Jerry, I too am shying away from connecting the government to complicity
with Sept 11.

I think Sept 11 happened for several understandable reasons, but that
the neocons, already seized with their agenda to 'protect' Israel, used
Sept 11 to panic the American people and their President into carrying
out as much of their agenda as possible.

Virutally everything I described int he posts above comes from now open
sources. The Democrats don't make a big deal of it because they too have
their own neocon problem: Indyk and Ross, for example were in senior
positions under Clinton. Most poltiicians, republican or democrat, are
still reluctant to confront AIPAC (the Israeli lobby) or the fact that
Israel is now viewed as among the top three intelligence threats to the
US. A few politicians have, and they have immediately been targetted by
AIPAC. A few academics, like Norman Finkelsetin, have taken on AIPAC,
and have as a result been hounded by pro-Israeli contributors to their
instituions, including being denied tenure.

It is not a thing of which we can be proud.

Oceans

Andrea, not at all, and they aren't nagging -- they enrich the issues we
are trying to understand. I was hoping that I was responding to some of
them in my postings on Jerry's queries.

This really is a situation where more brains are better tahn one, and
with you in Ireland and Jerry in Malta, andothers elsewhere, it helps
bring different perspectives to the discussion, to say nothing about our
different histories and areas of interest.

I just refuse to send flowers to Jerry.



Oceans

PeekaBoo, are you threatening a member of JSH?

I hope not and look forward to your response.

Oceans

Morning, Andrea!

Jerry is running my ass off.... I'm a sucker for good questions, I know!

Oceans

Jerry, a couple more notes re. your last post.

A. Powell was isolated and omitted deliberately from the briefings that
were arranged for Bush through Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney's offices.
Tenet briefed the Pres and a small group of senior officials including
Powell each morning, but this is on the raw intelligence that came in
overnight, and served as an early warning for everyone on what the
latest flashpoint were.

The briefings that I talked about in my last post are those that
addressed policy issues and were prepared as decision-support documents
for Bush. It is from these briefings that Powell was excluded. Rice was
in earlier days a 'mentee' of Powell's, but she cut him loose when the
neocons came to dominate the White House and moved against Powell and
the State department. It caused a deep rupture in what had been a fairly
close friendship, and left a lot of people disgusted with Rice
personally.

B. You are right: very little is being to 'fix' the situation
structurally. In part this is because Bush and the neocons are viewed as
an aberration in US history. Generally, it is felt that the way intel
has been handled has been pretty good, though not perfect, of course.
The thinking is that when a President comes into power who with his team
(however it comes about) who is bent on taking the US to extreme
positions and is willing to exploit the natural trust of the American
people in their president to carry out actions that are against the
interests of the US -- the thinking is that there is little that can be
done to stop him. So people are hunkered down, stalling the President's
greatest blunders to the extent they can, and counting down to the
moment he leaves office, and those left behind have to undertake the
massive job of rebuilding the US and undoing the harm that the Bush
people have done.

It is my hope that they will be held accountable, but the country is so
exhausted dealing with their actions that they may be given a free pass.

Whew!

Oceans

Jerry, you are raising some very important questions. I'll try and
answer, to the extent that I know the answers...

I am drawing here on the several accounts and studies that have been
published in the last couple of years. I can post a list of them if
anyone wants.

Problems with the accurate flow of intel, associated with the Iraq
run-up.

1. The Bush administration was and is laced with senior neocon folks. (I
posted a list of them earlier today in one of these threads.) These are
the people who invented 'evidence' and sold it to whoever would listen:
the public, the media, Congress, etc. All of this is documented.

2. Within the intelligence community, the reality of what was going on
regarding Iraq, Sept 11, Israel, etc. seems to have been accurately
known by the analysts, who wrote often excellent findings and summaries
on all this.

3. There was a major effort on the part of the neocons to influence the
official findings of the intel community. They were sometimes able to do
this (especially when Hadley, Libby, Rumsfeld and Cheney came down on
them). Tenet was not up to the job of protecting his analysts and seeing
to it that the best intel actually got put before the president and
congress. Sometimes he did his job, at other times he bent, and at other
times he caved in.

4. Intel briefings for the president were first presented to the NSC
(Rice and Hadley) and Cheney (and to Libby). These all made sure that
the briefings were changed if they did not reflect the neocon line, so
that in the end the president only heard the neocon line.

5. Separately, we know that Cheney and to some extent Rice played to
Bush's personal insecurities and stiffened him when it came to 'fighting
them'. Rumsfeld wanted to make a big splash after 9/11, and was pretty
much ready to lash out at anyone, it didn't much matter. For instance,
he decided that attacking Afghanistan was 'not enough.'

So all the key people around Bush were pushing the neocon line or the
'bash the evil ones' line. Powell was the only senior person saying that
those lines were nonsense, and so Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice isolated
Powell, with the help of the neocons at the State Department, most
notably John Bolton.

