A WAR WE MUST FIGHT - AND WIN




The new Gallup Poll which shows an almost 2-1 negative view of the United States by Muslims worldwide is not a surprise.

Most Muslims live in countries with governments innately hostile to the USA. Even in nations with which we have friendly relations – Egypt is a perfect example – the majority of the news media, the educational establishment and the religious community are brainwashing the people against the United States. And this despite the US taxpayers pumping $3 billion per year into that country!

While most Muslims think the September 11 attacks were unjustified and morally wrong, Muslims have an equally unified view on the American retaliatory mission in Afghanistan. An overwhelming number of Muslims think the USA is not justified in its War on Terror in Afghanistan.

The perfect example of how information is distorted and warped by the Muslim media is the view of the September 11 attacks:

“The survey also found that 61 percent said they did not believe Arab groups carried out the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Of those surveyed, 18 percent said they did believe Arab organizations were responsible.”

What sane, rational person could deny that Arab groups were behind the September 11 attacks? Only someone who is not being exposed to truthful information.

What should we do to combat this widespread mis-information?

1) Re-fortify and expand our Voice of America radio program. We need to target the Muslim world for a sustained campaign of truth telling about the United States.

2) Dispatch American leaders to Muslim capitols to make public appearances that explain American policy positions. These speeches and interviews should be un-censored, direct talks to the Muslim populations there explaining American policy.

3) Launch a direct satellite TV operation to broadcast directly into Muslim nations. This operation should not be propaganda; it should merely be showing what we are doing – and why. A straightforward explanation of what we Americans are doing – and why.

4) Present all the evidence of September 11 – publicly – on TV and in print. No editing. Let the Muslim world know what we know: the names and pictures of the 19 Arab hijackers, the telephone intercepts, the emails…all of it! Make a case in the court of public opinion very much as a court case would be constructed.



All of us – Muslims included – live in a New World. Television, radio and the Internet have made information the crucial commodity of the day.

In fact, information is more powerful than bombs and bullets.

America has a good story to tell. The shame is we have done a poor job of it – and have ceded the story telling to our enemies, who are masters of deception.

This is a war – the War of Ideas – that the United States must win.

PEARL EXECUTION SIGNALS NEW STAGE IN WAR




“We know your weakness.”

These chilling words were spoken 21 years ago by the North Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand when he was asked about US POW’s still being held alive in Southeast Asia – long after the war had ended.

“Your wives and mothers and daughters,” he continued, “want their men home.”

In other words, capturing – and holding Americans - is a very powerful weapon to use against the United States precisely because we value life above all else.

The Islamic Fundamentalists who captured Danny Pearl are slightly different from Hanoi. These enemies of America executed Pearl on videotape to send a strong message: the next time they kidnap someone we will know for certain they will kill him or her. Thus we are backed into a corner. Either we give in – or that American is as good as dead.

Back in the 1980’s when Iran-backed Hezbollah kidnapped Terry Anderson and several others, they ultimately set them free. Only Colonel Higgins and CIA Station Chief Buckley were tortured and then executed.

Now, 15 years later, our enemies are going to play an even tougher and rougher game. We can be assured that another high profile kidnapping will come – and soon. And we can also be certain that the shadowy kidnappers – who may be ‘fronting’ for a government – will have a specific demand.

For example, what if they seize a Big Name media personality and release videotapes demanding that we let all the detainees free from Guantanimo or else? What will the President do then?

In the past the standard line has always been, “We will not negotiate with terrorists.” But just this week the Bush Administration leaked out a new policy: we will under certain circumstances pay for the return of hostages.

Well, if we will pay money, how about trading lives for lives?

Will we do it?

Ronald Reagan traded deadly missiles to Iran for the freedom of our hostages – even when his administration claimed to never “negotiate with terrorists.”

Israel has traded captured terrorists for Israeli soldiers. Once they traded 1100 terrorists for just 3 Israeli POW’s.

The death of Danny Pearl is the single biggest development in the War on Terror since 9-11. It signals a new stage of this certain-to-be long conflict with fundamentalist Islam. We need to recognize the enemy. It is a strain of thought that happily kills – and almost wants to be killed itself.

How to fight it?

