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Boomer Chick
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Posts: 407
Location: Colorado |
 Sat Oct 04, 2003 11:03 pm
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Oh God I hope so! For the sake of America and the world -- I hope so!
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Boomer Chick
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Posts: 407
Location: Colorado |
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Sun Oct 05, 2003 3:38 am
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Here's more for yas!
http://www.truthout.com
Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm
By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post
Saturday 04 October 2003
The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.
The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.
The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26.
The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.
"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.
FEC rules require donors to list their employment. Plame used her married name, Valerie E. Wilson, and listed her employment as an "analyst" with Brewster-Jennings & Associates. The document establishes that Plame has worked undercover within the past five years. The time frame is one of the standards used in making determinations about whether a disclosure is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
It could not be learned yesterday whether other CIA operatives were associated with Brewster-Jennings.
Also yesterday, the nearly 2,000 employees of the White House were given a Tuesday deadline to scour their files and computers for any records related to Wilson or contacts with journalists about Wilson. The broad order, in an e-mail from White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, directed them to retain records "that relate in any way to former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency."
White House employees received the e-mailed directive at 12:45 p.m., with an all-capitalized subject line saying, "Important Follow-Up Message From Counsel's Office." By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, employees must turn over copies of relevant electronic records, telephone records, message slips, phone logs, computer records, memos, and diaries and calendar entries.
The directive notes that lawyers in the counsel's office are attorneys for the president in his official capacity and that they cannot provide personal legal advice to employees.
For some officials, the task is a massive one. Some White House officials said they had numerous conversations with Wilson that had nothing to do with his wife, so the directive is seen as a heavy burden at a time when many of the president's aides already feel beleaguered.
Officials at the Pentagon and State Department also have been asked to retain records related to the case. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday: "We are doing our searches. . . . I'm not sure what they will be looking for or what they wish to contact us about, but we are anxious to be of all assistance to the inquiry."
In another development, FBI agents yesterday began attempts to interview journalists who may have had conversations with government sources about Plame and Wilson. It was not clear how many journalists had been contacted. The FBI has interviewed Plame, ABC News reported.
Wilson and his wife have hired Washington lawyer Christopher Wolf to represent them in the matter.
The couple has directed him to take a preliminary look at claims they might be able to make against people they believe have impugned their character, a source said.
The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."
"There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."
In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.
The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available.
Wilson was originally listed as having given $2,000 to Gore during the primary campaign in 1999, but the donation, over the legal limit of $1,000, was "reattributed" so that Wilson and Plame each gave $1,000 to Gore. Wilson also gave $1,000 to the Bush primary campaign, but there is no donation listed from his wife.
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Agent Exposed in White House Leak Ran Overseas Operations, Recruited Agents
BY James Gordon Meek and Kenneth R. Bazinet
New York Daily News
Friday 03 October 2003
The spy allegedly outed by a White House leaker is an attractive blond with Bond-girl looks who ran overseas operations and recruited agents for the CIA, sources told the Daily News.
Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service.
Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief.
Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into whether a White House staffer leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak in violation of federal law.
Plame is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who has charged that his wife's cover was blown in retaliation for his comments contradicting the Bush administration's claim that deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa.
Cannistraro called Plame's outing a "dirty trick."
"Her assets may be at risk," he said. "I think that's what justified the probe."
Novak printed Plame's name in a July column in which he wrote that two senior administration officials told him she suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate the weapons-material claim.
Novak wrote in a column Wednesday that the CIA never told him that publication would put Plame in danger.
But a former senior intelligence officer scoffed at Novak's claims, saying of Plame: "She was working undercover."
The mother of 3-year-old twins, Plame turns heads when she steps into a room, sources said.
"She has classic good looks: very shapely, long legs and blond shoulder-length hair," a source said. "She would be a star in her own Hollywood picture."
Even as they accused Democrats of playing politics with intelligence matters, White House officials privately expected one or more staffers to lose their jobs for blowing the cover of a CIA officer, Bush administration sources said.
"Somebody will have to go before it's over," an official said. "The only question is whether it's a low-level person following orders or somebody higher up."
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Boomer Chick
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Posts: 407
Location: Colorado |
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Sun Oct 05, 2003 3:56 am
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More vicious than Tricky Dick
By John Dean
Salon.com
Friday 03 October 2003
I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means.
