The George W. Bush Administration

Discussion in 'Conspiracy Theories' started by phoenyx, Jun 6, 2016.

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  1. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    In the Conspiracy Theories-> 9/11 Forum, we have gotten into a pretty long tangent concerning the Bush Administration. While it's true that some elements of the Bush Administration can go down the line of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the tanget we're currently on doesn't. Part of it still does lie in the realm of conspiracies however (particularly, the forged Niger papers). So after suggesting that we move the subject somewhere where it'd be more appropriate and not getting a response, I've decided to just move it somewhere else...

    You have suggested books that you believe are more accurate. You haven't shown any evidence that this is in fact the case.

    Fine. The point is that regardless of whether or not Fred wanted to stay a while, Bush Sr. didn't, and for good reason.

    Valerie Plame had no axe to grind with Bush before the Bush Administration started its witch hunt against her and her husband. That there was a witch hunt for her should be patently obvious to anyone who has read her book. Her first taste of the witch hunt began in a fairly private hearing. She describes it in her book "Fair Game":
    ** "Why did you
    suggest your husband for the trip to Niger?" This obviously leading
    question came from a Republican staffer who had been particularly
    pointed in his earlier queries. His increasing hostility concerned me,
    but I had no idea then of how the Republicans were seeking to shape
    my testimony. In my desire to be as accurate and truthful as possible, I
    answered, stupidly, "I don't believe that I recommended my husband,
    but I can't recall who suggested him for the trip." This was true. Given
    the incredible pace and scope of my work during that prewar period
    and the subsequent passage of time, I simply did not recall the
    sequence of events leading to the trip. I had completely forgotten that it
    was a Junior Reports Officer who had first suggested to me that CPD
    consider talking to Joe about the alleged transaction. I had forgotten
    that Penny received the call from the vice president's office that had
    set Joe's trip in motion. I had also forgotten that we went to our Branch
    Supervisor and it was he — not me — who requested that I ask Joe to
    come into Headquarters to discuss "options." No lawyer had prepared
    me for my SSCI interview; I did not review the events with Joe or any of
    my colleagues prior to my appearance because I did not think it was
    proper to "compare memories."

    The fact was, however, that I neither suggested Joe nor
    recommended him. There was no ulterior motive; I did not have the
    authority to send Joe to Niger or anywhere else, even if I had wanted
    to. "What did you do when the two CIA officers came to your home to
    debrief Ambassador Wilson upon his return from Niger?" This I
    remembered clearly: I ordered Chinese food for delivery and stayed
    out of their way— precisely to avoid any appearance of a conflict of
    interest. The staffers busily jotted down notes and looked very serious.

    After about forty-five minutes, I left the hearing room with the CIA
    lawyer in tow, calm in the knowledge that I had answered all of their
    questions fully, truthfully, and to the best of my ability. Still, a little voice
    in my head was saying it felt like a setup. In retrospect, it was clear
    they weren't seeking information, but simply confirming their already
    closed conclusions. But in my naivete, my heart actually felt light
    because I believed in our democratic institutions. I believed that the
    truth would prevail, but I would soon find out that in Washington, the
    truth is not always enough.**

    The truth, ofcourse, is that the Bush Administration's main target was always Wilson, not Plame. She was simply collateral damage in their quest to wound Wilson. And why did they want to wound Wilson? I imagine this article was the cause:
    "What I Didn't Find in Africa" - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html?pagewanted=all

    You mean these words?:
    "George W. Bush 16 Words Lie: Iraq and Uranium Yellowcake from Niger" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9leNE7nXUEU

    There's a rather sad story connected to them, and yes, the evidence suggests the location in Africa that he was referring to was, in fact, Nigeria, but by all means, let me know if you find evidence that he was referring to some other African nation. Here's a quote from a very good article on the subject from Vanity Fair:
    **Though it may be unprepossessing, the Niger Embassy is the site of one of the great mysteries of our times. On January 2, 2001, an embassy official returned there after New Year’s Day and discovered that the offices had been robbed. Little of value was missing—a wristwatch, perfume, worthless documents, embassy stationery, and some official stamps bearing the seal of the Republic of Niger. Nevertheless, the consequences of the robbery were so great that the Watergate break-in pales by comparison.

