Closing Arguments in the Scooter Libby Trial
David Corn has a good summary of the closing arguments that were given today in the Scooter Libby perjury trial: Final Arguments about Scooter, Cheney & Truth.
The case has been fairly interesting for me, mainly because of the way it tears aside a lot of the bullshit and presents a reasonably clear view of what was going on inside the Bush White House during the spring of 2003. There haven’t really been huge revelations; certainly not if you were paying attention at the time. But getting the facts out into the light is an important step. It will be nice if some similar light-of-day treatment can come from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into pre-war intelligence on Iraq, but I guess I won’t hold my breath for that.
One thing in particular that has struck me is the self-righteous zeal Cheney’s office displayed in refuting Wilson’s “lie” (in quotes because I suspect it wasn’t an actual lie, but instead was merely a mistake on Wilson’s part) that the trip to Niger had been specifically instigated by Cheney’s office, and that Wilson’s negative findings must certainly have made their way back to Cheney’s desk. What an irony: The habitual liar (Cheney), for once actually having the truth on his side (that he hadn’t explicitly sent Wilson on the fact-finding mission), but prevented by national security considerations from going public with the information about Wilson’s wife. But of course, as we all now know, Cheney didn’t let concerns about national security stop him; he used intermediaries to leak her identity far and wide, until Novak bit and made the information public.
The raw, festering dishonesty that is at the heart of the Bush presidency comes from Cheney’s office. Bush himself is a liar, sure, and deserves to be held accountable for the crimes committed in his name. But Cheney is the Moriarty, the evil genius, the cynical spider at the heart of the web. Fitzgerald’s closing argument reiterated the government’s case that Libby committed perjury in order to protect himself, and while I guess that makes for a simpler storyline, I think the reality is darker than that. Libby lied to protect Cheney. He lied to obscure Cheney’s role in orchestrating the response to Wilson’s charges, and beyond that, to obscure Cheney’s role in making the original dishonest case for war.
They fight the light each step of the way, but eventually the light will win, at least for those willing to look. History will not be kind to these people.
February 22nd, 2007 at 4:06 am
Too bad history takes so long.
February 22nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Joe Wilson – June 14, 2003
“The real agenda in all of this of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum that was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90’s which was called, “A Clean Break – A New Strategy for the Realm.” And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, some of these governments that are antagonistic to Israel then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions upon the Palestinian people, whatever those terms and conditions might be. In other words, the road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad and Damascus. Maybe Tehran. And maybe Cairo and maybe Tripoli if these guys actually have their way. Rather than going through Jerusalem.”
19:46: http://next.epic-usa.org/epicdev2/_media/2003forumaudio/28-lecture-wilson-32.mp3
“On the other ones, the geopolitical situation, I think there are a number of issues at play; there’s a number of competing agendas. One is the remaking of the map of the Middle East for Israeli security, and my fear is that when it becomes increasingly apparent that this was all done to make Sharon’s life easier and that American soldiers are dying in order to enable Sharon to impose his terms upon the Palestinians that people will wonder why it is American boys and girls are dying for Israel and that will undercut a strategic relationship and a moral obligation that we’ve had towards Israel for 55 years. I think it’s a terribly flawed strategy.”
13:33: http://next.epic-usa.org/epicdev2/_media/2003forumaudio/29-lecture-qa-32.mp3
February 23rd, 2007 at 5:00 am
Why when faced with the monotonous monologues from the Republicans about “If we withdraw from Iraq the terrorists will organize and launch attacks on the US ” did noone leap on the opportunity to state “The terrorists walk freely among the millions of muslims currently residing in the US and have ample opportunity to organize in Syria or Pakistan or Iran with impunity”
After Iraq do we invade all those countries as well to complete the “war on Terror”???
If the argument is that the intelligence services are doing such a remarkable job of stopping all terrorist attacks in the US this flies in the face of an intelligence service with such ineptitude that it couldnt prevent attacks having being warned on numerous occasions regarding terrorists taking flying lessons etc .
