Editors, Gatekeepers, and Lapdogs,

I'm so old i can remember the days when the press would have had a field day exposing blatent criminal behavior in high offices instead of enabling it.

By any and every concievable measure we are currently living in the times of the Worst President Ever and the reason he's still in the oval office is because of you.

Facts:

Bush is the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record. He has appointed more convicted criminals to his administration than any President in U.S. history.

He has broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history and has withdrawn the US from the UN Human Rights Commission, the World Court of Law, and the Geneva Conventions.

He has lied us into wars, failed us on security, embarrassed us with fratboy behavior on the world stage, bankrupted our national surplus, enriched contributors and henchmen, rewarded incompetence and criminality, shredded constitutional rights, and...oh I could go on and on, but it just makes me sick.

Even sicker yet, he still gets all of you to laugh and fawn at your inane press conferences.

You have monolithicly failed us. Why have you done this?

Mike D
Farmington Hills, MI

Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.

Published on Tuesday, August 15, 2006 by Craig Murray. The UK Terror plot: What's Really Going On?

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to abandon all our traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the Communist Party ran Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten was a business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line.

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the "Loner" profile you would expect - a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy marriages and young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly would have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in letting them proceed closer to maturity - that is certainly what we would have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.

Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.

I wrote this 3 years ago. It amazes me how much of what we know today was so damn obvious from the beginning.

The original link is here

March 29, 2003.

According to Andrew Sullivan and other rabid patriots of the Bush regime

"[the anti-war critics]are walking into a political trap of their own making. I believe they are about to make utter fools of themselves one more time."

You must be talking about yourself.

Did you miss the story where the Shia head mullah in Southern Iraq called on the entire arab world to resist the American invaders ? Weren't these people supposed to rise up and hail the Americans as liberators?

What about the apparent "securing" of Basra that turned out to be not so secure at all? And why are the supply lines from Kuwait constantly harassed by guerrillas of civilian teenagers? Certainly these people must know that the Americans are going to get rid of Saddam, why on Earth would they be harrassing our soldiers ? I saw that picture in the San Francisco Chronicle of a good boy GI lighting an Iraqi soldiers cigarette.

I also saw a picture of an Iraqi family posing in front of an American tank with looks that mingled with exasperation and scorn.

Op-ed extraordinaire Jeff Jacoby of the slanderous Boston Globe proclaims this is a just war. He claims that even a human shield Daniel Pepper said "There are lots of people coming out, lots of children and they are applauding. The people . . . shake the hands of American forces who are seen as liberating the city of Basra."

Uhm, well, is that so. How come the UK Guardian reporter Robert Fisk and others in the European and Canadian and United States press disagree with this assessment ? How come there are photos and video of defiant Iraqi citizens that completely refute what Mr. Jacoby seems to think is a fact?

Who was so stupid to think the Iraqi people would trust an American Army invasion when the entire Arab world hates the Americans? Are we going to have to kill the Iraqi people so that they will accept the "democracy" the administration wants to give them in the form of administration friendly contracts? Will the Iraqi People think highly of the American Liberators when their economy is "privatized" to multi-national corporations that are on the Bush administration's friends list ?

According to Brian Whitaker at the UK Guardian newspaper ( SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/dailybriefing/story/0,12965,924728,00.html

"Britain's chief military officer in the Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, yesterday attacked American moves to hand over the running of Iraq's largest port to a company which has a history of bad industrial relations and has faced accusations of union-busting. The firm, Stevedoring Services of American, has been awarded a £3m contract to manage Umm Qasr by the Bush administration. Britain argues that the port should be run by Iraqis once it has been made secure. Another contract in Umm Qasr - for construction work - has gone to a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice-President Dick Cheney's old firm."

Another misconception offered by the ilk of the mindless patriots for the war concerns the banter of George W. Bush the "selfless" politician with a cause. Accordingly,

"Any politician's career is hardly an important thing compared to the outcome of a war. Bush knows this. He does not care that he is risking all on this. His ultimate goal is life is not political, that is secondary. He has a deeper aspect to him that Clinton -a more "intelligent" president- never had. For Clinton, political victory is the epicenter of the universe. For Bush in this particular, protecting the country is. " (www.andrewsullivan.com)

Oh so Mr. Bush is not using this "war" to distract the public from the rampant corruption of his own administration that appoints political hacks to all posts in the government ... ex-Enron executives, ties with multiple-linking Energy consortiums, lawyers for multi-national and financial industry lobbyist organizations, ex-Military contractor consultants. In 2001, this administration protested that the California Energy crisis was not at all being caused by market manipulation while Dick Cheney sneared a mouthful about Energy conservation. Meanwhile, California efforts at conserving energy helped ameliorate the crisis, and then in 2003 the manipulation of the market by energy companies friendly to the administration was proved.

