This builds on Lorie’s story from the NRO and the New York Times. It seems that ABC News wants to up the ante on divulging private information.
In what can only be considered tit for tat, ABC’s The Blotter blog posted the name and picture of the informant that helped lead to the eventual killing of al Qaeda’s number one man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. From The Blotter:
An Iraqi customs agent secretly working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror cell spilled the beans on the group after he was arrested, Jordanian officials tell ABC News.
Read the rest if you want to see who’s just moved onto the Top 10 al Qaeda Hit List.
I now will question everything regarding the journalistic integrity of ABC News. Not that I didn’t before, but for a blog entry posted at 11 AM, they’ve had more than sufficient time to recant the sensitive information, and post an explanation. But they haven’t, and probably won’t.
Not that it would do any good, since the news of the name and likeness of this man are all over the world right now. That this information was ever released leads me to question the policies at The Blotter, ABC News, and Alexis Debat.
And you can be damn sure, the first thing out of the anti-war pants-wetters is, “But-but, was he tortured?”
Link from Ace of Spades HQ.
UPDATE: After checking several news sources, I am unable to find any other source confirming what The Blotter suggests. All other sources with this story credit The Blotter. I’m not saying another news source doesn’t have this same information, I just can’t find it.
The unnamed Jordanian official speaking on condition of anonymity can talk on condition of anonymity all day long, there’s no requirement for ABC News to run with the information. That, my friends, is the problem.
UPDATE: Continuing on the theme of “can we get this story straight, please?” Dan Riehl seems to be an enemy of Jordan. The links Karbouly (also spelled ‘Kerbouly’) to al Qaeda are tenuous, so why would the Jordanian officials finger him? Could there be an ax to grind?
I’ve yet to find someone other than The Blotter post corroborating this story. Still, they are all crediting this one blog post, not even part of the main news service, or totally leaving out this one piece of information. Several reports name Karbouly, but say nothing about him being the informer.
There are more questions now than when we started, which is normal when you’re fighting a terror war.
“So, your whole debate is not about duty/obligation of ABC, etc., but rather, who determines “national security”. You, or the military or intelligence professionals of the USA”
Oh no no no… the military and intellgience professionals in this country get NO say as to what news gets published and what enws doesn’t, nor do I. That decision lies with the news organizations themselves, to determine if what they are publishing is a breach of national security, or not.
If I ever lead you to believe that the military in our country gets to decide to what news organizations publish or not I apologize. In the USA that will NEVER be the case.
I’m gonna venture a contrarian 50/50 guess and say that ABC revealing the guy’s identity might just – contrary to their intent – make it easier to get info from AQ operatives.
Cuz if you can get even just a little info beforehand, you can now blackmail the operative more effectively than ever. Learn one secret and perhaps he will be all that much more willing to divulge others in return for your not giving his name to the press as the original source.
LissaKay,
Sorry if I appeared to ignore a previous comment of yours, but nothing in the comment said that it was addressed to me. There are a fair number of what I call “idiots” who I choose to ignore, but that wasn’t the case here.
Addressing your comment that:
I don’t put a confessed Al-Qaeda kidnapper in the same frame as a rape victim, and it was bad form for you to play the rape card (heh). Sorry, but I disagree with you. I don’t see this guy, a confessed AQ operative, as the same as a rape victim or an innocent child — but you are entitled to your opinion.
As to his family, well – if they knew he was AQ and they didn’t turn him in who would have sympathy for them anyway? You think they didn’t know, and are entitled to protection? A smart person would have negotiated their relocation before ratting out Zarqawi anyway – and if he doesn’t have that much concern for them why should I.
Keep spinning LissaKay, there’s bound to be a pony somewhere in your arguments…
Spinning? Spinning what, pray tell? Still stuck, aren’t you? Is English a second language for you? That would explain some of the idiocy you type here. You said that the media does not judge whether or not to publish certain info … if they have it, they publish. I gave you examples that show they do indeed make that kind of judgment. And it’s not “pulling the rape card” … please. Stow that strawman back where you got it … need some K-Y to get it back up in there?
