The McClatchy Report -- "Insider Threat"

[Note: Snowden is on the run, said to be in Moscow somewhere, possibly at the airport, possibly at the Venezuelan embassy, possibly elsewhere. The saga, they say, will continue tomorrow when he is scheduled to depart Moscow for another interim destination, possibly Havana, where they say he will then depart for his ultimate destination, possibly Caracas or Quito. There is no sign Iceland is prepared to grant asylum, but you never know in Spy Stories like this. UPDATED: Snowden, from an airport hotel room in Moscow, has requested asylum in Ecuador; Ecuadorian ambassador has been to airport; John Brennan is flying to Moscow. Much bluster and bombast from politicians. Greenwald engaging in numerous pissing contests with media. Quite a day.]

Yes. Well.

McClatchy is out with a story called "Obama's Crackdown Views Leaks as Aiding Enemies of the US" referring to the "Insider Threat" program that is essentially implemented across the entire Federal Service.

Well.

As some of my readers know, I was a Federal employee for more than a decade and was exposed to quite a lot of the Federal attitude toward workforce and the public.

One of the things that was most surprising to me about the Manning Thing was that the DoD and State apparently did not do anything about the breaches of security for almost six months. This was very strange to me. Whenever there was a security breach in my agency (and they were rare), protocols were changed within 24 hours and access to sensitive information was severely restricted in less than that. Nothing like that is said to have happened in connection with SIPRNet security and access, and it seemed to me that the lack of security response was a key to understanding that the Manning Thing was not quite what it appeared to be. I interpreted the reluctance to tighten security in that case to be a deliberate effort to entrap more would-be whistle blowers. A variation of the classic honey pot.

I don't know whether there have been any changes of protocol or tightening of security as a result of the Snowden revelations, but I haven't heard of any. In this case, since the breach was apparently not within the government but occurred among the vast contractor community which both serves and directs the surveillance state, it's hard to say what Booz Allen's response would be. They were, after all, quite slow in completing the paperwork for Snowden's dismissal.

Now McClatchy has reported on a much more comprehensive program of leak staunching within the Federal Government that would seem to be complimentary to any other action the government might take to limit or discourage whistle blowing and leaks and yet, given the fact that it depends on Federal employees essentially spying on and ratting out one another (and themselves!) in some ways it operates as a primary leak staunching effort. It's also quite chilling to any independent thought whatever within the ranks.

During my time with the government (1997-2009) I was aware that employees were surveilled and audited routinely and that their actions could be subject to discipline -- which was sometimes unwarranted. Some employees seemed to enjoy ratting out others. And I witnessed changes in the way the Federal workforce was regarded by supervisors and management. More and more emphasis was put on loyalty as we went from the Clinton to the Bush and then to the Obama administrations, until, by the time I left in 2009, it seemed that loyalty had taken the place of just about any other consideration.

But loyalty to what, exactly? To our oaths of office? Hardly. That was more or less taken for granted. No, a strenuous hierarchy of loyalties seemed to be instituted, which required personal loyalty to one's immediate supervisor and so on up the chain, until one reached the White House.

Reading the story about the Insider Threat program, though, I get the impression that the situation has... erm... evolved. The idea that all employees must be constantly vigilant and on the lookout for colleagues who don't quite fit the mold or are facing difficulties in life, and should even be reporting themselves, strikes me as completely absurd. And yet, I can see how it has come about from paranoia over leaks, and from something else that gets very little attention.

During the Bush/Cheney administration particularly, the entire Federal service was seeded with Bush/Cheney loyalists. These weren't necessarily political appointees. Many were civil service hires. Most of them are still there.

I dealt with some of the Bush administration political appointees, and I was surprised to find that many of them did not seem to be party hacks at all. Some were even competent. On the other hand, we were all well aware that as political appointees, they had been vetted first and foremost for loyalty to the Busheviks.

And to me the really chilling aspect of the report of the Insider Threat program is the implication that any internal deviance or resistance -- let alone leaking -- is a threat that must be suppressed; total loyalty must be enforced.

But to what and whom? My own sense is that the Internal Threat program is intended to enforce loyalty and suppress resistance to the neo-liberal/corporatist ideology that has become the standard throughout elected government. It's not so much a matter of being loyal to the Busheviks, it is more a matter of being a true believer in a neo-liberal/neo-conservative ideology and party line.

I believe it was called "Gleichschaltung" in the original German.

