Information control, or, How to get to Orwellian governance

The 400,000 troop question was equally absurd. We could not sustain such a large-scale deployment for more than two or three years.

I can say without contradiction that George W. Bush would never ally himself in any way with Ingsoc, or English Socialism, which is depicted to use Newspeak as the official language of Oceania.

georgeob1 wrote:

The 400,000 troop question was equally absurd. We could not sustain such a large-scale deployment for more than two or three years.

I am not a military expert; but from a strictly logical point of view, I don't see the absurdity. Maybe you can't sustain a force the size Shinsake deemed necessary, while at the same time you can't win the war with a smaller force. It wouldn't surprise me at all if you couldn't win the war in Iraq with any force you can sustain. It may surprise you because unlike me, you always thought this war was a great idea. Anyway, even assuming what you said about sustainability, I stand by my opinion that Shinsake's assessment looks much better than Rumsfeld's today -- and that Bush's reaction to it was Orwellian.

I had the chance to discuss this directly with Paul W last weekend.

georgeob1 wrote:

I had the chance to discuss this directly with Paul W last weekend.

You're in camp? I guess it's that time of the year already. Hope you're having fun.

blatham wrote:

[
Disguising or hiding (being deceitful regarding) true costs is an information control strategy, rather obviously.

We'll recall Paul Wolfowitz's refusal to give any cost estimate for the Iraq project to Congress. Not that such estimates weren't in hand, but rather because such information released to the taxpayers wouldn't have helped the administration's political agenda.

Nonsense! The U.S. has never in its history attempted to fight a war under a preplanned budget. Moreover I'm not aware that any other country has attempted it either. The task is impossible. Wolfowitz' response was truthful and honest.

The only amazing element in this story is that any thinking person would believe otherwise. The truth is that this was merely a politically motivated and supremely hypocritical attack by people who in truth know better.

"the Coast Guard put the total cost for implementing the regulations laid out by Congress in the 2002 Maritime Transportation Security Act at $7.5 billion over 10 years."
Estimates tripling the budget for NED to cost $80 million and cites the current budget for public diplomacy toward the Arab and Muslim world at $25 billion a year.

georgeob1 wrote:

Nonsense! The U.S. has never in its history attempted to fight a war under a preplanned budget. Moreover I'm not aware that any other country has attempted it either. The task is impossible. Wolfowitz' response was truthful and honest.

I agree Blatham's specific example wasn't the best one to make his general case. Off the top of my head, though, I can think of three better examples.

(1) General Shinsake giving realistic, but in hindsight low estimate of necessary troup deployments in Iraq. His estimate was poo-poohed as outrageously high throughout the administration; shortly after making this estimate, Shinsake was no longer Bush's army chief of staff. (2) Larry Lindsey's realistic, but in hindsight low estimate of the necessary budget. This estimate, likewise, was derided as outrageously high, and shortly thereafter. Lindsey no longer presided over Bush's council of economic advisors. (3) The Bush administration, not knowing how much the war in Iraq would cost, proposed budgets for 2003 and 2004 in which the projected costs were zero -- a grossly dishonest assessment.

Nice, independent guys like myself can't be Republicans these days. And the Bush administration's Orwellian war on reality is the major reason why.

Thomas wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:

I had the chance to discuss this directly with Paul W last weekend.

You're in camp? I guess it's that time of the year already. Hope you're having fun.

It all ended Sunday - a great two weeks and I am much refreshed.. He gave an interesting talk about the World bank. He (and a cadre of Indonesian leaders) spent a week with me at sea while he was Ambassador to Indonesia during the 1980s, ( I later turned down an assignment as his military aide when he was posted as an Assistant Secretary in favor of making some money in business - perhaps an error - he is a most interesting and appealing person.)

GeorgeOB1 wrote:

No one can forsee how much wars will cost. No intelligent leader would regard such discussions, or the questions and answers that accompany them as anything more than political posturing. The substance of both questions and answers is without objective meaning or merit.
end of quote

It could not have been said better

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon
Allegations Brought to Inspectors General

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006; Page A03

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension between it and the Bush administration.

Isn't that old news, blatham? I think the commission makes it pretty clear in the 9/11 report that they think NORAD lied to them.

Clarifying the Record

The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocols. It was improvised by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear,and by a military unpreparedfor the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, the NEADS air defenders had nine minutes' notice on the first hijacked plane,no advance notice on the second,no advance notice on the third, and no advance notice on the fourth.

We do not believe that the true picture of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel at NEADS or FAA facilities. NEADS commanders and officers actively sought out information,and made the best judgments they could on the basis of what they knew. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and Command Center managers thought outside the box in recommending a nationwide alert, in ground-stopping local traffic, and, ultimately, in deciding to land all aircraft and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly.

More than the actual events,inaccurate government accounts of those events made it appear that the military was notified in time to respond to two of the hijackings,raising questions about the adequacy of the response.Those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military's capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they over-stated the FAA's ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning.

In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that at 9:16,NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA.175This statement was incorrect.There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.

In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77.176 This statement was also incorrect.The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C.177

In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77,178 United 93, or both.These statements were incorrect as well.The fighters were scrambled because of the report that American 11 was heading south, as is clear not just from taped conversations at NEADS but also from taped conversations at FAA centers; contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records. Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense.The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.

Isn't that old news, blatham? I think the commission makes it pretty clear in the 9/11 report that they think NORAD lied to them.

Meinn gott un himmel! (phonetic spelling with complete disregard for meaning...always loved the sound of this expression) I'm cavorting with the enemy. I resolve to shower twice this AM.