Pentagon Cancels Release of Report that finds Iraq had no link to Al Qaeda.
"An exhaustive Pentagon review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network."
This is not news to me, Al Qaeda hated Saddam, they wanted to overthrow the bastard to have a chance at religious theocracy in Iraq. Bush wanted to link these two bad guys to have a justification to invade Iraq on a wave of post 911 blood-thirstiness. And it worked, when we invaded 70% of the country thought Saddam was "personally involved" in the 911 attacks, even though there were no Iraqis on the planes, but Americans didn't get that either. Propaganda anyone? Stop taking what politicians say in a speach as the official fact. Especially when we're talking about war. *cough* Iran *cough*
If I knew there was no link, Why didn't Hillary Clinton? "(Saddam) has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001." - Clinton October 10, 2002
Anyway, the report, with the obvious conclusion, finally coming from the Pentagon, is not going to be quite as public anymore. If they don't talk about it, maybe it will just go away right?
Put that together with the fact that almost 4,000 of our soldiers have died in Iraq alone, many more wounded. Fighting for our.. um.. what.. our right to tell other nations what to do? I'm not sure anymore.
And we've been there for 5 years on March 19,
And it's costing us 12 Billion per month and over 3 trillion so far, 50 times more than the 60 billion predicted in 2003,
Add that to higher oil prices, stronger terrorist networks, and a less stable world, and a less safe USA, and you might want to... oh I don't know Impeach the President!
Deep Breath... next
The Iraq War is only 2% of media coverage.
No news is Good news... for the bush administration and McCain at least, if we don't hear about Iraq it must be going great. A perfect time to cancel the release of the Pentagon Report so Iraq doesn't become news again. The lack of media coverage is partly to blame for the fact that only 20% of Americans know we're about to hit 4,000 dead in Iraq
At least I'm talking about Iraq here right? I'm doing my part.
Admiral Fallon, the top US commander for the Middle East Abruptly Resigns.
Who is this guy? Probably the highest ranking officers in position of power trying to talk sense into a bush administration hell bent on World War III. You know telling Bush it would be a bad idea to bomb Iran.
What? We'll be greeted as liberators! More Kool-Aid Please.
Quoting Fallon
"This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions." What America needs, Fallon says, is a "combination of strength and willingness to engage."
Bush Quote Instead
"Like al Qaeda and the Sunni extremists, the Iranian regime has clear aims: They want to drive America out of the region, to destroy Israel, and to dominate the broader Middle East. To achieve these aims, they are funding and arming terrorist groups like Hezbollah, which allow them to attack Israel and America by proxy."
Talking trash and telling countries they are pert of the "Axis of Evil", and we might bomb their country if we feel like it, doesn't help anybody, every time bush gets on the TV and threatens Iran it makes us less safe.
Read more about Fallon resigning .
Presidential Politics.
The math is against Clinton, she needs about 64% in all states to overtake Obama, not happening.
The only way she can win is if the super-delegates appoint her at the convention, against the will of the people. That sounds pretty terrible right, we have all kinds of young people voting for the first time, huge turnout, new grassroots networks, and millions of people believing that if they vote, they can take back the government. Protesting in the streets didn't work, but maybe voting will, that's how everyone tells us democracy works right?
But the Democratic party could just say, thanks for your opinion, I know you spent months of your life working for this candidate, but you can't have him. You don't know what the hell your doing, let us take care of the government, you're too stupid to be trusted with that kind of power.
The Democratic party has no desire to snub their voters at a time like this. I know it was supposed to be Clinton's turn to be president, sorry, I'd like to see a woman president too. But Barrack Obama is just a better candidate.
But Clinton is counting on the super-delegates appointing her in the end. Probably the reason her campaign keeps mentioning Obama as a splendid Vice President, but a terrible Commander in Chief, like that makes any sense. But maybe, she can convince us that really it was her turn, but she will let Obama be VP.
Hillary Clinton and her campaign had a private meeting in DC with her big donors today "the clear message emerging from the presentations was that Hillary's success depends on the campaign's ability to persuade the super-delegates that they should be considering three "data points," as this fundraiser puts it, in considering whom to back: The pledged delegate count, the popular vote, and the specific states won by each candidate."
I have bad news for Clinton, she's not winning the popular vote or the delegate count, and she's right that those things do matter.
