Looking backward instead of forward is
Posted By: well....backward. nm on 2008-08-30
In Reply to: oh yes....I forgot...... - Chele
nm
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Conyers ran backward at this guy....
in case you are interested...
Questionable "Intelligence"
There are some criticisms of the Bush administration even Howard Dean declines to endorse. A rare example of the form was uttered on June 16 by Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst who since his 1990 retirement from the agency has served as a full-time foot soldier in the army of antiwar left.
The occasion was a mock hearing of the Judiciary Committee. Set up by one of the Iraq war’s most strident detractors, Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-MI, as a publicity-grabbing protest against the war, the stunt quickly backfired when McGovern, in his own distinctive fashion, laid out his objections to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In McGovern’s view, the sinister motivations for the war could be explained by the axiom O.I.L.: “O for Oil, I for Israel, and L for leveraging our land bases.”
Israel in particular concentrated his interest. Intolerant of the notion that Israel could be seen as America’s ally, McGovern contended that by toppling Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration was merely doing the dirty work of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. As evidence, McGovern was not above retailing anti-Israel conspiracy theories. Hence he claimed, inter alia, that an Israeli company had advanced warning of the 9/11 attacks—an accusation echoed in literature passed out by Democratic activists at the hearing. No immediate objections were raised, but McGovern’s conspiratorial musing did earn him the praise of at least one attendee, the notoriously anti-Semitic Rep. James P. Moran Jr., D-VA, who praised the former CIA man for his “candid” remarks. McGovern, for his part, sought to cast himself as a lone voice for sanity in an American political culture blind to the evils of the Middle East’s lone democratic country. “Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,” he complained.
A similar attitude animates the group that McGovern founded in the lead-up to the Iraq war, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Its comically exaggerated claims to the status of a “movement” quite apart, VIPS is a marginal antiwar group of 35 retired and resigned intelligence has-beens. Between 2003 and 2005, VIPS fired off some eleven open letters—presumptuously addressed to President Bush and other administration higher-ups—assailing, with varying degrees of sobriety, the administration’s case for war.
There was one recurring theme: the allegedly manipulative influence of Israel on American foreign policy. Thus, in a February 2003 letter, published on the left-wing website Common Dreams, VIPS made the case that the issues surrounding the war “are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than ‘UN v. Saddam Hussein.’” The more “complicated” explanation favored by VIPS was that all the turmoil of the Middle East—from terrorism generally to the intransigence of Saddam Hussein specifically—could be pinned squarely on Israel. Affecting to speak to President Bush, the VIPS letter stated:
It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel's continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein's felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks.
This line of argument resounded with several VIPS members, among them the husband and wife team of Kathleen and William Christison. Former CIA analysts, the Christinson’s (who’ve since parted ways with VIPS) unsuccessfully attempted to travel to Iraq prior to the war to voice their opposition to “a new colonialism in the [Middle East], dominated by…the U.S. and Israel.”
But the most enthusiastic advocate of anti-Israel conspiracies was Ray McGovern. In a letter to the Christian Science Monitor just days after the 9-11 attacks, McGovern berated Americans for failing to “understand why so many of [the Middle East’s] people are willing to commit terrorist acts against the US,” and called for a “US approach that is less biased toward our Israeli friends.” And he was just getting started. “The war on Iraq was just as much prompted by the strategic objectives of the state of Israel as it was the strategic objectives of the United States,” he explained in an interview with the left-wing Sojourners magazine, ominously expressing his amazement at the “confluence of objectives” between American and Israeli policy makers. Writing in January 2003 in the Miami Herald, McGovern claimed that Israeli officials were “egging Bush on” to levy war against Iraq—all part of their master plan to strengthen their “ability to work their will in the lands seized from the Arabs in 1967 and 1973.” On yet another occasion, McGovern wondered: “Why is it that the state of Israel has such pervasive influence over our body politic?”
That Israel pulls the strings of American foreign policy is not the only conspiracy theory propounded by McGovern. While maintaining that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence information to justify the war against Iraq, McGovern has allowed for the possibility that WMD may be found in Iraq. But he hastens to add that any weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq will likely have been “planted” by American forces. “Some of my colleagues are virtually certain that there will be some weapons of mass destruction found, even though they might have to be planted,” he told Agence French Presse in April of 2003, darkly insisting that “that would justify the charge of a threat against the U.S. or anyone else.” McGovern dusted off the same claim for a June 2003 interview with the left-wing site Truthout.org. Granting the implausibility of that his assertion “that the US wants to be able to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” he nonetheless proceeded to justify it in the following manner:
Now, most people will say, ‘Come on, McGovern. How are you going to get a SCUD in there without everyone seeing it?’ It doesn’t have to be a SCUD. It can be the kind of little vile vial that Colin Powell held up on the 5th of February. You put a couple of those in a GI’s pocket, and you swear him to secrecy, and you have him go bury them out in the desert. You discover it ten days later, and President Bush, with more credibility than he could with those trailers will say, ‘Ha! We’ve found the weapons of mass destruction.’ I think that’s a possibility, a real possibility.
