Saul Landau provides an important history of using the sham of "security" and wiretapping to further a police state here at home. The other sham is well dissected by Arianna, at the top. -Ed
The Huffington Post via Progreso Weekly - May 25, 2006 http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Arianna_Huffington&otherweek=1148619600 Cracking the Hillary code By Arianna Huffington The buzz surrounding the film adaptation of 'The Da Vinci Code," released last week, is reaching a crescendo. It's everywhere - billboards, magazine covers, TV commercials, the sides of buses. Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou racing around Europe trying to uncover the stunning secrets of the Holy Grail, and of how the patriarchy of the church systematically removed the Sacred Feminine from Christianity. The tag line: "Seek the Truth." Meanwhile, on the political front, I've been trying to crack "The Hillary Code." Unlocking the latest Clinton cryptex, we find not a papyrus map but other kinds of symbolic clues: Making headlines with her warm assessment of Bush. Partying with a Who's Who of the GOP power elite, including Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. Planning a fund-raiser to be hosted by - wait for it - Rupert Murdoch. It doesn't take a dashing Harvard symbologist and a sexy French cryptographer to figure this one out. Hillary Clinton is determined to single-handedly remove every last vestige of authenticity from American politics. She's being aided by the Knights Templar over at the DLC. And, of course, the Holy Father of triangulation himself, William Jefferson Clinton - the self-styled Pope of the Global Village (or at least the Global Initiative). At this point, she doesn't have a self-flagellating albino monk tracking her, but John McCain's own authenticity is getting paler by the minute, with Jerry Falwell's Liberty U. standing in for the ultra-devout Opus Dei. We have reached a moment when the disastrous policies of the Bush administration have left GOP support in a freefall, with more Americans saying Democrats would do a better job dealing with Iraq, gasoline prices, immigration, taxes, prescription drug prices and civil liberties. They even believe, by a double-digit margin, that Democrats come closer to sharing their moral values. Yet at this most propitious political moment, the presumptive favorite to lead the Democrats is doing everything in her power to distance herself from what should be the central holy tenet of the Democratic Party: opposition to the war in Iraq. It's not just the canoodling with the right. It's the relentless, unabashed pandering in an effort to rebrand herself as a red-state-friendly centrist. The sacred scrolls of her inauthenticity are legend and legion: the co-sponsorship of anti-flag-burning legislation; her call for "common ground" on abortion; her willingness to go along with Bush's missile defense fantasies; her "Sistah Souljah Moment" attack on video games (perhaps she should have been more worried about the spy satellite games the NSA was apparently playing); and her endless photo-op-ready partnerships with Newt Gingrich, Bill Frist, Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum. And, worst of all, her steadfast - often bellicose - support for the war in Iraq. Sloshing through the muck and mire of the Bush administration cesspool - and the sick joke it's made of the promise to restore honor and integrity to Washington - voters are craving an authentic leader who stands for something more than getting elected. Instead, we have Hillary, phonier than Alberto Gonzales' Senate testimony on domestic spying, sucking up the media oxygen - and piles and piles of Democratic moolah. "The Hillary Code" is a very big-budget production: she's already amassed more than $20 million in campaign cash. But more importantly, her dreary, shape-shifting slog toward 2008 is likely to leave voters as puzzled as Hanks' Robert Langdon when he first finds the murdered curator of the Louvre laid out in front of the Mona Lisa. America needs a leader who will restore our faith in our democracy, not another shameless, trying-to-be-all-things-to-all-people politician who will further undermine it. A faith healer, not a faith stealer. "The Da Vinci Code" is a heart-pounding, pulse-racing thriller. "The Hillary Code" is a head-pounding, soul-sapping killer. My advice to Dems: See the movie, reject the candidate... and find a leader who will "seek the truth," not some deceptive middle ground. © 2006 Arianna Huffington. