JFK and George Bush

[John Simkin]

The other day someone in San Francisco said that the main difference between JFK and George Bush concerned empathy. That JFK was aware of the way the US was perceived in other countries. This is why he was not keen to be seen as overthrowing Castro. It also explains his views on civil rights (it was also the reason why Eisenhower began to change his views on the subject).

A chap in Dallas told me an interesting story. His father left Greece after the Second World War. He made a great success of living in the US and in the early 1980s he returned to Greece on holiday. He was shocked by the hatred he encountered in Greece. The Greeks of course knew all about how the CIA had undermined democracy in Greece before supporting the military dictatorship. His son learnt from this experience and is active in opposition to Bush's foreign policies.

I was talking to an oil executive from Houston today. He had suprisingly liberal views and was a harsh critic of Bush's policies in Iraq. This oil executive had spent many years working in Europe and as a result saw America in a fresh light. As he pointed out, the main problem is that only around 20% of Americans own a passport and therefore have little idea of how non-Americans see the world.

It seems that things are changing. I have yet to meet anyone who is willing to say that they support Bush's policy in Iraq. I was in an elevator with a woman while in Dallas. When she recognised my English accent she said what an idiot Blair had been to follow Bush. I should point out that she was not attending the JFK Lancer conference (most delegates appeared to be left of centre).

Even the media appear to be giving Bush's opponents a fair chance of expressing their opinions. As someone in San Francisco said to me on Tuesday night, the mood is changing. He compared it to the feeling after Watergate. The people are beginning to realize they were lied to by Bush. The Americans are clearly a patriotic lot and are therefore open to being exploited by their government. It will not be long before they will be seeking to punish those responsible.

However, is there another JFK waiting in the wings?

[Lynne Foster]

Those responsible are ultimately former Nixon officials, Rummie and Cheney.

Bush is like the Queen of England, and Maureen Dowds calls him the Boy King.

I don't think that anybody will be held accountable because despite the ocassional leak, everything is distorted, twisted and denied.

If they can't even get Karl Rove on what I think is a transparent leak on his part, I don't think that anybody will be held accountable for anything, and the proof is that even 911 survivors were stymied by the Bush clan, when they demanded answers.

Edited November 25, 2005 by Lynne Foster

[Ron Ecker]

However, is there another JFK waiting in the wings?

No, the American sheeple are going right back to the Clintons. Rotating crime families. That is, if the neocons, with their figurehead leader for 2008 likely being Condi Rice, are not allowed by the powers that be to steal yet another election.

[Lynne Foster]

However, is there another JFK waiting in the wings?

No, the American sheeple are going right back to the Clintons. Rotating crime families. That is, if the neocons, with their figurehead leader for 2008 likely being Condi Rice, are not allowed by the powers that be to steal yet another election.

That's the real problem.

After Al Gore was successfully "raped" , John Kerry and John Edwards let Karl Rove get away with it again.

Why expect any different, the next time around, when chad-free computers do not provide the opportunity to confirm election results?

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

The people are beginning to realize they were lied to by Bush.

There he goes again.

All US governmennt leaders, including Congress, had access to the same intelligence information Bush had. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Democrat leaders in Congress were equally convinced that Iraq had WMD.

The fault, it seems, was with the intelligence agencies and specifically the CIA, which was being run by a Clinton appointee.

[John Simkin]

John wrote:

The people are beginning to realize they were lied to by Bush.

There he goes again.

All US governmennt leaders, including Congress, had access to the same intelligence information Bush had. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Democrat leaders in Congress were equally convinced that Iraq had WMD.

The fault, it seems, was with the intelligence agencies and specifically the CIA, which was being run by a Clinton appointee.

