>The Case Against Cheney
4006. thoughtful - 10/18/2005 4:18:21 PM
but without rove, assuming he's nabbed in this thing and cheney, who will run the wh? howard baker? is he still alive? sentient?
4007. jayackroyd - 10/18/2005 4:37:51 PM
Jim Baker is the goto option in cases like this.
4008. jexster - 10/18/2005 4:50:34 PM
One of Jay's crowd is busy compiling Perjury=High Crime over tuh TPMCafe
Promising:
28. THE REAL STATE OF THE UNION, The Weekly Standard, February 1, 1999, EDITORIAL; Pg. 7, 1654 words, David Tell, for the Editors
29. Letter from Al, National Review, January 25, 1999, Letter from Al; Vol. LI, No. 1, 574 words
34. WITNESSES FOR THE PROSECUTION, The Weekly Standard, January 18, 1999, Pg. 15, 1185 words, by Matthew Rees; Matthew Rees is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
35. The crackling of the flames, The Economist, January 16, 1999, U.S. Edition, World Politics and Current Affairs; AMERICAN SURVEY; Pg. 25, 1238 words
40. THE HIGH CRIME OF PERJURY, The Weekly Standard, January 4, 1999 / January 11, 1999, Pg. 12, 1044 words, by David Lowenthal; David Lowenthal, professor emeritus of political science at Boston College, is the author of No Liberty for License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment.
41. Moving On How to survive and learn from Clinton's survival., The American Spectator, January,1999, Constitutional Opinions, 1877 words, by Jeremy Rabkin.; Jeremy Rabkin is a professor of government at Cornell University.
45. HIGH CRIMES?; The U.S. Congress weighs four impeachment charges, Maclean's, December 21, 1998, WORLD; Pg. 28, 1341 words, BY ANDREW PHILLIPS
48. Impeach, and Convict, Newsweek, December 21, 1998, U.S. Edition, NATIONAL AFFAIRS; The Cover; Pg. 28, 983 words, BY WILLIAM KRISTOL; KRISTOL is editor of The Weekly Standard and a panelist on ABC's "This Week."
50. WITH LAWYERS LIKE THESE, The Weekly Standard, December 21, 1998, SCRAPBOOK; Pg. 4, 447 words
51. LOSER OF THE WEEK, The Weekly Standard, December 21, 1998, Pg. 14, 1367 words, by Tucker Carlson; Tucker Carlson is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
55. THE SCANDAL; Histrionics; Where's the history in the historians' statement?, National Review, DECEMBER 7, 1998, Articles; Vol. L, No. 23, 932 words, ROBERT P. GEORGE & Gerard v. Bradley; Mr. George is a professor of politics at Princeton University. Mr. Bradley is a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.
61. THE SCANDAL II; Without Counsel, National Review, NOVEMBER 23, 1998, Articles; VOL. L No. 22, 1457 words, Tod Lindberg; Tod Lindberg is editorial page editor of the Washington Times.
63. The impeachment hearings. Scholars define, populists decide, The Economist, November 14, 1998, U.S. Edition, World Politics and Current Affairs; AMERICAN SURVEY; Pg. 29, 568 words
64. JOHN CONYERS'S CIRCUS, The Weekly Standard, November 9, 1998, Pg. 9, 1255 words, by Tucker Carlson; Tucker Carlson is a staff writer for THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
66. FOUL BALL, NOT HOME RUN, The Weekly Standard, November 2, 1998, CORRESPONDENCE; Pg. 4, 362 words, JOHN AGRESTO, SANTA FE, NM
67. Counting the Costs of Clintonism The debacle of this president's administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture., The American Spectator, November, 1998, FEATURE, 2457 words, Robert H. Bork .; Robert H. Bork is the author most recently of Slouching Towards Gomorrah.
69. Q: Should Congress define impeachable crimes before a formal inquiry?; No: Democrats are trying to delay and divert attention from the case against Clinton., Insight on the News, November 1, 1998, Monday, SYMPOSIUM; Pg. 25, 1761 words, Jerome Zeifman; SPECIAL TO INSIGHT
70. Regrettable Van Susteren, National Review, OCTOBER 26, 1998, Articles; VOL. L, NO. 20, 1635 words, JONAH GOLDBERG; Mr. Goldberg is an NR contributing editor. His daily internet update, The Goldberg File, appears on NR Online at www.nationalreview.com.
75. The Clinton Meltdown; Guess what--he can't do his job either. From Russia to taxes, from spin to substance, from the domestic agenda to the Lewinsky affair, the Clinton administration is heating up and shutting down., National Review, OCTOBER 12, 1998, Articles; VOL. L, NO. 19, 1397 words, Robert H. Bork ; Judge Bork is the author most recently of Slouching Towards Gomorrah.
4009. jexster - 10/18/2005 5:21:52 PM
I haven't had this much fun since I was operating elevators in the RSOB in 1973..the Rotunda bank...In fact, this is gonna beat the shit out of Watergate..the fun has just begun
>The Case Against Cheney
4010. wonkers2 - 10/18/2005 7:30:34 PM
According to Keith Olberman just now a strong rumor is circulating in D.C. and has been reported today by U.S. News & World Report that Fitzgerald has "flipped" an insider in Cheney's office who has fingered Cheney as a key man in a conspiracy to discredit Joe Wilson. Further, Cheney will resign and be replaced by Condolezza Rice.
I can't think of a more serious or fitting consequence for Cheney's lying and vindictive behavior. Great story even if it doesn't come to pass.
4011. wonkers2 - 10/18/2005 7:32:44 PM
Ironically, the man who is rumored to have flipped after being informed by the prosecutor that he had been targeted is none other than John Hannah, a national security aide to Cheney's office from the former office in the State Department of John Bolton.
4012. jexster - 10/18/2005 8:13:18 PM
Your HackOcracy at War
Billions of dollars short, U.S. must scale back Iraq reconstruction
Scale back? From what????
Less electricity
Less security
Fewer jobs
Less oil production
No wonder more and more Iraqi pine for the Good Ole Days
He was a bloody, corrupt killer
But at least he wasn't a bloody, corrupt, killer moron
4013. jexster - 10/18/2005 9:34:34 PM
Cheney Aide Cooperating in CIA Probe
4014. jexster - 10/19/2005 1:29:13 AM
Another LHC Schadenfreude Moment
Focus HackOcracy:
Year Later, Goss's CIA Is Still in Turmoil
Congress to Ask Why Spy Unit Continues to Lose Personnel
4015. jexster - 10/19/2005 1:42:18 AM
4016. jexster - 10/19/2005 1:56:07 AM
Faith-Based War
by Patrick J Buchanan
4017. jexster - 10/19/2005 2:19:53 AM
Deconstructing Nation Building
The results are in and the record isn’t good.
4018. jexster - 10/19/2005 7:31:53 AM
For NOTHING
For less than nothing
1 in 4 Iraq vets ailing on return
4019. jexster - 10/19/2005 10:38:37 AM
The enormous fraud at Center of War Party's propaganda campaign.....
Niger Uranium Forgery Mystery Solved?
The Fitzgerald/Plame investigation goes in a new direction
4020. wonkers2 - 10/19/2005 4:27:33 PM
Wow! That's a dynamite article. Scary stuff. Shades of "Three Days of the Condor."
4021. jexster - 10/19/2005 8:45:04 PM
The Bush Gulag Report
"This doesn't look good."
US Probes Afghan Body Desecration Charges •
SBS Shows Troops Burning Taliban Bodies
The Australian Associated Press
Thursday 20 October 2005
SBS has broadcast footage of what it says is United States soldiers burning two dead Taliban fighters as they faced Mecca and using the charred and smoking corpses in a propaganda campaign in southern Afghanistan.
The Dateline report, broadcast on Wednesday night, said US soldiers burnt the bodies for hygiene reasons but then a US psychological operations unit broadcast a propaganda message on loudspeakers to Taliban fighters, taunting them to retrieve their dead and fight.
US Probes Afghan Body Desecration Charges
By Jim Miklaszewski
NBC News
Wednesday 19 October 2005
If true, incident would apparently violate the rules of warfare.
Washington - The Army tells NBC News its Criminal Investigation Division is looking into an Australian broadcast report with video that allegedly shows US soldiers in Afghanistan burning the bodies of two Taliban fighters, then using the incident to taunt Taliban forces.
SBS, an Australian public broadcast network, aired the story Wednesday night. US Army officials confirm that a free-lance cameraman working for the network was embedded with the 82nd Airborne at the time of the alleged body burning.
US military officials confirm at least part of the story. They tell NBC News that two Taliban had been killed in a firefight and that US soldiers had asked people in the village to retrieve the bodies, but no one had come forward for at least 24 hours. They say they are not sure what what happened next.
According to US Army officials, if the bodies were burned and members of a psychological operations team then used the burnings to taunt the enemy with a broadcast message, that would be in violation of US Army procedures and an apparent violation of military law.
The Army officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.
They say the burning of the bodies would be an apparent violation of the rules of warfare regarding the desecration of bodies.
Military officials, however, have not seen the tape and are withholding judgment pending the probe by the Criminal Investigation Division. But according to one US Army official, "This doesn't look good."
-------
4022. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 1:49:14 AM
Here's a clip you should see.
Here's the transcript.
Former chief of staff to Powell. Talking about policy making and the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal.
And an extremely powerful Vice President and an extremely powerful in the issues that impacted him, Secretary of Defense, remember a Vice President who’s been Secretary of Defense, too, and obviously has an inclination that way and also has known the Secretary of Defense for a long time, and also is a member of what Dwight Eisenhower wanted that God bless Eisenhower in 1961 in his farewell address the military industrial complex and don’t you think they aren’t the [UI] today in a concentration of power that is just unparalleled. It all happened because of the end of the Cold War.
[UI] tell you how many contractors who did billion dollars or so business with the Defense Department that we have in 1988 and how many do we have now. And they’re always working together. If one of them is the lead on the satellite program, I hope there’s some Lockheed and Grumman and others here today [UI] if one of them’s a lead on satellites, the others are subs. And they’ve learned their lesson there in every state.
They’ve got every Congressman, every Senator, they got it covered. Now, it’s not to say that they aren’t smart businessmen. They are, and women. They are. But it’s something we should be looking at, something we should be looking at. So you’ve got this collegiality there between the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President. And then you’ve got a President who is not versed in international relations. And not too much interested in them either.
And so it’s not too difficult to make decisions in this, what I call Oval Office cabal, and decisions often that are the opposite of what you thought were made in the formal process.
4023. Magoseph - 10/20/2005 2:43:00 AM
From Jay's link, this part is truly scary::
When you cut the bureaucracy out of your decisions and then foist your decisions on us out of the blue on that bureaucracy, you can’t expect that bureaucracy to carry your decision out very well and, furthermore, if you’re not prepared to stop the feuding elements in that bureaucracy, as they carry out your decision, you’re courting disaster.
And I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita and I could go on back, we haven’t done very well on anything like that in a long time. And if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence.
4024. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 2:48:13 AM
If you listen to that clip I posted through to the Q&A period, Wilkerson supports the Connor-Ackroyd hypothesis.
4025. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 2:55:13 AM
That was a petty comment. It's not a petty speech. This is someone who has been on the inside for a very long time, and is saying that things are extremely broken.
The first question he was asked was whether he had paid a price for his recent candor. He replied that his relationship with Powell has been damaged, that he was, at one point, physically removed from Powell's office.
I'm burning four or five cds of this, and handing them around (the clip is over 60MB). I hope other people will spread this around. It's long, but, imo, very important.
Not short term important either. Not "get Bush" important. It's important in that this guy is reaching out to say that there are profound problems in American governance. Bush is a manifestation, not a disease.
4026. alistairconnor - 10/20/2005 3:17:16 AM
That's quite a speech. He's so right about the need for process.
Why did they [inaudible] most of the names? e.g. Under Secretary of Defense Douglas [inaudible]... stupidest blankety blank man in the world, wonder who that could be? And he's extremely scathing about a former NSA, Dr [inaudible].
... ah yes, she's there to be seen, not heard. A walking photo op. Soon to be vice president?
Is the term "military industrial complex" mainstream vocabulary, or is it commie talk?
4027. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 3:20:57 AM
It's clear on the clip. Feith. And the quote from Franks is a famous one. The transcriber obviously is not following these stories.
"Military-Industrial complex" really did originate with Eisenhower's farewell address.
4028. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 3:27:51 AM
Some of the vitriol directed at Feith by anonymous sources may be due to personal animus. A 2002 Washington Post profile of Feith noted that he is "disliked by many people who work with him on a daily basis," and in March 2003 the National Journal noted that "it is hard to overstate how utterly Feith is reviled in certain circles." The latest manifestation of this is the juicy quote by Gen. Tommy Franks in Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, in which Franks calls Feith "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."
From a Slate article
4029. alistairconnor - 10/20/2005 3:54:09 AM
I'm puzzled, Jay, why you said the other day that Rice is innocent in the conspiracy to cook up the Iraq war. That "mushroom cloud" stuff, you think she was just reading from the script? You don't think she participated in the twisting of the intelligence?
That would certainly fit what Wilkerson seems to be implying : initially he thought the dysfunctional decision-making was due to an "extremely weak" NSA, but he then seems to let her off the hook, one imagines because she was completely out of the loop?
How's the State Dept these days? Much like the CIA?
4030. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 7:18:16 AM
Your mushroom cloud point is well taken.
The "extremely weak" NSA is an idea that has shown up in a number of places--that Cheney/Rumsfeld brushed her aside. The president, by this analysis, didn't receive a balanced presentation from the "the principals" because Condi failed to do her job of making sure the president did hear all points of view.
I just read someone who said that another way to read this is not to say she was ineffectual in presenting Powell's views and making sure that Powell's views got aired but rather she was part of a process of keeping Powell around as window-dressing. Wilkerson's speech supports the more straightforward story of weakness.
When I was that New Yorker thing that I must have found very illuminating because I keep mentioning it, the panel was asked whether the neo-con moment had passed. The response was not unanimous; Feith seemed to say (it's hard to know what he means when he speaks) that moving Condi into Powell's position ended the appearance of conflict, which, he said, never really amounted to anything anyway. But everyone remarked on the absence of the longstanding State/Defense conflict that marks every administration. The trouble is that this story works whether she is on board or ineffectual.
4031. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 7:31:45 AM
The book by George Packer that Wilkerson recommends in this speech takes an interesting line on the neo-con involvement--so far anyway. I'm about a third of the way through it.
This story is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have used the neo-cons make the case. That is, they had the story on the shelf justifying the Iraqi invasion made-to-measure; these guys had been trying to sell this one since the mid-90s. So when Cheney wanted the administration to do this, he pulled it off the shelf, complete with democratic idealists like Maniya, and painted the pig with democracy lipstick. Reading it this way dovetails nicely with the current rumors regarding the Fitzgerald investigation. Laura Rozen* says that this was, from the start, a Cheney operation to use the neo-con story, and then to blame the CIA for the intelligence failure--which is why they went so hard after Wilson, because Wilson tied the weapons claim back to the White House.
You might note that Wilkerson doesn't talk about the neo-cons, other than the dismissive sidebar regarding Feith. This was, he says, hardball playing by the military-industrial complex, as personified by Cheney and Rumsfeld.
--------------
*One thing we know from the Fitzgerald investigation: the campaign to discredit Joe Wilson by saying he had only gotten the trip to Niger as a boondoggle from his wife, a CIA officer, was part of a larger, concerted effort by officials from the White House and the Vice President's office to construct an alternative narrative of who was to blame for the Iraq WMD intelligence fiasco. Not the White House, but the CIA. Rove and Libby weren't just telling reporters, 'Cheney doesn't know anything about Wilson's trip.' No. They created a fuller, alternative narrative: 'Cheney didn't know anything about Wilson's trip to Niger, because Wilson only got the trip as a boondoggle from his wife who works on unconventional weapons at the CIA.' It may seem like an almost random side note that has cost them considerable trouble. But it wasn't random at all. As we know from recent reports surrounding the Fitzgerald investigation, the Vice President's office was leading an all-out propaganda war -- every bit as choreographed as the pre-war propaganda campaign by the same officials -- to blame the CIA for the fact that there weren't any WMD to be found in Iraq after all, and the chief stated reason for the war was collapsing. And it enlisted not just leaks to reporters about Valerie Plame to conduct that war against the CIA. It also enlisted key Republican officials in Congress, to buck up its narrative, and literally divert attention from the role of the White House and executive branch offices in citing truly dubious Iraq intelligence - some, including the Niger yellowcake claims, not supported by the intelligence community at all. And Congress so far has gone along. War and Piece
4032. alistairconnor - 10/20/2005 8:34:30 AM
That's certainly coherent. The neocons were their useful idiots. They knew the frame wouldn't hold indefinitely, and they were prepared to gut the CIA as part of the price for their war. Rape and pillage, fire and the sword.
4033. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 8:45:32 AM
It still doesn't ultimately make sense, except in extremely cynical terms--that this was about nothing more than war profiteering and winning reelection.
4034. alistairconnor - 10/20/2005 8:57:38 AM
I never really expected it to make sense. It was a powerful confluence of forces : naive neocon vision, cynical profiteering, electoral strategy, and a powerful national need for revenge.
And one mustn't underestimate the fact that Bush is the final arbiter, and he had powerful Oedipal issues to deal with. A second Gulf war, wow! Dad will never look down on me again...
If any one of these elements had had overall control, then there might have been a coherent strategy, however wrong-headed. The fact that there was none, is the giveaway.
4035. wonkers2 - 10/20/2005 11:04:57 AM
A neocon in the CIA apparently forged the yellow cake documents.
4036. jayackroyd - 10/20/2005 11:52:30 AM
That's been a persistent rumor (not the neo con part). What's the source for this one?
Did the same guy also mail the anthrax?
4037. jexster - 10/20/2005 5:53:57 PM
see 4019 Jay...
4038. jexster - 10/20/2005 6:28:33 PM
The book by George Packer that Wilkerson recommends in this speech takes an interesting line on the neo-con involvement--so far anyway. I'm about a third of the way through it.
This story is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have used the neo-cons make the case. That is, they had the story on the shelf justifying the Iraqi invasion made-to-measure; these guys had been trying to sell this one since the mid-90s. So when Cheney wanted the administration to do this, he pulled it off the shelf, complete with democratic idealists like Maniya, and painted the pig with democracy lipstick.
This not new and not entirely accurate either
Not new - Cheney Rumsfeld had unfinished business in Iraq to be sure. So did GWB, so did the Neocons/PNAC, so did Woolsey, so did all sorts of folks...
Says nothing new...says nothing much. Paul O'Neill's said it. Richard Clarke ...punditocrats as well as percipient witnesses have said Iraq was a contingency plan waiting for contingency for years...Waiting for 9/11
NOT NEW< NOT MUCH -
This story is that Cheney and Rumsfeld have used the neo-cons make the case. That is, they had the story on the shelf justifying the Iraqi invasion made-to-measure; these guys had been trying to sell this one since the mid-90s. So when Cheney wanted the administration to do this, he pulled it off the shelf, complete with democratic idealists like Maniya, and painted the pig with democracy lipstick.
Rumsfeld and Cheney are not neocons or so the Theologians tell us. They are "hard right nationalists". And how many angels are able to dance on the head of a pin???
Sure Cheney and Rummy used their depty and undersec neocon appointees. That is what employers do but pig cosmetology wasn't in the job description - IRAQ was!
Necons planned it. Neocons went to Iraq to staff it. Necons implemented it. Necon propaganda infused the policy and Neocon media (WSJ WS NR, TNR etc) sold it.
Bush wanted votes, the political capital he fancied war would have brought Pop had he not stopped killing.
Idiots yes. Useful yes. But not "useful idiots". The Necons were allies useful and necessary allies.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were and are the key players. Cheney's the most powerful, most effective VP in history. But they never could have rolled Powell,the Military, the CIA without those undersecretaries, without an idiot POTUS, without a weak "see which way the wind blows" NSA.
Packer makes me hurl. He's a Liberal Hawk trying to expiate his guilt, subsidized by similarly afflicted liberals who buy the book.
None of this is news,and though apparently it is to Packer, all of it was or certainly should have been obvious to any reasonably intelligent, informed, OBJECTIVE (YES PELLE) observer certainly by the time the War Powers Resolution Oct 2002.
4039. jexster - 10/20/2005 6:45:55 PM
It still doesn't ultimately make sense, except in extremely cynical terms--that this was about nothing more than war profiteering and winning reelection.
It was.
It was about holding on to US world hegemony.
It was about oil. About Geopolitical power, About getting a client state/base replacement for Saudi Arabia. About taking out Syria. About surrounding Iran with combat forces. About taking "the spoils" of the Cold War victory. About Israel. About securing the Persian Gulf and US power against China/India. About weakening the EU. About "Asia First" - a venerable Republican orientation. About fighting terrorism by "intimidating" the rogue states of the Muslim East into "controlling" their jihadi popuplations. About revenge for 9/11. About doing Reagan instead of just talking like Reagan (Grenada, Freedom Fighters or Iraq/Democracy Crusade!). About revenge for 9/11. About maintaining the "war spirit" of the American people by giving them a target rich environment and popular villan. About the Axis of Evil and the Coming of Christ.
And about the egos, power, prestige of every single official who held to one or more of those objectives.
It was a NeoCon morality play from start to finish and the fact that the likes of Cheney, Chalabi, Rove, Bush would sell their mothers to a Jihadi harem for the right price doesn't matter a wit.
4040. wonkers2 - 10/20/2005 8:40:46 PM
Many if not most of the neocons are Jewish. Isn't it fair to assume that their motives were not unrelated to Israel and the Likud?
4041. jexster - 10/21/2005 1:40:51 AM
You mean our American Juden FRAGE?
WARNING: This thread no longer honors Holocaust Passes for Free or Discount Rides. Israelis pay full fare just like the rest of the planet.
Now funny you should ask!
And Jay, George Packer would have known this three years ago had he not tippie towed thru the tulips with Tiny Tom and the rest of those Haime Town Liberal Hairballs
October 21, 2005
Was Plame Outed
by a Foreign Spy?
The Larry Franklin-Plame connection
For a good many years, I have been writing about the tremendous influence of the neoconservatives in formulating and implementing U.S. foreign policy, and maintaining that their role has not just been important – it has been decisive. For underscoring the neocons' pivotal role – since before the Kosovo war – I have been called a lot of uncomplimentary names, the least of which is "conspiracy theorist," and for a while there Antiwar.com's insistence on emphasizing this theme tended to isolate us from antiwar leftists, as well as alienating the more "mainstream" types who doubted whether such an abstruse ideological movement could possibly wield the sort of clout I was describing.
No more. Now the lefties over at, say, DailyKos.com, are hip to the magnitude of the threat and are busy poring over old PNAC position papers [.pdf] looking for clues to our present predicament. Even the word neocon, once all but unrecognizable to the great majority of readers, is now firmly embedded in the American political lexicon – even as the consequences of their policies exact an ever increasing toll. Yet still there are some doubters: how could such a small group of people exercise such power – especially considering that they aren't exactly a mass movement. Someone once quipped that there are only about 20 or so neocons – but 18 of them are major newspaper columnists. Yet there is more to it than that, and now that Scooter-gate is unfolding before the astonished eyes of official Washington, the neocons' ubiquity in the mid-to-upper levels of the U.S. government's national security and foreign policy bureaucracy is all too obvious. General Anthony Zinni was one of the first to call attention to the dangers inherent in the neocons' foreign policy specialization, and now we have another major senior figure in the Washington policy establishment coming forward to confirm, in no uncertain terms, the nature and extent of the problem.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was Colin Powell's chief of staff over at the State Department, where he formerly served as associate director of policy planning. Before that, he was the director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College.
4042. alistairconnor - 10/21/2005 3:22:14 AM
Wonk, the Jewish/Israel connection with the neocons is only one aspect of their ideology. And the neocons, while influentual, have not been the dominant aspect of the whole mess. I suspect that too much emphasis on this aspect might function as a get-out-of-jail-free card : oh, if it's all about Israel, then it must be OK...
... but if the upheavals to come lead to more transparence and rationality in the relations between the US and Israel, well that would be a positive side-effect.
4043. alistairconnor - 10/21/2005 3:24:59 AM
4038/4039 : Thank you Jex for a cogent statement of your opinions, in your own words. It's rare enough to be worthy of applause.
4044. jexster - 10/21/2005 8:30:36 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. Marines were killed by a roadside bomb west of Baghdad and in a separate attack a U.S. soldier was killed in Hit, northwest of the capital, the U.S. military said on Friday.
4045. jexster - 10/21/2005 8:33:10 AM
Why bother when someone else already done the work?
No wonder the French are so fucked up.
4046. jexster - 10/21/2005 8:40:20 AM
The Neocons are influential, indispensable and inseperable from this mess Monsieur
and the pernicious influence of certain of the Hebrew persuasion, the untold story...
4047. jexster - 10/21/2005 8:48:51 AM
And Jay I don't what Packer said...nor care much more than I do for what T. Friedman sez either...
LIBERAL CHICKENHAWKS REPENT!
This is what Wilkerson said about the International NeoCon Conspiracy
The question we have to say to ourselves is, OK, so here's what happens, a bunch of guys, 8 or 9 neoconservatives, cultists – not Charles Manson cultists, but cultists – get in and it's not, with all due respect to Michael Moore, and you'll read it, his movie's fine, but it's not about oil, it's not even about protecting Israel, it's about a Utopia they have, it's about an idea they have. Not only about – democracy can be spread – in a sense, I would say Paul Wolfowitz is the greatest Trotskyite of our time, he believes in permanent revolution, and in the Middle East to begin, needless to say.
"And so you have a bunch of people who've been for 10, 12 years have been fantasizing since the 1991 Gulf War on the way to resolve problems. And of course Israel will be a beneficiary and etc., etc., but the world in their eyes – this was Utopia. And so they got together, this small group of cultists, and how did they do it? They did do it. They've taken the government over. And what's amazing to me, and what really is troubling, is how fragile our democracy is. Look what happened to us."
And indeed if you look at the Crash and Burn Headline summary in AP, you will Condi even now talking the Cult's ideology which the Cabal bought hook, line and sinker
Condi's rep as crack whore notwithstanding, it don't matter she sings the song for her dime bags of "rock" - it is a neocon song...composed at Likud World Hdq
4048. jexster - 10/21/2005 8:50:47 AM
Apologies that was Sy Hersh, Heebe
4049. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 9:04:30 AM
Many if not most of the neocons are Jewish. Isn't it fair to assume that their motives were not unrelated to Israel and the Likud?
Certainly not. That's pretty much as bare-facedly anti-Semitic as you can get.
4050. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 9:06:34 AM
While I agree with Alistair's sentiment about speaking for yourself, jex, I suggest you read Packer's book before making pronouncements about it.
4051. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 9:13:56 AM
Sorry, I don't plead guilty to anti-semitism. Recognizing that the neocons are predominantly Jewish is in no way anti-semitic. Bush has been trying with some success to convert Jewish voters from their traditional home in the Democratic party by cozying up to Netanyahu and Sharon. Neocons in the Bush administration have been accused of spying for Israel. The neocons have been hawks on Palestine and the Middle East. The relationship between our invasion of Iraq, Israel-Palestine and increased terrorism is obvious.
4052. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 9:17:47 AM
Note: I didn't say or imply that all Jews are neocons. Most of the Jews I know opposed the invasion of Iraq and think that Bush is a jerk.
4053. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 9:24:24 AM
Recognizing that the neocons are predominantly Jewish is in no way anti-semitic.
No, but saying and therefore they support Israel is. That's like saying Kennedy would vote with the Pope.
Or that Harriet Miers would vote the way her minister says she should.
Oh, wait, she kinda did say that, didn't she?
If Perle had come out and said, the way proxies have for Miers, I'm Jewish, I'm a neo-con, and and I do what the Likud wants that's one thing. To say, as you did, that you can presume that the neocons support Likud because they're Jewish is flat out anti-semitism.
4054. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 9:48:41 AM
Well, my impression is that the neocons lean toward Likud and that Sharon and Netanyahu support Bush's invasion of Iraq. Pointing that out is not anti-semitic. If that's not true, feel free to correct me, but don't call me anti-semitic. Plenty of Israelis strongly oppose Netanyahu's insane policies. However, my impression is that our neocons generally align themselves with the conservatives in Israel as they do here in the U.S. It's well recognized that there is a relationship between terrorism, the festering sore of Palestine and Bush's tilt toward Israel. Pointing that out is hardly anti-semitic.
4055. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 9:51:16 AM
If I'm not mistaken, suicide bombing started in Palestine.
4056. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 12:08:43 PM
You're mistaken. I was also mistaken. I thought the Tamils came first.
From wiki:
Lebanon, during its civil war, saw the first modern suicide bombing: the Islamic Dawa Party's car bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut, in December 1981. Hezbollah's bombing of the U.S. embassy in April 1983 and attack on United States Marine and French barracks in October 1983 brought suicide bombings international attention. Other parties to the civil war were quick to adopt the tactic, and by 1999 factions such as Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Ba'ath Party, and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (which sent the first female suicide bomber in 1986) had carried out around 50 suicide bombings between them. Hezbollah was the only one to attack overseas, bombing the Israeli embassy (and possibly the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association building) in Buenos Aires; as its military and political power have grown, it has since abandoned the tactic.
Lebanon saw the first bombing, but it was the Tamil Tigers who perfected the tactic and inspired its use elsewhere. Their Black Tiger unit have committed between 76 and 168 (estimates vary) suicide bombings since 1987, using more than 240 attackers. Their victims included former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (killed by Thenmuli Rajaratnam), many prominent Lankan leaders (among them the late PM Ranasinghe Premadasa), Colombo's Central Bank, and even warships.
In Northern Ireland, in the early 1990s, the IRA forced men to become suicide bombers by threatening their families. The men were forced to drive vehicles containing bombs at British army or Royal Ulster Constabulary bases.
On neocons are jewish and there support Likud, this is what you said, wonk:
Many if not most of the neocons are Jewish. Isn't it fair to assume that their motives were not unrelated to Israel and the Likud?
If I plugged in "Zurich gnomes" in for "neocons," the statement would still be the same. The claim in that statement is that being jewish means being pro-Likud.
You may not have meant that. Fine. But that's what you said.
4057. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 12:29:25 PM
I still don't agree that my observation that the American Jewish neocons support both Likud and Bush's unrealistic, hawkish, Iraq and Middle East policy which is apparently reciprocated by Likud was anti-semitic. I think you are being unduly PC. My intent was certainly not anti-semitic. Fortunately, the majority of American and Israeli Jews are not neocons nor supporters of Likud. But Sharon has practically been an ex-officio member of Bush's cabinet.
Setting aside the issue of anti-semitism, do you not agree
1. That most neocons are Jewish?
2. The neocons have been key advocates of Bush's Middle East policy--Democratize the area.
3. Israel under Sharon and Netanyahu at the very least supported Bush's invasion of Iraq.
4. Bush's policy toward Israel/Palestine was passive or neglectful which was fine with Sharon/Netanyahu/Likud.
5. Bush's policy tilt toward Israel has fueled anti-American attitudes in Arab countries and contributed to increased terrorism.
6. Bush has been trying to add Jewish voters to his coalition of evangelical Christians.
If you disagree with the above I welcome your comments and reasons why.
4058. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 12:39:29 PM
The Times finally has the Wilkerson story.
4059. PelleNilsson - 10/21/2005 1:08:52 PM
The weak link in your argument, wonkers, is the 3d point. You are implicitly assuming that the view of the war in Israel is a left-right thing, just as in the US. That was certainly not true in 2002-3. I'm fairly sure that a Labour government would have expressed just as much support as the Likud one did.
4060. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 1:20:24 PM
Very possible. No argumnent. I have no way of knowing.
But I'm not sure this point is fatal to my original comment that provoked Jay's charge of antisemitism: To wit "Many if not most of the neocons are Jewish. Is it not fair to assume that their motives were not unrelated to Israel and the Likud?" [add: and the Labor party in Israel.]
4061. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 1:30:15 PM
1. That most neocons are Jewish?
2. The neocons have been key advocates of Bush's Middle East policy--Democratize the area.
3. Israel under Sharon and Netanyahu at the very least supported Bush's invasion of Iraq.
4. Bush's policy toward Israel/Palestine was passive or neglectful which was fine with Sharon/Netanyahu/Likud.
5. Bush's policy tilt toward Israel has fueled anti-American attitudes in Arab countries and contributed to increased terrorism.
6. Bush has been trying to add Jewish voters to his coalition of evangelical Christians.
1. I have no idea. I'm not being disingenuous here. I really don't know. I know, from Packer's book that Feith is. I assumed Perle was not. One of my longstanding difficulties in adapting to like in New York is that I can never tell whether someone is Jewish or not.
2. The neo-con view is that the US should use its force to impose its will wherever it can. That said, I've said here and elsewhere that Israel's security was one of the motivating reasons for the neo-cons interest in Iraq.
3. Of course Israel, from Nehatnyahu to the last leftie in the last kibbutz supports the invasion of Iraq by the US. They launched freaking SCUDs at Israel. They'd support an invasion of Syria as well.
4. Bush has been decidedly supportive of Sharon, even to the point of lying about the administration's position wrt Israel and in his complicity in expanding Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, while claiming to be pursuing a peaceful resolution.
5.I disagree. I don't think terrorism directed at the US is particularly driven by US policy in Israel. I think it is a propaganda point used by al qaeda, but believe their pursuit of a caliphate is unrelated to the palestinian problem. In general, I believe the arab world, ruling and in opposition, dishonestly points to palestine. If they wanted to do something, they've had ample opportunity. I have to note, as well, that there has been damned little terrorism directed at the United States. Yes, I know about 9/11.
6. He hasn't been trying all that hard, nor has he been all that successful. That's still a reliably democratic bloc, although why he would care is beyond me. The places where there are significant Jewish votes are pretty damned blue.
And it is still wrong to say that because someone is jewish, therefore he or she is pro-likud.
4062. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 2:17:01 PM
I completely agree that it's wrong to say that because someone is Jewish, therefore he or she is pro-Likud. I'll scroll back and check, but I don't think I said that. However, it is accurate to say that most of the neocons are Jewish and that they hatched Bush's extreme Middle East makeover policy beginning with the invasion of Iraq. (Prominent Jewish neocons--Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, William Kristol, Scooter Libby, Elliott Abrams, Douglas Feith. Non-Jewish neocons: Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, John Bolton, and, of course, Rumsfeld.)The religion of the neocons is relevant only to the extent that the Israel-Palestine situation is relevant. Here we disagree. IMO, the evidence is pretty clear that Palestine and Bush's policy toward it have contributed to terrorism against the U.S. Not a primary cause but a factor.
Whether Bush's Israel policy is designed to get Jewish votes or get their support for his invasion of Iraq or both is hard to say. He has had some success in weaning Jewish voters away from the Democrats and in gaining their support for the invasion. In the past few years Bush's evangelist supporters have been holding hands and singing Kumbaya with conservative Jews.
4063. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 2:33:45 PM
I wouldn't put Cheney or Rumsfeld in that list. Libby's Jewish? Podhoretz is Jewish?
I am so clueless about this.
Christian Science Monitor calls the group mostly Jewish, former liberals.
THey also have a test Are you a neocon?
I'm not. But a few times I didn't like any of the answers.
4064. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 2:51:32 PM
Podhoretz for many years has been an editor of Commentary magazine. I think he started out like Irving Kristol as a communist, became a Scoop Jackson Democrat, and evolved as did many Kristol and others into what came to be called a neocon. Scooter Libby, Jewish? Does a chicken have lips?
4065. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 2:58:29 PM
Surprise, I'm a liberal.
4066. Magoseph - 10/21/2005 3:00:39 PM
A realist I am--I knew it.
4067. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 3:12:40 PM
As I say, I'm clueless about these things.
The definition of a neo-con is former socialist, according to Packer. Trotskyite, in particular.
I'm a liberal on that test. But I'm more of an isolationist as anything. They didn't have those choices.
4068. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 3:46:33 PM
Well, many of the people who are currently classified as neocons are not former socialists. They are too young. I'm sure that Wolfowitz, Billy Kristol nor Perle were socialists or Trotskyites. They followed in the footsteps of the early neocons like Irving Kristol and Podhoretz who were socialists or Trotskyite communists. I can remember reading Irving Kristol's quite clever anti-communist op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal in the 1960s or early 70s. I even recommended him for a directorship to the then treasurer of GM because I thought the company was too insular and needed outside input. They opted instead for George Shultz and the Reverend Leon Sullivan. (Not that I was so influential in the company--I got to know the treasurer because our sons played on the same junior hockey team and were in the same class taught, incidentally, by none other than Irving Snodgrass's mother. Small world!!)
Anyway, my impression is that the neocon movement was started by formerly leftwing New York Jewish intellectuals who became disillusioned with socialism and did a hard right in the 1950s or 1960s, turning into very persuasive anti-communist, cold war hard liners. Many of them supported Dem. Senator Scoop Jackson. Now they are all Republicans.
4069. jayackroyd - 10/21/2005 3:54:09 PM
They were also influenced by a guy named Strauss from UChicago, who apparently believes in mystical meaning in the works philosophers.
4070. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 3:55:45 PM
Right, I've read about him, that he provided a lot of the intellectual horsepower behind the neocons.
4071. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 3:57:11 PM
They also like Hayek (Road to Serfdom) and Karl Menger of the Vienna school of economics.
4072. PelleNilsson - 10/21/2005 4:13:03 PM
Hayek was no oddball. He won a Nobel in economics. He was a conservative icon, though. He shared the price with Gunnar Myrdal (An American Dilemma) who, when told, is said to have become vivid, contemplating a refusal. But vanity won out, as it usually does. I haven't heard of Menger.
4073. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 4:16:17 PM
Menger was one of the founders of the Austrian school of economics in the second half of the 19th century, preceding Hayek. His name is spelled Carl, not Karl as I posted above, BTW.
4074. ronski - 10/21/2005 4:23:51 PM
Neoconservatives are not all that crazy about Hayek or the Austrians.
4075. ronski - 10/21/2005 4:30:18 PM
4076. PelleNilsson - 10/21/2005 4:59:21 PM
I googled Menger and came up with a near-hagiograpy. But it appears that he was the founder of the Austrian school. It seems that no economic historian with an interest in historiography should overlook his 1883 publication Untersuchungen über die Methode der Sozialwissenschaften und der politischen Ökonomie insbesonderes . Mea culpa.
