Okay, I’m confused. I mean, first I thought “Deep Throat” was Linda Lovelace. Then I found out, no, it’s a guy, and he’s Hal Holbrook. And now it turns out, of all things, that he’s a former FBI bigwig named Mark Felt who is not a woman and doesn’t look a thing like Hal Holbrook (although whenever Hal Holbrook turned up on “West Wing,” I kept wondering if he was later spilling secrets about Bartlet to the Washington Post.)
I find it interesting that he’s felt conflicted all this time, wondering if he was an American hero or an American traitor. Me, I’d say hero. But I can’t help but wonder how the current White House would view him…and, for that matter, if they would prosecute him if they could.
PAD
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With congressmen calling for Bush to explain the British intelligence memo, and Ralph Nader calling for Bush’s impeachment in the Boston Globe over it, the identity of Deep Throat surfacing happens to draw a powerful parallel.
The difference between Heir Bush and Crooked Nixon is that Bush keeps a very small circle of very loyal friends in his Administration. Compared to the Nixon years and other presidents past,, the people who have the top info are all kissing Bush’s ášš directly.
So, with such a few number of people the chances for a real reliable source coming forth as the “whistleblower” against Bush are far less likely, unfortunately.
Exactly what “whistle” is there to “blow?”
Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill aren’t any less crebible than Felt was, and they’ve gone public how Bush disregarded intelligence on what was actually going on in Iraq. Felt was vulnerable to being portrayed as disgruntled as Clarke and O’Neill have been.
Bush cited patently false interpretations of the intelligence he was given, and over 1600 soldiers have been killed as a result. Other than Nixon being too egotistical to destroy the tapes that proved his guilt, I think Bush is as vulnerable now as Nixon was then.
I really, really think Bush was counting on a victory in Iraq absolving him of whatever the hëll is going to emerge from this to bite him on the ášš.
“…the people who have the top info are all kissing Bush’s ášš directly.”
And Clinton had the same thing, but he did turn around really quick for the underlings.
Heya Bill!
I think there’s a difference between ‘covering’ the war and doing a story on the war. By which I mean there’s a difference between investigative journalism and repeating official press releases without examing whether or not they are true. When you listen to the journalists that are there and trying to get to facts (Christiane Amanpour as one example) they talk about being systematically shut out and herded away from sources and information. The feeling that I get is that the majority of ‘reporters’ that are in Iraq rarely leave their hotels and regurgitate what they’re given.
Are there sources for information? Certainly. But these sources aren’t the stuff being mainlined on cable television and the 24 hour news channels. You have to go in search of them. And then the reliability of those alternative sources are constantly being called into question by the self-same cable giants who have a vested interested in discrediting them.
The relative importance of Deep Throat to today is pretty insignificant beside the votes that are going on in the House and Senate, the significance of the Downing Street Memo and lack of response from the government (and lack of reporters putting the metaphorical irons to their feet), latest job numbers and economic turns.
Deep Throat is more filler than meat. Interesting but not really all that important to the State of the Union.
If they caught Bigfoot.. you can bet they’d be parading the poor sasquach around for another week and Bushco would be grateful that one more shiney was being waved in front of the public to distract. With a media all too willing to give it a dangle.
I’m once more reminded of John Stewart’s impassioned plea on Crossfire to “come over to our side” and “stop hurting us”.
Hero? Hmmm, don’t heroes have to suffer? How did he suffer? Lost sleep over the fact he might lose his pension? Anyway, now that we know who Deep Throat is, here’s some other political mystery questions courtesy of newsmax:
• Who threatened Kathleen Willey? On the eve of her January 1998 testimony in the Paula Jones case, Willey was approached by mysterious man who noted that her car tires had been slashed and her cat was missing, before rattling off the names of her children.
The mystery man then threatened: “I hope you’re getting the message.” Investigators never learned the identity of the man who tried to intimidate Ms. Willey.
