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Politics : Bush-The Mastermind behind 9/11? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Don Earl who wrote (8474)	10/5/2004 3:11:45 PM
From: JBTFD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Sometimes I think it would be a big service to humanity to come up with a suitable moniker for the ankle biting pests that serve only to waste everyones' time. Any ideas welcome. Understanding of course that there are those who challenge and then show themselves to be open minded to what the truth may be. This name is specifically for those whose sole mandate seems to be to piss all over everyone else's comments.

To: Don Earl who wrote (8474)	10/5/2004 6:32:01 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20039

Leader Who Wants His Own Facts by Shaun Waterman It is becoming clearer by the day that the Bush administration has been less than honest about what it was told regarding Iraq before its ill-judged invasion. We already know about the yellowcake and the aluminum tubes -- the two pieces of now obviously flawed intelligence about Iraq's alleged nuclear program that underlay President Bush's famous statement that it would be foolish to wait for the evidence of a smoking gun that "might come in the form of a mushroom cloud." We know about the secret caveats to the published summaries of intelligence about Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs. We know -- and knew before the war began -- that the best estimate of U.S. intelligence was that going to war with Iraq would increase the danger that Saddam Hussein might pass weapons of mass destruction (which it now turns out he did not have) to terrorists. We even know, thanks to Sen. Bob Graham's recent book, "Intelligence Matters," that as early as February 2002, vital intelligence and military assets like the Predator UAV were being deployed away from Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, to Iraq -- a full 14 months before the start of hostilities there. But now we learn that the National Intelligence Council -- an independent body charged with distilling the wisdom of the U.S. intelligence community -- predicted as early as January 2003 that a U.S. invasion could precipitate a multi-faceted insurgency that might tear the country asunder. This was at the time that the administration and its allies were predicting that the occupation would be "a cakewalk" and that U.S. troops would be greeted with flowers. But clearly, the NIC was -- in the words of President Bush -- "just guessing" when they predicted the insurgency, or said earlier this year that the best anyone could hope for in Iraq was a tenuous and temporary stability. The president later corrected himself, saying he should have said that The National Intelligence Estimate was just, well ... just an estimation. It is in retrospect perhaps a shame that he did not evidence such skepticism about the NIC's products when they accorded, at least in part, with his view of Iraq as a gathering danger. Then the NIE was not guesswork, not even an estimate. It was intelligence that had to be acted upon. It was facts that could not responsibly be ignored. This is an administration -- and a president -- with a uniquely strong ability to see only what it wants and disregard inconvenient facts. They want that to which Daniel Patrick Moynihan reminds us no one is entitled. They want their own facts. In the summer of 2003, when things in Iraq had already started to sour, though I, for one, had no idea how bad they were going to get, I had dinner with a senior administration official. Was there anything, I asked him, that he would have done differently, knowing what he knew now? Absolutely, he replied: there should have been daily briefings in Baghdad, to get the message out more effectively. I was flabbergasted. Here was one of the architects of the war, telling me that the only mistake had been not spinning hard enough. He, too, wanted his own facts Last month, former CIA official Ray McGovern and famed Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, called on public servants with access to material that showed the administration's dishonesty on the war to make unauthorized disclosures. To place their moral duty to see the truth out above their bureaucratic duty to protect policymakers from the glare of public disclosure. Within a week, the details of the NIE about Iraq's bleak future, then the memos about the insurgency, were leaked. McGovern modestly denies any causal relationship between the events, suggesting rather that both are products of a growing unease within the intelligence and policy communities about the lack of candor that characterizes the administration's portrayal of what it knew and when. Bush has defended his actions in Iraq by citing the intelligence he had access to and asking, in effect, whether any responsible president could have ignored such a threat. But saying "the CIA made me do it," won't cut much ice in an election campaign. Especially if they were just guessing. © 2004 UPI

To: Don Earl who wrote (8474)	10/9/2004 4:16:35 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20039

I do hope you've been holding your breath. Goodness. I don't wish you any harm. None whatsoever. Why do you wish me harm? Both topics you mention have been discussed in detail with plenty of links provided as a source of information. Actually, they haven't. No answers to my challenges have been provided, nor "plenty" of links posted. On the other hand, a few links have been offered containing the same, undocumented, citation-less assertion. Most importantly, though - where you are concerned, and as you can plainly see, these two posts are currently unanswered, which is indicated by there not having been any replies to them. See for yourself: Message 20267132 Message 19177234 So. Got anything, yet? You've been participating on this board for a very long time, and in a very active manner, yet your demands for information would suggest you don't bother reading anything you didn't write yourself. How are you asserting I could challenge the many undocumented assertions on this thread without reading the posts? Put another way: do you think, for a moment, that I haven't already verified that no credible supporting information exists before I undertake making an utter, risible fool out of you, Sidney Reilly, or any of the other conspiracy theorists frequenting this thread? I'll give you an example. Go to Yahoo and type in "cipro anthrax attacks [B]ush", then hit enter. These are the results you will get from that search string: search.yahoo.com. You can then skim the results, sort them by source, apply whatever criteria you care to employ in obtaining a credibility level you deem reasonable, etc. That is an excellent, instructive example. Let's begin, shall we? When running that search string, the first three links that come up are as follows: 1. A link from June 10, 2002 from a site entitled "La Voz de Aztlan." In the article, the only relevant line is, "La Voz de Aztlan learned yesterday that the White House Staff including President George Bush went on a regiment of the anti-biotic "Cipro" that is use to ward off anthrax infections on September 11, 2001." No other information is given. No links are provided, nor sources cited. Does that meet your criteria for credible reporting, Don Earl? 2. An item dated Jun 7, 2002, posted on JudicialWatch.org. This contains one quote: "In October 2001, press reports revealed that White House staff had been on a regimen of the powerful antibiotic Cipro since the September 11th terrorist attacks." Here too, the source is completely uncited. Who published these mysterious "press reports"? Where? And what, specifically, did they report? Does this meet your criteria for credible reporting, Don Earl? 3. This item comes with no discernable date, from the website entitled "unansweredquestions.net." It's not a website, but instead a reader's question: "Is it true that the Bush Cabinet began taking Cipro the morning of 9/11?" Does that meet your criteria for credible reporting, Don Earl? For you, does that even constitute "reporting"? I'll continue down the list, if you'd like. I will be happy to - just let me know. There is truly no need for you to pine away hoping someone will take you off their idiot list to answer your demands for information. Who knows, maybe if you did some of your own research, and posted the results, you would be on fewer idiot lists. Oh, no! You've got it completely wrong. Where this thread is concerned, I relish being on Ignore lists. It shows palpable emotion on the part of the 'Ignorer' and, in particular, rings quite vindicatingly when my inclusion in said lists comes on the heels of my discrediting various undocumented assertions and faulty logic underscoring the plentiful, local conspiracy theories. Review: Message 19332039 :-) LPS5