Jonathan Landay Follows Up for McClatchy

A picture of a Chinook crash in Vietnam in 1968; the story of what happened in that incident is here and it's fascinating.

He's actually written quite a few stories on the Chinook Down in Talibanistan, some of them quite good.

A selection of Afghanistan and other stories at this link: Jonathan Landay stories for McClatchy Note, the first listed story is about the Jessica Lynch capture and rescue fraud.

The one I want to focus on here is this one that appeared yesterday:

Airstrike reportedly kills insurgent who downed U.S. chopper


Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/10/120188/insurgent-who-downed-seals-helicopter.html#storylink=misearch#ixzz1UlD5Y8W9

Of course, it was all over the news yesterday, most of which reported this enemy liquidation sparely, shall we say, though without much editorial comment.

Landay seems to be arching his brow through the whole thing. Of course he knows full well what kind of lies and damned lies of omission and commission the Pentagon is notorious for. And he no doubt knows that this story of tracking for miles the single Taliban insurgent who fired the RPG that brought down the Chinook, killing all on board, stinks to high heaven.

Oh they did, did they? Well, how about that.

"No civilians were harmed in the extermination of the foe."

Yes, well.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A “precision airstrike” has killed the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade that downed an American helicopter last weekend, killing 30 U.S. troops in the American military’s worst loss of the Afghan war, the U.S.-led international coalition said Wednesday.

A midlevel commander of Taliban fighters operating in the insurgent-controlled area where the helicopter crashed also died in the airstrike Tuesday, an International Security Assistance Force statement said.

I see. Given all the "mistakes" the Coalition has made in tracking down and exterminating rebels in the Hindu Kush, my first question to the Coalition would be:

"How do you know any such thing is the case? Can you prove it?"

The answer is self-evident: "Of course not, you rotten traitor."

All right.... Let's go for this, then:

The airstrike ended a three-day hunt for the insurgents involved in downing the CH-47 Chinook helicopter as it prepared to land early Saturday in the remote Tangi Valley in Wardak province, about 60 miles southwest of Kabul.

The crash killed 30 U.S. servicemen — many of them elite Navy SEALs — the largest number of American soldiers killed in a single incident in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Their Afghan interpreter and seven Afghan commandos also died.

To which I say, "Oh, really? And what about the dog?"

The dog hasn't been mentioned since soon after the crash was reported. It was speculated for a time that the dog had taken part in the Osama assassination -- as was thought to be the case regarding many of the troops that were killed. There's been no confirmation, of course. Only Mystery.

Quoting directly from the Coalition Press Release, Landay goes on:

Using “multiple intelligence leads and tips from citizens,” U.S.-led special forces tracked the insurgents’ leader, Mullah Muhibullah, and the fighter who fired the rocket-propelled grenade, locating them in the Chak district, about 40 miles north of the Tangi Valley.

“The two men were attempting to flee the country in order to avoid capture,” the ISAF said. The border with Pakistan’s tribal area, where the Taliban and allied groups maintain sanctuaries, is about 75 miles east of Chak.

“The security forces . . . followed the insurgents to a wooded area in Chak district. After ensuring no civilians were in the area, the force called for the airstrike, which resulted in the deaths of . . . Mullah Muhibullah, the shooter and several of their Taliban associates,” ISAF said.

By now, Landay is clearly scratching his head. This is an awful lot of detail for an operation that has supposedly just concluded, detail so complete, they even know the name of Mullah just killed in the airstrike, supposedly the #2 to the Taliban commander the original, apparently failed, operation was supposed to kill or capture.

It's like a movie script. Landay goes on (I've skipped the part about bringing the remains back to Dover):

Questions persisted about why the lumbering, twin-rotor Chinook was called to assist a team of American soldiers that had become embroiled in a firefight while hunting another Taliban leader.

That leader wasn't killed, officials said, but the American team reportedly suffered no casualties and immediately left the battle for the scene of the crash after the Chinook went down, raising questions about the intensity of the firefight.

Those aren't the only questions, my friend, but they're a start. Why, indeed, was a Chinook filled with elite SEALS, Afghan Rangers, an interpreter and a dog being brought in for a landing in proximity to a supposed "firefight" in which none of the troops engaging the enemy were harmed, and those troops immediately disengaged with the enemy to go to the scene of the crashed Chinook, a scene they promptly secured and where they apparently stayed until... what?

Landay again:

In a news briefing, Gen. John Allen, the coalition commander, rejected suggestions that the Chinook was the wrong aircraft for the mission.

