War, Terror and the Supplanting of the U.S. Constitution

Our Troops Do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So

By Jesse Richard, tvnewslies.org
August 8, 2011

Let’s make one thing crystal clear, no member of the US military contributes in any way whatsoever to protecting the freedoms of the American people. As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.

The only people on this planet Earth who can affect your freedom are members of Congress, local legislators and the members of enforcement institutions who will blindly follow the rulers who sign their paychecks. And, while your beloved troops are murdering people around the globe, yes, I said murdering, your Congress and local legislators are eliminating your freedoms, en masse, without any intervention by our so-called protectors in the armed forces.

There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so. In this modern age of information we now know that time and time again our military have been deployed into battle, to kill and be killed, for reasons that in no way shape or form resemble the reasons for which they, or we were told at the time. This is no secret, although many Americans refuse to take off the flag that is wrapped around their eyes and see American history as it really happened. They blindly believe what was told to them by the people who have a vested interest in maintaining myths and misconceptions.

The US military, not once but twice, committed the single largest mass murders in history by dropping nuclear weapons on civilian populations, including of course, on women and children. Say what you want about how it helped end the war… the bottom line is the US could have exploded these devices over uninhabited territory with the same effect of scaring the heck out of the Japanese. But they followed orders that were lies and murdered almost 300,000 people, without question. As a human being I find it hard to honor such “patriotism.”

From the Gulf of Tonkin to the first and second invasions of Iraq, history now teaches us that lies have led our troops to military intervention more often than not. As a matter of fact, it is hard to find an American military intervention in modern history in which the cover story ends up matching the actual events. A little research will show you this. It will also show you how the same people are usually behind funding both sides of military conflict and those doing the funding and instigating have almost always been, how should I say this, the ‘good guys.’ Yep, westerners on the popular side of conflict are the ones funding the ‘bad guys’ before they ever are labeled the bad guys.

Prescott Bush, the father and grandfather of George H.W. and George W. respectively, made his fortune by funding the Nazis and Hitler’s rise to power. This is the same clan who went after Saddam Hussein in Iraq after they put him in power and armed him in the first place. But why pay attention to details if it interferes with our troop worship and flag waving?

Time and time again we see that the people who make decisions to send troops to war are the very people who profit financially from such wars. Today’s troops can see this. It is part of the public record, yet they still do not question their missions. They join the military with a promise never to question orders. Taking history into account, I see no pride in this kind of service.

Recent history provides a very clear lesson for our troops and those who cheer their missions. You have never seen a more clear and egregious example of questionable motivations for military intervention than during the Bush/Cheney administration. A virtual ‘who’s who’ of defense contractors comprised not only the Defense Policy Board, but the office of Vice President. Not to mention that a significant portion of these men signed a document noting that that a ‘new Peal Harbor’ would be useful in getting public support for their agenda (to increase military spending and activity), and then – just such an attack - the first Pearl Harbor in 60 years took place on 9/11…what a nice coincidence.

Gee, what are the odds of the only ‘Pearl Harbor’ in 60 years taking place while the men responsible for preventing one (and in positions to create/allow one) were the same men who wrote about benefiting from one. But according to most Americans, it is crazy to suspect them of anything…simply because they are Americans. If Dick Cheney had been a Muslim he would have been hanged 9 years ago.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans have neither the intellectual curiosity to actually learn about historical events nor the intelligence to actually think about claims made by their leaders or pop-journalism-gate keeping-icons.

For example: Americans have swallowed whole the concept of our troops “protecting our freedom” without ever once asking “how, how does killing foreigners in Iraq or Afghanistan protect our freedom?” Maybe if they asked that question just once and really waited for an answer, a real answer that actually really made sense to them, they would realize there is no answer – because troops killing foreigners have no impact on the freedoms of the American people, and they never will.

Here is another question Americans have not asked, “How can an Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghan or Islamic fundamentalist in other nations take away our freedom?” The answer to this question is of course…by becoming a member of the US Congress.

