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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:22 AM
Original message
PLAME INDICTMENT THREAD #12- HIGH CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS
PLAME INDICTMENT THREAD #12-High Crimes & Misdemeanors




If and when indictments come down in the Plame case,

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

300+ DU thread now as MSWord.doc (easier download)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

If and when indictments come down in the Plame case-thread2
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments.....Thread 3
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments.....Thread 4
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments.....Thread 5
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments......thread 6
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments .... thread 7
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments..... thread 8
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments..... thread 9
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...

Plame indictments..... thread 10
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Plame indictments..... thread 11
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2023260&mesg_id=2023260
_____________________________________________________________________

BELOW ARE LETTERS/GUIDES TO FAX/EMAIL/SNAIL MAIL TO CONGRESS & MEDIA TO JOG THEM INTO ACTION & INCLUDING A TOLL FREE PHONE NUMBER

278. CONTACT CONGRESS & LEADERSHIP ADDRESSES:


Fax Numbers of US Congress

http://www.no-smoking.org/feb97/2-17-97-01.html


Congressional Leadership

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/leadership.cg ...


Congressional Committees & Subcommittees

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/cgi-bin/committee_lis ...


Misc. Contact Congress

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/search.html


CALIMARY MEDIA & EDITORS CONTACT LIST


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...


Updated Calimary list

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph ...


Individual Reporters & Newspaper List

forgive me, it's on the drudge rag site, but it's useful

http://www.drudgereport.com /
_______________________________________________________________
1 (800) 839 - 5276 - TOLL FREE Capitol Hill Switchboard number! They'll transfer you to any House/Senate office you name!



H20's SUGGESTED LETTER TO MEDIA & CONGRESS

for you to copy or use as a guide to send:
Here's a suggestion ......


Dear _________;

I am writing to express my concerns about on-going efforts to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In his NYT Op-Ed article "What I Didn't Find In Africa," Wilson exposed a claim by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address to be untrue. Since that time, the White House has been involved in an effort to destroy Wilson's reputation, which included exposing his wife as a CIA operative.

In John Dean's review of Wilson's book (NYT Book Review; 5-23-04; pg9) he documents that two days after the op-ed article ran, journalist Robert Novak was telling people that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIS "weapons of mass destruction specialist."

Novak exposed Plame's identity in a 7-14-03 column. He sourced his story to two "senior administration officials." These two senior White House officials had lobbied at least six journalists to expose Plame in what Dean calls a "you-hurt-us-we-will-hurt-you warning" to those tempted to expose administration "misinformation."

When Wilson appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown," host Keith Olbermann held up three identical e-mails from the White House. Olbermann explained their intent was to discredit Wilson with their "talking points."

Wilson has noted that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor pointed out that since the Bush people never back down, the fact that they had admitted an error after the op-ed article indicated "they must have something more important to protect." (The Politics of Truth, by Wilson; pg4)

Joseph Klein's 7-5-04 article in Time (Plenty More to Swear About; pg 21) reveals that Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components" when her identity was exposed by the White House. "Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the pay-roll," an intelligence source told Klein.

There is clearly more to this story than the White House and senate republicans are willing to tell the public. What investigation by Plame needed to be derailed by the White House? I hope that national leaders and the media will focus attention on this important issue.

Sincerely,


____________________________________________________________________

KOHO'S SHORT & SWEET SUGGESTED LETTER TO SEND


Dear_________;

I am writing about the outing of CIA Agent Valerie Plame. It seems that the Grand jury Investigation has wrapped up or will soon, but little has been mentioned of late. What may have been political payback to Joe Wilson for refuting the Niger yellowcake claims in the State of the Union address could have actually made this country a great deal less safe. According to Joseph Klein (Time 7-5-04--Plenty More to Swear About), Plame may have been "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components." If this is true (or even a possibility, those responsible must be brought to justice. I submit that underground trafficking of WMD components presents a far more imminent threat to our country than Saddam Hussein did. In my mind this certainly achieves the status of "High Crimes," and I urge you to not let this issue fall by the wayside. The security of our country may have been irretrievably harmed by a few high ranking officials and they must be brought to task.

Sincerely,


_____________________________________________________________________
PALLAS' 'GIVE EM HELL' SUGGESTED LETTER

Dear ____________


Concerning Time magazine's Joe Klein's July 5 article, page 21 revealed that Valerie Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of Weapons of Mass Destruction components"" when her identity was exposed by the White House. It also said" Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge" that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent.

1) Our study group has found that Vice President Cheney since 1995 as CEO of Halliburton was fined 1.2 milion dollars for illegal sales of similar components to Libya. Shortly before becoming Vice President he bitterly assailed US policy against selling such components to Syrria and Iran, which apparently hurt Halliburton's bottom line.

2) Our study group has also found that there is an investigation of Vice President Cheney in other countries for illegal bribery and various other offenses connected to Halliburton as well as paying amounts to secret Swiss bank accounts

3)The Atomic Energy Commission has said a North American company is one of 20 being investigated for black market sales of WMD materials.

Our study group suspects there is more to the White House revealing Valerie Plame's covert CIA status since the Republicans refuse to hold investigations on the matter.

Frankly, it would appear to us that possibly Valerie Plame was stopped in her tracks and the CIA sting operation was exposed because it was coming close to discovering another violation of the laws by our own Vice President and the Hallibuton company he has awarded billions of US taxpayer dollars to in non-bid contracts.

There is a question of where the Vice President's and President's loyalty lies: to their Corporate friends and company's bottom line or to the security and wellbeing of the America.n people?

In any case, the exposure of Valerie Plame by the White House was and is treasonous.

The responsibility of the Media and Congress is to expose these wrong doings, investigate and safeguard against this type of occurrence for the American people.

WHY are you not fulfilling your role to me, to my study group, and the rest of the American people in this country and WHEN will you start ?


Sincerely

___________________________________________________________________
Arbustochupa's lettter

Dear _________;

I am writing to express my concerns about on-going efforts to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson. In his NYT Op-Ed article "What I Didn't Find In Africa," Wilson exposed a claim by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address to be untrue. Since that time, the White House has been involved in an effort to destroy Wilson's reputation, which included exposing his wife as a CIA operative.

In John Dean's review of Wilson's book (NYT Book Review; 5-23-04; pg9) he documents that two days after the op-ed article ran, journalist Robert Novak was telling people that Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was a CIS "weapons of mass destruction specialist."

Novak exposed Plame's identity in a 7-14-03 column. He sourced his story to two "senior administration officials." These two senior White House officials had lobbied at least six journalists to expose Plame in what Dean calls a "you-hurt-us-we-will-hurt-you warning" to those tempted to expose administration "misinformation."

When Wilson appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown," host Keith Olbermann held up three identical e-mails from the White House. Olbermann explained their intent was to discredit Wilson with their "talking points."

Wilson has noted that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor pointed out that since the Bush people never back down, the fact that they had admitted an error after the op-ed article indicated "they must have something more important to protect." (The Politics of Truth, by Wilson; pg4)

Joseph Klein's 7-5-04 article in Time (Plenty More to Swear About; pg 21) reveals that Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components" when her identity was exposed by the White House. "Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the pay-roll," an intelligence source told Klein.

There is clearly more to this story than the White House and senate republicans are willing to tell the public. What investigation by Plame needed to be derailed by the White House? I hope that national leaders and the media will focus attention on this important issue.

Sincerely,



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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:28 AM
Response to Original message
1. Folks, Send those letters out up above to get rid of the cabal!
We're sending them to Judiciary Committee, Dem Senators,

Senate Intell Committee, Dem Senators, Committee Heads, Dems of course, but if you know a decent republican - ahem - try them.

Black Caucus, all

And every possible decent newscaster and newspaper.

Chuckle :) From our point of view, that's greatly limiting. :)

Many addressess and fax numbers plus a free 800 number to the

Congress are up above or can be found by googling Congress or

Senate. gov

If we want goverment by the people, as H20 says, it's up to us.

Go for it.
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Beam Me Up Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:42 AM
Response to Reply #1
24. Threads as Word document files --easier download
You can find them here:

http://www.aeschatech.com/dumpster/plame/

Anyone know what happened to the PDF version of the earlier threads? I don't have them but would be happy to host them somewhere if I did. If you have those PDF files or if you have the ability to CREATE them, please private me.

Thanks,

BMU
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 12:40 PM
Response to Reply #1
34. Black Caucus addresses and phone numbers!
As posted in thread 11 by FrustratedDeminNC

http://www.cbcfinc.org/Members.html


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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:47 PM
Response to Reply #34
102. So updated in The Master List - in Activism/Events forum.
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 06:50 PM by calimary
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=106&topic_id=8816&mesg_id=8816 - Updated as of Thursday, July 22nd.

Thanks - a VERY worthy contribution! We should have their group's name on our lips EVERY time we consider the STOLEN ELECTION and the BBV issue, or complain about it, or send complaints about it, or phone complaints about it, or argue/lobby about it with our friends. They were the ONLY ones to speak out and voice the outrage, and while the Senate couldn't hear them, WE certainly did. We need to make sure OTHERS will have heard about them, so that ALL votes are counted, and no vote is counted out.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:28 AM
Response to Original message
2. A ROVE SPECIAL - the shell game
A ROVE SPECIAL : Hide the Cheney Criminal Probe-Leak Sandy Berger


ROVE SPECIAL Shell Game: Distract from Cheney Criminal Probe
CONCERNING SANDY BERGER

THIS IS A "ROVE SPECIAL" SHELL GAME. SAME DAY PAPER ANNOUNCES CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF CHENEY BUT if you put all the attention on SAndy Berger stealing "state" secrets that he himself wrote, then whose going to notice that Dick Cheney and Halliburton are under criminal investigation for their offshore company selling to Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syrria on the "forbidden list" for a US Company, and profits hidden in Swiss BAnk Accounts- which is why Treasury is investigating - the "Al Capone" move -
get em on taxes when you can't get em on anything else.

What was Halliburton/Cheney selling? components that could be converted for nuclear use..like caps to
set of THE bomb or at least a dirty bomb.
here's the story, NOTICE THE DATE, same day as Berger investigation announced & leaked from Asscroft's
faux Justice Dept.

"HALLIBURTON ADMITS TO CRIMINAL PROBE ON IRAN JULY 20 2004"

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.co ... (FinancialTimes.com) London paper
Business / Middle East & Africa Print article | Email

Halliburton admits to criminal probe on Iran By Joshua Chaffin in Washington
Published: July 20 2004 18:22 | Last Updated: July 20 2004 18:22

Halliburton, the oilfield services company formerly headed by US vice-president Dick Cheney, has disclosed that a Treasury department probe into its business dealings with Iran had been elevated to a criminal investigation.The company acknowledged that it had been subpoenaed by a grand jury in the southern district of Texas to present documents related to a Cayman Islands subsidiary that serves the Iranian National Oil Company.Halliburton said it would co-operate with the investigation, and that it believed it had complied with US trade restrictions against Iran.

The subpoena has emerged at a time when Iran has come under fresh scrutiny in Washington for its possible links to al-Qaeda.

President George W. Bush, who has dubbed Iran a member of the "axis of evil", on Monday said he would investigate claims in a forthcoming report on the September 11 terrorist attacks that the country might have offered safe passage to some of the hijackers who carried out the plot. The existence of the grand jury will add to the legal woes for Halliburton, which is also being investigated for possibly overcharging the US military for meals and fuel importation in Iraq.

The company's ties to the vice-president have made it an appealing target in Congress for critics of the Bush administration. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, yesterday insisted that the investigation consider any role played by Mr Cheney when he headed the company from 1995 to 2000. Halliburton is also expected to be the focal point of a hearing tomorrow that will examine cost overruns and other problems with Iraq contracts, of which Halliburton has the largest share.

Wendy Hall, a Halliburton spokesperson, said: "It is important to understand, especially in the current political environment, that this is not a condemnation of the company, but a method of further studying the facts.
"We continue to believe that Halliburton's business in Iran is in compliance with applicable laws and regulations."The US imposed sanctions on Iran following the 1979 revolution that led to the seizure of American hostages for more than a year.Halliburton's work there, which has raised complaints from shareholders, amounts to about $80m a year - less than 1 per cent of its total revenues.

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control first requested information from Halliburton in mid-2001.



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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:36 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Pallas most of your links don't work
You have to start from scratch and copy the original threads into your post. Doesn't work when you copy from an old post -- teh ends get cut off.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. I've been reading about the
investigations about Halliburton when Cheney ran it and all that is mentioned are oil dealings..nothing about wmd transactions. S'pose we are on the wrong track about wmd's concerning Plame and Cheney, or is something slipping under the radar on the investigations.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:44 AM
Response to Reply #5
8. No Schraby, he was fined 1.2 mil for selling dual use components
caps that could be used for setting off the bomb, if I remember
correctly.

It's back through thread 8,9,10
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:46 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. Thanks, I had forgotten that.
I knew there must have been a reason to come to that conclusion.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #3
6. Hi ARBY, I saw that - will try to fix. Many thanks and
how are you?
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #2
60. Hey Pallas, in case you don't fix the link, try this one.
Same story posted by daria_g on the previous thread:

Halliburton Subpoenaed Over Unit's Iran Work

By Matt Daily
HOUSTON (Reuters) - A grand jury issued a subpoena to oil field services company Halliburton Co. seeking information about its Cayman Islands unit's work in Iran, where it is illegal for U.S. companies to operate, Halliburton said on Monday.

The company, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, said it understood the investigation of its subsidiary's work in Iran had been transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice from the Treasury Department, which first initiated an inquiry in 2001.

"In July 2004, Halliburton received from an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas a grand jury subpoena requesting the production of documents. We intend to cooperate with the government's investigation," Halliburton said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

more...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5709973

Not exactly the same article you posted, doesn't cite Lautenberg specifically, but pretty much the same story. Lautenberg definitely sounds like he's on the money. We should all mail or fax letters to him, I think he's willing to listen!
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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:40 AM
Response to Original message
4. It is very possible that there will be no indictments.
If they can't identify a leaker an indictment will be impossible.

Another unfortunate possibility is that the indictments will come in January 2005. We feel an urgency that Fitzgerald does not.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:43 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. If there wasn't a leaker,
they probably wouldn't have questioned the pres. and v. pres.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:45 AM
Response to Reply #7
9. BTW, there is no statute of limitations on Treason...if he did it
25 years ago, he's still liable.
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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:02 AM
Response to Reply #7
14. There was a leaker, there was a crime, no doubt about it.
The problem may be that those who know, and can testify to the identity of the criminal, aren't giving it up. The long interview with the chimp may just have been one last gasp of the investigation.

The chimp's smirk is back-big time. That is a fairly good barometer of how well or poorly things are going behind the scenes.

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:20 AM
Response to Reply #14
19. Perhaps equally likely:
Someone who knows did "give it up." This is, of course, what John dean has "hinted" at .... and his hint was specific enough to include a general date of when that occured.

Many people -- and I don't mean you, Timefortruth; I'm speaking generically -- do not understand what the rules on "confidentiality" are, and what they are not. A newspaper reporter, a doctor, a minister .... they all have certain duties to protect sources of information. But that duty is not a 100% obligation to never tell certain information. There are "need to know" exceptions. Federal grand juries may, in specific circumstances, fit that need to know definition.

The amount of time this is taking should not be equated with bad news for our side. Quite to the contrary.
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NewJeffCT Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:35 AM
Response to Reply #19
22. I hope you are right...
But, I have no confidence in the system since the Iran Contra days when criminal Ollie North was treated as a national hero for wrapping himself in the flag. Since the 80s, the Republicans have gotten away with just about everything, and Bush seems to be even more Teflon coated than Reagan ever was... at least in the 80s, we had a few last gasps of integrity from the mainstream media.


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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:00 AM
Response to Reply #22
27. Yes, I certainly understand why you have lost faith
in this system .... and question if it has the ability to behave in a just manner. There is no question that it is not in the bush administration's nature to produce a just result .... we would be as foolish as a man hoping that his male dog would give birth to kittens, as to think that these criminals can give birth to honesty or integrity.

But the attorney now leading the investigation appears to be of a different breed. There are honest and decent people, even in corrupt systems. Let's hope that Fitzgerald is a man in the mold of Frank Serpico.

Our primary goal has to be to get this administration out of the power they now have in the executive office. The results of this grand jury are very likely to help with that. The administration is going to be discredited.

After that, it's true -- just as you say -- that the system will likely not hold these criminals to as much punishment as a 16- year old shop-lifter. And that is because, even when they pack their bags and leave Washington, DC .... they still control the businesses that have an obscene amount of power and influence.

But we can't begin to deal with that .... until we've dealt with this! That is why we should be satisfied to do exactly what we are supposed to be doing today -- with the faith that this will allow us to do next week, month, and year, that which must be done then.
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Timefortruth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:13 AM
Response to Reply #19
29. I'm not even talking about the reporters and whatever
duty they feel they have to keep sources confidential. They may not talk, based on that responsibility or maybe they can find a national security-grand jury exception. We just don't know yet.

I'm talking about the gang of criminals in the WH. Every decent American has a responsibility to testify honestly when the national security has been compromised for solely self-serving reasons. But there isn't a single decent American over there so it is probable that no one at the WH flipped for the prosecutors, the result of that failure to cooperate could hinder the investigation severely.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:13 PM
Response to Reply #19
106. When John Dean spoke to that ACLU group here, that is indeed what
he said. He made a reference to a Supreme Court ruling that, as he briefly described it, said reporters have to divulge their sources to a grand jury if the grand jury asks. And the other hint was the timing, in connection with ashcroft having to recuse himself. Dean said he suspects that some mid-level person cracked over the 2003 Christmas holidays, and the FBI told ashcroft, which meant he then knew, which meant he formally became Mr. Conflict-of-Interest, and had to step away from it and appoint Fitzgerald. And as Dean put it - "ashcroft probably prefered that he (Fitzgerald) NOT be there."

When I was a reporter, I was quite conscious, at all times, of the notion that I'd have to go to jail rather than divulge a source. But I did news for local rock radio stations much of the time, and who on earth does any muckraking from there? You barely even HAVE a "news" room in the first place (you, by yourself, ARE the newsroom at those stations). But at the AP, where some people did do some digging, it never reached that point where somebody was gonna face jail time or appeal to our local/regional news support organizations or any company lawyers. I didn't ever get even near the same planet of that kind of journalism on the Hollywood beat. So I don't know all the in's and out's. There WAS an LA Times reporter, Bill Farr (I think), who did. But that was quite a long time ago, and I'm not familiar with the details.
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loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:49 AM
Response to Original message
11. This move by the spinmeisters is sooo predictable!
:hi: Hi Plame thread researchers!!! :hi: Just woke up, and have to go to the Dr. & take dog to the vet today, so I'll be in & out of this discussion.

It is too obvious to many of us that this is standard operating procedure for the right wing-controlled government and press; to hide SERIOUS wrongdoings by the repukes behind "old news" small infractions by the Dems. It's been happening since Amerika fell to the rulers on the dark side, and it will continue to happen until we put the whole lot of them (the republican mafia) on trial and in jail.

They're going to hammer Berger until they've "clintoned" him to death.

I'll check back in later!

:kick::kick::kick::kick:
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:57 AM
Response to Original message
12. Well, good morning Friend Pallas!
I like to start my day with a reflection of the postive force. It is possible, when one focuses attention on the negative force -- which includes war, violence, and hatred -- to lose the proper perspective. Some people feel overwhelmed, and just give up. It's tempting fot all of us to become distracted .... to lose our responsibilities as conscious individuals to the psychic novacaines of tv, bright lights, loud music, alcohol abuse, and other distractions. But we have come a long ways on these threads, and as our friends have said, we aren't going back now.

I read Gandhi in the morning: "I count no sacrifice too great for seeing God face to face. The whole of my activity, whether it be called social, political, humanitarian, or ethical, is directed to that end. And as I know that God is found more often in the lowliest of his creatures than in the high and mighty, I am struggling to reach the status of these. I cannot do so without their service. Hence, my passion for the service of the suppressed classes. And as I cannot render this service without entering politics, I find myself in them"

Also: "Truth is God."

On the last thread, Tellurian advocated that we not move forward on our mission. He or she, if I understand correctly, wants us to stop looking into the possibility -- perhaps likelyhood -- that the exposing of Plame had a deeper meaning than simply punishing Joseph Wilson for his NYT op-ed article on what he didn't find in Africa. He or she appears to believe that our reality should be defined for us by "experts." If I am mistaken, than I politely request that he/she explain his/her position that we stop with this thread, and watch a fictional tv show.

I prefer to go forward with what we are doing. I want to be up-front and honest with the readers here: I have never in my life been terribly impressed with "experts" or celebrities. I look up to people who, no matter what their station in life, look for the truth, and try to live it to the best of their ability.

Thus, I am more concerned with spreading the message that is found in these threads to other grass-roots level people. I've put together a little paper outlining part of that message, which I think Pallas is going to post on this thread. If you copy it and send it to people in the media or in elected office, that's okay. And if you send it to other people at the grass-roots level who are capable of weighing facts and deciding for themselves, well then, brothers and sisters, that is great.
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Wind Dancer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:15 AM
Response to Reply #12
18. H20, the profound wisdom you bring to us is
such an inspiration in all aspects of life - I couldn't agree more with your philosophy and look forward to hearing more from you as we continue this journey.

"I look up to people who, no matter what their station in life, look for the truth, and try to live it to the best of their ability." H20

That is a powerful statement and I would love to use it as my sig line with your permission.

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:28 AM
Response to Reply #18
20. You are very kind.
Thank you. I do not think that ideas are personal property, so please feel free to use that line .... I am happy that you would even consider using it. (smile)

My only concern is when people attempt to mis-use our ideas .... and we've witnessed that a few times on these threads. But we have a wonderful group of people here, and I don't think it's likely that anyone is going to pull the wool over our eyes.
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Wind Dancer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:39 AM
Response to Reply #20
23. H20, thanks and I will use it with honor!
This is a unique group - we have our eyes open constantly for those who choose to cause harm.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:49 AM
Response to Reply #20
26. I'm curious, H2O -- in what way were ideas misused?
That blows me away -- I'm having a hard time understanding how that could happen!!! Yikes!

Did someone take ideas from these threads and post a news story that twisted the facts?

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:04 AM
Response to Reply #26
28. I think that
over the course of the last few weeks, a few people have tried to interfere in the way these threads have been going. I'm not pointing fingers, and I feel no need to question motives. But I will say that I think the Man X question of "why?" is always valid ..... and by nature, I do not trust anyone who attempts to move us away from that question.

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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:14 AM
Response to Reply #28
30. Pallas indicated to me that you thought there was
"Freeper" (republican) infiltration of the thread. What made you think that?

When you said that the info contained on the thread was misused that is what I thought you were referring to -- that some nefarious person was somehow listening in on the conversations on the thread.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:50 AM
Response to Reply #30
31. I think that
we have had a couple people who fit that description.

I think that there is also the possibility that someone who, for very different reasons, wants to keep our conversations away from the "why?" and the possibility that the exposing of Plame was aimed in part at derailing whatever investigation she was involved in at that time.

There could be two reasons that I can think of for a person doing that. One would be that this theory is currently being investigated, and is in a highly sensitive phase. If that were so, I would agree to immediately suspend any discussion that could jeapardize the said investigation. But no credible person has asked me to do this, or responded to my question about this.

The other reason may be found in something related to a person asking if it were okay to use a sentence I wrote in a post today. (I do NOT mean that person, as that was a nice compliment.) But there are people who think they own ideas. They deal in the peddling of ideas, which isn't really in line with the open and frank discussion that I enjoy taking part in on here. And so while they may share our general view of the case we are discussing, they may want to capitalize on these ideas in the realm of the experts and self-defined upper class. And that just might explain why I used the Gandhi quote that I did this morning.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 12:47 PM
Response to Reply #31
35. Hello Everyone
I've been a little too busy lately, but wanted to check in and say hi! Along with our letters, there are a few good candidates running and it's also worth taking time to support them. My district has a Dem running who will accept no special interest money, but by developing a true grass roots strategy. And it's in a district that is winnable.

H20 mentioned the shadows crossing the thread in an earlier post. Some are subtle, others more obvious and some I'm sure unseen. I'm hoping to be able to download these threads before going on vacation so I can read through them again and look for the pattern or direction our research is taking us. Ultimately I think we are going beyond this specific issue and getting to glimpse the mechanisms of Government and Corporatism that the Military Industrial Complex is fostering. It is not a friendly game and far from democratic.

I also think that it is the awakening of the populous that may be the only thing that can turn the tide. MLK certainly awakened many Americans and brought their support to the Civil Rights movement. Vietnam policy would not have changed were it not for the outrage of the people.

H20, I agree that along with our letters we should get the message out to people we know and encourage them to act. I look forward to seeing what you have put together.

Finally, I want to say that some of the tangents the thread has dealt with have added important insight so we should think outside the box and look for the patterns and connections. We are no where near ready to close the book in my opinion.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #31
47. still a little confused . . .
You say -- "They deal in the peddling of ideas, which isn't really in line with the open and frank discussion that I enjoy taking part in on here. And so while they may share our general view of the case we are discussing, they may want to capitalize on these ideas in the realm of the experts and self-defined upper class."

And I don't understand what you mean by this. Loved the Ghandi quote, by the way. Maybe I didn't drink enough coffee this morning, but I have no idea what you mean by this. Particularly the "self-defined upper class" bit. So I hope you'll enlighten me.

I know you realize that I hold you and your opinions in very high esteem. I have so enjoyed asking questions, learning, and exchanging ideas with the folks on this board, yourself especially. So I hope you'll take this the right way when I say that I've noticed a definite trend toward "group-think." It seems to me as if there might be leaders or frequent posters on the thread who discourage opinions that differ from theirs, and discourage the asking of questions in an odd and rather paranoid way. I am not referring to you of course.

I don't have a comfort level on the thread as I used to. I once enjoyed expressing my opinions and asking questions. Especially asking questions! ;-) But not so much anymore.

Knowing you only outside the "realm of the physical" I confess that I do not know you well at all. But what little I know tells me that you would not want the thread to fall victim to group-think. I think you are far too intelligent and thoughtful for that.

If you think I am way off base I certainly hope you will tell me so. I don't mind it when people disagree with me -- not at all.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:07 PM
Response to Reply #47
61. My friend:
On the last thread, an individual asked me to accept a private e-mail....something I hesitated to do, but after a second request ... I did. And that is my own fault, because I opened myself up for deceit and insult .... but perhaps we all would benefit if I let go of that, and let it be water under the bridge.

Are you a Beatle fan? On one of the post-Beatle albums, "Imagine" by John, there is a song called "How Do You Sleep?" John sings a few pointed lyrics at an old fiancee named Paul. In a sense, it seems strange on that album .... which is about truth and love and nice things. If a great artist like John answered a few ugly digs, you'll just have to excuse me -- a mere finger painter -- making a few smudges.

But let's move on. Please read the "Waterman Paper" I've posted below, and let me know what you think of it.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:59 PM
Response to Reply #61
70. How utterly confounding that someone would
use this forum to deceive and insult. I am very sorry that you experienced this. I hope that it doesn't prevent you from trusting and communicating with the rest of us.

I am indeed a Beatle fan. I never really noticed the lyrics to that song, even though I've heard the album many times. Those two (Paul & John) had obvious artistic and personal differences, which makes me sad. They were excellent together, and very good apart. I am a huge John Lennon fan, I've read everything I could find about him for years. If you ever get a chance to read the Playboy interviews he gave just before he died, I think you would enjoy them tremendously -- they have been published in book form. Even when I don't agree with the ideas he expresses I unabashedly and shamelessly admire him for expressing them. Quite a man, he was -- I love his mind. I had just moved to NYC when he died and I'll never forget it. All those crusty New Yorkers -- and not a dry eye on the train going to work the next morning. But I digress.

Yes, I most happily will read your Waterman Paper, and after digesting it overnight, let you know what I think of it. I'm looking forward to reading it very much. I won't be online after a few hours today, so I'll post in the morning about it. And thank you so much for doing that for us. We're blessed to have you.

I think it was my comment about group-think that you were responding to in your post to Merh. I did not mean to imply that you yourself were guilty of group-think, but I did feel that in general the thread was drifting that way. Just an honest observation after taking a break for a few days. I hope you were not offended.

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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:29 AM
Response to Reply #12
21. I'll never stop
questioning, "Who benefits?" Never. It's in my blood. Our government lies. They're hypocrites, calling themselves Christians. I find hypocrisy intolerable, and dishonesty a cardinal sin. I also don't believe Man can govern without hypocrisy or dishonesty.

I'll give up searching for Truth the day I die.

Thanks again, H2O.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:45 AM
Response to Reply #21
25. Thank you, friend RebelYell!
And I still owe you an answer to a question you posed on the last thread ..... regarding the president's mental make-up ..... I did see it, and am going to answer it, of course .... but want to give a serious response to a serious question.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #12
32. H2O - you state that you wish to spread the message found
in these threads to other grass-roots level people, yet, you challenge posters because their thinking is not in step with you or the other posters that dominate these threads.

I am not speaking for Tellurian, I am just making an observation regarding his posts that have been attacked and commented on by you and others that thrive on these threads. You post "On the last thread, Tellurian advocated that we not move forward on our mission." and reading his/her posts, I do not see where he advocates that at all. It appears that Tellurian is of the opine that the "why" has been discussed, analyzed and dissected and then discussed again to the point that the "why" has been answered and that stepping back from things for a time might not be a bad idea. He/She never advocated not moving forward only "not a bad idea to step away, refresh and grow." You may not agree with his/her opinion, but to attack it or ridicule it is not necessary. No one had to respond to it at all or a simple "maybe it is something that should be considered or we can discuss" would have been more appropriate.

Then you take offense that he/she recommended that folks watch the Grid and you post "If I am mistaken, than I politely request that he/she explain his/her position that we stop with this thread, and watch a fictional tv show." When did Tellurian ever suggest that the thread be stopped? Tellurian just suggested that folks watch the Grid in an effort to help folks garner an idea as to how complicated intelligence is in this day and age. "The reason I'm recommending the GRID is because it's an apolitical look at how much more difficult intelligence has become over the last 4 yrs." What was wrong with that and why does that cause you such a problem that you challenge Tellurian? Again, a simple, thanks for the post would suffice or no response at all. Instead there is ridicule and attacks on someone trying to add their opinions to the thread, but the opinions do not fit into the box that you all have formed in these threads.

Please do not get me wrong, I do appreciate the facts that have been shared, the opinions expressed, the links provided and the efforts of many to enlighten many non-DUers and members of congress and the media to the relevant issues discussed in this thread. I acknowledge and applaud the efforts and encourage that they continue.

However, having been attacked and ridiculed when posting in these threads because my opinion is different than your's or other dominate posters' opinions, I feel compelled to point out the unfairness and air of superiority that has turned many away from participating in these threads. Go back over the last 5 or 6 threads and you will see that new ideas have not really been put forth. Maybe it is because as "Telluran put it the thread topic seems to be spent.. not a bad idea to step away, refresh and grow".

You are wise and well read H2O and your contributions appreciated and valued. I simply make this post to add a different perspective on the substance and attitudes of the latest threads.

You state God is truth. I have always heard God is love, so truth is love and it is out of an appreciation and respect for those that are the dominate posters in these threads and those that have tried to post, only to be ridiculed or "talked down to" that I make this post. We all have a right to post our opinions, even if they do not fit into the box you all have created. If you don't like the opinions, then ignore them. Ridicule and attacks are not necessary.
IMHO
=======================================
Tellurian (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-19-04 11:19 PM
Response to Reply #39

44. I'm not suggesting anything..
just responding to your last post.

I don't watch the news, Pallas, except for my local news and weather. I am very selective about the programs, I do watch because I'd rather come away from spending a few hours of my time learning something than the constant propaganda bombardment from the talking heads.

The reason I'm recommending the GRID is because it's an apolitical look at how much more difficult intelligence has become over the last 4 yrs. and the escalation of the danger is more real than ever. The GRID is a raw, hard look, at the turf wars going on between interagency intelligence egos with the safety of American lives hanging in the balance. The movie which will be a continuing limited series on Monday nights @ 9pm is pretty much a recreation of what is going on in the world today. I find nothing gratuitous about it.

=================================
Tellurian (1000+ posts) Thu Jul-22-04 09:08 AM
Response to Reply #286

288. For now, the thread topic seems to be spent..
not a bad idea to step away, refresh and grow.


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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 12:13 PM
Response to Reply #32
33. Those are fair questions and comments .....
I will certainly give them serious thought ..... because no one person knows all ..... or should ever fool themselves into thinking they do..... and so I do thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention.

I will say this: if you go back to the last thread, and examine the person's posts regarding the Klein article .... and some back-and-forth that occured between two other people .... I think you will find the source of at least some of my concerns .... I believe that it is important not to distort a paragraph in the manner in which it was done.

