I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Hey, just to let you know that Blanco is winning in Lousiana right now, 52 % - 42 %.
Here is a link to the results or click on the link.
http://www.sec.state.la.us:8090/...2&
rqsdta=111503
It is not real time, but all you have to do is click refresh.
Someone at the Weekly Standard is a complete tool. (Big surprise).
So does this mean the case isn't closed? Please, say it ain't so Weekly Standard.
Instaquack and the other gullibles who swallowed the Weekly Standard article which didn't even bother to release the actual memo... even though it was purportedly coming from Feith...
All together now:
HACK!
Why does the DoD hate America?
Don't forget friends, "who stood to gain from this leak"?
The dems. Better to get it out now than next year.
Sy Hersh ROCKS!! He nailed Feith & Co.
Read about the href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/?
031027on_onlineonly01">stovepipe!
http://www.newyorker.com/online/
...on_onlineonly01
Please hit up the tools at the Weekly Standard and ask them why they're committing felonies in the name of proving their bogus points:
editor@weeklystandard.com
When are they going to start sending these Bushies to jail for their crimes in breaking ACTUAL laws (as opposed to the pretend crimes of the Clintons)?
P.S.
Is Feith his REAL name, or just thief spelled backwards?
Makes you think Perle should be named Elohssagnikcufrehtomlive
Please excuse my stupidity, but as I understand it, DoD is saying the memo is real and they produced it, but that they don't endorse its content (since it's raw reports from other departments) ..? Or what?
And who leaked it? Some opportunistic senator on the Intelligence Committee? Or is this Rovian?
Har!
The chief troll is trying to blame the Dems for the fact that the Feith memo represents "raw reports...not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida [which] drew no conclusions."
The trolls don't care if it's true as long as it's pro-Republican.
Oops, indeed. The sound of a troll soiling his underwear.
Monkies, you're correct but PLEASE read "The Stovepipe" by Sy Hersh on how shaky most "raw" intelligence is:
http://www.newyorker.com/printab...t/
031027fa_fact
The DOD is saying this memo was just a catalog of whatever evidence for this link happened to exist. In other words, "give me all the evidence of X" without any of the evidence "against x." Thus, no conclusion can be drawn and no one should
Has an under secretary ever been bitch slapped like this?
I just thought I'd repost this from another thread:
Time to get delete some past posts, eh Atrios? The memo has not been "debunked". But your months and months of calling the Bush Administration liars about the Al Qaeda and Iraqi connection has. Go back in your comments section and check out the posts with the word "Boomerang" in them. You were warned then about the embarrassment you are starting to discover now.
Ta-ta for now...
Anonymous | 11.15.03 - 5:38 pm | #
Sucker.
P.P.S.
Sy Hersh also exposed Perle's war profiteering.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091198/
A raw report is anything that comes into the CIA mailbox. It doesn't matter who wrote it, it could be Richard Perle, it still goes into the raw report.
An interesting sidenote, Kanan Makiya's work on Iraq was compiled from raw reports.
Hersh is exhibit A on why investigative journalism is the worst enemy of radical conservatism.
Does the mean that Janet Reno's Justice Department's retroactive collaboration is also wrong?
Reno lied, Uday died?
Aw, NUTS!!!!!!!
Precisely, wellbasically: raw intelligence has not been assessed against other intelligence, or even fact-checked.
Questions that might be asked: with all the travel dates given for bin Laden, it's astonishing he had time for the Taliban ice cream socials. Why the h--l is bin Laden receiving explosives training? The guy was brought up by Saudi Arabia's biggest contractor and has probably been playing with blasting caps since he was six, plus he got all the weapons experience anyone could desire in Afghanistan. Iraq needs to teach him how to fire a shoulder-launched missile?
This looks like a bucketful of laughers.
Oscar Jr. Yes. Wow, you didn't see that one coming did yah. You bought this Weekly Standard article and the DoD itself just crammed it back down your throat.
