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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 13, 2022 at 12:20 am
Colonel Brandt: “I wonder what we’ll do after we lose the war.”
Captain Kiesel: “Prepare for the next one.”
–-“The Cross of Iron,” film by Sam Peckinpah
September 11, 2022, marks the 21ist anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. Inevitably, this is a time to remember all those whose lives were so cruelly snuffed out.
But it should also be a time to remember those who made this atrocity inevitable—by refusing to acknowledge and address the impending threat from Al-Qaeda.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has chronicled their arrogance and indifference in his 2010 biography: American Caesars: Lives of the Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Hamilton noted that Richard Clarke, the national security advisor on terrorism, was certain that Osama bin Laden had arranged the [USS.]Colebombing in Aden on October 12, 2000.
Richard Clarke
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States—either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject. Then she “insisted the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting” in April, 2001, writes Hamilton.
Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz–whose real target was Saddam Hussein–said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
Wolfowitz insisted that bin Laden couldn’t carry out his terrorist acts without the aid of a state sponsor—namely, Iraq.
Wolfowitz, in fact, blamed Iraq for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Clarke was stunned, since there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement in this.
“Al-Qaeda plans major acts of terrorism against the United States,” Clarke warned his colleagues. He pointed out that, like Adolf Hitler, bin Laden had actually published his plans for future destruction.
Osama bin Laden
And he added: “Sometimes, as with Hitler in Mein Kampf, you have to believe that these people will actually do what they say they will do.”
Wolfowitz heatedly traded on his Jewish heritage to bring Clarke’s unwelcome arguments to a halt: “I resent any comparison between the Holocaust and this little terrorist in Afghanistan.”
Writing in outraged fury, Hamilton sums up Clarke’s agonizing frustrations:
- Bush’s senior advisors treated their colleagues who had served in the Clinton administration with contempt.
- President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed content to ignore the danger signals of an impending al-Qaeda attack.
- This left only Secretary of State Colin Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage, Richard Clarke and a skeptical Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, to wage “a lonely battle to waken a seemingly deranged new administration.”
Clarke alerted Federal Intelligence agencies that “Al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us.” He asked the FBI and CIA to report to his office all they could learn about suspicious persons or activities at home and abroad.
Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor would any of them be brought to account.
Disgustingly, these were the same officials who, afterward, posed as the Nation’s saviors–and branded anyone who disagreed with them as a traitor, practices the Right continues to exploit to this day.
Only Richard Clarke–who had vainly argued for stepped-up security precautions and taking the fight to Al-Qaeda–gave that apology.
On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. Addressing relatives of victims in the audience, he said: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Yet even worse was to come.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush took Clarke aside during a meeting in the White House Situation Room:
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam [Hussein, the dictator of Iraq] did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al-Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
Hussein had not plotted the attack–and there was no evidence proving that he did. But the attack gave “W” the excuse he wanted to remove the man he blamed for the 1992 defeat of his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Bush believed that his father would have been re-elected if he had “gone all the way” into Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War.
He would finish the job that his father had started but failed to compete.
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 12, 2022 at 2:18 am
It’s that time of year again—yet another anniversary celebration of September 11, 2001.
The day when Islamic terrorists slammed two jetliners into the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon.
They would have crashed a fourth jetliner into the White House or Capitol Building—except for the heroic resistance of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
In the years immediately following 9/11, politicians of both parties used this anniversary to wave flags and make self-serving patriotic speeches.
This was especially true for officials of the administration of President George W. Bush—which, even as the rubble was being cleared at the Pentagon and World Trade Center, was preparing to use the attack as an excuse to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Hussein had not plotted 9/11, and there was no evidence that he did. But that didn’t matter to Bush and those planning the invasion and conquest of Iraq.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
So here it is, 21 years later, and, like Pearl Harbor, 9/11 has become a distant memory of terror and loss.
At that time, Americans feared Islamic terrorism above all else. Today, millions of Americans fear terror from another source: A Republican party intent on imposing dictatorship through voter suppression and intimidation.
Its likely Presidential nominee in 2024: Ex-President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly admitted he wants to become “President-for-Life.”
As on past commemorations of 9/11, those who died will be remembered by friends and relatives of those who knew and loved them.
Tribute to 9/11 World Trade Center Victims
It is in fact appropriate to remember the innocents who died on that day—and the heroism of the police and firefighters who died trying to save them.
But it’s equally important to remember those who made 9/11 not simply possible but inevitable.
And that does not mean only the 19 highjackers who turned those planes into fuel-bombs. It means the officials at the highest levels of the administration of President George W. Bush.
Officials who, to this day, have never been held accountable in any way for the resulting death and destruction.
And who have been allowed to blatantly lie that they “kept us safe” from terrorism.
Obviously, such an indictment is not going to be presented by TV commentators today—not even on such liberal networks as CNN and MSNBC. And most definitely not on the right-wing Fox network.
Fortunately, British historian Nigel Hamilton has dared to lay bare the facts of this disgrace. Hamilton is the author of several acclaimed political biographies, including JFK: Reckless Youth and Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency.
Nigel Hamilton
CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2007, he began research on his latest book: American Caesars: The Lives of the Presidents From Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
The inspiration for this came from a classic work of ancient biography: The Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus–known as Suetonius.
Suetonius, a Roman citizen and historian, had chronicled the lives of the first twelve Caesars of imperial Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian.
