libertarian argument

Ron has a post up about Abramoff and puerto rico - i dont know the details of this particular story, but it's not surprising that abramoff deals in fringe places - can you see the pattern? marianas, puerto rico, sovereign indian tribes, offshore casinos?

i have a conflicted political perspective - i dont think i've ever said here, but i have an economics degree and an mba - and i ascribe to many of the doctrines that you might expect from someone with such a background. i'm also Very Liberal - and also very libertarian, anti-government like my buddy scott horton. how do i reconcile all of it? well, it's all a bit confused.

when i was younger and acronyms were all the rage, i coined the term PUPPIE - which was a punk-yuppie cross - which is kinda how i described (justified?) myself

the reason that i mention this, in the context of abramoff, is that my tendency is to lean to the anarchic fuck-the-government end of the spectrum. governments make stupid laws (even with the best intentions)- and they are there to be broken/worked-around.

abramoff makes this crystal clear in a bunch of ways - not least when he blackmailed his clients by creating impediments to their business interests - but, for our current purposes, by virtue of the fact that he operated in 'fringe' regions. 'shoulder' regions might be a better descriptor.

when governments say "marianias can stamp stuff 'made in the usa' but dont have to oblige by working conditions regulations" then they are effectively inviting abuse. it doesnt take a genius to find a way to utilize that loophole. similarly, when a government creates a rule where campaign contributions, a la hastert, donations under some artificial $200 limit aren't required to be disclosed, then people will find a way around the law. whenever the government creates an artificial boundary or 'shoulder', smart people will find a way around it.

it was this type of law that gave abramoff the space to do what he did. governments arent smart enough to create laws that are impervious to this type of 'gaming' - and that's why i'm inclined to side with the libertarian argument - despite the bad name they have been getting.

norad 'stood down '

* ive previously mentioned that i'm in awe of a-list bloggers to keep track of everything - which is really an apology that i can't even find the time to paticipate in comments on my own c-list (or z-list) comments. (sorry jon - i keep meaning to get to the oneill thing!) - but you should all read the comments over here - some amazing input by the remarkable damien and miguel

if i can just frontpage a couple of comments from there - not becuase they are better than the others, but only becuase i have some observations:

"As far the ATC infiltration of the FBI translation program, I would like to present a third possibility: the ATC tried to infiltrate the FBI before 9/11, but it was only after 9/11 that the opportunity came up when there were multiple positions for Turkish translators that came open."

i disagree. sibel's application was on ice for years, but ready to go the day after 911. as far as i can tell, the fbi had NO turkish translators before then - so maybe it depends on how you define 'infiltration.' remember, robert wright (or whoever) somehow knew that he was getting dodgy translations out of that office. my guess is that the ATC (et al) 'knew' that they could chata away as they liked - becuase they didnt think their conversations would ever get translated, even though they presumably had suspicions that they were being recorded. mike feghali was presumably complicit.

and look who they recruited - apart from sibel, there was kevin - who could hardly speak any language by all accounts, although his sister (or wife or someone) worked at the fbi, and then there was melek can dickerson. my best guess is that the 'infiltration' was more that they didnt have anyone to translate, rather than they had agents there.

damien says:

"My basic premise is that there is considerable evidence for 911 as a US inside job."

miguel says:

"As much as I despise the Bush Administration, I don't think Bush and Cheney are quite that evil- or that competent to pull something like that off. "

you'll have to read the rest for the full context - but i generally agree with damien - there sure is a lot evidence to support that theory - or more generally, that it certainly wasnt exclusively the job of a bunch of cave-dwelers.

as to miguel's point that bush/cheney arent sufficiently evil - i kinda agree that its difficult to imagine that anyone is so evil - yet it happened. someone is apparently sufficiently evil - so the only question is 'who?' we know that bush/cheney created a war out of cloth which has killed nearly 200,000 people, so far - so we know they are at least that evil

damien points to one of the more telling issues - any reasonable hijacker would have headed straight fof the wtc - but these goons flew around for 90 minutes or something. the issue isnt so much that norad 'stood down ' - but rather that the hijackers acted like they knew that norad would stand down.

anyway - they both make great (supplementary) points. go read

videotaped torture sessions

in the comments, 'noise' writes:

I think the politicians who support the Bush administration and won't do oversight on torture should be willing to watch videotaped torture sessions. There is way too much detachment from reality in D.C. to state the obvious.

great point.

some congresscritters watched some of the darby vids around the time of the taguba report - and they were all visibly shaken to the core - including rumsfeld, who presumably asked for a private copy that he could take home to watch with mrs rumsfeld.

incidentally, i read somewhere today (the Danner interview?), but dont think i quoted, that rumsfeld demanded hourly reports on how the torture of john walker lindh was going. base motherfucker.

The politics is just a cover

also from the comments, damien (whose name i occasionally mis-spell, apologies) notes:

"Yep, criminal, criminal, criminal. Going way back and prepared to start wars, sell nuclear weapons, betray state secrets, all for their own gain. The politics is just a cover."

brilliant insight and frame.

someone (digby? josh?) recently made an observation (iirc, from one of their own commentors) that repugs dont believe in govt, as per their mission statement, and therefore any repug politician is only in politics for their own personal gain. otoh, Dems at least believe in govt and so there's at least the chance that a Dem politician (D-Probably Corrupt) isnt as corrupt as a repug (R-Corrupt).

torture doesn't work / torture works

As you know, I abhor torture in any form, and by most accounts - particularly those accounts 'on the left', it doesn't work.

Larry Johnson has a piece in the LAT:

"If you inflict enough pain on someone, they will give you information, but what they tell you may not be true. You will have to corroborate it, which will take time. And, unless you kill every suspect you brutalize, you will make enemies of them, their families, maybe their entire villages. What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust — even with a terrorist, even if it's time-consuming — than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights."

I hope we have a better argument than this - can you spot the flaw in the argument?

"the Nazis and the Soviets believed that national security always trumped human rights" - and therefore it was ok for them to torture...

if torture 'doesn't work', and it creates blowback, then we need to stop it for those reasons. if torture 'does work', then we need to throw the 'torture doesn't work' thing in the trash, and only argue on 'human' grounds, and we need to find another way to argue that we aren't terrorist lovers who don't care about national security.

perhaps we can argue that torture 'works' to the extent that it 'extracts quick confessions' - but those confessions are usually just self-incriminating lies to make the torture stop (if that is indeed the case). a while back, digby wrote a post or two about the fact that nazi/soviet torture methods were in fact designed to extract false confessions, and that 'we' have adopted the same techniques - perhaps we can take that line (again, if it is true).

the reality is that many countries torture, and many have tortured in the past - presumably because (they believe) it 'works' at some level, (or because the perpetrators are psychopaths).

we need to get the story straight, because we are going to officially be 'at war' for decades if the neocons have any say in the matter, and while we are at war, national security trumps paper, rock and scissors - ergo, the neocons will always argue that they should be be torturing more people.

(btw - the latest Darby pix release was a two day story, which makes me feel like i've been tortured)

Judge Reggie Walton

btw - i'm horrified by this development, despite the spin that the media is putting on it:

"Judge Reggie Walton seemed skeptical about a second request by the defense that it also be given highly classified documents known as the President's Daily Brief for a similar period. The judge deferred a final ruling on that request, which Libby's defense team says is essential in demonstrating that he was busy with other national security matters at the time of the Plame leak.

[snip]

A strategy to 'sabotage' case?
Defense lawyers have said that if Libby's statements to investigators were untrue, it was a case of innocent confusion or faulty memory because of his preoccupation with pressing national security matters at the time.

Walton said he is concerned that Libby’s request could “sabotage” the case because President Bush probably would invoke executive privilege and refuse to turn over the classified reports.

