The Legend of the Coventry Raid and 9/11

Some people when they hear the word Coventry will recall the salacious legend of Lady Godiva riding naked through the countryside to protest taxes. However there is another Coventry legend whose truth is also a disputed legend that has relevance to the controversy over the responsibility, or lack thereof, of Ex-President George W. Bush for the success of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001.

That legend is the deliberate decision by Churchill to not reposition RAF squadrons to protect Coventry when he was informed by MK-Ultra code breakers that the Nazis were preparing a massive raid on aircraft production facilities in Coventry in 1940. One of the most closely guarded secrets of World War II was the fact that the British (with help of Polish Ex-Patriots) had broken the most secret German codes and were well-informed of the Nazis plans before they were executed. Should the Nazis have discovered that secret, then they would have been able to alter their codes and the incredible advantage of the MK-Ultra program would have been lost. There is no question that Ultra was an important part of the Allied victory in World War II.

 That's the legend and it is disputed but there is a terrible logic to it. See http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11486219 Then again, many legends which distort, or completely lack truth, can provide lessons.

There is one thing that is not a legend: that from the day of George Bush's inauguration in January 2001, his administration was looking for war with Iraq. There is another fact: that in August 2001, more than a month before 9/11, the CIA sent an official to the Bush ranch in Texas where GWB was vacationing and warned him that some action by Osama bin Laden was imminent. According to the courier Bush said "You've covered your a** and went back to cutting brush." There is no evidence of any attempt by the Bush administration to take any action in light of the warning. In fact, there had been attempts by bin Laden terrorists to hijack planes, one of them in the Philippines had been recently thwarted in 2001. Lax security at Boston's Logan Airport was a necessary component of Al Qaeda's 9/11 plans.

Did the Bush administration ignore the warnings of an imminent attack by Al Qaeda because it was in fact looking for an excuse to go to war with Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein? http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bush-sought-way-to-invade-iraq/

You do not have to be either a Democrat or someone addicted to conspiracy theories, to conclude that the Iraqi war launched by the Bush administration was one of the biggest follies of American foreign policy in history. The thousands of fatalities both of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, the tens of thousands of horribly wounded American soldiers who are with us today and the chaotic conditions in the Middle East all date from the Bush administration's Iraqi fiasco.

Donald Trump in Saturday's presidential debate placed blame for our unpreparedness on 9/11 on GWB's shoulders. Trump has made many spectacularly false charges and fanciful proposals. There's an old saying that even a broken clock is right once a day. Trumps charge of Bush's culpability of unpreparedness before for 9/11, is his one time to be right.

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This is not a promo for my book "Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html

Winter Rules and Lies

In golf, amateur hackers (such as myself) will often play by winter rules: that means if your ball is lying in a really bad spot you can correct its location to make for an easier shot. The theory is that it’s winter and the course is in bad shape. Of course, sometimes you play winter rules in mid-July.

Two events in the news bring this to mind. One is the intention of the golf grand Pooh-Bahs to punish Tiger Woods because he objected to a functionary hurrying play in his latest tournament so that his opponent who had a one stroke lead rushed into a triple bogie (3 over par) on the sixteenth hole allowing Woods to catch-up and take the lead.

That Tiger objected to his opponent being rushed was a generous display of sportsmanship that is all too rare these days. Forget all his great wins and remarkable record, in my book it is his finest moment because this fierce competitor revealed his respect for his fellow competitors and a refusal to gloat over what he regarded as a tarnished victory.

Would that the participants in the current debate on health care showed some of the same class. Unfortunately we are witnessing a hard truth that we have yet to cope with: that there is a determined right wing in this countrty that is always playing winter rules and lacks a sense of sportsmanship that is a hallmark as politics at its best.

Compare if you will the Clinton, G.W. Bush Administrations and the first seven months of the Obama Administration. The Clinton Administration was hobbled from its outset by a series of investigations and outlandish charges, including that Bill and Hillary murdered one of their closest friend, Vince Foster. The culmination was the Lewinsky affair which paralyzed the Clinton administration for its last two years.

Yet, the country enjoyed great prosperity during his term, and he had some amazing successes, including bringing a semblance of peace to the Balkans which for centuries had been synonymous with ethnic hatred and political instability – the precipitant cause of World War One being an assassination in Serbia.

The press feasted on his travails.

Then came eight years of the utterly incompetent George Bush Administration which ignored pointed warnings about Bin Laden plotting to attack America, let him slip though our fingers in Afghanistan and lied us into war in Iraq.

In the meantime “regulatory reform” laid the ground work for the gravest financial crisis since the time of the Great Depression.

The media essentially gave GWB a free pass. Mendacity and manipulation in the White House was scarcely noted. The Democrats, cowed by the media, more or less played possum until the 2006 election. John Kerry, when faced with outrageous accusations about his combat record in Vietnam, turned turtle.

And now after seven months of the Obama Administration, we have seen the most vicious attacks since the Clinton era and a media which reports gravely on the most atrocious lies and in a fair and balance manner, giving the lies legs.

Tiger Woods, in giving his opponent his due, was a lot like the Democrats: playing the sportsman. But the Obama opposition is beyond sportsmanship and truth. It’s all winter lies, moving the ball for a better position to destroy your opponent.