That was the advice Joe Scarborough had for his “conservative brethren” this morning.
You think Joe would know that his party has always been the greatest embracers of conspiracy theories. That’s all they have to sell their broken ideology. Off the top of my head, here’s a few we heard over the past several years:
If we allow gays to marry people will marry their dogs!
We must torture to stop that guy who is the only way to deactivate that nuclear weapon set to go off tomorrow!
Saddam has weapons of mass destruction!
Giving out condoms will make kids have sex!
Abortion leads to kids having sex!
Gays are killing marriage!
The worst part is that these are conspiracy theories peddled by leaders of the GOP, including then President Bush and his administration. Could you imagine if Nancy Pelosi said “George Bush was behind 9/11”? That’s a left wing conspiracy theory that has never been embraced by our side.
When you consider it, 90% of the conservative platform is nothing but conspiracy theories. Take for example taxes. They try to say that Democrats will raise taxes to bring us closer to socialism. I don’t know of any Democrats trying to make us a socialistic nation, even though people are more open to the idea now.
The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.
The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
And we finally get Phase 2 of the Iraqi pre-war intelligence report. This is the phase Republicans held up in 2004, because "it would effect the outcome of the presidential election". Would it? Hell yes it would. Here are some of the key findings:
* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.
The Bush administration is imposing sweeping new sanctions against Iran's defense ministry, its Revolutionary Guard Corps and a number of banks to punish them for purported support for terrorist organizations in Iraq and the Middle East, missile sales and nuclear activities, U.S. officials said Thursday.
The measures, to be announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, will cover some of the Iranian government's largest military and financial institutions, which Washington blames for supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan, Shia insurgent groups in Iraq, along with the Hamas and Hezbollah organizations, they said.
Iran's defense ministry and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are to be designated proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology while several banks will be hit with sanctions for "proliferation financing," the officials told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity before the formal announcement.
The Quds force and banks will be identified as "specially designated global terrorist" groups for their activities and financing of militant groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East, the officials said.
Terrorism! WMD! Where have we heard all of this before? Oh yeah - exactly 5 years ago. It looks like we are on schedule for a March invasion. Perhaps that also explains why the Pentagon is citing an immediate need for new bunker buster bombs.
Let's not forget about the sanctions Clinton imposed against Iran. There were some trying to get those limited. Does anyone remember who?
The big talk last week was the al-Sadr had fled the country and was not an influence anymore. Of course people like CNN's Michael Ware said that is far from the truth. Well once again it looks like the military was wrong and the others were right:
The leader of Iraq's biggest Shiite militia complained Sunday that bombs "continue to explode" in Baghdad and that U.S.-led security crackdown is doomed to fail, issuing a statement the same day a suicide attacker struck outside a college campus, killing at least 41 people.
Many Shiites believe that bombings have continued because the Shiite-led government bowed to American pressure and persuaded the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to take his Mahdi Army fighters off the streets.
Al-Sadr's statement, read to his followers in Sadr City, is likely to add pressure on U.S. and Iraqi forces to show results in the nearly two-week-old crackdown.
"I'm certain, just like all oppressed Iraqis are certain, that no security plan will work and no good will come of any occupier," al-Sadr said in the statement. "Here we are, watching booby trapped cars exploding to harvest thousands of innocent lives from our beloved people in the middle of a security plan that is controlled by an occupier who does as he pleases."
Of course the article goes on to say that we still believe he is in Iran, but how trustworthy is that? We are relying upon the same people that said Saddam had weapons of mass destruction after all.
Of course worrying about thing like Armor for our troops is nothing but politics to someone like Michelle Malkin. She's on the warpath to show that everyone is lying (including troops who have spoke out on this). Her proof? A memo from the Pentagon stating that there is armor. Guess what Malkin - OJ says he didn't do it also. Hey - and Saddam said he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. OH - that one was true and yet we are still there!
They say history repeats itself. Well with Bush, that repetition comes in only 3 years
U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters.
The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.
Sent to the head of the House of Representatives' Select Committee on Intelligence by a senior aide to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, the letter said an August 23 committee report contained serious distortions of IAEA findings on Iran's activity.
The letter said the errors suggested Iran's nuclear fuel program was much more advanced than a series of IAEA reports and Washington's own intelligence assessments have determined.
It said the report falsely described Iran to have enriched uranium at its pilot centrifuge plant to weapons-grade level in April, whereas IAEA inspectors had made clear Iran had enriched only to a low level usable for nuclear power reactor fuel.
It isn't disturbing that Bush would choose to lie about Iran- after all, what can we actually expect from our President? What is absolutley absurd is the fact that we are doing this again, when our level of trust received from the rest of the world is dismal at best. We lied going into Iraq. Us on the left knows that and the rest of the world knows that. Still Bush flat out lies to the American people and the world and gets to keep his job. So how does he repay us? He tries to lie us into war again.
CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program.
The new enrollments reflect heightened anxiety at the CIA that officers may be vulnerable to accusations they were involved in abuse, torture, human rights violations and other misconduct, including wrongdoing related to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They worry that they will not have Justice Department representation in court or congressional inquiries, the officials said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted that Al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq were developing weapons of mass destruction prior to the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
Rice, giving a series of interviews ahead of the fifth anniversary of the September 11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States, brushed aside a recently released US intelligence report saying there was no evidence Saddam's regime was helping Al-Qaeda obtain such arms.
"There were ties between Iraq and Al-Qaeda," she said on Fox News Sunday.
Taking a break from his work at the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto on Monday, former President Clinton warned Republicans not to politicize the London terror arrests, slammed Sen. Joe Lieberman, whom he campaigned for just a couple weeks ago, and tackled some of the controversies surrounding his work to fight AIDS.