Heres the truth …the intelligence services are not inept.The warnings arrived by diligent field officers in the FBI and were duly noted and trashed.The cover story of hijackers taking flying lessons etc were meant to be found to embellish a plan the administration had concocted way in advance to crash planes into the wtc and set off demolitions to bring them to the ground.
The threat of terrorism was minimal before 911 and remains minimal in the US today .How easy is it for any muslim fundamentalist to go on any website…find the basic means to build a simple explosive and set it off during rush hour at a train station airport or subway?? Yet why hasnt this happened ? because the CIA are doing such a good job keeping tabs on the millions in this country ? of course not .
Look beyond the hype and rhetoric ..Scaring the public is a way of ensuring support for an agenda which involves global positioning in the Middle east. The lies of 911 are the worst example of mass murder by this administration in US history…yet the american public blindly swallow the propaganda spewed out by the controlled mass media .Its sickening .
Herman Goering at the Nurembourg trials stated ”
“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the
leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a
simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a
fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every
country.”
That could have been written by Bush yesterday
February 25th, 2007 at 8:13 am
And Bush should have called the pacifists un patriotic, because they are. So let me get this straight, you think all the phone calls from the planes being hijacked were fake calls sent to real people on the ground. None of these relatives noticed that the person on the other end of the line was not the person they thought they were talking to. The people who got on those planes were of course eliminated…. They couldn’t land the planes, then air traffic controllers all over the eastern seaboard and the Midwest would have to be in on the gig and for any conspiracy to work you have limit the number of conspirators. So they must have been killed by agents on the planes, you wouldn’t leave something as important as that to the Ifs (Islamo Fascists).
So, you have asked ten to twenty agents/soldiers to engage in a suicide mission for the sole purpose of maybe starting a war all perpetrated by a president that doesn’t need a reason to go to war (read the constitution) .
Then we have to figure a way to get several hundred pounds of explosives to the proximity our suicidal solders are going to drive the planes into the building. Now we have to strip large areas of cosmetic building materials to gain access to the structure of the building to set the charges. An idle thought, why would you pick a building with an exoskeleton to implode when there are so many conventional buildings. If you don’t strip the interior you have to have thousands of pounds of explosives, more people, more chance to get caught. We have to accomplish this without detection, under the watchful eye of thousands of naturally suspicious New Yorkers, most of whom would like to catch George Bush in the act as much as you all would.
This is ridiculous, Bush is nothing but a good, honest man doing a difficult job against a ruthless, American hating enemy. And he has to fight the Arabs after that.
I, for the life of me, can’t figure out why libs hate Bush the way they do. Sure he’s made some mistakes, everyone does. He hasn’t cracked down on illegal immigration like he should, I think he’s too nice a guy for that, a character flaw to be sure. He hasn’t called the Democrats cowards as he should have, same character flaw. Most importantly, he didn’t explain the war well enough. I believe he thinks the American public is smart enough and knows history well enough to understand what we are up against fighting this enemy, and sadly they aren’t. We should and will have a presence in Iraq for the next 40 years if history repeats itself, Bush should have told the people of the USA and Iraq that from the git go. He should have said that America is in this alone save the British, because we are the only nations with balls. Most importantly, he should has told the American people that if we all stick together, this war can be won with the loss of less than 10,000 American troops and the loss of less that 100,000 Arabs. Once widespread protest of the campaign starts, giving the enemy hope, the losses surely to occur resulting from the required multi front war will probably be 10 times that for both sides. The other option of course is to surrender, ah sweet surrender, just the thought of it makes liberals swoon.
Short Haired Country Boy
February 26th, 2007 at 6:38 am
short haired country boy is the perfect example of the demographic audience the administration counted on to allow this tragedy to happen .
Mention terrorist and muslims and they are out to kill us and he waves a flag and is willing to do anything the admin tells him to do without thought provocation or any delving into the facts behind the actions .
i dont ask you to believe me …but please read ..
listen to senior members of the intelligence community and members of the 911 commission who state that this lie covers up mass murder by the government to complete an agenda.
