Conservatives Hoping that Pelosi Attacks Will Keep the Truth About Torture Buried
The whole series of recent attacks on Nancy Pelosi has been a bit bizarre. Whether you love torture or despise it, and whether you believe Pelosi or not, there’s just no way of looking at the history of torture in America in which Pelosi comes out as anything other than a bit player. So it’s good to see what Faiz Shakir points out here, a montage of conservatives explaining that the point of this Pelosi mau-mauing is to try to intimidate progressives into abandoning efforts to investigate what, exactly, was done and why:
Pelosi, to her credit, has stood firm against this. She’s consistently not only defended herself, but defender her position in favor of establishing a truth commission to get to the bottom of all of this. But the right is hoping to scare her into tossing her principles overboard in an effort to keep herself out of controversy.
100 Responses to “Conservatives Hoping that Pelosi Attacks Will Keep the Truth About Torture Buried”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Look, it’s becoming pretty obvious that the next thing to be leaked will be Nancy in September of ‘02 asking if waterboarding were going far enough in the way of enhanced interrogation. And her tactic of ‘Blame Bush’? Oh, please, times were different in the wake of 9/11, enhanced interrogation clearly saved American lives, and if Nancy Pelosi had any principles at all, she would justify her past support of waterboarding, as she can, instead of shifting the blame to people who protected us, and saved further lives. This whole brouhaha is rather amusing to the opposition as it has a number of fault lines, all damaging to Democrats, especially Pelosi, Obama, and even Panetta. And God help the Democrats the next time their is an act of terrorism on our soil. The obvious question is going to be what didn’t the Democrats do to protect us.
It’s probably too late for the Democrats to save themselves on this issue, but they better start rowing in reverse with all due diligence and dispatch.
========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
And do you suppose that Panetta backed up the truthfulness of the CIA without getting political direction from the White House? Pelosi is on thin ice, and I can hear the cracking all the way over here. ‘Blame Bush’ is an awfully thin lifeline for the trouble she is in.
=====================================
May 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Is kim the new spoof?
May 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
“Keep the truth buried”. Oh, how funny. The truth is that back then the Democrats supported enhanced interrogation and the War in Iraq. Let’s see that old Wayback Machine. Please.
===========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Omigod, and here I’ve sworn to myself to restrict my discussion to climate related issues. Well, this one was just too tempting. Yeah, let’s have a ‘Truth Commission’. Under oath, too, and Nancy and Jay Rockefeller among the first witness, the lying so and sos. Bring it ON!
=======================================
May 16th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Goddamn, is this depressing. I used to listen to a friend of mine’s father, a Vietnam vet, bitch about “The Democrats War”. Lyndon Johnson, etc… At least that took a few decades, GWB and everything the wingnuts wanted is down the memory hole barely 100 days after their political program left power.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
I like kim, but I don’t think he’s quite robotic enough.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Yes Kim, because what Pelosi knew and when she knew it is WAY WORSE than what Bush and Cheney ordered done.
Don’t you have a goat to blow in some bar in Tijuana for money or have you gone Galt?
May 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Folks, this is what I warned about on the previous thread. Fuckface kim is a perfect example of the Rethuglican noise machine attempting to deflect the real blame for the “enhanced interrogation techniques” away from the pot smoking, coke snorting, draft dodging liar George W. Bush and his draft dodging Vice President, fascist goat fucker Dick Cheney. It was Bush and Cheney who ordered “enhanced interrogation techniques”, not to obtain intelligence, but to force confessions of a fictitious tie between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to justify the invasion of Iraq, in order to steal Iraqs’ oil.
And by the way, just to show that Mr. kim is a fucking liar, Representative Pelosi voted against authorizing the invasion of Iraq and Representative Jane Harmon demurred approving the “enhanced interrogation techniques” and put her demurral in writing.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Why do the have this sneaking suspicion that the more the Republicans endorse the CIA in the Pelosi fiesta the more they are in a trap when some CIA “smoking gun” on Cheney comes out or some intelligence estimate on Iraq or Iran that runs counter to the official Republican, neocon position on those countries emerges? Bye the bye, the CIA is not exactly Cheney’s friend. And Obama and Emanuel knows all this and are just waiting.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I’m curious as to why Republicans think the electorate would punish politicians like Pelosi if it turned out, in the course of an extensive investigation, that she might have heard something about “enhanced interrogation” or whatever euphenism the CIA and the Bush administration were using for torture somewhere along the way.
Look at Pelosi’s risk factors here: you have a bunch of voters, legal figures, FBI officials, and even some CIA employees angry at what the contractors had engaged in that want a full disclosure and maybe some punishment for the people who justified and ordered the use of torture. You think that Pelosi would be threatened or become a target of any of these interests if it came out that the CIA’s claims about their briefings were true (which, based on Graham’s notes, likely is not)? What does Pelosi risk, exactly, if an investigatory commission is ordered?
This Pelosi kerfluffle is being pushed by republicans either because they’re stupid and don’t understand this (highly likely, perhaps even extremely highly when it comes to the right-wing lemmings repeating it), or they feel it is a nothing-issue that can create a media distraction (like they’re made-up claims about “pelosi’s airplane!”). The higher-ups pushing the story are most likely just concentrating on trying to control the media cycle this week. The problem is that controlling the media cycle for the week doesn’t actually change anything: the investigations will go through regardless.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
If you believe that the policies were wrong – and especially if you believe they were criminal – then Pelosi had a responsibility to speak up when she learned about them. The fact that she was silent meant that she – and the rest of the Dems who knew – either
– tacitly approved, and only yelled when they decided there was a political play to make
– were too cowardly to say anything, even though they disapproved
– didn’t really care one way or the other
For people who opposed the policies that were used, none of those things make the Dems look good. It’s time to face up to the reality that all the players in DC knew about this stuff, and – at minimum – tacitly approved.
If you want prosecutions and a clean sweep of those who were complicit, it’ll include a lot of Democrats. That’s fine; just don’t expect the people who run the house and senate now to go cheerfully into the political wilderness.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
There is a useful lesson here. If you’re in a intelligence briefing and somebody brings up waterboarding, start screaming.
If Pelosi had made a firm stand against it, she could well have prevented the waterboarding in the first place.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
If you want prosecutions and a clean sweep of those who were complicit, it’ll include a lot of Democrats. That’s fine; just don’t expect the people who run the house and senate now to go cheerfully into the political wilderness.
One especially funny aspect of the right-wing in the United States is that when caught, they make exactly the same claims about the U.S. political system as Ralph Nader or Noam Chomsky.