“The vice president — his boss — said these are the family jewels,” the judge said, referring to Cheney’s past description of the daily briefings. “If the executive branch says, 'This is too important to the welfare of the nation and we’re not going to comply,’ the criminal prosecution goes away.”"

grrrrrrr.

of course, walton used to work with cheney and libby and poppy bush, and keeps getting allocated to sibel's cases

Guns dont kill people, coathangers kill people

* "In a paper for an Israeli think tank, the same think tank for which Wurmser, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith prepared the famous “Clean Break” paper in 1996, Wurmser wrote in 1997 : “The residual unity of the nation is an illusion projected by the extreme repression of the state.” After Saddam, Iraq would “be ripped apart by the politics of warlords, tribes, clans, sects, and key families,” he wrote. “Underneath facades of unity enforced by state repression, [Iraq’s] politics is defined primarily by tribalism, sectarianism, and gang/clan-like competition.” Yet Wurmser explicitly urged the United States and Israel to “expedite” such a collapse. “The issue here is whether the West and Israel can construct a strategy for limiting and expediting the chaotic collapse that will ensue in order to move on to the task of creating a better circumstance.”" (link)
people seem to forget - the destruction of iraq was the whole point.

* when blastocytes become human, in south dakota et al, i can't wait to see the bumperstickers: "Guns dont kill people, coathangers kill people"

* "Mr. Bush's overall job rating has fallen to 34 percent, down from 42 percent last month." (link)
ponies all round. that's incredible - a 20% fall in a month. Yay, us.

* bob herbert: "In one of the great deceptive maneuvers in U.S. history, the military-industrial complex (with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as chairman and C.E.O., respectively) took its eye off the real enemy in Afghanistan and launched the pointless but far more remunerative war in Iraq." (link)

* Glenn: " The Administration has been and still is defending a general theory of unchecked Executive power, not a theory of eavesdropping. They don't care about tinkering with FISA standards. They care about the power to make national security decisions (including, but not limited to, eavesdropping) without any oversight or limitation. As a result, the Specter legislation will not be any more acceptable to them than the current FISA legislation is, and their rejection of it will only serve to highlight just how radical the Administration's position is -- something which, in my view, is a development that ought to be welcomed and encouraged."

pre-mature

* the newly famous Paul Pillar slams Pat Roberts et al for not doing "Phase2" and calls the 911Comm report "a selective and misleading account of strategic intelligence on terrorism, obscuring the actual reasons US counterterrorist policy took the course it did prior to 9/11." (link)
go read

* from the editors at NRO: "If Iraq ever descends into a real civil war, we won't have to debate whether it has happened. It will be clear for all to see. The military will dissolve into ethnic factions, and the government will collapse. That hasn't happened, and so declarations of defeat in Iraq — of the sort our founder and editor-at-large William F. Buckley Jr. made last week — are pre-mature." (link)
i wonder if they intentionally hyphenated 'premature', perhaps demonstrating that they are, themselves, pre-mature.

* maha:

"Now I want to confuse everyone by arguing that “when life begins” is the wrong question. It’s the wrong question because life doesn’t begin. Or, at least, it hasn’t begun on this planet in a very long time. However life got to Earth — between 3 and 4 billion years ago, I believe — once it established it hasn’t been observed to “begin” again. It just continues, expressing itself in countless forms. The forms come and go — in a sense — but not life itself.

It will be argued that fertilization marks the beginning of a unique individual and is, therefore, a significant moment in the life process — the point when a life begins. But let’s say a couple of weeks later the egg divides into twins or triplets. Did those individuals’ lives begin with the conception? Or, since they didn’t exist as individuals at conception, is the cell division something like an existential reboot?"

stfu

* some people (FDL) are pointing approvingly to this complete and utter nonsense in the WaPo:

"Joseph King, who headed the customs agency's anti-terrorism efforts under the Treasury Department and the new Department of Homeland Security, said national security fears are well grounded.

He said a company the size of Dubai Ports World would be able to get hundreds of visas to relocate managers and other employees to the United States. Using appeals to Muslim solidarity or threats of violence, al-Qaeda operatives could force low-level managers to provide some of those visas to al-Qaeda sympathizers, said King, who for years tracked similar efforts by organized crime to infiltrate ports in New York and New Jersey. Those sympathizers could obtain legitimate driver's licenses, work permits and mortgages that could then be used by terrorist operatives.

Dubai Ports World could also offer a simple conduit for wire transfers to terrorist operatives in the Middle East. Large wire transfers from individuals would quickly attract federal scrutiny, but such transfers, buried in the dozens of wire transfers a day from Dubai Ports World's operations in the United States to the Middle East would go undetected, King said."

wtf?

even i'm astonished.

terrorists in the M.E. might get money? that's their argument? please shuthefuckup!

(and shame on anyone who approvingly points to this utter bullshit)

I feel like their ping pong game.

* quote of the day from mark danner: " "This is where the deer hang out," he says and points to a small area just beyond our chairs where the grass is slightly pressed down. "They lie there contemplating me as I pace on the other side of the bay window. I feel like their ping pong game."" (link)
its from a fascinating interview with tom dispatch, which i suggest you read.

* "Wade began providing information to the government shortly after the tainted sale of Cunningham's house was disclosed in a Copley News Service story published June 12 in The San Diego Union-Tribune." (link)

* Josh has the Wade Statement of Offence

Is Pat Roberts at risk or just a hack republican criminal

From the Witchita Eagle - Is Pat Roberts at risk?

Roberts' position is intriguing, said Rutgers' Baker, who has advised several Democratic senators and one Republican over three decades.

"Evidently Sen. Roberts has been persuaded there is something there that makes him need to defend the administration," he said.

But the aggressive defense of Bush may also compromise Roberts' committee leadership, Baker said.

"Three or four years ago, if you asked Democrats to list the 10 Republicans easiest to work with, Pat Roberts would have made the list," but no more, Baker said.

High-profile intelligence controversies, starting with Sept. 11, have turned the Senate's historically bipartisan intelligence committee into one of the most bitterly partisan in Congress, with negative consequences on national security debates, Baker said.

Roberts said he can't help it if Democrats have played politics with national security.

"Don't talk to me about partisan charges on the committee after what I've been through," he said, referring to a leaked memo showing Democrats' plan to use Roberts to advance their own political ends, as well as other partisan controversies that have roiled since Roberts took over Intelligence in 2003.

"I'm a very patient person," he said. "I'm not known as a partisan."

But circumstances might make that reputation unavoidable, Baker said. And for the public, it may be impossible to tell where security ends and politics begins.

"My problem or frustration is that I can't set the record straight," Roberts said.

bwahahahaha

You can re-read Larisa's take on Pat Roberts here - note that this is the first in her series about the OSP and WHIG and Feith and Plame and Ledeen etc. etc

Francis Fukyama

* quote of the today from the comments at emptywheel's place: "I could understand Francis Fukyama if he adhered to neocon thinking while deploring Libby-type execution. But he's apparently deploring neocon thinking while supporting Libby-type execution. He's got to be some sort of nutcase."

* emptywheel has 'finally' finished her conclusion piece on obeidi - she has nearly convinced herself that the nukes were planted by a Rendon operation.

* kleiman: "Now George W. Bush has given us a gift:
"This (port) deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America."" (link)

* xymphora: "Ghorbanifar is using Fereidoun Mahdavi as a cutout to spread the stories about Iran in Washington, as he knows his own reputation is so bad that no one would believe them if it was known where they really came from. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Ghorbanifar was himself a cutout, being used to disguise the real source of the stories, his good friend Michael Ledeen." (link)

* xymphora: "The Dubai conspiracy is apparently going to be to use the American ports to fill the United States up with illegal drugs and illegal arms. Finally, the American people will have illegal drugs and arms! Then they'll fill all the ships up with terrorists and blow up the entire country! You might think this would be bad for business if you are trying to run an international port security company, but the Arab love for terrorism knows no bounds." (link)

Sibel's interview with Meria Heller

(update for those of you coming from dkos - there's more on Hastert's crimes related to Sibel Edmonds here)

here's some more from Sibel's interview with Meria Heller - see Meria.net - the show is in the archives, with all of Meria's other interviews

firstly, congratulations to meria and her audience for asking some great, direct, simple question. from my own experience, when i (and others) am talking to the 'most gagged person in american history' - for some reason, the tendency is to tiptoe around certain questions - which is dumb - sibel knows what she can, and can't, answer.

secondly, for more background, read my earlier pieces about Sibel, starting with how we got in contact here, and read here about our new campaign about Hastert here.

my transcription isnt quite verbatim, and there's some paraphrasing. all errors are mine.

