What Neocons and Zarqawi Have in Common

What Neocons and Zarqawi Have in Common
They both would have loved the U.S. to make war on Iran

Juan Cole has something to say that I hope you will not miss. He says that the American hawks who've been connected with the Likud Party in Israel, such as Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin, who've been hoping and "trying to get up an American war on Iran, have turned out to have the same goal as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!

Professor Cole gives fair warning about the likelihood of an ugly outcome should the U.S. decide to do what the neocons and Zarqawi have wanted so badly:

It is the case that if you did want to see the US completely defeated and humiliated, you could not do better than have Washington open a second conventional front in Iran. Iran is much bigger than Iraq, more rugged in terrain, and 3 times more populous, and its population is politically savvy, literate and highly mobilized.

So, it doesn't matter whether you listen to Ledeen and Rubin on attacking Iran or to Zarqawi on the same subject. Either way, such a move spells disaster for the United States and should be opposed by genuine patriots who care about this country--until and unless Iran actually does something to the US that calls for a military response.

My Thoughts on the Port Situation

My Thoughts on the Port Situation

I was away last week and did not have an opportunity to voice some of my thoughts about the Ports deal with the government of Dubai/UAE. When the Head Office controlling U.S. Ports could be suspect, in any way real or imagined, of being the proverbial Fox guarding the Henhouse, it is politically correct for an elected U.S. representative to cry at the top of the lungs for no less than 100% transparency. Consider how much fear has been placed in the heads of Americans after all of the Islamophobia sent their way courtesy of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Foxnews, Rush, RNC, and Co. over these past few years.

When one or more prominent members of President Bush's cabinet (or any political appointees such as David Sanborn) stand to benefit from the Ports deal that would concurrently enrich the government of a nation with connections to 9/11, especially since the Bush administration waged a tragic war of option against a nation with no connections to 9/11, we have solidly sane reasons to not simply "trust them" (as they would like us to do).

When we have been fed color-coded terror alerts, duct tape & plastic instructions, and assorted xenophobic lines.

As always (a tale as old as time), the rich who feed off the backs of the American worker will find a way to cooperate with one another, regardless of the fact that there is no trust between them. It's the American way. Those who imagine that the "American Dream" of opportunity will apply at any particular juncture of this story has to be certifiable. This deal will go through - mark my words. Neither Democrat nor Republican can look any of us in the eye and tell us they haven't supported an overall economic/trade system that has led us to this embarrassing situation.

Ask yourself: Is this Port deal necessary because of the politics that have been employed for too long by the Washington D.C. elite? Are rich and connected D.C. types worried about their incestual relations with the rich governing class in Dubai? Do they need to bail them out because their "bourses are weak?" Is this Ports deal some kind of U.S.welfare program for the well-connected?

So is the recent weakness of bourses in the UAE and Qatar something more than the booking of profits by investors? Is there some reason to think that the business cycle peaked in 2005, and that corporate profits from here onwards will be more difficult to achieve?

Because of all the unchecked and unregulated outsourcing of American jobs to India, China and beyond, are we forced to compete for the riches of Dubai investors (even when they may have also funded the terror that brought us 9/11?)

Because of emergence of China and India as big economic powers we are particularly interested in promoting ties between Arab and Asian businesses. We have just organised a major conference that attracted 100 CEOs and included a 40-strong contingent from China."

Arab states and D.C. Lobbyists - - what can I say other than economic incest and influence that should cause any thinking American to demand transparency on this Ports deal? According to Raw Story, Bob Dole (former Presidential candidate and husband of an incumbent North Carolina Senator) has been hired by Dubai Ports World to lobby for the approval of the deal that would give the company control of several major U.S. ports. Why is Bob Dole saying 'Yes! Yes!' while his wife is saying 'No! No!' to the Ports deal on the floor of the Senate? Is this not bizarre?

It's come to be the American Way, hasn't it? And it's totally unethical. If we don't like it, we'd best stop being silent like stones on such matters.

Since 9/11, George W. Bush has misled Americans with his rhetoric about evil people who finance terrorists while, behind the scenes, it is understood that business goes on with participation from many of the same Arab governments used as examples for the RNC's never-ending fear-mongering factory.

President Bush has not denounced the many xenophobes such as Rush Limbaugh, whose ugly-mouthed hypocrisy is astounding. I heard him accusing Democrats of "Islamophobia" regarding the Ports situation last week when the only Islamophobes I've seen over these past four years have come directly from the right wing. (The entire 2004 RNC Convention was little more than a fear-mongerer's xenophobic paradise!)

Neocon Michael Ledeen suggests a "cleaner" way - an American front for rich Dubai investors - let the rich governing class of Dubai feast on the profits and wall them off on the operations side. If the deal must take place, it's probably the only idea that will save the well-connected. The only thing missing from the whole idea is any viable line of political or moral defense for enriching those who likely funded 9/11 terrorists (while we're still struggling with the war in Iraq in which Iraq had no 9/11 connection):

There is a clean way to handle things such as the port operations, and it still astonishes me that it wasn't done properly. It's been done thusly for many years, actually many decades:

1. Create an American company to handle the matter (if foreigners wish to buy in, or even buy it, that's ok);
2. Wall off the foreign investors/owners. They are silent partners. They have no say in the actual operation;
3. Create a "classified Board" composed of people with security clearances and experience in sensitive matters;
4. Appoint a CEO and other top executives with experience and clearances.

We do this all the time with, say, foreigners who want to buy companies that manufacture parts for weapons sytems, etc. It seems the obvious solution here

Update:
Speaking of Michael Ledeen, Larisa Alexandrovna has interviewed Mr. Ledeen for Raw Story, and I highly recommend it. My impression is that Mr. Ledeen has an extremely negative and fearful view of human nature - a view he claims is proven by history. Yet, for all his distrust and negativity, when Ms. Alexandrovna asks him who, "if our political leaders align with their party and the leader of that party, will be able to hold anyone accountable for war crimes?"..Ledeen replies:

ML: Just as we always have, by speaking and writing what we believe in, challenging lies when we think we see them, and appealing to mankind's better instincts. (my emphasis) But again, one has to have a sense of history and context. For the most part, it takes a considerable passage of time before we get a full sense of what actually happened.

If, as Mr. Ledeen suggests, mankind has such tiny capacity for the "better instincts", then how can he be intellectually honest in saying that he thinks accountability will occur by appealing to those "better instincts?" If we follow Ledeen's logic throughout his interview, I'd say if we're relying on writing and appealing to the "better nature" of our partisan political leaders as the only route to gaining accountability from them, we're totally screwed. Mr. Ledeen's logic has left me unconvinced regarding the rationality and cohesiveness of his overall argument. His denial of his Likud-ness and closeness to the Right in his view of foreign policy is not at all credible. Ms. Alexandrovna has presented some great questions and counterpoints, posing a real challenge to the balance of Mr. Ledeen's storyline. I can't wait to read the rest of the interview which will soon be forthcoming.

Sale: Libby/Rove Will Likely be Indicted

Sale: Libby/Rove Will Likely be Indicted

Federal law enforcement officials told Richard Sale that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was likely to charge the people indicted with violating Joseph Wilson's civil rights, smearing his name in an attempt to destroy his ability to
earn a living in Washington as a consultant. No action was taken today, it will likely take place on Friday, according to unnamed sources from federal law enforcement and unnamed senior US intelligence officials.

I. Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of Vice President Richard Cheney, and chief presidential advisor Karl Rove are expected to be named in indictments this morning by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald..

