It is a time of freedom and fear, of Gaia and of borders, of many paths and the widening of a universal toll road, emptying country and swelling cities, of the public bought into privacy and the privacy of the public sold into invisible data banks and knowing algorithms. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.

These are the times when maps fade and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread.

Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.


 

Liars, Incompetent, or Recklessly Belligerent?

Paul O'Neill, who served in the Cabinet as Treasury Secretary under George W. Bush, says that in the first few months of the Bush Administration in 2001, the Bush White House was drawing up plans to invade Iraq using American troops. O'Neill is corroborated by members of the dissident Iraqi National Congress, who say that officials representing the Bush White House contacted them in early 2001 to include them in planning for an American invasion of Iraq.

Part of the early 2001 planning for an invasion of Iraq was the drafting of official planning documents. One of these documents, authored by the Pentagon, is entitled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts" and describes areas of the country that are suitable for oil exploration. A war for oil? Don't be ridiculous!

The White House is trying to control political damage from the revelations of Paul O'Neill by sending out anonymous "senior administration officials" to say that Paul O'Neill is incompetent even in his area of expertise and therefore can't be trusted to speak competently about the goings-on in the White House when he was there. If such accusations are false, they indicate that the Bush White House is willing to engage in baseless slander to protect itself. If such accusations are true, they mean that George W. Bush put an incompetent man in charge of the U.S. Treasury for two years. Neither possibility inspires confidence in the quality of the Bush administration.

(Source: CBS News January 10, 2004)

Posted by James Cook at 11:54 PM. # (permalink)




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