Cheney two years prior to 911 stated in a meeting with rove and others that in order to go to war in the middle east they would need another pearl harbor . How fortunate for him we got one huh? this man is blessed with prophetic talent matched only by nostradamus .
The phone calls etc were all very suspect but you have to read to understand why . The FAA identified flight 93 as landing at a nearby airport ( on the record in a FAA transcript )
I cant spend hours here convincing you but take away all the suspect variables ..like voices..phone calls ..eye witness testimony to missile like aircraft etc because they are all subject to manipulation ,falsities ,mistaken truths and disinformation ….but what you are left with is science .
Science is the only constant in this whole mess ..and when you conclude that it is scientifically impossible for a 110 ft 757 with two 6 ton titanium and steel engine 60 feet apart to hit a building at 500mph and make no dent in the outer walls but slip into a 20 ft hole and punture 5 layers of the Pentagon ..and then for the whole plane to melt ..you have to ask yourself ..where is the real truth?
When science dictates it is IMPOSSIBLE for a building that started to collapse as a result of structural weakening on the 78th floor to fall at freefall speed to the ground and you couple that with hundreds of eye witness accounts by firefighters police emts who all stated they heard explosions below them and on floors nowhere near the 78th then you also have to ask yourself ..why?
If you fail to educate yourself by researching all the people out there crying out to be heard on this , police ,firefighters ,emts ,structural engineers ,CIA operatives ,highly placed intelligence officials ,senators ,members of the 911 commission , and basic common sense …then you do yourself an injustice .
Read everything available ….then dismiss it with educated counter arguments .
The mass murder to allow us to get into this war could be justified to ensure the survival of the economy based on oil access ( which is what it is all about by the way) but Im afraid he miscalculated the response from the arab world .He is now in a guerrilla war which is unwinnable. He is about to embark on a further front with Iran .( trust me 2 aircraft carrier groups are more than just posturing ..war with iran by the end of march )
which although will knock out a significant portion of irans nuclear capabilities will not hit them all .Who knows what russia has provided them ? capabilities to hit the USA ? undoubtably..certainly capabilities of nuking israel ( a primary target for iran ) and certainly the ability to cripple the oil reserves .
I want to see you waving your stupid flag when gas is $30 a gallon and you are riding your sons pushbike to work
February 26th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I would first like to thank newpearlharbor for not resorting to nasty name calling, last year I had a running debate with a bunch of liberals in a similar forum. To a person, they would not give me anything resembling rational debating points, preferring character assassinations instead.
I’ll try and take this point by point, forgive me if I wander a bit. I’m going to abbreviate newpearlharbor NPH, I mean no disrespect, I was born on Pearl Harbor day so I would never disrespect it’s memory, I just don’t know NPH’s gender and he/she would get cumbersome.
I don’t think the administration depended on folks like me to allow this tragedy to happen, Muslims did it plain and simple, I do think they are depending on younger versions of myself to protect this great country from these killers with the enthusiastic support of people like me, we don’t expect help or support from freedom’s overhead, we just wish they would stay out of our way. I do wave the flag, I stand for the National Anthem, I pay for soldiers groceries when they are in line at the store with me, and I get a lump in my throat at the sight of a flag draped coffin. I’m proud to be an American. Guilty as charged. The Muslims do want to kill us, listen to the Iranian president, read the PLO mission statement, witness crowds dragging dead soldiers and contractors through the streets. Ignore the obvious at your own risk.
You probably won’t convince me of a conspiracy, I probably won’t convince you this administration is pure as the driven snow either, that’s ok. That’s not my intention, we’re playing to the crowd. I don’t know how many read these entries, and I know I have willingly wandered into enemy territory with few sympathizers and fewer friends. What I hope to accomplish is to sway someone on the fringes.
As to flight 93 landing safely I did find this story of a mistaken news report that was immediately retracted, here is the link. http://blogs.scripps.com/wcpo/staff/2006/02/wcpocoms_flight_93_story.html
This may be what you’re talking about, or an FAA mention of this story in a report, but no doubt flight 93 crashed in that field after an assault by incredibly brave Americans. Whoever gave you that information probably gave you just enough truth to fuel your confusion, but not enough to give you the whole story, standard tactic of the left. I didn’t read the entire 911 commission report but I did read the thirty odd page summary thoroughly, and I don’t recall any mention of a supreme government plot, in fact the thrust of the report was the intelligence shortcomings.