    A few months after the robbery, Western intelligence analysts began hearing that Saddam Hussein had sought yellowcake—a concentrated form of uranium which, if enriched, can be used in nuclear weapons—from Niger. Next came a dossier purporting to document the attempted purchase of hundreds of tons of uranium by Iraq. Information from the dossier and, later, the papers themselves made their way from Italian intelligence to, at various times, the C.I.A., other Western intelligence agencies, the U.S. Embassy in Rome, the State Department, and the White House, as well as several media outlets. Finally, in his January 2003 State of the Union address, George W. Bush told the world, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    Two months later, the United States invaded Iraq, starting a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and has irrevocably de-stabilized the strategically vital Middle East. Since then, the world has learned not just that Bush’s 16-word casus belli was apparently based on the Niger documents but also that the documents were forged...**

    Source: "The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed" - http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2006/07/yellowcake200607

    Could you provide me a link that that's where he got all his information from?

    Yes, that does seem to be the case. The New Yorker has a good article on it. I'll include an exerpt I think to be pretty important...
    **On December 19th [2002], Washington, for the first time, publicly identified Niger as the alleged seller of the nuclear materials, in a State Department position paper that rhetorically asked, “Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?” (The charge was denied by both Iraq and Niger.) A former high-level intelligence official told me that the information on Niger was judged serious enough to include in the President’s Daily Brief, known as the P.D.B., one of the most sensitive intelligence documents in the American system. Its information is supposed to be carefully analyzed, or “scrubbed.” Distribution of the two- or three-page early-morning report, which is prepared by the C.I.A., is limited to the President and a few other senior officials. The P.D.B. is not made available, for example, to any members of the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. “I don’t think anybody here sees that thing,” a State Department analyst told me. “You only know what’s in the P.D.B. because it echoes—people talk about it.”

    President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” He commented, “Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

    Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said.

    One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.”

    The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.

    It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake...
    **

    Source: "Who Lied to Whom? (Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?)" - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/03/31/who-lied-to-whom

    Armitage didn't seem to have anything against Wilson and Plame himself. And he, atleast, has confessed that what he did was a terrible mistake. He also didn't spread the news in a publication, as Novak did. By the way, Novak has confessed that Rove was one of his sources as to Plame's identity as a CIA operative:
    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Karl_Rove:_Outing_Valerie_Plame

    She certainly wasn't well known before Karl Rove and others outed her as an undercover CIA operative.

    He certainly disliked him, and for good reason. The Bush Administration ignored the evidence he provided against the Niger yellowcake rumour and because of that the U.S. is -still- in Iraq over a decade later.

    I'm not a big fan of the old guard Democrats either (I'm a Bernie fan).

    I think I had vaguely heard that Bush Sr. had gotten his toes wet in the Iraq pool. He didn't decide to build a fort in it though, and he certainly didn't decide to pour billions of dollars into that fort for the remainder of his tenure.

    You've got it backwards. It was the Bush administration that tried to destroy Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. They simply did their best to tell the truth.
     
  2. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am not a huge fan of such long posts. I have at times replied to posts in such a long winded fashion, I drew complaints.

    I note you admit to being a Sanders fan. This shows bias evidence, though it is your own words proving bias.

    You were told that the 16 words said by Bush did not include Niger and you asked me to prove it, then son of a gun, you posted his actual words proving I am accurate. Why ask me to prove something when you did a keen job of it yourself?

    You keep saying Rove was the primary source when you admit it was Richard Armitage of the State Department. And you seem to make excuses for him to hone in on Rove. Libby was prosecuted. But not for outing people. He was convicted for not telling the truth in him saying he got the word from reporters. That flub cost him $250,000 fine, a felony conviction plus he was disbarred.

    Remember that Clinton had a much larger fine but no felony conviction and he too was disbarred.I point this out to show the unfair treatment given to Libby. Bush commuted his jail time.

    Wilson went out of his way, including his book, to destroy Bush. And you act as if it was Bush after Wilson.

