I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
Oh, great.
The idiots with the cakes for the Ayatollahs.
Hanging is too good for these mothercheneys.
Franklin -- WaPo indicates a DIA link, and Franklin was brought in by Rhode on loan from DIA according to prior news reports.
Somehow I don't think you'll be reading about this on Kausfiles.
Now will Rumsfeld resign?
And Wolife, and Feith, and...
They can't resign
Or rather, they shouldn't be able to, because they should all be fired, then put in irons and orange jumpsuits, then taken behind the Pentagon and disposed of by the Old Guard.
The fact that the Pentagon official under investigation works for Mr. Feith has also made the case politically sensitive for the Bush administration.
And the timing is superb! Right as the Repiglican Convention is about to begin!
I think someone in the intelligence community has it in for the Moron in Chief and his administration. I wonder who would do something like this to such a nice bunch of guys?
Mr. Drudge? Do you have any comment?
Like a game of Clue:
Rhode in the Office of Net Assesment with the menorah.
Send them to guantanamo bay in an orange jumpsuit and force them to lie for hours naked stacked like logs.
Iran-contra? Kerry's investigation? Lee Hamilton? wtf?
Kerry trying to find corruption of old neo-con regime that Bush Jr. reinstates, one of whom turns out to continue to be a spy?
Iran-contra? Kerry's investigation? Lee Hamilton? wtf?
Kerry trying to find corruption of old neo-con regime that Bush Jr. reinstates, one of whom turns out to continue to be a spy?
As if the entire PNAC Platoon didn't have relations of some sort with Ghorbanifar.
It could be any of them. All of them. The entire Bush regime is one gigantic security breach.
Iran-contra? Kerry's investigation? Lee Hamilton? wtf?
Kerry trying to find corruption of old neo-con regime that Bush Jr. reinstates, one of whom turns out to continue to be a spy?
Never try to spook a spook. I tip my hat to George Tenet. As soon as he resigned, I just knew something like this was coming. Ok, I hoped.
So, does this mean outsourcing our foreign policy to Israel is a bad thing? /snark
Once again, Knight-Ridder leads the pack:
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The FBI is investigating whether a Pentagon official provided highly classified information about U.S. policy toward Iran to the government of Israel, senior Bush administration officials confirmed Friday.
Investigators have conducted interviews in recent weeks in the potentially explosive case, which has been ongoing for more than a year and targets an individual in the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the officials said.
The case involves allegations that the unnamed Pentagon official passed highly classified data to a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which in turn provided that information to the government of Israel.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said the FBI also is investigating the same official's contacts with Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi and with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a controversial Iranian arms dealer. Chalabi was a source of much of the discredited pre-Iraq war intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida.
In June, U.S. intelligence officials said they had evidence that Chalabi's security chief had long been a paid agent of Iran's intelligence service and that Chalabi or an aide in his Iraqi National Congress had tipped the Iranians off that the United States had broken some Iranian communications codes. Chalabi has denied the charge.
The CIA has twice labeled Ghorbanifar, a figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal, untrustworthy. Nevertheless, two Pentagon officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst who worked on Iraq policy for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, met secretly with Ghorbanifar to discuss Iran.
I'd be satisfied with an old-school Roman triumph, parading them through the streets chained together in their orange jumpsuits. Of course, in the old days, they would then be executed at the forum, but since we don't have fora any more, I could go with a good pummeling at various local strip malls.
Don't we all feel better now that the Pentagon set up their own intelligence organization because they didn't like what the CIA was giving them?
God, these really are arrogant amateurs. Just like incompetent dot-com executives, except now people die and countries are ruined.
Oh, I'm sorry, I always thought Mr. Drudge had an obsessive interest in stories that involved where someone's Dick was.
apologies. lots of q's has lots o'troubles w/haloscan.
And as an added bonus, another Iran-Contra figure is added to the mix.
Now we know why Fitzgerald's investigation of the Plame outing was so damn leak free.
wtfwjd-you know, Knight Ridder may be the only real journalists left. They've done some good stuff.
YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
So, Atrios...will you apologize to Rep. Jim Moran now?
In a statement made public on Friday night, the Pentagon said
Well you do have to give props to the Bush administration for one thing:
Man, they make Fridays fun!
Wasn't Ghorbanifar involved with BCCI?
Didn't the junior Senator from Massachusetts lead the Senate's investigation into the BCCI scandal?
Hmm...is this too complicated for Andrew Sullivan types to follow?
(Speaking of Ghorbanifar and BCCI reminds me of Adnan Khashoggi...is it true that Theresa "Butterfly Ballot" LePore worked on Khashoggi's private jet? Any one out there read "The Octopus" about Danny Casolaro? Times like this, a tinfoil hat sounds like a pretty good idea.)
Why does Ghorbanifar's name always come up when the Israelis have made some kind of nefarious deal with conservatives?
re:Knight Ridder
I meant that in a daily newspaper sense. There are real journalists around, but for mass media, KR is pretty good.
I had always found it odd why Judith Miller was being questioned by Fitzgerald. Interviewing the Secretary of State was unusual too...
I always thought Mr. Drudge had an obsessive interest in stories that involved where someone's Dick was.