"I don't think the thought in that London bomb plot has any bearing on our Iraq policy," Clinton said.
"The Republicans should be very careful in trying to play politics with this London airport thing, because they're going to have a hard time with the facts."
Clinton said that the London terror plot had raised two questions about the Republicans' political strategy.
"They seem to be anxious to tie it to al Qaeda. … If that's true, how come we got seven times as many troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan?" he said. "Why have we imperiled President [Hamid] Karzai's rule and allowed the Taliban to come back into the southern part of Afghanistan? Why was Iraq deemed to be seven times more important than finding the al Qaeda leaders for the last five years?"
Secondly, Clinton asked why the administration and congressional leadership had opposed tighter security on cargo containers at ports and airports.
Oh but wait it gets better. Here we go with Clinton on Lieberman:
Lieberman has characterized his loss — and the need for his subsequent independent run — as liberals in the party purging those with the Lieberman-Clinton position of progressiveness in domestic politics and strong national security credentials.
"Well, if I were Joe and I was running as an independent, that's what I'd say, too," Clinton said.
The United States has imposed sanctions against seven companies from Russia, North Korea, India and Cuba for arms deals with Iran, State Department officials said Friday.
The sanctions, which took effect on July 28 and were listed Friday in the Federal Register, fall under the Iran-Syria Non-Proliferation Act, which prohibits transfer of sensitive technology to Tehran or Damascus that could be used for weapons of mass destruction programs.
Officials said two Russian companies, two North Korean companies, two Indian companies and one Cuban company were sanctioned because there was "credible information" they had transferred to Iran equipment and/or technology on export control lists.
Such transfers had the "potential of making material contribution to cruise or ballistic missile systems and weapons of mass destruction programs," one official said.
But what about Halliburton? It is widely known that Cheney was petitioning Congress during the 90's to allow his company to sell nuclear components to Iran, despise sanctions. Then we found out about this last year:
Only weeks before Halliburton made headlines by announcing it was pulling out of Iran—a nation George W. Bush has labeled part of the “axis of evil”—the Texas-based oil services firm quietly signed a major new business deal to help develop Tehran’s natural gas fields.
Halliburton’s new Iran contract, moreover, appears to suggest a far closer connection with the country’s hard-line government than the firm has ever acknowledged.
Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.
The infamous speech by Bush in which he declared his "axis of evil". A year and a half later someone in his administration leaked the identity of a CIA agent to the press. We now know Karl Rove was one of those that contributed to this leak.
Now we find out that the CIA agent, Valerie Plame, was working on Iran and their WMD threat (see video here):
INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY VALERIE WILSON WAS PART OF AN OPERATION THREE YEARS AGO TRACKING THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL INTO IRAN. AND THE SOURCES ALLEGE THAT WHEN MRS. WILSON'S COVER WAS BLOWN, THE ADMINISTRATION'S ABILITY TO TRACK IRAN'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS WAS DAMAGED AS WELL.
THE WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERS IRAN TO BE ONE OF AMERICA'S BIGGEST THREATS.
How many more people must come forward before people start to listen? Here is the latest-
A CIA official who had a top role during the run-up to the Iraqi war charges the White House with ignoring intelligence that said there were no weapons of mass destruction or an active nuclear program in Iraq.
The former highest ranking CIA officer in Europe, Tyler Drumheller, also says that while the intelligence community did give the White House some bad intelligence, it also gave the White House good intelligence — which the administration chose to ignore.
Drumheller talks to 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley in his first television interview this Sunday, April 23 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Drumheller, who retired last year, says the White House ignored crucial information from a high and credible source. The source was Iraq's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, with whom U.S. spies had made a deal.
When CIA Director George Tenet delivered this news to the president, the vice president and other high ranking officials, they were excited — but not for long.
"[The source] told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs," says Drumheller. "The [White House] group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested. And we said 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change.' "
The trial of Scooter Libby is still 10 months away but already we are learning that his defense could expose serious problems within the White House, in particular, their claims for the war in Iraq.
Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide are suggesting they may delve deeply at his criminal trial into infighting among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.
New legal documents raise the potential that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's trial could turn into a political embarrassment for the Bush administration by focusing on whether the White House manipulated intelligence to justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
In a court filing late Friday night, Libby's legal team said that in June and July 2003, the status of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame was at most a peripheral issue to "the finger-pointing that went on within the executive branch about who was to blame" for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
So does this mean one of the administration’s top allies in selling the war to the public could now become a greater asset to revealing the truth that lead is into this mess called Iraq? When it comes down to a threat of jail time that is exactly what could happen.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is set to deploy ballistic missiles that could reach Alaska and remains a global security threat despite its failing economy, the head of the U.S. military in South Korea told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
"Reports indicate North Korea is also preparing to field a new intermediate range ballistic missile which could easily reach United States facilities in Okinawa, Guam, and possibly Alaska," Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. In a prepared statement, the leader of more than 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea included the missiles among North Korean threats such as a huge conventional army, 100,000 special forces and 250 long-range artillery systems that have Seoul, the South's capital, within range.
With all the talk recently about Cheney ordering Libby to disclose the
identity of Valerie Plame, the timing of this story is very relevant.
The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House
officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and
its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who
worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations
as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking
distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to
and from Iran.
Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed
heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that
Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and
carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to
monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
So in a time as delicate as this, the Vice President of the United States
felt it more important to try and protect their lies for a war with Iraq instead
of protecting an intelligence asset working on a real threat? How much more can
the White House do before it is considered treason?