It wouldn’t surprise me that Cheney would make a remark that we would need another Pearl Harbor to get us involved in a mid east conflict. Sadam had after all been stalling us and the UN for over a decade, refusing to hold up his end of the cease fire bargain, engaging in on one of if not the largest scandal of all time with France, Germany, and Russia, our “allies”. The sanctions were falling apart, the American public had moved on and forgot the brutality of the Kuwait invasion by Iraq. Cheney knew the situation was deteriorating, defectors from the Iraqi regime had said he was waiting until the sanctions were lifted to restart his nuclear weapons program. Cheney’s remark would seem a sensible assessment of the situation.
I’m not sure where to take the science or lack there of argument you made, as I recall from pictures of the plane hitting the building there was a pretty big hole that covered at least a couple floors , and windows broken on floors above and below. I’m a mechanical engineer, not a civil engineer so I don’t know how to calculate how much force a building like that can withstand, but if you recall, the planes hitting the buildings didn’t bring them down, fire weakening the structure did. I’m also a journeyman toolmaker, and can attest steel doesn’t have to get all that hot to loose most of it’s integrity. It seems you’re implying the buildings were hit by a missile, not a plane. Looked like a plane to me. Maybe it was an elaborate hologram to fool not only the cameras but the thousands of horrified folks on the street and in neighboring buildings. While I would not claim to be an expert, I have worked with explosive environments in my travels and understand a thing or two about over pressures, pneumatics etc. The “explosions” heard by the people on the ground were caused by air compressing in stairwells and elevator shafts as the building’s upper floors began their decent. The pressure will build until the shaft can no longer hold, then it will rush out with some authority. A second possibility is dust rushing down these passageways could explode violently, ask anyone who has worked in a grain elevator about the dangers of dust explosions. Not as glitzy as ninja clad agents of a rouge CIA faction keeping to the shadows as they covertly place hundreds of pounds of C-4 explosives at the most critical location of one of the busiest buildings in the world. Fade to black, above a slowly rotating earth an ominous satellite opens and projects a life size Boeing jet streaking across the sky on a collision path with the twin towers…
Not as glitzy, but based on real science.
Is this war about oil, absolutely, are we posturing to attack Iran, absolutely. Can we win this guerrilla war, absolutely. It may take a couple decades but failure is not an option. As for knocking out all of Iran’s nukes, we’ll get what we can, and deal with the remainder as required. I doubt gas will get to $30 a gallon. I think we’ll disrupt a few caribou in Anwar first.
Sorry this is so long. A lie can travel half way around the world before truth gets its shoes on.
Sometimes things aren’t as they seem, but usually they are.
Short Haired Country Boy
February 27th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Ok let me clear a couple of points otherwise this can go on for decades .
Firstly I have nothing but admiration for brave guys who go and fight …but they are trained to go to fight and will do it willingly and under the total assumption and trust that the war they are fighting for is just and true to protect our country . My anger is directed at the cold calculating administration that willingly sacrifices them as pawns to further a political agenda which has nothing to do with the safety of the usa.
There is no doubt there have been elements of the arab world that see the west as evil and would willingly strike at us .Those numbers have been increased possibly a hundred fold due to this debarcle of a war .An illegal invasion of a country under false circumstances which is under any doctrine ..a war crime .However you want to swing it …invading a country that hasnt attacked us ..had no capability of attacking us ..showed no intention of attacking us merely to depose its leader who “was not a nice guy ” killing hundreds of thousands of iraqi civilians and sacrificing over 3000 brave US troops is a WAR crime.
To 911 …you misunderstand ..the hole I was referring to was at the Pentagon ..Obviously planes hit the two towers.