It is sad that I will be lambasted for speaking the truth about this sensitive subject, but someone has to. The saddest truth however, is that the members of the US military serve today with no honor. They are dangerous and a threat to all free people, here and abroad. In plain terms - they volunteer to kill at the behest of people who have lied to them for generations about why they are being sent to kill. Generations of lies be dammed, they still follow orders, and kill, without question. I repeat – as a human being I see no honor in this.

While it is true that the existence of our military acts to deter nations from invading our shores, credit really should go more to our nuclear arsenal and military technology than to National Guardsman who find themselves shooting at Iraqis in their own homeland. I don’t think that it is a deterrent to have private American “security firms” torture, for fun, the “enemies” who are in their own country, in their own neighborhoods, near their own families, and who dare to fight the American military personnel who obliterated their homes, killed their brothers, sisters, children, mothers and fathers, and occupy their soil. The nerve of them!

In the meantime, your freedoms and protections are being systematically eliminated while government protected rights for corporations are expanding beyond your wildest dreams. If this nation had a legitimate mainstream news media you would know this and you would probably take to the streets and revolt because you would realize what some of us already know, your rights, health and wealth have been under assault while you are distracted by bogey men in foreign nations who are supposedly going to take your freedom away!!!

So how free are you and who exactly are the terrorists. Here is how free you are in your own home in your own country. These are just a few examples – off the top of my head. – there are more…but to start…

1. You are not allowed to drink raw milk, no matter how healthy it is, because under certain rare conditions may cause health issues), but you do have the right to smoke chemically addicting cigarettes that when used as directed WILL KILL YOU!
2. You don’t have the right to stop your food supply from being contaminated and genetically manipulated, leaving you with no alternative.
3. You don’t have the right to collect rain water or grow your own vegetables to feed your family.
4. You have no right to stop corporations from poisoning your air and water.
5. You have no right to treat your ailments naturally because your government has declared that the only way to become healthy is by medications and treatments that will produce big profits for corporations. Healthy food can not benefit your health and if it does the FDA will classify it as a drug.
6. You have no right to raise your child without injecting toxins and dangerous chemicals directly into their blood streams.
7. During the Bush/Cheney administration you had no right to free speech. Special zones called “free speech” zones were created and kept far from Bush and Cheney where those who wanted to speak as free Americans could gather.
8. You are not free to exchange goods and services on your own terms. You must use Federal Reserve Notes, which is NOT U.S. CURRENCY. It is a system of money created and maintained, unconstitutionally, by a cadre of private banks.
9. You are not free to feed homeless people and if you are homeless you are not free to be fed by your fellow citizens.
10. We are not free to know about or have any say about secret activities in which our rulers partake. For example what terrible weapons they create, what biological or chemical programs that may accidentally or purposely destroy us all, how they set up and instigate wars and conflict as well as events that justify actions for which they want to take but have no legitimate justifications.

America is not yet a totalitarian dictatorship, but it is clearly on the way to becoming one. And our beloved troops are doing nothing at all to stop this. What is worse is that some day they may actually be the ones to stop you from doing anything about it. They are already practicing to do so.

So if you want to thank people for protecting your freedom…thank journalists…real ones, not establishment hacks, who try to inform you about what is taking place while you are distracted by nonsense. Thank civil liberty lawyers and staff who don’t use their education to make it rich charging criminally high fees for their services. Thank whistle blowers. Thank people who risk a backlash of threats and worse to finally speak the truth to people who simply don’t want to know there is a truth beyond the myths that have comforted them throughout their lives. And while you do this I’ll thank you for at least listening to these uncomfortable words. Reality is not pretty, but if we all open our eyes to reality maybe we can stop those who make it so ugly.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be proud of my country for real reasons, not mythical ones.

Think about it.

'Continuity of Government' Planning

By Peter Dale Scott, Japan Focus
May 30, 2010

In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the U.S. Constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the Constitution.

As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up:

[Congressman Jack] Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

Both North’s attorney and Sen. Daniel Inouye, the Democratic Chair of the Committee, responded in a way that showed they were aware of the issue:

Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?

[Senator Daniel] Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?

Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

Inouye: May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session.[1]

But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter. According to James Bamford,

“The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.”[2] (Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware.)

Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency. This planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG) called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the FEMA, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments, and declaration of martial law.”[3]

To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story. Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” — the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” — had “less than six months to live.”[4]

To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, but this statement was also very misleading. On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned.[5] They were wrong.

Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11.[6] What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.” This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.”[7]

In other words, extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency. Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.”[8] (As I shall explain later, this sweeping claim needs some qualification.)

The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan:

Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency. The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua.[9]

Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326.[10] It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David.[11]

What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009. COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone.[12]

At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.[13] Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control Afghanistan and Iraq.

We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure “continuity of government” in the event of any “catastrophic emergency.” He announced that NSPD 51 contains “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.” Under pressure from his 911-truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied.

The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that:

“Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).

Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears.[14]

Former Congressman Dan Hamburg and I appealed publicly last year, both to Obama to terminate the emergency and to Congress to hold the hearings required of them by statute.[15] But Obama, without discussion, extended the 9/11 Emergency again on September 10, 2009;[16] and Congress has continued to ignore its statutory obligations. One Congressman explained to a constituent that the provisions of the National Emergencies Act have now been rendered inoperative by COG. If true, this would seem to justify Chardy’s description of COG as suspension of the Constitution. Are there other parts of the Constitution that have been suspended? We do not know, and the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee has been told he cannot find out.

Plans drafted by a secret committee, including corporation heads not in the government, have provided rules that allegedly override public law and the separation of powers that is at the heart of the Constitution. Congress is derelict in addressing this situation. Even Congressman Kucinich, the one Congressman I have met, will not answer my communications on this subject.

Yet as I see it, the only authorization for the COG planning was a secret decision by President Reagan (NSDD 55 of September 14, 1982) which in effect federalized the counterinsurgency planning (called Cable Splicer), which he had authorized in California when governor there.

It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11. The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year.

We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition.[17] Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.

Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City.[18]

Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved “at the highest levels of government” (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).[19] The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December.

In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, “to tackle the… task of dealing with terrorist attacks.”[20] Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s.[21]

As I wrote above, it is necessary to qualify a Pentagon official’s claim (to author Andrew Cockburn) that the Clinton administration had “no idea what was going on” in COG. Let me quote from my response to Cockburn’s book in my own, The Road to 9/11:

[Weiner’s] article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because “there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.” [22] In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found:

Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike. But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .“You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”

Cockburn’s account requires some qualification. Richard Clarke, a Clinton Democrat, makes it clear that he participated in the COG games in the 1990s and indeed drafted Clinton ’s Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) 67 on “Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government.” But COG planning involved different teams for different purposes. It is quite possible that the Pentagon official was describing the Department of Defense team dealing with retaliation.

The Pentagon official’s description of a “secret government-in-waiting” (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era, Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy. In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government.[23]

Understandably there is great psychological resistance to the extraordinary claim that Cheney and Rumsfeld, even when not in government, were able to help plan successfully for Constitutional modifications, which they themselves implemented when back in power. Most people cannot bring themselves even to believe the second, known half of this claim: that on September 11, 2001, COG plans overriding the Constitution were indeed implemented. This is why the first two print reviews of The Road to 9/11, both favorable and intelligently written, both reported that I speculated that COG had been imposed on 9/11. No, it was not a speculation: the 9/11 Commission Report twice confirms that COG was instituted on the authority of a phone call between Bush and Cheney of which they could find no record. No record, I did speculate, because it took place on a secure COG phone outside the presidential bunker — with such a high classification that the 9/11 Commission was never supplied the phone records.

A footnote in the 9/11 Report says:

“The 9/11 crisis tested the U.S. government’s plans and capabilities to ensure the continuity of constitutional government and the continuity of government operations. We did not investigate this topic, except as needed to understand the activities and communications of key officials on 9/11. The Chair, Vice Chair, and senior staff were briefed on the general nature and implementation of these continuity plans.[24]

The other footnotes confirm that no information from COG files was used to document the 9/11 Report. At a minimum these files might resolve the mystery of the missing phone call which simultaneously authorized COG, and (in consequence) determined that Bush should continue to stay out of Washington . I suspect that they might tell us a great deal more.

