By the way, I overheard this on a radio show this morning...this woman (who supports Bush) was debating over whether there were "nukes in Iraq" or not and this was her convo-ender:b,121b,121"We have two sets of facts we each believe in." b,121b,121b,121
b,121Are you suggesting that the pre-Iraq war intelligence was deeply flawed, rather than creatively edited?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Yes. And the theory that the office of special plans, or neocon cells pressured, tricked or connived a reluctant intelligence community into putting out bogus intel is a myth. I am feisty today.
b,121Are you suggesting that the pre-Iraq war intelligence was deeply flawed, rather than creatively edited?
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b,121Yes. And the theory that the office of special plans, or neocon cells pressured, tricked or connived a reluctant intelligence community into putting out bogus intel is a myth. I am feisty today.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121dude, they lied. Accept the fact.
b,121Are you suggesting that the pre-Iraq war intelligence was deeply flawed, rather than creatively edited?
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b,121Yes. And the theory that the office of special plans, or neocon cells pressured, tricked or connived a reluctant intelligence community into putting out bogus intel is a myth. I am feisty today.
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b,121dude, they lied. Accept the fact.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Your narrative about lying is the lie. But I am not mad at you. b,121b,121Onto something else. I am putting it out there on October 11, 2008, 6:25 pm: Obama and the Dems are sweeping this. I think it's over. The stock market needs to stabilize quickly for McCain to have a chance. And even then, it's barely a chance. I suppose there could be a terrorist attack. But Obama wins in that case too. You want the party that created a secret, quasi-constitutional, homeland security bureaucracy that doesn't even work? Or St. Baraketh of Chicago. So seriously. Even though many of you could be losing your jobs like I just did, you should celebrate because America will have its first black president. And even though I defend Senator McCain's constitutional right to associate the great one with his former radical colleagues, it also opens a more perfect chapter in our nation's history.
b,121you're doing a good job of conflation there. yeah i think fear mongering about the draft is stupid bcuz calling in the draft would have turned public opinion around on the war real f*cking fast.
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b,121the point that omg both parties traffic in 'fear' is not a surprise. its always been this way. thats not the point. what are you making them fear - islamic boogiemen running for president, or very real issues? Are you really in denial about the nu conservatives plans for iran? They very much do want to invade it, and the only thing preventing it is that public opinion would be so opposed right now.
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b,121but with your new post about how i should 'read carefully' you've managed to change your argument. is asserting that obama 'pals around with terrorists' pandering to racists? yes. yes it is. so F*ck you
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b,121essentially what you're doing is muddying legit criticism by arguing that every party tells the ppl out there that the other party will do bad things. that doesnt change the fact that there is a line people shouldnt be crossing, which the republicans are currently doing.
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b,121you pointing out times in the past where dems have crossed that line doesnt make this time ok for republicans. its a 'whoa robert byrd was in the klan, so democrats cant talk shit about racist republicans!' argument
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b,121If anyone is muddying the waters, it is you. To start, the Bush administration does not seek to invade Iran. Hell they haven't even bombed Iran. If you think neoconservatives secretly want to invade Iran then your only sources on the matter are the obscurantist blogs that seem allergic to facts of these matters. And there is nothing legitimate about the kind of fear mongering that Democrats do. For example, Democrats put forth the lie that the Bush administration cooked the books on pre-Iraq war intelligence in an effort to shed responsibility for their own votes. The Democratic fear mongering is to convince their base that a secretive-Likud linked cabal controls the government and is immune to political oversight. Nothing of the sort of course happened this way, but still many in the Democratic party's base believe it.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121uh, yes, the bush administration did 'cook the books' and its been essentially proven. how many whistleblowers saying 'oh btw bush pushed for war when evidence wasn't really there' do you need? b,121b,121to your first point - my only sources isn't 'obscurantist blogs,' its the actions of mainstream conservatives and the statement of purpose for neocon orgs like the Project for the New American Century. How many editorials by kristol, how many songs by mccain singing 'bomb bomb bomb iran' do you need? wow 'obscure blogs' there, mccain doesnt even know what a blog is.b,121b,121/font1