I cant reiterate what Ive already told you but I would suggest you look into the given stats on the physical aspects of the Pentagon crash . Then use your mechanical engineering logic to try and draw a conclusion …
Here are the UNDISPUTED ( by this administration or the so called conspiracy theorists)..facts
1.The INITIAL impact hole (videod live by numerous news agencies by helicopter etc) measured approximately 15-20feet in diameter.( verified )
2.Either side of this 15-20 ft hole the outside facade of the building including the windows were intact and untouched
3.A boeing 757 is approx 110 feet in width
4.It has two 6 tonne engines made of titanium and steel which are 60ft apart
5.The estimated speed of the aircraft at impact would have been around 500mph ( based on stall speed and level of descent )
Having arrived at this point and conceded all these facts are admitted by both sides( government and theorists)..you now have to ask yourself the obvious question ….
How does a plane travelling at 500mph which is 110ft wide with two 6 tonne engines 60 feet apart hit the side of a building causing a 20 foot hole and disappear>?..Is the suggestion the nose cone ( made of carbon fiber)made the 20 ft hole and travelled through 6 layers yet the two 6 tonne engines hit the side of the building yet didnt make a dent ? and then disappeared cos they werent sat on the lawn ? if one engine made the hole why didnt the other one make a similar hole 60 feet to the left?
Wake up everyone …the answers are staring you in the face and you need to question.When someone in this administration answers that question regarding the Pentagon I will reconsider my opinion on their orchestration of this horrible crime.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Let me address a couple of points I didnt address earlier as well .
The assumption that gas pressure caused the explosions as the top started to collapse??
well that might be possible except for the fact that explosions were heard and recorded by fire control ..police control ..police ..emts ..emt control half an hour and onwards BEFORE the building collapsed.
All these have now been released under the freedom of info act after a huge battle with the government who were holding them “in the interests of national security ” ( what interests?) These recordings have numerous control dispatchers and firefighters and police reporting explosion after explosion in between the time the plane crashed and the time it started to fall.
Numerous reports from employees who can be interviewed today reported the sudden removal of security several days prior to 911 and fire drills which cleared out whole levels of the building .Also of maintenance men wandering around .Speculation ,sure ,but it doesnt take a genius to allow access to plant explosives ..all you need is authority to do so .
The level of put options on the stock market went up an unprecedented 6 fold in the case of boeing ..4 fold in the case of american airlines and similar amount in the case of one of the insurance companies in the towers .A put option is a gamble that the price of a stock is going down .If this isnt a lead into insider knowledge I dont know what is !
Has it been followed up on ? of course not .
Explain this to me …How does a skyscraper building like wtc7 which was a block away from the twin towers collapse ?? It wasnt hit by any plane …and no steel structure in history has ever been levelled by fire alone .
The questions go on and on and on …..
Why has thermite been found on steel supports that were hastily taken away from the site by guiliani .? Thermite melts steel and is evidence of explosives .Why wasnt it investigated ?
Why in a crime scene of 3000 people was all the steel structures allowed to be shipped away for scrap without being examined ? Even if you arent investigating as part of a murder investigation surely you need to know what caused the collapse in respect of building safety ???
I appreciate your love for this country …This is the greatest country on earth .It is truly heartbreaking to see young fathers and husbands getting blown to bits and coming home in body bags for something that is inherantly wrong . You state that the actions of this lunatic Bush is right yet you are flying in the face of virtually every authority on the subject now …CIA operatives ,intelligence experts ,senators ,army generals ,administration officials who now state categorically that the reason to go to war with iraq was non existent and this administration lied to the american people to get us there .That fact is now irrefutable .
Iraq posed no threat to the US or its neighbors and we invaded !! a war crime .
and now we are there we are stuck …and US soldiers are not dying for democracy …we have no right to invade countries to impose democracy.
Lets flip this ….China suddenly decides communism is the way to go and invades the US .We have major infrastructure damage ,no power ,water food scarce ,a communist governemnt is placed in power, Chinese soldiers roam our streets arresting anyone they suspect of being anticommunist.
Do you think that americans would cheer them and welcome them as liberators? Do you think americans would be justified in taking up small arms and trying to fight for their country back ? How many freedom fighters would increase when they saw their innocent family blown up or shot ?