4077. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 5:06:39 PM
Carl Menger is the grandfather of a college friend of mine, Karl Menger. Carl Menger's son was a math professor at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. I didn't realize that Carl Menger was that important a figure. Karl just told me that his grandfather was an economist of the Vienna or Austrian school of economics. My friend Karl was first in his class in Electrical Engineering and got a masters at MIT and a doctorate in math at Harvard. After that he became a computer programmer but didn't do anything spectacular so far as I know despite being very bright.
4078. jexster - 10/21/2005 7:19:55 PM
"The Saudis are Passing Bricks"
They and the Jordanians..
"Dawa GOOD - Hizbollah bad"
Do you know who created and finances Hizbollah?
Did you know that Dawa is a fusion of Soviet style communism and fundamentalist Islam?
"Iran BAD - Jaafari GOOD"
Motiers know. But Bush hasn't a clue even nowt.
Good news is that Cole packed the RSOB caucus room with Senate LA's on Monday and the flight from Ronald Raygun to Deetroit has "become my bus"
Do you know what SCIRI stands for>?
Did you know that Khomeini est party as a revolutionary insurgent movement in the War?
Do you know that Al Hakim, SCIRI head, has a two phase political plan
Tolerate pluralist democracy
Use it to establish Islamic State..no parties needed because the Umma is back with Allah in charge
Did you know 2/3 of Bahrain, where the US has naval base, are oppressed, poor Shiites waiting for liberation by the Iranians and new Shiite Power Iraq?
"Iran Bad berry bad????"
Iranian Leader Praises Iraqi Referendum
Iran's supreme leader, long a critic of the United States, praised the U.S.-backed constitutional referendum in Iraq as "blessed" Friday and urged Iraqis to participate December's parliamentary elections.
Delivering a prayer sermon at Tehran University, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned those behind the daily bombings in Iraq, comparing them to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, whose mass-murder trial began this week.
"What is the difference between those who detonate bombs and kill people today and Saddam, who is on trial for killing people in the past?" Khamenei asked.
"Those who blow up mosques and kill Shiites are neither Sunni nor Shiite," he said, referring to the two main Muslim sects. "They are against Islam."
Khamenei has often condemned the U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying Washington only has itself to blame for the difficulties its forces face in the country.
On Friday, however, he said the Oct. 15 referendum on the Iraqi constitution was a "great and blessed job."
Four more beers please...there's even more much more to share....none of it will cheer any but the most perverse Schadenfreuder...
I wonder who that might be/??
"Thanks for all your help."
"Ah the pleasure's mine {Oh Great One} for now I can tell my friends 'See this hand? I haven't washed it for a week!' "
4079. jexster - 10/22/2005 11:50:48 AM
Axed him yesterday about the Blog. He's proud a punch to be in the top 100 technorati ratings, and mentioned it a number of times - what a sweet man - and BRIGHT...shit he is one of the few people I have met that can keep up with me when I get excited and engage 5th gear. I had the sense that he was not only keeping up but was even ahead at times..But he can't keep up with interviews, classes, publishing, MESA and the blog's correspondence - "TA???" Michigan is cutting higher education like Ahnold. Prof Watts asked about publishing. "Well, I use the blog as a research data base and whenever a publisher wants an article or book, I tell em it has to be on 20th century ME history. My 18th century. It is suffering."
4080. jexster - 10/22/2005 11:55:36 AM
While I agree with Alistair's sentiment about speaking for yourself, jex, I suggest you read Packer's book before making pronouncements about it.
Admirable were it not for the fact that I have read all the posts at TPMc and two reviews, have 7 books in holding pattern over the airport and have concluded that the book, for me,is worthless:
1. because I know at least as much as Packer does on several key subtopics
2. While styled as reportage it is really an autobiography in disguise with all of the weaknesses that brings plus the fact that it is a fraud for not being an upfront autobiography. I hardly ever read autobiographies
3. I don't read "instant" histories or even "near instant histories"
4. I think he is dishonest in his discussion in parts
Why give him 20 buck?
4081. jexster - 10/22/2005 11:56:40 AM
Speaking of have too much to do, too little time...
Axed Cole yesterday about the Blog. He's proud a punch to be in the top 100 technorati ratings, and mentioned it a number of times - what a sweet man - and BRIGHT...shit he is one of the few people I have met that can keep up with me when I get excited and engage 5th gear. I had the sense that he was not only keeping up but was even ahead at times..But he can't keep up with interviews, classes, publishing, MESA and the blog's correspondence - "TA???" Michigan is cutting higher education like Ahnold. Prof Watts asked about publishing. "Well, I use the blog as a research data base and whenever a publisher wants an article or book, I tell em it has to be on 20th century ME history. My 18th century. It is suffering."
4082. jexster - 10/22/2005 11:58:59 AM
Watts axed how he managed to read all those linked articles.
When he was American U Beruit and later when the Civil War closed it, in Amman and later Cairo he worked for english language news services and prepared summaries of arabic articles. So he developed what lawyers do - cut to the chase, except that he can do this bilingually
4083. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:01:07 PM
AC/Jay...great thing about opinions..everybody has one..some are just worth more than others
4084. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:05:28 PM
"John do you know what I told them I was speaking about today?"
"Iran. Iraq. Shia. OIl Gulf. You chose that Oil Gulf deliberately?"
"OH YES! If say Arab or Persian Gulf, I guarantee I'll have hundreds of emails from each side the very next day"
He's got several ppt presentations on his laptop and while here since Tuesday spoke ME Studies Centers at Berkeley, Stanford, a Stanford peace group in addition to SFSU
4085. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:10:04 PM
FOCUS | Secretive Cheney Aid at Heart of CIA Leak Case
Who is I. Lewis Libby? At the center of the CIA leak investigation, he is so mysterious that he hides his first name. The adviser universally known as "Scooter" represents the other side of the Bush administration: the secret undisclosed side. Like the vice president he works for,Libby prefers to work on policy in the shadows and leave the politics to others.
4086. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:15:32 PM
Shahin M. Cole observed today, "Partition is the consequence of failed colonialism."
Daddy placed him in a prestigious program..he's an expert on Muslim Brotherhood and is doing field research in Cairo
4087. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:54:27 PM
Woman of Mass Destruction MD
I've always liked Judy Miller. I have often wondered what Waugh or Thackeray would have made of the Fourth Estate's Becky Sharp.
The traits she has that drive many reporters at The Times crazy -- her tropism toward powerful men, her frantic intensity and her peculiar mixture of hard work and hauteur -- have never bothered me. I enjoy operatic types.
Once when I was covering the first Bush White House, I was in The Times's seat in the crowded White House press room, listening to an administration official's background briefing. Judy had moved on from her tempestuous tenure as a Washington editor to be a reporter based in New York, but she showed up at this national security affairs briefing.
At first she leaned against the wall near where I was sitting, but I noticed that she seemed agitated about something. Midway through the briefing, she came over and whispered to me, ''I think I should be sitting in the Times seat.''
It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh. I got up and stood in the back of the room, while Judy claimed what she felt was her rightful power perch.
She never knew when to quit. That was her talent and her flaw. Sorely in need of a tight editorial leash, she was kept on no leash at all, and that has hurt this paper and its trust with readers. She more than earned her sobriquet ''Miss Run Amok.''
Judy's stories about W.M.D. fit too perfectly with the White House's case for war. She was close to Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who was conning the neocons to knock out Saddam so he could get his hands on Iraq, and I worried that she was playing a leading role in the dangerous echo chamber that Senator Bob Graham, now retired, dubbed ''incestuous amplification.'' Using Iraqi defectors and exiles, Mr. Chalabi planted bogus stories with Judy and other credulous journalists.
Even last April, when I wrote a column critical of Mr. Chalabi, she fired off e-mail to me defending him.
When Bill Keller became executive editor in the summer of 2003, he barred Judy from covering Iraq and W.M.D. issues. But he acknowledged in The Times's Sunday story about Judy's role in the Plame leak case that she had kept ''drifting'' back. Why did nobody stop this drift?
Judy admitted in the story that she ''got it totally wrong'' about W.M.D. ''If your sources are wrong,'' she said, ''you are wrong.'' But investigative reporting is not stenography.
The Times's story and Judy's own first-person account had the unfortunate effect of raising more questions. As Bill said yesterday in an e-mail note to the staff, Judy seemed to have ''misled'' the Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, about the extent of her involvement in the Valerie Plame leak case.
She casually revealed that she had agreed to identify her source, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, as a ''former Hill staffer'' because he had once worked on Capitol Hill. The implication was that this bit of deception was a common practice for reporters. It isn't.
She said that she had wanted to write about the Wilson-Plame matter, but that her editor would not allow it. But Managing Editor Jill Abramson, then the Washington bureau chief, denied this, saying that Judy had never broached the subject with her.
It also doesn't seem credible that Judy wouldn't remember a Marvel comics name like ''Valerie Flame.'' Nor does it seem credible that she doesn't know how the name got into her notebook and that, as she wrote, she ''did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby.''
An Associated Press story yesterday reported that Judy had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Mr. Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project.
Judy refused to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, or show the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade.
Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover ''the same thing I've always covered -- threats to our country.'' If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be the newspaper in your hands.
Bush ain't the only one that's going to be left twisting in the wind..Judy's gonna have company too..the Press...the Democrats in charge 2002.
4088. jexster - 10/22/2005 12:55:06 PM
4089. jexster - 10/22/2005 9:36:10 PM
Re: Classic Senate Speeches
Juan,
I think we're about to hear one, and it is about time
Great to meet you yesterday
Classic Senate Speeches
Robert LaFollette (R-WI)
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Free Speech in Wartime
October 6, 1917
Six months after the United States entered World War I, in the midst of the war fever then sweeping the country, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., of Wisconsin defended his right to speak out against the war in a forceful address to the Senate.
Robert La Follette, one of the five outstanding senators memorialized by portraits in the U.S. Capitol's Senate Reception Room, was acutely aware of the power of oratory. "It is the orator," he believed, "who . . . directs the destinies of states." Inspired by post-Civil War Republicans whose "ordinary political speeches . . . stirred the war memories of the old soldiers who were then everywhere dominant in the North," he displayed his own talents at an early age, entertaining local audiences in Primrose Township, Wisconsin, with poetry recitations and speeches he delivered while standing atop a grocery box. La Follette's eloquent and stirring oratory, replete with Shakespearean allusions and historical references, was a powerful instrument that he employed throughout a public career that began with his election as district attorney of Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1880.
La Follette served in the House of Representatives (1885-1891) and as governor of Wisconsin (1901-1906) before coming to the Senate in 1906. In the Senate, the Wisconsin Republican pursued a progressive agenda that included railroad rate reform, banking and currency reform, and tariff reduction, before the outbreak of war in Europe focused his attention on foreign affairs.
Convinced that the advocates of American intervention were motivated solely by the prospect of financial gain and that war profiteering had worked severe hardships for American consumers, La Follette resolutely opposed America's entry into World War I. He was instrumental in defeating the Armed Ship bill in March 1917 and voted against the declaration of war on April 4, 1917. He became increasingly unpopular as he objected to a number of initiatives that the Wilson administration, and a majority of Congress, deemed essential to the war effort. Among the measures he opposed was the Espionage Act, curtailing freedom of speech and of the press for the duration of the war. On August 11, La Follette introduced a resolution demanding a declaration of Allied war objectives. Then distorted press reports of an antiwar address that La Follette delivered the following month before the Nonpartisan League Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, precipitated calls for his arrest on espionage charges and petitions for his expulsion from the Senate. Specifically, the reports alleged that he had defended Germany's sinking of the Lusitania.
On October 6, 1917, a week after the Senate referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections a petition calling for La Follette's expulsion, the embattled senator rose on a question of personal privilege. He sought not merely to defend his own conduct and his own right of free speech, he explained, but to plead the cause of all "honest and law-abiding citizens of this country . . . terrorized and outraged in their rights by those sworn to uphold the laws and protect the rights of the people." La Follette's delivery was, in the words of one scholar of rhetoric, "unemotional, even detached," as he read for three hours from his prepared text. Citing an impressive array of authorities -- constitutional scholars, House and Senate "immortals," and distinguished former members of the British Parliament -- La Follette analyzed "the right of the people to discuss the war in all its phases and the right and duty of the people's representatives in Congress to declare the purposes and objects of the war."
The address brought resounding applause from the Senate galleries but a caustic rebuttal from Arkansas Democrat Joseph T. Robinson in "the most unrestrained language that has ever been heard in the Senate," according to one reporter. In the charged atmosphere of wartime, few of La Follette's allies dared openly voice their support for the controversial senator, but the correspondence that flooded his office was overwhelmingly favorable.
La Follette and his family suffered a "feeling of repression" for the remainder of the war, but with peace came a measure of vindication. After the war, the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections investigated the charges against La Follette. On January 16, 1919, the Senate approved the committee's recommendation that the charges be dismissed and three years later awarded him compensation for legal expenses incurred as a result of the investigation. La Follette remained in the Senate until his death on June 18, 1925. His October 6, 1917, speech is still regarded by scholars of rhetoric and congressional history as "a classic argument for free speech in time of war."
______________________________________________________
Reprinted from Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789-1989: Classic Speeches, 1830-1993. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994.
4090. jexster - 10/22/2005 9:38:37 PM
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail To The Chief",
oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, why don't they help themselves? oh.
But when the taxman come to the door,
Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no millionaire's son.
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Yeh, some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no military son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate son, son son son
- John C, Fogerty
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail To The Chief",
oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no senator's son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, why don't they help themselves? oh.
But when the taxman come to the door,
Lord, the house look a like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no millionaire's son.
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Yeh, some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no military son,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me,
I ain't no fortunate son, son son son
- John C, Fogerty
4091. jexster - 10/22/2005 9:40:28 PM
4092. Ulgine Barrows - 10/23/2005 1:19:58 AM
O jexster
I am Feeling like vomiting, reading "Crude: The Story of Oil" by Sonia Shah.
Nigeria, USA, Nigeria, USA
4093. jayackroyd - 10/23/2005 3:11:17 AM
I haven't picked up the newspaper yet, and Frank Rich is behind the TimesSelect wall. But apparently he has come down in favor of the most venal, most cynical story of why the US went to war. It's the story Banks and I were telling to each other for a while, and has re-emerged here in an exchange with Alistair.
Rich apparently says it was a naked manipulation of the American public to hold up Bush's poll numbers, win the mid-term election and the Presidential re-election.
From fragments pieced together at DailyKos
Hardly had Mr. Rove given his speech than polls started to register the first erosion of the initial near-universal endorsement of the administration's response to 9/11. A USA Today/ CNN/Gallup survey in March 2002 found that while 9 out of 10 Americans still backed the war on terror at the six-month anniversary of the attacks, support for an expanded, long-term war had fallen to 52 percent.
Then came a rapid barrage of unhelpful news for a political campaign founded on supposed Republican superiority in protecting America: the first report (in The Washington Post) that the Bush administration had lost Bin Laden's trail in Tora Bora in December 2001 by not committing ground troops to hunt him down; the first indications that intelligence about Bin Laden's desire to hijack airplanes barely clouded President Bush's August 2001 Crawford vacation; the public accusations by an F.B.I. whistle-blower, Coleen Rowley, that higher-ups had repeatedly shackled Minneapolis agents investigating the so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, in the days before 9/11.
These revelations took their toll. By Memorial Day 2002, a USA Today poll found that just 4 out of 10 Americans believed that the United States was winning the war on terror, a steep drop from the roughly two-thirds holding that conviction in January. Mr. Rove could see that an untelevised and largely underground war against terrorists might not nail election victories without a jolt of shock and awe. It was a propitious moment to wag the dog.
4094. Ulgine Barrows - 10/23/2005 3:26:44 AM
Come in here dear boy
Have a cigar
You're gonna go far
You're gonna fly high
You're never gonna die
You're gonna make it if you try
They're gonna love you
Well I've always had a deep respect
And I mean that most sincerely
The band is just fantastic
That is really what I think
Oh by the way
Which one's Pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it Riding the Gravy Train
We're just knocked out
We heard about the sell out
You gotta get an album out
You owe it to the people
We're so happy we can hardly count
Everybody else is just green
Have you seen the chart?
It's a helluva start
It could be made into a monster
If we all pull together as a team
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy
We call it Riding the Gravy Train
(radio channels being shifted)
[Man:] "...and disciplinary remains mercifully"
[Woman:] "Yes, now would you take this star nonsense?"
[Man:] "No, no."
[Woman:] "Now which is it..."
(channel changes)
"I'm sure of it..."
(channel changes)
4095. Ulgine Barrows - 10/23/2005 3:27:22 AM
-Pimk Floyd
4096. jexster - 10/23/2005 5:10:48 AM
Secret MoD poll: Iraqis support attacks on British troops
Millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a secret military poll commissioned by senior officers has revealed.
The poll, undertaken for the Ministry of Defence and seen by The Sunday Telegraph, shows that up to 65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country.
Andrew Robathan: Government policy 'disastrous'
It demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two and a half years of bloody occupation.
The nationwide survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which Tony Blair and George W Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country.
The results come as it was disclosed yesterday that Lt Col Nick Henderson, the commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards in Basra, in charge of security for the region, has resigned from the Army. He recently voiced concerns over a lack of armoured vehicles for his men, another of whom was killed in a bomb attack in Basra last week.
The secret poll appears to contradict claims made by Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, who only days ago congratulated British soldiers for "supporting the Iraqi people in building a new and better Iraq".
Andrew Robathan, a former member of the SAS and the Tory shadow defence minister, said last night that the poll clearly showed a complete failure of Government policy.
He said: "This clearly states that the Government's hearts-and-minds policy has been disastrous. The coalition is now part of the problem and not the solution.
The Sunday Telegraph disclosed last month that a plan for an early withdrawal of British troops had been shelved because of the failing security situation, sparking claims that Iraq was rapidly becoming "Britain's own Vietnam".
The survey was conducted by an Iraqi university research team that, for security reasons, was not told the data it compiled would be used by coalition forces. It reveals:
• Forty-five per cent of Iraqis believe attacks against British and American troops are justified - rising to 65 per cent in the British-controlled Maysan province;
• 82 per cent are "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops;
• less than one per cent of the population believes coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security;
• 67 per cent of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation;
• 43 per cent of Iraqis believe conditions for peace and stability have worsened;
• 72 per cent do not have confidence in the multi-national forces.
4097. jexster - 10/23/2005 10:55:55 AM
4098. jexster - 10/23/2005 11:04:30 AM
Why bother with the Fudge Packer..he STILL doesn't know why and how we went to war..
20 bucks..George thanks you jay...nothing like Andrew Jackson to ease a liberal war hawk's conscience
and the noive to mimic Edward R in his farewell to TMPC!!!
What a greaseball.
Frank Rich:
(or Jex)
4099. jexster - 10/23/2005 11:23:45 AM
Deja Vu All Over Again
The Great Iran Crock, Blair and AEI
Mahan Abedin demolishes the Blair government's case for Iran giving bombs to Iran's enemies in Iraq. By the way, this thing about the Lebanese Hezbollah really is just disinformation and lies.
There are two organizations in southern Iraq called Hizbullah. One is a component of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (a coalition of Shiite activists). The other was a vehicle for the organization of the Marsh Arabs by Abdul Karim al-Muhammadawi, the "prince of the marshes" and now a member of parliament. Both of these "Hizbullah" organizations are indigenous Iraqis. Poorly informed and perhaps also not very bright Neocons in Iraq were alarmed to see Hizbullah insignia up alongside that of SCIRI, but it was the Iraqi Hizbullah.
The American Enterprise Institute and the Rockingham Cell in the British Ministry of Defense are hoping that you won't know the difference, and that they can find a way to hang violence in Iraq on Iran and the Lebanese Hizbullah. Anyway, if they were so worried about Lebanon's Hizbullah becoming more powerful, they shouldn't have put the Dawa Party and SCIRI into power in Iraq; they are its allies ideologically, and the Iraqi Dawa helped set up Hizbullah in south Lebanon to begin with back in the 1980s.
Apparently AEI and Blair think of Iraq as a magical, mysterious War Machine. Fight one war, you can create all kinds of pretexts to fight another.
posted by Juan @ 10/23/2005 06:01:00 AM
4100. jexster - 10/23/2005 11:50:30 AM
IraN BAD
IraQ GOOD
4101. jexster - 10/23/2005 6:55:18 PM
Galbraith on Iraqi Army, Partition
Former Ambassador Peter Galbraith wrote in response to a posting of last Thursday, and has kindly agreed to allow me to reprint the letter here:
' Dear Professor Cole:
. . . You quoted today the Brattleboro Reformer’s account of my remarks last night to the Windham World Affairs Council. You noted a transcription error in my description of the sorry state of Iraqi military and said you would seek clarification. I am happy to provide it.
I described the Iraqi Army as consisting of nine Kurdish battalions, sixty Shiite battalions, and 45 Sunni Arab battalions. There is exactly one mixed battalion. The Kurdish battalions have no Arab officers, while there are a few Kurdish and Sunni Arab officers with Shiite battalions. Being a Kurdish or Shiite officer of the Sunni Arab battalions is risky, so there are not many at all. This is hardly the picture of a national institution. I also noted that up to half the nominal troop strength consists of ghost soldiers. As there is no direct deposit in Iraq, the battalion command can pocket the salaries of soldiers that don’t exist, so there is an incentive to maintain full strength on paper. More of this can be found in my October 6 article in the New York Review of Books, “Iraq’s Last Chance”, which also analyzes
the new Constitution.
You also describe me as advocating the break up of Iraq. My position is slightly different. I argue that Iraq has already broken up, and that it will be much more costly—in terms of lives and money—to put it back together than to accept the new reality. One reason I like the new Constitution is that I believe it is
realistic.
You argue that partition could lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths, but you ignore the fact that holding Iraq together has already cost well more than
100,000 lives in the various Kurdistan wars.
I also think you draw the wrong lessons from the break-up of Yugoslavia, about which I have a certain experience.* The US and Europeans focused on trying to hold Yugoslavia together when there was no way to do so. Instead, US and European diplomacy should have focused on the issues that caused the war. The war was
preventable; the break up was not.
I do not believe it is possible to keep people in a state they hate, and the Kurds clearly want out of Iraq. I do not think the break up of the rest of Iraq is inevitable, but it is possible.
Saddam murdered over 100,000 Kurds, used poison gas, and destroyed more than 4000 villages in Kurdistan as part of his effort to keep Iraq united. Mismanaged
divorce can be costly, but so is an unwanted marriage. The human cost of holding Iraq together may be much higher than that of a negotiated separation.
All the best.
Peter Galbraith '
When I mentioned to him that I didn't see sentiment for partition among the Arab Iraqis, he kindly replied:
' I agree that the situation of Kurdistan is different from that of the South, and that there are not many Arab Iraqis who want their own independent state. But, I have talked to several prominent Shiite politicians who do say that they might consider separation if Iraq continues to deteriorate and if there is no accomodation with the Sunni Arabs. The "three state soluton" (plus Baghdad as a federal capital) may be the outcome in the context of a federation, but it is not necessarily precursor to the three independent countries. I see two independent states--not three--as the much more likely end result. '
*Galbraith was ambassador to Croatia
Galbraith states my case for Kurd Kleansing well I think!
Irak- KurdenRein
4102. jexster - 10/23/2005 6:57:48 PM
Lots of problema there...
Kirkuk War is the first.
Rapprochement between Shia and Sunni another
Sunni insurgents have already moved against EyeRanian pipelines...Cole thinks they'll keep blowin the pipelines up all over the lot.
Galbraith's plan resembles another which I dub the Kurdish Redoubt....get ready for $10/gal gas
4103. jexster - 10/23/2005 7:50:18 PM
Veteran US Diplomat Slams Neo-Con Cabal
A veteran US diplomat who served as a government adviser in Iraq says US policy in the country at the initial stage of the occupation was driven by neoconservative ideology rather than careful preparation and clear understanding of issues.
Icon of Disaster
Brings It On
4104. jexster - 10/23/2005 9:30:21 PM
4105. jexster - 10/23/2005 11:11:21 PM
4106. wonkers2 - 10/23/2005 11:46:09 PM
4107. Magoseph - 10/24/2005 12:24:42 AM
I wanted to read the essay in question, Wonks, but couldm't find it.
4108. jexster - 10/24/2005 5:48:09 AM
Syria and the Fundamentalist Crescent?
....
The Bush administration wishes to take advantage of the scandal to push the Baath Party out of power. The likely successor in Syria, however, is the Muslim Brotherhood. If you had an MB state in Syria, it would certainly menace the stability of Jordan and very possibly of Saudi Arabia. You'd have a possible Fundamentalist Muslim Axis, stretching from Tehran to Basra to Damascus, then down to Amman and Maan, and over to Gaza. It would have problems of cohesion because of the Sunni-Shiite divide, but on issues like Israel the two can generally agree. Al-Sharaq al-Awsat had a piece not so long ago about how the Israelis had decided that having a weak Bashar al-Asad in power in Syria might be preferable to most likely alternatives. But Bush doesn't have the common sense of the Israeli officer corps, and is better at breaking things than gluing them together.
4109. jexster - 10/24/2005 6:49:15 AM
Scowcroft on Cheney: "The Real Anomaly"
"The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney," Scowcroft said. "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." He went on, "I don't think Dick Cheney is a neocon, but allied to the core of neocons is that bunch who thought we made a mistake in the first Gulf War, that we should have finished the job. There was another bunch who were traumatized by 9/11, and who thought, 'The world's going to hell and we've got to show we're not going to take this, and we've got to respond, and Afghanistan is O.K., but it's not sufficient.'" Scowcroft supported the invasion of Afghanistan as a "direct response" to terrorism.
Dickie Boy's in deep and in deep double secret seculsion for a very good reason....
Scooter...I am bettin Bulldog takes a big bite
4110. jexster - 10/24/2005 10:54:50 AM
Let Justice Be Done
Though the heavens fall…
4111. jexster - 10/24/2005 10:58:51 AM
Fiat justicia, ruat coelum
The above Latin quotation – usually attributed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a Roman statesman and Julius Caesar's father-in-law – succinctly summarizes both prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's view of the law and the possible consequences of its application in the case of the CIA leak investigation.
In Washington, D.C., the heavens will surely fall on the heads of several prominent players, including not only the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, but also the president's top national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley; John Hannah, the vice president's chief national security adviser; and David Wurmser, the VP's chief of Middle Eastern affairs. The fate of the more high-profile Karl Rove is in some doubt: he's probably looking at obstruction of justice and/or perjury charges, but the others – including, perhaps, a number of unindicted co-conspirators – are looking at some real jail time.
4112. jexster - 10/24/2005 12:01:32 PM
War Childe Dance the Day...
Prelude to Treason: Bush Warmonger Tour '02
Newsweek
4113. jexster - 10/24/2005 2:12:15 PM
As I was telling the Obe Juan Cole last Friday..(would someone pick up that name!)
Misery Loves Company
4114. thoughtful - 10/24/2005 3:53:23 PM
Bad indicator.
My 80 year old mother does not follow politics at all. But even she had heard about watergate and about monica lewinsky. I asked her if she knew about Plame, Rove, Libby, or Miller and she said no.
Without a semen stained dress or an impeachment, this investigation has a long way to go before it gets legs with joe six-pack, or in my case, granny short-legs.
4115. wonkers2 - 10/24/2005 5:13:04 PM
Mago, the link works for me. It's a link to the NYT Public Editor, Byron Calame's weblog in which there is a nasty, whiny email from Judy Miller complaining about Calame's piece on her contribution and that of the NYT to the Plame game. Her email reaffirms what a nasty bitch she is.
4116. wonkers2 - 10/24/2005 5:15:10 PM
BTW w2s letter appeared in the NYT letters today.
4117. jexster - 10/24/2005 5:49:02 PM
Icon of Disaster:
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION-MAKING PROCESS -
New America Foundation
WITH
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, USA (RET.)
FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 2002-2005
4118. jexster - 10/24/2005 5:53:10 PM
Thoughtful..how soon we Forgetful..
Bulldog unlike what's his name is a professional. He has not leaked as much a drop....No big shows on Capitol Hill, no Amen Chorus from the Wackos and the frothing media, who've been relegated to saying over and over "We don't know if anything is going to happen"
Granted the last week they're saying "Something big soon, but we've not a clue" but that's not a granny grabber either!
All of which means, it is going to come down like God's own wrath.
4119. jexster - 10/24/2005 11:05:51 PM
While we wait for justice to drop down like dew from heaven....
The Background of the CIA Shield Law
4120. jexster - 10/24/2005 11:18:44 PM
and the winner is
Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.
4121. jexster - 10/25/2005 5:53:35 AM
This is what DNI and William Lind have been talking about for 15 years now. Invade Syria? Iran? Yea and welcome to hell
4122. jexster - 10/25/2005 6:20:34 AM
Now we know why we haven't seen the DickHead for a month
Cheney, September 14th, 2003 ...
4123. jexster - 10/25/2005 6:23:08 AM
See Dick. See Dick run. See Dick resign.
Who Told Dick Cheney?
By Larry Johnson - CIA
Thanks to the NY Times one more piece of the tangled web woven by White House operatives has unraveled and we now know that Vice President Cheney told Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. It also seems pretty clear that the notes show that Libby lied to the Grand Jury when he claimed he learned the name from reporters. Libby faces big trouble. Although the NY Times story reports that Libby's notes indicate that George Tenet told Cheney about Plame, there are some intriguing unanswered questions. For starters it is highly unlikely that George Tenet showed up at the White House and just happened to know the name of Valerie Plame. Someone at the White House asked for it first. Tenet clearly came prepared to respond to a White House request. I'm sure the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knows who called CIA to ask the question.
Oct 24, 2005 -- 10:33:43 PM EST
I also doubt that Tenet used the name "Plame". Since Valerie married Joe Wilson she went by the name, Valerie Wilson. Someone introduced "Plame" into the equation. Who did the subsequent work up on Mrs. Wilson? Only Scooter? Unlikely. Look for other names to emerge in coming days that will reveal who helped work out the "background" info on Valerie Wilson.
What sweet irony! Dick Cheney had a hand in pushing the "nepotism" charge, you know, Joe Wilson only got the job because his wife hired him. Since Dick got his daughter a sweetheart deal at State Department he should not be out casting such stones or encouraging others to do so. See Dick. See Dick run. See Dick resign.
4124. jexster - 10/25/2005 7:34:46 AM
4125. jexster - 10/25/2005 7:35:28 AM
4126. jexster - 10/25/2005 12:39:42 PM
4127. jexster - 10/25/2005 1:31:26 PM
4128. jexster - 10/26/2005 11:34:21 AM
Behind the CIA leak investigation
Background to Betrayal
by Justin Raimondo
Has I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, made a deal with CIA leak investigator Patrick J. Fitzgerald – and turned on his boss in return for leniency?
4129. jexster - 10/26/2005 2:18:19 PM
4130. jexster - 10/26/2005 2:38:10 PM
President Bush's latest comments about Syria and the U.N. Hariri Report display an amazing similarity to comments made about neighboring countries. In fact, it looks as if the White House speechwriters have gone on holiday, and recycled some old text with only minor edits. While some might be alarmed, I'm delighted - it's given me an idea for a new on-line game for the TPM Community.
It's called "Name That Axis of Evil."
4131. jexster - 10/26/2005 4:24:38 PM
Dick at the Heart of Darkness
BYLINE: By MAUREEN DOWD
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
BODY:
After W. was elected, he sometimes gave visitors a tour of the love alcove off the Oval Office where Bill trysted with Monica -- the notorious spot where his predecessor had dishonored the White House.
At least it was only a little pantry -- and a little panting.
If W. wants to show people now where the White House has been dishonored in far more astounding and deadly ways, he'll have to haul them around every nook and cranny of his vice president's office, then go across the river for a walk of shame through the Rummy empire at the Pentagon.
The shocking thing about the trellis of revelations showing Dick Cheney, the self-styled Mr. Strong America, as the central figure in dark conspiracies to juice up a case for war and demonize those who tried to tell the public the truth is how unshocking it all is.
It's exactly what we thought was going on, but we never thought we'd actually hear the lurid details: Cheney and Rummy, the two old compadres from the Nixon and Ford days, in a cabal running the country and the world into the ground, driven by their poisonous obsession with Iraq, while Junior is out of the loop, playing in the gym or on his mountain bike.
Mr. Cheney has been so well protected by his Praetorian guard all these years that it's been hard for the public to see his dastardly deeds and petty schemes. But now, because of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and candid talk from Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson, he's been flushed out as the heart of darkness: all sulfurous strands lead back to the man W. aptly nicknamed Vice.
According to a Times story yesterday, Scooter Libby first learned about Joseph Wilson's C.I.A. wife from his boss, Mr. Cheney, not from reporters, as he'd originally suggested. And Mr. Cheney learned it from George Tenet, according to Mr. Libby's notes.
The Bush hawks presented themselves as protectors and exporters of American values. But they were so feverish about projecting the alternate reality they had constructed to link Saddam and Al Qaeda -- and fulfilling their idee fixe about invading Iraq -- they perverted American values.
Whether or not it turns out to be illegal, outing a C.I.A. agent -- undercover or not -- simply to undermine her husband's story is Rove-ishly sleazy. This no-leak administration was perfectly willing to leak to hurt anyone who got in its way.
Vice also pressed for a loophole so the C.I.A. could do torture-light on prisoners in U.S. custody, but John McCain rebuffed His Tortureness. Senator McCain has sponsored a measure to bar the cruel treatment of prisoners because he knows that this is not who we are. (Remember the days when the only torture was listening to politicians reciting their best TV lines at dinner parties?)
Colonel Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, broke the code and denounced Vice's vortex, calling his own involvement in Mr. Powell's U.N. speech, infected with bogus Cheney and Scooter malarkey, ''the lowest point'' in his life.
He followed that with a blast of blunt talk in a speech and an op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times, saying that foreign policy had been hijacked by ''a secretive, little-known cabal'' that hated dissent. He said the cabal was headed by Mr. Cheney, ''a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces,'' and Donald Rumsfeld, ''a secretary of defense presiding over the death by a thousand cuts of our overstretched armed forces.''
''I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less,'' Colonel Wilkerson wrote. ''More often than not, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.''
Brent Scowcroft, Bush Senior's close friend, let out a shriek this week to Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker, revealing his estrangement from W. and his old protege Condi. He disdained Paul Wolfowitz as a naive utopian and said he didn't ''know'' his old friend Dick Cheney anymore. Vice's alliance with the neocons, who were determined to finish in Iraq what Mr. Scowcroft and Poppy had declared finished, led him to lead the nation into a morass. Troop deaths are now around 2,000, a gruesome milestone.
''The reason I part with the neocons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful,'' Mr. Scowcroft said. ''If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse.''
W. should take the Medal of Freedom away from Mr. Tenet and give medals to Colonel Wilkerson and Mr. Scowcroft
4132. jexster - 10/26/2005 4:29:12 PM
Military's Advice to Reporters:
2,000 Dead in Iraq 'Not a Milestone'
4133. jexster - 10/26/2005 6:41:47 PM
Greasy Cut Fastball
4134. jexster - 10/27/2005 11:56:09 AM
A Very Bad Sign
Not as bad as the FBI interviews of Plame's neighbor, but the start of the hot civil war in Iraq and Roll, in the longer run, will turn out to be more decisive than Bush's plame treason.
Al-Sadr Militia, Sunnis Clash; 15 Killed
4135. jexster - 10/27/2005 11:42:54 PM
4136. Ulgine Barrows - 10/28/2005 1:04:17 AM
v
People say that you'll die
faster than without water,
but we know it's just a lie
4137. jexster - 10/28/2005 8:14:31 AM
The Obe Juan Examines the Neo-Con Zionist Intel Op aka Plamegate
Is Wolf Blitzer of the Hebrew Persuasion???
Obe also has an article in Salon on the NeoCon/Zionist Cabal.
4138. jexster - 10/28/2005 8:48:25 AM
4139. jexster - 10/28/2005 9:05:54 AM
By PAUL KRUGMAN
BODY:
By Bush administration standards, the choice of Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve was just weird.
For one thing, Mr. Bernanke is actually an expert in monetary policy, as opposed to, say, Arabian horses.
Beyond that, Mr. Bernanke's partisanship, if it exists, is so low-key that his co-author on a textbook didn't know he was a registered Republican. The academic work on which his professional reputation rests is apolitical. Moreover, that work is all about how the Fed can influence demand -- there's not a hint in his work of support for the right-wing supply-side doctrine.
Nor is he a laissez-faire purist who believes that government governs best when it governs least. On the contrary, he's a policy activist who advocates aggressive government moves to jump-start stalled economies.
For example, a few years back Mr. Bernanke called on Japan to show ''Rooseveltian resolve'' in fighting its long slump. He even supported a proposal by yours truly that the Bank of Japan try to get Japan's economy moving by, among other things, announcing its intention to push inflation up to 3 or 4 percent per year.
Last but not least, Mr. Bernanke has no personal ties to the Bush family. It's hard to imagine him doing something indictable to support his masters. It's even hard to imagine him doing what Mr. Greenspan did: throwing his prestige as Fed chairman behind irresponsible tax cuts.
All of this raises a frightening prospect. Has President Bush been so damaged by scandals and public disapproval that he has no choice but to appoint qualified, principled people to important positions?
O.K., seriously, many economists and investors feared that Mr. Bush would try to place a highly partisan figure in charge of the Fed. And even before the revelations surfaced about cronyism at FEMA and elsewhere, there was widespread concern that Mr. Bush would try to select a John Snow type -- a businessman whose only qualification is loyalty -- to run monetary policy. The naming of Mr. Bernanke was a sign of Mr. Bush's weakness, and it brought a collective sigh of relief.
Obviously I'm pleased, too. Full disclosure: Mr. Bernanke was chairman of the Princeton economics department before moving to Washington, and he made the job offer that brought me to Princeton.
So should we all feel confident about the economic future, assuming that Mr. Bernanke is confirmed? Alas, no.
This isn't a comment on Mr. Bernanke's qualifications, although there is one talent, important in a Fed chairman, that Mr. Bernanke has yet to demonstrate (though he may have it). Mr. Greenspan, for all his flaws, has repeatedly shown his ability to divine from fragmentary and sometimes contradictory data which way the economic wind is blowing. As an academic, Mr. Bernanke never had the occasion to make that kind of judgment. We'll just have to see whether he can develop an economic weather sense on the job.
No, my main concern is that the economy may well face a day of reckoning soon after Mr. Bernanke takes office. And while he is surely the best politically possible man for the job (all the other candidates I would have been happy with are independents or Democrats), coping with that day of reckoning without some nasty shocks may be beyond anyone's talents.