For example, special counsel Chuck Colson, once considered the best hatchet man of modern presidential politics, went to prison for leaking false information to discredit Daniel Ellsberg's lawyer. Ellsberg was being prosecuted by Nixon's Justice Department for disclosing the so-called Pentagon Papers (the classified study of the origins of the Vietnam War). But Colson at his worst could barely qualify to play on Bush's team. The same with assistant to the president John Ehrlichman, a jaw-jutting fellow who left them "twisting in the wind," and went to jail denying he'd done anything wrong in ordering a break-in at Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, where the burglars went and looked for, but did not find, real information to discredit Ellsberg.
But neither Colson nor Ehrlichman nor anyone else I knew while working at the Nixon White House had the necessary viciousness, or depravity, to attack the wife of a perceived enemy by employing potentially life-threatening tactics.
So let me share a bit of history with Ambassador Wilson and his wife. And, well aware that gratuitous advice is rightfully suspect, let me also offer them a suggestion -- drawn from some pages of Watergate history that till now I've only had occasion to discuss privately. Long before Congress became involved and a special prosecutor was appointed, Joe Califano, then general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and later a Cabinet officer, persuaded his Democratic colleagues to file a civil suit against the Nixon reelection committee. And that maneuver almost broke the Watergate coverup wide open. In seeking justice from the closed ranks of the Bush White House, Wilson and Plame should follow a similar strategy.
The hardball politics of Nixon and his people, of course, first surfaced with the bungled break-in and attempted wiretapping at the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), when the head of security of Nixon's reelection campaign was arrested there along with a small army of Cuban Americans. These activities were, of course, only the tip of an iceberg, a first bit of public evidence of a White House mentality oblivious to the law.
DNC chairman Lawrence O'Brien, an experienced political operator, correctly suspected the worst. He had been harassed by the IRS, deducing (correctly) but not knowing for certain that the audit was being pushed by Nixon himself. After the Watergate break-in, O'Brien quickly realized that Nixon's Department of Justice was not likely to expose this criminal activity, so he filed a civil lawsuit. In his memoir, he later explained why:
"We wanted to get to the bottom of [the Watergate break-in] -- we wanted the whole story, no matter where it led. There was reason to suspect that the break-in and wiretapping had been authorized by the officials of the CRP [Nixon's reelection committee]; and there was the possibility that the trail might even lead higher. We wanted the facts, and we knew they would not be easily attained. One decision we made, acting on [DNC general counsel] Joe Califano's legal advice, was to file a lawsuit against CRP. In this way, the judicial process would help us get to the truth."
Few appreciate the significance of this lawsuit in the unraveling of Watergate. It has been largely overlooked by history. A few years ago, I told Joe Califano about the impact his lawsuit had: Within the White House, it was considered one of the most difficult problems to deal with during the investigations of Watergate. The FBI was no problem -- no one has to talk to an FBI agent. And no Department of Justice is going to haul White House aides before a grand jury. But a subpoena demanding the production of documents, or an appearance to give testimony under oath at a deposition -- that was a serious threat. It also troubled the FBI and Justice Department, keeping them on their toes. It was remarkably effective.
Regardless of whether or not a special prosecutor is selected, I believe that Ambassador Wilson and his wife -- like the DNC official once did -- should file a civil lawsuit, both to address the harm inflicted on them, and, equally important, to obtain the necessary tools (subpoena power and sworn testimony) to get to the bottom of this matter. This will not only enable them to make sure they don't merely become yesterday's news; it will give them some control over the situation. In the case of the DNC's civil suit, Judge Charles Richey, a good Republican, handled it in a manner that was remarkably helpful to the Nixon reelection effort. But any judge getting a lawsuit from Wilson and Plame today would be watched a lot more carefully.
While I have made no effort to examine all the potential causes of action that Wilson and Plame might file, several come to mind. For example, given the fact that this leak was reportedly an effort to harm them, a civil action for intentional infliction of emotional distress could be appropriate. (Because I am not aware of their residence -- the District of Columbia, Maryland or Virginia -- I will only state the law generally.)
