Source: Politico

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

The author also claims that the Bush administration had information from a top Iraqi intelligence official “that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.”

The letter’s existence has been reported before, and it had been written about as if it were genuine. It was passed in Baghdad to a reporter for The (London) Sunday Telegraph who wrote about it on the front page of Dec. 14, 2003, under the headline, “Terrorist behind September 11 strike ‘was trained by Saddam.’”



Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12308.html

---

Excerpt of book: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26012717/

by every definition, no matter if you use the fraud argument or the murder argument, this is treason.

There has been sufficient evidence for years. But until either Congress grows a spine, or the American peopel becomes so outraged that they DEMAND justice, noting is going to happen. I don't see either happening anytime soon. :mad:

Perhaps better to wait until (hopefully) that option isn't available.

I've been told that when a president is impeached, he cannot pardon himself or anyone else in his administration. If true, it makes sense for all of us to contact Pelosi and Conyers as I have today to demand real impeachment hearings start immediately. Suskind has taped interviews of 2 CIA agents admitting to involvement in forging the bogus letter. This is clear, concrete evidence of conspiracy to lie our nation into an illegal war. If the phones of those reps on the House Judiciary committee ring off the hook, maybe they'll pull their heads out of the sand and act.

there is some evidence that he directed someone else to do it, those CIA guys would take the fall. It's highly unlikely that there is an email, or a memo, or whatever from George Bush to somebody saying "forge a letter". If there is ANY evidence that something like that exists, then I am totally on board with starting impeachment hearings tomorrow.

If you go after Cheney or anybody else, Bush pardons them. It's hard to imagine Bush being implicated in something like this by himself, so if you get Bush, it would be hard NOT to get Cheney too. But then what? Just think: If you impeach Bush and Cheney, who becomes President? Nancy Pelosi (under certain circumstances). However, she also holds the key to starting the process, so she needs to be very certain she has a good case or the process will lose credibility- and support- due the the perception of her self- aggrandizement. And as we saw before, a failed impeachment actually can make the defendant stronger.

Those guys who designed the impeachment process were pretty smart. They made it hard to convict the President, as it should be.

I'm not sure what you mean about not being able to pardon anyone else when impeached. Bill Clinton was impeached and continued to pardon people. If a president was impeached and convicted then I'm pretty sure they couldn't pardon themselves or anyone else after they were convicted, but I also believe they would be removed from office immediately upon conviction.

Could they pardon someone in advance?
"There is some debate among legal scholars over whether a president can pardon himself. Some say that he cannot, on the principle that a judge cannot preside over his own trial. Others say that the pardon power in the Constitution is absolute and extends to a president granting himself a pardon in advance of any criminal trial."
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E5DD103EF930A25757C0A9669C8B63

I agree with all of you that this is outrageous and I believe it happened but the WH and Tenent deny that it happened. Does Suskind have a witness as prestigious as this administration will put up who is willing to go to court and call all of them liars and WIN?

Heavens no.

This is not an instance of the dems having no backbone. (And, I agree they have been remarkably spineless these last years.) This is a question of evidence. I have not seen one piece of evidence in any of these arguments in support of impeachment that is worthy of a charge let alone would hold up in a trial.

(My job is to review the record of trials/hearings to determine if there was enough evidence to support the decision. Like an appellate judge if you will albeit at the agency level. Before that I was a criminal defense attorney. Bush walks on all the evidence I've seen so far.)

that is worthy of a charge let alone would hold up in a trial."

You have not been paying any attention at all, have you?

Just ONE piece of evidence amongst many.

The evidence is the 5 million dollars in hush money the executive payed Habbush to keep his mouth shut.

However, they are now denying it. I to want to know this time that the hard evidence is there. I so want them to pay for this but without hard evidence what do we have. We need to see this evidence.

Bush/fascist wing of the right's party has finally reached, and passed irrevocably over, the peak of power, and is ready for the dizzying descent demanded by the gravity of decent human civilization.

... their fate.

Unfortunately, as you well know my friend, they will suck the life out of many, many more than they already have, before the disintegrating impact awaiting them.

Peace,
Bob

... to simply come tumbling down, and from the rocks and dust that are left, those of us who are left (and it may not include "us") can rebuild a new civilization with freedom and justice for all. Stirring words that have never really seen realization, but the candle still burns.

despite "this reign of witches" (to quote Jefferson).

Not all is corrupted. A tremendous legacy hasn't been corrupted so easily.

American democracy survives shocks like these. It was designed to, and with our cooperation, it does.

... memories of another time when, with three major assassinations, we could have felt the end had come. So, yes, you're right. We have to keep alive the memory of who and what we are.

But there was a break in Ted Kennedy's voice when he was delivering the eulogy for his second murdered brother. So we can all have that break in our voices as we think and write about what we are going through as a nation. But we will prevail.

My daughter and I were commenting tonight that through the last eight years, but for knowing what is happening "out there," and to other people, and following every blink of an eyelid about what is happening to our country, our own lives have been relatively untouched. We live comfortably, even though with anxiety about the future.

Thanks for the soulful message, Bleever!

unless it involves sex...and a Democrat...

Send them to the Hague!

How much more proof do they need?

I'm just about as disappointed in her as I am enraged at Bush. Maybe she knows what she's doing...but I ain't holding my breath.

If this book becomes a bestseller, maybe 100,000 copies will be sold. Maybe a half million people will hear of it. If it becomes a super-blockbuster, maybe those numbers will respectively be 1 million & 5 million.Well, probly 100 million Americans already know they been had by the Bushies. There was a time when this kind of story would set the world on fire and topple the government. No longer. The mass media won't give it 10 seconds--just like with the Downing Street memo--and nothing will happen. The proverbial fart in the hurricane.

Tomorrow and next week and next month, the Nancy Pelosis of the world will still be saying "Show me the crime."

"The proverbial fart in the hurricane." Is just more wind to sell a story to us that we have already read.

:sarcasm:

Sexual peccadilloes are of interest only if committed by Democrats. If the press had wanted a story, they could have gone after the Guckert/Gannon male prostitute sleepovers and all that stuff. They didn't because their job is to bring down Democrats, not merely to serve up equal-opportunity titillation, like so many around here think it is.

I Was Almost a Stooge For National Plutocrat Radio
Boston Phoenix | 2/23/03 | Barry Crimmins

On Tuesday afternoon (2/18/03), I got a phone call from a representative of the National Public Radio show On Point. She told me she got my name from a friend of mine. She asked if I could do a brief piece on the burgeoning field of aspirants for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination for a portion of the show called Radio Diaries.

