The Nixon Playbook with a Cheney twist!

Outgoing NSA Director, the infamous John Negriponti, who's prior information helped us to decimate Haiti, illegally arm Contras in Nicaragua and was the primary information source leading to the Iraq invasion, had this to say before leaving to become Condoleesa Rice's Karl Rove - er deputy. In his final annual threat assessment to the new 110th Congress he warned that al-Qaeda poses "the gravest threat to the United States and is rebuilding its strength from secure hideouts in Pakistan." Negriponte also said that Iraq was at a violent and "precarious juncture," he stressed concern over an increasingly confident Hizbollah and outlined a series of other threats to the United States, including from Somalia, Iran and Syria.

Not unlike Henry Kissinger's communist threat diatribe as America wanted out of Vietnam. We all know now that Nixon's response was to secretly bomb the crap out of Cambodia and Laos as he pulled our troops from Vietnam. Lie to Congress, pull the troops and secretly take it to the air.

And with two new Navy commanders at the helm-- Adm. Fallon, tapped to replace Army Gen Abizaid as head of CENTCOM, previously headed PACOM covering pacific theater with his specialty being carrier group air-strike coordination and new director of the NSA, retired Navy Vice Admiral Mike McConnell-- is it any wonder we have air-strikes in Somalia? Bush has retired most of the ground troop generals and replaced them with "flyboys". Nixon 101.

But Cheney is taking it to the next level, the corporate president, pResident Bush, named McConnell to replace Negriponte as the new chief of intelligence. McConnell said he would work to increase the coordination between the nation's 16 different spy agencies. Privatize intelligence, lie to Congress and prevent anyone from learning the truth.

McConnell, the man tapped to replace John Negriponte, has been a leading figure in outsourcing U.S. intelligence operations to private industry. A former director at the National Security Agency, he was the current director of defense programs at Booz Allen-- one of the nation's biggest defense and intelligence contractors. Under his watch, Booz Allen has been deeply involved in some of the most controversial counter-terrorism programs run by the Bush administration, including the infamous Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme.

McConnell plans to "continue the strong emphasis on integration of the community to better serve all of our customers. That will mean better sharing of information, increased focus on customer needs and service, improved security processes, and deeper penetration of our targets..." Does this sound like the words of a person hoping to help the "citizens" of a nation best use information to prepare for problems? Or the words of a salesman shlepping data access wiz-bang for megabucks? Booz Allen has made billions in recent contracts.

FYI- Information, once privatized, has yet to be ruled on as being intellectual property of the private sector and therefore off-limits to FOIA-freedom of information requests. It will be contested all the way to the Supreme Court. Thankfully with Bush's newly appointed justices Alito and Roberts we will no doubt get a "fair and balanced verdict- can you say check-mate?