HOLD THE PRESSES: PAKISTAN DIDN'T DO IT

Here's how you can tell--just read the first sentence of this article:

"WASHINGTON (AFP) — Terrorists are "likely" to use nuclear or biological weapons in the next five years, a US commission warned, highlighting Pakistan as the weakest link in world security."

Seems someone--our government, natch--is trying to set up Pakistan. Again, that's a country that Obama singled out for saber-rattling during his campaign.

And note how this report dovetails so nicely with the announcement of 20,000 troops to be stationed in the U.S., with blame being assigned to Pakistan for the Mumbai attack, with the warnings from Colin Powell and others that January 21st or 22nd specifically, but Obama's first few months in office generally will be a time of testing for Obama and the U.S.

Oh dear.

20,000 MORE TROOPS + "RECESSION"=MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

And so the police state approacheth...

The Washington Post says that 20,000 more U.S. troops will be stationed in the U.S. to "bolster domestic security."

"The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said. "

This is on top of the brigade that began its tour of the "homeland" over two months ago. I cartooned about that here:
http://eggsistense.com/EggsIsTense16Large.jpg

Didn't Bush "keep us safe?"

But why is this happening now? What happened to the argument that "Bush kept us safe" from a terror attack for the last 7+ years? We didn't have the U.S. military stationed here for "domestic security" or "civil unrest" and "crowd control" during that time. I thought it was all the warrantless spying and the Patriot Act and all that other crapola that kept us safe, not troops in the streets.

"Recession" is the key

The reason they're moving the troops in at this juncture, then, is obviously because the economy is collapsing. Even though it was completely unnecessary, it was officially declared yesterday that we've been in a recession since December 2007.

People are starting to freak out. The cost of literally everything is going up, and people are already in debt beyond all semblance of their ability to pay. They have no savings, me included. The unemployment rate continues to climb. Even those who did have investments, i.e., real estate and stocks, have seen the value of those investments simply disappear into thin air.

Eventually people are going to do something about it. Hopefully it will be peaceful--my personal favorite option--but it may not be. Well, not to worry, says the Federal Reserve (the main culprit of all these shenanigans), we've got U.S. troops right here in America to enforce "domestic security." But the security being enforced will be for the bankers, not for the people.

The people are trained to think they're "safe" and "secure" as long as there are no ghastly terror attacks. Meanwhile, the security and safety of our finances, our civil liberties, our health--literally everything else--is being attacked and eroded.

God help us.

OPERATION IRAQI (AND AMERICAN) ENSLAVEMENT

An Iranian leader, referring to Bush's plan to stay in Iraq indefinitely, spoke the truth about the plan:

"The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans."

Bush is trying to force the Iraqi government to agree to the following terms by the end of next month:

-allow US troops occupy permanent bases
-allow US troops to conduct military operations without consulting Iraqi government
-allow US troops to arrest Iraqis without consulting Iraqi government
-allow US troops to have immunity from Iraqi law
-allow US control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet

And so on.

Does that sound like "freedom" to anyone? Isn't that what our war was euphemistically named--"Operation Iraqi Freedom?" Oh, but we have long since learned that politicians in general and neocons in particular are well-versed in what I call "oppositism," i.e., saying the opposite of what they mean.

Do the terms that Bush wants Iraqis to agree to sound any different than what Saddam Hussein did? No, they don't. Bush obviously isn't interested in "victory" in Iraq. Making Iraq agree to such odious terms is a surefire way to ensure defeat and a prolonged conflict.

Because that's what the neocons really want--war all the time. That's so they can always say that we're "in a time of war" and they can use that excuse to continue taking our civil liberties. The war in Iraq and the wider "war on terror" are really an excuse to wage war on US.

If you can't see that, you're fucking blind.

AFGHANISTAN A JUST WAR? NOT SO MUCH...

A dude at the Hattiesburg American forum said Afghanistan is a "just war." I attempt to disabuse him of that notion with what follows...

Consider:


1. The Bush administration gave the Taliban a lot of money before our invasion--$53 million, to be exact. This was only a few months before 9/11 in spite of their support for terrorism, their treatment of women, and their toleration of Osama bin Laden.

