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Cindy Sheehan: NIEs: Waste of Time?
By Cindy Sheehan
12/09/07 "ICH" -- -- BushCo and the Fox "News" generation have a
long history of ignoring National Intelligence Estimates (NIE).
I would say they ignore the NIEs at their own peril, but BushCo
has suffered nothing for its denial of truth and exploitation of
fear. As a matter of fact, BushCo's quest to be the global
hegemon has proceeded without any kind of check. Fox "News"
seems to be thriving and the leader of that Empire, Rupert
Murdoch, is able to usurp more media outlets in his quest for
unchallenged propaganda power as the ad hoc Minister of Dis-Information.
Literally millions of people have suffered horribly for BushCo's
crimes, and that's just in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here in our own
country (Love it or Leave it), bulldozers are demolishing low
income housing in the Gulf States that were harmed due to the
very callous incompetence of the Federal Government and to for
immoral profit privatization of everything, even education.
There has always been a war on poor people in this country, but
Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath only highlighted how deeply
racist our Nation and its policies really still are. The Every
Child Left Behind Act has been designed to transform our
children into a generation of cannon fodder and is just another
example of how everything George touches turns to rancid
garbage. Our country hovers near the bottom of the global
education barrel and is another example of how we are allowing
BushCo to make an international laughingstock out of we here in
the U.S.
On August 6, 2001, exactly 36 days before 9-11, George was
handed a Presidential Daily Briefing that was actually titled:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in the US." George was on yet
another vacation in Crawford at the time and according to Ron
Susskind, he told the agent who handed him the briefing "Okay,
you covered your ass, now." The August 6 date is stuck in my
mind forever, because exactly four years later, I marched for
the first time down Prairie Chapel Road demanding to meet with
George and ask him the question: "What Noble Cause?" That
question is still unanswered and month upon month only brings
more ignobility with no end in sight.
We all now know that BushCo ignored warnings from the Clinton
Administration about the danger that al-Qaeda posed and we also
know that they ignored intelligence that Bin Laden was
determined to strike. But after we were attacked on 9-11, we
also know that Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby, in particular,
visited the CIA on numerous times to cherry pick the
intelligence that let to the misguided and disastrous invasion
and occupation of Iraq. Bin Laden is still at large and two
countries have been destroyed for nothing.
Now we have the NIE that says that Iran has no nuclear weapon
program and has not had one since 2003. Investigative journalist
Seymour Hersh claims that BushCo has known at the highest levels
about this intelligence for over a year, but they have all been
beating their evil drums of war against Iran, nevertheless.
Was anyone really surprised when George ignored the latest NIE
and in fact has spun it for the nefarious neo-con agenda? The
NIE did what it was designed to do; it estimated that even if
Iran were to resume their uranium enrichment program today, they
would have one bomb by 2010 or 2015. This is plenty of time to
enforce the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and follow its path
of inspections and verifications to ensure that countries use
their nuclear technology for only peaceful energy purposes. Even
though I am personally opposed to nuclear energy, if Iran or any
other sovereign country, wants the technology, then stringent
guidelines should be followed. We can also use this time to
disarm all already existing nuclear weapons: from Israel to
Pakistan, from India to the U.S. and everywhere in between: such
destructive devices should not be in the hands of any country!
It especially frightens me that someone as fundamentally
irresponsible and dangerous as George Bush has his finger on the
button of our enormous arsenal. If we should be worried about
anyone being the harbinger of armageddon, it is he.
In no way can we afford another front in George's Global War of
Terror. With our federal deficit at record highs, we can't
afford it monetarily. With our armed forces past the breaking
point, we can't afford it militarily. With many internal social
systems and infrastructure systems crumbling, we can't afford it
as a suffering nation. With babies and other innocents being
killed in our names already, we can't afford it in our souls. An
invasion of Iran would not be a "cakewalk" even more profoundly
than the invasion of Iraq was not. We would lose more of our
flesh and blood for the lies of BushCo and to profit the pigs of
war.
It can be very frustrating and infuriating to most people that
the crimes of BushCo go unpunished and unchecked by Congress,
Inc., but it is very personal to me.
On the day my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, I fell on the
floor screaming in anguish. That scenario has been repeated
thousands of times here in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands of
times in Iraq and Afghanistan. So tragic and so unnecessary, but
so unnoticed by many Americans.
There are millions of people who are still alive who need our
support. To restore the rule of law and order and sanity to this
world, George and Dick must be impeached and removed from
office.
How much more evidence does Congress, Inc. need? Perhaps each
and every member needs to be smacked up one side of the head
with a copy of the Constitution and to follow up, a smack on the
other side with a copy of the Geneva Conventions?
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was
killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the
co-founder and president of
Gold Star Families for Peace and
The Camp Casey Peace Institute. For more info on her
Congressional campaign, go to
www.CindyforCongress.org.
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