'... We're the only nation out there right now that has embraced a policy of pre-emptively using nuclear weapons in a non-nuclear environment, the current nuclear posture of the Bush administration. We're the only nation that doesn't view our nuclear weapons as a deterrence but rather as a viable tool of problem solving. Hence the renaming of certain categories of weapons as usable nuclear weapons that are fully integrated into the initial strike plans of many of our military contingencies that exist today. And what does this say? That old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely is absolutely true. Nuclear weapons give you a false sense of security. It's an argument I've made over and over again with the Israelis, that the nuclear weapon possessed by Israel only hastens the guarantee of Israel's demise. That if Israel wants to live long-term and enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity, they not only need to figure out how to live as co-equals with their Arab partners in the region but they need to get rid of their nuclear weapons. Because if you own a nuclear weapon, those who oppose you will always seek to have the equivalent of it. Iraq, when they were trying to acquire their nuclear weapon, realized it would take many years to get a nuclear weapon, and that's why they went very rapidly forward with chemical and biological weapons, strategic weapons that gave them equivalency of the Israeli nuclear weapon in terms of deterrence. Look at the tracing. We started with a nuclear bomb; the Russians got it. The Russians got it; the Chinese got it to counter the Russians. The Chinese got it; the Indians got it. The Indians got it; the Pakistanis got it. Where's it going to stop? It's never going to stop. The only way to deal with nuclear weapons is to walk that dog all the way backwards to the very beginning, and it ends with nobody having nuclear weapons. That's it.' [Audience applauds.]
Of course, the last italicized statement by Scott Ritter shown above no longer applies if Israel's Arab neighbors --are dead! Israel could conceivably "live long-term and enjoy the fruits of peace and prosperity" without "their Arab partners in the region," --especially if the United States wipes them out, which is exactly what the United States is doing! --And the 9/11 attacks-- were used as a pretext for carrying out this policy of genocide! All of this could have been calculated in advance of the 9/11 attacks, and the evidence suggests that it was.
Scheer: '...Do you think that this president has made us any safer?'
Ritter: 'The global war on terror is a misnomer. You can't have a global war on terror; it's just impossible to do that. The mistake we made on September 12th, one of many, was invoking war as a response to a criminal act. I'm not here to debate conspiracy theories on 9/11. I'm going to go with my working premise, which is, we were attacked by terrorist criminals who committed a crime by hijacking four airplanes, and then committed mass murder with these weapons. That's where I start: A crime was committed against America. A crime was committed against the world. And the appropriate response-.'... And also, TSA getting me to take my shoes off tonight at the airport. The bottom line is: A crime was committed. The appropriate response was we turn to the world as the world was willing to receive us and we say, "We must unite in defense of the rule of law." [Audience applauds.] That lawless elements cannot be tolerated in global society. Instead we declared a war on terror, and what did we do? We became terrorists ourselves. How do you differentiate between somebody flying an airplane into a building, killing 3,000 people, and an American bomber flying at 30,000 feet and dropping a 2,000-pound bomb on an Afghan wedding party because we misidentify the target? Who's the terrorist? How do we condemn the al-Qaida operatives for sneaking across the border and blowing things up?
Scheer: 'To play devil's advocate here, the one was done deliberately, the other was not.'
(How does Scheer know the other was not deliberate? He's covering up.)
Ritter: 'Terrorism is terrorism. OK, what about the MEK? What about the CIA funding of Baluchi operatives in Pakistan who crossed the border into Iran, blowing up a car bomb, killing Iranian revolutionary guards? Is that not an act of terror? Or is that an act of freedom fighters expressing their natural desire to do the right thing? The point is, the global war on terrorism is a misnomer. We have created more harm than good. Again, you don't solve a problem without defining the problem. And what we've done by reacting the way we have in Afghanistan is, we have not defeated the Taliban. NATO is getting ready to receive a major spring offensive by the Taliban. Al-Qaida not only was not defeated, al-Qaida has grown larger. When we attacked al-Qaida in 2001 when we responded on their attack on us, they numbered around 8,000 operatives. Today we're talking 30-40,000 al-Qaida operatives. They have greater bases. We've turned Iraq into a recruiting ground of Wahhabist Islamic fundamentalism of a virulent, anti-American nature. The world we live in is a much more dangerous place than you can possibly imagine because of George W. Bush's global war on terror. The smartest thing we could do is declare victory and say it's over. "The global war on terror is over. Done. We win. Now let's talk about bringing to justice criminals who violate the law on a massive scale." And then we get the world to join us. But by declaring a global war on terror, we've empowered ourselves because this is an American, unipolar world, to do things such as the expansion of NATO. ... What does the expansion of NATO have to do with the global war on terror? The Russians want to know that question, because as a response to the global war on terror we've not only expanded NATO, but we're now putting missile defense facilities in Poland and Czechoslovakia, prompting Russia to threaten to pull out of the INF treaty and build a whole new family of short-range and intermediate-range nuclear weapons armed against Europe. So ask the Europeans how safe they feel now, threatened by Soviet nuclear missiles we were supposed to have terminated in 1987. No, the world is a much more dangerous place thanks to George W. Bush.'
In his article entitled, "Dark Suspicions About 9/11," Justin Raimondo talks about what Condoleezza Rice, the FBI, and the CIA knew about the 9/11 attacks before they took place. http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2298 He focuses in Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the 911 Commission. Raimondo points to "this administration's odd disinterest in Al Qaeda in the crucial months prior to 9/11, in spite of warnings from Clarke and CIA Director George Tenet." And he talks about the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB). Congressman Kucinich also cites the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) in his Articles of Impeachment of President George W. Bush.
According to Justin Raimondo, the August 6 PDB concluded:
' "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York. The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives." '
The funny thing was, Raimondo notes, that the FBI wasn't investigating this at all:
'But, the most stunning news of the year, so far, is the FBI's denial that any such investigations as described by Ms. Rice ever existed:
' "But the FBI Friday said that those investigations were not limited to al-Qaida and did not focus on al-Qaida cells. FBI spokesman Ed Coggswell said the bureau was trying to determine how the number 70 got into the report."
'Furthermore, Rice testified that the administration's response to the threat assessment was that the FBI "tasked all 56 of its US field offices to increase surveillance of known suspected terrorists" and put pressure on informants for new leads. But, as Newsday reports: Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