2. Suddenly, and I'm sure quite by coincidence, Bush agreed to a plan to attack Afghanistan on 9/10/01.

3. In February 2001, the Taliban offered to send Osama bin Laden to Saudi Arabia if the U.S would work with them.

4. None of the hijackers in the official 9/11 fable were from Afghanistan.

5. If bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan justifies a war on a country that has hardly ever known anything else, why did the Bush admin. arrange for bin Laden's relatives to be flown out of the country two days after 9/11?

6. Afghanistan did not invade or attack the United States. In fact, the Taliban tried to warn the U.S. about 9/11.

7. The U.S. government has never brought formal charges against bin Laden for 9/11.


So why again is Afghanistan a "just war?" If you ask me, it's not "just war"--it's just war. And war is a racket.

USELESS AIRPORT SECURITY AND FBI BIOMETRICS DATABASES...

A couple of stories I've noticed the past couple of days that are related...

First, a story about a study which shows that airline security is more about control than safety:

Airport security lines can annoy passengers, but there is no evidence that they make flying any safer, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.
A team at the Harvard School of Public Health could not find any studies showing whether the time-consuming process of X-raying carry-on luggage prevents hijackings or attacks.
They also found no evidence to suggest that making passengers take off their shoes and confiscating small items prevented any incidents.

Since there's no evidence that such "security" measures increase safety, then I'm sure such practices will be discontinued, right? Fat chance of that. It's like Alex Jones often says--the point was never to keep us "safe," the point is to inure us to being searched, to get us used to being subjected to pointless, petty invasions of our privay and submitting to authority for no good reason.

This is how a police state is created--slowly, gradually, almost imperceptibly, until the police feel they no longer need the subtlety. And the police state feels no need to justify itself, as the article points out:

"The U.S. Transportation Security Administration told research teams requesting information their need for quick new security measures trumped the usefulness of evaluating them, Eleni Linos, Elizabeth Linos, and Graham Colditz reported in the British Medical Journal."

Basically, the police state says, our "security measures" are effective because we say so. Even if they obviously aren't effective.

So we'll just scan everyone's face!

And that leads us right into the FBI's gigantic new biometric database!

"The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad."

My, how safe we'll be when we can all be tracked to the four corners of the earth!

Think that such a system would only be used on "terrorists?" Think again:

"But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified."

Why might one be arrested? For participating in an antiwar demonstration, maybe? Why should one's employer be notified of that? Why should the government be telling employers such things? Would an employer be notified if one were charged with the crime of speeding or running a stop sign? What is the employer supposed to do with such information, anyway? Penalize an employee? What the hell is going on here?

Think the FBI won't abuse this database? Anybody remember the national security letter debacle? Let's refresh our memory:

"An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism."

Speaking of abuse of power--J. Edgar Hoover's mass arrest proposal!

Speaking of the FBI and abuse of power, how's about this from ol' Queen Hoover:

A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Though this Hoover letter is from 1950, it sounds awfully familiar:

"For a long period of time the FBI has been accumulating the names, identities and activities of individuals found to be potentially dangerous to the internal security through investigation. These names have been compiled in an index which index has been kept up to date. The names in this index are the ones that have been furnished to the Department of Justice and will be attached to the master warrant referred to above. This master warrant will, therefore, serve as legal authority for the FBI to cause the apprehension and detention of the individuals maintained in this index."

No-Fly List, anyone? Hoover only had 12,000 "potentially dangerous" people on his list? What, was he soft on terror or something? The no-fly list has at least 20,000 people on it.

TORTURE WORKS? YEAH, RIGHT...

Here's an incredible story from ABC News:

A leader of the CIA team that captured the first major al Qaeda figure, Abu Zubaydah, says subjecting him to waterboarding was torture but necessary.

In the first public comment by any CIA officer involved in handling high-value al Qaeda targets, John Kiriakou, now retired, said the technique broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds.

"The next day, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate," said Kiriakou in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News With Charles Gibson" and "Nightline."

"From that day on, he answered every question," Kiriakou said. "The threat information he provided disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks."