A multi-pronged approach is required:

1) All religious schools – madrassas - that teach this brand of thinking must be closed. If local governments won’t do it, then we need to go into those countries and treat them the same as terrorist training camps. That is what they are. They are training the ‘minds’ of up-and-coming terrorists.

2) All governments who refuse to clean out this cancer of thought from their nations are our enemies. Period!

3) Pakistan’s ISI – Inter Services Agency – is decidedly not out ally and friend. George Tenet should – yet again – lose his job over his ill-conceived decision to “work with” ISI. Who does he think helped create the Taliban in the first place?

4) Prepare for a long, long war.

5) We not only have to kill our enemies before they kill more of us, but we have to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world. We can win that war. We have the best nation and system ever! But we need to teach people the truth about what we do and what we stand for.

6) We need to tell Red China to cut out their illicit support of Iran and Iraq. Moscow, too, better stop their military alliances with Baghdad and Tehran. And we have to have teeth with these warnings, including trade cutbacks.


And we Americans better prepare for more horrible acts – including major kidnappings – that will exploit our “weakness” – our love for each and every life.

JOHN LEBOUTILLIER TO BE ON CNN TOMORROW MORNING - FEB. 21

John LeBoutillier will be on CNN's AMERICAN MORNING with Paula Zahn tomorrow morning, Feb. 21, at 8:45 AM Eastern time. The subject of the debate: rising cigarette taxes. Are they a good thing or not?

CEDING THE MORAL HIGH GROUND



Yesterday’s NEW YORK TIMES front-page story about a new Pentagon office – the Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) – has caused quite a stir inside Washington DC.

And rightly so.

OSI was opened shortly after September 11. It’s stated mission ranges “from overt public diplomacy to covert use of disinformation such as false stories to wage a secret propaganda war.”

In other words, lying and planting false stories is now going to part of our military arsenal.

These tasks have traditionally been in the purview of the CIA. Planting false stories – secretly – without the stamp of the US Government on them is an acceptable form of warfare. Especially during combat operations, such false stories can dupe an enemy – and thusly save American lives.

OSI, however, is a different cup of tea. This is a very, very bad idea. By even creating this office, the Bush Administration has yet again frittered away the moral high ground that America has earned over the past 225 years.

To most people around the world, they have always seen the USA as a “Shining City on a Hill.” Despite what their repressive governments say about the USA, the people in those downtrodden nations have seen us as a ‘special place’ – a place they all want to escape to.

One of these distinctive things that attracts those people to our country is the realization that the United States Government is not like their own government. Our government tells it like it is; other governments don’t.

The creation of OSI now opens Washington – and the Pentagon – to doubts about each and every statement made by any official from now on.

In other words, just the mere creation of this office has already undercut our greatest asset: our unique credibility.

What a shame that this has happened.

And what a strange reversal of roles! The CIA – long the agency in charge of ‘covert’ operations, including disinformation – has now taken on the overt role of combat operations in Afghanistan. In fact, CIA bragged about having the “first combat fatality of the war,” Mike Spann, where in the past CIA personnel’s name and locations were never revealed.

And now the Pentagon – long the department that conducted the actual fighting of a war – is doing the “disinformation” in the foreign media.

This is a simply awful development.

The United States has now ceded the moral high ground in this war. We have lowered ourselves to our enemies’ depth. We now will always be accused of lying – and All-American reporters will be suspected of being “government agents.” (Look for more Danny Pearls as a result of the creation of OSI.)

The Bush Team is missing the Big Picture. We are engaged in a War of Ideas – more than a war of bombs and bullets. Billions of people worldwide are the targets of this war. For the USA – and freedom and democracy – to triumph in this war, we have to be “better” and “purer” than our adversaries are.

Bush decisions such as a refusal to broadcast all of Osama bin Laden’s videotapes, the imposition of secret military tribunals, and the confusion over the care and status of prisoners being held in Guantanimo Bay have already hurt us in the court of international opinion.

G.W. Bush thinks – apparently – that “unleashing our military” will win this war.

He couldn’t be more wrong.

We Americans can only win this difficult war by regaining the Moral High Ground. That means no lying, no propaganda. We do not need a Joseph Goebbels in the Pentagon trying to manipulate public opinion.

All we need is the truth.

Let us hope our government can see this – before it’s too late.