The fact is that the U.S. economy's growth over the past few years has depended on two unsustainable trends: a huge surge in house prices and a vast inflow of funds from Asia. Sooner or later, both trends will end, possibly abruptly.
It's true that Mr. Bernanke has given speeches suggesting both that a ''global savings glut'' will continue to provide the United States with lots of capital inflows, and that housing prices don't reflect a bubble. Well, soothing words are expected from a Fed chairman. He must know that he may be wrong.
If he is, the U.S. economy will find itself in need of the ''Rooseveltian resolve'' Mr. Bernanke advocated for Japan. We can safely predict that Mr. Bernanke will show that resolve. In fact, Bill Gross of the giant bond fund Pimco has already predicted that next year Mr. Bernanke will start cutting interest rates.
But that may not be enough. When all is said and done, the Fed controls only one thing: the short-term interest rate. And it will be a long time before we have competent, public-spirited people controlling taxes, spending and other instruments of economic policy.
4140. wonkers2 - 10/28/2005 9:06:36 AM
Very interesting Salon article by Juan Cole on the origins of the Bush administrations Middle East policy. I hope jayackroyd reads it.
4141. jayackroyd - 10/28/2005 9:12:50 AM
I thought Krugman blew a chance with that piece. He should not have been backhanded in his praise. There's no useful point in sniping at the administration when it does something he finds praiseworthy, and it would have lent greater credence to his criticism if he had expressed support without sideswipes.
4142. jayackroyd - 10/28/2005 9:21:05 AM
I just read that salon piece wonk--kind of a summary of the neo-con conventional wisdom story, slanted a little bit left.
4143. wonkers2 - 10/28/2005 2:58:23 PM
A few days ago you didn't know what a neocon was. Now you're ho hum dismissive of Juan Cole's exposition of what they have been doing to us.
4144. judithathome - 10/28/2005 3:16:34 PM
thought Krugman blew a chance with that piece. He should not have been backhanded in his praise. There's no useful point in sniping at the administration when it does something he finds praiseworthy, and it would have lent greater credence to his criticism if he had expressed support without sideswipes.
It worked for me!
4145. jexster - 10/29/2005 6:06:52 PM
Libby: The War Party's Kamikaze
Why did Scooter lie – and so badly?
"It's not over"
4146. jexster - 10/30/2005 10:13:25 AM
HEADLINE: One Step Closer to the Big Enchilada
BYLINE: By Frank Rich
BODY:
TO believe that the Bush-Cheney scandals will be behind us anytime soon you'd have to believe that the Nixon-Agnew scandals peaked when G. Gordon Liddy and his bumbling band were nailed for the Watergate break-in. But Watergate played out for nearly two years after the gang that burglarized Democratic headquarters
was indicted by a federal grand jury; it even dragged on for more than a year
after Nixon took ''responsibility'' for the scandal, sacrificed his two top
aides and weathered the indictments of two first-term cabinet members. In those
ensuing months, America would come to see that the original petty crime was
merely the leading edge of thematically related but wildly disparate abuses of
power that Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, would name ''the White House
horrors.''
In our current imperial presidency, as in its antecedent, what may look
like a narrow case involving a second banana with a child's name contains the
DNA of the White House, and that DNA offers a road map to the duplicitous
culture of the whole. The coming prosecution of Lewis (Scooter) Libby in the
Wilson affair is hardly the end of the story. That ''Cheney's Cheney,'' as Mr.
Libby is known, would allegedly go to such lengths to obscure his role in
punishing a man who challenged the administration's W.M.D. propaganda is just
one very big window into the genesis of the smoke screen (or, more accurately,
mushroom cloud) that the White House used to sell the war in Iraq.
4147. jexster - 10/30/2005 10:14:45 AM
After the heat of last week's drama, we can forget just how effective the
administration's cover-up of that con job had been until very recently. Before
Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation, there were two separate official
investigations into the failure of prewar intelligence. With great fanfare and
to great acclaim, both found that our information about Saddam's W.M.D.'s was
dead wrong. But wittingly or unwittingly, both of these supposedly thorough
inquiries actually protected the White House by avoiding, in Watergate lingo, '
'the big enchilada.''
4148. jexster - 10/30/2005 10:15:24 AM
The 601-page report from the special presidential commission led by
Laurence Silberman and Charles Robb, hailed at its March release as a ''sharp
critique'' by Mr. Bush, contains only a passing mention of Dick Cheney. It has
no mention whatsoever of Mr. Libby or Karl Rove or their semicovert propaganda
operation (the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG) created to push all that
dead-wrong intel. Nor does it mention Douglas Feith, the first-term under
secretary of defense for policy, whose rogue intelligence operation in the
Pentagon supplied the vice president with the disinformation that bamboozled the
nation.
The other investigation into prewar intelligence, by the Senate
Intelligence Committee, is a scandal in its own right. After the release of its
initial findings in July 2004, the committee's Republican chairman, Pat Roberts,
promised that a Phase 2 to determine whether the White House had misled the
public would arrive after the presidential election. It still hasn't, and no
wonder: Murray Waas reported Thursday in The National Journal that Mr. Cheney
and Mr. Libby had refused to provide the committee with ''crucial documents,''
including the Libby-written passages in early drafts of Colin Powell's notorious
presentation of W.M.D. ''evidence'' to the U.N. on the eve of war.
Along the way, Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation has prompted the revelation
of much of what these previous investigations left out. But even so, the trigger
for the Wilson affair -- the administration's fierce effort to protect its hype
of Saddam's uranium -- is only one piece of the larger puzzle of post- and
pre-9/11 White House subterfuge. We're a long way from putting together the full
history of a self-described ''war presidency'' that bungled the war in Iraq and,
in doing so, may be losing the war against radical Islamic terrorism as well.
There are many other mysteries to be cracked, from the catastrophic, almost
willful failure of the Pentagon to plan for the occupation of Iraq to the utter
ineptitude of the huge and costly Department of Homeland Security that was
revealed in all its bankruptcy by Katrina. There are countless riddles, large
and small. Why have the official reports on detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo spared all but a single officer in the chain of command? Why does
Halliburton continue to receive lucrative government contracts even after it's
been the focus of multiple federal inquiries into accusations of bid-rigging,
overcharging and fraud? Why did it take five weeks for Pat Tillman's parents to
be told that their son had been killed by friendly fire, and who ordered up the
fake story of his death that was sold relentlessly on TV before then?
These questions are just a representative sampling. It won't be easy to get
honest answers because this administration, like Nixon's, practices obsessive
secrecy even as it erects an alternative reality built on spin and outright
lies.
Mr. Cheney is a particularly shameless master of these black arts. Long
before he played semantics on ''Meet the Press'' with his knowledge of Joseph
Wilson in the leak case, he repeatedly fictionalized crucial matters of national
security. As far back as May 8, 2001, he appeared on CNN to promote his new
assignment, announced that day by Mr. Bush, to direct a governmentwide review of
U.S. ''consequence management'' in the event of a terrorist attack. As we would
learn only in the recriminatory aftermath of 9/11 (from Barton Gellman of The
Washington Post), Mr. Cheney never did so.
That stunt was a preview of Mr. Cheney's unreliable pronouncements about
the war, from his early prediction that American troops would be ''greeted as
liberators'' in Iraq to this summer's declaration that the insurgency was in its
''last throes.'' Even before he began inflating Saddam's nuclear capabilities,
he went on ''Meet the Press'' in December 2001 to peddle the notion that ''it's
been pretty well confirmed'' that there was a direct pre-9/11 link between
Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence. When the Atta-Saddam link was disproved
later, Gloria Borger, interviewing the vice president on CNBC, confronted him
about his earlier claim, and Mr. Cheney told her three times that he had never
said it had been ''pretty well confirmed.'' When a man thinks he can get away
with denying his own words even though there are millions of witnesses and a
video record, he clearly believes he can get away with murder.
Mr. Bush is only slightly less brazen. His own false claims about Iraq's
W.M.D.'s (''We found the weapons of mass destruction,'' he said in May 2003)
are, if anything, exceeded by his repeated boasts of capturing various bin Laden
and Zarqawi deputies and beating back Al Qaeda. His speech this month announcing
the foiling of 10 Qaeda plots is typical; as USA Today reported last week, at
least 6 of the 10 on the president's list ''involved preliminary ideas about
potential attacks, not terrorist operations that were about to be carried out.''
In June, Mr. Bush stood beside his attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, and
similarly claimed that ''federal terrorism investigations have resulted in
charges against more than 400 suspects'' and that ''more than half'' of those
had been convicted. A Washington Post investigation found that only 39 of those
convictions had involved terrorism or national security (as opposed to, say,
immigration violations). That sum could yet be exceeded by the combined number
of convictions in the Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay scandals.
The hyping of post-9/11 threats indeed reflects the same DNA as the hyping
of Saddam's uranium: in both cases, national security scares are trumpeted to
advance the White House's political goals. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC recently
compiled 13 ''coincidences'' in which ''a political downturn for the
administration,'' from revelations of ignored pre-9/11 terror warnings to fresh
news of detainee abuses, is ''followed by a 'terror event' -- a change in alert
status, an arrest, a warning.'' To switch the national subject from the fallout
of the televised testimony of the F.B.I. whistle-blower Coleen Rowley in 2002,
John Ashcroft went so far as to broadcast a frantic announcement, via satellite
from Russia, that the government had ''disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot''
to explode a dirty bomb. What he was actually referring to was the arrest of a
single suspect, Jose Padilla, for allegedly exploring such a plan -- an arrest
that had taken place a month earlier.
For now, it's conventional wisdom in Washington that the Bush White House's
infractions are nowhere near those of the Nixon administration, as David Gergen
put it on MSNBC on Friday morning. But Watergate's dirty tricks were mainly
prompted by the ruthless desire to crush the political competition at any cost.
That's a powerful element in the Bush scandals, too, but this administration has
upped the ante by playing dirty tricks with war. Back on July 6, 2003, when the
American casualty toll in Iraq stood at 169 and Mr. Wilson had just published
his fateful Op-Ed, Robert Novak, yet to write his column outing Mr. Wilson's
wife, declared that ''weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger'' were '
'little elitist issues that don't bother most of the people.'' That's what Nixon administration defenders first said about the ''third-rate burglary'' at Watergate, too.
4149. PelleNilsson - 10/30/2005 2:20:24 PM
I stole this from Sir Strudelschwanz at RI (Summer Woman's son).
Here are excerpts from From "Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?", Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 31 October 2005... It's an utterly fascinating piece... (Yes, it is, my remark.)
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001024.html
4150. wonkers2 - 10/30/2005 3:11:10 PM
I just finished Goldberg's article. It's fascinating and persuasive of Scocroft's opposition to Bush's Middle East policy and invasion of Iraq.
4151. jexster - 10/30/2005 9:35:35 PM
Bush, Cheney Urged to Apologize for Aides
By Douglass K. Daniel
The Associated Press
Sunday 30 October 2005
Washington - Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Sunday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should apologize for the actions of their aides in the CIA leak case.
Reid, D-Nev., also said Bush should pledge not to pardon any aides convicted as a result of the investigation into the disclosure of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
"There has not been an apology to the American people for this obvious problem in the White House," Reid said. He said Bush and Cheney "should come clean with the American public."
Reid added, "This has gotten way out of hand, and the American people deserve better than this."
Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, resigned Friday after he was indicted on five charges relating to statements he made to the FBI and a grand jury investigating the Plame leak.
Reid also said that Karl Rove, the president' closest political adviser, should step down
4152. jexster - 10/30/2005 9:46:35 PM
Wonk....am waiting for my dad to give me his New Yorker...Scowcroft is one sharp sum bitch.
The militay guyz are probably the sharpest of Bush's critics..that's what the Revolt of the Professionals and even PlameGate is all about
4153. jexster - 10/31/2005 10:14:40 AM
Icon of Disaster: Six More Die in Vain
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said six American soldiers were killed in two bombings Monday, making October one of the deadliest months for U.S. troops in Iraq this year.
4154. jexster - 10/31/2005 10:15:14 AM
How many more for GOP Power?
4155. jexster - 10/31/2005 6:28:59 PM
The First Jacobin Falls
Despite his failure as president, Bush might survive the housecleaning with a deal that leaves his father and Brent Scowcroft in de facto control of the White House. The elderly members of the old Republican establishment are all that remain of the GOP's credibility
4156. jexster - 10/31/2005 6:30:47 PM
toys
4157. wonkers2 - 11/1/2005 7:28:43 AM
"Strudelschwanz?"
4158. wonkers2 - 11/1/2005 7:34:01 AM
Better than "nudelschwanz!"
4159. jexster - 11/1/2005 8:17:15 AM
First We're Gonna Cut It Off...
Kristof - What Did Darth Dickhead Know and when did Darth Dickhead Know It?
Come on, Mr. Vice President, tell us what happened.
A federal indictment charges that criminality swirled around your office,
and it demeans this administration and the entire country when you hide in your
bunker and refuse to say whether you knew of any such activities.
Five lawyers I've consulted all agree that there is no compelling legal
reason why you should not discuss the situation. It's urgent that you clear the
air by answering these questions in a televised news conference:
Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador
Joseph Wilson? Mr. Libby made such a concerted push to get information, from
both the State Department and the C.I.A., that I suspect that you prodded him.
Is that right? If so, why?
Why did you independently ask the C.I.A. for information about the Wilsons?
The indictment states that on June 12, 2003, you advised Mr. Libby that you had
learned, apparently from the C.I.A., that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked in
the agency. So did you ask George Tenet, then the director, about Mr. and Mrs.
Wilson? Did you review the related documents that the C.I.A. faxed to your
office?
Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer? The indictment states
that you knew she worked in the C.I.A.'s counterproliferation division. You
would think that anyone as steeped in intelligence issues as you are would know
that meant she worked in the Directorate of Operations and was perhaps a spook's
spook.
Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in
the C.I.A. to journalists? Mr. Libby flew with you on Air Force Two on July 12,
2003, and according to the indictment, one of the issues Mr. Libby discussed
onboard the plane (with you?) was how to deal with the news media. Within hours,
the indictment charges, Mr. Libby told two reporters that Mrs. Wilson worked in
the agency.
When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry -- allegedly committing
perjury -- were you aware of what he was saying? Mr. Libby rode to work with
you almost every morning, but this topic never came up?
Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the
summer of 2003? Mr. Libby is renowned for his caution, yet he is alleged to have
suddenly embarked upon a high-risk campaign of leaks and lies. If he did do
that, was it a misguided attempt to protect you? The alleged lies shielded you
by indicating that the information you gave him about Mrs. Wilson instead came
from reporters.
Would the truth have been so potentially damaging to your position that Mr.
Libby chose perjury instead?
My guess is that there was no malevolent conspiracy to ''out'' Mrs. Wilson.
Rather, my hunch is that you and Mr. Libby were enraged at what you perceived as
false suggestions that you had been personally responsible for sending Mr.
Wilson to Niger and had then ignored his findings.
I'm speculating that you may have thought that you were just knocking down
unfair exaggerations and rumors -- and then Mrs. Wilson's identity was disclosed
to suggest that she was more responsible for sending him to Niger than you were.
And once a criminal investigation began, perhaps Mr. Libby didn't want to
acknowledge that you were knee-deep in actions that at a minimum looked petty
and unseemly.
Whatever happened, Mr. Vice President, the American public deserves some
reassurance. If you had nothing to do with any of this, then say so. But don't
cower behind your lawyers. As it is, you're pleading ''no contest'' in the court
of public opinion, and that's painful for all of us who want to believe in the
integrity of our government.
When Richard Nixon was a candidate for vice president and embroiled in
scandal, he addressed the charges in his Checkers speech: ''The best and only
answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the
truth.'' (Mr. Vice President, any time a columnist quotes Nixon to you in an
exhortation to be honest, you're in trouble.)
Even when Spiro Agnew was embroiled in a criminal investigation, he tried
to explain himself, repeatedly. Do you really want to be less forthcoming than
Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
We don't need to try to turn this into Watergate, and we don't need
gloating from the Democrats. But we do need straight talk from you. The
indictment has left a cloud that impedes governing, and if we're to move on, we
need you to clear the air.
So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you
knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign.
4160. jexster - 11/1/2005 8:17:17 AM
First We're Gonna Cut It Off...
Kristof - What Did Darth Dickhead Know and when did Darth Dickhead Know It?
Come on, Mr. Vice President, tell us what happened.
A federal indictment charges that criminality swirled around your office,
and it demeans this administration and the entire country when you hide in your
bunker and refuse to say whether you knew of any such activities.
Five lawyers I've consulted all agree that there is no compelling legal
reason why you should not discuss the situation. It's urgent that you clear the
air by answering these questions in a televised news conference:
Did you ask Scooter Libby to undertake his inquiries about Ambassador
Joseph Wilson? Mr. Libby made such a concerted push to get information, from
both the State Department and the C.I.A., that I suspect that you prodded him.
Is that right? If so, why?
Why did you independently ask the C.I.A. for information about the Wilsons?
The indictment states that on June 12, 2003, you advised Mr. Libby that you had
learned, apparently from the C.I.A., that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked in
the agency. So did you ask George Tenet, then the director, about Mr. and Mrs.
Wilson? Did you review the related documents that the C.I.A. faxed to your
office?
Did you know that Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer? The indictment states
that you knew she worked in the C.I.A.'s counterproliferation division. You
would think that anyone as steeped in intelligence issues as you are would know
that meant she worked in the Directorate of Operations and was perhaps a spook's
spook.
Did you advise Mr. Libby to leak information about Mrs. Wilson's work in
the C.I.A. to journalists? Mr. Libby flew with you on Air Force Two on July 12,
2003, and according to the indictment, one of the issues Mr. Libby discussed
onboard the plane (with you?) was how to deal with the news media. Within hours,
the indictment charges, Mr. Libby told two reporters that Mrs. Wilson worked in
the agency.
When Mr. Libby made his statements in the inquiry -- allegedly committing
perjury -- were you aware of what he was saying? Mr. Libby rode to work with
you almost every morning, but this topic never came up?
Was Mr. Libby fearful of disclosing something about your behavior in the
summer of 2003? Mr. Libby is renowned for his caution, yet he is alleged to have
suddenly embarked upon a high-risk campaign of leaks and lies. If he did do
that, was it a misguided attempt to protect you? The alleged lies shielded you
by indicating that the information you gave him about Mrs. Wilson instead came
from reporters.
Would the truth have been so potentially damaging to your position that Mr.
Libby chose perjury instead?
My guess is that there was no malevolent conspiracy to ''out'' Mrs. Wilson.
Rather, my hunch is that you and Mr. Libby were enraged at what you perceived as
false suggestions that you had been personally responsible for sending Mr.
Wilson to Niger and had then ignored his findings.
I'm speculating that you may have thought that you were just knocking down
unfair exaggerations and rumors -- and then Mrs. Wilson's identity was disclosed
to suggest that she was more responsible for sending him to Niger than you were.
And once a criminal investigation began, perhaps Mr. Libby didn't want to
acknowledge that you were knee-deep in actions that at a minimum looked petty
and unseemly.
Whatever happened, Mr. Vice President, the American public deserves some
reassurance. If you had nothing to do with any of this, then say so. But don't
cower behind your lawyers. As it is, you're pleading ''no contest'' in the court
of public opinion, and that's painful for all of us who want to believe in the
integrity of our government.
When Richard Nixon was a candidate for vice president and embroiled in
scandal, he addressed the charges in his Checkers speech: ''The best and only
answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the
truth.'' (Mr. Vice President, any time a columnist quotes Nixon to you in an
exhortation to be honest, you're in trouble.)
Even when Spiro Agnew was embroiled in a criminal investigation, he tried
to explain himself, repeatedly. Do you really want to be less forthcoming than
Dick Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
We don't need to try to turn this into Watergate, and we don't need
gloating from the Democrats. But we do need straight talk from you. The
indictment has left a cloud that impedes governing, and if we're to move on, we
need you to clear the air.
So, Mr. Cheney, tell us what happened. If you're afraid to say what you
knew, and when you knew it, then you should resign.
4161. robertjayb - 11/2/2005 12:03:20 AM
CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons..(WaPo)
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.
4162. jexster - 11/2/2005 8:07:33 AM
The Liberation Lie
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Tuesday before the United Nations: "I categorically refuse the use of Iraqi soil to launch a military strike against Syria or any other Arab country . . . "But at the end of the day my ability to confront the US military is limited and I cannot impose on them my will."
So let's get this straight. The president of Iraq elected six months after the US "turned over sovereignty" on June 28, 2004 is saying before the United Nations that George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld decide whether his country can be used as a base to attack other countries, and he is unable to influence such decisions-- even though he categorically rejects any such action.
For all those "Bush's Iraq" boosters who laud the "democratic" elections of January 30 and the recent constitutional referendum, this clear admission that Iraq remains under American military occupation, and that its government is helpless before American decisions about the fate of Iraq, is a rather strong refutation. After all, no country is a "democracy" where the military calls the shots, overruling the civilian president-- how much less so if it is a foreign military! Talabani is saying that Iraq is more like Burma, Pakistan or the Sudan than it is like democracies such as India or Brazil.
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari asked the UN to extend the mandate for coalition troops in Iraq for up to another year. But the Iraqi government wants the UN to review the resolution 8 months from now, and at any time that the Iraqi government requests a review. Jaafari also wants to reserve the right of the Iraqi government to ask foreign troops to leave before the end of 2006 if it so decides. That is, the Iraqi government wants US troops for the time being, it just doesn't want to be stuck with them. It is not a very gracious invitation; but then, see above.
4163. jexster - 11/2/2005 6:26:02 PM
Lott calls for Rove to step down
4164. jexster - 11/2/2005 6:41:05 PM
Lott calls for Rove to step down
4165. wonkers2 - 11/2/2005 6:58:50 PM
That's good news. Maybe some other Republicans and conservative thinktanks besides Cato will jump on the bandwagon as well. Get the venal little porcine assassin!
4166. jexster - 11/2/2005 8:05:32 PM
Bush Iraq Obsession Imperils US, ex-Pentagon official says
4167. jexster - 11/3/2005 10:42:13 AM
Dear Senator Feinstein:
While I applaud the Leadership's effort to get to the bottom of Bush/Republican shenanigans surrounding pre-war intelligence on Iraq, I cannot fail to note that I have been urging you to do the same since your dramatic "change of heart" in October 2002 when you, based on intelligence you claim to have seen as a majority member of the SSIC, reversed your previous stand to vote AYE on the War Resolution.
You are thus responsible for what Gen Odom rightly calls the greatest strategic disaster in US History and what John Ikenberry of Princeton has labeled "an icon of disaster" for the US in the 21st century.
The American people are so far out in front of our so-called Democratic "leadership" we cannot even see you out of the rearview mirror raising the question - what good are leaders who only follow?
Therefore, I ask that you:
1. Admit you made a mistake in reversing your opposition to the grant of War Power to Bush
2. Call for a withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq not later than 12/31/06 on a fixed, immutable timetable.
Thank you.
4168. jexster - 11/3/2005 3:34:07 PM
Pro-War Liberals Frozen in the Headlights
by John R. MacArthur
New York -- It's been dreadful, these past three years putting up with George Bush's fraudulent rationales for invading Iraq. And there's no respite in sight -- the phony justifications keep coming, no matter how many corpses pile up, no matter how badly the political situation deteriorates in Baghdad, no matter how many lies surface about the pre-war propaganda campaign.
The other night in a restaurant I had to bite my tongue, instead of my bread, when a man at a neighboring table declared his "trust" in Dick Cheney and the president.
But as much as I'm infuriated by the Bush brigade's steadfast support of the Iraq horror, I find myself angrier still when pro-war liberals -- the so-called reluctant hawks -- wring their hands over the bloody mess they've wrought with their neo-conservative allies.
There are many such handwringers in politics, especially within the leadership of the Democratic Party. Sen. Joseph Biden, of Delaware, is forever asking "tough questions" about Iraq (the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo upset him terribly), without drawing the obvious conclusion that we never should have attacked in the first place, and need to get out as fast as possible.
In journalism, the current handwringer-in-chief is the New Yorker writer George Packer, whose book The Assassins' Gate has met with high praise from handwringers, hawks, and a subset of pundits I call trimmers. Handwringers "anguish" over their past or current support for the war; hawks don't apologize for anything; and trimmers criticize Bush the foolish president, but avoid unequivocal denunciations of this foolish war.
Christopher Hitchens, a ferocious hawk, has embraced The Assassins' Gate, calling Packer "both tough-minded enough, and sufficiently sensitive, to register all [the] complexities [of the Iraq conflict]." The handwringer Samantha Power went even gushier in her blurb on the back cover: "Packer . . . cuts past the simplistic recriminations and takes us on an unforgettable journey that begins on a trail of good intentions and winds up on a devastating trail of tears."
Trimmer Frank Rich, of The New York Times, settled for calling Packer's book "essential," and quoting it favorably in a column.
I think a better description of George Packer is "useful idiot," as invoked by some Western anti-communists when they ridiculed liberals sympathetic to the ruthless Soviet state. Too harsh, you say? After all, "humanists" such as Packer, Power, and Michael Ignatieff signed on with the neo-conservative crowd for a "democracy-building" project in Iraq, not a proletarian overthrow of capitalism.
But Packer's book is nothing if not the autobiography of a liberal dupe. Its central narrative concerns the political journey of Packer's Svengali, Kanan Makiya, whose ascent from Iraqi Trotskyist and anti-Saddam exile to Cambridge (Mass.) intellectual to friend of Ahmed Chalabi to intimate adviser to Bush's "cabal" of right-wing radicals is related in excruciating detail.
Like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle, Makiya fancies himself a "revolutionary" using bullets made in the forges of the Enlightenment. But the whole neo-con notion of "shocking" the Arab and Muslim worlds onto the true and only path of "democracy" parallels the merciless Bolshevik mentality of 1917 more than it follows on the tolerant ruminations of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau.
So what if tens of thousands of bystanders get killed in the wake of the overwhelming historical forces of progress? Like Lenin and Trotsky, the neo-cons want world revolution, not slow evolution.
Packer reports (without evident irony) that Makiya told Bush that invading Iraq would "transform the image of America in the Arab world" (boy, did it ever), and he quotes his brainy pal as explaining to the president that once freed of Saddam Hussein, "people will greet the troops with sweets and flowers." Yet even after 2 1/2 years of carnage, the tender, doubt-filled George Packer is still seduced by his "idealistic" Iraqi soulmate.
Despite the "recklessness of its authors," Packer writes, "the Iraq war was always winnable; it still is."
I'll grant Packer this much: He has a terrific, if unwitting, ear for the absurd and the grotesque. In The Assassins' Gate we learn that Makiya wept while he sat with Bush in front of a TV and watched Saddam's statue pulled down, in what we now know was a staged photo op -- also that "the sound of the first bombs falling on Baghdad was, to Makiya, a joyful noise."
But there's a limit to my appetite for black humor. Packer becomes insufferable when he announces that he hasn't been able "to sort out [his] feelings" about Makiya and Iraq. "He was my friend and I loved him. He had devoted his life to an idea of Iraq that I embraced. He had attached that idea to the machinery of war, and a lot of people had gotten killed." I feel your pain, George.
Would that Packer loved the U.S. Constitution, so badly defaced by a gratuitous war rammed through the Congress on a wave of deception -- or that he cared more for the children killed and maimed in the United States - guerrilla crossfire.
Would that he understood that the utopian ideologues in the Office of Special Plans were themselves being used by the cynical, power-mad, and money-hungry troika of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.
Has it occurred to Packer that the invasion of Iraq might well have been little more than a neo-colonial oil grab and a cheap re-election-campaign tactic? Does he understand that Bill Clinton's and NATO's supposedly idealistic bombardment of Serbia in 1999 (endorsed by liberals, though it was unsanctioned by the U.N.) served as the prime philosophical precedent for Iraq, and was just as illegal? Can he accept that "humanitarian intervention" often makes a bad situation worse? Would he be willing to take some Iraqi refugees into his home, in Brooklyn?
Might the fretful Packer conclude from all he has learned that no authentic democracy can be built on a lie? Apparently not, since this hypnotized Trilby is currently frozen in the national headlights of liberal approbation (and, presumably, big book sales).
I recently had the chance to hear Packer and Makiya speak jointly in New York. Makiya, unrepentant, was still spreading lies, while Packer was merely misreading people and books -- he earnestly invoked Graham Greene's great Vietnam novel, The Quiet American, to make the unoriginal point that American "idealism" sometimes gets the United States into trouble.
Actually, Greene was talking about American "innocence," a very different thing (which Packer cites more or less correctly in his book).
But the line from the novel that Packer should have memorized goes like this: "Innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm." It's a useful lesson for a useful idiot.
John R. MacArthur, a monthly contributor, is publisher of Harper's Magazine.
4169. jexster - 11/3/2005 4:02:23 PM
4170. jexster - 11/3/2005 4:04:48 PM
Right Wing Ralphie to the Rescue
4171. wonkers2 - 11/3/2005 4:56:36 PM
Jay, do you consider yourself a trimmer?
4172. jexster - 11/3/2005 5:36:51 PM
I've already sent poor Jay an email for I was delighted to see "autobiography of a liberal dupe"
4173. jexster - 11/3/2005 5:42:08 PM
You reference this in Pelle's Confessional
The Road To Babylon
Searching for Targets in Iraq
Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2003. Originally from Harper's Magazine, December 2002. By Lewis H. Lapham.
4174. wonkers2 - 11/4/2005 10:26:13 AM
The plot thickens. A letter from FBI director, Robert Muller, stated that Italy's cooperation proved the bureau's theory that the false (yellow cake) documents were produced and disseminated by one or more persons for personal profit. Questions: Who paid Rocco Martino for the forged documents? Michael Ledeen, perhaps? What was Berlusconi's role in the affair? More here.
4175. wonkers2 - 11/4/2005 11:02:22 AM
Who forged the Niger Yellowcake Documents?
4176. wonkers2 - 11/4/2005 11:09:35 AM
4177. Magoseph - 11/4/2005 11:39:26 AM
4178. jexster - 11/4/2005 4:44:01 PM
4179. jexster - 11/4/2005 10:54:58 PM
Iraq war 'fuelled terrorism': ex-British ambassador (AFP) -
4180. wonkers2 - 11/4/2005 11:54:20 PM
4181. jexster - 11/5/2005 9:40:40 AM
Chalabi Back to Court Washington's Favor
4182. jexster - 11/5/2005 4:23:01 PM
4183. jexster - 11/6/2005 7:45:24 AM
4184. jexster - 11/6/2005 10:02:54 AM
38 Months - So Many Lies - So Little Time
The Mysterious Death of Pat Tillman - Rich
4185. robertjayb - 11/6/2005 1:01:45 PM
Bad link,jexster.
4186. robertjayb - 11/6/2005 1:02:38 PM
Correction. I found the column.
4187. jexster - 11/7/2005 5:41:11 PM
1) "So many minority youths had volunteered, that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself."
--Tom DeLay, explaining at the 1988 GOP convention why he and vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle did not fight in the Vietnam War.
2) "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
--Tom Delay, to three young hurricane evacuees from New Orleans at the Astrodome in Houston, Sept.9,2005.
3) "I AM the federal government."
--Tom DeLay, to the owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House, after being told to put out his cigar because of federal government regulations banning smoking in the building, May 14,
2003.
4) "We're no longer a superpower. We're a super-duper power."
-Tom DeLay, explaining why America must topple Saddam Hussein in 2002 interview with Fox News.
5) "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes."
--Tom DeLay, March 12, 2003.
6) "Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."
--Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999.
7) "A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide
structure. To provide stability. Not that a woman can't provide
stability, I'm not saying that... It does take a father, though."
--Tom DeLay, in a radio interview, Feb. 10, 2004.
8) "I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church."
--Tom DeLay (date unspecified)
9) "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour [the minimum wage in 1996] are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist."
--Tom DeLay, during a debate in Congress on increasing the minimum wage, April 23, 1996.
10) "I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution."
--Tom DeLay, in a CNN interview, Dec. 19, 1995.
4188. jexster - 11/7/2005 7:41:38 PM
HIDY HO!
Turd Blossoms Pals Fear Flush
[Mr. Hanky - The Christmas Poo -South Park] 
WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Karl Rove's colleagues are preparing for the possibility that he may leave the White House because of the CIA leak case.
Despite the insistence of friends that he is out of legal jeopardy, several of the lawyers who deal with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald believe Fitzgerald is continuing to look into the possibility of charging Rove with lying to investigators or the grand jury or both, Time magazine reports.
If that happens, Rove almost certainly would resign immediately.
Several Bush administration officials predict that within a year, the president will have a new chief of staff and press secretary, probably a new treasury secretary and maybe a new defense secretary, the magazine said.
If Rove does head out, he may leave behind a wounded president.
"A president who loves to hit home runs and wants to be remembered for swinging for the fences is being forced to take base hits," says a former White House official.
4189. jexster - 11/8/2005 6:00:39 AM
The Busheviks Pine and the Wingnuts Whine
Time to play
- - The Blame Game
4190. jexster - 11/8/2005 9:49:24 AM
4191. jexster - 11/8/2005 10:10:49 PM
THE NATION - LAT
Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning
All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena risks losing its tax-exempt status because of a former rector's remarks in 2004.
The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.
Rector J. Edwin Bacon of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena told many congregants during morning services Sunday that a guest sermon by the church's former rector, the Rev. George F. Regas, on Oct. 31, 2004, had prompted a letter from the IRS.
In his sermon, Regas, who from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991's Gulf War, imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that "good people of profound faith" could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support.
But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, "Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster."
On June 9, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that "a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church … " The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.
The letter went on to say that "our concerns are based on a Nov. 1, 2004, newspaper article in the Los Angeles Times and a sermon presented at the All Saints Church discussed in the article."
The IRS cited The Times story's description of the sermon as a "searing indictment of the Bush administration's policies in Iraq" and noted that the sermon described "tax cuts as inimical to the values of Jesus."
As Bacon spoke, 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a co-celebrant of Sunday's Requiem Eucharist, looked on.
4192. jexster - 11/9/2005 1:38:31 PM
GOP Cannibalism
Lott Suspects GOP Senator in CIA Leak
4193. jexster - 11/9/2005 1:56:00 PM
Most Americans Say US, Britain Lied to Justify Iraq War
4194. jexster - 11/9/2005 6:01:49 PM
4195. jexster - 11/9/2005 6:10:30 PM
4196. jexster - 11/9/2005 7:40:41 PM
Bliar Suffers First Ever Parliament Defeat
Terror Bill Goes Up in Smoke
4197. robertjayb - 11/9/2005 7:56:17 PM
Chalibi offers to be questioned by Senate...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi offered Wednesday to be questioned by the Senate on his role in prewar Iraq but refused to apologize for fueling allegations that Saddam Hussein had hidden caches of weapons of mass destruction.
Accorded a warm reception by the Bush administration, Chalabi lined up Vice President Dick Cheney and five Cabinet officers, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, for meetings this week and next.
4198. jexster - 11/10/2005 6:52:26 AM
4199. jexster - 11/10/2005 9:03:53 AM
"Fool me once and we wont't get fooled again", George W. Bush, Emperor Moron I
Is US planning an Iraq-style 'regime change' in Syria?
A new intelligence report, however, says any successor to Assad's regime won't be any friendlier to US.
We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!
I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?
There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!
The Return of Chalabi
Some Democrats are outraged, but both parties sired this scamster "liberator"
4200. jexster - 11/10/2005 11:24:00 PM
Georgie's "Hero in Error"
Chalabi's curtain call
The White House resets the stage yet again for the notorious Iraqi expatriate who helped cook the case for war.
By Juan Cole
4201. jexster - 11/11/2005 8:37:38 AM
Power Shifts
By Mark Schmitt | bio
From: Politics
I have a theory about Congress, which is that there is often a moment when the effective majority switches, when the minority takes control of the agenda well before an election. It happened in 1994 when Gingrich forced the Crime Bill back to conference. It happened in 1996 when Kennedy forced the Senate to take up the minimum wage increase. After those events, the majority never quite had control of the agenda again.
I think the same thing just happened today when Harry Reid took the Senate into closed session
Nov 01, 2005 -- 05:00:53 PM EST
to force a discussion of the delayed Intelligence Committee report on misuse of intelligence.
Bill Frist's ability to run the institution now lies completely in ruins.
This has implications for the politics of Plamegate and Iraq, of course, but it will affect other questions as well. One of them is the Nuclear Option. The conventional wisdom seems to be that if Democrats try to filibuster Alito, the Republicans in the "Gang of 14" will consider the deal broken and vote for the Nuclear Option.
Some of them may. But to pull off the Nuclear Option banning filibusters on judicial nominations will still require an extraordinary exercise of leadership and party discipline to force Senators to do something many of them don't want to do. Frist couldn't quite pull it off five months ago, he sure can't do it now. There are plenty of Republicans who weren't part of the Gang of 14 but who did not want to have to vote for the Nuclear Option back in May and were very glad to see it go away. (Specter and Ted Stevens come to mind.) They definitely don't want to now, and Frist no longer has any leverage to make them do it. And some others might wonder why they would want to end filibusters 13 months before they risk losing control of the institution.
I'm not saying that Alito won't be confirmed. Since he apparently told Specter today that he supports the right to privacy established in Griswold and is not committed to overturning Roe, he may be confirmed easily, assuming somehow that James Dobson wasn't told the opposite. But one thing is for sure: the prospect of a "final showdown" in which Alito is confirmed by the Nuclear tactic is just not going to happen in a Senate effectively run by Harry Reid.
4202. OhioSTOPAS - 11/11/2005 4:04:19 PM
Really low conduct by the President in his speech today. McCarthyism (for a change, more Joe than Charlie) combined with dishonest RNC talking points ("Congress had the same intelligence I did." - False. "A bipartisan committee found no shaping of intelligence." - the Roberts/Rockefeller committee hasn't even INVESTIGATED that topic yet.).
As Bush goes down, he is taking civil political discourse with him. More Nixonian every day.
4203. jexster - 11/11/2005 8:54:42 PM
Democrats and the War
[from the November 28, 2005 issue]
Everything that needs to be known is now known: The reasons the Bush Administration gave for the American war in Iraq were all falsehoods or deceptions, and every day the US occupation continues deepens the very problems it was supposed to solve. Therefore there can no longer be any doubt: The war--an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation--is a moral and political catastrophe. As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.