The first act passed after 9-11 was the "Economic Stimulus Act" which gave tax rebates to all of the oil, energy, and chemical industry friends of the Bush- Cheney administration so slavishly, that taxes from previous years were even returned by the legislation.

Can you say CORRUPTION ? At least now the president is not getting blow jobs in the White House.

Oh and Bush protected the country when his recent budget offers no assistance to the states and the ports and the airports to effectively counter possible terrorism. That's right ... nothing. The Bush budget spends less on Homeland Security. The Bush budget reduces the spending for veteran's health care by 11 million.

Ah, but hell we need to give millionaires $92,000 a piece so they can "grow" the economy, even though the last tax cut (and the Reagan tax cut) went into the piggy bank called investment portfolio, which only gains interest and collects dividends but provides little if any "investment." In case you didn't know, companies don't fund their "growth" from investment portfolios. They get loans from banks and use the factories or stores or warehouses constructed as the collateral. The tax cut is only growing the pocketbooks of the people whose pocketbooks are already big and fine, and our legislators know this.

The Clinton administration (for all of its faults) hunted down Al Quada and told the Bush Adminstration of the dangers. But Bush sat on his hands and did nothing, meanwhile plotting for ways to use the events for his own corporate friends advantage. Go visit CharleyReese (a conservative who despised Clinton a slicky political hypocrite) if you think this is just another liberal whine.

Is the Clinton punching bag all you got ? Find another toy to beat up on, that one is getting damn old.

Ashcroft reduced the amount of Justice Department staff working on Terrorist networks despite being so knowledgable about what was coming that HE STOPPED FLYING IN PLANES BEGINNING IN AUGUST 2001. That's a fucking fact you don't get from the so-called liberal media.

Bush halted the FBI investigation into the Bin-Laden family organizations in the USA. Another fact you don't get from the so-called liberal media.

Where's the Anthrax mailer who forced the evacuation of the Congress with scrawled notes from "Iraq" ? Basic forensic chemical analysis indicates the strains of anthrax in those letters had to come from someone inside the US military. They could have only been produced by 4 persons who had access and know-how to produce the amount of anthrax sent in those letters. But the FBI is so inept that it cannot figure this out until an independent researcher Barbara Hatch Rosenberg at the Federation of American Scientists pointed this out so much that she was asked to "shut up" ? (http://www.ginonapoli.com/textdocs/Rosenberg_AnalysisofAnthraxAttacks.html)

I'm so glad that the liberal media is still all over that story. I mean the fucking Congress had to be evacuated for Christ's sake. And wasn't that all the media talked about from October to January 2001-2002 ?

What about the commission that was supposed to investigate the 9-11 ineptitude ? And why was Henry Kissinger appointed(Henry Kissinger of all people) , only to resign because uhm, well he is a highly paid oil oligarchy consultant for "legal services" ?

And how come the liberal media is not screaming about the funding to the 9-11 commission being CUT to the Bone? A fact that the organization of 9-11 victims is very angry about?

The NY Firefighters are angry too because Bush the liar promised financial aid in front of the microphone, but offered nothing when the fine print was put on the legislation.

Remember Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf ? The general of the Last Gulf War is against this stupid, imbecile war.

The documents used to support the war turn out to be "faked" but the administration sees this as no consequence? The administration knew of the CIA's doubts but cared to ignored them for what reasons ? There are many analysts in the diplomatic corps and the intelligence corps who are angered by the administrations insistance that they provide "justifiable" documents.

The cheerleading can stop. The game is over. It's not about democracy, it's a political maneuver.

Afghanistan is now so democratic, that the US forces there are still mopping up those lone resistance groups who apparently don't believe the "appointed" ex- oil executive Hamid Karzai is their President.

How much do they pay these guys to put out these lies ? You can't really be this stupid.

Oh well, there are those who eat shit and think it is filet mignon. And that's fine but we are talking about young American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are going to die because of this war that is more about colonialism than it is about freedom.

I support the troops. I just don't support this war because it is based on lies. I think Saddam is a brutal man, but the Sanctions imposed on Iraq and the constant bombing raids over the last 10 years were not less brutal to the same people who live in Iraq. When didn't starve Saddam, but we did starve the people. Likewise, we aren't bombing and shooting at Saddam. We are killing and maiming the innocent Iraqi people, and carving up the loot to the administrations corporate friends.

Am I un-patriotic if I find this to be sickening and despicable?

So, we are in iraq fighting the terrorists to protect our freedom from their evil designs. Despite the adversity of the cowards who criticize the ineptitude and the corruption, we will move valiantly onward, because to do anything else would be treasonous, and contemptuously unpatriotic. Inevitably we will win and good will prevail because we are a great nation that is proud of our democratic freedom and the world counts on us to keep the flame of liberty lit.

