The Contrasts of Reality Opposed to Humbug

In both the House and Senate, White House negotiators pressed for the broadest possible legislative language, including authorization to engage in wide-ranging activities on U.S. territory.
The language of the proposed resolution authorized the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." A sweeping mandate. Minutes before the vote, the White House officials had pressed for even more - after "use all necessary and appropriate force", they wanted to insert "In the United States", to, essentially, grant war powers to anything a president deigned to do within the United States. Senators shot that down. That would be without precedent. A resolution passed in the Senate by a vote of 98 to 0 and in the House by a vote of 420 to 1. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

Embarrassing the powerful Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi by claiming that she had prior knowledge of the extent to which the CIA was committed to extracting information from 'war on terror' detainees was not at all polite. Ms. Pelosi denied, denied, denied that she had been briefed by the CIA in September 2002. Suggestions that she had been briefed that waterboarding was taking place, and that she had no reaction quite annoyed Ms. Pelosi.
Understandably. When one fulminates righteously it is never taken lightly when one's nose is rubbed in the stink of prevarication.

According to reports of several attendees at these briefings, administration officials explained that the system would be used to hunt known or probable terrorists, their supporters, and their financiers. It could also handle broadly wrought searches, like massive keyword searches for those who were speaking about terrorist operations and - as was already underway - all calls between the United States and Afghanistan. Some concern was voiced by congressional Democrats about civil liberties, but informed questions were difficult to pose: the program was so secret that they couldn't even consult their staffs. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

Congressional oversight of covert activities is a principle that distinguishes the United States from other countries. It is an ideal that is central to the checks and balances - the counteracting ambitions, as Madison and others had attested - that prevent abuses of power. In this case, and scores of others, those fighting the "war on terror" decided it was an unaffordable luxury. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

"Enhanced interrogation methods" were neither implied nor directly reported, as far as she and her Democratic colleagues are concerned, and they're sticking by their story. "We were kept in the dark. That's something that should never, ever happen again", fulminated Dianne Feinstein, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Her committee was informed of the illegal plans of the CIA to assassinate key al-Qaeda members in late June, she said. Dick Cheney, true to his 'one percent doctrine', deliberately ordered that Congress not be briefed.

Experts on Osama bin Laden often advise, "Listen to what he says. It's all there. He says what he means." In this one case, that was also true of the Vice President. So much is in that one statement, so much more, in its way, than the bold, blood-quickening calls to bring "infinite justice" to our enemies abroad - and, yes, maybe hiding among us - evildoers who would soon taste the fury of might sharpened by right. Not that those calls to arms weren't effective. They were; just maybe not suited for the challenge America now faced. The real action, Cheney said, would not happen with armies assembled and banners waving. It would happen in the shadows. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

In a conference, House Speaker Pelosi elucidated: "they don't come in to consult. They come in to notify. They come in to notify. And you can't -- you can't change what you're doing unless you can act as a committee or as a class. You can't change what they're doing." Denying that she had abrogated her rights and responsibilities, she was merely a helpless pawn. Now that she is Speaker of the House she has clout and she can, in hindsight, thunder against the CIA and the Republicans who ordered them to act.

Washington, day by day, had already become the bustling capital of a twilight struggle - the so-called "war on terror", a term that was settling unevenly into the global vernacular. Close facsimiles had been floated for a week or so after the attacks and before President Bush used it, just so, in his landmark speech of September 20, 2001, declaring before a joint session of Congress that "Our 'war on terror' begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." The One Percent Solution - Ron Suskind

What actually has changed in U.S. policy? What is the big mystery here? Did the United States act differently in focusing on the trauma visited upon it directly in its homeland than it has done in innumerable occasions in the past, in its covert, often violent, nation-disrupting way? America's weight in the world owes much to the weight it throws around. It has been responsible for many unfortunate decisions causing great upheaval throughout the world. It views itself as the great liberator, the universal emancipator. Its people are wedded to their vision of their nation as the conscience of the world. And often enough it does present in that vein.

There is a long history of American companies, often large, notable companies, working in secret concert with the U.S. government. Western Union, in fact, had been at the front of that procession. A company Western Union bought in the 1860s called the American Telegraph Company banned messages in cipher during the Civil War at the behest of the War Department. during World War II, all U.S. telegraph companies forwarded copes of international cables to the federal government. the program "Operation Shamrock" continued after the war and was unknown to Congress and top intelligence officials. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

"The CIA briefed me only once on some enhanced interrogation techniques, in September 2002, in my capacity as Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques was legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed", Nancy Pelosi informed an MSNBC interviewer on May 15.

It is simply too inconvenient to be embroiled in responsibility for the actions and reactions of a Republican-led government whose executive branch was heavily reliant on a handful of people whose view of how government should work, in isolation and secrecy undermined the concept of true democratic rectitude and justice. And that's life, and that's human nature unbound.

Something had to give - and it did. Little by little. The dilemma of (George) Tenet's role was diabolical. Intelligence was the oxygen of the "war on terror", with CIA carrying burdens of collection, analysis, and operations beyond the capabilities of a seasoned, coordinated intelligence authority ten times its size. The agency, meanwhile, was neither seasoned in the complexities of fighting both terrorism and weapons proliferation, nor particularly well coordinated. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

The writer Ron Suskind, formerly senior national affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and a Pulitzer Prize winner for feature writing, conducted extensive, exhaustive interviews with willing and as he puts it "former officials with the CIA, the FBI, the White House and also with the NSC, the State, Defense, and Treasury Departments and assorted others. A significant number, as well are still inside the government. This latter group includes a few officials at various departments who were granted unofficial permission to try to answer my questions." For obvious reasons of political diplomacy, their names are omitted.

The torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay; the construction of the great terrorist-catching machine, with its communications head and financial body; the self-interested use of classified materials to carry forward political ends; the very concealment of the true nature of what's been happening since 9/11 in favour of a sanitized, "need to know" version - are all means that, whatever their advertised value, strike at the nation's character. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind

But the simple fact is, all the material, the information, the direct quotes, the informed conjectures, and description of actual events were published, by this reputable author, three years ago. during which time all the data contained in The One Percent Doctrine were available to the curious, those who wished to be informed, and of course those in office in the United States who might wish to avail themselves of information hitherto unknown to them, they now profess.

Where is their credibility?

Deuteronomy 16:20 reads: "Justice, Justice, This you must pursue." Justice - an overused word these days - is not mentioned twice, however, for added emphasis. Here Hebrew scholars agree - and they don't agree on much - that it's once for the ends, and once for the means. The One Percent Doctrine - Ron Suskind