Who deliberately violated his solemn oath to uphold the Constitution in his insatiable quest to gain political power? Who currently not only advocates voter suppression but engineers it all across the land? Who works hand-in-glove with the Koch brothers to destroy democracy, remaking America into a Third World oligarchy? Who served as the political guru commissioned to deceive the American people into war, engineered stolen national elections, personally selected federal judges who pledged to serve foremost as political hacks, outed a CIA agent whose husband exposed treason committed by the President and his Vice, initiated whispering campaigns based on falsehoods about opponents, and sat in the White House as Chief Political Counsel to George W. Bush?
Karl Rove is the catalyst to catastrophe.
This is focus on a contemporary villain who is determined to never fade into history. Rove’s present malevolence perpetrates while his legacy perpetuates. Long after George Bush retired to painting portraits, his guru continues his life-long mission in making the Republican Party the permanent majority.
In modern America everything is colored by politics. It may be a taboo subject at the dinner table or in polite company, but it’s also the disgustingly ugly elephant in the room. And the political guru of them all is Karl Rove who presently holds the infamous distinguished title passed down from Josef Goebbels. There is no other Democratic counterpart – either because Democrats shy away from such aggressive, dishonest politics or their leadership is too incompetent to scout for one.
If there is a single “lynchpin” or facilitator that can be attributed to America’s misery since 2000, it is Karl Rove. What other cornerstone to calamity can claim such infamy?
Instead of changing the Justice Department wholesale (as George Bush did when arriving in office), Obama left many of Karl Rove’s hacks in place. Why he hesitated at the onset is a mystery, because initially he enjoyed a large majority in both houses. Perhaps Obama didn’t realize the full extent of Rove’s influence. Or perhaps he wanted to make peace with the opposition party. Regardless, in Obama’s case, presenting an olive branch turned out to be less than a fig leaf. The President’s ass was left exposed, and now we see the result of his au naturel naïveté.
Democrats need an FDR, not a Chamberlain. They forget who they’re dealing with and seem blind to how opponents deliberately erode the fabric of democracy. Which is the only party forcing voter suppression? The misunderstanding – “both-sides-do-it” – is only performed by the side that does it.
Justice is no longer blind; she’s loaded with political appointees carrying ideological baggage while the best selections are put on hold to placate filibustering senators who are too cowardly to announce such stall-tactics publicly. Members of the opposing party (namely the Republicans) behave like cry-babies when they don’t get their way 100%. Hence, every issue is subject to political wrangling, including justice, defense, natural disasters, war, peace, health, safety, unemployment benefits, and government shut-downs. Noticeably, they don’t give a damn about the country, just their party.
But too late. Democrats weren’t energized enough to vote in large numbers, thus ceding the Mid-Terms to billionaires who vow to buy power and destroy the Middle Class.
Once upon a time wars were off-limits in the American partisan arena. No more. Once upon a time, active foreign crises were never fair game for politically motivated criticism while American lives were at stake. Republicans have not only violated this silent oath, but forever crossed the “water’s edge on our shoreline” boundary. We are now witness to blanket treason just to gain the upper hand.
Since 2012 [to my knowledge], no major news outlet ever mentions Puerto Rico which voted for statehood in that year. Yes, Puerto Rico, our 51st state.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/election-puerto-rico/
Why is that? Because Republicans are blocking it. If Puerto Rico would have been predominantly Republican, statehood would have been granted long ago. But now the island commonwealth is in stalemate where not only the Republican Party is blocking entry, but the Democratic Party. Obama’s leadership is too weak and timid to stand up to obstructionists. This is why the news about Puerto Rico, the 51st state, is silent. No wonder the American Latino community is upset with Obama. He not only fails to stand up for himself, but for the entire progressive movement, including Latinos.
Karl Rove, Bush’s brain and architect, was given permission to use American foreign interventions to boost his boss’s standing in the polls. In Rove’s words, wars and the outing of CIA agents are “fair game” in his role to keep Bush and Republicans in. In contrast to Nancy Pelosi’s stubbornness in not impeaching Bush for these war crimes and treasonous acts, nothing was off-the-table in Karl Rove’s book – even if it meant a million deaths, thousands of vets returning home missing limbs, and the U.S. economy in the tank.
Does anyone seriously believe impeachment will be “off-the-table” when Republican majorities in both houses take over next year? Pelosi, in my opinion, was ignorant for not prosecuting the Bush administration for actual treason. Now, fast-forward to 2015 with Obama in the White House. Do you think they’ll return the favor by not impeaching Obama for crimes totally made up?
The Bush men have no conscience while Democratic leaders have no courage of conviction. It’s a sad United States of affairs.
In time, history may very well record the pivotal crime committed by the Bush administration was a clumsily constructed forgery. Indeed, it was the causus belli for the preemptive war. For, this single forged document purported to be from the Niger government to Saddam Hussein was the leading pretext to justify war against Iraq. All things stemmed from this letter. Why the American media didn’t fully expose this is a mystery. (Or is it?)