But we gotcha. You are all for identifying the snitch. Because he is a terrorist. So, it’s also OK to ID the snitches the local PD uses to bust drug gangs too?
It’s OK to ID this guy even if it means that AQ will exact revenge on him and his family (you’ve been assured beyond doubt that they were well aware of his activities, right?) AND innocent bystanders?
Oh … but coercive techniques used to obtain info from these terrorists is a US military atrocity, right?
You have a really screwed up moral compass there, dude …
There is a theory out there – I read over at ace -that this was part of the deal to put the Iraq gov’t together.
The real informant is part of that deal.
I don’t know what is true, but this “release” has never made sense to me unless it is to protect the real source.
Leakers always have a motive, let’s be sure this is the right guy first.
“I think that ABC has a duty and obligation to the American public to not filter the news and only publish that which their own values suggest is appropriate, but to instead keep their frickin’ personal morals out of it and publish the news regardless of whether the editor or publisher’s personal values agree or disagree with that decision. Let me decide what’s important to me, and what isn’t, but give me all of the news — not just some of it.”
No you don’t.
You know Cindy Sheehan.
Name one mother who has lost a child in Iraq and still supports the war.
You can’t.
You know Mitch Berg.
Name a father who has lost a son in Iraq and still supports Bush.
You can’t.
You could likely tell us how many civilians were killed in Haditha.
Tell us how many schools the Marines have opened.
You can’t.
And neither can anyone else in America because the damned media doesn’t tell us the good news. They filter out anything that could help Bush.
So don’t hand us this horseshit about ABC not filtering news.
They filter it all the time. They shape the news constantly.
Sez audrey:
Lee creeps me out. He seems to lurk here a lot. Not sure why anyone bothers to even address what he says. He’s like that disruptive kid who sat next to you in grade school… always looking for attention.
Tiresome.
Yeah, very. Nothing upsets and perplexes the neoconservative world more than the thought that there are other people out there with other approaches — other colors of people, other sexual orientations, other opinions.
The world is black and white, isn’t audrey?
Tiresome.
Zelsdorf:
You cannot show one instance where Bush has lied.
“We know that Saddam has WMD, and we know where they’re hidden”?
astigafa,
…because they’ve said so, repeatedly?
I know what you’re saying, but I’m afraid of ducks, and I just don’t know what I would do with another arm.
Bemused and Obviously abused
If You would apply the same level of scrutiny towards the Schleekmeister as you do the Frat boy there is no way You could rationalize any of Your ridiculous rant in Your above postings!
Astigafa: clue: Dropped on Kurds! ring a bell?
LissaKay said the following,
“So, it’s also OK to ID the snitches the local PD uses to bust drug gangs too?”
Yes, if the police released the information. If a reporter is at a press conference, and the police chief announces the name of the “snitch” I expect the press to release that information. If my daughter was dating the snitch I would want to know that fact, wouldn’t you?
The Jordanians released the identity of Zarqawi’s snitch, all ABC did was print the info Jordan released.
No cigar LissaKay, you’ve failed because your analogy doesn’t hold — but thanls for trying, you are proving my point quite well.
Oh … but coercive techniques used to obtain info from these terrorists is a US military atrocity, right?
You have a really screwed up moral compass there, dude …
I never mentioned torture! You apparently are just going off on “libs” and using me as a scapegoat – your K-Y comment was particularly distasteful. You’re coming off as a blathering idiot, LissaKay. I will ignore you in the future, to hopefully spare the rest of this board from your raging rants of stupidity.
See a doctor, you’re sick.
Yes, LK, leave being distateful to the experts.
Like Mak, Lee and friends.
And Astigafa, he never said that. Find the cite, or shut the heck up.
I suggest that the folks at ABC that did that ‘The Note’ piece should pull the video ‘Absence of Malice’ off the shelf and watch it.
What they reported might be news. But in the scheme of things they just turned this guy into one fat target. They are not reporting the 2006 Publishers Clearing House winner here. Al Qaeda will want to set examples and he will be one of them. And considering the MSM track record in getting things right the first time in their drive by style, they might just have fingered the wrong guy.
Think about it.