    First, do you admit as I know for a fact, that in Iraq the troops did find very large stores of yellowcake?

    Explain to the forum where that came from?

    As to the Niger memo, that was fake. I believe I recall correctly in reporting it's source was Italy. Can't recall who in Italy.

    Bush takes all the blame by you, by Wilson and perhaps Plame herself, or maybe she had no view, for talking of Niger. Wilson even went to Niger.

    Anyway, given that Saddam had stockpiles of Yellowcake, we know for certain he bought it from some country.

    Had Bush written a book running down Wilson or Plame, and not vice versa, you would have a point. But Bush never targeted them.
     
  3. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I forgot this point. Why are you targeting Rove? I noticed the Wikipedia article was very vague.

    Oh and this. You first stated Bush never invaded Iraq. Then when I proved Bush had invaded Iraq, you double pumped as if the invasion really was not bad ... I mean Bush 41 hurled massive forces into Iraq. Do you know Bush 41 hurled far more troops into Iraq than did Bush 43? The book co authored by Clancy and Fred Franks explains in great detail that invasion. He had the so called left hook part of the war.

    Armitage. So, him saying it was a mistake pleases you enough you don't really hold him accountable?

    I never understood why Democrats let Armitage slide to focus on the one person that Novak did not get the information from. Karl Rove.

    As I recall the story, Novak surprised Rove by saying his information came from Armitage and asked if Rove would confirm it.

    Per Rove, his comment to Novak was that he had himself heard the same story told by Armitage.

    Rove insists this did not confirm the story.

    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...tes-roves-account-of-cia-leak/comment-page-4/
     
  4. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From FACT Check, the yellow cake was in Iraq and was sold to a company in Canada once Bush defeated Saddam.

    http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/uranium-in-iraq/

     
  5. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    Complaints from whom, the admins? Around here, I've seen entire threads disappear, but I've never gotten any admins telling me my posts were too long, laugh :p. I can cut up longer posts into more then one post if it'd help. I see that you've essentially done that with my post. You want me to run it by a word count and create a new post every time I go over a certain amount of words ;-)?

    So if you like Bush, that means you're biased? I can certainly believe that who you support says something about you, but let's judge each other's arguments by their merits, not by who we do or don't support.

    I don't remember asking you to prove it. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else.

    When did I say that Rove was the primary source? He was the secondary source:
    http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/28/valerie-plame-cia-outing-colossally-stupid/

    Who do you think I'm making excuses for?

    He lied to protect the higher ups and Bush Jr. commuted his sentence.

    Clinton never outed an undercover CIA operative.

    I'm not sure that his treatment was unfair. Aside from lying about how he learned about Valerie Plame's identity, he also leaked Plame's name, he just wasn't the only one to do so.


    Wilson went out of his way to reveal the hell that the Bush administration had put them through. He published his book in 2004. He was put through hell in 2003. You really should check dates before you make accusations... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson#The_Politics_of_Truth

    I'll let Snopes.com do the talking (a site dedicated to debunking falsehoods)...
    **The yellowcake removed from Iraq in 2008 was material that had long since been identified, documented, and stored in sealed containers under the supervision of U.N. inspectors. It was not a "secret" cache that was recently "discovered" by the U.S, nor had the yellowcake been purchased by Iraq in the years immediately preceding the 2003 invasion. The uranium was the remnants of decades-old nuclear reactor projects that had put out of commission many years earlier: One reactor at Al Tuwaitha was bombed by Israel in 1981, and another was bombed and disabled during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Moreover, the fact that the yellowcake had been in Iraq since before the 1991 Gulf War was plainly stated in the Associated Press article cited in the example above**

    Source: "Have Your Yellowcake" - http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/yellowcake.asp

    From "Have your Yellowcake" article, it would appear that the man who may have forged the documents was Ledeen. That being said:
    **Despite all the speculation, there are no fingerprints connecting Ledeen to the Niger documents. Even his fiercest adversaries will concede this. “In talking to hundreds of people, no one has given us a hint linking Ledeen to the Niger documents,” says Carlo Bonini of La Repubblica, which is facing a defamation suit by Ledeen in Italy.**

    If he did it, he hid the evidence well, and it looks like he had help in doing so.