Typically, there will be a statute to this effect: "One who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional distress to another is subject to liability for such emotional distress, and if bodily harm to the other results from it, for such bodily harm." Most often, these actions fail because the conduct is not sufficiently outrageous. But blowing the cover of a CIA operative by anyone with access to such classified information is outrageous by any standard. By way of comparison, it's been found outrageous for a doctor to refuse to treat an unconscious infant and leave mother and child out in the cold; it has been ruled outrageous for a mortician to mishandle a corpse and lie about it; and it was considered outrageous to recklessly issue a report of a person's death that had not happened.
Also, there is an entire body of law relating to civil actions based on criminal statutes and constitutional activities. Suffice it to say that there are a number of potential causes of action, and I have no doubt that a good civil litigator can fashion a powerful lawsuit for Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson.
A key question is: Who would they sue? No one has admitted to the dirty deed. In Watergate, the DNC had a hook: They named not only the burglars arrested in their offices but also the Nixon reelection committee, charging a conspiracy to deny the civil rights of Larry O'Brien and other Democrats. From a tactical standpoint, as any lawyer will tell the Wilsons, what's vital is to survive a motion to dismiss, or other such summary action, so that they can conduct all the necessary discovery to find everyone who should be named. Newspaper accounts suggest the first potential defendant might be Karl Rove, who, Ambassador Wilson has been told by reporters, has repeatedly said Wilson's wife was "fair game." And we know this is not the first time Rove might have leaked to Robert Novak, who broke the Wilson story; Rove was removed from the 1992 George H.W. Bush campaign for just such a smearing leak, according to many reports (which Rove has denied).
An attorney will only file such a lawsuit for the Wilsons if he can, in essence (as required under the federal court rules), attest that to the best of his or her knowledge, information and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances, the lawsuit has not been filed for an improper purpose, that the claims aren't frivolous, that the claims are based on solid law, and that the allegations have evidentiary support -- or will have such support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery. In short, while there is a minimum threshold for filing such a suit, it is not a very high barrier. I have little doubt such a lawsuit could be fashioned with little difficulty.
If the Bush White House is anything like the Nixon White House -- and there is increasing evidence of the similarities -- it will respond to such a lawsuit like a stuck pig. Leaking the name of a CIA official can under no circumstances be considered a part of any potential defendants' official duties, so they will not be given representation by the Department of Justice. But how about Wilson and Plame: Should they have to bear the expense of a lawsuit to deal with the harm they have suffered and get to the bottom of what happened? I don't think so, and after talking with several lawyers in Washington, I find I am not alone. I have good reason to believe that one or more law professors in the area might handle the case pro bono, or one or more of the public interest groups might underwrite the lawsuit. Needless to say, that will only cause more squealing by those who want this to go away. They will cry that it's all politics. This is an empty contention -- it was the attack on the Wilsons that was pure politics. But the Bush folks appear to have messed with the wrong man (and woman).
Time after time, Nixon tried to stem Watergate by declaring it was pure politics. But what were his people doing in the Democratic headquarters? Was that not merely dirty politics? To fight the investigations of Watergate, the White House and the Republican National Committee, the Nixon reelection committee kept their surrogates working full time. Democrats who criticized Nixon for not getting to the bottom of who was involved in the DNC break-in were endlessly accused of playing politics with nothing but "a third-rate attempted burglary." This sort of defense, of course, has already commenced from the Bush White House, with the president's surrogates similarly downplaying this vile act of political revenge against the Wilsons. Apparently, they don't realize how Nixonian this behavior is, and Nixon and his aides did not exactly set the gold standard for conduct for any presidency.
Bush's Justice Department, not unlike Nixon's, faces insidious conflicts of interest when investigating the White House. Given the close ties of those on the White House staff with the political appointees at Justice, the conflict is real, not merely an appearance, and actually more serious for the Bush administration's people than Nixon's because there are many more longstanding ties. Equally troubling, the Justice Department has a poor record in this area. For decades, it has been notorious for its inability to uncover leaks, and it has only prosecuted cases handed to it by other agencies that have taken on the work of flushing out leakers. The CIA, for example, refers leaks regularly to Justice, but nothing ever happens. As those familiar with this dismal performance can tell you, one reporter at the Washington Times has printed over 200 classified national security secrets. How the Justice Department has failed to uncover even one is stunning.
