by President Bush or his allies.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/who_lied_about_iraq.html

A few other points:

Since Tenet seems to be considered a trustworthy source, it is worth noting that he has disputed Suskind’s unverified claim regarding forgery of the CIA document.

Brzezinski, Soros, AlBaradei, Solana, Berger, and Wesley Clark all are board members of  ICC (International Crisis Group).

“Nobel Prize winning economist“ (Paul Krugman, anyone?), Joseph Stiglitz, is a member of the Socialist International and an IPCC author/global warming wacko.
http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1246489837.pdf

[Shell Game]

If war is a rare but necessary evil, and, if conservatives truly love the military men and women, then why don't your type do more to protect them from unecessary evil?

You must stop, breathe, and realize that it's taken both parties to make this decades long debt mess.  Sure, amid crisis the socialist agenda will always crawl out from under the rocks.  But, none of your type EVER introspect as to what evil your side has embraced, how your side has done this country wrong.

No way out of this mess until we take a new path. Plain truth there, buddy..

[benb]

Rumsfeld should be tried for treason along with his pal Cheney… and the war criminal Little Bush as well. It would be quite pleasing to see them all publicly hung. We might as well throw in the murdering war criminal and traitor, phony ‘Three Dollar Bill’ Clinton. [Now being promoted to be the new President of the World] But we all know it’s not going to happen. The puppet show will continue. They are all in the Cabal. They work for ‘The Man’ and are therefore pretty much untouchable. Surprisingly, well over 15 years after the Ruling Oligarchy began the phony War on Terror starting with the FBI instigated, financed, and managed WTC I in 1993, then OKC in 95’, there are still some people so fucking dumb, so fucking ignorant, with minds so impregnated with government propaganda, and so brainwashed that it doesn’t register that these were all staged government operations. When they post their dribble like I see above they fit the definition of one of Stalin’s “Useful IDIOTs.”

[TideFighter]

Rumsfeld only held the temporary title as the world's biggest foreign policy liar. Look what's happening now with Odumbo. He is so incapable, inept, and intellectually lazy that he has changed his Egyptian foreign policy four times in 12 days. In that twelve days, he has played hoops and golf twice. It makes me sick to my stomach. He delegated the matter to Billary, and she got it completely wrong too. The TOTUS needs to follow Dead Fish back to Chicago and organize some more communities. He pulled another Carter on this one. No wonder we are hated throughout the world. The Egyptians are very smart, and began their protests with the understanding that the US would back them in their quest for civil rights, equal employment oportunities, freedom, and democracy. Now, thanks to Odumbo, they have nothing, absolutely nothing. And if they don't work for the government, they will starve. Israel put their foot down, and Odumbo caved in, period. 

[benb]

TideFighter -Following up on your “Odumbo” comment you might be interested in this Dr. Stan Montieth interview given on11/14/10 – “What is taking place in America is not happening by accident. There is an organized intentional effort to destroy the economy of our country. Now how can I make the statement? I read the plan. Where can you get the plan, It’s called the Earth Charter. It was written by Steven Rockefeller who is the nephew of David Rockefeller. And if you honestly believe that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are the two wealthiest people in the United States why you have been reading Time Magazine too long. The real power belongs to the Rockefeller family they’ve been around for almost a hundred years. And basically the Rockefellers dominate Chase Manhattan Bank. David was the president of Chase Manhattan for many years. Now it’s J.P. Morgan Chase, they control CitiGroup, they control the major pharmaceutical companies, they control Exxon and Chevron. They control our major corporations and of course David Rockefeller’s Tri-Lateral Commission controls our government. How can I make that statement? Well you go back and read Barry Goldwater’s ---- With No Apologies…and on page 280 of that book Barry Goldwater says- You know the Council On Foreign Relations is domestic but the Tri-Lateral Commission is international. Their goal is to take over financial and commercial interests of the world by first seizing control of the government of the United States.(Barry Goldwater 1979)  What have they done since then? Well the North American chapter of the Tri-Lateral Commission which was birthed by the Council on Foreign Relations in 1973. (And the Council on Foreign relations is a front for a secret society created by Cecil Rhodes back in 1891 dedicated to taking overt control of the world.) Cecil Rhodes wanted England to control the world and to bring America along. The plan changed after the First World War where America would take over the world and bring Great Britain along. You can find this documented in a book called Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World In Our Time written by Professor Carol Quigley, a leading historian of the twentieth century. An historian who actually discovered the secret society that controls the world today. How do I know? Because I went back to Georgetown University in 1980, I went through Professor Quigley’s papers before they were censored and I found all of his correspondence with Sir Alfred Zimmern who was a member of this secret society and who told Professor Quigley all about this secret society and who was in it. And then of course in 1921 why, this secret society which had a front group called the ‘Round Table’  created the Council on Foreign Relations which then birthed the Bilderburger Group and then birthed the Tri-Lateral Commission in 1973. Of course at that time the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations was David Rockefeller. David Rockefeller financed the Tri-lateral Commission and is the honorary chairman of the North American Chapter today. Now between 1977 and 2008 why every president and/or vice-president of the United States came from the membership roles of the Tri-Lateral Commission. Actually, six of the eight presidents of the World Bank; Eight of the ten American representatives to the World Trade Organization; Seven of the Twelve Secretaries of State and nine of the twelve secretaries of Defense all came from the membership roles of this North American Chapter of the Tri-Lateral Commission. And today twelve of these people surround Barrak Obama.