That last sentence is the one the Bush administration wants us to focus on. Supposedly because Zubaydah "answered every question," terror attacks were averted. Predictably, Kiriakou does not offer even one specific instance of a terror attack being thwarted because Zubaydah was tortured.

If one reads the ABC transcript, one sees that Brian Ross tries to get Kiriakou to give specifics about what terror attacks may have been thwarted. For example:

BRIAN ROSS:
And in terms of the actual planned future attacks?
JOHN:
Yeah, we disrupted a lot of them.
BRIAN ROSS:
And he knew about them?
JOHN:
He knew about some. But like I say, it was time-sensitive information. So that-- that wound down over time.
BRIAN ROSS:
And the ones that he knew about, were they on US soil? Were they in Pakistan?
JOHN:
You know, I was out of it by then. I had moved onto a new job. And I-- I don't recall. To the best of my recollection, no, they weren't on US soil. They were overseas. (pp. 19-20)

So Kiriakou claims ignorance about specific terror attacks because by then he'd moved on to other missions. But, as far as he can recall, the attacks that were supposedly stopped by torturing Zubaydah weren't even on U.S. soil--they were overseas!. Isn't that interesting? So Kiriakou wants to assure us that torture works and that the United States is safer because we torture people who tell us about terror attacks...that aren't on U.S. soil!

Kiriakou then reveals that all the gradually intensifying torture techniques were specifically authorized by the higher-ups in the CIA; the interrogators sought and received approval from CIA headquarters to take it up a notch. Oh, but they weren't worried about killing Zubaydah because there was always a doctor in the room. And you know that doctors are taught to "first, do no harm..."

"Al Qaeda is not like a World War Two German POW"

Kiriakou then tells Ross that he feels torture was necessary, and that he didn't have weeks or months to play chess with Zubaydah like captured Germans in WWII. He says that "al Qaeda is not like a World War Two German POW. It's a different world."

I would agree with that assessment. For example, Germany had actually invaded and conquered several countries. They methodically killed 6 million Jews with the assistance of IBM (the Nazis were also financed in part by several Americans, including George W. Bush's grandfather). Al Qaeda has done nothing of the sort. At their worst, al Qaeda killed a few thousand Americans on one day--if you believe the official story, which most Americans do not.

So yeah, I can see why we have to torture a much weaker enemy that has no army, hasn't conquered a single country, hasn't killed anywhere near 6 million Jews, etc.

Really an amazing interview...So much I don't have time or energy to go into it all, but Kiriakou goes on to say that once Zubaydah was broken, they'd go bounce info off of him for him to confirm or refute. And I'm sure Zubaydah always told them the truth and provided "actionable intelligence." That's how they found Osama bin Laden and captured...him...

Oh wait, Osama still hasn't been captured, has he...Ohhh riiiight...bin Laden hasn't been captured yet because torture is so necessary and so effective...Give me a break.

Ross opens part 2 of the transcript with a question about whether or not Zubaydah knew the whereabouts of bin Laden, and guess what, Zubaydah hadn't seen ol' Osama in months. How very convenient--he knew all about terror attacks on foreign soil but had no clue where to find or who to talk to about where to find Bush's favorite bogeyman.

Other random observations from the first part of the transcript

Tenet had a trauma surgeon sent to Pakistan specifically for the purpose of treating Zubaydah who had been shot three times during his capture. So basically we revived a guy (Kiriakou says in the ABC transcript that Zubaydah "almost died") so we could torture him to a point just before death. We almost killed him once when capturing him and then again after we used taxpayer money to make sure he didn't die from gunshot wounds.

In the ABC transcript, Kiriakou tells Brian Ross that when Zubaydah awoke from his coma (resulting from the first time we tried to kill him), Kiriakou said "We have plans for you." I wonder if what Kiriakou really said was "Ve haf vays to make you talk," but he didn't want to tell Ross or the American public that.

Kiriakou expresses surprise that Zubaydah is actually a very friendly person who spoke very good English and even wrote poetry and debated the merits of his religion. You know, a normal person.

Ross asks Kiriakou if Zubaydah talked about 9/11 and Kiriakou says he did. Interestingly, Kiriakou never indicates that Zubaydah took credit for 9/11. Apparently Zubaydah only said that 9/11 was "necessary," according to the ABC transcript.