..Others are to be named as well, these sources said. According to US officials close to the case, a bill of indictment that named five people has been in existence since before October 17. Various names have surfaced, such as National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley
(see my previous comments about Hadley here), yet only one source would confirm that Hadley was on the list. Hadley could not be reached for comment.

..The probe is far from being at an end. According to this reporter's sources, Fitzgerald approached the judge in charge of the case and asked that a new grand jury be impaneled. The old grand jury, which has been sitting for two years, will expire on October 28...

..They said that Fitzgerald is looking into such individuals as former CIA agent Duane Claridge, military consultant to the Iraqi National Congress Gen. Wayne Downing, another military consultant for INC, and Francis Brooke, head of INC's Washington office
(see my previous post from 2004 - Who is Francis Brooke? ) in an effort to determine if they played any role in the forgeries or their dissemination. Also included in this group is long-time neoconservative Michael Ledeen, these federal sources said. [Truthout Perspective]

** See my thoughts on the web of links, whether direct or indirect, between the CIA leak, the Niger forgery, INC, SISMI, the INR memo, the infamous 16 SOTU words, Joseph Wilson, and AIPAC/Larry Franklin indictments.

Laura Rozen has some excellent updates. Via Kevin Drum, Nur al-Cubicle has put online her translations of the Repubblica series (On the Fake Yellowcake Dossier):

Part I
Part II
Part III

Laura says:

I am not sure how the Berlusconi government can plausibly deny that Sismi didn't have a direct role in the Niger yellowcake claims to western intelligence, and a very cozily indirect role to the forgeries themselves. Unless it's the kind of denial that Rove and Libby meant when they told the grand jury that they hadn't told journalists about Wilson's wife or her place of employment.

See Laura's column "La Repubblica's Scoop, Confirmed" at American Prospect.

With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries, created on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents -- and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.

NY Times on Judy Miller

NY Times on Judy Miller

The NYT Judith Miller story is out - and there isn't a whole lot new if you've been following the story. Miller recaps her decision not to testify and to go to jail:

"....other reporters subpoenaed in the case said such waivers were coerced. They said administration officials signed them only because they feared retribution from the prosecutor or the White House. Reporters for at least three news organizations had then gone back to their sources and obtained additional assurances that convinced them the waivers were genuine.

But Ms. Miller said she had not gotten an assurance that she felt would allow her to testify. And she said she felt that if Mr. Libby had wanted her to testify, he would have contacted her directly.

It sounds as if Miller was being uber-protective, and I am concerned as to why she waited so long for special permission from Libby when we could see it was customary, by that time, for at least three other reporters to accept their sources' waivers. Legal pundit Jonathan Turley has said,

Other reporters got the same waiver that she got from the attorneys of Mr. Libby, and they accepted that waiver as they should. It was a valid waiver. She was the only one who refused. Most of us assumed that she was protecting somebody other than Libby. Libby's lawyers said they were floored when they found out that she claiming to protect their client. I think now the evidence indicates that she didn't have to go to jail, which has a lot of people are scratching their heads. [Huffington Post]

Miller told the Times she thought Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate, was sending her a message that Libby did not want her to testify. According to Miller's and her attorney's account, Tate was seeking assurances that she would exonerate Libby. Tate called Miller's interpretation "outrageous." [Reuters]

What was this ultra-privileged relationship between Miller and the powerful war planners (including Libby) in the Bush administration? It seems to have surpassed the boundaries of ethical reason, and I'm not the only one who has noticed.

"Everyone admires our paper's willingness to stand behind us and our work, but most people I talk to have been troubled and puzzled by Judy's seeming ability to operate outside of conventional reportorial channels and managerial controls," said Todd S. Purdum, a Washington reporter for The Times."Partly because of that, many people have worried about whether this was the proper fight to fight."

I find Todd's statement to be in line with my own concern about Judith Miller's involvement in all of this - from the lead-up to the Iraq war to the present. Miller's own words tell us she was very careful to protect Dick Cheney:

"My interview notes show that Mr. Libby sought from the beginning, before Mr. Wilson's name became public, to insulate his boss from Mr. Wilson's charges," Miller wrote.....She said that in her recent testimony, Fitzgerald ``asked me questions about Mr. Cheney. He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no." [Guardian Unlimited]

To see the Times and some others making a First Amendment heroine out of Miller is what I consider to be a inter-professional knee-jerk reaction. I suspect she was harboring potential criminals, albeit powerful potential criminals, to ensure the status of her future access to the most powerful in government. It's no great 1st Amendment defense of a "whistleblower"...it's a revolting thought..and it's certainly not a clear or glorious 1st Amendment defense example.

"If you want to know one big reason why the mainstream media reported so long and so erroneously about Iraq's weapons capabilities, look to Chalabi, who was the main source for New York Times reporter Judy Miller's horribly inaccurate reporting on the matter. Where the Times goes, the others will follow."

- a quote from William Rivers Pitt

Things that make you go "hmmmmmmmm....":

The notebook used by New York Times reporter Judith Miller for an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff contained a name virtually identical to covert operative Valerie Plame's, the Times reported on Saturday. [Reuters]

....when the prosecutor in the case asked her to explain how "Valerie Flame" appeared in the same notebook she used in interviewing Mr. Libby, Ms. Miller said she "didn't think" she heard it from him. "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall," she wrote on Friday, recounting her testimony for an article that appears today. [NYT]

Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson, asked what she regretted about the Times' handling of the Miller case, replied simply: "The entire thing." [NYT]

"On the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 8, Ms. Rice warned that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," and Mr. Cheney, who had already started the nuclear doomsday drumbeat in three August speeches, described Saddam as "actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons." The vice president cited as evidence a front-page article, later debunked, about supposedly nefarious aluminum tubes co-written by Judy Miller in that morning's Times. The national security journalist James Bamford, in "A Pretext for War," writes that the article was all too perfectly timed to facilitate "exactly the sort of propaganda coup that the White House Iraq Group had been set up to stage-manage.."
..What makes Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation compelling, whatever its outcome, is its illumination of a conspiracy that was not at all petty: the one that took us on false premises into a reckless and wasteful war in Iraq. That conspiracy was instigated by Mr. Rove's boss, George W. Bush, and Mr. Libby's boss, Dick Cheney.

- Frank Rich, NYT - Truthout

Miller's own statement My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room can be read HERE.

My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA.

Miller indicates that Libby shifted leak-blame to the CIA:

I recall that Mr. Libby was displeased with what he described as "selective leaking" by the CIA. He told me that the agency was engaged in a "hedging strategy" to protect itself in case no weapons were found in Iraq. "If we find it, fine, if not, we hedged," is how he described the strategy, my notes show.

Curiously, that's the theme of a Bill Kristol Weekly Standard article today. Make the CIA look like the liberal (chortle) bad guys. Kristol seems to have taken it straight out of the Judith Miller playbook. As an American who values truth very highly, I don't want Judith Miller reporting news to me any longer. She coddles neoconservatives, if she is not one herself. They do not deserve the power they've held with the Bush administration.


Powerline Blog clings to a Stephen Hayes tale from the Weekly Standard about the 2004 Senate Intelligence report on WMD, headed up by super-partisan Sen Pat Roberts and released in 2004. Democrats never should have signed on to this report in 2004. See my post "Democrats far too passive on Senate Intelligence investigation."

Once again (as in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion), our Democratic representatives in the Senate are wimping out on us. They're allowing Senator Pat Roberts and his GOP partners on the Intelligence Committee to blame it all on bad intelligence and delay the next phase ("Phase Two"), which will be examining the administration's decision to invade Iraq (using/abusing the bad intelligence). The Senate Democrats "laid the groundwork for their own political defeat" last February when they agreed to delay the second phase of the investigation until after this November's election.