Sibel was asked whether she knew anything about the 911 hijackers - she responded:

I don't have any direct information that relates to these 19 hijackers - I've never said that I did have any direct information. The information that I reported to COngress and the 911 Commission and the Inspector General's office - and even during a court hearing - that had to do with indirect involvement of certain people and/or entities and organizations involved with the money laundering aspect of it.

In certain cases - in return for bribery - providing certain visas for some of the hijackers - that information didn't directly relate to the hijackers themselves - but to their support network, their financial network. So to answer that question - I never had any direct information about the hijackers.

However - there were - and there still are today - certain individuals and entities and organisations who are very closely associated with the terrorist network - and they have not been touched.

now i'll paraphrase because this isn't new

and i would like to give an analogy - if you take the War on Drugs, imagine if they only went after street dealers and they refused to investigate the mid-level dealers or the drug lords. This is very similar.

and now back again to more or less direct quotes

What occured with the 911 related investigation - be it the FBI, or the Department of Defense, or the Department of State, or the CIA or the Pentagon - they choose to basically publicise the deal (?) at the hijacker level - and completely went about covering up certain entities that they had DIRECT evidence, DOCUMENTED evidence of the support networks - be it the financial support networks, or communications, or obtaining visas - they have not touched those individuals. Those individuals are still roaimng free! Today!

Meria then had another question from the audience: Do you really believe that Arabs were involved in 911?
Sibel:

Ok - I have my own piece - and there are so many pieces involved - and I can't speak to many other pieces - so I'll just limit myself to my own direct experience, and direct information. We are talking about many countries - several countries. We're not just talking about - as they say - Saudi Arabia and Egypt - but they have glossed over the involvement of certain entities within other countries - such as Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan - many central asian countries.

They have absolutely covered up the involvement of certain entities - it's not necessarily only governmental - from these other countries - central asia - they call it "Sensitive Diplomatic Relations' - you know they are putting (military) bases there.

We are actually supporting what they are doing - even certain abuses - they are involved in... certain criminal activities.

Meria:

In effect - we are supporting terrorism

Sibel:

yes

Sibel then goes on to say that Saudi business people and officials, including Bin Ladens were moved out of the country immediately after 911 without even the slightest questioning - and then notes that 911 was used by the government as an excuse to implement a police state

Sibel then talks about a lot of whistblower stuff - which is important, but has been covered elsewhere

Another question from Meria "Do you believe 911 was an inside job?"

Sibel responded that she can't answer that definitively because she only has a piece of the information puzzle - then:

"I don't know everything that was involved but I can tell you -for sure - with 100% certainty - that they have gone out of their way to cover up the real entities involved in the 911 terrorist attacks - they have gone out of their way NOT to investigate. In fact, we warned (phonetic?) certain people who had involvement with 911 - and that raises the question that you just asked - WHY? Just why would they go to such lengths to cover up all the related, factual information about 911? And therefore, that gives credence to people who are asking the question!

If I was the government, and this outrageous incident took place in my country, I'd do EVERYTHING to bring about accountability - and to put out all the information if I really am saying that 'I'm fighting the terrorists'. WHY? The question is WHY?

And a part of that is - were there certain individuals (officials - some appointed, some of them elected) who were involved with these support networks?

Yes, there were!

Were some of them indirectly, but yet knowingly and directly involved?

Yes, they were!

Are these people still around? Are they some highly-recognizable, highly-known names? Yes! And that's why they invoked the States Secret privilege in my case. It's not because the information involved some low-level highjackers or some individual in Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

They are protecting certain individuals whose names will automatically come out and have to be investigated if the entire information that I reported to COngress and to the Inspector General, and to the 911 Commission were to come out.

And as I said - highly recognizable individuals . Now, granted - some of them willingly left their positions due to the revolving door - and they are now with one firm or another - some of them don't have their governmental positions - or elected positions - but were there (people knowingly and directly involved)? Yes!

Is that the reason they have been invoking the gag orders and state's secret privilege? Yes!

Would we have criminal indictments of these people if - at least my part of the information - were to come out? Yes! Absolutely!

Sibel then went onto describe the Hastert situation with Louis Freeh - transcribed by the ever-wonderful Miguel:

“…what happened was, FBI had this information since 1997. In 1999, the Clinton Administration actually asked the Department of Justice to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate Hastert, and certain other elected officials that were not named in this (VF) article, to be investigated formally. And the Department of Justice actually went about appointing this prosecutor, but after the Administration changed they quashed that investigation and they closed it despite the fact they had all sorts of evidence, again I’m talking about wiretaps, documents- paper documents- that was highly explosive and could have been easily used to indict the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. That investigation was closed in 2001, and this was around the time I started reporting my cases to the Congress.”

She then described the the VF article and Hastert and the American Turkish Council which I've previously discussed at length (see here for the claims against Perle and Feith, and as a general starting point for all things related to Sibel. See here for the Hastert bribery campaign)

Sibel then mentioned that the corruption extended beyond Perle and Feith to Grossman and Edelman - again, start here and here for more of that

She then went on to mention a Europol report which I havent yet seen for 2000-2005 which says that 30% of Turkish GDP is narcotics, and that 98% of Europe's narcotics are processed in Turkish labs

And then she discussed Judge Reggie Walton - we should have more on him in the next few weeks - but he is a bit of a concern - he keeps getting allocated to Sibel's cases, and he is the judge in the Libby/plame case. He was a Drug Czar in Bush 41's administration - and he is the only judge in history to have all of his personal records redacted... in fact, he worked with cheney and libby in previous administrations.

(and a final hat tip to miguel, again)

Iraq 3.0: This Time We're Not Dicking Around

* juan cole: "I gave an interview to Jim Lobe of Interpress Service in which I raised the possibility that there might now be a hung parliament in Iraq, with no group able to form a government, forcing new elections and further political gridlock." (link)

* jcole: "The shoe seems to be on the other foot now, with Muqtada al-Sadr attempting to cool Iraq's Shiites down and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani threatening to create a paramilitary to protect Shiites." (link)

* wolcott: "But it would be political suicide for Bush to follow such counsel and lift the troop levels in Iraq to crank the war up an aggressive notch: Iraq 3.0: This Time We're Not Dicking Around. Mind you, I'm all for Bush's political suicide, but what's in it for him? Not much and he knows it. He's lost too much political trust and capital, Americans are tired of the war (more tired than the political class and punditocracy), and the military is stretched max. It's too late for a Victor Davis Hanson cavalry charge into the black heart of the Sunny insurgency led by Kristol and his neocon comrades embedded in cable-news green rooms 3000 miles in the rear, cheering, "Kill them! Defeat them!" at the TV monitor in voices loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to disturb Richard Perle napping in his portable coffin."

* wolcott: "Poor President Bush, prince of fools. He let the neoconservative creative destructors play upon his religiosity (and Cheney's power hunger) and persuade him that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be a transformative moment that would set democracy and freedom in motion across the region, and crown him in history with Churchillian honor. I believe Bush wanted democracy in Iraq, or convinced himself that he believed it after the Chalabi-as-chess-king scheme fell through, because such belief flatters his pride in his own idealism. But the intellectual architects of the policy didn't care. If there was peace and stability in the new Iraq that would strength America's power in the region and bolster Israeli security, fine; if Iraq fissured into factional strife, fire, and chaos, better still."

Wizard of Oz

* john warner on MTP got all excised about portgate being referred to as FOREIGN OWNERSHIP - its just a lease, silly.

* "Google Inc.'s concerns that a Bush administration demand to examine millions of its users' Internet search requests would violate privacy rights are unwarranted, the Justice Department said Friday in a court filing." (link)

* "Money from MZM employees and PAC was the top source of cash for Harris’ campaign by a more than 2-to-1 margin. " (link)

* juancole:

"To tell you the truth I think it's like that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the curtain is lifted. I think that much of the war on terror is an illusion. I think what you've really got is 4,000 or 5,000 jihadis that you should be tracking down through local cooperation and Interpol and the FBI, on the one hand. And you've got the Sunni Arab guerrillas of Iraq who are sore that we overthrew the Baath government on the other hand. And you have some tensions with Syria and Iran. But I don't see how this makes for a coherent enemy. I think Washington misses the Cold War, and the great tragedy is that the Muslims are just not going to be providing the analogy. We can talk as though they do, but they don't, and eventually this whole smoke-and-mirrors thing is going to collapse."

army recruiting

*

"During January, the Army recruited 8,337 new members, 103 percent of its goal; the Navy, 2,726, 101 percent; the Marine Corps, 3,234, 106 percent; and the Air Force, 2,915, 101 percent, Krenke said." (link)

glorious predictions all round. incidentally, that target was about the same as Jan last year. Things went a little haywire in February - stay tuned.


