|
We all know that, right? However, I'm not talking of George Wanker Bush but his father, George Herbert Wanker Bush. Like fucking evil father, like fucking evil son.
Some of you may already know about Bush 41, others may not. Although it's old history there is a reason why it's important: whatever a Republican preznit does sets the base level for the next one. More important still because these fuckers are father and son: part of the Bush Family Evil Empire.
After Saddam invaded Kuwait Congress was against military action. Kuwait isn't a large country and, perhaps more of concern, isn't as important an oil producer as several other countries in the area. Well, Congress was opposed to military action until two lies were told. One cannot be proven to have emanated from Bush but the other most certainly can.
The first lie was told by a Kuwaiti nurse. She recounted to Congress how Iraqi soldiers had overrun the hospital in which she worked and pulled premature babies from incubators, thrown the babies to the cold floor and taken the incubators to send back to Iraq. How barbaric! Well, it would have been, but for a couple of minor points. Firstly, the nurse wasn't actually a nurse. Secondly, she didn't work in that hospital and had probably never been inside it. Thirdly, she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador.
But that wasn't enough to convince Congress, even though they believed it to be true at the time. So then came the second lie: that Iraqi troops were gathered on the border with Saudi Arabia, presumably with invasion in mind. And Congress does care about Saudi. Not just the biggest oilfields in the world but friendly to the US and always (until Bush 43 came along) happy to open the spigots wider to keep prices where the US wants them. That lie was enough to convince Congress to authorize military action.
So how did Congress learn of the Iraqi troops on the Saudi border? From US spy satellite photographs. But Congress didn't actually see those photographs, they were told of them. Because those spy satellite photographs are ultra top secret—we don't want the Russians to know how good (or bad) their capabilities are. And, of course, releasing them at the time might tell Saddam something about the deployment of his troops that he would not otherwise know and allow him to redress some problem.
Those photographs are still ultra top secret even though that war is long since over and Saddam could not have learned anything useful from them. That's because the US doesn't want the Russians to know the capability of those satellites, right?
Wrong. Back in the early 70s, the British Broadcasting Corporation opened a second broadcasting network (known, because the British aren't very technical, as "channel 2" not "network 2"). The BBC didn't have enough content to keep that channel full with ordinary programming, so for several years daytime viewing consisted largely of oft-repeated journalistic pieces (ranging from Birmingham's second cathedral to safety in high-voltage situations). Then Prime Minister Harold Wilson introduced his nation-wide distance learning scheme known as the Open University, and its lectures were used to fill up the programming gaps on BBC2. One of the Open University courses that intrigued me at the time was ST 291: Images and Information. It taught me about Fourier Optics, holography and spatial frequency filtering. These days you'd transform images using computer algorithms, but back in those days they used spatial frequency filtering. Which requires nothing more than an optical bench, a low-power laser, a camera, two convex lenses and a piece of card with a hole cut out. This technology was used by NASA when creating maps of the moon from individual pictures to soften the boundaries between individual images. This technology was routinely used by oil companies on seismic traces to remove the "boring" bits and make the areas of interest stand out. And this technology is capable of taking satellite photos and manipulating them, in a matter of milliseconds (as long as it takes to operate a camera shutter) so that they appear to have come from a camera with a far smaller aperture (and hence lower resolution). Or you can hand the Russians the undoctored photos, tell them that you've manipulated them that way and laugh as they shit themselves at the capabilities of your spy sats.
So there's no fucking reason doctored versions of those photos could not be released now. It's been technically possible for a long time (I learned of it in 1974 and it wasn't new then) to doctor photographic images using spatial frequency filtering to hide the capabilities of spysats. The information about his troop displacements stopped being important to Saddam after the Kuwait war ended, and the fucker is dead now anyway. So why haven't those photos been released?
Back in 1991, Jean Heller—a reporter with the St Petersburg (Florida) Times persuaded her editor to pony up for commercial satellite photos of the area. Those photos showed that there were no Iraqi troops on the Saudi border. The photos may not have been of as high a resolution as the US spysats but they were more than adequate to show a military buildup.
Spysats are operated under the executive branch. The photos, and analyses thereof, are reported to the executive branch. False stories about such photos could come only from the executive branch.
Just prior to the Kuwait invasion, Saddam (like the faithful CIA tool he was) asked the US if he could invade Kuwait. Madeleine Albright (Bush 41's secretary of state) checked with her boss and gave Saddam the thumbs-up. Bush 41 later tried to pretend that he'd been "out of the loop" on that one because he thought Saddam was going to fight only a limited battle over a disputed border. SecDef of the time Richard B Cheney (where have I heard that evil name before?) had however promised Kuwait that the US would intervene militarily if Iraq invaded.
Now here's a thought. You're preznit of the US. Your SecDef has, without telling you, made commitments to Kuwait. Now you find yourself suddenly required to honour those commitments made without your knowledge or consent. Do you refuse and fire the fucker that acted ultra vires (beyond his powers); do you do it and still fire the fucker that acted ultra vires; or do you do it and retain the fucker who acted ultra vires? Obviously, if you were really "inside the loop" all along, you don't fire him or discredit him, you reward him by making him your son's VP.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(430 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
