Ding Dong The Witch is Dead: Part 1 of a long upcoming series

[41]

David L. Johnson wrote:
> This mess _is_
> another Vietnam, a quagmire that we will never win.

I disagree. This mess is INCALCULABLY WORSE than Vietnam. Vietnam did
not make Iran, its mullahs, and the Revolutionary Guard absurdly rich
by super-inflating the price of oil and natural gas; Vietnam did not
give quasi-immunity to Iran against military invasion; Vietnam did not
destroy Iran's regional rival and turn it instead into its puppet;
Vietnam did not result in an explosion of fundamentalist Islamic
radicalism; Vietnam did not sear an image of ordinary Americans and the
American military as violent, depraved sexual criminals deep into the
history books, and into the memories of everyone around the world; and
finally, Vietnam spawned no international terrorism, and all the
sequelae were inflicted on and confined to poor Asians- mostly
Cambodians, Laotians, and Vietnamese- who kept their problems to
themselves and never extracted holy revenge on the bastards who brought
that hell down upon them, namely us..

 

[Free Scooter Libby!]

David L. Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 15:50:25 +0000, Bill Sornson wrote:
>
>> Between the two of them they "couldn't recall" over *500* times in
>> various testimonies (including Clinton not "recalling" ever being
>> alone with Lewinsky); but boy, forget the details of a two-year-old
>> phone conversation, and...
>
> But Libby never claimed to have forgotten the details of that
> conversation; he made up new details. Frankly, when you are knowingly
> committing treason, you probably don't forget the details of the
> conversation.

Treason! Yeah, right. How about elements within the CIA (along with
Wilson) actively trying to undermine an administration during wartime?
Let's wait for the WHOLE STORY to come out.

FSL

 

[Bill Sornson]

David L. Johnson wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 21:06:31 -0700, 41 wrote:
>
>>
>> David L. Johnson wrote:
>>> On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 19:56:23 -0700, Chalo wrote:
>>>
>>>> I can draw a distinction between lying to keep one's private life
>>>> private, and lying to support an illegal war of aggression.
>>>>
>>> Come on. Clinton's getting blown b y an intern does not qualify as
>>> his "private life".
>>
>> How do you figure that? Some Doctor Phil-level high and mighty
>> pseudo-morality about no relationships in the workplace? Which, in
>> any case, since she was quite happy to do it, and even her mother
>> approved, somehow makes it a public matter how??
>
> It makes it a public matter because he abused his position of power.
> If I got a blow job from one of my students, I would be justifiably
> fired. Even if she were willing.

And if you were being sued for harassment by /another/ student, and
repeatedly lied under oath about both situations, would they be firing you
because you simply "lied about sex"? Or indeed because you committed
unethical (screweing a student) AND criminal (lying under oath and coercing
false testimony) acts?

 

[Free Scooter Libby!]

David L. Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 22:32:09 +0000, Nuck 'n Futz wrote:
>
>> How many "covert agents" donate money to presidential candidates
>> under their real name; send their clearly partisan spouse overseas
>> to "investigate" something for which he's clearly unqualified; then
>> said spouse spouts off in the NY Times (misrepresenting what he DID
>> find, BTW);
>
> Hmm. What I read suggested that he was indeed qualified for the job,
> and that he found diddly squat.

Read more.

>> Something really stinks in all this, so go ahead and gloat now before
>> the whole story becomes clear. The only one PROVEN to be a liar so
>> far
>> is Wilson
>
> Are you saying that the shaggy dog story about yellow cake from *****
> is true? Where the hell did you get that idea?

From http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006955 :

"The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA
consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time
he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-***** yellowcake uranium
connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on
the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first
reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the *****
mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was
feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's
"Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate
Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had
sent recommending her husband for the ***** mission. "Interviews and
documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD
[Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip,"
said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr.
Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels
until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the
information he provided in his debrief as mildly /supportive/ of the
suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in *****.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler
delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the
statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003
that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in
Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why
he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly
abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his
debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can
remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let
us know.





If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been
allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention
inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on
this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But
now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in
contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the
time that no underlying crime was at issue.
As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they
ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth."

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bill Sornson:
>Because the preponderance of available intelligence indicated that an avowed
>enemy of the US and a state sponsor of terrorism had Ws of MD.

The picture I got from reading a series of articles in New Yorker is that the
people around our president stovepiped information that was favorable to their
agenda and stifled the rest. i.e. reports and allegations were taken directly
from sources and routed around the normal CIA vetting process directly to the
decision-maker's eyes and ears.