But when it is important, the source of a leak can be found. A good example is that of former chief judge Norma Holloway Johnson, who during the Clinton administration's Whitewater/Lewinsky investigations became exasperated with grand jury leaks (since grand jury information is equal to highly classified national security information). The leaks were coming from the office of independent counsel Kenneth Starr, so rather than have Justice probe the leak, Judge Johnson appointed a special master, who found the leaker -- Starr's deputy, Charles Bakaly. The judge tried Bakaly, in a non-jury trial for contempt, and then let him off the hook. She'd made her point. Her inquiry also makes the point that when there is a will to find a leaker, there is a way.
As for claims by the Bush administration that it can avoid conflict-of-interest problems by turning the investigation of leaks about Plame over to career professionals rather than to Bush political appointees, that's nonsense. That would merely turn the clock back to the initial Watergate investigation, which was conducted by career professionals. Years ago, I testified about how helpful those career attorneys were, and as the White House tapes later proved, these professionals (men with impeccable credentials) kept the Nixon White House fully informed of their investigation, as did the FBI, thereby facilitating the coverup.
Of course, Attorney General Ashcroft should appoint an independent prosecutor, or even two, as Calvin Coolidge did (a Republican and a Democrat) to investigate Teapot Dome. That would be the smart move, with a staggering 70 percent of Americans saying he should appoint a special prosecutor, and 83 percent of those polled saying this is a serious matter, according to the Washington Post.
But most importantly, I believe that Wilson and Plame hold the keys to resolving this matter: with a civil lawsuit. This was one of the hidden keys to Watergate, though it was never fully turned. But had Joe Califano's lawsuit not been slowed down by a Nixon-friendly judge, Watergate would have ended much earlier. So can this scandal -- if the Wilsons choose to take that route.
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About the writer--
John W. Dean served as counsel to President Nixon from 1970 to 1973. He now writes a column for Findlaw and is the author of several books, with the next to be published in January 2004, a biography of Warren G. Harding.
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Conscience Before Career
By Ray McGovern
Common Dreams
Friday 03 October 2003
Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."
--George H. W. Bush, 1999
What could have been going through the heads of senior White House officials when they decided to expose a CIA officer working under deep cover? Why would they want to blow the cover of Valerie Plame, wife of former United States Ambassador Joseph Wilson?
What will the FBI find out? It is not altogether reassuring to learn that John Dion is heading the investigation. Dion is widely known in intelligence circles as one who does not feel he can go to the bathroom without first asking the Justice Department for permission. Sadly, we can expect the kind of "full and thorough investigation" that Richard Nixon ordered then-Attorney General John Mitchell to conduct into Watergate.
The important thing is not who-done-it, but why. What ulterior motive moved White House officials to "out" Ms. Plame when they knew full well it would burn her entire network of agents reporting on weapons of mass destruction, put those agents in serious jeopardy and destroy her ability at the peak of her career to address this top-priority issue?
Was it another preemptive attack, which - like the attack on Iraq - seemed to the White House a good idea at the time? It certainly fits that pattern, inasmuch as little thought seems to have been given to the implications, consequences and post-attack planning.
The objective was to create strong disincentive for those who might be tempted to follow the courageous example set by Joseph Wilson in citing the president's own words to show that our country went to war on a lie.
Administration spin doctors, having been able to dig up nothing worse, are calling Ambassador Wilson a "Clinton holdover," but no one was better qualified to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for Baghdad's putative nuclear weapons program. Wilson served with high distinction as President George H. W. Bush's acting ambassador in Iraq during the first Gulf war and also served many years in Africa, including Niger.
After being sent to Niger in early 2002 at the behest of the Vice President Dick Cheney's office, he reported back that the story was false on its face - a finding reinforced when it was later learned that the report was based on forged documents.
When, despite all this, President Bush used this canard in his state-of-the-union address on January 28, 2003, Wilson faced a choice not unfamiliar to just-retired government officials. He could sit comfortably and smirk over brandy with friends in Georgetown parlors, or he could speak truth to power.
Conscience won. In a New York Times article on July 6, Wilson blew the whistle on the Iraq-Niger hoax, adding that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
The consummate diplomat, Ambassador Wilson chooses his words carefully. He was fed up, though, with the specious reasons adduced to justify the unprovoked U.S.-U.K. attack on Iraq - the same reasons that prompted three courageous colleagues to leave their careers in the foreign service in protest.
