Presidential Race

Parent Cafe
701

<p>Seems you have your logic just a little screwy there, FF. </p>

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<p>So far, the terrorists have killed 3000 Americans. We are responsible for the deaths of over 3000 more Americans, for sending them into this immoral war. And we are responsible for the deaths of a countless number of Iraqi…100K, 600K, who knows, since no one deems their lives worth counting.</p>

<p>So let’s look at the death scoreboard.<br>
Terrorists: 3000
Americans: 100,000-600,000</p>

<p>Seem that they would feel that WE are trying to kill as many of THEM as possible, not the other way around.</p>

<p>Oh, the irony.</p>

702

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<p>This administration deliberately refused to make a plan for a very obvious contingency. Worse, it threatened to fire anyone who even suggested planning. That to me is categorically very different from an oversight identified in hindsight. </p>

<p>Do you have any evidence that the US administration in WWII deliberately sunk efforts to plan for the situations you describe? Or that they crippled their own effectiveness in key areas by firing respected experts in favor of ineffective loyalists?</p>

703

<p>Speaking of evidence, Conyat, please do provide some concerning your allegations.</p>

704

<p>FundingFather:</p>

<p>From the dates, I assume that the DNI memo you linked was prepared by Negroponte. He has been rewarded with the Deputy Sec State job and probably promised the Sec State promotion when Rice inevitably “gets while the getting is good” like Rumsfeld. No way that Rice wants to keep testifying under oath before Congressional committees.</p>

<p>I laughed out loud when I read the section on Abu Zubaydah’s torture. He was extensively covered in the The One Percent Doctrine, largely because he was the first Al Queda operative who was tortured.</p>

<p>It’s hard to even know where to start. Most of the valuable information came from his computer files and e-mail logs – which gave the CIA and FBI contacts points to feed into their data mining engines.</p>

<p>They also found a diary that he had kept for ten years, written from the perspective of his three multiple-personalities. Turns out the guy had suffered a head injury years earlier and was certifiably nuts. The FBI analyst in charge of reviewing his diary, Dan Colman, described him as follows:</p>

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<p>The tortured the hell out of him. And got nothing but garbage. He told his interrogators that Al Queda was going after shopping malls. And water systems. And nuclear plants. And apartment buildings. And banks. And was building a crude nuclear device. Basically, anything they wanted to hear.</p>

<p>It is true that he linked the code name “Muhktar” to KSM. But, not from torture. A CIA interrogator formed a bond with the guy, spending hours talking about the Koran. They talked about the guy’s belief in predestiny based on passages in the Koran. Eventually, the CIA convinced him that he was predestined to help. It was actually just the opposite of torture working. What finally worked with this guy was old-fashioned trust building.</p>

<p>BTW, two breaks that lead to the capture of KSM and Ramzi bin Al-Shihb.</p>

<p>First, was an Al-Jazeerah reporter who was flown to Karachi for a two day interview with KSM and Al-Shihb. He reported back to his bosses at Al-Jazeerah who kicked him upstairs to the chairman who relayed the story to his cousin the Emir of Quater who passed it along to Washington. The information allowed the CIA to set up a massive electronic eavesdropping net over a neighborhood in Karachi. This led to a raid that resulted in the capture of the two men’s families, but missed KSM.</p>

<p>A walk-in informant (who is now living in the US under protection with the $25 million reward in his pocket) subsequently led to the capture of KSM.</p>

<p>The entire story is told in The One Percent Doctrine.</p>

705

<p>I already linked to an article about how they fired the world renowned expert in wartime hospital rebuilding with a Bush loyalist adoption social worker. The article I linked has other examples. Did you read it?</p>

<p>And the administration threatening to fire people who suggested planning for an occupation falls under common knowledge. Here’s just one example: <a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php[/url]”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_09/009469.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

706

<p>“Well, let’s look at this statement logically: according to mini the US committed genocide in the 90’s and therefore we should generate no sympathy from the world. Yet, in his second sentence he says that Iran showed us sympathy after 9/11. Something doesn’t add up with this logic.”</p>

<p>It is absolutely and perfectly logical. When I worked for the U.S. government in Iran while Iranians were being tortured, the Iranians quite easily made a distinction between the American people and the American government, the latter training the torturers in Georgia (later, while a Pres. from Georgia ruled the roost), supplying the torture equipment, and overseeing the torture chambers. It was the ability to make this distinction (which may have been far too generous) that literally led to the taking of the American hostages in 1979. My Iranian students truly believed that the democratic, freedom-loving, and compassionate American people, armed with information about what the American government had been doing to them (the Iranians), would rise up and overthrow their own government, the AMERICAN government. So they assumed simply that the American people didn’t have the information - hence the hostage-taking. They were quite logical - just naive.</p>