6. Bush's isolation was, and is, so great that even his father cannot
get through. His father has been demonized by the neocons as the guy who
failed to complete the job in Iraq, and so relations between the two
bushes are extremely strained. They do not talk politics any more, at
Barbara Bush's insistence, so as not to ruin their family vacations.

7. There can be no doubt that by temperament Bush has major flaws that
played into this: he is a fairly ignorant person and not a curious one.
He surrounds himself with people who will make him feel good about
himself. He is a recovering alcoholic (who may have fallen off the wagon
recently) and drug user, and has a frail ego.

The President has learned to deliver lines in public that makes him
appear strong, determined, unwavering, etc. and views this as being
Presidential. The problem is that it also makes him easy to manipulate,
and, I believe, this is what has happened.

8. Slowly, Washington is fighting back against the dominance of the
neocons. Peter Pace has been fired, as well as his Number Two. Patraeus
has been put in to Iraq, though nothing cannot be done to 'win' -- if it
ever could. The 'war coordinator' has essentially said that we have
lost. Congress, Democrats and Republicans are now rebelling, slowly!
against the White House.

9. It is all over for the neocons and for the US occupation of Iraq. But
the neocons are still in power, and they still have Bush as their
mouthpiece, and Cheney, with David Wurmser now doing the neocon dirty
work in Cheney's office is still in there stiffening Bush's sense of
himself.

Gates is doing his best and as an excellent bureaucratic in-fighter is
gradually returning the DoD to some semblance of sanity and
accountability.

Elliott Abrams, perhaps the darkest figure in the neocon ranks, is
Bush's advisor on the Middle East, and recently Rice appointed another,

Eliott Cohen, to be her Middle East advisor. So while 'everyone' now
realizes the neocon vision was toxic and harmful to the US, the reality
is that there is still a struggle going in Washington for control of US
foreign policy.

But this is better than 3-6 years ago, when it was totally dominated by
the neocons and their critics in disarray. In the same way that
supporters of Israel call critics of Israel anti-Semitic, so the neocons
branded the critics of the global view unpatriotic.



Oceans

A couple of quick notes, Philosopher.

1. When Congress did hold hearings on the Bush run-up to invading Iraq,
adminsitration officials lied to Congress on what was going on and one
what the evidence was. For example, the officials (from DoD, CIA, etc.)
said that Iraq had WMD, had participated int he attack on Sep 11, had an
active nuclear weapons program, etc. So it was impossible for Congress,
which relies of those who brief it on what is going to tell the truth
(which is why they have closed door- and classified briefings). The
Congress has no independent intelligence capability. They do have a fine
analysis office (the Congressional Research Service), but this office is
dependent on the raw informationthey are given by the Executive branch
-- the Bush people.

Having said that, it seems clear to me that anyone with judgment or any
knowledge of the Middle East should have challenged the run-up: it
didn't hold water internally. But I think the panic and fear that seized
the American people after 9/11 and which was encouraged by the
administration and the neocons cerated such an atmosphere that it was
difficult for everyone, including Congress, to seriously challenge the
neocon statements.

2. You are right about Zarqawi: he came to prominence AFTER the US
invasion, and as a leader of a group fighting the US occupation. He is
often associated with al-Qaida, and called his group several things
including 'Al-Qaida in Iraq', but his relations with al-Qaida were at
best stormy. Al-Qaida's leadership broke with Zarqawi when he started
fomenting Sunni-Shi'i strife, publically rebuking him.



Oceans

Hello, everyone!

As the neocons take their last swing under the Bush administration at
Muslim/Arab countries -- all in the delusion that it will protect Israel
-- we can expect the Bush administration to continue its 'run-up'
against Iran. 'Run-up' is the neocon term for it: a campaign of
disinformation coming out of the neocon media outlets and with
statements from Cheney and Bush as the big artillery.

(There was some earlier confusion in one or two of the postings in this
thread about the term 'neocon.' It stands for neo-conservative, and is a
term that the neocons use for themselves. Most prominently the neocons
are: Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libbey, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser, Doug
Feith, John Bolton, James Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Norman Podhorets,
Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Elliott Abrams, Steven Handley,
Laurie Mylroie, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, Bernard Lewis, Samual
Hintington, Francis Fukuyama (though he has now denounced his fellow
neocons), etc. They were long active before Bush became president, and
they are all first and foremost loyal to Israel.)

I do not see Bush as a neocon, but as a mouthpiece for them. Rice seems
to waffle between being one and not. Powell was not, which is why they
isolated him from Bush. Cheney, to me , is an enigma when it comes to
being a neocon or not. He espouses neocon views, but I think he may be
following an agenda of his own that has nothing to do with Israel. I
wish I knew more about him and his views and motives. At least we know
that he has served as one of the largest liars about the invasion of
Iraq and is now doing it again in the anti-Iranian run-up. But WHY he
is doing this is unclear to me.