With the Times article, Wilson threw down the gauntlet. At the same time, he permitted himself the comment to Washington Post reporters that the Iraq-Niger hoax "begs the question as to what else they are lying about."
That went too far for the White House, which took barely a week to react, using trusted columnist Robert Novak to retaliate. There was little they could do to Ambassador Wilson, but they were hell-bent on preventing others from following his courageous example.
There are, after all, hundreds of people in U.S. intelligence and foreign service circles who know about the lies. Worse still from the White House's point of view, some are about to retire and escape the constraints that come of being on the inside. And, more often than not, the chicanery that took place can be exposed without divulging classified information.
And so, White House Mafiosi decided to retaliate against the Wilsons in order to issue a clear warning that those who might be thinking of following the ambassador's example should think twice - that they can expect to pay a high price for turning state's evidence, so to speak. At least one reporter was explicitly told that wives are "fair game."
So far the intimidation has worked. But a test case is waiting in the wings.
Alan Foley, the CIA official in charge of analysis on weapons of mass destruction, has announced his retirement. His name hit the news recently when it was learned that Foley tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent the bogus report on Iraq-Niger from finding its way into the president's state-of-the-union speech. Foley's credibility was immediately attacked by the White House - which may come to regret having done so.
I have worked with Alan Foley. He is cut of the same cloth as Ambassador Wilson. I am betting that the White House's latest preemptive strike will not deter Foley and other intelligence officials able to put conscience and integrity before career from following Wilson's example.
Things are likely to get even more interesting.
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Ray McGovern rmcgovern@slschool.org, a CIA analyst for 27 years, is now on the steering group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Before retiring, he led one of two CIA teams conducting the most-secret daily intelligence briefings at the White House.
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Oct 05, 2003 5:33 pm
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I think we are now just seeing the tip of the iceberg.
One more domino will get the whole thing rolling.
Then this whole dog and pony show will be exposed for what it is. |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Tue Oct 07, 2003 2:14 am
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Bush Leads His Army Across
The Little Bighorn
By James Roger Brown
10-6-3
George W. Bush is suffering a twofold disaster of his own making. First, he lied and forced the falsification of intelligence to create a national security pretext for the pursuit of a Bush family personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. In pursuing this vendetta he led the United States into a "poison pill" trap laid by the wily, more intelligent Saddam Hussein. Second, he alienated his Machiavellian diplomats, spies and assassins by allowing his neo-conservative staff to go unpunished after attempting to arrange the death of a Diplomat's wife when he pointed out the President lied in his State of the Union Speech.
SADDAM'S "POISON PILL" STRATEGY IS WORKING
In April 2003, I wrote a commentary column in part about Saddam Hussein adopting the corporate "poison pill" hostile takeover defense strategy to use against the Bush invasion of Iraq.*
Saddam's strategy is working exceedingly well. Resistance to the American occupation is building and improving. The nature of the resistance has caused a breakdown in discipline among United States troops with the resulting over reactions adding to resistance forces and resources. It has created a situation for the Bush Administration where it can neither retreat nor go forward. The expeditionary force Bush sent into Iraq cannot be extracted, despite the fact soldiers are subject to daily depredations by snipers and guerrillas, because it would be an admission of total defeat. More forces cannot be sent into Iraq because that would be an admission of failed planning and strategy.
The cost of attempting to hold onto Iraq has become a black hole money pit for the United States economy which needs the resources for domestic reconstruction. President Bush's great great grand children will still be paying the bill for his vendetta against Saddam. United States soldiers may still be there searching for Saddam and hidden weapons of mass destruction in their time as well.
The Bush Administration will probably make repeated attempts to counteract the effects of Saddam's "poison pill" strategy through a series of restructuring and reorganizing exercises in Iraq. Unfortunately for Bush his Iraq occupation has already consumed a fatal dose of the "poison pill" and nothing short of divine intervention is likely to prevent its ultimate humiliating demise.
