he was speaking towards the iraqi people. obviously commenting on how they have nuclear weapons or are threats to regimes around them would not work. the point of the message to iraqis would be to get iraqis on our side. this would only be accomplished by reiterating that saddam is evil and we are good because we will free you from evil. you can't use that example to make your points. next.
So basso, is it your contention that Bush's administration used the "freedom" argument to the same extent as the "9-11 link" and "WMD" arguments to convince Americans to go to war? I just want to get down your position.
I argue with you too much, basso. I bet if you and me sat down and had a beer we'd have a great time and talk about operatic bass literature and such. I sing for the Sullivan competition tomorrow, wish me luck! I watched the entire thing live on TV. That section of the speech you quoted touched me very much. I've only posted about this once before, but IIRC you read it: Initially, I was a supporter of the war and had to be in the closet about it because all my friends are liberal. I supported it for the same reasons the neocons did: Iraq was an excellent candidate for democratization, and could possibly start a reaction (Wolfowitz's 'domino effect.') I also felt that evil is evil and somebody has to take a stand at some point. Even knowing all that, it was clear to me that the advertising campaign focus almost entirely on WMD and terrorism. I dug up an article myself once about Saddam's henchmen putting people in a plastic shredder. During the actual campain I gained the now humiliating gesture of being in TJ's sig- not as ridicule, but because he loved what I said so much. I didn't like Bush, didn't vote for him, and figured even if he wasn't being honest, the ends would justify the means- a liberated Iraq with a secular democracy. Obviously, since then, I had a change of heart. I still hope that we're successful over there in building a democracy there and getting them on their feet, I really don't want to withdraw the troops until it looks like there's no chance of success and we are not at that point yet. I hold hope. But I'm fightin' mad about how this entire thing was done. As for the topic at hand- you've linked the now infamous SOTU. Let's have a look: Mentions of the word "democracy": 1. It referred to Iran. Mentions of the word "democratic": 1. It referred to Palestine. Mentions of the word "freedom": 4. Only two of those four times did it refer to Iraq. Mentions of the word "terror" and derivatives: 22. Mentions of "Weapons of Mass Destruction": 4. One of the four refers to Iran. Mentions of the word "nuclear": 12. Four refer to North Korea. Mentions of the word "kill": 3. "Terrorist killers" is also in there. Mentions of the word "help" in the second half of the SOTU referring to Iraq: 1. Here's the context: "he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own" Total words in the SOTU addressing the War on Terror and Iraq: 2,969 Total words in the quote basso provided: 139 Now, all of this aside- you're using the SOTU. This is what war defenders always reach for. There was a lot more being said and written prewar than the SOTU. I'd like somebody to find us how many times Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz mentioned democracy and freedom vs. WMD and terror. Last of all, an honest quetion: do you really think that if these two justifications were switched in their proportion, that the American people would have supported the war?
But in that case then shouldn't Whitewater investigation stopped at being a failed land deal with Jim and Susan McDougal's indictments? Again consider if this was a Democratic Admin wouldn't you want to see further investigation? You often are one to bring up all sorts of inferences and speculations regarding the motives of Democrats yet show next to no skepticism regarding Republicans. We now have a major Admin official indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice don't you think that merits a further investigation of what potential role others in Admin. might have to do with that?
basso, while your slow-motion conversoin that maybe the White House did do something kind of not so OK in exposing plame and the various crimes committed in furtherance thereof is funny to watch, I'm going to say somethng about your moronic signature First off, while bashing Kerry might be fun and take your mind off the pathetic political fortunes of the Bush administration and the five years of mismanagement and abuse come to roost in the form of indictments and low approval ratings as well as visible failures in Iraq and New Orleans, your signature just makes no sense whatsoever. Do you not comprehend that there is a difference between 1. having sufficient troops, money, planning, etc to invade and occupy Iraq and prevent the breakdown of law & order and the growth of the insurgency before the fact and 2. years after the fact, putting more troops in danger for no apparent purpose other than to get killed? It's like saying "we should lock the barn door before the horse is out but not after". There is nothing inconsistent about that statement. Unless you are an idiot and can't understand even a Newtonian concept of time.
Good luck tomorrow (today?)! I was a sullivan winner back in the day- '84 i think. what are your audition pieces?
