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11/10/2005 02:06:27 PM · #226 |
Zoelick may have yelled at a Sudanese government official, stating they can't trust his government, yet the Bush administration is normalizing relations with Darfur, especially with their intelligence community. So then how can the Bush administration trust any intelligence they are receiving from the Sudanese government? |
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11/10/2005 03:13:02 PM · #227 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
Zoelick may have yelled at a Sudanese government official, stating they can't trust his government, yet the Bush administration is normalizing relations with Darfur, especially with their intelligence community. So then how can the Bush administration trust any intelligence they are receiving from the Sudanese government? |
The question is "why" was he yelling? Why was he upset enough to raise his voice? What action/activities were the catalyst to such a blood pressure rise of a diplomat. A diplomat associated with an administration viewed as being from the "right"? An administration accused of not caring about certain minorities during Katrina? An administration who is criticized by the majority of liberals as only caring about the wealthy and large corporations?
The reason was the repeated ineffective action of the government and the continued association with the Janjaweed, who prepetrate the raping and burning. Then we have the international community who has neglected their financial committments and the UN who "talks" about it some more. All while more women are raped and the Janjaweed are not reigned in.
The left is full of criticisms. Sometimes we simply need action.
Message edited by author 2005-11-10 15:16:30.
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11/10/2005 05:34:47 PM · #228 |
From this article:
    "They can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month," said Powell in February of 2003, "to kill thousands upon thousands of people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings." In other words, bring me the plastic sheeting and duct tape, because we're all going to die.
    I spoke at length with Brad Spencer, Ph.D, an expert in this area, who took a great deal of time to explain the flaws in the CIA/DIA report, and the flaws in the subsequent scaremongering that came out of the White House.
    "Bush was relying on the CIA/DIA white paper that purported to conclude that the trailers found in Iraq were mobile biological culture systems," said Spencer. "That's the only apparent 'hard' evidence he ever cited, and it was false from the start. There are obvious fabrications in the white paper, fabrications that fly in the face of science. It's garbage. It's a lie. It is the most easily proved of all the lies yet it is still allowed to stand. I have made hydrogen using the same reaction as was used by the Iraqis on those trailers. I could and did determine, from the information in the white paper itself, that the trailers were for hydrogen manufacture. How much more blatant and obvious do you need a lie to be before you expose it as such?"
    As I have never been an ace in the science department, I asked Dr. Spencer to describe in detail the problems with the report. "To start with," he said, "I've known since the 1970s, when I was in graduate school, that the reaction used on the trailers generates a lot of heat along with the hydrogen and that the cooling unit is a necessary part of the system. Anybody that runs the reaction will discover that fact. The fable the white paper weaves about the Iraqis discovering that the heat of summer interfered with WMD culture and adding the unit (the white paper says it was added 'because the drawings by Powell showed no cooling unit and the difference had to be explained') is utter nonsense."
    "In reality," said Spencer, "any competently designed biological culture system, mobile or otherwise, would have to have not merely a cooling unit but a full temperature control system for the culture vessel. That was utterly lacking in the drawings shown by Powell at the UN and apparently utterly lacking in the expensive mock-up of such trailers constructed by the US (David Kay was on that team) before the war. That it is only a cooling unit and not a temperature control system is actually strong evidence that the trailers are not for biological WMD culture - exactly opposite to the white paper claim but in accord with the requirements of both kinds of system."
...