...The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still. Fear of facing the consequences of Bush's disaster should not be permitted to excuse the creation of a worse disaster by continuing the occupation.
We firmly believe that antiwar candidates, with the other requisite credentials, can win the 2006 Congressional elections, the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and the subsequent national election. But this fight, and our stand, must begin now.
In the coming weeks and months The Nation will help identify--and encourage support for--those candidates prepared to bring a speedy end to the war and to begin the hard work of forging a new national security policy that an end to the Iraq War will make possible.
There is no other way to save America's security and honor. And to those Democratic "leaders" who continue to insist that the safer, more electable course is to remain openly or silently complicit in the war, we say, paraphrasing the moral philosopher Hillel: If not now, when? If not you, who?
You heard it here first
4204. OhioSTOPAS - 11/12/2005 9:15:51 AM
Today’s Washington Post undermines our troops and gives aid and comfort to the enemy:
“President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
“Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
“. . . Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
“National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."
“But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."”
This article is “deeply irresponsible,” of course.
4205. jexster - 11/12/2005 2:48:01 PM
U.S. 'can't maintain Iraq troop levels'
By JOHN P. GRAMLICH
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Unless the Bush administration significantly cuts American troop levels in Iraq next year, the U.S. military's roughly 140,000-strong presence there will become a detriment to America's national security, according to a report released this week.
In the latest instance of foreign policy experts calling for the Bush administration to set a timetable for U.S. troop reductions in Iraq, the Center for American Progress, a think tank headed by President Bill Clinton's former chief of staff John Podesta, Wednesday said the future of America's military hangs in the balance.
"It has become clear that if we still have 140,000 ground troops in Iraq a year from now, we will destroy the all-volunteer army," said the a report written by the center's Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan.
The United States must reduce troop levels in Iraq, ideally with 80,000 leaving the country in 2006 and most of the rest leaving by the end of 2007, to avoid losing a broader "struggle against violent extremists" that goes beyond Iraq, the report says.
A timetable for U.S. troop reductions would carry the additional benefit of putting pressure on Iraqi leaders to stabilize the country quickly, Korb said during a panel discussion at the center on Wednesday -- an argument recently used by Democrats including Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware and Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan.
4206. jexster - 11/14/2005 7:01:29 AM
Tbe Bush Administration Lie About Its Iraq Lies
Cole
George W. Bush denied on Veteran's Day that he had manipulated intelligence in order to take the country to war against Iraq. He said that the Democrats in Congress had seen the same evidence he had, and that the Clinton administration had also seen Iraq as a threat.
Stephen Hadley, Bush's National Security adviser, underlined the same point on Sunday, denying that there had been any manipulation.
Ironically, Hadley himself was at the center of the scandal about the hyping of intelligence on Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program. The CIA keep sending him memos that implausible things were being alleged by Bush in his speeches about Saddam's nukes. Hadley's response was to ignore the CIA and try to find some way to keep saying the implausible things, e.g., by sourcing them to British intelligence instead.
By the way, the allegation that some, including Sen. John McCain, keep making that "the whole world" thought that Iraq had WMD is wrong for two reasons. First, most of the world depended on the US for its intelligence on Iraq and did not have a way of making an independent judgment. Second, the French ministry of defense demurred, as did several of the most important and experience arms inspectors, including Scott Ritter and Hans Blix.
This BBC item of 11 February, 2003, doesn't read like the Republicans' supposed international unanimity on the issue before the war:
' France, Germany and Russia have released an unprecedented joint declaration on the Iraq crisis, demanding more weapons inspectors and more technical assistance for them . . . "Nothing today justifies a war," Mr Chirac told a joint news conference with Mr Putin. "This region really does not need another war." He said France did not have "undisputed proof" that Iraq still held weapons of mass destruction. '
It is not true that most of the Democrats in Congress saw the same intelligence that Bush saw. Democrats in Congress have told me that most of what they knew about Iraq before the war came via briefings from Bush administration and Pentagon officials. They say privately that they now feel that they were consistently lied to.
But let us look at just one area where there was clear manipulation by Bush and his high officials, and where he was not saying the same things that Clinton or the Democrats had been saying.
There are different sorts of lies. One way to lie is to have two pieces of information, and to suppress one and play up the other. Here is an example of this sort of falsehood.
The lie of omission:
The top al-Qaeda leaders so far captured are
Khalid Shaykh Muhammad
and
Abu Zubayda.
According to the 9/11 Commission report, they revealed to interrogators that Usamah Bin Laden had prohibited al-Qaeda operatives from cooperating with the secular Arab nationalist, Saddam Hussein.
This crucial information was withheld from Congress and from the American people by the Bush/Cheney administration in the run-up to the Iraq War.
The Democrats and Bill Clinton could never have cited this information because it was never made available to them by Bush.
In contrast, the Bush/Cheney administration played up the lies of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi that Saddam's Iraq was training al-Qaeda operatives, even though the Defense Intelligence Agency and other high-level intelligence operatives dismissed this information as unreliable. It should be noted that no money traces showed al-Qaeda funds coming from Iraq. No captured al-Qaeda fighters had been trained in Iraq. There was no intelligence that in any way corroborated al-Libi's story. And, it was directly contradicted by two of his superiors.
The information from KSM and Abu Zubaydah circulated widely among intelligence officials.
' The report on Zubaydah's debriefing was circulated among US intelligence officers last year, but his statements were not included in public discussions by Administration officials about the evidence of al-Qaeda ties. "I remember reading the Abu Zubaydah debriefing last year, while the Administration was talking about all of these other reports and thinking that they were only putting out what they wanted," one official said. '
This was a community of intelligence. Those with the clearances saw those confessions. The lower-level analysts were amazed when they saw Bush and Cheney and Rice on television hyping al-Libi's torture-induced "revelations." . . . They were only putting out what they wanted . . ..
It is impossible that Bush, Cheney and Rice saw the intel from al-Libi but not from Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Muhammad. The only way to explain these comments is that they suppressed the latter in order to emphasize the former. This tactic was deeply dishonest.
So in September of 2002, as "the new product" was being "rolled out" in the words of Bush adviser Andy Card, this is what we heard:
Thursday, September 26, 2002 Posted: 1:28 PM EDT (1728 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's national security adviser Wednesday said Saddam Hussein has sheltered al Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad and helped train some in chemical weapons development -- information she said has been gleaned from captives in the ongoing war on terrorism.
The comments by Condoleezza Rice were the strongest and most specific to date on the White House's accusations linking al Qaeda and Iraq.
The accusations followed those made by President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who earlier in the day said the United States has evidence linking Iraq and al Qaeda, but they did not elaborate."
This lie by omission was repeated over and over again by Bush and his cronies:
"Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."
- Bush in January 2003 State of the Union address.
"Iraq has also provided Al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."
- Bush in February 2003.
If he had said, "Khalid Shaikh Muhammad and Abu Zubaydah, the top al-Qaeda operatives in custody, deny that there was any operational cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaeda. But Ibn al-Shaikh al-Libi asserts that Saddam Hussein is training al-Qaeda in the use of chemical weapons. I asked our Defense Intelligence Agency about this, and they do not find al-Libi's allegations credible. I as president have tough choices to make. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I am inclined to believe al-Libi on this."
Then he would not have been lying to the public. But the way he did it was a lie. Some are saying that the evaluation of al-Libi by the DIA did not reach Bush and Cheney. That is not the DIA's fault. That is incompetence on Bush's and Cheney's parts. Why spend $44 billion a year on intelligence and not seek it?
The United States military captured much of the archive of the Baath ministry of the interior, which it turned over to Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. That is where any document would be that mentioned al-Qaeda. It does not exist, or we would have seen it by now.
It was all a tissue of lies
And it still is
4207. thoughtful - 11/14/2005 4:29:36 PM
Wapo article on Bush lies about the lead-up to war.
4208. thoughtful - 11/14/2005 4:45:12 PM
Powerful stuff here.
Wht[sic] now concerns me is contained in the following paragraph. After describing some of the methods formerly practiced by our communist enemies and now adopted by the U.S. military -- methods which include but are not limited to "prolonged isolation and sleep deprivation, stress positions, physical assault and the exploitation of detainees' phobias" -- the authors write:
Some within the Pentagon warned that these tactics constituted torture, but a top adviser to Secretary Rumsfeld justified them by pointing to their use in SERE training, a senior Pentagon official told us last month.
In the previous essay, I pointed out that this web of lies that loops back around on itself in a kind of infinite regress is a technique now raised to a monstrous art by the Bush administration: it uses its initial lies to "prove" later ones. Let's translate the above paragraph into blunter terms that accurately capture its essence: "These tactics cannot constitute torture for one simple and overriding reason: we have used them ourselves in our own training. If we use them, they cannot be torture. It's impossible." To say it another way: "If we do something, it is inherently justified and right. It may not be questioned -- simply because we have done it."
So let's look at the lead-up to war. The bushies 'sexed up' the intelligence...leaving out parts about these sources were not credible...focusing on non-existent threats...pointing to fraudulent evidence as proof.
Now the bushies are using their own lies as proof that their actions were justified as everyone believed it. Look at the dems who supported our going to war. The bush-lies must be true because everyone believed them.
This is what happens when you have an administration that is not reality based, but believes they can create their own reality.
4209. thoughtful - 11/14/2005 4:57:17 PM
Another article on cheney and his firm belief that a president's powers should not be limited by anyone or anything during a time of war. And now that the war on terror is a permanent one, the president must be permanently unleashed from any/all rules of law including the right of the public to know, the rights of prisoners, any checks and balances, etc.
Throw in the mix a move in the SC toward 'originalism'...that original intent of the writers of the constitution is what matters. Let alone the fact that the original intent of the founding fathers didn't include abolition and women's suffrage, the original constitution also did not include the bill of rights. It's not clear to me how far back these originalists want to go.
Our civil liberties are being seriously threatened. It seems to me that the leaders of this administration have clearly and severaly broken their oath of office to uphold the constitution and they should be impeached.
4210. thoughtful - 11/14/2005 5:17:50 PM
And who can tell the lies from the truth when even the gray lady is willing to publish them: (from delong's site)
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (When Is Mosul Not Mosul? Department)
Unqualified Offerings spots Condi Rice both visiting and not-visiting Mosul:
Unqualified Offerings: First sentence of the NYT report on Condoleezza Rice's travels:
MOSUL, Iraq The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, made a surprise stop Friday in this violent, Sunni-dominated city in northern Iraq, declaring that it had recently become a success story for the strategy of using Iraqi forces to quell the insurgency.
Ninth sentence, same article:
A month ago, four State Department security officers were killed in Mosul by a roadside bomb, and the city, Iraq's third largest, was not deemed safe enough for her to visit.
How can we send the Secretary of State to Mosul and not send her to Mosul at the same time? By using our advanced super-science. Also, "Mosul" in the first sentence really means Camp Courage, "a heavily fortified military base north of the Tigris River, surrounding an old palace of Saddam Hussein's on the city's northern outskirts," and not Mosul, a "violent, Sunni-dominated city in northern Iraq" at all. But close enough for government (public relations) work!
And close enough for the New York Times as well.
4211. thoughtful - 11/14/2005 5:26:53 PM
and another via delong's site:
Reuters AlertNet - Chalabi stirs Iraq war controversy on U.S. visit : U.S. officials said Chalabi came to Washington at this time because he was invited by Treasury Secretary John Snow. But Snow is traveling in India all week.
4212. jayackroyd - 11/14/2005 9:59:17 PM
I just read a piece on slate by Fred Kaplan. In it he says that Steven Hadley is the NSA. Is that true? Is that even possible? How could I have missed that?
We're doomed.
4213. thoughtful - 11/15/2005 9:11:17 AM
As imus said this am what a racket these guys have at manipulating the media and the people. Give the 'scoop' to judith miller in order to get the NYT to publish it, then loudly proclaim...it must be true...it's in the NYT!
4214. jayackroyd - 11/15/2005 10:12:22 AM
A friend has remarked there must have been much glee in the white house over their use of the "liberal" NYT as the central clearing house for their propaganda.
There have been reports that one reason this happened is that Keller had a back channel to the neocons--a back channel that was supporting Judy's story.
4215. jexster - 11/15/2005 11:31:18 AM
Senate Republicans Pushing for a Plan on Ending the War in Iraq
Its every rat bastard asshole for himself time
4216. jexster - 11/15/2005 2:14:13 PM
Send Lawyers Guns and Money....The Shit Has Hit the Fan
4217. thoughtful - 11/15/2005 4:11:14 PM
From Jex's link above:
US forces raided an underground shelter at an interior ministry building Sunday evening where they found 167 undocumented detainees, most of them Sunnis, according to a source close to the government.
The Americans took the detainees to another holding facility and arrested police who had been guarding them, the source said.
Of course there is no evidence that the americans will treat them any better. None at all.
4218. Magoseph - 11/15/2005 4:54:24 PM
See Current Events
Grandmothers arrested at war protest to enter not guilty pleas
By Karen Matthews, Associated Press | November 15, 2005
NEW YORK (AP) -- Seventeen antiwar grandmothers who were arrested last month for agitating while trying to enlist in the military said Tuesday they did so to give grandchildren serving in Iraq "the same opportunity for enjoying a long life as we have had."
4219. jexster - 11/15/2005 5:14:38 PM
That must be my girlz..the Ragin Grannies!
Rage on Girlz!!!
4220. jexster - 11/16/2005 10:11:10 AM
Hagel Speaks Truth to Power - Cole
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska) has had the courage to raise the question of whether the Middle East is actually worse off now than in 2002, as a result of the missteps of the Bush administration in Iraq.
Well, certainly if you were planning to live in Baghdad, it was better in 2002, as long as you were willing to stay out of politics and avoid criticizing the regime. But when you sent your child to school, you could be certain of the child coming home safe. That is worth a lot, and it is gone.
Hagel is suggesting a Middle East regional ministerial meeting to deal with Iraqi security. Since Iraqi leaders refuse to accept troops from neighboring countries, however, and since they have no army, and since the more distant countries with good armies such as Egypt and Morocco and Pakistan are unlikely to want to send troops to Iraq, it is not clear what the ministers could do in a practical way.
4221. jexster - 11/16/2005 12:05:30 PM
Wag the Dog Redux
4222. jexster - 11/16/2005 12:12:00 PM
They had no qualms about elbowing the CIA aside, or using forged, unreliable, or clearly inaccurate intelligence, or simple disinformation, or just repeating endlessly things they certainly knew to be fictions in order to make Democrats (who knew better) run for their lives and to put a full-court press on the media. They were happy to raise rhetorical mushroom clouds over all-too-real American cities to panic Americans into their war of choice. They had no hesitation (as far as we know) – to cite a conveniently forgotten absurdity of that prewar moment – about sending the president out in front of television cameras to announce the ridiculous in all fearful solemnity: That, for instance, there was a danger Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) armed with chemical or biological weapons might be sent to spray their deadly mists over East Coast cities or even hundreds of miles inland. (Forget that the planes didn't exist and that, if they had, and if the CBW weaponry had been available, the Iraqis had no way to get them to the coast, or anything to launch them from.) When people want to talk about what we may or may not have known about subjects like Iraqi WMD, they forget the bald-faced absurdity of some of the administration's claims – or exactly how unchallenged they went in the mainstream media. (I saw the president make the UAV claim on television with my own eyes, by the way.)
And that was when they were riding high. Imagine what they might do in desperation. In fact, Michael Klare does just that below, evaluating the various wag-the-dog scenarios this administration might seriously consider using if its situation grows too desperate and elections too near.
After considering these possibilities yourself, think about the context. The signal from the recent hotel bombings in Jordan seems clear enough in its own horrific way. Through its invasion and uniquely inept occupation, the Bush administration has already created a "failed state" not on the failed continent of Africa or in an economically or politically peripheral land like Afghanistan, but exactly in the heart of the richest oil lands of the planet
4223. thoughtful - 11/16/2005 12:25:39 PM
Not to mention the immorality of playing on american's fears in a post 9/11 world to achieve their own ends...
4224. thoughtful - 11/16/2005 12:57:55 PM
You simply don't understand. It's not lying if you've got a good reason for it. Take for instance Judge Alito:
Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" in a 1985 document obtained by The Washington Times. "I personally believe very strongly" in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III...
"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
Compare and contrast with what Feinstein says Alito told her:
"What [Alito] said was, 'It was different then. I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job...
So you see, boys and girls, as long as it's just for political gain, it's not considered lying! Or perhaps it should be called 'justifiable lying'.
4225. robertjayb - 11/16/2005 2:37:26 PM
Five marines killed in Iraq...(NYTimes)
UBAYDI, Iraq, Nov 16 - Five marines were killed and 11 were wounded in an ambush at a farmhouse on the outskirts of this rural town while they were hunting for insurgents, Marine officials said. It was the deadliest day for the Marines since beginning an aggressive sweep on Nov. 5 for guerrillas near the Syrian border.
The exact sequence of events was not immediately clear, but according to several Marine officials who were briefed on the incident, a squad had just entered a farmhouse in eastern Ubaydi, near the Euphrates River, when an explosion occurred, possibly caused by a hand grenade or a homemade bomb planted by insurgents. According to a Marine officer who spoke with survivors, gunmen hiding in the house then attacked survivors of the first blast and rescuers with small arms fire and grenades.
The dead and wounded marines were eventually recovered from the farmhouse and the insurgents were killed, officials said.
4226. robertjayb - 11/16/2005 2:44:51 PM
U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 2069
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 10
Total 2079
4227. jexster - 11/16/2005 7:55:22 PM
They're rolling out the heavy artillery.
Cheney's entering the fray war critics "dishonest and reprehensible"
ooooo
that hurts
4228. robertjayb - 11/16/2005 9:07:19 PM
Harry Reid barks back at Cheney...(Raw Story)
Washington, DC – Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid gave the following speech on the Senate Floor tonight.
Remarks as prepared for delivery:
“Tonight the Vice President has come out of his bunker and is speaking at a gathering of Washington DC insiders, which is closed to the press.
“Unfortunately, he brought his bunker mentality with him. He is repeating the same tired attacks we’ve heard from administration officials over the last two weeks.
“In the last 24 hours, 10 of our brave soldiers have been killed in far off Iraq. On such a night, you would think Cheney would give a speech that honors the fallen and those still fighting by laying out a strategy for success.
“Instead we have the Vice President of the United States playing politics like he’s in the middle of a presidential campaign.
4229. robertjayb - 11/16/2005 10:44:49 PM
Knight Ridder matches bushie assertions with reality...
4230. jexster - 11/16/2005 11:03:45 PM
Emperor Pathetic - The Ludendoff Strategery
Squid Blumenthal - Salon
4231. jexster - 11/16/2005 11:37:00 PM
Top-secret cronies Bush has stacked his foreign advisory board with his Texas business pals, who stand to profit from access to CIA and military intelligence
4232. OhioSTOPAS - 11/17/2005 8:23:45 AM
Robertjayb, good link in #4229. The country needs the press to do more analysis like that.
On the "Today" show this morning, Matt Lauer played Cheney's latest bit of dishonest slime and discussed it with Tim Russert. For two minutes they discussed how the best defense is a good offense, evaluated the effectiveness of this strategy, forecast whether this attack would improve Bush's standings in the polls, and wondered why Bush and Cheney took so long to make these countercharges. Not one single word about the TRUTH (or lack thereof) of the things Bush and Cheney are saying.
Republicans rely on the fact that smug political pundits would rather display their knowledge of the sport of politics than report the facts.
4233. OhioSTOPAS - 11/17/2005 9:04:00 AM
P.S. And the accusation that Bush misled us about the reasons for war is always attributed to "Some Democrats say . . ." or the like. Never mind that more than half of the American public for good reason believes this, and never mind that it is virtually impossible to contend that the dozens of untrue statements by Bush and members of his administration were made in good faith and merely the result of flawed intelligence.
He said, she said. Don't know who to believe. It's all politics. A plague on both their houses.
4234. OhioSTOPAS - 11/17/2005 9:39:44 AM
Here’s a list, with links, of Cheney’s (and others’) lies
4235. jexster - 11/17/2005 10:43:18 AM
Hagel: Unpatriotic Not to Call Bush a Liar 
4236. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 11:12:04 AM
Murtha says get out...
Congressman John Murtha, D-PA, is calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Ex-marine Murtha is ranking member on the defense appropriations subcommitte. He is calling the administration's adventure a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. He wants troops out in six months.
4237. jexster - 11/17/2005 11:19:01 AM
Me Tarzan
She Jane Arraf - CNN
4238. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 11:25:32 AM
Well, you knew it had to come eventually. Jonah Goldberg opens his LATimes gig with the first balloon:
What if Bush did lie, big time? What, exactly, would that mean? If you listen to Bush's critics, serious and moonbat alike, the answer is obvious: He'd be a criminal warmonger, a failed president and — most certainly — impeachment fodder. Even Bush's defenders agree that if Bush lied, it would be a grave sin. For example, the Wall Street Journal recently accused Harry Reid & Co. of becoming "Clare Boothe Luce Democrats" for even suggesting that Bush would deceive the public. Luce, a Republican, had insisted that FDR "lied us into war." And this, the Journal editorialized, was a "slander" many paranoid Republicans took to their graves.
My friends at the Journal are right to suggest that some Bush critics are paranoids, but here's the thing: Luce wasn't slandering Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Indeed, the evidence that FDR lied is far greater than the evidence that Bush did.
So, see, if Bush lied in a good cause--and there is no closer parallel to the ravening hordes of conquering Iraqis sweeping across the globe than the Axis--then he's just like FDR.
See? It didn't matter whether he lied or not. His heart was in the right place.
That's the last defense he's got. They're down to that with nearly three years to go, and no plan for Iraq other than to stay there indefinitely.
On a side issue, when did it become okay to call people "moonbats" in the MSM? Has "wingnut" or "moonbat" made it there, and I've just missed it?
4239. jexster - 11/17/2005 11:30:30 AM
The Liar of the WH
The Lion of the Senate [via TPMC]
Now Who Was Serious About Iraqi WMD?
By Ivo Daalder | bio
You'll remember that the White House went after Sen. Kennedy last Friday for having the temerity to criticize the president's rush to war in 2002-03. Never mind that criticizing Kennedy now for having been right then (he did, after all, oppose the war) is proof positive of the White House's desperation. Peter Galbraith reminds us of what Kennedy did when Iraqi WMD first became an issue -- and what those who serve in the current administration did not do:
In 1988, Saddam Hussein launched extensive chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds, killing tens of thousands. Senator Kennedy strongly supported sanctions on Iraq in order to stop these ongoing crimes, but was opposed by the Reagan administration. National security adviser Colin Powell coordinated the opposition to Senate-passed sanctions legislation in 1988, while Defense Secretary Dick Cheney was part of the first President Bush's national security team that opposed efforts to revive the sanctions bill in 1989 and 1990.
Thus, at the very time Hussein was gassing his own people, the current vice president and Bush's first secretary of state -- as well as President Bush's father -- favored taking no action at all. In October 1988, Senator Kennedy brought the Senate to a halt in a valiant, but ultimately unsuccessful, effort to win final enactment of the aptly named Prevention of Genocide Act.
4240. jexster - 11/17/2005 11:32:09 AM
He'd be a criminal warmonger, a failed president and — most certainly — impeachment fodder.
Jeezusaleezus Jonah...By George I think she's got it
4241. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/17/2005 11:37:36 AM
4242. OhioSTOPAS - 11/17/2005 12:13:11 PM
Good for Congressman Murtha. (But what does HE know about war, anyway?)
I read somewhere today (Joshua Marshall's or Matthew Yglesias's website, probably) something I thought was a good idea: If the December 15 parliamentary elections in Iraq are successfully conducted, use that as the event to declare "mission accomplished" and begin withdrawing our troops. The writer noted that this may be the last opportunity in a while to announce and begin our withdrawal on relatively positive terms (rather than being driven out).
4243. jexster - 11/17/2005 12:13:14 PM
Reprehensible: The Dishonesty of a DickHead - American Progress Report
4244. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 12:34:21 PM
Here is John Murtha's speech...
Washington D.C.)- The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.
................................................
Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our OBLIGATION to speak out for them. That’s why I am speaking out.
Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.
4245. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 12:38:43 PM
Biography of John P. Murtha...
4246. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 1:17:04 PM
Wonk--I think this is the link you're talking about.
It's so weird. You'd think they'd have been looking for a "declare victory and get out" path by now.
The only theory I have is they really, really want those bases.
4247. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 1:25:31 PM
At least one person over at National Review Online is taking Murtha seriously. I think we may have reached a watershed. Support for the war is going to go directly south of the current high level of opposition. I don't know what this administration can do. They haven't had a plan for anything, except an election for the last five years.
4248. PelleNilsson - 11/17/2005 2:30:33 PM
4249. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 3:10:31 PM
C-Span just showed Murtha in a blistering press conference. He took some hide off Cheney saying he loved military advice from guys who got five deferments. Nancy Pelosi says Murtha has combined active and reserve service totaling 37 years.
C-Span will carry a GOP response.
4250. wonkers2 - 11/17/2005 3:11:48 PM
Toles, my favorite political cartoonist.
4251. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 3:18:56 PM
Murtha on Cheney:
Murtha Comments on Critics who have not served...
I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done...
CanOFun 11/17/2005 2:08:25 PM
4252. jexster - 11/17/2005 3:52:26 PM
"The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress," Murtha said.
like guys who got five deferments and (have) never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done,"
4253. jexster - 11/17/2005 3:52:57 PM
You BASTARD
4254. thoughtful - 11/17/2005 3:55:10 PM
jay...it's not the bases they want...it's those damn halliburton contracts!
4255. thoughtful - 11/17/2005 4:02:09 PM
Federal $$ Pipeline Wide Open, No Oversight
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The chief Pentagon agency in charge of investigating and reporting fraud and waste in Defense Department spending in Iraq quietly pulled out of the war zone a year ago - leaving what experts say are gaps in the oversight of how more than $140 billion is being spent.
The Defense Department's inspector general sent auditors into Iraq when the war started more than two years ago to ensure that taxpayers were getting their money's worth for everything from bullets to meals-ready-to-eat.
The auditors were withdrawn in the fall of 2004 because other agencies were watching spending, too. But experts say those other agencies don't have the expertise, access and broad mandate that the inspector general has - and don't make their reports public.
That means that the bulk of money being spent in Iraq doesn't get public scrutiny, leaving the door open for possible waste, fraud and abuse, experts say.
U.S. spending in Iraq falls into two big categories - fighting the war and rebuilding the country. A Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has a 45-person staff in Baghdad to monitor $18.4 billion in contracts.
In contrast, the Defense Department inspector general, whose responsibility includes reviewing the $142 billion earmarked for the military, doesn't have a single auditor or accountant in Iraq tracking spending, Knight Ridder has found.
Money, money, money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money,money, MONEY!
That's what it's all about.
What's good for Halliburton is good for the bushies!
Big business. The one beneficiary the bushies have never left behind, have never hung out to dry. Energy bill...communications bill...Rx drug plan...bankruptcy bill...farm bill...tax cuts for the wealthy. And he gave it his all for privatizing soc sec for the brokerage houses in wall st.
4256. thoughtful - 11/17/2005 4:02:40 PM
oops. soorry i messed up the margins!
4257. jexster - 11/17/2005 4:24:10 PM
Btw you and robuhrt
If you are not ahead of the
You are behind the
4258. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 4:24:56 PM
jay...it's not the bases they want...it's those damn halliburton contracts!
Yes, that is a theory, a disturbingly compelling theory at that.
4259. thoughtful - 11/17/2005 4:56:36 PM
51 times cheney lied, courtesy of Congressman Henry Waxman.
Just the beginning:
1. Cheney Claimed Iraq Was Providing WMD Training To Al-Qaeda Months After Source Recanted
2. Cheney claimed Saddam was harboring Al Qaeda? He wasn't.
3. Cheney claimed Saddam gave Al Qaeda bomb-making expertise and trained Al Qaeda terrorists how to use chemical and biological weapons? Saddam didn't.
4260. thoughtful - 11/17/2005 5:12:50 PM
When are these guys going to get it that you can manipulate and create your own reality when no other facts are publicly in evidence. But once you have a published record to stand on, fact checking becomes so easy, even the press can do it.
via delong's site:
The new GOP meme, as repeated by White House marionette Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this morning, is that "The President never said Saddam posed an imminent threat."
This is apparently true as the president never used the word "imminent", though members of the wh staff sure did. This is right up there with what the meaning of the word 'is' is.
"Well, of course he is.” -- White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question: “Is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03
"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02
"Absolutely." -- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03
"This is about imminent threat." -- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03....
"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands." -- President Bush, 11/23/02
"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." -- President Bush, 10/7/02
"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." President Bush, 10/2/02
Unique and urgent. Close enough to imminent.
Of course, at the time it was clear it was utter BS. After all, if it was so urgent, why would they postpone the major iraq war marketing initiative until after the August vacation? The fact that it was postponable necessarily meant it wasn't imminent.
4261. jexster - 11/17/2005 5:18:08 PM
I remember Bill from his days in Taft's Office..his "new" old photo at Military.com brought it all back
William Lind - Exit Strategy | November 04, 2005
One day late in the Vietnam War, a Senator called his defense staffer into his office. Like too many Senators (though neither of the two I worked for), the distinguished legislator depended entirely upon his staff but treated them like peons. Although the end of the day had come and gone, the Senator snarled at his hapless staffer, “I want to give a speech on the Floor tomorrow morning on the Vietnam War. You can stay here tonight and write it.”
The next morning, the Senator found the text of his speech on his desk, neatly typed and bound. Without bothering to look it over, he took it to the Floor of the Senate where, with the voice if not the mind of Cicero, he shared it with the world. About half way through, he read a page that concluded with the words, “I will now offer my five-point plan for ending the Vietnam War.” Turning the page, he found an unexpected message from his despised staffer: “You're on your own now, you SOB. I quit.”
4262. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 5:53:27 PM
You left out "grave and growing danger" thoughtful.
4263. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 6:07:27 PM
Riverbend of Baghdad Burning has new posts up. One on torture houses and the other on the use of white phosphorus. Here.
4264. jayackroyd - 11/17/2005 7:17:53 PM
You know, she has a book out. The stuff's probably somewhere in the internet wayback machine, but I bought it.
4265. jexster - 11/17/2005 7:49:35 PM
Pew: Isolationist Sentiment on the Rise in US
"We're seeing a backlash against a bumbled foreign policy," said Stephen Van Evera, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He said Americans were concerned over the failure to make progress on North Korea and Iran, or in the fight against Al Qaeda, but he added, "The American people in particular are looking at Iraq and seeing nothing's working."
Lies have consequences
4266. jexster - 11/17/2005 8:21:04 PM
Bush Abandonment Watch, Part 9
Daniel Pipes: Bush messed up my pretty war!
By Timothy Noah
4267. jexster - 11/17/2005 8:37:22 PM
I just saw Murtha on ABC news....awesome
4268. jexster - 11/17/2005 9:51:49 PM
Every Rat Bastard for Itself
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon's inspector general has agreed to review the prewar intelligence activities of former U.S. defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, a main architect of the Iraq war, congressional officials said on Thursday.
4269. Ulgine Barrows - 11/18/2005 12:28:15 AM
Cover the path to the heart
4270. jexster - 11/18/2005 6:25:04 AM
'A Conspiracy So Vast…'
The Plame plot thickens…
In the wake of the Scooter Libby indictment, and the collapse of support for the war – even in the Republican congressional caucus – the bad guys are desperately trying to make a comeback, and what a pathetic sight it is....We have a Greek chorus – the Scooter Libby Fan Club, otherwise known as the War Party, hailing the neocon equivalent of Mumia Abu Jamal.
4271. jexster - 11/18/2005 11:15:04 AM
Mayor Gavin Newsom
Second Annual State of the City
October 26, 2005
Why It Matters to Be a San Franciscan
We are firm in our commitment to progress - when others would be content to retreat...
As we enter the centennial of that great ‘quake –
that tested our resolve and revealed our strength of character – our city, our state and our nation are being tested once again.
Last month, we bore witness to the collapse of another great American city.
A city pushed to the brink of extinction by the failure of our federal government.
At the same time, we have suffered steady attacks from 2 Republican administrations determined to hollow out all that we stand for.
But we have stood united.
Beating back the attacks by holding true to our values of tolerance, diversity and compassion.
We are San Franciscans –
and when others hide behind divisive ideology we advance common solutions.
When others resort to despair –
we choose hope.
We’re San Franciscans –
and when others give up,
we stand up for what we know is right.
4272. jexster - 11/18/2005 11:16:00 AM
4273. jexster - 11/18/2005 12:03:16 PM
Process of elimination...
Hadley Won't Say Whether He Was Woodward's Source
4274. jexster - 11/18/2005 12:22:04 PM
Ambassador Wilson's made a surprise visit to TPMC today
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Joseph Wilson, the husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, called on Thursday for an inquiry by The Washington Post into the conduct of journalist Bob Woodward, who repeatedly criticized the leak investigation without disclosing his own involvement.
"It certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest. He was taking an advocacy position when he was a party to it," Wilson said.
WTG Josh!
4275. jexster - 11/18/2005 12:50:18 PM
Iconography of Disaster
Lt. Gen. William Odom, director of the National Security Agency during President Reagan's second term, a scholar with a distinguished career in military intelligence, declared Bush's invasion of Iraq to be the "greatest strategic disaster in United States history."
US Recruiting Woes Worse Than First Thought
4276. jexster - 11/18/2005 6:13:00 PM
Jewish Group Asks Bush to Start War's End
About 2,000 representatives of the Union for Reform Judaism asked the Bush administration Friday to provide a clear exit strategy for the war in Iraq and begin to bring some soldiers home in mid-December.
The 1.5-million member organization of the most liberal of the three major branches of Judaism voted almost unanimously for the resolution at its Houston convention, spokeswoman Emily Grotta said.
"The sentiment was clear and overwhelming," Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, union president, said in a statement. "American Jews, and all Americans, are profoundly critical of this war and they want this administration to tell us how and when it will bring our troops home."
The resolution also asks for a bipartisan independent commission to study the lesson's learned from the war, and condemns "in the strongest possible terms" the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.
4277. jexster - 11/18/2005 8:50:52 PM
"Every Republican I've talked to in Washington can't figure out why the WH has to attack Murtha and cannot explain the Iraq policy"
OOOOO ME ...Call on me
4278. jexster - 11/18/2005 9:18:47 PM
He's so fuckin goooood!
Fitzgerald to Give 2nd Grand Jury CIA Leak Evidence (Update1)
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said he will present evidence to a second grand jury in his investigation into who leaked the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame.
The disclosure, contained in court papers and also announced at a court hearing today in Washington, suggests there may be new charges in the two-year probe.
``The investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury'' than the one that returned the indictment against Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, Fitzgerald said. ``The investigation is continuing.''
Libby, 55, was indicted last month on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements. Fitzgerald indicated at the time the probe was almost complete.
Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward told Fitzgerald under oath this week that a Bush administration official told him about Plame and her position at the CIA in June 2003, a month before her identity was publicly revealed. It is a federal crime to knowingly disclose a covert CIA agent's identity. Woodward didn't say which official gave him the information.
Libby attorney Ted Wells said this week that Woodward's disclosure undermines Fitzgerald's case against his client.
Fitzgerald's announcement about a second grand jury was in a response to a request by the Wall Street Journal to limit the number of documents in Libby's trial that can be placed under a protective order and withheld from the public.
``While the volume of the material may be fairly discrete in light of the nature of the charges, a significant amount of the material is classified'' and should remain confidential, Fitzgerald said in his filing.
Privacy Issue
At today's court hearing, Fitzgerald said he also wants to protect information with ``legitimate personal privacy concerns,'' such as daily calendars, e-mails and telephone call logs to family members, doctors and personal contacts.
Theodore Boutrous, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington who represented Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, objected to the proposed scope of the protective order, saying too much information would be concealed.
``We would request that the protective order cover the information, not an entire document,'' Boutrous told U.S. Judge Reggie Walton. He said that passages in documents with classified or personal information can be edited out.
Fitzgerald suggested some changes to the wording of the protective order that Boutrous and Libby attorney William Jeffress said are acceptable. The prosecutor said he will submit a new request for a protective order to Walton on Monday.
`Word to the Wise'
Walton warned lawyers for both sides not to leak information to the news media that might affect the trial.
``A word to the wise: I have a strong proclivity for cases to be decided on the basis of evidence presented in the courtroom,'' the judge said. ``I have never issued a gag order in my 22 years on the bench.''
The case is U.S. v. Libby, 05cv394, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
4279. jexster - 11/19/2005 5:38:37 AM
Is Woodward's Revelation a Bombshell or a Smokescreen?
by Elizabeth de la Vega and Tom Engelhardt
Shortly after Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, was indicted for obstructing justice and making false statements to a government agent and a grand jury, Libby's attorneys suggested that they would use the standard he's-a-busy-man-who-can't-remember-everything defense. But now, with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward's revelation that a senior administration official other than Libby told him, in mid-June 2003, that Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger had been arranged by Wilson's CIA operative wife Valerie Wilson, it appears the Libby team has added another favorite, the SODDI Defense – as in, "Some Other Dude Did It." Unfortunately for Libby, that turkey won't fly. Here's why.
I just love it when defendants do that!
4280. jexster - 11/19/2005 6:41:15 AM
Bulldog Turns the Screws
Another Grand Jury for Leak Case
Move Follows Woodward Talks
By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
The prosecutor in the CIA leak case said yesterday that he plans to present evidence to another federal grand jury, signaling a new and potentially significant turn in the investigation into the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
4281. jexster - 11/19/2005 11:57:53 AM
album:
Intro Spoken
Give me an "F! ..."F"! give me a "U"! ..."U"!
Give me a "C"! ..."C" Give me a "K"! ..."K"!
WHATS THAT SPELL? ..."FUCK!" (x5)
Well come on all of you big strong men, Uncle Sam needs your help again,
he got himself in a terrible jam, way down yonder in Vietnam,
put down your books and pick up a gun, we're gunna have a whole lotta fun.
CHORUS
and its 1,2,3 what are we fightin for?
don't ask me i don't give a dam, the next stop is Vietnam,
and its 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates. Well there aint no time to wonder why...WHOPEE we're all gunna die.
now come on wall street don't be slow, why man this's war a-go-go,
there's plenty good money to be made, supplyin' the army with the tools of the trade,
just hope and pray that when they drop the bomb, they drop it on the Vietcong.