(mind you, they are already down a lot already this year vis last year)

punishing Holocaust denial

* xymphora: " The argument in favor of punishing Holocaust denial is even sillier than Holocaust denial itself. No one can really believe that David Irving's views are going to prevail, a fact clearly demonstrated by the universal reaction to him. "

* clemons: "The reality though -- hard as it is to admit -- is that Vice President Cheney shrugged off the Libby indictment in a few weeks and has roared back to a robust role in national security affairs and is now trying to strangle Condoleezza Rice's foreign policy agenda.
Addington's rise and those of his acolytes -- have given the neoconservative agenda some new faces, lesser known, but in many ways far more insidious."

* blumenthal: "Bush operates on the radical notion of the "unitary executive," that the president has inherent and limitless powers in his role as commander in chief, above the system of checks and balances. By his extraordinary order, he elevated Cheney to his level, an acknowledgment that the vice president was already the de facto executive in national security. Never before has any president diminished and divided his power in this manner. Now the unitary executive inherently includes the unitary vice president."

* speaking of Robert Wright and wiretaps, this from 2002:

"(Special Agent) Wright points to recent misconduct and falsifications of wiretap warrant applications by FBI agents (signed-off by the former FBI Director, Louis Freeh) to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court. Prior to September 11th, SA Wright alleged FBI intelligence agents lied and hid vital records from criminal agents for the purpose of obstructing his criminal investigation of the terrorists in order to protect their “subjects,” and prolong their intelligence operations. SA Wright was stunned to learn recently that some of the FBI intelligence agents that had stalled and obstructed his criminal investigations of terrorists in Chicago had also lied to the judges of the FISA Court in Washington, DC."

FISA is notoriously compliant - why would they falsify the applications? the interesting thing is that Wright appears to make these claims in the context of obstructing investigations, not facilitating them.

Franklin & Rhode speak Farsi

* Larisa is interested in the Rome meeting with Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, Franklin, Rhode and SCIRI, and she notes that Hadley (and Rice) authorised it. Larisa also notes that both Rhode and Franklin are in trouble for passing secrets to both Israel and Iran.

Re-reading Laura's story about Ledeen and Ghorbanifar from last May and i stumble across this: "

How the Bush administration came to authorize the initial December 2001 meeting in Rome is a curious tale that suggests how far Ghorbanifar can reach. The meeting included two Farsi-speaking Pentagon of?cials, Defense Intelligence Agency Iran expert Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, a polyglot Middle East specialist, both then working for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith."

It's not a surprise that these people speak Farsi, given their roles, but we know that Sibel hates Feith, and she translates Farsi. We know that Rhode has been investigated before, and we know the broader investigation that snared Franklin has been going on since at least 1999. Is it possible that some of the stuff she talks about is straight outta the mouths of Rhode and Franklin? That would be an interesting turn of events, wouldnt it?

I can't find the quote at the moment, but Sibel specifically makes the point somewhere that it's possible to work out who she is talking about by looking at the languages they speak, and their career trajectory in and out of different countries and such

Also, we know that Sibel is familiar with the AIPAC case, and much more. She says

"the AIPAC spy scandal, as far as I'm reading today, is just touching the surface of it. It's going only to a certain degree. It doesn't go high enough, in what it involves and how far it goes, and that's... as far as I can explain."

Incidentally, remember this conversation with scott horton which got some tongues wagging:

"SH: Okay, I'm going to go ahead and name some people whom I suspect inside the State Department and the Pentagon, and I suppose you won't be able to answer affirmative or negative on any of these, but I'm very curious when I read about this kind of corruption going on in the State Department, I immediately think of John Bolton and David Wurmser. Do those names mean anything to you?

SE: Well, first of all, I'm not going to answer that question at all, but also you should pay attention to the fact that some of these people have been there for a while, and some of these people had their roots in there even in the mid-1990s.

SH: So more career officials rather than political appointees.

SE: Or maybe a mixture of both."

Kenneth Pollack, identified in the Franklin case as USGO-1 seems to meet that criteria:

Previous Position(s): Director for National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (2001-2002); Director for Persian Gulf Affairs, National Security Council (1999-2001); Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs, National Security Council (1995-1996); Senior Research Professor, National Defense University (1998-99, 2001); Iran-Iraq Military Analyst, Central Intelligence Agency (1988-1995)

I wonder what Sibel knows...

update: this from Sibel's interview with Chris Deliso, discussing the Franklin case:

SE: But it will be interesting to see how far they pursue it – whether they will be satisfied just to make an example out of the fairly low-level guys they're looking at now, or want to keep going higher.

CD: When you were at the FBI, did you have any colleagues who were working on this case, investigating the Israelis?

SE: Look, I think that that [the AIPAC investigation] ultimately involves more than just Israelis – I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel.

She didn't answer Deliso's question about whether any of her colleagues were working on the case, but in answer to the question, she indicated that she knows some inside information. My hunch that she listened to some taps of Franklin and Rhode is getting stronger...

CominDownSunday

* the good news is that Driftglass already has his CominDownSunday review - i guess he was in a hurry to get to the first bloody mary. a coupla highlights:

""Good" Joe (Biden) showed up today, so I’m glad to see that he has gotten his meds rebalanced and has brought his raging Vichy bullshit glossolalia temporarily under control."

and

(When Fox-poo-nozzle Chris Wallace has the temerity to try to tag Joe Biden with a race card and Wallace doesn’t disappear in a flash of holy fire accompanied by a thundervoice intoning, “Alright, that’s it. I am a patient Diety, but even I have finally had it with you screwheads.” it’s enough to make me doubt the existence of a benevolent God. On a Sunday no less!)

and

But…but…aren’t elections brimming with Special Majyks, George? Isn’t that what your Rat People legion of Doom tell us every single day?

That you won, so we all should just shut the fuck up? That elections trump physics and causality and human nature? That there is no global warming, we’re winning in Iraq and the Earth is only 6,000 years old…because you voted it so?

psst

psst

what an odd sentiment

Bin Laden's visits to Turkey

in response to this post, miguel says:

"We should not underestimate the importance of this story of Bin Laden's visits to Turkey, if the story is true. It would be the first confirmation that I know of, outside Sibel Edmonds herself, that there was a Turkish connection to al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. And it fits with Sibel's story: she has consistently said that Turkish countries and lobbying/cultural organizations are tied to al-Qaeda through money laundering and other illegal activities. This article clearly states that Bin Laden was in Turkey to meet with the "most distinguished representatives of the Turkish financial elite."

One can see, if the article's charges are true, why the American Turkish Council would have wanted to penetrate the FBI translation program after 9-11. The exposure of Turkey, Turkic and Baltic countries, and related organizations to al-Qaeda money laundering would have been very bad for business. Of course, in retrospect, they needn't have bothered, for the Bush Administration was always going to be on their side( with a little help from the feckless Democrats.)

It would be nice to get Sibel's input on this- to see if this was a report she was aware of and if she gives the report any credence."

i must admit that i was startled by the allegations in the story - not only that obl was a guest of the distinguished turks, but also that there were 'training camps' in cyprus (i've always been skeptical of 'terrrorist training camps' - it sounds like propaganda) - however i'm really not deep in the weeds of osama's to-ing and fro-ing.

also - i'm not necessarily comfortable with miguel's characterization that the ATC infiltrated the FBI translation unit *after* 911 - i suspect that it happened beforehand

damien seems to know more about this stuff than anyone. damien, any thoughts?

finally, when i hear 'gray wolves' , for some reason i'm reminded of p2, which reminds me of ledeen, which brings me back to larisa's focus on those ledeen meetings in rome & paris.

i'm so dizzy... i guess that's the point

driftglass should get more traffic

* driftglass:

"In the Age of Dubya, the Party of God hasn’t just fallen down the rabbit hole, but has positively hurled itself down into darkness with JATO units strapped to their little, webbed feet to help rocket them to the bottom faster.

