Virginia Democratic Senator Jim Webb on AG Eric Holder's announcement that five of the 9-11 plotters will be tried in New York federal court…..

Those who have committed acts of international terrorism are enemy combatants, just as certainly as the Japanese pilots who killed thousands of Americans at Pearl Harbor. It will be disruptive, costly, and potentially counterproductive to try them as criminals in our civilian courts.

..[..]..

And we must be especially careful with any decisions to bring onto American soil any of those prisoners who remain a threat to our country but whose cases have been adjudged as inappropriate for trial at all. They do not belong in our country, they do not belong in our courts, and they do not belong in our prisons.

House representative Jim Moran (D-Va)….has a different take….

"They (Republicans, neo-cons, wingnuts) see this as an opportunity to demagogue," he said. "They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they'll even take a stand that's un-American."

"It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial," Moran added. "It's against our principles as a nation."

"Opportunity to demagogue? Yep…like this….

Of all the mindless memes that non-reality-based adherents blare out like zombie pod people…..this one about "American soil" is the most ignorant. That's saying something….because the extreme right TeaBagger-FOX-Beck-Rush Group LLC….says a whole bunch of ignorant stuff on an hourly basis.

Giuliani is a discredited authoritarian moron, so it's easy to dismiss his grandstanding gibberish. But Rudy represents the FOX-BeckerHead position…so it will be the most prominent, because whatever FOX-Beckerheads spout is to be taken very Seriously by the Village. And, as the 9-12'ers and Rupert Murdoch have made clear, all wingnut-media decisions are for the purpose of "destroying Obama."

Remember, the only Job One there is for Republicans, Teabaggers, Drug Addicts on the Radio and myriad Wingnut Zoo Animals….is to bring about, as South Carolina cracker-senator Jim DeMint said…."Obama's Waterloo."

Now the analysis.

Senator Jim Webb is mistaken when he compares Japanese pilots during WW2 with 9-11 hijackers. Japanese pilots were operating under the authority of the Japanese Emperor. Japanese pilots during WW2 represented a country, a nation of people who declared war against America with the Pearl Harbor attack. WW2 was a war of nations. The militaries of the Axis powers were ordered by their nation's leaders to wage war on Allied nations.

9-11 Islamic hijackers represented who, exactly? A tiny international band of stateless anarchist criminals. No state or country sponsored the 9-11 hijackers. 9-11 hijackers did not act on the orders of a state dictator, politician, leader, or representative. Bin Laden's al-Qaeda carried out acts of violence for THEMSELVES….no one else.

Islamic extremists are seeking to make a symbolic "political statement" with their acts of violence. The entire point of killing others while killing yourself is to shock others into believing they are not safe. Japanese pilots who dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor were not making a "political statement"……they were beginning a monumental war of one nation against another. Japanese pilots were seeking to defeat the U.S. military, and thus America, the nation. Japanese pilots were not just trying to shock U.S citizens…..there was nothing symbolic about Pearl Harbor.

The second bit of "demagogic" nonsense-hype by American wingnuts only seeking Obama's demise by foolishly arguing we can't try 9-11 masterminds on "American soil"….is the, "they're too dangerous" to be housed in New York prisons…nonsense. There's no question the 9-11 plot was sinister and evil, but the five radical Islamic masterminds to be tried in New York federal court ain't squat compared to the most vicious, brutal, bloodthirsty deviants we currently have safely locked away in federal prisons, including, by the way, over 100 Islamic "terrorists."

To take the position that these five are too dangerous to bring onto "American soil" is, at best, a wingnut admission that America is weak, vulnerable, unsure of it's power and that the Constitution and set of laws which guide us are, somehow, deficient.

The final point I want to make is over the stupid claim that if we try 9-11 conspirators in New York…then New York will automatically become the focus of new terrorist attacks. Besides being another admission that America is just too weak or vulnerable to protect itself….this ignorant meme, meant only to diminish Obama's leadership, ignores the fact that America currently occupies two Muslim countries with some 200,000 U.S. soldiers. Daily, we are killing Afghani citizens. Also ignored is the fact that the American military has killed, at the very minimum, some 128,000 Iraqi citizens in our war of imperialistic aggression. 4 million Iraqis were displaced.

