The list of crimes committed by the Bush administration continues to grow while Congress idly sits by and does nothing about it. President Bush has done a thorough job of politicizing virtually every facet of his administration, including the ‘Justice’ Department.
As noted by Daily Kos, crimes include warrantless wiretapping, retroactive immunity, Operation Total Information Awareness, passport file breaches, meaningless oversight committees stacked with crooked cronies, and a plethora of war crimes, including illegally starting a war. Each crime is part of the monster known as the Bush administration’s approach to intelligence that trumps the Constitution every time.
Typical of the Bush administration is the preference to place the blame for their horrific idiocies on everyone else, not taking any responsibility for their incompetence or stupidity and the consequences of their actions.
As noted by Vanity Fair, the Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is made up of falsehoods and lies. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration — by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. In some cases, origins lie in actions taken by the President and politically appointed lawyers from the Justice Department.
9/11 Changed Everything
The attacks of 9/11 provided the Bush administration the perfect excuse for destroying the Constitution and civil liberties and the ability to illegally start a war that has done major damage to Americas armed forces — so much so that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are talking about the need for a draft.
While it’s known that planes flew into the World Trade Center (WTC) resulting in three buildings being raized and the deaths of almost 3,000 innocent people, whether intentional or not, nothing was done to stop it. As noted by the Asia Times Online, 9/11 was a third-rate operation — not the kind of operation carried out by professionals.
The CIA and other intelligence agencies had penetrated the highest levels of Al Qaeda before 9/11. The Bush administration also lied about not being able to track the planes that flew into the WTC. Even worse, those responsible for the ‘failures’ of 9/11 were promoted and the Bush administration has done all it could to exploit it.
The lies leading to the invasion of Iraq have been well documented. Corruption and incompetent leadership in the Bush administration has led the cluster-you-know-what known as the Iraq war. The more the Bush administration tries to alleviate problems, the worse they grow. As noted by Salon news, “Not only has America not defeated al-Qaida — but now terrorism has gone viral.”
Apparently destroying Afghanistan and Iraq while threatening and preparing to bomb Iran isn’t enough for the Bush administration. The U.S. reportedly says Saudi Arabia is the prime source of terror funds, yet they continue illegally eavesdropping and spying on Americans, destroying the Constitution while claiming to be above the law in the name of the endless ‘war on terror.’
Flawed Legal Reasoning Leads to Torture
Recently, a memo written by John Yoo authorizing torture was declassified. Memos containing deeply flawed legal reasoning were written by lawyers in the Bush administration’s Justice Department. The Washington Post reported that in his book “The Terror Presidency” published in 2007, Jack Goldsmith, who was head of the Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2004, revealed that the Yoo memo was one of two internal Justice Department opinions that “stood out” for “the unusual lack of care and sobriety in their legal analysis.” Aside from many other problems, Goldsmith wrote, both memos “were wildly broader than was necessary to support what was actually being done.” Those two memos were part of a small stack of memos referred to by Goldsmith in his book.
The torture and abuses committed against “suspected terrorists” was approved by lawyers who broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality. The abuses and torture of those captured and detained in the ‘war on terror’ is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. A long, detailed explanation of how torture and potential war crimes committed by the Bush administration that directly contradicts the administration’s account to Congress can be found in the Vanity Fair article.
Legal Concerns Over Eavesdropping Program
A recent article by the New York Times recounts another book coming out that tells how the Bush administration has remade American Justice — The eavesdropping program from the National Security Agency (NSA) sparked heated legal concerns and silent protests inside the Bush administration.
The illegal spying program caused a lot of tension in the Bush administration. The FBI didn’t know about — they accidently stumbled across it 12 hours after it began. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft complained to associates at the time that when the White House was getting his signature for the surveillance program, they just shoved it in front of him and told him to sign it.
When the Office of Legal Counsel issued a broad, classified opinion declaring the president’s surveillance powers in the abstract in wartime, they did not weigh the legality or the specifics of the NSA eavesdropping operation. More information can be found in the article from The New York Times.
Mukasey’s 9/11 Lies and Corruption ‘Crackdown’
As the lies used to coerce Congress into passing illegal, unconstitutional retroactive immunity to protect the ‘patriotic’ telecom companies since the expiration of the ‘Protect America Act’ continue being debunked, the Bush administration has also resorted to playing the 9/11 card as their desperation grows.
Attorney General (AG) Michael Mukasey — an almost exact carbon copy of former AG Alberto Gonzales — was reportedly moved to brazenly tearful lies as he exploited victims who died when the twin towers collapsed while demanding that the President be given new warrantless eavesdropping powers at a speaking engagement in San Francisco recently.
AG Mukasey tried to spin the same lies previously used by Bush about FISA and secrets coming out in court that would affect National Security. As a retired Federal judge, Mukasey knows that’s not true, but he decided to brazenly lie about it anyway. More about Mukasey’s falsehoods, lies and new revelations about the Bush administration’s 9/11 exploitations can be found in the article at Salon News.
In the midst of his various lies, Mukasey inadvertently mentioned that the government knew of 9/11 before it happened. Ironically, despite arguing that government officials must be free to break the law, Mukasey also vowed to crack down on crooked politicians and public officials. Rest assured that won’t include the corruption on his part, or on the part of the Executive Branch. Mukasey also wants wiretap authority for piracy investigations, claiming piracy threatens National Safety.
Mukasey also disbanded the United States Attorney’s public corruption in Los Angeles, leaving current ongoing investigations lagging. What’s not known yet is whether political figures at the White House or the Justice Department are behind the decision to close the office.
Politicized CIA and DNI Directors
When all else fails and falls apart like the lies President Bush continues to use, he has a bad habit of using other Justice Department heads, such as CIA Director General Michael Hayden and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Michael McConnell.
One of CIA Director Hayden’s latest claims is that Al-Qaeda is training operatives who “look western” and could enter the U.S. undetected to conduct terrorist attacks. According to the AFP report, the new recruits would be able to come into this country without attracting the kind of attention that others might.
Hayden’s other recent revelations include not having waterboarded anyone in over five years now — concluding that waterboarding is “an uninteresting question for the Central Intelligence Agency” while referring to torture as just a “legal term.” He’s working on losing his credibility too.
DNI McConnell, who as I’ve mentioned numerous times, lost all his credibility a long time ago, is, according to the mission statement on the DNI web site, to conduct its duties in a way that will “ensure the integrity of the intelligence system, our technology, our armed forces, and our government’s decision processes.”
McConnell hasn’t been an independent voice with the best interests of the intelligence community for years. McConnell has continuously allowed the Bush administration to place him in the role of intelligence community lobbyist. As noted by Think Progess, McConnell has repeatedly put out inaccuracies that do nothing but further the Bush administration’s agenda by fear-mongering, and has repeatedly lied to Congress and the American public.
Any Semblance of Oversight Destroyed
A review of more than 1,000 documents by the ACLU that were turned over by the Department of Defense after it was sued show that the military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies.
Having corrupt cronies in charge of oversight committees wasn’t enough for the Bush administration — they’ve quietly dismantled more than a century of regulatory history to keep the crimes they’ve committed covered up.
Congress, the American people and the rest of the world have been lied to too much already and have suffered more than enough. Why this President and his idiotically loyal cronies have not been held accountable so far remains a mystery. There is more than enough evidence of high crimes, war crimes, fraud, treason and several other crimes to justify putting them all in prison. It’s time to put an end to their power and rectify the situation.
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