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Compliments of Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/
"Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003
The first drafts of history are fragmentary. Important revelations arrive late, and out of order. In this timeline, we’ve assembled the history of the Iraq War to create a resource we hope will help resolve open questions of the Bush era. What did our leaders know and when did they know it? And, perhaps just as important, what red flags did we miss, and how could we have missed them? This is the first installment in our Iraq War timeline project. "
cat's meow
09/11/06, 11:29 pm
This is good, thanks for the link
FDRfollower
09/12/06, 05:16 pm
To add to the very good web article is this:
The Dunklin Democrat, online] LEESBURG, Sept. 9--SYNDICATED COLUMNIST COMPARES NEO-CONS TO HERMANN GOERING. Gene Lyons, co-author of {The Hunting of the President}, in his Sept. 6 column, he advises Democrats to respond to a planned October Surprise, by exposing the real Nazis.
"I've been thinking about how Democrats ought to respond to the seemingly inevitable White House October Surprise involving Iran. Not that it'd be much of a surprise. GOP savants are pounding the war drums. The Washington Post's neo-conservative scribe Charles Krauthammer takes a tougher line. Stopping Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy, he thinks, has always been a fantasy. It will take military means....
"It might infuriate both [Fox News' Fred Barnes and Krauthammer] to be reminded how succinctly Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering articulated the same strategy during his 1946 Nuremberg war crimes trial. `Naturally, the common people don't want war,' he said. `...(but) the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.'"
Compliments of Mother Jones:
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/
"Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003
The first drafts of history are fragmentary. Important revelations arrive late, and out of order. In this timeline, we’ve assembled the history of the Iraq War to create a resource we hope will help resolve open questions of the Bush era. What did our leaders know and when did they know it? And, perhaps just as important, what red flags did we miss, and how could we have missed them? This is the first installment in our Iraq War timeline project. "
and more:
http://progressivesonline.com/showthread.php?t=925
*****
05/08:
Huffington Post:
What's the Difference Between Dan Bartlett, Brian Williams and David Gregory? A Lot Less Than You Think
There's a difference between lying and dissembling. Dan Bartlett lied on Wednesday. Brian Williams and David Gregory merely dissembled. Yet the statements of all three are discredited by the same smoking gun, the one that has been hiding in plain sight for more than five years, and has been subject to a virtual news blackout at NBC News. This White House is beyond redemption. But it's time for NBC and other major networks to come clean.
The White House Lie:
"The fact of the matter was the weapons of mass destruction weren't there. The intelligence was wrong. But that doesn't make people out to be liars or manipulators or propagandists. It makes them wrong." Dan Bartlett on CNN, May 28, 2008
The Smoking Gun: Anyone who read the newspapers with an ounce of common sense could figure out that the case for WMD was a sham. On March 7, 2003, 11 days before Bush invaded, the nuclear weapons inspectors reported that there was zero evidence that Saddam had ever done anything to develop nuclear weapons since losing the Gulf War in 1991. Muhamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency went far beyond offering an alternative analysis of the notorious aluminum tubes or those "documents" from Niger. He categorically said that they found no evidence. The Bush administration's response: Nothing, or at least nothing substantive. (ElBaradei's findings were subsequently validated by Bush's own inspections team, headed up by Charles Deufler.)
ElBaradei's report put the world on notice that the case for nuclear WMD was fatally flawed. When Dan Bartlett, John McCain, and everyone else at the White House refused to acknowledge that the U.N. inspectors had punctured their case for war, they became, to use Bartlett's words, "liars or manipulators or propagandists."
The Smoking Gun That Discredits NBC: Because ElBaradei's report struck at the heart of the case for war, any reputable news organization would consider its substance to be extremely important. That evening, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw reported nothing about ElBaradei's findings. On CNBC, The News with Brian Williams also reported nothing. NBC's virtual blackout of the story persisted, and thereby skewed its coverage of almost everything relating to WMD and the decision to go to war. (The most notable pre-war exceptions to the blackout were Tim Russert's defamatory smears against the nuclear inspectors.)
There are countless examples where NBC's reporting and commentary sidestepped the full import of ElBaradei's pre-war disclosure. Chris Matthews' remarks are typical:
"I mean, that was a critical part of a lot of people who supported this war -- regular people, journalists, et cetera, said, I don't like the idea of going to war, but if they've got nuclear weapons, I guess we have to. And that was a successful trump card and it was a deal maker for a lot of people who supported the war, middle of the road people." Chris Matthews on Hardball, October 19, 2005
NBC's blackout continues to this day, thereby extending Dan Bartlett a veneer of plausibility, and enabling Brian Williams and David Gregory to dissemble so freely, as they did on Wednesday:
"I think he [Scott McClellan] is wrong...I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president. I think not only those of us in the White House press corps did that, but others in the rest of the landscape of the media did that. If there wasn't a debate in this country, then maybe the American people should think about, why not? Where was Congress? Where was the House? Where was the Senate? Where was public opinion about the war? What did the former president believe about the pre-war intelligence? He agreed that -- in fact, Bill Clinton agreed that Saddam had WMD.
"The right questions were asked. I think there's a lot of critics -- and I guess we can count Scott McClellan as one -- who thinks that, if we did not debate the president, debate the policy in our role as journalists, if we did not stand up and say, this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this, that we didn't do our job. And I respectfully disagree" David Gregory on Hardball, May 28, 2008 .
(Gregory's allusion to Bill Clinton is a standard smoke-and-mirrors ploy used by the right wing. Bill Clinton never believed that the pre-war intelligence was sufficiently reliable to support military action. Both he and Senator Clinton advocated the use of continued inspections instead of military action.)
"I've always put it this way. In Katrina, the evidence was right next to us. Sadly, we saw fellow Americans, in some cases, floating past face down. We knew what had just happened. We weren't allowed that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors. I was in Kuwait for the buildup of the war. And yes, we heard from the Pentagon on my cell phone the minute they heard us report something that they didn't like. The tone of that time was quite extraordinary". Brian Williams on The Today Show, May 28, 2008
Andrea Mitchell was in the room when El Baradei gave his report to the U.N. and to the world. "We weren't allowed that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors," is Williams' way of throwing sand in the face of NBC's viewers.
Here's the bottom line: Anyone (e.g. Colin Powell, George Tenet, Dan Bartlett) who says, "We relied on flawed intelligence," is speaking in bad faith, because after March 7, 2003 he acted in bad faith. And any journalist who accepts that rationalization at face value is not doing his job.
All the death and destruction to change government in the Middle East while our Country goes down the drain!
:mad:
ProudGOP
06/03/08, 12:04 pm
Great link....My memory is a little fuzzy, how many democrats signed off on this war?
Liberals are nothing, if not great revisionists of history.
Proud, representative of the
Government Of Prostitutes,
Will you ever learn that the liberal/conservative BS is nothing but BLATHER!
When can I expect your definitions of "conservative" & "liberal"?
I have said OVER & OVER, I want to see most of the OLD encumbering incumbents beaten in primaries because their compromising helped to bring our country to the mess we're now in!
What IS your problem?
Try to save what's left of your face;
Your nose is about gone..............WAKE UP!
Your party and MANY DEMOCRATS have just about destroyed the middle income workers along with the help of Bill Clinton with his so called "Free Trade"!