"We've run more than a couple of thousand of these night operations over the last year, and this is the only occasion where this has occurred," Allen said.

Two defense officials told McClatchy earlier this week that a Pentagon investigation into the crash would probe whether Chinooks should be sent into firefights, where their slow landings can make them targets for insurgents.

I've seen other reports that indicate the Chinooks are well known for their vulnerabilities in Afghanistan and that dozens have crashed (whether shot down, who can say) over the course of hostilities there.

The ISAF withheld further details of Tuesday's airstrike, including the type and nationality of the aircraft involved. U.S. planes usually carry out such operations.

Or drones are operated from a game console at Groom Lake, NV, among other sites.

Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the Wardak governor, said that 13 Taliban fighters had died in the airstrike near the village of Seaab. “These guys had fled the Tangi area,” he said. “Usually when they’ve done an operation, they leave the area and go to another location.”

And where might Shahidullah have gotten this information? From a Coalition Talking Points Communiqué perhaps? How credulous are we thought to be, hm?

But this is the kicker:

The ISAF didn’t disclose how it had confirmed that the fighter responsible for shooting down the helicopter was killed, but the U.S.-led force has extensive intelligence-gathering capabilities, including an ability to monitor insurgents’ radio and cellular telephone traffic.

In other words, he doesn't know whether to believe any of this cock and bull story or not, but if it's true, well, they might have been listening to cell phone calls in the area to pin point their target. Don't you think? Hm? Couldn't they?

One throws up ones hands at the obviousness of the propaganda. As a retired Air Force friend said to me as we discussed this incident: "What the hell are we doing there?"

McClatchy's War Reporting Falters

Jonathan Landay, Nancy Youssef, and Warren Strobel, McClatchy's crack War Correspondent team in better days

McClatchy/Knight-Ridder has had an outstanding and deserved reputation for accurate and insightful war reporting since the days when they were essentially the only mainstream news outfit questioning the propaganda leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel (now with Reuters), and Nancy Youssef have been far and away some of the finest reporters on the War Beat for years.

So imagine my surprise to read this morning's McClatchy story on the Chinook Down in Afghanistan. It was riddled with war propaganda from beginning to end, and it clearly obscured the real story behind veils of nonsense and deceit. What has happened to McClatchy?

It should be noted up front, however, that the quick, indeed almost immediate, acknowledgement that the Chinook was shot down by the rebels is almost unprecedented in our Imperial March through the Hindu Kush. For years, helicopter losses in the Battles and Occupations were never acknowledged to be due to the actions of the Jibbering Natives, it was always due to "mechanical failure," "dust," or "undetermined." So the public has no idea at all how many "Coalition" helicopters have been shot down during the various Imperial Wars of Aggression, nor, until this incident, that Our Valiant Forces could be shot from the air by the Primitives.

As for the McClatchy story by Jonathan Landay and Nancy Youssef about it today it opens promisingly:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two Pentagon officials told McClatchy on Monday that an investigation into the helicopter crash that killed 30 American troops would probe whether it's a mistake to send the large, lumbering Chinook helicopter into a Taliban firefight, where it's a target for insurgents.

Indeed. Mistakes were made, and sending a troop-filled Chinook to an ongoing firefight in Afghanistan may have been one of them.

As the remains of the 30 troops killed in the military's deadliest incident of the Afghan war were being flown back to the United States, U.S. commanders confirmed that the servicemen were flying to the aid of American troops embroiled in a firefight when an insurgent shot down their helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Good heavens! How can that be? A single Jibbering Native, armed with sticks and poo, was able to bring down a giant helicopter filled with America's Finest, a military working dog, and several Native Auxiliaries (except the dog and the Auxiliaries aren't mentioned...) how can that be???

The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan offered the first detailed account of the tragedy since the pre-dawn crash in the Tangi Valley, a Taliban-infested area of Wardak province, about 60 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital.

Here we go, getting into the propaganda now. Note the highlighted text:

"tragedy"


• Depends on your point of view, doesn't it? Certainly the Afghan rebels don't consider it a tragedy, nor in fact, would very many American anti-war activists really consider the loss of Americans a tragedy under the circumstances.
  
  "Taliban infested"
  
  
• Oh, really. The Taliban, in the context of Afghanistan, are an "infestation?" How does that work, since they are Native rebels against the Empire, not all that different from the Afghan rebels against the Soviets, remember them?

"The helicopter was reportedly fired on by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the U.S. service members and commandos to the scene of an ongoing engagement," said a statement released by the International Security Assistance Force.