All muslims are not evil .The hatred on the streets of Baghdad is understandable.There are muslims who do want to hurt the us but they exist in every country …in Syria ,Iran ,Saudi arabia ,Pakistan ,Sudan ,..the list is endless ..
If you cannot conduct a successful guerrilla war in Iraq without winning and stretching the troops to the limit …what makes you think you can carry on and take on all the rest ( bigger more powerful countries)
February 27th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Yes, science is the constant in this whole “conspiracy”. The laughable (and sad) part is that these “truth seekers” continue to push questions that ALL CREDIBLE scientific experts in the relevant fields of study involved have shown to be clearly explainable. They are not credible just because they dispute the truthers. They are credible because they are widely accepted as being experts in fields directly relevant to the research of this 9/11 event.
“Pearl” repeats many of the same questions that have been answered long ago by a wide variety of serious and informed sources. But his bretheren’s strategy seems to be the “tinkerbell theory”, that if you just believe hard enough, that even the most logically outrageous and unfounded idea will be true through the force of sheer will.
His friends love to engage in thought exercises to try to justify outlandish premises. So let’s try this one: In a day and age in which so many lesser secrets and classified actions are routinely brought to light by anonomous sources and assorted whistle-blowers, how does the greatest scandal in world history pass without a single person leaking information (in an operation that would take a cast of thousands of people with direct involvement or complicit knowledge of, the events)?
Perhaps, one day, Pearl and his ilk will write articles that contradict with devastating accuracy, point-by point, all of the reams of scientific studies and researched conclusions by engineering schools, construction experts, aviation specialists, and other direct knowledge sources, who have weighed in on this massively-studied event.
The truthers all know that this research is out there for their review, but they prefer to live in their world that is stung together tenuously with bits of random coincidencies, snatches of uninformed narratives, and twisted logic, all unencumbered with the disillusioning effect of real science.
Meanwhile, we lemmings will just have to take our small comfort in whatever the cold hard facts and stark reality can provide us.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:28 am
I acquiesce….
You are right ..I will never persaude you till cheney walks up to you and says “well actually we did do it ”
Your serious and informed sources are in a minority and the “scientific ” explaination is that this plane DID fold up and slip into a 20 ft hole and melt into nothing without causing any damage either side of the hole .
Ask yourself this ..if you concocted a false story and people were finding holes in it ..with all the resources available to you wouldnt you try to put your own theory out there to support your lie?of course you would .
Im not here to convince you but I ask you as an intelligent person ..sit back ..look at it ..and ask yourself ..”is that really a credible explanation of the events ” “or is it just physically impossible?”
Now all I ask ..and this is my final word on this ..To research all the people who think that this story is a lie …not the regular uninformed public ..but people who really know ..people who were in the bush admin when this was happening ..senior senators in the 911 commission who not only state that the 911 commission were not allowed access to any info to investigate these events but that evidence shows enormous complicity by the government .These are the people you should listen to ..not me .and there are thousands of them ..all screaming to be heard but having no avenue to yell it ..The major media is owned by time warner a major contributor to the bush admin ..so they wont get a voice on there ..and congress although dominated by democrats will not take this on ..so the only avenue left is via books (many by very credible highly placed knowledgable people ) or offstream media ..rueters ,washington post ,bbc , .
The fact is there are millions of ignorant americans who get their information ONLY from CNN fox news msnbc etc ..they never look any further nor have the smarts to do so ..So they remained brainwashed by exactly what this administration wants them to hear .