Because I am a professional and only torch bridges when absolutely necessary, I refrained from telling her that I didn't need to have my time wasted by NPR. Again. More often than not, when NPR producers have asked me to write essays for them, they have decided not to use them. Almost always this was because I didn't come in with exactly what was in their mind's ear. A few year's ago I recorded several commentaries at an Ohio NPR affiliate. They never ran. I was never paid for writing and performing them. I never received expenses for a few rather long round-trips to do the work. Eventually it was explained to me that the audio essays didn't run because I sounded too professional to give the commentary the authentic "regular person" feel they desired. You see, as a long-time performer, I knew how to sell what I said. They didn't think I sounded organic enough. And so they brought in other people who were easier to train to seem like they were themselves.

On Point, a show that airs in a few dozen markets, emanates from WBUR in Boston. I gained renown as a political satirist in that town. I have written for the Boston Phoenix for years. I have friends in the arts, academia, the media and the progressive political community. I also know my share of cabdrivers, bartenders, ticket-scalpers, construction workers and municipal employees. I have received numerous awards for my community activism. I started the first full-time comedy club in the Boston area in 1979. It is often referred to as the "fabled Ding Ho." A lot of very talented people started their careers at that club. The first film at the Boston Film Festival next month will be Fran Solimita's When Stand-up Stood Out. It's about the early days of stand-up in the Hub. Word has it I show up a few times. If you do a Google search under the term "political satirist," at least as of this morning, my website is the first place that is suggested.I do not present this immodest collection of fact for purposes of vanity but instead to expose the ineptitude of NPR.

As ever, they approached me as if I were an unknown fledgling in need of guidance. Within the first thirty seconds of the call I knew two things: this woman had no idea who I was and what she wanted me to say on the radio was utter pap.

Two years into the court-appointed Bush administration's destruction of our way of life and the first call I received from NPR was a request to belittle Democrats. Ostensibly they wanted me to make fun of the fact that the field of candidates had grown very quickly in recent weeks. That's right; NPR was soliciting me to satirize democracy for showing signs of vibrancy. And so this young producer tried to steer me that way. She started by mentioning the size of the Democratic field and then asked, "Do you think any of them has the stature to take on George W. Bush?"

I said, "My dog Lloyd has the stature to take on Bush." But then I allowed, "Of course, I raised him myself."

We went back and forth and I said I could run down the field for her. She reminded me twice that the game I was to bag was of the Democratic variety. I said I'd put something together for her. I requested a list of candidates in case I'd overlooked someone. She sent the Dem roster and the next morning, I wrote the piece. They had my script by midday Wednesday. I was supposed to tape it Thursday. I figured if I got it in early, we could sort out any difficulties with time to spare. Like I said, I'm a professional.

Here is what I sent them (minus a few typos and plus one slight change in the Kucinich portion):

--more--
DU Thread

The role of corporate-owned media is to distract and distort public perception while promoting the neocon/corporatist agenda.

It's a book - it's one man's opinion of what he says happen. And Bush will just pardon those that committed the crimes anyway. We need can still investigate and take action after the elections are done

Too bad we can't show Nancy the door. Would there be any way to start a campaign to deluge Nancy with mail to ask what it will take for her to try to restore a modicum of justice to a country badly in need?

This is more confirmation that the administration knew or should have known that all of its reasons for invading Iraq were false.

The Iraqi foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was a double agent and had told the CIA that Iraq had no WMDs. That we revealed by Tyler Drumheller, former CIA chief of covert operations in Europe, in 2006.

One betrayal of an undercover and the destruction of a cover operation loaded with questions and answers to come some day.

Four aircraft and its passengers crashed and dead some place.

Four buildings.

Millions of deaths and massacres.

Thousands lifted from the street and tortured.

x number of jets told to stand down.

20 pages in the goat book.

A dozen or half dozen private or CIA jets used for renditions.

A billion or more for transportation back and forth to Iraq.

Billions for a palace-city Embassy.

An immeasurable fortune in cultural heritage looted.

x number of rapes.

x number of deaths by melting skin.

Billions for a mercenary army for the Sec of State.

Dozens dead from accidents and suicides.

A handful in jail or heading there for passing secrets to Israel.

x number wanted in Italy for abduction.

The new numbers game.

Sounds like the two forgeries are miserable failures.

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, “There may be some possible link” to Bin Laden, adding, “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden’s henchmen were trained “how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together.”

Hm-m. 9/11 + Anthrax + Maryland sniper (?) = ATTACK IRAQ. And, London bus + Spanish train + Bali nightclub = keep allies (England, Spain, Australia) on board to STAY IN IRAQ until the oil contracts are signed. (??)

Bushite math. Or is it alchemy? (--how to turn terror into gold).

Naaaaaah.

accountable for their crimes.

giving the criminals cover to rape the nation and its people.

I didn't do this. She did this. I have stayed awake at night wondering why in the fuck she would be doing this. But I still don't know. And still she does it.

If anyone can do something, it is her. And, actually, all she has to do is let others do it and stop inexplicably standing in the way. That is all she has to do. THAT IS ALL SHE HAS TO DO.

deserves every attack she gets.

She is a coward, of the very worse kind.

she now is complicit if she does nothing.

turn every wrong by Bush into a reason to get angry with with Democrats.

We need her to do her job

What, you're going to argue that there's any honor in letting this administration get away with its crimes?

I'm sure everything will go away after that

:sarcasm:

:banghead:

So said the Empress when she said impeachment was off the table. She is part of the cabal as some call it. She serves the Emperor. Not the American people.

and maybe to threaten a few people with contempt if they refuse to testify.

back to the pig farm . . . or Paraguay.

rule (including yet another U.S. supported heinous dictatorship). The new president--the beloved "bishop of the poor," Fernando Lugo--is allied with the Bolivarian wing of the leftist revolution that has swept South America*, is a strong advocate of social justice and wants the U.S. military out of Paraguay. His election was likely a monkey wrench in a Bushite plan to use Paraguay as a staging area for aiding the white separatist movement in the oil/gas rich eastern provinces of Bolivia. But even before Lugo's election, Paraguay was moving to the left, not only by joining the Bank of the South (one of Venezuela's greatest ideas), but by RESCINDING its non-extradition law (haven for fascist fuckwads) AND the immunity law for the U.S. military.

Paraguay is no longer usable as a joke for absconding fascist thieves and murderers. I nominate Dubai as its replacement--cuz that's where Halliburton moved its headquarters to. (Or maybe San Diego? --where Blackwater managed to ensconce itself, despite ferocious local opposition. Does San Diego have a non-extradition law?)