They (rethugs & demorats) looked the other way since the last amnesty under Reagan, and allowed illegal immigration....................................... ...... which has destroyed fair wages and any security the working man HAD!
http://progressivesonline.com/showthread.php?t=1070&highlight=Economy
Thelonious
06/04/08, 05:21 am
Great link....My memory is a little fuzzy, how many democrats signed off on this war?
Far far fewer than Republicans who controlled congress at the time and were busy spending taxpayer dollars on bridges to nowhere in Alaska.
and Barak Obama certainly never "signed off" on the Bush-Chenney-Rumsfeld War.
June 3, 2008 Waxman asks DoJ for Bush and Cheney FBI Interviews Of CIA Outing Citing New Info in "Scootergate" Submitted by Amanda Lang
Chairman Henry A. Waxman urges Attorney General Mukasey to turn over the FBI interviews of Bush and Cheney, citing new information from the FBI interview of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and the recent disclosures by Scott McClellan. Waxman requests that Mukasey provide the FBI interviews to the committee by June 10.
http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=60824
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Administration Oversight, Disclosure of CIA Agent Identity
New Questions about Vice President Cheney’s Role in CIA Leak
Chairman Waxman urges Attorney General Mukasey to turn over the FBI interviews of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, citing new information from the FBI interview of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and the recent disclosures by Scott McClellan.
Scroll down to "letter to Mukasey" on the [url] to read it ( 3 pages).
:thumbup:
ProudGOP
06/05/08, 07:38 am
When can I expect your definitions of "conservative" & "liberal"?
Liberals:
Hate America--Love Europe
Hate fetuses--Love criminals
Hate our soldiers--Love radical muslims
Hate capitalism--Love socialism
Hate hard working taxpayers--Love illegal immigrants
Conservatives, just the opposite.
Did I forget anything?
What IS your problem?
LIBERALS !!!!!
Your party and MANY DEMOCRATS have just about destroyed the middle income workers
barack hussein obama will be different?!?
Far far fewer than Republicans who controlled congress at the time
Loon, maybe a better question would be WHICH demorats voted for the war!!
and Barak Obama certainly never "signed off" on the Bush-Chenney-Rumsfeld War.
Two reasons for that.
1. HE is a muslim !!!
2. He never votes for anything. He has over 100 "present" votes!!!!
He's a typical liberal, can't make a decision. He'd rather wait and then second guess and trash the decision after the fact. God help us if he is elected!!!!
Yep,
More "liberal/conservative" blather from Brainwashed Proud, member of Corporate (fascist) owned Government Of Prostitutes.
KKKKKarl and George must be so proud of you......
and getting one "heckava" laugh at you sabotaging you and yours......................
:cool:
ProudGOP
06/06/08, 07:12 am
Blah blah blah magi....
Liberals:
Hate America--Love Europe
Hate fetuses--Love criminals
Hate our soldiers--Love radical muslims
Hate capitalism--Love socialism
Hate hard working taxpayers--Love illegal immigrants
Tell me part of this isn't true.
It is not just "blather". Liberals are DANGEROUS to this country.
GOD help us all if muslim obama is elected!!!!!
God Bush will be gone and God will once again be part of the word Good!
Black? Muslim? Even if he was (and he’s neither), then so what? What else have you got?
Barack Obama wouldn’t be the lightning rod for stupidity that he is if he wasn’t mulatto. If they demonized Kennedy 48 years ago for being a Catholic, they’ve made Obama the AntiChrist over a religion that he isn't and for his skin color. What amazes me is the sheer number of Republican chain emails that have circulated about Obama faster than Canadian pharmacy and Swiss Rolex watch spam. They blame Obama for being everything to being educated at a Muslim madrassa as a child to his Kenyan father leaving his white mother and being raised by his white grandparents in Kansas. None of which he had any power over (even if half of it was true, which it isn’t) because he was a child and we’re still left with the question of, How is it germane to this election and indicative of his fitness to lead?
You are so desperate to save your face, you would have McSame continue on destroying our United States of America!
:o
Jennifer_SFBA
06/06/08, 06:13 pm
Conservatives are aboriginal, warlike and dangerous.
Conservatives operative from the hypothalmus; liberals from the limbic brain.
Conservative policy threatens to so pollute or poison our planet that it fails to survive.
My best friend, Lisa Kassner, created the lovely nature video below.
http://vimeo.com/1036732
Yes Jen,
Nature's beauty helps those of us who feel so deeply sadded by what has happened to our beloved country since 1980.
I take walks in the forest nearby enjoying the wonder of the lovely lady slippers and jack in the pulpit now at their prime right , and appreciate the wonder of each little flower .........and the forest birds.......
I feel so fortunate to have time to enjoy my little house and gardens I make all over our yard.
May we once again make this possible for All who dream of it!
I wonder if we'll see Bushco and all exposed in the media at last; to prove once and for all to 28%-ters, who will not accept how they have been shammed by the unconscionable, evil, greedy ones?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/05/AR2008060501523.html
Bush Inflated Threat From Iraq's Banned Weapons, Report Says
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 6, 2008; Page A03
President Bush and top administration officials repeatedly exaggerated what they knew about Iraq's weapons and its ties to terrorist groups as the White House pressed its case for war against Iraq, the Senate intelligence committee said yesterday in a long-awaited report.
While most of the administration's prewar claims about Iraq reflected now-discredited U.S. intelligence reports, the White House crossed a line by conveying certainty about the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to the United States, according to the report, approved over the objections of most of the committee's Republican members.
"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the committee chairman, said at a news conference. "As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."
The report, the last and most contentious of a series of Senate reviews of prewar intelligence, sought to compare the administration's public claims about Iraq with the intelligence reports available to them at the time. While many of the White House's statements -- such as Bush's warnings about a secret Iraqi nuclear program -- were amply supported by intelligence files at the time, the report said, others were not.
Bush and other administration officials strayed far from official intelligence reports when it came to describing alleged ties between al-Qaeda and Hussein, the report said. It cited repeated statements by Bush, including his Oct. 7, 2002, Cincinnati speech in which he alleged that Iraq had "trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making" and had maintained "high-level contacts that go back a decade."
The report said that "statements and indications by the president and secretary of state suggesting that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qaeda with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence."
more.............
Bush promises before he was elected were lies! His "one of the boys" character fooled the majority.........TWICE and just about destroyed our country!
"NOT INTO NATION BUILDING"............What an outrageous LIE!
Nation Destruction...............YES!
:(
Jennifer_SFBA
06/07/08, 11:19 am
Hi, MAJI.
Oh, MAJI, I know exactly those stunningly beautiful flowers you named, the Lady Slippers and Jack in the Pulpit. We lived in Massachussetts. Our house was situated at the edge of a forest. On my frequent forest saunters, I would see them, sit by them, gently touch them, fully take them into my being and be filled with profound awe, wonder and love at the experience I had of them that I recall even now.
Jesus Christ himself spoke reverently of flowers, saying;
"Consider the lillies of the field, how they grow; they toil not neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even (King) Solomon (Solomon's clothing) in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
Conservative evangelical Christians (Republicans), aboriginal, warlike and dangerous, have nothing in common with Christ, or Christ's consciousness.