Actually, it's surprising they would say such a thing so soon after the helicopter was downed. In the past, the "coalition" has tended to lie and fabricate and dissemble whenever any incident occurs.

The Pentagon announced that the return of the servicemen's remains, in flag-draped coffins, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware possibly as early as Tuesday won't be open to the news media, although family members will be allowed to attend. The ceremony will be closed to the public because there were "no identifiable remains," said Marine Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. As of Monday night, military officials hadn't publicly released the names of the dead, although family members had confirmed many of the names to reporters.

"No identifiable remains" -- yet the remains are being returned in flag-draped coffins to Dover? How, exactly, does that work? Sounds like pure emotional propaganda to me, meaningless and yet filled with the "tragedy" of it all. Warriors' "remains" returned to the Homeland, though "no identifiable remains" remain... In other words, what is being returned?

Separately, two Defense Department officials told McClatchy that a military investigation into the crash would ask whether dropping a Chinook into the middle of a battle is too dangerous now. Before the incident, the Taliban rarely had shot down a Chinook, bolstering commanders' confidence that the military could use the aircraft, which can carry more people than the Black Hawk helicopter, under such circumstances.

Hold on. "Too dangerous now?" Because they shot one down, or because THIS one was shot down? Or... is it something else? A great deal of backstory is being left out. The Jibbering Natives "rarely shot down a Chinook." So the commanders had all-important "confidence" that sending a Chinook load of troops into battle was "safe?" What is it, exactly, they are trying -- and failing -- to say out loud? It was "safe" beforetime, but it isn't now? If not, why not? And where are these Jibbering Natives getting their rocket propelled grenades (which were so devastating against the Soviets back in the day? But we knew where they came from then: the USofA.)

But just two weeks earlier, on July 25, the Taliban used a rocket-propelled grenade to shoot down a Chinook in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, injuring two U.S. service members. That Chinook was struck in the bottom and was forced to make a hard landing, defense officials said.

They did, did they? This is yet another admission of the effectiveness of the Natives against Our Valiant Troops, or at least their transport. Or is it?

On Saturday, officials said, the grenade struck the middle of the helicopter, essentially splitting it in midair, killing everyone on board.

The "officials" are even saying how it was done, when in times gone by, they wouldn't even admit that it was done at all. Whoa.

Area residents told McClatchy by phone that the ground forces and the Taliban were in the midst of a firefight less than a mile from the crash site.

Wait a minute. This is supposed to be a remote, "Taliban-infested" valley, the way they all are in Afghanistan, where a firefight was going on just a few days before, and yet the McClatchy reporters are able to establish telephone (cell-phone? iPad?) communication with the Natives to get their side of the story? Mmm. Interesting. Technology progresses no matter what.

President Barack Obama said that the incident, while tragic, wouldn't deter American forces from the fight in Afghanistan, now in its 10th year. U.S. forces have begun to withdraw 33,000 "surge" troops from the country, a drawdown that's expected to be completed in September 2012.

"We will press on and we will succeed," Obama said. "Our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger Afghan government and ensuring that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists."

Very Churchillian, yes? Catapult that Propaganda!

Gen. John Allen, the commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, said: "We will continue to relentlessly pressure the enemy and we will continue to develop the Afghan National Security Forces so that on their strong, broad shoulders they can defeat this insurgency and bring lasting and enduring peace to this historic land and this great people."

Hell, it's War of the Worlds. Existential Propaganda! Oh, but, they, the Afghan Natives, will have to shoulder the burden manfully. No more will Our Valiant Ones expose themselves to Un-Safety like this. No more. Let the Natives do it. Well. Now that's potentially news.

According to the coalition statement, Saturday's incident began when U.S. ground troops became engulfed in a battle with Taliban forces armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47s. The troops were flying to the aid of other U.S. service members who'd gone into the Tangi Valley in search of an unidentified Taliban leader who oversaw "insurgent operations" in the remote area, the ISAF statement said.

"Engulfed?" Oh, fergawdsake. According to reports, there are no more than a few tens of al Qaeda, and perhaps a few hundred Taliban in all of Afghanistan. How is it possible for Our Valiant Ones to be "engulfed" by such a paltry -- and primitive -- force of malcontents and Anti-Afghan Elements? There aren't enough of them in the whole country to "engulf" anyone. Oh, but such loaded language does help to enhance the heroism of Our Valiant Ones, so there is that.

