One massive gas/ricin attack in a New York subway, 2-3 stinger missile downed jumbo jets leaving Reagan Int’l and La Guardia, 1500 pounds of C-4 detonated at the base of a skyscraper and Bush and Rove buy the remaining time they need to finish their work. Not much ethic committee work gets done under a red alert with pockets of martial law in effect. And it doesn’t take a foreign terrorist to commit any of the above. I think the DIA/NSA/CIA have enough winger cowboys beholden to Der Fuhrer to pull it off.

Posted by: steve duncan | Jul 12 2005 13:35 utc | 4

I think you are right Steve, and I believe we all know it’s an option for this crime family. And if it gets much hotter will be used. I think it’s coming.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jul 12 2005 13:53 utc | 6

Ah, the smell of conspiracy theories in the morning. Delightful
Now, trying to blame London on Iran and/or Syria/and or North Korea, sure. That’s just spin. They don’t even need evidence for that.
A question for you: how come Fitzgerald has got this far without committing suicide or falling off a building or something? How come our super-efficient evil overlords haven’t got around to that?

Posted by: Colman | Jul 12 2005 14:13 utc | 8

Fitz is untouchable (for now).

Posted by: rapt | Jul 12 2005 14:36 utc | 10

Rapt, why? They are apparently willing to bomb London. Surely a little accident could be arranged?

Posted by: Colman | Jul 12 2005 14:41 utc | 12

Well, you see Fitz found out that the document starting the Yellow Cake story was a phony originating from Italy. Specifically, Berlusconi was responsible for its creation in tandem with intelligence officials from “Britian” who were under direct orders from Tony Blair. Right now Fitzgerald is on the verge on bringing down the governments of no less than 3 countries. Throw in the fact that Mushareff is having an affair with Tony’s wife and we’re looking at international pandemonium.
Cooper is small fries now, getting rid of him won’t make a difference.
How’s that?

Posted by: Greg | Jul 12 2005 14:54 utc | 14

Balance of probabilities, Billmon. Is it more probable that a number of jihadists finally got lucky and successfully carried out an attack or that Bush and co got brave enough to do something like that?

Posted by: Colman | Jul 12 2005 15:05 utc | 16

Brian Boru, it seems as likely as the other outcome, doesn’t it? Another 9/11 would be very dangerous both for the Bush regime and the Bin Laden squad. I think that fear without clear signs of security failures serve them both better.

Posted by: Colman | Jul 12 2005 15:14 utc | 18

On 9/29/03 Scotty left a priceless piece of information that was not picked up on as much as it should have been, like one of those verbal tricks of logic like, “How many survivors would there be if….”
Scotty: The President knows Karl did not do it.
Reporter: How does he know?
Scotty: He knows.
Is Fitzgerald sharp enough to realize that the only way this statement can work as truth is if it is assumed the President does know who did it?
Thanks for the gift, Scotty.

Posted by: Julian | Jul 12 2005 16:01 utc | 20

Chamed, The high percentage (76% or so?) in favor of firing includes those whose objective is to save the shrub from further damage. None of em loves Karl.
Colman, you keep yanking my chain. For now I see Fitz’s relative safety against a snuff this way: First, he has most of DoJ behind him and killing him would stir up a helluva hornets nest. The reptiles don’t have that many allies in there willing to take one for the team.
Second, he already has a strong case and offing him cannot erase it.
Will be interesting to see how much heat Rove will bear for the boss; my guess is not much.

Posted by: rapt | Jul 12 2005 16:02 utc | 22

Will be interesting to see how much heat Rove will bear for the boss; my guess is not much.
either way we still don’t have our 2nd senior WH official. they are going to have to throw in another bone. the mantra.”The vice president doesn’t know Joe Wilson and did not know about his trip until he read about it in the press”

Posted by: annie | Jul 12 2005 16:36 utc | 24

Sorry, hommes. Une pavane
pour une infante defunte.
This dog you’rn won’t hunt.
Breaking y’all’s arm patting
yourselves on the back(s).
Now let’s sing a requiem.