In the Age of Dubya, rabid weasels like Coulter and Hannity and Falwell speak for the Party and enforce Orthodoxy with a sledgehammer, and however untouchably revered (william) Buckley might have been in Conservative circles a week ago doesn’t matter. He can become just another Swiftboated unperson in the twinkling of an eye because in the Age of Dubya, Truth and Principle have long ago been bound and gagged and duct-taped into a duffle-bag in the trunk of the GOP Deathmobile...

Because in the Age of Dubya, you can either be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but you can no longer be both.

So file this under "Duh", and cross-index under, "Well you certainly took your sweet fucking time, didn't you?"

[snip - dg quotes from the instantly famous Buckley article]

And as a public service to those of you on-the-goers who don't want to wade into Buckleyese this afternoon, this shorter version of Big Bill's article:

As 49 million Americans warned you, the Dear Leader has now lied himself and this country right off the proverbial cliff Wile E. Coyote style.

And as 49 million Americans warned you, while the bizarre GOP strategy of simply refusing to look down and hoping that will keep us aloft might seem viable in cartoons or in your Jebus-For-Dummies anti-religion, it doesn’t actually work out here in the Real World where cause and effect will have its merry way with you every, single fucking time.

And now that Buckley can actually feel the wind from our accelerating fall whipping through his comb-over, he thinks maybe someone should maybe do something about it."

whenever i read driftglass, i honestly get overwhelmed by his writing - and i know that some of you feel the same. his prose, and insight, is mind-bogglingly exquisitely delicious. i'm tempted to say that he is a writer's writer, but that's a cliche, and i'm not a writer, so that would be a dumb thing to say.

if i was a writer, not only could i say that i was motivated to somehow emulate driftglass, but i could also say that i was motivated to be a writer for the sole purpose of trying to somehow-accurately describe driftglass' writing/impact. that would be motivation enough. you already know this.

yesterday i wrote a confused post-without-a-purpose where i ended up marvelling at the ability of A-list bloggers to keep track of stuff. i agree entirely with that sentiment, but what is much more amazing is the b-listers and c-listers who do much the same thing, with an audience in the tens, rather than the tens of thousands. i'm sure they all have different motivations but there are thousands of bloggers who, for whatever particular reason, do their tiny bit to contribute to the discourse - and they each deserve medals - for their efforts, if not their impact.

for my own part, i try to do a little bit of activism, and provide links to a bunch of other stories that i'm reading, and try to solve some of the mysteries of the day, and preach-to-the-converted, and a bit of this and a bit of that. but i dont really 'market' (with a couple of exceptions) any of the work that i do - so i guess that's a major shortcoming in any 'activism' that i purport to do... which is to contribute to saving the world in my own little way - and i note, there are thousands of other bloggers who try do the same, in exactly the same way - and we all live on the fumes of the odd comment hither and tither, and the odd hit, and the odd link and whatnot. it makes it all worthwhile - yep, we are all that cheap.

all of which is a really long-winded way of introducing this post by driftglass - where he gives a snapshot of his traffic figures (after getting a C&L link)


its incredibly sad that his traffic figures are so low, however he notes:

I understand and feel a particlar kind of sorry for people who chase the spike in any endeavor: the Ahabs, forever stalking their particular White Whale, because IMHO, nothing I know ever works that way.

Bill Macy didn’t get to be a star today based on "Fargo"; he got to "Fargo" and beyond by practicing his craft like any other working man. Asimov wrote a jillion books, one at a time, year after year. Hell, Lincoln lost every damned election ever until the big one.

There are people -- people I know -- who routinely wager large parts of their lives and futures on the Big Score, and it just never works out that way. And so I don’t know if its blog taboo (blogboo?) to flash one’s hitcount to the world (as if the world were watching or cared :-) but while a daily total of visitors is satisfying and I cherish the comments and emails I get, the number itself is not relevant to me one way or another; the process, the work and the people I get to interact with are what matter, so I posted it up here just to illustrate a larger point.

That anyone can hit it big on any given day, but the inflation of the moment has no nutritional value, and it evaporates like dew in a firestorm. What matters is the work, and the residue of what endures after a freak sunny day in February has gone. And my reason for using this, specific example during this political season is this:

It is especially important to remember over the next nine months that the world we living in and the nation we love will not be changed by massed millions in streets on a Sunday, but by a few hundred scattered here and there in polling places on a Monday.

That winning back our nation is the hard, steady, behind-the-scenes work of thousands of volunteers – and, yes, I’m looking at YOU -- that does not come with the sugar-highs of huge spikes and fanfares and giant novelty checks.

Because virtually nothing of value ever does.

We win this country back one vote and one voter at a time.

We will kick the everloving shit out of these people…if we can just get used to the fact that this is a game of inches and single digits. Marches and rallies and petitions and blogs and so forth are terrific and I’m all for them, but in the trenches of the political universe, damned good ass-whippings are administered in the aggregate on election day, and that aggregates comes in small, unspectacular increments.

Or, as Voltaire said, "No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."

driftglass is correct, of course. he always is. there are thousands of c-list bloggers out there (including me) who, collectively, make an inch of a difference. I am blessed because my work, and my contacts, and my wonderful, amazing commentors, give us a chance to hit it outta the park - and we are really close...

but even if 'we' dont, somewhere, amongst the thousands of people who are trying to do the same thing, we'll find the piece of the puzzle that stops these fukkers. eventually, collectively, we'll stop them. i dont care if we've been barking up the wrong tree all this time - so long as there are others barking up different trees - eventually, one of us will break through - and that's the only thing that matters. if it happens to be 'me', it will only be because of the collective contribution of you guys, and same thing if it's larisa, or emptywheel, or scott, or glenn, or anyone else. it might even be someone wingnut - but it will only happen because we were collectively barking up trees, trying to find an answer.

i was 'interviewed' a while back because of the impeachment thing that i set in motion, and i made exactly the same point - there are thousands of us trying to find a way to break through the nonsense and eventually one of us will find a way through.

kudos, of sorts, to the people who set up the barriers to the truth, they've done an incredible job. 5 years ago i would have sworn black and blue that it wasnt possible. but we'll defeat them. eventually. we must.

to summarize this post, a) driftglass should get more traffic b) they have to kill me to stop me trying to stop them

more 911 skyscraper blueprints and building composites

Further to my posts (here and here) about 'terrorists' receiving building blueprints and building composites for certain skyscrapers in July and August 2001...

(update: hello xymphorans. note that i refer to 'terrorists' - not osama)

In that first post I wrote:

"Regardless, the question remains - why were the plotters of 911 interested in blueprints and the construction materials of these skyscrapers? And perhaps even more interesting, why did they wait until their plot was well underway to source this information - presumably as some sort of afterthought?"

Damien has a theory:

"This is on the WTC plans/composition etc being passed to Middle East a few months before 911, as witnessed by S.Edmonds.

Assume there is a network of rogue US/CIA intelligence agents acting with operatives in Saudi & Pakistan (& even Israeli) intelligence and the neocon's drugs/arms networks. It is essentially a network for crime run by the neocons. Call it RogueNet. Assume OBL planned the plane attacks, but that the terrorists were spotted early on by RogueNet. The neocons then decide to let 911 run and get some benefits by helping it along. They install the explosives in the buildings and deflect FBI inquiries in the months leading up to 911.

OBL has no knowledge of any bombs(too hard to for him to organise). But, Sibel witnesses building plans being passed to RogueNet operatives in the Middle East by neocon handlers. Of particular interest here could be Mossad members of RogueNet interested in reviewing demolition plans to ensure its success, or to coordinate removal of Israeli citizens. (I don't particularly support the Mossad did it school, but some elements of Mossad may have supported the neocons for their own political reasons).

Certainly, the plans would not likely have been provided to OBL to organise the attack (insufficient time, and too far away). Rather I suspect it was for reviewing the plans that were in place already. The interested parties: other RogueNet operatives."

That's a pretty good theory, although the question remains why on earth they would consider helping the plot along - presumably RogueNet would get nearly all the benefit by simply letting it happen, without any of the associated risks... It's conceivable that they knew that the two towers would withstand the impact of the planes, and for some reason didn't trust that the resultant collective trauma would be sufficient to launch a few wars...?

