In a documentary soon to appear on Showtime, “The World According to Dick Cheney,” [Cheney said] “I got on the telephone with the president, who was in Florida, and told him not to be at one location where we could both be taken out.” Mr. Cheney kept W. flying aimlessly in the air on 9/11 while he and Lynn left on a helicopter for a secure undisclosed location, leaving Washington in a bleak, scared silence, with no one reassuring the nation in those first terrifying hours.
“I gave the instructions that we’d authorize our pilots to take it out,” he says, referring to the jet headed to Washington that crashed in a Pennsylvania field. He adds: “After I’d given the order, it was pretty quiet. Everybody had heard it, and it was obviously a significant moment.”
When they testified together before the 9/11 Commission, W. and Mr. Cheney kept up a pretense that in a previous call, the president had authorized the vice president to give a shoot-down order if needed. But the commission found “no documentary evidence for this call.”
In other words, Cheney pretended that Bush had authorized a shoot-down order, but Cheney now admits that he never did. In fact, Cheney acted as if he was the president on 9/11. *
Cheney lied about numerous other facts related to 9/11 as well. For example, Cheney:
1. Falsely linked Iraq with 9/11 (indeed, the entire torture program was aimed at establishing such a false linkage; and Cheney is the guy who pushed for torture, pressured the Justice Department lawyers to write memos saying torture was legal, and made the pitch to Congress justifying torture. The former director of the CIA said Cheney oversaw American torture policies)
2. Falsely claimed that spying on Americans, torture, the Patriot Act, the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war and the “war on terror” were all necessitated by 9/11 … when all of them started or were planned before 9/11
3. Falsely stated that an attack such as 9/11 was unforeseeable, when Al Qaeda flying planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was something which American military and intelligence services – and our allies – knew could happen
4. Falsely pretended that he was out of the loop during the 9/11 attacks
5. Falsely blamed others for 9/11, when Cheney was in charge of all of America’s counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. See this Department of State announcement and this CNN article …
6. … And when Cheney was apparently responsible for letting the Pentagon get hit by an airplane (confirmed here and here)
7. And was instrumental in squashing a real investigation into 9/11
* Indeed, Cheney initiated Continuity of Government plans on 9/11 which essentially nullified America’s constitutional form of government.
You crack me up. Lmao.---Afghanistan still world's top opium supplier, despite 10 years of US-led war Despite increased eradication efforts in Afghanistan, opium cultivation rose by 7 percent in 2011 as compared to last year, according to a new United Nations report. Production is up 61 percent.
Ohhh, that kind logic must be built like a house of cards and some kind of "loony conspiracy therory"....lmao.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
After 10 years of US-led war in Afghanistan, the country remains the world’s leading opium supplier, responsible for 90 percent of the global supply, according to the United Nations.
The latest Afghanistan Opium Survey by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime found that opium cultivation rose by 7 percent in 2011 compared with last year. Opium production also climbed 61 percent this year.
UN officials say insecurity and high prices made it difficult to stop the growth of the crop, despite improved eradication efforts.
“The picture as sketched within the opium survey is one that is to be taken very seriously,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the UNODC in Afghanistan. “We have an increase, an increase, which is limited compared to the increase in prices. The situation could have been much worse if it was not for the actions taken” by Afghan and international partners.
A crop blight destroyed much of Afghanistan’s opium harvest last year causing a decrease in opium production and creating a simultaneous spike in prices. Higher prices led to much speculation that more Afghan farmers would turn to the crop this year, which has indeed proved to be the case.
Poppy farmers interviewed by the UN cited high prices and economic hardship as their main reason for growing opium.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups rely on collecting taxes from opium farmers to finance their operations. Though not the main source of their revenue, the opium harvest plays an important role in funding the insurgency. UN officials estimate that 10 percent of opium harvest proceeds reach the Taliban, while another 70 percent is unaccounted for, likely absorbed by government bribes and corruption. Opium accounts for 9 percent of the country's GDP, according to UN estimates.
Tension between government and farmers
As the government works to stop production of the lucrative crop, Afghan farmers have yet to find an equally profitable replacement. As a result, there is tension between the government and many poppy farmers who see eradication efforts as an attack on their livelihood.
“Opium helps the Taliban with their expenses, but it is also beneficial for them that there is an argument between the government and the people over poppy cultivation. It helps the Taliban to get new recruits,” says Ismatullah Shinwari, a member of parliament from Nangarhar Province, which saw a 276 percent increase in opium production this year. As recently as 2008, the province was poppy-free.
Just five of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces accounted for 78 percent of the country’s opium cultivation. Kandahar and Helmand, two of the most insecure provinces, were among the biggest producers. Cultivation also spread to three provinces that were poppy-free last year.
“Due to many factors, including the volatile environment, the speculation has raised the prices and in turn that has raised the production and the profits. It is bad news,” said Staffan de Mistura, head of the United Nations in Afghanistan.
Despite the overall increase, the UN highlighted improved eradication efforts throughout Afghanistan, which increased by 65 percent compared with last year. Afghan and international efforts led to the removal of 3,810 hectares of land used for poppy cultivation this year.
Throughout Afghanistan poppy cultivation used 131,000 hectares of land in 2011, as opposed to 123,000 last year.
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