May 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Calipygian, 8. The CIA asked the Administration what the limits of interrogation were, and the Administration hired lawyers to carefully review the laws. Victoria Tsoening has a nice article in the Opinion Journal this AM about the subject.
SLC, 9. You must be really losing it to get so abusive. I didn’t say that Pelosi supported the War in Iraq, I intimated that many Democrats did, and that is so. In my opinion, Jane Harmon is the only one of the actors and actresses here who is coming out smelling like a rose. And what did Pelosi do to her with respect to the Intelligence Committee? You could it up.
=======================================
May 16th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
If you want prosecutions and a clean sweep of those who were complicit, it’ll include a lot of Democrats.
Presumably that’s up to the voters in Pelosi’s congressional district to decide when the facts come out. The people who deserve punishment, however, are in the executive branch, and uncovered what they said and what they ordered is important at the moment.
Plus, James, keep in mind there’s an aspect of self-interest here on the part of the Republicans– the republican party was out front in supporting torture and the Bush administration and many of their cronies were tasked with legally justifying it and carrying it out. It’s in their interest to lie and mislead in an attempt to intimidate Democrats who were powerless at the time about what they told them. If anything, they were, perhaps, even doing this on purpose with their briefings in a misguided attempt to blackmail Democrats into going along with their ideas under the guise of, “if you oppose this, we’ll claim that you knew all along.” Typically mafia-type tactics from a criminal administration… tactics supported, interestingly, by voters who ended up becoming toadies of that criminal administration.
James, I might add that it’s pathetic what you’ve been reduced to defending to justify your misguided votes and support for Bush in 2000-2008. I swear it’s sad to see so many people who I had always regarded as “decent Republicans” to give themselves over to such rank dishonesty and immorality. It’s just proof that the Republican party demands that their followers prostitute themselves for the cause and that the party is a corrupting force on their activists.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
There is no evidence that Pelosi approved of the “enhanced interrogation techniques.” At most, as we sit here today, she can be accused of doing nothing to prevent their implementation. The real culprits are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, etc. The let’s concentrate on them and ignore dickhead kims’ effort to deflect blame on Pelosi. Let’s concentrate the attention on the Rethuglican administration that lied us into a war to steal Iraqs’ oil and used torture (let’s call a spade a spade) to illicit false confessions of ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to justify that war, just like the North Koreans and Chinese did in the Korean War and the North Vietnamese did in the Vietnam War (see John McCain). And just to be fair here, although Jane Harmon was with the angels on torture, she supported and voted for the Iraq war so she should not be let off the hook here.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The irony here, aside from the fact that Republicans are never intentionally ironic, is that their failure to be able to deliver a message as anything other than a fear mongering doomsday rant is advancing the cause of full disclosure and leaving Pelosi no room to do anything other than double down on pushing for a truth commission.
The miscalculate time and again because they believe everything boils down to belligerence and toughness and forcing your opponents to obey your will. Humans are not wired that way. Even apparent temporary success masks the more significant backlash. It doesn’t work with other countries, allied or not, terrorists, even lily livered congressional Democrats.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
If Pelosi knew, she goes to jail too. No quarter for any of this. If any other Democrat knew, they go down too.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
kim,
You’re new here. I’ll say this, but almost everyone here believes it. We all hope that youy die very painfully (and soon) in a fire, and then burn in hell for all eternity. Now, I personally feel even stronger – I also want to you to be ass raped by Satan for all eternity.
But at least, please go away, and hang out with similarly inclinced moral monsters, instead of spewing your hatred and ignorance upon an audience that doesn’t appreciate it.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
And I mean that in conjunction with Cheney and the rest. Those who knew, go down. All of them. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, an Independent, Socialist, Communist. Find out who knew, when they knew it and then prosecute.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
the entire strategy has been woefully transparent from the beginning.
and unfortunately, dems have played their typical role – the folding political wimp – perfectly.
the situation reminds me of a chapter from my past.
for a very short time, i dated a pathological liar.
it took me a short time to figure out that she was a pathological liar. and when i finally confronted her on one of her certifiably loony lies – statements that were contradicted by documents – she went off into an indignant rage and raised the stakes of our conversation to the point where i left it alone. if just wasn’t worth getting into an all-out, relationship-killing argument about that particular issue. but the same thing happened again in a couple of weeks. and then i got it. this was not just an intense and unfortunate set of actions and then reactions; this was a pattern.
this was part of her strategy, one she’d probably used successfully in the past: make any inquiry into her lies so costly and traumatic that anyone who valued a calm and reasonable atmosphere would basically just move on.
finding the truth just wasn’t worth going through all of the drama and screaming that would unfold if the issue was ever really discussed and dissected.
i got out of that situation very quickly, but it was a valuable lesson about a type of behavior i’ve fortunately seen very little of.
republicans essentially do the same thing with dems on any major issue that could damage the party. it happened after watergate, iran/contra, the iraq war lies, the current controversy over torture. the response is never about guilt or innocence. the response is always about how costly it will be to find the truth. republicans always let dems know that if they dare try to find the truth, they will stomp and scream and throw enough tantrums so that the costs of finding the truth will ultimately be extremely high.
and typically dems see this threat, know that it is real, and they back down, acknowledging that they do not want to pay the required costs.
by acquiescing, constantly, anytime republicans raise the heat in this fashion, democrats merely encourage the same pathological cycle: republican lawbreaking, democratic hesitance regarding accountability, republican tantrums to emphasize how costly any accountability will be.
the only way to break that cycle is for this president to actually let the bully know that their old tactics won’t work anymore.
when i was dealing with my serially-lying, ex-girlfriend, i could just get up and walk away and leave that nut to someone who deserved her. obama doesn’t have that luxury.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I’m convinced that Nancy Pelosi has absolutely no opinion on water-boarding, because she’s never given it any thought beyond how her position on the issue impacts her political viability. But I suspect that’s how Nancy roles on most issues.
What’s best about her press conference though, is this: America got to see not only that she’s an opportunist, but that’s she also dumb as a stump.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
voice of reason, 20. Hah, hah, and what would be the voice of hysteria? Rest assured, I spend a lot of time on adversarial boards, and you are pretty tame. Down, boy.
frankie d, 22. Hah, hah again. I thought you were talking about Nancy Pelosi until you veered off the track.
=============================================
May 16th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I suspect RH is right. It’s rare that you see such a pure creature of politics. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her make a principled or mildly competent decision herself. And the ones she latches onto usually aren’t worth a shit.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
frankie d: impossible to read wall of text.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Nancy Pelosi should have broken the law and released any classified or secret information shared with her as the minority leadership of the House of Representatives, given that not only were these torture techniques apparently illegal, but in the eyes of many immoral and unpatriotic as well.