Stinky
Yeah, you'd think at least Plame would've caught his interest then, eh?
Speaking of the Paris meetings, which high-official-of-somewhere claimed Pappy Bush was there, too?
bush/cheney 04 should send some loyalty oaths over to DOD...
As I just wrote over at my place, the next question is whether the spy will turn stoolie. Harold Rhode once refused an interview with Mother Jones, saying "Those who speak, pay." But then, the FBI has a little more clout...
Joe Lieberman,
Now would be a good time to stop kissing Likud ass.
If there is a connection of the Israeli agent with what this article reveals then Bush/Cheney could be in hot water...
The spies who pushed for war
Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force.
Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld and run by Doug Feith.
Wolfowitz has a key role in coordinating.
The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.
"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.
The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.
From LA Times...
The officials refused to identify the Pentagon employee who is under investigation, but said the person works in the office of Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy at the Pentagon.
Feith is a key aide to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, working on sensitive policy issues including U.S. policy toward Iraq and Iran. There are slightly more than a handful of people in Feith's office who specifically work on Iranian issues.
And we have the Ledeen connection too.
Which means that Ledeen's frothy rebukes to Josh Marshall have substance.
And the Chalabi conduit as well?
God, this is moving so fast that I can't remember all the connections.
Ledeen is viewed skeptically by many experts, including at the State
Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. "Ledeen doesn't know anything about Iran," says Juan Cole, a professor at the University of Michigan who is an expert on the Shiites of Iran and Iraq. "He doesn't speak Persian, and I believe he has never been there." But Ledeen does have connections in the Iranian exile community. For the past two years, he has maintained a relationship with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian wheeler-dealer who worked closely with him in Iran/contra. Ledeen introduced Ghorbanifar to a key neo-conservative official, Harold Rhode, a longtime Pentagon staffer who speaks Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and Hebrew and who until recently served in Iraq as a liaison between the Defense Department and Ahmad Chalabi. Rhode and another Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, have been talking to Ghorbanifar about options for regime change in Tehran. "They were looking at getting introduced to alleged sources inside Iran, who could give them some inside information on the struggles in Iran," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief. Ghorbanifar, he said, was spinning tall tales about alleged (but unsubstantiated) transfers of Iraqi uranium to Iran's nuclear weapons program...
From the Khinght-Ridder story linked by wtfwjd:
A spokesman for the Israeli Embassy, David Siegel, called the allegations "completely false and outrageous."
"The United States is Israel's most cherished friend and ally. We have a strong, ongoing working relationship at all levels and in no way would Israel do anything to impair this relationship."
I bet you do.
It's Rhode, I'm almost certain.
I'm with you, a in nc
So is this the sprung trap that fromthewilderness.com has been hyperventilating about lo these many months?
Of course at Instapundit it's still all Swifties all the time.
A bit more on Rhode:
According to Jason Vest's September 2, 2002, article "The Men From JINSA and CSP," Harold Rhode and Andrew Marshall, from the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, "actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi Arabian governments."
In their January 26, 2004, Mother Jones article "The Lie Factory", Robert Dreyfuss and Jason Vest write:
"Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Douglas Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith's office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department's new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no 'bartering in the bazaar anymore.... You're going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.'
Charming fellow.
Speaking of tinfoil hats, look what the Larouche people wrote back in June:
Among the leading candidates to join convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard in the hoosegow, or at least, in the hall of shame, are: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith; Near East South Asia/Office of Special Plans head William Luti; Feith deputies Harold Rhode, Abram Shulsky and Michael Rubin; Office of Special Plans staffer Col. Bill Brunner; and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Is this a blind-pig-finds-truffle story, or are these guys doing better investigative reporting than the big papers?
The whole story is worth reading actually...
A quick Rhode Google leads to all sorts of associations. Ledeen, Frum, AEI...
Holy shit, how fucking stupid is this administration? They have been thoroughly, I mean thoroughly fleeced, conned and manipulated by Chalabi and Ghorbanifar. No fucking wonder 8.8 billion has disappeared. It's like the Gang Who Couldn't Think Straight in charge of the nation. Ye gods - get us the fuck out of here -
fu#*, i can't think 3 weeks...
israel spy
poverty/uninsured up 3 years straight
proof tax cuts hurt middle class helped wealthy
Abuh Grabe report responsibility up to and including DOD
death, dismemberment and destruction go merrily along in Iraq
Greenspan says SS benefits must be cut
top bush lawyer conlict of interest resigns
and the media says - what does a regular person without Internet think?
good grief
L'il Simone Ledeen must be so proud of her pop. The whole "Heritage interns run CPA" story seems even fishier now, doesn't it?
As I just wrote over at my place, the next question is whether the spy will turn stoolie.
High-five to rorschach! Great minds run in the same channels, as my father used to say. I've been pushing that meme on threads below, saying that the dude is morphing from mole to stool pigeon.
IMO, that's why "officials" said to CNN they haven't decided on prosecution of the suspect.
As I said on another thread on this subject, we had Bander look at our invasion plans before Bush did, we had Chalabi selling our secrets to Iran, and now we have an insider selling our secrets to Israel. The only ones who are kept out of the loop here are the American people. God forbid we should know what our government is doing, but it's fine for the rest of the world to know it, including our enemies.