-----------

*(I would say the alignment goes like this: Strong left/strong indigenous movements--Venezuela (oil-OPEC member), Ecuador (oil-OPEC member), Bolivia (gas/oil), Paraguay (no oil-but "bishop of the poor" now president). Strong left (strongly allied with the former)--Argentina, Uruguay, Nicaragua. Center-left--Brazil (strongly allied with all of the above) and Chile (weakly allied with them). Corrupt "free tradists"--Peru (strong leftist/Bolivarian movement likely to win the next election). Fascist narco-state (Bush pals)--Colombia.

In addition, El Salvador will likely go left/Bolivarian in this year's election. Guatemala just elected its first progressive government ever (leftist-leaning). And Mexico's leftists lost the last presidential election (probable stolen election) by a hair's breadth (0.05%) and will be back. (Mexicans won't likely put up with the privatization of their oil--the item that their rightwing president promised Bush in exchange for an electronic central vote tabulator--ha-ha, only half kidding.)

Bolivarian = very strongly for Latin American self-determination and social justice; strongly oppose U.S. military presence in Latin America; sane drug polices (strongly oppose the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs"); strongly committed to use of oil profits to benefit the poor (3 of the 4 Bolivarian countries have huge oil reserves--Paraguay doesn't); key players in new institutions such as the Bank of the South (which has driven the World Bank/IMF out of the region--one of the main reasons, besides greed for oil, that Bushites and collusive Democrats hate the Bolivarians).

Note on elections: The OAS, the Carter Center and others have been doing excellent work on transparent elections in Latin America over the last decade, and have been most effective in South America. Venezuela, for instance, has electronic voting, but it is an OPEN SOURCE CODE system--anyone may review the code by which the votes are tabulated--and they handcount a whopping 55% of the votes, as a check on machine fraud. By contrast, we, here in the "land of the free/home of the brave," have permitted fast-track conversion of our election system to electronic voting run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY CODE--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review it--owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls (0% in many states; only 1% in the best of states). Therein lies the difference between us and South America. They get good presidents and legislators. We get fascists and corrupt fascist colluders.

have a Western America Forum. There is stuff happening. Good for the little people over all. Proves what decades of predatory and life shortening, perpetual debt type banks and roughshod and abusive diplomacy brings to the people.

Thanks for your post - why not repost or start a West Am blog?

Absolutely perfect! :rofl:

There really is hope somewhere after all!

LOL that really fucks up their plans! :rofl:

Fucking hilarious! :7

You don't roll out a new product in August...

Say, What is Ron Suskind's publisher thinking???!!!

There has been so much crap coming out of the WH, including outright war crimes and violations of the Constitution, among other things. But we can't impeach this president, vice president or any other stooges of this administration.

But Clinton gets impeached over a blow job.

Un fuckin' believable.

And I mean everything. They could start shooting people on the WH lawn for sport, and somehow they'd get away with it. Nothing is going to change. I hate what this country has become - what is has been allowed to become. "Impeachment is off the table" essentially gives consent to all the atrocities that have occurred. It is a disgrace.

happen.

Will THIS get coverage? Really?

I watched Meredith's interview of Suskind. She tried her darnedest to undermine the facts to no avail because Suskind held his ground. Very transparent the way she carries the criminal Bush/Cheney regime's water.

I am so disgusted by our so-called representatives. The last two years have completely gutted my faith in this country. We are a shameful nation.

We are being ignored.

"Gen. Hussein Kamel, the former director of Iraq's Military Industrialization Corporation, in charge of Iraq's weapons programme, defected to Jordan on the night of 7 August 1995, together with his brother Col. Saddam Kamel. Hussein Kamel took crates of documents revealing past weapons programmes, and provided these to UNSCOM. Iraq responded by revealing a major store of documents that showed that Iraq had begun an unsuccessful crash programme to develop a nuclear bomb (on 20 August 1995). Hussein and Saddam Kamel agreed to return to Iraq, where they were assassinated (23 February 1996).

The interview was conducted in Amman on 22 August 1995, 15 days after Kamel left Iraq. His interviewers were:

Rolf Ekeus, the former executive chairman of Unscom (from 1991 to 1997).
Professor Maurizio Zifferero, deputy director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and head of the inspections team in Iraq.
Nikita Smidovich, a Russian diplomat who led UNSCOM's ballistic missile team and former Deputy Director for Operations of UNSCOM.

During the interview, Major Izz al-Din al-Majid (transliterated as Major Ezzeddin) joins the discussion (p.10). Izz al-Din is Saddam Hussein's cousin, and defected together with the Kamel brothers. He did not return with them to Iraq in 1996, moving instead to Jordan and now to an unknown European country.

In the transcript of the interview, Kamel states categorically:

"I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed.

http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html

NPR's ATC reported just minutes ago the WH reaction was that the Jordanian intelligence officer's story "did not convince."

But Curveball's did.

That's basically all you need to know about the veracity of Suskind's claims.

and that info was posted here on DU.

Obviously some folks here didn't know about this, so thanks for posting it again.

What to do? What to do? Such is the dilemma of those in power to aid the nation.

If there was any question about Kamel's truthiness, a memo written by Hossam Amin, the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, the liaison to the U.N. inspectors, uncovered by the WaPo's Barton Gellman in an article published on Jan. 7 2004 leaves no doubt. The memo was intended as an after action damage report of Kamael's defection.

The theory that Saddam really wanted to keep the Iranians in the dark about his capablilities is pretty much proven in this memo, as Kamel was suckered into returning to Iraq -- "all is forgiven" -- and then killed.

I can't find the actual article, it's gone down the WaPo's memory hole, but I got this quote from Joe Conason's blog.

Gellman reports:

"The most significant point in Amin's letter, U.S. and European experts said, is his unambiguous report that Iraq destroyed its entire inventory of biological weapons. Amin reminded Qusay Hussein of the government's claim that it possessed no such arms after 1990, then wrote that in truth 'destruction of the biological weapons agents took place in the summer of 1991.'

It was those weapons to which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell referred in the Security Council on Feb. 5 <2003> when he said, for example, that Iraq still had an estimated 8,500 to 25,000 liters of anthrax bacteria.'"

http://archive.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/01/07/gellman/

I also wrote about it back then, but I didn't link the source. I was young, I was stupid.

It has been my contention for a LONG time that we needed to INVESTIGATE who actually forged the famous Yellowcake/Niger
documents. I know there is some stuff out there that the forgeries were put in 'play' through the Italian Embassy. But,
I have never heard WHO ACTUALLY SAT DOWN AND MADE THE DOCUMENT.