What is the first step out of this current state of affairs, in which the Constitution has in effect been superseded by a higher, if less legitimate authority? I submit that it is to get Congress to do what the law requires, and determine whether our present proclamation of emergency “shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).

An earlier polite, judiciously worded appeal to this effect failed. It may be necessary to raise the issue in a larger, albeit more controversial context: the scandal that a small cabal was able to supersede the Constitution, and Congress has failed, despite repeated requests, to do anything about it. I would hope that Americans concerned about this matter would raise it with all the congressional candidates in the forthcoming elections. At a minimum, candidates should promise to call for a full discussion of the proclaimed national emergency, as the law requires.

Notes

[1] New York Times, July 14, 1987.

[2] James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 74: “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed. Rather than through legislation, it was created by Top Secret presidential fiat. In fact, Congress would have no role in the new wartime administration. ‘One of the awkward questions we faced,’ said one of the participants, ‘was whether to reconstitute Congress after a nuclear attack. It was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.’” Cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 145.

[3] Miami Herald, July 5, 1987. In October 1984 Jack Anderson reported that FEMA’s plans would “suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, effectively eliminate private property, abolish free enterprise, and generally clamp Americans in a totalitarian vise.”

[4] Tim Weiner, New York Times, April 17, 1994.

[5] Bamford, A Pretext for War, 74; cf. James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 138-45.

[6] Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), 183-87.

[7] The provisions of Executive Order 12656 of Nov. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 47491, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 585, http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12656.html. The Washington Post (March 1, 2002) later claimed, falsely, that Executive Order 12656 dealt only with “a nuclear attack.” Earlier there was a similar misrepresentation in the New York Times (November 18, 1991).

[8] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy ( New York : Scribner, 2007), 88.

[9] Ross Gelbspan, Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 184; cf. New York Times, November 18, 1991.

[10] 9/11 Commission Report, 38, 326; Scott, Road to 9/11, 228-29.

[11] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington: Department of Defense, 2007), 132.

[12] Scott, Road to 9/11, 238, 240-41.

[13] U.S. Department of Defense, “U.S. Northern Command,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/dod/northcom.htm. Cf. John R. Brinkerhoff, PBS, Online Newshour, 9/27/02: “The United States itself is now for the first time since the War of 1812 a theater of war. That means that we should apply, in my view, the same kind of command structure in the United States that we apply in other theaters of war.” Brinkerhoff had earlier developed the martial law provisions of REX 84 in the Reagan era.

[14] Cf. Peter Dale Scott and Dam Hamburg , “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!,” 911Truth.org, March 24, 2009,http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848).

[15] Peter Dale Scott, “To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!!!” (with Dan Hamburg), http.//www.truth.org, March 24, 2009, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090324183053848#r7.

[16] White House Press Release, September 10, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Notice-of-continuation-from-the-president-regarding-the-emergency-declared-with-respect-to-the-September-11-2001-terrorist-attacks/. A press briefing by Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs the same day did not mention the extension.

[17] Cf. Time, Nov. 26, 2001: “While Daschle, the Senate majority leader, could have been chosen as a representative of all Democrats or of the entire Senate, Leahy is a less obvious choice, most likely targeted for a specific reason. He is head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is involved in issues ranging from antitrust action to antiterror legislation” [emphasis added]. See also Anthony York, “Why Daschle and Leahy?” Salon, November 21, 2001, http://dir.salon.com/story/politics/feature/2001/11/21/anthrax/index.html.

[18] Brian Michael Jenkins and Frances Edwards-Winslow, “Saving City Lifelines: Lessons Learned in the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks” (San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute, San José State University, 2003).

[19] 9/11 Report, 17; cf. fn. 101, 458.

[20] Houston Chronicle, May 9, 2001; Road to 9/11, 209.

[21] James Mann, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 139; James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse ofAmerica’s Intelligence Agencies (New York: Doublesday, 2004).

[22] Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, 144.

[23] Scott, The Road to 9/11, 186-87.

[24] 9/11 Commission Report, 555.

Senator DeMint: 94 Percent of Bills Passed Secretly With No Debate, No Vote (June 4, 2010)

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