Posted by: tante aime | Jul 12 2005 17:18 utc | 26

Billmon, add this to your summer reading. link
This is the one major “conspiracy theory” that was actually proven in detail, in court – the assasination of MJKjr. The author, Wm. Pepper, is one of the finest of his generation, the antithesis of the standard issue conspiracy speculators who are driven by serious emotional baggage. He’s also an attorney, an expat living in Britain, who’s taught law @ major Brit. Universities. Further, after he unravelled the story, a man came to him who Was There. A man who was at the meeting on the roof of the Pentagon when the Military asked McNamara for permission to assasinate him. Their stated reason was that MLKjr. was bringing the masses to DC & military was afraid they didn’t have enough troops left to protect Washington & keep the government in power…Permission was given…
For those, like myself, who’ve heard endless speculation by the merely curious paranoids, it’s helpful & reassuring to actually hear the author speak. You quickly realize that this is one magnificent human being. Tape/CD is available here – worthwhile hour’s listening for $8-10

Posted by: jj | Jul 12 2005 18:35 utc | 28

Same deal w/last post. I got no indication that it posted. And clearly something is awry as no listing on front page.
Anyway…anyone else think the 2nd leaker is Scooter Libby? And this operation was run by Cheney – Rove. This admin. really is the 3 Stooges in Action – Cheney, Rove ‘n’ bu$h. So, does Fitz. have Cheney, who might soon have a health problemo. Put in McCain. Then they can start dripping stories of Bu$h’s medical records or homosexual dalliances??? Just wondering???
But piece by Brad deLong via Tom Paine today expresses why I think Wall Street wants them gone. (as I noted on other thread in yesterday’s post – I think it was Wall Street’s unease that caused CFR to send Gelb to Iraq. His report back on the disaster that is Iraq, followed immediately by Bush’s recent speech that they weren’t changing course brought CFR together w/Wall Street to sign on to get rid of these guys.) They’re maladaptive…incapable of taking feedback & altering course. They’re still focused on Milton Friedman’s 1980 course – bankrupt the Treasury – which has gone too far & is threatening economic crisis at least as bad as ’29.
Ignoring the Coming Collapse by deLong
(Reasons for dumping them – they’ve wrecked the economy, united Entire world against the US, and are ignoring/perpetuating the ravaging of the planet. Elite will switch paradigms from “war on terra” to Peak Oil, etc. Theos will disappear from the news – useful distraction, but no time to worry about that now. New focus will be on strategic policies necessary to blunt China, deal w/economy & the planet & rebuild alliances. “Peak Oil” can be used to perform many of the important functions “war on terra” was invoked to fulfill – consolidating Totalitarian Control, but in hands of the Pirates. After all, Soros master-minded much of this. Alliances w/Euro Bankers will be rebuilt & WTO will be strengthened to consolidate Pirates Power to run the world & unite West against China. Perhaps the facade of a Parliament will be added to WTO for appearances sake. Democracy??? You must be joking..and as Kerry said in last election campaign goal will be to reduce “terrorism to a nuisance”. Response to Spain & London bombings shows that will fly w/the masses. In fact they’ll resist this agenda much less.)
Put it another way – can anyone seriously make a case that they can wait 4 yrs. for another Administration to come to power? This to me is the Bottom Line. They must move now. Things everywhere are unravelling too quickly to allow standard operating procedures to be followed. And given that the electoral machinery is gummed up, what’s to say next election will be any different than the last? Elites like to follow procedures, but regrettably that’s not always possible. Bu$hCo has brought the world crashing down far too quickly.
(Remember what happened in Ca. Their plans didn’t work at election time. So, they bided their time then manipulated a recall.)

Posted by: jj | Jul 12 2005 19:21 utc | 30

Check it out 87% at last look at USA Today for chrisakes believe turdblossom should definitely be fired:
USA Today poll: Ashould Rove be fired?
Corruption should be the preeminent issue for 2006.

