Bush seeks political gains from foiled plot

If you are wanting another poll for me to cite, blatham, I won't do it. Other than polls, how do you answer the question? You can answer it to your satisfaction, I have for myself. I am no Dick Morris fan, but admittedly the man spent enough time with the Clintons and their polling, that was his job blatham, I tend to believe what he says about his experience. Besides, what he says matches my own recollection. I don't base everything on Dick Morris, but he is one fairly good confirmation of what was fairly obvious already. Don't you remember what went on, blatham? The Clintons did virtually everything according to their polling. It is obvious they are first and foremost political animals. Conclusion, they care more about their image and public opinion than Bush does. Bush ran on his own opinion, he is comfortable with what he believes and therefore does not care as much what the latest poll says about what color tie he is wearing or some such thing as Clinton did. Some things are obvious, blatham.

The number of intellectual fundamentals missing from your thinking repetoire puts you in a special category.

Bush has done unbelievable damage to Freedom and Democracy in America under the guise of 'fighting terrorism' and it appears that every time bush or the GOP are starting to get bad publicity he trots out the 'terrorist' theme to try to scare the people into blindly accepting whatever Freedom or Right he decides to revoke next.
His 700+ signing statements; placing himself above the law; alone shows he is running this country more as a Dictator than a President.
His control of the GOP congress and the Supreme Court only ensure that he will continue to get away with it without repercussions.
Benjamin Franklin said it best in his quote:

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. [/i]

BBB
Welcome to A2K reddragon696; glad to have you here.

BBB

Liquid Bomb Pakistan Link Is False Flag Smoking Gun
Veracity of liquid explosives method also put under dubious doubt

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | August 13 2006

Revelations concerning the origins and connections of the alleged liquid bomb terror plot to Pakistan and the 7/7 bombings in London provide a strong indication that the operation, known for months yet deliberately timed for public release, was a synthetic ruse concocted by the Bush/Blair cabal to re-package the flagging war on terror.

Media reports in the days following the alert cite Pakistan's ISI as having identified Rashid Rauf as, "the link between the plot's planners and British-based Muslims who were allegedly preparing to carry out attacks on transatlantic flights."

According to former NSA official Wayne Madsen, the Lashkar-e-Toiba terror group, to which Rashid Rauf is affiliated, is wholly operated and funded by the Pakistani ISI.

The Pakistani ISI is a CIA front and controls terror cells at the discretion of the highest levels of the US military-industrial complex. This means that the potential mastermind of the liquid bomb plot, Rashid Rauf (pictured), was operating under the oversight and direction of Pakistani and by proxy American intelligence agencies.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/130806liquidbomb.htm

Blueflame


Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]

The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI] was founded in 1948 by a British army officer, Maj Gen R Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff in Pakistan Army. Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the president of Pakistan in the 1950s, expanded the role of ISI in safeguarding Pakistan's interests, monitoring opposition politicians, and sustaining military rule in Pakistan.

The ISI is tasked with collection of foreign and domestic intelligence; co-ordination of intelligence functions of the three military services; surveillance over its cadre, foreigners, the media, politically active segments of Pakistani society, diplomats of other countries accredited to Pakistan and Pakistani diplomats serving outside the country; the interception and monitoring of communications; and the conduct of covert offensive operations.

Critics of the ISI say that it has become a state within a state, answerable neither to the leadership of the army, nor to the President or the Prime Minister. The result is there has been no real supervision of the ISI, and corruption, narcotics, and big money have all come into play, further complicating the political scenario. Drug money was used by ISI to finance not only the Afghanistan war, but also the ongoing proxy war against India in Kashmir and Northeast India.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee deals with all problems bearing on the military aspects of state security and is charged with integrating and coordinating the three services. Affiliated with the committee are the offices of the engineer in chief, the director general of medical service, the Director of Inter-Services Public Relations, and the Director of Inter-Services Intelligence.