In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Mathew, Chapters 5 - 8) Jesus himself said who shall be called the Children of God and who shall inherit the Earth:
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God."
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth."
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made it clear that those who shall be called the Children of God and who shall inherit the Earth is not merely a matter of faith, but of good works (the practice of meekness and peace throughout the world), saying,
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
ProudGOP
06/09/08, 07:48 am
You didn't answer the question magi. What part is not true????
Liberals:
Hate America--Love Europe
Hate fetuses--Love criminals
Hate our soldiers--Love radical muslims
Hate capitalism--Love socialism
Hate hard working taxpayers--Love illegal immigrants
magi, you should be worried that you relate to someone like jen. She is about 3 sandwiches short of a picnic. It's people like you and fruit loops that make me proud to be a REPUBLICAN !!!!
Michael DeM
06/09/08, 09:52 am
You didn't answer the question magi. What part is not true????
Liberals:
Hate America--Love Europe
Hate fetuses--Love criminals
Hate our soldiers--Love radical muslims
Hate capitalism--Love socialism
Hate hard working taxpayers--Love illegal immigrants
magi, you should be worried that you relate to someone like jen. She is about 3 sandwiches short of a picnic. It's people like you and fruit loops that make me proud to be a REPUBLICAN !!!!
What part of it is true?
You didn't answer the question magi. What part is not true????
Liberals:
Hate America--Love Europe
Hate fetuses--Love criminals
Hate our soldiers--Love radical muslims
Hate capitalism--Love socialism
Hate hard working taxpayers--Love illegal immigrants
That is so ridiculous it doesn't deserve answering, Proud member of fascist Corporate controlled Government Of Prostitutes.
Your hateful "liberal"/"conservative" blather which suggests all Democrats are of one mind is STUPID nonsense!
Republicans don't own the word conservative!
Democrats are by far better managers of our tax dollars and so much more conservative with spending and budgeting.
Don't believe me, here's some information to digest :
http://www.cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm
Comparing the borrowing habits of the two parties since 1981, when the Neo-Conservative movement really took hold and government spending raced out of control, it is extremely obvious that the big spenders in Washington are Republicans and their party’s presidents. The only Democratic president since then, Mr. Clinton raised the national debt an average of 4.3% per year. The Republican presidents (Reagan, Bush, and Bush II) raised the debt an average of 10.8% per year. That is, for every dollar a Democratic President has raised the national debt in the past 25 years, Republican presidents have raised the debt by $2.53[6]. Any way you look at it Neo-Conservative Republican presidents cannot or will not control government spending.
Here's much much MORE:
Results 1 - 10 of about 2,070,000 for:
Have republican presidents increased the national debt?.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Have+republican+presidents+increased+the+nationa l+debt%3F&btnG=Google+Search
When will you grow up and realize you have been had by greedy, selfish, rethuglicans?
:cool:
Jennifer_SFBA
06/09/08, 11:18 am
NeoCon conservatives fight for the flag while destroying American Constitutional ideals that the flag is supposed to represent.
ProudGOP
06/10/08, 06:59 am
magi, it's interesting how you always say I'm "hateful" and I go on and on with the liberal/conservative "blather", yet YOU start every response to me by calling me "Proud member of fascist Corporate controlled Government Of Prostitutes".
Look in the mirror sometime.
magi, it's interesting how you always say I'm "hateful" and I go on and on with the liberal/conservative "blather", yet YOU start every response to me by calling me "Proud member of fascist Corporate controlled Government Of Prostitutes".
Look in the mirror sometime.
:D :laughing: :rolling:
Now here's something very fitting for you Proud, member of fascist corporate controlled, Government Of Prostitutes and the rest of the 28%ters............:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/interviews/112
skip
And a Washington Post poll in September 2003 found that 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. A majority continued to believe this even after the 9/11 Commission reported the claim was groundless.
Now if someone is stupid, then it means they can't process basic information. But in this case, they're misinformed. This didn't pop into people's heads. Someone had to give them this information, namely, the Bush administration through the corporate mainstream media. The President of the United States, and particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, to this day keep implying that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. So what's the difference between being misinformed and stupid?
Rick Shenkman: I've got a five-part definition of stupidity. The first part is when people exhibit gross ignorance. If there is information that's widely available, that any person with a brain and an ordinary 100-IQ could find out and absorb, and they don't, then to me, that's a failure of their civic responsibility. And I'm going to say that's a kind of stupidity.
Two is negligence -- the refusal to consult available and reliable news sources.
Number three is wooden-headedness -- we believe what we want to believe, regardless of the facts.
Four is short-sightedness, where we have short-term thinking. For instance, with gasoline prices, we went ahead and proposed a price freeze now, so that we can fill up our SUVs without making any changes, even though long-term, we know that would be unfortunate for the country.
And five is my catch-all category of bone-headedness, which is letting fear and hopes and meaningless slogans drive our thinking.
skip
Jennifer_SFBA
06/10/08, 06:01 pm
Conservatives love the fetus (Right to Life) and hate the child (support the death penalty)
Page 2.
In December of 2001, Ledeen and two Pentagon Iran experts met an Iranian named Manucher Ghorbanifar in Rome. Ghorbanifar sketched out his plan to overthrow the Iranian regime on a cocktail napkin. The plan involved, as the Senate report puts it, "simultaneous disruption of traffic at key intersections leading to Tehran," which would "create anxiety, work stoppages and other disruptive measures." Ghorbanifar asked for $5 million in seed money to get started.
This was not the first time Leeden and Ghorbanifar had met. Both are alumni of the Iran-Contra arms scandal. In fact, in 1984, the CIA had said that Ghorbanifar "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance."
Operation Desert Gridlock never happened, but Ledeen continued to feed his dubious intelligence to an eager Pentagon, including giving Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith a 100-day plan which would provide evidence that Iraqi WMD had been secretly moved to Iran. On this, he was backed up by three Republican senators: Rick Santorum, Jon Kyl and Sam Brownback.
Eventually alarm bells went off in the CIA and State Department and an investigation of the Pentagon's contacts with Ghorbanifar was started. It was shut down after only one month, however, by Stephen Cambone, then Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
The reaction of Republicans to the Phase II report has been predictable. They're desperate for the public not to dwell on the truth about this war. And if they can't present contrary evidence to refute the report (and they can't, because it doesn't exist), they can at least sow doubt -- acting as if the report is the result of partisan bickering as opposed to the smoking gun of the Bush administration's tragic acts.
In fact, the committee vote on the report was 10-5, with Republicans Chuck Hagel and Olympia Snow voting with the Democrats.
"It rots the very fiber of democracy when our government is put to these uses," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in response to the report.
It's no coincidence that a war built on lies continues to be conducted using lies ("the surge is working"). Mark Green proposes a way to end the cycle of deception: create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. "This worked in a very different historical situation of South Africa and can work here as well," wrote Green on HuffPost. "South Africans who engaged in murder and violence were given amnesty if they confessed under oath to their crimes and knowledge -- but would be prosecuted if they didn't.... The largely successful effort led to both truth and reconciliation."
Richard Clarke echoed Green's proposal last week, and also suggested something each of us can do: "I just don't think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let them pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 Americans dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded, and they'll carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives."