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b,121What's more, I don't understand how William Ayers somehow equals baiting people about Obama's middle name? What ever are you talking about. You are in essence accusing McCain of semiotic racism. It's a legitimate avenue of inquiry, Ayers and Wright. These associations are significant because both men are very much out of the mainstream and out of step with what Obama himself says. It's completely fair to ask how Obama, who supports more war in Afghanistan, encourages a Cosby line on black fatherhood, refuses to endorse affirmative action or policies aimed at redistributing wealth, could be at one point aligned with hard left figures like Ayers and Wright. I think, btw, that he has sufficiently answered that question. In the debates on the trail in his speeches, he has articulated a very different agenda than his past associations and as birdman pointed out, the politics of association aren't playing well because of it. But if the tables were turned and a more moderate McCain was once alligned with PW Botha or abortion clinic bombers, it would be a constant topic of conversation. We see this on the left with Palin and her flirtation with the Alaska first party. So it's a retarded double standard.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121have you been ignoring the crowds at mccain/palin events lately? ppl are conflating obama's 'radical associations' and 'terrorist' with arab and middle eastern and omg he's shifty because he associates with RADICALS and you're suggesting that his race has nothing to do with this, for real? willful ignorance on your part, sorry dude.b,121b,121further the 'double standard' is on the right - what mainstream media attention has gone into palin's flirtation with the Alaska first party? an oblique mention? the obama campaign has not been asking WHAT DO WE REALLLLY KNOW ABOUT SARAH PALIN like the mccain camp hasb,121b,121the equivalency that you're trying to draw has no real basis. pointing out that people on both sides are going to say stupid things doesnt = one campaign is just as bad as the other. this is what im talking about
Deej,b,121b,121Here is the thing about your whistleblowers. None of them were willing to say what they told the press, often on background, sometimes with more fanfare, under oath to numerous government committees investigating this very issue. Both phases of the senate's investigation, the second investigated by Rockefeller and the dems, found no instances of pressuring intel analysts or inserting raw intel into major intelligence products. In many cases, though not all, most of Bush and Cheney's statements about Iranian nukes, al Qaeda's migration to Iraq, not to mention chemical and biological weapons were in line with the consensus CIA estimates. There were some differences--the CIA believed it was unlikely Saddam would hand radiological weapons to al Qaeda--but on the big questions the president and his senior officials reflected the consensus estimates. For both the phase 1 and 2 reports intelligence officials were invited to testify in secret with full immunity about instances of pressure and manipulation. Perhaps you still wish to believe Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame or Karen Kwiatkowski, but the congressional committees who had every motive to expose such corruption, turned up a story that negates the accounts of your whistleblowers. The fact that these long discarded falsehoods continue to inform the opinions of millions of Democratic voters is discouraging. b,121b,121As for the rest of your objections on Iran, I think more clarity is in order. You wrote the neocons "very much want to invade it." No one has argued for that. As for bombing, it's true that Kristol, Podhoretz and others have argued the case for doing so. President Bush and for that matter his vice president have pledged not to allow Iran to obtain a nuke, and said all options were on the table when asked if they would bomb Tehran. Incidentally this is the exact same position as Barack Obama. Obama also says that he would send his diplomats to meet Iran's diplomats. That is exactly what Bush did in July when he sent Undersecretary of State, William Burns to Geneva to deliver a non-proliferation proposal to the Iranians. When nutleft professors claim to have special knowledge about Bush's intentions on Iran, you can be sure it's bullshit. The Bush administration does not confide in such people. It's also an evasion about Iran. It is a way of forwarding the fiction that Iran's rogue provocations were provoked by a maniac president. This version of things does not adhere to the reality your community claims to be based in. b,121b,121As for nutjob hate mongers at McCain rallies, I join you in denouncing them. So does McCain. To associate him with these lunatics is no better than judging Obama by the producers of that north korean style youtube video with the five year olds singing, "There's gonna be happiness." It is no better than affiliating Obama with the democrats who think Aipac controls our foreign policy. But it is quite different than asking about Obama's personal and professional associations. McCain cannot control the bile from someone who shows up at his rally. Obama can choose to serve or not serve on boards that include terrorists. Asking Americans to take this fact into account when voting next month is seizing a legitimate opening in a contested election. If you wish to associate this with the extralegal wiretapping of the DNC headquarters, this is your empirical choice. But it does not make it so.