But with the removal of the senior military commanders who were most to
blame for being yes-men to the neocons regarding Iraq, with the debacle
in Iraq now fully evident, with the looming debacle in Afghanistan just
starting to show up on the American public's radar screen, and with the
growing realization that Iran poses no threat with its nuclear power
activities, the neocons are left with little ammunition with which to
fuel the run-up.

The thing they are pushing now is that Iran is supporting the Iraqi
fight for liberation against US occupation. But the reality is that this
aid is tenuous at best, and minor in any case.

Iraq is a beehive of explosives and personal weapons thanks to the
dispersal of the Iraqi military depots as the US invaded. The US has
found and seized only a trivial portion of these supplies. Since the US
invasion, the Iraqis have improved the weapons and tactics for deploying
them. The only real indication we have that ran has helped the Iraqi
resistence is that some of the designs of the latest versions of IEDs
seem to have come from Iran. But it is unclear whether this is an
Iranian governmental effort, or that of individual Iranians who
sympathize with the Iraqi resistence.

In any case, it does not add up to anything near a cause for war with
Iran.

The neocons have shown, of course, that they are willing to say just
about anything to get the US government to go to war, and there is no
reason to think that they are acting in better faith now.

But we know enough from their bahavior on the 'run-up' against Iraq to
look with great suspicion on anything they say or Bush say about Iran.

Let's not be taken in a second (or is it 3rd?) time by the neocons.



Oceans

Hi, Fanatic

Good to see you posting more here.

Tons of books are now out on how the Bushies not only twisted
intelligence but out and out invented it.

David Isikoff's book is one (I woinder if he is related to your Michale
Isikoff). Tom Ricks, Woodward etc are all providing more and more
information of the grand deception carried out by Cheney and Bush and
the neocons.

It is a shameful period in our country's life. To say nothing of the
immense harm that hass been done to others in our country's name.



Oceans

The Passia maps are pretty good. I just looked at each one, and their
accuracy seems good. The only one I would argue a bit with is the
Sykes-Picot. Seeveral versions have been drawn up. The text of the
Sykes-Picot agreement is available, but it did not come with a map, so
the maps that purport to show what the Agreemetn was about are all
interpretive and not integral to the Agreement.

I hadn't seen the Passia map on the percentage of Palestinian and Jewish
and public land ownership just prior to the Israeli conquest of 1948. I
had studied the Mandatory numbers (the source for the map), and everyone
who has studied the conflict knows that Jewish ownership of land in
Paletine was about 7% of the otal, but seeing it displayed visually was
helpful.

Thanks, Invisible!



The maps I was going to poitn Red Wine towards predate the Passia maps,
in some cases by hundreds of year, but it seems like his request has
been met by these.

I still hope he will answer my question about where he came across the
notion that no maps showing Palestine as an defined entity exist prior
to 1948. Red Wine?

Oceans

Got it, Keys. Thanks.

Or "Iroquois Nation", Imkeys?

I am just responding to Red Wine, and waiting for him to answer my
question, before I give him the info on the maps.

Oceans

Markers!!!!



Who has seen the movie, LIVES OF OTHERS?

Oceans

Happy birthday, Queeen! Many happy returns to you.

Oceans

To SheNerd, our hidden beauty!

Happy birthday!!!

Oceans

Happy birthday, friend.

Glen, you are a man of honor, curiosity and humor. Our lives and our JSH
community is the richer for your presence.

Thank you.



Oceans

Hi, Red Wine,

I'm back at my desk. Before I start listing a few of the maps, I'd like
to ask you a question.

How did you come to this idea that Palestine as a distinct political
entity hasn't existed on maps?

Hi, Red Wine!

Quick posting -- I can show you dozens! I'll get back to you with their
names and dates. Some of them have been published in a collection of
plates of maps of Palestine -- I have it in my library -- and will get
you that reference.

I'm off to work and will get you the leads later.


Oceans

Alex....

We are here looking at a mirror of the world (or at least the English
speaking shard of it). The whole world cries for alignment and
progress. Here is one place where we can learn how to give effect to
that cry. And we have seen quite a bit of progress, here...no?

I'm off! Anybody seen any windmills around?



Oceans

One yesterday, KariZ -- thanks for asking. And a couple of opportunities
coming up today. Of course, these are small victories compared to what
is needed.

Which is why I am doing some soul searching about what to do with the
rest of my life....

I'm not for picking up that fishing pole, but I am also fed up with
sacrificing my days to correct the mistakes of too-powerful fools. Or
worse, merely trying to correct then. Dedication is not the same as
thing as progress, and this distinction gnaws at me.

But for now it is back into the trenches.

Your friendships, here in this bizarre world agora, brings me strength,
and a grateful smile.



Oceans