Staffed by hundreds of civilian and military officers, and thousands of other workers, the agency's headquarters is located in Islamabad. The ISI reportedly has a total of about 10,000 officers and staff members, a number which does not include informants and assets. It is reportedly organized into between six and eight divisions:

Joint Intelligence X (JIX) serves as the secretariat which co-ordinates and provides administrative support to the other ISI wings and field organisations. It also prepares intelligence estimates and threat assessments.

The Joint Intelligence Bureau (JIB), responsible for political intelligence, was the most powerful component of the organisation during the late 1980s. The JIB consists of three subsections, with one subsection devoted to operations against India.

The Joint Counter Intelligence Bureau (JCIB) is responsible for field surveillance of Pakistani diplomats stationed abroad, as well as for conducting intelligence operations in the Middle East, South Asia, China, Afghanistan and the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.
Joint Intelligence / North (JIN) is responsible for Jammu and Kashmir operations, including infiltration, exfilteration, propaganda and other clandestine operations.

Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous (JIM) conducts espionage in foreign countries, including offensive intelligence operations.

The Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau (JSIB), which includes Deputy Directors for Wireless, Monitoring and Photos, operates a chain of signals intelligence collection stations along the border with India, and provide communication support to militants operating in Kashmir.
Joint Intelligence Technical

In addition to these main elements, ISI also includes a separate explosives section and a chemical warfare section. Published reports provide contradictory indications as to the relative size of these organizational elements, suggesting that either JIX is the largest, or that the Joint Intelligence Bureau is the largest with some sixty percent of the total staff.

The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence is of particular importance at the joint services level. The directorate's importance derives from the fact that the agency is charged with managing covert operations outside of Pakistan. The ISI supplies weapons, training, advice and planning assistance to terrorists in Kashmir and the the Northeast frontier areas of India.

The 1965 war in Kashmir provoked a major crisis in intelligence. When the war started there was a complete collapse of the operations of all the intelligence agencies, which had been largely devoted to domestic investigative work such as tapping telephone conversations and chasing political suspects. The ISI after the commencement of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war was apparently unable to locate an Indian armoured division due to its preoccupation with political affairs. Ayub Khan set up a committee headed by General Yahya Khan to examine the working of the agencies.

The ISI has been deeply involved in domestic politics and, has kept track of the incumbent regime's opponents. Prior to the imposition of Martial Law in 1958, ISI reported to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (C-in-C). When martial Law was promulgated in 1958 all the intelligence agencies fell under the direct control of the President and Chief Martial Law Administrator, and the three intelligence agencies began competing to demonstrate their loyalty to Ayub Khan and his government.

The ISI became even more deeply involved in domestic politics under General Yahya Khan, notably in East Pakistan, where operations were mounted to ensure that no political party should get an overall majority in the general election. An amount of Rs 29 lak was expended for this purpose, and attempts were made to infiltrate the inner circles of the Awami League. The operation was a complete disaster.

Mr. Bhutto promoted General Zia-Ul-Haq in part because the Director of ISI, General Gulam Jilani Khan, was actively promoting him. General Zia, in return, retained General Jilani as head of ISI after his scheduled retirement.

The ISI became much more effective under the leadership of Hameed Gul. The 1990 elections are widely believed to have been rigged. The Islami Jamhoori Ittehad [IJI] party was a conglomerate formed of nine mainly rightist parties by the ISI under Lt General Hameed Gul to ensure the defeat of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in the polls. Gul denies this, claiming that the ISI's political cell created by Z.A. Bhutto only 'monitored' the elections.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan made Pakistan a country of paramount geostrategic importance. In a matter of days, the United States declared Pakistan a "frontline state" against Soviet aggression and offered to reopen aid and military assistance deliveries. Pakistan's top national security agency, the Army's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, monitored the activities of and provided advice and support to the mujahidin, and commandos from the Army's Special Services Group helped guide the operations inside Afghanistan. The ISI trained about 83,000 Afghan Mujahideen between 1983 to 1997 and dispatched them to Afghanistan. Pakistan paid a price for its activities, as Afghan and Soviet forces conducted raids against mujahidin bases inside Pakistan.