• Who hired private detectives Jack Palladino and Anthony Pellicano? The two gumshoes worked to silence women who claimed they had affairs with Bill Clinton during the Clintons’ 1992 presidential camapign. A notation in the campaign’s Federal Election Commission filing shows that Palladino was paid from campaign coffers.
• How did White House security director Craig Livingstone, a former bar bouncer, manage to obtain 1,200 confidential FBI files on the Clintons’ political enemies? Requisitons for the files had Clinton counsel Bernard Nussbaum’s name on them. But Nussbaum told probers he was innocent.
The White House said the outrageous FBI file abuse was merely “a bureaucratic snafu,” an excuse investigators – as well as the media – soon accepted.
• Who ordered the IRS to audit Clinton’s critics and accusers? In what reporters claimed was a mere a coincidence, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and Juanita Broaddrick were all investigated by the Clinton IRS, as well as Billy Dale and Johnnie Chung. Conservative organizations like the Christian Coalition, the Freedom Alliance, the National Rifle Association and the Heritage Fouundation were targeted as well.
The media never pursued obvious questions about the suspicious audits, even though the IRS was headed at the time by Hillary Clinton friend and ally, Margaret Milner Richardson.
• How did Vince Foster’s suicide note mysteriously appear in a briefcase that had already been thoroughly searched before a room full of witnesses? On July 22, 1993, White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum conducted the search of Foster’s briefcase at the White House as FBI agents and Park Police officers looked on.
“It’s empty,” he proclaimed, holding the briefcase open to dispel any doubt.
But four days later, Nussbaum claimed that he’d overlooked 22 scraps of papers that tumbled out of the bag when his aide was packing up Foster’s personal affects. The scraps, when pieced together, formed a note blaming Clinton media critics for depressing Foster.
• Who was Sandy Berger calling? The former national security advisor finally admitted in March that he removed top secret terrorism documents from the National Archives while preparing for President Clinton’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
Guards at the Archives said that Berger repeatedly asked to be left alone in the document room so he could make some private calls. The identity of Berger’s telephone partner has never been revealed.
• Who at the Justice Department advised President Clinton not to accept a 1996 offer from Sudan to extradite Osama bin Laden to the U.S.? In 2002, Clinton said he’d been told “we had no legal basis to hold him” because bin Laden “had committed no crime against America.”
Instead, Clinton said he tried to persuade Saudi Arabia to take bin Laden. When they refused, the al Qaeda mastermind set up operations in Afghanistan, where he plotted the 9/11 attacks.
Why should a hero have to suffer? I don’t think a single act of heroism makes a hero, but a lifestyle of heroism does (don’t know if Felt does or doesn’t fit that). Nonetheless, I think what he did was perfect. That’s the power of the press recognized for what it is.
The one question I keep hearing over and over again is “why the name Deep Throat?” The answer seems pretty straight forward to me: The information he was leaking was initially hard to swallow. No joke. Think about it.
Does newsmax also mention how the republican congress spent $70 million to investigate Clinton, or that Ken Starr wanted to leave the investigation for an appointment to run Pepperdine university, but that he had been pressured to continue?
Clinton beat GHWB, and is relatively scandal-free compared to watergate, Iran-contra, and gwb when he has to answer for arbitrarily invading an oil-rich, muslim nation and uniting the world in its resolve to put the US in its place.
The one question I keep hearing over and over again is “why the name Deep Throat?”
It tells you something about the times that they were able to publically give a source a nickname from a hardcore pørņø movie and nobody blinked. You can be sure that if a whistleblower comes forward today nobody is going to name him “Buttman’s European Adventure”, “Saving Ryan’s Privates” or “Free Willy”
On the matter of what might have been… Reagan campaigned in the 1976 primaries. There’s no reason to imagine he wouldn’t have also done so in some alternate timeline where Nixon served two full terms. Whether he would have been elected would have depended on a variety of factors.
Likewise, Bush Sr. campaigned _against_ Reagan in the 1980 primaries (and it was Bush who used the term “voodoo economics” to describe Reagan’s economic plans). He would probably still have run at some point, also. Would he have won whatever election that would have been? Who knows?