What more incentive would a Muslim crazy need to "focus" their extremist bile on the U.S.?

Here are the facts. George W. Bush, though he did not act on it, stated clearly that he would like to see Guantanomo closed. But Bush was a Republican president with very low approval ratings. In comes a popular Democratic President Obama who agrees with Bush's view of closing Guantanomo. If Obama succeeds in closing Guantanomo…..well, you know the wingnut drill….then America "fails."

The ignorant and disingenuous blatherings about not trying 9-11 conspirators on "American soil" is for the sole purpose of seeing Obama "fail."

Not that complicated.

Glenn Greenwald…

"One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we've managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy — and who fight against us because we're doing that — and call them "Terrorists," thereby "justifying" continuing to bomb and occupy their country further."

That sentence may not sound all that profound at first reading, but it is.

When the U.S. arbitrarily invaded Iraq, al-Qaeda "terrorists" were not there. Some came later to Iraq, especially following the release of the Abu Ghraib picnic photos. Neo-conservative propagandists, cheerled by Fox and Fiends, did their best to brainwash Americans into believing that shadowy Sunni figures or Shi-ite rebels (al-Sadr) or (Saddam's former) Baath Party remnants were each interchangeable surrogates for al-Qaeda. Even though Iraq had no al-Qaeda presence, no "terrorists", U.S. media quickly transplanted Sunni, Shi-ite, and/or Baath members into the role of the "terrorists."

America had attacked a sovereign nation where "terrorists" were not harbored, where al-Qaeda had no significant, if any, presence,….and within short-order of occupying a country that posed no threat to America, we were told that we were fighting the "terrorists" inside Iraq. Amazingly, Iraq had become the "central front of the war on terror." The lines were purposely blurred in explanation of who those "terrorists" were. Were they Sunni, were some Shi-ite, were they the remnants of Saddam's old political party? No one was sure…..and that, of course, was the point.

The same is true in Afghanistan, and has been for…..what is it now?…..over EIGHT years. al-Qaeda is a stateless, borderless group….so, in order to justify bringing the enormous U.S. military machine to the region in preparation for the already-determined plan to attack and occupy Iraq…..we needed a nation state as an enemy. The Taliban-ruled Afghanistan fit the bill. Those camel-riding Taliban were "harboring" those al-Qaeda, by god….quickly a whole new group of "terrorists" were created.

As Greenwald said, America attacks a country, occupies that country with it's military….an action that creates a resistance from natives of that country, whom we then quickly declare the "enemy" or the new "terrorists", which, completing the circle, justifies us continuing with our occupation.

The Reverend has often stated without apology that there is no "war on terror" and never has been. The U.S. "enemy" was/is al-Qaeda. After 9-11, the "war" America declared under Commander Guy, more appropriately, should have been called a "war on al-Qaeda"….but see?, that's too narrow, too specific. This American musical chairs style, changing-enemies game in Iraq and Afghanistan is often called a part of a non-existent "war on terror", but in all honesty, all it is, is an ongoing faux-justification to defend U.S. neo-conservative ideological and imperialistic goals for the region.
……….
Greenwald also writes about "why they hate us." The hopelessly incompetent Decider insisted that "they" hated us "because of our freedoms", a childish non-sequiter at best. A neo-conservative propaganda tool, at worst.

Overnight, a Fox and Fiends-led cottage industry developed complete with nonsensical "Islamofascist" name-calling and ridiculous notions of Islam's "real" goal to overthrow the "free" world. Americans were repeatedly told that Islamic radicals killed themselves in order to kill Americans because, somehow, America's freedom just drove them insane with rage. The Villagers all nodded, knowingly, in agreement.

Here's why "they" hate us…..

I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged.

Here's why "they" hate us….

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons;…..

"On April 11, 1996, when Atta was twenty-seven years old, he signed a standardized will he got from the al-Quds mosque.l It was the day Israel attacked Lebanon in Operation grapes of Wrath. According to one of his friends, Atta was enraged,and by filling out his last testamentd during the attack he was offering his life in response."

A little over 5 years later, Atta led a group of hijackers who crashed planes into American buildings, killing 3000.