The ISI continued to actively participate in Afghan Civil War, supporting the Taliban in their fight against the Rabbani government. Backing of the Taliban would officially end after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; however, there are suspicions that sympathetic elements of the ISI continue to aid Taliban fighters.

ISI has been engaged in covertly supporting the Kashmiri Mujahideen in their fight against the Indian authorities in Kashmir.

Reportedly "Operation Tupac" was the designation of the three part action plan for the capture of Kashmir through proxy warfare, initiated by President Zia Ul Haq in 1988 after the failure of "Operation Gibraltar."

According to a report compiled by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) of India in 1995, ISI spent about Rs 2.4 crore per month to sponsor its activities in Jammu and Kashmir. Although all groups reportedly received arms and training from Pakistan, the pro-Pakistani groups were reputed to be favored by the ISI. As of May 1996, at least six major militant organizations, and several smaller ones, operated in Kashmir. Their forces were variously estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 armed men.

The oldest and most widely known militant organization, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), spearheaded the movement for an independent Kashmir. This group declared a cease-fire in 1994. The most powerful of the pro-Pakistani groups is the Hezb-ul-Mujahedin. The other major groups are Harakat-ul Ansar, a group which reportedly has a large number of non-Kashmiris in it, Al Umar, Al Barq, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e Toiba, which is also made up largely of fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of these militants were trained in Afghanistan, where several ISI agents were killed during U.S. air strikes in 1998 against terrorist training camps. Since the defeat of the Taliban, militant training camps have moved to Pakistani Kashmir.

ISI has been reported to operate training camps near the border of Bangladesh where members of separatist groups of the northeastern states, known as the "United Liberation Front Of Seven Sisters" [ULFOSS] are trained with military equipment and terrorist activities. These groups include the National Security Council of Nagaland [NSCN], People's Liberation Army [PLA], United Liberation Front of Assam [ULFA], and North East Students Organization [NESO].

Pakistan's military leader, General Pervez Musharraf, has attempted to rein in the ISI. Since September 11th, Islamic fundamentalists have been purged from leadership positions. This includes then-ISI head Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed, who was replaced in October 2001 by Lieutenant General Ehsanul Haq.

Additional reforms of the ISI have been made. Most notable was the decision to disband the Kashmir and Afghanistan units. Both these groups have promoted Islamic fundamentalist militancy throughout South Asia. Some officials have been forced to retire and others have been transferred back to the military. Intelligence experts have estimated that these moves would slash the size of the ISI by close to 40%.

Sources and Resources:

Profiles of Intelligence by Brigadier Syed A.I. Tirmazi, Lahore, 1995
Pakistan Cutting Its Spy Unit's Ties to Some Militants, by Douglas Jehl, New York Times, February 20, 2002.
Pakistani Intelligence Has Ties to Al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say, by James Risen and Judith Miller, New York Times, October 29, 2001.
The ISI Role in Pakistan's Politics - Dr. Bindanda M. Chengappa Strategic Analysis February 2000 Vol. XXIII No. 11 (pp.1857-1878)
Pakistan's ISI Trying To Revive Militancy in Punjab Bangalore Deccan Herald, 28 July 1999
Daily Describes Activities of ISI in India by Wilson John, The Pioneer (Delhi), 30 June 1999
ISI and its Chicanery in Exporting Terrorism by Maj Gen YASHWANT DEVA AVSM (Retd): The Indian Defence Review, © 1997 by Lancer Publishers & Distributors.
Role of the Military in Politics in Pakistan by Armughan Javaid
The Aristocrat and the General by Indranil Banerjie SAPRA INDIA MONTHLY Bulletin Jun-Oct 1996
The Game Of Foxes: J-K Intelligence War by Manoj Joshi Times Of India, July 16, 1994
Pan-Islamic Fundementalism Exporting Terror, India Today, May 15, 1994
Pan-Islamic forces funding militancy by Ritu Sarin The Indian Express September 28, 1996
"This Secret Agency's Name is Infamous" by Sunil Sharma New Delhi JANSATTA 27 Nov 94 page 1 -- ISI Said Behind Widespread Terror, Violence -- Infamous Past, Active Present : JPRS-NEA-94-059 : 27 November 1994
"How Intelligence Agencies Run Our Politics" by Altaf Gauhar The Nation 17 Aug 97 p 4 [Pakistan: Writer Exposes ISI's Role in Politics : FBIS-NES-97-230 : 18 Aug 1997]
"In This Way, The Net of ISI is Spread" by Priyaranjan Bharati New Delhi JANSATTA 27 Nov 94 page 1 [ISI Said Behind Widespread Terror, Violence -- Power, Influence Increasing: JPRS-NEA-94-059: 27 November 1994]
"How to retaliate against this proxy-war" by Kranti Kumar Sharma Delhi Jansatta 30 Jan 97 p 4 [Article Views Pakistani `Spy' Activities: FBIS-NES-97-021 : 30 Jan 1997]

