Plame Indictments thread 10

[coeur_de_lion]

PLAME INDICTMENTS THREAD 10

Links to previous 9 threads

If and when indictments come down in the Plame case, thread 1
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1902738

If and when indictments come down in the Plame case-thread 2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1920799

Plame indictments.....Thread 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1933148

Plame indictments.....Thread 4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1946368

Plame indictments.....Thread 5
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1962806

Plame indictments......thread 6
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1971177

Plame indictments .... thread 7
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1987173

Plame indictments..... thread 8 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1999438

Plame indictments..... thread 9
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2011088

[Trajan]

1. AM I the only one who has not posted on those threads ? ...

[seventhson]

2. No - I haven't either nor have I read them, BUT

I guess I should now since they seem to be a best seller!

[hedda_foil]

33. seventhson, PLEASE read and participate. This is right up your alley.

The threads need your input because we're working on your turf here. It's not just about Plame and indictments ... not by a long shot. If it takes you all day to catch up, believe me it will be well worth your while.

hedda

[mandyky]

3. Nope, I haven't posted

but I've read as much as possible :)

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

5. I posted a few times...however....

....I lost interest. I'm more interested in this from a political perspective.

I'm going to wait to see what happens with these indictments, and who, if anyone, gets indicted.

I recall that there was speculation that something was supposed to happen last week, but nothing really did, except the flap over Wilson and the CIA itntel report.

The real "political' story will who gets indicted, and how high up they are, if indictments get handed down.

If there are no indictments, this will not be a political issue, and will just drift off into the land of speculation and conspiracy theories.

[H2O Man]

13. There was a belief that

the grand jury would release some information on July 14. I certainly take full responsibility for that, because as early as April,'04, I had posted that the g.j. would release important information on that date. And on thread #1, I certainly reinforced my belief that 7-14 would be an important date.

However, in the week before that date, it was reported that the grand jury had extended it's investigation by at least two weeks, with the likely dates of their first public releases of information being in late July or the early part of August. I note that July 14 + two weeks = the end of July.

The recent series of attacks on Wilson may possibly be part of a coordinated effort to confuse the public by republicans. Fox News, at the very moment I am typing this, is reporting that Bush was telling the truth in his state of the union address. I'd suggest they are trying to inoculate the public before the release of the grand jury investigation .... which Fox reports will be released in the next couple weeks.

[MidwestTransplant]

15. There is really know way to know exactly when it would end

The date at which the investigation is set to expire is known but it would take time for the GJ to decide whether to indict. Also, as you say, it easily could have been extended.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

16. yeah, I actually agree with this...

The recent series of attacks on Wilson may possibly be part of a coordinated effort to confuse the public by republicans.

Oh, yeah, thats the impression I'm gettting too. They are trial-ballooning spin here...by conflating Wisons' credibility with the actual legal issue around the Plame outing.

I expected to see spin on the Senate intel report, but the spin focus on Wilson was telling. I guess we had a taste on what to expect if there are indictments and they implicate some key staffers or advisors.

[HootieMcBoob]

68. It's happening just as Josh Marshall said it would

He wrote a few weeks ago that they would be working hard to "muddy the waters". He also spoke about the shifting of tectonic plates. I'm wondering whether those shifts will have anything to do with the Plame investigation or if he might have been referring to the sexual torture of children that Seymour Hersh has been talking about.

[merh]

30. Did you catch Wilson on CNN?

He said that Fitzgerald is investigating the leak and may charge the responsible party(ies) with violations of the Patriot Act. I love that, use their monster against them. How appropriate.

[Tellurian]

61. h2o can you turn your e-mail on, please?

thanks-

[H2O Man]

76. still waiting

for a little while longer .......

[Tellurian]

113. Ahhhh...ck your e-mal, h2O..

sorry, away- now I'm back..

[H2O Man]

118. Tellurian

I thank you for your kind e-mail. I'll see if I can find the answer in the Phillip's book. It'll take me a while to get the answer, probably you'll hear back from me in the morning.

[calimary]

103. I went to a Kerry party today where Josh Marshall was a speaker -

on conference call. We were in West L.A. He's still doing the cliff-hanger thing about his "shift the tectonic plates" story. After remarks, and some opening questions from the guy who was handling the phone interview, it was opened up to more questions, so I took a crack at it. Asked him about this, specifically what the tectonic plates were, and did it have anything to do with the Plame investigation.

Here is the gist of what he said:

He expects his story to come out "in the next several weeks" (dammit!) and stated that all he was willing or able to say about it was that "it's intelligence-related," and "manipulative intelligence." He further said he wouldn't be breaking any story about the Plame business first, but that it'd probably be in some other major publication first.

He took a few more questions, and then I tried again.

He said the NYTimes had an item in the last couple of days about the investigation and that Fitzgerald was expected to be coming out with something "in the next several weeks." He said they've done a very good job keeping leaks out. He said other journalists did not feel like they were in the hot seat (even those I specifically referred to - bsides Novak - who had been given the goods). He said while some Democrats have questioned whether this is a serious investigation, he's sure it is. He also said the underlying crime here is "an intent crime." If anybody pleads the 5th, he said, it'll be hard to bring a case, and - as he put it - "I have heard that a lot of that is going on." He further said he didn't feel he had a great deal of insight into what's going on, but he said he felt it had been an aggressive investigation, and the fact that they, in effect, had bush in a deposition for 70 minutes is a sign of that. He said a lot of people thought that was just dotting i's and crossing t's, but - as this wasn't technically a deposition, but in essence to depose a president, he said you don't depose a president "just for the hell of it."

An answer, but a whole lotta non-answer at the same time. Sorry I couldn't get anything with more teeth to it.

Just my two cents here - seems to me that it might be almost a "win" for us good guys even if the reporters in question do take the 5th. The nature of taking the Fifth Amendment is to avoid self-INCRIMINATION. Repeat - self-INCRIMINATION. So if you have to take the fifth about something, it's because you have something to hide/protect/shield yourself from. It's a passive signal that something is NOT on the up-n-up. It's almost a tacit admission of guilt, even while you admit no guilt. You take the fifth and people say - oh REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEALLLLYYYY??????? EITHER WAY, you do not come out clean. In fact, taking the fifth, seems to me - the NON-legal NON-scholar that it makes you look as though you may be even more guilty than you, in fact, actually are. Because, after all, if you've done nothing wrong, then you don't need to seek any protection from any amendment.
----------

BY THE WAY... he ALSO talked about cheney a little bit, too. Said that he feels it's "as close to impossible as anything is - that he'll be taken off the ticket." For several reasons: nowadays, he said, it's pretty much impossible for an incumbent president to drop his veep from the ticket. "You just can't," as he put it. Marshall said that, objectively, cheney is "a big hindrance" to the ticket, but the republi-CON right wing sees cheney "as a symbol of their clout." The people mentioned most often as likely replacements are more centrist and therefore "would cause big problems with the right." Furthermore (and I thought THIS was MOST interesting and a VERY compelling reason, considering human nature and this kind of group we're talking about), the problem here is the "real signal" that removing cheney would clearly telegraph: that the candidacy is in trouble. Marshall said if they junked cheney, "it'd be so damaging to republi-CON morale." (All together now - BOO HOO HOO!!!!! Cue the violins!)

He made some comments about Kerry's foreign policy and potential foreign policy team - maybe Rand Beers to replace contradicta, and how it would mark an improvement over what we've got now in two ways - much more along the lines of what bush-the-first was into - as far as building international coalitions, AND ALSO because this pResident no longer has any credibility with nations or people, and nobody trusts him. Even if he "converted" and started running the Iraq fiasco and everything else in more of what the Democrats have pushed for, it wouldn't make a bit of difference, because he has still squandered any and all trust overseas. As he put it - bush "has almost no credibility with anybody in the world" - and that "most international leaders and most people just don't trust this pResident."

[robertpaulsen]

115. Good job, Calimary! This sounds pretty positive.

Even with all the non-answer you got to your questions, but for Marshall to say that his story would come out "in the next several weeks" and believe that some major publication would break a story on the Plame scandal before his story was published sounds to me like he believes we will see indictments before the Republican Convention!

What he says about Cheney is probably correct. Dropping him would put the entire candidacy in jeopardy. Even if Cheney is indicted, the Bush misadministration will weigh in with their usual: DENY, DENY, DENY! (Since they can't blame Clinton)

But I'm still happy with the hope that even if they do hold fast and not go with the unprecedented move of dumping the Veep, the Convention should still be in a state of complete disarray!

:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[calimary]

120. Thanks! I think I'll repost that in a general thread, for those who may

not have been able to wade through this. It's a BIG reason why I went, beyond just the regular "I wanna support Kerry and kick in another few bucks" objective. A LOT of people here have been on pins and needles about his "tectonic plates" reference before he bailed for vacation. I don't know if anybody's questioned him, specifically, about this yet. People at the Kerry party were obviously mostly interested in Kerry and hardly anybody had visited his Talking Points Memo site or knew anything about that particular reference of his. But people here do... (or should that be - people here DU?)

[Pallas180]

205. You notice our news media and papers r not stressing Cheney's

indictment and legal problems internationally.

But we do have a "free press" don't we?

Think I'll e mail that shill, Wolf Blitzer

[HootieMcBoob]

148. The thing that bothers me is the fifth

If journalists are taking the fifth will there still be enough evidence for indictments? And even though taking the fifth makes somebody look guilty of something, can we trust the current mainstream media to report this? I don't trust them at all. In fact more and more I see them every day as the enemy to real democracy. The corporate owned mainstream media I'm talking about.

[calimary]

161. Yeah, frankly, that bothers me, too. I've heard stuff all over the map

about journalists protecting their sources. I used to be a working journalist and I remember it as sort of an unspoken truth we all lived with, that we'd be willing to go to jail to protect a source. But the nature of the things I dealt with (as an entertainment reporter - WHHHHOOOOOOEEEE, BIGTIME state secrets there, I tell ya!) it NEVER would have become any issue for me. Nor for any of my colleagues. I don't know anybody among my peers who went to jail, although it had happened, years earlier, to some LA Times guy, I think.

Plus, it always seemed to involve protecting a source who was more of a whistle-blower than a miscreant, or in this case, an alleged perpetrator of treason.

I've heard that, according to a Supreme Court ruling that John Dean spoke about at this ACLU meeting I attended recently, a reporter can be compelled to cough it up before a grand jury.

I am NO legal scholar. Heck, I reported on celebrity marriages and divorces and box office numbers and who's starring in what new sitcom and "how WAS that onscreen kiss with (fill-in-the-blank-here)?" HARDLY earth-shaking. And if it had ever come up for me, I would have gone straight to my supervisor or the editor on duty for advice.

I do not know. It's sticky.

What bothers me about it most is what the ramifications would/will be.

By the way, here's a separate thread on this, in which that's discussed a bit more, FWIW...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2018101

[scottxyz]

217. Can a reporter take the 5th to protect someone ELSE (the leaker)?

I thought you could only take the 5th to avoid incriminating yourself.

If a prosecutor asks a reporter, "Who outed Valerie Plame to you?" then I don't see how they could take the 5th - they wouldn't be protecting themselves, they'd be protecting the leaker.

Of course, maybe they could use that other rule about journalists not having to reveal their sources. (But would they have to reveal the source if the source broke the law by leaking to the reporter?)

Usually sources are protected because they're whistleblowers who are reporting wrongdoing, and I assume the rule about reporters not having to reveal their sources is designed to encourage them to speak out.

But what about when the source wasn't blowing a whistle on wrongdoing but was instead doing wrong by the very act of leaking classified information? I doubt the not-revealing-sources rule protects this sort of criminal behavior.

[Pallas180]

203. CALIMARY, thank you, great report. I don't care 4 putting anyone

from the dimson family's current or former admininstration
back into ofice.

More like" Pappy's foreign policy" is what led us into our
current situation

And I don't think it's just reporters taking the 5th. I think
it's a lot more poeple outside the press room at that address.

Let Kerrry put Big Dawg in as Secretary of State. There isn't
a country in the world that doesn't admire and trust him - (except the right wing 1/2 of America of course) :)

[Tellurian]

63. h2o man..can you turn your du e-mail on..

please?

[H2O Man]

65. Why are you

intent on asking this?

[Pallas180]

85. Actually H20-du mail is internal, when u mail within to/from DU it doesn't

even appear as mail sent or received on your Service Provider's
regular e mail.

I actually think it's safer from being hacked, although I'm sure
Skinner could see whatever he chose to.

Excuse me for intruding, we're not sure how computerified you are :)

[H2O Man]

89. My computer skills are

primitive. However, I am able to put on the du e-mail, as I did a few hours ago. My reasons for generally not having it open are for reasons other than my utter lack of computer skills. (grin)

[coeur_de_lion]

96. your email as well as your private message function are both activated

Private Message, or PM, is accessible only from the DU website. The other function (the little envelop icon) allows people to actually email you directly to the inbox on your computer. You can set up your email to alert you when you have a PM, so you know to go check your DU inbox.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

[Pallas180]

101. H20: I know & I know :) Did you know KOHO is a printer & has offered

to print up thousands of the "flyer" you are writing to be distributed by DU'ers at the RNC and DNC conventions?

He'll even print up the book you're going to write about this. hehe.

Now let's see...suggestions for title?

" I Was Retired And Then ....."

[H2O Man]

194. delete

[coeur_de_lion]

4. DUERS: THE FIVE-STAR ACTIVISTS' RESOURCE THREAD, UPDATED 7/9/04

from Calimary:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=106&topic_id=8816

[coeur_de_lion]

6. SAMPLE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR & CONGRESSMEN

1 (800) 839 - 5276 - TOLL FREE Capitol Hill Switchboard number! They'll transfer you to any House/Senate office you name!

H20's SUGGESTED LETTER TO MEDIA & CONGRESS

Dear _________;

I am writing to express my concerns about on-going efforts to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In his NYT Op-Ed article "What I Didn't Find In Africa," Wilson exposed a claim by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address to be untrue. Since that time, the White House has been involved in an effort to destroy Wilson's reputation, which included exposing his wife as a CIA operative.

In John Dean's review of Wilson's book (NYT Book Review; 5-23-04; pg9) he documents that two days after the op-ed article ran, journalist Robert Novak was telling people that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIS "weapons of mass destruction specialist."

Novak exposed Plame's identity in a 7-14-03 column. He sourced his story to two "senior administration officials." These two senior White House officials had lobbied at least six journalists to expose Plame in what Dean calls a "you-hurt-us-we-will-hurt-you warning" to those tempted to expose administration "misinformation."

When Wilson appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown," host Keith Olbermann held up three identical e-mails from the White House. Olbermann explained their intent was to discredit Wilson with their "talking points."

Wilson has noted that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor pointed out that since the Bush people never back down, the fact that they had admitted an error after the op-ed article indicated "they must have something more important to protect." (The Politics of Truth, by Wilson; pg4)

Joseph Klein's 7-5-04 article in Time (Plenty More to Swear About; pg 21) reveals that Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components" when her identity was exposed by the White House. "Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the pay-roll," an intelligence source told Klein.

There is clearly more to this story than the White House and senate republicans are willing to tell the public. What investigation by Plame needed to be derailed by the White House? I hope that national leaders and the media will focus attention on this important issue.

Sincerely,


____________________________________________________________________

KOHO'S SHORT & SWEET SUGGESTED LETTER TO SEND


Dear_________;

I am writing about the outing of CIA Agent Valerie Plame. It seems that the Grand jury Investigation has wrapped up or will soon, but little has been mentioned of late. What may have been political payback to Joe Wilson for refuting the Niger yellowcake claims in the State of the Union address could have actually made this country a great deal less safe. According to Joseph Klein (Time 7-5-04--Plenty More to Swear About), Plame may have been "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components." If this is true (or even a possibility, those responsible must be brought to justice. I submit that underground trafficking of WMD components presents a far more imminent threat to our country than Saddam Hussein did. In my mind this certainly achieves the status of "High Crimes," and I urge you to not let this issue fall by the wayside. The security of our country may have been irretrievably harmed by a few high ranking officials and they must be brought to task.