Hamilton wanted to examine post-World War II United States history as Suetonius had examined that of ancient Rome: Through the lives of the 12 “emperors” who had held the power of life and death over their fellow citizens–and those of other nations.
For Hamilton, the “greatest of American emperors, the Caesar Augustus of his time,” was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led his country through the Great Depression and World War II.
His “”great successors” were Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy—who, in turn, contained the Soviet Union abroad and presided over sustained economic prosperity at home.
By contrast, “arguably the worst of all the American Caesars” was “George W. Bush, and his deputy, Dick Cheney, who willfully and recklessly destroyed so much of the moral basis of American leadership in the modern world.”
Among the most lethal of Bush’s offenses: The appointing of officials who refused to take seriously the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.
And this arrogance and indifference continued–right up to September 11, 2001, when the World Trade Center and Pentagon became targets for destruction.
Among the few administration officials who did take Al-Qaeda seriously was Richard Clarke, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council.
Clarke had been thus appointed in 1998 by President Bill Clinton. He continued in the same role under President Bush–but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access.
This put him at a severe disadvantage when dealing with other, higher-ranking Bush officials—such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
These turned out to be the very officials who refused to believe that Al-Qaeda posed a lethal threat to the United States.
“Indeed,” writes Hamilton, “in the entire first eight months of the Bush Presidency, Clarke was not permitted to brief President Bush a single time, despite mounting evidence of plans for a new al-Qaeda outrage.” [Italics added]
Nor did it help that, during his first eight months in office before September 11, Bush was on vacation, according to the Washington Post, 42% of the time.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 2, 2022 at 12:10 am
August 9, 2022, marked an anniversary increasingly fewer Americans remember: Forty-eight years to the day that Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, resigned in disgrace.
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, remains virtually unknown outside the journalism profession. Yet his paper did more than any other to bring Nixon down.
Both Nixon and Bradlee were driven to succeed. And both achieved fame and power in doing so.
Bradlee made his name in journalism.
Benjamin C. Bradlee
Nixon made his name in politics.
Richard Nixon
Both served in the United States Navy in the Pacific during World War II.
Both had strong connections to John F. Kennedy.
- Bradlee knew him as a friend and reporter during JFK’s years as a Senator and President.
- Nixon—as a Senator and later Vice President—knew Kennedy as a Senatorial colleague and as a political adversary, unsuccessfully contesting him for the Presidency in 1960.
For both, 1948 was a pivotal year.
- Bradlee joined The Washington Post as a reporter.
- Nixon, as a U.S. Representative, accused Algier Hiss, a former State Department official, of having been a Communist spy. Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and sent to prison.
Both reached their positions of maximum power in 1968:
- Bradlee became executive editor of The Washington Post.
- Nixon became the 37th President of the United States.
But there was a fundamental difference between them:
- Bradlee made it his business to dig up the truth.
- Nixon made it his business to distort the truth—or to conceal it when distortion wasn’t enough.
Nixon and Bradlee had their first major clash in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study of how the United States became enmeshed in the Vietnam war.
- Although the Papers concerned events that had occurred during the Presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Nixon was outraged at their release by a former Defense Department analyst named Daniel Ellsberg.
- Bradlee, as executive editor of The Washington Post, successfully urged his publisher, Katherine Graham, to publish the papers after The New York Times was enjoined from doing so.
- The controversy ended when the Supreme Court ruled, 6–3, that the government failed to meet the burden of proof required for prior restraint of the press.
In 1972, Bradlee and Nixon squared off for their most important battle—a “third-rate burglary” of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel.
Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Benjamin C. Bradlee
- Bradlee backed two young, aggressive reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they probed the burglary.
- This led to their discovering a series of illegal dirty tricks the Nixon re-election campaign had aimed at various Democratic opponents.
- The Post’s revelations led to the formation of the Senate Watergate Committee, the discovery of Nixon’s tape-recordings of his private—and criminal—conversations, and, finally, to Nixon’s own resignation in disgrace on August 9, 1974.
Bradlee became an advocate for education and the study of history.Nixon entered history as the only American President forced to resign from office.
:Richard Nixon saying farewell at the White House
Bradlee became a media celebrity. Nixon became a media target.
- Bradlee was portrayed by Jason Robards in the hit 1976 film, All the President’s Men (for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor).
- Nixon was portrayed—in Oliver Stone’s 1995 drama, Nixon—by Anthony Hopkins.
Bradlee and Nixon each published a series of books.
- Bradlee’s: That Special Grace and Conversations With Kennedy focused on his longtime friendship with John F. Kennedy; A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures was Bradlee’s memoirs.
- Nixon’s: Among his 11 titles: Six Crises; RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon; The Real War; Leaders; Real Peace; No More Vietnams; Beyond Peace.
After leaving the White House, Nixon worked hard behind-the-scenes to refashion himself into an elder statesman of the Republican Party.
- Throughout the 1980s, he traveled the lecture circuit, wrote books, and met with many foreign leaders, especially those of Third World countries.
- He supported Ronald Reagan for president in 1980, making television appearances portraying himself as the senior statesman above the fray.
- For the rest of his life, he fought ferociously through the courts to prevent the release of most of the infamous “Watergate tapes” that chronicled his crimes as President.
- Only since his death have many of these been made public.
Nixon died on April 22, 1994.
- Eulogists at his funeral included President Bill Clinton and former Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, California Governor Pete Wilson and the Reverend Billy Graham.
- Despite his efforts to portray himself as an elder statesman, Nixon could never erase his infamy as the only President to resign in disgrace.
