Larry Johnson-Bush&Blair Hyped Terror Threat-To Bury Sy Hersh's Iran Story

[kpete]

Bush's Weapon of Mass Deception
by
Larry C Johnson

It is a week since news broke in London about an alleged plot to blow up nine commercial jetliners and there are emerging indicators that Bush and Blair exaggerated the truth about the actual readiness of the so-called plot. And yes, I mean so-called plot. Why would Bush and Blair hype a terrorist threat? A very simple answer. The White House was on notice that Seymour Hersh's story that the Bush Administration encouraged Israel to invade Lebanon as part of a broader scheme to set the stage for war with Iran. Tony Blair, Bush's enabler, went along with the ruse.

...............

I have no doubt that British intelligence had succeeded in penetrating a group of Muslim extremists who had big dreams about hurting the United States but they lacked a viable terrorist plan ready for execution. We also know that the Bush Administration, who was being regularly briefed by the Brits about the plot, pushed London to act prematurely. What is particularly galling is that no one at the Bush White House apparently felt compelled to look for ways to boost aviation security in the United States. Instead, they sought to create a firestorm of fear in order to distract public attention from the devastating article written by Sy Hersh. One of Sy's key points:

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact

That is the kind of news the White House would like to bury, particularly as a ceasefire took hold in Lebanon that left Hizbullah standing ten feet tall. As Keith Olberman showed the other night, the Bush Administration has been zealous about trotting out bogus threats when there is political bad news afoot. If I'm right about this latest incident, Keith Olberman has a new item to add to his list of ten.

more at:
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/bushs_weapon_of.html

[spindrifter]

1. How many times did BushCo claim that

they did not give advice to Israel about its military operations? C*ndi said it. The Chimp said it. That was their pull away theme whenever anyone said it was time for them to push early cease-fire and negotiations. It's not a matter of credibility with ChimpCo--it's determining the incredibility quotient for their memes.

[young_at_heart]

2. One wonders if Tony will EVER stand up to Bush

I wish he could be like Hugh Grant's PM in "Love Actually".

[City Lights]

13. The BFEE must have the goods on Tony.

If he hasn't stood up to the chimp by now, I doubt he ever will.

[OregonBlue]

16. Stand up to Bush? From what I read he's behind him 100% and is

also a religious nutcase! Believes fully in this "bringing freedom to the middle east" crap and definitely thinks the oil should belong to the West so they won't be held captive by radical fundamentalism.

[immoderate]

3. K/R

--IMM

[redacted]

4. KICK

[babylonsister]

5. Wow. And I thought it was only to bury the dead Iraq/soldier/war

story.

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. Jon Stewart's slam of CNN's TERRA TERRA TERRA scare programming

hits just the right note to complement this. Thread with a video link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1930230

[Emit]

7. Seems Sy Hersh has been a thorn in Cheney's side for a long time...

Here's an excerpt from Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann.

It wasn't long before Cheney was taking over larger, more important assignments, standing in as Rumsfeld's alter ego when the chief of staff was occupied elsewhere. One natural area for Cheney was intelligence: He was trustworthy, faceless and unfailingly discreet. During the Ford years the CIA was trying to fend off an unending series of press and congressional investigations and, with them, efforts by the Justice Department to establish new rules and guidelines to govern intelligence collection. In May 1975 the New York Times published a story by Seymour Hersh describing the US intelligence community's secret effort to lift a sunken Soviet submarine off the seabed in the Pacific Ocean. Cheney was in charge of the meetings aimed at trying to figure out if the Ford administration should take legal action against the newspaper. Cheney's handwritten notes show that he actively considered a number of countermeasures, such as seeking an indictment of Hersh and the Times or even obtaining a warrant to search Hersh's apartment. The aim, Cheney wrote, was "to discourage the NYT and other publications from similar actions." In the end Cheney and the White House decided to back off after the intelligence community decided its work had not been significantly damaged. Rise of the Vulcans, pp 60-61

Cheney's history with 'dealing' with them (Hersh as an investigative journalist and the press as a whole), heading up intelligence assignments to try to fend off the press, etc., I thought was interesting.

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. Very interesting and new to me. Does add some interest to his notated

copy of Joseph Wilson's newspaper article on the Niger yellowcake-that-wasn't-there. Cheney has been a monster for a long time.

[bleever]

8. Thank you, kpete, for this thread

and all the others you post.

:thumbsup:

[AntiFascist]

9. Interesting, not only is the Bush admin unable to run a war against Iraq..

they can't even plan one successfully for Israel against a lesser enemy.

[librechik]

10. I thought it was to bury the Government lied to the 9/11 Commision story

from Keane and Hamilton's book

[Hubert Flottz]

11. K&R

[Annces]

14. Bushco cares about America the way Ken Lay cared about Enron

not at all.

[SpiralHawk]

15. Bush and republicons lie lie lie lie lie lie to the American people

How un-Christian. How un-American. How un-moral.

[countryjake]

17. kick

[Joanne98]

18. Google "Jesus Plus Nothing" Blair is a member of "The Family"

He's not being used. He's one of them.