"Allies" in Europe are not sending troops to be killed because it would be domestic political suicide and leaders of nations specifically insulted and humiliated by Bush's surrogate intellectual goons are in no mood to help. Europeans are perfectly willing to watch Bush stew in the juices of his own arrogance and stupidity. They are also disinclined to support a Zionist puppet state blindly supporting Israel's suicidal tendencies in the Middle East. I think most Europeans probably understand that the current state of Israel is a doomed enterprise which will be gone in about twenty years.** They are perfectly satisfied to bide their time until the problems presented by Israel go away through natural processes.
Once it is understood that events in Iraq are facades for the personal clan feud between the Bush and Hussein houses, it is easy to see why Bush is losing. All Saddam must do to win is stay alive in the face of Bush's occupation of Iraq, which he is doing. Saddam does not even have to regain control of Iraq to win the feud, although he may somehow pull it off. Saddam has better survival skills than George W. Bush acquired during his pampered life.
It is possible that American forces could get lucky and succeed in locating and killing Saddam. This would be a definite loss for Saddam at family feud, but it would not end the adverse effects of the "poison pill" trap Bush has already fallen into. That blunder President Bush will have to live with the rest of his life, regardless of the amount of time Saddam has left on earth.
APPLIED MACHIAVELLIAN POLITICS 101
Any aspiring emperor needs the services and loyalty of an army, diplomatic corps, spies and assassins. Alienate any one of them and your aspirations are crippled. Alienate all four and the aspiring emperor commits suicide, both political and physical.
President Bush has driven his army to physical and emotion ruin. An ill-equipped undermanned expeditionary force was sent into Iraq justified by what have subsequently been revealed to be lies. Soldiers have been forced to work under conditions where they are nothing but sitting ducks for snipers and guerrilla attacks. Bush exacerbated their plight by inviting attacks against them with his chicken hawk macho "Bring'em on" declaration.
Expeditionary force members and their families have been repeatedly lied to about when they would be returning home.
Responsible commanders who correctly warned mistakes were being made were fired. Soldiers' pay has been cut in what are still active war zones and further pay cuts have been requested. The loyalty of reserve forces has been destroyed by needlessly disrupting their lives through extended call-ups for no other reason than to compensate for the consequences of falsehoods and incompetent leadership.
Disaster warnings from professional diplomats regarding the adverse consequences of invading Iraq were set aside for justifying "professional opinions" from the brown stained lips of neo-conservative sycophants. President Bush crowned his relationship with the diplomatic corps by doing nothing after someone in his administration attempted to engineer the murder of the CIA operative wife of diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson's affront was doing his job and reporting information that contradicted official falsehoods. Bush further exacerbated this bad situation by allowing Administration spin doctors to institute an ongoing political attack against Wilson and his wife.
In a Machiavellian driven government, the Emperor who betrays his spies and assassins must be made such a horrific negative example that no emperor ever contemplates the petty sacrifice of one of their lives again.
President George W. Bush has crossed a line that his spies and assassins cannot ignore out of their own Machiavellian self-interest and self-preservation. Bush's only hope of forgiveness is to stop the attacks against Wilson's CIA agent wife and mount the head of the fool who outed her clandestine status on a pike in front of the White House.
If Bush fails to act in his own best interest (and there is no indication he will do anything beyond paying lip service to an investigation), then the next election may be the least of his problems. At minimum, every vault and file drawer containing material documenting embarrassing or criminal information about Bush will be a hauled out and dumped in the public domain. Bush can expect an election campaign that resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger's.
If the Bush Administration official who outed Plame's covert status still has two remaining active brain cells, they will be seeking to lease space in whatever secret hole Osama bin Ladin is hiding. FBI agents will not be the only people seeking their identity. The FBI agents will probably be the only ones wanting to make an example of them by sending them to prison.
PRESIDENT BUSH LEADS HIS ARMY ACROSS THE LITTLE BIGHORN
President George W. Bush has publicly, by and through his neo-conservative staff, slapped the face of his army, his diplomats, his spies and assassins. One would think no politician on earth could be that stupid, yet, here we are.
Despite declarations of Democratic and Republican political ideology by Presidents, Senators and Representatives, the fundamental philosophy of applied government in Washington, D. C. is Machiavellian. When it comes to power, it is better to be feared than loved. The purest adherents and advocates of Machiavellian philosophy in Washington are found among the diplomats, spies and assassins.