And here's why "they" will continue to hate us…

The 25 lines edited out of the court papers contained details of how Mr Mohamed's genitals were sliced with a scalpel and other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding, the controversial technique of simulated drowning, "is very far down the list of things they did," the official said.

A British High Court has just ruled that those 25 lines describing what CIA officials told British officials that they had done to an innocent Muslim detainee, Binyam Mohamed,…must be released to the world. Both George W. Bush and, now, Barack Obama, have tried, (up until now successfully) to keep examples of U.S. depravity and torture, like this one, secret.

But many middle eastern Muslims already know about U.S. torture and depravity. Many middle eastern Muslims know that we attack and occupy their countries with our military, then declare any subsequent native resistance, "enemies" and "terrorists." Many middle eastern countries already know that we will block any investigations into war crimes perpetrated against Gazans by Israelis…..or perpetrated by U.S. officials against Muslim detainees.

"They" already know all of this.

"They" are, just now, learning about this.

And that's why "they" hate us….and unless we change policy course….that's why "they" will continue to hate us.

Updated below

Humans will lie about almost anything…..check that….Humans will lie about anything. I'm not sure whether the human habit of lying can be attributed to evolution or not. Perhaps we have been programmed over 15,000 years or so to deceive other humans for self-preservation purposes.

Whatever the reason…..dishonesty, lying, deception….have always been human traits.

In the 90's, the last time we had a Democratic president, rich conservatives took it upon themselves to orchestrate a mass media lying and smearing campaign against Bill Clinton. Clinton, according to those widely circulated lies, was a drug runner, a murderer, a real estate scammer and a serial rapist. None of those lies were true but they were continually repeated by the liars and then, by those who believed, or wanted to believe the lies.

One year after Justice Scalia appointed George W. Bush president, the lies and deceptions by Dick Cheney and his band of PNAC warmongering crusaders led to the senseless murders of 4400 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Corporate media, with very few exceptions, helped Cheney spread those lies. The lies were spread from the "liberal" NY Times' Judith Miller directly to the late Tim Russert's Meet the Press on "liberal" NBC……the network that Mary Matalin, Cheney's political advisor, said was the best for getting Cheney's "message" out.

Cheney's lies and deceptions worked. Iraq posed no threat to the U.S., wasn't involved with 9-11, and had no ties to Islamic extremists. Iraq had been decimated from a decade of U.S flyover bombings and painful sanctions. Yet, the corporate media's wholesale spreading of Cheney's lies coupled with America's still fresh emotions of vengeance from 9-11, led this country into what is still considered a disaster today inside Iraq.

Believing in lies often leads to dire consequences. Such is Iraq.

Now with Cheney gone, except for appearances on corporate-whore teevee, incoherent sore-loser Tea Partiers, like the arrival of the Holy Ghost in the book of Acts, have had the deceptive-working power of Dick Cheney wash over them like flames of fire. Tea Partiers, or 9-12'ers if you prefer, though not as polished a group as their Dark Master, have been as successful as The Dick was in deceiving the overall public.

I wonder how many needless deaths will happen this time.

The Twelvers lie about virtually everything. They lie about an already partially socialized America becoming "socialist." They lie about Obama's desire to kill the elderly. They lie about Democratic health care legislation covering undocumenteds. They lie about Obamacare mandating tax dollars to be used for abortion. They lie about Obama's citizenship. They deceptively compare Obama with Hitler, Castro, Mao, and Stalin. They falsely assert that they "want their country back", when their country hasn't gone anywhere.

They even lie about how many Twelvers showed up in D.C. last Saturday.

Tea Partiers, now imbued with the Evil Lying Spirit of Richard Cheney, carry on their Dark Father's tradition of lying in order to get what they want. Cheney wanted to attack and occupy Iraq. Twelvers want health care reform killed and the presidency of Barack Obama, like Clinton in the 90's, marginalized.

In both cases, corporate-whore main media was johnny-on-the-spot in helping to spread the lies. In 2002, in excess of 100,000 anti-Iraq war protestors gathered in D.C. The Washington Post, you know, that "liberal" rag, covered that rather large protest this way….