Don’t let them dissuade you. They point to Barack Obama –you know he’s a socialist. He’s a Muslim. He’s a communist. He was born in Kenya, he doesn’t have a right to be president…They are playing games with your mind. The important issue is that Barak Obama does what he is told. He is controlled by the Tri-Lateral commission. In fact General James Jones, a four Star Marine General who heads the National Security Council in a speech in February of this year (2010) at a Munich Security Conference talked about the chain of command in the National security Council   (Now remember the head of the National Security Council, General James Jones meets with Barak Obama every day and tells him what to do.) And General James Jones said we have a chain of command in the National Security Council through Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger and we get our orders from Henry Kissinger every day… well people don’t understand we have a one party system with two branches and it’s all political theater.”

[benb]

You’ll not get much argument from me on what you’ve said. But I am probably much more cynical than you. I will say as I understand the political apparatus is being run out of the NGOs. CFR, Bilderberg, Committee of 300, e.t.c. So put Obama on my above list of traitors as well. It’s just an act, theater.

“It’s a nightmare in there. Obama is just a television watching second fiddle guy. He doesn’t make any of the decisions. He doesn’t have any interest.”

From an insider who left the White House in early October - as reported by Joel Skoulsen.

[gwar5]

Hans Blix, former Chief UN weapons inspector in a speech to the America Bar Association in 2007 (not a conservative crowd) said that even he thought Hussein had WMD. 

Hans Blix: "Of course, I thought he had WMDs, everybody did.  Why else would he continue to act like he was hiding something from us? He could have saved himself and spared the Iraqi people from a war by letting us do our work but he chose not to."

[Shell Game]

Two (rhetorical) questions for Neo-Conservatives..  Do you love liberty and freedom?   Do you love them enough not to give them up under crisis?  Somehow I've got the impression, that for many conservatives, safe servitude is more palatable than dangerous liberty..

[gwar5]

The term neo-conservative is so 2000's. Union jobs, welfare, and working for the government is safe servitude. Starting your own business and not knowing where your next meal is going to come from is dangerous liberty.

Hardcore socialists (you know who you are) look around and see successful people and immediately want a cut of what they've earned. But they never once acknowledge the failures and the ruined lives that went before them. And they are no where to be found helping a new startup or to help keep a business alive when times are terrible. They just show up to make demands when things are good.

[Shell Game]

True that, gwar5.  Please educate me on the current decade's term for pro-war, pro-imperial empire 'conservative'..  I really don't want to bop around in MC Hammer pants if they're not still rad..  lol!

[nmewn]

Maybe not fin just yet.

Well, I don't know what Kos calls a "neo-conservative" these days...but this fits me.

"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams

As soon as "neo-liberals" lay off the Tea Party I'll stop bashing their skulls in.