"Not only did the CIA issue a very unusual report to the people, something very rare for the CIA to do," concluded Spencer, "the report contains completely unsupported claims. Who can possibly maintain that the CIA did that on their own, with no pressure applied? Who can believe that, unprodded, the CIA decided to issue a white paper containing wild speculations? When the CIA subsequently produced the Duelfer report all such fantasies disappeared, and the Duelfer report correctly concluded that the trailers were for hydrogen production. It's the same CIA, the same analysts, nearly the same evidence. Something made them behave strangely in 2003, right when the administration was desperate for some proof of Iraqi WMD activity. It's also worth noting who it was in the administration that relied on the white paper the longest, continuing to do so even after it was revealed that 'Curveball' was an unreliable source and after Colin Powell had disavowed his own UN presentation." |
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11/10/2005 07:25:33 PM · #229 |
Im not going to go pasting articles, but im going with what Ive been soaking up from the few credible sites out there. But then again, what's credible these days? I think one of the biggest things to start worrying about is the french riots. But no one seems to care. I think this leak case is a farce. I don't know what's credible these days.
Message edited by author 2005-11-10 23:51:27. |
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11/11/2005 11:15:20 AM · #230 |
Paul:
Interesting article. I've got no particular response to the science (though its tainted quite liberally with biased commentary) presented in that article. I, after all, have never produce either hydrogen or biological weapons myself. (Though after a big bean burrito, there have been accusations made...) But it does raise quite a few questions.
- Why, if all of this was sooooo obvious just from the UN presentation, did Dr. Spencer only now reveal it? Or, more to the point, did he not reveal it before the war? Perhaps it's sooooo obvious when you have the post-war evidence, which was not available at the time of the UN presentation.
- The original report indicated 7 mobil facilities, whatever they were. According to the "perspective" you quote, 2 trailers have been found since the war. Where are the other 5? Their abscense doesn't prove that they existed, but they do raise the question whether some may have had different construction and/or purpose than the ones found.
- At the end of the 10th paragraph, in an aside and concerning the cooling units, the author indicates: "the white paper says it was added 'because the drawings by Powell showed no cooling unit and the difference had to be explained'". I've search through the document on several terms, such as "drawings" and "explained", and can't find this pull-quote. And I doubt that Powell personally got out his colored pencils and drew any of the pictures. This isn't really a substantive arguement against the "perspective", but does point out the sloppy writing and biased perspective of the author.
- If you accept the presumption that the evidence behind the report didn't support the conclusions contained within it, then who issued the report? Who did the administration depend on for the analysis of the intelligence behind this report? If a lie was told, who lied? The CIA. The same CIA headed by George Tenant, Bill Clinton's man. (Back to the topic of the thread...) The same CIA staffed by partisan analysts like Ms. Plame, who recommended to send a partisan diplomat under dubious circumstances to investigate dubious intelligence and not file a written report about his findings.
Slipping out of any pretense of scientific objectivity, Dr. Spencer asks the question: "How much more blatant and obvious do you need a lie to be before you expose it as such?" That's a good question. But a better quesion is "Who did the lying?" Of course, in his highly unscientific postulating, Dr. Spencer falls back in implicating the White House by asking: "Who can believe that, unprodded, the CIA decided to issue a white paper containing wild speculations?" More and more, given the shady background that continues to emerge from the Plame/Wilson affair, its looking more and more like the answer just might have to be: "I can."
Message edited by author 2005-11-11 11:17:01. |
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11/11/2005 11:38:30 AM · #231 |
To all, As reported in the Senate Select Committee Report on page 272-273, after NINE separate calls for ANY CIA analyst who had been pressured to come forward, here is what the Senate Select Committee found:
"The Committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgements as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so. When asked whether analysts were pressured in any way to alter their assessments or make their judgements conform with Administration policies on Iraq's WMD programs, not a single analyst answered "yes."
So, either Spencer and/or his sources are lying, the CIA analysts are/were lying, or the Senate Select Committee lied.
What do YOU think? |
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11/11/2005 11:58:58 AM · #232 |
Originally posted by ScottK:
The same CIA staffed by partisan analysts like Ms. Plame, who recommended to send a partisan diplomat under dubious circumstances to investigate dubious intelligence and not file a written report about his findings. |
The CIA has specifically denied this particular component of the affair, and I haven't seen any change in that position.
