Sorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger
Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as "nuclear mujahideen," one could scarcely operate on the presumption of innocence.
Make sure to read it all. And then ask yourself: Why are we still pretending that Joe Wilson is anything other than a liar? His public conclusion is contradicted by his very own report to the CIA. Not to mention the rest of the evidence.
Of course, as Hitchens points out, one could only fall for that kind of thing if they assumed the Hussein regime operated from a position of innocent intention.
Knowing what the world has known for decades about Hussein, why would anyone do that?
RoveNotRoveLibby/PlameWilson is officially become the biggest waste of time a federal investigator has ever undertaken. (Ed: That is not to suggest that the NSA program couldn't one day claim the title.)
Only the most devoted sycophants could possibly give Wilson any measure of credibility. But then, they are likely the same ones who think Iraq sent its nuclear expert to Niger to end a flight embargo.
16 comments:
It's a matter of whether the administration leaked the information to damage his reputation. If his credibility was so low anyways, then why bother? It's an issue of truth-telling and ethics, which was a big deal eight years ago.
Haven't read the article yet.
The "leaking" to damage a "reputation" was exactly what Joe Wilson did. His account had no basis in fact and was designed solely to undermine the administrations credibility at the expense of national security.
And you have a problem with Bush's credibility?
Give me a break.
Witch hunt, I smell witch hunt.
If all you can counter with are "They're all dirty" then you're engaging in a useless debate, anyway. It shouldn't be a matter of using any means, ethical or otherwise, to get what you want to be done.
Furthermore, the comparison is incongruent. Look at Wilson's information, look at Bush's information. Bush probably didn't break any laws, as far as anyone who knows laws has said - but that doesn't mean it's not wrong.
Perhaps Dave could articulate what, exactly, is "wrong" with the Bush administration releasing information that corrects the record.
And in case he misunderstood, I did not suggest that "they are all dirty." What I suggested is that it is idiotic to hit the Bush administration for "lying" while ignoring the lies that were told by Wilson, which were many.
How did Bush lie? I guess we'll never know.
This is what I was talking about. I stopped watching FOX News a few weeks ago when I discovered Countdown and ABC Online and Pipeline, so I don't know if they just are not reporting what I'm about to post.
This is what you are saying.
This is the leak story.
This is the problem.
The response is: Well, he told the truth. They WERE suitable for nuclear production. But it's very clear what is going on here. The administration is continually dishonest in the way it deals with things. If the case is so air-tight, then release all the information, including the ones that doubt you. The answer is not to ignore the problem or dismiss it - the answer is to face it. Or at least, that's the way it should be.
I still have no example as to how the administration was "dishonest." Even the latest "leak" stories, well most, and usually somewhere in paragraph 16, will note that there were both CIA and DIA assessments that they were suitable.
You are saying that, because Bush went with the consensus he was "dishonest." By that logic, if he had based his findings on the minority report he would have been twice as dishonest.
He went with the consensus of his and other countries intel. This has now become a "lie," because he didn't chuck that consensus and go with the unsupported theory.
The story you provide under "here's the problem," is the most one-sided piece of journalism I have ever seen. You're right, it is a problem. It's a problem because it leaves out innumerable key facts about Wilson, his report, his credibility, etc., that are pertinent to the story. Instead they use phrases like "damage control." Huh?
It's not damage control when the damaging information is a lie and directly contradicts the mans own debrief at CIA. It's called "correcting the record."
Your last link adds nothing because it only manages to paint the administration as dishonest by leaving out those key facts. An even bigger problem is that you don't seem to even notice and use it as a source.
Declassifying information and "leaking" are two different things. The president has the authority to do the first anytime he wants. That makes the phrase "presidential leak" an oxymoron in this case.
As to Plame, a quick read of the statutes (which I have never seen on Fox) clearly show that there was no crime. The fact that there has been no indictment for "outing" her is all the evidence we need for that.
I guess I'm still waiting for some example that the administration was dishonest. Right now I am expected to believe that making decisions based on consensus and releasing information that corrected the known record at the time constitutes "dishonesty."
That would be like saying, in a couple of years when we finally wake up to the fact that Global Warming is a scam, that Al Gore was a "liar" for believing the consensus.
If hindsight has become a legitimate political platform I wish somebody would just me know.
Listen. Read what I'm actually writing, instead of what usually is said.
Aluminum tubes - specifically, that they were possibly for uranimum enrichment, but the assessment was they probably were for conventional weapons.
"If someone is leaking I want to know about it" said GW, when clearly declassifying and then selectively giving out the information would be seen as leaking, regardless of what it was. Even when he's doing the right thing, they're shady! WHY?! Rove specifically said if it gets out before the election, there's going to be a problem, so keep it under wraps.