Does the mean that Janet Reno's Justice Department's retroactive collaboration is also wrong?
Reno lied, Uday died?
Er, sorry -- refresh does weird things with some comments.
Adam, you haven't answered my (now accidentally twice asked) questions.
Well, looks like every things all wrapped up. And much quicker then usual this time.
"News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate."
Philly G,
What say, girlfriend?
So this was written by the same guy who wrote the "Niger letter"?
And is someone going to tell the blonde bimbo over at FAUX to please stop repeating lies?
DoD statement proves the WS article is full of shit. Hayes said the case was "closed" and cited this leaked memo as proof. Winger bloggers/commenters were nearly besides themselves with glee. Fact is, this is just another case of stovepiped intelligence, read Sy Hersh article, that the Wingers bought hook line and sinker. Instapundit was lamenting the fact that the SCLM hadn't caught this connection. DoD says it is just an index of supportive raw intelligence with no substantive analysis or conclusions.
Well the case certainly isn't closed. It is just another example of the Right grabbing onto any piece of raw intelligence that on the surface seems to help them idealogically. The DoD statement specifically refutes that the memo provides a "case closed" conclusion. Hayes just saw a bunch of raw intelligence and did his best administration pre-war skewing of intelligence results. That is all.
I think I have a new name for these pro-war idiots: neocon stovepipers. What do you think?
"Adam, you haven't answered my (now accidentally twice asked) questions."
Oscar Jr, what part of,
"Oscar Jr. Yes."
didn't you understand?
The real story is something else entirely, you libs.
I haven't decided what it is yet, but I'm still objectively right.
Sadly much damage has been done. Riding around in the car today local news was picking up on this story in the oh so skeptical way they always do.
"suprising new evidence linking Saddam and Al Queda, tonight at 10!"
Of course, its like a bomb, it blows, you can clean up afterwards but everybody remembers the explosion...
"I haven't decided what it is yet, but I'm still objectively right."
Yes you are, child,
(No, you're not.)
Philly G is a phool,
and has exhibited himself as such.
If I were you, Philly, I would go home and hide right about now.
So, the question Oscar poses is: suppose that at the time of an indictment, the government believes that (a) Al Qaeda had agreed not to attack Iraq and (b) that Iraq may have done some weapons training (ignoring the obvious point that the boys in Afghanistan probably knew more about weapons than any other single group of human beings on the planet):
Doesn't THAT prove that Iraq and Al Qaeda conspired to blow up the World Trade Center?
You must have left your crutch somewhere, Oscar. This is pretty lame.
The Department of Defense has pulled the rug from under Feith and The Weekly Standards by refusing to characterize any of the intel as accurate. Some of it may be. But the *only* solid lead is apparently that indictment. And that's hardly enough to justify invasion.
Adam:
Occam must be rolling over in his grave. The Clinton administration asserts that al Qaeda collaborated with Saddam. The Bush administration asserts asserts that al Qaeda collaborated with Saddam. The DoD publishes a press release stating that, "The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions." Hardly a disavowal.
I'm not persuaded to change my initial conclusion.
As to Sy "Quagmire" Hersh, you can keep him. I've read the article. And as for your neologism, it won't travel well.
At the end of the day, this is what matters (from the Hersh interview):
Do you think that the world is a safer place than it was a year ago?
No. It’s much more dangerous. There’s no question now. We’ve now drawn a line in the sand, no pun intended, with 1.2 billion Muslims. We’re really disliked. Americans have always been liked, whether or not the country has been. But now there’s really an animosity toward Americans, and we’re going to have to go a long way to correct it.
but but but the winnebagos of death were biological/chemical labs right?
no?
they didn't find anything?!?
THEN WHY ARE SOLDIERS DYING?
A good rule of thumb when dealing with any information produced by the wingnutians is to assume that it's a goddamned lie. They've been trying to dig up this rancid red herring for over a year now. Why don't they give it up and admit that this shit has outlived its expiration date.