If the leaders responsible for that suffering are not held accountable -- both at the ballot box and by being shamed and shunned as Clarke suggests -- we dishonor the sacrifices of the fallen, and make it likely that many more will endure a similar fate.
It has been four years since the Committee began the second phase of its review," Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote in her note attached to the report. "The results are now in. Even though the intelligence before the war supported inaccurate statements, this Administration distorted the intelligence in order to build its case to go to war. The Executive Branch released only those findings that supported the argument, did not relay uncertainties, and at times made statements beyond what the intelligence supported."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/05/divided-senate-committee_n_105374.html
:whipit:
More proof of the LIES!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/the-big-story-you-may-hav_b_106159.html
Arianna Huffington
The Big Story You May Have Missed During the Obama v. Clinton Finale
stumble digg reddit del.ico.us news trust buzz up Posted June 9, 2008 | 08:00 PM (EST)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Cia, CIA Iraq, Douglas Feith, Feith Iraq, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Jay Rockefeller, Mark Green, Michael Ledeen, Phase II, Richard Clarke, Politics News
For those of you who were understandably busy following the last round of the Democratic Nomination Ultimate Fighting Championship this past week (I won't give away the ending for those who have it TiVo'd), I'd like to call your attention to a major story you may have missed: the Senate Intelligence Committee's 200-page "Phase II" report on how the Bush administration used -- and abused -- pre-war intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
The Committee's conclusion: the president and his top officials deliberately misrepresented secret intelligence to make the case to invade Iraq. No surprise there.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/05/divided-senate-committee_n_105374.html
But it's vitally important that we continue to reiterate and document the truth of what happened and who was responsible for perpetrating this fraud on the American public. And here's why: the war is still going on (and American soldiers continue to die as a result of the deception); the same people responsible for this debacle still have their hands on the wheel; desperate to cover their tracks, they continue to lie about how we got into this mess; and they are currently hitting all the same notes in agitating for war in Iran.
The report is a direct rebuke to the administration's continued claims that it was the intelligence that was faulty, and that Bush and co. were simply presenting what the C.I.A. had given them.
A statement released by committee chairman Jay Rockefeller makes it clear that the administration "on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq...in making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent."
The report doesn't use the word, but we all know what it's called when someone presents something as fact that's directly contradicted by the evidence. A lie. Not a mistake. A lie.
Some specifics from Rockefeller's statement (emphasis mine):
Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.
So much for the tired claim that "everybody in the world" agreed that Iraq had WMD, was a "grave and gathering threat," was in league with Al Qaeda, etc., etc., etc.
The report also details how a cabal very high up in the Pentagon and the Vice President's office got played by a group of shady Iranian exiles in order, as McCaltchy's John Walcott puts it, to "feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator."
This meeting was brokered by neo-con All-Star Michael Ledeen, who is now one of those desperately agitating for war with Iran. The story reads like a bad spy novel.
see page 2.
ProudGOP
06/11/08, 07:22 am
Conservatives love the fetus (Right to Life) and hate the child (support the death penalty)
Children are not being put to death jen. They are called CRIMINALS!!!
Your statement shows how far out of touch you really are.
A fetus is INNOCENT... Someone being put to death committed a horrible CRIME.
Liberals have compassion for rapists and murderers yet will abort an unborn child without thinking twice.
magi, I am not one of the people who thinks saddam had anything to do with 9/11. I do believe he allowed training of terrorists in his country. He also would not allow inspectors into his country...He basically thumbed his nose at you liberals and your beloved U.N. Again, you liberals have compassion for a mass murderer and rapist (saddam and his sons). Do you not think he killed and tortured the citizens of Iraq?
He was a ruthless dictator and murderer..
If all these reports you like to post showing that Bush lied about the intelligence are true, what does it say for the democrats that bought it hook, line and sinker?
Are you saying that they are sheep? Why did they not look at this intelligence?
What are you guys going to bitch about when Bush is gone?
Jennifer_SFBA
06/11/08, 10:43 am
So, it's not killing that bothers you. It's innocents and guilt and criminality? Then, for criminality and guilt you support the death penalty?
magi, I am not one of the people who thinks saddam had anything to do with 9/11. I do believe he allowed training of terrorists in his country. He also would not allow inspectors into his country
NOT TRUE! Hussein had NO USE for bin Laden who was a religious fanatic and of completely different ideology!
No way did he want bin Laden's theology in Iraq!
The inspectors were there at the UN's request to look for chemicals, nuclear evidence...............WMD's, to learn if there were REASONS TO GO TO WAR!
None were found! Nothing that Bush was saying was being proven and as a matter of fact, Intelligence was fixed!
BUSH PULLED THE INSPECTORS OUT!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-17-inspectors-iraq_x.htm
(saddam and his sons). Do you not think he killed and tortured the citizens of Iraq?
He was a ruthless dictator and murderer..
That was the UN's business, not specifically the United States of America! There were sanctions, no WMDs, no threat to the world!
Hussein was asking us to drop the sanctions and let him rebuild his country and oil resources! He said he would sell oil cheaper than OPEC!
That was why Bushco attacked Iraq! Their (Bushco & friends) monopoly was threatened!
NOT FOR THE USA to decide, any more than it is for another country to decide to invade US and eliminate BUSHCO & dictate how our country should be run!
If all these reports you like to post showing that Bush lied about the intelligence are true, what does it say for the democrats that bought it hook, line and sinker?
Are you saying that they are sheep? Why did they not look at this intelligence?
Are you reading ANYTHING? ALL the Democrats did NOT buy that!
BUSHCO was feeding them intelligence that served BUSHCO!
Congress gave BUSH the right to decide, IF THERE WAS PROVEN IMMINENT REASON, to go to war with Iraq!!!!
There WASN"T imminent danger and if you read the intelligence report that took until THIS YEAR to learn THE WHOLE TRUTH, you'll know it ALSO!
READ THE REPORT!
BIO
Seth Colter Walls
The Huffington Post
Senate Report: Bush Used Iraq Intel He Knew Was False
June 5, 2008 10:44 AM
More than five years after the initial invasion of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally gone on the record: the Bush administration misused, and in some cases disregarded, intelligence which led the nation into war. The two final sections of a long-delayed and much anticipated "Phase II" report on the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence, released on Thursday morning, accuse senior White House officials of repeatedly misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq.
In addition, the report on Iraq war intelligence harshly criticizes a Pentagon office for executing "inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities" without the proper knowledge of the State Department and other agencies.
again:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/05/divided-senate-committee_n_105374.html
Quote:
It has been four years since the Committee began the second phase of its review," Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote in her note attached to the report. "The results are now in. Even though the intelligence before the war supported inaccurate statements, this Administration distorted the intelligence in order to build its case to go to war. The Executive Branch released only those findings that supported the argument, did not relay uncertainties, and at times made statements beyond what the intelligence supported."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_105374.html
What are you guys going to bitch about when Bush is gone?
EVERYTHING WE BELIEVE IS WRONG, as usual!
:sunny:
Why did Bush invade Iraq?
I urge you to read the WHOLE TRUTH of why BUSHCo took US to war in Iraq!