b,121 McCain cannot control the bile from someone who shows up at his rally.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121He could ask his VP to tone her rhetoric down though. I've heard some of how McCain has handled some of the more vocal Obama haters and I thought he was being genuinely principled about it (naive as that may be of me). Palin though? Not so much. She seems happy to feed off that negative energy.
b,121 She seems happy to feed off that negative energy.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121She's a noob, it's typical behavior. It's like little dudes on here, that don't get the bigger dynamic.b,121b,121b/wb,121You guys are really going for it in this thread.
lol @ the argument that because obama says no options are off the table he's somehow just as eager to invade iran as the project for new american century nutbarsb,121b,121ill respond to the rest of your nonsense tomorrow, im heading out right nowb,121b,121u can start with this thob,121http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201777.html
Is it just me or is it hard to take someone seriously, even in a serious debate, when they substitute text-messaging for actual writing? b,121b,121"u can start with this tho" =
b,121Fine. The two of you are in campaign mode. Nothing I wrote is a Republican talking point. And what's more, ask yourself if a Republican served on a board with an unrepentant abortion clinic bomber, doled out money to said bomber's education initiatives and relied on said bomber to launch his political career, would this be considered "intellectually bankrupt?" Obama is running for president. He is probably going to win that contest. But his past associations and career decisions are relevant to that choice.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121I mostly agree with V's initial statement. b,121b,121Both sides are playing a guilt by association. It is a distraction from real issues. b,121b,121But there is a difference. b,121b,121The McCain campaign, mostly through their vp nominee, is making the case that Obama is a scary and dangerous terrorist. b,121b,121Now you know and I know that the only good terrorist is a dead terrorist. b,121b,121The McCain campaign is coming just short of saying that Obama should be killed.b,121b,121To his credit, McCain has started to repudiate his followers who parrot Palin's talking points back to him. b,121b,121V have you ever heard of Joe Vogler, Ralph Reed, Randall Terry? There are plenty of terrorists to go around.
i'd like to inquire about an important issue. b,121b,121WHAT PERCENTAGE of AMERICANS are online?b,121b,121i just want this stat, as objective as possible.b,121b,121...well how many have broadband is more of what i mean.b,121b,121because i cant remember a recent time when i've had as much video access to the players of this game, and i'l tell u this, it has a massive effect on how u read things.b,121b,121a newspaper tells u about quotes, along with a narrative. youtube gives me body language and tone.b,121b,121b,121b,121im under the impression that canada has more broadband than the states or world?is this still true?
I'll defend Ayers. b,121b,121I don't really know much about him, so if I am way off please go ahead and tell me. b,121b,121I was a very idealistic anti-war Jr High Schooler when the Weather Underground was active. b,121b,121They could occasionally be seen at marches, off on the fringes. We were pacifists and believed in non-violence, so they were not welcomed. Their bumper stickers read The pumps don't work because they vandals stole the handle.b,121b,121At the time the were called revolutionaries, not terrorists. They placed a bunch of bombs here and there over the course of a year or 2, maybe 3. They never killed anyone (except themselves) and did minimal property damage because they were not very good at making bombs. I think their biggest success was blowing up a statue in Chicago. Bin Laden Jr they were not. b,121b,121In 1980 (or 1981?) William Ayers turned himself in. Which is the greatest act of repudiation of former beliefs I can imagine. b,121b,121He was willing to face justice and serve time. b,121b,121In our society we believe in redemption. It is central to our justice system and to Christianity.b,121b,121Ayers took steps to redeem himself. He went to school. He worked hard. He excelled at what he did. He got hired. He got a good job. He conceived, developed, tested and marketed proven curriculum. b,121b,121He was rewarded for his hard work. The charities, schools and universities he worked for were very mainstream.b,121b,121He has clarified many times that when he told the Times he wished he had done more, he meant more to end the war, not more bombs. b,121b,121Any one who would call him a terrorist today does not understand what it means to forgive or understand redemption. b,121b,121I am far more concerned with McCain's association with a war criminal* like Kissinger, who has never repudiated his crimes. b,121b,121b,121* I just say that to yank V's chain.