Ketchup Kerry looks French!
Um, he wears flip-flops...he missed some votes.
Heh, heh...
Bye now...
Back atcha, Kate! One does wonder what the next stage of this will be... especially if the leak of the story was really (or just in the spy's mind) designed to cut off the investigation, so it wouldn't go any higher...
Is this a blind-pig-finds-truffle story, or are these guys doing better investigative reporting than the big papers?
They hate the Bush family so passsionately that they make a huge effort to dredge damaging things up...it's just that you can't believe anything they say unless it's confirmed elsewhere.
Of course, the New York Times and the Washington Post will assign their best investigative reporters to this breaking story, and will leave no AIPAC stone unturned to get to the bottome of this story.
I expect the editors are on the phone to Jeff Gerth and Judith Miller this very moment.
Ha ha ha.
Expect the mainstream media to cover the "spy for Israel in the Pentagon" story with kid gloves. Don't expect the same kind of wall-to-wall, unquestioning coverage afforded the "Swifties" non-story. Sad but true.
especially if the leak of the story was really (or just in the spy's mind) designed to cut off the investigation, so it wouldn't go any higher...
rorschach
I posted what seems to me to be a compelling argument against this...curious to see what you think...
=======
Yeah, I had a similar thought initially. Couple things changed my mind though. First, I don't think Israel/Sharon would be made the scapegoat...because that's what this boils down to.
Second, it's not a very tidy solution. If you want to argue that it solves the Iraq cred problem...maybe it does, but it raises new questions about competence and honesty and so forth. If it's a political stunt, it's a VERY dangerous one. Given that Iraq's taken its toll on Bush already, and will continue to do so, it's not like having a scapegoat is going to win him a lot of points.
Third, the timing's terrible for a Rovian stunt. Right before the GOP con? Not likely.
As for the investigation...once things reach a certain level, they take on a momentum that's very hard to stop, as with Watergate. All in all, I think it's a real investigation, based on a desire to take Bush and the Neocons down. And I think it'll work, too...but we'll see, I guess.
Why would the FBI identify the suspect as in Feith's office and not arrest him?
And this has been going on for a year?
And Rumsfeld knew it?
And the man continued working at the Pentagon?
I wonder if Norman Pohoretz would know.
Kelly, yep. In fact, the CNN story that showed up earlier had this passage:
However, Washington insiders note that it is not unusual for friendly governments to have access to certain classified information, so even if the allegations are correct, not everyone involved may have thought they were involved in espionage.
Already softening the blow a bit, insinuating that it's sorta like business as usual, and maybe just an(other) accident...
They hate the Bush family so passsionately that they make a huge effort to dredge damaging things up...
can thier efforts be so huge that they can dredge things up...that aren't even there....
I just want to stop in and say what a plug this is for Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty. Kevin notes that those clandestine types who were allegedly involved in the "October Surprise" of 1980 show up in the Iran-Contra scandal of George H.W. Bush's vice-presidency, and get pardoned and rehabbed into the George W. Bush presidency. Now, Ghobanifar rears up. Again.
Jesus. It's the Soprano presidency.
Phila--I think the investigation is completely real. And I think the story was set to break soon, and the leak is meant to blunt the sharp edge, to try to control the spin at least to some degree by catching the investigating reporters off guard as much as possible.
I think we basically agree; I just think the Bushies were caught flatfooted on this one, and are doing the best they can.
And as the soft-pedalling CNN story shows, their "Washington insiders" are in place to try to wear this thing down over the weekend.
That's how it seems to me.
It's so enraging and appalling. Put this next to Abu Ghraib. How many more new jihadists will this piece of news help create or inspire?
As Richard Clarke put it, it's like these guys are under some kind of insane mind-control by Osama. He couldn't have asked for a better script for his fucking recruiting videos.
Don't expect TNR to give this story much ink.
AIPAC passing classified information from Feith's Office Of Special Liars to Israel.
Superscrumptiodelicious!
Cynthia? Are you there Cynthia?
It seems from the articles that AIPAC was directly involved in handling these documents and working for Israeli intelligence. Does that mean AIPAC itself is vulnerable to criminal charges?
Rozen has like, a bank shot angle on this:
http://www.warandpiece.com/
The Kerry Record on Iran-Contra that Bush Doesn't Want You To See
Despite the Bush-Cheney attacks on Kerry's record in the Senate and on national security, the record shows Kerry was at the forefront of fighting terrorism - well before it was in vogue. At almost the very same time Bush was doing business with a very shady bank, Kerry was working to take that bank down.
Follow the Money: How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank
However, Washington insiders note that it is not unusual for friendly governments to have access to certain classified information, so even if the allegations are correct, not everyone involved may have thought they were involved in espionage.
Already softening the blow a bit, insinuating that it's sorta like business as usual, and maybe just an(other) accident...
rorschach
Yep, caught that too on NewsNight. Sure it is a sign of things to come..just wait till pro-occupation (Israel) lobbyists really get going.
Michael Ledeen or maybe Richard Perle? I rember a meeting in FRANCE of all places...
OT,
On this subject, not a peep from the freeps.
While I was there, however, I picked up this little gem.