See my post from July 11, 2004: "I still believe Joseph C. Wilson IV:"

It's clear to me that the report will be
[ab]used by the Bush administration to attempt to legally snake out of its culpability in the treasonous outing of Mr. Wilson's wife.....

.....Would the fact that the Bush administration considered Plame's outing a necessity and an "unintentional" and legal consequence fly in the face of common sense? If it does fly, then I assure you..common sense is dead.. and the rule of law is a passe concept...and I am living in some alternative universe....

....The report throws up a smokescreen to make us wonder about Joseph Wilson's honesty in his prior statements about the Niger case, but in the end, the report is not conclusive and we are left to either believe Joseph Wilson's word or not. I tend to believe him over the others who consciously chose to leak his wife's classified identity and for whose motive I believe could have been nothing other than revenge (regardless of Wilson's role)....

.....Just as I believed there was no imminent threat to America all along based on the information I'd personally collected before the Iraq war, I continue to believe Joseph C. Wilson IV. He has my benefit of doubt.. and I hope he'll have yours, dear readers.

Consider the liars and the powers he's up against.

I went through Stephen Hayes' rehashing of events again and could find no mention of Michael Ledeen. From my own posting from this past summer:

Juan Cole has brought up the topic of Michael Ledeen as recently as yesterday. Mr. Cole tells us to check out Katherine Yurica's posting about Michael Ledeen and understand that Scooter Libby was the liaison to the CIA for the network that ran the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon - and this is highly significant to this entire story.

Libby's network was in competition with the CIA and many members wanted to permanently weaken the agency in favor of the Pentagon, since they had much more influence there.

The neocons of the Bush administration included members of our own Vice President's offices (if not the Vice President himself). The facts surrounding the creation of (false) justifications for the Iraq invasion has threatened to literally pour out of multiple leak sources, like a decayed old hose that's ready to burst. Judith Miller is an inextricable cog in the wheel of the tangled web of lies. How could she possibly separate herself when her involvement was incestuous?

Ledeen the Cur

Ledeen the Cur

James Wolcott rips Michael Ledeen to shreds.

Spy Ring Case Was About Iran

AIPAC Spy Ring Case Was About Iran

Last March, I reported that Israel had drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy failed to halt the Iranian nuclear program. [TimesUK]

It just so happens to turn out that this has been what the AIPAC espionage case was all about.

At the time Feith's deputy Franklin (and, today's indictments say, two other as yet unidentified Pentagon officials) were passing the classified documents on Iran to AIPAC for transmission to Israel, the White House had not yet given the green light to Sharon -- indeed, the Iran attack was in a holding pattern pending the outcome of negotiations over Teheran's nuke capacity being led by the European powers which, unlike the U.S., have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran...Even so, U.S. fingerprints were all over the Israelis' Iran attack, which had long been envisioned by U.S. policy-makers.

This Village Voice blog by Ward Harkavy reveals Douglas Feith to likely be a larger supporter of Israel than a supporter of the U.S.

...you can't lump all Zionists with Feith's wing, which is off the scale as a radical group.

It's almost impossible for me to believe someone like Feith was #3 at the US Department of Defense.

_______________

Here is my prediction:

After this week's pullout from the Gaza strip, a bold move that will surely give Israel the upper hand when it comes to public opinion, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said:

"To an outstretche dhand of peace, we will respond with an olive branch, but fire will be met with fire more intense than ever."

I am anticipating trouble with Iran. Naturally, I cannot predict how it will start or when, but I have a feeling that Israel will soon become entangled with Iran, and the US will be close behind Israel, wiping up each fingerprint. Knowing what we know about the aspirations and heavy hands in US foreign policy of neconservatives like Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, and the rest of the PNAC members, nothing would surprise me.

Headlines

Headlines

Barbara O'Brien has a summary surrounding the "fiction that Joe Wilson's Niger trip was arranged by his wife." [Mahablog]

The discussion continues about Cindy Sheehan. See my Blogcritics opinion column from August 9.

Why is Jodie Evans in Crawford, TX?

Why is Celeste Zappala in Crawford, TX?

It's getting really dirty and the Right is looking like some of the lowest lifeforms on the face of planet Earth. A Right blogger calls Cindy Sheehan a whore for publicity and points his finger toward another group of Moms. A disgusting and divisive abuse of mothers and their emotions. The blogger known as "Desert Rat" claims that one group of mothers are "there to shower them with love when they come home again. Their thoughts are with them every day, no matter where they are." Cindy Sheehan's son is not coming home again - and she doesn't want more mothers to suffer the loss she has suffered without clarity of purpose.

The Sheehan situation is garnering more and more attention by the day, despite the odd cable news media blackout of the story.

When it comes to plain and simple human emotion and cut and dried decency, in the court of public opinion, Cindy Sheehan's case is a winner, hands down. A quote:

Reading [Robin] Cook’s obituaries and final comments it is hard not to think of Cindy Sheehan, camped outside Bush’s ranch Prairie Chapel in the blistering August heat, awaiting the chance to talk to the President about her opposition to the Iraq war. Her son was killed there last year and she has become a dedicated anti-war activist. Cook’s final words echo in my ears and I’m sure they would in hers if she has heard them: “ It is dire. I mean, frankly, it is worse than my greatest fears…..Those that advocated the war on the basis that Iraq would be a blow against terrorism have made an immense blunder for which we will be paying the price for a long time to come.”

I hope President Bush will honor the lives of Casey Sheehan and Robin Cook by taking a few minutes out of his vacation to explain his thinking to one suffering mother.

[Jane Wells: Reflections on Robin Cook and Cindy Sheehan ]

The Common Ills features a statement on the quality of NPR coverage of the Cindy Sheehan situation, where a mention of the threatened arrest of Sheehan was omitted from Morning Edition coverage. 'Ruth's morning report' says: "In another time, when NPR was braver and less structured, Ms. Sheehan would be profiled each day because her vigil is news and this is a story that speaks to NPR listeners." [Common Ills]

This headline has Michael Ledeen and visions of 'Iraq redux' written all over it.

The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official (James Tobin) charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire. *hat tip to Buzzflash See my prior posting here. [Yahoo news]

Josh Marshall comments on the Tobin case: "Tobin's defense doesn't seem to rest on his being innocent of the deeds in questions but rather on claims that no laws cover what he did." [Talking Points Memo]

38 members of Congress have written to President Bush, asking him to meet with Cindy Sheehan. I wonder why it's always the same brave Congresspeople. Where are the rest of our Representatives? Sen. George Allen of the GOP was bold and empathetic enough to urge the President to see the lady. I'd like to see more of this. [See Buzzflash for pdf link]

How the Bush Admin is Responsible for Miller's Imprisonment

How the Bush Admin is Responsible for Miller's Imprisonment

Murray Waas writes about a meeting between NYT reporter Judy Miller and "Scooter" Libby on July 8, 2003 in Washington DC - six days before Reptile Novak wrote his column outing Valerie Plame as a "CIA operative."

Waas says Libby's failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.

I have blogged that Miller's attorneys have intimated that Miller was not comfortable discussing her source, because of the conditional nature of that source's general waiver. (Perhaps Libby told her she could talk about some things, but not others, and that was not satisfactory to Miller, who is understandably worried about being incriminated herself.)