Returning our attention to the present, if it turns out the president had been in collusion with members of the British government to make a bogus case for war in Iraq, then there should be impeachment proceedings. But before we get to that point (if it goes that far), I have to agree with what Rep. John Conyers told me- that the administration should answer the questions posed in the letter he and other Democrats sent to Bush. The letter asks if Bush disputes the accuracy of information reported in the May 1 London Sunday Times suggesting there had been collusion between the U.S. and British governments.
Rick
Rick, if Democrats are hoping that the British Memo is gonna be the smoking gun that finishes off Bush, all I can say is keep waiting. Ain’t gonna happen. For one thing, the memo clearly states that Saddam has WMD and expresses the fear that the American invasion will cause him to unleash them. So this is hardly going to be very useful in convincing people that Bush Knew Iraq had no WMD, which is the only way you are going to even get close to impeachment.
So this is hardly going to be very useful in convincing people that Bush Knew Iraq had no WMD, which is the only way you are going to even get close to impeachment.
Actually, I find it quite worthy: it further shows that Bush failed to make an effort to check the accuracy of the intelligence before invading.
An invasion which, by all accounts, started more than 6 months before Bush even received permission from Congress.
Bush should be tried for war crimes.
For one thing, the memo clearly states that Saddam has WMD and expresses the fear that the American invasion will cause him to unleash them
Pardon a member of the reality community for daring to intrude, but where exactly does it say that?
Here’s a quote for you…
It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
I still don’t get it. There were WMD. If our intelligence didn’t show that, they weren’t checking their files. WE sold the WMD to them. It’s pretty much a no brainer that we know they have them since we gave them to them and they hadn’t all been used. I understand why the administration wouldn’t be trumpeting this fact, but unless they moved them (which is clear they did – to Syria) there were WMD with our sales tags on them.
When Scott Ritter quit in protest over Clinton’s laxity in searching for WMDs in Iraq in 1998, it was in protest looking for — at most — the remaining 5%-10% of what hadn’t been accounted for since the first gulf war. It was in protest of handling a stockpile of supposed chemical and biological weapons that could only harm you if they landed in a crate on your head.
All the intelligence agencies of the US, Britain, and Israel had in March 2003 is the reasonable assumption that Iraq had aging holdovers from the 1980s — nothing to ever justify overriding the UN inspections Bush asked for and had gotten reimplemented.
When people complain the news isn’t covering this kind of šhìŧ — they were covering this kind of šhìŧ at up to the Uraq invasion. The media cannot fight the disinterest of the marketplace.
WE sold the WMD to them
And yet, it appears Saddam did as he told and got rid of them.
Bush continued his vendetta anyways.
(which is clear they did – to Syria)
Is this from the same intelligence efforts that said Saddam had WMD in the first place and could use them against us at a moment’s notice?
If so, you might want to find other evidence.
I think Reagan was able to capitalize on Carter and the Iran hostage situation in a matter that gave him an advantage in the primaries he wouldn’t have enjoyed otherwise.
When Reagan was in office and calling the Soviet Union an evil empire and calling for the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was speaking honestly — whatever his faults and moral shortcomings, Reagan gave his best to the American people. He was determined to be the republican FDR, and all of his post-Nixon republican staff thought he was crazy.
If it wasn’t for the hostage crisis, I think the support of the party would have automatically gone to Bush. Agreeing to make Bush his VP was only done to unite the party behind him.
Even now, when people talk about Giuliani becoming a presidential candidate, or updating the constitution to allow Governor Arnold to run, I have to laugh because republican membership is too socially conservative to consider them. They’re ignoring South Carolina in 2000.
At the time, John McCain was making campaign stops saying “I hate gooks” — and I was still looking forward to voting for him over Al Gore. Then the Rove-attack machine spread rumors that McCain had fathered a black child after he won New Hampshire and his campaign never recovered.
It’s like the CS Lewis quote about why resort to murder when cards will do. It’s the pretense of a free society sheltering the dominance of a fixed game.
…specifically, the republican attack machine that nurtured Rove and he inherited.