In this specific case, McCain vs Obama I think there has been a difference in the negative campaigning. I think that the McCain campaign has focused upon personal attacks and mudslinging far more than Obama. As far as I know, the worst the Obama campaign has done is say that McCain has been eratic. The McCain campaign is saying Obama associates with terrorists, his middle name is Hussein, etc. Since McCain was the victim of these types of personal attacks when he ran against Bush in 2000 and said he would never do that himself, it shows that his managers are running him, not the other way around. Not only that, but the personal attacks only fly with the Republican faithful, so while his numbers are dropping and he's probably finished, the negative attacks are doing absolutely nothing for him. And the day after he confronted some of the negative comments by his supporter at a rally, other operatives in his campaign in several states continued on with the exact same kinds of attacks. I actually have no problem with McCain himself, but this is a really shameful turn for the man and I personally hope he looses big for what his campaign is doing. He is deeply dividing this country and getting people angrier when we are facing one of the biggest crisis in almost 40 years for no good reason. F*ck that bullshit.
PS- There is a difference between Vitamin's examples of Democratic fear mongering and what McCain's camp is doing now. Saying the Republicans are going to take away people's social security is a point about policy. What McCain is doing now is digging dirt on a candidate and making personal attacks upon them to destroy their reputation. To me that's worse than fear mongering over policies. Unfortunately personal attacks and going negative are all too common in most poltical campaigns by both parties today, but as I said before, Obama hasn't really done this to McCain. It's been all Republican mud slinging.
b,121 Both Ayers and democrats wanted to end the war.
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b,121You no absolutely nothing about Viet Nam war era politics. The democrats did not want to end the war.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121After Bobby Kennedy flipped in '68, after the battle in Chicago, after Nixon wins. the democrats become an anti-war party. It's true that Humphrey and LBJ were proponents of strategic patience. When Nixon comes to power and pursues peace with honor, Dems largely oppose the war. By this point the casualty stats are so high for a conscripted army, many Republicans also opposed. By 1972 McGovern and Nixon are both promising to end the war, but McGovern is promising to end it more quickly. In 1975 after most GIs are out of 'Nam, the Democrats in Congress force Ford to cut off funding to the South Vietnamese, a decision I think even Ted Kennedy today regrets as a betrayal of our allies in Indochina.
b,121i'd like to inquire about an important issue.
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b,121WHAT PERCENTAGE of AMERICANS are online?
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b,121i just want this stat, as objective as possible.
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b,121...well how many have broadband is more of what i mean.
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b,121because i cant remember a recent time when i've had as much video access to the players of this game, and i'l tell u this, it has a massive effect on how u read things.
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b,121a newspaper tells u about quotes, along with a narrative. youtube gives me body language and tone.
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b,121im under the impression that canada has more broadband than the states or world?is this still true?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121If you are interested you can find stats by year and country here:b,121http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats14.htm#northb,121b,121This talks about internet penetration into homes but doesn't really talk about what they do with it. That is a different kettle of fish. It is also unclear if this is counting business use.
b,121Are you suggesting that the pre-Iraq war intelligence was deeply flawed, rather than creatively edited?
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font class="post"1b,121b,121It's not a suggestion, it's a fact.b,121b,121What must be remembered is that the belief saddam was developing WMD was the consensus view of the world intelligence community.
b,121Both sides are playing a guilt by association.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Ayres, Rezko, Wright et al are not merely associates of Obama. They're not people who happened to shop at the same grocery store or whose kids played for the same softball team. These are men who Obama chose to forge close personal and working relationships with and then lied about the nature of those relationships when they caught public attention
b,121Are you suggesting that the pre-Iraq war intelligence was deeply flawed, rather than creatively edited?
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b,121It's not a suggestion, it's a fact.
