"the greatest American that ever lived, President and
General George Washington, urged our government to stay focused ...and avoid entangling
alliances"
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Too Many Secrets AND NOT ENOUGH TIME!
Posted June 9, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Ted Lang
Our system of government is an open system of government. That is so
because it exists only to protect the individual freedoms of its citizens
and to protect that system from all threats both foreign and domestic. It
is in this spirit that the greatest American that ever lived, President and
General George Washington, urged our government to stay focused on this
purpose and to avoid entangling alliances.
And now we have another George for president, one with far more educational
credentials, one with an MBA and impressive diplomas from prestigious
schools, and one whose mediocre academics conjures up the strong suspicion
that Daddy's checkbook made graduation possible, irrespective of the level
of scholastic achievement.
An open government such as ours does not allow for the arbitrary arrest and
incarceration of citizens without their being allowed one phone call; and
requires the reading to the accused of his or her rights; and requires a
statement of the charges being made against them as well; and permits of
them the right to seek legal counsel for a defense against such charges, as
well as the right to face accusers; and provides them a day in court and a
trial by a jury of their peers.
An open government does not conduct random sweeps in nations where our
superior military might is used to invade and arbitrarily arrest and detain
the civilians of that nation, and then to employ torture, beatings, rape and
murder against defenseless prisoners. These crimes are far more sinister
than mere entangling alliances.
An open government does not maintain a secret police, or employ "mental"
torture, or cause those arrested to "disappear" and suspend citizens'
rights. An open government does not favor one class of citizens over
another - it does not discriminate based upon race, religion, national
origin or any other basis to deprive one class of citizens their rights
while favoring those of another.
An open government is an honest government, and as such, does not keep
secrets from the people it was created to serve.
All of these basic, simple, concepts have been lost on President George Bush
and his administration. Not only are they lost but they've been arrogantly
relegated as being totally unimportant. And the administration has
punctuated this arrogance by the obvious sneer: The people can all go to
hell - we're in charge!
On the heels of almost concrete evidence that President George Bush helped,
or at least knew about and supported Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
plans for prisoner torture, in deliberate violation of the Geneva
Convention, as well as every other modicum of human decency, and as
evidenced by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales' memo to him, information
is now surfacing that Bush was intimately involved in the criminal act of
exposing a CIA operative.
On Thursday, June 3rd, the first news tidbit in the morning involved a
report that President George W. Bush engaged the services of an outside
attorney, one James Sharp. Around lunchtime, CIA Director George Tenet
"resigned." Then, in an article posted by Capital Hill Blue entitled, "Bush
Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name," a report was released offering
that a grand jury was looking into the deliberate exposure, termed "outing,"
of CIA operative [spy] Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph
Wilson. It may be recalled that it was Wilson who called attention to the
Niger yellowcake fraud used by Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
Additionally, the CIA and the Bush administration relied heavily on
"intelligence" supplied by Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress, a
political adversary of Saddam's. Chalabi is an international political
manipulator, and took advantage of the secret, and therefore easily fooled,
government of President George Bush. Chalabi deliberately provided false
intelligence to George Tenet's CIA that helped justify our illegal and
unjust invasion of Iraq. Chalabi then earned some additional payoffs from
the government of Iran, warning them that our CIA had broken their code.
The Bush administration has funneled over $27 million of our hard-earned tax
money to this despicable crook, another former big favorite of the Bush
family and the Republican Party and its war hawks.
Bush, in seeking outside counsel, is preparing to respond to an outside
criminal investigation. The White House Counsel cannot be used in a
criminal matter that falls outside his constitutionally sanctioned duties.
Bush could easily have ordered the leak stopped - these are his people, as
are the Vice President and his staff. This is very damaging testimony
indeed, and as usual, G. Bush's timing is precious! If the grand jury that
is now in receipt of sworn testimony indicating Bush's complicity in outing
a CIA operative, a very serious charge, hands up an indictment, Bush may face
a similar situation that was faced by former President Bill Clinton, who was
impeached for having committed perjury in a civil suit. This would be a
criminal trial at the outset and a much more serious blow to the
administration.
George Tenet's resignation is a classic case of "too little-too late." And
by the way, Tenet did not resign; he was asked to leave. Considering that
Bush and Tenet are good friends, it is obvious that Bush's handlers thought
it best for the upcoming election. In the words of Tony Soprano -
fahgedaboudit! Remember 1973 and Dick Nixon? This is much worse!
In an article entitled, "Report Blames Agencies Over Prewar Intelligence,"
New York Times reporter Douglas Jehl offers in his June 4th report, "George
J. Tenet's resignation may have been hastened by a critical, 400-page report
from the Senate Intelligence Committee that was presented to the Central
Intelligence Agency for comment last month. Government officials and people
close to Mr. Tenet said the classified report was a detailed account of
mistakes and miscalculations by American intelligence agencies on whether
Iraq possessed illicit weapons before the United States invaded last year.
An unclassified version of the report is to be made public this month. Some
close to Mr. Tenet said the report was among the factors that led him to
resign from a post he had considered leaving for several years."
It is clear that criticism from the mildly effectual 9-11 Commission,
combined with the Valerie Plame outing, combined with the Chalabi mess, and
now the Senate report, that the CIA mess is boiling over. Bush isn't bright
enough to distance himself from failure - he usually fires his good people
and keeps the incompetent "yes" people on board. I have long offered that
Tenet, as well as the FBI's Mueller, should have been fired long ago. And
that was when I was still a Republican, culminating in 40 years of loyalty, and still holding out hope for Bush.
It's far too late now; and in fact, I take the same tack as many other
dedicated Americans who were Republicans - we have now come to that
irreversible conclusion: Anybody But Bush!
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© THEODORE E. LANG 6/6/04 All rights reserved.
Ted Lang is a political analyst and a freelance writer.
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