..oh, no, that was rove in 2000 — sorry.
Felt — hero. Linda Lovelace, incidentally, also a hero.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone else care what G. Gordon Liddy has to say about ethics or morality? It’s like a civics lesson from Lex Luthor.
YAWN.
I really don’t understand the level of excitement some have about this story. I have my theories, but I will keep them to myself.
He was not a “hero” as I would define it, because he did not do what I would consider an act that truly put his life at risk. Maybe there was an extremely small chance, IF his identity was leaked. But he was not public about this.
At the same time, I do not consider him a traitor. My understanding is that he broke FBI rules, but probably not any actual laws. Other than passing on confidential information, I am not aware of him actually breaking the law as Nixon did. I do think there is an appropriate time and place for a whistleblower, which does require breaking some “rules” because those in power don’t want you to tell on them.
There is no doubt that partisan views do color this issue. If you don’t like Nixon or Republicans, Felt is almost a saint. If you are a Republican (as I am), you can accept his action as necessary without feeling he was a saint to do it. And yes, some will despise him.
Contrary to the opinion of some on this site, the current administration is not made up of idiots. There will not be even a hint of prosecution of Felt. Perhaps a lone congressman might mention it, but the White House won’t touch this with a 10,000 foot pole. Besides, the statute of limitations would have run out on most of the possible prosecution options.
Iowa Jim
A couple of facts, from a reality- and UK-based individual 🙂
1) it’s NOT a “memo”, they are freaking MINUTES OF A MEETING. The difference is simple: they can be hold quite easily in court as uncontrovertible proof that the involved parties actually expressed the stated opinions. With “memos”, the original source can always be easily disputed and they are rarely used in court. With minutes, this is not possible. What is there is 100% true. so please stop calling them a memo.
2) The minutes actually state that the intelligence could NOT find proof that Iraq had ready-to-deploy WMD, or any serious arsenal really. They got rid of all that stuff in previous 10 years following international pressure, and the embargo blocked further attempts.
US people have to realize what the rest of the world already knows: THERE WERE NO WMD IN IRAQ IN 2003. Full stop. The U.S. could have 1000 other reasons to invade, but WMD were not one of them.
And btw, whistleblowers are a pillar of democracy. Democracy is about transparency. Whistleblowers make things transparent when they are not.
And it’s funny to see how Nixon has been labeled the Villain. Back in the days, he had lots of supporters; *staunch* supporters. More or less like GWB. I predict that, the day he steps out of power, people will spit on him like they now do with Nixon.
And it’s funny to see how Nixon has been labeled the Villain. Back in the days, he had lots of supporters; *staunch* supporters. More or less like GWB. I predict that, the day he steps out of power, people will spit on him like they now do with Nixon.
People spat on him then as well. And many who supported Nixon then still do, except for the crimes he committed.
Comparing Nixon to GW Bush is apples to oranges. Nixon was clearly convicted of a crime. Bush has not been. You can disagree with his politics and actions — and even say they are criminal — but he has not been shown to have commited a crime as Nixon was.
Iowa Jim
It’s like the CS Lewis quote about why resort to murder when cards will do.
Kind of curious where this quote is from. I am fairly knowledgeable on all things Lewis and I have never seen where he said this.
I say:
For one thing, the memo clearly states that Saddam has WMD and expresses the fear that the American invasion will cause him to unleash them
Johm replies:
“Pardon a member of the reality community for daring to intrude, but where exactly does it say that?”
“Here’s a quote for you…”
It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
Ok, you actually read the quote, right? You see the part where it says “his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran” right? So right there we see that the memo (sorry, minutes) states that he has WMD. There is also another passage The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD…
As to the second, if you had read the entire thing, this part might have jumped out at you: The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
So, my reality based friend, it would seem that the writers really did believe that there were WMDs and that they might be used against any invading force. Which is what I said. Glad I could help.
US people have to realize what the rest of the world already knows:
Many of us realize it, and have realized it for a long time.
