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August 3, 2004
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Saving Americans from the truth – why an innocent Iraqi has to be kept in isolation
Experienced Iraqis not wanted
One man who told the truth is kept under lock and key while the American liars preach of freedom.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 5 2004 19:15 utc | 101
@CP-
That was rich. That guy says what he means far more often than he intends to… reminds me of Quayle:
“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy but that could change.”
sho’ ’nuff, J. Danforth, sho’ ’nuff.
Posted by: æ | Aug 5 2004 19:24 utc | 102
@Cloned Poster — it is said that occasionally an idiot does speak the truth:
Bush misspoke as he delivered a speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill.
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we,” Bush said. “They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
A succinct statement of Bush’s principles and policies. Tnanks for that CP.
Posted by: x174 | Aug 5 2004 19:30 utc | 103
@CP:
Now that was hilarious. I wonder if he could say two monosyllables without farking things up.
Posted by: Harold Lloyd | Aug 5 2004 19:38 utc | 104
@NEMO:
Speaking seriously, what’s the best percentage
number you’ve seen for electricity availability
in Iraq today, vis-a-vis prewar.
Posted by: FLASHHARRY | Aug 5 2004 19:52 utc | 105
The Bush administration needs to come up with a method of communication that informs the public in a calm, clear way.(NYTimes)
Correction: The Bush administration needs to, first, inform themselves. NYTimes blows Bush and Ridge for a buck.
Posted by: x174 | Aug 5 2004 19:57 utc | 106
@x174
The fix is on to give Kerry the baton, but Europe will tell the dour fucker to fuck off.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 5 2004 20:20 utc | 107
@CP — which crystal ball, praytell, gave you that idea?
Posted by: x174 | Aug 5 2004 21:11 utc | 108
From Belmomt Club:
“Attempts by the Democratic Party to portray itself as the ‘War Party’ and to cast John Kerry in the role of a warrior are a backhanded admission that appeasement is no longer a respectable public position, at least in America. On its face, the liberal establishment has executed one of the most astonishing countermarches in public policy history behind the falsely ebullient facade of the convention. Yet on closer inspection, their new determination to fight terrorism is still a Jim Crow form of pacifism, an effort to perpetuate the antebellum policies beloved by the Party base in acceptable phrases. There are warlike sounds without an enemy named; a candidate reports for duty without articulating a strategy for victory. It is the Band of Brothers speech without an Agincourt, either pending or envisaged. But it is the first crack in the monumental edifice of Left, and while small, a disturbing and tingling tremor runs to the top of its highest battlements.”
Puh-leeeeease…Warlike sounds without an enemy properly identified… reporting for duty without articulating a strategy for victory… the Band of Brothers speech without that nasty Agincourt business…
Sounds like the Bush White House and its Pentagon butt-kissers to me.
Posted by: Pat | Aug 5 2004 22:06 utc | 110
I wonder what Rush and Hannity have to say? From Warblogging.com:
…The messages revealed by [Republican] Senator Shelby were incredibly important. They were intercepted on September 10, 2001 by the National Security Agency and read “The match is about to begin” and “Tomorrow is zero hour.” These two messages, intercepted by the NSA, could have served as warnings of September 11 if the US intelligence community had understood their significance and translated them in time. Now that that lesson has been learned the NSA should watch the sources that led to these intercepts like hawks — messages like these from the same sources could serve as warnings of future attacks.
Now, however, those COMINT sources are useless. Thanks to Senator Shelby al-Qaeda knows that we intercepted those messages, knows that they could be used to thwart future attacks, and will not make the same mistake again. Thanks to Senator Shelby.
Senator Shelby’s revealing of classified information to Fox News (the classified information was later broadcast around the world) betrayed not only the contents of the intelligence — what the United States knew and when — but also the fact that some people were being watched. Millions of people around the world got a look inside the United States’ communications intelligence apparatus thanks to Senator Shelby. You better believe that the Syrians, the Iranians, Iraqi militants and al-Qaeda; among dozens, perhaps hundreds of others — have Shelby’s leak on tape. They probably replay it dozens of times a day, marveling at their luck and Senator Shelby’s… incompetence?
Within a week of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill ending his criticism of the President and apologizing for his earlier criticisms the Treasury and Justice departments announced that the investigation into Mr. O’Neill’s “breach of security” was concluded and that Mr. O’Neill was exonerated.
The criminal investigation into Mr. Berger’s actions at the National Archives continues.
But Senator Shelby? When the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office learned of Senator Shelby’s leak they immediately launched a full criminal investigation and empaneled a grand jury.
The FBI’s investigation of Senator Shelby and the grand jury investigation of Senator Shelby ended as suddenly as they began. One day the Justice Department simply stopped investigating. No criminal charges were ever filed. The Justice Department refused to answer the Washington Post’s questions about why the case was dropped. They wouldn’t say anything, just that the matter is closed.
The only outcome of the investigation? Senator Shelby’s leak was referred to the Senate Ethics Committee by the Justice Department. The Ethics Committee — controlled by Republicans — has so far done nothing about Senator Shelby’s incredible breach of the public trust.
The criminal inquiry into Sandy Berger’s possible removal of copies of classified documents — which thereafter never left his home — continues unabated.
Posted by: Pat | Aug 5 2004 23:21 utc | 111
Karen Kwiatowski at antiwar.com:
…The [9-11] Commission concluded that the FAA was not really capable of giving the military what it needed to know. Things have certainly gone downhill since 1999, when Payne Stewart’s twin engine Learjet quietly drifted off its flight plan, and was escorted by military jets from Eglin AFB and Tyndall AFB in Florida, ANG out of Tulsa, and out of Fargo, for several hours across several states before it ran out of gas and crashed in South Dakota. The difference was that Stewart was just a guy in a single private plane off course with no explanation, while on 9-11, it was one, no two, wait – three, I mean four jumbo passenger jets. Unlike Stewart’s plane which simply left its flight plan and was unresponsive, the FAA actually had hijack warning on AA 11 at 8:19 a.m., UA 175 at 8:52 a.m. After two hijack warnings, AA 77 made an unauthorized turn at 8:54 a.m. The Herndon Control Center knew UA 93 was hijacked at 9:34 a.m.