THAT is dishonest in my book.
It doesn't matter what Wilson did or did not do - two wrongs do not make a right. We live under a government of laws, not men, even in "times of war," of which this is a relatively minor one. The administration was clearly responding to the Wilson problem. It's not about who is right and wrong on the facts, its about doing the right thing ethically as a leader. Clinton should have just said, "I was unfaithful, sorry Hillary and everybody else who doesn't need to know about my sex life." It is the pattern of this administration to lie or mislead or tell half the story. I have said before, most of the intel looked legit. Except it's misleading to say, unequivocally, that Saddam was getting aluminum for nukes when the intel said it was probably otherwise. The case should have spoken for itself.
You can't lead a nation, much less the free world, by constantly equivicating ones own policies. Sooner or later you have to make a call on which is more likely and run with it.
I wonder how much trouble the president would be in with the left if he had said Iraq was not a threat and then we got nuked. I can hear "cover up of vital intelligence that foreshadowed," and "this administration is incompetent and couldn't see the writing on the wall," "Bush ignored the consensus" arguments.
Bush is hosed either way. Thank God for all of us that he chose the more proactive and consensus course of action. It is becoming ever more clear that Hussein was a threat.
That is leadership. Maybe when you are older you will understand. When you speak for the free world and don't have any room for error, you have to be deliberate and focused.
You write:
"If someone is leaking I want to know about it" said GW,
I believe the quote above was in regards to the "Plame leak?" Yes? You didn't provide a link. Of course there is an entire investigation into that matter and with each passing day it becomes clearer that we will never know if information about a non-covert and therefore unprotected employee of the CIA came from. Could have been the press itself?
Are you prepared to indict the media? Or is pursuit of the answer only important if the non-classified info came from Libby, Cheney, or Rove?
clearly declassifying and then selectively giving out the information would be seen as leaking, regardless of what it was.
When the president is declassifying and then releasing information it is called his prerogative. He is doing his job using the very same tools every other president has had. It is not a "leak," and there is absolutely no legal basis for using that descriptive.
You should really read the law, the Constitution, and get a better understanding of the separation of powers.
The president, by his very job title, is legally incapable of leaking. Therefore, when you call releasing information about Iraq's nuclear program by the president, you are showing only the lack of understanding you have for the presidents duties.
It might be helpful in this case to actually read beyond the bogus headlines used to describe the story. You are doing yourself and your country a disservice.
Rove is allowed to worry about how information affects an election. That's his job. There is one for every Democrat too, they just aren't as competent. BTW...did that information get out before the election?
I believe it did. And I believe Bush won the election anyway. Apparently the people have a pretty good idea of what leadership is. If our leaders acted the way you would like, wishy washy on the most inportant issues of our time, we would be eaten alive.
I hope for all our sakes we never elect your idea of "leadership." It is, in fact, the absence of leadership you describe.
Scary.
You're ignoring the issue, and you keep dancing around and spinning things.
I've said, over and over, that what he did was not illegal. But it is SEEN as leaking when the President authorizes information to be quietly declassified and slipped to certain reporters. When the President then gets up and says the quote we've mentioned about "liking to know about leaks," then that makes it seem like he's shocked about the whole matter. The honest thing to do was address the issue! You're not addressing the issue. It's not a matter of legality, it's a matter of ethics! WHICH DO MATTER.
As far as the what-if scenarios, well, I guess we could say maybe things would have been better if Bush followed up before 9/11 on the NIEs that said Bin Ladin was determined to attack in the US. Just a thought. Second, by justifying pre-emption, remember, you're justifying pre-emption.
Think about what that means, while I age slowly and gradually here next to ground zero.
You're mixing issues here Dave. Plame and information about Iraq's nuclear status are two different things. You can't use a quote on one for the other.
The president can be "liking to know about leaks" and still declassify information without any appearence of conflict of interest.
The two things are not connected at all.
It can only be SEEN as a conflict by people who don't understand the basic difference between the two. I am not concerned with them because they demonstrate only their ignorance when they confuse the two.
How he chooses to release information is up to him. Doing it in private and making it seem like "special" information for a reporter is a game played with and by journalists and sources that is as old as news itself. If you want to be outraged by it go ahead, but it is par for the course in DC, both parties.
As to your "what if," they are the choices that leaders have to make every day. After 9/11 we had to start taking some of them seriously. Since you believe Bush should have acted before 9/11 I can assume that you are incensed with the apathy of the clinton administration that allowed terrorism to thrive unchecked through the 90's?
Or do you subscribe so much power to Bush that he could have waved a magic wand in the 8 months he was in office and made it go away?