But rather than try to defend myself ..... because I do respect and admire the information and opinions that you place on here .... I will spend the next couple of hours looking within to see if I have erred. Because, after all, I am sad and weakly human .... and thus prone to making mistakes! I owe to it this discussion to make sure that some of the undercurrents -- including some that are not taking place on the surface of this thread -- have carried me adrift.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:15 PM
Response to Reply #33
41. Thank you for your consideration. (eom)
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:25 PM
Response to Reply #41
62. merh:
As you may -- or may not -- know, there were a series of DU e-mails .... these occured in the last few days .... and have obviously spilled over onto these threads.

I do not think that I have encouraged "group-think" on here ..... my goal would be quite the opposite ..... I think that I have been very clear that every person should think for themselves.

What I have tried to encourage, actually, comes down to two things: first, that people consider the "Man X" questions about "Why?" .... and this requires us to go beyond the explanations given by elected officials, respected journalists, as well as anything that any one of us posts on here. Second, I have encouraged us to try to get 100 individuals to write a letter (or more) to the elected officials or news media that they feel most appropriate.

If an individual feels that the discussion of "why?" is complete, and that it needs to be given a rest, that is surely their right. There are hundreds of other threads, and thousands of other internet sites. And there are books, tv, all types of things.

But there are many other people on here who feel the "why" questions are the explanation of why this series of threads has been as popular as it has. And we want to continue to move forward with this, both the question why and the letters, without any balls and chains that continue to say let's stop. That's all.

So my question is: if a person is not interested in talking about the issues that this particular series of threads deals with, and wants to stop and give it a rest, would you agree with me that they should simply stop, take that rest, and go somewhere else?
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #62
88. H2O - maybe you should try again.
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 05:28 PM by merh
"But rather than try to defend myself ..... because I do respect and admire the information and opinions that you place on here .... I will spend the next couple of hours looking within to see if I have erred."

H2O, there is no need to look within, just review the threads to see if there is any legitimacy to my concerns regarding attacks being made on posters that post different opinions. Review them and determine whether or not there have been some varied opinions overlooked because they do not comport with the majority.

Yes, a person has the right not to continue in this thread if they want to rest, that is a given. I believe that my post was simply suggesting that instead of attacking the poster, one simply overlook or state "that is your opinion and I do not agree" or "that might be something we may want to consider" and not “hey gang he wants to leave, do you have any problems with not hearing from him again? (paraphrased to reflect perceived tone).

You are correct, I know nothing of your personal communications. My post was in direct response to your attacks on Tallurian relative to his comments regarding rest and a television program. When I read your replies, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to point out that sometimes the folks that post opinions that differ from the majority on these threads are ridiculed, chastised and/or attacked. As was pointed out to you by another poster, I did not make the “group think” comment yet you chose to respond to my posts accusing me of having done so and by defending your position. Let us not confuse the issue.

I simply responded to your posts in the hopes that you, as a respected leader on these threads, would encourage others to be more tolerant of people that express views that are outside of the box. I was hoping that the teacher could try to teach some tolerance. Guests should be welcomed, not heckled. Apparently that is not something you find is necessary so I must accept that.

What is sad is that for all of the good you all think you have accomplished, for all of the facts you believe you have uncovered, for all of the motives discovered, just imagine how much more you could learn, discover and accomplish if you considered the varied views of other posters instead of chasing them off. You are all stuck in a rut and “group think” does now seem appropriate.

The “why” has been repeated over and over and over and over again. The “what to do” is courageous and to be applauded. The turning away of posters with a different point of view should be mourned.

You’re either with us or against us! Sound familiar?



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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #88
91. While I respectfully disagree.....
....I hope you will respectfully read my post at the bottom of this thread. I ask for a reconciliation on here, to what extent possible. And I do admit that, after giving your thoughts serious consideration, I must make a greater effort to not react negatively to the deceit and insults of others ... especially when they occured on a DU e-mail.

I also think that it is not uncommon for a group of people to have some points where tempers flare a bit. I'm not sure that this is a bad thing. We are human beings, and it is perhaps unrealistic to think that people will not disagree -- sometimes strongly.

I also think that it is possible, and in fact, important, to be able to differentiate between discouraging a open discussion with many different schools of thought -- which is healthy -- and not wanting someone with an different agenda, as opposed to different opinion, from trying to interfere. Perhaps you would have to be privy to a series of private conversations, but I think it's time to drop this dark and dreary topic, and move on.

I will be careful not to raise it again, and hope that you will do the same.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:52 PM
Response to Reply #91
94. H2O - All that is desired is that the open flow of
information is encouraged and that respect and tolerance of differing opinions be practiced. Fret not teacher, I have grown weary of these threads and this topic. The ennui is frustrating and the tail chasing has become old and tiring. I will probably monitor things in the hopes that new thoughts are shared and I am delighted that LeftHander has been able to express a different hypothesis without being ridiculed. That is indeed encouraging.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 12:54 PM
Response to Reply #32
36. We, thank goodness, are not part of the spy world; Post Trauma Distress
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 01:09 PM by Pallas180
Syndrome has been found to exist in most Americans since
the events of 911.

Almost everyone, as the 911 Commission has just repeated, is
aware that there will be another attack.

IMHO We would be served better if a film were made instructing people
exactly where to go or what to do in their own homes to protect
themselves and their families in the case of another attack.
That has not been done.

I commented before, and I repeat the comment, it is the belief of
many that this current administration is purposely keeping the
populace in a state of fear.

The suggested movie seems to propagandize, in addition to being violent, the helplessness of the population to protect itself.

The comment was made to the effect, paraphrasing "it'll toughen you
up to survive".

I watched the movie. I disliked the gratuitous violence. And it has nothing to do with the everyday life of normal posters here. We are not spys ( is it spelled spys or spies?) who are involved in such machinations.

It also occurred to me later that it was a pure propaganda movie to
put fear in the hearts of the populace. And it reminded me of
Henry Kissinger's statement..

""Today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their World Government."

- Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberger meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992.
Circa time when PNAC first written for Bush 1"

I also wondered if this was not a propaganda movie put out by
Poindexter's and Rumsfeld's office of OSP. They now have radio stations, tv, and as their stated goal is to influence thought and
countermand "their enemy" liberal Hollywood, there is no reason to
think that they are not capable of putting out propaganda movies.

My tastes don't run to the violent. Anyone is free to watch the
GRID and pretend they're living in the "spy world".

Anyone is free to post on any thread or almost anyplace on the internet, whether they are republican or democrat. The "dominant" posters here are the wonderful people who have researched again and again and posted pieces of the puzzle which have added to several different theories of the "WHY"

Anyone is free to disagree with another's theories,ideas, and usually explains why, or says, "Look at it this way".

Generally, a tone is set by the majority posters of a thread.

The tone here generally has been quite civil and polite with few exceptions which has made it a delight.

When a poster "feels" attacked, humiliated,and talked down to - that may well be their personal problem, and not discernible through typewritten words. When a poster states that's how they feel and is apologized to, but insists on hanging onto the alleged "hurt", then
one has to wonder WHY?

As a person who has been made fun of, and been the receipient of pointed accusations, I choose to let it go and keep my focus on the goal.

Through these threads I have learned more about my government in the past 2 or 3 weeks than I have known in my entire life and I can only
say thank you to H20 and all of you who have educated me.

Thank you.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:07 PM
Response to Reply #36
38. There are those who have tried to comment on these posts
who have known about our government flaws and have seen them misused to destroy people for over 20 years, but your new found excitement tries to quiet those individuals who would only share what they know and have experienced. Your loss.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:12 PM
Response to Reply #36
39. If you take no responsibility for the actions complained of in my
post to H2O, then why did you respond to my post directed to H2O regarding posts made by him about another? Just curious.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:39 PM
Response to Reply #39
51. Mehr, I have taken responsibility on another thread when you complained I
was shouting at you, among other things, and I distinctly answered in a lengthy post which contained an apology if you felt that way.

One mea culpa is enough.

May I suggest you ignore any post I place, and in that way
you will not be irritated by my enthusiasm, and I shall do the same.

I release you to your highest good.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:08 PM
Response to Reply #51
52. If you only offended once, then your mea culpa would be
enough. Unfortunately, you make a habit of it and when called on it, instead of an apology you attack. I would ignore your posts if they were not made in response to my posts and I only respond to your obnoxious replies. Again, I ask you to refer to your previous response and recognize that you replied to my post directed specifically to H2O.

There is no need for you to release me - you have no control over me, though apparently I have unknowingly been punching your buttons. Every time you respond to my posts you chose to respond with contempt, snide comments, condescending remarks and/or the "holier than thou" comments that are not necessary and are not really responsive to my posts.

I would suggest in the future that you ignore my posts.

And again, it is merh not mehr (for the 3rd time)
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:13 PM
Response to Reply #36
53. I'm going to extract one tiny point from your post, Pallas180
"Generally, a tone is set by the majority posters of a thread."

Ain't that the truth.

You and I have had private conversations, so I think you know how I feel about most things -- or maybe you don't. Judging by our last conversation I am going to say that you absolutely do not understand where I'm coming from.

It is my considered opinion that you do not like it when people disagree with you -- no, not at all. And you can be vindictive about it when they do.

I saw the exchange between yourself and Tellurian yesterday. Tellurian can stand to be more tactful at times, that is for sure. But if I were a new poster to this thread I would have surmised that the two of you had some long-standing feud that I didn't understand. In actuality the two of you have strongly disagreed a few times -- nothing major. But yesterday you gave Tellurian hell for no reason.

I know from our private conversations that at times you can be unnecessarily paranoid. And that you are truly offended when someone disagrees with you or wants to do things in a different way. I think you like to think of yourself as "den mother." When this is done in a positive and protective way it is very comforting, and rather sweet. But when you demand that things are done a certain way, when you refuse to answer innocent questions, and when you attack someone who has disagreed with you previously, so sorry and with all due respect -- this is wrong.

I know that you are a kind-hearted person and truly do not mean to offend. I am telling you that sometimes you do offend, if unintentionally. Perhaps you need to examine your motives -- and make sure that they are not self-serving.

I think you know I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to tell you that you have buried yourself so deep in this thread that you are no longer thinking clearly. Nor are utilizing that fine brain of yours for the purposes God intended.

A week or so ago when I told you that you needed to go to bed and take a break I meant it in the kindest way -- and I mean it that way now. Take a break. Spend time with your sweetie. Relax. Don't make this thread your life. Go and find your smile.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:30 PM
Response to Reply #53
54. As far as I can see,
we all have the same objective here...to discern why. If we all go at it in the same manner, some things will (not may) be overlooked. We all have to bring our ideas to the table and sift.
Let's all bury the hatchet and quit shooting at each other like typical democrats..it accomplishes nothing and disrupts much. This much we agree on.

1. Plame was outed because of what she may have known or been close to finding out, not because her husband investigated yellowcake.

2. She was working on tracking WMDs.

3. Cheney sold and was fined for selling WMD components.

4. Cheney has been in government employ for decades, and not just rank and file positions.

5. Kahn of Pakistan was conducting a WMD Wal-Mart.

6. Kahn was pardoned when it became known before any questioning could be conducted.

7. Why
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #54
55. Hey Shraby
You are, of course right. And while I may not agree with you on some of the finer points of your analysis I certainly can appreciate and support the idea of burying the hatchet. Sheesh, I didn't know I was carrying a hatchet. I better put that thing down.

I'm laughing because I just remembered a line from a very old Pink Floyd song -- "Careful with that axe, Eugene."

You started this thread and I know I've thanked you a time or two. But I'll thank you again anyway, and I swear to concentrate on the issues more than the personalities.

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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:50 PM
Response to Reply #55
58. On my sketchy analysis,
how about others filling in? Put your theory or known in the place it needs to go with a renumbering of the list and the word theory or known after the entry. Then after everyone who wants to, contributes their list, I will make a master with everyone's contribution and renumber. Then we will know where we stand.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:58 PM
Response to Reply #53
69. Arby, It is regrettable your anger at me for my not revealing a confidence
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 03:59 PM by Pallas180
to you, which belonged to another, causes you to post such vitriol
with regard to my character and actions.

As I would not reveal that person's confidence to you or any other, which you call " a refusal to answer innocent questions" neither would I or will I reveal any other confidence I possess.

I believe that is called integrity.

Thank you.

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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:33 PM
Response to Reply #69
79. Sweetie, if you look honestly at the spirit of my post you might agree
that I was not spewing vitriol. I gave you an honest assessment of what I could see happening. And I complimented you on your fine mind, and told you that I thought you needed to take a break and have some fun with your sweetie. In truth I was trying as hard as I could to say something not so nice -- in a nice way. I may have failed miserably. But if you will accuse me of deliberate vitriol I submit that you already know better than that. And shame on you for saying it when you know it isn't true. I know you are not that damn stupid that you would think me spiteful. A republican response to those who disagree with them is to smear that person. Is that what you are up to?

When someone disagrees with you it is not necessarily cause to go on the offensive. It just means that they disagree. I don't know if this is your normal nature or not. But right now you are having a hard time swallowing the fact that people disagree with you. You have to listen with an objective ear. Then take a break and think about it. If I were the only person saying this I might consider that I could be a little too sensitive. But I am not the only person.

I am not angry with you for respecting a confidence. No, not at all. In fact I wish and hope that you've respected mine, but I strongly suspect that you have not. What made me angry was that you were evasive in a way that caused me to believe you were lying to me. When I questioned this you behaved as if I was trying to pry a confidence out of you. Your reaction was paranoid. Indeed the entire conversation was rather paranoid, as several of our other conversations were. I was trying to determine if indeed there was a threat made to people on this thread, as you indicated. I am one of the people. I wanted to know. I asked. All you had to do was answer "no." You would not.

You've got a proprietary attitude toward this thread. It does not belong to you. You are a valued and respected contributor, and you need to respect all others who wish to contribute. Right now you don't. I am officially requesting that you respect all others who wish to post on the thread, and all others who might have ideas for which direction to go in. Even those who have ideas that differ from yours.

You have to give respect to get respect, Pallas. Try it.

I'm not going to waste time "spewing vitriol" or defending myself from future attacks from you. I don't think anyone else should have to either. I once again, with all due respect, and not in any way vindictively, suggest that you take a little break. You need your rest to be at your best. Today you are most definitely not at your best. I hope that soon you'll go back to the kind hearted and imaginatively intelligent person who I was beginning to like. I sure would like to see THAT Pallas again. What have you done with her?
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Wind Dancer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:59 AM
Response to Original message
13. Thanks Pallas for starting the new thread!
I'm just catching up and posted some responses to the old thread! CYE!

I'm anxious to continue with the "why" discussions and letter writing campaign until we've exhausted every avenue. The spin from the Rove department will not stop us from our original goal.

Lots of great new info posted on Berger, Halliburton, Cheney and Iran. Excellent work!
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TacticalPeek Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:04 AM
Response to Original message
15. Sprouting?
From Philadelphia Inquirer(?), getting reproduced around:

Posted on Thu, Jul. 22, 2004
Wake me up when real news arrives

By Trudy Rubin

The Philadelphia Inquirer

snip

The new focus on Joe Wilson is simply a distraction. Last July, the respected Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce quoted a "senior intelligence officer" as saying it was other CIA officers, not Plame, who recommended Wilson for the job. Maybe the Senate source got it wrong. My point is: Who cares?

Wilson had strong qualifications for the mission. He was a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon who had served as Africa expert on the National Security Council, and he knew Niger and its leaders.

If this was nepotism, Plame hardly did her husband a favor. We are not talking trips to Paris here. And there obviously were no CIA rules against sending an agent's relative on a non-secret mission -- otherwise, Wilson wouldn't have been cleared.

In other words, the new story line is a flop. The debate on Iraq and WMD will continue. And so will the investigation into who leaked Plame's name.

TRUDY RUBIN is a columnist and editorial board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Write to her at [email protected] or at Philadelphia Inquirer, P.O. Box 8262, Philadelphia, PA 19101.


http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/erubin22_20040722.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=63948#63958


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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:08 AM
Response to Reply #15
16. That's nice....
Thanks for posting it. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to send her letters, e-mails, etc. I'd bet that Pallas180 might post a paper of interest.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:13 AM
Response to Reply #16
17. Hi Investigators. I'll be in and out today, so not chattering as usual,
but I'll still be here :)

My mail box is always open to all of you.

:hi:
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:03 PM
Response to Reply #17
37. A Few Thoughts about the Sandy Berger Matter.
While not related to the Plame affair (seemingly) I can't seem to get this incident out of my mind. First of all, boy do I wish he had shown better judgment. Surely he knows what these people are like and to slip up like that...

This being said I think it's important to keep pointing out that he took COPIES, not the originals.

Also, if he did persuade the guards to abandon their protocol and leave him alone in the room, and there were no cameras, who was there to see him stuff the documents down his pants and socks? Also, if someone saw him do this why didn't they say "Hey, what are you doing?" or report the matter immediately to a superior?
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #37
42. ME, they said this has been quietly known since October - this is July
WHY did they suddenly leak it to the press?

Did you see my post of the published report of Halliburton under
criminal investigation being released the same day they started
the hullabaloo about Berger?

That's my theory.

Full REpublican spin machine and talking heads to distract from
the published announcement of Halli-Cheney criminal investigation.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:34 PM
Response to Reply #37
108. Some good Defend-Sandy-Berger TALKING POINTS:
Courtesy of David Gergen on CNN's "Newsnight," earlier this week:

I call it "Dr. Gergen's SANDY BERGER VACCINE." It bears repeating, here, AND to your friends and your friendly Letters-to-the-Editor column...

I saw David Gergen on “Newsnight” on CNN (Tuesday, July 20th, 2004) with Aaron Brown. I found myself wondering how soon the republi-CONS are going to put a hit out on David Gergen. Gotta be some dirt in there that they can use to discredit him with. He's their worst enemy in this. He OBVIOUSLY did NOT get their memo. He said all the wrong things (at least from their point of view). ALL the wrong things:

About the timing which he bald-facedly said could be regarded as suspicious, and for the reason he also specified - to draw fire away from Thursday's expected release of the 9/11 Commission's report.

About the character of Sandy Berger - unimpeachable, says he knows him well, respects the heck out of him, AND THEN proceeded to spell out in some detail how Sandy Berger worked almost literally around the clock during what we now know as the run-up to the Millennium terrorist threats, and Gergen REPEATEDLY stated that Berger "STOPPED THE ATTACKS." He must have repeated that maybe three or four times.

And to add insult to injury, he flat-out stated that "these people should be THANKING Sandy Berger for all his hard work because (repeating yet again) HE STOPPED THE ATTACKS.

FURTHERMORE, Gergen referred back to ALL the republi-CON puffing, which is, I think, the phrase he used, or maybe even "unnecessary puffing" by those who had just been shown in videotaped clips, fulminating about how awful this was and how it was such a serious breach of national security - you could see all the usual suspects, Dennis Hastert coming to the mike with the coterie of gop henchmen - tom delay, and others, all really indignant and frowny-looking, and then the senators - including rick santorum and - our dear darling Georgia CHICKENHAWK saxby "I'm more patriotic having skirted Vietnam than Max Cleland who lost three limbs in the war there" chambliss. And then, here's David Gergen, referring back to those same people he says were hyperventilating about it (my phrase) when he said a) a second time that they should be THANKING Sandy Berger because he - repeat yet again - STOPPED THE MILLENNIUM ATTACK.

He specifically described all the uproar as just that, uproar, and much ado about nothing. He said they were going way overboard and that there's "a lot less here than meets the eye." Those were, in fact, his closing comments, and those, too, were a repeat from earlier in the interview.

He not only vouched vigorously for Sandy Berger's character, but he gave himself a little bit of a ribbing when he pointed out that this was certainly sloppy, and mentioned that he himself ought to know because he had that problem, being sloppy. He said he could understand how you have papers all over the desk and at the end you scoop 'em all up and put 'em away in your folder and then - Gergen said - he probably LOST a couple of 'em. He pointed out again that he thought this was just sloppy.

He further said that Berger was there, to begin with, because as part of what was then his anticipated testimony before the 9/11 Commission, that the commission asked him to go back and thoroughly review his notes of the Millennium threat and what was done - (to do what, class?) STOP THE ATTACK. So he was carrying out instructions he'd been given from the panel.

AND - Gergen also pointed out, repeatedly, that these were copies. COPIES. C-O-P-I-E-S of stuff that is STILL in the National Archives, stuff that was ALL seen by the 9/11 Commission, and ALL made available, and all still there, now. Gergen said there was NEVER anything out of any of this that was kept back from, or hidden from, or disallowed to the 9/11 Commission, and that they'd seen everything there. This, he said, and the missing papers, were copies of stuff that the commission absolutely did get to see. So basically no damage done - GERGEN SAID.

As for Aaron Brown, he introduced Gergen as somebody who ought to know, having advised four presidents, Nixon, Reagan, bush 1 and Clinton. The CLEAR inference here was that this, like with Richard Clarke, presents a picture of someone who is very non-partisan, having worked for both camps, and presidents of both parties.

So, all in all, I thought it was rather even-handed, even excellent for Sandy Berger. David Gergen was really definite about these things. No hemming and hawing and parsing his words and grasping about, verbally, for "a way to put this" that would shade it with other meanings in any way. He was very straightforward, and the republi-CONS probably hate his guts this evening. Probably revoked his VIP pass to their convention next month. EVERYTHING David Gergen said HURT their case. EVERYTHING. If Sandy Berger's attorney was at trial about this, he'd have David Gergen as his star witness.

Sorry for the length, but these are GREAT Talking Points if you want to write a letter to the editor, or to your UNfavorite TV reporter or anchor or spin doctor. EXTREMELY valuable and useful.

For TWO reasons:

1) It reinforces the good about Sandy Berger smack in the face of these would-be terrorist experts. Gergen REPEATED "HE STOPPED THE ATTACK" maybe four or five times during those few interview minutes. He must have thought that, alone, was a HUGELY significant point, about which people NEED TO BE reminded.

2) It turns the glare back on the republi-CONS - in this time when we're waiting for the 9/11 Commission report that - try as they might to deflect the blame from THIS White House - will still show that THIS White House at least SHARES the blame. AND it provides a wickedly good opportunity to remind about the PLAME outing, and how - ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT - that outing of an undercover CIA operative IS a crime. It IS a violation of law. It IS a blow to our national security. And it goes STRAIGHT TO THEIR FRONT DOOR. Let them try to pawn THAT one off on Berger and Clinton.
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:14 PM
Response to Original message
40. Plenty More to Swear About - a focus on the question: why?
Sunday, Jun. 27, 2004
Plenty More to Swear About
By JOE KLEIN
The Vulcans — a campaign 2000 nickname for George W. Bush's hawkish national security team — went Krakatoa last week. Dick Cheney erupted on the Senate floor, deploying the F word against Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, who had been belaboring the Vice President over the no-bid deals that Cheney's old company, Halliburton, had scored in Iraq. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suffered a meltdown in a House Armed Services Committee hearing, blasting the press for "sitting in Baghdad" and "printing rumors." (He later apologized.) And the White House was forced to acknowledge that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved, at least for a while, the use of dogs, nudity, stress positions — that is, torture — against enemy combatants. Indeed, Rumsfeld, who works at a stand-up desk, indicated a desire for at least one more strenuous stress position: "I stand 8-10 hours a day," he scrawled on a memo. "Why is standing limited to 4 hours?"

Presumably the Secretary of Defense doesn't do his standing naked, continuously, in the middle of the night, surrounded by hostile guards and attack dogs. But then, Rumsfeld's blustery testosteronics are at the heart of what has gone wrong with the Bush foreign policy — and last week the assorted temper tantrums appeared to be a leading indicator of a gathering summer storm confronting this presidency.


The torture investigation is one of four major defensive battles the Administration is facing. In the weeks to come, the White House will also have to deal with the 9/11 commission's final report, the congressional investigations into the CIA's bungled assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and a special prosecutor's hunt for the White House leakers who blew the cover of CIA secret operative Valerie Plame. Not only is the Administration defending itself against the Democrats, the investigators and the media. Two other serious, surreptitious — and quite possibly unprecedented — battles are going on: the intelligence community is at war with the White House, and the uniformed military is at war with the civilian leadership of the Pentagon. The first conflict went public last week with news of the impending publication of Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terrorism, a book by an anonymous author who is known to be a senior CIA official and former chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden station. The invasion of Iraq was "an avaricious, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat," the author writes. "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq."

Michael Moore couldn't have said it any better — and this book was vetted by CIA censors. In fact, the views of Anonymous are an accurate reflection of the opinions I've heard from multiple intelligence sources. The spooks seem to believe that outgoing CIA Director George Tenet was strong-armed by Cheney and Rumsfeld into overassessing Iraq's WMD capacity. This may or may not be true, but it is the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community. Furthermore, there is intense anger over the White House's revealing the identity of Plame, who may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components. Plame was outed in a White House attempt to discredit the finding of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that there was no evidence that Iraq tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Only a very high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the payroll" of the CIA, an intelligence source told me.

more...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1101040705-658343,00.html

I reprint this article that we have been referencing since the first thread because the knowledge of this "sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components" provides us with clues for a MOTIVE to blow Valerie Plame's cover. Exploring the reasons "why" gives us a clearer understanding of the scope of this treasonous act and leads to the next logical query in any criminal investigation: who benefited?

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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:23 PM
Response to Reply #40
43. RECAP- THEORY OF WHY PLAME>CHENEY>HALLLIBURTON
3. A THEORY ON THE WHY - Plame -> Cheney->Halliburton


repost

A THEORY ON THE WHY - Plame -> Cheney->Halliburton

On my way home today, as I thought about the why the outing of Valerie Plame was necessary, I was so engrossed I drove 4 exits past my exit.

Here's what we know:

1) Valerie Plame was "active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of Weapons of Mass Destruction components"" when her identity was exposed by the White House. It also said" Only a high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge" that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent.

2) Vice President Cheney since 1995 as CEO of Halliburton was fined 1.2 milion dollars for illegal sales of components to Libya which could be used for nuclear purposes. Shortly before becoming Vice President he bitterly assailed US policy against selling such components to Syrria and Iran, which apparently hurt Halliburton's bottom line.

3) There is an investigation of Vice President Cheney in other countries for illegal bribery and various other offenses connected to Halliburton as well as paying amounts to secret Swiss bank accounts

4)The Atomic Energy Commission has said a North American company is one of 20 being investigated for black market sales of WMD materials.

Here's the theory:

Valerie Plame was stopped in her tracks and the biggest treasonous taboo of revealing a CIA sting operation was done because she/it was coming close to discovering even more serious violations of the laws against trading nuclear materials with certain countries by our own Vice President and the Hallibuton company he has awarded billions of US taxpayer dollars to in non-bid contracts after he became VP.

Recently Libya was accused of having WMD components and the US threat
ened to invade unless Quaddaffi gave the WMD components to the US.
Bush 2 was seen on TV this week inspecting the cases of returned materials from Iraq triumphantly. The fact that Quaddafi received these illegal shipments of components from Cheney/Halliburton was not
mentioned in the victory video.

Dick Cheney, even after the Senate Intel Committee, The Atomic Commission and numerous other agencies have said no WMD exist in Iraq,
insists Iraq has WMD even in the last week.

Why? Because Dick Cheney knows he, through an offshore Halliburton company with a PO Box, at some time in the past sold Saddam Hussein WMD or components of WMD. In the same way "they" under Bush 1 adminstration sold Hussein lethal gas which he used, and then attacked him for using it saying he was a threat to the community.

Why do Cheney and Bush insist they must attack Syrria and Iran as the next step in making the world safe and that Syrria and Iran have
WMD? Cheney-Halliburton know that Syrria and Iran have WMD components because Cheney illegally sold the WMD components to Syrria and Iran.

Why did Bush Cheney know that North Korea had WMD and where did they gget the components?

Why were Pakistan and India able to test and develop nuclear weapons undetected by the CIA's "big eye in the sky" or any agency's seismic
discovery? And where did India and Pakistan purchase the components
for WMD which were illegal for any company to sell them?

What was Valerie Plame investigating?


good spooks vs the bad spooks in the FBI and CIA becomes very confusing to most, I think.



Not to add confusion to my "theory " above, but I also thought:

When Saudi Arabia asked Junior and Company to get out of Saudi Arabia
afer we had built a monstrous and expensive base armed with the newest weaponry - one might call it a home base -why would they do that, when they had wanted US to protect them and their oil fields for years???

The reason given for asking us to vacate was to calm the anti-American element. Hmmm. But if they needed our protection from that very element, WHY would they ask their protector to leave.
BECAUSE they "likely" also received WMD from certain parties.

So now, we can guess, the entire Middle East is armed with illegal components of WMD...supplied by whom?hmmm

And I agree with you ROBERTPAULSEN- it's a great racket. Supply them
with the components, collect payment. Shuttle back and forth between
private employment and government employment, selling WMD for your company's bottom line while a private CEO, earning large bonuses and
deferred "payment" plus increased stock option value, go back into government, create a war on those countries who have the WMD you have sold them, then you have created a situation where your company and the other companies you hold stock in, or which belong to your other associates, can supply the army with munitions, destroy the country you have sold WMD to, and then the very same companies who supplied the munitions for destruction, go in and rebuild the country.


So. Now how many times have you profiteered?
1) illegal selling of WMD
2) earn bonus, increase value of stock options
3) Supply Army Munitions on no bid contracts
4) Rebuild the country on no bid contracts
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:25 PM
Response to Reply #43
44. PALLAS THEORY - WHY BRIT INTEL WONT SHOW THEIR EVIDENCE
everyone is assuming that the Brit Intel is the same Intel that the
CIA had. (on yellowcake)

You're right about one thing...the intel agencies all share their info.BUT you are forgetting that the French have been investigating CHeney Halliburton illegalities for some time, and Cheney Halliburton
did not sell yellowcake (to our knowledge), they sold equipment that could be used for dual use - and one of the uses was for a nuklar bomb.

So there is nothing to say that the Brit Intel was the same Niger info.In fact it may not be.

WHY would they not share with the world what information they had about Iraq having WMD? And why have they suddenly changed their mindsagain saying it was bogus after all - after insisting for 1 1/2 years they had separate proof of Iraq having WMD?

Theory: because it would cause a great deal of embarrassment to "he who calls himself president of VICE ! !! a-ha!

Could be one of Halliburton's subsidiaries or offshores, whose name and connection was not recognized immediately was in the hands of Brit Intel so they said they had separate verifying proof of WMD in Iraq - only to realize the proof traced back to a company named Halliburton or Brown Root - and so they shut up. (TOP SECRET - CANNOT BE REVEALED, of course while every intel agency in the world knows, but the general public date not know becaue we would hang the perpetrator)

Highly plausible . First they say they have proof of WMD in Iraq.but refuse to show it.......now they suddenly say the proof is bogus - and still refuse to reveal it.

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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:26 PM
Response to Reply #44
45. H20 THEORY - RECAP
H2O Man (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-17-04 02:01 PM




We know that Valerie Plame was involved in a sting operation involving the components for WMDs. This is verfied in J. Klein's article in Time, 7-5-04. Remember also that when Novak called CI for confirmation of Plame's status -- and Robert NoFacts had told a total stranger on a public street on the day afterWilson's NYT op-ed article that she was a WMD specialist -- the CIA requested that he not only should NOT mention Wilson's wife was an operative with the Agency, but that her name should not ever be printed.

One of the things to keep in mind is that by revealing Plame's identity, it insured that at very least, a half-dozen operatives (American and other-wise) were exposed to the last people on earth that they should have been exposed to. Let's just say, for example, that there was a person who was working in the Pakistan area ... and he had worked in deep cover for over a decade, and was very, very close to accessing information on the sale of not only technology, but also components, that went to Iran .... and he had a known link to Plame .... then he would be dead 24 hours after Novak's article was printed. Further, no one in the USA would be at liberty to discuss the fact that he existed.

You will recall that I've referred to this as high stakes chess. A board game where the removal of one player compromises the safety and value of several others.

Listen: if they wanted to call Wilson's conclusions into question, they could create confusion with a series of bullshit documents from England, etc. They could have said that his was one of three US reports, and that there were the British papers that were still open to question, considering that Wilson had not viewed them. They could have even said, yes, we tend to agree with Wilson.

But they didn't. They had been waiting to reveal information on Plame for some time. The fact that Iran is sharing he focus in the recent days, along with Wilson, is a clue .... a big clue.
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:28 PM
Response to Reply #45
46. CALIMARY THEORY RECAP
Pallas180 (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-17-04 05:43 PM


71. I am convinced Valerie Plame was the target, & they thought
they would do a 'Rosenberg' on them. Two for the price of one.
Set them up.Traitors to the country, electric chair, the whole bit.




calimary (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-17-04 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #71

143. That would fit in conveniently with the message they evidently wanted to put out to the intel community: the "do not cheney with us" message. Wilson has, many times, mentioned that what happened to his wife, whether to her directly or indirectly to him, was to seriously discourage others from getting "out of line." Wouldn't that just be the decisive little coup de grace - to "Rosenberg" one or both of them, to put a chill on anybody else who might be getting too dangerously close? If they knew they were not only going to be ruined, but they also faced the electric chair or some other kind of EXTREMELY final punishment, there'd be icicles hanging off all of them before you could say "BOO!"

