--- The Fool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/printable592330.shtml>> > > "From the very beginning, there was a conviction > that Saddam Hussein was > a bad person and that he needed to go," he tells > Stahl. "For me, the > notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the > unilateral right to do > whatever we decide to do is a really huge leap," > says O'Neill. <snip>
So, is this a disgruntled employee snapping at the folks who fired him? Or is this former member of the Nixon and Ford admins blowing a whistle for good reason? "...In the book, O’Neill says that the president did not make decisions in a methodical way: there was no free-flow of ideas or open debate...O'Neill is the only one who spoke on the record, but Suskind says that someone high up in the administration – Donald Rumsfeld - warned O’Neill not to do this book... "...During the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." “The thing that's most surprising, I think, is how emphatically, from the very first, the administration had said ‘X’ during the campaign, but from the first day was often doing ‘Y,’” says Suskind. “Not just saying ‘Y,’ but actively moving toward the opposite of what they had said during the election.” "...The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out contrary views. "This is the way Dick likes it," says O’Neill..." Many of the people Bush has chosen to surround himself with - Cheney and Ashcroft in particular - are not friends of the Constitution, democracy, "the common man" or the rule of law. I am quite sure that I never learned in Civics class that indefinite detention, torture-by-proxy, and 'unquestioning belief is the only form of patriotism allowed' were core American values. Debbi But Some Are More Equal Than Others Maru :-/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