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b,121What must be remembered is that the belief saddam was developing WMD was the consensus view of the world intelligence community.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Must we do this again?b,121b,1211) Most countries thought that Iraq had WMD, the U.S. however was the ONLY country that believed Iraq was a threat. The British said the WMD intelligence was weak.b,121b,1212) The CIA did have flawed intelligence. In fact they had their heads up their asses when it came to WMD. They not only said that Iraq had WMD, but claimed that it was bigger than before the Gulf War.b,121b,1213) When the U.N. inspectors went back to Iraq in late 2002 they went to EVERY WMD/Nuke sight listed in the U.S.'s White Paper and found nothing. The U.S. claimed Iraq was hiding it. How exactly can a country hide a program that is said to be larger than before the Gulf War that relied upon over a dozen large factories? They said it was becuse of 7 WMD trailers, and never said how they could hide centrifgues, et.al. that would make up a nuke program.b,121b,1214) The Administration also took the worst case scenarios and dropped the cavets and repeated those such as Iraq could get a bomb within a year.b,121b,1215) When it came to Iraq and Al Qaeda there was never a major intel report that said Iraq and Al Qaeda had anything but occasional meetings back in the 90s that led to nothing. Yet, the White House said they were connected over and over. This led to wild exaggerations of even intelligence that was disproven such as Mohammad Atta, one of te 9/11 hijackers, meeting with Iraqi intelligence before 9/11.b,121b,121When 9/11 happened there were large numbers within the administration that were talking about taking out Saddam. This was shared by Bush and Cheney. After Afghanistan was done then, the White House turned to what they knew, IRAQ, rather than what they didn't, terrorism and Al Qaeda, because remember, bin Laden was still around. That's why we went into Iraq. It was basically unfinished business, that the White House talked themselves, the Congress, and the public into believing was part of the war on terror when it wasn't. b,121b,121Dah dah!b,121b,121And this is so relevant to the financial crisis that we are now facing and what is going on in Iraq right now.
b,121Both sides are playing a guilt by association.
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b,121Ayres, Rezko, Wright et al are not merely associates of Obama. They're not people who happened to shop at the same grocery store or whose kids played for the same softball team. These are men who Obama chose to forge close personal and working relationships with and then lied about the nature of those relationships when they caught public attention
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font class="post"1b,121what are you basing your knowledge of these 'close personal and working relationships' on again? is it because ayers legally signed off on obama's membership which subjectively could be read as a contradiction of a single sentence in a ny times article that otherwise suggests their relationship was extremely tenuous at best? the sign of a true blood brother
b,121Here is the thing about your whistleblowers. None of them were willing to say what they told the press, often on background, sometimes with more fanfare, under oath to numerous government committees investigating this very issue. Both phases of the senate's investigation, the second investigated by Rockefeller and the dems, found no instances of pressuring intel analysts or inserting raw intel into major intelligence products. In many cases, though not all, most of Bush and Cheney's statements about Iranian nukes, al Qaeda's migration to Iraq, not to mention chemical and biological weapons were in line with the consensus CIA estimates. There were some differences--the CIA believed it was unlikely Saddam would hand radiological weapons to al Qaeda--but on the big questions the president and his senior officials reflected the consensus estimates. For both the phase 1 and 2 reports intelligence officials were invited to testify in secret with full immunity about instances of pressure and manipulation. Perhaps you still wish to believe Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame or Karen Kwiatkowski, but the congressional committees who had every motive to expose such corruption, turned up a story that negates the accounts of your whistleblowers. The fact that these long discarded falsehoods continue to inform the opinions of millions of Democratic voters is discouraging.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121uh ... this is all total bullshit fyi. the conclusions of the senate reports (phase two released sept. 8 2006) were that there was no prewar evidence that Saddam was building weapons of mass destruction and there was no evidence that Saddam had links to al-Qaeda.b,121http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdfb,121http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiinc.pdfb,121the second part of phase twob,121http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdfb,121concluded and i quote, the US Administration "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.??? bush claimed that saddam was building wmds and that he was linked to al qaeda. these were both proved wrong. how does this not qualify as 'inserting raw intel'? b,121b,121http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/world/middleeast/06intel.html?ref=worldb,121june 6, 2008b,121[i]A long-delayed Senate committee report endorsed by Democrats and some Republicans concluded that President Bush and his aides built the public case for war against Iraq by exaggerating available intelligence and by ignoring disagreements among spy agencies about Iraq???s weapons programs and Saddam Hussein???s links to Al Qaeda./i1b,121b,121/font1
