{"id":555,"date":"2004-07-06T06:15:30","date_gmt":"2004-07-06T10:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=555"},"modified":"2004-07-06T06:15:30","modified_gmt":"2004-07-06T10:15:30","slug":"the-rot-at-the-center-of-the-empire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=555","title":{"rendered":"The Rot at the Center of the Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NYT<\/i> reports that, according to a gov’t official<\/a>, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence believes the CIA failed to inform George that relatives of Iraqi scientists told the agency before the war that Iraq’s unconventional weapons programmes had been abandoned. Interesting that programmes are mentioned specifically in this revelation and not imminent WMD since their existence was the administration’s major selling point. Even if this is true more<\/a> compelling<\/a> sources of information were deliberately circumvented<\/a> by the Bush administration so why would these interviews have made a significant difference? <\/p>\n

The report, expected to be released this week, will also state that the CIA selectively promoted test results that fueled the administration’s repeated claims that a shipment of aluminum tubes seized on their way to Iraq were meant specifically for centrifuges. The test results they cite were cherry-picked at the time but if it was obvious to me that the Bush administration chose to <\/a> do so despite warnings<\/a> to the contrary, just as they ignored other<\/a> evidence that didn’t suit their agenda, why isn’t it obvious to the committee? This fit a pattern of the Bush administration not a deviation from or absence of one. The two memos<\/a> sent to the White House in October 2002 advising them not to use the Niger documents must be buried in the committee’s compost.<\/p>\n

I can understand why the<\/a> NYT<\/i><\/a> and members<\/a> of Congress would like nothing better than to scapegoat Tenet.<\/p>\n

But for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to choose this path can only mean the real<\/a> perpetrators<\/a> are still in business and that’s a travesty.<\/p>\n

Instead of continuing to obstruct<\/a> the truth<\/a> they should be calling Ashcroft<\/a> in to testify on why he’s so certain<\/a> the United States will be attacked by al Qaeda again this year.<\/p>\n

The Rot at the Center of the Empire<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Neither Saddam Hussein nor Osama bin Laden nor North Korea nor Iran nor the Islamic world is the biggest threat to the liberty, health, safety, and welfare of the American people. Instead, that threat lies with the cancerous rot that continues to grow at the center of the American empire ? a rot that in fact comes with empire. Until Americans finally confront that uncomfortable truth, they will continue to suffer the consequences. Unfortunately, it might take a catastrophe before they decide to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NYT reports that, according to a gov’t official, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence believes the CIA failed to inform George that relatives of Iraqi scientists told the agency before the war that Iraq’s unconventional weapons programmes had been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-8X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}