"After commencing the search, the initial security force on the ground observed several insurgents, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47 assault rifles, moving through the area," the statement said. "The security force and the insurgents exchanged small arms fire, resulting in several enemies killed."

Well good. It's always important that The Enemy take substantial losses in any engagement with Our Valiant Ones. But why is McClatchy repeating this obvious propaganda release without comment? Ordinarily, they would simply refer to it, not quote it extensively. "The Coalition headquarters said that thus and so was going on, but the facts cannot be independently confirmed in detail at this time." Instead, they just present the PIO's statement uncritically. Odd for McClatchy.

The soldiers asked for backup, and 33 people — Navy SEALs, airmen and Afghan special forces — climbed into a Chinook and headed to battle, led by five crewmen.

This account differs from previous ones, and it significantly confuses matters. "33 People... climbed into... ." Uh. "Led by five crewmen." Uh. So that's 38, right? But previously, we were told there were 31 Americans and 7 Afghans, one of whom was an interpreter. And a dog. Who were killed. Still 38, but the dog isn't mentioned, and the crew is no longer "people?" Well... minor points. And now it is Narrative, not direct quotes from the PIO's press release. Hmm. Interesting.

When a Chinook lands, it descends slowly to the ground, and on Saturday it did so into a remote area where there was no surrounding base to offer protection. Even under the best of circumstances, military officials say, the landing is most vulnerable part of the flight. In Afghanistan, amid fierce fighting, it's the best chance the Taliban have of killing dozens of troops at one time.

More Narrative, though obviously based on PIO statements and press releases, "explaining" how apparently vulnerable these giant helicopters are in such fierce circumstances. Who knew? No one could have predicted.

Those killed aboard the twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook included "five aircrew and 25 personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command," said the statement, which withheld the identities of the victims and their units.

Back to quoting the Statement, which is the basis for the Narrative, too. And yet the Unit (Navy Seals, same unit that double-tapped Osama, they tell us) has been named in other reports, why not this one?

Many of the dead reportedly were from the same Navy SEAL contingent from which was drawn the unit that killed Osama bin Laden in the al Qaida leader's hideout in Pakistan in May.

But there is no Official Confirmation. It's just "known." Um-kay. That does make it dramatic, yes? Which helps catapult the propaganda. Oh yes.

Also killed were an Afghan interpreter and seven Afghan commandos.

Yes, well. Them. Poor devils. WHAT ABOUT THE DOG?

After the crash, the unit on the ground "broke contact" with the insurgents, moved to the crash site, secured it and searched for survivors, the ISAF said.

More press release. No reporting. Just parrotting. Sigh. If there were no identifiable remains, there were self-evidently no survivors. If the machine broke in two and crashed (as reported previously) the crash site was likely extensive, eh? Or... not. Depending on how close the craft was to the ground when it was shot down.

Wait. What really happened here?

The investigation to determine the "exact cause" of the crash was ongoing, the statement said. It was the deadliest incident the U.S. military had suffered in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/08/119952/pentagon-to-reconsider-landing.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz1UYCIQCDD

As I said, what really happened here, and will we ever know?

Is the shoot-down by Jibbering Natives actually a cover story for something else, even worse? [Note: I shouldn't leave it dangling like that. What I mean by "something worse" is Friendly Fire.]

It is really surprising that McClatchy would allow themselves to falter so significantly on this story and that the reporters would simply parrot the official statement rather than being proactive in trying to find out what actually happened and reporting their progress (or lack thereof) in doing so.

This report seems to have been ordered up by Corporate, and the reporters complied, perhaps unwillingly.

We won't know any time soon. Meanwhile, anyone who is following McClatchy's ongoing financial struggles (and profit squeezing) knows that the days of this formerly top-notch journalistic outfit are numbered.

McClatchy Does It Again

Taxi to the Darkside trailer...

McClatchy is doing an important series on the sweeping up of the innocents in the GWOT which is bound to raise some hackles (once heavy crepe veiling and deepest mourning for the Monsignor have passed) among the Palace Courtiers and might just get the perpetrators -- of the series, not the crimes -- a Pulitzer or two.

Wouldn't hurt given the fact that McClatchy is bleeding advertising revenues and announced another staff cutback today.

From today's report on the routine brutality of captive in American military custody:

The brutality at Bagram peaked in December 2002, when U.S. soldiers beat two Afghan detainees, Habibullah and Dilawar, to death as they hung by their wrists.

