Intro to Clarke 101

A few days ago, a friend of mine forwarded a message from her right-wing brother, insisting that anything former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke says which is in any way hurtful to the President is some sort of partisan Democratic conspiracy.

Her brother was blissfully unaware that Clarke is Republican, apparently.

She asked me to compile a few links that might educate a guy who relies on White House press releases for information, emphasizing the recent historic pattern within this administration of lying. And so this is what I sent:

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...I haven't seen the original comments [she sent to her brother], but I assume it relates to R. Clarke's reporting on what went on in the Bush White House.

Clarke has served 7 U.S. Presidents and has a 30 year career in government service, his book comes out at about the right amount of time (1 year of work after his resignation) both in terms of how long it took to write and when it's most likely to sell, and his complaints are reinforced by similar complaints made by former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, a man who was considered to have impeccable conservative/business credentials prior to his firing for disagreeing that tax cuts for the wealthy were a good idea.

Clarke's testimony to the 9/11 commission will be FASCINATING.

SO. While conservatives aren't big on facts (his facts will probably be White House Press Releases!!) My recommendations would be:

Clarke to Testify Wednesday (9/22/04, page with NPR audio file) About Clarke's reputation and allegations. Clarke was "Intensely loyal and mostly apolitical." Includes gripes by Bush Administration about the timing. "One of the nation's finest public servants."

BEST: 9/11 Commission Set to Convene (9/22/04, page with NPR audio file) Clarke issued repeated warnings to the Bush Administration, and was not allowed to brief Bush until after 9/11. "On 1/24/01 I wrote a memo to [Condi] asking for - URGENTLY, underlined, URGENTLY - a cabinet level meeting to deal with the impending Al Queda attack. And that urgent memo wasn't acted on." The response was basically that Bush had a plan anyway, and took Al Queda "seriously," and that was enough. (Condi has basically said this in her recent responses.) Clarke also says he was pushed to find a link to Iraq. Includes gripes by Bush Administration about the timing.

Audio interview with investigative reporter Michael Elliott on The World. January 2001 proposals to stop Al Queda didn't please Bush Administration, so they took a very long time to come up with new, grander proposals to eliminate Al Queda. Bush was skeptical about what he was told, and Condi wasn't impressed by the briefings. This is a non-partisan critique of the systemic transition problem.

Paul O'Neill, who was fired for publicly disagreeing with Bush over the merits of tax cuts, made statements supporting Clark's assertion that Bush's people only cared about Iraq. (BBC) Small excerpt:

The author of the new book, Ron Suskind, told CBS that he had received documents from Mr O'Neill and others which showed that during Mr Bush's first 100 days in office his officials were already looking at military options to remove Saddam from power.

O'Neill has also said he never saw evidence of the existence of WMDs - and he was in the cabinet! (This one is also fun, just for its harshness: [comments about dysfunctional administration]. (BBC))

Perhaps things would have gone smoother if Bush hadn't been on vacation so much: Ask Yahoo points out that "Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation." (ask.yahoo.com) (The appropriate right-wing defense to this, by the way, is 'at least it wasn't with an intern.' Because THAT is a meaningful response, hee hee...)

If your brother chooses to use any White House statements to refute Clarke, he'll have a hard time, considering all the documented lies that Bush has been caught telling:

pantsonfire.net Catalogs of lies
Caught On Film (a good catalog)
Bushlies.com (yes, there's a BOOK full of them)
whodies.com
bushwatch.com
buzzflash.com's compilation (July 2003 chart of lies known at that time)
Alterman's comments on how the press is shy about calling Bush a liar, but were fine with saying so about Clinton (thenation.com)
an example of the press being unwilling to call Bush a liar, yet listing some of his "flights of fancy" which aren't true (Washington Post)

And if you want to torment him with opinion, this is short and sweet: Paul Krugman's "Weak on Terror" points out that Bush has given Al Qaeda huge amounts of time to regroup while focusing on non-threatening, WMD-less Iraq. (originally in the NY Times, now at dailystar.com and elsewhere)

The two stories that have dominated the U.S. news in recent days, are the change of government in Spain, and the revelations by a counter-terrorism expert who has worked for four presidents that Bush ignored his warnings that could have prevented the September 11th attacks.