Enjoy-
During that era, lots of men managed to avoid the draft. Considering that Dubya's father was a one time Senator and Ambassador to the UN, one might assume that if anyone could avoid service, Dubya could.
Instead, he enlisted in the National Guard. He asked to fly in Vietnam, but his request was refused due to inadequate minimum hours of training at the time. Eventually, the program he trained for was phased out, so he was never able to fly in Vietnam as he had hoped.
I suppose he also had the opportunity to play with guns and explosives, but apparently never injured himself- even though he drank in those days.
ABC's Nightline is doing its show on the spy story right now.
one might assume that if anyone could avoid service, Dubya could.
Instead, he enlisted in the National Guard.
Guess we're not the only ones in our cups tonight...
It won't be business as usual. This administration is done, Bush's judgment trashed, Rumsfeld ruined:
1. Failures at the highest level of civilian management created the circumstances that led to Abu Ghraib
2. DOD has admitted contacts w/ Idema's "independent" torture-prison operation in Afghanistan.
3. Spy under his nose, at the very least . . .
It's not that Bush and the Pentagon brass will escape unharmed; it's the reaction of undecideds who are part of a larger constituency that is willing, even ready, to believe any suspicion involving Israel.
There could be votes to pick up here, but Kerry can't and won't say a word.
Haaretz.com:
"According to an additional report, the suspected mole has been a Pentagon employee for 20 years and has been stationed in Israel in the past."
-------
"The FBI has notified Rumsfeld about the investigation and has asked AIPAC to provide it with information about the two representatives in the organization who are suspected of involvement."
In 2003, Josh Marshall said this about Rhode:
A lot of attention is being paid to late reports of meetings between Pentagon hawks and exiled Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar, a central figure in the Reagan-era Iran-Contra scandal....
Look further down into the story. Particularly, at the name Harold Rhode, who has apparently been the point-man on the Ghorbanifar contacts. Rhode's name comes up again and again in these stories. He's also a leading Pentagon contact with Ahmed Chalabi. When Dick Cheney gave his speech at AEI a few weeks ago, sitting in the front row was Mr Chalabi. Sitting next to him, on one side and the other, were Lynne Cheney and ... Harold Rhode. Rhode also has a rep as a bit of a hot-head. As I recounted in an article last year in Salon, in early 2001 Rhode physically accosted the dimunitive Saudi diplomat Adel al Jubeir in a hallway at the Pentagon, after a meeting with Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and Saudi officials.
At the time Rhode was styling himself Wolfowitz's "Islamic affairs advisor", and that little incident caused a small sandstorm in Saudi-American relations, as well as scotching Rhode from consideration for a marquee job in the Pentagon's office of Near East and South Asian Affairs. He eventually landed on his feet in Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans.
More on Rhode in subsequent posts. But he is at the center of all the grand-planning for America's new role in the Middle East. And he is very much a thread to pull.
"However, Washington insiders note that it is not unusual for friendly governments to have access to certain classified information, so even if the allegations are correct, not everyone involved may have thought they were involved in espionage."
Precisely. And that was the same rationale that was used to justify funding for the Mujahadeen against the Soviets.
Worked real well, as we learned about 9am on Sept. 11.
Lauren Rozen says its Larry Franklin.
ABC's Nightline is doing its show on the spy story right now.
ByteB | Email | Homepage | 08.27.04 - 11:42 pm | #
Missed most of it...how was it?
jesus- i really almost expect someone to bust ollie north for funneling money to iraqi insurgents-
is thier a lab that keeps these fucks alive just to serve thier next corrupt god...
it hurts
and while we are on the subject of spooks...
http://tinyurl.com/5tume
Iran-Contra spawned so many problems that haunt us to this day, from Ghorbanifar to Reverend Moon's friendship with George H.W. Bush...
That ol' intelligence fabricator is totally off the hook...I remember when some neocons were trying in 2003 to get people to buy Ghorbanifar's story that the WMDs were moved to Iran. Man.
Lauren Rozen says its Larry Franklin.
i am on w. coast just got hardball
heard tweety say:
1. why are people talking about swift boats
2. people don't care about healthcare
now i know/understand why some of our east coast brethren get on post are pissed...
martha raddatz (on Nightline) says this of the culprit:
- worked for 30 years as a civil servant in the Pentagon
- mid-level desk officer
- expert on Iran
- a Farsi speaker
- has worked for Douglas Feith for only three years
- actually worked for Bill Ludi
- did not MAKE policy but certainly knew a LOT about Iran, his area of expertise.
So she does.
Sorry Harold Rhode, for calling you a spy. You're just an ideologue who sold an unnecessary war to the Preznit.
anon in nc - pulling that thread could result in unearthing and dismantling over 30 years' worth of illegal dealings in foreign affairs. It could be amazing - it could lead to pulling apart all those tawdry associations between the Bushes and their cohorts and various shady arms merchants and criminals from other countries. It could end up being the culmination of Kerry's career in politics, since he's spent most of his years in the Senate working on this whole mess. Amazing times we live in.