Glenn is, once again, finding this all to be very confusing . . .
MORE STILL: Hmm. This news release from DoD is interesting. It denies that DoD has found a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, but doesn't actually say that there isn't one. I think this is the key bit: "The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions." I'm not sure what to make of that -- "Steve Hayes said it, we didn't" seems the best reading -- but no doubt it will get a full airing in time.
None of this changes the fact that there are no WMD in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is still uncaptured and Osama bin Laden is still at large and most likely plotting another attack against us.
Oscar Jr. do you ever wish you were an Oscar Meyer weiner, because that is what you'd really like to be?
I heard FOXnews repeatedly leading with this as 'breaking news'. They were literally screaming that "the smoking gun had been found". I hope someone somewhere is documenting the FOXnews broadcasts because in the last 6 months they have blatantly broadcast complete lie after lie after lie.
Philly G, Where ARE you?
We await your 21 years of wisdom and knowledge.
Without you, we are lost.
Please, please, come back and show us The Way.
Glenn sez: "I think this is the key bit: 'The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions.'"
Poor Glenn, missing the boat again.
This is tke "key bit":
"Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal."
That last sentence seems pretty freaking straightforward to me.
If the classified annex drew no conclusions, and was just one piece in a much larger puzzle (including lots of countervailing testimony) then why did Hayes think it was so conclusive? Has Hayes vetted Feith's report? To me the real story is that Feith leaked this to the Weekly Standard in order to try and get his position back on the nation's radar. I hope he gets fired for this.
Gee, in the old days, the Raj and such, a government official so humiliated would leave the party and shoot himself. I saw it on Ripping Yarns once.
Guess he's not long for the talk shows now. Naw, they'll take anyone these days, humiliation, lies, felony. It's all about what your face looks like and how well you can kiss ass. He probably does that quite well enough.
The DoD publishes a press release stating that, "The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida, and it drew no conclusions." Hardly a disavowal.
I'm not persuaded to change my initial conclusion.
Seems a pretty clear disavowal to me ...
"News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate."
The DOD denies confirming the truth of some report that landed across its desk. If this shit were true, especially considering how important it is to Bush's fading case for war, don't you think they would have confirmed it??
The point is to get the story out there. The more noise that is put out, the more the truth becomes fuzzy.
Its one of the best way to get people not to believe in the truth, you discredit the medium by flooding the spectrum with false stories.
You know. There's just one thing this whole thread reminds me of, and it's french, bitch. God, just becuase we were right, and in a big way, doesn't mean we have to gloat.
Does the mean that Janet Reno's Justice Department's retroactive collaboration is also wrong?
Reno lied, Uday died?
Hell, even I'll get in on this ...
Yeah, Reno probably DID lie ( = sex up scant evidence) to get support for bombing the poo out of Baghdad by linking bin Laden and Iraq. Note that the time table on this was November, 1998, approx the same time as Clinton's investigations by Starr were at their peak.
And I submit that if there were REAL evidence of an Iraq/al Qaeda link, it would have come up by now.
AND ... I FURTHER submit that I can more easily find you REAL bona fide links between the US (specifically, Reagan, GHW Bush) and al Qaeda
... and between the US (specifically, Reagan, Rumsfeld) and Iraq.
derek g,
That acurately sums up the strange loop concept in espionage: provide your enemy with two or more contradictory bits if Intel. If they buy the lie, their plain old fashioned suckers but if they buy the truth, there's another layer of false Intel righ tbellow the surface )ften leading back to the lie), making them double dipped suckers. This little ploy was invented by none other than Ian Fleming (back when he was an actual spy, not just writing spy pulp novels). We used to use this trick on the Soviets durring the Cold War. Good to see the Bushies are now using it against their own people.
The DOD denies confirming the truth of some report that landed across its desk. If this shit were true, especially considering how important it is to Bush's fading case for war, don't you think they would have confirmed it??
