Tuesday, July 11, 2006

* newsweek via glenn:
"The implications of (Hamdan) —for potentially being arrested and tried in other countries—is certainly a little scary," says Ted Olson, the former solicitor general."
(actually, its the war crimes, and the implications of committing war crimes that is scary)

* glenn:
"They long ago lost the shield of popularity. The Supreme Court just ruled against them, and in the process, strongly insinuated that they may be war criminals and without any valid defenses to accusations of repeated criminal acts. Even their Congressional allies smell blood and are making threats and demanding concessions. And behind their unprecedentedly fortified walls of secrecy undoubtedly lurk the most incriminating, still-concealed revelations yet, and it is only a matter of time before we learn of those. Bush critics seems to assume that Bush officials are almost divinely protected from any meaningful consequences from their behavior, but it's a very good bet, at this point, that that comforting assumption is not shared by Bush officials."

* digby:
"I'm beginning to think the only way we'll ever get to the bottom of this (spying) is if we start a rumor that they are tracking gun owners. That's the only thing that worries Republicans enough that the congress will do something about it. If spy satellites are illegally monitoring people's homes or offices in some way, they believe Americans should be happy to comply. You have to be willing to give up some of your civil liberties so that the government can keep you safe --- except from gunfire, for which you should take personal responsibility by being heavily armed and prepared to kill in self-defense. The government has no business messing with the second amendment. The rest, however, are up for grabs."


* this from may 12 (via tpmm):
"A former intelligence officer (Russ Tice) for the National Security Agency said he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens.
[]
Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans.

"It's an angle that you haven't heard about yet," he said."
* via the RBC, we see that Dearlove a) confirmed the Downing Street Memo and b) :
"The version of the memo that is most often quoted was not the final version,” he said. “I made some important changes” – although he would not say what these pentimenti might have been."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re Dearlove, nice of him to drop that little 'nugget' on us, I wonder how long it will take him to spill the beans once Blair packs it in? (You can read from this that he's just gagging to tell!)

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to see what the final changes are... and of course, if they were indeed that, not just some cooked up - after the fact changes.

Track said...

"Congressional allies smell blood."

Right. I wish. Congressional allies are the people protecting Bush Co. If they had done oversight, this complete BS wouldn't have gone unchallenged.

It doesn't take a government scholar to realize torture, rendition, domestic spying, illegal invasions, war profiteering occupations and false flag terrorism are worth a couple of days of Congressional hearings.

lukery said...

romunov - i'm with simon - i think that C is gagging to tell his story.

noise - i respect glenn's opinion - and he seems to be saying 'holy shit - this is really serious'
a couple of days ago i quoted someone saying 'the supreme court doesnt have a police force.' i agree with you that we should have reached this point years ago - but maybe we are fast approaching it.

Track said...

I can't fault Greenwald for throwing in some optimism.

But the frame that Bush Co. is rogue and Congress is too scared to challenge them is hard to believe. I think it makes more sense to describe Congress as complicit in all of this illegal activity. Case in point, Pat Roberts.

Simply put, why is Congress protecting war criminals? Because they are accessories.

lukery said...

noise you are right.

particularly if glenn was talking about hoekstra