CNN POSTPONED - AND POWELL BLEW IT BIG TIME

After being told by CNN on Friday afternoon that they wanted me on Monday AM to discuss cigarette tax increases, they called me back late Sunday afternoon to say that the Olympic skating controversy was so "hot" that they were postponing my appearance. No problemo! That's live TV.

Now, on to Colin Powell's MTV appearance:





Colin Powell just can’t help himself. He just can’t keep his trap shut – a skill vital to diplomacy. But this much-in-demand personality loves to talk – even about topics on which he just should remain mute.

His latest flap stems from last week’s appearance on an international MTV show featuring 260 young adults assembled in studios in the US, England, Brazil, Italy, India, Russia and Egypt. For ninety minutes the Secretary of State took questions on the one topic he should talk about: foreign policy.

What has caused a stir was a question from an Italian woman regarding the Catholic Church’s opposition to condom use.

Secretary Powell politely said he disagreed with the Church and the Pope – and went on to endorse condom usage.

This has caused a stir – and rightly so. The Bush Administration’s official position is to be for abstinence – a word Powell never even mentioned.

Of course the media has jumped on this – just as, in the past, they have focused on Powell’s anti-GOP positions of Affirmative Action and abortion, not to mention his willingness to serve in a Gore Cabinet.

In those days Powell was not the Secretary of State. Now he is. And, as such, he should follow proper protocol. The Secretary of State should confine himself to conducting diplomacy, following the President’s wishes and administering the State Department. Period!

His personal views - especially on a topic as thorny as sex - should remain private.

The Secretary of State is the senior member of the Cabinet. As such, he is watched and listened to very carefully. As the old commercial said, “When he talks, people listen.”

When Powell speaks on international TV about condoms, it is naturally going to dominate the news!

He should not even have gone on MTV in the first place. It is not a dignified setting for a Secretary of State. Any place that would allow questions about the preferred underwear of presidential candidates is not a proper setting for a senior Cabinet officer.

Secondly, he should confine himself to diplomatic and foreign policy questions. His advance men should see to it that questions like condom use are never even asked of him in public.

Thirdly, Powell should check his personal political ambitions at the door. Three months ago he sent his son, FCC Chairman Michael Powell, onto C-Span to say that his father would be willing to replace Dick Cheney as Vice President should Mr. Cheney’s health not permit him to continue in that post.

Such a calculated move smacked of personal ambition that is unbecoming a Cabinet officer.

But, of course, Powell gets a free ride from the so-called ‘mainstream media’ who love him precisely because he is, in fact, a liberal.

For years Powell scotched rumors of an ambition to run for elective office. Perhaps that has now changed. If so, he should not be using the nation’s State Department post to further those ambitions.

He is there to serve a President with whom he quite often seems to disagree.

We must wonder if the Bushes – father and son – don’t in their heart of hearts regret appointing Powell in the first place?

CNN POSTPONED - AND POWELL BLEW IT BIG TIME

After being told by CNN on Friday afternoon that they wanted me on Monday AM to discuss cigarette tax increases, they called me back late Sunday afternoon to say that the Olympic skating controversy was so "hot" that they were postponing my appearance. No problemo! That's live TV.

Now, on to Colin Powell's MTV appearance:





Colin Powell just can’t help himself. He just can’t keep his trap shut – a skill vital to diplomacy. But this much-in-demand personality loves to talk – even about topics on which he just should remain mute.

His latest flap stems from last week’s appearance on an international MTV show featuring 260 young adults assembled in studios in the US, England, Brazil, Italy, India, Russia and Egypt. For ninety minutes the Secretary of State took questions on the one topic he should talk about: foreign policy.

What has caused a stir was a question from an Italian woman regarding the Catholic Church’s opposition to condom use.

Secretary Powell politely said he disagreed with the Church and the Pope – and went on to endorse condom usage.

This has caused a stir – and rightly so. The Bush Administration’s official position is to be for abstinence – a word Powell never even mentioned.

Of course the media has jumped on this – just as, in the past, they have focused on Powell’s anti-GOP positions of Affirmative Action and abortion, not to mention his willingness to serve in a Gore Cabinet.

In those days Powell was not the Secretary of State. Now he is. And, as such, he should follow proper protocol. The Secretary of State should confine himself to conducting diplomacy, following the President’s wishes and administering the State Department. Period!