    When did I say that Bush should take all the blame? I haven't actually seen any evidence that Bush had anything to do with leaking Valerie's name.

    Yes, ofcourse. As can be easily surmised from the Snopes article, he bought it all before 1991, after which his nuclear reactors were toast.

    And I never accused Bush of targetting them. As to others in his administration, including Rove and Cheney, that's another matter entirely.
     
  6. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    ** White House political adviser Karl Rove was one of Robert Novak's sources for the 2003 disclosure of a CIA operative's identity, the syndicated columnist wrote Tuesday...**

    Source: "Novak: Rove confirmed Plame's identity" - http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/07/11/cia.leak/index.html

    Yes, I either forgot or never knew that Bush Sr. got his toes wet in Iraq. The Gulf War had a little under 150 American casualties due to combat. The current war in Iraq had 4,425 Americans in the armed forces killed as of last count in 2012. In other words, the current Iraq war has had around 3000% more casualties then the first. Surely you can tell that the second war was massively more painful to the U.S. then the first?

    Sources: "Gulf War Casualties" - http://www.rense.com/general29/gulf.htm , "Casualties of the Iraq War" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#U.S._armed_forces

    It's not my place to judge him. -My- life wasn't affected. You really should read Valerie Plame's book. Her life certainly was.

    Hopefully, now that I have linked to an article specifically stating that Novak -did- get information from Rove, you will let this one rest.

    Rove insists that he didn't confirm the story, so therefore it must be true, eh :p? How much do you know about Rove anyway?

    **July 8, 2003 – Columnist Robert Novak calls senior White House adviser Karl Rove, according to subsequent media accounts. Novak tells Rove he had heard that Joseph Wilson’s wife, who worked for the CIA, played a role in Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger. Rove confirms the story to Novak without mentioning Valerie Wilson’s name or covert status, saying “I heard that, too.” ( Rove ... Talk on C.I.A. Officer, NY Times, July 2003). Novak will later write that he originally acquired the information from an official who is “no partisan gunslinger.” Novak says, “When I called another official for confirmation, he said: ‘Oh, you know about it.’” (Novak, " CIA Leak" Chicago Sun-Times, Oct 2003).**

    Source: "The Wilson-Plame-Novak-Rove Blame Game" - http://factcheck.bootnetworks.com/article337.html

    A little something on Rove himself:
    "Exposing Karl Rove" - http://rense.com/general31/EXPs.htm
     
  7. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    See how the air brush is used for Bush 41 but apparently either General Tommy Franks or Bush is 100 percent blamed for the losses you cited in Iraq?

    Let's try to compare apples to apples.

    General Schwartzkopf lost the little under 150 Gulf 1. Gulf one lasted 100 hours. This is a net loss of 1.5 men per hour.

    General Tommy Franks spent 3 weeks conquering Saddam Hussein and his losses were about 130. You do the math.

    Losses post the capture of Saddam Hussein amount to in general, post Fallujah, people killed by bombs. bombs planted by roads. Naturally such indiscriminate killing adds up.

    I told you Karl Rove did not leak. He said he heard that too. That is no leak. That can be an assumed confirmation but really???

    - - - Updated - - -

    Joe Wilson went out of his way to destroy the Bush admin. For winning a war no less.
     
  8. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    You don't suppose those crippling sanctions might have had something to do with it? The bottom line is that Bush Sr. realized there was no merit in sticking around in Iraq. Personally, I've found evidence that he was part of the reason Iraq attacked Kuwait to begin with, but atleast he didn't stick around in Iraq long. The result is that there were less then 150 Americans killed instead of 4000+.

    It certainly does. If only Bush Jr. had -thought- about all of these additional deaths that could have been avoided if he'd left after, say, 3 weeks.

    Yes, that's what Novak said, Rove's denials notwithstanding.

    Sigh -.-. Joe told the truth. The Bush Administration didn't like it and made his life hell. He then wrote a book about said hell. If -only- his revelations had destroyed the Bush administration, we might have been spared Bush and his administration lasting his full 8 years. I would have greatly appreciated his hasty departure a la Richard Nixon. Alas, it was not to be -.-...
     
