While discussing the latest revelations from Tom Ridge's new book that the Homeland Security terrorist threat alerts were used for political purposes, Bill Kristol defends what happened just before the election where they decided it would be too obvious if they raised it again and uses that one example to claim that the program was not used for political purposes. Fox just loves them some little neo-con serial liars, don't they? Bill, just because they finally decided they over played their hand doesn't mean they weren't playing politics with the fear card.
Newshounds has the breakdown of just how the alerts were used in the run up to the election. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid:
2001
Oct 11: The FBI warned of imminent terrorist attacks in the US "in the next several days". Of course there was no indication of when or where these attacks would occur. There were no attacks.
Oct 29: The Administration warned of plans to strike the US "in the next week." No specifics such as dates or targets were given. There were no attacks.
Dec 3: Ridge warns that terrorist strikes "could happen within the next few weeks," possibly connected with the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan. There were no attacks.
2002
Jan 17: Ashcroft warns that suicide attacks "might be expected because of confidential information" the US government had received. No dates or places were given. Nothing more was ever heard about the "confidential information." There were no attacks.
Feb 10: The FBI warned there was a threat of "imminent attacks on the US that might happen as early as Feb 12." There were no attacks.
Mar 27: The government issued a warning that American citizens in 4 Italian cities "would be attacked on Easter Sunday." There were no attacks.
May 19: VP Cheney states that he is "certain of new attacks against the US". There were no attacks.
May 21: The FBI warned of imminent threat of� "attacks against the Brooklyn Bridge & the Statue of Liberty". There were no attacks.
Sep 10: The government raised the National Alert Level to orange stating that there would be "strikes against American sites on the anniversary of the Sept 11 attack". Air patrols were instituted & access to government buildings was prohibited. There were no attacks.
2003
Feb 8: Ridge & Ashcroft announced a high National Terror Alert, claiming they had "evidence that terrorists would attack American hotels & apartment buildings." There were no attacks.
Mar 17. National Alert Level raised to orange. No reasons are given. There were no attacks.
Mar 18. The Arizona National Guard was alerted & sent to a nuclear plant because "an attack by al Qaeda agents was imminent". There was no attack.
Dec 21: Ridge raised alert levels & warned that the" threat of imminent attack is now the most serious since 2001". There was no attack.
2004
Apr 2: The Administration warns about "pending terrorist attacks on buses & trains". There were no attacks.
May 26. Ashcroft & Mueller warn of a "plane attack inside the US" & that terrorists "were poised for an immediate attack". There was no attack.
Aug 1: Ridge raised the alert level to orange, claiming knowledge of plots against US financial institutions. It was later discovered that his "knowledge" was 4 years old & very unspecific. There was no attack.
And then of course we have Keith's reporting which at the time I'm surprised didn't get him kicked off of the air at MSNBC on the Nexus of Politics and Fear, which he just updated and my friend and fellow contributor here at Video Cafe CSPANJunkie just posted for me this week.
h/t C&L'er Mugsy
Because the BushCo Regime floated a "Trial Balloon" via the FEC to POSTPONE (perhaps for years?) the November 2004 Elections, based upon Ginned-Up terrorist threats ( OR Real Cheney/Blackwater Domestic Terrorist Acts, would be my bet.)
Remember, it took a chorus of BushCo voices chiming up in harmony (Cheney, Ashcroft, Mueller, and Ridge) that another domestic terrorist attack was imminent -- "... it's not a matter of IF, but of WHEN ..."
If it looked like the "Swift-Boaters", the MSM, the Pollsters, and the Diebold(s) were not going to be effective in guaranteeing a BushCo win in November 2004, martial law would have been declared subsequent to that terrorist attack, and the general elections would have been cancelled. A careful examination of the US Constitution reveals that, yes, there is a 2 Term Limit, but there is also a 10 year maximum that a President may serve in Office. Imagine having the Chimp-in-Chief in power, under Martial Law for 2 years, all while using the US Patriot Acts and wholesale Domestic Surveillance to utterly Crush the Democratic "loyal opposition" Party.
Not to sound like some raving conspiracy theorist or anything, but DO YOU really doubt that the BushCo Regime was capable of such actions? (And just how many Democrat Congress-Critters have not already been subverted by the BushCo Regime, under the same threat of political death that Elliot Spitzer was subjected to?)
Just saying ...
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy
lies again...no; he never stopped.
kristol eats recycled wheaties
from a honey bucket. he couldn't
tell the truth even with someone's
hand up his butt.
