Tag: george w bush

The New Normal Of US Domestic Spying

What if the federal government captures in real time the contents of every telephone call, email and text message and all the fiber-optic data generated by every person and entity in the United States 24/7? What if this mass surveillance was never authorized by any federal law and tramples the Fourth Amendment?

What if this mass surveillance has come about by the secret collusion of presidents and their spies in the National Security Agency and by the federal government forcing the major telephone and computer service providers to cooperate with it? What if the service providers were coerced into giving the feds continuous physical access to their computers and thus to all the data contained in and passing through those computers?

What if President George W. Bush told the NSA that since it is part of the Defense Department and he was the commander in chief of the military, NSA agents could spy on anyone, notwithstanding any court orders or statutes that prohibited it? What if Bush believed that his orders to the military were not constrained by the laws against computer hacking that Congress had written or the interpretations of those laws by federal courts or even by the Constitution?

What if Congress has written laws that all presidents have sworn to uphold and that require a warrant issued by a judge before the NSA can spy on anyone but Bush effectively told the NSA to go through the motions of getting a warrant while spying without warrants on everyone in the U.S. all the time? What if Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have taken the same position toward the NSA and ordered or permitted the same warrantless and lawless spying?

What if the Constitution requires warrants based on probable cause of criminal behavior before surveillance can be conducted but Congress has written laws reducing that standard to probable cause of communicating with a foreign national? What if a basic principle of constitutional law is that Congress is subject to the Constitution and therefore cannot change its terms or their meanings?

What if the Constitution requires that all warrants particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized? What if the warrants Congress permits the NSA to use violate that requirement by permitting a federal court — the FISA Court — to issue general warrants? What if general warrants do not particularly describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized but rather authorize the bearer to search indiscriminately through service providers’ customer data?

What if the government has no moral, constitutional or legal right to personal information about and from all of us without a valid search warrant consistent with constitutional requirements?

What if raw intelligence data comes to the government without any proper names on it? What if in order to find those proper names, the government goes through a procedure called unmasking? What if lawful unmasking can only occur when the government knows that a national security problem is afoot and it needs to know the identity of the person whose communications it has in hand? What if the Constitution requires a search warrant to engage in unmasking?

What if the Obama administration made it easier for political appointees to unmask members of Congress and other government officials without demonstrating a national security need as a reason for doing so? What if unmasking for political purposes is a felony? What if it is common today?

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22 YEARS AGO, BUSH ANNOUNCED THE END OF MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS IN IRAQ – OOPS…

Last week marked the 22nd anniversary of one of the greatest strategic blunders of the 21st Century United States. On May 1, 2003 aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, then President George W Bush made the following proclamation marking the end of ‘major combat operations’ in Iraq:

“THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free. (Applause.)

Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.”1

Similarly, GEN (Ret) Tommy Franks took a bow for what he saw as a victory. He now has a museum in his name called the General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum (www.tommyfranksmuseum.org) and was the subject of his very own biography American Soldier. His museum webpage brags:

“The Commander in Chief of the United States Central Command from July 2000 through July 2003, General Tommy Franks made history by leading American and Coalition forces to victory in Afghanistan and Iraq—the decisive battles that launched the war on terrorism.”2

The US went on to infamously lose the Afghanistan war in front of news cameras in August 2021. The Iraq war was far from “won.” In fact, the ultimate outcome is still in doubt. The war went on to cost the US $1-$3 Trillion and goes on today under the guise of the Inherent Resolve Operation where US troops are still in Iraq in the year 2025. Over 4,400 US servicemembers and nearly 300,000 Iraqi civilians would die in Iraq, the vast majority AFTER Bush’s proclamation and the publication of Franks’ biography.

