Thanks for taking the time to drop by and share your thoughts. I kow your time is prescious.

I would generally like to thank Americans for investments and sacrifices made supressing al Qaeda terrorism and keeping it from our collective doorsteps.

This thanks is offered by far more Canadians than our Main Stream Media may lead you to believe.

I will ask that you not condemn all Canadians just because a selfish and limited prime minister Chretien failed to throw Canadian support to America when he should have. The material support was limited, but the political advantage of that support was, or would have been of immense value to the U.S.A.

My sympathy to you all considering the huge scope of Katrina and the loss of a major tourist and music asset is heartfelt.
Though further west of that, I loved Padre Island and Port Isabelle, as well as Corpus .

One other thing,
I wish the army of the brain-dead would drop the, *no weapons of mad destruction* whine. Once the practice of gas genocide of Kurd villages was verified, it was green light to open season on Saddam, his gaseous sons and their *bullet squads*.
The discovery of hundrds of anti-gas suits hidden in the hospital during the war was the clincher for justification for me.

Time is pressing, but I’m glad to get that stuff said. Later, and 73s TonyGuitar

Try and stay on topic please. If there was something there with Sidol I am sure the media-formally-known-as-mainstream would have had a field day with it. The government is an Equal Opportunity Employer – it hires kooks as wells as saints.

*****From An Interview With Chris Deliso*****

“Essentially, there is only one investigation–a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it. But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, A LOT OF RANKING OFFICIALS, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, BLACK MARKET NUCLEAR SALES TO TERRORISTS AND UNSAVORY REGIMES, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It’s massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.”

*****FROM AN IMTERVIEW WITH SCOTT HORTON*****

“Again, it’s hard to talk about this around the gag order, but this is what I have been saying for the past three years, that’s why I refer to the transcript of CBS 60 Minutes. These people who call themselves Americans and these people are using their position, their official position within these agencies–SOME OF THEM IN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, SOME OF THEM IN THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE–and yet, WHAT THEY ARE DOING WITH THEIR POSITION, WITH THEIR INFLUENCE IS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES’ NATIONAL SECURITY, IT’S AGAINST THE BEST INTERESTS OF ITS PEOPLE, AND THAT IS TREASON.”

AJ, ask yourself, why is the Ashcroft DOJ State Secrets gag not lifted on this woman, and why aren’t our elected representatives falling all over themselves to demand hearings, if even to refute her “silly” charges?

That the Able Danger project was cancelled, or went black, or lives on in evolving iterations, is a factoid that has no explanatory power, your obfuscatory fetish about the termination notwithstanding. What was the totality of the intel produced by Able Danger AND RELATED DATA MINING PROGRAMS pre-9/11, and how was it used and not used (and why), before, during, and after the tragedy? Why has all of official Washington (Bush, Clinton, the 9-11 Commission) sought so desperately to suppress the findings of Able Danger long after the program was shut down? These are the questions that people are going to ask from here on out.

Standard operating procedure evidently did not preclude Shaffer from keeping and securing his own cache of records. If, among his files were actual Able Danger intel findings, why do you suppose he was permitted to keep them? If he was permitted to save this intel, then either he was exempt from SOP, or the intel was cleansed, and warrantable. (I believe the transcript shows that the technology to purge problematic sources was available in at least a rudimentary form. It seems to me the Pentagon briefers said that it was not used in the development of the Atta intel. In truth, I am not sure that the question was even asked. What do team members say? Do they recall a greater or lesser degree of refinement of the Atta leads, and how it was sorted?) Now the interesting thing here is, if it wasn’t Atta intel, what intel was it? If it wasn’t Able Danger program findings gone missing from Shaffer’s depository, was it the intel product of some associated data mining effort, and what intel was THAT? If it was none of the above, why were Shaffer’s files pilfered in the first place? Tell me how this adds up in your mind AJ, I earnestly desire to know.

As you no doubt recall, because you made a conscious decision not to address the issue when I raised it, in an August 25th FOX & Friends interview, Congressman Weldon claimed to possess ten charts of Able Danger intel, three of Al Queda worked up before 9/11. From the Congressman’s phrasing (comment #2 your 8/31 AD Round Up), it is unclear whether he is implying that all ten charts are Atta centric or that seven of the ten are not. If the seven are not, what might they be?