  9. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And that droning noise goes on and on and on and sigh on
     
  10. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    That's all you have to say? Figures -.-.
     
  11. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Here is what you had to say

    You read Wilson and Plames book

    And now you are the expert.:roflol:
     
  12. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    Sigh -.-. I never said I read Wilson's book. You may have also noticed a whole bunch of links to a whole bunch of articles I've been posting? I didn't read them all from beginning to end, but I certainly read them all a bit, and -some- of them from beginning to end. I've certainly posted a lot more links to articles then you have. And yet you are mocking -my- expertise on this subject -.-?
     
  13. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That was a fine post. Short and to the point.

    Sorry but I believed you did read Wilson's book.

    The way you tell her story, Plame is a whiner.

    not you, but her
     
  14. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    Valerie refers to it in her own book (she published her book 3 years after Wilson published his), so I suppose you could say that I know a bit of it by proxy :p.

    Pffft. Plame was heroic. Do you know why Valerie named the book "Fair Game"?
     
  15. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    I'd say that the truth is frequently long and convoluted. If you want, I could cut up posts so that I don't go over a certain word count, but I believe that shortening my responses altogether would be doing a disservice to what I'm trying to point out.

    He did as far as I know. I believe what happened to Tenet is a tragic case of constant pressure to come up with a narrative that the Bush administration liked finally got to him, and he did. If you read between the lines of the following critique of his memoir by the New York Times, this becomes pretty clear in my view:
    **In his much-anticipated and intermittently fascinating new memoir, “At the Center of the Storm,” Mr. Tenet writes that the whole “slam dunk” scene described in Mr. Woodward’s book took his words out of context and “had been fed deliberately to Woodward” by someone in the White House eager to shift blame from the White House to the C.I.A. for what turned out to be a failed rationale for the Iraq war. In short, he says, he and the agency were set up as “fall guys,” and he was made to look like a fool — rising up, throwing his arms in the air and saying those two words, as if he were “Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah Winfrey’s couch.”

    In fact, Mr. Tenet says he doubts that W.M.D.’s were the principal cause of the United States’ decision to go to war in Iraq in the first place, that it was just “the public face that was put on it.” The real reason, he suggests, stemmed from “the administration’s largely unarticulated view that the democratic transformation of the Middle East through regime change in Iraq would be worth the price.”

    Mr. Tenet notes that his “slam dunk” remarks came “10 months after the president saw the first workable war plan for Iraq,” and “two weeks after the Pentagon had issued the first military deployment order sending U.S. troops to the region.” He points out that many senior Bush administration officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq long before 9/11, and that Mr. Cheney asked Bill Clinton’s then-departing secretary of defense, William Cohen, before the 2001 inauguration to give the incoming president a comprehensive briefing on Iraq and detail possible future actions.
    **

    Source: "An Ex-C.I.A. Chief on Iraq and the Slam Dunk That Wasn’t" - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/28/books/28kaku.html++

    I've certainly never seen any evidence of that. I decided to google around though, and I'll give you some credit: counterpunch can't seem to decide who was worse, Bush Sr. or Jr.:
    "Like Father Like Son: George W. Bush Was Bad, His Father May Have Been Worse" - http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11...-bush-was-bad-his-father-may-have-been-worse/

    I must admit, that was a very interesting read. Personally, my favourite part was this one:
    **On one particularly thorny policy issue on which his advisors had strong and deep disagreements, over the course of two weeks we (his senior advisors) held a series of three 90-minute meetings with the President. Shortly after the third meeting we asked for his OK to do a fourth. He said, “How about rather than doing another meeting on this, I instead tell you now what each person will say.” He then ran through half a dozen of his advisors by name and precisely detailed each one’s arguments and pointed out their flaws. (Needless to say there was no fourth meeting.)**

    Assuming that this and other things written in that article are actually true, then I admit that I misjudged him. That being said, there is no way I will ever think that invading Iraq was a smart decision (and yes, that goes for Bush Sr.'s mini invasion as well, but he atleast had the wisdom to withdraw very early in the game, something which can't be said for Bush Jr.). Perhaps the best way to put it would be that in a blind man's world, the one eyed man is king. Bush may have been first amoung his neocon peers, but the economic and military policies of neocons is simply disastrous.
     