CHORUS
now come on generals lets move fast, your big chance is here at last.
nite you go out and get those reds cuz the only good commie is one thats dead,
you know that peace can only be won, when you blow em all to kingdom come.
CHORUS
(spoken)- listen people i dont know you expect to ever stop the war if you cant sing any better than that... theres about 300,000 of you fuc|ers out there.. i want you to start singing..
CHORUS
now come on mothers throughout the land, pack your boys off to vietnam,
come on fathers don't hesitate, send your sons off before its too late,
be the first one on your block, to have your boy come home in a box
CHORUS
Alrite !!!!!!!
4282. jexster - 11/19/2005 12:19:04 PM
The Emperor Has No Clothes
Three days that transformed America
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- On Thursday, a Democratic national politician for the first time managed to do what former Vice President Al Gore, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, their running mates and more than $150 million of Democratic consulting and campaign resources signally failed to do in more than five years and two national elections: He mauled President George W. Bush.
"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It's a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of the members of Congress," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania as he called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from that country.
"The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq. But it's time for a change in direction," Murtha said. "Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region. "
Murtha's blistering speech Thursday could have been easily shrugged off if it came from Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, or even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. But Murtha had been gung ho for the war and accepted the intelligence evaluations at face value that were presented to Congress arguing the necessity of it.
Now, he has transformed the political dynamics of the Democratic Party. He is the first prominent Democrat since former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in his meteoric lightning rise and fall in 2003 to early 2004 to attack the president head-on on Iraq. In January 2004 in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Democratic voters overwhelmingly repudiated Dean's bold stand against the war and not a single leading Democrat since has dared to oppose it outspokenly and consistently.
But Murtha, who has no presidential ambitions -- at least not so far -- has smashed that consensus and that taboo. And he did so only weeks after the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice president Dick Cheney's longtime chief of staff in the Valerie Plame leak case, and within weeks of the U.S. military death toll in Iraq finally breaking the 2,000 barrier
Murtha's speech was the third of three political body blows to hammer the president in this, yet another "black" week for he man who just a year ago was reelected to a second term with more votes than any American had ever received in history.
First, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, the Vietnam vet who has always opposed the Iraq war, came out with his strongest condemnation of the president's policies yet in a Tuesday speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC.
"Trust and confidence in the United States has been seriously eroded," Hagel said. "We are seen by many in the Middle East as an obstacle to peace, an aggressor and an occupier. Our policies are a significant source of friction. ... We have made very bad decision we could possibly make. ... The problem now is how to get out without further destabilizing the Middle East."
In the first months after the rapid occupation of Iraq, Hagel was looked down upon by the GOP rank and file as a wild, romantic maverick, and even during the first year of the occupation of Iraq as the insurgency there slowly but inexorably took hold in the Sunni Muslim areas, he was still seen as an isolated eccentric by most of his fellow GOP senators.
But now Hagel is steadily emerging as one of the most influential and respected figures in the party. As Republican congressmen in long-safe but suddenly vulnerable districts seek to distance themselves from the president's plunging approval ratings as fast as they can, he alone of all the prominent figures in the party offers the prospect of some kind of inoculation against the Iraq virus that is decimating the party's supporters nationwide.
For also on Tuesday, a Black Tuesday indeed for the White House, the Senate overwhelmingly passed virtually unanimously by 98 votes to nil -- easily a veto-proof majority, a resolution demanding progress reports and accountability from the administration on progress -- or the lack of it -- in Iraq.
The resolution was helmed by one of the most experienced and respected mainstream Republican leaders in the Senate, Sen. John Warner of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Hagel, far from being isolated, is now a key leader even of Republican majority thinking in the Senate. The overwhelming approval of the resolution was a huge personal triumph for him. Tellingly, he described it as "a critical turning point in congressional involvement" on war policymaking.
And on Wednesday, the House and Senate at a reconciliation conference agreed to even rein in some of the government's more far-reaching powers as conditions for renewing the Patriot Act.
But it is the rise of Hagel and the emergence of Murtha as an outspoken and devastating critic of the war that are the worst news for the White House.
A year ago, Hagel was an isolated figure in the Senate and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, Bush's personal handpicked choice for the post, was spoken of as a likely front-running presidential candidate for 2008. Bush's legacy appeared to be good for years, if not decades to come.
But now First is a busted flush, embarrassed by revelations and investigations about conflict of interest on stock sales and widely discredited by his rash and unsupported diagnosis and handling of the Terry Schiavo right to die case.
A vast political shift took place in Washington this week. It splintered the Republican majority in the Senate and it energized the Democratic opposition in the House of Representatives. And none of the fierce and impassioned political counter-attacks of the president and Vice President Dick Cheney as yet have shown any sign of putting those two Category 5 political hurricanes back in the bottle.
Cheney Wednesday night condemned critics of the Iraq war and told a supportive conservative audience from the Frontiers of Freedom group, "The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone, but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history,"
But the 73-year-old Murtha, a Vietnam vet himself, did not sit back passively the way Sen. Kerry did through August 2004 when he was endlessly mauled by Bush supporters trashing his Vietnam combat record. The Pennsylvania congressman hit back, and hit back hard.
In a pointed reference to Cheney's own failure to serve in Vietnam, he said "people with five deferments" had no right to make such remarks. If Kerry had fought back that way 15 months ago, he might have had a chance of winning.
As it was, Murtha has pioneered the a new attack strategy for Democrats in the next year's run up to the crucial 2006 congressional elections: Do not cower in a corner any more on national security issues, but come out swinging with both fists.
It took only three days to transfer the dynamic of U.S. national politics, but the consequences are going to take months and even years to reveal their full implications.
4283. robertjayb - 11/19/2005 3:58:04 PM
Stay and die...
(AP)---The U.S. military said five soldiers were killed Saturday and five were wounded in a pair of roadside bombings in northern Iraq. The soldiers were assigned to the 101st Airborne Division and were on patrol near Beiji, 155 miles north of Baghdad, the statement said.
4284. robertjayb - 11/19/2005 4:25:40 PM
As for the people being liberated:
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs killed nearly 50 people in Iraq on Saturday, a day after more than 80 died in suicide blasts across the country and as U.S. President George W. Bush pledged never to relent in his war on terror.
In Saturday's deadliest attack, a suicide car bomber blew up his vehicle near a crowded condolence tent during a funeral for a Shi'ite tribal sheikh in a small town north of Baghdad.
Police Colonel Muthaffar Aboud said 35 people were killed and around 50 wounded in the attack in Abu Sayda, near Baquba, a violent city about 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad. The wounded were taken to at least two hospitals in Baquba.
4285. jexster - 11/19/2005 6:10:59 PM
"Bickering" marred the first day of the "reconciliation" conference in Cairo.
4286. jexster - 11/20/2005 11:52:04 AM
Dumbsfeld Says He Did Not "Advocate" Invading IraQ
4287. jexster - 11/20/2005 2:12:28 PM
How Bush Fell Under the Spell of 'Curveball' at The Los Angeles Times (reg. req'd), Nov 20
4288. jexster - 11/20/2005 2:19:10 PM
Twasn't Me Massa
Rice Says She Wasn't Woodward's Leak Source at The New York Times (reg. req'd), Nov 20
4289. jexster - 11/20/2005 2:20:34 PM
Da Cowhunbrayde Tickens
4290. jexster - 11/20/2005 5:30:14 PM
The Truth About Torture
And Why Bush Doesn't Want You to Know
by John McCain
4291. jexster - 11/20/2005 6:49:03 PM
HEADLINE: One War Lost, Another to Go
BYLINE: By Frank Rich
BODY:
4292. jexster - 11/20/2005 6:49:16 PM
''The Next Attack'' is prescient to a scary degree. ''If bin Laden is the Robin Hood of jihad,'' the authors write, then Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ''has been its Horatio Alger, and Iraq his field of dreams.'' The proof arrived spectacularly this month with the Zarqawi-engineered suicide bombings of three hotels in Amman. That attack, Mr. Benjamin wrote in Slate, ''could soon be remembered as the day that the spillover of violence from Iraq became a major affliction for the Middle East.'' But not remembered in America. Thanks to the confusion sown by the Bush administration, the implications for us in this attack, like those in London and Madrid, are quickly forgotten, if they were noticed in the first place. What happened in Amman is just another numbing bit of bad news that we mentally delete along with all the other disasters we now label ''Iraq.''
Only since his speech about ''Islamo-fascism'' in early October has Mr. Bush started trying to make distinctions between the ''evildoers'' of Saddam's regime and the Islamic radicals who did and do directly threaten us. But even if anyone was still listening to this president, it would be too little and too late. The only hope for getting Americans to focus on the war we can't escape is to clear the decks by telling the truth about the war of choice in Iraq: that it is making us less safe, not more, and that we have to learn from its mistakes and calculate the damage it has caused as we reboot and move on.
Mr. Bush is incapable of such candor. In the speech Mr. Santorum skipped on Veterans Day, the president lashed out at his critics for trying ''to rewrite the history'' of how the war began. Then he rewrote the history of the war, both then and now. He boasted of America's ''broad and coordinated homeland defense'' even as the members of the bipartisan 9/11 commission were preparing to chastise the administration's inadequate efforts to prevent actual nuclear W.M.D.'s, as opposed to Saddam's fictional ones, from finding their way to terrorists. Mr. Bush preened about how ''we're standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes'' even as we were hearing new reports of how we outsource detainees to such regimes to be tortured.
And once again he bragged about the growing readiness of Iraqi troops, citing ''nearly 90 Iraqi army battalions fighting the terrorists alongside our forces.'' But as James Fallows confirms in his exhaustive report on ''Why Iraq Has No Army'' in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, America would have to commit to remaining in Iraq for many years to ''bring an Iraqi army to maturity.'' If we're not going to do that, Mr. Fallows concludes, America's only alternative is to ''face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly.''
THAT'S the alternative that has already been chosen, brought on not just by the public's irreversible rejection of the war, but also by the depleted state of our own broken military forces; they are falling short of recruitment goals across the board by as much as two-thirds, the Government Accountability Office reported last week. We must prepare accordingly for what's to come. To do so we need leaders, whatever the political party, who can look beyond our nonorderly withdrawal from Iraq next year to the mess that will remain once we're on our way out. Whether it's countering the havoc inflicted on American interests internationally by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo or overhauling and redeploying our military, intelligence and homeland security operations to confront the enemy we actually face, there's an enormous job to be done.
The arguments about how we got into Mr. Bush's war and exactly how we'll get out are also important. But the damage from this fiasco will be even greater if those debates obscure the urgency of the other war we are losing, one that will be with us long after we've left the quagmire in Iraq.
4293. jexster - 11/20/2005 7:45:05 PM
4294. jexster - 11/21/2005 7:23:46 AM
While the Idiot travels among the Mongoloids, CSM considers why support for his little war collapsed so quickly
4295. thoughtful - 11/21/2005 9:34:30 AM
As I said before, if it's done for political gain, it's not lying.
From PGL at AngryBear:
Jean Schmidt Takes on a Marine
Jesselee captures Congresswoman's Jean Schmidt's comments in full. Let's focus on one sentence each from her original rant v. her retraction.
From the rant:
He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.
From the retraction:
Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed at any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest that they applied to any member.
But Murtha IS a member of the House. Too bad Ohio's second district did not send that other Marine to Congress.
Update: Thanks to AB reader JP for pointing out this story:
WASHINGTON (CNN) - The top U.S. commander in Iraq has submitted a plan to the Pentagon for withdrawing troops in Iraq, according to a senior defense official. Gen. George Casey submitted the plan to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It includes numerous options and recommends that brigades - usually made up of about 2,000 soldiers each - begin pulling out of Iraq early next year.
So there we have it – the whole furor over Murtha’s proposal was a smoke screen. The Bush Administration wants to pull the troops home in time for our November 2006 election, but they wanted it to appear to be their idea and not a proposal from the Democrats. Will the Iraqis be able to maintain order in their nation within a year? Not likely. So by his own logic, George W. Bush intends to “cut and run”.
4296. jayackroyd - 11/21/2005 10:03:01 AM
I did think they were planning a drawdown in the first part of next year, pointing to the election as the proximate cause.
The trouble is that there is so little evidence that they do any planning at all that any kind of speculation seems misplaced.
4297. thoughtful - 11/21/2005 10:11:17 AM
Oh I disagree...they do lots of planning. Not on the actual war stuff, mind you. But they do lots of planning on selling stuff. For instance, they were planning on going into iraq from day 1 of the administration. They didn't launch the plan to sell the war in August as it was vacation time.
You see, when you believe you can create your own reality, there's no need to pay attention to all that pesky stuff like facts, figures, logistics, details, etc. It's all about creating the illusion...mission accomplished...iraq tied to 9/11...iraqi armed forces are getting stronger. Now it's time to plan on selling withdrawal from iraq in prep for the next election. Pesky issues like whether this will prompt civil war or not aren't relevant. It's all about winning the election. Always has been. Always will be.
4298. robertjayb - 11/21/2005 10:44:30 AM
Well said, thoughtful.
4299. jexster - 11/21/2005 11:09:13 AM
''We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose.''
Why Iraq Has No Army
James Fallows
Atlantic Monthly
4300. jexster - 11/21/2005 11:34:44 AM
Iraqis Say Murtha is Right
CAIRO, Egypt - Leaders of Iraq's sharply divided Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis, seeking common ground for their political future together, agreed Monday there should be a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, and that resistance was the right of all — but that acts of terror should be condemned.
4301. PelleNilsson - 11/21/2005 11:39:56 AM
A parenthesis about the spelling of Bin Ladens organization (if that is what it is). There is only one correct spelling and this is it:
4302. PelleNilsson - 11/21/2005 11:42:00 AM
That post should have been in Politics but I guess those who read the one read the other.
4303. jexster - 11/21/2005 12:36:43 PM
Murtha Is Right
The Democratic Party "leadership" is wrong
Soon the verb tense will have changed. The Rubicon's been crossed.
<
4304. jexster - 11/21/2005 12:59:42 PM
Iraqi leaders agree on resistance right
Iraqi politicians have saved a reconciliation conference in Cairo from collapse with compromise language saying all peoples have a right to resist, Sunni Arab politicians say
4305. jayackroyd - 11/21/2005 1:14:27 PM
Pelle-
Wiki has an entry on different translitertion methods. There are several:
Arabic transliteration
One is from the ISO, ISO-233.
As you say, it's a tricky problem. There are a number of phonemes that we don't have in English.
Wiki also has the outlines of an email/chatroom transliteration method
4306. jexster - 11/21/2005 1:16:29 PM
Bush Uses Chemical Weapons in Iraq
and you would know it....
This from some goddamn French pinko towel head lover...
About Willy Pete
By Pascal Riche | bio*
From: Foreign Affairs
I’m surprised that the “white phosphorus” story didn’t get more play in the mainstream American news media.
*Since 2000 Pascal Riché has been Washington bureau chief of the french daily Libération
4307. jexster - 11/21/2005 3:01:19 PM
4308. jexster - 11/21/2005 3:21:27 PM
''We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose.''
"LexisNexis(R) Print Delivery"
HEADLINE: Time to Leave
BYLINE: By Paul Krugman; Bob Herbert is on vacation.
BODY:
Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The 2004 election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American people.
They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and focus instead on what to do next.
It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the public has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.
Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely seen on the other side of the debate. President Bush and his apologists speak in
vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr. Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean water.
Mr. Murtha -- a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's fighting men and women -- argued that our presence in Iraq is making things worse, not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And
that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.
I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr. Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib. (In his speech, Mr.Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the insurgency.) When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the world thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and their militias.
Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now that the administration has lost the public's trust.
Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after we 're gone. One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that
possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real question is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?
The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory, whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American military can take no more.
Mr. Bush never asked the nation for the sacrifices -- higher taxes, a bigger military and, possibly, a revived draft -- that might have made a long-term commitment to Iraq possible. Instead, the war has been fought on
borrowed money and borrowed time. And time is running out. With some military units on their third tour of duty in Iraq, the superb volunteer army that Mr.Bush inherited is in increasing danger of facing a collapse in quality and
morale similar to the collapse of the officer corps in the early 1970's.
So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes sense to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we
realistically have.
Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so,we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer quoted by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, ''We can lose in Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose.''
And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives much of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier. Once we 're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of religious extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.
The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to happen.
I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right: it's time to leave.
4309. PelleNilsson - 11/21/2005 3:26:10 PM
Thanks for the links, jay. They illustrate my point -- it is meaningless to talk about a "correct" rendering of Arabic in latin script. The same goes for languages written in cyrillic. A well-known former Russian leader is known as Krustshov in Swedish.
4310. jexster - 11/21/2005 6:08:22 PM
[new] Re: Poll Raises Concerns (3.00 / 0) (#15)
by JMACSF on Nov 21, 2005 -- 02:50:31 PM EST
Mais où sont les Ken Pollacks d'antan!
[ Reply to This ]
[new] Re: Poll Raises Concerns (3.00 / 0) (#16)
by Ellen on Nov 21, 2005 -- 03:21:56 PM EST
Fuyant, là-bas, fuyant . . . .
4311. jexster - 11/21/2005 9:24:19 PM
PBS NewsHour
4312. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/21/2005 9:26:34 PM
Odom has been correct about everything and he's still being ignored.
4313. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/21/2005 9:27:04 PM
Toys!
4314. wonkers2 - 11/21/2005 9:45:18 PM
True enough that there is no such thing as a "correct" rendering of Arabic into English. However, al-Qaida is better than the prevailing "al Qaeda" because Qaeda has led many people to mispronounce it as "kayda" instead of kah-eeda (first syllable rhymes with bah instead of bay). The best representation in English is or should be the one that leads the greatest number of English speakers to pronounce the word as closely as possible to the way Arabs pronounce it. I believe that is al-Quaida, pronounced al kah-eeda.
4315. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:31:33 AM
Love and Marriage
Iran Declares Support for Iraqi Freedom By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 21, 9:41 PM ET
The Iranian president emerged from meetings with his Iraqi counterpart Monday, saying the two countries have "one soul in two bodies."
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the United States, which has nearly 160,000 troops in Iraq in support of the government, wanted to block better ties between the Shiite Muslim-dominated nations.
"Iran completely supports freedom for the Iraqi people, the current political developments and national sovereignty. Those who have deployed hundreds of thousand military forces in Iraq are not interested in seeing better relations between our two countries," Iranian television quoted Ahmadinejad, as saying after meeting Iraqi President Jalah Talabani, who is paying a three-day visit.
Washington has accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi affairs after U.S.-led forces drove Saddam Hussein from power in April 2003. Iran denies the charge.
"History, religion, culture, geography and mutual interests have bound the two countries. Tehran and Baghdad have one soul in two bodies," Ahmadinejad said.
"A democratic, independent and developed Iraq will become Iran's best friend. Iran will stand by the Iraqi people," Ahmadinejad said.
4316. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:32:07 AM
Obe Juan spelleth it "Al Qaeda"
SILENCE
4317. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:34:32 AM
Did you mean: Qaeda
Informed Comment
Maybe we can reach Al Quaida through my speech Let the President answer on high
anarchy Strap him with AK-47, let him go Fight his own war, let him impress ...
www.juancole.com/2004/10/ eminem-on-bush-and-iraq-comments-by.html - 28k - Cached - Similar pages
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Did you mean to search for: Qaeda
4318. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:35:25 AM
Oh yes I did Most Holy One...a thousand pardons...Wonk is an idiot
4319. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:51:15 AM
WaPo has a new feature...blog links for each article.
Check out Dana Milbank's slam of Dick Cheney...the blog links
4320. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:51:46 AM
And lead us not into temptation....
4321. jexster - 11/22/2005 2:55:10 AM
Who Is Mean Jean's Marine? And Why Does He Think Murtha's A Coward?
4322. jexster - 11/22/2005 3:22:27 AM
Surprise Surprise - Bush Screws Lousiana
4323. jexster - 11/22/2005 5:29:42 AM
CAIRO, Nov. 21 - For the first time, Iraq's political factions on Monday collectively called for a timetable for withdrawal of foreign forces, in a moment of consensus that comes as the Bush administration battles pressure at home to commit itself to a pullout schedule.
4324. jexster - 11/22/2005 5:43:10 AM
Yo Ace
Iraq, torture, prisons: Dick Cheney in line of fire
4325. jexster - 11/22/2005 5:44:37 AM
4326. jexster - 11/22/2005 5:54:13 AM
Comatose No Longer
Dread Takes a Toll on GIs in Iraq
By Louise Roug, LA Times Staff Writer
FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq — A handful of Delta Company soldiers leaned against a barracks wall the other night, smoking. The subject of conversation: what limb they would rather part with, if they had a choice. On the door of a portable toilet a few feet away, someone was keeping the company death toll amid a scribble of obscenities: five KIA.
"When I first got here, I felt like I could actually do some good for the Iraqi people," Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Barker said. But the last six months had hardened him, he said. "We're not going to change the Iraqis. I don't care how many halal meals we give out," he added, referring to food prepared according to Islamic dietary laws..
4327. jexster - 11/22/2005 6:09:46 AM
Colonel Denies Disparaging Murtha
By The New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - A colonel in the Marine reserves has taken issue with how his views were represented in a Republican attack last week on Representative Murtha.
Speaking on the House floor on Friday, Representative Jean Schmidt, Republican of Ohio, asserted that the colonel had "asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, marines never do."
But a spokeswoman for the colonel, Danny R. Bubp, said Ms. Schmidt had misconstrued their conversation.
While Mr. Bubp, a Republican member of the Ohio House of Representatives, opposes a quick withdrawal for forces, "he did not mention Congressman Murtha by name nor did he mean to disparage Congressman Murtha," said Karen Tabor, his spokeswoman. "He feels as though the words that Congresswoman Schmidt chose did not represent their conversation."
Asked to respond on Monday, the congresswoman's office said only, "Mrs. Schmidt's statement was never meant to disparage Congressman Murtha.
4328. jexster - 11/22/2005 6:40:48 AM
4329. jexster - 11/22/2005 10:42:03 AM
A Formal Declaration of Slagsmål
Replying To:
4330. jexster - 11/22/2005 10:59:34 AM
Kick When They're Down
[new] Slagsmål Losing the Fear Factor (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by JMACSF on Nov 22, 2005 -- 10:54:19 AM EST
Losing the Fear Factor
by Tom Engelhardt
4331. jexster - 11/22/2005 12:44:14 PM
Guest Editorial on Murtha: Achcar** & Shalom
**GILBERT ACHCAR grew up in Lebanon and now teaches Politics and International Relations at the University of Paris—VIII. He is a frequent contributor to Le Monde diplomatique and the author of The Clash of Barbarisms: September 11 and the Making of the New World Disorder.
4332. PelleNilsson - 11/22/2005 1:02:41 PM
To redeploy the troops to Kuwait as Murtha suggests is on the face of it a facile solution, but will it be accepted by Kuwait? I don't think so. A large American base there would act as a magnet for terrorists, which is the last thing the Kuwaitis would want as they progress on their tortoise-paced path towards a more representative government.
4333. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:28:44 PM
Very interesting debate on the point last night Trainor/Odom...Trainor thinks Kuwait too far...neither mentioned the complicating factor - between lie the Shia and presumably the Iranian revolutionary guard..whom we now support
4334. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:44:09 PM
4335. jexster - 11/22/2005 1:54:18 PM
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Bush Talked of Bombing Al-Jaazeera
4336. robertjayb - 11/22/2005 2:12:59 PM
The Daou Report lists ten pro-war fantasies...(Salon Premium)
4337. jexster - 11/22/2005 3:56:01 PM
Icon of Disaster:
EyeRan to Bush:
Varmit
U Got Til Sundown to Git Outta Town
4338. wonkers2 - 11/22/2005 4:05:01 PM
Darth Dickhead may need a legal fundraiser of his own before it's over.
4339. jayackroyd - 11/22/2005 4:08:35 PM
4332
An obvious redeployment is to Kurdistan, where the US would be welcomed. But that would raise a host of other issues.
But if your point is that this redeployment talk is essentially meaningless, yes, you're right.
4340. jexster - 11/22/2005 4:15:44 PM
Not meaningless..inevitable..the only question is where...that will be answered before the end of 2006
4341. jexster - 11/22/2005 4:19:06 PM
4342. jexster - 11/22/2005 4:22:15 PM
Message # 4339
Gilbert Achar will bitch and moan but Obe Juan's plan is closer to implementation than you think Jay...
That or helicopter skids...
Put THAT in the Perfect World Archive
4343. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/22/2005 5:39:54 PM
4344. arkymalarky - 11/22/2005 6:49:07 PM
In the whole big, stinky pile it's a little thing, but I get very sick of Cheney purposely mislabeling the Iraqi conflict as a war on terror.
4345. jexster - 11/22/2005 7:18:26 PM
I am sick of Cheney.
4346. arkymalarky - 11/22/2005 10:28:19 PM
Well, yeah.
4347. Ulgine Barrows - 11/22/2005 10:31:52 PM
Why?
4348. arkymalarky - 11/22/2005 10:36:10 PM
He's a hate-filled de facto president who has been a big part of driving the country into a ditch, for starters.
4349. Ulgine Barrows - 11/22/2005 10:46:07 PM
He is not a puppet?
4350. Ulgine Barrows - 11/22/2005 10:50:49 PM
I just want it knonw that I am a pawn, and not a willing puppet.
But I suspect I am a puppet, along with the rest of you,.
4351. Ulgine Barrows - 11/22/2005 10:56:19 PM
I'm in trouble with my child's school because. The child pick-up has changed.
School admins want me to circle the parking lot until child emerges. I think I'll park my car on the street and save gas and mental energy.
Resist the puppet in small ways.
4352. arkymalarky - 11/23/2005 12:36:20 AM
Goodness no. He's the puppeteer, if anything.
4353. Ulgine Barrows - 11/23/2005 1:12:18 AM
No, his strings are pulled tight from others.
4354. jexster - 11/23/2005 8:13:47 AM
Free Jose!
Into my custody
4355. thoughtful - 11/23/2005 8:21:39 AM
Ulgine, do you have school buses? Perhaps the way to save gas is to let the child take the bus?
4356. jexster - 11/23/2005 9:53:11 PM
When I was a boy, I usta walk thirty miles thru the swamp to the ole school yard
4357. jexster - 11/23/2005 9:54:05 PM
The Indistinct and Undistinguishable
4358. robertjayb - 11/23/2005 11:25:14 PM
Whassa matta, jexter---daddy wouldn't let you use the pirogue?
4359. robertjayb - 11/24/2005 3:52:03 PM
Tears for Thanksgiving: Nos. 2103 and 2104...
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two U.S. Soldiers were killed when their patrol struck an improvised explosive device on a road southwest of Baghdad Nov. 24.
(CENTCOM)
4360. robertjayb - 11/24/2005 6:15:36 PM
Operation Save the Republican Congress...(Timesonline)
PRESIDENT BUSH is planning a major pullout of US troops from Iraq amid rising opposition to the war on Capitol Hill and across America.
After a fortnight in which the political debate has rapidly moved from how to fight the war to how best to get out of Iraq, the White House is looking at reducing troop levels by at least 60,000 next year.
Confirming the worst fears of the war’s conservative supporters, who argue that more troops are needed to defeat the insurgency, senior military officials made clear yesterday that the Bush Administration’s goal is to cut troop levels from 160,000 to below 100,000 by the end of 2006.
4361. jexster - 11/25/2005 1:36:35 PM
"Senior military officials" = how accurate this proves to be depends.
The Pentagon is fed up with Bush and his Big Adventure. He has interfered with their ops fucked em royally and his support has totally collapsed. These are Powell Doctrine people and they have been in mounting revolt since early this year.
I have said it b4..when Bush ignored Casey twice..The third leak is going to be worse.. Will Bush get the message
GET OUT or we'll get you...stay tuned.
4362. jexster - 11/25/2005 2:14:41 PM
4363. jexster - 11/25/2005 4:02:53 PM
4364. jexster - 11/25/2005 4:36:25 PM
My kinda Democrat
Chavez orders subsidised heating oil for poor in US cities - Press Trust of India Fri, 25 Nov 2005 8:32 AM PST
Washington, Nov 25 (PTI) In an apparent political jab at the Bush Administration, Venezuelean President Hugo Chavez has ordered a petroleum company owned by his country to supply more than 12 million gallons of heating oil to the poor in US cities of New York and Boston at 40 per cent below market prices.
4365. jexster - 11/25/2005 4:55:30 PM
Bush as Press Assassin?
Baathist in a Mirror
4366. jexster - 11/25/2005 5:09:10 PM
The Moral Stakes of Exit CS Monitor
Under the "just war" doctrine, a centuries-old religious framework for judging the validity of the decision to go to war and the subsequent conduct, the US, some analysts say, failed miserably on the tenet covering "noncombatant immunity" - that is, protecting the lives of civilians and surrendered soldiers.
"We seem fairly callously to have violated human rights and noncombatant immunity," says Professor Arquilla (Navy PG School Monterey). "Our ethical way ahead lies in recapturing some of that moral high ground."
The effort by Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) (R) of Arizona to enact legislation that would bar cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners in US custody, passed by the Senate last month 90-9, seeks to do that. President Bush's threat to veto the measure and an effort by Vice President Dick Cheney to exempt CIA employees have fueled debate over whether there are legitimate uses of torture in fighting a global war on terror.
Some Americans say it is legitimate - even moral - to use such tactics after 9/11. Clearly, this debate will linger for years.
Tenets of 'just war' theory
• Cause must be just, often limited to self-defense or to redress injury. Scholars dispute whether preemptive or preventive war can be a just cause(at the margin..a very thin margin of dispute)
• Public declaration by a lawful authority.
• No ulterior motives. War must be pursued with right intention - justice - not self-aggrandizement or vengeance.
• Reasonable probability of success.
• More good done than harm.
• Use of force only as last resort.
• Avoid harming noncombatants.
• Proportionality - use of the least destructive force possible.
• Intention to restore a just peace
4367. jexster - 11/25/2005 5:50:52 PM
Time to take Palestinians views seriously
>By Henry Siegman
>Published: November 17 2005 19:43 - FT
The unexpected victory by Amir Peretz over Shimon Peres for the leadership of Israel’s Labor party this week, an event that Israeli observers described as a “political earthquake”, may finally revive that party’s role as the opposition to the political hegemony of the Likud. The absence of a viable opposition in the past five years has compromised Israel’s democracy and crippled its peace camp.
It will take some time for the implications of this “earthquake” to become more evident. In the meantime, Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, continues to enjoy popular support for his policies, which are systematically closing the window of opportunity opened by his September withdrawal from Gaza.
One of the most dramatic changes to have occurred since the Gaza withdrawal – largely ignored by the media – has been a major shift in Palestinian public attitudes. According to the most recent survey by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah, most Palestinians now feel that improving their daily lives is their first priority. Until now, ending the occupation was their top goal. That has slipped to second place by a margin of 15 per cent. The poll also found the majority of Palestinians supported a permanent ceasefire, even though they remained convinced that the Gaza pull-out was due to violent “resistance”. And for the first time, a majority favours the collection of arms from militants in Gaza.
This remarkable shift in Palestinian opinion was the reason Hamas, the militant Islamist group, agreed in February to a ceasefire organised by Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president. Hamas understood that defying the public’s desire for a non-violent path towards statehood risked losing popular support.
Although the ceasefire has remained largely in force, it has been violated occasionally by Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa militants who have resorted to suicide bombings, and the Israeli Defence Force has resumed targeted assassinations and large-scale arrests of leaders of these Palestinian groups.
Khalil Shikaki, head of the PSR, recently said that Israeli reactions to what are still only sporadic Palestinian ceasefire violations had “mistaken the trees for the forest”. Militants hope that the renewed violence, and the Israeli reprisals it provokes, will head off Palestinian demands for a crackdown on the militias. The new Palestinian optimism that progress can now be achieved by non-violent means is what constitutes the “forest”. Mr Shikaki warns that by seeing only the “trees” – that is, occasional ceasefire violations – Israeli responses that collectively punish the Palestinian public will help Hamas and other extremist groups regain popular support.
Far from encouraging the new Palestinian optimism, Mr Sharon has refused to resume political negotiations; increased – rather than halted, as required by the “road map” for peace – expansion of West Bank settlements; tightened rather than eased restrictions on the movement of people and goods; and closed the crossing points in Gaza, threatening to turn it into a vast prison. Mr Sharon’s promise earlier this week to ease these Gaza restrictions came about only as a result of intense US pressure. It is still far from implementation.
Mr Sharon has also kept up disparaging criticism of Mr Abbas for his failure to prevent ceasefire violations, dismissing him as “a partner for peace”. In fact, Mr Abbas’s capacities cannot be judged without reference to the Israeli bureaucracy of occupation.
As Amira Hass noted in Ha’aretz, the Israeli daily, an IDF soldier at a remote checkpoint has more to say about critical issues affecting Palestinians than does Mr Abbas. “[He] has neither the authority nor the power to ensure that students from Gaza or East Jerusalem can get to their classes in Nablus or Tulkarm . . . nor prevent the expropriation of [Palestinian] land for “Jews-only roads” in the West Bank. But [Mr Sharon] holds him responsible for the behaviour of the various militants, who in turn disparage him because he cannot ensure that a nursing mother will be able to get to the doctor.”
Measures that collectively punish the Palestinian public and undermine efforts to revive Gaza, if not reversed, will lead Palestinians to the conclusion that their optimism was misplaced. If that should happen, no one should be surprised if the intifada returns with unprecedented fury.
The writer is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former executive head of the American Jewish Congress. These are his personal views
4368. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/25/2005 5:54:09 PM
4369. jexster - 11/25/2005 8:22:25 PM
So potential presidential candidates have stark decisions to make:
_Do they stick with President Bush's stay-the-course strategy in a war that many Americans believe is going south, and risk being dragged down as well?
_Do they present their own detailed plans to bring U.S. troops home — and open themselves to criticism of "cutting and running?"
_Do they take the same stance they always have, and leave themselves vulnerable to claims that they failed to respond to the changing situation?
Trick question right?
Dems With White House Dreams Face Tricky(!) Choices in '08?
Will the Authentic Democratic Leader please stand up!
Please???
4370. wonkers2 - 11/25/2005 9:25:23 PM
Mark Warner?
4371. jexster - 11/27/2005 7:48:43 PM
One two year term governor of virginny>?
What the Hell! We selected a Moron and LifeTime Failure Award Winner 5 yers ago...This is AmeriKa, land of opportunity, where every Birth Defective has a chance to be president...
Will Mark Warner lead the way?
Who cares.
4372. jexster - 11/27/2005 7:55:20 PM
A Bush sets up the Ole Texas 2 Step, the LongHorn's version of the Cut and Run Play...
The Eyes of Texas are upon him...
HEADLINE: The Lies Catch Up With George W. Bush
Dishonest, Reprehensible, Corrupt
BYLINE: By Frank Rich
BODY:
GEORGE W. BUSH is so desperate for allies that his hapless Asian tour took him to Ulan Bator, a first for an American president, so he could mingle with the yaks and give personal thanks for Mongolia's contribution of some 160 soldiers to ''the coalition of the willing.'' Dick Cheney, whose honest-and-ethical poll number hit 29 percent in Newsweek's latest survey, is so radioactive that he vanished into his bunker for weeks at a time during the storms Katrina and Scootergate.
The whole world can see that both men are on the run. Just how much so became clear in the brace of nasty broadsides each delivered this month about Iraq. Neither man engaged the national debate ignited by John Murtha about how our troops might be best redeployed in a recalibrated battle against Islamic radicalism. Neither offered a plan for ''victory.'' Instead, both impugned their critics' patriotism and retreated into the past to defend the origins of the war. In a seasonally appropriate impersonation of the misanthropic Mr. Potter from ''It's a Wonderful Life,'' the vice president went so far as to label critics of the administration's prewar smoke screen both ''dishonest and reprehensible'' and ''corrupt and shameless.'' He sounded but one epithet away from a defibrillator.
The Washington line has it that the motivation for the Bush-Cheney rage is the need to push back against opponents who have bloodied the White House in the polls. But, Mr. Murtha notwithstanding, the Democrats are too feeble to merit that strong a response. There is more going on here than politics.
Much more: each day brings slam-dunk evidence that the doomsday threats marshaled by the administration to sell the war weren't, in Cheney-speak, just dishonest and reprehensible but also corrupt and shameless. The more the president and vice president tell us that their mistakes were merely innocent byproducts of the same bad intelligence seen by everyone else in the world, the more we learn that this was not so. The web of half-truths and falsehoods used to sell the war did not happen by accident; it was woven by design and then foisted on the public by a P.R. operation built expressly for that purpose in the White House. The real point of the Bush-Cheney verbal fisticuffs this month, like the earlier campaign to take down Joseph Wilson, is less to smite Democrats than to cover up wrongdoing in the executive branch between 9/11 and shock and awe.
The cover-up is failing, however. No matter how much the president and vice president raise their decibel levels, the truth keeps roaring out. A nearly 7,000-word investigation in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times found that Mr. Bush and his aides had ''issued increasingly dire warnings'' about Iraq's mobile biological weapons labs long after U.S. intelligence authorities were told by Germany's Federal Intelligence Service that the principal source for these warnings, an Iraqi defector in German custody code-named Curveball, ''never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so.'' The five senior German intelligence officials who spoke to The Times said they were aghast that such long-discredited misinformation from a suspected fabricator turned up in Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations and in the president's 2003 State of the Union address (where it shared billing with the equally bogus 16 words about Saddam's fictitious African uranium).
Right after the L.A. Times scoop, Murray Waas filled in another piece of the prewar propaganda puzzle. He reported in the nonpartisan National Journal that 10 days after 9/11, ''President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.''
The information was delivered in the President's Daily Brief, a C.I.A. assessment also given to the vice president and other top administration officials. Nonetheless Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney repeatedly pounded in an implicit (and at times specific) link between Saddam and Al Qaeda until Americans even started to believe that the 9/11 attacks had been carried out by Iraqis. More damning still, Mr. Waas finds that the ''few credible reports'' of Iraq-Al Qaeda contacts actually involved efforts by Saddam to monitor or infiltrate Islamic terrorist groups, which he regarded as adversaries of his secular regime. Thus Saddam's antipathy to Islamic radicals was the same in 2001 as it had been in 1983, when Donald Rumsfeld, then a Reagan administration emissary, embraced the dictator as a secular fascist ally in the American struggle against the theocratic fascist rulers in Iran.