What is promoted as "liberal" these days?

It is not "liberal" to force government into my doctors office...it is not "liberal" to take from me and give it to a bank as in the TARP vote (you had the votes to stop it cold)...it is not "liberal" to scream about gun control when a madman kills people...it is not "liberal" to advocate more government on every issue (in fact it's quite the opposite).

Look at Krugman just today, he writes that food prices are escalating because of global warming. This is a "liberal" economist?

Look at what you people have become. I'm ashamed to say I ever was one.

Now I'm done.

[Shell Game]

Always enjoy your view, nmwen.  Like the Samuel Adams quote very much, it fits me nearly to a tee. I say nearly, as I still have much work to do cleaning my own house before I can claim such wisdom.

I hear you re: the new-libs, feel the same way..  I suppose I focus on hammering on conservatives as I see them as potentially 'reformable' - if that makes any sense.  They have lost almost all Founding sensibilities and the true essence of liberty and conservatism.  I ride them because I have a shred of hope for them.  I was one. Now I'm not.

[nmewn]

Well...if your still around to see this...

I see the current crop of "liberals" as reformable as well...they are misguided...so I guess we're going about the same thing in sharing our views.

Regarding some of loup garou's posts above...there's a lot of truth in them, it's what drove me away from the democrat party...I could see it morphing into something that wasn't me. Something so completely against what I believe America is and who we are.

I can't be a "true" libertarian on foreign policy because I refuse to sit back and be attacked...I'm not a pacifist...and unlike most, I believe in alliances in this world that are meaningful to both parties.

Then we have Bush come in as a social conservative and leave as a conservative socialist...LOL...regarding his fiscal policy, the promotion of the CRA on one hand and going after FNM with the other (that was weird), pills for seniors, general growth of government and finally notvetoing TARP, it's was bizzaro world. However, I did not have a problem with his taking out Saddam...a geuinely evil fucktard, along with his sadistic sons, who were a menace to everyone on the planet.

But back to garou's post's above...Obama was a member of the New Party (a socialist party), he was married & had his children baptized in what can only be called a Black Nationalist "church"...Rev. Wright's. Black nationalists are, among other things, marxists.

Just so we're clear here, there is nothing worse in my mind than a communist (of any color)...a socialist is a close second.

I can understand why guys like Bruce & Rocky et al would be disappointed and bitter for being fooled by perceived "coolness" or some weird racial guilt trip or just hatin on war & Bush...but they shouldn't compound the error by attacking the Tea Party (no matter what alliances it has).

My opinion is, it's the closest thing to a popular non-violent uprising we've had in these parts in quite a while. And it's making a difference...slowly but surely...as much as I'm not a pacifist I think we should at least try the ballot box before going all postal.

My two cents.

[Shell Game]

Boggles the fuck out of me that so many still beat the war drums and deride anyone who is anti-war.  What the fuck kind of monsters has the media and RNC made?  And then there's the entitlement zombies the DNC has helped create.  Fuck me..

It was so easy to dupe the American public into going the distance in Iraq.   Gulf War 1.0 was so novel in its smart weapons and 'embedded' media coverage. It convinced Americans that war could be clean, surgical and patriotic (ugh..).  The boob-tube showed us images of dead Iraqis killed by Saddam with gas, making it all to plausable that he would have WMDs and wasn't afraid of using them.  One of the easiest PR ploys for warfare I've ever witnessed.

Thanks for the NON-partisan article, GW.

[loup garou]

The new “anti-war” movement has centered on an umbrella group named International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).  ANSWER is an offspring of Worker’s World (WWP), a Communist splinter party. WWP was formed when five members of the Socialist Worker’s Party, itself a Trotskyite splinter party, left the party over differences they considered fundamental. The five protested the “rightist” slant of the Socialist Workers, according to their statement issued in the first edition of their newspaper, Workers World, which is still in publication: 

“We were the proletariat left wing of the Socialist Workers Party. We have now split with that party, which has gone further and further to the right in recent years, so that we can openly fight for orthodox Trotskyism, which is the authentic Marxism-Leninism of today.”