The Washington Post put the story not on the front page, but in the Metro section with, as the paper's ombudsman later lamented, "a couple of ho-hum photographs that captured the protest's fringe elements."

The Post, representing the lies and deceptions of Dick Cheney over Iraq in 2002, couldn't possibly take 100,000+ protesters seriously…..their paper repeatedly had argued for attacking a country which did not threaten America.

However, if the protest is smaller and based on incoherent deceptions and lies, like the TeaBaggers in D.C. this past weekend…..then the "liberal" Washington Post strategically places those lies and deceptions on their front page….with pictures….

Tens of thousands of conservative protesters, many complaining that the nation is racing toward socialism, massed outside the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, angrily denouncing President Obama's health-care plan and other initiatives as threats to the Constitution.

100,000+ protesting the lies of Dick Cheney which resulted in 4400 U.S. soldier caskets and no definable benefit to America…..Metro section coverage. 60,000 protesters lying about any and everything Obama…..front page news.

I no longer believe that America is in a "battle for it's soul." I think that battle is over and the forces of light and truth have lost. The liars and deceivers have won out. Cheney lied and he got what he wanted….a U.S. quagmire in Iraq with thousands of dead Americans. The Twelvers lie and deceive and the whore media, just like with Iraq, assist them in getting what they want…..a watered down, feckless, piece of drug and insurance industry-friendly legislation which will only make our problem with high costs and availability even worse.

Update: Here is the picture used by my blog friend King in his post yesterday….

The picture is from the 1997 Promise Keepers rally…..not from last Saturday's TeaBagger gathering.

Humans will lie and deceive about anything.

As the Obama administration continues to do everything it can to cover-up for Bush/Cheney-era crimes against the American people, we now learn that Eric Holder, Obama's Attorney General, has appointed Republican, John Durham, as a "special prosecutor" to investigate "alleged detainee mistreatment"….

Holder has named longtime prosecutor John H. Durham, who has parachuted into crisis situations for both political parties over three decades, to open an early review of nearly a dozen cases of alleged detainee mistreatment at the hands of CIA interrogators and contractors.

Durham has already been "investigating" the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes…..

The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes of waterboarding involving high-value al-Qaeda suspects. That investigation is in its 19th month, though lawyers following the case have cast doubt on whether criminal charges will be filed.

The videotapes investigation, reluctantly begun under the Bush administration, is the key to understanding Holder's goals in appointing Durham to investigate detainee abuse. No indictment recommendations will ever be made in the already 19-month-old videotapes investigation, but that long investigation gives the perception that federal leaders are serious about the rule of law. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider…

The White House reiterated in a statement that Obama doesn't believe in prosecuting CIA personnel who used "enhanced" techniques "in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance" that was provided by Bush administration officials.

All a thinking person has to ask themselves is this: Does the executive branch have the power, the legal right under the Constitution, to order actions to be carried out which specifically violate American law and international treaties and conventions? And does the executive branch have the legal right under the Constitution to order new laws to be written by obedient lawyers, ala John Yoo, the architect of the "legalization" of American propagated torture?

Bush and Cheney have already given their answers…..now "looking forward, not backward" Obama is giving his. Neither have anything to do with fidelity to law or the Constitution…..but both answers have to do with perception of fidelity to law and the Constitution. Because as Karl Rove and the Townhall Buster Uppers have already proven…..perception is all that matters.

Holder, (if you can even fathom this), isn't setting up an "investigation" to determine if people ordered the open violation of existing law or treaties. He's setting up an "investigation" to determine if people exceeded the "new laws" written by John Yoo and Jay Bybee.

It would be similar to only investigating whether a getaway man in a bank robbery had exceeded the orders he was given by the architect of the bank robbery.

But that's where we're at in America today. And so, just as with Abu Ghraib, perhaps a low level, no-name, CIA employee or private contractor will be reprimanded after John Durham concludes his report in 4 or 5 years….perhaps not.

All that really matters is that Obama, like Bush before him, creates a perception of taking egregious violations of law seriously. He really doesn't.

Others working for Obama don't take violations of the law seriously, either. Consider Obama's CIA chief, Leon Panetta…..