<p>The Iranians refused Al Qaeda any presence in Iran during the 1990s, and imprisoned several dozen of them. They didn’t train any of the suicide aviators, unlike former members of the U.S. military. They helped the U.S. overthrow the Taliban, and have consistently refused Taliban survivors to cross over the border. And as noted, the first large pro-U.S. show of sympathy after 911 occurred five days after the event - in Tehran. </p>

<p>Now, the aggressive and hostile occupiers of Iraq have surrounded their country with 200,000 heavily armed troops, with nuclear carriers directly to their south, and a hostile (and lying, deceiving, and cheating, if not also mad) Pres. making noises about neutralizing the “axis of evil”. They’ve seen what the Americans have done to their neighbors, and are preparing for the worst.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, the Iraqi people watched the same tv show in which Madeleine Albright came right out and admitted genocide as the Americans did. They didn’t blame the American people - they knew that the American people would never countenance the death of half a million children, right? And they knew of Americans - people LIKE ME - who deliberately and intentionally violated the law to try to provide basic antiobiotics to hospitals and clinics, and parts to repair the wastewater treatment plants. Not enough, of course, and the children continued to die on their watch. And until two years ago, my friends – American and Iraqi alike – could walk down streets in Baghdad unarmed and protected, streets on which U.S. soldiers would not dare tread. Now, of course, most of our old friends - the doctors and nurses - have left the country, to a life of misery, cursing the Americans with every second breath.</p>

707

<p>Speaking of intelligence sharing (in the DNI memo), one of the most stunning stories in The One Percent Doctrine is the story of a British Islamic terrorist ringleader. Low profile guy who came to the CIA’s attention, if I recall, through the data mining connections – financial transactions have really been a key. </p>

<p>To make a long story short, he had booked a flight from London to New York. The CIA and FBI knew he was very bad news with major connections. They debated long and hard about allowing him to come to the US and then putting massive resources into tracking him to expose additional connections. Not a couple of agents in a stake out car, but dozens of agents, brushing up against him in subways. Tight surveillance.</p>

<p>Finally, they decided that they just couldn’t risk it. So they added him to the no-fly list. He showed up at Heathrow and was denied boarding – the first inkling he had that he had been fingered.</p>

<p>So, he cancels his plans and quietly returns to his London life. A year or so later, he masterminded the London subway bombings. Apparently, the US had neglected to apprise the UK intelligence officials about just how bad news this guy was.</p>

708

<p><a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_go_co/congress_spending[/url]”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070131/ap_on_go_co/congress_spending&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Veterans got a $3.6 billion increase from the House for medical care.</p>

709

<p>“We are responsible for the deaths of over 3000 more Americans, for sending them into this immoral war. And we are responsible for the deaths of a countless number of Iraqi…100K, 600K, who knows”</p>

<p>Allmusic,</p>

<p>How do you sleep at night bearing responsibility for all those deaths?? How about proposing a punishment for yourself as well (I assume you are American).</p>

710

<p>I don’t feel responsibiity for them (thanks for the sarcasm though). </p>

<p>I blame these deaths on this villainous group of mendicants who happen to be heading our government. They should all be tried for war crimes and Bush should be impeached. </p>

<p>Next question?</p>

711

<p>Allmusic–I couldn’t agree with you more!</p>

712

<p>Moreover, while I don’t want any new more troops sent to Iraq, if the administration insists, I think they should send:</p>

<p>a) the Bush twins</p>

<p>b) all the College Republicans who support this war but, like Dick Cheney during Vietnam, have other priorities</p>

<p>c) the sons and daughters of all the CC posters who support our idiotic so-called president and this arrogantly conceived, incompetently executed misadventure. Have them drop out of school and volunteer now. You can put aside CC until they return. If they do.</p>

713

<p>So you support the draft now? Be careful what you wish for, because if there is a draft I’m sure it will involve young females as well as young males.</p>

<p>The last time I checked, an all-volunteer army was just that. It’s not up to parents to send their now-adult offspring, and that includes the President’s kids. As someone said earlier, why don’t those of you who are so opposed to the war in Iraq agree to stop whining unless YOU have kids in Iraq That’s the same as all of the ridiculous suggestions that CC posters who have some sense of patriotism should only speak if they treat their children like chattel and force them to enlist.</p>