It also explains why so much of what was presented had already been disproven. It was just an index. Not yet proven. Not yet unproven. In other words, it was absolutly nothing.
You know. There's just one thing this whole thread reminds me of, and it's french, bitch. God, just becuase we were right, and in a big way, doesn't mean we have to gloat.
Ragdrazi
This isn't about gloating so much as about, you know, getting the fuckin TRUTH out there....
And yeah, it's fun to catch them at their lies, and expose their bullshit for what it is. I get so little pleasure from watching the direction my country is heading, so please forgive my enjoyment at watching the liars sqirm.
Thanks for understanding ...
"To me the real story is that Feith leaked this to the Weekly Standard in order to try and get his position back on the nation's radar."
It's axiomatic that Feith didn't leak his own letter or the classified annex attached to it.
"I hope he gets fired for this."
Your hope and $2.95 will buy you a nice hot cup of coffee at the nearest Starbuck's.
This leak came from the Republican bench on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- my guess would be an aide in Hatch's office.
...you haven't answered my (now accidentally twice asked) questions.
Fuck you. You're questions are lies trying to sell more lies. Piss off, brownshirt.
The real story is something else entirely, you libs. I haven't decided what it is yet, but I'm still objectively right.
Fuck you. You're wrong, you know you're wrong, but you're a good little brownshirt and you'll goosestep anywhere the fuhrer tells you.
Fuck these pricks. The time for putting up with their bullshit is over. Everything out of their mouths is lies in service of their fascist masters. They are the enemy. Treat them as such.
I'm still objectively right.
Objectively pro-stupid, more like..
"The real story is something else entirely, you libs. I haven't decided what it is yet, but I'm still objectively right.
Philly J | Email | Homepage | 11.15.03 - 10:05 pm"
Philly *J*, kids. Not G. Subtle, but most amusing nonetheless.
Why isn't Glenn "This Is Interesting" Reynolds not decrying the Weekly Standard for leaking classified info? I take it that it's okay when right-wing sources do it (Plame, W. Standard) but not okay when left-wing sources supposedly do it (the Rumsfeld memo - actually leaked by Rumsfeld, but that didn't stop the indignation).
Jesus, Glenn.
YOU CAN'T PROVE A NEGATIVE.
No agency is *ever* going to say that there is conclusively no link - however, for a professor of the law, who should understand standards of evidence and proof, to be saying this is beyond ridiculous.
By the way - I was Philly J. A takeoff of Philly G. Only with a slightly better argument.
Please note that the Weekly Standard article is followed by: Copyright 2003, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved. News Corporation as in Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
Case closed.
Bruce: Contact your local news outlets and tell them this was debunked. Provide cites. They'll listen.
>I think I have a new name for these pro-war idiots: neocon stovepipers. What do you think?
Sounds good to me!
Pro-war hacks, get off the pipe -- no, not the crack pipe, the stovepipe.
"suprising new evidence linking Saddam and Al Queda, tonight at 10!"
Of course, its like a bomb, it blows, you can clean up afterwards but everybody remembers the explosion..."
If 70% of Americans a were already laboring under the false impression that there was a link between Iraq and Al Queada due to Bushco innuendo and doublespeak, I wonder what the new figure will be...80%, 90%?
ROFLMFAO!
Geezz.. I guess Atrios must be feeling "the embarrassment" now eh?
Thread is awfully quiet on our normally vocal opposition's side.. I wonder why?
Probably is 90% at this point. On the other hand I thought it would take a least 48 hours to debunk this thing, not what 9 hours?
Fox News Entertainment is loving this--the Buffalo Fox affiliate apparently runs that crap on Sunday mornings, and O'Reilly was yelling about how this memo represents "hard facts".
Raw intel != hard facts. I can say that Atrios is an alien and I can prove it. That doesn't make me a good intelligence source, and it doesn't make my information true.