His personal views - especially on a topic as thorny as sex - should remain private.

The Secretary of State is the senior member of the Cabinet. As such, he is watched and listened to very carefully. As the old commercial said, “When he talks, people listen.”

When Powell speaks on international TV about condoms, it is naturally going to dominate the news!

He should not even have gone on MTV in the first place. It is not a dignified setting for a Secretary of State. Any place that would allow questions about the preferred underwear of presidential candidates is not a proper setting for a senior Cabinet officer.

Secondly, he should confine himself to diplomatic and foreign policy questions. His advance men should see to it that questions like condom use are never even asked of him in public.

Thirdly, Powell should check his personal political ambitions at the door. Three months ago he sent his son, FCC Chairman Michael Powell, onto C-Span to say that his father would be willing to replace Dick Cheney as Vice President should Mr. Cheney’s health not permit him to continue in that post.

Such a calculated move smacked of personal ambition that is unbecoming a Cabinet officer.

But, of course, Powell gets a free ride from the so-called ‘mainstream media’ who love him precisely because he is, in fact, a liberal.

For years Powell scotched rumors of an ambition to run for elective office. Perhaps that has now changed. If so, he should not be using the nation’s State Department post to further those ambitions.

He is there to serve a President with whom he quite often seems to disagree.

We must wonder if the Bushes – father and son – don’t in their heart of hearts regret appointing Powell in the first place?

JOHN LEBOUTILLIER TO BE ON CNN

On Monday, Feb. 18, live at 8:45 AM Eastern time I will be a guest on Paula Zahn's AMERICAN MORNING show. I am going to be debating about the huge new cigarette tax increases proposed yesterday here in New York City by new Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

The question is: is this tax merely to raise money to alleviate the huge deficit the city budget is experiencing? Or is this tax aimed at influencing social behavior?

Is the role of government in our society to 'influence' behavior?

Should taxes be used to bring about social changes?

If a huge - $3.00 per pack, city and state combined - tax is aimed at stopping smoking, as Mr. Bloomberg claims, then why not tax high-fat foods to stop the epidemic of obesity sweeping this nation? How about taxing sugar which is the main culprit in the explosion of diabetes? How about taxing the hell out of beer and booze because of all the auto deaths and problems from alcoholism?

All of these things - and more - will be debated Monday morning.

Please watch - and then email your comments to CNN (at the address they flash on the screen) and to me at johnlebout@johnlebout.com.

Please have a Happy 3-day holiday weekend.

A CULTURE OF LYING







In the current issue of NEWSWEEK, Jeffrey Skilling’s mother says, “When you are the CEO and you are on the board of Directors, you are supposed to know what is going on with the rest of the company. You can’t get off the hook with me there…He’s going to have to beat this the best way he can.”

Sure sounds like Skilling’s mother didn’t believe her son’s lame explanations and dodges last week when he testified before a House Committee.

As many have said since then, Skilling used the “Sgt. Schultz” defense: “I know nothing!”

Indeed, the ENRON fiasco is indicative of an epidemic in our country: lying.

Skilling, Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow and dozens of other senior executives lied to their employees, their shareholders – maybe even to each other.

We need to ask: how could so many liars end up together in the same company?

Perhaps the answer is that in our country today we simply have become a culture of lying. And maybe the election – and re-election – of Bill Clinton is indicative of this awful development. Furthermore, the fact that more people voted for Al Gore – another liar – shows that for the third straight national election the nation knowingly picked a liar for President.

What does that say about the lack of morals in our society?

We have a long, long way to go to re-establish our country as a moral “City on a Hill.” It begins with the so-called ‘elites’ – those who have a better education, more money and more abilities to influence others. In fact, the “lying quotient” is much higher among these ‘higher educated’ people than it is among average people.

Greed and a desire to acquire wealth immediately have made many of these people lose sight of what is important in life: balance, caring for and helping others, a relationship with God – and a faith that, with patience, you can and will achieve your dreams.

There is no need to bulldoze your way over others. Because when you behave that way, one thing is inevitable: many of those you trampled on the way up will be ready to kick you on your way down. Even your mother!

Jeff Skilling and the entire Enron mess should serve as an example of all that is wrong in our present day society. Young people all need to learn about this case – so that they won’t even be tempted to live a life devoted to material gain at the expense of human kindness and generosity.