That would be an interesting tale.

"Operation Northwoods".

"1. Since it would seem desirable to use legitimate provocation as the basis for US military intervention in Cuba a cover and deception plan, to include requisite preliminary actions such as has been developed in response to Task 33 c, could be executed as an initial effort to provoke Cuban reactions. Harassment plus deceptive actions to convince the Cubans of imminent invasion would be emphasized. Our military posture throughout execution of the plan will allow a rapid change from exercise to intervention if Cuban response justifies.

2. A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.

a. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):

(1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.

(2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence" to stage attack on base.

(3) Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.

(4) Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).

(5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.

(6) Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).

(7) Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.

(8) Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.

(9) Capture militia group which storms the base.

(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires -- napthalene.

(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be lieu of (10)).

b. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.

c. Commence large scale United States military operations.

3. A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms:

a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.

b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to "evacuate" remaining members of the non-existent crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.

4. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington.

The terror campaign could be pointed at refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

5. A "Cuban-based, Castro-supported" filibuster could be simulated against a neighboring Caribbean nation (in the vein of the 14th of June invasion of the Dominican Republic). We know that Castro is backing subversive efforts clandestinely against Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Nicaragua at present and possible others. These efforts can be magnified and additional ones contrived for exposure. For example, advantage can be taken of the sensitivity of the Dominican Air Force to intrusions within their national air space. "Cuban" B-26 or C-46 type aircraft could make cane-burning raids at night. Soviet Bloc incendiaries could be found. This could be coupled with "Cuban" messages to the Communist underground in the Dominican Republic and "Cuban" shipments of arm which would be found, or intercepted, on the beach.

6. Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce such fact. The primary drawback to this suggestion appears to be the security risk inherent in obtaining or modifying an aircraft. However, reasonable copies of the MIG could be produced from US resources in about three months.

7. Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft should appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba. Concurrently, genuine defections of Cuban civil and military air and surface craft should be encouraged.

8. It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.

a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone.

b. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will have been made to evacuate the passengers and return the aircraft to its original status. The drone aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being transmitting on the international distress frequency a "MAY DAY" message stating he is under attack by Cuban MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by radio signal. This will allow ICAO radio stations in the Western Hemisphere to tell the US what has happened to the aircraft instead of the US trying to "sell" the incident.

9. It is possible to create an incident which will make it appear that Communist Cuban MIGs have destroyed a USAF aircraft over international waters in an unprovoked attack.

a. Approximately 4 or 5 F-101 aircraft will be dispatched in trail from Homestead AFB, Florida, to the vicinity of Cuba. Their mission will be to reverse course and simulate fakir aircraft for an air defense exercise in southern Florida. These aircraft would conduct variations of these flights at frequent Intervals. Crews would be briefed to remain at least 12 miles off the Cuban coast; however, they would be required to carry live ammunition in the event that hostile actions were taken by the Cuban MIGs.

b. On one such flight, a pre-briefed pilot would fly tail-end Charley at considerable interval between aircraft. While near the Cuban Island this pilot would broadcast that he had been jumped by MIGs and was going down. No other calls would be made. The pilot would then fly directly west at extremely low altitude and land at a secure base, an Eglin auxiliary. The aircraft would be met by the proper people, quickly stored and given a new tail number. The pilot who had performed the mission under an alias, would resume his proper identity and return to his normal place of business. The pilot and aircraft would then have disappeared.

c. At precisely the same time that the aircraft was presumably shot down a submarine or small surface craft would disburse F-101 parts, parachute, etc., at approximately 15 to 20 miles off the Cuban coast and depart. The pilots returning to Homestead would have a true story as far as they knew. Search ships and aircraft could be dispatched and parts of aircraft found."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

were originally created by some obscure Ital/CIA player for a different purpose (it was a sting to embarrass/discredit somebody--Iraq ambassador or minister?), but was then converted to the purpose of "proving" that Iraq sought nuke material in Niger. It was quite a detailed analysis of the Byzantine story of those docs. But the end of the story is that they were resurrected at a Rome 2001 meeting of Pentagon operatives (including rabid fascist Michael Ladeen and others on the Pentagon payroll and the notorious Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar) with the head of the Italian intelligence and others, and re-tooled as "evidence" against Iraq for the purpose of justifying the invasion.

The 'white hat' CIA (which had red-flagged Ghorbanifar as a known liar) was not permitted to see the original documents (obvious forgeries) but was given some kind of summary cover sheet, at first. Thus, the delay in vetting the documents (how this allegation first got into Bush's speeches), but once experts (CIA, UN weapons team) saw the originals, they cried foul. It was taken out of Bush's SOU speech '03 for this reason, but then, mysteriously put back in--at a time when it was a known forgery. This was the one item that Colin Powell refused to put into his own pack of lies to the UN, because everybody knew they were forgeries. So, why did someone want Bush to state this allegation in his SOU, when it was a provable and proven lie? That is the question, in my opinion. Why was it put back into his SOU? (This is what got Joe Wilson het up--that particular allegation in Bush's SOU, which he had been involved in debunking, tho not via the forgeries, but rather his trip to Niger.)

My guess is that it was necessary to make that allegation official and prominent (Colin Powell wouldn't do it, so puppet Bush had to) because it was part of a plot to plant nukes in Iraq, after the invasion, to be 'discovered' by the U.S. troops who were 'hunting' for them. It was a covert P.R. scheme to justify the invasion and to cement Bush/Blair's political positions in the post-invasion period. And I've always thought it was important that Judith Miller was accompanying those troops, with what she claimed was an 'embed' contract signed by Donald Rumsfeld. She was there to get the "scoop of a lifetime"--the 'find' of the nukes--and even directed the troops here and there, to the great annoyance of the commanders in the field. I haven't a clue if she knew or not (--was deluded, or was in on it). But if she indeed had some special arrangement with Rumsfeld, you have to wonder about her role (beyond her role as WMD warmonger for the NYT). Also, if you recall, Cheney and others kept insisting that the WMDs were there. Their insistence makes you wonder, how did they know? My thesis is that it was more than a typical, lying, Bushite P.R. line. They were insanely insistent about this because they knew that Rumsfeld had set it up.

But the thing is, somebody FOILED this plot. And it's my guess that much of what happened afterwards (circa July 2003 and beyond) is explained by the Bushites (and Blairites) trying to, a) find out and punish whoever had foiled their scheme, and b) cover their tracks. I think that the Plame outings --of Plame herself, and then of the entire Brewster Jennings WMD counter-proliferation network, and the murder of British WMD expert, David Kelly in the same two-week period, may be the fallout from this foiled scheme. (7/14/03- Plame outed. 7/18/03-Kelly found dead, in highly suspicious circumstances; his office and computers are searched. 7/22/03-Novak additionally outs the entire B-J network, putting all of its agents/contacts at risk of getting killed.)