She should have followed the noble precedent of Dick Cheney and the Bush Jr. administration.
They were so worried that the activities of Valerie Plame and the undercover corporation she worked with as part of a massive CIA operation gathering intelligence on WMD-related matters in the Middle East, Brewster Jennings, would get in the way of Our National Interest of faking WMD evidence to prompt a war with Iraq that they disclosed this agent and thus operation to the public via journalists, ensuring that the sedition CIA intelligence gathering operation which stood between us and a made-up reason to invade and occupy Iraq would be ended.
And of course, Dick Cheney and Bush Jr. administration officials were more than happy to declare their willingness to break the law for the greater good of the country and to pay the lawful price for their heroic dissent.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
El Cid, 27. Surely you know that Joe Wilson, yes, that Joe Wilson, Val Plame’s husband, argued in a 2/6/03 op-ed in the LATimes that we should not invade Iraq for fear that Saddam would use his biological and chemical WMD on our troops. Put that in your Iraqi WMD pipe and smoke it. You could look it up.
===========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
kim: Maybe I was away looking for the Whitey tape.
What does Joe Wilson’s op-ed have to do with Dick Cheney and the Bush administration’s willingness to protect American interests by outing a CIA cover agent thus despoiling a CIA intelligence gathering operation which threatened their ability to fake a claim of WMD in Iraq?
The point is that officials should be willing to break the law and expose secret information whenever they think it serves the national interest; this precedent was very firmly established by the Vice President’s office and the entire Bush administration; and they bravely were willing to admit their lawbreaking and suffer the consequences of their illegality so as to serve their greater good of the nation.
May 16th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
El Cid, 29. Richard Armitage is pretty clearly the original leaker of Val Plame’s identity for the thread that led ultimately through the White House. The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Joe Wilson Straight at the White House were the last to figure out what was going on in the Plame Game. Don’t you remember Andrea Mitchell’s comment that all those journalists in the Intelligence loop knew about Val Plame. Joe Wilson himself is the one who originally outed her. And Libby didn’t lie, Tim Russert did.
===================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
El Cid, 29. And you are still not getting it. Joe Wilson claimed that Saddam had WMD. A lot of people back then claimed it, and maybe he did. Furthermore, to the extent that Saddam exaggerated his possession of WMD he did it to keep the Persians at bay. That has been established by recent translations. Even his own inner guard didn’t know the extent to which he did or did not have WMD, so how was the CIA or the White House supposed to know? In fact, our intelligence was fearfully inadequate, and to the extent that was Val Plame’s responsibility it is her fault. Frankly, I don’t think she was much more than a pretty face desk jockey, perfectly willing to sell her soul down the river for a hit on Bush.
============================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Kimmy dude! I thought you just shilled for Big Coal and Big Oil. I’m shocked to find out you shill for Big Torture too.
Who the hell pays you to do that? The Torture Lobby? I know you don’t do pro bono work. Kimmy. Love ya.
Pelosi. Super genius! She put herself up as bait, and incredibly the Republicans have taken it. Let the endless tribunals begin!
May 16th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Max424, 32. Yes, it’s taken a lot to put the CIA on the side of Bush and Cheney, but Super Nancy has pulled it off.
=======================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
kim: I don’t care in the slightest whatever crazy view you hold.
And you can slander anyone you want, but here you are insulting the CIA for spending years building up an operation to gather information on WMD;
…and you are simultaneously slandering the courage of the Bush administration for defying the laws and leaking the identity of that same CIA operation for the patriotic interests of the USA, which included making up evidence about Iraq’s possession of WMD.
The Bush administration proudly defied the law in order to destroy an ongoing CIA undercover intelligence gathering operation in order to serve the greater interests of the nation, which were to invade and occupy Iraq based on false allegations of WMD.
They were then willing to face the full legal consequences of law enforcement in their defiance of the law, and Nancy Pelosi should imitate their bravery.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
El Cid, 34. Here’s Clue One, for you. Joe Wilson, husband of Val Plame, supposedly in charge of Iraqi WMD intelligence, and with a straight line to pillow talk about it, claimed just before the war that Saddam had WMD. This is not my fantasy, this is in the public record. See his LATimes op-ed of 2/5/03. All your blathering pales in comparison to that damning article.
================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
It’s been clear for a long time that the Bushies’ plan was to co-opt Pelosi and company and make them complicit in their lawbreaking so as to avoid any investigation or prosecution. If there’s anything these corrupt incompetents showed us it’s that getting away with shit is all that they know how to do.
But getting away with shit requires all the usual players to go along, which would have been easy with that Permanent Republican Majority in place (whoops, Karl!). Fox News is doing their part, as always. But anyone with a functioning brain understands that whatever Pelosi’s culpability it’s a tiny fraction of Cheney’s, Addington’s, Bush’s, Gonzo’s, etc.
So the plan wasn’t all that well thought out and is now going the way of every other BushCo. plan: disastrous failure.
Only this time it will be fun to watch.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Aw, heck, the LATimes op-ed was on 2/6/03. Not only is he a traitor for lying about what he told the CIA after his trip to Niger, but he is a coward for only bringing up the lack of nuclear WMD after we had failed to find any.
You get the CIA riled up enough, and the Val Plame fantasy is going to fall apart, too.
========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Super Nancy! I like it.
The rank and file at the CIA love Obama. They gave him a ten minute standing ovation when he recently visited. The love for him was palpable. It was like the second coming of Elvis. I’m not worried about the CIA. We got them in the back pocket.
Pelosi? Was she told by the administration that the CIA was “dunking” terrorists? Maybe. Who cares. When the tribunals begin, Pelosi won’t even be an afterthought.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
T-Mac, 36. In your zeal to swallow Pelosi’s line, and to blame Bush, you are forgetting the role of the CIA. They asked Bush’s Administration for cover about enhanced interrogation, they got cover after careful legal deliberation, and they are not about to throw that cover to the sharks. Far easier to trash Pelosi, who is playing a duplicitous game here. They have nothing to fear from Bush, or to gain by trashing him, but plenty to fear from Pelosi, and their careers to gain from doing so. And please don’t forget my conjecture in the first comment; it is likely that on first hearing about waterboarding, Pelosi asked if that was going far enough. It is already in the record that that request was bipartisan. Well, who else but Nancy was involved that early. Do you see the problem that Nancy has? I’m sure she does; that’s why she’s trying to bluff it out and shift blame.