You can chant this as much as you like, the majority of the American people will not believe it. (The same thing is happening in the UK with Tony Blair). Bush and Blair "cherry picked" the intelligence. When the CIA and MI5 said that the information came from one unreliable source, Bush and Blair interpreted it as saying the intelligence services were convinced it was true. The publication of these intelligence reports showed that they misled their respective publics (I prefer the term "lied"). As a result Bush and Blair have blood on their hands. With the help of the media, Bush and Blair were both reelected. However, that will not save them from the historians. Both will be rightly regarded as politicians who lied in order to followed an agenda supported by their financial backers. It will not be long before Bush will be seen as a president as crooked as Richard Nixon. Maybe they will end up with something else in common. Bush, like Nixon, might be brought down by the CIA.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

You can chant this as much as you like, the majority of the American people will not believe it. (The same thing is happening in the UK with Tony Blair). Bush and Blair "cherry picked" the intelligence.

Proof, please.

Is it your contention then that all the Democrats who also stated that Iraq had WMD also hand-picked their intelligence?

Do you agree that members of Congress had access to the same intelligence as Bush did? If so, why did no one question the existence of WMD?

Regardless of how many people believe it, Bush did not lie about WMD.

[John Simkin]

Is it your contention then that all the Democrats who also stated that Iraq had WMD also hand-picked their intelligence?

Like the Labour and Conservative parties in the UK, the Democrats believed what their leader told them. Remember, neither the House of Commons or Congress had full access to the intelligence. Instead they had to rely on the interpretations of this evidence by Bush and Blair. These politicians took the view that these two men would not lie in order to take their nations into an illegal war. They were wrong. However, not enough of them are willing to say they were fooled by their leaders. The polls show that in the UK (and increasingly in the US) the public now realize what happened.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

Remember, neither the House of Commons or Congress had full access to the intelligence. Instead they had to rely on the interpretations of this evidence by Bush and Blair. These politicians took the view that these two men would not lie in order to take their nations into an illegal war.

John, significantly, here is where we differ and it may explain our different viewpoints.

It is my understanding that very single member of Congress had access to the very same intelligence that Bush had. Whether the same is true for the House of Commons is not commonplace knowledge in the US.

But to make your point that Bush lied I would think you would have to show that he had access to intelligence reports stating that Iraq did not have WMD. Moreover, you would also have to prove that Bush had reason to believe those reports rather than reports stating that Iraq did have such weapons. Otherwise he presumably had the option of using his judgment to select one set of reports rather than another. If his judgment was wrong, that was a judgment call, not a lie.

But I do not think you can even identify a single intelligence report that argued that Iraq had no WMD.

Can you?

[Robert Howard]

John wrote:

Remember, neither the House of Commons or Congress had full access to the intelligence. Instead they had to rely on the interpretations of this evidence by Bush and Blair. These politicians took the view that these two men would not lie in order to take their nations into an illegal war.

John, significantly, here is where we differ and it may explain our different viewpoints.

It is my understanding that very single member of Congress had access to the very same intelligence that Bush had. Whether the same is true for the House of Commons is not commonplace knowledge in the US.

But to make your point that Bush lied I would think you would have to show that he had access to intelligence reports stating that Iraq did not have WMD. Moreover, you would also have to prove that Bush had reason to believe those reports rather than reports stating that Iraq did have such weapons. Otherwise he presumably had the option of using his judgment to select one set of reports rather than another. If his judgment was wrong, that was a judgment call, not a lie.

But I do not think you can even identify a single intelligence report that argued that Iraq had no WMD.

Can you?

Those responsible are ultimately former Nixon officials, Rummie and Cheney.

Bush is like the Queen of England, and Maureen Dowds calls him the Boy King.

I don't think that anybody will be held accountable because despite the ocassional leak, everything is distorted, twisted and denied.

If they can't even get Karl Rove on what I think is a transparent leak on his part, I don't think that anybody will be held accountable for anything, and the proof is that even 911 survivors were stymied by the Bush clan, when they demanded answers.