The US State Department as of 6 May 2025 has the following travel advisory concerning Iraq, indicating that 22 years later, Iraq is anything but the victory Bush and Frank described:

“Country Summary: U.S. citizens in Iraq face high risks, including violence and kidnapping. Terrorist and insurgent groups regularly attack Iraqi security forces and civilians. Anti-U.S. militias threaten U.S. citizens and international companies. Attacks using improvised explosive devices, indirect fire, and unmanned aerial vehicles occur in many areas, including major cities. Consular officers may not always able to assist U.S. citizens. The Department of State requires U.S. government personnel in Iraq to live and work under strict security due to serious threats.”3

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THE ARCHITECTS OF THE IRAQ WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

THE U.S. AND its allies invaded Iraq 20 years ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom. President George W. Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer twice accidentally referred to it as Operation Iraqi Liberation, which was definitely not its official name and would have generated an unfortunate acronym.

The men and women who launched this catastrophic, criminal war have paid no price over the past two decades. On the contrary, they’ve been showered with promotions and cash. There are two ways to look at this.

One is that their job was to make the right decisions for America (politicians) and to tell the truth (journalists). This would mean that since then, the system has malfunctioned over and over again, accidentally promoting people who are blatantly incompetent failures.

Another way to look at it is that their job was to start a war that would extend the U.S. empire and be extremely profitable for the U.S. defense establishment and oil industry, with no regard for what’s best for America or telling the truth. This would mean that they were extremely competent, and the system has not been making hundreds of terrible mistakes, but rather has done exactly the right thing by promoting them.

You can read this and then decide for yourself which perspective makes the most sense.

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The Iraq War Is (And Will Always Be) Undefendable

This spring marks the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. After an initial frenzy of war fever in the early years of the war, support for the war has since largely evaporated. Nearly two thirds of veterans now say the war was “not worth fighting.” Two thirds of American adults say the same thing. Even among Republican veterans, only a minority say the war was worth it.

These numbers are not surprising. The U.S. obviously failed to achieve its stated objectives in Iraq, and the reasons given to justify the initial invasion were either exaggerations or outright lies. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was never any threat to Americans. Years after the initial invasion, the U.S. regime still couldn’t keep the lights in in Iraq, suicide bombings became an epidemic, and the war paved the way for the spread of the so-called Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

In fact, the war has been such an obvious failure that its supporters are now routinely on the defensive. We’ve come a long way from the days when war supporters were denouncing all dissenters as traitors or Saddam-lovers, or as being “with the terrorists.” Today, many of the war’s supporters studiously avoid mentioning the war at all. But many others have been forced to express “regrets” or even offer half-hearted apologies.

This is all certainly insufficient. A “sufficient” response would be a Church-committee-like Congressional investigation of the war and its supporters. This would be followed by legal authorization of lawsuits against the personal property and estates of government officials who prosecuted the war. This would be followed by a tidal wave of lawsuits by maimed soldiers and the families of Americans killed in the war. Foreigners would be able to sue in federal court, as well. George W. Bush and Paul Bremer should be facing financial ruin as should the heirs of Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell.

The odds of all that happening are about zero, unfortunately. The more attainable goal at hand, however, is to fight to ensure that the Iraq War and its supporters are never rehabilitated by historians, and the war does not go down in history as some sort of “noble but misguided” conflict. Nor should it be forgotten.

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10 Steps to the Edge of the Abyss

At this moment, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock now stands at only 90 seconds before midnight. Thus, as we move closer and closer to a nuclear World War 3, why not identify the major steps that took us to this dangerously slippery road? Who knows, perhaps this exercise could help to bring some perspective to those who are pushing us into oblivion. They have families and children too. Sometimes even the greatest villains have the moment of repentance.

Here is my take of the ten such major events in the chronological order and those responsible for them.

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Democrats Praise Bush, Want More Small-Business War Profiteers

Well it’s another big day for Democrats doing Democraty things.

At a Friday event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) hosted by the George W Bush Institute, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke glowingly of the president who instituted the program in 2003 at the same time he was preparing to launch an invasion which would inflict unfathomable horrors upon our world which continue to unfold to this day.

“I’ll just say this honestly, that the Bush family, it’s because of their humanity, their faith, their generosity of spirit, their compassion,” said Pelosi. “Once again, it’s an honor to be associated with President Bush in this.”

Pelosi then pointed to the former president, who was also joined by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and oligarch Bill Gates, with video appearances by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Bono of U2 fame.