- To this day, he remains a nonperson within the Republican Party.
Bradlee remained executive editor of The Washington Post until retiring in 1991. But he continued to serve as vice president-at-large until his death on October 21, 2014.
- In 2007, he received the French Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government, at a ceremony in Paris.
- In 2013, he was named as a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. He was presented the medal at a White House ceremony on November 20, 2013.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 26, 2022 at 1:26 am
Two stories—one fictitious, the other historical.
Story #1: In the 1961 historical epic, “El Cid,” Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as “The Lord,” besieges the Spanish city of Valencia, which has been captured by the Moors.
Months have passed. The city’s population is starving and without hope.
Then, one day, El Cid (Charlton Heston) calls out over the city’s walls: “Soldiers and citizens of Valencia! We are not your enemy! Ben Yusof [the powerful emir who plans to conquer Spain with an invading army] is your enemy!
“Join us! We bring you peace! We bring you freedom! We bring you bread!”
Suddenly El Cid’s Spanish catapults spring into action—loaded not with stones but loaves of bread. The loaves land in the city’s streets, where starving citizens and soldiers greedily devour them.
Then those citizens attack the bodyguards of the emir ruling Valencia—and throw the emir himself from a high wall.
The army of El Cid marches peacefully into the city.
Story #2: In Book Three, Chapter 22 of his classic masterwork, The Discourses, Niccolo Machiavelli offers the following: “An Act of Humanity Prevailed More With the Falacians Than All the Power of Rome.”
Marcus Furius Camillus, a Roman general, was besieging the city of the Faliscians, and had surrounded it. A teacher charged with the education of the children of some of the noblest families of that city decided to ingratiate himself with Camillus by leading those children into the Roman camp.
Presenting them to Camillus the teacher said to him, “By means of these children as hostages, you will be able to compel the city to surrender.”
Camillus not only declined the offer but went one step further. He ordered the teacher stripped and his hands tied behind his back. Then Camillus had a rod put into the hands of each of the children and directed them to whip the teacher all the way back to the city.
Upon learning this, the citizens of Faliscia were so much touched by the humanity and integrity of Camillus, that they surrendered the place to him without any further defense.
Summing up the meaning of this, Machiavelli writes: “This example shows that an act of humanity and benevolence will at all times have more influence over the minds of men than violence and ferocity. It also proves that provinces and cities which no armies…could conquer, have yielded to an act of humanity, benevolence, chastity or generosity.
“…History also shows us how much the people desire to find such virtues in great men, and how much they are extolled by historians and biographers of princes….Amongst these, Xenophon takes great pains to show how many victories, how much honor and fame, Cyrus gained by his humanity and affability, and by his not having exhibited a single instance of pride, cruelty or luxuriousness, nor of any of the other vices that are apt to stain the lives of men.”
Niccolo Machiavelli
These stories—the first the product of a movie screenwriter’s imagination, the second recorded by a master political scientist and historian—remain highly relevant today.
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black unemployed restaurant security guard, was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Chauvin kept his knee on the right side of Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.
Cities across the United States erupted in mass protests over Floyd’s death—and police killings of black victims generally. Most of these demonstrations proved peaceful.
But cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City saw stores looted, vandalized and/or burned. In response, President Donald Trump called for harsh policing, telling governors in a nationwide conference call that they must “dominate” protesters or be seen as “weak.”
To drive home his point, Trump ordered police and National Guard troops to violently remove peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square, which borders St. John’s Church near the White House.
The purpose of the removal: To allow Trump to have a photo opportunity outside the church.
“I imposed a curfew at 7pm,” tweeted Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. “A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of @DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful!”
Contrast that with the example of Sheriff Christopher Swanson of Genesee County, Michigan.
Sheriff Christopher Swanson
Confronting a mass of aroused demonstrators in Flint Township on May 30, Swanson responded: “We want to be with you all for real.”
So Swanson took his helmet off. His deputies laid their batons down.
“I want to make this a parade, not a protest. So, you tell us what you need to do.”
“Walk with us!” the protesters shouted.
“Let’s walk, let’s walk,” said Swanson.
Cheering and applause resounded.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Swanson said as he and the cheering crowd proceeded. “Where do you want to walk? We’ll walk all night.”
And Swanson and his fellow officers walked in sympathy with the protesters.
No rioting followed.
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In History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 25, 2022 at 12:15 am
On July 20, 1944, members of the Wehrmacht high command failed to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.
Mass arrests quickly followed.
Among the first victims discovered and executed was the conspiracy’s leader, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Standing before a makeshift firing squad at midnight, he cried: “Long live our sacred Germany!”
Adolf Hitler
At least 7,000 persons were arrested by the Gestapo. According to records of the Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs, 4,980 were executed.
Had the conspiracy succeeded, history would have turned out differently:
Thus, history can be altered by the appearance—or disappearance—of a single individual.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Just as Germans did nothing to stop Adolf Hitler’s inexorable march toward war—and the destruction of millions of lives and Germany itself—so, too, did Americans seem paralyzed to put an end to the equally self-destructive reign of the man often dubbed “Carrot Caligula.”
- Trump’ could have been non-violently removed via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This allows the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to recommend the removal of the President when he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The Vice President then becomes President.
- No Cabinet members dared to invoke this.
- When Trump praised North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-On or attacked Vietnam POW John McCain, House and Senate Republicans stayed silent. When he falsely charged massive voter fraud, they stayed silent or loudly parroted his lies.