For example, there couldn’t have been the “smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud” rhetoric coming out the mouths of Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and George Bush without the forgery. There wouldn’t have been a special trip to Africa by Ambassador Joseph Wilson without the fake letter. In fact, no mention of WMD would have been complete without this forgery.
Of course, preceding the forgery was the intent to deceive. And who was there at Day One? Karl Rove. Before the fraudulent Election 2000, he and George W. Bush made the conscious decision to commit the unconscionable; that is to say – they made a deliberate determination to influence the American public at any cost, including taking the nation to war costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Long before 9/11 there was a plot to twist intelligence to fit the plan. Perhaps 9/11 was just a cog in the wheel, who knows? However, it can be said the “decider’s” decisions were without conscience. Anyone stealing elections is capable of worse. And did.
The forgery and the dissemination thereof were manifestations of intent. Valarie Plame and Ambassador Joseph Wilson touched on the subject briefly in the 2010 movie, FAIR GAME. How much more they could have exposed by simply explaining further why the ambassador was sent to Africa in the first place.
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!” – Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17. Scottish author & novelist (1771 - 1832)
The endless questions about forged Niger documents remain. Who wrote them? Who authorized them to be produced? Who in January 2001 broke into the Niger Embassy in Rome and stole government stationery and seals only – leaving valuables and antiques untouched? Who deliberately used falsified papers as pretext for war – knowing full-well they were crafted by counterfeiters?
What we do know is Michael Leeden first used the phony docs as an excuse which was quickly parroted by fellow neocons to go to war against Iraq. Who is Leeden? He was Karl Rove’s foreign affairs adviser and confidant of Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith – who first proposed going into Iraq in 1992. Wolfowitz was Deputy Secretary of Defense under Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz arranged for the OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS, a private firm granted no-bid contracts, to be imbedded within the Pentagon for the solitary purpose of fabricating justifications to invade Iraq.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html
OFFICE OF SPECIAL PLANS was key in presenting the forgery as fact.
And before OSP was artificially imbedded in the Pentagon as a “study group” to persuade the US to go to war, there was Project for a New American Century (PNAC) with basically the same players and associates that landed in the White House with Bush.
It was Michael Leeden who attended a meeting in Rome (just prior to the embassy break-in) to discuss ways and means to invade Iraq, and he was dispatched by none other than Karl Rove, George Bush’s guru.
It was while the neocons were meeting in Rome (Leeden and associates) forgeries were conveniently received from Italian intelligence renegade Rocco Martino who had earned the reputation of exhibiting false documents used to bolster predisposed agendas.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7256
The document showed conflicting information on stolen letterhead forged by unprofessionals. For, it was signed by a Niger government official who had retired in 1989, eleven years prior. The forger most likely was Ledeen’s friend, Francesco Panzienza. In any case, it was key to the Iraq War; Karl Rove had what he needed to persuade America for his boss, Ledeen had completed his assignment for Rove, and Bush-Cheney had their “proof.” This is the "evidence" on which George Bush committed 5,000 young Americans to their deaths and nearly one-million Iraqis.
Around midnight, 2 January 2001, burglars broke into the Embassy of Niger in Rome (The Residence of the Councilor in Charge). Coincidentally, Karl Rove’s friends were meeting across town to discuss ways to get America involved in attacking Iraq. Roman police reported that nothing of value was stolen; only government letterhead and seals.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/29/194828/282
Soon after, a dossier on Niger-Iraq trade of high-grade uranium appeared on the same letterheads and seals. Rocco Martino presented them first to the French Secret Service, which debunked them, then to Italian President Silvio Berlusconi’s magazine, PANORAMA, which also discredited them after dispatching a reporter to Niger. PANORAMA then passed them to the US Embassy in Rome, which led the U.S. State Department and CIA to swiftly categorize them as forgeries.
However, Rove’s men in Rome were elated with the fake letter. Because they recognized Rove’s ability to sell.
In hindsight, it’s a historical fact: Bush’s rationale for war was deflated in early 2001 – long before 9/11. But after 9/11, the forgery was soon resuscitated by the Bush men, despite knowing the letter was fictitious. They ramped up their public relations campaign for war by citing the forgery – the “mushroom cloud” evidence. It was their foundation, because they held enough confidence in their political guru, Karl Rove, to know he could sell hell. And did. Mission Accomplished.
The little neocon group sent by Rove dusted off Martino’s discredited dossier on Iraq-Niger trade concerning uranium. Bush-Cheney now had their causus belli. The American people bought the shit, and the rest is history. Turd Blossom won, we lost.
This was the forgery that changed history.
And who made all this happen [even if not directly involved in covert operations]?
Karl Rove is the key catalyst.