Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.
The fact that hardly anyone has heard of David Addington is no accident. As chief of staff to Dick Cheney, he shares his boss’s fetish for secrecy. But as reporters are finally zeroing in on what Bush officials have really been up to these last seven years, evidence continues to pile up about the key role Addington has played in the skullduggery. Some are even suggesting he could be tried for war crimes for his role in approving the torture of terror suspects.
In the video above, in an interview with Steve Clemons, editor of The Washington Note, Jane Mayer discusses Addington, whom she profiled in the New Yorker last year and who plays a central role in her new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, which Trish, my colleague at PR, wrote about this week.
The excerpt in the following transcript comes about 11 minutes into the interview. The quote mentioned by Mayer and Clemens is the last line in Mayer’s book. It comes from Phillip Zelikow, a former counselor to Condoleeza Rice, who attempted to explain what went wrong within the administration after the attacks on September 11 this way: “Fear and anxiety were exploited by zealots and fools.”
CLEMONS: One of the interesting things about your profile of David Addington … is of all the players in this, he’s the least known. He’s not written about. David Ignatius wrote a great piece on him … a headline on a short article, calling him “Cheney’s Cheney.” It’s a term I like a lot.
MAYER: Perfect.
CLEMONS: But in your profile of Addington in the New Yorker, in 2006, you tell of Addington carrying a copy of the Constitution around in his pocket, but it’s annotated in his views of the powers of succession.
MAYER: Yes.
CLEMONS: This is really bizarre. [Laughter.] … Also there’s a great vignette in the opener of this piece … about Colin Powell at a football game, hearing about for the first time … about the warrantless wiretaps. And he says, “It’s Addington … He doesn’t care about the Constitution.” But nonetheless David does carry the Constitution around with him. Can you share with us a little insight into this …?
MAYER: The thing that — and does he care about the Constitution? This is going to be important in the coming weeks and months because there’s … a growing drumbeat now about whether or not to treat some of these people and some of their decisions as war crimes, as war criminals and criminal acts.
CLEMONS: By whom?
MAYER: By some members of Congress, members of human rights groups, some of the legal activist groups. There’s sort of a burbling up going on. I would say that from the reporting I’ve done that David Addington believes in a different interpretation of the Constitution. It’s his own understanding of it. He… these people don’t see themselves as criminals. And I had a very interesting conversation with Arthur Schlesinger, the late historian … about this. We were talking about Bush versus Nixon. And his point of view was that Bush was by far the more dangerous president, he thought, because of some of the decisions he’d made had had such terrible consequences. And in particular, he cited torture as possibly putting the United States in its worst light in its history.
But he said of Nixon, he thought Nixon had a criminal mentality, and he did not think that was true of Bush. I think that Bush and the people around him were very convinced of the righteousness of what they were doing, which is why I come back to that quote from Phillip Zellicow, because it’s playing off of Louis Brandeis’ quote about zealots. They were zealots. I don’t think they were criminals, at least not in their own minds.
Mayer says Arthur Schlesinger believed that, unlike Pres. Nixon’s men, Bush officials did not have criminal intent when they authorized torture, wiretapped without warrants, exposed a CIA anti-WMD program for petty partisan revenge and the rest. What these fools and zealots intended when they committed their crimes might be interesting dinner table discussion, but intent is irrelevant in determining whether crime were committed.
Mayer also says there is a growing drumbeat in the capitol to charge high Bush officials like David Addington with war crimes. If so, these efforts should be directed toward the Hague, because pursuing them here will become moot later this year when Bush issues blanket pardons to all his henchmen — probably on Christmas Eve, just as his father did in 1992, as he left office.
Ah yes Phillip Zelikow. The bastard who wrote a book with Condi Rice prior to her GW Bush years of criminal service. He helped White al-Qaeda perpetuate their biggest lie.
Phillip Zelikow was Bush’s silent gate keeper of information and an author of the 400 page fairy tale know as the the 9-11 Commission Report. Of the many errors and ommission you can read about in Dr. Ray Griffin’s book Debunking 9-11, nothing exemplifies Zelikow’s work more boldly than keeping out the INCONVIENENT TRUTH that 3 WTT Towers experienced a global collapse that day not 2. By not including the 47 story, 6.5 second steel concret building collapse of WTT Building #7 that was not hit by a plane and fell 7 hours after the Twin Towers, the official story is missing the most outstanding evidence of who was really responsible for the war games that occurred that day.
Most the physical evidence that wasn’t pulverized into dust by the explosives was shredded steel. Most the shredded steel was immediately removed and shipped overseas in a 24 hour around the clock operation by a controlled demolition company.