Just because it happened to be true, that's no reason why "serious" journalists should have risked upsetting people by reporting it.
Only fanatical left-wing wackos are interested in reporting on abuses of power.
Now back to our five part series "Obama's Death Panels: Threat? Or Menace?"
Something that really needs to be done is for someone to add to that timeline.
What was going on at the time?
Without fail, if anyone thinks back on this at all, there was an emerging scandal that was brewing JUST before the latest "terrorist" threat.
Every.
Single.
Time.
One good example is January, 2002 - the Bush Administration was about to find themselves publicly ensnared in the Enron scandal.
It had been building and more and more obvious day by day that Bushco and Enron were in bed together.
Then BAM!
January 17th, 2002 - OOOOOOOH!!!! TERRORISTS!!!! BE SCEEEEEEERED!!!!
And the media, being the complete patsys that they are, completely forgot about that Enron / Bush scandal.
This happened over and over again.
It would be cool if someone would piece it all together, it would be a bit of detective work and a LOT of reading, but that is what happened in addition to the Repukes using fear to gin the elections in their favor.
You are absolutely RIGHT! AND a whole LOT of those times there was "legislation" being "debated" in CONGRESS that Bush really, really wanted passed.
More war funding, NO time limits, more troops, telecom immunity, FISA!
FISA, I believe, was the REASON for the anthrax attacks on Democratic Congress members. If it wasn't targeted just on Democrats, some might have believed it really was a "terrorist" (not home grown) attack, but the fact ONLY Democrats received the contaminated letters and their aides and the postal carriers who handled the letters, are the ONLY deaths, as well, to ME, is proof it was to blackmail Congress to pass FISA with no changes and with telecom immunity. And I will NEVER believe it was the researcher who developed the "strain" who was responsible. I believe he was the scapegoat AND IF he really committed suicide, it was because they persecuted him or in some other way FORCED him to say he committed a crime he didn't commit.
Then for most of 2008, Bush constantly threatened Martial Law and suspension of the election AS WELL any time it looked like he wouldn't get his WAY.
Who might look into that timeline a whole lot closer, I wonder. There are many Republicans still in Congress who are so corrupt and so "dirty", such as the "Family" of "C Street" who believe they are given a PASS for any crime because they are THE CHOSEN, that I honestly don't think they would be averse to ANY crime INCLUDING murder.
I remember that the Brits were in on it too. As soon as something like a Hans Blix report came out saying that Iraq did not have WMDs, Heathrow shut down because of fears of an imminent terrorist attack. It happened quite a few times and always(as I recall) just when stuff happened that weakened Bushs position.
Is that what good Christians like Ashcroft do when they're not clothing naked statues? Lie and scare the American people for political gain? I guess bearing false witness is just another bible rule these right wing Christian hypocrites ignore if it applies to them.
....still no indictments.
You might want to add after, "There were no attacks" that, "There were no arrests."
That says Holder has announced the appointment of a specila prosecutor to investigate prison abuse cases carried out as part of the bush torture program!
Is America about to right the wrongs done by bushco?
Oh god please punish the filthy bastards bush/chenny!
republicanism is a mental illness.
They'll find a handful of guards who did the beating, haul them in front of a court (and the MSM cameras), make a huge schtuss about how they "discovered the culprits", throw 'em in the poky and have a party. The real architects of all that horror will get off scot-free. That's the way it always happens. Weren't you paying attention when the Abu Ghraib scandal happened?
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Cheney and Dubya perfected the politics of fear. They raised it to a whole new level (pun intended) and need to be punished.
Eric Holder, thank you for finally taking some action. It's about time!
whitewash in the making?
One has to wonder. It should be interesting, though.
Who knows, maybe we'll see some prosecutions come out of this. Here's hoping!
...that the Bushies didn't do X because they could've done something more drastic than X but didn't, therefore X couldn't have been in play. Thus, they weren't torturing, because if they wanted to really torture, they could've used an iron maiden or thumbscrews. And they couldn't have been playing politics with terror alerts because they didn't at this one time it would've been especially obvious. Really, we should thank them for their restraint.
... how can you even think about wasting time with a bunch of rich entitled f*cks who think they are right, no matter what. And that same righteousness validates any means they have to achieve their lofty goals.
Neocons are an interesting breed, they are inherently amoral since as I said earlier... they justify any means whatsoever, regardless of their morality: lying is OK (the masses are too stupid to deal with the truth anyways), violence is OK (they are right so nothing should interfere with their goals), manipulation of religion (useful idiots who will do as they are told).