Otherwise, you ask some good questions. As to why people don't "come forward" more readily or promptly, perhaps it's because they saw what was done to the Wilsons. Intimidating witnesses need not involve handguns in a dark alley ... |
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11/11/2005 11:59:44 AM · #233 |
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
-Voltaire
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11/11/2005 12:14:33 PM · #234 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by ScottK:
The same CIA staffed by partisan analysts like Ms. Plame, who recommended to send a partisan diplomat under dubious circumstances to investigate dubious intelligence and not file a written report about his findings. |
The CIA has specifically denied this particular component of the affair, and I haven't seen any change in that position.
Otherwise, you ask some good questions. As to why people don't "come forward" more readily or promptly, perhaps it's because they saw what was done to the Wilsons. Intimidating witnesses need not involve handguns in a dark alley ... |
What supposedly happened to Wilson didn't happen until July, 2003. The CIA/DIA report behind the "perspective" piece was released in May, 2003. The pictures, whose interpretation is supposedly so obvious, were (I assume) available in February, 2003, when Powell made the case before the UN. Whether true or perceived, nothing that "was done" to Wilson would have been relevant before the war.
Message edited by author 2005-11-11 12:15:24. |
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11/11/2005 12:20:43 PM · #235 |
I was at a briefing over at [Lt. Gen. Ricardo] Sanchez's headquarters [as the head of coalition forces in Iraq] and the deputy commander, [Maj.] Gen. [Walter] Wodjakowski, turned around to me and said, "You are not to release any one of them, Janis." And I said, "Sir, that information came from the military intelligence." And he said, "Get me somebody from the military intelligence." So this captain comes over and is trying to explain that none of these 35 had any further value. They were in fact in the wrong place at the wrong time, [gathered] up with the target individuals. So, Gen. Wodjakowski now turns on this guy and tells him, "You are not to release any of them. Do you understand me? Am I making myself perfectly clear? You are not to release any one of them." And this captain tries valiantly to explain that we'll be holding innocent people, and Gen. Wodjakowski says he doesn't care.
-- Gen. Janis Karpinski |
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11/11/2005 12:23:36 PM · #236 |
Hmmm ... bad timeline then. I don't know what the Dr.'s motives were then or now, so I geuss I'll stop guessing -- hopefully someday he'll explain himself further.
BTW: What do you think of Mr. O'Reilly issuing a fatwah on San Francisco? |
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11/11/2005 01:00:16 PM · #237 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
BTW: What do you think of Mr. O'Reilly issuing a fatwah on San Francisco? |
Hadn't heard anything about that. Sounds a little silly, but then Mr. O'Reilly does have a flair for the dramatic. |
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11/11/2005 01:30:49 PM · #238 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
BTW: What do you think of Mr. O'Reilly issuing a fatwah on San Francisco? |
Interesting choice of incindiary words there GeneralE. The word fatwah was no where in the reviews that I've read. However, I am accustomed to accusers selecting the most aggregious words to incite those that are predispositioned to believe what they want to hear.
The incident that you are making reference to, (I believe), was Bill O'Reily's statements about San Francisco being a "free zone" for terrorists and that we (america) would not help. Sounds pretty bad doesn't it? What you failed to include was the rest of the interview whereby San Franciscan's were voting and "passed" a measure prohibiting military recruitment at high schools. There was also a position that San Franciscan's took to remove the Military ships from the Bay Harbor and another measure that "passed" in which handguns were banned. Bill's point was that if you do not want the military in your town, AND you do not want to support the recruitment of the muilitary, AND you do not want weapons for your own protection, THEN you are at risk of being vulnerable to attack. You (San Franciscan's) want us (US) to protect you with the US military, but without your involvement/participation. In this context, it seems a bit unfair to accuse Mr. O'Reily of issuing a fatwah, when in reality he was simply trying to "wake up" some very dillusional americans.