Miller knew David Kelly quite well; it was to her that Kelly wrote one of his last emails, on the day he died, expressing his concern about "the many dark actors playing games" (re the controversy that was swirling around him as the BBC whistleblower on the 'sexed up' pre-war intel). But I don't think that what he said to the BBC was sufficient motive for his murder; Joe Wilson was saying the same thing, essentially. And quite a lot of people knew, and had said--and of course billions of people suspected--that the pre-war intel was bad. I think Kelly knew something MORE--and a scheme to plant nukes in Iraq is a good candidate for what he may have known that could have gotten him killed. It is also the sort of thing that would have crossed his ethical line. Signing off on exaggerated intel was one thing; planting the weapons in Iraq was quite another. (He had been pro-war, but then started whistleblowing after the invasion, in late May '03. Why?)

You are right that the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries is one of the loosest threads in this tapestry of lies. I think the critical question is not who devised it, and where it came from, but why it was put back into Bush's SOU speech, after it had been taken out (as a provable lie). I'm sure there were hundreds of 'black ops' schemes being run at the time--out of Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans" and also by various operatives around the world who were anxious to be 'helpful--but this one was of such importance that, whoever was running it, didn't care if Bush had to apologize for it, later. They had to get it "out there" as an official allegation, in order to set up the triumphant 'find' of nukes in Iraq.

and the cabal has destroyed our military, government, and stolen our treasury

Killed hundreds of thousands

the fall of the American Empire

"This can't be true. The DemocRATs have been telling us there's no link between Saddam and 9-11"

"Someone needs to put Daschle on a suicide watch"

"Case for war? Got it.
Ideas? Democrats have none.
Bush wins in Oh-4"

"I'm curious, what could be more of a smoking gun?"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1039898/posts

More like smoking ruins, losers.

Heard the NPR story on this on my drive to work.
Glad to see some of the information coming out. There are just too many people who know too many details.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93293353

Kamel told UNSCOM:

"There were centrifuges. It was a department of the Ministry of Agriculture. It was situated at Al Salih...They manufacture their own centrifuges in two ways. One way was from maraging steel and the second using carbon fibres. All centrifuges worked but they preferred the ones made of carbon fibre. With carbon fibre centrifuges, the speed of 60,000 rounds per minute was achieved and they were about to go to 100,000. This would be done in a different area but the activity was stopped by the war."

See? Carbon tubes, not aluminum tubes, which were found to be Italian rocket tubes.

And I just found the Gellman article mentoned above (the link was at my other blog):

http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?id=2659

And Curveball's mobile weapons labs, btw?

The WaPo reported:

Two days before W. said, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction," referring to two trailers that the administration was selling as mobile chemical laboratories,

"A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons...The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped 'secret' and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories."

I guess, in this case, the president didn't find this information significant enough to declassify in the "public interest." Scott McClellean says the Post story is another example of "reckless reporting."

In Gellman's article about the memo from Hossam Amin to Qusay (mentioned above). . .

"Hossam Amin, then -- and until his April 27 arrest -- the head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate," wrote a damage report to Saddam's son Qusay which, Gellam writes, "now suggests that Kamel left little or nothing out."

"Just before his 'sudden and regrettable flight and surrender to the bosom of the enemy,' Amin wrote, 'the traitor Hussein Kamel' received a detailed briefing on 'the points of weakness and the points of strength' in Iraq's concealment efforts.'"

I Wonder what ever happened to this guy?

This is the smoking gun if there ever was one.

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2006/04/smoking-guns-at-white-house.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201777.html


How Bogus Letter Became a Case for War
Intelligence Failures Surrounded Inquiry on Iraq-Niger Uranium Claim
By Peter Eisner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 3, 2007; Page A01


It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa?

snip

Though the document was in French it would later come to be known as "The Italian Letter." It was written in all capital letters, in the form of an old telex, and bore the letterhead of the Republic of Niger. The letter was dated July 27, 2000, and included an odd shield on the top, a shining sun surrounded by a horned animal head, a star and a bird. The letter was stamped Confidential and Urgent.

The letter said that "500 tons of pure uranium per year will be delivered in two phases." A seal at the bottom of the page read "The Office of the President of the Republic of Niger." Superimposed over the seal was a barely legible signature bearing the name of the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja

a Democratic President takes over in Jan 2009

What the hell more???

The Telegraph article begins:

"Iraq's coalition government claims that it has uncovered documentary proof that Mohammed Atta, the al-Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks against the US, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal, the notorious Palestinian terrorist.

Although Iraqi officials refused to disclose how and where they had obtained the document, Dr Ayad Allawi, a member of Iraq's ruling seven-man Presidential Committee, said the document was genuine.

'We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda,' he said. 'But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks.'"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1039898/posts?page=353

No mention of where it really came from. Interesting; the Iraqis found it all by themselves, huh?

Leave no fingerprints.

from these thugs, whether it's by impeachment or criminal trial.
Oh, bloody hell! The world deserves to have them held accountable!

Idi Amin, Mugabe and BushCo: I don't see a lot of difference when considering their despotic and/or treasonous acts.

The reason the BFEE bought land there is becoming clearer every day.

(as I discussed elsewhere in this thread) who wants the U.S. out of Paraguay. Also, Paraguay recently rescinded their non-extradition law, as well as their law that had given immunity to the U.S. military. I don't know for sure if the Bush Cartel bought that land. But Paraguay is no longer a fascist haven.

"The times they are a-changin'" --as the great Bob Dylan once sang.

Rightwingnuts; natural-born traitors and idiots.

This mother fucking treasonous criminal....

He ordered a war on lies.

1,000,000,000 Iraqi citizines

DEAD

ONE MILLION DEAD

This is the first I have heard of such a twisted scene.

and you will find a few things. Sadly, many of them are from foreign news sources. Our liberal media is protecting shrubbie.

fake letter iraq habbush

Like is said,

"…When it was discussed with me, I just thought it was incredible,” Maguire recalls. “A box-checking of all outstanding issues in one letter, from one guy."

How conveeeeeeeenient for the shrub.



:eyes:

By Sidney Blumenthal

"CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again. . .

On April 23, 2006, CBS's '60 Minutes' interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. 'We continued to validate him the whole way through,' said Drumheller. 'The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.'