================================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Re kim
Hey folks, don’t fall into the trap of arguing with goat fucker kim, the son of a whore. Mr. kim would fuck his mother if he knew who she was. What Joe Wilson wrote is irrelevant to anything. And his claim that Ms. Plane was outed by her husband if a crock of shit. That’s just mother fucker kim making shit up. She was outed by Karl Rove, currently under investigation for that act.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Max424, 38. Oh, you are a dreamer. The CIA, rank, file, and leadership, career and politically appointed, all opposed Obama’s initial release of the interrogation memos. Have you ever seen anyone smile at you when they were interested in disarming you? Obama has made no friends at the CIA, and Pelosi is growing enemies like Jack of the Beanstalk.
========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Bring it on.
Again, though, the lesson here is that public officials should break any law in order to disclose to the public secret information that they personally know is contrary to The National Interest.
Since the Bush administration and all loyal conservatives knew that the CIA operation known as Brewster Jennings was a horrible fraud getting in the way of serving the National Interests which were to tie WMD to Iraq (even so far as to pretend that Niger yellowcake would matter when Iraq already possessed thousands and thousands and thousands of tons of yellowcake, which was why it was so important to fake Niger documents to distract people from the obvious), it was Brave and True of the Bush administration to destroy an ongoing CIA undercover operation in order to better pursue the true agenda.
And like good, honorable conservatives, they admitted they had broken the law and clarified that they were doing so for the greater good of the nation, that they would disclose any secret information they were required to keep whenever it served the higher national interest, and they would face the full force of the law.
Conservatives know that since they support law & order yet would be willing to break it for the nation’s True National Interests, they are always willing to admit their criminality and pay the legal consequences of their actions, so as not to appear as cowardly opportunists.
May 16th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
SLC, 40. Check out Joe Wilson outing his wife as a source for an early May, 2004 piece in the New York Times. Technically, however, a CIA memo from a year or so earlier outed her. And the cover she had was so thin as to be transparent. Good Lord, she was outed a decade earlier in a communication with Cuba, and by Philip Agee. And she didn’t meet the technical definition of ‘covert’ anyway. You could look it all up.
By the way, why am I calm and you are getting increasingly hysterical? This is not persuasive rhetoric, pal.
===============================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
El Cid, 42. There is an easy answer to your point about the yellowcake. The yellowcake that Saddam already had was under the purview of the IAEA so it couldn’t be further refined. Also, though this is quite conjectural, I suspect that Iraq bought a lot of yellowcake, that was sent over the common border between Niger and Libya to Khaddafi, who was the recipient of two billion dollars from Saddam, possibly to develop a bomb for Iraq. It is probably not co-incidental that Libya’s nuclear program collapsed shortly after the fall of Saddam. I’m not at all certain of all this, but the CIA has a pretty good clue.
============================================
May 16th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I’m glad to see a contemporary reference to Philip Agee; like the Bush administration, and conservatives’ demands of Nancy Pelosi now, Agee believed that it was urgent to disclose any secret information which served the higher purposes of the nation and democracy as he saw fit, which is why Agee as Marchetti before him was cited by so many in the Bush administration as to why they were openly destroying an undercover CIA intelligence gathering front company, they would admit proudly to breaking the law, like Agee, and they would, unlike Agee, be willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions, so as not to make a mockery of their valuing of Law and Order.
Besides, nobody is really undercover unless they dress in a ninja outfit and wear dark sunglasses and operate in the sewers and kill anyone who ever knew them. That’s why you never find histories of high placed operatives among the diplomatic corps or celebrities, because the only way you can be technically covert is to have special invisible holographic camouflage and jump around from building to building like the movie Predator.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
That is the lamest, laziest, stupidest attempt I have ever seen to explain away how Iraq’s possession of thousands and thousands of tons of yellowcake uranium for decades didn’t serve their WMD aspirations but a few more tons supposedly to be bought from Iraqi agents via a representative whose visit to a French owned and guarded facility in the midst of the landlocked Niger in the middle of the desert was reported in the French newspapers, while Iraq was under a complete no-fly zone and border control by the U.S. and the UK…
Well, that’s unfair. It was no lamer, lazier, and stupider than the that presented by the Bush Jr. administration which actually used that argument which was swallowed entirely by the mainstream press.
Thankfully, such base deceit was in Our National Interest, because what was important was that we invade & occupy Iraq, and all else is secondary.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
El Cid, 45. Now you are raving.
El Cid, 46. No, the fact that the yellowcake that they already had was under the control of the IAEA is a perfectly good reason to acquire more unsupervised yellowcake. It’s only your biases that keep you from understanding that. And please remember, that ‘land-locked’ Niger has a long and unguarded border with Libya.
============================
May 16th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
@41 kim: “Obama has made no friends at the CIA”
The CIA rank and file loves him Kimmy. It can’t be denied. There has never more collective love showered on a person than Obama received with his introduction at CIA headquarters. The roof of the building was in grave danger.
The CIA has been waiting for sane leadership for years. They are tired of being a international laughing-stock. Their recent public record is dismal beyond measure. They want to play on a winning team.
The Bush administration abused the CIA. Slapped them around like a cheap whore. Retribution is in order. With the CIA’s help, let the tribunals begin.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Max424, 48. We’ll see. I think you are a fool to think that the career professionals at the CIA can be happy about Obama and his multiple apology tours, but I may be wrong.
===================================================
May 16th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
I’m not raving, and your argument is utterly awful, and always was. It’s not my biases.
The argument that Iraq could resume its previously failed nuclear weapons development program, also under the inspection of the IAEA, by going to get more hundreds of tons of low-grade uranium, and that this hypothetical resumed work would not be noticed by the IAEA while any pilfering of the existing thousands of thousands of tons of low grade uranium already possessed is the silliest of ravings. It’s nonsense. It’s laughable.
The argument that Iraq could quietly and secretly acquire hundreds of tons of yellowcake from the middle of Niger from a French-owned and guarded facility, carry them over land from Niger through Libya and then to Iraq, all without being noticed by the U.S. intelligence agencies, the U.S. military guarding all of Iraqi airspace and the Persian Gulf — that is sheer lunacy.
Both of these are absurd, silly, laughable, absolutely raving mad “arguments”. Neither one of them deserves the word “argument”.