The New Oil Order: Washington's War on Iraq is the Lynchpin to Controlling Persian Gulf Oil
http://www.agitprop.org.au/nowar/20030214_renner_the_new_oil_order.php
Rivalries and Quid Pro Quos
Several European and Asian oil companies have in recent years signed deals with Iraq that, if consummated, would give them access to reserves of at least 50 billion barrels and a potential output of 4-5 million barrels per day (another estimate says that Russian companies alone have signed deals involving about 70 billion barrels). In addition, a number of contracts have been signed for exploration in the western desert.21
Russian, Chinese, and French companies in particular have tried to position themselves to develop new oil fields and to rehabilitate existing ones, once UN sanctions are lifted. Russias Lukoil, for instance, signed an agreement in 1997 to refurbish and develop the West Qurna field (with 15 billion barrels of oil reserves). Chinas National Petroleum Corporation signed a deal for the North Rumailah reservoir. And Frances TotalFinaElf has set its eyes on the giant Majnoon deposits (holding 20-30 billion barrels).22
Iraq has sought to use the lure of oil concessions to build political support among three permanent Security Council nationsFrance, Russia, and Chinafor a lifting of sanctions. Although the international consensus in favor of sanctions has badly eroded, this gamble has failed to pay off in the face of determined U.S. and British opposition. (In December 2002, Iraq cancelled a contract with three Russian companies, out of frustration that the firmsin deference to sanctionshad not commenced oil exploration work.)
As long as Saddam Hussein stays in power, U.S. and British companies will be kept out of Iraq, but ongoing sanctions will also thwart existing oil development plans.
Regime change in Baghdad would reshuffle the cards and give U.S. (and British) companies a good shot at direct access to Iraqi oil for the first time in 30 yearsa windfall worth hundreds of billions of dollars. U.S. companies relish the prospect: Chevron’s chief executive, for example, said in 1998 that hed love Chevron to have access to Iraqs oil reserves.23
In preface to the passage of Security Council Resolution 1441 on November 8, there were thinly veiled threats that French, Russian, and Chinese firms would be excluded from any future oil concessions in Iraq unless Paris, Moscow, and Beijing supported the Bush policy of regime change. Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile opposition group favored by the Bush administration, said that the INC would not feel bound by any contracts signed by Saddam Husseins government and that American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil under a new regime.
U.S. and British oil company executives have been meeting with INC officials, maneuvering to secure a future stake in Iraqs oil.24 Meanwhile, the State Department has been coaxing Iraqi opposition members to create an oil and gas working group involving Iraqis and Americans.25
Nikolai Tokarev, general director of Russias Zarubezhneft, a state-owned oil company, reflected in late 2002: Do Americans need us in Iraq? Of course not. Russian companies will lose the oil forever if the Americans come.26 Fears of being excluded from Iraqs oil riches and losing influence in the region have fed Russian, French, and Chinese interest in constraining U.S. belligerence. These countries nonetheless are eager to keep their options open in the event that a pro-U.S. regime is installed in Baghdad, avoiding the risk of ending up on the wrong side of Washington, as the New York Times put it.27
Rival oil interests were a crucial behind-the-scenes factor as the permanent members of the UN Security Council jockeyed over the wording of Resolution 1441, intended to set the conditions for any action against Iraq. It is likely that backroom understandings regarding the future of Iraqi oil were part of the political minuet that finally led to the resolutions unanimous adoption. U.S. promises that the other powers would get a slice of the pie, hinted at in broad terms, were apparently inducement enough to win their nod. It is thus unlikely that French, Russian, and Chinese companies will be completely locked out of a post-Saddam Iraq, though they could find themselves in a junior position.
From Surrogates to Direct Control
Throughout the history of oil, sorting out who gets access to this highly prized resource and on what terms has often gone hand in hand with violence. At first it was Britain, the imperial power in much of the Middle East, that called the shots. But for half a century, the U.S.seeking a preponderant share of the earths resourceshas made steady progress in bringing the Persian Gulf region into its geopolitical orbit. In Washingtons calculus, securing oil supplies has consistently trumped the pursuit of human rights and democracy.
U.S. policy toward the Middle East has long relied on building up proxy forces in the region and generously supplying them with arms. After the Shah of Iran, the Wests regional policeman, was toppled in 1979, Iraq became a surrogate of sorts when it invaded Iran. Washington aided Iraq in a variety of ways, including commodity credits and loan guarantees, indirect arms supplies, critical military intelligence in Baghdads long battle against Iran, a pro-Iraqi tilt in the tanker war, and attacks on Irans navy.
more.......
Jennifer_SFBA
06/11/08, 01:08 pm
House roll-call vote roster on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml
Senate roll-call vote roster on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237
Most notable liberal Democrats who voted against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 are as follows:
Obama - Obama was not yet in the United States Senate, and therefore unable to vote on the joint resolution. However, at around the time of the vote, Obama gave a speech opposing the Iraq War.
Finegold - Finegold's speech on the floor of the United States Senate exemplifies the conflicted nature of, at the very least, some of, if not the majority of, the congresspersons before whom the Bush Administration placed the Iraq War Resolution for a vote. You can read Finegold's speech in it's entirety at the link below.
http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/speeches/02/10/2002A10531.html
Subsequesnt to Finegold's speech, much evidence about 9-11 being an inside job developed.
Kennedy
Boxer
Pelosi
Kucinich's speech, in part, read on the floor of the House of Represemtatives:
The full text version of Kucinich's speech on the House floor is at the link below:
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2002/10/03_kucinich_vote-no.htm
The resolution which this Congress is facing says: ``Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against an illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq.''
The American people need to know that the key issue here is that in the Persian Gulf War there was an international coalition. World support was for protecting Kuwait. There is no world support for invading Iraq.
The resolution goes on to say: ``Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;
``Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated.''
But the key issue here that the American people need to know is that U.N. inspection teams identified and destroyed nearly all such weapons. A lead inspector, Scott Ritter, said that he believes that nearly all other weapons not found were destroyed in the Gulf War. Furthermore, according to a published report in The Washington Post, the Central Intelligence Agency, yes, the Central Intelligence Agency, has no up-to-date accurate report on Iraq's capabilities of weapons of mass destruction.
The resolution that is presented to this Congress says: ``Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998.''
What the American people need to know, and the key issue here, is that the Iraqi deceptions always failed. The inspectors always figured out what Iraq was doing. It was the United States that withdrew from the inspections in 1998, and the United States then launched a cruise missile attack against Iraq 48 hours after the inspectors left. And it is the United States, in advance of a military strike, the U.S. continues to thwart, and this is the administration's word, weapons inspections.
Notable independant Republican Ron Paul's speech on the House floor against the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 in it's entirety is at the link below:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ron_Paul%27s_Iraq_Speech
Most notable conservative Democrats who voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 are as follows:
Clinton - The full text version of Clinton's speech on the Senate floor is at the link below:
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html
Jennifer_SFBA
06/11/08, 02:56 pm
Another most notable conservative Democratic US Senator to add to the list of those who supported the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 is Feinstein. See the link below for the full text of Feinstein's speech in favor of the Iraq War at the link below:
http://www.senate.gov/~feinstein/Releases02/r-iraq10.htm
Feinstein:
The resolution before us does not grant such a sweeping use of force. Rather, the use of force is confined to Iraq and targeted toward forcing Iraq to comply with 16 Security Council resolutions passed in the wake of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Most importantly, I believe the Lieberman resolution becomes a catalyst to encourage prompt, forceful and effective action by the United Nations to compel this long sought-after and much-evaded disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.