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. . .

Both the French intelligence service and the CIA paid Sabri hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least $200,000 in the case of the CIA) to give them documents on Saddam's WMD programs. 'The information detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissile material, which they didn't, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons,' one of the former CIA officers told me.

On the eve of Sabri's appearance at the United Nations in September 2002 to present Saddam's case, the officer in charge of this operation met in New York with a 'cutout' who had debriefed Sabri for the CIA. Then the officer flew to Washington, where he met with CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, who was 'excited' about the report. Nonetheless, McLaughlin expressed his reservations. He said that Sabri's information was at odds with 'our best source." That source was code-named 'Curveball,' later exposed as a fabricator, con man and former Iraqi taxi driver posing as a chemical engineer."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/

Obvioulsy, a friend of Ahmad Chalabi is more credible than Saddam's defector son-in-law or Saddam's chief of intelligence.

Pelosi MUST be removed from office for there to be ANY hope of justice.

J

Support your oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. This is no longer a partisan issue. This is a Human Rights Issue. This is a Constitutional Issue. BushCo are Guilty of War Crimes. Please Almighty G-d Help Our Weak Minded Politicians to Live Lives of Honor, Justice, and Truth. Please Help that Our Republic is Restored. Please Help that Additional Checks and Balances be Added to Our Currently Corrupt, Evil, Murderous, Lieing, and Criminal Federal Government, so as to Restore Our Republic. Please Almighty G-d Help Americans End Their Self-Righteous Vindications, and For Us As A Nation To End Imperialism, End the Power of the Military Industrial Complex, and that We Can Become Brothers and Sisters to One Another, Ending Tyranny and Visciousness ever to Come Out of Our National Policies Ever Again. Amen.

:evilfrown:

if it is factual. If so, then that is definitely a serious crime; it is no misdemeanor.

IMPEACH --- INDICT --- INCARCERATE-FOREVER!!

They probably already have a "terrorist" attack in the works to divert attention.

that includes Pelosi and any other corrupt dem who claims no crimes have been committed.

But of course "Pelosi the Implicit" would never want their crimes, er, misdeeds charged.

Maybe a strongly worded letter will suffice.

Rp

Typical of the right-wing. Trash the messenger and lose the message.

Suskind was on ATC this morning.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93...

After making Steve Inkeep very nervous by even beig there (wouldn't want to have NPR be accused of being a liberal mouthpiece) and especially about what he was suggesting, that the president should be impeached, ATC went around to get the offical word on all of this.

Tenet said the notion of him planting false evidence was "ridiculous." Colin Powell's "triple sourced" intel at the UN proves that!

After making Suskind sound like he was wearing a tinfoil hat, the WH spokesperson added that any information the Iraqi intelligence chief, Habbush, had was "innmaterial to the decision to go to war."

Of course, it was! What difference would knowing there were no WMD in Iraq have made?

At least, they're finally getting tired of lying all the time. They just admitted that knowing Saddam had no weapons was inmaterial to their reasons for invading.

Wow!

We were convinced as early as 1972 that there was tons of evidence. More than enough necessary to impeach and convict.

Then came the hearings. If you get into a "he said/she said" situation, tie goes to the accused (president). That is ALL we had and we had some pretty impressive witnesses on "our side" (John Dean).

Until we found the tapes.

Without the tapes we had nothing.

You find me tapes here, I'll listen to your talk about impeachment.

(You'll remember with Clinton, the ONLY thing they could "get" him on was his sworn testimony (or which there was a record) and the DNA test from the dress. Where is the blue dress?)

Keith Olbermann interviewed Suskind on Countdown tonight. Suskind confirmed that he has tapes of the CIA agents admitting involvement in forging the bogus letter connecting Hussein to al Qaida as a pretext to illegally invade Iraq. Concrete proof! If Pelosi ignores this evidence, she must be impeached!

Call, email Pelosi, Conyers, and any other member of the House Judiciary Committee. They face charges themselves if they ignore this evidence.

Although I am the first to condemn our corrupt and collusive Democratic Party leadership, and I share feelings of outrage and despair about them, and about our national political establishment, I think it's important to try to gain some perspective on our situation, in order to better strategize toward recovering our democracy.

U.S. democracy has not been working right for some time. And what we have suffered, of late, with the Bush junta, is an outright fascist/corporate coup d'etat, following upon years of erosion of our right to transparent government "of, by and for" the people. I think this coup is datable to Oct '02, the month in which two things occurred: passage of the Iraq War Resolution (IWR) and the "Help America Vote Act" (HAVA)--a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle to fast-track voting systems, all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls. The IWR guaranteed unjust war. HAVA provided the means to shove the unjust war down the throats of the American people (55% to 60% of whom opposed the invasion of Iraq--Feb '03, all polls.)

I think that this coup d'etat--"trade secret" code vote counting--explains our current problem (the only thing a lot of people can see): 70% of the American people oppose the Iraq War and want it ended; they vote, and the new Democratic Congress, which has a mandate to end the war, does the exact opposite--they ESCALATE the war, and lard Bush/Cheney with MORE billions to keep killing Iraqis until they sign the oil contracts. Along with a number of other betrayals, the new Congress ends up with a WORSE approval rating than Bush/Cheney. What was Congress' approval rating the other day--8%? How could that happen?

I think it's rather clear that our party leaders wanted the war on Iraq, and also wanted--voted for, pushed, still support--'TRADE SECRET' vote counting. They are traitors of the people. There is no question about that, in my mind. But, as with many things, our party leadership is not as easily condemnable, across the board, as the Republicans are. They are a mixed bag--and some of them are mixed up within themselves--as to fear, bullying, blackmail (Bush junta tools), corruption (especially re big military and police state contracts), with some of them torn among these motivations, and some still having some allegiance to our democracy. And I think this description of the mixed-up Democratic Party leadership also applies to the Corporate Rulers (who are really running things). There is a fascist cabal--real bad dudes--and there are others, who might take advantage of a fascist junta, to make oodles of fast money, but hadn't meant to "kill the golden goose," don't support creation of a nazi state, and consider Bush-Cheney's armageddon fantasies to be insane.

I think that the Bush junta has become rather a "Sorcerer's Apprentice" situation for our treasonous national political establishment. It's a bit more than they bargained for. And I think the crisis came roundabout the time that Rumsfeld resigned and the people elected Democrats to restore order. Nov-Dec '06. If you recall, the first words out of Nancy Pelosi's mouth, after that third Diebold & brethren (s)election ('02 partial, '04, '06), were, "Impeachment is off the table." That was followed shortly afterward by Rumsfeld's resignation--with no change of policy in Iraq. We didn't realize this at the time. It appeared that he resigned because the voters had, in essence, voted to end the Iraq War. It took some months before we realized that Congress wasn't going to do any such thing. So, why did Rumsfeld resign?