It’s the Bush Administration and those that think we still need to catch Saddam bin Laden that are deluded.
The Screwtape Letters.
My understanding is that you are wrong on both counts. Nixon left before any impeachment proceedings to establish a presidential indictment had begun, and Ford pardoned Nixon immediately after taking office.
And Bush has a drunk driving convinction. The arrest was reported before election day 2000, and if I remember correctly it was established that he served community service for it.
My understanding is that you are wrong on both counts. Nixon left before any impeachment proceedings to establish a presidential indictment had begun, and Ford pardoned Nixon immediately after taking office.
Yes, I realize I was not as precise as I should have been. He was never convicted because he did the equivalent of saying “guilty” and resigned. There was no question he would have been found guilty if it had gone forward. But your point is true, technically he was never actually convicted.
The fact that Ford pardoned Nixon, though, demonstrates my main point is still true. He would not have pardoned Nixon if there was not the understanding he had actually committed a crime.
And Bush has a drunk driving convinction. The arrest was reported before election day 2000, and if I remember correctly it was established that he served community service for it.
The topic is committing crimes while in office, and especially abusing the power one has in office, not conviction of a crime years before holding office. Your point is irrelevant.
Iowa Jim
…
My reply was appropriate for what you posted. You could have been clear and said, “Nixon was guilty” — but you couldn’t. Don’t tell me my points are irrelevant because you were sloppy.
Except perhaps in that in their hope to establish in the Middle East a pax romana — a Roman Empire style peace — by invading an oil-rich Muslim dictatorship, they disregarded the first rule of the Art of War, which in modern times can be summarized as: you must bleed your adversary’s resolve.
Clarke’s warnings about al-Qaida were ignored by Rice, the FBI thwarts their own agents from legally investigating possible Middle-Eastern terrorists attentding flight schools in Florida and Minnesota.
Then 2 years after al-Qaida agents kill 3000 people — none of said terrorists being Iraqi — the US invades said oil-rich Muslim country. Where was the consideration for winning the hearts and minds of the Arabs? At Guantanamo? At Abu Ghraib? After the Abu Ghraib pictures surfaced, the Red Cross was told by the US military 70%-90% of detainees were innocent — they were innocent bystanders of otherwise fruitless arrests.
On what foundation is there for anyone to believe George Bush or anyone he hired is worthy of any credit for any intellegence whatsoever?
A casual look at what’s going on in Iraq would reveal that among Iraqis there is considerably more hatred toward Zarquawi and his band of terrorists (or “minutemen” if you are Michael Moore) than against Americans. Even after Abu Ghraib I’m sure that Bush is more popular than Chirac (Hëll, at 24% approval ratings for Jacque I’m not sure that Bush isn’t more popular than Chirac in France)
An interesting poll just got released by Al Arabiya news network. It was asking Arabs “What is stalling development in the Arab world?,” 81% chose “Governments are unwilling to implement change and reform”, 8% said “The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict,” 7% said “Civil society is failing to convince governments”, and 4% chose “Terrorism”.
When asked “What is the fastest way to achieve development in the Arab world?”, 67% choose “Ensuring the rule of law through justice and law enforcement”, 23% chose “Enhancing freedom of speech”, and 10% chose “Resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict”.
Interesting, if true, it would seem the Arab Street is not quite the hotbed of anti-semitic american hating loons that we hear about.
For me this guy, however pure or impure his motives might’ve been, is a hero. He took down a president who took an oath to uphold our laws then commited a felony while doing so. Any President who does that, whether it’s Nixon or Clinton, is nobody to look up to.
But here’s some food for thought. This guy might have very well brought around the renassiance of the Republican party. Ronald Reagan had had several unsuccessful bids for the presidency when Watergate happened. Then when Nixon resigned, Ford basically got tarred with Nixon’s brush and lost to Carter. Then the American public wised up and realized that one term of Carter was one term too many, and voted in Reagan in 1980. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Come on, tell me W. Bush would be the president today if his father was never president. And tell me H.W. Bush would’ve ever been president if he had never been Reagan’s vice-president.