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11/11/2005 01:43:15 PM · #239 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
Zoelick may have yelled at a Sudanese government official, stating they can't trust his government, yet the Bush administration is normalizing relations with Darfur, especially with their intelligence community. So then how can the Bush administration trust any intelligence they are receiving from the Sudanese government? |
The question is "why" was he yelling? Why was he upset enough to raise his voice? What action/activities were the catalyst to such a blood pressure rise of a diplomat. A diplomat associated with an administration viewed as being from the "right"? An administration accused of not caring about certain minorities during Katrina? An administration who is criticized by the majority of liberals as only caring about the wealthy and large corporations?
The reason was the repeated ineffective action of the government and the continued association with the Janjaweed, who prepetrate the raping and burning. Then we have the international community who has neglected their financial committments and the UN who "talks" about it some more. All while more women are raped and the Janjaweed are not reigned in.
The left is full of criticisms. Sometimes we simply need action. |
And what kind of action has the Bush administration taken to remedy the situation in Darfur? |
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11/11/2005 02:05:08 PM · #240 |
Originally posted by Olyuzi:
And what kind of action has the Bush administration taken to remedy the situation in Darfur? |
We gave 400 million dollars. We prodded the UN into "some" action when they were stalled on "discussing" the problem. We continue to push the UN into more defined "action". We helped coordinate the military pressence that is there (although largely ineffective).
What has anyone member of the left done? Hillary, Shummer, Kennedy, Sharpton, Jackson, Pelosi........? Voted to send them some money. What about troops? NO NO NO.
So who really is the group withholding aid from the victims. The Left pummeled this administration after Katrina for the perception of a "different" standard for those in New Orleans. Meaning blacks. The truth is that the corruption in New Orleans is so rampant that even other state citizens see it as a "hole". Corporations have left, rather than pay the "graft tax", which in turn took away jobs, which in turn removed opportunity, which in turn maintained poverty. So who's fault is it? The right leaning corporations/administration or the liberal corrupted officials?
Same with Darfur. The right is trying to get things done while the left simply stands in the way. Keeping the status quo, so that they have more stuff to complain about tomorrow, while all along it is their own doing that is the problem. Just like the post above. San Franciscan's CHOOSING (and I believe in choice), to remove the military and firearms, then will likely complain because my tax dollars are not providing enough support for their twisted sense of "freedom".
Freedom is not Free!
At some point one has to be responsible for their own actions and choices. I say that point has come.
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11/11/2005 02:05:11 PM · #241 |
Mr. O'Reilly's line that struck me was "If you want to blow up Coit tower, go right ahead."
I think that fits within the definition of "fatwah" as we've come to understand it in the US.
And why should the use of incendiary rhetoric be limited to the zealots of the right? |
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11/11/2005 02:06:29 PM · #242 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Mr. O'Reilly's line that struck me was "If you want to blow up Coit tower, go right ahead."
I think that fits within the definition of "fatwah" as we've come to understand it in the US.
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You have taken it out of context, and you know it.
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11/11/2005 02:18:08 PM · #243 |
Originally posted by Flash:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Mr. O'Reilly's line that struck me was "If you want to blow up Coit tower, go right ahead."
I think that fits within the definition of "fatwah" as we've come to understand it in the US.
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You have taken it out of context, and you know it. |
How? It seemed entirely consistent with the remainder of his statement, but it was the only part I could cite verbatim with any degree of confidence.
If you can find and post his entire screed, please do so and let the readers decide for themselves whether or not he meant what he said.
Message edited by author 2005-11-11 14:18:45. |
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11/11/2005 02:38:53 PM · #244 |
Originally posted by Flash:
[The incident that you are making reference to, (I believe), was Bill O'Reily's statements about San Francisco being a "free zone" for terrorists and that we (america) would not help. Sounds pretty bad doesn't it? What you failed to include was the rest of the interview whereby San Franciscan's were voting and "passed" a measure prohibiting military recruitment at high schools. There was also a position that San Franciscan's took to remove the Military ships from the Bay Harbor and another measure that "passed" in which handguns were banned. Bill's point was that if you do not want the military in your town, AND you do not want to support the recruitment of the muilitary, AND you do not want weapons for your own protection, THEN you are at risk of being vulnerable to attack. You (San Franciscan's) want us (US) to protect you with the US military, but without your involvement/participation. In this context, it seems a bit unfair to accuse Mr. O'Reily of issuing a fatwah, when in reality he was simply trying to "wake up" some very dillusional americans. |
Pardon me for quoting myself, however it addresses the "context" confusion.
