Read it and weep
The White House seized on the new National Intelligence Estimate on al Qaeda has bolstering all of Bush's arguments. As the president's team sees it, the NIE is evidence that we need to stay in Iraq.
Slate's Fred Kaplan explains just how wrong the White House is.
The National Intelligence Estimate that was released today—titled "The Terrorist Threat to the Homeland"—amounts to a devastating critique of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq, Iran, and the terrorist threat itself.
Its main point is that the threat—after having greatly receded over the past five years—is back in full force. Al-Qaida has "protected or regenerated key elements" of its ability to attack the United States. It has a "safe haven" in Pakistan. Its "top leadership" and "operational lieutenants" are intact. It is cooperating more with "regional terrorist groups."
As a result, the report concludes, "the U.S. Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years" and is, even now, "in a heightened threat environment."
More proof that the war is making us less safe.
this is only news to the delusional Bush administration! Everyone else has known this for a long long time.
are there any references to Chertoff's gut?
Bush has been at the wheel now for six years. It's going to be a little hard to blame Clinton on this one.
So does that mean he'll stop using that bullshit "Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here"? line now?
I bet it doesn't.
skyreader, no it doesn't. Those assholes grandkids will be blaming Clinton for every thing 50 years from now.
A perfect result for neocons who want persistent & neverending war in order to maintain power.
Remember, proles, we will always be at war with oceania.
=my2c
Another day......another realization that the republican myth that 'they're better on security'....becomes more and more extinct....
"we haven't been attacked since 9/11" - typical right wingnut con-servative puppet
Response: A) Tell that to the troops 'you're supporting'
B) 8 years passed between attacks on WTC...in case you hadn't noticed...they're quite patient terrorists...plus...Iran is going to give the bush crime family a 'jolt' in the polls...the next 'attack' (which will again have warnings go unheeded by design by the Bush crime family) will come right before November 08...mark it down...
C) You boast about not being attacked since 9/11, willingly surrender your constitutional rights and allow republicans to piss all over the constitution because 'they have your best interests at heart', act like you're not afraid of anything...but then as soon as some moron GOP congressman tells you that you'll be fighting them in Aisle 7 frozen foods and Tony Snowjob tells you that they will attack soon (which completely destroys your idiotic GOP talking point 'we're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here')...you brave warriors cower and want your Republican King to 'protect you' at all costs...
The Bush Administration has through it's policies insured a viable terrorist threat will exit for America for years to come..I'm sure some Folks wonder if it was all planed or if it is just a case of complete utter failure....
I resent being played like a fiddle by these goons. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, GODDAMMIT! This TIRED old game is wearing us all down, and BushCo's attempts to place fear in our hearts for their own selfish short-sighted political gain is a crime in and of itself!
One little message for the Vice President:
We are on to your tricks, Cheney, and they're not working like they used to... *flips the VP the burd*
If you cut off the head of these organizations it will grow a new one. So all of this shit of a heightened threat is moot because if you give it enough time there will be one. No matter what you do.
I fail to understand that fighting in Iraq is going to increase our safety. I wouldn't be surprised if there was another 9/11 soon and Bush would then point (of course with the most photo-op shoot) and proclaim that he will vow to never finish. This country is going broke fast with this ongoing war.
Blah Blah Looks I better stock up on duct tape and plastic
The situation in Pakistan itself seems very grave at this moment with the increase in bombings which suggests that Al Qaeda is very much stronger and with the possibility that one day they may just succeed at getting Musharraf. With Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the hands of Al Qadea the world would be certainly be in big trouble. All this is happening at a time when America lacks serious leadership and with congress set to go on vacation soon.....I wonder if they really will when people are dying in Iraq and Pakistan.
In their own perverse way, the Bush Administration may have a point. I opposed this war since the moment it was conceived, and I think Bush was unwise in deciding to invade Iraq, and inept in executing it. The mutilation of our democracy at the hands of this administration makes one consider if their real target is our democracy itself.
From the NIE, it is clear that
So much for the supposed 'strategic merits' of invading Iraq. Not only have we lost focus on the real war to be fought, we encumbered ourselves with an avoidable war of choice.
The question is no longer whether we get out of this mess, but how.
I think a world-wide coalition to combat terrorism is in order. Members of this coalition should contribute forces (just as in the NATO model, but tightly focussed on terrorism-related issues), who will be stationed in terrorist 'hot-spots' - especially in Iraq. Also, along with it should be binding treaties regarding extradition, etc.
We must set up a trusted group to broker a solution to the Civil War in Iraq.
All this will require the US to return to concerted multilateral action.
IMO, the US should stay in Iraq until this is done, and leave Iraq immediately thereafter.