Sincerely,


_____________________________________________________________________
PALLAS' 'GIVE EM HELL' SUGGESTED LETTER

Dear ____________


Concerning Time magazine's Joe Klein's July 5 article, page 21 revealed that Valerie Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of Weapons of Mass Destruction components"" when her identity was exposed by the White House. It also said" Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge" that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent.

1) Our study group has found that Vice President Cheney since 1995 as CEO of Halliburton was fined 1.2 milion dollars for illegal sales of similar components to Libya. Shortly before becoming Vice President he bitterly assailed US policy against selling such components to Syrria and Iran, which apparently hurt Halliburton's bottom line.

2) Our study group has also found that there is an investigation of Vice President Cheney in other countries for illegal bribery and various other offenses connected to Halliburton as well as paying amounts to secret Swiss bank accounts

3)The Atomic Energy Commission has said a North American company is one of 20 being investigated for black market sales of WMD materials.

Our study group suspects there is more to the White House revealing Valerie Plame's covert CIA status since the Republicans refuse to hold investigations on the matter.

Frankly, it would appear to us that possibly Valerie Plame was stopped in her tracks and the CIA sting operation was exposed because it was coming close to discovering another violation of the laws by our own Vice President and the Hallibuton company he has awarded billions of US taxpayer dollars to in non-bid contracts.

There is a question of where the Vice President's and President's loyalty lies: to their Corporate friends and company's bottom line or to the security and wellbeing of the America.n people?

In any case, the exposure of Valerie Plame by the White House was and is treasonous.

The responsibility of the Media and Congress is to expose these wrong doings, investigate and safeguard against this type of occurrence for the American people.

WHY are you not fulfilling your role to me, to my study group, and the rest of the American people in this country and WHEN will you start ?


Sincerely

___________________________________________________________________

[BillZBubb]

7. I see a lot of threads, a lot of messages, but no indictments!

Am I the only one who is very skeptical about anything good coming out of the Plame investigation--at least before the election?

[sampsonblk]

12. I am with you

I hope something comes from this, but I'd bet money that nothing will. At least not until after the election. We are dealing with some clever and bold people here.

[H2O Man]

8. Wow. Thread #10!

A number of DUers who have not participated in these threads have expressed interest in the subject matter, and even the threads themselves.

The participants on these threads have tried to keep a focused discussion on the important issues involved: (1) Ambassador Joseph Wilson's report on the Niger-Iraq yellow cake uranium "link"; (2) the White House activities that began in VP cheney's office on 3-8-03, to prepare an attack on Wilson if he took steps to expose bush as a liar in his state of the union address; (3) Wilson's NYT op-ed article exposing president bush as a liar; (4) the White House response, which included exposing Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative; (5) the investigation into the White House "leak"; (6) the media coverage of the events described in 1-5; and finally (7) what steps we can take to address this situation.

For #7, we believe we can: (a) become better informed; (b) discuss the issues involved, including some curious "side issues" that may or may not be important, related, or even true; (c) try to take part in forming linkages with other interested groups and/or individuals; and (d) to take part in a lobbying campaign (letters, e-mails, etc) to media sources and elected officials to increase awareness of the core issues involved.

[Beam Me Up]

17. Great SYNOPSIS, H20man, and here are links to threads as MSWord docs

The previous threads can be downloaded as MSWord docs for reading and printing from this site:

http://www.aeschatech.com/dumpster/

Unfortunately the longer links within these documents do not work.

These threads WERE available as PDF files with functioning links from another archive but I haven't been able to download them from there for the past 24 hours. If any one has copies of the PDF files, please private me!

Thanks,

BMU

[mandyky]

9. The Nation - David Corn: Bashing Joe Wilson

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=1558

<snip>
The Senate intelligence committee's report on prewar intelligence demonstrates that George W. Bush launched a war predicated on false assertions about weapons of mass destruction and misled the country when he claimed Saddam Hussein was in cahoots in al Qaeda. But what has caused outrage within conservative quarters? Passages in the report that they claim undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Wilson, if you need to be reminded, embarrassed the Bush administration a year ago when he revealed that he had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to check out the allegation that Hussein had been shopping for uranium there. In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush had referred to Iraq's supposed attempt to obtain uranium in Africa to suggest Hussein was close to possessing a nuclear weapon. When Bush's use of this allegation become a matter of controversy last summer, Wilson went public with a New York Times op-ed piece in which he noted his private mission to Niger--which he had taken on behalf of the CIA--had led him to conclude the allegation was highly unlikely. After Wilson's article appeared, the White House conceded that Bush should not have included this charge in his speech.

</snip>

[H2O Man]

80. David and Katrina

are among the very best of journalists in this country.

[RebelYell]

10. Here's my letter to Wilson's publisher

July 19, 2004



Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV
C/O Carol & Graf Publishers
An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Inc
245 West 17th Street -- 11th Floor
New York, NY 10011


Dear Mr. Wilson,

In light of recent events surrounding the intelligence on the Iraq yellow cake issue, the resulting Robert Novak article naming your wife Valerie as a CIA agent and the possible forthcoming Grand Jury indictments, I would like to inform you of an astounding outpouring of support for you and your wife.

I am a recent poster at Democratic Underground, and the good people there have formed a Think Tank, doing a great deal of research regarding these issues, and more. At this moment, there are over 3,000 posts on their board with a treasure trove of information gleaned from various sources regarding your situation. It is by far the most in-depth dissection of current events that I’ve seen on an Internet board. Democratic Underground has over 43,000 registered users and is funded nearly completely by user donations.

I understand you are a busy man and couldn’t possibly have the time to read it, but I would like you to know that we are behind you 100% and will do our best to inform the masses of the serious injustice being levied by the current Administration against you and your wife. We have started a massive letter writing campaign on your behalf, and hopefully, you will see evidence of this undertaking soon. We are banking that there is at least one honest newspaper Editor or investigative journalist out there willing will bring these issues to the forefront.

Finally, know that we have reached the end of our collective rope with the unabashed criminal arrogance of the current Administration and will do our best to help America back to the great country it was four years ago.

Good luck with your endeavors and don’t hesitate to contact us at the “Plame Indictments” thread on www.democraticunderground.com if we can assist you in any way. America needs more brave men like you, Mr. Wilson!

Sincerely,

[Gregorian]

27. WOW! That makes me not ashamed to be an American

Damnit, that's exactly the thing that brings my spirits up, living amongst the walking dead.



To care, one must first know.

[RebelYell]

75. :)

nt

[Cha]

51. That's a wonderful letter, RebelYell..

and thank you so much for writing it and sending it to Joe Wilson.

I have seen Joe Wilson on many shows and I am thinking like ya'll that this man will not back down.

[RebelYell]

77. Thank you!

He's not backing down. I find it very difficult to believe that a man of his stature is a liar. To what purpose? He had no purpose to lie. None. I'm backing him up.

[RebelYell]

11. Wilson on CNN today

with Blitzer, between Noon and 1:00 P.M. EST

[Rose Siding]

14. TPM decontructs the Butler report

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_11.php#003169

This post will take us admittedly deep into the weeds of the Iraq-Niger saga. But if you can handle the detail, let's proceed.

As we've noted several times recently, both the Senate intel committee report and the recent "Butler Report" in the UK managed to leave out key details that would undermine the storyline they were trying to present......

[H2O Man]

18. Interesting and important information.

The only area that I disagree is on the issue of if Plame played a significant role in the selecting of Wilson for the Niger assignment. I think it is important to confront and correct every distortion and lie these people tell. This is one in a series of distortions and lies that is easy to confront and correct.

[Rose Siding]

22. Is that addressed in the Butler rpt?

Marshall is dealing specifically with that report in this post.

I believe he covered Plame's role previously.

[H2O Man]

35. The Butler report

deals with British intel. The "controversy" over the issues of Plame's "role" in suggesting Wilson for the Niger assignment is not at issue in the Butler report. However, the republican forces trying to discredit Wilson are using parts of the Butler report, out of context, to smear Wilson on a related issue involving the forged documents.

Marshall's articles should be required reading. They are very important.

[RebelYell]

78. Wilson said

on CNN today that Valerie didn't attend the meeting when they made the decision to ask him to go to Niger. He denied that she had anything to do with the decision and THEY came to HER with questions about sending him.

[lastknowngood]

19. I suggest we stop posting to Plame indictments threads until

there are some. My belief is there will be none or only a couple who will either be found not guilty or the shrub will pardon them anyway.
Don't waste your time expecting anything to come out of a whitewash investigation by a republican friend of AssCraft.

[H2O Man]

20. I think that it

would be okay if you stop for now. Are there any objections to the concept of lastknowngood not participating in these threads?

[Pallas180]

48. H20 I can wait out indictments, & if there aren't any there's still work t

to do. :)

:hi:

[Me.]

21. I am glad to see that the focus is back on Plame

IMHO (very humble) and with all due respect I am glad to see us getting back to the nexus of our discussion. While I am not disputing the validity of NWO and other subjects 'cause there's more to an egg than just the shell, we have started a letter writing campaign (Yes count me in) that will most likely subject us to scrutiny. I know that I have, in my writing, mentioned what is going on here, for I think it is remarkable. I have never seen anything like this thread. And the Plame investigation is so important, for it goes right to the heart of the dirty doings at 1600 Pennsylvania ave. I worry that if the discussion becomes too "diverse" we will lose credibility at a time when we are just staring up and need all we can get. Perhaps we should view this with the domino theory in mind. If this goes then the next domino will fall, the one after that and so on. In addition, as long as there is an interest in this discussion, I don't see why the conversation should end or be cut off.

[Jose Diablo]

29. Ah, but telling a good story

requires side trips, embellishments and a steady firm hand at bring the main topic back into focus.

These threads are more than just 'factual' accounts. They are artistic works of genius from the DU community containing not just research, but trips into speculation and discussions into probable conclusions.

I think that no matter the outcome, what we see here is the Internet at its finest.

edit: "Artistic works of art?" sheesh

[H2O Man]

31. Well said!

And, in order to be so well said, it is obviously well thought out, and well understood. I think that you speak for a good many of us when you express so well what the true nature of this adventure actually is. Thank you.

[RebelYell]

23. There is continual discussion of this issue

in the media. Why should we not continue to dissect their statements?

[merh]

39. A point I tried to make in the other thread relative to sweeping this

matter under the rug is that a comparison of Watergate to Plamegate is not accurate way to gage the investigation and what effect any indictments may have on the admin. The crimes involved in Plamegate are much more serious than the crime that the public was aware of in Watergate. National security issues are much more serious than breaking and entry and theft.

IMHO, if Fitzgerald is truly investigating the Plame outing as seriously as it appears, then the crimes cannot be ignored and/or swept under the carpet as feared by many posting in these threads.
Outing of a clandestine intelligence agent is a national security issue and the investigation could lead to war profiteering, war crimes, espionage, treason, who knows how far it will go. Wilson said on CNN that violations of the patriot act could be involved. (You have got to love that they could use the admin's weapon against the admin.)

Once * and his crew have been implicated, it weakens the trust the nation has in the GOP, thus it weakens the control that corporations tied to the GOP have, thus it retards the efforts of those trying to control our government.

I realize it is frustrating that nothing has happened yet, no indictments or results of the investigation. I prefer that it be a thorough investigation and that the prosecutor have all of his ducks in a row before he indicts than to have an indictment returned for the sake of an indictment for political purposes. Actually, politics should play no part in this and the gj should be as far removed from political considerations as possible. When, and if, indictments are returned, the cry of those implicated is that it is politically motivated, thus, the prosecutor must be sure that it is not.

Again, I understand your frustration, but let the investigation proceed at its own pace and just be patience and have faith that our system can work.

[RebelYell]

24. Wilson on CNN

Wilson sort of called Cheney a liar about not being briefed on the subject. Wilson said Cheney asked for updates. (Heh. Take THAT!)

Who put the 16 words in the State of the Union Address - he didn't.

About leaking Valerie's name - a number of laws have been broken - even possibly the Patriot Act! (Wouldn't that be sweet justice!)

He says he's not going away and will see it through to the end.

[Me.]

25. I saw him too

He was fabulous! And if he's not going away I don't see why we should either.

[kohodog]

26. Why all the sudden interest in debunking Joe Wilson?

It's a veritable feeding frenzy to discredit him. But there have been no facts to back up anything they are saying.

They go from..".Joe Wilson lied" to "The State of the Union sixteen words were true!" It seems to be a vehicle for the right to get a few outright lies like that out so that people who aren't really paying attention will be less likly to feel outrage when the indictments come out.

I suspect it may be coming to a head or this wouldn't be happening.

[redstateblues]

37. Bushco pre-emptive strike before the indictments

[Pallas180]

50. Trial by telelvision-to influence the Grandy Jury & Prosecutor or any

prospective future jury. PR

[maggrwaggr]

53. did anyone see the NBC evening news story -- "New questions about Wilson"

It was a total piece of crap story. I paid close attention, of course, and when it was all over there was not one actual piece of ANYTHING to suggest he was lying or made any kind of error. His wife may have recommended him for the job without him knowing? Uh ... It hink that's quite probable seeing as how she was a deep-undercover CIA agent! He probably doesn't know 99% of what she did!

It was just weird how NBC handled it. Pure bullshit, pure speculation, pure smearing.

[calimary]

109. It's the "baffle them with bullshit" effect. Attack the messenger.

Like they do in murder trials. Your defendant/client appears guilty? Then you go all out, all over the map, turning it around and instead of putting the defendant on trial, you put anything else and your grandmother and the guy crossing the street and the kitchen sink on trial instead. Obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate. They're hoping to destroy his credibility so anything he says, or charges/accusations he makes against them will be regarded with a grain of salt. Just more of the same. It's Step Two. Step One was outing Plame to begin with, in retaliation for his writing that NYTimes op/ed piece that smacked their "Saddam tried to by uranium from Africa" crap. The fact that they're still going after him, tooth and nail, means they still regard him as a BIGTIME threat. He's probably their Public Enemy Number One (especially since Osama has yet to turn up and Saddam, Gray Davis, and Gary Condit don't count anymore).

[H2O Man]

28. After watching Wilson on CNN

I am confident that we will be continuing our discussions. I do understand and appreciate that many smart, informed, and interested people have concerns that the grand jury could result in a stalemate of sorts. In fact, they are 100% correct in their thinking that this is exactly what the White House is aimimg for.

Our goal is to make sure that doesn't happen. And we're going to have a heck of a lot of fun doing it. We're going to re-focus our effort here in the next 48 hours: we will again review several important and thought-provoking issue, including the basic structure of the federal "separation" or "balance of powers." We will examine the threat this case poses to a constitutional democracy. And we will experience how a small & dedicated group of US citizens can make a difference in national politics.

Three goals: voter education, voter registration, and voter participation in the democratic process. We are not the federal grand jury, and it is as unlikely as it is unfortunate that we will not make up the jury in the Federal Court when the trials take place in 2005. But we will give testimony to help convict this band of felonious thugs in the court of public opinion.

[Occulus]

36. I've often felt...

...that having one, single party in complete, or nearly complete, control of our system, be it the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, was a recipie for disaster.

Sadly, I'm now being proven correct.

You mentioned the concept of the "seperation of powers" written into our Constitution via the establioshment of three seperate, mutually-balancing branches of government. The inclusion of this concept into our system of government was almost prescient on the part of our Founders, or perhaps it was based more upon their own experiences under their King. In any case, they knew what they were doing when they seperated the powers of teh government into three branches.

One wonders what they would think of it all today.

It's simply stunning to see how all three branches are, collectively, working together to achieve a "common goal;" while such collective action may be appropriate under some circumstances, to make it SOP for an entire administration over the course of four years spits in our Founders' collective faces.

Overall, it's a fundamental Constitutional issue, isn't it? We simply cannot have a truly representative and responsible government when each branch is working to bolster the positions of the other two, yet this is, for the most part, where we are today.