A quote from my prior blogpiece titled Michael Ledeen, Judy Miller, "Scooter" Libby:

"Judy's view is that any purported waiver she got from anyone was not on the face of it sufficiently broad, clear and uncoerced."- [Source- WaPo]

In his current article, Waas shows that President Bush was disingenuous, at best, when he averred that he would ensure that the White House would cooperate fully with Fitzgerald's investigation. If that was true, Bush would have pushed Libby to sign a personal waiver rather than a general one.

In essence, for their foot-dragging and non-cooperative nature, the Bush administration can be held partially (and directly) responsible for Judy Miller's imprisonment.

I know there's a lot of speculation about Judy's aggressive style of journalism and the ethics that surround that style, but let's not forget that her choice to remain in prison is because some folks in the White House decided it was more convenient to watch their own ass rather than worry about Judy's summer plans.

Related post - Dave Johnson

Plame leak - Niger Forgery - AIPAC Espionage - linked

Plame leak - Niger Forgery - AIPAC Espionage - linked
Even Bob Novak has a special place in this hellish tangled web.

With the knowledge that an unnamed recent appointee to the Bush administration was involved, even though not indicted in the AIPAC espionage case, I don't think we can state, with assuredness, that the Lawrence Franklin case wasn't all about the ugly production-line process by which US/Middle East policy has been created in Washington D.C. and, particularly in the Bush administration. Neocons, with their fevered verve to destabilize Iran, rolled over our CIA and chose to ally with non-American forces, namely Ahmad Chalabi's INC. The INC's lies and double-crossings have done irreparable damage to America. Judith Miller was smack dab in the middle of the neocon fever, and wittingly or not, she contributed to a great lie, perpetrated from within the White House, which has been one of the gravest insults and disservices to American citizens in the history of the United States.

The indictments?
Steve Rosen, former AIPAC policy director and Keith Weismann, an Iran analyst for AIPAC, were indicted and further criminal charges were brought against former Pentagon and Defense Intelligence Agency employee Larry Franklin, a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve. Rosen and Weismann were charged with illegally receiving classified material. Franklin was charged with illegally passing classified information to Rosen.

From JTA:

The indictment lists charges involving incidents dating back to 1999, four years before the AIPAC staffers met Franklin. The charges are related to information on Iran and terrorist attacks in central Asia and Saudi Arabia that was allegedly exchanged with three U.S. government officials and three staffers at Israel´s Embassy in Washington.

A source close to the defense said that one of the U.S. officials involved, who has not been indicted, was recently appointed to a senior Bush administration post. The source, who asked not to be identified, would not name the official.

Larry Franklin had been a mid-level civil service employee who'd worked for many years at the Defense Intelligence Agency and worked in OSP Douglas Feith's office (Feith was under secretary of defense for policy). In Feith's office, Franklin worked under William J. Luti, deputy undersecretary for defense for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, whose office was a part of the operation under Feith.

The recent indictment, for the first time, publically acknowledges the fact that Time magazine has previously reported, which is that Franklin had been enlisted by the FBI to place a series of monitored telephone calls (scripted by the FBI) to get possible evidence on allies of Ahmad Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon neocons.

Chalabi was alleged to have told his Iranian intelligence contacts that the US had broken their communications codes -- a breach that prompted a break in U.S. support for Chalabi last spring --
and the FBI wanted to know who had shared that highly classified information with Chalabi. -- An FBI counterintelligence investigation of who had leaked this information to Chalabi was reportedly under way by spring 2004, and many of Chalabi’s neocon allies were incredibly anxious: Misjudgment about Chalabi’s virtues or postwar Iraq planning was one thing; passing secrets to another nation would be an accusation of an altogether graver magnitude.[American Prospect - Laura Rozen/Jason Vest]

The classified document that Franklin allegedly passed to AIPAC concerned a controversial proposal by Pentagon hard-liners to destabilize Iran.
What was in the draft that neocon Michael Rubin had written and Lawrence Franklin allegedly shared with AIPAC? [Rubin, by the way, was furious at the leak about the AIPAC espionage, saying that the White House "rewarded the June 15, 2003, FBI leak" by canceling consideration of the draft altogether].

There are speculations that the destabilization plan pushed by neocons were in the draft in question - and that it advocated that the US (or its "proxies") should arm the Iranian opposition, including the Kurds, as part of its efforts to pursue regime change.

There have also been alleged leaks from former U.S. diplomatic officials who have visited Iraq and told journalists that there are Israeli intelligence officials operating in Kurdish Iraq as political advisers, and others under the guise of businessmen. [source - American Prospect]

Visions of the ugly politics of the 1980s in Latin America resurface when we acknowlege what the neocons have been trying to do in Iraq, with an obvious nod from the White House:

The public statements by the neoconservatives emphasize that regime change in Iran would not require U.S. military force. Then again, the neoconservatives’ inspiration for the Iran plan has its roots in Reagan-era NSPDs that, while providing nonmilitary support to Poland’s Solidary Movement, also had the CIA aggressively arming and training the Afghan mujahideen, the Nicaraguan Contras, and other anti-communist rebels. There’s also no denying that some of the chief advocates of the Iran regime plot come out of the Pentagon, America’s military command center. And some of those same Iran hawks have discussed the Iran regime-change issue, for instance, with Parisian-based Iran Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar -- not exactly the kind of go-to guy for a nonviolent regime change plan, one might think.

THE NIGER FORGERY LINK

Franklin also participated in secret meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer who acted as a middleman in the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration. The secret meetings, first held in Rome in December 2001, were brokered by Michael Ledeen, a leading neocon and long-time supporter of Israel. Ledeen said he arranged the meetings to put the Bush administration in closer contact with Iranian dissidents who could provide information on the war on terrorism. But he said that Franklin was always skeptical about the usefulness of the back-channel meetings. LINK - WRMEA

Bob Novak spilled classified information here:

From A Daily Kos diary entry:

Bob Novak's greatest harm to national security didn't come from outing Valerie Plame and her front company. His greatest harm came when he made the following statement in his July 14, 2003 article:

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

Up until that time, the name of the country involved was classified. Check out EmptyWheels great diary...How could Novak have known SISMI was involved? Either someone with clearance told him, or a conspirator to the forgeries told him. Who would those conspirators be? Those with links to P-2 and the parallel Italian intelligence network. I think I've pretty much spelled out who's on that list.

WHICH BRINGS IT ALL DOWN TO THE OUTING OF VALERIE PLAME

Why? Because her husband was getting too close to the truth.

It isn't hard to see how are these cases are related.

My question is this - and this is only speculation. When embedded in Iraq, it's been reported that Judith Miller used to throw Douglas Feith's name (and negative press) around as a threat to hang over the Military's heads (to get them to do what she wanted). It's clear she was a close contact of Feith's (and Franklin's) office. It is said that there are clues about who it was in the news media whom AIPAC used to "launder" classified information after AIPAC acquired it from recently-indicted Larry Franklin. An article says:

Rosen and Weissman disclosed sensitive information as far back as 1999 on a variety of topics that included terrorist activities in Central Asia, the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, al-Qaida and US policy in Iran, the indictment said. Among their contacts were foreign government officials and reporters..

The FBI doesn't offer names of media sources, but it does provide dates and specific themes of stories. It is probably worth investigating.

Related: see Juan Cole's notes from a year ago.

Iran - Ten Years Away

Iran - Ten Years Away
What will we do with those ten years?

Today's WaPo tells us that Iran has been judged to be at least ten years from having a nuclear bomb [NIE estimate - the first major review since 2001 of what is known and what is unknown about Iran].

The question remains - should the U.S. be openly promoting the idea of democracy in Iran? I think we should... with honor, good faith, and the utmost respect for human rights and the rule of law...not by gunning for their present regime.