Yay! Lee is going to ignore me! Beat him down with some more facts and logic, folks, and maybe he will ignore you too! Then we can have a rational, adult conversation … imagine!
WIZBANGBLOG BREAKS MAJOR STORY: BUSH ADMINISTRATION NEVER CLAIMED WMDs IN IRAQ, SAYS SCSIwuzzy, NOTED SAVANT AND BRICKLAYER
“Well,” said astigafa, faithful troll of the Wizbang news synthesizer, “it was a bit of a shock, but then I realized that SCSIwuzzy had resources that no other dork could tap.”
Lee blathered above: The Jordanians released the identity of Zarqawi’s snitch, all ABC did was print the info Jordan released.
An unnamed Jordanian “official” … and only ABC is publishing this … no one else is, only sourcing ABC in their own reports. The information did not come from an official press release, or any other verifiable source.
This is beginning to smell …
Besides … no one has been able to find a good reason why we, the general public, need to know the informant’s name. We have plenty of reasons why it should be kept under wraps, however …
Atigafa … go get some more coffee. One of your two brain cells is still asleep.
FYI … it was the Clinton admin that first made the claim of WMD in Iraq (and rightly so) and the Clinton admin that first said that Saddam needed to be deposed and came up with a plan to invade Iraq. A vast majority of Congress was on board with that plan. Numerous other countries’ heads of state and intelligence agencies have also stated that Saddam had WMDs.
But Bush was the only one that lied about it.
Right. Gotcha.
So, let’s see if I got this:
Revealing the name and face of the man who “Snitched” on Zarqawi is fine.
Revealing the name of a non-covert operative who got her husband a job he was woefully incapable of performing, though, is a crisis of some sort.
Got it.
-=Mike
…The Left: opposing leaks unless they actually hurt the war effort…
McCain says:
“I was pleased to see a silly little Canadian girl finish second in our national spelling bee”.
They couldn’t find two American kids two go gold-silver in your NATIONAL bee? (You do know that Canada is a different nation, right?) A Canadian girl won second and you think that somehow reflects our second-rate nature? We have our own spelling bees; she was slumming it. (And I’m totally with you, McCain, on the idea that spelling bees for tweenagers are a useful barometer of geopolitical clout. Are you a political science professor?)
I have to reiterate that you are, indeed, a bedwetter. The police and CSIS caught the bad guys, and Toronto remains decidedly unexploded. They have foiled a dozen such attacks over the past couple of years, they claim. What have I got to be afraid of? I’ve said it on here before and I will say it again: Canadians are well-protected by our extremely competent security agencies and national police force. We sleep well at night. Your snide, derisive comments, suggesting that we just do not get it, will do nothing to change that.
As for us being a nation of pacifists, McCain, our operation in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al-Qaeda still has a majority of support. Your adventure in Iraq is supported by a dwindling minority of your countrymen. As they say, people in glass houses, should not shit in the woods.
Sez Bemused: The police and CSIS caught the bad guys, and Toronto remains decidedly unexploded. They have foiled a dozen such attacks over the past couple of years, they claim. What have I got to be afraid of?
In the words of a great stateswoman: ” … as hard as everybody works, and everybody works very hard at intelligence, everybody works very hard in homeland security to try and secure ourselves, there is a massive international umbrella of law enforcement and intelligence that is focused on this problem every day, but we have to recognize that it is an unfair fight on the defense because we have to be right 100 percent of the time, they only have to be right once.“
So, what you have to be afraid of is when they get it right, just once.
And, LissaKay, if ever one of these cretins is smart enough to successfully detonate something in a populated area, our police and firefighters will do a helluva job containing the damage, we’ll find out who did it, we’ll root out whatever is left of their cell, and we won’t invade a nation that had NOTHING to do with it. Yeah, yeah, because we’re pacifists, not because we are capable of connecting the dots.
Until then, I’m going to go to work, drink beer, watch hockey, and continue to not pee my pants when a dude with brown skin sits beside me on the subway. Leave it to the professionals, as they say.