That this pResident would assume more powers than are granted him under our Constitution, and that Congress and the judiciary appear so often to agree with that assertion, is deeply disturbing to me. Yes, there are small, lone voices which can and do dissent, but all to frequently, they are drowned out, shouted down, and outright censured for their objections.

The attitude filters down, as well, from the marble halls of Pennsylvania Avenue to the plaster walls of Main Street. We can see the voices of dissent being called "unAmerican" and "traitorous" on every public message board in the country. It's chilling to know that today, in July of 2004, I'm not truly American, according to some, because I'm not toeing the line of our government.

In the words of Roland from Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series... they have forgotten the faces of their fathers.

[juslikagrzly]

44. Thank kgfnally

for so eloquently describing the fear I feel. I am, unfortunately, just now wiping the apathy-induced sleep from my eyes, and waking to the incredible disaster awaiting this country.

As a 46 yr old female academician, and more importantly the mother of two young children, I am fearful for the state of this country. When our citizens seem more interested in who can cheat and lie their way into "winning" a million dollars on survivor shows, or who can manipulate the heart of a "bachelor/ette", the sorry state of our constitutional democracy can easily slide into oblivion. With the national obsession with "anything goes-as long as you win", it is not surprising that our government subscribes to the same mantra.

I'm watching these threads for two reasons 1) to educate myself and those around me, and 2) to find a glimmer of hope and optimism. If the plame indictments do idea occur, I will feel the the ideals of this country have been restored. If the indictments do not happen, I shudder to think....

While * scares me because of the person he is, the loss of the basic "balance of power" in this country scare me more.

Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, do the right thing...for all our sakes!

[Occulus]

47. You're welcome :)

[Pallas180]

52. JUSLIKA- tv has become the major avenue for the dumbing down of Americans

and I don't think it's an accident, from the news programs to
the "entertainment" shows.

[juslikagrzly]

56. So true

and so scary!

[TacticalPeek]

104. Those TV "dumb rays" also backfire, apparently.

This from Ted Koppel, a man at the pinnacles of mass media influence, today on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howie Kurtz:

----------------

KURTZ: With the luxury of hindsight, were the media -- were all the journalists who were covering this, were they skeptical enough? Were they aggressive enough about the claims of weapons and related support for terrorism that Dick Cheney and George Bush were making in the run-up to war? Did the media do their job?

KOPPEL: I think we were probably a little bit too timid across the board. But looking back on it now, Howie, I don't know of anyone back then, not the French, not the Germans, not the Russians, certainly not the British, not American intelligence, I know of no one who did not believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

And in fact, the last time that international folks were in there, back in 1998, it was quite clear that he still had them. And it didn't make common sense. Why, if the man could avoid an invasion by the United States simply by letting folks come in and see that he didn't have any weapons of mass destruction, why not do it? I don't quite understand that one to this day.

--------------- my emphasis
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/18/rs.00.html


I dare say that this could lend credence to the shape-shifting reptiles theory of current history.


edit-add link

[Lestatdelc]

178. TRANSCRIPT from CNN Interview today

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0407/18/le.00.html

BLITZER: The situation here in Washington confusing to say the least. From London to Washington, fresh questions about what the United States and its allies knew about Iraq when President Bush was making his case to invade that country.

One person who challenged the administration finds himself back at the center of a firestorm over intelligence and war. That person, the former U.S. Acting ambassador to Iraq, Joe Wilson. He is joining us now on "LATE EDITION."

Mr. Ambassador, welcome back to "LATE EDITION." Thanks very much for joining us, your first television interview since the Senate Intelligence Committee Report came out, which raises serious questions about your credibility in this whole matter.

Let's go through some of the specific questions that they raise in that report, which was unanimously adopted by the Democrats and the Republicans.

Among other things, you had always said, always maintained, still maintain your wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA officer, had nothing to do with the decision to send to you Niger to inspect reports that uranium might be sold from Niger to Iraq.

This is what the report says. The CPD, the Counter Proliferation Division over at the CIA, reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador's wife offered up his name and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, quote, "My husband has good relations with both the prime minister and the former Minister of Mines, not to mention lots of French contacts, both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

Did Valerie Plame, your wife, come up with the idea to send you to Niger?

JOSEPH WILSON, FORMER AMBASSADOR: No. My wife served as a conduit, as I put in my book. When her supervisors asked her to contact me for the purposes of coming into the CIA to discuss all the issues surrounding this allegation of Niger selling uranium to Iraq.

BLITZER: Who first raised your name, then, based on what you know? Who came up with the idea to send you there?

WILSON: The CIA knew my name from a trip, and it's in the report, that I had taken in 1999 related to uranium activities but not related to Iraq. I had served for 23 years in government including as Bill Clinton's senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. I had done a lot of work with the Niger government during a period punctuated by a military coup and a subsequent assassination of a president. So I knew all the people there.

BLITZER: Well, why do you think that this CPD reports officer says, as it's called, the Counterproliferation Division, told the committee staff that she offered up his name?

My understanding is that that quote was taken out of context. And in my letter to the committee, I've urged them to reinterview that report officer.

WILSON: But notwithstanding that...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: What's the complete context, then?

WILSON: Well, my understanding is that, during the course of the interview, he made very clear to them that both Valerie and I were reluctant about anything to do with this, and in fact...

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me interrupt. When you say she was reluctant, you don't deny she wrote a memo in which she said you have good contacts...

(CROSSTALK)

WILSON: Well...

BLITZER: ... with the Minister of Mines, the former prime minister.

WILSON: There are a number of journalists who have gone to the CIA directly and asked about that, including David Ensor, who was told a different story about how that may have come about. In fact, my understanding -- and I don't want to put words in his mouth, so you better ask him -- is that he was told that somebody in that chain of command had asked Valerie to do my list of curriculum vitae.

But the fact of the matter is, the decision -- the invitation, the offer, or the request that I go out to Niger was made at a meeting, after this issue was discussed in a group of involving analysts from the CIA and other agencies. My wife was not at that meeting, and she specifically absented herself from that meeting, so as to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

BLITZER: And I spoke to David Ensor, our national security correspondent, who says that a high-ranking CIA official does say the Senate Intelligence Committee report got it wrong on that specific point.

WILSON: Well, on July 22nd of last year, a Newsday journalist asked the same thing. And he was told by a senior intelligence official that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked alongside, but said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment.

BLITZER: All right. So your bottom line is, the Intelligence Committee report got it wrong, on that specific point?

WILSON: My bottom line on that is that they got that particular point wrong...

BLITZER: All right. Let's go to the second question that they raise now about your credibility.

And I'll read again from the Senate Intelligence Committee report:

"Committee staff asked the former ambassador" -- that would be you -- "how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the dates were wrong and the names were wrong when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.

"The former ambassador said that he may have misspoken to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were forged."

At issue here, an article in The Washington Post in which you were the source, you acknowledge being the source. You spoke of forged documents long before anyone ever knew that they were forged.

WILSON: No, no, that's wrong.

First of all, I was one of several sources.

Secondly, that article appeared in June. And, in fact, on March 7th of that year, Dr. El Baradei had described to the U.N. that these documents were forgeries.

In addition to that, on March 24th, I think, for the March 30th issue of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh wrote a long article about it, in which he laid out the facts based upon an interview he had with the International Atomic Energy Agency...

BLITZER: So when the committee says that you told them you had misspoken, what did you misspeak?

WILSON: Well, actually, what I misspoke was, when I misspoke to the committee, when I spoke to the staff -- this interview took place 15 months after The Washington Post article appeared. I did not have a chance to review the article. They did not show me the article.

They threw it out there, and the question I took as being a rather generic question: Could you have misspoken? Yes, I am male, I'm over 50. By definition, I can misspeak. I have gone back since and taken a look at this particular article. It refers to an unidentified former government official. If it is referring to me, it is a misattribution, of facts that were already in the public domain and had been so since March.

My first public statement on this, in my own words, was on July 6th.

BLITZER: All right. Let's go to the third criticism of you, raising credibility questions in the Senate report. You came back, and you said, repeatedly, publicly, on this program, many other programs, and your book, that you concluded there was no truth, basically, virtually no truth to these reports that Niger was going to sell or provide uranium to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and that these reports that there were negotiations, deals underway were simply not true.

That was the thrust of your conclusion.

WILSON: My conclusion was, the allegation that they had attempted to engage in a transaction involving several hundred tons of uranium yellow cake was highly unlikely.

BLITZER: All right. This is what the Intelligence Committee report writes in their conclusion:

"The reports officer from the CIA said that a good grade was merited" -- he said you got a good grade for your report -- "was merited, because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions of the intelligence community, but did not provide substantial new information."

He said he judged that the most important fact in the report -- that would be your report -- was that Niger officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Niger prime minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation -- a foreign government service reporting.

Basically...

WILSON: Again, again...

BLITZER: Let me explain to our viewers, because it gets a little confusing. Basically, the CIA officer concluded from what you told him that there might be an element of truth in these reports because you confirmed to them that there was an effort along the same lines in 1999.

WILSON: There were two meetings between Iraqi delegations and the Niger government. One was a trip to Niger by an Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican, which as it turns out, as most people have now reported on, was part of a trip to the region to encourage presidents to break the travel ban and travel to Iraq.

There is nobody who has suggested that there is credible evidence that uranium was under discussion there.

The second meeting was between the prime minister and an Iraqi, who turned out to be the minister of information in the second Iraq war, on the margins of an international organization meeting in Algiers. And during the course of that meeting, actually before the meeting, the prime minister who took the meeting because a constituent asked him to, pondered whether or not uranium might be something to discuss...

BLITZER: But do you understand that this CIA officer told the Senate Intelligence Committee exactly the opposite of what you've been saying. He came away reassured that there might be some evidence of some sort of connection there...

WILSON: No...

BLITZER: ... based on your confirmation that...

WILSON: ... I think...

BLITZER: ... there was this meeting in '99.

WILSON: I think it was important for everybody to understand that we needed to continue to monitor Saddam Hussein and his ongoing interests in uranium. Notwithstanding that, the allegation that was backed by these documents later turned out to be forgeries, was not sustained by the evidence that it was out there.

At the meeting in Algiers, uranium was not raised. It was not a subject of conversation. Now,let me just say...

BLITZER: But is there any other export that Niger has?

WILSON: But it was not raised as a subject, so it is hard to get from there to saying that we have learned or the British government has learned that Iraq has attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Now let me just share a couple of things from you. One, on October 2, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency...

BLITZER: October 2, of?

WILSON: Of 2002, 2002.

BLITZER: Before the war?

WILSON: Before the war, before the State of the Union address -- said to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he testified that one thing where I think they, the British, stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch it, is on the points about where Iraq was seeking uranium from various African locations.

On October 6, 2002, the director of Central Intelligence called the deputy national security adviser to outline the CIA's concerns about this assertion. He testified, the director of Central Intelligence, on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security adviser the president should not be a fact witness on this issue because the reporting was weak.

BLITZER: I assume you believe and everybody else believes the original source of a lot of this information were British intelligence reports. Is that right?

WILSON: I don't know.

BLITZER: But that's...

WILSON: I don't know, and I have... BLITZER: ... it's what I've...

WILSON: ... never, I have never known.

BLITZER: In the Butler report, the British version of the Senate Intelligence Committee report that came out this week, they say this. They say: The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. The intelligence was credible.

This is a reference to the visit in 1999 by Iraqi officials to Niger.

WILSON: That's right. And on October 6, 2002, the CIA sent a fax to the White House, which said among other things: We have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British.

BLITZER: All right, so let's talk a little bit about what all of this means, your bottom line assessment. The Senate Intelligence Committee comes out with a unanimously approved report which makes some serious allegations raising allegations of your credibility. How do you emerge from that?

WILSON: Well, the credibility issues, the issues related to Valerie and to myself, of course, are in the additional views that are offered by three Senators.

I have addressed those questions in a letter that I wrote to the Senate, which has actually been posted on a number of cites, including Salon.com.

BLITZER: And you've asked them to reopen their investigation.

WILSON: And I've asked them to reinterview the reports officer. I've asked them to take another look at this. And I've articulated to them areas where I think there was some confusion.

BLITZER: Is there anything you want to take back right now? Any statements you made based on current information that if you had had, you would have phrased differently?

WILSON: Well, I'll tell you, I'm surprised one of the things that I've always said is that I believe the vice president himself would have been briefed on this. And in fact, on March 5th, I believe...

BLITZER: Because the report says he was never briefed on...

WILSON: That's correct. On March 5, apparently he asked for an update. My own report on this was circulated a couple of days later. But he was never specifically briefed on it.

BLITZER: And when you said he was, that was based on your previous government experience?

WILSON: Well, I have always said that the way the government works -- and I've always tried to articulate, separate out the difference between the vice president himself and the office of the vice president -- but I did believe, and I think I have said, that I believe that he was briefed. And frankly, I'm surprised that he wasn't.

Because, after all, just a couple of days before my report had been produced within the agency, he had actually asked for an update.

BLITZER: They argue, the CIA argues in this Senate Intelligence Committee report, they didn't pass this information from you on to the vice president because it really didn't provide a whole lot of new information.

WILSON: Right. Well, of course, when you're looking for something that is proof positive, something that doesn't provide that proof positive, doesn't change the equation to get you to where you can make a definitive statement on this or where, in fact, the president of the United States can confidently become a fact witness on this...

BLITZER: Do you have confidence that the current investigation into who leaked the name of your wife as a clandestine officer to Bob Novak, our colleague here at CNN, a columnist for the Chicago Sun- Times, do you have confidence that they will come up with an answer?

WILSON: Well, I'm glad you came up with that question because in fact there's two things that are important to remember in this. One is the 16 words in the State of the Union address and who put them in there. And I didn't. Somebody else did, making the president a fact witness. And two is who leaked my wife's name. Now, I have every confidence in the integrity and in the drive of both the special counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the FBI team that's working with him.

BLITZER: Do you think that they're getting close to wrapping it up based on what you know?

WILSON: I don't know. But the fact that they haven't gotten to a conclusion yet suggests some of the difficulties that they may be encountering with certain members of the senior administration staff.

BLITZER: And one final question. Based on the sensitivity of the issue, I take it under the law, whoever leaked the name, your wife's name, Valerie Plame, to Bob Novak, had to know this was a violation of the law, that she was a clandestine officer undercover working for the CIA.

Do you believe whoever leaked that name actually knew that?

WILSON: I have no idea. And my understanding is it's quite possible that a number of different laws have been broken. But I'm not an attorney. I put in my book a piece that was done by Sam Dash before he passed away suggesting it might even be a violation of the Patriot Act.

BLITZER: All right. So now we have you, your future, Valerie Plame's future. What's next for both of you?

WILSON: Well, I don't know. Obviously, there's been this orchestrated campaign, this smear campaign. I happen to think that it's because the RNC, the Republican National Committee's, been involved in this in a big way...

BLITZER: But they weren't involved in the Senate Intelligence Committee report.

WILSON: No, they weren't. But they've certainly seized upon it as a way of smearing, sort of perpetuating the smear campaign against me. I think Valerie and I will fight back. If they think that I'm going to go away on this issue, they're wrong. And we will see where we go from there.

BLITZER: Joe Wilson, thanks for joining us.

WILSON: Good to be with you, Wolf.

[midwayer]

32. What I think I heard him say

Just a few things I think I remember him saying

the office of the vice president bypassed his report after asking for an update just two days before his report came out

The 2 Iraqi meetings uranium was never discussed

The CIA itself disagreed with British intellegence reports of the Iraqi meetings whereas the British claimed the uranium discussion

Said that the fact that Fitzgerald is taking so long leads him to believe they may be having problems obtaining information from certain adminstration officials

Valerie and he will continue to fight this and will not back down

[midwayer]

34. Said he believes the RNC

is involved in the smear campaign

[redstateblues]

38. Imagine That!

[zydeco]

40. Am I confused?

Is this thread about the outting of a covert intel agent or Ambassador Wilson?

[TacticalPeek]

41. Yes.

Yes.