So many charts, where did they come from? I believe that Shaffer approached Weldon only after his disillusionment shaded into outright suspicion. I don’t believe we yet know the sequence of events, but try this. Shaffer’s faith in the predictive value of the Al Queda intel that Able Danger developed was so great he grew impassioned to the point of insubordination when the intel was rejected. After 9/11 he was dismayed to learn that the Atta intel was prophetic. 9/11 Commission Executive Director Zelikow initially embraced the information then made himself unavailable for follow-up consultation. Shaffer assumed Zelikow cancelled because he had found another source who would confirm for the Commission the miraculous and ultimately melancholy findings of the Able Danger team. Either before or after the 9/11 Commission issued its Final Report, Shaffer’s hoard of Able Danger records vanished from secure compartmented deposit. It was this disappearance coupled with the complete omission of the Able Danger story from the Final Report which breathed conspiracy in his ear. When exactly he sought out Congressman Weldon is unknown, but together they surreptitiously contacted former Able Danger team members and contractors and went about assembling the remaining documentation and determining who would be willing to come forward. At this point only Weldon and Shaffer know the totality of what they have and what their witnesses will testify to. Weldon is playing from a position of strength and he knows it.

If it is striking to you that the Congressman is imprecise in the details he offers about his own knowledge and participation in the Able Danger saga, it is striking to me that he is perfectly unconcerned that his recollection is imperfect. At first blush his sometimes shaky grasp of the facts tends to diminish his credibility, but what his behavior tells me is that HE HAS THE GOODS, and they are bulletproof. THE GOODS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES, and not needing to gild the lily, the Congressman does not trouble his memory. When the time comes, the documentary evidence he has amassed, along with missing context helpfully supplied by Able Danger team member testimony, will decide his case going away, whatever it may be. I am inclined to agree with you here Ahab, at first glance this does indeed look very bad for the White Whale faction, but Richard Clarke threw a bucket of cold seawater on this comfortable assumption today. If Clarke didn’t know, did Willy? However, the really notable feature about the Able Danger media blitz, which you have totally overlooked, is that in laying the groundwork for hearings, between the two of them Weldon and Shaffer have not only called out the Clinton Administration, and the Commission, THEY (not the media, not the Dems) have placed Stephen Hadley and Philip Zelikow squarely in the crosshairs. If these two aren’t implicated in the scandal, why has Weldon, A FELLOW REPUBLICAN, left them to twist in the wind? For now, they aren’t talking. Does it not occur to you that the Congressman is giving all sides fair warning, AND IS IT NOT NOW SELF-EVIDENT THAT WELDON IS ABOUT TO USE ABLE DANGER TO ATTACK BOTH PARTIES AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CONSENSUS ON SEPTEMBER THE ELEVENTH? Unless of course there is something he wants and is willing to stand down to get. I don’t see him as venal, but maybe you, with your consummate panoptic insider’s understanding of Washington know better.

Word to the wise AJ, you’re looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Washington is as far from the people as any of us are from you. The days of “understanding” are no longer passing, they are gone. If I cared to examine the compounding processes of bureaucratic digestive tracts, I’d buy a proctoscope. You know, trillions in taxpayer dollars and obligations IN…and 9/11, Iraq, and Katrina OUT (in the past five years alone). Kakistocracy IN…caca OUT. Let me tell you what I know about how the Pentagon works. OPERATION NORTHWOODS. It’s declassified. It’s on the net. It’s all anybody needs to know about the Pentagon. A frisson of recognition, perhaps?

In your last comment I suggest you reread the transcript on what happened to Able Danger – it is quite clear. This was a planning effort to identify Al Qaeda elements. Its job was done Jan-Feb 2001. The technology used still exists and is still being evolved. The use of public information is still processed and handled under the same rules that have applied before – it is just easier to take a lead and follow it. Most of what you worry about is answered. Your views of Washington DC and the Pentagon demonstrate an enormous distance and lack of personal understanding. Do you know how many people work in the US Government? Do you know why an 11 person effort would not be visible to people at the very top of government? Do the math.