(Fixed by management)
Oops, sorry. My name is not LissaKay–yours is, LissaKay! Not the first time I’ve done this. Must be my academic disconnect from reality acting up again. =)
Astigfa, don’t resort to a “strawman” argument. I never said that the MSM reporters “hate” America. Why won’t you discuss the issue at hand, which is, they simply would rather have things go bad for the USA in Iraq if that would mean the end to GOP control in the US Government.
Uh-huh. Would you like your leg back, sir?
Well, it is official. Bemused is yet another of the delusional, head-in-the-sand intellectually challenged peace-droids. When he/she is getting reamed by Mahmoud while bowing to Mecca perhaps the reality of the situation will sink in. Or maybe not.
You dispute that the 9/11 terrorists trained in and were supported by the Taliban government in Afghanistan and we were wrong to invade? Or are you implying that we invaded Iraq because of 9/11? Either way, you have proved, without a glimmer of doubt, that you have not one sliver of a clue. You also dispute what you have said previously, making yourself into a hypocrite. Well done!
Poor Lissa…
I did not dispute that the terrorists were trained by the Taliban. I have stated that I support my country’s efforts in Afghanistan, as do most Canadians.
I was referring to Iraq, which your administration kept trying to associate with the 9/11 attacks. Don’t lie and say they didn’t. It may not have been their only justification for invasion, but since a majority of Americans thought that Saddam had something to do with the attacks (as opposed to just having Osama in his rolodex), it is obvious that someone was lying to them. Dick Cheney, for one.
Citation? With a link, please … and not to some moonbat looney-bin conspiracy theory site. Because I KNOW for a fact that no one in the current admin ever blamed Iraq or Saddam for 9/11.
Fail to produce that and you can be forever written off as a blithering moonbat idiot.
Dick Cheney, on Press the Meat, September 2003:
“If we’re successful in Iraq . . . then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11.”
Taken from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html
(It’s not the transcript from Russert’s show, but I presume the eeeevil liberal WaPo quoted him properly. I don’t know what the “…” removed, though, so I take this with an iddy biddy grain of salt.)
The 9/11 hijackers were Saudis and Egyptians. Parse it how you like–you’re sympathetic to the guy, so you might say this can only be called “misleading” and not “lying”–but I say he’s a liar who lied to the American people. Also, he shot an old man in the face, which is a really mean thing to do, to senior citizens especially.
And Lissa, please don’t assert yourself as the ultimate authority of who counts as a “blithering moonbat idiot” and who does not. Your opinion doesn’t mean very much to me.
The libs here ought to be grateful they can stay and post, no matter what they believe. I’ve been banished from Crooks and Liars because I dared splash a bit of reailty on them. I did not call anyone names, I merely would ask when Bush was going to come and put them all in jail (they were railing about their loss of rights).
So do be grateful!
I am, drjohn. Probably the only righty blog with open comments. I’m not surprised by C&L banning you; I love the stories, but the comments are like an echo chamber. You can get banned at redstate for mentioning that Domenech is a plagiarist, though. Touchiness and knee-jerk censorship/banning is a bi-partisan problem, from what I can tell.
…that I read, I should have added. I’ve looked around and found a few others–apologies.
Mike asked:
Yes, revealing the name of a confessed and jailed AQ kidnapper (aka “the enemy”) is fine.
Revealing the name of an innocent US citizen employed as an operative (aka “our side”) — and doing so solely for political gain, is not.
Thanks for checking, Mike. It’s obvious you aren’t the only person having trouble with moral questions like that.
Valerie Plame was innocent? Right … just as innocent as she was covert. And who politically gained from revealing something that was not a secret? (Look up Joe Wilson’s Who’s Who entry)
Keep diggin’ Lee …
(Funny how the lefties are all sad and stuff that Zarq got killed, and outraged cause some other bad guys had to wear panties on their heads … but they are all for handing over a snitch to AQ … yes, real funny how that works)
I was referring to Iraq, which your administration kept trying to associate with the 9/11 attacks. Don’t lie and say they didn’t.
They specifically didn’t link Iraq to 9/11. I will assure you that you will not be able to find a single time where they said Iraq was behind 9/11. It’s one of those “big lie” deals.