And for awhile, they've seemed invincible, haven't they? So who would dare...

But things are a lot stickier and more complicated now. Their anticipated free ride is starting to get seriously mucked up as more people know, and talk, and spread out, and start asking questions, and some guy like Fitzgerald gets involved (who couldn't be counted on to be a "good" republi-CON after all. And, as someone else mentioned either here or on Thread 8 - they misunderestimated the internet. They thought we'd all just shut up and go to our corner and suck our thumbs and mope and cower and give up, didn't they? They didn't know we'd (literally, here) go underground...

As Martha Stewart would say - it's a VERY good thing. And it's gaining traction.

Which is what our efforts in all these arenas should do, as well. GAIN TRACTION.

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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:33 PM
Response to Reply #46
48. ROBERTPAULSEN THEORY HALLI>KHAN-OBL>PLAME>CHENEY
robertpaulsen (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-19-04 07:22 PM
Response to Reply #216

234. WHOA!!! Could this be circumstantial evidence of a Khan/Plame link?!


When I first read this article, I decided to post it here because of the dirt it has on a Musharraf/Khan/Bin Laden connection.

A. Q. KHAN & OSAMA BIN LADEN

snip
These accounts of three of the travels of Dr.A.Q.Khan establish conclusively the following facts:

He had kept the Pakistani Foreign Office informed of his travels. The Foreign Office had instructed the Pakistani diplomatic missions in the countries visited by him to accord the due honours of protocol to him.
In all the countries, he was received by officers of the Pakistani diplomatic missions and entertained by the heads of missions.
In Sudan, he was accorded the honours of protocol generally given to a member of the Cabinet and called on the President of the country.
He was accompanied by senior serving scientists of Pakistan's nuclear establishment, who were among those responsible for Pakistan's military nuclear development. They could not have gone abroad and remained absent for days without the knowledge and clearance of the Government.
At least one Lt.Gen. belonging to the Pakistan Army's Medical Corps, who had headed it, and two Brigadiers had accompanied him. They could not have gone and remained away from the country without the knowledge and clearance of the Military Headquarters.
The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa. From the accounts given by the Pakistani author, two intriguing questions arise:

Why did Khan consider it necessary to visit the site of a factory in Sudan, which became the target of US Cruise missile attacks after the explosions outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam by Al Qaeda in August 1998? The Americans had alleged at that time that this factory belonged to Osama bin Laden and was producing chemicals for weaponisation purposes. Denying this, the Sudanese authorities had claimed that it was producing anti-malaria drugs.
Why was he visiting frequently Timbuktu, which has apparently no importance from the nuclear point of view? Pakistani officials have alleged that he had illegally constructed a hotel there ( Hotel La Colombe?) in the name of his wife. If he was going there to supervise the construction of the hotel, he should have been accompanied by experts in building construction and the hotel industry. No such person accompanied him. He was always accompanied by scientists and Army officers associated with KRL and Tahir Mian, who was helping him in the procurement of centrifuges.
It is reliably learnt from well-placed observers that it also came out during the recent interrogation of the associates of Khan in Pakistan's nuclear establishment that after Osama bin Laden shifted from Khartoum to Afghanistan in 1996, Dr.Khan was also looking after bin Laden's extensive investments in the mining industry in many African countries and that the money invested in the Timbuktu hotel had come from these investments of bin Laden. The Pakistani authorities have reportedly suppressed this information and not shared it with the US.

http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/khanandbinladen.html

Sooooo....

Khan, with the assistance of the Pakistani government and military, looked after bin Laden investments in Africa. Pretty bad on its own merits. But then this sentence caught my eye.


The uranium enriched at KRL, Kahuta, used to come from Africa, mainly Niger. This partly explains the frequent travels of A.Q.Khan to Africa.


What a coincidence. The enriched uranium that Khan had access to came mainly from NIGER!

Now, when Cheney sent Wilson to Niger, wasn't he aware of Plame's WMD "sting operation" in the Middle East?!

No wonder Musharraf had this reaction:

"In one of his statements, he has even blamed the US intelligence agencies for not uncovering this network earlier than October last year and asserted that if they had done so, he would have acted against it even earlier."

I know this is not direct proof of a smoking gun, but I think this information could be an extremely important piece of the puzzle. If the WMD trafficking that Plame's "sting operation" covered is linked to Khan, who got his enriched uranium mainly from Niger, and we can verify Cheney had access to this intelligence, then we are getting even closer to H20 Man and Prouty's big question: why?
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #48
49. Nuclear Walmart: Little Doubt that OBL has dirty bomb -
if you read Robert's post above carefully, you see that
Pakistani scientist Khan was running a Nuclear Walmart.

1)He sold the secrets of the nuclear bomb world wide. This is fact.
2)He had access to yellow cake by his trips to Africa/Niger
3)He was OBL's overseer of finances and properties, with the help
of the secret service ISI of Pakistan.

The ISI of Pakistan was also the supporter and installer of the TAliban in Afghanistan (and current protector/hider of OBL)

When Khan was exposed as the merchant of death ofa ring selling nuclear materials world wide, he was immediately pardoned by
Musharaf, PM of of Pakistan. Pardoned so fast that none of the US
Intel agencies would be able to question him.

WHY? H20 always tells us to ask WHY? Why was Khan immediately pardoned? Because to try him for criminality would have exposed
who gave him nuclear components, what corporations sold illegally,
what country and high officials were involved.

WHERE did Khan get the components which are necessary to set off
a nuclear device?

WHO? do we know who has illegally been selling nuclear dual components?

Some of these answers go back to the administration in 1988 when it
was known that administration gave other countries the miniaturized
nuke W88. Hmmmm. What current officials were in the same administration?

What was the name of the President at the time?

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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 01:37 PM
Response to Reply #49
50. Why go to the elaborate scenarios? to stop WMD investigations:
Subject: Why go to the elaborate scenarios: to stop investigations into WMD sales
Message:
Pallas180 (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-04 06:12 PM
Response to Reply #59

71. They're not called the Mayberry Machiavellis for nothing - I think

in a way it was the other way around, they weren't after Wilson, they were after Plame. Two for the price of one. Rosenberg them.

Cheney has been in govt since Nixon, that we know of, then Ford.
He's been around a long time with access to top security items.
To recap, we also knew he made at least 10 trips to CI HQ and would
have, could have, pinpointed who was working blackmarket WMD which
would have been of great interest to him. He would also have access
to CI files, would know of or remember Ambassador Wilson. Bingo -
the plot is hatched.

Ask her would her husband be interested in helping? Of course.
Discredit him, expose/discredit her operation and put a stop to her work and the work of the entire spy group/cell she had set up worldwide which MAY have been hot on the trail of Halliburton/Brown Root/et al illegal black market sales of components which could be used for WMD, which as we all know was Valerie's job.

He figures he's home free, no more fines, no discovery of the double dealing, but the Mayberrys call Novak and committ a treasonous act which leads right back to the WH and darth vader.

___________________________________________________________________


Pallas180 (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-04 09:41 PM
Response to Reply #102

117. If Pappy gave the mini nuke W88 to China,as widely reported, there is nothing to say Pappy and darth vader didn't give the same or similar components to Khan. And your theory sounds just about right - Khan would have had to be pardoned immediately because not to pardon him, the good FBI would be over there asking him where he got the WMD and the arrow would point right back to the 1988 administration # 1 and/or the current WH.

Another reason why junior sealed Pappy's records.

Nice, huh. It still sounds like treason to me at the highest levels
__________________________________________________________

robertpaulsen (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-18-04 11:01 PM
Response to Reply #117

138. Glad you agree!


The extent of treason is pretty scary. Gives me nightmares sometimes. I woke up this morning with the memory of seeing a news report: "Bush prepares for upcoming Iran invasion". That's one nightmare I'm afraid might come true.

But I take comfort in knowing we're all on the side of righteousness in this struggle
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Wind Dancer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:43 PM
Response to Reply #50
56. Same players, must read!
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 02:50 PM by FrustratedDemInNC
Thursday, July 22
by Stephen Pizzo

published by Tom Paine

Nixon's Children


This has a ton of info, well worth the read!

-snip-

Both Cheney and Rumsfeld had front-row seats from which to watch the self-destruction of the Nixon presidency. Finding themselves in power again, both men well understood that it was not what Nixon and his cronies did that got them thrown out of office, but the evidence of what they did—the tapes, the memos, the testimony.

snip-

Lesson learned: Once information gets loose it's too late. To make sure nothing like happens to this administration the whole operation has been virtually hermetically sealed. The power to classify information as Secret and Top Secret was expanded to every nook and cranny, including Agriculture and the EPA. Even within the Bush administration itself, information has become available strictly on a "need to know" basis. There would be no Daniel Ellsbergs leaving this administration with anything sensitive but what was in their heads—and therefore deniable.

After failing to stop further publication of the Pentagon Papers—which for those too young to remember, put the entire basis for and execution of the Vietnam War in doubt—Nixon's first instinct was to kill the messenger by turning one of the war's chief architects, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, loose on Ellsberg. Kissinger started spreading the word that Ellsberg had shot at peasants from helicopters while in Vietnam and, furthermore, that Ellsberg was gay. When neither rumor stuck Nixon went looking for real dirt, organizing a break-in at the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

-snip-

Lesson NOT learned: The Bush administration had its own Ellsberg on its hands this year when former ambassador Joe Wilson publicly contradicted the Bush administration's oft-stated claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger. The White House response was a ham-handed attempt to discredit Wilson by leaking to the press that Wilson's wife was a covert CIA agent who operated overseas undercover as an energy analyst.

Inevitably the smear blew back on the Bush White House, just as the Ellsberg break-in had, and now the administration is stuck with an investigation into just who leaked the story. It is illegal to reveal the identity of covert CIA operatives—for obvious, and often deadly, reasons.

-more-

http://progressivetrail.org/articles/040205Pizzo.shtml

email: [email protected]
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:49 PM
Response to Reply #50
57. The Waterman Paper ......


The Waterman Paper

A: Introduction

This paper examines the possibility that Vice President Dick Cheney orchestrated the "leaking" of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the news media in the summer of 2003, in order to accomplish three goals.

These include (1) to punish Joseph Wilson for challenging "16 words" in President Bush's 1-28-03 State of the Union address; and (2) to intimidate other sources from publicly challenging the White House's version of events involving the "war on terrorism" and the US invasion of Iraq. Both of these goals are well-known from numerous reports on this White House scandal.

The other, (3) is that VP Cheney was attempting to derail an investigation that Plame may have been involved in at the time that her identity was exposed. This third potential goal has not been the subject of any major media attention.

The author of this paper put it forward on an internet forum, the Democratic Underground, in early July, 2004. The resulting eleven DU "threads," which consist of over 3,000 posts from interested citizens across the country, is the only known forum debating this theory.

B: Sources

Besides the eleven DU "Plame Indictment" threads, the information in this paper comes from the following four sources: The Politics of Truth, by Joseph Wilson; Worse Than Watergate, by John Dean; Don't Tread on Joseph Wilson, NYT book review by John Dean on 5-23-04; and Plenty to Swear About, by Joe Klein, Time, 7-5-04.

C: Time Line

While the case involving Wilson's investigation in Niger, and the White House's efforts to expose Plame is long and complicated, this paper will focus on a "time line" established by Wilson in his book.

1-Jan'02: The first reports of a Niger-Iraq uranium connection surface in the White House.

2-Feb'02: Wilson is asked to investigate by the CIA.

3-March'02: Wilson returns from Niger and briefs the CIA on the investigation. His conclusion supports those of two others that there was no Niger-Iraq connection.

4-Jan'03: Bush includes the "16 words" in his State of the Union address.

5- On or about March 5,'03: the CIA gives VP Cheney an oral report, informing him of Wilson's conclusions.

6-March 7, '03: the IAEA announces the US's documents on Niger-Iraq are forgeries.

7- March 8,'03: (a) a State Department spokesperson admits, "We fell for it" in regard to the forged document; (b) Wilson tells CNN that the State Department has more information on the subject; and (c) a workshop meeting is held in VP Cheney's office. It is attended by top republican officials, possibly including Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Newt Gingrich. The group discusses ways to discredit Wilson.

8-June 8, '03: Condoleeza Rice denies knowledge of the weakness of the Niger uranium claim on Meet The Press. She states, "Maybe someone down in the bowels of the Agency knew about this, but nobody in my circles."

9- July 6, '03: Wilson's NYT op-ed is published. By the following day, two senior White House officials began contacting at least six reporters, informing them of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative.

10- July 8, '03: Reporter Robert Novak tells a complete stranger on a Washington street: "Wilson's an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him."
In the following days, Novak would ask the CIA for confirmation of Plame's identity. He was asked not to print her name or identity in any article regarding Wilson.

11- July 14,'03: Novak's article exposes Plame.

12: July 20, '03: NBC's Andrea Mitchell tells Wilson that senior White House officials told her that the "real story" was not the 16 words, but was Wilson and his wife.

13-July 21, '03: NBC's Chris Matthews tells Wilson that Karl Rove called him and said," Wilson's wife is fair game." Matthews said he would confirm that if asked.

This time line indicates that while the exposing of Plame's identity was a result of Wilson's op-ed, it was also part of a larger strategy that had been planned in VP Cheney's office since March 8. It clearly confirms goal #1: by exposing Plame, and putting her safety at risk, the White House had severely punished Joseph Wilson.

It also supports goal #2: the White House had a strategy to intimidate any other potential intelligence operatives from exposing the administration for distorting information regarding Iraq.

Likewise, the exposing of Plame supports goal #3: exposing Plame put an immediate end to any activities that Plame was participating in at the time. This is supported by Wilson (pg 345) : "She immediately began to prepare a checklist of things she needed to do to minimize the fall-out to the projects she was working on."

Also, Wilson notes: "Compromising the officer means compromising a career, a network, and every person with who the officer might have ever worked. Slips of the tongue cost people their lives." (pg 13)

D: The Leaker's Identities

Robert Novak sourced his story to two senior White House officials. Other reporters, including Andrea Mitchell, made mention of the two unidentified senior White House officials. These two are among the at least six reporters contacted by these two officials.

Chris Matthew's call identifies Karl Rove as being involved in the efforts to make "Wilson's wife ...fair game." This call took place after the calls from the senior officials to the six reporters.

Wilson's book indicates a belief that the two senior officials were Lewis "Scooter" Libby andEliot Abrams. Abrams is no stranger to White House disgrace, having been convicted on two charges during the Iran-Contra scandal.

There is evidence the three were operating with the knowledge of, and perhaps under the direction of VP Cheney. The March 8 "workshop" in VP Cheney's office indicates that this was a long-standing, well-organized effort to discredit Wilson. As Wilson notes (pg 387) : "... a plan to attack me had been formed before the moment. It was cocked and ready to fire .... an organized smear campaign directed from the highest reaches of the White House."

E: VP Cheney and pre-war intelligence

Those involved in the "workshop" to discredit Wilson were also active in efforts to influence pre-war intelligence reports. On page 6, Wilson discusses "leaks" that Cheney, Libby, and Newt Gingrich pressured the intelligence community "to skew intelligence analysists" to fit their own needs.

On page 338, Wilson notes that these three reportedly intimidated analysists by implying, "if you do a 'Wilson' on us, we will do worse to you."

Wilson notes (pg 434) that VP Cheney runs a "parallel national security office," which has no congressional oversite, and hence can "circumvent long-standing and accepted reporting structures and to skew decision-making practices."

As a result, as reported by Joe Klein in Time (7-5-04) "the intelligence community is at war with the White House." Klein notes that "multiple intelligence sources" indicated to him their belief that Cheny strong-armed out-going CIA Director George Tenet, to make him support Cheney and Rumsfeld's positions on Iraq.

F: Cheney, Niger, and Wilson's Trip

Wilson notes a report on a possible Niger-Iraq yellow cake uranium transaction had "aroused the interests of Vice President Dick Cheney." (pg 14) Cheney's office "had tasked the CIA to determine if there was any truth to the report." (pg 14)

It is clear that Cheney was aware of the Niger report, and had directed his office to have the CIA do an investigation of it. There is evidence that on March 5, the CIA gave VP Cheney an oral report on Wilson's findings. This was three days before the State Department spokesperson told the media, "We fell for it," and that Wilson told CNN that the State Department had more information on that subject. March 8 was also the day that the "workshop" to discredit Wilson was held in Cheney's office.

G: "What I Didn't Find" vs "16 Words"

The White House retracted President Bush's infamous 16 words immediately after Wilson's op-ed appeared in the New York Times.

On 7-13-03, Condi Rice told Fox News Sunday that, "It is ludicrous to suggest that the president of the United States went to war on the question of whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Africa."

On 7-14-03, Robert Novak exposed Valerie Plame's identity. It is important to recognize that Novak was aware that Plame was an operative who specialized in WMDs, and that he had been asked by the CIA not to reveal her identity, or even print her name, in an article on Wilson.

The White House continued to engage in efforts to discredit Wilson, including sending three identical e-mails of "talking points" to Keith Olbermann when Wilson was appearing on MSNBC's Countdown.

H: 1982 Intelligence Identity Protection Act

Wilson notes that the administration had already acknowledged the Niger-Iraq link was unsubstantiated, and that logically, they should have focused attention on how the 16 words made their way into the president's State of the Union address. The effort to expose Plame's identity made little sense. (pg 7)

Later, he continues with, "The White House gained nothing by publicizing Valerie's name..." (pg 7)

"Then it struck me that the attack by Rove and the administration on my wife had little to do with her, but a lot to do with others who might be tempted to speak out." (pgs 5-6)

"The decision of the president's people to come after me .... arose from no concerns over the emergence of secrets from my mission -- there weren't any." (pg 339)

"However offensive, there was a certain logic to it. If you have something to hide, one way to keep it secret is to threaten anyone who might expose it. But it was too late to silence me." (pg 338)

I: Goal #3: Why Cheney Exposed Plame

Wilson notes that Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor, pointed out that since the Bush people had never backed down before, the fact that they had been "so quick to admit their error this time meant they must have something more important to protect." (pg 4)

In "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean calls the exposing of Plame the "Dirtiest of Dirty Tricks." He writes that "revealing her identity damaged the national security and her career, and resulted in the loss of a valuable government asset." He called this action "literally life-threatening." (pgs 170-171)

What could have possibly been so important to VP Cheney that he oversaw the violating of the 1982 IIPA, and risked a White House scandal? The answer clearly can not be found in goals #1 or #2.

The answer, which supports goal #3, appears in Klein's article: "Furthermore, there is intense anger over the White House's revealing the identity of Plame, who may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components. ..... 'Only a very high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the payroll' of the CIA, an intelligence source told me."

And that very high-ranking official may have known through his parallel national security office about the activities that Plame was involved with at that time. The answer to goal #3 likely is to be found in the checklist of things Valerie Plame did to mitigate the damage done by Novak's article immediately after she read it.

J: Conclusions

This paper presents direct evidence that the intelligence group that operates out of VP Cheney's office orchestrated the exposure of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, in order to real goal #1, the "punishing" of Joseph Wilson for publicly challenging President Bush.

It includes both direct and circumstantial evidence from sources including Wilson, Dean, Klein, and others, that indicates they also had goal #2 in mind: to intimidate any other potential sources that could challenge their reasons for invading Iraq, as well as other measures in their "war on terorism."

Yet these two goals alone do not explain why VP Cheney would (1) take part in a measure that would violate a federal law against exposing a CIA operative, or (2) risk a serious scandal for the Bush Administration.

The possibility that VP Cheney was hoping to derail a sting operation involving Valerie Plame, which is our identified goal #3, does explain why VP Cheney would condone the breaking of the federal law, and risk the most serious scandal that this administration faces.

Further research by an ad hoc DU "think tank" has identified possible connections between businesses connected to VP Cheney that may be associated with the sale of WMD components to countries in the Middle East. It is our belief that this theory and the evidence that supports it needs a more in-depth investigation.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 02:59 PM
Response to Reply #57
59. H20
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 03:03 PM by shraby
When all the points from other researchers are brought to the table as I suggested, I will put them in some sort of order and then it can be added to your paper on the subject. Maybe between the two papers, we will have a full, comprehensive, but not complete because of the unknown unknowns (as yet), theory of why. Condensed as such, other members can read it, understand all that has been done so far and maybe get ideas on where to look for more.

A good idea would be to put the two papers together on a separate thread and keep it kicked with instructions to go to this thread for comments and additions to the theory. Leave the papers as they are until enough additional information becomes available to make a third paper to add to the thread.

edited to add.
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:27 PM
Response to Reply #57
64. Waterman, this is EXCELLENT!
I appreciate the thoroughness of your research, especially with your timeline, which is very helpful in helping people understand the root of our research.

Today, I was perusing through several of the Plame threads thinking that I should do something similar to what you just did. Kind of a recap to send to people to say, "This is where my research has lead me so far. Would you please look deeper into this matter?"

The way The Waterman Paper is constructed is an excellent template for any other Plame Thread researcher who is considering compiling their own ideas to disseminate to the people who can help us in our investigation.

Thank you Waterman for blazing the trail!
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:34 PM
Response to Reply #64
65. Thank you....
you are very kind. I think that it is important to give credit to my friend Pallas180, who urged me to go foreward with this paper.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:07 PM
Response to Reply #65
110. Guys, keep one VITAL thing in mind about these summaries:
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 08:10 PM by calimary
These are utter perfection in terms of fodder for your LETTER-WRITING sprees. Talk about a writing staff! Sheesh!

These summaries are valuable because they encapsulate a reeeeeeeeeeeaaaalllyyy long thread which may seem too daunting and demanding to get through. All the nuggets are in these summaries. It's like Cliff's Notes.

There are MANY instances in these various summaries that are gorgeously written, VERY impressively written, and VERY sleek and cut-to-the-chase in nature.

Strolling through any of these will give you TONS of ideas for things to say and points to make and ways to word them all. Plus, they are great motivational tools - a little calcium supplement for the spine. We give such supplements to our reps when we call to give them support or correct their strayings. Many times we can use those boosters, ourselves.

Good job, these!
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LeftHander Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:49 PM
Response to Reply #57
66. Why Iraq? 200,000 Asbestos claims that is why....another theory
I proposed a while ago that the Iraq war was started to create a cash flow source to protect Halliburton for Cheney's failings as a CEO in aquiring Dresser Industries - (Harbison-Walker name familiar?)

Heres the theory...

Actually Cheney orchestrated the aquisition per request from GHW Bush. The plan was to aquire Dresser absorb the asbestos liability. try to influence congress to limit liability on asbestoes claims. 200,000 claims would destroy Dresser. The aquisition created a much larger company with the resources to handle the asbestos claims if it went south for Halliburton. Knowing this was the plan all along to save Dresser, Cheney laid out plans to frame Iraq for purchasing nuke materials after things got desparate when Halliburton was wallowing at $9 a share in July of 2002.

To go to war and win the big cash cow prize called war and oil revenue. Cheney needed excellent reasons to invade a country. The Niger Yellow Cake was one of those reasons....The Niger Yellow Cake was real. Almost. It was a sting set up by Plames group. And Cheney and the rest fell for it. Wilson probably had no knowlege of the sting . Cheney caught wind that the Niger yellow cake deal was going to surface. He sent a independant third party to investigate to find planted bogus documents to cast the light that the Yellow cake was not real. Even though it really was a sting. Thus Wilson. Wilson was the unwitting pawn in a sting by Plame and Cheney's coverup.

Cheney had every expectation to cover the actual deal with falsified documents planted as a cover that the actual transaction occured.
the yellow cake was intially purchased to have looked like Iraq was buying it. And would of ended up in Iraq.

Sometime after Wilson returned and reported Cheney found out about the sting and who Plame was. Thinking fast he outed plame and attacked Wilson. Cheney has been toast for sometime. And so is Bush.

They have been scrambling ever since. The leak of the name accomplished the reasons from the Waterman paper. Discredit Wilson, put the skids on Plames sting, get several undercover people killed so evidence can dissappear. Cheney is digging himself deeper and deeper and dragging Bush with him.

So. A personal favor from a ex-President GHW Bush to CEO Dick Cheney in the mid-nineties to save the family fortune somehow tied up in Dresser and Harbison-Walker. Cheney commits treason and puts lives on the line, invades a country and teeters a global company on the edge of precipice that could result in a drastic effect in the U.S. economy if it fell. Enron is a punk compared to Halliburton.


Halliburtons Disclosure of 2002

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/halliburton.html



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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:57 PM
Response to Reply #66
68. So the Cheney/Plame point is moot...and we're back to seeking the felon
who outed Plame..

This is hilarious!
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:06 PM
Response to Reply #68
71. I don't think the Cheney/Plame
point is moot. It's central to the puzzle.
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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #71
75. What I mean is...
All of the speculation and theories put forth by H@O Man have been answered in Lefthander's post...here:

"To go to war and win the big cash cow prize called war and oil revenue. Cheney needed excellent reasons to invade a country. The Niger Yellow Cake was one of those reasons....The Niger Yellow Cake was real. Almost. It was a sting set up by Plames group. And Cheney and the rest fell for it. Wilson probably had no knowlege of the sting . Cheney caught wind that the Niger yellow cake deal was going to surface. He sent a independant third party to investigate to find planted bogus documents to cast the light that the Yellow cake was not real. Even though it really was a sting. Thus Wilson. Wilson was the unwitting pawn in a sting by Plame and Cheney's coverup."

IOW...they are in consensus.

And what I mean is...We're back to square one with the same question..

Who in a high government position outed the CIA agent Plame?
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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:46 PM
Response to Reply #75
131. Tellurian's post is incorrect
Tellurian claims that "All of the speculation and theories put forth by H2O Man have been answered" and then goes on to quote an argument by Lefthander to the effect that "Cheney needed excellent reasons to invade a country. The Niger Yellow Cake was one of those reasons... Wilson was the unwitting pawn in a sting by Plame and Cheney's coverup."

This is totally incorrect. As we all know, the most exciting piece of "speculation" put forth by H2O Man is precisely the questions that go BEYOND the conventional wisdom about yellowcake, Niger and Iraq.

H2O Man's speculations are MUCH more wide-ranging that mere yellowcake, Niger, and Iraq - and anyone (such as Tellurian) who misses this has missed the main point of this massive series of threads.

H2O Man has speculated that Valerie Plame, as an undercover agent investigation WMD trading networks, may have been getting close to exposing sales of WMDs by Cheney/Halliburton to members of the "Axis of Evil."

This is an explosive speculation - an allegation of trading with the enemy no less, and then exposing a CIA operative in an attempt to do a cover-up. But this speculation makes some sense: exposing an undercover CIA operative would bring down the biggest scandal on the Administration, but if Cheney was trying to cover-up an investigation into his own treason, then that might make it worth it.

Of course, this speculation is nowhere near proven yet - but the bits about Adeer Khan's nuclear Wal-Mart, and Halliburton's alleged illegal sales of WMDs to Iran are some of the pieces of evidence that support it.

It is quite disingenuous, to say the least, for Tellurian to claim that a post rehashing the conventional wisdom about Niger and Yellowcake and payback to Wilson has somehow "answered" the much more serious speculation H2O Man actually raised: speculation about Cheney trading with the enemy and then exposing a covert operative's cover in order to cover up his trading with the enemy. Quite to the contrary - the old Yellowcake/Payback theory does NOT answer the much more serious speculations raised by H2O Man - and Tellurian is really out in left field for not seeing this.

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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:26 PM
Response to Reply #68
143. The point is NOT moot, and we are still seeking the WHY, not the felon
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 10:29 PM by scottxyz
Whoever outed Valerie Plame exposed the Bush/Cheney administration to the greatest legal threat it has had to face so far.

The exact person who made the phone calls to Novak et al (the "felon" Tellurian refers to so vividly) isn't really the main issue here - as H2O Man has calmly reminded us again and again. (After all, the person who talked to Novak may have been some sort of low-level surrogate.)

The main issue here is WHY Plame was outed in the first place.

H2O Man has carefully and patiently kept the focus of these threads on WHY Plame was outed - not WHO outed her. It seems quite odd that Tellurian has been unable to grasp this distinction.

The question of WHO outed Plame may make for more interesting tabloid reading - a fascinating personal narrative, something we all enjoy. The question of WHY Plame was outed, on the other hand, is a vast and somewhat abstract geopolitical issue which could potentially involve crimes of trading WMDs with the enemy and then destroying the investigation into those crimes.

Admittedly, such a vast geopolitical issue is a bit more abstract than the concrete personal question of "whodunnit" - who actually placed a phone call to Novak.

But, if I may quote (in a thread where Ghandi and Malcom X's deep thoughts have been so frequently and profitably repeated) quote the immortal words of Ann Landers - "Big people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Little people talk about other people."
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:45 PM
Response to Reply #66
83. Interesting theory LeftHander. I have a few questions about the specifics
I think I understand what you're thinking, and it's certainly worth exploring. But I was wondering a few things:

1. Wasn't Plame's base of operations in the Middle East, not Africa?

2. Iraq already had 50 tons of yellowcake. Cheney knew this, so how would this set-up be a sting on him? Am I understanding your theory correctly? You're saying this was a sting on Cheney, not on Iraq, correct?

3. Wilson states in his book that Cheney sent him on his trip to Niger. He has documented in numerous TV appearances as well as newspaper op-eds that Plame did not, could not send Wilson to Niger. How could it have been Plame's sting?

I'm not discounting your theory, I'm just looking for consistency. If I totally misunderstood your theory, please let me know. Like I said before, this is certainly worth exploring.
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merh Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:31 PM
Response to Reply #66
90. This is an interesting theory. Thank you for posting it. Did you
read the Salon articl on this that was published yesterday? If not, let me know and I will find the link for you. It is fascinating.

Thanks for this perspective.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:09 PM
Response to Reply #66
111. Hello Left Hander. Thanks for the link-there are enough companies there
to keep 20 researchers busy for a month.

That's a lot of Halliburton divisions.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:14 PM
Response to Reply #111
112. I always thought that Halliburton bought Dresser for a tax write-off.
You have some an interesting theory there...Cheney pushed
us into war to make profits to pay off the asbestos debt
from Dresser?

There is a settlement, and oddly its dated this month, because I thought Hallibruton had settled this just before Cheney became Veep,
er - in anticipation of becoming Veep.

The settlement is for $4 billion dollars.

Here's one of the articles on it:
http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=2053181


Houston, Texas-AP -- A federal judge in Pittsburgh has given the O-K for Halliburton Company's multi-(b)-billion-dollar asbestos settlement plan.

Judge Judith Fitzgerald has also signed the Chapter Eleven restructuring plans for several of Halliburton's key business units. The judge's actions yeterday mean the subsidiaries, including K-B-R and D-I-I Industries, can emerge from bankruptcy soon. They still must fund a trust, using cash, stock and notes, that will be used to pay future claims.

Most of the claims have been traced to Halliburton's acquisition of Dresser Industries several years ago. The bankruptcy was filed in Pittsburgh because most of the asbestos claims were filed against a former Dresser subsidiary, Pittsburgh-based Harbison-Walker Refractories Company.

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:17 PM
Response to Reply #112
113. Does anybody know what the net-worth of Halliburton is?
Do you think it's much more than 4 billion $

If they couldn't afford 4 billion, its' possible...

but just the division, I think was declaring bankruptcy,

in order to avoid paying, but was all of Halliburton declaring

bankruptcy?

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:21 PM
Response to Reply #113
114. AHA. Lightbulb. No wonder the admin is trying to dismantle trial lawyers -
Halliburton is forced to pay 4 Billion dollars because some
trial lawyer was very good at what he does. Forcing an irresponsible
corporation to pay for the damages it caused its employees and others.

And being the honorable corporation, it promptly declared bankruptcy
to try to get out of paying.

Do I have that right?

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:24 PM
Response to Reply #114
115. H20 is right. When you start asking WHY, the motivation for their moves,
it answers so much.

Actually what we are doing is moving backwards from the "result"
to the "cause....reading their minds, their reasons for their
actions.

That WHY tends to get very revealing I think.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:29 PM
Response to Reply #115
116. Halliburton's boss from hell
July 21, 2004 | In early September, during the Republican National Convention, the GOP is almost certain to name Dick Cheney as its nominee for vice president of the United States. In the meantime, it's clear that Cheney deserves another nomination: as one of the worst CEOs in recent American history.

Of course, there are plenty of CEOs that should to be on that list, including Enron's Kenneth Lay, Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski and Adelphia's John Rigas. While those bosses certainly are being pilloried, Cheney's disastrous five-year-long tenure at Halliburton deserves far more scrutiny than the mainstream business press has bothered to provide.

Cheney's job at Halliburton is particularly newsworthy now that John Kerry has chosen John Edwards as his running mate. The Republicans have already begun hammering Edwards for his work as a trial lawyer; Democrats have an opportunity to bash Cheney's performance at Halliburton. Given the wreckage that Cheney left behind, that record offers a target-rich environment.