Yet their whole existence is based morality, especially the struggle of good (they) vs. evil (everybody else). Which is an interesting dilemma. I think these idiots ended up believing the same lies they were concocting to justify their actions. Kristol knows he is lying, but he simply does not care... because he is right. He simply doesn't seen lying as an inherently wrong (morally) thing to do, since it is just one mean to achieve his supposedly great "end"
I can't remember when the level was supposed to be red or orange or puce or eggshell white or what the fuck. Can anyone? Seriously, did anyone ever pay attention to that shit?
any thinking person did not.
thinking people did not pay attention, but our tax dollars flew down that bottomless rabbit hole every time the terror alert required extra security in the subways or at the airports, and every time a hapless lackey had to confiscate mother's milk and other vital fluids because we all know they might have been explosives!
I'm waiting for a new sitcom from and for the televidiots: "Meet the Sheeple" with Bloody Bill and Right Fat Rush. They can run footage of wingers ranting that only Bushco successfully protected us from them turrurists! And, >"now that a filthy muslim has taken over the guvment, it's gonna happen agin, I gua-ron-TEEE it!"
Thanks for the hattip.
Every Sunday it seems, someone criticizes me for watching and commenting on Fox "news" Sunday, but THIS is a perfect example of why I watch... to catch them in this kind of spin & distortions, making sure it doesn't slip below the radar.
Thanks guys for helping me in that task. :)
* There are two types of Republicans: millionaires and suckers.
"Mugsy's Rap Sheet": Recording history for those who seek to rewrite it.
for keeping tabs on those creeps. We must remain vigilant!
:)
Was it immediately after the 2004 elections or sometime later when you suddenly stopped hearing about the Alert Level being raised? I recall it was quite sudden... haven't heard about it in years.
we'd be up you-know-what-creek should a real attack happen, as by, say a few times of this 'cry wolf' stuff...I think everyone (who had more than one brain cell to rub) would have been so inured that most of us didn't believe any of it. (Even from the first time, btw)
The upsurge in the stock values of manufacturers and sales of plastic sheeting and duct tape prove just how cowardly and ignorant most Americans are.
Today the fools are terrified of "Obama's Death Panels." There is no limit to the stupidity of Americans.
...America's 1% ruling class has always known that most Americans are cowardly, ignorant fools who can be manipulated like puppets to believe or do most anything.
. . . that William Kristol is really One of Us? That he's actually not as idiotic as he appears? That he's really a mole intent on the destruction of the Right from the inside out, by dragging them, time after time, to the worst judgment, the most consistently wrong conclusions, the furthest estrangement from reality?
Bear in mind that Kristol was the guy who managed to sell the GOP on Sarah Palin for VP.
Thank you, Bill! Your efforts on our behalf have not gone unnoticed by this C&Ler!!
It is a tried-and-true basic tenant of law that conspiracy to commit a crime does not require that the crime actually be carried out.
May 26. Ashcroft & Mueller warn of a "plane attack inside the US" & that terrorists "were poised for an immediate attack". There was no attack.
Tom Ridge said at the time that there was no real threat;
From UPI, via LexisNexis:
May 26, 2004 Wednesday
Analysis: Playing politics with terror?
BYLINE: By SHAUN WATERMAN
LENGTH: 1523 words
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, May 26 (UPI)
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told morning news shows that there were no plans at present to raise the level, which was reviewed every day. He seemed to hint that it might not be raised in the immediate future.
"Every day we take a look at the overall threat reporting that we receive, not just on a day-to-day basis but over the past several weeks," he told NBC's Matt Lauer. "And there's not a consensus within the administration that we need to raise the threat level."
The suggestion that there was dissension in cabinet in this last comment was underlined by his comment to ABC's Charlie Gibson, who pressed him repeatedly on the way an unnamed senior official had characterized the threats as "among the most disturbing received since Sept. 11."
"It's not the most disturbing that I have personally seen during the past couple of years," Ridge said, adding that the Homeland Security council had not even met yet to consider raising the alert level.
"If it was that disturbing ... to the point that we needed to bring the president's advisors together and consider raising the threat alert, we would do just that."
If the Bush administration can come up with a playbook regarding how to combat their lies and mistakes, why can the Obama administration come up with a playbook to support their truths and helpful programs for the American people? Health care will help many Americans, the war did not. I guess fear is the best motivator.
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