1) More than a year before 9-11, Able Danger identified Mohamed Atta et al in situ. Team members desperately sought authorization to share their information with law enforcement and were repeatedly rebuffed, UNDER COLOR OF LAW. This, the beginning phase of what history will ultimately record as the greatest political crime in American history, HAPPENED UNDER CLINTON’S WATCH, and watch me now AJ, may have been directed by Clinton himself while he was being serviced in the Oval Office. I supported his Impeachment, despise Lady Macbeth, and would gladly consign them and their whole Administration, along with their legions of sycophants in the press, to the tender mercies of the Serbs whom they bombed mercilessly. Elvisism was a loathsome, fraudulent interlude in U.S. politics which I hope never to see repeated. (I would tape “Kick Me” signs on George and Dick, and turn them, their lickspittles in the press corps, and many other members of the Bush Administration over to new American friends in Fallujah and old American friends in New Orleans).

2) During the transition, Able Danger was disabled. Why, and by whose authority is not yet understood. UNDER WHOSE WATCH THIS HAPPENED IS NOT YET KNOWN.

3) The “Independent”9-11 Commission omitted the scandalous findings of Able Danger from their report. Laughably, they claim these findings have no historical significance. Whether this further attempt to flush the findings of Able Danger down the Memory Hole was taken in concert with Bush, Clinton, or Bush AND Clinton Administration insiders is yet to be determined. Sergeant Schultz proclaims the omission “very suspicious”. As always, Colonel Klink wrings his hands.

4) Beyond any doubt, the theft and presumed destruction of Shaffer’s Able Danger records occurred UNDER BUSH’S WATCH. A risky endeavor and curious fate for information deemed devoid of historical significance.

AJ as you well know what I say is not fact, it is speculation, but what theory of yours accounts for point #4 above and Zelikow’s mysterious phone call? In all seriousness, you are to be commended for patiently adding to the record, but the anomalies are piling up, and you are no longer even making an attempt to explain them away. Why?

You write nice, long and unpersausive posts. I am afraid with grasping connection like the ones you propose you have little chance of swaying my position.

Your attempts to defend Clinton are laudible, if not pretty much a failure. I come at this issue wanting to know what happened and let the chips fall where they may. You come from a partisan position which means nothing to me.

The most compelling evidence of Bush administration exposure remains the disappearance from a secure location and presumed destruction of Shaffer’s Able Danger files under Bush’s watch, LONG AFTER THE ABLE DANGER PROGRAM WAS SHUT DOWN. Who authorized this break-in, and what was in those files?

Let us review the narrowing field of battle. Subjects no longer under consideration (which reasonable people understand to mean ground which has been tacitly conceded):

1) Able Danger is not a Scarlet Letter for Clinton alone. There are glass houses.

2) The exclusion of Able Danger findings by the Commission must have been more than an effort to protect Clinton from the harsh judgment of history, and to undermine Bush’s strong performance on 9-11 and his case for Iraq. Else, why did the Republicans agree to a one-sided Final Report? Why did they not clobber the Democrats with such clear-cut evidence of pre-9/11 malfeasance before the ’04 election? Why has Bush never used Able Danger findings linking Saddam to Al Queda to defend his decision to invade Iraq?

3) The Able Danger findings are a BIPARTISAN SCANDAL BY DEFINITION . Philip Zelikow is in this up to his horn-rimmed glasses. This passes without mention.

4) Philip and Condi are joined at the hip. This relationship is noted in certain quarters, but not here.

5) In defense of the indefensible, we are given weak assurances that Bush can’t possibly be involved because…well…people seriously doubt it (for unstated reasons).

As always, my logic is often faulty, and my recall of facts is tenuous. These are silly inferences in which you will find great latitude given to grotesque mischaracterizations of people, places, and things, naked partisanship, anti-Americanism, and a childlike worship of falsehood. For the consumption of minor children only. Above all, do not expect me to engage these issues on rational grounds.

The reason know one is going to buy into your theories is they are so silly. Bergler was caught destroying files on Bush’s watch? Too much of a stretch for most of us.