  16. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    At least you turned around and admit the story of Bush intelligence can be true. I knew he was intelligent during 2008. before Democrats started this trash talking against the man. Prior to the election, Bush met at Palo Alto, ca with the smart people from Stanford. Most knew how he talked so were expecting "aw shucks." What they got is the same people got when he was president. Rapid absorption of data, long term great memory and so forth. They came away amazed at his grasp. No, you don't agree with his wars, but the man should never be underestimated since he is very very smart.

    By the way, read enough books by various authors and you learn Bush was not as impacted by the Neocons as Bill Clinton had been. Neocons wrote Clinton that famous letter and Clinton followed their guidelines.

    While you don't think the invasion was a good idea, the Bill Clinton duo of him and Hillary believed in it. She voted to go to war. Democrats in General gin up this claim they got fooled. Well, they got fooled not during Bush, but during Clinton. Read the laws passed by Bill Clinton on Iraq. Read his claim of why he bombed Saddam Hussein's country.

    I bet you see Bill Clinton as smart. So smart he bombed Yugoslavia on a witch hunt. That was a tragic mistake.
     
  17. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Let's get rid of this she was a victim talking. She was in DC working internally. She had not been on a covert job in a number of years.

    Next, it was Armitage. I easily accept that since it is true. Armitage should not have done it. Point conceded. But to blame others is just not right.

    Scooter Libby was convicted not of leaking, but he perjured himself. That is what he got sentenced for.
     
  18. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Plames lawsuit
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    http://truth-out.org/archive/compon...es-to-hear-plames-lawsuit-against-cheney-rove

    The Supreme Court's rejection effectively brings the three-year-old case to a close. The Wilson's had sued Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Cheney's ex-chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for violating their civil rights. Libby was convicted on four of five counts and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. President George W. Bush later commuted the sentence, sparing Libby jail time.
    "The Wilsons and their counsel are disappointed by the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case, but more significantly, this is a setback for our democracy," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an attorney representing the Wilsons. "This decision means that government officials can abuse their power for political purposes without fear of repercussion. Private citizens like the Wilsons, who see their careers destroyed and their lives placed in jeopardy by administration officials seeking to score political points and silence opposition, have no recourse."
    US District Court Judge John Bates dismissed the civil lawsuit two years ago. At the time, Bates wrote, as a technical legal matter, Plame and Wilson can't sue under the Constitution. Bates added that the defendants - Cheney, Rove, Libby, and others -had the right to rebut criticism aimed at Wilson, who accused the administration of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence. Bates said the leak of Plame's undercover CIA status to a handful of reporters was "unsavory," but simply a casualty of Wilson's criticism of the administration.
     
  19. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    I see you've bought the Bush administration story hook, line and sinker. The truth is something entirely different. David Corn of The Nation puts such harmful rumours in their place:
    **A year ago, in our book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Michael Isikoff and I disclosed for the first time that Valerie Wilson was operations chief at the Joint Task Force on Iraq of the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA’s clandestine operations directorate. She was no paper-pusher or analyst, as Novak and others had said. She was in charge of covert operations on a critical front. (Isikoff and I detailed some of her work in the book.) As part of her job, she traveled overseas under cover. CBS News recently reported that it had confirmed she had also worked on operations designed to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing nuclear weapons. Ironic? Ask Dick Cheney.

    And Valerie Wilson was not known about Washington as a spy. Though Cliff May has made this argument, in the years since the Novak column appeared, no one in Washington has come forward to say, “Oh yes, I knew about her before Novak outed her.” In fact, Valerie Wilson was a mid-level, career CIA officer–there must be hundreds, if not thousands–and such people are (to be frank) not usually on the radar screen of Washington insiders. They are not known regulars on the D.C. cocktail circuit, such as it is. Ask Sally Quinn.