I half-expect to wake up tomorrow and find out that:
a.) The U.S. was using Pakistan, Iraq, Malaysia, and other willing countries to move nuclear weapons around for cash. This ring was part of a larger operation which included
b.) Efforts by top leaders in the Pentagon to incite world events to generate profit for
c.) The defense industry, who's also in on the nuke trading and has a brisk business with both
d.) Israel, who is backhandedly trying to take out Iran (via covert ops in Iraq) and
e.) Saudi Arabia.
f.) Turkey is also involved, due to geography there's lots of payoffs and other things going on there. Fighting back, of course is
g.) Iran, who thinks its got the upper edge with paid spies in the government but really doesn't because said spies really work for
h.) Big Texas oil interests, who also dabble in security and defense but who aren't so big as to want the whole pie, and thus share it with companies like
i.) Boeing. Who's on top of the game and has the double-agents on indirect payroll via their investment in Tireme Partners, LP, a front for the spies playing Israel, the U.S., Iran, and the rest of the world for profit.
Really, if I woke up tomorrow and saw that in the news I don't think I'd be suprised. Just sort of nod my head and ask where the hell our country went wrong.
Anon NC - Wasn't there also some speculation that Rhode was Chalabi's drinking friend that leaked to Chalabi about the communications codes?
I remember his name came up in that context.
...and just for fun, go back and read this infamous New Yorker piece. It brings Israel, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Perle, Wolfowitz, Saudi Arabia, Adnan Kashoggi, et. al. all together in one place.
Hersh, when you're done with your book on Abu Ghraib, please do an expose/takedown on the thugs who currently run our government. Thanks in advance.
Here's an interesting primer on the neo-con/Israeli connections.
it's Franklin.
warandpiece.comAs part of our reporting, I have come into possession of information that points to an official who is the most likely target of the FBI investigation into who allegedly passed intelligence on deliberations on US foreign policy to Iran to officials with the pro-Israeli lobby group, AIPAC, and to the Israelis, as alleged by the CBS report. That individual is Larry Franklin, a veteran DIA Iran analyst seconded to Feith’s office.
Anon NC - Wasn't there also some speculation that Rhode was Chalabi's drinking friend that leaked to Chalabi about the communications codes?
Yup, though suspicion there gravitated towards Michael Rubin, who was Chalabi's handler in Baghdad.
I'd be satisfied with an old-school Roman triumph, parading them through the streets chained together in their orange jumpsuits. Of course, in the old days, they would then be executed at the forum, but since we don't have fora any more, I could go with a good pummeling at various local strip malls.
After a Roman triumph, the prisoners were strangled in the Tullianum, a prison.
But I wouldn't object to having these guys pummeled at strip malls. 
OT--But signs are beginning to appear that the RNC's featured speakers will include Nyarlathotep.
It could end up being the culmination of Kerry's career in politics, since he's spent most of his years in the Senate working on this whole mess.
Yuppers, back to one of my favorite sayings: "people show up in history at precisely the right time." Kerry has a big history on the Iran-Contra crapper Reagan tried to pull.
I honestly was thinking Kashoggi as soon as I heard that Iran was somehow tied to this investigation. The more I hear, the more I sense that Iraq was just the tip of the spear - syria, iran and pakistan are part of the gameplan too.
I wonder if we are seeing the beginnings of a political ploy for succession in Dubya's second term and if this is something of a leaked warning shot. Or if CIA is fighting back with its demise shining in the headlights due to the political season.
this is bizarre...whoever it is must have bolted by now and is back in the old country since he's be courteously informed.
OT: who in their right mind makes 40,000 plastic toys about 9/11(from cnn)? Wierd...
14,000, not 40,000. My bad.
martha raddatz (on Nightline) says this of the culprit:
- worked for 30 years as a civil servant in the Pentagon
In other words, he is a Clinton holdover.
Toodles.
laura rozen is elaborating over at
http://www.warandpiece.com/
Node of Evil--That's an odd coincidence; the last link I posted, at 12:26, also went to that story...
Weird.
Or rather, it involved that story, and this one:
A New Jersey game called "Wack the Iraq," where players fire paintballs at people dressed as Arabs, has drawn ire from Arab groups after the city failed to convince the operator to change its name this summer.
Rorsachach said:
'That's an odd coincidence; the last link I posted, at 12:26, also went to that story...'
Indeed, I didn't click the link in your post before. But while I'm throwing links around, how about linking the coup attempt in Equitorial Guinea to Margaret Thatcher (via her son)? I don't know if anyone else has read that, but I thought I'd tack it on to the end of the laundry list I made above. After all, the coup plotters were apparently after oil...
That Thatcher story is all kinds of weird. I've been lying low on that until I can get a handle on what the hell it's all about...
(I did read that young Master Thatcher was seized just a day or two before he left the country to settle in...Texas.)
boy, my spelling really sucks rocks tonight -- Equatorial Guinea, thanks, and Perle's investment venture is Trireme Partners, not Tireme Partners. Too much crazy stuff happening today.
martha raddatz (on Nightline) says this of the culprit:
- worked for 30 years as a civil servant in the Pentagon
In other words, he is a Clinton holdover.
Wow, the Clenis is mighty.
Its vitality was projected, what, 18 years into the past and then 4 years into the future. Hot damn.
O! hail the Clenis! Comptroller of Time and Space!