The dramatic loss by Spain's ruling party and rise of socialists there (BBC) is widely seen as a reaction to the recent terrorist train attack there, in the context that the ruling party created new enemies by siding with Bush on Iraq over 90% public opposition.

"It's the first time I voted. I feel very happy because the government had to change... because of the Iraq war," a Spanish law student told the BBC.

In the United States, the Spanish results have been met with surprise: culturally, Americans believe that it's disloyal to let such an event impact local decisions. One colleague told me that they shouldn't have 'changed their minds just because they got hit,' and found it unlikely that decisions unpopular with 90% of the populace made more than a year ago could have been influential. (!)

If the U.S. were attacked again, "the traditional effect is a rally," unless people blame the Administration for failing to protect them. (seattletimes) [There's a new poll that theoretically supports this position, but I can't find it.]

And then there are the revelations by Richard Clark that the Bush Administration was so obsessed with Iraq that they virtually ignored Al Queda. (BBC) A friend watched Clark's recent appearance on television, and couldn't figure out why his story wasn't on the front page of all our papers. A day later, it largely was: recent coverage includes this live chat in the Washington Post with GREAT links about Clark's allegations, Bush's non-action on counter-terrorism information put forward by Clinton's people, and links to documents elsewhere and on the Post's own site. Also see this BBC article.

As Clark partly predicted, the Bush Administration is harmed by his statements, and so had to attempt to discredit him. As I joked with friends, the Administration had to decide whether to allege that Clark is either a) a disgruntled former employee; b) a pedophile; c) a Clinton-lover trying to cover for Clinton's own failure to pre-emptively kill bin Laden (really, this is a turn some right-wing blogs have taken, perhaps to make excuses for Bush's inaction in what Franken called Operation Ignore); d) a member of Al Qaeda; or e) a complete nutcase. a) appears to be their working plan, questioning the motives of anyone who would publish such a thing during the election season. They have to defend this situation with energy, because this is the second departed official with criticism, former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill having also been harsh on the Administration, despite his own conservative/business credentials.

The Invasion of Iraq: One Year of War and Occupation

The promised 'cakewalk' for control of Iraq turned into a war that cost more than 10,000 civilian lives (Iraqbodycount.net), more than 500 U.S. soldier's lives (washingtonpost.com), and the maiming of thousands more (Iraqometer.com). The weapons of mass destruction which were supposedly an imminent threat to Americans do not appear to exist. The former US ally-turned-monstrous threat turned out to be an old man hiding in a dirty hole rather than an all-powerful arch-villain with his finger on a red button. Many of the Iraqi people are relieved that their tyrannical ex-ruler is gone (aside from those who benefitted from his rule, of course), but fear that they are now being occupied by a stronger tyrant - the US military and the US Provisional Authority which are busy privatizing Iraqi public assetts.

On March 20th, the anniversary of the US' invasion of Iraq, people around the world expressed their opposition to the use of war and to the occupation.

Selected news and images:
-San Francisco peace march photos (by me); SF peace march photos 2 and 3; Scenes from arrests at an SF breakaway march; March and Bikes Not Bombs; and scary stuff: video of police attacking people on sidewalk
-German Indymedia's compilation of M20 protest images from around the world
-International Indymedia's compilation of links to demonstration news and images as reported from around the world, including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Belgium, Chicago, Crawford (Texas), Dublin (Ireland, not our Dublin), Goeteborg (Sweden), East Timor, London, and 9 other locations.
-New York peace march photos
-Iraq anti-occupation demonstration photos (featuring lively commentary on the fact that the Iraqis are allowed to protest means everything is fine, and so all those pesky civilian deaths and extrajudicial killings must be okey dokey)
-Barcelona for peace
-Phillipines (Manila) protest photos
-BBC worldwide protest overview and photos from around the globe. According to the BBC, there were protests in New York, Rome (300,000), London (25,000), New York, Chicago, SF, Los Angeles, Budapest, Mardrid (100,000), Barcelona (200,000), Sydney, Tokyo (30,000), and unspecified locations in Chile, Venezuela, Brazil, Thailand, the Phillipines, Hong Kong, and various Middle Eastern capitals. (This article insists there were no protests in Baghdad; the Indymedia image collection suggests otherwise.)
-SF Chronicle coverage of local protests.