In a message to CIA employees, agency director Leon Panetta declined to enter the debate over whether waterboarding and other "enhanced" questioning techniques were legal or crossed the line into torture. But he vowed to defend employees who were acting under the legal guidance they were given at the time and noted that any review must consider the pressures that agency personnel were facing.

"This much is clear," Panetta said: "The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al-Qaeda was in short supply."

Panetta's defense of CIA personnel used to be called the Nazi defense. But no more. Now the Nazi defense……we were only obeying orders, and hey, we were under a lot of pressure….is the American defense. It is the defense of the lawless.

The only thing in "short supply" from 2001 onward was loyalty to American law and the Constitution. Perception of terror, fearmongering, was all that mattered during Bush/Cheney….and they were successful in selling their lawless coup through that perception of terror.

Now, Obama is creating the perceptions. The perception of getting to the bottom of numerous Bush White House-ordered crimes by appointing an investigator who will start his investigation with the understanding that the Bush White House had the perfect right to order crimes to be committed.

Over the past number of years, whenever I suggested that George W. Bush was actually an American terrorist leader, I was quickly reprimanded by those Serious and Grown-up Conservatives who immediately sought to describe the former president as "protecting us from Islamofascists."

Now, former Bush Homeland Security head, Tom Ridge, in a new book, follows in the footsteps of The Reverend, and tells his readers that, yes, George W. Bush terrorized the American people for political gain.

From the news release…

Former US homeland security chief Tom Ridge charges in a new book that top aides to then-president George W. Bush pressured him to raise the "terror alert" level to sway the November 2004 US election.

Then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and attorney general John Ashcroft pushed him to elevate the color-coded threat level, but Ridge refused, according to a summary from his publisher, Thomas Dunne Books.

……

He also says that Bush's homeland security adviser at the White House, Fran Townsend, called his department ahead of an August 1, 2004 speech to ask Ridge to include a reference to "defensive measures … away from home" — language that he read as being a reference to the Iraq war.

In those remarks, Ridge said he was raising the threat alert level for the financial services sector in New York City, northern New Jersey, and Washington DC, and went on to praise Bush's leadership against extremism.

……

He later publicly acknowledged that much of the information underpinning the new alert was three years old, stoking Bush critics' charges of political manipulation.

I wrote many times during the Bush-Cheney overthrow of the United States that Karl Rove's obsession with a permanent Republican majority led him and Bush to politicize everything emanating from the White House. Early critics of the Bush administration called the Bushies "Mayberry Machiavellis" for a reason. "Everything was political," is the answer.

When a high government leader seeks to frighten the population he is responsible to protect, and he does so for the purpose of gaining a political edge……that person is a terrorist. Osama Bin Laden's political philosophy and George W Bush's were the same. Bin Laden's philosophy states that if people are scared, terrorized by events, political leanings can be altered, changed.

George W. Bush thought the same as Bin Laden. The Bushies actively sought to terrorize the American voting population just prior to the 2004 election, without any credible evidence to justify the terrorizing, in order to alter the outcome of what looked to be a very tight presidential race with John Kerry.

None of this is new. I've known about Ridge raising the terror chart levels for political purposes for years. But as Glenn Greenwald blogs, whenever someone, you know, from the loony left, suggested that's what was going on…..well, we were just loony…..and not Serious, like corporate-whore media members.

And it wasn't just terror color charts. The Iraq crime was sold to America using terror. "Mushroom clouds", "chemical and biological weapons", "WMD", "no doubt that Saddam has reconstituted his weapons program"…..etc. Spying on Americans without benefit of warrants, torturing detainees, Gitmo, extrordinary kidnappings…..all of this was sold to us with terror. All of this, as we have witnessed with The Dick since Obama's inauguration, was meant to scare, to terrorize the American people for conservative political purposes.

It's not simply George W. Bush who is guilty of terrorizing the American people during his administration, though he definitely is guilty. The Republican Party has become the Party of Terror. Constantly seeking to frighten and terrorize Americans through the use of imminent danger fear. That's the purpose of the townhall bust-ups, the carrying of semi-automatic weapons, the shouts, the visible hatred…..it's to scare, to terrorize other Americans for a political objective, in this case, to defeat health care reform.

All of this is transparently obvious, just as it was transparently obvious when the Bushies were leading the nation around using terror tactics in order to complete their wet dream of attacking and occupying Iraq.