Then, soon afterward, in March ('07), we had what looked for all the world like a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident to trigger a war with Iran--the British sailors' capture by the Iranians. In the middle of that crisis, Pelosi trots off the Middle East, to visit Syria, Israel and others, and, lo and behold, the Iranains give back the British sailors--almost gleefully give them back--no harm, no foul.

So here's what I think happened. And, please, understand my basic premise: We lost our democracy in Oct '02. Every election since then has been DIRECTLY manipulated to continue the Iraq War, despite truly unprecedented opposition by the American people, in order to keep control of their oil. We've had manipulated elections before--ever since Reagan--but not DIRECTLY manipulated by means of 'TRADE SECRET' code. Our country is run by a junta--a fascist/corporate cabal--put in place to accomplish a number of purposes, first and foremost, hijacking the U.S. military for a corporate resource war. Iraq was a pushover, to that end. Iran is not. There is no way to take Iran except by pummeling them with nukes. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld intended to do just that. But the rest of our establishment--including military brass, politicians and corporate rulers--judged it to be too catastrophic (partly because nukes are horrible--and potentially planet-killing; partly because of China and Russia; partly because Europe really didn't like the idea of being upwind of Bush-Cheney's armageddon). Sanity prevailed. Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld said "Fuck you, we're doing it anyway." The British sailors' capture was the tag end of it--the set up trigger. But before that could happen, back in circa Nov-Dec '06, or just before, Pelosi and, very likely, a delegation of the saner members of our establishment, met with Bush-Cheney (this was the "table" that Pelosi was referring to), and said something like the following: 'You don't nuke Iran, and we won't impeach you--and get rid of Rumsfeld.' And maybe also: 'You will go peacefully, when the time comes, and we won't impeach you.'

Impeachment, of course, must always remain "on the table" in a Constitutional democracy. It is a violation of Pelosi's oath of office to remove it from "the table." It is our only failsafe against executive crime and tyranny. But--if our democracy was already long gone--this bargain with Bush-Cheney takes on a different coloration. It may have saved our country and the world from catastrophe. If you look at things the way they probably really are--that we already have become the late Roman Empire, ruled by fiat of an emperor--then what has occurred is curtailment of a mad emperor by the nobles, who may have many different motives, but at least one of them is to preserve the country. It may be to preserve it in order to continue enriching themselves in various ways, but it is preservation nonetheless. WW III would be a disaster for everybody.

When Pelosi said, "Impeachment is off the table," I wondered, "What table?" She had only just been made Speaker. It was very puzzling. Here you have a regime with a list of "high crimes and misdemeanors" long enough to circle the earth--and holding them accountable is "off the table"? It just didn't make much sense--even given the Democrats' collusion on the war. (Bush-Cheney crimes go far beyond that. Jeez, everywhere you look, there are more Bush-Cheney crimes--spying, torture, politicization of the DoJ, corrupt contracts, massive thievery, erasing hard drives, killing the anthrax investigation, outing CIA agents, arms dealings, etc., etc.)

But, granting a monarchy, then it does make sense. Bush-Cheney were going to nuke Iran, and they very likely were going to declare martial law, and stay in office. To prevent the nuking of Iran, and to get them to leave, peacefully, when the time comes, impeachment had to be bargained away.

We may hate this--and feel justifiable outrage about it--and we may well feel despair at our powerlessness. But I think the beginning of re-empowerment of the people, and restoration of our democracy, has to be based on a realistic assessment of our situation. We get so angry when people who are supposed to represent us are TOTALLY DEAF TO US--as the Democratic leadership in Congress has been. But looked at from their point of view--if the above scenario is more or less what actually happened--they saved the Republic, and maybe the world. (If you are familiar with Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark," you know that even a limited use of nuclear weapons can cause "nuclear winter" and literally kill the planet in six months. And, short of that, besides the horrors inflicted on Iranians, who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it, the whole region could be inflicted with fall-out and also with millions of refugees. "Catastrophe" is hardly a big enough word to describe the potential consequences of nuking Iran.)

Finally, I would just say: With 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY vote counting, in Bushite hands, what do you expect? All of our leaders (even the better ones) are now beholden to that 'TRADE SECRET' power, and not to us. And until we change that--which I think can still be done at the local/state level--we can expect more of the same. The powers-that-be are struggling amongst themselves over how much to loot us, and for how long--before the "golden goose" is dead--and how far to go, in hijacking our middle-class-created infrastructure, military, university system, laws, and everything that we are, to the purpose of stealing resources and dominating the world. We could not stop our government from nuking Iran. This political establishment had neutered and disempowered us. So the saner among them had to step in, to prevent catastrophe. If that's how it happened, I'm glad they did. How could I be otherwise? But they are only maintaining the appearance of democracy, at this point, not the substance. That is our problem. And getting rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, while only the beginning of a solution to it, is THE essential first step. We must have vote counting that everyone can see and understand, or it is not a democracy.

That is some serious food for thought. A masterpiece that should be an OP. :applause: :applause: :applause:

Yes, it's the "not how the votes are cast, but how they are counted" adage.

... by bartering impeachment to prevent nuking Iran. Since even many Democrats have continued to point out that "we don't have the votes for impeachment," surely Bush and Cheney were aware of that, and would not have considered that Nancy had much to bargain with in such a mythical exchange as you've described here. And given all the malfeasance that had *already* taken place by the time Nancy made her startling announcement about the table and impeachment, it would be a fool's view that bargaining away our Constitution and the rule of law for a *promise* not to use nukes would have any effect. George is the decider. Does Nancy not hear that?

The coup happened with Selection 2000 (with planning for years before). Getting rid of "trade secret" voting machines is only part of the problem. Denying the right to vote to multitudes of people in the first place is an equal or greater problem.

Here's a very realistic view of Nancy Pelosi's view of impeachment. During the referenced appearance on the View, Pelosi pointed out what an important position she holds. As if we didn't understand the power of that position, for good or for ill. Nancy Pelosi does not come across as a hard-bitten negotiator to me. Her speech is often confused and incoherent, and she unfailingly smiles as she is talking about the most serious issues this country has ever faced. Her demeanor is more that of a beauty queen than a serious leader.

Pelosi made her "off the table" comment in a television interview well before she was seated as speaker.

