a moment of silence

Let it be noted that the morning after George W. Bush announced an open-ended – possibly permanent – military occupation of Iraq the premier U.S. newspapers ran headlines about the President ordering “troop cuts,” itself a troubling reminder of how the American people got into this mess.

The New York Times’ lead headline read: “Bush Says Success Allows Gradual Troop Cuts.” The Washington Post went with: “Bush Tells Nation He Will Begin to Roll Back ‘Surge.’”

In a subhead, the Post highlighted a tidbit from its own interview with Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq: that he projected “sustainable security” in that country by mid-2009 (which would fall shortly after the sixth anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech).

Granted, the news stories did include some reasons for skepticism about Bush’s latest happy talk, including references to the assassination of the U.S.-allied Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha earlier in the day in Anbar Province and the apparent collapse of Iraqi negotiations over how to divvy up the country’s oil revenues.

Yet, despite Bush’s long history of wishful thinking – or delusions – about Iraq, the major newspapers still gave Bush the headlines he wanted.

So, Americans bustling past newsstands on their way to work would get the superficial impression that Bush was finally moving toward the Iraq exit door when he really was doing all he could to paint the country, and his presidential successor, into a corner.

While the newspapers played up Bush’s relatively modest troop cuts – 5,700 by year’s end and another 20,000 or so by July 2008 – the more significant point was that the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq would still exceed the 130,000 or so who were in Iraq last November when anti-war sentiment led to the defeat of Republicans in Congress.

In his televised address, Bush also made clear that he foresaw an indefinite U.S. military commitment to Iraq reaching “beyond my presidency,” with any possible future de-escalation tied to Bush’s new slogan, “return on success.”

So, the headlines after the Sept. 13 speech could have read: “Bush Vows Indefinite U.S. Military Occupation of Iraq.” Indeed, if Bush’s speech is remembered historically, it will almost surely be for that reason, the clearest indication yet of his imperial impulse in the Middle East.

But the major U.S. news outlets still fear diverging from the message that Bush and his right-wing allies want delivered to the American people.

More Propaganda

That was the case in 2002-03 when the same newspapers trumpeted Bush’s Iraq-WMD propaganda and in early 2005 when Bush’s “freedom agenda” was conveyed with almost no skepticism, even as Bush was eliminating the classic American principle of inalienable rights, including the habeas corpus guarantee against arbitrary imprisonment, protection against “cruel and unusual punishment, “ and prohibitions against unreasonable searches.

The news media’s timidity and/or complicity in relation to Bush and his “war on terror” policies remain a fact of life today.

When the President asserts that up is down, readers of American newspapers have to search somewhere in the jump for a carefully hedged suggestion that perhaps up is really sideways. After six years of this behavior, it’s clear that the U.S. press corps has proven no match for Bush’s cognitive dissonance.

By focusing on “troop cuts” after Bush’s endless-war speech, the newspaper headlines represent just the latest example of why large segments of the American people have lost confidence in the U.S. news media.

The public intuitively understands that national-level journalists are looking out for their careers first, way more than the public’s right to know. With a few exceptions, these well-paid media stars fear that their livelihoods would be endangered if they got on the wrong side of the administration and its brass-knuckled allies.

So the beat goes on. By jacking up the number of troops and then letting some go home, Bush gets to play an escalation of the war into a troop cut. He also gets to sell the Iraq War again as a battle necessary to thwart al-Qaeda terrorists, even though U.S. intelligence has long ago concluded that Bush’s strategy is playing into al-Qaeda’s hands.

Almost one year ago, West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center posted a captured al-Qaeda communiqué from a senior aide to Osama bin Laden, a Libyan identified as Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, to the now-deceased Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which stated in black-and-white al-Qaeda’s view of the Iraq War.

“Prolonging the war is in our interest,” the al-Qaeda letter read. Yet, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post has ever mentioned this remarkable fact. Nor have Democrats cited the “Atiyah” comment as a counterpoint to Bush’s claims that al-Qaeda wants to “drive us out” of Iraq.

The reality – as many U.S. intelligence analysts know – is that al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan see their personal survival and their movement’s growth tied to the tying down of American forces in Iraq and to the outrage that an indefinite U.S. occupation of Iraq continues to stir up in the Islamic world.

[To view the “prolonging the war” excerpt in a translation published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, click here. To read the entire letter, click here.]

Meanwhile, President Bush keeps pointing the way forward in Iraq from one mirage to another, as the United States staggers deeper into a neoconservative dreamscape of delusions.

Well, well, well. Bombs over America. Bombs in our backyard.
Bombs away!
While MS-NBC was reporting five nuclear warheads were
accidentally flown across the country last week, CNN was reporting it
was six. Nobody seems to know for sure.

We’re being told these weapons cannot detonate due to “safeguards.”

Are those the same safeguards that lost them in the first place?

We’re being told that even if there was an accident, the plutonium in
the bombs wouldn’t go far.

Bologna.

The HE (high explosives) could scatter the plutonium far and
wide. How far? How wide?

One bomb that fell off a jet years ago over Mars Bluff, South
Carolina created a hole 50 feet across and 35 feet deep when the
conventional explosives detonated. Obviously, there was no nuclear
explosion, but there was significant contamination.

