Here's that imaginary $2.3 trillion again.

>>I don't mind that much what term is used, but, as far as I am concerned, until the Pentagon can regain "track" of all that $2.3 trillion, then there is no way that we can know for sure that some or all of it was not used for 9/11.<<

Nor can we be sure that you are not using it in your election campaign.

Which is just as likely.

But let's take another look at that speech, and the message that Rumsfeld was trying to get across.

"The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America... it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas... and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.

Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today... The adversary's closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy. Not the people, but the processes. Not the civilians, but the systems. Not the men and women in uniform, but the uniformity of thought and action that we too often impose on them."

Have you got the picture, daggett?

Rumsfeld is on the warpath against waste.

"In this building, despite this era of scarce resources taxed by mounting threats, money disappears into duplicative duties and bloated bureaucracy—not because of greed, but gridlock. Innovation is stifled—not by ill intent but by institutional inertia."

Duplicative duties. Bloated bureaucracy.

"we must transform the way the Department works and what it works on."

Waste, daggett.

And the fact is, nobody is even sure by how much the systems differ.

"According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions"

"According to some estimates"

Which means that there are other estimates. Which means he just picked the biggest, in order to get his point across.

I expect that his speechwriter is now thoroughly bemused, how a speech to create awareness of the cost of a bloated bureaucracy, has been twisted into a key component of wild-assed conspiracy theories

Pericles has been caught out lying on top of casting unjustified aspersions against the professional competence of Pentagon accountant John Minnery.

Let's recall what he would have had us believe of John Minnery:

1. That he was at fault for not tracking down the missing US$300million, when it was his manager's decision to cease his investigation;

2. That he was insubordinate;

3. That he made extravagant use of his employer's time and air fairs in his investigation;

4. That he would have sacked Minnery for incompetence.

Now he expects us to quietly forget his outrageous smear of what seems to be an unusually competent and courageous individual, who has demonstrated the kind of initiative that the the US public desperately needs of their public servants, so that he can lead this discussion off on another tangent.

His latest ploy is to demand that we accept, at face value, the obvious self-serving spin in, and timing of Rumsfeld's speech of 10 September 2001.

Pericles patronisingly demands, "Have you got the picture, daggett?"

In fact, I already 'got' most of the picture when I read some of that speech on page 284 of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" of 2007 over two years ago.

Rumsfeld's real motivation was to privatise most of the functionality of the Pentagon, so that, far from reducing waste, the crony capitalists, of which he was one, could profit even more at the expense of US taxpayers than they had previously.

This is all copiously documented by Klein.

Of course none of this alters the fact that $2.3 trillion was missing then and Pericles has failed to answer my questions of how much of that figure they have since regained 'track' of and therefore how we can know that none of those funds were used for 9/11.

Your fertile imagination at work again, I notice daggett.

>>Let's recall what he would have had us believe of John Minnery:

1. That he was at fault for not tracking down the missing US$300million, when it was his manager's decision to cease his investigation;<<

Quick review: his manager asked him why he was wasting his time on a wild goose chase. He had failed to find any useful information. As a manager, you have to call a halt at some point, rather than continue to indulge an individual's pet project. Sequence of events: Minnery failed, then was reassigned.

>>2. That he was insubordinate;<<

Nah. You just made that up, didn't you.

>>3. That he made extravagant use of his employer's time and air fairs in his investigation;<<

Given that he had "criss-crossed the country", this isn't a particularly wild assumption, is it. Bearing in mind also that it was necessary to reassign him, to stop him wasting everyone's time.

>>4. That he would have sacked Minnery for incompetence.<<

If I had expected him to find anything, this would have been my preference, true.

But his manager clearly understood, being closer to the action than I, that there was nothing to discover. So he did the right thing, realizing that it was not incompetence that prevented Minnery from completing his task, and reassigned him.

This is a revelation, daggett.

>>In fact, I already 'got' most of the picture when I read some of that speech on page 284 of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" of 2007 over two years ago.<<

So it was Naomi Klein's excerpt that got your attention. Interesting.

>>Rumsfeld's real motivation was to privatise most of the functionality of the Pentagon, so that, far from reducing waste, the crony capitalists, of which he was one, could profit even more at the expense of US taxpayers than they had previously.<<

[slaps forehead] Of course!! Why didn't I think of that!

Hilarious.

>>Of course none of this alters the fact that $2.3 trillion was missing then...<<

yada yada yada yawn.

I remain, along with the rest of the world, unconvinced.

The facts about John Minnery speak for themselves.

Pericles' ever-changing, self-contradictory pronouncements about John Minnery reveal a lot more about Pericles than they do about John Minnery.

---

What Naomi Klein wrote of Rumsfeld's self-serving 'revolution' in the US armed forces is fully documented in her book "The Shock Doctrine" and has not been challenged.

Pericles can try to pretend to believe, in the face of that evidence and the other evidence I have already cited, that Rumsfeld's words can be taken at face value, but I somehow think others will not be as credulous as he would wish.

---

Pericles wrote, "I remain, along with the rest of the world, unconvinced."

Well, of course, he will never admit in a thousand years that he realises that what he writes are all lies, will he?

But, as I wrote before, he should speak for himself and not for others.

You seem to be running out of ideas here, daggett.

Continually calling "liar" when you hear things you don't like to hear has limited long-term value.

>>Well, of course, he will never admit in a thousand years that he realises that what he writes are all lies, will he?<<

And I think you may be deluding yourself again, on who speaks for whom.

>>Pericles wrote, "I remain, along with the rest of the world, unconvinced." ...But, as I wrote before, he should speak for himself and not for others.<<

If indeed the rest of the world were convinced, you would be wasting your breath continually re-stating the "obvious", wouldn't you?

As it stands, there is a small but vocal minority that continues to stomp all over the memory of the unfortunate victims, and the emotions of the survivors and victims' relatives, by promulgating the story that it was their own government that killed them in cold blood on 9/11.

Luckily, the rest of the world knows better.

Incidentally daggett, I'm not sure which part of "not been challenged" you don't understand.

>>What Naomi Klein wrote of Rumsfeld's self-serving 'revolution' in the US armed forces is fully documented in her book "The Shock Doctrine" and has not been challenged.<<

http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/html/bp102/bp102index.html

"Klein's analysis is hopelessly flawed at virtually every level... Klein's historical examples also fall apart under scrutiny. For example, Klein alleges that the Tiananmen Square crackdown was intended to crush opposition to pro-market reforms, when in fact it caused liberalization to stall for years."

I guess that stands for a ringing endorsement in your view. The entire book is polemic, and as such is nothing less than propaganda.

I am grateful that you mentioned this as one of your sources of inspiration, though daggett. It explains a great deal about your own style, and the selectivity you employ when it comes to what you see and believe.