Also on Friday we witnessed what Glenn Greenwald described as the “most Elizabeth Warren tweet ever,” in which the Massachusetts senator took a bold stand against Big War Profiteering to advocate on behalf of the little guy (by which I mean Small War Profiteering).

“In the 1990s, America had 51 major contractors bidding for defense work,” tweeted Warren from her government account. “Today, there are only five massive companies remaining. Defense contracting should be reworked to break up the massive contracts awarded to the big guys and create opportunities for firms of all sizes.”

Yeah that’s the real problem, Liz. It’s not that the war industry reaps huge profits from global militarism and nonstop warmongering, it’s that the war industry doesn’t include enough plucky small businesses. Won’t somebody please think of the mom and pop war profiteers? They’ve been forced to close their small community military-industrial complex shops by Walmartian “big guys” like Raytheon and Northrop Grumman!

This is almost as embarrassing as Warren’s 2019 push to convert the US war machine to clean energy, saying “We don’t have to choose between a green military and an effective one” on the campaign trail during her run for president.

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The Legacy of George W. Bush and His Torturers

In the days and months following the attacks of 9/11, the government laid the blame for orchestrating the attacks on Osama bin Ladin. Then, after bin Ladin was murdered in his home in Pakistan in 2011, the government decided that the true mastermind of 9/11 was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

By the time of bin Ladin’s death, Mohammed had already been tortured by CIA agents for two years in Pakistan and charged with conspiracy to commit mass murder, to be tried before an American military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Throughout the entire existence of the U.S. military detention camp at Gitmo, no one has been tried for causing or carrying out the crimes of 9/11. The government only tried one person for crimes related to 9/11. That was Zacharias Moussaoui who pleaded guilty in federal court in Virginia to being the 20th hijacker and then was tried in a penalty phase trial where the issue was life in prison or death. The government spent millions in its death penalty case, which it lost. A civilian jury sentenced Moussaoui, who never harmed a hair on the head of anyone, to life in prison.

Mohammed, meanwhile, and four other alleged conspirators, have been awaiting trial since their arrivals at Gitmo in 2006. Since then, numerous government military and civilian prosecutors, as well as numerous military judges, have rotated into and out of the case.

The concept of military tribunals was born in the administration of President George W. Bush, who argued that 9/11, though conducted by civilians, was an attack of military magnitude and thus warranted a military response. This pathetic knee-jerk argument, of course, not only brought us the fruitless and destructive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; it also brought a host of legal problems unforeseen by Bush and his revenge-over-justice thirsty colleagues.

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Zelensky And Bush To Give Joint Pro-War Presentation

War criminal George W Bush and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be appearing at an event next week at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, in partnership with US government-funded narrative management operations Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy. The goal of the presentation will reportedly be to address the completely fictional and imaginary concern that congressional Republicans won’t continue supporting US proxy war efforts in Ukraine.

CNN reports:

Former US President George W. Bush will hold a public conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky next week with the aim of underscoring the importance of the US continuing to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.

The event, which will take place in Dallas and be open to the public, comes amid questions about the willingness of the former president’s Republican Party to maintain support for Ukraine.

“Ukraine is the frontline in the struggle for freedom and democracy. It’s literally under attack as we speak, and it is vitally important that the United States provide the assistance, military and otherwise to help Ukraine defend itself,” David Kramer, the managing director for global policy at the George W. Bush Institute, told CNN. “President Bush believes in standing with Ukraine.”

The Struggle for Freedom event will take place on Wednesday, in partnership with the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

To be clear, there is absolutely no reality-based reason to believe Republicans will meaningfully shy away from full-scale support for arming and assisting the Ukrainian military. The proxy war has only an impotent minority of opposition in the party and every bill to fund it has passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Some “MAGA” Republicans have claimed that funding for the war would stop if the GOP won the midterm elections, but they were lying; there was never the slightest chance of that happening.

Bush, you may remember, drew headlines and laughter earlier this year with his Freudian confession in which he accused Vladimir Putin of launching “a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq — I mean, of Ukraine.” The fact that the president who launched a full-scale ground invasion which destabilized the entire region and led to the deaths of over a million people is now narrative managing for the US empire’s current aggressively propagandized intervention says everything about the nature of this war.

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