No I am not on mind altering drugs, don't worry. I am just projecting the thesis of the war movement in order to come to a larger theme. All blind thrusts into indecisiveness will justify the paradigm upon which the decisions were based. Not less for the policy decisions of a corrupt political administration over the affairs of a modern political state. But there is a grave difference between individual decisions and those that determined by a group of ubermensch in the name of the nation.

Here is the difference. When you make a bad decision as an individual, you can escape the results of the bad decision, but your delusion does not automatically affect the lives of anyone else. If you want to go on talking about your vain stupidity like nothing happened, no one else has to agree with you, and that's that. But when a group of 15 officials decide to do something stupid, the refusal to admit to the stupidity -- or change the direction of that stupidity -- involves every citizen of the nation.

What if these officials are also not above fabrication of the truth? The neverending rationalization of ineptitude becomes more than just the making of a bad decision. When an individual makes a decision to do something, that individual is engrossed in the total effort of arriving at the assumed results that engendered the decision. ( How can this be otherwise? ) But when a group of well-connected citizens decide upon a course of action, what do we call all of the latent efforts manufactured to achieve the fruits of that decision?

Y'all take care.

This is what I found out today from Republican callers to a radio program I listen to.

The Democratic party should be incorrectly referred to as the "Democrat" party. The party itself was infiltrated by communists in the 60's and 70's and now represents a anti-capitalistic, corporation hating bunch of whiners.

Communism means you want the government to do everything for you and involves government meddling on social issues.

Islamo nazi fascists were taking over the world until George W. Bush bravely stepped up to the plate and took the war to the home of the enemy. We are now defeating the enemy everywhere.

The lies the government spewed about Iraq and Al Quaeda (and everything else) are meant to help the citizens accept decisions that are made by people who know more about the dangerous world we live in than we do.

I feel so vastly informed and educated now.

I apologize for the month long absence. Well, actually I'm more disappointed than I am sorry. Gasp, so the 20 or so of you who might read this have been expunged from responsibility.

I was overwhelmed by a lot of things, most of which I am not going to quantify - - and baseball season allows me to have an escape. Believe me there have been plenty of things to write (type) about. I have just not been up to the task lately.

I will soon return. Y'all take it easy.

Some pyromaniac lights a match and suddenly everyone is screaming "fire,fire,fire"

... the fire department is called, the military is put on alert, and the ambulances are requested ...

Then everyone shows up to the scene to find that the match is now just a burnt husk of a once sulphur-dipped stick.

Reminds me of those bugs that fly around the street lights, always flying into the street light only to get zapped for some reason. I always wondered why those bugs kept flying into the light to get zapped. I mean, didn't they see their friends fly into the lamp and get zapped? Did they think it was some sort of awesome hallucinatory drug that they were missing out on?

I am sick and tired of people ignorantly trying to push the falsehood that Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco botched the Katrina disaster. Nagin and Blanco did not fuck up on Katrina.

You can read my own archives on this starting with September of 2005.

The Bush administration and its incompetent appointed political hacks did. Nagin and Blanco were at the conferences where everything was laid out both vocally and in writing what was needed to do, but the administration failed on every single count.

Blanco issued a formal declaration for a state of emergency 2 days before the hurricane hit. So why did Chertoff wait until 2 days after (late Tuesday) to formally involve the Federal government? And when Bush signed this document, how come EVERY SINGLE PARISH NORTH AND SOUTH OF LAKE PONTCHATRAIN was not on the document?

Chertoff and Michael Brown told Amtrak that they didn't need to evacuate people via the trains. They turned away Greyhound buses and told Blanco and Nagin that there was no need to use City Buses and School buses. That's right. Blanco and Nagin were going to gather the buses but Michael Brown told them don't bother because they were sending in greyhounds. What happened? Well, the private firm that got the contract from FEMA to get the greyhounds decided to sit around and wait, that way they didn't spend any money and could get the most amount of profit from the FEMA contract.

FEMA did not contact the Red Cross or set up food and shelter stations. FEMA turned away shipments of ice and water from Walmart. These are not the responsibilities of the local government in a Federal disaster area. FEMA is the central command center.

The US Navy had two ships offshore that waited 3 days doing nothing BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT FORMALLY AUTHORIZED by the President. That's what the officer himself said by the way.

FEMA officials did not bring in radio equipment and gave conflicting signals to Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco about what was going on. At the conference calls with Chertoff and Michael Brown (all this is on record by the way) they would agree on what to do and set a timeline, but then not follow through or completely change course without letting anyone know.

The federal government of cronies and incompetents are to blame. Period.