Since Cheney's departure, the company's net worth has gone into free-fall, debt has soared, and it is now facing embarrassing legal entanglements that could hamper its profitability for years to come. Furthermore, despite being the largest oil-field services company on earth (last year, its revenues surpassed those of French giant Schlumberger), Halliburton hasn't been able to make any money. Instead, it's losing money -- lots of money. In 2002, the company lost $1 billion. In 2003, despite revenues of $16.2 billion, it lost another $800 million. In the first quarter of this year, losses totaled $65 million. More bad news is expected when the company reports its second quarter results on Friday.

(lots more)

<http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon27.htm>

Cheney sure is a nefarious character! WOW. He's got more closets than a locker room.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #116
118. Thanks Schraby. Revenues 1 company 16billion but how can u show a profit
if you're stuffing profits into Swiss BAnk accounts and
paying bribes?

And then how much are the other 200 related companies making?

Shell inside shell, inside shell, inside shell

like one of those Russian egg-doll things
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:35 AM
Response to Reply #66
194. Pallas180 - here's another superb theory to add to your collection
of recaps farther upstream.

LeftHander, this is ALL plausible -

If. You. Follow. The. Money.

These weasels are as interested in avoiding heat as they are gravitating toward huge hauls of cash. Another intriguing "buy one, get one free" idea - where one evil deed takes care of SEVERAL annoying little problems at once. Seems a pretty reasonable assumption to me.
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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:50 PM
Response to Reply #57
67. H2O...Your third identified goal is impossible for you to investigate..
because you will never know what Plame's activities were and who her contacts were that would constitute enough of a threat to Cheney to out her under the guise of punishing her husband.

The only person who can accomplish a perfect fit to your allegations is Valerie Plame herself.. not you.

As I mentioned yesterday, these things take time. People have to be sent out into the field..Things have to be verified, documented, witnesses interviewed and deposed..and on and on.. <sheesh>

I'm sure she has received your information by now. Unfortunately, you seem to want instant results. A yes or no answer on the spot...Otherwise you are want to cry how you've been insulted and your trust violated by putting forth this idea and going unrewarded for your thoughtful thoughts. Are you afraid someone is stealing your ideas? Are you afraid someone is going to take credit for your theory?

I thought the important thing was getting enough evidence together to help Wilson..I mean what is your goal anyway?

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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:12 PM
Response to Reply #67
73. Thanks, Lefthander for putting this journey to bed...
your comments make sense and by the information you've posted comes from a verifiable, trusted source.
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:39 PM
Response to Reply #67
80. Why the need to be confrontational?
It can't add to the validity of your points if you deride those of others.
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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:03 PM
Response to Reply #80
85. The validity of my points are not in question...
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 05:04 PM by Tellurian
what I did is insert questions/answers to statements aimed at me by H2O in post #61
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:41 PM
Response to Reply #85
93. Exactly My Point!
Some of the questions directed at H20 had nothing to add to the validity of your points, so why the need the question his validity.
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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:53 PM
Response to Reply #93
95. You can play all the word games you want..
the fact of the matter is the post was not directed to you. It was directed to H2O. You continue to insert inappropriate directives without an understanding of why you are inserting them. The only comment relative to mine would be from H2O.
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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:01 PM
Response to Reply #85
137. Actually, the validity of many of your points IS in question, Tellurian
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 10:04 PM by scottxyz
I find it quite ironic that you claim that the validity of your points are {sic} not in question - when your positions and points have been some of the most (subtly) contrarian on these threads. (I couldn't help rebutting many of Tellurian's most erroneous points in other posts within this thread. Tellurian's errors and omissions were so glaring, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.)

Or, perhaps "contrarian" isn't the right word. These threads themselves are presenting a contrarian viewpoint: that Cheney may have outed Plame to derail her investigation into his trading WMDs with the enemy.

You, Tellurian, are the contrarian within the contrarian thread, you are presenting the "conventional wisdom" which we can read in any of our trusty media outlets, namely: Not much to see here, just some payback for Wilson exposing Bush's phoney yellowcake claims.

Tellurian is the main voice trying to drown out the contrarian speculation in this thread and bring us all back to the boring conventional wisdom.

I have read most of these threads and I have found that the posts whose validity is precisely MOST EASILY called into question are none other than Tellurian's - who has, if I recall correctly, on several times made rather depressing, dead-end suggestions to the effect that we should abandon this novel and serious line of speculation, or that we're somehow back at square one, or that we should go and watch The Grid, or there's nothing new being discussed here. (Forgive me if these dreary suggestions were made by somone other than Tellurian - feel free to speak up and I will credit you other counter-contrarians!)

There is something VERY new being discussed here: the possibility that Cheney may have outed a CIA agent who may have been investigating his trading with the enemy. Many of Tellurian's posts have quite lamely attempted to quash this highly speculative but potentially rewarding line of inquiry - and for that reason their validity is indeed very much in question.



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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:41 PM
Response to Reply #137
150. Hi Scott. You are quite the writer.
I wish I could put things so clearly.

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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:54 PM
Response to Reply #137
153. Well said Scotty,
One of the main investigations in this thread deals with the thought that Cheney is involved with the truely dark side. Looking at all the recent allegations and convictions regarding Halliburton's illegal weapons trade under Cheney's leadership, it is not a big jump to conclude he is involved in WMD trading.

But the proof is illusive and the links and research being done here are forging new ground. It is certainly not inconceivable that someone here might turn over the stone that will unravel the whole thing.
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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:26 PM
Response to Reply #67
124. Lots of errors in this post by Tellurian
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 09:31 PM by scottxyz
H20 Man recently posted a very helpful, measured summary what we know and what we are surmising about the "leaking" of Plame's identity as an undercover operative. His excellent post is titled "Waterman Paper" and it's further up in this thread. I cut and pasted it onto my hard drive and I read it and it seems like a very rational statement of what we know about the Plame case and what questions we should be asking - primarily the question "why?" Why was Plame outed. (This is SO much more interesting than who precisely outed her. The outer may, after all, have been a surrogate.)

Most people have responded very positively to H20 Man's summary.

Tellurian has responded negatively though, saying to H2O Man "you seem to want instant results... otherwise you want to cry out you've been insulted..."

This is really funny! H2O Man, as we have already seen, has clearly cultivated an very even-handed, respectful and unemotional debating style in these threads - particularly in his "Waterman Paper" above (Post #57), which is very soberly written - summarizing facts and making excellent guesses as to motive.

H2O Man has repeatedly counseled patience and calm. In this light, we can see that Tellurian's claim that H2O man "wants instant results" else he will "cry out he's been instulted" is quite unfounded.

For this reason I must come to the conclusion that either Tellurian's reading skills or credibility are questionable.

Tellurian concludes his post with a curious challenge to H2O Man: "I thought the important thing was getting enough evidence together to help Wilson..I mean what is your goal anyway?"

This clumsy statement may be the key to figuring out what Tellurian is "up to": Tellurian may quite simply be trying to derail these unique threads - the only discussions anywhere that have focused on "why" Valerie Plame was outed (rather than "who" outed her).

Tellurian asks what H2O Man's "goals" are, and H2O Man's goals could not be any clearer: he wants us to calmly figure out WHY Valerie Plame was outed. Tellurian disingenuously misremembers that the goal was "to get enough evidence together to help Wilson" - but as we already know, the whole notion that Wilson needs to be "helped" is quite bogus, and debating Wilson's credibility (about whether his wife recommended him etc.) is precisely the kind of slime-and-defend operation the right-wingers have attempted to do in order to take attention off the real question which H2O Man keeps reminding us to focus on: "Why was destroying Plame's WMD investigation so important to Cheney that he decided to out her and thereby create the greatest threat to the Administration?"

Answering this question is the goal of these threads, Tellurian. It is surprising, to say the least, that you, with your long-time presence and many contributions here, are confused on this very basic point - and it is also surprising (to say the least) that you are attempting to claim that the goal of these threads is to somehow "defend Wilson".

In more blunt terms, Tellurian: the goal of this thread is to ask whether Cheney was trading with the enemy and trafficking in WMDs, and whether he outed Plame to destroy the undercover investigation into his treason. If you think the goal of this thread is to "find evidence" to "defend Wilson" then you are (intentionally or unintentially, I do not know) parroting right-wing talking points designed to deflect attention from this much graver issue.

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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #67
141. H2O Man's third point is NOT impossible to investigate
Tellurian takes the pessimistic view that for some reason ONLY Valerie Plame could have investigated H2O Man's third speculative point.

This is incorrect. H2O Man's third point simply heads in the direction of asking whether Cheney may have been trading WMDs with our enemies. If such trading were taking place, Plame, as a specialist in WMD trading networks, might have had some leads. But why does Tellurian go so far as to claim that ONLY Plame could have had any leads?

It is quite misleading for Tellurian to suggest that because Valerie Plame's status as an undercover operative has been revealed, the answer to this serious speculative question can never be known.

Is Tellurian cliaming to know that nobody else might be able to provide us with this information?

Is Tellurian quite certain that no contact of Adeer Khan perhaps, no disaffected employee of Halliburton, no member of one of a foreign government, no US or foreign intelligence operative might have gotten wind of such alleged trading with the enemy?

Wow, Tellurian must have an awful lot of contacts out there in the underground arms-dealing milieu, if he knows all that!

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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:24 PM
Response to Reply #57
77. Amazing.....
....what a few good people can discover in two or three weeks. Amazing that an internet connection, a few books and being pointed in the right direction can yeild more real evidence than the entire US Gov't.

I stand in awe, H2O.
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Wind Dancer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:43 PM
Response to Reply #57
81. Wonderful job, H20 of
creating a thorough time-line in the events uncovered so far in the Wilson investigation. It is amazing to me that so many of the same players are involved in this operation as were in the Nixon administration. Unfortunately, this is a far more serious time for this country as Dean points out in his book.

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:33 PM
Response to Reply #81
99. Thanks.
I'm hoping that you and others will feel free to include any or all of this in your contacts with media sources and elected officials. I'm thinking it could even be useful to send it to some of the conservative journalists.

However, I am primarily interested in it being sent to Klein at Time; Keith Olbermann at MSNBC; Rep. Charles Rangel; the Black Caucus mentioned yesterday; and to the NAACP.

Again, I want people to feel free to use this.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:41 PM
Response to Reply #57
100. We need to flesh out Part three a bit more...
This may be time to follow the money. I have been reading "Charlie Wilson's war," about the funding of the mujhadeen fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Amazing amounts of arms and money involving the US, Israel and Pakistan. While not specifically relevant to Cheney it shows how these connections can work.

But to put it in some sort of context, where is the pay off and what is the motivation. Is it purely business and profit? Or is it a PNAC concept of Empire (which also consolidates wealth and power)?

I suspect it is the latter. While most people probably can't conceive of any rational reason to traffic in WMD, these guys are so misguided that they probably believe they will help the World.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:01 PM
Response to Reply #57
104. H20 man
Common Dreams might not be a bad place to send your paper.

Just a thought.
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starroute Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:39 PM
Response to Reply #50
117. The CIA-ISI relationship may be at the heart of the matter
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 09:23 PM by starroute
I tried starting a separate thread on this last weekend, since the discussion on these Plame threads seemed to be going in a very different direction, but it got no notice at all. So I'd like to post a link to it here and summarize some of the main points:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2016329

1. In 1979-80, the CIA poured into Pakistan in order to arm the Afghan mujahedin, an operation they financed by greatly expanding opium production in the area. The CIA, ISI, and Afghan warlords were all involved in the drug trade.

2. BCCI, which had been founded in Pakistan in 1972, grew rapidly in the early 1980's, probably due in large part to its being used as the main means of money-laundering Pakistani drug profits. (http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/mccoy1.htm)

3. BCCI was also the funding source for Pakistani nuclear proliferation: "Senator John Kerry, the current favourite to be the American Democratic party's Presidential Candidate in November, chaired a US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations inquiry into BCCI. It's 1992 report stated that BCCI's involvement in Pakistan's nuclear programme required further investigation. The Bank's BCCI Foundation - supposedly set up to promote development and eliminate third world poverty - funded the establishment of the Khan Institute for Science and Technology - which was headed by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan - the Pakistani nuclear scientist who headed Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme and has admitted involvement in exporting nuclear secrets. In 1991 the Times newspaper quoted an un-named businessmen as saying 'BCCI is functioning as the owners' representative for Pakistan's nuclear-bomb project.' " (http://www.friendsoftheheroes.co.uk/archive/issue69.html#1)

4. It's a real possibility that the CIA and/or figures like Cheney and Rumsfeld were aware of Pakistan's nuclear proliferation and were encouraging it for their own reasons: "The CIA and ISI were also involved both in organising the funding and training of Osama Bin Laden and other mujahedin in the Afghan Soviet War - and also in the rise of the Taliban. This raises other questions. Did the CIA actively promote nuclear proliferation through BCCI and the ISI in the same way that they promoted the drugs trade and the rise of the mujahedin through it? And if so why? Could it be that some in American and British intelligence and governments wanted to create a pretext for military intervention or the threat of it? If this seems far-fetched consider that current US Secretary of State for Defense Donald Rumsfeld - who today condemns North Korea as a member of the Axis of Evil - was a non executive director of ABB from 1990 to 2001 - an engineering firm based in Switzerland. In 2000 ABB won a $200mn contract to design and provide components for nuclear reactors in North Korea. Similarly subsidiaries of Halliburton Oil - former CEO Vice President Dick Cheney - operated in Iraq and Libya until at least February 2000 while US and UN sanctions were in place - and continue to operate in Iran - another member of the 'Axis of Evil' which similarly has US sanctions on it." (same source as #3)

5. The ISI was also intimately involved with al Qaeda. The head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed, was fired by President Musharraf on October 7, 2001, and it was reported at the time that this was because the FBI had found evidence that he had ordered the payment of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta by the ISI's pet Indian terrorist, Saeed Sheikh. (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essaysaeed.html)

6 And where was General Mahmood on the morning on September 11, 2001? "Lt. Gen. Mahmood was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R). The meeting was said to have lasted at least until the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Goss is a self-admitted 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing. Goss and Graham were later the heads of the joint House-Senate investigation into the September 11 attacks, and Goss in particular made headlines for saying there was no 'smoking gun' indicating that the government had sufficient foreknowledge to prevent the September 11 attacks." (same source as #5)

7. Interestingly enough, Porter Goss is one of the two figures whose names have been floated as possible replacements for Tenet as CIA director. The other is Richard Armitage -- who, according to this same article, "is known for his 'large circle of friends in the Pakistani military and ISI' as well as his connections to the Iran-Contra affair." (As I posted on an earlier installment of this thread, Armitage's own CIA involvement goes back to the middle 70's, when he was overseeing the CIA's heroin trade in Thailand.)


For me, these points suggest that at least two different covert struggles are going on. One involves Cheney and Rumsfeld and their possible role in nuclear proliferation and attempts to cover that up. But the other seems to involve a battle for control of the CIA itself -- with whatever faction Plame is part of being on one side and the drug-smuggling, money-laundering, arms-dealing cowboys on the other. The resignation of Plame's boss, James Pavitt, appears to be part of this struggle. (See http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html . I don't know if Ruppert is correct in all his speculations, but they certainly need to be taken into account.)


On edit: I just found out from another thread there's a new piece in the Guardian about some of this stuff. It suggests, among other things, that this is what Sibel Edmonds is under gag orders not to talk about.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1266317,00.html
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Snazzy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:52 PM
Response to Reply #117
231. missile defense, North Korea, new cold war
Not sure where I'm heading specifically with this yet--

but one area to think about is that some elements may have encouraged Pakistan's nuke know-how proliferation to NK in order to bolster the case/make the case for missile defense.

The holy-grail of the military-industrial money pit and main focus of Bushco's plans for DOD, at least prior to 9/11, and quietly humming along since. I always get a kick out of recalling that Gen. Myers comes to CJCF from being CINC of the Space Command. Somehow the Space Command always cracks me up, until I think about all the damn money, then I get pissed.

Anyway, one motive, all these old cold warriors were still looking for a new cold war, lamenting the absence of the former one. Not to mention possible kick-backs for just allowing Khan and friends to operate. Where's that bank account?

Great post Starroute--glad you are staying on the money.


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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:55 PM
Response to Reply #43
109. Now there is one more facet to the game...
rearm the country you just took down. Iraq is allowed to buy arms now.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:49 PM
Response to Reply #109
119. Schraby-re-arm Iraq? you're kidding me. Link?
:hi:
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:16 PM
Response to Reply #119
122. Here's the link
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #122
133. SCHRABY-No you're not kidding - more money for Carlyle - owns
11 th ? largest munitions company. Nobody would believe it unless they saw it. I feel very sad. All these people dead so they could
make money.


Memorandum for the Secretary of State
Presidential Determination No. 2004-40

SUBJECT: Eligibility of Iraq to Receive Defense Articles and Services Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended, and the Arms Export Control Act, as Amended

Pursuant to the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 503(a) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and section 3(a)(1) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended, I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and services to Iraq will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace.

You are authorized and directed to report this finding to the Congress and to publish it in the Federal Register.

GEORGE W. BUSH
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #122
197. Well, why not? It's that "balance of power" thing.
This is MOST interesting.

And shameless.

But it's also intriguing when you consider who their national security advisor is, and what pew she's occupied in this particular congregation. contradicta is, after all, a widely-recognized SOVIETOLOGIST. She is a SPECIALIST IN THE COLD WAR. That's her background. That's what she's written her books about. Always made me wonder why we'd have someone with an obsolete specialty in the highest national security post in the land, and why NOBODY ever questioned this or seemed to have a problem with it.

Maybe they're trying to recreate the conditions they feel most comfy with - COLD WAR behavior and reactions. Maybe that's one of their objectives in reshaping the Middle East in America's own image and likeness. Because if you suddenly create a new client for all your guns and ammo and other nasty stuff, what could be better for the bottom line of folks like Halliburton - which needs a huge infusion of cash and contracts for MANY reasons, not the least of which is surviving all those expensive asbestos lawsuits against Dresser Industries, the company it acquired - during Cheney's tenure as CEO, I believe.

Creates an additional market. Balances the teeter-totter of power - harkening back to the policy of containment - focusing on a well-armed (or presumably well-armed enemy by arming one of its hostile neighbors to the teeth (the enemy of my enemy is my friend) and let that third party do the heavy lifting for you while your old company cash their checks. Remember, they also have to keep feeding Cheney with those "deferred" payments and other monies he's continued to collect after ostensibly distancing himself from his old company (where I'd bet he's seeding the ground for a return to private industry as a "consultant" or some such veiled involvement after his government service (in 2008, he THINKS) is over. A guy like cheney isn't gonna just go fishing after all the hoo-hah is over. He's had too much power and influence for too long, and probably is loathe to give it up. These guys all find their way back to corporate boards and big-ticket private industry when they're not pulling the strings in government.

Besides, many of these weasels cut their teeth in the Nixon administration - where the Cold War was still a VERY stubborn reality. THAT'S what they know. THAT'S where they feel most adept at international manipulation. Like their "glory days."

-------

I think ending the Cold War wound up being their biggest regret, and they've realized it. The Cold War allowed for the "domino theory," and for bigtime arms sales against ONE perceived big, bad boogeyman. How many of us kids were scared to death because the Commies were coming to get us, or putting nukes in Cuba to come get us, or gain a foothold in space to come get us? The chief foreign policy objective of this crowd seems always to have been some sort of scare tactic - keep the American people propping up your huge defense budgets and all those big defense contractors' bottom lines by reminding them of the BIG BAD BOOGEYMAN enemy we have. For most of the last century, Communism and the Soviet Union were the most convenient actors to combine into that role. But with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR, there suddenly was no more big bad boogeyman to stoke fires of the military-industrial complex. Their market dried up. WHY would we need to keep making bigtime guns and ammo to keep our enemy at bay when our enemy just self-imolated?

What to do? Create a new market! Most effectively done by creating a new big bad boogeyman. They found him in Saddam, and subsequently also (and MUCH more fact-based) - Osama. But Osama was this annoying moving target, so Saddam, firmly ensconced in his palaces in a particular country where we kinda knew we'd be able to locate him(where we already KNEW much of what he had, to begin with, since we sold it to him) served much better.

So you wrap it all up in Terrorism. September 11th helped to sharpen and clearly define his facial features so we'd have another face or two (Saddam/Osama, what's the difference?) to put on the "Wanted, Dead or Alive" posters and the nightly news. It's an even bigger, badder boogeymen, and frankly, it's like a boogey-octopus because there are so many MORE elements at the end of each of those tentacles to whom you can sell arms.

And you dare not stand idly by when some blood female James Bond comes along and gets too close. OR when she's married to the guy who's calling you publicly on some of your lies. Buy one, get one free. Or get SEVERAL free.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 03:25 PM
Response to Original message
63. Hi everybody!
I haven't posted since thread 3 (I think) but I've been following these discussions as much as I can.

I think Wilson had to be discredited because either he or his wife were getting dangerously close to Khan. And Khan is dangerously close to Cheney.

The silence about Khan and Pakistan's nuclear program is deafening.

I would have expected Dubya and the group to be crowing about shutting down Khan's nuke WalMart but there's not a word about it.

I think asking WHY? has yielded results.

The problem now is how to prove it beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt.

Keep up the good work folks.

Hats off.
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #63
72. Here's some old dirt on Khan/Cheney, with a new theory.
We all know about the $1.2 million fine Cheney got for selling dual-use components. Going back over some of my old posts, here's another bit of dirt we should all remember:

Cheney helped cover-up Pakistani nuclear proliferation in '89 so US could sell country fighter jets

Tuesday, March 16 2004 @ 04:04 PM Eastern Standard Time
Jason Leopold
When Pakistan's clandestine program involving its top nuclear scientist selling rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, blueprints for building an atomic bomb was uncovered last month, the world's leaders waited, with baited breath to see what type of punishment George W. Bush would inflict upon Pakistan's President Pervez Musharaff. Bush has, after all, spent his entire term in office talking tough about countries and dictators that conceal weapons of mass destruction and even tougher on individuals who supply rogue nations and terrorists with the means to build WMD. For all intents and purposes, Pakistan and Musharraf fit that description.

Remember, Bush accused Iraq of harboring a cache of WMD, which was the primary reason he gave for the United States launching a preemptive strike on that country a year ago, and also claimed that Iraq may have given its WMD to al-Qaeda terrorists and/or Syria, weapons that, Bush said, could be used to attack the U.S. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and top members of the administration reacted with shock when they found out that Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist, spent the past 15 years selling outlaw nations nuclear technology and equipment. So it was sort of a surprise when Bush, upon finding out about Khan's proliferation of nuclear technology, let Pakistan off with a slap on the wrist. But it was all an act. In fact, it was actually a coverup designed to shield Cheney because he knew about the proliferation for more than a decade and did nothing to stop it.

Like the terrorist attacks on 9-11, the Bush administration had mountains of evidence on Pakistan's sales of nuclear technology and equipment to nations vilified by the U.S.?nations that are considered much more of a threat than Iraq?but turned a blind eye to the threat and allowed it to happen. In 1989, the year Khan first started selling nuclear secrets on the black-market; Richard Barlow, a young intelligence analyst working for the Pentagon prepared a shocking report for Cheney, who was then secretary of defense under the Bush I administration: Pakistan built an atomic bomb and was selling its nuclear equipment to countries the U.S. said was sponsoring terrorism. But Barlow's findings, as reported in a January 2002 story in Mother Jones magazine, were "politically inconvenient."

"A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, a key ally in the CIA's efforts to support Afghan rebels fighting a pro-Soviet government. It also would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad," Mother Jones reported. Ironically, Pakistan, critics say, was let off the hook last month so the U.S. could use its borders to hunt for al-Qaeda leader and alleged 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Cheney dismissed Barlow's report because he desperately wanted to sell Pakistan the F-16 fighter planes. Several months later, a Pentagon official was told by Cheney to downplay Pakistan's nuclear capabilities when he testified on the threat before Congress. Barlow complained to his bosses at the Pentagon and was fired.

http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php/2004031621042158

That got me thinking about other facts surrounding the Plame scandal. Like the "sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components". When Khan's operation was exposed, everyone in the loop was caught with their pants down. Musharraf had to pardon Khan because as the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, he is a national hero. Do you buy that as the real reason? That's like accepting the Bush misadministration's silence over the pardon because Pakistan is our ally in the War on Terror. Right. Reminds me of Michael Corleone in Godfather Part II: "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer".

My theory is that the sting operation Plame was involved in brought down A.Q. Khan. As far as "trafficking of WMD components" goes, Khan was a pretty huge player. My fear is that Khan was just the tip of the iceberg and that when Plame's operation was derailed, it allowed even bigger fish to swim away where Middle East WMD trafficking is concerned. Remember this about Musharraf:

"His repeatedly-asserted contention has been that after the interception by the intelligence agencies of the US and the UK of a ship in October last year which was found carrying to Libya a clandestine consignment of centrifuges for uranium enrichment got manufactured at the instance of A.Q.Khan by a company in Malaysia with the assistance of a Sri Lankan Muslim, he became aware of the extensive non-proliferation activities of the A.Q.Khan group and immediately acted against them.

According to Musharraf, details of the clandestine travels and proliferation network of A.Q. Khan came to notice during the subsequent investigation. In one of his statements, he has even blamed the US intelligence agencies for not uncovering this network earlier than October last year and asserted that if they had done so, he would have acted against it even earlier."

http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/khanandbinladen.html

If Plame was in on this sting, Musharraf certainly had a reason to voice disdain for the US intelligence agencies, and Cheney certainly had a reason to out Plame.






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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:19 PM
Response to Reply #72
74. ROBERTPAULSEN -That makes sense
another big piece of the puzzle.

I'm in and out today and on the way out again --but I can't
resist asking:

1)What was the date of announcement of Khan's "Walmart WMD IS us" ?

2) What was the date of Khan's pardon (knonw date anyway) ?

and where does that fit into Wilson/Plame dates?
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:24 PM
Response to Reply #74
76. RobertPaulse: Thanks for waking this theory up!!!!
(wink-wink!)
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:27 PM
Response to Reply #72
78. Thanks... and a few more questions to ponder.
First, are there second sources to the two you posted above? Can they be verified by anybody?

Second, is it possible that Khan was exposed prematurely because Plame's network collapsed or was in danger of collapsing after she was exposed?

Just topics for discussion........pm if it's too inconvenient to post.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:45 PM
Response to Reply #78
82. Musharraf admits he suspected Khan
Feb. 11, 2004

Pakistan's President, Pervez Musharraf, has acknowledged for the first time that he had suspected for at least three years that the country's top nuclear scientist was sharing nuclear technology with other countries, but argued the United States had not given him convincing proof.

In an hour-long interview on Monday in English, General Musharraf shared blame for the delay with Washington, saying it was not until October that US officials provided him with evidence of the activities of the scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

General Musharraf said he had seen signs Dr Khan was sharing nuclear technology, including "illegal contacts, maybe suspicions of contacts", and "suspicious movement" connected to his laboratory. But he said he was concerned that investigating Dr Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for his role in developing its nuclear weapons, could provoke a political backlash.

In Washington on Monday, a senior Bush Administration official acknowledged that General Musharraf was not given highly specific information about Dr Khan's activities until last northern autumn. But the official noted that the US conveyed more general warnings about Dr Khan's activities starting in 2001.

(more)
<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/02/10/1076388364592.html?from=storyrhs&oneclick=true>

This might help provide a time line on Khan
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 04:58 PM
Response to Reply #82
84. So let me get this straight
The U.S. had been supplying Mussaraf with information about Khan since 2001 but nothing specific enough for Mussaraf to act upon. The U.S. finally gave specific info in the fall of '03 and the exposure of Khan happened Jan/Feb 2004.

Have I got that right?

So Plame was outed in June of '03......

...and after that, in the fall of '03, the US finally gives Mussaraf specific information.

So in the fall of '03 the US decides to give Mussaraf all the info it has.....

Again, Why then?
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:12 PM
Response to Reply #84
87. According to H20's timeline
Plame was outed 7-14-03, then in October 2003 the US gave Mussaraf the story of Kahn.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #87
89. Okay. Great
So the only result from exposing Khan to Mussaraf was shutting down the Nuclear WalMart (I love that term...thanks to whoever first coined it)

Nobody else has been implicated. No other ocuntries have been implicated. That we know of, anyway.

My opinion of this is that the rest of the network got away because the investigation was wrapped up prematurely... I suspect because the intelligence network broke down......

but can that be proven or is that forever consigned to the black hole?
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Lestatdelc Donating Member (95 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #89
247. NOt "broke down"..
Burned down... Plame's outing was not a "break-down"... it was scorched earth, not of our choosing but to Cheney's office (pretty much a given his office was responsible).
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robertpaulsen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:32 PM
Response to Reply #84
92. Ah, the real question: Why?
Thanks, ewagner. Yes, the timeline is right. Plame was outed, then A.Q. Khan's network is exposed. Like I said before, I'm not sure if Khan's network was the whole sting, or if bigger fish swam away. Cheney's criminal behavior really forced the hand of the intelligence community in that respect. But if this was the best our intelligence network could do in the aftermath of Plame's outing, it was still pretty damning.

To answer a question of yours on a previous post, I do have other posts on the other threads that contain sources regarding A.Q. Khan's nuclear Walmart and the compromising ties with the whole Carlyle Cabal. What I hope to do in the near future, as I told H20 Man, is go back over all the threads and organize my posts and sources and create a letter, using the Waterman Paper as a template, to send to politicians and journalists who are likely to help us in our investigation to uncover the truth of the Plame scandal.

Check out post 48 for more on my pursuit of the question: why?

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never cry wolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:29 PM
Response to Reply #92
98. A question on A.Q. Kahn and Plame
I note that someone above stated that's Plame's base of operations was in the ME, not Africa. Pakistan is in south central Asia, not the ME. Having missed a good portion of these treads on vacation, I did not not where her base of operations was documented, are we sure of this?

OTOH, arms trading is certainly a worldwide endeavor. If her base was the ME, potential buyers there could be buying from Africa, Pakistan, N. Korea, anywhere, and by the same token, the money trail would most certainly be strung out around the globe.

Just a thought, I don't think any global region can necessarily be excluded as having been under her scrutiny at some point.
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Lestatdelc Donating Member (95 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:07 PM
Response to Reply #98
248. Plame's base of operations
"Plame's base of operations was in the ME, not Africa"

We know this how...?

Not doubting you, just what to know the source of this assertion.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:40 PM
Response to Reply #248
250. I remember reading it too.
Maybe it was in Joe Wilson's book?
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:54 AM
Response to Reply #72
168. robertpaulsen check
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 02:57 AM by shraby
out post #126. It ties in with your #72.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:55 PM
Response to Reply #168
219. SCHRABY-RP can't get to a computer til Sunday,we'll have to remind him.
:hi:
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:00 PM
Response to Reply #219
220. Gotcha.
My guess is RP will check all the posts up to when he comes back in.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:38 AM
Response to Reply #72
198. Yet another MOST intriguing theory for your collection, Pallas.
Interesting how these pieces fall together.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:53 PM
Response to Reply #198
218. CALIMARY:) what newspaper/tv wouldn't want a staff like this?
If newspapers and news=stations had this staff of researchers
this country wouldn't be in the corrupt pickle it is,

Is it not the responsibility of the fourth estate to inform the
public and by doing so keep the government honest?

Gee- whatever happened to that idea?
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 08:51 PM
Response to Reply #63
120. Hi E Wagner. Your theory and Robert Paulsen's re Khan jibe.
:hi:
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 05:05 PM
Response to Original message
86. Time to stop the itty-bitty quarrels
and get back to work. Now I'm going to quote someone here I really love and admire, and the few people -- myself being first in line -- who have been involved in some of the little conflicts .... let's stop. Because if we don't .... and I don't like to threaten .... but ... I might just wheel this chair to a liquor store and buy me a bottle .... then sing you all a real song .... "Reconciliation," by my beautiful cousin Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul .... so keep that in mind!

See-a-go, Hau den o ..... opps, forgot to speak English. Let's try again:

"We must seek out the spiritual people because only that is going to help us survive. We have a great force -- a great brotherhood (and sisterhood). This brotherhood involves all living things. And that, of course, includes us all. We are talking about the natural world, the natural force, all the trees, everything that grows, the water. That is part of our force.

But when you gather spiritual force in one place, you also gather the negative force. We begin to perceive the enemy now, the power and presence of the negative force.

There is a great battle coming."

-Oren Lyons, Faith Keeper, Onondaga Nation

The end of the last thread, and part of this one, show us that we can easily become divided and lose focus. I'm kind of hoping that by posting the Waterman Paper, it would help us re-focus. Not everyone likes it, and that's okay. I'm going to make a sincere effort not to return hostility with hostility. I've given some very serious thought to what merh said, and while I don't agree with everything said, I'm going to be man enough to say that I can do better.

Thank you all. Let's shed the dead skin and move on.

I am your friend.
H2O Man
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Tellurian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:00 PM
Response to Reply #86
96. Yes, thank you merh for setting the record straight...
I appreciate the shakeup on this board...egos gettin a little too high falutin and way off the problem solving trail.

Apology accepted, H2O man..