I note also that you do not take exception to my characterization of Able Danger as a cover-up, so you read the Captain’s report the same way I do. Good. Zelikow’s urgent phone call to Washington (it was 4 A.M. there) from Bagram the very same day Shaffer briefed him about Able Danger, and the subsequent disappearance from a secure location of Shaffer’s Able Danger files, over which he apparently exercised sole custody, cannot at this point be viewed with anything but suspicion absent some other compelling explanantion for these closely related events. To amplify the Captain’s question, what do phone logs or other telephonic records show? Who did Zelikow call at 4 A.M. Beltway time? Who did he call after that? Who did they call? It escapes me why Zelikow should find it necessary to roust some slumbering 9-11 Panel member out of bed in D.C. since two senior members of the Commission accompanied him to Shaffer’s briefing earlier that day. By a process of elimination then, who did Zelikow ring? Sandy Berger? (You better hope not.) Some other Democrat? Unlikely. A Republican then? Yes. Just any Republican? No. A Republican senior to him? Yes, makes sense. A Republican senior to him inside the Administration? Makes even more sense. A Republican senior to him inside the Administration with whom he shares only a nodding acquaintance, or one whom he trusts implicitly, with whom he has co-authored a book on public affairs, and with whom he has enjoyed a long and productive relationship? Ring, ring,ring…”Condi, it’s Philip. We have a problem…”.

What a seeming, even if untrue, construct this is. Now a Vulcan is dutiful, Vulcans are prized for their loyalty, and knows not to withhold information above her paygrade. In turn her boss is especially fond of her for her long years of patient service, her well-practiced sense of discretion, her accomplished and soothing pianoforte, and their shared passion for endorphins. How could she forgive herself if even by the slightest act of disregard on her part she exposed him to scandal? What concern of hers, no matter how personal and trifling, had he ever ignored in the past? For his part, what burden upon her conscience would he, a man of the people, a compassionate man walking boldly in God’s light, not strive to lift? In a land of unrepentant sinners, Laura was his shield, but in a world teeming with Evildoers, Condi was his sword. The two of them had a seamless understanding, and when trouble loomed he instinctively turned to her as she well understood. “Mr. President, I knew you’d be awake…”.

AJ, say it with me now, B-I-P-A-R-T-I-S-A-N. You will probably be proven correct in the long run when the Times squats on the story and Congress makes sausage out of it, but for now “just ain’t gonna happen” is a political prognostication, not an argument you are winning on the merits. (The Times curious decision to break this story may be a warning shot across the bow of the Administration. Find a way to render Judith Miller to us pronto or things could get real ugly real fast because we were with you when you buried the bodies. Sincerely Yours, Punch).

Why doesn’t somebody else weigh in on this? Anybody? And please ignore AJ’s strawman. Before anyone else draws the same facile conclusion that the date of termination is the salient fact of the Able Danger story, please consider that under Bush’s watch Berger intentionally destroyed classified documents from the National Archives which had been set aside to aid the 9-11 Commission in their work…and was given Saturday afternoon detention by a REPUBLICAN judge. Berger’s security clearance will be restored in less than two years. Also under Bush’s watch, Shaffer’s extensive cache of Able Danger material went missing from a secure compartmented location. If anyone would care to explain to me how authorization to seize or shred Shaffer’s files could come down the chain-of-command from the Clinton gang during a Bush Presidency, I’m all ears.

This is not a defense of Clinton, nor an attack on Bush, it is an effort to understand how and why Able Danger, the one silver bullet in our arsenal against Al Queda, was declared off limits to the good guys precisely at the time when it was most needed, and why to this day Able Danger is poison to both parties in Washington, such that the 9-11 Commission, composed of equal parts hacks and fixers from across the aisle, found it necessary to rewrite history and write Able Danger out of the picture. Before it was killed Able Danger was virtually one phone call away from stopping 9-11 in its tracks, and the Commission and two administrations have conspired to conceal this fact from the American people. Ask yourselves, if Able Danger was an unambiguous tale of Clinton era incompetency why did Bush’s people not utter a single word about it during the 2004 election? (Between the time of Zelikow’s mysterious phone call to Washington and the general election there was ample time to formulate a nuanced approach to the findings of Able Danger for the Bush campaign). Regret over the Impeachment? Not in a million years! Politics, not love, means never having to say you’re sorry. There is great mischief afoot over Able Danger. It is not now beyond the pale to believe that Able Danger uncovered high crimes, possibly involving 9-11 itself.

I seriously doubt this has anything to do with Bush. It closed up before his team took over. Sorry, just ain’t going to happen.