The Democratic Party is the party of hindsight. Unfortunately for them, if that hindsight is allowed to go beyond the last five years, they start looking pretty bad. That is likely why your hindsight only applies to the Bush administration.
Hell, we can take the Iran crisis all the way back to Carter. Should we do that?
Given the inaction of the last 35 years, I for one am not prepared to judge Bush poorly for trying to address a situation that had been ignored totally.
As to your last statement, it is too cute by half. I don't even get it. Are you saying we could act preemptively?
No shit. I get it.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my 24-hour a day FoxNews binge. Because I would never learn anything if I didn't learn it there.
We fundamentally differ about what is ethically right, wrong, and connected. I think the left hand and the right hand are both part of the body, and you don't, and that's fine, and that's I guess where I will leave that.
I seem to remember two terrorist events in the 1990s in the USA, one of which was home-grown. I remember there being terrorism abroad, but I find it hard to believe it was numerically as rampant as it is today.
The Dems are a party of hindsight and vision, and we choose not to surrender ourselves because of some abstract fear of terrorism, or, more accurately, a fear of fear. If you look beyond the last five years, Clinton botched up plenty of times, but we were also in a major economic boom and engaged in limited external conflict. Kosovo was nothing like Iraq, but I was just a baby when that happened so what do I know.
By justifying pre-emption, you're justifying the 9/11 attacks, that's what I was saying. They attacked our military, they tried to attack our legislature or executive, they attacked a major economic center. They killed a ton of people, and I hate them, but when I hear pre-emption I just hear "we have to do what we have to do." And that's what they did, and I hate to think we're anything like them.
I, unfortunately, have never heard the expression "too cute by half," so I don't get you, either.
You should watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, because it's wonderful. 8pm EST, 7 Central, and after that I have no idea.
Actually, Olbermann is a Buffoon. But hey it's your time, spend it how you will. I don't watch much television news at all to be honest.
I hardly know where to begin. Someday you are going to be forced to reconcile your opinions with...your opinions.
You paint a dastardly portrait of "preemption," and it's clear that you are unable to distinguish between good and evil. If you don't see a difference between what happened in New York and what is happening in Iraq, you also are a buffoon and beyond trying to debate at all frankly.
Furthermore, it is in direct contrast to comments of yours from just a few weeks ago when you advocated preemption in some other region you found more palatable, as if we would find anything different in Darfur.
Either you advocate preemption or you are opposed to it. It would be nice if you could make up your mind.
We fundamentally differ about what is ethically right, wrong
We might. I wouldn't know. In this case however, what is right and wrong is spelled out in the constitution and separation of powers. Your opinion on the matter is based solely on a lack of understanding of the overall picture. A lack of gravitas for what the POTUS is, what his role is, and the stakes. You ascribe your personal ethics to a job that you have no concept of and no context for. You, or me, might as well be talking about dust storms on Mars.
But to judge something as pedestrian as this harshly from a position of absolute ignorance shows that you can go the extra mile. Of the 100 yards of what is to be known, you know the first inch. Yet you have no problem discarding it as unethical from your easy chair.
I seem to remember two terrorist events in the 1990s in the USA, one of which was home-grown. I remember there being terrorism abroad...
Little hazy there Dave? Might want to read up on it.
but I find it hard to believe it was numerically as rampant as it is today.
I guess we should just go back to turning a blind eye then. As long as our people are getting killed "abroad" we have nothing to fear. That way, we'll only have to put up with a 9/11 once in a while.
This is what happens when people fight back Dave. Are you suggesting we don't?
The Dems are a party of hindsight and vision
Let me know when they get to the "vision" part. Your party hasn't released their "vision" for 2006 yet. I guess its because they're so focused on 2026.
we choose not to surrender ourselves because of some abstract fear of terrorism, or, more accurately, a fear of fear
Is that grape kool-aid? Or cherry? Is this what they tell you at Indymedia? It's condescending, pompous, oversimplified, and idiotically naive, all at the same time. Congrats Dave, you have a bright future in the Democratic party.
If you look beyond the last five years, Clinton botched up plenty of times
Is this from the same guy hazy on Kosovo because of babyhood? Thanks for the tip. I gotta remind myself that history exists from before I was 31.
BTW...If the Bush administration had been responsible for Waco and the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, you would be screaming "Police state!"
Clinton was a proven liar, and NOT just about sex. He essentailly gave North Korea nuclear technology, allowed China access to secrets, sold the Lincoln bedroom like a back alley pimp, pardoned an economic rapist who is now caught up in Oil for Food, forced hiimself on women and used the justice system and the IRS as his own personal vendetta machine.
You're right. He "botched up."
If that list applied to Bush you would be openly advocating "revolution against the fascists."