Neocon Michael Ledeen is going to be marginalizing this new NIE information - and the people who supplied it to us. I guarantee it. Ledeen is so hot for Iran's regime that he's been glowing brighter than a freshly-nuked bomb-victim in his animated determination to overthrow them.

You may say, "Jude, why are you worried? No one is talking about going to pre-emptive war with Iran." That is simply not true. People ARE talking about it - quite openly. Here's a quote from Ledeen himself - and remember this - he's still a valued member of the PNAC crowd that our own VP supports wholeheartedly:

"First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria. And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia. … Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged. …We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution. … Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."

It's the NeoCon creed. You can look at up on Google if you don't believe it's true.

This new NIE report is going to send Ledeen and the neocons reeling. It drowns their false droning on and on about the immediacy and urgency of the Iranian situation and tacks on five more years with which America can do something productive, positive, and creative to win Iranian hearts and minds.

NeoCons showed us how NOT to support human rights and democracy in Iraq. They provided President Bush with the perfect blueprint (a blueprint he had willingly accepted as "righteous") for what NEVER to do again! Yet, Bush has never been one to accept reality. Instead, Bush chooses to create his own reality, and his re-election in 2004 set a stage for dangerous political dynamics that our kids will be contending over the course of the next ten years - as Iran comes closer to having a nuclear bomb. The neocons have not changed their tune, and the Bush administration has clearly shown that they would have rather destroyed a good American man who told us the truth about Niger (and destroyed his family/out a CIA agent) than to recognize the mistaken avenue down which the neocons have taken us.

Listen to the reasoning of Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi of Iran (quoted below-see LINK). It's time for Americans to rely on our own sense and use our own freedom to speak out now...before we enter into another damned disaster.

"Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has said that while she, too, opposes nuclear weapons, the West would do more good by focusing not on Tehran's nuclear programme but on promoting democracy in the Islamic Republic.

"In a country or a society where people supervise decisions and everything else, like a democratic country, the existence of an atomic bomb cannot be dangerous," Ms Ebadi said."

US Military Evicted from Uzbekistan Airbase

US Military Evicted from Uzbekistan Airbase

Indepundit is reporting that the U.S. Military has been evicted from an airbase in the ex-Soviet state of Uzbekistan. Joe Gandelman has a report as well. The airbase was important to the support of our operations in Afghanistan. [see Reuters] The government in Uzbekistan is said to be one of the most authoritarian in the Islamic world. The Bush adminstration gave Uzbekistan $500 million to secure basing rights in the country -- and much of that money was siphoned into the private accounts of President Karimov and his allies. Senior officials in the Bush administration are saying that if they'd turned a blind eye to the Uzbek refugee/human rights problems, the Military could have managed to stay.

When was the last time you heard about the Bush administration accepting the loss of a fairly critical Military base while we were at war - based on the crappy human rights record of the nation in which they are based? [see Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et al - - all with abominable human rights records]. We Americans know the Bush administration better than that. Bush has a BIG bully pulpit - and he knows how to use it. Oil and gas interests and access to strategic military facilities in Central Asia have been primary motivators for the Bush Administration. How can the Bush administration expect us to believe they're just as glad to lose this important military base? Is this proof that we're losing ground for the spread of democracy in Central Asia? The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers has said:

"Central Asia is important to the United States for lots of reasons, not just for operations in Afghanistan... Security and stability in Central Asia is an important concept, and those that can bring security and stability ought to be welcomed in Central Asia. Uzbekistan is a very important country over there."

What will we do about the Uzbekistan problem now? Karimov is the kind of leader that Saddam Hussein was a couple of decades ago. Do you see a failure of a pattern emerging? Sanctions that will result in the sure starvation of the babies and the elderly? Ignoring the UN and any meaningful role they might play? I wouldn't put it past neocon Michael Ledeen to suggest that we should attack Uzbekistan in order to "deliver" democracy. That's the neocon M.O., isn't it?

Plamegate

Plamegate

Oh, what a tangled web. It seems that Karl Rove Lied to the FBI in 2003.
link - American Prospect Online

Eric Boehlert talks about how "Scooter" Libby could have first become aware of Valerie Plame.

Bush apologist Carl Cameron reminds me of that kid on the playground you wanted to smack around for being smug while saying something stupid. He has made a doozy of an excuse for Bush on his backpedaling on firing Karl Rove. It amounts to this: When you say "losing your job," it doesn't mean getting "fired".

Billmon shows us how CNN's John King got egg on his face by Bloomberg News reporting the truth about the White House trying to get the spotlight off Karl Rove by pushing up the nomination of John Roberts by a good number of days. (Billmon gives props to Atrios and Kos). Howard Kurtz winds up looking foolish, too (see Media Matters).

Josh Marshall points us to a reader blog at TPM Cafe, which in turn, leads us to this press gaggle from 2003. Condi Rice enters the picture. Her involvement, at such an early stage, and her odd mention of Joseph Wilson at this gaggle, makes it seem (and I'm only speculating) that this may have been a distributed high-level talking point intended to be used for full-scale damage control.

Q Dr. Rice, when did you all find out that the documents were forged?
DR. RICE: Sometime in March, I believe. Is that right?
MR. FLEISCHER: The IAEA reported it.
DR. RICE: The IAEA reported it I believe in March. But I will tell you that, for instance, on Ambassador Wilson's going out to Niger, I learned of that when I was sitting on whatever TV show it was, because that mission was not known to anybody in the White House. And you should ask the Agency at what level it was known in the Agency.
Q When was that TV show, when you learned about it?
DR. RICE: A month ago, about a month ago.
Q Can I ask you about something else?
DR. RICE: Yes. Are you sure you're through with this?

Note: This is highly questionable. It was known, by the White House, that Wilson took the trip by early June. Wilson didn't mention the trip on TV until July 6th, 2003, the same day his column came out. The White House was well aware of Wilson's trip by early June. See WaPo


Matthew Yglesias has an excellent column asking about those forged Niger documents.

"...no officials anywhere, including the authors of the Butler report, deny the basic point that the Niger uranium memo was forged. What's more, the forgery was not especially hard to detect because there was not one forgery but two, the second of which was especially crude..

...Who produced these documents, and why? I don't even have a "gotcha" speculation to offer -- I'd genuinely like to know. What we do know is that according to a footnote in the SSCI report,

"..in March 2003, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator [Jay] Rockefeller, requested that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate the source of the documents, [clause redacted], the motivation of those responsible for the forgeries, and the extent to which the forgeries were part of a disinformation campaign. Because of the FBI's investigation into this matter, the Committee did not examine these issues."

The FBI, so far, seems to have come up with, well, with nothing. What we do know about the documents is that they were brought to the U.S. Embassy in Rome by Elizabetta Burba, an Italian journalist. According to European press reports, she got the documents from Rocco Martino, a former Italian military-intelligence official turned businessman with some kind of ties to French intelligence services. Martino has been to the United States at least twice since being publicly identified as the source of the documents, and the FBI didn't bother to interview him.

It seems clear that some powerful elements in Washington don't want to know the truth, which should raise suspicions."

Laura Rozen had the definitive blogpost about the Niger documents, Ghorbanifar, the neocon Michael Ledeen and SISMI.

Oh, this is a tangled web, people.

When you're done with the Laura Rozen blogpost, move on to Juan Cole's post about the Larry Franklin espionage story.

"The Niger forgeries also try to implicate Iran. Indeed, the idea of a joint Iraq/Iran nuclear plot was so far-fetched that it is what initially made the Intelligence and Research division of the US State Department suspicious of the forgeries, even before the discrepancies of dates and officials in Niger were noticed."