It's a good thing that a moderate Republican, like Tom Ridge, is setting the record straight.

UPDATE: Here's a prime example of what I'm getting at today, from Idaho.

Also this.

America has been involved in imperialistic-minded interference in other nation's governments and elections for as long as I can remember. It's what we do. And I suppose that helps in understanding why America's leading neo-conservatives, senators like Lindsey "Huckleberry" Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (ASSH*LE-CT) have been calling for U.S. interference in the Iranian election dispute. Old habits are difficult to break.

Watch Graham and McCain explain how it's our duty to interfere with other countries. First 2 minutes….

McCain…"America's position in the world is one of moral leadership. And that's what America's all about."

America's "moral leadership" in Iran, over oil, in the 1950's led directly to the dysfunctional Islamic government in Iran today. America's "moral leadership" in Iraq during the 1980's led directly to the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, which led to more American "moral leadership" in the crime and quagmire of today's occupation of Iraq. America's "moral leadership" in Afghanistan during the 1980's led directly to the establishment and strengthening of Bin Laden's extremist group, al-Qaida.

If that's "moral leadership"…..what the hell would immoral leadership look like?

Set aside the 50's and the 80's "moral leadership" for a moment. How has that leadership been on display the last 8 years? America now admits to having savagely tortured detainees held in secret gulags around the world….and reserves the right to continue doing so. THAT'S what America is all about.

America attacked the nation of Iraq, without just cause, and still occupies it today with U.S. military troops and bases. Hundreds of thousands were killed, millions displaced. THAT'S what John McCain calls "moral leadership."

And don't forget that the shameless neo-conservative, John McCain, wanted to spread that American "moral leadership" to the country of Georgia when it was in a dispute with Russia. "We're all Georgians, now", McCain ridiculously insisted.

America's "moral leadership" has been on display in Latin and South America and southeast Asia, and many other places, as the U.S. attempted to mold the world in it's image against the wishes of the people being molded. It's what we do. Meddle in other countries affairs. THAT'S what America is all about.

This messianic mentality, this triumphalistic attitude, is hated by the people of other countries. This "moral leadership" is seen by others for what it actually is…..the mindset and actions of a bully always seeking to get it's own way.

There's an undercurrent throughout American political thought which sees the U.S. as the nation that god, himself, has raised up to do his bidding. Because of such thinking, many Americans deceive themselves into believing that all this "moral leadership" that McCain talks about, no matter how abhorrent, no matter how bloody, is god's will…..that no matter how we interfere or who we interfere with….it is always the right thing to do, because we are America, god's new chosen people….and as McCain said, "moral leadership is what America is all about."

Many of today's Republicans are just itching to spread that "moral leadership" to the streets of Iran.

Today I continue with Part 2 of my appraisal of President Obama's speech from Cairo, Egypt….

To those Muslims in Hamas, Hizbollah, al-Qaeda, or Iran,…Obama spoke honestly and directly about Israel…

Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

And to Jews and Christians, Obama made it clear that the Palestinians' plight was "intolerable"…..

So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

What Palestinians must do…

Palestinians must abandon violence.

What Israel must do…

Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's.

But take note of something new from an American president. Obama spoke directly to the "settlement" problem created by radical extremist Israelis. Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post and the typical cast of American radical extremist neo-cons began hyperventilating the moment these words left Obama's mouth….

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.

That's what true world leadership sounds like. A recognition of the problem from each side's perspective and an acknowlegment of wrongs from both sides. Community organizing…on a world stage.

I've never heard an American president own up to America's role in the overthrow of Iran's government in the 1950's. Obama's bold comments on Iran….

In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.

And note that Obama did not avoid confronting Iran's wrongdoing.

The president denounces nuclear weapons in the hands of Iranians, but in so doing, he draws a new nuclear line in the sand for not only middle eastern countries, but all countries….

There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On Bush, cowboy-imposed democracy….

So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

Backhanding American exceptionalism, again, Obama criticizes, indirectly, the previous administrations willingness to promote elections in Gaza, when the outcome was "presumed" to be favorable to anti-extremist forces. Instead Hamas won that election…

America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.