It may not have been their only justification for invasion, but since a majority of Americans thought that Saddam had something to do with the attacks (as opposed to just having Osama in his rolodex), it is obvious that someone was lying to them. Dick Cheney, for one.
Again, feel free to point to him doing that.
Ever.
Yes, revealing the name of a confessed and jailed AQ kidnapper (aka “the enemy”) is fine.
Revealing the name of an innocent US citizen employed as an operative (aka “our side”) — and doing so solely for political gain, is not.
Thanks for checking, Mike. It’s obvious you aren’t the only person having trouble with moral questions like that.
Hmm, unlike Plame, the “snitch” actually did the US some good.
Plame couldn’t, you know, be “outed” since — and this, I admit, is a technicality — was not undercover.
-=Mike
I attempted to add a comment with an excerpt from Cheney’s Press the Meat session with Pumpkinhead, but I guess it’s still pending approval. Cheney insinuated, strongly, that Iraq was associated with the 9/11 attacks. Do some Clintonian parsing if you want, I don’t care. A defence lawyer could probably show that it was not a “lie” in the most technical, ridiculously charitable interpretation of his statement. However, you are disingenuous if you believe that Cheney was going out of his way to tell the truth to the American people. He stoked up public support by insinuating a very tenuous connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam; I don’t think the American people are so stupid that they would decide on their own that a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia and Egypt were in league with a secular dictator from Iraq, a mortal enemy of Shi’ites throughout the region.
Potential McCain supporters were not “lied” to when asked before casting their primary votes if they would still support him, knowing that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. This is not an assertion that McCain had actually done so, but goddamn if it didn’t poison the well. Bush’s communications people did not “lie”–they just radically distorted the public’s perception. Same deal with Cheney, WMD, and the Iraqi – al-Qaeda connection.
Mike said:
“Hmm, unlike Plame, the “snitch” actually did the US some good.”
Fine. Give him an extra helping of apple pie before sending him to the gallows.
I attempted to add a comment with an excerpt from Cheney’s Press the Meat session with Pumpkinhead, but I guess it’s still pending approval. Cheney insinuated, strongly, that Iraq was associated with the 9/11 attacks.
His verbatim quote was that we did not know.
Which, at the time, was correct.
He never — not one single time — said they were.
Actually READ the transcript and not some leftie blogs opinion on what was said.
Do some Clintonian parsing if you want, I don’t care. A defence lawyer could probably show that it was not a “lie” in the most technical, ridiculously charitable interpretation of his statement.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080244/
The transcript.
The quote:
MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.
MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.
We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.
Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.
So, please, he said Iraq was behind 9/11…where? Stating “We just don’t know” ain’t quite “Iraq was behind it”.
He stoked up public support by insinuating a very tenuous connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam; I don’t think the American people are so stupid that they would decide on their own that a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia and Egypt were in league with a secular dictator from Iraq, a mortal enemy of Shi’ites throughout the region.
Bush and Kennedy are quite vigorously opposed to one another. They worked together on an education bill.
People can work together for a common goal.
Potential McCain supporters were not “lied” to when asked before casting their primary votes if they would still support him, knowing that he had fathered an illegitimate black child.
Of course, nobody can ACTUALLY name people who had that happen to them. It’s one of those myths with legs and no, you know, evidence.
This is not an assertion that McCain had actually done so, but goddamn if it didn’t poison the well. Bush’s communications people did not “lie”–they just radically distorted the public’s perception. Same deal with Cheney, WMD, and the Iraqi – al-Qaeda connection.
Actually read what was said — not what you believe was said.
I have a transcript here. You have…?
Saying “We just don’t know” is NOT the same thing as saying “We have no evidence to support that assertion.” Why leave the door open? Hey, maybe Hitler had his hand in it too–nothing proves otherwise!
I tried to post an excerpt of the same transcript, MikeSC, from a WaPo article. Comment pending. So I’m not making shit up, and I’m not taking Ted Rall’s word for it. You haven’t changed my mind that Cheney was happy to let regular folks associate Saddam with 9/11, despite a total lack of credible evidence that he was in fact an accomplice.