It’s as silly as Reagan mentioning that the Sandinistas were only 2 days’ driving time from Harlingen, Texas, and just as much a dodge. Reagan was never seriously arguing that the Sandinista-Soviet forces could drive up through Honduras and Costa Rica and Guatemala and all of Mexico unnoticed and unstopped — it was just to plant a ridiculous and yet fearful meme in the public mind, for his idiot followers to have the vague feeling that if we didn’t act now, soon there would be some Sandino-lover underneath your child’s bed preparing to touch her.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
The amazing and horrifying thing is that until recently, people only slightly less insane than “kim” were running this country. It’s amazing any of us are still alive.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
El Cid, 50. I think you have a unrealistic view of the overview of the IAEA and of our surveillance. The old yellowcake was being monitored; any new yellowcake smuggled in wouldn’t be. Besides, I think it went to Libya for Khaddafy to build a bomb for Saddam.
qwe, 51. Yes it is amazing there was no further attack domestically by terrorists under the Bush Administration. The odds that that record will continue for another 8 years are pretty small. Now what were you saying about ‘insane’?
=====================================
May 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Who is paying Kim, that is what I want to know. I thought for sure he worked for the coal industry. He usually only works the climate change threads.
I think somebody is very, very, worried that the Pelosi issue will not be nearly enough to check momentum for hearings that will rip the Republican Party to shreds.
Kim! You work for the RNC, don’t you?
May 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
“kim” comes across like a lobotomized M*xn*r.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
@52 kim “it is amazing there was no further attack domestically by terrorists under the Bush Administration.”
Not so amazing, Kim. Al Qaeda has stated many times that its primary objective was to lure American troops into Muslim lands where they could more easily get after them.
Osama bin Laden set the trap and we unwittingly fell into it.
Are we safer? You bet. That is, if you don’t consider American armed forces personnel to be citizens of the United States.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
No one cares what you think.
On the one hand, Saddam couldn’t use his thousands and thousands of tons of yellowcake because the IAEA would have been all over that.
However, reactivating the massive industrial nuclear research required to begin re-processing thousands of new tons of yellowcake from Niger would have slipped underneath the IAEA’s noses.
And now it all doesn’t matter because it wasn’t Saddam pursuing the Niger yellowcake, it was really Khadaffi and Libya, but they would have built their first nuclear weapon and gave it to Saddam Hussein.
So, really, we should have invaded and occupied Libya in order to stop them from acquiring Nigerois low grade, non-enriched uranium, which Libya already possessed hundreds of tons of, because of the imminent threat that Libya would give their nuclear weapon away.
You have no argument and this is a joke, you are a joke, and you’re just spewing bullshit you heard all over the place.
May 16th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Kim! You work for the RNC, don’t you?
My guess is he’s an over-excited intern. First time in the big city, stood three feet away from Newt last night, etc. It’s heady!
May 16th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Why are we assuming that only conservatives are mad at Nancy Pelosi? I am a liberal who is disgusted that, for all her talk about standing up to President Bush, did basically nothing when she had a good idea of what was going on. She acts like she had no power whatsoever to do anything. We finally have a president we are happy with and yet he has to be saddled with someone like Speaker Pelosi who dropped the ball on a very important issue.
My question is how can we expect Speaker Pelosi to accomplish what needs to be done now when she couldn’t do anything back then?
May 16th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
There’s a difference between being mad or not mad at Pelosi for a variety of serious matters and enabling this weird argument that torture couldn’t have been a serious wrong or crime because if in secret briefings Nancy Pelosi was told about the particulars of torture, then she should have resigned in disgust without disclosing what she had been briefed or broken the law and disclosed what she had been briefed on.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Kim is a paid commentator, that was already been established months ago. His area of expertise is climate change obfuscation. What he is doing commenting in this thread is a mystery.
His work in this thread was weak. In the climate change threads he writes well written treatise after well written treatise, pumping them out at five minute intervals. It is quite impressive.
I sense a change, though. Somebody somewhere is very spooked about Torture-Gate and future hearings. I think there is a growing realization that this might be the Republican Party’s last stand. Everybody to the battlements, including climate change Kim.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Conservatives aren’t mad at Pelosi for condoning EIT’s in 2003, but liberals sure should be. That is, if they had any consistency whatsoever. If she had an R by her name, they would be shouting resign from the rooftops.
Conservatives are a little pissed that she basically said the CIA lied to her in a briefing to Congress, which is way against the law, and she has no proof of such lie, their is much more proof confirming Goss, Cheney, the CIA etc.
May 22, 2002: Last Monday night, the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force–a round-the-clock operation at the New York field office of the FBI–got a call from FBI headquarters. Abu Zubaydah, the highest al-Qaeda official to be captured by the U.S., had told interrogators that he had heard other Osama bin Laden loyalists discussing attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and other U.S. landmarks. But, a federal law-enforcement official told TIME, Abu Zubaydah had said the conversations took place a while back and claimed he knew of no particular plan. Since his capture in March, Abu Zubaydah has shared some valuable information, says a senior U.S. intelligence source. “He’s not b.s.ing us on everything.” Then again, says Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, “he is also very skilled at avoiding interrogation. He is an agent of disinformation.”
That’s a quote from CNN. Nancy is a liar.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
@59 El Cid: “if in secret briefings Nancy Pelosi was told about the particulars of torture, then she should have resigned in disgust”
Exactly. It’s not like the CIA told the intelligence committees they were fully committed to torturing people and then showed Pelosi films of suspects being waterboarded.
The whole idea was to was to make sure Pelosi and other committee members knew next to nothing.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
So liberals should be mad at Nancy Pelosi and demanding that she resign because she hypocritically defended the necessity of interrogations on Abu Zubaydah but could not legally disclose information about what she had been briefed on.
Okay. We liberals are mad at a lot of stuff. We made a lot of noise about it at the time.
Just like many of us were really pissed at the majority of Senate Democrats and the minority of House Democrats who supported Bush Jr’s fraudulent case for invading & occupying Iraq.
I’d like to see Pelosi replaced by somebody more in line with my values. Sure.
But it would be raving lunacy for those working on the issue of torture to be more concerned about her than the people who actually generated and ordered the policies.
If you think this is your way out of this, fine, keep screaming about Nancy Pelosi.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
The question than is, why does she keep changing her story if she just had a bit part in this play? We’re on version #5 now, that does not look good.
May 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Well, my guess is that she’s lying about or hiding something, or just generally giving that typical Democratic leader set of speeches which are never intended to commit to anything absolute.
But as far as I can tell, no one is suggesting that she was among any of the people generating the policy or playing a really significant role in the actual policy creation or implementation etc.
Again, if you guys think this helps your end game, have at it. Pelosi’s made a number of public claims and so I leave it to her and some sort of real investigation to see what the truth appears to be — certainly not some gibbering idiot media consensus that the CIA must be presumed to be truthful or that Porter Goss‘ views need to be taken more seriously or legitimately than Pelosi.
May 16th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Wacky thread. Torture seems to be troll crack.