No, in the case of this foiled plot, it was all in the TIMING:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14320452/

And even more timing:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2301861

And the politicizing:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060811/ap_on_el_ge/us_terror_plot_politics

Which concludes with this:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06225/712954-192.stm


This is Bush country. How sad that individuals such as yourself continue to bask in it, Tico.

I find your whole argument rather retarded Dookie. No surprise really, but it's like you have your head stuck so far up the DNC's ass that you have cut the oxygen off to your brain.

Yet another stellar rebuttal from a wingnut.

You do your party proud. I'm also not a Democrat. I've been Green for over 20 years.

But you stay in your black and white world. This is what many of us liberal progressives are hoping for come November.

Now, perhaps you can tell us in your own retarded way why we are any safer after invading Iraq when these plots are forming and being hatched NOT by Muslim extremists from Iraq or Iran, but by BRITISH NATIONALS.

It's nice to see that I'm having an effect on the delusional conservative right when they retort with the likes of your response. My guess is you haven't seen the latest polling.

So be it.

I don't care about polling. Bush isn't running again and the Republicans deserve to be voted out.

Your argument is that Bush is politicizing an event. No-f'ing-duh. That's what politicians do. Both side politicize every event to further their own agenda. WHat exactly do you believe politics is about?

Thanks for the complement, which you of course meant as a severe criticism. I've seen too many "intellectuals" become so intellectual that they've lost all capacity to see the obvious, as in "they can't see the forest for the trees."

Many issues can be reduced from the complicated down to one or two simple principles.

In the case of comparing Bush to Clinton, the evaluation becomes pretty simple, made easy by an accurate judge of the characters and personalities involved. I find it interesting you offer no contradictory evidence, but instead attack my intellectual capacity.

What do you believe fighting terrorist ideology is all about? Is it about politicizing it for your own political gain (which the Republicans have been doing) or is it about actually addressing the root causes and trying to understand better why they hate us, which your party insists equates to offering "therapy to the terrorists" ala Karl Rove?

Glad to hear you want to vote Republicans out of office. They've been pathetic and corrupt in regards to running this country. I consider that progress.

Unfortunately, your insults belies your ability to reason in this regard.

What do YOU believe American politics is ALL about? I always thought it was about improving the lives of the American people?

Based on your comments, you seem to believe otherwise...

Blair forewarned Bush of terror threat to US airlines
Blair forewarned Bush of terror threat to US airlines
Patrick Wintour, political editor
Friday August 11, 2006
The Guardian UK

Decision to sanction raids took ministers by surprise · First Cobra meeting took place late on Wednesday.

Downing Street admitted Tony Blair would not have left the country on Monday for his Caribbean holiday if he had known the police would need to swoop so quickly to disrupt a terrorist plot. He has known about it in general terms for months, and has spoken to President George Bush about it on a number of occasions. The two leaders discussed it in more detail on Sunday, during a conversation on a secure line in which the prime minister outlined what he knew of the British cell being monitored by the security services.