I'm starting to think The Clintons really want their power back so they can get revenge on the Republicans for impeaching Bill Clinton, and going after him for all those years. They were a royal pain in the ass, and still are. I think the Clintons have their pockets full of smear tactics and venom that they were intending to use on the Republicans, but Obama has been getting their dirty tricks cause he got in the way.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color), he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Sorry.. I know this is long already and I wanted to get straight to the point here. What the fuck is that? And this woman hung around for an entire week before voluntarily resigning her post as a fundraiser for the Clinton campaign?
Obama has gotten to this point because he's black... funny, cause that didn't work for Jessie Jackson, or Al Sharpton... We've had a black presidential candidate almost every election for the past 30 years. But Ms. Geraldine Ferraro can say that crap and pretend it's fair, it's objective, it's just the truth nobody wants to admit right? No, it's a smear tactic, meant to win points with other racists. Obama got this far because he's a good candidate. Because he's run a good campaign, and risen above petty attacks like this.
And Hillary had this to say "It's regrettable that any of our supporters _ on both sides, because we both have this experience _ say things that kind of veer off into the personal." yea, take that, I love Black people.
On the Obama Campaign, an Staffer named Samantha Powers called Hillary a "Monster" and was gone the next morning. Hillary still has not condemned Ferraro's remark. Not to mention the Muslim thing that came from her campaign chair in Iowa, and the Drug Dealer thing, and the Obama doesn't know the words to the Pledge of Allegiance thing... yea real cool. If the truth doesn't work, make something up.
Olberman did his homework and found at least 3 occasions where Ferraro said the same crap about Obama. But the media is taking it out of context... sure they are. Interesting, the first time we herd about Ms. Ferraro this campaign season, she was calling Obama, Edwards, the Media, and the entire nation sexist for confronting Hillary. Ok she may be right about the nation, and about Chris Matthews. But now that someone is calling her statements Racist, she thinks that the Obama Campaign owes her an apology for calling her racist. And she's not even close to being sorry for what she said.
Here's Olbermann
"Senator Clinton Isn't A Republican, As Far As I Know" 't-a-r_b_91187.html
Found that title while looking for some sources for this entry it cracked me up. The title is a play on Hillary's response to the muslim garbage "there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know," she said on 60 minutes.
Anyway, there's all the news that's fit to bother me, for now.
David the point of the surge was to crush violence! It wasn't going to create a political solution - for that matter liberals have claimed for years that the military is incapable of creating a political solution, which is something I tend to agree with. To the degree that it could have had anything to do with politics, our surge bought the Iraqis time to create one for themselves to come up with a solution, which they have not done. They are deciding their own future and are taking their sweet ass time doing it.
Anyway thats not why I've posted - your journal entry popped in my head today when I was reading the news - an article in the Miami Herald addressed the exact topic you were interested in. Check it out -
:::link:::
A direct quote -
"There is always news out there if you look for it," said Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president. "What too many news organizations were doing was covering the car bomb du jour, and when the car bombing ceased, the coverage ceased."
I told you they were focused on the negative stuff only, and being lazy to boot. Now we have the word directly from the horse's mouth.
Thanks Josh, I hope people read the whole thing, I try to be specific, direct, and a bit entertaining. And you know I really value different opinions, especially those from the non-neo-con type conservatives like yourself.
About your War opinion, there has been a reduction in violence, but the political progress has not been made. That was the point of the surge, so I don't view it as a success.
If you were a militia and the Americans are at full strength, and they're handing you cash to "keep al Qaeda out of the neighborhood" you might want to wait it out instead of attacking the them. But are we building anything that will stick around after we leave? Because we do have to leave, we can't continue to spend this kind of money, going into debt, just to blow stuff up and rebuild it overseas. Where's all this money going anyway, to Haliburton, so they can do substandard work that ends up getting torn down because it's a health hazard? Then Halliburton moves their headquarters to Dubai? I thought war was supposed to help _our_ economy, not Dubai. And what's up with the gas prices, if the plan was to steal their oil we failed at that too.
sorry I digress.
We do have Iraq News today apparently, and you can say I told you so, cause it's bad news.
- Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress' -
:::link:::
Oh one last thing. This is one of the reasons why I can't listen to Rush Limbaugh without swearing. To be fair, you only said we "don't want to hear good news" and that holds more water. But just to make the point, Liberals do not want to surrender or let the terrorists win. Sure bad news allows me to say I told you so, but we don't want to surrender, we want to be safe just like everyone else. We just don't believe force is the best tool. I know there are bad guys out there who won't listen to anything else, but we should prove the need for force beyond any doubt, and through that process, we prove to the world that we are a just and honest country that doesn't deserve hatred. The only way toward peace is to prove that we are good, just, and honest. You know the crap we've pulled with other governments, we got some work to do. That's part of what makes me so angry at Bush.