Let’s review the basics:
1. The Republicans were running the country, holding the executive and legislative branches.
2. Republicans made the torture policy and issued the orders.
3. Democrats were bystanders. They did not hold the rings of power.
Of course Republicans are going to want to make a big deal about a few Democrats who did not oppose their policies when they should have. That is the only card they have to play, but it is weak, weak, weak.
Of course the Republicans will exaggerate the complicity of some high level Democrats. This is their only card; they will play it hard.
Of course some of the Democrats in the spotlight will shine that light back on the Republicans who made the policy and did the deeds.
That will lead to more investigations, and those investigations will hurt the main actors more than complicit bystanders. The Republicans are playing the only card they have, but it is so weak they would be superhuman not to overplay it. Then it will backfire.
Witness Pelosi & Graham.
Of course some of the complicit Democrats will
May 16th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Does Obama save her or sacrifice her?
May 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
#67 Judd, asked “Does Obama save her or sacrifice her?”
Interesting question. Has she become the albatross that Trent Lott was to President Bush when he praised Strom’s racist past? I think Obama needs to listen to how angry liberals are at Pelosi for basically being toothless in her supposed opposition to Bush. I
May 16th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I’m guessing that the confusion is that Pelosi has never been as much a hero to liberals as she has been the bete noire of Republicans. You could turn on any right wing radio show, out of the millions of them, and they’d be spewing about “NANCY PELOSI!” way before she was speaker (remember “NANCY PELOSI!! WENT TO SYRIA!!!! WORE A SCARF!!!”), but you don’t get the opposite, I don’t think. I’m not saying occasional praise for Pelosi is completely absent, she just isn’t the touchstone of admiration for liberals that she is the touchstone of resentment for conservatives.
Maybe Pelosi’s the closest thing to what the right thought was a real liberal touchstone who could be shown to have some bit of sinfulness on the Bush administration’s program to torture, especially since much of the torture regime appears to have been about fraudulently justifying the invasion & occupation of Iraq that the administration wanted.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Heh, it seems that Nancy is dodging the opportunity to blame Bush and the CIA some more tomorrow. She’s hiding out from the talk shows. Did an adult finally talk to her?
==========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
The point is that while many people are genuinely outraged at the idea of “enhanced interrogation”, Pelosi doesn’t seem to be one of them. Certainly no one thinks she is as responsible for the policy as the Administration. But her private acquiescence, if true, would suggest considerable cynicism in her public criticism. And since she’s chosen to deny the discrepancy between her privately and publicly stated views, it is hard to imagine an innocent explanation of any substantiated discrepancy.
If the anti-torture people are serious about the moral importance of the issue, then she falls short of their standard, and without any mitigation from her belief that the policy was actually justified and necessary.
May 16th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
judd, 67. An excellent question but an even more important one is will the Congressional Democrats save her or sacrifice her. They stand a worse chance of doing well next year in the midterms with her a poster girl for Congress, which, as you may notice, is hardly earning rave reviews as it is. And Steny Hoyer is a popular man. I think the realization of her own weakness must have finally shut Nancy up. That and Panetta backing the CIA, obviously with the permission of his boss. Nancy must be feeling somewhat lonely, lately.
===========================================
May 16th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
OK, I’ll bite.
I’m not swallowing anything. For all I know she high-fived everyone when she heard about torture and said “I’m going to do all I can to let that happen!” and she’s lying about it now. Hey, if that turns out to be true then she should join the entire top echelon of the Bush administration in prison. My point still stands. She’s less culpable than Cheney, et al.
Huh? It is? Which record shows we started torturing because Nancy Pelosi pushed for it. I missed that one.
May 16th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
T-Mac, 73. Yup, you missed it, though it isn’t certain that Pelosi was the one who asked, only that the request was bipartisan. It had to do with the question of whether we were doing enough even beyond waterboarding, which, I’ll remind you had been compared with our statutes and determined not to be torture. From my first comment, you may be reminded that I suspect Pelosi was the one who asked. Oh, my, when that leaks, and who really doubts that it will. The CIA is tired of being demonized for doing what everyone concerned considered to be their jobs.
=================================================
May 16th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
judd, once again, you never saw Democrats freaking out about what right-wing members of the house were or weren’t told. Instead, Democrats have always been focused on the justifications and ordering of the use of torture by members of the Bush administration and people in the CIA who did it: you know, the people responsible. I didn’t see pelosi passing any laws trying to legalize torture– she was the one, with the other democrats in the house, who passed a law against it, only to be vetoed by Bush. It the Republicans who are having a non-sensical tantrum in order to distract from their support of toture and the need to punish the Bush administration members that right-winger so loyally shilled for.
it wasn’t pelosi shilling for the Bush administration– she opposed it. Judd, it was people like you shilling for the Bush administration. So your tantrum about pelosi rings hollow– and it smacks of a need you feel to distract from the opprobrium and lack of credibility that falls upon you for your history of poor political judgment. While you were busy praising the glories of Abu Graib to the skies and opraising the heroism of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, right thinking people were considering how to bounce their asses from office. Your juvenile screeching about pelosi is just another symptom of the freakout you’ve been engaged in over pelosi since 2006.
My advice, judd: you didn’t have the brains or the balls to oppose bush or republicans. All you did was screech like a baby about Gore, Kerry, Pelosi, and Obama. Who the fuck cares about your latest tantrum? This is just another Republican emotional decompensation which we see time and time again.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:02 am
kim, it wasn’t too long ago republicans were throwing a bullshit tantrum over a mythical plane they claimed that pelosi ordered for herself. Many republicans were dumb enough to believe it, too. So who the heck cares about what you’re saying now. You’ve been told to love Bush and hate pelosi, and you’re obediently following along. Republicans let loose with a stream of vulgarities when democrats in the house finally passed laws to stop torture, contra the immoral claims of people like John Yoo. The point being– you all have a bug up your ass about pelosi, and when you’ve been backed into a corner and the consequences of your support of the bush administration become clear in all of their condemnability, all you can scream is “pelosi! pelosi! pelosi!” as if this is somehow some kind of defense of you and the bush administration.
If the anti-torture people are serious about the moral importance of the issue
She opposed Bush. You supported Bush. Her house passed a law against torture. Bush vetoed it with the support of the Republican party. The Republican party has had periodic fits of vulgarity and dishonesty when it comes to Pelosi, and it is fair to say that this is another instance of them, in part your post is evidence of it: you blatantly lied using the Republican talking points, blithely pretending they were actually true.