If you draw any analogy of a sad situation ..that is the ultimate epitomy
Nice talking to you btw
February 28th, 2007 at 6:12 am
You’re right, I did misunderstand which building you were talking about. I was pretty busy today and only had time to do a little research during lunch so correct me where I’m wrong. I have heard several interviews with people expert in this area, one of them was a professional wrestler, normally not a great source, but he was close to Saddam Hussein, having even witnessed torture sessions and killings at Hussein’s side. Between all them the range of Arabs sympathetic to the cause of the Jihadists is somewhere between 20 and 50 percent of the population. To varying degrees to be sure, but even if only a few percent of that group were willing to take up arms against us it would be a sizable number. As far as you analogy of China attaching us, I think it may be a little simplistic. More appropriate would be if China defeated us, and after several years, Europe gained enough strength to come to our defense and attacked the Chinese forces in America, forcing them back where they came from. During the conflict, sympathizers of communism, i.e. most of Hollywood and the Dixie Chicks, would take up arms on the side of the Chinese, these sympathizers would fight ruthlessly, knowing the have no homeland to retreat to like the Chinese.
An illegal war. Sounds good, kind of rolls off the tongue, can’t get much worse than illegal, makes you want to put someone behind bars. I’ve given that phrase a lot of thought, and I can’t make any sense of it. Who makes it illegal, under whose law, the UN? That illustrious group that perpetrated the largest scandal in history (in real dollars anyway), ignoring its own rules and sanctions for nothing but pure profit. Some other organization? In reality there are no illegal wars, moral and immoral maybe, but even that is usually in the eye of the beholder as it has for all time it pretty much comes down to the strongest man wins. Sun Tzu said “the purpose of war is peace, on the victor’s terms”.
If there were a legal war, this would surely be it. This campaign in Iraq didn’t start with this administration, it started with his father’s. Hussein invaded a truly sovereign nation, Kuwait, we and our allies kicked his ass. After the lead stopped flying he, through his underlings, signed a cease fire agreement, he never held up that agreement in any way shape or form. That alone gave us the “legal” right to depose of him with whatever force we deemed necessary, the UN surely wasn’t going to, they were on his payroll. To be sure, I doubt this administration would have dome much more than the Clinton administration had 911 not happened.
After that fateful day everything changed. We finally realized we were at war with the Arab world, they had been at war with us since the Carter administration, we just didn’t notice. Kind of like the mosquito is just a nuisance until you get malaria. Hussein became a much more dangerous man after that day. Before, people, mostly on the left, but some on the right said “don’t worry if Iraq get a nuclear bomb, they haven’t the technology to make a delivery method” now they did. They also had a successful test firing. If an airliner could bring down a building, an empty UPS plane with a nuke could bring New York or London to it’s knees. This war was suddenly a battle of small autonomous groups, nations, tribes, criminal organizations and on and on. While the smaller groups are targets better suited to police and covert organizations like the CIA, the larger targets, the nations, were better handled by more traditional military and diplomatic means. After Afghanistan fell several nations that were leaning toward the Arab side gave up without a fight, most notably Libya and Saudi Arabia.
In any conflict, whether it be a football game, chess, or world war you go after your enemy’s weak spot. Since our enemy included Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon we needed to knock off at least one of them to whittle the number down. We also hoped some of the others would fold after watching the unlucky one get whipped. The one we knew the most about it’s capabilities and had the most “legal” right to invade was Iraq. Since we had all but destroyed it’s military a decade earlier, it probably was also the weakest. That is why we invaded Iraq. Hope of the other players folding dimmed after liberals came out against the war as forcefully as they did. Iran, apparently a better student of American history than our college professors and their students looked to Vietnam for guidance. A Vietnamese general, can’t remember his name, was asked after the war if he ever thought the communists would have to surrender, he said yes, after the Tet offensive they thought they were finished, they took such a beating, but then there was uncle Walter on the evening news, telling his viewers America was loosing, and aunt Jane was doing her part, and the profs and their students were eating it all up and were protesting en mass. The general said they knew then all they had to do was last 6 months and the “useful idiots” as Lenin had called the left would win the war for them. Looks like ya’ll are doing it again.
So this isn’t an illegal war and our boys aren’t dying for nothing, and this administration didn’t invade a sovereign nation unprovoked and the President didn’t lie. Saying it over and over might make you feel better, but it won’t make it so. And while you may have the right to protest a war against an enemy that has sworn our and Israel’s demise, it doesn’t make you patriotic.