Rove has not been indicted, yet. He has been shown to lie about Plame. Libby was not indicted for treason, perhaps that might be coming. Since Libby was successful in obstructing justice,by lying, it was tough for the prosecutor to know if Libby committed"treason" or knowingly outted a spy. Rove has not been indicted for lying and obstructing justice, but may be according to the prosecuotor. See comments on Libby as to whether he committed "treason'. Cheney was shown to have lied, but it is true he has not been indicted. Bush has been shown to lie about the affair, too. At least he has not fired people involved like he said he lyingly said he would. Time will tell if the Plame Affairhurts Bush even more.
Jorge and other fanatiical defenders of Bush use the generic argument that the country must go on and the Democrats in the Senate want to go backward and reargue the reasons for the war. This is not necessarily the case, though the reasons stated for the war or at least those emphasized by Bush have changed. What the Democrats and most Americans want to know is whether the Bush Administration lied or consciously deceived us into war because they knew or were relatively sure that there were no wmd. The defenders of the war always claim that this was not true, or at the minimum it can't be proven. The Senate is saying: "let's find out; let's find out for instance if some of the neocons around Bush were involved in the Niger forgery or perhaps making Bush believe that it was not a forgery; what role if any did Cheney play in putting the forgery into the President's speech or Powell's pivotal speech to the UN." Fanatical Bush supporters or neocon war supporter types do not want to know the answers to the above questions. I think they are afraid that the answer is "yes". Frankly I uspect that they don't care if the American people were deceived into war. True neocons are followers of Leo Strauss and actively believe in deceiving the American people.
You need to work hard today. So far, not a single one-liner could even remotely be described as "witty."
Some more background on Roberts and what lead to yesterday's events... ------------------------- Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq Larisa Alexandrovna Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress. "The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate." The order is aimed at protecting "military security" and "sensitive law enforcement." But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so. Coupled with limited access to intelligence documents, RAW STORY has found that Roberts and a handful of other strategically-placed Washington players stymied all questions into pre-war intelligence on Iraq and post-invasion cover-ups, including the outing of a CIA covert agent, by using targeted leaks and artfully deflecting blame from the White House. The Senate and House intelligence committees were created in the 1970s after a series of congressional investigations found that the CIA had acted like a "rogue elephant" carrying out illegal covert action abroad. By the late 1990s, members of the committees and their staffs were seeing more than 2,200 CIA reports and receiving more than 1,200 substantive briefings from agency officials each year to assist them in their role of providing proper oversight. But the little-reported 2001 Bush directive changed that, ensuring that only two members of each committee received full briefings on intelligence operations, and preventing committee staffs from carrying out meaningful research. Tom Reynolds, spokesman for the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Jane Harman (D-CA), downplayed the significance of the order, saying members continued to have access. He acknowledged, however, that the "gang of eight" had higher-level clearances. The spokesman for the Senate Intelligence Committee deferred comment to the White House; the White House did not return requests for comment. At the time of the order, Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) chaired the House Intelligence Committee. His counterpart in the Senate was Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), whom Sen. Roberts replaced in 2003. Chairman Pat Roberts In a sense, the pre-invasion of Iraq and the post-invasion intelligence blame game can be seen through the lens of a chess game, with the pieces in place well before any troops set foot on the ground. Roberts appears to become an extension of the White House in selling the war beginning in January 2003. That month, he is appointed to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee, picking up one of the eight coveted clearances. By the end of the month, Roberts is convinced that Saddam is harboring both al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. Much of what convinces Roberts is a series of briefings organized by then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. Hadley led a White House team to help sift through CIA intelligence, filtering information for Congressional briefings. Roberts embraces a larger pro-war role. His voice is joined by Vice President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Their calls align with President Bush in his State of the Union address, in which he declares, "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Shortly thereafter, the Administration hits a snag: Documents alleging Iraq’s intention to reconstitute its nuclear program by purchasing uranium from Niger are publicly acknowledged to be forgeries. Background on the Niger forgeries The Administration asserts that they didn't hear the documents were forgeries until after the speech. But the U.S Embassy in Rome has already had the Niger forgeries for three months. British intelligence say they passed the documents to Vice President Dick Cheney's office in early 2002. The Vice President subsequently makes several visits to the CIA with "questions" about recent Niger to Iraq uranium sales. The International Atomic Energy Agency questions the Niger claim in December after the National Security Agency issues a fact sheet on Iraq's weapons omissions to the UN Security Council. As NSA deputy, Hadley may have