Some have suggested that Silverstein was involved in some sort of insurance fraud, given that he bought the two towers just seven weeks before 911 (link), and Sibel's blueperints/composites claim would seem to add some weight to that possibility (particularly given the above scenario). However, xymphora does a reasonable job of debunking these claims (here and here), although I'd quibble with some of xymphora's premises & details.

Rereading Sibel:

In October 2001, approximately one month after the Sept. 11 attacks, an agent from one field office (city name omitted) re-sent a certain document to the FBI Washington field office, so that it could be retranslated. This special agent, in light of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, rightfully believed that, considering the suspect under surveillance and the issues involved, the original translation might have missed certain information that could prove to be valuable in the investigation of terrorist activities. After this document was received by the FBI Washington field office and retranslated verbatim, the field agent's hunch appeared to be correct. The new translation revealed certain information regarding blueprints, pictures, and building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas (country name omitted)...."

A few points to note:
1. I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest the Sibel has first-hand knowledge and that she actually translated this document, second time round. Therefore, we can presume that the document was in Turkish, Farsi or Azeri

2. Jan Dickerson didn't join the FBI till the end of October (link), so she presumably wasn't involved here. Therefore there were other people doing dodgy translations. (Sibel doesn't say, but I presume that the original translation was done before 911). Apparently there were people from the DoD who were called in to do translations when needed because there weren't any Turkish translators (!) at the FBI. However, Sibel says that the new translation wasn't sent back to the agent because "This supervisor, Mike Feghali, stated that sending the accurate translation would hurt the original translator and would cause problems for the FBI language department." I presume that we need to take his stated reasons with a grain of salt.

3. The special agent knew that there were bad translations emanating from the FBI - otherwise, why try to get a re-translation?

4. The special agent knew that the suspect was involved in 911 but we still dont know who the suspect was. "This special agent... rightfully believed that, considering the suspect under surveillance and the issues involved..."

5. Sibel and others have stated that "Chicago was actually the center of what was going on", i wonder if "one field office (city name omitted)" refers to Chicago. I wonder if the agent was Robert Wright or John Vincent (maybe the target was Yassin al-Qadi)

more mysteries.

Damien's theory is interesting - anyone else wanna chime in?

One unacknowledged assumption we've been making is that the July/August transmission of the blueprints & composites was the first occasion that this occured - although we have no real reason to believe that. Perhaps this had been happening for a year or more. Perhaps Abu Gonzales was correct when he told us all that terrorists are forgetful folk.

Regardless of all that, one thing we do know is that 'terrorists' were passing blueprints and whatnot around, and we don't have an adequate explanation...

also, of some interest, sibel only talks about skyscrapers - no mention of the empty wing of the pentagon that was hit.

are the PNAC crew celebrating or not?

* Tom Maguire: "Here is another stray question - how can it be that Libby's team knows this official is a source for two reporters, but does not know the official's name? Or do they know the name perfectly well, but just want the grand jury transcripts?"

* Maguire: "Final thought - *IF* the official leaked to Novak and Woodward, it is highly likely that the official neglected to mention the Woodward conversation until November 2005. So here is someone who leaked to Novak, gave incomplete or misleading information to the prosecutor about his leaks, and yet his anonymity is being protected ..."

* everyone is pointing to this Bill Buckley article saying that America the Coalition of the Willing has lost the Iraq war. The only real question is whether the PNAC crew are celebrating or not...

Frederick Fleitz and Robert Joseph

Plame Whistleblowers Targeted by Administration By Jason Leopold (link)

Two top Bush administration officials who played an active role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, have been removing from their jobs, career State Deptartment weapons experts who have spoken to investigators during the past two years about the officials role in the leak, according to a half-dozen State Department officials.

The State Department officials requested anonymity for fear of further retribution. They said they believe they are being sidelined because they have been cooperating with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald [snip]

The officials who have been leading the State Department reorganization plan are Frederick Fleitz and Robert Joseph. Fleitz now works for Joseph [snip]

Both men were directly involved in the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson, and have been targeted by Fitzgerald's probe as possible sources that unmasked Plame Wilson's identity [snip]

At the time of the leak, Fleitz was a senior CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control official as well as the chief of staff to John Bolton, the former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, a position that Joseph was appointed to when Bolton was selected to be Ambassador to the United Nations by President Bush.

Beltway rumors have swirled for more than a year that Bolton, too, played a role in the leak [snip]

State Department officials and other people knowledgeable about the events leading up to the Plame Wilson leak said Fleitz is the unnamed CIA official identified in the federal indictment handed up by a grand jury in October against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [snip]

These officials said Fleitz had told Bolton about Plame Wilson, and Bolton then shared that information with Libby and other senior aides in Vice President Cheney's office.

Moreover, State Department officials said Fleitz was one of the CIA officials who attended a meeting in February 2002, at CIA headquarters where Plame Wilson had accompanied her husband [snip]

"In essence, the undersecretary (Bolton) would be running his own intelligence operation, without any guidance or support," Hersh wrote. "Eventually, Thielmann said, Bolton demanded that he and his staff have direct electronic access to sensitive intelligence, such as foreign agent reports and electronic intercepts [snip]"(Page 222)

Robert Joseph was identified last week by CIA and State Department officials as one of a handful of administration officials who was instrumental in an effort to attack the credibility of Wilson [snip]

Sources close to the probe said witnesses involved in the case told FBI investigators that Joseph was one of the recipients of a classified State Department memo in June 2003 that not only debunked the Niger allegations but also included a top-secret reference to Valerie Plame Wilson's work for the CIA [snip]

The sources added that the witnesses testified that Joseph and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley had worked directly with senior officials from Vice President Cheney's office - including Libby, Cheney's National Security Adviser John Hannah, and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove - during the month of June to coordinate a response to reporters who had phoned the vice president's office and the NSC about the administration's use of the Niger documents [snip]

Now some State Department officials believe that Joseph and Fleitz are working to ensure the State Department is staffed with individuals who will support the Bush administration's foreign policies.

Fleitz and Joseph have been working in secret with other Bush appointees since last year to revamp the State Department by pushing out career weapons experts, many of whom have been interviewed by FBI investigators during the past two years probing the leak [snip]

the million dollar question is whether they are stacking State ( Nonproliferation Bureau & the new office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism et al), so that they can implement Bolton's scary designs on Nth Korea (and probably China) et al, or so that nobody discovers their nefarious smuggling activities (cf Plame)

civil war: it's all good

250 Emails Related to Plame Leak

* from the AP: "The defense was told that the White House had recently located and turned over about 250 pages of e-mails from the vice president's office. Fitzgerald, in a letter last month to the defense, had cautioned Libby's lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House's archiving system had failed."
leopold's title said "White House 'Discovers' 250 Emails Related to Plame Leak", altho his article says "250 pages of emails." Is that one page per email? probably (?)

* via Laura: "The number of Iraqi army battalions judged capable of fighting the insurgency without U.S. help has slipped from one to zero since September, Pentagon officials said Friday." (link)
You'll remember that in September they reported that the number had fallen from three, to one. (in fact, from three to zero and back up to one)

* " An examination of Palm Beach County's electronic voting machine records from the 2004 election found possible tampering and tens of thousands of malfunctions and errors, a watchdog group said Thursday."(link)

* reddhedd: "In this case, though, the first amendment arguments are going to be fairly robust from the news organizations involved, I'm sure, considering the high profile names involved. I'd guess that Team Libby is banking on this -- but I must say that Judge Walton's framework on subpoenas and motions is an aggressive one, and that bodes well for him not taking kindly to attempts to stonewall and delay. The deadline on this was set for April."
that's a glimmer of hope that Reggie isnt in the tank

* jane: "According to the AP, Walton indicated that since the SAO has not been charged they have the right to privacy. But on Countdown tonight David Schuster seemed to be saying that to reveal the identity of that individual was getting to the "overall strategy" of Fitzgerald's investigation."

* jane: "How does the WaPo manage to print an entire article on the topic without mentioning the 250 pages of newly released emails from the Veep's office? I don't know but by jingo they do."

Robert Joseph or Elliot Abrams?