What are the chances that the current course of action will change? Nil, unless the congress finds the spine to push for withdrawing from Iraq. Unless the Congress agrees that withdrawal is necessary, there will be no discussion on the milestones to reach before beginning to withdraw. My suggestions above would be some of the key milestones to be reached before withdrawal.
Sreedhar
See also in The Washington Post - Intelligence Puts Rationale For War on Shakier Ground
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/17/AR200707...
to America and Israel. It's the blind leading the blind with Bush and Cheney stumbling into Iraq and Olmert messing in Lebanon.
Troops in Iraq threaten national security by not attacking Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, by not being in America to defend against terrorists or respond to natural disasters, and as moving targets and training dummies for Saudi terrorists in Iraq.
The Whitehouse Homeland Security spokesman - forgot her name, some Republican friend of a friend I’m sure; in way over her head as are all the ‘Brownies’ in this administration – has been making the rounds on all the ‘news’ shows this morning trying to justify that invading Iraq has put the lid on al Qaeda. I wanted to fucking throw my shoe, my chair and my neighbors cat ( I don’t have one) at the TV - she pissed me off so much with her stuttering bullshit.
God, I can’t believe that a good chunk of America still believes there was a connection between al Qaeda and Iraq BEFORE we invaded that country.
skyreader7 @ 3:
They'll find a way, trust me.
. . . just look at his track record . . . Is their anything he hasn't managed to fuck up ?
skyreader7 @ 3:
Not really. They will blame anyone who fought against Bush's war on civil liberties, anyone who wanted to end the illegal occupation and anyone who voted Democratic.
Reason has nothing to do with the Rovian attack model. Sound bites, strawmen and lies are the strength of Republican politics.
Bush's war on terror is waged globally. Since his invasion of Iraq, terrorist attacks worldwide are up seven fold.
Plus
Q Fran, you said that we've not been -- "in the six years since the September 11th attacks, we've not been attacked, and I'm often asked why" -- are we any closer to finding out who carried out the anthrax attacks that followed the September 11th attacks?
MS. TOWNSEND: Obviously that's an ongoing investigation. I'm sure Director Mueller would be delighted to answer. (Laughter.)
Q But doesn't that count as a terrorist attack? I mean, that is a subsequent event, right, so it's --
MS. TOWNSEND: It does in my mind.
Just because the iraq war was a tremendous mistake does not mean, that it is wise now to quit. There are such things as points of no return. You cannot undo the dammage you have done by invading iraq by letting it explode into a civil war with ethnic cleansings until there is a shiite south connected to iran and a separated sunni area, which will be a new al quaida base.
You break it - you own it!!!
I am still waiting or reality on this one to set in. Let me put forth a small primer that seems not to have changed much in history. I have studied a few wars, and must begin by saying that they are usually always a failure to communicate, but let's look at a war with al caca
countries fight wars. it requires boundaries and national interests, generally. they can be obvious and covert
countries have opponent countries, usually, that they can't talk with, leading to a breakdown.
but what war isn't, is a group of people that have an agenda they wish to advance. this is political, and it involves the desire for change against an existing power structure.
why in the wide world of sports is any of this nonsense in Iraq called a war? Let's look at some of the players:
Iraq, now 3 sets of internal ethnic groups brought together to live together by force. (see, yugoslavia)
so the external forces, non native to Iraq; the US, Britain, Iran, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Australia (et al) Why? what draws all these other countries to this one country? War? no, that ended years ago.
what is left that draws all these countries and their proxies to continue this fight? religion? maybe, much insanity goes along with any religion, so that is possible for some of the participants. Let's allow a percentage to go to the mentally ill.
nothing better to do? certainly a good option. a million palestinians have been provided weapons by saudi arabia to attack israel, but nothing that would help the population live a better life. So they are tool for endless war for one country, and they target a country because of religion and their desire for a better life. They don't seem to realize that they are being played for saps, or the pay is just too good when you have no other job opportunity
weapons testing? another good option. we know vietnam was diverted into a testing ground for new weapons to be used on people that henry kissinger thought beneath him. the war was lost before kennedy died, everyone knew it, but that is no excuse not to use these humans as test fodder for bombs and the like. Wasn't new, Russia and China figure out what we were doing and got into the same game to use others as subhumans and liked it.
but now we see all of these strange confluences working together to provide an endless stream of new killing products, angry unemployed people willing to use them, and gainfully employed people willing to kill anyone for pay. Now I have but one question. What is the pay? what is the motivation otherwise? Do any of these participants care about the ideology?
the ideology is the killing, the profit for replacement of all the spent munitions. this is what the new world wants. but this is also why they won't put it on teevee. sane people do not agree with this assessment of the world, and tend to want it stopped.
so I guess the idea of majority rule is rather humorous after all. it is the majority that have been carefully moved from the conscience of the world, saying no to all this. They have been groomed by the sociopathic governments of the world to become the target for those that truly enjoy killing.
they are us folks. how do you feel about what your country thinks of you?