Yet another tack taken by McGovern and VIPS in their campaign to discredit the Iraq war was exhorting intelligence personnel to leak classified information. This was the subject of a March 2003 VIPS memorandum, which urged CIA employees to break the law by releasing any information that might lend authority to antiwar activists’ assertions that the administration was doctoring intelligence to justify the war against Iraq. In defense of this position, McGovern insisted that it was necessary to counterbalance the administration’s “cooked” intelligence—a matter on which, as a CIA spokesman pointed out, the retired McGovern, whose 27-years in the CIA were spent studying Soviet foreign policy, was hardly an expert. (Against this, McGovern has taken to offering a less than persuasive rebuttal. With the internet at his disposal, McGovern explained to Mother Jones in March of 2004, he is as informed as any intelligence operative poring over secret transcripts: “With the incredible amount of information available on the Internet, I can by ten o'clock in the morning, be morally certain that I have 80 to 90 percent of the information that's available on a given subject.”)
McGovern was still making overtures to would-be whistleblowers in September of 2004, now as a member of the “Truth-Telling Coalition Appeal,” a new antiwar group that included Daniel Ellsberg, the Rand analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. An open letter issued by the group, and signed by McGovern, demanded that CIA analysts leak communications intelligence and nuclear data, and, perhaps more actionably, urged them to disclose the identity of US intelligence operatives. While acknowledging that it was calling on them to commit a crime, the letter explained that nothing short of outright lawbreaking was adequate to counter an “administration [that] has stretched existing criminal laws to cover other disclosures in ways never contemplated by Congress.”
Pronouncements such as these have made McGovern a darling of the antiwar media and a reliable ally of antiwar politicians. It hasn’t diminished McGovern’s appeal to the antiwar left that he enjoys a reputation as a disaffected political conservative—a reputation assiduously cultivated by McGovern himself. Now a regular on the lecture circuit, McGovern seldom neglects to flash his credentials as a former CIA briefer of the first President Bush. He has even suggested, implausibly, that he has the former president’s ear. For instance, during a September 2003 appearance on far-left radio program Democracy Now, McGovern insinuated that the former president referred to the architects of the second Iraq war as “the crazies.” Pressed by host Amy Goodman whether these were really the former president’s views, McGovern beat a hasty retreat, sputtering about a “certain delicacy” that he suddenly felt compelled to respect.
Nor have his supposedly conservative inclinations prevented McGovern from peddling his flagrantly conspiratorial views and inciting intelligence analysts to criminality for the benefit of college audiences. Far from atypical was a September 2004 appearance at the University of South Florida, whereat he speculated that the Bush administration might engineer a pre-election terrorist attack on American soil so as not to cede power: “There might be a real or staged terrorist attack in order to postpone the elections,” McGovern said. McGovern did not fail to invoke his favorite acronym: “O is for oil, I is for Israel and L is for logistics, as in when we have Iraq we have a foothold and a number of bases strategically placed in the Middle East so we can be in control over there and also to protect Israel.”
It is precisely those views that antiwar Democrats from Howard Dean to John Conyers rushed to condemn in the aftermath of last week’s faux hearing. Conyers professed to be especially outraged: “I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive,” he wrote in a fuming letter to the Washington Post. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Conyers did not address the more relevant question: Why, given McGovern’s grotesque rhetorical record, had Democrats invited him in the first place?
I can certainly see why you are the backward typist, poor thing.
nm
Switzerland is nice and backward, try there? How can you be afraid of human rights?
nm
I was looking forward
to the foot-long hot dog myself..............
Thanks for the link; I look forward to seeing it.
I am looking forward to reading
Stephen Colbert's book "I am America and so can you." I got a little preview this morning on Tim Russert. It promises to be a delicious, laugh-out-loud satire.
Once source we can look forward to where
the war chest. It's time to stop rebuilding Iraq and enricing their surplus coffers, get out of dodge, bring our troops back home and start rebuilding our own country. I would look for that from Obama sooner rather than later and certainly he is not on that 100-year time line of McCain's. The Iraqis gets their country back and get to govern themselves, we get our troops back, the direction of the tax dollars gets reversed and we stop one of the unspoken, yet most significant economic hemorrhages of W's administration.