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b,121As for the rest of your objections on Iran, I think more clarity is in order. You wrote the neocons "very much want to invade it." No one has argued for that.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121this is a lie or you are just ignorant.b,121http://www.nationalreview.com/gaffney/gaffney.aspb,121frank gaffney, prominent neocon, member of reagan's cabinet, signatory on the project for a new american century (along with kristol and cheney) argues for:b,121[i]The important thing now, of course, is not simply to acknowledge past achievements, but to build upon them. This will require, among other things:b,121Regime change ??? one way or another ??? in Iran and North Korea, the only hope for preventing these remaining "Axis of Evil" states from fully realizing their terrorist and nuclear ambitions;/i1b,121b,121/font1
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b,121 As for bombing, it's true that Kristol, Podhoretz and others have argued the case for doing so. President Bush and for that matter his vice president have pledged not to allow Iran to obtain a nuke, and said all options were on the table when asked if they would bomb Tehran. Incidentally this is the exact same position as Barack Obama. Obama also says that he would send his diplomats to meet Iran's diplomats. That is exactly what Bush did in July when he sent Undersecretary of State, William Burns to Geneva to deliver a non-proliferation proposal to the Iranians. When nutleft professors claim to have special knowledge about Bush's intentions on Iran, you can be sure it's bullshit. The Bush administration does not confide in such people. It's also an evasion about Iran. It is a way of forwarding the fiction that Iran's rogue provocations were provoked by a maniac president. This version of things does not adhere to the reality your community claims to be based in.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121this is nonsense. it is clear from the quote i posted above that the neocon argument is for regime change in iran. period. obviously they're not going to do it when the country has swung so far against them. but i dont doubt that that is their underlying goal and i think its totally bizarre that you give the administration that dishonestly led us into war with iraq when there was no true threat that much credence in this situation.b,121b,121/font1
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b,121As for nutjob hate mongers at McCain rallies, I join you in denouncing them. So does McCain.
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b,121To associate him with these lunatics is no better than judging Obama by the producers of that north korean style youtube video with the five year olds singing, "There's gonna be happiness." It is no better than affiliating Obama with the democrats who think Aipac controls our foreign policy. But it is quite different than asking about Obama's personal and professional associations. McCain cannot control the bile from someone who shows up at his rally. Obama can choose to serve or not serve on boards that include terrorists. Asking Americans to take this fact into account when voting next month is seizing a legitimate opening in a contested election. If you wish to associate this with the extralegal wiretapping of the DNC headquarters, this is your empirical choice. But it does not make it so.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121the majority of the american public disagrees. it is clear that mccain was race baiting in his speeches and trying to make people suspicious of a black candidate because he 'pals around with terrorists' (his own vp's words right???). this is a false equivalence. in IL ayers serves on boards with lots of people - republicans and democrats - and the program that funded the board he worked on w/ obama was funded by a republican-controlled charity. this "pals around with terrorists" shit is f*cking nonsense. stop buying the bullshit hype - only 30% of the country still pretends to
Deej,b,121b,121Well I suppose I congratulate you on your googling. Sadly you don't comprehend what these things say. An example would be the senate reports. The original claim was that the IC knew Saddam had no WMD or meaningful links to al Qaeda, but were pressured or ignored by the administration when they warned them. That is a fantasy. It's a made up story by intelligence officials to shift the blame from themselves and place it on the political appointees. They rely on the misplaced anger of people like you, to avoid the censure they deserve. And nothing you have cited supports the tampering or pressure thesis. b,121b,121The phase two report from June you site is important. Here the press release from Jay Rockefeller was downright deceptive, he made the surest bet a politician can make, which is that his audience would not read the actual report. That report if you read the conclusions asserts (I paraphrase because I cannot cut and paste the pdf on safari for some reason) that the administration's public statements on Iraq's reconstituted nuke program was generally in line with