Stifled as in Wilson's comments on the non-existence of any yellow cake issue -
issued, apparently in plenty of time for yellow cake tb removed from the
president's public allegations.
--
PeteCresswell

 

[41]

[email protected] wrote:

> Did Bush say that he "never had sex with that woman"?

You mean Condi? The woman keeps her own freaking cabin on the grounds
of Camp David.

=======================================
Political Conversation: Condi's Slip
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington,
according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react
when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza
Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New
York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times
reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr.,
Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was
reportedly overheard saying, "As I was telling my husb... and then
stopping herself abruptly, before saying, "I was telling President
Bush" Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried
politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed
more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and
Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman
laughed and said, "No comment."
==========================================i

 

[Mark Janeba]

Free Scooter Libby! wrote:

> David L. Johnson wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 15:50:25 +0000, Bill Sornson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Between the two of them they "couldn't recall" over *500* times in
>>>various testimonies (including Clinton not "recalling" ever being
>>>alone with Lewinsky); but boy, forget the details of a two-year-old
>>>phone conversation, and...
>>
>>But Libby never claimed to have forgotten the details of that
>>conversation; he made up new details. Frankly, when you are knowingly
>>committing treason, you probably don't forget the details of the
>>conversation.
>
>
> Treason! Yeah, right. How about elements within the CIA (along with
> Wilson) actively trying to undermine an administration during wartime?
> Let's wait for the WHOLE STORY to come out.

Let me guess. If Pearl Harbor had been a scripted fabrication that had
never happened, and people within the government found out, and told the
American public, you'd call that undermining an administration during
wartime?

PS - Scooter's not in jail. Yet. so "FSL" is premature.

Mark

 

[41]

Mark Hickey wrote:

> I don't buy the fact that we've "created" any more terrorists in Iraq

How do you know? Did you count before and after? Especially, before and
after Abu Ghraib? And what about giving them such excellent training in
American security procedures, American tactics, and how to penetrate
American armor and kill Americans?


> Fact is, it really doesn't matter if
> we're in Iraq or not - the extemist Wahabi Islam sect has in its
> c harter the elimination of all non-Islam cultures.

Ooooooooooops... Wahabis? Those are our dear Saudi friends... well, not
mine, but yours:
<http://tinyurl.com/97voa> (Amazon)


> I ag ree Iraq isn't going to be Disneyland any time soon, and that some
> errors were made.

Really. Who made those errors? And what were they?e

 

[41]

Mark Hickey wrote:

> If he's guilty of a crime, he should be punished. Period. There's
> great doubt about this point of course (the special prosecutor
> couldn't get a previous grand jury to buy into the evidence, for
> example)

********. This grand jury was empaneled for exactly two years. Libby
did this particular dirty work two years and four months ago, the
investigation into it was authorized two years and one month ago, and
Fitzgerald was given authority to control the investigation one year
and ten months ago:
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html

Readers new to this group (since the election) should be aware that
Mark Hickey is a determined and deliberate source of political
disinformation. The above is typical.

 

[David L. Johnson]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:38:08 +0000, Bill Sornson wrote:

>> Oddly enough, North Korea was also an "avowed enemy" of the US and as
>> much a state sponsor of terrorism (according to Bush). Why did we
>> not attack them? Probably because they actually had weapons, and did
>> not happen to sit upon a sea of oil.
>
> Or, because intense diplomatic negotiations are underway there; while the UN
> and Iraq had been going round & round for years and years.

So, "intense diplomatic negotiations" were underway in both places. The
major difference between the two situations is that one was rich with oil
and didn't really have the capability of retaliating to an attack, and the
other had no oil (or much else except a huge army and some nukes), but was
able to mount a defense against invasion.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve
_`\(,_ | death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to
(_)/ (_) | them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
-- J. R. R. Tolkein

 

[Jim Adney]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 08:16:53 -0700 Mark Hickey <[email protected]>
wrote:

>"David L. Johnson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>But for some reason he did not unilaterally invade, causing the death of
>>2000 US soldiers, the maiming of 15000 US soldiers, and the deaths of
>>untold others. What Bill Clinton may have said is different from what
>>George W. Bush did, and the lies he used to get the country to go along
>>with what he wanted to do.
>
>So the question is - when Clinton said that Iraq had WMD and must be
>dealt with, was he lying?

The difference is that the UN weapons inspectors were there in the
interim. Some WMDs WERE there, and they WERE dealt with. The news
reported in the media concentrated on the runarounds the inspectors
got, but there were still weapons found and destroyed during this
time. By 9/11, the inspectors felt that the WMDs were all gone.

Bush, et al, chose not to believe the inspector's reports, so our
administration announced that Iraq still had WMDs and "We know what
they've got and we know where they've got them." That claim remains
unsupported to this day, especially since we've now invaded and
inspected those sites.