Disarming Iraq under Saddam Hussein is necessary and vital to the safety and security of America, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East - let there be no doubt about this.
But the decision to cast this vote does not come lightly. I continue to have serious concerns that there are those in the Administration who would seek to use this authorization for a unilateral, pre-emptive attack against Iraq.
I believe this would be a terrible mistake.
But I am reassured by statements made by the President in his address to the United Nations on September 12, which conveyed a major shift in the Administration's approach - turning away from a pre-emptive strategy and, instead, engaging and challenging the U.N. Security Council to compel Iraq's disarmament and back this with force.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
Jennifer_SFBA
06/11/08, 09:14 pm
Hi, MAJI.
The bottom line is the vote, YEA or NAY. When Feinstein and every other Senator voted, it was at the end of all of the Senate floor speeches thoughtfully and sincerely given to expose to each member of the Senate the wisdom, or falacy of the vote they would make on a very specific piece of legislation that was before them, namely, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, that gave the President of the United States unprecendented war powers in contradiction to provisions of the Constitution of the United States itself.
Republican independant, Ron Paul, gave the following floor speech, in part, that Feinstein heard, but did not heed:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ron_Paul%27s_Iraq_Speech
One-half of the resolution delivers this (war) power to the President, but it also instructs him to enforce U.N. resolutions. I happen to think I would rather listen to the President when he talks about unilateralism and national security interests, than accept this responsibility to follow all of the rules and the dictates of the United Nations. That is what this resolution does. It instructs him to follow all of the resolutions.
But an important aspect of the philosophy and the policy we are endorsing here is the preemption doctrine. This should not be passed off lightly. It has been done to some degree in the past, but never been put into law that we will preemptively strike another nation that has not attacked us. No matter what the arguments may be, this policy is new; and it will have ramifications for our future, and it will have ramifications for the future of the world because other countries will adopt this same philosophy.
I do not believe that proper authority can be transferred to the President nor to the United Nations.
This resolution is not a declaration of war, however, and that is an important point: this resolution transfers the Constitutionally-mandated Congressional authority to declare wars to the executive branch. This resolution tells the president that he alone has the authority to determine when, where, why, and how war will be declared. It merely asks the president to pay us a courtesy call a couple of days after the bombing starts to let us know what is going on. This is exactly what our Founding Fathers cautioned against when crafting our form of government: most had just left behind a monarchy where the power to declare war rested in one individual. It is this they most wished to avoid.
This resolution transfers the responsibility, the authority, and the power of the Congress to the President so he can declare war when and if he wants to. He has not even indicated that he wants to go to war or has to go to war; but he will make the full decision, not the Congress, not the people through the Congress of this country in that manner.
As James Madison wrote in 1798, "The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has, accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.".
Correct Jennifer, but "We The People" were kept in the dark with ALL the secrecy!
Who would have believed so many of OUR "leaders" would lie and manipulate as they did, many to fill their purse (what business is Feinstein's husband in)?
It was only those of us that KNEW they could and WOULD!
I witnessed what happened to JFK, Robert Kennedy, MLK, the trysts of Nixon......................., Reagan.........Iran/Contra ..........the propaganda,
Oklahoma City, the Twin Towers! The go along corporate MEDIA!
I knew of the good of FDR. I saw what we lost; keep losing!
That is why I believe in The United Nations............where one can NOT silence the whistle blowers!
We certainly ALL are wiser now, aren't we?
Ron Paul:
But I am very interested also in the process that we are pursuing. This is not a resolution to declare war. We know that. This is a resolution that does something much different. This resolution transfers the responsibility, the authority, and the power of the Congress to the President so he can declare war when and if he wants to. He has not even indicated that he wants to go to war or has to go to war; but he will make the full decision, not the Congress, not the people through the Congress of this country in that manner.
It does something else, though. One-half of the resolution delivers this power to the President, but it also instructs him to enforce U.N. resolutions. I happen to think I would rather listen to the President when he talks about unilateralism and national security interests, than accept this responsibility to follow all of the rules and the dictates of the United Nations. That is what this resolution does. It instructs him to follow all of the resolutions.
But an important aspect of the philosophy and the policy we are endorsing here is the preemption doctrine. This should not be passed off lightly. It has been done to some degree in the past, but never been put into law that we will preemptively strike another nation that has not attacked us. No matter what the arguments may be, this policy is new; and it will have ramifications for our future, and it will have ramifications for the future of the world because other countries will adopt this same philosophy.
I also want to mention very briefly something that has essentially never been brought up. For more than a thousand years there has been a doctrine and Christian definition of what a just war is all about. I think this effort and this plan to go to war comes up short of that doctrine. First, it says that there has to be an act of aggression; and there has not been an act of aggression against the United States. We are 6,000 miles from their shores.
Also, it says that all efforts at negotiations must be exhausted. I do not believe that is the case. It seems to me like the opposition, the enemy, right now is begging for more negotiations.
Also, the Christian doctrine says that the proper authority must be responsible for initiating the war. I do not believe that proper authority can be transferred to the President nor to the United Nations.
But a very practical reason why I have a great deal of reservations has to do with the issue of no-win wars that we have been involved in for so long. Once we give up our responsibilities from here in the House and the Senate to make these decisions, it seems that we depend on the United Nations for our instructions; and that is why, as a Member earlier indicated, essentially we are already at war. That is correct. We are still in the Persian Gulf War. We have been bombing for 12 years, and the reason President Bush, Sr., did not go all the way? He said the U.N. did not give him permission to.
My argument is when we go to war through the back door, we are more likely to have the wars last longer and not have resolution of the wars, such as we had in Korea and Vietnam. We ought to consider this very seriously.
It is imperative to work together, to help our fellowman/Nations however we can, because this IS OUR PLANET and we must work together to preserve it, if mankind wishes to survive!
To me, the bottom line is Did they learn from their horrible mistake(s), and WHAT they did and are doing to change.
:thumbup::thumbup:
Bush's legacy:
June 16th, 2008 3:32 am
What do we want? George Bush. What do we get? A no-show
By Duncan Campbell / Guardian
Inside apparently it was informal and relaxed, as George Bush arrived at Downing Street for a private dinner hosted by Gordon Brown and attended by Rupert Murdoch, a clutch of ministers and a mini-faculty of historians.
But out on the streets of Westminster, it was an edgier affair, as police in riot gear faced down protesters determined once again to voice their anger at the arrival in Britain of the US president.
Crowds often turn out in Britain for the farewell tours of famous American names and yesterday was no exception. Some 2,500 had gathered in Parliament Square hours before the big event was due to start, and there plenty of T-shirts and memorabilia on sale.
But despite non-stop chants of his name, the star of the show made no appearance in front of the crowds. The fact that the chants were "George Bush terrorist" and "Arrest George Bush" may have had something to do with it. Certainly the noise was loud enough to be heard above the polite conversation 200 yards away at 10 Downing Street.
The trouble began after a few cans and placards were lobbed over police lines. Several protesters were injured in the clashes and 25 were arrested. Protesters blamed the authorities for not allowing a letter to be handed in to Downing Street. Police blamed demonstrators for trying to dismantle barriers.
