Sunday Morning Crap Fest: McCain Plays the 9/11 Card

Normally the Sunday morning 'news' shows are a spectacle of spin, bullshit and official talking points largely centering around more wars, legalizing torture and protecting the US government surveillance machine and the ability to spy and collect data on everyone. Today, in the Bowe Bergdhal smear campaign edition the deranged old bastard from Arizona John McCain has outdid everyone in blaming the five Taliban prisoners from Gitmo who were swapped for Bergdahl as being responsible for 9/11. It is as outlandish as any of Dick Cheney's lies about Saddam Hussein working to bring about the terrorist attacks that took down the World Trade Center, a whopper that a majority of Americans at one timed actually believed despite no evidence and even then President George W. Bush's own admission that the executed leader of Iraq had no part in the attacks. Some though still believe any piece of crap that is peddled to them by the professional war propagandists, Fox News and the Sunday morning bloviation circuit which while not as openly dishonest as Fox represents more of a danger in that these propaganda programs are afforded a legitimacy which they are wholly undeserving of.

Senator McCain, the crazy uncle of the entire USA who should long ago have been put out to pasture to wail at his television from the relative safety of his living room continues to be given a forum to spew his deranged accusations, politically motivated attacks at that terrible black man who beat him in the 2008 election and defend his flip-flops, such as that he was against the Bergdahl-Taliban trade before he was for it before he is now again against it because the five Muslims exchanged for the Homeland style secret Muslim were behind September 11th. I mean at what point that this guy actually become too much of an embarrassment to even be allowed on these programs. The right-wing packed Arizona Republican party had the right idea when they censured McCain and the rest of the state media and political class would be better off if the old warhorse was simply shuffled off on the path to the glue factory.

McCain appeared via video from Bulgaria (where he is agitating for more war as the de-facto US President) on CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley, I excerpt from the transcript:

CROWLEY: Senator, there have been several rounds this week between a statement you made four months ago and what you're saying now. I just want to remind quickly our viewers of something that you told our Anderson Cooper in February and then ask you something.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Now this idea is for an exchange of prisoners for our American fighting man. I would be inclined to support such a thing, depending on a lot on of the details.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CROWLEY: So, Senator, at the time that you made that statement, you talk about - you say depending on the details. And we know that you don't like the details of this.

The names of these particular prisoners were already out there, had been out there in print, apparently had been talked about. In relationship to the exchange, not just this confidence-building, but in relationship to this exchange, are you saying now that there are others at Guantanamo that you would have released instead? And what happens if no one but these five are acceptable to the folks holding Sergeant - that were holding Sergeant Bergdahl?

MCCAIN: Well, first of all, as to who the individuals were, I never signed off on those individuals.

But - and that's why I said the details. The details, of course, that they're able to reenter the fight, the details as to who they are and what they have done, the details of there were - I believe that there are other prisoners, some of whom we have already released, that we could have released that - in exchange. These five are the top five picked by the Taliban, not by us, but by the Taliban.

So all I can say is, you can have a certain price, but it's exacerbated by the president's decision to take everybody out of Afghanistan, and these people will be going back as the Taliban leadership, and that will, of course, in my view, cause another replay of Iraq, which I thought he should have paid attention to.

CROWLEY: Well, precisely, Senator. And that's my next question.

U.S. combat troops are supposed to be withdrawn by the end of this year. By 2016, end of 2016, we're told the U.S. will be out. You cannot hold on to these Guantanamo - at least the view is that, if the war is over, if combat is done, you cannot hold onto these Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

So, if you let them loose now and say, we're going to supervise them for a year, isn't that a better deal than just saying, OK, the war is over and we have got to send everybody home?

MCCAIN: First of all, we're not sending everybody home. We're going to send them to - even if we close Guantanamo, we're going to send them to facilities in the United States of America. That's been the plan all along.

If you think that we were going to just release everybody, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, I'm afraid that you have been misinformed. So, we were not going to release everybody. Second of all, I believe that we should keep these people, because they're hard- core jihadists who were responsible for 9/11. Of course, nobody wants to release people who were responsible for 9/11.

And these people that are released that were Taliban governing worked hand in glove with al Qaeda.

CROWLEY: Sure, but, without trial, you would keep them forever, correct?

MCCAIN: No, I wanted to try them, too. There are trials going on and I wanted to try them.