What these revelations also tell us is that Mr. Bush was wrong when he said in his Veterans Day speech that more than 100 Congressional Democrats who voted for the Iraqi war resolution ''had access to the same intelligence'' he did. They didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief that Mr. Waas uncovered. They didn't have access to the information that German intelligence officials spoke about to The Los Angeles Times. Nor did they have access to material from a Defense Intelligence Agency report, released by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan this month, which as early as February 2002 demolished the reliability of another major source that the administration had persistently used for its false claims about Iraqi-Al Qaeda collaboration.
The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie? The situation recalls Mary McCarthy's explanation to Dick Cavett about why she thought Lillian Hellman was a dishonest writer: ''Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' ''
If Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney believe they were truthful in the run-up to the war, it's easy for them to make their case. Instead of falsely claiming that they've been exonerated by two commissions that looked into prewar intelligence -- neither of which addressed possible White House misuse and mischaracterization of that intelligence -- they should just release the rest of the President's Daily Briefs and other prewar documents that are now trickling out. Instead, incriminatingly enough, they are fighting the release of any such information, including unclassified documents found in post-invasion Iraq requested from the Pentagon by the pro-war, neocon Weekly Standard. As Scott Shane reported in The New York Times last month, Vietnam documents are now off limits, too: the National Security Agency won't make public a 2001 historical report on how American officials distorted intelligence in 1964 about the Gulf of Tonkin incident for fear it might ''prompt uncomfortable comparisons'' between the games White Houses played then and now to gin up wars.
4373. jexster - 11/27/2005 7:55:30 PM
SOONER or later -- probably sooner, given the accelerating pace of recent revelations -- this embarrassing information will leak out anyway. But the administration's deliberate efforts to suppress or ignore intelligence that contradicted its Iraq crusade are only part of the prewar story. There were other shadowy stations on the disinformation assembly line. Among them were the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, a two-man Pentagon operation specifically created to cherry-pick intelligence for Mr. Cheney's apocalyptic Iraqi scenarios, and the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), in which Karl Rove, Karen Hughes and the Cheney hands Lewis Libby and Mary Matalin, among others, plotted to mainline this propaganda into the veins of the press and public. These murky aspects of the narrative -- like the role played by a private P.R. contractor, the Rendon Group, examined by James Bamford in the current Rolling Stone -- have yet to be recounted in full.
No debate about the past, of course, can undo the mess that the administration made in Iraq. But the past remains important because it is a road map to both the present and the future. Leaders who dissembled then are still doing so. Indeed, they do so even in the same speeches in which they vehemently deny having misled us then -- witness Mr. Bush's false claims about what prewar intelligence was seen by Congress and Mr. Cheney's effort last Monday to again conflate the terrorists of 9/11 with those ''making a stand in Iraq.'' (Maj. Gen. Douglas Lute, director of operations for Centcom, says the Iraqi insurgency is 90 percent homegrown.) These days Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney routinely exaggerate the readiness of Iraqi troops, much as they once inflated Saddam's W.M.D.'s.
''We're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history,'' the vice president said of his critics. ''We're going to continue throwing their own words back at them.'' But according to a Harris poll released by The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday, 64 percent of Americans now believe that the Bush administration ''generally misleads the American public on current issues to achieve its own ends.'' That's why it's Mr. Cheney's and the president's own words that are being thrown back now -- not to rewrite history but to reveal it for the first time to an angry country that has learned the hard way that it can no longer afford to be without the truth.
4374. robertjayb - 11/28/2005 12:46:00 PM
Seymour Hersh has an interesting New Yorker piece about the future of the Iraq war.
...................................................
A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President’s public statements, is that the departing American troops will be replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent controls over who bombs what.
4375. jexster - 11/28/2005 1:34:53 PM
See AP there Rohburht
4376. jexster - 11/28/2005 1:37:41 PM
Olde Cut n Run: The 22 Skeedaddle
As Calls for an Iraq Pullout Rise.....
WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 - In public, President Bush has firmly dismissed the mounting calls to set a deadline to begin a withdrawal from Iraq, declaring eight days ago that there was only one test for when the time is right. "When our commanders on the ground tell me that Iraqi forces can defend their freedom," he told American forces at Osan Air Base in South Korea, "our troops will come home with the honor they have earned."
But in private conversations, American officials are beginning to acknowledge that a judgment about when withdrawals can begin is driven by two political calendars - one in Iraq and one here - as much as by those military assessments. The final decision, they said, could well hinge on whether the new Iraqi government, scheduled to be elected in less than three weeks, issues its own call for an American withdrawal. Last week, for the first time, Iraq's political factions, represented by about 100 Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders, collectively called for a timetable for withdrawal.
As Mr. Bush ends his Thanksgiving holiday in Texas on Monday, both his own aides and American commanders say, he will begin confronting these sometimes conflicting military and political issues, including the midterm Congressional elections in this country, part of a delicate balancing action about how and when to begin extracting American troops from Iraq.
Mr. Bush is scheduled to give a speech in Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday assessing progress both in Iraq and in what he calls the broader war on terrorism, and several officials said he was expected to contend that the Iraqi forces have made great progress. But as it has been for the past two and a half years, it is unclear exactly what measuring sticks he is using, and whether they present the full picture.
Liar, Liar..Olde Cut n Run's pants on fire
4377. jexster - 11/28/2005 1:40:58 PM
We've moved from 'if' to 'how fast,' " said one former aide with close ties to the National Security Council
4378. jexster - 11/28/2005 1:53:17 PM
Maybe goes something laykh theeus...
" Oh Lordie, Lordie
George here...Why won'test thou be answerin my phone calls..."
4379. wonkers2 - 11/28/2005 2:15:17 PM
Are you saying "Stay the course" = "Cut and run" in Bushspeak?
4380. jexster - 11/28/2005 2:30:39 PM
Cole is beginning to attract some pretty weighty comments on IC..
4381. jexster - 11/28/2005 2:51:17 PM
SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Editorial Desk; Pg. 19
LENGTH: 729 words
HEADLINE: Age of Anxiety
BYLINE: By PAUL KRUGMAN
BODY:
Many eulogies were published following the recent death of Peter Drucker, the great management theorist. I was surprised, however, that few of these eulogies mentioned his book ''The Age of Discontinuity,'' a prophetic work that speaks directly to today's business headlines and economic anxieties.
Mr. Drucker wrote ''The Age of Discontinuity'' in the late 1960's, a time when most people assumed that the big corporations of the day, companies like General Motors and U.S. Steel, would dominate the economy for the foreseeable future. He argued that this assumption was all wrong.
It was true, he acknowledged, that the dominant industries and corporations of 1968 were pretty much the same as the dominant industries and corporations of 1945, and for that matter of decades earlier. ''The economic growth of the last twenty years,'' he wrote, ''has been very fast. But it has been carried largely by industries that were already 'big business' before World War I. Every one of the great nineteenth-century innovations gave birth, almost overnight, to a major new industry and to new big businesses. These are still the major industries and big businesses of today.''
But all of that, said Mr. Drucker, was about to change. New technologies would usher in an era of ''turbulence'' like that of the half-century before World War I, and the dominance of the major industries and big businesses of 1968 would soon come to an end.
He was right. Consider, for example, what happened to America's steel industry. In the 1960's, steel production was virtually synonymous with economic might, as it had been for almost a century. But although the U.S. economy as a whole created lots of wealth and tens of millions of jobs between 1968 and 2000, employment in the U.S. steel industry fell 60 percent.
And as industries went, so did corporations. Many of the corporate giants of the 1960's, companies whose pre-eminence seemed permanent, have fallen on hard times, their places in the business hierarchy taken by new players. General Motors is only the most famous example.
So what? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss: why does it matter if the list of leading corporations turns over every couple of decades, as long as the total number of jobs continues to grow?
The answer is the reason Mr. Drucker's old book is so relevant to today's headlines: corporations can't provide their workers with economic security if the companies' own future is highly insecure.
American workers at big companies used to think they had made a deal. They would be loyal to their employers, and the companies in turn would be loyal to them, guaranteeing job security, health care and a dignified retirement.
Such deals were, in a real sense, the basis of America's postwar social order. We like to think of ourselves as rugged individualists, not like those coddled Europeans with their oversized welfare states. But as Jacob Hacker of Yale points out in his book ''The Divided Welfare State,'' if you add in corporate spending on health care and pensions -- spending that is both regulated by the government and subsidized by tax breaks -- we actually have a welfare state that's about as large relative to our economy as those of other advanced countries.
The resulting system is imperfect: those who don't work for companies with good benefits are, in effect, second-class citizens. Still, the system more or less worked for several decades after World War II.
Now, however, deals are being broken and the system is failing. Remember, Delphi was once part of General Motors, and its workers thought they were totally secure.
What went wrong? An important part of the answer is that America's semiprivatized welfare state worked in the first place only because we had a stable corporate order. And that stability -- along with any semblance of economic security for many workers -- is now gone.
Regular readers of this column know what I think we should do: instead of trying to provide economic security through the back door, via tax breaks designed to encourage corporations to provide health care and pensions, we should provide it through the front door, starting with national health insurance. You may disagree. But one thing is clear: Mr. Drucker's age of discontinuity is also an age of anxiety, in which workers can no longer count on loyalty from their employers.
I used to think so tooo...long, long time ago
4382. jexster - 11/28/2005 3:14:13 PM
The Setting Sun on the Bush Empire
4383. jayackroyd - 11/28/2005 3:44:27 PM
4314
Well, I'm way behind in this conversation, but wonk, you should read the wiki link I posted. It discusses the difficulties involved in deciding how to transliterate a language as different from English as is Arabic. There's a reason for the existence of multiple transliteration schemes; not one is entirely satisfactory.
4384. wonkers2 - 11/28/2005 4:40:44 PM
Jay, I did read the wiki entries when you posted them and again just now. Nothing in either entry is inconsistent with my observation that al-Qaeda is not a good transliteration. If you listen carefully to Arabic speakers, I believe you'll see that they pronounce "qaeda" or "qaida" or "q'aida" with three syllables, as kah ee' duh, whereas the qaeda transliteration encourages many if not most people to mispronounce the word with only two syllables as kay'duh. Either "al-Qaida" as used by AP or "al-Q'aida" tend to incline Americans to pronounce the word with three syllables more closely to the way Arabs prounounce it. Moreover, "qaeda" leads many Americans to pronounce the first syllable with a long "a" as in "kay" which also is not close to the Arab pronunciation with a broad "a" as in "pakh the cah" in Boston.
4385. wonkers2 - 11/28/2005 5:12:38 PM
Just because there is no system that provides a single "correct" transliteration system, it doesn't mean that all transliterations are equal. I happen to think, for the above reasons that "al-Q'aida" is preferable to al- Qaeda.
4386. jexster - 11/28/2005 7:02:45 PM
1 Republican Congressman's Votes
Cost - $2 million
28, 2005 -- 05:01 PM EST // link)
Statement of Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-CA) ...
I am resigning from the House of Representatives because I’ve compromised the trust of my constituents.
When I announced several months ago that I would not seek re-election, I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth. So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public -- even myself. For all of this, I am deeply sorry.
The truth is -- I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.
Some time ago, I asked my lawyers to inform the U.S. Attorney Carol Lam that I would like to plead guilty and begin serving a prison term. Today is the culmination of that process. I will continue to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation to the best of my ability.
In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame. I learned in Viet Nam that the true measure of a man is how he responds to adversity. I cannot undo what I have done. But I can atone. I am now almost 65 years old and, as I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends.
The first step in that journey is to admit fault and apologize. The next step is to face the consequences of my actions like a man. Today, I have taken the first step and, with God’s grace, I will soon take the second.
Thank you.
-- Josh Marshall
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(November 28, 2005 -- 01:39 PM EST // link)
Interesting. The current AP story on Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham contains no mention of his party affiliation.
TPM Reader RF pointed this out.
Late Update: The piece now seems to be updated with the reference.
-- Josh Marshall
For the fat cat on your Crimmius list who has everything
4387. wonkers2 - 11/28/2005 7:46:11 PM
I hope they send Randy to Guantanamo! I knew he was a dumb, right-wing asshole but didn't suspect he was a crook.
4388. jayackroyd - 11/28/2005 9:28:16 PM
4384
wonk--
Not disagreeing. Just noting that this is a difficult issue. And that Pelle is not wrong to say so.
4389. jexster - 11/28/2005 11:04:08 PM
The Tail of Ole Cut n Run
Is Defeat Now an Option?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
4390. jayackroyd - 11/29/2005 10:47:35 AM
Can I just rant for a minute?
We're now seeing the long foretold consequences of deposing Saddam--the reports are accumulating of ethnic violence, Shi-ite on Sunni.
Is there any bad thing that has been predicted that hasn't happened? Is there anything these people have done to try to deal with these predicted problems?
The rumor is that Bush is planning to declare victory tomorrow. Is there any indication whatsoever that there is any plan here? Is there any part of this endeavor that has not been driven entirely by political consideration?
4391. robertjayb - 11/29/2005 11:00:27 AM
2109, 2110...
BAGHDAD,Iraq — (CENTCOM) - Two Task Force Baghdad Soldiers were killed when their patrol struck a roadside bomb north of Baghdad shortly after 10 a.m. Nov. 29.
4392. thoughtful - 11/29/2005 11:14:46 AM
Frank Rich was on imus this am and was very good as usual. His comments were largely that these neocons knew better than everyone else. They knew what was good for the US and the world, but the simpleton americans including congress, or even our allies, were never going to grasp such higher and more difficult concepts therefore there was no point in trying to explain why they were doing what they were doing...they only had to sell it politically...and use whatever it took to sell it including 9/11 and threats of imminent nuclear attack. (Wasn't it Rummy who said right after 9/11, is this what we need to go after iraq?) You see, they were completely justified because they were so much smarter and knew so much more. This was their plan from the get-go...prior to 9/11.
They believed the way to fight terrorists was to gain their fear and/or respect by acting boldly and decisively in such a grand way that it would reshape the face of the entire middle east and set them on a road toward freedom and democracy, etc. But the only way to do that would be to strike at the heart of the middle east... somewhere... anywhere... with shock & awe. They chose iraq for a number of reasons including that 41 left the job undone and 43 wanted to finish it. (I would add saddam was a bad guy, sitting on 2nd lgst oil supply, tried to kill bush's daddy, and most important as you may recall rummy saying so about Afghanistan, there were no good targets there, that's why we're fighting in iraq.) Further they truly believed it would be a slam dunk, that they would be greeted with hearts and flowers, that they were really liberators and that's why they went in with so few troops, so little planning, 'army-lite'.
So Rich suggests that whether these guys lied or just spun and edited, they felt justified because they were so smart and knew better than everyone else. And rather than be dissuaded from their goal by the facts, they used the intelligence selectively to shore up their goals. As Richard Clark put it, group think.
4393. thoughtful - 11/29/2005 11:24:40 AM
Now that it's all happened, I don't think they know what to do. Politically, they can't send in more forces and fix the place. Realistically, they can't withdraw without the place turning into utter chaos. So they're 'staying the course.'
I truly believe that bush was not behind this in any real sense. I think the arguments the neocons put forth fit his psychology well and they exploited it...an opportunity to stick it to the old man...his need to look Tx 'dead or alive' tough and so on. I also believe that the current situation fits well with his psychology and religion...god is testing him and he must pass the test by staying firm. And of course, he has never shown himself to be a leader or intimately involved in any of this stuff in any way, so to make the big think decision and then hop on his bike is a big part of both how we got here and why nothing's changed.
And then there is the key decision maker in the group...rove...who is truly a political animal and makes decisions based only on politics. So if Jay the rumors are right, then it's rove's doing which tells me vp and rummy have been marginalized, and rove is in charge. Of course the whole neocon schtick about iraq played beautifully into rove's hands and that's why he was so willing to go along. After all, both Reagan and Bush 1 got poll bumps when they attacked Grenada/panama.
4394. thoughtful - 11/29/2005 11:32:08 AM
Then there's Millbank's Commity Central which suggests another interesting element going on which is surprising indeed. Could it be Condi is coming out from under? Or is it that they are so desperate?
Yesterday, the Bushies broke bread with the Clintonites at the State Department.....
Is this the same Bush administration that disparaged Clinton administration peacekeeping efforts?
Not exactly. After spending nearly five years blaming the previous administration for everything from recession to the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush and his aides have found new affection for their predecessors.
On Monday morning, Vice President Cheney praised President Bill Clinton's 1998 bombing of Iraq. On Monday night, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman again hailed Clinton's "four days of intensive bombing." (Never mind that at the time many GOP lawmakers said Clinton was trying to distract from impeachment.) Bush, too, has been invoking Clinton's name to justify prewar intelligence and free trade. And when Prince Charles visited the White House for dinner recently, the Bushes brought out the Clinton china.
Then there was Rice's reception for the Clinton crowd yesterday....
But her embrace of the opposition was a marked change from the first term. Back then, Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer blamed Clinton for rising Middle East violence. Bush aide Karen Hughes assigned Clinton blame for the Enron scandal. Bush complained that he "inherited" a recession from Clinton. And Attorney General John Ashcroft blamed Clinton for "the September 11th problem," saying "our government had blinded itself to its enemies."
By contrast, Rice yesterday recalled the autumn of 1995, when "the United States and our NATO allies helped the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina fight back." She said, "We supported our just demands with real force and paved the way for diplomacy to prevail, and it prevailed in a small Ohio city."
4395. jayackroyd - 11/29/2005 11:36:43 AM
Yes, this is my view as well. The neo-cons finally found an administration that would listen to them, and was willing to lie as needed on their behalf.
Yes, I do believe that from Rove's and perhaps the president's perspective that this was entirely about politics--about making the president a war president.
What astounds me is that their entire set of goals seems to be nothing more than enriching their cronies. Every single policy initiative has been undermined by the need to enrich, employ, reward political allies. You read about how the CPA was staffed, and it's just like FEMA.
Reagan had a couple of ideas that he believed in. Nixon had a passel of ideas he believed in. They wanted to change policies in this country. The only policy changes we're seeing from these idiots is more completely empowering the executive, so that he can, what? Hire more morons to screw up more things? And lock up people who talk funny.
4396. thoughtful - 11/29/2005 11:49:53 AM
Yes Jay, exactly.
Medicare RX for the drug co's
Bankruptcy law for the banks/credit card co's
Energy bill for energy firms
Ag bill for agribusiness
Soc sec reform for the investment firms
Tax cuts for the wealthy supporters
Communications bill for big media
Iraq war for defense/energy contractors
Tort reform to gut the dem's trial lawyers's funding
He certainly has kept those campaign promises...
4397. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/29/2005 12:44:22 PM
Unfortunately, it takes a while for many Americans to wake up to the truth . . .
4398. jexster - 11/29/2005 2:01:56 PM
Rant on Jay because not only are you absolutely right, you presage the blowback from hell when the rest of the public fully appreciates as you do the magnitude of the lies and the disaster....
It is abuilding and there will be hell to pay
4399. robertjayb - 11/29/2005 3:48:15 PM
Seymour Hersh with Amy Goodman on where Iraq war is headed...(Democracy Now)
4400. robertjayb - 11/29/2005 3:51:17 PM
Hersh on Murtha:
SEYMOUR HERSH: Murtha is one of those oldies, in his 70s now. He’s somebody like me, I always try to get to. I can talk to some of his aides. He's on the Defense -- he’s one of the leading players on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He's a very conservative military guy, who controls the budget, not only the budget we know about, but the black budget, the covert budget. He's one of those people trusted. Jerry Lewis in the Congress is another one, a House member. In the Senate, it would be Senator Inouye of Hawaii and Senator Ted Stevens, both in their 80s, of Alaska. They run the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. These are the guys that the generals talk to. And Murtha is one, in particular. He’s known for his closeness to the four-stars. They come and they bleed on him.
And so, for Murtha to suddenly say it's over, as he did three weeks ago or two weeks ago, as I wrote in this article, it drove the White House crazy. They were beyond mad, as somebody said to me, because they know that the generals are talking to him. So here you have a case where we don't have -- you know, the generals are terrified pretty much, as they always are. That's just the nature of the game. But they don't speak truth to power. They're not telling the American people exactly what's going on, and they're clearly not telling the White House, because the White House doesn't want to hear.
So Murtha's message is a message, really, from a -- you can consider it a message from a lot of generals on active duty today. This is what they think, at least a significant percentage of them, I assure you. This is, I’m not over-dramatizing this. It's a shot across the bow. They don't think it's doable. You can't tell that to this President. He doesn't want to hear it. But you can say it to Murtha, you can say it to Inouye, you can say it to Stevens.
4401. jexster - 11/29/2005 10:57:05 PM
The Iraq Syndrome
By John Mueller
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
-----------------------------------------------------------
Summary: Public support for the war in Iraq has followed the same course as it did for the wars in Korea and Vietnam: broad enthusiasm at the outset with erosion of support as casualties mount. The experience of those past wars suggests that there is nothing President Bush can do to reverse this deterioration -- or to stave off an "Iraq syndrome" that could inhibit U.S. foreign policy for decades to come.
JOHN MUELLER is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and the author of "War, Presidents, and Public Opinion; Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War;" and, most recently, "The Remnants of War."
4402. jexster - 11/30/2005 5:57:10 AM
At Hussein's Hearings, U.S. May Be on Trial
By Juan Cole
The ongoing trial of Saddam Hussein could prove increasingly uncomfortable for the Bush administration. The first crime of which the deposed dictator is accused, the secret execution of 143 Shiites arrested in 1982, seems an odd choice for the prosecution, and politics may be behind it. Hussein is accused of using poison gas against Iranian troops, of genocide against the Kurds and of massacring tens of thousands to end the 1991 uprising after his defeat in the Gulf War. The problem for the Bush administration with these other, far graver charges, is that the Americans are implicated in them either through acts of commission or omission.
4403. jexster - 11/30/2005 6:50:59 AM
US Backed Shiite Militias Executing and Torturing Sunnis
If Jen thinks that is a legitimate war aim, then they didn't die in vain,
4404. jexster - 11/30/2005 1:37:54 PM
Bushevism in Action
U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to the practice.
By Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi
LA Times Staff Writers
November 30, 2005
WASHINGTON — As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.
Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.
The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.
The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.
It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations. ...
4405. jexster - 11/30/2005 1:37:56 PM
Bushevism in Action
U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press
Troops write articles presented as news reports. Some officers object to the practice.
By Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi
LA Times Staff Writers
November 30, 2005
WASHINGTON — As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.
The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.
Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.
The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.
The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.
It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society." Standards vary widely at Iraqi newspapers, many of which are shoestring operations. ...
4406. jexster - 11/30/2005 1:41:23 PM
And the difference with the WSJ..Fox News..Weakly Standard etc
Is exactly what?
4407. jexster - 11/30/2005 2:02:02 PM
Icon of Disaster: Staying the Course
Iraq's Armed Forces Sinking Into Sectarian Chaos
4408. jexster - 11/30/2005 2:03:59 PM
The World's Most Dangerous Man
It's George W. Bush
4409. jexster - 11/30/2005 2:08:19 PM
He Who'd Dance the Tune Must Pay the Piper
Bush's Deadly Dance with Islamic Theocrats
by Robert Dreyfuss and Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch
4410. robertjayb - 11/30/2005 2:39:42 PM
Hello! Gen. Pace stands up to Rummy...A good sign!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's top military man, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said American troops in Iraq have a duty to intercede and stop abuse of prisoners by Iraqi security personnel.
When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contradicted Pace, the general stood firm.
Rumsfeld told the general he believed Pace meant to say the U.S. soldiers had to report the abuse, not stop it.
Pace stuck to his original statement.
4411. jexster - 11/30/2005 8:54:47 PM
How the Great Republican Shit Machine Works
Cole:
4412. wonkers2 - 11/30/2005 9:04:58 PM
More than you ever wanted to know about the yellow cake forgery and cover-up.
4413. robertjayb - 11/30/2005 10:31:24 PM
Riverbend gets book honor, laryngitis...
Four things you should know about illnesses in Iraq. When you describe your malady to any Iraqi, there are some general guidelines you can take for granted:-
1.
Short of cancer and terminal illness, any Iraqi has had your malady before you,
2.
Even in cases of cancer or other serious conditions- SOMEONE the abovementioned Iraqi knows *almost* personally has had the condition before you (the neighbor’s sister’s cousin’s nephew)…
3.
Every Iraqi you talk to knows the cure for whatever you’re suffering from, and
4.
Refusing to attempt abovementioned cure is both a personal insult to the well-intentioned curer and further affirmation of your foolhardiness which got you sick in the first place.
...............................................
I intend to spend the rest of the night reading about Bush’s ‘strategy’ for Iraq. I haven’t seen it yet, but I expect it’ll be a repetition of the nonsense he’s been spewing for two and a half years now. Don’t Americans get tired of hearing the same thing?
It’s unbelievable that he’s refused to set a timetable for withdrawal (is he having another "Bring it on..." moment?). It’s almost as if someone is paying him to intentionally sabotage American foreign policy. With every speech he seems to sink himself deeper into the mire. A timetable for complete withdrawal of American forces would be a positive step- it would give Iraqis hope that, eventually, sovereignty will return to Iraq.
4414. jexster - 12/1/2005 2:52:56 AM
The Bushevik Press
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - Titled "The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq," an article written this week for publication in the Iraqi press was scornful of outsiders' pessimism about the country's future.
"Western press and frequently those self-styled 'objective' observers of Iraq are often critics of how we, the people of Iraq, are proceeding down the path in determining what is best for our nation," the article began. Quoting the Prophet Muhammad, it pleaded for unity and nonviolence.
But far from being the heartfelt opinion of an Iraqi writer, as its language implied, the article was prepared by the United States military as part of a multimillion-dollar covert campaign to plant paid propaganda in the Iraqi news media and pay friendly Iraqi journalists monthly stipends, military contractors and officials said.
The article was one of several in a storyboard, the military's term for a list of articles, that was delivered Tuesday to the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations firm paid by the Pentagon, documents from the Pentagon show. The contractor's job is to translate the articles into Arabic and submit them to Iraqi newspapers or advertising agencies without revealing the Pentagon's role. Documents show that the intended target of the article on a democratic Iraq was Azzaman, a leading independent newspaper, but it is not known whether it was published there or anywhere else.
4415. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 3:19:46 AM
4395. jayackroyd - 11/29/2005 6:36:43 PM
....What astounds me is that their entire set of goals seems to be nothing more than enriching their cronies.
Wow. I thought I was politically naive, jexster. I thought you were so tuned into the Washington scene, and then you typed that. O whatta lotta.
4416. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 3:31:29 AM
Biff that, throw some secrets, embassy gate, gone.
4417. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 3:31:51 AM
Biff that, throw some secrets, embassy gate, gone.
4418. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 3:32:26 AM
Post button gone mad
4419. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 3:32:42 AM
Post button gone mad
4420. Ulgine Barrows - 12/1/2005 4:16:37 AM
Er..I am the fool of the morn?
Has it stopped?
4421. jexster - 12/1/2005 7:44:46 AM
Stand Up, Stand Down
Ring around the rosie..
Questions about Readiness of Iraqi Army:
Guess Who Buys Them
The strategy of the Bush administration in Iraq depends heavily on standing up battle-ready units of the new Iraqi army. The USA Today quotes experts on how unrealistic that plan is in the short to medium term.
I have heard from contacts in Iraq that the soldiers in the new army often don't get their paychecks, and aren't properly equipped, and sometimes are reduced to selling their bullets on the black market. Guess who buys them?
A further step in the break-up of Iraq: according to the LA Times, the Kurdish regional confederacy is giving a Norwegian oil company the right to develop new oil fields in its area without consulting the federal government in Baghdad. The Kurds and Norwegians maintain that this is legal according to the new Iraqi constitution, which devolves control over natural resources discovered in the future to the provinces or provincial confederacies. Next the Shiites in the South will do the same thing. Baghdad will be starved of these new revenue streams, and the provinces will have their own source of income. I don't see how the country stays together this way, or how the central goverment ever amounts to anything.
Reuters reports on severe Sunni-Shiite tensions deriving from political assassinations, even among Iraqis who are trying to forge electoral alliances across the sectarian divide.
4422. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 8:32:44 AM
Bob Shieffert was on imus this a.m. talking about some of the things w said yesterday, like the baghdad airport road is now in control of the iraqi army, and it isn't. Their iraq correspondent was on that road the other day and it is being secured by us helicopters, etc.
I think the bushies are going to learn that 'creating your own reality' works only for so long.
4423. PelleNilsson - 12/1/2005 9:59:20 AM
"the baghdad airport road is now in control of the iraqi army"
Then that road is a major player in the conflict. Has it been invited to negotiate?
4424. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 10:17:19 AM
Huh?
4425. alistairconnor - 12/1/2005 10:30:17 AM
I think you meant "under the control of", tful (but gramatically challenged)
Damn scandies. On the multi-national project I'm working on, they speak the best english. self excepted.
4426. alistairconnor - 12/1/2005 10:31:29 AM
Or perhaps bush meant that "the Baghdad street" is in control of the Iraqi army?
4427. jayackroyd - 12/1/2005 10:36:34 AM
IME, the Dutch speak better english than anybody, self included.
4428. wonkers2 - 12/1/2005 10:37:11 AM
Pelle, I asked you before about how you learned English so well. But I've forgotten your answer. And do you speak it with an English, American or Swedish accent?
4429. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 11:17:11 AM
OH. Duh.
I don't expect to understand ulgine's remarks and I usually don't....but i was beginning to think CRS was setting in when I didn't get Pelle's response.
I meant in THE control of...
though under the control of is better.
Though i think the road might do a better job of controlling the iraqis than the americans are. :-0
My grammar has always been questionable, overwhelmed by regionalisms that permeated the language of my parents/grandparents, half of whom were not native english speakers. (A big one being pronoun issues....her and i went...) Dad taught his parents english after he learned it in school. Grandfather on mother's side never went past the 3rd grade in school. Not that it's an excuse...just an explanation. Very often though my grammar has been corrected by english-speaking europeans, which makes sense. I learned more grammar when I took french than i ever did in any english class.
4430. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/1/2005 11:34:31 AM
How's your Latin?
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
I understood everything you said and meant, so fagedaboudit!
4431. PelleNilsson - 12/1/2005 11:43:53 AM
When I think back on it, I think there were three phases. The first was in my teens when I went through a period of vociferous reding of pulp fiction; Walt Slade, James Hadley Chase, Mickey Spillane, John D. McDonald, things like that (I'm still not completely free from that addiction). I found then that in Gothenburg I could pick up the English originals much cheaper than the translations. Books like that are entirely plot-driven, you easily understand what is going on. On the other hand, you cannot avoid expanding your vocabularity. When it comes to American slang I'm still stuck in the early sixties.
The second phase was in my twenties when I started to pick up Herald Tribune almost every day. Newspaper articles are also, in a sense plot-driven, you understand the gist of them without needing to understand every word. The third phase was when I went to Lebanon at the age of 30. Since then English was my working language.
Maybe I should add a fourth phasee, starting in 1997 when I joined the Fray. By then I was largely stuck in turgid bureaucratese. The Fray and then the Mote helped me to a more relaxed writing style, although traces remain, I know.
4432. jexster - 12/1/2005 11:54:27 AM
"If the criteria is Iraqi force readiness, all I can say after talking to US troops on the ground is get comfortable for a long stay in Iraq" Time Magazine's Michael Ware on MSNBC
Ware also laid in to Liberman...Imus did this morning, but that's Imus..Ware accompanied Lieberman and his Congressional group and commenting on remarks at one press conference "I don't know what country he was talking about"
4433. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/1/2005 12:02:49 PM
Fuckin' Lieberman--that rat-fuck bastard--I can't wait for him to get his comeupance!
4434. robertjayb - 12/1/2005 12:37:26 PM
The Booman Tribune says MoveOn may move on Lieberman.
4435. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 12:41:29 PM
He is awful, self righteous, and hypocritical to boot. He ought to get the joe-mentum out of here.
4436. jexster - 12/1/2005 12:46:42 PM
As I read through all these plans and critiques of plans and counterplans and critiques of counterplans, I am struck by one common denominator and that is, how difficult it is to advocate any position in these circumstances without glossing over the fact that, as Juan Cole put once, "when you're screwed, you're screwed"
Gilbert Achar's critiques for instance, compelling as they may be, fall to the same problem. It is almost unnatural to advocate a solution that frankly admits to failure, that touts itself as least failure, as they all must if they are to be real and worthy of serious consideration.
Here's one I found that doesn't. In fact, its the only one, I have found..make no mistake, the Regis Debray scenario is here and now...
Forecasts for the American Expedition to Iraq
By Fabius Maximus - DNI.net
November 30, 2005
What comes next in Iraq? Here are some straight-line extrapolations. Nothing certain, but these seem like good bets.
1. American public support for the Iraq War has evolved to the tipping point -- the critical level at which mainstream politicos move to explicit opposition. In this sense Iraq is a second Vietnam: a foreign war in which a US President arrogantly attempts to outlast strongly-rooted local opposition.
2. The US will begin a major withdrawal of its forces, probably in the first half of 2006. The key election date is not December 17 (Iraq’s Parliament), but November 4, 2006 (US Congress).
3. Once we begin large-scale withdrawals, probably also relocating our remaining forces to bases in the Iraq deserts, our influence in Iraq will rapidly disappear.
4. The Iraq "National" governing structure will not long survive our departure, as they lack sufficient loyal troops to keep them in power. The ethnic militias pretending to be parts of the Iraq Army will revert to their true roles, serving local, ethnic, or sectarian interests.
5. Power will move to regional leaders with armed militias. Many previously powerful political and religious leaders will find themselves marginalized, as ethnic and religious hierarchies adjust to accommodate upstarts commanding young men with guns.
6. Neither Sunni nor Shiite Arab militia leaders have any need for our support, nor want foreign infidel armies on their soil. The Kurds will no longer need us. Hence all parties will call for rapid US withdrawal of forces once we become “lame ducks” in Iraq. This will remove any remaining support for the Iraq Expedition among global governments and the US public. Combined military action against Coalition forces is possible should we linger too long.
What can we expect in Iraq after the Coalition exits?
4437. wonkers2 - 12/1/2005 5:41:39 PM
Pelle, I find it amazing that you learned English so well without living in an English speaking country. I guess using it at work made the difference after you studied it in Sweden. I've tried to learn Spanish for more than 40 years, but still can't speak it well after spending several summers in Colombia and a number of vacations in Mexico. I can read Spanish newspapers and feel comfortable traveling and in casual conversations when I'm speaking one on one. But in a crowd at a party with everyone speaking fast I'm quickly lost. Americans aren't good at learning other languages.
4438. jexster - 12/1/2005 6:34:43 PM
Wizzer
What Are We Going to do About Lieberman?
What are you going to do Wizzer?
4439. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/1/2005 7:06:55 PM
How serious can you take a link that calls The Hartford Courant, The "Harvard" Courant?
That bum-fuck article ruined my breakfast. I'm hoping our Attorney General, Dick Blumenthal (who is a genuine Liberal), will run against him. There are a lot of Conservative Zionistas here who support the little Howdy-Doody-Rodent. Blumenthal may be capable of extracting that particular kind of zealot-rat because he's conscientious--though somewhat stiff and boring.
4440. jexster - 12/1/2005 7:17:42 PM
That was U who corrected???
God what an awful awful wretched worm he is ..even looks like one
4441. jexster - 12/1/2005 7:19:29 PM
One of your Zionistas nailed me...or tried
anti-Semitic! Good thing they don't take images cause the Holocaust Free Passes have expired
4442. jexster - 12/1/2005 7:28:21 PM
GWB: The Unpopular Pursues the Unwinnable
4443. jexster - 12/1/2005 8:17:14 PM
December 1, 2005
Who Made Iraq Into a Threat?
by Paul Sperry
Before he invaded Iraq, President Bush warned us that the terrorists were using Iraq as a base to attack America. After the invasion, we found out that was nonsense on stilts.
Now Bush warns us the terrorists really are using Iraq as a base to attack America, and we have to stay there to defeat them. The terrorists are a "direct threat to the American people," he asserted yesterday.
Here we go again. At least this time he's a little closer to the truth: There are in fact terrorists in Iraq today, and they are killing American soldiers there. But we can thank our president for that – he made the "Iraqi threat" a self-fulfilling prophecy.
At yesterday's Annapolis pep rally, Bush tried to scare the American people into staying the course in Iraq by once again tying it to the war on terrorism and their own personal safety. Now is not the time to cut and run, he insisted; Iraq is no less than the "central front" in the war on terror.
But was Iraq the "central front" before Bush invaded? No, the central front was the Afghan-Pakistani border, al-Qaeda's home base (and it still is, thanks to Bush shifting the military resources needed to finish the job there to his wag-the-dog war in Iraq).
It's high time the White House press corps put down their stenographer's notepads, stopped dictating the president's doublespeak, and started forcing him to own up to the terrible reality he created in Iraq. If there is a threat from Iraq now, he and he alone created it by invading. It's self-evident from the litany of problems he cited in his speech. Just ask him if they existed before he started his unprovoked war:
Mr. President, did Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have Osama bin Laden's blessing before you invaded Iraq? (No, he was just another wannabe.)
Was there an al-Qaeda "base of operations" for Zarqawi to run in Iraq before you invaded? (Nope.)
Were suicide bombers pouring into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria before you invaded? (No.)
Were terrorists beheading Western contractors in Iraq before you invaded? (No.)
Were terrorists blowing up Americans in Iraq at a rate of 2-3 a day before you invaded? (No.)
Was Iraq a magnet for wide-eyed jihadists from all over the world before you invaded? (No, but now they're getting on-the-job training.)
Were middle-aged Iraqi women strapping bombs to themselves to avenge the loss of loved ones before you invaded? (No.)
Was Iraq exporting terrorism to Jordan before you invaded? (No.)
Did terrorists attack Madrid and London before you invaded? (No.)
Did the Iraqi army and police need to be "stood up" and "trained" to keep the peace in Iraq before you invaded their country? (No.)
Were Sunnis and Shi'ites at each others' throats in Iraq before you invaded? (No.)
Was there an anti-American insurgency in Iraq before you invaded?
Of course not. None of these threats existed before Bush invaded Iraq and made it the most violent place on Earth. Thanks to him, America is now a threat to itself.
4444. jexster - 12/1/2005 8:29:15 PM
Iraq Insurgency Robust and Growing Stronger so says the Israeli front Washington Institute for Near East Policy
4445. jexster - 12/1/2005 10:10:26 PM
What ARE We Going to do With Georgie & Joe!!
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."
- Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001
4446. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/2/2005 7:58:37 AM
4447. jexster - 12/2/2005 9:44:49 AM
Coalition of the "Willing" Crumbling Fast
4448. jexster - 12/2/2005 9:54:16 AM
RU a "connecticutter"?