I just don't know where to go with that kind of hypocricy.
It's not as clear as "good and evil" or "us vs them." You can't say "anything we do is just" and "anything they do is unjust" because they will say the same thing. There is a difference between the two, in that 9/11 happened to us and had a very different goal and impact than the Iraq invasion had. It does nothing to counter my arguments before. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I believe it was along the lines of "why Iraq and not Darfur?" Furthermore, there's a difference between what was going on in Iraq and what is going on in Darfur. The Darfur things are not attacking a country, per se, its sending troops to stop, alas, sectarian violence and genocide based on primarily ethnic and religious differences. It's like Iraq, except it's not due to very recent removal of a major power figure.
I am not advocating pre-emption against a nation. Maybe my understanding of the situation is wrong - and if it is, then I would not advocate pre-emption.
The point of the leaking bit is not contained within the leak. It's the image of the entire Presidency as being shadowy when it doesn't need to be, of claiming broad authority that is "very questionable" and I assume to be illegal in the case of the wiretapping, of making major mistakes and not willing to own up to them, and of carefully planned deceit, or spin, or whatever you want to call it, and alternatively drawing defining lines very thin and very wide depending on the situation, namely, when its in the administration's best interest. This is another example where he has not LIED flat out, but has been less than forthcoming, and, more importantly, cleverly deceptive. It's wrong.
You say I lack the gravitas, the balls, as my favorite TV personality would add, to understand the life-and-death security decisions the President makes daily. I understand what's at stake. Everybody saw the towers fall, everyone knows the number of dead.
But I try to come at the issue with the idea that above all else, we are a nation of laws, not men or situations. Short of civil war, there is nothing that would allow for an overconcentration of power in any single branch, namely the Executive, and a lack of checks and balances. The abstract "war on terror" doesn't count in my book. Maybe it is unrealistic, but it's the only way we can remain assured of our continued freedom.
Please explain "Little hazy there Dave? Might want to read up on it."
It is very interesting that seventy years ago in the midst of a crippling depression that struck every aspect of our society we had nothing to fear except fear itself, but now we have to fear bombs and planes and psychos and Islam and arabs and Iraq and all people making calls to foreign countries. Just a thought.
I don't buy the "we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" thing. When has that worked before? What happens when empires overreach? I'll read up on that, too.
They have released a vision for 2006. Read the party platforms, listen to the candidates, don't just listen to people saying they don't have a plan. Maybe Kerry doesn't. Listen to Feingold, listen to Pelosi, listen to Murtha, listen to the Massachusetts legislature, and see we have a plan. You just don't like it.
Sorry you don't like that I'm not terrified every day of getting on the subway and riding along through the tunnels and getting blown up, sorry I don't have a personal anthrax scanner in my home, sorry I don't subscribe to the idea that my Afghani friend should be wiretapped because they're calling their uncle in Kabul, sorry I don't think we have to give up some of our basic liberties and risk further ones in order to protect ourselves. Sorry I have real faith in the law and the legit methods of our government. I'll keep drinking whatever it is that makes me feel that way.
Unfortunately I am young and wasn't active enough to be angry about the Elian Gonazeles business. Sorry my parents didn't conceive sooner. I was being overly critical of myself with that baby comment as a joke. I wasn't really in diapers. I read about the airstrikes in the library - I remember going into the stacks for it. I should have clarified. To further clarify, I'm 20 years old. So that means I turned 18 in 2004, which means that was the first time I existed as far as politicans care.
Yeah, and Clinton botched up and now he's gone. If you noticed, I was agreeing with you, but noting the differences between then and now. If you want, talk to someone who can file suit against him for all that jazz. Or get him removed from the record books, whatever it is you want to do. I was not of voting age when Clinton was around - don't yell at me for not doing something when there was nothing I could do.
Nothing he did wrong justifies the wrongs of future Presidents, including this one. I guess the issue is the Republican party is the party of "remind people of Clinton anytime anyone says anything bad about Bush lying," which seems like hindsight to me.
Let me rephrase that last bit.
The issue with the blindly partisan wing of the Republican party is that it is the party of "remind people of Clinton anytime anyone says anything bad about Bush lying," which seems like hindsight to me. I don't think most Republicans thing two wrongs make a right.
Actually, you brought up Clinton...not me.
As for the rest, it is just the continuing combination of your idealogy coupled with your naivete.
Your party has no platform. If you think it is a platform, good luck to you.
As for my "fear," well... that paragraph is likely the most moronic I've seen form you so far.
There is a huge difference between being afraid and seeing reality for what it is. You seem utterly incapable of recognizing that difference.
Okay, you can put your head back in the sand now.
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