Numbers may have been fewer than those that greeted Bush on his November 2003 visit to London, when anger over the Iraq war was still raw. But every generation was represented yesterday, from babies wearing "Arrest Bush" stickers, to Tony Benn who left behind his parliamentary career to "spend more time in politics".
Before things turned ugly, the mood was vibrant. Whistles were blown, drums were banged, and some carried handcuffs on the off-chance that Bush might present himself for a citizen's arrest. "The war in Iraq was a war crime," said Benn. ]"Over 1 million Iraqis have died and the Americans are spending $400m a day on it while people are starving in Ethiopia." But nor was the past forgotten. A loudspeaker played Love is All You Need and one T-shirt read: "I still hate Thatcher
[/QUOTE]
If it is "liberal" to want our taxes to go for the General good instead of pre-emptive WAR, then I am a "liberal"!
too late to finish, so a repeat:
Bush's legacy:
[QUOTE]Quote:
June 16th, 2008 3:32 am
What do we want? George Bush. What do we get? A no-show
By Duncan Campbell / Guardian
Inside apparently it was informal and relaxed, as George Bush arrived at Downing Street for a private dinner hosted by Gordon Brown and attended by Rupert Murdoch, a clutch of ministers and a mini-faculty of historians.
But out on the streets of Westminster, it was an edgier affair, as police in riot gear faced down protesters determined once again to voice their anger at the arrival in Britain of the US president.
Crowds often turn out in Britain for the farewell tours of famous American names and yesterday was no exception. Some 2,500 had gathered in Parliament Square hours before the big event was due to start, and there plenty of T-shirts and memorabilia on sale.
But despite non-stop chants of his name, the star of the show made no appearance in front of the crowds. The fact that the chants were "George Bush terrorist" and "Arrest George Bush" may have had something to do with it. Certainly the noise was loud enough to be heard above the polite conversation 200 yards away at 10 Downing Street.
The trouble began after a few cans and placards were lobbed over police lines. Several protesters were injured in the clashes and 25 were arrested. Protesters blamed the authorities for not allowing a letter to be handed in to Downing Street. Police blamed demonstrators for trying to dismantle barriers.
Numbers may have been fewer than those that greeted Bush on his November 2003 visit to London, when anger over the Iraq war was still raw. But every generation was represented yesterday, from babies wearing "Arrest Bush" stickers, to Tony Benn who left behind his parliamentary career to "spend more time in politics".
Before things turned ugly, the mood was vibrant. Whistles were blown, drums were banged, and some carried handcuffs on the off-chance that Bush might present himself for a citizen's arrest. "The war in Iraq was a war crime," said Benn. "Over 1 million Iraqis have died and the Americans are spending $400m a day on it while people are starving in Ethiopia." But nor was the past forgotten. A loudspeaker played Love is All You Need and one T-shirt read: "I still hate Thatcher
If it is "liberal" to want our taxes to go for the General good instead of pre-emptive WAR, then I am a "liberal" and a "conservative" because I consider how the tax money will be put toward good use!
McClellan testifying before congress:
McClellan often used corporate lingo to explain the lead-up to the Iraq war. McClellan also kept returning to the phrase: "less than truthful." Congressmen repeatedly asked him whether or not the president "lied" or told "untruths," and McClellan avoided those two words consistently, while never characterizing the president's statements as the actual truth.
He said that the case for war was "packaged and sold" to Congress and the American people through "marketing." He called it a "war-making campaign" and likened the effort to running for elective office. As for the reasons for entering the war in Iraq, McClellan was surprisingly blunt when asked about the connection between national security concerns and oil:
"If Iraq didn't have its large oil reserves ... it wouldn't have been on the radar."
Although he wouldn't say the president lied, McClellan didn't let Bush off completely. He said that by the time he handed over the press secretary position to his successor, he was quite disillusioned. When asked who changed Bush's leadership strategy to the "permanent campaign" that McClellan bemoans in his book and encouraged the president to forgo the bipartisan efforts that marked his term as governor of Texas, McClellan balked. He said, "The president has to bear responsibility for his presidency veering off track."
What more does anyone need, to KNOW, bushco should be tried at The Hague and also found guilty in the US of A!
Conclusion: The public document was rigged to support the push for war. The president intentionally misled the public. The intelligence and facts were fixed around the policy.
Another example is the now infamous nuclear reference from Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Not only was this refuted twice in early 2002 -- by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and by French intelligence -- but the CIA's National Intelligence Council investigated and told the White House four days before the address that "the Niger [Africa] story is baseless and should be laid to rest." So the administration knew the claim was false, used it anyway and when caught, issued a collective "oops." Although these speeches are vetted by Bush staffers, State, Defense, National Security and the CIA, it just slipped through. Riiiiight.
Two weeks before the war, the president echoed statements made in January's State of the Union: "I've got a good evidence to believe that. [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction," and "Iraqi operatives continue to hide biological and chemical agents to avoid detection by inspectors." Ah yes, the mobile labs. And your evidence was from whom, sir? Curveball? The now fully discredited Iraqi chemical engineer who defected in 1999 and claimed to have worked in the labs? In 2002, German intelligence -- who debriefed Curveball -- told the CIA that the guy was “crazy” and “a fabricator.”
Yet in his push for war, Bush chose to voice the Iraqi defector's claims over proof offered by U.N. weapons inspectors who, with eyes and ears on the ground, represented the best possible intelligence. From November 2002 to March 2003, they were granted unprecedented freedom and conducted more than 700 no-notice inspections all over Iraq and found nothing. No mobile labs, no underground storage facilities, nothing. This should have been great news, but not for a president looking to go to war. Indeed, U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix flat out accused Bush and Blair of lying when he stated: "The Americans and British created facts where there were no facts at all. ... The Americans needed [to find] weapons of mass destruction to justify war." So Bush was creating facts to justify war.
If there remains any equivocation of Bush's propensity to lie, consider the Jan. 31, 2003, meeting between Bush and Blair. In a summary, Blair foreign policy advisor David Manning wrote that there was tension between the two over finding some justification for the war. In fact, Bush was so concerned about the failure of the weapons inspectors to find WMD that the president floated three possible ways to "provoke a confrontation" with Hussein. So here's your president very publicly using self-defense to sell a war while quite privately discussing how to provoke one -- with an allegedly dangerous foe who poses an imminent threat. Either Bush lied or he put us at grave risk. Or both.
Space constraints don't allow for a refutation of all the lies the president told about Iraq's threat, their weapons and their link to Osama bin Laden. However, consider this final point: Our government spent nearly tens of millions of dollars to try to impeach a president for lying about consensual sex between two adults. Compare that to this abomination: George W. Bush knowingly lied to the American people in selling his case for a war that has directly led to the deaths of more than 4,000 Americans. They are deaths brought about by his lies, deceit and deception. It is an American atrocity of monumental proportion, followed closely by the heinous fact that no one has held him accountable. Where is the outrage?
.................................................. .................................................. ..................
Cy Bolton is a former news anchor and military affairs reporter. His coverage of defense-related issues and conflicts in the Balkans and the Middle East has appeared on NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, CNN and affiliates across the country.