- On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate—ignoring the overwhelming evidence against him—acquitted Trump on both impeachment articles: Obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.
- Pentagon generals stood mute as Trump repeatedly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—and even gave classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
- High-ranking field marshals in Hitler’s Wehrmacht held their tongues when he insulted them. So did American generals when Trump belittled their intelligence and even patriotism.
- The CIA overthrew Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953 and Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. It repeatedly tried—unsuccessfully—to assassinate and/or overthrow Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But it made no effort to halt the ongoing treachery of Donald Trump.
- When Trump arbitrarily decided to remove American forces from Syria and Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned in protest in 2018. But then he was simply replaced by Mark Esper.
- Despite the fact that many of these men regularly came into contact with Trump, not one of them apparently plotted his removal.
- Similarly, Trump repeatedly attacked the integrity of the men and women of the FBI—even firing its director, James Comey, for daring to investigate Russia’s subversion of the 2016 election. If its armed agents—steeped in Federal criminal law—built a case for Trump’s indictment and prosecution, it has never come to light.
- Neither did any of his armed Secret Service agents register the slightest protest, despite his arrogant behavior toward them. He forced them to work without pay during his 35-day government shutdown in 2018. They also had to accompany him to COVID-infected states—both during the Presidential campaign and afterward. Many of them became stricken with this often fatal disease as a result.
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes.
Yet almost two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.
This toxic lie has been feverishly embraced by millions of Right-wingers, robbing the Biden administration of its deserved legitimacy.
This refusal to acknowledge the outcome initially denied Biden access to the money, information-sharing and machinery traditionally accorded the President-elect. Trump himself was the beneficiary of such assistance in 2016, after his win over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Only on November 23 was Biden acknowledged as the winner by the General Services Administration, as the Trump administration finally began the formal transition process.
Trump’s refusal to accept reality posed an unprecedented danger to democracy: No presidential candidate had ever refused to concede defeat once all the votes were counted and legal challenges resolved.
By refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump took on the classic mantle of of a dictator.
Historians have uncovered at least 42 assassination plots against Adolf Hitler. That resistance movement has earned honor for its members, many of whom died heroically for standing firm against a brutal tyrant.
To its eternal shame, the same cannot be said of America during the reign of Donald Trump.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 24, 2022 at 12:10 am
On July 20, 1944, Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
He had served with the Wehrmacht in Poland (1939), France (1940) and the Soviet Union (1941).
While serving in Tunisa, he was seriously wounded on April 7, 1943, when Allied fighters strafed his vehicle. He lost his left eye, right hand and two fingers of his left hand after surgery.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg
Nevertheless, he now acted as the prime mover for the conspiracy among a growing number of German high command officers to arrest or assassinate Germany’s Fuehrer.
For most of these officers, the motive was craven: The “happy time’ of German victories was over. Germany was losing the war it had launched on the world in 1939–and now they feared the worst.
This was especially true now that the numerically superior forces of the Soviet Union had gone onto the offensive.
For Stauffenberg, there was another reason: His disgust at the horrors he had seen committed by his fellow Wehrmacht soldiers upon defenseless POW’s and civilians in Russia.
Thus, Stauffenberg—more than many Germans—knew firsthand the vengeance his country could expect if the “Thousand-Year Reich” fell.
Something must be done, he believed, to prove to the world that not all Germans—even members of the Wehrmacht—were criminals.
Most of the conspirators wanted to arrest Hitler and surrender to British and American forces—well before the much-feared Russians gained a toehold in Germany.
Stauffenberg didn’t want to arrest Hitler; he wanted to kill him. A live Hitler might eventually be rescued by his Nazi colleagues.
But Hitler was a closely-guarded target. He was surrounded by fanatical bodyguards who were expert marksmen. He often wore a bulletproof vest and a cap lined with three pounds of laminated steel.
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-048-29A / CC-BY-SA 3.0 [CC BY-SA 3.0 de (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)%5D
But his single greatest protection–he claimed—was an instinct for danger. He would suddenly change his schedule—to drop in where he was least expected. Or suddenly depart an event where he was expected to stay a long time.
On November 9, 1939, this instinct saved his life. He was expected to give a long speech at a Munich beer hall before the “old Fighters” of his brown-shirted storm troopers.
Instead, he suddenly cut short his speech and left the beer hall. Forty-five minutes later, a bomb exploded inside a pillar—before which Hitler had been speaking.
Since then, a series of other assassination attempts had been made against Hitler. All of them involved time-bombs. And all of the would-be assassins were members of the German General Staff.
In one case, a bomb secretly stashed aboard Hitler’s plane failed to explode. In another, an officer who had a bomb strapped to himself unexpectedly found his scheduled meeting with Hitler called off. He had to rush into a bathroom to defuse the bomb before it went off.
So now it was the turn of von Stauffenberg. He would carry his bomb—hidden in a briefcase—into a “Hitler conference” packed with military officers.
But Stauffenberg didn’t intend to be a suicide bomber. He meant to direct the government that would replace that of the Nazis.
His bomb—also rigged with a time-fuse—would be left in the conference room while he found an excuse to leave. After the explosion, he would phone one of his fellow conspirators with the news.
Then, the coup—“Operation Valkyrie”—would be on.
Anti-Nazi conspirators would seize control of key posts of the government. The British and Americans would then be informed of Germany’s willingness to surrender. Provided, of course, that the vengeance-seeking Russians did not have a say in its postwar future.