The leaders of anti-war groups are modern-day Leninists… The movement is heir to the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA)

A variety of CPUSA splinter groups claim the mantle of the Left, even as they spin-off a dizzying series of front groups and issue-oriented action “committees“.  ANSWER is only the largest of these groups, which also include United for Peace and Justice, Not In Our Name (a satellite of the Revolutionary Communist Party), the Green Party, and the Institute for Policy Studies. Their aim is a “struggle” against “oppression” and “imperialism”, code words in the lexicon of revolutionary socialism.

Many of today’s “anti-war” organizers used to support the Soviet Union and its proxies such as the Viet Cong, the Sandinistas, North Korea, Castro’s Cuba, and the Communist guerillas in El Salvador. It is no exaggeration to say that the modern peace movement is composed of the ideological remnants of Communism. These groups are motivated by anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-globalization. They are enamored of socialism, world revolution and class solidarity.

The second largest anti-war umbrella group to emerge since 9/11 is United for Peace and Justice (UPJ).  Like ANSWER, it claims to be a response to the events of 9/11. But it’s also an old Soviet-style “agitprop” front group directed by a veteran Communist activist. UPJ was created in October 2002 at a gathering of representatives of fifty diverse organizations…who met in the offices of People for the American Way.

The third major anti-war group is Not In Our Name (NION)… It grew out of a “Statement of Conscience” that attracted the signatures of Noam Chomsky, historian Howard Zinn, peace activist Michael Parenti, feminists Gloria Steinem and Barbara Kingsolver, novelist Kurt Vonnegut, and Hollywood celebrity-militants Danny Glover, Tyne Daly, Jane Fonda, Oliver Stone, Maris Tomei, Martin Sheen and Ed Harris.

NION is no less radical the ANSWER and UPJ. However, it has a different Communist mentor. NION’s administrative cadre comes from yet another U.S. Communist splinter group, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which draws its inspiration from Communist China and Mao Tse-tung.  NION’s co-directors are C. Clark Kissinger and Mary Greenberg. Kissinger worked with the Black Panther Party in the 1960’s; he founded the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association in 1971; and he supported the Iranian revolution in 1979.

Kissinger’s biographical statements note that he was National Secretary of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)… The statement does not mention that he resigned from the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association after the death of MaoTse-tung to protest China’s repudiation of the decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976 after causing the deaths of an estimated ten to 30 million people.
While pursuing his own extremist political agenda, Kissinger rounds up celebrities to oppose the war, exploiting what Lenin called the “useful idiots.”  Of  NION’s “Statement of Conscience” he has said: “We wanted people to sign the statement without having their names used to endorse other actions.”

http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/OT0305.pdf

They all are inter-related in various ways, including United for Peace and Justice; The Green Party; Code Pink; Moveon.org; National Lawyers Guild; Center for Constitutional Rights and the Institute for Policy Studies.

If one prefers to read the same things from a liberal:

http://www.laweekly.com/2002-11-07/news/behind-the-placards/

[GoinFawr]

Is this you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83tnWFojtcY?

Can somebody please wake up ol' Rip Van Winkle here; apparently he's in a coma from watching "From Russia With Love", or some Tom Clancy equivalent, WAY too many times.

[putbuyer]

I do not believe he was a liar. Not just yet. To many unknowns. He was no Baghdad bob - that's for sure. Gibbs is Baghdad bob for sure.

[flacorps]

Poisoned our food, drugs, our politics and now our bookshelves and the reputations of anyone who stepping on will make him look more in the right. Buh-bye.

[notadouche]

News flash:  US government lied to the people.  That headline could read every day for the last 200 years and for the next 1000 years assuming we survive the next 3 years as a going concern.  It's an American tradition that will always continue.  Actually it's a government tradition carried on world wide.  We need to worry less about the past and pay more attention to where we are being led.  "You can't put shit back in the donkey" I believe is how the saying goes.

[GoinFawr]

Wow, how apathetic are you? "It's forever our lot to bend over and take it dry, just be happy you have an asshole to be raped, schmeeeeee.." Sounds like the problem to me.

