Keepin' Tabs

Recent developments with respect to various items and issues previously addressed at Enemy Of The People:

At Counterpunch, Robert Fisk reports that U.S. military officers are attempting to manipulate and censor coverage of the Hussein trial. Given the potential for embarrassment of various Bush administration officials, as described here at EOTP on July 1st in "Man, This Could Get Ugly", this kind of nonsense was inevitable, although the thuggish and amateurish methods are a surprise.

The October surprise has been a recurring theme here at EOTP, most recently on June 22nd in "Latest Washington Post Poll: Bush A Failure In Fighting Terror." Washington Times and UPI editor Arnaud de Borchgrave reports in the Washington Times that Israel, with the ever present tacit consent of its favorite Oval Office lapdog, is making preliminary plans to strike at Iran's nuclear installations. As implied in his column, an Israeli strike could provide the Deserter with the ideal October surprise - a ratcheting-up of tensions in the middle east designed to produce the "rally 'round the Prez" effect, with built-in deniability on the part of the Bush administration of any involvement in this transparent "wag the dog" scenario. Also in the category of October Surprises is a potential July surprise detailed in The New Republic by John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari.

On June 24th in "Leap Of Feith" I noted with some disapproval the exceedingly credulous nature of 9/11 Commission member John Lehman. Lehman is now rumored to be the Bush administration's pick to succeed John Tenet as Director of the CIA. Gee, a dupe and moron as CIA Director. How convenient for the Bush administration, and how catastrophic for the nation.

On June 3rd in "Tenet Tea Leaves" I commented on the wild spin attempt by Bush administration neocons to lay blame for the alleged Iraqi WMD "intelligence failures" at the feet of the hapless CIA, thereby absolving the true neocon culprits at the Pentagon's Office of Special Prevarications. The New York Times reports today that republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are playing along and are prepared to issue a report that focuses on alleged CIA failures while ignoring the Bush administration's widely-reported tendency to swoon at any piece of bullshit intelligence served up by Chalabi stooges and stovepiped into Cheney's office courtesy of Feith's flunkies at OSP.

Finally, I mentioned the death of a 42 year old Abu Ghraib detainnee in"Death At Abu Ghraib." I had no reason to believe that the circumstances of his death were at all untoward, but expressed disappointment that handling of the matter by the Bush administration and the U.S. military seemed designed to maximize suspicion and mistrust of the U.S. A June 20th CentCom press release indicated that the prisoner died "of what appears to be natural causes" on Monday, June 14th, and stated an autopsy would be conducted by the U.S. before the body was turned over to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It has now been more than three weeks since the detainnee died and still no sign of an autopsy report from CentCom. The autopsy report with respect to the recent death by heart attack of a 52 year-old detainnee was available in less than two weeks. I still have no reason to believe that the death was not natural, and it truly would be extraordinary if an Abu Ghraib detainnee were permitted to be murdered weeks after disclosure of the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. But where is that autopsy report?