* viget thinks that Robert Joseph is Fitz's 'co-operating source' as identified by Leopold yesterday, as well as Woodward's Mr X, and possibly Novak's source.

* emptywheel thinks it's probably Elliot Abrams.

* the interesting thing is that Libby doesn't know who it is (?) (link)

* Leopold says that this person also outed Plame to journos. I can't wait for all the details to come out from this case and we can see who all the chicken-shit journos are we'll have to call a blogger ethics conference to revisit their reporting, in the context of the new knowledge that these journos were part of the story without disclosing it.

update: Larisa seems to still stand by the fact that Hadley was Woodward's source (i'm just relistening to her interview with scott horton)

more bandwidth than i

* waas: "Did the Bush administration “authorize” the leak of classified information to Bob Woodward? And did those leaks damage national security?
The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of “misguided whistleblowers.”"
put that in your pipe porter goss. (waas has more)

* man - i feel like i've had a busy day - 15 posts so far, and my guess is that 90% of the stuff that i do is on background (much more so today than usual) - apologies if the blogging has been a bit weird/sporadic lately. and apologies to those of you who arent really 'insiders' cos you aren't quite privvy about when i'm being side-tracked by other stuff and the posts (and direction) must seem weird sometimes. im sure most of you know, it's actually a full-time just reading stuff and trying to be up-2-date with that - when you add in the research component, it won't surprise you to learn that sucks up an extraordinary amount of time as well - even if you dont consider the dead-ends that we inevitably run into which suck a lot of time for no perceivable benefit - 'thankfully' the people we are dealing with are so horrible that there's usually something under every rock. trying to do 'activism' at the same time just makes things even more difficult. all of which is just to say, thanks to everyone who helps me out by offering tips and/or words of encouragement or by spreading the word and/or pointing others to my blog.

i'm not really sure what my point is - but i guess its mostly a shout-out to the a-list bloggers - the work they do is incredible, literally. if you can afford to support them (or any other bloggers that you like) financially, do so. they have a remarkable skillset - and it continues to blow my mind. they seem to know everything about everything - and somehow manage to actually blog insightfully in the interim - i marvel at the sheer 'bandwidth' that they have to offer. consider, for example, a single comment thread at FDL - any of us could spend an hour or two trying to read and understand and appreciate and contribute - yet all the while jane and christy are also finding new stuff to post and interpreting legal documents and dealing with a thousand emails, and being aware of the details of new scandals and whatnot. truly a feat of nature- they must have more hours in the day than i...

so here's a shoutout to all of them.

my Cheney Quail

everyone (except the most hard-hearted *cough* damien *cough*) seems to like my foray into animal photo-blogging (here and here) - with the curious mix of mary shelley meets australiana - so in honor of friday-miscellaneous-life-form-blogging here are a few pics...

firstly, here are some kookaburras that i took yesterday from my back door - sorry about the resolution, they weren't up close and personal. they are kinda shy, although they love to 'laugh' nearly every night - mostly in the late afternoon/evening. It's summer here, so the sun doesnt go down till around 8pm. I usually eat out on the deck overlooking the water, and they let themselves be heard most nights.



the rest of the pix are of the now-famous quail and its 'mum' - click for larger versions. the little tacker is really difficult to photograph - it moves like lightning, and it is nearly invisible in any part of the garden - not to mention that mum makes odd clucking noises that apparently convey alarm whenever i walk by. as you know, many studies have shown that children learn languages pretty quickly...

the only time i can get a chance to 'shoot' it (that's a Cheney joke - in fact, i've named it Cheney) is with mum's silky whiteness as a backdrop. hence the following photographs (i'm not really trying to cheaply appeal to your sense of cuteness by juxtaposing 'mother' and 'child')

Firstly, here is the original pic, just cos it's cute - on Cheney's first post-egg day, he kept climbing all over mum, but i havent seen it happen since.

The good news is that I put another 20 quail eggs under another hen a while back, so we might soon have lots more frankensteinian pics to drive the fetusfolk into a frenzy - i know they love adoption, but they hate messing with god's will - and who knows? maybe the adopted mothers are Buster-style lesbians... besides, cross-species witchcraft mumbojumbo drives the blastocyte-lovers batshitcrazy. Jane had a great post yesterday about naturally-discarded, fertilized human feti - apparently 80% of all human pregnancies.

Jane said:

" But say by some fluke God has a soft spot for unrepentant preacher's kids who are good to their dogs, and I wind up in heaven. Is 60 to 80 percent of the population going to be filled out with people who never made it past dome stage blastula? I mean -- conversation is liable to be a bit thin, don't you think? What can you really say beyond "congratulations on winning the big swim?""

that's some seriously funny blogging...

there was a great article in Reason about this called "Is Heaven Populated Chiefly by the Souls of Embryos?" a while back that i pointed to a couple of times. i love Reason, especially their blog, but it's one of the many sites i dont get to read :-(

Incidentally, my little Cheney quail isn't the only bird to climb onto mum's back - I have some gorgeous photos of baby black swans doing the same thing (altho it seems to make more sense if it happens in the water - I imagine that paddling can be kinda exhausting and it's much easier to hitch a ride on mum's back) - lemme know if you want me to post those.



(is that a chipmonk?)






anyway, the piece de resistance is this last pic, altho i'm not sure it looks as cute in a pic as it does in real life. apparently theres a little message in quail DNA that says 'when you are little, hide under your mum and snuggle into her feathers cos that's the safest place around, and besides, it's really cosy.' The problem is, quail mums have a low center of gravity so it's probably pretty easy to get under there and snuggle. As you can (hopefully) see from this pic, Cheney actually has to get on tiptoes to disappear itself into the delicious pillow that is mummy


i'm not sure whether to make the 'cheney has his head in the sand - but he even gets that all ass-about' gag or any of the other jokes that just write themselves...

Fitzgerald vs Cheney

* jason leopold:

" The White House turned over last week 250 pages of emails from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Senior aides had sent the emails in the spring of 2003 related to the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed during a federal court hearing Friday.

The emails are said to be explosive, and may prove that Cheney played an active role in the effort to discredit Plame Wilson’s husband...

lying to Feds is illegal whether you are under oath or no.

Sources close to the probe said the White House “discovered” the emails two weeks ago and turned them over to Fitzgerald last week. The sources added that the emails could prove that Cheney lied to FBI investigators when he was interviewed about the leak in early 2004...

2 weeks ago? that would be about 2 weeks after Fitz announced that he knew they were hiding stuff. Bwhahahah. Fitz will be pissed. This is like the third time or something that they've turned over something 'new', trying to save their asses.

However, the emails ... will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him, sources said.

Maybe that's why wilson is pissed at the CIA.

Some of the emails that were turned over to Fitzgerald contained references to Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status, and developments related to the inability of ground forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the start of the war in March 2003.

hmmm - has leopold finally left the GetWilson reservation?

According to sources, the emails also contained suggestions by senior officials in Cheney’s office, and at the National Security Council, on how the White House should respond to what it believed were increasingly destructive comments Wilson had been making about the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.

Hadley is so toast. I hope Fitz gets Condi as well. That would deserve a week-long Krystal and Blow bender.

Sources close to the case said that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales withheld numerous emails from Fitzgerald’s probe citing “executive privilege” and “national security” concerns. These sources said that as of Friday there are still some emails that have not been turned over to Fitzgerald because they contain classified information in addition to references about the Wilsons.

If they've turned over 'explosive' emails that implicate the Veep, imagine what is in the emails that they wanna keep hiding... Let's hope that Fitz reminds them that they can redact the NatSec stuff, and hand over everything else.

In another development in the leak case Friday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said another administration official, who does not work at the White House, also spoke to reporters about Plame Wilson. This individual, according to sources close to the case, works at the National Security Council.

Walton said that Libby’s defense team was not entitled to be told of the individual’s identity because the person is not charged with a crime in the leak. However, the person is said to be one of several people in the administration who is cooperating with the probe."

I wonder who that is... Joseph or Hannah?

If Fitz has the paper-trail, he'll know exactly why they outed Plame. I suspect that nothing in his history - not the OBL trials, not the Chicago corruption trials, and not the Hollinger trials - could possibly prepare him for the corruption that he is immersing himself in these days.