The joke is the Repugs are using this very same information to CONTINUE the Iraq war. "If we don't fight them there..." These swine can spin anything.
Doesn't matter what they say about Iraq.
They always overlook the one thing that the American people have finally figured out:
Bush is in charge. Bush will screw it up. Bush always screws it up.
No matter how they try to justify it, the mission is f*cked because an idiot is in charge.
Shannon @ 19:
That's exactly right. If the Democrats do not blow it and indeed take Congress and the Presidency in the next election, anything bad that happens will be blamed on them. Whenever we leave Iraq, any problems there will be blamed on the left.
The radical right's focus is if they are in power and things are going bad, we just need to keep letting troops die and pouring money down the drain because inevitably we will have a grand triumph in the end.
But I guess the buck stops with Pelosi, as far as I'm concerned.
What do you expect from a president that doesn't learn from his mistakes let alone admit them.
This does make me wonder how last year the estimate was so radically different. Were they cooking those books to support... 'success'? And now release this estimate to promote the 'surge' / quagmire?
Bush needs another terrorist attack to justify remaining in office - permanently. He was chosen by God to lead us - remember? I've read the bible cover to cover. I never read a word about constitutional democracy.
So hang on to your hats - next one is gonna be a doozy!
[...] One of the great paradoxes of the pro war position has been that the Iraq war is making us safer, while simultaneously using the escalated terror threat to us as a result of the Iraq war to justify the continued occupation. So when the National Intelligence Estimate on al Qaeda reports that Al Qaeda is alive and strong as ever (thanks to the Iraq war), wingnuts use it as proof that the Iraq war was a good idea after all. [...]
Old European @ 22:
i never broke it and fuck them that say we got to stay untill its fixed, three generations will pass before they put this country back together!
skyreader7 @ 3:
bush may be "at the wheel" but he is running on flat tires.
OK, so tell me WHO expected the lying WH NOT to spin this.
Do we believe the NIE, which comes from the same set of liars because it says something we can use against the WH/MSM lie machine?
THIS WAR IS BASED ON LIES AND GREED, PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A million dead Iraqis is not enough?
OK, for the 'patriotic', let's look at the American dead in IRAQ
Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
6 536 29 4 569 3.41 167 (over 3/day the highest of the war/occupation)
5 933 32 20 985 2.39 412
4 715 13 18 746 2.35 318
3 580 25 27 632 2.93 216
2 718 27 59 804 1.9 424
1 140 33 0 173 4.02 43
Total 3622 159 128 3909 2.47 1580
OK, then I'll add in the numbers from the 'OTHER' war/occupation: AFGHANISTAN
Non Mortal Casualties Army Navy Marines Air Force Total
Wounded - No Medical Air Transport Required 748 31 55 59 893
Wounded - Medical Air Transport Required 623 10 75 35 743
Non-Hostile Injuries - Medical Air Transport Required 1,033 78 133 214 1,458
Diseases - Medical Air Transport Required 3,040 159 196 617 4,012
TOTAL - WOUNDED 1,371 41 130 94 1,636
TOTAL - MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTED 4,073 237 329 831 5,470
TOTAL - MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTS (HOSTILE AND NON-HOSTILE) 4,696 247 404 866 6,213
It's pretty simple to use facts and numbers to call these people liars to their faces.
Gort @ 16:
I'm dealing wth an ignorant bitch right now, a houseguest from New Orleans, who brays like a donkey and doesn't have an original thought in her head... Goddess help me not to kick her ass. *eye twitch* She just got through stating at top volume that Bush was right do invade Iraq, blardee blar... I get this sneaking suspicion she watches Fox News, the way she keeps spouting off GOP talking points. And this ignorant lazy loud offensive woman was a Katrina refugee, yet she STILL backs Bush! Does America have a disproportionate number of idiots?!?
gort@16 yes
scioto @ 28:
It's obvious since the 2000 election that the democratic party and any non-fascist group or individual will be blamed for anything and everything. it makes no difference if the issue is the war or health care.
The media, will only present republicans for their opinions and sparingly, if ever, will put a democrat other than LIEberman in front of a microphone. Any fascist opinion will always outweigh any fact presented by any non-fascist exposing the painful, ugly truth of what the fascists are doing and are still planning.
