Wednesday, August 24, 2011

A Conversation With The Decider


Originally posted on Facebook 6/9/10…

I was simply going to display my disgust and revulsion toward our last president’s recent nonchalant admission of committing the international crime of torture by waterboarding (previously prosecuted by the United States in the War of 1812, WWII, Vietnam, etc, etc) and then happily express he’d do it again (seeing as how he’s a complete fucking idiot), but my brain synapses kept firing. This scripted dialogue is the result. Yes, it’s full of facts. Yes, it’s a bit lengthy. That’s how I roll. Deal.


You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be held against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been explained to you?


Yeah, but, but… I’m the DECIDER
.

That may be true, sir, but you DECIDED to admit to committing torture - an international crime.


But, but I saved AmURican lives!


No, sir. By using torture, you put American lives in much greater danger than they ever were before by infuriating terrorists. Their recruitment levels exploded.


But I got SA
ddam!

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the attacks on September eleventh.


Khalid Sheik Mohammed said he did! He said SAddam was giving safe haven to Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda!


When you torture someone, they will say what they think you want to hear to end the torture. Especially when you ask them leading questions like, “Hussein is giving safe haven to Bin Laden, right?” The tortured now knows what you want to hear, so they tell it to you, you stop torturing and you have your excuse. It’s self-fulfilling and false. Self-fulfilling much in the same way that since Hussein has gone, Iraq is now actually giving safe haven to terrorists. The fact is Saddam Hussein wanted nothing to do with Bin Laden. Those men were enemies. They have polar opposite philosophies on life and would never under any circumstances work together. Hussein was not interested in religious piety but in greed, power, money and women. Bin Laden, however, is a religious fundamentalist. Polar opposites. You just tried to connect them because they were both from the Middle East. That’s like saying you and Al Gore are the same because you’re both from America. Hussein also had a standing order to capture or kill any Al-Qaeda members found within the boundary of Iraq.


But SA
ddam was goin’ ta use nukuler weapons on us!

You know that’s not true, sir. Over 14 United States and international agencies told both you and the Vice President that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any weapons of mass destruction whatsoever. But that didn’t stop the both of you from going on T.V. almost every day and lying to the American people by saying you had proof that he did. And you used fear tactics like saying “If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them over here.” Nonsense. And belligerent playground bully ultimatums like “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” And, “They hate us for our freedom.” That’s just plain stupid. No one hates freedom. They hate us because we’re THERE. We’re in their “holy land.”


But, but -


But you just kept saying it. Repetition is a form of brainwashing, sir. That still doesn’t make it the truth. Neither do threats.


Well, after Clinton caused 9/11, we hadda do something!


Also not true, sir. You allowed the attacks on September eleventh to occur.


It was the previous administration’s fault! I just become president! There wern’t enough time for me to cause it! Just like all Democrats, Clinton was weak on national defense! Our defense capabilities were so low by the time I took office, the terrists took advantage -


No, sir. Claiming Democrats are weak on national defense has been a Republican talking point since Reagan. And you repeat it. And you brainwash people into thinking it is so. But the facts do not bear out that claim. During this first year and a half so far since President Obama took office, his administration has captured or killed as many terrorist operatives as your administration did in seven years. I don’t know why he doesn’t stick every head on a pike and parade it in front of the cameras boasting about it like you did. Maybe he’s just more interested in actually getting the job done than standing in front of a camera to get the glory and feel popular. I haven’t seen him playing dress-up in any flight suits yet. That’s the behavior of an insecure, small-minded person. He has also employed the use of drones so as not to put American lives in harm’s way.


That’s more dangerous than boots on the ground. Civilian casualties alone -


No, sir. Partisan rhetoric. It’s no different than, say, mortar fire or missile launches, high altitude bombing, RPGs, any long range weaponry, really. And no one ever complained about those. Actually, the main difference is a drone has a camera and actually may aide in target accuracy, limiting collateral damage.


That -


Also toward Democrats being weak on defense - in 1995, President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive 39 -


What is -


- that instructed the CIA to capture foreign terrorists by force, even without the cooperation of the host government. It was also accepted that killing Bin Laden in the process of capturing him was not discouraged.


Wait, did you say Presidential DECISION Directive…?


In January of 1996 the CIA created the unit code-named “Alec Station” whose sole function was to capture Bin Laden. Then, in 1998, President Clinton created the office of national coordinator for counterterrorism and placed Richard Clarke in that position.


…but I’m the decider…


Several efforts were made by the Clinton administration to capture or kill Bin Laden. Some were aborted due to lack of confidence in intelligence gathered. However, President Clinton authorized two U.S. cruise missile attack submarines to sit off the Pakistani coast for months waiting for any word on Bin Laden’s whereabouts.


Big whoop. I started a global war on terr. Clinton cain’t beat that!


Terror is a tactic. You cannot wage a war against it. Your war is without focus, it is costly, it weakened the economy and safety of our great country and needlessly puts American lives at risk.


Then why ain’t Obamer ending it if it’s s’ dang bad?


I don’t know, sir. I wish he would. Anyway, on August 20, 1998, Clinton’s CIA launched sixty Tomahawk cruise missiles at an Afghan camp where Bin Laden was believed to be, but he left approximately an hour earlier. So, you see, sir, President Clinton also was not weak as you claim.