Waitasec... Laura Rosen says she's been working on this with... Josh Marshall.
Is this the story that he hinted will shift the tectonic plates in Washington?
Mark: Yep, it does look that way.
'That Thatcher story is all kinds of weird. I've been lying low on that until I can get a handle on what the hell it's all about...'
Y'know, I've been laying low for the last three and some-odd years trying to figure it all out, too. It's just too much sometimes, and it's even more fun because of history and the history brought to the White House by its current occupants. It does seem rather odd to me, though, that in the course of only a couple of years we've had or heard of designs on Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, and more recently this failed coup attempt. And let's not forget the coup attempt in Venezuela. It does make one wonder if there's any connection, although I'm skeptical of connections because often reality is way more complicated (and stranger) than our conception of it.
Who knows, maybe the big guys in the oil industry are trying to jockey for position as the spigot is about to go dry. Then again, maybe all the kooks came out four years ago and they're all getting their war-fantasy wish fulfillment. Or maybe someone's trying to speed up the apocalypse. Or maybe someone slipped acid into my Dr. Pepper and I'm just seeing more colors than there really are...
What Laura Rosen wrote totally threw me off. In any case, I'm sure whatever was being passed around was just "Historic Information".
Bush/Cheney: Four or more years?
Node of Evil:
Vonnegut wrote a piece a month or so ago likening their actions to a junkie who's running out of smack (their smack being oil, of course).
I, however, think I'll stick with my Nyarlathotep theory as an overarching explanatory framework.
...I will say this, though. I know at least one large oil company has retained the services on occasion of a geologist with knowledge of Iran's oil deposits. It just so happens that the particular region in question also runs into Iraq, where said oil company would like to do business. I suppose one ought not discount the Iran part of that equation, though.
Yes, this confirms everything the Muslim world knows. This won't play well in all the capitals from Amman to Cairo to Islamabad. We are, it seem, really the Likud Party West and Israel is the fifty-first state. More fodder of the evil-doers. But I was kind of hoping the spy here was Richard Perle, the former chief advisor to Rumsfeld. Perle ran the Jerusalem Post for Conrad Black, and Perle was the chief advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu way back when. It should be him. But the two posted by Atrios make sense.
I agree, stealing a quote from the Lovecraft page you linked:
'I do not recall distinctly when it began, but it was months ago. The general tension was horrible. To a season of political and social upheaval was added a strange and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger; a danger widespread and all-embracing, such a danger as may be imagined only in the most terrible phantasms of the night. I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a demoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.'
So who leaked it? Was Republicans in the Bush Administration? Or Democrates on a Intelligence committee. Really big story for a Friday after noon leak. Especially because most of DC's press corp are probably on their way up to NYC right now. Did the leak compromise the investigation?
By the way NYC is already fucking nuts. Here's a few things I caught on my way home. About 500 people on bicycles riding up 6th AVe blocking the width of the street. (It happens monthly, but never this big.) Then when I got downtown I saw cops throwing bicycles in a paddy wagon. Traffic nightmares already. All over town cops are riding motorcycles of a kind I"ve never seen NYPD ride. Helicopters and searchlights which is an LA thing, but unusual in NY.
Node--That is the precise passage that caught my eye and seemed all too appropriate these days...
Interesting bit from our Canadian friends: Montreal man downed U.S. Plane, CSIS told.
A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.
The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and "conducted a suicide mission" with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a "Top Secret" Canadian government report says.
Asscroft was issuing alrts looking for Jdey after he died on te flight. Someow, that makes the government's denials that the plane was bombed a little less credible to me. Ol' John couldn't find his Asscroft with both hands.
it is a SPOOKY day...
consider, the pres of panama pardoned four[4] cubans accused of trying to assassinate fidel.
who are these 4 hitmen? well luis posada carriles and guillermo novo were probably op 40 assassins[along with porter goss, barry seal, et alia]. they were definitely alpha 66 and have been long-term associates of the bushies, who were probably all over the kennedy hit. also moonie and johnny.
and let us not forget the post-fidel history of panama.
under the gangster dictator batista, habana was the western hemisphere narcotrafficante capital. after fidel, that capital was removed to panama.
that, of course, was the major reason that bush 1 implemented operation just cause - to seize his family's banking records and silence all those knowing of his family's narcotrafficking[went beyond la pina]. it was the elimination of a blackmail threat.
sort of like what has been going on in iraq.
About 500 people on bicycles riding up 6th AVe blocking the width of the street. (It happens monthly, but never this big.) Then when I got downtown I saw cops throwing bicycles in a paddy wagon.
According to New York Indymedia, the riders' estimate runs between 5000 and 10000. NYPD reported at least 250 arrests.
May have missed it upthread, but doesn't the Gorbanifer/Paris connection take this all the way back to the original Oct. Surprise and the Poppy/Allen/Casey triangle?
Or if CIA is fighting back with its demise shining in the headlights due to the political season.
syntallic
They're not happy about Porter Goss, that's for sure. Fucking with the CIA is not a good recipe for political longevity...
KevinNYC said:
'...Traffic nightmares already. All over town cops are riding motorcycles of a kind I"ve never seen NYPD ride. Helicopters and searchlights which is an LA thing, but unusual in NY.'
