Repeat of ondalette's words:

"[...] No, we don't need that. We don't need blue ribbon, we don't need bipartisan. Those are euphemisms for a political negotiation on what the public should know. We need judicial. The place where people have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth under severe penalties for perjury. And we need a new system in place in our government that oversees not just classified information, but the process of classification. Congress and the courts need the power to declassify documents, the missing necessity for a balance of power between three co-equal branches since 1947 -- especially those documents that have been classified to hide the truth."-- ondelette

But is Congress listening to Judge Jackson (h/t DC Law and Kitt)?:

"[...] But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that "The tools belong to the man who can use them." We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers. [...]"

The story of Executive Order 12958:

August 2001-“Bush administration initiated a review of the previous executive order on classified materials signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. The Clinton order had been acclaimed in its day as a victory for transparency because it mandated the automatic declassification of most government files after 25 years.” (X)

March 25, 2003-Bush signs Executive Order 12958[see below], begun in August 2001, in which “every provision that gave powers to the president over classified documents was amended to give the identical powers to the vice president… special importance in the games that the White House played with prewar intelligence….Cheney…could use leaks to punish administration critics.” (X) [Executive Order “Further Amendment to Executive Order 12958, As Amended, Classified National Security Information http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030325-11.html ]

February 2005-“''a vice president has the authority to declassify information. There is an executive order to that effect.''-Cheney [Fox News] (X)

**************

(X) When the Vice President Does it, That Means it’s Not Illegal-Frank Rich, 7/1/07

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30C13FE3E5A0C728CDDAE0894DF404482

that there is a timeline incorporating the Senate committe information here:

http://www.webdsi.com/jebbie/timeline.html

There are a few errors/ommitions which we are working on correcting.

Please let me know about any errors you may find.

Thanks.

Within two days we get two official reports about our Government and the GWOT.

One details criminal acts:

Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody

http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/12/11/14/EXEC-SUMMARY-CONCLUSIONs.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf

And the other details criminal incompetence:

Lessons From 'Hard Lessons': Excerpts From the Iraq Reconstruction Report

http://www.propublica.org/special/iraq-hard-lessons-excerpts

Rumsfeld figures large in both reports.

Throw the book!

What does "WOG" mean?

I’m totally floored…and immensely gratified that the timeline is being seen. Sincere THANKS! to Jebbie for making it possible. Again, I would like to request commenter’s help with my ongoing work to make/keep it accurate and up-to-date. [But I don’t know how that could be done without inundating Jebbie constantly…any ideas?]

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

John Adams*, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

Bush and the Cheney-Gang came into office looking for a fight. In 1999 Bush actually said: ‘If I have a chance to invade [Iraq]…if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.’"

After 9/11 we were subjected to a litany of reasons to “be afraid, be VERY afraid”. Most of these “reasons” were not based in what most of us think of as reality. Remember, these were the people who said:

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

They reinvented the English language and reinterpreted American law to fit their reality. They manipulated a supine press to broadcast and write as if this manufactured “reality” were real.

The usefulness of instilling fear in the population in order to incite/excuse/justify war has been noted before…by Herman Goering:

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war…But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

And it is this very atmosphere of fear which the Bush administration is now using as an excuse for everything up to and including torture…despicable.

Voltaire, who said

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd"

is obviously not a part of the new "reality".