Posted by: toto | Jul 12 2005 20:01 utc | 32

Anyway…anyone else think the 2nd leaker is Scooter Libby?
i do. libby or cheney, although the boss probably doesn’t call reporters directly. but maybe he shmozes w/them. i linked an old WSJ story on the stonewall thread. the earlier stories all referenced cheney pushing the cia for evidence
the insertion of ‘cheney knew nothing’ that makes it so obvious he of course knew everything. from hersh’s 10/03 new yorker piece. read it and then tell me how likely it is he was unaware of wilsons trip until he read about it in the paper!.the stovepipe
“In the fall of 2001, soon after the September 11th attacks, the C.I.A. received an intelligence report from Italy’s Military Intelligence and Security Service, or sismi, about a public visit that Wissam al-Zahawie, then the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, had made to Niger and three other African nations two and a half years earlier, in February, 1999. The visit had been covered at the time by the local press in Niger and by a French press agency. The American Ambassador, Charles O. Cecil, filed a routine report to Washington on the visit, as did British intelligence. There was nothing untoward about the Zahawie visit. “We reported it because his picture appeared in the paper with the President,” Cecil, who is now retired, told me. There was no article accompanying the photograph, only the caption, and nothing significant to report. At the time, Niger, which had sent hundreds of troops in support of the American-led Gulf War in 1991, was actively seeking economic assistance from the United States.
None of the contemporaneous reports, as far as is known, made any mention of uranium. But now, apparently as part of a larger search for any pertinent information about terrorism, sismi dug the Zahawie-trip report out of its files and passed it along, with a suggestion that Zahawie’s real mission was to arrange the purchase of a form of uranium ore known as “yellowcake.” (Yellowcake, which has been a major Niger export for decades, can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors. It can also be converted, if processed differently, into weapons-grade uranium.)
What made the two-and-a-half-year-old report stand out in Washington was its relative freshness. A 1999 attempt by Iraq to buy uranium ore, if verified, would seem to prove that Saddam had been working to reconstitute his nuclear program—and give the lie to the I.A.E.A. and to intelligence reports inside the American government that claimed otherwise.
The sismi report, however, was unpersuasive. Inside the American intelligence community, it was dismissed as amateurish and unsubstantiated. One former senior C.I.A. official told me that the initial report from Italy contained no documents but only a written summary of allegations. “I can fully believe that sismi would put out a piece of intelligence like that,” a C.I.A. consultant told me, “but why anybody would put credibility in it is beyond me.” No credible documents have emerged since to corroborate it.
The intelligence report was quickly stovepiped to those officials who had an intense interest in building the case against Iraq, including Vice-President Dick Cheney. “The Vice-President saw a piece of intelligence reporting that Niger was attempting to buy uranium,” Cathie Martin, the spokeswoman for Cheney, told me. Sometime after he first saw it, Cheney brought it up at his regularly scheduled daily briefing from the C.I.A., Martin said. “He asked the briefer a question. The briefer came back a day or two later and said, ‘We do have a report, but there’s a lack of details.’ ” The Vice-President was further told that it was known that Iraq had acquired uranium ore from Niger in the early nineteen-eighties but that that material had been placed in secure storage by the I.A.E.A., which was monitoring it. “End of story,” Martin added. “That’s all we know.” According to a former high-level C.I.A. official, however, Cheney was dissatisfied with the initial response, and asked the agency to review the matter once again. It was the beginning of what turned out to be a year-long tug-of-war between the C.I.A. and the Vice-President’s office.

Posted by: annie | Jul 12 2005 20:53 utc | 34

@LonesomeG
Thanks for adding Operation Northwoods and the Gulf of Tonkin to Hannah’s list before I had a chance to. They would have certainly gotten buried under other confirmed conspiracies such as the various MKULTRA ops, the facilitation of the events at Pearl Harbor, and a host of other highly suspect, although unconfirmed “conspiracy theories” (many of which have been outlined here)such as the sinking of the USS Maine in 1898, Berlin’s Reichstag fire in 1933… hell, you can go all the way back to the Roman Empire to find the cynical abuse of power to control public perception.
@Colman
I like you and think you bring a very valuable perspective to these discussions, but it always galls me when someone snidely waves away an argument by invoking the words “conspiracy theorist” in the same way a neocon dismisses an uncomfortable fact by calling it “liberal nonsense”. The fact that conspiracies do occur is beyond question (Iran/Contra was a friggin’ conspiracy… want to make the argument that money and arms synchronistically, although independently of one another, changed hands?), whether or not people “theorize” about this or that given instance. You can make the argument that you believe global leaders are more incompetent than perfidious if you want to… without smugly wiping your feet all over those naive “conspiracy theorists” who propose the idea that career politicians may not actually be as stupid as they appear.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 13 2005 1:28 utc | 36