Olbermann: 9/11 Commission Omissions - 2/1/08

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 04:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51OLTYxVDGk   Posted on YouTube: February 02, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 02, 2008 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 1700

 
MSNBC Countdown w/ KEITH OLBERMANN - February 1, 2008. Keith speaks with correspondent Pete Williams about Phillip Sheenan's new book that raises questions about political compromises regarding the 9/11 commission, mistrust of Phillip Zelikow.

[BeatleBoot]

1. Lee Hamilton: Whitewasher for the GOP

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/10/21/142435/69/214/260140

Might as well put a friggin (R) after his name.

He sold the Democrats out a long time ago.

Why do you think Bush picked him to be on the 9-11 Commission?

It ain't Rocket Surgery!

[CGowen]

2. The standard response "not good for the country"

..former Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House select committee investigating the Iran-contra affair, was shown ample evidence against Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, but he did not probe their wrongdoing. Why did Hamilton choose not to investigate? In a late 1980s interview aired on PBS 'Frontline,' Hamilton said that he did not think it would have been 'good for the country' to put the public through another impeachment trial.
http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/hamiltoniran-contra.htm

[redbaum21]

3. Olbermann is a 911 truther!

That's what I think!

[Divine Discontent]

4. sure makes Ham appear bought & owned n/t

[LaStrega]

5. ...

Keith quotes shrub: “Our country has been tested in ways none of us could have imagined.” Then goes on: "That is what he told the Commission, the creation of which he opposed, who’s members he appointed, who’s questions he avoided as long as was politically possible."

Sheesh I heart KO.

And Lee Hamilton cannot come out and say Zelikow was politically motivated because he too would be implicated.

I cry bullshit.

[jkg4peace]

6. Zelikow is the architect of the official 9/11 myth

I remember learning about him at the 9/11 truth conference I went to. Former white house staff were saying that he was hired for his expertise in the role of public myth (and perhaps the development of such myths). He was very much a Bush administration insider and many strongly objected to his role on the commission. That's why his name is hardly ever mentioned in connection with the commission(always referred to as the Hamilton/Keen.)I just looked him up in Wikipedia, and here are a few nuggets (not in the same order they appear in Wikipedia):

In the November-December 1998 issue of Foreign Affairs, he co-authored an article Catastrophic Terrorism, with Ashton B. Carter, and John M. Deutch, in which they speculated that if the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center had succeeded, "the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it. Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. Like Pearl Harbor, the event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either future terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently." <6>

While at Harvard he worked with Ernest May and Richard Neustadt on the use, and misuse, of history in policymaking. They observed, as Zelikow noted in his own words, that "contemporary" history is "defined functionally by those critical people and events that go into forming the public's presumptions about its immediate past. The idea of 'public presumption'," he explained, "is akin to William McNeill's notion of 'public myth' but without the negative implication sometimes invoked by the word 'myth.' Such presumptions are beliefs (1) thought to be true (although not necessarily known to be true with certainty), and (2) shared in common within the relevant political community."<5>"

Zelikow and May have also authored and sponsored scholarship on the relationship between intelligence analysis and policy decisions. Zelikow later helped found a research project to prepare and publish annotated transcripts of presidential recordings made secretly during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations (see WhiteHouseTapes.org) and another project to strengthen oral history work on more recent administrations, with both these projects based at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs.

In writing about the importance of beliefs about history, Zelikow has called attention to what he has called "'searing' or 'molding' events take on 'transcendent' importance and, therefore, retain their power even as the experiencing generation passes from the scene. In the United States, beliefs about the formation of the nation and the Constitution remain powerful today, as do beliefs about slavery and the Civil War. World War II, Vietnam, and the civil rights struggle are more recent examples." He has noted that "a history’s narrative power is typically linked to how readers relate to the actions of individuals in the history; if readers cannot make a connection to their own lives, then a history may fail to engage them at all."<5>

[Twist_U_Up]

7. There is a method to thier madness.

If its on govt. t.v., chances are they are trying to throw someone off thier scent or they are attempting to spin it.

911 inside job

[JDPriestly]

8. Zelikow -- apologist for and defender of the intelligence community

Dealing with Dictators
Dilemmas of US Diplomacy and Intelligence Analysis, 1945-1990
Edited by Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow

. . . .
Dealing with Dictators offers in-depth analysis of six cases: the United States and China, 1945-1948; UN intervention in the Congo, 1960-1965; the overthrow of the Shah of Iran; US relations with the Somoza regime in Nicaragua; the fall of Marcos in the Philippines; and US policy toward Iraq, 1988-1990. The authors' fascinating and revealing accounts shed new light on critical episodes in US foreign policy and provide a basis for understanding the dilemmas that US decision makers confronted. The chapters do not focus on whether US leaders made the "right" or "wrong" decisions, but instead seek to deepen our understanding of how uncertainty permeated the process and whether decision makers and their aides asked the right questions. This approach makes the book invaluable to scholars and students of government and history, and to readers interested in the general subject of how intelligence analysis interacts with policymaking.

. . . .
"Dealing with Dictators will be valuable to readers interested in American foreign policy and the contributions intelligence has made or failed to make in given cases. The explanation of the varying perspectives of the intelligence collector, analyst, and decision maker is a particularly important contribution. Today, we have the opportunity to evaluate policy decisions with the benefit of years of hindsight, but those depicted here had to advise and decide with what information they had, which was often conflicting and muddled."
—Bob Graham, U.S. Senator, 1987–2005, Former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and author of Intelligence Matters

"In a riveting account, Ernest May and Philip Zelikow describe the delicate interplay between intelligence and policy deliberation that has shaped presidential decisions on how to intervene in foreign crises. The lesson of the case studies is that the intelligence community, far from being inept, often provides accurate intelligence analysis for the president and valuable covert action options that extend his diplomatic and military choices."
―John Deutch, Former Director of Central Intelligence, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Institute Professor, MIT

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10653