You should come visit the next time (if there is a next time...) the Lakers win the championship. A few years back I was on Figueroa (it's the same street the Staples Center is on) when people started coming out of the bars. Then they lit trash cans on fire and threw them into the street. Then they all gathered in the middle of the street and were messing with cars that were driving by. Then they lit a dumpster on fire and burned a car at a little used-car dealership. By that time, the police made it down to our block and I almost got whacked by an LAPD officer on a motorcycle chasing someone who was running away from the scene.
That's the only time I've seen something quite that crazy (there's other craziness that happens on a smaller level). I can just imagine what'll happen in New York next week.
This is sick. The sad fact is that this will get too little coverage on the news and will probably get stuck on pA25 in the newspaper. The Swift Boats have been front page for nearly two weeks now, despite it being a non-story and despite the fact that the credibility of the Swift Boat Liars was dismantled a long time ago - this issue still dominates the news coverage.
This is the THIRD intelligence scandal to hit this administration in the past year alone. How many more are there that we don't know about? How can anyone still claim Bush is better on national security - these actions have endangered tens of thousands of lives already and will endanger many more in the years to come.
Node--That reminds me of the last Crash Worship show I went to, only with violence...
Laura Rozen, blah, blah, blah.
She's gulping air on this.
Laura Rozen, blah, blah, blah.
She's gulping air on this.
Eh? A bit of substance please? Too much to ask, I imagine.
'That reminds me of the last Crash Worship show I went to, only with violence...'
I can't say I've been to any concerts that were quite so eventful, but I was outside the Cinerama Dome on Hollywood Blvd. one night a few years back when a car blew up across the street from the theater (a propane tank on a camper in front of the car blew up, taking the car with it). That kinda had a a rock-and-roll flavor to it.
Mark, I could believe that number. Because I only caught the tail end and it was bigger than any critical mass demo I have seen. 6th Ave is a really wide street and what I saw filled the street for three solid blocks.
I am probably going to march Sunday, but the Naderites who I have run into so far are already starting to drive me crazy. ("They should call this place pigtown." was one quote I heard). I decided I need to march under my own banner that makes clear my opposition to Bush neocons and my alienation from the Naderite college kids who don't understand how they benefit from cheap oil and that Osama wants to kill them and their gay friends.
My banner is going to read "NON-IDIOTS FOR SANITY."
Does this mean we're going to give Isreal some Democracy?
So far the NY Times is playing this story (suspected spy for Israel in Pentagon) as a second tier story. Go to NYT.com and see where they have placed it. Suspect that is indicative of how the story will play in the mainstream media at large.
My guess is that about 50% of the country, and all of the major media, won't care about this at all. Minor dust-up at the Pentagon involving our 'good friend Israel.' Nothing to see here.
Y'know, I suppose one of the few things bigger than this would be if someone in the administration was feeding inside info to the Saudis before even the State Dept. saw it.
Wait a second... never mind.
Seriously, how many people in the Bush cabal sold their souls to get this far without being impeached, convicted, and lynched? Did a single head roll over 9/11? Seriously, you'd think Satan himself backed this administration...
The real byline to all of these intelligence, defense and Iraqi prisoner abuse scandals is the privatization of American military and intelligence machinery.
Whether it's bureau policy wonks, logistics, research or actual military forces, the wholesale sellout of our foreign policy and security is criminal. Check out the tangled web of PMC's (private military companies) since Executive Options, how commodities and resources such as oil and coal are bankrolling pre-emptive actions around the world.
Rethugs talk about France, Germany and the UN like it's a loss of sovereignty - the truth of the matter is that trusting Big Business with our personal affairs is no better than Big Government. The vast Right Wing conspiracy to privatize our government is nothing less than a surrender to the interests of just a few.
Rethugs, unless you're idle rich, you've sold your freedom for less than your annual salary.
Seriously, you'd think Satan himself backed this administration...
Leave me out of this, please.
Sure, I'll be feasting on their souls in due course. But rest assured that at least my Evil Plan would have made some sort of sense.
The simple truth is that they are deluded fuckups.
Now, where's my Roy Cohn skull drinking gourd...?
college kids who don't understand how they benefit from cheap oil
dang
"these guys are under some kind of insane mind-control by Osama. He couldn't have asked for a better script for his fucking recruiting videos.--WG"
WHY would you think that their agendas are different?
I BLAME BUSH
The profit of the warmakers is shared with their enemies' warmaking industries. Turn up the gas, and the flame gets bigger on all sides.
Turn it up enough, and so many people will burn that the whole population of the earth goes back into a WWII/Cold War emergency, and the mindset of fixated hatred and unresolvable conflict which once almost killed us all goes back online.
The warmakers don't care. They profit while the people burn.
"Bin Laden? Why should I care about him?" (GWB)
--
college kids who don't understand how they benefit from cheap oil
dang
"The simple truth is that they are deluded fuckups."
They are neither, in the sense you give those words.
Deluded: It is OUR delusion that we have political power. I like that delusion, and I fight for it, but Bushliarco has proven, for all to see, that American democracy is paperthin in points. They do in fact wield incredible power...it's no delusion.