But they were judged by the people who evaluated them, if they were released, they would pose a risk to the lives of Americans, and they would reenter the fight. And I am - I'm sad to tell you I'm afraid they're going to reenter the fight.

Senator McCain doesn't have any qualms about the US arming and working with Islamic militants - in his words "hard-core jihadists" when it comes to Syria nor does the old bastard have problems with backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine. I give Crowley some credit for the questions on McCain flip-flopping but all in all it was just another one of those electronically delivered blow-jobs that the Sunday morning hosts perform on a weekly basis to the rotating rogues gallery that constitute the guest pool.

Then there is Secretary of State John Kerry, quite possibly the most loathsome American of the past year nosing out even Donald Trump. The reigning lifetime Skull and Bones member over at Foggy Bottom also showed up on CNN to embarass himself and to proclaim that the US could kill the five Taliban prisoners released from Gitmo via an Obama drone strike. From a story in The Guardian on Kerry's latest asinine blathering:

Secretary of state John Kerry has indicated that five Guantánamo Bay detainees released in exchange for an American soldier could be killed by drone strike if they return to the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Kerry’s implied threat to the five Taliban fighters came as Republicans ramped-up their criticism of the deal to elease Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a prisoner of the Taliban for five years until he was freed last week.

The 28-year-old soldier has reportedly told medical staff at a base in Germany he was tortured and beaten by his captors, and once locked in a metal cage in total darkness as punishment for an attempted escape.

On Sunday, it emerged that the FBI is investigating death threats against Bergdahl’s parents, who have not reacted publicly to the intense political debate raging over the wisdom of trading five Guantánamo detainees for their son.

Republicans highlight the possibility that the Taliban fighters, some of whom were senior commanders, are likely to return to the Afghan conflict after the year they are compelled to stay in Qatar, which brokered the prisoner swap and has promised to monitor the five men.

However, Kerry told CNN the men were also being closed monitored by the US, which had "the ability to do things" if the terms of the arrangement with Qatar were violated. Although he did not overtly refer to drone strikes, he said the five men would be liable to be killed by the US if they returned to the ranks of the Taliban.

 “I am not telling you they don’t have the ability to go back and get involved [in the Afghan conflict],” he said. “But they also have an ability to get killed doing that. I don’t think anybody should doubt the capacity of the United States of America to protect Americans.”

Kerry just summed up the way things are done in The Homeland, not only in business where we cheat the hell out of everyone and glorify it on TV. In commerce where the NSA which is supposed to be preventing terrorists from attacking the US engages in industrial espionage to put other countries at an unfair competitive disadvantage and in war where we exchange prisoners and then kill them anyway. It is because of men like Kerry and McCain that this country has now squandered forever the moral high ground that so much blood and treasure has been sacrificed for which is what happens when you allow criminals, liars and psychopaths ascend to positions of great power and influence. 

Is this a great country or what?

9/11 Museum Gift Shop is a Gross Exploitation of Tragedy

Over three thousand innocent Americans were murdered and all that I got is this lousy T-shirt. While I jest with that line there is nothing even remotely funny about the gift shop at the National September 11 Memorial Museum. That the museum itself should be a national outrage and more shameful exploitation of the tragic events that took place on that horrific Tuesday morning on September 11, 2001 in that the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center is yet another point. The attacks have been used as justification for the implementation of unconstitutional mass surveillance and data-mining programs, turned the US into a meaner than a snake torture state, allowed for the gutting of the Constitution and given a corrupt political class and the oligarchy that it serves cover to strip mine the domestic economy for self enrichment. Then there are the wars which will never end as long as the enabling act that is the Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution ( AUMF) that was rammed down the throats of a terrified America like the USAPATRIOT Act while the stench of rotting corpses still was strong in the morning Manhattan breeze exists. Yes indeed - now there is something to memorialize.

It was drilled in that it was the Day that Everything Changed and the "new normal" became the type of flag-wrapped fascism that Sinclair Lewis once warned of in his book "It Can't Happen Here". Americans were to shut up and be subservient to their corrupt government and the neoconservative world domination machine as put forth by The Project for the New American Century or PNAC and in the early days speaking out would have one smeared as a traitor or worse. The worship of 9/11 became our national religion for how else to justify the wars of aggression and the redistribution of wealth into the surveillance state Gomorrah that arose out of the ashes - death and spying were the new growth industries in the USA, USA, USA. The tenth anniversary of that day, which fell on a Sunday and with the assistance of the National Football League and state corporate media it was as former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury turned prolific writer Paul Craig Roberts put it "a propaganda exercise that hardened the 9/11 lies into dogma". Now we have the September 11 Museum and it's disgusting gift shop. 

