A snugly dropped bombshell into the public domain on this weekend, just before Christmas, the CIA has taken out the trash.
Back when the 9/11 commission were requesting information to compile their very watery report in 2003, repeated requests were made to the CIA on interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects.
This footage is the same footage that was later revealed to exist, but was then reported to have been erased. So for about the eight-hundredth time in the last four years, public confidence in the CIA is shattered and the flawed commission report has another swiss cheese-like hole shot through it's authority which is big enough to fly a plane through.
Tell The Truthiness ; Once again, the real news is 'dumped' at a time of year when it will get the least coverage and analysis by the papers and networks. Take out the trash, sounds like something out of The West Wing, oh, it is, click here.
As pro-waterboarders try to justify the torture method from the apparent thirty-five seconds it took before the confession of an alleged al-Qaeda member, the President has once again had to search for his veto stamp.
The 222-199 vote in the House, sends the bill to the Senate for consideration to ban waterboarding. Despite the Democrats and some Republicans involved, if the President is going to veto anyway, shouldn't there be another way of overruling Mr Bush?
Tell The Truthiness ; This has happened with the war funding bill and now with this. There's only so many times you can keep slamming your head against a wall before it cracks open all together. Come on Pelosi, you must have some other ideas?
Everyone's favourite booby-prize candidate, Rudy Giuliani may be painting himself as Mr 9/11, but the opinion of one 9/11 Commission Co-Chairman doesn't think so.
Thomas H. Kean, former New Jersey Governor and co-chair of the 9/11 commission has thrown his backing for President behind Senator John McCain.
The scene of this public endorsement wasn't a town hall, or on the steps of a courthouse, but at Boston's Logan Airport, the location that Flight 11 and Flight 175 departed from before crashing into the World Trade Center towers.
Rudy Giuliani couldn't be reached for comment, rumours that he might have been meeting the President to try and link the Boston Tea Party and the Civil War to 9/11 and al-Qaeda have remained speculation.
Tell The Truthiness ; But of course, since the Republicans held their convention in New York in 2004, with security the broad issue combined with their near constant invocation of 9/11, this event seems rather tame in comparison.
Of all people this week, the Japanese tried to justify plans to fingerprint foreigners by saying there was a member of al-Qaeda in the country illegally.
As long as he had entered legally, that would be fine you see.
Kunio Hatoyama said the man was a "friend of a friend" who was connected to the Bali bombing.
Justice Minister Kunio later produced evidence to back up his story.
Even later he said he had not met the man and couldn' confirm his friend's claim. He had earlier suggested this 'story' was an example of stricter checks needed on vistors.
Tell The Truthiness ; No Mr Kunio, this is another example of a rumour based urban legend story used to scare people to giving up basic liberty to protect their liberty. It's pointless, useless and this has been so done to death by the Bush administration.
Change the record.
This is an interesting piece about the funding of insurgents by the US.
A leaked memo from testimony given by the former New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani to the 9/11 commission shows that he lied about his knowledge of terrorism.
He is reported in the 9/11 commission memo to have not known about al-Qaeda until after the attacks and that "we had nothing like this".
But in a speech he made at Regent University he said he'd been "studying terrorism" for more than 30 years.
Tell The Truthiness ; Come on Rudy, what more zingers do you have for us? You've got a few more months to keep us entertained before you aren't picked as the candidate.
With everyone in the US government insisting they have no intention of attack Iran, the flip side is that every few days there's some White House talking point aimed at painting Iran as the primary cause of unrest in Iraq or a new emerging threat to US interests.
General David Petraeus, in an interview with CNN, said that the long-term threat for Iraq could be militias backed by Iran.
Tell The Truthiness ; Doesn't Mr Petraeus deserve a break? He's done enough of the White House's bidding in the last few weeks to make Bush seem lazy. If they are going to lie to us, we'd appreciate being lied to by the President than by someone he thinks will do a better job of it than him.
We all know how much Bush and the US are big, big fans of going to the ends of the Earth to catch terrorists and evildoers. But, considering all that, it's rather odd that back in 2005 Don Rumsfeld, remember him (you can get pills for the nightmares), called off a raid aimed at catching senior members of al-Qaeda.
The reason for the sudden change of heart you ask?
The US were worried about upsetting Pakistan. When have another country's feelings been taken in account when military action was concerned?
Is there something about Pakistan which we've missed? The only other country in the World that is treated so carefully is Saudi Arabia.
Despite the car fire at Glasgow Airport yesterday afternoon and the failed, we emphasis the word, failed car bombing in London on Friday morning, none of this has kept some areas of the media from taking the story and running with it until it resembles something entirely different from the bare facts.
Firstly it was alleged the cars in London was packed with explosives. The vehicles, we are told, contained cans of petrol, the first one having between two and five cannisters of propane and butane gas and nails to inflict injury (rather like the IRA bombs from the UK mainland campaign through the 70s and 80s). The petrol was actually evaporating, that was the smoke which made people notice the vehicles in the first place. so the longer the fuel vapourised, the less 'explosives' there were to explode. The cars had two mobile phone triggers, one of the cars have been rang twice, to detonate them, which both calls failed to achieve.
But, what isn't being reported much is that neither vehicle contained an oxidiser, which is vital for such a device to explode.
Secondly, a bomb disposal team member 'risked his life' to diffuse the bomb and is being hailed a hero by media. But if they couldn't have exploded, then why is this being furthered?
Thirdly, 'this has all the hallmarks of al-Qaeda' is being repeated constantly. Media outlets continue though to say this is probably connected to 'international terrorism', but the only organisation that keeps getting talking about is al-Qaeda.
Fourthly, if this has all the hallmarks, then why have all three supposed attacks failed? The Glasgow aiport jeep fire had no explosives in it. The attackers had the good sense to get one of themselves burnt, and arrested.
Fifth, 'there was no specific intelligence of an attack like this', wrong, The Times newspaper has reported that nightclubs in the UK were warned two weeks ago about them being targets for attacks.
Tell The Truthiness ; These people had the style to buy or steal a Mercedes, but not to fine-tune their bombmaking ability. Doesn't really sound like an effective, shadowy international organisation does it? You would imagine the bombs had actually exploded by the way this story is being reported by some media outlets, which they DID NOT!
As scandal has drown the administration once again this week, the Vice President Dick Cheney has again tried to reassert the government's line of 2003, that Iraq had contact and collaboration with al-Qaeda before the 2003 US-led invasion.
The administration seems to be treading water with a rubber-ring which has less and less air in it barely keeping their heads above water.
The Truthiness Blog Says ; In a reverse effect, the vacumn created after the unseating of Saddam means insurgents in Iraq have been joined by al-Qaeda and are there now, all thanks to the invasion. This administration gives the impression it will implode in on itself sooner rather than later. Stand clear.