So the best thing to do is just lie back and wallow in the donkey shit? Put the shit back in the donkey, who is saying that? No thank you, I'd much rather teach those asses a lesson and rub their noses in it. Might make the next one think twice before unloading...

[nmewn]

"You can't put shit back in the donkey" I believe is how the saying goes."

Well stated...LOL.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0211/Democratic_Leadership_Council_will_fold.html

[NOTW777]

someone tell GW that AOL bought out this part of ZH today as part of the huffpo package.

[Audacity17]

Why believe lies from a partisan pretending to be the first president, when you can just read the justification for yourself?

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_publi...

[loup garou]

For the “Blame America First” crowd*, anything the U.S. does, or does not do, will be criticized.

If the U.S. “supports” a regime in any way, it will be criticized.
If the U.S. supports “regime change“, that will be criticized.
If the U.S. takes a “hands-off” policy, that will be criticized.

(*Note: The “Blame America First Crowd” overlaps with “Bash America Ltd.”, the “Bush/Cheney Haters Association”, the “Tea Party Haters Inc.”, “Anti-Semites-R-us” and quite a few other leftist fucktard groups with which Comrade Georgie and his ilk are enamored.)

[GoinFawr]

I guess you're right, Bush/Cheney and co. are national treasures. Thanks for your brilliant post which has shone so much light on their glowing altruism. I was in the dark until you came along to set the record straight.

<sarc>

[Dr. Gonzo]

"Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations 

    Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its 

    civilian population thereby threatening international peace."

What? This is how we have our puppet dictators run our vassal states for us. I didn't know we could turn it around and upside down when we need to invade and make more vassal states for the empire. We need a Ministry of Truth like Airstrip One had. This shit needed to go into memory hole a long time ago. People don't need to be remembering this info. It will make their brain explode.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Funny how those 9/11 wars turned out. We now control Iraq for ever and don't want our longest war in history to end since it's our heroin playground now. That was never their plan though. They just wanted to capture OBL and Saddam and leave. Things just happened and now they don't want us to go. This was not planned...at all. Really. Things just randomly happened. The fact that all the other empires in history since before Alexander the Great wanted these prizes too is complete coincidence.  This is America. Country music and pick up trucks. We aren't an Empire. OK. Fuck it. We are.

[Bringin It]

I agree with your post except that there never was a real attempt to capture OBL.

[Sunshine n Lollipops]

Like he'd be hard to find. Human Resources down at the Agency should've at least had his mailing address. Ya know, for paychecks. Unless Rummy hand-delivered 'em when they got together.

[GoinFawr]

OBL had lots of family stateside at that point, they might have had some info on his whereabouts. Lucky for them they had a 'get out of America free' card; who gave them that anyway?

Musta been Ralph Nader. <sarc>

[Revolution_star...]

We are talking narcissist, feeding their own narcissism. That's all, of course it wasn't him, he don't remember it that way at all.

Narcissim, Donald Rumsfields "unknown, unknown..."

[SilverFiend]

Yes finally!  And while we are at it GW,  please

write an article denouncing the current president

and his war machine for the thousands of

innocent civilians he has killed from drone

strikes in Pakistan!  Somehow I don't think that

fits your slanted view.

[George Washington]

I have slammed Obama repeatedly for continuing imperial warmongering, torture and tyrany.

It is not a partisan issue.  It is an AMERICAN issue.

[Shell Game]

Amen, brother. Keep bringin' it!

[Cistercian]

 I love your user name/avatar.I have been saying for decades that Wall St is the biggest game of 3 card monte in the world.Or shell game for those not versed in sidewalk cons of NY.

[Cistercian]

 Great job GW.Note how savage the troll attacks are.

   In this context they remind me of brownshirts, somehow.

 Very un-American.

[sushi]

Truly lacking in Egyptian spirit.

[Cistercian]

 +1000

 I hope the Egyptians triumph over the scum that rule over them.

  I was reading today what the chief ministers were worth..they along with Mubarak have really looted the country...just as Wall St and The Fed/mil/intel complex have looted ours.

 Walk like an Egyptian indeed!!!

[Clint Liquor]

There is no War on Terror, just like there is no War on drugs. There is however, a War on freedom and liberty.