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11/11/2005 02:55:26 PM · #245 |
//www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200511110833.asp
Kind of sums up the dilemma and points to the original post in this thread. If the Democrats were so gullible, then I certainly do not want them leading me. If they were'nt gullible, then the charge is false, therefore I don't want them leading me then either. If they adopt the H. Dean anti war position, then I don't believe they can defend me. So, for me, it appears that the dems seeking political cover (as I posted earlier a few pages back), are in a bit of a quandry. Of course, the country may choose to elect them over the next 3 years, and if we do, then I'll know that it wasn't just the leaders who are gullible.
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11/11/2005 03:20:02 PM · #246 |
So you think people exercising their rights by voting on a policy statement recommending that military recruiters be kept out of elementary schools means they deserve to be blown up? Thank you for putting this "in context."
In the US, threatening to blow people up because of their political views is against the law, or haven't you read the Patriot Act. |
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11/11/2005 04:01:53 PM · #247 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
So you think people exercising their rights by voting on a policy statement recommending that military recruiters be kept out of elementary schools means they deserve to be blown up? Thank you for putting this "in context."
In the US, threatening to blow people up because of their political views is against the law, or haven't you read the Patriot Act. |
From my understanding, there was no "threat". Merely a cynical and sarcastic remark that, since SF would be unprotected a terrorist looking for an easy target should look no further. He ( the terrorist ) may as well go ahead and ( take the opportunity to ) blow up the tower. |
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11/11/2005 04:56:26 PM · #248 |
| I heard him -- he didn't sound sarcastic to me. I also expect that any element of sarcasm would likely be lost on Mr. bin Laden ... |
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11/11/2005 05:19:52 PM · #249 |
Alex Jones seems to be engulfed in drama. Or is the drama valid.
//infowars.com/articles/terror/gop_memo_touts_terror_attack_as_party_decline_reverse.htm
Message edited by author 2005-11-11 17:21:03. |
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11/11/2005 07:21:36 PM · #250 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
So you think people exercising their rights by voting on a policy statement recommending that military recruiters be kept out of elementary schools means they deserve to be blown up? Thank you for putting this "in context."
In the US, threatening to blow people up because of their political views is against the law, or haven't you read the Patriot Act. |
GeneralE,
This accusation on your part is false and representitive of the forked tongued BS that comes from many of your posts. If you fail to read and understand my words, then no amount of my continued effort will be effective. You choose to incite. You choose to selectively parse the words to fit your skewed view. When a group of people "exercise their rights by voting on a policy statement..." AND don't want the military ships that have been in their ports for decades, AND forfiet the rights of the other 42% who voted FOR firearm possessiion, THEN when the balloon goes up and a predator takes advantage of a victim who CHOOSES to be unprotected, then don't call me. I can help you, but you first must want to help yourself. And the folks in San Francisco have excercised their rights and said very plainly that they do not support the items necessary for a sound defense.
Perhaps you share that view. Perhaps you also believe that military ships should not be in our ports. That the Coast Gaurd should not patrol our shores. That military recruiters should be prevented from accessing the youth and soldiers of tommorrow. That our military should be dis-banned and the world be taught to sing happy songs. Perhaps you share the view that individual defensive means should be banned. I believe that you do share those views. I believe that you promote those views to friends, family and neighbors. I also believe that if you are successful in winning the majority of american voters to your position, that we will be in sad sad shape. I pray that you are not.
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