We then turn our attention toward reversing the power and economic stranglehold the corporations hold over us by instituting taxpayer-friendly policies that put corporate welfare behind the welfare of our citizens. We build an economy from the ground up instead of the top down. Sound familiar? We've done it before and we can do it again. Once we do that, W's legacy of fear and division will takes its rightful place in annals of history and seem like just another bad dream we all had.
Going forward would be a blessing.
Just give the man a chance. He was vetted inside out before he got to the Senate. He was then vetted even more before he was elected by the majority of Americans.
He is NOT a terrorist. His interests lie in helping the middle class, not in continuing the corporate welfare and helping the rich get richer, as has been going on for the last eight years.
We are in a SERIOUS economic crisis right now. That "trickle down" theory simply isn't working because the richest and greediest at the top simply AREN'T allowing anything to trickle down. They outsource our jobs so they can hire cheaper labor to get even richer.
Unlike Bush, Obama wants to give financial incentives to small businesses for keeping our jobs IN America. That just might help many medical transcriptionists in the USA.
The constant jabs and stabs at his character are reflective of the smear tactics employed by the McCain campaign, and most people saw past it and rejected that tactic.
Worse yet, the constant flaming of him and suggesting he's a terrorist is doing nothing but practically insuring that his safety is in jeopardy. If he survives long enough to take the oath of office and begin to do his job, I'll be his toughest critic if he doesn't deliver on the promises he made.
We've had EIGHT LONG YEARS of constant fear mongering, and Americans are tired of it. I realize there is reason to be fearful of terrorists, but Obama is NOT a terrorist, as he's been portrayed on this board. He's a Christian, not a Muslim, as he's been portrayed on this board. He wants CLEAN COAL and wants to find technology to support that so the coal industry can continue to exist, and he is supported by the United Mine Workers of America (contrary to what has been alleged on this board). He is encouraging public service in exchange for help with the costs of college (and will NOT FORCE it on everyone, as has been alleged on this board).
Most of an article was copied and pasted here yesterday about some congressman from Georgia being fearful that Obama is a Marxist because he thought a civilian force to help protect us was a good idea. One small paragraph of that article was DELETED, and that was the fact that BUSH SUPPORTED THIS.
As it is now, under Bush, we have the military in place in America, ready for ???? in case we the people become uncivilized. We have Bush and Paulson buying banks. We've had a "redistribution" of wealth for the last eight years that has benefited the richest of the rich. We, the people, are paying trillions of dollars to bail out institutions that continue to party on our dime, institutions that continue to give multi-million dollar bonuses to crooked executives, while more and more Americans become jobless. It's been reported that 47 million people don't have health insurance. Just keep in mind that with each job lost, there is a high probability that health insurance is lost, as well, since many people can't afford exorbitant COBRA payments.
Obama wants to help every American afford healthcare. This is especially relevant for me, as someone with an incurable disease and no health insurance, which I had to voluntarily terminate when my monthly premiums rose to 50% of my gross annual income.
These are the issues that are important to people. Either way, Barack Obama was duly elected by the majority of Americans, and he will be our President -- unless the hostility towards him grows so hateful that any chance he may have had will simply be extinguished, and if that happens, it will be because of some of the rhetoric going on in this country that is reflected on this board.
I don't see him as some sort of "Messiah." I see him as a biracial man who is the product of a union that wasn't even legal in some states just a few years before he was born. He has a perspective that is unique in that he has lived both a white and a black life.
In my opinion, he represents a little bit of the very best in most of us. It would be hard to see that, though, after reading the hostile comments on this board, some of them inflammatory opinions, and some of them copied and pasted articles (with portions of content removed that might be viewed as favorable to him, as in the case of the Georgia congressman yesterday).
If you're better off than you were eight years ago, then you're an anomaly because the country as a whole is in much worse shape. I trust Barack Obama. I don't trust hateful rhetoric -- rhetoric that is reckless and result in devastation for this country. We've been divided, by design, for the last eight years. It's time for us to come together.
Can we just give him a chance -- PLEASE -- for the sake of our country and for the sake of our children and their future? You just might be pleasantly surprised at the sunshine that might peek through all those dark clouds that reside in your hearts and minds, if you allow yourself to see it.
Forward her emails to me, please.
Thanks.
Moderator
you should forward that last paragraph
to the White House where they seem to think terrorists can be rational and reasoned with and will play nice with us.
Thanks. Very much looking forward to reading more of your views.
So, you look forward to paying for more social
xx
Me too, MS....I look forward to all who are speaking tonight.
Guiliani is speaking, Huckabee....though I am not a Republican, I have to admire them. When one of theirs has some issues that they disagree on (like Guiliani being pro choice), they don't excommunicate and demonize them. MUCH more democratic party than the Democratic party.
That is good. I look forward to seeing how she speaks and...sm
how knowledgable she is when answering unscripted questions or delivering a speech.
looking forward to Friday's debate
can hardly wait.