Obama shreds the childish notion that elections alone make a democracy…

…you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

An American president calls for Muslim reform, something Amerian evangelicals could take to heart, as well…..

Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. ….fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

But without denying all people freedom of religion…

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together.

Human rights, women's rights….

…it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit – for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality.

Americans can choose to be "bound by the past". Americans can choose to be afraid all the time. Americans can easily be swayed, if we choose to be, encouraged to be afraid by radical extremist opportunists from the conservative movement in America.

And so can Muslims…

There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country – you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.

Obama's speech was historic and monumental….and that's why American media, for the most part, will ignore its content.

Finally, a postscript on something I blogged about this week.

Note today's AB Journal opinion page. Michael Gerson, former Bush, the Younger speechwriter, bashes Obama for his health care proposals. Jim Hoagland, Washington Post Villager, bashes Obama on American automakers…..AND….without any sense of irony, E.J. Dionne's column about how the corporate media's conservative bias shuts out any liberal policy discussions.

The Obama speech from Cairo, Egypt…

The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.

Addressing seemingly intractable problems requires honesty. Facts and truth must not be avoided for the sake of national pride or revisionistic history. The West, as well as Islam, cannot move forward peacefully without recognition of historic truth. Obama boldly addressed historic truth. Finding common ground requires honesty.

But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

Stereotyping of either side is dishonest…

I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known.

The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores……..So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.

Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail.

There is no room in Obama's thinking for blind American exceptionalistic dogma. Just as al-Qaeda's extremist doctrines, which elevate Islam to uniquely superior world status, is incongruous with peaceful coexistence……so too, American exceptionalistic doctrines.

Obama addresses 9-11…

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security.

We did not go by choice (to Afghanistan), we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day…..These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there.

Driving a wedge between Islam and the radical version of Islam represented by Bin Laden….

They have killed people of different faiths – more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

President Obama struck at the heart of the Islamic extremist problem. Bim Laden's theology is not the theology of Islam, it is a perversion, an aberration. Using the essence of the Koran as evidence, Obama stripped away the faux-justifications relied upon by Bin Laden to justify his barbaric violence.

Iraq….

Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world……America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future – and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own.

Some American neo-conservatives still insist that Iraq was not a war of choice, but instead, a war of necessity. Obama, rightfully, dismissed this neo-conservative dishonesty out of hand, while assuring Iraqis and Muslims that goals of American imperialism in Iraq are out of the question.

American torture….

9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.

Even though I disagree with the reasons Obama gave for the previous administration's torture regime ("fear and anger")….especially in light of the evidence that torture was conducted in order to extract false confessions later to be used to lead America into a "war of choice",……Obama's clear denunciation of Gitmo and torture drew applause from his Muslim audience, and rightfully so.

I will continue tomorrow with Part 2.

Without any qualification….President Obama's Cairo speech should make all Americans proud. Obama was brilliant.

As the country was being deceptively propagandized by the Bush administration during 2002 and early 2003, the focus of the propaganda boiled down to Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of dangerous weapons. WMD. The Bush administration pushed the WMD message repeatedly. Chemical and biological weapons……mobile weapons labs….smoking gun mushroom clouds…..nuclear program….it was a constant drumbeat.

But that wasn't the question our governmental leaders should have been asking….and then answering. Saddam's possession of dangerous weapons was not the basis upon which to decide whether or not to attack Iraq, a nation that posed no threat to the U.S., nor had ever attacked the U.S.

The nation should never have been focused on answering the question of whether Saddam possessed weaponry. The focus of the nation should have been targeted on answering the question: Does Iraq pose a threat to the United States? The answer to that question was an unequivocal, no. And that is why that question was never the focus of the Bushies propaganda.

If the question of whether Iraq posed a threat to the U.S. ever came up….the Bush propagandists would resort to their cockamamie pre-emptive war ramblings.

I bring this up because the same thing is now happening again. Bush's ex-officials, working in a coordinated fashion with Republican propagandists and their media stenographers, are attempting to focus the nation's attention on the wrong question.

The question before us is not: Who was briefed, or not briefed, or when they were briefed or not briefed, or what was in the briefing or non-briefing concerning torture? The question before us is: Who ordered the torture?