Avaricious sharks like these Enron execs - if they are found to have broken laws - must be punished with long jail terms and heavy fines. Otherwise they will have gotten away with the biggest scam – ever.

How does a young teenager who has nothing and who robs a grocery store for $50 get 10-12 years in jail while a ‘white collar crook’ who steals $200 million gets 18 months in a cushy Club Fed?

This is the main reason we, as a society, are beset with distrust and doubt about each other.

Until we attack – head on – the culture of lying, we remain a sick society.

MAYBE IT BEGAN HERE


In today's New York Times, one of the US hostages held by the Iranians in 1979-1981 - 444 days, to be exact - explains how he now wishes he and his fellow Marine guards had been allowed to shoot and kill the so-called 'students' who seized the US Embassy. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/politics/10HOST.html. This heroic man has hit on a long-ignored theme: when attacked, the US never really punishes the attackers. He is right; this 'soft' attitude began in the Vietnam Era - maybe even during the Korean 'police action' - and has become a a staple of American diplomatic behavior. In Vietnam, our pilots were ordered to only destroy half a bridge so that it could be rebuilt easily! In other words, the bombing was to "send a message" - not to punish the enemies of America.

And that type of thinking has been the root cause of the continued attacks on the US - and its troops/ships/barracks/bases - ever since.

We need to 'kill' our enemies - not send them messages.

EVEN THE BRITS HAVE GONE SOFT - AND FAT!


Check out this article today - http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,647554,00.html - where the last British Governor of Hong Kong and the former Chairman of the British Conservative Party, Chris "Fat" Patten dumps all over Bush for the "Axis of Evil" speech. What is going on with the English? Why are they sucking up to Tehran and Pyongyang? (In the piece, Patten does not defend Baghdad.) "Fat" Patten was a hero of mine! He took on the Red Chinese and told them to stuff it - and even pro-Beijing Rupert Murdoch withdrew from a book contract with Patten because he, Murdoch, was afraid of the Chicoms' reaction to Patten's book. WHen I heard that I thought Patten was our kind of guy: a stand up, no-nonsense anti-communist! But now, here he is blasting the USA for telling it like it is. What has happened to this fellow? And to the British conservatives? They've gone soft - and fat!

BUSH VS. SADDAM: WHO WILL BLINK?





Are we really going to go to war with Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein and his regime?

That question has dominated the news since last week’s State of the Union speech. And Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony in the Congress this week only further reinforced the belief that an attack could come sometime this year. Powell even said the US would go to war with Iraq – alone, if need be - and shun the so-called ‘Coalition’ that supported our Afghan campaign and our Desert Storm effort 11 years ago.

But Iraq thinks otherwise.

Saddam thinks he can “talk” his way out of this pickle.

As reported in Wednesday’s New York Daily News column by Michael Kramer, Baghdad sent Kramer an email. It read, “Watch us again. It’s worked for us in the past. It’ll work for us again.”

Sure enough, Baghdad – clearly reacting to President Bush’s speech – sent a message through Arab League chief Amr Moussa that it is ready to talk with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan – “without preconditions.”

Annan, who has been regularly used and duped by Saddam in the late 1990’s, replied that he’d “check his calendar.” He then indicated that he is prepared to talk to Iraq.

What does this all mean?

It means that Saddam is going to use ‘talks’ with the UN to divide the US from the rest of the Coalition.

He is gambling that Bush-Cheney-Powell will not go to war alone.

And he believes that by talking to the United Nations he might even get what he really wants: sanctions either totally lifted or at least relaxed. These are restrictions on how much oil Saddam can sell – legally – for invaluable hard currency which he then uses to secretly buy military equipment and materials to construct nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

The key question is: How long can Saddam stall, filibuster and delay the inevitable realization that he will never really allow us to monitor his weapons programs?

He is behind all the terrorist attacks against the US. From the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the Embassy attacks, the USS Cole – and, finally, to September 11, Saddam’s security forces have waged a war against America to avenge his massive defeat in the Gulf War.

For some reason our government in DC – under both Clinton and G.W. Bush – does not want to admit this, at least not publicly.

Sure, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are – and were – involved. But they carry out Saddam’s wishes. Osama and his followers are the perfect ‘fanatics’ – ‘true believers’ – who, in Saddam’s eyes are just crazy enough to kill themselves while killing Americans. How can you beat it? No surviving witnesses to tell who really orchestrated the attacks.