The commission reports the first fighter jets from Otis ANG Base were scrambled for AA 11 thirty-four minutes after the first hijack alert and again, from Langley AFB, a half hour or so later. At 10:38, fighter jets from Andrews AFB were airborne. None had a visual on any of the four planes plane until it was too late. In 1999, more military jets were on the job watching a lone Learjet over the Midwest than in the 2001 response to multiple hijacks on the densely populated East Coast. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should have both been fired at the time, saving us the trouble and expense of criminal trials for their roles in fomenting the unjustified and gratuitous Iraq war…
Posted by: Pat | Aug 5 2004 23:32 utc | 112
From Kevin Drum:
August 5, 2004
BUSH AND THE PAKISTANIS….Last month, John Judis, Spencer Ackerman and Massoud Ansari wrote a story in The New Republic saying that American officials were pressuring Pakistan to announce the capture of an important al-Qaeda figure during the Democratic convention. Sure enough, on the last day of the convention, Pakistan’s interior minister, Faisal Saleh Hayyat, announced the capture of the terrorist who is #22 on the FBI’s most wanted list.
Was this evidence of manipulation, or just a coincidence? Judis, Ackerman and Ansari vote for “manipulation”:
“A proud Hayyat dubbed the arrest ‘another crowning success of Pakistan’s security apparatus in the fight against terrorism.’ But it is doubtful Hayyat was really addressing his fellow Pakistanis: He made the announcement at midnight. More likely, his intended audience was half a world away–in the United States, where, in the middle of the afternoon, John Kerry was preparing to deliver his nomination speech to the Democratic National Convention.
“….Though there is no policy governing how long to keep such arrests secret, standard intelligence practices dictate that the capture should not have been made public until investigators had finished with Ghailani (and the laptop and computer disks he had been captured with). Indeed, Ghailani may still talk, but some current and former American officials fear that, by broadcasting his name around the world, the Pakistanis have reduced the value of the intelligence that interrogators can extract from him.
“‘Now, anything that he was involved in is being shredded, burned, and thrown in a river,’ a senior counterterrorism official told the Los Angeles Times. ‘We have to assume anyone affiliated with this guy is on the run … when, usually, we can get great stuff as long as we can keep it quiet.’ Adds former CIA operative Robert Baer: ‘It makes no sense to make the announcement then. Presumably, everything [Al Qaeda] does is compartmented. By announcing to everybody in the world that we have this guy, and he is talking, you have to assume that you shoot tactics. To keep these guys off-balance, a lot of this stuff should be kept in secret. You get no benefit from announcing an arrest like this. You always want to get these guys when they are on vacation, when they are not expecting you.'”
Of course, this isn’t conclusive. It might still be a coincidence. Interior ministers give midnight press conferences all the time, right?
And First Ladies routinely visit buildings that were the focus of alarming terrorist threats just hours before, don’t they? (Ken Layne, back from whatever the hell he’s been doing for the past year, has a very nice screed about this.)
At worst, the Bush administration is deliberately manipulating intelligence to scare everyone into voting for him. At best, the intelligence is real but the Bushies are doing everything in their power to hype it for partisan purposes. In the end, though, it probably doesn’t really matter which, since in either case it’s obvious that Bush treats national intelligence and the wider war on terror as little more than cynical campaign tools. The country would be a lot better off with a president who takes this stuff seriously.
[Okay, I’ll bite: Who would that president be, exactly?]
Posted by: Pat | Aug 5 2004 23:43 utc | 113
Pat,
Of course you have to keep repeating the phrases that conjure up memories of fear and horror and then if people seem not to be responding well enough you have to link old fears with current fears to create a whole new climate of worry – it’s like a production line process. A scare a day keeps Kerry at bay…..
And today’s nasty panic making scare is:
FBI conducts searches in connection with anthrax deaths of 2001
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 6 2004 0:21 utc | 114
Nemo,
At least they’re keeping to their time-warp weirdo schedule. Three years after the anthrax scare, they decide to investigate it seriously. Three years later, they protect the NYC financial district from four-year-old intelligence. Three years later, they decide to seriously go after Bin Laden.
Weird.
Posted by: SusanG | Aug 6 2004 0:32 utc | 115
@NEMO;
Do you know the answer to my question at 3:52 PM upthread. I’ve seen all sorts of numbers.
Posted by: FLASHHARRY | Aug 6 2004 0:37 utc | 116
@Susan G–
Yup, it’s three years and no further…’cause if it was four, well, that means somebody could go back and look at something as trivial as, say, ballot stuffing?
Posted by: RossK | Aug 6 2004 1:37 utc | 117
@PAT and NEMO:
This is an Old, Old Story
Eat the Apple and Fark the Corps:
Link
Posted by: FLASHHARRY | Aug 6 2004 2:40 utc | 118
HARRY,
Wow.
Control Room left me with a favorable impression of Rushing. Polite, professional, earnest, and an interested listener. What women of a certain age call “such a nice young man.” A nice young man who’s leaving the Marines because he cannot condemn al Jazeera, which shows pictures of war at which our media-terrified leaders blanch.
Goodness knows, there’s a place for him somewhere that he can “speak freely” and, thankfully, unlike so many retired generals, before he is too far gone in the habit of self-censorship to have anything of value to say.
Posted by: Pat | Aug 6 2004 4:31 utc | 119