Lynne, I agree with you 100% as well as the post about chad-free elections. The phenomenon of Operation Mockingbird, is highly sophisticated. When Andersen Cooper went ballistic during Hurrican Katrina, it was to me a breath of "new" air. Gee someone who is actually high-profile calling the Bush admiinistration on the carpet about the obvious "our government can't handle anything properly unless it involves

1. Scaring the hell out of the American people, ala constant unrelenting references to 9-11

2. Lies, deception and obfuscating the truth.

There are a couple of acute problems in resolving this mess, both of which require an American public that is not "fiddling while Rome burns".

1. Restoring the Fairness in Media Act, jettisoned during the Reagan administration. This was the beginnning of "The Troubles."

2. Requiring every American to read "Manufacturing Consent" by Noam Chomsky.

# 2 is pure pie in the sky, but I am trying to make the point that IMO there are people in every era and geographic locale that are more than willing to bury their head in the sand while there is "a necessity to take care of business."

Only when the situation (the obvious realization that this is the most corrupt administration in the history of the US) and something happens that is the proverbial last straw (as far as the American people are concerned) are the "people" going to hit the streets. I am of mixed opinions to just what kind of encore the Bush administrration is capable to emitting, but they are on a roll as they say, and I am not talking about "French or Kaiser."

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

John wrote:

Remember, neither the House of Commons or Congress had full access to the intelligence. Instead they had to rely on the interpretations of this evidence by Bush and Blair. These politicians took the view that these two men would not lie in order to take their nations into an illegal war.

John, significantly, here is where we differ and it may explain our different viewpoints.

It is my understanding that very single member of Congress had access to the very same intelligence that Bush had. Whether the same is true for the House of Commons is not commonplace knowledge in the US.

Tim, you can parrot this lie from now until doomsday, but that shan't make it true. Congressional members received from the Bush White House only the "finished" intelligence reports. They did not have access to the "raw" data upon which that "finished" product was based. For example, we now come to learn what the Bushies knew at the time - but declined to provide to Congress: that a single report from a "known drunk" was confabulated into a "hard fact," etc., etc. The Bushies had ample reason to suspect the veracity of certain reports, but utilized them anyway for their own purpose, without making Congress aware of the shaky basis for those reports. By providing Congress with only the "reasons to believe," while withholding the "reasons to disbelieve," the Bushies achieved their desired result. To now say that "Congress had the very same intelligence we did" only compounds the first set of lies with a new, bigger one.

But to make your point that Bush lied I would think you would have to show that he had access to intelligence reports stating that Iraq did not have WMD. Moreover, you would also have to prove that Bush had reason to believe those reports rather than reports stating that Iraq did have such weapons. Otherwise he presumably had the option of using his judgment to select one set of reports rather than another. If his judgment was wrong, that was a judgment call, not a lie.

You make it appear as though a group of open-minded individuals cast about for the best intelligence and then made an objective and impartial decision. Those who have since left or defected from the Bush White House [Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neil, et al] have made it clear that this was not so; that only certain points of view were welcome and entertained, while others were unwelcome and eschewed entirely. While certain contemporaneous CIA reports have subsequently emerged questioning the premise that WMD did exist in Iraq, Bush was seemingly content to settle for Tenet's assertion that their existence was a "slam dunk." Unless and until we have a comprehensive and independent investigation of how intelligence may have been manipulated, we don't know how high up the food-chain such contrary CIA reports were allowed to travel, or who saw them, or who may have deep-sixed them. Once we have such an investigation, we'll be better able to assess whether these were just bad "judgment calls" or outright lies. In the meantime, it is instructive to recall that when Colin Powell was asked what opinion he'd given the President during the meetings at which the course toward war was established, he made it clear that if such a meeting had ever taken place, he had not been invited. If a President excludes his own Secretary of State from such a high level confab, does this not indicate clearly that potentially contrary opinions were unwelcome?

But I do not think you can even identify a single intelligence report that argued that Iraq had no WMD.

Can you?

