IT'S NOT OUR FAULT

Sure, you may hear chatter that is indicative of terrible danger but now we know it can be ignored. Pay no attention to the crazy guy behind the curtain with his hair on fire.

Stay wedded to your strategic trajectory and let the machines of the air and the many boxes coming to our shores on ships blow the world to hell. It's not our fault.

We now know that we cannot spend our time swatting flies because it tires us out. Besides, most everything we hear is inconclusive intelligence so better we spend our time cutting brush or playing in our pickup trucks.

If we hear a rumor that a neighboring town may be threatened we know that we should do nothing. Unless a threat is specific as to whom, when or where, we cannot be bothered.

After all, one can only be attentive to one thing at a time. We need to be concerned and pay complete attention to our own priorities. That way we can keep tract of only one stove pipe -- OURS, keeping it unidirectional and self serving.

Shaking the trees only serves to bring down a lot of nuts. It means listening to the little people who all think they have a silver bullet but really are just looking for attention from those of us in power.

When there is no current threat information there is no need to look for actionable intelligence.

Connecting the dots is an exercise for children. Important people, like principals, leave that to lesser beings. They concern themselves with the big picture. They do not waste their time in meeting with other principals.

Following the lead of Rice, top cop, AG Ashcroft told lie after lie under oath to the Commission. He gathered up the blame for 9/11 and used it to clout former President Clinton while asserting that he, Ashcroft smelled like a rose.

Why the hell not? What does he have to fear except breasts on statues? He owns the legal apparatus of the country. As witness after witness testified that Ashcroft told them he did not want to be bothered with terrorist information, he claimed it was untrue.

He denied that he ranked it below gun violence and drugs on his priority list even after proof was brought forth in the form of budget documents showing that he slashed counter terrorism funds.

Finally an honest witness came to the hearings -- a fly in the slimy ointment oozed out by Rice and Ashcroft. She flattened the Rice jargon and Ashcroft's pile of crap into the nothingness it deserved.

Former AG, Janet Reno, despite the ravages inflicted on her body by disease, sent the lies and lying liars scurrying for cover like a pack of rats with her testimony.

She told of a president actively engaged in counter terrorism. She related how all the big chiefs from the FBI, CIA, NS, DOD and State got together daily with President Clinton to exchange vital information during the Millennium Plot of 1999.

Meetings of engaged principles made a difference. Staying in Washington D.C. instead of going on long vacations made a difference. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/trail/inside/steinberg.html

This group of chiefs didn't have any factual chatter of who, what, when, where to go on either but they knew their responsibility was to keep their departments cross fertilized with information on terrorist activity.

Their actions were so effective and so different from the carelessness of the Bushites that Condi Rice condescendingly sought to disparage them in her testimony.

No wonder. Former AG Reno stood up and said she took responsibility for the FBI failures in communication while craven Ashcroft lied his ass off.

Reno et al. may not have executed what Rice called, tree shaking and dot connecting perfectly, but the fact remains that they did make a great effort and who's to know how many other terrorist plots they frightened off.

It could be said that their hair was on fire. Better that than the liar, liar pants on fire reaction of Rice and Ashcroft because they couldn't be bothered to do their job in the face of a heightened terrorist threat.

twanda@sover.net

2004-016

Copyright 2004 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@sover.net.