already had the documents as well. The IAEA, however, is not given the documents until the end of February 2003, a year after the U.S. first acquires them. Once acquired, they determine the documents are fakes within several hours. John Pike, director of the Washington military watchdog GlobalSecurity.org, says the Administration's line on the Niger documents raises questions. "The thing that was so embarrassing about the episode was not simply that the documents were forgeries, but that they were clumsy forgeries, as was so quickly determined by the IAEA," he told RAW STORY. "It is one thing to be taken in, but to be so easily taken in, suggested either bewildering incompetence or intentional deception, or possibly both." Roberts blocks Niger questions Whether Roberts actually saw the Niger forgeries during Hadley’s briefings is unclear. What is clear is that by March of 2003, the Intelligence chairman was in a position to head off any serious investigation into concerns raised by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the committee's ranking Democrat and vice-chair. Rockefeller has grave concerns about deceptive intelligence, so serious that he pens a formal letter to FBI director Robert Mueller. Rockefeller urges Mueller to investigate the Niger forgeries as part of what he feared to be "…a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq," writes the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh. Roberts declines to sign the Rockefeller letter, seeing the involvement of the FBI as inappropriate. As a result, Rockefeller's letter falls on deaf ears. On July 11, 2003, faced with public pressure to investigate the Niger forgeries, Roberts blames the CIA and defends the White House. "Sen. Rockefeller and I are committed to continue our close examination of all of the issues surrounding the Niger documents," the Kansas senator declares. "So far, I am very disturbed by what appears to be extremely sloppy handling of the issue from the outset by the CIA." More astonishing is that CIA spokesman William Harlow stated that the agency had not obtained the Niger documents until "after the President's State of the Union speech and after the congressional briefings, and therefore had been unable to evaluate them." Roberts blocks WMD questions Roberts also figures prominently in warding off bipartisan efforts to investigate WMD in Iraq - the reason given by the Bush administration for going to war. As pressure heats up, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee John Warner (R-VA) says he would support joint hearings with Roberts on "the issue" and that Roberts "had been receptive to the idea." That sentiment changes, however, after Roberts meets with Senate GOP leadership and Vice President Dick Cheney. The Kansas senator then says talk of hearings is "premature." Roberts soon announces he will hold a closed-door review of intelligence documentation and the lead-up to war. He begins to spin questions and skeptics of the war as politically motivated. "I will not allow the committee to be politicized or to be used as an unwitting tool for any political strategist," he says. Through leaks and smears, Senate chairman protects White House to blame CIA, Democrats Niger forgeries and WMDS – Roberts fingers CIA As more questions surface on the Administration's lies about WMD and forged Niger documents, Roberts becomes a staunch Bush defender, deflecting pre-war "failures" away from the White House and pinning all blame on the CIA. On July 11, 2003 - five days after former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes an article for the New York Times challenging the White House claim of Niger uranium sales to Iraq, Roberts issues a statement: "What now concerns me most," he remarks, "is what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the CIA in an effort to discredit the President." Ironically, on the same day that Roberts issues his statement, CIA chief George Tenet takes full responsibility for the uranium claim and its insertion in the State of the Union. What follows is a bizarre war of departments as the CIA and the White House duke it out. The latter's campaign is abetted by Roberts in the Senate, Goss in the House and Hadley and John Bolton at State. Three days after the Roberts volley at the CIA and Tenet's apology for the uranium claim in the President's State of the Union, CIA covert asset Valerie Plame Wilson -- wife of Joseph Wilson -- is outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak. The leak seems aimed at both Wilson and his wife, as a part of carefully orchestrated strategy on the part of senior White House officials. In late September 2003, now-CIA director Porter Goss, acting in his capacity as then chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, concludes that the CIA is to blame for Iraq pre-war intelligence failures. Like Roberts, Goss is said to be "...under the spell of Vice-President Dick Cheney and that his presence on the joint 9/11 inquiry gave the administration a deal of protection." The following day, the CIA asks the Department of Justice to investigate the Plame outing. Fixing the fix: Leaks and blame games In July 2003, two astonishing political strategies merge: Hadley takes responsibility for the Niger statements -- though CIA Director Tenet has already done so -- and on the same day, Roberts calls Hadley to testify in pre-war intelligence failures. "We have made an inquiry with the National Security Council, with [National Security Adviser Condoleezza] Rice and asked to meet with Mr. Hadley and any other person that might be of particular interest to us," Roberts says. "So we will be in the business of taking a hard look at that." Roberts' claims of taking "a hard look" seem to dismiss the working relationship he had with Hadley earlier in the year, when the latter acted as liaison between the CIA and Roberts. Hadley had delivered documents that the CIA allegedly never saw and the NSA had acquired at least a year in advance -- used as evidence of Iraq's WMD program. What follows is a series of White House salvos, aimed at Senate Democrats, the CIA and policy skeptics, aiming to shift blame away from the