Mike,
“On what foundation is there for anyone to believe George Bush or anyone he hired is worthy of any credit for any intellegence whatsoever.”
Well, for one thing, I’m confident Condi and the others in the administration know how to spell intelligence, and attending.Unlike yourself, apparently.
“the FBI thwarts their own agents from legally investigating possible Middle-Eastern terrorists attending flight schools in Florida and Minnesota.”
If so, it’s because they would be accused of – gasp – racial profiling, and the media would blow it all out of proportion, like they’ve been dying to do – witness Abu Ghraib. Then people such as yourself and the others here with PC/Everything Bush Does Is Wrong lenses on would be telling the story of a “poor Arab immigrant whose only dream was to fly a plane. He was mistakenly investigated. His mom, with tears in her eyes, said the arrest has made her feel like an outsider and she doesn’t know if she or he will ever recover from it because he’s so devastated and angry. She is hoping by spending more time practicing Islam, the Religion of Peace, he will recover the government’s unjust action. “
“They disregarded the first rule of the Art of War, which in modern times can be summarized as:
you must bleed your adversary’s resolve.”
True, which is why the attempt by the media to weaken this nation’s resolve by spending a dámņ month on Abu Ghraib, by making it seem like we put those people through the Bataan Death March, by falsely reporting the “Koran abuse” story – which only killed more people in one day than 95% of the day of the war itself, but oops!, at least Newsweek didn’t make detainees form a human pyramid!
By doing all this, the media has sought to weaken the resolve of 1.)our troops 2.)our people and 3.)our President. They have not succeeded in the first, have regrettably succeeded to an extent with the second, but not at all with the third – which is a huge reason they have not completely succeeded with the first two. Because of George W. Bush’s unwavering resolve and leadership.
“Where was the consideration for winning the hearts and minds of Arabs? At Guantanomo? At Abu Ghraib?”
No, in the soldiers who interact every day with the Iraqi people, keeping streets safe and building schools and numerous other things you either don’t or won’t hear about because of the obsession with making this war – and by association, those soldiers carrying it out and doing these things – look like it is a failure, and so are they.
Oliver North has a segment that runs virtually every day called “War Stories”, where he spotlights individual stories and what they are doing. It’s actually positive! So why, in the midst of all these other stories – led by an incident that is still a year old, which is a really weird definition of “news”, but I digress – can’t CBS, NBC, or ABC do something similar?
Shouldn’t positive stories run in equal proportion to the negative ones? Yes. So why don’t the networks even try for “balance”? Because they have an agenda, that’s why.
That’s kinda like saying a casual look at Vietnam in 1975 would reveal the South Vietnamese hated the North Vietnamese more than the US Troops kicking them off of helicopters as they were leaving.
Casualties in Iraq were up in January and May. The coalition needs leadership who can blunt insurgent resolve — not feed it.
He was in the 1980 primaries and when Reagan took the lead, he had enough party clout to pressure Reagan into making him his running mate. What was Reagan to Bush if not his biggest obstacle to the White House?
So are you saying my typo makes me a dissembler, or a dissassembler?
gwb’s professional history has been to sponge off of Saudi investment for all the businesses he wasn’t able to make profit on. His father’s work history after Clinton beat him — in spite of winning the first gulf war — was to take money from the bin Laden family through the Carlyle group, even after 9-11.
Saying concern over racial profiling thwarted the FBI in the flight school investigations is so patently absurd, it just looks like a way for you to question if there’s even such a thing a racism. I don’t like you.
Like political correctness stopped Florida secretary of state and Florida Bush 2000 campaign manager, Katherine Harris, from flushing the entire votes collected from black counties in Florida 2000?
Yeah, everyone already has enough good reason to not like you.
That’s kinda like saying a casual look at Vietnam in 1975 would reveal the South Vietnamese hated the North Vietnamese more than the US Troops kicking them off of helicopters as they were leaving.
Hardly comparable situations–the North Vietnamese had an actual army capable of mounting a real offense, as opposed to Al Quaeda’s ability to bomb mosques during funerals.
Casualties in Iraq were up in January and May. The coalition needs leadership who can blunt insurgent resolve — not feed it.
Did something happens during February, march and April? At any rate, I’m not sure that one can measure the power of an insurgency simply by the number of death’s they cause. Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people in one day but it didn’t bring his vision of America any closer to fruition. The fact that the terrorists have turned from taking on the American forces to simply killing civilians tells you exactly how much support they know they have.
It will be very difficult to end the violence there, given the sheer amount of firepower available but there is little reason to fear, as some once did, that the terrorists can possibly take control of the country–their support is minimal and shrinks with every atrocity.
I’m sorry, that’s another typo. Bush made plenty violating SEC regulations.
So I’m not the only one who remembers the good old days where those who performed major acts of terrorism on US soil were, like, caught and found guilty? Well that’s nice.
Ok, y’all are too slow to make your replies between my posts, so I’m going to assume I’ve made my points and beg off here. Thanks.
Mike, not everyone here lives on the Net. Some of us have jobs, and lives, and families to care for…
As for the “good old days” you reference, the terrorists who performed the acts of 9/11 died. Since we could not go after the actual actors (no ectoplasmic cops of which I’m aware, anyway), we went after their originators – al-Qaeda, and its supporters in the “government” of Afghanistan. Within a matter of months, the quasi-government that had sponsored the terrorists was smashed, the organization itself shattered and driven into hiding.
This mess in Iraq is only peripherally connected – had it not been for the events of 9/11, Bush and his advisors could never have frightened Americans into supporting his invasion of a relatively-innocent bystander…
I believe a gentleman named Joseph Campbell can give you that answer. Have fun.
Hmmm, weird…they do not…nor do they mention the billions of dollars that could have been saved if the head of the snake, Osama Bin Laden, had been cut off in the mid-to-late 90s. Gee. Imagine that.
I don’t consider bin Laden not sacrificing himself enough of a reason to retreat from comparing of him to McVeigh. I’m not that much of a connoisseur of mass murderers.
CJR writes of An invasion which, by all accounts, started more than 6 months before Bush even received permission from Congress. Bush should be tried for war crimes.
We had troops in Iraq in 2002? And that’s in ALL accounts? Wow, where have I been?
With regard to your last statement, I keep hearing and reading these comments about Bush being tried for war crimes. Which war crimes? Setting aside the fact that I would never agree to that suggestion, simply because I am opposed to surrendering US nationals to international courts for any occasion whatsoever, is there a war crime you can truly charge? I’m not being sarcastic; I’d genuinely like to know what the allegation is.
With regard to whether Americans realize there were no WMDs, I agree that most of us do, but disagree with your followup statement that, It’s the Bush Administration and those that think we still need to catch Saddam bin Laden that are deluded.
1) I’d like to see Osama bin Laden caught and put on trial for his life. I’m not deluded. I am fully aware that after an intensive search, no evidence of an Iraqi WMD program has been found, which strongly suggests that there were none to begin with. WMDs were the primary justification for the invasion, and two years later we have no reason to believe that fear was justified. I know that, I knew it in November of 2004, and I voted for Bush anyway. I note that I voted for him in a campaign during which Bush was criticized for an interview in which he implied that capturing bin Laden was no longer an important priority– have you gone over to Bush’s way of thinking, Craig? Or was “Saddam bin Laden” meant to be some form of joke?
2) I think the Bush administration knows that and long ago gave up arguing that WMDs were present in Iraq. It was a fairly massive blunder, but it doesn’t seem to have cost anyone their jobs, so they’ve moved on.
Yeah, your precious also doesn’t mention Cheney taking money from Hussein through Halliburton — during the time Hussein was publicly promising $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers. So what’s your point?
“True, which is why the attempt by the media to weaken this nation’s resolve by spending a dámņ month on Abu Ghraib, by making it seem like we put those people through the Bataan Death March, by falsely reporting the “Koran abuse” story – which only killed more people in one day than 95% of the day of the war itself, but oops!, at least Newsweek didn’t make detainees form a human pyramid!”