WHO IS THE "STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR?"

Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black?

"Ahmadinejad's trip to New York ignited a debate this week over his rejected request to lay a wreath at ground zero. The State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and politicians and families of Sept. 11 victims were outraged that its president might visit the site of the 2001 terror attacks."

The United States is the biggest "state sponsor of terror." Our invasion of Iraq has now killed over 1,000,000 people. That's 1/25 of the population of Iraq. And that's just for starters. We overthrew Mossadegh in 1953 through the use of terror attacks and we're still doing that today:

"As earlier reported on the Blotter on ABCNews.com, the United States has supported and encouraged an Iranian militant group, Jundullah, that has conducted deadly raids inside Iran from bases on the rugged Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan 'tri-border region.'"

In other words, we're sponsoring terror. Here's some more about our sponsorship of terrorism:

"TEHRAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Explosive devices and arsenals used in a terrorist attack in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan on Wednesday came from the United States, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an "informed source" was quoted as saying.

The source further pointed out that Jundallah, a shadowy Sunni militant group, had several plots for assassinating Sunni and tribal leaders to sow discord and foment conflicts between the Shiite and Sunni citizens in Sistan-Baluchestan province."

We're not the good guys. In fact, there are no good guys--only varying degrees of bad guys. Seriously, is that how one "fights terror?" By engaging in it?

LOSING THE "WAR ON TERROR"


Happy "Mission Accomplished" Anniversary!

If the goal of the so-called "war on terror" is to REDUCE terrorism, then the U.S. is losing that war.

Compared to 2005, terrorist attacks were UP 25% in 2006, and 40% more people were killed by extremists in 2006. This is coming from the Bush administration's own State Department, which said there were around 14,000 terror attacks in 2006.

Just under half of those were in Iraq!

If on the other hand, the publicly unstated but actual goal of the "war on terror" is to reduce the civil liberties of Americans and give their tax money away in the form of fat government contracts to the military-industrial complex, we're winning the "war on terror" big-time! Go USA!

GWOT: INTERESTING COINCIDENCES...

Isn't it veeeerrry interesting that the day after the Senate passes an Iraq spending bill that contains a timetable, suddenly we're capturing (also killing) insurgents, taking back cities from the Taliban, and the Saudis are foiling "terror plots" to get this--fly planes into oil refineries?

What a series of convenient coincidences to help neocons make the case that we're succeeding in the war on our freedom...I mean, the war on "terror"...I mean, terror (no quotes)...

Here's what the AP had to say about the foiled "terror plot":

"They had reached an advance stage of readiness, and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks," the ministry's spokesman, Brig. Mansour al-Turki, told The Associated Press in a phone call. "They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete except for setting the zero hour for the attacks."

No "zero hour?"

So this supposed attack could have theoretically taken place any time between today and the end of time?

Huh...I guess that's why they had to move on it, then. Surely the U.S. Senate having passed their Iraq sort-of-but-not-really withdrawal bill the day before the arrests had nothing to do with it...

NEOCON JOE AND SYRIAN HYPOCRISY

On Morning Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Joe implies that we should go after Syria or at least not negotiate with them because they're a "state sponsor" of "terrorism," specifically mentioning Hamas.

Saudi Arabia also supports Hamas and maintains a state of war against Israel.

Joe says “I say this because we’re in a war. We’re in a war against the Islamic terrorists who attacked us on 9-11-01.”

According to the unlikely yet official story, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and none was from either Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet our president receives Saudi officials at his Texas estate and holds their hands and kisses their cheeks.

But I want to make something clear: by pointing these things out, I am not advocating a war with or an attack on Saudi Arabia. Rather, I am trying to point out the glaring hypocrisy of the neocon/Bush/batshit-crazy hawk position. And not just the hypocrisy, but the wanton disregard for human life that has come about as a result of that hypocrisy.

I would ask the neocons--if our involvement in the Middle East is truly about freedom, democracy, morality, fighting "terrorism" and NOT about oil, then why are we not occupying Mecca? That's the reason I bring this up--because it points out the selective use of the neocon's already tortured (pun intended) logic when it comes to threats to Israel, state sponsorship of "terrorism," democracy, and treatment of women.