I know you can do better-
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:21 PM
Response to Reply #96
97. Tellurian:
You and I live .... and seek to live .... in entirely different worlds. We do not speak the same language, hence your confusion. Our goals are entirely different, and hence I think it works best for both of us if we maintain a friendly "no speak" zone. I am not saying this with malice or hostility. I just think it is better for this thread if we do not speak to each other.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:31 PM
Response to Reply #97
125. Paging H2O Man, Paging H2O Man
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 09:32 PM by RebelYell
I sent your paper to Daniel Hopsicker

http://www.madcowprod.com

He's one of the best investigative journalists around. Here's his email reply to me:

"thanks for the kind words.
i, too, am for taking power out of the hands of the crooks. but incrementally, because i fear if they were somehow all made to vacate at once it would create a vacuum effect that might feel like being in an airliner when the cargo door blows and ten rows of seats slip out at once. maybe twenty rows. certainly most of first class. ;)
coincidentally, i just got the wilson book the other night, and am making ready to read it now.
that plame was active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD is of course news to me.
can you tell me more about this?
daniel"

H2O Man....do you have the time to email Hopsicker and give him the facts? I REALLY don't want to screw this up. I'll wait for your answer to post his email address.

Edited to correct typo
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:43 PM
Response to Reply #125
129. RebelYell ! Good work!
Yes, certainly. I'm not sure if you want to post it here, or send it on DU e-mail. But you are certainly fully qualified to discuss these issues with anyone. On this thread, our only necessary credentials is our sincerity. And that puts you right at the top with our very best participants! Thank you for your great work.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #129
132. Oh goody!
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 10:18 PM by RebelYell
Here's his email:

(redacted)

I think it's important that only one person, namely YOU, contact him. I promised he wouldn't be deluged with email from alot of people. He's definitely interested in what all of you have done here.

The plot keeps thickening. I think I need to do a flowchart!
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:00 PM
Response to Reply #132
136. Thank you, my friend!
I will e-mail him now, and then get back on DU.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:11 PM
Response to Reply #132
139. REB, check your internal DU e mail. Thanks
:bounce:
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:02 PM
Response to Reply #129
138. P.S.
You bring out the best in people. You ROCK!

I replied to him to say that you would be contacting him. Good luck!

His books are riveting, I recommend them highly. I read his tale of Barry Seals, the CIA pilot running drugs from South America to Mena, Arkansas, and his latest is about Mohammed Atta. I'm waiting for it to arrive any day.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:17 PM
Response to Reply #138
140. I just e-mailed him.
Now, if I am repeating myself, my friend, over-look it as a symptom of my old age. But did you send him the Waterman Paper?
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:30 PM
Response to Reply #140
144. Yes
Edited on Thu Jul-22-04 10:30 PM by RebelYell
I sent him the paper. He replied within an hour or so. He's interested in the WMD aspect.

Edited to finish the thought
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:33 PM
Response to Reply #144
148. Dancing for REB lol
:bounce:
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:44 PM
Response to Reply #86
101. Hey H2O
Got about halfway through your Waterman Paper when I got a phone call. I am going to start all over again -- my concentration is shot tonight. Leaving the office now, and will read Waterman when I get home, respond in the morning.

Look, I apologize for being a part of one of the itty bitty quarrels. Though if I remember my organizational behavior from grad school correctly this kind of thing is to be expected, if anything welcomed. Or else people can and will fall victim to group-think. I do feel like this was happening on the thread.

I don't want to continue arguing. I have more to say but it isn't worth it. I just want to make it clear that everybody on here is entitled to an opinion and should feel free to express it without derision. That is how we started out. We said, there are no stupid questions, everyone is entitled to their opinions, yada yada. It was a great start but those values got lost this week. Can't we all just get along?

My Irish is up. I'm hoping that in the morning when I wake I'll have a clearer perspective and be able to again participate in a more valuable discussion.

Don't hit the bottle, Ducky. We'll be good.







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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 06:57 PM
Response to Original message
103. Two Articles on Cheney/Haliburton
From the Independent, via Common Dreams

Grand Jury Probes Cheney's Role in 'Illegal' Iran Trade
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0722-03.htm

Cheney Lobbied Congress To Ease Sanctions Against Terrorist Countries While He Was CEO Of Halliburton
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0722-02.htm
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:06 PM
Response to Reply #103
105. I think I found another player in the game.
Kahn worked for Urenco before he went to Pakistan. If you google Urenco you'll find this site:
<http://www.exportcontrols.org/urenco.html>

There are some interesting links on that page on the left side. Can anyone put anything pertinent together with our project using Urenco?
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 07:14 PM
Response to Reply #105
107. And more



Snip
An attorney for the head of a New Mexico anti-terrorism training firm is asking why prosecutors have zealously pursued his client for allegedly stockpiling warheads but ignored the company from they purchased the weapons.


http://www.krqe.com/Global/story.asp?S=1168473
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:31 PM
Response to Reply #105
126. SCHRABY-from yr link-Pakistani Scientists Assist Terrorists
Case Studies of Illicit Procurement Networks
Glossary

Illicit Procurement Infrastructure

Recruitment of Key Foreign Players

Off-Shore Agents or Companies

Partial or Complete Control of EstablishedCompanies

Middlemen

Experts
Specialized "Know-How"

Education and Training

Banking, Financial Transfers Transportation and Shipping Secrecy

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Export Control Laws and Regulations

False End-User Statements
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Quick Links to Case Studies
Iraq


EMIS Procurement
Matrix Churchill
H+H Metalform
Iraq's Acquisition of Gas Centrifuge Technology
Part I
Part II
Part III
Schaublin
SMB
Karl Otto Brauer
Banca Nationale de Lavoro

Pakistan


Ernest Piffl/Team GmbH
Pakistani Scientists' Nuclear Assistance to Terrorists

Resources


Glossary
Glossary of Key Names
Link to Urenco

I'm putting the entire thing in about the Pakistani Nuclear Scientists assisting Al Queda - and what they assisted with. It's long but really worth reading. And disheartening.


Pakistani Nuclear Scientists:

How Much Nuclear Assistance to Al Qaeda?

By David Albright and Holly Higgins

August 30, 2002

A shorter version of this assessment was published in the March/April 2003 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Click here to open the Bulletin website in a new window.

Acting on an American request, Pakistani authorities on October 23, 2001 "detained for questioning" two well-respected Pakistani nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudiri Abdul Majeed. After retiring from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), they established Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah, a non-governmental organization whose stated mission was to conduct relief work and investment in Afghanistan.

Their detention stemmed from connections between their group, the Taliban regime, and al Qaeda. The concern was that the scientists used the cover of their organization to help al Qaeda develop chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. President George W. Bush announced on December 20, 2001 the addition of UTN, Mahmood, and Majeed to the list of organizations and individuals supporting terrorists. According to a fact sheet distributed by the White House at the time of this announcement, UTN directors and members met several times in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders and discussed the development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Mahmood also provided information about the infrastructure needed for a nuclear weapon program and the effects of nuclear weapons.

Pakistani officials have regularly stated that the two scientists lacked the specific scientific know-how to help al Qaeda build nuclear weapons. "For that kind of operation you need dozens and dozens of people and millions of dollars," a senior member of the PAEC told The Mercury News.1 The officials continued: "That sort of technology transfer takes 50-60 years. The chance that gave the Taliban nuclear arms is zero-less than zero."

The New York Times quoted Pakistani officials who said that the case was sensitive and that official denials should not be taken at face value.2 According to the report, one Pakistani official recalled receiving instructions in the mid-1990s to deny, in official contacts with American officials, that Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons, at a time when the country had already assembled nuclear bombs. "It's just one of those things you can't be absolutely straightforward about," he told the Times.

In the short term, the nuclear risk was that UTN members or colleagues would have transferred the knowledge and the wherewithal to make radiological dispersal devices or nuclear weapons, assuming in the latter case that al Qaeda acquired separated plutonium or highly enriched uranium. In the longer term, the concern was that these Pakistanis would have transferred a range of sensitive information or equipment, significantly expanding al Qaeda's nuclear capabilities.

Despite its public statements, the Pakistani government's several month detention of Mahmood and his colleagues demonstrated its determination to uncover the extent of these scientists' cooperation with the Taliban and al Qaeda. Their detention also sent a strong signal to Pakistan's nuclear establishment that the government will protect sensitive information and stop illicit exports that can advance others' nuclear weapon programs.

Who is Mahmood?

Mahmood is reported to have resigned from the PAEC in the spring of 1999 in protest of the government's willingness to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) after Pakistan conducted a series of underground tests in May 1998.3 In 1998 and 1999 Mahmood spoke and wrote widely against Pakistan joining the CTBT. He argued that signing the CTBT would impose huge political and military costs on Pakistan while providing few long-lasting rewards. In addition, in one article, he said: "If we keep developing nuclear technology on the path of self-reliance, and also extend cooperation to other countries in this field, shall we not be the gainers ultimately?"4

There was also pressure put on Mahmood to resign. The New York Times reported that the United States wanted Mahmood removed after it learned that he had sympathies for Islamic militant groups, including the Taliban.5 Mahmood was often publicly supportive of the Taliban in Pakistan and in speeches at universities said that the Taliban was a model for Pakistan.6 Even after September 11th, Mahmood remained supportive of the Taliban, addressing a gathering of intellectuals in mid-October 2001 where he proposed a three-month cease-fire to resolve the situation in Afghanistan.

Senior Pakistani officials reportedly were concerned because Mahmood had been vocally advocating extensive production of weapon-grade plutonium and uranium to help equip other Islamic nations with these materials. He termed Pakistan's nuclear capability as "the property of a whole Ummah ."7 Pakistani intelligence officials viewed his continuation as head of Khushab as dangerous, the Washington Post reported.8

This version of the reason for his retirement is supported by information gained through his interrogation during his detention and his own post-interrogation statements. According to the Washington Post, when questioned by Pakistani officials, Mahmood said he became disillusioned with the Pakistani government when the Pakistan intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), recommended his transfer from the sensitive position of the director of the Khushab reactor to a desk job in March 1999.9 The Washington Post report also quotes a family friend of Mahmood as saying that Mahmood felt betrayed by the government he had long-served.10 In an interview in March 2002, Mahmood said he "was dislodged from all projects and retired."11

Illustrious Nuclear Career. Before retiring, Mahmood had a long career in Pakistan's nuclear program and held a variety of senior positions. The Associated Press reported on October 24, 2001 that officials in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) said Mahmood had been a director for the nation's nuclear program and remained in key positions until his retirement. Articles about Mahmood credit him with making significant contributions to Pakistan's uranium enrichment and reactor programs.

Mahmood studied nuclear engineering in Britain in the 1960s. After graduating with a masters degree, he returned to Pakistan despite lucrative offers to remain abroad.

A report in the Times of India said that Mahmood came to prominence after he developed a technique in the 1970s to detect heavy water leaks in steam pipes at the Canadian-supplied Knapp nuclear power reactor near Karachi.12 The device is patented in Canada in his name and known worldwide under his initials as the "SBM Probe," according to the article. These devices are described in an report published by Mahmood in 1979 that is listed on the International Atomic Energy Agency's INIS database of technical and scientific articles.

The INIS database also lists technical articles by Mahmood on electric motors used in radiation environments. Pakistani media reports list additional papers by him in the field of quality assurance, transfer of technologies, and project management.

His son told the British newspaper The Guardian that his father wept after India conducted an underground nuclear test in 1974 and vowed to make Pakistan an atomic power.13 A few months after India's test, the Guardian wrote, President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto called a meeting of his best nuclear scientists to discuss Pakistan's reaction. Although Mahmood attended as a junior scientist, he argued strenuously to build nuclear weapons and recommended buying necessary items through a secret program.

Mahmood worked on Pakistan's secret gas centrifuge program that ultimately produced the highly enriched uranium (HEU) used in Pakistan's nuclear weapons. In publications, he is credited with playing a pioneering role in establishing the uranium enrichment project in Pakistan.14 Subsequently, Abdul Qadeer Khan took over and is known as the father of Pakistan's uranium enrichment program.

Mahmood's most prestigious assignment was designing the Khushab reactor, which went critical in April 1998. In an article he co-authored with Muhammad Nasim and published in January 2000 in the Pakistani newspaper The Nation and on Pakistan Link, Mahmood identified himself as the Chief Designer and Director of the Khushab, or alternatively spelled Khoshab, atomic reactor. This unsafeguarded reactor project depended extensively on illicit procurement from several countries. It can make enough plutonium for about 2-3 nuclear weapons per year. In this same article, Mahmood said that with the operation of the Khushab reactor, Pakistan had "acquired the capability to produce the boosted thermonuclear weapons and hydrogen bombs."

He ended his career as Director for Nuclear Power at the PAEC. For his outstanding contributions to Pakistan's nuclear program, he was awarded the prestigious Sitara-e-Imtiaz award by the President of Pakistan in March 1999. He also received a gold medal from the Pakistan Academy of Sciences.

Fascination with the Occult. Mahmood had a bizarre fascination with the occult and wrote a series of controversial reports based on pseudo-science. In 1987, for example, he published a 232-page treatise "Doomsday and Life After Death-The Ultimate Fate of the Universe as Seen Through the Holy Quran." This collection based on Islamic teachings included a chapter where Mahmood seeks to explain scientifically how the world will end and theorizes that his "scientific mind can work backward and analyze the actual mechanism…of the great upheaval before the Earth's Doomsday."15

In Mahmood's Cosmology and Human Destiny, published in 1998, he misused statistics to argue that sunspot activity has influenced human behavior and historical events, such as the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and World War II.16 He concluded that governments across the world "are already being subjected to great emotional aggression under the catalytic effect of the abnormally high sunspot activity under which they are most likely to adapt aggression as the natural solution for their problems."17

According to Farhatullah Babar, a friend and media advisor of the Pakistan Peoples' Party, Mahmood had predicted in Cosmology and Human Destiny that "the year 2002 was likely to be a year of maximum sunspot activity. It means upheaval, particularly on the Indian subcontinent, with the possibility of nuclear exchanges."18 One passage of the book is reported to say: "At the international level, terrorism will rule; and in this scenario use of mass destruction weapons cannot be ruled out. Millions, by 2002, may die through mass destruction weapons, hunger, disease, street violence, terrorist attacks, and suicide."

Mahmood also believes in Djinnis, or genies, described in the Holy Quron as beings made of fire. He has written papers suggesting that these entities could be tapped to solve the energy crisis.

Follower of Israr Ahmad Mahmood is a devout follower of Dr. Israr Ahmad, a prominent pro-Taliban radical Islamic cleric.19 Mahmood was so impressed by Ahmad that he reportedly appointed him the patron of UTN.20

Ahmad advocates the creation of a "true Islamic state" and rejects Western constitutional and democratic models. After September 11th, Ahmad was one of the leaders of pro-Taliban, anti-U.S. demonstrations and other activities against the overthrow of the Taliban regime. In early October 2001, he announced that Afghanistan would prove a graveyard for the United States.21

Ahmad is the "Ameer," or spiritual leader, of Tanzeem-e-Islami. Members must pledge obedience to him, an act that he says himself is not found in other comparable Islamic revivalist movements. Ahmad has been popular for years in Pakistan, spreading his message through frequent addresses to his congregation in Lahore. He received the distinguished Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 1981, and he has written over 60 Urdu books on topics related to Islam and Pakistan, nine of which have been translated into English. His organization's web site contains many of his preachings.

Since Mahmood's detention, Ahmad has been relatively taciturn about Mahmood. In the winter of 2002, he told the Washington Post that Mahmmood is "a practicing Muslim."22 He added that the Pakistani authorities went after Mahmood only to please the Americans.

Ahmad, like Mahmood, has been openly critical of Pakistan signing the CTBT. Ahmad told his congregation in Lahore, according to an October 22, 1999 press release of Tanzeem, that the CTBT "must not be signed/ratified at any cost." In a press release dated January 21, 2000, he said that the issue of the CTBT is dividing the nation into two camps, one composed of religious elements and the other made up of "secularists" who seek the "protecting umbrella" of the United States, the global superpower. The former, Ahmad said, includes Mahmood.

Ahmad was involved in creating a political coalition of religious parties opposing the CTBT. The coalition's first meeting, which was chaired by Ahmad, adapted a resolution that said that the CTBT was a conspiracy against the sovereignty and security of Pakistan and amounted to a transgression of the injunctions of the Quran and Sunnat.23 Mahmood spoke at the first meeting, according to the coalition's press release.

Disagreements about the CTBT are not in themselves an issue. They have been widespread and explain why the treaty is still not in force. However, Ahmad's, and by implication Mahmood's, rationale for opposing the CTBT is radical. Similarly, Ahmad's views on Pakistani nuclear weapons, the Taliban, and the international community are extreme. Press releases of Tanzeem-e-Islami from 1999-2001 that are found on its web site provide a disturbing context for Mahmood's and UTN's work in Pakistan.24

On Pakistan's nuclear capability, Ahmad said in 1999 and 2000:

"The world is approaching a state of affairs whereby the entire Western world will invade the heart of Islamic world (i.e. the Arab world) in order to protect Israel - a rehearsal of which was witnessed in the Gulf War. At this crucial juncture in history, in light of the Prophetic traditions, it will be none other than Pakistan and Afghanistan which will rise to the occasion and defend the Islamic world. Indeed, this is the main objective behind our emergence as a nuclear power. Who knows, perhaps, it was for preparation of this very stage that the Divine Scheme in its infinite wisdom has brought the Armed forces of Pakistan at the forefront to defend the Islamic cause!" (October 22, 1999 press release)
"Pakistan must preserve and develop nuclear weapons technology because developing military power to deter enemies is a clear Qur'anic imperative. He said that Pakistan's nuclear capability does not belong to only one country but it is actually the collective trust of the entire Muslim Ummah and must therefore be closely guarded and carefully preserved…The Jews and Christians have teamed up against the Muslims, and giving up the nuclear option under these circumstances would be to betray the interest of the Ummah." (January 28, 2000 press release)
"In the event of any U.S. ban in terms of economic sanctions and defence supply, Pakistan should allow Muslim countries to have access to our nuclear technologies in return of funds needed for national development." (Oct 15, 1999 press release)
Referring to conflicts with India in Kashmir in 1999, "the best policy that Pakistan could adopt now would be to end the ongoing tension and to achieve a compromise with India based on the following principle: If India withdraws her forces from Siachin then Pakistan would persuade the Mujahideen to withdraw from Kargil. Thereafter, both countries should try to find a solution to the Kashmir issue by means of dialogue and negotiations. Otherwise, there is a strong probability that we might lose our nuclear capability that is a great cause of anxiety for the world Zionism and her stooges and allies." (June 25, 1999 press release)
On the Taliban and Afghanistan, Ahmad said in 1999 and 2000:

"There should be a show of total cooperation and unity with the Taliban government of Afghanistan and no regard or credence should be given to any nefarious policies and evil schemes against it." (October 22, 1999 press release)
"Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world that have the potential to become the starting point for the global ascendancy of Islam…If the two countries could come together, they would be able to compliment each other and would therefore lay the foundations of a model Islamic System." (December 29, 2000 press release)
On the issue of the impending UN sanctions in early 2001 on Afghanistan, Ahmad said:

"The world of disbelief is becoming united against the Taliban Government and it appears that the United Nations is going to implement full economic sanctions against Afghanistan…If this happens it would be a serious trial for the Afghan people as well as for Pakistan. If necessary, Pakistan must rebel against the United Nations and must not participate in any economic sanctions against Afghanistan. Instead, it should continue to help its Muslim neighbor by any means possible. Pakistan and Afghanistan should come together as this would lay down the foundations for global Islamic ascendancy." (January 5, 2001 press release)
"In this difficult time we all must support and assist our Muslim neighbor…In response to his appeal for monetary donations on Eid day and the following Friday, more than one million rupees were collected and handed over to the Afghan ambassador in Islamabad…Tanzeem-e-Islami has opened a separate bank account for this cause, and appealed that funds for helping the Taliban Government of Afghanistan be deposited in that account." (January 12, 2001 press release)
On the subject of terrorist activities of bin Laden and the Taliban, he said in early 2001:

"There is no proof against the Taliban Government of any subversive or terrorist activity; as for the issue of Usama bin Laden, the Taliban Government has been asking the U.S. to supply evidence about his involvement in terrorist activities so that he could be tried in an Afghan court, but no evidence has been forthcoming." (January 5, 2001 press release)
With regard to economic sanctions on Pakistan imposed because of its nuclear capability and testing, he said in 1999:

"All our energies in the economic sphere should not be spent in worrying about how we will pay back the enormous debts owed to the financial institutions of the world. Instead, a demand to adopt other means of payments such as "Debt Equity Swap" should be put forth to these world bodies; alternatively, a "Defaulter" status is also a viable solution and we should not, just out of fear, shun this possibility." (October 22, 1999 press release)
At a seminar on "economic revival" in May 2001, Ahmad said that Pakistan should forthwith abolish interest-based economy and refuse to return foreign loans.25 At the same seminar, Mahmood called for an early declaration of default on the foreign loans.

Who is Majeed?

Less is known about Majeed. He is reported to have retired in 2000 after a long and successful career in the Nuclear Materials Division of the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) at Rawalpindi. He was also at the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy during the 1970s or early 1980s.

He was reported by the Associated Press on October 24, 2001 to have received training in Belgium at a plutonium facility in the 1960s. CNN and NBC reported that he was associated with New Labs at Rawalpindi that was involved in separating plutonium for nuclear weapons.26 In addition, he is an expert in nuclear fuels, according to the U.S. government.

He published extensively in the 1980s and 1990s on nuclear detectors and the use of x-ray diffraction, fluorescence, and crystallography to study a wide variety of materials and elements, including stainless steel, uranium, and thorium.

Who Else Was Detained?

Media reports state that all seven members of UTN's board of directors were detained on October 23, 2001. The New York Times reported November 1, 2001 that one of those detained was Mirza Yusef Baig. According to NBC, quoting Mirza Baig's nephew, Baig was an industrialist with the largest foundry in Pakistan.27 Baig had extensive ties with the Taliban regime and several contracts to build schools, hospitals, government buildings, and a flour mill in Afghanistan.

Other members of UTN's board, who were detained, are reported to be Brig. (Retired) Mohammad Ali; Commodore (retired) Arshad Ali Chaudry, a retired air force commander and vice president of UTN; Humayun Niaz , a former naval officer and businessman with ties to the Sharif government and the finance director of UTN; Brig. Mohammad Hanif, a career army engineer; and Sheikh Mohammed Tufail, the owner of one of Pakistan's leading engineering companies.

Little public information could be found about these board members. However, Hanif may have been a nuclear scientist at the PAEC, based on a search of INIS.

According to several media reports, others may have been detained at the urging of the United States. USA Today for example, reported on November 15, 2001 that at least 10 of Pakistan's nuclear scientists were contacted by representatives of the Taliban government and al Qaeda during the previous two years seeking assistance to create a nuclear program inside Afghanistan.28 Several of the scientists accepted the offer, according to U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the offers. But the scientists told the representatives that they would need Pakistani government approval to work in Afghanistan. Whether that approval was granted is unknown.

In one media report, Pakistani officials stated that the scientists had been offered jobs to develop a scientific laboratory in Afghanistan. However, they denied U.S. claims that these scientists intended to work there on nuclear weapons.29

In early December, media reports stated that two other Pakistani nuclear scientists, Suleiman Asad and Mohammed Ali Mukhtar, were wanted for questioning about their possible links to bin Laden.30 U.S. officials suspected that these two had also been involved with UTN. Reports stated that these two scientists were directly linked to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. The New York Times reported that these two had long experience at two of Pakistan's most secret nuclear installations.31

However, Pakistan told the media that, although these men were of concern to the CIA, they were unavailable. They were sent shortly after September 11 on an undisclosed research project to Myanmar, a country run by a military dictatorship with strained relations with the United States and most of the rest of the world.32 Pakistani officials said that they did not want to interrupt the scientists' work by having them return to Pakistan for questioning. But Pakistani officials also told the media that Pakistan resisted U.S. efforts to interrogate these and other scientists and engineers, because the government feared that the United States was using these security concerns as a pretext to learn secrets about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Concern about additional Pakistani nuclear scientists continued into the summer of 2002. The Wall Street Journal reported in June 2002 that U.S. officials said that they were very worried about two Pakistani scientists.33 Whether these scientists were Asad or Mukhtar is unknown, because these officials refused to name them. The officials did say that the scientists mentioned in the Wall Street Journal were veterans of Pakistan's nuclear weapons complex and associates of Mahmood and Majeed. One of them was already suspected of trying to sell weapon designs to unsavory customers.

The United States did not have any information about whether these two scientists had ever traveled to Afghanistan. Nonetheless, U.S. analysts still worried that these scientists had somehow passed information on building nuclear weapon secrets to al Qaeda.34

What Was Found in Kabul

Suspicion about Mahmood and others at UTN increased after the fall of the Taliban on November 13, 2001, and coalition forces and the media searched UTN offices in Kabul. The searches of these houses, located in the wealthiest suburb of Kabul, revealed records that the charity did help Afghanistan with educational material, road building, and flour mills. But the records found in these buildings also demonstrated that UTN was studying weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The first revelations about UTN's WMD activities followed visits to its headquarters and subsidiary offices in Kabul. Members of the media appear to have been among the first to visit UTN's headquarters in Kabul that also served as Mahmood's residence while he was in Kabul.

Interest in Anthrax. At these houses, there were documents and drawings that suggest someone was very interested in biological weapons, even in designing a crude system for delivering anthrax by balloon.

Among the documents found by CNN and other media organizations was an unclassified 1997 U.S. draft environmental assessment titled, "Renovation of Facilities and Increased Anthrax Vaccine Production and Testing at the Michigan Biologic Products Institute" by the Joint Program Office for Biologic Defense under contract to SAIC in Frederick, Maryland. A reader had written several stars in the top left corner of the cover page, implying that he thought the report was significant. The report contains sections on anthrax, the disease, its threat, the vaccine, production issues, and immunization.

This report is related to the production of anthrax vaccine at the Lansing, Michigan facility for the U.S. military. It is not a document on how to make anthrax spores. The reason why the document was at this house is unclear.

One reason may be related to another document found at the house called, "The Biologic Warfare: An Imminent Danger," of which hundreds of copies were found in the house. This four-page leaflet is a paranoid diatribe accusing the United States of planning to conduct a campaign of biological warfare against the international Muslim community, using anthrax. Part of the evidence cited in the document is the vaccination of U.S. troops against anthrax and the expansion of anthrax vaccination production under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Defense, purportedly in advance of anthrax attacks on the Ummah.

Mahmood concluded in the fall of 2002 that Taliban soldiers fighting against the Northern Alliance had been exposed to chemical and biological weapons supplied by the United States, based on information from doctors at a Kandahar hospital.35 According to his information, U.S. and British experts were even training the Northern Alliance in the use of chemical and biological weapons.36 In this media report, he denied that Afghanistan had an anthrax factory, charging that "military sources" fabricated this story so that in the case of an anthrax attack on Afghanistan, "the impact could be attributed" to emissions from this factory. He called for NGOs to "come and help the Afghan nation against such an attack."

Strong suspicions remain that one of Mahmood's responses to his "information" was to support the study of the offensive use of biological or chemical weapons. Evidence that the documents served more sinister purposes than defensive ones includes a series of illustrations scrawled over a white board mounted on plasterboard and running the length of the wall of a room in UTN's headquarters in Kabul. The diagrams appear to show how high-altitude balloons could be used to spread anthrax spores or cyanide.37

Other documents found in the house contained detailed information about anthrax. One document was the first page of a U.S. military web site aimed at informing veterans of the Persian Gulf War about illnesses they may have contracted. This site also contains information about the use of anthrax as a weapon.

According to the Evening Standard, a computer disk held a picture showing former Defense Secretary William Cohen holding a small bag of sugar, which he said is roughly the amount of biological agent that could kill half the population of Washington, DC. On the floor was a small bag of white powder. This bag evidently did not contain anthrax or any other biological agents, however,

Some of the anthrax-related papers had been copied many times. This fact and the organization of specific rooms imply that the house was used to give lectures.

In addition, the house contained boxes of gas masks and many containers of chemicals. A second-floor workshop, where many of the documents were located, contained a disassembled rocket with solid propellant and a cylinder labeled "helium."

Link to Terrorist Groups. Ingrid Arnesen, a senior CNN producer who visited many UTN and al Qaeda houses in Afghanistan, found documents linking UTN to terrorist groups. At UTN offices, she found literature that established a link between UTN and Jaish al Muhammad, the Army of the Prophet Mohammad. This group was active in Kashmir and was outlawed in Pakistan in the spring of 2002. She also found inside the main UTN office a decal celebrating the bombing of the USS Cole.

Baracat Trading. CNN personnel found a set of documents describing a wide-range of UTN's activities in an office off the dreary lobby of Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel. The office had been occupied by the Baracat Islami Investment General Trading and Contracting Co. Ltd. (BTC) and had been locked and abandoned before the fall of the Taliban. Intelligence sources told CNN that this office was a branch of the Barakat network, which the United States has suspected of laundering money for al Qaeda and as a result has frozen its assets.

In this office, CNN found several drafts of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between UTN and BTC to establish a close working relationship to promote relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of Afghanistan. The MOU was signed at Kabul on May 15, 2001 by Ghali Atia Alshamri, President of BTC, and Mahmood, President of UTN. They agreed to establish joint projects and share office space at their respective offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They also agreed to share all their financial, technical, and human resources in all disciplines such as commerce and industry, agriculture, banking and finance, health education, social welfare, communications, energy, minerals and mining, and research and development. According to the documents, BTC was working with Afghanistan's Minister of Water and Power and UTN expected that cooperation with BTC would accelerate the completion of its goals.

UTN's Public Face

Mahmood and Majeed organized UTN in June 2000 to provide relief for the people of Afghanistan and develop commercial projects relying on investment by Muslim countries. With offices in Kabul, Afghanistan and Lahore and Islamabad, Pakistan, UTN's stated mission was to focus on development, educational reform, and ways to feed the impoverished Afghan population. UTN officials also said they were guiding the Taliban on science-related matters. Mohammad Sohail Farooqi was the director of the UTN office in Kabul.

According to Mahmood, he and his colleagues developed a major plan of large-scale investment aimed at establishing industrial networks in Afghanistan.38 He said the Taliban regime had already agreed to many of its plans, including raising investments totaling about $100 million to build a dam and an oil refinery in Afghanistan. Their strategy envisioned huge projects to develop Afghanistan's energy, communication, and transportation infrastructure and to process Afghanistan's abundant natural resources for use in Pakistan. UTN's plan also called for developing final products in Pakistan. In this way, Pakistan would also have benefited economically. Mahmood bragged in late October 2001 in an interview with the weekly Nida-i-Millat, one day before his arrest, that if the United States had not attacked, Afghanistan would have developed into a strong industrial country during the next ten years.39

UTN's mission was consistent with Israr Ahmad's vision of cooperation with the Taliban regime. UTN was also apparently trying to undermine the UN embargo on the Taliban regime that was established in early 2001.

UTN was one of the few NGOs that had the approval of Mullah Omar, the Taliban head of Afghanistan. Other important Pakistani NGOs recognized by Omar were Al-Rashid Trust and Al-Akhtar Trust, both of which are suspected of having been linked to UTN.

Pakistani media reports state that Mahmood had the permission of Mullah Omar to conclude agreements with investors on projects in Afghanistan, and UTN was aggressively pursuing Pakistani investors for its projects in Afghanistan.

Mahmood was in frequent contact with the Taliban officials. In the biography attached to an article written by Mahmood about the Taliban and published in 2001, the editors state that Mahmood has been working with a team of professionals in Afghanistan for two years on different relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction projects.40 As a result, the biography says that Mahmood came in close contact with senior government officials, including Mullah Omar, prime ministers, ministers, and heads of departments. He also dealt with the civil bureaucracy to obtain approvals for his projects.

When UTN officials traveled to Afghanistan, their visas were sponsored by the Taliban's Ministry for Mines and Industry, which was directed by Mawlawi Ahmad Jan.41 NBC reported that Ahmad Jan had a long association with bin Laden. He was also the Minister of Water and Power.