As for someone in the administration lying, how about Rumsfeld’s claim about the location of the WMDs? Look, if you don’t know where something is, you don’t say that it’s roughly north, south, east and west of your best guess. He didn’t know, but he claimed to. This is not a lie because…?
We don’t have to just focus on lies, though. I think incompetence is worse than dishonesty.
Why NOT leave the door open? Wouldn’t that be deceptive? Since Cheney made those statements, more evidence has come to light that Saddam was indeed involved with AQ and was supportive of terrorist activities, even going to far as to give payments to “Palestinian” splodeydope families.
Further, Rumsfeld’s claim may well have been the truth when he said it. Again, evidence has come to light showing that just prior to and during the early weeks of the invasion, Saddam moved many truckloads of something into Syria. The parts and ingredients for a variety of WMDs have been found, as well as documents showing Saddam’s plans to revive his WMD program and obtain nuclear weaponry. But of course, since a big, fat pile of ready-to-shoot weapons wasn’t found sitting in the middle of downtown Baghdad, it is concluded that there were never any WMDs and Saddam was just a misunderstood fellow with a big ego, right?
Call Bush a liar or incompetent regarding the WMDs, and you also call the heads of state of many countries, most of our Congress and numerous intelligence agencies the same, including both Clintons and Al-Gore. Putin, who vehemently opposed the Iraq invastion, went directly to Bush … not through advisers or ambassadors, but mano y mano … and told him of his intelligence of a planned attack on US interests by Saddam’s terrorists. That plot was foiled by the Russians just a month prior to the invasion.
And then, what you, along with all the anti-peace, racist, Bush Derangement Syndrome suffering loonie moonbats, fail to realize is that our efforts in the Middle East is not just about Saddam, his WMDs, freeing the Iraqi people or even oil … it is part of a much bigger, much more important strategy to keep the free world free. This is a war that started almost 30 years ago, and if you don’t know what is at stake, and are not greatly concerned about the consequences of not winning this, you are beyond a moron.
“Further, Rumsfeld’s claim may well have been the truth when he said it.”
This sentence is pretty much devoid of meaning, Lissa. You could find components/ingredients of chemical weapons and their delivery systems at a hardware store. You wanted to be persuaded, and you were, because your threshold is lower than mine. There were other options, and considering the tenuous case, they should have been explored. And I don’t just mean lip service diplomacy, but actually coming up with some clever, creative solutions. Like what? Not my job–ask your incompetent piece of shit SoD.
Do you think I have a problem calling Gore or Clinton misguided on certain issues? The selective use of questionable intelligence persuaded lots of otherwise smart people that something had to be done about Saddam. Does that mean I have to agree with them, because if I had the right to vote in your country, I would choose them over Bush? I’m not a partisan, I’m not in lock-step with the DNC. I’m not an American, I’m not a Democrat–I’m a liberal. Humanitarian intervention is a good thing, but is it too much to ask that it be executed competently and with a clear strategy for victory?
For you to call someone anti-peace is hilarious. For you to call someone racist, because they opposed the invasion of Iraq, is idiotic. Liberals aren’t the ones who shrug off civilian casualties in the war against the “sub-humans”. Your use of false dichotomies is indicative of your inability to apply nuance to difficult issues: either you supported the invasion of Iraq, or you condone the gassing of Kurds, right, Lissa? Well, no. People shouldn’t gas other people, and should be held accountable. Liberals accept this oh-so radical proposition. However, the most appropriate way to deal with a bully need not always be breaking his legs and punching his sister in the face.
“… it is part of a much bigger, much more important strategy to keep the free world free.” Your freedom was only affected by Saddam Hussein because you’re a bedwetter who allows herself to be scared by the spin that your party feeds you. (This is the third time I have to plug Kevin Baker’s latest article in Harper’s. Not that you’ll read it, ’cause you might get brainwashed and become a Maoist.) Furthermore, if this PNAC fuck-headdery was even remotely plausible, how come NOBODY in the administration presented the case for the invasion in these broad geopolitical terms? If it wasn’t about the WMD (as Wolfowitz himself admits), how come you were supposed to believe that it was? Because your government doesn’t trust its citizens to understand complicated reasons for installing a democracy in the Middle East?