J R @ 39:
To be sure that you are dealing with an idiot, please refer to the STANDARD METHODS OF IDIOT AUTHENTICATION
tyree @ 40:
AGREED! I'm referring you to THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY by Carlo M. Cipolla
illustrations by James Donnelly for a thorough runndown of the symptomology and impact.
I'm sure Bushco will spin it so that they use it to illustrate the fact that they need more stringent control over our daily lives and have an urgent need to keep everything completely secret from us. Cameras in our bathrooms. RFID chips in everybody's ear. That sort of thing.
The junta fails at everything while the media can't even tell the viewers what a filibuster is
Mainstream Media Prints a Second Major Piece of Politically Timed Bushevik Propaganda in 24 Hours. The Proof That the Mainstream Media Plays Dumb for Bush is That Basically This Same Story Has Been Offered Up by the Pentagon About 100 Times: "The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter." Since Al-Qaeda represents less than 5% of the "insurgents" in Iraq, and 50% of that less than 5% of Al Qaeda is from Saudi Arabia, and the Busheviks have claimed to capture or kill the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq countless times before, shouldn't the mainstream media regard this Pentagon fed story with a touch of skpeticism? Particularly considering it came up, yet again, during a time of increased political debate on the war? But that would require the mainstream media to think and actually have a historical memory extending beyond one news cycle of transcribing White House PR. 7/18(buzzflash)
They're all having seizures in the White House.
If the bush administration and the "gut feeling expert" are so damn good on protecting this country, and they needed to invade Iraq to get rid of terrorist, how come al-qaeda is getting stronger and stronger. Just goes to show what bush said was a lie. al-qeada wasn't present in Iraq and that's not why we invaded them.
[...] Clark Link to Article george w bush Read it and weep » Posted at Crooks and Liars on Wednesday, July [...]
. . . just look at his track record . . . Is their anything he hasn’t managed to fuck up ?
thinking, thinking....Nope! Nothing!
"More proof that the war is making us less safe."
But it's making Halliburton and the war profiteers rich. Mission Accomplished!
My blood is boiling this morning. I won't say what I think about Bush, Cheney, Democrats, Republicans, The Military, The Media, because I don't want to be detained by Homeland S.S. Agents, again. I've had it. I'm over it. To hell with this Government, and the cowards that it rules over, regards
Way to go, dumya!
Post American 'don’t want to be detained by Homeland S.S. Agents, again'
You are not serious about the detained part are you?
Thi is applicable on few threads today:
It is time to call ALL of these ‘efforts’ by ONE common name, used under all dictatorship/totalitarian/ fascist rules:
PROPAGANDA !!!
always use the common denominator understood by all:
PROPAGANDA !!!
Pentagon, WH, prez Cheney’s 'Ministry of Truth", GOP, Congress propaganda is NO different from Goebbels Nazi ministry !
It was a violent morphine addict Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, second in command of the Nazi Third Reich, who said (Nuremberg Diary):
“”Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.
All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country “”
Keep repeating it with the name of originator/ Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering/ until EACH AMERICAN will know/understand it ! Red, or, blue..
You weep what you sew.
Especially if you keep pricking yourself with the sewing needle.
Nick @ 50:
Pickles?
Only Bush -- as arrogant as he is -- would try and spin a report like this after saying for years we are fighting them in Iraq to prevent attacks here. The boy king is more than delusional, IMO he is completely removed from reality.
Sure… there is a way out
There’s also the occasional truth
Of course, lies can be made to fly a longer distance
And have the sheen of certainty
They do not have the smiling faces
Of children with hope of a future
They do not carry supplies to the offended
And they cannot be made to reflect
The dream of every ferocious wolf
Is a world gone mad with sheep
And, inevitably, it ends with everyone soaked in red
Frothing from the cup of empire
Sure… there’s a way out
When war’s the only thing you know
listen peasants! - shut up and be frightened... thats your job. because only we, your masters, can protect you! - its the oldest technique in the books... and guess what sheeple ... it still works on the majority of amerikan morons out there.
I'm trying to decide if we should start a war in Pakistan or just bomb our own coastline. You know Bush could probably declare marshal law for an emergency like that. but the neocons do have their ways of profiting from war. Gee, tough call.
BaScOmBe @ 42:
To be sure that you are dealing with an idiot, please refer to the STANDARD METHODS OF IDIOT AUTHENTICATION
Great link, I forwarded to my lists. Thanks!
ysabddaden @ 57:
With panic in Midtown Manhattan today bc of the steam pipe blast, not that much to laugh about around here (+City is a mess - for a few days to come..), but this cracked me up really good.. Considering these two in any ''adult activity'' it not easy, but, you probably ARE right !
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