4449. jexster - 12/2/2005 10:03:23 AM
Any Resemblance to Lincoln Group Planted Propaganda Is Purely Coincidental
Krugman - Bullet Points Over Baghdad
The overthrow of Saddam Hussein was supposed to provide the world with a demonstration of American power. It didn't work out that way. But the Bush administration has come up with the next best thing: a demonstration of American PowerPoint. Bullets haven't subdued the insurgents in Iraq, but the administration hopes that bullet points will subdue the critics at home.
The National Security Council document released this week under the grandiose title ''National Strategy for Victory in Iraq'' is neither an analytical report nor a policy statement. It's simply the same old talking points -- ''victory in Iraq is a vital U.S. interest''; ''failure is not an option'' -- repackaged in the style of a slide presentation for a business meeting.
It's an embarrassing piece of work. Yet it's also an important test for the news media. The Bush administration has lost none of its confidence that it can get away with fuzzy math and fuzzy facts -- that it won't be called to account for obvious efforts to mislead the public. It's up to journalists to prove that confidence wrong.
Here's an example of how the White House attempts to mislead: the new document assures us that Iraq's economy is doing really well. ''Oil production increased from an average of 1.58 million barrels per day in 2003, to an average of 2.25 million barrels per day in 2004.'' The document goes on to concede a ''slight decrease'' in production since then.
We're not expected to realize that the daily average for 2003 includes the months just before, during and just after the invasion of Iraq, when its oil industry was basically shut down. As a result, we're not supposed to understand that the real story of Iraq's oil industry is one of unexpected failure: instead of achieving the surge predicted by some of the war's advocates, Iraqi production has rarely matched its prewar level, and has been on a downward trend for the past year.
What about the security situation? During much of 2004, the document tells us: ''Fallujah, Najaf, and Samara were under enemy control. Today, these cities are under Iraqi government control.''
Najaf was never controlled by the ''enemy,'' if that means the people we're currently fighting. It was briefly controlled by Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The United States once vowed to destroy that militia, but these days it's as strong as ever. And according to The New York Times, Mr. Sadr has now become a ''kingmaker in Iraqi politics.'' So what sort of victory did we win, exactly, in Najaf?
Moreover, in what sense is Najaf now under government control? According to The Christian Science Monitor, ''Sadr supporters and many Najaf residents say an armed Badr Brigade'' -- the militia of a Shiite group that opposes Mr. Sadr and his supporters -- ''still exists as the Najaf police force.''
Meanwhile, this is the third time that coalition forces have driven the insurgents out of Samara. On the two previous occasions, the insurgents came back after the Americans left. And there, too, it's stretching things to say that the city is under Iraqi government control: according to The Associated Press, only 100 of the city's 700 policemen show up for work on most days.
There's a lot more like that in the document. Refuting some of the upbeat assertions about Iraq requires specialized knowledge, but many of them can be quickly debunked by anyone with an Internet connection.
The point isn't just that the administration is trying, yet again, to deceive the public. It's the fact that this attempt at deception shows such contempt -- contempt for the public, and especially contempt for the news media. And why not? The truth is that the level of misrepresentation in this new document is no worse than that in a typical speech by President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney. Yet for much of the past five years, many major news organizations failed to provide the public with effective fact-checking.
So Mr. Bush's new public relations offensive on Iraq is a test. Are the news media still too cowed, too addicted to articles that contain little more than dueling quotes to tell the public when the administration is saying things that aren't true? Or has the worm finally turned?
There have been encouraging signs, notably a thorough front-page fact-checking article -- which even included charts showing the stagnation of oil production and electricity generation! -- in USA Today. But the next few days will tell.
4450. jexster - 12/2/2005 10:19:47 AM
If it's Friday, it's time for the Follies!
Yesterday the US command rejected claims that Ramadi was under insurgent control...
If I were you, I'd cancel plans to visit beautiful Ramadi
4451. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/2/2005 10:41:22 AM
Wizzer - what is the proper name for a Connecticut resident?
A "Nutmegger" ( The Nutmeg State) or "A Connecticut Yankee."
4452. jexster - 12/2/2005 12:53:17 PM
Yo Nut-megger...
The What R We Gonna Do w/ Likud Lieberman thread is pushing 140 replies in less than 24 hours
Tell your friends n neighbors
4453. robertjayb - 12/2/2005 12:53:22 PM
U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 2110
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 13
Total 2123
4454. thoughtful - 12/2/2005 1:10:13 PM
I always said a connecticutter....though it sounds like ca-net-i-cutter
Though a candian fellow I knew called someone from connecticut a 'connecticut' which he pronounced, 'co-neck-ti-cut'
There's the universal 'person from connecticut'
Not heard connecticite
I'll leave it there before i turn this into a nasty lieberman remark.
4455. thoughtful - 12/2/2005 1:54:47 PM
It's not enough that the bushies are liars...but they end up turning everyone else who touches them into liars too.
full story here
You may recall that the ceos of several oil co's were asked, not under oath, if they participated in cheney's energy task force to which the replies were general no, don't know, don't remember. Later a doc was released revealing they had met. So now what? You see, it all depends on what the meaning of the word 'participate' is...
Last week, the Republican staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee suggested that the executives did not mislead the committee because whatever they did with the task force did not meet the legal definition of "participate."
4456. robertjayb - 12/2/2005 2:15:53 PM
The Vietnam lies---a new take on an old story...
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Another war, another set of faulty intelligence findings behind it.
Forty years before the United States invaded Iraq believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, it widened a war in Vietnam apparently convinced the enemy had launched an unprovoked attack on two U.S. Navy destroyers.
Papers declassified by the National Security Agency point to a series of bungled intelligence findings on the purported clash in the Gulf of Tonkin that led Congress to endorse President Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam conflict in August 1964.
Among the documents released Thursday is an article written by NSA historian Robert J. Hanyok for the agency's classified publication, Cryptologic Quarterly. In it, he declares that his review of the complete intelligence shows beyond doubt "no attack happened that night."
Claims that North Vietnamese boats attacked two U. S. Navy destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964 - just two days after an initial assault on one of those ships - rallied Congress behind Johnson's build-up of the war. The so-called Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed three days later empowered him to take "all necessary steps" in the region and opened the way for large-scale commitment of U.S. forces.
4457. jayackroyd - 12/2/2005 2:40:14 PM
Billmon raises an interesting point:
Still, while the prose may be dreadful, the price tag for placing it is pretty damned cheap, even by Iraqi standards -- as low as $50 for Chalabi's paper, according to the LA Times.
[snip]
Which raises an important question: What has the Lincoln Group done with the other $5,499,950 in its Pentagon contract for PR work in Iraq? (not to mention the company's even bigger $100 million global disinformation deal with JPOSE.)
We're talking enough money to buy the entire Iraqi media industry
4458. thoughtful - 12/2/2005 2:53:19 PM
Shieffert, I believe, was making the point on imus the other day that the iraqis being trained go home at night but there are no pistols even for them to bring home with them, so they leave the weapons and have nothing to defend themselves with when the insurgents come to attack and kill them.
IMO, it's just another example of how much money has flowed in iraq like water right into the hands of the corrupt, and not into the goods and materials needed to win this thing.
It's disgusting.
4459. jexster - 12/3/2005 5:35:15 PM
How Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq
Cole
4460. jexster - 12/3/2005 5:41:23 PM
Of all the VN parallels, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution has to be the very weakest. The fight was already going on and we'd been in it since 1958.
We've never seen anything like Bush's War on Iraq in our history. Lies got us in, lies determine the strategy and tactics of the war itself - top to bottom.
4461. jayackroyd - 12/3/2005 6:59:46 PM
I agree that this war is historic, as is this administration.
4462. jexster - 12/3/2005 7:28:05 PM
Zbig Deal
Democrats need a coherent foreign policy. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski is here to help.
What about Iraq?
Our congressional leaders are still inclined to dance around the issue or to find salvation in a formula that calls for American disengagement -- but gradually and without indicating what that means in terms of levels or dates. I’m not sure that’s a wise policy. Because once you begin to draw down your troops, it’s probably better to remove them rapidly. If you scale down your presence gradually, the reduced numbers are going to be in jeopardy. Moreover, it doesn’t have the psychological and political effect of shaking Iraqis into a realization that it is their responsibility to stand on their own feet. We need to scale down our definition of success and realize we’re not going to get a "democratic," secular, pro-American Iraq. We’re going to get an Iraq that is responsive to Iraqi nationalism and dominated by a combination of Shiites and Kurds with some proportion of Sunnis adjusting to that reality. It will probably be more theocratic in character than we would like to see. But it will be a regime that responds to current political realities. I think we need to bite the bullet and leave sometime in the next year.
Do you think the Iraqi army is going to be ready soon?
I think our course with the Iraqi forces verges on the absurd: It is all about us training them. The question arises: Training them to do what?
If it is a matter of knowing how to use a Kalishnikov in order to kill other people, I think most military-aged Iraqis don’t need our training. If it is a question of training Iraqis so they behave and act like American soldiers, that’s well and good. Except that is not what is needed in the circumstances we will be bequeathing them. What is needed is motivation based on loyalty to the powers that be. That will mean loyalty to various Shiite militias with a clerical connotation and loyalty to the two major Kurdish formations. Plus, perhaps eventually, loyalty to some Sunni militias based on a tribal allegiance. The motivation is not going to be created by American sergeants who are -- quote, unquote -- "training" them how to behave like American soldiers.
The case that we are doing more harm than good to Iraq, to the ME, and to ourselves is so compelling as to be beyond are beyond serious dispute at this point.
4463. wonkers2 - 12/4/2005 8:09:18 AM
Interesting thought on what are we training the Iraqi army to do and to be?
4464. jexster - 12/4/2005 8:51:01 AM
What is the Lincoln Group?
None should be surprised.
4465. jayackroyd - 12/4/2005 10:34:54 AM
The Fallows article in the Atlantic discusses the various conflicts and constraints the US is operating under in trying to train the Iraqi army. Among the complications is that some of the trainees will turn into insurgents. And there is some chance that the Iraqi army may actively oppose the US under some political leadership scenarios, so there is an incentive to make it only marginally effective--in particular to deny it logisitics capabilities, heavy armor and air power. Note that the various withdrawal scenarios we've seen (Murtha, Juan Cole, Hersh's reports from the pentagon) include provision of air power by US rather than Iraqi forces.
4466. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/4/2005 2:18:17 PM
4467. robertjayb - 12/5/2005 1:37:45 PM
Iraqi VP says Bush wrong about troop readiness...(AP)
DUBAI The training of Iraqi security forces has suffered a big "setback" in the last six months, with the army and other forces being increasingly used to settle scores and make other political gains, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said Monday.
Al-Yawer disputed contentions by U.S. officials, including President Bush, that the training of security forces was gathering speed, resulting in more professional troops.
4468. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/5/2005 6:31:44 PM
4469. robertjayb - 12/6/2005 10:32:35 AM
Exploding women...
December 06,2005 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Two women strapped with explosives blew themselves up at Baghdad's police academy on Tuesday, killing 27 people and wounding 32, the U.S. military said. The women blew themselves up in a classroom filled with students, the statement from Task Force Baghdad said. No U.S. forces were killed or wounded in the attack, it added.
U.S. forces rushed to the scene to provide assistance, the statement said.
Iraqi police said one bomb exploded in a cafeteria, while the other detonated during roll call. Police Lt. Ali Mi'tab said the women were probably students at the academy, which is why they were not searched.
4470. robertjayb - 12/6/2005 11:04:32 AM
Standard Procedure: First we lie...
BAGHDAD, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Ten U.S. Marines killed near the Iraqi city of Falluja last week had been at a promotion ceremony and were not on foot patrol as initially reported, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The Marines were in a disused flour mill on the outskirts of the city to celebrate the promotion of three soldiers, a military statement said.
As the ceremony ended, the Marines dispersed and one of them is thought to have stepped on a buried pressure plate linked to explosives that caused the devastating blast.
Is this the truth or will we ever know? Probably not. If it was a formal ceremony who scheduled it in an unsecure site? If it was an informal party who permitted it in an unsecure site? Who told the first lie?
4471. jexster - 12/6/2005 1:38:51 PM
4472. jexster - 12/6/2005 3:57:06 PM
Got Good News, Got Bad News
The Bad News About the Good News
4473. jexster - 12/6/2005 4:17:59 PM
What Did the Democrats Know and When Did They Know It?
The Lies of John Edwards*
The apology of John Edwards, former Senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, for voting for the Iraq war in 2002, has been widely praised. But his apology is based on a lie, one that other Democrats are likely to embrace and one which will serve their ambitions but hide the truth. We should have no illusions about this, for to believe otherwise is to set ourselves up for the continuation of Bush's war by a Democrat.
Edwards declared in an op-ed column in the Washington Post on November 13, 2005: "The argument for going to war with Iraq was based on intelligence that we now know was inaccurate. The information the American people were hearing from the president -- and that I was being given by our intelligence community -- wasn't the whole story. Had I known this at the time, I never would have voted for this war." Sounds simple enough. "Had I known then what I know now, etc." Poor John Edwards was deceived. But was he? How was it that 21 other Democratic Senators and 2 Republicans were not deceived and voted against the war?
Part of the answer arrived in another op-ed the Washington Post one week later, November 20, 2005, by another former Senator, Bob Graham, entitled: "What I knew Before the Invasion."
*The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the posting party but they're damned interesting nonetheless and all the same.
4474. alistairConnor - 12/6/2005 5:47:35 PM
Hey Jex - you posted about a memory game, I can't remember which thread (doh)
I want to buy one for my mum. What's it called?
4475. jexster - 12/6/2005 9:17:04 PM
Wait til I tell Bennett....Turns out he's still looking for partners..partners to put in the $$ for manufacture and distribution..which I hope he gets because the game is really quite ingenious..he's been product testing for a while now in various senior communities where it has been well received...they've more memories but even a youngster like me has fun with it..
www.ginkgogame.com
will let you know when he gets it into production.....
4476. jexster - 12/6/2005 9:52:59 PM
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.
– George Orwell
4477. jexster - 12/6/2005 10:00:51 PM
4478. wonkers2 - 12/6/2005 11:29:47 PM
Jex, who wrote the piece on what lies the Democrats knew and the critique of John Edwards. (The link didn't work, and I'm curious who the author and publicatin were.
4479. wonkers2 - 12/6/2005 11:51:47 PM
What the CIA and DOD have been doing to prisoners is straight out of Kafka. It's obviously counter-productive to our efforts to deal with terrorism as well as violative of everything we used to stand for.
4480. jexster - 12/7/2005 12:16:07 AM
Sorry..counterpunch..The Lies of John Edwards
and here is another even more interesting piece from the same source
"Broken, Worn Out" and "Living Hand to Mouth"
The Revolt of the Generals
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
4481. jexster - 12/7/2005 12:22:43 AM
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins.
Time to pay the Piper
4482. jexster - 12/7/2005 7:02:15 AM
Cole: Dean Gets It, Bush Doesn't
"Winnning Smart"?
Bush made a considerable contribution to modern American political rhetoric with the his alliterations.
I got give the man credit.
But it is time for slogans to go..Especially for Democrats.
"complete victory" v. "Winning smart?"
C'mon. "Cutting our losses as best we can" doesn't make for much of a slogan I grant you but why is that the most important US foreign policy debate in decades is reduced to what sounds like a colloquy between Beavis and Butthead?
4483. jexster - 12/7/2005 7:17:54 AM
5-2-1
I think Zbigniew Brzezinski has it about right. I have since the first I heard his views on disengagement nearly two years ago. I hasten to add that putting 5 years on Bush's lips is a fool's errand.
He's freed himself of Bush sloganeering perhaps?
4484. jexster - 12/7/2005 7:36:48 AM
GWB: AmeriKa's Jewish Question?
Yes, Virginia, there are 27 days of Hannukah
4485. jayackroyd - 12/7/2005 7:41:58 AM
Thanks for that piece about Edwards. I don't think it's entirely fair--I'm certain that the intelligence committee was also given misleading information. But Graham makes a strong case--and he's no wussy pinko like Levin.
4486. jexster - 12/7/2005 7:43:08 AM
Hail to the Rabbi-in-Chief!
4487. jexster - 12/7/2005 7:46:48 AM
Yeah Jay..they knew what wuz up..Walsh failed to mention that Biden and Daschle (and this was key for me at the time) had during the same period insisted that they would put over the vote on the WPR until after the election...
They knew what wuz up..they knew Bush was a lying fuck ...
They were on "inquiry notice" as we lawyers would say..a duty to inquire what that nasty smell was...
4488. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 7:59:54 AM
Jay--"wussy pinko like Levin." Shades of Joe McCarthy! My Carl Levin is one of the best, most honest and smartest in the Senate. I can't imagine why you'd say that.
4489. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 8:01:46 AM
Bush's invasion of Iraq was a bad mistake even if the lies about WMD had been true. There were far better ways to deal with the situation.
4490. jexster - 12/7/2005 12:21:21 PM
Just a Change of Masters for Iraq's Press
Sidney Morning Herald
4491. jexster - 12/7/2005 12:43:56 PM
How was breffuss this morning Wiz..
Anything interesting in the Harvard Courant???
Lieberman Calls for War Cabinet
4492. jexster - 12/7/2005 12:49:48 PM
War Crimes Made Easy
by Jeremy Brecher, Brendan Smith, and Tom Engelhardt
4493. jexster - 12/7/2005 2:18:13 PM
Democrats Fear Anti-War Backlash at Polls
Nuthin to fear but fear itself marmots...
4494. jexster - 12/7/2005 2:23:57 PM
ROFLMAO
4495. jexster - 12/7/2005 3:38:22 PM
From Europa:
US Credibility in the Crapper
4496. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 4:02:09 PM
Pelosi and Murtha are right. Emanuel, Reid, Hilary, et al are wrong.It's time they started, for a change, worrying about what's right instead of the next election.
4497. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 5:12:15 PM
Senator Clinton In Pander Mode
4498. robertjayb - 12/7/2005 7:31:32 PM
That is really pathetic...
4499. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 7:36:10 PM
In the meantime, McCain comes across as "Mr. Says-Just-What-He-Believes."
4500. robertjayb - 12/7/2005 7:39:37 PM
Pentagon may halt deployments...
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has tentative plans to halt the scheduled deployment of two brigades to Iraq and instead send in smaller teams to support and train Iraqi forces in what could be an early step toward an eventual drawdown of U.S. forces, defense officials said Wednesday.
The proposal comes amid growing pressure from Congress and the public to pull troops out of Iraq. Details are still under discussion, and it would largely depend on the military and political conditions there after the parliamentary elections next week, said the officials.
4501. arkymalarky - 12/7/2005 7:52:54 PM
I've been telling y'all about Hillary. I really just don't care for her. Never have, even when she was AR's First Lady.
4502. wonkers2 - 12/7/2005 8:24:05 PM
Arky, I'd be interested in your reaction (and anybody else's) to my comment in the movie thread on the novels of CS Lewis, Tolkien and Rowling. For some reason I have reservations about the craze for these fantasy books. Do you think they will stand the test of time in the realm of good literature?
(Both these posts are in the wrong threads. Sorry, Pelle!)
4503. jexster - 12/7/2005 11:40:58 PM
4504. jexster - 12/7/2005 11:51:25 PM
All Over But the Pullback
Maybe Billy Kristol will send that wackjob who thinks there's evidence of Saddamite turruhisses and WMD in Syria with the Ace of Spades...one frightening Special Ops unit..
Run for your lives...
Be sure and give Acie Girl the thermobaric rocket launcher
4505. jexster - 12/8/2005 9:27:16 AM
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record), D-Conn., said earlier this week that Democrats "undercut the president's credibility at our nation's peril."
4506. thoughtful - 12/8/2005 9:40:20 AM
Lieberass is getting downright scary. He's as much a dem as zell miller. At this rate, he'll probably take zell's place at the gop convention.
4507. jexster - 12/8/2005 9:53:20 AM
Questionable Assumptions
by William S. Lind
At the end of November, the Bush administration issued a 35-page document titled, "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq." The new white paper does not represent a change of strategy: it says at the outset, "The following document articulates the broad strategy the president set forth in 2003…." But it does offer an authoritative statement of the administration's position and is thus worth careful consideration.
Like most official documents, it spreads a small amount of substance over a large number of pages. But if we want to analyze it from a military perspective, the key is to be found on page 18, under the subhead, "The Security Track in Detail." There, it says, "The security track is based on six core assumptions (emphasis in original)." Why is this key? Because if core assumptions are wrong, everything that follows from them is likely to be wrong, too.
4508. jexster - 12/8/2005 9:55:20 AM
The Yiddish Cowboy...should be deported..I hear Likud has some legislative openings
4509. jayackroyd - 12/8/2005 9:57:30 AM
I can't imagine why you'd say that.
I was joking. My point is that he is seen as further to the left and more partisan than Graham.
4510. wonkers2 - 12/8/2005 9:58:28 AM
Good article.
4511. jexster - 12/8/2005 10:07:15 AM
Joe Lieberman...Lizard of the Senate...
Adam Sandler's 'The Hanukkah Song Part I'
"Okay... This is a song that uhh.. There's a lot of Christmas songs out there and uhh.. not too many Hanukkah songs. So uhh...I wrote a song for all those nice little Jewish kids who don't get to hear any Hanukkah songs. Here we go..."
Put on your yarmulke,
Here comes Hanukkah!
So much funukah,
To celebrate Hanukkah!
4512. jexster - 12/8/2005 10:26:31 AM
Bird-Dogging Hillary Clinton
The antiwar movement steps up
by Joshua Frank
One has to be pleased that the antiwar movement is taking shape. Finally the target isn't just George. W. Bush and gang. Last night at a chic Manhattan fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, antiwar activists staked out the senator and vowed to do so until she changes her position on the war.
Sen. Clinton released a letter last week that clarified her (non) position on Iraq. She said she wouldn't accept any timetable for withdrawal and won't even embrace a "redeployment" of U.S. troops along the lines of Rep. Murtha.
"I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the president and his administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war," Clinton wrote in her lengthy letter that amounted to nothing short of denial for her own culpability in the mess.
Last Friday, Clinton spoke at an event in Kentucky where she reiterated her position.
"The time has come for the administration to stop serving up platitudes and present a plan for finishing this war with success and honor," she said. "I reject a rigid timetable that the terrorists can exploit, and I reject an open timetable that has no ending attached to it."
Translation: Clinton is all for an extended American stay in Iraq. She "takes responsibility" for her vote on the war, but won't admit that it was wrong. And of course, Clinton is still for "winning" this war. Whatever that means.
Antiwar activists across the country have not been overly pleased with Clinton's continued warmongering these past few weeks. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, who supported John Kerry's pro-war campaign last year, has changed her tune on the Democrats and says she will be hot on Clinton's trail across the country. "We're calling it 'Bird-Dog Hillary,'" Benjamin raves.
It's about time.
Cindy Sheehan also said she'll be tracking down Hillary, maintaining that she and other activists may even take Camp Casey to the streets of NYC. Activists here in New York assured me last month that they plan on organizing a lot of events and sit-ins in front of Clinton's offices in the months ahead. I think this is proof the antiwar movement is finally getting somewhere.
Over on the other side of the country, in San Francisco, antiwar activists plan to hold a huge rally on Dec. 20, where Clinton will be attending a bar association benefit with an interview session with Jane Pauley.
Focusing all of the antiwar movement's energy on the Republicans is shortsighted, and perhaps worst of all, completely naïve. The Democrats not only authorized this war, they still by and large defend the ongoing occupation.
Taking on the leaders of both parties is paramount if we are ever to end this bloody conflict.
How nice it would have been for the antiwar movement had they held Kerry's feet to the fire during last year's presidential election. But one has to be glad that prominent leaders like Medea Benjamin and publications like The Nation, which is also stating that it won't be supporting any pro-war candidate in the future – are finally coming around. The liberal myopia that infected so many may at last be wearing off.
Lesser-evil politics often gets in the way of successful social movements; so let's hope antiwarriors keep up their pressure on Hillary Clinton. It can only lead to good things
4513. jayackroyd - 12/8/2005 12:44:34 PM
CFR couldn't fill the room for the president's speech.
4514. jexster - 12/8/2005 2:42:57 PM
Who Says There is No God?
Rummy Exit Rumored; Lieberman Eyed for Job
White House officials are telling associates they expect Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to quit early next year, once a new government is formed in Iraq, sources said yesterday.
And he such a future with the Likud
4515. wonkers2 - 12/8/2005 4:04:17 PM
Lieberman wouldn't be much of an improvement over Rumsfeld although he might put his foot down on torture.
4516. jexster - 12/8/2005 10:00:20 PM
The Eagle Has Crash Landed
Locking Uncle Sam out of Asia
Big-power summits have had little effect since the end of the cold war. But in Asia, where old rivalries are still tense, their potential is still huge. On Monday, 16 leaders hold the first Asia-wide summit. The results may be few, but note: The region's biggest military and economic player, the US, wasn't invited
4517. thoughtful - 12/9/2005 7:58:34 AM
Well if lieberass is in line for secdef position, at least that would explain why he's been doing what he's been doing and saying what he's been saying.
He's like alito...oh, don't pay any attention to what i say just to get a public position...means nothing!
4518. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/9/2005 9:05:03 AM
I'm so fed up with all of these bastards. You can always tell what people really believe by what they do and not what they say. They piss on your shoes while they're shaking your hand and the American public seems to only wise up after they walk around for a while with soggy feet.
I hope to God we can unload Lieberman to the other side--they're welcome to him!
4519. robertjayb - 12/9/2005 11:09:22 AM
Iraq-al Quada link claim based on coerced statement.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.
4520. jexster - 12/9/2005 11:44:20 AM
Don't tell Ace.
He's been renditioned
4521. jexster - 12/9/2005 11:45:42 AM
Cheney in Last Throes
Ray McGovern writes that Vice President Dick Cheney, whose unbridled chutzpah has led him to take public as well as private credit for being the intellectual author of US policy on torture, has become such a glaring liability that his tenure may be short-lived. There is a growing possibility that the vice president will resign at the turn of the year "for reasons of health," and that his partner-in-crime - in what Colin Powell's former chief of staff at the State Department, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, has labeled the "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" - will choose to retire to his home in Taos early next year
4522. jexster - 12/9/2005 11:50:50 AM
Yea that's Wizzer's Senator thoughtful..Calls for "war cabinet", attacking Bush cred equiv. of treason??
What a scum.. I remember how certain powerful Connecticutting Zionistas I knew at the time were chortling over their prospects of electing the Lizard to the Senate back in 1990...
The Senator from Likud
4523. jexster - 12/9/2005 11:59:55 AM
Architects of Disaster: Paul Wolfowitz
4524. jexster - 12/9/2005 12:10:43 PM
The Eagle's Crash Site
Bush's 'Lucid Dreams' Becoming Nightmares
Washington's plans to 'punish' China and 'win' in Iraq are turning into worthless adventures
4525. jexster - 12/9/2005 12:34:56 PM
Have URself a Shia Little Crimmus
Enjoy!
You paid for it AmeriKa.
4526. jexster - 12/10/2005 3:04:24 PM
FOCUS | One Fatwa From an Exit Strategy
Nir Rosen: If America Left Iraq
Referencing the lack of stability and electricity, Nir Rosen cites prominent Sunni and Shiite Iraqi organizations who have demanded a US commitment to a timely withdrawal of troops.
4527. jexster - 12/10/2005 7:17:11 PM
We call it the Democratic Party....
US News Call It - A Conderacy of Dunces
4528. jexster - 12/10/2005 8:47:17 PM
You knew it would happen.
You knew as soon as he stood under the klieg lights in Jackson Square.
New Orleans Was Going to Get Screwed Too
HEADLINE: The Promiser in Chief
BYLINE: By PAUL KRUGMAN
BODY:
Sometimes reconstruction delayed is reconstruction denied.
A few months after the invasion of Iraq, President Bush promised to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and economy. He -- or, at any rate, his speechwriters -- understood that reconstruction was important not just for its own sake, but as a way to deprive the growing insurgency of support. In October 2003 he declared that ''the more electricity is available, the more jobs are available, the more kids that are going to school, the more desperate these killers become.''
But for a long time, Iraqi reconstruction was more of a public relations exercise than a real effort. Remember when visiting congressmen were taken on tours of newly painted schools?
Both supporters and opponents of the war now argue that by moving so slowly on reconstruction, the Bush administration missed a crucial window of opportunity. By the time reconstruction spending began in earnest, it was in a losing race with a deteriorating security situation.
As a result, the electricity and jobs that were supposed to make the killers desperate never arrived. Iraq produced less electricity last month than in October 2003. The Iraqi government estimates the unemployment rate at 27 percent, but the real number is probably much higher.
Now we're losing another window of opportunity for reconstruction. But this time it's at home.
Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Bush made an elaborately staged appearance in New Orleans, where he promised big things. ''The work that has begun in the Gulf Coast region,'' he said, ''will be one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen.''
Such an effort would be the right thing to do. We can argue about details -- about which levees should be restored and how strong to make them -- but it's clearly in the nation's interests as well as local residents' to rebuild much of the regional economy.
But Mr. Bush seems to have forgotten about his promise. More than three months after Katrina, a major reconstruction effort isn't even in the planning stage, let alone under way. ''To an extent almost inconceivable a few months ago,'' a Los Angeles Times report about New Orleans says, ''the only real actors in the rebuilding drama at the moment are the city's homeowners and business owners.''
It's worth noting in passing that Mr. Bush hasn't even appointed a new team to fix the dysfunctional Federal Emergency Management Agency. Most of the agency's key positions, including the director's job -- left vacant by the departure of Michael ''heck of a job'' Brown -- are filled on an acting basis, by temporary place holders. The chief of staff is still a political loyalist with no prior disaster management experience.
One FEMA program has, however, been revamped. The Recovery Channel is a satellite and Internet network that used to provide practical information to disaster victims. Now it features public relations segments telling viewers what a great job FEMA and the Bush administration are doing.
But back to reconstruction. By letting the gulf region languish, Mr. Bush is allowing a window of opportunity to close, just as he did in Iraq.
To see why, you need to understand a point emphasized by that report in The Los Angeles Times: the private sector can't rebuild the region on its own. The reason goes beyond the need for flood protection and basic infrastructure, which only the government can provide. Rebuilding is also blocked by a vicious circle of uncertainty. Business owners are reluctant to return to the gulf region because they aren't sure whether their customers and workers will return, too. And families are reluctant to return because they aren't sure whether businesses will be there to provide jobs and basic amenities.
A credible reconstruction plan could turn that vicious circle into a virtuous circle, in which everyone expects a regional recovery and, by acting on that expectation, helps that recovery come to pass. But as the months go by with no plan and no money, businesses and families will make permanent decisions to relocate elsewhere, and the loss of faith in a gulf region recovery will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Funny, isn't it? Back during the 2000 campaign Mr. Bush promised to avoid ''nation building.'' And so he has. He failed to rebuild Iraq because he waited too long to get started. And now he's doing the same thing here at home.
4529. jexster - 12/10/2005 8:56:20 PM
4530. jexster - 12/11/2005 3:41:24 AM
The Democrats couldn't find water if they fell out of a boat. Dodgeball
General Odom Calls for Immediate Exit from Iraq
United Press International
Washington - The US general who used to head the National Security Agency says the only way to stabilize the Middle East is to leave Iraq.
Retired three star Lt. Gen. William Odom, writing for NiemanWatchdog.org, wrote that while President George W. Bush wants to bring democracy and stability to the Middle East, the only way to achieve that goal is for the US armed forces to get out of Iraq now.
Odom, one of the most respected US military analysts and a prominent figure at the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington, wrote, "We have seen most of our allies stand aside and engage in Schadenfreude over our painful bog-down in Iraq. Winston Churchill's glib observation, 'the only thing worse that having allies is having none,' was once again vindicated.
"There is no chance that our allies will join us in Iraq," he wrote. "... Iraq is the worst place to fight a battle for regional stability. Whose interests were best served by the US invasion of Iraq in the first place? It turns out that Iran and al-Qaida benefited the most, and that continues to be true every day US forces remain there."
4531. jexster - 12/11/2005 3:58:53 AM
Halliburton for the Rest of US
If you're ever in SF, go get your money back at
Helmand
430 Broadway, San Francisco, CA
Afghan delicacies like kaddo, sweetened pan-fried pumpkin, take center stage at this generous lunch buffet, a steal at only $9.95.
Pat and Qayum Karzai - proprietors
Have one in Balmer too
4532. jexster - 12/11/2005 10:20:14 AM
From the US Army War College.......
"Precedents, Variables, and Options in Planning a U.S. Military Disengagement Strategy from Iraq," warns not only that a civil war in Iraq may be approaching, but that it could threaten access to Middle Eastern oil and possibly spread violence -- and terrorism -- throughout the region. Such a powerful shock to the United States must be avoided by all means, it maintains.
The report argues that the efforts to build a new Iraqi army are falling short and that the United States should be willing, at least for an interim period, to permit militias to control sections of Iraq, even if that brings with it human rights violations.
In the interview, Terrill added that America should be prepared not just to provide billions of dollars in aid for Iraqi reconstruction for years to come, but also should be prepared to supply arms to an authoritarian government.
"There is a danger they will use those weapons in a way we don't want," said Terrill. "I hate to say that, but we have to maintain our influence there. Some problems are too difficult to solve right away, and you have to kick them down the road."
War experts advise strategy overhaul
Authors of downbeat report fear current course risks cataclysm
The Report (Terrill and Crane) Their first before the War was Quiet Prescient.
4533. jexster - 12/11/2005 10:36:39 AM
Maybe Saddam be willing to cut a deal? Go to the Ranch for BBQ - a bit of brisket and Lone Star?
The report argues that the efforts to build a new Iraqi army are falling short and that the United States should be willing, at least for an interim period, to permit militias to control sections of Iraq, even if that brings with it human rights violations.
In the interview, Terrill added that America should be prepared not just to provide billions of dollars in aid for Iraqi reconstruction for years to come, but also should be prepared to supply arms to an authoritarian government.
"There is a danger they will use those weapons in a way we don't want," said Terrill. "I hate to say that, but we have to maintain our influence there. Some problems are too difficult to solve right away, and you have to kick them down the road."
4534. jexster - 12/11/2005 11:06:12 AM
You knew it.
You knew it as soon as the Charlatan-in-Chief opened his lying mouth
"The greatest reconstruction the world has ever seen"
FOCUS: The New York Times | Death of an American City
Whether it is a conscious plan to let New Orleans rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.
4535. jayackroyd - 12/11/2005 11:29:38 AM
This week's NYTimes Week in Review section is better than usual. A biting op-ed from Frank Rich is routine, but there is also a very interesting piece from the always reliable John Burns on the Saddam trial. There's a very clear Iraqi politics for dummies diagram and an interesting piece by Minaya, one of the Iraqi exiles who helped make the case for war. Kristof imagines the president confronted by St Peter.
4536. jexster - 12/11/2005 5:31:21 PM
Nice blog of the Select there Jay..
Selectman Jay!
Here's Rich for the rest of us.
December 11, 2005 Sunday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 4; Column 2; Editorial Desk; Pg. 12
LENGTH: 1573 words
HEADLINE: It Takes a Potemkin Village
BYLINE: By Frank Rich
BODY:
WHEN a government substitutes propaganda for governing, the Potemkin village is all. Since we don't get honest information from this White House, we must instead, as the Soviets once did, decode our rulers' fictions to discern what's really happening. What we're seeing now is the wheels coming off: As the administration's stagecraft becomes more baroque, its credibility tanks further both at home and abroad. The propaganda techniques may be echt Goebbels, but they increasingly come off as pure Ali G.
The latest desperate shifts in White House showmanship say at least as much about our progress (or lack of same) in Iraq over the past 32 months as reports from the ground. When President Bush announced the end of ''major combat operations'' in May 2003, his Imagineers felt the need for only a single elegant banner declaring ''Mission Accomplished.'' Cut to Nov. 30, 2005: the latest White House bumper sticker, ''Plan for Victory,'' multiplied by Orwellian mitosis over nearly every square inch of the rather ''Queer Eye'' stage set from which Mr. Bush delivered his oration at the Naval Academy.
And to no avail. Despite the insistently redundant graphics -- and despite the repetition of the word ''victory'' 15 times in the speech itself -- Americans believed ''Plan for Victory'' far less than they once did ''Mission Accomplished.'' The first New York Times-CBS News Poll since the Naval Academy pep talk, released last Thursday, found that only 25 percent of Americans say the president has ''a clear plan for victory in Iraq.'' Tom Cruise and evolution still have larger constituencies in America than that.
4537. jexster - 12/11/2005 5:31:44 PM
Mr. Bush's ''Plan for Victory'' speech was, of course, the usual unadulterated nonsense. Its overarching theme -- ''We will never accept anything less than complete victory'' -- was being contradicted even as he spoke by rampant reports of Pentagon plans for stepped-up troop withdrawals between next week's Iraqi elections and the more important (for endangered Republicans) American Election Day of 2006. The specifics were phony, too: Once again inflating the readiness of Iraqi troops, Mr. Bush claimed that the recent assault on Tal Afar ''was primarily led by Iraqi security forces'' -- a fairy tale immediately unmasked by Michael Ware, a Time reporter embedded in that battle's front lines, as ''completely wrong.'' No less an authority than the office of Iraq's prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, promptly released a 59-page report documenting his own military's inadequate leadership, equipment and training.
But this variety of Bush balderdash is such old news that everyone except that ga-ga 25 percent instantaneously tunes it out. We routinely assume that the subtext (i.e., the omissions and deliberate factual errors) of his speeches and scripted town meetings will be more revealing than the texts themselves. What raised the ''Plan for Victory'' show to new heights of disinformation was the subsequent revelation that the administration's main stated motive for the address -- the release of a 35-page document laying out a ''National Strategy for Victory in Iraq'' -- was as much a theatrical prop as the stunt turkey the president posed with during his one furtive visit to Baghdad two Thanksgivings ago.
As breathlessly heralded by Scott McClellan, this glossy brochure was ''an unclassified version'' of the strategy in place since the war's inception in ''early 2003.'' But Scott Shane of The New York Times told another story. Through a few keystrokes, the electronic version of the document at whitehouse.gov could be manipulated to reveal text ''usually hidden from public view.'' What turned up was the name of the document's originating author: Peter Feaver, a Duke political scientist who started advising the National Security Council only this June. Dr. Feaver is an expert on public opinion about war, not war itself. Thus we now know that what Mr. McClellan billed as a 2003 strategy for military victory is in fact a P.R. strategy in place for no more than six months. That solves the mystery of why Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the Army, who is in charge of training Iraqi troops, told reporters that he had never seen this ''National Strategy'' before its public release last month.