Dilawar died on Dec. 10, seven days after Habibullah died. He'd been hit in his leg so many times that the tissue was "falling apart" and had "basically been pulpified," said then-Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the Air Force medical examiner who performed the autopsy on him.

Had Dilawar lived, Rouse said in sworn testimony, "I believe the injury to the legs are so extensive that it would have required amputation."

After Habibullah died, a legal officer for U.S. forces in Afghanistan asked two military police guards at Bagram to demonstrate how they'd chained detainees' wrists above their heads in a small plywood isolation cell.

"Frankly, it didn't look good," Maj. Jeff Bovarnick, the legal adviser for the Bagram detention center from November 2002 to June 2003, said during a military investigation hearing in June 2005.

"This guy is chained up and has a hood on his head," Bovarnick continued. "The two MPs that were demonstrating this took about five minutes to get everything hook(ed) up; and I was thinking to myself, if this was a combative detainee, it must have been a real struggle for them to get him to comply, and the things they must have been doing to make him comply."

The only American officer who's been reprimanded for the deaths of Habibullah and Dilawar is Army Capt. Christopher Beiring, who commanded the 377th Military Police Company from the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2003.

One of the many problems all along has been the absence of field officers in this Great War against innocents. It's not just that few have been charged and convicted of the endless crimes committed in our names, it is that they aren't there at all. Officers are simply absent. They are either holed up in the various palaces or bases seized from the natives, which, until recently, they rarely left. Or they are running around sucking up to their own superiors, sometimes quite openly angling for attention and promotions by... "following orders" which has led to one atrocity after another.

McClatchy is documenting war crimes, in detail, with plenty of names, dates and whatever evidence they can secure. The military, of course, denies everything -- when it isn't completely refusing comment of any kind.

What will eventually happen with this material is anybody's guess. Righteously, the entire regime and all of its enablers, and those in the military who have carried out atrocities and war crimes would face justice of some sort, but we've seen that no such thing even contemplated.

No. They'll get away with it. Indeed, they may be honored, at least some of them.

And We, the People look on in horrified disbelief. The McClatchy series needs to be seen.

McClatchy's Landay and Strobel push back -- HARD

on the blithering of the Winter Palace chattering classes over Little Scotty McClellan's Bombshell Tell-All Book:

May 29, 2008

Memo to Scott McClellan: Here's what happened

Until now, we've resisted the temptation to post on former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book, which accuses the Bush White House of launching a propaganda campaign to sell the war in Iraq.

Why? It's not news. At least not to some of us who've covered the story from the start.

That's just getting warmed up.

After a bit of background history they unleash the big guns. If it got any coverage outside the blogosphere, it would demolish -- forever -- the notion that the White House wasn't fully involved in a propganda operation to foist its war of choice on the American People, the Iraqis, and the World, and it would by itself be sufficient to taint the memory of this repugnant regime for the rest of time. Read the whole thing. But here are a couple of key excerpts:

Here's what happened, based entirely on our own reporting and publicly available documents:

* The Bush administration was gunning for Iraq within days of the 9/11 attacks, dispatching a former CIA director, on a flight authorized by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, to find evidence for a bizarre theory that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the first World Trade Center attack in 1993. (Note: See also Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on this point).

* Bush decided by February 2002, at the latest, that he was going to remove Saddam by hook or by crook. (Yes, we reported that at the time).

* White House officials, led by Dick Cheney, began making the case for war in August 2002, in speeches and reports that not only were wrong, but also went well beyond what the available intelligence said at that time, and contained outright fantasies and falsehoods. Indeed, some of that material was never vetted with the intelligence agencies before it was peddled to the public.

* Dissenters, or even those who voiced worry about where the policy was going, were ignored, excluded or punished. (Note: See Gen. Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson and all of the State Department 's Arab specialists and much of its intelligence bureau.

The disgraceful spectacle of the White House/Winter Palace and its sychophants in the Media scrambling to cover their own asses at Little Scotty's "revelations" has been very entertaining on one level, but the fact remains that the Truth is yet to be accepted by our nation's power elites, who consistently run from it like the cockroaches they are.

Millions are dead, injured or displaced. Chaos ensues. All for lies. That is the legacy of this putrid period of history.

Read. Watch

Read Chris Floyd on the topic of The Brilliant Disguise regarding Bush, Obama, and The Boss.

Watch Leila Fadel, McClatchy Bureau Chief in Baghdad, interviewed by Bill Moyers:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04182008/watch.html

Full plate.