We are left wondering whether the Bush administration lied to us, or
just chose to let themselves be poorly informed.

My personal belief is that they knew that the patriotic furor
following 9/11 and the invasion of Afganistan was dying down, and that
they needed to do something to keep the flagwavers enthusiastic up
thru the next election. To this end, nothing works as well as another
war. So justifications were produced, as referenced in the leaked
British memo, and Bush got his second term.

If you look at the various justifications for this war pushed by this
administration there is a pattern that starts to emerge: A reason is
promoted and it succeeds for awhile, then it is disproved and another
takes its place. This process repeats over and over again.

Consider the following list of reasons for invading Iraq:

They were involved in 9/11.
Mohammed Atta met with Iraqui agents in Germany.
Hussein met with Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
They have WMDs (post 9/11.)
They were trying to buy uranium in Nigeria.
They were buying aluminum tubes that could ONLY have been used for
making banned missles.

Each of these claims, plus more that I can't remember at this moment,
was disproved, and replaced by the next claim, also eventually
disproved. At some point one gets the impression that if we're to
believe the next claim we'd also believe, "The dog ate my homework."

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

Have you noticed why we're there now? It's because "Iraquis love
freedom." I don't think it's an accident that we've switched to claims
that can't be disputed by facts, or that anyone would dispute anyway.
Sure, freedom is a great thing, but forcing our particular form of it
on anyone by killing dissenters is not the way to promote it

This still ignores the question of whether our troops there will ever
manage to make things better in the long run for ethnic groups that
were at odds with each other long before the US was a country. As I
see it, we're not helping. We're not bringing these parties together
and we're making enemies for ourselves. The massive outpouring of
sympathy for the US that followed 9/11 has now been squandered, and
our military response to their political problem is creating an enmity
toward the US thruout that region that will dog us for at least a
century.

-
-----------------------------------------------
Jim Adney [email protected]
Madison, WI 53711 USA
-----------------------------------------------

 

[Jim Adney]

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:32:47 GMT Jasper Janssen <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On 28 Oct 2005 11:17:20 -0700, "41" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>><http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1028051plame1.html>
>
>Did you notice that many republicans are now saying that they feel that
>perjury's a loser charge they came up with just cause they couldn't pin
>anything real on him? Now think back a few years to Monicagate...

Apparently lying about your personal life on a matter that might turn
out to have sexual content is MUCH more important than lying about
drawing the US into a war which was done only to insure re-election of
an incompetent president.

-
-----------------------------------------------
Jim Adney [email protected]
Madison, WI 53711 USA
-----------------------------------------------

 

[Bill Sornson]

David L. Johnson wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:38:08 +0000, Bill Sornson wrote:
>
>>> Oddly enough, North Korea was also an "avowed enemy" of the US and
>>> as much a state sponsor of terrorism (according to Bush). Why did
>>> we not attack them? Probably because they actually had weapons,
>>> and did not happen to sit upon a sea of oil.
>>
>> Or, because intense diplomatic negotiations are underway there;
>> while the UN and Iraq had been going round & round for years and
>> years.
>
> So, "intense diplomatic negotiations" were underway in both places.
> The major difference between the two situations is that one was rich
> with oil and didn't really have the capability of retaliating to an
> attack, and the other had no oil (or much else except a huge army and
> some nukes), but was able to mount a defense against invasion.

Why did you delete the rest of what I wrote? (France and Russia on Saddam's
payroll.)

It's a strawman anyway; do you mean to imply that the US /should/ have
attacked NK instead? Too?

 

[Bill Sornson]

41 wrote:
> Mark Hickey wrote:
>
>> I don't buy the fact that we've "created" any more terrorists in Iraq
>
> How do you know? Did you count before and after? Especially, before
> and after Abu Ghraib? And what about giving them such excellent
> training in American security procedures, American tactics, and how
> to penetrate American armor and kill Americans?
>
>
>> Fact is, it really doesn't matter if
>> we're in Iraq or not - the extemist Wahabi Islam sect has in its
>> c harter the elimination of all non-Islam cultures.
>
> Ooooooooooops... Wahabis? Those are our dear Saudi friends... well,
> not mine, but yours:
> <http://tinyurl.com/97voa> (Amazon)
>
>
>> I ag ree Iraq isn't going to be Disneyland any time soon, and that
>> some errors were made.
>
> Really. Who made those errors? And what were they?e

41's losin' it.

 

[Free Scooter Libby!]

41 wrote:

> Readers new to this group (since the election) should be aware that
> Mark Hickey is a determined and deliberate source of political
> disinformation. The above is typical.