Administration. Classified documents and smears become White House tools of choice. First, blame the CIA In late October, 2003, Roberts puts together a report evaluating U.S. intelligence failures in the build-up to war. Even though Roberts was aware of the Niger forgeries earlier in the year and knew of the issues surrounding the White House false WMD claims and refused to investigate, the report exonerates the White House and the Senate and again places intelligence failures at the door of the CIA. Someone then leaks the draft of the report to the Washington Post and Roberts begins to issue statements, at the encouragement of Dick Cheney, calling CIA pre-war intelligence "sloppy." Rockefeller publicly questions Roberts efforts' in clearing the Administration of wrongdoing. [Roberts was trying to] "lay all of this out on the intelligence community and never get to any other branches of government; in particular the White House and associated high and visible government agencies," Rockefeller told Knight Ridder. In January of 2004, after Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay reports that no WMDs were found in Iraq, Democrats and some Republicans begin calling for investigations, again. Second, blame the Democrats In the wake of Kay's report Roberts responds to bipartisan calls for an investigation by once again deflecting criticism towards Senate Democrats, who he claims are "politicizing" the Intelligence Committee. Several months prior, as the questions surrounding the Wilson outing and Iraq pre-war intelligence begin to spill into public discourse, another leak occurs in which Democrats are set up for criticizing the administration. "Fox News has obtained a document believed to have been written by the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee that outlines a strategy for exposing what it calls "the administration's dubious motives" in the lead-up to the war in Iraq." Roberts expresses his dismay. "I'm pretty despondent right now," he tells Reuters, “it's sort of like a personal slap in the face after you have worked over time to come up with what we think is going to be a very good report on how to improve our intelligence capabilities." The question of who leaked the document remains unanswered. Finally, blame Wilson and close the books In July 2004, Roberts and the Senate Intelligence Committee release their long-awaited WMD report which unsurprisingly places all blame on the CIA. Roberts uses the report as an additional platform on which to further attempt to discredit both Joseph and Valerie Wilson. Republicans embed Roberts' false assertion that Valerie Wilson sent her husband to Niger in talking points and media fodder. Although both Wilson and the CIA correct the record, Roberts, White House staff and others continue to make the charge. Roberts pitches the case for closing the book on the lead-up to war. "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence," he quips. "I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further." Now, blame Fitzgerald With the pre-war intelligence failures firmly put to rest, Roberts shifts his focus to Valerie Wilson's outing, which has been percolating for over a year. In July of this year, Roberts frames the Plame outing as not really the outing of a covert agent. "I must say from a common sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert," he tells CNN. But that approach does not poll well. Roberts instead shifts the focus to the investigation and the Republican special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald himself. According to the Boston Globe, Roberts intends to investigate what "covert protections for CIA agents" are really needed. All eyes are now on Fitzgerald's probe. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSe...and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html
Not according to the FBI interviews of her neighbors and friends who reported that they had absolutely no idea that the worked at the CIA. Do you ever get tired of lying?
Adding on to what Andy is saying, there is a reason that Plame was still officially undercover... outing Plame likely puts ongoing CIA operations, and their undercover agents in jeopardy. Just because she wasn't in Afganistan or wherever doesn't mean it isn't a big freakin deal. Whatever she was a part of is very likely shut down and I'd say we're lucky if all of her former colleagues survive. Course, playing pay-back politics is much more important than the security of the nation and the lives of active CIA operatives.
Round two! Democrats continue to legitimately question whether Cheney had a hand in outing Plame or what he knew of the Niger forgeries. --------------------- Democratic Congressmen Ask Cheney to Talk 2 hours, 14 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Three Democratic congressmen Thursday asked Vice President Dick Cheney to testify on Capitol Hill about the disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity, saying "there are many wide-ranging questions about your involvement." The congressmen asked why Cheney's office was gathering information about Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson in 2003; whether the vice president directed his top aide, the now-indicted I. Lewis Libby, to speak to the news media about Plame; and whether Cheney was aware Libby was doing so. The indictment against Libby says he was told by Cheney on June 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA's counterproliferation division. That was a month before Plame's identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak. The congressmen also asked Cheney whether he was aware the administration's claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African nation of Niger were false, at a time officials including President Bush were using such assertions as justification for going to war. The Democrats are Maurice Hinchey of New York, Henry Waxman of California and John Conyers of Michigan. Waxman is the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. Conyers is the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051104/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_cheney