UTN's many projects in Afghanistan required frequent visits by board members and justified the establishment of an office in Kabul. Western officials were becoming increasingly aware of UTN's activities. A senior UN official in Kandahar told NBC news in the fall of 2001 that UTN had business interests in Afghanistan. "They are into mining, too," the official said.42 Majeed was reported to be involved in exploring for uranium in Afghanistan.43
CNN Documents on UTN

The documents found by CNN in the offices of BTC at the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul provide a detailed snapshot of UTN's projects in Afghanistan, including uranium mining and the development of Afghanistan's scientific and technical infrastructure. Several of the projects listed in the CNN documents are:

Construction of the Ummah flour mill, a 250 tonne per day flour mill which was 80 percent complete in May 2001, (and subsequently bombed in the fall of 2001);
Publication and printing of 90,000 text books;
Collection and distribution of relief goods;
Supply of essential medicines for major hospitals;
Distribution of sacrificial animals on Eid-ul-Adha, a major muslim celebration;
Promotion of the complementary economies of Pakistan and Afghanistan by holding workshops and facilitating visits by investors and the media;
Technical assistance to the Afghan government for the immediate rehabilitation of its industries and infrastructure;
Development of agricultural land at Dashte Zeary, Kandahar with the possible participation of the Pakistani government. By May 2001, the Ministry of Water and Power signed an agreement with UTN to develop 5,000 hectares. A total of 50,000 hectares was planned for development by UTN;
Improving the artificial limb-manufacturing unit in Wazir Akbar Khan Government hospital in Kabul;
Developing the Da Ummah Development Bank Afghanistan with the possible help of the Pakistani government; and Development of the mining of minerals, including coal, oil and gas, steel, copper, lithium, uranium, and zirconium.
In an interview published in the News on March 19, 2002, Mahmood provided a list of UTN projects and the funds raised for them.44 UTN raised 8.162 million Rupees for purchasing 1,155 sheep and 631 cows for sacrificing on Eid-ul-Adha in Afghanistan. About 17 million Rupees were raised for the flour mill. Another $10,600 was raised to renovate the war-ravaged Kabul Polytechnic Institute. To develop 5,000 hectares of land, UTN received 1.814 million Rupees.

Many of UTN's projects would have depended on large loans from investors and the Pakistani government. Based on documents found by CNN, UTN's strategy was to obtain permission from the Taliban regime for a project and then seek a loan to fund the initial stage of the project. Local companies would build the project using materials and equipment imported from or through Pakistan. In return for finishing the first stage, the government of Afghanistan would furnish UTN with cash and minerals that have a ready market, valued in one document as 150 percent of the initial investment. After selling the bartered commodities, UTN would furnish another payment to the local companies for the next stage and so on until the project is completed. Mahmood referred to this approach as "investment recycling." Such an investment strategy is consistent with Islamic economic principles advocated by UTN that oppose the use of interest on loans.

Revenues earned from the sale of the commodities would also be used to cover UTN's costs. After paying back the initial investments, any surplus revenues would represent profit for the investing parties.

In early May 2001, according to the CNN documents, Mahmood approached Pakistan's ambassador in Kabul for funding for a range of its projects, including a road project between the Chaman border crossing and Kandahar and its agricultural land development project.45 UTN proposed to work together with the Pakistani government towards rehabilitating and reconstructing Afghanistan, writing in a letter that a "joint effort of both entities (the Government of Pakistan and UTN) will be able to achieve these noble goals with extreme efficiency and accuracy." Mahmood continued that the joint work would seek "to achieve the badly needed good will of this strategic neighbor of ours. It is essential that we work together to remove and discredit the misconceptions and the animosity being planted by our enemy factions." This last phrase evidently refers to efforts to discredit the Taliban, both internationally and in Pakistan.

The amount of funding provided by the Pakistani government to UTN is not in any of the documents found by CNN. However, the documents state that UTN asked the Pakistani government for up to $500,000 as the initial investment for the road project and Rs 1.5 million for its share of an initial investment of Rs 30 million for the land development project.

In addition, the government reportedly endorsed UTN's efforts in Afghanistan.46 According to the Washington Post, Mahmood and Majeed reportedly told their interrogators that Pakistan's intelligence agency had sanctioned their charity activities and meetings with Mullah Omar.47 Mahmood has publicly denied any such connection to ISI, although not to the Pakistani government.48
Nuclear Dealings

After Mahmood and Majeed were confronted with new information discovered after the fall of the Taliban, they modified their earlier statements to their interrogators. In initial interrogations by Pakistanis and U.S. officials, according to Eurasianet.org, Mahmood denied any nuclear cooperation with bin Laden or the Taliban. He "made his interrogators believe that that there was nothing wrong in his cooperation with Osama's men and Taliban officials."49

According to the Washington Post, however, Mahmood and Majeed admitted that they had long discussions with al Qaeda officials in August 2001 about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.50 Pakistani intelligence officials told the Washington Post that they believe that the scientists used UTN partially as a cover to conduct secret talks with bin Laden.

In a dramatic announcement on December 20, 2001, based in part on the growing evidence of UTN assistance to al Qaeda's nuclear weapons effort, President George W. Bush announced that it was adding UTN to the list of entities supporting terrorism and he ordered its assets blocked under Executive Order 13224. He also ordered the blocking of assets of three key directors of UTN-Mahmood, Majeed, and Tufail, the industrialist. Subsequently, the U.N. Security Council and many other countries, including Pakistan, ordered the freezing of the assets of the group and the three men.

According to a Fact Sheet distributed by the White House at the time of the announcement:

The nuclear scientists had close ties to bin Laden and the Taliban;
During repeated UTN visits to Afghanistan, UTN directors and members met with bin Laden, al Qaeda leaders, and Mullah Omar and discussed the development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons;
UTN has been linked to WAFA Humanitarian Organization and Al Rashid Trust, two other NGOs with ties to al Qaeda that have been designated as supporters of terrorism under Executive Order 13224;
During 2001, Mahmood met with Mullah Omar and bin Laden. During a follow-up meeting where bin Laden's associate indicated he had nuclear material and wanted to know how to use it to make a weapon, Mahmood provided information about the infrastructure needed for a nuclear weapon program and the effects of nuclear weapons; and
After the fall of the Taliban regime, searches of UTN locations in Kabul yielded documents setting out a plan to kidnap a U.S. attaché and outlining basic nuclear physics related to nuclear weapons.

Media reports have shed further light on the meetings between UTN officials and al Qaeda. According to the Washington Post, Pakistani officials said the scientists reportedly admitted meeting with bin Laden, the Egyptian Ayman Zawahiri, and two other al Qaeda officials over two or three days in August 2001 at a compound in Kabul. The scientists described bin Laden as intensely interested in nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.51

Bin Laden indicated to them that he had obtained, or had access to, some type of radiological material that he said had been acquired by the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Mahmood and Majeed reportedly told bin Laden that it would not be possible to manufacture a nuclear weapon from that material.52 They claimed they provided no material or specific plans to bin Laden, but rather engaged in wide ranging "academic" discussions, Pakistanis officials told the Washington Post.

A Pakistani official told the Washington Post, however, the scientists spoke extensively about weapons of mass destruction with bin Laden.53 This official described the scientists as "very motivated" and "extremist in their views," but added that they were "discussing things that didn't materialize, but fall under the breaking secrets act." In another media report, Pakistani officials familiar with the extensive interrogations told the Washington Post that the scientists provided detailed responses to bin Laden's technical questions about the manufacture of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.54

Al Qaeda reportedly also wanted the Pakistani scientists to help with making radiological dispersal devices (RDDs). The London Sunday Times reported in March 2002 that Farhatullah Babar, who has known Mahmood for many years, said U.S. interrogators were unable to prove that work on a RDD progressed much beyond an agreement in principle.55 Babar added that he thought Mahmood would have been willing to make a RDD, but the September attacks ended all their plans.

British officials told the Guardian that they believe that other Pakistani nuclear experts offered their expertise.56 These officials said that former Pakistani technicians from the weapons program also visited al Qaeda officials to advise them on how to build nuclear weapons.

Pakistan Decides Not to Charge the Nuclear Scientists

In late January 2002, Pakistan officials said that Pakistan decided not to press criminal charges against Mahmood and Majeed, despite concluding that the scientists violated a secrecy oath during trips to Afghanistan. The main reasons reported in the media were Pakistan's concern that a trial would cause further international embarrassment and risk disclosure of nuclear secrets.

The scientists were released from detention but agreed to remain under government control (essentially house arrest), submit to travel restrictions, and limit their communications.57 If they had been convicted of breaking their oath, they could have potentially spent seven years in prison.

Pakistani officials claimed that because the scientists were not involved in the actual production of nuclear weapons, they were not capable of providing sensitive or important information to a nuclear weapons effort by al Qaeda or the Taliban. This is an especially weak argument, however. Many illicit procurement cases, including several involving the Pakistani and Iraqi nuclear weapons programs, counter this argument.58

Taking Stock

In early March, the Washington Post revealed that Mahmood had failed a half dozen lie detector tests.59 Mahmood's public reaction to this statement and others has been to profess poor health and portray himself as a misunderstood victim.

In a public interview in March 2002, for example, Mahmood said he underwent lie detector tests several times, but he claimed: "I could never stay before the machine beyond a few minutes because of my age and health, as it was very strenuous exercise that made by blood pressure go erratic and rendered my heart unstable."60 He added that during one test, he collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. In the same interview, he said he did not discuss nuclear weapons with bin Laden. He told the News that he met with bin Laden to "seek $3 million for manpower and land development projects in Afghanistan, but he refused," saying his accounts were frozen.61

Several months of investigation have left U.S. officials without a definitive explanation of what Mahmood and his colleagues were doing in Afghanistan. Did they directly provide or orchestrate the delivery of nuclear secrets to al Qaeda or were they innocent of such activity as they insist? Available evidence favors the former scenario.

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials believe Mahmood provided nuclear assistance to al Qaeda. According to the Washington Times, the CIA refers to Mahmood as "bin Laden's nuclear secretary."62 According to a senior Pakistani intelligence official, "Mahmood's personality profile combined with his meetings with Osama bin Laden, make a lethal blend."63 In other words, Mahmood had both the motive and the means to provide significant assistance to a Taliban or al Qaeda nuclear weapons program.

In addition, UTN was dependent on the Taliban regime and indirectly on al Qaeda for the success of its projects that involved significant sums of funds and potentially large profits for its investors. At a minimum, the Taliban regime and al Qaeda had tremendous leverage on these scientists to extract assistance in their efforts to get WMD. UTN's growing dependence on the Taliban regime would have made it increasingly difficult for Mahmood and his associates to say no to Taliban and al Qaeda requests.

A more sinister interpretation is also possible. They may have decided for economic, religious, or ideological reasons to assist the Taliban and al Qaeda obtain nuclear weapons.

In the August 2001 meeting, Mahmood and his colleagues appear to have provided al Qaeda a road map to building nuclear weapons. This information is typically very helpful in understanding the steps that must be accomplished in making a nuclear weapon, identifying the necessary equipment and technology, and locating suppliers of key equipment. In addition, Mahmood and his colleagues appear to have recruited other scientists with more direct knowledge of making nuclear weapons.

Evidence is also strong that these scientists provided significant assistance to al Qaeda's efforts to make RDDs. However, the exact level of assistance remains uncertain.

It is unknown if these scientists provided enough information to allow al Qaeda to design a nuclear weapon. The scientists do not appear to have fully cooperated with the Pakistani authorities and establishing evidence of such transfer is very difficult to do in the best of circumstances.

Transfer of sensitive nuclear weapons information could have happened in many ways. The scientists could have provided direct assistance to al Qaeda's nuclear weapons program, including nuclear weapons and RDD information. They may have obtained secret documents during the course of their career that they passed to the Taliban or al Qaeda. They also could have been a "funnel" through which Pakistani nuclear weapons experts provided sensitive assistance, including documents or technical advice. The transfer of sensitive information by UTN officials or their colleagues may have occurred either in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Mahmood and his associates may have provided, or facilitated the transfer of, nuclear or nuclear-related hardware to the Taliban or al Qaeda. No public information is known about any such transfers, however.

Available evidence nonetheless supports the conclusion that this group of Pakistani nuclear scientists and colleagues had not provided the resources to enable al Qaeda to make nuclear weapons by October 2001, assuming that al Qaeda had acquired enough separated plutonium or HEU to make a nuclear explosive. Based on the evidence, Al Qaeda's nuclear weapons program was rather primitive in 2001, despite its long standing interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Given the immense effort required and al Qaeda's limited resources, it is highly unlikely that these scientists could have enabled al Qaeda or the Taliban to build facilities to make plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU). Foreign acquisition of plutonium or HEU would have remained necessary for many years.

UTN officials would have likely continued assisting al Qaeda with WMD after September 11th, and the type of records found in UTN's office in Kabul supports this conclusion. If the attacks on September 11th had not occurred, UTN officials would have probably provided extensive and on-going assistance to the nuclear efforts of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

One of the most threatening aspects of the involvement of the Pakistani scientists is that they could have provided the spark that ignited a successful effort by al Qaeda to build nuclear weapons. UTN officials had long experience in supervising large, complicated projects. This experience contributed to their ability to conduct their projects for the Taliban regime. These scientists could have provided experienced program management for a nuclear weapons project. In addition, they also had multiple contacts within the Pakistani nuclear community, from which they could tap a reservoir of nuclear scientists and expertise. As a result, they were well positioned to make significant contributions to an al Qaeda nuclear weapons program.

Al Qaeda was well integrated with the Taliban regime, perhaps it even dominated military matters. A nuclear weapons program would have had the characteristics of a quasi-national program. This type of program is better positioned to conduct the research and development necessary to build a crude nuclear explosive.

In addition, this type of program is likely to be more successful in obtaining sensitive items overseas than a traditional terrorist group operating in a hostile country. UTN's civilian projects may have served as a front for illicit procurement of items needed to make nuclear weapons or other WMD. With the end-user sanctioned as civilian by the Taliban government, sensitive items could have been more easily imported into Afghanistan.

UTN officials may have had another advantage. The success of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program depended on extensive illicit foreign procurement. Mahmood headed a large reactor project that also needed to import illicitly or secretly many items, including sensitive technology, materials, components, and manufacturing equipment. He and his colleagues must have had extensive information about procuring sensitive items for a nuclear weapons program.

Several UTN projects were aimed at reestablishing Afghanistan's manufacturing, scientific, and engineering capabilities in universities and industries. Projects focused on such reconstruction could have provided a convenient cover for importing sensitive items for WMD programs. Even if the procurement was illicit, a procurement effort is more likely to succeed if the exporting company believes it is sending items to a civil institution. Because many UTN projects were medical or humanitarian in nature, imports to these projects may have been exempt from the UN embargo on Afghanistan.

Some nuclear dual-use equipment, such as vacuum furnaces, would have been hard to procure, especially for al Qaeda. The involvement of the Pakistani scientists may significantly eased the task of obtaining such equipment.

A surprising piece of information was UTN's interest in developing uranium mining. It has been known for a long time that Afghanistan had uranium resources. But that Pakistani nuclear scientists and BTC were planning to extract uranium increases suspicions about their intentions. A nuclear weapon program would need uranium for components, or as a surrogate material for testing nuclear weapon designs or learning to make highly enriched uranium metal. Such a capability would also make any weapons program more indigenous.

Conclusion

The fall of the Taliban regime ended the threat that a quasi-state nuclear weapons program could have emerged in Afghanistan. This program would have likely continued to benefit significantly from the assistance of Pakistani nuclear scientists.

Many of the budding nuclear activities in Afghanistan were unknown to the rest of the world until the regime fell in November 2001. Reconstructing what al Qaeda learned or accomplished in its quest for nuclear weapons or RDDs is difficult and time-consuming. The background of Mahmood and his colleagues causes continuing suspicion that al Qaeda knows more about such weapons or has made more progress in building them than these scientists are willing to admit. Because al Qaeda is still believed to be actively seeking nuclear weapons and RDDs, what these scientists provided may still come to haunt us.


1 Michael Zielenziger. "Pakistani Officials Probe Nuclear Experts' Ties to Afghanistan," The Mercury News, October 28, 2001.


2 John F. Burns, "Pakistan Atom Experts Held Amid Fear of Leaked Secrets." The New York Times, November 1, 2001.


3 The date when Mahmood resigned varies in press reports. Dates of 1998, 1999, and 2000 are all given. For a date in 1999, which is taken as the most accurate date, see, Anwar Iqbal and Khawar Mehdi, "Nuclear Scientist Opposes Pakistan Accepting CTBT, The News, internet version, April 10, 1999; Susan B. Glasser and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan Continues Probe of Nuclear Scientists," The Washington Post, November 24, 2001 or Haider K. Nizamani, "Imperatives of the CTBT Debate," Dawn, February 28, 2000; and for a date of January 1, 2000, see Arshad Sharif, "Assets of Nuclear Scientist Frozen," Dawn, January 31, 2002. See also, Munir Ahmad, "Attacks-Scientist," Associated Press, October 24, 2001; and "Pakistan Atom Experts Held," op. cit.


4 Sultan Mahmood and Muhammad Nasim, "CTBT: A Technical Assessment." Pakistan Link, www.Pakistanlink.com/Opinion/2000/Jan/07/02.htm, January 7, 2000.


5 "Pakistan Atom Experts Held," op. cit.


6 Chidanand Rahghatta, "U.S. Spooked by 'Spirited' Pak Nuclear Scientist," The Times of India, November 2, 2002.


7 Asmir Latif, Isalam Online, "Two Pakistani Atomic Scientists Arrested," October 24, 2001. Available at www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-10/25/article3.shtml.


8 "Pakistan Moves Nuclear Weapons," op. cit.


9 Molly Moore and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan Moves Nuclear Weapons," The Washington Post, November 11, 2001.


10 "Pakistan Moves Nuclear Weapons," op. cit.


11 Amjad Bashir Siddiqi, "I Never Thought Meeting Osama, Omar Will Spell Trouble for Me," The News, March 19, 2002, internet version, http://www.jang.com.pk.


12 Chidanand Rahghatta, "US Spooked by 'Spirited' Pak Nuclear Scientist," The Times of India, November 2, 2002.


13 Rory McCarthy, "Worrying Times," The Guardian, November 8, 2001.


14 See for example, Farhatullah Babar, "Recalling a Patriot," International The News, May 2, 2002, http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/may2002-daily/02-05-2002/oped/o3.htm.


15 See Robert Windrem, NBC News, November 1, 2001.


16 For a short critique of Mahmood's methodology, see http://lists.isb.sknpk.org/pipermail/earth-sky-old/1999-July/000008.html.


17 Quoted in "Worrying Times," op. cit.


18 Quoted in "Bin Laden Almost Had Uranium Bomb," London Sunday Times, March 3, 2002.


19 Peter Baker, "Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions," The Washington Post, March 3, 2002.


20 "Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed" op. cit.


21 "U.S. Act Termed Terrorism," Dawn, October 9, 2001.


22 "Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed," op. cit.


23 "Islami Mahaz Urges Government to Resist Signing of CTBT," Dawn, February 14, 2000.


24 www.tanzeem.org. These quotes are taken from press releases found on this site that summarize what Ahmad said.


25 "Debt Trap World-based Phenomena," Dawn, May 28, 2001.


26 NBC, op. cit. (Nov 1, 2001).


27 NBC, op. cit. (Nov 1, 2001).


28 Jack Kelly, "Terrorists Courted Nuclear Scientists," USA Today, November 15, 2001.


29 Eurasia Insight, "Pakistan Scientists Under Investigation for Taliban-Bin Laden Links," Eurasianet, Novermber 18, 2001, www.eurasianet.org.


30 Zahid Hussain, Associated Press, December 9, 2001.


31 David Sanger, Douglas Frantz, and James Risen, "Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links to Al Qaeda," The New York Times, December 9, 2001.


32 "Nuclear Experts in Pakistan May Have Links," op. cit.


33 Carla Anne Robbins and Jeanne Cummings, "How Bush Decided that Hussein Must be Ousted from Atop Iraq," The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2002.


34 "How Bush Decided," op. cit.


35 "Pakistani Scientist Says No Anthrax Plant in Afghanistan, Discusses Prevention: U.S. Provides Chemical Weapons to Northern Alliance-Dr. Sultan," Islamabad Khabrain, October 6, 2001, in Urdu (available in English from FBIS, document number FBIS-NES-2001-1006).


36 "Pakistani Scientist Says No Anthrax Plant in Afghanistan," op. cit.


37 For more detailed information about these drawings, see Chris Stephen, "Kabul House of Anthrax Secrets, The Evening Standard, November 22, 2001; Douglas Frantz and David Rohde, "2 Pakistanis Linked to Papers on Anthrax Weapons," The New York Times, November 28, 2001; and David Rohde, "Germ Weapon Plans Found at a Scientist's House in Kabul," The New York Times, December 1, 2001.


38 "Pro-Taliban Nuclear Scientist Planned Large-Scale Investment in Afghanistan," Nawa-i-Waqt, October 31, 2001, in Urdu (English version in FBIS, document number FBIS-NES-2001-1031).


39 Reported in "Pro-Taliban Nuclear Scientist Planned Large-Scale Investment," op. cit.


40 Mahmood, "Who Are the Taliban," published by the Human Development Foundation, undated but the copyright is 2001. The article was found at http://www.yespakistan.com/afghancrisis/taliban.asp. ). This article is a highly flattering look at the Taliban and Mullah Omar, based on Mahmood's own experience and interviews in Afghanistan.


41 NBC, op. cit. (November1, 2001).


42 NBC, op. cit. (November 1, 2001).


43 "Nuclear Scientists Picked by Agencies," Pakistan Observer, web site at http:/pakobservercom.readyhosting.com/old/october/25/news08.shtml.


44 Amjad Bashir Siddiqi, "I Never Thought Meeting Osama, Omar Will Spell Trouble for Me," The News, March 19, 2002, internet edition.


45 The poor state of the roads in Afghanistan has been well known for years and has been seen as a major impediment to development. For example, on a trip to Afghanistan in April 2001 by a delegation led by Israr Ahmad that sought to increase investments there, the delegation was particularly struck by the poor condition of the road, which a trip report on the web site of Tanzeem-e-Islami, described as "devastated." This report, which paints an idyllic portrait of the Taliban leaders, describes meeting with Mullah Omar at his compound outside of Kandahar and being received in Kabul with the highest state protocol. The report describes Omar as extremely shy, soft spoken, and a man of few words. Omar led a prayer for Ahmad's group and hugged everyone, including a man in Ahmad's group that did not have a beard. The Taliban, who were looking for Muslims to invest in building Afghanistan, appealed to Ahmad's group to take their case to the people of Pakistan.


46 Shujaat Ali Khan, "Nuclear Scientists' Case Hearing Adjourned," Dawn, November 28, 2001.


47 Peter Baker and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan to Forgo Charges Against 2 Nuclear Scientists," The Washington Post, January 30, 2002.


48 "I Never Thought," op. cit.


49 Akhtar Jamal, "Pakistani Nuke Scientists to Face Charges for Al Qaeda Contacts," Eurasianet.org, December 13, 2001.


50 Kamran Khan and Molly Moore, "2 Nuclear Experts Briefed Bin Laden, Pakistanis Say," The Washington Post, December 12, 2001.


51 "2 Nuclear Scientists Briefed," op. cit


52 "2 Nuclear Scientists Briefed," op. cit


53 "2 Nuclear Scientists Briefed," op. cit


54 Kaman Khan, "Pakistan Releases Nuclear Scientists for Ramadan's End," The Washington Post, December 16, 2001.


55 "Bin Laden Almost Had Uranium Bomb," London Sunday Times, March 3, 2002.


56 Julian Boger, "Pakistan Nuclear Experts Advised Bin Laden," Guardian Unlimited, December 13 2001.


57 Peter Baker and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan to Forgo Charges Against 2 Nuclear Scientists," The Washington Post, January 30, 2002.


58 On www.isis-online.org, see the sections on export controls, Pakistan, and Iraq.


59 Peter Baker, "Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions," The Washington Post, March 3, 2002.


60 "I Never Thought," op. cit.


61 "I Never Thought," op. cit.


62 Julian West, "Al Qaeda Sought Nuclear Scientists," The Washington Times, April 11, 2002.


63 Susan B. Glasser and Kamran Khan, "Pakistan Continues Probe
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:36 PM
Response to Reply #126
127. I think RobertPaulsen has been following info on Pak Scientist Mahmood
and this is a scientist who is also an occultist and religious
fanatic, and also speaks of the end of the world...predicted
wars and terrorism around the world for 2002 long before 2002.

And gave Al Queda apparently nuclear weaponry as well as bio-chemical
biological weaponry such as antrhas.

Not a good thing to read but important at the same time.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:46 AM
Response to Reply #126
167. Yikes!!
Double Yikes!
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:15 AM
Response to Reply #167
182. SCHRABY- yes yikes. Yr link (to me) shows no question OBL has
dirty bomb. And if RP and the rest of us are correct about
how Pakistan got it, this current government and its previous namesake, with the same players, are responsible for it.

MIHOP AND LIHOP.

It's terrible to think about. Bastids
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #103
121. KOHO thank you. These are the footnotes to my theory of Plame>Halliburton>
and I remembered reading them, but couldn't remember where.

Thanks again.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:22 PM
Response to Original message
123. I have been in contact
with a few other people from very different political/social interests. I think that there is a growing interest in the "why?" school of thought. While I can appreciate that some people have become frustrated, hoping that things would happen much faster, I think we are actually making good progress.

Surely no one on here thinks that we are prosecuting this case in federal court. But by spreading the word, more and more people become aware of the true nature of this case. By aiming at grass-roots level internet sites, newsletters, etc., we will make more of a difference than by trying to catch the attention of the major medias. When enough people at the grass-roots level become aware of the information that we are putting together, the major media will likely take note .... which really might be a shame, because no matter what their intentions, they distort the truth.

Among the many mini-conflicts in our nation's history is the tensions between Jeffersonian and Hamilitonian schools of thought. With all due respect to those here who favor Hamilton, I prefer Jefferson: grass roots democracy should be the goal.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:36 PM
Response to Reply #123
128. Paging H2O
I sent your paper to Daniel Hopsicker

http://www.madcowprod.com

He's one of the best investigative journalists around. Here's his email reply to me:

"thanks for the kind words.
i, too, am for taking power out of the hands of the crooks. but incrementally, because i fear if they were somehow all made to vacate at once it would create a vacuum effect that might feel like being in an airliner when the cargo door blows and ten rows of seats slip out at once. maybe twenty rows. certainly most of first class.
coincidentally, i just got the wilson book the other night, and am making ready to read it now.
that plame was active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD is of course news to me.
can you tell me more about this?
daniel"

H2O Man....do you have the time to email Hopsicker and give him the facts? I REALLY don't want to screw this up. I'll wait for your answer to post his email address.

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #123
130. H20, I hope you don't mind: I've sent to some online authors
with blogs or newsletters and added that they can reach you through
your nom de plume on these threads....H20

So if you start getting internal e mails from internet papers, you'll know.

Our one problem here is our timing. The 911 report is taking up
all the attention right now. And the Democratic Convention will
take up all of next week's and maybe after, so our e mails may
get lost in the shuffle.

For instance, Will Pitt, who is a popular writer on here, is in
Boston and apparently will be at the convention....

I guess what I'm saying is if we don;t get response in the next two
weeks, we should realize there are major happenings keeping the
people we want to reach busy, so that we may have to try again in
two weeks or so.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #130
134. Yes, good.
The Waterman Paper is for the use of the people who share our goals and support our work. It's not for "self-promotion." It's for the promotion of our series of threads.

The idea of time .... if I am in a hurry .... on patience .... all of this is funny to me. In a good way .... I'm not coming down on anybody here. But time is merely a way that people in western society ... and in our culture .... meaure their activities. But for those who do not root their reality in this culture's concepts, time is something entirely different ..... because it's always "now." And by no small coincidence, that's a basic concept of all eastern schools of thought: "be here, now" implies that it is always "now."

So I get a giggle out of people who accuse me of being impatient. I've invested 26 years in a Superfund Site case .... which quite literally was turned in our favor when I found that page 100556 was missing from the records. Pages 1 through 100555 were there, and everything from 100557 on.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:31 PM
Response to Reply #134
146. Yes, just one little missing piece can open everything. This
is something I know about. And that's how these threads have
gotten so far. One piece opening to another.
And who knows - the one or two pieces we need to confirm the theories just may show up.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under

the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

—Ecclesiastes 3:1–8


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scottxyz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:40 PM
Response to Reply #134
149. I also thought it was funny to say that H2O Man is "impatient"
H2O Man strikes me as one of the most patient people I've ever run across on DU. His measured, respectful speech, his invocation of great political thinkers' relevant inspiring statements from the past, his painstaking research and extensive reading, his calm unfazed reactions to counterpoints, and his constant reminders that we only need to take one step at a time - frankly all these things have been somewhat of an inspiration to me (and, by the sound of many of these posts to many other people on these threads). And I really like the way H2O Man reminds us that we shouldn't give up hope even when the task seems insurmountable - just send out a few more letters he says, go one step at a time. This is really great advice. If we follow it, we might find that when we each contribute one small stone every day, we may be able to collectively, over time, construct a truly beautiful, lasting edifice.

H2O Man has reminded me of how civil, patient and pragmatic a grassroots organizer should be.

Strange the way some (Tellurian, I'm looking at you) are calling H2O Man (one of the most patient people on DU) "impatient".

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #149
157. Thank you, my Friend Scottxyz:
It means a lot to me to know that you and many others on here understand what I'm saying, and appreciate how difficult it can be at times to say and do things on a forum such as DU. I think we are making great progress. This is what grass-roots political activism is all about. We can not possible hope to make changes occure in Washington unless we are willing and able to change ourselves. And in order to do that, we need to be brave enough to see things in a different way, and then to act in a different way. That is the essence of being an agent of change.

But when I say things like that, I understand that there are going to be people who resist the very idea of it .... because they want things to change while they stay the same. That's human nature, at least when those humans are put into an environment as artificial as is ours. And others will point out that I'm not perfect .... of course I'm not! ..... as if that negates the message.

Hopefully we can move away from personality on here, and focus on the issues. I think that your posts tonight do a good job of putting those issues first. Again, I thank you for that.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 09:58 PM
Response to Reply #130
135. Pallas, don't forget that Nixon was re-elected before
he was forced to resign.

I think Bush can be defeated, but if not (for whatever reason), it only makes our work that much more important. We need to make sure the investigation (if not indictment) is in full swing prior to 11/02. We need to keep their criminal actions in front of the public. The train must leave the station BEFORE the election. So even if nothing breaks in the next few weeks we need to keep the pressure on.

So let's concentrate on getting the word out regardless of the Media's spin du jour.

We can win, and need to keep our positive vision of what the world can be.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:25 PM
Response to Reply #135
142. Our goal is to
raise serious questions about this administration. It's not our goal to be able to answer all of those questions. It's like the old saying: we are not telling people what to think, but trying to model how to think. Participatory democracy includes asking questions. The Bill of Rights is based in very large part on the idea that people at the grass-roots level have the right (and the obligation) to ask questions.

One of my favorite lessons from Shakespeare is that "our destiny does not lie in the stars, but lies in ourselves: in our actions, in our words, and in our deeds."
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Beam Me Up Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 01:13 AM
Response to Reply #142
166. I put this up on July 4, facing out onto Bay Area Rapid Transit
so it was seen by, easily, 30,000 people a day for a week.

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 06:28 AM
Response to Reply #166
173. That's great!!!
I like it!
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:18 AM
Response to Reply #173
183. BMU Maybe we should all do it, or at least bumper sticker it. It says it
all. Thanks BMU.

Can you have bumper stickers made:

'PATRIOTS ASK QUESTIONS"

wow.
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:15 AM
Response to Reply #166
196. WOW!
That's amazing
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:07 PM
Response to Reply #135
156. OK Koho. I've even thought if they took the election, there's time before
inauguration.

Kind of like we have to keep banging at that iron door of the
media until they open it.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:58 AM
Response to Reply #123
199. This is REALLY important, guys. Conventional reporters don't have time
to chase down stuff like this anymore.

That's one of the things John Dean said recently at that ACLU thing I attended:

REMEMBER SOMETHING, guys:

He said there would NOT be any such animal in THIS day and age as Woodward and Bernstein was during Watergate.

Why?

Simple.

MONEY.

The media's all owned by a consolidated and ever-shrinking cabal of corporations. All they care about is making money - increasing their profit margins and cutting their costs (which further increase their profit margins). IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE to have investigative journalists or investigative units on your payroll. They don't produce every day. They're usually digging into stories that are complicated and take a long time to explain - not good for the 15-second soundbite-MTV short attention span audience out there now. So they can't be counted on to come up with something fully formed for every 6 o'clock news, or every front page. Therefore, emphasize the "quick-n-dirty." That reporter who's working on one long, involved, complicated investigative thing could more profitably be used chasing five or six stories per day instead of that one - that he's STILL working on and hasn't made air with - for weeks.

Dean said that's why you don't see the Woodward/Bernstein activity now. Too expensive. Reporters now are assigned some half-dozen stories EVERY day that they're responsible for cranking out. So they perform like so many stones skipping across the surface of the water, when the REAL story is always several feet or fathoms down below the surface. And the public never knows, or is presumed to need to know, what's down there.

THAT'S WHY THIS IS GREAT - getting the Waterman Paper and other theories out to other journalists. The online writers and journalists are the only ones left who can luxuriate in the depths of stories like these.

WE ARE THE INVESTIGATIVE TEAM. THE THINK TANK STRIKES AGAIN! This isn't just hashing over a bunch of stray lengths of yarn so they knit into a sweater. This is a public service! Our research and theorizing is gonna help somebody in a position to run with it, because we'll have done most of the leg work for him/her.

Keep it coming, guys...
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tableturner Donating Member (199 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:31 PM
Response to Original message
145. Just wondering, H2O...
About what first caught my fascination in this thread, the 7/14 date was derived a)via logical progression, simply using a two week period after the expected grand jury expiration; or b)inside information as to both the date and the identities of the probable indictees. I mean, the particular date, the seeming assurance that we would be toasting with champagne, the overall aura of certainty makes me believe there is inside info. But other things you have written make it look like a logical progression unshaped by inside info.