Hastert's travel to Turkey

Here are some details about a couple of Hastert's recent trips to Turkey, from an article in something called The International Post:

"During a (nov) 2002 visit with the Prime Minister in Turkey, Dennis Hastert stated:

It was a very good meeting that we had with the new Prime Minister. … We are committed as our country, the United States, to work with Turkey, to carry on. We see Turkey as a very stable country, as a matter of fact the model for stability and moderation and democracy. "

(Miguel found the official travel report here)

and this from WaPo about a Dec04 trip:

"Folks in Europe are still talking about that splendid, 10-day, pre-Christmas tour of Europe led by House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to attend the 60th anniversary ceremonies of the Battle of the Bulge. The group stopped to… visit more troops at Incirlik air base in Turkey…

Hastert took four staffers to help him.... (and maybe Mrs Hastert?)

Support personnel... [were] amazed the plane got off the ground in Turkey -- what with all the fine rugs and pashminas -- not to mention some Turkish-made shotguns Hastert and Dingell bought. "

That's some good shopping, they were only in Turkey for a night.
(Miguel found the trip report here)

Further, the aforementioned International Post article quoted above says:

"With such a display of hospitality, it is not surprising that Speaker Hastert invited his Turkish friends for a visit in May 2005. The Anatolia News Agency reported on the trip:

Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc has indicated today that his visit to the US Congress will be the first ever one by a Turkish parliament Speaker…

Arinc will be in Washington DC upon an invitation from US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert.

(snip)

Parliament Speaker Bülent Ar?nç visited Washington between May 24-27 as the guest of Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Ar?nç also attended a reception hosted in his honor by Hastert. …

Ar?nç, who completed his meetings in Washington D.C. arrived in Chicago on May 27. …

Ar?nç, who got information from Turkish Consul General Naci Koru about the work of the Turkish Consulate General in Chicago on Saturday… met Turkish community in Chicago on May 29.

[snip]

Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, who is currently in the United States upon formal invitation of the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, met representatives of the Jewish community and of the Assembly of the Turkish-American Associations (ATAA) on Wednesday."

Note that in response to Hastert's response letter in VF, Sibel scoffed:

"7) In the VF article Hastert’s spokesman says that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. [American-Turkish Council] or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: “He does not know these organizations.”

a. Please refer to Mr. Hastert’s trips to Turkey (all trips that took place- 1996-2002); its sponsors…they are self evident. Now how can he claim not knowing these entities (very intimately)?"

crossposted at Disclose Denny

DPW's Nanny Problem

* when does DPW discover it's Nanny Problem? place yer bets

* further to viget's 'euphemization': "National Journal's Shane Harris has discovered that the "Total Information Awareness" program conceived in part under the direction of Iran-Contra tainted former Reagan National Security Advisor John Poindexter was not terminated.
Only the name was.
Instead of TIA (Total Information Awareness), the program was passed off to a public-private host and re-branded "Basketball"." (link)
(thnx anon)

* earlier i mentioned the absence of spending on port security - Shields on Lehrer just said there spend on airport security since 911 is $27bn, and spending on ports has been $900million.

* according to wikipedia, current Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans members are Rep. Robert Wexler, Rep. Ed Whitfield and Rep. Kay Granger.

Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues: Rep. Joe Knollenberg, Rep. Frank Pallone

Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus: Rep. Solomon Ortiz, Rep. Curt Weldon

I wonder why Weldon is involved with Azerbaijan. I've been meaning to take another look at the USACC. Here's their list of members - eg James Addison Baker III, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Bruce Dick Cheney (resigned November 2000), Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, Perle and Armitage etc etc. Looks a lot like the ATC, right?

Bin Laden in Cyprus & Turkey

* this via miguel - he notes "the source is a Greek newspaper...":

"Osama bin Laden visited Turkey twice, in 1996 and again in 1998, even though he was wanted by Interpol. It is almost certain that Turkish security forces were aware, not only of his arrival and contacts with businessmen and leaders of the officially tolerated fascist Grey Wolf organization, but also of his involvement in training Muslim terrorists in at least four camps in occupied Cyprus...

Given the context, it is noteworthy that Turkish authorities not only did not arrest the Muslim fugitive, but also provided assistance and facilitation... With this reality in mind, the Espresso article notes that bin Laden not only entered the country unmolested, almost with VIP status, but also met with some of the most distinguished representatives of the Turkish financial elite. In other words, the military cabal that actually rules Turkey clearly must have been aware of the bin Laden links.

"[bin] Laden, in order to realize his operations directed to East Europe, used the banks in the Turkish section of Cyprus. "

Joe Wilson and CIA

* i'm rereading larisa's interview with Wilson (i'm kinda newly fascinated by it). i don't know what it means, but this is an odd exchange:

"Raw Story: How has the CIA “family” been in regard to all of this? Have they been supportive and concerned? I usually think of this as one would of any co-workers.

Wilson: I can’t really talk about that."

you'd think he could have trotted a safe answer out at that one without breaking omerta

this is also odd, somehow:

Raw Story: Does all contact have to be severed when something like this (plame's outing) happens?
Wilson: I pretty much cut off all contact and in any event, there has never been any shop talk around the house.

Why would Wilson be grumpy at the CIA family?


FWIW, by all acounts, Wilson still seems to believe that Plame was outed (by WHIG) to GetWilson

Steven Jones and Sibel

* regarding my questions about Sibel referring to the blueprints et al of skyscrapers being sent to certain countries in july/august of 2001, and whether that adds any weight to the 'controlled demolition' theory, damien helpfully reminds us of Prof. Steven Jones' work:

"In fact, it's likely that there were "pre-positioned explosives" in all three buildings at ground zero, says Steven E. Jones... The three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling down into their footprints, a phenomenon associated with "controlled demolition" — and even then it's very difficult, he says.""

Jones, amazingly, was on Tucker Carlson's show - you can see the vid here. You'll be surprised to hear that Tucker was Tucker.

Actually, I've just come across Tucker's blog - here is what he said after the show:

"We've never had an e-mail response like the one we got after Monday's segment with Stephen Jones, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University. Jones believes that the World Trade Center buildings were likely brought down by bombs, rather than by hijacked planes on 9-11. "Use of powerful, pre-positioned explosives in the WTC buildings would imply an 'inside job'," Jones writes in a paper available on the BYU website. "Clearly, we must find out what really caused the WTC skyscrapers to collapse as they did."

When one of my producers first told me about him, my first thought was: Stephen Jones is insane. And he may be. On the other hand, he does have a legitimate job and a responsible-sounding title. He's not living in the park, or writing me letters in crayon. How crazy could he really be? In the interest of open-mindedness, we booked him.

That was probably a mistake. Talking about 9-11 is a lot like discussing someone else's religion: You can do it, but you've got to tread carefully. Most of the time, it's best to stick to platitudes and move on... Professor Jones wasn't up to the job. If you saw last night's show, you know what an uncomfortable six minutes it was. If not, I'll summarize: Jones was almost totally incapable of explaining his own ideas. By the end of the interview I understood no more about his hypothesis than when it began. He was an epically bad guest.

Yet - and here's the interesting part - he seemed to connect with a huge number of viewers. Some who e-mailed were offended that Jones would dare question the official version of 9-11. Some were confused by what he was trying to say. But the overwhelming majority wrote to thank me for my "courage" in putting him on, and to complain that we didn't give him more time to explain the conspiracy.

In other words, a lot of people seem to think it's possible that the U.S. government had a hand in bringing down the World Trade Center buildings.

Ponder that for a second: The U.S. government killed more than 3,000 of its own citizens. For no obvious reason. Then lied about it. Then invaded two other countries, killing thousands of their citizens as punishment for a crime they didn't commit.

If you really thought this - or even considered it a possibility - how could you continue to live here? You couldn't. You'd leave the United States on the next available flight and not come back. You'd have no choice. Continuing to pay taxes to a government capable of something so evil would make you complicit in the crime.

So of course most of the people who wrote to say they think the government might have been behind 9-11 don't really think the government might have been behind 9-11. For whatever reason, they just like to say so. Which as far as I'm concerned makes them phony and irresponsible.

phony and irresponsible, to be sure. invading countries for crimes they didnt commit? tell me he's kidding.


(i've just emailed Jones with the Sibel news)