Best laugh of the night...thanks!

(At least he uses his name, blog-head.)

Ha!

 

[Ron Ruff]

Bill Sornson wrote:
> Ron Ruff wrote:
> >
> > Not so. "Intelligence" was fabricated to serve a purpose.
>
> By all sources? US, Brit, Russian, etc.? It was a conspiracy, right?
>
And apparently an easy one to pull off. There were many desenting
opinions in the intelligence community... they were simply ignored by
the administration and the press.

> > The actions of the present
> > administration are only making obvious the reason "why they hate us".
>
> Bush had done /nothing/ in terms of international policy or relations before
> 9/11. They already hated us. OBL ain't subtle about it, either.
>
It has been going on for decades... it didn't start when Bush Jr was
elected (sort of). There are all sorts of people who are hostile to the
US... and there are all sorts of people that the US is hostile to. This
has only escalated since 9/11. OBL has always been quite clear and
honest about his beef with the US... but Bush says "they hate us
because of our freedom"... like we are 3 year olds.

> And if the next one DOES involve WMD? (And /two/ thousand dead soldiers --
> who volunteered, of course -- sure seem like a big deal to the left and
> media; but 3,000 innocent civilians aren't? Oh, right -- they were little
> Ichmans???)
>
Well, we certainly have and use WMDs... and it would be very bad for us
if someone who really didn't like us did the same.

The number of people who've been killed in this "war" is quite trivial
when you put it in a historical context. 65,000,000 were killed in
WW2... mostly innocent civilians. Now that is truly "Mass Destruction".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_War_II_casualties_by_country

> Unlike them (don't know about you),
> however, I actually hope that the Middle East IS transformed eventually, and
> that the seeds that foment terrorism eventually dry up. Might be a better,
> safer, more peaceful world some day.

Those seeds will dry up invading and occupying each country and
installing a "government" of our chosing? This has been tried so many
times in the past... are you aware of it ever lasting? Even if they are
beaten into submission, they will remember...

I too wish for peace in the world... but I certainly don't believe that
it will be achieved by hunting down and killing everyone who opposes
the "US"... sounds like the seeds of tyranny to me.

 

[[email protected]]

Nuck 'n Futz wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > A. He didn't lie.
>
> ********. Read the Senate's findings on his "trip".

Be specific.

> > B. No one's saying that.
>
> No one's saying what? That the admin tried to smear Wilson?

No one's saying that Wilson was smeared by accusing him of lying about
his findings and who sent him. The point of this discussion is that the
Bush administration tried to discredit and punish him by revealing the
identity of an undercover CIA agent who happened to be his wife.

> Every Dem in
> DC has said it, even though it's not true.

I'm a Dem in DC and I haven't said it. Until now, anyway.

> Wilson claimed that Cheney's office sent him on his "fact-finding" mission.

No, he said that Cheney's inquiries at the CIA about the stupid *****
forgery led the _CIA_ to send him to see if they could verify the
information in the forgery.

> Lie, lie, lie.

I think you're the liar.

> It's hardly "smearing" him to quietly tell some reporters
> that maybe he ain't so pure in all this.

So you claim that it was _not_ a smear to tell lies about him?

Aren't you missing the f***in' point? THE POINT IS THAT THEY
COMPRIMISED OUR SECURITY BY DISCLOSING THE FACT THAT HIS WIFE WAS A CIA
AGENT! That's why Libby has been indicted now for five felonies, not
for "quietly telling some reporters that maybe he ain't so pure in all
this".

Check this out:
http://dailydissent.org/video/60minutes103005.wmv

> See? I can selectively snip **** too...

You're just a liar and not even original, repeating other people's
lies.

 

[Jasper Janssen]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 03:33:07 GMT, "Bill Sornson"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Unlike them (don't know about you),
>however, I actually hope that the Middle East IS transformed eventually, and
>that the seeds that foment terrorism eventually dry up. Might be a better,
>safer, more peaceful world some day.

Hope is one thing, believing it can actually happen or that this is the
right way to go about it are two completely different ones.

Jasper

 

[Jasper Janssen]

On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 06:42:16 GMT, "Bill Sornson"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Why did you delete the rest of what I wrote? (France and Russia on Saddam's
>payroll.)
>
>It's a strawman anyway;

Indeed.

Jasper

 

[Mark Hickey]

[email protected] wrote:

> When you subtract out the
>manufactured intelligence- the aluminum tubes, the mobile labs, the
>yellowcake from *****- there's nothing left except for a bookkeeping
>discrepancy.

You weren't paying attention, were you?

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame