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Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Funny, but it was a Conservative British Newspaper and not American "liberals" making these allegations. And they produced the official documents to back it up.
So who's the one doing the spinning?
I notice, Whomod (even though you deceitfully pretend to be another person, using an alt I.D., one of many alt-I.D.'s of yours in the recent past), that you quote your beloved liberal-partisan L.A. Times.
Which is the ultimate liberal-partisan U.S. newspaper.
And quoting the L.A. Times as if it were gospel truth is a Whomod signature (despite your pretending to be another person).
And as the British government pointed out, there's no great revelation here.
If anything, it makes the British government look good, because the British pressed Bush to exhaust all political and diplomatic options before Britain would co-operate in a coalition to invade Iraq.
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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Which is remarkable of you to say since I got this story and links from the Raw Story website.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Which is remarkable of you to say since I got this story and links from the Raw Story website.
?!?
I don't know what kind of glue you're sniffing.
Here's the link you just posted above...
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Quote:
THE WORLD
Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents
...which simply moving your cursor over, displays an L.A. Times link.
Along with two other links, to a Miami Herald article, and to the one from a London-sourced CNN article:
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Quote:
Bush asked to explain UK war memo
Thursday, May 12, 2005 Posted: 2:49 AM EDT (0649 GMT)
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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Quote:
Galloway fights corner on accuser's home patch
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
18 May 2005
George Galloway had warned he was coming to Washington to make a spirited defence of his reputation, and even before entering the US Senate he made sure to deliver one or two decent punches.
Standing on the corner of Constitution and 3rd, a fresh spring breeze at his heels and a pack of television cameras in his sights, he quickly provided a taste of what was about to come.
"I am determined now that I am here, to be not the accused but the accuser. These people are involved in the mother of all smoke screens," he declared, quickly getting into his stride.
Within a moment he had found his rhythm and his well-practised descriptive powers were flowing. The people he was about to confront were "neo-cons", "pro-Israel", "pro-war". They were trying to "distract" attention from an illegal war. Their so-called "evidence" amounted to nothing more than a "schoolboy dossier". Before turning heel and marching into the committee room ready to deliver a tongue-lashing, he added one more verbal blast for good measure. "Lickspittle."
Mr Galloway, a former Labour MP, a constant friend of often unpopular causes and the newly elected Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, had come to Capitol Hill at the invitation of a Senate committee that had accused him of benefiting from oil allocations meted out by Saddam Hussein's regime. In a violation of the UN oil-for-food programme, he had been given allocations for 20 million barrels of oil, alleged the Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, because of his opposition to UN sanctions and his support of Saddam's regime. While the committee admitted it had no physical proof that Mr Galloway had "cashed" the allocations, it said the implications were clear. Furthermore, it said there was evidence Mr Galloway had used the foundation he established to help a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia to conceal the payment of at least one allocation.
Nonsense, declared Mr Galloway. The accusations made last week were not new, he said, and he had already won a libel action against The Daily Telegraph which had made similar claims. He was ready to take up the invitation of the committee chairman, Senator Norm Coleman, to fly to the US and give evidence to the committee. He would let them have it with both barrels.
If Mr Galloway was ready for a showdown by the time he walked into the airy and wood-panelled Room 106 of the Senate's Dirksen building yesterday, he was going to have to cool his heels for a while. He was not the first witness and for almost two hours he listened as officials outlined various accusations directed not just at him and the former French foreign minister Charles Pasqua, but also against the Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a Texas company that had traded oil with Iraq, as well as the US administration of George Bush for turning a blind eye to such sanction-busting.
He finally took the witnesses table, in front of a horseshoe bench where the committee sat, at 11.25am. How would he address the committee? Would he be polite or scathing, friendly or fearsome? Would he fall back on that old standby - Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability - a line he infamously delivered to Saddam in 1994 and over which he claims he is repeatedly quoted out of context? In the end Mr Galloway settled for delivering a stern and steadfast defence, highlighting the lack of hard evidence against him and claiming that the real criminals were the British and US governments, which had overseen a sanctions regime against Iraq that he said had led to the deaths of 1 million Iraqi children.
"Mr Chairman, I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader and neither has anyone been on my behalf," he said. "I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf." He tore into Mr Coleman's 22-page report, saying that to describe it as containing "errors" was being polite. He said he had met Saddam not on "many" occasions, as it alleged, but twice. "As a matter of fact I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times that [US Defence Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns." To Mr Coleman, he added: "I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in Washington but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice."
Mr Galloway admitted that his associate Fawaz Zureikat, who was chairman of the Mariam Appeal foundation, had been involved in trade dealings with the Iraqi regime. He admitted that Mr Zureikat had provided the foundation with £370,000 but said he never asked where the money came from.
Mr Coleman, the freshman senator from Minnesota, had probably never encountered anyone like Mr Galloway. Most witnesses who appear before such committees are either fawning or deferential. Mr Galloway was neither.
Rather he questioned the senators' moral right to be questioning him, someone who had "protested [against Saddam's regime] outside the Iraqi embassy". Neither were US politicians who raised funds from all manner of sources, he said, in any position to question how he funded the Mariam Appeal. Their sources, he continued, were former Iraqi officials now imprisoned in Abu Ghraib jail and documents provided to them by the "convicted fraudster", Ahmed Chalabi.
"You have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Iraq," he said. "What counts is not the names on the paper. What counts is where's the money, senator? Who paid me money, senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars? The answer to that is nobody and if you had anybody who paid me a penny you would have produced them here today."
Mr Galloway did not have it all his own way. While he clearly had the better of Mr Coleman, who seemed to adopt an awkward, nervous smile for most of the morning, the committee's deputy chairman, Senator Carl Levin, appeared less intimidated. And in terms of the knock-about contest that was taking place, he landed his own blow when pointing out that he had not, as the British MP alleged, voted for the war in Iraq.
Overall, however, it would have to be an odd judge who did not score this transatlantic clash in Mr Galloway's favour. Not only did he use the hearing as an opportunity to promote his anti-war stance, but he highlighted the committee's lack of hard evidence to back up the claims it had made against him. In the arena of public opinion where he is trying to defend himself against those allegations, that must have counted for something.
"I'd rather not be here," he said. "But I was determined to be here and to be heard."
additional report from FOX news
British MP Galloway Shames Sen. Coleman & Bush's 'Oil-for-Food' Sycophants in Remarkable Testimony!
Calls Oil-for-Food 'Scandal' the 'Mother of All Smokescreens'!
Stunning Testimony Reminscent of McCarthy Hearings!
Highly entertaining when you actually see people speaking truth to power.
Better yet, watch his entire testimony there and an excerpt here.
via Attaturk: the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.
Quote:
"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - George W. Bush State of the Union speech Jan 28, 2003
"mission accomplished" - George W. Bush May 2, 2003
It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in peoples minds". Samuel Adams said that. Pretty deep for a guy that makes beer for a living - The Boondocks
"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead" - Leo C. Rosten
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From last night's PBS News broadcast:
On Monday [ May 16, 2005 ], NEWSWEEK retracted its report that U.S. interrogators defiled the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Overnight, the State Department issued a message worldwide that "Disrespect of the Holy Koran is not the policy of the United States".
At the Pentagon today, spokesman Lawrence DeRita warned it won't end there:
"Detainees and their lawyers will make all kinds of charges, and we recognize that.
In fact, in their own training manuals, they say: Here's what we'll do if we're ever captured. We allege torture, we allege abuse, we allege all kinds of things to influence public opinion.
And that's happening.
And in fact, when articles like the NEWSWEEK article come out, and it's unsubstantiated and it turns out false, it will encourage others to do the same thing."
DeRita acknowledged earlier reports that the Koran was desecrated at Guantanamo. He said they were not considered credible.
Regarding the person and character of Galloway, also from the same broadcast:
The subject was the U.N. scandal-ridden "Oil for Food" program. And on the witness stand was British Menber of Parlament George Galloway.
Three U.S. Senate investigative reports charge that from 2000 to 2003 Galloway received vouchers to buy 20 million barrels of Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices. Oil that could be re-sold for a sustantial profit.
In Britain, Galloway is famous as a radical, who was kicked out of Tony Blair's Labour party, for his opposition to the Iraq war and for his sharp personal attacks on the Prime Minister.
Earlier this month, he won back a seat in Parliament, this time running on an anti-war platform.
[ As G-man pointed out earlier, Galloway won in a district that is predominantly muslim. ]
And most telling of all about Galloway:
In the 1990's, Galloway criticized the U.N. sanctions placed on Saddam Hussein after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Here he is in a 1994 meeting with the Iraqi leader...
[ video clip of Galloway standing directly in front of a seated Saddam Hussein and his ministers ]
GALLOWAY: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatiguability..."
Later Galloway said he was talking about the Iraqi people, not their leader.
Gee, that's funny, because he was addressing Saddam Hussein personally, and calling him "sir", as he made these accolades of courage, strength and indefatiguability.
Combined with Galloway's opposition to sanctions against Saddam.
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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RACK Wonder Boy.
500 points
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Quote:
MisterJLA said:
RACK Wonder Boy.
500 points
Thank you, sir. I salute your courage, strength and indefatiguability !
Another false argument I hear frequently is that the U.S. has yet to restore Iraq's power to its former pre-war level under Saddam.
To lay that fallacious argument permantly to rest, I offer the following link:
http://www.defense.gov/news/Sep2004/n09112004_2004091105.html
Electricity production in the country averages about 5,000 megawatts, a total that services an estimated 15 million Iraqi homes and exceeds the pre-war level of 4,400 megawatts, officials said.
Since regime change, much of the news in Baghdad has focused on the availability of less power in the Iraqi capital, a focus Stor said is misleading.
[ Maj. Erik Stor, the operations officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Restore Iraqi Electricity Directorate ]
Despite the addition of power to the country's national grid, the demand for electricity in Iraq continues to grow, according to a fact sheet published by the Iraq Ministry of Electricity.
"With more than half a million new jobs created, new industries and new factories, Iraq has experienced a rapid increase in electricity demand," the fact sheet reads. "The increase in demand is a good sign of a thriving economy emerging from three decades of isolation."
Since beginning its work in the country nearly a year ago, the corps has added an additional 1,621 megawatts to the Iraqi national grid, enough to service 4.8 million Iraqi homes.
The power levels "that have yet to be restored" as liberals constantly bemoan, have actually been restored since October 2003.
Another link:
The comments following this article are hilarious, and perfectly capture my own thoughts on the liberal media's absolute refusal to report what is being accomplished in Iraq.
Again, as I've seen said often on the PBS News Hour and on various Sunday morning talk shows, the pace of reconstruction and economic recovery far exceeds the pace of reconstruction in post-WW II Europe.
But don't expect to see it as a lead story of the New York Times or any of the broadcast news networks.
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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terrible podcaster 15000+ posts
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Told. Mad props to the Wonder Boy. 
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Quote:
Galloway Senate testimony PDF goes AWOL
Evidence 'missing' from Committee website
Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 20 May 2005
ADVERTISEMENT
The website for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs has removed testimony from UK MP George Galloway from its website.
All other witness testimonies for the hearings on the Oil for Food scandal are available on the Committee's website in PDF form. But Galloway's testimony is the only document not on the site.
"I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him," Galloway told the Committee.
"The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."
Press representatives for the Committee had no comment.
Wonder Boy, you imply that the riots in Afghanistan were caused by the Newsweek article. Ironic that General Myers said just the opposite.
Quote:
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.
Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
then you try to indict Galloway because he met with Sadaam:
Quote:
Mr Galloway said he had met Saddam Hussein on two occasions - the same number of times as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and maps - the better to target those guns. I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war," he said.
As for the Electricity.....
Quote:
But the pell-mell effort to spend that June may help explain many of the problems in the reconstruction of Iraq, and it continues to haunt the U.S. nearly a year later.
U.S. officials are unsure whether billions of dollars dispatched to Iraqi ministries for reconstruction projects ever reached their intended destinations. Schools and hospitals refurbished under hastily issued contracts have again fallen into disrepair. The oil and power industries are in worse shape than during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"The Iraqis will be paying for the screw-ups of the CPA for a long time,"
Rules and Cash Flew Out the Window among others
From todays financial Times
Quote:
The privately-owned company started selling power to Iraq in 2003 to help relieve severe post-war power shortages. Ankara’s special envoy on Iraq, Osman Koroturk, said in a television interview earlier this week that easing the power shortages could help improve the security situation in Turkey’s neighbour.
Turkey to triple electricity exports to Iraq
and an older article from last year which is relevant since just before it was published,m the same denials were being told by the Bush Administration
But of course you choose to reference the same Government sites that edits out Congressional testimony that it finds unpleasant. Not surprising. Both you and G-Man repeatedly try to paint the rosiest of scenarios in Iraq, much like some lying recruiter you hear about, trying to lure people to their war. Incredible that following this thread alone, both you and G-Man have been painting these sunny scenarions for YEARS already!
YEARS!
and yet the death count and mayhem marches ever onward.
Bastards.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - George W. Bush State of the Union speech Jan 28, 2003
"mission accomplished" - George W. Bush May 2, 2003
It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in peoples minds". Samuel Adams said that. Pretty deep for a guy that makes beer for a living - The Boondocks
"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead" - Leo C. Rosten
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RACK Wonder Boy Quote:
then you try to indict Galloway because he met with Sadaam:
Are you serious? Or were you just hoping we wouldn't notice your ruse? WB didn't indict Galloway because he met with Saddaam. Infact this is such a rediculouse oversite of what Wonder said I'm not even going to try and explain it to you (it's only 2 posts up so this isn't a dodge) because I know your not that stupid, your trying to be sneaky because you think were ARE that stupid to fall for such a blatant misdirection.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
JLA brand RACK points = 514k 
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Quote:
Bastards.
What's with you people and your insistance on childish insults? just because people dissagree with you. Fine they're Bastards because they think Iraqis are better off whithout Saddaam, fine the Iraqi people are also bastards for not recognising this. Frankly you're just an ass if that's how you're going to conduct yourself. The worst thing Wodder and G did was dignify your crack pot claims that Iraq would be better off under Saddaam. I know a few Iraqis myself and according to you they're all bastards because they are delighted that Saddaam was taken out of power, of coure one of them is biased because his father was executed for opposing Saddaam, what a bastard.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
JLA brand RACK points = 514k
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Hmmm....
Is wanna arguing that the ends justify the means (death, destruction etc.)?
Say, how 'bout we nuke Pyongyang?
It may result in thousands, even millions of innocent life lost, but we may just get Kim and the Koreans would be sooo much better off in the long run.
That's what you sound like to me wanna. War is always a LAST resort. And as the Downing Street memos clearly show, it wasn't in regards to Iraq. We didn't go in because we HAD to, we went in because we wanted to.
Quote:
Originally posted by the British Government
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action (memo Date: 23 July 2002), 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. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
We're not talking circumstantial evidence anymore. It is now verified fact that George Bush and Tony Blair agreed to go to war in early 2002, and that they "fixed the facts" to make the case for war.
I also hear that things are improving now and only the "liberal media" says otherwise......
Quote:
Report: Iraq assessment bleaker
By wire services
Published May 19, 2005
BAGHDAD - U.S. military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, pulling back from recent suggestions - including by some of the same officers - that there were positive trends in Iraq that could allow a reduction in the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq late this year or early in 2006.
The New York Times quoted one unnamed senior officer as suggesting that U.S. military involvement could last many years.
At the same time, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior U.S. military official as telling reporters that the recent surge in violence in Iraq followed a meeting in Syria last month of associates of Jordanian insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi paramilitary police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow U.S. forces to reduce their role in fighting.
A senior officer in Baghdad said recent polls conducted for the U.S. military by Baghdad University have shown confidence flagging sharply, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the elections to 45 percent now.
To raise the level of public confidence, the officer said, the new government would need success in cutting insurgent attacks and addressing popular impatience for improvements in public services like electricity that are worse, for many Iraqis, than they were last year.
Someone should tell that redneck cartoon character about the electricity. He's still busy beleiveing the Administration.
By the way, it looks as if more people are wising up. FOX News' viewership dropped spectacularly and has lost almost 60% of it's viewership. I guess there's only so much "fair and balanced" one can swallow.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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Quote:
PaulWellr said:
Wonder Boy, you imply that the riots in Afghanistan were caused by the Newsweek article. Ironic that General Myers said just the opposite.
Again...
?!?
Where in this topic did I even mention riots in Afghanistan, or the Newsweek article ?
From what I've read, the surge of suicide bombings in recent weeks is a temporary surge, unsustainable.
And that the Iraqi resistance (i.e., the foreign/al Qaida/pro-Saddam resistance, that wouldn't even exist without the organization, funding and leadership from outside Iraq) cannot possibly be sustained, and that with every step Iraq moves toward sovereign democracy, terrorist resistance weakens.
That's why the insurgents have stepped up their suicide bombings in the last few weeks, since the elected Iraqi government convened. This is the insurgents' last-ditch attempt to shake democratic forces in Iraq.
Quote:
(article : )
The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says a report from Afghanistan suggests that rioting in Jalalabad on May 11 was not necessarily connected to press reports that the Quran might have been desecrated in the presence of Muslim prisoners held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Air Force General Richard Myers told reporters at the Pentagon May 12 that he has been told that the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, rioting was related more to the ongoing political reconciliation process in Afghanistan than anything else.
Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says
General Myers doesn't say that blaming the reporters was false, only that there are other contributing factors.
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
then you try to indict Galloway because he met with Sadaam:
I "indicted" Galloway because of his wrongheaded opposition to U.N. sanctions against Iraq (opposition by Galloway to punishing Saddam for murdering tens of thousands of his own Shi'ite and Kurd citizens, in punitive actions short of war, to stop the genocide)
Again, it is estimated that in Saddam's bloody 25-year reign in Iraq, he murdered roughly one MILLION of his own citizens in the cruelest and most terrifying ways possible
And I also "indicted" Galloway for openly praising Saddam's "courage, strength and indefatiguability", in slaughtering those thousands in his cold-blooded cling to power.
Galloway publicly saluted Saddam Hussein, an architect of bloody genocide, who is well known to have patterned himself in the image of Hitler and Stalin.
Yet Galloway praised Saddam, did not condemn the genocide, and arguably profited from the U.N. sanctions "Oil For Food"program, and from his goodwill toward Saddam.
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
As for the Electricity.....
Quote:
But the pell-mell effort to spend that June may help explain many of the problems in the reconstruction of Iraq, and it continues to haunt the U.S. nearly a year later.
U.S. officials are unsure whether billions of dollars dispatched to Iraqi ministries for reconstruction projects ever reached their intended destinations. Schools and hospitals refurbished under hastily issued contracts have again fallen into disrepair. The oil and power industries are in worse shape than during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
"The Iraqis will be paying for the screw-ups of the CPA for a long time,"
Rules and Cash Flew Out the Window among others
Gee, what a surprise, Paul Wellr/Whomod.
Another L.A.Times link.
Which again, is a Whomod signature.
As are the fanatical and personal diatribes you direct at anyone who disagrees with you.
I would have far more respect for your views, even those I disagree with, if you could simply discuss the issue respectfully, and refrain from the personal rancor, that just self-incriminatingly makes you look like an idiot with no civility or objectivity whatsoever.
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
From todays financial Times
Quote:
The privately-owned company started selling power to Iraq in 2003 to help relieve severe post-war power shortages. Ankara's special envoy on Iraq, Osman Koroturk, said in a television interview earlier this week that easing the power shortages could help improve the security situation in Turkey's neighbour.
Turkey to triple electricity exports to Iraq
and an older article from last year which is relevant since just before it was published,m the same denials were being told by the Bush Administration
These are clearly anti-Bush/liberal partisan websites eager to snatch on anything that looks like it might reflect badly on Bush or the Iraq war. I see no balance or objectivity attempted in these articles.
And I certainly trust a U.S. government website over any of these sites you posted.
And just for laughs...
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
But of course you choose to reference the same Government sites that edits out Congressional testimony that it finds unpleasant.
Last time I checked, PBS News Hour was not considered a "right wing extremist news source" that edits the facts.
Quite the contrary, PBS News Hour is arguably the least sensational and most respected broadcast news source in the United States.
And it is anything but right-wing.
If anything, PBS is criticized for being too left-leaning in its programming, as evidenced by attempts by conservatives to leverage it to be more balanced, or lose its public funding.
And this is a debate that's been going on in Congress since the early Clinton years.
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
Not surprising.
Both you and G-Man repeatedly try to paint the rosiest of scenarios in Iraq...
Or simply quote from mainstream sources?
Unlike your quoting the L.A. Times and a bunch of Bush-hating websites.
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PaulWellr said:
... much like some lying recruiter you hear about, trying to lure people to their war.
Wow. Nothing hateful, slanderous or hysteria-driven about that characterization !
Quote:
PaulWellr said:
Incredible that following this thread alone, both you and G-Man have been painting these sunny scenarions for YEARS already!
YEARS!
and yet the death count and mayhem marches ever onward.
Bastards.
More of your self-incriminating hysteria.
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Hmmm....
Is wanna arguing that the ends justify the means (death, destruction etc.)?
Say, how 'bout we nuke Pyongyang?
It may result in thousands, even millions of innocent life lost, but we may just get Kim and the Koreans would be sooo much better off in the long run.
That's what you sound like to me wanna.
I don't believe for a second that's what WBAM is saying.
You're putting words in his mouth.
And your personal attacks on those who disagree with you are just self-incriminatingly stupid, and make you look even more bitter and lacking in objectivity.
Here's what WBAM actually said:
Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
What's with you people and your insistence on childish insults? just because people dissagree with you.
Fine they're Bastards because they think Iraqis are better off whithout Saddam,
fine the Iraqi people are also bastards for not recognising this.
Frankly you're just an ass if that's how you're going to conduct yourself.
The worst thing Wonder and G did was dignify your crack pot claims that Iraq would be better off under Saddam.
I know a few Iraqis myself and according to you they're all bastards because they are delighted that Saddaam was taken out of power, of course one of them is biased because his father was executed for opposing Saddaam, what a bastard.
How you go from there to WBAM allegedly saying we should drop nukes on North Korea, and to hell with N. Korea's civilian casualties from such a bombing, is absolutely beyond me.
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unrestrained id said:
War is always a LAST resort. And as the Downing Street memos clearly show, it wasn't in regards to Iraq. We didn't go in because we HAD to, we went in because we wanted to.
Quote:
Originally posted by the British Government
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action (memo Date: 23 July 2002), 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. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
We're not talking circumstantial evidence anymore. It is now verified fact that George Bush and Tony Blair agreed to go to war in early 2002, and that they "fixed the facts" to make the case for war.
No, it's not "verified fact".
There's a huge difference between
(1) "fixing" the facts, as the mafia fixes a boxing match
and
(2) remaining fixed on a political objective, eliminating Saddam's threat, and gathering clear and available evidence to make a legal argument to the world for an Iraq invasion to topple Saddam, as Bush and Blair did.
I don't see that what Bush and Blair argued --the criminal actions of Saddam Hussein and his government-- is in any way untrue.
- Saddam broke 10 U.N. resolutions calling on him to disarm
.
- Saddam violated the 1991 U.N. cease-fire.
.
- Saddam slaughtered his own citizens, to the point that it was necessary to set up Northern and Southern no-fly zones over huge regions of Iraq, to keep Saddam from adding to the tens of thousands he had already slaughtered of his own citizens.
.
- Saddam was in material breach of the 1991 ban on his pursuit of WMD's, according to the David Kay report. Saddam, while not having completed WMD's, still had scientists researching development of WMD's so that as soon as U.N. sanctions might be lifted, Saddam could quickly go into WMD production.
.
- The rape-rooms, the torture chambers, and the hundreds of mass graves across Iraq, holding the bodies of roughly 1 million Iraqis, of Iraq's surviving population of 25 million.
And on and on.
But again, you go on believing in a lack of evidence, or that Bush and Blair "fixed" the evidence, you bet.
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unrestrained id said:
I also hear that things are improving now and only the "liberal media" says otherwise......
Quote:
Report: Iraq assessment bleaker
By wire services
Published May 19, 2005
BAGHDAD - U.S. military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment of the war in Iraq on Wednesday, pulling back from recent suggestions - including by some of the same officers - that there were positive trends in Iraq that could allow a reduction in the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq late this year or early in 2006.
The New York Times quoted one unnamed senior officer as suggesting that U.S. military involvement could last many years.
So what ?
Are there still U.S. troops in Germany ?
in Japan?
In South Korea ?
in Bosnia?
In Kosovo ?
In Liberia ?
And in hundreds of other spots across the world, in the aftermath of police actions, or simply in stations abroad, in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Pacific.
Some have been stationed in these places for 50 or 60 years.
That doesn't necessarily mean that these U.S. military commanders (in your above quoted/linked article) project that U.S. troops will be in combat far into the future in Iraq.
More likely, U.S. troops will be kept in Iraq as an assurance, as a stabilizing force, long after the fighting is over. Long after Iraqi troops have taken over the combat against insurgents (if an insurgency even still remains, a year or two from now).
As U.S. troops have been kept as an assurance in these other places.
Quote:
( article, continued: )
At the same time, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior U.S. military official as telling reporters that the recent surge in violence in Iraq followed a meeting in Syria last month of associates of Jordanian insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
There you go.
Is this an Iraqi insurgency ?
Or is it, more clearly, an insurgency that wouldn't even exist if not for external leadership, financing and propaganda from islamic fanatics (al Qaida) from outside Iraq?
And thugs and murderers from Saddam Hussein's former regime.
Further supporting that if not for external elements de-stabilizing Iraq, no insurgency would exist.
And yet it is painted by Bush-haters in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere as an Iraqi insurgency.
It's not.
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Quote:
( article, continued: )
Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi paramilitary police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to the insurgents and allow U.S. forces to reduce their role in fighting.
A senior officer in Baghdad said recent polls conducted for the U.S. military by Baghdad University have shown confidence flagging sharply, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the elections to 45 percent now.
To raise the level of public confidence, the officer said, the new government would need success in cutting insurgent attacks and addressing popular impatience for improvements in public services like electricity that are worse, for many Iraqis, than they were last year.
I already established on the previous topic page, link included, that electrical power, contrary to anti-Bush myth, has been restored to pre-war levels since OCTOBER 2003.
The exact wattage of pre-war levels, and present levels, are listed in the article.
And the article also explains that shortages occur because of post-war increases in the Iraqi economy and industry, creating increased demand.
We're talking about people who live in a place where the average day is over 100 degrees.
Of course everyone now wants air conditioners, and all the comforts that they previously never had. But that doesn't happen overnight.
That is not nearly the same thing as not having the same electrical power level as before the war.
It is instead a surge in demand for even more power.
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Someone should tell that redneck cartoon character about the electricity. He's still busy beleiveing the Administration.
Ah, more insults...
Anyone who disagrees with you is a redneck.
Or otherwise stereotyped as uneducated, and a witless stooge of the neo-cons.
You forgot to stereotype me as living in a trailer as well, as you have in prior posts at least once.
I'm neither redneck, nor live in a trailer.
Although I know people who are, and don't hold them in self-righteous contempt, as you do.
Again, your insults and stereotyping just further manifest your lack of civility and objectivity, and they self-incriminatingly make you look (even more) stupid.
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
By the way, it looks as if more people are wising up. FOX News' viewership dropped spectacularly and has lost almost 60% of it's viewership. I guess there's only so much "fair and balanced" one can swallow.
While FOX's numbers have dropped, your linked sources (eagerly anti-Bush and pro-liberal as they are) never say that FOX's ratings are dropping because of a pro-Bush perspective, as you yourself editorialize, not the articles.
The articles also point out that CNN and other news reports have suffered a similar slump in viewership.
My guess would be that there was, on all networks, an intense upsurge in news viewing in the period leading up to the November 2004 Bush/Kerry election, and that without a similar event, viewers have not had the same urgency to watch the news.
And I would guess that CBS News (in the wake of the Dan Rather liberal-partisan affair) has taken the largest drop.
Although I also saw recently that NBC's morning show with Katie Couric has also slumped into its lowest ratings ever.
I count at least four alt-I.D.'s here on RKMB for Whomod since January, that share the same patterns of links, long posts, personal insults and fanatical anti-conservative rhetoric.
I guess he thinks if he agrees with himself under four different user-names that somehow makes him more believable and credible.
It doesn't.
- from Do Racists have lower IQ's...
Liberals who bemoan discrimination, intolerance, restraint of Constitutional freedoms, and promotion of hatred toward various abberant minorities, have absolutely no problem with discriminating against, being intolerant of, restricting Constitutional freedoms of, and directing hate-filled scapegoat rhetoric against conservatives.
EXACTLY what they accuse Republicans/conservatives of doing, is EXACTLY what liberals/Democrats do themselves, to those who oppose their beliefs.
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"Hey this is PCG342's bro..." 15000+ posts
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Quote:
Wonder Boy said:
I count at least four alt-I.D.'s here on RKMB for Whomod since January, that share the same patterns of links, long posts, personal insults and fanatical anti-conservative rhetoric.
I guess he thinks if he agrees with himself under four different user-names that somehow makes him more believable and credible.
It doesn't.
500 more points.
"Are you eating it...or is it eating you?" [center] [/center] [center] [/center]
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希望の戦士 2000+ posts
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Of course, having alts disagree with each other and/or fight with each other, in itself, can't be solely depended on. It may even be too obvious..
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Huh? 
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
JLA brand RACK points = 514k
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Quote:
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
your name here
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - George W. Bush State of the Union speech Jan 28, 2003
"mission accomplished" - George W. Bush May 2, 2003
It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in peoples minds". Samuel Adams said that. Pretty deep for a guy that makes beer for a living - The Boondocks
"A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead" - Leo C. Rosten
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Officially "too old for this shit" 15000+ posts
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Quote:
These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action
Where's the big scoop here?
Bush was publicly talking about the likely need to attack Iraq prior to the summer of 2002.
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Quote:
the G-man said:
Quote:
These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action
Where's the big scoop here?
Bush was publicly talking about the likely need to attack Iraq prior to the summer of 2002.
The scoop is it's a cosperacy! They're all out to get us and only our tin foil hats can protect us from thier brain washing rays!
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
JLA brand RACK points = 514k
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Shouldn't there be at least SOME element of secrecy to a conspiracy?
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Quote:
PaulWellr said:
Quote:
Letter to Pres Bush Concerning "Downing Street Memo"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remains a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
your name here
I just signed it. I heard about this on the Randi Rhodes show today. If you haven't already done so, I urge those so inclined to sign this as well.
John Kerry plans to bring this issue up before Congress and The Times of London is supposed to have more on this, this weekend.
From the John Conyers blog:
Quote:
Over 110,000 and Counting
Open Thread
Website Overwhelmed
We are well over 110,000 Signatures on the Downing Street Letter. I cannot begin to thank you enough. Let's press on until we hit 250,000. I have enlisted some new allies to help us and I am confident we will reach our goal in no time.
In the coming days, I will be moving ahead on this letter and other efforts surrounding this issue. Also, keep an eye on the Sunday London Times this weekend, I hear they will continue their string of breaking news about this.
In the meantime, my website has been overwhelmed. At times, I am receiving ten emails a minute. To reduce traffic to the site, I am taking down the email box for the time being and starting this open thread, where email traffic will be redirected.
If you want to give me your two cents, feel free to do it here. Please keep it respectful, however.
Ok, G-Man, you're up. Poo poo it again and urge everyone to move on.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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I find it interesting that at the time the complaint was that Bush moved too fast and didn't plan for the attack and was simply being reactionary. Now the new offense seems to be that he planned ahead. This is buck-shot politics if i've ever seen it.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
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Timelord. Drunkard. 15000+ posts
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050608/pl_usatoday/downingstreetmemogetsfreshattentionQuote:
'Downing Street memo' gets fresh attention
By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
A simmering controversy over whether American media have ignored a secret British memo about how
President Bush built his case for war with
Iraq bubbled over into the White House on Tuesday
At a late afternoon news conference, Reuters correspondent Steve Holland asked Bush and British Prime Minister
Tony Blair about a memo that's been widely written about and discussed in Europe but less so in the USA.
It was the most attention paid by the media in the USA so far to the "Downing Street memo," first reported on May 1 by The Sunday Times of London. The memo is said by some of the president's sharpest critics, such as Democratic Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan, to be strong evidence that Bush decided to go to war and then looked for evidence to support his decision.
The Sunday Times said the memo is the minutes of a meeting that British Prime Minister Tony Blair had with some of his top intelligence and foreign policy aides on July 23, 2002, at 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence. The story said the memo indicates that Blair was told by the head of Britain's MI6 intelligence service that in 2002, the Bush administration was selectively choosing evidence that supported its case for going to war and ignoring anything to the contrary. The war began in March 2003.
"Intelligence and facts were being fixed" by the Bush administration "around" a policy that saw military action "as inevitable," the newspaper quoted from the memo.
"There's nothing farther from the truth," Bush told reporters as Blair stood at his side. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," Bush said in response to a question about the memo. "It was our last option."
Blair added, "The facts were not being 'fixed' in any shape or form at all."
Bush said that at the time the memo was written, no decision had been made about going to war. He pointed out that it was written two months before he went to the
United Nations and asked for a Security Council resolution calling on
Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction or face "serious consequences."
The Sunday Times' May 1 memo story, which broke just four days before Britain's national elections, caused a sensation in Europe. American media reacted more cautiously. The New York Times wrote about the memo May 2, but didn't mention until its 15th paragraph that the memo stated U.S. officials had "fixed" intelligence and facts.
Knight Ridder Newspapers distributed a story May 6 that said the memo "claims President Bush ... was determined to ensure that U.S. intelligence data supported his policy." The Los Angeles Times wrote about the memo May 12, The Washington Post followed on May 15 and The New York Times revisited the news on May 20.
None of the stories appeared on the newspapers' front pages. Several other major media outlets, including the evening news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC, had not said a word about the document before Tuesday. Today marks USA TODAY's first mention.
Some activists who opposed Bush's decision to attack Iraq have been peppering editors with letters and e-mails to push the media into more aggressive coverage. Last week, a group known as Democrats.com offered $1,000 to anyone who can get Bush to answer "yes or no" to this question: Did he or his administration "fix the intelligence" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to terrorism?
"We want what the Michael Jackson, Paris Hilton and Star Wars stories have gotten: endless repetition until people have heard about it," says David Swanson, one of Democrats.com's organizers.
Robin Niblett of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, says it would be easy for Americans to misunderstand the reference to intelligence being "fixed around" Iraq policy. " 'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy," he says.
Ombudsmen at both The New York Times and The Washington Post have been critical of their newspapers for not covering the story more aggressively.
USA TODAY chose not to publish anything about the memo before today for several reasons, says Jim Cox, the newspaper's senior assignment editor for foreign news. "We could not obtain the memo or a copy of it from a reliable source," Cox says. "There was no explicit confirmation of its authenticity from (Blair's office). And it was disclosed four days before the British elections, raising concerns about the timing."
whomod said: I generally don't like it when people decide to play by the rules against people who don't play by the rules. It tends to put you immediately at a disadvantage and IMO is a sign of true weakness. This is true both in politics and on the internet." Our Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said: "no, the doctor's right. besides, he has seniority."
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Video - ABC: "Freedom Fries" Rep. now blames neocons for Iraq
A NC Republican Representative, Walter Jones, now believes that neocons within the Republican party are responsible for pushing the US into the Iraq war.
Based on the bad WMD intelligence given to Congress, Rep. Jones initially supported the Iraq war and even invented the name "Freedom Fries" as a way to protest France opposition to the war.
He now wants to see soldiers pulled out of Iraq as soon as possible. He will be introducing a bill on the house floor to that effect this week.
Video in Real Media format (9 minutes)
Video in Windows Media format (9 minutes)
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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The memos and documents just keep on coming from the U.K. This in spite of the American corporate media for the most part refusing to cover this story. Quote:
The Sunday Times - Britain
June 12, 2005
Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Michael Smith
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action.
“US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia,” the briefing paper warned. This meant that issues of legality “would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation”.
The paper was circulated to those present at the meeting, among whom were Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The full minutes of the meeting were published last month in The Sunday Times.
The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.
“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.
The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.
The briefing paper is certain to add to the pressure, particularly on the American president, because of the damaging revelation that Bush and Blair agreed on regime change in April 2002 and then looked for a way to justify it.
There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media.
The White House has declined to respond to a letter from 89 Democratic congressmen asking if it was true — as Dearlove told the July meeting — that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” in Washington.
The Downing Street memo burst into the mainstream American media only last week after it was raised at a joint Bush-Blair press conference, forcing the prime minister to insist that “the facts were not fixed in any shape or form at all”.
John Conyers, the Democratic congressman who drafted the letter to Bush, has now written to Dearlove asking him to say whether or not it was accurate that he believed the intelligence was being “fixed” around the policy. He also asked the former MI6 chief precisely when Bush and Blair had agreed to invade Iraq and whether it is true they agreed to “manufacture” the UN ultimatum in order to justify the war.
He and other Democratic congressmen plan to hold their own inquiry this Thursday with witnesses including Joe Wilson, the American former ambassador who went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore for its nuclear weapons programme. ....
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
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unrestrained id said:
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
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wbam and Sammitch, for once and for all explain to me what is "tinfoil hat" about the Downing Street memo and the subsequent memos that have been verified as true.
Because it seems as if you simply want to laugh and dismiss them because you don't want to face what they say.
That you were lied to and you fell for the lies hook line and sinker.
So you guys are up, what do they have to do with "tinfoil hats"?
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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I just thought the pic was funny. I personally don't give a flying fuck about the rest of it. Don't drag me into this. 
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Tabarnak! 6000+ posts
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Quote:
Captain Sammitch said:
I just thought the pic was funny.
Which it is. Monkey boy is on a roll lately.
If karma's a bitch, it will be my bitch!
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wannabuyamonkey said:
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
2,500 points.
Smashing!
"Are you eating it...or is it eating you?" [center] [/center] [center] [/center]
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Sensenbrenner has effectively shut down all conversations in the House on the Patriot Act and the Downing Street Memo.
Rep. Conyers is not only forbidden from holding a hearing, he also can't have a room to hold unofficial hearings. He has been relegated to the office space at the DNC. Amazingly his chief of staff is quoted in The Hill from an email he wrote to a minority staffer saying, “I’m sitting here watching your ‘forum’ on C-SPAN,” McLaughlin wrote. “Just to let you know, it was your last. Don’t bother asking [for a room] again.”.
Someone tell me when Democrats abused their power so obscenely when the Democrats were in the majority.
The Freedom Fries guy is also wearing the tinfoil. Laugh all you want, people on the right are also starting to ask questions.
GOP rep. sponsors Downing inquiry
U.S. Representative Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) (R-NC) is seen in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. June 15, 2005. Jones will co-sponsor legislation about calling for the truth regarding the Downing Street Memo and reasons how the U.S. got involved in Iraq. Reuters/Mannie Garcia
Again, tell me if you're able to put up on why this issue is "tinfoil hat" material because all i see is evasion in your laughter. On the other hand, all i see is confirmation in regards to these damning memos.
More British memos on prewar concerns
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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Let me ask a question: suppose the extreme left gets it way and, by some near-miracle, Bush gets impeached.
You guys on the left want CHENEY front and center? Isn't that, in your mind, sort of like replacing Annikin Skywalker with Emperor Palpatine?
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unrestrained id said:
Note: You must use genuine tin foil, as the Homeland Security Act is forcing a phase-out of tin in favor of aluminum in order to make it harder for us to block their spy beams.
Putting the "fun" back in Fundamentalist Christian Dogma.
" I know God exists because WBAM told me so. " - theory9
JLA brand RACK points = 514k
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Quote:
the G-man said:
Let me ask a serious question: suppose the extreme left gets it way and, by some near-miracle, Bush gets impeached.
You guys on the left want CHENEY front and center? Isn't that, in your mind, sort of like replacing Annikin Skywalker with Emperor Palpatine?
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Quote:
the G-man said:
Let me ask a question: suppose the extreme left gets it way and, by some near-miracle, Bush gets impeached.
You guys on the left want CHENEY front and center? Isn't that, in your mind, sort of like replacing Annikin Skywalker with Emperor Palpatine?
I can only speak for myself but I think that if we were lied into a war, it wasn't just by Bush. I'd expect every single person responsible to be held to account. That includes Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton and the PNAC instigators to meet justice.
If intentionally deceiving the U.S. Congress is an impeachable offence, then President Bush deserves impeachment—because every time he assured congressmen that he hoped to avoid war, he deceived them. And if commencing war without receiving Congressional approval is an impeachable offense—which it certainly is—then President Bush merits impeachment. For, strictly speaking, Bush took America to war in May 2002 when he authorized the intense bombings designed to degrade Iraq defense capacity, if not provoke a response by Saddam.
Finally, as the August 2002 top secret National Security Presidential Directive proves, Bush had committed America to an invasion of Iraq before seeking Congressional approval.
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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Quote:
wannabuyamonkey said:
Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Note: You must use genuine tin foil, as the Homeland Security Act is forcing a phase-out of tin in favor of aluminum in order to make it harder for us to block their spy beams.
Curious how G-Man allows your and JLA's pointless nonsense.....
Quote:
As newspaper editors look back and examine why the controversial Downing Street memo, first published by the Times of London on May 1, received so little coverage in their papers, several of them are pointing to the same culprit: the Associated Press. Editors rely on the worldwide wire service to let them know what's worthy of attention, and that's particularly true for international events. In the case of the Downing Street memo out of London, they say the AP simply failed to cover the story.
Jim Cox, USA Today's senior assignment editor for foreign news, tells Salon that when the story first broke last month, "we looked to wires for guidance" but for days didn't see anything. It was a month before the paper reported on the memo; Cox takes the blame for that omission.
On Sunday, the ombudsman at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune addressed readers' complaints about the paper's lack of Downing memo coverage. According to that account, the paper's nation/world editor, Dennis McGrath, was aware of the memo story when it broke in May, and he and his deputies "began watching for a wire story. A week later, they were still watching. 'We were frustrated the wires weren't providing stories on this,' McGrath said." The paper eventually assigned the story to a local reporter.
At the Portland Oregonian recently, public editor Michael Arrieta-Walden covered the same territory: "For an international story, the Oregonian primarily relies on material provided from about 10 wire services. The Associated Press, the world's largest newsgathering organization, essentially didn't cover the document in its reports until last weekend in a story mostly about John Bolton, Bush's nominee to become U.N. ambassador. The document then was reported on in an AP story stemming from last week's news conference involving Blair and Bush."
More...
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=...
Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else. --Will Rogers
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees." - George W. Bush
I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would .. try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. - Condoleeza Rice
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
To comfort the powerless and make the powerful uncomfortable.
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Nice to see the Downing Street memo finally getting reaction. However, the U.S. is in Iraq now and people are still dying there.
According to the Times of London, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told David Frost on BBC's Newsnight that okay, yes, fine, Iraq is "statistically" no safer today than it was at the end of the war. After further prodding, Rummy admitted sure, if you want to get technical, the insurgency was stronger today than when the US took over the country (Rummy said when "the Coalition" took over, but give me a break).
Secret negotions between the insurgency and the Iraqi and coalition officials are taking place as well...
Quote:
The macabre scenes came amid reports that Iraqi and United States officials were trying to coax some insurgents into mainstream politics by floating the possibility of an amnesty. In an interview with the BBC last night, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, confirmed that "there are continuing contacts" between the Iraqi government and rebels, but gave no details.
As opinion polls show support for the war waning in America, US diplomats and commanders have admitted there can be no purely military victory in Iraq.
US and Iraqi officials are drafting an amnesty policy for those who have not targeted civilians and are willing to renounce violence, the Associated Press news agency reported yesterday.
Iraq and US draft amnesty for insurgents
I was under the impression though that the U.S. doesn't negotiate with "terrorists". Is the U.S. position then that the U.S. is in fact NOT fighting the terrorists "there and not here"? Is the United States now saying that these are resistance fighters that can be coaxed into the Iraqi political manstream and in fact are NOT Al Queda terrorists?
I've also recently read reports that the death toll of American servicemen is far higher than the 1700 approx. officially listed. This on account of the failure to include soldiers who are taken off the battlefield and later die of their wounds in hospitals in Germany or elsewhere. The toll I read was in the neighborhood of 9000.
ABC News is reporting that it has obtained notes from a January 2003 meeting at the Pentagon at which the general counsel of the Navy warned that the interrogation techniques being used at Guantanamo in 2002 would expose the military to criminal prosecution. Minutes from a second meeting in March 2003 show that a group of top Pentagon lawyers concluded that interrogators would need a presidential letter approving their techniques in order for the techniques to be legal. No such letter was ever issued.
So no amount of rice pilaf or lemon chicken is going to excuse torture and indefinate detention with no charges filed.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." - George W. Bush State of the Union speech Jan 28, 2003
"mission accomplished" - George W. Bush May 2, 2003
It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in peoples minds". Samuel Adams said that. Pretty deep for a guy that makes beer for a living - The Boondocks
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Quote:
unrestrained id said:
Curious how G-Man allows your and JLA's pointless nonsense.....
Whether or not the Downing Street memo, or any allegation against a political leader, is substantive, or simply a "tinfoil hat" conspiracy theory, would seem an appropriate and on-topic discussion point. Furthermore, there is no prohibition against using sarcasm and/or satire to make that point.
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