But he still never got Bin Laden.


Not for lack of trying. You, however, actually did do nothing. When you took office, you terminated unit “Alec Station.” Remember? The unit formed to specifically to capture Bin Laden? Then you went on vacation. A lot. 908 days out of the 2,920 days of your presidency you spent on vacation. I realize these are working vacations, but that’s one full third of your term in office. Two and a half years of improving your swing, improving your time jogging a mile and improving your time cycling. And clearing brush. All of which you quite often bragged about on T.V. while soldiers were dying for you half way around the world.


Statistics, shmatistics. Patriotism, freedom, AmUR
ica, freedom, liberty -

In the summer of 2001, after you took office, the number of threats to commit terrorist acts upon American soil by Al-Qaeda surged in June and July according to reports from U.S. intelligence agencies. A terrorist threat advisory from the State Department in June indicated a high probability of “spectacular” terrorist attacks in the near future. On June 25, counterterrorism expert Richard Clark warned National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice that six separate U.S. intelligence reports showed Al-Qaeda was preparing for a pending attack. Intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks would be calamitous, indicating world turmoil. On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that a series of new reports convinced him and intelligence analysts at the Department of State, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA that a MAJOR Al-Qaeda terrorist attack or series of attacks was likely in July. A June 30 CIA report was titled “Bin Laden Planning High-Profile Attacks” and said they were expecting to have “dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions” very soon.


I don’t recall -


Even your friend, CIA director George Tenet acknowledged things could not get any worse. Between your first day in office on January 20, 2001 and September 10, 2001, over FORTY
reports related to Bin Laden were turned over to you at the President’s Daily Brief by either Tenet or one of his deputies.

Brother George never woulda -


Then, on August 6, while you were on a five-week vacation in Crawford, you were briefed by a CIA official on a top secret memo titled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike U.S.


The AmUR
ican people ain’t innerested in -

Please, sir, don’t presume to know what the American people are interested in, or suddenly pretend you care. As I was saying… the memo cited evidence of active Al-Qaeda cells currently in the United States and that the FBI observed patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for the hijacking of planes or other types of attacks and the surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The memo also noted that Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and bring the fighting to America. And the FBI conducted approximately 70
full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considered Bin Laden-related.

See, I tol’ ya we hadda fight the evildoers an’ their Axis Of Evil over there or we’d hafta fight ‘em over here.


It was not until AFTER
September eleventh when you started using that scare tactic. If you truly believed that, you would have taken countermeasures long before September eleventh based on all the reports you were receiving on a daily basis. And please, sir, I remind you you have the right to remain silent. I strongly suggest you exercise that right… And when you received this memo on August sixth on your vacation at Crawford ranch, do you remember what you did? …Exactly, sir. You did nothing. You stayed on vacation until August thirtieth. You received a memo titled “Bin Laden Determined To Strike U.S.” and you did absolutely nothing for twenty-four more days. Except continue to clear brush.

That ain’t all I do at the ranch…


With all due respect, sir, shut up. I’m almost finished. In December of 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said at a televised press conference that the American military learned Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora. The action you took regarding this information was to not send one single American soldier to capture or kill him. Not one. You never sent any American soldiers after Bin Laden. The man responsible for the murder of almost three thousand innocent American citizens in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania and you never
sent us after him. Instead you had three anti-Taliban Afghan warlords and their men handle it. And knowing that Bin Laden’s most likely escape route was crossing the southeastern border of Afghanistan into Pakistan, what did you do? More nothing. Rumsfeld again on T.V. said you were going to rely on the Pakistani military - without any involvement of the U.S. military - to stop Bin Laden. Haji Mohammed Zaman, one of the Afghan warlords told the press, “If America wants to capture Osama, why aren’t they trying?” One of Zaman’s top aides said, “I don’t think the United States wants to capture Osama. We know where he is, we tell them and they do nothing. So they are not as serious as they say they are.” It seems to me, sir, that you didn’t want to capture him either. If you caught him, it would be over. Public support for you to do anything in your alleged global war on terror would vanish. And you wouldn’t be able to capitalize on him still being out there to give you time to invent a reason to invade Iraq. Was it oil? Did you want to show your daddy you were a man and could finish what he couldn’t? Did you not like Hussein’s mustache? Why did you commit the United States to an invasion and occupation of a country that was making NO threats beyond its borders, was NOT constructing weapons of mass destruction, was NOT at war and made NO declaration of war to us or anyone else? Why did you lie over and over to America? Why are we now in the longest war the United States has ever fought? Longer than Viet Nam. Why have more brave and noble Americans died SINCE September eleventh, BECAUSE of September eleventh than in the actual attacks OF September eleventh? No. Don’t answer. It’s very likely I may do something I’ll regret if I witness any more diarrhea come out of your mouth. And you’re not worth it. Sir. Not one bit.

- - - - - - - - - - -

(large bits of information plagiarized from Vincent Bugliosi)
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As to Obama's involvement in the killing of bin Laden, I will address those facts in a later post. Suffice it to say, George W. Bush literally had nothing to do with it. Much in the same way he never sent U.S. troops after him in the first place.


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