The Wehrmacht and Schutzstaffel (SS) had killed millions of Russians. Many had died in combat. Others had been murdered as captives. Still more had been allowed to die by starvation and exposure to the notorious Russian winter.
So the Germans—both Nazi and anti-Nazi—knew what they could expect if soldiers of the Soviet Union reached German soil.
On July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg appeared at Hitler’s well-guarded military headquarters in East Prussia. Like all his other outposts, Hitler had named it—appropriately enough—“Wolf’s Lair.”
“Wolf’s Lair”
Stauffenberg entered the large, concrete building while the conference was in session. He placed his yellow briefcase next to Hitler—who was standing with his generals at a heavy oaken table. Then he excused himself to take an “urgent” phone call.
After Stauffenberg left the room, Colonel Heinz Brandt, standing next to Hitler, found the briefcase blocking his legs. So he moved it—to the other side of the heavy oaken support, partially shielding Hitler from the blast..
At 12:42 p.m. on July 20, 1944, Stauffenberg’s briefcase bomb erupted.
Brandt died, as did two other officers and a stenographer.
Hitler not only survived, but the plotters failed to seize the key broadcast facilities of the Reich.
This allowed Hitler to make a late-night speech to the nation, revealing the failed plot and assuring Germans that he was alive. And he swore to flush out the “traitorous swine” who had tried to kill him.
He soon proved as bad as his word.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 23, 2022 at 12:10 am
In the Twilight Zone episode, “No Time Like the Past,” Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews), a scientist in early 1960s America, uses a time machine to visit Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.
He’s rented a motel room overlooking the balcony from where the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler will soon make a speech. And he’s eager to watch that speech—through the lens of a telescopic-sighted rifle.
Just as he’s about to pull the trigger, there’s a knock at his door–by the maid. Driscoll hustles her out as soon as possible, then once again picks up his rifle. He—and viewers—can once again see Hitler through the cross-hairs of his weapon.
Paul Driscoll prepares to shoot Adolf Hitler
But instead of the anticipated shot, there’s another knock at his door—his time by the black-uniformed secret police, the SS. Driscoll knows the game is up, and disappears into the present just as the thugs break down his door.
And the audience is left to ponder how different the world would have been if Driscoll—or someone in Nazi Germany—had succeeded in assassinating the man whose wars would wipe out the lives of 50 million men, women and children around the globe.
One 2016 Republican candidate for President dared to invoke the menace of Nazi Germany in warning of the dangers of a Donald Trump Presidency. And to argue that Americans could prevent that past from returning.
In November, 2015, John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, was peddling a message of creating jobs, balancing the Federal budget and disdain for Washington, D.C.
John Kasich
But he remained far behind in the polls, dropping 50% in support in just one month—from September to October. Meanwhile, Trump, the New York billionaire developer, was being backed by 25% of Republican primary voters.
So, with nothing to lose, Kasich decided to take off the gloves. He invoked the “N” word for Republicans: Nazi.
He authorized the creation of a TV ad that opened with ominous music—and the face of a snarling Donald Trump.
“I would like anyone who is listening to consider some thoughts that I’ve paraphrased from the words of German pastor Martin Niemoeller.”
The voice belonged to Tom Moe, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force—and a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war.
“You might not care if Donald Trump says Muslims must register with the government, because you’re not one,” continued Moe.
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says he’s going to round up all the Hispanic immigrants, because you’re not one.
Donald Trump
“And you might not care if Donald Trump says it’s OK to rough up black protesters, because you’re not one.
“And you might not care of Donald Trump wants to suppress journalists, because you’re not one.
“But think about this:
“If he keeps going, and he actually becomes President, he might just get around to you. And you’d better hope that there’s someone left to help you.”
Martin Niemoeller (1892–1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who had commanded a U-boat during World War 1. He became a bitter public foe of Adolf Hitler.
A staunch anti-Communist, he had initially supported the Nazis as Germany’s only hope of salvation against the Soviet Union.
But when the Nazis made the church subordinate to State authority, Niemoeller created the Pastors’ Emergency League to defend religious freedom.
For his opposition to the Third Reich, Niemoeller spent seven years in concentration camps.
With the collapse of the Reich in 1945, he was freed—and elected President of the Protestant church in Hesse and Nassau in 1947. During the 1960s, he was a president of the World Council of Churches.
He is best remembered for his powerful condemnation of the failure of Germans to protest the increasing oppression of the Nazis:
First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists, but I was not a Socialist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.
Neither “Adolf Hitler” nor “Nazi Party” was mentioned during the one-minute Kassich video. But a furious Trump threatened to sue Kasich if he could find find anything “not truthful” within the ad.
Apparently he couldn’t find anything “not truthful,” because he never sued.
So threatened the man who had called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and accused President Barack Obama of being a Muslim and an illegal alien.
The Kasich ad was the darkest attack made against Trump by any candidate—Republican or Democrat. And it raised a disturbing question:
If Donald Trump proved to be America’s Adolf Hitler, would there be an American Claus von Stauffenberg?
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stuaffenberg was the German army officer who, on July 20, 1944, tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 19, 2022 at 12:10 am
Sometimes your worst enemies aid you in ways you could never help yourself.
From July 10 to October 31, 1940, hundreds of badly-outnumbered pilots of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off relentless attacks by Germany’s feared Luftwaffe—since known as the Battle of Britain.
But Adolf Hitler wasn’t prepared to give up. He believed he could so terrorize Britons that they would insist that their government submit to German surrender demands.
