Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Al-Jazeera Wants Answers On Bush Bombing Comments
Steve Clemons at the Washington Note has the text of the letter Al-Jazeera's Managing Director, Wadah Khanfar, sent to Tony Blair demanding answers about the Downing Street memo that details Preznit Bush's alleged desire to bomb Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar.
Steve also notes that:
They keep getting caught in their lies. The WMD's. The Niger uranium story. The aluminum tubes story. The Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection. The Mohammed Atta/Iraq Secret Service meeting in Prague. The claim that we didn't use white phosphorus (a chemical weapon, according to the Pentagon) in the Fallujah assault when we clearly did. How many Iraqi troops are trained and battle-ready. The claim the U.S. doesn't use torture. The whitewash of Abu Ghraib. The overseas secret prison and the use of "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects to other countries. The various CIA leak lies. The various lies surrounding the Abramoff/Delay/Frist/Coingate/Randy Cunningham scandals. The Armstrong Williams/Maggie Gallagher/et al. propaganda links. The Jeff Gannon bullshit. And on an on...
Unfortunately, the boys haven't paid a political price for these lies. Sure, the 2005 elections of Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey hint at bad times to come for the GOP, but they haven't actually arrived just yet.
And Georgie Boy and Big Time Cheney and Karl and Karen and the rest of the GOP propagandists/apologists seem to believe they can keep trouble at bay by spinning away reality into easily digestible talking points for television, lying about the past, present, and future, and swift boating all opponents of their policies as "traitors."
Until somebody makes these fuckers pay a price for their lies, half-truths, and crimes against the nation, this behavior isn't going to change.
This is why they think they can get away with ignoring the "Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera" story. They figure they'll get away with this lie and/or half-truth the way they've gotten away with all of the others in the past.
So far they're right. But we'll see how long they can go stonewalling the story.
Steve also notes that:
This "bombing memo" matter is going to continue to boil for a while, and the UK Attorney General is apparently intent on prosecuting two bureaucrats for leaking the contents of the memo.
Eventually, the memo will be made public, and it will add yet another few news cycles of attention to this matter and potentially implicate all of those who said that Bush said no such thing.
Obsession with secrecy and covering up mistakes is characteristic of the Bush administration, which now seems to be paying a high price for this undemocratic behavior.
They keep getting caught in their lies. The WMD's. The Niger uranium story. The aluminum tubes story. The Al-Qaeda/Saddam connection. The Mohammed Atta/Iraq Secret Service meeting in Prague. The claim that we didn't use white phosphorus (a chemical weapon, according to the Pentagon) in the Fallujah assault when we clearly did. How many Iraqi troops are trained and battle-ready. The claim the U.S. doesn't use torture. The whitewash of Abu Ghraib. The overseas secret prison and the use of "extraordinary renditions" of terror suspects to other countries. The various CIA leak lies. The various lies surrounding the Abramoff/Delay/Frist/Coingate/Randy Cunningham scandals. The Armstrong Williams/Maggie Gallagher/et al. propaganda links. The Jeff Gannon bullshit. And on an on...
Unfortunately, the boys haven't paid a political price for these lies. Sure, the 2005 elections of Democratic governors in Virginia and New Jersey hint at bad times to come for the GOP, but they haven't actually arrived just yet.
And Georgie Boy and Big Time Cheney and Karl and Karen and the rest of the GOP propagandists/apologists seem to believe they can keep trouble at bay by spinning away reality into easily digestible talking points for television, lying about the past, present, and future, and swift boating all opponents of their policies as "traitors."
Until somebody makes these fuckers pay a price for their lies, half-truths, and crimes against the nation, this behavior isn't going to change.
This is why they think they can get away with ignoring the "Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera" story. They figure they'll get away with this lie and/or half-truth the way they've gotten away with all of the others in the past.
So far they're right. But we'll see how long they can go stonewalling the story.