Post of the day (from Hesiod):
UNHINGED: Via Atrios, I see that Mark Kleiman pretty much proves that Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan both:
A) Hate America and want our enemies to succeed.
B) Are partisan hacks who will stoop to whatever lows are required to prop up the disasterous Bush Presidency.
C) Have orgasms when our troops get killed in Iraq.
D) Are positively unhinged with rancor against all of the Iraq policy critics who turned out to be right...revealing them to be the blithering fools they truly are.
Along with Glenn's latest calumny, Tom Spencer nails Insty for major-league hypocrisy. Therefore, I am officially removing my link to Instapundit from my blog. I've had it.
No more links for free publicity from me after this post.
Does anyone still link to Instacracker? Cut him off NOW!
thersites quotes: This is tke "key bit":
"Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal."
What odd wording, "is" vs. "may." Obviously "such activity" may (or may not) be "deplorable," "deplorable" being subjective; in almost all cases the leaker himself, at least, doesn't deplore his own action. But whether one approves or disapproves, leaking classified information most certainly is illegal. That is what the word "classified" means, right?
>>I think I have a new name for these pro-war idiots: neocon stovepipers. What do you think?
manyoso : LIARS still seems to be the all-inclusive term, though FASCISTS is an up-and-comer. . . .
Look, just reading this memo sent out by the DoD (providing its real - I'm kind of new here and still a little skeptical), one can see that the report of Iraq - al Qaeda connections was attached because the Senate Intelligence Committee requested it. They wanted to look at some of the reports Douglas Feith had mentioned.
There was no endorsement of the report as being correct. Rather, it was part of a request for information about something Mr. Feith referred to. The fact that this was and is taken as substantive proof of an Iraq - al Qaeda connection just boggles the mind.
For those of you keeping score at home, let's recap, shall we?
a) a "report" emerges from The Man Most Likely To Be Fired As House Fuckup that essentially confirms his genius all along.
b) the "report" emerges at exactly the moment when the war really has started to go sour.
c) the "report" emerges in a startlingly partisan magazine and is then trumpeted on a startlingly partisan TV network that happens to be owned by the same startlingly partisan man.
All of those who came to town on the turnip truck, please raise your hands.
I think it likely that the leak was by someone on the Republican side of the committee staff, not Feith. The fact that he was asked by the Committee to provide this kind of raw data without any analysis is rather interesting in and of itself. I wonder who asked for it? The rather amazing thing about Fox was the way their own military analysts dissed that whole idea that this was an important story precisely because it was only a list, without sources or analysis or corroboration. I think Greg Jarrett was the anchor I saw, who kept trying various but but but ways to get them to take it just a little bit more seriously.
However, Derek, Bruce et al are right. Stephen Hayes, who is the premier hit man on the WS knew this would be undercut; he doesn't care because he knows that lots of damage can be done even with information that can be proved to be not as advertised. And Fox is continuing to push the story; admittedly I can't stand to watch it for more than ten minutes at a time, but so far I haven't seen any reference to the DOD "clarification."
Phoenix Woman, I'm with you. We need to get organized to get information out to local radio stations, not to mention Fox itself, CNN. And send a fax or an email to Carl Levin, who's on the committee. And any other Democrats, who should have a press conference on Monday.
I think my mind is beyond boggling at this point, but to think that these are the same staff members who were rooting through wastebaskets to come up with that memo from some Democratic staff member, that contained nothing that amounted to what it was advertised as, i.e., a plan to use classified information to undercut the Bush administration...and what is this memo, if not exactly that in reverse?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
The DoD statement explicitly says that this is a 'selection' from various sources. The annex included shows what agency the information came from so that the members on the committee can follow up and read the FULL REPORTS. Obviously Feith was cutting and pasting. The full reports obviously contain analysis and info unkind to Feith's conclusions and the DOD knows this.
Characters Remaining:
Commenting by HaloScan