[coeur_de_lion]

42. The covert agent was Valerie Plame, Wilson is her husband

[coeur_de_lion]

43. dupe

[H2O Man]

46. It would be difficult to discuss one

without discussing the other, wouldn't it? The exposing of Valerie Plame as a CI operative who served this country as a specialist in WMD would seem to be connected to her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wouldn't it? And if we were to discuss Wilson and his assignment in Niger, and his op-ed article in the NYT exposing the president as lying in the state of the union address, one might go so far as to connect the White House response of exposing Plame's identity. I hope this helps to dissipate any clouds of confusion that our readers may have difficulty seeing through.

What seems to the more serious question may be exactly why the White House leaked Plame's identity. The fact Wilson's wife was an operative serving under the highest level of cover that any person can possibly have, would hardly seem to be the type of blow that would take the wind out of Wilson's assertion that bush erred by including those 16 words in the state of the union address. Quite the opposite.

We do know from Joe Klein's 7-5 article in Time that Plame was working on a sting operation regarding the sale of WMD components. Is it not fair to at very least question if there was any connection to the work she was involved in, and the White House's exposing her identity, and hence resulting in an immediate derailing of the sting operation?

People who participate in these threads have a wide range of opinions on this. We do not require "group-think." We do require that individuals participating on here think. Asking questions is an important part of that process. We welcome honest opinions, varying theories, and any sincere questions.

[zydeco]

49. Thank you H2O.

I question not the motive, though I do realize it's significance, but rather the act of treason perpetrated by individuals upon the United States of America. I do appreciate the thread but I hope the spin on Ambassador Wilson does not let us forget that we have a traitor or traitors in the highest levels of our government.

[Pallas180]

54. Ok, once again: My Theory on WHY Plame>Cheney>Halliburton

A THEORY ON THE WHY - Plame -> Cheney->Halliburton


repost

A THEORY ON THE WHY - Plame -> Cheney->Halliburton


Here's what we know:

1) Valerie Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of Weapons of Mass Destruction components"" when her identity was exposed by the White House. It also said" Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge" that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent.

2) Vice President Cheney since 1995 as CEO of Halliburton was fined 1.2 milion dollars for illegal sales of components to Libya which could be used for nuclear purposes. Shortly before becoming Vice President he bitterly assailed US policy against selling such components to Syrria and Iran, which apparently hurt Halliburton's bottom line.

3) There is an investigation of Vice President Cheney in other countries for illegal bribery and various other offenses connected to Halliburton as well as paying amounts to secret Swiss bank accounts

4)The Atomic Energy Commission has said a North American company is one of 20 being investigated for black market sales of WMD materials.

Here's the theory:

Valerie Plame was stopped in her tracks and the biggest treasonous taboo of revealing a CIA sting operation was done because she/it was coming close to discovering even more serious violations of the laws against trading nuclear materials with certain countries by our own Vice President and the Hallibuton company he has awarded billions of US taxpayer dollars to in non-bid contracts after he became VP.

Recently Libya was accused of having WMD components and the US threat
ened to invade unless Quaddaffi gave the WMD components to the US.
Bush 2 was seen on TV this week inspecting the cases of returned materials from Iraq triumphantly. The fact that Quaddafi received these illegal shipments of components from Cheney/Halliburton was not
mentioned in the victory video.

Dick Cheney, even after the Senate Intel Committee, The Atomic Commission and numerous other agencies have said no WMD exist in Iraq,
insists Iraq has WMD even in the last week.

Why? Because Dick Cheney knows he, through an offshore Halliburton company with a PO Box, at some time in the past sold Saddam Hussein WMD or components of WMD. In the same way "they" under Bush 1 adminstration sold Hussein lethal gas which he used, and then attacked him for using it saying he was a threat to the community.

Why do Cheney and Bush insist they must attack Syrria and Iran as the next step in making the world safe and that Syrria and Iran have
WMD? Cheney-Halliburton know that Syrria and Iran have WMD components because Cheney illegally sold the WMD components to Syrria and Iran.

Why did Bush Cheney know that North Korea had WMD and where did they gget the components?

Why were Pakistan and India able to test and develop nuclear weapons undetected by the CIA's "big eye in the sky" or any agency's seismic
discovery? And where did India and Pakistan purchase the components
for WMD which were illegal for any company to sell them?

What was Valerie Plame investigating?


good spooks vs the bad spooks in the FBI and CIA becomes very confusing to most, I think.



Not to add confusion to my "theory " above, but I also thought:

When Saudi Arabia asked Junior and Company to get out of Saudi Arabia
afer we had built a monstrous and expensive base armed with the newest weaponry - one might call it a home base -why would they do that, when they had wanted US to protect them and their oil fields for years???

The reason given for asking us to vacate was to calm the anti-American element. Hmmm. But if they needed our protection from that very element, WHY would they ask their protector to leave.
BECAUSE they "likely" also received WMD from certain parties.

So now, we can guess, the entire Middle East is armed with illegal components of WMD...supplied by whom?hmmm

And I agree with you ROBERTPAULSEN- it's a great racket. Supply them
with the components, collect payment. Shuttle back and forth between
private employment and government employment, selling WMD for your company's bottom line while a private CEO, earning large bonuses and
deferred "payment" plus increased stock option value, go back into government, create a war on those countries who have the WMD you have sold them, then you have created a situation where your company and the other companies you hold stock in, or which belong to your other associates, can supply the army with munitions, destroy the country you have sold WMD to, and then the very same companies who supplied the munitions for destruction, go in and rebuild the country.


So. Now how many times have you profiteered?
1) illegal selling of WMD
2) earn bonus, increase value of stock options
3) Supply Army Munitions on no bid contracts
4) Rebuild the country on no bid contracts

[Pallas180]

55. REPOST: H20 on Why Valerie Plame was target & not Joe Wilson

H2O Man (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-17-04 02:01 PM
Response to Reply #4

17. Yes, I can.


We know that Valerie Plame was involved in a sting operation involving the components for WMDs. This is verfied in J. Klein's article in Time, 7-5-04. Remember also that when Novak called CI for confirmation of Plame's status -- and Robert NoFacts had told a total stranger on a public street on the day afterWilson's NYT op-ed article that she was a WMD specialist -- the CIA requested that he not only should NOT mention Wilson's wife was an operative with the Agency, but that her name should not ever be printed.

One of the things to keep in mind is that by revealing Plame's identity, it insured that at very least, a half-dozen operatives (American and other-wise) were exposed to the last people on earth that they should have been exposed to. Let's just say, for example, that there was a person who was working in the Pakistan area ... and he had worked in deep cover for over a decade, and was very, very close to accessing information on the sale of not only technology, but also components, that went to Iran .... and he had a known link to Plame .... then he would be dead 24 hours after Novak's article was printed. Further, no one in the USA would be at liberty to discuss the fact that he existed.

You will recall that I've referred to this as high stakes chess. A board game where the removal of one player compromises the safety and value of several others.

Listen: if they wanted to call Wilson's conclusions into question, they could create confusion with a series of bullshit documents from England, etc. They could have said that his was one of three US reports, and that there were the British papers that were still open to question, considering that Wilson had not viewed them. They could have even said, yes, we tend to agree with Wilson.

But they didn't. They had been waiting to reveal information on Plame for some time. The fact that Iran is sharing he focus in the recent days, along with Wilson, is a clue .... a big clue.

[H2O Man]

58. I've also "hinted" a few things ....

that I'll hint at again.

The CIA is compartmentalized. In his wonderful book, Wilson notes (pg 8) that the DDI's job is "to analyze the millions of bits of data the US government receives daily. Like researchers everywhere, the analysts are a close-knit group of experts in a cloistered world of paper and computers, working side by side in windowless cubicles. Their exposure to real life, as it goes on every day out in the field, is limited. They don't often come into contact with the subjects of their study or have the chance to walk the ground, smell the smells, and immerse themselves in the habits and mores of the cultures from which this information is steadily being gleaned."

The DDI relies upon the information of many sources. Two that we are interested in are (1) operatives, who work under deep cover; and (2) contacts, who may have other jobs, but who are used when needed to investigate specific cases, or placed in potentially sensitive places to monitor and perhaps manipulate.

If we examine each group, we can say that in Group 1, Valerie Plame is an example of someone working at the highest level of deep cover. You may note that People magazine has yet to have a "100 Sexiest CIA Operatives" edition, perhaps due to the fact these people, like Plame, work on a level NOT KNOWN TO THEIR FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND NEIGHBORS.

Group 2, part one includes people who work at our foreign embassies. I have quoted Malcolm X numerous times; he used to speak of how the African Nations knew that all US embassy personel passed information on to CI. Group 2, part 2 includes contacts at every major media, and on every college/university in the United States.

If DDI were to hope to bring a retired contact back for one more important job in their area of expertise, because they do not have the ability to make direct contact, they often use an operative as a resource.

[shraby]

59. In other words, if they wanted to

use Wilson, they would have used Plame as a resource for Wilson, and she would have told them he's qualified for the job.

I can't believe the White House persons who leaked Plame's name could be so ignorant of the rules on leaking CIA operative's names. Like I said, I would know it's a no-no of the highest order. Therefore, I would have to believe that Plame was about to do damage to someone and needed to be stopped. The person who knew her name and gave it to the leakers, could also have been the same one who arranged for her to recommend someone for the Niger run, knowing he would find nothing, also knew she would probably recommend Wilson as he had worked in Niger and had contacts. This would put Wilson in a position to be "retaliated" against with Plame.

It was a well thought out operation, only backfired when Wilson went public.

[Pallas180]

71. They're not called the Mayberry Machiavellis for nothing - I think

in a way it was the other way around.

Cheney has been in govt since Nixon, that we know of, then Ford.
He's been around a long time with access to top security items.
To recap, we also knew he made at least 10 trips to CI HQ and would
have, could have, pinpointed who was working blackmarket WMD which
would have been of great interest to him. He would also have access
to CI files, would know of or remember Ambassador Wilson. Bingo -
the plot is hatched.

Ask her would her husband be interested in helping? Of course.
Discredit him, expose/discredit her operation and put a stop to her work and the work of the entire spy group/cell she had set up worldwide which MAY have been hot on the trail of Halliburton/Brown Root/et al illegal black market sales of components which could be used for WMD, which as we all know was Valerie's job.

He figures he's home free, no more fines, no discovery of the double dealing, but the Mayberrys call Novak and committ a treasonous act which leads right back to the WH and darth vader.

[shraby]

72. Something tells me though

that Cheney will get a free pass on this one. He probably covered his tracks pretty good. On the other hand, the leakers had to get their info from someone who could know. If Fitzgerald does his job, he'll get Cheney. If not, Cheney will walk. Fitzgerald is in the driver's seat right now. Hope he's honest.

[H2O Man]

79. Read Wilson's book!

All of this -- all of it -- has to be put into a context of what Wilson did in Iraq leading up to the Gulf War, including his relationship with the first President Bush. Cheney knew him very, very well.

On Martch 5, cheney called for an intel briefing. Knowing what Wilson did in Iraq at the onset of the Gulf War .... and Wilson had, for lack of a better way to describe this, huge balls -- he showed no fear in dealing with the attempts to intimidate him by a psychopath named Saddam Hussein, a truly evil man ..... Knowing that, would cheney have NOT read a report by Wilson, upon his return from Niger on assignment for the CIA, which was following up on a request from cheney himself?

[Pallas180]

86. So, H20, my theory of Cheney knowledge of Wilson is credible.

and therefore of his wife's work.

Setup - Setup she said as she danced around.

[H2O Man]

91. President Bush #1

had a high level of trust in Wilson. He used to rely upon Wilson's judgement. Everyone close to Bush knew that he consider Wilson an impeccable source of information.

[shraby]

92. I'll have get the Wilson book

from the library again and read it very closely.

[AgadorSparticus]

207. reading it right now and enjoying it very much.

hopefully, it will be very informative too.

[Pallas180]

45. H20, KOHO, SCHRABY - i posted to you on #9 b4 realizing it was

closed, if you'd like to check.

Just got on and catching up.

[shraby]

57. I checked it out Pallas

good idea. I just got around and caught up on all the posts.

H20, I wrote to the Wapo about Wilson, to Sen. Feinstein urging her to get the second part of the CIA report out, to Sen. Rockefeller urging him to get the second part of the CIA report out. Also sent them a June 2003 article by Sy Hersh outlining the work of the Office of Special Plans, as well as an article by Karen Kwiatowski(sp?)

[Pallas180]

60. Schraby & gang:- to digress for a minute, on thread 8 Callimary said

calimary (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-04 01:22 PM
Response to Reply #37

238. FASCINATING! I was reading about this, here, last night, and this morning,


I wake up and my husband turns on TV to the History Channel - and guess what they're talking about? Secret societies: 1) Skull & Bones, 2) the Council on Foreign Relations, 3) the Trilateral Commission, and 4) Bilderberg.

Amazing. Many of the same people in all these groups.Bilderberg named for the Hotel Bilderberg in Europe where the first meetings took place decades ago. David Rockefeller prominent in most of them. All members moving in secrecy, guarded by military and paramilitary. They fold in a few media mavens - Peter Jennings, Katherine "Washington Post" Graham, more or less to ensure their silence through their most flattering allowed entry into this prestigious holy of holies. Nobody knows. Nobody talks. Nobody reports. What a coinkidink...

_____________________________________________________-____

Schraby and Guys:

"Bilderberg was named for the Hotel Bilderberg in Europe where the first meeting took place decades ago" rang a bell for me

I read the founders of Carlucci's and Pappy's Carlyle named it after
the Hotel Carlyle in New York City where they had the first meeting.
Original thinkers.

So - copy cats of the giant octopus in Europe?but separate and competing for territory and spoils?

or

division of the giant octopus?

H20's correct. Like the crime families-but it would be better for
us I think if they were separate and competing....

what do you think?

or

[shraby]

62. I think we're seeing competition/cooperation

of the first order. We just have to sort out the characters to see who is winning. Obviously Georgie boy was recommended by Carlyle and allowed to run, but Georgie has botched everything cause he is a nut-job and incompetent. The pnac under George had an agenda and put it in action but also were incompetent. Pnac members are on Bilderberg member list so they were responsible for those people being there.

Seems the big mistake of both Bilderberg and Carlyle was the incompetence of the people they put in power in the U.S. to do their bidding. The Iraq war didn't go as planned.

Part of their agenda was accomplished..the gutting of our economy, the gutting of our constitution, and the weakening of our social programs.

Whatcha think?

[Pallas180]

73. Just had a chance to do some reading-Midway's links -unknown

if article accurate - however it says both Pappy and Big Dawg
were members of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission- as
was Cheney, Rummy and Tri-lateral joined in many ways with
Bilderbeger. Cheney Rummy spoke as members of Trilateral to Bilderberger to convince them war in Iraq was a good thing.
Bilge didn't think so.

I think H20 is right. They're built like the mafia crime organization. Bilge is the Godfather and trilateral and carlyle and many others are the families.

So although we didn't see Pappy on list - he was there.

We could use a young Rudi prosecutor to hunt them down, but dollars to donuts he's a member now too.

The prayer would have to be that Fitzgerald idolized the young Rudi
and has not become jaded yet.

[Jose Diablo]

64. I am starting to look seriously into Bilderbergs purpose

In the past I have beleived Bilderberg to be a place where the 'elites' get to gether to figure out how better to screw 'common' people.

Reviewing one source below describes Bilderberg meetings in a completely different light.

My suspicions about Bilderberg were based on their secrecy. What would they have to take about that would need to be so secret I asked myself.

Here is a quote from that source below:

"There was absolutely no publicity. The hotel was ringed by security guards, so that not a single journalist got within a mile of the place. The participants were pledged not to repeat publicly what was said in the discussions. Every person present-Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers, leaders of political parties, heads of great banks and industrial companies, and representatives of such international organizations as the European Coal and steel Community, as well as academicians-was magically stripped of his office as he entered the door, and became a simple citizen of his country for the duration of the conference. Thus everybody could and did say what he really thought without fear of international, political, or financial repercussions."