PS, thanks for the nomination Drew! Season's not over yet though.
Eh, anytime somebody commits their time and effort to lengthy posts involving civics, I think the person at least deserve attention and a proper reading of what he wrote.
I know this is long guys, don't be intimidated I really enjoy one sentence comments too. Perhaps my longest post ever, but I try to make it entertaining.
I fully plan on reading all of this epic post carefully soon, but first thought that came to my mind was:
I'm pretty sure that it has long since been reported and admitted by the government that no "operational links" (think about what exactly that means or doesn't mean) existed between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. I don't think that's the information our government wants to keep hidden. What is it? I suppose right now we can only guess.
I was shocked by what Ferraro said, and imagine if someone said something like that about Hillary, except that the insinuation was that the fact Hillary is a woman is the reason for her rise to the top. The Sisterhood would shit a solid fucking brick.
That is just straight up wrong wrong wrong, and I don't believe it for one second concerning Obama. I'm not even an Obama supporter, I probably will never vote for him, but I understand his blackness isn't what attracts people to him. She's a repeat offender, and deserves scorn for it. The cynical side of me says it was planned, for a surrogate to say the scandalous shit instead of the candidate.
I still have to read it all, and I probably won't (as usual for me) agree with all of it or even respond but you've made the effort and so I'll check the rest of it out later.
There is nothing more hilarious to me than a career liberal like Geraldine Ferraro being accused of being a racist by OTHER LIBERALS! Democrats always eat their own. The Clinton slash and burn tactics have come to bite them in the back... and I don't know why she wouldn't condemn Ferraro. Allow me to take the piss for a second - I think its because she's a woman!
I know that its incredibly unfashionable to say so, but the reason why Iraq isn't a big ticket item in the news is because the news is far less negative than it used to be - at this point every credible news organization acknowledges that things are improving in the country. As you well know David, savvy news readers understand that negative news always comes first because, well, it sells papers and gets website hits. People reject this because they expect the impossible - perfection. These people are not military experts and don't know the foggiest thing about it, really. Not to mention that most of the people complaining believe that the soldiers are the cowards and that the people running to Canada are heroes.
Lets be honest - the people that are complaining don't want good news anyway - they never have and they never will. Its really that simple. The biggest crime the press has committed isn't the lack of reporting but the lack of reporting on the progress in the country. These "patriots" in the media have done our country a grave disservice because of their personal hatred of President Bush.
The $3T estimate as its been assembled is wrong. The book is littered with examples of "fuzzy math," as the example I cited previously with death benefits illustrates. The government pays $400k per death to the family. The government itself, as the authors illustrate, value the life of a person who died due to health and safety concerns at $7m. One figure is the actual payout, and the other figure is the one that isn't actually paid out - I'll give you one guess as to which is used in the $3T estimate. The book is littered with examples like this that compromise the entire exercise.
The truth is that we have, to this point, have spent $800b or so. Its a staggering amount of money. When its said and done its unreasonable to think it could easily double or triple. What I want is a credible study, and I'm sorry but the Stiglitz book is not when they include examples as I've shown.
I won't get into the obvious agenda-driven baggage the economists' co-author harbors - she is releasing a book in June about how government money should go into more socialist-style public services. Where do you suppose she wishes that $3T went? It doesn't take a genius to realize that this is going to skew her work, and to be honest, it shows in an embarrassing way. In reading the book it becomes patently obvious that the conclusion came before the beginning.
Sure, the author is a Nobel laureate, but so is Yassir Arafat, Jimmah Carter and Al Gore. There is a differentiation between the scientific and, well, fluff awards that I willingly acknowledge, but I think Stiglitz has tarnished his credibility by having his name on the book. Its as if he traded his scientific credibility for liberal popularity, because as usual, the details never matter that much when you get the answer you like.
As for Obama - wait until we see who plays the race card once the general election season hits. Then we can talk about who is being cynical! Anyone want to wager with me that not Obama, but a campaign surrogate or classic race baiters like Sharpton and Jackson will be the ones to cry racism when people start scrutinizing Barack Obama? Obama has absolutely, positively gotten a free pass up to this point. The rhetorical question - why is that?
great post. I nominate this for best political post of the 2008 primary.