You guys don’t really understand, do you? Republicans are liars, and they ask their followers to lie. Their followers were asked in 2006 to throw a tantrum about pelosi, a tantrum that has continued to the present day. Republican followers now demand a coverup for torture and create kerfluffles over Pelosi because they think it will accomplish this. Bush ordered torture and the Bush administration ordered torture. Conservatives adamantly refuse to deal with this simple fact, and as a psychological defense mechanism screech about torture because it’s a defenswe mechanism they have been instructed to use by Republican handlers.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:12 am
If you can forget kim for a while:
This sounds too much like GWB’s specious claim that Congress had the same information that he had. Most of us knew that what Bush said wasn’t true. Though my memory is foggy as to what the Democrats didn’t know when, I’ll give Pelosi the benefit of the doubt for now.
It also sounds like those memos that Dan Rather was given–remember them? The discrediting of those specific documents was supposed to discredit both Rather and GWB’s non-service during the Vietnam War. At least according to the craven news media.
Even if Pelosi (who took impeachment of Bush and Cheney off the table) is lying this time, that is almost beside the point, a red herring, like those documents that Dan Rather reported about. If questions about Pelosi’s character keep us from bigger game, shame on us.
Frankie d (#22), you are right on target.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:44 am
So your tantrum about pelosi rings hollow– and it smacks of a need you feel to distract from the opprobrium and lack of credibility that falls upon you for your history of poor political judgment.
Bro, for the umpteenth time, I’m not having a tantrum about Pelosi. I’m not trying to distract anyone from anything. Let’s get it all on the table. Again, if you were truly honest about your opposition to EIT’s, you would be calling for Pelosi’s head. Your not, so this is purely political. You want the policies of the last administration to be criminalized to finally be rid of the conservatives and an actual debate, you can’t debate, so you claim your opponents are nuts, that is the argument of a fool.
All you did was screech like a baby about Gore, Kerry, Pelosi, and Obama.
Not screech like a baby, but disagree with their policy prescriptions for the US. That is kind of what this country is all about, you know, political free speech, getting people elected that you agree with. What were you doing? I bet, calling Bush Hitler, and fascist. I guess that is what “sane,” “moral” people like you do. You are a joke. And you don’t live in the real world.
Nancy Pelosi is a liar, you know it, I know it, and your doubling down, and it makes me laugh.
May 17th, 2009 at 2:03 am
if you were truly honest about your opposition to EIT’s, you would be calling for Pelosi’s head.
Shit. Another Republican idiot spewing bullshit he doesn’t understand. republicans don’t know a damn thing about government or politics, because they keep repeating talking points and act like it’s a substitute for thinking. If I would be a hypocrite if I were calling for the head of some republican congressman on the intelligence committee who may or may not have been informed about something that we don’t know whether the CIA informed him about while not calling for the head of Pelosi for the same thing. Since I have not said something about such a Republican congressman nor Pelosi, but have maintained focus on the Bush adminisrtation and the Bush supporters who act as apologists and supporters, then I think I’m good.
Not screech like a baby, but disagree with their policy prescriptions for the US.
One of those policy prescriptions was to outlaw torture, while Bush’s policy prescription was to support it. But that’s not what you’re concerned about.
What you’re doing is the same old crap you always do– have aWhat you’re doing is the same old crap you always do– have a tantrum about Pelosi, repeat talking points you’ve been fed, and follow along dutifully in a self-righteous repetition of talking points to prove your republican loyalist bona fides tantrum about Pelosi, repeat talking points you’ve been fed, and follow along dutifully in a self-righteous repetition of talking points to prove your republican loyalist bona fides
Once again, this isn’t trued. All this is is another instance of the talking points robots repeating what they’ve been fed– you’re no different now than republicans screaming about Kerry and cheese steaks, and your arguments about this have just as much relevance. It’s no different and it’s a symptom of the same republican crap that only within your rarefired universe do you think is relevant.
Once again, you’re screeching about pelosi because it’s a personal hobby of yours and you want to distract from the shit hitting the fan about the bush administration. The problem, judd, isn’t pelosi so much as it’s about you, which I find to be quite interesting. You can’t let go of the republican fed talking points and you can’t help but follow along when Republicans, again, instruct you to screech like a child. One day it was about cheese steaks. Another day it was about Nancy Pelosi’s mythical plane. Then it was about a train from LA to Las Vegas that didn’t exist, and now it’s something about Pelosi again which has nothing to do with the anti-torture arguments liberals have been making for years.
Pelosi, Pelosi, Pelosi is all you can scream in the wake of a serious issue, because that’s what you’ve been told to do while you invent accusation of hypocrisy that don’t even exist.
it’s interesting that Republicans can’t come up with a relevant argument but instead keep screaming about stupid shit like they always do. What’s wrong with you, judd? Why are you lying to my face instead of grappling with the torture issue like a man? Republicans are a bunch of corrupt shits, and if they’d rather lash out at Pelosi, support Bush, and sit around attacking Kerry than oppose torture, then it pretty much show’s they’re a bunch of hypocritical slimeballs once against projecting that onto Democrats.
So, judd, show me pelosi’s torture memo. Oh, wait– Yoo wrote the torture memo. Show me where pelosi ordered torture– oh, wait, that was bush and rumsfeld. So stop distracting from the issue. You have a bug up your ass about pelosi, and this is the latest stupid set of talking points you’ve been fed to repeat in order to avoid grappling with your own support of republican torturers.
May 17th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Thank you, El Cid and Max424.
May 17th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Heh, it seems Nancy has backed off bigtime on her criticism of the CIA. Now it is all ‘Blame Bush’ all of the time. And Frank Rich wonders why Obama can’t turn the page on Bush. Anyone notice that fundamentally Obama is following Bush’s lead in the difficult paths, like Guantanamo, FISA, Iraq. Oh, I could go on.
==============================================
May 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Guantanamo, then, the evil Bush torturing a bunch of innocent goatherds. Now, wow, those guys are so bad no one wants them. Let’s try a new idea, military tribunals.
FISA, then, the evil Bush spying on Americans. Now, hey this stuff really looks at really bad guys. Maybe we should keep it up.
Iraq, then, the evil Bush stealing those poor goatherds oil. Now, wow, they’re keeping it together over there and need our help. What was that about oil?
=========================================
May 17th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I’m just glad somebody stopped Libya from giving the A-bomb it never had to Saddam Hussein. That was close.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:32 am
El Cid, 83. You should read up a little on how rapidly Khaddafy gave up his ‘A-bomb’ program after Saddam’s regime fell. It’s in the historical record, though you may have missed the news at the time, because not a lot was made of it.
===========================================
May 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
El Cid. It happened on December 19, 2003. Khaddafy admitted the program, and formally renounced it. Now go look.