And if you have an inside connection, what is the latest?
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:44 PM
Response to Reply #145
151. Interesting question.
I believe that in an entirely different thread, I first gave the date of 7-14 in late April.
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tableturner Donating Member (199 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:51 PM
Response to Reply #151
152. Answer to that "interesting question" is.......
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NightOwwl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:32 PM
Response to Original message
147. H20 Man
I have read some of the posts on each of the threads...and this doesn't seem to be going anywhere. You appear to know quite a bit, but you also seem to take enjoyment from dangling the carrot in front of everyone. Why don't you just come out and tell people what you know instead of talking in vague riddles?

I admit I have not been able to read all 12 threads, unfortunately I have to work. So if you've answered the question before, I apologize.

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 10:58 PM
Response to Reply #147
154. I'm not sure which posts you've read.
But if you read the one on this thread called the Waterman Paper, it might help to clarify things. I would also point out that several of us have sent letters to a number of elected officials and media sources.

You are the second person who has told me that I am "vague" in the past three days. I'm assuming in good faith that you are sincere, and are not the person who e-mailed me that same thought. And I do try to provoke both thought and discussion. But I do not try to hold myself out as being anything other than part of a group of thought-provoking people on here. I have had some people insulting me today with name-calling like "teacher." I appreciate that you ask me straight questions, without the nasty little stabs.

I hope I've answered at least some of your questions. No need to apologize at all; I have no problem with people asking me serious and direct questions.
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tableturner Donating Member (199 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:04 PM
Response to Reply #154
155. H2O, inside info or logic? Dying to know.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:25 PM
Response to Reply #155
160. My favorite "Man X" was named
Malcolm ..... and he used to say, "Those who know, don't say; while those who say, don't know."

That's not what you should be focusing on, my friend! I'm not the issue! And to the extent that a few other people -- and I don't mean you -- have tried to make me the issue, it distracts from the real issues that are important in your day-to-day life. The economy, the war in Iraq today and the war planned in Iran tomorrow, the environment, the draft, the price of education. Who I am is of no significance at all .... and if I begin discussing myself, then I become a target for some, a projection of the psyche of others. And that has nothing at all -- not at all -- to do with why I'm on here.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #154
158. H20, Actually I think of you as a Professor - and if this isn't
something you've been doing, as well as writing, I think you
really should be..... second careers...or third...or fourth...

:)
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:43 PM
Response to Reply #158
163. It's been a while......
and I really want to get back to my retirement.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:21 AM
Response to Reply #163
184. H20 - smile. Seems a little late for that now. You're in it with
both hands and ten fingers. :)
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:36 AM
Response to Reply #184
188. I did some work with the NYS U system
with graduate students in social work; with OMH and the police agencies on related projects; etc etc. It's actually a time in my life I really enjoyed. There are times this reminds me of those old and long, long, long gone days.
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NightOwwl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:24 PM
Response to Reply #154
159. Thanks for the reply.
I think what bothers me when I come to this thread (and the 11 others), is that there doesn't seem to be any movement beyond sending letters to officials. What happened with the indictments becoming public? You do sound like you know more than you are letting on. Why are you keeping the information to yourself.

Maybe people are calling you vague because you are being vague. I don't mean that comment to sound snide, but your responses to questions never really give a solid answer.

In the meantime I will read 'The Waterman Paper.' (I'm guessing you are Waterman).
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:40 PM
Response to Reply #159
162. Yes, I am the Waterman ....
H2O Man = Waterman.

You do not sound snide. You sound like you have an open mind. And that's what is important.

I hope that the grand jury wraps up soon .... and that by early August, we have some reason for celebration.

People view the same things differently .... and that's not bad. Because if we all thought the same ....which would imply that we all behaved the same .... and would share the same strengths and weaknesses .... than humanity would degenerate, and rot on the vine. As it is, only the proper % of people are rotten degenerates , though it's a shame so many are in elective office in Washington, DC.

I'll end for tonight by saying this : no one else is able to give you "the answers." I might, at best, help you phrase the questions in a more meaningful way. But I can't give any other human being "the answer" ..... and I surely wouldn't, even if I could!

"Be ye lamps unto yourselves.
Be your own reliance.
Hold to the truth within yourselves
as to the only lamp."
-- Buddha
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TacticalPeek Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:05 AM
Response to Reply #162
164. One thing clearer to me now: Plame has mighty spy mojo, or tradecraft,
or whatever. Legend.

The act of trying to focus on why she was outed seems to be drawn toward . . unfocus, distraction. (I'm not taking any sides.) But really, it is almost spooky. (hmm) It could well be that she, like the outer(s), is naturally inclined to not be seen, or at least not noticed or remembered.

Sometimes when googling around about this, I feel like I am being reverse-google-bombed. I'm not sure if it's been done yet, but it's probably possible. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb)


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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-22-04 11:34 PM
Response to Original message
161. BTW, snail mail may not be welcome, the Convention rcvd faux anthrax
letters today, filled with a powder which was not bio -
but they had to call out all the emergency trucks and people.
so I'm thinking the Senators and others may not appreciate
receiving paper letters.

Our best bet still may be fax.

Some can fax from their computers...and somewhere there's a
fax number for the Senate in general which routes the faxes.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:12 PM
Response to Reply #161
201. Here's how you get around that Snail Mail - Anthrax Fear:
If there’s concern that the “anthrax scare” will slow down or stop your letter from getting through, TWO things you can do:
a) SEND A POSTCARD.

b) Avoid a closed envelope. Write your letter on a piece of 8 1/2 X 11 inch paper. Fold it three ways, as though you were about to insert it into a conventional envelope. Then tape it shut - ONLY ONCE, in the middle, so both sides are open and it is CLEARLY easy to see there's nothing in there but words on paper. Write the address on the back, with your return address, just as though it were on a conventional envelope. Then stamp and send.

The more obviously non-threatening it is, the less trouble you'll have, and the more likely it'll get delivered.

c) if possible, CC the letter to others, so the recipient knows that other eyes are also seeing the same thing. I read a story more than a year ago about a woman who objected to the New York Times' lowballing of crowd size at war protests. She complained, in writing to the Times. She also CC'ed the letter to the Washington Post, and I believe, to the Editor & Publisher website. That way, when the New York Times got it, they also saw that others, INCLUDING their prime competitor, got the same thing, and probably were enjoying seeing the enemy chastised, being caught in a mistake. A correction was issued very quickly thereafter. This was in response to complaints about the Times' underestimating crowd size from other protestors who were there and didn't like seeing their huge numbers being discounted, with their complaints ignored and nothing done to rectify it.

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:45 PM
Response to Reply #201
212. Thanks CALIMARY - letter-no envelope - good idea.
:hi:
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burrowowl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:08 AM
Response to Original message
165. Slow down you guys!
I will be away for 10 days to see my Uncle who is 93.
It is going to be difficult catching up!
Best wishes to all in the search for Truth!
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:05 AM
Response to Reply #165
169. Did anyone send the
Waterman papers to Josh Marshall?
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 06:12 AM
Response to Reply #169
172. Please do.
That would be nice.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 06:32 AM
Response to Reply #172
174. Sent it to
Josh Marshall..mission accomplished.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 06:40 AM
Response to Reply #174
175. thanks!
this is a case of more being better.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:28 AM
Response to Reply #169
185. Schraby, Yep, but dupes might get the point across that we
are not lone individuals writing..so if they receive 10, no harm done
do you agree?

I also sent to a bunch of Ben & Jerry Ice cream funded "truth
organizations", a lot of them out west, and to Will Pit, and
The Guardian UK, Maureen Dowd, Krugman, and still workin on it :)



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daria_g Donating Member (28 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:28 AM
Response to Original message
170. Washington Times piece
Curious. Which "officials"?

July 23, 2004
CIA officer named prior to column

By Bill Gertz

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040722-115439-4033r.htm

The identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame was compromised twice before her name appeared in a news column that triggered a federal illegal-disclosure investigation, U.S. officials say.
Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs. Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.

-snip-

However, officials said the disclosure that Mrs. Plame's cover was blown before the news column undermines the prosecution of the government official who might have revealed the name, officials said.
"The law says that to be covered by the act the intelligence community has to take steps to affirmatively protect someone's cover," one official said. "In this case, the CIA failed to do that."
A second official, however, said the compromises before the news column were not publicized and thus should not affect the investigation of the Plame matter.


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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 05:52 AM
Response to Reply #170
171. I emailed them and
told them if they were going to print something as outlandish as that, they could print the names of the unidentified officials as it could neither be proven or disproven.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:49 AM
Response to Reply #171
189. Schraby-Wash Times lost cause - dimson 1 and 2 and de-lay &
many rethuglicans make special appearances at their rallies/
conventions.

If I'm not mistaken, I read somewhere they've contributed over a
mil to ush campaigns, but I dont remember if it was 1 or 2's.

A shame they have access and look like a reputable paper.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 01:15 PM
Response to Reply #189
209. I know it's a rag, but
I didn't think they should think they got away with their story. That not everyone buys their b.s.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #170
187. SPIN. Wash Times owned by Sun Yung Moon favorite of dimson family-
bulldoggy try at removing potential Treason charge.

incredible. That Rove spin machine or is it Newt, just doesn't
stop.

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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:04 AM
Response to Original message
176. H2O read your Waterman Paper last night
I agree with most if not all of your conclusions and I believe that you came by them in logical fashion. The 3rd theory needs to be verified and I hope that that this will happen soon. I was going to suggest sending the info to an investigative journalist but I see that Shraby and RebelYell have already done so! Fabulous. And thank you both for that.

We can't send letters to Congress right now, so the only persons we can contact who might be helpful are the journalists. They have the sources -- hopefully -- to either support your conclusions or debunk them. And they also have the ability to make them public. I am very interested in the outcome of those communications. When our theories start showing up in print that will be a major victory for the people on this thread.

So many people have put a lot of work into answering the questions on this thread! An exhaustive research process has been undertaken and theories proposed as a result. I have agreed with most, disagreed with some. Other theories in my opinion were not useful or supportive of the goals of the discussion. Everyone has done a remarkable job of answering "why" and I'm very proud of you all. And I do mean all.

Now I can't wait for the other shoe to drop.

As always H2O, thank you for your hard work on this thread. While not everyone has agreed with you I think on the whole your conclusions were valid and you came by them honestly.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:34 AM
Response to Reply #176
178. Two things:
(1) As everyone who has read my original series of posts way back on Thread #1 knows, I never said that I would "prove" anything. Never pretended that I was going to check the White House for finger prints. Rather, I said that people needed to use a method of inquirey that you could learn from one scene in Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK." And, if people were interested, they could read the real-life human being "Man X" book, also titled "JFK," by Col. Prouty.

If you read Prouty's book, you'll find that he doesn't point the finger at any one person. He lays out some material in a series of small chapters. Most people who read the book realize he has actually answered the questions, but that the real truth can not always be said in so many words.

Likewise, I suggested people read "Farewell America." When you read the book, you likely will not have any idea who the author is. And it doesn't have mug shots of criminals. But it answers questions.

While my paper pales in comparison, I wrote it to the best of my admittedly very limited ability in that same spirit. From the first evening on, that is the role that I decided to accept on here. Most people are okay with that. A few want me to play a different role for their own needs. That's a game I refuse to play.

(2) There are still going to be a few people in various congressional offices. They may be in the smaller "home" offices. Think of human nature: when the supervisors are on vacation, the staff that does the real day-to-day work slows the pace. They do that work which may bring more of a sense of relaxation, even pleasure. Our letters fit that very description. It is perhaps just as likely that your letter will get a proper reading now as when things are very busy.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:01 AM
Response to Reply #178
181. H2O, did you misunderstand what I was trying to say?
I know that it is hard to judge the spirit of a post sometimes but I was AGREEING with you. I never asked you to verify anything, I said it was good that we forwarded your paper to journalists. They might be able to do what we cannot do, as their resources are better than ours. You came up with some excellent theories. As it happens I AGREE with your theories. The important thing now is to get them out there. Sending the Waterman Paper to journalists is a fabulous thing. I'm really glad people are doing that.

I'm not calling you down on the carpet -- I'm congratulating you and everyone else on the board for a job well done. I'm sorry if I was not clear about that.

I didn't realize that sending letters to congressmen might still be a valuable exercise. I'll try to get on it this weekend. Thanks for pointing that out.

I'm your friend. I thought you understood that -- do you?

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #181
186. Yes, I certainly do!
Point of fact: you are my good friend. And being good friends is not something conditional ..... my best friends disagree with me frequently ..... and even my beautiful wife, who is my very best friend -- my Yoko Only, if you will -- disagrees with me on a good many things.

I knew you were agreeing with me. (smile) And not simply because you have an agreeable nature. I was merely taking the opportunity to respond to a valuable point that you made, to make a point of my own on this very public forum.

And I'll even take it a step further -- and this has little, or actually nothing, to do with you .... it's simple making use of a public forum .... but even Tellurian, who I have no desire to speak to again in this lifetime ..... is okay with me. Not a bad person. Just confused. But it is the lot of many acorns to confuse themselves with mighty oak trees .... in other words, to think that their potential is the reality of here and now .... and I am only interested in dealing with the here and now.

But again, you are my good friend. We're on an adventure -- together. And I respect and enjoy your company.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:56 AM
Response to Reply #186
191. Whew! had me worried for a second there
LOL at your reference to Yoko. If your wife is anything like Yoko then you are a lucky man. I think she's been widely misunderstood -- and I also think she is really cool. She is one of those people who (even when I disagree with her) I find completely refreshing. She has a good mind. An open mind. I'll just bet you and Mrs. H2O have some very stimulating conversations.

Hey I am sorry about your disagreement with Tellurian. I think it is sad but I don't know the details and it is likely best that I not know. I like Tellurian. I don't always agree with him but I like him. Mildly confused about the Tellurian issue honestly. . .

I feel as if my contribution to the board has been limited, because I've been busy with a work project and the demands of friends and family. So tired! My work project should wind up in the next several days and I'll have more time to read, research if necessary, and contribute more of substance. I have really enjoyed this. And since I was glued to my computer anyway it has offered a much-needed distraction from tedious (read boring) work.

After the first couple of threads I developed a rather ambitious reading list and never had time to get to any of it. Farewell America is available online, but everything else on my list had to be bought at a book store. May be a few weeks before I can get to one.

Anyway glad we cleared that up. And totally excited to see what kind of response we get from the journalists.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:11 PM
Response to Reply #191
200. Yoko
took out a full page ad in the LA Times right before the Iraq war - blank page except for "PEACE" in the middle of the page. Powerful.

I agree she's misunderstood. Her heart's in the right place, and if John Lennon chose her above all others to spend his life with, she must have been very special.

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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:35 PM
Response to Reply #200
204. Lennon quote from 1980
"We're a family. There's Yoko and I, we're married and we have a child and we want that child to have a good future. You have the power, you have the vote. Just show your neighbors you're trying to be peaceful however hard it is. It's hard for us all. Just pass the word around; just give it a form. Just have one word, 'Peace' in the window and even if you don't exactly know why you're putting it in the window, it can't harm you. Then you'll come across other people who've put 'Peace' in the window, that we're hoping for peace, that we're all together in this thing. We all want peace, whatever job we have. On a local level you can do a lot you know, you really can. And all we've got to say is, just think of your children. Do you want them to be killed or don't you? And that's the choice we have in front of us, war or peace."

And from Yoko, October 2001:
"My feeling is that there are some people who are threatened by the idea of peace, because they want to go to war. But we have to have the wisdom not to take these polls too seriously. The polls show more than 80% of the people want to go to war. Nobody asked me. No poll researcher came to me to ask those questions. None of my friends were ever asked either. What kind of poll is that?

"Quite often as we pray for peace, we imagine war. Imagining and prayer have to go together. Imagine all the people living life in peace while you pray."
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:29 PM
Response to Reply #178
203. I bet Henry Waxman isn't completely off-duty... TRY THESE:
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 12:34 PM by calimary
The MOST INCREDIBLY HONORABLE HENRY WAXMAN: http://www.henrywaxman.house.gov /

HENRY WAXMAN info: (from www.congress.org – or MORE specifically in this case: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/?id=651&lvl=C&chamber=H )

Web Site: www.house.gov/waxman
E-mail: Contact Via 'Write Your Rep.'

Washington Office:
2204 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-0530
Phone: (202) 225-3976
Fax: (202) 225-4099

Main District Office:
8436 W. 3rd St., #600
Los Angeles, CA 90048
Phone: (323) 651-1040
Fax: (323) 655-0502

Here's Eliot Spitzer's: http://www.oag.state.ny.us/contact.html

MORE...

EXECUTIVE OFFICES – NY ATTORNEY GENERAL :
Albany (map)
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224-0341
(518) 474-7330

Buffalo (map)
Statler Towers
107 Delaware Avenue
Buffalo, New York 14202-3473
(716) 853-8400

New York City (map)
120 Broadway
New York City, NY 10271
(212) 416-8000

REGIONAL OFFICES:
Binghamton (map)
44 Hawley Street, 17th Floor
Binghamton, NY 13901-4433
(607) 721-8778

Brooklyn (map)
55 Hansen Place
Brooklyn, NY 11217-1523
(718) 722-3949

Hauppauge (map)
300 Motor Parkway
Hauppauge, NY 11788-5127
(631) 231-2400

Harlem (map)
163 West 125th Street
New York, NY 10027-8201
(212) 961-4475

Mineola (map)
200 Old Country Road
Mineola, NY 11501-4241
(516) 248-3302

Plattsburgh (map)
70 Clinton Street
Plattsburgh, NY 12901-2818
(518) 562-3282

Poughkeepsie (map)
235 Main Street, 3rd Floor
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-3194
(845) 485-3900

Rochester (map)
144 Exchange Boulevard
Rochester, NY 14614-2176
(585) 546-7430

Syracuse (map)
615 Erie Blvd. W., Suite 102
Syracuse, NY 13210-2339
(315) 448-4800

Utica (map)
207 Genesee St., Room 504
Utica, NY 13501-2812
(315) 793-2225

Watertown (map)
317 Washington Street
Watertown, NY 13601-3744
(315) 785-2444

White Plains (map)
101 East Post Road
White Plains, NY 10601-5008
(914) 422-8755

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:17 AM
Response to Original message
177. Good morning, DUers!
"Who then are the true philosophers? Those who are lovers of the vision of truth." - Plato

Thursday I bought "Crimes Against Nature," by environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It is subtitled:"How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering and Hijacking Our Democracy." I would give the book an A+ or five stars, depending on the rating system. It's a wonderful book, easily read, that has a broad appeal to people from the left to moderate republicans. I urge everyone to read it.

Yesterday I went to another bookstore and picked up four more books for the weekend. It looks like rain, so it's best to be prepared.

"The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency," by James Bamford looks good. It's a Penguin Book, and the cover states it's "The Book The NSA Tried To Suppress."

"An Unfinished Life" is another JFK biography. Robert Dallek, the author, wrote one of my favorite LBJ books, "Flawed Giant." Anything Dallek writes is worth reading.

"Beyond Belief," Elaine Pagels book on the gospel of Thomas, follows the path of her earlier works in exploring the "why?" Christianity took the course it did. Pagels is a gifted author, who has the ability to read between the lines of traditional perceptions.

Finally, I bought "Big Lies," by Joe Conason. His name has been tossed out during a few of the threads. I've never read anything by him before, but one of my associates said that his books are good.

That'll give me something to do in between the stack of letters, etc, which I have to get out this weekend.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:59 AM
Response to Reply #177
180. Good Mornning and a morning opinion please
Of the various theories presented here, there seems to be a good amount of circumstantial evidence to push the thought process in their respective directions.

In your opinion (and all other participants on this thread) do you think the Fitzgerald investigation could get bogged down by following up on the various links, "coincidences", etc? Could chasing after those theories distract from the original objective?

What do you (all) think?

Extra strong coffee this AM....didn't sleep well last night.......
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:51 AM
Response to Reply #180
190. You make an interesting point....
...actually, a couple of points. I've frequently mentioned my admiration for Vince Bugliosi, the retired DA. Malcolm X used to say about people like Vince that they "have brains gone to bed." He stands out as one of the smartest and most honorable people in public life in our generation.

We know from Vince that there are two types of evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct tends to fall into the area of an "eye" witness, a finger print, a blood sample, and the like.Circumstantial can include motive, opportunity, etc. As you may note, direct=how, while circumstantial = why.

Many people mistakenly believe that direct evidence is somehow "better." It's not. (Nor is it actually "worse.") But any good lawyer can confuse any normal person on the witness stand. It happens every day. Look at the infamous OJ criminal trial (not the civil one). Solid evidence like a hat & glove become questionable, because of the talents of the defense team. Not the genius, simply the talents. The DA's office was obsessed with the direct, and the thing Bugliosi taught me was that direct evidence is like a chain: if the other side breaks one link, you have a broken chain.

Circumstantial evidence is like a rope. Every piece forms a thread. Each thread creates a stronger rope. If one thread breaks, the rope still holds.

We've build a good rope. I'm not saying we have tied Cheney et al to the case to such an extent that Fitzgerald can retire, and turn the reins of power over to us. That's never been the goal. But I will say that if most open-minded people read even just the Waterman Paper, they would likely want to see it investigated further.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:10 AM
Response to Reply #190
192. The effect of "Outside Events"
Thanks for your reply. Your comments about Bigliosi brought to mind another good point about prosecutors. I understand that a good prosecutor likes to use the technique of "spreading the subject on the record". That is, get the subject to tell all he/she is willing to say and on record and then "spread" it over other fact, statements, and evidence. At that point inconsistencies and details can be used to point the prosecutor in one direction or another in order to get to the truth. Will Cheney et al get "spread on the record"? In this investigation the chances are slim, but there is something else, an "outside event" if you will, going on that will be very, very powerful.

Remember the news story that got buried by the Sandy Berger incident? Halliburton is being investigated for illegal dealings with Iran. The investigation has been going on for sometime and has turned in to a criminal investigation AND centers around the time when Cheney was CEO. Cheney has no immunity in this one. He cannot help but be "spread on the record". That record overlayed on the Plame investigation may be the key to the various theories presented here.

I may be dreaming, but I can only hope.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:23 AM
Response to Reply #192
193. The "outing" of Berger the same day Cheny charges published therefore
no one saw Cheney's "shame" on the front page of a limited
business publication....and the media hasn't seen fit
to mention it.....

so I've been sending around an e mail callled " A Rove Special"
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #180
210. I doubt it.
He will probably zero in on the original charge, check out a couple of side things that are obviously connected, and in a trial if and as other stuff comes up they can be checked out as the trial continues. Trials of this sort usually drag on for some time which will give time for staff to track down other leads.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:58 AM
Response to Original message
179. Waterman Paper sent to
Mike Ruppert and Wayne Madsen at

http://www.fromthewilderness.com

Two very credible and reliable investigative journalists

I'll be in and out today - Friday's are a nightmare for me

Over and out
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:51 AM
Response to Reply #179
195. What a Cool Move.
They would certainly be inclined to pay attention
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:24 PM
Response to Original message
202. I'm sending the Paper to....
...Michael Moore.

I'm sure he gets tons of emails every day, but maybe we'll get lucky. He's a millionaire (having rich people on your side doesn't hurt) and obviously knows what we're dealing with.
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:39 PM
Response to Reply #202
205. This is Interesting
I've gotten this email 2 days in a row. I believe I got it because of a petition I signed a while back. But I never signed one about this, in fact I never knew there was one. I took out the dear so & so part.



You've helped ignite an important story that cannot be ignored. Yesterday, while the press was responding to the newly released report of the 9-11 commission, you fueled a serious and very much related story. You've already made news, but we can't stop now!

Was Dick Cheney involved in Halliburton's dealings with Iran? The Halliburton office opened in Tehran just months before he stepped down as CEO to join the Bush ticket. Now that we know the connections between Iran and al Qaeda, we must find out about the connections between Iran and Halliburton.

We deserve to know the truth - demand it today!


In less than 24 hours, over 10,000 of you have signed ACT's petition demanding a full investigation by the Department of Justice. This is a big story that can't be ignored. This is not just another petition.

If you haven't already - please ACT now. Make your voice heard loud and clear before the weekly news cycle closes.
Sign the petition demanding a full investigation and forward it to five of your friends.

Join ACT and demand the truth about Halliburton, Cheney and Iran once and for all. Help us elect responsible Democratic candidates up and down the ticket - in federal, state and local elections in 2004.

Thanks for all you do (and will do) in the 101 days ahead.

Ellen Malcolm
ACT President

PS. Read the press release below. ACT is leading the drumbeat on this story while at work around the country. We have 100 days left and we need your support now more than ever.

http://contribute.actforvictory.org

If you haven't already - please get your friends, family and coworkers involved in our cause. Also, consider pledging your support to ACT today. Throughout July every dollar you contribute will be matched -doubled by a generous donor who is highly committed to our work. ACT today.

AMERICA COMING TOGETHER
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 22, 2004

The Truth About Dick Cheney and Halliburton

It is widely known that before becoming Vice President, Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton, an oil-services company that also provides military support and construction services, from 1995 to 2000. As the House Committee on Government Reform hears fresh testimony today on Halliburton waste and misuse of taxpayer money in Iraq, remember this about Halliburton and its relationship with Dick Cheney.

Cheney Approved Enron Style Accounting as Halliburton CEO

"When Cheney was at the helm of the oil exploration giant, the company changed the way it calculated its profits. Starting in 1998, Halliburton began counting as revenue money it had not yet collected from clients, because the charges were still in dispute. The company's current chief says Cheney, as CEO, knew about the change… The change allowed Halliburton to add $89 million in revenues to its books."

Cheney opened Tehran office as Halliburton CEO.

"Since 1995, U.S. companies and individuals have been banned from conducting commerce with Iran, but the sanctions allow 'independent foreign subsidiaries' of U.S. companies to do so. The investigation could be embarrassing for Vice President Dick Cheney, who was Halliburton's chief executive from 1995 until 2000, when he resigned to join the Republican ticket. Halliburton's Cayman Islands subsidiary opened a Tehran office in early 2000, before Mr. Cheney left the company."

Justice Department Investigating Halliburton-Iran Links. On the same day, the US Justice Department announced a criminal investigation into Halliburton's business dealings in Iraq. US law prohibits US companies from doing business with terrorist states such as Iran. While Cheney was CEO, however, Halliburton used a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands to attempt to avoid the law.

Under Cheney, Halliburton did Business with Terrorist Sponsors Iran, Iraq, and Libya. As the New Yorker reported, "The United States had concluded that Iraq, Libya, and Iran supported terrorism and had imposed strict sanctions on them. Yet during Cheney's tenure at Halliburton the company did business in all three countries. In the case of Iraq, Halliburton legally evaded U.S. sanctions by conducting its oil-service business through foreign subsidiaries . With Iran and Libya, Halliburton used its own subsidiaries."

Cheney's Office "Coordinated" No-Bid Contracts

Army Email: Cheney's Office "Coordinated" Halliburton Award. Three days before a Halliburton subsidiary was awarded a $7 billion no-bid contract to fight oil fires in Iraq, "an Army Corps of Engineers official wrote an e-mail saying the award had been 'coordinated' with the office of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton's former chief executive."

Halliburton awarded over $17 billion total in Iraq contracts, more than any other company. "Work in Iraq is parceled out among a handful of companies, Halliburton has by far the largest share--$17 billion from the U.S. and British governments."

Corrupt Halliburton Deals Cost Taxpayers Millions of Dollars

The "sailboat fuel" rip-off. "A dozen current and former truck drivers for a Halliburton Inc. subsidiary said they were directed to drive empty flatbed trucks crisscrossing Iraq more than 100 times this year, putting themselves and military escorts at risk for no apparent purpose."

The food rip-off. "The U.S. military said Monday it was suspending $159.5 million in meal charges submitted by a unit of Halliburton as it continued to audit bills for feeding soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait. The Defense Contract Audit Agency said it was suspending the amount after incomplete files and bills were found to have been submitted by subcontractors to Halliburton's KBR unit, the military's biggest contractor in Iraq."

The gas rip-off. Congressional investigation concludes Halliburton increased costs for gas by 90%. "...the decision to give Halliburton the contract to import millions of gallons of gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq... increased the costs to the government by $167 million, an increase of over 90%."

Dick Cheney Lies About His Continuing Ties to Halliburton

Cheney Claims no "Continuing Interest." Dick Cheney claimed that by the time he was sworn in, "I will have eliminated any possibility that I have a continuing financial interest in Halliburton stock or share price. . . . I will do whatever I have to do to guarantee that there's no conflict." Then in 2003 Cheney said, "I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now, for over three years."

Yet last year, Halliburton pays Cheney $178,437. "Vice President Dick Cheney received $178,437 in deferred pay last year from Halliburton, the Texas oil-field services company he once headed that has received billion-dollar government contracts in Iraq."

And Congress Found that he is Receiving a "Continuing Interest." Last year the Congressional Research Service, Congress' research arm, concluded that under federal ethics rules Cheney's annual payments classify as a "continuing financial interest in , which makes them potential conflicts of interest."

"Halliburton is a fine company, and I'm pleased that I was associated with the company."


Paid for by America Coming Together (888 16th ST. NW, Washington, DC 20006) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.




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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:56 PM
Response to Reply #205
208. got the same email -- I remember the petition
I think I signed it over the weekend.
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:46 PM
Response to Original message
206. dupe
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 12:54 PM by arbustochupa
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coeur_de_lion Donating Member (935 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 12:52 PM
Response to Original message
207. dupe
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 12:54 PM by arbustochupa
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:39 PM
Response to Original message
211. Reply
from Mike Ruppert's Admin....

"I forwarded this message to Mike and he asked me to send back a short message of Thanks. Thank you for the information you have included, it will be of help in the future but for right now (this weekend) we can't pursue it yet. We will in time.

Thanks again!"

Yeah! Monday will be fine! :)
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #211
214. You are good!
I'm proud of the work you're doing; I'm proud to be associated with you on this; and we're ALL proud of you!

If you get a chance, please read the "note" I posted below! I'm interested in what you think of it?
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 02:48 PM
Response to Original message
213. A Waterman Note: A Letter from a Region of my Mind
On Thursday, July 22, a contributor to the Plame Indictment Thread #12 posted a concern that I would like to examine closely. Tellurian noted that I am unabled to investigate and prove a theory that VP Dick Cheney may have played a significant role in exposing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. The Waterman Paper, posted on 7-22, outlined a theory that VP Cheney may have manipulated events from behind the scenes in the White House, in order to derail an investigation that potentially threatened to expose some of Cheney's business deals.

Tellurian indicated that because I am not able to investigate, prove, or prosecute this theory, that it should not be advanced on the DU Plame Threads. Further, Tellurian noted that others could be embarassed if they repeated this unproven theory.

This note will attempt to address those concerns. First, I share Tellurian's concerns that it would be both irresponsible and reckless to advance wild charges against any public official, without having some direct and/or circumstantial evidence to build a proper foundation.

However, the "lack" of proof from the DU Plame Threads Think Tank should not be equated with a weakness in the theory. Nor should our perceived inability to "investigate" be reason to stop our efforts to pass this information on to other grass-roots political groups, to elected officials, and/or to other media sources.

In support of this position, I offer the following: In 2001, EPA director Christine Todd Whitman was attempting to prepare to participate in global discussions on regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Due to the significance of the Kyoto Protocol, CTW attempted to get advice from her boss, President Bush.

Frustrated by her inability to discuss this issue with the president, CTW instead had meetings with three other key officials: Andrew Card, Paul O'Neill, and Condoleeza Rice. They prepared a strategy based in part upon George Bush's campaign promises regard the threat to the environment from unregulated carbon dioxide emissions. Before meeting with the international community, EPA Director Whitman spoke about her positions on CNN's Crossfire.

Within days, four right-wing republicans (Chuck Hagel-Neb; Jesse Helms- S.C.; Larry Craig - Ida; and Pat Roberts- Kent) sent a letter to President Bush, demanding "clarification" on his position. The letter received significant publicity.

Furious, Whitman scheduled a meeting with President Bush. He did not allow her to speak at the meeting. Rather, he showed her a letter that he said was going to be the White House position, and then motioned her to leave.

On her way out, she noted VP Cheney was there to take the letter to the senators. A NYTs article would refer to this as, "the most immediate and visible loss of clout ever for a cabinet officer." ("Hostile Environment"; 8-19-01)

Paul O'Neill was sure that VP Cheney prompted and likely wrote the senators' letter to President Bush. Both O'Neill and Whitman were convinced Cheney wrote the letter that President Bush sent the senators.

These beliefs are found in two books: "The Price of Loyalty," by Ron Suskind (pgs 102-122) and "Crimes Against Nature," by Robert Kennedy, Jr, (pgs 50-52).

I do not consider it either weak or reckless for O'Neill to have discussed his beliefs about the underhanded, controlling, vicious, and pro-business actions of VP Cheney. I do not think he embarassed himself.