    For her part, Valerie Wilson, who left the CIA at the end of 2005, has only recently been able to challenge the purposefully misleading descriptions of her CIA tenure. Appearing before the House government oversight and reform committee in March, she testified the she was a “covert officer” who had helped to “manage and run operations.” She said that prior to the Iraq invasion she had “raced to discover intelligence” on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. “I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions,” she said under oath, “to find vital intelligence.” She noted that she could “count on one hand” the number of people outside the CIA who knew of her spy work.*
    *

    Source: Plamegate Finale: We Were Right; They Were Wrong - http://www.thenation.com/article/plamegate-finale-we-were-right-they-were-wrong/

    Have you ever wondered why Armitage knew what Wilson's wife did? Plame made it clear that -very- few people knew what she did for a living before the leak outside of the CIA. Armitage wasn't in the CIA. Have you never wondered who leaked her identity to -him-? I can't help but think of the fact that it was Cheney's office that requested the CIA once again look into whether Nigeria had recently sold yellowcake to Iraq, despite the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria reporting that the report was rubbish. Was he the one? We may never know. This, I suspect, is what everyone was trying to cover up. Who was the -original- leaker, not to the press, but to Armitage and Rove?

    Also, there is the following article that I read a while ago from Sam Blumenfeld from The New American. Wikipedia describes The New American as "a print magazine published twice a month by American Opinion Publishing Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the John Birch Society (JBS)." The John Birch Society is in turn an organization that wikipedia states has **been described as a radical right and far-right organization.[5][6][7][7][8][/I]**, so I'm not sure as to the veracity of everything the article says, but I still find it interesting. I haven't tried to fact check many of the assertions made, but I haven't heard that they are false yet either. Here it is:
    The Truth About the Valerie Plame Case Finally Emerges - http://www.thenewamerican.com/revie...-about-the-valerie-plame-case-finally-emerges

    Blumenfeld agrees that Armitage is the one who leaked Plame's identity but argues that the blame for the Plame affair lasting so long can be squarely placed at the feet of Colin Powell and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.


    And then his sentence was commuted by Bush, though he didn't pardon him and the fine was left intact, despite Cheney urging him to pardon him (why do you think Cheney was so keen on pardoning him?). The question I'd like to ask Scooter is, why did he lie? Was he protecting Cheney as the true source of his knowledge on Valerie?
     
  20. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    Smart in some things maybe, but not in others.

    What letter are you referring to? Also, I must point out that 9/11 didn't happen on Clinton's watch, and he also didn't launch 2 wars against 2 separate countries for illegitimate reasons, and which, far from 'cakewalks', continue to be occupied by U.S. soldiers to this day.

    I'm not justifying bombing Iraq, but what Clinton did was minor in comparison to what Bush Jr. did. Even Bush Sr. never got close to the costs involved in Bush Jr's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    Unlike many of the wars recently launched by the U.S. (including the attacks on Libya and Syria launched by Obama), the war in the Balkans was much more of an international effort, and today the UN is the one who is overseeing peacekeeping operations instead of it simply being a "coalition of the willing". In many ways, it could be seen as Madeline Albright's war, who didn't want a repeat of what happened with Hitler's Germany.
     
  21. phoenyx

    phoenyx Well-Known Member

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    I've liked some articles from truthout, but I have to say they messed up what Bates had actually said. They made it sound like Cheney, Rove and Libby were trying to rebut criticism aimed at -Wilson- :p. This is what Bates actually said:
    **The merits of plaintiffs' claims pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials. Defendants' motions, however, raise issues that the Court is obliged to address before it can consider the merits of plaintiffs' claims. As it turns out, the Court will not reach, and therefore expresses no views on, the merits of the constitutional and other tort claims asserted by plaintiffs based on defendants' alleged disclosures because the motions to dismiss will be granted...The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory. But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush Administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials. Thus, the alleged tortious conduct, namely the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's status as a covert operative, was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform.[31]**

    Source: Plame Affair - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair

    I think Bates let the defendants off way too easily, but what's done is done. The good news is that there is a lot of evidence which clearly show that the Bush Administration rewarded Joe Wilson's truth telling with misery, hardly a good sign for an Administration.
     

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