I will repeat the last sentence:

"Thus everybody could and did say what he really thought without fear of international, political, or financial repercussions."

With this said, I am wondering how valid my previous suspicions about Bilderbergs are.

Link to site:

http://www.unclenicks.net/bilderberg/www.bilderberg.org/bildhist.htm#from

I will continue the reading. Maybe the Bilderberg meetings are not where the IMF take down procedures of countries are discussed.

[Pallas180]

81. Jelly-yup read it all.Still is One World Govt. with them as Boss.

Apparently they plan to cut the world into 3 or 5 divisions
to be governed by the puppets they choose, not that we choose.

hmmm. Sounds like what our foreign policy has been for the last
century

Read my next post by Thom Hartmann

[Jose Diablo]

105. Still reading

this whole Bilderberg thing is getting deeper and deeper, into the Christian Democrats in Europe, the Balkans, SMOM, Nazis, articles of concord between Vatican and Germany that was ended in 9th century yet strangely is still in force today.

The 'conspiracy' view of Bilderberg from Liberty center, LaRouche, is far right wing. The left is/has been strangely quiet about this for about 2 decades.

Cecil Rhodes (SA) sets-up Roundtable with students from Oxford with funding from Lord Rothchild in late 1800's is the start of it all.

I ordered book, "Tragedy and Hope" which details pre-1914 financial linkages in the world supposedly gives a lead in to current organization of the financial centers of the world. This book has 20 of its 1300 pages that 'conspiracy' theorists claim is the core of whats going on now.

I don't know, this thing is getting deep. Its a real spider web. I'm gonna be busy for a while at my end. BBL

[coeur_de_lion]

66. Iraq Uranium Claim Gets Some Support

Can you believe this?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040718/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_uranium_1

[kohodog]

67. No evidence presented though

All smoke. They put the lies out, retract them somewhere down the road, but people remember the lie and don't hear the retraction. A very common ploy with this amdmin and their mouthpieces we used to call "the press."

[coeur_de_lion]

69. now why should they present evidence?

[kohodog]

70. hahaha...They don't have much regard for the truth, do they?

But now they're blaming 911 on Clinton! Seriously, on CBS. You can't make this stuff up!

[Disturbed]

74. Wilson/Plame Civil Law Suit

There have been reports that Wilson and his wife are moving forward with a Civil Suit.

The wider aspects of this case may surface.

[Pallas180]

83. Nope. Bet Asscroft clamps "Secrecy" laws down on them - no lawsuit.

I think we know now how they operate.

Get those letters out folks

[Pallas180]

84. Get those letters out folk- show media we aint buyin what they're selling

:hi:

[coeur_de_lion]

87. That could work. How can Asscroft shut them up when it's all public?

We are talking about it. Anyone who wants to can read all about it. Asscroft can't stop them from a civil suit! That might be the only way to get at the names we are all dying to know!!!

Care to comment, H2O?

[H2O Man]

94. Wilson & Plame can file

a civil suit. There is no doubt that the White House would try to block some or all of the suit with the National Security smokescreen. My belief is that the is no limit on the amount of manipulation the administration would go to.

Keep in mind that in such a suit, the plaintif's attorney(s) have every right to depose any witness that can be reasonably assumed to have information that relates to the case. That includes the reporters that Wilson knows were contacted by the two senior administration officials. Novak would be required to answer their questions, or face time behind bars. Yikes!

Now, that is when there is indeed a separation of powers! But look at our Supreme Court, and that theory is mighty shakey. While in the past, the federal courts would act with honor, and tell a Nixon that he had to comply with the law, this group of justices can not be counted on to tell the truth.

I would remind people of the rantings of His Dishonesty Antonin Scalia, as reported in : (1)"Infallible Justice," The Nation, 10-7-02, pg 9; and "American Dynasty," by Kevin Phillips, pges 107-8:
Speaking of what he refers to as Scalia's "objection to democracy," Phillips notes that the Supreme Court Justice told a January 2002 Pew Forum that the US Constitution "reflected natural or divinely inspired law that the state (is) an instrument of God." He further rants, "That consensus has been upset by the emergence of democracy." If that isn't enough to get your undivided attention, he continued to say that "the reactions of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it but resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."

There is, obviously, a distinct possibility that Unjustice Scalia might not follow the law, should he be convinced that God favors the criminals in this case.

[Pallas180]

97. Scalia is saying "democracy obscures the divine right of the government"

as if the leader of govt should be considered "divininty".
Whoa booy. Is this ancient Egypt? And this is what dimson
believes he is, obviously from his statements.

These people are really loons and they are in the highest positions
of power. And I'm sure the not 1/2% of Americans know that Scalia
has said something like that.

Of course the fundamentalists would just suck that kind of
statement up, if they could understand it.

Whoooa. Are they planning on installing a Robertson or Falwell
clone as the divine emperor of the United States.

I smell an inquisition coming. Waterboarding if you don't believe
their religious beliefs.
n

[H2O Man]

98. You may recall

that Scalia recently had the tapes of two reporters confiscated when he spoke publicly. It was due to this being recorded and reported.

It really can't be made much clearer: when the single most powerful person on the US Supreme Court believes that God is threatened by democracy, and advocates that those with divine insight deny democratic processes to those who are not true believers of Scalia's creed, my thread #1 assertion that we are facing a constitutional crisis unlike any we've faced before seems accurate.

[Pallas180]

106. Um-he's supposed to uphold the law of Separation Between Church & State or

did he miss that part in law school?

But after being present through these threads I think
that is not the worst of the Constitutional crisis.

In truth I think it is their complete discarding of
the Constitution, which is THE rule of law for this
country, is the Constitutional crisis

[Pallas180]

107. You know Supreme Court Justices can be impeached-removed

from the Supreme Court. Even if an individual is not
removed , a movement with lots of letters saying he is
invalidating the Constitution of the United States
which he is sworn to uphold might make him and them
nervous enough to "simmer down" a bit.

[Occulus]

172. H20, forgive me for the tinfoil,

but.... do Christian Reconstructionism/Domionism play a part here?

If so, this is truly chilling. Not that it wasn't before, but I had thought those ideas were so totally crackpot that it would never possibly happen.

Is the joke on us?

[shraby]

95. You've got to remember that

Asscroft retroactively classified Sibel Edmonds after she had testified to the 9/11 commission.

[kohodog]

100. Patriot act has given them too much power....\

These are new rules. The paridigm has changed. The Sybil Edmonds case shows how they can control the judicial branch too, at least for a time. Her case was sent back and that buys them time. Sometimes I think they are so brazen because they know that no matter what they say or do they can tie things up in court long enough that it ultimately won't make a difference.

And if * steals this election he will get his Supreme Court justice (or three). That signifies the end of democracy as the checks and balances will be gone.

[Pallas180]

108. And then you and I will be out in the streets with millions of others

demanding our beloved Constitution be honored and
stay there til they realize they have a real problem
on their hand.

No Constitution - No Work - No Economy and Taxes for them to raid.

[coeur_de_lion]

112. So sickening. What has happened to this country in the past 3 years

So many men fought for our freedom, and what did it get us? We're afraid to speak out in public. There is no law, really, unless it is the * administration law. They'll just change the law if it suits them, and if they break their own laws, they'll stop law enforcement officials from prosecuting them.

Look at us all here, on Democratic Underground, afraid to say who we really are for fear of reprisal.

I'm hanging an awful lot of hope on this case. If Fitzgerald blows it somehow or lets them walk I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't think we can count on Kerry to win -- or if he wins, to take office. So I'm kinda counting on this case to blow *'s cover to the American public.

If not this, then what?

[kohodog]

122. I am ready to sign a new Declaration of Independence

From Corporate and/or theocratic rule.

I still needs to be written though.

[coeur_de_lion]

128. We could do that, you know. Write a new along the lines of the first

Declaration of Independence, and change the words around to fit today's circumstances. Why the heck not?

[kohodog]

133. A new declaration...

I'll be on vacation in the mountains starting Friday and may have some time.

I'd only want to change things like "All men" to "all people'" etc., to reflect constitutional changes that have happened.

I'll proudly sign my name here, there or anywhere! Yes I will!!

[coeur_de_lion]

135. Koooool. Kohdog.

Let me know if you need/want any help with that.

[kohodog]

137. The declaration is particularly important in our family

My kids are directly related to two of the original signers. We know the risks they took. We know the personal sacrifice. We never thought we'd be in this position!

If not now, when?
If not us, who?

[coeur_de_lion]

158. That is so cool, to have that direct connection to the Declaration

How old are your kids? Would they want to help yo with the project?

[Occulus]

175. No one better to pen it.

Seriously. If the familial creds are there... USE them.

The ancestors would approve. In roland's words from the "Dark Tower" series, they would be remembering the faces of the Fathers.

And I mean that literally.

[Pallas180]

176. KOHO - that could be a very important representation - you

could be our spokesperson and say My children are directly related
to two of the signers .........

THAT could move a country

[kohodog]

220. I'll do my best

A busy day today and probably not much time tonight.

I will do my best to come up with a draft next week when I'll be on vacation. My kids will help too. I may try to find a way to enlist Thom Hartmann, because we need to be freed from the Corporatism that is now making the laws and benefitting from our taxes. Our struggle is againgt these powers and our King George is a figure head. He is terrific on this subject and has great historical knowledge. H20, you may be able to help too.

Our campaign to get to the bottom of the Plame outing fits nicely, because even Republicans agree that a crime was committed. We need to see those behind it exposed and that may be the start of our unpeeling the onion.

As for a declaration, I see it as a way to spread the word. If properly written we may be able to get thousands of signatories and deliver it to the Senate. Move on did that with the UN after collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures against going to war with Iraq.

So what do you think?

[RebelYell]

159. A comparison

"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."
—Adolf Hitler, 1933 speech calling for "an Enabling Act the protection of the People and the State."

"The USA Patriot Act. . . restricts personal liberty 'beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.' Every provision of the 1933 Protection of Nation and State Decree, save that of speech and press freedom, is mirrored in the Patriot Act which permits investigators, without having to show 'probable cause,' to obtain a subpoena to search anyone's personal details. . . held by any organisation or institution that keeps records."
-Cloughley, Brian. "Taking a closer look at the Patriot Act," CounterPunch, May 17, 2004

Kind of scary when you see those two side by side.

Anyway, I'm offering my help to anyone on these threads needing it. Just say the word. I have serious authority issues :)

[spotbird]

114. Way cool!

Novak won't be able to use his "journalists shield against prosecution for treason" for that one.

Wonder what the cause of action will be?

[Pallas180]

82. "Bush's claims were correct according to Brits" Let them show the evidence

is what I say.

And yes I can believe it. Media blitz

PR spin in full blast

WE need to counteract by our letters.

[Pallas180]

88. Thom Hartmann on The Restoration of Democracy

http://www.thomhartmann.com/radicalmiddle.shtml

Most Americans consider themselves neither right nor left, but independent and centrist. This is not a negative position, but is an emphatic statement that they don't buy into the extremist visions of either right or left. Yet they know what they want, and have fought and died in wars from 1776 to the 20th century to preserve it. They are the Radical Middle.

The founders of America explicitly defined the Radical Middle when they wrote in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

This is the position of the Radical Middle - that we, the people, don't want governments or corporations running our lives. We don't want a corporate state or a police state. We want back our democratic institutions, a government again responsive to We, The People, instead of today's government that has become captive to corporate special interests. We want to live our lives in peace and security, but are not willing to tolerate tyranny nor subject ourselves to a police state. We want job security and safety in our old age, and have clearly seen that transnational corporations don't give a hoot about either. We want a clean environment and schools that inspire and fill our children with a thirst for knowledge, and we realize that the modern corporate-controlled state has let profit be more important than clean air or water, and that taking the cheap way out and just throwing more tests at our children kills rather than kindles their enthusiasm for learning.

We don't want a government bureaucracy or a corporate bureaucracy telling us what doctors we can see. We don't want to pay excessive taxes but we are also fully willing to pay our share of the upkeep of the nation, for safe streets and communities, and our nation's defense. We also, however, think that somebody who spends half their income on food and shelter shouldn't pay as much in taxes as somebody who has such a high income that food and shelter only represent a tiny fraction of their income.

We in the Radical Middle are calling for nothing less than a restoration of democracy, of government of, by, and for the people, in a culture that works for all.

[Disturbed]

90. Declaration

"--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Multi-Party System!!!!

[kohodog]

93. Off Topic: Enron/DeLay/Ethics Committee

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2017591

This thread has nothing to do with Plame, but the ethics committee is deciding whether to investigate DeLay, and a few letters might push them in the right direction.

I know we can all bring a thousand issues that need attention to the table, but i think this group of DUers is committed to action, and to bring down DeLay would be a huge victory.

[Pallas180]

99. Yes it would KOHO. Would you write an outline & we'll follow it ?

by the way KOHO, would you internal (private) email me and
let me know your state? For when we get H20's letter for
the conventions?

thanks KOHO

:hi:

[kohodog]

119. Enron and DeLay

Basically it boils down to corporate execs pressuring managers to donate and how they can make sure the politicians know who to thank (wink wink)!

Did you see any of the Weststar internal emails when they were released last year?

This link from T/O is good:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/071904Y.shtml

snip

"pretty clearly corporations were being asked for contributions by members of Congress who held the fate of legislation important to corporations in their hands," said Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a campaign finance monitoring group.

snip

An e-mail from July 24, 2000, says Lay and Enron's president at the time, Jeffrey Skilling, received "notes from Tom DeLay about designating portions of their contributions for use in Texas." The e-mail says DeLay has provided a letter for the company to use when making a $100,000 contribution.

"They clearly are orchestrating this and trying to thread the needle in terms of how to couch the letters," Noble said. "But that goes on all the time. People are told you have to do it this way if you want to be legal."


Back to Plame!!

btw Pallas, did you get my email?

[Pallas180]

123. not yet, Koho, I'll go look.

.

[robertpaulsen]

102. Back on the Plame/WMD search.

I've been away a few days trying to catch up. There was an interesting post on thread 9 by progressivebebe that I wanted to respond to:

30. found some interesting information.

Edited on Sat Jul-17-04 07:46 PM by progressivebebe
1. This interview with Hopsicker REALLY puts the dots closer to MIHOP. He explains very succintly the Dutch boy theory, Mohammad Atta's girlfriend, and the Venice Flying School puzzle. Definitely worth the read.

http://www.sanderhicks.com/hopsickerinterview.html

2. In my research last night, I found several articles that discusses the advancement of Al Queda and the Taliban getting nukes. They said that prior to our Afghanistan invasion, they were in the rudimentary stages of nuclear acquisition. But a noticeable factor was that they were extremely determined and intel suggests that had we not invaded Afghanistan, they would have acquired nukes within a couple years.

Now, here's the interesting part. When we DID get there, most of the intel were destroyed or removed. Afterall, they did get a 2 months headstart (as per micheal moore, F911). But we were able to piece together the fact that they did have extensive plans of getting nuclear capabilities.

Which leads me to a new theory. We knew Iraq didn't have WMD's. We were led on a wild goose chase regarding Iraq and yellowcake. Which leads me to think that Iraq WMD's was just a distraction from the REAL issue: Taliban/ Al Queda WMD's. I think the dots are getting closer in connecting F'U CHeney and his cabal to the WMD network that provided Al Queda with WMD's and maybe this is what Plame was coming close to unearthing.

sorry, forgot the link:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east/DK22Ak01.html

Also, I was thinking that by making Iraq a WMD diversion, they had an excuse to start a war (which profits from the warmongering corporations), helps them with poll numbers at home (the whole flag cloaking thing and the positive benefits of using fear at home), plus they get to steal the second largest oil reserves in the world--possibly the largest as it is basically untapped. I read somewhere last night that it could rival Saudia Arabia with the number of barrels produced a day (currently 20 million? something like that.) Anyways, there was plenty of pro's to go into iraq and make it a scapegoat under the pretense of illegal WMD's.