The only other official investigation known as the NIST Report, answers to the Commerce Department that again in turn answers to Bush. These people who denied the outstanding evidence of molten steel and steel beams although many accounts were noted, claim 3 small fires caused WTT Building #7 to uniformly implode into itself. In other words these fires accomplished what only a handful of skilled controlled demolition experts could do.
Phillip Zelakow needs to burn with the rest of the lying criminal neo-con murderers and their accomplices at the HAIG Tribunal for war crimes.
It should also be noted that trace characterists of military high tech super thermate has been positively identified and peer reviewed in 9-11 dust samples at all 3 WTT 9-11 collapse sites. NO ARABS REQUIRED.
http://www.ae911truth.org Accredited architects and engineers are encouraged to look at the outstanding information compiled by Richard Gage and links to Professor Steven Jones papers on super thermate findings. Then they can sign a petition demanding a new independent investigation as to how these steel concrete building were demolished.
If (when) Addington is charged with war crimes, his partner in crime John D. Negroponte is not far behind.
In total agreement with Grizzly.
I tried watching this live when it aired on CSPAN however could not finish doing so because I got sick of hearing people that should know better (Jane Meyer, Clemmons) basically keep perpetuating the myth of the “Official Conspiracy Theory”.
If these people would simply accept the FACT that 9/11 was an inside job then everything they said in this interview would have been completely different and there would have been no laughing and no condoning what these Treasonous war criminals have done.
Mayer was WAY too conciliatory towards Bush and this whole administration of fascist war pigs.
All she did was lift a tiny corner of the massive political burka barely exposing even the little corrupt toe of these bastards.
ONLY 9/11 truth exposing the facts about 9/11 will ever bring these treasonous criminals to justice. Over 3 years ago 36% of the US population knew that 9/11 was inside job, today it has to be closer to 45+% and still growing.
This is in spite of not only a total media blackout but also a huge propaganda campaign where the media denigrates and demonizes everyone that even mentions the subject.
You know, guys, I think this is a beautiful statement of the trouble.
Addington’s obstinate and defiant behavior in the congressional questioning session showed his lack of humility or respect for the law, and for the people of the United States who pay him well and provide him with salary, travel, and health care. That he’s bedazzled Cheney with his authoritarian-styled intellectualism and righteous attitude isn’t surprising. Wasn’t Cheney a dropout and draft dodger? And, so now he’s taken his humble place as Madman Addington’s marionette?
It would be interesting to know whether and how long “911” was planned, whether computers were used, which consultants were employed, whether private industry was tipped, and how many military/CIA active or retired members were involved in the strategies.
One Georgia fabrics company (Riverside) coincidentally registered a security guard uniforms company on September 11, 2001.
The owner has for decades been involved in fabrics, with connections to Ireland and was a long time director with Southern Company’s group of energy and nuclear power companies in the South.
Southern Company came under scrutiny when one of their executives became a whistleblower just before perishing in a plane crash. Several suspicious, untimely deaths followed. (Greg Palast wrote about it.)
There have been more recent plane crashes – one carrying Georgia Republicans which should raise questions, and haven’t, just as the Strategum killings shouldn’t have been shoved under the carpet so soon.
With surely long-term gubernatorial election plans and in an obvious “takeover scheme” for the South, shortly before 911, a Bush announcement was made regarding U.S. Attorneys, among them including Steve Pence, who became the Western District of Kentucky’s US Attorney; and Leura Canary, who became US Attorney for Middle Alabama.
Leura Canary went on to politically prosecute and imprison Alabama’s former Governor Don Siegelman. And Steve Pence rode into the capitol of Kentucky on now former Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher’s coat tails, becoming the first Republican Lt. Governor in many years. Fletcher was later indicted and pardoned more than a dozen members of his cabinet and some officers and fellow investors in the Republican party of Kentucky. It appears they walked away from convictions of illegal political scandals and politically motivated firings and appointments: nearly, “scot free,” just as Karl Rove and Addington and others will do, instead becoming enriched by the sensational crimes and controversies they have created.
Unfortunately, rewarding high crimes and white collar criminals with pardons, fame, and high-dollar speaking engagements has become “The American Way.”
Kentucky still struggles with “Bluegrass Conspiracy” rumors, in which Adnan Khashoggi is mentioned as having been involved in forming a training camp in central Kentucky, known as “the Triad.” (“The Bluegrass Conspiracy,” Sally Denton)
“911” appears to be a Reichstag situation, with similar motives, but would have to have been planned years in advance with “NORTHWOODS” type, top secret authorities. It will be interesting to see whether investigative journalists and concerned Americans can uncover the truth.
