General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsExcept for Bush's Saudi friends and bin Laden's relatives,
the skies over America were closed to air traffic after 9-11
How did Bush know that they needed safe passage out of America?
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)The very words of George W Bush on Feb. 14, 2007, uttered at a press conference. Then he laughs and not even one member of the nation's callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask the giggling mass murderer a follow-up.
I remember Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention.*
JonLP24
(29,322 posts)I remember reporters grilling the press secretary, especially later but post 2003 it was very rare to see Bush give a press conference. I remember he never gave one and the first one -- I was looking forward to seeing one turned out to be a ridiculous spectacle -- don't know if it was the Gannon one but definitely the first one in months or years.
On edit -- Wow, Bush told the truth with that answer. He hit the nail on the head, he hesitated but he answered it honestly. That is exactly what the Iran sanctions are about, because they nationalize oil production and the sanctions are designed to hurt them economically so they transitioned to renewable energy where 80% so the nuke scare is over stopping their nuclear energy making them more dependent on the natural gas but if Iran gave away the oil fields to the multinationals they'd be fine. Though the last part of what he says was mostly bullshit because it has more to do with our financial interests.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)There was that scary press conference where what appeared to be a strung-out and sedated Smirko called on reporters and robotically read from a script answers to their obviously canned questions. The unelected moron even called one and said, "Oops. I wasn't supposed to call you out of turn. Heh heh heh." All the presstitutes could do was utter an embarrassed chuckle and go on pretending.
The BFEE cowers and intimidates and kills those who oppose them. I don't think I'm being paranoid when I say we haven't had a free press since 22 November 1963.
Scripted Press Conferences and the Lapdog Media
BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
As we have mentioned over the last two years, the Republican Party is so brazen in its hypocrisy, it will sometimes just openly brag about its duplicitousness.
It happened when Andrew Card said in September of 2002 that the Bush Cartel waited until the fall to begin the drumbeats of war against Iraq, because, he argued, the summer is not a good time to roll out a "new product."
It happened again on Thursday night when Bush openly acknowledged that the news conference was scripted. Bush appeared to be referring to a list of reporters prepared for him that he was reading from, which excluded Helen Thomas, of course. As he read down the list, he told a reporter, in essence, to wait to ask his question because the reporter was further down on the list.
You can hear (557kb wav) the "script" comment yourself in an audio file created by a BuzzFlash Reader, who notes, "The relevant excerpt from CNN's transcript is included below -- notice the 'scripted' comment is conveniently scrubbed out."
BUSH: ...The risk of doing nothing, the risk of hoping that Saddam Hussein changes his mind and becomes a gentle soul, the risk that somehow inaction will make the world safer, is a risk I'm not willing to take for the American people.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it tonight, he said your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place.
(See: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/06 /
bush.speech.transcript/index.html)
CONTINUED...
Buzzflash link no longer works.
This was part of a DU2 thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2613984
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2613984
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Q Thank you, Mr. President. How would -- sir, how would you answer your critics who say that they think this is somehow personal? As Senator Kennedy put it tonight, he said your fixation with Saddam Hussein is making the world a more dangerous place. And as you prepare the American people for the possibility of military conflict, could you share with us any of the scenarios your advisors have shared with you about worse-case scenarios, in terms of the potential cost of American lives, the potential cost to the American economy, and the potential risks of retaliatory terrorist strikes here at home?
THE PRESIDENT: My job is to protect America, and that is exactly what I'm going to do. People can ascribe all kinds of intentions. I swore to protect and defend the Constitution; that's what I swore to do. I put my hand on the Bible and took that oath, and that's exactly what I am going to do.
I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he's a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I've got a good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction, and he has used weapons of mass destruction, in his neighborhood and on his own people. He's invaded countries in his neighborhood. He tortures his own people. He's a murderer. He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. I take the threat seriously, and I'll deal with the threat. I hope it can be done peacefully.
The rest of your six-point question?
Q The potential price in terms of lives and the economy, terrorism.
THE PRESIDENT: The price of doing nothing exceeds the price of taking action, if we have to. We'll do everything we can to minimize the loss of life. The price of the attacks on America, the cost of the attacks on America on September the 11th were enormous. They were significant. And I am not willing to take that chance again, John.
Terry Moran.
SOURCE: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)and the king he later made out with in public.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)(I'm lovin that) helped the very family who financed 9-11, without prior knowledge the Saudis were linked to this?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)that powerful Saudis were involved hip-deep in it. But I am sure he had his suspicions on Day One - even a dullard of his stature can put two and two together - and got his Saudi friends out of the country before the FBI could start asking highly embarrassing questions.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims
I dont think the Bush administration would want to see these released," an expert tells Salon
By Jordan Michael Smith
Salon.com
Tuesday, Jun 19, 2012 04:24 PM EDT
Over 120 CIA documents concerning 9/11, Osama bin Laden and counterterrorism were published today for the first time, having been newly declassified and released to the National Security Archive. The documents were released after the NSA pored through the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission and sent Freedom of Information Act requests.
The material contains much new information about the hunt before and after 9/11 for bin Laden, the development of the drone campaign in AfPak, and al-Qaidas relationship with Americas ally, Pakistan. Perhaps most damning are the documents showing that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross hairs a full year before 9/11 but didnt get the funding from the Bush administration White House to take him out or even continue monitoring him. The CIA materials directly contradict the many claims of Bush officials that it was aggressively pursuing al-Qaida prior to 9/11, and that nobody could have predicted the attacks. I dont think the Bush administration would want to see these released, because they paint a picture of the CIA knowing something would happen before 9/11, but they didnt get the institutional support they needed, says Barbara Elias-Sanborn, the NSA fellow who edited the materials.
SNIP...
Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice has taken credit for the drone program that the Bush administration ignored. Things like working to get an armed Predator that actually turned out to be extraordinarily important, working to get a strategy that would allow us to get better cooperation from Pakistan and from the Central Asians, she said in 2006. We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al-Qaida. Rice claimed that the Bush administration continued the Clinton administrations counterterrorism policies, a claim the documents disprove. If the administration wanted to get it done, Im sure they could have gotten it done, says Elias-Sanborn.
Many of the documents publicize for the first time what was first made clear in the 9/11 Commission: The White House received a truly remarkable amount of warnings that al-Qaida was trying to attack the United States. From June to September 2001, a full seven CIA Senior Intelligence Briefs detailed that attacks were imminent, an incredible amount of information from one intelligence agency. One from June called Bin-Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats writes that [redacted] expects Usama Bin Laden to launch multiple attacks over the coming days. The famous August brief called Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the US is included. Al-Qaida members, including some US citizens, have resided in or travelled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure here, it says. During the entire month of August, President Bush was on vacation at his ranch in Texas which tied with one of Richard Nixons as the longest vacation ever taken by a president. CIA Director George Tenet has said he didnt speak to Bush once that month, describing the president as being on leave. Bush did not hold a Principals meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001, having downgraded the meetings to a deputies meeting, which then-counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke has repeatedly said slowed down anti-Bin Laden efforts enormously, by months.
CONTINUED w LINKS...
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/19/new_nsa_docs_reveal_911_truths/