My response:

Progressivebebe, I think you're definitely on to something. Probably the biggest proliferator of nuclear technology in the Middle East was A.Q. Khan. Is there an al-Qaeda connection?

The Pan-Islamic Bomb and Mr. Khan
Joe Trento's Column
2/5/2004
snip
In Pakistan, A.Q. Khan, the "father" of the Pakistani nuclear program, has "admitted" that he — and only he — is responsible for single handedly spreading nuclear weapons know-how to North Korea, Iran and Libya. In the carefully orchestrated confession, Khan makes certain that no Pakistani officials or generals are tied into the "private black market network."

In a cover-up only Richard Nixon could dream up, Pakistan is protecting a lot of friends. Among them is a CIA that has been aware of Pakistan's nuclear program and its proliferation since the 1970s. In fact, the CIA Director who knows most about all this is none other than George H. W. Bush.

Of particular concern to investigators are similarities between Pakistani and U.S. weapons designs. How did U.S. weapons plans make their way to Pakistan and A.Q. Khan? The answer to that question might be found in the Army Computer Laboratory in Maryland. It seems a regular exchange of information between China and the computer lab took place during the 1980s and early 1990s. An FBI probe into what went on at Aberdeen prompted the retirement of some top lab officials. The details of the probe were never made available to the public.

In a world so porous that even U.S. security can be breached, how contained is the pan-Islamic nuclear technology? Our heroes at DIA called Pakistan a "friendenemy." "Sometimes they are our friends and sometimes they are the enemy," a high-level DIA official told National Security News Service. While the Bush administration was telling us how hard they were working on the war on terror, officials with the DIA were convinced that nuclear technology was transferred to Pakistan's intelligence agency, or ISA. ISA has close ties to al-Qaeda. The nightmare scenario we all face now is whether A.Q. Khan turned over enough details to give al-Qaeda the bomb?

http://www.publicedcenter.org/stories/trento/2004-02-05/

I believe ISA is a misprint, that Joe Trento is referring to the ISI. He goes into more details here:

Assuming al-Qaeda is a Nuclear Power

snip
The thought that al-Qaeda may already have a nuclear device and is simply looking for an opportunity to deliver it is hanging over the professional security community and those in the government responsible for protecting us. The fear comes from a discovery that U.S. intelligence basically ignored A.Q. Khan and Pakistani intelligence's nuclear proliferation activities prior to 9/11.

Authoritative sources this reporter met with say they have no confidence that Pakistan's nuclear scientists kept this technology from al-Qaeda. They have been specifically told by government planners to prepare for attacks under the assumption that al-Qaeda has at least one complete nuclear device and is able to smuggle it into a target area.

http://www.publicedcenter.org/stories/trento/2004-03-02/

I'm going to try to tie some loose ends together here. I've already detailed in previous posts the connections between Khan and Carlyle, as well as Dick Cheney. Progressivebebe's theory that Plame was close to unearthing an al Qaeda/WMD connection seems to dovetail nicely with my theory that Plame was on to Khan's nuclear Wal-Mart, who was allowed to be pardoned because of his compromising connections with Carlyle and Cheney. Now add Pallas180's theory that Osama bin Laden is Carlyle's hitman and remember just this Friday FAUX floated the "suitcase nukes" trial balloon to go along with the missing nuclear material at Los Alamos.

Now do you see how serious they are?

[robertpaulsen]

110. And here's another one:

AQ Khan Saga: We Have Not Yet Seen All the Fallout

By Bernard-Henri Levy

snip
We will soon learn that far from being the over-excited, but in the end isolated, "Dr. Strangelove" that most of the press has described, Khan was at the center of an immense network, an incredibly dense web. There were Dubai front companies, meetings in Casablanca and Istanbul with Iranian colleagues, complicities in Germany and Holland, Malaysian and Philippine agents, and detours through Sri Lanka, with Chinese and London connections--a world of crime and dirty war that the West, mired in a big game that is beginning to get ahead of it, has so blithely allowed to develop.

We will find that, since Pakistan is steered by the iron hand of its secret service and its army, it is inconceivable that Khan operated alone without orders or cover.

But we must not shift our gaze from the president himself, whose knowledge of Khan's dark machinations no one in Islamabad doubts, and who, at the very moment of his confounding, celebrated Khan once more as a "hero." What does Khan know of what Gen. Musharraf knows? And what does Khan's daughter, Dina, who announced in London that she has suitcases of compromising files, know?

And at last, sooner or later, we will come to the real secret: that of al Qaeda; and of Khan's links to Lashkar-e-Toiba, the fundamentalist terrorist group at the heart of al Qaeda; and the fact that this "mad scientist" is first of all mad about God, a fanatical Islamist who in his heart and soul believes that the bomb of which he is the father should belong, if not to the Ummah itself, at least to its avant-garde, as incarnated by al Qaeda.

The writer is the author of recently published book, "Who Killed Daniel Pearl?" (Melville House, 2003). This piece was published by the Wall Street Journal

http://www.satribune.com/archives/feb29_mar6_04/opinion_levy.htm

So, which one of our "allies" is more dangerous, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Lately, it seems like a tie.

[Pallas180]

129. ROBERTPAULSEN...Wow Asian Times - this thing is all over the

world. They're in an uproar about Khan eh what?

Thanks. You guys are just fantastic, incredible at finding
material !!

[robertpaulsen]

134. Anything for CRUSH, Pallas, anything for CRUSH!

I've been in a Woodward/Bernstein mood today. With the internet at our fingertips, we are all investigative supersleuths here!

[Pallas180]

139. RP -the CI or FB should hire US. heeheh we're pretty good at tracking

this stuff down. Each adds something. It's a marvel really.

My cousin is in a think tank in Boston. Interesting. This must
be what he does all day....except face to face.

Maybe this is better in a way. Reading the thoughts without
the encumbrance of interrupting each other with words and
physical vibes.

What a funny thing.

PS

Psssst. They prolly wouldn't take most of us, you can't be over
35.

[robertpaulsen]

132. More dirt on Khan, ISI, LET

This link talks about ties with Pakistan nuke scientists and Lashkar-e-Toiba, as well as the Pakistan nuclear program's origins with, you guessed it, the BCCI:

The Nuclear Jihad

snip

Zia’s policies resulted in the injection of the fundamentalist virus into Pakistani Army and scientific establishment. While the increasing influence of fundamentalism in the lower and middle levels of the Armed Forces received the attention of analysts of the world, a similar increase in the influence of fundamentalism in the scientific establishment did not receive similar attention despite the fact that sections of the Pakistani media had been reporting the presence of unidentified scientists of Pakistan’s nuclear establishment in the religious conventions of Pakistani jihadi orgs such as Lashkar-e-Toiba.

The first indications of the presence of pro-jihadi scientists in Pakistan’s nuclear establishment came to notice during the US military ops in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda and Taliban, when documents recovered reportedly spoke of the visits of retired Paki scientists
Sultan Bashiruddin Ahmed and Abdul Majid to Kandahar when bin Laden was operating from there pre-9/11. Bashiruddin was the first head of the Kahuta uranium enrichment project before AQ Khan replaced him in the 1970s.

Right from its inception, the clandestine nuclear and missile projects in Pakistan were treated as a top secret intel op of the ISI to ensure deniability. All payments to the foreign suppliers were made not from the accounts of the Govt of Pakistan, but from private accounts in the BCCI, which collapsed in 1991, and other Dubai and Geneva based banks. These accounts were opened by the Gokul brothers of Geneva, one of whom was jailed for cheating in the UK after the collapse of the BCCI; Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s present Finance
Minister, who was working in the Gulf for the Citibank in the 1990s; Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader who was designated by the US as an intl terrorist in Oct; Dubai-based Pakistani smugglers, and AQ Khan and other trusted Pakistani scientists.

http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/nuclearjihad.html

This link states the ties LET has with ISI:

PAK INTELLIGENCE BASE IN COLOMBO

snip
5. There has been no evidence so far of the ISI using Colombo as a base for covert actions directed against India. However, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) has been showing increasing interest in taking jihad to the Muslims of the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. There have been persistent reports of the beginning of a radicalisation of small sections of the Tamil-speaking Muslim youth of the Eastern Province. During the riots in the Eastern Province in the middle of 2002, pamphlets in the name of a so-called Osama Brigade came to notice. The Chennai media had reported subsequently that some members of an organisation called the Muslim Defence Force (MDF) arrested by the Chennai Police had been in touch with one Abu Hamza of the LET based in the Gulf and that they were to meet him clandestinely in Sri Lanka. However, the meeting did not materialise as Abu Hamza did not come.

6. The LET is very close to the ISI and it would not have taken its initial moves to explore the possibility of using Sri Lanka as a clandestine base for its activties and for creating sleeper cells there without the knowledge and prior clearance of the ISI.

7. The recent investigations into the clandestine nuclear proliferation activities of A.Q.Khan, the so-called father of the Pakistan atom bomb, have revealed that Bukhary Seyed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan Tamil Muslim of Indian origin, married in Malysia and with business interests in Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, was one of the external kingpins of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear procurement network. In a speech at the National Defence University of Washington DC in February last, President Bush had described this Sri Lankan Tamil-speaking Muslim as the "chief financial officer and money-launderer" of A.Q.Khan's clandestine operations.

http://www.saag.org/papers11/paper1026.html

I look forward to answering your responses on this tomorrow. Good night!

[starroute]

170. I've been reviewing my files on BCCI all day

Like you, this A.Q. Khan stuff has led me back to the 80's, when CIA people poured into Pakistan to support the Afghan mujaheddin and used BCCI to set up their opium-smuggling, money-laundering, and arms-dealing activities.

There's a very comprehensive collection of pieces on BCCI (with links to much more) at http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/BCCI.htm . I'm still sorting through it all, but here's a chunk on BCCI's connection to A.Q. Khan, written before Khan's proliferation activities were exposed:

{BCCI founder} Abedi had money to spare to underwrite the protocol department: In 1981 Ghulam Ishaq Khan granted BCCI a special tax-free status allowing Abedi to avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes and to pour his huge Pakistan profits into one of his front companies and into Pakistan's atomic bomb project.

<snip>

Most of the millions that flowed through the foundation went to two uses: first, to investments - patently noncharitable - in a company called Attock Cement, owned by Abedi's associate and U.S. front man Ghaith Pharaon. The second beneficiary was something called the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. ... According to its brochures, the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute trains young scientists and engineers. The reality is a little more ominous . . .

The director of the institute is Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man most closely linked with Pakistan's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Khan, a German-trained metallurgist, once worked as a classified enrichment plant in the Netherlands, where he gained access to key plans. So important is he to the Pakistani national interest that even his whereabouts are considered a national secret.


Another excellent piece is "Sept. 11's Smoking Gun: The Many Faces of Saeed Sheikh" at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essaysaeed.html . It gives a highly detailed presentation of the extensive links between ISI and al Qaeda, and the way in which the US has worked to cover them up since September 11. It also includes this stunning bit of informationm:

On October 7, 2001, Pakistani President Musharraf fired Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, the head of the ISI. The next day, some newspapers, mostly in India but also in Pakistan, shockingly said he was fired for his role in the 9/11 attacks. For instance, a Pakistani newspaper stated, "Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed has been replaced after the FBI investigators established credible links between him and Umar Sheikh, one of the three militants released in exchange for passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999... Informed sources said there were enough indications with the US intelligence agencies that it was at Gen. Mahmood's instruction that Sheikh had transferred 100,000 US dollars into the account of Mohammed Atta..."

<snip>

The relationship between the US and the ISI is hard to fathom. On September 4, 2001, ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed arrived in Washington, D.C. On September 10, a Pakistani newspaper reported on the visit, saying that it had "triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council" as well as meetings with CIA Director George Tenet, unspecified officials at the White House and the Pentagon, and his "most important meeting" with Mark Grossman, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. ... In May 2001, both CIA Director George Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had visited South Asia. It's not known if they met with Mahmood or anyone else in the ISI, but according to credible news reports, Tenet had "unusually long" consultations with President Musharraf. It is also worth noting that Armitage is known for his "large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and ISI" as well as his connections to the Iran-Contra affair.

<snip>

... on the morning of September 11, Lt. Gen. Mahmood was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R). The meeting was said to have lasted at least until the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Goss is a self-admitted 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing. Goss and Graham were later the heads of the joint House-Senate investigation into the September 11 attacks, and Goss in particular made headlines for saying there was no "smoking gun" indicating that the government had sufficient foreknowledge to prevent the September 11 attacks.


Armitage and Goss, of course, are the two names being put forward most often as possible successors to Tenet as CIA director. It seems that the cover-up is intended to continue in full force.

[robertpaulsen]

206. Great links, starroute! Just finished reading the first one.

A lot of info I've already read, but quite a bit of new info too. Anyone who wants comprehensive knowledge of the BCCI should click on your first link.

Something interesting caught my eye, very James Bondish.

snip
Beaty decided he was on a roll and tossed out one of the big questions he was holding.

"I haven't told this to anybody in Washington yet, but one of our sources said that a couple of years ago BCCI had three Columbine Heads and they were selling them to Iraq. I got the impression this was one of our biggest secrets, but I can't even find out what a Columbine Head is. Apparently even the name is classified top secret. Do you know?"

The man pursed his lips and appeared pained. When he spoke he looked away from the reporter and talked from the side of his mouth, "It might be the trigger for the fuel-air bomb. I think we better end this conversation."

It was called the poor man's hydrogen bomb, and it worked by exploding a large cloud of vaporized gasoline. The resulting explosion rivaled atomic blasts. It was almost primitive technology, but it took an extremely sophisticated triggering system to ignite the gas cloud.



So, obviously Saddam never got one, otherwise he would have used it or the UN inspection team would have found it. But given the BCCI ties with ISI combined with ISI ties with al Qaeda, has OBL expressed an interest in a fuel-air bomb? Could he have had access to Columbine Heads? And where is Khalid bin Mahfouz? I guess this will be a side investigation I'll look into.

I'll write back on your second link later. But so far, this is a wealth of good info. Thanks!

[robertpaulsen]

216. Second link is fantastic as well!

The last several paragraphs really put things in perspective:

One doesn't have to wait 20 or 30 years to deduce that the ISI assisted al-Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks. The question is, why is the US government seemingly ignoring the evidence and actively discouraging the media from pursuing these ideas? Shortly after 9/11, Bush said, "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." What about Pakistan's support of terrorism, if not 9/11, then the other terrorist attacks on India since? Is the US afraid of Pakistan's nuclear weapons? If so, what's to prevent the ISI from planning similar future attacks with impunity, against any country?

Perhaps the US has plans to deal with Pakistan eventually. In January 2003, Musharraf warned of an "impending danger" that Pakistan will become a target of war for "Western forces" after the Iraq crisis. "We will have to work on our own to stave off the danger. Nobody will come to our rescue, not even the Islamic world. We will have to depend on our muscle." Pointing to "a number of recent 'background briefings' and 'leaks'" from the US government, "Pakistani officials fear the Bush administration is planning to change its tune dramatically once the war against Iraq is out of the way." If so, could this lead to nuclear war?

Does the US ignore Pakistani complicity in 9/11 because it might be a thread that could unravel in other disturbing directions? For instance, there have been reports of secret deals between rich Saudis, the ISI, and bin Laden. Saudi Arabia has supported the Taliban by paying the ISI. Before 9/11 the Asia Times reported that Crown Prince Abdullah, the defacto ruler of Saudi Arabia, is secretly a supporter of bin Laden. Furthermore, he made a secret visit in the summer of 2001 to Afghanistan with Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed to confer with the Taliban on how best to prevent bin Laden from being harmed by the US. Another secret meeting between Mahmood and Crown Prince Abdullah may have taken place shortly after 9/11. While such reports are very fragmentary and speculative, it is interesting to note that Senator Graham said "foreign governments" - plural, not singular - were behind 9/11. Newsweek has reported a possible connection between the Saudi government and some of the hijackers , and has since reported that "The possibility of a Saudi link to 9-11 is growing."