The biggest concern by the people I mentioned in the previous post of why they would risk their careers and their life to dispell the fabrication of 9-11 is not 1 of notority and definetely not fame. These people think that without making their best effort to expose the truth about how those buildings collapsed, the criminals in our government who have achieved an across the board victory and successfully cast the blames onto someone else will do another 9-11. They can and will strike again with more military false flag war games of terror in another US city. This repeat could in turn be used to justify more wars, more terror, more right of citizens removed, and the increase of authoritative power granted to the Federal government or in particular the Executive branch to turn the US into a police state.
As patriotic Americans who love our country, they cannot live in good conscience by going on their business knowing that the Arab hijacked plane story as the cause of responsibility for taking out the 3 WTT buildings is a complete outright lie. This is only a few examples of many other serious problems with the Bush government story parroted by the US coporate mass media about the events that occurred on 9-11-2001.
Speaking of re-claiming, had to reclaim a run on sentence. Bradbog rules! Thanks for being here.
The extent of the corrupt responsible to perpetuate the lie so quickly, so loudly, and the depth of their control of the US media as a tool to cover up the truth about these demolitions and the events of 9-11 in general must also be examined in order to someday be reclaim this monopoly on the US media back to the American people.
When they repaired the Y2K problem at the stock exchange they installed a program that currently controls the stock market. They knew there would be a black swan 1987 like event on September 11th, and they put Bush’s security in the building, and blamed the drop in the market on 9/11. The amount of options that were sold were because the black swan event was predicted to be that day and people knew about it, top economists mainly bernanke and his men. If 9/11 didn’t happen the black swan stock market collapse would have, they shut down the market for a week, the source code for the market was updated and hidden in a stock symbol that floats by every day in front of our faces, DJIA, and now with oil going up you hear CNBC not be able to explain the market, because its not a market it a computer program. No panic leading up to Y2K allowed them to show the global elite that it worked and Bin Laden’s men knew about it, drew us into Iraq on the promise that Bin Laden would not tell about the Y2K code. We pull the plug before the election, case closed on our country until Ronald Doda Jr comes along and stumbles upon a computer geeks blog that records what they are saying while they play the game, talking about lavasoft, then I realize that these people were given a power nobody believed they could. They know when a black swan 1987 stock market crash is going to happen, and they need to plan geo-political events around them because if they do not the market won’t go up and people won’t be richer. Money talks, and they knew the stock market was going down that day, and used it to their advantage. 9/11, Y2K Stockmarket…That is your answer.
Oh, and funny thing ‘the triad’ was exactly what those gamers were talking about in their video game blog. I think it is a duke nukem company that makes it. Good place to start researching. Lavasoft, i believe made the triad video game. Good luck.
I liked Web Tarpley’s remark – “if a bunch of Arabs armed with pocket knives REALLY tried to take over an aircraft, the passengers would beat them to death with their luggage!”
Also, no-one makes much of the fact that 757’s are equipped with facilities to take over the aircraft and fly it by remote control from the ground. This was an “Anti-Hijack” measure! It could also explain why the airplanes flew all around Robin Hood’s barn before zeroing in on the twin towers, and almost making their appointment in time, only missing by the eight second gap between the first explosion and the aircraft impact, as witnessed by the seismographic record.
ya got links to that #9 tedeger?
Some of this is so “out there” to me. I don’t know what to believe.
I certainly do wonder what went on that day…
shw
Shannon, I don’t know about tedeger’s stuff, but I made a post with the links to some good information.
99, yes that was good and I have been naked as a jay bird for over 6+ years now.
Shannon: Here is some info on remote control in 757’s and the seismic record.
The seismic record is questionable as to its validity however the FACT that several witnesses heard a HUGE explosion and were seriously injured by them is irrefutable evidence that indeed a huge explosion happened in the basement BEFORE any plane hit the building.
http://www.oilempire.us/remote.html
http://911research.com/essays/demolition/seismic.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuq0ANHxvlM
Thanks so much for posting this interview, Jon. Mayer’s someone I’ve admired for quite some time now. Listening to her here makes me want to go back and reread her related work up until this point.
Her work is going to be a critical part of the prosecutions I hope we are all witness to in the future.
For some reason, the interview here got stopped around where they were talking about Gonzales being a worm. I had to go to youtube to listen to the rest.
It would be nice to track Jack Abramoff’s life from his meddling in Apartheid, South Africa, on through Iran Contra; his courting the Far Right Christian Coalition, and robbing and deceiving Native Americans in “casino lobbying.”
Among his political comrades are, Norquist, Rove, Reed, and others who’ve been laying low but BIT HIS MONEY BAIT.
Why is MSM and the US Government protecting these guys? Why won’t they just tell the stories of what these good ole boys were really “up to?”
Because they want to let Abramoff out of prison soon? So what’s the deal?
Lets not forget John Poindexter who was in the Nixon administration who made the comment, “Maybe we aught to have a lotery to see who can predict when the next terror attack will be”.
Fuck you all