Downing Street officials said he had also mentioned the specific surveillance operation. Mr Blair warned the president that it showed there was a specific threat to US airlines and urged total secrecy, warning premature leaks would destroy the monitoring of the group.

From his holiday home, he spoke again to Mr Bush on Wednesday around 8pm UK time, again mentioning the security threat, but primarily discussing fresh plans to break the deadlock at the UN on the Middle East. Hours later police and security services were in contact with their US partners to say a specific threat was being acted upon.

The decision to sanction the raids took ministers by surprise. Douglas Alexander, the transport secretary, was on holiday in Mull on Wednesday when he was told by security officials he needed to be briefed on a threat to UK aviation. The official flew to Mull, and he was told there was a plot to blow up planes simultaneously.

Mr Alexander immediately decided he needed to be in London. So an RAF helicopter was flown to the island and he was taken to London in time for the first Cobra meeting that began a little before midnight. John Reid, the home secretary, chaired the meeting, which included senior figures from the security services, defence chiefs and Metropolitan police.

The discussion centred on how to handle the likely transport disruption yesterday as well as the economic and community implications of the raid. It was also agreed that Mr Reid should brief the leaders of the opposition parties. John Prescott, the deputy leader and in charge in the prime minister's absence, was not at the meeting.

Midnight meeting

Largely the same group met again at 5am yesterday - midnight US time - to discuss the details of the raid, and how to handle the media, including the early morning statements from Mr Reid and Mr Alexander as well as the need to involve local communities in the fight against terrorism.

Mr Prescott was given the job of speaking to constituency MPs about the reasons for the raid but was not give a prominent media role. The communities minister, Meg Munn, spoke to Muslim religious leaders.

No 10 was reluctant to go into details of exactly how much Mr Blair has known about the scale of the plot in the past few months. Some of the near desperate tone in Mr Blair's speeches, especially in Los Angeles, suggest he was exercised by the levels of alienation of Muslim opinion in the Middle East and Britain. British foreign policy was not perceived to be even-handed or just, he conceded, even if he offered no criticism of the invasion of Iraq or the scale of Israeli bombings in Lebanon.

He said radical Muslims were backward looking, intolerant and a perversion of true Islam. But he seemed acutely aware that there had to be a new push towards solving the Palestinian problem once the Lebanese crisis was settled. He has also stressed at his Downing Street press conferences that there was a tendency in too many Muslim groups to give ground to those who argued British foreign policy justified terrorism. He said with open frustration that British Muslim leaders needed to be a lot more aggressive to confront such thinking.

The foiling of the alleged plot also fuelled the demands for a recall of parliament originally made to debate the British approach to the Lebanese crisis.

Shahid Malik, the Labour MP for Dewsbury, argued : "I think today's events may well have an impact, but I think the momentum was always there. We want to make sure that the representations made to us by our constituents are actually debated in the chamber of the house. I think that is the democratic thing to do."

Mr Malik has been one of many Muslim MPs who have questioned the degree to which the government followed up the recommendations of taskforces set up by ministers in the wake of 7/7 designed to ensure Muslims remained fully bonded into British society.

Praise

On the Tory and Liberal Democrat benches there was no attempt to make political capital. The shadow home secretary, David Davis, confined himself to praise for the security services.

The Tory MP Paul Goodman, whose constituency includes High Wycombe, spoke for many Tories when he said it was an "inexpressibly sad day" for the town, where community relations were "traditionally good".

He said the events highlighted two key points: "First, that the vast majority of Muslims in High Wycombe and elsewhere are peaceful and law-abiding citizens and that any hostile action towards them is reprehensible. Second, that all Muslims must strive ceaselessly to condemn, confront and root out support for terror from their communities. Loyalty to Britain and its way of life must come first."

Nothing at all to do with 'capacity'. Everything to do with 'habits'.

You offered no 'evidence' for me to look at or argue for/against. You trust Morris. You have opinions about Clinton and opinions about Bush. Those opinions can't possibly convince anyone other than yourself as they are unmoored from anything non-partisan or objectively empirical.