This whole Valerie Plame outing REEKS of a major conspiracy.

Karen Kwiatkowski asked the FBI, in 2004, why stop at Larry?

"Why is Larry the result of FBI investigational success instead of the names of the Pentagon senior operatives who shared classified information with Ahmad Chalabi regarding American success in reading coded Tehran communications, specifically now as neoconservatives rage for war in Iran? Or instead of the names of senior White House operatives who revealed and destroyed the U.S. security mission of Valerie Plame?

Michael Ledeen, Judy Miller, "Scooter" Libby

Michael Ledeen, Judy Miller, "Scooter" Libby
Fitzgerald investigation is closely-held, yet it seems to go deeper than "Karl-said/Novak-said" - - and you can bet Judith Miller hasn't decided to sit in jail for no good reason. The Plame outing didn't occur in a vacuum, and the investigation may be going deep. Judy Miller has her reasons to remain silent. Those reasons remain a mystery, and we can only speculate.

_______________

I would like you to read a post of mine from May, 2004. It includes discussion about Michael Ledeen, a man so voracious for tackling Iran's regime that he has used the recent London terrorist bombings to try to start a whole new "drums-of-war" campaign for America. It also involves Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi. My post from May 2004, provides a glimpse into the way the White House has been forced to shelter some very inconvenient (neocon) "friends" in order to save political face.

Judith Miller remains in jail because she apparently doesn't feel comfortable with the waiver Scooter Libby's attorney gave her - and Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan has chided her for it, making it sound as if the protection she's giving a "source" is some sort of a guise. Worse than the chiding, Judge Hogan has raised the possibility (in open court) that Judy Miller could be charged with criminal contempt if she continues to defy Hogan's order to cooperate in the investigation.

It seems as if Ms. Miller found the waiver offer to be coercive in some way. I'm trying to figure why this would be..(?) Judy's well-known to be a smart, relentless, incredibly well-sourced, and fearless reporter, so I don't believe that fear is her motive for silence. Is Judy playing a martyr/saint?...Is she deliberately hiding something? It's a mystery. It's obvious that the investigators are playing hardball with Miller, and I'm sure they would have played the same hardball with any of the other reporters who failed to cooperate. Her attorney, Floyd Abrams has said:

"Judy's view is that any purported waiver she got from anyone was not on the face of it sufficiently broad, clear and uncoerced."- [Source- WaPo]

Four other reporters have answered some of the prosecutors' questions after receiving specific waivers from their sources, including Libby....yet Judy Miller won't do it. Why?

I believe what we have here is an extremely thorough investigation being run by Fitzgerald, Hogan, et al. As stated in the WaPo, "In this closely-held investigation, federal appeals court judges of very different ideological stripes, and Hogan, have reviewed secret evidence and have agreed that Miller's and Cooper's claims of a right to protect their sources is outweighed by the public interest in investigating a possible breach of national security." We have to believe this investigation goes far beyond the "Karl said/Novak said" chatter being bounced around the media and blogosphere, which has reached such a frenzied fever-pitch that people are beginning to tune it out.

I'm not pointing any fingers and I don't think I'm raising any irrational spectres when I ask this question (also asked by Sidney Blumenthal - Salon.com):

"Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the U.S. government and military?"

...and what might this have to do with Judy Miller's part in this Plame investigation?

It's clear that Judy Miller's been one hell of a good reporter in the past, although her character flaws, which consist of her ego and her highly competitive nature, seem to have gotten her into trouble with a White House administration who have masterfully used her, and her character flaw, to exploit their propaganda - which many suspect were outright lies facilitated by Miller through Chalabi. The New York Times has apologized for the fiasco, but the ones who should have apologized to the public first, and foremost, was the White House.

I feel it is important to note, for those who may not be aware, that Judy Miller teamed up with notorious neocon Laurie Mylroie on her first book. At the time, she was a fellow at the Bradley Foundation, which is tied to AEI and Bill Kristol's Project for a New American Century, which led the Iraq war charge. AEI (American Enterprise Institute) is a conservative think tank which is a hotbed of Iraq hawks known as "neocons", of which Michael Ledeen is included.

Ledeen is also connected with a lesser-known player named David Wurmser, who is Ledeen's partner in the closely-knit network of neocons (aka "The Lie Factory") who planned this attack upon Iraq based upon false information. David Wurmser is married to Meyrav Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies at the right-wing Hudson Institute. (See John Aravosis' Americablog analysis from 2004 for connections).

Author James Akins has quoted Ledeen, who has, with enthusiasm espoused by sinister neocons, cited Wurmser's disturbing philosophy on US foreign policy in the Middle East: [basically, saying that the reason to pull down Hussein is the hope that Saudi Arabian monarchy will fall to al Qaeda so that the U.S. could extend the "war on terror" into that region]:

"In The War Against the Terror Masters, Ledeen cites Wurmser in charging that, just before 9-11, "Saudi intelligence had become difficult to distinguish from Al Qaeda." Countless other, similar accusations have been flung at the Saudis by neocons. Max Singer, co-founder of the Hudson Institute, has repeatedly suggested that the United States seek to dismantle the Saudi kingdom by encouraging breakaway republics in the oil-rich eastern province (which is heavily Shia) and in the western Hijaz. "After [Hussein] is removed, there will be an earthquake throughout the region," says Singer. "If this means the fall of the [Saudi] regime, so be it." And when Hussein goes, Ledeen says, it could lead to the collapse of the Saudi regime, perhaps to pro-al-Qaeda radicals. "In that event, we would have to extend the war to the Arabian peninsula, at the very least to the oil-producing regions."

Juan Cole has brought up the topic of Michael Ledeen as recently as yesterday. Mr. Cole tells us to check out Katherine Yurica's posting about Michael Ledeen (*) and understand that Scooter Libby was the liaison to the CIA for the network that ran the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon - and this is highly significant to this entire story.

Libby's network was in competition with the CIA and many members wanted to permanently weaken the agency in favor of the Pentagon, since they had much more influence there.

The neocons of the Bush administration included members of our own Vice President's offices (if not the Vice President himself). The facts surrounding the creation of (false) justifications for the Iraq invasion has threatened to literally pour out of multiple leak sources, like a decayed old hose that's ready to burst. Judith Miller is an inextricable cog in the wheel of the tangled web of lies. How could she possibly separate herself when her involvement was incestuous?

If you were Judy Miller would you talk? You surely wouldn't want to spend one more day in jail than you'd have to. I suppose it would depend upon the nature of the questions you'd be asked. In Miller's case, I would have to guess that the nature of the questioning must carry the threat of incrimination.


* Seeing the Forest has a Round-Up of the Rove Scandal updates

Stupidity and Danger Flies In Face of American Division

Stupidity and Danger Flies In Face of American Division

Bush had best get a rein on the Grover Norqistians, wingnuts, and fundamental Christians.

Mike Thompson may be accused of treason - or simply of utter stupidity. His team won - they have our government lock, stock, and barrel..and he wants to secede, losing two of the most profitable markets in the world (NY and CA)?? What a complete dumbass.

Norquist aims to break anyone (including RI Senator Lincoln Chaffee) who dares stand up to his plan to drown liberal power for good. I hope he keeps it up..he's going to wind up choking in the dustbin of temporary American insanity.

Michael Ledeen should be strung up for complete idiocy with this idea - see his recommendation for Zell Miller. (Although it might be fun to see ol' Spitballs lose a duel with Jacques Chirac or Vincente Fox).