Funny. Not ONE pub has stepped forward
x
I'll step forward.......
I have two choices here, more taxes or no more taxes. Now, in light of the current situation that will now tax us more, before all this, Obama has not been shy about taxing, taxing, taxing, to pay for all his little social programs, which for the most part are jokes. And for those that don't believe this is a racial issue, think again. He came out punching at first, spouting all his plans for more social programs, more this, more that, bigger government, and that means higher taxes for all...all except those that don't pay taxes in the first place and live off the government, which he is well aware of and aware that these same people usually don't vote but he is going after them with everything he's got, including ACORN, because he doesn't care how he gets their vote, just that he gets it.
McCain has directly said he will not add more taxes, he wants smaller government, less government interference in our lives. As it should be. The government's main role is to basically run a military to protect this country, not to tax its citizens.
Obama has said nothing about smaller government, less government interference in our lives but instead has said just the opposite. Now, I understand with so many voting for him that already need someone to tell them what to do, how to feel, how to think, etc., that won't be a far stretch to believe that the government is their friend and ally, but sadly enough he likes it that way.
I don't particularly care for either one of them. Ron Paul would have done it for me, but with what I am left with, I choose between less government or more government. More government = more taxes !!!!! You can't argue that point.
Where is he planning to get this money. Well, he has spouted the fact that bringing our troops home will free up that money to be put here......I'll believe it when I see it. If he ever gets his hands on that kind of money, he will have blown it on more social programs and babysitting programs for lazy parents, who suck the blood out of my paycheck in the first place, all for the sake of making their children smarter. Pleeeeeze.....the only thing that will make anyone's child smarter is having a parent that gives a d*mn in the first place, not more taxes thrown at the problem. You don't need more taxes to read to your child, put a book in the home (hey, the library is free), talk to your child instead of the ususal phrases of condemnation I hear around here, make sure they do their homework, basically just be involved. No one needs to pay more taxes to get that.
More social programs = socialization of a country. But, for those that believe he will save them from themselves, Obama is loving it. Because these are the same people that freak out at the thought of thinking for themselves, not being dependent on the government for their lives.
Thanks for the head's up. Look forward to watching
bury this one in the trash right where it belongs...under the rotting fish.
If you are all about moving forward, why dont you
nm
Then why don't we make a pact from this moment forward?
We will stay off your board if you stay off ours. Do you agree or not?
Fantastic speech -looking forward for the debate
nm
Anytime he's on-camera and turns forward
very often)... and anyone can see it. His left jaw/cheek or whatever sticks out like a chipmunk with an acorn in his cheek. I was just wondering if that's where his cancer was.
Thanks Nanaw. Guess the poster looks forward to
nm
Only the open minded and forward thinking
There isn't anything he can do about narrow-minded, self-righteous divisionists. Obama has won over the educated majority of the entire world.
You can't make this stuff up...Looking forward to a *whiter* NO???see article
HUD chief foresees a 'whiter' Big Easy
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 30, 2005
A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged.
Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of 500,000 people for a long time, and it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.
Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, quickly took issue.
Anybody who can make that kind of projection with some degree of certainty or accuracy must have a crystal ball that I can't see or maybe they are more prophetic than any of us can imagine, he said.
Other members of the caucus said the comments by Mr. Jackson, who is black, could be misconstrued as a goal, particularly considering his position of responsibility in the administration.
I would beg and hope that the secretary, if that is what he is saying, would re-evaluate the situation, said Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat.
Mr. Jackson, whose remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle, said New Orleans might reach a population of 375,000 people sometime late next year with a black population of about 40 percent at the highest, down from 67 percent before Hurricane Katrina sent a storm surge that overwhelmed New Orleans levees and flooded 80 percent of the city.
The population of New Orleans before Katrina was a little less than 500,000, surrounded by large, predominantly white suburbs. The largely black Ninth Ward and the predominantly white middle-class Lakeview section near Lake Pontchartrain were overwhelmed by floodwaters.
Mr. Jackson, a former developer and longtime government housing official, said the history of urban reconstruction projects shows that most blacks will not return and others who want to might not have the means or opportunity. His agency will play a critical role in the city's redevelopment through various grant programs, including those for damaged or destroyed properties.
In the storm's aftermath, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, charged that relocating evacuees across the country was racist and designed to move black people, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, out of Louisiana. The state elected its first Republican senator, David Vitter, in nearly a century in 2004.
Both the preacher and the congresswoman suggested that the residents be housed at the closed England Air Force Base at Alexandria, La., to keep them closer to home.
Rep. Bobby L. Rush, Illinois Democrat, said Alphonso Jackson's remarks and the prospects of real-estate speculators and developers in New Orleans are foreboding.
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