Twenty-Two Things We Now Know Six Years After 9/11

From Scoop -- Twenty-Two Things We Now Know Six Years After 9/11.

I've summarised the article; the actual text is much more thorough. Read it at your own peril; sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

9/11 and "the War on Terror"

1. Iraq Plan Preceeded 9/11
Planning for an attack on Iraq already had begun at the first cabinet meetings after Inauguration Day in early 2001; after 9/11, those plans proceeded apace...
2. Unanswered 9/11 Questions
There still are unanswered questions about the horrific events of September 11, 2001...
3. The Facts of 9/11
Bush & Co. had to be dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing to the appointment of the official 9/11 Commission, and they named one of their own 'made' men as the executive director...
4. PNAC & the Neo-Cons
The key neo-con leaders in charge of U.S. foreign/military policy were founders of, and affiliated with, The Project for The New American Century (PNAC), a Far Right segment of the conservative movement was dedicated to using America's sole superpower status to move aggressively in the world while, they believed, no other country or international force could put up much resistance...

The Iraq Invasion and Occupation
5. Sexing Up the Intel
Among the first moves by Rumsfeld following 9/11 was to somehow try to connect Saddam to the terror attacks. The various intelligence agencies reported to Rumsfeld that there was no Iraq connection to 9/11, and that it was an al-Qaida operation, but those findings were merely bothersome impediments...
6. The Big Lie & the Downing Street Revelations
Advisers warned Tony Blair that he was about to involve the U.K. in an illegal, immoral and probably unwinnable war that would put U.K. and U.S. troops in great danger from potential insurgent forces...
7. Iran Is Beneficiary of U.S. Policy
The real reasons for invading Iraq were to do with American geopolitical goals in the region involving oil, control, support for its ally Israel, hardened military bases and keeping Iran from having free rein in the region.
8. Iraq As a Disaster Zone
Bush's war in Iraq has been a thorough disaster, built on a foundation of lies, and bungled from the start...
9. The Stretched-Thin Military
Bush's Middle East agenda is suffering because the U.S. military is spread way thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, the desertion and suicide rates are high, soldiers are not re-enlisting at the usual clip, recruitment isn't working and deceptive scams are being used to lure youngsters into signing up. In short, there are no forces to spare on the ground...
10. Hiding Facts from the Public

Bush&Co. made sure that there would be no full-scale, independent probes of their role in using and abusing the intelligence that led to war on Iraq...

The Turn to Tyranny at Home

11. Perilously Close to Dictatorship
Legal philosophies devised that permit Bush to do pretty much what he wants -- ignore laws on the books, disappear U.S. citizens into military prisons, authorize torture, spy on citizens' phone calls and emails, declare martial law and rule by decree, etc. -- whenever he says he's acting as "commander-in-chief" during "wartime"...
12. Torture As Official U.S. Policy
Bush-loyalist lawyers devised legal rationales that make torture of suspects official state policy, greatly widened the definition of what is acceptable interrogation practice -- basically anything this side of death or terminally abusing internal organs -- and authorized the "rendering" of key suspects to countries specializing in extreme torture...
13. The Bill of Rights Goes "Quaint"
The Bush Administration has been able to obtain whatever legislation it needs in its self-proclaimed "war on terror" by utilizing, and hyping, the understandable fright of the American people...
14. Outing CIA Agents for Political Reasons
The Bush Administration, for its own crass political reasons, compromised American national security by revealing the identity of two key intelligence operatives...
15. Do You Know If Your Vote Is Counted?
Sophisticated statistical analysis along with wide-scale exit-polling suggests strongly that the 2004 election results were fiddled with by the private companies that tally the votes -- companies which are owned by far-right Republican supporters...
16. No Privacy Anymore
Shortly after 9/11, CheneyBush authorized massive data-mining of Americans' phone calls and emails, along with other domestic spying operations, many of them in clear violation of the FISA law establishing a separate, secret court to rule on requests for eavesdropping warrants...
17. Purging the Body Politic
CheneyBush, angered by the unwillingness of the intelligence analysts at the CIA and State Department to cook the intel books for political reasons, conducted purges of recalcitrant analysts at CIA and State...
18. There Is No Real Economic Plan
The Bush Administration paid off its backers (and itself) by giving humongous tax breaks, for the next 10 years, to the already wealthy and to large corporations. In addition, corporate tax-evasion was made easier via offshore listings and by laying off thousands of IRS auditors of high-end returns...
19. Drowning Government In a Bathtub
The HardRight conservatives who control Bush policy don't really care what kind of debt and deficits their policies cause; in some ways, the more the better since they want to shrink government "down to the size where they can drown it in the bathtub"...
20. Privatizing Government Functions
In addition to trying to privatize Social Security and other government programs, CheneyBush have begun privatizing the military, partially through its all-volunteer army and by employing mercenaries ("independent contractors")...
21. Who Cares What You Drink or Breathe?
Bush environmental policy is an unmitigated disaster, giving pretty much free rein to corporations whose bottom lines do better when they don't have to pay attention to the public interest...
22. It's Faith Over Science, Myth Over Reality
How science is disregarded by the Bush Administration in favor of faith-based thinking...

I really, really do not want this horrowshow to be anywhere even approaching the truth.