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc. *** Progreso Weekly - May 25, 2006 http://www.progresoweekly.com/index.php?progreso=Landau&otherweek=1148619600 The wiretapping scam By Saul Landau Karl Rove or his White House troglodytes shape discussion around themes that distract the public from the issues and place the incompetent and corrupt Bush Administration in a patriotic light. The current subterfuge deals with the Administration's "security need" to monitor telephone calls - vital intelligence. "If Al-Qaeda phones the U.S., we want to know about it," said Bush, defending the constitutionally dubious and very massive eavesdropping program. In fact, little "vital intelligence" derives from phone monitoring. Nor do eavesdropping agencies seem to care about getting good intelligence. On September 10, 2001, for example, NSA experts encountered a seemingly juicy Arabic phone call. But they didn't translate the message, "tomorrow is zero hour," until September 12. "Real intelligence," Special Agent of the FBI Robert Scherrer told me in 1980, "comes from framing the right question and finding the person with the right answer; not the paid informant who tells you what he thinks you want to hear so he can keep getting paid." In 2002-2003, the "intelligence community" ignored such wisdom. Instead, CIA Case Officers posed loaded questions to dubious Iraqi exiles with hidden agendas. Schemers posed as "hot sources," like the infamous Curveball, a low-level and larcenous clerk in an Iraqi chemical factory who defected to Germany. Curveball assured eager-to-hear-it Bush officials that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. German intelligence said his information "lacked credibility," but Bush used his "information" in public speeches. Faced with this kind of spurious "human intelligence," some "intelligence pros" retreated into the data of signal intercepts. Ironically, as the high tech NSA super sleuths searched for mathematical formulas to track terrorists' phone calls, they failed to detect terrorists who "had set up shop literally under [NSA's] nose." The hijackers of American 77 plotted from Laurel, Maryland, NSA's neighbor. NSA employees and terrorists "exercised in some of the same health clubs and shopped in the same grocery stores." After the hijackers left their Motel to go to Dulles Airport to capture American 77, "they crossed paths with many of the electronic spies who were turning into Fort Meade, home of the NSA, to begin another day hunting for terrorists." (James Bamford, Washington Post, June 2, 2002) During the period just before 9/11, NSA workers might as well have gone on vacation, like the President who wasn't there. Absent before and immediately after the 9/11 attacks and on vacation when Hurricane Katrina struck, Bush still excels at distracting the public - with dramatic photo ops. His staff reached new depths when they set false contexts for discussing "leaks of intelligence" to obscure the fact that the government was illegally wiretapping citizens - instead of collecting meaningful intelligence. Indeed, General Michael Hayden, the NSA chief, did not convince Bush to postpone his pre 9/11 vacation. Subsequently, however, he advised W to approve a constitutionally questionable wiretapping plan. Technological fixation along with classifying millions of documents seems to absorb those charged with discovering threats. Rather than infiltrating hostile groups with declared intentions to attack, the $40 billion a year "intelligence community" eavesdropped on millions of civilians who had no violent intentions. Phone intercepts masquerading as "vital raw intelligence," became a political ruse. Congress now debates whether "war on terrorism" justifies warrant-less intercepts, which presumes that eavesdropping will provide terrorism "experts" with material to protect the nation. As if! No Member of Congress has asked: "Why doesn't the intelligence community [a term that debases both words] use its intelligence and ask people who know something?" Billions of dollars get spent on spy satellite photography and signal intercepts, but little effort goes into sharing with decision makers the views of scholars who actually know about Muslim terrorists. Instead of reading insightful articles and books on the subject, NSA and CIA mavens rely on technology and biased sources to pierce the nether world of terrorism. Weeks before the mid January 1979 fall of the Iranian Shah, Fred Halliday published a paper After the Shah, (Institute for Policy Studies) and a book (Iran: Dictatorship and Development Penguin 1979). He predicted the demise of the U.S.