In other words, what George W. Bush and the neocons are saying to Saudi Arabia is the following:

"If you play our game, i.e., you don't try to get out from under the petrodollar and buy lots of weapons from us and let us have military bases there and invest in the U.S. and specifically with the family business of the President, then the following facts do not matter to us: that you are not a democracy, you're a state sponsor of terror, you oppress women, 15 of the 19 hijackers were from your country, and so forth."

That's just realpolitik, man--calm down!

That may in fact be realpolitik, but for George W. Bush to pretend to advocate democracy for the Middle East and send Americans to die in Iraq in a war of choice which he says will achieve a democratic Middle East while he chooses to have Saudi leaders to his ranch instead of bombing them, is a sign of a very sick man.

And here's my main point: why can't other state sponsors of terror be dealt with like Bush deals with Saudi Arabia, a state sponsor of terror? Why can't we negotiate with them like we do with Saudi Arabia? Why can't we avoid sending our soldiers to die in the countries of state sponsors of terror--that's what we are currently doing with Saudi Arabia?

I'm not sure I'm being entirely clear, so I'll rephrase what I'm trying to say: George W. Bush, supposedly the great slayer of terrorists and benevolent bringer of democracy to the Middle East, has taken very different approaches to the same problem in the cases of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Iraq--a state sponsor of terror which was no threat to its neighbors, was a secular regime and had no WMD--was invaded, resulting in an ongoing bloodbath which consumes American lives all but daily.

However, Saudi Arabia, not only a state sponsor of terror but also a threat to our main ally in the region (they maintain a state of war with Israel), an Islamic fundamentalist dictatorship, and the breeding ground for the head of al Qaeda and 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers--gets to send its leaders to hold hands with our leader and is not subject to invasion.

Therefore, Bush has put the lie to his own rhetoric about the "war on terror" and the price Americans must pay. He's proven that state sponsors of terror do not have to be invaded and subjugated and the lives of our soldiers sacrificed.


My final point

My final point, then, is not to ask why we haven't invaded Saudi Arabia, but rather to ask why we have invaded Iraq, given the strikingly similar track records of the two countries. Or to say it another way--and taking Bush's own rhetoric to its logical conclusion--since we don't have to invade Saudi Arabia, we never had to invade Iraq (which I've already said a million times, but not with Saudi Arabia as a comparison).

Why aren't more people angry about this?

WHY THEN DOES BUSH HOLD THEIR HANDS? AND KISS THEIR CHEEKS?

Aren't we often told that we have to support Israel above all else when it comes to foreign policy decisions regarding the Middle East? And aren't we also told that those who wish harm to Israel are our enemies simply because of their antipathy for Israel? And that states shouldn't sponsor terrorism? And that countries that treat women badly are backwards? And that theocratic, fundamentalist absolute monarchies are anathema to us?

If that's so, why does George Bush stroll hand-in-hand with representatives of Saudi Arabia? After all, we are reminded in an AP report today that:

"Olmert specifically called on Saudi Arabia on Sunday to take the lead in holding a regional conference, the first time Israel has made such a request of the Saudis, who maintain a state of war with Israel but are pushing for a peace deal."

A few facts about Saudi Arabia

Fifteen of the 19 supposed 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Here's a description of the restrictions on women in Saudia Arabia from Human Rights Watch:

"In interviews with roughly 100 Saudi women academics, educators and medical professionals, Human Rights Watch documented how male guardianship of adult women denies women the right to employment, education, health, and freedom of movement. Government policy often explicitly requires male consent for a range of everyday activities. This system, premised on the idea that women have limited or no legal capacity to act on their own behalf, affects all Saudi women across economic or social divides. While guardianship is construed as a form of protection for women, in fact, it fails to protect some of their most basic rights."

Here's some info from Amnesty International on Saudi Arabia's medieval system of law enforcement:

"There are still scores of political prisoners and possible prisoners of conscience. Saudi Arabia continues to use flogging and amputations as punishments. Executions, beheadings with a sword, occur regularly and are disproportionately carried out against foreign nationals. Foreign workers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, particularly female domestic workers, who have virtually no protection at all."