We should all fear two things: 1) that Saddam will hit us again; and 2) that the Bush Administration will ‘wimp’ out yet again when it comes to finishing the job begun in 1991.

If Saddam Hussein – or his family or Ba’th Party remain in power when G.W. Bush finishes his term as President, then his presidency will have been a failure. Period. This isn’t my judgement; it is based on Bush’s own words and promises. Having ID’d the Axis of Evil last week, how can we tolerate its continued existence?

And if you think a tiger can change its stripes, you are very naïve.

CIA: SCANDAL WAITING TO EXPLODE




CIA Director George Tenet is testifying today before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Mr. Tenet – the only Clinton Cabinet officer remaining in his original post – has been able to artfully avoid having the CIA take the blame for sloppy and poor intelligence work leading up to 9-11.

In fact, because of his good personal relationship with both George Bushes, Tenet has twice since 9-11 been able to secure increases in the CIA budget.

In October, President Bush granted an emergency budget increase of $1 billion to the CIA. And now, in his fiscal 2003 budget, the President has proposed another $1.5 billion increase – that we know of. In fact, the overall intelligence budget is highly classified – and ‘hidden’ in the budgets of other federal departments. Only a handful of Congressmen and Senators know the ‘actual’ amount.

It is also believed that even more money is secretly spent on intelligence than even these select members of the House and Senate are aware of. ‘Black funds’ exist – off-the-books accounts that CIA, NSA, DIA and the service Intel agencies have access to.

All of this is to point out that whatever happened on 9-11 is not the result of too little money being spend on intelligence gathering. No, the problem is how that money is spent.

Over the past thirty years our Intel agencies have fallen in love with satellites, eaves-dropping equipment and high tech means of ‘listening’ to our enemies – and our friends, too.

‘HUMINT’ – the gathering of intelligence through human beings on-the-ground infiltrating and getting up-close-and-personal – has taken a back seat to this fascination with high tech means.

Thus you get the odd occurrence: John ‘Taliban’ Walker can get into the Taliban and Al Qaeda – even meet Osama bin Laden – and yet our own agents could not get any where near Osama, Mullah Omar or the Taliban/Al Qaeda leadership before 9-11.

What has happened over the years to the CIA?

They have become a government inside a government.

The CIA – and this may shock many of you - spies on its own government!

Yes, for a fact, CIA places ‘agents’ into other federal departments and on the staffs of House and Senate committees to “keep an eye on things.”

Every congressional committee that oversees intelligence activities has CIA staff on its staff! That way Langley can keep track of trouble brewing it its own backyard.

That’s like having the fox ‘guarding’ the chicken coop.

This is the biggest – and so far unreported – scandal in the US today. Bigger than Enron, bigger than anything else. The very fact that the CIA is an uncontrollable agency operating outside the Constitution – and getting away with it – is something that one day is going to blow open and cause big trouble.

A small – but meaningful – example: in the mid-1980’s, then-Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage personally arranged for a uniformed military officer to be detailed to temporary White House duty. This officer had some innocuous job description. In reality his assignment was simple: to spy on the inner workings of the presidential office. Get the daily schedule of the senior staff, listen in on as many conversations as possible, find out what was ‘brewing’ before others knew – and then report all of this daily back to Armitage.

A career CIA man, Armitage wanted to know what was happening at the White House so that the Pentagon – and the CIA – could be ‘ahead of the curve.’

Armitage today is Deputy Secretary of State and may very well have a similar ‘operative’ placed in the White House and National Security Council.

This is plain out-and-out wrong.

Federal agencies should not be expending taxpayers’ money ‘spying’ on each other. But they do!

And that is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the enormous leeway the CIA has – because of the very nature of its’ ‘secretive’ mission – to do what it wants.

It is also protected by federal judges strategically placed on the federal bench who are pro-CIA – (some used to work for the CIA) – who will always get the CIA off the hook in case something bad happens. A case in point involved 7 World Trade Center. Crushed in the 9-11 attack, this building housed several federal offices, including CIA’s NY office. Furthermore, CIA was performing an illegal domestic operation on September 11 when the attack occurred. (By law, the CIA is prohibited from operating inside the US other than recruiting.)