You know….. It still amazes me what the GWB Admin can get people to swallow and spew back up. Here are a few facts that they seemed to have missed.
1) Marches that have turned to riots and costing lives were going on well before that story ever broke.
2) The riots that were “caused” by Newsweek were planned before the story came out.
3) The prime reasons for the riots, as stated by the people who organized them and were in them, were the U.S. army doing house by house searches that including busting into random homes and *men* entering into and searching women’s quarters (a huge no-no to the locals), the news reports over there of U.S. plans for bases to be built in both Iraq and Afganastan and Al Jazeera’s stories of prison abuses. The Newsweek story came late into the planning and reasoning and actually only had a small role to play.
4) Newsweek backed down from their story as written because their source started to waffle on how firm his/her story was. But the fact of the matter is, despite the statements of Faux… er Fox News, Rush, the GWBA and other idiots, that the story wasn’t really just about a single source story. The flushing part was put in question but the story was sent to the Pentegon and cleared by their people before it went to print. The Pentegon said that they found no problem with the story, the statements in it or the facts it presented. Plus, the story itself is well in line with reports from ex-prisoners, The Red Cross, Amnesty International and U.S. Army reports and trials from the last year and a half to two years.
5) Al Jazeera has been reporting this kind of thing and worse with some wildly nasty pictures to go with the stories for well over a year now. Somehow, I think that that area’s #1 news source may have a bit more sway with the locals then an American magazine that got mentioned on Al Jazeera along with the normal nights “we hate America” stuff. Yes, there are photos of rioters holding up Newsweek but they were by far in the minority of protesters from before the big blow up by Rummy.
6) Didn’t you find it just a tad strange that a two week old story got no mention at all until the Downing Street Memo started to get some play here in the U.S.? You know about that one? The one that had minutes from the PM’s intel chat with a rep who came over here, met with the GWBA and was assured, in early 2002, that we were going to war with Iraq no matter what and that the intel would be made to fit the need for invasion by the time we were ready to start. You know…. Cherry picking and edits on intel to make up a reason for war and all. As soon as that story finally started getting coverage over here we get Rummy coming out and playing “look over here, not behind the curtain.” And everybody looked away like good little sheeple.
See, I don’t know what’s worse. That a mag that had a lot to defend its reporting (or at least itself) with just folded like a kicked puppy or that so many Americans are just willing to drink the coolaid that the GWBA hands out without question. Good little sheeple one and all.
“Hmmm, weird…they do not…nor do they mention the billions of dollars that could have been saved if the head of the snake, Osama Bin Laden, had been cut off in the mid-to-late 90s. Gee. Imagine that.”
Or how about if he and others in his little band of terror worshippers hadn’t been trained by us in the late 80’s. Or how much we would have saved if we hadn’t propped up Saddam as our boy in the Middle East mess back in the 80’s and given him so many toys that could make WMDs. Or if we had listened to warnings and not built bases in Saudi Arabia on holy sites. That was a prime source of anger to Bin Laden and his followers and, after 9-11, something that the GWBA quietly closed. Or how about, insteed of the never ending summer vacation of the fisrt year and a half of Bush’s first term, he and others had paid a wee bit more attention to that intel paper with, as Condi put it in the hearings, a vague name that “went something like “Bin Laden Plans Major Attack in U.S.” Or what if we hadn’t sold arms to Iran and propped them up i the 80’s so that they could be as strong as they are now to be on “the Axis of Evil” and on Bush’d future hit parade. or…. and so on.
You wanna play what ifs? Goes both ways real hard.
It’s like the CS Lewis quote about why resort to murder when cards will do.
The Screwtape Letters.
Okay, then it is more accurate to say the quote from CS Lewis’ book, the Screwtape Letters. The book entirely contains what Lewis perceives a devil would be thinking, not what Lewis is thinking. To attribute it as a quote from Lewis is misleading, when it is a quote of what Lewis thinks of as a devilish thought.