And here's some info on Saudi Arabia's relationship with Israel:

"However, the fifth Arab nation contiguous to Israel, Saudi Arabia, now the dominant nation in the Arab League, remains in a formal state of war with Israel, having never agreed to any armistice or any semblance of a peace agreement with Israel. Instead, Saudi Arabia has consistently funded all terror groups at war with Israel, from Hamas to the 10 PLO terror factions based in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia has earned the distinction as the first nation since the Third Reich which is officially "Judenrein" - Jew free. By law, no Jew may visit or live in Saudi Arabia."

Let's Recap

Saudi Arabia is a known state sponsor of terror and yet is one of the U.S. defense industry's biggest clients.


Saudi Arabia has never made peace with Israel and forbids Jews to even enter their country.

Saudi Arabia calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestianian territories and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as the capitol.

Saudi Arabia oppresses women and has a horrible human rights record. Saudi Arabia is not a democracy and makes no pretense of being one--they don't even have demonstration elections.

And according to the official 9/11 story, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

But the Bush admininstration considers Saudi Arabia to be a strong ally in the war on terror. What the fuck is wrong with this picture?



Many of the things we've established about Saudi Arabia were also true of Saddam Hussein. Many of the arguments neocons used to condemn Saddam Hussein (or Arabs and/or Muslims generally) are true of Saudi Arabia. So why was Saddam demonized while Bush holds hands with Prince Abdullah? I would sum up the difference in one word: Petrodollar.

TOYS I WON'T BE BUYING/CREEPING FASCISM...




Also, I've been meaning to put these up for a while. This is a reminder of how the "threat" of "terr-ists" is always with us, even (especially?) at the credit union (posted at the main desk):















Notice how the connection is made between them maintaining records of IDs and "protecting our country." In other words, ve vill need to see your PAPERS!


There was another picture (that was too blurry) of a sign in the credit union lobby that said "Goodbye Float--Hello Check 21" and went on to talk about how the banking system was all fucked up after 9/11 so they had to tighten the reins on customers like you and like me! Hooray!

WHY THEY REALLY HATE US

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit (now dismantled) and author of "Imperial Hubris", has been lauded by Justin Raimondo for a long time. I had read a few pieces of his and a few interviews with him, but what he said yesterday on the Sam Seder show was absolutely right on. He laid out what was wrong with American intertwining foreign and domestic policy with a clarity and succintness that one doesn't hear very often.

I'm going to transcribe a few of his comments below...

SS: How does, as a whole, the Iraq endeavor [i.e., the war] affect our safety in this regard? I mean, is this genuinely the central front in the "war on terror?" If we weren't "there" [in Iraq] would that free them up to attack us in the United States?

MS: No, I think that's kind of a canard that's been used by a lot of people...What Iraq has done to make it more dangerous for us is to accelerate the transition of bin Laden and al Qaeda into "bin Laden-ism" and "al Qaeda-ism." Instead of a man and an organization, we now have a philosophy and a movement...

...What we did by invading Iraq was to successfully accomplish the definition for a defensive jihad in Islam--an infidel power invading a Muslim country without provocation and then occupying it. It is something that lifts the onus from bin Laden in the sense of him calling the jihad because so many now well-credentialed clerics have said "Yes, we have to fight a jihad against the Americans because of Iraq...

SS: So it's almost as if he [bin Laden] no longer has to make the case, we're making the case for him...

MS:We've very much validated his argument, sir.

If anyone asks what we're doing wasting, yes wasting, American lives in Iraq, you can say that we are validating bin Laden's argument--we are proving his point. The "sleeping giant" is also very clumsy and slow-witted, as it turns out.

How to "embolden terrorists"

In other words, we are "emboldening terrorists" by continuing to occupy Iraq, not the other way around. The Boehners and the Liebermans of the War Party have it exactly backwards. But the pro-war crowd has really turned that truth on its head by continuously repeating that if we leave, we will look weak and like losers and terrorists will be heartened.