In a perfect storm of revelations, the ''Plan for Victory'' speech fell on the same day that The Los Angeles Times exposed new doings on another front in the White House propaganda war. An obscure Defense Department contractor, the Lincoln Group, was caught paying off Iraqi journalists to run upbeat news articles secretly written by American Army personnel and translated into Arabic (at a time when American troops in harm's way are desperate for Arabic translators of their own). One of the papers running the fake news is Al Mutamar, the Baghdad daily run by associates of Ahmad Chalabi. So now we know that at least one P.R. plan, if not a plan for victory, has been consistent since early 2003. As Mr. Chalabi helped feed spurious accounts of Saddam's W.M.D. to American newspapers to gin up the war, so his minions now help disseminate happy talk to his own country's press to further the illusion that the war is being won.
The Lincoln Group's articles (e.g., ''The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq'') are not without their laughs -- for us, if not for the Iraqis, whose intelligence is insulted and whose democratic aspirations are betrayed by them. But the texts are no more revealing than those of Mr. Bush's speeches. Look instead at the cover-up that has followed the Los Angeles Times revelations. The administration and its frontmen at once started stonewalling from a single script. Mr. McClellan, Pentagon spokesmen, Senator John Warner and Donald Rumsfeld all give the identical answer to the many press queries. We don't have the facts, they say, even as they maintain that the Lincoln Group articles themselves are factual.
The Pentagon earmarks more than $100 million in taxpayers' money for various Lincoln Group operations, and it can't get any facts? Though the 30-year-old prime mover in the shadowy outfit, one Christian Bailey, fled from Andrea Mitchell of NBC News when she pursued him on camera in Washington, certain facts are proving not at all elusive.
Ms. Mitchell and other reporters have learned that Mr. Bailey has had at least four companies since 2002, most of them interlocking, short-lived and under phantom names. Government Executive magazine also discovered that Mr. Bailey ''was a founder and active participant in Lead21,'' a Republican ''fund-raising and networking operation'' -- which has since scrubbed his name from its Web site -- and that he and a partner in his ventures once listed a business address identical to their Washington residence. This curious tale, with its trail of cash payoffs, trading in commercial Iraqi real estate and murky bidding procedures for lucrative U.S. government contracts, could have been lifted from ''Syriana'' or ''Glengarry Glen Ross.'' While Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. McClellan valiantly continue their search for ''the facts,'' what we know so far can safely be filed under the general heading of ''Lay, DeLay and Abramoff.''
The more we learn about such sleaze in the propaganda war, the more we see it's failing for the same reason as the real war: incompetence. Much as the disastrous Bremer regime botched the occupation of Iraq with bad decisions made by its array of administration cronies and relatives (among them Ari Fleischer's brother), so the White House doesn't exactly get the biggest bang for the bucks it shells out to cronies for fake news.
Until he was unmasked as an administration shill, Armstrong Williams was less known for journalism than for striking a deal to dismiss a messy sexual-harassment suit against him in 1999. When an Army commander had troops sign 500 identical good-news form letters to local newspapers throughout America in 2003, the fraud was so transparent it was almost instantly debunked. The fictional scenarios concocted for Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman also unraveled quickly, as did last weekend's Pentagon account of 10 marines killed outside Falluja on a ''routine foot patrol.'' As the NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski told Don Imus last week, he received calls within hours from the fallen's loved ones about how the marines had been slaughtered after being recklessly sent to an unprotected site for a promotion ceremony.
Though the White House doesn't know that its jig is up, everyone else does. Americans see that New Orleans is in as sorry shape today as it was under Brownie three months ago. The bipartisan 9/11 commissioners confirm that homeland security remains a pork pit. Condi Rice's daily clarifications of her clarifications about American torture policies are contradicted by new reports of horrors before her latest circumlocutions leave her mouth. And the president's latest Iraq speeches -- most recently about the ''success'' stories of Najaf and Mosul -- still don't stand up to the most rudimentary fact checking.
This is why the most revealing poll number in the Times/CBS survey released last week was Mr. Bush's approval rating for the one area where things are going relatively well, the economy: 38 percent, only 2 points higher than his rating on Iraq. It's a measure of the national cynicism bequeathed by the Bush culture that seeing anything, even falling prices at the pump, is no longer believing.
So THERE Jay...you can't get graphics like THAT in the Gray Gray Lady's SelectPot can ya
4538. jexster - 12/11/2005 5:39:24 PM
4539. jexster - 12/11/2005 9:47:24 PM
It seems so long ago, the London Bombings, but we shall look back on those days as the last stand of the Useful Idiots in the Clash of Civilizations.
It wasn't so long ago, that the useful idiots scoffed at claims of serious analysts and scholars both here, in Israel, in Saudi Arabia, and Jordan that the US invasion of Iraq is directly responsible for the vast increase in terrorist bombings in Iraq and elsewehere.
That was then....
It is now conventional wisdom..Two items just today...
- Dateline NBC Investigates
Trail of Terror - MSNBC (tonight)
- Steven Spiegel argues in the LA Times that the Iraq War has boomeranged and made the US significantly less safe.
Howze Ace's terrorist connection investigation coming BTW?
Anyone know?
Anyone dumb enuf to admit they care?
4540. jexster - 12/11/2005 10:07:02 PM
LAT
French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence;
The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before the war that there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ex-officials say.
DATELINE: PARIS
BODY:
More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.
The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service and a former CIA official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.
The French conclusions were reached after extensive on-the-ground investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where the uranium mines are controlled by French companies, said Alain Chouet, the French former official. He said the French investigated at the CIA's request.
Chouet's account was "at odds with our understanding of the issue," a U.S. government official said. The U.S. official declined to elaborate and spoke only on condition that neither he nor his agency be named.
However, the essence of Chouet's account -- that the French repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA -- was extensively corroborated by the former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity.
The repeated warnings from France's Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure did not prevent the Bush administration from making the case aggressively that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons materials.
It was not the first time a foreign government tried to warn U.S. officials off of dubious prewar intelligence....
4541. jexster - 12/12/2005 3:18:24 AM
The Lizard of the Senate
Joe Republican?
George Bush can't stop talking about Sen. Joe Lieberman. For the last two weeks, the ... More
4542. jexster - 12/12/2005 10:07:34 AM
Madline Albright said Bush was a lying delusional sack of shit, but even as this week's Newsweek runs a cover "Bush in the Bubble", Lindsay Graham on the same show says "Why even Joe Lieberman says that's nonsense"?
Flays Commander-in-Chief's Claims
Murtha Returns to the Attack
you heard him say that 70 percent of the Iraqis were satisfied, in that paper they sent me. Now, you'll see a document that's in this package here that told me six months before -- well, in the victory document he says we have 212,000 people trained now, Iraqi security people. Last year, we had 96,000.
Yet, they wrote to me six months before the last year's statement that said they had 200,000. Now, why don't I believe them when they say anything? They said we got weapons of mass destruction. They said we got an Al Qaida connection. They said we got nuclear weapons. They said we cross this red line which surrounds Baghdad and we're going to have a war with them.
"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years. We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril."
Joseph Lieberman, Lizard of the Senate
4543. jexster - 12/12/2005 10:27:14 AM
4544. wonkers2 - 12/12/2005 10:47:10 AM
Why does that not surprize me? Because my parents lived in Colombia under a military dictator, General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, for five or ten years, and, initially at least, he had broad support in the country for establishing a modicum of peace and order. Life went on more or less normally for nearly everyone.
4545. wonkers2 - 12/12/2005 10:58:45 AM
Viveka Novak, on suspension, tells almost all on Time website.
4546. jexster - 12/12/2005 11:14:38 AM
Bush is going to tell us kiddies all about Iraq and our Founding Fuckers today..stay tuned
4547. jexster - 12/12/2005 11:56:23 AM
KATRINA
The Forgotten Tragedy
Center for American Progress
On September 15, President Bush stood in downtown New Orleans -- bathed in floodlights powered by generators -- and made a pledge. Bush said, "Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. ... There is no way to imagine America without New Orleans." It hasn't worked out that way. A presidential adviser told TIME Magazine reporter Mike Allen that Katrina "has fallen so far off the radar screen, you can't even find it." Bush hasn't visited the Gulf Coast since Oct. 11. Most significantly, critical funding to build stronger and higher levees has not been appropriated. The New York Time notes, "Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need a commitment [that stronger levees will be constructed] before they will stake their futures on the city." As it stands, we "are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die."
ADMINISTRATION WAVERING ON LEVEE FUNDING: It will cost an estimated $32 billion "to strengthen Louisiana's flood defenses so they could withstand a Category 5 hurricane." The price tag has "drawn a tepid response from the Bush administration." The administration's top reconstruction official, Donald Powell, said the decision about whether to provide funding for the levees will "[h]opefully...be made sooner rather than later." While the cost of the levees is significant, the New York Times notes "it is barely one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the House of Representatives," that would largely benefit the wealthy and are supported whole heartedly by the White House. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) says "she'll use parliamentary procedures to keep Congress in session over Christmas unless it approves spending for levees, Louisiana school districts and hospitals."
4548. wonkers2 - 12/12/2005 12:04:24 PM
Just another unfulfilled Bush promise. Lies, lies and more lies.
4549. jexster - 12/12/2005 5:18:24 PM
My My The Times They R a Changin!
President Bush says that he's building a new Iraq, a poerful partner for democracy in the Middle East...but how is this possible when 2/3 of Iraqis aay they don't want us there?
Let's play Harball...
How?
Shhh..don't tell SCIRI, Dawa, Mahdi Army, Muqtada or
My Corps
Your Corps
Our Corps
Badr Corps!
4550. jexster - 12/12/2005 5:24:27 PM
"We're fighting this war in Iraq to keep Saddam from marching down the Saudi Arabian Peninsula" Mitt Romney Hardball 12/-12-05
Grab some pine MEAT
4551. Ulgine Barrows - 12/13/2005 2:14:01 AM
Would somebody give him a blowjob, so we can impeach him?
4552. Ulgine Barrows - 12/13/2005 2:14:39 AM
please...anybody
4553. arkymalarky - 12/13/2005 6:18:26 PM
Hahaha.
4554. jexster - 12/14/2005 12:21:40 PM
Open wide UB..better you than me..If you can find the offensive member it is your patriotic duty to get down and get caught
Decadent America Must Give Up Imperial Ambitions
By Anatol Lieven
US global power, as presently conceived by the overwhelming majority of the US establishment, is unsustainable. To place American power on a firmer footing requires putting it on a more limited footing. Despite the lessons of Iraq, this is something that American policymakers--Democrat and Republican, civilian and military--still find extremely difficult to think about.
The basic reasons why the American empire is bust are familiar from other imperial histories. The empire can no longer raise enough taxes or soldiers, it is increasingly indebted and key vassal states are no longer reliable. In an equally classical fashion, central to what is happening is the greed and decadence of the imperial elites. Like so many of their predecessors, the US wealthy classes have gained a grip over the state that allows them to escape taxation. Mass acquiescence in this has to be bought with much smaller--but fiscally equally damaging--cuts to taxes on the middle classes.
The result is that the empire can no longer pay for enough of the professional troops it needs to fulfil its self-assumed imperial tasks. ...
In theory, the desirable US response to its imperial overstretch is simple and has been advocated by some leading independent US thinkers such as Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard.* It is to fall back on "offshore balancing", intended to create regional coalitions against potential aggressors and, when possible, regional consensuses in support of order and stability. Not just a direct military presence, but direct military commitments and alliances should be avoided wherever possible.
When, however, one traces what this might mean in practice in various parts of the world, it becomes clear how utterly unacceptable much of this approach would be to the entire existing US political order. In the former Soviet Union, it could mean accepting a qualified form of Russian sphere of influence. In Asia, it could mean backing Japan and other countries against any Chinese aggression, but also defusing the threat of confrontation with China by encouraging the reintegration of Taiwan into the mainland. In the Middle East, it could involve separating US goals from Israeli ones and seeking detente with Iran.
Impossible today, some at least of these moves may, however, prove inescapable in a generation's time. For it is pointless to dream of long maintaining an American empire for which most Americans will neither pay nor fight. My fear though is that, rather than as a result of carefully planned and peaceful strategy, this process may occur through disastrous defeats, in the course of which American global power will not be qualified but destroyed altogether, with potentially awful consequences for the world.
4555. jexster - 12/15/2005 3:51:36 PM
Bush is one fatwa away from an exit strategery...
And the stupid fuck probably don't even know it Jay
4556. jexster - 12/15/2005 3:53:46 PM
The Sunnis are coming! The Sunnis are coming
They're comin to save your sorry ass Ronski and they're comin with those Sarin UAV's that had you pissin your panties
You silly stupid queen....
4557. jexster - 12/15/2005 3:57:35 PM
Remember back in January when the Useful Idiots waved their purple fingers over the election of the SCIRI/DAWA/Iranian government?
Now they think the dead-enders and Saddamites are going to save them...
Let's those purple fingers...I wanna see em all
4558. jexster - 12/15/2005 4:00:54 PM
Welcome to Lose/Lose
They're fuckt if they do
They're fuckt if they don't
and they are too fucking dumb to know they've been fuckt butt good..
Time to take out the garbage for the Good Ole USA
4559. jexster - 12/16/2005 12:56:37 PM
Meet the New Abp of SF in RP
native of Los Angeles and lifelong admirer of Gandhi, Niederauer has been honored for his uncompromising stand against the Iraq war and in favor of immigrant rights.
He is not confused about the regnant immorality
4560. jexster - 12/16/2005 2:45:53 PM
Ronski..yo livin a lie
Historically, faggots have ofen made the very best Nazi's
Especially the self-loathing ones
4561. jexster - 12/16/2005 2:46:07 PM
fuck you ackroyd
4562. jexster - 12/16/2005 6:53:55 PM
Friday, December 16, 2005
The One that Got Away
CNN is reporting that Iraqi authorities had arrested Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist, in Ramadi, but mistakenly released him. Nic Roberts reported that Zarqawi had put on weight, grown a beard, removed a tattoo, and was using a Kurdish passport, making him unrecognizable to Iraqi security forces.
What I take away from this report is that if the Iraqis cannot recognize a Jordanian master terrorist, the American military has zero chance of fighting the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement in Iraq, because most of them don't even know enough Arabic to distinguish an Iraqi from a Jordanian accent. And if all it takes is putting on weight and growing a beard to disguise oneself, then we're in deep trouble.
Zarqawi dropped out of high school and went off to Afghanistan in 1989. He is not educated, though he has learned terror tactics and maybe at one point got some training in chemicals. I can't see that he is irreplaceable if he were killed or captured. Al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad, his organization, is a social movement among Jordanian and Iraqi Salafi (revivalist) Sunnis, and can recruit other leaders. Zarqawi is a shadowy figure, and some maintain that he was killed in Afghanistan and is no more than a symbol, used to refer collectively to the Salafi Jihadi leadership. Many bombings and other operations attributed to Zarqawi cannot possibly have been his work, since his organization is small, and it seems likely that when the Neo-Baath does something particularly heinous, they attribute it to him on the internet.
Zarqawi had organized earlier in Jordan and Germany. Apparently his group has now spread to France, where authorities have found explosives and broken up a ring affiliated with Zarqawi.
This incident is further evidence that the Iraq War of the Bush administration is having a destabilizing effect in the Greater Mediterranean, with Iraq-related violence spreading to Jordan and Europe.
4563. jexster - 12/16/2005 7:03:05 PM
Too Fuckin Dumb to Govern...Bush's Seeks Salvation from Sunnis....It is not actually a positive sign for the Americans that Sunni Arabs came out to vote in order to get rid of them
4564. jexster - 12/16/2005 7:49:43 PM
Senate Judiciary to Probe Bush Spying Scandal
4565. jexster - 12/16/2005 8:40:17 PM
I Heart Bush Election Charm Offensives
It is time for a little refresher course...But thanks be that the number of Useful Idiots is steadily and rapidly declining....
The American faith that if people go to the polls it means they won't also be blowing things up is badly misplaced. Juan Cole
This should be the last Bush Election Pep Rally...
4566. jexster - 12/16/2005 8:44:03 PM
Abhinav Aima writes at Informed Comment...
4567. jexster - 12/16/2005 10:19:30 PM
Icon of Disaster: PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS
Xenophon’s Anabasis
4568. jexster - 12/16/2005 11:21:32 PM
Will Allah Send Bush a Savior?
A Prayer Card
What scenarios should our planners and policy-makers consider? As the best case, logic suggests that Iraq’s December elections might be seen by Iraq’s “key man,” Shiite Ayatollah Sistani, as the turning point. A new, Shiite-dominated government will probably be elected to a four-year term. What better move for him than to issue a fatwa saying that it’s time for the Americans to leave? His Shiites are getting restive at the American presence, he has to compete for his leadership role with firebrand Muqtada al-Sadr, and as the man who kicked the foreign occupiers out, he could reach across Iraq’s central divide to offer a deal to the Sunnis, perhaps restoring a real Iraqi state. In the face of a Sistani fatwa, Iraq’s government would almost certainly have to ask the American troops to leave.
Our response should be, “Hallelujah!” ... If the White House resisted, it would get trampled into the dirt on Capitol Hill by elephants and donkeys alike.
4569. jexster - 12/17/2005 5:54:43 AM
Unfit for Empire
Imagine, for a moment, that the Iraqi elections on .... come off without a hitch. No one is killed, maimed or intimidated into voting for a particular candidate by having a gun barrel put to his head. There are no hanging chads, no mayhem or madness. What will the Iraqi and American people get out of the incredible blood and treasure we have poured into this conflict?
We will get an Iraqi government dominated by known and notorious terrorists. We will get an Iraqi government dominated by Iran.
The Shia will walk away with the lion's share of control over the Iraqi government. The two most powerful Shia political parties, the ones that will come out of this with the big wins, are the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is known by the initials SCIRI. Both were founded and funded by Iran in the 1980s. Both have a history of spectacular violence against the United States and other nations. "These guys are murderers," says former CIA agent Bob Baer, who dealt with Dawa during the 1980s. "They were the core element that blew up our embassy in Beirut in 1983."
Paul Mulshine, writing last week for the New Jersey Star-Ledger, encapsulates this amazing turn of events. "What would you call someone who wants to hand over control of Iraq to a group of terrorists that first made its reputation by blowing up a couple of American embassies?" wrote Mulshine. "I'd call him President Bush. The group is called the Dawa party. In the early 1980s, Dawa terrorists bombed our embassies in Kuwait and in Lebanon. They were universally recognized as vicious America-hating, Iranian-supported terrorists. Now they're part of the coalition that is expected to win control of the new Iraqi parliament in Thursday's elections."
"The other coalition partners aren't much better," continued Mulshine. "The sanest group on the Shi'a side is the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. A 1984 Washington Post story portrayed the group, known by its initials SCIRI, as 'a kind of parent organization for four operational terrorist groups.' SCIRI was founded in Iran a couple of years earlier by the Ayatollah Khomeini with the goal of taking control of Iraq. Now, they're about to do so, courtesy of George W. Bush."
A walk through history serves to remind those afflicted with short attention spans of who exactly is about to take control of Iraq.....
But maybe the Sunnis will save us!
That's what they'd like to do ...save us
The slogan of one of the main Sunni coalitions, The Iraqi Consensus Front - Our goal is to get the invaders out and rebuild the country
It is not Stay the Course Stand Up, Stand Down, Ring Around the Rosey
But there is no doubt about what that means is there?
4570. jexster - 12/17/2005 6:16:03 AM
Spy Scandal III*
The Anger Builds
4571. jexster - 12/17/2005 6:18:43 AM
4572. jexster - 12/17/2005 7:49:23 AM
Listening to the Big Bush Bullshit Machine and the Whirling Dervishes in the US media for the past 3-4 weeks, I didn't even know that the insurgents had a declared a truce until it was over..
Al-Hayat says that the "secular" guerrillas say that they had declared a 3-day truce so that Sunni Arabs could put representatives in parliament, but that they would now return to attacking US and coalition troops. It is suggestive that the two Sunni politicians doing best in this round are Adnan Dulaimi and Salih Mutlak, who may well be the Gerry Adams of Iraq.
It quotes Abu Maysar (age 52), a former member of the Baath Party and a militia leader in Fallujah as saying, "We will continue our armed struggle as long as the Occupation and the agents it brought with it continue in power." The secular guerrillas adopted a deliberate policy of encouraging a Sunni vote, and they pledged to protect the voters from reprisals by the Muslim extremists who opposed the electoral process. Abu Maysar maintained that the current Iraqi government is determined to wipe out the former Baath Party members. He said that if they just tried to play parliamentary politics, they would be like lambs to slaughter.
A local leader in the Army of Muhammad (made up of former Baath intelligence operatives) said, "This does not mean we are giving up our jihad. We consider that we will be, in the coming days, committing violence against the Americans and their supporters in the Iraqi army." - Cole
4573. jexster - 12/17/2005 7:37:42 PM
Bob Barr’s on Bush’s Case....Ouch. Former Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) was on CNN yesterday, debating Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on the merits of the secret domestic spying program, and he is not pleased:
4574. arkymalarky - 12/17/2005 9:55:50 PM
Bob Barr has been active on the civil liberties issue for a while, which baffles me, as much as he wanted to delve into Clinton's private actions.
4575. jexster - 12/17/2005 10:05:48 PM
He's madder now than ever he was at Clinton...He's a former prosecutor who gets pissed at what he sees as lawbreaking...
4576. jexster - 12/17/2005 10:09:08 PM
This has clearly moved into the "I dare you to impeach me mode" and I am wondering if this doesn't mark the start of a broad push-back against war critics, the press, the congress, Fitzgerald, K-St. corruption, even the presently off the radar Franklin-AIPAC-Israel spy investigation???????
Krugman's warned many times that these creatures are capable of their most dispicable acts precisely at times like this when their asses are so clearly in the fire
4577. jexster - 12/17/2005 10:09:50 PM
I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone.
– H. L. Mencken
4578. jexster - 12/17/2005 10:39:56 PM
FOCUS | Jason Leopold: The Case against Karl Rove
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the second grand jury investigating the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson for several hours Friday. Unless Rove's attorney intervenes at the 11th hour yet again, Fitzgerald is expected to ask the grand jury to indict Rove-at the very least-for making false statements to the FBI and Justice Department investigators in October 2003, lawyers close to the case say.
4579. jexster - 12/17/2005 11:23:12 PM
The following refers to well-founded speculation that Rove will be indicted for tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice WRT an incriminating memos, emails...
If he did, Fitzgerald knew of its existence all along even while Rove, for nearly a year, was not being forthcoming with Fitzgerald or the grand jury.
Anyone wanna bet that is exactly what the Bulldog did - Fitzgerald's sandbagged that cockroach...probably more than once..My kinda lawyer!
4580. wonkers2 - 12/17/2005 11:58:47 PM
An indictment of Rove would be a nice Christmas present for the nation.
4581. jexster - 12/18/2005 10:41:06 AM
You Heard it Here First
Al-Hayat [Ar.] : The London-based Saudi daily says that most signs suggest that the bloc of young Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr will form a major element in the new Iraqi parliament, and that other parties will seek an alliance with it. Among the first to broach such an alliance is outgoing prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who spoke in Najaf on Saturday.
As for the Sunni Arabs, they celebrated their return as a power in political life, forming processions in various cities. The leader of the Concord Front thanked the armed resistance for refraining from attacks on Sunnis who came out to vote.
[AP says that Adnan Dulaimi, leader of an important Sunni bloc, expressed a willingness to ally either with the Kurds and the Allawi list, or with the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. He is quoted as saying, "For the sake of Iraq, there is nothing impossible. We have to forget the past and we extend our hands to everybody. . ." Dulaimi is a Sunni fundamentalist, and obviously differs with his secular colleague, Salih Mutlak.
[A parliament jointly dominated by Muqtada Al-Sadr's people and Sunnis like Dulaimi would certainly demand an early departure of US troops. To Mickey Kaus, who asked why I thought parliament might make such a demand even though it is clear that the parliament could not keep order in the country if the US troops suddenly left, I would just reply: have you been listening to what the Sunni parties and the Sadrists have been saying for the past 2 1/2 years? Asking why politicians might do something that causes chaos is sort of naive, isn't it? Surely George W. Bush wouldn't have risked destabilizing Iraq and the Middle East with a rushed invasion based on faulty intelligence? He thinks Muqtada al-Sadr and Salih Mutlak are better than Bush?]
4582. jexster - 12/18/2005 10:46:45 AM
Imus lost again..
Obe Juan coulda told him
The LA Times reports that every indication is that the Allawi list has done very poorly. Iyad Allawi has left Iraq in disappointment, and his supporters are crying election fraud. Allawi is an ex-Baathist who cooperated with the CIA in organizing Baath officers who broke with Saddam in the 1990s for a coup against the dictator. His blunt secularism, authoritarian style, rumors of bloodthirstiness, and CIA associations make him unpopular in most of Iraq, but the Bush administration and neoconservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute kept touting him as a possible prime minister as a result of these elections! Western reporters talking mainly to the urban middle class also got a false sense that his list might be gaining in popularity.
4583. jexster - 12/18/2005 10:52:35 AM
FYI I was up early Pacific time last week and heard Imus interviewing one of the NBC Baghdad correspondents.
Imus, having lost voting that "moron Kerry" had won recently voting for that "near crook" Corzine and felt he was on a roll
So Imus wanted to back a winner in Iraq and Green Zoned correspondent suggest ALLAWI
4584. jexster - 12/18/2005 12:07:37 PM
Siome champion of democracy we've got
FOCUS | Pentagon Knew Contractor Was Planting News Stories
US military officials in Iraq were fully aware that a Pentagon contractor regularly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories about the war, and made it clear that none of the stories should be traced to the United States, according to several current and former employees of Lincoln Group, the Washington-based contractor.
They say trust us..we follow the law
Give me a fucking break
4585. jexster - 12/18/2005 12:38:41 PM
One Fatwa from an Exit Strategery
Democracy now
Fatwa later
The biggest foreign aid program for Iran in world history...bigger than the Persian Empire
Religious Shiite list near total majority:vice president
1 hour, 43 minutes ago
Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi has said that the main Shiite religious list, the United Iraqi Alliance, was close to securing an absolute majority in parliament following a landmark election.
"The first results available to us show that we are not far from an absolute majority," Mahdi, a UIA candidate tipped as a possible prime minister, said in an interview with AFP and the French newspaper Le Monde Sunday.
"You need 138 seats for a majority. In Baghdad, our estimates give us nearly 70 percent, even at 65 percent that is nearly 40 seats.
"We think we have between eight and 10 in the other provinces of Diyala, Nineveh, Salaheddin... that is a total of 115 to 120 seats," he said.
Of another 45 seats in the 275-member parliament allocated to parties that score highly at a provincial but not national level, the alliance expected to scoop half, the vice president said.
4586. jexster - 12/18/2005 1:43:56 PM
National Lieberation Front Iraq's the Vote
We wouldn't want to undermine Bush's fuehrer-cred and hurt the nation now would we Sen. Lieberman?
December 15, 2005
Iraq the Vote?
by Ruy Teixeira
In the last few weeks, Bush’s overall approval rating appears to have improved by several points. But that’s not because the public’s views on the Iraq situation have changed much and certainly not because they’re convinced Bush has the foggiest idea of what to do about that situation. Consider these data from the latest CBS News/New York Times Poll..... ...
If Democrats hope to “Iraq the vote” in the 2006 elections, a clear position on the issue will help a great deal more than the dithering and back-stabbing they’ve been indulging in lately. Otherwise, voters are likely to conclude that, while Bush doesn’t appear to know what he’s doing, neither do the Democrats. And that truly is a recipe for defeat.
4587. jexster - 12/18/2005 7:18:17 PM
Bush: Iraq war is not lost
"Everything he has said has turned out to be untrue. Why should I believe him now" John Murtha
4588. jexster - 12/19/2005 7:11:53 AM
The Empire's Dilemma
And the empire's demise
4589. jexster - 12/19/2005 10:21:26 AM
Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax Released from Jail in IraQ
Seen leaving prison in mobile weapons lab..
Film at 11
4590. jexster - 12/19/2005 11:06:09 AM
Refiguring the Iraq body count
LAT
ALMOST AS soon as President Bush gave the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation as "30,000, more or less," aides hastened to downplay the number as "unofficial," plucked by Bush from "public estimates."
The president may have been quoting figures published by iraqbodycount.org, which has tabulated a death toll as high as 30,892 purely on the basis of published press reports of combatrelated killings. As IBC readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete because it omits unreported deaths.
There is, however, another and more reliable method for estimating figures such as these: nationwide random sampling. No one doubts that the result accurately reflects the overall situation if the sample is truly random and the consequent data correctly calculated. That, after all, is how market researchers assess public opinion on everything from politicians to breakfast cereals.
In 2000, a team led by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used random sampling to calculate the death toll in the Congolese civil war at 1.7 million. This figure prompted immediate action by the U.N. Security Council. No one questioned the methodology.
In September 2004, Roberts led a similar team that researched death rates in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. Making "conservative assumptions," the team concluded that "about 100,000 excess deaths" among men, women and children had occurred in 18 months. Most were directly attributable to the breakdown of the healthcare system prompted by the invasion. Violent deaths had soared twentyfold....
4591. jexster - 12/19/2005 11:08:27 AM
Refiguring the Iraq body count
LAT
ALMOST AS soon as President Bush gave the number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation as "30,000, more or less," aides hastened to downplay the number as "unofficial," plucked by Bush from "public estimates."
The president may have been quoting figures published by iraqbodycount.org, which has tabulated a death toll as high as 30,892 purely on the basis of published press reports of combatrelated killings. As IBC readily concedes, the estimate must be incomplete because it omits unreported deaths.
There is, however, another and more reliable method for estimating figures such as these: nationwide random sampling. No one doubts that the result accurately reflects the overall situation if the sample is truly random and the consequent data correctly calculated. That, after all, is how market researchers assess public opinion on everything from politicians to breakfast cereals.
In 2000, a team led by Les Roberts of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health used random sampling to calculate the death toll in the Congolese civil war at 1.7 million. This figure prompted immediate action by the U.N. Security Council. No one questioned the methodology.
In September 2004, Roberts led a similar team that researched death rates in Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion. Making "conservative assumptions," the team concluded that "about 100,000 excess deaths" among men, women and children had occurred in 18 months. Most were directly attributable to the breakdown of the healthcare system prompted by the invasion. Violent deaths had soared twentyfold....
4592. jexster - 12/19/2005 1:20:23 PM
Tankers On The Take
BYLINE: By PAUL KRUGMAN
BODY:
Not long ago Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the Institute for Policy Innovation, seemed on the verge of becoming a conservative icon. Before the Bush administration's sales pitch for Social Security privatization fell flat, admiring articles about the Bush plan's genesis often gave Mr. Ferrara credit for starting the privatization movement back in 1979.
Now Mr. Ferrara has become a different sort of icon. BusinessWeek Online reports that both Mr. Ferrara and Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, were paid by the ubiquitous Jack Abramoff to write ''op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients.''
Now, I never had any illusions about intellectual integrity in the world of right-wing think tanks. It has been clear for a long time that so-called analysts at many of these think tanks are, in effect, paid to support selected policies and politicians. But it never occurred to me that the pay-for-play schemes were so blatant.
In fact, most deals between lobbyists and conservative intellectuals probably aren't that blatant. For the most part, people employed by right-wing think tanks don't have to be specifically paid to support certain positions, because they understand that supporting those positions comes with the job. Senior fellows at Cato don't decide, after reconsidering the issue, that Social Security shouldn't be privatized. Policy analysts at the Heritage Foundation don't take another look at the data and realize that farmers and small-business owners have nothing to gain from estate tax repeal.
But it turns out that implicit deals between think tanks and the interests that finance them are sometimes, perhaps often, supplemented with explicit payments for punditry. In return for Abramoff checks, Mr. Bandow and Mr. Ferrara wrote op-ed articles about such unlikely subjects as the entrepreneurial spirit of the Mississippi Choctaws and the free-market glories of the Northern Mariana Islands.
BusinessWeek Online doesn't mention it, but earlier this year an article by Franklin Foer in The New Republic titled ''Writers' Bloc,'' which tracked Mr. Abramoff's remarkable ability to get his clients favorable treatment on op-ed pages, pointed out that Mr. Ferrara endorsed another odd cause: U.S. friendship with Malaysia. (I've checked, and Mr. Bandow did the same.) I was particularly interested in that one, since a couple of years ago right-wingers accused me of having been a paid agent of the Malaysian regime. I wasn't, but Mr. Abramoff reportedly was.
Mr. Bandow has confessed to a ''lapse of judgment'' and resigned from Cato. But neither Mr. Ferrara nor his employer believe that he did anything wrong. The president of Mr. Ferrara's institute told BusinessWeek Online that ''I have a sense that there are a lot of people at think tanks who have similar arrangements.'' Alas, he's probably right.
Let's hope that journalists set out to track down those people with ''similar arrangements,'' and that as they do, they don't fall into two ever-present temptations.
First, if the latest pay-for-punditry story starts to get traction, the usual suspects will claim that liberal think tanks and opinion writers are also on the take. (I'm getting my raincoat ready for the slime attack on my own ethics I'm sure this column will provoke.) Reporters and editors will be tempted to give equal time to these accusations, however weak the evidence, in an effort to appear ''balanced.'' They should resist the temptation. If this is overwhelmingly a story about Republican lobbyists and conservative think tanks, as I believe it is -- there isn't any Democratic equivalent of Jack Abramoff -- that's what the public deserves to be told.
Second, there will be the temptation to ignore the backstory -- to treat Mr. Abramoff as a rogue, unrepresentative actor. In fact, before his indictment, Mr. Abramoff wasn't off on his own. He wasn't even a lobbyist in the traditional sense; he's better described as a bag man, running a slush fund for Tom DeLay and other Republican leaders. The point is that there really isn't much difference between Mr. Abramoff's paying Mr. Ferrara to praise the sweatshops of the Marianas and the Department of Education's paying Armstrong Williams to praise No Child Left Behind. In both cases, the ultimate paymaster was the Republican political machine.
And inquiring minds want to know: Who else is on the take? Or has the culture of corruption spread so far that the question is, Who isn't?
4593. jexster - 12/19/2005 2:23:37 PM
TITLE 18. CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I. CRIMES
CHAPTER 119. WIRE AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS INTERCEPTION AND INTERCEPTION OF ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
18 USCS § 2511 (2005)
§ 2511. Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications prohibited [Caution: See prospective amendment note below.]
(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.] any person who--
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication;
(b) intentionally uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication when--
(i) such device is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through, a wire, cable, or other like connection used in wire communication; or
(ii) such device transmits communications by radio, or interferes with the transmission of such communication; or
(iii) such person knows, or has reason to know, that such device or any component thereof has been sent through the mail or transported in interstate or foreign commerce; or
(iv) such use or endeavor to use (A) takes place on the premises of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or (B) obtains or is for the purpose of obtaining information relating to the operations of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or
(v) such person acts in the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States;
(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
(d) intentionally uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection; or
(e) (i) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, intercepted by means authorized by sections 2511(2)(a)(ii), 2511(2)(b)-(c), 2511(2)(e), 2516, and 2518 of this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2511(2)(a)(ii), 2511(2)(b)-(c), 2511(2)(e), 2516, and 2518], (ii) knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of such a communication in connection with a criminal investigation, (iii) having obtained or received the information in connection with a criminal investigation, and (iv) with intent to improperly obstruct, impede, or interfere with a duly authorized criminal investigation,
shall be punished as provided in subsection (4) or shall be subject to suit as provided in subsection (5).
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(2) (a) (i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.] for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of a provider of wire or electronic communication service, whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire or electronic communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service, except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.
(ii) Notwithstanding any other law, providers of wire or electronic communication service, their officers, employees, and agents, landlords, custodians, or other persons, are authorized to provide information, facilities, or technical assistance to persons authorized by law to intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications or to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 [50 USCS § 1801] if such provider, its officers, employees, or agents, landlord, custodian, or other specified person, has been provided with--
(A) a court order directing such assistance signed by the authorizing judge, or
(B) a certification in writing by a person specified in section 2518(7) of this title [18 USCS § 2518(7)] or the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the specified assistance is required,
setting forth the period of time during which the provision of the information, facilities, or technical assistance is authorized and specifying the information, facilities, or technical assistance required. No provider of wire or electronic communication service, officer, employee, or agent thereof, or landlord, custodian, or other specified person shall disclose the existence of any interception or surveillance or the device used to accomplish the interception or surveillance with respect to which the person has been furnished an order or certification under this subparagraph, except as may otherwise be required by legal process and then only after prior notification to the Attorney General or to the principal prosecuting attorney of a State or any political subdivision of a State, as may be appropriate. Any such disclosure, shall render such person liable for the civil damages provided for in section 2520 [18 USCS § 2520]. No cause of action shall lie in any court against any provider of wire or electronic communication service, its officers, employees, or agents, landlord, custodian, or other specified person for providing information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with the terms of a court order, statutory authorization, or certification under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.].
(b) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.] for an officer, employee, or agent of the Federal Communications Commission, in the normal course of his employment and in discharge of the monitoring responsibilities exercised by the Commission in the enforcement of chapter 5 of title 47 [47 USCS §§ 151 et seq.] of the United States Code, to intercept a wire or electronic communication, or oral communication transmitted by radio, or to disclose or use the information thereby obtained.
(c) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.] for a person acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.
(d) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq.] for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.
(e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title or section 705 or 706 of the Communications Act of 1934 [47 USCS § 605 or 606], it shall not be unlawful for an officer, employee, or agent of the United States in the normal course of his official duty to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 [50 USCS § 1801], as authorized by that Act [50 USCS §§ 1801 et seq.].
.
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(f) Nothing contained in this chapter or chapter 121 or 206 of this title [18 USCS §§ 2510 et seq., or 2701 et seq., or 3121 et seq.], or section 705 of the Communications Act of 1934 [47 USCS § 605], shall be deemed to affect the acquisition by the United States Government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications, or foreign intelligence activities conducted in accordance with otherwise applicable Federal law involving a foreign electronic communications system, utilizing a means other than electronic surveillance as defined in s