the assessment of the intel community, ditto for biological weapons, chemical weapons and even links to al Qaeda. The differences between the IC and the administration were on whether Saddam would give said weapons to AQ and Mohammed Atta. b,121b,121Both reports and the press account you site, again do not say the intelligence was tampered with or that the analysts were pressured, it says the administration failed to account for differences among analysts. That's typical slipperiness from the times, but here's is what that amounts to---there were disagreements that were resolved by the intelligence community, particularly the NIC, or national intelligence council. The White House took the key consensus judgments of the NIC without accounting for the dissents within the classified report by people like the State Department's Intel and Research division. Now let's talk about the State Department INR division because their dissent forms the basis of the last thread to which the Bush Lied/Who Died crowd clings. They correctly said Iraq did not have much of a nuclear program. The CIA's WMD division known as WINPAC disagreed and so did the Department of Energy, who warned Iraq's import of specialized aluminum tubes was not expressly for building nukes. But credit where it's due. The phase two report released in June however quotes the director of INR, Carl Ford in memos to Powell about al Qaeda and Iraq saying the following (I'm getting this from my own story at the time. but see -age 67 of the report): b,121b,121"???Our evidence suggests that Baghdad is strengthening a relationship with al Qaeda that dates back to the mid-1990s, when senior Iraqi intelligence officers established contact with the network in several countries.??? b,121b,121???We have some evidence that Iraqi Intelligence has been in contact with elements in the northeastern area. And the al Qaeda operatives there are in regular contact with other operatives located in Baghdad. The Iraqi government has also received information from other sources alerting it to the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in Baghdad.??? b,121b,121???We have hard evidence that al-Qaeda is operating in several locations in Iraq with the knowledge and acquiescence of Saddam???s regime.??? b,121b,121Keep in mind those are the memos from the intelligence dissident who disagreed with the rest of the intelligence community on nuclear weapons. Ford was the Democrats' star witness against John Bolton. He has been quoted on nukes over and again by the likes of Bill Moyers. And here he is making the case that Saddam was deliberately hosting AQ in Iraq. Check this out yourself in the report. The report concluded that evidence of a "partnership" was not substantiated by the intelligence, but that claims that Saddam offered safe haven and had numerous contacts were. b,121b,121Now onto Gaffney and regime change. Here is another comprehension issue. President Reagan sought regime change in Commie controlled Poland. Yet he did not invade. President Clinton sought regime change in Serbia, yet he did not invade. the neocons initially supported regime change in Iraq through training an army of exiles that would launch operations from the Kurdish safe haven. Supporting regime change for Iran, which I certainly do, is not the same as supporting an invasion--an impossibility given the commitments of the volunteer army in Iraq and Afghanistan. I support regime change in Burma and Zimbabwe as well, just as many of us in the 1980s supported regime change for apartheid south africa. In all of these cases regime change is not a synonym for invasion. Perhaps you are one of those extremists who felt the world had an obligation to respect the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which would mean you were also against the decision to fly air patrols around the Kurdish north, an action that prevented the dictator from killing hundreds of thousands of Kurds. Like Hitchens, I argue that Saddam effectively relinquished his sovereignty through his barbaric acts and gross violations of international law. But back to the point, the quote you produce from Gaffney, who is minor league really, does not prove your point. You should back off. b,121b,121And back to Ayers, I'm sorry but no one else on those boards is running for president. Just because Mayor Daley thinks Ayers is reformed does not mean the rest of the country does. Given the fact that he has never repented for his domestic terrorism, then it's fair game.
b,121And back to Ayers, I'm sorry but no one else on those boards is running for president. Just because Mayor Daley thinks Ayers is reformed does not mean the rest of the country does. Given the fact that he has never repented for his domestic terrorism, then it's fair game.
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font class="post"1b,121b,121Minor point but had Ayers repented...I doubt these things would have made an inkling of a difference in how he is framed relative to Obama. This "unrepented" line sounds like empty rhetoric to me since the only word that really matters in the sentence is the "terrorist" part. b,121b,121And E*i: "does not mean the rest of the country does." b,121b,121The rest of the country doesn't know who Ayers is. They still don't except what they're reading in the media right now. And based on how little the Ayers connection has seemed to move things in McCain's direction, it seems that the "rest of the country" has spoken: they don't care.
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