Speaking of Ledeen, we are just beginning to find out his Neocon crowd (in this case, Senor) seems to have performed a total end run around poor Paul Bremer in Iraq last Spring. Another case of our President allowing chaos and divisiveness to run rampant within his own secretive, battling and confused administration. No accountability, no one fired. Failure results on a battlefield where we never should have been in the first place.

These creatures are empowered by an unapologetic, inept, and radical rightwing President.

This isn't going anywhere productive. America needs serious help.
We're at the most pathetic civil state since the Civil War days.
No wonder poor Mike Thompson thinks secession is the only answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Most predictable news of the day (yawn):
Bush nominates a divisive character for Attorney General

Funniest comment upon the nomination of
Alberto 'I Like torture' Gonzales:

But Does He Like Naked Statues?
by Mad Kane

"The Geneva Conventions are quaint,
Said Gonzales. A scholar, he ain't.
But he's Dub's nominee
For the post of AG,
Where no doubt he will rule sans restraint."

A Moral Course? NeoCons Willing to Overlook Terror

A Moral Course?
NeoCons Are Willing to
Overlook Terror

At TomPaine.com, Robert Dreyfuss details an incredibly hypocritical statement from semi-retired NeoCon Richard Pipes and a Guardian article pointing to the "American Committee for Peace in Chechnya" (ACPC), whose members include Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Bruce Jackson, Michael Ledeen, James Woolsey, etc.

In both articles, we see Bush's Manichaean war of great moral consistency fall flat as a pancake.

In their rush to do as much damage as they can to Russia, these NeoCons are perfectly willing to look past the terror that killed hundreds of Beslan's babies last week. They're the blame-Russia-first crowd.

While it is a worthy cause to support liberty for the decent people of Chechnya, it is politically devastating to Bush's moral cause to use a double standard. After the past week's terror attacks on Russia, we can no longer look past the fact that their innocent people are being targeted by the same terror that is being practiced throughout the Middle East.

If we are Americans are a truly moral people, we will stand behind Putin in his time of weakness rather than proclaiming to the world that we wish to beat him down to nothing as everyday Russian citizens face the fiery trials of terror.

That would make us the most immoral poopyheads in the world.
That may be what the NeoCons want to be, but I don't think they are working in America's best interest, anyhow.

Allow me to say it loud and clear.
They are working in Israel's best interests.

We need to get them the hell out of OUR White House.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James Wolcott's new blog is a joy to read.
I'm so glad he's become a blogger:

"Podhoretz and his fellow neocons will not be satisfied until there are as many world wars as Police Academy sequels."

Mr. Wolcott's witty commentary on American culture and a Canadian NeoCon who plots wars for those tacky U.S. hominids:

"[David]Frum, Canadian, has little understanding of the manicured grasp [Kitty]Kelley has on the sordid imagination of America. He has spent too much time with his coauthor Richard Perle plotting to grease America into neverending war to understand what a destructive dynamo in a bouffant is Ms. Kelley.

Lieberman Reviving Cold War dinosaur

Lieberman Reviving Cold War dinosaur

Sealing his place as a solid conservative-Democrat (well out of touch with the vast majority of his party), Sen Joe Lieberman is involved directly in relaunching the Cold War-era Committee on the Present Danger, a group of citizens of diverse political persuasions who will work to sustain and strengthen bipartisan support for the war on terrorism in Iraq and beyond.

The Committee on the Present Danger was first formed at the dawn of the Cold War in 1950 to "educate Americans about the growing threat of Soviet communism". Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson had revitalized the group in the mid-'70s; this time it was focused on working for a stronger stance toward the Soviets and the increased defense spending necessary to carry out that policy. Ken ("Iraq'll be a cakewalk") Adelman, Paul Wolfowitz (who was on Team B) and Neocon Richard Perle were among other members of CPD's last reincarnation.

Looking back at the Committee's history in the 70s, I am dismayed to see Neocon Michael Ledeen's direct activity. Israel had built up significant influence in the CPD in its last revitalization. Ledeen was the primary contact person who was connected with Oliver North and the Iran-Contra affair...and who is a hawk on Iran today.

The CPD's rebirth allegedly took place at a gathering of 80-100 of Washington's leading neo-cons who gathered to discuss "Iraq and the War Against Terrorism." (sponsored by Clifford May's group FDD and funded largely by FOX New's commander-in-chief Rupert Murdoch).

Here's the message, basically. (American parents, please have a seat for this one). Here comes the draft. Uncle Sam will require the lives of many of your sons and daughters. The CPD's message will be (skipping over the niceties) "War, war, more war. Kill, kill, kill more Muslims. More more more terror attacks. More more more risk. More Homeland Security. Less safety."

Some say it should not be called a Committee on the Present Danger and that it instead should be called the Committee Committed to Blowing Up the World.

I am so very glad Al Gore helped marginalize Joe Lieberman early in the campaign season by endorsing Howard Dean instead. He let America know which candidate's direction he thought was appropriate for not only his party, but especially for our beloved nation.

Is it a gift if it creates more terror? Are we safer?

Is it a gift if it creates terror? Are we safer?

"Insurgents are blowing up pipelines and police stations, geysers of sewage are erupting from the streets, and the electricity is off most of the time — but we've given Iraq the gift of supply-side economics."

Paul Krugman, in his latest N.Y. Times column, explains how auditing of the Coaltition Provision Authority's use of Iraqi oil revenues never quite got up to speed before the CPA dissolved. When you combine that with the obvious fact that the U.S. made Iraq a "playground for right-wing economic theorists, an employment agency for friends and family, and a source of lucrative contracts for corporate donors", you can't wonder why good will was never forged with the already-distrusting Iraqi people.

NeoCon Michael Ledeen has publically and proudly said "the level of casualties [in Iraq] is secondary" because "we are a warlike people" and "we love war."

Who are we...or the Iraqi people..to doubt him?

Are we Americans safer for giving the gift of right-wing politics via cronyism and blood to Iraq?

NeoCons still love Chalabi-Inconvenient White House Friend

NeoCons Still Love Chalabi-
The Inconvenient White House Friend

Would their vociferous defense of con-man Chalabi make the NeoCons anti-American? Have NeoCons become inconvenient friends of the White House?
Wait! Some of the NeoCons are members of the White House administration!

From the New Yorker-
The Manipulator by Jane Mayer
At a moment when President Bush was struggling with multiple political burdens, Chalabi had become an inconvenient friend..

....A former admirer of Chalabi’s was alarmed by his turn toward Shiite nationalism, and said that his actions risked unleashing sectarian political strife that could pitch the country into civil war. He said, “There’s an irresponsibility in how he’s approaching this. It’s reckless. Iraq needs a stable government. But Ahmad’s pushing his private agenda at the cost of the country’s needs.”

....Chalabi claimed that his relationship with Tehran was purely expedient. “There are geopolitical reasons to be friendly with Iran,” he said. “Iran has the longest border with Iraq. Also, Iran is a much stronger state than Iraq, with three times the population. So strategically it’s not a good idea to be on bad terms. My good relations were not a secret from the U.S.”

.....Chalabi himself accused the C.P.A. of corruption, telling me, “There are so many bribes and kickbacks!"

.....One of his I.N.C. confidants told me that Chalabi might spend the summer repositioning himself as a fierce critic of Brahimi’s interim government, with an eye toward the coming election. Chalabi himself was less specific when I asked him about his plans. He said simply, “I think I have more of a future than the C.P.A.”

[LINK]

From the New York Times-
Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to the White House by Elisabeth Bumiller

On May 22, according to several of these Chalabi supporters, a small delegation of them marched into the West Wing office of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice to complain about the administration's abrupt change of heart about Chalabi and to register their concerns about the course of the war in Iraq.