I have often considered whether our Congressional Dem leaders are playing a role like that of the German generals who tried to just go along to get along until they could get rid of Hitler and get back to being Germany. Their example should show us, however, that compromise with evil does not work. When I contrast the behavior of Nancy Pelosi during her tenure as Speaker with that of the few in Congress who have attempted to get impeachment going, I see in her a complete failure of courage and morality.



I have heard the fear expressed, and give it some credence, that should serious impeachment proceedings actually begin, Bush and Cheney would immediately attack Iran, declare martial law over some real or orchestrated terrorist event, and any hope would be lost for restoring our democracy. We have more to fear than fear itself, these days, for sure. But it may just be that our only hope is to overcome fear and take a stand, rather than continuing to enable the bullies who have us cowering before them.

that you state at the bottom: to stop on-going Bush-Cheney crimes, to hold them accountable for their many crimes, and to deter future presidential tyrants.

But I think we need to ask why impeachment hasn't occurred. And we need to answer that question, as best we can, because it is critically important to a strategy for recovering our democracy. To me, it seems like a very dramatic sweep of a coup, which was solidified by those two actions of the Anthrax Congress--the IWR and HAVA, in the same month. You might backdate the coup to 2000, but the mechanism for remedying 2000--transparent vote counting--was quite deliberately taken away, in 2002.

If you set my scenario aside--that a coup occurred, by agreement of our political establishment in Oct 02, but Bush-Cheney have gone too far, and action was taken to curtail them (in which impeachment was traded for Iran and for them leaving on schedule)--then you need to answer the questions I raise: Why did Rumsfeld resign? What stopped the attack on Iran (so clearly intended by these criminals), and why on God's earth are our Democratic party leaders acting like such a slimy gang of cowards and colluders. We had an election. The Democrats won the House, by a good margin. Only a third of the Senate was up for re-election, and so we have a 50/50 Senate--and they use that as an excuse for not impeaching. But, frankly, given what the House hasn't done, and what they have done, on a range of issues, I strongly doubt that, even with a better margin in the Senate, they would have instituted impeachment proceedings against these, the worst criminals ever to hold public office in the U.S.

Why? We have to ask why. Why are they deaf to us--on the war, on impeachment, on so many top priority issues? What is our situation? Is it just a long erosion of erosion of our democracy, to the point of such corruption and lawlessness that they don't care what we think? Or are there specific things that were done--i.e., "trade secret" vote counting--that have insulated both the White House and Congress against public opinion? Did Rumsfeld resign because his pet project--attacking Iran--had been put "off the table"? Or because somebody got the goods on that master criminal and forced him out? (--another possibility; and both may be why he resigned).

I tried to draw these questions together, and answer them. I don't know if my scenario is what happened, and I agree that it includes a lot of guess work. I tend to agree with you about Pelosi's personality, but she may have been part of a group, with weightier personalities than hers doing the actual bargaining. What we got was the end of it: "Impeachment is off the table."

... and that is asking why, why, why!!!

There is a mountain of speculation about why our Dems have been sitting on their hands since 2006. The answer may be a lot simpler than your proposed *possible* scenarios. It may simply be that impeachment would spread like a virus beyond just Bush and Cheney, and pull into its net such people as Pelosi, herself.

"Those who are without sin, cast the first stone."

Kucinich did that. A few others have supported him, but very few.

I remember when there was some kind of ethics violation accusation targeting John Conyers (and I think was after the 2006 election), in which his "high crime" was something so mundate as having used official funds to pay someone to look after his grandchildren while he was doing the People's business. I spoke to someone who was then the impeachment "chief honcho" for an activist Democratic group (which we all know about, but is not DU), and she pointed out Conyers' "dirty linen," and suggested that we have to go very slow on impeachment, not offend anyone, and be careful that anyone involved in pointing a finger have a completely clean slate.

So where is our ONE RIGHTEOUS MAN (OR WOMAN) IN BABYLON? Everyone is carrying some kind of political sin, and there is so much scrutiny of the private and public lives of anyone serving on The Hill, that we seem to have come to a point where we can't clean up our act because there's no one clean enough to clean up our act! We need to get a grip as a nation, throw off this religious prurience that has a death hold on us, and demand action from our cowering politicians.

And, of course, there is the anthrax/Wellstone/Carnahan factor. I heard Kucinich speak right after the first anthrax attacks, and he said, "Fear is palpable in the Halls of Congress."

I agree with you that it is passing strange that after 2006, Conyers, who was so passionately compiling evidence for impeachment, just sat down and shut up. And things just rolled on as if our "victory" never happened.

Your scenario may be a very accurate one. It's just that we don't know. We're playing blind man's bluff, being shut out of the conversation that determines our future as a country. And there is major saber-rattling going on as we speak about an attack on Iran. So your suggestion that a devil's bargain was made would have to include the fact that devil's don't keep their end of the bargain.

It's an outrage.

Thanks for engaging!

It's easier than fulfilling her sworn oath.

It's easier than risking everything for the things she allegedly believes in.

It's easier to be complicit than to be a hero.

She is a coward.

it is just one more crime that they will never have to pay for. :mad:

principled, sociopaths.

Impeach. Indict. Imprision.

PS What was his source for the claims?

"How could so many people keep something like this a secret?" I say: "Look at yourself! YOU are helping them keep the secret and you're not even benefiting from the conspiracy!!!" Fucktards!

I don't bother arguing anymore with them. You (in general) present your case and if they don't want to get it, walk away from them laughing.

I talked to a historian yesterday, my girlfriend's father actually, and he said it wisely to me... they need to learn the hardest way possible, and no amount of rationality will prevent them from BSing with you.

Just look at what average Americans have done to themselves. They have been conned by the very people who hold them down while enriching themselves off their backs, that being the GOP. How in the World does the GOP win? They lie and keep lying because they can with no accountability whatsoever.

Democrats who got conned into voting republican during the civil rights era and then again during the Reagan years. God forbid they didn't want their skin to turn black if they voted for a Democrat and they surely didn't want to get a spanking over grandpa's knee for being poor or go to hell for loving their neighbor more than themselves.

Yes. I'm afraid you can't do much arguing. I don't do much visiting either.

you deal with this much more up close and personal than I have to...

And of course, a congress that will investigate.

Jessica Lynch or Pat Tillman?

I can't see offhand how what's in this guys book qualifies as an "OMG they are so boned" issue?

:sarcasm:

After which they should be jailed for the rest of their lives, without hope of parole.
Screw impeachment, these bass turds have to be locked up and left to rot in prison.

...if not earlier.

Dismantling it will present challenges.