Well, it's rather a silly question, isn't it? In the absence of a true investigation, how does one locate and access the very reports that the Bush White House stands accused of having deep-sixed? [including the contemporaneous contrary CIA reports alluded to above.] Do you really think that the Bush White House will accommodatingly hand over the very reports they are accused of having hidden from Congress in the past? To do so would be an admission of fraud, so how anxious will the Bushies be to provide us with evidence of their own perfidy? And given that these reports will carry some relatively high level of classification, how likely is it that others will float them for public consumption, when doing so carries a potential criminal risk?

I would, however, like to point out that my own government was strong-armed into participating in the Iraq war, yet chose - wisely, it seems - to decline, despite heavy pressure from a White House hostile to our position. I'd love to tell you upon what basis that Canadian government decision was made, but then, our government is no more forthcoming with classified intelligence than any other. However, it seems that it must have had sufficient reason to disbelieve the WMD rationale, or our soldiers would also be in the Iraq theatre, just as they are currently serving in Afghanistan.

[Robert Howard]

John wrote:

Remember, neither the House of Commons or Congress had full access to the intelligence. Instead they had to rely on the interpretations of this evidence by Bush and Blair. These politicians took the view that these two men would not lie in order to take their nations into an illegal war.

John, significantly, here is where we differ and it may explain our different viewpoints.

It is my understanding that very single member of Congress had access to the very same intelligence that Bush had. Whether the same is true for the House of Commons is not commonplace knowledge in the US.

Tim, you can parrot this lie from now until doomsday, but that shan't make it true. Congressional members received from the Bush White House only the "finished" intelligence reports. They did not have access to the "raw" data upon which that "finished" product was based. For example, we now come to learn what the Bushies knew at the time - but declined to provide to Congress: that a single report from a "known drunk" was confabulated into a "hard fact," etc., etc. The Bushies had ample reason to suspect the veracity of certain reports, but utilized them anyway for their own purpose, without making Congress aware of the shaky basis for those reports. By providing Congress with only the "reasons to believe," while withholding the "reasons to disbelieve," the Bushies achieved their desired result. To now say that "Congress had the very same intelligence we did" only compounds the first set of lies with a new, bigger one.

But to make your point that Bush lied I would think you would have to show that he had access to intelligence reports stating that Iraq did not have WMD. Moreover, you would also have to prove that Bush had reason to believe those reports rather than reports stating that Iraq did have such weapons. Otherwise he presumably had the option of using his judgment to select one set of reports rather than another. If his judgment was wrong, that was a judgment call, not a lie.

You make it appear as though a group of open-minded individuals cast about for the best intelligence and then made an objective and impartial decision. Those who have since left or defected from the Bush White House [Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neil, et al] have made it clear that this was not so; that only certain points of view were welcome and entertained, while others were unwelcome and eschewed entirely. While certain contemporaneous CIA reports have subsequently emerged questioning the premise that WMD did exist in Iraq, Bush was seemingly content to settle for Tenet's assertion that their existence was a "slam dunk." Unless and until we have a comprehensive and independent investigation of how intelligence may have been manipulated, we don't know how high up the food-chain such contrary CIA reports were allowed to travel, or who saw them, or who may have deep-sixed them. Once we have such an investigation, we'll be better able to assess whether these were just bad "judgment calls" or outright lies. In the meantime, it is instructive to recall that when Colin Powell was asked what opinion he'd given the President during the meetings at which the course toward war was established, he made it clear that if such a meeting had ever taken place, he had not been invited. If a President excludes his own Secretary of State from such a high level confab, does this not indicate clearly that potentially contrary opinions were unwelcome?

But I do not think you can even identify a single intelligence report that argued that Iraq had no WMD.

Can you?