As far as your conspiracy theory goes, I found some sites that I think are fairly credible that debunk most of your arguments, I’ve included the links below. I found info on Snopes, Popular Mechanics, Purdue University, the BBC and the American government. Now I know you are going to say they are all in on it or have been duped, and they may. But I doubt it. I found a lot of sites with essentially the same information you have been imparting, but they all seemed to be individual sites or blogs. At least my sources have a reputation to uphold. The blogs just close shop and nobody cares.
So let me see if I have your scenario straight. You agree planes hit the World Trade Center, but a missile hit the Pentagon. Both Towers and the third building were brought down by planted explosives, the stock market was manipulated and there are hundreds of credible witnesses to testify all this happened. Let’s take the witnesses first, in my admittedly brief search I could find no credible site that mentioned all these upstanding citizens that saw whole sections of the WTC closed off for whatever reason. I found no news organization that interviewed hundreds of witnesses to what would be the greatest crime in history, these are news people with no love for the man who would obviously be at the top of this crime, George Bush.
So let’s look at the conspirator list you have amassed. At the top Bush and Cheney, according to liberals, the two dumbest men to grace the oval office, but smart enough to pull off the greatest crime and most closely guarded conspiracy in history. Then we would have security staff at the WTC who let our covert opps people have access to large areas of three New York buildings, a number if architects and engineers to determine the best location for the charges, a portion of the fire department, remember those fire drills. We would either need suicidal pilots or a second group of engineers and plane mechanics to rig the planes to fly by remote control. The remote control operators, to make this work, we can’t have Arabs fly the planes, they may not make it past security. Oh, we’ll have to pay off the normal plane mechanics who would obviously see the extra equipment for the remote control. Then we have stock brokers, CEOs’ of large companies, investors, secretaries, wives, girlfriends….. And we haven’t even gotten to the Pentagon yet.
We’re going to use a missile for this phase. Why? Don’t know. Probably because a plane won’t fit through the hole. We have to use a cruise missile to evade radar, but we will need a big jet to fly a similar pattern so nobody thinks a missile was used. None of our rich buddies in Montana have a cruise missile laying about so we need a destroyer, crew, officers, support staff and God knows who else in on the action. We’re going to need more engineers, how many of these guys do we need? This time we need someone with explosives training, we want the blast to go out to the sides, not up. The upper floors have to stay intact for at least 20 minutes to give the illusion a plane hit the building. For good measure, we’ll sink a last plane in a field somewhere between Chicago and Newark. Do we need the farmer in on it too? Probably better, you can’t be too careful.
Remember if you’re going to engage in a successful conspiracy keep the conspirators to a minimum.
While I have enjoyed our tit for tat exchange about your conspiracy theory, I think we may be getting into that area where we are going to have to agree to disagree. I’m happy to continue if you wish, or move onto another subject but I know I’m probably going to start to repeat myself, and that doesn’t make for good theater. At the very least I need to take a couple nights off to catch up on paper work. See you Friday.
Short Haired Country Boy
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=6
http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/020910.Sozen.Pentagon.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/6341851.stm
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
March 2nd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Eesh. Just for the record, do not confuse thinking opponents of this administration with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. There are plenty of plausible and sensible reasons for outrage without having to make stuff up.
March 3rd, 2007 at 5:56 am
I agree, thinking people can agree, disagree and agree to disagree. Sometimes our core beliefs are just incompatible. I wasn’t a big fan of all the conspiracies during the Clinton administration from people on my side. He did enough stupid and reckless things that mattered, like giving/selling China multiple reentry technology, to justify outrage we didn’t need to pile on. When I would hear folks on my side talk about how Vince Foster’s shoes were clean on the bottom even though it had rained the night before, therefore he had to be killed somewhere else and then moved, I would cringe. I would always say, “they invented a thing called grass a few years back, and one of the places they use it is in parks.” Of course, the nuts would look at me and say, as Pearl Harbor does, “you need to wake up”.
I’m awake thank you.
March 14th, 2007 at 1:06 am
No, you are not awake, you are either a prole or more likely a pathetic disinformation officer…
Anyone who falls for shcb go get a cup of coffee and read this debunking popular mechanics:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/gopm/index.html
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