Each nuclear bomb in last week’s incident — W-80 model cruise
missiles of up to 150 kilotons each — contains about 10 pounds of
highly radioactive material (Plutonium-239, possibly “supergrade”
(very low in Plutonium-240)). Additionally, there is highly
poisonous Hydrogen-3 (”tritium”) which is injected into the center of
the bomb moments before the explosion, and beryllium is used both to
initiate the explosion (as a “neutron generator”) and to reflect the
neutrons released in the initial nanoseconds of the explosion back
into the “pit.” There is also Lithium-6, and Depleted Uranium
(Uranium-238) encases the “pit.” The Uranium-238 acts as a shield to
protect the military personnel who handle the bomb. Then, at the
moment of explosion, it too will fission.

So even without a nuclear explosion, there could be an enormous
environmental problem.

And it’s not like this has never happened before. Below is only a
PARTIAL LIST of “Broken Arrows,” “Bent Spears,” “Dull Swords,” and
“Faded Giants” (endearing military terms for various levels of
nuclear weapons accidents, all short of a “Nucflash.” You can guess
what that is — it’s the one they say can’t happen (but then, why do
they have a name for it?).

March 10, 1956: A B-47 bomber with two nuclear weapons was lost over
the Mediterranean Sea. Despite an extensive search, nothing was ever
recovered.

July 28th, 1957: Off Cape May, New Jersey: Three nuclear weapons
without their fissile cores, and a “nuclear capsule” (the part that
detonates) were lost at sea and never recovered. Other reports say
only two of the nuclear weapons were jettisoned, and the other was
brought back, along with the nuclear capsule. The damaged C-124
landed at an air base near Atlantic City.

February 5th, 1958, off Tybee Island, Georgia, a 7,000 pound,
4-megaton hydrogen bomb was jettisoned after a mid-air collision
between a B-47 bomber and an F-86 fighter jet, and never
recovered. It’s still lost in the mud amongst old civil war
ordinance. The Air Force insisted the bomb was not “nuclear-capable”
(was missing the nuclear capsule) but this is probably untrue. At
least two former Air Force personnel involved in the incident
testified otherwise under oath.

November 4th, 1958, a B-47 crashed carrying a nuclear weapon.

In 1959 a B-52 crashed in Kentucky with two nuclear weapons on
board. There were no explosions.

January 24th, 1961: Near Goldsboro, North Carolina a B-52 broke
apart in mid-air. This incident was probably closest to being a
“Nucflash” because apparently FIVE OF SIX SAFETY SYSTEMS FAILED!

On December 8th, 1964, a B-58 bomber skidded off the runway, and
“portions” of five nuclear weapons burned.

In 1965 an aircraft rolled off an aircraft carrier with a “live
hydrogen bomb” and sank. Fortunately, it didn’t go off. This was
near Okinawa. Years later it was still leaking radioactive material.

On January 17th, 1966 a B-52 collided with a KC-135 refueling tanker
and crashed in Spain. Seven crew members of the KC-135 were burned
to death. The clean-up cost millions of dollars. More than a
thousand tons of dirt were brought back to America and dumped at the
Savannah River Site, but nevertheless, the cleanup was only partially
successful and people in Spain are still being sickened by the
radioactive materials that remain.

January 22nd, 1968: Near Thule, Greenland, four hydrogen bombs were
“scattered” over the ice (supposedly the contaminated ice was later
shipped to America). This incident sparked massive protests since
Greenland had banned such flights over their soil.

These accidents — and many more — and this latest incident prove
that there is no safe place for nuclear weapons. No country, no
ocean, no lake can withstand the devastation.

The last B-52 was manufactured in 1962, so the youngest the plane
that was used in this latest incident could possibly be is 45 years
old — quite possibly older than the pilot and co-pilot together. Is
this safe?

It’s time to stop this foolishness before something really terrible
happens! We’re not getting ANY BETTER at handling nukes, and firing
or demoting those involved, while proper, WON’T address the root
cause one little bit, because the root cause is that humans make
mistakes. ALL humans make mistakes, and they will continue to do so.

——————————————————————
“Nuclear weapons are designed with great care to explode only when
deliberately armed and fired. Nevertheless, there is always a
possibility that, as a result of accidental circumstances, an
explosion will take place inadvertently. Although all conceivable
precautions are taken to prevent them, such accidents might occur in
areas where weapons are assembled and stored, during the course of
loading and transportation on the ground, or when actually in the
delivery vehicle, e.g., an airplane or a missile.”

-Atomic Energy Commission/Department of Defense, The Effects of
Nuclear Weapons, 1962.

Had these bombs exploded, who do you think would have been
blamed? Al Qaeda? Iran? North Korea? China?

few will argue that Richard “DICK” Nixon was a liar and a criminal.

but LISTEN to his words from 1968.

(click arrow in top left of new window to play audio)

sounds like its time for a DICK in the whitehouse again.

when was the last time you saw a news report
relating the misery and devastation visited upon Palestinians
by Israeli jets..tanks..bulldozers and “defense forces”?

let me help you with that..

YOU HAVEN’T.

but THIS made headlines today on AP wire services

i guess ‘almost’ does count for something.