It's So Much Worse Than I'd Imagined

Just out of curiosity I went to the website of the Washington Post this morning to glance through some excerpts of Bob Woodward's new book, "Denial." There were two stories; the first one was bad, the second gave me a sinking feeling in my stomach.

There's been a great controversy over who did what - or didn't - since ABC ran that disgusting propaganda smear "9/11". That, in turn, led to Bill Clinton's bitchslap of that hack, Chris Wallace, on Fox when Wallace tried to sandbag him on Osama bin Laden.

Clinton made it clear that he recognized the threat of al-Qaeda and tried to find and kill bin Laden and then pointed out that, despite the urgings of his outgoing administration, the Bushies were simply not interested in bin Laden or al-Qaeda or the clear threat of attacks against the United States.

This brought Condi Rice charging out like the U.S. Cavalry in some B Western, claiming that, despite what Clinton claimed, his people didn't leave the incoming Bush team with a strategy or a plan on al-Qaeda and, besides, her bunch did at least as much as the Clinton team before 9/11.

That volley was fired straight back over the net by Richard Clark, counterterrorism czar to Regan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Little Shrub himself. He told Charlie Rose on PBS that, yes, in fact Clinton ordered him to prepare a briefing and plan specificially for the incoming administration and it was complete even to the point of listing options and their costs. They'd even priced it out for Bush.

This whole business obviously struck a raw nerve in the Bush camp. Both Bush and Rice have been furiously trying to deny all of these allegations. Of course they also know that, no matter how clear the facts, they have a core constituency of right-wing fundamentalists who'll believe anything they say just so long as they say it.

Richard Clark's own statements should be enough to convince anyone that Bush and Rice are flat out lying but, if that's not enough, there are further revelations on this topic in Woodward's book. He recounts how, two months before the attacks, the FBI and CIA were getting swamped with indications that al-Qaeda was about to pull off "the big one."

When Rumsfeld dismissed Tenet's mountain of evidence, out of hand, Tenet and his counter-terrorism wizard, J. Cofer Black, decided to simply march into Condi's office to lay it all out for her, hoping that would shake up the administration.

"Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment - covert, military, whatever - to thwart bin Laden.

"The United States had human and technical sources, and all the intelligence was consistent, the two men told Rice. Black acknowledged that some of it was uncertain "voodoo" but said it was often this voodoo that was the best indicator.

"Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies. "

"Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the Sept. 11 attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, but she just didn't get it in time, Tenet thought. He felt that he had done his job and had been very direct about the threat, but that Rice had not moved quickly. He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.

"Black later said, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head."

This stuff was interesting but I'd already realized, years ago, that, to this administration, truth is simply something else to be manipulated for their benefit at every opportunity. It was the following piece, however, entitled, "Secret Reports Dispute White House Optimism", that really hit home.

The focus of this article, for its intended American audience, is that Bush, his administration, even his Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been lying to everyone, even Congress itself, in their assessments of the situation in Iraq. They know this fiasco is going south fast but they assure everyone else that they're making real progress. Okay, if you're really able to still swallow that garbage after everything that's gone wrong with their assurances over the last five years, good luck to you. Bush lying, say it ain't so. Lying to Congress, however, is a felony but we'll just have to wait and see if this gets any traction. Congress has gone into recess for mid-term electioneering and it has a notoriously short memory. I'm sure there are several generals who are banking on it.

No, what chilled me in this piece was the reference to the scurrilous Henry "the K" Kissinger.

A powerful, largely invisible influence on Bush's Iraq policy is former secretary of state Kissinger:

"'Of the outside people that I talk to in this job,' Vice President Cheney told me in the summer of 2005, 'I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and, I guess at least once a month, Scooter [his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby] and I sit down with him.'

"The president also met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.

"In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled 'Lessons for an Exit Strategy,' Kissinger wrote, 'Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.'

"He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.
Victory had to be the goal, he told all. Don't let it happen again. Don't give an inch, or else the media, the Congress and the American culture of avoiding hardship will walk you back.

"He also said that the eventual outcome in Iraq was more important than Vietnam had been. A radical Islamic or Taliban-style government in Iraq would be a model that could challenge the internal stability of the key countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

"Kissinger told Rice that in Vietnam they didn't have the time, focus, energy or support at home to get the politics in place. That's why it had collapsed like a house of cards. He urged that the Bush administration get the politics right, both in Iraq and on the home front. Partially withdrawing troops had its own dangers. Even entertaining the idea of withdrawing any troops could create momentum for an exit that was less than victory.

"In a meeting with presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in early September 2005, Kissinger was more explicit: Bush needed to resist the pressure to withdraw American troops. He repeated his axiom that the only meaningful exit strategy was victory.

"'The president can't be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece,' Kissinger said. 'You may want to reduce troops,' but troop reduction should not be the objective. 'This is not where you put the emphasis.,'

"To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

"'Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded,' he wrote."

Henry Kissinger is one of those people who believes that an insurgency can be defeated militarily. In his war, Vietnam, America was actively fighting for ten years with a steadily escalating force that peaked out at just under 600,000 U.S. servicemen actually in country, with entire wings of B-52s and strike fighters, thousands of helicopters and more tonnage of bombs and shells than were consumed by all sides in WWII. And this guy figures they had it in the bag.

In case you haven't noticed, our very own Little Stevie is now aping the Kissinger line that, "victory is the only exit strategy." He even uses the very same words. Stevie has hitched Canada's wagon so tightly to the White House that he doesn't even bother coming up with his own lines anymore. He just parrots, verbatim, what he gets from the likes of Henry Kissinger.

So, Stephen Harper is getting his Afghanistan strategy from Henry Kissinger. My God, could this get any worse? Harper is taking his lead on Afghanistan from a guy wanted around the world for war crimes involving the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

For those of you who don't know, Kissinger has been openly accused of being a war criminal for his support of Chilean dictator Pinochet in the murder of President Salvadore Allende and the mass murder of socialists thereafter. He's wanted for questioning in connection with other atrocities in Central America, Argentina and Cambodia.

Kissinger can't travel to a number of countries these days because, if he does, he'll be thrown in irons and made to answer for his skullduggery. Of course that doesn't mean he lacks the credentials Little Stevie looks for when he needs advice on being a "Wartime Prime Minister." It's enough to make you sick.