Watching a "lets make an example of them no one will ever forget" war of retribution by Machiavellian diplomats, spies and assassins against a Bush led cult of Zionist neo-conservatives in the White House who believe themselves on a mission-from-God should be a historical spectacle to behold. In a war with these Machiavellians, Bush should not be surprised to find that his Jewish Zionist support has vanished and reappeared in the Wesley Clark Campaign. Why take the fool's side in such a conflict when the next likely President is also in the Zionist pocket? Jewish Zionists are not interested in seeing the destruction of their extensive spy and assassin network established in the United States that would flow from supporting Bush in a war with Machiavellian spies and assassins acting in there own vital interest. (If elected President, Wesley Clark will do nothing to shut down the Zionist spy and assassin network no matter how many American scientists are tossed off bridges or how much it costs us in national interest. It is one of Wesley Clark's few flaws, but a serious one.)
The spies and assassins have delivered their obligatory warning to the White House. It has been ignored.
Considering the variety of Bush Administration idiots that will be consumed in this self-ignited political conflagration in Washington perhaps his White House will be labeled by future historians as the ship of fuels.
*"Brown Finger Bush" http://www.topica.com/lists/SlickPlus2/read/message.html?mid=907367267&sort=d&start=50
**"The Inevitable Demise of Israel" http://www.topica.com/lists/SlickPlus2/read/message.html?mid=906821703&sort=d&start=29
© Copyright by James Roger Brown, 2003. All rights reserved. |
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shatoga
Joined: 23 Nov 2002
Posts: 1291
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Fri Jan 23, 2004 12:13 am
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not edited just from a post on another forum:
THE CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Article I
Section 3
paragraph 6
>The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.<
Article II
Section 4
>Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. <
High crimes and misdemeanors:
The Intelligence (Identies) Protection Act, passed in 1982, imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $ 50,000 in fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.
USC TITLE 50 CHAPTER 15 Sec. 421.
>Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry
CIA Agent's Identity Was Leaked to Media
October 23, 2003
The Washington Post
by Mike Allen and Dana Priest
Washington, DC -
The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.
The intentional disclosure of a covert operative's identity is a violation of federal law.
The Intelligence (Identies) Protection Act, passed in 1982, imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $ 50,000 in fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.
The officer's name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.
Novak's account is accurate, the leak was part of "a deliberate attempt on the part of the White House to intimidate others and make them think twice about coming forward."
a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.<
How about Bush violating his Oath of Office?
Also grounds for impeachment: Obstruction of Justice. http://emfx13.proboards17.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1074348891
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Boomer Chick
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Posts: 407
Location: Colorado |
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Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:05 am
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Glad you resurrected this thread!
There are many more reasons, besides these, too!
But how do you get the Republicans to vote for impeachment? How? This is the problem!
Great link to the Constitution, too!
Was it 2/3 of the Senate? That's the problem!
Still, though, the ICC in The Hague is currently beginning hearings against the British bombing in Iraq and Bush will also be an accomplice in that -- so maybe a world tribunal will drum up opposition. In April, a John Dean (Watergate) book dedicated to the premise of Bush's impeachment will be released!
The Republicans in the Congress at large will have to start aknowledging some truths before an actual impeachment could occur!
Also, I would add, that just impeaching Bush would not help! Who wants Cheney for pres? YUCK!
Anyway, all the public debate will churn things around, hopefully and the election will be the frosting on the cake!
bc  |
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Boomer Chick
Joined: 01 Sep 2003
Posts: 407
Location: Colorado |
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Fri Jan 23, 2004 3:48 am
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A modern day Watergate?
Infiltration of Files Seen as Extensive
By Charlie Savage
The Boston Globe
Thursday 22 January 2004
Senate Panel's GOP Staff Pried on Democrats
WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.
With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.
But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say.
The revelation comes as the battle of judicial nominees is reaching a new level of intensity. Last week, President Bush used his recess power to appoint Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, bypassing a Democratic filibuster that blocked a vote on his nomination for a year because of concerns over his civil rights record.
Democrats now claim their private memos formed the basis for a February 2003 column by conservative pundit Robert Novak that revealed plans pushed by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to filibuster certain judicial nominees. Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi nuclear programs.
Citing "internal Senate sources," Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.