============================================
May 17th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
So there you have it. Saddam sends two billion dollars to Khaddafy. Pakistan’s Khan sends centrifuges to Libya. Niger sends yellowcake to Libya(this is undocumented, but so is their common border). Saddam brags about WMD, suckering fools like Joe Wilson. US invades Iraq and topples Saddam. Libya gives up nuclear program for fear of invasion, and Khaddafy’s toppling dreams.
Sure it’s speculative, but not particularly far-fetched. And the CIA knows the facts of the case. Heh, heh.
================================================
May 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I am immensely grateful to the Republicans for this.
They have, without any provocation and of their own according, completely forfeited the argument that investigations of torture are a partisan witch hunt. From now on, any such charge can be met with “Hey, you people raised all these questions about Pelosi; we just want to get at the truth, wherever it leads. Let the chips fall where they may.”
Truly, this is the most brilliant political maneuver since they spent the two months before the presidential election advertising the fact that, in the midst of an economic collapse, their opponent want to “spread the wealth.”
Thanks, Republicans! Keep up the good work.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
And it all has to be about the typos, too. Also.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Yup. Exactly. Everybody who is anybody knows.
Khadaffi was about to finally achieve making a nuclear weapon and we knew he would have given it to Saddam Hussein.
So for that reason we invaded Iraq. Okay.
This is true because Khadaffi gave up his nuclear program, which had not yielded a bomb, after Saddam Hussein fell.
The circle of evidence is complete.
Please don’t get the idea I’m discouraging you from repeating this. On the contrary, I insist you continue to do everything you can to spread this important analysis far & wide.
I enthusiastically encourage you to continue to chastise us naive libruls for not understanding that one of the main reasons we had to invade and occupy Iraq is that we thought that Libya might finally achieve a nuclear weapon after years of failing to do so and would immediately give it to Saddam Hussein.
I beg you to do so, in fact.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I think whoever ordered torture, participated in torture, enabled torture by silence, or who today approves torture should be identified, declared anathema, and – where warranted by statute — punished. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, all the Republican leadership, the Democratic leadership, CIA heads, CIA flunkies, CIA sadists — the whole kit’n'kaboodle. All of the press should be identified and named in one place. All of our torture-approving posters here should have their real names named. (If you’re trying to get someone else punished for torture while you approve it yourself, you should get in line. You’re pretty much a horror show and should be “outed”.)
May 17th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
El Cid, tortured analysis of what I said is unpersuasive. In fact, we invaded Iraq because we and everyone else, including Joe Wilson, thought he had WMD. He had deliberately cultivated that impression in order to keep the Iranians at bay.
Now, if anyone would like to examine what I’ve said, and how El Cid characterizes it, you can see a wonderful example of sophistry. El Cid, you convince no one but yourself. And I’m not even sure you’ve convinced yourself. How could you?
============================================
May 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Jeffrey, 90. You forget, waterboarding did not meet the legal standard of torture. Read Victoria Toensing in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. She discusses the statutes. That’s something few have done in all this uproar.
Let’s get back to focussing on Pelosi waving a red flag in front of the legally empowered CIA. Please, don’t look at the statutes. It might make the whole mess go away.
===============================================
May 17th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
kim, you’re a poster child for creepiness. We’ve (the usa) punished people for waterboarding.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
We’ve (the usa) punished people for waterboarding.
We’ve also waterboarded about 10,000 SEAL trainees.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
One day it was about cheese steaks. Another day it was about Nancy Pelosi’s mythical plane.
Or how many houses McCain has, or his $400 dollar loafers or Palin’s wardrobe. Please.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
We’ve also waterboarded about 10,000 SEAL trainees.
People say that and I never have any idea what they intend by the remark. A bit of waterboarding to get people familiar with what they might be in store for them is training. 180 times a month? Not so much.
Plus, there’s the whole voluntary/unvoluntary thing. You don’t want to be waterboarded? Fine. There’s the door. There have been other training techniques that have been outlawed since they’ve resulted in injury and death.
May 17th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Jeffrey,93&96. Actually, you bring up an instructive point. Compare the sadistic water torture for which we punished a few Japanese with the legal waterboarding carried out at SERE training and in interrogation by the CIA. Can you tell me the differences? Don’t just confound them all under one term. That wouldn’t be nuanced.
====================================================
May 17th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
We’ve punished AMERICANS for waterboarding.
As for sadism, I’ll go with “a couple of hundred times a month” for $1000.
And people died in Afghanistan and Iraq from torture. See “Standard Operating Procedure” by Errol Morris.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
kim: I reminded everyone how utterly, utterly ridiculous was the argument that Niger yellowcake uranium would have had even the slightest to do with any sort of Iraqi threat of a nuclear weapon.
You responded that the real concern wasn’t this absurd, drug-induced notion that Iraq could spirit hundreds of tons of yellowcake uranium out of Niger and back to Iraq through the U.S. border controls and no-fly zones, and then re-start its industrial processing of low-grade uranium so as to make a weapon, all without being seen by the IAEA whereas if Iraq tried to use any of its own thousands of tons of low-grade uranium the IAEA would be all over them, but tht the real concern was that Libya was going to make an atomic weapon and give it to Saddam Hussein.
You can pretend that’s sophistry, but I didn’t make the argument, you did.
That’s your argument, not mine, and you can dance around all day saying ‘buh Joe Wilson said this’ and ’so and so said that,’ and not once ever, ever, ever would it support either (a) the absolute and utter fraud that the Niger-yellowcake-Iraq story was or (b) the absolutely drug-induced notion that Libya was going to develop a nuclear weapon and give it to Saddam Hussein.
Your ‘argument’, not mine. Yours. Not mine.
May 18th, 2009 at 2:22 am
El Cid, 99
Look, it is in the historical record that Libya gave up its nuclear program. Whether it was financed by Saddam, whether its yellow cake came from Niger and whether Khaddafy would actually yield a bomb to Saddam are all speculative, but not far-fetched. There were centrifuges from Pakistan. There was a real program abandoned on December 19, 2003.
The idea that the IAEA could prevent smuggling of yellow cake into Iraq, and could monitor yellowcake it didn’t know existed is what is absurd, not the idea that Saddam could or would smuggle and refine it. Remember, too, almost 20 years earlier he’d been well on his way to developing a bomb, until the Israelis destroyed it. The pieces are there. I grant you that it is my speculation that he was assembling the pieces in Libya. But the CIA knows whether that is so or not.
In addition, Duelfer documents Saddam’s will to WMD, and Rossett documents his means. It was a matter of time.
==============================================