"There is a smear campaign underway, and it is being perpetrated by the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and a gaggle of former intelligence officers who have succeeded in planting these stories, which are accepted with hardly any scrutiny," [Richard] Perle, a leading neoconservative, said in an interview. Perle added that the campaign against Chalabi was "an outrageous abuse of power" by U.S. government officials in Washington and Baghdad.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who favored going to war in Iraq and was a patron of Chalabi, did not respond to numerous requests this week for an interview.

Wolfowitz's spokesman, Charley Cooper, said in an e-mail that Wolfowitz believed that Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress "have provided valuable operational intelligence to our military forces in Iraq which has helped save American lives." Cooper added that "Wolfowitz hopes that the events of the last few weeks haven't undermined that."

The current views of Vice President Dick Cheney and Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, are not known. Both strongly supported Chalabi before and during the war in Iraq.

[LINK]

In a National Review article, NeoCon Michael Ledeen seems disapointed that the Chalabi accusations are serving to slow down his hoped-for war upon the nation of Iran. He's stooping so low as to calling Sidney Blumenthal a liar (point-blank). Ledeen blames the disinformation about Chalabi on Blumenthal, our State Department (meaning Colin Powell), and the Iranians. This is getting so twisted, my dear readers...I don't even know where to begin telling you just how twisted. We need to get this administration and their corrupt NeoCons out of power before our nation's credibility is completely destroyed.

While I do not share as much (weird) admiration for Chalabi as Christopher Hitchens, I wish to point out that even Hitchens has said:

[Former criticism] has now been replaced with a whole new indictment: that Chalabi tricked the United States into war, possibly on Iran's behalf, and that he has given national security secrets to Iran. The first half of this is grotesque on its face. Even if you assume the worst to be true—that the INC's "defectors" were either mistaken or were conscious, coached fabricators—the fact remains that the crucial presentation of the administration's case on WMD and terrorism was made at the United Nations by Secretary of State Colin Powell, with CIA Director George Tenet sitting right behind him, after those two men most hostile to Chalabi had been closeted together. Nor does the accusation about an alternative "stove pipe" of disinformation, bypassing the usual channels, hold much water (or air, or smoke). Woodward's book Plan of Attack makes it plain that the president was not very impressed with Tenet's ostensible evidence. The plain and overlooked truth is that the administration acted upon the worst assumption about Saddam Hussein..

Chalabi did all he did in his OWN nation's best interests, which is what anyone who LOVES his country might do. But that doesn't mean it was EVER our job to get into his slimy bed and do his bidding. The American public was totally misled, and even the President didn't trust George Tenet's WMD slam-dunk, but he tried to convince America, anyhow.

I disagree with Christopher Hitchens TOTALLY when he absolves Chalabi and Judith Miller of pre-war wrong-doing. Chalabi's misleadings were criminal. Miller, whether negligent or not, was gullible.

Bush will never have an excuse for taking us to unnecessary war, no matter HOW he slices and dices Chalabi.

The NeoCons want to kill off the U.N. by making the public believe they are a totally corrupt institution because of the Oil-for-Food-Program scandal. This is only one reason why NeoCons love Chalabi.

From A World Net Daily (un)Intelligence report:

[He [Chalabi] has also threatened to release damaging details on the corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program, which included high U.N. officials, possibly including the son of Secretary-general Kofi Annan.

"I have opened up the investigation of the oil-for-food program, which has cast doubt about the integrity of the U.N. here," Chalabi said. "They don't like this."

But Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell were not to be dissuaded. They are convinced that unless the administration converts Iraq into an international problem, the U.S. will never succeed in leaving Iraq.

The sight of U.S. boys dying daily in Iraq without a clear exit strategy is not seen as a reelection strategy.
[LINK]

What kind of line is that last line from World Net Daily? I'll tell you--it's a stupid unAmerican line! How about changing that last line to:
"The sight of U.S. men and women dying is f***ing sickening when we all know the war was unnecessary and pimped by Dick Cheney, the NeoCons and Chalabi and taken in by the all-too-war-willing Bush who, in turn, pimped his unnecessary war to the American public with lie after lie"?
None of these people...Bush, Cheney and his NeoCons, Tenet, Rumsfeld, Rice, Chalabi, Judith Miller, hoodwinked pundits.. not one of them was right. Wake up! It's time we truly started supporting our troops. We need the U.N. and we could certainly use new leadership in Washington.


The U.S. (including John Negroponte) was complicit in the oil-for-food corruption and the NeoCons and the Bush administration know it. We all know it. Negroponte's been given a new position of American power in Iraq. The Bush administration needs to cover any news that would make him look worse than he already does after his death-squad days. Perhaps Chalabi had "the goods" on Negroponte.

The NeoCons want suppport for Chalabi and they do not CARE that our troops' lives are endangered every day we fail to get world cooperation on Iraq. They are pushing stories to the public to slow down the possibility of U.N. involvement in Iraq...all for their own agenda.

They are fighting American diplomacy tooth and nail.

I submit to you that these NeoCons are acting as anti-Americans.

Rush Limbaugh is not acting in America's best interests, either, in pumping all the oil-for-food he can get partisan mileage out of.

The U.N. is our hope for world cooperation to get Iraq on its feet (rather than further destroy their weakened institutions). Chalabi has been instrumental in helping the NeoCons push this Oil-For-Food story. While the matter deserves investigation, it does not deserve front-page headlines at a time when we need a U.N. resolution and cooperation on Iraq.

The NeoCon war against the U.N. does not serve our country's best interests. It does NOT support our American soldiers.


Article worth reading:

Last Man Standing by Tom Engelhardt

Know this: Vote for Bush and we'll be going after Iran soon
*It's just a knowing thing*

Listen to Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle. They aren't just suggesting a possibility of future war with Iran. They are telling you it shall be unavoidable from their points of view. Unfortunately, the thesis they've wrapped their foreign policy ideas around has been warped by a pesky thing called REALITY.

But who cares about reality, right? I mean, it didn't make a hill o'beans of difference to our President.

Universal fascism, freedom betrayed: What is Mr. Bush doing?
".....Bush may be neither a Christian nor a conservative. He is something all-together different; something the world hasn’t seen for many decades, but all-together dangerous and maybe worse than history portends. Yes, for the true believers of the Left, there are much worse things than your skewed view of a Christian conservative. And for Christians on the Right, your views are not held in esteem at this White House. There is a not-so-new breed in charge these days..."

"[Michael] Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,

'Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence-our existence, not our politics-threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission'..."

"...What are we to make of all this? Is this just the isolated mad ramblings of an overwrought mind, an intellectual masturbatory rant the likes we would expect from Michael Savage rather than an American Enterprise Institute intellectual? I fear we must take this all-too-seriously...."

"..There is much to ponder from authors like Detlev J.K. Puekert, Zeev Sternhell, Sebastian Haffner, and the masterwork of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, who, each in their own way, their own research or memoirs, finds the German people of the inter-war years, like the American people today post 9/11, seemingly, willingly prepared to throw away liberty, the U.S. Constitution, be harangued by a president whose language increasingly fills {mine if not
yours) my ears with a Towering Babel of rant, obfuscation and mediocrity; language better suited to a lower ranking non-commissioned officer. Come-on? “Bring ‘em on!”
-This is not the language of a statesman but a tyrant; language of “you’re either with us or against us.” This is language not befitting a free republic based upon democratic principles and liberty; a nation founded upon dissent and discourse not defamation and vitriol. But like it or not, left or right, free or bond this is the language of the new world order..."