From September 7, 1940 to May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe subjected England—and especially London—to a ruthless bombing campaign that became known as The Blitz.
The undamaged St. Paul’s Cathredal, December, 1940
More than 100 tons of high explosives were dropped on 16 British cities.
During 267 days—almost 37 weeks—between 40,000 and 43,000 British civilians were killed. About 139,000 others were wounded.
Clearly, what Great Britain desperately needed most was a miracle.
Exactly that happened on June 22, 1941.
With 134 Divisions at full fighting strength and 73 more divisions for deployment behind the front, the German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union.
German tanks invading Russia
Joseph Stalin, the longtime Soviet dictator, was stunned. The invasion had come less than two years after Germany had signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
Now they were locked in a fight to the death.
People in England were suddenly hopeful. Britain now had an ally whose resources might tip the balance against Hitler—as they did.
Fast forward to 2020.
After Donald Trump became President of the United States in 2017, he seemed invincible: Over the next three years, he:
- Repeatedly and viciously attacked the nation’s free press for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters, calling it “the enemy of the American people.”
- Publicly sided with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies (FBI, CIA, National Security Agency) which unanimously agreed that Russia had subverted the 2016 Presidential election,
- Fired FBI Director James Comey for investigating that subversion.
- Gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak highly classified CIA Intelligence about an Islamic State plot to turn laptops into concealable bombs.
- Allowed predatory corporations to subvert Federal regulatory protections for consumers and the environment.
- Shut down the Federal Government for more than a month on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay.
- Attempted to extort a “favor” from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: Threatening to withhold military aid unless Zelensky agreed to slander Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic Presidential candidate Joseph Biden.
- Threatened members of Congress with treason charges for daring to challenge him.
- After being acquitted of impeachable offenses by the Senate, Trump fired the Inspectors General (IG) of five cabinet departments in six weeks.
Donald Trump
And through all those outrages, House and Senate Republican majorities remained silent or vigorously supported him.
Democrats seemed unable to cope with Trump’s legislative agenda and his personal attacks on Twitter and in press conferences.
Even when the press unearthed his latest corruptions, the public didn’t care.
Then, in January, 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic struck the United States.
On February 29, the first American died from the disease.
Donald Trump’s first reaction was to minimize the threat: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
Then he turned to outright lying: “Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus….They tried the impeachment hoax….It’s all turning, they lost….And this is their new hoax.”
When many of the nation’s mayors and governors urged citizens to wear face masks and socially distance themselves from others, Trump urged his supporters to defy both. And they did as he ordered—marching down streets shoulder-to-shoulder, most of them not wearing masks, and with many of them carrying automatic rifles.
Coronavirus
In March, when much of the country’s businesses shut down, Trump demanded their immediate reopening—although there was no vaccine nor even adequate testing and contact-tracing facilities. This would allow him to claim he had “restored” the American economy.
Many states—especially in the South and Midwest—reopened prematurely. As a result, by his last day in office—January 20, 2021—American COVID-19 deaths numbered 400,000.
Then Trump demanded that Americans put their children at risk by sending them back to school in the fall—so their parents could return to work. Then he could claim he’d “saved” the American economy—and be re-elected.
Meanwhile, countless Stormtrumpers in Texas, Florida and other Red states had died because they refused to wear masks and/or social distance. His most high profile supporter to die: Herman Cain, the 2012 Republican Presidential candidate.
Significantly, Cain died one month after attending Trump’s Tulsa rally on June 20.
Thus, Trump, through his arrogance and ignorance, had inflicted far greater casualties on his core supporters and poll numbers than the Democrats ever could—or would.
His lies had been exposed. His followers were succumbing to a disease he called a Democratic hoax. He had nothing to offer as a cure for the economy—or the pandemic. And his polls were tanking.
Seventy-nine years earlier, events turned around for England when all seemed lost. The same proved true for former Vice President Joe Biden on November 3.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on August 12, 2022 at 12:12 am
On November 3, 2020, 81,255,933 Democratic voters elected former Vice President Joseph Biden the 46th President of the United States.
President Donald J. Trump, running for a second term, got 74,196,153 votes. Biden also won decisively in the Electoral College: 306 votes to 232 for Trump.
Yet more than two months after the election, Trump refused to concede, insisting that he won—and repeatedly claiming falsely that he was the victim of massive vote fraud.
Immediately after the election, Trump ordered his attorneys to file lawsuits to overturn the election results.
Throughout November and December, cases were filed in Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and Georgia challenging the election results. None were supported by evidence of fraud—as even Trump’s lawyers admitted when questioned by judges.
On November 13, nine cases attacking President-Elect Joe Biden’s win in key states were denied or dropped. A law firm challenging the vote count in Pennsylvania withdrew from the effort.
By November 21, more than 30 cases were withdrawn by Trump’s attorneys or dismissed by Federal judges—some of them appointed by Trump himself.
Ultimately, from November 3 to December 14, Trump and his allies lost 59 times in court, either withdrawing cases or having them dismissed by Federal and state judges.
Donald Trump
On November 19, losing in the courts, Trump invited two Republican legislative leaders from Michigan to the White House. The reason: To persuade them to stop the state from certifying the vote.
The Michigan legislators said they would follow the law.
On December 5, Trump called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and asked him to call a special legislative session and convince state legislators to select their own electors that would support him, thus overturning Biden’s win.
Kemp refused, saying he lacked the authority to do so.
Brian Kemp
On December 8, the Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s bid to reverse Pennsylvania’s certification of Biden’s victory.
Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA), a Trump ally, argued that the state’s 2.5 million mail-in votes were unconstitutional.
The Court’s order read, “The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice [Samuel] Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied.”
Although Trump had appointed three of the Court’s Justices, not one of them dissented.
On December 8, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed his own lawsuit at the Supreme Court. A Trump ally, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges.
In Texas v. Pennsylvania, he alleged that Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin violated the United States Constitution by changing election procedures through non-legislative means.
On December 10, 2020, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections,” the court said without further comment. It dismissed all other related claims as moot.
Seventeen Republican state Attorney Generals—and 126 Republican members of Congress—supported the lawsuit. They did so in an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief.
They feared Trump’s fanatical base would “primary” them if they didn’t publicly declare their loyalty—to a man they knew was slated to leave office within two months.
The Supreme Court
Had the Court acted on Paxton’s request, the results for democracy would have been catastrophic.
“Texas seeks to invalidate elections in four states for yielding results with which it disagrees,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told the justices in legal papers.
“Its request for this court to exercise its original jurisdiction and then anoint Texas’s preferred candidate for president is legally indefensible and is an affront to principles of constitutional democracy.
“The court should not abide this seditious abuse of the judicial process, and should send a clear and unmistakable signal that such abuse must never be replicated,”
The outcome of the 2020 Presidential election marked the first time a losing candidate tried to overturn the will of millions of American voters.
It also marked the first time that state Attorney Generals and members of Congress tried to overturn the results of a Presidential election.
The signers represented nearly two-thirds of the House GOP.
Among them: The House’s top two Republicans: Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.),
Only 70 Republican House members refused to sign the brief.
By December 11, 2020, only 23 Republicans in Congress—14 Representatives and nine Senators—had acknowledged Biden’s victory.
On January 6, Trump instigated an attack on the Capitol Building to stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which was certain to prove Biden the winner.
Despite this, Republican members of Congress continued trying to throw the election Trump’s way.
Six Republicans in the Senate and 121 in the House backed objections to certifying Arizona’s electoral outcome. Seven Republicans in the Senate and 138 in the House supported an objection to certifying Pennsylvania’s electoral outcome.
Not since the American Civil War (1861-1865) has the United States seen a more blatant—and deadly—case of sedition.
In 1861, 11 Senators and three Representatives were expelled from Congress for refusing to recognize Abraham Lincoln’s election—and supporting insurrection.
Democrats need to summon the same courage and ruthlessness against their sworn enemies.
Trump’s refusal to admit that he lost fuels the danger of another attack on Congress and/or President Biden.
He—and his Republican accomplices—must be forcibly taught there are penalties for treason.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on August 9, 2022 at 12:19 am
On March 2, 2021, FBI Director Christopher Wray condemned the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol as “domestic terrorism.”
He did so while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was investigating how the attack happened and what could be done to prevent such future attacks.
It was the first time Wray had testified before the committee since the attempted coup by Trump supporters two months earlier.
“Unfortunately, January 6 was not an isolated event,” Wray said. “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon.”
He said the number of FBI domestic terrorism investigations had doubled since he took office in 2017 to more than 2,000. The number of investigations into white supremacists had tripled, while the number of probes into anarchist extremists had risen significantly as well.
Wray also said the FBI had found no evidence to support the Right-wing lie that the attack on the Capitol was staged by left-wing extremists such as Antifa to try to frame Trump supporters.
More than 885 people have been charged in connection with the insurrection. Yet Trump—who instigated the attack for two months—remains unindicted.
Right-wing terrorism has a long history in America:
- The Supreme Court’s decision, in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), striking down segregated facilities, unleashed a wave of Ku Klux Klan violence against blacks, civil rights activists and Jews. Between 1956 and 1963, an estimated 130 bombings ravaged the South.
- During the 1980s, more than 75 Right-wing extremists were prosecuted in the United States for acts of terrorism, carrying out six attacks.
- The April 19, 1995 attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people. It was the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States until 9/11.
- By 2020, Right-wing terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States. A 2017 Government Accountability Office report stated that Right-wing extremist groups were responsible for 73% of violent extremist incidents resulting in deaths since September 12, 2001.
- Right-wing violence rose sharply during the Barack Obama administration and especially during that of Donald Trump. His remark after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that there were “some very fine people on both sides” convinced white supremacists that he favored their goals, if not their methods.
After 9/11, American law enforcement and Intelligence agencies initiated major reforms to focus on Islamic terrorism.
A similar reform effort, focusing on Right-wing terrorism, could include the following:
- The FBI’s designating Right-wing political and terrorist groups as the Nation’s #1 enemy.
- Turning the Bureau’s powerful arsenal—bugs, wiretaps, informants, SWAT teams—on them.
- Prosecuting militia groups for violating Federal firearms laws.
- Using Federal anti-terrorist laws to arrest, prosecute and imprison Right-wingers who openly carry firearms and threaten violence, even if states allow such display of firearms.
FBI Seal
- Creating TIT (Turn in a Traitor) hotlines for reporting illegal Right-wing activities—and offering rewards for information that leads to arrests.
- Treating calls for the murder of members of Congress—as Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has done—as felonies punishable by a minimum of at least 20 years’ imprisonment.
- Prosecuting Right-wing leaders involved in the treasonous attempt to overthrow the United States in the Capitol Building attack.
- Such prosecutions should include Donald Trump as the chief inciter for the treasonous attack on the Capitol Building on January 6.