I think that DU Plame Threads participants may notice a pattern in the behaviors attributed to VP Cheney by a wide range of people.
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RebelYell Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:20 PM
Response to Reply #213
216. Swish!
Personally, I've always thought Cheney was the "brains", Chimp is just a puppet. I put nothing past Cheney and he's obviously not very careful about leaving bread crumbs leading to his desk. I think it can be both investigated and proven.

~~~~~~~~

I'm considering Greg Palast and David Corn as my next targets. Thoughts or opinions?

I think you will hear from Hopsicker tonight, he said he checks his email in the evening.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:36 PM
Response to Reply #213
217. H20 - what do you think of adding these two *footnotes to your outline
which point to additional "circumstantial" evidence of
Cheney's and Halliburton's "intent and desire" with regard to sales
of "forbidden" products to Iran, Iraq, Syrria, and Libya?

I mentioned it way back in a thread and KOHO has found the
newspaper articles with dates:

From the Independent, via Common Dreams

Cheney Lobbied Congress To Ease Sanctions Against Terrorist Countries While He Was CEO Of Halliburton
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0722-02.htm

Grand Jury Probes Cheney's Role in 'Illegal' Iran Trade
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0722-03.htm

and by the way, this sentence is a gem and explains all in one concise sentence. Could we start our e mails of the Waterman Paper
with it?

The Waterman Paper outlines a theory that VP Cheney may have manipulated events from behind the scenes in the White House, in order to derail an investigation that potentially threatened to expose some of Cheney's business deals.




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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:11 PM
Response to Reply #217
222. Yes, I'm in favor of that .....
...in fact, ever since I was little, I hoped that one day I would be a foot note myself. Even if in some boring text. If I wasn't already known here as H2O Man, I would go to court and have my name legally changed to "asterisk." Sorry, just read a new thread on the forum that strongly disagrees with our goal on the Plame Threads.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:39 PM
Response to Reply #222
224. Dear Asterisk, .....okay? I'd think after 26 yrs working on a project
like the super dump sites and finding the evidence that proved,
would make you deserving of an asterisk.

But if you like I'll call you Asterisk from now on (smile) but
I wouldn't recommend it...people have a habit of shortening to
nicknames, you know.

Do you know, about 8 years ago when I helped organize rallies against
impeaching Big Dawg, I was not well, and I thought "okay, I'll do it,
and this will be my "last hurrah".

And then later, through circumstance and no fault of my own, a matter came up where I showed a Federal District Judge to be a fool before the Federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I didn't enjoy the reams of paperwork involved, but there are times when on principal something must be done.

The Federal Judge's laziness and lack of knowledge of the law are on
the internet and in the lawbooks, forever. Of course so is my name.
I didn't intend it to be another hurrah, but sometimes you just have
to do what is right, and what is necessary, not for glory but for
honor and principal.

I don't think you'll be an "asterisk" Waterman, and I don't think
this will be your last hurrah either.

Like old firehorses hearing the clanging of the bells, there are those who rise to the occasion.

You're one of them.

With reference to another contrarian Plame thread: there's a saying to the effect, "it doesn't matter if they spell your name wrong, the publicity is what matters".

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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 05:12 PM
Response to Reply #224
227. Over the years I have been called
a good many names, and a bad many, too. (smile) I guess that in the spirit of promoting an open dialogue, and not group think .....
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loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 03:12 PM
Response to Original message
215. Up you go!!
Keeping this kicked until I can get back from town....gotta run for now!

WOW!! What a thread!

:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:
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never cry wolf Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:07 PM
Response to Original message
221. Anyone just hear John Dean on Randi Rhodes just now???
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 04:08 PM by steviet_2003
Hi guys, just checking in after a busy friday so far. Randi just had John dean on, the last part of her interview concentrated on the Plame outing.

I wish I would have been taking notes but I'll try to hit the high points and any new info:

1. Grand Jury will not allow journalists to protect sources, Dean knows two journalists sitting on supoenas.

2. Dean confirms that under normal circumstances no more than about a half dozen people would have known of Plame's work or status. That type of info is not even in the daily PDB's.

3. Dean's sources (and he said they are good sources) indicate to him that someone who formerly worked with Plame in the CIA is now with the NSC and that is how word spread around the WH.

I am not sure what time she is on in Portland, KPOJ, http://www.super62.com/main.html , but I know that she is delayed after they broadcast Ed Schultz. Otherwise, please check it out tomorrow archived on Randi's site. It would be about 1:40 or 1:45 into her show.

on edit: has anyone written to John Dean regarding these research threads?
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:16 PM
Response to Reply #221
223. Dean is part of the team
of good people .... not based on party affiliation .... that recognizes that (1) bush/cheney represents an extremely serious threat to our constitutional democracy; and (2) the Plame exposure is the most likely-to-succeed avenue for removing this threat from office.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:43 PM
Response to Reply #223
225. CALIMARY may have contacted Dean. We'll have to ask her
when she checks in.

That Calimary has a way about her....plus she's a former tv news person and a current columnist.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 04:51 PM
Response to Reply #223
226. Dean's articles on "FindLaw" site re : Plame
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 07:27 PM
Response to Reply #223
229. BINGO!
That's why I find these threads so interesting and important. There are countless reasons why this administration should be kicked out, But the Plame outing is the one that can do it. It is, I feel, far worse than Watergate. A crime was committed at the highest level which if proven/exposed will bring them down. And if Cheney is hiding his illegal dealings and they are exposed the wool may be pulled from the closed eyes of many of our fellow citizens.
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TacticalPeek Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:59 PM
Response to Reply #221
232. "3. Dean's sources (and he said they are good sources)"
3. Dean's sources (and he said they are good sources) indicate to him that someone who formerly worked with Plame in the CIA is now with the NSC and that is how word spread around the WH.


I must re-nominate this guy, Joseph, for some blame for something linked somehow to dastardly deeds, even if all I find for him is NSC, and not CIA. Although "who formerly worked with Plame in the CIA" may not explicitly entail 'employment', and with modern CIA accounting, who knows? He did do DOD, natsec, nuclear proliferation (huh?), etc for Raygun and the first failed Bush presidency, then laid out at the National War College during Clinton, then back in 2001 for the big scam.


My pure hunch for perfidy:


"Robert G. Joseph actively participated in the following events:

A day or two days before January 28 Robert G. Joseph, director for nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), telephones senior CIA official Alan Foley and argues that the Africa-uranium claim should be included in Bush's upcoming State of the Union address. When Foley warns that the allegation has little evidence to support it, Mr. Joseph instead requests that the speech include a remark saying that the British had learned that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa, leaving out the bit about Niger and the exact quantity of uranium that was allegedly sought. (The Washington Post, 7/17/03; New York Times, 7/17/03; New York Times, 7/17/03; The Washington Post, 7/27/03 Sources: Alan Foley) Joseph claims he does not recall the discussion and White House communications director Dan Bartlett calls Foley's version of events a "conspiracy theory." (The Washington Post, 7/27/03)
People and organizations involved: Alan Foley, Robert G. Joseph, Dan Bartlett"


http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=robert_g._joseph



He just seems awfully pushy about salting SOTU speeches, just up IN the face of CIA, who've been all "No, no"; but like he REALLY wants to please SOMEbody and get this glow-in-the-dark-fear OUT THERE for somebody. I'm sure he could claim self-motivation, but this just smells like "I'm protected". And then Condi sorta takes the diffused credit, with the CIA guy getting blamed for not hitting the WH with a 2 x 4 to make them shut up about Niger uranium.


Robert Joseph, one of those tricky spy names. I recall "does not recall".

http://www.americanpresident.org/action/orgchart/administration_units/nationalsecuritycouncil/specassttothepresidentandsnrdirforproliferationstrategycounterproliferationandhomelanddefense/robertgjoseph/a_index.shtml "senior director for proliferation strategy, counterproliferation and homeland defense"



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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:11 PM
Response to Reply #232
234. TACTICAL = GENIUS. Eagle eyes. If he's the one he's a real traitor. LIke a
double agent in between agencies.

Going to google this guy and bring whatever back.

Thanks Tactical.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #234
239. He worked under Cheney in dimson 1 administration
The neo-cons have embedded in every department.

Biography

Dr. Robert G. Joseph

Dr. Joseph is Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Proliferation Strategy, Counterproliferation and Homeland Defense, the National Security Council. Previously, he was Director, Center for Counterproliferation Research, at the National Defense University. Before joining the National War College faculty, Dr. Joseph served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as the Coordinator for Counterproliferation Policy. In the first Bush Administration, he held positions including U.S. Commissioner to the Standing Consultative Commission (ABM Treaty) and Ambassador to the U.S.-Russian Consultative Commission on Nuclear Testing. He has also held the positions of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Policy; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, International Security Policy; and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Dr. Joseph has taught at Carleton College and The Fletcher School, Tufts University. He holds a PhD from Columbia University and an MA from the University of Chicago.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:40 PM
Response to Reply #239
240. AND he is a PNAC contributor.
From Critical Mess
How the neocons are promoting nuclear proliferation

By Drake Bennett

Today's nuclear-weapons debate divides along the fault line between the "nonproliferationist" and "counterproliferationist" schools. Nonproliferationists argue that nuclear weapons are a special and an increasingly less necessary evil. Counterproliferationists are more difficult to define. Paul Bracken, a Yale University political-science professor and author of Fire in the East , a study of weapons of mass destruction in Asia, dismisses the term as too vague. "To some people it means forceful diplomatic action," he says. "To others it means blowing things up." But in general, counterproliferationists want to fight fire with fire. They believe that there are no evil weapons, just evil men and women who want them. Bill Keller -- writing in a recent New York Times Magazine cover story -- compares the counterproliferationists' suspicion of nuclear disarmament to the sentiments expressed on a National Rifle Association bumper sticker, which reads, "If nukes are outlawed, only outlaws will have nukes." Another NRA staple springs to mind, as well: "Nukes don't kill people, people do."
...
Several PNAC contributors are now running U.S. foreign policy, including Paul Wolfowitz and Stephen Cambone at the Pentagon and I. Lewis Libby in the White House. Douglas Feith (the undersecretary of defense), John Bolton (the undersecretary of state) and Robert Joseph (the National Security Council's senior counterproliferation official) have espoused similar views.
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calimary Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:14 PM
Response to Reply #221
249. I don't have any other email for him beyond the contact point in
findlaw.com - won't hurt to try, I suppose...

By the way, when he spoke at this ACLU thing he also mentioned point #1 - making reference to a Supreme Court ruling that said journalists have to cough it up if asked by a grand jury.
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TacticalPeek Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:00 PM
Response to Reply #249
253. "Cough it up", or alternatively, go to the slammer, "until".
All these scribes have that opportunity now - do time, sacrifice for the purity of the old first amendment club.

Or, give it up faster than Novak gave up FBI traitor Robert Hanssen, his other precious anonymous source for appropriate disinformation. What a thicket of traitors! Novak might as well be a commie dupe (what a circle!)!


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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:20 PM
Response to Reply #253
257. TAC - a Novak source was that guy ?? Wow. How do you
know that ?
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TacticalPeek Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:58 PM
Response to Reply #257
268. At Disinfopedia:
Robert Novak is a heavily-partisan conservative columnist.

* Co-executive producer, CNN's Capital Gang
* Co-host, CNN's Crossfire

Robert Novak published that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative, thereby destroying her career, opening her up to physical danger, and hurting the US's attempt to stop the proliferation of WMDs. Novak refused to reveal who gave him the information, potentially a crime, even though he revealed a source in July 2001:

Three and half-years ago, I reported that a veteran FBI agent resigned and retired after refusing a demand by Attorney General Janet Reno to give the Justice Department the names of top secret sources in China. My primary source was FBI agent Robert Hanssen. (ed., bwaahahaha)

Disclosing confidential sources is unthinkable for a reporter seeking to probe behind the scenes in official Washington, but the circumstances here are obviously extraordinary.
(1)



He also suggested that (Richard) Clarke's disagreement with the Bush administration was racially motivated:

NOVAK: Congressman, do you believe, you're a sophisticated guy, do you believe watching these hearings that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?

REP. RAHM EMANUEL (D), ILLINOIS: Say that again?

NOVAK: Do you believe that Dick Clarke has a problem with this African-American woman Condoleezza Rice?

EMANUEL: No, no. Bob, give me a break. No. No.
(2)

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Robert_Novak



Two or three things I know about him . . .

:)



http://www.geocities.com/tomato_observer/novak.html



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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 05:55 AM
Response to Reply #268
274. TACTICAL, Thanks. What a plick Novak is. And thanks for the site
Disinfopedia which I never heard of before.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:18 PM
Response to Reply #249
256. Hey CALIMARY. Go For It. I think Dean will be thrilled, don't you,
that regular human beings are interested and putting together pieces.

Our pieces may fill in some for him.

Wouldn't that be something!
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0007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 06:17 PM
Response to Original message
228. btt
:kick::kick:
:kick:
:kick:
:kick:
:kick::kick::kick::kick::kick:
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loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 08:18 PM
Response to Original message
230. Just a couple of thoughts.....
Yesterday & for most of today, I've been busy w/ things that have kept me from my computer. But I've finished reading all the posts on this thread.

Now, if it's not too late on this thread, and before we start #13 (which I predict will be fairly LUCKY!!!), I just thought I'd share what I have thought about reading the links & posts.

Ok...it's tinfoil. But.....!!!!!

Reading Pallas' post concerning the Pakistani/Taliban acquisition of nuclear weapons (or parts thereof), I was just kind of wondering...

If some of Pakistan's nuclear scientists were helping the Muslim/ anti-corporate side, and OTHER (Kahn) nuclear-Wal-Mart connections WERE playing nice with the CORPORATE side, it would stand to reason that the corporatists (involving Cheney/Halliburton) would want to "out" the Muslim anti-corporatists (i.e., "the Western culture/money-greed/modernization is bad folks" -- of whom Osama bin Forgotten is one), while keeping the corporate-sponsored side close to the vest, and protected.

(Just asking "WHY" is one side considered the bad guys to our gov't, and the other side seemingly protected by our gov't.)

Except that Halliburton needed a war to get out of asbestos debt, and Iraq had oil, and the Gulf War offered a precedent for attacking Iraq.... even though Iraq was also buying from the CORPORATE side of the globalists, and profiting Halliburton's (offshore) subsidiaries, I think Iraq came under fire because of switching the basis of their oil to the Euro, instead of using the dollar as their basis.

N. Korea and Iran and Syria have all been profiting the corporate side via their purchases.

I'm not sure if Plame's team had been following TWO streams of $$ out of Pakistan, and accidentally stumbled on Halliburton/Carlyle, or at least came way too close.

It appears that Sibel Edmonds did, and I'm wondering if some of what she was interpreting was parallelling what Plame's team was "flushing out"....it seemed like things were coming to some kind of a head, since Plame was outted, and Edmonds was silenced, within a very short period of time.

It just appears to me that the Cheney involvement was offering a certain amount of cover to governments to SUPPORT the clandestine purchases of nuclear materials, where those governments were playing nice w/ the corporatists; and they were making "bad guys" out of the anti-corporatist folks. Kind of like: If you play w/ us, we'll protect you as best we can, but if you DON'T....you get a carpet of bombs.

I don't know any other way to make sense out of WHY one side is more or less protected, and the other ISN'T!

:kick::kick::kick:

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:04 PM
Response to Reply #230
233. LOUDSUE-I see the Pakistani Scientists as a unit -not some good some bad
Khan was running Nuclear Walmart Is Us.

Khan also favored N Korea,Libya and any and all.

I think you could look at Mahmood & other Pakistani scientists as
Khan's salesman.

The Pak govt. wasn't protecting just Khan (their officially sanctioned weapons purveyor to Taliban and ?Al Queda and all comers)
The Pak govt. was also protecting their supplier.

One thing about armaments dealers - they couldn't care less the
nationality of the money, as long as it's bankable.

AND if they can get both "angry" sides to buy from them, they increase sales two fold and better.

I'm discounting the theory that Halliburton had to make up the money
they lost in the lawsuit - not when they have 250 or more subsidiaries, companies under different names, and just one of those
companies' sales is 16 billion annually. Multiply 250 times 16 billion. Then it doesn't fit in that Halliburton/Cheney went to war to make up a measly 4 billion they have to pay to asbestos victims.

No, if Halliburton wanted to sell to Libya, Syrria and Iran they couldn't have cared less whether they were selling to
pro-corporatists, or anti-corporatists.

AND- but then Cheney had a problem when he became Veep. He had to cover his trail of illegal sales of dual use components.

Oil. Iraq. The largest reserve of oil in the world.
I agree with you. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle signatories
of PNAC in 1996? 1998? , and many who had been in Pappy's administration, had the plans to grab that oil and first planned to do so in 1991.

Don't forget Pappy has always been an oil man, and is "in-law" to Halliburton. They tried to push Big Dawg into attacking Iraq as they had planned to do in Pappy's second term(the second term which never materialized). No soap.

And yes, I agree with you, Saddamm's switching to Euro's to flip the
bird to the US govt. made the neo cons desperate to attack him to show the rest of the world what would happen if they switched to the
Euro for oil instead of the dollar.

Sue, in summary, there were many reasons the neo-cons wanted the war in Iraq, chief among them oil, and secondly to have a country as their base in the Middle East.

But the very act of declaring pre-emptive war on Iraq for possessing WMD put Cheney at risk. The risk: Where did Saddamm
get WMD ????

He was in check-mate so to speak.

If we think about it, and imagine his running around the departments of the White House trying to find out who knew what, and to "disappear" the trails leading to him ---no wonder we didn't see much of him, he wasn't hiding in a bunker, he was busy shredding.

Anyway, that's what I think.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:12 PM
Response to Reply #230
235. Too many people have access
to weapons of near-mass destruction, or of actual mass destruction. And as tensions in certain parts of the world increase, in relationship to control of land for specific resources, more and more people are able to buy those bigger and more deadly weapons.

It's not entirely different from a neighborhood in a city. The middle east is an old neighborhood, with a beautiful and rich history. But there is a blood feud. There's different business associations, and there are competing gangs. And, even though there is growing violence, some genius named Hal Burton has been fronting for a friend that sells weapons. And each gang is willing and able to buy more destructive weapontry.

Does more than one faction in Pakistan have weapons of mass destruction? Even the components that put them close to being able to wipe out a neighborhood in the city?

That's scarey to think about. Because as the sun goes down, and the danger of the darkness becomes the greatest, it is an unfortunate pattern in human history that the least stable person with the largest amount of weapons attempts to come out of the alley to rule the streets.

Thanks, Hal, for fronting those weapons. And thanks for exposing one of the voices of reason who wanted to reduce the number of weapons and level of tension.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:19 PM
Response to Reply #235
236. Dear Asterisk: Too subtle for me. I dont get this part, could you
explain? I know it's sarcastic...but

"And thanks for exposing one of the voices of reason " ??


who was exposed ? The US ?
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:53 PM
Response to Reply #236
244. H20, btw from another thread complaining of this thread, surprises:
StandUpGuy (286 posts) Fri Jul-23-04 02:19 PM
Response to Reply #6

14. It is obvious you don't read the threads!

Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 02:20 PM by StandUpGuy
Your hypothesis regarding the eventual Plame indictments while humorous is irrelevant.

The threads discuss much more than "lets guess when the indictment come", they have discussed and dissected this and other related issues until you thought there was nothing more to discuss. Then sure enough a new piece of information emerges.

Do you really think that talented DUrs would write over 2000 posts about speculation. Please don't insult people that you have admittedly not read.

Start a thread called "Fighting Fascists" or "Why letters to Fascists won't work"

But don't spend the valuable time you complain these people are waisting criticizing that which you know not.

Perhaps if they changed the thread title to "Plame, the tip of the iceberg" you might not have objected.

Canada becomes staging ground for an invasion to liberate the U.S.A.


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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:56 PM
Response to Reply #244
245. And my mate
says in reference to my participation on these threads:

"Anarchists! I was away for a week and the ______g

anarchists got hold of her."

BWAAAAA ROFL.

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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:52 PM
Response to Reply #245
252. That Word Anarchist
I wonder about the sudden re-emergence of the word anarchist. To me, it is an archaic term from the 1890's thru the 1920's. Yet all of a sudden I am hearing it alot. Last week my local CBS news mentioned at every evening broadcast that officials were worried about anarchists disrupting the repug convention. Are officials becoming more worried about the people within the country than the terrorists without?
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:32 PM
Response to Reply #252
258. Hi ME. the "anarchists" re-emerged at the WTO meetings-
remember Seattle when a group (probably youngsters) calling themselves the anarchists and dressed in black, went around
smashing windows and setting fires?

Funk & Wagnalls says Anarchist is"

"a violent and destructive opponent of all government; a nihilist

"Anarchy: absence or utter disregard of government; lawless confusion
and disorder"


hmmmmm. Does that define both dimson and bin laden as anarchists?

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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:39 PM
Response to Reply #258
262. some have said the anarchists at WTO Seattle
Were paid provocateurs. There was much nonviolent protest prior to a small group causing violence and damage. The peaceful protests were lost in the coverage of the violence.

But Seattle marked a change in awareness for many, including myself. It caused me to ask many questions about WTO and IMF, and in many ways started me back to the path I am on now. I think we may look back and see it as a watershed moment.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:43 PM
Response to Reply #262
264. Yes, KOHO, me too. I think it was Tac who was there, but someone
on line did post the story of their being there and seeing
what was done.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:56 PM
Response to Reply #264
267. A good link to a first hand description of WTO Seattle
http://www.global-vision.org/misc/hawken1.html

by Paul Hawken

When I was able to open my eyes, I saw lying next to me a young man, 19, maybe 20 at the oldest. He was in shock, twitching and shivering uncontrollably from being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed at close range. His burned eyes were tightly closed, and he was panting irregularly. Then he passed out. He went from excruciating pain to unconsciousness on a sidewalk wet from the water that a medic had poured over him to flush his eyes.

More than 700 organizations and between 40,000 and 60,000 people took part in the protests against the WTO's Third Ministerial on November 30th. These groups and citizens sense a cascading loss of human and labor rights in the world. Seattle was not the beginning but simply the most striking expression of citizens struggling against a worldwide corporate-financed oligarchy ­ in effect, a plutocracy. Oligarchy and plutocracy often are used to describe "other" countries where a small group of wealthy people rule, but not the "First World" ­ the United States, Japan, Germany, or Canada.

The World Trade Organization, however, is trying to cement into place that corporate plutocracy. Already, the world's top 200 companies have twice the assets of 80 percent of the world's people. Global corporations represent a new empire whether they admit it or not. With massive amounts of capital at their disposal, any of which can be used to influence politicians and the public as and when deemed necessary, all democratic institutions are diminished and at risk. Corporate free market policies, as promulgated by the WTO, subvert culture, democracy, and community, a true tyranny. The American Revolution occurred because of crown-chartered corporate abuse, a "remote tyranny" in Thomas Jefferson's words. To see Seattle as a singular event, as did most of the media, is to look at the battles of Concord and Lexington as meaningless skirmishes.

(more)
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Me. Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 12:47 AM
Response to Reply #267
272. Very Interesting...
I just heard Jean Meserve use it on CNN. I find it interesting. Back at the beginning of the last century the term was used to describe the men who shot Archduke Ferdinand and the Italian anarchists Sacco & Vanzetti. But it was also used to describe people who went on strike for better wages and working conditions, people who wanted unions, or disagreed with the government etc., in much the same way as the term communist was flung around in the 50's. Now, in the beginning of a new century the term anarchist seems to have come full circle.
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H2O Man Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 10:49 PM
Response to Reply #236
251. In my opinion
Valerie Plame and those people associated with her in that neighborhood were trying to ease tensions. Their efforts were derailed.
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Snazzy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:36 PM
Response to Reply #235
238. Lighten up, have some cake
From Inside Jihad U., NYT Mag, 6/25/00:


I was due in Islamabad, the capital, for a birthday party, and I had promised I would go.

It was quite a party. a big cake, lots of speeches, lots of dignitaries, including Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the "chief executive" of Pakistan, which is the title he took when the Pakistani Army overthrew the elected government in October and installed him as maximum leader.

The cake was actually quite good. It was a vanilla sheet cake, and written in lemon frosting across the length of it were the words, "Second Anniversary Celebrations of Youm-e-Takbeer." Youm-e-Takbeer can be translated as "the day of God's greatness," and in Pakistan it refers to May 28, 1998, the day Pakistan first exploded a nuclear bomb. The birthday party, under the auspices of Pakistan's military leader, was a birthday party for the bomb.

"We bow our heads to Allah almighty for restoring greatness to Pakistan on May 28, 1998," proclaimed the science minister of Pakistan, Atta-ur-Rahman, at the outset of the official program.

Pakistan has fetishized the bomb. In the traffic circles of every sizable city in the country, a full-scale model of the country's home-grown long-rangemissile stands proud. In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, a model of a missile is aimed at India. In three cities in Pakistan I visited there stand 30-foot-high models of the Chagai Hills, the site where Pakistan exploded its test bombs, and in Islamabad, the monument lights up from the inside at night -- all fiery orange -- to simulate the effect of a nuclear explosion. Parents dress up their children and photograph them standing before it.

....

Now paid content at NYT, but rest it is here, not an endorsement of Indian host site which I know nothing about:

http://www.fisiusa.org/fisi_News_items/news28.htm

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:47 PM
Response to Reply #238
241. SNAZZY - incredible, worshiping the bomb - like a sci-fi movie
thanks for finding that.

It answers a lot of questions.

Especially Musharaff's feigned anger at CIA not discovering
the nuclear trafficing sooner.
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Snazzy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #241
260. Couldn't find a good Heston Apes and Mutants shot...
Stuck with some reality...















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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:48 PM
Response to Reply #260
265. Men and their phallic symbols. How did a people whose Eastern
religions gained respect around the world for peace and calm,
come to this.

The bomb has become their God.
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:35 PM
Response to Reply #230
237. Just another bell going off....
The Sibel Edmonds story has been bothering me. Why? Because I have had a very hard time believing that the FBI would go through such great lengths to cover up what appears to be low-level incompetencies. But cover-up they did....and in a big way!

So try this on for size. The messages weren't translated or mistranslated because CIA already knew what was going on and was compartmentalizing the info from low-level FBI employees. How did they know? Because that was Plame's area of operation.

I may be going off the deep end here but that is far more likely to explain the extraordinary efforts of the FBI to shut Sibel Edmonds up.....far bettter reason than to escape embarrassment.
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:49 PM
Response to Reply #237
242. E. I thought it was Justice shutting her down, not FIB.
?
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ewagner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:51 PM
Response to Reply #242
243. The first step was
through her immediate suprevisors and then on up the chain of command. As I understand it, Justice (DOJ) is handling the defense.

Please check me on this...but I think that's the case.

btw: Isn't FBI under DOJ?
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #243
246. Yes. That's why the order would have to come out of Justice I think
?
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:00 PM
Response to Reply #246
254. Sibel Edmonds has bothered me
Edited on Fri Jul-23-04 11:07 PM by shraby
since I read about it and that they gagged her. She is gagged for a reason and the way this misadministration works, it's to cya.

Something else is bothering me too. The way certain members of congress are derailing any attempts to force the administration to cough up necessary papers for investigative purposes. We find this in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the committee looking into the torture, the committee that oversees military expenditures, on the Senate floor and on the House floor. It goes beyond partisan politics, it leans into the illegal realm of coverup.

We know Hastert, Delay and Frist are participants on the floor, now who all are on the committees that are doing this, and how are they connected to PNAC?

As H20 says, why?
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #254
255. Here is some on Hastert
(snip)
Hastert and Patriot Act II

House Speaker Hastert has the distinction of being one of only two who were "in the know" about the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, otherwise known as Patriot Act II. A news story in the Seattle Weekly newspaper (week of February 12-18, 2003) by Geov Parrish announced to readers that the nation was "Waiting for the Bullet":

"LATE LAST WEEK, the D.C. advocacy group Center for Public Integrity (CPI) published a leaked copy of a closely held Justice Department secret: the draft language of proposed legislation that would update and sharply expand 2001's USA Patriot Act. It is one of the most horrifying documents ever to come out of a city numbed to horrifying documents. Read it, and get angry--while it's still not a crime ...

"According to both the Center for Public Integrity and a report on Now with Bill Moyers, only Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert are known to have received advance copies of the proposed legislation. Senate Judiciary Committee staff had been told by the Justice Department, as recently as last week, that no such bill was in the works."<2>

Read the full Patriot Act II document <3> or a synopsis of the Act.<4>


According to one source, on February 10, 2003, it was "discovered that not only was there a House version that had been covertly brought to Speaker Dennis Hastert, but that many provisions of the now public Patriot Act II had already been introduced as pork barrel riders on Senate Bill S. 22. Dozens of subsections and even the titles of the subsections were identical to those in the House version....

"The bill itself is stamped 'Confidential - Not for Distribution.' Upon reading the analysis and bill, was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies."<5>


The same source states that "the second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments , and seriously damaged the Seventh and Tenth, the Second Patriot Act recognizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM/military command). The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship."<6>

<http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Dennis_Hastert>
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:33 PM
Response to Reply #255
259. Guess I won't be sleeping tonight!
(only kidding), But we have much work to do.

I had forgotten that info Shraby, and isn't amazing how they've toned down the discussion regarding Patriot II. They make it sound like a litle tweaking of a few things here and there, nothing major.

I wonder how many of our Reps have even read Pat I? And some of the provisions have been added as ammendments. Like the one to allow the death penalty for terrorists, and including a very vague definition of who is a terrorist. Did that one pass.

I expect they will "Trojan Horse" many of the provisions, trying to slip them in under the radar one at a time.
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:53 PM
Response to Reply #259
266. They've already trojan horsed
at least one provision and I think two. These people not only took over the government, they are trying to make congress and the courts irrelevent.
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 12:03 AM
Response to Reply #266
270. Boston and NYC may tip their hand....
We'll see how they deal with prosters in both cases. Free speech zones or not, it will be a telling time.

I plan on going to NYC. Judging from the last huge anti war protests I think it will be more peaceful than not, thought there will be confrontations and some trouble, undoubtedly. If it turns really ugly we'll know we're closer to a police state than any of us ever imagined.

Time for the only other super poewr to make itself known. Oh, I forgot, the massive prewar protests were a focus group!
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:40 PM
Response to Reply #255
263. If you google FEMA and read that, I dont see how it could get much worse
meanwhile the Center for Public Integrity definitely sounds
like an organization we should send "Waterman Paper" .
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Jul-23-04 11:36 PM
Response to Reply #254
261. SCHRABY-I think Why is easy. Comparing the signatores of
the original PNAC letter sent to Big Dawg with the members
of congress might take a little time on google or using
Excel maybe.

:hi:
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shraby Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 12:05 AM
Response to Reply #261
271. PNAC letter sent to Clinton
I googled pnac letter + clinton and it was on the PNAC site.

January 26, 1998



The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC


Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.


Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.


Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.

Sincerely,

Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett

Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky

Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad

William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman

Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber

Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 06:02 AM
Response to Reply #271
275. Terriffic SCHRABY.All names to google & check their associations to
other groups and companies they own.

But those are not the only names, I remember seeing Jeb Bush's name signed to it. There are more signators, and they also should
be googled


You'll notice some are popular talking heads.

Especially former CIA chief Woolsey who owns a "security contractor
firm that has been marked as especially violent. A lil war profiteeering anyone?

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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 12:03 AM
Response to Original message
269. GUYS - don't start a new thread til morrow, H20 has something special to
put in it, and so I'll wait til he's ready.

time for this east coaster to say good nite.

I kinda like Stand Up Guy's title " Plame - THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG

Niters all.
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loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 01:35 AM
Response to Reply #269
273. Pallas...thank you for your reply to my post....
After I posted, I had to take "time out" for all the distractions of life at home.

After reading all the posts since I posted last, my head is REELING!! The Patriot Act II 'stuff' scares the snot out of me...they've already passed a couple of its provisions in HIGHWAY and INFRASTRUCTURE (pork) bills. And most of our congresscritters have NO IDEA what they've done to us!

STUPID ASSHOLES!!!!!! We're paying them HANDSOMELY and providing them with forever-benefits that the rest of us DON'T HAVE to represent us, and they pass this SHIT!!!!!!

Is anybody else here in a FIGHTING mood??? This is OUR country, damn it!! And they're TRASHING it!!!!!

:kick::kick::kick:
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Pallas180 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 06:08 AM
Response to Reply #273
276. SUE yes they have trashed the Constitution, but it seems
there's not much the democrats can do, if indeed they
do want to do anything to stop the fascist police state,
which may or may not be questionable, because other than
filibustering they don't have the numbers in Congress, the
republicans outvote them.

Then of course you have turncoats like Zell Miller.
And I often wonder what is wrong with Evan Bayh. (but after
seeing Bilderberg, I know.)
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kohodog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jul-24-04 09:20 AM
Response to Original message
277. H20's paper is on the DU Home page
In case you don't get there much!

Great job H20. Teriffic in it's current form.
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