The museum charging 24 bucks for entry is shameful in its own right but the gift store takes it to a completely new level. It is gaudy, tasteless, insensitive, ghoulish and an insult of the highest order towards the victims and their families. The New York Post has written about the sheer crassness of the gift shop and when such a rag is outraged about anything in the real world you know that it is pretty damned bad. I excerpt the following from the article that is entitled “The 9/11 Museum’s Absurd Gift Shop”:

The museum at Ground Zero tells the dark story of the 9/11 terror attacks with spectacular artifacts and exhibits. It pays heart-wrenching tribute to the innocents and heroes killed that day.

It also has a gift shop.

The 9/11 museum’s cavernous boutique offers a vast array of souvenir goods. For example: FDNY, NYPD and Port Authority Police T-shirts ($22) and caps ($19.95); earrings molded from leaves and blossoms of downtown trees ($20 to $68); cop and firefighter charms by Pandora and other jewelers ($65); “United We Stand” blankets.

There are bracelets, bowls, buttons, mugs, mousepads, magnets, key chains, flags, pins, stuffed animals, toy firetrucks, cellphone cases, tote bags, books and DVDs.

You can pick up an assortment of oak leaf jewelry at the 9/11 museum gift shop.

Even FDNY vests for dogs come in all sizes.

AND

Among the museum shop’s specially designed items:

 A black and white “Darkness Hoodie” printed with an image of the Twin Towers. The pullover, like other “Darkness” items, bears the words “In Darkness We Shine Brightest.” Price: $39.

 Silk scarves printed with 1986 photos by Paula Barr, including a panoramic view of the Manhattan skyline. Another depicts “lunchtime on the WTC Plaza.” They go for $95 each.

 “Survivor Tree” earrings, named after a pear tree that stood in the World Trade Center plaza and survived 9/11. Made of bronze and freshwater pearls, a pair costs $64. A leaf ornament molded from the swamp white oaks at the memorial is said to change from amber to dark brown “and sometimes pink around the time of the 9/11 anniversary.”

 Heart-shaped rocks inscribed with slogans such as “United in Hope” and “Honor.” One rock bears a quote by Virgil that is emblazoned on a massive blue-tiled wall in the museum: “No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” It costs $39.

The gift shop is actually not that far off the mark from something I heard on the liberal firebrand Mike Malloy Show a few years ago that I transcribed. It was an email read on air from a listener named “Grand Vizier Mark of Silicon Valley”:

 If for some reason, the proposed so-called Ground Zero mosque doesn’t get built, I suggest that the old Gap store which is where this would be built be turned into something that really celebrates or rather venerates this country’s true god which is the almighty dollar.

 My idea, turn it into a nine dollar and eleven cent store! A 9-11 store. Something that would by the way fit in nicely with all the low rent commercial establishments in the area like the head shops, the Burger King and other fast food joints, strip clubs etc, etc. Yes, think of all the 9-11 souvenirs one could get for nine dollars and eleven cents: mugs, flags, pennants, cds, dvds, photos, calendars, t-shirts, plastic World Trade Center models, piggy banks, snow globes, commemorative coins, Christmas ornaments, action figures…it is sooo American!

 And to commemorate America’s response to 9/11; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld bobblehead dolls, model airplanes just like the ones used to carpet bomb Iraq, leaving 300,000 dead and 3 million homeless, bobbleheads of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, plastic U.S. soldiers and Afghan Taliban freedom fighters, create your own battlefield and live out your wildest fantasies...

THERE’S MY IDEA!

I’d make a killing, I would. And for just two million dollars, the amount my old church owes me I’ll let you have it.

Oh well, you know me, you learned free so give free. I’m willing to let anyone use my idea as long as they give me credit.

It was meant as a joke but the ongoing commoditization of EVERYTHING including the murder of over 3,000 Americans and the first responders who died or later suffered terribly - particularly from respiratory disease -in the aftermath that that day there is really nothing sacred.  One would think that the national religion of “9/11” would somehow be sacrosanct but who am I kidding here?

What's next - a September 11 theme park?