Could the thread unravel in other directions as well? For instance, what about the suggestion that Saeed was a CIA agent? A long time regional expert with extensive CIA ties stated publicly in March 2001 that "the CIA still has close links with the ISI," and repeated the claim to CNN in February 2002. An anonymous former senior ISI official has stated, "The biggest problem we have are the rogue elements in the intelligence agencies, especially those who at some time became involved with the CIA." At the very least, the ISI may know very embarrassing facts about the US. For instance, they may know a thing or two about CIA involvement in drug smuggling and/or support of bin Laden in the 1980s. Unfortunately, Daniel Pearl was killed before he could investigate the connections between the US and the ISI, and no journalist seems willing to explore such dangerous subjects since his death.




Let's see how much of this thread we can unravel here at the Plame thread. If Saeed was CIA, there might be a Plame connection.

[robertpaulsen]

234. WHOA!!! Could this be circumstantial evidence of a Khan/Plame link?!

When I first read this article, I decided to post it here because of the dirt it has on a Musharraf/Khan/Bin Laden connection.

A. Q. KHAN & OSAMA BIN LADEN

snip
These accounts of three of the travels of Dr.A.Q.Khan establish conclusively the following facts:

He had kept the Pakistani Foreign Office informed of his travels. The Foreign Office had instructed the Pakistani diplomatic missions in the countries visited by him to accord the due honours of protocol to him.
In all the countries, he was received by officers of the Pakistani diplomatic missions and entertained by the heads of missions.
In Sudan, he was accorded the honours of protocol generally given to a member of the Cabinet and called on the President of the country.
He was accompanied by senior serving scientists of Pakistan's nuclear establishment, who were among those responsible for Pakistan's military nuclear development. They could not have gone abroad and remained absent for days without the knowledge and clearance of the Government.
At least one Lt.Gen. belonging to the Pakistan Army's Medical Corps, who had headed it, and two Brigadiers had accompanied him. They could not have gone and remained away from the country without the knowledge and clearance of the Military Headquarters.
The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa. From the accounts given by the Pakistani author, two intriguing questions arise:

Why did Khan consider it necessary to visit the site of a factory in Sudan, which became the target of US Cruise missile attacks after the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam by Al Qaeda in August 1998? The Americans had alleged at that time that this factory belonged to Osama bin Laden and was producing chemicals for weaponisation purposes. Denying this, the Sudanese authorities had claimed that it was producing anti-malaria drugs.
Why was he visiting frequently Timbuktu, which has apparently no importance from the nuclear point of view? Pakistani officials have alleged that he had illegally constructed a hotel there ( Hotel La Colombe?) in the name of his wife. If he was going there to supervise the construction of the hotel, he should have been accompanied by experts in building construction and the hotel industry. No such person accompanied him. He was always accompanied by scientists and Army officers associated with KRL and Tahir Mian, who was helping him in the procurement of centrifuges.
It is reliably learnt from well-placed observers that it also came out during the recent interrogation of the associates of Khan in Pakistan's nuclear establishment that after Osama bin Laden shifted from Khartoum to Afghanistan in 1996, Dr.Khan was also looking after bin Laden's extensive investments in the mining industry in many African countries and that the money invested in the Timbuktu hotel had come from these investments of bin Laden. The Pakistani authorities have reportedly suppressed this information and not shared it with the US.


http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/khanandbinladen.html

Sooooo....

Khan, with the assistance of the Pakistani government and military, looked after bin Laden investments in Africa. Pretty bad on its own merits. But then this sentence caught my eye.


The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa.


What a coincidence. The enriched uranium that Khan had access to came mainly from NIGER!

Now, when Cheney sent Wilson to Niger, wasn't he aware of Plame's WMD "sting operation" in the Middle East?!

No wonder Musharraf had this reaction:

"In one of his statements, he has even blamed the US intelligence agencies for not uncovering this network earlier than October last year and asserted that if they had done so, he would have acted against it even earlier."

I know this is not direct proof of a smoking gun, but I think this information could be an extremely important piece of the puzzle. If the WMD trafficking that Plame's "sting operation" covered is linked to Khan, who got his enriched uranium mainly from Niger, and we can verify Cheney had access to this intelligence, then we are getting even closer to H20 Man and Prouty's big question: why?

[kohodog]

116. And what was lost at Los Alamos this week???

Lots of stuff about it in the papers leading us to believe that nuke designs were missing (but nothing I saw really pointed to that...it's the conclusion most would jump to. Perhaps the info that was lost had to do more with illeagal disclosure of information. Pure speculation on my part, so mI welcome other opinions.

[robertpaulsen]

125. That story has disappeared from mainstream news.

Perhaps Doc Brown is building a time machine.

Has anyone seen any follow-ups? What was stolen? Has anything been found? Is anyone talking?

[shraby]

127. Los Alamos is in

lock down mode. That's the last I saw yesterday. Sorry don't have the link.

[Pallas180]

130. Los Alamos,- missing discs of nuke designs? could be and

then when these nuts MIHOP they'll follow some poor hard
working little scientist around saying he was an agent of
a foreign company.

It was my impression that security at Los Alamos had
been privatized and that pappy's friend Wackenhut was
in charge of security.

Not very good security.

[Pallas180]

117. If Pappy gave the mini nuke W88 to China, there is nothing to say he

Pappy and darth vader didn't give the same or similar components
to Khan. And your theory sounds just about right - Khan would have
had to be pardoned immediately because not to pardon him, the good
FBI would be over there asking him where he got the WMD and the
arrow would point right back to Bush 1 and the WH.

Another reason why junior sealed Pappy's records.

Nice, huh. It still sounds like treason to me at the highest levels.

[H2O Man]

121. Pallas180

You have another e-mail.

[robertpaulsen]

138. Glad you agree!

The extent of treason is pretty scary. Gives me nightmares sometimes. I woke up this morning with the memory of seeing a news report: "Bush prepares for upcoming Iran invasion". That's one nightmare I'm afraid might come true.

But I take comfort in knowing we're all on the side of righteousness in this struggle.

[AgadorSparticus]

204. response to robertpaulson's theory:

from robertpaulson: "I'm going to try to tie some loose ends together here. I've already detailed in previous posts the connections between Khan and Carlyle, as well as Dick Cheney. Progressivebebe's theory that Plame was close to unearthing an al Qaeda/WMD connection seems to dovetail nicely with my theory that Plame was on to Khan's nuclear Wal-Mart, who was allowed to be pardoned because of his compromising connections with Carlyle and Cheney. Now add Pallas180's theory that Osama bin Laden is Carlyle's hitman and remember just this Friday FAUX floated the "suitcase nukes" trial balloon to go along with the missing nuclear material at Los Alamos.

Now do you see how serious they are?"


RP, are you saying that the Los Alamos "debacle" will be a diversionary "alabi" in case Al Queda shows up on the radar with Nukes in the future? That way they can't tie it back to Khan/Carlyle/Cheney?

your summary of theories really helped me adjust the pieces in my mind. I've been searching for more info regarding al queda and nukes but so far have come up with nothing.

I was also looking into F'U Cheney and found relatively nothing, too. He's made sure his info is pretty well under lock and key. That must be SOME closet he has to hold all those skeletons in place.

[robertpaulsen]

210. Right, progressivebebe! That's exactly what's going on.

They really got their bases covered if they decide to go that route for an October or November Surprise. The Los Alamos diversion can be marginalized with vagueness at this point in time, but if they need an alibi, it's there for the exploitation. It's no coincidence that FAUX dropped the trial balloon of "suitcase nukes" the same day as Los Alamos. Suitcase nukes, however improbable, would fall into the domain of ex-Soviet satellites with lax security or corrupt officials. Either cover story stays as far away from Khan/Carlyle/Cheney as possible.

Check out starroute's links at post 170. I'm looking into info I found on the first link regarding the fuel-air bomb "the poor man's hydrogen bomb" to see if OBL could have purchased a Columbine Head through ISI's connection with Lashkar-e-Toiba. Might be a wild goosechase for me, but it looks like starroute's second link has info regarding conventional nukes and al Qaeda. I still need to read it.

Like you, I'm hoping to stumble across the smoking gun that nails the Creepy Veep. Keep searching!

[never cry wolf]

111. Thanks to you all

I just got back yesterday from 10 days on vacay, no internet. When I left late on 7/7 this was halfway through thread 3, I am absolutely amazed we are on thread 10 (not really, having been a bit involved in 1 -3.)

Anyway, I am not sure if I will be able to catch up, I also have 10 days of work to catch up on, but I DO appreciate this. As I read somewhere above, this is the internet at it's finest!

What did I miss? Is there a synopsis somewhere? I did buy the Winnipeg newspaper like every other day when we went to town so I could check on 7/14.

Anyway, I have nothing to contribute at the present, just wanted to say thanks to all for the most amazing string of threads on the net. Keep on keeping on.......

[Pallas180]

124. Welcome back Steviet

:hi:

[Pallas180]

126. H20 YES INDEED, MY PLEASURE.

.

[Tellurian]

131. This is a good sign...

...just in fom LBN

Clinton reopens book on Iraqi bid to buy uranium in Africa

Tony Blair's ally and former US president Bill Clinton yesterday reopened the sensitive issue of Saddam Hussein's attempts to buy uranium in Africa. Speaking on BBC1's Breakfast with Frost, Mr Clinton, who is promoting his memoirs, said there was "no evidence" the CIA had ever told George Bush about the claim.

Though it has not been stated in the four official inquiries into British intelligence, London's source for its claims about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium - widely repeated in the US until discredited - almost certainly came from French intelligence. France has much influence in Niger, the west African state in which Iraq allegedly tried to buy the so-called "yellow cake".


Mr Clinton told Sir David Frost: "Let me just say one other thing. Now this doesn't apply to the UK, it applies to America. There is no evidence that the CIA told the president or the White House that Saddam Hussein had gotten uranium yellow cake from Niger, or was close to having a nuclear weapon, a representation that was made.

"Now the intelligence in the UK may have told Prime Minister Blair but the evidence is to the contrary in America. And there is no evidence that the CIA ever said that Saddam Hussein was tied to al-Qaida and could have had anything to do with September 11 directly or indirectly," he said. The implication of his remarks was that untrustworthy sources had briefed the White House and other agencies.

The moral, he said, was not to blame the CIA or other agencies for things they had not done or got wrong.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,12641...

...I don't know if there is an ongoing list yet of 'good guys and the bad guys'...one sure way to tell is ...if the WH & the GOP hate them...well then,..they're the 'good guys'!

[Pallas180]

136. Hi TELL. That's "Just My Bill"

The right wing media is going to have a good time
with that quote.

I don't think they'll back down, especially because the
Honorable Bill Clinton has said it.

The right wing media...that means ALL the American media :)
is in full swing right now.

A very sad state of affairs in this country when we neither
trust our government nor the Fourth estate. Eh?

[coeur_de_lion]

140. Yes, Pallas, I feel your pain. We need to get our Constitution back

I'll be the first one on line to March in DC if they steal this election.

Power to the people. To hell with the Monitors.

[coeur_de_lion]

141. Tellurian, what's up with your link? Guardian says it is a broken link

Can you fix the link, please?

[kohodog]

144. Try This

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1264124,00.html

Let me know if it works.

[Pallas180]

146. KOHO your link works, but go look at Tell's link - weirdest

thing I ever saw.

And don't fill in the questionairre.

[Tellurian]

157. sorry, stepped away from the puter..

just getting your message now-

I plucked the story from LBN and posted the link that accompanied the story. Perhaps, the guardian reshuffled the news and gave it another link..(?)


Thanks, Koho, for providing a working link..

The man from 'Hope' is doing just that..giving us HOPE!

[Pallas180]

142. TELL , the link to your article doesn't work.

and it's asking for an awful lotta info.

[Me.]

143. So did the French cook the books?

And then fed it to Brit intel? And thank God for Bill C. I guess we know what side he's on.

[kohodog]

145. Why?

Why would the French do this?

[Me.]

151. Just wild comjecture on my part

But there has been talk that those Niger documants were forged, albeit, it is said it is the Italian government provided the forged documents but what if the French had a hand in it? As to why, have nothing to go on, but the French may have known what the admin was up to and sought to embarass them. This may be my tinfoil hat moment.

[H2O Man]

160. This is a circle .....

The French had based their assessment on the US information passed on before Wilson went to Niger. Remember that it did not appear in the British White Papers until after Wilson's trip. The French, who based their initial position on the US position, were the source of the British White Paper's intel. And that is why the English refuse to follow the law and release their "sources" .... because it's not real.

[shraby]

164. And the US info

was from the Italians, right?

[Pallas180]

163. Hey Me, don;t give the repugnants another reason to blame something

on the French.

Fortunately because the French and Germans won't send their
children to be maimed in Iraq, most of the other countries
are following suit. That means, we'll have to get out of
Iraq sooner rather than later.

like the man said "if you break it, you own it" but junior didn't
have enough sense to listen.

as a matter of fact, he has no sense. Streetsmarts yes. Common-
sense no.

He thinks just being up there and acting like a cheerleader is
enough to run a country.

[Pallas180]

147. ME, the French cooking....:) that's a good pun - but who knows, this is

way over our heads, once you get into the games the intel
agencies play with each other.

They need to find out who forged the original docs and
my money is on Chalabi's group.

[Pallas180]

149. OK GANG. SOMETHING FUNNY IS GOING ON HERE, EVERYONE

GO LOOK AT THE LINK ON TELLURIAN'S POST.

IT'S ASKING US FOR OUR SERVICE PROVIDERS' NAME

DO NOT FILL IT IN

SO WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT???

SOMEONE WANT TO KNOW WHO WE ARE AND ONCE WE TELL THEM THE
NAME OF OUR SERVICE PROVIDER THEY CAN GO TO THE ISP AND
GIVE THEM OUR ONLINE NAME AND OBTAIN OUR TRUE NAMES AND
ADDRESSES.

NA NA NANANANANA....UH UH NOT NICE

[kohodog]

153. Pallas, I think it's ok

The link got truncated, but still had enough info to get to the Guardian. I clicked on the homepage logo and went straight to the Gurdian homepage. I don't think anything funny is going on.

More likely that asscroft and his minions would keep tabs behind the scenes anyway. We'll never know when they're interested in us. The knock on the door will come at night.

(Only kidding), I hope:-)

[Pallas180]

154. Nah TP - daytime, very polite, short hair. Not a good idea to

talk to them either without a lawyer and a tape recorder. Yours:)

TP that link is not normal.

Asking for all kinds of information, that I've never seen asked
for before when a link doesn't work.

Name, address, ISP? come on.

do they want your social security number too.

fuggedaboutit.

That is not a normal broken link message.

Den Mother, taking care of her charges.

[TacticalPeek]

152. The R's should be very nervous about the Big Dog showing up.

The smart ones, that is. Like when Lee Atwater visited Arkansas in the eighties and returned to report that he had just seen a Democratic "Darth Vader". :evilgrin:

Remember, it got to the point that they would not allow even an ideological hack like Newt to negotiate alone with Clinton, and would send an 'escort' along with garlic and crosses to protect their scummy leaders from his persuasive powers, traps and master plans. Bwaahahahaha!

When I see this step, I know he is at least six moves ahead of them down the road. The smart R's know it too. They have to be very very nervous.

[coeur_de_lion]

155. I Love it!

TP, you're too funny.

Bwaahahahaha!

I can just see Big Dog, rubbing his hands together, plotting away.

Thank God for the Big Doggy.

[Pallas180]

156. TAC, I hope you're right. Big Dawg is awful smart but there

was a stalemate between Newt and him.

Course nobody talked much about Newt rolling around in the
car with his girlfriend on lunch break.

Just about My Man Bill's bj.

If they had been smart they would have women lined up around the
block to keep Big Dawg happy.

No, they had to be greedy. Fucking fundamentalists and greedy
corporate bloodsucking whores.

[coeur_de_lion]

212. Pallas, honesty is a virtue. Are you virtuous?

Or has honesty left the party for good and all? Not into the Irish, myself. Shakespeare always manages, with wit and eloquence that I don't possess, to express my innermost thoughts for me. I hope you don't mind if I share a few:

A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear . . .

See you now
Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth,
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out....

O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.... S'blood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all

To the noble mind / Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind

Take your pick! Dontcha just love Will?
:hi:

[Tellurian]

162. Right on, TP..

When BC is involved..and begins by opening dialogue....

You know he is, as you say, six moves ahead of them and closing in fast..

<<<gloating for a milli-second>>> <<</gloating>>>

Ahhh.. now, I feel better!

[Pallas180]

165. TELL, do you mind if I suggest that you go back to where you

got the article on Bill from and see that link. If the same thing
comes up, maybe you should delete the article.

Can you still delete the link from the article you posted by
editing?

I sure wouldn't want anyone giving private info out by filling
in that link.

Sometimes you can go back into what you posted up to a 1/2 hour.

Wanna give a try?

[Tellurian]

166. edit time expired...

I'll ck in LBN and see what is going on there...
but the "trunkated" explanation works for me..

same thing happens with yahoo links sometimes..

I think they do it to hide info from the top stories line..

[Tellurian]

169. strange...

The guardian thread seems to have disappeared..

They might have taken it down because of the broken link..

I'm glad I caught that little tid bit, anyway..

[TacticalPeek]

167. LOL! n/t

[Lestatdelc]

179. TPM has some on the UK sourcing

Much of the "foreign" service intel the UK claims are base don turn out to be the same Italian source that was fronting the forged documents.

TPM has some on this, and this is typical (sadly) in much the same way that the far-right recycles and filters stiff from source to source to source making it seem more widely touted even though it is, in the end, a singular original source.

The UK Butler report references and earlier UK interim report which cites a summation of the Italian report which presaged and was based on the forged documents.

This is analogous to citing a translation of a Cliff notes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, but making pains to hide that and saying you are not quoting Hamlet.

It is a trans-oceanic CYA three-card monty.

Fucking unbelievable.

[shraby]

180. The New Credibility Gap Look who's going after Joe Wilson…

The infinite chutzpah of the War Party is exemplified by its taking out after Joe Wilson for having … a credibility problem. Look who's talking! These are the same people who stovepiped lies cooked up by a bunch of Iraqi exiles and passed it off as "intelligence": nuclear "centrifuges" that didn't exist, links to Al Qaeda that were utterly fictitious, a fleet of "drones" supposedly capable of bombing American cities that might just as well have been paper airplanes. It would be funny if we weren't talking about a decision to go to war. The much-cited (and little-read) Senate report supposedly exonerates the administration by sidestepping the issue of the Niger uranium forgeries: according to the revisionist view, the administration had other sources for their contention that Saddam was trying to procure uranium to make nukes. But as Joshua Marshall points out here, here, here, and especially here, these "other reports," as it turns out, were all based on the forgeries, or summaries of them. As Marshall concludes:

"France, Italy and the United States each had reports about the alleged Iraq-Niger sales. And each stemmed from the same source – the forged documents, the origins of which the SSCI chose not to investigate."

The U.S. government may not be much good at procuring accurate intelligence, but one thing they are experts at is blowing smoke.

And who really cares if Joe Wilson's wife did or did not recommend him for the job of going to Niger and investigating the claims about Saddam's uranium procurement activities? They deny it, while the neocons gleefully pronounce Wilson's credibility is history – and undercut their own assertions of Wilson's anti-Bush "partisan bias" by claiming that his report somehow validated suspicions of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. We are told – with a straight face – that "analysts" were "alarmed" and not reassured by Wilson's report: they weren't convinced by his assessment that there was nothing to these stories.

(more)

<http://www.antiwar.com/justin/>

Justin is with Josh Marshall on this, and says the grand jury is investigating the forged documents along with Plame.

[Pallas180]

187. SHRABY the first para of Justin's report is the best synopsis I've ever re

read of the whole matter. Clear, concise, and in a nutshell.

[shraby]

209. I like to read Justin Raimondo

he isn't afraid to tell it like it is. If only there were a major news reporter who wasn't afraid for his head. If they would only realize they might just end up at the top of the pile for doing what they should be doing.

[Pallas180]

202. LES-"It is a trans-oceanic CYA three-card monty." lol, I like that line

:hi:

[ramblin_dave]

150. This other TT thread may have some tidbits

relating to this one. Some 2nd hand comments by Josh Marshall on the Plame investigation:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2018101

[TacticalPeek]

168. The Wilson-Plame Affair (Cont'd) -WP Ombudsman responds to TPM

And TPM returns the favor:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x694331

[burrowowl]

171. I was about to post the WP omnibus article link

I'm glad you did so. WP omnibusman not very much of an omnibusman.

[Pallas180]

173. Well, let's take a look from a different direction. Fitzgerald

maybe we can find out what he's been up to by
googling for articles on him? Probably in the WaPo

And who are the other reporters involved.

I have a strong feeling Isikoff is one.

Has Isikoff had anything to say about any of this?

[Pallas180]

174. And if no one's still up, I'll call it a night. Niters

bye :hi:

[Pallas180]

177. KOHO - go read post #176...niters again

:hi:

[RebelYell]

181. Joe Wilson's website

http://www.restorehonesty.com/

"Paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc."

[Pallas180]

182. REBEL - you are putting me on. That's our name! Citizens

Restoring United States Honesty CRUSH !

Wahoo and Good Lord!

[Pallas180]

183. WOW. Now we all have to be aware both sides are reading

us from our letter campaign.

We need to be a little more cautious perhaps in our wording
of matters --and let's use our nicknames like dimson and
darth vader rather than real names.

Everybody agree of disagree?

Gotta go check out that site.

[Pallas180]

184. WOW. If it's sponsored by JK, has he read us? & I want JE as my lawyer :)

bwaaaaaaaa

[Pallas180]

185. REB - how did you find the site??? & BTW DU email is down.

:hi:

[H2O Man]

186. Yep.

It's down, alright. Good thing I was up at 5am, and already read all of my mail. I was also reading some of Irish nationalist Robert Emmet's final public address, which William Jennings Bryan found so inspirational. I love those old Irish poets. And are you familiar with Robert Emmet, my good friend Pallas180?

[Pallas180]

189. G'morning H20 & how are you today? No, I'm not familiar

with Emmet, but I surely am going to be by the end of the
day, dear mentor.

[Pallas180]

190. Did you go and read Joe Wilson's site? He has just made himself our

leader. REmember I said we needed someone with recognition
to lead Citizens for Return of Honesty.

I wonder if he knows he just nominated himself. Big smile.

[H2O Man]

193. "mentor"????

tormentor, perhaps! (smile)

[Pallas180]

197. Robert Emmett, Poet

"I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world, it is the charity of its silence.

Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them.

"Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of earth, then and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done".

http://www.the-kingdom.ie/news/story.asp?j=10674

[H2O Man]

198. Very good!

Earlier, the same talk:

"My lords, it may be part of the system of angry justice, to bow a man's mind by humiliation of the proposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold's terrors, would be the shame of such unfounded imputations as have been laid against me in this court: you, my lord, are a judge, I am the supposed culprit; I am a man, you are a man also; by a revolution of power, we might change places, tho we never could change characters; if I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice?"

Gosh, those Irish poets ......

[Pallas180]

199. Hmmm. Is Wilson Irish? (besides the fact the whole world is to some) :)

:hi:

[RebelYell]

188. A family member sent the site info to me

:hi:

[Pallas180]

191. Well REB, why don't you go make a new thread leading DU'ers to Wilson's

site. I bet they'll be pretty excited.

[RebelYell]

192. I gotta go, be back later

:hi:

I don't have time to read more than the home page of the site, but I wanted to pass along the info to all of you.

[Pallas180]

195. Ok see ya later.

:bounce:

[Tellurian]

196. Ted Turner delivers... tonight 9pm "The GRID" TNT network..

don't miss it! (they previewed a short clip this am)

Margulies delivers a daunting speech to Intelligence big whigs.. Using the no nonsense words we would all like to hear!

staring: Julianna Margulies and Dylan McDermott with Bernard Hill, Jemma Redgrave, James Remar, Piter Marek, Robert Forster and Tom Skerritt.

http://www.tnt.tv/Title/Display/0,5918,540146,00.html

synopsis:

THE GRID involves a terrorist cell operating on a global level and a team of American and British counter-terrorists who are tasked with stopping it. It focuses on the emotional cost of war on victims, as well as the emotional cost on those fighting terrorism.

The story opens with a deadly sarin attack in London. NSC counter-terrorism director Maren Jackson (Margulies) enlists FBI agent Max Canary (McDermott) and CIA Middle Eastern analyst Raza Michaels (Marek) to aid in the investigation. Acton Sandman (Skerritt), CIA deputy director of counter-terrorism, oversees the clandestine operation on foreign soil.

Also on the task force is Emily Tuthill (Redgrave), director of operations for Britain's MI6; and Derek Jennings (Hill), MI5 senior director of counter-terrorism. Dating Jackson is Hudson "Hud" Benoit (Remar), CEO of HBI Energy Consultants, Worldwide, while Canary is engaged to Jane McCann (Devicq), who lost her husband in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Jay Aldrich (Forster) is a former head of the State Department and Jackson's mentor. Muhammad (David) is the mastermind of a new terrorist organization; Kaz Moore (Moricz) is a Chechen American Muslim extremist working with Muhammad; and Dr. Raghib Mutar (Carson) is a devout Muslim doctor in Cairo who is torn between his spiritual interpretation of the Muslim faith and Muhammad's more violent secular view.

...Turner is taking on the Bush Administration's negligent lackadaisic policy for protecting American citizens with an explosive series premiering tonight at 9 pm on the TNT network...get your home work done early and out of the way. Then settle back, favorite goodies close by, cocktail in hand and revel in Margulies's performance demonstrating taking the 'bull by the horns!'

[Pallas180]

200. Should be a good show, although those at DU feel like they're living it,

the rest of America could use some waking up.

[Tellurian]

221. Try the interactive website... viewing the film clips..

What you'll see in GRID is the way US Security should be operating..

Now, whether the general public will catch on to the movie's subtlety's? I'm not sure if this 2hr pilot episode will be the knock on the head, or the knock on the door, opening American's eyes. Nevertheless, it's a start!

[hedda_foil]

201. kickety kick

[Pallas180]

208. H20 & KGF on post 172 re: Xian Reconstructionism/Domionism - I dont know

anything on this subject. Would one of you be kind enough to explain
what it is? Obviously there's some kind of history:


kgfnally (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-19-04 01:36 AM
Response to Reply #98

172. H20, forgive me for the tinfoil,
but.... do Christian Reconstructionism/Domionism play a part here?

If so, this is truly chilling. Not that it wasn't before, but I had thought those ideas were so totally crackpot that it would never possibly happen.

Is the joke on us?

[Me.]

211. Haliburton is served with a subpoena because of Iran

From over at DU:

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Oil field services company Halliburton Co. said on Monday its Cayman Islands unit with operations in Iran had received a subpoena from a grand jury earlier this month.

"In July 2004, Halliburton received from an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas a grand jury subpoena requesting the production of documents. We intend to cooperate with the government's investigation," Halliburton said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Br...

So the French are on it and now this. And will it be connected to what VP was doing?

[Pallas180]

213. Notice the president of Vice's company is registerd in Cayman

Islands so they don't have to pay US taxes. They also dont have
to abide by US laws about not selling to enemy countries...maybe
or maybe not.

I don't think the Cayman Islands have to honor a US Subpoena.

Why don't they just serve darth Vader? :)

Good Find ME!

[Pallas180]

214. Wolf Blitzer pushing war on Iran all day on CNN -unbelievable. When

will the American people have had enough?

[Pallas180]

215. And story on GOP protestors going to protest Dem protestors at RNC

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040719/D83TT7UO0.html

that's another good way to get martial law called down

chaos and riots in the streets.

wunnerful wunnerful (sarcasm off)

[Pallas180]

218. Elton John: Atmosphere of McCarthyism in America

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040719/D83TT7UO0.html

Elton attacks 'censorship' in US


Sir Elton John is currently performing in New York
Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech.
"There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly.

-snip-.

[Pallas180]

222. HEY GUYS-wanna go on a cruise with Amb. Joe Wilson & Joe Conason

Looky here:

http://www.saloncruise.com/

in September.

[librechik]

219. Monday 7/19 Wilson cancels interview on NewsHour w Lehrer

no word on why or a re-schedule.

Producer comments: "maybe he didn't have anything to say" (!)

erk

[Pallas180]

223. Oops - he must be awful busy to miss an interview like that - Lehrer

seems to be the only one where you might get non biased news.

[Tellurian]

224. Interesting....

eom...

[Pallas180]

226. TELL - so do they have to honor a subpoena from another country?

seems to me no ---

what's your opinon

[Tellurian]

228. Who received a subpoena from another country?

The subpoena for Halliburton was issued out of Houston, Texas.
It's in the link.

[Tellurian]

229. Another Halliburton article..

Halliburton's Iran Business Subject to Criminal Probe

Jul-19-04


http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a...


Halliburton Co., the world's largest oilfield services company, said federal prosecutors subpoenaed documents in an investigation of whether the company violated U.S. sanctions by doing business in Iran.

A previously disclosed U.S. Treasury Department probe of the activities of a Cayman Islands subsidiary that operates in Iran has been transferred to the Justice Department, the Houston-based company said in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said it is cooperating with the probe.

[Pallas180]

232. And why aren't they blasting Iran Criminal Probe-Halli over the news???

disgusted - barf

not even Lou Dobbs

[Pallas180]

230. Aha

I thought it was sent to the Cayman Islands.

my bad.

[Tellurian]

227. Geebus--the abc 6:30 pm news is burying Wilson..

using the Butler Report to corroborate and bolster the Senate Intelligence Report...The news media is selectively cutting and pasting a picture of an untrue sequence of events to the run up to the war and parlaying the lie into justifying attacking Iran!

All the while flashing short video clips of Wilson and his wife, portraying them as loose cannons making outrageous statements against Bush.

Bush has switched gears and is leading the country to War with Iran, more so, I think, to drown out Wilson's voice and the breaking news, Halliburton subpoenas have just arrived in the dock.

[Pallas180]

231. Same cheerleading by Media for Iraq war - WH talking points.

Where do they expect to get the army to invade Iran?

[kohodog]

233. The Draft, of course.

Either that or they're just itching to try out one of those tactical nukes. I'm sure those things are burning a hole in their pocket!

[Tellurian]

235. Not that Rumy's word actually means anything...

Today's announcement says "no draft"...




http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2004/n07192004_20040...
'We Do Not Need a Draft,' Rumsfeld Says

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 19, 2004 – "We do not need a draft," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a July 16 interview with National Public Radio. The all- volunteer force "has worked brilliantly for our country."

There are one or two areas in the Army where retention "has not been as good as one would have anticipated," he said, and defense officials are carefully watching these areas. If necessary, he added, military officials can "increase incentives and reduce disincentives."

Letters went out July 6 to 5,674 members of the IRR, soldiers who have completed an active-duty enlistment but still are within eight years of when they entered the military. All enlistees agree to an eight-year commitment, usually served in a combination of active, reserve-component and IRR service.

Of those who received the letters, Army officials said, roughly 4,000 will be brought to active duty. Most of those will be in the specialties of military intelligence, engineers, truck drivers, and other combat service support forces.

...my take is they are going to strip this country naked of the Nat Guard and when Americans wake up and rebel, we'll be facing the 20,000 to 100,000 mercenaries sequestered in the ME..

[Pallas180]

225. Hi LIBRECHIK - nice of you to stop by :)

:hi:

[Tellurian]

236. Pallas, can you make 200 posts the thread limit...and start another thread

the long threads are taking forever to load..

[Pallas180]

237. OK - give me a minute...

.

[Pallas180]

238. Done - closing this thread # 10 - No More Posts on 10 MOD, thanks.

:hi:

[Pallas180]

239. PLAME # 11 - High Crimes & Misdemeanors Is Up