So it seems to me that this unwillingness to share info publicly suggests "evidence" that's fly-attractingly foul.
No, no, he protested...they (our intrepid protectors) know things we don't. .d.
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(For those outside the US, all week we have been swamped with a mass media blitz on 9/11, War on Terror, Tribunals, and announcements of a revisionist bullshit docu-drama which will appear as a tv special some time next week I guess. See Charles Brown, more GOP cleverness thread.)
All day, I've been thinking about the basic idea that there is no war on terrorism, because there are no terrorists and no terrorism. Yes, it's true, Islamic nutcases captured four flights and managed to fly three of them into WTC and the Pentagon five years ago. And it's also true that there are probably millions of people who would love to do the same for their own reasons.
It might also be true that the US has captured a few of the people who were involved in some way with that event. But if that is true, why not make a show trial out of them? Explain all the horrific, evil, plotting and thinking that went into the great horror and drag it out for months on end?
The cagey excuse that to proceed with an open prosecution would reveal too many state secrets is just too cute. Yeah, the only secret they are afraid of is their complete lack of evidence.
This is from Juan Cole today:
``Ron Suskind's One Percent Solution discusses Abu Zubayda. His sources in the intelligence community revealed to him that Abu Zubayda turned out not to have been a high level planner, as Rumsfeld had announced. He was more like a low level travel agent for the families of al-Qaeda operatives....
The other problem is that there are active cases hanging on the validity of Abu Zubayda's testimony.
Apparently the bizarre allegations surrounding Jose Pedilla, derived from Abu Zubayda's fevered mind. I would not be surprised to see that case collapse...''
I haven't follow the UK news since their big announcement of sweeps through Muslim neighborhoods capturing `terrorists' with no passports, no plane tickets, no cash, no travel plans, no bombs, but evidently an infinite desire to blow things up with hair gel and tooth paste.
This is all taking shape as a complete fraud. Sure there are terrorists, thousand of people who might have the skill and commitment to blow things up in the evil Empire, but they haven't been very lucky here since 9/11 have they?
We're assured, oh, that's because we've stopped them. Okay where are all these people you've stopped? Show us. We can't. It's secret. So the circle closes and re-traces back to arguments about evidence and procedure. Show us the bodies.
I know that this sounds naive, of course the war on terrorism is a fraud. But I am trying to consider the idea that it is not just any old fraud like the long list of frauds we've become used to (2000 election, Enron to Iraq), but a titanic farce, a vast system of utter and complete bullshit, total smoke and mirrors.
Consider the possibility that the US has absolutely nobody in any of its super secret gulag archipelagos who could be tried and convicted in open court. Nobody. Consider that there is probably nobody who could be put on trial in a US military tribunal that followed the UCMJ. Consider what the US has are people who were rounded up or turned in with nothing but a scribbled field report and a few interrogation summaries. Consider they are being held in secret not because they are still spilling their guts on all the evil they've done, but simply because they can't be charged with anything that will stick.
The more this propaganda campaign is re-heated for the umpteenth time, the more I think the administration is getting desperate. They are not desperate because they think their methods are unpopular, but because they have absolutely nothing to show for all this secrete security bullshit.
As far as I remember, the US has not brought a single terrorist to court, let alone justice. Oh, the Mill Valley kid who went to train in Afghanistan, confessed to having bad thoughts and shooting at US troops, and then went off to jail, I guess. I forgot. Other than that who?
No one. Nada, zip, zero. It's been five years. Where the fuck are all these terrorists? Where are all the plots, the bombs, the weapons of mass destruction, the networks, the conspiracies, the money, the operations, the plans, the horror of horrors, the evil of all evils unmasked? Where exactly?
We've got executive branch memos that strip the constitution and spent billions on billions. We've got fifteen levels of super secret agencies within agencies, we've invaded two countries, we've got the Army, the Air Force, the Marines, the Navy, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, the AFT, Treasury, Justice, the Pentagon, forty-seven thousand local police forces, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Dept of Homeland Security, we've satellites, we've got drones, we've got telecommunications surveillance that blankets the earth, we've knives, we've got sharp sticks---and all this fantastic, architectonic police state apparatus that makes Blade Runner and Dark City look like toy models, has produced exactly what?
Where the fuck are all the terrorists these vast minions of great dedicated, 24/7, night and day patriots committed to the very last drop of blood, suppose to catch. Surely somebody somewhere in this enormous and utterly fantastic castle of national security running on a war time basis must have found somebody, something, somewhere.
Okay, the Boston Globe announces:
``President Bush has acknowledged for the first time the CIA has been operating a secret network of overseas prisons. Bush made the admission as he ordered 14 prisoners previously held by the CIA to be transferred ... prisoners includes Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001; Abu Zubaydah [see Cole quote above], a key link between Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda operatives; and Ramzi Binalshibh, a would-be Sept. 11 hijacker.''
Fourteen? You mean after scouring the entire earth for five years with every police, national security, military, legal, illegal and electronic means available, including some completely imaginary tricks we invented especially for this purpose, we have exactly fourteen bad guys? Fourteen guys so bad, we can't tell you all their names or what they did.
Well, I stand corrected.
CG