When the media gets their high on from a knowingly distractive story, they don't stop until the entire 8-ball has been snorted. So it is with their unexplainable obsession with when and what Nancy Pelosi was briefed on concerning Bush torture.

The Nancy Pelosi-was-briefed-about-torture focus has the same distractive quality to it that the Saddam-has-weapons focus had to it. Both were/are attempts to avoid the authentic question that needs exploring, i.e. Does Saddam pose a threat to the U.S.? or, in our present case, Who ordered the torture?

Obama has told us that the time for "old politics" is over. I couldn't disagree more. The old politics are alive and well and still controling the narrative in Washington D.C. Karl Rove proudly explained awhile back how the conservatives "created reality", and how the media stenographers would simply record that new "reality" while they, in turn, would go about "creating" more.

And so it is, mid-May, 2009. Clear and unassailable evidence, much of it by eyewitnesses, has surfaced recently implicating the Bush administration in a pre-meditative conspiracy to obtain knowingly false confessions from tortured prisoners, false confessions tying al-Qaeda and 9-11 with Iraq. False confessions that were then used to deceive Congress and the American people about the need to attack and occupy Iraq.

In light of this evidence, most of the main media Villagers simply refuse to ask the pertinent and obvious question: Who ordered this to be done? Instead, dog-whistled by Republicans, the Villagers have all rushed to the new shiny-object-question-orgy of distraction: Did Nancy Pelosi know about torture?

By asking the questions Bush wanted the media to ask in the fraud-up to Iraq, Congress and the American people were not well served, to put it mildly. That willingness to focus on a distraction led to 4200 dead American soldiers and an ongoing clusterf*ck of a mess 6 years later.

By focusing on what the Bushies want us to focus on now: Did Nancy Pelosi know about torture?…… our nation is being led into an even deeper, darker hellhole….the permanent acceptance of savage torture.

I wonder how many Americans will have to die this time.

Here's a quick video compilation of the Villagers snorting thick lines of mass distraction….

Updated video below

Funny coincidence about what I'm going to blog about here. I started rereading portions of the 9-11 Commission Report a couple of weeks ago after I discovered the real reason why Bush/Cheney ordered torture. All this time, I thought these draft dodging faux cowboys were trying to create an illusion that they were, you know, real rough and tough guys when they ordered torture. Bush/Cheney had not protected the country on 9-11, nor from the anthrax attacks…..the worst attacks ever in our history. Both those terrorist attacks happened on their watch. I just figured that they felt responsible, as well they should, and needed some made-for-teevee, warrior-like action to counter their utter failure.

However, even I couldn't think as cynically and twisted as Bush and Cheney were thinking. They actually ordered torture to produce false information tying al-Qaeda with Iraq. That was the very purpose of the whole Bush/Cheney torture agenda. It worked too. Bush and Powell used the bogus confession of al-Libi, later recanted, as part of a "marketing" blitz in September 2002 to scare Congress into passing the Iraq Resolution. Later, in February 2003, Colin Powell used the same bogus confession information in his failed attempt to "market" the fraud-up to the U.N.

Now, today we're finding out that the 9-11 Commission Report based some of it's most crucial findings on bogus confessions of tortured prisoners. Oh, my. Stop reading and go here.

I've blogged on several occasions that once the Iraq crime was fully understood for what it was…..then…..9-11 could be looked at more thoroughly. Perhaps that will happen eventually now because of the illegal and traitorous torture agenda of the last administration coming to light. We'll see.

But wait….there's even more.

Former chief of staff of the State Department under Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, wrote a blog piece. If you read it, you may find yourself saying, "well, hells, belles, Loretta….that's what The Reverend's been saying." You know, something like that. Here's a bit of it…..but you really need to read the whole thing.

"..what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002–well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion–its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop."

And I found this interesting….

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Bush administration officials are in trouble. In light of the spineless Democrats, especially in the Senate, I have my doubts whether the Terror and Torture Twins will ever be held accountable….the Village would have such a sh*t fit. Having said that, the slow drip, drip, drip has a genuine Watergate feel to it.

Update: Rachel Maddow had her best segment to date last night on Bush/Cheney crimes. It's well worth a look….