Fuckups: It's only a fuckup if you care how it turns out. Bush himself is clearly a sociopath, who has bragged that he doesn't care if he gets killed ("Why should I care? We'll all be dead), or if we all get killed. Such a demented human has unending negligence as a way of expressing his hatred for others. Fucking up is just how he expresses his intense disdain for the normal people around him. It's a lifelong pattern.
I believe we will defeat them, and soon, but it makes no sense for people to continue to act like they are arriving at Marvin's birthday party as a 7-year old, wondering if there will be cake. It's not a real government, it's not 'normal' Rism, it's not democratic, and it is negligently fucking up everything it can up, because that's how it GROWS.
There is a CANCER on the Presidency.
I BLAME BUSH
--
"My banner is going to read "NON-IDIOTS FOR SANITY." --KevinNYC"
I know you blame the 'Naderite' kids, but
I BLAME BUSH
The attempt to quash protesters is NOT going to work, you or I or anybody do NOT have that power, and the real issue is that we have had a coup, and that aberrates people plenty. Kids who usually would be making love on the beach are marching in the streets, and there is only one person to blame for what happens.
I BLAME BUSH
America, the real America that matters, is going to have to understand that when democracy fails, people act out, and it isn't necessarily controllable, as history abundantly shows.
But the fault is not with the protesters. There are no perfect protesters, and protest itself IS a disruption of the normal social order. Of course people feel protested, by protest!
On a recent freeway overpass sign hanging, I was told that 900 people had called in complaints. That's a lot of misuse of the 911 system, and I told the cop that they should ticket every one of those criminals. He tended to blame me instead.
Don't blame the protesters. They didn't just kill 30,000 innocent people overseas, on a tissue of lies, seen through for the first time in human history, nearly in real time. That exposure to facts produces a GALVANIC response, and our democracy is based on the galvanism of the people.
Problems with protest?
I BLAME BUSH
--
Can anyone think of anything the Bushites could do that would draw the ire of the American brain dead?
This bunch of thugs have already gotten away with more criminal acts than the Chicago Mafia ever dreamed about. Betcha ole Tricky Dick is down is hades asking Satan, "how come I didn't have this kinda press when I was chief thief?
This is a huge story. Say goodbye to SBVT.
Can anyone think of anything the Bushites could do that would draw the ire of the American brain dead?
if aWol looks orange in the debate, or sighs a lot, and the media whores make a big deal out of it, then he will be revealed to be the whistleass he is.
But treason, mismanagement, complete ineptitude confounded by corruption and evil make no difference to the people who just like the simple sound bites handed to them by media idiots.
Thank you, Paul, for 2 excellent posts at 3:21 and 3:30
The Bush crime family knew this was coming, they were hoping that it would be buried so that it doesn't affect the election, similarly to W's drunk driving arrest that was released days before the election in 2000.
There are people of power and knowledge behind the scenes who are doing their best to connect the dots and expose the criminals in the Bush neo-con WH for what they really are, traitors to our nation. War mongering traitors bent upon American domination and occupation of the ME.
This might be a rather entertaining last few weeks before the election. You know that Bush is seeing the WH slip away...
This is lead story now on BBC and Aljazeera on the web.
Not that we care what the world thinks.
'Can anyone think of anything the Bushites could do that would draw the ire of the American brain dead?'
I have a couple of friends who are still planning on voting for Bush. These aren't the sort of folks who are doing that just because he's the Republican candidate -- they're concerned about certain moral issues and feel he'll do a better job at handling them. The main issues for them are same-sex marriage and abortion (two subjects I'm not particularly fond of debating). My retort to them is that Bush isn't actually concerned about those issues, but rather is using them as fodder to further his career. Also, he's not particularly good at choosing his battles -- the Defense of Marriage ammendment is the example I use, in contrast with the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Clinton in 1996.
Of course, they still want to vote for Bush. If Bush made a strong statement in support of same-sex marriage or suddenly became pro-choice, maybe then would they reconsider. Until then I suspect even criminal indictments against members of the administration wouldn't get them to vote against him. In their minds he's taking the "right" stand on these issues (regardless of his effectiveness), and these issues take precedence over everything else. I guess these days you only have to talk like a duck...
CNN is doing a special report right now called "Bush fucks pig and how it will hurt the Kerry campaign". So I'm sure they'll be all over this spy thing.
I blame Bush too, but if the Naderite kids are given a lot of airtime this week, Kerry will drop 4 points.
What immediately comes to mind upon reading this is the fascinating resemblance to another secret meeting in Paris years ago .... something involving a October surprise! Seems some people dont remember (conveniently) where they were on any given occasion ...they just know they weren't in Dallas
can we begin to connect the dots between the activities of the Office of Special Plans and the lady who begged for someone to listen to her about the the coded farsi, turkish etc. intercepts during her brief tensure at the F.B.I.'s incryption evaluation center, which resulted in her hostile dismissal and subsequent advisement that this would ultimately involve high U.S. government officials, as well as close United State's allies involvement in international crime. i.e. drugs, money laundering (read: banking), and arms sales as well as a striking familiar "enforcement" crew hauntingly reminicent of the BCCI, yet again another criminal connection to the Iranian arms procurement debacle.
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