Blowback is an online forum for full-length responses to our articles, editorials and Op-Ed articles. Click here to read more about Blowback, or submit your own by e-mailing us at opinionla@latimes.com.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-bolton27-2008jun27,0,3186043.story?track=ntothtml
What more does anyone need to KNOW?
Bushco should be tried at The Hague and also found guilty in the US of A!
2.
September 13, 2008 at 06:12:17
The NORAD Papers IV
by Dean Jackson Page 1 of 2 page(s)
www.opednews.com
To say that communication between civilian Air Traffic Control (ATC) and NORAD was abysmal on the morning of September 11, 2001 would be a massive understatement. As an illustration, it took ATC twenty-three minutes to communicate to NORAD that American Airlines Flight 11 had been hijacked,1 and in the case of United Airlines Flight 175, ATC informed NORAD of that flight’s odyssey through northeast skies at 09:03, the same minute as Flight 175 impacted Two World Trade Center!2
Communication between ATC and NORAD in regards to the last two flights hijacked—American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93—fared worse. In these two cases NORAD wasn’t officially informed of any troubles with those flights until after they had crashed!3 In the case of Flight 77, that flight began deviating from its flight plan at 08:54,4 but NEADS wasn’t informed about Flight 77 until 09:34 when NEADS just happened to be in contact with a Washington Center manager discussing what turned out to be a "phantom" Flight 11 heading south towards Washingon, D.C. During the conversation NEADS was matter-of-factly informed that Flight 77 was also lost. This was the first indication that NORAD had of Flight 77’s troubles…via a chance utterance by Washington Center!5
In the official 9/11 narrative NORAD is always on the receiving side when it comes to learning about errant aircraft flying through the skies on the morning of September 11, 2001. This is because the official narrative of 9/11 has NORAD directed, as General Richard Myers told the 9/11 Commission, "looking outward"6 for threats to the continent, not inwards. Since NORAD didn’t monitor air activity within the United States and Canada on September 11, 2001,7 how could it be the first to initiate calls to ATC on errant aircraft? This account of NORAD’s monitoring capabilities on 9/11 is, of course, part of the official narrative of 9/11. The factual narrative on this subject has NORAD with much greater monitoring capabilities than admitted to by the government. With greater capabilities to monitor the skies, we will see that NORAD radar operators were not mere passive recipients of ATC information on September 11, 2001, but active partners in initiating communication with their civilian counterparts.
In previous supplements of The NORAD Papers we learned that the official narrative of NORAD’s capabilities on 9/11 was incomplete. Not only was NORAD tasked to monitor the aerial approaches to the United States and Canada on 9/11, but the defense organization was also mandated to provide "surveillance and control of the territorial airspace"8 (what NORAD calls "Air Sovereignty") above the United States and Canada. In point of fact, NORAD’s mission to provide "surveillance and control of the territorial airspace" above both signatory nations is actually NORAD’s first mission of three, the other two missions being providing "the NCAs [National Command Authorities] with tactical warning and attack assessment of an aerospace attack against North America"; and "[providing] an appropriate response to any form of an air attack."9
As pointed out in 1998 by Major Francois Malo of Canada’s Department of National Defense, Canada that year had finally caught up with the United States in its capability to "detect, identify, and if necessary intercept aircraft over Canadian territory".10 So how did NORAD radar operators on September 11, 2001 identify aircraft flying over our airspace?
On September 11, 2001 NORAD radar operators identified aircraft "flying over our air space"11 by looking through logs of flight plans. "Much of the identifying process is done by hand…Flight plans from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are compiled in logs and have to be manually searched to identify aircraft."12 A NORAD radar operator would cross check the radar data of an aircraft he/she was watching with information provided by the FAA. If the radar data on the aircraft matched the information provided in the FAA logs, which included the aircraft’s identity, the aircraft was identified. At other times, however, identifying aircraft flying "through our air space"13 entailed, "phone contact with FAA officials about commercial aircraft."14
Operating under this new information on NORAD’s true capabilities on September 11, 2001, NORAD radar operators on that morning would have initiated phone contact with their civilian counterparts long before ATC contacted them. Once the first flight had deviated from its flight plan at 08:20,15 NORAD would have seen it on radar and have contacted ATC immediately. Instead we are led to believe that for eighteen minutes NORAD radar operators were oblivious to Flight 11’s new flight plan, only learning about the off-course aircraft through ATC notification at 08:38.16
And what were NORAD radar operators doing after the other three flights strayed from their flight plans? United Airlines Flight 175 veered from its assigned flight plan at 08:42,17 yet NORAD radar operators remained wall flowers for twenty-one minutes as the errant aircraft flew south towards New York City, its flight ending at 09:03 when it impacted Two World Trade Center. Flight 77 deviated from its flight plan at 08:54,18 but NORAD radar operators were indifferent to this in-flight emergency for forty-four minutes as Flight 77 flew on its new, unapproved eastward flight plan that ended when it crashed into the Pentagon at 09:38. At 09:36 Flight 93 made a hard left turn, veering sharply off course,19 but in the ensuing twenty-five minutes before the Boeing 757 plowed into the ground in Somerset County, Pennsylvania at 10:03, NORAD radar operators never though to contact ATC and inquire about Flight 93’s odd maneuvers.
Of course, such scenarios of inaction on the part of NORAD radar operators are ludicrous. NORAD radar operators at the Northeast Air Defense Sector would have been on the phone immediately with their civilian counterparts at ATC attempting to get answers on the four errant aircraft they were monitoring. Amongst the duties assigned to NORAD radar operators on September 11, 2001 was the requirement to initiate "phone contact with FAA officials about commercial aircraft…flying over our air space"20 Only a stand down order, or sabotage of radar feed, would have prevented NORAD radar operators from performing their duty to initiate contact with ATC during the 9/11 attacks.
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1.http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/911Report.pdf, p. 32.
2. Ibid, p. 23.
3.Ibid, p. 26; p. 33.
4.Ibid, p. 24.
5.Ibid, p. 27.
6.http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml
:confused:
So, do you think we'll EVER learn the TRUTH of 9/11?
:confused:
While Commissioners BenVeniste and Gorelick appeared to be asking "hard-hitting" questions, they always stopped short of anything that would get to the heart of the matter. They made no mention of the war games running on the morning of 9/11, neither in this round of hearings nor during the previous round, in which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke under oath.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml
The Final Fraud
9/11 Commission closes its doors to the public;
Cover-Up Complete
By
Michael Kane
[The players of the Warren Commission farce of our day have taken their bow. The crew begins to strike the set, the actors are going home, and soon the house is cold and the stage empty. There will be no encores, and the reviews are not good. Behind the scenes, the director is relieved but a little nervous; the producers may or may not be satisfied with the return on their investment. So many pretty microphones, such fine suits and ties! But will it play in Peoria?
In this eyewitness account, Mike Kane looks at the Commission's performance on the day of the really big show - NORAD / FAA day. He finds a chorus of costumed players mouthing their lines to their uniformed counterparts as the cameras roll. The dangerous issue they pretend to confront is nowhere to be seen, and before the harmless script comes off the press and into the bookstores, we recognize the gist: "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -JAH]
skip
The 9/11 Report;
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept_11/911Report.pdf
The article which led to the above urls:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-NORAD-Papers-IV-by-Dean-Jackson-080913-229.html
See page 2.
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