Its details and direct quotes from Democrats -- characterizing former nominee Miguel Estrada as a "stealth right-wing zealot" and describing the GOP agenda as an "assembly line" for right-wing nominees -- are contained in talking points and meeting accounts from the Democratic files now known to have been compromised.
Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files.
"They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "As has been demonstrated, I don't reveal my sources."
As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.
Other staffers, however, denied that the Democrats were told anything about it before November 2003.
The emerging scope of the GOP surveillance of confidential Democratic files represents a major escalation in partisan warfare over judicial appointments. The bitter fight traces back to 1987, when Democrats torpedoed Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court. In the 1990s, Republicans blocked many of President Clinton's nominees. Since President Bush took office, those roles have been reversed.
Against that backdrop, both sides have something to gain and lose from the investigation into the computer files. For Democrats, the scandal highlights GOP dirty tricks that could result in ethics complaints to the Senate and the Washington Bar -- or even criminal charges under computer intrusion laws.
"They had an obligation to tell each of the people whose files they were intruding upon -- assuming it was an accident -- that that was going on so those people could protect themselves," said one Senate staffer. "To keep on getting these files is just beyond the pale."
But for Republicans, the scandal also keeps attention on the memo contents, which demonstrate the influence of liberal interest groups in choosing which nominees Democratic senators would filibuster. Other revelations from the memos include Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as "especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino," which they feared would make him difficult to block from a later promotion to the Supreme Court.
And, at the request of the NAACP, the Democrats delayed any hearings for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals until after it heard a landmark affirmative action case -- though a memo noted that staffers "are a little concerned about the propriety of scheduling hearings based on the resolution of a particular case."
After the contents of those memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and The Washington Times, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
Hatch also confirmed that "at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in media reports." He did not name the staffer, who he said was being placed on leave and who sources said has since resigned, although he had apparently already announced plans to return to school later this year.
Officials familiar with the investigation identified that person as a legislative staff assistant whose name was removed from a list of Judiciary Committee staff in the most recent update of a Capitol Hill directory. The staff member's home number has been disconnected and he could not be reached for comment.
Hatch also said that a "former member of the Judiciary staff may have been involved." Many news reports have subsequently identified that person as Manuel Miranda, who formerly worked in the Judiciary Committee office and now is the chief judicial nominee adviser in the Senate majority leader's office. His computer hard drive name was stamped on an e-mail from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League that was posted along with the Democratic Senate staff communications.
Reached at home, Miranda said he is on paternity leave; Frist's office said he is on leave "pending the results of the investigation" -- he denied that any of the handwritten comments on the memos were by his hand and said he did not distribute the memos to the media. He also argued that the only wrongdoing was on the part of the Democrats -- both for the content of their memos, and for their negligence in placing them where they could be seen.
"There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule," Miranda said. "Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."
Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result. Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison -- or, at the least, sanction under a Senate non-disclosure rule.
The computer glitch dates to 2001, when Democrats took control of the Senate after the defection from the GOP of Senator Jim Jeffords, Independent of Vermont.
A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.
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letxa2000
Joined: 30 Apr 2002
Posts: 588
Location: U.S. citizen in Mexico |
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Fri Jan 23, 2004 6:24 pm
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quote:
Originally posted by Boomer Chick:
A modern day Watergate?
Only if the President tries to cover it up or affect the investigation. No evidence or suggestion of that at this point. |
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shatoga
Joined: 23 Nov 2002
Posts: 1291
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Fri Jan 23, 2004 9:20 pm
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so,
If it's only the "president's" daddy orchestrating the obstruction of justice.
We should refuse to appoint an Independent Prosecutor
and instead let Bushies appoint a handpicked Chicago DOJ rightwinger to cover-up for them?
Please post some non-partisan logic to back up those RNC talking points!
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increase 1776
Joined: 07 Oct 2000
Posts: 3097
Location: Bizzaro World |
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Sun Apr 11, 2004 6:02 am
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lexta 2000 Bush and Cheney both tried to stop the investigation,more than once.These guys belong behind bars. Only one question needs to be asked ,Why did the President and Vice-President try to stop the 9-11 investigation? National Security ,as an excuse, usually means we're caught and we need to delay at all costs.I think that came right out of Webster's Dictionary.The Patriot Act is to protect Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfield,Asscroft. |
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