And the Boehners and Liebermans have it exactly backward on purpose--war is business and war is the health of the state, and right now business is the state and vice versa. Whatever the pro-war crowd warns will happen, the opposite will be true--and that's why they issue such warnings. They know that the insurgency is caused by our presence and would have no reason to exist if we left, so they say we can't leave because if we do, the insurgency will get worse.

And such pronouncements make sense on the surface, especially to Fox News watchers who don't have a clear understanding of the way we were lied into war in the first place.

Anyway, back to Scheuer and Seder, because the best is yet to come...

MS: ...When you claim you've killed 2/3 of the leadership of al Qaeda, it's both true and irrelevant. Al Qaeda is an insurgent organization that grew up in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets. It always makes plans to replace its leadership. That's one of the main activities they engage in is preparing for leadership losses. And so every time we kill or capture a senior leader, whoever replaces him has been an understudy...

I'm not sure that what any of what we're fighting is "terrorism." I can tell you, at least from the intelligence officer's perspective, if al Qaeda was a terrorist group, the CIA would have destroyed it before 9/11. It's an insurgent organization that's spread worldwide and the president keeps saying "We're gonna arrest them one person at a time"--we're never gonna get the job done that way. They're really more insurgents than they are terrorists and by calling them "terrorists" I'm afraid the American people have not gotten a clear view of the danger that threatens our country.

Insurgents, not terrorists

Exactly, al Qaeda are insurgents, not terrorists. That means if we don't fuck with them, they don't fuck with us. But as has always been the case, the label of "terrorist" is misused on purpose to conceal the racket of war. To call someone a terrorist is to try to de-legitimize, marginalize, and de-sympathize (and de-empathize) with the person or group so labeled.

OK, a little more, and saving the best for last:

SS: What does it mean that [al Qaeda] is a worldwide insurgency as opposed to being a terrorist organization?

MS: A terrorist organization by definition has to be a small organization that's very tightly compartmented...what we're looking at is, from southern Thailand to Chechnya to Afghanistan to Kashmir to the Philippines are a number of localized Islamist insurgencies, most of them driven by local grievances. But, bin Laden has been, by the impact of our foreign policy in the Islamic world, able to focus some section of each of those insurgencies against the Americans. And so we're facing threats on virtually every continent and ones we're just not equipped over the long run to defeat.

The Crux of The Biscuit

MS: Partially we're in a hole of our own making because for the last 15 years--at least--our presidents and policymakers in both parties have told the American people that "they hate us because of our freedoms and liberties and gender equality and R-rated movies" and that has almost nothing to do with this war.

The reason bin Laden has been able to focus these Islamist insurgents on the United States is because of the impact of what our government does in the Muslim world.

SS: Specifically...

MS: Our ability to keep oil prices low, our support for Israel, our military presence on the Arabian peninsula, our presence now in Iraq and Yemen and Afghanistan. Probably most painful for the United States is our support for tyranny across the Arab world. The really spectacular hypocrisy between urging democracy in one place and supporting the al-Saud tyranny in Saudia Arabia is not lost, even on illiterate people.

SS: So what needs to be done at this point?

MS: Well, we're slowly turning into Israel at the moment. Because our leaders have lied about the motivation of the enemy, we are left with military and intelligence operations to defend ourselves. Once--if they ever get to the point, and I don't think it will occur until we get attacked again inside of this country--once they get to the point and say, "Well listen, these people are motivated not by the nonsense of R-rate movies and draft beer but by the fact that we're doing things in their part of the world," we can begin to discuss whether the policies we have and have had for the past thirty years are protecting America.

MS: Especially energy--everything is tied to energy. As long as we are dependent, and our allies are dependent on oil that comes out of the Persian Gulf, we are gonna have to support tyranny across the Arab world. And that keeps us locked--it leaves us with no options.

...We are not the main target of these people [al Qaeda and the worldwide insurgency]. What they've decided is that the tyrannies that rule the Arab world and Israel surive only because of the support of the United States. Whether or not that's true, that's their strategy. They believe that we're so much softer than the Israelis or the Egyptians or the Saudis, that they can drive us out of the area through economic damage to our country. And so we're not even the main target--we're just simply in the way of what they want to accomplish.

He said a few more things, but above are the things that just really caught my ear when I was listening to the podcast today. I'm exhausted...good night!