- Prosecuting as “accessories to treason” all those Republican members of Congress who stoked Right-wing anger by lying that the 2020 Presidential election had been stolen from Donald Trump, although every objective news source proved he had lost.
- Directing the Treasury Department’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) at fundamentalist Christian churches that finance Right-wing terrorism—just as it halts the financing of Islamic terrorist groups by Islamic organizations.
- Using drones, planes and/or helicopters to provide security against similar Right-wing terror demonstrations—especially in Washington, D.C.
- Using the Federal Communications Commission to ban Fox News—the Nation’s #1 Right-wing propaganda network—from representing itself as a legitimate news network, and requiring that its stories carry labels warning viewers: “This is Right-wing propaganda, NOT news.”
- Encouraging victims of Right-wing hate-speech—such as the parents of murdered children at Sandy Hook Elementary School—to file libel/slander lawsuits against their abusers.
- Seizing the assets of individuals and organizations found guilty of Right-wing terrorism offenses.
* * * * * * * * * *
Of all the reforms offered here, prosecuting Donald Trump for treason would prove the most significant.
The 75,000,000 Americans who voted to give him a second term still look to him for leadership. As do the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate.
Senate Republicans refused to convict him in his second impeachment trial—just as they refused in the first. Their excuse: “It’s unconstitutional to impeach a former President.”
But a former President can still be prosecuted for crimes he committed while in office—just as a former Senator or Supreme Court Justice can.
Whatever the outcome, this would send an unmistakable message to Right-wing terrorists: Your days of immunity are over—and you will be held accountable for your terrorist acts, just as Islamic terrorist groups are.
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SALUTING THE AMERICANS WHO GAVE US 9/11: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 13, 2022 at 12:20 amColonel Brandt: “I wonder what we’ll do after we lose the war.”
Captain Kiesel: “Prepare for the next one.”
–-“The Cross of Iron,” film by Sam Peckinpah
September 11, 2022, marks the 21ist anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on United States soil. Inevitably, this is a time to remember all those whose lives were so cruelly snuffed out.
But it should also be a time to remember those who made this atrocity inevitable—by refusing to acknowledge and address the impending threat from Al-Qaeda.
British historian Nigel Hamilton has chronicled their arrogance and indifference in his 2010 biography: American Caesars: Lives of the Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Hamilton noted that Richard Clarke, the national security advisor on terrorism, was certain that Osama bin Laden had arranged the [USS.]Colebombing in Aden on October 12, 2000.
Richard Clarke
For months, Clarke tried to convince others in the Bush Administration that Bin Laden was plotting another attack against the United States—either abroad or at home.
But Clarke could not prevail against the know-it-all arrogance of such higher-ranking Bush officials as Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz; and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Rice initially refused to hold a cabinet-level meeting on the subject. Then she “insisted the matter be handled only by a more junior Deputy Principals meeting” in April, 2001, writes Hamilton.
Wolfowitz, the number-two man at the Department of Defense, said: “I don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.”
Even after Clarke outlined the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, Wolfowitz–whose real target was Saddam Hussein–said: “You give bin Laden too much credit.”
Wolfowitz insisted that bin Laden couldn’t carry out his terrorist acts without the aid of a state sponsor—namely, Iraq.
Wolfowitz, in fact, blamed Iraq for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
Clarke was stunned, since there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement in this.
“Al-Qaeda plans major acts of terrorism against the United States,” Clarke warned his colleagues. He pointed out that, like Adolf Hitler, bin Laden had actually published his plans for future destruction.
Osama bin Laden
And he added: “Sometimes, as with Hitler in Mein Kampf, you have to believe that these people will actually do what they say they will do.”
Wolfowitz heatedly traded on his Jewish heritage to bring Clarke’s unwelcome arguments to a halt: “I resent any comparison between the Holocaust and this little terrorist in Afghanistan.”
Writing in outraged fury, Hamilton sums up Clarke’s agonizing frustrations:
Clarke alerted Federal Intelligence agencies that “Al-Qaeda is planning a major attack on us.” He asked the FBI and CIA to report to his office all they could learn about suspicious persons or activities at home and abroad.
Finally, at a meeting with Rice on September 4, 2001, Clarke challenged her to “picture yourself at a moment when in the very near future Al-Qaeda has killed hundreds of Americans, and imagine asking yourself what you wish then that you had already done.”
Seven days later, Al-Qaeda struck, and 3,000 Americans died horrifically—and needlessly.
Neither Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld nor Wolfowitz ever admitted their negligence. Nor would any of them be brought to account.
Disgustingly, these were the same officials who, afterward, posed as the Nation’s saviors–and branded anyone who disagreed with them as a traitor, practices the Right continues to exploit to this day.
Only Richard Clarke–who had vainly argued for stepped-up security precautions and taking the fight to Al-Qaeda–gave that apology.
On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings. Addressing relatives of victims in the audience, he said: “Your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you.”
Yet even worse was to come.
On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush took Clarke aside during a meeting in the White House Situation Room:
“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam [Hussein, the dictator of Iraq] did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”
Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al-Qaeda did this.”
“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”
Hussein had not plotted the attack–and there was no evidence proving that he did. But the attack gave “W” the excuse he wanted to remove the man he blamed for the 1992 defeat of his father, President George H.W. Bush.
Bush believed that his father would have been re-elected if he had “gone all the way” into Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War.
He would finish the job that his father had started but failed to compete.
On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.
“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al-Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.
Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.
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