If you’re happy with how this has unfolded, Lissa, you have very low standards.
Let me make one thing VERY clear here … I am not a Republican, nor am I a Democrat, I do not “have” a party, nor do I follow any party line. I used to consider myself a liberal, until the moonbats took over and the Democrat party lost its colletive mind.
I do, however, have non-public knowledge of doings in the Middle East AND the ability to see beyond what is right in front of me. Obviously, you do not. No WMDs in downtown Baghdad = Bush Lied as far as you’re concerned, and that’s that. Nevermind ALL the other implications of what is going on over there, only half of which is public knowledge.
You just keep regurgitating the moonbat crap and cling to that without entertaining even the possibility that the actions being taken in Iraq and the Middle East are not only necessary, but long overdue. Action in Bosnia was OK, but those were white people, right? Little brown folks don’t deserve our concern … Saddam and his wood-chipper, his son’s Rape Parties and gassing the Kurds is A-okay. Or is it that Bosnia was a Clinton/Dem/liberal action, and Iraq is Bush’s deal? Clue phone … the Iraq invasion plan was first started during the Clinton admin.
I say anti-peace, because without action in the Middle East, we will know the absence of peace in a way that I care not to contemplate, nor, apparently, can you fathom. Remember, I have inside knowledge that the general public does not. If you want to call it bedwetting (which is yet more of the loonie lefty moonbat regurgitation), knock yourself out. No, I cannot give citations .. the info came directly from a person that was in Baghdad during Gulf I. Yes, IN Baghdad.
Open your eyes, open your mind, move beyond your blinding hatred of Bush and conservatives, it is paralyzing and causes a shut down of rational thought processes, which you have displayed here in a most amazing and remarkable manner .. I’m not terribly crazy about the President and his policies for the most part myself. But, I am intelligent and wise enough to see the much larger picture. If you do not, cannot or simply refuse to, I just feel terribly sorry for you.
Saying “We just don’t know” is NOT the same thing as saying “We have no evidence to support that assertion.” Why leave the door open? Hey, maybe Hitler had his hand in it too–nothing proves otherwise!
Hmm, not knowing fully is the same of saying that he definitely did it? Nice stretch of logic there.
I nailed the lot of you with what was ACTUALLY said and, even when faced with stark reality, you opt to ignore it.
It was said Bush’s people said Saddam was behind 9/11. Cheney was mentioned specifically. I disproved that in as thorough a fashion as an outright lie can be disproven.
But the left — they just don’t want to deal with it.
I tried to post an excerpt of the same transcript, MikeSC, from a WaPo article. Comment pending. So I’m not making shit up, and I’m not taking Ted Rall’s word for it. You haven’t changed my mind that Cheney was happy to let regular folks associate Saddam with 9/11, despite a total lack of credible evidence that he was in fact an accomplice.
I gave you NBC’S OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT. Go with that, Sparky. It has the entire show there.
But, hey, it’s the government’s job to disprove every incorrect notion people have about the world. They do, in fact, have infinite time to do so.
As for someone in the administration lying, how about Rumsfeld’s claim about the location of the WMDs? Look, if you don’t know where something is, you don’t say that it’s roughly north, south, east and west of your best guess. He didn’t know, but he claimed to. This is not a lie because…?
So, if I were to say that, say, Mt. Rushmore was in SD — but didn’t provide the exact latitude and longitude, I’d be lying, eh?
This sentence is pretty much devoid of meaning, Lissa. You could find components/ingredients of chemical weapons and their delivery systems at a hardware store. You wanted to be persuaded, and you were, because your threshold is lower than mine.
Obviously. A transcript provided by NBC isn’t enough for you to believe that Cheney didn’t say Saddam was behind 9/11.
Do you think I have a problem calling Gore or Clinton misguided on certain issues? The selective use of questionable intelligence persuaded lots of otherwise smart people that something had to be done about Saddam. Does that mean I have to agree with them, because if I had the right to vote in your country, I would choose them over Bush? I’m not a partisan, I’m not in lock-step with the DNC. I’m not an American, I’m not a Democrat–I’m a liberal. Humanitarian intervention is a good thing, but is it too much to ask that it be executed competently and with a clear strategy for victory?