-backed Monarchy, and its replacement by a repressive theocracy. Rather than consulting brilliant scholars like Halliday, however, top CIA spooks used paid informants and useless intercepts. So, instead of anticipating the Shah's demise, Washington felt shock when theocratic revolutionaries deposed their man in Teheran and took U.S. officials hostage. By 1991, Bush I pronounced his "New World Order," an exercise in hubris. Numero uno doesn't have to talk to scholars like Halliday, who had also done significant research on the anti-regime religious Saudi zealots. So, the military erected bases in Saudi Arabia in order to conduct operations against Iraq and other "disobedient" Gulf nations - near the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This act affronted Osama bin Laden and like-minded believers as did the bombings that killed thousands of Iraqis and destroyed that country's infrastructure. U.S. policy also continued to support Israeli repression of Palestinian rights. By 1993, the data gatherers should have sounded an alarm. Kuwaiti-born Ramzi Yousef, one of the planners of the first World Trade Center bombing, mailed letters to New York newspapers before the attack. Yousef claimed he would attack the financial hub if the U.S. did not meet his demands: End U.S. aid and diplomatic relations with Israel; a U.S. promise to stop interfering in "the Middle East countries (sic) interior affairs." (Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001) In August 1998, bombers hit U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 2000, saboteurs hit the USS Cole in Persian Gulf waters. Didn't the "intelligence community" expect more violence? The FBI and CIA had also discovered that suspected violent agents had entered the United States and enrolled in jumbo jet flying school. These aspiring pilots, however, showed no interest in takeoffs and landings. On August 6, 2001, National Security Adviser Rice received a Presidential Daily Briefing citing FBI analysis indicating "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York." For her negligence, Bush promoted Rice to Secretary of State. So, why shouldn't the ineffective Hayden become head of another federal agency? At his confirmation hearings, Senators didn't ask Hayden why NSA failed to act promptly on the September 10 "tomorrow is zero hour" intercept. Senators praised Hayden as they had the hapless George Tenet and the incompetent Porter Goss, who made the CIA into an intelligence joke. Tenet promised Bush that finding WMD in Iraq would be a "slam dunk." Goss' behavior led some of the most experienced analysts to resign. Bush has set a pattern for mediocrity. Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security head, introduced M&M color-coding of crisis alerts. Another prime example was FEMA head during the Katrina Hurricane debacle Michael "You did a heck of a job Brownie" Brown. On constitutional safeguards, Hayden seems to follow another Administration heavy. Elliot Abrams, Deputy National Security Adviser, wrote in his autobiography (Undue Process: A Story of How Political Differences are Turned into Crimes) that he taught his children that his lying to Congress was justified by a higher morality. Under Hayden, the NSA refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe its warrant-less eavesdropping program. Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility told Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) they were closing their inquiry because NSA had refused to give their lawyers the necessary clearances to investigate. Bush had informed some members of Congress from both Parties that warrant-less phone intercepts would yield "vital intelligence." He referred to a post 9/11 Congressional resolution to fight Al-Qaeda that he claimed transcended the Fourth Amendment. Spying on citizens belonged to the President's inherent powers to fight wars that Congress did not declare. Constitutional law? The Members did nothing after Bush informed them of his plan to violate the law. In fact, shrewd terrorists could switch cell phones daily, communicate by other means and constantly change locations. To find them, ask those who know. Don't eavesdrop on those who don't and justify it by appealing to "national security." The wire tap ploy extended to ABC News, New York Times and Washington Post reporters. After all, since these journalists discovered the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland, they must have good sources. Look how Karl Rove framed the issue: tap phones of those who reported on kidnapping, illegal spying and torture to find the leakers, rather than discuss the illegal policies. As Rove faces indictment for his role in obstructing justice in leaking former covert CIA op Valerie Plame's name, his mastery of mis-framing issues continues to confound Congress - to Bush's advantage and the detriment of Democrats and Truth. Don't look for Hayden to offer intelligent counsel, like "change Middle East policy," as a route to diminishing the terrorist threat. But do expect him to build files on Americans as his ilk has done in the past. Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Protect your PC from spy ware with award winning anti spy technology. It's free. http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/7gSolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
