Friday, March 26, 2004

Killin' The Truth FEATURED ARTICLES - Interview: Richard Clarke, UK Guardian - Journalists Find Many Ways to Kill Truth in Iraq, by Ira Chernus - Veterans face conundrum: Kerry or Bush?, by James Webb 2 QUOTES OF THE DAY "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason." - - Paul Wolfowitz (quoted by Tim Russert on 'Meet The Press, NBC, 06-01-03) "The people in Rumsfeld's office and in Wolfowitz's operation cherry-picked intelligence to select the intelligence to support their views. They never did the due diligence on the intelligence that professional intelligence analysts are trained to do. They would go through the intelligence reports including the ones that the CIA was throwing out. They stitched it together, they would send it out, send it over to Cheney." - - Richard Clark (Former Anti-terrorism Czar to 4 U.S. Presidents) KNOW YOUR HISTORY - MARCH 1958 -- Four pacifists set sail, intending to cross restricted zone around US pacific weapons testing site. 1966 -- Over 50,000 march in Fifth Avenue Vietnam Peace Parade in New York City. 1969 -- John & Yoko Ono-Lennon start seven day bed-in against the Vietnam War. 1970 -- US Atomic Energy Commission explodes nuclear weapons in Pahute Mesa, Nevada. 1975 -- Biological Weapons Convention takes effect. RHINO HERE: On Wednesday, I was lucky to have caught former Anti-Terrorism Czar (under 4 presidential administrations) Richard Clarke testify in front of the 9/11 Commission. Between the other mealy mouthed government wonks providing testimony, Clarke was a shining star, beginning with a heartfelt apology to the families who'd lost loved ones on 9/11, then comparing his cabinet level access to President Clinton with being relegated to lackey access once the shrub gang moved into La Casa Blanca. He said both he & CIA Director George Tenant tried over & over to warn the gang, especially shrub & condoleezza, that Al Queda was the threat to be dealt with but they were fixated on Iraq. Oil that is. "Black Gold, Texas Tea". (Note to Rhino readers. Never forget that condoleezza has an oil tanker named after her.) http://www.opensecrets.org/bush/cabinet/cabinet.rice.asp http://www.who2.com/condoleezzarice.html Each time a Republican tried to catch him with some insulting implication, he responded with a forceful dignity, powered by what was obviously the truth. In Hinduism, they call it, satyagraha; moral force. If you have access to a recording, a Tivo, whatever, of his testimony, Rhino sez, get it, watch it, show it to any Republican you can. Meanwhile, here's an interview with Clark from the UK Guardian. Interview: Richard Clarke UK Guardian, Tuesday March 23, 2004 Julian Borger in Washington talks to former White House insider Richard Clarke about US's vulnerability to al-Qaida before the September 11 attack. JB: Condoleezza Rice wrote today in response to your book - that the Bush administration did have a strategy for eliminating al-Qaida and that the administration worked on it in the spring and summer of 2001? Is that true? RC: We developed that strategy in the last several months of the Clinton administration and it was basically an update on that strategy. We briefed Condi on that strategy. The point is that it was done before they came to office and she never held a meeting on it. It was done before she asked for it. JB: What about the claim that the administration did work hard on the issue? RC: Its not true... MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1175790,00.html Given all the hits the shrub gang has been taking of late, (and don't miss the BOTTOM LINE below for another), just how desperate might they be to have a few things go their way?  Some have suggested they're desperate enough to have already captured Osama B.L. and they're waiting for the right moment to reveal it.  Rhino sez, "They wish!""  Others have suggested they're trying to find a suitable substitute for O.B.L. who looks enough like him that that they could fool the world with a dead body. Sirhan Sirhan maybe? Now comes a story that to some, including many journalists apparently, is so far fetched that they refuse to give it credibility; that the gang is preparing to "find" WMD's in Iraq, "PREPARING" being the operative word here. What you say? Doth the Rhino suggest the administration would try to put one over on the world? Not me, folks. It's the honorable Professor of Religion, Ira Chernus. Journalists Find Many Ways to Kill Truth in Iraq by Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org , 3/18/04 Truth dies, just as people die, every day in Iraq. Sometimes the people are killed by Americans paid with our tax dollars. But we rarely hear about it, thanks to other Americans, the ones who kill truth: the journalists. There are different ways to send truth to its grave, as two current examples prove.  On March 13 the Iranian news agency Mehr reported a story that, if true, is surely the biggest news of this election year: "U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq. A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions."  According to Mehr's source, the parts are old ones, just the kind the U.S. gave to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Once they are "discovered," they would be the smoking gun that George W. needs to get re-elected. Five days after Mehr broke this story, a Google and Lexis/Nexis search failed to find it reported in any U.S. news source... MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-04.htm Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is by James Webb who was secretary of the Navy during the Reagan administration, and a Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam. As a Viet Nam vet, Webb is critical of John Kerry's anti-war activities once he returned home from Nam, a period in his life which many, like The Rhino, believe he should consider a greater honor than his battle medals. But Webb seems to save his greatest scorn for gee walker bush. Hopefully, a growing number of Vets are feeling the same way. 8:39:20 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Veterans face conundrum: Kerry or Bush? Veterans face conundrum: Kerry or Bush? By James Webb, USA Today Editorial/Opinion, 2/18/04 ...Bush used his father's political influence to move past many on the Texas Guard's waiting list. He was not required to attend Officer Candidate School to earn his commission. He lost his flight status after failing to show up for a required annual physical. These facts alone raise the eyebrows of those who took a different path in a war that for the Marine Corps brought more casualties than even World War II. The Bush campaign now claims that these issues are largely moot and that Bush has proved himself as a competent and daring "war president." And yet his actions in Iraq, and the vicious attacks against anyone who disagrees with his administration's logic, give many veterans serious pause. Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence. There is no historical precedent for taking such action when our country was not being directly threatened. The reckless course that Bush and his advisers have set will affect the economic and military energy of our nation for decades. It is only the tactical competence of our military that, to this point, has protected him from the harsh judgment that he deserves... MORE: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-02-18-veterans-edit_x.htm "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:27:50 AM    comment

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