Seeing as how humanitarian missions don’t actually HAVE clear conclusions — yeah, it is a bit too much to ask.
Liberals aren’t the ones who shrug off civilian casualties in the war against the “sub-humans”.
Nobody does.
People who slaughter contractors and hang their burnt bodies from bridges, though, are no longer human.
Sub-human is due to one’s actions.
Your use of false dichotomies is indicative of your inability to apply nuance to difficult issues: either you supported the invasion of Iraq, or you condone the gassing of Kurds, right, Lissa? Well, no. People shouldn’t gas other people, and should be held accountable. Liberals accept this oh-so radical proposition. However, the most appropriate way to deal with a bully need not always be breaking his legs and punching his sister in the face.
Seeing as how “diplomacy” and the UN didn’t do shit for the better part of 12 years — when do you actually get up and do something?
If I oppose, say, lynching and yet sit by and not even utter a word should I watch the KKK lynch somebody — then what the hell good do my lofty ideals do?
The reason the left had such a hard-on for inspections (even when they clearly failed) was that it required no real effort or energy. It didn’t close rape rooms.
Furthermore, if this PNAC fuck-headdery was even remotely plausible, how come NOBODY in the administration presented the case for the invasion in these broad geopolitical terms?
They did.
Repeatedly.
You not listening is not their fault.
If it wasn’t about the WMD (as Wolfowitz himself admits), how come you were supposed to believe that it was? Because your government doesn’t trust its citizens to understand complicated reasons for installing a democracy in the Middle East?
Well, they likely don’t trust the media to competently cover the reasons. Considering that lib editorial writers whined that Bush wouldn’t give them a “single reason” to actually invade.
Bush giving them multiple reasons made them cry.
-=Mike
Hello all,
First of all, thank you for reading Brian Ross’s blotter on ABCNews.com. We at the Investigative Unit put a lot of efforts into it, and are happy to know it is being read, even if people disagree with our postings or methods. I sincerely and honestly appreciate you guys taking the time to comment, even if it is in a negative way.
But since I was – I believe – unfairly accused, I would like to take a few moments to reassure everyone that I am not an employee of the French government but of ABCNews. I did work for the French government in the past but have absolutely no relationship to it, besides amicable person to person emails or phone calls to friends or former colleagues there. I have in the past expressed publicly and forcefully my criticism of some aspect of French foreign policy. The name of the alleged informant that I mentioned (al Karbuly) was publicly available. My job with ABC is not to reveal “sources and methods” but to inform the public on how the war on terror is being prosecuted.
I am, always was, and always will be an independent and non-partisan analyst (my writings are easily available on the Internet for whoever wants to check). The irony is that during my time in the French government I had to constantly fend off allegations that I was “too pro-American”, when I was simply trying to be more “neutral” than some of my colleagues in my outlook on US foreign policy. I was actually one of the few “foreign policy experts” (I really don’t like that term, by the way) to publicly speak in favor of the war in Iraq in early 2003, when it was truly a “suicidal move” from a professional standpoint, and was called a “collaborator of the Americans” for it. Certainly I can’t be on both sides, and believe me, if the French wanted “payback”, they could do it with someone much, much more famous than me, and in a much more efficient way. You can be assured of that.
As for my posting, it came directly from Jordanian intelligence sources and did not reveal sources or methods. I have many times refrained from publishing some sensitive pieces of information out of operational concern. My job is to provide the public with accurate insight and information, without which democracy is impossible. Frankly, my experience with ABC is that the “liberal media bias” is a complete myth. What is not is the total and utter professionalism, dedication and neutrality of Brian Ross and of the rest of the Investigative Unit. Brian is one of the fairest and most professional journalists in the world. I wish all of you could sit down with him for just 5 minutes. There would go the “liberal media bias” myth. You are not always wrong but this time, sorry, you picked the wrong guy and the wrong cause.
All the best,
Alexis Debat