714

<p>Hey, why not send Cheney? He’s an experienced hunter. I’m sure he’d love to fill a Sunni insurgent with buckshot.</p>

715

<p>I’d prefer the war crimes trial (but I’m not holding my breath.)</p>

716

<p>ID, you say that negroponte is a liar but then place your entire trust in an author who does not provide sources for his information. Doesn’t it make you just a tad uneasy about the credibility of his “reporting” when he quotes conversations between Tenet and Bush as if he was sitting in the same room with a tape recorder?</p>

<p>On the other hand I have seen other reports from interogators that confirm what Negroponte says about the effectiveness of techniques like waterboarding.</p>

<p>You can go with some guy who is making a lot of money on a book with little to no attribution, but I think I’ll choose to be a bit skepitcal about it.</p>

717

<p>Interestingly the author of the McCain doctrine has a son who has enlisted in the marines.</p>

718

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<p>I always try to evaluate the sources and the biases of authors. Just as I did in reading the Bob Woodward books about the Bush White House. Some of the sources for The One Percent Doctrine are obvious from reading the book. For example, the detail on the data mining project is impressive, starting with the phone call to the FBI on 9/12/2001 from the world’s largest credit card clearing operation that started the ball rolling. It didn’t hurt when Tenant talked the company into providing additional data from the company’s subsidiary, Western Union.</p>

<p>In this case, the proof is in the pudding, isn’t it? There were no WMD. I don’t know about you, but I started to get a real queasy feeling as I watched Fox News night after night after the Iraq invasion and nothing was unearthed.</p>

<p>So, when I read accounts of high level intelligence analysts who say they knew, and reported, that there were no WMDs, it all starts to fit, right?</p>

<p>We know from all accounts, including Woodward (who used Powell as a major source), that Powell wanted to give that UN speech like he wanted a root canal. His sections of the Woodward books were pure CYA.</p>

<p>I have watched Negroponte testify before several Senate committees. I am not impressed. His testimony last year as DNI on the data mining was dripping with “screw you” arrogance, much like Condoleeza Rice’s testimony.</p>

<p>It is what it is:</p>

<p>a) EVERY account from EVERY player confirms that the Bush administration had already set a top priority of taking out Sadaam long before 9/11. There is not even any debate about that.</p>

<p>b) We know the books were cooked on WMD. There weren’t any.</p>

<p>c) We know that Bush authorized interrogation practices counter to the Geneva convention because the legal opinions from the Bush White House state that the Geneva Convention didn’t apply.</p>

<p>d) We know that post-war reconstruction efforts in Iraq were botched.</p>

<p>I didn’t kill the administration’s credibility. They did it to themselves.</p>

719

<p>It is interesting that the NIE and virtually all the commentators on Iraq ignore the FIFTH group in Iraq, namely, the non-Baathist secularists. Yes, they may have been Sunni or Shia or Kurd, but they often intermarried. They had been western in orientation, and provided the intellectual backbone of Iraqi society, its excellent health care and collegiate education systems. They did poorly under the later years of the Baathist regime (the Baathist previously having also been pro-Western, and supported by the U.S. through the Reagan Admininstration), and they hoped for better times, including western-style democracy, ahead.</p>

<p>When the American occupiers came and set up the puppet Provisional government, they were entirely ignored, in favor of “ethnic allocations”. Under such a system, there was no place for them to go. And as the U.S. occupiers aided the Sunni against the Shia, they were pushed into a position of either supporting the insurgents, or leaving the country. They have, now more than a million of them.</p>

<p>Every day the U.S. stays in Iraq, the possibility of these folks having any future in the country grows dimmer and dimmer. It may already be past the point of no return, with U.S. aggressors either paving the way for a Shia oligarchy, or protracted internecine warfare. Yes, there may be worse to come, but it is specifically of the occupiers’ making, and gets even worse the longer they are there.</p>

720

<p>The secular, educated Iraqis are the people that my heart really bleeds for. There are several of them blogging. Fervently hopeful for stability and secular democracy. They are the big losers and Iraq will suffer for a long time as a result of their getting out of dodge.</p>

<p>I think what really happened was that Sadaam has decimated the political institutions. So, in the vaccuum after the invasion, the only organized centers were the sectarian groups. They had an automatic edge in the elections, which were probably held way too early.</p>