Well, it's rather a silly question, isn't it? In the absence of a true investigation, how does one locate and access the very reports that the Bush White House stands accused of having deep-sixed? [including the contemporaneous contrary CIA reports alluded to above.] Do you really think that the Bush White House will accommodatingly hand over the very reports they are accused of having hidden from Congress in the past? To do so would be an admission of fraud, so how anxious will the Bushies be to provide us with evidence of their own perfidy? And given that these reports will carry some relatively high level of classification, how likely is it that others will float them for public consumption, when doing so carries a potential criminal risk?

I would, however, like to point out that my own government was strong-armed into participating in the Iraq war, yet chose - wisely, it seems - to decline, despite heavy pressure from a White House hostile to our position. I'd love to tell you upon what basis that Canadian government decision was made, but then, our government is no more forthcoming with classified intelligence than any other. However, it seems that it must have had sufficient reason to disbelieve the WMD rationale, or our soldiers would also be in the Iraq theatre, just as they are currently serving in Afghanistan.

Tim, you recently stated on one of your post's that "I sleep better when a Republican is in the White House." Care to expound on that a little?

Edited November 25, 2005 by Robert Howard

[John Simkin]

I would, however, like to point out that my own government was strong-armed into participating in the Iraq war, yet chose - wisely, it seems - to decline, despite heavy pressure from a White House hostile to our position. I'd love to tell you upon what basis that Canadian government decision was made, but then, our government is no more forthcoming with classified intelligence than any other. However, it seems that it must have had sufficient reason to disbelieve the WMD rationale, or our soldiers would also be in the Iraq theatre, just as they are currently serving in Afghanistan.

Other governments like those in Germany and France came to the same conclusion as the Canadian administration. Yet in the run up to the war Bush and Blair claimed that their intelligence agencies had the same information that they had. If you remember, the information coming out of Niger originally came from the Italian intelligence service (although Bush falsely claimed that it had been investigated and corroborated by MI6).

However, to return to my original point. JFK was a much travelled man who had a good understanding of how the world saw the United States (Tim, how many times have you left the US, or are you part of the 80% who does not have a passport). Bush has never been able to grasp the fact that the whole world is highly suspicious of the motives of the American government. They are especially aware of the way that organizations like the CIA have undermined democracies in the Western world and helped to overthrow those leaders in the underdeveloped world who they saw as having a reform agenda that posed a threat to the Military Industrial Congressional Complex in the US. This was in fact my entry point into the JFK assassination.

The reason why the full truth of events like the JFK assassination and Watergate have not emerged is that the US contains too many people like Tim who are willing to believe the lies that its government tell them. Most of the US members of this Forum have seen through this brainwashing process. Tim is still a prisoner of his "American" consciousness. While this remains the case, he has little to offer the research community, other than of course, illustrating the problem we face in trying to reveal the truth to the American public.

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

However, to return to my original point. JFK was a much travelled man who had a good understanding of how the world saw the United States (Tim, how many times have you left the US, or are you part of the 80% who does not have a passport).

Recently it was revealed that 7 out of 10 members of Congress do not hold a passport, a rather shocking stat given that these are theoretically the most worldly members of the US populace. Likewise, it has been asserted that Bush didn't hold his first passport until after he was installed as President. While I cannot vouch for the veracity of the latter report, if true, it is an indication of the kind of isolationist navel-gazing that leads to tragedies such as we are now watching unfold in living colour.

[Dawn Meredith]

John wrote:

Robert, I don't know exactly what you do for a living, but have you ever considered a career in tv journalism? The cable news stations here could REALLY use a guy like you!!!

Perhaps you may just one day even displace Tim's "thinking errors"

This blind patriotism that "just hears what (they) want to hear and disregard(s) the rest" is hard for me to comprehend. But then I have never understood right- wing Republican-speak in any fashion. It's like living, non- stop in a "1984" world.

I will come right out and say it: The Bush administration LIED, imho.

And no Tim, don't even bother asking me for "proof". Robert does a brilliant job of providing the proof

in all his posts and you still just refuse to get it, or accept it.

Dawn