Propaganda Alert
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
23 March, 2009
1) Barack Obama’s interview on CBS (22 March 2009)
2) Dick Cheney’s interview on CNN (15 March 2009)
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STEVE KROFT: Afghanistan … What– what should that mission be?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Making sure that al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies. That’s our number one priority. […] [W]e can’t lose sight of what our central mission is. The same mission that we had when we went in after 9/11. And that is these folks can project violence against the United States’ citizens. And that is something that we cannot tolerate. […] It is not acceptable for us to simply sit back and let safe havens of terrorists plan and plot.
[[i]US President Barack Obama, CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview, 22 March 2009] [1]
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KING: […] Well, since taking office, President Obama has done these things to change the policies you helped put in place. He has announced he will close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He has announced he will close CIA black sites around the world, where they interrogate terror suspects. Says he will make CIA interrogators abide by the Army Field Manual, defined waterboarding as torture and ban it, suspend trials for terrorists by military commission, and now eliminate the label of enemy combatants.
I’d like to just simply ask you, yes or no, by taking those steps, do you believe the president of the United States has made Americans less safe?
CHENEY: I do. I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11. I think that’s a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles.
President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.
[Former US Vice President Dick Cheney, CNN’s “State of the Union with John King” interview, 15 March 2009] [2]
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Notes:
[1] excerpts from: 60 Minutes transcript
Politico, 22 March 2009
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3068DD82-18FE-70B2-A892531 324214E6D
[2] excerpt from: Transcript: DICK Cheney Interview with CNN’s John King – Cheney Says Obama Choices Create Risk
Clips & Comment, 15 March 2009
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Videos added by DS
President Obama: The Cost of the Cheney Doctrine
60 Minutes-President Obama – The Cost of the Cheney Doctrine 03_22_09
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Full interview:
Obama On AIG Rage, Recession, Challenges – CBS News
(CBS) By most accounts, this past week was one of the most difficult in the young presidency of Barack Obama. At the heart of it all was the public upheaval over $165 million in bonuses paid to employees of AIG, a company largely responsible for bringing the world’s financial system to its knees and now being propped up by U.S. taxpayers. The bonuses touched off a cultural war between Wall Street and Main Street, both of whose support the president needs to help stabilize the economy.
After campaigning in California to drum up support for his $3.6 trillion budget, the president sat down with 60 Minutes in the Oval Office for a conversation about the AIG debacle, the economy, and getting the hang of the world’s most difficult job.
[…]
President Barack Obama, Part One – CBS News Video
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President Barack Obama, Part Two – CBS News Video
see
Why the U.S. Under Obama Is Still a Dictatorship By Andy Worthington
Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List by Andy Worthington
Obama Economic Program Increases America’s Bondage to Wall Street Billionaires by Richard C. Cook
Dandelion Salad 
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Maybe our mission, of making sure that Al Qaeda cannot attack the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests and our allies, is well-intended and thought to be our best option and choice, however, I regret having to burst the bubble of our sincere President, and the pundits around him who are of the same opinion. I, as an avid follower of the politics, religious philosophies and cultural mentalities of Arabs and Muslims around the world, and being myself a Jordanian, Arab, Muslim and American, who harbors nothing but good feelings and wishes for the U.S. and loves it, and for all the right reasons, can assure you, with clear conscience and conviction, that we aren’t on the right track in our handling of this problem, or more like quicksand of a problem. See, we’ve always had this inexplicable habit of pulling out a tooth, when the pain is in the stomach, so to speak, and I will not go into why on earth we don’t seem to ever learn from our many mistakes and continue to insist on repeating the same mistakes over and over – I’ll leave that for another time. Concisely and directly: bombing Al Qaeda and the Taliban will not, no matter what, how and for how long we do it, win the war and help us eliminate the threat, we dread, of being attacked again by Al Qaeda, with or without the blessings and assistance of the Taliban, or someone else like them – you know that’s possible, actually probable!! Haven’t our many escapades in the world, over the last “God knows how long”, and Israel’s escapades in Lebanon and Gaza, taught us that military power can no longer, all by itself, achieve the objective of destroying resistance movements and insurgencies, if these movement were supported by the majority of the people in those places. You just can’t quash the will of the people, by military means and brute force – learn this for God’s sake! – if they will and desire something else other than what you have in mind for them. They always find away around your military superiority and develop their own, primitive maybe, but efficient ways to fight you, until you finally give up and go home with your tail between your legs. That’s how it’s going to end again, like it did many times before, in many places in the world, regardless of how long it takes. So how do we get out of this mess then? We start, like with every other problem, by stopping to deny facts and admit that what we’re doing now is obviously not working, except in making us more enemies around the world. We need to get over our problematic and stupid egos, old and defunct ideas and intransigent stance and attitudes, and adopt, as a strategic choice, negotiations and smart deal makings, eliciting help and enlisting as allies, in this fight, those who can leverage the Taliban, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, effectively, like other Muslim groups and entities with whom we have good relations. We need to talk to the Taliban, directly or indirectly, and to let them know, unambiguously, that we don’t wish to force our ways and life style on them, that we both have mutual interest in peace in that part of the world, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan too, whose stability is important to them and us, and that we have no beef with them, but with Al Qaeda, which is, at the end of the day, a foreign element in their land, whose friendship has proven to be more of a liability to them than an asset. We can, as well, buy loyalties of tribal leaders in the border areas, as well, which proved to be effective, if done smartly. We can try to alienate Al Qaeda and make their lives hell everywhere they exist by making the price of befriending them too high and the reward for rejecting them and kicking them out too lucrative and tempting. In short, we need to use more our heads, stop making more enemies with senseless bombings, and start making more friends and allies that can help us in this.
Thanks, Walid. Now if the current admin would only take your advice.
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Per Turley on Maddow tonight:
Obomba should not be ‘disagreeing’ with the Chainey doctrine, he should be INDICTING Cheney.
Cheney should not be on TV promoting his failed policy, he should be surrounding himself with defense lawyers preparing for his TRIAL for WAR CRIMES.
Obomba is OBSTRUCTING efforts to pursue the LAW.
This is all not some outrage, it’s a further travesty of justice under LAW.
Here’s another post on the same topic: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/prosecuting-the-bush-administration%e2%80%99s-torturers-by-andy-worthington/
Maybe the US military knew that Osama bin Laden was going to attack the WTC on 9/11 because they had already encircled Afghanistan and drills were being run at the same time as the attacks.
Hmm…
Right Obama. Al Qaeda attacking America again. Just a small tiny little question. Why hasn’t the FBI formally charged Bin Laden with the crimes of 9/11? Could it be the tiny little problem of “lack of evidence”? Golly Miss Molly.
Haha, John, great question!