Jay Rockefeller has a 'Hermann Göring' moment

[Steve Gardner]

On February 5th, Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked the intelligence chiefs to comment on the perceived evolving threat to America from within America. His question, which took the form of a rather lengthy statement, included this extract at timestamp 2:54:41:

I really worry that the American people don’t worry. I really worry that, because there’s been no attacks since 9/11, that the American people have let down their guard. I really worry that the Department of Homeland Security is treated as a stepchild, um, in government, and is funded often as a stepchild in government. And that all of this bodes for our not being able to protect ourselves and to have these sort of day to day vigilance which is required psychologically and actually to be on a strong state of alert as we are in other parts of the world.

Although the wording is quite different, it seems to me the fundamental sentiment Rockefeller expresses here is not so very different from that expressed by Hermann Göring when he said:

Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine 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. It works the same in any country.

I find it hard to read Rockefeller's comment without having the sense that he believes it is necessary for the people of America to feel threatened.

Is it really so hard to see how, at the very least, people who think this way could have allowed 9/11 to happen?

If you are inclined to listen to more of this hearing, go back to around 2:47:00 to hear Rockefeller essentially claim that the leader of a country should have a military background, and also that the Internet is one of the principle causes of concern (see also Pentagon: The internet needs to be dealt with as if it were an enemy "weapons system").

[Steve Gardner]

...For That...Is An Attack"

It appears Rockefeller's implied call for another attack on America was simply an echo of a view expressed back in 2006 by none other than Mr. unknown-unknowns himself, Donald Rumsfeld.

Check this out, from the Huffington Post

An ongoing exploration of the documents related to the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" program has unearthed a clip of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggesting that America, having voted the Democrats back into Congressional power, could benefit from suffering another terrorist attack, and doing so in the presence of the very same military analysts who went on to provide commentary and analysis of the Iraq War.

As documented by Newsvine, it all went down at a valedictory luncheon Rumsfeld hosted for those analysts on December 12, 2006. Many of the "message force multipliers" named in the original New York Times piece were in attendance, including David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, and Robert H. Scales, Jr. They were treated to an extraordinary conversation (Newsvine has highlights, the hour-long clip of which can be found here) with Rumsfeld, that included many jaw-dropping moments, such as Rumsfeld admitting that in Iraq, the U.S. "can't lose militarily, but...can't win by military means alone," an agreement that Iraq could use a Syngman Rhee-type dictator (because that's what democracy smells like!), and a lengthy passage where Rumsfeld jokingly offers a bottle of champagne to anyone who could kill Moqtada al Sadr. You sure don't see too many people joking on al Sadr these days!

But by far the most extraordinary part of this luncheon is the antipathy the gathered members exhibit toward the American people for having the temerity to vote the Democrats back into power. When Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans the lack of "sympathetic ears" on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld offers that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats." What's to be done? According to Rumsfeld, "The correction for that, I suppose, is [another] attack."

DELONG: Politically, what are the challenges because you're not going to have a lot of sympathetic ears up there.

RUMSFELD: That's what I was just going to say. This President's pretty much a victim of success. We haven't had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it's not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing's in Europe, there's a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it's a shame we don't have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats...the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you'd think we'd be able to understand it, but as a society, the longer you get away from 9/11, the less...the less...

Less than a week ago, the Department of Defense did a document dump on their program to use retired military analysts as surrogates on network and cable news to pimp the administration line on the Iraq War - something we now know they did on at least 4,500 occasions. Over at TalkingPointsMemo, a thread has been opened for those who want to sift through the material and highlight key discoveries.

So far, dedicated TPM readers have unearthed a number of noteworthy finds, of which this audio recording of this luncheon is perhaps the most astounding.