When the building was smashed, CIA lost control of the evidence of their illegal activity. They rushed to a ‘friendly’ federal judge who granted a secret motion that has placed the CIA in charge of the excavation and search of 7 World Trade Center. All the workers, bulldozer operators and diggers on that particular site work for the CIA, not New York City or anyone else.

The so-called mainstream news media has missed this story.

My source: a federal judge in New York.

We are left to wonder what the ‘illegal domestic operation’ was – and how we have come to allow a secret US agency to have such unbridled power.

This is a huge scandal waiting to explode.

THE REAL AXIS OF EVIL

President Bush made the headlines last week with his "Axis of Evil"
phrase in his State of the Union Address. It was probably inspired by former
President Reagan's 'Evil Empire' speech almost 20 years ago.

In both cases the squishy, soft-headed diplomats whined about the
"inappropriateness" of such a phrase, and the countries involved – Iran,
Iraq and North Korea – squawked about their innocence.

The real story here is that these three rogue states should be
known as only the 'Sub-Axis of Evil.' The real evil nations are – and have
been for half a century – Russia and Red China. Period!

G.W. Bush can sit with career-KGB man Vladimir Putin and proclaim him
a man "with a good soul." But KGB men are selected primarily because they
do not have a soul!

Putin's Russia is more dangerous than at any time since the
fall of the Berlin Wall 12 years ago. Russia is re-arming its own military
and also manufacturing 'weapons of mass destruction' for its allies –
including Iran, Iraq and North Korea – to earn hard currency.

It is a plain fact that Moscow is helping Tehran build a nuclear
facility from which the Iranians will eventually be able to extract the
materials necessary to build a nuclear weapon. Russian scientists and
military advisers are frequently dispatched to Iran to help guide this
project.

Similarly, Moscow has long been a defender of Saddam's regime.
Longtime Soviet/Russian leader and one-time Prime Minister Primakov is a
great personal friend of the Iraqi strongman. Russia has equipped – and
re-equipped after the 1991 Gulf War defeat – the Iraqi military. Russian
military advisers frequently 'help' their Iraqi counterparts. Soviet/Russian
military doctrine is the 'order of the day' in the Iraqi military.

North Korea has – since its inception – been a Soviet/Russian 'client
state.' During the Korean War the Soviets supplied Pyongyang with military
technology, MiG jets and fuel. In return, the Soviets were given access to U.S.

POWs for drug experiments, brainwashing practice and tortured
'debriefings' about U.S. military technology.

In the 50 years since the Korean War, Moscow has kept a close
relationship with Kim Song-il – the longtime dictator of North Korea – and
now with his son, Kim Jong-il. (Moscow is not stupid; it wants allies next
to its simmering archenemy, Red China, despite any short-term
rapprochements that seem to occur from time to time.)

Beijing, too, has an equally close relationship with all three "Axis
of Evil" countries. Chinese missile technology has been sent to all three.
So, too, have Chinese scientists in hopes of expanding biological and
chemical weapons programs.

It is a shame that the Bush administration cozies up to Moscow and
Beijing at a time when those two nations are arming, supplying, supporting –
and encouraging – the very terrorist activities we have declared war
against.

We need to call a spade a spade. The "evildoers" that G.W. Bush
loves to lambaste are headquartered in Moscow and Beijing. They are not our
"friends." They have no "souls." They are just evil.

American foreign policy should not be cowed by the angry rhetoric
sure to come if we tell the world the truth about these two enemies of
freedom. Leadership means telling the world the truth. What good does it do
to hide from it?

That is not to say that Iran, Iraq and North Korea do not need to
have their governments removed; they most certainly do.

But it is like fighting cancer. Until you remove the main tumors, the
disease is still inside the body.

We have the unprecedented opportunity now – as the only superpower
– to use our influence and might to 'force' these evil governments out of
business. Through our economic power we can almost buy a change.
Through our trade power we can induce a change. And through our military
might we can demand a change.

This opportunity will not last forever. China is racing to become a
military superpower. Moscow is rebuilding quickly.

Now is not the time to squander this opportunity by lowered goals and
fear of a hostile reaction among the chattering classes and the striped-pants
diplomatic set.

Now is the time for America to attack the cancer of evil – wherever
it may reside.