Bush Sets Aggressive Agenda For Four More Years

A recent flurry of activity indicates that Bush's agenda for the next four years - assuming he is not stripped of the Presidency for voter fraud - will be very much more of the same, if not much, much more so.

Firstly we have the attempt to seize total control of the CIA. Remembering that Bush's grandfather invested in Nazi steel via a couple of opportunistic lawyers called the Dulles brothers (one of whom, Allen Dulles, went on to set up the CIA), and remembering that Bush's dad was head of the CIA and an agent since 1960, the current blame-throwing opportunities (as presented by the exceedingly shallow media examination of 9/11 and Iraq WMD "intelligence failures") are a dream come true for the Bush cabal.

So let's all ignore the fact that Bush's neo-conservatives set up an Office Of Special Plans specifically to by-pass unwanted facts from the CIA and other intelligence services. Let's forget that Bush ignored warnings from CIA agents about Al Quaeda threats to fly buildings into planes. Let's pretend that Donald Rumsfeld was not personally responsible for linking Iraq to 9/11 and planning an invasion without sufficient troops or a viable exit strategy (even just a pretend one for the media). And let's overhaul the CIA!

Even the universally loved and admired (or not) Senator John McCain is supporting the overhaul, loudly criticising the CIA for leaking to the media information "that could be damaging to the President" before the November 2 presidential election. Imagine that! What an affront to those who do not dwell in the "reality-based community"!

The ironic thing is that the CIA really does need a complete overhaul, but exactly the opposite of the kind Bush & Co have in mind. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Bush is now purging the CIA of all non-believers:

Sources said that the White House has ordered Mr Goss to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to Mr Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

'The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House,' a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House said. 'Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the President's agenda.'

And MSNBC reports that Goss is ding this in defiance of the CIA's old guard:

Within the past month, four former deputy directors of operations have tried to offer CIA Director Porter J. Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss has declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials aware of the communications.

Patrick Murray is the man doing Porter Goss' dirty work within the agency. The chief of the clandestine service, Stephen R. Kappes, said he would resign rather than carry out Murray's demand to fire Kappes's deputy, Michael Sulick, for challenging Murray's authority. If Kappes does resign, wouldn't somebody with a name like "Lawless" be the perfect replacement?

Another candidate, according to current and former CIA officials, is Richard P. Lawless Jr., a former CIA operations officer who is deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs, according to a CIA official who asked not to be identified. Lawless served in the agency from 1972 to 1987, when he left after running afoul of senior DO officers while carrying out secret missions for then-CIA Director William J. Casey.

Lawless then opened a private consulting firm that did business in Asia, particularly with Taiwan and South Korea. In a 2002 profile in the Taipei Times, Lawless was described as having "long-term ties to President Bush's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush." The two met shortly after Lawless set up his consulting firm and Jeb Bush was Florida's secretary of commerce seeking business in Asia.

In other news, the Orwellian Patriot Act is up for renewal in early January and there is little sign that Democrats will be able to block it become permanent US law (will they even try?). And Bush is once again trying to open the oil-rich but environmentally sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Environmentalists are gearing up for battle, but the numbers favor Republicans and even some Democrats are resigned to defeat after staving off drilling in the Alaska refuge for a decade.