Don Williams

Frist, Hastert go to bat for secret war, secret government

Sat Nov 12, 2005 15:46

64.140.158.31

Frist, Hastert go to bat for secret war, secret government

by Don Williams
http://www.opednews.com

Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist wants to get to the bottom of something. He’s so
worked up he’s calling for joint congressional hearings on the scale of the
9/11 Commission. He said as much in a letter to colleagues, a letter signed
by him and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. Good for them. It’s time
they got to the bottom of something.

In case you missed the story, I'll excuse you in advance for speculating
about just what has Frist and Hastert so riled. In fact, I’d be speculating
too. I’d be thinking, Hey, maybe they want to know whose bright idea it was
to establish dozens of hell-hole prisons in at least eight foreign
countries. If the Washington Post got it right, shady elements of our
government concocted such prisons in order to get away with torture—or
something like it.

Or could it be Frist and Hastert want Dick Cheney to come clean about who
blew Valerie Plame’s cover? Or why our government relied on forged documents
from Italy when making its case for war. Or how top al-Qaida
operatives—possibly including Osama bin Laden—were allowed to slip the noose
at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, early in the war. (Google Tora Bora and Seymour
Hersch for interesting reading). Maybe Hastert is hot to examine stock
market anomalies related to World Trade Center companies just prior to 9/11.
Could be Frist wants to learn how Halliburton lost track of billions in Iraq
at the same time its stock began to soar. Is war profiteering still a crime?

Those legislators could be hot under the collar for any number of reasons.
Just who profited from the UN oil-for-food scandal, they might ask How many
lawmakers have fed at the trough of exploited Native American gaming
interests? Who sat in on those secret energy sessions with Cheney? Maybe
Frist and Hastert want to learn more about reports from Europe and the
Middle East alleging that Americans used banned weapons at Fallujah one year
ago. If such reporting ISN’T true, then who concocted those wrenching videos
on the Internet showing naked children and young mothers running down the
streets of Fallujah? Who faked those shots of caramelized and leathery
corpses?

Maybe they’d like to know who paid to bring Ahmad Chalabi to Washington for
toasts and teas this past Wednesday. Given his blood-and-oil stained hands,
why isn’t Chalbi undergoing tough questioning in some Third World prison? Or
could it be Frist and Hastert want to understand how Bush can say, “We do
not engage in torture,” when photographs proving otherwise stare us in the
face?

Looking at the sad body-pile of naked scandal chronicled in the above
paragraphs, I realize I've only panned the knobby surface. And I must admit
I didn't include the answer to the question I raised about just what has our
senior senator and his pal from Illinois so worked up. For instance, if you
jumped on the first idea mentioned there in the second paragraph, about
prisons in foreign countries, for your answer, you’d be in the ballpark but
you’d be running the bases in reverse, so to speak. Frist and Hastert are
not worried about who had the poor taste to taint America’s good name by
placing torture within our embrace. No, they’re coming at it from a quite
different angle. What they want to spend your tax dollars on is to learn
just WHO BLEW THE WHISTLE on our government.

You see, they apparently don’t believe in the Golden Rule—not when it comes
to torture. Neither do they believe in Kant’s Categorical Imperative. They
probably regard such ideas as quaint. It’s not clear the good Doctor Frist
even believes “First, do no harm.” What he manifestly does believe in is
Secret Government and Secret War.

It’s no mystery why trained dogs and other tools and techniques leapt from
Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib and thence into hell-holes around the globe. Just
look at a map. Our government seeded torture in Central America decades ago,
as I can show you--most notably during the days of Iran-Contra--when the
Reagan-Bush administration, against the will of Congress, funded secret
armies. Bush-Cheney apparently thought the season was right for cloning
torture and other secret practices from Central America to nearby
Guantanamo, then on to the Middle East. That’s why so many disgraced
Iran-Contra figures have made new careers under Bush-Cheney.

Secret War requires Secret Government. Can’t have one without the other, not
on this scale. But don’t worry your pretty little heads about it. We sleepy
masses don’t need to know what Uncle Sam’s darker half does. Go back to
sleep, child, it’s all a bad dream. Rest assured your Secret Government is
conducting Secret Wars to make the world safe for democracy--or something
like it.


http://www.mach2.com/williams/

Don Williams is a prize-winning columnist for the Knoxville News-Sentinel
and the founding editor and publisher of New Millennium Writings, an annual
anthology of literary writing. His awards include a National Endowment for
the Humanities Michigan Journalism Fellowship, a Golden Presscard Award and
the Malcolm Law Journalism Prize. He is finishing a novel, RED STATE BLUES,
set in his native Tennessee and Iraq. His book of selected journalism,
“Heroes, Sheroes and Zeroes, the Best Writings About People” by Don
Williams, is now available for ordering. For more information, email him at
donwilliams7@charter.net. 
Or visit the NMW website at
HTTP://www.mach2.com/williams/

• YOU ARE AIDING AND ABETTING THE ENEMY! —TomsEzine@aol.com, Sat Nov 12 16:01